[Muses Gone Wild] March Response #85
Mar. 31st, 2008 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
his_sarah_jane85. Replacement - Take your favorite scene from a movie, television show, historical event and put your muse there instead. How is it different? What stays the same?
In the end, she wonders if it was all worth it.
“If I fell in love with you…” she sings under her breath as she enters the apartment. She’s nearly nineteen now. The Greenwich Village apartment hasn’t changed in the months since John had left. Yet, Sarah Jane knows that she’s changed implicitly. “…would you promise to be true? And help me understand?”
Gone is the idealistic youth she had been. The girl that had achieved her dream of attending Columbia University’s journalism program vanished before she had even met him. Memories fly by in quick succession: Andrew fleeing to Canada to escape the draft, Aunt Lavinia siding with him, Sarah losing her patience for cowards that did nothing as people died, Max taking her in, meeting his new friend - the mysterious Doctor John Smith, falling in love, falling far too deep into the protest against the American incursion in Vietnam...
She sighs against the door, staring at the emptiness. This apartment had never meant to be for a single individual. All the songs and all the words and all the art in the world can’t fill it, not as long as the memories are there.
He had grown sick of the protest. He had grown sick of the war and, as he had put it, ‘sick of mankind acting like a bunch of bloody Daleks.’ She didn’t understand what he had meant then. All she can remember is John, furious in a way she had never seen him before, barging into the Students for a Democratic Revolution headquarters, yelling and ranting about pointless revolution. His brown eyes were darker that night than they had ever been.
Sighing again, Sarah knocks her head against the door. Eyes close to fight the tears that escape anyway. She bites down on her lip, wishing and praying that the feeling would go away. The fight has started to leave her, piece by piece. SDR is building bombs – they aren’t supposed to build bombs. They aren’t the institution. John had disappeared from the face of the world, or back to merry old England, whichever she ought to believe. She’s alone.
“Cause I've been in love before and I found that love was more than just holding hands,” she continues, sobbing between words. Sarah Jane sinks to the floor, hands covering her face and knees pressed to her chest. He would be happy: she’s stopped crusading. Ever since John left, her life revolves around visiting the wounded, Max especially. Since then, she’s been…
…empty.
It’s not her. She can’t live like this. Everyone else has moved on, but she seems stuck. Stuck in this fucking rut, so lost without a cause in which to feed her passion. Protests go on without her. Songs still play.
Sarah wipes at her hands, choking back another sob. Softly at first, her voice steadily rises in volume: “If I trust in you, oh please don't run and hide.”
She places a hand on the floor to push her up from the ground. Fingers touch unfamiliar paper. It’s an envelope with the name Sarah Jane written on it in a familiar script. Her hearts skips a beat as she opens it. This evening, 5 pm, Waverly and 5th. Her heart skips another beat and she begins to walk to the window, confident and hopeful. Months of suppressed passion burst from her chest. Oh, she can tackle anything now. She can’t change the world, but she can do her damndest to try and right any wrong.
“If I love you too, oh please,” Sarah Jane sings, opening the shutter and addressing the world. She leans on the ledge, genuine smile on her face. “Don't hurt my pride like her 'cause I couldn't stand the pain. And I would be sad if our new love was in vain.”
***
It looks like the proper address. A glance at her watch tells her that it’s the right time. The wind whips her hair around her head and flutters the lose edges of her cotton hooded jacket. She can hear singing in the air: familiar voices, Sadie and JoJo. A crowd has formed and she laughs. At the corner opposite the address she had been given, Sarah Jane Smith stands there and laughs. The music is beautiful. The sheer happiness of this moment is more wonderful than anything she can imagine.
There isn’t any hate here. No war or violence or greed or suffering. People flock to the street corner in curiosity. They stay because they’re enchanted by the sound.
Once Sarah recovers her bearings, she rushes across the street. It isn’t difficult for her to push her way through the crowd. The storefront, the one on her address, has a sign flapping in the wind. When she gets close enough to see it properly, her smile widens. She recognizes it. After all, John had only talked about her (and Sarah knows it’s a her because if she ever said otherwise, John would correct her) on and on in those fantasy stories of his. The stories he told of travelling across the universe as an exile and as an adventurer. Travels, he would say, that stopped when he laid eyes on an exuberant young protestor.
