Part One

"It's so much paper."

"Counsellor, that's what being on Earth is all about."

"What, the squandering of natural resources to prove you are who you are?" She flipped her passport open and showed Jack Harkness the photo he knew far too well already; after all, variations of it appeared on her newly-minted Washington state driver's license, English visa, and various other identifying documents granting her clearance to various governmental offices. "These photos – what happens if I regenerate? Do I have to kill a few more trees?"

"Probably."

She sighed and shoved all of her documentation into a file. "I'm not convinced that this is even necessary."

"You're going to be sharing a flat in London with the infamous Sherlock Holmes," Jack explained again, the patience in his voice wearing a bit thin. "People are going to be asking about you. You have to at least pretend to be human."

"Why?"

"Because, as the Doctor proved several times over, the world is not ready to have an alien strutting around solving crimes."

The Counsellor pointed to where Sherlock was sitting uncomfortably across from his brother Mycroft. "If they can put up with him, they can put up with me."

"You know that's different."

"Not that different."

Jack sighed. "If they find out who and what you are, the race will be on to drain you of your blood and dissect your body. The human race is still pretty savage when it comes to how we try to understand things."

"But –"

"Please," he said, reaching across the table and taking her hand. "Do this. For me." He reached into the file and pulled out a diploma. "Look, we even gave you a college degree."

"Yes, and a name. Astrid Smith. Fantastic."

"You gave yourself that name. I heard it with my own ears."

She sat back in a huff. Jack thought she might have been one of the most difficult creatures he'd ever met. No amount of charm worked on her, not even his, and that was – well, he'd seldom met a creature, human or alien, who could withstand his considerable charm. He often thought of it as his superpower.

Before he was able to get too upset over his failure to sway her to his point of view, he felt an odd rush of calm move through his system. The Doctor had told him, Martha, and Mickey about his ex-wife's talents, of course, but feeling it happen to him first-hand was something else entirely. He looked over at her and caught her eye. She smiled at him. "I meant no disrespect, Captain Harkness. I am grateful for your assistance."

He nodded. "You have my contact info. Let me know if you need anything else from Torchwood."

She nodded. "Of course."

Sherlock sensed the change in conversation from where he sat in Mycroft's office and rose. "Are we off, then?"

"Yes," the Counsellor agreed. "So much to do."

They walked out together, hand-in-hand.

Jack saw Mycroft flinch at the contact. "Are you okay?"

Mycroft frowned. "Me? Never better. But I am going to institute an aggressive surveillance schedule for those two."

Jack smiled. "And what do you think that might accomplish? We already have telepath sensors planted all over London."

"Let's just say it will be my own personal curiosity."

"Sounds dangerously like voyeurism." Jack shifted his stance. He was done here. "Have your agents escorted Dr. Jones-Smith and her family back to their home in York?"

Mycroft hummed his assent, distracted. He had turned to watch his brother and the Counsellor enter the bustling London streets together.

"We'll be in touch, Mr. Holmes."

That got Mycroft's attention. "What? Why? I thought our business was concluded."

Jack shrugged back into his military coat. "On the contrary. Your brother is in the custody of one of the only plain-clothes aliens on Earth. He is very much our business now, and, by extension, so are you." He gave the elder Holmes brother a curt nod. "Afternoon."

For some reason, Captain Jack Harkness enjoyed the look of consternation on Mycroft's face as he left.

Part Two

"Victim is from Dublin, male, middle-aged, right-handed, and a writer. He prefers using pen-and-ink over a computer; you can tell that from the indentation on his middle finger where he rests the pen he's writing with. He's been in London for approximately one week judging by the laundry in his suitcase. I doubt he had a mobile phone – did you find one?"

Lestrade frowned. He was staring at Sherlock's new "colleague," a pretty woman of about thirty-two years of age with odd ginger-and-ash hair and pretty blue eyes. He couldn't stop staring at her. She had the kind of face and figure that attracted attention.

"Lestrade!"

"Yes, what?"

"Mobile? Did he have a mobile phone?"

Lestrade looked around the crime scene, flustered. Donovan was smirking at him. "Did anyone find a mobile phone here?" he asked.

"No," she answered. She was standing near the woman, sizing her up, evaluating her as competition like all women did. Strangely she seemed to be aware she was being scrutinized. She turned and gave Donovan an open look, eyebrows raised.

"And who are you?" Donovan asked her.

"I'm the Counsellor," she answered smartly.

"The Counsellor?" Sally Donovan asked in her snarkiest tone. She pointed at Sherlock, who was still crouched over the corpse, trying to divine more clues from the minutiae. "His counselor?"

