The Chained Maiden, linked three by ten
Lestrade frowned at the woman as she tapped on the odd device before her, waiting for him to give the verdict after what he heard. A blue box that traveled space and time, within it a man who was not a man but something called a Time Lord? It was hard to believe, but so was the idea of someone taking some of Watson's more famous stories about Holmes and using them to murder while leaving odd notes about.
"Well?" Ginger…Miss Noble…asked Lestrade as he finally shrugged.
"It all sounds rather…"
"Off?" she offered, smiling as if understanding his predicament.
"Yes, if you don't mind me saying so. Sadly, this whole thing is rather…off…so I can't be sure if I should believe we're dealing with something out of this world, or if we're just dealing with two parties that are just as crazy as the other. No offense, miss."
"None taken," she muttered, holding up the item before saying, "I've got it ready, do you want me to prove it?"
Lestrade nodded, unsure as to if he was ready for what she said was really a 'portable telephone' or something of the sort. The three gathered around as she pressed something on it, then there was something like a ring before a voice came from the item, too thin to hold anything like that.
"Donna, is that you? Have you found it? If this is Martha, I haven't the time and I didn't give you a universal phone just to call me at every crisis, I thought you said—"
"DOCTOR!" Miss Noble growled a little loudly, "I'm not alone!"
There was a long pause before the voice of the young man said, "Oh…so you found him?"
"We were a little late by about a day, it appears. He's killed two men…"
There was an annoyed and hurt sound, "We were just behind him! I swore we were, but maybe we were off. Did I tell you about that mauve item we found during—"
"DOCTOR."
"Sorry. Who's with you?"
"Inspector Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes, and Doctor Watson."
This pause was much longer, and Lestrade looked at Holmes, who seemed amazed and intrigued by the device before the man, Doctor, on the other end said, "Pull the other one."
"I am telling the truth."
"Yeah but…I mean…there's really a 221b Baker Street? Oh, this is brilliant! Fantastic! The murders are horrible and should be stopped, obviously, but this is fantastic still! Oh, gentlemen, you have no idea how much I want to meet you all!"
Lestrade motioned to the phone, and Donna nodded, stating, "If you're done being such a fanboy about them, Inspector Lestrade—" she glanced at Holmes and then said, "and Mr. Holmes wanna ask you something."
"Not at the same time, I hope, that might be confusing."
Lestrade was now convinced the man was insane, but in the same type of way that Holmes was so it made him okay, just hard to work with. "What do you know about our man? All we have is a general idea but no eye-witnesses, and as far as we can tell he's just a common, everyday-sort of person."
There was a mild snort from the other end of the item. "Well, he is…for his time and yours, I would think. I only know that he got a little obsessive over the idea of Watson being Holmes' shadow, and after I talked with his own alienst I learned that his sister was in something like that, only he thought she was being abused and ended up killing the man…that's why he was in jail in the first place, and he started reading the stories one day. Problem is, he decided that he killed the wrong person, but he couldn't get out and kill his sister."
"So how did he get here?" Holmes asked.
"They were testing something out, a machine that allows thing and people to travel back and forth in time to just observe. A few people go by on field trips to the past, and he ran in, held some people hostage, and used it. I was able to track him, but I guess I got it off. Sorry…I meant to catch him before anyone was hurt."
Holmes sat back as Lestrade pulled out the notes, saying to the Doctor as Holmes stood, getting his pipe refilled, "It's odd, he left a few notes near the bodies as well."
"Did he?"
Lestrade read them off, and there was a much longer pause before the Doctor said, "No clue there, sorry."
"What happened to being such a brilliant space-man?" Donna muttered, looking over the messages and frowning. "The second one is the Pleiades."
The trio looked at her as the Doctor said through the item, "Lovely system, that, we should go there—wait, what?"
Donna looked down and said, "You have a star map for Earth, right? So check out +24 degrees and…what time did this one die?"
"3.47," Lestrade said, frowning, "What do you mean anyway?"
Watson blinked and smiled. "Of course! I learned some astronomy when I was a lad…the times of death are the right ascension, and the numbers in the riddles are the declination!"
