Sherlock was arranged by Victor, led by his shoulder towards a chair in the middle of the room. This observation room must have been much bigger, for the voices seemed to stretch from many distant corners. As he sat Sherlock settled his headband upon his head, removing his sunglasses and allowing the filters to show him the very distant past. To his left he could see Victor, the man craning his neck and searching around the room for faces of recognized colleagues. To his right there were two empty seats, the pattern interrupted by an unrecognizable scientist. Sherlock leaned closer to Victor, wary of new faces. The room was just as big as he had assumed, about the size of a small auditorium and filled almost to capacity. The scientists who could not find a seat had taken to standing in the back, their arms crossed across their lab coats with looks of concentration upon their faces. In the front, where all gazes were now fixed, was a large sheet of thick glass separating them from the time machine. As it stood it did not look much different than Jon's last machine. It would seem as though all futuristic devices came in large metallic boxes. This one blinked all the same colors, though it was a bit smaller than the last. Perhaps John had taken to perfecting time science, and therefore was able to do it on a much smaller scale. Sherlock was the last to react when Professor Moriarty appeared within the room, perhaps because he only saw the man thirty seconds after his grand entrance. After Sherlock's reaction was poorly timed Victor took to narrating, figuring this was too important a moment to be lived thirty seconds too late.
"Moriarty has a key pad. He just sent for the volunteers. John's leading, with two others. They're wearing suits, old ones. Fifties style, I suppose."
"How does he look?" Sherlock wondered.
"Oh shut up." Victor snarled, slapping Sherlock's hand off of his own and sitting back deeper into his chair. "They're lining up against the wall."
"Like an execution." Sherlock whispered. Only now was he able to see John leading the parade, looking sharp and handsome in an orange suit trimmed with red. It was an obnoxious style, though the idea was supposedly to fit in wherever they appeared. Sherlock held his breath, hating to watch that beautiful face look towards the machine it had created. The glass must have been one way, for if Sherlock had been able to catch John's eyes he may have forced the man to make some sort of sappy goodbye speech. For now Sherlock knotted his ankles underneath his chair, taking a deep inhale of breath and fighting with the curls that were sticking out at awkward angles from beneath his headband. He was looking upon his lover for the last time; at least he tried to convince himself of the fact. He tried to prepare for the worst.
"They're speaking." Victor added, as if he figured his reports had not been consistent enough.
"They're going to die." Sherlock promised. "I'm never going to see him again."
"That's no way to talk." Victor scolded. "Now...now Moriarty is pressing a button. He just gave the remote to John. He's stepping aside, he went back out the door."
"Perhaps the whole room is going?" Sherlock suggested. "Desk chairs and everything."
"John's pressing a button. I can see him talking. The other two scientists have closed their eyes. They're holding hands. John looks confident."
"I can't watch." Sherlock admitted, closing his eyes to block out a scene he most wanted to avoid. It was a terrible choice, having to pick whether or not he wanted to witness John's disappearance thirty seconds after the rest of the room. If they all began to scream would it be possible to keep his eyes open? Or should he flip to the other visor now, and avoid seeing John's face one last time? Sherlock opened his eyes just long enough to watch John get handed the remote. He took in his face, perhaps for the last time. He observed the most beautiful eyes, that confidence that looked so brave in comparison to his cowering companions. That short frame, that impressive brain. Those lips which were now pursed, once so familiar. Sherlock remembered every detail of his Doctor. Then he shut his eyes, and switched screens.
"John pressed a button." Victor announced, his commentary only just preceding a loud humming coming from the other side of the glass. Sherlock was watching the fifties, watching an empty field. The agency had not been built in this time, and so besides the occasional crow he saw no movement. The machine, which was loud on the other side of the thick glass, must have been deafening for the scientists inside.
"John's saying something. He's...ah! A bright flash!" Victor's last words were caught within a gasp from the audience. Sherlock could hear their feet supporting weight; he could hear the floor creaking with the sudden impact. "They're gone, they're gone! No blood, no mess!" Victor added, grabbing Sherlock's wrist and yanking the boy involuntarily to his feet.
