The look in his eyes was timeless. That word didn't quite cover the meaning she was trying to convey, but it seemed that the proper one was beyond her scope. She tried again, the journalist in her pushing, demanding to find the just-right word. Many assaulted her:
Timeless, Ageless, Limitless, Eternal…
…and intense.
The eyes hadn't changed. Yes, she thought, the face in which they were situation had morphed, changed, but the eyes remained consistently (wonderfully) the same. Blue, brown, hazel, green….it didn't matter. The intensity had not changed and she would have known it anywhere. In any face…even in the face of this youngish man.
A man who wore nonchalance like a used rain slicker – comfortable and slightly rumpled. A man who smiled nervously, but not overpoweringly so, as if his muscles were unsure of the action, but his heart dictated otherwise.
Yes, the intense, timeless, ageless, limitless, eternal quality in his gaze had not changed. Burning in its heart was the intelligence, the powerful emotion of a man fated to right cosmic wrongs. (Amazing…how so much emotion could translate from one so adamant about emotional detachment.)
They were the windows to his soul. In them was still her best friend, her confidant, the man she loved. If she only looked at the eyes, all else would fade away and she would only see his soul…that part of him that never changed…that part with which she had fallen in love.
The eyes smiled now, an echo and a mirror of his lips. The skin at the edge of those eyes crinkled attractively as his lips gave a wide smile; the smile was infectious in its purity. Smiles had been rare when she had traveled with him, but heartfelt and precious gifts. They came with ease now. But she knew…knew at her very heart, that it was likely that it was great pain that had broken through the emotional detachment. (Happiness heals, pain injured, and only the most surgical, perfect strike would have gotten past those Carthaginian walls of emotional protection/ detachment. She knew it had been pain…).
"They're all gone," he had said.
Time Lords, Gallifrey, friends of the past, promises of the future….she knew he meant it all. And she knew how deep it would cut him; she knew how deep it had cut him. With that pain, however, came that wonderful, heartfelt ability to feel pure unadulterated happiness and to show it unabashedly.
Pain's saving grace; his saving grace…the two edged sword of strong emotion.
Hannibal had stormed his gates and overtaken the very heart of his Empire, the Doctor's empire: his own emotional blockade.
And the girl at his side? Rose? Sarah could see her own youth in the eyes of the girl. She could see the wonderful, incredible, almost uncontrollable excitement in Rose's eyes that she had seen in her own eyes reflected in countless mirrors. The world, the universe had been hers; it was Rose's now. Everything was at her fingertips.
Looking back now, Sarah could see the blind excitement, the adherence she had had to the Doctor at the cost of all else: she could see it all within Rose. There was the blind loyalty, the complete trust and the love that had been hers for a time. That was still hers.
After all, the Doctor was something that someone carried his entire life like being touched by the very hand of God. One's life changed in an instant, a moment of meeting. And those who traveled with him were both blessed and cursed with having their lives change irreparably…for better or worse. Better or worse, it was the flip side of the coin. It was a bright shiny coin that one held in their pocket forever; a bright shiny coin that glinted in the sunlight when one took it out of their pocket, never quite knowing if it were heads up or heads down.
Rose would see that someday. But for now, she traveled with the Doctor who was her best friend, her confidante, her love as Sarah had once traveled with him. The effect on her life was not to be known now. She was blinded only by the glint of the coin, by the glint of intensity in those portals to the Doctor's soul. In the spark in his eyes. The spark that spoke of travels unimaginable, of cosmic wrongs being righted, of fairy tales and science fiction. The spark of a man willing to face death in order to live life at its absolute and most brilliant fullness. It was a spark that was ageless, endless, timeless and eternal.
And never, never changed. They were all saw that spark and were, whether better or worse off in life afterwards, definitely and unarguable the richer.
As she listened to the TARDIS fade away, Sarah Jane Smith smiled into the sun and knew she was very much the richer.