Note:
There is an actual 'vault' in Norway with the same function as the one in this story. No similarities otherwise of course ;) At least I hope not.
My very first piece of fanfic. Please don't be afraid to criticize. Love all feedback.
Bannerman Road
Present
Sarah Jane Smith awoke to the sound of a familiar voice and the smell of freshly baked muffins.
'Smith, this is unacceptable,' he fretted. 'These housecalls are rare gems, you don't just sleep through them!'
She reluctantly opened her eyes to the odd yet pleasant picture of the Doctor sitting cross-legged on her attic floor, his back straightened perfectly while his hands hung limply over his knees. A dainty tray with newly baked treats, a pot of tea, and two cups sat next to him. The scene looked so very wrong in sight of all that had happened during the last two days. That was him. From catastrophe to pastry before you could say Jack Robinson. The pleasant smell emanating from the tray wasn't enough to take her mind off the pain however, as every sore bone in her body felt as though it was about to spontaneously catch fire.
'My legs,' she whimpered.
She was convinced someone had been operating on her head with a kango drill as she slowly rose from the pillow. Stirring around in her brain with a rusty spoon perhaps. Stapling post-it notes to the inside of her skull.
'Oh,' she cried as the sunlight seeping through the window stabbed her eyes to the verge of tears.
'Good morning, Sarah Jane,' Mr. Smith greeted her in his usual deadpan manner.
'How did I get here?' she groaned while throwing the Doctor's tweed jacket from her shoulders. She swung her legs over the side of the crimson leather sofa and ran her fingers through her tousled hair in silence. Suddenly she remembered...
'Where is he? Where are...'
She shot up in a sudden panic and headed straight for the door.
'Sit down, Smith. I'll tell you everything, but you have to...'
'Where are Luke and Sky?' she interrupted.
A rush of pain spread throughout to her head once more as as she turned around to face him. As the room started spinning, she was convinced she'd hit the ground like a brick.
'Please, sit down,' he solemnly requested. 'I ran a medical in the Tardis on our way here. You're not concussed, thankfully, but you have to take it slow.'
He calmly gestured towards the couch and poured her a cup of tea.
'You got off lightly, Smith. Very lightly.'
'What about him?' she asked with evident caution. 'Is he alright? You didn't leave him, did you?'
He put down the teapot and pushed an oversized piece of cake into his mouth, ignoring her question.
'One sugar, no milk, still?' he managed to ask while struggling with the sweet pastry that had endeared itself to the roof of his mouth so passionately it refused to be pried loose by his tongue. He quickly gave up on the task and resembled a hamster as he gazed up at her, expecting a reply.
She nodded in silence as she returned to the couch.
'The kids and K9 are running some errands for me. I made them a list while I was baking.
'Muffin, Cake, French Fancy?'
He gestured at his creations proudly while adjusting his bowtie.
'Doctor, please,' she begged.
'Of course I didn't leave him, Smith. Contrary to what some of you may believe, I am interested in the self preservational minimum. Leaving him would imply abandoning my current self as well.'
With a weary sigh, Sarah eased herself back against a pillow and waited for the drowsiness to subside. Try as she may, she couldn't supress a few tears from trickling down her cheeks as soon as she recalled everything that had happened during the previous days.
The events had unfolded like a dream. Only now, in the safety and warmth of her own home, did she come to realise the severity and potential consequences of what had happened. What she had done. What they had done. She had no idea how she was going to have to explain herself. Not to mention, him. In helping her, he had broken one of his primary rules. Lord knows what the consequences would be on his part.
Two Days Earlier
For most of the uneventful journey to Lapland, Sarah's mind had barricaded itself from the present.
Having failed several times to focus her thoughts on the very reason she was hovering more than twenty thousand miles above sea level in a charter plane, she had now simply given up. The research file in front of her hadn't been opened since leaving Bannerman Road, and had served mostly as a placemat for random junk from her bag.
It wasn't like her at all. Here she was, Sarah Jane Smith, one of the top journalists in the country, being invited to one of the most remote and secretive scientific undertakings on the planet, and all she could think about was home.
While her fellow passengers had been busy working and getting better acquainted, she had quietly sat by the window doing absolutely nothing.
