Author's note: Written for the thinking_hand ficfest on LJ. Many thanks to my beta readers, persiflage_1 and elliptic_eye!
Three Parties
"Before a mad scientist goes mad, there's probably a time when he's only partially mad. And this is the time when he's going to throw his best parties." --Jack Handey
"Sarah Jane Smith!"
Sarah was taken aback to be accosted by a skinny man whose grin said he was absolutely delighted to see her. The trouble was that she had never seen him before in her life.
"You are Sarah Jane Smith, yes?"
So much for a low profile. "Yes."
"Brilliant. Sarah Jane Smith, brilliant. And you're a journalist here?"
Sarah, while thinking that was an odd way to word the question, noticed a blonde woman who hovered nearby; she looked ready to spring and muzzle him if need be.
The man seemed to now notice her too, and exclaimed, "Rose! It's Sarah Jane!"
"Doctor..." Rose said, her voice a warning.
"Well, this universe's Sarah Jane, anyway."
Sarah applied her best polite smile reserved for idiots. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Just the Doctor."
"John Smith," Rose said pointedly, but she seemed relieved her friend had calmed down a bit. "And I'm Rose Tyler."
Dr. Smith turned conspiratorial, asking Sarah, "Are you investigating something right now?"
"I don't know, Dr. Smith. Is there something here I should be investigating?"
He scanned the party, and jumped to grab a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. "Oh, you never know. For instance, that bloke over there? Cheating on his wife, the bastard. She's probably better off without him, though -- he's also a compulsive gambler."
"I see."
"Don't mind him -- he fancies himself a great observer of human nature," Rose said.
"I am a great observer of human nature. Spent a lot of time around humans. I am human. And you don't spend years working as a temp without learning something about people. You just have to be observant." He seemed to consider this, then added, "Well, you learn to be observant after your fiancé tries to feed you to a giant spider. You remember to pay attention then."
"I can imagine," Sarah said.
He cleared his throat ostentatiously, and said, "Anyway, that sort of thing is small potatoes to an investigative journalist like yourself. There's got to be bigger things going on here, eh?"
"Perhaps Ms. Tyler could share some information. Your father is connected -- enough to know our host very well. Any insight on Mr. Chambers?"
"Call me Rose. And, no, I don't know much about him. He is constantly after my dad, trying to get him to fund experiments, but I've never even met him. I just know he's a bit of a pest, really."
"But you have to admit," Dr. Smith said before downing his champagne and moving to the dance floor, "he throws a hell of a party."
The next time Sarah saw them, she spotted Rose on a lovely lawn outside the old manor house where J.J. Chambers lived and worked. Both Sarah and Rose were among the spectators standing on a gentle slope overlooking a field where a group of men and women were playing cricket -- including, yes, Rose's friend Dr. Smith, who was vocally enthusiastic about his own skill. From his teammates' cheers, Sarah Jane could tell that at least he wasn't overrating himself.
"Oh, hello," Rose said when Sarah stepped up to her. She seemed relieved to have someone to talk to, and so was friendly enough. "Still chasing the story, are we?"
"Believe it or not," Sarah said, "this time I got an invitation. But I still haven't seen our host, have you?"
"No." They stared out at the game in silence for a minute or two, and then Rose continued in a low voice, without looking at Sarah. "You really ought to talk to my dad, you know."
"Really?" Sarah murmured as she watched the bowler with great interest.
"He's been hearing rumors about Chambers and government contracts..."
"Weapons?"
"Not sure. Really high-tech stuff, whatever it is."
"Could be perfectly innocent."
"Could be. But my dad thinks ... It's a matter of the company you keep. And the company's not good. A couple of old Lumic associates who managed to escape scot-free, for a start."
Sarah found a card in her purse and slipped it to Rose. "Tell him to call me. And if he doesn't, I'll call him."
A burst of cheers came from the cricketers -- even the losing team was laughing and smiling, Dr. John Smith in the middle of them all. Rose joined the other spectators in applause, but hers, Sarah noted, was polite and perfunctory, her expression distant with a faint tinge of worry, eyes always on her friend.
Sarah did not exactly have an invitation when she returned to the Chambers estate. But she had an interesting device called a "sonic screwdriver," which Rose had nicked from her friend John Smith. She was also meant to have Rose along, but Sarah was not so enthusiastic about a partner in this crime, and had given her the slip. Rose worked for Torchwood, and Sarah did not need that sort of baggage, however helpful the Tylers had been.
Then there was the matter of Dr. John Smith. Rose's close connection to him could be innocent, but it was also disturbing. Sarah's digging had shown that the gregarious and brilliant Dr. Smith had not existed some five years ago. Then it was about three years ago that the mysterious and brilliant Chambers, a previously obscure lawyer, began to make his mark in the scientific world. Yes, a lawyer. A dabbler turned Einstein. It was very strange.
