Fic: The Joke is Better the Second Time - 2/2
Title: The Joke is Better the Second Time
Author: writingispurdy
Rating: PG
Warning(s): character death (sorta)
Word count: 7,108 (altogether)
Summary: Sometimes the joke gets better the more you tell it. Sequel to Two Doctors, a Nurse, a Detective, and a Scot.
And then there are the times that everything goes wrong.
Daleks. The Doctor never tells stories about the Daleks (Cybermen and Silurians and this bloke called the Master, yes, but never ever the Daleks). And Amy and Rory do the same; not for their own sakes, because they don’t know the Daleks. Not really. Not the way the Doctor knows them (the sort of voice to chill even a Timelord’s blood, the mind-numbing evil that would make even Omega bat an eye). They do it because they know what the Daleks mean to the Doctor. River hadn’t said much-spoilers-but it had been enough. Enough to know that genocide would be an understatement, that they are that which will never die, the Doctor’s own personal demons.
And so Sherlock Holmes stares one down with absolutely nothing to go on.
“You’re organic enough, under your robotic exoskeleton,” Sherlock remarks blandly, hands behind his back as he observes. “It’s for protection, but that’s not its primary function. No, there are other ways to avoid bullets and staser blasts. You’re more interested in hiding the fact that you’re a weak, fleshy creature under all this nonsense.” He circles the Dalek, and the Dalek turns to follow. “Ah, there’s the root of it. Hiding weakness. Hiding your flaws.”
“YOUR INTELLECT IS SUPERIOR,” the Dalek utters robotically, eyestalk following Sherlock’s every move. “YET YOU ARE HUMAN. YOU ARE FLAWED.”
“I don’t think so,” Sherlock corrects him. “Some of my best friends are human.” He cracks a cynical grin.
“YOU REFER TO THE HUMAN JOHN WATSON,” the Dalek says after only a moment.
Sherlock tries not to falter. “You’ve killed others, but you’ve kept us alive. Why?”
“YOU ARE COMPANIONS OF THE DOCTOR. THE DOCTOR SHOWS WEAKNESS WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE FRAILTY OF HIS FRIENDS.”
“You mean to make an example of us,” Sherlock deduces. “Hold us for ransom so that the Doctor will do as you ask. Are you really so desperate as to call on him for help?” He nearly scoffs.
The Dalek’s pause could almost be considered awkward, if Daleks were capable of awkwardness. “FEW WILL AID US. THE DOCTOR CAN BE COERCED.”
“Why not just ask nicely?”
“DALEKS DO NOT ASK. DALEKS TAKE AS THEY PLEASE.”
“Obviously.” And Sherlock pulls himself up. Makes himself taller. “And I’ve traveled with the Doctor, and there’s something you’ve clearly failed to observe about him.”
“IMPOSSIBLE.”
“He’s far more self-sacrificing than is good for him.”
The screen on the far side of the interrogation room lights up on cue, full of the Doctor’s face. And he is not pleased.
“Sherlock? Amy? All right?”
“So far in one piece,” Sherlock murmurs.
Amy’s voice comes over the communicator in his ear. “Fine. Doctor, where’s Rory?”
“All right, you big bad tin cans,” the Doctor growls. “I’ve rigged this vortex manipulator to your main hyperdrive coupling. And it’s a bit old, and frankly, I’m a bit eager to see what it’s going to do when I hit it with this big stick I found.”
“THE DOCTOR IS ON THE BRIDGE,” Sherlock’s Dalek shouts.
“And if you don’t release my friends,” the Doctor shouts over them, and suddenly he’s a dark and different man, “something very interesting and very very bad is going to happen to your flagship! And, yes, I know, I’m on the flagship. No need to state the obvious. Now let them go.”
“EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE THE HOSTAGES!”
“EXTERMINATE!”
Now Sherlock knows. Knows why the Doctor doesn’t tell stories about the Daleks. Because in the stories the Doctor tells, he wins. The Doctor doesn’t always win.
Because Sherlock hears the sound of the Doctor shouting, shouting for the Daleks to stop, but it’s not enough and it’s too late. The sound of that weapon, instant extermination, it will stick with him forever. Because he can’t stop it. It’s not the Dalek in front of him that’s shooting. He’s not the hostage.
Amy screams, shouts her husband’s name. Sherlock can’t even open his mouth to make a noise.
