a/n:
The notion is that the Seventh Doctor is different. More vulnerable. A little more emotionally aware. And he finds himself able to do something he never could before...
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She knew the roses were a ridiculous outlet for her energy. This was hopeless and frustrating. She gardened like she did nothing else, she realized with a groan. Carelessly. And with periodic violence.
The roses were at her hands, but her thoughts tumbled over work and problems. Over how unfulfilled life could feel and the men she had given up on. Then there was that urge to settle that she had pushed aside. It pricked her every now and then like a thorn.
Forgetting the bushes for the moment, she looked up at the sky. And sighed. That, she knew, was a habit she should be rid of. Surveying the reality she had here - in this house, on this block, on this one planet - she knew that she was nothing more than ... empty.
...
Across the street from her house, there stood a small man. He was a bit confused, perhaps, but content. He was happy to find himself here, happy to get this chance after so long, to just watch her. It was a quilty pleasure, reacquainting himself with her face and her movements.
He could feel it, his blood was running fast with the surprise of being here and the sight of the girl he had known so long ago. He did not understand it all yet, the how and why of being here. But he didn't need to. He accepted it. He would make the best of it.
He knew she would be even more surprised. And he worried about that. Surprised may not be ALL she is, he acknowledged with an anxious tap of his umbrella to the pavement.
Fifteen years it had been for her. And 3 re-generations for him. He looked different, not at all what she was used to. With an unsteady hand, he smoothed his coat. Then he looked down to gauge the impression he would likely make. Well, the shoes were a good choice, surely? Natty.
Not sure that helps though, he thought with a conscious effort to keeping his mind to what matters.
He pulled off his hat and ran an aimless hand over his head and tsk'ed. What curls he had now were short and.... yes, thinning. And it would certainly not escape Sarah Jane's notice that his head was assuredly a good piece closer to the ground. Ten inches in height seemed rather a lot to have misplaced, he thought with a sigh. But at least he was less wild looking now.
And inside? Well.... he had spent too much time thinking about how he felt recently.
But Sarah Jane? he thought with a sigh. She looked the same, better maybe. He watched as she passed then from her gated side yard to the back.
Would she want to hear anything that he had to say, he wondered.
She had every right to be angry. Showing up like this, after all these years might not be what she wanted from him at all. At best, she would simply be disinterested and unwilling to listen. At worst? Well, there was that temper. I'm worried if she'll hear me out? I should be wondering how likely it is she'll thump me. He swallowed that bit of panic. And the next bit. Then closed his eyes and balanced there on the edge of the curb as if his fate was in someone else's hands.
With a jerky motion, as if his feet had decided to move without telling his brain, he was stepping into the street. He held down his hat and ducked his head as he walked across. He was to the gate before the voices in his head could object.
Before the prim guardian who had met her at UNIT could say, "Leave her be."
Before the tall, rakish bohemian who had left her could childishly wonder, "Maybe being apart is for the best?"
He was a new man. And he wouldn't pay those ghosts any mind.
"Sarah," he said, softly from his side of the fence. He'd spoken so lowly that the woman who tended the roses did not hear him at all. "Sarah Jane," he called now from inside the gate.
The voice was seasoned. Scottish. Not one she had heard before. But not one that gave her any worry.
Absently, she turned. Squinting. Apologizing to the stranger who had invaded her yard, hat in hand. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and assessed him.
The face was lined and tired. The jaw set with a firmness that began to worry her. But there was something so open and vulnerable about him still. Something that touched her. Searching his eyes, she thought maybe it was the sadness she found there.
He dipped his head for a moment then, as if uncomfortable under her gaze. As if awaiting her verdict. And that was when it hit her.
The man's pullover was ridiculous. His umbrella, absurd. The hat, somehow wrong.
This man was no one she had ever seen before...
and so obviously him.
///