Time for a Change

by smallsteps32

In 2010, Sherlock had been working as a Consulting Detective for five years. The career of Sherlock Holmes didn't come about easily - between the drugs and the...peculiar events of 2005, it was a struggle. All he needed was a starter case, to make his name - something quick, simple. The disappearance of Rose Tyler, for instance.

Disclaimer: The BBC owns both Sherlock and Doctor Who.

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May 2005.

This would be the month - the month for change.

Sherlock wasn't fool enough to think that change could happen overnight – it would take at least a month to get his life in order. It would be this month.

His brain was still sluggish, probably would be for a while, until the heroin and whatever it was spliced with truly left his system. But a month would be all he needed to trick everyone into thinking his life was in order.

If he was lucky, he might even be able to trick his own brain into thinking that his life was on track. All Sherlock needed was a puzzle, a game, anything to get the cogs whirring and to distract him from the itch to drown it all out…the dull masses, the boring, slow, drudgery of all the little people and their little problems…dull…impossible to fit into when he was himself.

The flat on Montague Street was cold at this time of night. Even in mid-Spring, the rooms were frigid and neglected, bereft of central heating. It was all that Sherlock could afford on the pittance that Mycroft allowed him. It was more than he deserved given that a large amount of it had been paying for drugs, so Sherlock endured.

It was a nicer setting than the squats that he could have been staying in. That Sherlock had been staying in, just for a while, when he had finally given in to the irresistible pull of the drugs…after all, what was the point of being smart, of being more talented than everyone around him, if nobody gave a damn…

It wasn't as if Sherlock hadn't tried to make people like him…it wasn't his fault that everyone else in the world was so damn slow, so moronic that they were more hateful than impressed by his deductions. Perhaps it was his fault that if he pushed hard enough people were so insulted that they left him alone – but they had brought it on themselves for being so obvious.

As Sherlock let out a sigh, his breath misted up the cool pane of his bedroom window. With a groan, he dropped his forehead against the glass so hard that it thunked, and slouched until he could tuck his feet into his thighs where he sat upon the sill.

It had been a whole day since he had taken anything. Sherlock had locked himself in his flat. It was time for a change and he'd be damned if he was going to be defeated by illegal substances of all things. They had dulled the cacophony inside his skull nicely, but they had also left him filthy and isolated, such a monumental waste of potential that even he could see it when at the peak of a high.

It was time to get clean…or at least, clean enough that he could get on and live his life. Cold turkey - as long as it took to rebuild the fractured walls of his mind palace after they had been abandoned to desolation shortly after university.

Now all that was left to do wait…for hours and hours and hours as his skin itched and his chest was flooded with rage then despair then a tangle of other things that made him grit his teeth and tear at his hair. Wait for his head to clear and think over every step that had led him to this decision.

Categorisation…a useful little trick to rebuild his mental palace.

Step one – Chemistry at university. Sherlock had always loved chemistry; in fact, he'd actually quite liked being at university. The studying, the exams, the chance to shine in front of lecturers…it had been magnificent. As had he. It had been the social side of life that had dragged him down, and the prospect of a future in which no amount of scientific skill would guarantee success.

No. Sherlock could have been the greatest chemist to have ever lived, but that wouldn't have meant a thing if nobody could stand him. Nobody had made any secret of their disdain.

Show off…Geek… Arsehole… Freak…growing up with intelligent and supportive parents had well and truly skewed Sherlock's perception of the world. The real world wasn't like primary school. Nobody cheered you on when you excelled miles beyond expectation – they just spat at you and hoped you failed so that they could feel better about themselves.

Step Two (intrinsically liked to Step One) – Sherlock had never intended to become a junkie, although he couldn't help the vicious lump in his throat or the acid on his tongue as he thought about it. Now he was on their level, nicely lowered, just as they had wanted.

The dream had been simple; study chemistry, graduate with the highest grades possible, then join the police as some sort of forensics officer slash detective.

Ever since the Carl Powers case had been in the papers, Sherlock had been determined to solve crimes. Technically, he had been solving crimes since he was eight years old, but Mummy and Mycroft had agreed that he wasn't supposed to tell people. It would upset them…Sherlock hadn't believed them until he had been surrounded by other people. It had been a great plan. His father had been thrilled; he absolutely marvelled at his son's intellect.

That had probably played a part in why the scorn of the general populous had been such a shock to the system.

Sherlock allowed his head to thud against the window once again and dragged his nails up the flesh of his wrists. Then he sank back into his head, thinking it all through. The more time he wasted, the clearer his mind would be by the time the sun rose.

Step Three – The drugs. It hadn't happened all at once. Sherlock had applied to the police…he had tried to apply. Five minutes in the building had assured him that he would fit in at Scotland Yard as well as he had fit in at university.

He would piss them off. He would clash with colleagues. The monotony of office hours and uniform and schedule would drive him mad. It had only been three months since he had finished his studies and his mind had already been rebelling at the stagnation. With no exams to work towards and nothing to prove, Sherlock had been bored…more than bored, he had ached for something, but if he couldn't join the police and solve crimes then there was nothing for him.

Sherlock couldn't remember how he had found the dealer, or where he spent the first week marinating in heroin, rotting on a bed surrounded by equally sluggish junkies. It had been a shock to the system…and it had been wonderful, and awful.

Everything had slowed down, turned into a pleasant haze, a waste, of course, but Sherlock couldn't find it in himself to care. His brain was as sharp as ever, but it was like being drunk only far more rewarding…for once in his life, Sherlock was content to lie still, close his eyes and let the darkness soothe him. Nobody bothered him. Nobody questioned why he was there.

For human beings shunned by society, junkies were remarkable welcoming.

Step Four – Realisation. Years of dependence had helped Sherlock build up a resilience to the drugs, but he didn't deliberately experiment. There was no point.

Wasted potential…potential that the world didn't want.

Mycroft may have made sure that he didn't end up on the streets, but that was obligation more than love. It wouldn't do for the up and coming British government to have a drug addicted brother waiting in the wings. Pay him off and keep him out of the way – that was the way to do it.

Until Sherlock had started to realise what was actually going on. The more that Mycroft interfered, the more that Sherlock noticed how…caustic he was; more so than he had ever been sober. Life around other human beings had made him rude, defensive, dismissive, cold and collected, a sociopath even…whatever it took to make people leave him alone…but violent? Pathetic? Genuinely malicious?

Those were things that Sherlock had never been. Those were things that in his more lucid moments, made Sherlock's skin prickle with guilt and his tongue stick in his mouth when he tried to hold a conversation.

Then there had been Christmas at his parents. The shame that Sherlock had felt, shivering under his pores at his mother's sharp glare, had been enough to make him come to a decision. He had to kick the habit.

Too ashamed to talk to Mummy about it, Sherlock had talked to his father. His father, who had always been proud of him, had always encouraged his little quirks because he thought that having a genius for a son was adorable, even if he couldn't keep up. That conversation had consisted of his father reminiscing about Sherlock's childhood.

Then he had mentioned solving crimes and Sherlock's heart had sunk one inch lower. He hadn't even known there was enough room left inside his ribcage for it to sink any more.

"Because I'm exactly the sort of person the police like to take on." Sherlock had spat from where had had huddled on the sofa, blanked wrapped around himself, feet up on the coffee table, "Who do you think will lose their patience first – me, or the officer clapping me in irons?"

"No, not a policeman, a detective." His father had replied, dutifully ignoring his son's bad mood, as he had been for years, "You know, like in those books you used to read."

"They're not real." Sherlock had scoffed, picking at the blankets and pulling his knees up to his chest. When his mother passed through and gave him a look, he just shook out his curls, playing one through his fingers and waiting until she left.

"You're a clever boy." His father sighed, reaching out to pat Sherlock's ankle where it stuck out from under the blanket, "I'm sure you'll work something out."

So Sherlock had worked it out.

Get clean. It was as simple as that. Get clean, then solve some crimes and convince Scotland Yard to take him on as a detective. Simple…so simple…just get clean…clean…off the drugs…cold turkey.

It was harder than it sounded. Sherlock had walked away from the drugs five times since that Christmas…only to wander back into another den. It wasn't his fault. The oblivion was just too tempting, medically speaking, and there weren't any crimes good enough to keep him occupied.

What good was solving a theft? That was hardly enough to keep his brain whirring, or to catch his interest and spark that little light inside of him that thrived on excitement.

