1

"Goodbye Castria!" The Doctor took one last glance at the barren landscape on the console screen, then turned away with disgust. The merry tone in his voice gave it away, he was more than happy to leave that bleak chunk of rock in space behind, along with Eldrad, it's malevolent inhabitant.

"Do you think Eldrad is dead then?" Sarah shuddered. Chills were still shaking her despite the Doctor's much too large coat that was loosely draped around her shoulders. She rubbed her hands, asking herself is she'd ever feel warm again.

Finally they were in flight, away from the wretched place and the adrenaline from the fight to the death wore off, leaving him exhausted, emotionally empty. "Oh, I doubt it. Very difficult to kill!" the Timelord mused. Suddenly, with an erratic outburst the Tardis lurched sideways so violently that both of them hastily grabbed the next best piece of railing to stay on their feet.

"Oh easy, very easy," he muttered in an attempt to appease his sentient ship. "These temperatures must have affected the thermal couplings," he muttered, fiddling with some switches and levers in an attempt to fix the problem.

Sarah wasn't so sure that this was due to the temperatures. It seemed like Doctor's ship quite often bucked and jolted on purpose but when she she mentioned it he always went to ridiculous lengths to excuse her antics. Exhausted and still frozen stiff she watched the Doctor with some disdain. "Yes, I know how she feels. I think Castria must be the coldest place in the galaxy!" she complained with another fit of shivers.

"Rubbish, I've been to much colder places!" he dismissed her.

"Oh, big deal, it's all right for you. But I'm human. We are not so thick skinned!" Sarah snapped back, wondering like quite a few times lately what had gotten into her Time Lord friend. At the moment she was just too exhausted to take too good to one of his unpredictable moody fits. She sighed, having an argument with him was so hopeless, anything you threw at him just dripped off.

She watched how he let himself down to the floor and stuck his head under the console, in an instant completely absorbed in his ship's affairs which were obviously much more important business for him than her well being. But as if this hadn't been enough ignorance next he began to demand his tools. This was great, Sarah thought with some bitterness, just great. For once she needed to pour out her heart to a friend, she needed his understanding, being comforted, being warmed after only just surviving this latest adventures. And now this!

"What did you say?" he absentmindedly asked, voice muffled by the console.

He was just so thick! Thick and stubborn and unfeeling! She felt being degraded to nothing more than just a lackey to the high and mighty Lord of Time. It didn't usually bother her so much to be turned into his humble assistant after a life as a fiercely independent journalist, but after today's events it was just too much! Oh how she sometimes missed the gentleman in ruffles and velvet he used to be in his previous incarnation. Back then at least he had style and manners, after the regeneration he had turned into one big, immature, self centred jerk!

"Thick Skinned!" she shouted at him, but his head had already vanished in an opening in the foot of the console and his mind was light years away.

"Oh good, good!" he muttered. He had at least noticed that she spoke to him, but the message had clearly been lost somewhere on the way between his timelordy eardrums and brains. She picked up the tool kit and handed him what he had asked for even if she felt much more like throwing it out of the next window. Of course the console room didn't have windows that could be used for that purpose, she realized with some regret.

"You know, I might as well talk to the moon, you don't even listen to me!"

He just babbled on, rummaging around in the cavity of the Tardis console, declaring his demand for another tool.

With a desperate sigh she dug through the bag and gave him what he wanted. She huddled deeper into his coat and crouched down at the foot of the console in a little heap of misery.

"Oh I must be mad! I'm sick of being cold and wet, hypnotised left and rigth and center," she ranted. "I'm sick of being shot at by bug eyed monsters, never knowing if I'm coming or going or being!"

He just held out his hand in request of the next tool.

Oh she could as well talk to the moon! He was hopeless! Utterly hopeless! An utterly uncivilised space hobo! "I want a bath, look at my hair! I want to feel like a human again!"

His head shortly emerged from the hole and he stretched out his hand, obviously still not paying attention to what she had to say. "Forget the Sius Plug, I'll have the Sonic Screwdriver." With those words the mop of curls vanished in the opening again.

"And I'm sick of that Sonic Screwdriver!" She still handed it to him, but fuming with rage now.

"I'm gonna pack my goodies and I'm going home!" she finally declared, having had enough of his antics. And she meant it!

No reaction.

When she had previously thought, that this man had some kind of affection for her she must have been fooling herself she bitterly concluded. No wonder, aunt Lavinia had always warned her that men were no good. It obviously it didn't even matter whether they came from a hippie community on earth or from anywhere else in the universe.

"I SAID, I'M GOING TO PACK MY GOODIES AND I AM GOING HOME!"

There was no reaction!

With an outburst of fury she jumped to her feet."Excuse me!" she snapped at him. The Doctor's bulky form was in her way. With one long stride she stepped over his midriff and rushed out, smashing the door to vent off her outrage.

"What have you said?" The Doctor's head emerged from the opening in the console.

"I don't know, why she's going on like this!" he grumbled, then he discovered that Sarah had left the console room.

Overwhelming shame for treating her like that boiled up in his mind. But it would be easier for her he tried to rationalize his cruel behaviour using the cold Time Lord logic they had taught him at the academy.

Today was the day! He got up and slowly, with aching hearts set the coordinates for South Croydon, leaning heavily on the railing of the wood panelled console. He didn't have to put up the show for much longer now. Thinking about it his head drooped and he rubbed his weary face. Like so many times in the recent past he chastised himself for the stupid, undignified, utterly disturbing amount of feelings that this young human had managed to evoke in him, and that threatened to cripple his ability to think rationally.