The Doctor has never seen anyone tear off a Dalek’s eyestalk and run. He could have killed it. Sherlock could have killed the Dalek instead of incapacitating it. But it’s not what’s important (Sherlock tears the communicator from his ear, because the sound of the Doctor calling for him, of Amy finding Rory and their tearful reunion, is a distraction). The Dalek ship is a maze, but he finds the right door. Smashes the electric lock with the eyestalk (brutal and inefficient but he needs to get in and he doesn’t have the time to ponder a lock).
There’s a Dalek waiting for him, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t, because John is sprawled out on the floor in a useless heap. He doesn’t even hear the TARDIS come in behind him and Rory take out the Dalek with a well-aimed shot. It’s Rory who gets to John first (because Sherlock can’t move).
Rory’s head comes up slowly, and Sherlock has been a detective long enough to know what he’s going to say before he does. Sherlock shakes his head, shakes it hard, and a long shudder goes through him.
Amy (both hands over her mouth, eyes glassy with tears ready to fall if she could ever blink) sees Sherlock round on the Doctor, and there’s an anger in the detective’s eyes that she’s never seen before. Not in anyone.
“Get out of my way,” Sherlock demands in a voice so low it almost goes unheard.
“Sherlock,” the Doctor sighs, and the sadness there is deep enough to puncture Amy’s gut. “No. I’m so sorry, but no.”
“This is your fault,” Sherlock snaps, and now his voice is too loud, sticks like cotton in everyone’s ears. “I will get through you whether you move aside or I move you. And I will move you, because I will do this.”
“It’s already happened.” The Doctor’s voice hasn’t raised at all. “We can’t-”
“We do it every day, don’t you toy with me, Doctor,” Sherlock snarls. The Doctor doesn’t move, doesn’t let Sherlock through.
“You’ll rip a hole in time,” the Doctor mutters around the pain in his face.
“I don’t give a damn,” Sherlock shoots back. Then he moves forward toward the Doctor, fists clenched and ready to swing. And he does. The punch lands squarely, knocks the Doctor back against the door of the TARDIS. But the Doctor doesn’t move, wedges himself in the TARDIS doorway, and Sherlock seethes. “If it were Amy. You would do it for Amy. You unpardonable bastard,” and Sherlock’s voice finally, horribly breaks. Lets Amy take him into her arms and he cries.
And, impossibly, the Doctor smirks. Holds his throbbing jaw in one hand and smirks. “Fancy that, Sherlock Holmes. Human after all.” And he hops into action immediately. “Right! Rory, get John over your shoulder, we’re going to try something new and interesting!”
“Doctor,” Rory protests, “he’s… he’s dead.”
“Looks dead, there’s a big difference. A bit of extermination can’t kill off our Doctor Watson, not our sturdy old soldier! Imagine what he’d say if he knew that’s what we all thought of him.” The Doctor rushes to Sherlock and Amy, pats both of them on the head, and is to John and Rory in an instant, helping the latter to lug the former up off the ground. “No time to lose, into the TARDIS. Quick-like, go on! We’ve got a neat little window of opportunity here and I’m not going to miss it because you’re feeling sluggish!”
Guided by instinct only, like a pair of ghosts, Sherlock and Amy take their orders, and they all disappear into the TARDIS.
And sometimes, even when it looks its worst and everything goes wrong, even when the Doctor can’t possibly win, he finds a way.
“Oh, hello,” the Doctor says when he steps out of the TARDIS and onto the bridge of the Dalek flagship, facing down a semi-circle of guards. “Found a way in, did you? Good for you. Nice bit with the lock, though, wasn’t it? Bazooka Joe. It comes with funnies, good for a laugh when you’ve got a mouthful of gum.” He takes a brave step forward.
“DOCTOR,” shouts the nearest, “YOU WILL DISASSEMBLE THE VORTEX MANIPULATOR.”
“That’s the thing,” the Doctor laughs. “Because, you see, I hadn’t meant on using it, not like this, anyhow. But listen. You listen close, because your lives depend on this.” His voice drops all pretense of jocularity. “My friend was shot. By one of you, and I’m really not in the mood to negotiate with anyone who tries to kill my friends. So. I’ll disassemble the vortex manipulator when you move aside and let me use one of your rejuvenation capsules.”
The Daleks don’t make a move. The Doctor’s voice is suddenly dangerous.
“Don’t waste my time. I have a sonic screwdriver, a bit of a vendetta, and a whopping great pain in my jaw. Don’t test my limits.”
