Grief
What do you do when your best friend dies? That's a question that people sometimes ask themselves when they entertain the thought of losing someone they love so much and would do anything for. Would you withdraw into yourself and keep silent? Would you rage and howl at the moon? Would you drown your sorrows and seek solace in the contents of a bottle? Or would you do all of them and completely shut yourself off from life? He did all of those. He had faced the worst the universe had to offer – the daleks, the cybermen, the zygons and many more. He defeated them all but always with her by his side. He had to let go of her once but he still fought on knowing that she was out there, still urging him on in spirit. When he had the chance to meet her again he felt elated that she had come back into his life, the thrill of the two of them running down a hallway chasing some mysterious sound set his hearts aglow. But now, no more. No more would she be there, teasing him over his lack of understanding, pouting when he teased her back. It is one thing to know that the ones you love will eventually die, but it is another to go through it. There is a human concept known as the five stages of grief, a set of emotions that a person goes through when dealing with death. And now, as alien as he was, the Doctor was about to feel all too human.
Denial
"No,surely not" he thought "not her" He wandered around the tardis console, aimlessly pushing buttons and looking at readings. "She was still so full of life; she hadn't changed a bit since the old days." But no matter what he said to himself the fact still rung in his head like the TARDIS cloister bell. Sarah Jane Smith was dead. Even thinking it made his stomach churn and his hearts beat faster. Wonderful, fabulous, amazing Sarah was gone from his life. He had never really given this day much thought, most likely out of fear of how it would affect him. But the day had come and it hit him like a tonne of bricks. "How?" That's what he wanted to know. "How?" The word niggled him more and more and he finally made his decision. He put the coordinates into the TARDIS console and gave the old girl a reassuring pat "Take me to her, take me to our Sarah Jane".
Cancer was what the chart had said. A strain they had never seen before but the doctor knew what it was and he hated himself for it. All the times they had travelled since that day he never once thought to check her out. And effects could the alien worlds they visited have had on the dystemic toxicimia she contracted on skaro. He snuck into the hospital to look at what her doctors had said. He thought about going to see her but the thought weakened him at the knees and he decided against it. He could have killed himself right then and there when he found out that he was partly responsible for her cancer. "If I hadn't dragged her off to these places, she'd still be here" he thought "if I'd just left her be after I regenerated this whole thing would never have happened". He allowed himself a rueful smile at the thought of her giving out to him for attempting to leave her behind. "Oh no you don't." she would have said with a glare in her eyes and her just set firm, desperately trying to hide the smile waiting to burst free. He rubbed his jaw trying to see if the smile would go away but it persisted, just the image of her smiling face persisted in his mind. "No" he said with a sudden fury, a fury only seen by his enemies. "SHE CAN'T BE GONE!" he screamed at the top of his lungs and rammed his fist through one of the TARDIS monitors. The wiring sparked and burned as he left his fist embedded in the mess that had once been the atmospheric analyser.
"She can't be gone" he whimpered as he allowed his body to sink to the floor, his bloodied hand falling limp by his side. "She can't be gone".
Anger
The crowd whooped and hollered as the two combatants met in a grapple. No one had taken the stranger seriously. He was a stick of a man, lean and angular but he insisted he be allowed compete. The other combatants laughed at him but the arena manager saw something in his eyes. A fury, a dark anger that could enable men to do things no one thought possible. He had seen it in few men before but never to this extent and so he allowed him to enter the competition. The cage fighting on Davin prime was renowned throughout the galaxy as being both vicious and entertaining to the same high degree. The stranger who only called himself the Doctor was the smallest of the fighters in both height and width but there was something about him. People began to take him seriously after the first round. His opponent charged him in a savage attack but the Doctor glided underneath his opponent's arms and caught him with an uppercut that shattered his jaw and knocked him out cold. There was silence in the stands as his opponent was dragged from the cage. When he turned to leave there was a tumultuous roar, it appeared the crowd had gotten behind the underdog. And so it went on, the Doctor toppled foe after foe with relative ease. He was lightning fast and his blows could have levelled trees. And now it was time for the final match and he and the champion of the cage were equally matched. The Doctors Venusian karate was on par with the champions Davinian wrestling. The Doctors fury was coming to the boil now as he twisted his opponent and judo threw him onto his back. The Doctor swung around on his knees so that he was straddling the champion's chest and pinning his arms to his chest with his knees. He then began to savagely beat the champions face. The sweat flew from his face as he bodily threw each punch. He was grunting now, letting his anger pour out of him and it felt surprisingly good. "What are you doing Doctor?" her voice asked in his head. He stopped his assault and looked up as if expecting her to walk into the cage to stop him. "This isn't you, why are you doing this?" "You left me!" he sobbed and he lowered his arms. The crowd now looked on perplexed as the stranger got off his opponent and left the cage. They began to boo and ridicule him for not finishing the match. He didn't care. He barely event noticed the barrage of fruit that hit him as he retrieved his shirt and long coat. "You left me" he said again under his breath. "Why did you have to leave me all alone?" he pleaded as he rubbed the tears from eyes. He made his way back to the TARDIS, his anger quelled, to be replaced by the shame of his actions.
