Complicated
Prologue
Sarah Jane Smith: Time-traveler, Journalist, Mum, Baby Sitter, Earth's savior on a bi-weekly basis. I'm the madwoman of Bannerman Road. These were the first words that ran through Sarah Jane's mind as she collapsed heavily onto the old, worn down, maroon sofa in her big lonely attic in Ealing. Sure, she had the gang, but they were growing up fast and they would all eventually follow in Luke's footsteps, leaving Sarah Jane all alone again.
Luke Smith was an alien experiment, made by the Bane, with a brain better than Einstein. He had saved the world the day he was born, and Sarah Jane immediately took a liking to him. She adopted him that day, but now he's off at Oxford University. He was accepted two years early and has been taking classes there for the last year and a half.
Maria Jackson and her dad, Alan, moved back to Bannerman Road. Alan had quit his job and they came back for his new occupation. Next week, Alan would start as Torchwood 3's new technical adviser, working alongside the infamous Captain Jack Harkness, the clever Gwenevere "Gwen" Cooper, and their other new associate, Rex Matheson. Maria doesn't quite approve of this but she'll get over it. She's going steady in twelfth grade and already got her acceptance letter from Oxford. By this time next year, she'll be beside Luke every second of the day. They, too, have been 'going steady' since Luke asked her out her second day home. Everyone thinks it's about time those two saw what everyone else has seen the last five years.
Rani Chandra and Clyde Langer have been together for four months now. Everyone is relieved that they have stopped being blind too; they were even more obvious then Luke and Maria. They are both finishing twelfth grade with flying colors. After school, Rani is going to take up a journalism apprenticeship with Sarah Jane while attending a literary based collage. Gita, Rani's mother, swears up and down that she's going to end up as a big news reporter for BBC1 one day. Haresh, Rani's father and the headmaster of Park Vale School (where all the kids attended at some point), is so proud of his 'Little Princess'.
Clyde and his mother Carla haven't heard from his dad since the last time he left them high and dry, but they are pulling through just fine. Clyde still cooks dinner every other night, and is always helping out around the house whenever he can. Even though he pretends to be such a cool, jokester/jock (which constantly gets on Haresh's nerves), he really is an intelligent young gentleman. He will be attending London's best Fine Arts Academy after finishing grade school, to live out his dream and start his own comic book series.
Skylar Jane Smith is an alien. She saved the world, regenerated miraculously, and almost committed genocide the day she was born. She was adopted by Sarah Jane and she is loved far more than she believes. She'll be turning thirteen and starting seventh grade next school year. She's a very bright little girl, but she always feels as if she's just Luke's replacement. She knows that it's not true, but she still has a hard time believing that everyone accepts her just the way she is. She looks up to both Luke and Clyde like her big brothers, and she looks up to Rani like a big sister. She's still getting used to her powers, so every time she gets upset or angry the electricity goes haywire. Sarah Jane always tells her that she doesn't mind, that it's going to happen whether she likes it or not and she'll try her best to help her sort her powers out.
Sarah Jane has really kept quiet and stuck to the background lately, watching everything unfold. Sometimes she still can't believe that she really does have a family. She can't help but think of the Doctor every day, no matter how much it hurts her to think about him. She still feels the sting of abandonment and replacement. He had left her all alone on Earth, just out of the blue one day. She still misses all their traveling and all the secret moments they would steal when they were alone. He'd left her and went right on traveling with younger, fresher models. Meeting Rose at Defrey Vale was her point of realization. Meeting Jack, Gwen, Ianto Jones, Martha Jones, Mickey Smith, Donna Noble, and Jo Jones (nee Grant) was just salt in her wounds.
She knows that the Doctor never meant to hurt her and she knows that he'll never return her love, but she can't help the way she feels. She had always been sensitive. Too many things have happened to her in so little time. She has lost so much and life has left its many scars on her. She can't help but cry whenever she thinks about her parents, her Aunt Lavinia, Andrea Yates, the Brigadier, or Harry. So many people that have all meant so much to her are all gone now. Some of them taken by illnesses and tragic accidents, and the others by old age. She'll find herself always thinking 'Why does everything have to be so complicated?'