Author's Note: I wrote this story as a palate cleanser after Johnny Blue-Eyes, because I needed to write something fun and light-hearted. This one is more along the lines of Sally Donovan, Freak Wrangler, so if you liked that story, you will probably like this one as well. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

Oh, and also! I know I'm playing a bit fast and loose with the history and geography of London. I'm just having fun here, so don't get too upset with me if I have a few of the details wrong. No beta, no Brit-picking. Just me and my best mate Google on the research team.

Serious silliness ahead, with a bit of pathos and angst mixed in, along with a probably unhealthy dose of Kid!lock. This story is set about 16 months after the end of His Last Vow (1 April 2016). Mary and John have a 15-month-old daughter.

Infinite Improbabilities

Prologue: Sherlock, age 5

The little boy who isn't afraid of anything. – Sharp shoes - Maybe he's afraid of a few things.

It's dark and cold and he's starving because Mummy didn't even give him any biscuits before she made Mycroft take him to the park because he wouldn't settle down after school and it's not fair that they make him sit still all day in school and then he isn't even allowed to run around at home when he feels like a motor is driving him and he has to move but no one understands. They just say "Do shut up you're giving me headache" and ship him off to the park where other children laugh at him and call him names and then blame him because he got into another fight when it's not even his fault.

The metal handcuffs are hurting his wrists because he's been pulling on them and twisting and trying to get his hand free, but he has to go slow and be quiet at the same time because even though the mean man and mean lady left him alone, he can hear them yelling at each other just on the other side of the wall and he's afraid they'll come back. No, not afraid. He isn't afraid of anything, he's angry. That's it. He's angry that they grabbed him off the path at the park and put a jacket over his head and he didn't even get a chance to scream before they shoved him into the car. When he kicked his feet, he hit something hard and heard someone shout a word that he had heard Mycroft say one time and Mummy put soap in his mouth so it was a bad word. But then someone kicked him in the belly (probably the lady because he could feel the sharp heel of her shoe) but he wasn't sorry.

He's angry, but his daddy will be even angrier when he catches them. They'll be sorry for sure. His daddy will knock their heads together and toss them both into jail, then they'll pay for hurting him, for all the times they hit and kicked him on the way out of the car and into the building, and for what the bad man did with his cigarette and how they laughed at him when he couldn't help screaming because it hurt so much. Well they aren't laughing so much anymore, but that's even worse for him because her shoes are sharp.

He's got one wrist free now, but he can't get the other hand out and the handcuffs are stuck on the metal pipes that he thinks are a heater even though no heat is coming out but he wishes there were because he's so cold that his fingers feel frozen and he can barely even bend them.

He hears the voices getting louder, echoing off the walls and he pulls harder which hurts his wrist but he's desperate to be free. If he can just get his wrist free he can hide in the shadows behind one of the boxes in the little room that he's in and they'll never find him. He'll be able to get away when they open the door. He'll just run out through their legs before they can catch him. He knows how to be slippery because of all the times he's had to slip away from Mycroft.

But his hopes are dashed when the door opens and a shadow falls across him. He can't see the face because the lights are behind the person, but he can spot the glow of a lit cigarette and a curl of smoke. They're going to hurt him again. He's not scared, he's not scared, don't be scared, he tells himself but it doesn't help.

Part the First

Chapter 1: John

The smell of dog shit in the afternoon. – Is that a Tardis? – That's part of the trick, innit? – John dashes off unprepared.

John opened his eyes to a brilliant blue sky and the smell of earth and dog shit. The sun was trying to burn his retinas out of his head. He shut his eyes again. Wait a minute, blue sky and sunshine? That wasn't right.

As he lay there with his eyes squeezed shut, he realized that he was lying half-on something lumpy and squishy, but under his head something prickly tickled his cheek. Carefully he opened one eye and turned his head to the side. Patchy brownish grass. Oh. That wasn't right either.

"Oof, get off me!" said a woman's voice from somewhere in the vicinity of his left elbow. Cockney accent. He twisted his head in that direction and spotted a mess of long brownish curls. Sally Donovan? Why was he lying on top of Sally? Well, half on top of her, anyway. He certainly hadn't intentionally laid down on top of Sally Donovan.

