The Wibbly-Wobbly Tale of Sherlock and the Doctor

[myjadedhavok]

Summary: There are two things you need to know: 1) time is wibbly, wobbly, and all fucked up and 2) Sherlock is most definitely NOT the girl who waited.
Notes: AU after series four. And starring Tom Hiddleston as the Doctor.



Chapter One: The Boy That Didn’t Make Sense

The problem with dying is that it hurts.

Of course, the problem with coming back to life is that it hurts really bad. Organs deteriorate and are remade, blood turns to ash in the veins, lungs stop and then begin again, skin burns away and is regrown. It’s agony, agony compressed into a few seconds but agony all the same.

When it’s over, it is all he can do to lay on the floor and just breathe.

He’s different, he can feel it. It’s a strange feeling. He knows how he used to feel, how he used to think, but his mental pathways are different now. The way in which he processes memories is different and he feels differently about things.

He remembers Rose Tyler. He remembers the way she changed him, tempered him. He remembers what it feels like to love her, the way it felt standing on a beach in Norway and burning up a star to tell her goodbye. He remembers it, but it’s different. He doesn’t love her anymore, not the same way.

There’s Donna, shining like a bright star in his heart. God help him, but she left her mark on him. This new body, this new mind, they were shaped and molded by the guilt and grief of her loss, by the sacrifice he would have made for her to save Wilfred, good old Wilf.

He was a new man, with all of Donna’s compassion and kindness burning away at his center. The DoctorDonna, still happening. And the universe was better for it.

He rolls over, onto his back, and brings his hands before his face. He rubs them together and flutters his fingers, “Fingers, good. All ten of them.” He wiggles his toes. “Shoes a bit tight. Feet must have grown.”

He rolls his lips into his mouth, flicks his tongue across his teeth. All knew, all weird. Mouth feels bigger on the inside, his tongue like it might be pointed. He sticks it out as far as it’ll go to try and see it, but gets distracted by the fact that he can now apparently touch his tongue to his nose.

His nose! He feels at it, long and maybe a little bony. The end of it feels a bit weird, like maybe there’s a ball underneath his skin. His fingertips map out his face. There are crinkles at the corners of his eyes and he makes faces to feel them move beneath his touch. His forehead is broad and seems to go on forever -

“I’m bald!” He exclaims, but no! He finds hair, thick hair. Long and curling around his ears, his big ears but he’s had worse. He tugs a lock of curly hair down, straightening it out until he can see it and then whoops, “Yes! Finally: ginger!”

He goes crashing about when the TARDIS lands; he hadn’t even realized she was still flying and he barely catches himself on the consul. There are lights that flash at him, bright and strobe-like. It feels angry, like a child’s temper tantrum, and he runs his hand along the base and pats the end of a knob.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Have I been ignoring you? Terribly rude of me, I know, but you should have a little patience. I’ve only just got here, haven’t I?”

The lights die away, from their harsh pulses to a steady and demur blinking. He rubs his hands together and straightens up, moves to the door. “Now, where have you taken us? To the frozen waterfalls of Sietynas, the walking trees of Eanthor, the eternal storm of Pegasti, the -”

He cuts off as he steps outside, “Scotland?” He tastes at the air and corrects himself, “No, no. Wales. Northern Wales.”

They’ve ended up on an estate. There’s a large manor, fit for the Queen, and sprawling grounds that go off in every direction. Everything is a bit overrun: the grass long and the grounds unkempt and the long driveway speckled with weeds. There are two cars in the drive, but their tires have gone flat and they’re covered in a thick layer of dust. The garden is overgrown, the hedges gone wild, and the whole place is shuttered up tight.

Except for a single window on the top floor, with a light shining from it.

“Something doesn’t seem right.” He says. “Let’s go poke it with a stick, hmmm?” He turns to the spot next to him, only to remember that it’s empty. No Rose, no Martha, no Donna. Not even Jack or Micky. He was alone. He frowns at himself for forgetting.

The door squeaks when he lets himself inside, his screwdriver undoing the lock but not wanting to work with the wood to keep the noise down. The inside hall is dark; there are cobwebs in the corners that seem to be occupied and he leaves behind footprints in the dust as he walks across the floor. There’s a chill to the air, a feeling that something just doesn’t belong.

