a.n. thank you so much to everyone for all of the kind words and support you've given myself and my family, you're all so lovely and understanding and oh my gosh you have no idea how nice it was to log on and read all your lovely reviews and messages. I'm distracting myself from emotions with writing at the moment, so here's another chapter for you all. it basically explains what's happened in Amy and Sherlock's lives since their one night stand, and it gives you a bit more of an insight into Sherlock's perspective, too. there's canon compliant drug use (although I'm not sure about the time-line, but I think I already stuffed that up for this story anyway) and there's also established canon character death. it gets a bit heavy at times but nothing too over the top, and next chapter the Doctor's in to brighten things up a bit. thank you so much for reading, please leave a review with any thoughts you have about the story!


Interlude

- Time –

Amy Pond arrived back in Leadworth without a fuss.

Rory came to see her as soon as his shift at the hospital finished, only to find Mels already sprawled languidly on the bed. When he asked how London had been he received a vague answer of "Yeah, alright." Mels' bored expression and Amy's dismissive wave of a hand told him that he'd already missed the detailed run down and their attention spans wouldn't allow them to repeat it.

Mels complained about Amy not inviting her out, grumbling that if she'd known she was going to go clubbing she would have tagged along. Rory gave an indistinct mumble of agreement, and Amy threw herself back on her bed dramatically and told them that it wasn't like she'd planned to miss the train home, so could they shut up about it please?

Guilt churned in her stomach as she listened to her two best friends turn the conversation to inane things like what was on the telly, and who had broken up or got together since they'd graduated school a few months back.

When Amy finally worked up the courage to meet Rory's eye he smiled at her, and something inside her chest swelled with relief.

"Sorry," she mouthed, and she was genuine. Seeing him actually sitting there in her room, still in his nurse's scrubs and with purple bags under his light green eyes, every fibre of her being ached with remorse.

He shook his head once, just a small movement, and gave her a smile that said that everything was alright.

Later, when Mels had left, the two of them curled up on Amy's bed and when Rory kissed her she let herself melt into his touch until all traces of Sherlock Holmes were wiped from her body and her memory.

Until –

"Amy, what's this bruise?" Rory asked through the comfortable silence afterwards, and Amy jerked out of his arms so quickly that for a moment the whole world span. "Amy, are you okay?"

Rory's hands were on her back, rubbing her bare shoulders, comforting and supportive and worried.

"I fell," she replied on auto-pilot, barely registering the shot of pain as he lightly pressed the edge of the bruise.

"Fell on what? How hard? Amy, this is a huge bruise, it looks really bad." Rory was gently turning her around to face him now, peering at her face with intense worry.

Her head cleared and she tried to look convincing as she told him, "I was wearing heels last night. You know me… I was running across the lights and I fell. Really, it's fine. It's just a bruise." Rory didn't look assured, so she leant forward and kissed him gently. "I'm fine."

"I'm going to keep an eye on it," he promised.

"Are you just looking for an excuse to get me to take my shirt off?" Amy teased.

Rory fell asleep early, tired from work, and Amy slid off the bed carefully, trying not to disturb him. She walked over to the dark blue scarf draped casually on top of her jacket from that morning. She picked it up and ran the pads of her thumbs over the soft material, and then she tucked it carefully into the bottom drawer of her dresser.

Rory stirred when she got back into bed, draping an arm over her waist and nuzzling his face into her neck. Through her guilt and confusion, she tried to remind herself that it was okay that his presence made her happy, that she was supposed to enjoy having him there.

She fell asleep tangled in Rory Williams' arms, but that night Amy dreamt of a large bed in a small apartment on Montague Street and a man named Sherlock Holmes who refused to sleep in it because it smelt of her.

The black car pulled up on the curb as soon as the taxi was out of sight, catching Sherlock just as he was about to ascend back up the stairs to analyse the results of the test currently bubbling away on his stove top. He grimaced before the door even opened, and when he heard footsteps approaching he openly scowled.

"She was pretty."

Mycroft Holmes was practically humming with amusement, solid form encased in an expensive suit and perpetual umbrella slung over his forearm. He'd had eggs for breakfast, poached, and had already been to one meeting, probably with a foreign dignitary. He was on his way to another now, and hadn't yet noticed the slight scuff on his left shoe that came from when he'd tapped it nervously against the corner of his desk while booking his next appointment with the dietician.

