[Shatterverse] A meeting in 1981 London - the normal one.

[his_sarah_jane]

It has been seven months since the Doctor had left her in Aberdeen, Scotland. Since then, Sarah Jane has returned to South Croydon, resumed her job at the Metropolitan, and found life to be utterly dull. Oh, keeping in touch with her friends at UNIT did mean an adventure every now and then, but overall?

It isn't the same. It isn't the same as travelling with him in that daft blue box of his.

Today happens to be Saturday. Clorinda has closed the office and Sarah Jane doesn't have any big case to work on. Aunt Lavinia is a way on a scientific conference and Harry's on some sort of classified mission.

Sarah Jane? Is utterly bored.

And hence wandering through Covent Garden, carrying a purse and (by now) a couple of shopping bags.

Comments

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

It's the children that draw him to this particular patch of London. The children, their laughter, their innocence, and occasionally he just enjoys watching the family units. Mum, Dad and Junior (or however many there are) seated on a blanket, explaining how their week went at high volumn.

Times like these, he misses Susan so much its hard to breath, and the list invariably follows. Ian, Barbara, Jamie, Rose, Martha, Jack and... Sarah Jane.

The man blinks, and watches the young woman's progression down the path just across from him. She's getting closer and paying no attention at all to the people around her. She won't recognize him, new body, blue suit under a trenchcoat, red converse. Not until he steps forward, when she's not five feet away.

"Hello, Sarah Jane."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

She nearly runs into him, caught off guard by the sudden stranger in her path. Sarah looks very much like she did when she left. Maybe her hair has gotten a little longer, but it's still as carefree and wavy as it had been. Her unique fashion sense is still there - peasant blouse and ruffled skirt today. But there's something different about the eyes.

While those brown eyes are alive as they once were, some of the light has gone out. She's searching for something now. Quite clearly searching.

But overall? Sarah is very confused right now. It isn't every day a stranger jumps in to her path, knowing her name.

"Hullo?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

The Doctor would argue that he didn't exactly jump, and besides he was minding his own business until she came along anyway, but since nothing was said out loud - he can't.

"Here, let me get these for you, Sarah Jane."

He leans over, scooping up the two bags that were dropped in her startlement, and then just takesa minute to look at her; really look at her. Maybe a year older than when they parted, give or take a few Terran months.

And her eyes are so sad that he's hard pressed not to hug her.

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

"Excuse me," Sarah snaps, quickly grabbing her bags away from the stranger. "It was kind of you to help, but I'm afraid I don't know you."

Of course, her bags wouldn't have been dropped in the first place if this man hadn't startled her. For that, he gets a glare. She has more important things to attend to. Like... Getting her hair done.

"Now, if you don't mind, I was on my way to something."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

........

Yes, that about sums it up nicely. He watches her in bemusement for a few moments before realizing that she really is walking away, and starts after her. Clearly, with his superior leg length, it doesn't take too long to catch him.

"Sarah Jane! Wait."

The Doctor speeds up until he's shot past her, then turns around and walks backwards in front of her, digging through his trench until he comes up with a small, white bag of ... something.

"Have a jelly baby. Guaranteed to improve your mood."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

The man seems intent on following her. And then, all of the sudden, he says something that really does make her stop dead in her tracks.

She tilts her head and looks at him closely. Sarah Jane is almost convinced that, right now, her heart has stopped. There's a clog of hope in her hart and nothing will return to normal until she knows for sure.

"What did you say?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"I said, would you like a jelly baby? They're not quite as brilliant as bananas, Sarah Jane, but I've noticed that they tend to lift up the spirits you humans keep letting get dragged down."

His brown eyes are twinkling merrily.

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

"Jelly babies are absolutely disgusting," she answers. The sparkle in Sarah's eyes is quickly coming back. Maybe, it seems, that whatever she's been looking for is found.

"I only ever liked them because you offered."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"They most certainly are not," The Doctor proves this by popping a couple into his mouth and making a big show of consuming them. "See? Perfectly fine."

Beat.

"How are you, Sarah Jane?"

