A/N: I am officially a horrible person. In case you hadn't realized it. A solid promise for a new chapter by the end of the month! I said. Well, here we are, four months later. I'm just going to stop promising chapters at a reasonable rate, I just don't have the time for it. If any of you on here are still even remotely interested in this story, I applaud and thank you. Super long chapter for the dedicated and long-suffering readers.

Charlie skidded to a stop, just barely avoiding a head-on collision with the ship. That was a disadvantage of looking down instead of ahead—you couldn't see what was coming so well. He was surprised to see the Good Doctor and the Pale Man, whom he thought he remembered being called Sherlock stopping behind him. He was glad they were there—he was really scared, and his insides were warring against him. Part of him wanted to run and hide until the Bad Doctor had left, but the other part of him refused let him just leave his family here.

"Okay, so we may be dealing with something more complicated than I thought." The Good Doctor said. Sherlock turned to him questioningly, and the Doctor explained.

"Well, this ship appears to have a Time Delusionement Anti-Focus Field, albeit slightly damaged. I'm guessing this is a second-hand ship, but the only ships that have that were from the Great War of Shalbox. They were all wiped out, every participant, every ship, every planet affected. Nobody understood why, it was just like the universe hated the war so much it just…swallowed it. If they have A Shalboxien ship, then well…well, they shouldn't have a Shalboxien ship!" he ran his hand through his hair, looking closely at the ship. Literally, he put his face up so close to the ship that his nose nearly brushed the hull, as if some piece of dust on the exterior might explain its impossible existence. Sherlock frowned up at the ship, and then began walking around the exterior, trailing a finger across the hull in search of… Charlie didn't know what.

"Well, they didn't have the ship always." Charlie supplied, eager to ease the Good Doctor's distress. The Doctor frowned at him, and Charlie continued.

"It started…building…a few weeks ago. They wanted to be ready to leave, but they needed a special ship, so this one came."

"You said the ship started "building" and then you said it "came" like it just appeared. Which is it?" the Pale Man frowned heavily at him, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Well, there were whispers in the holding place that they were bringing it here from somewhere else, but we could see it out the window—there were bits and pieces, forming out of thin air, one at a time. Like it was coming here in pieces and then building itself. I mean, there were Goblins watching it, but they never touched it."

The Good Doctor frowned, and exchanged a look with the Pale Man, and the Doctor looked down at his shoes, eyes troubled, deep in thought. The Pale man started to turn around, and then froze. He blinked once, twice, then whirled around, eyes scanning the space rapidly, fingers twitching absently, as if wanting to grab onto something that wasn't there.

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

Something was wrong. Sherlock didn't know what exactly, but something felt…off. Not like it was normally. All during his conversation with Charlie and the Doctor, he felt as if something were missing, but the mystery of the ship that shouldn't have been there didn't let him focus on it too much.

God, he was a fool.

He should have realized it right away, but he didn't. It wasn't until there was a lull in the conversation, when it started to feel really wrong. Something should have happened now that wasn't happening. Something to keep them going, something that would have kept them moving forwards, taken that brief pause and turned it into "Well, we should probably…"

John.

Where was John.

Not here, obviously. But he was supposed to be here! He was with them when—oh, shit. He had taken off running after the child, and then he had heard the Doctor take off after him, but John… Sherlock was well aware of John's inability to keep up with him on chases, but he sincerely doubted that with the Disalusionment Field, he would have been able to figure it out and catch up at all. Damn, he must still be back—

But he wasn't. John wasn't back where they started, and he wasn't here with them.

So where was he?!

"John?" he called. There was, of course, no answer. He called again.

Panic, dark and heavy as pitch, began to fill his chest, constricting his throat, sending his brilliant mind into a frenzy. Usually, John helped him calm his mind, but now John was gone, gone! And his mind was tearing itself to shreds looking for his companion. Where was he?! John couldn't have just disappeared, so where was he? He took off looking for him in one direction, scanning the landscape for signs of him, then another direction. Balance of probability…no. Balance of probability says he went…no, either! Balance of…But there is no Balance of Probability here! They're on a blasted alien planet, about to enter a ship that wasn't supposed to exist! Hell, Probability was probably off taking an Advil right about now! But oh god, where was John?!

