The Doctor entered the last command and the TARDIS began its travel through the vortex.
" So why were you even paying attention to 2012 if you had no idea that anything was going to happen?" Asked Martha.
" Last time we were on Earth, my screwdriver picked up some unusual readings, I noticed some things. Excess seismic activity that shouldn't be happening, couldn't be happening for that matter, unless there was some sort of outside interference. Decided to investigate some, and here we are now." The Time Lord explained.
" What do you think's happening?"
The Doctor shrugged.
" I have no idea." He admitted.
The TARDIS gave once last groan and landed with a solid sounding clunk.
" Where are we?" Martha inquired. The alien gave a slight sniff and answered.
" London. December 20th, 2012."
The Doctor retrieved his long brown coat from its usual resting spot before pulling open his ships doors somewhat cautiously. He stepped outside, Martha with him, and studied his surroundings. Nothing seemed to be amiss, no ships in the sky, Cybermen weren't invading, and, as far as he could tell, Chathulu hadn't been summoned. Everything was perfectly normal. After a moment Martha spoke.
" Wait a minute. You said the world was going to end tomorrow right? December 21st?"
It took the Doctor a moment to respond.
"...Yeah." He replied, his mind clearly elsewhere.
"...I knew there was something familiar about that date!" Martha exclaimed. The Doctor appeared to snap back into reality at her statement, turning to her quickly.
" What?! What was it?!" He asked anxiously.
" The Mayan calendar? Thy found this calender, and it runs out on December 21st of 2012. People are going mad, saying that the world ends on that date!" The medical student explained. The Doctor s face fell.
" Oh. That thing. Load of rubbish, no possible way that it could have anything to do with the world ending." He dismissed with ease, much to Martha's annoyance.
" So you're saying that a calendar that just so happens to end on the exact same date that the world ends, can't have anything to do with anything?" She asked, somewhat sarcastically.
" Mm hmm." Replied the Doctor, paying no particular attention to Martha, waving his sonic screwdriver about instead. "...Nothing unusual..." He muttered inconclusively.
" Nothing at all? Not even the slightest bit? Just one big coincidence?"
The Doctor put his sonic screwdriver back into his jacket pocket and looked at Martha.
" Would you like proof?" He asked.
" I'm sorry, what?"
" Proof. That the calendar doesn't have anything to do with these events." He offered. Martha raised her eyebrows.
" Why not?" She agreed. The Doctor nodded firmly.
" Right. There should be a history museum somewhere around here..." He trailed off, searching. " Aha! Down there!" He pointed down the street they were on and the pair began walking. Several minutes later they arrived at the museum. The Doctor flashed his paper at the ticket seller and they walked in.
" Who are we?" Asked Martha. The Doctor glanced at his wallet.
" It would appear, that we are now museum inspectors, performing a spot check." He snapped the wallet shut. " Best act professional, Miss Jones." The Time Lord warned, mock seriously. Martha laughed a bit at the overly earnest expression on her friends face. A grin suddenly broke out on the aliens features and he quickened his pace some.
" Right, Mayan artifacts. They'll have a replication of the calendar in here somewhere, I'm sure."
The pair turned a corner in the grand, marble museum.
" Ah yes. Right there, and entire section on the Mayans!" Said the Doctor, pointing to a sign which hung over a door that led into a room. They entered the room. Right away the Doctor leaned over a glass case.
" Wrong. That's wrong as well." He ran around some of the other cases, pointing at items at random. " Wrong. That's right. That, is not even from Earth! How in name of Rassilon did it get here!?" He shrugged. " Either ways it's wrong. I made that one happen. Was there for that. Wrote most of that. That- that is so wrong that there needs to be a new word for just how wrong it is!" He exclaimed, apparently appalled.
" Doctor. Calender." Martha reminded him. The Doctor looked back up at Martha, a little shamefaced, but not much.
