The Doctor lay with his back on the grating of the TARDIS floor. he had sent Rory and Amy on their second honeymoon, a better honeymoon this time. The proper kind with drinking and, he presumed, lots of attempts at consummating their marital bond. Oh to be young and bound for life. Or divorce. This was the age of young divorces. But nonsense. After all, Rory had been the Last Centurion. He had waited years for Amy and would've waited more if she had asked, if she had needed more time. But Amy, good old Amelia Pond, she had wanted to marry Rory, had loved him deeply even if she wasn't always sure why, even though the Doctor, her Doctor, would be a more reasonable love interest (he scoffed at the notion, but River had told him to be more open to the idea of a young girls crush. And River knew such odd things.)
So why was he waiting, sitting on the floor acting like he was not lying down in a timey-wimey machine which could take him anywhere and anytime, any place he wanted to go. Why, then, was he waiting for good old Amelia Pond and faithful Rory. After all, they woudl always be on their honeymoon, he could come back and get them whenever, after a years adventure, after a days. Hadn't he said that life was a series of adventures and open doors? No, he hadn't said that, but it sounded good. He probably should've said it.
Was he maybe, perhaps, bored?
He hopped off the floor with an agility that was not quite right for man of his height, with the spirit of a man who had not done quite the amount of things that hte Doctor had assuredly done. The TARDIS was an amazing machine, something he was glad he had borrowed in the first place. Even if driving her was not a speciality of his. Randon date, random time during the day, this was to be an adventure. A wee little adventure before he picked up the happy couple from their happy honeymoon. London though, because he had a fondness for a city, the way a young boy loves the first city he ever visits as if it was the most amazing place he had ever been, and maybe it was. The Doctor had learned, long ago, that there was always something happening in London, always.
2009,not surprisingly, after all, a lot of interesting things happen to humanity during the beginning of the 21st century. This, in relation to London, in relation to the world, in relatoin to humanity itself was the time whe all things changed, when the world was turned upside down. This was an auspicious century.
2 AM, not because he had any interest in London nightlife, though there was thsi lovely club down the block from where he settled the TARDIS that did wonderful things with glowsticks, though that probably wasnt't open now. Not for another half century at least. He could always stop in later, he supposed. No, 2 AM because it was teh kind of hour that things always seemed to happen that people would later feel had been drunken accidents. Betterleft that to the night and never rightly remembered again. That was the way things ought to be, after all.
He carefully adjusted his suspenders and his bowtie, making sure that everything was spick and span. This was a time for first impressions.
He stepped ouf of the TARDIS and was immediately struck by a briskly walking man with a long coat and a dark blue scarf. A man with dark hair that he supposed fell rather rakishly and a general air of asexuality that would've driven a man like Captain Jack Harkness to near madness. The Captain hated a closed book, unless he coudl find a way to finaggle a way to open it. But back to the man. He did not bother to stop and look at the Doctor as he continued on, though the Doctor thought he heard the faintest whisper of an apology on the air, the barest of social graces.
It was the man who followed, a slight, miltary man with blondish hair and an affable grin that did not meet his eyes who apologized to the Doctor.
"Sorry about that, I mean, I wish I could say that he doesn't do that all the time, but that would be a lie. He's always running around like he owns the plae. You'd think the world was designed for the one and only Sherlock Holmes." He smiles and offered the Doctor a hand up, which he accepted. "Doctor John Watson at your service."
"Fascinating, it's rare that I'm rendered speechless, I assure you. Rare. After all, to be in the presence, I mean, to be in the presence of THE Doctor Watson, and to have met Sherlock Holmes..." The Doctor looked back towards the alley where Mr. Holmes had disapeared.
"Well, I'd say met was a bit of an overstatement, wouldn't you?" Again, that smile of Watsons that failed to light up his eyes. A man that had seen things he would rather forget, who had lived through things that he would rather have not. Except that he kept at it. The Doctor wondered why he bothered. "I see you are a fan of the blog, and that's great, I guess, but right now, as he would say, we're on a case. I think."
