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

It was the early afternoon of the following Sunday when the rattling and roaring of an engine noise attracted Sarah's attention. She went to the front of her aunt's house to look at Hillview Road from one of the upstairs windows. The noise was such that it left you thinking how lucky the driver of this vehicle had to be if he made it around the next corner. Had the car broken down on the side of the road at this very moment, that would have been no surprise. Yet although the engine noise disappeared, it had, in fact, not broken down. Merely parked in front of Lavinia's two story house was an old, black and battered looking Daimler car. There were dents in it and scratches Sarah could spot even from the upper level window, but at the same time, it was perfectly clean down to the hub caps. So although it was in a miserable state – who could tell what the poor machine had been through? – someone apparently still cared about it. As Sarah stood leaning on the windowsill watching the arrival of their visitor, the rest of the story unfolded before her.

The driver's door opened and out stepped the young woman's best friend. He had not spotted her yet, but she noticed him beaming proudly by the flashing of his teeth while he grinned to himself. Under his arm the Doctor carried a taxi cab sign which he was just about to install on the Daimler's roof. Was that the result of what he had been up to? It most certainly seemed that he had come to her place only to share his latest achievement with her. Wondering to herself where he meant to go with a taxi of his own, Sarah hurried downstairs to meet him on the street.

After hastily throwing one of her aunt's winter coats over her shoulders and slipping into a pair of heavy fur boots, the time travelling woman stepped outside. Today, it was very cold and the clear blue sky reflected in the polished paint of the car was a sign that temperatures would not be looking up soon.

"Found yourself a new everyday companion, have you, Doctor?", Sarah asked him jokingly as she neared.

"Good day, Sarah!", he greeted her, cheerful as always, just as he stepped down from the sill of the open car's door, having finished affixing the sign. "I certainly hope so! Tell me your opinion, Sarah. What do you think of it?"

Sarah hesitated for a moment, as her gaze was fixed on a particular big dent next to the left headlight.

"Honestly, I don't know what to say...", she carefully began. "When I heard you driving up, the engine sounded like it is in a pretty bad shape and it looks like it's been through a lot already."

"Well, yes, of course it has!", claimed the Doctor. "If it was new, it would be boring. A machine may have a bit of character, a bit of a past, don't you think?"

A smile forced its way on her face. The TARDIS had a whole lot of that, and it never quite worked as it should, either. "A bit of a mind of its own? Of course it should!", she full heartedly agreed, but saw herself forced to argue at least a little since she knew how often he had failed to bring her home in the past. "That is, as long as it's reliable...", she added after a brief pause.

"Oh, yes, yes it is!", he assured her, then shrugged while he shoved his hands into his pants' pockets. "Besides, beggars can't be choosers."

"It was the only one you could afford then, was it?", chuckled Sarah, amused by how he has made it seem like he had had a choice. "Would you rather have had a hackney?"

"Well, that doesn't matter.", he quickly waved her questions aside, apparently annoyed that she had to ask at all. But not before long the grin returned to his face as he then continued to explain what he planned to do. "This old thing here is just enough to be my ticket to the world. It's the solution which will allow me to travel."

"So you've become a taxi driver?", she figured.

"I'll have a car to get around, meet plenty of new people and make the money needed to get by all at the same time. Clever, wouldn't you say?" Quite obviously, he thought it was.

"Well, I like the idea, but what about the university...?" His assistant would hate to see all of her efforts go to waste. Least he could do was to finish the semester. "You're still a professor, remember?"

The smile on his face fell away at the mentioning of his work. "I posted my letter of resignation yesterday.", the Doctor told her. "Now, I realize that they probably want to talk me into sticking around longer, but I will see about that on Monday."

Sarah frowned at him. Of course, it was so easy to quit when you didn't have to look into the faces of the people you were disappointing. And just because of that, she was worried that maybe he would not even show up at Amberton the next Monday. Maybe, he would just leave…

"Are you sure about that? That this is really what you want to do?" The young woman looked at him with eyes pleading, as she suddenly realized that he might just leave her behind along with everything else – to start a new life on the road as the human he was now, unable to see that it was his true self which had driven him towards the decision.

