Chapter 1

A/N: Hi there! This premise most likely has been covered before, but please bear with me and I hope I can make it worth your while.

Enormous thanks to the wonderful Rairakku1234 for reading and critiquing this (and future chapters), and without whom I would probably still be languishing over this story, not knowing why it doesn't read the way I want it to! Enjoy!

John no longer had the capacity to distinguish between dream and reality.

He hadn't experienced such disorientation since his shoulder surgery in Afghanistan. Back then, gargantuan quantities of pain medication had left him feeling next to nothing. But while still deep in disarray, his mind failed to even formulate a connection to this older incident. The only power left to him was to wonder why he felt, or rather didn't feel, the way he did. What was it that was absent? Should he be afraid, in pain?

This numbness didn't last long – with the arrival of this growing panic also came pain. The blood throbbing violently through his head convinced him that this was no fabrication of his imagination or a recurrent nightmare. While his mind regained coherency, his fingertips, of their own accord, scrabbled against something cold and damp. The same something pressed sharply into his exposed nose and cheek, and as more feeling returned, he noticed biting cold wind attacking his skin. Baker Street had never been this cold. Had it?

At last it occurred to him to try opening his eyes, but the obstinate lids refused to budge even slightly. His hearing likewise seemed to fail him, but not for lack of trying. With the ear that wasn't pressed tightly against the ground, he tried to pick up nearby sounds. Nothing. But it wasn't an ordinary 'nothing'; it was a total absence of sound, as if someone had soundproofed his ears from the world. He was smothered in unnatural and disconcerting silence. And then –

A high-pitched whine abruptly reverberated into the depths of his eardrum, increasing in volume until its shrillness made him grimace. John's chest began to constrict as if his ribcage was collapsing in on itself. His breath came in short pants, none providing the oxygen he required.

Complete agony followed. His throat seared with pain, and his body arched off of the ground in protest. Hands jumped to his ears and neck, eager to relieve the affliction but unable to. John couldn't even hear himself scream.

Then the cacophony ceased abruptly. John lay unmoving, inhaling shallowly, fearing that any movement might prompt its return. The eerie quietness had evaporated, testified by the sound of his own ragged breathing.

'How I possibly have ended up like this?' Only one answer to that question presented itself to John, and it did so immediately – it could only have been through a case with Sherlock.

His eyes forgot their former inactivity and shot open upon remembering the detective. Dark foggy surroundings greeted his vision. He had no memory of coming to this place, although that fact didn't truly surprise him. But finding Sherlock was his main priority. If John was in this condition, he was terrified that Sherlock's might be graver.

That was unless, of course, Sherlock wasn't here with him.

John was torn between wanting and not wanting that to be the case. If Sherlock was off somewhere else, then John's fear for his safety would be assuaged. But if he was nearby, that meant that John wasn't alone. Which would be terribly convenient, considering that John couldn't even contemplate getting home in one piece without assistance. On the downside, Sherlock's presence could mean danger, for the both of them. He had to find Sherlock; he had to.

He attempted to move his arm and gather momentum to propel himself off the ground. A sharp pain shot through said limb once he placed weight on it, and he crumpled back to the ground, face colliding harshly with the hard pavement. He let out an involuntary sharp cry.

"John?" called an anxious familiar voice from the darkness. 'How fortuitous,' John couldn't help but think grimly through the pain.

John prayed that he had correctly identified the voice reaching out to him. He tried to call Sherlock's name, but his throat was too raw and dry to articulate anything. His eyes fluttered closed again, though he barely could tell the difference between the resulting darkness and the obscurity of the night and fog.

'No,' he thought, 'someone's looking for me, Sherlock is looking for me; I have to keep my eyes open!' He opened them again and heard the sounds of hurried footsteps coming towards him from the enveloping dark environs.

The footsteps stopped and John sensed that someone was kneeling next to him, an urgent hand placed on his back and another turning his cheek so that it was no longer facing the ground. He groaned at the sensation, part in relief for a reassuring touch, part in pain at being moved.

"John, look at me. Open your eyes!"

When had his eyes shut again? He battled to open them and was rewarded with the sight of Sherlock's concerned face swimming just above his own. He seemed extraordinarily close. John thought he might have felt Sherlock's breath tickle his cheek had he been less numb. And he could have sworn that he heard Sherlock mutter 'thank God' under his breath, but John attributed that to his still hazy senses.

"I'm going to turn you over. This… This will probably hurt, brace yourself."

Sherlock turned him and John couldn't help groaning as his injured shoulder and arm scraped along the rough pavement. He tried to slur out Sherlock's name, but could only articulate a vague shushing sound. He missed Sherlock's pained expression.

