A/N: If anyone is still here - I love you. There is no way I can properly apologise for this wait. I feel like a bad human-being - but if you want to kill anyone, I suggest you kill the exam boards. They're the ones who have been keeping me locked in a perpetual state of revision for the past month and a bit :'(
Seriously though, I leave for a bit, and when I come back everything's different? What is this 'cover' I now need? Why is everything so confusing and new? Help! :')
Disclaimer: Yeah, that's what I was doing while I was gone. I wasn't revising at all, I was sealing the deal with the BBC. That's right - you're now looking at the new owner of Sherlock and Doctor Who. (Not really.)
Review replies:
SeddieShortBus - I can sympathise with the exam feelings, I hope they're all over and done with now? (: Thank you very much, you're too kind! Here you are, have some more :3
ZombieKillerLevi - Exactly! (just kidding) That would be insane though, I wonder where John would keep his towel… :') Ooh, what's your username/house? I'm really rather a fail at Pottermore. :3
Jo13 - Oh my gosh, you're going to kill me, aren't you? I'm so, so sorry! Here, have an extra long chapter to make up for it! D: My username is WaveNewt30580 - and I'm awful at everything on there XD
Chalcedony Rivers - Haha! Thank you very much, m'love! Though I am no Mofftiss, if I was I would be both far more horrible, and far more clever (: The wrong house? Can I be nosey and ask which one? (After you've read this of course) :3
Nataly SkyPot - Thank you! Here you are (:
Kawaiikittey - It made perfect sense - thanks for the concrit - I'll go and sort that out as soon as possible (: Here you are! I hope you continue to enjoy it :D
Bookninja15 - Haha, thank you very much for your lovely comments! I will add you when I remember exactly what my password is… Alternatively - my username is WaveNewt30580 (:
Companions and their geniuses are goooo!
"I'm sorry, I don't think you're making much sense." Mike Stamford apologised politely, trying to hide his increased levels of worry in the face of this apparent madman. The madman and his big blue box.
The madman, or 'The Doctor' as he'd called himself, stepped closer, strange whirring device still outstretched in his hand. "Nope." He smiled happily. "You're definitely not human. In fact" He prodded the box-like object in his hand, and it gave off a loud squeak. "You're about as human as I am."
Mike stared, then stared a bit more. The man in front of him didn't seem to disappear as he half expected him to, nor did the conversation make any more sense in his head. "I'm sorry…" He tried again, speaking more slowly in case the man was a danger. "I don't think you have the right man."
The Doctor frowned, "Of course I do! You're Mike Stamford aren't you? Old school friend of Doctor John Watson, sort-of friend to Sherlock Holmes, you set them up a meeting to discuss a flat share…"
There was silence for a moment, then; "Are you a policeman?"
This elicited a laugh from the man in front of him. "'Fraid not." he chuckled. "Now if you'd just step this way..?" And he turned and walked into the police box, gesturing for Mike to follow him.
And Stamford, in all his confusion, did.
….
John jogged a little, attempting to keep up with Sherlock as he strode through the busy streets around New Scotland Yard. He hadn't uttered a word since they'd spoken with Lestrade, though now he seemed to have realised something, and John had known him long enough to understand that when Sherlock Holmes went for a wander through London, it was best if he followed.
After another ten minutes of furious speed-walking, Sherlock eventually stopped outside what John recognised as the café they'd sat in not too long ago. Sherlock swept inside, selected a table, and let John deal with the flustered waitress.
When his tea had arrived, John took a measured sip before allowing his curiosity to get the better of him. "Right. What is going on, Sherlock?"
"Hmm?"
"Sherlock." He hissed, trying not to draw any further attention to their little table by the window. "What is going on? With us I mean. Why have we forgotten going to see Lestrade?"
Sherlock looked up at that, a frown creasing the area between his eyebrows. "Forgotten? We haven't forgotten anything John, we just weren't there."
John took another sip, letting the sweet brew linger on his tongue a little before swallowing and continuing calmly. "How could we not have been there? Lestrade said it was us, he wouldn't have just mistaken someone else and let them in, I mean - it is Scotland Yard for crying out loud!"
"But what if they looked like us?"
That threw him a little. "What? If they disguised themselves you mean?"
"No. What if they really looked like us John? Come on, people living above our flat? They'd have the perfect opportunity to watch us and practice our behaviour."
"But the Doctor said that it was aliens on the floor above."
"Yes." Sherlock frowned, "Obviously. No one else would be able to look like us and convince someone we've known for so long."
"Wait, I'm confused." John ran a hand through his hair, it was getting longer now, he'd need a cut soon. "Are you saying that there are aliens in the flat, aliens that look like us, masquerading as us throughout London?"
Sherlock's eyes gleamed, and he stood up abruptly. "Yes John, that's exactly what I'm saying."
He left without another look, and John regretfully abandoned his tea to follow him out the door, throwing down some money for their waitress. Aliens on the loose or not, some things never change; and it would seem he never would be able to finish what he'd ordered with Sherlock around.
….
Mike had had to take a seat upon entering the Tardis for the first time. He'd been sat, clutching his dry toast, and muttering "But it doesn't make sense!" for the past ten minutes.