Up the stairs he goes, to the second landing and then the third and then again to the top most floor. This floor seems to be in more use, wear marks on the floor where feet have swept away the dust. There’s light coming from around a door and he heads that way. When he swings open the door, he isn’t sure what he’s expecting.

He finds a little boy.

The boy is perhaps school-aged, but not by much. He has large, clear blue eyes and a thin, pale face. He’s covered in dirt, streaks of it on his face and his hands grubby, his hair pale with dust. The room is filled with jars where he’s collected spiders and beetles and other such bugs. He’s in clothes that look as if they were at one time nice, but are now filthy and ripped. He doesn’t appear at all frightened.

“Hello,” he greets the boy. “I’m the Doctor, and who might you be?”

“I’m Sherlock Holmes.” The boy responds.

“Is there anyone else here?”

“No, just me.”

“And the insects.”

“Spiders are arachnids.” Sherlock corrects him.

“How old are you?”

“Five and five eighths. It’s a good enough age, I suppose.”

“How long have you been here? Don’t you think your parents are worried.”

The boy shrugs. “I can’t remember. I woke up here and knew I was alone, but I wasn’t worried. I was waiting for something. I can’t remember what, but I know its coming. There’s a crack in my wall; did you notice?”

“What? Oh.” The Doctor’s eyes flicker to the wall. The crack is long and jagged. It isn’t the sort of crack that shows where two pieces of dry wall fit together, or where the weight of the wall is resting. It’s just there, for no apparent reason at all. “Yes, I did actually. A strange place for a crack.”

“It isn’t a normal crack. I’ve studied it. At night, I can hear voices that come from it but I can’t quite make them out. Do you know what it’s from?”

The Doctor takes his screwdriver and puts it to the crack. He examines the readings with a frown. “It isn’t a crack in your wall, Sherlock. It’s a crack in the universe. Two universes bumped up against one another and left this crack. Don’t worry, though. I can fix it.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’m the Doctor. It’s what I do.”

Sherlock scowls at him. “That isn’t a how. That’s, at best, an answer to why. You didn’t answer my question; how are you going to do that?”

“With this.” The Doctor holds up his screwdriver. “It’s called a sonic screwdriver and it can fix anything at all, even the universe. Well, anything but wood. Lucky for us, the universe isn’t made up of wood.”

“What is the universe made up of?”

“Stuff.”

“That isn’t an answer.” Sherlock complains.

“It is the only answer I’ve ever found and trust me. I’ve been searching for a long time.” The Doctor aims his screwdriver at the door and clicks through the settings. There’s a hum and glow and the crack closes up. “See? All fixed.”

Sherlock is looking at him suspiciously. “Where did you come from? No one ever comes here.”

“From outside.” The Doctor answers.

“Yes, but where from outside. And what kind of doctor are you?” Sherlock looks him up and down and frowns deeper.

“I’m hungry. Just fixed the crack in your wall; takes a lot out of a man.”

“Your screwdriver fixed the crack in my wall. You just pointed it.” Sherlock complains, but he makes a bidding motion like the Doctor should follow him.

Sherlock leads the Doctor to another staircase, a smaller and more spiraling one. It is likely a servant’s staircase, meant to be out of the way and hidden, and it leads down to the kitchens. The state of it is not the best, but it is obvious that Sherlock doesn’t mind the mice that scuttle across the cabinetry or the dust on the china.

The Doctor cocks his head, a rolling movement to the side. “Where do you get your food?”

Sherlock shrugs. “It’s just there when I need it.”

“You seem the type that likes to poke things with sticks, Sherlock.”

Sherlock turns to look at him. “You mean I’m curious. I like to learn things. I’m very clever.”

“Where did you come from?”

Sherlock gives him a look, eyebrows raised and pointed like a small child shouldn’t be capable of. “Where did you come from?”

“I came from outside, but I’m not sure you did. Do you not remember?”

“I might have forgotten. I do that sometimes, with useless information. There’s so much uselessness in the world and most people just get all filled up with it. I only keep what is important.”

“How do you know it’s not important, or it won’t be important later? I’ve never found anything that wasn’t important. I said the bees weren’t important, and then look at that.”

“Bees?”

“Nevermind. The point is, how do you know something isn’t going to be important later on?”

“I just do.”

“Do you want to see something, Sherlock? Something amazing and wonderful.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“I could use some tea.”

