Chapter Twenty-One
Having his fingers inside K9's inner workings wasn't enough to distract the Doctor from the weight of awkwardness that pressed in on him in the brightly lit, greasy chip shop that Sarah Jane had brought them to. The floor was sticky beneath his feet, and the young girl behind the counter paid them no attention as she flicked through one of the trashy magazines that the Doctor always found in Jackie's flat – it's for my clients, she protested when he teased her about them, get your stupid alien hands off them. Sat off to one side and crammed into a booth in the corner, his friends were sharing some chips between them, ostensibly to give him and Sarah Jane time to catch up.
Jack's eyes kept sliding curiously towards them, an arm around the back of Mickey's chair as he popped a chip into his mouth. Clearly eager to speak with Sarah Jane to discover more about her shared past with the Doctor, he seemed content to wait until the right time, which the Doctor appreciated. Jack's reaction to meeting Sarah Jane was not something he had been worried about as he never seemed to have any expectations of him, though the Doctor was pleased to find that was slowly changing; it was taking a while to shake off his conman past and truly understand that he had a place in the TARDIS that wasn't subject to doing and saying the right thing. Rose, on the other hand, troubled him. She had withdrawn into herself on the walk over, arms tucked tightly around herself, an air of hurt radiating from her.
He didn't look at her, not liking to see the hurt on her face and not understand why she was in pain but certain he had something to do with it; so, he kept his attention steadfastly focused on K9, not wanting to see the same hurt on Sarah Jane's face either.
Tegan's face flashed into his mind – the sharp cut of her jaw and the sweeping fire in her eyes – it's not fun anymore. Those words had haunted him over the years, coming and going, slamming into him when he caught a glimpse on the faces of his friends that made him worry they were going to see through the thin facade he presented and realise that he really was just a lonely old man with a box, desperate for the company of the young. He tried to leave them behind before that happened, before they hated him as Tegan had when she left. It was a sharp, painful lesson – one he hadn't learnt yet when he was with Sarah Jane – and he wondered if his careless handling of her departure had driven her to hatred yet.
"I thought of you on Christmas Day," Sarah Jane said, making his hands jerk inside K9, a spark flying between two wires. She was sat at the table, fingers absently toying with the stiff tail that was actually a scanner. "This Christmas just gone? Great big spaceship overhead, and I thought to myself, I bet he's up there trying to make this better – or, knowing you, making it worse before you make it better."
The Doctor snorted lightly. "It's not like I plan on making things worse."
"You never need to plan, it just happens," she reminded him. "The world turns, the sun burns, and the Doctor makes a mess of things before he cleans it all up."
His lips twitched, eyes glancing at her briefly, shyly, before he looked back down at K9. "I was there that day. Right on top of it, actually. It's when I regenerated this time just gone. I sort of challenged the leader to a duel for the planet and got a broadsword through the chest for me troubles, and let me just say, I thoroughly do not recommend the experience."
Her eyes watched him. "It was radiation poisoning last time, if I remember."
"Yeah," he said with a grimace. "Neither are a particularly nice way to die."
Sarah Jane swallowed, fingers dropping from K9's tail. "And your friends, Rose and the others? They were with you? You weren't...alone?"
"I wasn't alone," he assured her, eyes flicking to hers. "They were with me. Alistair was there too, actually, and the prime minister. It was quite the crowd."
"Well," she said, trying to find the right thing to say. "You've always enjoyed an audience."
Her words startled a laugh from him, and her mouth curved into a smile that he recognised. "You're not wrong there, Sarah."
And for one shining moment, it was as though the years between them fell away and it was as it used to be – the two of them sitting around chatting and joking. The lines on her face faded and her youthful beautiful with soft pink skin and rich brown hair was all he could see; he felt taller, a bit broader, the weight of a scarf around his throat, curls brushing against his cheek. The urge to offer her a jelly baby made his fingers twitch, but then the warm, amused expression in her eyes melted and they were themselves again. She looked at him – older, confused, hurt – and his stomach seized as ice ran through him.
"Did I do something wrong?" Sarah Jane asked, her words broken and tumbling into desperate, her hand shifting towards him only to pull back at the last moment. "Because you never came back for me. You just dumped me and never came back."
He looked back down at K9, cowardice keeping his eyes from her. "I told you, I was called back home, and in those days humans weren't allowed to go there."
"I waited for you," she whispered, ashamed and embarrassed, colour rising to her cheeks at the thought of how she had never really stopped looking for him, eyes searching crevices and corners for the TARDIS, hoping. "I missed you."
The shame her words created in him burned through him like the radiation that had once killed him. His features froze before he looked up and plastered a smile on his face that he hated because it felt false and it must have looked unfeeling because she glanced away from him, out of the dark window, her reflection twitching as her fingers passed over her mouth.
"You didn't need me," he said, deliberately jovial and positive because it was true, she hadn't needed him and he wasn't sure if that was the thing that hurt the most. "You were getting on with your life."
"You were my life," Sarah Jane said, turning to face him, braver than he was capable of being as he looked down at K9 again. For the first time that night, he was pleased Zoe wasn't there so she didn't have to see what a coward he was. "You know what the most difficult thing was after leaving you? Coping with what happens next, or with what doesn't happen next to be precise. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles, and then you just dropped me back on Earth like it was nothing. How could anything here compare to that?"
The Doctor frowned, fixing a frayed wire, her words resonating. "All those things you saw, do you want me to apologise for that?"
