"I'm bored!" shouted Sherlock, flicking rubber bands at a fly darting around the ceiling.
"Then find a case" shouted back John from the kitchen.
"Or a window to jump out of." Sherlock muttered.
-s-s-s-
Tears streamed down Roses cheeks as she stared at the small yellow and grey machine in her hand. The Doctor had taken up again the name of John McCrimmon, as homage to his old life and tribute to their travels together. She still called him the Doctor, had made improvements on it. It was smaller, lighter and now had a neural component. It was never meant to work; he'd never planned on letting anyone using it. Rose dropped it to the floor and slid to her knees, slumping forward she sobbed into her hands.
He should be here; they'd gone through so much after that day on a beach in Norway, left to their own fate by the last Time Lord in existence. They'd set up his name, gotten him work in the R&D in Torchwood, and slowly, so achingly slowly, they had created a relationship. She gazed around their apartment, papers on every surface, parts and wires scattered around the grey carpet. She was forever stepping on them and cursing, only to have him come running, spouting apologies, to pick up said wire or part. Only to then put it down somewhere else! The wall of windows he'd loved so much stood to her right, the view helping him feel less trapped. It had been a month and still she hadn't been able to face his room. They had separate rooms still, oh they had hugged and kissed but he had needed a space he could retreat to when the silence in his mind had become too much and commune with the tiny coral that would be their TARDIS one day. The coral had died the day her Doctor had.
Posters covered the wall to her left, framing the door to the back rooms. The Doctor had been so happy to discover Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had lived in this universe as well, his works just as venerated. There were no TV shows here of Sherlock, there were plays. Amazing, colourful plays with talented actors and beautiful stages. The Doctor had gone to see each play twice. He had collected posters from each play, all signed by whatever actors he could corner into doing so. There last conversation had been about the new play they had been going to see that night. Rose had rolled her eyes, thoroughly sick of sitting and watching the stage, but happy to see him so happy.
"Aw common Rose" whined the Doctor, "You'll love 'The Adventure of the Empty House' Sherlock comes back to life! I mean how often does that happen?!" Rose raised an eyebrow.
"OK well, to other people then." He hedged. A manic grin spread across his face, "We'll get chips after." He promised, bouncing slightly on his heels.
Rose rolled her eyes, "Alrigh' but you're paying." She shook her head and turned to head to the garage beneath the building. She had needed to pick up her mum and Pete from a meeting with the President. They could have had a proper driver do it but Rose didn't get to see her mum much, too much time spent saving the world she thought wryly.
"Hang on!" called the Doctor, moving after her. "I'll hardly see you today" He said, motioning to his busy lab, "Come here," he had said and pulled her in to a crushing hug. Pressing the side of his face into her hair he breathed her in and said quietly "I love you."
She stepped back half a pace and looked up to him with shinning eyes.
"I love you too." She gave him a small kiss on the lips and holding him tight a moment longer, always marvelling that she could do so now, before pulling away and giving him a smile.
"I'll see you at the theatre," she had promised and went through the door to the car park, getting in the 4-wheel drive. She pulled through the guarded gates and drove away, little knowing she would never see her Doctor again.
The attack had come when she was hardly a few miles away; thunder had reverberated through the air, a shudder running through the ground beneath her car a few moments later. Rose had pulled the car over on to the pavement and jumped out, looking back to where the noise had come from behind her. She had stood frozen in horror as the tall Torchwood building in the distance was consumed in flame and crumbled in on its self.
"No" she had whispered, "No, no, no, no!" she ended in a shout, Spinning around and hurtling herself back in to the large vehicle. She jerked the car back on to the road and sped back to the collapsed building. Glancing up she saw a space craft, a huge space craft, move its power thrusters back into position to leave the atmosphere, accelerating, it shot into space, but not fast enough. Three beams of green light shot up from the earth, condensed into one and shot towards the alien space craft, destroying it. Rose felt a surge of satisfaction though she would never normally condone the action, looking for a peaceful solution to most situations; she knew in her heart what the result of the alien's action was, what her mind had refused to accept from the moment Rose had seen the tower collapse.
Arriving at the scene Rose had been met with chaos. Nothing but fine rubble was left, the laser had been designed, she found out later, to nearly atomise the structure from the inside out. Every person lost, not a body to recover or paper to be found. They hadn't even known it had hit them, let alone had time to defend against it. Rose had lost her Doctor again.
Clasping the cannon in her hands again, Rose looked to the door in front of her, a medium sized backpack sat on either side. Go-bags she had called them. One for each of them, next to the door with everything they might need in an emergency, ready to grab on the way out the door, on the way to whatever had been deemed an emergency on that particular day. As Rose gazed to them her mind gained grief tainted clarity, he had to be out there somewhere. Her Doctor was always there, in some way or another and she just had to find him.
Crawling over to their packs, Rose pulled open her own and spilled the contents onto the floor, grabbing any items she thought might be needed she shoved them into the Doctors pack; he would need it when she found him. Looking up to the nearby table Rose grabbed a picture of the two of them and put it in too, they would need a reminder of their time here. Grabbing a note book from the table Rose scribbled a note to her mother. Telling her she loved her and would miss her but she was going to find the Doctor and be happy again. She told her to tell Tony of her and that she loved him. Telling Pete she was glad to have had him as her father she then signed the note and put it on the kitchen bench, by the bowl of bananas.
Doing up the pack Rose slung the single strap over her head and it settled across her chest diagonally, a pack well designed to have minimal impact on running and fighting with it on if needed. It was, however much too big so Rose drew it back over her head and settled it on one shoulder. Running the last conversation she'd had with her Doctor through her mind, Rose put the chain over her head and rested the cannon on her chest; she clasped the cannon and thought desperately on their conversation. Pulling in a deep breath Rose pressed the button.
Now the cannon was not a sentient piece of machinery, it was simply made to assess the wearers surface thought and find a match in a close by universe. It was made to be very good at complicated calculations and required a huge amount of power. The small battery the Doctor had placed in the cannon had been soniced to be very powerful but could be used only once and was not very stable. This was part of the reason it was never meant to be used. But the cannon was not sentient. When it could not find a face to match the one in Roses mind the cannon looked for a voice match. Again there was nothing, a flicker of possibility was found and lost again as the potential match was engulfed in golden light ending with a scream that did not match the vocal patterns in Rose's memory. So the cannon defaulted to the only other option there was. The topic of the conversation running through Rose's head.
A Sherlock Holmes was found in a universe close to Roses' in relative time and a world similar to her own. Deeming this result to be sufficient the cannon located an atom sized hole that would lead to the universe and latched onto it. With exact precision the cannon pulled Rose apart with a puff of silver and fed her, atom by atom, through the hole. Once inside the universe the cannon rebuilt Rose, each cell just as it had been. Once Rose was complete the cannon, with the last of its power, displaced Rose from her random floating somewhere in the universe to the space closest to its target.
With a clap like thunder ringing in her ears the silver faded from Rose's vision.
"John, stay back!" called a voice, slightly deep and accented, cultured.
John! Thought Rose, she had found him! "Doctor!" she called spinning around, as the cannon gave one last sputter and shorted out, giving Rose enough of a zap that her exhausted body decided it had simply had enough for one day and promptly collapsed.
Sherlock, who was standing in the same spot he had leapt up to from his chair when the thunder like sound had shaken the flat, looked to the shocked John who had run over at the thundering sound. His jaw currently inspecting the carpet for dust bunnies as he gaped at the girl lying in the middle of their living room.
"Were you expecting someone?"
