"You seem distracted," John noticed about halfway through the day, in front of the dead body of Jason May bloody in the barber shop. Sherlock tried to ignore him, examining the crime scene.
"I'm not," Sherlock lied.
"Come on, Sherlock, I know you're lying," John reminded him, sticking his hands in his pockets. Sherlock paused for a moment. He knew he couldn't tell him about the dream, or how he had been wondering about the Psychospace. So all he told him was,
"I have someone to meet up with tonight."
"Who?" asked John.
"A Doctor. Now come on, let's get to the case!" he insisted, irritated. John wanted to argue, but Sherlock was already walking over to look more closely at the dead body.
As soon as Sherlock got home, he went straight into his room and told John "Don't bother me!" on his way. John was frozen for a moment, running the message through his head. A little odd, he thought. Besides, wasn't he supposed to meet someone?
"Weren't you meeting up with someone?" John asked.
"Still am!" Sherlock called. John didn't really see how that was possible, but who knew what he was up to, he was Sherlock. He shrugged and headed into the living room, turning on the telly and absentmindedly watching as he thought about who Sherlock could possibly be meeting up with.
Sherlock opened his eyes to a long, grey town. It looked to be from about the 1950's, the way the shops and people were designed. It wasn't technically deserted, some people walked along the sidewalks and cars drove through the streets, but they didn't notice him. Their mouths moved but they made no sound, they wore no hats but their eyes were shadowed. Unimportant. Looking around to find the blue sky grey and the skin tones grey, Sherlock could see that everything was black and white like an old movie. Everything except one thing. An old 1950s police box sat in an alleyway, normal for the times aside from the fact that it was vibrant blue and everything else was dark. It probably meant something, but it wasn't his top priority.
"Doctor," he called out to the sky, "I'm back. Are you still here?"
"I am." Sherlock spun around a full 180 degrees to try and find the voice behind him. Then he turned around again to find the Doctor had appeared directly in front of him. He was sort of in color; not really all of him, but little elements like his vibrant alive eyes and his red bow-tie were as bright as the blue box. Even those colors, though, seemed to swim around his body and flicker like flashlights. "What do you need?" he asked, gently smiling.
"What's with the change of scenery?" Sherlock inquired.
"I don't know, it's your mind," The Doctor confessed with a shrug.
"Last time we met up you mentioned Psychospace," he told him.
"Yes," The Doctor agreed.
"You never told me what it was," Sherlock reminded him. The Doctor smiled somewhat knowingly. He crossed his arms, turning the barber shop across the street to a deli.
"I hope you're tired," he responded, "Because it's sort of a long story."
"I'll stay as long as I need," Sherlock insisted.
"Well," The Doctor began, "There are lots of questions in the universe. 'Why are we conscious?' 'Who created the stars?' 'What are hot dogs made of?' You don't want to know, it's pretty vile, anyway, that's not important, none of these questions are the big questions."
"What are the big questions?" Sherlock asked.
The Doctor listed them slowly, each time the word appearing in front of him, made of a constructed puff of smoke. "How," it appeared in red smoke, "Why," blue smoke, "What," green smoke, "When," purple smoke, "Where," yellow smoke, "And who," orange smoke. Sherlock watched as the words lined themselves up in rainbow order from left to right, so, like a power-point presentation made of smoke, the words HOW, WHO, WHERE, WHAT, WHY, and WHEN.
"There are two categories that you can it these questions into, but few fall strictly into one. First, there is Topospace." A green hill appeared out of smoke in front of the words and WHERE settled down on top of it.
"This is what you know as space, and it is the only category for Where. It is the physical, how any beings can travel. The next is a bit more advanced. Tempospace." As he said this a flickering void like a sun came into being by the colored smoke, in shades of orange and purple. It swirled within itself and the purple smoke came over to settle inside it.
"Fewer could manage to travel through this medium, as it is what you know as time travel. It is the only one that deals with the When. The rest of these fall in between, as how, what, and why could all be in either side." All of those words appeared halfway between the hill and the spiral.
"What about who?" Sherlock asked.
"Exactly," agreed the Doctor. Everything besides the orange word "WHO" dispersed and floated away into the air, leaving the word alone and slightly expanding in front of the Doctor. "Some thought that it was just another that fell in between, as people took up both space and time. They figured it was part of Tempospace because we all develop as people and part of Topospace because our consciousnesses were neurons in our mind. But that was wrong. It wasn't our consciousnesses that were made up by our brains, we didn't know where those came from. But they weren't in Topospace or into Tempospace, and nobody even considered that they were in the third major category."
"I thought you said there were two," Sherlock objected.
"I did. I skipped one."
"What's the third?"
"It's called Antispace, travel in the void, but anyway, that's not what's important!" As he said important the people on the street vanished and the sky flashed blue. Thunder clapped. Sherlock shivered.
"Alright, so, what about who?" Sherlock asked, reminding him of where he was.