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

Charlie's eyes widened as the Pale Man kept shouting. Didn't he know he'd alert the goblins?!

"Hush, mister!" He whisper-shouted. The Pale Man ignored him, continuing to shout and walk a few steps in one direction, then turn and go another, hands trembling, eyes wide. The Pale Man was intimidating, but seeing him panic was even more frightening. He didn't seem like someone who panicked easily. He almost felt bad for him—indeed, he was worried about John too, but he wouldn't let the Pale Man mess this up and doom his family. Charlie steeled himself, then ran forwards and grabbed the edge of the man's coat and pulled, nearly falling over, but managing to stop the man for a second.

"Hush!" He said again, and the man paused, but still looked worried.

"Sherlock, if he's not out here, he probably got inside. We need to calm down and find him." The Good Doctor said pleadingly. Sherlock nodded, and then took a deep breath, scanning the area again, but not so panicedly. His eyes lit upon the big windows in the side of the ship, and he started walking towards them determinedly. Charlie and the Doctor hurried to catch up, and as they approached, Sherlock looked up and down the place where the two windows met, and then let out a great sigh.

"He's been through here." He said with thinly masked relief.

"See, I told you." The Doctor said, grabbing his sonic screwdriver from his coat, although he had no idea how Sherlock came to that conclusion. He was just glad the man had stopped freaking out. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least, to see the great detective panicking. The Doctor put the sonic screwdriver up to the windows, and after fiddling with it a bit, the thing produced a high-pitched buzzing sound, glowed blue, and then with a soft whoosh of air, the windows slid open. A bit of fuzz fell to the floor as the windows separated, and Sherlock stooped down to grab it. Threads from John's jumper. He had been through here.

The travelers and the boy went quickly through the windows, the Doctor giving one last glance back to make sure they weren't being followed before they slid shut. Sherlock looked down the twin passageways leading left and right, but had insufficient data to determine which way John had gone.

"Let's go this way!" the Doctor said, going down the right passageway. Sherlock frowned. Surely the Doctor didn't see something he hadn't?

"Why?"

"It's gauche to go left!"* was his only reply. Sherlock frowned. Did the Doctor really just use a French saying about passing food to determine which way they should go?

Apparently.

Charlie eagerly followed the Doctor, and Sherlock reluctantly went after them. It would be unwise to leave the only one who knew anything about anything outside of Earth, so he followed the Doctor down the corridor.

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

As they small party left the windows, the hallway got darker and darker. Charlie moved closer to the Doctor, not wanting to get lost. On a strange ship. With the Bad Doctor. He shuddered and reached out, tentatively grabbing the edge of the Good Doctor's jacket.

If he noticed, he didn't let on.

Soon, flat white lights started appearing, embedded in the walls near the floor so you could see the walkway. But the lights were dim and flickering, and Charlie could barely see the Good Doctor frown.

"Connection Problems?" the Pale Man asked, with a smirk. The Good Doctor rolled his eyes at the reference to the Tardis' faulty wiring earlier on.

"Ha, ha. No, there's probably something somewhere else that's draining the power."

"The tubes…" Charlie whispered, fear making his voice tremble a bit.

"No, Charlie, there are no tubes on this ship." The Good Doctor reassured him. But Charlie just shook his head.

"They wouldn't leave them behind!" He insisted. Just then, they came across an intersecting corridor, and stopped, looking down each one. The Pale Man stooped down and picked up something on the ground, rubbing it in between his fingers, where it crumbled and fell to the floor.

"Bread crumbs!" Charlie exclaimed. "Like from mum's stories!" he raced down the hallway, leaving the Pale Man and the Doctor to run after him. Sherlock was slightly unnerved by the fairytale reference—Moriarty had made him a bit apprehensive about those. But he said nothing and followed the little boy, who could honestly run quite fast. Sherlock frowned, wondering what that was all about. The boy kept showing surprising physical strength and speed and endurance, despite the fact that if he was to be believed, he had spent the entirety of his life in one room. He would have to think on it later.