"Sorry," he mumbled. He attempted to sit up with eyes closed against the sun, but ended up sort of rolling to his right. Mud squished under his hip and knee. At least he hoped it was just mud. That smell of dog shit still lingered in the air, and he really hoped he hadn't rolled into it. Mary wouldn't like it if he came home stinking of manure. The last time he had come home a stinky mess, after a foot chase through the sewers (following Sherlock, of course, who had somehow come out still smelling like roses), she had sent him out to the pavement and hosed him down like a dog.

Sally squirmed until she was free, muttering "yuck" under her breath. And then, "What the hell? Where are we?"

"Yeah, I was just wondering that myself," John rejoined, looking around. His vision was a bit fuzzy, but he could make out the outline of a house, dark brown and with an abandoned air, about twenty meters away. Between them and the house was a sea of half-dead grass, broken by tree stumps and uneven with rocks. He spotted bits of curved glass, looked like from broken bottles, strewn about the grass along with other assorted rubbish.

How the hell did he get here, lying in someone's front garden, with Sally Donovan under him? Last he remembered. . .

He was inside a house. It was mostly dark, with lots of looming shadows, smell of mold and dust and mothballs. A huge jack-in-the-box popped out at him. He was chasing Sherlock and Lestrade, but had mostly lost them by now. Why was he chasing them? Where was he going?

Oh, The Wizard. Clown, magician, and. . . serial killer (according to Sherlock). Right.

They had tracked him down to his house, stuffed full of dusty antique magic equipment—boxes for cutting people in half, ropes, pulleys, bells, stuff John didn't even have a name for, much less know the use of. Sherlock (thoughtless git) had run ahead, leaving him behind in this sideshow, and he was finding it sort of terrifying, not that he would admit it.

He stopped at an intersection, not sure which way to go. Behind him he heard Sally Donovan's voice.

"To the left, I think."

He looked to his left, then the right. A silhouette of a man, dressed all in black, stood framed in a doorway down the hall. The Wizard! He was surrounded by a glowing aura. Was he standing in front of a window? Weren't they in the middle of the house somewhere?

John stared at him openmouthed, trying to come up with the words, finally ending up choking out, "There!" Then the man beckoned to him, and turned and ran. John raced after, with Sally at his heels, around a corner just in time to see the man disappear through a small doorway. He followed without thinking.

And then he felt what seemed like a push from behind and he was falling. Had Sally pushed him? Maybe on accident. She had been fussing with her walkie, trying to inform Lestrade that they had found their guy. As he fell, everything went curiously dim. The air felt thick like treacle. . .

And suddenly he was lying in a garden on top of Sally Donovan. Sally Donovan who was getting to her feet and reaching down a hand to help him up as well. "Weren't we inside the house? How the hell did we get out here?"

"Hmm—Don't know." John looked around from his new vantage point of his feet. The garden was surrounded by a low picket fence, gap-toothed from missing boards. To his right stood the house. Perhaps, the same house he remembered being inside of no more than two minutes previous? Same color, same abandoned air, but it seemed smaller. To his left, past the fence, was the pavement, and a street beyond, empty at the moment with the exception of a couple of parked cars.

"Isn't that the house we were just in?" Sally asked, pointing.

"Yeah, maybe. Looks similar, I suppose."

Sally went to the gate and leaned over to look at the house number. "Yeah, this is the right house." She looked across at the street signs on the side of a building. "Ridgeway Drive and that one's Broadlands Road, see? That's where we were."

John frowned at the signs. The streets were right, but. . . "But that house didn't have a front garden this size, did it? The house went practically right up to the street. And there was an upper story."

Sally squinted up at the house. "Right, it looks different, don't it? But this is the same address, I'm sure of it." She pulled her mobile from her pocket, tapped the screen and held it to her ear while John waited. A few seconds later she pulled it away from her ear and frowned at it, tapped it again and repeated the process. "It's not ringing. There's no signal."

So John pulled out his phone as well and saw that he had no signal either. He tried Sherlock anyway, but the call didn't go through either. Neither did a call to Lestrade. He even tried Sally, but her phone didn't ring. His fancy smart phone had turned into a brick for want of coverage. Thank you so much, Vodaphone.

Sally looked around while she returned her phone to her pocket. "Where is my cruiser? It was parked on this street."

"Dunno. Don't suppose they left without us, do you?" As he said it, John realized that it was exactly the sort of thing Sherlock would do, although he doubted Lestrade would go along with it.

"They wouldn't dare." Sally strode up to the front door of the house, with John hurrying after, and tried the knob. It was locked, and so were the windows next to the door. "This wasn't locked earlier, was it?"

