A/N: Life's one big mess at the moment. Sorry I'm late. This is what I've got so far. -csf


II.

'I was going to tell you about your second time and space displacement. Thanks for the tea, by the way, it's excellent, Sherlock.'

'You made us the tea.'

'Yes, that's what I mean, thanks for letting me make it.'

'John; focus', the detective kindly insists. This time travelling John needs a lot of prompting. How like John for this time-and-space-traveller twin to be unpredictable, by showing up through the kitchen window, one storey up, and yet so aggravating, telling his tale in a long, romantic, illogical fashion.

'Alright', the traveller grins. 'Let's see. The second Sherlock was at home. He nearly shot me when I showed up the stairs.'

The taller man raise an amused eyebrow.

'So your keys fit the lock.'

'No, the front door was open. This Sherlock was a criminologist, took in clients and all.'

'I think you mean a consulting detective, like me.'

John's gaze is lost on the cold fireplace ashes. 'Very much like you, but, you see, he didn't have a John at all.'

'Execrable, really', Sherlock comments, with humour. John faintly sustains his smile with a pale one of his own.

'I don't think you fully understand what I found when you didn't have someone like me.'

The Sherlock in the room huffs and gets up from his chair, marching over to the kitchen. The guest recoils a bit, watching warily as the consulting detective passes him by.

'You were brilliant, though, in that reality', he hastens to say. 'Incredibly brilliant. You always are.'

'Tell me, John', Sherlock's voice rings metallic in the kitchen tiled walls he's facing.

'Well, you... I mean he, of course, he was happy, if a bit depressed.' Sherlock's eyes narrow. John hastens to minimise: 'Who wouldn't be, sharing a flat with Mycroft? Not that Mycroft isn't brilliant; he's incredibly brilliant.'

'Mycroft?' Sherlock asks a silent question over his brother's name. 'Sharing the rent with me? What about the Commonwealth?'

'Oh no, Mycroft wasn't into that. That's why you two got along so well, I guess. I had never seen 221B so different. All books, computer screens, and wallboard displays, you know with the pictures and the graphs and the intertwined red string. You both enjoyed watching the world plots, and placed bets on governments overthrown and terrorist attacks, alongside the criminology gig. Governments consulted you on wars, and terrorist attacks, and things like that. They paid you very well, I would imagine.'

'Mycroft didn't... intervene?'

John doesn't quite answer, he doesn't seem to want to answer.

'You were both a lot calmer, without all that rivalry between you two. Gun pointing at strangers business aside. But I suppose you were just showing off your merchandise. You did say you studied crime, and criminals, and also provided them answers, on occasion.'

'Answers?'

'Criminals and governments alike came to ask for your advice. I guess the gun was handy because of that. Particularly with a front door constantly open to everyone. Why don't you use locks?'

Sherlock shudders. Without independence from each other, Mycroft and him had stopped feuding in a parallel reality. They had morphed into intellectual parasites, enjoying watching the world burn, taking paid cases only to feed their addiction to tearing apart human motivation and feats. Probably selling their intellectual prowess to foreign governments at the highest bid, maybe even selling their criminologist gifts to Scotland Yard. But, surely, the absence of a John Watson had nothing to do with it, how could it? A mere coincidence, surely. Sherlock had his own sense of morals – even if at time they were quite literally his, apart from the rest of the world's. He didn't need a John Watson to tell him right from wrong.

Maybe he had needed John to stand up to the smothering influence of Mycroft, after relentless big brother pressure accompanying him all his life. Without John showing up in London as a wounded veteran in search of a place to live, a much too isolated genius might have finally given in to the elder pressure eventually, and become much of an intellectual parasite like Mycroft. It's not a pleasant thought to behold, and surely John was not the only difference that caused an alternative life path. DI Lestrade had proffered some of the earlier cases, a few by having his files purloined, where was he? Mrs Hudson was a role model landlady, who never took a disliking to Sherlock's undesirables network. Molly got him that first skull to crack to prove that widow couldn't have done it alone... Where were all they? Why was John the one consistent variable in a sequence of parallel universes?

'Had I ever tried out as a consulting detective at all?' he finds himself asking the guest oracle.

John shakes his head. 'I asked if you were a medical examiner, you know, like my last Sherlock. You said you had tried it once during a particularly well orchestrated insurgent attack in Kandahar, but that just got in the way from his world politics studies with Mycroft'

'Afghanistan?'

'I asked about that attack, funnily enough, because it gave me a chill down my spine. You know, like a bad omen. Anyway, I don't follow the news all that much, I wouldn't know.'

'What did he say?'

'He didn't say.'

'And you don't know more.'

'I've only got the telly on Friday nights from 7 till 9 pm, Sherlock won't have me watch post watershed, says I get dazzled by the grown-up ads...'

Much unexpectedly to the visitor, Sherlock returns from the kitchen looking very much like a ghost.

'John, I, I—'

'What is it, Sherlock?' Big round blue-eyed focus on the detective with alarm.

Sherlock walks to his armchair with shaky limbs.

'In that alternative universe I orchestrated an attacked that killed John Watson', he mutters, in utter shock. And he collapses on his armchair in dazzled shock.

.

'You said that Sherlock Holmes was your favourite, John.'

The consulting genius breaks the awkward silence first. The smallish doctor in the armchair starts as if was nearly dropping asleep by that time.

'No, you're my favourite now', he mutters amid a yawn. Suddenly he stiffens. 'Sorry, I said that out loud, didn't I?'

'I was execrable in that reality. Why would you like me?'

It's a question that echoes in many parallel realities, Sherlock feels.