Although he was not facing her directly, he shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. It seemed that he had intended to respond with a 'Yes' originally, but now that the question was out, he was suddenly less certain. Or maybe he thought that this answer was not meant for her to hear.

Just as the awkward silence began to settle between them, the distant noise of a propeller became noticeable. They raised their heads towards the sky only to spot a small, red biplane amidst the blue.

"Oh! Look, Sarah!", the Doctor suddenly called out, pointing at the flying machine. "Do you know what this is? That's the next adventure!" The grin had reappeared on his face as he turned back towards his companion. It didn't feel honest, but he was most certainly trying to make it look like it was.

"The plane? You're kidding!", Sarah sceptically replied. It seemed to her that he was merely looking for a cheap way to avoid the topic she had started, but as usual, he insisted to have things his way.

"Not at all! Do you know where it's come from? Where it will fly to? Aren't you curious?", he excitedly bombarded her with questions impossible to answer on the spot. As he hurried back to the open driver's door, his wide-eyed gaze remained on Sarah. "Don't you want to help me find out?", he finally invited her to join him on this so-called adventure.

There was no pondering for Sarah. If anything, it proved to her that he had no plans to abandon her in this ordinary life she had settled back into. She smiled benignly and sighed in relief. "Only if the taximeter stays off."

He pointed her towards the passenger's seat.
"Oh, you'll always ride for free, my dear Sarah. That's a friendship bonus!"

And suddenly, all the time they had spent at university and the privileges they were about to throw away lost their importance. Deep down, Sarah only cared not to lose him. Especially while he was not himself again yet, seemingly so more vulnerable to his deadly foes than ever. After all, someone had to look after the Doctor, because he was so prone to getting himself into all kinds of trouble. Someone had to keep in touch with UNIT as well. And most importantly, he needed someone to share his fun with. So if he was still willing to keep her as his companion, she would gladly accept again.

It was such a silly thing to hunt after a plane. There was no good reason why they should do it, other than to find out where it would land, but maybe that was just the thing. Maybe it was so interesting, because it was such an insignificant reason. The plane would lead them somewhere, and they did not know where yet. Private property? A field in the middle of nowhere? A small airport? How far would they have to go? Which towns would they cross? It was such a harmless little adventure, but intriguing all the same. As someone once said: 'The journey is the reward.' It made her understand how little she really had ever seen of her own world.

While the Doctor was driving, Sarah kept looking out of the window, always trying not to lose the red biplane from her sight so she could direct him closer to it. The engine of the old Daimler rattled and roared loudly, but proved to be capable of bringing them further than just around the next corner. Because of many spontaneous changes in direction, the Doctor and Sarah found themselves at the end of a cul-de-sac road more than once, but always managed to back out and catch up with the plane just in time. Once they had left the cities and headed for the country roads, the two of them soon started to drift away from the direction the plane was taking, with no crossroads up ahead to change cardinal directions. On a whim, the Doctor made a risky decision and changed onto a dirt track just to keep up with the aviator. If they got stuck in a mud puddle so far away from the rest of civilisation, they would be in for a day trip back to the next town. But luckily, everything went well.

And, after an hour or maybe a little more since their departure, the plane's destination finally came into sight.

Sarah had no idea where they had ended up, because now they were far out on the countryside, probably somewhere to the East of South Croydon, but beyond any of the popular places she knew. The closest town nearby was more of an old village. Its thatched houses could be seen in the distance, beyond the meadows which were currently used as the grounds for a festival. There was one marked as a parking lot, and another two for small, privately owned aircraft to use as a runway. As they parked the old Daimler next to farmer's tractors and vehicles even more time-worn than the one the Doctor had bought, Sarah spotted their red biplane touching down. The wind they were met by upon leaving their car carried with it the sound of joyful chatter and the smell of hay, grilled foods and aeroplane fuel.