His voice is quieter now, expression sobering up. She's his best friend; he's allowed to worry.

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

Sarah wrinkles her nose at that. Those are far too many he's popped into his mouth at once. But then she reaches a hand in to the bag and takes a jellybaby for herself.

"It's been months since you said you would come back." She frowns a little, shuffling her bags in her hands. "I've been waiting. Going on with my life, but still waiting."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

He shakes his head. "You're supposed to go on and have this fantastic life and forget all about the bumbling foot with his little blue box." She gets a fond smile anyway for not doing so, and he will take at least one of those bags now.

"I'm glad you didn't, though. For a minute I was really worried. Might've been an outbreak of something in old London town that creates a sort of amnesia and then where would we have been? Staring at each other like some mannequins in a shop somewhere, looking at one another but not really seeing.

Which would've been terrible," he adds.

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

"I could never forget you, Doctor," Sarah says softly, letting him take one of her bags without a fight this time. "Or that little blue box of yours."

Seven months later and life still isn't the same. She doubts that it can ever go back to what it was before she ever met him, that cranky old man in velvet bossing her about like a maid. It still is amazing how quickly all that changed.

She grins and shrugs. "So you came back, did you?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"I did." Several times in the recent past, but this is the first time he's run into her. Maybe that's why he's draw to this particular park.

Maybe not.

"Still living in the same place?"

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

"That little flat in South Croydon?" Sarah Jane nods. "It seems... well, even smaller than it had been before you regenerated and we barely spent any time on Earth."

Speaking of regenerations... Hesitantly, she reaches a hand out to touch Doctor's cheek.

"How many has it been?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

He stills underneath her hand, though its not quite a flinch.

"Half a dozen."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

She's not happy with that response. It shows by the way her own body tenses and her hand remains hovering by his face.

"Why?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"Life, Sarah Jane. Life and death. The giving of one's life, for the continuation of anothers. Or, conversely, the sacrifice of your own life in exchange for the eridication of an entire species."

And it still didn't work.

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

The eradication of an entire species.

The words almost sound foreign to Sarah Jane's ears. They're not the first time she's heard them, but it is the first time she's heard him say them with such conviction.

Her heart leaps in her chest and her hand finally does move away, stiffly, to her side. Sarah's gaze doesn't break from his, but there's a worry in her eyes. An intuition.

Quietly, "What happened, Doctor?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

He stops walking. Just stops right there in the middle of the pathway, coat fluttering about him like an old flag that doesn't quite know what to do with itself anymore.

Hands in his pockets, or hands loosely at his sides? The Doctor can't quite make up his mind, eventually shoving them into his coat pockets, and watching her face with an expression that she might never have seen on him before.

"They're gone, Sarah Jane. All of them."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

It's an expression that haunts and pains her to look at. Yet, she can't seem to look away. She wants to look away. Oh, she wants to so much if just to escape the sheer agony of his expression.

And finally, after what seems like an eternity, her eyes close and she hugs him tightly. There are no words that will ever express how sorry she feels right now. There are no words that will ever make this right.

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

It takes over a minute for the Doctor to return the gesture, surprised despite himself at her willingness to offer support even after he abandoned her. But, eventually, his arms fold around her as well, and Sarah Jane might hear a low, shaky breath.

She's also correct in assuming there is nothing in the universe to fix this, and he hasn't even let her in on the inescapable fact that it's his fault.

All of it. Two worlds, two species, destroyed, the slaughter of millions, everything rests on his head.

"Sarah Jane."

His best friend.

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

She looks up at him when she hears his name. A small smile makes it's way across her face. It's a sympathetic smile. Sarah pushes back some stray hairs from his face.

"I'm not going to leave you again, Doctor," she says resolutely. "Not after you've gone through all that."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Sarah Jane. But, I will be pathetically grateful for your company until such time as we are have until time to part again."

The Doctor steps back, offering one of his lighter smiles.

"Fancy a trip? Small blue box, nattering old friend, and a chance to see other worlds?"

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

"And an opportunity to show you just how well I can keep this promise?"

