Fic: The Daughter of Time (Doctor Who/Sherlock, PG)
Title: The Daughter of Time
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Doctor Who/Sherlock.
Rating: PG.
Characters/Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/Amy Pond, John Watson.
Disclaimer: Not mine at all, any of it.
Summary: A scarlet thread of forethought, running through the colourless skein of life.
Word Count: 744.
A/N: No significant spoilers. Written for Porn Battle XV - The Ides of Porn, to the prompt Doctor Who/Sherlock, Amy Pond/Sherlock Holmes, time.
John watched as the collection mounted on the table. A metronome; a ruler; a bag of marbles. A yo-yo; a thermometer; a tea-spoon. Sherlock produced each of them from the chest, long hands moving with that pared grace of his, somewhere between a hierophant and a card-sharp.
“Where did you find them?” John asked.
“Bolt-holes.”
“Your bolt-holes?”
“No. Not mine. These ones work along the other axis. My bolt-holes aren’t where one expects to find them. Her bolt-holes aren’t when.”
Sherlock leaned back, and steepled his fingers.
“She started making them in the 1930s. I know that from the architectural contexts. All the cul-de-sacs at the heart of London have one, if they’re old enough: a hollow behind loosened bricks, at eye-level. Sometimes, the hollow is empty. More often, it contains a pouch, secured by a single lock of long red hair. Inside the pouch, there lies an object. What you see here is a representative sample of the things I’ve found, but I usually put them back. It may be that the system is still in use.”
“System?” John tapped the tea-spoon against the table. “What makes you think that this wasn’t just an anti-Depression treasure hunt?”
“Every cul-de-sac, John. Every single one, for the space of an hour’s walk across central London. It was the work of years - eventually, the hair begins to grey. A great deal of toil, for a treasure hunt.”
“So, what do you think was going on?”
“Perilous to hypothesize from such inadequate data. No way of knowing how many people were involved. But if I had to speculate, I would say that a tall red-haired woman was trying to help someone whom she was not otherwise able or willing to contact. About this other, we can say even less, but I would expect him, or her, to have been a tall, observant, creative pacifist, who spent a lot of time in London, and displayed a promiscuous gift for finding trouble here.”
“Redhead - obvious. Woman - also easy. Balance of probability from the length of the hair, and I’m sure that Molly ran her DNA for you. How did you get the other stuff?”
“The hollows are at eye-level - my eye-level. Unless she used a lot of step-ladders, or an accomplice, she enjoyed the unaided stature to make the caches. That would put her in the region of six feet tall. Caches are no use to a target who can’t reach them, from which we deduce that he or she was the same.”
“Observant?”
“Very few of the caches have been emptied. It may be that only the target and I have ever found them.”
“What about the flair for trouble?”
“Think about it, John. How long have we known each other?”
“About five years.”
“How many cul-de-sacs have we been threatened in?”
“Er…. About twenty?”
“Pretty close. Twenty-three. Blind alleys, John - they’re the cubicle farm of the freelance thrill-seeker. She knew that trouble would find her target in a cul-de-sac. She just didn’t know which one it would be. So, she left something to help in all of them.”
“How do you know that the target was a pacifist?”
“All those gifts, John, left against the hour of greatest need. But never a truncheon; never a firearm; never a knife. A pacifist wouldn’t want a weapon. And all a creative pacifist would need, would be a tea-spoon.”
John looked up, noting the flush in the pale cheeks, the flex of the throat. “You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?”
Sherlock scowled. “Don’t be preposterous, John.”
“No, you are. A leggy redhead, who didn’t give a damn what people thought…”
“What makes you say that?”
“Six foot and ginger in the Thirties, Sherlock. It’s a wonder that she ever left the house.”
“Hmm. I suppose you’re right.”
“…. pacing out an hour’s walk across London between the Wars, while she stroked all the dead ends of your town into live ones. Of course that would turn you on.”
“Ridiculous. I would no more allow…”
“Yes, yes. It would be grit in your sensitive instrument. A baguette in your Large Hadron Collider. I’m still not buying it.”
John turned to his computer and started typing. “I think that this one deserves a blog entry. What do you think of the title?”
Sherlock looked at the screen over his shoulder. “Uninformative, uninspired, feeble, facetious, and misleading.”
“Excellent. That’s my five-a-day.” John bent to his work. “The Red-Headed League, it is.”
