Sherlock awoke, his head throbbed painfully. At first he thought his vision was damaged but red pulsing lights were blaring across the room. His back was pressed uncomfortably against the bottom of the consul. Sherlock rose onto his aching feet realising that wherever he was, was upright a second ago. The floor was a wall, the double doors were the ceiling. Sherlock stood on the slanted stand of the consul, which now worked as a floor. His blue silk dressing gown was shredded.

Just as Sherlock was contemplating the leap to one of the railings, the ship lurched. Sherlock was flung forward and his body bashed into the doors, flinging them open. He tumbled into a mess of wires, some sort of smoke from the ship pooled around him. Coughing, he slowly scrambled up again. "So you're still alive, eh?" Someone said.

"Where's Clara?" Sherlock demanded, his voice wheezing. The Doctor swallowed and absentmindedly straightened his bowtie. Sherlock's eyes flicked over him. Sure, he may be rattled, standing outside a blue phone box - that they had been in, which was bigger on the inside, which was impossible - but he needed to find Clara. He just needed to see her smile at him again. "You don't know, do you?" Sherlock deduced, dragging in a sharp, worried breath. Not like it was a hard deduction; the man oozed anxiety. Sherlock ran forward, his joints groaning in protest. He was an inch away from grabbing those stupid suspenders before two sets of hands wrenched him back. Sherlock snarled in protest.

"We'll get her back," The Doctor said. His brown eyes didn't waver. The phone box was dropped on its side again, making The Doctor sneer at the third man controlling the winch. He stroked the side of it like it was some sort of scared animal.

Sherlock shook off the brutes. There were two of them - dark skinned with angry glinting eyes and strange contraptions hanging of their dusty uniforms. One of them handed him a mask. Sherlock turned it over in his hands. Some sort of respirator - nothing he had ever seen before. The questions were drilling into "Where are we?" He hissed, turning to The Doctor.

"Don't worry about that," he replied and kicked the doors to the ship open. Smoke billowed out and they snapped the respirators on. The Doctor went in first, and then hollered for the rest of them to follow through. The three men shouldered past Sherlock. Seething, the detective went last.

He nearly fainted.

Where he had been subjected to the tilts and gravity of the ship before, it was perfectly level, despite obviously being on its side from the outside. "Wh-aat..." he stuttered.

"The TARDIS is special," The Doctor said, slapping the consul. "She has her own gravity."

"Tell me," Sherlock demanded. The mask made his voice a strange warble.

"Well I don't exactly have a white board and a pen, do I?" he snapped. The Doctor flicked a switch and the smoke was sucked into the invisible vents, littered somewhere on the ceiling. Sherlock dragged his respirator off.

"How big is this baby?" One of the crew asked, completely awed. He was bald and roughly shaven with

"Picture the biggest ship you've ever seen. Are you picturing it?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now forget it. This ship is infinite."

Sherlock gaped. "Can't be," he told the Doctor. "It's impossible."

The Doctor looked at the piece of paper poking out of Sherlock's dressing gown pocket. A smile twitched on his face. "You tell me, wonder boy." Sherlock's heart missed a beat.

"It'll take you hours to find the girl," One of the men said, the second one who had grabbed Sherlock before. He was the tallest and jutted his chin out with a calculating, almost chilling stare.

"Days!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Plus the whole place is toxic. She could be dead by the time I reach her." Sherlock thought his lungs just collapsed. "So. We're going to do it in one hour."

"We?" The cold eyed man asked.

"You're my guys for this."

"That wasn't the deal."

"Tis' now," The Doctor replied. He waltzed around the consul. Sherlock watched him, hating him. Clara could be dead. Sherlock knew it was stupid, but...he would know if she were. He didn't know how, maybe it was just a feeling - but he was quite sure she was still alive. Clara couldn't just die on him. "Don't die," she had said. Sherlock swallowed the lump in his throat. Okay Soufflé Girl, I don't die and you come back. Deal.

"What makes you think we'll help."

The Doctor flicked two levers and a blaring countdown buzzed on the screen. "I just activated the TARDIS self-destruct system. One hour until this ship blows." Sherlock's gut dropped to the floor. One of the crew sprinted to the doors but they slammed shut. "Don't try to leave. The TARDIS is in lockdown. I'll open those doors when Clara's by my side." Sherlock glowered at The Doctor. By my side.

"You crazy lunatic!" The tree trunk of a man exclaimed. Bram, that's what his name was. Sherlock could see it stitch roughly on the lapel of his jacket.

The Doctor turned, scowling. "My ship, my rules."

"You'll kill us all, and the girl!" Said the man who had run to the door. Gregor was embroidered on his jacket.

"She's going to die if you don't help me. Don't get into a spaceship with a madman." The crew ran to the doors again. "Didn't anyone ever teach you that?"

