"All right, gents," Clara announced, helping John into one of the machines, "River's at the helm, and in minutes she'll get us to the portal in the Schism. Dearest Mish is going to be keeping watch. Mish, the controls over there will monitor our vital signs and everything, so keep an eye on cardiovascular functions and brain waves. If one of us goes into shock or cardiac arrest, you've got to pull us back. Sexy will help us."

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Hamish said from his seat by the controls.

Clara buckled John into his seat and fitted the helmet and breathing mask around his face. "This is going to pinch a bit," she apologized before sliding a needle into the crease of his forearm. John didn't even wince. "You'll be under in about thirty seconds, but when you get there, wait for us. We'll look for him together."

"You're the boss," John said through the breathing mask. His eyelids began to flutter, but he still managed to tell her under his breath, "Clara, you have to keep Sherlock safe in here. Whatever happens, you have to make sure he gets out of here alive."

"I'm going to," she reassured him.
"Promise me. And Hamish too. Both of my boys, Clara—I'm putting them in yours hands. Don't disappoint me."

"I wouldn't dare." She worked on Sherlock next, who didn't fuss as she adjusted his helmet and added the IV with the sedative. "You're awfully chipper."

"New dimensions, daring rescues…oh, it's Christmas."

"Any requests? John made a bundle."

"No, that's quite all right," Sherlock replied. "I know you intend to keep us safe. I couldn't ask for anything more."

Clara nodded as the two men went under and the monitors beeped with their vital signs. "All right, Mish. Help me with mine?"

"Your wish, my command," he said as she lowered herself into her seat. "These are safe, right?"

"Of course. In theory." She attached the helmet to her head. "Get that needle—you're going to need to find a vein."

He blanched. "You mean, blood? Er, I'm not really a doctor type, Clara. I might actually throw up."

Clara sighed and rolled her eyes. "You're virtually useless."

"Nah," he said. "I'm really cute. I have that on my side." He offered her the needle apologetically. "Please?"

She grumbled and stuck herself with the needle, cringing when it got under her skin. "I'm scared."

"You're going to be fine," Hamish reassured her. "It's just a quick dimension jump, and you're brilliant—you'll be great. And you'll bring the Doctor back." He nodded to the Doctor, who was attached to a machine of his own, waiting for his mind to return.

She smiled faintly and felt herself going under. "Look after them, and Mum. And me, too."

"Oh, you know I'll take good care of you," he said, kissing her softly on the forehead. "To be continued."

"To be continued," she said, and then she was gone.

Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, she was drowning.

This was drowning, right? She'd made a huge mistake. Where were John and Sherlock? She'd killed them, she'd drowned them too—where were they?

Air was ripping away from her in every direction, tugging at her hair and clawing her limbs away until she felt herself getting swirled down a drain, and she knew this was death, or eternal torture, and she prayed that this was NOT what she'd condemned her father to.

She tried to scream for Hamish to pull her back and end it, but her voice box had been torn from her throat long ago. So why could she hear screaming? It was everywhere, pounding in what was left of her ears.

Somehow she'd been caught in a cosmic windstorm, on the precipice of death, and if she didn't get out, she would never even be granted the mercy of death. So she willed herself to grab onto something, anything—a white-hot star, a meteor, or even the TARDIS.

As soon as she willed it, there was a handle. Cold, iron, and solid, it was there for her to grab onto and hold. She clung to it and tried to pry it open, desperate to get behind wherever the handle was, and suddenly a sucking sensation shoved her out of the windstorm and into the smallest of holes until she was pushed, gasping for breath, on the other side.

"Sherlock!" she yelled into the void, and immediately felt a splitting headache. Everything about this place, wherever she was, felt wrong. Blood was beating at her eyeballs and making it hard to see. "Sherlock, John! Where are you?"

"Clara!" she heard from across the space, and she dragged herself along to the source of the voices. Thank goodness they sounded recognizable.

"Boys! That you?"

"Yeah, we're fine," John's voice called. "Bloody HELL, that HURT! Do you suppose we made it?"

"Don't be absurd, John, of course we made it." Sherlock sounded gruff with the pain they'd all endured. "This headache, however, is not going to make gathering data any easier."

"Close your eyes, it makes it easier," Clara advised them. "This is weird. I feel like I have a body, but whenever I try and look at it, it's all warped. Like a computer that's glitching, over and over."

"If we're in Netherspace, it would make sense. We're essentially computer glitches. We have a saved file here from the deleted timeline, but since we have bodies, we're not fully here. But it will be suitable to function. I think—" Sherlock began, but then he gasped and stopped talking. John reached out for his husband, still a bit blind from the trip. "I think—oh. Oh. That is fascinating. THIS is fascinating."

