Episode Ten: Still Life
"You should talk to him."
Holmes cast him a wary look.
"Should I?" he returned. "Why me and not you?"
Watson shrugged. "One genius to another." Stroking his ego usually worked, but Holmes still seemed dissatisfied.
"There's genius and there's Time Lord genius. They're two very different levels of intellectual prowess."
"Genius isn't subjective," Watson said. "It's a state of being, a detachment, a pain. And it's entirely relative."
Holmes looked across at him, seeming surprised. "You show wisdom beyond your years."
Watson smiled and said, "Well, I've spent enough time around you, haven't I?"
He looked back at the console. The Doctor had been circling it for the better part of an hour, forlornly setting and resetting the engine calibration, even though it only needed to be done once every few trips. It was a sad sight to see – sad and a little bit pathetic.
"I don't know what I'd even say to him," Holmes said. "The weight must be extraordinary."
"He knows it was necessary. He just needs reminding, I think."
"No, it's more than that," Holmes said slowly. "There's a more profound pain in him. Nine hundred years old… a human has committed worse atrocities in ten years than three hundred deaths for just cause. There's something else weighing on him. Something we don't understand."
Watson frowned. "What could make any heart so heavy?"
"Would you really want to know?"
Watson turned forward, considering his answer for a moment. "No," he said eventually. "I don't think I would, actually."
Holmes righted himself, sighing. "Still," he said, "I should talk to him, if for no other reason than to keep him from wearing a tread in the floor of the console room." He leaned over and kissed Watson languidly on the corner of the mouth, then pushed off towards the console.
The Doctor looked up when he entered. Holmes threw himself into the chair.
"So," Holmes said, "you need a vacation."
"I live in a time machine, travelling all of space and time with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. What about my life isn't a vacation?" His words were brave and his smile was firm, but it wasn't fooling Holmes.
"You travel aimlessly, being daft and fixing what needs fixing. When was the last time you went somewhere specifically for the purpose of relaxing?"
The Doctor's smile flickered out of existence. He went back to attending to the console.
Holmes rose and leveled him with an even stare. "You don't want to relax, do you, Doctor?" he asked. "Because when you relax, you stop thinking. And when you stop thinking, your mind always drifts back…"
"Holmes," said the Doctor, his voice a low and grave warning.
"Is it to do with Gallifrey?"
The hand hovering over the panel of switches halted.
The lack of answer was answer enough for Sherlock Holmes. "Would it help if you talked about it?"
The Doctor was silent for a while. Eventually, his hand returned to the switchboard.
"No," he said, "not really."
"Then would it help to know that after everything we've been through, I find myself utterly incapable of hating you, no matter what you've done?"
The TARDIS engines thrummed and began to oscillate. The Doctor looked across at him, his gaze searching. It drew, after a moment, a terrible and tragic smile.
"Yes," said the Doctor, "that helps."
"Then hear it and know it to be true. And in the meantime, I have someplace I'd like to see."
Watson came out from the back hallway, and the Doctor raised both eyebrows. "My, my," he said. "Mr. Holmes, aren't you being adventurous."
"I picked up a pamphlet on it while we were in the museum," he said, producing a thrice-folded piece of cardstock from the pocket of his waistcoat. "I must admit that when I read the given description, I was most intrigued. It's called Castle Vivas – built in the year 10,500,000 from the living stone of the surrounding mountains. It is a sentient castle."
Watson seemed unconvinced. "How can a castle be sentient?"
"It's not as impossible as you might think," the Doctor said. "I've met sentient stars before, so all things considered, castles is a step down. Still, Castle Vivas is a bit, well…"
Holmes raised an eyebrow. "A bit what?"
"Touristy."
"Isn't that what we are, Doctor?" Holmes answered, laughing. "Tourists?"
The Doctor grinned and pulled down the hand brake. "Well, when you put it like that. I suppose I can stand touristy for a little while if dear Mr. Holmes finds it so interesting."
