A/N: The Tardis arrives! And the story is complete! Thank you to everyone who enjoyed this story and left me some feedback! Once again, I do not own "The Sontaran Strategem", "The Poison Sky", or Sherlock Holmes, no matter how out-of-character I write him.

Chapter 3

When Sherlock woke up, it was to a strange, "VWOOORRPP! VWOOORRPP!" sound, and a rush of air that was filling the now gas-free room. Blearily, he lifted his aching head from the floor. He was covered in the sticky remains of the various chemicals he'd used. Fortunately, once it had combined with the gas, it was neutralized and therefore he didn't feel like his skin was being charred into burnt flakes of organic matter.

Slowly, he picked himself off the floor, staring hard as he noticed a fuzzy shape of a blue box coming into view in tempo with the "VWOOORRPP!" sound. It looked like something from the telly, not something that should be appearing out of nowhere before his eyes.

What was it that made it do that? Quantum teleportation on a massive scale, combined with metamaterial wood, perhaps?

Within a few more seconds, the entire structure had taken shape in his sitting room. Sherlock stumbled around to where it sat, quietly, as if a police box sitting in one's sitting room was the most normal thing in the world.

A tiny smile graced his lips.

The door suddenly flew open and a spectacled man with spiked hair that looked as though it belonged on the telly equally beside his wooden box bounded from the inside.

Sherlock quickly found it was more difficult than he'd thought to deduce anything about him. Clearly he was not from this world—he hypothesized that this was possibly an alien who had brought about the corruption of ATMOS and the poisonous gas? But he didn't possess any soldier's bearing, which was strange because his jerking movements clearly told of suppressed emotion one might readily associate with battle experience.

The stranger grinned wildly, quickly hopping out of the box and experimenting with the cushioning level of Sherlock's carpeting with his converse. "Ah, hello! You must be Sherlock—the famous Sherlock Holmes, I'm assuming." he extended his hand and shook Sherlock's by rapidly pumping it up and down. "Oooh, you look like you've been in a bit of a bad way. Hope that didn't have anything to do with the gas, and the Sontarans, and all that. I've just been busy taking care of it, if you don't mind."

"Why—why would I mind?" Sherlock's eyebrows creased.

The Doctor slung an arm around his shoulder like they were pals from—football—or interns—or something. "Well, you see, thing is, your friends look just as disheveled as you are at the moment. I told them to get cleaned up in the Tardis—that's my Tardis, you see," he continued with a grin, pointing to the blue box, "She's a—complicated thing that travels in time and space—and I told them to get cleaned up, but I think they're a little too busy TOUCHING every little thing they see!" he yelled pointedly toward the inside.

When there was no response, the Doctor simply rolled his eyes and grinned at Sherlock. "I don't mind it, though. They're nosy, and I like nosy people. I hear you're a bit of a nosy person yourself! Too bad you had to miss out on our last adventure! Although I wouldn't doubt being in charge of a human spawn was more than enough adventure for you, eh, Mr. Detective?"

"John and Mary have been in that box with you the entire time they've been gone?" Sherlock demanded, a little angrier than he'd intended to be.

"Oh, no," the Doctor rambled on happily, "They've been saving the Earth with me. Big old Sontaran ship—the Sontarans are the great warriors of the universe, never back away from a fight—trying to convert the planet into a cloning world! Clone soup! All that gas? It was meant to be fed to the clones!"

Sherlock blinked. "Like a baby's bottle?"

"Ehhh—yeah, I guess you could say that, why?"

"Oh, no reason, no reason at all. Speaking of which, if Mary asks, I did NOT forget and leave the baby in the closet…" he suddenly remembered.

"Didn't forget what?" a flushed, angry-looking Mary appeared in the doorway of the box.

"Oh! That I took extremely good care of your daughter while you were away and didn't let her get splashed by any of my experiments or take her to any crime scenes." Sherlock summed up quickly, stopping just outside of the closet, through which a (thankfully) healthy-sounding baby cry could be heard.

"Oh my gosh, my poor baby," Mary moaned upon hearing the noise, pushing through to get to the closet. She opened the door, scooped her up off the floor and held her closely, making ridiculous baby sounds and giving her repeated kisses.

John was out of the box right behind his wife. "Why's she wearing a surgical mask?" he asked, confusedly.

"Actually use your brain for once, John, and it will come to you presently," Sherlock replied dryly.