However, he did notice when Sherlock's long fingers began to delicately poke at his skin, examining his body for injuries. John tried to let out a noise of mingled indignation and pain, although it was mostly the latter.

"I'm ascertaining the extent of your injuries. Your shoulder is dislocated. It normally wouldn't be this painful, but considering that it is the same shoulder wounded in Afghanistan, the additional strain and irritation is not exactly ideal. Your other injuries are minor, a few scratches, bruises and a raw throat. I'm going to move you into a sitting position."

Sherlock's deceptively strong arms wrapped around John's shoulders and waist, raising his upper body. He was carefully propped up against something more vertical and solid. The arms then vanished and John felt his head begin to loll back, unable to fully support himself for the time being.

And then his shoulder snapped into place with a sickening noise. John choked on his own spit and jerked upright, all hints of sagging torn away from his muscles.

"I had to reset it before the shock and numbness wore off. That would have made it considerably more painful," explained Sherlock in an apologetic tone, or at least, as close to apologetic as he could sound.

"Argh you bastard," John rasped at last when he had found his voice, although the weak volume made him sound much less threatening than he had intended. John craned his neck to try and view the shoulder in question, prodding with his finger to see if it had set correctly. "I'll have to make a sling for that," he muttered.

Sherlock did not bother replying, putting his hand through a rip in John's shirt near the neck and rubbing soothing circles with his fingertips over the offended area. The touch was comforting now that John was beginning to feel the effects of the cold more. It should have felt odd, John's mind reminded him; something like this was almost intimate in nature. But he found that he didn't care; the touch eased the pain, and he wasn't about to stop Sherlock anytime soon.

Sherlock continued the motion for a few minutes until the pain had subsided and John's head was clearer. Sherlock gave him a look, which asked 'better?' to which John stiffly nodded in reply. Sherlock, who had maintained a crouched position beside John, now seated himself beside his blogger, staring thoughtfully out into the surrounding fog. This action prompted John's next question.

"How did we get here? And where is 'here'?"

"Westminster Bridge."

John resisted the urge to roll his eyes, acknowledging that Sherlock had to answer the latter, less important question first. He didn't push it, assuming that Sherlock had a good reason to ignore the more pressing issue. Instead he asked, "How do you know?"

"Because, unlike you, I did not sustain any injuries or lose consciousness."

"It's nothing to do with my head not being screwed on properly. It's dark, so how can you know for sure?" John asked with a pronounced scowl.

"I had to run some distance in my efforts to get to you, and I briefly took in my surroundings. Additional observation has confirmed my initial hypothesis. The width and other architectural features make our location quite distinctive even in the fog. Although," he paused, "it does look somewhat different now that I am able to observe it more closely."

"Different? It's Westminster Bridge, how could it be different?"

"It appears to be newer, and the paint is a slightly different shade, more carefully maintained."

John shook his head. "Look, I don't really care about the paint right now. Just tell me what happened. You do know, don't you?" John's voice began to grow in strength, questions bubbling to the surface of his mind. "How did we get here?"

But Sherlock paid him no heed, instead muttering under his breath and not noticing John's bewilderment giving away to severe annoyance, his head still too woozy to follow what the detective was saying in that fast voice of his.

"Sherlock!" he exclaimed. The detective turned to look at him with surprise, like he hadn't expected to see John sitting beside him. John felt a slight pain as he identified Sherlock's expression; the one that indicated that he had overlooked John's very existence until he had been forced to remember. It was a pain that had become commonplace with the more time he spent with his flatmate, but still stung nonetheless. "I don't understand what's happening," John finished quietly, cursing the helpless that had bled into his voice.

Sherlock frowned. "I –"

He stopped speaking abruptly and cocked his head, as if he had heard something and was trying to listen for it again. In the next moment, Sherlock pressed the two of them back into the shadows and the fog, thoroughly invading John's personal space in the process. John was about to yelp in pain as his injured arm was jostled, when a gloved hand covered his mouth and the ensuing noise. "Quiet," Sherlock whispered in his ear, before turning his face away in the direction of the noise. John followed his gaze and saw two men walking past arm in arm, unaware of their presence.

As soon as they were out of earshot Sherlock removed his hand, but still stayed pressed up tight to John. To be touching and so close to a man who typically tried to avoid human contact was certainly not something he experienced everyday. John casually reminded himself that he needed oxygen, and exhaled a stuttering breath.

"We will remain here in case anyone else approaches," Sherlock murmured by way of explanation.

After taking a few moments to ease his quick beating heart John spoke. "Did you see what they were wearing?" he whispered. "It looked like something out of a costume drama, Andrew Davies kind of stuff." He saw a frown form on Sherlock's face, and misinterpreted it. "What, Mrs. Hudson made me watch Pride and Prejudice with her!" he said defensively.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I don't presume to care about what television you watch, either with or without Mrs. Hudson."

