Where Graham has tea with a journalist.

I do realise that it hasn't actually been a week, but I don't know why I thought I'd have time for mid-week updates. So here we go. Enjoy!

They had been waiting for the sound of the TARDIS for weeks - months now, really, ever since the Doctor had dropped them off back in Sheffield and left to deal with the Judoon. At first, they had thought she'd be back in a tick, like she always was, a few days at most, so they waited. Then they thought she might take a little longer and slowly started to get back to their lives, however strange and difficult it was. They still thought that she would show up any day now, kept the bags packed and by the door, ready to leave again at any time. But when days turned into weeks turned into months, the bags were moved into the back of the wardrobes, so to not be a constant reminder of worry. Because worry they did.

'She'd never leave us like this if she was alright,' Yaz kept insisting. 'Something must have happened and she might need our help!'

Ryan was all too ready to agree with her, thirsting for the universe out there they had only gotten the quick taste of, but Graham wasn't so sure. While Yaz and Ryan were at work, he had done some research. There was a woman in Ealing, a journalist, who had been involved in too many odd things to not be somehow connected to the alien stuff. So he called her and two days later, she had knocked on his front door.

Sarah Jane Smith, journalist, had dropped quite a few rather unsubtle hints he had found very obvious but then again, to someone who didn't know the Doctor, they wouldn't have made any sense at all. But Graham had never been one for talking in riddles, so he had just asked her outright: 'Do you know the Doctor? Blue box, bigger on the inside -'

'Travels through time and space? Yes.'

'You really know her?'

'Her?' At that, Ms Smith had done a double take but Graham had just nodded.

'Yes, her. Maybe you've met a different Doctor?' he suggested but Ms Smith just gave him a strange look, as if she knew something he didn't.

'Oh, I met several of them.'

'Several of them?' Graham couldn't help but frown at that, she was making less and less sense. But Ms Smith seemed perfectly undeterred by the look on his face as she nodded.

'Yes, several. My first Doctor was a wonderful old gentleman, terribly fond of velvet opera capes. Then he died and my second Doctor - the one I travelled with the longest, he was all teeth and curls.' For a moment, her gaze seemed far away, then it snapped back to Graham. 'I met his fifth face once, and his first and second too, though they obviously didn't know me yet. And his seventh regeneration in Hong Kong - though I'm fairly certain I am not supposed to remember that. Or the next time I met him, eighth face.' She shrugged, ignoring Graham's baffled look. 'He certainly didn't think I remembered it, I ran into his tenth face again about, oh, fifteen years ago? He just kept showing up after that - last time I met him he was all grumpy and scottish - my neighbours kept asking me if I had a new boyfriend whenever he came around.'

'White haired Scotsman.'

'What?'

'That's what she said,' Graham said slowly, 'the first time we met her. That she had been a white haired scotsman, not a woman. We thought she was joking, even after...you know, everything. But you're saying she really changes her gender like that?'

'Well, she is an alien,' Ms Smith pointed out with a shrug. 'But I've seen it happen, once, from the third to the fourth face - it makes for interesting run-ins, I can tell you, when one party doesn't recognise the other.'

'So you...you run into her often, then?'

'That depends on your definition of "often". I didn't know the Doctor was a woman now, so not that often. His last face though, he used to live in Bristol, stationary, and he came by regularly.'

'So you haven't seen the Doctor recently?' He hoped she had, even if he didn't really know yet what to make of Ms Smith. The only reason he had even managed to find her was because now that he knew about aliens, it was easy to spot all the strange occurrences all over England that must have been connected to them. And from there it wasn't too hard to notice that the majority of the cover up articles had come from the same person, Sarah Jane Smith. Who was now sitting across his kitchen table, calmly sipping her tea as she shook her head.

'No, not in a while. But I wouldn't worry, if I were you. They do that.'

'Do...what?' Her gaze darkened as she fixed her eyes on his and Graham had to suppress a shudder.

'Abandon us. The companions, assistants - call us what you want. Some are lucky and walk away, some of us die and some of us are just abandoned, left behind somewhere more or less safe.'

'The Doctor wouldn't just abandon us!' Graham repeated Yaz's words, but even he could hear he was missing the conviction she still had. Ms Smith didn't seem to mind, even gave him a patronising smile.

'Yes, she would.'

'No, she calls us her fam - she wouldn't just -'

'The Doctor is my best friend,' Ms Smith interrupted, but there was nothing malicious in her voice, calm and flat as it was instead. 'He still dumped me in Aberdeen in '76 instead of taking me home, South Croydon, 1980. You're home, in the right year - don't expect her to come back for you. You're safe here, after all.'

For a moment, Graham could do nothing but stare at her. The math didn't make sense, not to mention the harsh truth he could see in Ms Smith's eyes, even if she had tried to break it to him as gently as possible. But it made no sense to him, he had barely been out of school in 1980 and she was younger than him. Or was she? He was fairly certain that she had been in one of those programs on the telly, though that had been a while ago. She must have been quite young when she had done that, then, he decided, which still didn't explain why she'd want to go to 1980. He really couldn't imagine the Doctor travelling with a child - which brought him back to the Doctor and he tried to shove thoughts about the strange remarks of Ms Smith' past aside for now.

Safe, she had said. 'What do you mean, safe?' he wondered aloud.

'You're safe, in 2020, happily living your lives. You're not in danger anymore, not in danger she put you in, whether she intended to or not. You've been returned home and as far as the Doctor is concerned, you will forever be here, waiting for her right now, happy and healthy and fine.'

In a shrewd way, what she was saying made sense even to Graham, who usually couldn't get his head around any of the timey-wimey things the Doctor tended to say. Slowly, he nodded, but then he shook his head.