"Aren't you accommodating," Holmes teased, grabbing hold of the console just as they tumbled off through time and space.
When they stepped out of the TARDIS, they were nearly blinded. They had landed about half a league off from the castle, which was situated at the low crux between two mountains. The walls were gleaming white marble, rimmed with gold from the sunset behind it. Its spires reached up into the pinkish horizon, and its crimson banners were caught high in the wind.
"My word," Watson said reverently. "It's beautiful!"
"So this is what a sentient castle looks like," Holmes remarked. "I must say, it bears a striking resemblance to the non-sentient variety."
"It's subtle," the Doctor said, "like the TARDIS. It's sentient, but not, explicitly speaking, conscious."
They started off across the drawbridge, the Doctor ambling out in front and Holmes and Watson trailing behind, their hands interlaced. As they made it to the immense, arching doorway and into the antechamber, the true opulence of the castle hit them full force.
The main hall alone was a dazzling example of opulence with its vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows and marble floors. The immensity of it echoed around them, soft and reverberant, and very, very empty.
"Like I said," the Doctor said. "Touristy."
"Something becomes popular because it has much to offer," Holmes pointed out, heading forward to peer around the room. "Doesn't this strike you as odd, Doctor?"
"Odd in what way?"
"Well," Holmes said slowly as he scanned the hall, "you keep mentioning how it's a tourist hotspot. It's the middle of a beautiful day. Why, then, is it empty?"
The word "empty" rang around the room. The Doctor frowned and slowly produced his sonic screwdriver, which he used to scan the surrounding area. He flipped it back open and checked the readings.
"Interesting," was all he said.
"That's our cue to look around, Watson, my love," Holmes said as he took Watson by the arm and started up the immense, curving staircase leading to an overhanging hallway.
"Don't go too far!" the Doctor called after them. "I'm going round to see the origin of these power fluctuations!"
But Holmes and Watson were already halfway up the steps. A draft rushed past them as they reached the upper level.
"Have you thought about the proposition I mentioned last night, Watson?" asked Holmes as they turned left and headed further into the upper level.
"Ah. Well. Yes, but…"
"Why does it make you so uncomfortable?"
"Holmes—"
"It's what you wanted, isn't it?"
Watson shook his head. "No. Not as such, anyway. Holmes, sex shouldn't…" He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he wondered how to phrase it. "It shouldn't be a preventative measure. It should be a celebration of love."
Holmes lofted one eyebrow. "Why can't it be both?"
"Because you're asexual! For you it would be clinical and calculated."
"Watson, just because I have no sexual drive does not mean my desire isn't earnest. I want to share it with you because I love you and I want to make you happy. Isn't that reason enough?"
"Holmes, look!"
They'd reached a wide hallway lined with artwork and windows, looking rather like an immense gallery. Streams of white sunlight filtered in and illuminated scores of what seemed, at first look, to be statues.
"What strange statuary," Watson said as he hesitantly moved forward. He inspected a group of three who were standing in admiration of a painting of a violet-skinned woman.
"These aren't statues," Holmes said gravely.
"They're made of stone," remarked Watson.
"The same stone as the floor, as if they emerged directly from it," Holmes continued as he circled a statue in the center of the hallway whose face was contorted into a terrified scream. "This type of stone wouldn't have the tensile strength necessary to be so molded."
"How, then, did they come to be?"
"Excellent question," muttered Holmes.
From the other side of the room there suddenly came a voice, new but familiar: "One that we do not have time to answer."
Holmes was first to spin around on his heel, Watson a split second after. Their weapons were half-drawn when they saw, to their astonishment—
"Mycroft?"
There he was, in his suit and top hat, with his weighted cane and hard-soled shoes clicking on the floor as he approached. He came to a stop in front of his brother with the same, infuriating smile he always wore.