One of them, a rather tall fortysomething bright blue-eyed man by the name of Mark Turner, had gently asked her whether she was nervous about flying about fifteen minutes after the plane taken off. She had been touched by his genuine concern, and had smiled graciously while shaking her head.
'Quite used to flying. Just a little homesick.'
Despite her politeness, he had still been attentive and tactful enough to notice she wasn't in the mood to have her brain picked, and she immediately liked him for it. He had a playful and slightly absentminded demeanor, yet was quietly confident and thoughtful enough to notice these little things upon their initial introduction.
'Well, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk during the next two days. I'll just allow you to think comforting thoughts about your family. I'll be right there if you need me though.'
He had left with an infectious smile and no hard feelings whatsoever.
She glanced over to his seat where he now sat typing away on his laptop, occasionally running a hand through his auburn curly hair.
'How much you remind me of him,' she murmured louder than anticipated. She immediately kicked herself internally while attempting to deny that daydream any further access into her mind.
Even though thoughts of him had grown further and fewer in between with each passing year since their reunion, he was always there in the back of her mind.
Her Doctor. An eternal grin plastered on his face. Waving to her as he stood atop a rock on Black Tortoise Beach on Shojo. A planet almost exactly like earth in its physical characteristics. The Shojons had no countries. They worshipped no deities except the ground beneath their feet and the sun that shone upon it. Their scientific knowledge and technological ingenuity was staggering, yet paled in comparison to their concern for the well-being of their planet as well as everything living upon its beautiful surface.
She knew why he could let his guard down there. It was a place where logic and morality thrived, and as a consequence, rendered violence and destruction all but obsolete. On Shojo, knowledge was viewed as a friend and protector, not something to boast about or be intimidated by. Those who had it wore it lightly and were always willing to share it.
They were kind, tender, and silly. Like him. Part of her had always wondered whether or not he had brought her there to show her how badly humankind had messed up its own path in comparison to the Shojons, who had been dealt the exact same hand to create their own destiny. She knew then and there, as she watched him smiling, more at peace than she had ever seen him, that she had never been happier. That was how she would aways remember him. Her Doctor.
She had no right to make such claims of course. After all, the Doctor belonged to no one, man or woman.
She had struggled with the feeling for years, and as she grew older, she admitted it went hand in hand with a regret she knew she had little right to carry. He was safe the last time she had seen him. As safe as the Doctor was ever going to be of course. It should have been enough.
Still, it was a feeling of selfish anger rather than gratitude which overtook her on rare occasions such these, when she was confronted by an unexpected tsunami of nostalgia.
She had to fight any feelings of self-pity when considering that the only man she had ever harboured any genuine and pure feelings for, had been a mere link in the long chain that makes up a Timelord's life. An echo of the past, buried somewhere inside of the man he was now. He was there, yes. Yet perhaps, he wasn't. Perhaps her human mind was too set on appearance and nugatory personality differences. Still, how could she not see them all as different men? If they had been human and forced to live together, no doubt they would have ended up driving one another bonkers. Yes, she missed her Doctor.
'Too little too late, eh?' a voice remarked in her right ear. Reluctantly, Sarah turned to face whoever was trying to get her attention.
'Sorry?' she asked. For a moment she wasn't sure whether or not the person next to her had telepathic abilities and had been reading her mind.
'Marianne Holden,' the blonde woman replied while enthusiastically extending her hand towards hers.
'Sarah Jane Smith, how do you do?' she replied while shaking the woman's hand.
'It's my first real job since finishing my Phd. I hadn't anticipated being this nervous. Silly really. Especially when considering the smoke and mirrors surrounding this thing.'
'You're set to relieve one of the biologists in the Vault, aren't you?' Sarah interjected. She had remembered the name from the information folder but had expected someone older. Marianne Holden had quite an extensive and frankly mind blowing resumé. The fact that it had all been achieved by such a young woman immediately inspired great respect.
The blonde woman nodded. 'That's me.'
''Well, I'm sure you'll do just fine, Dr. Holden. I'm the one who's really out of her element, I'm just a journalist, not a scientist like you lot. Feeling a bit like an intruder,' Sarah informed the young woman in a secretive manner.
