Chapter 1: The Impossible Blue Box
Sherlock Holmes sprawled across his leather chair like a discarded marionette, fingers drumming against his temple in a rhythm that matched his accelerating irritation. The morning light slanted through the windows of 221B Baker Street, casting geometric shadows across the cluttered sitting room where chemistry experiments competed for space with violin cases and towers of case files that would never be interesting enough to warrant his attention.
London hummed beyond the glass—eight million people conducting their tedious little lives, most of them destined for deaths as unremarkable as their existences. Somewhere in that vast urban maze, crimes were being committed with all the creativity of a shopping list. Pickpockets and burglars. Domestic disputes that ended in predictable violence. Insurance fraud dressed up as tragedy.
Boring.
The word tasted like ash in his mouth. Three weeks since the Magnussen affair had concluded, three weeks since anything had demanded more than thirty percent of his considerable intellect. John had suggested he take up a hobby. John, bless his conventional soul, still believed that human beings required activities to fill the vacant spaces between meaningful moments.
Sherlock's fingers twitched toward his phone. One text to Lestrade. Anyone dead yet? -SH. Simple. Direct. Likely to produce either a case worth solving or at least the familiar comfort of Greg's exasperated sighs.
Before he could complete the motion, the world exploded.
A sound erupted from nowhere—a grinding, mechanical wheeze that seemed to claw at the fabric of reality itself. The air in the center of the sitting room began to shimmer like heat distortion above summer asphalt, and Sherlock bolted upright with the first genuine interest he'd felt in weeks surging through his nervous system.
Displacement patterns. The temperature had dropped three degrees in the space between heartbeats. Sound reverberations suggested something massive materializing in a space that couldn't possibly contain it. The very air molecules were being rearranged, compressed, reorganized according to principles that violated every law of physics he'd ever studied.
Bigger on the inside.
The deduction formed before the object finished materializing—a blue police box that absolutely could not fit in the available space but somehow did anyway, its edges crackling with residual energy that made his skin tingle. Sherlock circled it immediately, magnifying glass appearing in his hand as if summoned, his mind cataloging details with microscopic precision.
"Police box, 1960s Metropolitan Police design, but the paint is wrong—too bright, too new. No weathering consistent with outdoor placement. The lock mechanism is modern, but the wood grain suggests construction using techniques that predate mass production. Temperature differential indicates internal space far exceeding external dimensions, which is—"
The door opened.
A tall, thin man emerged, grey hair arranged in aggressive spikes, eyebrows that could have been weapons, wearing what appeared to be a Victorian undertaker's coat over a hoodie. His eyes swept the room with the calculating intensity of a predator before settling on Sherlock with unmistakable irritation.
"Right," the stranger said in a Scottish accent thick as Highland fog. "Earth. Twenty-first century. London. This is not where I was going." He paused, noticing Sherlock's magnifying glass. "Are you examining my TARDIS?"
"Solved it already," Sherlock announced, lowering the glass. "Temporal displacement device, obviously. Dimensional compression technology that shouldn't exist for another three centuries at minimum. The energy signatures suggest travel through the time vortex, which explains the police box disguise—perception filter making it appear as period-appropriate camouflage. The question is whether you're a time traveler, an alien, or simply someone's eccentric uncle having a complete breakdown in fancy dress."
The stranger's eyebrows performed an impressive feat of levitation. "Time traveler. Alien. Also, shut up."
"Alien," Sherlock mused, circling again. "Your watch runs backwards—no, it doesn't run at all, it measures something else entirely. You check it obsessively but never for the time. Your pupils dilate at impossible angles in response to light. And you have two heartbeats."
A young woman emerged from the box—brunette, teacher written in the chalk dust on her sleeves and the patience carved into her expression. She took one look at the scene and sighed with the weary familiarity of someone who'd witnessed this particular brand of chaos before.