"What is?"

"LISTEN! John, listen!"

Clara and John stayed silent.

Sherlock opened his eyes and gasped again at the world around them. "This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen, or heard, or felt…"

"Sorry, what exactly are you talking about?" John asked, concerned that Sherlock had lost it on the way in.

"The voices, the data, John—it's all in here, in my head! It's what moves the city! Can't you see?" he said manically. "Look! Look around! No, don't look—just think! Let it sit in your brain for a bit."

"Er, all right," John said. He let the silence roll around in his brain for a bit until he heard Clara gasp as well. "Oh, not you, too!"

"I'm getting it—parts of it, at least. It's really quiet."

Before John could feel embarrassed that whatever they had just discovered hadn't made an appearance in his brain, a small surge of power, like a spurt of water shooting through a rock, began to trickle through his brain. "Oh—whoa. There are all these voices. Sherlock, what are they saying?"

"Everything. Every word ever spoken in all of history," Sherlock replied rapturously. "It's the world's biggest encyclopedia, John! Netherspace isn't just a higher dimension—it's a new plane of thought entirely. Everyone's thoughts who have ever been here or ever will be just exist, and you can tap into them whenever you want!"

"Can you search for the Doctor?" Clara asked. "Is he anywhere on the network?"

"Hold on… I'm working out the kinks, here. New brain, new processes."

As Sherlock concentrated and the information in John's brain began to grow and take shape, things became clearer. The information was becoming a channel that constantly streamed through his mind, and he could pick and choose when to shut it out or listen to it. And they weren't in a painful, spaceless void anymore. Things were beginning to form and take shape. There were buildings and shadows and soon he saw even street signs, but everything had the distinct feeling of always moving and changing. Like everything was being stretched.

John wondered aloud. "Why is everything here so dark?"

"Netherspace seems to take on the qualities of the pack mind, or at least the strongest mind," Sherlock explained, filtering through information. "Oh, John, now you're thinking too loud. I can hear it—shut it."

"Oh, great, now he actually has a reason to yell at me when I'm thinking," John joked with Clara, and then he settled into the stream in his mind. If Netherspace was so dark, according to Sherlock, someone with a powerful mind wanted it to be dark. John couldn't help but wonder who, so he tentatively picked apart the stream of information for the source.

He found it surprisingly quickly. "Sherlock."

"Busy."

"Sherlock, this is—"

"—important!" Sherlock finished for him. "I just heard it in your head. He's here."

"Who's here?" Clara asked, but it didn't take long for her to figure it out, with Sherlock and John's minds thinking it so strongly. "James Moriarty? The man who kidnapped Mum?"

"And the Doctor's with him," John said. "In the middle of the city—Moriarty's made a palace for himself. This is his personal playground. Sherlock, this is all my fault. The ashes…when I killed him, I only sent him here, to make these poor souls' lives a misery."

Sherlock reached for John's hand. "This isn't your fault. It was my idea, with the ashes. If anything, it's mine. And don't worry, I doubt these people have just taken his rule lightly. Look into your head—he's tried to exert his power and the best he can do is make this dimension a dark place. He can't force them to do anything."

John sifted through the stream in his head and saw people agreeing with Sherlock. A chorus of minds who were listening in told him that the most Moriarty had been able to do was waltz in, put on a crown, and declare this place his world. He hadn't hurt anyone. But they did wish he was gone so they could have their bright world back again. "Well, we know where the Doctor is, but shouldn't we fix the Moriarty problem before we leave?"

"There's no way to destroy his existence here, I've already checked," Clara said. "The only way to get a mind out of here is to have a body waiting for it. Lucky for us, all we have to do is come back to this spot and jump back through the Schism."

"Hold on!" John said, furrowing his eyebrows. "Okay, let me get this straight—how much can you do with your mind here?"

Sherlock smiled wickedly. "Anything. With concentration."

"So couldn't we just wish really hard for the Doctor to be here, right now?"

"We could," Sherlock explained, "but Moriarty can hear everything we're doing and saying, if he's listening to us now. All he has to do is follow."

"Well, couldn't we go to him, conjure up a portal back to the TARDIS, and run so Moriarty could never find us?"

"We wouldn't be able to tell if the portal itself were a real one or just imaginary, one that looks like a portal back to the Untempered Schism—and we can't risk that. The place we came from," Clara said, pointing to the burning hole they'd been sucked through, "is a weak spot in the veil surrounding Netherspace. The people here can't leave it without a receptacle, like a body, but we can get in."

