==Chapter 1==

I'll Walk Beside You

In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount.

– Haruki Murakami, After Dark

The Doctor was beginning to tire of repairing the TARDIS, and, truth to tell, the TARDIS was tiring of his repairing her. The problem was, what to do? Holmes and Beth were having their wedding night in 221B, Nikola and George were looking after Kathy, and Watson and Sally were engaging in some quality time of their own (though not without investing in some preventative measures from the medbay first).

The TARDIS solved the Time Lord's dilemma for him in an exasperated flurry of bleeps and whistles.

"All right, all right, I'll go, I'll gooo!" He threw up his hands and backed out the door. Mother hen. He closed the door, turned, and stuffed his hands into his pockets, inhaling the cold London air. Maybe he could visit with Mrs. Hudson.

He entered through the backdoor of 221B, unlocked for the moment, and called, "H'llo? Anybody around?" No response. He headed for the kitchen. "Mrs. Hudson?"

The landlady was sitting at the kitchen table with a sewing basket, humming to herself. She didn't look up at his call.

The Doctor blinked in bewilderment. He moved forward and lowered himself to face her. "Mrs. Hudson?" he repeated.

Mrs. Hudson looked up, smiling when she saw who her visitor was. "Oh, Doctor, good evening." She tsked on hearing her own voice and took a wad of cotton out of each ear. "My apologies – I tend to forget I have them in after a while!"

The Doctor frowned. "Why would you..." A feminine moan from the floor above drifted down to answer his question, and he blushed, eyes wide. "Oh."

The landlady looked up at the ceiling with a sigh, then chuckled at the Doctor's expression. "Honestly, the way those two have been going on, you'd think they'd invented it!"

The Doctor smiled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, newlyweds..." Well, only one thing for it then. "Um, wanna get away from it for a little bit? Take a walk, maybe?"

Her eyebrows arched, giving him a quizzical look – first a dance, now a walk... If she didn't know better... The next lot of sounds from above quickly settled the matter, however. "I'll get my coat."

He gave her a pained grin and hurried to the front door, feeling an odd emotion he couldn't quite put his finger on, or maybe a mix of emotions. No matter, it would come to him soon enough...

She soon joined him in hat and coat, drawing on her gloves, eyes dancing. Well, it had been such a long time since any man besides her lodgers had actually sought her company!

The Doctor opened the door and made a flourishing gesture, bowing as he did. "After you, milady."

Mrs. Hudson gave him a queenly nod in return. "Thank you, kind sir." Then her composure suddenly cracked, hand going to her mouth as a giggle slipped out. "I'm sorry!" For heaven's sake, she was acting like a schoolgirl!

He grinned, quite taken with her giggle. Why does Watson never really write about her?—she's wonderful. Still grinning, he offered his arm. "Shall we?"

"Absolutely." She locked the door behind them, took his arm, and they descended to the pavement. "Did you have anywhere in mind?"

He shrugged. "Wayeeeelll, I was kind of thinking... Madame Tussaud's? It's nearby, and it's good fun." Almost a checklist for him, really, with most of the boxes ticked off...

She was about to say yes, then frowned as she realised: "Oh, but it'll be closed by now, won't it?"

"Oh?" he said innocently. "Will it?"

Tussaud's was indeed dark and closed when they arrived. "Well, fancy that," the Doctor said blandly.

Mrs. Hudson shook her head. "Never mind, Doctor, let's go on." A pleasant stroll in the park would do just as well.

Whistling innocently, he flashed the sonic screwdriver at the lock, which obligingly popped open. "I'm sorry, what?" he said in the same bland tone, eyes dancing.

Mrs. Hudson stared, first at the screwdriver, then the door, then the Doctor. "Doctor, you can't be serious!"

"Why not? It's not as if we mean any harm—we're just going to look around. And we'll have the place all to ourselves!"

She hesitated, greatly tempted – and really, what harm could it do? "Oh... all right!" She covered her mouth again, taken aback at her own daring. It looked as if her lodgers had had more of a bad influence on her than she'd thought.

The Doctor smiled reassuringly, pleased. "Hey, it's okay. C'mon." He opened the door, took her hand to hurry her inside, and closed the door after them. "We might not want to turn on the lights, though." He fished a torch out of his coat and turned it on, pointing the beam up at his face and grinning.

She tsked, smiling, which softened as she turned to look at the main hall, voice hushed. "I haven't been here in years..." Not since the last time with Walter...

Oh, he knew that look, only too well—the look of someone remembering a lost loved one. He waited a moment in silence before offering his arm again. "Neither have I," he said softly, then smiled. "Of course, last time I was here, it was in the twenty-eighth century." Different location altogether, actually, and enormous to boot—an entire tower for the planet's largest collection of waxworks.