The two adventurers exchanged a happy smile before walking towards the white tents located at the side of the runway. There were more people around than that one little village nearby could possibly be inhabited by, but no matter how far the journey, they had all come here to watch the sport aviators, chat and drink. For a seemingly pointless trip, this was a pretty good reward.

The Doctor and Sarah stopped at the wooden fence, which was keeping the visitors off the runway, to watch the next propeller machine as it prepared for descent.

"How far up do you think he's flying?", asked her friend as he leaned on the barrier.

"About half a mile?", Sarah guessed.

"Could be.", he replied after a moment of pondering, before turning his gaze back to her. "And what's beyond that half mile, hm?"

"The sky?" said the young woman and casually hung her crossed arms over the fence.

"Oh, you can do a little better than that.", he criticised her, so she tried again.

"The stratosphere?"

The Doctor nodded, proud of his companion.
"That and the mesosphere, and the thermosphere, and beyond that..."

"...The vastness of space.", they finished the sentence together, once Sarah had figured out the last words by herself.

He chuckled quietly before he pointed at the sky. The spark of adventure was in his eyes, that excited twinkle of fascination for the world. "If we could be up there", he said, "we would see a beautiful blue celestial body full of life hurtling through the vacuum of space at an incredible speed of 107,200 kilometres per hour and we would be in awe at the power of physics that allows this life to thrive in such a hostile environment."

For a moment there, as he talked, she thought she had him back. That they could as well be standing in front of the open TARDIS door and looking at said blue planet called Earth, galaxies, stars, nebulas and black holes from afar. "Go on…!", she encouraged him.

"It's all in the laws of space and time; the pull of gravitation, the relative disposition in time through speed...", he began to elaborate and cast his gaze back at the plane buzzing above their heads. "You see, the mass of the Earth, or any-" Suddenly, he just stopped and as Sarah wondered why, she found his eyes not wide with fascination any more, but with some kind of shock.

"Doctor…?", she asked him, worriedly – yet too late.

It happened within mere seconds; He clutched the cloth of his shirt at the height of his chest, before with a gasp, he just collapsed all of a sudden. As always when she bore witness to his misfortune, Sarah tried to catch him, but only managed to slow his fall to the ground as she went down with him.

"Doctor!", she called his name again, but there was not the smallest sign of a response. Not a twitching of the closed eye lids or a clenched fist trembling. His mind had just shut down from one moment to the next. Why!? And why now, why so suddenly!? As she pulled his upper body into her arms and brushed the curls away from his forehead, an icy shiver ran down her spine. His skin felt so unnaturally cold. Was it good? Was it bad? She remembered what Harry had told her about Time Lord physiology. Was he turning back into a Time Lord and she had failed to notice it? With presence of mind she immediately checked his pulse by pressing her fingers to his neck, but started to panic inwardly when she failed to find it. Sarah barely noticed how she was digging the fingers of her other hand into his jacket. Had his heart stopped beating? She might have been mistaken this time like she had been so many times before, but that knowledge didn't stop her from fearing the worst again. "Oh no…! No!" The words escaped her gritted teeth.

By now the some of the festival visitors had noticed the emergency and started to ask questions about what had happened.

"Someone call an ambulance!", Sarah cried out.

==== ==== End of EPISODE 3 ==== ====

And that's all, folks!
No, of course it isn't. There are at least two more Episodes to follow.
Episode 3 had a big focus on fluffy little scenes with the Doctor, while Harry has to carry the actual plot. Again, the scene about the 'trip to the sea' attempts to further define how the Doctor and Harry get along, and then, there's of course the scene between Harry and Clara! Sarah is so used to Harry being good-looking, well-behaved and successful in his career (as well as unimpressed by all that), that, well, I thought he deserved some more credit - just by placing him in a scene with someone who would notice. Aside from that, I hope you have noticed the long build-up throughout the episode leading to the cliffhanger - because Sarah obviously missed it!
And then, there's Benton. Bless poor Benton! I hope he'll be back~~