"How nice of you to bring me a morning snack," Sherlock said, feigning cheerfulness. He paused just long enough for Mycroft to narrow his eyes before adding the insult, "Or did you eat all of the muffins yourself on the way here? My, my, I'd be nervous about seeing my dietician too if I cheated as much as you did."

"Don't be petty, Sherlock, it doesn't suit you," was Mycroft's dispassionate reply, although Sherlock didn't miss the slight tug he gave his waistcoat.

"Why are you here, Mycroft?" he asked shortly, not in the mood for offensive banter.

"That girl spent the night here," his brother replied, looking at him expectantly.

When he didn't continue Sherlock snapped, "Are you going to just spout facts at me or are you going to explain how that concerns you?"

"It concerns me a great deal," Mycroft told him, and then glanced at the old lady two houses down who was tottering out to the get the morning paper as she did every day at this hour. He asked pointedly, "Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?"

Sherlock huffed but didn't outright argue, and ten minutes later he was settled in an armchair across from his older sibling, nursing a cup of tea and the beginnings of a headache.

"The girl -" Mycroft began.

"Amelia Pond," he interrupted in a snap, getting more annoyed with the other man's presence with each passing second.

"I am well aware of her name," Mycroft informed him. "Amelia Pond, age eighteen, originally from Inverness, but at age seven she moved to Leadworth, where she currently resides."

Sherlock eyed him warily. "I wasn't aware that the government was keeping tabs on every civilian now."

"They're not," Mycroft said plainly, reaching for the biscuits Sherlock had deliberately laid out and then retracting his hand. "Also at age seven, Amelia Pond reported that a man calling himself the Doctor had crashed a blue police box into her backyard. He subsequently vanished, but she insisted to all four psychiatrists that attempted to treat her that he was real and he was coming back for her."

Sherlock tensed. "How do you know this?"

"I have more authority than you like to believe, dear brother," Mycroft answered condescendingly.

"Why do you know this?"

Mycroft set his tea down and looked his younger brother straight in the eyes. "You can't see her again."

"I wasn't planning to," Sherlock replied quickly – a bit too quickly, judging by the curl of Mycroft's lips – and then added slyly, "But if you're so against the idea perhaps I will."

Mycroft's mouth immediately set in a straight line, and his tone left no room for argument when he insisted, "You mustn't, Sherlock."

Sherlock pushed back, asking eagerly, "Why? Are you telling me that there's more to her story of the Doctor than just fantasy?"

"I'm telling you that she is trouble, and not of the entertaining sort. I don't know what happened between the two of you last night -"

"I'm surprised you don't have the apartment bugged," Sherlock muttered.

"- but it can't happen again. And if you insist on ignoring my orders, I will make sure that the two of you don't cross paths again," Mycroft said sternly.

"You can't tell me who I can and can't socialise with," Sherlock said indignantly, rising to his feet.

Mycroft stood to meet him, staring him down. "We both know that you don't socialise, brother," he said. "I'm warning you, for your own good, stay away from Amelia Pond. Forget about her, forget about everything she told you and move on." When Sherlock's eyes blazed with a challenge, Mycroft added, softer, "You barely know her. Stop now, before she can break your heart. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."

The younger Holmes felt something in his chest deflate at those words, and before the pain could show on his face he spun around and stalked into the kitchen, snatching a packet of cigarettes up off the table and lighting one with the flame burning beneath a Bunsen burner on the stove. He inhaled deeply and heard his brother's footsteps as he came to stand in the door way.

"I am sorry, Sherlock," Mycroft's voice drifted to him, low and ever so slightly apologetic at first. And then, firmer, "But this is for your own good." Sherlock didn't reply, just took a deeper drag on his cigarette and closed his eyes against the things Mycroft was saying. He continued, "And if I find out that you're using, I will make sure that you are sent to rehab. You will lose this apartment, and your job, and everything you've worked for. Do not let that happen."

Sherlock listened to the front door slam shut behind his older brother, smirking as it did so. He finished the cigarette and dropped it in the sink before turning to the elaborate case on the mantelpiece, grabbing out one bag of cocaine and setting about ignoring everything Mycroft had told him to do.

