And again...watch out for the feels. :)
Rose tried to shrug off Sherlock's behavior after he left, but she couldn't help feeling like she had when she first met him. That feeling that told her he knew more than she did. There was something, but she knew she couldn't ask. She learned that after her travels with the Doctor. That whole future knowledge thing. She paused. Yes, that's what it was, but what did that mean?
The Vortex Manipulator. She mentioned it and that's when he got that look. She shoved her thoughts aside, knowing she couldn't change things. Even if something went wrong she couldn't alter the past. That might alter her future and their life together and she wouldn't change anything no matter what price she had to pay.
She sat down on the end of the bed and pulled on her socks and her trainers. Then she stood up and headed into the bathroom to do her make-up and then clip her hair up, letting the back fall down. If she was going into battle she could at least look good. She returned to their room and dug through the closet until she found it. The purple jacket she wore to her last apocalyptic battle. She shrugged it on, grinning that it still fit. Then she picked up the Vortex Manipulator.
She'd already chosen a time and a destination. Choosing a date before she arrived in that universe so as not to bump into herself, making sure it wasn't a time and date she'd used before. This wasn't her first flashback into the past. The destination she choose was out of the way. A warehouse that sat abandoned for years. Better inside than out. Less likely to be seen. She punched in the coordinates and the date then pushed the button.
The serial killer made a mistake sending Sherlock that picture. The broken windows behind John told him it was an abandoned building. He sent the photo out to his homeless network and got a reply with the hour. An abandoned warehouse, usually a safe place to sleep if it rained, but someone had taken up residence a few days ago and he ran anyone out who ventured inside by opening fire on them, which told Sherlock he was armed. He wasn't concerned with that. His only concern was saving his friend and making sure the murderer knew the mistake he made.
He stopped the cab far enough away to not be noticed and paid the cabbie before climbing out. The warehouse was a few blocks off, but it wouldn't take him long to get there. He gripped the gun in his pocket as he hurried down the street.
John couldn't deny he was worried. He hoped Sherlock wouldn't tell Mary. The last thing he needed was for her to put herself in danger to find him and with her past, not that he knew much about it, but he knew enough to worry that she would try to find him.
He knew Marie would be all right, even if he didn't make it out of there because she would have both of them. He felt a tear slide down his cheek as he thought about her upcoming birthday and the very real possibility that he wouldn't be there.
A noise drew his attention and he turned his head. His kidnapper stepped into the large storage room he was being kept in. The chair purposely stationed in the center of the room for better light when the pictures were taken. There had only been one so far, but he'd been told there would be others. One a day to keep Sherlock in his place. He chose not to point out that that was something Mycroft had been trying to do for years and had thus far failed.
He heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked. He glanced at the bloke who was now concealed in the shadows as another sound reached him. Footsteps from the hall across from him. He turned in that direction wondering if it was another homeless person, but he caught a familiar outline.
"Sherlock!" John shouted, knowing his friend couldn't see the kidnapper from his vantage point.
The familiar sensation passed and Rose found herself in a small room. She glanced around at the broken window, remnants of a desk, and debris littering the floor. She was alone. So far so good. Maybe she read too much into Sherlock's behavior. Maybe there was another reason. She typed in the location and date, setting the time for ten minutes later, but before she pushed the button John's voice reached her.
"Sherlock!" her friend shouted.
Her entire body sprang into action. She'd only heard that much fear in John's voice a few times and it told her whatever was about to happen was life or death. Sherlock's life or death and the latter was never going to happen, not if she could help it.
She raced into the hall, turning toward the direction she knew his voice came from. Sherlock was standing at the end of the hall. He must have heard her because he turned back, but at that moment a gunshot rang through the warehouse. No! God, no!
She reached him a moment later. She pushed him out of the way. The bullet struck her in the chest. She heard another gunshot as she fell. Someone yelled. A man, but she didn't recognize his voice. In the next moment Sherlock was there, bending over her. She could see the confusion in his eyes and she almost laughed, it was a look he wore a lot back when their lives were all jumbled together, but she hadn't seen it very much in the last five years. She missed it.
"You…" he finally managed in a voice that told her he didn't understand. "Why?"
"'S not supposed to happen," she said.
She could feel her strength draining. Five minutes…maybe less. The bullet went all the way through, front and back. She felt it. She was bleeding out, but that didn't matter because he was there and he was worth it.
"What's not supposed to happen?"
What did she mean by that? Though he had an idea, but she spoke as if she knew. She couldn't. That wasn't possible. Did she follow him there? No, he would've noticed and she'd come out of a side room.
"You don't die here," she replied, trying to hold back the cough that wanted to come, but was unable to do so.
Her coughing fit reminded him that she'd been shot, shot saving him. He reached for his phone, but she took his hand.
"You need an ambulance," he insisted.
She grinned. She was dying why the hell was she smiling?
"There's not enough time. Eight minutes, yeah? I have less than five."
Less than five? How could she know that?
"Sherlock," John yelled, reminding Sherlock that they already had a doctor.
He tried to stand up, but she held his hand with more strength than he would've imagined possible under the circumstances. He glanced at her, irritated.
"John's a doctor. He can help," he tried.
"The bullet went through and through. You can do the calculations. I'm beyond John's help. Just…stay, yeah?"
