From the Journal of Sarah Jane

"If you have something to tell me, then tell me, otherwise we can stop wasting each other's time."

Her hands remained positioned on hips as her right foot tapped up and down. She eyed him warily, almost doubtfully.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

All around them, gentry mingled in gorgeous dress, with fur shawls and long gowns and men in tuxes, not a single hair out of place. Chandeliers twinkled in the dim light and the occasional glow of mobiles make their users stand out.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

The blue satin material of her dress switched with the slightest movement of her hips as she continued to tap her foot impatiently. She stared at him, brown eyes anything but warm. For the fifth time tonight, he had tried to distract her from her mission. She needed this interview with Peter Tyler and she was determined to get it.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

A sigh. He had been babbling for the last five minutes straight. The smile plastered on her face couldn’t grow any faker as she nodded to those occasionally passing. Finally, her resolve broke. “Look, John, i If you have something to tell me, then tell me, otherwise we can stop wasting each other's time.”

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. His eyes widened, glasses doing very little to conceal their shock. He held his neck erect, stiff against the bowtie and suit he wore. He blinked once and choked.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

“Well?”

“I… er, that is to say-”

“John!”

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

She shook her head when he stuttered again, far too busy staring at her than bothering to concede to her demands. She rolled her eyes at him and turned to walk away. A strong grip on her wrist stopped her. She turned around, ready to tell him off and yet, yet she couldn’t.

“What?”

Her nervous and impatient tapping of her foot had returned. She had to get her proof that Peter Tyler had been elected the new head of Torchwood due to his affair with a Martian. Didn’t he realise that?

“John?”

Tap, tap, tap.

“No more wasting time. Marry me.”

Ta-.

She stopped tapping, she nearly stopped breathing. This time it was her turn to look like a deer startled in the headlights. The look lasted seconds – no, eons – until she nodded. Even if he was just trying to protect the Tylers again, he looked too sincere to mean it for any other reason.

“Yeah,” she whispered softly, story forgotten. “You know, I think I will.”

1 question...
1 chance...
1 honest answer...

That's all you get. Ask me one question. Any one question, anything, no matter how crazy it is. An honest answer. No catch.

All comments will be screened so your question stays private between you and me, and only you will get to see my answer to your question. But I dare you to repost this and see what people ask you.

[ooc: Comments are not really screened, but each conversation is private.]

109. He isn't stupid, his brain is full. - Overheard in NY.com (random)

“He isn’t stupid,” Sarah Jane explained with a sigh, hand placed on her forehead for a brief second. Did it really come down to this? This rather weak explanation to the most current events? “He’s just… well, his brain is full.”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzt?”

“His brain,” she repeated slowly, enunciating each word quickly in case the drone did not understand, “is simply very, very full.”

The creature buzzed in front of her and its antennas flickered in the direction of her companion. Another sigh escaped her as she turned to give the Doctor a look, hand on hips. He hadn’t moved from the boulder he had sat himself upon fifteen minutes earlier. The end of his scarf collapsed and stretched in his hands. The folds he made varied in position and duration as a small beetle-like creature watched on a nearby bolder.

Sarah turned back to look at the drone, placing her hands on her hips. While she would not quite describe its expression as sympathetic, if it had been more humanoid in shape, Sarah was certain that would be the case.

“You see,” she said a moment later. “The Doctor is a Timelord. Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard of these things, but Timelords – and ladies, to be proper – are individuals whose brains are very, very full with… oh! With stuff, I suppose. A whole lot of stuff, really. All of time and space and eternity. If you asked him, he’d give you a much more arrogant and complex answer, but I’m telling you... Bzzzzinzzzztrzzzzzzzzzzbzzzz—“

She could never quite properly pronounce its name.

“—that this is all it is. Not stupidity. Oh no. He may be a daft git at times, but he is far from stupid I assure you.” Sarah ran a hand through her hair. “It’s just… he thinks he can talk to it – him – whatever it is! That bug over there. He really, honestly thinks that—”

“Zzzzzzzzztuuuuuupeeeeeed.”

“No.” Even if, she had to admit, communicating via scarf did seem quite ridiculous. “Just… quite full of himself. Quite full of misplaced knowledge and barmy ideas and—”

“Zzzzzzzzztuuuuuupeeeeeed.” The drone bounced up and down in a ghostly like manner. It almost seemed as if it were laughing. Its antennas flickered in the Doctor’s direction again and then back to Sarah. “Zzzzzzzzztuuuuuupeeeeeed!”

