An Evening With Friends (And Monsters)
SUMMARY:
{ 10-year-old Sarah-Jane gets to experience an unusual evening in the company of a future friend, not knowing that the man is actually on a mission to save her – and by extension – his own life. }
Also see my author's note at the bottom of the chapter!
It was June 1961, and a lovely warm summer evening in South Croydon, when Aunt Lavinia had gone to one of her science club meetings and left the young Sarah-Jane in the care of a sitter for the rest of the day. Now, if anyone was to ask the 10-year-old girl, she didn't need anyone to look after her, and in fact, she always thought that she was doing a better job at looking after her sitter than her sitter did at looking after her. This sitter in question was a neighbor of the Smith's, the old and kind-hearted Widow Madame Bosco, who had a tendency to talk about things of the past all evening long…
Still, in a way, Sarah was glad to have some company at all, even though she was intend to never mention that around Aunt Lavinia, as to not seem lonely.
When she had been a good bit younger and even smaller, she remembered fearing the loneliness more than anything and occasionally breaking into tears over the sheer thought that Lavinia might not come back from what was only a shopping trip, for example. Her aunt once explained her that this was most likely because parts of her were still painfully aware of the loss of her parents and that she had not come to terms with it. Of course, being an orphan bothered Sarah to some minor degree, but she remembered literally nothing about her parents, having been still an infant at the time of the accident. All she could say about them now was that even though they had been supposed to be her closest relatives, she felt quite distant from them.
So speaking about them and Lavinia missing from her life, those were two very different things from her point of view...
And now she was almost a teen. Much too old to be frightened by such silly thoughts as loneliness, anyway. Instead, she wanted to become a responsible, independent young woman. If she could show Lavinia that she was polite, patient, and could take care of Madame Bosco as well as the house during her Auntie's absence, that would make a solid first step towards her personal goal.
The sun stood already low at the time Sarah and the old widow sat in the Smith's living room. Madame Bosco was talking about her daily run-ins with all kinds of people from around town - which Sarah barely knew by name, so the girl just listened and gave the occasional nod. At the same time, she had made herself comfortable in one of the big armchairs, sitting cross-legged with a puzzle book on her lap. Flipping through pages of pencil mazes, crosswords and word searches, she was looking for something she hadn't solved already and actually felt like solving right now. That wasn't as easy as it looked. Her past self had left all the though-looking crosswords for the present one and she didn't really like them any more now than before.
"… and she told me that Miss Summer went on to marry the milkman. Would you believe it? You know Miss Summer, don't you, Sarah? She used to work at the grocery store until a year ago.", said the widow with the funny looking, thick glasses, although she was rather talking to herself, really. She had brought an unfinished piece of crochet work for her own entertainment while the hours of the evening were slowly passing.
"Hmhm." Sarah nodded without looking up, and quietly agreed without adding much to the conversation.
So all in all, it was a quiet and uneventful evening…
That was, until all of a sudden… the doorbell rang.
Curious, Sarah lifted her head wondering who might want to ring so late in the evening. In a way, she was hoping for Lavinia to be back early – or well, maybe her aunt had just forgotten some theoretical papers of hers? Whatever the reason, by the time Sarah had untangled her legs and put away the book, Madame Bosco surprisingly was on the way to the door already.
"It's alright, my child. I will see who it is."
"But I could-" The least the child could do was protest.
"It's probably just a neighbor asking for a cup of sugar. Just you stay here and wait."
The widow signaled to Sarah not to bother with the matter, so the child went with it and sat back down in the armchair. While at first she had wanted to take that bit of responsibility off of her sitter, it was not within her intention to start a race for the front door. Especially so since she wasn't particularly in the mood for visitor's after 7 pm – Sarah thought it was very impolite to ring the door after a certain hour of the day.
It took a bit for Madame Bosco to get there, but then Sarah could hear how the front door was opened and her sitter was greeted by the cheery sounding voice of a man. She couldn't help but feel a tiny bit disappointed that it wasn't Aunt Lavinia… Must be a neighbor then, like the widow had assumed earlier. They chatted a bit at the front door and Sarah might have been able to make out the words if she would have cared to listen, but for the moment she was following Madame Bosco's advice and didn't bother much with it. But she would, very, very soon…
"Sarah!", the old woman called with her slightly raspy voice, "Come, take a look at who has come to check on you!" She actually sounded rather cheery now, too.