Bargaining
"There has to be some way" he said aloud in the TARDIS control room as he finished his repairs of the broken monitor. "There has to be some way that this can be avoided." He began to pace around the room, clicking his tongue in his mouth trying to come up with some way to avoid this horrible event. "I could go back to just after skaro and treat her then." A smile spread across his face as he made his way back to the TARDIS controls. Too often he had been called the last of the Time Lords and the title just reminded him of his lonely existence. But now that title meant something else. It meant that he no longer had to obey the rules and laws set down by Rassilon and the council. He was free of their stupid rules and bureaucracy. "I am the Doctor" he said triumphantly, "I am the lord of time and I can do whatever I wish. " For a moment he thought how childish that sounded to him and he gave a little laugh that grew and grew. He was elated, he was on his way back to save his friend and there was nothing that anybody could do to stop him. A groaning sound filled the air. It was the tired old familiar wheezing that heralded the arrival of the TARDIS on Skaro. The Doctor swung his long coat in a great flourish as he put it on. He strode with a purpose to the doors. "Don't worry Sarah, I'm coming for you and nothing can stop me" he said as he reached for the handle. "Nothing?" she said in a sing-song voice, the one she used to question the doctor whenever he made what he thought was a definite statement. "Won't the universe have something to say about that?" she inquired. The Doctor turned from the doors and began to slowly walk back to the TARDIS console. "Damn you Sarah Jane Smith" he said quietly "Damn you for leaving me. And damn you for being right." The Universe wasn't just his play ground, it dictated how he lived his life and if he rebelled against it, it would punish him…severely. With heavy hearts he made his way to her room.
Depression
Her room was exactly the way she left it and he liked it that way. On those difficult nights, when someone left him or he made a hard decision, he came here for comfort. Now, for the first time in years he came here to get drunk. The people of Venus had been good to him throughout his life. Its scientists had helped him with his TARDIS and helped him become the learned man he was today. Its army had shown his their martial art that had saved him and his friends on numerous occasions. Its musicians had thought him the enchanting lullaby that had saved his life on Peladon on both his visits there. Now, those musicians and the Venusian wine merchants were helping the Doctor get gloriously drunk as he sang. "Haroon, Haroon, Harooooon, Haroon" he slurred as he took another generous swig of the Venusian brandy. "Remember when we tricked Aggedor with that Sarah?" he asked the room "he wasn't a bad old sort in the end was he?" He began to sing again but this time tears began to flow as well as the words. She had only started out with him back then but deep down he knew she would be special to him. It was just like when Liz left and Jo came into his life. He grew to love her but with Sarah it was different, there was something deeper there and it grew the more time he spent with her. But now it was gone. Now his hearts were empty, sure he might pick up another person on the way and sure he would grow close to them but they would never match her. Anger flared within him again and he threw the bottle of Venusian brandy at the wall and watched as it smashed into a hundred fragment s and its contents streak down the wall. "I miss you so much Sarah" he cried, tears cascading down his face "I miss you so much". "And this is how you show it?" came her stern voice but he detected the notes of repressed laughter "You destroy my room with brandy of all things, brandy! You know I hate the stuff." She tutted but never once was she serious in her reprimands. But then she became serious "I loved you too Doctor, but I moved on. As much as it hurt me to do it I still did it and you know why? Because you inspired me. You made me capable of doings things I never thought possible and I did it in your honour." He looked up and to this day he can never be sure if it was a drunken hallucination or an actual visitation but there she was, glowing with light and beaming down at him. "Now Doctor, do one thing for me." "Anything." he said" Anything for you Sarah." She smiled "Move on, as I did. Move on and honour me the way I honoured you. That would mean more to me than anything." And with that she was gone and he was alone again but this time the Doctor was smiling. "Oh my Sarah Jane." was all he could say.
Acceptance
"Oh she wouldn't be happy with this" he thought. The statue itself was lovely. They had captured her essence perfectly but she would have been annoyed to see what she was wearing. "She always did look cute in those overalls" he said with a smile. The sculptor nodded his agreement. She was a legend on the planet Lyonx. She had saved the Doctor from captivity and helped him defeat the monstrous beast that plagued the people there. In thanks they erected a statue of her once they left and now the Doctor saw the legacy Sarah Jane Smith left on the universe. "Now, time to go see her legacy on earth."
The funeral was a bigger affair than he thought it would be. There was an honour guard from U.N.I.T at it. They had initially planned a twenty one gun salute but a certain chief warrant officer Benton refused the idea. Her friends from Bannerman Road took centre stage though. The Doctor looked at them with admiration. He had often wondered how good an idea was it to have brought people with him on his travels and now he knew he was right to. Here was the new breed of Earths defenders and they were all mentored by Sarah Jane Smith. "No one finer." the Doctor said to himself. After the crowd had left he made his way to her grave for one last farewell. The headstone was inscribed with her name and dates of birth and death but it also had a small epitaph added to it. 'Sarah Jane Smith, Friend, Mother, Saviour.' The Doctor gave a sad smile as a tear formed in his eye. "Truer words were never spoken" he said. "Goodbye, my Sarah Jane."
The End