Chapter 13

She was following a dog through the woods, eager to see where it was going. It almost seemed like the dog wanted Amy to follow. She pushed through the thick grass and branches blocking her way but the dog wouldn't wait for her. Trying to find her way, she noticed she was walking on sand. Looking back up, she was standing by Lake Silencio. The dog stood on top of the cliff to her right, the moon just illuminating everything around her. The dog looked down and pawed at the sand.

In front of Amy stood the astronaut that killed the Doctor. Walking closer, she managed to make out the sound of drums. Amy watched as she raised her arms, ready to open up the visor to see who was in the suit. All of a sudden, a howling noise caught Amy by surprise, and she realized that the dog turned into the hound. The hound jumped down from the cliff and began to sprint towards the astronaut. Without looking, Amy tried to push the astronaut out of the way to avoid being attacked, but the astronaut had disappeared – she was pushing thin air. She saw that her hands were different: she was wearing thick white gloves. She looked down at her body and saw that she was in the astronaut suit. Looking up, the hound was heading straight for her. The drum beat kept beating on.

Amy opened her eyes and tried to focus on what the sound in her ear was. With her brain more active, she realized it was Sherlock's heartbeat – her head was laying right by his chest. She was curled up next to him. Luckily, he was still sleeping, so she slowly backed away from him without waking him up. She pushed the covers off herself and sat up on the edge of the bed. She wiped her eyes and walked to the bathroom.

She looked in the mirror and tried to remember her dream. Placing her hands on the edge of the counter, she closed her eyes. The hound, the astronaut, the lake. Was it a dream or was it real? Amy pushed the hair out of her face and opened the door, grabbing clothes to change into. She walked out the bedroom and into the living space. John was sleeping on the couch in what looked to be like an uncomfortable position. Nevertheless, Amy quietly headed out for breakfast.

A few minutes after Amy left, Sherlock woke. Looking to the other side of the bed, he realized Amy was gone. Quickly, he got dressed and headed out the door – he was going to go visit Henry Knight. Sherlock developed a game plan for the day. Sherlock managed to rationalize parts of what happened last night – he accepted that he saw a monster, but hadn't a clue to how he did – and had something else to keep his mind stimulated: Amy. The questions he asked her last night made her incredibly uncomfortable, and he didn't know why. Not yet, at least. A TARDIS, a Doctor, and the colour blue. He still had no idea what a TARDIS was, but at least the last two were understandable enough. That was all he had on Amy Pond and he was going to figure them out one way or another.

Amy was enjoying her breakfast when John came in. She waved him over to sit down, but it didn't look like he was going to stay long.

"Good morning, John!" She said cheerily.

"Good morning. Have you seen Sherlock?" John wasn't exactly happy.

"No, he was still in the room when I left," she took a bite out of her toast.

John had his notebook in his hand, and got up, but sat back down, "You know, I think you're the first person that Sherlock has ever gone to bed with."

Amy scoffed loudly and her eyes widened, "Sorry, what did you just say? I did not. I have a husband!"

"No!" John's eyes also widened. "I meant, no! I knew!"

There was an awkward silence between the two before John decided to actually get up and he spelled out what he meant slowly, "Sorry, I just meant that Sherlock has never really had anyone sleeping beside him in a bed before. At least, that I know of."

Amy laughed, "Oh, John. Sit down, have some breakfast with me."

John smiled, "Nah, I'm fine. I'm going to go around the grounds."

John got up once more but sat back down again, "Amy, did you see a hound?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"John, I wouldn't lie to you," Amy said solemnly.

"Then why are you so calm about it? Sherlock, last night, he was shaking. He was so frightened. Petrified, even. You're sitting here, eating toast without any care in the world."

Amy leaned in closer, "John, Sherlock went into this case thinking that what Henry Knight saw was just a figment of imagination produced in his childhood. He closed his mind off thinking that there was never any hound. Don't think for a second that Sherlock believes in the irrational. Only when he hears something bordering on the impossible or even the ridiculous, he closes his mind off. A genetic experiment gone wrong attacks a man with no witnesses except for a scared child? He laughed for a reason. When he finally saw the hound, those walls that he put up fell down. He relied on his senses to tell him that there couldn't be such thing, and when they failed, he became horrified. He's not scared of the hound, just afraid of the fact that he doubted himself. He couldn't trust his senses, and that's never happened to him before."

John sat in silence trying to take that in.

"He wants things to be clever, and not laid out like that. That will be his downfall one day, I promise you that," Amy took a loud bite into her toast.

Again, John took all of that in. Her frankness after last night's events was unsettling for him.

"So when we go back to Dewer's Hollow, which I expect will be soon, open your mind, John. Don't shut it off to what you think is the impossible."