" Here we are then!" He said. Martha and the Doctor walked over to a replica of the calendar, weaving their way through the crown before stopping in front of their destination besides two men. One of them wore a dark jumper and jeans. He was shorter in heighth than the average man, but his sturdy frame ws well muscled. He had short dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. His companion was much taller, a man of about six feet, about the Doctors own heighth. He wore black trousers, a long black coat that was currently buttoned up, and a blue scarf. His hair consisted of a mass of black curls, and his blue, calculating eyes were studying the calendar intensely. The Doctor strode up closer to the calendar.
" See Martha? There's absolutely nothing here that suggests that the calendar has anything at all to do with declared confidently, gesturing towards the calendar. The taller man with the long coat glanced up at the Doctor.
" Really?" He asked, his voice baritone. " And what authority have you over the matter?" He challenged.
" Oh well, I'm just passing through, traveler you see. But I've got quite a bit of extensive knowledge over it all." The Doctor replied. " Mayans and such. The world ending, I'm quite good with that sort of thing, mind you."
" Is that so?" The other man inquired. His shorter companion sighed.
" Listen, whatever Sherlock here's about to do, you've got my apologies mate." He said. The Time Lord raised an eyebrow at this.
The man -now named as Sherlock- pointed to a section of the calendar.
" Right there. Those hieroglyphs, they read 9.8." He said. The Doctor crossed his arms and nodded.
" But rusty on my Mayan right now, if you asked me to read anything it would take me a good long while. But yeah, now that you mention it, that is 9.8. What about it?"
" The earthquake. In North Africa, just a couple of weeks ago. It had a magnitude of 9.8" Sherlokc informed. A look of surprise passed over the Doctors face.
" What else?!" He demanded to know. Sherlock gave a slight smirk.
" That pictogram. The one of the wave." He pointed to it. " It's before the one that says 9.8, signifying that it happened before the earthquake. What's happened within the last few years including a wave?"
The Doctors eyes widened in realization.
" Japans tsunami..." He breathed. The Time Lords full attention turned to Sherlock. He studied the human for a moment. After a quick second he pulled out a pair of black framed glasses from his jacket and put them on.
" Snap..." He muttered, mostly to himself. The Doctor examined the calendar closely. He looked back up at Sherlock.
" More. I need more to go off of." He said. Sherlock raised an eyebrow.
" Not so clever anymore, are we?" He asked with an air of smugness. The Doctor tensed some.
" Just do it." He demanded.
" Fine...That one, right there. The pictogram. It's a sort of swirl. We can go off it, what do you think it is?" Asked Sherlock, examining the carvings closely alongside the Doctor.
" Swirl...tornado perhaps...its got to have been recent...oh! I've got it!" The Doctor cried.
" What is it?" Sherlock inquired.
" A hurricane. Over in America, not to long ago, there was a hurricane. Super Storm Sandy is was." The Doctor replied. While the Doctor and Sherlock continued their inspection of the calendar, linking carvings to recent events, Martha made her way over to Sherlocks companion.
" They're really going at it, huh?" She asked. The man nodded.
" Sorry, my name's John Watson. Who might you be?"
" Martha Jones." Martha replied.
" Right. Well, nice to meet you Martha." Said John.
" Same here. So-" The medical student was cut off by the Doctor.
" Martha, I was wrong! The Mayans had something to do with this!" He explained, running his hands through his hair, a wild expression upon his face. " Sherlock and I, we've lined up things, too many things are in sync for it to be a coincidence! We don't know what's going to happen, but something will!"
Sherlock nodded his agreement.
" No idea what it will be. There isn't a way to know. We would need to talk to a Mayan, and seeing as how that's quite impossible, there's no way of knowing what's going to happen." He said, sounding disappointed. The Doctor smiled at this comment, taking off his glasses and returning them to his coat pocket.
" I think I could accommodate that." He said, turning on his heel. " Follow me." He instructed as he began to make his way towards the museums exit.
" So that's it then?" John asked, talking to nobody in particular. " We don;t know his name, we don';t know anything about him, and we're just expected to follow him without a second thought?" He inquired further, mild disbelief evident in his tone. Martha smiled shyly.
" That's pretty much how he works, yeah." She responded. John looked to Sherlock who shrugged.
" Come along John." He said before following the Doctor.
"...Alright then. Not the first time this has happened." John mumbled, following the group.
