With the return of SJA to our screens for Season 3, I've been having a bit of a marathon. After that, I did some digging in my HDD and found this little ficlet. It's set at the end of The Last Sontaran...

Enjoy and all feedback welcomed!

Cautiously, he pushed open the door and peered around it into the room of wonders that was Sarah Jane Smith's attic at 13 Bannerman Road. "Er, Sarah Jane? May I come in?"

She turned to him from where she sat at her computer and smiled, the wide, bright smile that he'd seen several times since he'd discovered what she really did.

[…so different from that polite smile and the frosty words, that first day…]

"Alan," she said. "What can I do for you? You must be nearly ready to leave. Maria was here fifteen minutes ago."

[he knew that, his daughter had just raced past him in a desperate rush for the solitude of the bathroom but he'd seen her tears]

He entered the room properly and Sarah Jane rose from her seat. They met halfway. "I came to bring you this," he said, rather awkwardly, holding out a slim cd case.

She peered at it (and him) over the top of her thick rimmed glasses. "What is it?"

[…she couldn't know that those glasses made him feel about thirteen again, when he'd had a hopeless crush on his Maths teacher. She'd had glasses just like those…]

He grinned. "The Armageddon Virus. Just in case Mr Smith gets above himself again."

She laughed and took it from him. "Thanks." She looked down and then up again, and he thought her eyes looked wet. "I wish you and Maria all the best in Washington, Alan."

[…he realised then that she was going to miss Maria as much as Maria would miss her…]

"You must come and visit. You and Luke."

"I'm sure Luke would love that. Thank you."

He looked down at his feet. "He's a good kid. He's really going to miss Maria, isn't he?" He still had trouble getting his head around the boy's alien origins.

Sarah Jane patted him on the shoulder. "He'll miss her, but he's still got Clyde." She sighed.

[…he thought of all the times he'd seen her stand with an arm around his daughter. The times Maria – his self-sufficient Maria – had nestled up to her, reminding him of the child she had been…]

"You'll miss her too," he said softly. "Actually, I wanted to thank you."

"Whatever for?" She looked genuinely surprised. "Your daughter was in danger of losing her life, several times, because of me. Can't imagine you want to thank me for that!"

He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "True, but I know you did your best to keep her out of it. Only she's stubborn, Maria."

Her rueful smile told him she knew that as well as he did.

"No, I wanted to thank you because – well, because you've given Maria what I never could, since we moved here." He gave a rueful smile of his own. "I'm only a guy, what do I know about bringing up teenage girls? Before you say you don't know much either" – she closed her mouth again – "at least you've been there."

"A very, very long time ago."

He blushed. "Er. Yes. Well. Anyway, I know she sees you as a second mum. Don't get me wrong," he added hastily, "Maria loves Chrissie, and Chrissie – well, whatever her faults, she does adore Maria. But Chrissie … I dunno, in some ways she's more of a kid than Maria is, and Chris seems to see Maria as a kind of girlfriend. She's only fourteen, Sarah Jane. She needs more than that from a mum. And I think – well, if you don't mind my saying it, I think you've given her that." The last words came out in a rush.

"Oh, Alan." She took her glasses off and wiped her eyes. "That's a lovely thing to say." She glanced up at him. "Actually, I do see Maria as a sort of daughter. The daughter I'd have wanted, if I'd ever had one. If I've given her something – anything – well, she's given me just as much." She gave him a rather watery smile.

[…he found himself thinking of the night he'd come home late. He'd arranged that Maria should stay at Sarah Jane's until he came home, and for once his daughter had not protested about being babysat. He'd come over for her - they'd stopped worrying about niceties like knocking after the Sontaran affair – and found all three of them, Sarah Jane, Luke and Maria, in the living room. Sarah Jane had been on the sofa with the two teenagers snuggled up on either side, and for a moment, until she looked up and smiled, he'd almost felt like an intruder…]

There was more he could say. More he wanted to say, but he'd never been particularly articulate when confronted with the stubborn and often ferociously bright women he seemed to be surrounded by. So he pulled her into a tight hug, and after a second, felt her arms go around him too. He hadn't realised, until now, that he would miss her as well.

She pulled back with a soft laugh. "Oh, come on. You and Maria, you'd think you were going away forever, or somewhere really far away. The universe is a big place, remember? You'll look up at the stars in Washington and think of us, and we'll do the same here in Ealing… "

Her radiant smile made her look like the young woman he'd seen in the photographs Maria had showed him, the ones of her and the mysterious 'Doctor'. His heart skipped a beat and he was suddenly breathless.

She glanced at her watch. "Isn't your taxi due now? Come on. Everyone will be waiting." She took his elbow and guided him to the door, down the stairs and out the front door.

"There you are!" Chrissie shrieked. "We've been looking for you everywhere, Alan, honestly. What a time to disappear!"

"I needed to leave something over for Sarah Jane's computer," he defended as his ex-wife hustled him back across the road to the house he was leaving.

Chrissie huffed. "Mary Jane will do fine, I'm sure. A woman who can face aliens and work shiny lipstick gizmos can cope with Windows crashing. We've brought everything down and now I hear the taxi. Time to go!"

Stunned into silence (and obedience) Alan allowed himself to be chivvied in the direction of the oncoming taxi. Before he knew where he was he'd been hugged and prodded into the cab. Then they were away, and Alan's last sight of his ex-wife was of her standing next to Sarah Jane. Both women were waving…

Maria grinned up him, like sunshine after rain. "We're off!" For a moment, she looked wistful. "I can't wait. Washington's going to be so cool. We're not really going that far away, after all. Just the other side of the planet."

He smiled at her. "Like you said, you can't leave the universe behind – or the people you love."

End.