But Sherlock kept trying because he wanted to be a detective. God, he wanted it more than he had wanted anything in years. It was the promise of adventure, a chance to use his mind and hold the results aloft for the world to see just how much good he could do with it, a life that didn't involve other people save for when they were involved in a crime.

It was a chance to get away from the drugs and the person that they turned him into. Escape was one thing, but that had slowly slipped into misery…and Sherlock was old enough now to feel the pang of his wasted potential and rebel against the vile whispers inside his head. If he was going to be selfish, Sherlock was going to be selfish and enjoy himself.

It was just more difficult than Sherlock had anticipated. All he needed was a kick in the right direction.

A kick that had come mid-way through March that year.

Sherlock's eyes snapped open at the memory. He let out a groan and flopped back away from the glass so that he could stare out over the dimly lit street. Nothing. Dull, boring, empty…all of the little people asleep in their beds. Nothing to distract him from the memory of last March.

It had taken all of his will-power to delete the images, but it kept coming back. At first he had thought that the drugs had finally pushed him over the edge, but then he had learned that everyone had seen them. It hadn't been a hallucination.

Plastic coming to life. Mannequins bursting from shop fronts all over London. People panicking. It had been a nightmare. It had been impossible.

The awful thing was, when Sherlock had believed it was a hallucination, they had seemed so real. The danger was real; people had died, and the screams that resonated throughout the city had been far too real to deny. That had been the last straw.

No more drugs. Every scrap of heroin that he had been able to get his hands on went out of the window and Sherlock had waited until he was clear headed-ish before turning on the news. If he was going mad, then he would go mad clean.

Except he wasn't going mad. Every news station was reporting the attacks. Everyone had seen them. Everyone had seen the plastic come to life…it couldn't have come to life. It was a prank, a hoax, a mass hallucination caused by hysteria and toxins in the air.

Whatever it was, it pushed Sherlock back to the drugs.

One night in a den, and he was out again.

No, he decided, no. No more. There was always a rational explanation, and if drugs made him believe in insanity for even a second, then he was leaving them behind. To think that he had thought for even a moment that the plastic was actually alive – it was preposterous.

It was time for a change. It was time for Sherlock to clean himself up, shake himself down, and find a case. A detective needed a case. The police needed evidence that he could solve their crimes for them, and a crime successfully solved was far more persuasive than walking into Scotland Yard and solving all of their cold cases for them.

At least that was what Mycroft said.

Shaking his head, Sherlock growled through his teeth and hurled himself away from the window. Wrapping his arms around himself to fight the cold, he stormed across the room towards his pile of papers, held down by his hefty laptop. If he had spent more time in his flat instead of trawling the streets, Mycroft wouldn't have even had the time to stack his things for him. The pile was helpful, but Sherlock would never have admitted it.

Sherlock carefully moved his laptop onto the floor before flinging papers over his shoulder, glancing at each one for only a second before moving on.

Finally, he found what he was looking for – his case. Rising to his feet, Sherlock turned about the room, pacing over the papers that were spread like leaves around him; the debris of his temper, mottled by withdrawal. The sheet in his hand would change it all though…he would solve this case the moment that the sun was up and he could be sure that enough hours had passed that he wasn't even a little bit high.

The single sheet of paper…the Holy Grail. It was hardly a difficult case, hardly exciting, the height of domestic drudgery…but Scotland Yard was at a standstill with the search. If Sherlock could solve it, there would be rewards, congratulations, praise. There would be a job in it for him.

This sheet of paper, torn at the corners, snatched from a telephone pole – the discovery had distracted him from the dealer that he had been planning to visit. It had saved him from another failure.

The poster, declaring one nineteen-year-old missing. Boring, but it would give Sherlock something to wrap his brain around, to occupy his time, to buy him into the game.

Rose Tyler was his ticket to becoming a detective. All Sherlock had to do was find her.

oOoOoOo

Morning had broken and so had Sherlock's patience. He couldn't have waited any longer had he tried. There was a case to solve and a girl to find.

Sherlock had dressed in his best suit, all the better for getting himself into the zone and winning the affections of those that respected professionalism, shaved, washed, and cleared his head with a gallon of water.

Then he had set up his investigation. If he was doing it, he was doing it properly; thoroughly, step by step, using every piece of information at his disposal. Of course, Sherlock hadn't been on the crime-scenes, or talked to the family, or been involved in any police discussions, so the evidence at his disposal was limited, but he had his methods. He had the basic foundations of a case to work with.

The pieces of the puzzle he pinned up on the wall, over the light patch where the flat's previous owner had hung a television. Each sheet of paper, printed and scrawled down by hand, overlapped where the relevant information knitted together. That would help him keep track of it in his mind.

His mind, which was still knitting back together itself. Sherlock was as sharp as ever, as observant as he had been when he was fresh-faced, but even he had to admit that years of self-abuse had worn down the synaptic pathways and left his many imagined rooms in disarray.

Ah well…for now, he would have to make do.

It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, before Sherlock's intense focus was shattered. He came to in the centre of the shoddy living room, hands pressed together, blinking to eradicate the haze that fogged his view of Rose Tyler's last steps. The sun was still pouring through the patched curtains, and the downstairs heating was still creaking and clicking intermittently. The only thing out of place was the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside.

Sherlock didn't bother giving it a moment's thought as the lock clicked and his front door jammed. The heavy footfalls, the slight lag on the right step and the clack of an umbrella's tip on the skirting board, all were familiar.

"Mycroft, what do you think you're doing?" Sherlock demanded, refusing to turn around and take his eyes from his map of evidence as the footsteps ceased and the presence of another human being invaded his space. To do so would have been to admit that he had hit a rut, that he wasn't completely engrossed in his case.

"I was about to ask you the same thing." Mycroft replied imperiously, although there was a certain lilt of surprise in his tone that send shivers of self-satisfaction down Sherlock's spine; he made no effort to enter the room further, his shadow remaining fixed in its place, the tip touching the skeleton of Sherlock's sofa, "When you said you were going to become a detective, I didn't think you would actually go through with it."

"No, you thought I'd spend the rest of my life high as a kite." Sherlock murmured from the back of his throat, and pressed the tips of his fingers to his lips; he was no longer focusing on the evidence, but he faced steadfastly away from his brother, "You should be pleased."

"Oh yes, trading one dangerous hobby for another." Mycroft made no secret of the wry edge in his voice, although his shadow shifted, hand going to pocket as he raised his umbrella to gaze at the tip, "That's exactly what I had in mind."

"It's not a hobby, it's a career." Sherlock replied through gritted teeth, dropping his hands and turning to glare at his brother from across the room; the sight of him, smart and collected as always, wearing the same condescending doubt that he always did, made his determination all the more vehement, "If you're not going to help me you can go away."

"You're not really going through with this?" Mycroft scoffed, scrunching up his nose and stepping further into the room so that when Sherlock turned back to his wall, he remained in his line of vision like the meddlesome gnat that he was.

"Yes I am."

"But you're not really-"

"I am going through with this!" Sherlock snapped, the fragile threads of his temper fraying as his chest hitched; he caught himself from shouting or saying something cruel, but that didn't stop the indignant twisting of his features nor the vitriol in his voice as his fists clenched at his sides, "I am solving this crime and I am setting myself up as a detective!"

"Alright then." Mycroft said, swaying ever so slightly on his heels. His eyes wandered from Sherlock to the pinned sheets of information, no doubt trying to calculate something that he assumed had been missed. Nevertheless, he said nothing more.

The lack of further input grated on Sherlock's nerves for five minutes before his focus was obliterated.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Sherlock demanded, waving a hand through the air in a gesture both dismissive and frustrated; he couldn't think with his brother hovering, judging, waiting to correct him before he had even missed a detail, "I thought you were…fiddling votes or…trading spies…"

"There's no reason I can't take time off to see what my brother's up to." Mycroft cleared his throat and stepped to his side, peering down his nose at him before diverting his gaze to the various pieces pinned to the wall, "Given your record, there's no harm in making sure you're going about this properly."

"Of course I'm going about it properly." Sherlock muttered, hooking his thumbs into his pockets so that he wouldn't be tempted to swat the umbrella out from Mycroft's hand and make him topple to the side.

"Really?" Mycroft raised an eyebrow to accompany his blatant disbelief.

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Prove it."

"Excuse me?" Sherlock's head snapped around to stare at his brother, mouth agape, eyes narrowed as he searched his expression for a flicker of a trick. There wasn't one, not even in the forced gestures of habit that even years of training couldn't erase.

