The Case of the Blue Box
Title: The Case of the Blue Box
Author: ladyblahblah
Fandom: BBC Sherlock/Doctor Who
Pairing: (very) minor implied Sherlock/John
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Sadly, these fandoms aren't open-content, which means I must assure you that I do not in fact own either of these shows, the characters, 221B Baker Street, the TARDIS, Gallifrey, or any of the associated trappings thereof. Furthermore, I make no money from this endeavor, and do it entirely for the sheer lascivious thrill. Please don't sue me. I have nothing.
Spoilers: none, unless you haven't seen Series 5 of Doctor Who and have no idea what the new Doctor and/or his companion are like
Summary: John's blog entry about returning with Sherlock to their flat to discover a pair of unexpected visitors.
Author's Note: This was written for that "comment on this post with a pairing from a fandom I like and I'll write you a little something" meme. 7i4f requested a Sherlock/Doctor Who crossover with Eleven. Unfortunately, I have had this plot bunny jumping around in my head for AGES, and so it was entirely too easy to do. (Also, entirely too long for comment!fic. Hence being posted here instead.) This is pure madness, and pretty much entirely an excuse to write Eleven, which was GREAT FUN ZOMG. (ILU Matt Smith.) The ending bit comes from this, which was linked to me with the request. ^_^
The first part I remember with any real clarity-past the dead body in the dustbins, that is, which was unfortunately eminently memorable-is Sherlock's fingers pressing against my lips. He's quite a bit handsier than anyone who doesn't share a flat with him would probably believe, but he generally avoids any skin-to-skin contact. His hand on my shoulder, my upper arm; foot pressed against my leg while I do the crossword and he gives me the answers without so much as looking at the page, how the hell does he do that, it's so bloody irritating-anyway. All of that is normal. Cold fingertips against my half-open lips are not, and it sticks in the mind. I'd been rambling something about a shower and takeaway, I think, before his unceremonious shushing; it seemed unimportant once his gaze, sharp and analytical, flitted up the staircase.
His fingers left my lips to press against his own as he moved up the stairs, silent as a shadow. Following as quietly as I could, I was halfway up when I heard what had caught his attention. Footsteps; several pairs of them, it sounded like, and when we got a bit further up, I could make out a man's voice.
“-wrong, it's all wrong!”
“Looks all right to me.” A woman's voice, that. Scottish. Sherlock turned just enough to raise an eyebrow at me. I shrugged. “A bit on the messy side,” she continued; I shot Sherlock a pointed look, which he ignored. “But it looks like a flat.”
“Exactly! It's not meant to be a flat, not now!”
“What's it supposed to be, then?”
The door was ajar; Sherlock sent me another look, and I shook my head. The body-in-the-dustbins adventure had been spur of the moment, and my gun was still locked away in a drawer upstairs. I really needed to start carrying it with me whenever he and I left the house at the same time; Sherlock was like an industrial electromagnet for trouble, and this wasn't the first time I'd regretted being without a sidearm. It didn't seem to bother him overmuch, however, as he simply straightened his shoulders and swung the door open with a dramatic flourish.
“What indeed?” he asked dryly, unwrapping his scarf and looking for all the world like walking in on a home invasion in-progress was part of his normal daily routine. Of course, for him it likely was.
“A museum!”
The man standing in the center of the room spun around to face the door without missing a beat. Despite being dressed in a perfectly respectable way, he somehow managed to give off the impression of someone with a purely academic idea of how clothes were meant to work, like an overgrown child playing dress-up. He swept an arm out in an exaggerated gesture, as though his limbs weren't quite all the way under his control.
“There's meant to be period furniture,” he said, “and all the little details from the stories and a load of profoundly unsettling mannequins upstairs. And a little shop next door. I love a little shop,” he said dejectedly to the frankly stunning (if more appropriately abashed) redhead standing by the window. “But look at you!” he exclaimed, turning back just as suddenly and nearly leaping across the room to grab Sherlock by the shoulders. The man bobbed around, peering at him from all angles, a distracted little smile playing across his face. “Incredible,” he murmured. “Though you're a bit prettier this time around, aren't you? Of course, health care's a bit better now, I suppose. Probably been taking better care of yourself, too; been laying off?” He released Sherlock to tap significantly at his own forearm; Sherlock scowled and stripped off his coat.
