Lost in Dreams of Detectives - Chapter 1

AN: This was co-written with emptyvoices. No other beta, so all mistakes are ours.

Disclaimer: We do not own Sherlock or Doctor Who. Nova and Sara are ours, however.

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Nova stretched languidly in pleasure as she had finally finished the 3rd draft of her latest book of The Doctor Chronicles and sent it off to her publisher. It always made her feel such a sense of accomplishment when she finally was able to sit back and admire her achievement.

She had been dreaming about the Doctor, a time traveler of the planet Gallifrey, for her entire life. Every night was a new adventure. Some were horrible and left her shaking, but she still experienced them along with her Doctor. When she reached high school and took a creative writing class on a whim, she discovered others could enjoy the Doctor's adventures just as much as she. Students would randomly come up to her and ask about what had happened to the Doctor since her last assignment, eager for more.

At the end of her junior year, upon researching exactly how much college cost, Nova had been ranting about the predicament to her grandfather when he had innocently suggested she try to write her Doctor stories for 'real' and get them published to earn enough money to pay for the rest of her education. As smart as her Poppi was, her grandfather had never liked the limelight and was perfectly content to enjoy the successes of his family. He made his living as a small town mechanic; the one that everyone knew could fix anything. It was a meager monetary job, but he had never tried to go further. So, when it was time to pay for college, Nova had to find another way to do so.

It had taken almost three months to finish the first novel because Nova's dreams, while consistently about the Doctor, were never in any sort of chronological order. It was more that she dreamed what her mind thought she could handle that day. After the one dream of the Scary Doctor, who just thinking his real name made her afraid he would show up by some miraculous occurrence, she had been scared her so badly that she was afraid to sleep for almost three days.

Nearly twelve days of working with a massive corkboard, pulling out all the details from her memory that she needed to write the first set of books that eventually became The Doctor Chronicles. She had the thought of starting at the beginning with his life growing up on Gallifrey but her grandfather had vetoed the idea—quite vehemently actually—citing her that people wouldn't want to read about those non-adventure-filled years. Eventually, she had acquiesced to his desire and decided to write about the Ninth Doctor, the one that came right after the Last Great Time War. Each adventure was another novel, with the realization of the truth of Bad Wolf (bridging them all together) the last, which was the one she had just sent off to her publisher. Thirteen books in total, for she only wrote about the big feats her Doctor experienced instead of the little trips he took all the time. If she wrote all the trips her Doctor took, then the books would never end!

The Doctor Chronicles didn't have much acclaim, but she had done well enough that she was able to pay for college and then some. It had surprised her quite a bit to realize how avid her fans were. The few book signings she had done to drum up publicity for her novels had almost alarmed her with the amount of people that had shown up. She hadn't won any awards or anything, but still it was enough money that she had wondered about just writing full time instead of her original plan, which had been to get her actuarial certificate due to her love for statistics.

At twenty-four, Nova was almost finished with her master's degree. She was on her very last semester and eagerly anticipating having enough time to write again. While the first few books she had been able to churn out approximately one every couple of months, the last two years with all her college assignments taking so much of her extra time, it had taken almost five months to complete the last book. Another month and she would graduate—finally!—and had decided to take a small break, to write full time for a little while, before starting to take the actuarial exams.

There were 4 tests before certification. She had heard the first two were easy but the second pair brutal. Maybe she could write while taking the first two, then have enough time afterward to be able to devote her full attention—other than stress-relieving writing breaks of course, let's not get crazy—to studying again. But she had been in school for so long that she definitely felt like she deserved a break from it all.

Nova stretched again as she turned off her desk lamp and went into the kitchen, where she knew her grandfather would be tinkering on something. The man never slept—he barely even took cat-naps—and if he wasn't in his shop, which it was too late in the evening for him to be, then he would be in the living room or kitchen messing with somesuch or another. He always needed to have something to do with his hands. When she was littler, she had walked in on him in his private workshed and the resulting explosion had fuzzed her memory, but ever since the experimental workshed had been locked up tight. He rarely was in there anymore. Yet, he never complained. The one time she had asked, he had given her a very sad smile and explained that he would enjoy being with her while he could.

"Hey Poppi," she grinned at him. "I just finished the last one."

