Fic: The Watchman (4/6)
Title: The Watchman (Chapter Four)
Word Count: approx 5,000 for this bit
A/N: Full story info and more author's notes here.
The "clock gallery" in the British museum, as described in this chapter, is very much a real place. (Though I might be the only one who calls it the clock gallery!) Take a look!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
CHAPTER FOUR
John stared at the frankly underwhelming walls of his room. They'd been underwhelming for the past four hours now, and they weren't getting any more interesting as time went on. But it wasn't as if John had a better alternative. He couldn't sleep. He had spent all day trying not to think about his secret conversation with the Doctor, but now it seemed the memory-and the Doctor's orders-came back with a vengeance.
John liked to think his moral compass would steer him straight. After all, between the army, the clinic, and basically every minute he spent with Sherlock on a crime scene, John had seen his fair share of ethical dilemmas. But he honestly didn't know what he would do if he found out that Sherlock really was…well. Like the Doctor. Or rather that he had been like the Doctor, and he could be again.
John wasn't blind to the fact that Sherlock got bored very, very easily. Easily enough, at least, that sometimes John worried Sherlock was moments away from relapsing and doing drugs again. Maybe the problem wasn't that Sherlock's mind was too busy for this world-maybe it's that this world wasn't busy enough for Sherlock.
Then again, even if any of this was to be believed, the Doctor had said the clever people were all gone now, all but the Doctor. The Time War. John's eyes widened at the thought. Maybe there wasn't any relief for Sherlock, in human form or…not.
Not that any of this was true, of course. Not that any of it was even possible.
John wondered if Sherlock would find out that he might be an alien. He wondered if Sherlock was an alien. He wondered if anything was ever going to make sense, ever again.
John didn't bother wondering when he would fall asleep; that was clearly never going to happen.
John turned over and stared at the other, equally boring wall. Well, almost as boring. But this wall also contained the doorway that led downstairs. He sighed and pulled himself out of bed. He had promised the Doctor he would look for the watch...might as well settle this once and for all.
He walked down to the living room, where Sherlock usually left his coat. The Doctor said Sherlock kept the fob watch on him at all times, so it seemed like a logical place to start. All the same, the idea of John poking around Sherlock's things-of John Watson attempting to investigatehis brilliant flatmate-seemed utterly ridiculous, not to mention a complete invasion of privacy. Then again, Sherlock hacked into John's computer all the time. Clearly privacy wasn't the biggest issue for Sherlock.
But when John made his way downstairs he realized he wouldn't be investigating anything at all, because Sherlock was still awake. Sherlock lay on the sofa. He was opening, reading, and closing the Doctor's ID again and again at a furious pace.
"What," John joked, "expecting to find something new?"
Sherlock turned his head in John's direction. He squinted for a second, deducing. Then he tossed the ID to John.
"Open that," Sherlock said. "Tell me what you see."
John groaned. "Are you going to make me deduce again? I always feel like an idiot."
"That's because you are an idiot," Sherlock said, but as he spoke his lips quirked in a way that contained equal parts affection and pity for John's lacking mental facilities.
Sherlock wasn't an alien. How could he be? The Doctor had it wrong, and so did Donovan: Sherlock Holmes was utterly, obnoxiously human.
He nodded at the black case in John's hands. "What do you see?"
John opened the case and stared down at the plastic card. "John Smith," he read. "Where do you think he got this?" Somehow he doubted that was the Doctor's real name. "The government? You don't think Mycroft knows about him, do you?" Now there was a nightmare that John hadn't imagined.
"Oh, John," Sherlock said. He didn't say Idiot!, but John saw it plainly spelled out across his features. "Is that really all you see?"
John looked at the ID again. "Um," he said. "Yes?"
"I wonder if I can….John. Close that."
John did.
"John, the Doctor is also a card-carrying member of the FBI," Sherlock said.
"Oh?" John said.
"Yes. It's a…a trick ID. Try flipping it over and opening it. You'll see the FBI ID instead."
John flipped the case over and opened it up.
"Wow," he said. There it was. Special Agent John Smith.
"Do you see it?" Sherlock sounded excited. John glanced at Sherlock and noticed the detective had moved to upright. "The card says FBI?"
"Yeah," John said. "Wow. How many of these do you think he has?"
"Infinite amounts," Sherlock said. "It's blank."
"What?" John glanced back at the card. "No it's not."
Sherlock brought his hands together just under his chin. "Of course it's not. No, the blank paper fills up with whatever you want to see. Like a digital screen running off some kind of brain waves. If I think about it right, I can access all sorts of interesting information."
John closed the ID, opened it again. "I just see MI6," he shrugged. "And FBI."
Sherlock made a small, frustrated noise. "Give it back, then," he said, "since you're clearly not going to find a use for it."
John handed back the card.
He stood about for a bit as Sherlock went back to examining the ID. It was as though John hadn't walked into the room at all. John wondered what Sherlock was learning from the card. Would he-could he-learn about the Doctor's theory?
Feeling awkward and anxious and powerless, John turned and walked out of the room. Just as he hit the stairs up to his bedroom Sherlock called out.
"John! Wait a minute, I need you to send a text."
John didn't bother rolling his eyes. Rather he felt his entire body relax at the simplicity of the command. Sherlock had no idea, but it was the best possible thing his flatmate could have said. After a day of aliens and fob watches, nothing in John's life felt more familiar than Sherlock ordering him to send a text. Maybe that was a bit pathetic, but it was the truth.
"My phone's upstairs," John said.
Sherlock didn't look away from the ID. "Mine's on the table."
Meaning about two inches away from Sherlock, of course; significantly further away from John.
"Right," John said. He made his way back to the sofa, grabbing the phone before he sat down in the armchair. "What do you want me to send?"
"The contact's already in there, under 'Stevenson.' Tell her that her blind date wasn't interested in stealing her identity to commit fraud. Why would he? He's her brother."
John smiled as he typed out the message and signed it with an "SH." Then he exited out of the texting program, and his breath stopped short.
"Sherlock," he said. He spoke quietly. Slowly. "What's this?"
"I realize I've picked it up recently," Sherlock's voice was full of disdain. John didn't look up from the phone to check Sherlock's expression. He couldn't. "But iPhones aren't exactly new inventions. Surely you've seen one before."