"Funny. You think you're funny." The woman calling herself the Counsellor approached Donovan and narrowed her eyes at her. Her voice suddenly emulated the quick, efficient delivery Lestrade had most often heard from her companion. "You want everyone to think you're clever, don't you? But you're deeply insecure because deep down inside, you know you aren't clever. You're remarkably average, and you strike out at any and everyone who reminds you of that. Because of that you call anyone who's better than you freaks and frauds. You did that to Sherlock, once so thoroughly that he had to fake his own death to save the lives of his own friends." She stepped even closer to Donovan, right into her personal space, and tapped her chest with one well-manicured finger. "Listen to me, little Sally Donovan: if you do that to him ever again, I will make your life a living hell. Do you understand me?"

"Are you threatening me?"

"Yes."

"Counsellor." Sherlock's voice was a low rumble. "That's enough." Lestrade wasn't a genius at observation, not like Sherlock, but there was no way to miss the smirk on his face.

"She's threatened me," Donovan said, turning to Lestrade. "And you're going to let her –"

"Donovan, just stop," he said with a grumble. "You tend to be petty, and you know it." He held up a hand to silence her outrage. "And you were wrong about Moriarty."

The room was filled with a suffocating tension – and then, suddenly, it wasn't. He cast his eyes over to Sherlock's new friend and saw a serene smile on her face. It was directed at him.

Sherlock approached him, holding up a folded slip of paper. "This was in the victim's pocket," he announced, handing Lestrade the paper. He opened it and saw a series of numbers scrawled on the inside. "He wrote that."

"And what is it?"

"My guess is it's a house number and a gate access code, followed by a phone number."

"But no words."

"No need." Sherlock leaned back on his heels. "He was a writer, had a way with words, perhaps even had mnemonic devices to keep words sorted in his mind. All he would need are the numbers. Trace the phone number."

Lestrade nodded. "Right."

Sherlock leaned even closer, his voice pitched to a whisper for confidentiality's sake. "Don't develop any infatuations, Greg. She'll break your heart." Sherlock leaned back and gave him a wide smile, then approached his new "colleague," took her hand in his, and strode away from the crime scene.

Part Three

Sherlock stepped out of the structure that looked like nothing more than a wardrobe. He was cross as he paced the large unused bedroom in the flat he now shared with the Counsellor.

"If you had just rearmed my key, we wouldn't have had such a difficult time with the Cybermen."

The Counsellor followed him out, laughing. "Oh, please. It was more fun this way."

"Fun? They could have killed me. Do you find putting me in immediate danger fun?"

She stopped laughing, crossed her arms, and stared at him. He stared back.

The giggles built to guffaws. They both knew the answer. Immediate danger was how she kept his frantic brain busy between cases. Dragging him all over the cosmos, seeking out thrill after thrill – she knew it was what he wanted. It was more than good.

It was perfect.

She drew closer to him and took his hand in hers.

So, a text from Lestrade.

Yes.

Serial killer.

Yes.

Why did we come back to the flat first? Why didn't we just take the TARDIS to the crime scene?

He frowned at her. They'll start to notice if we don't at least sometimes arrive in a cab.

She rolled her eyes. Ugh. Cabs. Cabs are boring.

He grinned at her and pulled her by the hand out of the wardrobe/TARDIS room and down the stairs to the street.

Part Four

Are you bored yet? -SH

Sherlock reviewed this old text message, still sitting in his draft messages on his mobile phone. The Counsellor had copied every detail from his old phone to this one, even this draft, this ugly little reminder of how desperately lonely he'd been just a few months before. He thought about his old friend, John Watson. He couldn't help but think of him. John was a bittersweet space in his mind, the first person he'd considered a true friend, and if he was being honest, he considered him a true friend even now.

You were the blueprint, he thought to himself, quietly contemplating the fate of this text message. You taught me the start of what I needed.

He looked over at the newspaper sitting on the table next to him in the room he thought of as the Phantom Baker Street. A flat within a spaceship within a flat, he thought. He'd brought the newspaper in from the outside. It was open to the obituaries.

MARY MORSTAN-WATSON, 33, WIFE OF DR. JOHN H. WATSON. Found by her husband dead at home late Tuesday night, victim of an apparent fall from the top floor of their building.

He scanned the rest of the article, noting the tactful omission of the assumption that she'd committed suicide. The Counsellor's footfalls announced her arrival to this echo of Baker Street. She sat on the sofa, tactfully avoiding John's chair.

After several moments, she said a simple three words:

"Go to him."

I don't know if I'd be welcome.

"He's your friend."

I tried to stop them, stop their relationship.

"It's what friends do."

Sherlock's thoughts were a jumble. He couldn't focus.

"There's always room here for one more."

His eyes darted to her. Once again she'd gotten to the heart of it; what place for John Watson, all alone in the world again?

Are you sure?

"If you are, I am. Anyone important to you is important to me. Just . . .be sure to warn him not to become attached to me." She winked, rose, and left.

Sherlock considered the text message again, then quickly backspaced over the impertinent words and typed a new message:

Tell me where we can meet. I'm sorry, John. –SH

SEND.

-END-

(for now)