FINIS
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Doctor Who/Sherlock.
Rating: PG.
Characters/Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/Amy Pond, John Watson.
Disclaimer: Not mine at all, any of it.
Summary: A scarlet thread of forethought, running through the colourless skein of life.
Word Count: 744.
A/N: No significant spoilers. Written for Porn Battle XV - The Ides of Porn, to the prompt Doctor Who/Sherlock, Amy Pond/Sherlock Holmes, time.
John watched as the collection mounted on the table. A metronome; a ruler; a bag of marbles. A yo-yo; a thermometer; a tea-spoon. Sherlock produced each of them from the chest, long hands moving with that pared grace of his, somewhere between a hierophant and a card-sharp.
“Where did you find them?” John asked.
“Bolt-holes.”
“Your bolt-holes?”
“No. Not mine. These ones work along the other axis. My bolt-holes aren’t where one expects to find them. Her bolt-holes aren’t when.”
Sherlock leaned back, and steepled his fingers.
“She started making them in the 1930s. I know that from the architectural contexts. All the cul-de-sacs at the heart of London have one, if they’re old enough: a hollow behind loosened bricks, at eye-level. Sometimes, the hollow is empty. More often, it contains a pouch, secured by a single lock of long red hair. Inside the pouch, there lies an object. What you see here is a representative sample of the things I’ve found, but I usually put them back. It may be that the system is still in use.”
“System?” John tapped the tea-spoon against the table. “What makes you think that this wasn’t just an anti-Depression treasure hunt?”
“Every cul-de-sac, John. Every single one, for the space of an hour’s walk across central London. It was the work of years - eventually, the hair begins to grey. A great deal of toil, for a treasure hunt.”
“So, what do you think was going on?”
“Perilous to hypothesize from such inadequate data. No way of knowing how many people were involved. But if I had to speculate, I would say that a tall red-haired woman was trying to help someone whom she was not otherwise able or willing to contact. About this other, we can say even less, but I would expect him, or her, to have been a tall, observant, creative pacifist, who spent a lot of time in London, and displayed a promiscuous gift for finding trouble here.”
“Redhead - obvious. Woman - also easy. Balance of probability from the length of the hair, and I’m sure that Molly ran her DNA for you. How did you get the other stuff?”
“The hollows are at eye-level - my eye-level. Unless she used a lot of step-ladders, or an accomplice, she enjoyed the unaided stature to make the caches. That would put her in the region of six feet tall. Caches are no use to a target who can’t reach them, from which we deduce that he or she was the same.”
“Observant?”
“Very few of the caches have been emptied. It may be that only the target and I have ever found them.”
“What about the flair for trouble?”
“Think about it, John. How long have we known each other?”
“About five years.”
“How many cul-de-sacs have we been threatened in?”
“Er…. About twenty?”
“Pretty close. Twenty-three. Blind alleys, John - they’re the cubicle farm of the freelance thrill-seeker. She knew that trouble would find her target in a cul-de-sac. She just didn’t know which one it would be. So, she left something to help in all of them.”
“How do you know that the target was a pacifist?”
“All those gifts, John, left against the hour of greatest need. But never a truncheon; never a firearm; never a knife. A pacifist wouldn’t want a weapon. And all a creative pacifist would need, would be a tea-spoon.”
John looked up, noting the flush in the pale cheeks, the flex of the throat. “You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?”
Sherlock scowled. “Don’t be preposterous, John.”
“No, you are. A leggy redhead, who didn’t give a damn what people thought…”
“What makes you say that?”
“Six foot and ginger in the Thirties, Sherlock. It’s a wonder that she ever left the house.”
“Hmm. I suppose you’re right.”
“…. pacing out an hour’s walk across London between the Wars, while she stroked all the dead ends of your town into live ones. Of course that would turn you on.”
“Ridiculous. I would no more allow…”
“Yes, yes. It would be grit in your sensitive instrument. A baguette in your Large Hadron Collider. I’m still not buying it.”
John turned to his computer and started typing. “I think that this one deserves a blog entry. What do you think of the title?”
Sherlock looked at the screen over his shoulder. “Uninformative, uninspired, feeble, facetious, and misleading.”
“Excellent. That’s my five-a-day.” John bent to his work. “The Red-Headed League, it is.”
FINIS