This is the first fic I've written in a VERY long time so bear with me if it's a little weird. I recently became a Whovian and I'm trying to make up for nearly forty years, 26 seasons, two spin-offs, two movies, and numerous specials worth of lost time.

In Classic Who I'm nearing the end of Season Two with the First Doctor and in New Who I've just started Series 4 with the Tenth Doctor. So keep your spoilery comments to yourself. Speaking of you should check out my friend Fogdragon23's fic "Not Your Average Doctor" it's REALLY good.

Please enjoy!

So the first thing she did when she got back to her building, K-9 all wrapped up in his blanket and whirring away as he downloaded information and updates from various satellites and random people's cell phones, was to contact her landlord and say she planned on moving. The sooner the better and good riddance too. She had gotten the flat because it had been cheap and close to UNIT. She could've stayed at headquarters until she had gotten her feet but she had felt hurt and impatient and it was supposed to be temporary. Supposed to be. Nearly thirty years later and temporary had gotten pretty permanent and the landlord had gotten pretty insistent. Who knew learning how to booby-trap a room could come in so handy when an unreliable skinflint had the master key and wanted in your knickers?

The next thing she did, while typing up her report, one foot drawn up to her chest and K-9 trundling around her flat, cataloging as he chirped and beeped away to himself, a welcome presence to the usual silence, was call up her contact at UNIT.

"I ran into The Doctor today." She said without preamble, cellphone wedged between ear and shoulder, her fingers typing away at 92 words per minute no spelling errors. She had gotten good at this over the years, splitting her concentration. She knew what she wanted to type, had written it up in her head on the way back her fingers just now catching up, and having a perfectly pleasant conversation and one that would be one of the more important conversations she would be having in her life.

There it was, all laid out. Her job as liaison for UNIT and The Doctor and the Rest of the World still stood. They had missed her, the old fogeys, and tales of her exploits were legendary to the raw recruits terrified of the unknown they were supposed to protect the world from. Her name meant something in UNIT still and the potential for it to mean more was still there, waiting for her to do something with it. All she had to do was go out there and do what he would have done. The Doctor, her Doctor, and his TARDIS. She was her own person now, separated them both but never alone, and she would go wherever she was needed. Because that was the lesson the TARDIS kept trying to teach to everyone who stepped through her doors. She wouldn't take her passengers and wayward captain just anywhere, she took them to where they were needed the most. To put right all the wrongs of time and space.

But right now what she needed most was herself, to be herself, to re-find that stubborn little slip of a human that had found herself way in over her head half-way across the universe and managed to build a place for herself there. Pull herself together again and see what she could do. She had stopped living the moment she realized he wasn't coming back. She had survived but what was survival with nothing to live for?

She couldn't go back in time but she could pretend. She was good at pretending just like The Doctor was good at running. Pretend that he had just left her in bloody Aberdeen and that she had pulled a stiff upper lip and moved on. Plans that she had thought long stillborn rose to the forefront of her brain. She had money from her articles; saving accounts that had accumulated over the years; currency from hundreds of alien planets and from times long past that were worth a fortune now, a farewell gift the TARDIS had slipped into her bags like the good mother she was and didn't that just make her heart ache all over again; her payroll and stipends from UNIT they had been saving for her, waiting for her to come back or at least make a decision.

She talked to the Brigadier, she still had his extension number, talked until she was hoarse and he had fallen asleep on the other end, his snores vibrating pleasantly in her ear. About what had happened, how she had felt, what she wanted to happen now. She hung up with a fond, "Good night, Brig." and looked over to K-9 who had ceased his meandering and was staring at her in that way he had that let her know he had been listening. Just like old times when himself wouldn't give her the time of day and she desperately wished for someone to talk too who could at least answer back in a language she could understand.

"What do you think?" She asked, saving her work and rolling her shoulders to get the kinks out.

"About what, Mistress?" The little dog chirruped. She thought for a moment. She hadn't talked to anyone in such a long time. Taking this moment to think almost hurt she had been moving so fast for so long, running in place with no where to go.

"Rose." She said, the name popping out without her really meaning to. Her jealousy at Rose wasn't because the girl was standing at The Doctor's side and she wasn't, he was a social creature and she had hypothesized that he would die of loneliness if left by himself. Not that she wanted to test that. No. It was because Rose had the type of relationship with The Doctor she had been unable to manage in all of her years with him. It was so physical and open and so purely unconscious on both their parts, as if to hold her hand or touch her was as natural as breathing. How had Rose, the lucky girl, managed to so totally wrap a being like The Doctor, who was controlled and influenced by no one, around her little finger like that?

"I did not become acquainted well enough with Rose Tyler to form an opinion, Mistress." K-9 answered, breaking her from her musings.

"From what little you saw what can you say?" She asked. K-9 was silent, even the lights in his eyes stopped their blinking, as if he were listening to something only he could hear. He was silent for so long she began to worry he had broken down again.

"He needs her." K-9 suddenly answered, his voice losing it's light tone, dropping the habitual 'Mistress'. For a moment his voice was different. It sounded like him, her first Doctor. Smooth, patient tones with a lightness she had missed. She stared at her daft little dog as he raised his head to look at her, the way The Doctor had looked at her when he had something to say that very much needed saying and very much needed to be heard.

"What did you say?" She whispered, leaning forward.

"He needs her." K-9 repeated patiently, "He needs her, will need her, always need her."

