John looked at the open door behind him, at the guest who smiled with mocking pleasantry at him, and then at the kitchen which, as Sherlock had reminded him, still very much needed attending to. He sighed loudly. Why was he always left to clean up the aftermath?

"Alright you, get up. Until Sherlock sends an officer you and I are going to clean up the mess you made in the kitchen," he directed at his "guest." Mr. Smith slapped his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet with a big show.

"Alright," he agreed. "Just for the record, though," he held his index fingers up in a wide gesture as he followed John into the kitchen, "I like you much better than your friend. He didn't even bother introducing himself. Not that you did either but at least you didn't steal things from me and leave." He dropped one hand but pointed the other at Sherlock's gun that John still held. "And, would you mind putting that away? I'm not a big fan of guns, and I promise you, I'm not dangerous and I'm not very fast and despite what your tall friend Sherlock said, I didn't put you under any sort of hypnosis." He dropped his voice to a mutter for a moment, "At least, not this time, but anyway, yeah, if you could tuck that gun away somewhere, it would be really helpful." He offered a big, goofy, friendly grin as he sort of perched near the table on a small patch of unsoiled linoleum. "I'm not going to run because I know you have it so having it out is just a general inconvenience to both of us and really kills the mood I think because, y'know, I want us to be friends! Because I actually did come to take a look at your pipes even if I'm not a real plumber and before you try to accuse me of tresspassing your friend did steal something I own which, if this is the right year, I believe is a crime, if I'm not mistaken...which in fact I might be-"

"Um, excuse me, I hate to be rude and interrupt, but if you could, y'know, pick up some of this glass and just toss it in that bin over there while you talked?" John had tucked the gun away in his trousers at the request and gestured across the kitchen, temporarily silencing the talkative Mr. Smith. "I'm John, by the way. Dr. John Watson." He crouched down to continue cleaning.

That seemed to light up Mr. Smith in an entirely new way. His grin shifted from goofy to genuinely interested as he slipped off his tweed jacket and hung it from the back of a nearby chair.

"Oh are you?" he asked, crouching down and mimicking John's cleanup tactic from the far side of the table. "You know, I'm actually a doctor too. Your friend Sherlock called you John, would you mind if I called you that, too? I know people can be touchy about their titles..."

"Uhhh...Yeah, yeah, that's fine. So you're Doctor Smith, then?" John was also interested in this revelation. Might as well be hospitable to his guest until he was relieved of duty. For all he knew, Sherlock would forget about sending an officer entirely and he'd have to entertain the man until nightfall. "What's your specialty?"

Dr. Smith seemed to hesitate at that. "Well, I'm not actually a 'Doctor Smith;' you can just call me The Doctor. Well, just 'Doctor.' John Smith isn't my real name, as I'm sure your friend there guessed..."

John frowned as he tossed the last of his larger pieces in the bin and rose to find a broom. He was fairly certain they had an old one he wouldn't mind sacrificing to this...mess somewhere. "So what is your real name?" he asked, opening a small closet door and rooting around inside.

Mr. Smith smiled thinly. "If I gave you a false name before, why would I give you my real name now? Sort of defeats the purpose doesn't it?" He rose as well and tossed out his collection of debris with a series of loud chinks.

"Well, you told me you were a Doctor, that's about as personal as a name, isn't it?" John withdrew a very old and ratty broom that was probably complements of Mrs. Hudson. It would do to get the finer pieces of glass and the solid ichor separated from the liquid. "Doctor" Smith resumed his perch near the table and slipped off a shoe to inspect how dirty it had become. John marveled at how comfortable he was in a flat that he had for all intents and purposes broken into.

"It's a bit easier to find someone with their real name than with a title," the guest said without looking up. "What is this stuff, anyway?"

"Hell if I know, Sherlock uses the kitchen as his personal lab when he can't be bothered to get to Bart or they don't let him in. D'you mind coming over here and holding a dustpan? It's in the cupboard there."

Doctor "Smith" slipped his shoe back on and crossed the kitchen to the cupboard. John collected more general wet ick up into a colorful and rather repulsive pile while he waited.

"Find it?" he asked after a few moments had passed. "It's just there on the wall..." He turned to look over his shoulder. The Doctor had disappeared into the closet completely and was rattling things around. John narrowed his eyes curiously. On low alert that his guest was up to something, John laid the broom against the table and closed his hand around the grip of the pistol in his belt before approaching. He poked his head into the closet.

"What are you doing?"

The Doctor whirled around with a mop against his shoulder, a large package of paper towels in one hand, and a mason jar of something oragnic and shapeless suspended in liquid in the other, nearly knocking over a shelf of aerosol cleaners in the process. His eyes shifted around and he smiled again.

