AN: If you're reading this, it means you're interested in the story. If so, please let me know! I'll only be continuing if people want to read it, because I have other stories to write but this idea just wouldn't leave me alone!

So, it's a Sherlock AU, based on 'Amy's Choice'. Let me know what you think of Chapter 1, and if you want me to continue.

Cheers! - B.

"Alright?"

Sherlock didn't respond to John's enquiry. While he would have appeared to most people to be asleep, his eyes were just closed, and for now – for now, at least – he appeared the picture of tranquillity.

John found that this was not the case when he went and deposited the groceries he'd bought after work on the kitchen table. There was a note from Mrs. Hudson.

Dear Dr. Watson, could you please tell Sherlock that next time he brings thumbs home, . . .

"Oh, Sherlock!" He cried, picking up the note, and stomping through to the front room. "I leave you alone for five minutes!"
"A day," Sherlock corrected.
"-for five minutes!" John continued, "And you've started putting thumbs in her fridge!"
"Yes," Sherlock hadn't opened his eyes yet.
"What's the problem? Was ours too full? Is there a head in it, taking up too much room?" John asked sarcastically, still seething with anger.
"No. Her fridge is a less modern brand. Its maximum temperature is lower than our fridge's. The optimum temperature, in fact, for the experiment I am currently conducting,"
"Why couldn't you just change the temperature on our fridge?" John sighed in exasperation.
Sherlock cracked an eyelid, and used one eye to give John a judgemental onceover.
"Because then the experiment with the head would be at the wrong temperature,"
"I thought you said there wasn't a head!"
"No, I said-"

Silence. Sherlock felt as if his vocal chords had just suddenly ceased to work, as John stared at him expectantly. He sat up abruptly, and in his haste his dressing gown fell clumsily to the floor; he almost tripped over it in his rush across the room.

"Something, something . . ." He muttered, but with a sense of urgency.
"Something what?" John asked, frowning and following the consulting detective.
"John, what did you buy at the shops today?" He pressed, as he span slowly around, observing the entire flat.

Sherlock felt a creeping sensation of half-remembered realisation. How could he have already forgotten what had made him feel uneasy? Everything felt strange, all of a sudden; goosebumps prickled all over his skin. Outside, people walked, and talked, and bustled about and a siren blared uncontrollably.

"Um, just the usual-" John went to the bags he'd just put down, retrieving and naming a list of boring items that were apparently essential to life.

"Butter, orange juice, beans . . ."

Everything felt like it was closing in on him, as he dived at the table, inspecting each item as if his life depended on finding some vital clue on its packaging.

"Crisps, some of that cereal you eat once in a blue moon . . ."

He felt as if something was approaching; like a monster or a ghost or something unbelievable was climbing up the stairs outside, and was about to burst in.

"Grapes, milk . . ."
Sherlock seized the milk.

"This isn't the milk you usually buy," He said, his tone almost accusatory.
"Yeah, I know that, thanks," John replied, watching warily as Sherlock eyed the milk suspiciously.
"Why? What made you switch? What's changed?"
"Well . . ."
"Yes?" Sherlock asked, his voice and his gaze intent.
". . . It was on special offer,"

Sherlock huffed and slammed the plastic carton down.

"Sherlock? . . . I don't have a bloody clue what you're looking for! What's gotten into you? I mean, not that you're not . . . Odd usually, but this is a little more intense,"
"Have you moved something?" Sherlock asked, ignoring his questions.
"No! I've been out all day!"
"Have I moved anything?" Sherlock asked himself.
"How can you not know?" John asked in incredulity.
"I can't . . . I don't know . . ." Sherlock frowned, striding swiftly towards the table, and examining the way the papers were arranged: precariously shoved on top of one another, in a shabby pile, like an impromptu game of Jenga.
"Wow. Three words I never thought I'd hear you utter without the use of torture . . ." John muttered.

"Hmm," Sherlock hummed to himself, drawing himself up to his full height again. His ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it for a moment. He stepped towards the window, but there was nothing going on that caught his attention. The only sound that remained consistent throughout his searching was . . .

"John, where do you suppose that siren is headed?"
"I don't know. An accident," John replied, beginning to tire of Sherlock's cryptic questions.
"What kind of accident?"
"Oh, I don't know. You're probably better at identifying the different sirens than I am, by now. Could be police, fire, or-"
"Or the Doctor," Sherlock finished. He promptly keeled over backwards onto the sofa, sound asleep.

" . . .-lock . . . Sherlock? Come on, Sherly-"
Sherlock felt a hand gently slapping his face. He frowned, and batted it away irritably. He opened his eyes.
"Doctor," He growled, not happy to have been woken up.
"There he is! Glad you're awake, actually. You're a bit big to carry to the bunk beds. Must find a smaller companion,"
"Whose idea were they anyway, they're way too short for me. . ." Sherlock muttered, rubbing his eyes.
"Hence, the suggestion of a smaller companion!" The Doctor repeated jovially.

Suddenly, it registered with Sherlock what had just been said.
If not in bed, where had he fallen asleep?

He sat up quickly, and his question was answered: he'd fallen asleep on the floor of the TARDIS console room, still in his suit, by the looks of it. Not big on dignity, and not to comfiest of surfaces upon which to rest. He was also covered in a rather nasty orange blanket. He pushed it away in revulsion.

