So this is not a sequel, a series of betweens and yes there will be a sequel boys and girls.
I had originally planned for a series of these in order, but Liz Sladen's death really hit me
I was going to hang up my fanfiuc pen. But the show does go on. Sarah Jane was my first companion, and if that tells you how old i am well then oh well. I love Doctor Who, i have loved the show since i was three years old. I loved Sarah jane, and well this is my good bye to her.
You will be missed Old thing
"You decide to fix the kitchen sink, now?" she asked the shoes sticking out from around the kitchen cabinet.
A distant but insistent "mmmhmm" answered her query.
Martha shrugged and moved over to the coffee pot to flip it on. In her experience, her husband wavered between loathing coffee and singing its praises.
"Its five in the morning, don't think that I don't realize your timing is in direct correlation with my mother's attendance to her prize roses." She spoke over her shoulder.
Another insistent affirmation chortled her from behind.
"Is that all I am going to get this morning? Servile acquiescence?" she grinned, leaning against the side board.
He did not answer, and it wasn't until the early morning sun hit the shoes on the floor that she realized they were different. Noticeably different. In fact, the legs attached to them were longer, but lacked the spindly quality she had become accustomed to. "Doctor?" she asked, advancing cautiously.
The man under the sink offered a low long curse right before a spray of water tormented from above his head.
"Way to fix the faucet" she grinned.
The man that emerged from the sink was both wet and tall; he shook his wild curly head and offered a large grin to the small woman. "Hallo Martha." He grinned big.
"Doctor?" she asked again, stepping back from the stranger.
The Doctor moved to the small table facing the large bay window and donned both his coat and scarf. "Sinks a bit of a wash." He grinned at his own joke. A wave of his sonic and the water stopped.
"Should have known it was you." She grumped moving to the closet.
"Oh?" he asked
"Always a mess." She muttered again.
He stood motionless in the center of the kitchen, hands jammed deep into his pockets. "She's gone." He nearly whispered.
Martha pretended not to hear him, still angry over the fresh mess of her kitchen floor.
"Martha." He spoke again, louder and more gruffly.
"Yeah." She turned, wielding the mop like a light saber.
He took the mop from her hands, placed it on the other side of the sink and enfolded himself into his wife. "I need you." He spoke softly.
"Hey," she soothed, allowing him to sink into her. "Hey, what is all this about?"
"She's gone." The Doctor hiccupped.
"Who?" she asked quietly.
"Sarah Jane."
He'd cried himself into a sort of stunned silence. Martha sat on the couch with his head in her lap. She knew he could not have been comfortable, all those limbs squeezed into a tight ball, but there he was, wearing an unfamiliar and sad face.
She didn't ask him what happened, didn't speak even. It was his way, always his way to keep busy when emotions are too big to deal with. He had no more wanted to fix the sink than she wanted him to fix it. He knew she usually handled things around the house; the Doctor's presence at her home was more officious than actual.
Seeing him this morning had scared her, big. He had not been this unhinged in a long time, and the sink should have given him away. The last time he tried to fix something around the house was when the Brig died.
"I miss her." He broke.
Francine, upon seeing the scene in the sitting room had wisely moved around the room and gone into the kitchen to finish cleaning the mess.
"I know." She nodded.
"So fragile you lot. So easily felled. So easily broken. "He rose suddenly, shaking himself free of her grasp. "See, this is why." He started jerkily. He shook his head and paced like a panther in a cage.
"Doctor," she warned, knowing the inside of him enough to know a rant when he got up to one.
"How is it that I have ended up with you anyway?" he asked angrily. "You'll die eventually."
"We are all dying Doctor." She offered evading any spoilers.
"But," he came and sat down next to her, holding her small hands in his large one. "How it that you and I are is bonded this way?" he asked, pleadingly.
"It's complicated." She assured him.
"But you will die, before me too." He sniffed.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that." Martha insisted.
"How? How do you know that?" he fumed.
Martha pulled his hands so that his body came to hers again, and she was again assailed by the scent of him, the temporal and temporary existence of his nature. "I know." She assured him again.
He seemed to be placated by her words, reassured by her touch. "I couldn't lose you that way."
"Nothing is etched in stone Doctor; you know that better than anyone. I could lose you first, or we could be separated in time and space. Death is a distance, just like any other."
They sat in the lightening room as the son rose above the distant hills. He cried on her shoulder and she was reminded of a time when they discovered she was pregnant. Only two months ago, but it was a different him, and yet that very same bone shaking sadness.
He told her of stories about his Sarah Jane, an ardent intelligent and unflappable girl who would not be easily frightened. Daleks, Cybermen, and creatures that would give anyone else nightmares.
But not his Sarah Jane.
It was hours before they moved from the spot. She had needed to go to the bathroom, but had stayed with him, more out of fear than loyalty. He seemed to be made of glass, this dazzlingly brilliant creature she was forever tied to. He seemed that a good wind would shatter him, and blow him off into the distant corners of the universe.