The pause takes twelve seconds. It stretches on for hours. Then: “MOVE ASIDE. ALLOW THE DOCTOR THROUGH.”
The semi-circle of Daleks parts. The Doctor takes the first cautious steps, and then behind him, Amy emerges. And finally Sherlock and Rory carrying John between them (raw, blank, hopeless determination on Sherlock’s face).
The capsules in question line the back wall, five in total, one of them occupied. They lay John down into one, seal the hatch, and stand back.
“What are these things?” Rory asks in a whisper.
“The Daleks don’t have a moral compass to speak of,” the Doctor answers, loud enough for the creatures to hear. “Torture certainly isn’t below them. And when they’ve tortured enough to kill and they haven’t got everything they want, they bring the poor creatures here for a second chance at life. And once they’re breathing again, the Daleks can ask all the questions they like.” He levels a coal-fire stare at the nearest Dalek, unwavering hatred in those old eyes. “But Daleks don’t ask. They take.”
“YOU WILL REMOVE THE VORTEX MANIPULATOR,” three of the Daleks demand.
“Not yet,” the Doctor snaps, and he’s suddenly down on the capsule, twisting knobs and pressing buttons, and the entire machine lights up. “Now, here comes the best bit of all,” the Doctor says, twirling to face his companions.
He stabs a finger to the biggest button, glowing green and waiting. A whistling and a pounding suddenly fill the air on the bridge. Sherlock feels his hand encased in both of Amy’s, and he uselessly grips back.
And when the capsule opens up in a hiss of compressed air, John Watson sits up, bleary-eyed as if out of a long sleep.
The Doctor does as he’s promised, and he unhooks the old vortex manipulator from the hyperdrive coupling. And the Daleks, who of course have no intention of letting the Doctor and his friends leave unhampered, attack as soon as he’s finished. But even then, the Doctor is clever. One hand clamps down on Sherlock’s wrist, who has his arms wrapped around Amy and John. The Doctor holds the other hand out to Rory, who slams down on the vortex manipulator there, and they’re all gone in a flash of leftover time energy.
They appear inside the TARDIS, groaning and boneless from the cheap mode of transportation, all besides the Doctor who leaps up to the console and sends them careening away to safety.
From their tangle on the ground, Amy peppers John’s face with kisses, and Rory checks his vitals. “Don’t do that, never again,” Amy demands.
“How d’you feel?” Rory asks, John’s wrist in his fingers to feel his pulse.
“Lightheaded,” John answers around a tongue that feels too lethargic. “Tired.”
“But not dead?” Rory asks. And they both grin.
“Sherlock,” John says suddenly. He turns his head (it takes a bit of effort) to the man still clutching him from behind. “Sherlock. Sherlock.” He touches his forehead to Sherlock’s, shuts his eyes. Sherlock strokes his fingers evenly through John’s hair, keeps him close (and Amy and Rory link their fingers together, hold each other close, because it could have been them; had been them).
“If I tell you,” Sherlock says almost steadily, “you must promise never to die again.”
“Only after you do,” John says with a slowly building smile.
It’s enough. “I love you, too.”
He kisses John once, because that’s more than enough, and John has just come back from the dead and it’s not fair to ask more of him.
“Your reflexes will be a bit off for a few days,” the Doctor call from the console, still piloting them to safety, “and I hear everything tastes like fish for a while after the rejuvenation process, which is rubbish for your taste buds but good news for being alive.” He pauses, smiles a bit sadly. “I suppose you’d like to get back home, then? Had enough death for one lifetime?”
Despite everything, despite the weight of death still clinging to his lungs, John laughs. He laughs brightly, loudly. “You think a little thing like getting killed is gonna stop me?”
The Doctor grins, and this one’s soft and quiet. “Good man.” Then, louder and decidedly more chipper, “Welcome back, Doctor Watson!”
“Yeah, welcome to the club,” Rory says. ”The ‘You Were Dead But Now You’re… Not’… Club.”
“Well-put, you big idiot,” Amy says, kissing him sweetly on the cheek.
+++
The TARDIS breathes quietly, lights dim as everyone tries to sleep. They’ve all fallen asleep together, the four of them, arms all clinging to one another in a protective nest. Too tired to even bother changing out of the clothes they’d run through Dalek ships in. Rory and Sherlock and Amy and John. Amy and Rory and John and Sherlock. John and Rory and Sherlock and Amy. They’re not two pairs of two, that night, they’re four companions, and each of them needs all of the others.