She lifted his hand and with her other, removed his glove. He watched her, not sure what she doing, but unable to question her. He'd done the calculations and he knew she was right. Less than five minutes. She gave her life to save his and if staying with her, allowing her to hold his hand would give her some semblance of peace then he was willing to do that. She took his hand in hers and smiled.
"Better," she said, as she gazed into his eyes.
He tried to work out who she was and what she was doing in that warehouse. She'd been in that room, but a nagging feeling told him she didn't belong there.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Instead of answering she reached up and touched his cheek.
"You're…young."
His brows drew together as he tried to work out what she meant. Young? She wasn't much older than him. Six, maybe seven years, but she made it sound as if he were much younger.
Maybe the blood loss was idling her mind. Another cough. Worse than the last. She drew her hand away from his cheek, but not before he saw it. He took her hand with his free one and looked at it what caught his eye. A ring, but not just any ring. It…it couldn't be.
"Where did you get this?" he asked.
"You knew," she replied, gazing into his eyes without even glancing at the ring. "That's why you cried. Why…you slipped. You never said Holmes. You…always said…Tyler…even after…" another cough took hold. She was tired so very tired, but she was trying to hang on, wanting to spend just one more minute with the man she loved. The man who had become her entire life, who saved her.
Sherlock's mind tried to wrap around what she was telling him. Was her mind affected by the blood loss or was there something else going on? Something impossible. He didn't want to believe it, his rational mind tried to refuse it, but there was the ring. Proof that something else was at work. Then there were distinct smells, his flat, him, intermingled with the strawberry and jasmine she wore.
"What are you talking about? Holmes? What do you mean, Holmes?"
"This means…you knew…you…always knew, but 's okay." She grinned softly. "I knew…there would be a price…and if…loving you means…I die here…now…then 's okay. 'S worth it."
He felt as if something reached into his heart and wrenched loose a bit he didn't even knew existed. She loved him and he…he knew this was going to happen. He shoved aside the idea that it wasn't possible, focusing on the implications. He cried. He called her Holmes instead of Tyler. His name and the ring. She had the ring. What the hell did that mean? He knew, knew what it meant, as impossible as the situation was there was only one answer.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
She grinned, but he could see the light fading in her eyes.
"Please," he whispered, closing the distance between them as if he could somehow will her to hang on for just a few more moments because he had to know, had to know how this was possible, and that's when he drew close enough to really see her eyes. The room was dark, so he hadn't been able to tell, but her eyes…they were her eyes. He swallowed as his chest tightened. "Please," he pleaded, his composure slipping, "tell me who you are."
She grinned, her eyes closing for a moment and he knew if he hadn't drawn closer he wouldn't have heard her next words.
Another cough. She only had moments. His free hand cupped her cheek as if it had a mind of its own. She opened her eyes and focused on him. "I'm your impossible girl." For a moment something passed through her eyes. An emotion that he couldn't name. "Take care of Ally."
All the gears in his mind ground to a sudden halt. He swallowed.
"Alley?" he asked, his voice sounding unsteady.
Her eyes closed and then she was gone. Just gone. He felt the pulse in her neck. Nothing. His eyes gazed over her as his mind stumbled over an impossible truth. He knew who she was. His rational mind had no explanation. It simply wasn't possible, but he couldn't refute the evidence. The ring. His flat. His scent. The look in her eyes, the same way Mary and John looked at each other. The fact that she died saving him and did so without a second thought.
"Sherlock!" John yelled and he realized his friend must have been calling him throughout their exchange, but he was so focused on the woman, a woman whose name he didn't even know, that he hadn't heard his friend.
He laid her down and gently lifted her hand, removing the ring. His rational mind demanded proof. If she was who she claimed then that ring would give him the proof.
He stood up, pocketing the ring and crossed the room to untie John.
"What the hell were you doing?" his friend demanded.
"Fulfilling a last request," he relied, his voice sounded odd even to him. Thick with emotions that he tried to shove back into the room, but it was proving harder than normal.
"Fulfilling a…Oh, god, did she?"
"Yes," he replied, working at the knot that bound John's hands.
"Why the hell didn't you untie me sooner? I'm a bloody doctor!"
"You couldn't have saved her. The bullet went through and through. Nicked her lung I believe. She had less than five minutes."
"You could've let me try!"
"She knew she was dying and she knew you couldn't save her. She asked that I stay with her."
He finished untying his friend. John stood up, rubbing his wrists.
"Hang on. What do you mean she knew I couldn't save her?"
"That's what she said," Sherlock replied.
John's chest tightened as a thought struck him. That maybe he knew the woman lying dead by the hall. At that moment a flash of light from the other side of the room startled him. Both he and Sherlock raced across the room. The woman's body was gone.
"Where did she go?" John asked, gazing around the room.
"I…I…" Sherlock stammered, trying to work out how a body could vanish. It wasn't possible, but then she wasn't possible. I'm your impossible girl. "I don't know."
Bodies didn't disappear. That just didn't happen. John glanced at Sherlock and saw the same stunned look he wore. No help there then.
"Do you know who she was?" he asked.
"I believe…I believe she was my wife," Sherlock said.
Standard Disclaimer.
Thank you to all my brilliant readers!
If you have time reviews are always welcome. :)