"Doctor" Rory appeared behind the gangly man's shoulder. "I think you've broken him."
"Rubbish. He's a scientist, he'll work it out in a minute."
"He's been here for ten." Amy pointed out, walking over his a hand on her hip. "I don't think you should just leave him there."
"Yeah, what if he hurts himself?" Rory asked, a little concern on his features.
"With a piece of toast?" The Doctor replied, disbelieving. He shoved Amy over anyway, whispering at her to be 'reassuring'. Right. Like that was going to work.
Amy knelt down in front of the bewildered man who had, (thank God), stopped with the deranged whispering. "Mr Stamford?" She tried, "Are you alright?"
He glanced down at her, cleared his throat, and nodded. "Erm, hello." He smiled shakily. "Sorry to bother you, but where exactly am I? And who are you?"
Amy turned back to the Doctor angrily, "You didn't explain yourself?" She hissed, "No wonder he's confused!" The Doctor had enough grace to look sheepish.
"I'm Amy Pond, that's my husband, and the scrawny one is the Doctor. This is the Tardis." She smiled in what she hoped seemed a calming way. "It's nothing to worry about, all plausible and science-y. We just need to talk to you for a bit."
He nodded slowly, seemingly having decided to just go with the flow for the time being. "Right. Okay."
"Well, that wasn't so hard was it?" The Doctor grinned, coming over and holding out his hand. He didn't seem to notice Mike didn't take it. "Now, what can you tell us about Mr. Holmes?"
Mike frowned. "Sherlock? He's a colleague. Well, I say colleague, I'm not actually sure what it is he does at the hospital. He works with the police mostly, from what I can gather from reading John's blog. He's a bit obnoxious, but he likes me well enough I suppose."
The Doctor nodded. "How did you meet?"
Mike seemed thrown. "Meet?" He asked.
"Yes, how did you first meet this delightfully obnoxious man?"
"Well, I… I suppose it was probably through work…" He stopped again. "I can't quite remember."
"How long ago was it?"
"Oh, a couple of hundred years by now, I would guess."
"Oh?" The Doctor schooled his face into gentle curiosity. Amy and Rory were not so subtle. "And John?"
"About the same for him too, I would think. Though probably a bit earlier, we studied together."
"How old are you Mr Stamford?"
Mike looked thrown by the change in subject. "I'm forty-eight." He replied, eyebrow raised. "I'm sorry, but what does that have to do wit-"
"I was only wondering" The Doctor began, and Amy and Rory felt the success in his tone. "How you could possibly have known these men for a few hundred years if you yourself are only forty-eight?"
There was a tense silence, in which the Doctor didn't move, and Mike's face flashed through a hundred different emotions, his mouth opening and shutting like a fish. Then, eventually, he spoke.
"I remember now." He whispered, and his voice had changed slightly, he sounded older than he had before, more shaky, and his eyes flashed a curious purple colour. "It was because of the books."
The Doctor looked triumphant.
…..
Sherlock only stopped jogging when he had reached the alleyway the Tardis had been parked in when they'd left. The empty alleyway.
"Where are they?" He muttered, flustered. "They wouldn't just go for no reason…"
"Maybe they've come to the same conclusion?" John asked, doubled over and taking slow breaths through his nose. All this sudden running had taken it out of him. "Gone to investigate?"
Sherlock frowned. "They wouldn't do anything that drastic without coming to us first. They'd have realised that it revolves around us, all of this, and they would have needed us to solve it completely."
"Baker Street?"
"Possible" Sherlock nodded. "Perhaps they've gone to find us."
"Plan of action?" John asked, shaking out the fatigue in his legs.
"We meet them there." Sherlock nodded, before heading out onto the busy street again, John prepared to run after him, but stopped when he saw the detective hailing a taxi.
"Get in." Sherlock muttered, holding the door for him. "Don't assume I can't tell when you're tired John."
John didn't know how to reply, so he opted for just settling on the bumpy leather with a sigh of relief, and smiling.
…
When Mike had gathered his thoughts enough to continue, and the Doctor had grabbed a swivel chair from a closet the Ponds hadn't even known the existence of, he began to explain himself.
"So." The Doctor started, "You aren't human."
"Of course not." Mike looked offended. "I'm an Evophantom, of course." Amy and Rory looked nonplussed, but the Doctor had gasped in recognition.
"You know them?" Amy asked.
The Doctor nodded, "Of course. Quite a friendly bunch; like your version of a shape shifter I suppose. They're advanced, but I hadn't realised they'd quite managed space travel beyond their own galaxy yet."
Mike looked smug. "We were the 116th crew sent out." He added, puffing up his chest a little.
"What? How many of you are there?" The Doctor asked, "How did I miss this?"
"There were seven of us. At first." He explained. "Of course, after people heard where it was we had come to, they wanted to see for themselves."
"To see Earth?"
"No, to see Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson." Mike looked at the confused three faces around him and started to explain. "Right, well. I suppose you know about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson?" He received three answering nods. "Good, that'll cut quite a bit out of the explanation then. Well, basically, these books were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; wonderful man. Unfortunately, he eventually got bored of his little creation, and decided to off him."