"Prove it." Mycroft instructed, whirling his umbrella through the air until the tip connected with the centre of the map of evidence, pressing a dent into the words beneath Rose Tyler's image, "Prove to me that you've given this detective business due thought."

It was a challenge and a provocation, something intended to highlight Sherlock's propensity for giving up when he became frustrated or found himself showing off. It was not something that Sherlock was going to fall for.

Not in the one area that he actually wanted to excel in.

"Rose Tyler, nineteen years old, been missing since the fifth of March this year." Sherlock reeled off the meagre details that he had been able to scrape up on Rose Tyler's life, things so simple that he would have deduced them in a second had the girl stood in front of him, "No A-Levels, was employed in a shop until recently, moved out at sixteen but was living with her mother when she disappeared."

"Go on." Mycroft encouraged when Sherlock stopped for breath. His demeanour was withheld, but there was no denying that underneath that he was listening, checking every fact. The thought of it made something skip in Sherlock's chest, and a smirk prick at his lips.

"The mother, Jackie Tyler has already been questioned, as has the boyfriend, Mickey Smith." Sherlock continued, making sharp edges motions with his hands to direct Mycroft's attention to the correct sheets of handwritten notes, "Smith was taken in on suspicion of murder, but released. Scotland Yard haven't made any more progress as far as this case is concerned."

"This is all in the papers, is it?" Mycroft inquired, letting out a little huff through his nose as he shifted uncomfortably at the very indignity of his suspicions, "Or have you been dabbling again?"

"Their firewall is ridiculously easy to get past." Sherlock admitted with a careless cock of his head, sparing guilt only a passing consideration before deleting it; Scotland Yard could have been hacked by anyone, making his own invasion a blessing really compared to what they could have been faced with, "Don't worry, there's not much to look at."

"Well, what next?"

"What do you mean?" Sherlock blinked at him, brow furrowing.

"That evidence, although admirable, isn't enough to help you find Miss Tyler." Mycroft waved his hand at the papers and glanced at them with all the grace that he reserved for the debris that stuck to his shoes, "What next?"

"Obviously there's more." Sherlock answered with a curt nod, mood lightening considerably at the prospect of leaving the flat after his self-administered abstinence from the world, "I just need to go and find it."

"Obviously." Mycroft agreed, nodding solemnly; his hand rose to slip into his inside pocket, reaching for the phone that he always kept close for business purposes, "I'll arrange-"

"No." Sherlock didn't bother turning to face him, but strode forwards until his nose was an inch away from his map; close enough that the words blurred as his still imperceptibly giddy vision failed to catch up.

"No?" Mycroft froze, eyes widening in genuine surprise; something that Sherlock had failed to instil in a long while.

"No, you're not arranging anything." Sherlock replied, jaw clenching with as his resolve was set; this was something he needed to do on his own, even if he wasn't afraid that the shame of letting his brother help would be worse than ending up in the gutter, "I don't need your help, Mycroft."

"On the contrary, Sherlock, you're at even less of an advantage than the police." Mycroft contradicted him, his disdain rolling from his tongue in tangible waves as he weaved his hands together over the handle of his umbrella and leaned upon it. His back was turned away from the wall as if he hoped to block it from Sherlock's mind and steal his attentions.

Mercifully, it had been years since he had been truly bigger than his brother, and size no longer played a part in their filial disputes.

"You just want to keep an eye on me." Sherlock muttered, whirling around so that he could pace to his now considerably shorter stack of papers and sift through them; they were irrelevant to the case, but they did pack the nice punch of allowing him to turn his back to his brother, "I'm clean now, I'm going to stay clean-"

"Forgive me if I don't believe you." Mycroft interrupted, raising his voice above the careful calm that he tried so hard to maintain.

"I am staying clean." Sherlock talked over him, possessing no qualms concerning volume or ferocity; the paper in his hands crumpled as his fingers clenched around its edges, "I will solve this case on my own."

"Fine." Mycroft huffed, or as close to a huff as he would allow himself to tread; he started to walk towards the door, only to grind to a halt before his shadow even touched the frame in the periphery of Sherlock's line of sight, "Sherlock…"

"What?"

"If…if you were to find that…your efforts were…unsuccessful…" Mycroft shifted uncomfortably, his sharp suit dragging in ways that it never would if he were faced with dictators or democrats; it was enough to bolster anyone's spirits.

"You mean if I end up on the streets again." Sherlock concluded for him, and he rose to his feet, abandoning the crumpled papers and turning to hook his hands behind his back. It was ever so pleasant to watch Mycroft squirm under his gaze. How he had ever given up that power for the sake of oblivion was beyond Sherlock's comprehension…full mental faculties were absolutely a blessing.

"If you were unsuccessful, then my offer remains open." Mycroft regained his composure, pursing his lips as he stood his ground, utilising whatever fictitious sense of authority that he still believed he held over him as he wavered in the doorway of the cheap flat that he was funding against his better judgement, "There's no shame in it."

"If that were true, you wouldn't be so ashamed of letting people know you were booking your brother into rehab." Sherlock drawled, tasting the sweet tang of victory as he took two steps forwards, asserting his own authority over his flat, his thinking space; with a smirk and a cock of his head, he added, "Leave me be, Mycroft."

Without another word, Mycroft rolled his eyes and did just that.

oOoOoOo

Fresh faced on Wednesday morning, not too early of course, Sherlock made his way to the Powell Estate. He spared a few minutes performing a sweep of the area, but found nothing that might suggest a long-term scheme. There were none of the usual signs of someone camping out and learning Rose Tyler's habits. There was nothing of use at all.

Allowing himself only a moment or two to prepare his most charming smile, Sherlock positioned himself in front of Jackie Tyler's flat and rang the bell.

When the door swung open, he found himself wishing that he had taken a fraction more time to gather a character profile so that he could adjust his approach…he was out of practice when it came to dealing with other people, and thrown through a loop at the open hostility in the eyes of Jackie Tyler.

"Who the hell are you?" Jackie demanded, one hand on the door, the other on the doorframe, creating a fearsome barrier between him and the inside of her flat.

In a flash, Sherlock took in her lazy attire, jeans and a tracksuit top, the basest simplicity of her make-up, fading and smudged around her eyes, her blonde hair pinned back in a ponytail, and the heaving of her chest, and realised that in this case, the softly-softly approach would be the most suitable.

"Ms Tyler, my name is Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock introduced himself, refraining from offering a hand that she would refuse to shake, and instead tilted his head into a sympathetic slant, eyes flickering into the slim hall behind her, "I'm investigating the disappearance of your daughter. If you could-"

"I'll ask you again Whatsit Holmes-" Jackie cut him off, somehow managing to glare him down from her position a foot below him; her voice was gravelly but strong, well-used but strained from exertion, "Who the hell are you?"

"I said-"

"You said you're investigating my daughter, but you're not police." Jackie interrupted him again, shifting forwards just as inch as she looked him up and down, expression twisting with distrust; there was no doubt that she would strike if she didn't like what she found, wound tight by months of stress, "I've spoken to police and you're not one of 'em."

"I'm a detective." Sherlock explained, measuring his tone and intertwining his fingers where they hung at his front; she was shrewd, if nothing else, and that meant that she deserved a degree of what little patience he possessed, even if her lack of cooperation was making his head ache, "Ms Tyler-"

"Where's your ID?" Jackie flung out her hand and thwacked him in the chest, where the lines of his coat came together, "'Ow do I know you're a detective? You could be anyone!"

"I haven't got ID." Sherlock admitted, biting the inside of his cheek so that he couldn't outwardly cringe at that hitch in his plans. There was always something he missed; more than one something, more often than not, when the last dregs of his habit still lingered in the recesses of his mind.

"They 'ow do I know you're who you say you are?" Jackie continued as if he hadn't spoken at all, her hands trembling imperceptibly where they curled around the wooden edges of the doorframe, colluding with the pallor of her face to reveal the fear beneath her vitriol, "How many crimes have you solved? Who are you working for? What do you want from me, hm? Answer me that."

"I'm a detective." Sherlock implored her, inhaling sharply, keeping his cool, using the hold-up to observe anything that might help him; a damp catalogue by the doorstep, letters peeking out on a table just inside the door, scratches all around the keyhole, nothing that would be any more helpful than sweet, honest words, "Ms Tyler, I don't want your money and I'm not press. Just allow me a few minutes of your time-"

"Why?" something in Jackie's voice cracked, but she didn't move to allow him any nearer.

