Here we are at last, Chapter 11! I'm so sorry I've taken so long. I was torn between whether to satisfy the SJ camp or the Bannerman Road camp, and played with the idea of splitting the chapter between the two. Then I got an iPad3 last week, and naturally had to play - AND the arthritis in my hands has returned. Thus, delay. On the up side, I've got the next few chapters plotted out again, so it shouldn't be as long before ch 12 makes an appearance. As always, read and enjoy, and thank you to ALL of you who've dropped a line. I'm horribly behind in replying to reviews, but I do appreciate each and every one.

And now, back to Bannerman Road. We'll return to Sarah Jane in the next chapter. Besides, given that Sky's the title character, I thought she needed a little more attention...

CHAPTER 11

Back at 13 Bannerman Road, Clyde leaned against Sarah Jane's inner porch door, closing it with his body. His head fell back on the blue and green glass, and his fists clenched as he tried to get his rage under control. Calling him a slave had been bang out of order, and Clyde knew he was fortunate Sarah Jane had put a stop to his instinctive reactions.

He took a deep breath, and another. Now was not the time to indulge in a personal strop, however well justified it might be, and Sarah Jane had given him – given them all – a job to do. He pushed himself forward, away from the door, and crossed the hall to the stairs that would ultimately lead him to the attic.

When he emerged from the dark attic staircase into the welcoming red glow of the attic itself, all eyes immediately swung to him. Guilt assailed Clyde has Luke's shoulders infinitesimally slumped, and Rani's face became still.

'They took her away,' he said lamely at last, stating the obvious. 'I'd've stopped them if I could –'

'She wanted to go,' Luke told him quietly, reassurance in his steady gaze.

Meanwhile, Sky's small face was growing darker and darker. 'That's not good enough,' she fumed, a halo of blue sparks surrounding her. 'You should've tried harder.' The look she gave Clyde reminded him of the way the others had looked at him during the Hetocumtek business.

It hurt just as much now as it had then.

'Who was it?' Rani asked. 'Was it the police?'

'It was soldiers, Roman soldiers.' He called up a smile that he directed at Sky. 'Your mum'll be fine, Sky. She can look after herself, and one of the Roman geezers seemed nice, he promised he'd keep an eye on her.'

'It'll all come out in the end, you'll see,' Jo told the little girl, ignoring the threatening sparks and pulling her close. 'It was just like this with the Doctor too. I'd think he was about to die, or get killed, or disappear and leave me locked up or something awful – but it always worked out in the very nick of time.'

'That sounds familiar,' Rani said drily, and the tension in the room lifted.

'Right then,' Clyde began, trying to sound chirpy. He rubbed his hands and approached Mr Smith. 'We need to get that River dame back. Sarah Jane said to,' he added.

'How does that get Mum back?' Sky demanded from the shelter of Jo's arms.

'I don't know, but if Mum said to find River, that's what we're going to do,' Luke responded, so firmly that Sky flashed him a dark look and subsided.

Rani's brow was crinkled in thought. 'Trouble is, we've lost the connection to River,' she said, jerking her head in the direction of the now-lifeless Mr Smith.

'When did that happen?' Clyde asked, surprised.

'Just after you and Mum left. Mr Smith fizzled and pop, she was gone,' Luke answered. 'I couldn't get him back.'

Clyde glanced at his phone, sitting blank and useless on top of the sawn-off pillar near the supercomputer. 'Maybe he needs an injection,' he said, half to himself and then whooped, throwing an arm around Luke's shoulders. 'That's it, Lukey-boy! Surprised you didn't think of it. Mr Smith needs an injection – of power.'

'How does that help?' Luke asked. 'We haven't got a power source now that K9's gone flat.'

A slow smile crossed Rani's face. 'Yeah, but we've got Sky, haven't we?' She crossed to where Sky still stood in Jo's embrace, and looked earnestly at the child. 'So what about it?'

Sky said nothing, her lips pinched shut, and Rani sighed. 'Look, I know you're worried about your mum, but this could be really, really important. We need to get hold of River, and you're the only person who can help us do that.'

'Luke can do it,' Sky muttered. 'He's the genius, everyone says so.'