The Doctor expects Sherlock, and so he’s not surprised when the detective appears beside him at the console.
“I’m not going to apologize,” Sherlock says, and there’s something on his face that still sees John dead and limp on the ground (he’d been dead for thirteen minutes, Sherlock will never forget that).
“I haven’t asked you to,” the Doctor says, pretending to be very involved with the goings on of the console.
“I would have taken the TARDIS, if you hadn’t stopped me.”
“Sherlock, I know. Why do you keep going on about things I already know?”
Sherlock frowns. “I don’t say this often.”
The Doctor glances up, almost smiles. “I’ll make a recording.”
Sherlock shakes his head, lets the quiet sink in. “Thank you.”
At first, there’s something in the Doctor’s eye. Something very old, eyes that have seen so many people love and so many people die. Sometimes even the Doctor forgets just how old he is, and it’s times like this, staring down Sherlock Holmes thanking him for saving his Watson’s life (for stopping him when he would have done anything to have John back) that he remembers.
Then the soft smile that had touched the Doctor’s face grows. “Are you gonna kiss me too?”
“Shut up,” Sherlock snaps, but he’s smirking. And everything is forgiven.
+++
The waterfall roars in Sherlock’s ears. And Jim cracks his neck, smiles like a snake.
“Man-to-man?” Sherlock asks, sneering good-naturedly. “You’ve two men on the cliff above us, at least one of them has a rifle. It’s hardly a fair fight.”
“Well, man-to-man-and-bodyguards,” Jim says, rolling his shoulders in a childlike shrug. “Noble of you, by the way. To let your little dog walk home with his tail between his legs knowing you were going right into a trap.”
“I don’t need to bring insurance,” Sherlock says just as casually.
“Ooh,” Jim coos, looking positively enraptured. “So brave. And foolhardy. I like that in an arch-nemesis.” His eyes narrow. “How’s married life, by the way? You’ve been gone such a long time, honeymoons don’t usually last two months. Or is he just that good a shag, Sherlock?”
He hadn’t planned it like this, but no one, especially not Jim Moriarty, talks about John like that. So Sherlock leaps. Knocks Jim off his feet, which lose their hold, and the two of them go tumbling over the edge of the cliff.
“Oof!” Rory grunts as he and the Doctor catch Sherlock halfway down the cliff face. “Put on a few pounds, mate?”
John runs up and sweeps Sherlock into his arms when they’ve pulled him fully inside the TARDIS, clutches him tight and might not let go. The Doctor peers closely at the detective. “I leave you alone for one day. You’re lucky I was free.”
“Knew you’d come,” Sherlock replies smugly, fitting his arms around John.
“He was in the hotel when I got back to call him,” John says into Sherlock’s scarf. “Just sitting in the lounge cool as you like.”
“The trouble you boys get into without me,” the Doctor says with a sigh and a shake of his head. Then, he grins. “Good for you.”
The engines warp and sing. “We need to get away. Moriarty’s men will be looking for us,” Sherlock says, only stepping away from John to join the Doctor at the console, pulling levers as he makes his way around. John follows, because he always does.
“How long?” Amy asks.
“Three years ought to do it,” the Doctor says, and feels suddenly self-conscious when everyone turns to look at him. “Oh, no reason. Let’s say I read it somewhere. So, you want to do it all in one go or take your time?”
Sherlock stares the Doctor down, almost as if the two of them are arguing by thought alone. “It won’t end with Moriarty,” Sherlock says. “His network is dug in deeply enough to function without him.”
“So, five shovels are better than two,” Rory says, suddenly coming up alongside them and fixing a protective arm across John’s shoulders.
“He thinks he can get rid of us by jumping off a cliff,” Amy chuckles, sneaking up behind Sherlock and gripping her arms around his middle. “No luck, Sherlock.”
Sherlock’s eyes, already bright and shining, turn to John as if to ask (as if he needs to). John grins wide enough to hurt.
+++
“Sherlock! Don’t you dare hang up on me, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“Good morning, Lestrade. It is morning in London, isn’t it?”
“Where are you? Everyone’s saying you’re dead!”
“I am. For all intents and purposes, that is. Do us a favor and don’t tell anyone.”
“What are you talking about? Where’ve you been?”
“Have you heard of Asgard, Lestrade?” (a voice from Sherlock’s end adds, “Not that Asgard! Don’t confuse the poor man!”) “Anyhow, we’ve an angry Cult of the Triple Moon to deal with. Must dash.”