"Because the police are at a standstill." Sherlock informed her of what she must have already known if the hatred in her tone when she had mentioned the police was any indication; he didn't step any nearer, but he manipulated his stance, tried to soften his features, and lowered his voice, "What's the worst that could happen?"

"You just want to talk, yeah?" Jackie asked warily, but she lowered her arms, tension leaking from her shoulders as she stepped back just an inch; it was enough to allow Sherlock a view inside her flat, "No funny business?"

"None at all." Sherlock assured her, shivering between self-satisfaction and anticipation of success as a smile overtook his measured expression; the game was within reach, "I just need to get a clear idea of the time surrounding your daughter's disappearance so that I can make a start on finding her."

"You're a detective?" Jackie asked softly, eyebrows rising in hope.

"Yes."

"I suppose it can't hurt to have an extra pair of eyes." Jackie sighed, then as if the fight left her in a single exhalation, she ran a hand over her face, turned on her heel, and strode into her flat, motioning for him to follow, "You any good?"

Sherlock lingered long enough to close the door behind him before following her through the hall into the open space of her flat, a sitting room that opened out into a kitchen. There was debris everywhere, but that of hastily packed and revisited possessions rather than those used and abandoned on a day to day basis. Just as Jackie Tyler's appearance, the lines in her face, the folds of her attire, told a story, the bowls and empty wine glasses left unwashed on the coffee table and beside the sink, told the same.

"I can tell that you haven't slept in three days." Sherlock reeled off, remaining in the sitting room as Jackie moved into the kitchen area to clatter around the sink; it was simple, the make-up still fading where it hadn't been removed, followed by the creases at her knees and waist, the dusty patches on the cuffs of her sleeves, "Those are the same clothes from yesterday, creased as if you've been pacing – and baking in fact. Not well though."

"Oi!" Jackie sniped from inside the kitchen, but Sherlock carried on regardless. It had been an age since he had had the chance to let rip.

"You considered going out three days ago but you saw something that made you think that your daughter might be near so you abandoned your plans – drank anyway, but haven't had a sip since yesterday because you can't face going to the shops." Sherlock continued; that was easy- the glasses abandoned, the Sunday paper on the floor but the damp catalogue outside that could only have been soaked during Monday's horizontal downpour then failed to be retrieved, "You've also recently lost your job, but haven't been searching for a new one, rather, you've been…"

A strange sound from within the kitchen made Sherlock's voice catch in his throat a moment before he saw Jackie Tyler leaning over the sink, one hand clutching the side as her other clenched around her face, forcing back tears. The sniffle, a truncated sob clawing out of her throat, made something akin to guilt flinch in his chest, and he stammered silently as he desperately tried to recall what he had said.

"Ms Tyler?"

"Just, sit down, will you!" Jackie snapped, not raising her head, instead throwing out a hand to point towards the sitting room; her tone bore no room for argument, "I'll bring you a cuppa."

For once, Sherlock did as he was told, taking a seat on the worn out sofa that was pushed against the wall. It would win him her trust. That…and he wasn't entirely sure what to do with a crying woman, or why he even felt the slightest pang of sheepishness. Perhaps he was still feeling the effects of the withdrawal, lacking some of his manipulative charm as a result…or perhaps he still wasn't adept with people.

Whatever it was, there was no time to reflect upon it. By the time Jackie strode into the sitting room and thrust a cup of tea down in front of him, the make-up under her eyes had been replaced by red rings, but otherwise, she was pleasant and calm, the picture of poised determination.

Despite himself, Sherlock couldn't help but admire that. As he questioned her, Jackie's no nonsense attitude made his investigation far more efficient than he had expected; he had anticipated weeping and barely coherent information.

This was a good start to his career.

"So the circumstances in which Rose lost her job were strange?" Sherlock inquired, pressing his hands together as he leaned forwards, elbows on knees. He stared at Jackie where she perched in her armchair, taking in every flicker for subconscious tells.

"Yeah. Rose was there when it blew up, that night." Jackie explained dreamily, as if recalling something she had seen on television for one of her mates, turning her mug around and around between her palms, "I said she should get compensation from the police, and I did-"

"Why was Rose at the shop so late?" Sherlock interrupted, batting at an invisible fly.

There was important information in her; he just had to dig deep. Eventually, Jackie revealed that her daughter had brought a man home. A man in his forties hanging around a nineteen year old…it wasn't often a good sign, especially when the mother grimaced the way that Jackie did.

It was an angle that Scotland Yard had explored, but abandoned when they had been unable to identify any man that fitted the meagre description that Jackie provided.

Then there were the more inconsequential details that made Sherlock want to drop his head into his hands and groan. However, he resisted.

"The last time I talked to her was that night." Jackie explained, shaking her head and gazing into the middle-distance, "Rose called me – it was the strangest thing. She sounded so worried."

"Why would she be worried?" Sherlock asked, perking up slightly as he straightened his back from the slump that he had fallen into. That hadn't been mentioned in any of the reports that he had found. It could have been very useful; a warning or a cry for help.

"It was the same night that those plastic mannequins came to life – or we thought they'd come to life." Jackie answered, brow furrowing in confusion as she shivered, oblivious to the way that Sherlock stiffened at the mention of the hoax that had torn his psyche to pieces, "Nearly scared the life out of me…that was the last I heard of her."

"Rose suspected that something was going to happen?" Sherlock inquired, because he had to follow the lead – it was a coincidence, and he wasn't supposed to believe in such things. Even though the walking plastic sent prickles creeping underneath his flesh, even months on, he knew that it had been a hoax…a mad, dangerous hoax that no nineteen-year-old had been involved in.

It was possible – but it wasn't. There was no need for him to investigate anything to do with them whilst searching for a teenager.

"I don't know." Jackie shrugged her shoulders carelessly, but then her expression crumbled and her chest hitched, "Maybe. It just all happened so quickly – the job, the man, the monsters, then she was…god, she was in trouble, wasn't she?"

It was easy to see that all that could be gleaned had been well and truly retrieved. Sherlock was beginning to itch to be out and alone and chasing a high, solving the case, and the opportunity to comfort a grieving mother didn't appeal. So he adopted the utmost amount of sympathy that he could muster.

"I try not to jump to conclusions, Ms Tyler."

oOoOoOo

The facts were laid out just so in Sherlock's head:

Rose Tyler's life is 'just like always' according to her mother.

One night, Rose Tyler's place of work is blown up (a reported gas leak) on the night that she stays late.

The next day, Rose Tyler returns home with an older man that her mother had never heard of – suspicious at best, dangerous at worst.

The day of her disappearance, Rose Tyler spends the day out with Mickey Smith, boyfriend, without telling anyone where they were going.

Later that day Rose Tyler makes a worrying call to her mother.

Then Rose Tyler disappears.

The fact that it was the same night that the plastic – it didn't come to life, it was a hoax…that was an irrelevant coincidence. The only way that the two events had anything to do with each other was if the whole hoax was staged to distract people from Rose Tyler's disappearance.

Preposterous.

Sherlock had to talk to Mickey Smith next. He would wring the answer out of him if it was the last thing he did.

oOoOoOo

Mickey Smith was everything that Sherlock had expected…and yet, not quite. He was a mechanic, early twenties, reliable, bumbling, shifty, reluctant to talk; everything that a girl like Rose Tyler would be lucky to have. Boring. The real mystery was how the police had thought for even a second that Mickey Smith could have murdered his girlfriend.

However…despite Mickey's obvious pitiful nature, there was no denying that there was a sharpness underneath his veneer of foolishness that made him worth Sherlock's time. Rose Tyler surrounded herself with formidable people, and it seemed that her boyfriend was no exception.

Not only were his mechanical efforts praiseworthy, but the open laptop, the hastily arranged assortment of programmes, the clever tangle of wires and dongles – the man was clearly a dab-hand with technology. It was a skill-set that Sherlock definitely respected. One never knew when a detective might need to master a network.

"I already talked to the police." Mickey grumbled as he did his best to turn his back to Sherlock, fiddling with some internal working of a long-since dismantled car. His co-workers had swapped sideways glances and wandered off shortly after hearing Sherlock announce himself, so they were alone.

"You don't want to help me find Ms Tyler?" Sherlock inquired tersely, lilting his voice to sound as if he were simply curious and not frustrated, as he wound his hands together and remained by the door, on the other side of Mickey's desk.

