When the girls were gone, Jackie and Harry took seats beside each other in the once again neatly set up table. For a while, they remained silent, with Harry opening up one of his many folders to make sure all important papers were still in place (seeing how everything had been scattered about just a while ago), and was somewhat surprised to see that every paper he'd placed in it was still there. Although there was one document which was covered with what looked like red paint, it was the only one which had been damaged in any way. All the others remained in good shape.
As for Jackie, she just stared out the window in deep thought. She couldn't understand how she had spent so many years without noticing how her daughter had such strong and dangerous powers. Could it have been all the alcohol which made her so oblivious? Or was it just how stressful her life was? People with major struggles often found themselves ignoring the world around them, as Jackie had observed since childhood when she noticed that a couple of her neighbors had no idea of some major news because they spend so much time working for so little in return. But was it possible that anyone would fail to observe a family member with some strong condition or abilities which could take a turn for the worse? Yes, she'd noticed how Rose was always bringing up John Smith or making some correct guess on how she was or who was about to unexpectedly show up, not to mention those blackouts, but she hadn't started considering that it was something serious until now.
Noticing how upset she looked, Harry finally spoke up, saying "I don't know what I can do to make this easier for you, Jackie, except say that I honestly didn't intend to have Rose do something like this. In all this time working with people like her, I'd never seen anyone who's telekinetic."
"Look," Jackie explained. "I guess I can believe that you didn't provoke Rose on purpose, but I still think you unintentionally did something which caused her to unleash these powers. It's going to take a lot for you to fully gain my trust, but I think the least you can do right now is explain to me what it is you know about this."
Harry nodded. "I understand. It really was my fault no matter which way you look at it, but I'll do my best to let you know everything you need to be aware of."
"Okay," Jackie responded.
"All right. So do you want to start by hearing what I actually do as a doctor, or an explanation of ESP?"
"Well, as careless as it may sound for a mother, I want to know how it is that you were able to discover what you did about Rose, so put the ESP explanation aside for a while and tell me who you actually are," Jackie said, sounding as if the slight confidence she had around Harry at the start of their meeting was slowly returning.
"All right," Harry said, sounding relieved that she didn't seem too angry anymore. "If you insist, Jackie, then let me start."
"Could you start by saying whether you always knew about the existence of ESP, or if you had to discover it at some point?"
"If you're asking if I was aware of it since I was a boy, then I'm afraid that's not true. We didn't even have a cinema where I grew up, and comic books were practically banned, so I never gave much thought to human beings having some kind of powers. As far as I knew, the five senses and our ability to think about so much were enough to consider humans the most powerful beings anywhere, so there was no reason to think that they could or should do more."
"And then, I became a naval sergeant in order to pay off my expenses from university, serving as a medical officer when I finally graduated from medical school. I was getting no support from my family at that point, so I was on my own and willing to take on anything to get by. To my relief, I didn't find myself in the middle of one of the many wars and military conflicts which were going on in the seventies. However, with my luck, I still got myself in the middle of a near deadly situation. It was…"
"Let me guess. You encountered a sailor whose telekinetic powers caused a devastating hurricane," Jackie said sarcastically.
Harry laughed. "That would make for quite a thrilling tale, Jackie, but remember how I said that I'd never met a telekinetic person before seeing Rose today. However, what actually happened is still a rather exciting story, but for time's sake, all I can say is that another soldier encountered some strange creatures, and for once, I was able to be the hero instead of the one accidently causing trouble. In fact, it was such a major accomplishment that I was promoted to an exclusive military organization in England."
Jackie was about to ask what these strange creatures were, but decided it was best to just let him move on. After all, with all the unusual things she'd seen today, she thought it best not to set herself up for too many surprises.
"When I got to this organization, I was given two major tasks by the brigadier. The first was to be on the lookout for any more of those creatures I encountered overseas, and to be prepared to help anyone who found themselves under an unexpected attack. The other was to keep an eye out for a woman who started becoming a regular visitor at the organization, usually to assist their scientific advisor. She was a journalist, but her investigations went beyond simply asking questions to get the full story behind a crime scene. Sometimes, all she had to do was look someone in the eye, and she was immediately able to tell who was the perpetrator, as well as every detail of the situation, even if the person she was interviewing had no idea about it themselves."
He did not need to go further on before Jackie asked, "And this was the first psychic person you ever met?"