Attempts to draw Rose out on this subject had met with failure. "I've known the Doctor" -- for that was all she ever called him -- "for a long time. Many years."
Pete Tyler called him Dr. Smith and said he was a "family friend." Sarah Jane got the idea that this man was a touchy subject between father and daughter, but there was no explanation for his lack of paper trail. And Sarah Jane had not seen the man himself since that lawn party with the cricket game.
The truth was, there had been enough upheaval in the world over the past five years that it was not unbelievable for anyone to lack documentation or for someone to have a sketchy past. Or for a lawyer to drop his dull practice of contract law, tired of being holed away with paperwork, and take up his science hobby full time. The story on Chambers was that his parents were those types of wealthy eccentrics who accumulated money that they never spent, that they pushed their son into the practice of law, and that since their deaths, the son had dropped the profession that so bored him, bought this parcel of land with his inheritance, and followed his dream.
It was just that his dream looked to Sarah like a nightmare. Her own contacts in the scientific community had tipped her off to the disturbing nature of what was going on at Chambers's estate, of government documents that hinted at weapons work, and Sarah had set off following the trail.
Meanwhile, Chambers cultivated goodwill with parties that he himself never seemed to attend, withdrawing from the public eye the more well known he became. He had even tried it with Sarah Jane -- she had received one more invitation after the lawn party.
An invitation to a dinner party to be held this night.
The entire Tyler family had been invited as well -- this time Pete and Rose's mother, Jackie, and even the little boy would have been among the guests, except that the party had been abruptly canceled the day before.
Sarah Jane decided to go anyway.
The sonic screwdriver was a rattly looking thing, assembled from bits and bobs of old junk, but Rose had shown her how to operate it, and -- Sarah Jane could scarcely believe it -- it worked. At a steel door set into a high stone wall, she heard an ancient lock clunk open.
She winced at the whine of the protesting hinges on a door that may not have been used for a century, but she pushed it open just enough for her to slip through. She decided against shutting it behind her and risk that noise again; plus, it was better to keep an escape route open.
Dodging behind trees and shrubbery whenever possible, she made her way across the grounds in the dark, heading for the big house. As she moved closer, she scanned the ground level for a similarly obscure side door. She was not going to stroll in and announce her presence. But she had been invited, and decided that if she was caught, she might just claim that as her excuse.
She made short work of opening a servants' entrance with the sonic screwdriver, and then moved through the silent, empty kitchen -- no fancy dinner being prepared here -- and into the hallways, wandering without a plan, but with her eyes open, looking into open rooms, pressing her ear to closed doors. She could have entered them, but decided not to push her luck unlocking every door she came across. Besides, Rose had explained the sonic screwdriver had limited power -- "He used to have a better one, but..." she had trailed off and rapidly returned to demonstrating its use.
Metaphorical disappointments with Dr. Smith aside, Sarah took the practicality of its limitations to heart, and chose to wait to get into locked rooms until she had good reason.
The house's corridors were so eerily quiet and dark that she began to consider that Chambers was not in -- a stroke of luck, if that was the case. Empty houses made for much better snooping, uncovering hidden labs and evidence of terrifying experiments.
She grinned in the dark. At times like this, she loved her job.
Then she heard voices. Distant, urgent, chattering -- possibly arguing. She couldn't make out the words, but the sounds now gave her something to home in on. She followed in their direction, redoubling her efforts at stealth; she only now realized she had been letting herself get lax, believing she was alone here.
The talking ceased, but she could still follow the target, until she saw a strip of light coming from underneath a slightly open door at the top of a small flight of stairs. She pressed herself to a recess in a wall, crammed in next to a suit of armor, and listened intently. Now there was not even noise of people moving around. She pictured the occupants of the room equally frozen and listening, listening...
"Sarah Jane."
Her hand flew to her mouth as she barely contained an outcry of shock at the whisper of her name. With huge eyes, she turned and saw Dr. John Smith, stern and serious for once, a finger to his lips.
His eyes flicked up to the door with its light pouring from the silent room, and then he beckoned her to follow him in the opposite direction. Sarah hesitated, and then decided to take the lead presented to her. She snuck out from the enclave, excruciatingly careful not to rattle the armor, and only then could she surreptitiously tuck the sonic screwdriver into a pocket, out of its true owner's sight.
She and Dr. Smith crept down the hallway until they stopped at an open, dark room. Dr. Smith pushed the door open further, making a show of surveying the room before apparently deeming it safe; he walked in and turned to Sarah with that ridiculous grin back on his face.
"I hoped you'd come. Of course you'd have to be here!"
