Act II - Watson Makes Tea For Three

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Sherlock heaved the front door open to 221B, striding in and not even bothering to unbutton his coat before he leapt up the stairs two at a time.

A familiar voice floated out to greet the Doctor and Watson as the shorter man closed the door, gesturing politely to the upstairs landing.

"Coo-ee! Is that you, Doctor Watson?" Mrs Hudson called, poking her head round the staircase as she approached. "Oh it is. And a house guest. Another doctor, is he?"

"Actually, yes, I am," the Doctor beamed, putting his hand out as his face stretched into the daffiest, most welcoming grin in existence. Mrs Hudson smiled, shaking his hand briefly. His eyes narrowed just slightly. "And would be… Mrs Hudson?"

"Yes dear, his landlady," she admitted, somewhat surprised but also willing to let it go, smiling up at the man whom she apparently considered unexpectedly good-looking. She tilted her head apologetically to see round his shoulder. "Doctor Watson, could you have a word with Sherlock?"

"What's he done now?" Watson sighed.

"Well - it's not very important, I know, but I think he's commandeered my kettle. It was here last night but this morning it'd disappeared. I've had an awful job making tea," she said, wringing her hands. "Could you have a word?"

"I am so sorry, Mrs Hudson," Watson said immediately, coming forward and putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'll get it back for you."

"No hurry," she said lamely, as he and the Doctor turned and began to climb the stairs. "Oh, I didn't get your name, Doctor," she called up after the gentleman in the long brown coat.

"Neither did I," he called back, waving a cheery hand over his shoulder.

Mrs Hudson shook her head and went back round to her kitchen, determined to stop asking.

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Watson found the door to the sitting room wide open and waved the taller Doctor in first. The Gallifreyan wandered in, hands in his pockets, his large eyes scanning the room voraciously.

"It's just like the books," he marvelled under his breath.

"I'm sorry, what?" Watson asked, going past him and heading for the door to the kitchenette on the left.

"Oh, don't mind me," he said cheerfully, turning to watch the angular detective in the armchair.

Sherlock had eschewed his long coat and perched himself on the balls of his feet in the chair rather like a kestrel watching for mice far below - except the mice were two copies of the Yellow Pages, apparently open at the same page and balanced rather precariously on an assortment of miscellanea atop a wide wooden stool. His elbows, at home in his raised knees, supported his interlocked hands up against his lips, as if in prayer, as he stared at the book on his right.

Watson's head appeared round the doorjamb of the kitchenette. "You have got to be kidding me," he said flatly.

Sherlock made no reply, wholly engrossed in his ostensibly blank staring.

The tall Doctor, however, looked over. "What is it?"

"There's blood in Mrs Hudson's kettle," Watson protested. "Blood! You do realise people boil water in these things to make it suitable to drink?"

"There are in excess of two billion kettles in the world, John," Sherlock muttered, pre-occupied.

"And none of them in her kitchen," he shot back. "Don't worry - I'll clean it up and return it."

"Don't touch it. I need the blood inside to congeal."

"Ugh," Watson managed in surrender, going to the other, chrome kettle and checking the insides before half-filling it from the tap.

The Doctor wandered behind Sherlock's chair, looking over his shoulder.

"You're in my light," Sherlock announced.

"You don't need light, you're not reading those pages," he observed, his mouth tweaking to one side as he sniffed rather matter-of-factly.

Sherlock's face didn't move but his eyes darted up, latching onto the door frame dead opposite his chair. A whole minute passed. "Tell me about this candlestick-looking item that you need and someone stole," he said briskly.

"It's not a candlestick."

Watson, in the kitchen finding mugs, hesitated as he began to listen more to the pseudo-conversation in the front room than the kettle trying to boil next to him.

"Obviously. Someone who has the technology to travel in time and space wouldn't need a candlestick," came Sherlock's toneless voice.

"Unless I have candles."

Watson smiled, he couldn't help it. He put down a teaspoon and went to the doorjamb of the kitchenette, folding his arms and watching the two men. The Doctor looked up instantly, assessed the look on the medical doctor's face, and winked cheekily.

Sherlock lifted his chin, resting it on his hands for a second before twisting to look at the man between the window and himself. "Describe the item you want."

The Doctor ambled over to the mantelpiece with his hands in his pockets, bending to look at the tiny accoutrements upon it. "It looks like a candlestick."

There was a long silence.

"If you want my help to find it, you'll have to tell me more than that. What exactly is it?" Sherlock persisted, sounding very much as if he had come to the buffers at the end of his personal railroad marked 'patience'.

"It's a lenticular alignment feed generator," the Doctor said mildly, bending to see a rather angry-looking Swiss Army Knife. He slid a hand inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of glasses, slipping them on to find the knife half covered in dried mud.

"What does that mean?" Watson asked politely.

The Doctor looked at him. "Does what it says on the tin," he smiled.