"Oh, yes right," agreed the Doctors, "Who was by far the most major and controversial question, especially as some people began to think it had a category of its own."
"How could it?" Sherlock asked.
"They were real faithful types." The Doctor explained. The word WHO rose up and shrank as it was replaced by three featureless white people made of smoke. As the Doctor explained the theory, a loose gold strand began growing and running through each of their heads. "They believed that all living beings, or at least, all beings with a consciousness were linked and that that was a means of travel. Psychospace is the medium between the minds of all living things." The gold chain reached the final person's head and the white people and chain vanished and floated up into the sky.
"That's insane. Impossible, obviously," Sherlock scoffed.
"Well, of course it is, I agree," The Doctor said softly. A light of something not-so-sane passed behind his eyes and his fists tightened, "But when you've been trapped inside anything for a little over four millennia it's a little hard to deny it's existence."
Sherlock shivered. The clear sky was now overcast as the Doctor continued.
"I didn't come into your mind just for sightseeing. You're the most clever person I've met in a very long time, and I'm thinking you can help me escape,"
Sherlock wasn't sure why he agreed, it was all totally insane, but he nodded before he knew what he was doing. "How do I get you out?"
"We'll have to escape some of the natives, first," The Doctor told him.
"The natives?" Sherlock asked, "In a world between minds?"
"Did I ever suggest it was uninhabited?" Sherlock cocked his head at this.
"How could there be creatures there?" he asked him.
"Have you ever heard voices inside your head?" The Doctor questioned. "Little people saying 'do it, don't do it'? Haven't you ever wondered why it's such a relatable phenomenon through all the cosmos?"
"Are you suggesting that the voice in everyone's head is the exact same being," Sherlock questioned incredulously, "That's even more impossible."
The Doctor shrugged. "I've seen them. And I'm guessing they don't want me to leave, and they won't let anything pull me through. Even the benign ones won't help me, it's very difficult to pass through dimensions"
"So I can't pull you out of it?" Sherlock asked.
"Maybe, maybe not."
"Well, can I go in?" Sherlock asked. He tried to make it could like it would be helpful, but really he was dying to know what Psychospace was really like. The Doctor chuckled softly. The once lively building boarded their own windows up with wooden boards, the city becoming deserted by the second.
"No," he said, "You can't go in."
"Well, if I can't travel through Psychospace but the voices in my head can, and they're not even individual to me, who exactly does that make me?" he asked. The Doctor smirked. The clouds loomed over thicker.
"Ah, yes the big question," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Something about his smile, the odd little glint in his eye made him look like he belonged in a mental asylum, which after a little over four centuries he may very well have. "Are we just our bodies," he continued slowly. He tapped his finger against his head, "Or the voices in our heads?" he leaned his head back ever so slightly, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Now, Sherlock, I'm afraid there is something very very important you have forgotten to do."
Sherlock creased his eyebrows in confusion, trying to think of what he could have done wrong. "What?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," The Doctor said a little too calmly, "If my human biology is correct, it's really not wise of you to go too long without doing it."
"What is it, what have I forgotten to do?" Sherlock inquired harshly. The Doctor gave him that same, unnatural sort of smile. As he gently whispered the word it appeared behind him in toxic black smoke.
"Breathe," he whispered. In a split second, the black smoke rushed forward and enveloped him. All he could see was black, his eyes watered, his lungs ached, but finally, he woke up.
He sat rapidly up out of bed, his chest immediately feeling like like it was collapsing in on itself and his throat praying for air. He gasped loudly, talking in as much air as he could. He gasped and heaved and coughed for a few more seconds to try and get his body oxygenated again, wondering how long he had gone sleeping without breathing.
"Jesus, thank God," he heard someone beside him sigh. He found John standing at the side of his bed and looked up at him, wide-eyed, still breathing heavily.
"What the Hell was that?!" John asked in a panic, "I just came in because I found your gun in the living room and I figured I'd come in quietly and give it to you but I come in to see you aren't breathing! Thank God I had, I thought you had died! Do you have some sort of sleep apnea?!"
Sherlock coughed, looking up at him and trying to process his question. "Sleep apnea?" he panted, "No… no, I just wasn't breathing…" It occurred to him only now that seeing the Doctor may have harmful side effects.
"For how long?!" John demanded.
"I don't know," Sherlock confessed.
"Well, does this happen often?!"
"Not lately, but possibly much more so in the future!" Sherlock insisted. He then sent John stepping back as he hurried out of bed and to his dresser.
"So… you're fine now?" John assured.
"Yes!" Sherlock snapped back.
"Alright, alright!" John defended. He quickly turned and stepped out of Sherlock's room, leaving him to get dressed and ready. So he wasn't breathing in his sleep now? What did that mean?
Just a few moments later, before his coffee was even made, John saw Sherlock hurrying out the door. He creased his eyebrows at the flicker of a tailcoat leaving the door.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Out!" he called back. By that time, he was already out the door and John saw no point in calling after him.