John scowled. "Then what's this about? Is this – is this some kind of prank?"

"That was not a costume. That was authentic clothing."

"They bought vintage suits?"

Sherlock growled in frustration. "One could easily see from here that those clothes looked new. And no one wearing a costume or vintage would be able to wear that outfit with such ease without practice, the amount of practice that only comes with months of wear unless you are a man of my capabilities. Also, that degree of clothing detail is very rarely replicated so thoroughly or accurately."

John's patience was wearing thin as he was still not catching onto what Sherlock was talking about. "But what does that mean, how does that tell us what the bloody hell is going on?"

"We are on Westminster Bridge but it doesn't look the same. Men are walking around wearing suits reminiscent of the nineteenth century. Persistent heavy fog, almost like…" Sherlock paused to gather his thoughts, before he looked up at John quickly. "John. I suspect that somehow…"

Realization finally dawned upon John. He inhaled sharply. "No. No. That is absolutely impossible, you know that better than I do!"

"It is the only explanation that makes sense!" Sherlock hissed out in frustration. "It is the only explanation of all the facts! This is nineteenth century London. Somehow, we are in nineteenth century London."

There was a brief pause while John surveyed the detective carefully. "I may have figured this out rather late Sherlock, because God knows that I've seen you come up with enough ridiculous deductions and behave erratically around the flat, but you are absolutely insane," he said slowly. "Thoroughly insane. Because there is no way, and I mean no way, that we are in the nineteenth century. No fucking way."

"This is all a dream; I'll wake up in a minute and be back home in my bed. Everything will be normal again. Maybe if I pinch myself really hard..."

A few minutes after his first outburst, John was pacing violently, muttering expletives under his breath. During his foul-mouthed monologue, John failed to notice that Sherlock slipped off and disappeared. John stopped abruptly mid rant, and looked around for the detective a few minutes later when his senses began returning to him.

"Sherlock?"

His words were greeted with silence. While John had briefly forgotten his tired and aching body during his frantic pacing, he was sharply reminded of it now and became aware of how alone he was.

"Oh bloody hell, you've got to be kidding me! Where have you gone off to now? You can't tell me these things and then run off! Sherlock!"

John called for him a few more times and received no reply. Deciding that it would be foolish to go looking for the detective in the dense fog when John had no idea where he was and where to look, John sat back down against the wall, waiting for Sherlock to return.

He didn't have to wait long, although that small blessing did little to ease John's bad humour. After an insufferable ten-minute wait, Sherlock appeared once more beside him. There was one noticeable change however.

"What are you wearing?" John inquired in a hostile tone, as Sherlock thrust a bundle of clothes into his arms. Sherlock was dressed similarly to the two men who had passed them earlier. A shabby black suit hung off of his lean frame, with a cravat tightly adorning his neck and a hat on top of his messy curls. John couldn't help noticing that Sherlock's new attire accentuated his slim profile and long legs, despite it being somewhat loose fitting.

"I am wearing clothes. Honestly John, I thought that even you could surmise as much," Sherlock said, punctuating the verbal jab with his typical eye roll. "I slipped off while you vented to find appropriate garments, as I gathered that my attempts to reassure you would be unsuccessful. Now that you've calmed down, I shall explain."

John's scowl seemed to indicate that the ex-army doctor had by no means 'calmed down'.

"We can't go around in our normal clothes," continued Sherlock, "we would attract too much unwanted attention. Put those on, and then we can examine our surroundings." As Sherlock spoke, his fingers fidgeted at some stray threads emerging from the meagerly sewn buttons of his new jacket. He knotted the threads around his fingers and severed them with a quick tug.

The brief action had John mesmerized, but he soon came back to himself and realized what Sherlock had said, and made a reply.

"No."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting this response. "No?"

"No. This is some kind of crazy joke. By wearing those clothes I'm accepting that this is all real. And I have by no means accepted that, and furthermore, I don't intend to do so."

"The sooner you start taking this in, the easier everything will be for both of us. We need to start acting; sitting around and denying our situation will not help us to untangle it. Think about it John, how would someone go about making such an elaborate hoax? And why? What is the point in making us think that we have traveled back in time?"

"Well, Anderson gets pissed at you often enough."

Sherlock scoffed. "Anderson does not have the intelligence to pull this off; you know that as well as I do. No, the only one clever enough to do this is Moriarty. And even his flamboyance wouldn't extend to attempting something like this; he would become bored with such a trick. So put on the clothes and then we can start exploring."

"Where did you even get these from?"

"Surely my interactions with Lestrade have shown you that it is no difficult feat to take items from unobservant people. And almost everyone is unobservant excepting myself."