"No." The immediacy of her answer loosened some of the tension in him. "But we get a taste of that splendour and then we have to go back. I don't think you can even begin to understand how difficult that is."
"But look at you." He finally looked up at her, meeting her gaze head on, desperate to hear that something of the last few decades had been good for her. "You're investigating. You found that school. You're doing what we always did. Hell, you're doing what you did before you even met me."
The disappointment that passed over her face made his chest itch with annoyance, anger, not knowing what she wanted from him.
"You could have come back," Sarah Jane whispered, finally. "You just...you could have come back, Doctor."
As quickly as they appeared, his anger and annoyance faded, leaving him hollow. "No, I couldn't have."
"But why not?" He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. She had to know – all those years with him, she had to know why he couldn't see her again, watch time slowly claim her while he was impossible to do anything to stem her fleeting mortality. She sighed and sat back "It wasn't Croydon, by the way. Where you dropped me off? That wasn't Croydon."
"Where was it?"
"Aberdeen."
He pulled a face, shit. "Ah, right, well – well, that's next to Croydon, isn't it?"
The Doctor watched her open her mouth, presumably to tell him where he could shove that remark, when K9 spluttered to life. His ears and tail lit up and the Doctor quickly replaced the plating on his flank, dropping to his knees in front of his old friend, cooing in delight. Behind him, the sound of chairs being pushed back told him that the others had noticed.
"Master," K9 said in a bright, robotic voice, tail twitching at the sight of him.
A smile stretched across his face. "He recognises me!"
"Affirmative."
"He's so cute," Jack smiled, hand reaching over the Doctor's shoulder to pet K9. "Hello, K9, I'm Jack." K9 waggled his tail. "Oh, I want one."
"No pets," the Doctor said, reaching into his pocket for the small vial of oil he had secreted out of the kitchens. "K9, buddy, I need you to run a scan for me. Think you can do that?"
"Affirmative, master."
"Good boy," he said, using a swab he always kept on his person to rub the oil over K9's nose. "Here we go. Have a look at that, yeah. Tell us what it is."
K9's internal systems whirred, tail going. "Oil. Ex-ex-ex-extract. Ana-ana-analysing."
Mickey laughed. "Listen to him. He's got a voice an' everythin'."
"Careful," Sarah Jane said, warning softened by the smile on her face, pleasure at K9's reactivation soothing some of her frayed feelings away. "That's my dog."
It took K9 a long minute that they spent waiting in silence as he whirred and gurgled before pinging like a microwave. "Confirmation of analysis. Substance is Krillitane oil."
The Doctor sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead. "Krillitanes."
"Is that bad?" Rose asked.
"It's not great," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "Think of how bad things could possibly be, subtract the Dalek, and then add another slice of bad."
Jack did the maths. "So bad, but could only be worse if a Dalek was involved?"
"Yep."
"That's pretty bad," he said. "But what exactly are the Krillitanes? I've never heard of them."
"You wouldn't have," the Doctor said. "I'd be surprised if the Time Agency ever came across them and lived to tell the tale." He ran a hand over his face, the sharp prickle of his stubble reminding him he needed to shave. "They're a composite race. Just like British culture is a mixture of traditions from all sorts of countries from people you've invaded or been invaded by – you've got bits of Viking, bits of France, bits of whatever – the Krillitanes are the same but they take physical aspects as well. They select the very best bits from the people they destroy, which is why I didn't recognise them. Last time I saw Krillitanes, they looked just like us except they had really, really long necks."
"Mr Potato Head," Jackie nodded.
He stared at her. "I'm sorry, what?"
"They're like alien Mr Potato Heads," she said. "Y'know, those toys that you stick bits an' pieces on to – an ear where the mouth should be, an eye where the ear should be."
"No, except a little bit, yes," he said. "Their appearance changes over the generations more dramatically than humans because of the genetic selection."
"That sounds horrific," Sarah Jane said. "What are they doing here then?"
"It's the children," Mickey answered, a frown on his face. "They're doin' somethin' with the kids. There's this oil that they cook the food in an' it's making them smarter."
"Why?"
"We don't know yet," the Doctor said, "but we're going to find out."
"How?" Rose asked. "We goin' back tonight?"
He thought about barging into the school and waking the Krillitanes up to demand an answer but it was too dangerous. His mind ran through possible scenarios, peaceful options, before he settled on one that was the least worst of them all.
"No," he decided. "Tomorrow, we'll go in tomorrow. There's something else at play here and that's the kids. I want to find out why they're using them, and until I know exactly what's being done to them, I won't risk the Krillitanes advancing their plans and possibly harming them. I'll speak with Finch directly in the morning, let him know there's a Time Lord on the scene. I'll need all of you there though to help evacuate the school if things go bad. Sarah, you in?"
Her eyes looked up at him. "Of course."
Relief spread through him and he nodded. "There's nothing we can do tonight. Best if we all get some rest and come at it in the morning. Let's meet outside the school when it starts. We'll look less suspicious walking in with the rest of the faculty and students."
"Good idea," Jack said before turning to Sarah Jane. "Mind if I carry K9? I've always wanted one of these but we could never afford one. Had a robotic fish once, but it's not quite the same, is it?"
"A robotic fish?" She asked, confused. "And sure, thanks. I'll open the boot for you."
"Yeah, did you say a robotic fish?" Mickey asked, hurrying after them.
