PARA/DOX

The Plane Of Impossibility

For a long while Sherlock stood at the stick, jumping up and down in the pouring rain as if that would help attract the attention of the future. He wasn't sure what was taking them so long, unless Mr. Trevor had neglected to mention that their most prized employee had been sucked into the last century. Perhaps he had a grudge now, perhaps he wouldn't tell anyone so as to protect his own skin? Oh but if the elder Trevor wouldn't talk then the younger surely would. Just as soon as the administration realized Sherlock had vanished they would have gone straight for the bodyguard, the last one to see him alive and Sherlock's now presumed lover. Well of course they would assume Victor had all the answers, and for once in his life Sherlock would be happy to hear Victor squeal. Thankfully the rain had become strong enough that Sherlock couldn't see the house, allowing him to suffer in the chill without thinking too much about the fire that he had so foolishly given up. Along with that, it was best that the rain shielded him from the house's occupants as well. It was probably not appreciated in the Christian culture to be jumping up and down, screaming names at the sky as if hoping to hear it respond back. Sherlock wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. He was stuck in the very spot he needed to be, just seventy years before. He kicked at the stick for a while, watching as it sunk deeper and deeper into the collecting mud. Before long Sherlock was getting desperate, wondering if he would have to live out the rest of his days in the fifties with this strange family. Would he have to become some sort of farmer, a man with his talents, wasted away in an agricultural life? Would he have to wait until time technology began to be constructed or would he have to start trying to build it himself? Sherlock was forlorn, up until the moment he realized that he had a piece of time technology with him. This whole time he had been holding the headband as if it was no more than a handbag, never utilizing its full potential as the thing that would save him. If John's technology worked, and if the science behind the ideas was still logical then the thirty second screen should show him thirty seconds from the newest particles. Wherever he was, however long ago, the freshest particles of light still reigned down before him. If time was stacked on top of itself, creating layers rather than a linear function, then the sunlight that was basking upon the agency's cheap metal roof would be picked up through his headband's visor. Sherlock wiped off the lenses with the back of his hand, realizing this was doing nothing to clear the visor of the water that had accumulated both on his hand and upon the glass. His whole body was soaked, there seemed to be no dry fabric to even attempt a full clean. Sherlock stuck the headband on his head, flipping for the first and most important screen. He squinted upon the rain drops, though the instant change of lighting allowed his heart to leap with hope. It had suddenly grown brighter, the dreary dark clouds having vanished to give way to that whitewashed brightness he had grown to hate. Oh but now the monotonous color rang through his eyes like an angel's choir, and as Sherlock dragged his fingers across the wet lenses he could begin to see the room. The empty room. A breath of discouragement left his lips, fogging up the screen quick enough to disguise the machine effectively enough. So what was this? No one cared to reverse the machine, to bring their lost soul home? Sherlock checked his watch, thankful to see that it was still ticking. It didn't seem to matter what year he was in, time as a unit stayed perfectly consistent. He had only been gone two hours, though that seemed to like a sizable gap of time. How much longer would he have to wait? Supposedly it depended on how quickly they realized he was missing. And with Victor in prison and John in limbo, well there wasn't anyone else that would care to report him missing. Sherlock hoped that Moriarty was working that day; he hoped the Doctor would summon him to his office, only to find that Sherlock had vanished from his cell. Oh those ridiculous agents, how could they be so ignorant to his disappearance? There was one good thing about dying of hyperthermia, and that was the amount of time. Certainly he could have plenty of time to wait, and more importantly to think. The ice cold rain would not kill him instantly; it would perhaps take hours, maybe even a whole day. Certainly that should allow enough time to plan what to do if ever the scientists opened their eyes and summoned him back! As soon as the lab coats reappeared Sherlock would have only moments to figure out how to get John Watson back. If the man was trapped in another time period then Sherlock would have to rely on the machine being open the entire time, allowing him to travel slowly but surely back into the present. He had to check every layer between the fifties and the present, scanning nearly every second of seventy years for his lost lover. It would be a tall task; some would say an impossible one. Even Sherlock would admit to the impossibility of it, though he was not so easily going to back down. If John had stumbled on his way to the fifties then he must be sauntering around some lost dimension, and Sherlock was in no position to allow that to happen. He couldn't risk John settling on some other life; he couldn't risk losing him to someone that ought to be long dead! Perhaps it was a purely selfish motive, but the task was heroic enough to shade over the reasoning. Sherlock decided somewhere along the line that he was not only taking advantage of John's interest in him. Instead he had reciprocated it, passionately. Sherlock had grown used to playing people's feelings like an instrument, strumming them up when he was bored and listening to the sweet music their mouths could make. He enjoyed feeling people fall in love, as with Musgrave, as, in some ways, with Victor. And yet with John something was different, something was entirely different. During his absence that kiss they shared began to feel less like a memory and more like a privilege. It was something he didn't only want to remember, it was something he wanted to recreate. Sherlock's heart had stung for the loss of John Watson, he had grown depressed, not only bored. It was the truest feeling Sherlock had ever harbored, and he wasn't going to so easily give it up. It would seem as though everything he had ever loved had been lost to time, his youth fading Musgrave away, a cancer draining his mother. He wouldn't let time itself snatch away his Doctor, not when he was so close to conquering both the future and the past, together in one neat little package. But how, how, could Sherlock escape extraction? If he arrived into the present time he would most certainly be jailed, whether for breaking contract or simply for meddling. From what he could tell the agency did not appreciate it when their tools were used without due training or cause. He was, essentially, playing with their inventions as if they were any other toy. Sherlock chuckled to himself, feeling along the metal rim of his headband as he watched the warm, dry laboratory. It was almost ironic that he wanted to be back there, to feel the touch of the soulless tile, to perhaps stare into Doctor Moriarty's expressionless black eyes. It would seem as though time aged for the better, no matter what Sherlock wanted to complain about. Anything was better than here, soaking wet and being chased away due to witchcraft conspiracies.