“Brew it, then. Or do you expect me to do it? I’m five.”

“You’re much older than that on the inside.”

“I’m just really clever. More clever than anyone.”

“Really. I like clever people. I’ve met some clever ones in my day, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone more clever than everyone else.”

“Well, now you have.”

“I knew a boy once. He thought he was so clever, the cleverest. And do you want to know what happened to him?”

“What?”

“He grew lonely. He said, 'people are boring. People are dull and boring and I hate them'. He said he hated them so when they turned away from him, for being so very clever all the time, that it wouldn’t hurt, but it still hurt and that just made him hate them more. Hate is useless. It makes you useless. It made him useless and then he was used. And then it turned out he wasn’t so clever after all. And then he died.”

“People are dull and boring, though.”

“Am I dull and boring?”

“No.” Sherlock said. “But I don’t gather you’re people, either.”

“Do you want to meet people? People that were far from dull and boring?”

“Yes. I hate dull and boring things.”

The Doctor beckoned him. Sherlock followed him out of the kitchen and out onto the yard and then to the TARDIS where he opened the door and waved him inside.

Sherlock looked around inside. “Oh. This isn’t dull or boring. Not at all.”

“No.” The Doctor agreed. “This is going to be fun.”

A/N: The line “something doesn’t seem right. let’s poke it with a stick” is an actual quote from the eleventh doctor that I just like a lot.

Chapter Two: The Devotion of a Centurion

A/N: Takes place (for Sherlock) roughly twenty years after Chapter One. Watch for an Interlude for Sherlock and the Doctor’s adventures between then and now, which includes the Doctor meeting the infamous John Watson who is already an established character in this chapter. I decided most of the events in Interlude one had no true bearing on this story as a whole, so its just bonus material.

The Doctor stumbles out of his blue box and into Sherlock’s room, with wide open arms and a smile and -

The room is empty. It seems to have been that wait for a while, the jars of insects and other creepy-crawlies gone from their shelves, dust covering the bed in the corner, bare of sheets, and Sherlock’s vast collection of books, collected from their journeys and stolen from the TARDIS from underneath the Doctor’s nose (though he may have turned aside purposefully to give Sherlock the opportunity), nowhere to be seen.

At a loss, the Doctor wonders the vast, empty house. The grounds are worse than ever, the house back to the dilapidated state it had sunk into before John had come and made it habitable again. There is no life to it at all, no reminisce of Sherlock or John to be found. Usually it is the Doctor that is thought to be a dream, but now he wonders if perhaps he had been the one to dream Sherlock and his Watson up.

But in the room that John had claimed, the Doctor finds something to hold onto. Left on the desk beneath a rock serving as a paperweight, there was a note. It didn’t say much, but 221B Baker Street.

There’s a hop and a skip to his step as the Doctor takes the stairs two or three at a time, back to Sherlock’s room. He pauses, his hand on the TARDIS door. There’s something about the room, something different. From the corner of his eye, he sees it.

There’s a crack in Sherlock’s wall. A crack that was fixed, that he fixed himself, a crack that should not be there but is. A crack that has grown bigger, that stretches and seemingly laughs with a wide, open mouth and mocks the Doctor. It makes him cold and it makes him sweat and he steps into the TARDIS and pulls the door shut behind him while both of his hearts pound in his chest with fear he’s not felt in what feels like a lifetime.

The TARDIS seems just as eager to leave Sherlock’s large, empty manor behind; the Doctor barely touches a knob before she’s moving again and landing elsewhere. The Doctor finds Baker Street to be a relatively quiet street, at least by the standards of twenty-first century London. The air is fresh and clean and, most importantly, there isn’t anything playing at the corner of the Doctor’s eye.

He jumps up the steps and knocks at the door numbered 221. He’s brushing off the dirt from his jacket and straightening his vest when the door opens, the Doctor looking up with a broad smile for his friends -probably John; Sherlock just isn’t likely to waste energy on the mundane and boring task of answering the door -but finds instead an older woman with a pleasant smile and sweet eyes. She is most definitely not John Watson or Sherlock Holmes.

“Hello!” He greets her jovially anyway. He likes age on a person; it makes them smell like time and history.

The woman looks him up and down and then nods. “You must be the Doctor. I’m Mrs. Hudson.”

“Yes, the Doctor. That’s me. How did you know?”