John could feel his heartbeat. "No…" he said. He tried to focus. "I mean. This little button. Inside the phone. Purple? The one with a watch in the centre."
The Doctor's words came back to him. Sherlock is never without this watch. He doesn't know it's anything special.
"It's an app, John. Honestly." John glanced up. Sherlock hadn't even bothered looking over. Good.
"What's it for?"
"It contains information on rare, antique watches. Their makes, their makers, that sort of thing. I installed it on my old phone as well; thought it might well prove necessary in a case."
"Has it?" John asked, though he could guess Sherlock's answer. It wasn't actually an answer John wanted to hear.
"I know it's late, John, but I'd hope even at this hour you'd be able to remember if we've ever had a case involving an antique watch."
"So that's a 'no,' then."
Sherlock nodded, his eyes still focused on the Doctor's card. "Thus far."
John breathed out carefully, shakily. Thus far. His fingers hovered over the button. If this was it, if this was what the Doctor was talking about…
John took a deep breath.
If the Doctor was right, then pressing his finger against that little purple square would change everything in his entire world. Shatter it to the ground.
John had hoped his moral compass would steer him straight, and all of a sudden, there it was, the clear answer. He knew the right thing to do.
If he pushed the button and nothing happened, fine. But if he opened the app, it wouldn't be only his world that would change. Quite the opposite.
Not pushing the button, lying to Sherlock about the button, seemed utterly selfish. If they were really dating like everyone else thought, if they were in love, then maybe everything would be different. But as it stood John didn't have any claim to Sherlock's life, not beyond that of a best mate. John didn't have the right to hold his friend back. Any idiot could see that Sherlock was stifled here.
After all, didn't Sherlock deserve a new world, a much bigger one? Didn't he deserve the universe?
.
.
John squinted at what appeared to be a line on a rock.
"Nope," he said. "I don't see it."
The Doctor pouted, then pointed to the glass case again. "No no, that's clearly me." He gestured to his own profile. "Clearly!"
John squinted at the rock again, then shrugged. "Sorry."
"Well, I suppose nobody said Hammurabi was a very good artist…" the Doctor moved to the next case. "Wrong! Wrong!" he said, pointing to the various labels. "Ooh! Wrong, but very interesting."
"Doctor," John said. He stood waiting next to "Hammurabi's" rock-which was, for the record, labelled anonymous. "I contacted you to give back your ID card-"
"Psychic paper!"
"...Right, okay. But why are we here?"
The Doctor took one look at John and then nodded a little, almost to himself. He reached out and took John's hand.
"Come with me," the Doctor said, and led John out of the room, into the large atrium of the British Museum. He pulled John up the winding stairs. John followed, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. As they wound through further galleries, past Celtic jewellery and quivers of ancient arrows, he spoke up. "Doctor, I think you should know…"
The Doctor stopped short and turned to John. "Yes?"
"I'm not gay."
The Doctor stared down at their joined hands. "Oh!" he said. He took his hand back, stared at it for a moment, and then tucked it back into his trouser pocket. "Old habit," he said, gesturing a bit helplessly with this free hand. "Doesn't bother most people...or aliens…" The Doctor glanced around him for a moment, then turned around and started walking again. "Nearly there!" he shouted backwards.
John hoped he hadn't offended the man. Er. Alien.
They reached the entrance to a new gallery, this one full of clocks, and the Doctor stopped once more. He turned backwards to look at John. "You can tell me, you know," he said softly.
John shrugged self-consciously. Of course the Doctor wouldn't believe him. Why should he? Nobody else seemed to. "I mean. I'm really not, though. I don't fancy random blokes I pass on the street, or anything, you know?"
The Doctor stared at John. He stared rather thoroughly, even going on his tiptoes for a moment to peer down at John's head.
"It's just," John said as the Doctor examined him. "I know you've probably assumed, with me and Sherlock. And there really isn't. Well. Nothing's happened. Happening! I mean, if he's a," John lowered his voice to a whisper, "Time Lord, then that's a whole new…Er." He shook his head. How'd they get on this subject again? "We're just mates," he said.
"Did you bring the watch with you?" the Doctor said. "Sherlock's fob watch."
"No. He doesn't have a watch." John had summoned the Doctor to give back the ID card, after all. Nothing more.
"When you find it," the Doctor said, "you can tell me," he smiled a little. "That's what I wanted to say, before." Before John could so much as blush, the Doctor cried out, "Now!" and walked a wall of pocket watches displayed behind a glass case.
John shivered. He wondered if the Doctor suspected John had lied to him. Well, not lied, exactly, but close enough.
"I want to show you something," the Doctor said. He pointed to one of the open watches. "This was mine," he said. "It probably doesn't look like much. It's just an ordinary watch now, but this watch once kept me human."
John read the label. Fob watch, 1913. The display included a long history of the watch and its owner, Tim Latimer. Was that the Doctor's name when he was human? But the description included the date of Latimer's death, so perhaps not. The watch was likely custom-made from a local craftsman. The origins of its intricate designs remain unknown.
"Not that long ago, actually," the Doctor said. He shrugged. "Only a lifetime." John would have expected the statement to sound melodramatic, but the Doctor spoke of the "lifetime" as though it had occurred last week. For the first time, John wondered how old the Doctor really was. He looked like he was in his twenties, but sometimes, like now, his voice suggested otherwise. He sounded sad, almost. He looked at John. "I know so much about the Chameleon Arch because I used it, once. I needed it. It kept me safe, just the way his fob watch keepsSherlock safe."
"Did you like being human?" John asked, trying to steer talk away from Sherlock. Even if he couldn't seem to stop thinking about Sherlock, at least the Doctor could talk of something else.
"Being human was…nice," the Doctor said. "Simpler."
"But would you choose it, if you could?"
The Doctor turned to John with the tiniest smile. "Not for anything," he confessed.
John nodded as the Doctor turned back to the display. If John had told Sherlock about the watch like he had meant to last night, like he should have, he imagined he would have received a similar response. Between Sherlock's life with John at 221B and the chance of another life for Sherlock, even a life as someone else, where he could satisfy every inch of his ruthless curiosity, John was well aware which option his mate would choose.
