AN: For Svartalfhild who requested wholock and no smut for her Valentine's Day!
The watch was gold with some sort of weird art deco thing carved on the cover. John looked down at it with a frown, weighting it with his hand before whistling. If the watch in his hand was just as old and golden as he thought it was, it was worth a small fortune. It would figure that Sherlock would have it kicking around the flat on the floor instead of somewhere safe.
Looking around for a bit, John wondered where the best place to put the watch would be when Sherlock burst into the room. Still only half dressed and struggling into his jacket, his button up shirt only tucked in and not as all buttoned, Sherlock grinned widely as he made for the door. "The game's on, John!" he crowed, casting on his scarf and still apparently not noticing his shirt was undone. "Triple murder, locked door mystery, and Lestrade thinks the butler did it!"
Rolling his eyes, John held up the watch to his flatmate. "Where'd you get this watch?" he asked. Knowing how particular Sherlock was, the watch had to go into it's proper place. If it was an heirloom then it would go on the mantle while a souvenir from a case would go in his desk drawer.
"What watch?" Sherlock asked, shrugging on his coat and buttoning it up as he continued not to notice his shirt was undone.
He held up the watch higher. "This watch. Rather nice, looks expensive."
Sherlock frowned at the object, stepping forward and snatching it out of John's hands. He peered at it for a moment, brow furrowed before tossing it away. "It's a family heirloom or something. Doesn't matter. There's a case, John!"
Sighing, John followed Sherlock out the door, grabbing his coat as he went. On the sofa the watch glittered in the dim ambient light before slowly slipping between the seat cushions. Caught up in the case, neither man noticed that it was gone.
The watch was silver with a strange design carved on the cover. Interlocking circles and dark dots carved deeply into the antique silver. Tom frowned at it, turning it over and over in his hands as they brushed the tarnished metal. The pocket watch was old, easily a hundred years or more, but barely handled. From the looks of things it had spent it's entire lifetime on the mantle of Molly's flat, never moved except for dusting.
"Where did you get this old thing?" Tom asked, looking back at her.
Molly paused. She'd been filling up boxes for what felt like hours preparing for the move over to Tom's and she was really looking forward to a break. Abandoning her task of packing books she stood and took the watch from her fiance. Turning it over in her hands she frowned at it, fingers tracing the engravings. "You know, I don't remember," she said. "I think it might have been my grandad's or something like that."
"Maybe we should pawn it," Tom teased, smiling down at her. "That looks like solid silver. Considering the price these days we'd probably be able to pay for the entire wedding."
"No, I can't sell it!" Molly grinned, her tone taking on an exasperated air. "It's the only thing left I have of my grandad's… Or something. Besides, if silver's worth enough to pay for the entire wedding now, just think of how much it'll be worth when we're ready to retire."
Tom laughed, capturing her in his arms. "We'll be able to buy all of England!"
She laughed as well, standing up on her tip-toes to press a kiss to Tom's cheek. "I think I'm ready for a break if you are," she said, smiling up at her fiance.
"Right, sounds good to me," he said, releasing her. Fetching his mobile out of his pocket he began to scroll through their choices. "Do you want curry tonight or Italian?"
"I'd kill for Korean actually," Molly said, smiling. Going into her still unpacked bedroom she gently set the watch into the bottom drawer of her jewelry box before going to get changed. By the time she had finished freshening up she'd forgotten that the watch even existed.
His ribs felt a bit bruised. More than a bit bruised actually if he was being honest. Between the beating he'd received in Serbia only a short two weeks ago, John, and the hug he'd recently received from Mrs. Hudson, he was certain his ribs were bruised. Perhaps he'd have Molly look at them in the morning. She at least seemed pleased to see him.
Molly.
The thought of her filled him with… something. He didn't understand it. Before he'd been forced to fake his own death to escape the clutches of Moriarty he'd been able to keep Molly in her carefully designated box. While he'd been away he'd barely spared a thought to her. Yet now that he was back-
Perhaps it was the realization that his life in London had been irreparably changed? John was about to get engaged and Molly already was. The two people he counted on the most, changing on him when all he wanted was for things to stay the same. If that was it, if he really was that selfish, he needed to take care moving forward. Molly mattered and he wasn't about to ruin their relationship now when he'd finally realized that important fact.