What was it people said about fighting an uphill battle? As much as Sarah Jane wanted to argue (it was in her nature, of course), Bzzzzinzzzztrzzzzzzzzzzbzzzz did have a point. Rather this was some forgotten language lost to the stars and only known amongst Timelords or not, the whole matter did seem rather…well, stupid.

Communication by scarf? Honestly?

She sighed, giving in with a chuckle. “Oh, alright. It’s stupid. Absolutely bloody ridiculous. But, well, that’s the Doctor for you.”

“Zzzzzzzzztuuuuuupeeeeeed.”

It had been a lead Sarah Evans had been investigating for weeks now. Rumours of a cyberman in central London had been plaguing The Inquisitor office ever since the lot of them had mostly vanished from the face of Earth. This latest, reported by a middle-aged tube worker right off the midnight shift, seemed just about as skeptical as any other report they had heard.

Still. Sarah's interest had been piqued. From what she could remember of the invasion, the man's account had seemed surprisingly accurate. At the very least, it could be quite possible that someone had found an abandoned shell.

So, she stood on the corner of Oxford and Bond, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for John to show up.

Here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

(If you want questions for a specific verse, please specify)

From clever_wanderer [RS Verse]:

1. Milk or cream? I know there's milk in the kitchen, someone might have to buy cream...
Depends on my mood. But perhaps I ought to go with cream to simplify the grocery list? Yes, Doctor, a grocery list. I know it goes against everything you believe in, but while we're stranded, we'll have to make do.

2. Would you be willing to buy cream?
Is the big bad Doctor afraid of a shop?

3. Do you like bananas?
Yes. Banana and toast for breakfast, every morning.

4. Are you still having trouble with your laptop?
I doubt I'll ever stop.

5. What is your favorite...er, television show! Let's go with that. What's your favorite television show?
I take it the news doesn't count. Fine then. I've always been rather fond of Superman.

Ill!Sarah for shot_his_shoes:

She knew beyond a doubt that she would not make it. The poison from the cybermat was filling her veins, making them bulky, filling them with a metallic sheen that almost seemed to block the flow of blood to her body. It makes it hard for her to breath. The scream had been the last real thing she had been able to do, aside from fall off the chair while fighting the creature.

By the time the Doctor pulled it off of her, her vision was splotchy. Black dots danced around her face. His features, typically much sharper and angular, appeared blurred. Sarah was barely aware of him picking her up and carrying her away from the room. A wave of dizziness overtook her.

Voices now. That was all she could hear. Something was wrong with the transmat drive. The Doctor sounded furious.

“Let me be the doctor this time, Doctor.” Harry. His voice sounded so close and yet so very far away. Something cold pressed against her skin. “We need to get it out of her system. Come on, old girl, hang in there.”

Vaguely, she was aware of being turned on her side. “Somebody get me water! Something! Doctor, do you have--”

The voice sounded so mournful. “No.”

Sarah blinked, tried to wake up from the coma she was slipping in to. “Doctor. Harry. It was--”

“Save your voice, Sarah,” Harry whispered. “He’ll fix it soon enough. And you’ll be okay. Until then, I’m going to try to induce vomiting. Got it, old girl?”

“Don’t.” She coughed. “Don’t call me that.”

“Sarah?” The Doctor’s voice. “Sarah Jane, I will never forgive you if you do not fight this.”

Neither of them had any idea how hard it was, how difficult it was to hang on. The darkness was overwhelming and the pain far too much. She knew, without a doubt, that the Doctor would not fix the transmat machine in time. She knew Harry’s efforts would not work. This, she knew, was the end of her journey. It had been a good one.

Sarah let go.

Sawyer of merlin_doctor fame wanted spoiling-the-wolf!Sarah.

“Sawyer, we are not going any further. I absolutely mean it, Sawyer. We’ve gone far enough as is. This is all your fault anyhow.”

Sarah Jane would almost swear that the look the wolf was giving her read innocence all over it. She did not know if wolves could, in fact, play innocent despite guilt, but if anyone could pull it off, it would be this one. He pushed his head under her hand, whining quietly.

She sighed. “He’s going to be furious, you know. Bad enough I let you out of the TARDIS to chase that rabbit-thing. He had told us to stay put. And this? Oh, I don’t even know where we very well are!”

