An Eye for an Eye (Doctor Who/Sherlock Crossover)

Key to the TARDIS

    John couldn’t feel any broken bones. “I guess we are,” he said with a sigh. “Listen, you need to get that psychic…stuff out of here, okay? I can’t handle seeing Sherlock anymore.”

    “Oh, no, that should be gone.” The Doctor withdrew a strange looking metal stick with a light on the end and waved it through the air, like a wand. Then he looked at it with a smile. “Yep, no psychic pollen. A lot of alien technology counteracts each other, you see. Whatever that gas was contaminated the psychic pollen and made it ineffective. You can drink your tea without fear, Doctor Watson,” he said. Then he saw the confusion on John’s face. “What’s wrong?”

    John thought about he’d seen Sherlock, how Sherlock had wakened him from his coma. If that wasn’t psychic pollen… “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”

    “Well. Then if all that’s settled, I’ll be off!” The Doctor leapt to his feet, his legs clearly back in working condition. “Nice meeting you, John Watson. You really do live up to everything I’ve heard.”

    As John lifted himself to his feet, he watched the Doctor trot towards the doorway. “Wait!” he cried, just as he was passing through the threshold. “Doctor….what did Moriarty mean, about Sherlock not being dead? He’s dead. I know he is.”

    The Doctor stopped in his track and slowly turned around, his face stone cold. “John,” he said softly. “There’s something you really should see, I think. Come with me.”

    “Come with you where?”

    “Into the TARDIS.”

   “The what – ”

    “Time And Relative Dimension. In Space,” the Doctor said, breathlessly. Then he reached into his jacket pocket. His eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly he was ripping off his jacket and tearing through it, his eyes wide and shocked. When he had clearly done an exhaustive search of his every pocket, he lifted his gaze to John and said, “It’s gone.”

    “What’s gone?”

    The Doctor’s face was devoid of all emotion, his eyes darting around the room and his chest heaving. His detached demeanor eerily reminded John of Sherlock when he was deducing – except for one small difference. When The Doctor made the tell-tale connection between Moriarty and what he had lost, his face darkened and his eyes were pained. Sherlock never revealed emotion, not that easily. His hands, clutching his jacket, were trembling as he stared at the floor.  

    “Doctor?” John asked, taking a hesitant step towards him.

    The Doctor lifted his eyes to John, opening his mouth to say something. But then he clamped it shut again, whirling around on his heel. Without another word, he disappeared down the stairs.

    John stood there, a little bit bewildered. But when he heard the front door swing open, he leapt into action and ran after the Doctor into the street.

    The Doctor paid no heed to cars, which swerved to avoid him with screeching tires and blaring horns. It was like he was in a trance. “Doctor,” John yelled, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to the sidewalk. “Doctor! What the hell is going on?”

    Stopping short, the Doctor spun to face John. “Moriarty. He took the TARDIS key.”

    “He took the what –”

    “Time. And. Relative. Dimension. In space,” The Doctor said again, talking so fast he spit his words. “My time machine. TARDIS.”

   “Time machine? You have a time machine? That’s impossible!”

    “Honestly John, you’ve accepted aliens and the fact that Moriarty is back from the dead and you can’t accept that I have a time machine? Really?”

    John scowled. “Okay, fine. You have a time machine. And Moriarty took the key. What, you don’t have a spare?”

   The Doctor exhaled slowly through his nostrils. “I’ll give you the short version, all right? I’m a time lord. Time lords, you guessed it, travel through time. The key to my TARDIS isn’t just a key, it’s a tracking device. I hide the TARDIS with deliberate, special care, but now he can find it…And. It’s…it’s like a tether, holding us together. Whoever has the key has full access to anything and everything in there so long as they can fly it –”

    “You’re telling me this time machine also flies?”

    “ – if you don’t have a key, the TARDIS won’t accept you and so I can’t fly it. So essentially, Moriarty has just gained complete control of a machine that can travel to anywhere and anytime in the universe. Do you understand, now?”

    John pursed his lips and looked around at all the people who had heard bits and pieces of their conversations. Not to seem more insane than they already were, he lowered his voice and said, “You’re telling me, Moriarty has access to a time machine? What would he want with that?”

    “He could go back and change anything he wanted. All of human existence is at his disposal, John. I can’t even begin to tell you what that means to me. But think about what it means to you. What could he change?”

    What could he change? John’s stomach sank as he contemplated that thought. Moriarty could kill both Sherlock and himself back in that pool, years ago. He could get away with all the crimes they had stopped. He could further humiliate Sherlock. And who knew what else Moriarty could change – if he had a time machine, he could bend all of space and time to his whim. A time machine in the hands of a criminal mastermind was decidedly not a good thing. “He could change anything,” John said eventually.

    “Exactly. Anything.”

    John took a deep breath and wondered how the hell he’d gotten into this mess. “How did he even find out about your…er, your TARDIS?”

     The Doctor started walking again, pulling John along with him. “Jim and I…we go back a long while, let’s say. I thought he was gone, but he was really pretending to be a human and wreaking havoc here with you and Sherlock.”

    “Okay. But why did he bother with Sherlock and I when he could, I don’t know, bother you?”

    The Doctor audibly sighed. “Sherlock has…a certain appeal. Races across the universe know about Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson. Time lords especially.”

    “Why the hell are aliens bothering with Sherlock?”

    “Listen, we can deal with this all later, all right?” The Doctor leapt over a small dog, almost sending John toppling into its owner. “Right now, we need to find the TARDIS and Moriarty.”

    “Easier said than done,” John muttered.

    The Doctor glanced back at him and smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. We do have one card in our favor. I happen to know a woman who is so well-versed in alien technology she could build a TARDIS herself!”

    John raised his eyebrows. She sounded like a woman he’d like to know. “Really?”

     “You might know her, she works in hospitals,” The Doctor said, taking an abrupt turn.

    “I haven’t been working much lately,” John admitted quickly. “Who is she?”

     “Molly Hooper.”