"Sherlock, can you see them?" Victor asked anxiously, wiggling Sherlock until he cooperated.
"No, nothing." Sherlock said truthfully. "John said this was the time zone he was going to, but he's not here."
"Are they lost?" another voice asked from behind, suddenly catching onto the fact that Sherlock was their only live commentator.
"I don't know." Sherlock admitted. "I don't know if they have to travel through any more time to get to the fifties. I don't know anything about this!"
"Look closer." Another begged.
"I'm looking as hard as I can!" Sherlock growled in defense, trying to swat off the consistent pestering from where h could hear it most.
"Moriarty is back!" Victor interrupted, drawing everyone's attention back to the room they were meant to be observing. Despite this interruption Sherlock could still feel the pressure of proximity, the whole of the room drawing close to him, suffocating him as they drew nearer.
"He's checking the dials." Victor added. "He looks pleased."
"Then where..." Sherlock stepped closer, nearly bumping into the glass if an unknown hand had not grabbed at his collar and pulled him back in defense. He searched aimlessly, turning around and around, looking for anything which might have been human. Where had John gone, if not in the present, if not in the past? Was he trapped somewhere in the middle, and if so, could Moriarty ever get him back?
"He's pressed a button. The remote is gone but there's something on the machine." Victor explained. Sherlock gritted his teeth, waiting for the moment the trio appeared within his view. He wasn't sure how long time travel was supposed to take; there was no rule book, no precedent to follow. Perhaps John and his companions were stuck in the middle, somewhere severed between the seconds that separated them from their destination. If so, they were ruined. Perhaps they really had appeared within the fifties, a piece so small from each that it was undetectable by his human eye. Perhaps a single cell from each had appeared within their designated destination, one which had dropped unceremoniously to the dirt in a spectacle so negligible Sherlock would never notice its arrival. Sherlock prepared for the worst. The machine's loud humming began again, this time with Moriarty staying on a designated side of the room. He was watching the wall where the travelers had last stood, waiting for them to appear once again. Sherlock hadn't switched his visors; he was still waiting on his own appearance. The room was silent, though Sherlock expected that to change. As of now they were holding their breaths, though when their lungs finally gave out they would begin to ask questions. If the travelers failed to appear within either time zone there would be plenty of inquiries going around. If they showed up bloody and battered there would be screams. The only thing that could not persist was this silence. The humming continued, like background music to the most dreadful affair.
"Anything?" Sherlock wondered, tugging on Victor's sleeve after some moments of pawing around in search for it.
"Nothing. And you?" Victor repeated.
"I don't see them. I'm starting to worry they're lost." He admitted mournfully.
"How long will it take for this machine to bring them back?" one of the scientists complained.
"Weren't you all the ones building the thing? Shouldn't you be asking yourself these questions before making us worry?" Sherlock snarled, turning back blindly to confront the location of the voice. He was getting better at the death stares, even through blindness. His hearing was beginning to serve him better as compensation. There was no response, which was probably for the better. The machine continued to hum long after the audience had taken their seat. Sherlock was the first to sit, or rather the first to give up. His knees gave out and he fell heavily into his chair, nearly toppling over had Victor not reached a firm hand out to steady him. Sherlock's view of the empty fifties became obscured by tears. He kept them quiet, though just as soon as his hope dwindled so too did the rest of the room. They all began their own mourning process, one which started with a much heavier silence. One which did not seem to wait on a word, rather one that existed in the absence of one.
"All hope is not lost." Victor assured prematurely. "Perhaps it takes longer than we thought."
"What's Moriarty doing?" Sherlock wondered.
"He's reading dials." Victor admitted.
"How is his face? Upset, anxious?"
"His hands are twisting." Victor commented. "Though he's always been one to fidget. I can't swear it's uncharacteristic."