Watson shook his head and turned back to the kettle and the three mugs, beginning the serious business of making proper soldier tea, now that the kettle was whistling to advertise its readiness.

"It aligns lenses and broadcasts the co-ordinates?" Sherlock asked. "Why is it important? Who'd want to steal one of those?"

"Someone who wants to align lenses and broadcast the co-ordinates!" Watson called rather sarcastically from the kitchen.

The Doctor pointed at him but looked at Sherlock. "I like him. He's a thinker."

"Comparatively," Sherlock allowed with a little puff of air that was impossible to decipher. "Lenses. Why lenses?"

"Wrong 'lenticular'," the Doctor said, peeling off his heavy coat and flinging it at the coffee table on his right. It flew straight and landed perfectly. Sherlock did not appear to notice. Instead he scrutinised the tall man as he flumped down into the comfortable chair opposite him. "Lenticular as in a galaxy - a galaxy halfway between elliptical and spiral, one that's used up or misplaced most of its interstellar matter. It's actually a misnomer - the galaxies don't need to be lenticular."

"It aligns entire galaxies?" Sherlock asked quickly.

"Could do. And yes, it locks the co-ordinates and sends the info off to the mapping people."

"Mapping people?" Watson asked, appearing round the side of the chair to hand him a cup of tea.

"Ooh, thanks," the Doctor said eagerly, taking it and looking up at him. "The stellar charts, the maps of the universe - such as we know it - are recorded by various people. Just like you lot using Hubbles and NASA STEREOs and things to make maps of your night sky."

"Right," Watson said with scathing softness, raising his eyebrows in Sherlock's oblivious direction before going back to the kitchen. He came back with two mugs, handing one to Sherlock before sipping at his, leaning against the windowsill.

"So what is its value?" Sherlock asked.

"Would anyone pay money for it?" Watson said sceptically.

"Not money, John. Its value," Sherlock said slowly, eyeing the Doctor. "Who would be after it?"

The Gallifreyan sipped his tea. "Och, that's good," he gushed, looking at Watson. "This is the best tea I've had in… what year are we in again?"

"2011," Watson supplied, amused.

"Then it's the best tea I've had since 1599," he nodded, sipping it again.

Watson shook his head. "Look, I hate to sound rude, but really, could you tell us something about this candlestick thing? It's been a long day and I'm hoping there's normality in my very immediate future-"

"Dull," Sherlock breathed, barely audibly.

Watson ignored him. "I mean, I'm enjoying watching you spite him until his head explodes - really I am," he said to the Doctor earnestly, catching the way Sherlock's head turned and the detective considered him with curiosity. "But this would be quicker if you just got on with it."

The Doctor made an effort to hide his grin behind his mug, but no mug in the universe would have been wide enough to take the job on. He sipped once, twice. Then he sniffed and sat back. "Ok, you asked for it," he said simply, a slightly whimsical smile on his face. "I know someone who needs a new lenticular alignment feed generator, and I know there is - was - one in the Victoria and Albert museum," he began patiently. "So I popped over to get it."

"Ignoring silly questions like 'where from?' and 'who needed it?', I'll go straight on to 'do you think they would have come to get it themselves?'," Watson said politely.

"They're not the type to steal stuff," the Doctor allowed. "And even if they did, they couldn't come themselves - no capacity for travel."

"Who else would want this instrument?" Sherlock asked curtly. "Does it have any other practical applications?"

"Not really," the Doctor admitted. "But it's a lenticular alignment feed generator, it doesn't need any other practical applications."

"Explain," Sherlock tutted.

"It aligns galaxies, planets, anything you want - regardless of mass."

"When you say 'align'," Watson said, "you mean 'move'. Right?"

"Yes."

"Ok," he said brightly, before checking his watch to find it was already eight o'clock. "I've had my tea and I think this conversation just went right into Weekly World News territory. So I'll say I have things to be getting on with, don't touch his violin, and good luck the pair of you," he announced, walking past them and putting the cup in the kitchen sink.

The Doctor watched him give a single nod of the head before disappearing out of the open door and up the stairs. Then the alien turned to find the consulting detective's eyes clapped on him as barnacles to a ship's hull. He just waited.

Sherlock opened his mouth. "Assuming you're not suffering from any form of delusion-"

"I thought we agreed not to assume."

"Then as I can be reasonably sure you're not suffering from any kind of delusion, how can I believe-"

"Everything I've told you is the truth," the Doctor said clearly, sitting forward in the chair. He pulled off his glasses slowly, folding the arms in as he watched his hands. He slipped the glasses back into his inside jacket pocket, resting his elbows on his knees. "I've taken a giant leap of faith, considering I believe you're a fictional character in a Christmas annual published over one hundred and twenty years ago."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. He said nothing, but the Doctor distinctly heard huge cogs and wheels whirring at unimaginable speeds under the tousled dark hair.