Some time ago, he had worked out a credible excuse, no, not an excuse, a mean lie to give him a good reason to drop her off at home. Since then he'd been waiting for the right occasion. A few times he'd been so close to doing it, but so far whenever he had been face to face with her he had bottled out. He cringed. What a coward he was! But today he wouldn't even need a lie. Two or three times she had already announced the wish to leave but in the end never suited the action to the word. With bitterness he admitted that he had successfully driven her to the point where she seemed to be fairly serious about it. He felt like a jerk. No, was a jerk, putting his loyal friend off like that. The most miserable creature this side of the Milky Way. He knew he could face down Daleks, Cybermen, Makra, mad scientists and natural disasters. What he as unable to face was his own feelings. This was just no good, it couldn't continue, because it was breaking him apart. He was hardly the expert at self discipline, but he braced himself for what had to be done.

"Hem, hem!" Sarah cleared her throat loudly to announce her return and the door fell shut with a satisfactorily loud thud. Still leaning over the console, the Doctor plucked up all his courage, he dreaded to face her. And suddenly, when he saw the weary expression on her face he was suddenly completely unable to keep up the gruff show.

"You're a good girl, Sarah!" he started hesitantly, clumsily, voice clogged, deliberately not turning to look at her. He had planned to wordlessly open her the door and then take off. But he couldn't. Once more he looked at her and his determination faltered. He was simply unable to deliver the final blow to their friendship. Not when he had to look into her eyes. The lie! Stupid as it was, it was his last straw now! He had to make sure that she left him. If possible without breaking her heart, too.

"It's too late to apologize! I'm packed. I wanna go!" she yelled.

"How did you know?" He asked her, voice low, finally turning to face his ultimate nemesis. He knew her all too well and could guess how she was going to react. He was desperately hoping that he was able to pull off the innocent act convincingly enough, hoping that she would still remember him as some sort of friend, and maybe, eventually forgive him.

"What?" she asked, and all her anger melted away under his gaze, just as he had predicted.

Sarah knew she couldn't be mad at this impossible, arrogant, overgrown child of a man, but she also knew, she'd never be able to withstand him when he looked at her like that.

"I had a call from Gallifrey," he lied, quietly, his hearts bleeding, unsure if he'd ever be able to ever forgive himself.

"So?" she asked, uncertainty in her voice now where it had been angry only moments before, not quite sure what to make of this.

"So I can't take you with me. You've got to leave."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "come on! I can't miss Gallifrey. I was only joking!" she exclaimed hopefully, honestly regretting her hasty outburst of frustration, but the sad, serious look in those expressive grey-blue eyes, that she loved so much, told her that this was for real. "I didn't mean it! Hey, you are not going to regenerate again, are you?" she continued, shaken, not really knowing what to say, the realisation that this might be really the end of her travels, of her time with him, what he really meant to her hitting her like a brick.

"Not this time. I don't know what is going to happen," was all he muttered in reply.

He was suddenly so serious and thoughtful in a way, she had rarely ever seen on him before, and that all of a sudden frightened her.

"You are playing one of your jokes on me, trying to make me stay, right," she clutched the last straw, still hoping.

"No. I've received a call. And as a Time Lord I have to obey." He nearly choked on every single, hypocritical word.

"Alone!" she asked, almost desperate now.

"Yes," he replied, sharper than he had intended, glad that the light in his secondary console room was so subdued that his watery eyes were hidden in the shades. He tore himself away from her, the necessities of his ship giving him a welcomed reason to busy himself, a tear or two trickled down his face and fell unseen onto the control panel.

"Well, then, I'll be off," she replied, a kind of shock state now setting in. "Maybe... maybe you can just drop in for a visit! You'll always be welcome." She knew he was a restless wanderer, not a person who sentimentally held onto things, but still she desperately hoped that this wasn't goodbye forever. "And I give your love to Harry, and the Brigadier, oh, and I will tell professor Watson that you are all right."

The Doctor hardly paid attention to what she said. "We have landed, Sarah," he finally told her, voice low, still with his back to her, unable to face her, the fact that she forgave him so easily hurting him like a stab in the guts.

"What?"

"We have landed!" the Doctor repeated quietly.

"Where?"

"South Croydon, Hill View Road to be exact." So this was the last act. Before the curtain dropped. Soon it was over.

"That's my home. Well...I'll be off then,", she tried to give her voice a cheerful note, but it faltered, she was just too overwhelmed by this hasty farewell. She hesitated, then shed out of the Doctor's coat and handed it back to him. Then silently picked up her few belongings.

"Don't forget me," was all she managed.

"Sarah, don't you forget me." He uttered a sad little laugh at the idea that he could ever forget her. So many occasions came to his mind where he had been less than kind and attentive to her. She definitely deserved better. But still he sincerely hoped that she'd always hold him dear, somewhere in that big single heart of hers.

She just shook her head, with a sad little half smile, giving in to of his request, "Bye Doctor," she muttered, full of gratitude for the amazing time he had shared with her. It dawned on her that it would take a long time to get over all this, to settle down in a normal human life, to get over him.

The warmth of her farewell was nearly too much for him. With a heartbroken "bye," he put on his coat, this was not the moment to let himself go. Later he would have enough time to to break down, to rest in the zero room, to seek solace in solitude or in distraction, but not right now. He took one long last look at her how she walked up the steps to the door to etch this view into his memory forever.

Sarah turned back, "you know, travel does broaden..."

She swayed. Staggering forward she got hold of the wall to steady herself.

The Doctor's hearts seemed to skip a beat. With a few long strides he was at her side, caught her in mid fall and eased her to the floor as violent tremors began to shake her slender frame.