She had never uncovered the reason for his inexplicable interest in her ("He's read your reporting," Rose had said evasively), and now she didn't care all that much.
"Why are you here?" she asked him.
"Well, there was a dinner party, wasn't there?"
"It was canceled."
"But here you are," he said, bouncing on his heels.
She sighed. "Am I to take it that you're investigating Mr. Chambers as well?"
"Not exactly ... I'm working with him."
"He knows you're here? What are you doing sneaking around?"
"Making sure that you don't get caught. You ought to be investigating him, and I want to help you."
"You could have just talked to me, agreed to an interview."
"Yes, well, being here is more exciting, isn't it?"
"But standing in an empty room is not very helpful, Dr. Smith. One might start to think you're trying to keep me away from Chambers. But all right, you can talk to me now. What is he doing?"
"It's not good."
"Tell me."
Dr. Smith had turned serious again, the revulsion evident in his voice. "He's trying to build a ship that can travel in time and space. But that's not the problem in itself."
"The whispers going around were that his project involved weaponry, and I must say, that sounds more plausible than time travel."
"Oh, time travel's easy, I've done it more often than you'll ever know. But not anymore, because the technology isn't available on this planet. But Chambers wants it. The weaponry -- that's a ruse. A ruse to get funding. He's got some powerful people fooled, but he thinks he'll be gone, off in time and space before they ever realize what happened. But that's not the problem. I don't know if it can ever work -- what he's trying to do, humans can't do. But even the attempt could wipe out a 100-mile radius. This house is remote, that's why he picked it, but not nearly remote enough. And he doesn't care. He just wants to escape."
"Then why have you been helping him instead of stopping him?"
His eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment, until Sarah felt the need to snap him back.
"Dr. Smith! Why are you helping him?"
His eyes refocused on her. "Because I have the expertise."
"In time travel." She did not believe him on this point, and she wasn't sure how much of any of it she believed, but best to go with it for the moment.
"Yes. And first I thought it could work ..." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I try to get him to see the consequences, but he's not really all there, not like he used to be. It's like a screw has shaken loose, and he doesn't think about things like that. He's a bit mad, you see."
"How long have you known him?"
He gave a weak laugh. "Saved my life, feels like ages ago."
"He saved you from the giant spider?" Sarah Jane felt foolish saying it, almost like she was mocking someone in obvious pain, but he took no offense.
"Yes, that's it," he said simply.
"And that makes it hard for you to control him."
"I've tried, I've tried so hard, to be what he's supposed to be, whatever I'm supposed to be now, with Rose, and seeing you, and being stuck in one place ... I can settle down, I can do this. It's what humans do, isn't it? And I'm human, mostly." He put his hand to his chest. "Just one heart."
"Just like all of us. But what about Chambers?"
"It's not enough for him."
"No, I suppose not," she said gently. "Dr. Smith, if we go to that room, can I meet him? Maybe he can explain himself. Maybe we can talk him out of it."
"I don't know if he can stand to meet you. Not you, of all people. He really thinks the world of you. No matter what he does, you should always remember that."
"I will. Dr. Smith?"
"Yes?"
"Will you let me contact Rose?"
"Why?"
"I want to ask her to get a Torchwood crew out here and shut the experiment down. We can't let all these people die, can we?"
"No. But he's going to try it tonight. I mean, within --" he took Sarah's wrist and checked her watch "-- just ten minutes now. It's set to go on. The only way out now for you is to come along. We can't stop it."
"Let me call Rose. Let me try."
"Do what you like," he said with resignation, "but it's too late."
Sarah thought it better to send a text message, and hope it would be received, than to chat aloud with Rose or Torchwood as she followed Dr. Smith back down the corridor. Tapping out her message as quickly as she could, she trailed behind, finishing as he stopped at the suit of armor, solemnly waiting for her to catch up to him. She snapped her phone shut as she approached him.
"Show me," she said.
So he led her up the small flight of stairs, stepping up softly, pulling the door fully open, so that the room's light poured out. Just entering the room changed his mood. He was smiling again, albeit in a more subdued manner than his past manic self. "Sarah Jane Smith," he announced, "welcome to my TARDIS."
"TARDIS? Is that your time ship?" She pointed to the circular bank of controls that surrounded a column that glowed with a bluish-white light.
"Well, yes. And no, not just this," he said, laying a hand on the console. "The whole room is the TARDIS. That's what it's called. It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."
The room itself, aside from its central feature, seemed unremarkable -- windowless, not especially large, with its rich wooden walls and vaulted ceiling clearly as one with the stately manor that housed it.
"So -- Dr. Chambers, isn't it?"
"Oh, just the Doctor, that's fine."
"So, this room is a TARDIS, a time ship, and if it takes off -- if it can -- what happens?"