Sighing, he flopped down onto the sofa. Wincing as something hard hit his back, Sherlock dug through the cushions before he pulled out a pocket watch. Gold with a strange design engraved upon the cover, he frowned at it for a long moment before getting up to set it upon the mantle. It looked like a family heirloom so it was probably John's. He'd ask him about it when the man was back on speaking terms with him.
He never did.
Molly sniffled as she moved the box up into her new flat. She should never have agreed to move in with Tom, never should have thought she'd be able to get on with her life. She was stuck, stuck in a loop with no way out, thrown over the event horizon of the black hole that was Sherlock Holmes. The only thing left for her was to die horribly as she was torn apart by spaghettification.
Despite herself, she found herself giggling. To her credit, spaghettification was a silly word and she did love her geeky space facts. Actually, while she'd been growing up she'd been certain that she would go into astronomy as her career. Yet, as she'd aged the idea of studying space had just seemed wrong and she'd gone into medicine instead.
It had been a terrible mistake.
If she'd become an astronomer she never would have met Sherlock Holmes. If she'd never met Sherlock she'd probably be married now with two children and a nice house in the suburbs and a happy life. Dropping her box on the bed she sniffled again and buried her face into her duvet. Thirty-four years old and single again. At this rate she was going to become a crazy cat woman.
Curling up into a ball on the bed she accidentally dislodged the box and it went crashing to the floor, contents spilling everywhere. Groaning, she rolled off the bed and started to gather it all back up. It was all her jewelry, and she frowned as she put her small jewelry box back together. Sometimes she didn't understand herself. Why, for example, had she trekked across London with her jewelry box when she hadn't even bothered to fetch enough of her clothes from their (well, Tom's now) flat? It just didn't make any sense. Why was she so silly sometimes?
Her hand paused as she picked up an old fashioned pocket watch. It was silver with some sort of pretty design carved onto the cover. Frowning at it, she turned it over into her hands before sighing. It certainly wasn't hers so it had to be Tom's. When she went back for the rest of her things she'd return it to him. Despite their bad break she wasn't about to go and start stealing from him after all.
Setting the watch inside her end table she flopped back into bed and tried to get some sleep.
As soon as her eyes closed, she forgot about the watch.
Sometimes they both dreamed of fire. Of a red sky made black by smoke. Of silver-leafed trees aflame and shaking in the wind.
He dreamed of being held in his brother's arms as they raced toward a strange citadel encased in a clear sphere. Mycroft's arms tight around him as his voice echoed in his ear. "It's okay. I've got you. It shall all be alright."
She dreamed of being alone, of weeping as she wandered the crumbling streets. Bodies were all around her and death was in the air and yet still she wandered barefoot through the streets. She wept for her mother.
They both dreamed of a blue box. Of a face half-remembered. Of a promise of safety.
The old man leaned up against his blue box and stared up at the sky. Gazing upon the place where his home star had once burned he smiled weakly at the gap and ran his hands through his hair. He'd never been able to find it. Gallifrey. He'd looked and looked and yet it had been hidden too well. He'd hidden it too well.
Perhaps that was for the best.
His companion knelt down at his side, offering him a flask of tea, still hot. He took it thankfully, smiling at her. She was so young. God, his companions got younger with every year while he…
"Time can be rewritten you know," he told her, the phrase from a previous life coming easily to his lips. "I've done it before and if I had more time I might do it again. Once I even broke a time locked event, wiped my own memory of it and everything in order to save my home planet."
His companion laughed, snuggling up beside him. "Yes. You've said."
He frowned, sipping his tea slowly. "It's all a bit fuzzy that period. I remember… I remember doing it the first time, burning them all quite clearly. And I remember not. It's enough to confuse even someone like me."
Together they sat and stared up at the sky, the tea and each other warming them as the rest of the city slept. "I remember something else," the old man said with a little gasp. "From the first time, the time where they burned. I wonder if I rewrote that too."
"Remember what?" his companion asked with a yawn.
Humans. They needed so much more sleep than he did, he thought as he smiled down at her fondly. Getting up he shooed her into the TARDIS and into bed. As for him he stayed up, slowly walking around the central console until he found the control he was looking for. Pressing the button he stepped back as the chameleon arch folded down from the ceiling.
He gazed at it for a long moment, reaching out to touch the place where he had set the pocket watches. "How many was it again?" he muttered to himself, brow furrowing. "A dozen? Two? I know I scattered you all over space and time to keep you safe… Or did I? Was that something I undid?"
