Right.

Ok.

Right.

The position of the Police Box was a little odd. Almost as odd as it's sudden appearance. And it was sudden, apparently. No one could remember it being here before. So Sherlock might have been right about that. But there's no way it could have been relevant. It was a disused Police Box. Still, he had thought that about the missing rabbit…

They had been called in for the security breaches, the sheer vastness and… weirdness… of them. A mystery. Sherlock loved a mystery. So close to the Olympics, it had to be terrorism. Some sort of plot, some sort of bomb. Something.

They had thought that anyway, the police.

But a terrorist cell involving 189 unlinked security guards? Impossible. The security guards couldn't have been in on it. And besides most terrorist groups – for all their boasts and threats – were lucky if they had over 100 actual members, so their only options were to work together which increased the risk of being caught. And for the most part, they just couldn't compete with the sharpening security checks – they were wholly incompetent for the most part, relatively easy to catch out now. But it was very much certain that someone wanted to gain access, to do something. Access to what? Do what?

John didn't know who did it. And this frustrated him.

Sherlock didn't know who did it. And this excited him.

The latest incident had happened at a shopping centre, a big one. It was different though, this time, one of the security guards had been killed. A bullet through his thigh. Young guy, young family. Bit of a space enthusiast, if there was ever such a thing. Watched the footage of the moon landing a lot, according to his wife.

It was a sad affair. But it caused Sherlock to take an interest, at least. Just say 'suspicious dead body' and Sherlock would go there at once.

But they hadn't got the information that they'd wanted from this one, not yet. Sherlock knew, Sherlock 'observed'. At all the other scenes, in all the other incidents, they had taken their time and cleaned up after themselves as thoroughly as they could (not 'Sherlock' thoroughly) and they had taken their time. This exit was rushed, manic, panicked, messy. They didn't get what they were after. And for two nights they'd stuck it out in the food court (Sherlock's insistence) and seen nothing, only going home last night to get some rest (John) and study the properties of Adder venom (Sherlock).

John had grown accustomed to ignoring the severed feet which had taken up residence in the fridge for several weeks now, and the frozen mice. He wasn't that keen on the new pet though, which Sherlock had affectionately named 'Bastard', after what John exclaimed every time she attempted to strike him. Still, anything was better than the escaped stick insect newborns, the corpses of which he was still finding between the keys of his laptop.

Needless to say, there was a section on his blog entirely devoted to 'flatmate problems'.

Anyway, even then they'd been back early, and the place was still literally crawling with Lestrade's men. Someone should have noticed a massive blue box showing up.

The food-court was located at the back of the building, taking up the majority of the second floor. They'd chosen to stay in the staff room, handily connected to both the wide expanse of the food-court and the central security room. Oh yes, another thing – cameras hadn't been working after the incident. Power surge or something, Anderson had fixed one.

He'd clearly been looking for Sherlock's thanks, with a smug self-satisfied smirk on his face. When Sherlock had greeted the news simply with "Just the one? You really are a useless one, aren't you?" the smile had plunged from his face so quickly that it sent John into barely concealed fits of laughter. Even the memory of it brought a giggle.

The staff room had three windows, at the right hand side as you entered through the double doors. They overlooked the empty car park and the skips, from an angle you couldn't see from any other point. Also useful. And the Police Box was tucked in a small corner, narrowly avoiding intruding on a parking space.

They were staring at it now.

Lestrade, Anderson, Donovan, Holmes, Watson, as well as various other police officers who neither John nor Sherlock knew the names of. Well Sherlock had known, but simply deleted them. And due to Donovan and Anderson's open dislike of him, John could only deduce that their sole reason for being at this exact spot with him was to mock him, as they clearly perceived him as being wrong. If even John had noticed this, Sherlock obviously had too. But he gave no indication he cared.

Lestrade cleared his throat.

"Look, we've just over-looked it Sherlock. Maybe you'd better get some rest-"

"Would you park your car here, in this space, next to the Box, with less than two feet's space to open the door? It is very unlikely they would not put the space here, if the Police Box predates the car park. It is unlikely but still much more likely than the first scenario that they would build a Police Box here and intrude upon the parking space. However as this carpark was built in 1995 why would anyone find a Police Box useful to build here post that date?"

"I'd park my car here."

"Oh yes, I am well aware you would Donovan but I'm choosing to consult someone who passed their test the first time around and didn't narrowly avoid rear ending a lamppost last night!"

This was all said without taking his eyes away from the Police Box. He made to press his ear against it, to hear if anything was inside.

And whatever her retort to this was, it was drowned out by the sudden slamming open of a door so ferociously the hinges strained. If he hadn't leapt back John was certain the frame would have taken off Sherlock's head.

A young-ish man was standing in the door way. His hair was styled in such a way as to be trendy, yet the tweed jacket, bowtie and what looked to John to be Tommy Cooper's hat had the effect of making him look like a slightly mad professor. He was smiling, or had been. Upon seeing a fairly intimidating set of police uniforms gathered around him and a tall thin man analysing his face this smile had speedily dropped to a look composed more of exasperated disbelief than fear. In less than a Sherlockian blink, arms and legs were spread wide enough to conceal the interior. Two heads, almost comically, appeared above his shoulders, peering out. A man and a woman's, mid-twenties. They saw the sight outside and shared a 'look'.

