Title: Noli vinci a malo
Characters/Pairing: Clyde/Luke implied
Rating: T
Spoilers: none
One evening after school in May, about six years after he's been activated, Luke collapses and dies in Sarah Jane's garden; like a switch that's been flicked off, he's gone.
Mr. Smith detects the Bane ship orbiting Earth fifteen minutes later. He tries to argue when Sarah Jane orders him to teleport Clyde and her to the ship, but he cannot disobey her.
They're merciless as they fight their way to the power core of the Bane ship, Sarah Jane's face is grey and set and Clyde notices that she shows her age now. She looks at him as if he's a stranger too, he doesn't dare speculate at his own expression. For now, he's happy to rage and uses the Sontaran gun without hesitation. He was trained for war after all and this is a mission of hopeless hate.
Sarah Jane sonics and Clyde shoots until at last all goes still.
Clyde thinks of his mother, of love and how he won't be there to protect her and how he didn't say he loved her quite enough.
He thinks of Rani and Maria who will have to deal with the fallout of their selfish actions.
He thinks about the way Sarah Jane's body changed when she realized Luke had been murdered, as if she made her grief and hate into a coat and wrapped it around her like a carapace.
He remembers how he placed the softest kiss he could manage on Luke's cold lips, how he got up and felt like his heart had been ripped away; he even asked Rani if he was bleeding because he was sure pain like that should show. Poor Rani, all alone now.
In the last moments of his life – the Bane shoot to kill too – he hears Luke's laughter and catches a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye. Reaching for his friend, he goes gratefully.
Sarah Jane's work is done. She sits down next to Clyde, takes him in her arms and allows herself to remember her son. The gift the universe gave to her and the years of joy they shared.
She smiles as the Bane ship goes nova.
Unit and Torchwood all come knocking later on, but there's no one left at 13 Bannerman Road.