"Not since Sherlock picked it, no. Should be open."

"Well, it's locked now. Door looks different too."

John leaned in and inspected the door. Plain brown wood, when he now remembered that it had been black with red trim. "Yeah. The red trim is gone. The whole house had red trim, and now it doesn't."

"Well, what the hell. . .? You don't suppose Sherlock is somehow responsible for this, do ya? Maybe playing a trick on us?"

"I don't see how he could be. . ." John was distracted by a woman passing on the pavement, with big, feathered hair, oversized jumper, and. . . legwarmers? He hadn't seen those in years. Well, they say everything old is new again, right? Following right behind her was a man wearing the most ridiculous suit John had ever seen, powder blue with wide lapels. His hair was big and feathered as well, and was he wearing eyeliner? Well, to each his own, he supposed.

Then he started noticing other details on the street. The fact that the car parked in front of the house was a Talbot Sunbeam, which John hadn't seen in donkey's-years, and this one looked brand new. The shop across the street with a big sign that said "Carrefour Market," which was a brand John had seen in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, but hadn't existed in the UK for ages as far as he knew*. Half a block away, a blue police call box stood on the pavement. John happened to know that there couldn't be a police call box on that corner, as the only one left in London was outside of Earl's Court station, several kilometers from his current location. So what the hell. . .?

Without even thinking what he was doing, he started walking toward it, ignoring Sally, who was following behind calling "John? John! Where are you going?"

When he got to the corner, he saw that the box was run-down, with peeling paint and a rusty padlock on the door. Next to the Police Box stood a white and blue newspaper box with a glass window displaying a copy of The Guardian, with a black and white photo of a face John hadn't seen in a while: former American President Ronald Reagan. The headline blared "Reagan is Shot". What? Wasn't Reagan dead of natural causes already?

He leaned in and caught sight of the date under the masthead. 1 April, (Yes, that was right). . . 1981.

What? Just. . . what? Was this one of those spoof stories the Guardian was famous for on April Fools' Day? Or were they talking about a different Reagan?

John stared open-mouth at the date while his mind slowly clicked through the possibilities, ignoring Sally who was standing behind him trying to get his attention.

"John, what the hell are you—"

click

"Wish I could get a signal out here. . ."

click

"Have you got any money on you?"

CLICK!

"Maybe we should just take a cab back to the Yard."

"Sally—"

"It's not like Lestrade to leave us behind. Sherlock on the other hand. . ."

"Sally!"

"What?"

"Look at that date."

"Yeah, what-? Oh, it's April fool's. It's a trick, then!"

"No, the year."

"1981? That's part of the trick, innit?" She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted down the street toward the house. "Hey Freak! You can come out now."

"We've got to find Sherlock."

"Yeah, I know. I'm working on it. He and Lestrade are probably back at the Yard already, having a laugh watching us on security camera."

"Look around. How could Sherlock have done all this? It's 1981. We've gone back in time, Sally. It must have been something in The Wizard's house. He's got all that magical junk. That small door we went through. . ."

"John, come on, time travel is impossible. We couldn't have gone. . ." Her voice faltered a little as she swiveled her head left and right, slowly. ". . .back in time, right? I mean, that's not—How could we—Shit." That last bit was whispered as she turned back to John, wide-eyed. "What the hell do we do now?"

"We've got to find Sherlock," John repeated, scanning for a cab.

"He'd be—what—four or five years old? I don't think he can help us now. Lestrade would be a better bet. I think he might be at the Academy. . ."

"No. Sherlock. We've got to help him."

"John, what are you talking about?"

"The first of April, 1981, was the date he was kidnapped from Holland Park. He has screaming nightmares about it. We've got to find him and stop it."

John started off down the pavement, still looking up and down the street for a cab. Did they have Black Cabs in 1981? Yes, he remembered riding in one as a boy, just once, on a family trip to London.

He felt Sally's hand on his arm, pulling him back. "John, if we really are somehow in 1981, which I still don't quite believe, I don't think it's a good idea to try to change the past. You don't know how it would affect things in the present—I mean, future."

"I've got to try to change this one thing. If I can spare him that, I've got to take the chance."

*According to - ahem - wikipedia, Carrefour markets used to exist in the UK, but there weren't any in London. Again, just having fun here. Details may not be historically accurate.