And that was what renewed Saarah's curiosity. She didn't know many men around the neighborhood, at least none that would truly care to pass by just to ask about her well-being and she hadn't recognized the sound of the voice from afar, either. But when little Sarah-Jane jumped out of the armchair to identify the guest for herself, she only got as far as to make it three steps away from the furniture piece.
And then, suddenly, a complete stranger strolled into the living room.
"Sarah!", the man exclaimed, both happily and excited, with a smile like a week of sunshine.
"Why, I always thought you were short, but you're so small!" The stranger had an easy time talking, being six foot something tall himself. In the child's eyes almost definitely a giant. His movements were fast and fluent, almost one motion in which he had come around the corner and now dropped to a knee to meet Sarah's sight at a more equal level.
"I'm not short!" Her reply came almost instinctively and she crossed her arms in front of her body.
"Yes, you are!"
"Am not!"
"Yes, Yes...!", his voice rose a bit in volume and with a new frown on his face he asked:
"How old are you?"
"I'm ten already – and definitely not short!"
Putting her hands on her hips, Sarah proudly announced that she was soon-to-be considered a teenager. Sticking out her tongue probably didn't help that fact very much, but she felt that she was right in any way, and he deserved the teasing, this… who ever he was. By the way, who was he, anyway...?
Well, the man didn't mind the teasing at all. If anything, he was amused by it and with a quick movement that Sarah hadn't seen coming at all, he ruffled her neatly cut, dark brown hair. By the time she tried to defend herself against this motion, his hand was already far away from her head again. "Don't do that!", she protested.
"Why, I wish my doctor would be so caring to just check up on me every once in a while." Eventually, Madame Bosco joined the conversation again, but she was just chuckling when she saw the child and the man kneeling in front of her.
"Doctor..?" Sarah wondered aloud while using her fingers to comb her hair back into place. What the other was getting at, she had no clue...
"Yes", the widow assured her, "He's your doctor, isn't he? Lavinia sent him to keep us company."
"Ahm..." She didn't know what to respond to that. The stranger clearly wasn't the doctor Lavinia always took her to and he didn't look all that much like a medical person either, with the hat, the scarf, coat and everything - so something clearly was off. But why would her Aunt sent him here? There would be a very good reason, wouldn't there? Maybe he wasn't as much of a stranger as she thought. He could have been a late friend of her parent's and that's how he would know of Sarah without her knowing of him. But even if that was the case; Why pretend to be a doctor, then?
Lifting himself back up to full height, the man picked up on Madame Bosco's words quickly. "Mhm! There's supposed to be a meteorite shower tonight, and I came over to make sure that no one will be harmed by the side effects."
Although the child was quite willing to believe him, it just added to her suspicion that he was supposedly concerned about a meteorite shower. Those were shooting stars, weren't they? Pretty little lights on the sky, not something harmful… What side effects could shooting stars probably have? Could they fall on her head if she stood outside for too long?
Madame Bosco was, quite obviously, not worried about that. Unlike Sarah, whose mind was more busy figuring out the identity of the stranger, she almost seemed enthralled by the idea of a night sky spectacle.
"A meteorite shower? Oh, that sounds very exciting. What do you think, Sarah?"
"Yes. Yes, it does..." Even though she was still skeptical, there was no denying that anything unusual happening out in near space was quite fascinating. Like many kids at that age, Sarah took an interest in all sorts of things, and was always curious about the odd things in life. Never really afraid of the new and unknown, even if it meant getting a few bruises and scratches.
So while she was wondering about whatever was going to happen this evening, Madame Bosco turned to the so-called Doctor. "Say, can we offer you anything? A cup of tea?", she asked.
Even though he was smiling, the tall man rejected the offer politely.
"Oh, I don't intend to be a bother-"
All of a sudden, Sarah was reminded of her own hospitality towards house guests.
"It's okay! I'll make some for all of us!", she loudly interrupted the two of them and left for the kitchen so quickly that she couldn't hear a word against it.