Two weeks after the fact Amy found herself a little tipsy at a mate's birthday party, and as she leant against the side wall of the house and puffed clouds of smoke into the night sky she tapped out a message to Holmes.

I'm wearing your scarf. Amy xx

Thirty seconds later she received a reply.

You seem to have developed a habit of wearing my clothes. – SH.

She bit her bottom lip, smiling coyly and feeling something like excitement bubble up inside her.

It's not my fault half my outfit got discarded in your lounge and I ended up in the bedroom.

She pressed send and giggled to herself, taking a deep drag of her cigarette and closing her eyes as she waited for the reply. The air was crisp but Amy felt warm, comforted by the alcohol swimming through her veins and the dark blue scarf that was indeed curled around her neck. Mels had found it in her drawer, commented on how it was the same colour as the Doctor's ship and insisted she wear it to the party tonight.

"Amy, there you are!" Rory's excited call broke through her reverie.

She started, stepping away from the wall and turning to look at her recently-official boyfriend. "Rory," she said stupidly, blinking up at him.

He looked really good tonight, in jeans and a black shirt that made him appear lean instead of gangly and awkward. He'd done something with his hair, styled it up a bit, and it made his cheekbones stand out more. Amy liked it.

"Everyone's wondering where you went. They're about to do the cake," he explained.

She dropped the cigarette to the ground and stomped on it with her heel, extinguishing the embers. "Coming," she said brightly, flashing him a toothy grin. Her phone buzzed in her hand and she instinctively glanced down at the screen, illuminating her hand in the dark.

"Oh, were you on the phone?" Rory asked, eyebrows furrowing slightly.

She glanced up at him and then back down at the mobile.

"No," she said, deleting the message without reading it. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and ran up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a kiss right on his lips. When she pulled back they were both breathless, and she murmured, "You look so hot tonight."

"So do you," he said appreciatively, rubbing his hands up her back.

"Get a room!" Mels yelled at them from just inside the door. She grinned as she scolded them, "You two are bloody hopeless. Come on, I want some of this cake already!"

Amy curled her fingers through Rory's and they followed Mels back into the throng of the party, and when Rory shared his slice of cake with her Amy gave him the sweetest smile she had and murmured, "You're the best."

Sherlock was fascinated by the idea of the Doctor. It had been a few weeks since Amy had first told him the story of the man who she thought had fallen out of the sky, but ever since Mycroft had endorsed his existence the younger Holmes had been obsessed with the idea of tracking him. He was a detective after all, and finding people by putting together clues was what detectives did best. The problem was, Sherlock had researched and hunted down clues and watched interviews with supposed eye-witnesses – always a shaky testimony, even in the best of cases, so he didn't put much weight on these – and while he'd found a wealth of reported sightings he hadn't found anything that made any sense.

The face of the man changed between accounts, which stretched over not decades but centuries. The stories ranged from the mundane to the fantastical, but none told him how to find the elusive Doctor. He'd managed to hack into some of Mycroft's information, which had led him to the website of an organisation titled UNIT – United Nations Intelligence Taskforce – but no matter what he'd tried he hadn't been able to hack his way into their systems.

What had started out as a question – Doctor Who? - on the wall in the room Amelia Pond occupied inside his mind palace soon spread like a virus, consuming the walls, the floor, the ceiling, merging with the identity of Amy herself and spilling out into a separate room entirely. He paced through it, picking out bits of information and going over them again and again, but still it just didn't make sense.

He'd been meaning to ask Amy for more information, and when she messaged him a fortnight after they'd met he thought it was the perfect opportunity. Not allowing himself to get distracted by her obvious flirting, he texted:

I have information about your Doctor. – SH.

She didn't reply. Not straight away, not later that night, not the next day or the next week or the next fortnight. By the next month he'd almost forgotten that he'd texted her at all. That was okay. Sherlock didn't need her anyway, she'd already told him everything she knew. Amy Pond may have started him on this search but he could easily continue it without her involvement.

...

Amy never lost faith, not really.

The Doctor finally came back, as raggedy and insane as ever, and Amy whacked him in the face with a cricket bat. She did it in self defence, mainly, but really he deserved it for being twelve years late.