Jackie turned back to collect the forgotten coats, leaving the Doctor and Rose alone together. He wiped a bit of K9's grease from the table, dirtying his sleeve, and flashed her a small smile before making his way out of the chip shop. The night's air was cool and refreshing against his skin, and he closed his eyes against the breeze, breathing in deeply – the smell of London was comforting, his home away from home for a long time. A feeling of homesickness swept through him as the desire to stand with his trousers rolled up and feet bare in the red fields outside his childhood home hit him hard, tears pressing against the backs of his eyes. The desperate longing for home had never really faded, even when he left Gallifrey that first time by choice; not being able to return to his home with skies that made sense and a feeling of being rooted in a place made his homesickness that much worse.
This is what happens when you look back, he chastised himself, before clearing his throat.
"I wonder how Zoe's night is going," the Doctor said, hoping she would be at the TARDIS when they returned as all he wanted in that moment was to curl up in bed with her and hear about her night. "Want to bet on how drunk she'll be when she gets –?"
"How many of us have there been travelling with you?"
His interrupted question remained framed on his mouth as he turned slowly, her words pouring salt on the wounds Sarah Jane had opened. Rose stood in the doorway of the chip shop, the unflattering light casting her in a sickly halo, and he recognised the look on her face; it was the same one she had worn their first trip together as the sight of the dying Earth rendered her sad and small, guilt slicing through him at the memory. It felt so long ago that they had stood on Platform One, her hand tucked into his, the two of them still strangers to each other, Jack and Zoe and Jackie unknown to him then. At the time, the aching loneliness was his constant companion since waking up in his broken TARDIS in Foreman's junkyard had ebbed in the hours after meeting her, hope beginning to flicker to life inside him again, the feeling making him drunk. He missed the signs then – the blank fear of not knowing who he was or what she had done, the panic that rose up in her at being surrounding by things and people she hadn't had the imagination to dream of – but he didn't miss them now.
She was looking at him as though he was a stranger.
His stomach sank. "Does it matter?"
"Yeah, it does," Rose said, seriously. "Especially if you're just goin' to dump me off somewhere when you get bored of me."
He recoiled, wishing she had struck him instead as it would have hurt less. "Rose, how can you say that?"
"All this time we've been travellin' together, everythin' we've seen an' done, an' not one have you mentioned Sarah Jane, not once." The accusation made his hearts clench. "You were that close to her once an' now you never even mention her. Why not?"
He swallowed, mouth dry. "I've mentioned her to Zoe."
"Zoe," Rose breathed. "Course you did because you an' Zoe are best mates. I get that the two of you have this weird history together because you keep leavin' her behind –" he flinched, "but you've never made me feel like a third wheel, not until right now. Why did you never mention Sarah Jane to me?"
"I just..." he floundered. "It never came up. Zoe asked me about it, that's all. Early on she realised that there had been other people, my other friends, and she just asked me about it. It's nothing nefarious or secretive."
"Feels like it," she shot back, glaring before her expression wavered and hurt seeped back in. "Is this what you're goin' to do? Are you just goin' to leave us all behind one day? Me, Zoe, Jack? You'll get bored of us an' leave us somewhere an' never come back?"
"I don't age," he bit out, taking a step towards her, angry. Panic flashed in her eyes, and she took a small, instinctive step back, guilt swirling in his stomach. "Do you get that? I don't age. You've seen what happens to me instead. I stay young and healthy until it's time to regenerate and then I get another young and healthy body. But you, Zoe, and Jack? You're human, you get old, you decay. If I stay –" he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Rose, if I stay, I'll have to watch you wither and die while not being able to stop it. I can't do that. I can't – haven't I had enough pain? Haven't I watched enough of my family die? Would you have me do that for you?"
"It won't change if you're not there," she said, wiping her tears away. "We're still goin' to get old an' die if you're there or not."
"But I won't have to see it," he said, desperate for her to understand. "If I leave you behind then I won't have to see it and I can pretend that you're exactly as you are now."
She stared at him. "That's selfish."
"I'm a selfish coward," he said, honestly. "Because you can spend the rest of your life with me but I can't spend the rest of mine with you." He thought of Zoe and all the days they weren't going to be able to share because of her limited lifespan. "I have to live on, alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords."
A scream cracked through the air.
Jack instinctively ducked, knocking Mickey's legs from under him and dragging Sarah Jane to the ground, shielding them from the source of the scream with his body as the Doctor stepped in front of Rose and turned around. High above them, standing on the edge of a building that housed a corner ship, Mr Finch jumped from the edge and stretched his arms out, body rippling as his human form gave way and skeletal wings spread into existence. The Doctor dragged Rose into the protection of his arms, bending them over as Finch swooped low, screaming again, before he took off into the sky and disappeared. Around them, lights flicked on in the neighbouring houses, and the girl from the chip shop peered out of the window, hand curled over her heart.
"Holy shit." The Doctor released Rose and looked towards the shadows. "Was that Mr Finch?"
Heels clicking against the ground, Zoe stepped out from underneath the trees that lined the road, leafy shadows falling across her. She was looking up into the sky as she walked, not looking where she was going as she tried to track Finch's movements, and was taken by surprise when the Doctor closed the distance between them and swept her up into his arms. She stumbled and clutched at his upper arms for fear of falling, startled by the desperation that rolled through him; tense and stiff against her, he only relaxed when she smoothed a hand down his back.