"The first person whom I knew for sure was psychic is a better way to put it. For all I know, I could have known dozens back in my school days or in the Navy, but we just never find out everything some people are capable of. At the time, though, I thought the Brigadier was pulling my leg. I figured that since they were hunting down these ail…um…" Pausing for a moment (and getting a suspicious glance from Jackie), he finally said, "Creatures, they thought they could pull any anything off, including having carnival freaks or fortune tellers over for visits. This was whom I thought this woman was when I first heard of her."
"So you were in for a big surprise when you actually met her."
"You can say that again," Harry said with a grin. "The moment I first saw her, she was in on the action already, making sure she could do whatever was possible to help the other members of this organization. Just by seeing all that, I immediately realized that I was wrong in thinking she was just there to fool around."
"And then what happened?"
"When I was given a part in their latest mission, I had this silly thought of myself as finally getting to be like James Bond," he said with a chuckle. "And then the woman repeated back what I was thinking, looking at me as if I were some excited schoolboy. I was so embarrassed and shocked that I kept saying she was wrong, that she must have been reading someone else's mind and…let's just say it really was a surprise for me."
Jackie smiled. "It was indeed. So this woman became your first patient?"
"Technically speaking, she was, but we got together under some rather unconventional ways. As a matter of fact, almost the whole time I was examining her, we were traveling."
"So is that supposed to explain all the visits to these universities from around the world?"
Harry paused for a while, thinking of the right way to explain this to Jackie. After a while, he said, "That actually came along later, when I got back from my travels with her and got assigned to share the information I got from her to assist universities which were trying to do research on ESP. What I did with Sarah Jane Smith… that's actually where Rose's friend John Smith comes into play."
Upon hearing this, Jackie shook her head and started laughing in a sarcastic manner. "No, please don't tell me this John Smith nonsense is actually a part of her condition as well. If people with ESP are constantly seeing some kind of invisible people, then my daughter is certainly set for trouble later on."
"It's not always a part of ESP, but some psychic people are able to sense something which is around all of us but which others can't notice with just the five senses."
During his time with Sarah, she had told him that she'd once been able to locate a dead body because she'd heard the sound of a heart beating when she would walk out into an open field as the sun was setting. One night, during a full moon, she and her friends had started digging around the field, and that's when they'd found the body of a man who'd been reported missing two months before. This ended up becoming a major story for her university's newspaper, and one of Sarah's first major achievements as a journalist. Although Harry didn't believe in ghosts back then, he still felt as if it might be true that Sarah was capable of getting some kind of calling from whatever was beyond typical human perception.
"But are all people with this alike in their abilities?" Jackie asked "Are they born with it, or does it develop due to some strange reason over time."
"Most of the evidence we've gathered shows that ESP is present in people from birth. In some cases, there's one or more family members who are in some way psychic, which has led many leading researchers to think that extra sensory perception is genetic. Do you know of anyone who could have been psychic in your family, or if there were any unusual circumstances regarding her birth?"
Jackie tried to think back on some of her relatives, seeing if she could remember if any of them had as good an ability to sense emotions or future events the way Rose did, but she couldn't. The one person who might have fit that description was her great aunt, who seemed to do nothing except shout out warnings of bad luck and go on about how the events described in the Book of Revelations were soon to begin during the last years of her life. However, this was probably due to how she was always ill and cranky than it was to psychic powers. And she'd never known any of Pete's family members (his explanation for their absence was that his parents had vanished without a trace and he became a ward of the state), so she couldn't look back on them at all.
"I honestly can't think of anyone in my family who could have been like that," she said anxiously. "Although when Rose was born, I almost had to have a c section, and for days after she was born, she would often spend a long time crying for what seemed like no reason."
Harry nodded and wrote this down. Patti had told him something very similar regarding Christine's birth, only she'd actually had to go through with the cesarean section.
"Are there any other known causes?" Jackie asked.
"People have come up with many other far-fetched theories over the years, but the majority of them have been discredited by current research. Among them included selling your soul to the devil if it was believed that someone was up to no good, or magical drinking water or the blessings of fairies or angels if it lead to heroic actions. In the early twentieth century, some believed that ESP went hand-in-hand with being either mentally ill or what they used to call being feeble-minded. One scientist even thought that…"
"I don't want to hear what people thought in the past!" Jackie yelled, tired of once again having to deal with rambling. "I want to hear what they know now!"
"It's just as I already told you, Jackie," Harry said. "The only reasonable cause which has been drawn by modern research is that ESP is genetic. It's not necessary to have a psychic relative for this to happen, but in several cases I've looked into, there has been at least one relative who was believed to have similar abilities."