John hadn't frozen the night before. He had simply handed the iPhone back to Sherlock, gone up to his room, and gone back to staring at the wall. He didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke up that morning so he must have done at some point. John hadn't frozen, but he had certainly panicked.
John was good in a time of crisis. He rarely panicked. John sighed and turned back to the display of antique watches. If only this were a time of crisis, or a war zone. If only this were a situation John knew how to fight.
John examined the Doctor's watch, trying to figure out exactly what made it seem so different from the others surrounding it. There was something about the open watch, the symbols inscribed behind the numbers-he'd seen those symbols before...
"Sherlock doesn't have a watch," John said. He winced as the words came out. So much for keeping secrets. But then, maybe John needed to tell someone the truth, even if he couldn't bring himself to tell Sherlock just yet. It wasn't as though he could get Lestrade drunk and confess to him about the watch app, about Time Lords and TARDISes. Even if John wanted to, where would he even begin?
And John supposed, on the upside, that the Doctor couldn't make things any worse...he didn't even want John to open the "watch." And if the Doctor meant to confiscate the app….Well. John smirked a little at the thought. He couldn't help it. He'd like to see the Doctor try to take that phone away from Sherlock.
No, John couldn't think up a good reason to hide the truth from the Doctor. He hoped he was right.
"Sherlock doesn't have a watch," John said. "He has an app."
"No, Sherlock Holmes definitely has a-what?" The Doctor turned to face John.
"In his phone, a little purple square with a watch on it. I found it last night. It has to be his watch, like you said. I mean," He pointed to the Doctor's fob watch. "The watch has got little lines on it, too, just like those."
"An app? Where's the sense of tradition?" The Doctor cried. "Oh, sure, it's clever, but a phone? Oh, that's no good at all! At all! Watches are classic! Watches," he gestured to the pocket watches, as if John hadn't seen them already, "are cool!" He turned back to John. "It's in his phone?"
John stared at the Doctor. He frowned. "Yeah," he said, "I've just told you that you're absolutely right, that Sherlock Holmes is actually an alien, and you're upset he doesn't have a proper fob watch like the rest of you?"
"Yes!"
John turned back to the watches, eyes wide. He shook his head slowly, eying the Doctor's put-out reflection in the glass. "I'm just worried for when Lestrade shows us a crime with an old watch in it," he eventually muttered, nodding to the case. "Sherlock thinks it's an app with information about old watches. We've been lucky so far, but the moment we have a case involving a fob watch it Sherlock will open the app."
"You won't." John wondered that the Doctor spoke such certainty. "Not if the Genius has anything to say about it."
John's stomach sank down to his toes. He spoke low and fast. "I thought he couldn't have anything to say about it. I thought you said that while Sherlock is here the Genius was gone." He leaned toward the Doctor. "Isn't he gone?"
The Doctor moved on to examine a grandfather clock that towered over both of them.
"Of course he is! You're John Watson, he's Sherlock Holmes. You'd know if you were living with anyone else, wouldn't you?"
John nodded. Right. Of course he would. He knew Sherlock better than anyone, except maybe Sherlock's family. Of course he'd notice if Sherlock wasn't acting himself.
"Wrong!" the Doctor cried, pointing to the caption on the timepiece. Then he whirled back to John. "He's gone, yes, but the Genius was also very, very careful. Tremendously so. You mentioned Sherlock's brother at the supermarket the other day. It got me thinking, why choose Sherlock Holmes at all? The Genius chose this story deliberately. The Chameleon Arch is clever but it isn't clever enough to turn a Time Lord into another author's character! The Genius wasn't exactly a patient Time Lord, yet reprogramming the Chameleon Arch would've taken him months. You see, Chameleon Arches are finicky things, slightly sentient means tricky to control, at least to this extent. And, John, it's a big, big, big, big, big extent! Doyle's world has an infrastructure. Multiple characters, locations, motifs, archetypes. All the good stuff! Sherlock Holmes is classic literature for a reason. How could The Genius know his new, human world would fit all that? Which is when I realized," he said to John, who frankly hadn't understood a word the Doctor uttered after 'Sherlock's brother,' "the Genius constructed the ultimate trap. He knew he needed to keep himself safe, and he knew just how clever he was. Maybe he thought he would untangle the loose ends of an average Time-Lord-to-human conversion. False human in the real world, there are always quirks. But fiction is very powerful, fiction was his solution. Stories have all the pieces to mimic life, and great stories can feel even more real than life itself. Oh no, John Watson, the Genius didn't just make himself. He made something a whole lot bigger."
"Er," John said. "What?"
"Well…" the Doctor said. "Let's put it this way. What do you know about Sherlock's childhood?"
"Um," John said. "He solved and Mycroft grew up with their mum, I'd imagine."
"Yes! Very powerful thing, the imagination."
"You aren't…Are you saying Sherlock's childhood is imagined? As in, not real?" John wanted to laugh aloud at the absurdity of it. If he didn't laugh, he didn't know what else he would do. "I don't think Mycroft would take that news very well."
"No, I'd imagine not," the Doctor said, his tone far more serious than John liked. John would have preferred him to be cracking jokes about biscuits any day. "People don't generally enjoy learning that their family members aren't real. Or that they're not real."
"You can't seriously be telling me Mycroft Holmes isn't real," John felt ridiculous even saying the words aloud.
"Greg Lestrade told me he met Sherlock in 2005." The Doctor stared at John. "That's the same year I returned to this planet. Right after the Time War." The Doctor nodded slowly. "Lots of things happened that year. Busy, busy year."
"So what?" John knew he was being rude, but he wished the Doctor would just get on with it.
"I don't think Lestrade could have met Sherlock before then. If my theory is right, then Sherlock Holmes, the human, didn't actually exist before 2005."
"But…" John sputtered. "But what about Mycroft? And their mum? And, oh, Carl Powers! He's a boy who died when Sherlock was a kid. Sherlock knew something was off about the case. I've spoken to the boy's mum. I know Carl Powers was definitely real. His death was real." The Doctor looked pointedly at the clock in front of them. "Wasn't it?"
"It's a bit complicated, John. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. Because once you were all here, here you stayed. Think of it like this-"
"Stop." John couldn't wait for Doctor to finish another long, incomprehensible rant. Not if he had just head the man correctly. "What do you mean, 'you were all here?'"