'Oh, that. You listened to me. Well, when Mycroft wasn't around, you did. I guess you were probably trying to study my situation as an academic problem, but it still felt nice. You were warming up to me, and Mycroft was getting jealous, saying you didn't focus anymore and—'

'Go on', Sherlock's voice is a kind whisper, prompting the stranger.

The traveller looks away, embarrassed. 'Mycroft didn't like our conversations. One day, you had gone to get a pack of cigarettes, he got the gun out, told me you leave. I had no choice!' John hastens to say. 'What else could I have done?'

Sherlock's lips snarl.

'I'll kill Mycroft!'

.

'Sherlock, who are you talking to, mate?'

It's John, the real John. Sherlock's heart nearly falls back into its natural place from its awkward perch in the detective's throat, beating hard.

'John!' Sherlock turns abruptly to the man at the flat door. He rushes over, hugs the dusty returnee, releases him as if John was burning him, and steps back. A guilty expression flashes across his face. The old flatmate reacts with understandable confusion.

'Alright, out with it! What have you done now, Sherlock?' he asks, all antics and fond tutting.

'Done?' the detective gulps drily, defeating the indignation in his word.

'I know that look, it's a bigtime mess up.' John chuckles, as he throws his jacket over the coat hook behind the flat door.

He's got his back turned, therefore, when someone protests:

'Sherlock has done nothing wrong, you bully! Who do you think you are, talking to Sherlock like that?'

John turns to the man who looks exactly like him – or like him when John is losing his temper to a tantrum, biting his lip and stomping his foot on the rug, and then up to his flatmate, in the back.

'Who's this?' he asks Sherlock directly.

The flatmate grimaces. 'Long story, John. He's you from another dimension.'

John blinks, tries for a complicity smile, drops it too fast, mutters: 'He does look familiar. Is this your brother's sci-fi doing?' John's eyes narrow as he rounds up on the visitor as if studying a mannequin in a store window.

The newcomer again stomps the floor with a boot, and protests the more. 'Will you stop blaming the Holmes family for everything? Mycroft is a good man, and Sherlock couldn't do anything wrong!'

John brushes his hand over his stumbled chin. 'Now I know I'm having a bad dream or something', he mutters, unconvinced. 'Sherlock, are you experimenting on my mental sanity?'

'Not today', the detective reports solemnly. 'This is John. He came in through the window, after visiting another seven parallel universes containing us. Or, at least, me. And John, this is my John.'

John slowly extends a steady hand to the stranger. He touches him. The time traveller John reacts to the experimental touch with wide eyes. John looks up to his flatmate.

'Another one of you around too, Sherlock?'

'Nope. Just him.'

John lets go of a shaky breath, the first and only sign of how he's been affected.

'Thank goodness for that. We'll need tea for this', he decides, pragmatically.

Time traveller John whispers at once. 'It's true, you can make tea anytime you want!' Sherlock elbow nudges him. The real John needs time to process all the novelty, more info will just add to his confusion after a long shift. John is never too bright or too quick after a gruelling hospital shift.

'Tea, everyone? Should I use the nice teapot?' John mutters on, nearly to himself alone.

The traveller turns to Sherlock, by his side. 'John's quicker on the uptake than you give him credit for. It's just that he trusts you to do the thinking.'

The detective doesn't like that idea one bit. His John is quite capable of independent reasoning. And sarcasm. Both abundant in regular John.

'Hey, who ate all the biscuits?' said flatmate asks from the kitchen.

.

Captain Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, is not a man to be trifled with. He can kill a man with his bare hands without breaking a sweat. That tends to put life experiences into perspective, so he doesn't do quite as much killing as one would expect. He certainly ignores the doppelganger egging him on for a valorous fight in Sherlock's honour, and just seamlessly slides into his vacant armchair by the fire.

Still pursued by a fiery short blond – short in height and in temper – he directs instead his attention to Sherlock Holmes, the man who regularly explains the inexplicable.

'You mean to tell me that's me in another worldly dimension? What on earth happened to me there?' he adds, quizzically, sizing the blond man.

Sherlock shrugs. 'Wait until you hear that I'm some sort of slave master to you. Without your life history, you don't stand up to me when you need to, and without your moral influence I'm a brainy mercenary for hire.'

They both grimace. The time traveller slowly takes stock of his lost chair, and the easy camaraderie in display, and slowly seats down on the coffee table. At least he's got tea. Tea someone made for him. Tea that tastes very nice. Tea as tea tastes like when made by someone with a lot of experience, having perfected the act to a fine art.

'I get it now. That blissed out look the third Sherlock gave his John whenever John got him tea. Which was often.'

Current Sherlock pales. 'Blissed?' he derides. Might even be true, but he's not ready to admit it right now.

Parallel dimensions hopper John shrugs. 'That Sherlock needed the caffeine in tea. He was up all night, watching the starts, gazing to the planets out there through telescopes.' He drops down his gaze sadly, in sudden introspection. 'I really thought he'd be the one who could return me home. He knew the stars and the planets like no other man alive.'

The army doctor smirks, in comic disbelief. Apparently in another dimension their friend actually knows the ruddy Solar System? But he immediately realises the atmosphere in the room is much too sombre. Even the skull is a barrel of laughs, right now. With quintessential John-ness, the army doctor leans forward and vocalises the request for all of them.

'Tell us about it, John.'

'You believe me, John?'

The doctor hesitates. Sherlock states: 'My John has trust issues, according to his therapist.' The professional title is hissed unpleasantly.

'Do you believe me, Sherlock?' the newcomer asks in a candid way. John needs to hear that. He trusts you.'

'How do you know that?' the investigator returns.

The traveller opens his eyes wide once more. It's a deadly look in that honest face. What marvellous insights can this magical blond bring?

'Why, I can see it with my own eyes!'

.

TBC