"Okay, so what do these powers usually consist of?"
"The most common abilities associated with ESP are precognition, or being able to look into the future, and being able to sense what another person is thinking. About eighty percent of people with ESP are able to do this, although it's not uncommon for some people to be able to one thing and not the other, or to have one ability to a lesser degree than another. For example, Christine is able to read minds, but she can't guess when someone's going to pay a visit, or have visions of someone getting into an accident. Are you getting it?"
Jackie nodded. "Yes. Go on."
"Some other abilities, which are present in about thirty percent of psychic people, include retrocognition, which is the ability to look into a person's past, and remote viewing, which involves the perception of events occurring in the present without actually being there as they are going on."
"But can't they look into someone's past by just reading their mind?"
"No, because you know how we're not thinking about our pasts at every moment," Harry explained. "To do this would require them to look deeply into the subconscious, which could be dangerous for some individuals. This usually happens when a psychic person witnesses an action which can give insight into a person's past, like if you were to see someone looking out into the sky from their balcony at night and you have a vision of them doing the same thing ten years before when they were on a road trip with their family."
"Okay. I understand," Jackie said. "So how does telekinesis and seeing ghosts come into play?"
Harry knew she wasn't going to like what she heard, but he had to bring it up sooner or later. He'd promised himself that he was going to be honest with her, so he decided to go ahead and began:
"There have actually been no recorded cases of telekinesis in humans. As a matter of fact, some researchers have completely dismissed it as science fiction. But I once encountered creatures which were able to move things with their minds. As a matter of fact, it was during one of the trips I made with Sarah Jane Smith."
"And where was this?"
"Believe it or not, it was on another planet."
And just as Harry guessed would happen, he heard that same sarcastic laugh again, yet there wasn't a trace of humor on Jackie Tyler's face.
"Okay. I think I know how you felt back when you first joined that organization you were talking about earlier. So, first I find out my daughter has these scary psychic powers, and now you're telling me that you once set foot on another planet. What's next? Am I going to find out that one of the closets in this hotel leads to a magical world, or that vampires are the ones responsible for half of the murders which occur in London?"
If only she knew about the TARDIS, Harry thought to himself when she brought up the closet. "Well, Jackie," he responded with a small smile, "I can't tell you for certain whether any of these other things you mentioned are real, but you already know that I've seen a lot of things which others believe to be simply fantasies or science fiction. And until today, I actually thought no human could ever have telekinesis, so you can say we're on the same boat when it comes to that matter."
"And since you bring up other planets, I'm supposing these creatures you've been talking about are none other than aliens."
"You got that right, although the aliens I saw on the planet Telepathias were different from the ones I encountered in the navy."
"I see," Jackie said with a nod.
"And on this trip, Sarah and I were actually accompanied by another alien, only this one looked and even acted so much like a human that I sometimes forgot what he really was. As a matter of fact, he was the one who was the organization's scientific advisor, and the one whom Sarah had worked alongside with at the time I first arrived there. When he was there, he went by the name John Smith."
Jackie now frowned. "John Smith? Are you trying to say that this alien is the same invisible being which Rose has been seeing?"
"Based on what Rose told me when I tried to examine her, everything she said corresponded with what I know about him, so I think he might actually be this imaginary friend of hers," Harry responded.
"I don't understand," Jackie said, trying to take it all in. "Is this John Smith fellow supposed to be invisible to everyone except for psychics? Was Sarah Jane Smith the only one in this organization who could see him, or were you and all the others working there able to see him as well?"
"He wasn't invisible to anyone at the time, Jackie. As a matter of fact, he always liked making his presence perfectly clear to us. If you could have seen some of the costumes he put on the first time I met him…"
"Just get to the point!" Jackie yelled, starting to get frustrated again.
"The point is, John Smith, or the Doctor, as he liked being called, wasn't just visible to psychics at the time. Rose started telling me a little about it, and from what I gathered, he trapped himself in her head when he was in danger of dying around two years ago. The Doctor had rather unusual methods of escaping death, so in some ways, it doesn't seem surprising that he'd try something like this."
Jackie now stood up, looking more upset than she'd been before. "Hold it right there," she said, with a furious look in her face. "So you're trying to tell me that Rose has had an alien stuck in her head for two years?"
"From what she told me, yes," Harry responded, afraid of what she might do next.