"Well everyone had to come from somewhere. Sherlock came from the Genius. And you can't have Sherlock Holmes without a Lestrade, without a Mycroft, without. Well. Hah. Well..."
"What?" John said. The Doctor stared at him.
John knew what was coming next. It wasn't even a question. Ever since he'd met the Doctor, the man had always said the names practically in tandem-Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. The Doctor made them sound like a matching set. John had liked that, just a bit, hadn't he? He had liked the way the Doctor put them on equal terms, even though it was clear to everyone that Sherlock Holmes was absolutely brilliant, and John himself was nothing of the sort. But even so he had enjoyed it. That was what he had wanted, wasn't it? Some measure of recognition, or equality. Never mind that now it was coming from the wrong person, or that John didn't want to be "special" in the way Doctor thought Sherlock was special. He didn't want to be like Sherlock, not if it meant he was some kind of…what was it the Doctor kept saying? Fiction.
No, John was also a soldier, he knew he was a soldier, could feel it in his very bones. He had been shot. Would that were fiction, right? He knew for a fact he hadn't been put here by any "Chameleon Arch."
John straightened up and stared back at the Doctor, daring him to continue. He would make the man say the words, even if he had got the situation wrong. "Without what?"
The Doctor looked at the clock, avoiding John's gaze. His lips curled into a sad smile. "Without John Watson," he said.
John shook his head a little. "No. No, you're wrong. You're not telling me that some alien's spaceship sent me to war and got me shot. You're not telling me some 'Genius' made my mum and my da and my insane sister. You're not. I existed long before 2005, we all did. I fought in a bloody war!" He wanted to shout the words, but no matter how upset he was he didn't dare. Wouldn't do to cause a scene in the British museum. John tried to steady his breathing a bit.
And there wasn't really anything to worry about, in the end, was there? He had wanted to be addressed like Sherlock Holmes, but John knew better. Sherlock had always seemed on the verge of impossible as a person. John wasn't like that. It was just a fact. John was strong and sure and good, perhaps. But he wasn't extraordinary.
Finally the Doctor looked back at John. He looked worried. Or maybe concerned? John felt something sink in his stomach. "Of course you did!" the Doctor said. "You did. And you would have fought, no matter what. Just like you would have been a doctor, probably."
"Probably?"
"It's to do with the way the Chameleon Arch works. Maybe your war wouldn't have been Afghanistan. There are lots of wars, there are wars all the time. And your name definitely wouldn't be John Watson. The Chameleon Arch takes dormant traits and makes them more prominent. You went to medical school. You know Mendelian Inheritance, yes?"
"Yeah," John said cautiously. Now that the Doctor was making a bit of sense, John really wasn't sure how he felt about the fact.
"The Chameleon Arch works a lot like that, as if someone took all your recessive genes away and left only a random smattering of dominant ones. When I was human my TARDIS made me into a tutor. My whole room was covered in books," he waved his hand about the gallery as if he was back in his old room now. "Now me, Time Lord me, I'm not a tutor, but boy do I love a good book. Or a bad book! Or a space book-those exist, and I love them! So you'd still be a soldier, I bet. You'd just be another soldier. Just like Sherlock would be the Genius. You know, the Genius was obsessed with learning. His single goal in life was to know anything, at any cost."
John nodded. If the pursuit of knowledge wasn't a dominant behaviour in Sherlock Holmes, John Watson wanted to know what was. Even though the Doctor sounded insane, John thought he was beginning to understand the man's logic. Still, something niggled at his brain. It was just- "I thought you said the Genius was nothing like Sherlock."
"He wasn't, not really. He didn't solve mysteries. No time to stop and help the police or right a wrong, not if he wanted to know everything. And here's another difference: there wasn't any John Watson. The Genius was notorious for travelling alone."
John smiled a little at that thought. "So was Sherlock." Things were different now. The Doctor smiled back at that. "Ah," John said, feeling a bit exhausted. "And I'm not real?"
He still wasn't sure he believed the Doctor. How could he?
"Well you are now, of course you are, you're John Watson." The Doctor poked John's arm. "Flesh and blood. But you're…well. You're alternate. It explains why Sherlock didn't just guess that I'm an alien, why you two seemed so surprised aliens exist! You see in London-in my London-a spaceship crashed into Big Ben, 2005, they've all known for years. They're a bit better adjusted to the concept by now, most of them anyway. Oh!" The Doctor hit his head with his palm, same as he had a few days ago, back when he had worked with them on the strangling case and John had still thought he was an ordinary bloke. "Oh, oh oh! Oh, maybe…" He pulled out the green torch, which did seem more than a little alien, now that John thought about it. The Doctor read something off the side of the torch. "Of course! That's what was wrong with the gravity filter, it wasn't the gravity filter at all. We're in a different London from mine. The TARDIS is old hat at alternate universes, of course she picked it up. Exaggerated the gravity differently as a result. It's not even really a universe so much as a temporal displacement. I can still move between those. Must have taken quite a bit of power, but…I think the Genius created his very own London."
John looked at the clock in front of him, and shook his head. He wanted to put his hands on the glass case for a moment, or the wall, anything to steady himself. But he couldn't of course. You couldn't just go about steadying yourself on something that protected priceless historical objects in the British Museum, not unless you wanted to be 'kindly' escorted out by the guards.
It was just, normally after Sherlock made a big deduction John wanted to gasp aloud-he'd learned to hold the gasping in, actually, but he never could help the all complimentary words that seemed to tumble off his lips in response. But here was the Doctor, making deductions at the speed of light, and John just wanted to…well, mostly he wanted to leave. He preferred his deductions from the morbidly obsessed and rude, and he preferred deductions that didn't involve "temporal displacement" and alternate selves. Another London? He rubbed his forehead, feeling every crease.
The Doctor poked John's arm again. "Sorry," he said. He sounded unsure.
John tried to smile. It wasn't the Doctor's fault that John would rather be anywhere else than here at this moment. It seemed like the Doctor was just trying to help. "It's just a lot to take in," John said.
The Doctor looked at John for a moment as if trying to decide something. "How would you like a change of scene?"
John nodded. "I think that'd be great, actually. Where did you have in mind?"
The Doctor grinned wide. "Anywhere," he said.