"The Reichenbach Fall." Amy nodded.
"Well, yes. Formerly called 'The Final Problem,' but yes. The thing is, Sherlock Holmes is very popular back at home, and many people didn't take too kindly to the idea that the books had finished…" He trailed off, looking a little guilty, "So we used some new technology and came to sort things out."
"You mean you jumped galaxies and started your own living characters of the books." The Doctor raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
"Yes." Mike nodded. "We purged the Earth of the books first though, it wouldn't do to have plot-holes, and made some necessary adaptations so they'd fit in here-"
"I'm confused" Rory announced, not to anyone's great surprise. "Start from the beginning. The Sherlock Holmes and John Watson on Earth are actually you guys pretending to be the characters so you can read about more adventures?"
Mike scrubbed a hand across his forehead, as if trying to wipe away the worry-lines there. "Not- not exactly." He stammered. "Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are themselves, we just guide them through it all. We weren't going to interfere too much… that was the plan anyway. But all good plans have a few hitches, right?" He smiled weakly.
The Doctor did not look impressed.
…..
221B was still cordoned off when they arrived, but the few police still there waved them through without any hassle. John tried not to be affected by the scorch marks on the walls, and when they opened the door, the lack of personal belongings cluttering every available surface. Anything that wasn't too badly damaged had been stored away, and the rest were listed on insurance forms. Sherlock did not seem too bothered by all this.
"They aren't here." He pointed out needlessly, spinning round to poke his head into the empty kitchen. "No one's been in here for days."
"Yeah, well. We've been busy." John pointed out, lifting one of the scorched armchairs and revealing a clean patch of carpet underneath.
Sherlock nodded. "We should leave."
A banging noise from above them had them both craning their heads. "My room?" John asked, eyebrow raised.
"Or our guests." Sherlock finished, already heading towards the stairs up to John's sparse room, disregarding the sign that indicated the stairs were unstable and not fit for use. When he flung the door open, however, he was met with an empty room. There was nothing that could have fallen to the floor, and no open windows that could have slammed shut…
"Upstairs then." John sighed. "I should've known."
"What do you mean?"
"Things are never this easy with you."
…
"Wait a minute." Amy pouted. "If you're some 'evophantom', how come you didn't remember until we practically pointed it out to you?"
Mike opened his mouth to answer at the same time the Doctor said "Perception filter. You don't even realise something's not there, or is there, until you're shown it. Like memories… or a room."
Mike nodded. "Security detail. There was a breach in our plan, so the program was terminated until we can solve it. I was sent to watch out for everything of course, so I couldn't be left to remember it all. That would have most likely made things worse."
"Sent to watch out for what? What breach?"
"For Sherlock and Dr Watson of course." He looked at their confused faces, and settled down to explain, waving his arms about in the manner of a primary school teacher trying to teach a class of easily-distracted children. "Someone had to be based on Earth with them, to make sure that what they did wasn't too strange, or that nothing unprecedented happened. Except, something did, and the program was temporarily terminated." he huffed out a breath, "Which meant that I was left to watch-over everything in a petty, human way."
Rory looked mildly affronted. Amy looked murderous. "We've done a damn sight better than you, trying to figure it all out!" She pointed out, "What's this breach then?"
"There were… visitors." Mike explained, looking up to the Doctor for support. "Some of the people back at home obviously got bored of waiting for the next adventure-"
"Or maybe they wanted to test the great detecting duo themselves." The Doctor added.
"Exactly" Mike nodded. "So they've interfered. They're creating problems everywhere, and lets not mention how much they've mucked-up the timeline…" He sighed, shaking his head. "Until we can find them, we've been covering their tracks with perception filters, no one will notice a thing is wrong. We haven't been able to find them yet, but I have confidence we'll stop them before anything too bad happens."
"221B burnt down. Mrs Hudson's missing." Rory stated, eyes flashing. "That's a bit 'bad' don't you think?"
Mike had the decency to look guilty. "They won't have done anything to her. I'm sure they're just trying to 'test' Sherlock and John, like your friend said."
"Why wouldn't anyone have noticed them?"
"Evophantom, remember?" The Doctor sighed. "They've disguised themselves as Sherlock and John."
There was a short silence as everyone tried to take the information in. Mike looked like he was itching to write it all down. Then, Amy scowled. "How long have you known something like this was up?" she demanded, pointing one sharp finger at the Doctor.
"Since their eyes turned a funny colour in the Tardis." He admitted.
"And you didn't think to tell us?" She cried, rounding on him.
"I didn't want to worry you!" The Doctor held up his hands in surrender, looking to Rory for help.
Rory decided he should probably intervene before one of them decided to dramatically storm off, or dramatically murder the other, (that last one would probably be Amy). "Right. Well. We should probably go and find them, don't you think?"
A/N: Again, I'm so, so sorry for the wait. Don't worry, I'm definitely going to finish this. I have it all planned out and everything - promise (: Can you give me a shout about your thoughts on this chapter? Any of you even still here? D: