The Mind Palace

Chapter Three

I stuck my tongue into the side of my mouth. "So do you always meet people while you're... Not wearing any clothes?"

Irene gave me a sly wink and stepped further into the room, all of her attention on the Doctor. "You're new."

His eyes were cold, surprisingly enough. Perhaps he didn't fancy women. "I've already surprised two people with my old age today, do we really need to add a third to the list?"

She smirked. "You're new enough to me. Might need some... breaking in, so to speak." She turned her sparkling blue eyes to Sherlock. "However, I think Sherlock's first on that waiting list."

Jealousy rang through me like a bell. Certainly if Sherlock had wanted any sort of thing with Irene, he would have gotten it over with by now... But why would he? She had left him, broken him. He tried not to show it, but Irene had torn him up into little pieces, and he remained that way for months after her departure. And now she was back, to rip him up again?

I couldn't let it happen. "Could you put something on?"

The woman looked at me as though she had forgotten I was there at all. "That sounds familiar, John Watson. Have we returned to square one?"

Despite her slight sass, she moved to the wardrobe, slipping on a black robe while the rest of us pretended (unsuccessfully) not to watch. Sherlock twiddled his thumbs, pursing his lips, and I tried to search his face for any sort of interest, arousal, distraction. Nothing. I saw nothing. The man was a geode: unreadable, rough stone on the outside, but incredible, secret beauty filling his entire being.

By the time Irene had turned around, the Doctor had regained his confidence. He snapped his fingers. "Right. So, you live here, you can tell us what's going on, correct?"

Irene slid into one of the cozy chairs in the corner, kicking her feet up onto the side of it. "Oh, I live here, yes. But I don't live here. Not in this weird world."

The timelord frowned. "Then how did you get here?"

We had been so caught up in the conversation that none but one of us had noticed the stranger in the doorway. That specific one of us, with the observation skills to match a team of doctors, was, of course, Sherlock Holmes.

"I would imagine he would have something to do with it," Sherlock said coolly.

Like marionettes controlled by a master puppeteer, we all turned our heads to the doorway in sync. Leaning against the doorframe just as Irene had, was a complete stranger. At least, he was a stranger to Sherlock and I.

He smiled, and it was one of the most charming things I've seen to this day. When this man smiled, his whole body smiled. His broad chest shifted slightly, his eyes lit with confidence, and his posture was straighter than- well, an awful lot straighter than my sexuality was turning out to be.

The man held up his wrist, and on it was a bulky, high-tech device. "It's called a vortex manipulator."

When I looked back to the Doctor, he was beaming more intensely than I could even imagine. "Jack! Brilliant! The old gang- actually, no, a completely new gang, the old gang is gone, gone, gone. But Jack! Wonderful," he leaned on me, treating my shoulder like an armrest, "I love Jack. He's great."

I shook the Doctor off of me and brushed my shoulder. Physical contact isn't usually my high point. "So, you're Jack."

I watched his eyes flick to me, sizing me up, noticing me for the first time. He stepped completely into the room, moving forward to shake my hand. His teeth were immaculate, the brightest white I've ever seen fill anyone's mouth. He was polite, he was attractive, he was...