He whined again and then barked as something rustled the bushes not too far away. Sawyer’s ears perked up and he barked again. Hesitantly, that same pink noise on that furry white face from earlier peaked out between leaves. It blinked once, gave a sort of yelp, and disappeared. Sawyer growled.

“Oh no you don’t,” Sarah warned. “We’re heading back. I mean it, Sawyer. I very well— oh, fine. But wait for me!”

Damn that wolf and his looks.

Relatively peaceful and the TARDIS were concepts that still did not entirely go together in Sarah Jane's head. But, for the most part, that was how life had been since they had left England. Rather than choosing any particular planet, they had just... well, just stayed wherever the TARDIS stayed when not on any particular planet or in any particular time.

Not that it was a bad thing. It gave Sarah a chance to settle back in to her room. It gave her a chance to discover that, yes indeed, Sawyer had found her bed to be a wonderful place to rest. And it gave both her and the Doctor a chance to reconnect.

She had never truly realised how much she had missed him until he had come back in her life.

Still, it seemed quite clear that this relative peaceful time on board the TARIDS would end soon enough. She had her suspicions, after all, when she found him sitting in the console room fiddling about with the controls. Sarah Jane stood there for a moment, watching him.

And then, giving the medieval dress she had found in the Wardrobe a little twirl. "Well, Doctor? What do you think?"

"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution" - Oscar Wilde

“You left me.”

Despite that hint of anger and frustration in her tone, she spoke with an icy calmness. Her once pretty face, now scarred with a line chasing down from left eyebrow to right cheek, held a sardonic sort of smile. Eyes that once sparkled with a joy and a thirst for life seemed empty now. There was still a deliberate gentleness to her touch, a reminder of the loving, eager, and adventurous girl she had once been.

Only five years prior.

“You left me,” she continued, running the tip of the knife blade along his neck. “It wasn’t South Croydon. Oh, it wasn’t even close. Wasn’t even Aberdeen, you see. After all, you do remember how the Kraals built that false Devesham, don’t you?”

She leaned closer to him. The knife fell back to her side as she blew gently on his ear. A small giggle escaped her as she remembered the events of so long ago. Then she whispered, “You do remember how easily we stopped them, then, using their own androids against them? We were brilliant, weren’t we?

“They weren’t happy.”

Laughing with delight, she scampered away from him to fully take in his reaction. He was bound to the vertical table, feet and hands locked in place by heavy metal bands. His mouth was gagged and for once, oh for one of the few times since she had first met him, he couldn’t talk. It thrilled her, thrilled her so very much. His precious sonic screwdriver sat on a table not too far away, taunting him with its very presence.

But it was the eyes that got her the most. Those beautiful eyes were more haunted than she had ever seen them before. They were defeated.

Oh, it was beautiful.

“And you know what they did?” She skipped back over towards the table, running a hand lightly over his chest. Her fingers played with coat buttons and she laughed. “Experiments!

“Oh so many lovely little experiments, absolutely determined to perfect their virus! Never ever allowed to actually die, of course. I was the only human within miles.”

Her hand tightened on the hilt of the knife when an arm wrapped around her waist. She turned, breaking her gaze of him for the first time since her husband presented her with their anniversary gift. The blade pressed into the throat of the arm still holding on to her waist. Lips met despite the placement of the knife for a hot and heavy kiss.

“You see, Doctor,” she said afterwards, standing now apart from her husband. She played with the knife, using it to clean her nails as she spoke. “He rescued me. All those times, oh, all those many times you had me convinced that he wasn’t the villain. My darling Master. He saved me.

“And never even once abandoned me.”

She shook her head: once, twice, three times. Her eyes danced with anticipation. Her smile became predatory. “I understand now, Doctor. You… oh, you, the man that claimed to be my best friend, the man who left me to suffer… oh it’s you who is the true villain of this story.

“And,” Sarah Jane spoke with conviction. She raised the knife, held it still for a moment, and then let it fly through the air, straight towards the aorta joining his two hearts. “And, the villain always has to die.”

His final gasp was a death rattle more beautiful to her ears than any other noise she ever heard. She stood there, transfixed, as he failed to regenerate. That was that, then. A stray tear fell down her cheek. She brushed it away callously.

Warm arms wrapped around her waist again. This time, she did not flinch and only smiled when he rested his chin on her shoulder. “Are you all right, my dear?”

She laughed. “Oh, of course, darling. In fact, I feel absolutely wonderful!

“I confessed.”