I'm not even going to feign humility with this one. I am so proud of this chapter I could scream.

'Kay. My moment of pride is over.

Thanks for reading! Please review!

~R.

i

"Don't mention my name and I won't call you by yours. We mustn't alert them to our location," Sherlock had said. He had looked Rose in the eyes and told her they had to be calm while he came up with a plan.

What safe place was there, though? They were in some nightmarish pseudo-reality, they had lost John, and Rose didn't know if her own mother was safe or even real. They didn't have a place to run to, but they couldn't stop. So they just kept running. For hours. They had no way of knowing what the Shadow Men could do them, but what could it be but horrific? They had discovered the secret they must never know. Sherlock and Rose had revealed the one fact they must not know. They didn't have much information on the Shadow Men, but one thing was certain: They wanted to hide the truth. How would they punish the humans who had uncovered it?

Rose and Sherlock went back and forth between walking and running, but it was futile and they knew it. How could they hide? They were in a false reality.

Sherlock, in his mind, knew there was one way of getting out. But if he was wrong about the essence of the world, death would actually kill them, not awaken them to the true reality. At any rate, they had no method of murder or suicide. Unless they could exhaust themselves to death.

Then the stars went out. And the moon. It was almost pitch-black, but there was just enough light to fumble through the streets. There were no more cars. No more windows or doors on the buildings.

The roads kept changing, the alleyways kept winding, as if someone were readjusting them to trap the two in a cul-de-sac. Sherlock would grab her hand and pull her away just as the walls began to close in on them, as a brick wall suddenly began to fold like a hinged door. They were creeping through a devious, sentient labyrinth in the dark, clinging to each other's hand in terror.

An animalistic scream was heard from behind them.

They broke out into a run—the kind of run that leaves you out of breath, heart pounding in your ears, heat rising through your body like a fire, lungs burning, throat dry as a desert, eyes unseeing in the blur.

Rose turned to look behind her, tripped, lost her footing and Sherlock's hand.

She shouted out something, turned to find him, but he was gone. He wouldn't have left her, but there was nothing but the veil of night everywhere she turned.

She felt pressure on her waist. Looking down, she saw a tentacle of black snake around her body, winding its way over her legs and arms. It worked its way over every inch of her until it found her face. Her chest constricted. It was suffocating her.

It slithered over her forehead and forced down her tongue, slid into her mouth as she struggled to inhale a final breath.

ii

And suddenly it was morning. Rose didn't know where Sherlock had been before, but now he was standing yards away…on a ledge.

This isn't right, she said to herself. Sherlock seemed distraught, if his profile was anything to go by. That face, usually so schooled and impassive, was now drawn out: jaw loose, eyes drooping, skin haggard as if he'd aged a decade. Rose looked over the edge of the building, way down to the street below. This is wrong. Why are we here? Rose looked up and back again from his face to the surrounding buildings. Where am I? How did I get here?

It took her a moment to remember where she was and how. What felt like only moments ago they had been running from the Shadow Men…Is this reality, then?

No. She knew it wasn't. Everything still felt…wrong.

But Sherlock was fine. That was all that counted. She turned down to look at the streets again. How did we get up here?

It must be the shadow men, she thought. "Sherlock, you were right. They can change the surroundings—"

"Goodbye, John."

Rose's eyes flew back to the man on the ledge. Goodbye? John? That's when she noticed the mobile in his hand, being thrown now to the side, and John a block down the street staring up at the figure in the black trench-coat.

And that's when it hit her.

The dream. John's dream was coming true.

"Sherlock," she said, inching towards him. "Sherlock, don't be daft," she looked over the edge warily, then back up to him, "Get down from there." Sherlock didn't seem to hear her. She took a step forward, as if to reason with him—but it was too late.

He was falling.

Time slowed to a crawl. Frame-by-frame, she saw his arms spread like bird, his coat billowing in the cold wind like a tail poised to steer him.

Down.

His body stiffly broke the invisible barrier dividing him from gravity's pull—a lean forward by inches and a force dragging him away.

Down.

Time was grinding so slow but the moment was gone too fast.

Rose's arm reached out to grasp his coat.

Down.

She felt the fabric as it slipped past her fingertips.

The moment was gone. Sherlock's last moment. Her last moment with him…and he didn't even say goodbye. Not to her. He forgot about her.

Down.

She lurched forward, barely caught herself…barely found the will not to follow him

Down.

"SHERLOCK!"