"He must realize it's over." Sherlock grumbled. He eased the fifties visor back over top of his head, pushing the most recent film over his eyes to study the mannerisms of the scientist behind the glass. Sherlock stared through a lens that only John Watson could make, a forever prototype. It was handcrafted by his most careful hands, those that worked so hard but were smooth as satin; a hand which could curve and cradle every one of Sherlock's jagged edges. The boy tried to hold back his agony; he thought he had prepared himself for this heart wrenching show of failure. But how could you prepare yourself for such a thing, the complete erasure of a man who meant so much? It was meant to happen, it was destined to. Everyone knew this trip would be suicide. John knew this, too. Sherlock hoped they were already engraving that ridiculous plaque in his honor. In the end it would be the only gravestone he ever received. 

The agency was in a standstill for the days that followed. Not only were they unwilling to turn off the machine, some were still unwilling to give up hope. Instead of progressing into the new age, the scientists began corralling around the machine, laying flowers by it, holding candlelight vigils in an attempt to contact the travelers who were still lost within the monotonous hums. There was a general stagnation, one which must have been a mandatory mourning process. Not only did the agency not know how to progress, in the end they did not have their ringleader to steer them towards their goals. John Watson, the absolute fool had sacrificed himself in a prototype test run. He had abandoned his team, abandoned his mission, and in the end abandoned the boy he had claimed to care the most about. He had abandoned Sherlock Holmes, left him for a time period that even Sherlock could not pick out. The boy took to using the fifties filter for his day to day life. He walked the halls, searching the faces for any that might look out of place. He searched the labs, those which were now empty of any real work. He sat for hours in the observation room, watching that ridiculous blinking machine, watching as it tried and failed to bring back the man who mattered most. Occasionally a scientist would come to fiddle with the device, Sherlock could hear clangs and bangs overtop of his meditation. But nothing stopped the humming; no one dared pull the plug. Perhaps it was a lot of work for that silly device to produce the travelers into the present moment. Perhaps it had to convert them, cell by cell, into a more transferable form. Sherlock hated hope, he hated it even more than this sinking agony. He wanted to lose hope completely, to let it fade away and allow the grief to sink rightfully in. There was something agonizing about the inability to let go, to continually promise yourself this was not the end. As much as he tried to prepare for this very moment, Sherlock simply couldn't allow himself to give up. That little spark of hope that was now no more than smoldering embers was enough to prevent him from entering into a healthy stage of grief. Instead he was holding on, the equivalent of clinging to a string of yarn that was continually unraveling, until he was holding only fibers in his clenched fingers. Fibers that, due to his unintentional determination, he would hold onto until the very end.
"He never cleared that headband with me, you know?" asked a familiar voice, one approaching from behind. Sherlock didn't bother to turn. This place was crawling with enemies, to the point where he cared not identify which one had cornered him this time.
"He had a way of hiding things, important things." Sherlock admitted miserably. "This being one of them. This trip being another."
"He's been a dreamer, Sherlock. I'm not sure anyone could have prevented him from going along. Not even you, as it turns out." Moriarty's voice seemed deeply sarcastic, as if he was talking with more knowledge than he had been permitted to have. It only made sense that he knew about their relationship. It was fitting that nothing could be hidden from the man who ruled them all.
"Why have you left it running?" Sherlock demanded, turning towards the Doctor's voice without knowing exactly where to set his eyes. He may have been staring over the man's shoulder, or perhaps making very solid eye contact with his neck. Either way he tried to be serious, he tried to compose himself. And yet Sherlock didn't like to speak about John in the past tense, as if his erasure from this time period had guaranteed his erasure from the present moment.
"Because people will notice when it stops. So long as they hear that hum they'll keep the dream alive. The moment it fades they'll realize that the effort of time exploration is a costly one, ultimately a deadly one." Moriarty explained.
"So you'll keep it running forever?"
"For as long as it needs to run. Until they forget about its significance."
"They'll notice it stopped." Sherlock warned.
"Just as one notices when the air conditioners stop. It's a fraction of a second, a meaningless conclusion. Something like that fades away, and your mind returns to work." Moriarty promised.
"Do you think they're dead?" Sherlock wondered. The Doctor sighed, his footsteps leading him towards the chair closest to Sherlock's dangling right hand. Moriarty took that hand up, folding it carefully between his unnaturally cold fingers. Perhaps it was his way of delivering bad news, as if he imagined some more human contact would help to ease the blow.