“Sherlock!"
PART ONE
Author: writingispurdy
Rating: PG
Warning(s): character death (sorta)
Word count: 7,108 (altogether)
Summary: Sometimes the joke gets better the more you tell it. Sequel to Two Doctors, a Nurse, a Detective, and a Scot.
And then there are the times that everything goes wrong.
Daleks. The Doctor never tells stories about the Daleks (Cybermen and Silurians and this bloke called the Master, yes, but never ever the Daleks). And Amy and Rory do the same; not for their own sakes, because they don’t know the Daleks. Not really. Not the way the Doctor knows them (the sort of voice to chill even a Timelord’s blood, the mind-numbing evil that would make even Omega bat an eye). They do it because they know what the Daleks mean to the Doctor. River hadn’t said much-spoilers-but it had been enough. Enough to know that genocide would be an understatement, that they are that which will never die, the Doctor’s own personal demons.
And so Sherlock Holmes stares one down with absolutely nothing to go on.
“You’re organic enough, under your robotic exoskeleton,” Sherlock remarks blandly, hands behind his back as he observes. “It’s for protection, but that’s not its primary function. No, there are other ways to avoid bullets and staser blasts. You’re more interested in hiding the fact that you’re a weak, fleshy creature under all this nonsense.” He circles the Dalek, and the Dalek turns to follow. “Ah, there’s the root of it. Hiding weakness. Hiding your flaws.”
“YOUR INTELLECT IS SUPERIOR,” the Dalek utters robotically, eyestalk following Sherlock’s every move. “YET YOU ARE HUMAN. YOU ARE FLAWED.”
“I don’t think so,” Sherlock corrects him. “Some of my best friends are human.” He cracks a cynical grin.
“YOU REFER TO THE HUMAN JOHN WATSON,” the Dalek says after only a moment.
Sherlock tries not to falter. “You’ve killed others, but you’ve kept us alive. Why?”
“YOU ARE COMPANIONS OF THE DOCTOR. THE DOCTOR SHOWS WEAKNESS WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE FRAILTY OF HIS FRIENDS.”
“You mean to make an example of us,” Sherlock deduces. “Hold us for ransom so that the Doctor will do as you ask. Are you really so desperate as to call on him for help?” He nearly scoffs.
The Dalek’s pause could almost be considered awkward, if Daleks were capable of awkwardness. “FEW WILL AID US. THE DOCTOR CAN BE COERCED.”
“Why not just ask nicely?”
“DALEKS DO NOT ASK. DALEKS TAKE AS THEY PLEASE.”
“Obviously.” And Sherlock pulls himself up. Makes himself taller. “And I’ve traveled with the Doctor, and there’s something you’ve clearly failed to observe about him.”
“IMPOSSIBLE.”
“He’s far more self-sacrificing than is good for him.”
The screen on the far side of the interrogation room lights up on cue, full of the Doctor’s face. And he is not pleased.
“Sherlock? Amy? All right?”
“So far in one piece,” Sherlock murmurs.
Amy’s voice comes over the communicator in his ear. “Fine. Doctor, where’s Rory?”
“All right, you big bad tin cans,” the Doctor growls. “I’ve rigged this vortex manipulator to your main hyperdrive coupling. And it’s a bit old, and frankly, I’m a bit eager to see what it’s going to do when I hit it with this big stick I found.”
“THE DOCTOR IS ON THE BRIDGE,” Sherlock’s Dalek shouts.
“And if you don’t release my friends,” the Doctor shouts over them, and suddenly he’s a dark and different man, “something very interesting and very very bad is going to happen to your flagship! And, yes, I know, I’m on the flagship. No need to state the obvious. Now let them go.”
“EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE THE HOSTAGES!”
“EXTERMINATE!”
Now Sherlock knows. Knows why the Doctor doesn’t tell stories about the Daleks. Because in the stories the Doctor tells, he wins. The Doctor doesn’t always win.
Because Sherlock hears the sound of the Doctor shouting, shouting for the Daleks to stop, but it’s not enough and it’s too late. The sound of that weapon, instant extermination, it will stick with him forever. Because he can’t stop it. It’s not the Dalek in front of him that’s shooting. He’s not the hostage.
Amy screams, shouts her husband’s name. Sherlock can’t even open his mouth to make a noise.