Oh, who are they kidding? Of course she'll say yes. Sarah Jane would say yes even before he'd ever bother thinking of asking.

"The months have been far too long without you. Far too long." So she nods and jumps back into his arms, wrapping hers around his neck and hugging him close.

"Yes, Doctor. Yes."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

The intrepid journalist will find the hug returned tenfold, as this incarnation is far more touchy feely than his predecessor.

Once again he steps back, expression measuring as he looks her up and down. Then, a familiar gesture, as he offers a hand.

"Come along then. Planets to save, evil-doers to thwart, trouble to find."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

She accepts his hand willingly, using the other to pick up the shopping bags that had dropped to the ground. For a couple of seconds, Sarah debates calling Clorinda and letting her know that she won't be in to work tomorrow.

The thought is dropped the moment her hand touches his.

"Off we are then," Sarah Jane states jovially, giving their arms a playful swing. She looks up at him, smile still lighting her face. "Think we could finally make it to Florana this time around? I happen to have a new bikini in one of these bags I'm quite looking forward to trying out."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"We can certainly try, Sarah Jane Smith!" She's rewarded with a wide, manic smile, before the Doctor takes off, walking very quickly down the path she just came, before taking a sharp right and plowing down a long, narrow passageway composed almost entirely of shrubbery.

There is a distinct blue box visible after the next right, and that is where he stops long enough to pat his coat pockets down to find the key and get them inside.

The narration will assume it does not have to describe the new interior. Much. See icon for details.

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

Different face and different body. But it's the same manic smile that she had grown accustomed to seeing on a taller, curly haired version of himself.

Her own smile widens when she sees the box. Well, that hasn't changed.

But the inside (as the icon dictates) most certainly has. It's not white anymore. In fact, the TARDIS looks almost more alive than ever.

Sarah drops her bags by the door and squints, tilting her head as she considers the new interior. "It's... well, it's certainly different."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"I needed a change after ... well, after everything. Which I do owe you some sort of explanation for, and you'll get one when it's easier for me to talk about to a person who isn't a stranger, and who hasn't known me as long as you have."

Because it was easier to let things slip to Rose and Martha, even Donna, because he was so anonymous to them. It isn't that simple with his best friend.

"Go on, then. Find a room, I think your old one is still lurking about somewhere, and we'll have a cup of tea when you're settled in."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

As she eyes him, her expression quickly goes from happy to sad frustration. Sarah Jane doesn't understand why he can't talk to her. Did she do something wrong? Was it because of the months that had passed?

Her old room probably was still lurking about. At the very least, she certainly hoped it was. She couldn't imagine ever living in another room. That four post bed was absolutely gorgeous, and her roll-down desk perhaps the most peaceful place on the whole ship.

Still, it could wait a tad longer.

"Doctor? Why can't you tell me?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

The Doctor moves over to the console, twirling bits and pieces, pulling down a lever or two, and then kicking underneath it with a shoe at the end. He's clearly uncomfortable with this subject, and doesn't want to push it any farther than it already is.

"Because you deserve the whole truth and I'm not sure I can talk about all of it right this very minute."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

"Fair enough," she finally says. But it's still not all that settling to her.

Sarah picks up her bags again and smiles. "I suppose I'll be seeing you later for that cuppa. IS the kitchen still in the same place?"

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"That would be lovely, Sarah Jane."

The Doctor glances up from the console, hands falling away from the controls to hide in his pockets.

"No, most of the rooms got themselves switched 'round. Down the main corridor, take a left, then all the way down, take a right, take another right, past the zero room and take a left."

[his-sarah-jane.livejournal.com]

The laugh is surprisingly genuine. "I'll try my best to remember that."

On impulse, Sarah walks over to the Doctor. She stops, stands on her toes, and kisses his cheek lightly. She's home. And she can never be more grateful.

Quietly, "Thank you, Doctor."

[birthrights.livejournal.com]

"You're welcome, Sarah Jane." She gets a impulsive hug in return, before the Doctor returns to fiddling around with the levers and gadgets most visible on his section of the console.

The TARDIS winks out of space and time a few minutes later.