"Hey," she said, pulling back to look up at him, a small crease of concern around her eyes. "I wasn't gone that long, was I?"
"Long enough," he said, taking note of the slight pink hue to her cheeks, a tell tale sign that she had been drinking. "Good night?"
"A great one," she smiled, taking a step back from him but keeping hold of his hand. "Harriet sends her love and all that jazz. Have I been missing out here?"
"Little bit," Jack said, approaching from the side. "Giant bat things."
"Also known as Krillitanes," the Doctor said, smoothing the front of his jacket out, more centred with Zoe next to him. "Or, as your mother so descriptively put it, the Mr Potato Head of species."
"Oh, I loved that toy when I was little," she said, eyes slipping towards her mother with a grin. "You hated it though. Kept stepping on the pieces."
"Was better than Lego," Jackie said, remembering the sharp pain of pieces digging into the soft flesh of her bare feet. "But not by much."
"So our esteemed headteacher is an alien," she said. "Coloured me not at all surprised. What's the –" she stopped and stared, abruptly realising that there was someone there she didn't know. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude. Hello."
The Doctor shifted, wanting to see her face, hand squeezing hers. "Sarah, this is Zoe Tyler. Zo," a smile picked up his lips, "this is Sarah Jane Smith."
The polite expression on her face shifted into surprise, delight, confusion, before settling on awe and admiration. A huge smile swept across her face, and she pulled her hand from his to grasp Sarah Jane's, shaking it enthusiastically.
"Are you really?" She asked, thrilled. "He's told me so much about you it feels like I know you already."
Sarah Jane stared at her, taken aback. "He – he what?"
"I should really thank you though," she continued, unaware of the bewildering effect she was having. "He dug out that list of resorts you put together and I've been ticking them off my list. That one in France is superb. I stayed there a while when I was seventeen and recovering from a knee injury – had the time of my life."
"I remember that one," Sarah Jane said, glancing at the Doctor who was watching Zoe with a small smile. "Did you try the cocktails?"
"Worked my way through the menu," she grinned. "And, I have to ask, the Loch Ness monster, did that really happen? Because sometimes I think he's making it up just to have me on and I can't tell."
Sarah Jane laughed, her fingers slowly turning numb from Zoe's enthusiasm. "No, that really happened."
"Brilliant," she said, thrilled. "This is brilliant. You're brilliant. I loved your exposé on the problems in campaign financing by the by; the way it revolutionised the system was incredible. Not to mention your interview with President Clinton. Did you really call him a licentious blowhard whose accented charm helped cover up his myriad of sexual misconduct?"
"Well...not to his face," Sarah Jane said, drawing a laugh from her. "But that was certainly the tone of the article." She stared at her curiously. "You've read my work."
"Huge fan of your work," Zoe said. "Admittedly, I hadn't heard of you before I met the Doctor as most of your investigations happened when I was still in school. When he mentioned you were a journalist, I had a look through the articles he'd collected and then I read your books. Your biography on your aunt was incredible moving. I'm so sorry that she passed away."
A tidal wave of emotion crashed over Sarah Jane. He didn't forget me, she thought, tears threatening to make an appearance. When she spoke, she was relieved to find her voice remained steady. "Thank you. I didn't realise the Doctor spoke about me."
"Getting him to shut up about you is the problem sometimes," Zoe said with a smile. "It's so nice to meet you, Sarah Jane. You're something of a personal hero of mine."
A blush dusted her cheeks. "You're very kind, but if I could have my hand back, please? I'm starting to lose circulation."
"What?" Zoe looked at their hands and released her quickly. "Sorry, I haven't really met my heroes before. Well, I met Winston Churchill once but that's neither here nor there. What are you doing here?"
"Same thing as you," she said, discreetly flexing her fingers. "Investigating the high academic marks and reports of alien sightings."
"Brilliant," Zoe said again, turning to the Doctor and poking him in the stomach. "It's Sarah Jane Smith."
He smiled. "I see that."
Jack looked between them all, amusement growing, before he cleared his throat. "Since we're done for the night, does anyone want to grab a drink? Sarah Jane, I'd love it if you'd come. I want to hear everything and anything about your time with the Doctor. We can compare notes."
The smile dropped from the Doctor's face. "How about we don't do that?"
"No," Rose said, forcefully, hands in her pockets. "I think it's a great idea. You up for it, Sarah Jane? Drinks are on him." She jerked her thumb at the Doctor, and Sarah Jane hesitated. "Because he does some stuff that I don't know is normal or not, like the TARDIS – he strokes the TARDIS."
She laughed. "He used to do that with me as well. I always felt like I was intruding."
"Yeah," Rose said, eyes bright. "An' he'll do that thing where he talks at you at like a hundred miles an' hour an' then you don't get it an' he just looks at you like you've dribbled on your shirt."
The Doctor looked between them, hearts sinking. "I don't do that."
"Does he ever just hand you the sonic screwdriver and expect you to know exactly what to do with it and then get annoyed when he has to explain himself?"
"Yes," Rose and Jack said at once.
"You know, it's going to be a busy day tomorrow," the Doctor tried. "We should all get some shut eye, some rest."
Jackie patted his arm. "Sorry, love. I think you're outvoted."
"Jacks, you comin'?" Mickey asked.
"I'm not missin' embarrassin' Doctor stories," she said. "Tell me, did he ever kidnap anyone you loved?"
"It wasn't kidnap!"