So she held on for dear life.
By the time she left him, he was sleep ing peacefully on the couch, long legs splayed over the edge of the sofa and snoring softly.
"Is that him?" Francine asked incredulously. She had entered the sitting room after two in the afternoon, worried about the health of her newly pregnant daughter.
Martha nodded and moved toward the living room. Magically, as she passed her mobile on the desk in her office, it rang. Jumping for, the voice on the other end was as familiar as her own.
"I just thought you should know," jack began, a hiccup in his own voice."
"I know Jack," she sniffled.
"He told you." Jack spoke in that cracked voice that told of absolute grief.
"Yeah." She nodded. "Sort of."
Jack rattled off a litany of directions and instructions. Martha nodded as he spoke as if he could see her head moved. They exchanged stilted phrases and syncopated words of closure and sadness.
"She was an amazing woman." Jack announced.
"Yes, she was."
"She meant a lot to him you know?"
"Yeah," Martha nodded. "I know."
"Will he come to the funeral?" Jack asked.
"I am not sure, Jack. You know him, no good with goodbyes."
"Don't I know it." He laughed bitterly.
"Jack," Martha offered, pinching her nose with her fingers.
"Yeah, well, just let him know when and where, ok?" Jack hung up the phone, leaving off the goodbye himself. It was without judgment that she set the phone down and moved to the sitting room to check on her husband.
He was already gone.
It was a beautiful ceremony. She had so many friends there, so many people that she had helped and affected. People who she would have laughed herself to have seen there.
Luke stood next to a tall older man, with graying hair and a stiff manner. Martha had met Harry Sullivan before, but was surprised to see how much shorter he seemed on this day.
"Hello Dr. Sullivan," Martha offered with a hug and a pat.
"Harry," he choked, "We are not at UNIT right now Martha." He tried to smile, but failed miserably.
Martha nodded and took Luke into her arms. "You ok?" she asked the young man.
"I will be," he nodded into her embrace.
As the mourners left the gravesite, Martha found herself looking around for any sign of the Doctor, any sign that he had come, or would come, or had left something to let others know what she meant to him.
But he never showed, and Martha was the last one to leave the grave. She watched Jack help Harry and Luke into a cab and saluted her from his Torchwood vehicle.
She waved back to him and began to walk to her own waiting car.
"He hates goodbyes." She tried to reassure herself, but could not help but feel the word coward seep into her brain at the Doctor's unwillingness to pay respects to someone he cared so deeply for. Then, she cursed herself for thinking that way about the man she loved. Then she wondered if he would ditch her own funeral, then cursed herself again for her own morbidity.
The three of them sat at a small pub not far away from 22 Bannerman Road. Jack, Gwen and Martha, drinking themselves into sanity.
"Luke is going to finish school" Gwen affirmed.
Martha nodded, glad that Sarah Jane's son was to keep himself busy and out of grief.
"Harry is going to help with him, along with Jo Grant and a few others of us." Jack nodded.
"He won't be alone." Gwen assured them.
"He should not be." Martha shook her head. "She was too young. It's hard to say goodbye." She shook the tears away from her face.
"Get used to it." Jack muttered from over his drink.
"What?" Gwen asked, looking between the two companions, not missing the strange strangled looks that they seemed to pass between each other.
Jack turned to the tiny Welsh woman, "Oh, you don't know?" Jack asked, obvious that he had had too much to drink already.
"Jack," Martha warned, wondering if it wasn't time to get toward home.
But Jack shook his own head again and turned silent to his gin.
"What does he mean Martha?" Gwen asked her friend.
"Its complex and this isn't really the time or place for it right now Gwen." Martha eased.
"Never should have expected him to come." Jack went on.
"I was surprised not to see him there too," Gwen agreed, accepting the change of subject. For now.
"Coward." Jack roughed.
"You of all people know that is a lie." Martha insisted, getting up from her seat and gathering her things.
Jack seemed to ignore her as Martha bid her goodbyes and fled from the pub,
She drove the three hours home in silence, no music no radio. She tried to hold her anger in as she pulled into the remote rural yard, parked her car and walked up the drive.
The familiar shape of the TARDUS stood in its usual spot, shadowed in the darkening night. She ran to the box, but stopped as she watched an older gentleman move solemnly toward the box. He turned to meet her gaze and opened the door.
By the time Martha made it to the spot, the TARDIS was already gone.
She entered the house, met by an anxious Gleep and a note on the kitchen table informing her that her mother had gone to Tish's to help her with her impending wedding.
Martha welcomed the silence, marked only by Gleep's fluttering wings as he flew alongside her as if he had something to say.
But he couldn't talk, and for that she was immensely grateful
On the Doctor's pillow on his side of their bed, was a program from the visitation, held in place by a red rose.