The Doctor has never seen anyone tear off a Dalek’s eyestalk and run. He could have killed it. Sherlock could have killed the Dalek instead of incapacitating it. But it’s not what’s important (Sherlock tears the communicator from his ear, because the sound of the Doctor calling for him, of Amy finding Rory and their tearful reunion, is a distraction). The Dalek ship is a maze, but he finds the right door. Smashes the electric lock with the eyestalk (brutal and inefficient but he needs to get in and he doesn’t have the time to ponder a lock).
There’s a Dalek waiting for him, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t, because John is sprawled out on the floor in a useless heap. He doesn’t even hear the TARDIS come in behind him and Rory take out the Dalek with a well-aimed shot. It’s Rory who gets to John first (because Sherlock can’t move).
Rory’s head comes up slowly, and Sherlock has been a detective long enough to know what he’s going to say before he does. Sherlock shakes his head, shakes it hard, and a long shudder goes through him.
Amy (both hands over her mouth, eyes glassy with tears ready to fall if she could ever blink) sees Sherlock round on the Doctor, and there’s an anger in the detective’s eyes that she’s never seen before. Not in anyone.
“Get out of my way,” Sherlock demands in a voice so low it almost goes unheard.
“Sherlock,” the Doctor sighs, and the sadness there is deep enough to puncture Amy’s gut. “No. I’m so sorry, but no.”
“This is your fault,” Sherlock snaps, and now his voice is too loud, sticks like cotton in everyone’s ears. “I will get through you whether you move aside or I move you. And I will move you, because I will do this.”
“It’s already happened.” The Doctor’s voice hasn’t raised at all. “We can’t-”
“We do it every day, don’t you toy with me, Doctor,” Sherlock snarls. The Doctor doesn’t move, doesn’t let Sherlock through.
“You’ll rip a hole in time,” the Doctor mutters around the pain in his face.
“I don’t give a damn,” Sherlock shoots back. Then he moves forward toward the Doctor, fists clenched and ready to swing. And he does. The punch lands squarely, knocks the Doctor back against the door of the TARDIS. But the Doctor doesn’t move, wedges himself in the TARDIS doorway, and Sherlock seethes. “If it were Amy. You would do it for Amy. You unpardonable bastard,” and Sherlock’s voice finally, horribly breaks. Lets Amy take him into her arms and he cries.
And, impossibly, the Doctor smirks. Holds his throbbing jaw in one hand and smirks. “Fancy that, Sherlock Holmes. Human after all.” And he hops into action immediately. “Right! Rory, get John over your shoulder, we’re going to try something new and interesting!”
“Doctor,” Rory protests, “he’s… he’s dead.”
“Looks dead, there’s a big difference. A bit of extermination can’t kill off our Doctor Watson, not our sturdy old soldier! Imagine what he’d say if he knew that’s what we all thought of him.” The Doctor rushes to Sherlock and Amy, pats both of them on the head, and is to John and Rory in an instant, helping the latter to lug the former up off the ground. “No time to lose, into the TARDIS. Quick-like, go on! We’ve got a neat little window of opportunity here and I’m not going to miss it because you’re feeling sluggish!”
Guided by instinct only, like a pair of ghosts, Sherlock and Amy take their orders, and they all disappear into the TARDIS.
And sometimes, even when it looks its worst and everything goes wrong, even when the Doctor can’t possibly win, he finds a way.
“Oh, hello,” the Doctor says when he steps out of the TARDIS and onto the bridge of the Dalek flagship, facing down a semi-circle of guards. “Found a way in, did you? Good for you. Nice bit with the lock, though, wasn’t it? Bazooka Joe. It comes with funnies, good for a laugh when you’ve got a mouthful of gum.” He takes a brave step forward.
“DOCTOR,” shouts the nearest, “YOU WILL DISASSEMBLE THE VORTEX MANIPULATOR.”
“That’s the thing,” the Doctor laughs. “Because, you see, I hadn’t meant on using it, not like this, anyhow. But listen. You listen close, because your lives depend on this.” His voice drops all pretense of jocularity. “My friend was shot. By one of you, and I’m really not in the mood to negotiate with anyone who tries to kill my friends. So. I’ll disassemble the vortex manipulator when you move aside and let me use one of your rejuvenation capsules.”
The Daleks don’t make a move. The Doctor’s voice is suddenly dangerous.
“Don’t waste my time. I have a sonic screwdriver, a bit of a vendetta, and a whopping great pain in my jaw. Don’t test my limits.”
The pause takes twelve seconds. It stretches on for hours. Then: “MOVE ASIDE. ALLOW THE DOCTOR THROUGH.”