“What is this, a little gag from Big Brother?” His eyes narrowed just a bit further. “No,” he murmured, “you're really not his style, are you?”
The man's face lit up. “You mean to tell me he's here too? Of course he is,” he said without waiting for a response. “He'd have to be, wouldn't he, with the displacement? I wonder who else made it along. Can you imagine, Amy?” he beamed at the woman. “Mycroft Holmes! Never got to meet him before; I never could make it past the screening process at his club.”
“Mycroft Holmes?” she interrupted, glancing back and forth between Sherlock and her friend. “D'you mean to tell me . . . what, is this Sherlock Holmes?”
“Well now, Amy, who did you expect it would be?” he chided. “Think of where we are!”
“I dunno! I thought they just rented the flat out now or something. So you're saying someone's brought Sherlock Holmes to life?” Her eyes were wide, and a grin was beginning to overtake her face. “Really?”
“Of course not,” the man said dismissively, “don't be ridiculous. They've just brought him here. Now.” He made that flailing, encompassing gesture again. “Here-and-now.”
“But Doctor, Sherlock Holmes isn't real.”
“I'm sorry, but which one of us has spent nine-hundred years traveling through time and space, Miss Pond?”
“Look, I hate to interrupt,” I said abruptly, unable to keep quiet through the insane by-play any longer. “As pranks go, this is certainly . . . original, but-”
I cut off, alarmed, when the man made a sharp, delighted noise and sprang forward to manhandle me the same way he'd done Sherlock.
“John Watson!” He was beaming at me, looking genuinely delighted in that way that old friends do, the real ones who've kept in touch and hug you when you turn up at the airport for a visit. “Clean-shaven; I hardly recognized you!”
“That's Dr. Watson?” Amy asked in surprise as I carefully extricated myself from the man's grip.
“Yes, I am.” I glanced between them. “Do I know you?”
“He's a bit fit, isn't he?” she said, looking me up and down in a way that made my face heat.
“Ah. Thanks.” I blinked. “Am I not meant to be, though?”
“You watch too many rubbish movies,” the man said sternly, before turning his attention back to us. “But this is amazing! No!” He frowned suddenly. My head was starting to spin from trying to keep up with his moods. “No, it's wrong. This whole thing, it's amazing and fascinating and sort of brilliant, but it's wrong.”
“Right.” Sherlock edged forward, just enough to block an easy path between me and our excitable guest. “This has all been fascinating, really, but unless you have a case you'd like me to consider or some point to your visit, it's been a bit of a long day, I'm sure you understand.”
“A case! Well.” The man peered back at him, an odd little half-smile playing across his mouth. “Why not?” he mused. “Could be a fresh pair of eyes is just what we need.”
“I don't work for free, you know.”
“Oh, I dare say we can find some suitable payment for you,” he grinned. “I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is Amy Pond.”
“It's, um. Nice to meet you,” I offered when Sherlock didn't respond except to stare critically at both of them.
“Now!” The Doctor rubbed his hands together and paced to the fireplace. “The problem is, of course, that you don't belong here. Well, you belong here, this city this street this flat, but not now. But you're not the only ones; we're only here at all because of the museum, exhibits that don't make any sense at all, sonic resonators from Babylonian burial vaults, can you imagine?”
“I don't think 'no' is a strong enough word,” I muttered.
“The time stream's all a mess. All sorts of things washing up where they've no right to be, and you two,” he said, spinning to face them as he stretched his arms out over the mantel, “are the worst of the lot. Your entire history's been rewritten. But not rewritten, not really,” he amended, and pushed off towards the center of the room again. “Transplanted. Everything to do with you is here instead of there, and it's all-”
“Wrong,” Sherlock finished for him. He collapsed onto the sofa with a grace that something like a collapse shouldn't have and began rolling up his sleeves. “You're aware, I assume, that you sound entirely mad.”
“So I've been told,” the Doctor grinned.
“I'm sorry, but . . . Sherlock, you're not really believing any of this, are you?” I had to ask. Sherlock just gave a thoughtful hum in response; the Doctor, meanwhile, drew himself up straighter while Amy appeared to be stifling laughter.
“Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day when you were the skeptic in this flat,” the Doctor frowned, and despite myself I almost felt embarrassed. “If that's how you're going to be, though, it's easy enough to fix.” He headed towards the door. “We'll just have you take a look at the-”
Amy cleared her throat, stopping him in his tracks. “Doctor,” she said regretfully, and his face fell for a moment.