Luke's eyes opened widely at this, but he said, 'Not-so-genius right now, since I didn't even think of you.'

Sky did not answer.

'C'mon, Sky,' he pleaded. 'We're all different, yeah? I'm the genius, Clyde's the artist who keeps us all smiling, Rani's the sensible one' – whereat Rani screwed up her nose in disgust – 'and you're the sparky one, just as important as the rest of us.'

Sky disengaged herself from Jo's hold and sat down on the step, her arms folded and her chin held at a pugnacious angle. 'I still don't see how talking to that frizzy woman helps,' she said stubbornly. 'I don't care about the Doctor which is what you're all worried about, I just want Mum back.' She hugged her knees to her chest and glared up at them.

The teenagers looked at each other helplessly. With the technology blackout they had no way to reach River, no way to let her know what had happened to Sarah Jane, no way to restore the universe. Sky was their only hope, and she didn't seem to be budging.

Assistance came from an unexpected source.

Al, who had remained quietly in the shadows, curled up on one of the sofas, came forward to join Sky on the step. He mirrored her position with his own.

'Could you do that?' he asked hesitantly. 'Just – just spark that computer into life?' He sounded incredulous, his eyes large and round, echoing his tone.

The rest of Team Sarah Jane hardly dared to breathe.

'Yeah,' Sky admitted eventually, turning her head from where it rested on her arms. 'I could.' The words were almost whispered.

'Cool!' Al expelled the word slowly. 'That's – that's – how?'

Sky turned her head away again. 'You might not want to be friends anymore,' she murmured, sounding resigned. 'I'm sort of – an alien.'

The attic was so still that one could have heard even the smallest of pins drop.

Al actually pinched himself, hard, and jumped when it inevitably hurt. His action jerked Sky out of her near-trance.

'What did you do that for?' she asked in something resembling her usual tone.

'Wanted to check I wasn't dreaming,' Al answered ruefully, rubbing the sensitive skin on the inner part of his lower arm. 'I'm not.'

Sky rolled her eyes. 'And you call me weird.'

'I'm not the alien,' Al fired back.

They grinned at each other, echoing a similar exchange many hours and a universe ago in their form room at Park Vale.

Al nudged her. 'Can't you do it?' he asked. 'What they want? It'd be – it'd be all kinds of cool'n'awesome.'

Sky looked as if she couldn't believe her ears. 'You don't mind about me being alien?'

Al shrugged. 'Not until you start eating everyone. 'Sides, I said you were weird, didn't I?'

Sky's face lit up. 'Yeah, you did.' She lifted her head to look at her friends and brother, who were standing anxiously awaiting her response to their request.

'OK,' she said, climbing to her feet, 'what do I need to do?'

It took three attempts before they managed to establish a workable connection with River, and by that time Sky was trembling from exertion.

Jo was the first to notice it.

'Come along, Santiago,' she told her grandson. 'That child needs some sustenance soon, or she's not going to be able to do her job. We're going to cook.'

'But –' Santiago protested, his eyes lingering longingly on River. He wanted to know what she was going to say.

His grandmother's eyes narrowed. 'Now, sonny-boy, or I'll tell your friends about the time –'

Santiago turned pink. 'OK, OK, you win,' he grumbled. 'I'll come.' He glanced at Sky and a line appeared between her brows. 'I see what you mean,' he said to Jo in an undertone. 'Kid looks like she's gonna keel over in a mo.'

'Hmmm. Why don't you sit down, sweetheart?' she suggested to Sky. 'You can – er – do whatever you're doing from the steps, can't you?'

Sky wavered and blinked up at her, causing the image of River to flicker on Mr Smith's screen.

'Jo's right,' River herself said. 'Doing this requires enormous energy, and Sky's only a child. Whatever happens, someone – or several someones – will need to stay with her to monitor her condition.'

Rani pivoted away from Sky. 'What do you mean?'

The older woman gave her a pitying smile. 'My dear, do you really imagine we can resolve this while you're in Ealing and I'm … here?'

'I suppose not,' Rani agreed reluctantly.

