4.
For most of the train ride, Sherlock remains silent, staring out the window at the passing nature. John sleeps for most of the ride but, despite the fact he'd stayed up the entire night, Sherlock doesn't even entertain the thought of closing his eyes. He feels jittery, his body reacting in a way similar to cocaine, complete with the giddy euphoria.
He doesn't like to think about those days, so he slams his clammy palms down onto his knees, making his feet hit the floor with enough force to jolt John awake. For one brief second, he reaches for the pistol tucked inside his jacket but his hand drops once he recognizes the compartment. Instead, he looks at his watch and groans audibly, rubbing his eyes.
"Sherlock, was it absolutely necessary for us to take the midnight train?" he mutters, stretching his legs out onto Sherlock's side of the compartment.
"Yes John, it was absolutely necessary," he says, yanking the paper out of his pocket and flipping to page four again. He has studied the picture so many times already that the ink is starting to wear out, staining onto his fingers when he runs them over it once again. It can't be real, it can't be, but he knows what a fabricated photo looks like. This isn't one of them.
They finally pull into the station as the sun is coming up and he's immediately off, arranging for someone to take them to the remote village where the seismic activity occurred. It takes almost one hundred and fifty pounds (and some persuasion from John) but he finds a cab driver who agrees to take them on the hour long drive. Almost as soon as they get into the cab, John asks the question that has obviously been in his mind since the previous evening.
"What are you going to say if he's there?" Sherlock thinks about the question for a good three minutes, looking out the window once again as the small town changes into forest. He's never understood the appeal of the countryside; it may be pretty but who cares about beauty? At least in the city, he was never bored.
Well, almost never bored. And that was the important thing.
"I don't know," he finally says, tearing his gaze away from the passing trees. "I honestly don't know."
He thinks that it's the first time he's ever said those words to John and he suddenly feels extremely vulnerable. He needs to distract himself from the feeling so he launches into a report about his latest experiments, telling John in detail how he is now able to discern various types of clay from each other.
When he looks over at John five minutes later, he's asleep again. Sherlock isn't offended; that's exactly what he'd hoped would happen. Maybe if John slept for a while longer, he'd forget about Sherlock's plan or rather, his lack of plan, when it came to the man in the blue box.
John wakes up just as they arrive in the small village that has sprung up around the now defunct drilling project. His hair is all tousled from leaning against the window but Sherlock can tell by the look in his eyes and his reassuring smile that he knows Sherlock isn't prepared for this all.
Damn it.
Sherlock only has to show the picture to one person before he's being directed to a house just on the outskirts of the town (or hovel, which is what it really is). He can feel his heart racing in his chest, speeding up even though he tries to will it to just slow down. He doesn't want to get his hopes up over something that is undoubtedly just a hoax, just a silly photograph that meant nothing.
But his heart won't slow down and his respiration is starting to increase and he's nervous. He can't remember the last time he felt nervous; it's just another one of the useless emotions he tried to get rid of but now it's back with a vengeance and he doesn't know what to do.
"Sherlock." John's hand is heavy on his shoulder and it's only then that he realizes he's truly hyperventilating, lungs completely betraying the pleading of his mind. "Just listen to me, listen to my voice, okay? You just need to calm down, it's going to be okay. Deep breaths, that's it."
It's days like this that Sherlock is really, truly grateful for John Watson.
When he finally calms down, he finds himself experiencing yet another emotion that he'd thought lost to him: embarrassment. He was falling apart, falling apart in front of John and all because of something that might have been nothing but a childish hallucination. Nonetheless, he forces himself to mutter a thank you and continues to trudge down the road, the house soon coming into sight. It's a small thing, one story, surrounded by a low stone wall that has seen better days. There's a small vegetable garden in the front yard and a man's bicycle is leaning against the wall of the house, rusted in a few places.
Two adults, one child. Family not exceptionally well off. No pets. Don't spend much time outside. House was probably an inheritance of sorts. Not dangerous.