"Zo, you comin'?" Rose asked.
Every part of her body screamed yes in answer to her sister's question. There was nothing she wanted more than to spend time with Sarah Jane Smith, a woman that she had wanted to meet since the Doctor first told her about her. Over the years, she had built Sarah Jane up in her head a little – the Doctor's stories and her own articles and writing helping her to create an image of this woman who had once done what she was doing – and she was desperate to sit down with her and pick her brain; yet, she hesitated. There was nothing to indicate that the Doctor wouldn't be happy to trail along with them and put up with the rubbing and embarrassment what was sure to come with his usual good humour, but there was something about the way he had hugged her and the way he stood just a little too close that stopped her from enthusiastically joining the others.
"As much as I'd love to, I'm a little bit drunk already," she said, apologetically, and the Doctor's head turned, surprised at her refusal. "Harriet and I put the wine away a little too successfully. But take notes for me though – bullet points if you can."
"I'll just record the conversation," Jack grinned.
Resigned to his fate as the butt of their jokes, the Doctor sighed. "Don't forget, if you don't come home, we'll meet at the gates when school starts. Don't be late or hungover."
Jack gave him a wink that Mickey followed up with a small salute before the five of them walked off, presumably to find the nearest establishment that sold alcohol; his stomach churned unpleasantly as laughter drifted back to him.
"Hey." Zoe took his hand within hers and squeezed, drawing his eyes to her. "You okay?"
He opened his mouth only to shut it again, exhaustion settling in his bones. "I just want to go home."
"Okay." She brought his hand up to her mouth, pressing a kiss against his knuckles. "We're going to need a taxi though, the tube isn't running any more. Wait here, I'll rustle us one up."
The Vino Lounge, Ealing
"...and I think, this is it, I'm dead." Jack's hand gestured wildly, nearly knocking Jackie's rum and coke over that Mickey rescued at the last second, the thrum of music less noticeable due to the sound dampener that Jack placed under their table when they had sat down forty minutes earlier. "And I've made peace with it, you know. Figured I'd lived enough for ten people –"
"Shagged enough, he means," Rose said, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol, causing Sarah Jane to choke on her wine. "You watch out or he'll be after you next."
"Gorgeous as you are, I'm taking a step back from such things," Jack said, an appreciative look sweeping over Sarah Jane who felt hot beneath his eyes while Rose and Jackie stared at Mickey curiously who ignored them and the burning in his face by drinking his beer quickly. "But there I was listening to the Doctor talk shit to the Emperor of the Dalek when this awful screaming started, and I look around and the Daleks are just dying. They're literally leaking goo out of their armour, and I'm thinking what the hell, right? Because Daleks don't just die like that. I'm beginning to feel that I might have crossed into another universe when I hear the Doctor speak – and it's like he's setting eyes on his god or whatever because he's confused but in awe but mainly completely confused – and then there's Zoe, calm as you please, come to save the day."
Sarah Jane set her drink down, fascinated. "You mean that that woman from earlier defeated an entire army of Daleks by herself?"
"That's my girl," Jackie said, proud. "Graduated from MIT recently. She's a smart one."
"It wasn't exactly as easy as Jack's made it sound," Rose admitted, drunk enough to feel friendly towards Sarah Jane even if there was still tension running as an undercurrent between them, but she was aware enough to know that the Doctor was the cause of it and not anything Sarah Jane had done. "Zo spent about four years tryin' to figure out a way to save those two idiots –"
"Hey," Jack protested around his straw.
"She's got a point, mate," Mickey said. "Who volunteers for a suicide mission?"
"The Japanese." All eyes turned to Jackie who shrugged. "Kamikaze missions."
"Stop watchin' documentaries in the day," Rose said. "It's weird when you come out with this stuff." Jackie rolled her eyes and sipped her drink while Rose turned back to Sarah Jane. "Zoe had to go to uni for four years to find a way to save them, so it wasn't exactly easy."
Jack pierced an olive and popped it in his mouth. "But much appreciated."
Sarah Jane toyed with the stem of her glass. "So you've met Cybermen, Slitheen, Zygons, a werewolf, and the Daleks?"
"That about sums it up," Jack nodded.
She sighed, reluctantly amused. "He hasn't changed a bit, has he? His face might change but he's still the same old Doctor, finding trouble no matter where he goes."
"I think he goes lookin' for it myself," Jackie said. "No one can just find that much trouble lyin' around. Even at Zoe's graduation he got into trouble with a giant killer robot."
"Technically, it wasn't a killer robot," Jack said, "but it was definitely giant."
"What about you?" Rose asked, sneaking a glance at Sarah Jane who had relaxed the more Jack plied her with stories, his easy charm putting her at ease and the wine helping the shock of seeing the Doctor again wear off. "You must have some stories. What was that about the Loch Ness monster?"
"Oh," Sarah Jane said before she laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. "That was the fault of the Zygons, actually. They'd brought this creature with them when they came to Earth in the 12th century – I can't remember the name: Skaroseck, Skaarsgard –"
Jackie rattled her ice. "Think that's an actor, love."
"Not a Skarasen?" Jack asked, surprised.
"That's it," she said, the name clicking into place in her mind. "You've seen one before?"
"Came across one once when I was skinny dipping in Lake Como, early 48th century," he said. "Thought I'd wash the grime off me and get a little colour to my skin – nearly drowned when one dragged me under. Some zoologists were studying their mating habits at the time and were really pissed that I'd interfered with the results."