"Right." John nodded and crossed his arms. "What's the plan, then?"

"To the Doctor and Moriarty. And we figure out how to negotiate with them," Clara said, and she began to walk toward the center of the city. Sherlock and John followed, though they didn't travel for long: the fluid city changed to their will and took them straight to the palace gates.

John whistled. "This bloke doesn't do anything halfway. There are parapets and windowboxes and a dungeon."

"Truly dreadful style," Sherlock sniffed. "It stinks of Moriarty. Come on, let's get the Doctor so we can all go home."

The Doctor saw them coming as soon as they landed—he felt them get through and breathed out a huge sigh of relief. Three distinct bodies coming through to the other side, unharmed. He could feel Sherlock's analytical thoughts enter his own and John's concrete ones, and behind them was a stronger voice. A piping, high voice that immediately made him feel safer.

Clara was here. Clara had found a way back to him.

Unfortunately, Moriarty felt it too, and hissed when Sherlock arrived. "He's so prompt, the dear one. And look! They want to save you, just as I predicted. You know, new dimensions, same story, really."

"They'll be here soon. There's nothing you can do."

"Oh, but there is. You're going to take me with you."

"There's not a thing you can do to make me agree with you. My mercy doesn't extend to the man who nearly destroyed my child and killed my wife."

Moriarty smirked and went back to using his head to speak. So feisty, now that you have back-up. Must be a habit of yours, though I do recall that the last time you and I faced off, you weren't really the useful one. Sherlock was.

"Save your petty insults, Jim. They're here," the Doctor said. He'd intended to keep his back to the door when they entered the throne room, but as soon as he heard Clara's footsteps, he couldn't help but turn around. "Clara!"
Her eyes turned wide as saucers when she saw him again, and she ran to him full-force. "Doctor!"

The two met in the middle and embraced tightly. Clara threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shirt. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Oh, don't be daft, darling—you can't keep me down for long!" he said with a wide smile, eyes dancing with joy. "Oh, Clara, Clara, you impossible hero. How did you know to come for me?"

You could just search her brain, Moriarty thought in a sour tone. I already have.

"I will NOT sift through my daughter's mind like it was sand, Moriarty!" the Doctor snapped. "I am going to hear her own voice. Come on, Clara, tell me."

She beamed up at him. "We all worked out a plan. Sherlock had the idea of you in Netherspace, and Mum looked for information in the Library."

The Doctor's face fell. "River…she went to the Library already?" Guilt began to overwhelm him, since now he knew the double sacrifice River must have made, both to save his life and give up her own for information on Netherspace. "Was it—did she—?"

"She's fine, Dad. We saved her. But that requires a bit of explaining, too. Anyway, we just tapped in through the Schism and some clever machines and voila! Here we are!"

"Here you are, indeed," the Doctor said. He turned to face Sherlock and John. "Boys! Brilliant Sherlock Holmes, and John Watson! You're both so…old!"

"Same Doctor," John said with a roll of his eyes. "Welcome back, mate! It's wonderful to see you again!"

"Likewise, Dr. Watson! How long's it been?"

"Different for all of us. For us, about eighteen years. For Clara, only a few months," Sherlock said quickly by way of greeting. He chose to ignore the hug the Doctor offered him in order to walk straight up to a waiting Moriarty. "Hello, reptile."

"Missed me, honey? I missed you lots," Moriarty said. Haven't you got the hang of the whole thought-sending business? A clever man like you should have figured it out immediately.

"I, like the Doctor, prefer to speak, I think," Sherlock replied. "I know how you got in here, and I know what you've done. So I'll make this simple for you—we're leaving with the Doctor, right now, and you're not going to follow us."

"Ooooh, 'fraid I can't do that," Moriarty said. "In fact, I think I refuse. You see, I have a sort of problem. I'm rather bored around here, and I want to get back into the real world. Alive and kicking, you know—so, since we all have the handy trick of reading each other's minds, I happen to know that you're able to get out of here. A nifty little body swap, eh? Well, I'm going to come with you, of course."

"You can't force your way into a body," Sherlock argued. "You don't even know how."

"You're right. But I can make it impossible to leave. Besides, John doesn't feel comfortable just leaving me here with all these innocent people, do you, Johnny-boy?"

John grimaced. "Get the hell out of my head, Moriarty."

"I see you married Gorgeous over here. Lucky sod. I won't lie, I always thought I'd have that honor. Once Sherlock joined my side."

"Sherlock was never going to join 'your side'." John walked past Clara and the Doctor to take his place by his husband. "He's always been mine. I'd dare you to try and take him away from me, but I don't Sherlock to see the mess I'm going to make of you if you take me up on that offer."