She smiles and steps aside to let him in. “Sherlock’s just upstairs. He said you would be by.”

The Doctor smiles at her and makes note of her words. He’s fascinating, Sherlock is. He just doesn’t make any sense: a boy all alone in that great big manor, a boy with no beginning, a boy that just seems to know things.

The Doctor takes the stairs slowly, curiously. He smells at the flat and tastes it’s history, looks and takes notice of the way time rolls over it. He nudges open the door at the top of the stairs and finds a scene that is nearly familiar.

Sherlock is sprawled on the couch in just his pajamas and a dressing gown, fluffy slippers on his feet. His fingers are steepled beneath his chin and he’s scowling fiercely at the ceiling. The Doctor used to find him all the time with his feet thrown up against his bedroom wall, laying the wrong way in bed with his head hanging over the mattress and his face flushing red with the rush of blood.

John is in a chair, overstuffed and unremarkable but the Doctor can tell just from looking at it that it was the type of chair that didn’t let you go once you sat down. It is as fitting a seat as any for one John Watson, unremarkable at first glance as well. There is a computer open in John’s lap, though he doesn’t seem to be paying it much mind, and a little table at his elbow that bears a tea tray with a kettle that appears to be cold and three teacups: one empty, one abandoned half-drunk, and one left untouched.

“You’re late.” Sherlock complains without bothering to open his eyes. “John made tea.”

“Hello, Doctor.” John says, looking up at the Doctor with creases around his eyes.

They look old. They can’t be, the Doctor is sure he hasn’t gone so far into their timeline that they could be old, but they are not the children or young adolescents or near-adults that the Doctor knows, either.

“How late?”

“Sherlock told me you were coming hours ago,” John says. “But that isn’t what you’re asking. It’s been ten years for us.”

“A very boring, very dull ten years.” Sherlock all but seethes, annoyed and still scowling at the ceiling like it has personally offended him. “John has been completely useless, I’ll have you know. He seems to enjoy making my life utterly miserable and boring.” Sherlock has always had a way of spitting out the word boring like its the dirtiest, most foul thing he can think of. He would be right, too, of course.

John looks completely unapologetic. “I caught him doing cocaine and refused to let it continue.”

The Doctor tisks his tongue. “Dear me, Sherlock, drugs? Earth drugs? Now, that is boring.”

Sherlock salutes him with two fingers and the Doctor laughs. He turns his attention the the mantel, where there’s a skull serving as a bookend. Its a real skull, human, male. The Doctor recognizes it, of course, can taste the years and time and practically smell its dating. He doesn’t, however, know how Sherlock, the cheeky bastard, stole the skull of King Edwin and brought it back to the twenty-first century without him noticing. The good King won’t even be born for a good hundred years or so.

The Doctor straightens, his back and shoulders falling into the kind of good posture that seems to come naturally to this body after eluding him for the last nine hundred years. “Well, then. How about a little danger and adventure, to liven things up a bit.”

“God, yes,” John breathes, pushing to his feet. Sherlock already has a foot out the door, having virtually leapt from the couch before the words had left the Doctor’s mouth. “Oh, for Christ’s - Sherlock! Perhaps you’d like to get dressed?”

“Come along, John! Doctor!” Sherlock calls from the foot of the stairs.

John rolls his eyes and looks over at the Doctor. His smile is fond, that familiar curl at the corner that is just for Sherlock. John’s smile is always fond for Sherlock, and has always been so since they were little children barely chest-high. There is some fondness for the Doctor there, too, but it is muted.

“Its good to see you again, Doctor.” John says, his smile tight and wistful like a smile gets when recollecting a childhood dream. He starts down the stairs after Sherlock.

There’s something about Sherlock, something strange that doesn’t quite make sense. But, there’s also something about John Watson.

The Doctor loves museums. Museums, libraries, places that smell and taste and just reek of time. It is almost an echo of Gallifrey, of a planet and a people out of time and in time that felt like all of time and no time at all.

John likes museums, too. They make him feel small, a spec in the greater scheme of things. They humble him and John is the type of man that understands how important humility can be.

Sherlock absolutely hates museums. To him, they’re dull and boring and filled with useless artifacts and nothing more. Take Sherlock Holmes to a museum -even one three thousand years into his future and on the fiery moon of Macalon, and he ends up stealing the skull of King Edwin of England.

