A/N: Hello, there. I see you've clicked onto my fanfiction here. I hope you do enjoy it. Reviews are appreciated, oh and I didn't want to put this in the crossover section, as it is mostly a Doctor Who fic, but there will be a cameo by Sherlock Holmes. Okay, now back to the story.
Whovians.
That's what they called themselves. Whovians.
Sierra never understood the concept of the show. It was science fiction, about time and space or something or the other. She knew there was a man with a blue police box, and that it was bigger on the inside, and she knew the man was a doctor, but he didn't have a name, and his friends were just people who had bumped into him while he was on his adventures. She could never get interested in the show, even though her best friend Mattie, who was a self proclaimed Whovian, constantly played episodes when they had sleepovers.
No, Doctor Who was not for Sierra; she was a Sherlock fan. Two series, six episodes, each being the length of a film-that was all she had known ever since the fateful day she'd been surfing the internet and came across a photograph of the ever-so-beautiful Benedict Cumberbatch. "Benedict Cumberbatch on the set of Sherlock" the caption read. She did a Google search of the show, and found a link to watch the pilot episode online. She fell in love with the show almost instantly. The first series had concluded when she became a fan, but she had been glued to her television when the second series premiered. Mattie never understood her Sherlock obsession. "It's just like any other crime show," she'd say, but it wasn't. It was so much more than any other crime show.
"Apparently, Benedict Cumberbatch has a group of fans called 'Cumberbitches,'" Mattie said, looking up from her laptop screen. She was lying down on her bed, while next to her, less than two feet away, was Sierra, also lying down and on her laptop.
Most people didn't understand their friendship. They didn't get the way that they could both be on the internet, next to each other, and simply blog about television shows on a strange website that had moving pictures. They were sixteen year old girls, they should be having fun and socializing—but they were doing just that, in their own way.
"Cumberbitches?" Sierra asked, looking slightly confused. "That's weird."
"Are you a Cumberbitch?" Mattie asked, and they both laughed. "Oh, so I have something to tell you from the other day."
"What?"
"It was when I went to the library and then to Starbucks. I swear I saw a guy that looked just like Sherlock."
"Did you take a picture?" Sierra asked, with her interest now peaked. She knew that Sherlock was a fictional character, and she knew that even if, by some magical force, he was real, he wouldn't be found in Colorado. He'd be on 221B Baker Street.
"No, but he was wearing a scarf and I thought of you." Mattie said, scrolling through a webpage.
"Anyone can wear a scarf," Sierra said, "that doesn't make them look like Sherlock."
Mattie simply shrugged. "I thought it was Sherlock," she said, and ended the conversation. For the next few hours, they talked about various things but for the most part they blogged, and they were content. It was a strange friendship indeed.
A few nights later, Sierra was re-watching an episode of Sherlock. It was around 3 AM, Mattie had fallen asleep hours ago, and as it was summer, she had nothing better to do. Her eyes were starting to ache from staring at her television for so long, and she was struggling to stay awake. She paused the show, threw the blankets off of herself, and got of bed and walked into the kitchen to get a drink. She was careful to be silent, since both of her parents were sleeping, as she searched the fridge to look for something to eat as well. She swung open the door to the pantry, and almost screamed.
A tall, skinny man with gravity-defying hair and a tweed jacket and bowtie was standing in her pantry. Actually, there was no pantry. Where the inside of the closet should have been, there was an oddly familiar coffee shop.
Sierra simply stood there with her mouth open. Why was there a coffee shop inside her pantry?
"I'm sorry, this doesn't appear to be the men's room," the man said. He had a familiar voice—she had definitely heard it before—
"Who are you?" Sierra asked, with a look of utter confusion on her face.
"I'm The Doctor," he replied.
"The Doctor? Why are you in my pantry?"
"I'm not in your pantry, I'm in a café! Why is your pantry in this café?" The Doctor replied. He spoke clear, fast, and with a British accent.
"I'm—what is happening?" Sierra said, speaking aloud to herself.
"You seem upset," The Doctor noted. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"
"Get out of my pantry!" Sierra yelled, and slammed the door shut. Then, purely out of curiousity, she opened the door again, half-expecting it to just be a normal pantry, hoping that she had hallucinated the whole thing, but with no such results. The Doctor was still standing there, looking a bit miffed, in what appeared to be the back of the coffee shop.
"Well, that was a bit rude," he said.
Sierra began breathing heavily. She was confused and deeply scared, but at the same time, her mind was working at 400 miles a minute, trying to understand what on earth was happening, and simultaneously considering the possibility that everything she'd seen on TV was actually real. She took a few steps forward, and The Doctor stepped aside to let her through.
She looked around, taking in everything that was surrounding her. It was indeed a small indoor café, with circular tables and booths, and the smell of coffee was strong in the air. She kept turning back to see the doorway that led back to her house—this didn't make any sense to her, and she had so many questions, but she was unable to speak.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was looking at the doorway.
"Interesting…" he muttered to himself, while stepping through the doorway, into Sierra's kitchen, looking around, and then stepping back. Clearly, he was just as curious as Sierra to find out what was going on.
"Why is there a—a—" Sierra struggled to find the word, "a portal connecting my kitchen to England?"
"I'm not entirely sure why," The Doctor responded, "it could be a number of reasons."
"Like what?" Sierra asked.
"Nothing is coming to mind right now," he said, "It could have been planted there by someone. It could also be a simple gap between time zones. Is this an old house?" Sierra nodded. "Perhaps there was a portal left behind by a time agent."
"What is a time agent?"she asked.
"You ask an awful lot of questions," The Doctor crinkled his nose as he peered at Sierra. "What did you say your name was?"
"Sierra," she said, looking around at the people surrounding them. There were just a few, sitting at some of the booths, eating and talking, but what mostly caught her eye was the bustling crowd outside. They would pass by, glancing through the glass windows at the people inside, some of them even looking at her, at which point she felt horribly out of place in her pajamas and oversized T-shirt.
"How is any of this real?" she thought aloud.
"You look tired," The Doctor remarked. "How's this—you go back through this portal…thingamajig, and I'll try to figure out how you happen to have a portal thingamajig in your pantry."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I'm The Doctor!"
The next morning, Sierra woke up, convinced she had had a strange dream. Obviously it wasn't real, she thought. My pantry is actually a secret portal that leads to a coffee shop in England. Yup. Definitely a dream.
Despite the small, nagging voice in the back of her head that was insisting that she had actually met The Doctor, she went on with her life, convincing herself that it was just a dream. She had listened to Mattie speak about this show one too many times, until the description of The Doctor was etched into her subconscious, which resulted in her crazy dream.
It was around noon that day when Sierra finally gave in to the voice. She needed to know if it really had been a dream—she needed closure. As she walked down the stairs from her bedroom to the kitchen, she felt that all of this dramatic build up would result in nothing. It would be revealed that her pantry was a regular pantry, and she would be conflicted on her emotions. Would she be relieved? Disappointed? She didn't know yet. And surprisingly, she'd never get to find out, because before she got a chance to open the door, the door opened by itself.
Well, not entirely. It was The Doctor.