"Oh, the gas!"

"Brilliant deduction."

"Ah, there she is," the Doctor grinned upon seeing Willie for the first time. "The most brilliant Watson of all the brilliant Watsons! You're going to be a real shock to your parents as you get older, you know that?"

"Wait, how do you know that?" John questioned.

Sherlock tried to interject.

"I speak baby," the Doctor replied nonchalantly.

Sherlock tried again.

"Although, strictly speaking of course, there are several major dialects chiefly evolving from the prenatal exposure to different types of radioactive myochlorabineate particles…"

"What the heck are myochlorabineate particles?" Sherlock stopped whatever he was trying to say for a moment to ask the more important question.

"Subset of quarks and radiation compounds. Science'll catch up to it in, oh, about eighteen years? You've got a lot to look forward to as a chemist in the near future," the Doctor waggled his eyebrows.

Sherlock cleared his throat rather loudly. "What I was attempting to say earlier was—where on Earth is your companion, Doctor? The feisty ginger two of my clients came and asked me about."

"Oh, you mean Donna! I love Donna; what a dear," Mary interjected, smiling as she held the now much happier-looking baby in her arms.

"Truly marvelous, that woman," John added. "It's not often you meet the likes of her."

"Donna?!" the Doctor yelled inside the Tardis, impatiently banging on the door. The ginger still hadn't shown her face outside. A voice, however, could be heard, sounding muffled from the interior.

"Oi, don't rush me on like I'm your pet dog or something," her head suddenly appeared from around the doorway. "I was in the loo, you idiot. Surely I'm not the first companion you've had that has to use the loo on occasion?"

Sherlock smiled in spite of himself. Donna Noble was, in fact, exactly as he had described to her mother and grandfather, and that made him rather proud of his accomplishment.

The Doctor made a face. "Right, sorry. Anyway, this is Donna, Sherlock, Willie. Well, we'd best be off. We're on our way to say good-bye to Martha, since she demanded we come back before we leave Earth again. Not that it's so incredibly hard to come back at a better time," he added in a grumbling tone, and Donna gave him a reproachful look.

"It was good to meet you, Doctor," John shook his hand heartily. "You too, Donna."

"Look after yourselves, both of you," Mary smiled, giving them both a good, strong hug. "Don't fly too far. You've got to come back and visit sometime."

"You might want to have consulted me on that first," Sherlock "harrumphed!" under his breath, and John gave him a confused look.

"Good luck, all of you! Keep up with your chemistry, Sherlock. You might save the universe with it sometime in the future!" the Doctor waved merrily before stepping back inside the box and running up to the controls.

"See you all later!" Donna shouted and waved before shutting the door to the box.

"Good-bye!" John and Mary called, as the baby cooed loudly and Sherlock merely waved in a cordial fashion.

The "WHOOSH!" filled the room again, blustering Sherlock's papers all about the floor and the table, and the light on the top of the box began to flash as it slowly disappeared from sight with a "VWWOORRPP! VWOOORRRPP! VWOORRPP! VWORP! VWORP! Vworp! Vworp. Whoosh!"

The flat was as quiet as it had been before the box had ever arrived.

Willie started crying again.

Mary turned to her husband's best friend. "So, Sherlock, how did it go?"

Sherlock! BBsitter needed 4 tonite! REALLY need one bad. 5:00? –Mary

Mary, for the last time, I am not your private babysitter. –SH

im not saying that! I just rlly need 1 4 tonite! Like I already said!—Mary

PLEEEEESE—Mary

Sherlock im begging you—Mary

I babysit by consultation only. –SH

I'm consulting you.—Mary

Understand that monitoring the wellbeing of a human infant is an incredibly complex task that requires some preparation beforehand. –SH

meaning?—Mary

Meaning there may be some articles around the flat that are not suitable for children to see. –SH

still, meaning?—Mary

A head floating in a jar, for instance. –SH

She's 8 mos.! she'll think it's a plaything!—Mary

It has one eye gouged out and the rest of the face has been maimed and scarred with a jagged knife. –SH

ok mab u have a point. –Mary

Honestly Mary, I think sometimes I'm better at this than you are. –SH

Don't even go there. You won't even agree to babysit. –Mary

Fine. I will babysit tonight. But I am a consulting babysitter, not a private nanny.—SH

Mary? Did you understand me very clearly? –SH

Mary? –SH

THE END