Her eyes widened, not quite sure how to respond to that. "Is it... very different, from what you remember? I can't imagine many of these figures are still there."

"Wayell... there's only one way to find out, isn't there?" She nodded, taking his offered arm again, and they walked up to the central display. The Doctor raised his eyebrows at the splendour of the waxwork royalty at the center, Victoria's children. "Will you look at all the princesses? Good likenesses, and I didn't mean for that to rhyme. Tussaud's has always had the best in waxworks—downright creepy sometimes. You just expect them to come right to life." Not that he had ever actually known a waxwork to do that—there was a world of difference between the exquisitely-carved and painted sculptures of Tussaud's and the clunky mannequins the Nestene Consciousness liked to use.

Mrs. Hudson gave him a Look – this was hardly the moment! "Poor things..." She answered the Doctor's questioning glance: "Sacrificial virgins all..." then smiled wryly at the Prince of Wales' effigy. "Except for his Highness back there, of course. I never envied them."

"You shouldn't," he said quietly. "Never envy someone who's wealthy—still less someone who's royal..." There was a reason why the term 'gilded cage' existed...

And the Doctor sounded as if he'd met more than a few. "Are Time Lords royalty?"

He gave a small, sad smile. "Oh, no. For all practical purposes, they were nobility, which is just about as bad." Ah... he needed something else to talk about, right now... oh! Shakespeare! The very thing. "Oi, well, if it isn't the Bard himself!" He moved over to the statue. "And he couldn't look less like the real thing." Only like the completely inaccurate portraits.

She followed his lead, pretending not to have noticed the 'were'. "What was he like?"

"Oh, he was a genius—worked out that me and the boys were time-travelers." He still couldn't get over that; he didn't think that they had been that obvious. "Good-looking, too, and I think he knew it. Quite the flirt, that one, lots of charm."

Mrs. Hudson chuckled, marvelling. "Is there anyone in here you haven't met?"

He pretended to think about it for a moment. "Ah, no, not really, no." He grinned suddenly, self-consciously. "In all seriousness, though... there are so many people I haven't met, multitudes, and they will never have their likenesses shown in Madame Tussaud's or have books written about them..." He looked down at his companion, eyes solemn and warm. "But they are just as important as any 'famous' person you care to name—maybe even more so."

She looked down at her hands, cheeks turning pink, hearing clearly what he wasn't saying. "...well... one does what one can..."

He smiled and turned to study Shakespeare again, tone brightening. "So what about you, Mrs. H.? What was your life like before your house became the most famous address in literature?"

She laughed, taken by surprise. "Much less eventful! I did have other lodgers before those two moved in, though none of them stayed very long. One was even a doctor, so I thought, well, where was the harm in taking in another?"

He chuckled. "To be fair, you weren't wrong about that one. What about family? Any kids?" Oi, idiot! This is the Victoria Era you're in... "Unless that's not something you talk about."

She shook her head, giving him a reassuring smile. "My daughter, Edith – married and living in Brighton now." No grandchildren yet, alas, but it was still early days.

He brightened. "Oh, that's lovely! Brighton—what a place to live, too: all that seaside holiday history!"

She nodded wistfully. "She does keep asking me to visit..." Then it finally dawned on her: she needn't worry any more about leaving either of her lodgers on their own in the flat! "Once the girls are properly settled, I might just take a few days off."

"Now there's an idea!" He stared into space, voice softening. "Visit her as much as you can; you never know..." He stopped. His own daughter, he had hardly known at all; too wrapped up in himself, in his own interests and desires, to ever take the time to learn hers... And her daughter... he had scarcely done better with her, poor Susan... The one Time Lord young and naive enough to run away with him...

His face suddenly made her want to cry... Not knowing what to say, she gently squeezed his arm with hers.

He came back to himself, exhaled unsteadily, and squeezed gently back, grateful for the comfort. "Sor—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and murmured, "Sorry."

She smiled up at him in silent sympathy, walking on together through the exhibit. "Do you know," she said lightly, "I've often wondered if Mr. Holmes and the doctor will ever end up in here." His sudden, wide grin was eloquent, and she exclaimed in delight. "Both of them, really?"

He nodded. "Takes a couple centuries to get them both here, but yeah. Based on the Paget drawings, though." He made a face somewhere between "bleh" and amused, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well, as long as no one ever turns the house into an exhibit!" she chuckled, shaking her head. "Can you imagine?" Bullet holes in her wallpaper, a jack-knife in the mantelpiece... She still hadn't quite forgiven the doctor for publishing those details in the Strand.