"Why?" She asked, just a seriously, "While he may need to travel with someone, he's rubbish on his own, but why her? Why Rose?"

K-9 trundled closer as if departing a great secret, his voice now sounding more like her first Doctor than ever before, crackling as if the mere act of speaking was putting pressure on his speakers.

"The things in the dark are hungry, and Time will always strive to take care of it's own." She shivered and hugged her knees to herself her mind flashing back to her Doctor's darker moments. When he seemed so lonely and lost and just plain tired. Those times after they had gotten reacquainted, after the regeneration, and suddenly a barrier she never knew had been there between them had disappeared. He would sit down next to her and wrap the ends of his long scarf around her and it would almost seem as if he were trying to protect her. Maybe that was why he had regenerated so big and tall, to protect her from the things he couldn't control. His deep, deep voice rumbling through her bones as he pulled her as close as he dared, almost into his lap, his coat surrounding her protectively.

"There are things in the dark, Sarah Jane, hungry things that eat the world. You can't hear them or feel them but they exist beyond the veil of the Rift, screaming through the Void. Sometimes I think they're waiting for me. Maybe someday I'll step outside the TARDIS and there will be nothing but the swallowing darkness... Like a wolf made of stardust and endings, howling in the night, ever hungry to be let in. And that frightens me, Sarah Jane..."

"Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" She whispered, echoing fearfully what she had said so teasingly back then. He had looked down at her and smiled his tooth bearing smile as he leaned down from his great height to murmur teasingly into her ear.

"And who says I'm not, Sarah Jane? I may just eat you up one day..." She had laughed then and jostled him, snuggling closer into his side, cherishing the rare closeness and vulnerability he hardly allowed to slip out.

"Come off it!" She had said then, "You're not a wolf! More like a cuddly teddy bear!" She would take advantage then, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him as tight as she could until his heartbeats echoed in her ears and his large hand would awkwardly land on her back as if measuring how small she was compared to him. If the adventure had been dangerous, if the threat of losing her had been great, he would sometimes hold her in his arms wrapped together in his huge coat, her head tucked under his chin and she would feed him Jelly Babies and talk about nonsensical things and he would sometimes murmur secrets into her hair that she couldn't hear, but feel as the syllables were pressed into her head. She had never felt so safe, so needed. Sometimes she would dream of wolves made of stardust and endings too, their lonely howls echoing through the dark, crying for someone to hear.

"Mistress?" K-9 chirruped loudly, as if he had been on repeat for awhile, getting louder each time.

"Yes?" She jumped, shaking herself a little to dislodge the memory. It had been years since she had even thought about those memories, pained by grief and loneliness. But now she knew. He was alive and as happy as he could possibly be doing what he did best with someone that wasn't her. But that was alright, she approved of his choice wholeheartedly for the way she made him smile, "I'm sorry K-9, my mind was elsewhere."

"It has been eighteen hours, twenty-two minutes forty-six seconds since Mistress last ate or slept. May I suggest sustenance and then retiring for the evening?" The little metal dog suggested, his tail up expectantly.

"Yes." She answered, rubbing her eyes, "Yes, of course, good idea..." She quickly finished off her article and saved her work, nearly complete and awaiting proofing, tidied up what she could at the moment, made a list of what she needed to do the next day, ate some cold takeout from the night before and got ready for bed.

Her flat was rather cluttered with boxes and filing folders, the only furniture had come with the place and even then they weren't what she would call comfortable. More like vermin colonies. For the first time since she had moved in Sarah Jane looked around herself in dismay. They had been right, her friends at UNIT, this was no way to live. It was all so temporary. She had been waiting for so long she hadn't been able to take care of herself the way she needed to. She felt a wave of homesickness for the TARDIS where everything was in it's place and everything had a place, so neat and clean and comfortably lived in. She was never what one would call a neat freak but she shivvered at the sudden wave or revulsion and itched to start packing. But K-9 was right. Sleep and food first, not in that order.

Hadn't she told The Doctor time and time again that if you wanted to take care of anybody you first had to take care of yourself?

He would usually smile at that and gently tilt her head up with a long finger, leaning down to smile at her half mocking, something deep in his eyes conveying the importance he placed on his words and making her dizzy with want.

"But why would I do that when I have you to do it for me, Sarah Jane?"

"Because you're a daft old man who can't drive worth an Arakinnian's gall-sack and you let the TARDIS do all the housekeeping for you. I was only there to make sure you cared enough about yourself not to die..." She muttered, brushing her teeth a little more violently than necessary. She looked over at K-9, who sat in the doorway watching her expectantly.

"I'm glad you're here with me K-9." She said, crouching down to put a hand on his head, "I've missed you ever so much."

"As I have missed you, Mistress."

Even though he was just a daft metal dog she still laid out a rug beside her bed and covered him loosely with his blanket as he went into standby. Even though the flat was completely silent she could still barely hear the electric hum that accompanied K-9 wherever he went. It reminded her a bit of the TARDIS, the low muted ambiance that was always there in the background, just at the very edges of the mind. It was comforting and for the first time since she had stepped off the TARDIS in Aberdeen she felt like she was home. Safe in a way she hadn't felt in a very long time. K-9 was there. Her closest link to The Doctor and the TARDIS. It was as if a tension that had been building up since he left had vanished and she was finally able to relax into sleep.

That night she dreamed of wolves made of golden stardust and endings, singing their lonely song to the dark.