"Good for you!" He put down his little tinkering mass of metal and wires. Getting up, he wrapped her in a congratulatory hug and kissed her forehead. "I'm so proud of you, my little supernova."

She blushed hotly and her smile brightened considerably. He never said anything he didn't mean and he never lied to her. "I'm about to head for bed." He nodded, still grinning at her, and kissed her forehead again. As she went to go back to her room yet again—having only really come out to share the news and get her goodnight kiss—she turned at the threshold and looked back at him. "Thank you, Poppi." she said in a quiet, serious tone.

It got his attention quickly, making him look up from his fiddling with a frown. "Something wrong, Nova?" He only ever used her name when he was concerned.

She shook her head. "No, but there are times when I know that without you, I wouldn't have been able to go through these last few years. Ever since…" she trailed off even as a single tear fell. Both remembered the tragic death of her parents due to a drunk driver, delivering Nova into her grandfather's demesne at the tender age of thirteen. She wiped away the tear, but didn't stop her smile. If it had turned a little sad, he was polite enough not to comment. "You've taken care of me, helped me, supported me; even let me stay here because I didn't want to be alone. Thank you."

He gave her a soft snort in answer, getting to his feet to once again pull her into a tender hug. "I love you, little supernova. You are my family and I will joyously take care of you for as long as I can. Just as I took care of your father for as long as he would let me." He kissed her forehead in the exact same spot as he always did, and gave her a tiny shove. "Now get to bed or you'll be late for class in the morning," he said teasingly in the same tone he had used when she was younger.

She giggled, but obediently went off to bed. The light went off and she snuggled further down into the covers and pillows. She mind quieted down as she began to drift off into the realm of dreams. Her night-time routine the same as it had always been.

She never knew that this night was different. That she would never see her grandfather again. That her life was about to forever change.

Nova opened her eyes, her mind filled with the images of her latest Doctor adventure. This one hadn't been all too adventurous though, but she didn't mind. The non-adventure adventures were some of her favorite. Sitting beside him—though he had never been able to see or hear her—as he tinkered with his TARDIS, just watching and listening to his ever-present babble. Those were her favorite moments. When she could just see him, instead of the personae he felt he had to adopt for others.

However, when she did open her eyes, it wasn't to the ceiling of her bedroom. She blinked, twice, but the odd-blue, just a shade or two off normal, just enough to notice, of a cloud-filled sky remained. "What?" she asked the air as she sat up. She appeared to be in some kind of park; trees all around her with a few people, who had stopped on paved paths, pointing and staring. At her. Nova got to her feet, looking around wildly as she tried not to panic. There was no Doctor anywhere, so it couldn't be a dream. (She knew other people dreamed about different things, but she had always dreamed of the Doctor. He was always around and she liked to follow him.) Therefore, no Doctor meant not a dream. But what was it?!

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A day that started out so simply. One moment, spent in excitement as Sara readied herself for her trip to London, staying at her parent's home so they could drive her to the airport in the morning. The small amount of light was miniscule in proportion at first. She could dismiss it. But when the aperture began to open, she could no longer ignore it.

"Dad?" She called out beyond her closed door while staring at the light critically.

"Sara?" His familiar voice replied.

"You fiddling with the circuit breaker or something?" She stepped closer in her apparent examination, slowly reaching out to touch the edges of where the glow was coming from. It looks like… She frowned and shook her head. No. She told herself fiercely. That's a story. This is real. She adjusted the carry-on bag she had been supplying with necessary essentials for her trip overseas. Her passport, purse, laptop, and numerous books to see her through the journey. At the moment, if there was a crack in the wall caused by the foundation, and she was seeing sparking on the other side, it would be a nuisance. She looked for the role of sturdy box tape she had just put in said bag. After all, she was one to pack too much rather than too little. It was better safe than sorry. But before her hand could fall on the needed tape to block the small crack, it started to grow by exponential degrees.

And her hand seemed to remain fixed to the surface of the wall, as though a form of liquid cement kept her palm affixed there.

"Dad!" She cried out. "Something's wrong. I'm stuck! I can't move. I..." She gasped, starting to feel a sense of dread as she tried ineffectually to pull away.

"Sara!" She heard him knocking. "Open the door." His voice was muffled.

"I can't!" She shrieked. "There's all this light and… Daddy, please!" She protested feeling distinctly alarmed, cursing herself for having locked the door in the first place.