"Guys," he muttered without taking his eyes off of the detective, "Not to act pre-emptively, but… Abort. The plan. Move. Quickly. Hello!"

As he yelled, three things seemed to happen at once. Sherlock leaned forward to peer into the box, just as the bow-tied man reached to presumably slam the door back shut, just as the two individuals and he were promptly shoved from the Police Box and onto the road by someone behind them. The door shut quickly behind the now four people with a slight click.

The bow-tied man adjusted his tweed jacket and peculiar hat.

"Ah, yes. As I was saying before I was cruelly interrupted – River, bad!" he began, pausing to wag a finger accusingly at the older woman who had joined their group, "Hello. I'm Steve. Look, I have a piece of paper which says so. See, Steve, an electrician. These are my electric… people."

The piece of paper he put forward seemed to be a type of licence, official looking. He held it up to Sherlock's face for a good length of time, before snapping it back and putting it inside his coat.

"The lettering is blurred." Sherlock swallowed. He sounded distracted, seemed to be staring straight through them to the window. Had he seen something?

John's brow furrowed.

And electric people? What…

"Course it is!" Steve clapped his hands together, "I'm a fake. We're all fakes. My name's not even Steve, it's Mark. Now if you'd just let us all step inside this police box and arrest ourselves-"

Sherlock roughly shoved him out of his path, barking orders to apprehend them for questioning. No, he was not qualified to do this. Yes, they heeded them anyway. The look on his face was too terrifying not to. What had he seen?

He began pulling at the door, a deeply unsettled look on his face replacing fear. Mutterings about it having to have funny wallpaper could be heard over Mark's (?) loud protests. Apparently this belonged to him. The large nosed man managed to get a hand on Sherlock's shoulder before being physically restrained.

"Let me go! I'm Scottish, I'll bite!" The red-head snapped, fighting against a slightly bewildered and increasingly irritated Donovan, "River do something or… Or I'll give you a row!"

The other woman, River, just looked a bit bored and smiled in response.

"You'll give her a row?" the large nosed man looked at her with exasperation, "River, listen to her or we will take you to the Stormcage Containment Facility and-"

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose, wished for a simpler life and became very aware that he was risking yet another promotion opportunity to arrest four people for no reason other than coming out of a Police Box.

"Watson, what exactly is Sherlock trying to achieve-"

"HANG ON." Mark swung round, catching the police officer handcuffing him off-guard and losing interest in 'his' Police Box, "Sherlock? Watson?"

"Sherlock! Were you bullied?" the red head woman laughed, and then with dawning horror, "Wait, ACTUAL SHERLOCK!"

"Sherlock?" River blinked, "Amy how exactly…"

"What… Like the bloggers?" the unnamed man was less surprised than the others.

"BLOGGERS?" Mark faced him now, it was getting difficult for John to keep up, "THE John Watson and Sherlock Holmes BLOGGERS? Rory have you lost-"

"It's actually Sherlock." The woman, Amy, gasped and let out a high pitched giggle brought on by sheer panic. In John's world, this was more commonly seen in patients prior to surgery.

Marks' face was turning an interesting shade of red, he seemed to be deep in thought.

"What?" was all he managed. And then his expression lit up.

"Oh god, timey-wimey crack in the wall, Winston Churchill and Pterodactyls, the tearing of time and reality itself, the girl who remembers everything at the heart of it all. Time Vortex baby, you -" Mark pointed at Amy as best as he could in handcuffs, which involved bending his arms at an extremely uncomfortable angle, "Bring back things, bring things to life accidentally, jumble it all up. Books, you had them?"

"What?"

"A Study in Scarlet, on your wall, kid, timey wimey, wibbles… Fragments of imagination being brought into reality when there's a trauma to the time line, when all of time happens at once and your bloody offspring is in the centre of it all."

Mark gasped for breath, fez askew. He had been talking solidly without pause for over a inute.

"Amy, you made Sherlock." He finished, finally, near enough collapsing.

"I made SHERLOCK!"

His next sentence was punctuated with sharp inhalations.

"Ah of course! Rory doesn't know who Sherlock is... River and I are time-lords so we... and you... your memory! Only explanation! You remembered me and Romans and boxes and..." He gestured with his head in the general direction of the detective.

"I know who Sherlock is! I follow the blog! I tried showing you last year!" Rory intervened.

Watson liked to think that the expression on the young man's face was exactly like his each time Sherlock assumed he was following his train of thought.

Watson felt a headache come on. She made… what on earth was… are they fucking ment-

"Hello!"

River was right next to him, grinning airily.

"I do want to hear about your blog, sweetie, it sounds terribly exciting!"

Hadn't she been arrest… Ah of course, she'd punched Anderson in the face. There he was. Stumbling. Wasn't entirely professional but who could blame her, at the end of the day?

John looked around. Amy was arguing with Mark, whilst Rory looked on confused. The police officers holding them looked even worse. Lestrade looked like he was about to have an aneurysm, but he was joining Sherlock – who was deftly ignoring the ensuring carnage – in trying to break the thing open.

This day was becoming a little bit difficult.

So John could only really nod and be led along back to the building, arm in arm, with a woman chattering away about someone by the name of Arthur Conan Doyle. Obscure writer, or something.