Thanks for all the suggestions and reviews and follows! Here's chapter two.

For those who are not familiar with music/musical terms: a score is basically a giant book that the conductor uses filled with tiny print of all the parts of each musical instrument/vocal parts so the conductor knows what's going on with all instruments at any given time. Sometimes they're significantly marked up. Others prefer to work from clean scores.

For those not familiar with balletic terms, an arabesque is a certain ballet position and I really can't explain it better than that because I know nothing about ballet.


Rose wiped her forehead. She had long ago tied her hair back in a messy bun, but it didn't prevent the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead. Conducting was hard work, and Rite of Spring required intense concentration. She waved her hand for the orchestra to stop for what seemed like the thousandth time, but this time for a break.

"Take a break, everyone," she said wearily. "We'll be back in fifteen minutes for Act II." Rose sat down in her chair and drank some water, squinting at the score. Act I had gone relatively smoothly, though there had been some issues with volume changes and other dynamics. Most of them, she knew, would resolve themselves in a few days, since they were mostly problems only because of her own conducting style being different than the other conductor's. That still meant that Act II was going to have some major issues today, unfortunately.

Rose needed to get away for a moment. Her eyes stung from squinting at the score, which she had heavily marked (and thank God, because she wouldn't have been able to pull this off on such short notice without major marking. She was glad her professor in college had been so insistent upon it, no matter how much she hated it at the time) so she walked out of the auditorium, out of the building, into the open air. And she couldn't help but smile, because despite immediate problems, she was unbelievably happy. This was what she was really meant to do, she felt. Or at the very least, this was one way she felt grounded, and it was less dangerous than heading a Torchwood team.

"That's not a standard issue gun in your pocket," came a voice to her left. Rose turned, instantly guarded, to see a tall, curly-haired man that she recognized as the Royal Ballet's principal male dancer, though she couldn't remember ever knowing what his name was. He was casually smoking a cigarette, leaning against the facade of the building. "Which means you're not police; you're government. Still, you conduct exceptionally well and professionally, so you must have gone to school for it. You've also travelled extensively and obviously observed many foreign conductors, since it shows in many of your patterns, which I would call an innovative, if unorthodox combination of early twentieth century styles and obvious Asian and Greek influences. You're also trained in several advanced forms of combat, but you're of slightly above average intelligence. Now the only question remaining is: why are you here?" Despite her shock, Rose was impressed.

"Aren't you a regular Sherlock Holmes?" she joked while subtly positioning herself into an optimal defensive position, observing her adversary. Advantage in height and weight but she might outmatch him in speed, and she fought mean. The man, in the meanwhile, blinked in confusion.

"Well, yes, that is my name," he said, completely thrown off by her comment. Now she was confused, disguising it with a laugh.

"Come off it," Rose said. "Your name is Sherlock Holmes? Your parents must be huge Arthur Conan Doyle fans." When he looked at her with utter incomprehension, she realized her mistake. "Oh my God-no way," she realized, putting a palm out in the universal sign for 'wait'. "No way," she repeated, staring at the man in front of her. "But this doesn't make sense," Rose muttered to herself. "Aren't you a detective, though?" Rose blurted, then immediately cursed herself. Sherlock stared at her, suddenly on guard himself and ready for the possibility of a fight. Rose saw him subtly looking for gunmen or snipers in the surrounding area, and wondered why what she said had provoked such a reaction.

"I do consult with Scotland Yard on some of their harder cases, but only when my schedule permits, and I do so anonymously," he said with narrowed eyes, every hair in his body on edge. "How could you possibly have known that?" Rose racked her brains for a reasonable explanation, fast. She remembered distinctly her father complaining at dinner one night about a man named Mycroft Holmes...

"Your brother told me," she said blindly, hoping to God she wasn't making a huge mistake by saying that.

"We'll see about that," he said lowly, with just enough of a growl to make Rose shiver slightly.

"If it makes you feel better, your brother told my father and my father told me," she amended, thinking that would probably be best. Hastily, she checked her watch, and sped past Sherlock back inside. Rose's mind was racing, but the mystery of why Sherlock Holmes, a renowned nineteenth-century fictional detective, was here in the twenty-first century, as the principal male dancer of the Royal Ballet, would have to wait. Right now, there was a production to save.