"I want Rose home as much as anyone else, but that's hasn't stopped everyone round here from turning on me." Mickey insisted, throwing out his hand to encompass the whole garage, face scrunching with anger tainted by misery, "They all think I murdered her!"

"But you and I know you didn't." Sherlock replied conspiratorially, striding across the room to place his hands on the desk. The flicker of success in his guts was intoxicating, like a whiff of steak to a sniffer dog. The case was proving to be more complicated than he had first thought which was exactly the sort of thing that would get Scotland Yard's attention.

"You do?" Mickey froze, sagging in surprise, mouth falling open.

"Of course." Sherlock shrugged one shoulder to bolster his nonchalance, "If the picture on your workspace wasn't enough of a hint, the way you speak is." The sentimental photograph of the two of them together, smudged where Mickey's thumb had brushed over the girl's face, "You 'want Rose home' – you know she's not dead, in fact, you know where she is."

"I don't know where she is." Mickey countered, surging back into his twitching ensemble of movement, a shake of his head, a rock on his heels, a hand around the back of his neck as he tried to bend over his desk and make it look as if he were ever so busy with his useless piece of a car.

Basic evasive techniques that were no match for sharp eyes and a steadfast determination.

"Perhaps not." Sherlock acknowledged, hastily resifting the conclusions that were stacking and restacking, knitting and unwinding inside his skull, testing the fuses to see if they provided any illumination; Mickey couldn't give him answers, but obviously he knew enough to point him in the right path, "I happen to know you spent the day of Ms Tyler's disappearance in her company."

"I went with her to this bloke's house…Clive, I think." Mickey mumbled, placing the part on the desk so that he could shove his hands in his pockets and sniff sheepishly; his eyes never once left the desktop, although they darted back and forth, "Then…I don't even know."

"Why did Rose go to see Clive?" Sherlock demanded, leaning in closer so that more weight rested on his arms; he saw something shift in Mickey's demeanour, but he couldn't place what it was, and wasn't nearly interested enough in the fickle emotions of his…his suspects to try and decipher it, "That wasn't normal behaviour, and in the case of disappearances, abnormal behaviour is of the utmost importance in finding the missing person."

"You won't find her." Mickey informed him grimly, letting out a bitter scoff before remembering that he was supposed to be avoiding whatever it was that he was hiding, "But I don't know where she is."

"Day one, Rose's place of employment is blown up." Sherlock launched into his spiel, leaning forwards until the gap between them was less than an inch, lowering his voice into a growl, "Day two, Rose brings home a stranger in his forties." Mickey leaned away, but Sherlock didn't stop, "Day Three, Rose Tyler goes to visit another stranger, phones her mother in obvious distress, then disappears. Only an idiot would pretend that these factors aren't linked."

"I can't help you."

"Who was the man?"

"I don't know." Mickey insisted, aggression flaring up with the defensiveness in his stance.

"Why did Rose go to see Clive?" Sherlock hissed, refusing to back down now that he had a trail – two trails that he could follow, if Mickey would just cooperate. It was maddening.

"I can't tell you!"

"Then who was the man?"

"Just some Doctor!" Mickey snapped, voice ringing from every corner of the garage; his chest heaved as he began to pace, then stopped himself, "I don't know who he is – I can't – I don't know."

"Rose must have told you." Sherlock remarked, even as his mind was whirring and trying to fit this 'Doctor' into the mental map that he had been building; he rose to his full height and folded his hands in his pockets, "You're her boyfriend, you spent the whole day with her."

"She doesn't know either!" Mickey admitted, and it was as if he were trying to take back every word, clenching in retaliation.

"He really was a stranger…" Sherlock breathed, staring at a point over Mickey's shoulder; his eyes widened and he gasped, throwing his hands into the air as he came to a conclusion…not a good conclusion, nothing like he could have produced had he spent the last few years sober, but it was something tangible, "He's the missing link."

A man, a Doctor, a stranger that appeared out of nowhere; usually Sherlock would have waved such events away as an abduction but…Rose had gone willingly. Her boyfriend knew that she had gone willingly or he wouldn't have been so docile about the matter. Nevertheless, this Doctor was dangerous, clearly involved in something and he hadn't left a trace…oh, this case was interesting.

It would win him big brownie points when he solved it.

"What?" Mickey was stammering, could have been for seconds or minutes, "N-n-no, no he's not."

"He is." Sherlock brushed him away with a wave of his hand, and pressed them both together under until his fingers rested on his lips, "You're protecting them. You're keeping something from me."

"I don't know anything." Mickey repeated, the same old mantra, except this time he plucked a spanner from his desk as his face dropped; his hospitality had come to an end, "I have to get back to work."

oOoOoOo

"Hey – hey you!"

Sherlock paused in his pacing back and forth across the open space in the centre of the Powell Estate. He had heard the car pull up and the engine cut off, and promptly ignored it. However, there was no ignoring the gruff shouts or the purposeful clump of boots on the pavement as the driver called out to him.

When he turned and ground to a halt, Sherlock took a moment to assess the new arrival: Drove to the estate in a police car - his own; Brand new suit, well-fitted; Neatly cut but thick brown hair, greying at the edges of his sharpish face; long coat, a demonstration of his ego, not his professionalism.

"Ah, Detective Inspector…" Sherlock announced in lieu of an introduction, plastering on his most appealing smile, which pulled uncomfortably into his cheeks with the unfamiliar gesture, and extending his arms to his sides; best behaviour was the port of call for anyone on the force right now, so that he could win their favour, "A newly detectived-inspector."

"What?" the Inspector stopped in his tracks a few feet away, slipping his hands in his pockets and blinked down at himself as if the answer to his question could be found in the seams of his shirt; then his eyes flickered back up, "Oh, yeah. How could you tell?"

"It's obvious." Sherlock replied, cocking his head to nod at the Inspector, "Just one look at the uniform, the car, the ID that's hanging out of your pocket – not to mention the effort you've put in." when the Inspector only nodded, mouth opening and closing but eyes following his every movement, Sherlock couldn't help but preen, "I doubt a man with your smoking habits and poor attention to detail cuts his own hair or gets his shoes shined every day."

Sherlock waited for the scolding, for the harsh reminder regarding personal privacy.

"Wow…huh." The Inspector blew air out between his lips, eyebrows knitting in confusion, but still he didn't respond with the biting reflexes that Sherlock was accustomed to; instead, he held out his hand in offering, "Detective Inspector Lestrade. The lads up at the station got a call to say a strange man with no ID was poking around asking questions, claiming to be solving crimes."

"So you thought you'd have a look yourself?" Sherlock inquired, shifting ever so slightly, staring at the proffered hand, his own clenching at his side, "I'd have thought someone who had just arrived in a position of power would rather delegate."

"They said you were asking about the Tyler case." Lestrade explained, dropping his hand as something akin to a frown twitched at his lips; hands hooked back inside his pockets, he shrugged his shoulders and continued in a more professional manner, "Seeing as you were asking the right sort of questions and didn't do anything funny, I came down myself. Didn't want any trouble."

"Well lucky for you, neither do I." Sherlock assured him, and with that he strode past Lestrade and headed towards the police car. The man was amiable. If he was lucky, he might be allowed to see certain documents, or access to databases.

"You're solving crimes, are you?" Lestrade asked as he trotted alongside him…ah…he was humouring him. That was…better? It was something at least. At least his tone was cheerful rather than confrontational, which meant that he was more likely to listen. "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't." Sherlock answered blithely, then stopped himself; courtesy, that was important - he turned on his heel and sighed, politely tipping his head as he would have if he had been wearing a hat, "Sherlock Holmes."

"Sherlock?" Lestrade snorted, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"Yes." Sherlock retorted as some sort of indignation welled in the base of his throat, "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing." Lestrade amended quickly, having the decency to look guilty as he made a motion of surrender, then whipped his keys from his pocket; he navigated around Sherlock as he stood stock still, popped the boot of his car open and took a seat just inside, "So why are you investigating the Tyler case?"

Lestrade patted the space beside him on the edge of the boot, and Sherlock did as he was prompted, taking a seat because it was the best way to win the Inspector's favour.

"Because I'm a detective." Sherlock informed him, taking small pleasure from the tendrils of pride that shimmered under his skin at the title, "That's what we do."

"I've never heard of you."

"I'm new."

"Inexperienced then?"

"I'm very good." Sherlock stated plainly, snatching the Inspector's gaze and holding it, fixing him with a serious stare that he hoped solidified his authority.