"Just...looking," he said awkwardly. He noted where John's hand was, put the things away, and held up his hands in surrender. "Your friend Sherlock has a lot of strange things in jars, doesn't he?"

John's grip tightened on the handle of the gun, but he released it with a short exhale. "I think we'd both appreciate if you didn't touch any of the things you weren't asked to, alright?" he asked testily.

The Doctor's eyes flickered around the small cupboard for a brief moment before spotting the dustpan hanging from a nail near the door. He smiled agreeably once more and gently removed it, holding it out like a token of peace.

John exhaled again. "Come on." He backed away and gestured for the Doctor to leave the cupboard. The man exited and closed the door behind him, and John followed him to the repulsive pile. The medic might have sworn it had changed shape since he'd last glanced at it. He swept it up with his guest's help and the Doctor carried the dustpan it to the bin and dumped it. He made his way to the sink and turned on the faucet to wash off the metal, but of course nothing came out. He leaned down to look at the faucet closely, slowly turning the handle back and forth and watching the lack of water with a quiet fascination.

"There's some water in the fridge you can rinse it off with, I'll scrub it later," John told him, trying to figure out where to put the now-ruined broom. He decided to leave it upside-down against the counter so the mess it had partially soaked up wouldn't touch anything else until it had dried. The Doctor was still inspecting the sink by then, so John retrieved two large plastic jugs of distilled water from the fridge. They were usually used in Sherlock's experiments, but they had since become the flat's main source of water.

"Here." He set one next to the sink. The action and word disturbed the Doctor's curiosity and he looked over at the jug. With a smile and a nod, he opened it and poured a slight bit over the edge of the dustpan. He watched it intently disappear down the drain as if he were waiting for something to happen.

John ignored his strange behavior. As long as the Doctor got most of the mess off the dustpan, he was happy. The medic retrieved a bucket, the mop, and some floor cleaner from the cupboard and poured about half of the contents of the other jug into it with a squirt of cleaner. He hoped Sherlock's experiments were safe to mix with chemicals.

"So what are you actually doing here then, if you don't mind my asking?" He dipped the mop into the bucket and swirled it around to mix the cleaner. He pressed it against the side to dry it off slightly before dumping it into the middle of the mess with a loud slosh. "I mean, if you don't want to tell me your name then fine, Scotland Yard can get that out of you, but I can't see how it'll do you much harm to tell me your business. I mean, you've already been caught..."

He mopped in silence for a moment, waiting for an answer. The Doctor didn't say anything, but John also heard no water running. He turned to see what his guest was doing, and was presented with a rather unexpected view of the Doctor's derriere. The man was on his toes, completely bent over the edge of the sink with his head, shoulders, and one arm inside the bowl itself, rooting around.

John leaned the mop against the table and wandered closer. He leaned over the edge curiously. The Doctor's cheek was practically against the metal bottom of the sink, his eye millimeters from the drain and his fingers probing around the drain's rim.

"...Drop something?" John asked.

"-Ow." There was a dull clang as the Doctor straightened up too quickly and smacked the back of his head against the faucet.

John made a noise, but remained professional. "Please don't break our sink," he warned quietly, sympathetic but reminding himself that this man was an intruder, however clumsy he was. "We don't need a fake plumber making our pipes even worse. Did you drop something? Because I can get a flashlight..."

The Doctor rubbed the back of his head pitiably and adjusted one suspender. There was a small greenish stain near his jaw where he must have accidentally touched the dustpan with his face.

"Oww...It's alright, I didn't drop anything. I was just..." he dropped his eyes back to the sink, "...taking a look." He winced quietly as he felt around his hair and found exactly where he'd been struck, then pulled his hand back to inspect it. No blood. Yet.

John raised a hand. "You've got some, eh..." He made a gesture at the Doctor's jaw. The man felt around there next and again looked at his fingers, then made a disgusted face. John offered him some paper towels that were in reach, and he hastily wiped at it, then wet the paper towel from the jug and cleaned it all off completely.

"What were you looking at?" John asked, watching.

"The drain." The Doctor kept feeling around and looking at his fingers to make sure there was no more mess. "Or, more specifically, the pipes. I'd be able to look better if I had my sonic, but..." He trailed off irately and inspected the back of his head once more, decided he was completely clean, and tossed the paper towel in the bin.

"What for?"

"I'm not entirely sure..." The Doctor eyed the sink again. John frowned at him.

"You don't know why you're looking at our drain?"

"I don't know what I'm looking for in your drain," the Doctor corrected. "but there's something different...Something about this house, your flat and the basement flat..." He suddenly dove down to look closely at the drain again. "I don't know what it is..." He made a frustrated noise that echoed against the metal sink. "If I just had my sonic-!"