“Oh. Right. Bit of a problem with the . . . well. Time stream displacement, as I said.” He shook himself. “All the more reason, then, to work this out quickly.” He glanced hopefully at me. “No chance that you'd just take my word for it?”
I crossed my arms. “What, that time and space are all jumbled, which you know because you're a nine-hundred-year-old time traveler?” I nodded. “Yeah, sure, why not.”
He simply glared for a moment, before, “HAH!” He sprang into motion again like a demented jack-in-the-box. “I've got it. Be a good lad, run and fetch your stethoscope.”
I didn't have to look to know that Sherlock was smirking on the sofa behind me, and I rolled my eyes in annoyance. “Why,” I demanded for the second time that day and at least the fifth that week, “does everyone assume that just because I'm a doctor I carry all my equipment 'round with me at all times?”
“Right.” The Doctor seemed thrown for a moment. “Well. Yes, hospital now, not private practice, and you wouldn't be prone to just carrying around a medical bag in this day and age, would you? Except, you're still going 'round with him,” he said, whipping around to face Sherlock, “and I'm guessing that a little bit of time displacement won't have changed some of his more fundamental character traits, so.” He clapped his hands together and spun back around to face me again, head tilted and eyes sparkling in a half-mad kind of way. “Stethoscope.”
I just stared back for a moment before finally bursting out, in the absence of any sane response, “How on earth did you know I work in a hospital?”
He seemed almost affronted at that, but for another one of those delighted, half-hidden smiles. “I deduced it.”
I stood in shock for another moment, until a quiet, “John,” got my attention. When I looked over Sherlock was still staring at the Doctor, but his head tilted towards me just a bit as he nodded. And it's not like I was waiting for permission or anything, but it snapped me out of the endless loop of mad this is mad he's mad what on earth that was playing in my head and let me actually move my feet. As I headed for my room and my bag I could hear the conversation continuing behind me.
“Don't you have a stethoscope of your own?” Amy was saying, and the Doctor's reply was surprisingly terse.
“I left it in my other jacket.”
“Oh.”
When I returned a minute later, the scene was largely unchanged. Sherlock still sat unmoving on the sofa, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the Doctor who, for his part, seemed either unbothered or simply unaware. He and Amy were standing by the fireplace again, apparently arguing over Sherlock's skull on the mantel.
“Why not?”
“Because it's creepy,” Amy said patiently, “and because the place is already odd enough.”
“It's not creepy, it's cool. Skulls are-”
“So help me, if you finish that sentence-”
“There he is!” the Doctor said cheerfully, abandoning their conversation to lope across the room and stand in front of me. “Now then.” He plucked the instrument out of my hands and popped the eartips into my ears before I could move out of the way. “Take a listen.”
And with that he placed the chestpiece against his chest and waited, and I heard . . .
It was impossible. Utterly and entirely impossible, completely mad, and absolutely undeniable. I moved the chestpiece from him to myself and back again. There was nothing wrong with it; I was hearing precisely what I thought. Two heartbeats, strong and even and just a shade slower than normal, thrumming away inside that skinny chest like it was the most natural thing in the world. I raised my eyes to his, disbelieving, and he stared back with cool, calm certainty and the barest hint of a smile. His eyes looked old to me then, older than I would have believed possible only moments ago. I couldn't hold the gaze; I staggered back, feeling lucky to still be on my feet.
“Sherlock,” I said in a daze, removing the stethoscope from my ears. “You should . . . you have to . . .”
The Doctor turned to him then, that same maddeningly enigmatic expression on his face. “Would you care to have a listen as well?”
Their eyes met, and mad as it sounds I swear that I could feel the thrum of it in the air between them. Two phenomenal forces of will crashing against each other, both of them as unreadable as ever. I wondered, briefly, if Amy felt it, too. But then, I was assuming she was like me. Assuming she was . . . I couldn't even think the word. Can't write it now. I might never be able to, not without going mad myself.
Sherlock stood abruptly, rounding the Doctor in a slow circle. He came to a stop in front of him, and their eyes met again. The Doctor waited.
“You're not human, are you?”
The seed of a smile bloomed over the Doctor's face. “No,” he said. “Not really, no.”