"But you've never actually solved anything?" Lestrade smirked at him again, making clear that he was enjoying himself as he leaned back against the side of the car's interior to get a better stance from which to view him. He probably thought it was a game, a nice reprieve from the drudgery of the Yard office job.

"Not as such." Sherlock cleared his throat and averted his gaze, eager to get back on track now that he had someone's attention, finally, "But you watched me riddle you out – and I didn't even tell you everything I can see or advise you as to your marriage-"

"My marriage is fine thanks." Lestrade interjected, folding his arms and pushing his tongue into his cheek as he continued to consider the man in front of him. Still he didn't fight back or tell him to piss off…it was refreshing.

"Good." Sherlock clapped his hands together and launched himself to his feet, whirling around to address the Inspector; it was time to get down to business and gather his resources while the change was there, "Now, Detective Inspector: if you want to make yourself useful, you can get me access to the CCTV from the day of Rose Tyler's disappearance, her computer history, a chance to speak to the 'Clive' that she was visiting."

"Oh, can I now?" Lestrade used, growing ever brighter as he adjusted his posture, folding one ankle over the other and adding to his already laid-back demeanour, "Why would I do that?"

"Don't you want to find her?" Sherlock asked, pausing with his arms in the air, staring down at the Inspector.

"Yeah, of course I do." Lestrade insisted, the bridge of his nose bunching as he sat forward, "Sadly though, Scotland Yard protocol doesn't let me just hand out evidence to amateur detectives."

"Then feign ignorance and get me the resources I need." Sherlock instructed, clenching his jaw as a wave of dizziness came out of nowhere, making him sway as shivers raced beneath his skin.

Damn – he had had a long enough clear streak that he had thought the lasting effects were gone. Too long without sleep or food must have been taking its toll. Sherlock slammed a hand over his face and dragged it down, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily as he swallowed the exhaustion.

"Hold on." Lestrade's voice broke through the haze, and when Sherlock opened his eyes the man was on his feet in front of his, reaching out and ushering him forwards with a crooked finger, "Come here."

"Why?" Sherlock lurched back, but not quickly enough to prevent Lestrade from getting a close look at the pallor of his face, the residual torment that even he could see in his eyes. He had probably even seen the slight tremors in his limbs and the tight set of his jaw…that was all he needed.

"You think I haven't seen withdrawal symptoms before?" Lestrade snapped, and for the first time a harder edge entered his tone, colouring the light in his eyes as he beheld the man before him; it was a harrowing look filled with familiar disappointment…but then he rolled his eyes and sighed, "Tell you what…you don't seem to be doing any harm. In fact, I think you're trying to help. I'll let you go this one time."

"You're not going to take me in?" Sherlock's voice was thinner than he would have liked.

"For drug use in the past? No." Lestrade shook his head, but his smile didn't return, "You're not high now…I'm going to hope that you're getting clean and leave it at that. The Yard's got too much on its plate right now."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well…I really shouldn't be telling you this, but…if you're going to be poking around anyway…" Lestrade scratched at the back of his head, then groaned, "We still haven't worked out who was being those bloody mannequins."

"It was a hoax." Sherlock sniped, bereft of his usual heat; he was suspended on an exhale, unsteady on his feet and uncertain whether he should be relieved or shocked or grateful, choosing to focus on the steadily more visceral hatred that was broiling in his chest every time the ludicrous, insane, maddening creatures were mentioned, "Surely the police have better things to do than trail after a prank."

"People died."

"People die all the time." Sherlock muttered, only to pause when he heard the truncated sound eject itself from Lestrade's throat; he did his best to look abashed, "But yes, I suppose some good might come of catching the people responsible…public safety and all that."

"Yeah. Well…I'm not going to arrest you so…just keep your head down." Lestrade informed him, stepping back and placing an arm over the top of his car; an invitation to remove the both of them from the conversation, to move on with their lives and get on with their respective jobs, "Don't get involved. If you actually find anything, call the police."

"I'm investigating." Sherlock hissed through gritted teeth, well aware that he couldn't push his luck. He had to stay on the right side of the law for now. All that he could do was refrain from stamping his feet and pulling at his hair.

"You're not a detective until someone hires you." Lestrade replied, pointing his keys at him as he opened the car door, standing half-in, half-out before waving his hand and shooing him away properly, "Now, on your way."

Sherlock listened for the police-car's engine as he turned and strode out of the Powell Estate. It's low grumble didn't fill the air until he was far from the closely collected blocks of flats…he may not have been willing to hand over vital information, but at least Lestrade was persistent when it came to his job.

oOoOoOo

Getting hold of Rose Tyler's internet records had been far too easy. It was hardly even a challenge once he had logged into her mother's wireless. From there, Sherlock could track her movements based on her searches…which only made the mystery deeper and more dire. It was bewildering, because each piece of the puzzle fit together…to form an incomplete, blurred image that made no sense!

Sherlock stood in the centre of his living room, staring at his increasingly cluttered wall of facts, and talked aloud to himself. He hoped that the auditory aspect of his thought processes would smooth the way for purer logic.

"Rose Tyler loses her job."

That was the beginning. There was no altering or shifting that fact. That was where everything started…presuming that there was no scheme dating back weeks or months…that was the beginning.

"Rose Tyler spends the day researching 'blue box' and 'Doctor'. She must have met him that night, when the shop was blown up – ergo, he was involved. Basic cause and effect."

That was where the trail became tangled and complicated, where everything descended into anarchy inside his head and made him want to tear his hair out, to simply turn his back on deduction and retreat into the simplicity of a high.

Something had obviously happened; something that triggered insane internet searches and visits to strangers and a disappearance all in such a short span of time.

"Theories on the Doctor are ridiculous. Obviously a lie spun to lure in fanatics…and she fell right into the trap."

It was a hoax - a joke - a way to capture those that were already delusional…an elaborate, far reaching plot, but a plot nonetheless.

"Mickey Smith and Rose Tyler spend the day together. They go to Clive's house to learn about the Doctor, then go to dinner according to witnesses – he didn't think it relevant to mention."

Sherlock was certain now that the man, the Doctor, had only met Rose Tyler on the day that her workplace had been blown up. If not, then there would have been no reason to search for him.

But why?

"Then they both disappear…only Mickey turns up the next day."

Why?...why? Who was the Doctor? How was he involved – what with? Why did Rose go with him? Why was Mickey Smith keeping his mouth shut if she was safe?

"What were you doing?" Sherlock growled under his breath, "Where did you go?"

Surging into action, Sherlock darted across the room and snatched his phone from the floor beside the sofa. It took less than a moment for him to dial the correct number.

"Mycroft, I need the CCTV." Sherlock demanded before his brother could even say a word in greeting, "This could be important – a girl's life may depend on it."

oOoOoOo

"No, no, no, no, no, NO!" Sherlock slammed the lid of his computer shut. To stop himself from hurling it across the room, he instead hurled himself from his chair and marched to the window, throwing his fist against the glass.

The outside world…so peaceful, quiet – detestable!

Mycroft had given him everything he needed to piece together Rose Tyler's final known movements. Sherlock had seen it all, from various angles.

The explosion. The Doctor. The drive to Clive's house. Mickey Smith being…being replaced. The disturbance at the restaurant, and then…and then…insanity! Madness –

-Illogical, wrong, hateful madness!

It couldn't have happened. It was the living plastic all over again – it couldn't have happened but Sherlock couldn't find a single way to prove that they hadn't.

They were linked.

He had tried so hard to get away from them – to get back to the world of logic so that he wouldn't have to face the reality that was worse than hallucinations…and they were bloody well linked.

Sherlock couldn't think his way free of that.

No…

No…no, no…no…

Sherlock's hands trembled against the glass as he stared out across the darkened street, to the CCTV blind-spot between two houses, which led to another reclusive collection of back-alleys. That spot, that singular spot, had been the reason he had chosen Montague Street.

There were many interesting people there. Interesting people selling interesting things…things that Sherlock really needed. His head was aching. The madness was too much…he needed it to stop.

oOoOoOo

It was only when Sherlock was high, well and truly high with his head spinning deliciously, ready to bed down and forget the world…that he changed his mind.

It wasn't what he wanted. Sherlock didn't want to be a junkie, he wanted to be a detective. He valued himself very little, that much was hardly a secret, but he had wanted it so much…to be thwarted by something so…so ludicrous, so simple save for its components…it was…it was wrong.