She didn't believe him, at first, because she was nineteen now and her last teenage year had really started to seem like the beginning of the end. She was too old to believe in fairy tales like the raggedy man who'd crashed his time machine into her shed and eaten fish fingers and custard.

But he was there, the Doctor, asking her to believe for twenty minutes - and Amy did. While Mels was off on one of her unannounced junkets to god-knows-where, Rory was there in Leadworth, right in the thick of things in the hospital. They found Prisoner Zero, lost Prisoner Zero, and then eventually got him arrested and saved the entire planet from incineration. The aliens left, but then the Doctor called them back and gave them a talking to all while deciding on a tie, and Amy was in awe.

It was absolutely amazing; without a doubt the best day of her life.

Until the Doctor just ran off and disappeared again, this time without even the promise of "five minutes" to tide her over until his next appearance. Amy closed her eyes and felt the physical pain of her heart breaking as the wound she'd carried since she was seven was ripped violently open all over again.

It was pure coincidence that Sherlock bumped into her on the street, such an unexpected occurrence that for a moment he thought he was hallucinating. But no, there she was – Amy Pond, a year older but still so much the same. Her red hair was tumbling around her shoulders in soft curls, her eye make-up and extremely short skirt length suggesting that she was on her way to a party. The ladder in her stockings suggested that she didn't much care about the other people at the party, and the thick coat of lip gloss and perfectly manicured, bright red nails hinted that she was still working as a kissogram. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw his face, and her pink lips parted as she inhaled sharply.

"Sherlock," she breathed, and suddenly it was like he was animated again after months of being still.

"Amelia Pond," he greeted, a smug smirk settling on his face.

She scrunched up her nose. "Don't call me that."

"On your way to a party." It should have been a question, but it wasn't.

Amy smiled at him knowingly. "Yeah, I am. I've think I've got a bit of time to kill though, if you want to catch up?"

She was looking at him hopefully, but he made a show of checking his watch before saying, "I know a good café just around the corner."

So they began the short walk, and Amy started talking. "Mels – do you remember Mels? – well, she's constantly on the move. Darting about all over the place, but she always manages to find her way back to Leadworth. Anyway, this week she's staying with a girl in London, and she invited Rory and I to come to a party she's throwing tonight. We had to catch an early train because Rory needs to drop some stuff off at Saint Bartholomew's for a colleague."

"I work in their mortuary sometimes," Sherlock told her.

With mousy little Molly Hooper, who had just started and was so eager to please and easy to read that he already had her doing everything for him, including getting his coffee.

Amy blinked at him. "Still a consulting detective then?"

"Yes," he affirmed, stepping in front of her to hold the door to the café open.

She smiled gratefully as she ducked under his arm and into the warm café. They settled at a corner table and he watched as she shrugged her pea coat off her shoulders and draped it over the back of her chair. They both ordered coffee, and then Amy leant back in her seat and looked at him appraisingly.

"How are you?"

"Fine," he answered quickly, honestly. "I've got a lot of work at the moment. Mycroft's not being as much of a pain as usual. How are you?"

"As if you don't already know," she replied, eyes sparkling. "Go on, tell us what you've figured out."

He took a sip of his coffee and let his eyes roam over her, sitting in front of him close enough to touch, enthusiasm stretching her smirk into a smile.

"You're on your way to a party - " he began, only to have her cut him off.

"That's not impressive, I told you that!"

"- hosted by a person you don't like very much," Sherlock elaborated, and she leant forward in interest. "You stepped in a puddle on the way here and it probably made you certain that this party is not going to be worth the hassle. You're still working as a kissogram, but you're thinking of giving it up, and -" the words wanted to die in his throat, but he forced them out normally, "you and your boyfriend have finally made it official."

"How did you -" Amy began to ask, but at that moment her phone rang and she hurried to answer it. "Sorry, it's Rory, I just have to tell him where we are." Sherlock watched her take the call, hold the phone to her ear and smile instinctively as Rory's voice drifted through the receiver. "Hi, how'd it go? - Good, yeah, I ran into a friend. We're at a café, come meet us."

She gave him the name and location, and then set the hot pink mobile on top of the table. Amy was different, somehow, Holmes thought. She was still somewhat flighty and irrational and emotional – so emotional – but she just wasn't the same. She seemed… muted.