The Time Lord's grin froze, but he recovered quickly with a laugh. If she ever finds out, it won't be from me. "Yeah... Oo, look, it's the Queen!" He approached the waxwork in question and studied it. "Looks pretty accurate."

"...Should I ask?"

He winced. "Let's just say it was brief and complicated, with disturbingly far-reaching consequences." One would have thought that the Battle of Canary Wharf would have been the end of those consequences... Who would have thought that James Moriarty, of all people, would end up the director of Torchwood in its formative years?

The poor man... "Is it always like that?" she asked softly.

He winced, remembering Rose asking the same thing, forever ago it felt like now, when they had just met... "That dangerous? Yeah, mostly." Um, don't forget she knows her boys shared that life with you for a while. ...right. "But it's worth it, I think—long as you have moments like this every so often..." He stopped, about to call her by her first name and realizing he still didn't know it. "...by the way, what is your given name? I've always wondered."

She blinked, taken aback, stammering slightly as she answered, "It's Sarah."

His eyes widened in surprise, then he smiled softly. Of all the names from his past to circle back to him... "Sarah..." It fit her very well.

Mrs. Hudson nodded. "Sarah Louise Johnston, that was my name... before Walter..." And the Doctor's eyes, too, spoke volumes. "What was she like, your Sarah?"

"I can't do this anymore. Besides, I've got a much bigger adventure ahead. Time I stopped waiting for you and found a life of my own."

"Oh, she was bold, strong... never shied down from a fight, that one... and kind." He'd never forget the time he got her out of a tight spot by making her mad—it still made him laugh, while feeling a little ache in his chest... "And then she grew up—really grew up—when I wasn't looking. Sent her off and didn't come back for her, thought I was protecting her." He gave a slight, mirthless laugh; in some ways, his fourth self had been an enormous idiot. "Maybe I was really protecting me. Sarah always came through." He refocused on the Sarah before him now and smiled again. "I think you two are probably a lot alike. You have the same—" what was the word?—"spirit. Beautiful inside and out."

Her blush returned suddenly with a vengeance, though a tiny, knowing smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Flatterer." Heaven only knew how many times he'd done this before! Not that you really care...

His eyes widened as he realized how he'd been sounding. Steady on! "Oi, I'm just—just telling it like it is..."

Fighting the urge to giggle at his expression, she patted his arm. "Ah, Doctor, if you were a few centuries younger..." Oh dear Lord, had she really just said that out loud?

His eyes went perfectly round—his first instinct was to protest that he wasn't flirting, and his second thought cut that one off at the knees. He was flirting... and the realization didn't hurt like he might have thought it would. Time, and concern for his current Companions, had created a cushioning effect for the pain of losing Rose... and Sarah Hudson was a truly amazing woman.

He arched an eyebrow again—having got this far, he might as well go all the way. "Careful, Sarah, or I might be tempted to spirit you away in the TARDIS. Actually," he mused, "I'd give a lot to see you give a Dalek what-for..." They wouldn't know what had hit them.

Her hand went to her mouth again as a laugh slipped out, both at the unusual compliment and the alien name, it sounded so odd. "That's very sweet... I think!"

He grinned. "Well, it's as sweet as I get, anyway." On an impulse, he took her hand and kissed it.

She had been about to say something along the lines of 'Those poor girls', but his kiss put an end to that thought rather abruptly... Eyes wide, she managed breathlessly, "...you were saying?"

Aw, heck with it... Grinning wider, he murmured, "You're right—forget what I said." He bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips.

This time she didn't freeze, better prepared for what she'd been wanting to do since he'd danced with her, propriety be damned, it had been so long... Standing in the pool of torchlight, under the glass-eyed gaze of their captive audience, Sarah Hudson softly kissed the Doctor back, her hand coming to rest on his chest. She still hardly knew what to make of him: one moment he seemed a lost little boy, then next moment becoming a brash, uncertain youth, then just as quickly a wise but weary old man... but she longed to comfort all of them, make everything all right for him, if only for a little while...

Ria: *hearts for eyes* Well, who says that kind of thing's only for the young? Anyway, given the Doctor's age, there's relatively little difference between Mrs. Hudson and any other women he's kissed, except that she has a bit more experience in relationships and life in general. I doubt very much that the Doctor really even notices the silver hair etc, he learned a long time ago that appearances mean squat. Compared to him, she's still a girl, and a bit of light-hearted romance won't hurt either of them right now.

Sky: I just want to say that this was all Ria's idea and I still love it to pieces. Out of all the crossover stuff we've done in this 'verse in the past four years, this is one of my absolute favorite things: the Doctor and Mrs. Hudson.