Chapter Nine

Conflicting Theories

The Doctor was sipping tea as he poked around the flat. The man was fascinated, which is only expected considering we were famous and fictional from his point of view. "So this is Bakers street," he murmured, "I love it!" Throwing his hands in the air, the alien spun in a circle. His tea splashed out of the cup, but John was the only person who seemed to mind. In the corner, his blue box hummed.

The Doctor nodded several times, slammed his cup down, and sat on the top of our couch. I honestly could care less where he sat on the furniture, but when I glanced at John, I saw that it peeved him.

Ugh. Why did people have so many useless manners?

With a frown, the Doctor leaned forward. John's laptop was open and I had noticed it displayed John's blog. I hadn't read it because honestly, John's blog annoyed me. The Doctor picked up the computer and John opened his mouth to protest.

"Something catch your eye?" I murmured from my spot by the mantle piece.

"You could say so," the Doctor answered, tapping on the computer. "I forgot how primitive the technology is in this time period," he murmured. He frowned, tapped some more, and then spun the screen around. His eyes focused on John. "How long has this been going on?"

John shrugged, squinting at the screen. "Oh that! Sometimes people post cases onto my blog for Sherlock to see. Everything has been so insane I haven't shown that one to him yet."

"Yes, but how long has this case been here in particular?"

John thought for a moment and shrugged. "I dunno. A few days?" Suddenly he made a connection. Jumping forward, he pulled the laptop from the Doctor and stared at the screen. It was a message from an anonymous user and included in the message was a picture of an ice statue.

John's eyes shot up to mine. "You said you and the Doctor ran into a statue. Was it like this?"

I pushed forward and there the picture was. It was actually a collage of several pictures, all of different ice statues in a variety of gruesome poses. "Yes," I answered. "There's more of them..." I looked up at the Doctor. The alien was completely silent.

That was odd. The man never shut up. What he had seen on the screen was affecting him deeply.

I sighed inwardly. They were just statues!

"Our fanatical artist has struck again."

John shook his head. "No, Sherlock. It's more than that. Look," He pointed at the message. "It says that each statue matches the features of real people and the people are-"

"Missing," the Doctor interjected,"Their bodies not found? Told you so."

"Told me what?" I looked up at him. "That doesn't prove your hypothesis. "

"But it's sure interesting, isn't it?"

"They could still be alive."

"That's unlikely."

He was right. Several days with no sign of a missing person usually meant death.

John's head turned from the Doctor to me. "Wait, what does he think happened?"

The Doctor never said it, but I could guess his thoughts by his reaction. "He thinks that someone is turning people into ice cubes."

John blinked. "Is that possible?"

"Yes." "No," the Doctor and I said at the same time.

I turned away and paced the floor. If I had happened to look, I would have seen that the carpet was worn away because of how often I paced in that particular spot.

There had to be another explanation. A logical one.

Then it dawned on me. How idiotic not to think of this sooner...

"if this ice sculptor is actually killing people, he could be doing it in another way besides turning them into ice." I rolled my eyes at my stupidity.

"Could be a she..." John offered.

I shook my head. "Some of the male statues are massive people. It's unlikely a woman would be able to overpower them." I let out a frustrated huff and continued thinking out loud. "Serial killers, which he seems to be, often have ways of showing their dominance over their victims. Some brand the bodies, leave a token, that sort of thing."

"So this killer might be showing his dominance by-"

"Sculpting a statue of his victims in their last moments? And then destroying the body in one way or another." I nodded. "Yes, that makes sense."

The Doctor watched the two of us and finally shook his head. "That's horrible."

"No worse than you're theory, Doctor," I countered, hands clasped behind my back.

"It's still horrible. How can you not be affected? Either way, people still died."

I stopped pacing and looked at him. For a moment I wanted to tell him what I really thought, but then I decided against it.

Of course I was affected, but instead of being shut down, I took any feelings of horror or remorse and funneled it into my ability to function. It wasn't logical to let emotions keep me from acting to the best of my ability. I'd been turning my emotions into action for so long that I hardly felt remorse anymore. People die. It's what they do. All I could do was catch the culprit and stop him before anyone else got hurt.