Donna was about to continue when the Doctor in the item shouted, "Oh that's not good…"
"What?" everyone asked, looking at the item before the Doctor added, "It means he's not randomly picking people off; he's choosing them and leaving the bloody clues! Donna, I have to go, you keep to Watson and make sure he's okay. I have to go and get something. If you catch him, though, you know what to do!" There was a sound like a click before Miss Noble closed the item, returning it to her purse then continued, "My grandda does astronomy. Lemme see the other one." She looked at it, frowning before saying, "Algol…it's a star in Perseus. The problem is that now we have those two at 3am, but also the ones from midnight to 3."
"In other words," Lestrade said, "we have to wait for a third murder before we get a general idea of what time the killer might strike."
Holmes shook his head. "We already have it. Between midnight and 3, he will commit a murder and use it to taunt us. It will bring us closer to the time that he may attempt to kill Watson. And that, my dear Lestrade, is enough to at least try and stop him before he kills someone else!"
Watson
I and Miss Noble headed off to the library as Holmes and Lestrade went to try and figure out another person who could be the next victim. I shudder still to think of what it meant, knowing someone was out there picking off people like me and leaving clues for whatever reason to taunt Holmes and Lestrade with until he came after me. If anything happened to me, Holmes…
I banished that thought as we pulled out a star map of the Northern Hemisphere to search for the two stars mentioned thus far, hoping for something that could give us a clue to give to Holmes or the Doctor. Now that we had something to work with besides the fact that the two men had been close to my name and had some of the same factors in their lives as mine, we could at least work.
Miss Noble marked the two stars, frowning as she looked at the expanse of stars in front of us as well as to either side. "This is a little larger then I thought."
I smiled at her reassuringly before looking for the times. "I have to admit it is as well, but we have to go on the idea that he doesn't want attention brought to himself. I would guess he picks before this time, but…" I realized that between midnight and three, there were indeed a good amount of stars for the person to pick from, making me sit. "Perhaps it would be easier to figure out what he will kill them with."
Miss Noble let out another sigh and sat next to me, looking at the group then at the two before saying, "Is it true that Holmes doesn't care about astronomy?"
"Every word I write is true, even the parts I omit," I told her with a smile, getting her to sit up and look over the star map again.
"Like those three years. You omitted that."
I disliked that thought, but I nodded. "I did. I doubt I could ever write what happened between deciding to write the truth about Moriarty and when Holmes returned. Even though it'd been a year, it helped when I wrote that grouping, and as much as I disliked writing about the man, I couldn't write up our first encounter in The Valley of Fear because I doubted it would go over well…and on top of that, there was no proof he was behind the murder either. When we ran for the continent, though, all the evidence was there, and all that remained was Moriarty and, to my surprise, his confident Moran."
She traced the outline of Andromeda as I said this, going for one of the others before saying, "I always imagined he had someone like that 'cause he realized how much stronger someone like that made you. I don't know what the Doctor did when he was alone, and I keep pushing it out of him that he always liked companions but after Rose then Martha left him in such a way, I'm amazed he continues to hurt himself like that."
I smiled at the words, looking at the map and frowning. What was it about Andromeda and Triangulum that drew me?
"Holmes drew friends, but I believe I am the only one who has stayed. In a way, I'm sure he is unsure himself why I stay."
Miss Noble snorted at the pronouncement then suddenly touched my hand, keeping me on a star point as she marked the other two stars before I saw it.
A triangle in a triangle, one that possibly had some importance if she just now noticed it. Her eyes were wide with disbelief before she said, "Oh, I can't believe it!"
"What?" I asked, looking at the formation.
"The place we went to, it was here," she pointed to Messier Object 33, "and that's a whole bloody galaxy. He's giving up where he's from to taunt Holmes!"
Donna
If I wasn't so used to running, jumping, and all other activities usually associated by most anyone with time spent with the Doctor, I think I might have almost missed the cab that we had gotten, the notes about the stars and when the man might strike next in Watson's hands as he got us to Scotland Yard. The earlier part of the day had been pleasant enough, but now night was beginning to fall and I was growing sleepy as it was. The few times that the Doctor or I stayed overnight anywhere was the times we got stuck somewhere, or when we had no choice like during our stay at Pompeii or that latest adventure with Agatha Christie. I couldn't think of my time inside the great database moon of the Library as any time at all, really, as I had learned that when I spoke or thought of something, it was done, so as to 'keep space low' with all the people the Library had to rescue from the shadows.
