A Viola's Song

Who Are You And Who Is She?

Sherlock and Irene didn't end up going to dinner.

Again, they rode silently and sadly back home. Well, what they currently called home. Again, both were silent as they walked up the stairs arm-in-arm. And both were still silent as they climbed into bed.

But then Sherlock heard a sound he didn't recongnize, a sound he had never known.

"Can you hear that?" Irene whispered loudly.

"Yes," Sherlock whispered back.

He got up and turned on the lights.

Irene got up and went to search for the sound's origin. It was coming from outside. She looked out the window and found it. "But," she murmured to herself, "What is it?" She heard Sherlock, funnily enough, still trying to find where the noise was coming from.

Irene almost laughed but decided against it. "Sherlock, it's over here. I think you should see this."

He hurried up to the window. What he saw even he couldn't explain. A blue box was disappearing and reappearing right outside the building.

"It's an old police box," Sherlock said in disbelief.

"Yes, wonderful deduction, Mr. Holmes," Irene said sarcastically as she heard the strange whooshing noise stop and went to go outside.

Sherlock followed.

When the pair had gotten outside, both just stood, looking at the now fully materialised box.

Suddenly, one of its doors opened.

A man with floppy brown hair, a tweed jacket, suspenders, and "a ridiculous bow tie" as Sherlock put it later stepped out.

"Hello, there, Sherlock, Irene!" the man said as he put out a hand, obviously expecting it to be shaken.

Neither Irene nor Sherlock took it.

The man, surprised, took it back and scratched his head.

"Ah, well, yes, erm," his eyes widened as he seemed to make a realisation, "Hang on, hang on. You're together. Actually properly together. That's not good. I haven't seen you together since....well, never mind that. What year is it, may I ask?"

Sherlock gave him an annoyed look before saying, "2032, but it hardly matters-"

The man cut him off. "No, no! It can't be 2032, that means Viola's..........No! I can't have got it wrong! I need to-no but you can see me right now, we're seeing each other right now."

"Viola? What do you know about Viola?" Irene asked.

The man looked at them with a worried look. "I going to have to explain," he said, seeming to be talking to himself. "I can't explain, you can't know."

"Can't know what?" Irene demanded.

"I think it's best if I told you inside, in private," the man replied.

"Hardly!" Sherlock exclaimed.

"We're not going to let a man, who's clearly crazy, in a small, compact room with us!" Irene cried.

"And I would never with you two, but this is important. Come on, trust me," the man insisted.

"Why?" Sherlock asked, searching the man's eyes and trying to make some deductions.

The man sighed before saying, "I know that Merissa, Jim Moriarty's daughter, is currently pretending to be your late daughter."

Sherlock and Irene's eyes both widened.

"How?" they asked in unison.

"Well," the man started, "that's a little difficult to explain. And like I said, we should probably discuss it in private."

Sherlock sighed and looked at Irene.

She nodded.

"Follow us," she told the man.

**********

When they had made into the flat, Sherlock and Irene immediately started asking questions.

"Who are you?" "What's your name?" "How do you know us if we don't know you?" "How do you know about Viola and Merissa?"

"Okay, okay, I'm getting there! I'll explain everything if you just give me the chance!" the man cried.

For once in his life, Sherlock was quiet.

"Alright, tell us," Irene demanded.

The man took a deep breath before explaining everything. "Hi, my name's the Doctor. And before you ask 'Doctor who?" I'll just answer now, it's just the Doctor. I'm a type of alien called Timelord, I have two hearts, I travel through time and space in that blue box outside that is actually a spaceship and time machine called the TARDIS, and I'm over 1000 years old-or is it 2000 now, I don't know," he paused for another breath, "And, well, I know everything about you two and Viola and Merissa because, well, I was your best friend."

"No, I would have remembered," Sherlock interrupted.

"Oi, I'm getting to that!" the man, apparently called the Doctor, shouted back.

"Just go on," Irene demanded.

"Well, as I was saying, yes, we used to know each other very well. We met through a case. You trying to figure me out when I could have just explained myself to you. I think John even put it on his blog entitled 'Simply Brilliant' or something like that. Anyway, so we knew each other very well. Even you, Irene, and my wife, River, became very good friends. And then a miracle happened, or so we thought. You two probably remember parts of it. Viola'a birth. Well, this is where it gets complicated. Obviously knowing, Sherlock, that Irene here was pregnant and you obviously knew when she was going to have the baby, you let her stay with you for a bit. Then, you rushed her to the hospital when, you know, the baby was going to be born."

Again, he was interrupted by Sherlock, "Yes, I remember that clearly, no need to explain it."

"Sherlock, shut up!" Irene yelled.

The Doctor sighed and continued. "Well, Sherlock, Irene, you had a stillborn child, a boy, whom you named Hamish, but hang on, I'm not finished. So I just happened to be there, too, because you invited me. For some reason, it was probably something I did, they let both Sherlock and me into the birthing room place, thing. So, erm, we both saw the dead baby and well, I just couldn't let my two best friends to have to go through that. So I sort of ran out, saying I needed a minute, and took the TARDIS to, well, another dimension. There, I found the alternate version of you, Sherlock. A girl version of you and went through her timeline until I found her as a baby, and well-you can probably guess-I sort of, brought her back, made everyone forget Hamish, called the baby Viola, and made everyone think she was your child. That's why her life seemed to be repeating yours, Sherlock. And well, I knew that she would die when she was sixteen, seeing as I went through her timeline, and well, I was supposed to stop it, and tell you all this then, then take her back to her world, but I failed, oh, I failed!" the Doctor finished before putting his head in his hands and sobbing.

The room was silent for a while.

Irene broke it. "So, in fact, Viola was not our daughter," she started calmly, "but the bloody gender swap version of him?!" she yelled pointing at Sherlock.

The Doctor took his head out of his hands and nodded.