"And therefore, that can explain all the times she's appeared crazy to other people, and the fact that she's had blackouts?"
"Other psychic people can have blackouts too, Jackie."
This did nothing to make things better. Instead, she seemed to get angrier, saying, "So what's the point of trying to convince that everything will be okay for Rose? She has powers which you had no idea actually existed, and for all I know, it might be because of this John Smith. It's as if she's living with some virus or parasite which is slowly eating her up, and perhaps these psychic powers of hers are what's making her the perfect host. What's the point of these special powers then, Dr. Sullivan? Why not try dedicating your time to finding a bloody cure for this curse than further complicating things for people, especially those as young as Christine or Clara? But then again, you've never worked with children before, which just stands to show how you really know nothing at all about how to treat my daughter!"
Harry did not like what he was hearing. The last thing he wanted was for Jackie Tyler to lash out on him again, but there was something else which bothered him even more. From what she was saying, it seemed as if she couldn't accept the fact that Rose had ESP. With most of his patients, they were usually relieved to finally learn the facts behind their abilities, particularly when they realized that what they did was usually as natural as the ability to see, hear, and touch. Even Patti Green, with all the trouble which seemed to come along with Christine's powers, had been glad to learn that under the right circumstances, she could have a normal life and be in control of what she could do.
But then again, the situation with the Doctor really did complicate things. He really was going to have to work through this situation in some way.
"Look, Jackie, please calm down," he said calmly. "If you get upset about how Rose is, it will do her more harm than good."
"But if she's having constant blackouts while having this parasitic alien inside her, what do you will happen to her later on?" Jackie yelled out in anger. "Do you honestly think she can remain healthy and mentally stable if she goes on with the way she is? I don't know what kind of lives Sarah Jane Smith, Christine, or Clara have, Dr. Sullivan, but Rose's experiences with these powers, from what I've seen, have caused her nothing but harm! Others have already been bullying her and casting her out because of how they see her acting. Do you really think things will get any better for her in the future if nothing is done to get rid of these powers of hers?
"Jackie, you honestly don't understand what you're saying…"
"I know perfectly well what I'm saying! And if you don't try doing something to get rid of that alien or this ESP, then I'll take her to someone who will. Perhaps she would get more help in a mental hospital than she would in your hands!"
"You won't be able to do that even if you did find someone who was willing to go through with it."
"Why not?" Jackie yelled back.
"Because there is no way I or anyone else could get rid of Rose's powers without causing her permanent damage, Jackie," Harry answered back firmly. "Not too long ago, many well-regarded medical professionals and psychiatrists attempted to 'cure' people from extrasensory perception by giving them psychoactive drugs or lobotomies. Many of these people either suffered from brain damage or died, and in some cases, this was exactly what these trusted doctors intended to happen."
Upon hearing this, Jackie fell silent. She'd just spend the past couple of minutes thinking how good it would be if Rose could be cured from what she was seeing as a curse or even a disease, and how it could save her from all the trouble she believed would be awaiting her if she went on as she was. And somehow, she hadn't been able to see the consequences of thinking in this manner. Was hoping to free her daughter from so much pain really worth taking all those risks this doctor was describing, perhaps even costing her life?
But before she could go on, Harry held her hand and said, "I didn't mean to scare you, Jackie. I probably shouldn't have revealed so much, but you have to understand that nothing good can come from trying to cure Rose. Living with any kind of differences can be difficult for people, but if we try to strip them of their differences, we'd be destroying an important part of who that person is."
Jackie looked up with shame. "I don't know. I see what you're trying to say with this, but I just don't know how I'll ever learn to accept this ESP if it just keeps making things hard for Rose."
"It's always going to be a little hard for them. Sarah didn't have it easy when she was younger either. Her mother died when she was young, many people tried to take advantage of her if they found out about her powers, and it took years for some of her family members, particularly her aunt, to accept her as she was. But her grandmother was psychic as well, so she always had someone to help her. Christine has had a hard time adjusting as well, so much so that she had to stop attending regular school."
"Really? Why?" Jackie asked in shock.
"She unintentionally did something to one of her classmates when she read his mind," Harry started saying (he didn't want to cause more tension by saying what it was Christine did). "Afterwards, a friend whom she'd told about her powers ended up telling other people that Christine was the one who'd caused this. Many of the kids in her class started avoiding her or bullying her, and it went so far that some girls tried to push her down the stairs."
"Oh dear," Jackie said. "What happened?"