"You're still a dumb brute, I see."

"Enough!" Clara shouted. "All of you!" She walked slowly and methodically to Moriarty's throne and faced him, crossing her arms and pulling herself to her full height. "All right. Jim, is it?"

"The one and only," he said with a smile. "You're the Doctor's brat. I saw you when you were just a bump in a stomach."

"Well, Mr. Jim, I have a deal for you. One that I think will suit us all nicely."

"Clara, don't!" the Doctor shouted. "Whatever you're doing, don't! He isn't going to be reasoned with!"
Let her talk, Doctor, Moriarty thought. He was amused. He couldn't help it. Go on, Clara. What's the big idea, doll?
"You like games, yeah?" Clara asked. "Well, what if we play one right now? What would you think of that?"

Depends on the game. And the stakes.

"The stakes are this—if we win, we get to leave without you following us, and you have to release your control over this world. If you win, you get to come back to life."

Interesting-ish. Obvious, though.

"Sorry, I'm not super creative," Clara said. "Come on, then, Moriarty. It's what you want, isn't it?"

Fine, Clara, I'll play. Moriarty stepped off his throne and made his way down the elaborate stairs to the group below. How do we play?

"Well, it's…well, first, we need to stop with the whole mind thing. It's an unfair disadvantage," Clara said.

"Boring, but fine," Moriarty said, coming close enough to Clara to realize he wasn't much taller than her and feeling a bit thrown off by his height. "We can use fancy words and mouths and everything. How elementary."

"That's not what I mean," Clara said, dismissing the idea. "No, I mean everything. No more mind-reading or anything, just like we were in the real world."

Moriarty's lips curled up in a wicked smile. "As much as I'm sure you'd like that, dearie, it's not that simple. It's part of this world. You can't just shut off the mind."

"That's not it!" she said, matching his smile. "No, we don't need to turn it off. We need one person—one strong mind—to block us from being able to read each other's."

Moriarty laughed. "That's good. Oooh, you're clever, aren't you? Is it too late to ask for you to join me? I could always use a queen, and you might look cuter in a crown than Sherlock at this point."

"No, thank you," Clara said, curling her lips in disgust. "One strong mind, one with a sense of justice, who can separate us from reading each other's minds so there's no advantage. Just pure cleverness."

"And I suppose you think the Doctor is the person to do that?" Moriarty smirked. "As if."

"No. Not the Doctor." Clara looked triumphant. "John Watson."

John jumped straight in the air when he heard his name. "Sorry, what?"

"It's obvious, John!" Clara said. "You're the only mind here that's fit to keep Moriarty and me from each other's heads. The Doctor and Sherlock would be too tempted to tap into the knowledge available and help me, but you—you're not comfortable with the stream yet. You wouldn't let anything leak through, and you're the only one Moriarty would trust to be fair."

"Well, I wouldn't say 'trust'…" Moriarty guffawed. "But why not? Johnny-boy, put up a mental block."

"I can't! I don't know how! And even if I did, who's to say I wouldn't help Clara?"

"Me," Clara said. "Please, John. It's the only way we have a fighting chance out of this place."

John gulped and tried to withstand Clara's pleading eyes, but he knew she was right. "For you, I'll do it. So, what, do I just…imagine a wall between you two?"

"That might help."

"Right." John closed his eyes and concentrated, and almost immediately, the stream of consciousness that ran through his brain was clear, an electric river of thought that he could dissect. He found Clara's thoughts, distinct and bright green, and Moriarty's black strings were twining slowly with hers. With great effort that made him grunt out loud, he pulled at Clara's thoughts as if they were ropes, which he found more difficult than he'd imagined. They were steel cables of sorts, heavier than anything he'd lifted in real life, and he was trying to pull them with the strength of his own mind.

A warm hand reached for his own, bringing comfort—Sherlock was trying to help him. "All right, John?"

"Yeah, fine," he said in a strained voice. "Hold on." With a final tug, the green thoughts untangled from the smoky black ones and he imagined a strong brick wall between them, so the black tendrils of Moriarty's mind were completely isolated from everything else. To be fair to both of them, he searched for Clara's thoughts and put them on the other side of the wall, so neither was connected to the minds of Netherspace.

Clara gasped. "He did it! I can't hear anything!"

"Looks like everything's fair," Moriarty grumbled. "All right, what's the game?"

"Er, well…it's a simple one. We came in through a weak spot in the fabric of time that separates Netherspace from all other universes and dimensions. In order to get back to real life, we have to get to that hole, and I know where it is. You have to find it."