Rose screamed out, but a man's voice bounced off the walls below in unison. John's voice hit Rose's body as if she were being stoned.

She tore her eyes away to see John being thrown over by a bicyclist, didn't see Sherlock's body crunch in a bloody, bony mess on the concrete, bending in all the wrong ways like a clay figurine. She refused to see it.

It was too much.

This was too much.

She had to do something…

But what could she do?

Her body swiveled like an unbalanced gyroscope from the roof's ledge. The world was spinning. She could hear rushing waters and looked everywhere for their source, unaware that it was the sound of blood in her ears.

She tumbled dizzily, vertigo causing her to fall backwards over her own feet.

Over a body.

A bloody body with lifeless eyes now fixed on the sky.

A peaceful cloud-gazer enraptured with his moment of aeromancy—a unnatural grin stuck on his gaping mouth, filled like a goblet of wine with his brain's juices, slowly spilling out of the back of his head on the concrete.

Sherlock was dead in the street.

John was injured and alone.

A man was dead in front on her on the roof.

Rose felt the scream rising, but it never passed her throat.

Instead, she howled.

iii

John was having tea with Donna. He needed to talk to her about a few things and, frankly, all his other friends (all two of them) seemed to have suddenly turned into moving statues. They no longer held the same personality, no longer loosened their shoulders or made the same leisurely comments. Sherlock thought John couldn't tell. Why should he be able to? He was an idiot, like the rest of mankind.

But John did see. John saw things through eyes that had fixated themselves on Sherlock. From the way he tied his shoes to the way he fixed his coffee to how long he held a smirk to what pieces he played on his violin could alert John to Sherlock's mood or innermost thought. He didn't need to deduce anything; his mind recorded and categorized of its own accord.

And Rose? There was something wrong there that couldn't be pinpointed. She smiled the same tongue-in-teeth grin as always, but her eyes seemed too glossless.

The whole attitude that began to prevail around his two closest companions gave John the feeling of living in a police state. He almost began to wonder if everyone knew a secret he didn't. Being watched, though, didn't bother Sherlock. It excited him. He either broke all of Mycroft's videos hidden in the walls or played sick games of human chess with his arch-nemeses. But, under no circumstances did Sherlock Holmes ever feel fear.

It was odd, that feeling of hidden terror that John couldn't track down. It seemed to him it had been there from the beginning of time, but time seemed so uneven as of late.

So, here he was, sitting with a cuppa' across from Donna Noble in their typical tea shop. He didn't know what to say or how to say it, but it was all wrong. She was yapping away about the most recent gossip in her circle of frenemies and, deep in his mind, he was trying to formulate the correct words to describe how bloody scared out of his skin he was.

John opened his mouth to speak.

iv

"RORY!" a shout came down the hall, trailed by a long-legged ginger.

She came to a dead stop as she saw the man lying on the floor of the TARDIS. A gangling oddity of a man with a too-long-too-short mess of hair flew from behind her and her sudden brake caused them both to tumble forward gracelessly.

The man caught her by the waist, trying to catch his breath.

"That's…" He blew his cheeks into a balloon and let the air out in long sigh, causing the girl's hair to fray like fire. Their eyes were wide with confusion.

v

John was having tea with Donna…and then he just wasn't.

The bizarre sensation of every nerve in his body being gripped by some force overtook him. He could see Donna's mouth moving, but her voice was gone. Abruptly, his vision was shut off like a switch being flipped.

And then he was heaving for breath in a really dark room that was way too warm for his liking. He felt his arms lifting and struggling against restraints. He panicked. His legs were bound, too. His eyes tried to adjust to the darkness to see his surroundings but just as he began to make out machinery against the walls of the small room, he felt the sensation again.

Golden light. Everywhere golden light. And—

vi

"That's not Rory," the Doctor said, voice a monotone.

Instead, a man in a really ugly beige jumper was coughing on the floor of the TARDIS.

Beside him sat a curly-haired man in a dark trench-coat.

I have several people to address. First of all, there is one Guest who said some of the most incredible things anyone has ever said about my writing. To you: THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Thanks a million to Tabby, the Queen of Confusion, Daniel Wesley Rydell, MargauxUniverse, and Jefferson Author. (JA: I will check out your stuff, but as a preliminary note, your pen name rocks. White Rabbit ftw!)

Thanks also to everyone who favorited and followed. I am so glad you like the story. :)

Much love. You guys are awesome. :)