It’s that daft police box on the sign. There aren’t any words to accompany it and, even though the curtains are drawn in the windows, Sarah Jane is certain that she’s in the right place. Then? Then the door won’t open. She tries again and again as Sadie and JoJo croon above the city, but it doesn’t work. It really is locked.
Quickly, Sarah turns to face the crowd. Maybe he’s here, hiding in plain sight like he so often did. Desperately, she searches for the familiar head of floppy brown hair, the silly suit, and completely mismatched red sneakers. She doesn’t have any luck. None at all. Sarah Jane should have known better when she had caught Paco making the bomb. It is nearly the end of the decade. With it ought to be the end of her childish hope.
The police come rushing in, ready to stop a possible protest in the making – public disturbance in the form of song. Sarah ignores them as they hurry by her. She should have known better. John had never lived up to his promises before. Everything she has given up in the past two years… to make a difference, to be worthy of John’s love, it all seems ridiculous right now.
There are tears in her eyes as she walks away. The tears are there minutes later when a new voice echoes above the crowd.
“There's nothing you can do that can't be done.” The voice is hesitant but strong. There’s another tap of the microphone before he continues. “Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy.”
It’s not JoJo singing and it’s certainly not Sadie. Slowly, so slow that time seems to come to a standstill, Sarah turns around. She cranes her neck upward and shields her eyes from the sun. There he is. John, her Doctor John Smith, standing awkwardly on the roof with the microphone in hand.
“There's nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time.”
In an instant, she knows what she has to do. Sarah Jane runs back into the crowd. She has to get up there, she has to find him and tell him how much she loves him and how much she’s missed him. But she’s stopped. The moments she had spent walking away were moments better spent by the police in forming a barricade. Sarah looks up at the sergeant, pleading as Sadie and JoJo join in chorus.
“All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love, love is all you need.”
“Please,” Sarah begs. “I have to get up there.”
The sergeant shakes her head and for a moment, Sarah considers trying to break through the line of officers and find a way into the building. But memories of protests are still strong in her head. She’s never been strong enough to fight off more than one person at a time. Frowning in determination, she backs away. She can’t give up now; it goes against everything they both believe in.
And there it is. With all the attention caught up with that one building, all the surrounding ones are left alone. And when a young mother, clutching a child in her hand, walks out of one apartment building, Sarah Jane seizes her opportunity. She sprints towards the opened door and manages to catch it before it closes.
The music fades as she runs up the stairs. When she emerges, it’s to a chorus of the word love echoing over the New York skyline. For a few seconds, Sarah Jane pauses to catch her breath. From there, she can see more police on the adjacent roof below her. To her surprise, they patiently wait for John to finish his song.
“There's nothing you can know that isn't known. Nothing you can see that isn't shown.”
“John!” Sarah Jane waves frantically from the edge of the roof, laughing and smiling. “Oh, John!”
“Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be,” John sings as he catches her eye. A manic, joyous smile spreads across his own features before he passes the microphone to Prudence, whispers of “It’s easy” lingering.
Sarah watches as he disappears behind a water tower. A small frown appears on her face when he doesn’t return out into the open. He hadn’t gone to the stairs and she is more than certain there isn’t any ladder connecting the two buildings. The frown turns into lip biting as she takes a breath, trying to distract herself by watching Sadie and JoJo finish the song John had started.
Vrhoom, vrhoom, vrhoom.
The alien sound is loud enough to catch Sarah Jane’s attention. She whirls around, ready to explain her way off of the roof. But it isn’t an officer that stands in front of her. It’s a blue police box, just like on the sign downstairs. And John stands in front of it, hand outstretched.
“Come with me,” he says softly, barely audible above the music. “There’s so much more we can do together out there. I’ll never leave you again, Sarah Jane.”
With a small smile and with warmth in her eyes, she nods.