"I had started seeing her at that point, so I went to pick her up from school. She only had a sprained ankle, but the poor girl was so scared that she could barely speak to me when I tried asking her what happened without crying so hard," and he shook his head as he remembered that awful time. It had been the only time he'd seen her cry so far, but one of several occasions in which he saw how sensitive she really was, and how easily she could break down if someone tried to hurt her.
"I confronted the principal about it, but she didn't seem bothered by it. She even said that if Christine was being as problematic as the other kids claimed she was, she probably had it coming all along, even though her teacher never reported having problems with her at all. I got so upset by this, but the principal kept justifying it by saying that they were trying to help these kids grow up, and that the real world was a lot tougher than anything they ever faced in school. So at the end, I decided that if the teachers didn't care about the student's safety, then I didn't want to force Christine to put up with it anymore. Since now, I've been homeschooling her, and she's been doing quite well now."
"Are you saying that Rose might have to leave school as well?" Jackie asked. This wasn't doing much to make her feel better.
"I don't know what will happen to her later, Jackie, but she's going to need you to support her through both the good and the bad times. If you keep acting as if her powers are such a bad thing, she'll only feel bad about herself and possibly even get worse. Part of the reason Christine's doing so well is not only because I'm there to help her, but also because her mother has been able to accept her abilities as simply another sense, something she's able to do which no one else can."
"I'll try," Jackie said. "But it's going to take a while for sure."
"I understand, but for now, here's something which might help."
He handed her the bottle with the bluish green liquid and the ESR label, and then a copy of the large book on extrasensory perception which she'd seen earlier.
"This medicine is called ESR, or Extrasensory Relief. We actually discovered it on the planet Telepathia when we saw the telephibians drinking a similar liquid in order to lessen their dangerously high telepathic capacities. Because they had been running out of it for quite some time before we arrived, the destruction they were causing with their powers kept getting worse, causing sandstorms and many of their fellow creatures to be dragged down to death. One of them, after being able to communicate telepathically with Sarah, showed her, the Doctor, and me the elements which could be used to produce this liquid, and we ended up making enough of it to help many of the telephibians gain control of themselves. As compensation for what we did for them, they allowed us to take as much of the ESR as we wanted for Sarah, because the chief telephibian was able to demonstrate that it could be used with any creature in the universe who had some form of a sixth sense."
"Interesting," Jackie said. "But didn't you have to get this medicine approved of in some way when you got back to Earth?"
"I demonstrated the medicine along with my other research when I first got involved in the academic ESP research projects in the University of West Berlin in 1981. Of course, I made sure to give credit to Sarah as well when I presented it, and it actually made us quite a bit of money."
"Enough to make you rich?"
"Quite close, actually," Harry said with a laugh. "What's actually been making me a lot of money lately are the sales of this book, which got published two years ago and has been sold in many countries which are leaders in ESP research. It includes a lot of information I couldn't possibly find the time to talk you about right now without keeping you here much longer."
Jackie looked through it. The name of the author was listed as H.S. Schultz, which she assumed to be a pseudonym, and it included over sixty long reports which went into great depth on how extrasensory perception worked, explaining everything from all the known types of ESP, its history, its effects on the mind, body, and development, as well as summaries on different experiments which had expanded further studies, along with graphs and anatomical photos to supplement the text.
"Wow," she said with amazement when she finished looking through it. "You must have been a very busy man in all those years you were working on this."
"And I still am, Jackie. Regarding the medicine, you should only give it to her after she's had a blackout or if she starts feeling under the weather after using her powers. You can consult the book for almost any question you have, and of course, I could always give you my number if you want to give me a call."
"Thank you so much for your help," Jackie said with a smile. "But before we go, can I ask just one more thing?"
"Go ahead."
"Is ESP officially recognized by scientists?"
"The scientific community as a whole does not recognize it. However, there have always been factions among scientists in support of many things, some of which have been terrible concepts, but others, like those researching ESP, have actually been doing a lot of good for individuals, especially over the last couple of decades. I'm probably one of the most important individuals who is neither a scientist nor a parapsychologist to have made a major contribution to the field, but there are many more who do plenty more work than I have without being recognized."
"And yet you still use a pseudonym for publishing your book?"
"We all do. If people were aware of who actually did the work, they'd be able to track us down more easily, and that could mean trouble for many of us."
"I see. I've used my own name the few times I've had work published, and that hasn't either done me any favors nor any trouble."
"Really?" Harry asked, sounding impressed.
"Yeah, but one more question."