The statement wasn't entirely truthful of course. She had spent most of her life intruding. Luckily she had always been able to convince herself it was for the greater good, and that her reasons for doing so were always justified.
'That's funny, you're the second person to tell me that very thing today,' Marianne replied. 'So you and Mark know each other then?'
Marianne nodded towards Turner, who by now was peacefully dozing off in his seat, his head cocked to one side. Again, Sarah had to fight the urge to be reminded of someone else when looking at him.
'We've never met prior to today, why?' Sarah enquired with genuine curiosity.
'Oh, I thought since you're both journalists you might have been working together on a piece.'
'No, I had no idea,' Sarah replied absentmindedly as she glanced over at Mark's sleeping form.
She would have been lying had she told herself she wasn't more than a little bit intrigued by him. her first guess had been that he too was one of the biologists on the team. She was pretty well aware of notable people in her profession but had never even heard of him. No one had bothered to tell her she wouldn't be the only journalist aboard either. Yet here he was, in the same plane, en route to a destination reserved only for a selected few.
A look inside The Global Biota Repository, cynically nicknamed 'The Doomsday Vault', had been every reporter's wet dream for months.
The facility was a privately funded undertaking, the construction of which had already reached completion before the scientific community and the rest of the world would find out about its existence. The objective was to eventually maintain two underground storage facilities. One for all plantlife, the other for animal life. An insurance ticket in case a global catastrophe were to wipe out the majority of life on earth. For the time being though, only one of the two was fully operational.
She had deemed it a noble objective when first hearing the news, but in no rush to visit by any means. A trip to a remote greenhouse simply wasn't a high priority on her things-to-do list.
As of late, she had noticed her ever decreasing interest in the work she once held so dear and, for years, had defined herself by. As she grew older, the years seemed to slip by at an alarming speed, and she was determined to enjoy them. Her do-it-yourself rescue plan for earth would continue as long as her body and mind tolerated it. Her job however, now that was another matter. She at least wanted to cut down on her workload. Yet here she was again, letting herself be swept away into a situation and story she cared little for.
'Never again,' she told herself.
Doctor Johan Karlsson had been awaiting their arrival at Airbase Inari. Without so much as a word of welcome, he had ordered the cargo to be moved from the charter plane onto the helicopter that would fly them directly to their destination. Obviously agitated by their delay, the trio of newcomers opted to stear clear of Karlsson and turned their collective attention to the slightly mad looking man who accompanied him.
'Mark Turner, Sarah Jane Smith, and Dr. Marianne Holden?' the man inquired.
The trio nodded in unison while attempting to adapt to the cold, standing around in awe of the snowy white panorama.
'Ed Ramsey, lovely to meet you. I'll be flying you lot over to our little greenery...' He extended his right hand while pointing towards a huge white helicopter with the other. '...In that lovely looking lady.'
His accent was as thick and earthy as his fur coat, which Sarah guessed was an actual dead bear. He sure looked like he could manage to clobber one.
'Ah, a Scotsman,' Mark retorted cheerfully while shaking the pilot's hand.
'One of the journalists, eh?' Ramsey decided. 'Well you can save the interrogation for later. Right now you can earn your keep and give us a hand with these supplies.'
'Absolutely not!' Karlsson snapped as he passed the small gathering while carrying one of the containers. 'There's valuable equipment in these and some of it extremely fragile.'
He clearly spoke with a Scandinavian accent but for the life of her Sarah couldn't remember where exactly he came from. She had seen him in the information file she had been provided with but simply couldn't remember. She had never been this poorly prepared before.
'Anything else we can do to be of assistance perhaps?' Mark enquired as politely as possible.
'Try not to get in the way.' Karlsson replied. 'Or get left behind. Hah!'
Clutching a small black container and mumbling to himself, Karlsson trodded towards the chopper.
Patting Mark on the shoulder, Ramsey headed towards the remainder of the containers and grunted theatrically while lifting one of them.
'He's not always that cheerful,' he informed the trio standing idly by. 'Every now and then he gets quite broody.'