"I'm getting the key. I'll be back in a second, honey. Don't panic." Her father assured her gently, trying to keep her calm.

"Dad!" She called. Now something altogether different and worse was happening. It was pulling her towards the light. She tried to grip onto the side of the heavy chest of drawers. Her fingernails scraped along the surface. This force, whatever it was, it was winning. A flash went through her mind. She remembered watching some of the old Poltergeist films out of nostalgia. She recalled how the little blonde girl was pulled into the wall. Her family spent the rest of the story struggling to find her as she called out to them for help. Was that what this was? Poltergeists? Would she be trapped in some strange limbo as her parents called out for her? No. She thought frantically.

"It's taking me. I can't…" Dimly she heard her bedroom door open. Her father crying out her name. His hand gripped hers, but their palms were sweaty. She slipped right through his fingers.

"Sara!" His voice was a shout. If she had seen his face for a moment, she would have noticed his sudden, horrified realization. The sense of knowing exactly what this was. His words were desperate. "I love—"

The expression was cut off as the light consumed her and then she was confronted by a horrific void where her only manner of protection was a thick layer of light she didn't understand that completely covered her and soaked into her skin, dragging her through the dark that wasn't dark. A meaningless but howling nothingness. She tried to breathe, only she had no breath. She couldn't blink, couldn't scream. The illuminating barrier presented a comforting variety of soothing emotions that provided the meanest level of comfort; otherwise she doubted her own survival and sanity for a mere moment longer.

Suddenly, she woke up on a well-manicured lawn, amazed to find herself in such different surroundings. It had been night when she was in her room and now…? Her carryon bag was still strapped firmly around her arm, a remnant of her packing. She thought to call out for her father. If she was here, surely her father would be too. He had been right behind her. But where was here? Struggling upwards, she squinted through the brilliant sunshine. Is that…the Mormon temple? She had seen pictures of it on prior occasions, having had a few Mormon friends. It somewhat reminded her of the Cinderella Castle at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. But that's in Utah. She considered in amazement. How did I get to Utah?

Suddenly, the air seemed to condense and grow heavy in volume while Sara had a sensation that reminded her of static electricity. She felt surprise yet some intangible recognition she couldn't promptly discern as she watched a girl with vibrant red hair shimmer into view similar to a mirage in the desert. A girl who seemed to be contemplating her surroundings with curiosity and wonder.

"This is different." The red head seemed to acknowledge but to no one in particular, as though the events of being swept into an entirely different place were nothing but routine for her. Sara was silent for a moment at this consideration. Were they normal for her? She swallowed, clearing her throat as the other girl looked at her in shocked surprised, as though Sara was the novelty.

"You can see me." The redhead murmured; her voice filled with astonishment. "You can really see me."

"Yes, of course I can see you." Sara said. "But…" She took a deep breath. "You've done this before." Her voice was rapid as she came out with her deduction. Maybe she was insane. "Whatever this is. I…I was in Seattle and then, there was all this light. A crack. Suddenly, I was here and… I'm sorry." She was struggling to calm herself. "I just want to go home."

"What's your name?" The redhead asked quietly, as if trying not to make the girl any more anxious than she obviously already was while taking a careful gaze at her new surroundings.

"Sara." The brunette clenched her hands together. "Sara Thomas."

"Nova Morganson," the girl offered a brief smile. "I think the two of us should talk. Maybe we can help each other."

Sara felt a fleeting sense of hope. At any rate, at least it was a start. However, she wondered if her father was here too, or was he…? She thought of that horrendous place where a single second seemed like an eternity. How she had doubted her own survival in those few fragmented moments. Could her father…?

No. She asserted firmly to herself. He's fine. He has to be fine! If he's not here, he's back at home, waiting for me. Both my parents are…

"Let's say we find some coffee," Nova suggested but Sara shook her head.

"I don't think there's a coffee place near the Mormon temple." She looked at Nova's nightgown and made a decision. "I have an extra pair of shoes in my bag, but you still need clothes. After we find some, I'll treat us to a smoothie." At least, Sara had pulled out a healthy amount of cash in anticipation of her trip. The two started to make their way from the Mormon temple and tabernacle, in the direction of the two shopping malls directly across the busy intersection.