"Yes?"
"Is there anything you can about John Smith right now?"
"I honestly don't know. Perhaps the ESR will lessen the effects of having him inside her head, but if something more were to be done about it, I'd have to get in contact with UNIT, the military organization I was a part of all those years ago."
"I see. And will they get in contact with us?"
"They should if I tell them to."
"All right. That's it for now. Can we get back to Rose and the others right now?"
"Sure. Let's go."
And so they left together, with Jackie being at least partially reassured about her daughter.
...
Afterwards, there was really only one place they could find the girls: at the rec room, where Clara was now trying to play ping pong with a reluctant Allison, and where Christine and Rose were seated in a small couch with the television turned on to a morning soap, but which neither of them were watching because they were having a conversation.
"So, how's Rose been doing, Chris?" Harry asked cheerfully upon approaching Christine and Rose.
"She's okay for now," Christine answered. "She had a headache for a while, but it wasn't bad enough for me to have to give her the ESR. Allison gave her a glass of water, and then she got better."
"Are you really feeling better, Rose?" he asked, turning to her.
"I am. Did everything go well with your meeting with my mummy?"
"She took it a little hard at first, but she's starting to accept it. You should understand that it may take some time for her to get used to it all."
"I think I do," Rose said, glad to see that her mother wasn't as upset as before.
"Right-o, and how's Clara."
"For a while, she kept wanting to talk to Rose about went on in our room, and Allison had to agree to start playing with her so she could leave her alone."
By now, Clara had left the ping pong table and ran up to Harry. "Are you going to tell us what happened, Dr. Sullivan? Is there something really bad going on with Rose?"
Harry smiled at her. "There's nothing bad going on with Rose, Clara. I will talk to both you and Christine about what happened later, and I'll also try to explain to you what I found out about you from your checkups." (The checkups consisted mainly of the tests he gave her upon first meeting up with her as well as what he'd observed during her episodes).
"Okay. I think I can wait for a while," Clara replied.
"As a matter of fact, Christine, we're probably have to delay our flight back to Florida by two days. I'm going to have to make an unexpected appointment somewhere before we leave."
"Does it have anything to Rose, Doc?" Christine asked.
"It does. I don't know how long it will take, and I'm not going to be able to bring you."
"But I don't want to stay here all on my own," Christine complained.
"You might not have to." He then turned to Jackie. "Would you be willing to look after Christine tomorrow, Jackie?"
Rose looked at her mother. "Please say yes, mummy. I like her, and you have a lot of time to do it now."
"I don't think I'll be able to, sweetheart," Jackie said regretfully. "I was just talking to Allison about possibly meeting up with Michael Truman tomorrow to talk about working as a caretaker here."
"Really?" Harry asked in genuine surprise. "You'd be willing to look after this place for almost three months? I thought maybe your writing would help you earn money for now."
"I never said that I've gotten a lot published," Jackie responded.
"And writing alone wouldn't be enough to help her pay the bills," Allison remarked, getting ready to go to the shop to start her shift.
"Although I was planning on taking Rose to get looked over by a family who lives not far from here," Jackie said, returning to the subject in question. "Rose, what would you say about having Christine come with you to see the Marshes?"
"I'd like that," Rose said excitedly.
"And I don't have a problem with it," Harry said in agreement.
"So does that settle it? You can go over to your appointment, and I'll come pick up Christine to take her over there at whatever time you'll see as best."
"Yes. I'll call you tonight to tell you when I have to leave."
"All right," Jackie said. "Thank you for all your help, Dr. Sullivan," and she shook his hand.
"It was my pleasure, Jackie. And if you have any more questions, you know what to do."
"Of course," Jackie said. Then, taking her daughter's hand, she said, "Come along now, Rose."
"Goodbye, Dr. Sullivan," Rose called out. "Goodbye, Christine and Clara."
The three of them waved as they left, wishing them good luck, with Harry and Christine wishing that things really would go well for them.
So, that's it for this part. Next, we'll see what goes on with Rose and Christine as they get together once again, how the job interview will go for Jackie, and what kind of appointment Harry will be making. Also, the Doctor/ John Smith might be returning to Rose again soon!
I've started working on the Sarah Jane Smith prequel as well. It's going to be titled "Of Time and the Mind" and will be posted in about a week or two. I still have to make plans for the Victorian Clara story, so I can't make any promises on when that one will be posted yet.
Once again, thanks for all your feedback, and I look forward to continuing on with this story and the series!
