A/N: So I got this book about parallel universes and I was looking at random physics stuff online and I got into a cosmological mood (because yes, my moods are that strange) hence the title of this story. It's post-Reichenbach so spoilers ahoy. Probably two chapters, but maybe three. Enjoy! And just remember, reviewing will prevent you from being sucked into a black hole... And that is totally not a lie... ^-^


John never meant to get into a gunfight. He had just been trying to walk to work. The crowd swarmed around him, noisy and fast. He wouldn't have noticed it before- his mind caught on the words, but he forced himself to think them. Before Sherlock… he never would have noticed the chaos, someone laughing here, someone yelling there, everyone with a story to tell, if only you would observe.

He felt separated from the crowd, like he wasn't a part of them, like there was an invisible barrier floating in the atmosphere around him. Somehow that made it easier, though; easier to try and observe like Sherlock had done, to look for the signs that no one else seemed to notice.

Perhaps that was why he noticed what no one else on the busy street seemed to be able to catch- a woman about to be shot. He didn't see the shooter, or even the gun, but she was just a few feet in front of him when she suddenly stopped, attracting his attention. She stared into the alley off to her left, face going pale, and then looked around carefully before slipping into the dark side street.

On some instinct, John stopped, sensing danger. He glanced down the alley as he passed just in time to see the woman enter an abandoned building, and then circled back around and entered the same path. He pulled the door open carefully, making as little noise as possible, and trailed the woman's footsteps up the stairs. But there was something else, too- another pair of footsteps, but he hadn't seen anyone come into the building before the woman. He redoubled his caution, straining to hear anything.

"What do you want?" It was a woman's voice sounding more cautious than afraid. That would be the woman he followed in here. Another voice spoke, a man's, harsh and blunt.

"Well, I want you dead, is what I want." John moved faster, banking on the two being more caught up in what they were doing than alert enough to notice any noises he might make. Up ahead, the woman was stalling for time.

"Why? I've never seen you before in my life."

"No, but you've heard more than is good for you. Sorry about this," the man finished sarcastically. John got to the door just in time to see the man raise a handgun and aim it at the woman, looking at the scene from a side angle. Without even hesitating, he tackled the man, yelling to the woman over his shoulder,

"Get down!" The man threw him off, but the force of the impact had knocked the gun out of his hand, forcing him to backtrack for it and giving John time to clamber to his feet as the woman, yielding his advice, ran out the open doorway. The man brought the gun to bear, but John swiped his arm upward, deflecting his shot and knocking it loose from his hand again. The stray bullet had shattered the window, raining glass down onto the street below, and John knew it wouldn't be long before the police arrived.

He seized the gun before the other man could get it back, drawing down on him, but the woman's attacker was already heading for the door. John fired a couple of shots after him, but it was no use- he was gone. He exhaled heavily through his nose and lowered the weapon, putting the safety on and hiding it in his jacket. His mind suddenly flashed back to the last time he'd done that; it had been a year now, but that year had seemed to take forever. He shook his head and returned his focus to the matter at hand. The woman had come back in after the man had fled.

"Thank you," she said quietly. John smiled at her; the adrenaline raced through his system, and he realized that despite the danger he felt better than he had in over twelve months. He really did miss the action, he thought. It was unnerving how often Mycroft was right.

"No problem." He glanced around as sirens rang into the street. "We need to go now, before the police get here; come on." He took her by the arm, leading her down the steps and out the back entrance, watching alertly for both the police and the mystery man. Once they were a sufficient distance away, they slowed their pace and caught their breath. The woman looked shaken up, beginning to hyperventilate, so John sat her down on a bench.

"Here, just breathe in, you're fine. What's your name?" She began to calm down enough to respond.

"Dr. Jane Tyler; not a medical doctor, I'm a cosmologist." She gave a slight smile, as though she got that question a lot. John smiled back.

"John Watson; I am a medical doctor. Do you have any idea what that man was talking about?" Jane shook her head.

"I've never seen him before in my life; I don't know why he was trying to kill me." She began to look upset again, so John decided to lay off his questioning.

"Alright, it'll be fine; I'm going to take you to someone I know. He can help." Lestrade was still technically a DI, but to say he wasn't in good graces with the rest of his department was an understatement. Still, he could help, and quite frankly he was the only member of the Met that John would trust worth anything after what happened with Sherlock.