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They both could feel as time passed. The clock ticking slowly like a perpetual drum. "It's no good." Sara said bleakly. "Neither of our families are here. I accessed police departments and nothing…" She grimaced at Nova. "I'm sorry." She gestured to the screen of the Salt Lake City Regional Library computer they had been running searches through for hours.

"It's not your fault." Nova tried to sound more reassuring than she felt. "May have found a solution to our problem. Broke through the social security administration firewall. We now officially exist. Also, with the DMV but… It's strange."

"What is strange?" What could be stranger than being pulled through a glowing crack and waking up on the lawn of a church 500 miles from home?

"So many things are different here. Shows from home don't seem to exist." Nova pondered thoughtfully, as if she was speaking aloud.

"Such as?" Sara quirked an eyebrow.

"Well… Terminator doesn't exist here. Or Donnie Darko." Nova shrugged in confusion. Time traveling killer robots had been for laughs, but she liked the thought process behind that of limited alternate universes. "Kind of strange, isn't it, Sara?"

"Yeah…" Sara stuck the pen she had used to scribble notes into her mouth. "Oh, you won't believe this. Doctor Who and Sherlock don't exist. Not at all."

"Doctor Who?"

"Never watched it? It's this show about this Time Lord that travels around time in a telephone booth that is—"

"—bigger on the outside than the inside," Nova interrupted with an incredulous eyebrow.

"Then you have seen it!" Sara repeated excitedly. "I have all the shows on my computer and—"

"Shows?" Nova interjected again in absolute confusion. "Sara, they are just dreams for me. I dream about the Doctor. The years he spent in school. Different parts of his life. I didn't have any shows…" She paused. "As for Sherlock, I saw the documentaries of him in my former universe but that's about it." She focused back on the screen and grinned with ready delight. "Guess who the new Powerball winners are going to be?"

"Oh, Nova…kind of cheating isn't it?" Sara asked reprovingly.

"We need all the help we can get." Nova said when she saw the pool. Five million dollars. "And if the Doctor isn't a show or a book here, why not write it ourselves?" After all, she had been making money off writing about the Doctor for years. Why not? Though, the idea of writing all of it again was incredibly disheartening.

"We need to find a way back home!"

"We will. But if we just sit alone in an apartment with nothing to do but try to think of ways to go home, we'll go mad. You like to write don't you?" They had been speaking together for time, trying to find similarities between their worlds and lives. Trying to find why they had come to this universe, out of all the people possible. Why them?

"I did it for my degree," Sara confessed carefully.

"Well, then. The two of us. I can help with all the technical areas. I hope the publishing process is the same," she muttered softly to herself before getting back to the point. "The realism. You try to come up with the twists. We'll be a good team." Nova paused as her mathematically trained mind inserted itself. "But yes, we should be pragmatic at first."

"In what way?"

"I think we both want to make absolutely certain that the events didn't happen in my dreams or as you remember them on the show." She wasn't sure why Sara remembered them being on a show. Maybe that was how her time sensitivity worked. "Better safe than sorry." If the Doctor or Sherlock Holmes were actually real, that would open an entirely new can of worms than what they were already trying to deal with.

Sara quickly nodded. "So, we research, make some calls, see if there are listings with his companions. If UNIT, or Torchwood, don't exist, or those Christmas events didn't happen, I would say we're home free. Besides, that ATMOS thing is supposed to happen soon, if I recall correctly. I haven't seen any cars like that." She had seen cars that had a smart assistant; if you were in an accident, they would contact emergency services but that wasn't quite the same.

"Good point." Nova nodded. "But if we do find Jack Harkness, he might be in a position to help us."

"And if we don't, we're on our own."

"We have each other and the royalties will help. It's better than nothing." Nova asserted, though her heart was in her chest as she realized that 'nothing' was exactly what they had to remember their home.

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It turned out that writing was a much better paying job, but the money would come in piecemeal, and only after the publishing house had at least half the first book—so they could be sure it was decent and worth the trouble. Internet publishing wasn't even off the ground yet in this world, so Nova went back online and hacked a degree—completed whereas her own still was a month to go in her own dimension, but she didn't think anyone would come harassing her about it—and got a job as a math teacher in a local community college to pay the bills in the meantime.