"Hello, brother," Mycroft said. "I've been looking for you."
o :: o :: o
The Doctor's screwdriver buzzed increasingly frequently, guiding him slowly to the source of the power fluctuations. He was, by his estimate, about ten yards away when he tripped and landed on his face.
He pulled himself up and dusted himself off only to find that he'd tripped over a stone foot.
Sometimes when he was really focused on something he didn't notice anything else, even if it was a statue attached to the wall that was writing the word "RUN".
"Run," the Doctor read. "Strange sort of statue."
He scanned it with his screwdriver. The readings made him frown.
"That's not good," he decided. Then he raised his voice and called, "Holmes? Watson?" He took off in a jog.
o :: o :: o
"That's not possible," Holmes decided. "How is this possible?"
"We really don't have time for an explanation," Mycroft said lightly.
"We're millions of years into the future and on a different planet," Holmes said, his voice rapidly becoming more and more shrill. "How is it possible that you're here?"
"I am merely doing what I have always done," said Mycroft. "I am looking out for you."
"Looking out for me!" Holmes laughed humorlessly. "Is that what you call it? Because most would call it stalking!"
"We need to leave Castle Vivas immediately," Mycroft said. "It is not safe."
"I should say so. Apparently they're letting anyone in these days," countered Holmes disparagingly.
Watson grabbed his shoulder. "I think we have more important things to focus on than sibling rivalry, my friend," he said.
"Like leaving," Mycroft volunteered.
"Like answers," Watson riposted. "Sherlock's right; it's a very big universe out there, and there's every possibility that you're some sort of weird alien imposter. How can we be sure you are who you say you are?"
Mycroft smirked. "I suppose you can't," he said. "But the real question is what choice you have."
"Holmes! Watson!"
The Doctor came skidding around the corner.
"We have to leave right now. It's very dangerous and I think all these statues are bodies and who's this?"
Holmes's lips pursed. "Doctor, this is my brother, Mycroft Holmes – or at least something very similar to him."
The Doctor spent a few minutes looking between Sherlock and Mycroft. "What, really?"
Mycroft stepped towards the Doctor and looked over him very carefully. "Interesting," he said.
"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked.
"He won't say."
"We need to leave," Mycroft said, turning away from the Doctor. "All of us. Right now."
"Agreed," the Doctor said with a nod. "I just ran a scan and all these statues around us weren't always statues. They're being…" He frowned and hunted for the right verb.
"Digested," Mycroft suggested, his voice grim.
"How do you mean, digested?" Watson asked.
"This castle is sentient," the Doctor said. "It's alive. And for some reason, it's also hungry."
"Fine, yes," Holmes said, "very well; back to the TARDIS. But brother dearest is coming with us; I don't care if I have to drag you. You're answering my questions."
They set off back down the hallway from whence they came until they reached the top of the staircase. Below them, where the large front doorway should have been, there was nothing but a flat stone wall.
"Oh, no," the Doctor said. "No, no, no!" He ran forward and splayed both hands over the wall. "Why can't we ever just leave?"
"Smash the windows, then," Watson said, producing his rifle from the sling across his bag and firing it. The glass shattered initially, but quickly sealed itself back up like a scab.
"We're trapped," Holmes muttered.
"The curse of sentience is mortality," Mycroft said, sounding entirely too mild for the direness of the situation. "We must find a way to kill it."
"What? No!" the Doctor countered, sounding offended. "Why do we have to kill it? I don't like killing!"
"Don't you?" Mycroft wondered, sounding grimly amused. "You've certainly done enough of it."
The Doctor felt his blood run cold. "Who are you?"
Mycroft smiled. "The one with the answers. The only way out is to kill the castle. I advise we spend our time and effort trying to figure out how."
"Killing should be a last resort," Watson offered uncertainly.
"It shouldn't be any kind of resort!" the Doctor protested.
"My job, my only objective, is to protect Sherlock," said Mycroft. "I am not burdened with guilt. If you will not kill this castle, then I will."