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

John crept silently down the hallway, which looked exactly like the other hallway he had just crept down, which in turn had no observable differences from the other hallways he had been traveling down for the past thirty minutes.

But John wasn't lost. Of course not. He had been in Afghanistan, where there had been nothing but flat, unchanging sand for fifty miles in any direction, and he hadn't gotten lost. But he had a GPS in Afghanistan…

Okay, so maybe John was lost.

He growled and pulled out his mobile phone, checking the screen and finding, to his dismay, that the screen was flashing various colors at him in such a fashion that would have been extremely problematic had he been prone to epilepsy or seizures. He frowned at it, tapping the buttons, and then it suddenly blinked and went black. Well, he supposed he wouldn't be calling the Doctor or Sherlock then.

Suddenly, he heard shuffling behind him, and low mutterings in a strange language. He hurries forwards, hands falling to the gun tucked in his belt as the hallway continues in a straight line without anything to hide behind.

But then, John notices something. It's not very big, or obvious, and in fact, if he hadn't been spending the last few years rooming with Sherlock-I-observe-everything-Holmes, he may well have missed it entirely. But John skids to a stop, presses the square, beige button on the wall, and quickly ducks into the pitch-black closet or whatever it is that just opened. The door slides quietly back into place, and John listens in the inky blackness, holding his breath as the sound of footsteps passes. He breathes a sigh of relief, and then starts fumbling on the wall, looking for the button that will open the door again so he can continue wandering the ship.

His fingers find a small indentation, then the slightly raised surface of the button, and he clicks it, squinting when a large number of bright lights turn on, instead of the door opening like he hoped. When his eyes adjust to the light enough that he can open them fully, John takes in the room he had hidden in.

Because it is most certainly not a closet, like he thought.

In fact, he's not quite sure what it is at all, and he doesn't quite have the energy to figure it out, because John is currently quite absorbed in the action of standing there with his mouth hanging open, desperately hoping that this was a dream. A very bad dream. A nightmare that he will wake up from, and then sit in his bed, listening to Sherlock playing on his violin until he falls asleep again.

Dear god, please let this be just a nightmare.

The room is plain concrete, with lights embedded in the high ceiling, shining down on the only things in the room. Large tubes, about seven feet tall and maybe four feet in diameter, filled with a thin green fluid and the floating bodies of at least fifty people, some looking like normal people, and others that were decidedly alien, of many different species. John manages to close his mouth, and step shakily forwards, towards one of the tubes, which is silent except for a faint hiss and bubble every now and again. The woman inside the tube is fair-skinned, with long blonde hair and eyes shut tight, her face relaxed, but not peaceful. There are hundreds of wires and tubes coming out of various parts of her skin, and her fingers twitch uneasily. John taps quietly on the glass, but she doesn't respond. He notices a clipboard attached to the outside of the tube and glances at it, reading a few numbers and statistics about the occupant of the tube.

Subject 4092

State: unconscious, alive

Energy Output: 37 qoz/linear cycle

Priority: Level 3

Resistance: minimal

Strategy: threats, withholding familial relations

Time left until total drainage: 4 linear cycles

John doesn't know what most of this meant, but "threats, withholding familial relations" was pretty straightforward, and he fights back a wave of red-tinged anger. So these were the tubes that Charlie was talking about. John immediately starts looking around for some sort of release mechanism, something to get these people out of here, but there doesn't appear to be any—at least, not on the tube itself. With one last glance to the woman inside the tube, he moves to the closest wall and starts walking, looking for a button or touchpad or something.

Man, he really wishes his phone was working.

* This is something my grandmother used to say. Gauche (pronounced Goshe) means crude or uncultured, but in French it literally translates to "left." The saying basically means it's rude to pass food to your left. The more you know.

A/N: If you wanna comment, go ahead, but I feel like I don't deserve to ask for them anymore. Feel free to yell at me though. Also, in case anyone was wondering, I have zero plans for abandoning this story. If it takes me 100 years, I WILL FINISH THIS.