Amy smiled and John left. John didn't know whether to take that to heart or listen to his instincts. He wasn't even sure if all of what Amy said came from seeing the hound. In the next hour or so, Amy chit chatted with the manager, read the newspaper for anything new, and before she knew it, another friendly face approached her.

"Greg!" Amy stood up and hugged him.

"Amy!" he smiled. "Nice to see you."

Her eyes narrowed, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I fancied a holiday," he said.

"But you obviously came back from one. You are incredibly tanned," Amy's eyebrow went up. "You're here because of Mycroft, aren't you? Checking up on Sherlock? I heard what happened in Baskerville with the ID."

Lestrade shook his head, "you sound exactly like Sherlock."

"Maybe that's why he lets me tag along," she laughed.

"Well at least you're much nicer than him," he teased.

Not a moment too soon did Sherlock and John arrive.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Amy and Lestrade heard Sherlock yelling from the entrance.

"Speak of the devil," Lestrade looked at Amy, who then laughed.

After Sherlock basically repeated everything that Amy said, John suggested that Lestrade use his policing powers to check up on the receipt that he confiscated the first day they got there. As Lestrade was looking through the receipts and past invoices, Amy saw Sherlock making coffee. Two cups. It would have gone without any suspicion until Amy noticed Sherlock took out a slip of paper and mixed what looked like sugar into the cups of coffee.

Sherlock gave one cup to Amy and one to John. She remembered that John never takes sugar in his coffee, so before Amy took a sip, she watched John. John protested the sweetness of it. She was right about the sugar, but why was Sherlock so sneaky about it? Why did he put sugar in John's coffee in the first place, knowing he doesn't take it? But mainly, why did Sherlock make coffee for people other than himself!? A light bulb went off in her head.

'He thinks we saw the hound because of ... sugar?' Amy thought to herself.

It sounded logical for the most part. She remembered having sugar in her coffee at Henry's place, and surely the cups sitting in front of Sherlock and Henry also had sugar in it. If someone wanted to drug Henry, sugar would be accessible. John doesn't take sugar in his coffee, so it would be reasonable to assume that was why he didn't see anything last night.

"We couldn't control the bloody thing. It was vicious. And then, a month ago, Billy took him to the vet, and, er ... you know," Gary said.

"It's dead?"

"Put down."

Amy couldn't believe that. They put down a dog? They manage a vegetarian restaurant! They don't seem like the type that would kill a dog. Sherlock, Lestrade, and John left as Amy stayed put. She needed to ask a question.

"It was a normal dog, right?" Amy asked calmly and without hostility.

"Yes, nothing like the documentary," Billy replied. "It's just a big black dog. No red eyes, nothing. He doesn't hurt people, he likes to wander the moor."

Amy's eyebrows went up slightly when Billy referenced the dog in present tense.

'So the dog's not dead then,' she wondered.

She left the table to rejoin Sherlock and John.

"I have a theory, but we're going to need to go back to Baskerville to test it. Amy, come with us," Sherlock said.

"How? You said the last time you were there, you and John almost got caught if it weren't for Dr. Frankland," Amy noted.

"Right, can't pull off the ID trick again," John added.

'Unless you had psychic paper,' Amy grinned to herself.

"Might not have to!" Sherlock pulled out his phone and dialed a number. "Hello, brother dear! How are you?"

John and Amy looked at each other smirked. The trip there was short, but it was new for Amy and she found it fascinating. All the military and security reminded her of the time she met Winston Churchill. She smiled as she reminisced. She helped saved the Earth from the Daleks. Now those were monsters.

"I need to see Major Barrymore as soon as we get inside. Which means you'll both have to start the search for the hound. In the labs. John, take Stapleton's. Amy, take the one above hers," Sherlock looked into the rear view mirror for Amy's confirmation.

"Right," John said as Amy nodded.

His theory, Amy thought, would be to test the sugar. She knew that, though she wasn't sure if Sherlock knew what she was thinking. Complying with his instructions, she hit up the lab above Stapleton's. Nobody was there and so she just looked around. It was a lab like any other. Everything was clean, white, and scientific. It got boring fast – it wasn't her division – so she texted John.

Anything out of the ordinary? – AP

Nah. Just a few leaky pipes. – JW

Toxic? – AP

Doesn't look like it. I've dealt with gas in the war, and this looks harmless. – JW

All of a sudden, sirens began blaring and the lights blinded Amy and John. After being momentarily startled, John tried to exit the lab to no avail. Amy just looked around, wondering where all of that came from. It went dark again, but not so that they both couldn't see. John pulled out his torch, and Amy decided to look for the exit. Unfortunately, her pass card wouldn't work. She walked to the other exit to try, but again, she had no access.

She began texting Sherlock to try to open the door with his pass key, but before she could press send, the sound of a hound snarling filled the room.