SuperWhoLock: When the Shadows Rage

Episode 12: Some Answers part 2

They made a stop at the TARDIS console, where the Doctor punched a few buttons, then led them around to a door John had never noticed, set a few feet away from the hall that housed the kitchen, living room, and bedrooms.

The Doctor pulled the door open and motioned them through. The interior of the room blazed with light, intense enough that John felt a light sweat break out across his back and neck. At the far side of the room was a small cot, a bathroom stall, and a sink standing on a white tile floor. It was the sparest room he'd seen yet in the TARDIS.

The Doctor sighed. "This is the closest thing to a prison the TARDIS has ever built."

"Sorry, Doc," Dean said.

"No, no, I don't want a shapeshifting Vashta Nerada running about loose. It'\s best this way." The Doctor swiped his bangs away from his eyes, and the look he gave the shifter was hard, barely-restrained anger dancing behind the hazel.

Dean grunted and started patting the shifter down.

"You enjoying this as much as I am, Dean-o?" The voice was Amy's, but the lazy way the words curled from the shifter's mouth made John's hands clench in remembrance of Moriarty.

"Shut your face, or I'll permanently disable it," Dean snapped, jerking a phone from the shifter's jacket pocket and stepping away from it. "Okay, Doc."

The Doctor pressed a button beside the door, and a see-through green wall sparng up between them and the shift, barely giving the three men room to stand beside the door. John slid outside the door, and Dean and the Doctor followed him, leaving the shifter alone in its prison.

They headed back to the kitchen and found Sam, Amy, and Sherlock clustered around the table. Amy and Sam were leaning over the slim book in Sam's hands, and Sherlock was poking a spoon at some goopy mess in a bowl that looked suspiciously like the goo the shifter left behind when it shifted.

John groaned. "S-Sherlock..."

Dean looked over Sherlock's shoulder and gagged. "Dude, that's gross."

Sherlock merely raised his eyebrows. "Of course it's disgusting, but how else am I going to be able to understand the physiology of the creature? I'm quite sure studying the thing never occurred to you."

"Not really, no." Dean went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. "So." He popped the lid and took a gulp. "What's our next plan, kids?"

"Did you get anything besides a phone from the shifter?" John asked.

Dean shook his head and plunked the black plastic oblong down on the table. Sam lowered the book and picked the phone up, turning it on.

"Locked, of course," he said.

Sherlock put the spoon down and imperiously held his hand out. Sam passed him the phone, and Sherlock punched in four numbers--7437. The phone buzzed, but remained on the lock screen.

"Hmm," Sherlock muttered, handing it back.

"What were those numbers?" Sam asked him.

Sherlock ignored him and picked up the spoon again.

"Sherlock, can you do that somewhere other than the kitchen table?" Amy asked, looking green.

He shot her a slightly wounded look but grabbed the bowl and retreated to the living room.

"Seven-four-three-seven," John muttered, trying to remember where he'd seen those numbers before. "Sherlock! You were trying Irene Adler's..."

"Yes, yes, well, it was worth a try at least," Sherlock snapped. "Anyway it's the only set of numbers I have to associate with Moriarty, isn't it?"