Mycroft would never let him live it down if he gave up. Mummy would be disappointed. His father would lose some of the indestructible wonder that he possessed when faced with his son's genius…Detective Inspector Lestrade would forget the amateur detective that he had met.

He couldn't fail in this.

So Sherlock dragged himself up from his hovel, paid his way to the Powell Estate, and searched every nook and cranny. He stormed up and down, growled and yelled, absorbed as much information as he could – but nothing made sense. There was nothing – no case, no evidence – no way to solve Rose Tyler…

Not unless he accepted a truth more horrific than the insane machinations of his mind under the influence.

It was the middle of the night, and Sherlock was high once more, but he wouldn't, he couldn't just drop the case…if the drugs were only a middle-ground between the drudgery of the real world and the hysteria of some yet-newly-discovered world…what was the point?

The case was all he had left.

Sherlock barely noticed when the police car pulled up and Detective Inspector Lestrade jogged across the pavement to meet him. He was whirling and raging and pacing back and forth so fast that the man had to do the same to keep up with him.

"It's got to be here – there's got to be an answer!" Sherlock roared, listening to his voice ring from the sheer walls of the flats around him as if through syrup, one moment loud the next distant. He span on his heel, catching the Inspector's eye and throwing his arms out to encompass the whole area; they were working together, weren't they?

No, they weren't. Of course they weren't. He had been humouring him.

"What are you going on about?" Lestrade demanded, positively agape with confusion as he followed Sherlock's every step; he sounded even more aghast than he was agape when Sherlock stood still long enough for him to get a good look at his face, "Are you high?"

"Of course I am – obviously, look at me." Sherlock snapped, gesturing to himself from top to bottom; his pacing ceased as the crushing weight of failure, again, clawed its way down to his marrows, clenching the muscles around his throat and temples hard until his knees buckled and he slammed his hands against his head, "There's got to be something, but I just- I can't-"

"Whoa, calm down!" Lestrade cried, then the next moment his hands were on Sherlock's wrists, then his shoulders, and before he was aware of what had happened, Lestrade had pushed Sherlock down to sit with his back against a wall, dropping down beside him and asking, "What are you looking for?"

It happened so quickly that Sherlock blinked for a second, then another, before he inhaled sharply and the air filled his lungs. When he opened his eyes, he didn't recall closing them, he was faced with the other man's brown eyes wide and soft with concern, one hand poised as if to reach for a phone or last-minute weapon.

But he hadn't done anything yet. All there had been was a strong and determined presence talking him down and putting him into a position where he was safe. No scolding, no cuffs…Sherlock had been sat down and asked a question…a question that he hadn't answered yet.

"Answers." Sherlock spat, dropping his head back against the bricks and staring up at the sky through the orange film overhead, "The Rose Tyler case – it's unsolvable."

"You're still on that are you?" Lestrade sighed, shaking his head; his knees were drawn up, his arms slung around them so that he could watch Sherlock's every movement, "You're lucky I don't just throw you in the back of the car."

"Oh, please, you're off duty." Sherlock scoffed, head twitching as he tried to worm his psyche away from the temper that was partially his, partially the drug's; he was being rational now, if it killed him, and he could feel himself toeing the line between safety and burning what few bridges he had, but he carried on, "If it weren't for the argument with your wife you wouldn't have been down the embankment, and you wouldn't have responded to a call from the Powell Estate in the hope that it was me."

"Blimey." Lestrade huffed out a puff of air, just like Mycroft did when he was formulating the perfect way to cut him down to size…then there was a pause, and he spoke more softly, "You're not bad, you know that?"

"I'm brilliant." Sherlock corrected him…then realised what he had heard; something tugged at the centre of his chest, and even in his rage, he knew that he should cater to its whim, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Lestrade assured him, then his elbow nudged into Sherlock's side, "You've given up then?"

"Being clean or the case?" Sherlock sniffed, lowering his gaze to stare at the backs of his hands where they rested on his knees. His knuckles were scuffed, but he couldn't remember what event had inflicted that particular injury. One cuff was undone at the wrist, so he spared a thought for trying to cover up the blatant evidence of his actions…but the truth was out, so there was no point.

"Both."

"I was clean. The case, it's unsolvable." Sherlock explained, exhalations shuddering as he kept his cool against the persistent niggle of frustration in his every twitch, so much so that he didn't register dragging his hands through his curls until the act was over, "It's completely ridiculous and I –what's the point in staying clean if – ARGH! It's ridiculous!"

"What is?" Lestrade's concern meshed effortlessly with curiosity, bending his features without a flicker of consideration for what could be read in such shifts in his expression.

"Rose Tyler's shop is blown up, she meets a man who had to have been involved – she looks him up and finds articles leading her to believe that he's some sort of time travelling alien-" Sherlock spoke so fast that he struggled to suck in air, hands making slicing motions in the air to punctuate his point…he was almost grateful when Lestrade interrupted.

"Well that's obviously bollocks."

"Exactly." Sherlock agreed, then continued to spew everything that he had seen; some small part of him tried to take comfort from the process so similar to deduction without the result, "But she meets an 'expert' anyway – while there, her boyfriend gets – he gets eaten by a wheelie bin and another plastic him crawls out – she doesn't even notice."

"What – hold on." Lestrade raised a hand to silence him and shifted so that he was facing him more efficiently, shoulder against the wall, face better lit by the lamp overhead, "How do you know this?"

"The CCTV." Sherlock dismissed him and continued; he wasn't there to ask questions, he was there to act as a sounding board, a small comfort in amongst the dizzying insanity, the sweet, bitter, lulling of the substance in his veins, "So they go to dinner – plastic boyfriend tries to kill her, then the mysterious man sweeps in and saves her, rips of the plastic head – and then, and then, they get in a blue box….and it disappears."

"I think you may have taken a bit too much, mate."

"I didn't take anything until after I saw the footage."

"Maybe it's been doctored." Lestrade suggested, finally, finally paying the matter the attention it deserved, giving it a degree of thought that Sherlock clocked and filed away for when he could think more clearly. The Inspector's eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed, and he was waiting for contribution…a team player, one that actually wanted to solve cases…

The one good chance Sherlock had had and he'd blown it.

"Doctored. Doctored – I hope so." Sherlock muttered, feverish as he clenched then unclenched his fists, then set about picking at the creases around his knees, "I hope so or everything I know is a lie. I don't know how to deduce in a world where that could possibly be true."

"Why would someone go to so much trouble to doctor CCTV?" Lestrade wondered aloud, still staring at something just over Sherlock's shoulder. Still thinking; good man.

"To make it look like Rose Tyler left of her own accord?" Sherlock offered, then growled furiously and slammed his head back against the wall so hard that it hurt, "But that's only if we forget that that night thousands of plastic people 'came to life'."

"You said it was a hoax." Lestrade batted back.

"I thought it was." Sherlock corrected him, squeezing his eyes shut to combat a wash of nausea through his guts, "If it was, then that means that someone went to huge trouble to create a city-wide hoax, to back up doctored tapes, to hide the kidnapping of one nineteen-year-old girl. Why would anyone go to so much trouble to steal Rose Tyler?"

"Maybe…maybe she wanted to run away and didn't want people to know why." Lestrade remarked, tone lightening as if he too took some joy from solving the puzzle, even if he was miles away from the mark, "Came up with a fantasy instead, in case anyone came looking."

"That's even more ridiculous than the alien theory." Sherlock couldn't help the twisted smirk that pinched his cheek. He let himself slump forwards and caught his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees while his legs slipped slightly askew.

A moment passed, or it could have been longer before the man beside him sighed a long, weighty exhale.

"You're back on the drugs then."

"Don't sound so sad." Sherlock murmured into his palms, relishing the darkness and the temporary heat, sweaty and suffocating; there was enough sadness already stewing under his surface, he didn't need more, "You don't even know me."

"I know you were getting off them last time I saw you." Lestrade countered, a shoddy, obvious attempt at being reasonable no matter how genuine the tenderness in his voice sounded; it was the haze of the drugs distorting it, surely, "I know this case is a menace, but that's no reason to-"

"No reason?" Sherlock huffed, head snapping up so that he could wince at the light impeding his eye sockets and stare at the Inspector, "It's a nightmare. It's impossible- everything I saw was impossible. I can't solve it. All I needed to do was solve one case and then I could carry on, get some work – but no."

