POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.
You back away, staring at the letters. Blinking at them as if the writing is in a foreign language. When you have time to think about it, you realize the windows are a little different, the color's a bit off, but at this moment, it looks the same as it always did. The TARDIS. It's the TARDIS, just as you dream about every night. Is this a dream? Stuffed in the closet, right there, solid and close enough to touch.
You back out the door, still staring at it, lost in memories. Turn around slowly, because you know—you just know, deep down in your heart and soul, that he'll be standing behind you.
"Hello, Sarah Jane." It's 'John Smith,' that strange new teacher you met earlier, and suddenly it all becomes clear to you, what he was trying to imply with those strange words and odd tone. At the time, you thought he was trying to hit on you, but it was so much less and so much more…it was just him, his awkward social skills and lack of emotional intelligence…
All the things you were planning to say, all the questions and emotions of twenty plus-years utterly dissolve, and you resort to stating the obvious. "It's you. Doctor. Oh, my god, it's you isn't it?" A different face. "You've regenerated." How did it happen this time? Who was with him? Did it hurt?
"Half a dozen times since we last met."
You're still trying to wrap your mind around this miracle. "You look incredible"
"So do you."
You mumble something, blushing a little bit and hoping he can't tell in the darkness. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, UFO report, school gets record results, I couldn't resist. And you?"
"The same." The two of you share a brief laugh, the uneasy sort that comes when trying to gloss over an iceberg of unsaid history. Then you can't hold back any longer. "I thought you died. I waited for you and you didn't come back and I thought you must have died." Your voice pitches up into a painfully whiney tone, but you can't help yourself. All those nights spent wondering if—and finally how-he died, your emotions befuddled with a journalist's semi-morbid curiosity.
"I lived. Everyone else died."
Everyone? "What do you mean?"
"Everyone died, Sarah." That's another fact you don't fully absorb until later, much later, when you replay the darkness in his eyes. In your day, you knew he disagreed with the Time Lords, but something in his eyes, added to the words of Brother Lassar, hints at something deadly. Something awful.
But for now, you shake your head again, unable to focus on anything but his voice. "I just can't believe it's you."
A scream echoes down the hall. Unable to stop yourself, your face stretches into a grin. "Okay, now I can."
It's just the two of you, running down the halls again, just like old times.