Frowning again, he walked to the door of the TARDIS, gently caressing the frame as he looked outside. "I suppose I'll never know," he said, gazing out over the distance. At the world he'd come to love and cherish more than his own.
A thought struck him and he hesitated. Cupping his hands he slowly breathed into them, capturing the golden light for a moment before releasing it. The golden shine drifted in the air, shimmering brightly before streaking away, arcing towards some unknown destination. He smiled, watching it go. "Or maybe I will."
He shut the door behind himself and a moment later, with a groaning sound that echoed through the darkness, the blue box vanished as well.
In London, Sherlock Holmes tore apart his flat looking for the source of a noise. It was annoying, the most horrid screeching chirping sound he'd ever heard. Growling in frustration he dashed the room to pieces before realizing that the noise was coming from his mantle. There was a pocket watch there, something he'd seen before a million times and never recognized until this moment. And it was making the noise.
Grabbing it off the mantle he glared at it and pressed the button to release the latch. Gold light flooded up at him and he inhaled.
The first thing he did was call Mycroft.
Molly frowned as she entered her bedroom, looking for the source of the noise. At first she'd thought it was a neighbor playing the radio too loud but as the hours passed she realized it had to be coming from her flat. Slowly opening the drawer to her end table she pulled out a silver pocket watch. It sounded like it was singing.
Opening it, golden light flooded the room.
Sitting down on her bed, trembling, Molly put her face into her hands and wept. "Mummy," she whispered.
They met again outside of Mycroft's office. He'd found them, the ones who'd had the watches, all six of them. Or, as Mycroft informed him snidely, all seven of them. He'd missed one but luckily Mycroft hadn't. The seventh was coming as well, but apparently running late.
Standing outside the building, Sherlock lifted his cigarette to his lips and mused. Mycroft had been horrid ever since the day he'd opened his pocket watch. Yet, he couldn't blame him. Their entire life had been a lie. The conversation with their parents when they'd finally wheedled out of them that they'd both been adopted had been brutal and afterwards they had sat in Mycroft's sitting room and simply stared at each other.
Mycroft had been the first to voice it, the question that hung between them like a knife. "Are we actually brothers?"
Faint memories ran through both of their minds. Of smoke and fire and fear beyond all comprehension. The child that he now thought of as Mycroft had carried him through it all, but that didn't mean that they were siblings. They could have been cousins for all that he remembered. Or strangers.
Settling back in his chair, Sherlock had met Mycroft's nervous gaze with his own confident one. "Of course we're brothers. Don't be daft," he had scoffed and Mycroft had smiled. Order had been returned. Or for at least that moment.
Now doubt filled him. He was alien. Everything he had thought about himself wasn't true. What else was wrong? How would this affect his friends?
His hearts lurched in his chests and his breath went still. John and Mary. Their little daughter. What if he outlived them? What if he outlived them all? He had only just discovered the joys of friendship and now the possibility of losing it all stared him in the face. He couldn't bear the thought of it. Losing his friends, losing…
Molly.
His hearts nearly stopped in his chest. Molly who counted. Molly who mattered the most. He'd been trying to gather the mental fortitude to ask her out to coffee and now he never could. It would be too cruel. Outliving Molly. Not being able to have children with Molly. He couldn't do that to her being what he was.
A thought extinguished before it could even flame.
Lighting the cigarette at last he sighed as he heard the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching him. It would figure that the seventh would arrive just as he was getting started. Turning towards them he froze, cigarette dangling from his lips as the familiar face grew closer. As if summoned directly from his thoughts she appeared. "Molly…."
"Hello Sherlock!" Molly giggled, her arms full of plans as she rushed towards him. "Sorry I'm late!"
"You're one of us, you're the seventh?"
"Yup!" she grinned and held up a silver pocket watch. It still gleamed a little gold in the dimming light and his hearts skipped a beat as his mouth ran off on it's own.
"Would you fancy a coffee?"
She blinked up at him, pausing and frowning a little before grinning widely and shaking her head. "No. I want to go running. I want to see it, the stars and where we came come and everywhere else!" Plucking the cigarette out of his lips she ground it beneath her feet before opening the door and gazing back at him. "What do you say Sherlock?" she asked, clutching the plans to her chest. "Would you like to build a TARDIS?"