==== ==== Sarah-Jane Smith ==== ====

One and a half weeks later: Still no trace of the Doctor or the bigger-on-the-inside police box.

Thanks to Harry keeping her in line, she was feeling much better now than during the early days of their still fruitless search. She even had begun to get used to the idea that the Doctor was gone. Not as in, permanently, but she still hoped that maybe his TARDIS had just jumped forward in time and he had escaped the Master's plan all by himself.

But the inevitable was drawing closer now: One day, the Brigadier ordered Sarah and Harry into his office and announced to them that he had been forced to disband the search party. The head of a weapon manufacturing company had vanished without a trace and the government was concerned enough with the case to put UNIT on it. The three of them had a long discussion over the matter. Sarah tried her best to get the Brigadier to countermand the order, but in the end she, too, had to to acknowledge that he was right. He could not continue to waste UNIT's forces on a task that was sheer impossible to achieve. They had already exhausted most, if not all, of their options. When the military leader revealed to Sarah the full history of his encounters with the Doctor, she began to realize that even if her time travelling friend was well, his return could never be certain. It was a thought she preferred not to keep on her mind, though...

Very reluctantly, Sarah stepped down from the argument. But even as she went, she took Harry with her to have a word in private. Since they were the last, and thus, best of friends currently left to the Doctor, they decided to keep trying a little longer, even without the Brigadier's permission. From that day on, the search became a two-man operation, partially next to the day-to-day business. Whenever the Brigadier saw them working on it, he let them, and he might even have participated himself, would he not have had other matters on his mind and the government in his back.

Another four days passed by, almost too quickly.

The Brigadier's latest case grew more important. More people had gone missing, and he wanted Harry to try his hand at playing a spy again. Before Sarah could do anything to prevent it, even her last effort to find the Doctor had been hamstrung by the authorities. Now that only she was left, Sarah eventually decided to give up, too. Maybe it was pointless after all. One day, she just had to stop worrying about the alien she had once considered her best friend.

So, the former time travelling woman did the only thing left for her to do: She reappeared on the doorstep of her aunt Lavinia. At first, Sarah had not planned to settle back into an ordinary life, but frequent talks with Harry just reassured her, that if the Doctor was ever to leave them behind – whatever the reason – he probably would have wanted her to carry on as if they had never met in the first place. She could only become unhappy if she continued to long for a life among the stars and planets, for the knowledge and stories that were beyond this world. Even if the Earth had wonders to compare, it would never be quite the same, she thought.

Her aunt was a great help to Sarah as she attempted to pick everyday business back up from where she had left it unexpectedly. Only now she really felt all the months that had passed since their last, almost accidental trip, back to Earth. It was difficult to explain it all and the journalist blamed most of it on some kind of top secret investigation she could not tell anyone about. For the time being, and since she had little other choice to begin with, Sarah moved back in with Lavinia at South Croydon, which made it feel even more like coming home than ever before. The comfort of knowing the woman who had raised her close by, sent her emotional state of mind halfway back into her childhood, and caused her to wander around the two-story house for a few days with little motivation to do anything. After all, her aunt took care of all the petty little problems for her.

Sarah was in a despondent mood, which only lightened up a bit when she talked to Harry on the phone or when she went out to meet him for lunch. Every once in a while, the young Earth woman managed to slip back into the boring normality, at the times she was busy with house duties, private accounting, grocery shopping, walking to the post office or riding the bus. But even so, she would often overhear people talking about their boring everyday businesses and thinking to herself how little they really knew about the world around them. She must have been blessed to have her eyes opened up to the greater wonders of the universe, but why did it feel like it was not enough?
Why, she should be ashamed not to be satisfied with her life!
It was easier when she was occupied with something and had less time to think about the things she missed so dearly.

Although she was back home now, she was still sleeping uneasy sometimes. No nightmares to deprive her of her sleep and she did not need Harry's prescription any more, either, but on some mornings Sarah would wake up with the feeling that something was still wrong and needed correcting... This feeling usually faded over breakfast.

Sarah was adjusting slowly, but even after a whole month had passed since her forced parting with the Doctor, she still found herself walking past every old, battered police box twice and hoping for a piece of colourful wool to disappear around the next corner. But these things only happened in her imagination: Of course there were no time machines, and there were also no tassels to chase after. Sarah pitied herself for it. Had she not been separated from the Doctor in the way it had happened, with all that worry and fear for his life firmly etched into her mind, she would not miss him as much. Or so she liked to think...

Over time, her aunt gave her more and more things to do during the day, and occasionally, she would point her niece towards interesting articles in the newspaper, hoping to get the spirit of an investigator sparking inside of her again. Reluctantly at first, but soon with growing motivation, Sarah finally renewed her connections to the editorial office of the Metropolitan and the Guardian.

But although she followed her aunt's advise and felt herself more and more comfortable again in her old role, Lavinia's curiosity about whatever had happened to her niece kept growing. Only naturally for the woman who had brought her up all by herself, she had to learn about it some time, to be able to stop herself from worrying about the young journalist's state of mind.

Sarah avoided the questions Lavinia asked for several consecutive days, but then made a total fool of herself on one particular occasion:

It had been early in the morning and Sarah had still been in the bathroom, blow-drying her hair as out of nowhere, a familiar noise filled her ears. The wheezing and groaning she had heard so many times before, and secretly still longed to hear again. Even though the pitch was a bit different, the image of the police box appeared in her mind immediately. Dropping the brush from her hand – and the blow-dryer almost, too – Sarah burst out of the room and ran downstairs with the hopeful expectation to find the TARDIS materializing before her eyes in the living room.

Of course, she should have known better… Her endlessly disappointed gaze fell on her aunt, who, armed with a cleaning cloth, was clearing the cobwebs out of the strings of an old harp. She had heard her niece storming down the staircase, and was now looking at her worried, asking what was the matter. "W-What is that?", Sarah stammered, as though she had never seen a harp before. But while Lavinia explained that a neighbour had asked her to store the large music instrument for safe-keeping at her house, Sarah was just amazed by how similar the noise had sounded. It helped nowhere to cure her of the sudden disappointment, however. Worse than that was just that she had failed to hide her reaction from Lavinia, who had all the right reasons now to ask her why she was behaving like that.

"I used to know someone who owned a machine that made such a noise.", Sarah had told her reluctantly, "He was a very close friend, and he vanished a while ago, right after a run-in with a criminal." She had almost been surprised to find that her aunt knew her so well that she had not needed to explain much more. Suddenly, Lavinia just understood what had caused the despondent mood of her niece. "But why didn't you tell me earlier?", she still had wanted to know.

"He knows so many secrets, and has travelled to the most extraordinary places of the world… He has always been fighting for the good cause, but made a lot of enemies along the way..." There was no point in trying to tell her the full story. Unless Lavinia had experienced the same things she had seen first-hand, she would never believe her, anyway. But Sarah's hesitantly formulated lie was thankfully enough to get her point across. Even her aunt realized that the Doctor must have been an incredibly fascinating fellow to meet. Although Sarah offered no further explanation, she seemed to have gained an understanding for how her niece was feeling. That she had been involved in things greater and more important than ordinary life, and that this had been how settling back in at home had become so difficult. But Lavinia also reminded her of the dangers that lurked within the unknown. Sarah had said it herself, that the Doctor had made himself powerful enemies – and might have fallen victim to one. As a responsible step-parent, Lavinia did not want her to end up in the same way, despite knowing her sister's daughter well-enough to see that Sarah would never turn down an opportunity to enter an unlocked door with a "Keep Out!" sign in front of it...