No Matter (a Doctor Who/Sherlock Holmes crossover) 2/?

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Title: No Matter
Author: sarah531
Rating: PG13
Fandom: Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes
AN: This is set after the Hiatus for Holmes and Watson (oh, and it’s the bookverse, despite my icon) and after Human Nature for the Doctor and Martha.
Summary: A detective, a doctor, a would-be doctor and a Doctor walk into a bar.

Previous chapters: One

No Matter

“You look most lovely, Martha,” Watson said when she returned. He and Holmes were sitting at the table, smoking.

“Thanks.” Martha said. She wanted to explain the dangers of smoking to them- the air was thick with the smell- but she decided not to.

“So,” the Doctor said. “Nice place you have here.”

“We are quite fond of it.” Holmes said absently.

“I’m going to explain exactly what I am,” the Doctor said, taking a chair. “I’m a Timelord. A lord of time. I move through it and go where I like.”

The two men at the table leaned forward.

“That box is called the TARDIS. It’s mine. It takes me anywhere, anytime, I could ever want to go. Sometimes I go…sideways in time. I’ve been to a different universe before. And now, it seems I’m here again.”

“This is…science fiction.” Watson breathed.

“I have been called that, yeah.”

“You have been here before?” Holmes asked.

“Once,” the Doctor said, almost whispered. “I had to leave…something here.”

Holmes and Watson both looked curious, but the Doctor shook his head. “I’ll tell you another time.”

“We need to find out how to get home,” Martha said, mostly for the Doctor’s benefit. “How to fix the TARDIS.”

“I…don’t think we’ll be of much use there.” Watson said.

“It’s been fixed before,” the Doctor said. “I’ll have a closer look at it later.”

“What did you leave here?” Martha asked.

“I said I’ll have a closer look at the TARDIS later,” the Doctor said, and he jumped up from his seat and starting looking around the room, lifting things up and putting them down. Having explored the room thoroughly, he sat down again. “So, what’s going on with you two? Any interesting cases?”

“None as interesting as what is currently sitting at my table.” Holmes said.

“Thank you, detective. So, I’m bored and I want something to do. Any ideas?”

“Fixing the TARDIS,” Martha said. “I’m getting a feeling you don’t want to leave here, Doctor.”

The Doctor said nothing. It was Holmes who spoke.

“I would be very interested in seeing the TARDIS.”

“Me too,” said Watson.

“Well, okay,” the Doctor said. “If you’re sure there’s nothing going on here that you could use a hand in.”

*

The four of them walked down the road. Martha looked around with both eagerness and wariness, but the others did not. The Doctor seemed lost in thought.

“Tell us about your world, Martha,” Watson said. “If you would. If it is not knowledge too dangerous.”

Martha glanced at the Doctor and he gave a nod.

“Well,” she began. “You were sort of right about all races living in peace, they do most places most of the time, but there’s still wars and things. And we have technology, stuff you two probably can’t even imagine, like mobile phones and the Internet. Mobile phones are like…do you have phones?”

“What are they?” Watson asked.

“Okay…um…it’s all hard to explain, but basically the whole world, every country, is connected and people from all over the world, like on different sides of the planet, can talk with each other.”

“This sounds a wonderous world indeed!”

“Also,” Martha said, remembering another detail of life in Victorian Britain, “we don’t hang people, not in Britain. We don’t execute people, not now.”

The two Victorian gentlemen, who had been responsible for sending many men to the gallows, looked at each other.

“It is perhaps a barbarous act, to take another’s life,” Watson pondered, “but what can be done when a man deserves death?”

Holmes appeared to be musing on something else. “‘Phone’, short for ‘telephone’?”

“Ooh, what’s this?” the Doctor said.

Someone, a man, was running towards them.

“Sir!” he was shouting. “Murder! There’s been a murder!”

“Ah,” the Doctor said. “Here’s something.”

The man skidded to a stop before them.

“Mr Holmes,” he said, “Thank God! You are the very person I need.”

“Who has been murdered?” Holmes asked in a businesslike tone.

“Why, it is my mother-in-law, sir. There’s no marks on her, but she is dead all right and my wife is screaming down the house.”

“No marks?” the Doctor said. “So maybe it’s poison? Could be snake venom.”

Holmes gave him a look that, somehow, stopped him from talking.

“Now, my dear sir…” he said to the man.

“Mr Henley.”

“Mr Henley, I’m afraid I first require an explanation to how this is murder.”

“She were old, sir, but she was in fine health. There’s no explanation for it. I’ve had a doctor-”

“Oh, you have?” Holmes interupted. “Well, I have my own doctor here, and if he will be so kind he shall see the body.”

Watson gave a nod, and the two of them followed the man down the street. The Doctor and Martha wandered after them.

“You know,” the Doctor said loudly, “I’m a doctor too.”