"I think they're lost." He admitted. "Though in our understanding of time that might be as good as dead."
"Is there any way to get them out? Before they starve, before..." Sherlock left his question hanging, unable to produce any other worse case scenarios. He knew what it was like to be drifting between timelines, to be filtered through the universe like tumble weed. That was Mycroft's current fate, belonging neither to the past nor future, having to find the exact moment of time that served as the present.
"I'm not sure there's anything left to do. I wish them the best of luck; I wish them the ability to find their way back to us. But Sherlock...I suppose it is time to start letting go. To start getting back to work." Moriarty suggested.
"What are you coming to me about that for? I haven't got a real job." Sherlock scoffed.
"That's what I'd like to talk to you about, of course." Moriarty mumbled. Sherlock recoiled, finally pulling his hand away from the snakelike fingers that were currently encircling it. This man felt less than human, his voice sounded like a hiss when it went so deep, so serious.
"I'd like you to take John Watson's place." Moriarty admitted at last. "I think, besides him, you are the one who best understands time. Our scientists are good with their hands; they're good with their minds. But conceptually they're...well they're lacking. You understand time because you've seen it. You're the only one to even realize the problem this machine and its travelers are facing. To our scientist there is now and there is later. Time is events, years, dates. It's not seconds, moments. They can't imagine what space there is to get lost, and just how difficult this science really is."
"So you want me to...to what exactly? Explain that to them?" Sherlock mattered.
"Rather to motivate them to understand it. Somehow we need to conceptualize it, rationalize it, and calculate it." Moriarty explained.
"You want me to take over John's job, even when we've not yet given up on him?" Sherlock clarified.
"The administration has decided that three days has been long enough." Moriarty admitted. "While the scientists have not yet lost faith, well, we at the top must be rational."
"How long did it take the mice to return?"
"Oh about...well perhaps a minute." Moriarty admitted.
"So what's to say there's not some sort of size difference?" Sherlock suggested. "If it worked on the mice then is must work on humans as well."
"There's a difference in DNA, Sherlock. Not everything travels just the same."
"And how would you know that?"
"I've conceptualized it, of course." The Doctor explained. "I figure that, given the degraded particles' effect on DNA, genetics has to play some part. Perhaps there are certain strands that are better at traveling than others. Mice, with their resilience, might have put up with the transition better."
"John had mentioned something like that. Not about the mice, but rather about DNA. He said that's why my brother was being tested so heavily, that they thought his blood was made of something better. That he was in some ways better adjusted to time, a child of it, so to speak."
"Yes." Moriarty agreed. "You are both blessed with a genetic makeup that makes you invaluable. So much so that I forbid you to take any steps closer to that machine."
"Doctor, if there's a chance that I could travel through, if there's a chance I could get them out..."
"That chance is one in a million, Sherlock! And the chances of your destruction make up the rest of the nine hundred thousand!"
"I like those odds!" Sherlock insisted.
"I cannot lose my two most important players to one fatal mistake. I should never have allowed John Watson to participate, and with that wisdom I absolutely forbid you from playing with time any more than I allow." Moriarty warned.
"I'm willing to die if it will be of some benefit." Sherlock promised.
"It will be of no benefit. Sunk costs, Mr. Holmes. It's an economic term, boiling down to the idea that one should leave behind what they lost. There is no hope trying to salvage anything that is already lost. No point holding it into the equation and slowing down the future progression."
"In some ways I imagined you could not grow more inhumane. But, Doctor, I seem to be unable to distinguish you from that box that now hums in the corner."
"Sherlock, let it go. Let him go, and whatever silly attachments you had."
"I'm afraid I cannot." Sherlock admitted, rising to his feet in some determination. "And on the basis of your job offer, I refuse to take on a position that is not available. John Watson still holds the title, and until I know in my heart that he is lost to us I will refuse any replacement."
"Someday you'll learn to think logically, Mr. Holmes. But until then you'll be a fool." Moriarty warned.

"Better a fool than a machine." Sherlock defended, turning on his heel and marching as best he could through the door, kicking his feet out in an awkward walk to make sure he did not collide with a chair and ruin his most dramatic exit.