'We don't know what happened to the Doctor,' he tried to explain. 'For all we know, she is dead - as long as we don't hear from her, we have to assume something happened to her, don't we?'

'I wouldn't count on it.' There was a callousness in her voice that made Graham shudder. Ms Smith ignored it. 'When the Doctor dumped me in Aberdeen, all I knew was that he had been called home to Gallifrey for some reason or another. The next time I saw him again - that I should have remembered, at the time, was thirty years later. 2007. I knew there had been trouble, a war, I had no idea what had happened after the Doctor left me and had I not ran into him by chance at Deffry Vale, I would have never known. Mr O'Brien, you haven't been travelling with the Doctor very long yet, so please remember: The Doctor is not human. They may look human but as he once told me, that is not true either. He - she - doesn't look human, we look Time Lord.

'Something so simple and important to us as letting us know they are fine, that isn't something likely to cross the Doctor's mind. It's nothing personal. It's just the Doctor.' She shrugged, her eyes fixed on his once more. 'I waited for years for the Doctor to return for me, to come back and pick me up and let me know he was fine. But he never came back, not like that, not for a long time.

'I had put my life on hold, waiting, always ready to jump and run until it all came crashing down on me. It took me a long time to realise that I didn't need the Doctor to enjoy life.' Suddenly, she smiled and her hand reached over to squeeze his. 'I know you will never be in my shoes from back then - you have already lived a life and you know you don't need the Doctor, even if she makes you see things from a new perspective. But you're not travelling alone, are you? You have some young friends with you?'

Graham nodded, realising with a jolt that she knew the Doctor far better than he was ever likely to. She clearly still was her best friend, which might be the reason she seemed to radiate some of that same energy the Doctor had, calm, reassurance and something that said 'I know the secrets of the universe'.

'Yes,' he answered after a moment of contemplation. 'It's the three of us, my grandson Ryan and his old school mate Yaz - she's a copper, wonderful girl. And me. She's shown us some amazing things, the Doctor.'

'He - she - does that,' Ms Smith said with a smile. 'But there are amazing things here on earth too, you just have to open your eyes and look for them.'

'I have seen some amazing things down here,' he agreed and her smile broadened. She really was pretty, Graham thought to himself and smiled back.

'Mr O'Brien -'

'Graham, please.'

'Oh, well, then, Graham, I suppose you should call me Sarah Jane. We companions must stick together, after all.' She frowned slightly for a moment, trying to remember what she had been saying before he interrupted her. 'Things on earth. We have such a marvelous, wonderful planet here, please, promise me that you will not let your young friends forget that. When one is young, it is too easy to fall for the Doctor and forget we are just as wonderful ourselves.'

Graham nodded. 'I promise you, Sarah Jane, I'll try my best. Not sure if I can convince them to stop waiting for her to come back, but maybe I can get them to move on a bit at least? Could I...would you mind if I told them your story?' She looked a tad uncomfortable at that, so he hastily added: 'Only if you don't mind, of course.'

'I'd rather you not,' she admitted. 'It's not that I think they wouldn't understand, but it might be better if you kept meeting me to yourself for now. I have a feeling it could be important.'

'Oh. I see.' He didn't, but even in the short time he'd now known her, Graham had come to trust Sarah Jane, even if he still knew nothing about her. Maybe he should google her later - but no, that was weird to just think about.

'I appreciate it, Graham.' She gave him yet another of those wonderful smiles before pushing her teacup away from her. 'I think I should get going now if I don't want to be home too late.'

'Of course,' he nodded and followed her into the hallway, where he handed her her coat - burgundy velvet, eccentric and still strangely classy, he thought. With a smile, he said: 'It was nice to meet you, Sarah Jane. Thank you for coming here and telling me about, well, everything.'

'Don't mention it,' she waved him off before reaching into her bag and pulling out a card. 'If you need anything - or just want to talk about things not from earth - give me a call. I can't promise to respond immediately, but Mr Smith always lets me know when someone important tried to reach me.' The look she gave him was meaningful, but he wasn't sure what she was implying. Sensing his hesitation, she gave him another small smile. 'Every friend of the Doctor's is important.'

At that, Graham nodded and he watched as she fished her car keys from her purse and led her to the door.

'It was very nice to meet you too, Graham O'Brien,' she said at least and Graham stood on his doorstep for an eternity, looking after her car, even after it was long gone. Finally, with a shake of his head, he shook off the strange feeling still lingering from Sarah Jane's visit and went back inside. He had to promise her to try and make 'the kids' see reason, and he always kept his promises.

Of course neither Ryan nor Yaz thought it prudent to listen to him, they were still trying to figure out a way to contact the Doctor and all Graham could do was listen to them patiently when they were going on about it during their weekly dinners. Five months and twelve days after the Doctor had left them, they were having another one of those when there was a commotion outside.

At first, they all thought it was the neighbours, then they thought it was cats or maybe foxes, then the noise turned into a sound they all knew by heart.

'It's the TARDIS!' Ryan and Yaz were already half out of the door, rushing towards the TARDIS and Graham almost ran straight into them when they stopped dead in their tracks. It looked like a TARDIS, or at least like the Doctor's TARDIS. Big blue box, parked neatly on Graham's front lawn. But the woman leaning against it, she looked nothing like the Doctor.

'Who are you?' Yaz demanded once she'd caught herself again and Ryan added, glaring at the woman, 'and what have you done to the Doctor?'

The woman smiled, far too innocent to not be dangerous, and pushed herself off the door, striding towards them. She held out a hand, ignoring Yaz and Ryan and focused on Graham instead.

'I,' she began, voice low, 'am River Song. I'm looking for the Doctor.'

biscuit for a comment? ^^