Always and Forever

It had always been him.
Sarah Jane Smith, journalist, time-traveller, crazy old woman, had never really loved anyone else but him. Oh, there had been brief relationships - they inevitably fizzled out - and some good friendships - they didn't really last. The man she'd loved had been so much more.
After he'd left her alone, stranded in Aberdeen of all places, she'd felt as if the world was a cage, dark and miserable. After all, they'd watched supernovae and seen the stars dance on Epsilon III; they'd been there when the skies on Radiant had been bursting with a thousand colours, when the Great Storm had broken out on the planet Ariel; they'd seen the beginning of the Universe, and almost its end. What was an Earth sunrise compared to that?
In thirty years she'd learned to hide her loneliness, tried to convince herself that a life without the Doctor could be as fulfilling as an eternity travelling the universe. And on the surface, it worked: a glass barrier separated what she was from what she wanted to be.
And then she met him again, and the glass shattered in to a million shards, each one piercing through to her heart. He'd changed. Not just his body - she'd expected that - but the carefree eccentric she'd travelled with had become...sadder. Oh, he seemed fine, more than fine, over-enthusiastic and too energetic. It was a front. She knew, because she saw in him a ghost of what she'd seen in herself all those years ago: a brittleness. Loneliness, pain. Even despair.
She met his eyes once, when he looked up unguarded, and they were filled with such utter desolation that it hurt too see them.
So they'd both changed.
But somehow, underneath the emotional baggage, they were simply wiser versions of what they had been. Well, the Doctor, at least. Because she still loved him, this hurt, angry man, just as much as she'd loved him what seemed - what was - a life ago. And not only had it always been him, it always would be as well.