It most likely wasn't just for her manners that she had gone in such a rush, but also because she didn't fancy talking to the adults at the moment. Should she tell Madame Bosco that she had never seen this stranger before? And if she did, would the old widow know what to do? Then again, the man did not seem dangerous. If anything, it was the other way around; Sarah has had the impression that he had been sincerely happy to see her. It would be terribly impolite to throw out someone who had come with only the best intentions in mind.
Even from the kitchen she could hear the Doctor and Madame Bosco talk, their voices sounding cheerful and excited about what each other had to tell. And in the meantime, the girl carefully set up the hot water and prepared three cups with Lavinia's favorite Earl Grey blend. When she returned to the living room a few minutes later, the two were still going on about what sounded to Sarah like technological advancements that had been developed in the course of the last World War.
"Now, nuclear power, if it isn't used for destruction, can be quite useful when it comes to energy generation – But then, in the long run, people will become aware of the dangers and begin to look for alternatives yet again-" The Doctor was talking about how energy was a problem that would stick with "this little planet of yours" for hundreds of years to come and how this and that was a much better way to do it like he had told some scientist years ago already. Well, Sarah might have enjoyed to join the conversation at some point, but there really wasn't a lot she understood and much less she could have contributed to it. What she could do, however, was to place down the tea for all them, sit down, have a sip and listen.
Oddly enough, it didn't take long until Madame Bosco appeared to be at a loss for words as well. She just let the Doctor talk and nodded occasionally in a way that Sarah recognized from her own way of coping with the widow's often long-winded stories. It would have amused her if not the next thing the older woman did was to get up and prepare for leaving!
"I'm terribly sorry, Doctor, but I believe it is time I was on my way back home now.", she excused herself and Sarah looked at her gasping. Was she really just going to leave her with the stranger?
Even the man seemed displeased by the idea. "Oh no, Madame Bosco. Please, you are good company. Why not stay a while longer?" To mark his point, he even nodded towards the ten-year-old. "Sarah would like you to stay, too - Don't you, Sarah?"
It took her by surprise that he had decided all by himself to let her opinion be heard, and it definitely helped a bit to assure her of his good intentions. Still, Sarah took the opportunity to vote for her sitter's stay.
"Yes! Please stay, Madame.", she pleaded.
The old woman gave her a warm smile and tapped the child's shoulder as a gesture of comfort. "Oh, but I don't think this little Lady needs two sitters. It appears to me that one may be more than enough already, hm?" She paused and waited a little bit to give Sarah a chance to speak on the matter for herself. And the child really wanted to tell her how she could look after herself just fine – except that maybe this wasn't the time and… oh well, there she had just missed her chance to argue...
"No, no… my presence here isn't necessary and I believe these old bones could do with a bit of rest.", Madame Bosco concluded anyway and began to make her way towards the living room exit.
The Doctor didn't interrupt her either, although he wore a look on his face that indicated that he, too, wasn't entirely happy with the situation.
"In any case, you know I'm just next door. So if you do need my assistance, don't hesitate to knock.", the widow assured the little girl and nodded, her smile unwavering.
"Now, who is going to see me out?"
"I will!"
The words came almost synchronised from the Doctor and Sarah, and they both rushed to hold the door open for the old woman. He was a bit faster and certainly stronger, too, but the child simply squeezed herself between him and the door. So even though he held the handle she could pretend to he useful by standing at the door's edge like some kind of door stopper.
They moved together with the widow to the front entrance and when the two of them stood to wave her good-bye, Sarah wondered a last time of whether she should run after her and tell her about how worrisome she still found it to be left with a stranger to take care of her, but then decided against it. The man wasn't all that bad, after all. She would be able to deal with him, plus, just like Madame Bosco had said; She was quite capable of looking after herself. At least that was what she was determined to be now.
A short author's note;
As with my other short story "He's worried about you", I was faced again with the challenge, or rather the risk, of missing some important bits of the official canon because I haven't seen them yet. In this specific case it's about things of Sarah's past that might have been mentioned in the Sarah Jane Adventures. I did, however, look up some facts as much as I could and as far as I know the date I have chosen was not referenced in an episode yet.
So, aside from that, here is another short story that was born out of the attempt to portrait another angle to that beautiful, special, subtle relationship between Four and Sarah and at the same time I could get in some of the more childish elements to the Doctor's personality, too. Be it for better or worse, I used a number of his quirks and some of the Season 12/13 tropes, too.