Chapter Five
Word Count: approx 5,000 for this bit
A/N: Full story info and more author's notes here.
The "clock gallery" in the British museum, as described in this chapter, is very much a real place. (Though I might be the only one who calls it the clock gallery!) Take a look!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
CHAPTER FOUR
John stared at the frankly underwhelming walls of his room. They'd been underwhelming for the past four hours now, and they weren't getting any more interesting as time went on. But it wasn't as if John had a better alternative. He couldn't sleep. He had spent all day trying not to think about his secret conversation with the Doctor, but now it seemed the memory-and the Doctor's orders-came back with a vengeance.
John liked to think his moral compass would steer him straight. After all, between the army, the clinic, and basically every minute he spent with Sherlock on a crime scene, John had seen his fair share of ethical dilemmas. But he honestly didn't know what he would do if he found out that Sherlock really was…well. Like the Doctor. Or rather that he had been like the Doctor, and he could be again.
John wasn't blind to the fact that Sherlock got bored very, very easily. Easily enough, at least, that sometimes John worried Sherlock was moments away from relapsing and doing drugs again. Maybe the problem wasn't that Sherlock's mind was too busy for this world-maybe it's that this world wasn't busy enough for Sherlock.
Then again, even if any of this was to be believed, the Doctor had said the clever people were all gone now, all but the Doctor. The Time War. John's eyes widened at the thought. Maybe there wasn't any relief for Sherlock, in human form or…not.
Not that any of this was true, of course. Not that any of it was even possible.
John wondered if Sherlock would find out that he might be an alien. He wondered if Sherlock was an alien. He wondered if anything was ever going to make sense, ever again.
John didn't bother wondering when he would fall asleep; that was clearly never going to happen.
John turned over and stared at the other, equally boring wall. Well, almost as boring. But this wall also contained the doorway that led downstairs. He sighed and pulled himself out of bed. He had promised the Doctor he would look for the watch...might as well settle this once and for all.
He walked down to the living room, where Sherlock usually left his coat. The Doctor said Sherlock kept the fob watch on him at all times, so it seemed like a logical place to start. All the same, the idea of John poking around Sherlock's things-of John Watson attempting to investigatehis brilliant flatmate-seemed utterly ridiculous, not to mention a complete invasion of privacy. Then again, Sherlock hacked into John's computer all the time. Clearly privacy wasn't the biggest issue for Sherlock.
But when John made his way downstairs he realized he wouldn't be investigating anything at all, because Sherlock was still awake. Sherlock lay on the sofa. He was opening, reading, and closing the Doctor's ID again and again at a furious pace.
"What," John joked, "expecting to find something new?"
Sherlock turned his head in John's direction. He squinted for a second, deducing. Then he tossed the ID to John.
"Open that," Sherlock said. "Tell me what you see."
John groaned. "Are you going to make me deduce again? I always feel like an idiot."
"That's because you are an idiot," Sherlock said, but as he spoke his lips quirked in a way that contained equal parts affection and pity for John's lacking mental facilities.
Sherlock wasn't an alien. How could he be? The Doctor had it wrong, and so did Donovan: Sherlock Holmes was utterly, obnoxiously human.
He nodded at the black case in John's hands. "What do you see?"
John opened the case and stared down at the plastic card. "John Smith," he read. "Where do you think he got this?" Somehow he doubted that was the Doctor's real name. "The government? You don't think Mycroft knows about him, do you?" Now there was a nightmare that John hadn't imagined.
"Oh, John," Sherlock said. He didn't say Idiot!, but John saw it plainly spelled out across his features. "Is that really all you see?"
John looked at the ID again. "Um," he said. "Yes?"
"I wonder if I can….John. Close that."
John did.
"John, the Doctor is also a card-carrying member of the FBI," Sherlock said.
"Oh?" John said.
"Yes. It's a…a trick ID. Try flipping it over and opening it. You'll see the FBI ID instead."
John flipped the case over and opened it up.
"Wow," he said. There it was. Special Agent John Smith.
"Do you see it?" Sherlock sounded excited. John glanced at Sherlock and noticed the detective had moved to upright. "The card says FBI?"
"Yeah," John said. "Wow. How many of these do you think he has?"
"Infinite amounts," Sherlock said. "It's blank."
"What?" John glanced back at the card. "No it's not."
Sherlock brought his hands together just under his chin. "Of course it's not. No, the blank paper fills up with whatever you want to see. Like a digital screen running off some kind of brain waves. If I think about it right, I can access all sorts of interesting information."
John closed the ID, opened it again. "I just see MI6," he shrugged. "And FBI."
Sherlock made a small, frustrated noise. "Give it back, then," he said, "since you're clearly not going to find a use for it."
John handed back the card.
He stood about for a bit as Sherlock went back to examining the ID. It was as though John hadn't walked into the room at all. John wondered what Sherlock was learning from the card. Would he-could he-learn about the Doctor's theory?
Feeling awkward and anxious and powerless, John turned and walked out of the room. Just as he hit the stairs up to his bedroom Sherlock called out.
"John! Wait a minute, I need you to send a text."
John didn't bother rolling his eyes. Rather he felt his entire body relax at the simplicity of the command. Sherlock had no idea, but it was the best possible thing his flatmate could have said. After a day of aliens and fob watches, nothing in John's life felt more familiar than Sherlock ordering him to send a text. Maybe that was a bit pathetic, but it was the truth.
"My phone's upstairs," John said.
Sherlock didn't look away from the ID. "Mine's on the table."
Meaning about two inches away from Sherlock, of course; significantly further away from John.
"Right," John said. He made his way back to the sofa, grabbing the phone before he sat down in the armchair. "What do you want me to send?"
"The contact's already in there, under 'Stevenson.' Tell her that her blind date wasn't interested in stealing her identity to commit fraud. Why would he? He's her brother."
John smiled as he typed out the message and signed it with an "SH." Then he exited out of the texting program, and his breath stopped short.
"Sherlock," he said. He spoke quietly. Slowly. "What's this?"
"I realize I've picked it up recently," Sherlock's voice was full of disdain. John didn't look up from the phone to check Sherlock's expression. He couldn't. "But iPhones aren't exactly new inventions. Surely you've seen one before."