And that, I'm afraid, was when things began to get truly odd.
Author: ladyblahblah
Fandom: BBC Sherlock/Doctor Who
Pairing: (very) minor implied Sherlock/John
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Sadly, these fandoms aren't open-content, which means I must assure you that I do not in fact own either of these shows, the characters, 221B Baker Street, the TARDIS, Gallifrey, or any of the associated trappings thereof. Furthermore, I make no money from this endeavor, and do it entirely for the sheer lascivious thrill. Please don't sue me. I have nothing.
Spoilers: none, unless you haven't seen Series 5 of Doctor Who and have no idea what the new Doctor and/or his companion are like
Summary: John's blog entry about returning with Sherlock to their flat to discover a pair of unexpected visitors.
Author's Note: This was written for that "comment on this post with a pairing from a fandom I like and I'll write you a little something" meme. 7i4f requested a Sherlock/Doctor Who crossover with Eleven. Unfortunately, I have had this plot bunny jumping around in my head for AGES, and so it was entirely too easy to do. (Also, entirely too long for comment!fic. Hence being posted here instead.) This is pure madness, and pretty much entirely an excuse to write Eleven, which was GREAT FUN ZOMG. (ILU Matt Smith.) The ending bit comes from this, which was linked to me with the request. ^_^
The first part I remember with any real clarity-past the dead body in the dustbins, that is, which was unfortunately eminently memorable-is Sherlock's fingers pressing against my lips. He's quite a bit handsier than anyone who doesn't share a flat with him would probably believe, but he generally avoids any skin-to-skin contact. His hand on my shoulder, my upper arm; foot pressed against my leg while I do the crossword and he gives me the answers without so much as looking at the page, how the hell does he do that, it's so bloody irritating-anyway. All of that is normal. Cold fingertips against my half-open lips are not, and it sticks in the mind. I'd been rambling something about a shower and takeaway, I think, before his unceremonious shushing; it seemed unimportant once his gaze, sharp and analytical, flitted up the staircase.
His fingers left my lips to press against his own as he moved up the stairs, silent as a shadow. Following as quietly as I could, I was halfway up when I heard what had caught his attention. Footsteps; several pairs of them, it sounded like, and when we got a bit further up, I could make out a man's voice.
“-wrong, it's all wrong!”
“Looks all right to me.” A woman's voice, that. Scottish. Sherlock turned just enough to raise an eyebrow at me. I shrugged. “A bit on the messy side,” she continued; I shot Sherlock a pointed look, which he ignored. “But it looks like a flat.”
“Exactly! It's not meant to be a flat, not now!”
“What's it supposed to be, then?”
The door was ajar; Sherlock sent me another look, and I shook my head. The body-in-the-dustbins adventure had been spur of the moment, and my gun was still locked away in a drawer upstairs. I really needed to start carrying it with me whenever he and I left the house at the same time; Sherlock was like an industrial electromagnet for trouble, and this wasn't the first time I'd regretted being without a sidearm. It didn't seem to bother him overmuch, however, as he simply straightened his shoulders and swung the door open with a dramatic flourish.
“What indeed?” he asked dryly, unwrapping his scarf and looking for all the world like walking in on a home invasion in-progress was part of his normal daily routine. Of course, for him it likely was.
“A museum!”
The man standing in the center of the room spun around to face the door without missing a beat. Despite being dressed in a perfectly respectable way, he somehow managed to give off the impression of someone with a purely academic idea of how clothes were meant to work, like an overgrown child playing dress-up. He swept an arm out in an exaggerated gesture, as though his limbs weren't quite all the way under his control.
“There's meant to be period furniture,” he said, “and all the little details from the stories and a load of profoundly unsettling mannequins upstairs. And a little shop next door. I love a little shop,” he said dejectedly to the frankly stunning (if more appropriately abashed) redhead standing by the window. “But look at you!” he exclaimed, turning back just as suddenly and nearly leaping across the room to grab Sherlock by the shoulders. The man bobbed around, peering at him from all angles, a distracted little smile playing across his face. “Incredible,” he murmured. “Though you're a bit prettier this time around, aren't you? Of course, health care's a bit better now, I suppose. Probably been taking better care of yourself, too; been laying off?” He released Sherlock to tap significantly at his own forearm; Sherlock scowled and stripped off his coat.