"I can see why the Doctor likes you," Sarah Jane said, Jack's answering smile stole the breath from her lungs.
"Go on then," Rose encouraged. "There was a Skaro – Skarasen and some Zygons?"
"Well, the Zygons wanted to take over the Earth, of course." They all nodded, now familiar with alien takeover attempts. "And the Skarasen was their tool in doing that. It's what gave rise to the myths of the Loch Ness monster, although I don't know if it's still there. The Doctor said it was going to return there as it was the only home it knew, but if it has then it's kept to itself."
"Then again," Mickey said, thoughtfully, "all those mysterious sightings of the monster, wouldn't be the weirdest thing on this planet."
"No, that'd be the Doctor," Jackie said, looking up from her empty glass to find them staring at her. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You know he's odd."
"He is," Sarah Jane agreed, her fondness beginning to overtake her shock and disappointment, anger having faded long ago. She sipped her wine, thumb running through the condensation on her glass. "It's been so long since I've spoken about this with anyone. It's difficult to find people who have the same life experiences you do when you've travelled with the Doctor."
"I'm just thrilled to finally meet a friend of his," Jack told her. "He's a bit private and doesn't talk all that much about himself, so it's nice to see that he does actually have other people. Do you know any of the others he's travelled with?"
"I've met one or two," she said. "There's Dorothy who travelled with him after I did; she's working on indigenous rights in Australia now and doesn't come back to Britain a lot. There's Harry, of course, Harry Sullivan – he was actually there with the Zygons and Loch Ness. Do you know of Alistair?"
"The Brigadier," Mickey said. "We've met him."
"Right, he was with you at Christmas, the Doctor mentioned," she remembered. "There are more, of course: Ian and Barbara Chesterton, Tegan Jovanka, Jo Grant's another. I have all their names somewhere at home. Alistair helped me compile them a few years back when UNIT approached me to write profiles on the Doctor's companions. The project never got off the ground but I have their names."
"That's a lot of people," Rose said, surprised.
"The Doctor likes company," she shrugged before she found herself admitting to something she had only thought about in private. "Sometimes it feels like I dreamt it all and everything I saw and did was a figment of my imagination. Seeing him again tonight, so many years later, it's...difficult."
Rose stared at the Doctor's friend and took in the soft, wounded expression, wondering if this was a glimpse into her immediate future. No, she thought to herself, Sarah Jane didn't know the Doctor wasn't coming back, I know that now. She was angry at the Doctor still, hated him a little for having planned to do that to her and Zoe and Jack, but she refused to spend her years waiting for him to come home like she had once waited, pathetic and desperate on the edge of the bed, for Jimmy only to have him come home smelling of drugs, alcohol, and another woman's perfume. Her self-esteem had taken enough of a hit for one lifetime. She had already let one man define her, shape her into what he wanted only to toss her aside when something better came along, and she knew the Doctor never wanted her to feel like that, but she refused to let another man determine her life for her.
She loved him but she wasn't going to wait for him, not like Sarah Jane, not when she saw the damage it had done.
She deserved better.
"I'm sorry," Rose said, softly. "This isn't easy for you. You think he's replaced you with me."
Sarah Jane's face went blank before she nodded. "It's hard not to feel as though I've been traded in for a younger model."
She swallowed, fingers falling to rub at her wrists. "If it helps, I feel like shit too. He had this time with you, an' you were so close to him an' he's just never mentioned you. It makes me think about what he's goin' to do to me, an' Zoe, an' Jack when it's time."
Jack tilted his head to one side, slightly pained. "Rose."
"You tellin' me you haven't been thinkin' about it?" She asked him. "He might've told Zoe about her but those two have always been close like that, ever since Reinette died, but he didn't tell us. He never told us Jack. He doesn't talk about any of them. Ian an' Barbara? Who are they? How did he meet them? How long were they with him? What about Tegan an' Jo?" She swallowed hard and gave voice to what worried her. "Do we mean so little to him that he's just never goin' to talk about us again?"
Silence hung like a heavy shroud over the table, and Jack dragged a hand over his sombre face. "He loves us, Rosie."
"He loved Sarah Jane once too."
Sarah Jane leaned back in her chair and exhaled slowly. Her day hadn't gone at all the way she expected when she woke up that morning, eager to get stuck into an investigation again. There wasn't a promise of aliens but the reports of alien ships in the sky did set her heart racing in excitement as she showered and dressed. She had thought she would go in, ask some questions, get a lay of the school, and then simply break in later – easy, and something she had done a hundred times before. Finding the TARDIS had been a shock, the aftermath of which was still thrumming through her, and then turning to find the Doctor behind her – the fact that she hadn't recognised him in the teacher's lounge earlier pained her. She knew about regeneration, knew that he wore different bodies, but she always thought she would know him when she saw him, that she would take one look, smile, and say hello, Doctor, it's been a while.
Except, she hadn't recognised him.
He had let her talk and talk without revealing himself, letting her think that he was a little simple, rather than taking her hand and telling her the truth.
Her head spun from the way her life had been upended. Seeing him again wasn't at all like she had imagined and feeling the pain spread out from Rose, who, despite how sharp and cutting Sarah Jane had been earlier as she lashed out to cope with the ground shifting beneath her feet, was a nice woman who was also hurting at the unexpected turned of events, reminded her of how careless the Doctor was sometimes. He didn't mean to do it but he took the hearts of those he travelled with and treated them without the care he should, not realising how desperately in love they all were with him.