Every morning Nova expounded on what she had dreamed that night. Sara, equipped with a huge—the biggest they made—corkboard, would write up the essentials and put it on the Doctor Timeline that made up the board, connecting the card with several others with red string. It was their way of keeping track of all the little details that came with Nova's dreams.

Sara knew the broad overview of the Doctor's life from being forced to watch the show by her friends. Nova knew the details, even things that were never in the show. Between the two of them, Sara was using her time to write up the first episode—she kept insisting that it was a show in her world and Nova decided not to argue—called 'Rose'.

It had been a big disagreement between the two girls. Nova had wanted to start at the beginning, back when the Doctor was born and go through it all, since she hadn't done so before. Sara had adamantly disagreed. Eventually, they compromised. Sara would write the episodes she was more familiar with, but then would do flashbacks when relevant to earlier parts of the Doctor's life for essential details.

It had been six months since they had 'landed'—for lack of a better word. Both had decided to stay in the Salt Lake region. Just on the off chance that it was the only way they could get back to their own home. Things were going okay. Their little apartment was decent. Nova cooked and Sara cleaned. It worked for them.

"Okay. 'Rose' has been sent off to the publisher. I should have 'The End of the World' ready in another month, with 'The Unquiet Dead' a month after that." Sara said as she came into the kitchen where Nova was making a chocolate mousse for dessert. "We should be set money-wise for a while. And you can stop teaching then."

Nova smiled up at her gently, "I don't mind teaching. It's something to occupy my mind. You are a very good writer as well. Still…thank you for including me as an author."

Sara had been unmovable on that topic. Instead of only having one author for The Doctor Adventures—different from Nova's Doctor Chronicles on purpose since it was Sara writing—Sara had insisted on naming them both even though Sara had done most of the actual writing. "Nonsense! Without you I wouldn't have known all those little things about his childhood to put in the flashbacks. Makes some of the details more believable and relatable."

They had looked—oh how had they!—for any sign of UNIT, Torchwood, or anything similar. Nothing. If such places and things existed, they were extremely good at hiding. A search for 'Sarah Jane Smith' came up with over nine thousand possibilities. And that was after isolating for Great Britain! 'Jack Harkness' was much better with only seven matches. However, when they called the numbers listed, none were the man they were looking for. Calling the Visitor Information in Wales had not given them Ianto either but a female who had never heard of Ianto Jones or Jack Harkness.

After a solid two and a half months of diligent searching…they gave up. None of the people from Doctor Who, Sherlock, or a few other organizations that they were familiar with, were to be found in this universe. Either fictional or real. Just…nada. Zip. Zilch.

Nova did have an idea to post a 'hypothetical' situation of their arrival on some of the more advanced listings, to see if they could get any of their chosen people contacting them instead…but with no result. All the scientists said that the proposal was insane, with a few interesting calculations to prove them insane. Those equations had made Nova grin and chirp around for several days as she gobbled them up in happiness as she 'fiddled' with them…but her depression after she discovered they were either correct or she didn't have enough knowledge to fix them was horrible and took several pints of chocolate ice cream and a cheesecake to help get her out of the funk.

In short, after so long, both girls had resigned themselves to living out the remainder of their lives in this new dimension. The good news was that, as soon as they were established authors, it would be a good life. They had eventually decided that after the The Doctor Adventures took off Nova would take over writing them, and Sara would start writing The Holmes Adventures, which Sara was much more comfortable with and enjoyed a lot more. That way both girls got to do what they liked best: writing. Sara insisted that Sherlock Holmes was a wonderful hit, but also had admitted that Doctor Who was more wide-range, which is why they had started with that 'fandom'—as Sara called it.

Such was their daily routine.

Nova dreamt and went to teach, Sara wrote.

It was almost a year later that their first book was published. It became a national bestseller in under three months. They brokered a deal with their publishing house for more. Nova quit her job to write full-time on the Doctor's stories as they had planned. Sara started work on the Holmes stories.

Homesickness and missing their families came easily and quickly in the beginning. It took both girls supporting each other to get out of them. And sometimes…all they could do was hold each other and cry. But as the months, and the years, passed, the times were fewer and further between. They became sisters in all but blood as they clung to each other through the hard times.

It was almost five years after their first published book, with over 7 Doctor books and five Holmes books that the true nature of things began to come to light…

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Originally posted: ~3.25.16

Edited: 2.11.20

Wordcount: 4,743