((Hello! I still don't own either show or their characters! Also, be warned: this chapter contains a smidge of strong language. Avert your eyes, children.))
TEXT FROM: DOCTOR
17:34
Have you tracked me?
TEXT FROM: JACK HARKNESS
17:35
yeah. we're just a couple blocks away.
TEXT FROM: JACK HARKNESS
17:35
i'm getting two signals though?
TEXT FROM: DOCTOR
17:36
Sherlock opened his watch. He isn't taking it too well. bring John
TEXT FROM: DOCTOR
17:37
Also, the Cybermen seem to be getting hostile. Hurry up
Jack frowned, then snorted in what could have been amusement — if he wasn't also concerned and frustrated with his friend's, and, he guessed, probably Sherlock's, apparent total failure to grasp the concept of 'being careful'. He glanced over at John, who had accepted the job of carrying the bulky transmitter that he had brought along to take out the metal men (for machines built specifically to be resistant to any and every bullet and blast, they were almost pathetically susceptible to simple things like electricity and magnetism, when used the right way). It wasn't going to do them any good if they didn't get a move on, though.
Jack thought a moment, deciding what to say that would least alarm the poor man, finally settling on "D'you think you can run with that?" John nodded a short "Yes", and shifted the device to a more comfortable position, hugging it against his chest with his right arm, before quickening his pace.
The two men ran, nearly matching strides, as Jack briefly explained to John what the Doctor had texted him. He refrained from mentioning the watch, figuring either the Doctor or Sherlock, whatever he was now, would most likely have a better way of putting it clearly; saying only that something might have happened to Sherlock, but the Doctor hadn't been very clear. That was true, anyway.
They slowed as they reached the row of run-down shops and as the beeping on Jack's tracker grew to its loudest and quickest, signaling that its target was down to only a few meters away. Jack relieved John of the transmitter, carrying it the last few steps before setting it down on the pavement and unfolding some very scientific-looking parts.
John, having been motioned to go ahead, entered the building cautiously, his eyes adjusting slowly to the dimly lit room. He thought it was empty at first, but his trained ears picked up the sound of breathing from the corner opposite him. Feeling his way toward the sound, he frowned as he saw the outline of the figure — hunched up, facing the wall — and recognized who it was.
"Sherlock?"
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Sherlock stood motionless, holding the watch in front of his face, noting somewhere in the back of his mind that the golden tendrils of light curling around it and the whispering voice speaking to him from it should probably both be hallucinations.
It was also curious, that same part in the back of his mind told him, how his mind and body were completely being taken over by the little pocket watch. He couldn't — wouldn't? — see anything but the watch, couldn't hear anything but its whispers, and couldn't feel anything but the slow, slow tightening of the muscles in his right thumb, pulling it down, finding and pressing the latch —
and then there was the light, the soft, warm, almost tangible light, flowing from the watch and engulfing him, filling him, flooding his mind until the only thing he could feel was the blinding numbness of having every cell and fiber of his body and mind being rewritten —
and then he was on the floor, clutching his head as his brain was forced to completely reorganize itself: his 'mind palace', so painstakingly organized, now in ruins, with the memories of a seven-year-old Time Lord and the consciousness of an adult one thrown in on top of it. He tried desperately to wade through the mess and find that one little part of his mind that was always fine, that was always rational even through the highs of a great deduction or the lows of utter boredom — but it wasn't there, it wasn't there and he was lost and he couldn't think —
The Doctor had stood transfixed, struggling to handle the assault on his senses as the Time Lord essence flowed from the watch into the detective, but as soon as it had finished he was immediately aware of two very important things: one, that a Cyberman had re-entered the room and was demanding his compliance for something; and two, that Sherlock was not taking the transformation very well at all, now slumped back against the counter with his head in his hands. He managed to half-carry, half-drag the poor man into the far corner, before reluctantly turning to follow the Cyberman.
A few minutes later, Sherlock had managed to order his mind somewhat, shoving most everything aside to be dealt with later and allowing himself a little room to think. He heard a voice behind him, a softly hissed word; he whirled to face it, backing defensively into the corner like a frightened animal, until he finally caught up with himself, recognizing and matching the voice and the face —
John would never have expected such a violent reaction out of Sherlock. The man jumped and flung himself back like a frightened animal, one hand clutching his head and one thrown defensively out in front of him. Then Sherlock's face changed, a flicker of recognition in his eyes, and John found himself suddenly on the floor with a gangly ball of whimpering detective clutching at his jacket and trying to crawl into his lap. He had never seen Sherlock let himself be this vulnerable and raw before, so he figured something had to be very, very wrong.
The Doctor and Jack found them that way, John sitting with his back to the wall and Sherlock curled up into him, apparently having fallen asleep there. Jack would have taken a picture, had the Doctor not dragged him away to help take care of the dozen metal men in the other room — and by 'take care of', he meant dump into the Sun.
By the time they had finished, brought the TARDIS back and gotten Sherlock into the medbay for the second time that day, John was flat-out furious. The minute they were out of the sleeping detective's earshot, he whirled on the Doctor, slamming him into the side of the TARDIS corridor.
"What the hell have you done to Sherlock?" he shouted. "And don't you dare try lying to me. That man was scared out of his fucking mind back there!"
The Doctor pushed John away gently, allowing himself room to breathe, before pulling the now-ordinary fob watch out of his jacket pocket and handing it over. "Do you, by any chance, know what this is?"
"It's a broken watch. Sherlock keeps it on the mantel. What does it have to do with anything?"
The Doctor took the watch back, running his thumb over the Gallifreyan circles on its cover. "You see, my people, the Time Lords, they created a way to rewrite every single cell in their body, to change a Time Lord completely into a human, without even the memory of who they had been before — and the Time Lord part of them gets kept inside a little watch, like this one."
He could almost see the cogs turning in John's mind. "Now Sherlock, he was only a kid when he got turned human, a seven-year-old Time Lord, hadn't developed any of his adult senses yet — but the watch is smart, it adjusts for age. So when he opened it just now, not only did it have to integrate into his mind what he remembered from being a kid, but also what he should know by being an adult —"
"Hang on. You're saying, you turned Sherlock into an alien?"
The Doctor rubbed his cheek. "Well, not exactly, but more or less, yeah."
Then John's left fist connected with his jaw and his right fist with his skull, and everything went black.