“What is this, a little gag from Big Brother?” His eyes narrowed just a bit further. “No,” he murmured, “you're really not his style, are you?”
The man's face lit up. “You mean to tell me he's here too? Of course he is,” he said without waiting for a response. “He'd have to be, wouldn't he, with the displacement? I wonder who else made it along. Can you imagine, Amy?” he beamed at the woman. “Mycroft Holmes! Never got to meet him before; I never could make it past the screening process at his club.”
“Mycroft Holmes?” she interrupted, glancing back and forth between Sherlock and her friend. “D'you mean to tell me . . . what, is this Sherlock Holmes?”
“Well now, Amy, who did you expect it would be?” he chided. “Think of where we are!”
“I dunno! I thought they just rented the flat out now or something. So you're saying someone's brought Sherlock Holmes to life?” Her eyes were wide, and a grin was beginning to overtake her face. “Really?”
“Of course not,” the man said dismissively, “don't be ridiculous. They've just brought him here. Now.” He made that flailing, encompassing gesture again. “Here-and-now.”
“But Doctor, Sherlock Holmes isn't real.”
“I'm sorry, but which one of us has spent nine-hundred years traveling through time and space, Miss Pond?”
“Look, I hate to interrupt,” I said abruptly, unable to keep quiet through the insane by-play any longer. “As pranks go, this is certainly . . . original, but-”
I cut off, alarmed, when the man made a sharp, delighted noise and sprang forward to manhandle me the same way he'd done Sherlock.
“John Watson!” He was beaming at me, looking genuinely delighted in that way that old friends do, the real ones who've kept in touch and hug you when you turn up at the airport for a visit. “Clean-shaven; I hardly recognized you!”
“That's Dr. Watson?” Amy asked in surprise as I carefully extricated myself from the man's grip.
“Yes, I am.” I glanced between them. “Do I know you?”
“He's a bit fit, isn't he?” she said, looking me up and down in a way that made my face heat.
“Ah. Thanks.” I blinked. “Am I not meant to be, though?”
“You watch too many rubbish movies,” the man said sternly, before turning his attention back to us. “But this is amazing! No!” He frowned suddenly. My head was starting to spin from trying to keep up with his moods. “No, it's wrong. This whole thing, it's amazing and fascinating and sort of brilliant, but it's wrong.”
“Right.” Sherlock edged forward, just enough to block an easy path between me and our excitable guest. “This has all been fascinating, really, but unless you have a case you'd like me to consider or some point to your visit, it's been a bit of a long day, I'm sure you understand.”
“A case! Well.” The man peered back at him, an odd little half-smile playing across his mouth. “Why not?” he mused. “Could be a fresh pair of eyes is just what we need.”
“I don't work for free, you know.”
“Oh, I dare say we can find some suitable payment for you,” he grinned. “I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is Amy Pond.”
“It's, um. Nice to meet you,” I offered when Sherlock didn't respond except to stare critically at both of them.
“Now!” The Doctor rubbed his hands together and paced to the fireplace. “The problem is, of course, that you don't belong here. Well, you belong here, this city this street this flat, but not now. But you're not the only ones; we're only here at all because of the museum, exhibits that don't make any sense at all, sonic resonators from Babylonian burial vaults, can you imagine?”
“I don't think 'no' is a strong enough word,” I muttered.
“The time stream's all a mess. All sorts of things washing up where they've no right to be, and you two,” he said, spinning to face them as he stretched his arms out over the mantel, “are the worst of the lot. Your entire history's been rewritten. But not rewritten, not really,” he amended, and pushed off towards the center of the room again. “Transplanted. Everything to do with you is here instead of there, and it's all-”
“Wrong,” Sherlock finished for him. He collapsed onto the sofa with a grace that something like a collapse shouldn't have and began rolling up his sleeves. “You're aware, I assume, that you sound entirely mad.”
“So I've been told,” the Doctor grinned.
“I'm sorry, but . . . Sherlock, you're not really believing any of this, are you?” I had to ask. Sherlock just gave a thoughtful hum in response; the Doctor, meanwhile, drew himself up straighter while Amy appeared to be stifling laughter.
“Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day when you were the skeptic in this flat,” the Doctor frowned, and despite myself I almost felt embarrassed. “If that's how you're going to be, though, it's easy enough to fix.” He headed towards the door. “We'll just have you take a look at the-”
Amy cleared her throat, stopping him in his tracks. “Doctor,” she said regretfully, and his face fell for a moment.