John could feel his heartbeat. "No…" he said. He tried to focus. "I mean. This little button. Inside the phone. Purple? The one with a watch in the centre."
The Doctor's words came back to him. Sherlock is never without this watch. He doesn't know it's anything special.
"It's an app, John. Honestly." John glanced up. Sherlock hadn't even bothered looking over. Good.
"What's it for?"
"It contains information on rare, antique watches. Their makes, their makers, that sort of thing. I installed it on my old phone as well; thought it might well prove necessary in a case."
"Has it?" John asked, though he could guess Sherlock's answer. It wasn't actually an answer John wanted to hear.
"I know it's late, John, but I'd hope even at this hour you'd be able to remember if we've ever had a case involving an antique watch."
"So that's a 'no,' then."
Sherlock nodded, his eyes still focused on the Doctor's card. "Thus far."
John breathed out carefully, shakily. Thus far. His fingers hovered over the button. If this was it, if this was what the Doctor was talking about…
John took a deep breath.
If the Doctor was right, then pressing his finger against that little purple square would change everything in his entire world. Shatter it to the ground.
John had hoped his moral compass would steer him straight, and all of a sudden, there it was, the clear answer. He knew the right thing to do.
If he pushed the button and nothing happened, fine. But if he opened the app, it wouldn't be only his world that would change. Quite the opposite.
Not pushing the button, lying to Sherlock about the button, seemed utterly selfish. If they were really dating like everyone else thought, if they were in love, then maybe everything would be different. But as it stood John didn't have any claim to Sherlock's life, not beyond that of a best mate. John didn't have the right to hold his friend back. Any idiot could see that Sherlock was stifled here.
After all, didn't Sherlock deserve a new world, a much bigger one? Didn't he deserve the universe?
.
.
John squinted at what appeared to be a line on a rock.
"Nope," he said. "I don't see it."
The Doctor pouted, then pointed to the glass case again. "No no, that's clearly me." He gestured to his own profile. "Clearly!"
John squinted at the rock again, then shrugged. "Sorry."
"Well, I suppose nobody said Hammurabi was a very good artist…" the Doctor moved to the next case. "Wrong! Wrong!" he said, pointing to the various labels. "Ooh! Wrong, but very interesting."
"Doctor," John said. He stood waiting next to "Hammurabi's" rock-which was, for the record, labelled anonymous. "I contacted you to give back your ID card-"
"Psychic paper!"
"...Right, okay. But why are we here?"
The Doctor took one look at John and then nodded a little, almost to himself. He reached out and took John's hand.
"Come with me," the Doctor said, and led John out of the room, into the large atrium of the British Museum. He pulled John up the winding stairs. John followed, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. As they wound through further galleries, past Celtic jewellery and quivers of ancient arrows, he spoke up. "Doctor, I think you should know…"
The Doctor stopped short and turned to John. "Yes?"
"I'm not gay."
The Doctor stared down at their joined hands. "Oh!" he said. He took his hand back, stared at it for a moment, and then tucked it back into his trouser pocket. "Old habit," he said, gesturing a bit helplessly with this free hand. "Doesn't bother most people...or aliens…" The Doctor glanced around him for a moment, then turned around and started walking again. "Nearly there!" he shouted backwards.
John hoped he hadn't offended the man. Er. Alien.
They reached the entrance to a new gallery, this one full of clocks, and the Doctor stopped once more. He turned backwards to look at John. "You can tell me, you know," he said softly.
John shrugged self-consciously. Of course the Doctor wouldn't believe him. Why should he? Nobody else seemed to. "I mean. I'm really not, though. I don't fancy random blokes I pass on the street, or anything, you know?"
The Doctor stared at John. He stared rather thoroughly, even going on his tiptoes for a moment to peer down at John's head.
"It's just," John said as the Doctor examined him. "I know you've probably assumed, with me and Sherlock. And there really isn't. Well. Nothing's happened. Happening! I mean, if he's a," John lowered his voice to a whisper, "Time Lord, then that's a whole new…Er." He shook his head. How'd they get on this subject again? "We're just mates," he said.
"Did you bring the watch with you?" the Doctor said. "Sherlock's fob watch."
"No. He doesn't have a watch." John had summoned the Doctor to give back the ID card, after all. Nothing more.
"When you find it," the Doctor said, "you can tell me," he smiled a little. "That's what I wanted to say, before." Before John could so much as blush, the Doctor cried out, "Now!" and walked a wall of pocket watches displayed behind a glass case.
John shivered. He wondered if the Doctor suspected John had lied to him. Well, not lied, exactly, but close enough.
"I want to show you something," the Doctor said. He pointed to one of the open watches. "This was mine," he said. "It probably doesn't look like much. It's just an ordinary watch now, but this watch once kept me human."
John read the label. Fob watch, 1913. The display included a long history of the watch and its owner, Tim Latimer. Was that the Doctor's name when he was human? But the description included the date of Latimer's death, so perhaps not. The watch was likely custom-made from a local craftsman. The origins of its intricate designs remain unknown.
"Not that long ago, actually," the Doctor said. He shrugged. "Only a lifetime." John would have expected the statement to sound melodramatic, but the Doctor spoke of the "lifetime" as though it had occurred last week. For the first time, John wondered how old the Doctor really was. He looked like he was in his twenties, but sometimes, like now, his voice suggested otherwise. He sounded sad, almost. He looked at John. "I know so much about the Chameleon Arch because I used it, once. I needed it. It kept me safe, just the way his fob watch keepsSherlock safe."
"Did you like being human?" John asked, trying to steer talk away from Sherlock. Even if he couldn't seem to stop thinking about Sherlock, at least the Doctor could talk of something else.
"Being human was…nice," the Doctor said. "Simpler."
"But would you choose it, if you could?"
The Doctor turned to John with the tiniest smile. "Not for anything," he confessed.
John nodded as the Doctor turned back to the display. If John had told Sherlock about the watch like he had meant to last night, like he should have, he imagined he would have received a similar response. Between Sherlock's life with John at 221B and the chance of another life for Sherlock, even a life as someone else, where he could satisfy every inch of his ruthless curiosity, John was well aware which option his mate would choose.