Most of the flight went by in complete silence. With every passing minute, Sarah grew more and more anxious. Had she made the right decision coming here? She felt her heart sink even further when thinking of Luke and Sky. Ten years ago, she would have relished every second of this fantastic opportunity. How a few years can change someone so much. Perhaps for the first time in her life, she truly understood what it was like to be homesick… and it was awful beyond description. The inescapable thought in the back of her mind that none of it was worth the hassle grew as they flew over the curvy white slopes of the north. It certainly wasn't worth missing her kids. Not even the breathtaking view above the Kebnekaise could make up for it. If anything the imposing views managed to make her feel more removed from herself and her own life the longer they remained in the air, and quite suddenly, she wondered whether they had perhaps reached another planet. Everything seemed so far away. Like she would never see any of it ever again.
She never wanted someone to hold and comfort her so badly in her life. Someone to listen to her thoughts, no matter how trivial or silly. The question she had avoided asking herself, as well as the inevitable verdict that went along with it, finally dropped like a gavel. She was getting too old for this. She was more than ready to save the world as long as she could do it from home.
'Make the best of this, Smith!' she strictly ordered herself. Many a journalist was envious of her being her. She owed it to herself as well as her profession.
Bannerman Road
Present
He was by her side as soon as the first tear fell, clumsily raising himself from the floor and nestling beside her.
'I'm fine,' she snapped as she stood up and pushed him away.
He pulled her down again just as quickly, and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
'Oh, Smith. Tell me all about it,' he told her as if shushing a small child.
He wiped away a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb, took the tray with tea and baked goods from the floor, and pulled her close again as he leaned back.
'Now, despite the obvious physical and mental discomfort you've experienced during the last twentyfour hours, what's really troubling you, eh?'
He waved a piece of cake in front of her nose to tempt her.
'Open up, Smith!'
She raised a suspicious eyebrow and confiscated the treat from him. 'That's where I draw the line.'
'I know it hasn't got anything to do with nearly being mauled,' He continued.
'Oh?'
'Well it was never cause for complaint when we were whizzing about the place.'
'Yes it was. And I did. You just weren't listening. Too busy sticking your head inside of the Tardis' controls.'
He seemed genuinely hurt by her remark as he sadly stuffed more cake into his mouth.
'If I gain a sudden amount of weight, it's your fault,' he complained. 'I'm an emotional eater.'
Sarah ignored his remark and carefully nibbled at the side of her portion, fully prepared to be disgusted. His culinary extremities were all too familiar to her tastebuds. Ketchup flavored ice cream, pizza with chocolate sauce and tuna, you name it, he ate it. To her surprise however, the cake was absolutely delicious.
'Since when do you cook?' she asked. 'I mean... edible things.'
'Oi! That's rich coming from the woman who habitually burnt the Tardis kitchen down!'
'Your memory must be going, dear, because I never did such a thing,' she teased.
'Ha!' He exclaimed before giving her another peck on her forehead.
'I took a few pointers from a pastry chef when I was visiting with old Lou in Versailles. Bertrand his name was. The chef, not His Majesty the king of France. Imagine a king being called Bertrand…'
'Not as bad as Queen Anna Coonda from Doonga Ralle.'
'Oh yeeeees,' The Doctor squealed. 'I remember her!'
'Oh of course you remember her,' Sarah ribbed. 'Poor ancient thing was so senile she thought you were her dead husband, Prince Bool Terriar.'
For a moment, they giggled in unison.
'It's always the dwarf planets,' he sighed, attempting to put a stop to his laughter.
'Oh dear, that's not very nice,' he added with a smile.
Sarah chuckled as she sipped her tea and cleared her throat when an uncomfortable silence arose.
'Go on, Smith, ask me.'
His tone had altered considerably from thirty seconds earlier.
'Ask you what?'
'About him.'
She closed her eyes. She never could hide anything from him, no matter what body.
''He's fine,' he said. 'Well, not really. As I remember, he is in severe pain and will continue to be for a few days yet, but he'll live, obviously. After all...'
He gave her a a wink and grinned. '...I'm here, aren't I?'
'Where is he? Did he change?'
The Doctor smiled as he stood up and put the tray on her desk.
'I don't understand any of this, Doctor. I mean, you always said it was dangerous.'
After gazing at the floorboards for a moment, he approached and extended his hand without looking at her.
'I promise it will all make sense someday, Smith. Now, come with me. There's something I have to show you...'