The semi-circle of Daleks parts. The Doctor takes the first cautious steps, and then behind him, Amy emerges. And finally Sherlock and Rory carrying John between them (raw, blank, hopeless determination on Sherlock’s face).
The capsules in question line the back wall, five in total, one of them occupied. They lay John down into one, seal the hatch, and stand back.
“What are these things?” Rory asks in a whisper.
“The Daleks don’t have a moral compass to speak of,” the Doctor answers, loud enough for the creatures to hear. “Torture certainly isn’t below them. And when they’ve tortured enough to kill and they haven’t got everything they want, they bring the poor creatures here for a second chance at life. And once they’re breathing again, the Daleks can ask all the questions they like.” He levels a coal-fire stare at the nearest Dalek, unwavering hatred in those old eyes. “But Daleks don’t ask. They take.”
“YOU WILL REMOVE THE VORTEX MANIPULATOR,” three of the Daleks demand.
“Not yet,” the Doctor snaps, and he’s suddenly down on the capsule, twisting knobs and pressing buttons, and the entire machine lights up. “Now, here comes the best bit of all,” the Doctor says, twirling to face his companions.
He stabs a finger to the biggest button, glowing green and waiting. A whistling and a pounding suddenly fill the air on the bridge. Sherlock feels his hand encased in both of Amy’s, and he uselessly grips back.
And when the capsule opens up in a hiss of compressed air, John Watson sits up, bleary-eyed as if out of a long sleep.
The Doctor does as he’s promised, and he unhooks the old vortex manipulator from the hyperdrive coupling. And the Daleks, who of course have no intention of letting the Doctor and his friends leave unhampered, attack as soon as he’s finished. But even then, the Doctor is clever. One hand clamps down on Sherlock’s wrist, who has his arms wrapped around Amy and John. The Doctor holds the other hand out to Rory, who slams down on the vortex manipulator there, and they’re all gone in a flash of leftover time energy.
They appear inside the TARDIS, groaning and boneless from the cheap mode of transportation, all besides the Doctor who leaps up to the console and sends them careening away to safety.
From their tangle on the ground, Amy peppers John’s face with kisses, and Rory checks his vitals. “Don’t do that, never again,” Amy demands.
“How d’you feel?” Rory asks, John’s wrist in his fingers to feel his pulse.
“Lightheaded,” John answers around a tongue that feels too lethargic. “Tired.”
“But not dead?” Rory asks. And they both grin.
“Sherlock,” John says suddenly. He turns his head (it takes a bit of effort) to the man still clutching him from behind. “Sherlock. Sherlock.” He touches his forehead to Sherlock’s, shuts his eyes. Sherlock strokes his fingers evenly through John’s hair, keeps him close (and Amy and Rory link their fingers together, hold each other close, because it could have been them; had been them).
“If I tell you,” Sherlock says almost steadily, “you must promise never to die again.”
“Only after you do,” John says with a slowly building smile.
It’s enough. “I love you, too.”
He kisses John once, because that’s more than enough, and John has just come back from the dead and it’s not fair to ask more of him.
“Your reflexes will be a bit off for a few days,” the Doctor call from the console, still piloting them to safety, “and I hear everything tastes like fish for a while after the rejuvenation process, which is rubbish for your taste buds but good news for being alive.” He pauses, smiles a bit sadly. “I suppose you’d like to get back home, then? Had enough death for one lifetime?”
Despite everything, despite the weight of death still clinging to his lungs, John laughs. He laughs brightly, loudly. “You think a little thing like getting killed is gonna stop me?”
The Doctor grins, and this one’s soft and quiet. “Good man.” Then, louder and decidedly more chipper, “Welcome back, Doctor Watson!”
“Yeah, welcome to the club,” Rory says. ”The ‘You Were Dead But Now You’re… Not’… Club.”
“Well-put, you big idiot,” Amy says, kissing him sweetly on the cheek.
+++
The TARDIS breathes quietly, lights dim as everyone tries to sleep. They’ve all fallen asleep together, the four of them, arms all clinging to one another in a protective nest. Too tired to even bother changing out of the clothes they’d run through Dalek ships in. Rory and Sherlock and Amy and John. Amy and Rory and John and Sherlock. John and Rory and Sherlock and Amy. They’re not two pairs of two, that night, they’re four companions, and each of them needs all of the others.
The Doctor expects Sherlock, and so he’s not surprised when the detective appears beside him at the console.