“Oh. Right. Bit of a problem with the . . . well. Time stream displacement, as I said.” He shook himself. “All the more reason, then, to work this out quickly.” He glanced hopefully at me. “No chance that you'd just take my word for it?”
I crossed my arms. “What, that time and space are all jumbled, which you know because you're a nine-hundred-year-old time traveler?” I nodded. “Yeah, sure, why not.”
He simply glared for a moment, before, “HAH!” He sprang into motion again like a demented jack-in-the-box. “I've got it. Be a good lad, run and fetch your stethoscope.”
I didn't have to look to know that Sherlock was smirking on the sofa behind me, and I rolled my eyes in annoyance. “Why,” I demanded for the second time that day and at least the fifth that week, “does everyone assume that just because I'm a doctor I carry all my equipment 'round with me at all times?”
“Right.” The Doctor seemed thrown for a moment. “Well. Yes, hospital now, not private practice, and you wouldn't be prone to just carrying around a medical bag in this day and age, would you? Except, you're still going 'round with him,” he said, whipping around to face Sherlock, “and I'm guessing that a little bit of time displacement won't have changed some of his more fundamental character traits, so.” He clapped his hands together and spun back around to face me again, head tilted and eyes sparkling in a half-mad kind of way. “Stethoscope.”
I just stared back for a moment before finally bursting out, in the absence of any sane response, “How on earth did you know I work in a hospital?”
He seemed almost affronted at that, but for another one of those delighted, half-hidden smiles. “I deduced it.”
I stood in shock for another moment, until a quiet, “John,” got my attention. When I looked over Sherlock was still staring at the Doctor, but his head tilted towards me just a bit as he nodded. And it's not like I was waiting for permission or anything, but it snapped me out of the endless loop of mad this is mad he's mad what on earth that was playing in my head and let me actually move my feet. As I headed for my room and my bag I could hear the conversation continuing behind me.
“Don't you have a stethoscope of your own?” Amy was saying, and the Doctor's reply was surprisingly terse.
“I left it in my other jacket.”
“Oh.”
When I returned a minute later, the scene was largely unchanged. Sherlock still sat unmoving on the sofa, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the Doctor who, for his part, seemed either unbothered or simply unaware. He and Amy were standing by the fireplace again, apparently arguing over Sherlock's skull on the mantel.
“Why not?”
“Because it's creepy,” Amy said patiently, “and because the place is already odd enough.”
“It's not creepy, it's cool. Skulls are-”
“So help me, if you finish that sentence-”
“There he is!” the Doctor said cheerfully, abandoning their conversation to lope across the room and stand in front of me. “Now then.” He plucked the instrument out of my hands and popped the eartips into my ears before I could move out of the way. “Take a listen.”
And with that he placed the chestpiece against his chest and waited, and I heard . . .
It was impossible. Utterly and entirely impossible, completely mad, and absolutely undeniable. I moved the chestpiece from him to myself and back again. There was nothing wrong with it; I was hearing precisely what I thought. Two heartbeats, strong and even and just a shade slower than normal, thrumming away inside that skinny chest like it was the most natural thing in the world. I raised my eyes to his, disbelieving, and he stared back with cool, calm certainty and the barest hint of a smile. His eyes looked old to me then, older than I would have believed possible only moments ago. I couldn't hold the gaze; I staggered back, feeling lucky to still be on my feet.
“Sherlock,” I said in a daze, removing the stethoscope from my ears. “You should . . . you have to . . .”
The Doctor turned to him then, that same maddeningly enigmatic expression on his face. “Would you care to have a listen as well?”
Their eyes met, and mad as it sounds I swear that I could feel the thrum of it in the air between them. Two phenomenal forces of will crashing against each other, both of them as unreadable as ever. I wondered, briefly, if Amy felt it, too. But then, I was assuming she was like me. Assuming she was . . . I couldn't even think the word. Can't write it now. I might never be able to, not without going mad myself.
Sherlock stood abruptly, rounding the Doctor in a slow circle. He came to a stop in front of him, and their eyes met again. The Doctor waited.
“You're not human, are you?”
The seed of a smile bloomed over the Doctor's face. “No,” he said. “Not really, no.”
And that, I'm afraid, was when things began to get truly odd.