They’re at a museum, anyhow. The Doctor isn’t quite sure why; the TARDIS just took them there even while he was aiming for something else entirely. Sherlock is skulking around the edges of a display narrating the life of the Face of Boe with his arms crossed and a petulant look on his face, clearly irritated that he’d been promised danger and adventure and instead was given a museum.

“You met him, didn’t you?” John asks the Doctor, gazing up at the great, three-dimensional hologram of Boe.

“Yes. More than once, actually. I might have even known the being that he was before he became the Face of Boe, but I can’t really be certain there.” The Doctor pauses, bent over an old fossil of a new Earth crab.

He had not thought of Jack -lonely, hurting, grieving Jack -in a long while. He feels the sudden urge to seek him out, to check in. He has the overwhelming desire to hear Jack’s voice and be flirted with and trade tales of Rose and Martha. The Doctor misses Jack fiercely, misses Rose. He misses Martha and even Micky and, of course, he misses Donna. Wonderful, brilliant Donna, his Donna. He wonders what they’re all doing now, whether Rose is happy in Pete’s world or if she looks up at the sky and wishes for a TARDIS to fall from it; whether Martha and Micky are still together together. He wonders about Donna and if she ever found herself again, about Wilf.

“Doctor?” John places his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and his concern breaks through when his voice had not.

“I’m fine.” The Doctor says faintly, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear away the past. That’s all it was, anymore. The past.

“Is there something we should be looking for?”

“The TARDIS brought us here, not me.” The Doctor says, making an innocent hands-to-chest, wasn’t-me gesture.

“I found it!” Sherlock calls from half down the hall. Before John or anyone else could stop him, Sherlock lifts the glass protecting whatever it is he thinks he’s found and alarms start blaring.

“Sherlock!” John yells, exasperated and rolling his eyes so hard his body rocks with the motion. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Into the TARDIS!” The Doctor yells, already running in that direction, “Get into the TARDIS now!”

There is a heavy thud, then another. They’re growing louder, getting closer and John realizes almost immediately that they’re footsteps and turns and flees, somehow getting to the TARDIS before the Doctor. He has his key in the lock and the door open, stepping inside just as a giant metal being rounds into their corridor.

John’s eyes go wide, “What is that?”

“Museum security.” The Doctor says grimly. “Its a robot. They used to admit a gas when displays were broken into, but some of these things are millions of years old now and are too delicate for that. About two hundred years ago museums started making robots to act as security; they shoot tranquilizer darts. If you’re caught, they interrogate you until they think they have all the information they need, and then you’re put to death. Stealing history is a high crime.”

The security bot is at least ten feet tall, eyes red but otherwise faceless. It is a good hundred or so meters from the TARDIS, but less than thirty from Sherlock, who is just standing there looking at the thing with a cocked head and a curious look on his face.

“Sherlock, you daft bugger,” John screamed, “Run!”

Sherlock moves quickly, feinting around the now empty display column and then running full out towards the TARDIS. He’s laughing, almost maniacally, as he dodges darts the robot shoots from a raised hand and tries to keep from dropping the object wrapped in his arms.

He trips over the TARDIS’s threshold, falling into John as the Doctor swings the door shut on a ray of darts. Sherlock is still laughing into John’s shoulder, while John runs his hands down Sherlock’s back and checks him for damages.

Wordlessly, Sherlock hands his stolen goods to the Doctor who turns the object over in his hands. He feels against his fingertips the familiar grooves and crevices of circles and dots, brushing over script and language. His hearts swell in his chest and it feels like he can’t breathe.

“What is it, then, that was so important? A box?” John asks, arms still firmly locked around Sherlock protectively.

“Its a message. This is in Old Gallifreyan, the lost language of the Time Lords.”

“What does it say?” John’s voice has dropped, become more subdued.

Sherlock, finally raising his face from the crook of John’s clavicle, is the one that answers. “It says, ‘Hello, sweetie’.”

The Doctor looks at Sherlock, eyes him from head to toe. There is no reason Sherlock should know the old language, no one alive to teach it to him. It doesn’t make sense and it nags at the Doctor, but he won’t ask. He won’t ask, but he also won’t forget.

“Hello, sweetie,” John repeats in disbelief. “Who would write that?”

“Let’s go find out!” Sherlock rubs his hands together, a skip in his step, “Finally! Something, interesting.”