“I’m not going to apologize,” Sherlock says, and there’s something on his face that still sees John dead and limp on the ground (he’d been dead for thirteen minutes, Sherlock will never forget that).
“I haven’t asked you to,” the Doctor says, pretending to be very involved with the goings on of the console.
“I would have taken the TARDIS, if you hadn’t stopped me.”
“Sherlock, I know. Why do you keep going on about things I already know?”
Sherlock frowns. “I don’t say this often.”
The Doctor glances up, almost smiles. “I’ll make a recording.”
Sherlock shakes his head, lets the quiet sink in. “Thank you.”
At first, there’s something in the Doctor’s eye. Something very old, eyes that have seen so many people love and so many people die. Sometimes even the Doctor forgets just how old he is, and it’s times like this, staring down Sherlock Holmes thanking him for saving his Watson’s life (for stopping him when he would have done anything to have John back) that he remembers.
Then the soft smile that had touched the Doctor’s face grows. “Are you gonna kiss me too?”
“Shut up,” Sherlock snaps, but he’s smirking. And everything is forgiven.
+++
The waterfall roars in Sherlock’s ears. And Jim cracks his neck, smiles like a snake.
“Man-to-man?” Sherlock asks, sneering good-naturedly. “You’ve two men on the cliff above us, at least one of them has a rifle. It’s hardly a fair fight.”
“Well, man-to-man-and-bodyguards,” Jim says, rolling his shoulders in a childlike shrug. “Noble of you, by the way. To let your little dog walk home with his tail between his legs knowing you were going right into a trap.”
“I don’t need to bring insurance,” Sherlock says just as casually.
“Ooh,” Jim coos, looking positively enraptured. “So brave. And foolhardy. I like that in an arch-nemesis.” His eyes narrow. “How’s married life, by the way? You’ve been gone such a long time, honeymoons don’t usually last two months. Or is he just that good a shag, Sherlock?”
He hadn’t planned it like this, but no one, especially not Jim Moriarty, talks about John like that. So Sherlock leaps. Knocks Jim off his feet, which lose their hold, and the two of them go tumbling over the edge of the cliff.
“Oof!” Rory grunts as he and the Doctor catch Sherlock halfway down the cliff face. “Put on a few pounds, mate?”
John runs up and sweeps Sherlock into his arms when they’ve pulled him fully inside the TARDIS, clutches him tight and might not let go. The Doctor peers closely at the detective. “I leave you alone for one day. You’re lucky I was free.”
“Knew you’d come,” Sherlock replies smugly, fitting his arms around John.
“He was in the hotel when I got back to call him,” John says into Sherlock’s scarf. “Just sitting in the lounge cool as you like.”
“The trouble you boys get into without me,” the Doctor says with a sigh and a shake of his head. Then, he grins. “Good for you.”
The engines warp and sing. “We need to get away. Moriarty’s men will be looking for us,” Sherlock says, only stepping away from John to join the Doctor at the console, pulling levers as he makes his way around. John follows, because he always does.
“How long?” Amy asks.
“Three years ought to do it,” the Doctor says, and feels suddenly self-conscious when everyone turns to look at him. “Oh, no reason. Let’s say I read it somewhere. So, you want to do it all in one go or take your time?”
Sherlock stares the Doctor down, almost as if the two of them are arguing by thought alone. “It won’t end with Moriarty,” Sherlock says. “His network is dug in deeply enough to function without him.”
“So, five shovels are better than two,” Rory says, suddenly coming up alongside them and fixing a protective arm across John’s shoulders.
“He thinks he can get rid of us by jumping off a cliff,” Amy chuckles, sneaking up behind Sherlock and gripping her arms around his middle. “No luck, Sherlock.”
Sherlock’s eyes, already bright and shining, turn to John as if to ask (as if he needs to). John grins wide enough to hurt.
+++
“Sherlock! Don’t you dare hang up on me, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“Good morning, Lestrade. It is morning in London, isn’t it?”
“Where are you? Everyone’s saying you’re dead!”
“I am. For all intents and purposes, that is. Do us a favor and don’t tell anyone.”
“What are you talking about? Where’ve you been?”
“Have you heard of Asgard, Lestrade?” (a voice from Sherlock’s end adds, “Not that Asgard! Don’t confuse the poor man!”) “Anyhow, we’ve an angry Cult of the Triple Moon to deal with. Must dash.”
“Sherlock!"
PART ONE