"That's it then?" Lestrade asked, a high pitched flicker of surprise, then assessment, flitting from his voice to his eyes, "You want work?"

"Obviously."

Lestrade was silent, visibly considering him. Sherlock squirmed under the path of his gaze. It had been too long already that he had been in another person's company…he wasn't used to it, didn't know how to navigate while balancing a high with the desperate need not to make things worse.

Then Lestrade sighed again and rose to his feet. He lowered his hand and held it still in the air between them.

"Let's get you home."

oOoOoOo

Sherlock didn't really focus properly until he was being marched through the front door at Montague Street and deposited on the decrepit sofa. In the police-car, he had slipped into a doze, giving in to the lazy pull of the heroin in his system and shutting down to the lullaby of a swaying vehicle with a purring engine.

When he blinked back into wakefulness, Lestrade was standing in the centre of the room, inspecting his map of facts.

"You did all this?" Lestrade asked, tapping the interconnecting papers with the tip of his finger as he turned to address Sherlock.

"No, it was my butler." Sherlock muttered and rubbed his palms over his face, letting out a groan that rattled his lungs; he dropped his hands to his sides, one arm flopping to touch the floor, and let his cheek press against the meagre attempt at a cushion, "Of course it was me."

"It's…it's not bad actually." Lestrade remarked, nodding as if to himself; it was odd to watch, strange to see someone actually mulling over his hard work, but Sherlock didn't say a thing as the Inspector shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to tread fractionally closer to the sofa, lips pursing with badly masked nerves, "What you said about work. Do you mean it?"

"Which bit?"

"That that's why you tried to get clean?" Lestrade elaborated, with another awkward nod and half-hearted motion.

"Yes." Sherlock nodded slowly, barely daring to let hope slither through the fog of dejection and failure that was churning in his chest. Nevertheless, he rose up on his elbows, eyes going wide.

"Alright…Sherlock…I'm going to make you an offer." Lestrade paced himself over every word, grimacing as if he regretted it even as the sounds left his throat, "Come and work for me."

Slowly, Sherlock rose to sit properly, placing his feet flat on the floor. For once, his brain was at a standstill, but not as the result of illegal substances. It wasn't possible to have heard what he thought he had…he hadn't done anything right, he had failed.

"I don't understand."

"You want to be a detective – fine." Lestrade explained, clearing his throat as if he were waiting to cement Sherlock's attention; something akin to a stilted smile flashed across his lips, but was replaced by a grim line as he raised a hand to his own chest, "Come and work for me…not as a PI, but…like a consultant."

"A Consulting Detective?" Sherlock didn't move; he daren't even breath, nail digging into the sofa.

"Yeah." Lestrade hastily looked away and scuffed the toe of his boot against the carpet, then lifted one finger as if he were talking to a child, "On one condition."

"Oh, let me guess." Sherlock huffed, rolling his eyes and rubbing his hands over his face again, all the better to try and understand the conversation with a clear head; ultimatums, he was familiar with, "I get clean and stay clean."

"You're catching on." Lestrade remarked, a warm grin overwhelming his professionalism as he shrugged his shoulders, eyebrows quirking humorously; it was peculiar, but the man was almost making sense, "I can't hire a junkie. They'd have my head. But I could, realistically, get away with hiring a consultant on little crimes."

"Big crimes." Sherlock countered, jolting so that he was perched on the very edge of the sofa, hands pressed together so hard that it hurt. He could taste the excitement bubbling under the surface – too good to be true, but it was there…

"We'll start with the little ones."

"Deal." Sherlock gasped, as he bolted to his feet and thrust his hand out to shake, reaching for the Inspector's before he could change his mind.

"Right, well…good." Lestrade paused before he took Sherlock's hand, but when he did his grasp was strong and honest and there was no indication that he might go back on his word; he didn't even flinch when Sherlock refused to let go after the appropriate amount of time, "That's good I suppose. This – this is all really good."

"I didn't solve it." Sherlock said softly, still gripping Lestrade's hand, not quite sure of his logic but sure that if he let go too soon, the opportunity might be stolen from him. It was a baseless, irrational fear, but he could fool himself into thinking that it was acceptable given that he was still mostly high and his behaviour was under question.

"So you didn't find Rose Tyler." Lestrade acknowledged, pulling away with one firm movement and stepping back to put some space between them as he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, "Get clean and you can make it up to me by solving some other crimes."

oOoOoOo

ONE YEAR LATER

Paperwork was tedious…sooooo tedious. Statements were even more tedious, but they did give Sherlock an opportunity to record his deductive reasoning and his mastery of a case in a nice written form, for as long as he liked, without having to talk to anyone.

Lestrade was even generous enough after a win, bolstered by the praise of his colleagues, that he let Sherlock have his office all to himself to fill out the forms. Sherlock could sit with his feet up on the desk, clipboard in his lap, hand dancing over the page, and ensure that there was a perfect record, filled with every twist and turn of his deductions, ready for some plebeian to read out in court.

Somebody had to give the jury the real, suitably non-simplistic, picture of events.

A rapping on the glass partition signalled the advent of the door swishing open, and Sherlock tipped his chin up half an inch to see Lestrade sticking his head into the room. He was still sickeningly cheerful for the middle of the day, suit crumpled around the shoulders from all the pats on the back he had received.

"Oi, Sherlock, you'll never guess what?" Lestrade said in lieu of a greeting, curling his arm around the glass wall so that he could rest instead of entering. He had learned to leave Sherlock be when he was actually doing as he was told.

"Surprise me, Lestrade." Sherlock drawled, tapping the end of his pen against his incomplete statement.

"You'll never guess who turned up, out of the blue."

"The suspense is killing me."

"Rose Tyler."

"What?" Sherlock's feet fell from the desk with a clatter as he pushed the clipboard away from his lap, sitting upright to stare across the room; he was ashamed to admit that his mouth fell open. It wasn't often that Lestrade could catch him off guard, and the man knew it.

"Thought you'd be interested." Lestrade smirked, catching himself on a snort; his eyes were glittering with glee as he took Sherlock's silence for what it was and continued, "This morning, Rose Tyler waltzed into her mother's flat as if nothing had happened – swears she didn't know how long she was gone."

"That's it?" Sherlock demanded, chest heaving as frustration caught him like a ten mile run; he leaned forwards and pressed his palms down flat on the desk, "She just…came back?"

"Yep. Travelling with a friend she says. - Hey, Sherlock!"

Sherlock didn't stop to listen to what Lestrade had to say. He was already striding from the room, snatching his coat up and swinging it around his shoulders. In fact, he didn't stop to think until he was stepping out of a cab and marching himself onto the Powell Estate.

It had been a year, but he wanted answered. Rose Tyler was going to stand in front of him and give rational explanations for every man, insane, ludicrous thing that he had almost made himself believe for her.

Sherlock ground to a halt, heart clenching in his chest, when the open space between the flats came into view.

The blue box…the impossible blue box was there. A police box. It was just sitting there against the wall, where it had no right to be.

Head spinning, skin prickling, Sherlock gasped for breath and the moment that there was air in his lungs – he turned around and sprinted from the Estate. Instead of thinking, instead of trying to process it, Sherlock focused on the pavement slapping under his shoes and the air whistling in his ears. He didn't stop until he was on the main road, where he stopped and collapsed against a telephone pole; his hands gripped the metal and he relished the harsh bite at his palms.

No…no, he wouldn't get involved. Sherlock couldn't get involved. The last time he had tried there had been explosions and aliens and madness and it had been real but none of it could possibly have been real.

For once in his life, Sherlock was going to pretend that he hadn't seen a thing, and he was going to walk away and solve proper crimes in the real world. There would be no more madness…drug-induced or…real…

Two days later, as Sherlock sat in front of the television, watching the news with his eyes, listening to Mycroft pace and rant across the carpet with his ears, he was immensely grateful that he wasn't at all involved.

Two days later, an alien craft had taken a chunk out of Big Ben, the Prime Minister had disappeared, the British government was asking the UN for nuclear weapons to shoot aliens out of the sky, and Downing Street had been blown up.

If Sherlock had believed in coincidences, he would have said that Rose Tyler's reappearance was relevant to the week's events in the same way that her disappearance was relevant to the living plastic – not at all…but the universe was rarely that lazy.

The one thing that he could be sure of was that he had been lucky to get out while he could…unlike Mycroft, who was neck deep in the ridiculous and practically tearing his hair out in response.

---

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this story, abrupt as it was. I hope that the characters weren't OOC.