A strange sound filled 221B Baker Street. John couldn't place it. It was something like a car starting up, but only if the car was started by scraping two pieces of metal against each other. John put his pillow over his head, then when that didn't help, rolled over in bed and sighed.
There was only one explanation for strange sounds in Baker Street.
"Sherlock!" John cried, getting up and slipping on a dressing gown. "Would you stop that damned noise? Some of us need to sleep, you know!"
He walked into the kitchen, and Sherlock didn't take his eyes off his experiment as he said "It's not me, John."
The grinding sound stopped, and John turned around to go back to bed and came face-to-face with the strangest thing he'd ever seen in the flat (and that was saying something, considering Sherlock).
This had to be Sherlock's fault. This HAD to be Sherlock's fault.
"Sherlock," John said, blinking rapidly, "Why is there a police box in the middle of our flat?"
"I…don't…know," Sherlock replied slowly, looking dumbfounded. John could tell it bothered him not to know something.
Which was why the detective immediately walked up to the police box and began scrutinizing it.
"What do you see, Sherlock?" John asked, for once curious about Sherlock's deductions, since now they might explain how this got into their flat.
"It's not like any other police box I've seen," Sherlock murmured.
"Well, yes. Most police boxes sit on the pavement, not in our flat."
"Not just that, John," he said. "It isn't any style of police box ever used by the police. Whatever it is, it looks like a police box, but it isn't a police box." He ran his fingers along the edge of the door, as if to try and open it.
The door suddenly swung open, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with Sherlock, since the detective leapt backward to get out of the way.
A young brunette man stuck his head out of the box, then retreated, leaving the door partway open.
"Doctor!" They heard him yell in a thick Scottish accent. "We landed in somebody's home!"
"Well, that can't be helped! We won't be able to move until the TARDIS is fixed!" another person yelled back. John presumed he was the person the Scotsman had referred to as Doctor.
"Well, if you'd bother learning how to set the coordinates properly—" a girl's shrill voice shouted as the Doctor cut her off with "I did set it properly, the TARDIS is malfunctioning again!"
"Doctor—" the shrill voice began again, then the Scottish boy leapt out and closed the door on the argument behind him.
"Sorry about that," he said. "The Doctor's a bit of a madman, and Zoë thinks because she's from the future she can pilot the TARDIS better than he can."
"TARDIS?" John asked.
"You're looking at it," the boy said, gesturing at the police box.
Sherlock's scrutiny moved from the police box—TARDIS—to the boy, and he began muttering under his breath.
John had too many questions to ask, about why a TARDIS looks like a police box, what sort of doctor was this Doctor, where was this Zoë from, and more, so he decided to start with the basics.
"I'm John Watson, and this is Sherlock Holmes. Who are you?"
"Jamie McCrimmon," he said. "What year is it?"
"Sorry?" John spluttered.
"The TARDIS can travel through time, and like I said, the Doctor's mad so we never know where we're going."
"2012," John answered, just as Sherlock said "That explains it."
John looked over at him in confusion. "Explains what?"
"Jamie McCrimmon is not from our time, he is from eighteenth century Scotland. He is wearing the tartan of the Clan McLaren, therefore he is from the Scottish Highlands. Probably on the side of the Jacobites, a piper if I'm not mistaken. Picked up by this time machine a couple years ago, since he's had a chance to wash since then, depriving me of identifying soil marks," Sherlock said matter-of-factly.
"You're right," Jamie said in awe. "How did you do that?"
"Simple deduction." Sherlock said.
"No, how—"
"Don't ask," John advised. "He'll just go on a long rant about how ordinary humans like us won't understand his brilliance."
Jamie laughed. "The Doctor's a bit like that. He doesn't like to tell me things because I'm not from his time. Whenever that is."
"And he drags you along on all sorts of mad adventures?"
"Yes," Jamie said.
John, strangely enough, found himself sympathizing with this time traveling Scottish piper. "Sherlock's a detective—"
"A what?"
"He solves crimes, and he drags me along to the crime scenes. We've had some mad adventures ourselves."
"Tell me about them!" Jamie said, smiling. "My, is it nice to land somewhere where the people are friendly!"
"It's nice to find someone who understands how I feel about Sherlock," John said with genuine appreciation in his voice. "Now, what case would make sense to a time traveler…?"
"Jamie!" The Doctor's head peeked out of the TARDIS. "I think it's fixed, come back in!"
"But Doctor, can't we stay a little longer?" Jamie begged. "John and I were talking."
"I'm sorry, Jamie, but we really must be going," The Doctor said. "It's very important."
Jamie sighed and followed him, and John was forcefully reminded of the way Sherlock managed to convince him to come along without much effort.
But he would miss Jamie McCrimmon.
He dashed to the table and found a scrap of paper and a pen. "If you're ever in the 21st century again, come to 221B Baker Street." He scrawled his name and the address on the scrap of paper and handed it to Jamie.
"Aye," Jamie said, taking it and stowing it in a belt pouch. "Good luck on your mad adventures."
"Good luck on yours." John replied.
Jamie stepped back into the TARDIS and closed the door. Soon after, the same scraping screeching sound started up again, and the blue police box faded away into nothing.
And John was sad to see it go, because he'd found someone who also had a madman dragging him to strange places on strange adventures. And it was comforting to know that he wasn't the only one.
Especially since Sherlock never time traveled. John shuddered at the thought of the havoc a time traveling Sherlock would wreak on the universe.
"John, fetch me that tape measure and my book on quantum mechanics."
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to build a TARDIS, of course!"
A/N Standard disclaimers apply.