A scream.

"Mamma! C'รจ un uomo sporco nel nostro cortile!"

The sound of soft pattering feet on stone. Cobbled stone?

Sherlock opened his heavy eyes, fighting the dizziness that he felt in order to gain his bearings.

Bright sun pierced his blue eyes and he squinted, feeling dizzier than ever. Was he even standing up? He didn't know.

A face came into focus. Sherlock comprehended dreamily that a woman was standing above him, hovering with cautiousness. So, he was lying down, after all. He tried to blink and examine her face but the sun... too hot... too bright.. just like...

He fell unconscious once more.

[SEVEN HOURS EARLIER]

"Sherlock," John Watson said breathlessly, dashing into the living room. "Sherlock, Lestrade just called and said that you're needed. Emergency."

"Well, obviously," replied Sherlock, getting up out of his stuffed armchair quite lazily. "Your hair is wet like you've been-"

"-For God's sake, Sherlock, not right now," John interrupted. He nodded towards the stairs. "Let's go! Lestrade said to hurry!"

"Ah, George said that, did he?" Sherlock lumbered down the stairs after John.

"No, no," Greg Lestrade was saying to a frazzled looking Detective Sergeant Donovan. "It's nothing like that. According to the eye-witness account, it just popped up out of nowhere."

"Just like that." Donovan waved her hands in the air. "Like magic?"

"Magic? Honestly, Donovan?"

But Donovan's attention was directed at the two men entering the scene of the crime at the moment. Her eyes grew wide as she hissed at Lestrade, "Greg! Why'd you invite him? Might as well just invite every other freak on the block and call it a party!"

The freak, having heard Donovan's snide remark, strolled over to Lestrade, clearing his throat. "Ahem. Graham, you wanted to see me."

"Graham"'s mouth opened in slight hurt. "For the millionth time, Sherlock, it's Greg. Not Graham. Or George. Or Jeffrey or Jake."

John shook his head at Sherlock. "The last two aren't even spelt with a 'g'."

The curly-haired man glared at John in response. "It sounds like it's spelt with a 'g', alright? Anyways, what exactly happened here?"

The group of them gazed around the debris once more. A small pocket in the ground had formed, almost like a miniature crater. In the middle of it sat a shiny, round looking object. It was perfectly intact and appeared to be radiating, pulsing almost.

"It's not alive, is it?" John asked. Everyone turned to look at him. He shifted uncomfortably. "It kind of looks like it."

"May I?" Sherlock gestured at the object.

Lestrade nodded. "Be careful. And don't forget the gloves!"

"Yeah," Donovan muttered. "Like last time."

"Watch it, Sally," Sherlock called behind his back as he grabbed some gloves and snapped them over his slender hands. "Or I might just tell everyone about you and-"

"-Jeez!" Donovan said loudly, before letting out a huff of air indignantly and turning to Lestrade in annoyance.

"I don't understand," Lestrade said to her.

"What?" Donovan asked, blushing visibly, obviously expecting some sort of comment about her relationship with Anderson.

"How come he gets your name right, but never mine?"

"Oil coating the entire sphere," Sherlock muttered to himself. "Or is it - but maybe... Hmm. Peculiar." He crawled around the crater on his knees, blind to the stares of the other detectives of Scotland Yard. "Astrolabe? But why would... Unless the zinc oxide that formed created a layer - in the space-time continuum!" At this, he giggled to himself. "Crazy! I love it!"

Lestrade and John exchanged glances. "Space-time continuum?", they mouthed to each other.

"Erm, Sherlock," Lestrade started. "It's getting a bit late and we all want to take a night in. Is that alright?"

Sherlock jumped up, his eyes sparkling with exhilaration. "Yes, no, yes!"

"Right," John said. "I think that means it's alright."

John grabbed Sherlock by his arm and led him away, waving.

Sherlock sat with five nicotine patches on his bare arms. He bore a hole into the ceiling with his eyes. John didn't think that Sherlock had moved since he last went to the bathroom. And that was two hours ago.

John took a sip of his tea and looked up from reading his book. "Sherlock?"

No answer.

John put down his tea. "Sherlock!"

The man jolted up. "Hugh, what time is it?"

John glanced at him with concern. "It's John."

The haze over Sherlock's eyes faded as he came back to reality. "Of course it's John. I was merely poking some fun at you."

"Mmmhmm." John pointed at the sketch Sherlock was clutching in his hands. He had to admit that Sherlock's drawing skills were extremely advanced. "Any luck?"

"Huh?" Sherlock looked down at his diagram and sighed. "Yes. But I think I, er, may have to go back to the site to take a look."

"Right this instant?"

"Er... "

"Sherlock, it's closed off."

"Oh, come on, John. Do you think that would stop me?"

"No. And that's why I'm coming with you."

Sherlock grinned.

"But first take off those nicotine patches. You look ridiculous."

Oddly enough, the two men found no resistance as they waved their torches around the scene of the crime. Yellow caution tape fluttered in the cold wind and John found himself pulling his green scarf around his neck. Sherlock was bundled up well enough and seemed a looming figure in the darkness.

"What do you want me to do?" John crept alongside Sherlock.

"I told you I hate when you ask that question," Sherlock whispered. "Just do something! But stay out of my way."

"Right," John whispered back. He followed Sherlock's bright light, still muttering about the values of companionship.

They paused when they finally made it into the little pothole. John beheld the round shining object once more. It was a weird goldish-silver if that even was a colour. Suddenly a dark thought crossed his mind, and in a panic, he blurted out, "Do you think it's a bomb?"

Sherlock shook his head thoughtfully. "It's not structured in the right way. I was thinking more like a compass. But a sphere."

John raised his eyebrows, although Sherlock couldn't see it in the dark.

"Thus, I made the conclusion that it's an Archimede's sphere. Functioning together with an astrolabe. Although why someone would put the two together is beyond me."

John's head spun. But one thing he'd learned from living with Sherlock was not to ask questions and to do his own research. Achimede's sphere, astrolabe, he made a mental note to himself.

"Well, only one way to find out, eh?" John cleared his thoughts to see that Sherlock was now placing his hand against the sphere and turning it over.

"What are you doing?" John squeaked.

"The thing is," Sherlock said. "There's an on-off switch back here, that for some reason, Donovan and Lestrade could not find."

John watched, unable to look away, as Sherlock turned a little sparkling knob stuck on the globule.

There were around two seconds of silence before the globe seemed to shudder and distort itself, almost like pieces were contorting themselves to fit a box that it couldn't quite fit in. It disappeared.

And that's when John realised, as he sat blinking into the dark, that Sherlock had disappeared, too.

AN: Please make sure to let me know your opinion on this! Any feedback is welcome. :)