Sherlock distinctly heard the litany rattling itself off in his own head:

Is he really an alien to this planet? Yes: see earlier evidence. Is he telling the truth? What reason would he have to lie - insufficient data to form hypothesis; so, get facts then. Alien comes to Earth, needs the item, unaware someone has already stolen it. Does he believe Earth-based thieves stole it? Yes: he's not running back to his ship to chase after- "Where's your spaceship?" he blurted out loud.

"My 'spaceship'?" the Doctor smiled.

"Yes. You travel in time but also space - ergo, you and whatever travelling necessities you carry with you need a vessel of some shape or description. Obviously it's disguised or people would be reporting it to the police, seeing as it must be parked somewhere near Marylebone. The mapping system isn't that great or you would have landed in Kensington near the museum, not almost in Marylebone, wandering around looking for a landmark to get your bearings. However, it must be good at searching for things across an incalculably wide area or you wouldn't have been able to verify that the item you seek was still in the museum before making your way over here to get it. If it's good at searching for things over a wide area, it would be a simple matter to go back to the ship and use it find where the item is right now - so why don't you? Perhaps you don't believe it's left this planet yet and so maybe it's because the item is easy to find from a distance but not up close - see previous theory on it not having left the planet or even the city." He paused, leaning his pursed lips on his clasped hands for a moment. "Thoughts so far?" he breathed.

The Doctor favoured him with an engaging smile. "Yes, I am an alien. Yes, I have reasons to lie but you have no idea where to start hazarding what they might be."

He watched Sherlock's face do its best to hide his surprise, and then took a deep breath.

"All I can say is: no, I'm not lying. Yes, I think humans here on Earth stole it - because if it were aliens they wouldn't still be here but no ships have left recently, so I do think it's still on the planet-"

"How do you know no ships have left?"

The Doctor fished in his pocket and then raised a silver instrument in his hand. "My screwdriver says so."

Sherlock frowned at it, then him. "Go on."

"Yes, I checked it was still here before I arrived, and no, I can't search for it once I'm within the planet's atmosphere - my ship's very old and some of the scanners aren't what they used to be." He sighed, a little sadly. "And yes, I need you to help me to find it. I don't know who's taken it, but it can't be for a good thing."

"You said it's capable of moving entire planets, even galaxies," Sherlock said quietly.

"Yes."

"Could it be used to move this one? From here?"

"No," the Doctor said seriously. "You need to choose a planet other than the one you're on, if you want to move it."

"Thank Nicorette patches for small mercies," Sherlock said suddenly, getting up and going to the window opposite the door to the sitting room. One hand went into his trouser pocket, the other nudged the heavy curtain to one side, and he looked out at the night street below.

"You don't seem at all fazed that I'm supposed to be an alien and I'm talking about planets, stars and galaxies," the Doctor said easily.

"You don't seem at all fazed that I'm supposed to be a fictional character in a newspaper you read over a hundred years ago," he agreed, turning to look over his shoulder at him. "By the way, which 'hundred years' was that?"

The Doctor laced his hands over his suit, settling back into the comfortable chair. "You seem real enough right now."

"As do you." He looked back out of the window. "I suppose I'll have to believe what you've told me. Half of it stands up to scrutiny."

"And the other half?" the Doctor smiled.

"Where you come from or what you purport to be is of little consequence to me," Sherlock said under his breath, as if to himself, as he watched the street. "Although, if you're telling us the absolute truth it looks like you should be worrying about this missing candlestick - but you're not."

"Looks can be deceiving," the Doctor smiled.

"Rarely," he scoffed.

"You look like you should be ginger but you're not."

"And you look like you should be Scottish but you're not," Sherlock shot back, albeit quietly. There was no reply and he turned to appraise the lanky gentleman in the brown pin-striped suit, watching him and smiling. Sherlock gave a slight 'hmm' and went back to eyeing the street. "What are you waiting for?" he mused. "What do you want?"

"To see if you're really Sherlock Holmes." The Doctor paused. "What do you want?"

"The mystery."

"You mean the mystery solved."

"Well… that too."

"So any ideas how we start locating the generator?"

"It's… already… taken care of," Sherlock muttered, totally, quietly, and in every other way lost to the goings-on of the street outside.

The Doctor opened his mouth, but suddenly Sherlock whisked the window open and bent out by at least forty-five degrees.

"Twenty quid!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The Doctor got up slowly, intrigued, but Sherlock leaned back in and shut the window briskly. There was a slight thump from upstairs and then a muffled male voice shouted: 'Sherlock! Don't be a git!"

He ignored the admonishment, instead dodging round the Doctor to go to the door and before the Gallifreyan knew it, he was scooting down the stairs. He took off after him, not even bothering to snatch up his brown coat from the opposite side of the room.

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Again, thanks for reading! And thanks for your comments; they're like gold dust. I do a little happy dance if I get one. :)