John sighed. "He's Sherlock Holmes, Doctor. Don't expect much on the sympathetic side."

I scowled at my partner but didn't say anything. John was completely right, I just didn't like him saying it.

The Doctor stood up and looked me in the eye. He had to tilt his head up slightly to do so, which ruined the intimidating effect. "Well then, Sherlock Holmes. You wouldn't mind hearing my theory then?"

"Certainly not. Proceed." I kept eye contact with him the entire time and was surprise to see he did not look away.

He was confident in his opinion. Very confident. It was almost like he was listened to my theory just to humor himself.

"Right then." He smirked. "While I was traveling here in the TARDIS I took time to examine the statue."

"Alright."

He bounced on his heels. "You know that the human body is made between 50 and 60% of water?"

"I am a scientist, Doctor," I said. "Yes. I'm aware."

"Good. So then you know that all of that water is not in one place, it is distributed throughout every cell, every vein, every bit of tissue."

"... Yes."

He smiled. "So what would happen if everything except water was removed from the body?"

I rolled my eyes. "Even if that we're possible-"

"No!" He held up a finger. "Humor me, Mr. Holmes."

I nodded. "Fine."

"If every single cell of a human body was removed, then there would be just water, right?"

"What's your point?"

"My point," the Doctor said, "is that once the body had been removed, the temperature would change drastically because of the lack of body heat, causing an imbalance in the molecules that would-"

"Instantly freeze it into an ice statue exactly resembling the person," I finished. "Yes, of course." That certainly was clever. "Alright." I spoke. I'd humor his theory. "but why would someone do that?"

"It could be a life form who channels everything into an energy of some sort? A force?" He scratched his chin. "Maybe they're using life energy inside the cells, but for some reason don't need water? There's plenty of reasons."

I sighed. This was ridiculous. "It would work, but only if there was a way to remove everything from the body except water... Which is impossible."

"It's also impossible to travel through time and space without a Vortex Manipulator or a TARDIS," the Doctor countered with a smug look. He put his arm around my shoulder without my consent.

Touché, I thought. I moved to pull the Doctor's arm off of me when I heard something.

If he only knew what I've seen. The Doctor's voice pounded through my skull and then a sudden brick wall cut the sound off.

I jerked away from him, startled. the Doctor's lips hadn't moved, I was sure of it. But then where did the voice come from?

The Doctor jerked away at the same time as me. We stared at each other with wide eyes. He shook his head rapidly and then took another step away.

"How did you do that?" His voice was deadly serious.

"Do what?" I knew exactly what.

The Doctor looked at me like I'd grown horns. "I could feel you, just for a moment."

Shoot. This couldn't possibly be what it looked like.

Why did things have to get worse? Why couldn't I just be a detective? I accepted being someone who couldn't die, and traveled through time and space. Why did this have to happen now?

Uck.

"Would you believe me if I said I didn't do anything?"

"Ah-no. Not really." The Doctor shook his head. "You're more and more of a mystery, Sherlock." He held out his hand. "Touch me again."

I hesitated. "It wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling."

The Doctor cringed slightly. "Yeah, sorry. That was my wall. You startled me." He looked me in the eye. "I'll be gentle."

So I reached out and grasped his hand.

It took a moment, but then I heard it again. His voice wasn't as clear this time, with more static than anything else but I heard him all the same.

Can you hear me? Several images passed behind my eyes, memories I couldn't quite see and half formed thoughts of an infinitely complex individual. He wasn't human. The differences between his mind and my own were as obvious as black and white paper.

It took a moment to compose myself but I managed to shoot a single word into his vast collection of thoughts. Yes.

John coughed to draw our attention and immediately the sensation stopped. I had completely forgotten about him. Jerking my hand back, I spun away. My hands gripped my hair and it took a moment for me to realize I was shaking.

"Can someone tell me what is going on here?" John demanded.

The Doctor watched me with concern, the diminishing ends of his thoughts showing shock and fascination and sympathy.

Sympathy. I didn't want the sympathy of the Time Lord. I wanted all of this to stop. To end. I didn't ask for any of this.

"Well John," the Doctor said, "it seems your friend here is a telepath."