Deidre had long been a romantic, not just in the sense that she enjoyed watching two people come together and live happily ever after, which was only a part of what the word meant, but in that her imagination and creativity often took off on fanciful flights, leaving her with the need to gain more material with which to weave these sprawling, grand tapestries of the mind.
Though her slight cockney accent caused people to overlook her intelligence, or if they noticed it to be suspicious of its workings, she was quite well read. From Shakespeare to Joan Ashenworth (one of the few 22nd century novelists who actually printed her work in paper copy rather than the various electronic sources), the twelve year old had sucked up as much as she could. She wasn't quite as intelligent as Tennyson, her little hoverchair-bound friend, in that she was no mathematician and, while it caused her no difficulties, she didn't understand fully all the intricacies of programming; however, she did know literature, preferring fiction to non.
From each of these works, her imagination had fed and grown, taking off in leaps and bounds as new ideas and plots had whirled through her mind. They hadn't been enough though, and often she had found herself supplementing old television shows to take up the slack.
Never any of the modern stuff, because it was all pale and two dimensional, even if the visual effects were startlingly 3D, and the color was phenomenally brilliant. The stories and characters were what had interested Deidre.
She had never taken anything from real life either, because one, her own life was boring, dull, drab, not worth mentioning, and two because she didn't want to relive real life, it was hard enough living it the first time around.
Until the day she'd met Sherlock Holmes, Watson and Inspector Beth Lestrade (whom she pretended to dislike, but had a private admiration for), when her life had taken an unexpected turn. She often had fun swindling people with Wiggins and Tennyson, but at that moment she had realized her life had a purpose. She still hadn't figured out what it was, but it was there all the same.
In the two years she had known them, she'd been privately writing in her online journal (private only, not even friends could see) stories and events that hadn't actually happened, using those three colorful personages (as well as herself and her two friends, couldn't forget them because they were a part of the team, even if the Yardie didn't want to admit it) as a basis for her characters.
Sometimes, a slight romance would blossom between Holmes and Lestrade, because in Deidre's mind, the two definitely belonged together. There were so many little hints that if you were the right sort of person, and were looking for them, you could see.
Those were her private thoughts however. In discovering twentieth and twenty-first century television, Deidre had also found a thirst for more knowledge, trawling the limitless expanse of the internet to find what she was looking for. To her surprised delight, she had found communities dedicated to each of these shows, some larger than others, some surviving from the time the shows had been new.
She had, with a dedication that should have been shown towards schoolwork, plunged into these communities, participating when she could, presenting her own opinions on the subjects. She had also written her fair share of fan fiction, adding to the already mountainous amount that existed.
Her favorite of these old television programs had been Stargate: Atlantis, and while she had liked the original, even been inspired to write a couple of character analyses, SG-1 just hadn't captured her imagination as the spin-off had. She had often wondered how she would have felt if she had actually lived during the time these shows had made their debut, if she would have done something differently, but those introspections wouldn't last long as she delved into her writing with fervor.
She had been a ship writer, writing for any pairing that came her way, but her favorite by far was McWeir (a shortening of McKay/Weir), and even though only two seasons of the show had survived time, she was still an adamant fan.
Then Sherlock Holmes had come along, and she hadn't been so diligent in her fandoms as she had in the past.
Now her interest was once again piqued, and not just because of the woman standing in Holmes' sitting room.
She had instantly recognized the woman in the street as Dr. Elizabeth Weir, though she really looked nothing like Torri Higginson, the actress who had portrayed her. That was the reason she had brought her to Holmes' place, not because she'd seemed dazed and out of sorts. Coming of the crypnotizer could do that to a person, as well as some of the more inventive drugs out there.
That wasn't what had her heart pounding, and her senses reeling. Oh no. Dr. Weir had said her boyfriend was an astrophysicist, and then, after recognizing Dr. Rodney McKay's voice had said that he was indeed the one she had mentioned. Stellar!
And then Mister Holmes went and ruined it all by saying, "We shall see."
Mister Holmes was usually never wrong, and that 'We shall see' was his way of saying he thought Weir was lying. Deidre sighed in slight disappointment as Inspector Lestrade burst through the open doorway with McKay right on her heels.
-----
Rodney blinked rapidly as he gazed around the room. It no longer looked like what he had imagined after reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and it gave him the vaguely unsettling feeling that he wasn't dreaming.
Except that that couldn't be right.
Sure, he could have been taken from way back in the past and brought to the future; it happened all the time when you worked with alien technology that was light years ahead of anything you've ever encountered before.
Two things wrong with that though.
One, he was on Earth and he had been in another galaxy on a planet awaiting the moment when life-sucking aliens would swoop down and destroy the greatest city ever built—or use it to get to Earth.
Two, he hadn't been wearing what he was wearing now. What kind of alien, or person for that matter, would go to the trouble of changing his clothes just to make him travel in time?
Three, Sherlock Holmes did not exist. He was a fictional character, and even if some man alive in the future decided to be like him, it was rather doubtful he'd take on the name.
Four, and probably the most important point, Elizabeth Weir had just walked over to him, placed her hand in his, laid her head down on his shoulder and murmured, "I missed you darling, and I'm so glad you're here with me."
Although he had never actually had a dream featuring the leader of the Atlantis expedition, he was slightly enamored of her. Only slightly though, and that was just because she was the first friend he'd ever really made, the first person not to take him at face value. She was his friend first, boss second, lover, never. As in never ever in a million years.
Which was why he was finding it so difficult to accept this as real. He smiled at the two children, one in a strange contraption that hovered above the ground, the other a girl who was staring at them with a slightly disappointed expression. Then he smiled at the man with the sardonic grin seated in an armchair by a fireplace, with a real fire going. See, if this was the future, surely they wouldn't need fire for heating needs.
Fire polluted.
"Rodney," dream Elizabeth murmured, her breath fanning his ear, "just play along, okay?"
He nodded, perfectly happy to see where this dream led. It was better than the nightmares, where he saw dead people. People who he should have taken care of, that he had been responsible. People also that weren't dead yet, but who he saw dying in those hours of the night when he actually allowed his eyes to close.
Much better than the nightmares, he reaffirmed as Elizabeth's hand squeezed his and as the robot with the incredibly real looking face standing in the doorway of what he assumed was the kitchen gave them both warm smiles.
"Sure, 'lisbeth," he murmured back, "You are the boss after all."
"Yeah, as sweet and touching as this reunion is," B. Lestrade growled, interrupting his self-induced fuzzyness, "I'd like to know what's going on here, now."
(tbc…)