"Your job? What do you mean by that?" asked Watson.
"I'll have to stop you," warned the Doctor.
"By killing me?" Mycroft challenged glibly.
"If necessary."
"How very Biblical. I can see now why you've been running so far."
"Who are you?" the Doctor asked again, his tone more demanding.
"Hate to break up the argument," Holmes rasped, "but we have a bit of a problem."
Watson was the first to turn, and when he saw the stone floor snaking up Holmes's ankle like a terrible vine. "Holmes!" he said, hurrying forward and kicking at the stone.
"No, no, no!" the Doctor said, throwing himself against the floor and frantically running his screwdriver around the surface of the growing stone cast. "Stop it! Stop it!"
Mycroft easily produced a monocle from his waistcoat pocket. As Watson and the Doctor frantically pounded and buzzed at the growing sheathe of stone, which had reached his mid-thigh, Mycroft's monocle flashed a bright golden and the stone abruptly shattered. Reactively, the entire castle gave a shudder as if it were in pain.
"How did you—?" the Doctor began.
"This room is no longer safe," Mycroft said. "Run."
With Holmes limping slightly, they took off towards the far end of the ground floor and came into something that looked like a dining room.
"Do you folks play 'The Floor Is Lava' in Victorian England?" the Doctor asked as he climbed up onto the table. "Everyone up!"
As the others clambered off the floor, Holmes reached into his vest pocket and produced the same pamphlet he'd plucked from the museum and began to pore over it.
"It's a very simple game," the Doctor said. "Just don't step on the floor or the castle will eat you."
"We need a plan, Doctor," Watson said. "And I know you don't like killing, but—"
"No," he said resolutely. "There's been entirely too much killing!"
"Doctor," Watson continued impatiently, "I know you're still upset about what happened with the Homo habilis, but you said yourself that this castle is sentient but not conscious. How does one reason with something that isn't conscious?"
"We'll find a way!"
"And if we don't? The TARDIS is outside; we can't get to it. We're trapped."
"It has a brain," Holmes said.
Watson and the Doctor looked up to Holmes, who had unfolded the pamphlet and was pointing to a particular passage within. "I thought I remembered reading something about it. There's a brain in the cellar. If nothing else we can interface with it. The sonic screwdriver does have a psychic interface, so in theory—"
"In theory, yes," Mycroft said, "but it won't reason; it isn't capable of that."
"I'll hold on passing judgment," Holmes answered snippily. "I'm still not convinced you're not some evil clone or an alien or a hologram or something. You most certainly are not my brother."
"How do we get from here to the cellar?" Watson asked.
"Isn't it obvious, Dr. Watson?" the Doctor said as he picked up one of the dining chairs. "The floor is lava, so we build a bridge!"
o :: o :: o
It was a cumbersome but effective method. With five dining chairs and a wobbly system of passing, they were able to make their way across the castle. The stone floor beneath them would quake and rock like a strange stone ocean, and on more than one occasion it threatened to knock them over.
That they made it down the steps was nothing short of a miracle. When they came into the main room of the lowest level, they were met with a web of thin, stone columns crisscrossing from floor to ceiling or wall to wall. Tiny electrical impulses ran along the lengths of the shafts.
"Incredible!" Watson said. "A web of neurons made from stone!"
"The wildest of fictions pale in comparison to fact," Holmes said as he watched the impulses glint and flicker across the stone.
"Let me see if I can interface with it," the Doctor said as he produced his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. He'd scarcely begun to scan when he dropped it and doubled over, gripping his head.
"Doctor!" Watson said, grabbing him by the shoulder. "What's wrong?"
"It's in pain," Mycroft remarked with a detached, clinical interest. "As if it's been tortured somehow. The sonic screwdriver reflected it back into the Doctor."
"How does one torture a castle?" Holmes wondered.
"Carefully, I imagine," Mycroft replied.