Several minutes later the four arrived at their destination, in front of the TARDIS, in the alley it had landed in.
" A box. This is what you wanted us to follow you for? A big, blue box?" Said John. He looked over to Sherlock and was about to make some remark, but stopped short at the sight of his friends face. " Sherlock?" He asked. " You alright there?"
"...No...This...it can't be possible." Sherlock said quietly. The Detective turned to face the Time Lord.
" You're...You're the Doctor..." He said, his tone one of awe and amazement.
"How do you know who I am?" He asked, leaning against his ship casually.
" My brother, Mycroft. When I was a kid, he would tell me stories about you..."
" Really? Who does your brother work for? UNIT? The Government? 'Cause you've got to be a pretty high rank to know much about me, I'd imagine."
Sherlock snorted.
" Mycroft is the British Government." He retorted.
John nodded. " He's not exaggerating." He assured the Doctor. Sherlock turned serious once more.
" He would come home from work and tell me stories about you though. All your adventures, your ship, everything. I always thought he was lying though..." Said Sherlock, still studying the Doctor.
" What did he tell you?" Asked the alien, intrigued.
" ...He said you were an alien. That you could change your face and live for hundred of years. He told me that you were a legend throughout the universe, known for saving planets from the brink of destruction and rescuing people from danger. He said that you had a ship, called the TARDIS, but that it didn't look like a spaceship, that it looked like a police telephone box. And he said, that this man, this legend, traveled through all of space and time."
There was silence for a moment.
"...Sounds enigmatic, your brother." The Doctor eventually remarked, an impressed look upon his face.
" Very." Sherlock agreed.
"...So. Do you want to see the inside of the TARDIS?"
" Of course."
The Doctor pushed open the door with one hand.
" Go on then." He invited. Sherlock stepped inside, while John stayed, looking skeptical.
" You. An alien."
The Doctor nodded.
" Yep. Two hearts, respiratory by-pass system, the works. Come on. Inside the box."
The Doctor entered the ship. John glanced at Martha.
" It'll be awfully crammed with all four of us inside, won't it? I mean, I'm not even sure we'll all fit."
Martha smiled.
" Go ahead. See for yourself."
John pushed the door open and gazed inside.
" Oh no...Nope. Nope. This-" He pointed inside. " Is not possible." He pulled his head out and ran around the ship.
" How can that be possible?" More running, more examinations. " But it's a box! A police box! How does it do that?!"
After a few moments he seemed to calm down some.
" HOUND gas has nothing on this..."
He stepped inside the ship again, Martha right behind him. The student closed the TARDIS door and the Doctor glanced at the visibly shaken John.
" Martha? His name?"
" John." She supplied.
" Yes. John. Anything you'd like to say?"
" It's bigger on the inside." John said, his voice raising up at the end, almost like a question. The Doctor nodded with exaggerated slowness.
" And the Earth goes around the sun."
Sherlock looked up at the Doctor.
" What?!" He shook his head in dismissal. " Never mind actually."
" So it is bigger on the inside? This thing, the box, it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?" John asked, clarifying.
" Obviously," Started Sherlock. " The ship is clearly a dimensionally transcendental machine. A different dimension exist on the inside than on the inside. It would be quite good as a disguise, so I infer that the TARDIS originally had some sort of mechanism that was capable of changing the exteriors appearance. Originally because, as you can see, it now looks like a police telephone box from 1963. However, that's assuming that time is linear, which, for you, it obviously is not. Go by the wear and tear of the ships exterior, I would say that it's been stuck in this form for at least several centuries."
"...Well. That was rather impressive." The Doctor noted.
" He's like that all the time. Don't pay it any attention." John said.
" Sort of hard not to." Remarked Martha.
" Just a bit." The Doctor agreed. His face suddenly lit up. " Right! Mayans! End of the world! We should probably be working on that!"
He raced around the TARDIS console, performing the (hopefully) correct motions to get the ship where they needed to be. He pulled one last lever with a flourish.
" John, Sherlock, you might want to hold onto something!"
Just as the new passengers complied, the TARDIS gave a mighty groan.
" Allons-y!"
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