John hadn't frozen the night before. He had simply handed the iPhone back to Sherlock, gone up to his room, and gone back to staring at the wall. He didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke up that morning so he must have done at some point. John hadn't frozen, but he had certainly panicked.
John was good in a time of crisis. He rarely panicked. John sighed and turned back to the display of antique watches. If only this were a time of crisis, or a war zone. If only this were a situation John knew how to fight.
John examined the Doctor's watch, trying to figure out exactly what made it seem so different from the others surrounding it. There was something about the open watch, the symbols inscribed behind the numbers-he'd seen those symbols before...
"Sherlock doesn't have a watch," John said. He winced as the words came out. So much for keeping secrets. But then, maybe John needed to tell someone the truth, even if he couldn't bring himself to tell Sherlock just yet. It wasn't as though he could get Lestrade drunk and confess to him about the watch app, about Time Lords and TARDISes. Even if John wanted to, where would he even begin?
And John supposed, on the upside, that the Doctor couldn't make things any worse...he didn't even want John to open the "watch." And if the Doctor meant to confiscate the app….Well. John smirked a little at the thought. He couldn't help it. He'd like to see the Doctor try to take that phone away from Sherlock.
No, John couldn't think up a good reason to hide the truth from the Doctor. He hoped he was right.
"Sherlock doesn't have a watch," John said. "He has an app."
"No, Sherlock Holmes definitely has a-what?" The Doctor turned to face John.
"In his phone, a little purple square with a watch on it. I found it last night. It has to be his watch, like you said. I mean," He pointed to the Doctor's fob watch. "The watch has got little lines on it, too, just like those."
"An app? Where's the sense of tradition?" The Doctor cried. "Oh, sure, it's clever, but a phone? Oh, that's no good at all! At all! Watches are classic! Watches," he gestured to the pocket watches, as if John hadn't seen them already, "are cool!" He turned back to John. "It's in his phone?"
John stared at the Doctor. He frowned. "Yeah," he said, "I've just told you that you're absolutely right, that Sherlock Holmes is actually an alien, and you're upset he doesn't have a proper fob watch like the rest of you?"
"Yes!"
John turned back to the watches, eyes wide. He shook his head slowly, eying the Doctor's put-out reflection in the glass. "I'm just worried for when Lestrade shows us a crime with an old watch in it," he eventually muttered, nodding to the case. "Sherlock thinks it's an app with information about old watches. We've been lucky so far, but the moment we have a case involving a fob watch it Sherlock will open the app."
"You won't." John wondered that the Doctor spoke such certainty. "Not if the Genius has anything to say about it."
John's stomach sank down to his toes. He spoke low and fast. "I thought he couldn't have anything to say about it. I thought you said that while Sherlock is here the Genius was gone." He leaned toward the Doctor. "Isn't he gone?"
The Doctor moved on to examine a grandfather clock that towered over both of them.
"Of course he is! You're John Watson, he's Sherlock Holmes. You'd know if you were living with anyone else, wouldn't you?"
John nodded. Right. Of course he would. He knew Sherlock better than anyone, except maybe Sherlock's family. Of course he'd notice if Sherlock wasn't acting himself.
"Wrong!" the Doctor cried, pointing to the caption on the timepiece. Then he whirled back to John. "He's gone, yes, but the Genius was also very, very careful. Tremendously so. You mentioned Sherlock's brother at the supermarket the other day. It got me thinking, why choose Sherlock Holmes at all? The Genius chose this story deliberately. The Chameleon Arch is clever but it isn't clever enough to turn a Time Lord into another author's character! The Genius wasn't exactly a patient Time Lord, yet reprogramming the Chameleon Arch would've taken him months. You see, Chameleon Arches are finicky things, slightly sentient means tricky to control, at least to this extent. And, John, it's a big, big, big, big, big extent! Doyle's world has an infrastructure. Multiple characters, locations, motifs, archetypes. All the good stuff! Sherlock Holmes is classic literature for a reason. How could The Genius know his new, human world would fit all that? Which is when I realized," he said to John, who frankly hadn't understood a word the Doctor uttered after 'Sherlock's brother,' "the Genius constructed the ultimate trap. He knew he needed to keep himself safe, and he knew just how clever he was. Maybe he thought he would untangle the loose ends of an average Time-Lord-to-human conversion. False human in the real world, there are always quirks. But fiction is very powerful, fiction was his solution. Stories have all the pieces to mimic life, and great stories can feel even more real than life itself. Oh no, John Watson, the Genius didn't just make himself. He made something a whole lot bigger."
"Er," John said. "What?"
"Well…" the Doctor said. "Let's put it this way. What do you know about Sherlock's childhood?"
"Um," John said. "He solved and Mycroft grew up with their mum, I'd imagine."
"Yes! Very powerful thing, the imagination."
"You aren't…Are you saying Sherlock's childhood is imagined? As in, not real?" John wanted to laugh aloud at the absurdity of it. If he didn't laugh, he didn't know what else he would do. "I don't think Mycroft would take that news very well."
"No, I'd imagine not," the Doctor said, his tone far more serious than John liked. John would have preferred him to be cracking jokes about biscuits any day. "People don't generally enjoy learning that their family members aren't real. Or that they're not real."
"You can't seriously be telling me Mycroft Holmes isn't real," John felt ridiculous even saying the words aloud.
"Greg Lestrade told me he met Sherlock in 2005." The Doctor stared at John. "That's the same year I returned to this planet. Right after the Time War." The Doctor nodded slowly. "Lots of things happened that year. Busy, busy year."
"So what?" John knew he was being rude, but he wished the Doctor would just get on with it.
"I don't think Lestrade could have met Sherlock before then. If my theory is right, then Sherlock Holmes, the human, didn't actually exist before 2005."
"But…" John sputtered. "But what about Mycroft? And their mum? And, oh, Carl Powers! He's a boy who died when Sherlock was a kid. Sherlock knew something was off about the case. I've spoken to the boy's mum. I know Carl Powers was definitely real. His death was real." The Doctor looked pointedly at the clock in front of them. "Wasn't it?"
"It's a bit complicated, John. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. Because once you were all here, here you stayed. Think of it like this-"
"Stop." John couldn't wait for Doctor to finish another long, incomprehensible rant. Not if he had just head the man correctly. "What do you mean, 'you were all here?'"