"He still loves me," Sarah Jane said, drawing their attention to her. "He does. The Doctor – sometimes I think he loves so much because he's got that extra heart and he's just got love to spare, but it also means he gets hurt twice as much. What he did – leaving me behind, not coming back – I do understand it. I don't like it, but I understand it."
"But he left you," Rose said, plaintively, "an' he never came back."
"That's the Doctor for you," she said. "He's not like us, Rose. He might look human and occasionally act it, but he's not one of us. He keeps moving and looking forward because if he doesn't then he's going to see everything that he's left behind, and I honestly think the weight of it might just kill him." She shook her head, running a finger over the sore edges of her once-broken heart. "I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, in the TARDIS – time and space, watch out." She laughed softly, rueful at her naivety. "But if I had, he would've buried me a long time ago. It's a cruel thing, mortality, and a crueller thing to love those not touched by it."
Jack looked around, frowning at the wall as his hand sought out Mickey's while Rose sniffed and wiped at her eyes with a napkin Jackie handed her. "What do we do? Please, tell me, what do we do?"
"I've spent a long time thinking about whether or not I would do my time with the Doctor over again, knowing how it ends, knowing how it broke my heart," she said, carefully, aware of the weight of what she was saying. "And the truth is, I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
"Even though it hurts?" Jack asked.
Sarah Jane smiled, beautiful in her sadness. "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for."
Powell Estate, Peckham
Zoe opened the door to her mother's flat and drew the Doctor inside, troubled by his quietness as he was someone for whom silence was not a natural fit. There were moments when he read in bed or lounged while she gardened but he was never silent like he was now. There was always an energy about him that crackled, screaming life and vibrancy; nor had he felt shut off to her before either, locked away behind doors that he hadn't given her keys to, and worry slipped through her. He had been solicitous, pausing when she got the heel of her shoe stuck in some grating, rubbing his hands over her arms in the chill air as they waited for the taxi, but his mind wasn't on her, forgetting to ask her about her evening with Harriet.
"Here we go," she said, flipping on the light. "Why don't you get comfortable and I'll pop the kettle on."
"I'll make the tea," he said, hand skimming her waist to still her movements. "You'll want to take your make up off. I know it's driving you crazy."
"I do want to itch," she admitted, a shadow of a smile ghosting his cheeks.
He brushed a kiss over her forehead. "Go, I'll see if I can scrounge up Jaffa cakes as well, if Jack hasn't eaten them all that is."
The shadows of the living room claimed him as he walked deeper into the flat, worry gnawing at her stomach as she watched him go. Quickly busying herself with removing her make up, rooting through her mother's belongings to find some wipes, she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, the good humour that spending time with Harriet had put her in fading away. She worked the mascara from her eyes and scrubbed her face clean, stealing some of the moisturiser on the side of the sink before brushing her teeth. She left the bathroom and joined him in the kitchen, the light from the outside casting a solemn glow over him, his jacket and coat over the back of a chair, tie loosened.
"No Jaffa cakes, sorry."
"It's all right," Zoe said. "I've already eaten."
He drained the teabag, stirring the smallest splash of milk into her cup. "How was dinner?"
"It was lovely," she said, staring at his reflection, taking in the sharp lines of conflicted emotions cutting into him. He turned to hand her the cup of tea, the heat of it warming her palm. "Harriet's doing well, though she's having a spot of trouble with the Leader of the Opposition who seems like he may actually give her a run for her money. I don't think it's anything she can't handle though." She sipped the tea – perfect. "She'll be moving into Number 10 soon as the rebuild is almost finished. I think she's relieved at having more space. Her mother's living with her and she has two nieces staying at the moment. It's a little crowded apparently."
"I can imagine," the Doctor said, valiantly trying to have a normal conversation with her. "Did she tell you anything about Torchwood?"
"Nothing new," she said. "But she's given me her word that it's not a danger to us, and, since it's Harriet, I trust her." She rubbed her thumb over the ceramic rim, relieved to have the weight of Torchwood off her shoulders. "You may have been right. I think I was worrying about it because I needed something to focus my attention on. My hands tend to do the devil's work if I'm idle for too long."
"I like your hands."
She smiled. "Thank you."
"And you look beautiful in that dress." His gaze sharpened its focus, sweeping over her, and she felt a familiar heat build as well as the certainty that he was trying to distract her. She doubted he was aware of what he was doing, but he was using sex as a means to distract her and himself – it was almost human of him. "Why haven't I seen you in it before?"
"You haven't taken me anywhere nice enough to wear it," she said, his hands reaching for her. They were cool and familiar on her waist, a gentle tug bringing her closer to him. She wanted to give him what he wanted but there was a niggling edge in the back of her mind that told her this wasn't what he actually wanted. "So, that was Sarah Jane."
The reaction she was expecting – a wry smile and a small laugh – didn't come. Instead, he stared at her before his face crumbled and a sob broke free of his mouth. Tea splashed over her hands in her hurry to set her cup down, catching his shoulders when his knees buckled, arms seeking her body, wrapping them around her waist; he pressed his face into her stomach and the cracked, deep sound of pain was muffled by her stomach. She remembered crying like that the first few weeks after Rose's disappearance and then again in the weeks and months that followed Reinette's death, and she knew how much it hurt.