John's phone vibrated just then, and he checked his hands to make sure he had nothing on them before pulling it from his pocket. A text from a number not in his contacts. He opened it curiously.

John. Where are you? Are you safe? Respond immediately. SH.

He frowned, and typed a reponse.

Still at the flat, quite fine, doctor is with me. Why?

He sent it before he realized that Sherlock didn't know their guest was a doctor, but he didn't get the chance to correct himself before an even more urgent message was recieved from a different number.

Get here. You have been tricked and may be in grave danger. Hurry. Bring my gun.

The address followed, and Sherlock's ubiquitous initials. John looked up at the Doctor curiously. The man was sink-diving again, albeit not so enthusiastically this time. He paid absolutely no attention to John whatsoever. The medic lowered his gaze to his mobile.

What about Smith?

A third number answered this text. Where was Sherlock getting these phones?

Not real. You have been tricked. Come immediately. SH.

"What...?"

On my way.

"Doctor Smith."

The Doctor looked up sharply. "Just 'Doctor,' please."

"Right. Come on, we're going to the crime scene."

"Sorry, we're what?"

"You heard me, come on." John started out of the kitchen. The Doctor followed him all of about four steps, then hesitated. John had his coat on before realizing that the Doctor wasn't following.

"Come on!" he urged. "Don't make me force you."

"Are you planning on holding me at gunpoint all the way there? Are we walking?"

"We're taking a cab."

"And you'll hold me at gunpoint in the cab?"

"I-" John hesitated, and the Doctor's newest smile was actually slightly sinister this time.

"Would you shoot me if I tried to run away? In public?"

John exhaled sharply, and stood there. The man had him. He could either ignore Sherlock which he had come to learn never a great idea, or he could let the Doctor go. They both knew that he wouldn't just open fire with a handgun in the middle of London on a busy Saturday afternoon if the man bolted.

"I can finish mopping up, and I'll be on my way," the Doctor suggested lightly.

John stared hard at him, then pulled out his phone again and texted the last number Sherlock had texted him from.

Smiths not coming with. Can't leave him here. Send an officer. He'd be damned if he let an intruder just remain in his flat.

It took longer for Sherlock to reply this time, but the message was not only cryptic, but this time chilling, as well.

He's here. Whatever you see there isn't real. SH.

John looked up. The Doctor was leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen, his arms folded, a smug smirk on his face, one leg crossed over the other at the ankle. He raised his eyebrows as John made eye contact.

"Well?"

"Get your jacket," John commanded angrily, walking to a small table with a pad of paper and a pen on it. He began writing down a hasty note, then tore it from the pad and looked around for some tape. Sherlock would never hear the end of this. Whatever was happening. "I'm not leaving you here, I'm locking you out of the flat and I'm leaving a note for Mrs. Hudson that you're not to be let back in." It was the best he could do to make sure nothing was stolen. He had certainly gotten a good enough look at the Doctor that he'd be easily able to recognize him again, and doubtless Sherlock knew everything about the past sixteen years of the man's life from the way he held his left pinkie finger or some other perceptive trick, so he wasn't terribly concerned about the man going unpunished.

"Alright, alright." The Doctor disappeared into the kitchen a moment and returned with his jacket as John found and tore off some tape. The Doctor started across the front room while swishing his coat around to put on with a flourish but he tripped over a small stack of books near the door and fell into John as the man was applying tape to paper. "Sorry!" he apologized sharply as John pushed him off with more than a little impatience and he righted himself again. The medic scowled at him and immediately checked for his gun and his mobile suspiciously. Both were there. His wallet was, too. Nothing was missing.

"That wasn't on purpose," the Doctor said quietly, slightly offended that John would have thought he was attempting to pickpocket him. "You've got a lot of things all over the floor, look." He gestured back at the book stack he'd toppled over.

"Just-go," John said with a sigh, squeezing the bad shoulder the Doctor had collided with before unsticking the tape from itself.

"I'm going." The Doctor left the room and descended the stairs, exiting the entire building. John followed him closely and tacked the warning note to the door for Mrs. Hudson, then locked it.

He hailed a passing taxi, then looked at the Doctor as it pulled up. The man just stood there, smiling.

"It was nice meeting you, John," he said, amiable as ever, his hands clasped behind his back. "I imagine we'll be seeing more of each other rather soon."

John shot him a look. "Yeah, don't you think you're getting away with this...whatever you're doing," he said as he climbed in the car. He told the cabbie where to go, then turned back to the Doctor. "We're going to find you." He closed the door sharply without taking his eyes off the man.

Sherlock had a lot of explaining to do.