"You stole them then?"

Sherlock smirked. "Semantics, John."

As John opened his mouth to protest once more, Sherlock cut him off with a hard expression, saying, "If you don't start putting them on now, I will undress you myself. I am confident that with your injured shoulder, I can easily overpower you. It's your decision."

John felt the heat rise to his face as Sherlock spoke, although he wasn't entirely sure why. With that, he turned his back to Sherlock for some modicum of privacy and began to undress.

A few minutes later John had changed into the essentials, but only after swearing at the cold when he stripped down to his boxers. Maneuvering into his new shirt and jacket also proved difficult considering that he had used his own torn and dirty shirt as a makeshift sling for his shoulder underneath, but he managed.

With the jacket in place, John was almost ready. The fingers of his free hand still stumbled hopelessly over the cravat and he surveyed the material irately. He still couldn't picture how the fabric in his hand could be transformed into the elegant knots around Sherlock's neck. Indeed, he doubted that he could manage it even with the use of both hands.

After he struggled for another few seconds, Sherlock suddenly strode over to him. He swatted John's hands away and looped the material around his neck. Sherlock deftly tied and knotted it so quickly that John had to bite his tongue to prevent his typical exclamations of wonder that made Sherlock's smugness reach unbearable proportions, no matter how nonchalant the detective attempted to act.

"How do you even know how to do this? Or do I want to know?" John asked when Sherlock had finished.

Sherlock chuckled quietly. "I've certainly had occasions to practice, although they would probably fall under your 'I don't want to know' category that you have established. I'll have to teach you how to tie the material properly later. You'll need to become familiar with the art, and you certainly won't be able to pick it up without my instruction."

"Because we obviously don't have better things to be doing than learning how to tie cravats and inflating your ego, do we?" said John with a tight smile.

"Quite," said Sherlock, returning the half-grin.

John's face turned solemn all of a sudden as the implications of Sherlock's words struck, the implication from the need to learn how to dress properly in this time period. "You really aren't joking, are you?"

"No."

"How are we going to get home?" John tried to keep the desperation out of his voice but he couldn't hide it from Sherlock. Sherlock could always see right through him when he wanted to.

In a rare show of comfort, Sherlock hesitantly put his hand on John's uninjured shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "I don't know. But if we arrived here despite all the impossibilities, there must be a way back, however improbable. That is all we can be certain of for now."

After his brief speech, Sherlock then turned and began to walk away from John, intent on not wasting any more time by fretting needlessly. Somewhat reluctantly, John started to follow Sherlock off the bridge and into the nearby streets in complete silence. John was accustomed to keeping his mouth shut while Sherlock was deep in observation mode, which Sherlock had clearly entered into. But that was not the sole reason for his reticence on this occasion. John just didn't know what to say. He was in a permanent state of bewilderment, unable to fully take anything in. While part of his brain screamed at him that the whole thing was impossible, another part was telling him that Sherlock was right. And since when had Sherlock ever been wrong on something as big and important as this?

Another part of John's mind also couldn't help but feel unbelievably self-conscious, acutely aware of his uncomfortable new attire. It was a small concern in the general scheme of things, but it persisted anyway. He saw other strangers walking past seemingly completely at ease. They were obliviously secure in the world in which John found himself. The knew how to carry themselves and negotiate with the world they lived in. John envied them. He had never felt so conspicuous and out of place, even in Afghanistan.

Unlike Sherlock who strode on quickly and gracefully, John slowed his pace to accustom himself to his surroundings. He kept a close eye on Sherlock so that he didn't lose track of him in the fog, but he made no effort to remain strictly by his side at all times. They both needed some time to themselves after all. They walked on like this for a few minutes, before John knocked straight into Sherlock's side, who had stopped unexpectedly, which John had failed to notice. Sherlock's hand shot out to steady him, before gently turning John to face one of the buildings.

John gasped for what felt like the hundredth time that hour. "It's still here!" he breathed.

"I recall Mrs. Hudson once saying that there used to be plenty of vacancies here even when the building was originally built. Perhaps we should enquire as to whether they have any lodgings available," said Sherlock with an amused smirk.

With that he strode to the front door and put a pale hand on the large brass knocker. Above it, emblazoned in gold characters, was a familiar sequence.

221B

Edited February 2014: After a very long absence I am beginning to refamiliarise myself with, and rework part of, this story in the hope of getting creative juices flowing again to finally get it finished. No promises, but certainly apologies, and I'll do what I can when I have time.

Coming up in chapter 2: Sherlock secures lodgings; John struggles to adjust and has some uncomfortable thoughts; they experience flashforwards to the present day, although they are incomplete at best; John takes a look at a contemporary paper; Sherlock discovers something astronomically big to keep him busy.