"Well everyone had to come from somewhere. Sherlock came from the Genius. And you can't have Sherlock Holmes without a Lestrade, without a Mycroft, without. Well. Hah. Well..."
"What?" John said. The Doctor stared at him.
John knew what was coming next. It wasn't even a question. Ever since he'd met the Doctor, the man had always said the names practically in tandem-Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. The Doctor made them sound like a matching set. John had liked that, just a bit, hadn't he? He had liked the way the Doctor put them on equal terms, even though it was clear to everyone that Sherlock Holmes was absolutely brilliant, and John himself was nothing of the sort. But even so he had enjoyed it. That was what he had wanted, wasn't it? Some measure of recognition, or equality. Never mind that now it was coming from the wrong person, or that John didn't want to be "special" in the way Doctor thought Sherlock was special. He didn't want to be like Sherlock, not if it meant he was some kind of…what was it the Doctor kept saying? Fiction.
No, John was also a soldier, he knew he was a soldier, could feel it in his very bones. He had been shot. Would that were fiction, right? He knew for a fact he hadn't been put here by any "Chameleon Arch."
John straightened up and stared back at the Doctor, daring him to continue. He would make the man say the words, even if he had got the situation wrong. "Without what?"
The Doctor looked at the clock, avoiding John's gaze. His lips curled into a sad smile. "Without John Watson," he said.
John shook his head a little. "No. No, you're wrong. You're not telling me that some alien's spaceship sent me to war and got me shot. You're not telling me some 'Genius' made my mum and my da and my insane sister. You're not. I existed long before 2005, we all did. I fought in a bloody war!" He wanted to shout the words, but no matter how upset he was he didn't dare. Wouldn't do to cause a scene in the British museum. John tried to steady his breathing a bit.
And there wasn't really anything to worry about, in the end, was there? He had wanted to be addressed like Sherlock Holmes, but John knew better. Sherlock had always seemed on the verge of impossible as a person. John wasn't like that. It was just a fact. John was strong and sure and good, perhaps. But he wasn't extraordinary.
Finally the Doctor looked back at John. He looked worried. Or maybe concerned? John felt something sink in his stomach. "Of course you did!" the Doctor said. "You did. And you would have fought, no matter what. Just like you would have been a doctor, probably."
"Probably?"
"It's to do with the way the Chameleon Arch works. Maybe your war wouldn't have been Afghanistan. There are lots of wars, there are wars all the time. And your name definitely wouldn't be John Watson. The Chameleon Arch takes dormant traits and makes them more prominent. You went to medical school. You know Mendelian Inheritance, yes?"
"Yeah," John said cautiously. Now that the Doctor was making a bit of sense, John really wasn't sure how he felt about the fact.
"The Chameleon Arch works a lot like that, as if someone took all your recessive genes away and left only a random smattering of dominant ones. When I was human my TARDIS made me into a tutor. My whole room was covered in books," he waved his hand about the gallery as if he was back in his old room now. "Now me, Time Lord me, I'm not a tutor, but boy do I love a good book. Or a bad book! Or a space book-those exist, and I love them! So you'd still be a soldier, I bet. You'd just be another soldier. Just like Sherlock would be the Genius. You know, the Genius was obsessed with learning. His single goal in life was to know anything, at any cost."
John nodded. If the pursuit of knowledge wasn't a dominant behaviour in Sherlock Holmes, John Watson wanted to know what was. Even though the Doctor sounded insane, John thought he was beginning to understand the man's logic. Still, something niggled at his brain. It was just- "I thought you said the Genius was nothing like Sherlock."
"He wasn't, not really. He didn't solve mysteries. No time to stop and help the police or right a wrong, not if he wanted to know everything. And here's another difference: there wasn't any John Watson. The Genius was notorious for travelling alone."
John smiled a little at that thought. "So was Sherlock." Things were different now. The Doctor smiled back at that. "Ah," John said, feeling a bit exhausted. "And I'm not real?"
He still wasn't sure he believed the Doctor. How could he?
"Well you are now, of course you are, you're John Watson." The Doctor poked John's arm. "Flesh and blood. But you're…well. You're alternate. It explains why Sherlock didn't just guess that I'm an alien, why you two seemed so surprised aliens exist! You see in London-in my London-a spaceship crashed into Big Ben, 2005, they've all known for years. They're a bit better adjusted to the concept by now, most of them anyway. Oh!" The Doctor hit his head with his palm, same as he had a few days ago, back when he had worked with them on the strangling case and John had still thought he was an ordinary bloke. "Oh, oh oh! Oh, maybe…" He pulled out the green torch, which did seem more than a little alien, now that John thought about it. The Doctor read something off the side of the torch. "Of course! That's what was wrong with the gravity filter, it wasn't the gravity filter at all. We're in a different London from mine. The TARDIS is old hat at alternate universes, of course she picked it up. Exaggerated the gravity differently as a result. It's not even really a universe so much as a temporal displacement. I can still move between those. Must have taken quite a bit of power, but…I think the Genius created his very own London."
John looked at the clock in front of him, and shook his head. He wanted to put his hands on the glass case for a moment, or the wall, anything to steady himself. But he couldn't of course. You couldn't just go about steadying yourself on something that protected priceless historical objects in the British Museum, not unless you wanted to be 'kindly' escorted out by the guards.
It was just, normally after Sherlock made a big deduction John wanted to gasp aloud-he'd learned to hold the gasping in, actually, but he never could help the all complimentary words that seemed to tumble off his lips in response. But here was the Doctor, making deductions at the speed of light, and John just wanted to…well, mostly he wanted to leave. He preferred his deductions from the morbidly obsessed and rude, and he preferred deductions that didn't involve "temporal displacement" and alternate selves. Another London? He rubbed his forehead, feeling every crease.
The Doctor poked John's arm again. "Sorry," he said. He sounded unsure.
John tried to smile. It wasn't the Doctor's fault that John would rather be anywhere else than here at this moment. It seemed like the Doctor was just trying to help. "It's just a lot to take in," John said.
The Doctor looked at John for a moment as if trying to decide something. "How would you like a change of scene?"
John nodded. "I think that'd be great, actually. Where did you have in mind?"
The Doctor grinned wide. "Anywhere," he said.
Chapter Five