"What happened?" Sherlock enquired, on his feet in a second, and looking around for any clues that would answer his question for him.
"Well, you just collapsed. I told you to tell me when you get tired! None of this 'I don't sleep' rubbish. You were clearly knackered!"
"So I just fell asleep," Sherlock asked in flat disbelief.
"Yes," The Doctor replied, smiling in amusement.
"With no apparent cause?" He clarified bluntly.
". . . No, you were tired," The Doctor replied. "I thought you were supposed to be clever!" He said, tapping Sherlock's forehead and making him wrinkle his nose.
"I thought you were supposed to be clever. Why would I not tell you if I was tired, and in danger of collapsing? What if we'd been in some sort of hostile environment? It would have been detrimental to both of us if I'd not told you I was tired, and collapsed, because I would have definitely been killed, and you have a nasty habit of going back and saving people, almost as if you want to be killed yourself," Sherlock reasoned.
"Oh, you're a cheery one today," The Doctor sighed, rolling his eyes, "Fine, let's go back in time, I'll be sure not to save you from those Daleks last week,"
"That's a fixed point in time, Doctor, we both know you wouldn't ever change it," Sherlock dismissed casually.
"I said 'never interfere with a fixed point in time except for cheap tricks'," The Doctor warned him in amusement.
"You didn't save me," Sherlock hissed insistently.
"Yes I did!" The Doctor replied childishly.
"No, you-"

The TADRIS rumbled extremely loudly, cutting off the impending argument between the travellers. It jerked suddenly to the side, throwing them both to the floor once again. Sherlock crouched, his head in his hands, defending himself from any damage that could occur when he was being thrown about. The Doctor, however, was not so careful.

"Whoa, there!" He yelled at the time machine, clutching onto several levers as he was thrown from side to side, and frowning at the central column wildly. "What's wrong?"

But it didn't last long. It about thirty seconds, the calamity was over, and the room was left calm, and silent, and . . . Dark.

All the lights went out, bar the central console, which glowed a ghostly, alien blue instead of its usual warm hue. Sherlock had never seen anything quite so unearthly before, even in all his time travelling with the Doctor. The strangest thing of all was, invariably, the machine in which they travelled. He'd still never seen the entirety of the time machine, and though that no one ever would if they lived forever. It was exponential, apparently.

"No . . ." Whispered the Doctor, frantically twisting the 'hot' and 'cold' taps that adorned the console, which looked as if he'd stolen them from a bathtub in the fifties. He frantically punched several letters into the typewriter, before standing stock still, and just staring at it, his jaw set, and his eyes wide.

". . . The TARDIS - It's dead, correct?" Sherlock interjected. "It isn't breathing like it usually is," He added, more to himself than to the bereaved Doctor.
"I . . . Something must have happened . . ." Muttered the Doctor to himself, slowly treading in a circle around the column. Both he and Sherlock's analytical eyes swept over it, but found nothing. Nothing that had gone wrong; nothing that could be fixed. It had simply winked out.

Suddenly, the Doctor ran for the door, and stuck his head out of it. Sherlock strode quickly over to it, buttoning his suit jacket, in the knowledge that space is, in fact, quite cold.

The Doctor blocked his view.
"Sherlock," He addressed his companion, who looked down at him questioningly, "This is very, very bad,"
"Let me see-"
"I don't know if you should-" The Doctor began, but stopped of his own accord, as Sherlock barged past and stuck his head out of the door. After all, he was Sherlock Holmes: his inquisitive nature was his defining characteristic. It was what had made the Doctor initially want to take him on his everlasting journey through time and space, at first. Then he'd learnt: there was so much more to Sherlock Holmes than met the eye.

Sherlock gasped – genuinely gasped – at what he saw. He'd seen many things on his travels, from criminals to aliens, detectives to spaceships, but he'd never seen anything as huge as this planet before in his life.

"Which planet is that?" Sherlock asked, his interest piqued, as he leant back into the TARDIS.
"I'm not entirely sure . . . The screen isn't working . . ."
"But why is it bad?"
"Can you feel her moving?" The Doctor asked quietly, his eyes fraught with worry.
"I . . ." Sherlock stood still for a minute, his head once again out of the door. He felt his hair blow gently back, and realised. "We're heading right for it . . . We're heading for it, at speed – we have forward momentum,"
"Exactly. Then you understand,"
"Will we have enough momentum to get into the area covered by its gravitational pull?"
"I'm afraid so . . ." The Doctor mumbled.
". . . What happens if a dead TARDIS crashes into a planet?" Sherlock asked quietly.

"It blows up . . . With the force of ten nuclear bombs,"

Both Sherlock and the Doctor turned towards the space in the darkness where the high, lilting voice had come from.

Slow – agonisingly slow – were the footsteps that came after it. Sherlock shut the door, and went to the Doctor's side, fearful but defended by his own bravado. Eventually, he saw a figure and face defined by the unearthly light, as it stepped forward.

Sherlock thought, how odd, that the same blue light should adorn that face, the only two times I have ever seen it . . .

"Quite the predicament, wouldn't you agree, Sherlock?"