"Blimey, that's a lot of pain," the Doctor said as he ran his hands through his hair, mussing it even further. "It's deliberate, too. Someone's making it happen; but how? And why?"
The Doctor leapt off his chair and landed on a desk in the corner of the room, scanning the wall.
Holmes was left to look at Mycroft, the suspicion on his face glaring.
"Who are you, really?" he asked.
Mycroft gazed back at him, not responding.
"How did you get here?" Holmes pressed.
But still Mycroft said nothing.
"How do you know all of this? How did you break my foot free and how did you know this castle is being tortured?"
But still Mycroft said nothing.
"Why aren't you answering me?" he demanded angrily.
"The time isn't right," Mycroft said. "Not yet."
"Time? What on earth are you talking about? If you're really my brother, then you've had nothing but time!"
"I am not your brother," Mycroft said.
"So you aren't Mycroft Holmes."
"I am Mycroft Holmes, after a fashion," he remarked, "but I am not your brother."
"You're not making any sense! Mycroft Holmes is my brother! Either you are him or you aren't! Which is it?"
Still, Mycroft remained silent. The look on his face was almost sad.
"Answer me!"
"I can't," he said. "I'm sorry."
"Ah-ha!" the Doctor cried. Something from below hummed and buzzed, and the floor opened up. Emerging from beneath came a large, dusty screen, which, after a few moments, flickered and sputtered to life.
"Good evening, Doctor!"
The Doctor whirled around on the table and saw the shadowy figure – the emperor – staring out at him, his face obscured by the backlight.
"Him again," Watson groaned.
"Don't bother trying to respond. This is just a recording. I've set it to play when your screwdriver unlocks the sonic cage I've put around this poor castle's brain."
The Doctor slowly climbed off the table and back onto the chair to get a closer look.
"I'm not quite sure where in your timeline this message has ended up, so without revealing too much, I'll just say that it's so far been a singular pleasure. You really do have quite a remarkable mind!
"I've set up this entire castle just for you. The entire thing was commissioned by me specifically for this purpose. Allow me to explain.
"Built into the very framework of this remarkable piece of architecture is the strongest generator on the planet. As I speak it's pumping thousands of volts directly into its brain. In addition to being excruciatingly painful, it also drives the poor thing just a little bit mad. If all goes according to plan – which, if you've heard this message, it has – it has already killed everyone to set foot within it, starting with the moment you landed your TARDIS. Or, well, almost everyone. You and your friends still seem to be alive. Congratulations!"
The Doctor's face darkened.
"Now here's the fun part: I designed this torture device to be built into the very body of the castle. You cannot destroy the torture mechanism without destroying the castle, itself. So either you kill this beautiful, remarkable, living piece of architecture, or it carries on for millions of years in unendurable agony, eating anyone who happens to wander inside.
"I wonder if your conscience can take such an act of violence. But then, you didn't seem to have any trouble killing three thousand humans for the sake of their progenitors. Of course, that was to save all of humanity! I wonder, does that lessen the guilt that comes with all those lives? Does it soften the blow, knowing that the ends justified the means?"
The Doctor swallowed.
"It's been a pleasure, Doctor. I'll see you soon."
The screen went black and descended back into the floor.
For several very long moments, silence stretched between them.
"He's correct," Mycroft said. "My scans reveal that the generator stretches across the entire lower half of the castle."
"I know," the Doctor answered, sitting cross-legged down on the chair.
"That's his plan?" Holmes wondered aloud. "To guilt you to death? It seems a little slow in terms of efficacy."
"I have to do it," the Doctor said, covering his face with both hands. "I have to kill it. It's the only way."
Watson crossed to the empty chair next to the Doctor. "As a medical man," he said, "I can say that if this entity is truly in so much pain, killing it would be mercy before it is murder."
"It's still murder," the Doctor said. "Saying it's anything less is just a rationalization."
"Whatever you do, Doctor," Holmes said lowly, "I advise you do it soon. The stairwell through which we came through is beginning to shut."