"Clara Oswald," she said, extending a hand to Sherlock. "And you're clearly the consulting detective we've heard about. The one who faked his own death and has a thing for dramatic entrances."
"You've heard about—"
"Oh yes," the alien said, his voice gaining momentum like a gathering storm. "Sherlock Holmes. Born in 1854, died 1891, except you didn't because that was your great-great-grandfather and you're carrying on the family tradition of impossible deductions and heroic insufferability. Army doctor for a flatmate, addictive personality channeled into cases instead of cocaine these days, fake suicide off Reichenbach Falls because you're just that theatrical, and you're bored out of your mind because London's criminals have apparently exhausted their capacity for interesting murders."
The room fell silent except for the ticking of the clock and the distant sounds of London traffic. Sherlock stared at the alien—the Doctor, Clara had called him—with something approaching respect flickering behind his pale eyes.
"Impressive," Sherlock said finally. "Wrong about several details, but the methodology is sound. Although I notice you conveniently failed to mention why you're here, what that temporal displacement signature in your box suggests about its recent journey, or why someone who can clearly travel anywhere in time and space has crash-landed in my sitting room looking like his best friend just died."
The Doctor's expression darkened. "We're not here by choice. The TARDIS—my ship—was pulled off course by something. A temporal disturbance centered on London, this time period, this location. Something that shouldn't exist."
"Nothing shouldn't exist," Sherlock said. "There's always an explanation."
"Then you're going to hate what I'm about to tell you about the universe."
The sound of feet on the stairs interrupted whatever revelation the Doctor had been preparing to deliver. John Watson appeared in the doorway, medical bag in one hand, key in the other, and stopped dead at the sight of a police box occupying most of his living room.
"Sherlock," John said with the particular tone he reserved for moments when his flatmate had done something simultaneously brilliant and catastrophically irresponsible. "Why is there a police box in our flat?"
"Time machine," Sherlock said absently, still studying the Doctor. "Also, we have guests."
"Right." John set down his bag with the careful precision of a man processing information that refused to make sense. "Time machine. Of course. Should I put the kettle on?"
Before anyone could answer, the sound of approaching sirens cut through the morning air. Multiple vehicles, moving fast, converging on Baker Street with the urgency that meant only one thing.
Sherlock's phone buzzed. Text from Lestrade: Impossible murder. British Museum. Need you now. —GL
"There," Sherlock said, pocketing the phone with satisfaction. "Someone's died in an interesting way."
The Doctor straightened, his alien senses apparently detecting something beyond normal human perception. "Temporal distortion. Recent. Very recent. Someone's been playing with time in this city."
Another text: Symbols carved in victim's skin. Nothing like them on Earth. —GL
The Doctor and Sherlock looked at each other, and in that moment, Sherlock saw his own hunger for the impossible reflected in those ancient, alien eyes. Two minds that lived for puzzles, for problems that demanded everything they had to give.
"Shall we?" Sherlock asked.
"After you," the Doctor replied.
Clara watched them head for the door, two geniuses drawn to mystery like addicts to their next fix, and turned to John with a expression of sympathetic understanding.
"This is going to be interesting," she said.
John Watson, who had survived Afghanistan, Moriarty, and three years of Sherlock Holmes' particular brand of chaos, looked at the police box in his sitting room and the two impossible men walking out his door, and reached for his coat.
"Right then," he said. "Best not let them solve it without us."
Mrs. Hudson appeared at the bottom of the stairs as they prepared to leave, tea service balanced on a tray, completely unfazed by the blue box that had materialized in her tenant's flat.
"Oh good," she said cheerfully. "Company. I'll just keep an eye on your nice blue box, shall I?"
The Doctor stared at her, then at Sherlock, then back at the elderly landlady who was treating a temporal displacement device like it was a particularly large piece of furniture.
"She thinks it's from my drug days," Sherlock said with grim satisfaction.
The Doctor's expression suggested he was beginning to understand exactly what kind of universe he'd landed in.
"I already hate it here," he muttered.