[ooc: based on across the universe. lyrics for "if i fall" and "all you need is love" by the beatles included in word count because the mun is lazy.]
In the end, she wonders if it was all worth it.
“If I fell in love with you…” she sings under her breath as she enters the apartment. She’s nearly nineteen now. The Greenwich Village apartment hasn’t changed in the months since John had left. Yet, Sarah Jane knows that she’s changed implicitly. “…would you promise to be true? And help me understand?”
Gone is the idealistic youth she had been. The girl that had achieved her dream of attending Columbia University’s journalism program vanished before she had even met him. Memories fly by in quick succession: Andrew fleeing to Canada to escape the draft, Aunt Lavinia siding with him, Sarah losing her patience for cowards that did nothing as people died, Max taking her in, meeting his new friend - the mysterious Doctor John Smith, falling in love, falling far too deep into the protest against the American incursion in Vietnam...
She sighs against the door, staring at the emptiness. This apartment had never meant to be for a single individual. All the songs and all the words and all the art in the world can’t fill it, not as long as the memories are there.
He had grown sick of the protest. He had grown sick of the war and, as he had put it, ‘sick of mankind acting like a bunch of bloody Daleks.’ She didn’t understand what he had meant then. All she can remember is John, furious in a way she had never seen him before, barging into the Students for a Democratic Revolution headquarters, yelling and ranting about pointless revolution. His brown eyes were darker that night than they had ever been.
Sighing again, Sarah knocks her head against the door. Eyes close to fight the tears that escape anyway. She bites down on her lip, wishing and praying that the feeling would go away. The fight has started to leave her, piece by piece. SDR is building bombs – they aren’t supposed to build bombs. They aren’t the institution. John had disappeared from the face of the world, or back to merry old England, whichever she ought to believe. She’s alone.
“Cause I've been in love before and I found that love was more than just holding hands,” she continues, sobbing between words. Sarah Jane sinks to the floor, hands covering her face and knees pressed to her chest. He would be happy: she’s stopped crusading. Ever since John left, her life revolves around visiting the wounded, Max especially. Since then, she’s been…
…empty.
It’s not her. She can’t live like this. Everyone else has moved on, but she seems stuck. Stuck in this fucking rut, so lost without a cause in which to feed her passion. Protests go on without her. Songs still play.
Sarah wipes at her hands, choking back another sob. Softly at first, her voice steadily rises in volume: “If I trust in you, oh please don't run and hide.”
She places a hand on the floor to push her up from the ground. Fingers touch unfamiliar paper. It’s an envelope with the name Sarah Jane written on it in a familiar script. Her hearts skips a beat as she opens it. This evening, 5 pm, Waverly and 5th. Her heart skips another beat and she begins to walk to the window, confident and hopeful. Months of suppressed passion burst from her chest. Oh, she can tackle anything now. She can’t change the world, but she can do her damndest to try and right any wrong.
“If I love you too, oh please,” Sarah Jane sings, opening the shutter and addressing the world. She leans on the ledge, genuine smile on her face. “Don't hurt my pride like her 'cause I couldn't stand the pain. And I would be sad if our new love was in vain.”
***
It looks like the proper address. A glance at her watch tells her that it’s the right time. The wind whips her hair around her head and flutters the lose edges of her cotton hooded jacket. She can hear singing in the air: familiar voices, Sadie and JoJo. A crowd has formed and she laughs. At the corner opposite the address she had been given, Sarah Jane Smith stands there and laughs. The music is beautiful. The sheer happiness of this moment is more wonderful than anything she can imagine.
There isn’t any hate here. No war or violence or greed or suffering. People flock to the street corner in curiosity. They stay because they’re enchanted by the sound.
Once Sarah recovers her bearings, she rushes across the street. It isn’t difficult for her to push her way through the crowd. The storefront, the one on her address, has a sign flapping in the wind. When she gets close enough to see it properly, her smile widens. She recognizes it. After all, John had only talked about her (and Sarah knows it’s a her because if she ever said otherwise, John would correct her) on and on in those fantasy stories of his. The stories he told of travelling across the universe as an exile and as an adventurer. Travels, he would say, that stopped when he laid eyes on an exuberant young protestor.