"Blog?" The Doctor ran through his memory in confusion. "oh, blog, that funny little thing that people from this time do computers, drawing out whatever little thing you think of and putting it up all over the internet. Of course. Huge fan, love it, read every word. Can't imagine life without it. All of that literary gobblygook, I eat it up. I don't suppose you'd happen to know the date?"
"The date?" Watson was clearly impatient to move, but kept smiling, his eyes shifting to the spot where Holmes had disapeared not seconds before.
"Yes,the date. Afraid I'm a bit kippered, had a long night, and a long nap before that and an even longer day. Can't quite recall the date, happens all the time, like I can't quite place where I am."
Watson eyed him strangely before looking down at his phone.
"Well, it's just now the 4th of November, 2009. And I'm sorry but I really have to go, you see, he gets in all kinds of trouble and I'm the only one who carries a gun." Watson made to move past the Doctor who's head was already spinning.
"The 4th of November, why is that date important. So many dates in human history and why does that one mean anything? Why is it important, why?" He looked at Watson who was now eyeing him as something to be feared. "Oh yes, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry. The Fourth of November, the fourth of November, why that is the day that the great Sherlock Holmes dies in teh swimming pool. Well, not in a swimming pool. I'm not even sure if he knows how to swim, probably hasn't occured to him yet. But today, November fourth, 2009. It's the day that Sherlock Holmes is shot by his arch rival in a swimming pool."
"Now you're just being silly." Watson looked him in the eye, and for second he looked, really looked into the eyes of the Doctor and he knew that he was not lying, could not be lying, not really, not when there was so much truth to be had simply by looking at him. The Doctor was not a good liar, it was not in his nature to be openly deceitful. That, he ahd learned long ago, was terribly boring. "You're not lying to me. But why tell me, why tell me when there is nothing I can do to save him."
"Who said there was nothing you could do?"
"He's a great man, that's what Lestrade said, he's a great man, and I've never met anyone quite like him, and I think, I honestly think he might be my best friend, even if he is an insufferable bastard."
"Watson, dear Doctor Watson. There is something you can do." The Doctor smiled. "There is always something you can do. Time, you see, is not linear. It is not set in stone, even whenit is set in stone. Time, it seems, is the kind of thing that can be moved, changed, the flows shifted. It used to be my peoples task to make sure that time itself was always moving, always kept within its careful parameters. But they're gone, all gone. I am the last of the Time Lords, Doctor Watson, and let's just say that I'm a bit of tyrant." The smile that lit up his face was unholy. Doctor Watson had faced many things in his life but he was sure he had never faced anything as fearsome as that mans smile. As that mans glee in breaking the rules and tearing everything assunder.
"Time Lord?" Doctor Watson tried to wrap his head around it, but it wasn't happening. "You're a what?"
"yes, there is that. But I think that right now that is not the important question. The important question, Doctor Watson, is how ar eyou going to save the dear Sherlock Holmes?"
Later, when Watson pushed Sherlock out of the way of a gun fire, undoubtedly held (at least indirectly) by Moriarty, and when he saved his life, again, though this was a shave closer than that incident with the cabbie, he could not tell Holmes how he knew that he almost died that night, at the pool where Carl Powers had met his unfortunate demise and Sherlock had become a detective had almost become the place wehre Sherlock had met his end. He didn't tell him why, he just said that he had a feeling, and though Sherlock had raised his eyebrow at that, he never mentioned it again, except when a blue envelope appeared at his door and Watson had left for the States on an errand he refused to explain. Even then, Watson remained silent, though Holmes was beginning to understand.
And when the Doctor picked up Rory and Amy Pond from their second honeymoon, and after retrieving them from Faracorpus jail for indecent public activity, he did not explain why he chose to wear a deerstalker. And Amy even cracked a smile when he told her it was because "Deerstalkers are cool."
Read and Review