"Was I right?" Sherlock asked.

Amy laughed and she seemed to light up from the inside out, "Yes! Yes, you got everything right. I still don't know how you do that. How do you notice such tiny things?"

"Powers of perception," he answered simply.

"Yeah, well, I think yours are super powers. I tried it, you know? After – after I met you, I tried to deduce things about people. But I was rubbish at it! I kept getting it completely wrong, it was so embarrassing," she told him, laughing at herself and covering her face with her hands.

"It takes practice," he said gently, preparing to broach the topic he'd been waiting to ask about since he'd first bumped into her on the street. He steepled his hands on the table and asked, "So, did your Doctor ever come back for you?"

"He did!" Amy answered immediately, but there was a reserved nature to the response. Her eyes shone, but her hands immediately dropped to her lap, fingers twisted nervously, and her smile was small and sad, more reminiscent than excited for the future. "Yeah, he came back. And then he left again."

"He left you again?"

"Yeah, he's made a bit of a habit of it, hasn't he?" she tried to joke, taking a sip of her coffee and looking down at her heels. "I suppose it's okay though, really. I mean, if he came back once he's bound to come back again, yeah? I'll just wait for him."

"What if he doesn't appear for another twelve years?" Sherlock inquired seriously.

"Well then I guess I'll just – Hang on, you're talking like you believe me," Amy gaped at him. "Do you believe me now?"

Sherlock looked away, straightened his collar and cleared his throat. When she looked at him imploringly he said, "I've been doing some research."

"Oh, so you'll believe other people's accounts of meeting the Doctor but not mine?" she asked accusingly.

"I believe the evidence," he replied.

She opened her mouth, probably about to hurl an insult at him, but then a skinny man with a mop of brown hair and a nose out of proportion to the rest of his face entered the café and called out to her. Sherlock scraped his eyes over the man's lean form. He was the same age as Amy, he'd been putting in extra shifts at the hospital, he drank too much coffee and was desperate to settle down. Sherlock wondered what she saw in him.

"Rory," Amy greeted, smiling up at him as he made his way over to their table. "This is Sherlock."

"Sherlock," Rory repeated, offering a hand to shake but glancing between the two of them warily. "Sorry, how do you two -"

"Sherlock's the son of one of Aunt Sharon's friends," Amy offered, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

Realisation dawned on Rory's face and he dropped Sherlock's hand immediately. "You're the -"

"- One who let me stay at his house when I missed the train a few months ago," Amy hurriedly intervened, drawing her bottom lip up between her teeth as she waited to see if Rory would accept this explanation.

"Yes, because of her I had to sleep on the couch for the night," Sherlock agreed for her benefit, even though he wanted nothing more than to tell this boy what had really happened between him and his girlfriend.

Rory relaxed slightly – although the tension in his shoulders suggested that he was subconsciously prepared to punch Sherlock at the slightest provocation - and after about a minute of awkward small talk he reminded Amy that they had a party to get to, and she gulped down the rest of her coffee and stood to leave.

"Call me, okay?" she said to Sherlock, eyes serious.

He nodded silently, trying to simultaneously prepare himself for the moment when she was going to drape her arms around him in a hug and also brace himself for the chance that she was going to walk away without touching him. She went to hug him and then stopped awkwardly, with one arm held out in front of herself halfway through the motion of wrapping around his shoulders. He clasped her hand in his, the tips of his fingers grazing the pulse racing at her wrist, and they shook hands like acquaintances.

"Goodbye," he said stiffly.

"Bye," she said warmly, waving as Rory intertwined their fingers and led her from the café.

She glanced back over her shoulder at him as they passed by the front window, and the corners of her mouth turned down when she met his cold gaze. As soon as she was out of sight, Sherlock retrieved his phone from his coat pocket and deleted Amy Pond's number.

In the absence of the Doctor – and, to a lesser extent, Sherlock Holmes – Amy's life fell into a routine.

She continued working as a kissogram, and the cop outfit remained her favourite. She painted her nails a new colour every Sunday, but she liked the red polish most, because it felt sexy and sophisticated and Amy was not a little girl anymore.