"How is it fair if you already know where it is and I don't?"

"You're the genius. Use the knowledge you already have of this world to figure out where the weak spot is before I get there. If you find it, we'll take you with us. If I get there first, we all get to leave."

"You already know where it is. You could take one step right now and get there."

"Not with John in control. You see, if we don't tap into the rest of the minds here, we can't conjure up portals and places out of the blue. We'll actually have to walk to the weak spot," Clara said. "And therein lies the brilliance. You've had more experience with the layout of the city, since you've been here longer. You can get anywhere if you've paid attention. I know where the weak spot is, but I never had to navigate from the hole to your palace—I just brought myself here."

"All right, I'm starting to get it, but I don't like it. It's too…loooooose," Moriarty pronounced, elongating the o's until even Clara was dizzy.

"Do you not want to play?" she asked. "Do you doubt your own intellect?"

Moriarty scoffed. "Let's just go. On your mark, get set…"

"…Go!" Clara said, and she hurriedly grabbed the Doctor by the hand and dragged him out the door.

Moriarty sluggishly slipped out of the door and out of the palace, whistling idly while he walked onto the street. "See you later, alligator."

"Clara, you brilliant, mad, clever girl!" the Doctor said. "I love you so much, but you're a complete idiot!"

Clara shook her head and checked behind her as the Doctor, Sherlock, and John all exited the palace. "All right, everyone? John?"

"Fine, just fine," John said, trying to hide a grimace. "It stings a bit, but I can keep it going as long as I concentrate. But you should probably leave me here, so I can focus on it. I'm not really much for walking right now."

Sherlock clung to his arm. "You're coming with us. I'll direct you, just close your eyes. I'll make sure you don't trip."

John obliged him and closed his eyes before winking at Sherlock. "What would I do without you?"

"All right, boys, let's go. What did the place look like, the weak spot?" Clara asked. "We can beat Moriarty, we just have to remember!"

"It was next to a dark grey skyscraper on both sides, in some back alley. There were trash bins everywhere," Sherlock recalled, but he looked a little dismayed at the sheer number of skyscrapers. "Er, let me narrow down the options a bit. And slow down, I don't want John to fall."

"You stay here and think, for a moment, while Clara and I scout out this street," the Doctor ordered them, and he took Clara by the hand down several meters until they were out of earshot. "Clara."

"Dad, I know what I'm doing!"

"I don't know if that's true. You don't know Moriarty—if he wins, he could destroy whole universes. At least he's contained here!"
"Oh, Dad," Clara said with a smirk, "he can't win. Even if he did, we don't have a body to take him back in!"

"Exactly!"
"No, exactly, but in a good way!" Clara made him face her straight on and smiled victoriously. "If he can't read my mind, he doesn't know that I only have bodies for the four of us. Sherlock, John, and I are all in stasis mode aboard the TARDIS right now, and your body's been in stasis mode since Trenzalore. It's been frozen and ready for this day—there isn't a receptacle for Moriarty to come back to."

The Doctor knitted his eyebrows together. "If that's true, what happens if he wins?"

"Then we tell him that we'll go first and prepare for his transfer, and we'll get out of here. He'll be left behind and won't be able to follow."

"This reaches a new level of ludicrous, but you're the boss."

Clara grinned. "I know. Say it again, though."

"You're the boss," the Doctor said. "Oh, I can't wait until we can be back in the TARDIS again. I've missed her almost as much as I've missed you, but you must never tell her that."

"Oi, she might fight you on that. She's grown accustomed to me now," she replied. "Come on, back to the boys. Maybe Sherlock remembers."

As they walked back, Sherlock seemed to already have figured it out. "It's on the outskirts of the city," Sherlock said decisively. "The buildings there were shorter and less well-kept, and the palace seemed to be at least a kilometer away."

Clara groaned. "Is there any way we can get there faster than just walking that wouldn't break the rules?"

"I could imagine a train," the Doctor suggested.

"Useless." Sherlock shook his head. "I need more data, to tell where exactly it is on the outskirts of the city. I'm looking it up."

"Don't! Moriarty will be able to tell!"

"Moriarty's thoughts are isolated," John said in a pained voice. "You're safe—Sherlock, look it up. I can't keep this up forever."
Sherlock nodded and quickly scanned the stream in his head, his eyes becoming vacant for a moment. "No—no, that's—okay, got it. It's south of here, and we have to hurry. Moriarty's already making his way there."

The group nodded and began to run down the streets, with Sherlock holding John's hand to make sure he didn't fall.