When he knocks on the door, it's answered by a woman who is obviously aged beyond her years. Her face is a tapestry of wrinkles, both deep and shallow, and her eyes are tired. She looks like she's lived decades longer than she most likely has and as Sherlock flicks back to her eyes, he realizes that she knows how old she looks.
Right. People are vain. He forgets this sometimes.
"May I help you?" Before he can think too much and therefore pause, he reaches inside his jacket and pulls out the photo from the newspaper, holding it up to her eye level.
"Do you know who this is?" he asks, jabbing the picture pointedly. "I need to talk to him immediately."
"You should probably come sit down." The response is to the point and he's a little taken aback at first; indeed, it's only when John practically shoves him that he follows her through the front door of her home. He tries not to analyze things too deeply but this proves easier said than done; every photo, every inch of carpet, it all holds so much information about the people that live in the house.
She sits him and John down in a small living room before disappearing to make tea. Sherlock forces himself to look down at the ground, his legs jittering again. Even though the woman and her home seem relatively unobtrusive, Sherlock knows that she's seen him. He recognizes the look in her eyes from his own mirror, from the nights he wakes up after one of the dreams and can't sleep.
She's seen the man in the blue box.
As soon as Ambrose (as she introduces herself) starts her own story, he can't help but feel pity for her. Her story is obviously the result of a psychotic break, perhaps a way to block out the circumstances of her father's death. For the most part, her account is completely non-sensical, complete with an alien race living deep below the planet's surface and dirt that swallows people up. Nonetheless, he keeps listening, continually biting back his comments.
"His name is the Doctor." It's when she says this that Sherlock's head snaps up and he drops the cup to the carpet. He doesn't know what it is but a powerful surge of something goes through his body, making goosebumps run up his spine. His fingernails are pressing into his knees but he's powerless to stop them.
"Sherlock?" John leans in close to him, that heavy hand on his shoulder again, gently shaking him. "Sherlock, are you okay?"
He bolts. Without so much as a goodbye, he bolts out the door of the cottage, nearly tripping over a garden spade that has been carelessly left in the path. He runs down the road, hardly aware of where he's going, eyes closed, head pounding.
It's true. Ridiculous as it sounds, he knows that every last word she said was true. He doesn't know why he's so certain in his conviction but he just knows that it's all true. He knows that the impossible happened, that there's a mad man with an un-aging face who travels around in a blue police box and who fights aliens.
He knows that aliens exist.
When John catches up to him half an hour later, Sherlock is sitting in what could possibly be described as the village square, back leaning against a dry fountain. John wordlessly sits beside him, waiting for him to speak and Sherlock is just so grateful that John is his friend.
"He's real John," he says quietly, looking up at the afternoon sky, pale blue and free of clouds. "The Doctor's real."
"Of course he is," John replies, stretching his legs out with a groan. "Did you really ever believe otherwise?"
No, Sherlock thinks, but that was beyond the point.
"What am I going to do?" He's pretty sure that this is something else he's never said to John and concludes that it must be a day for firsts.
"Well obviously, we're going to find him." Sherlock tilts his head sideways so that he can look at John's eyes. He's fairly certain that John was being serious but he has to make sure, just in case.
He's being serious.
"We're going to find him," he repeats, just to hear the words pass his lips. "We're going to find the Doctor." As soon as he says it, his head stops hurting. With the words spoken aloud, it confirms to him that this isn't a particularly vivid dream. Him and John are about to take on a new case, the most difficult they've ever worked on, one that will absolutely change his life forever.
It's also this point when he realizes, with a muttered curse word, that they have another mystery to solve first.
"John, do you have the number of that cab company? I am not walking back to the train station."
Author's Note: I'm sorry that this chapter is kind of choppy and rough. I honestly don't have an excuse but hopefully it isn't a total flop. R&R is lovely and appreciated. xo.