She tried to keep track of Mels, but that girl was getting more and more wild and there were only so many times Amy could afford to bail her out before it got ridiculous. She continued to fall for Rory slowly, opening her heart up to him piece by shattered piece, and his skilled nurse's hands gradually stitched her back together.

She sketched pictures of her Doctor, in his raggedy clothes and then in his new tweed jacket and bowtie – why he chose the bowtie, out of everything in that hospital locker room, she did not know – and she texted Holmes a few casual, friendly messages, but of course nothing came from either pursuit.

Amy continued to stargaze, looking out for a blue police telephone box and wondering why all the most interesting men had to be lunatics who loved disappearing without warning.

Sherlock was bored.

The cases the police force were giving him were boring. Easy to solve robberies, missing persons that were just runaway teens easily located by the homeless network, a jealous wife who stabbed her adulterer husband and tried to frame the maid. Nothing exciting, nothing scintillating.

The walls of his apartment became stifling, but there was nothing of any interest outside them. Mycroft had gotten a promotion and was tracking his every move since he'd been discovered having coffee with Amy, which made the outside world even less appealing.

He lay about in his pyjamas, plucking the strings of his violin and researching the Doctor whenever he had a bolt of inspiration, but he'd hit a metaphorical brick wall with his study of the strange man and nothing he did seemed to even dent the mystery.

He thought about Amy, sometimes. About her feisty temper and indignation in the face of his deductions. About how she'd kissed him, and for the first time ever Sherlock had thought that human interaction might be worth something after all. He remembered the cadence of her voice, the Scottish accent that perfectly matched her red hair. He remembered the way she looked, lying in the middle of the road and pointing at the stars, and the fear in her eyes when he'd saved her life, quickly replaced by lust. He dreamt of her skin against his, stuck together with sweat, and the shape of her body beneath his hands. He thought about how infuriatingly impossible she was, and he wondered what she was doing as he was lying there thinking about her. He imagined that she was with Rory, the concerned boyfriend who she'd returned to Leadworth for, and he rolled over and buried his face in the side of the couch.

Amy said yes when Rory proposed. Of course she said yes. There was no reason at all to say no.

Rory was sweet, Rory was funny, Rory would never do anything to hurt her, Rory had loved her since they were seven.

So when Rory asked her if she would do him the honour of marrying him, Amy said yes.

He slipped the diamond ring onto her finger and kissed her passionately, and she shrieked with excitement when he lifted her feet off the ground and spun her in a circle.

Because this was exciting. She was excited. She was going to marry a man who loved her more than life itself, and she loved him too. She did, really, deep down. Of course she did, or she wouldn't have stayed with him, she wouldn't have said yes. She loved Rory. He just loved her more, that was all.

When they'd told Mels she'd screamed and jumped up and down and hugged them both so tightly Amy had thought her ribs were going to crack. They'd never seen her this excited about anything before, which was weird because she always said how much she hated weddings.

When they asked her why she was so happy she replied, "Because you two are perfect for each other. You're meant to be."

A week after the proposal Amy looked at the ring in its little red box on her nightstand, reflecting the moonlight filtering in through her curtains, and she thought, completely at random, of Sherlock Holmes and how he'd known that Rory was her boyfriend before she'd known herself.

She grabbed her mobile and typed him a message, the first in a long time. She hesitated and almost decided not to send it, but eventually did.

Rory and I are engaged.

The reply was instant:

Congratulations. – SH.

Sherlock was bored, so he started using more.

It was a gradual increase, and he was safe – always safe, always sterile, never out of control. Never enough to overdose, but enough to give him a rush. Injecting was quick, and he was good at it after all the practice he'd gotten in university. Two point five grams a week, he told himself. That was the limit, and he stuck to it. For the most part.

When he got the text from Amy – of course it was from her, of course she'd kept his number even though he'd deleted hers, of course she'd text him the bad news - saying that she and Rory were engaged, Sherlock used up the last of the stash in the box on the mantle and took a hit big enough to give him tremors. His pulse was fluttering as he shakily made his way to the toilet, rapidly but weakly beating against his skin. He was nauseous but not enough to actually vomit, and he sat on the tiles berating himself until the high was over and he crashed.