The rumbling of stone became audible. The stairway was squeezing closed like a knotted hose. Reluctantly, the Doctor rose and looked into the central bundle of interconnected stone columns.
"This castle is ten thousand years old," he said.
"Mycroft! What are you doing?"
He'd stepped off the chair, and the floor beneath them once again began to ripple and shake like a choppy sea. He carefully walked to the center of the room, ducking a few columns until he reached the middle bundle.
"I'm doing what I have always done, Sherlock," Mycroft said. "I'm protecting you."
"Mycroft!"
The stone began to snake up his legs. Mycroft pressed both hands to the grouping of columns, and all at once, cracks began to form across his skin, through which dazzling white-gold light shone through. The cracks grew wider and more numerous until, with a roar, he seemed to split apart at the seams.
The electrical impulses running through the columns stopped. The entire building began to groan, as if it had been hit with a wrecking ball and was about to collapse in on itself. Where Mycroft Holmes once stood, there was nothing more than a small, clear crystal.
"Get out! Everyone get out! Run!"
The Doctor leapt off the chair and urged Watson to do the same. Holmes managed to dive forward and grab the crystal off the ground before loping off behind Watson, who was already hurrying up the narrowed staircase.
Enormous chunks of stone broke off and crashed into the ground around them. They weaved their way through falling rafters until they came to the entrance hall. Again Watson pulled out his rifle and fired into the window; this time, it did not patch itself back up, and they climbed through one at a time.
Castle Vivas came down with a deafening cry, its mighty spires cracking and collapsing, dust rising up to a blinding fog into the sky. Holmes barely made it across the bridge and into the TARDIS before it all collapsed along the mountainside.
o :: o :: o
"Doctor…"
He didn't answer. He was staring into the console listlessly. Holmes did not need to ask to see that he was conflicted, and it killed him to see it.
"Doctor."
He held out the crystal beneath the Doctor's nose. The Doctor frowned and slowly plucked it off his palm.
"This was all that was left of Mycroft," Holmes said. "What is it?"
The Doctor didn't reply immediately. He circled to the other side of the console and put the strange gem under a magnifying glass. He examined it in silence.
"That's not possible."
"We've dealt with many impossible things today, Doctor, and I haven't even yet had breakfast. What is it?"
"It's…" The Doctor stood upright. "It can't be. It's…" He looked at Holmes, as if some great and terrible news had just hit him. "How could you have it?"
"Have what?" asked Watson, who'd been listening from the side. "What is it?"
Again, the Doctor didn't answer. Eventually, however, he said: "Tell me about your childhood."
The question seemed to be such a non sequitur that it caught both Holmes and Watson by surprise.
"Where on earth did that question come from?" Holmes asked.
"Your childhood," the Doctor repeated, speaking so carefully one would think he was next to a ticking bomb. "Tell me about it. It's a simple enough question."
"It… it was normal," Holmes said uncertainly. "I'm not sure what you want me to say."
"Who were your childhood friends?" the Doctor asked.
Holmes frowned and pursed his lips.
"What was your favorite food that your mum cooked for you?" he continued. "Did your parents have a good relationship? How did you spend your youth?"
Holmes shifted his weight between his feet. This response – or rather, the lack of response – seemed to startle the Doctor even more.
"But – no, that isn't possible," he said. "In Galilee, I took it from you – unless it was in something else? Something—" The Doctor stopped abruptly and looked back at the crystal. All color had since drained from his face.
"Doctor," Watson said impatiently, "you're not making any sense. Out with it, man! Clear and concise! What is that crystal?"
"It can't be," he whispered. "It's not possible. It—"
The entirety of the TARDIS shook suddenly, so violently that all three of them fell to one side. The core began to oscillate and the lights flickered violently.
"Good evening, Doctor!" came a familiar voice from the TARDIS screen. "I told you I'd be seeing you soon!"