Sherlock whipped around. Clara, Clara, Clara. "I didn't have a choice in the matter," he spat.

The Doctor shrugged. "You're just as mad as I am."

Sherlock's nose crinkled. "Hardly. I don't know where I am, who you are. I've never seen this sort of technology in my life."

"Yet you hang around with the most dangerous girl in the universe." Sherlock stilled. "See, if you listen, wonder boy, you might get some answers."

The Doctor clapped his hands, sighing at the three men pushing desperately on the double doors. "Okay, a little gentle persuasion. Say 30 minutes." The clock drained of time till it hit the half an hour mark.

"Are you insane?!" Sherlock roared. His heart was beating out a frightened tattoo.

"She'll die even quicker now!" Bram exclaimed.

The Doctor's finger hovered over a button. "We all perform better under pressure. Anybody want to go for 15?"

Bram and Gregor held up their hands in abnegation. Sherlock wanted to pummel The Doctor to a pulp. A nagging, annoying voice in his head told him sinisterly how smart this was. People do perform better under pressure - Sherlock knew he did, and John too.

"It's your own time you're wasting. Salvage of a lifetime." The Doctor's eyes gleamed. "You mean the ship. I meant Clara."

.

The Doctor led the way through an impossible maze of corridors. "Wait!" Sherlock muttered and snatched the device he held aloft.

"Hey?!"

"Clara had this! She had this the night of the pool..." He turned it over with nimble fingers. Chrome metal, a glowing green orb, weird silver entrapments at the end. It whirred strangely in his palm. The Doctor grabbed it back. "Yes, she stole it," he sniffed.

"What is it?"

"A screwdriver."

"No it isn't."

"Ah, a sonic screwdriver."

Sherlock was about to say "No such thing," but then he remembered he was in an infinitely large space ship that looked like a phone box. He slid his hands into the dressing gown pockets, slightly muffed that the hem was singed and one side sliced to tatters. His fingers brushed the paper he had crunched into his pockets a minute before he was kidnapped onto the ship. He pulled it out, straightening it. It was a picture of a woman. Her hair was piled delicately on the top of her head and she wore a high necked Victorian dress. Clara Oswald stared out of the image with the same glittering dark eyes and slight smirk like she always knew something you didn't. "Doctor," Sherlock rumbled. The Doctor turned around, his floppy brown fringe waving. He handed him the image.

Sherlock had found it by chance one day. He had been in the city library and a book caught his eye. It was meant to be a biography but it was closer to a tale of fiction. Snowmen would appear at random in the streets. The narrator, a widowed man with two children told of how the Governess died when falling off a 'cloud'. Whatever that meant. But when Sherlock flicked to the back, Clara stared back at him. It was not possible - she was an impossible girl.

"Ah..." The Doctor said softly. A crinkle appeared on his brow. "You tried to confront her, didn't you."

"The Clara I met on Skype is very different to the Clara I know now." He was exaggerating because the blaster twitter joke was branded into his mind. She wasn't that different. Though when he thought on it, she was somehow braver. When they had faced the Gollum, Clara was terrified sitting in that cab. Then when they were at the pool, staring down Moriarty and bullets to the head, Clara had been ready to die for them. For him. "She now knows everything there is about computers. A few months ago she didn't even know what Wi-Fi was." Sherlock took the picture back protectively. "You did this to her didn't you?"

"Not directly," The Doctor snapped.

"Liar," Sherlock scoffed. "How can she be alive in 18-whatever and now in the 21st century." Sherlock wanted to rip his hair out by the roots. "Who are you?"

"How long?"

"What?"

"How long have you had that picture?"

"Since I first met her."

The Doctor turned around and continued down the cramped corridors, sonic screwdriver aloft. "It's complicated," was all he said.

"I'm used to complicated," Sherlock barked.

"What? Solving silly crimes?" Sherlock's mouth opened. "Clara tells me all about your little adventures," The Doctor continued. He looked Sherlock up and down, his lip curling slightly. "I thought you'd be more impressive."

"Judging from the way you fix that ridiculous bow-tie - seriously, they're so out of fashion - you can't get enough of Clara." Sherlock stepped closer, nose in the air. "One might say you have a bit of a soft spot," he added in a clipped tone.

The Doctor's mouth opened so wide he could probably catch flies. "What-I...How...Wha-What are you insinuating?" The Doctor demanded. Sherlock arched an eyebrow. The Doctor dithered, all the words spilling out of his mouth turned to babble.

"You're blushing," Sherlock drawled idly.

"I am most certainly not!" The Doctor exclaimed, though touched his cheeks. His ears were turning bright pink at the tips. The Doctor faced Sherlock. They were a match in height. "I have a wife!" The Doctor retorted. Just before Sherlock was about to drop some other deduction, The Doctor's ears pricked as he heard something. He swished around and raced off, his gangly limbs flying everywhere.