She smoothed her hands over his shoulder and held him to her as his body shook. The Doctor crying was a rare enough occasion that she was only able to think of one moment where he had done so – years ago, before they had even met Jack, when she was recovering from her torture on Tolandra and he had told her about his role in ending the Last Great Time War. His shoulders heaved and the skirt of her dress was soaked with his tears, her fingers carding through his hair, trying her best to comfort him even as her own hot tears burnt at her eyes, pulled apart by his distress.
It took a long time for the tension to fade from him, his sobs disappearing until he was simply breathing heavily into her stomach. Only when his grip on her loosened, his body slumping in on itself, did she wipe the tears from her eyes. He slowly rolled back from her, sitting with his back against the fridge, hand curled lightly around her ankle; she stroked his hair from his miserable, red face and moved, his fingers tightening around her.
"I'm just getting the tea," she said, finding the screwdriver and heating his untouched cup, handing it to him before she removed her shoes, letting them clatter to the floor as she sat next to him. "Drink. You've dehydrated yourself. The tea will help, trust me."
He brought the cup to his lips and sipped, feeling miserable and pathetic but too exhausted to feel embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
"You've got nothing to be sorry for," Zoe said, hand on his thigh. "But I won't lie and say I'm not worried. What the hell happened tonight?"
"My past came crashing into my present," he said, head dropping back against the cupboard with a dull thud. "I saw her earlier, Sarah Jane. She was at the school during the day, apparently doing a profile on Finch. We met in the teacher's lounge while you were off tutoring."
"You never said."
"I was going to but you were busy getting ready and I thought it could wait until tomorrow." He removed his handkerchief and blew his nose. "I didn't want to get you all excited and then not be able to have you meet her until I'd actually told her who I was."
She squeezed his thigh. "And seeing her again, it's made you feel...out of sorts?"
"A little," he admitted. "And Rose – she's not happy."
"Rose knows you've travelled with others before us," she said before frowning. "Or at least I'm sure she does. It's not as though you've been hiding it."
"It's more the fact I don't talk about it," the Doctor said, eyes hot and dry, face feeling swollen. "She asked if I was going to leave you lot behind when I got bored of you."
She winced, oh Rose. "Doctor –"
"I'm a coward, Zoe, I'm a selfish coward," he said, self-hatred rushing out of him. "I don't go back and visit my friends even though I'd love to see them again because I'm afraid of what that might mean for me. I don't think about how they feel, but listening to Sarah Jane – she waited for me, spent her life looking out for me, and I just never went back to her. Not even for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Maybe – maybe that would've helped. Maybe she wouldn't feel like she's wasted her life after I brought her back, not moving on because she thinks I'm going to be right around the corner."
"You're not a coward," Zoe told him, turning so that her knee pressed into his thigh. "And you're only occasionally selfish. You're protecting yourself from hurt, that's all."
"That's what I told Rose," he murmured, guilt hitting him again as he remembered the sharp look of panic – feral and terrified – in her eyes when he moved. "I scared her. I was annoyed, angry, and I stepped towards her. I didn't mean to frighten her."
"She knows you won't hurt her," she assured him. "But you're a tall man and Rose isn't. It's an instinctive reaction for women, even around men they love, and Rose has reason enough to flinch when people move towards her quickly." Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. "You've heard enough about Jimmy Stone to put two and two together. She came home in debt and with a black eye and was flinching at shadows for weeks. It's nothing personal, I promise."
He swallowed, the confirmation of what he had always suspected of Rose's ex-boyfriend burning through him. "I know."
"And she just needs time," Zoe said. "In the morning I'm sure she's going to regret what she said to you."
Slowly, he finished his tea, the tannins helping as she promised, and he set the mug down, mind whirring, Sarah Jane's wrinkles and grey hair, beautiful as they were, terrifying him.
"I don't want to watch you die."
Her eyelids fluttered with pain, her only reaction to his words. "You're not going to."
"I'm going to watch you grow older, your hair turn grey, lines coming into your face – this face." The tips of his fingers settled on her cheek, thumb curving over her chin before tracking a ghostly path across her mouth. "And I'm going to love you every single moment but I'm going to be watching you die in front of me for decades, and there's nothing I'm going to be able to do about it. I'm scared, Zo."
A hot tear slid down her cheek, his distress sinking into her. She reached up and covered his hand with hers as his free hand curled into her dress, wrinkling the delicate material. "We have time. Before any of that happens, we have time, I promise you. And I'm not going to hold you to your promise. All I ask is that you say goodbye to me before you leave."
"I'm not –"
"It's easy to make the promise now when I'm young and I have years ahead of me," she told him, swallowing hard. "But you think I want to look at you every day and see your pain and grief? When it gets too much, you're going to tell me that you love me and you're going to say the word goodbye to me. You're going to spend the night, and then you're going to leave before I wake up in the morning."
His shoulders shook, face hot and wet against her neck. "I'm sorry. Zoe, I'm so sorry. I thought I was braver than this."
"It's okay," she said softly, forgiving him with every stroke of her fingers through his hair. "We have time. We have so much time."
"It's not enough."
"If we had eternity, it still wouldn't be enough," she murmured into his scalp, his hand sliding up her side, mouth against her neck. "I love you, and we have time."
"Time," he repeated, nosing along her jaw, hot breath warming her skin as he went. "Time."
He tasted like salt when he kissed her, fingers drawing her close, desperate to keep her with him for as long as he could.