It’s that daft police box on the sign. There aren’t any words to accompany it and, even though the curtains are drawn in the windows, Sarah Jane is certain that she’s in the right place. Then? Then the door won’t open. She tries again and again as Sadie and JoJo croon above the city, but it doesn’t work. It really is locked.
Quickly, Sarah turns to face the crowd. Maybe he’s here, hiding in plain sight like he so often did. Desperately, she searches for the familiar head of floppy brown hair, the silly suit, and completely mismatched red sneakers. She doesn’t have any luck. None at all. Sarah Jane should have known better when she had caught Paco making the bomb. It is nearly the end of the decade. With it ought to be the end of her childish hope.
The police come rushing in, ready to stop a possible protest in the making – public disturbance in the form of song. Sarah ignores them as they hurry by her. She should have known better. John had never lived up to his promises before. Everything she has given up in the past two years… to make a difference, to be worthy of John’s love, it all seems ridiculous right now.
There are tears in her eyes as she walks away. The tears are there minutes later when a new voice echoes above the crowd.
“There's nothing you can do that can't be done.” The voice is hesitant but strong. There’s another tap of the microphone before he continues. “Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy.”
It’s not JoJo singing and it’s certainly not Sadie. Slowly, so slow that time seems to come to a standstill, Sarah turns around. She cranes her neck upward and shields her eyes from the sun. There he is. John, her Doctor John Smith, standing awkwardly on the roof with the microphone in hand.
“There's nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time.”
In an instant, she knows what she has to do. Sarah Jane runs back into the crowd. She has to get up there, she has to find him and tell him how much she loves him and how much she’s missed him. But she’s stopped. The moments she had spent walking away were moments better spent by the police in forming a barricade. Sarah looks up at the sergeant, pleading as Sadie and JoJo join in chorus.
“All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love, love is all you need.”
“Please,” Sarah begs. “I have to get up there.”
The sergeant shakes her head and for a moment, Sarah considers trying to break through the line of officers and find a way into the building. But memories of protests are still strong in her head. She’s never been strong enough to fight off more than one person at a time. Frowning in determination, she backs away. She can’t give up now; it goes against everything they both believe in.
And there it is. With all the attention caught up with that one building, all the surrounding ones are left alone. And when a young mother, clutching a child in her hand, walks out of one apartment building, Sarah Jane seizes her opportunity. She sprints towards the opened door and manages to catch it before it closes.
The music fades as she runs up the stairs. When she emerges, it’s to a chorus of the word love echoing over the New York skyline. For a few seconds, Sarah Jane pauses to catch her breath. From there, she can see more police on the adjacent roof below her. To her surprise, they patiently wait for John to finish his song.
“There's nothing you can know that isn't known. Nothing you can see that isn't shown.”
“John!” Sarah Jane waves frantically from the edge of the roof, laughing and smiling. “Oh, John!”
“Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be,” John sings as he catches her eye. A manic, joyous smile spreads across his own features before he passes the microphone to Prudence, whispers of “It’s easy” lingering.
Sarah watches as he disappears behind a water tower. A small frown appears on her face when he doesn’t return out into the open. He hadn’t gone to the stairs and she is more than certain there isn’t any ladder connecting the two buildings. The frown turns into lip biting as she takes a breath, trying to distract herself by watching Sadie and JoJo finish the song John had started.
Vrhoom, vrhoom, vrhoom.
The alien sound is loud enough to catch Sarah Jane’s attention. She whirls around, ready to explain her way off of the roof. But it isn’t an officer that stands in front of her. It’s a blue police box, just like on the sign downstairs. And John stands in front of it, hand outstretched.
“Come with me,” he says softly, barely audible above the music. “There’s so much more we can do together out there. I’ll never leave you again, Sarah Jane.”
With a small smile and with warmth in her eyes, she nods.
[ooc: based on across the universe. lyrics for "if i fall" and "all you need is love" by the beatles included in word count because the mun is lazy.]
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Date: 2008-03-31 04:31 am (UTC)