'Who do you want?' Clyde demanded, just as Sky cried, 'I'm not staying here by myself!'

Luke sent River a glare before he turned to his small sister. 'You won't be, she said some of us will have to stay with you,' he soothed.

'But Mum's out there and I want to help get her back,' Sky pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. 'Please don't make me stay here.'

River's image flickered again. Rani nudged Clyde.

'C'mon, let's take the Joneses to the kitchen and show them where everything is,' she murmured. 'I think this is something Luke needs to do alone.'

Clyde nodded in understanding, and the pair ushered Jo and Santiago out of the attic, leaving only the two Smiths.

River's face was still blinking in and out, and Luke turned on her with some irritation. 'Look, leave us alone for a bit, can't you?' he snapped. 'We'll get back to you as soon as we can.'

River gave him another of those slightly condescending smiles and winked out. Luke heaved a sigh of relief and hunkered down beside Sky, who was once again on the steps. She was very white, he noted, almost as white as she'd been earlier in the day at the school. She was still a child, still a little girl: would she be physically capable of channelling the energy they would need?

'You know, you could be the turning point in all this,' he remarked.

Sky refused to meet his eyes.

Luke spared a moment to wish that Clyde or Rani had stayed with him. They knew Sky better that he did, adopted sibling or no, and he was belatedly coming to realise that Sky's feelings for him were … ambiguous, to say the least.

He sat down beside her on the steps, his long legs straight out in front of him. 'Did Mum ever tell you about my first Christmas here?'

There was no response; then, 'What's Christmas?' Sky asked in a very small voice.

Luke experienced a sudden flash of sympathy for his mother and their friends. Was this what they'd been through, with him?

'Christmas is a special time for some humans, especially in Britain,' he began. 'People exchange presents and eat and drink a lot.'

A line appeared between Sky's brows. 'Like a birthday,' she suggested.

'Yeah, only it's for everyone who wants to take part. Actually,' Luke continued thoughtfully, 'for some people Christmas is kind of a birthday: they believe it's the day that their god was born on Earth. And just like other birthdays, it's a family time.' He stopped and grimaced. 'It wasn't, that year. My first Christmas had me spending the day alone with Mr Smith.'

Sky's eyes widened. 'Why? Where was Mum?'

'Out saving the universe, and she wouldn't let me come with her,' he told her softly. 'I had to stay here and wait, and it was … horrible. But you know what? I'm glad I did.'

'What happened?'

'All the planets were pulled out of their proper places,' Luke remembered. 'Time was messed up, just like it is now. The Doctor managed to fix most of it, but there was one planet he couldn't fix – one stubborn little planet that just wouldn't go where it was supposed to. Want to guess?'

A smile flickered across Sky's face. 'Earth.'

Luke grinned at her. 'Yeah, Earth. D'you know how we put it back?'

'How?' Sky asked breathlessly, and something tightly coiled inside Luke relaxed: his hook had worked, Sky was engaging with him.

'Mr Smith, K9 and I were able to create a connection to the TARDIS, and between us … between us, we pulled the Earth back to its proper place in space and time.'

'Wow,' Sky murmured. Her face brightened. 'It was just as well you stayed behind, wasn't it?'

'Exactly,' Luke confirmed. He let a beat pass, then another. 'So?' He held his breath, knowing that his sister was bright enough to read between the lines.

Sky's chin came up and her eyes flashed. 'Then I'm staying behind,' she said firmly. 'Anything you can do, I can do.'

Luke grabbed her and hugged her, hard. The others entered, bringing with them enough food for a party.

'Well?' Rani asked Luke as Jo and Al plied Sky with food and drink. 'Did it work?'

He smiled at her. 'It worked. Thanks for the hint about sibling rivalry.' He took several deep gulps from his mug and placed it on the nearest flat surface. 'Once we've eaten, we're ready to go.'

'Doing what we do best,' Clyde agreed, copying Luke's actions with his own cup, but his sombre eyes did not match his jaunty tone. Their intentions were almost impossibly ambitious, even for Team Sarah Jane.

Rescue Sarah Jane (if she needed it), save the Doctor, and fix the universe.

TBC, naturally. :)