I hadn't told Watson that, or some of the other times the Doctor and I had been force to act as judges or juries in any sense of the term. I had seen him at his most terrible, as he was as an executioner against the children of the Racnoss Queen, and I had seen him as a kind person, offering to save someone who, by all means, probably shouldn't have been saved. He was a self-sacrificing idiot and I cared for him as I would care for a brother.
The thought lead me back to Watson and Holmes. When I had yelled at Holmes, I knew full well that the fact that I had almost suggested Holmes didn't care for Watson would've been one to easily make or break how the man viewed me. I almost regretted saying it but when I'm angry, even the Doctor has to step back. I had yelled at him, all but pushing him back to Pompeii for that family. I had yelled at the man who told us the Ood welcomed that sadness and the lobotomy done to make them servants. I hated being overlooked by others when it turned out they were just as idiotic as anyone else, and I most certainly hated how the Doctor had treated Jenny till the end. All I wanted was to scream at them all, ask what it was that kept them so closed up or stupid to what was going on? Sure, I had not always seen these things, and learned that the Titanic replica was real from the Doctor and grandda, but since meeting him I had seen that there was so much more.
I jumped out with Watson, who paid the cab as we hurried in, heading over to Lestrade's office in the hopes of finding him or Holmes. He hadn't known about deduction or anything until he began traveling with Holmes. Holmes hadn't realized the value of some things until Watson agreed to it as well.
I waited with Watson in the small room as Holmes walked in, casting me that gray-eyed look which said we were on neutral ground, our main concern of keeping Watson safe the only thing that allowed him to tolerate my presence near him. I vaguely remembered that he had called Watson's decision to marry someone as 'abandoning him' for a wife. How selfish the man was!
"I think we have something, Holmes," Watson told him as he and I explained what I had seen, the strange symbol for that planet near the Triangulum galaxy. Holmes nodded, taking down the time before saying, "This will indeed help narrow something down."
I frowned at that, wondering at the tone before Watson asked, "How do you mean?"
"Watson, there are numerous people in London alone who are named 'John', and still a few with a name that is between Witsan and Watson, letter-wise. Lestrade is attempting to get constables around the area, and while this will help us narrow down the time to between midnight and one, it doesn't help us figure out where the man will strike or how."
I crossed my arms, remembering the odd numbers that everyone overlooked and that I had figured out, as well as the other small things that the Doctor had always remarked as something "brilliant" about. "Every small thing counts, Mr. Holmes," I told him as cordially as I could, "you don't have to belittle our efforts by saying they were all for naught."
Watson looked ready to get between us, again, but Lestrade saved him the trouble, arriving to state he had been able to narrow the list down to five and was able to get a good constable near the houses of each, as well as warn them of the danger, before suggesting that Watson, Holmes and I return to Baker Street, as we looked dead on our feet.
Holmes did, at least, but I had to admit it was probably for the same reason the Doctor looked it at times: they both were string-beans who ran around too much and had too much energy for their own good. While I probably was just as hard-pressed as Watson was at times to get the Doctor to explain things normally, like Holmes tended to not do, I had to admit that sleep sounded like a good idea.
Still, Holmes nixed the idea of himself leaving, stating he wished to carry this out to the end, and then suggesting a guard be on Baker Street as well, considering that Watson's life was still in danger and we weren't sure if the man wanted two innocents or three before he came after Watson.
So escorted, we headed back, where Mrs. Hudson was nice enough to lend me a night gown and even offered a change of clothing, which I declined before she stated she was going to leave in the morning, which Watson seemed eternally grateful for. After getting into the gown and a robe, as well as finding and making some tea, I headed upstairs to find Watson still up, though it was quite late and I was ready to fall asleep.
"Worried?" he asked as we had the tea.
"Somewhat," I said, covering a yawn, "but truth be told, even with all I've gone through, with the Doctor, and all that might be up the road…I can only hope for the best. Since I've been with him, I've seen people judged and realized I can't be sure what's right or wrong. I just know, and hope to continue knowing, that what he does is right."
He smiled, a smile between two people who understood that we were just along for the ride but we would stay there for as long as we could, and to hell with what the rest of the world, or even the rest of the universe, did to make us leave them.