So Rose put it out of her mind, or as far out of her mind as she could, since Sherlock's role was far more prominent in Act II than it was in Act I. She sighed. It was going to be a long couple of days.


A smoking blue police box landed unceremoniously in an abandoned alleyway in the middle of the early afternoon, billowing smoke and wheezing.

"Out, out, all of you now!" the Doctor exclaimed in a cough, waving his companions out the door. Three people emerged: Amy, Rory, and River.

"I don't know why I ever let you fly her," River snarled. "Fans on!" she shouted to the inside of the ship. Gradually, the smoke began to clear.

"It's not my fault we got ripped through one of those cracks; if you hadn't asked me to come in the first place-"

"Oh, sweetie, don't pretend you're not as concerned about the cracks as I am-"

"The point is, River, that the TARDIS will be out of power for a day or two, and it would have been less if you'd just listened to me, so we're stuck on a parallel world for the time being." The Doctor smiled a big, gap-toothed smile, and rubbed his hands together in excitement, licking one and putting his finger out to test the air. "It's London, but the differences should be fun, eh?"

"Doctor," Amy tugged on his hand, pointing upwards. The Doctor, meanwhile, was coaxing his still-irritated wife out the TARDIS door, and didn't immediately see what she was pointing at.

"River, come on, the TARDIS is fine-" the Doctor stopped mid-sentence, staring at the sky with eyes like a frightened animal. His mind had gone blank with roaring white static. He was barely aware of his own footsteps carrying him out of the alley as he continued to gaze at the sky, and then all around himself as if in a trance.

Zeppelins. Zeppelins in the sky, over a parallel London. And Pete Tyler's face in a street advertisement. And then the worst and best possible thing of all: the Doctor snatched a newspaper off a nearby stand, not because he was at all interested in knowing the date or current events, but because of the face on the cover.

Rose Tyler.

"Rose Tyler, Vitex heiress, takes over Royal Ballet Orchestra in an emergency," Rory read over his shoulder. "The principal conductor, who was hospitalized Tuesday after a car accident-Doctor, is this important?"

The Doctor was silent for far too long before he realized he'd been asked a question, and it was still at the back of his mind, like a fog had drifted over all his thoughts and senses because he could only register one thing: Rose Tyler was here. She looked so beautiful in the photograph, hair tied back in a bun, the current shade of blonde much more natural than what he'd seen her with last, smile quirking up on the corners of her mouth as she held a white baton.

"Rose," he finally said. "Rose is here." He didn't want to smile, wanted to focus on the mystery of the parallel world but he knew this parallel world already. And Rose Tyler was here.

"Doctor, do you know her?" Amy asked tentatively, glancing between his face and the newspaper.

"Yes," he said shakily, unable to tear his eyes from the picture.

"Hang on," Rory said, squinting at the page at another picture just below the first, of a man in a stunning arabesque. "This says 'principal male dancer Sherlock Holmes'." Everyone looked at the Doctor, who grinned and glanced back at the newspaper. River, to the Doctor's guilt, looked unsure. It was not an expression he was used to seeing on her face, and he took her hand.

"An adventure, then," he said, though his behind his smile, his heart was racing at the thought of encountering the Bad Wolf once more. "The premiere is in two days; we can get investigate and then get in with the psychic paper. Who's up for the ballet?"


SURPRISE! The Doctor's here. Ordinarily I would have introduced the Doctor a lot later than the second chapter in order to establish Sherlock and Rose's relationship a lot more, but I know me. And if I don't get in the majority of the plot soon, this will not end well. Therefore, second chapter it is. Their actual meeting will probably take place in two or possibly three chapters for just that previous reason (developing Sherlock and Rose's relationship first. Don't worry, I have a plan where I didn't before. Now at least I have three different subplots that will hopefully tie into a bigger main plot. Keep your fingers crossed!).

And in case you didn't get it: this will not be an Eleven/Rose story. I firmly ship River and Eleven for deeply personal reasons that I won't bother explaining. This story will be reflective of that. Now, I won't sugarcoat her personality or her arguments with the Doctor or anything like that, but I will portray her how I understand her character, which is through an admittedly somewhat biased, loving lense.