Fortunately, no one looked at them with any suspicion and they were able to make their way to Lestrade's house without any interruptions. John knocked on the door, suddenly wishing that he didn't still have the gun in his jacket. Lestrade opened it a few seconds later.

"John!" He seemed surprised, no great wonder considering he'd been fully expecting to never see the doctor again. John gave him a slight smile.

"Can we come in? There's been a bit of an… incident." Lestrade groaned.

"What have you done now?"

"I did absolutely nothing. Until I got into a gunfight. This Dr. Jane Tyler; someone tried to kill her about twenty minutes ago and we don't know why. I was wondering if you could help us." Lestrade sighed, thinking how much this was like it had been when Sherlock was there; now John was getting into his own trouble.

"Sure, I'll see what I can do, come on in." He went into the house and the two followed him. They took a seat in the living room, Lestrade sitting directly in front of Jane on the couch. "Now, did you see who it was that attacked you? Did he look familiar at all?" Jane shook her head.

"I've never seen him anywhere before now; he said something about I'd heard too much, I don't remember exactly."

"What's your job?"

"I'm a physical cosmologist; I work at the space observatory on the outskirt of town."

"Do you do anything with radio communications? Or anything like that at your home, not your work?" Jane thought hard, shaking her head slowly.

"No, nothing like that at home, certainly. At work the only thing we're doing like that is a test for cosmic wave particles, but that's looking for interference from space, not radio waves." John had a sudden thought.

"But could it pick up things like that? Radio waves, I mean; is the test machine capable of receiving them." Jane nodded slowly, starting to catch on to his idea.

"Well, theoretically they could pick up interference from any length of wave particle, because that's what it was built for, but if it received a radio signal from our friend I certainly didn't notice it."

"Could the signal have come in while you were distracted or busy?" Lestrade asked. Jane shook her head quickly.

"No, we have a monitor on it at all times recording everything that comes in, and there's always someone in the station room to make sure that none of the equipment breaks down. If we'd picked up a radio signal there'd be some record of it." The three were at something of a loss; the only thing that could have picked up the radio transmission seemingly hadn't. Suddenly John knitted his eyebrows, leaning forward.

"Wait a second- Jane, could the machine have picked up just the waves and not the actual sounds being made?" Jane looked confused, so he elaborated. "You said the machine was designed to pick up signals from wave particles, could it have picked up the radio waves but not… I don't know, interpreted them correctly?"

"I think I know what you mean," Jane responded. "The machine wouldn't have registered the voices because it's only designed to pick up the waves. So the radio waves from their conversation would be on there but not the actual voices." Lestrade brought up the flaw in that theory.

"Even if their transmission was recorded on your machine, how on earth could they know it was from the station and not the laundry down the road?" Jane shrugged.

"Well, the station's in a really isolated area, and we're notorious for causing a lot of interference with other signals. That's why we only run the machine at night, because that way nobody's using their mobiles or televisions. It wouldn't have been too difficult for him to trace it back to us."

"And after that all he'd have to do was figure out who was working that night and find them too," John finished. "So what should we do from here? We can't exactly just wait for the man to come back and have another crack at Jane."

"We have every transmission or signal that's ever been received by the machine on record at the station," Jane cut in. "Why don't we go there and find out what this guy was so eager to stop me from hearing? The observatory's closed for repairs, so we won't run into anyone. The faster we figure out what he said, the faster he can be caught."

John nodded slowly, while Lestrade still looked worried. "It makes sense," John told him. "That's our only lead, and once the station's open again we won't have a chance without being spotted." Lestrade finally agreed, still looking wary.

"Do you want to go out there yourselves?" The two nodded. "Alright, but for the love of God be careful, will you? I don't want you two getting hurt." John nodded.

"I still have the gun I took off of our mystery man. We'll be careful, trust me."

"Yeah, where have I heard you say that before," Lestrade muttered loudly enough for John to hear him. The doctor gave him a slight grin, shook Lestrade's hand, and followed Jane out the door. She would lead him to the observatory, and hopefully to the conclusion of this particular mystery. Despite himself, John would be sad to see it go; he hadn't felt this excited about something for over a year now. It was almost like… well at least, it reminded him of Sherlock. John missed that feeling. He had no idea he was about to get it back.