He did not look her in the eye; instead, he walked around the console, flipping a few switches, inspecting readings in a strange alphabet on a screen. "There will be some damage to the house and grounds. I haven't perfected it. This universe I've been left in is--" He shook his head in frustration, but continued, "But we'll be safe as houses, you and I. And, oh, the things you'll see, Sarah Jane Smith. It's going to be brilliant, you'll see. All of time and space."
"That sounds lovely -- amazing, truly, but not if--"
"And you'll be brilliant, too. I know."
"I won't do it if it means thousands of people will die!"
Just then both of them had their attention arrested by a distant clunk, accompanied by the lights in the room being extinguished -- all of the ordinary electrical lights, that is. To Sarah Jane's disappointment, the central column still glowed and faintly hummed.
Dr. Smith – or Chambers, or whoever -- frowned.
"The electricity's gone down," Sarah said. "I asked Rose to see to that. I had hoped--"
His look of pity interrupted her before his words did. "It won't stop me."
"No, I don't think so now."
With a flip of a switch, the door to the room shut by itself, and he said, "Just sit back and be patient. We'll be on our way any time now."
He then intensely occupied himself with dashing about the console and talking to himself. Sarah had no idea what he was doing, but she was grateful that it did not involve her, for she felt her phone buzz, and she could turn away, unnoticed, to open it and see who was trying to contact her.
It was a text message from Rose, six simple words: "Central column sonic screwdriver setting 394."
Three hundred and ninety-four? How many settings did the thing have? As casually as she could, she drew it from her pocket as she sat down in a finely upholstered chair in a dark corner. She tried to look as though she were slumped over in despair, instead of hunched over the little device, working out how to get it to setting 394.
"There it is!" she exclaimed, sotto voce -- just at the very moment that Dr. Smith-Chambers cried out joyously, "Aha! I've got it! Sarah Jane, we're on our way!"
The central column began to raise quite the unholy racket -- no more gentle hum, it now shuddered and screeched loud enough that Sarah thought her eardrums would burst. But she bolted forward with the sonic screwdriver, at setting 394, aimed at the ghastly thing. The machine's noise shifted to a lower tone, still horribly loud, enough to drown out whatever Dr. Smith-Chambers was shouting at her. Sparks flew, the two of them tumbled and furniture crashed as the entire room lurched beneath their feet, and Sarah registered with satisfaction the column's light and sound crescendo and die -- just as she lost consciousness.
The old manor house suffered irreparable structural damage, but Dr. Smith-Chambers and Sarah were found with only minor injuries, and most importantly, the surrounding countryside remained unvaporized, so Sarah could pat herself on the back for that.
She was not particularly happy that the remains of Dr. Smith-Chambers's "TARDIS" had landed in the hands of Torchwood. She couldn't stop that from happening, but as a journalist, she could inform the public, and she did. The higher-ups at her newspaper fretted about liability and state secrets and Torchwood's power, but her editor backed her, especially when Pete Tyler agreed to sit down for an extended interview, giving Torchwood its chance to assure everyone that the agency would never be so reckless with this technology as J.J. Chambers had been.
J.J. Chambers. Dr. John Smith. Rose Tyler's friend. Whoever he was, he was also in the hands of Torchwood. In Torchwood's "care," as Pete Tyler put it.
Strictly off the record -- a request Sarah had to respect -- Pete told her enough about Dr. John Smith that only put more unanswerable questions in her mind. Torchwood dealt with aliens, as Sarah knew, and, well, Dr. Smith was not quite human. Oh, he'd pass a DNA test, it was difficult to explain what was wrong with him, but a mutual friend had left him in Rose's care, and that had worked for a while, but the strain of this alien influence had become too much for his mind eventually, and it broke him. Whatever "it" was. That's what Sarah was unclear on, and Pete would elaborate no further. But Dr. Smith's madness had led him to create this J.J. Chambers persona.
"I'm only telling you this because you're Rose's friend. It's been difficult for her, and we want to keep it private, you understand."
Sarah understood, except for the bit about her being Rose's friend -- theirs had been a rather short and utilitarian relationship. The young woman did seem like she needed a friend, but as it turned out, Sarah would not see her again. Rose did not respond to the few overtures Sarah made in the months following the Chambers Accident, as it came to be called in common parlance.
And there were no more parties at which the two women might move in the same circles. If nothing else, the discontinuance of Chambers's parties was considered quite a loss to the British social scene.
One more thing Sarah Jane Smith got out of the whole adventure: As she came to consciousness in the wrecked room that night, she felt what she thought was debris poking into her back. But she soon realized what it was, and without attracting the notice of the Torchwood agents swarming about, she pocketed it.
A sonic screwdriver could always come in handy in her line of work.
The End