Title: Miscalculation
Series: Turn Left
Characters: Sherlock, John, The Doctor (Eleven, in my head)
Rating: K
Word Count: 838
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for TRF, but no sadness here, only fluffy borderline crackfic a'la EMPT.
Summary: Written to fill this prompt and to kick off an AU series (title belongs to the writers of Doctor Who) inspired by many prompts and plot bunnies which have been floating around the fic memes, as well as to help me personally. I don't have a therapist to deal with my love/hate relationship with Season 2; therefore I write. :P Series heavily inspired by Pompey's Things That Never Happened to Sherlock Holmes.
A/N: There's a gif that's nothing less than inspired, made along these lines - see it at my LiveJournal entry for this ficlet.
Three weeks.
He has planned for three weeks. Enough time to dispose of Moriarty's body, enough time to hold a closed-casket funeral, enough time for Mycroft to grow suspicious of the not-subtle clues he was leaving, enough time for the tabloids to find another target.
Enough time for John to move through the initial stages of grief, so that hopefully Sherlock will still have all his body parts when he returns and explains why he had to go - and his very good reason for doing so.
He had thought Mummy's stories about her mysterious Doctor were just that - stories, told before bedtime to ward away nightmares of a little boy's overactive imagination. But only a fool refuses to believe irrefutable evidence once the impossible is eliminated, and when he'd been shown that evidence, Sherlock did the same. Why he had to "die" was obvious, even without a disgustingly chipper fellow with non-existent fashion sense explaining the intricacies to him in slightly-patronizing terms, and yet for all his faults Sherlock actually found himself liking The Doctor - simply because he was, in two words, not boring.
Ever.
It was glorious.
But he had planned for a three-week absence from London, once the concept of time-travel was explained to him, and so he felt no remorse about spending a year in The Doctor's company, recovering from the paralytic which had simulated his death and fooled his poor half-concussed Friend (John received capitals, and well deserved, thank you). Three weeks would pass in London and no more, no matter how long they were abroad.
But now, he finds himself with an armful of unconscious ex-army doctor, and he glares over John's limp head at the sheepish figure standing opposite.
"I did mention it was a sort of...inexact science, at best," The Doctor ventures awkwardly, after a pause in which Sherlock's brain is half trying to rein in his anger, and half trying to remember if you are supposed to slap a person's face who has fainted, or throw water over them, or what precisely besides slightly panic.
"How could you possibly be off by three years?" he snaps, because he will be lucky if John forgives him after this. Three weeks could be explained away by virtue of keeping his friends safe - not three years!
"You wouldn't understand -"
"Dead right," he growls, but he has better things to do than argue with this infernally amazing man with whom he has spent the last thirteen spectacular months. He has room for only one doctor in his life, and he made his choice long ago when he accepted a borrowed mobile phone.
His choice is beginning to come round now.
He is either going to be hugged to death or lose a few teeth, and if he's lucky he'll walk away with both plus a large helping of forgiveness.
With his eyes he dares his recent traveling companion to comment, but The Doctor only grins at him, and then down at John, who is currently blinking unsteadily up at them, eyes unfocused.
"I'll just...pop back in a few days, shall I?" The Doctor asks brightly. "Keep the screwdriver, I have others." And before Sherlock can tell him what he can do with his screwdriver for being three years late, the Time Lord is gone.
Sherlock briefly tries to incinerate the door of the TARDIS with his eyes, and of course is unable to do so (unlike the creatures on that planet they found last week; Sherlock's scarf was a casualty of the conflict), and represses a pang of longing as the sound of the otherworldly motors fill the room to send John's papers flapping about in a whirlwind.
Then he braces himself, and looks back own at his friend. John is staring at the disappearing outline of the police box, eyes wide.
"Was that -"
"Yes."
"I mean, The -"
"Yes," he snaps irritably, because he is being outdone in John's attention by a man everyone believes to be fictional and it is Not Amusing.
"He was wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat!" Right, voice high-pitched and thready, approaching hysteria, he recognizes the signals. It's little wonder; he can't blame John really.
"Yes, well, believe me, it could be worse," he says feebly, still not quite sure where he stands (kneels, because they're still on the floor and he's afraid if he lets go John is going to keel over from a heart attack or some such and that would just ruin the entire evening, not to mention defeat the purpose of his return to London, late though it was).
John looks a little peaky as he rubs his face with both shaking hands. "What does this say about my psyche, that I'm hallucinating a dead man and an imaginary one?" he moans, and Sherlock smiles.
"That you're in shock, and overworked, and several other minor deductions with which I won't bore you at this time, John. Now then. What would you say to getting away from London for some...time?"