Of course Mycroft caught him. His darling brother sent him straight to a rehabilitation centre, despite Sherlock's insistence that he did not need outside assistance to stop using - because that's what this was, he was a user, not an addict. The rehab centre was out in the country and filled to the brim with celebrities trying to keep their addictions to drugs, alcohol and sex out of the eyes of the media, all hush-hush.

Detective Inspector Lestrade seemed genuinely upset when he found out that Sherlock was going. He was the only one on the force allowed to know where he was going and why – everyone else was to be told that he was away on a holiday, and even then only when they explicitly asked - and the DI's expression suggested that he was genuinely concerned for Sherlock's welfare. As Sherlock had dismissed the incarceration as nothing more than a precaution to shut up his brother, Lestrade had wondered out loud who the police force were going to get to help them now. Sherlock had quipped that maybe if his force stopped being so imbecilic and incompetent then they wouldn't need outside help. Lestrade told him to have a nice holiday.

Months went by, and as Sherlock struggled to overcome the crippling boredom of sobriety while surrounded by addicts, he found himself filling his time and his thoughts with things other than the Doctor. There was enough intrigue in the lives of the other patients and enough affairs between the staff to keep his deduction skills honed. He renovated his mind palace, moving both the Doctor and Amy Pond – because their identities were so inextricably linked in his thoughts now that to move one was to move the other - to a small corner of the property and put a lock on the door.

When he got out he resumed his job as consulting detective immediately, filling his time with the most interesting cases the force had to offer him. An old client, the amicable Mrs Hudson, offered him a flat on Baker Street, but he wouldn't have been able to afford it without Mycroft's assistance. Refusing to stoop so low – his resentment for his brother had only grown over the course of his time in rehab – he resolved to find a roommate to share the expense.

He was in the lab at St. Bart's hospital when the rotund but bearable Mike Stamford introduced him to Doctor John Watson. Invalided home from Afghanistan, looking for a flatmate and with a psychosomatic limp that Sherlock was sure he could rid him of. He liked him immediately, and as soon as John stepped into 221B Sherlock Holmes knew that he'd finally found someone he could live with.

It was the night before her wedding when the Doctor finally came back for Amy. Two years late, again, and as unapologetic as ever. She ran away with him, utterly captivated by his charm, and finally able to live the dream she'd held on to for fourteen long years.

He took her on marvellous adventures throughout Time and Space. She met the enigmatic River Song, she snogged the Doctor and then he went and fetched Rory to remind her why she'd fallen in love with him in the first place. They fought sexy fish vampires in Venice, died in a dream after Amy realised that she didn't want to live without Rory, and then they met the Silurians – and that was where everything went wrong.

"Tell me it's going to be okay, you have to make it okay!" Amy howled, staring at the Doctor through her tears as Rory lay on the ground outside, his dead body being absorbed by the light from the crack.

A horrible aching pain was overwhelming her, the awful sensation and knowledge that something vital was being ripped from her.

"It's going to be hard, but you can do it," the Doctor told her gravely, kneeling in front of her and urging her to focus. "Tell me about Rory, huh? Fantastic Rory, funny Rory, gorgeous Rory. Amy, listen to me: Do exactly as I say. Amy, please, keep concentrating. You can do this."

Images flashed through her mind, but they were blurred at the edges. Rory and her walking hand in hand on their last date, kissing on a park bench. Rory in his dad's shirt when they were little, Rory's smile when she agreed to marry him, Rory in that stupid, embarrassing shirt with their faces printed on it. RoryRoryRoryRory… But he was fading. She couldn't remember the colour of his eyes, the feel of his hand in hers, the sound of his voice when he said her name…

"I can't," she choked out.

The Doctor insisted, almost pleading, "You can, you can do it! I can't help you unless you do. We can still save his memory."

She willed herself to focus, putting all of her energy into bringing her memories of Rory back into focus. She fought against the hurt, against the mental drain, and slowly the image of Rory began to solidify in her mind again. She could remember his face, the kind green eyes, the pointed chin, the short hair and the nose; she remembered how he made her feel, as though she shone brighter than any star in any of the galaxies -

And then the TARDIS jolted, and Amy was thrown off the jump seat and on to the floor. Her concentration broke immediately, and when Amy Pond sat back up again she didn't remember Rory Williams' existence at all.