rude_not_ginger | Ten Years Later (for alan_skater

"I couldn't tell Luke. How could I tell him I hadn't been keeping proper watch over his mum?" He hadn't told Maria, either, though she had pushed harder than Luke.

Taking a breath... oh, even breathing was painful now... He opened his eyes and nearly flinched back as a flash of color passed bare inches in front of them.

"I've already started my life over. I can't do it. Some of them... they think I could carry on without her, continue her work... I know it goes on, they didn't have to point that out!"

"He probably wouldn't blame you." It was another reason the Doctor stayed away. He expected blame. He knew Sarah would die, why didn't he stop it? He couldn't, he knew that, but---but if he---

"Look out!" He could see a bright color shoot past the form that was Alan, and he all but leapt across the cloud to grab him out of the way.

Alan found himself hauled back, nearly losing his balance and catching it in time to keep from knocking the Doctor right over and falling on top of him.

"Who the hell else would be to blame?" he demanded, staring at him. At the quick aversion of the Doctor's eyes, his own widened. "You can't be serious. You think you're to blame? Or that we'd blame you?"

The Doctor caught himself, and then found he suddenly had Alan on top of him. Well, that was a bit awkward. He shoved off the ground, helping to haul the other man up.

"Something's happening here," he snapped, suddenly angry. "Something's affecting the native species of this planet, and you're arguing with me about who I'm blaming in this?"

Because it was more than just who Luke was blaming, or who they were blaming. The Doctor blamed himself.

Suddenly Alan felt like sniping as well. He certainly hadn't expected sympathy from the Doctor after spilling his guts, but somehow he'd managed to be taken completely unaware by the complete self-indulgence of the man. True, he was in no position to throw stones in that regard, but he knew it when he saw it.

"Sorry, Doctor, not all of us have much experience dealing with other species on their home turf." he snapped angrily, yanking his arm out of the other man's grip. "Have you any idea what's affecting them, or is this one of those run-and-figure-it-all-as-you-go-along trips?"

"All of my trips are run-and-figure-it-out-as-you-go!" the Doctor snapped. "This is what I do! This is all I do!"

He all but shoved Alan away and began towards the writhing stripes of color. He needed to figure this out, and if Alan wouldn't help, he'd do it himself because that was what he did. He always did this, and that was how he kept moving.

"Never heard Sarah complain," he added, and he immediately regretted it. That was cruel. Unnecessarily cruel.

Practically feeling himself turning white, Alan reared away from the Doctor, clenching his jaw to keep from screaming, lashing out against the audacity of presuming he knew everything Sarah Jane had been thinking or feeling while she was with him.

His eyes fell on the strips of colors shimmering in back of them and he suddenly wondered.

"Are they empathic? Or telepathic?" he asked, very softly, very carefully. He was still furious and, worse than that, he was just plain hurt, but even in the middle of that, he knew the Doctor was right.

A couple of overemotional blokes just parking themselves in the middle of a party could put a damper on an empathic species. He knew that much from some of Sarah Jane's old stories.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time he was pointing in the wrong direction.

"Telepathic, yes," the Doctor said, though he made it come out as an accusation more than an answer. He couldn't help his anger. He wanted to, but this incarnation was prone to losing its temper. Oh, now he was blaming the incarnation. Very good, Doctor.

"But they're only registering basic 5 at least. They shouldn't be able to see anything that---"

Wait. He clapped his hands together. "That's it!" he called out. "That's it! Alan, you're a genius! This way!"

"I'm sorry, Doctor, I don't know what basic 5 means." It was something he should know, he thought. And some of Sarah Jane's friends thought he could simply pick up where she'd left off...

Despite his misgivings, he followed the Doctor, noting that several of the stripes broke off from the group to follow him. Stopping and looking behind him, Alan tried to calm his raging emotions.

It's nothing to do with you. I'm sorry.

"Come on!" the Doctor called. He headed upwards, reaching and catching the tail of one of the blue stripes that zipped past. He wanted to get to where they were running from. There was only one thing he could think of that would be up there.

"Basic 5!" he called back down. "Level of telepathy. Humans usually register around a Basic 0. Sometimes you might find someone empathic, who would register a Basic 1 or 2, at the most. But these lot, they talk in whispers to each other, sometimes even getting up to Basic 7. The only reason they'd be running is if something or someone was making their telepathic field louder, more frightening."

"What is it you think is up there?" Alan called up to him, reaching for a blue stripe. It slipped away from him.

Oh, come on...

He reached for it again as it zipped past, grasping firmly a bit above the tail. Hoping he wasn't hurting it, he reached up with his other hand for a good grip as he started moving up toward where the Doctor was going.

"I think something came here a while ago, something that shouldn't be here," he said. "Something that doesn't feed on Basic Five. It's like raw power, it would kill it. But us, you and me, with our Basic One and Basic Three-ish brains, we're giving it nutrients. Big, powerful, angry, grieving nutrients. Just what it wants. We're giving it nutrients, and it's frightening the native species. It's just a matter of---"

And that would be the last thing said by the Doctor as a huge, purple swirl encircled him and pulled him sharply upwards.

"Alaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"

Absurd, the things that could run through one's mind as they realized they were now, quite firmly, in big trouble.

"I don't suppose I minded screaming all that much, because some of the things I saw, they would make just about anyone scream. But I will admit, I was always a bit miffed with myself the times I looked back later and realized I was screaming for the Doctor."

"DOCTOR!" he shouted, helpless to do anything but watch as the other man was quickly carried out of his sight.

"Where are they taking him?" he demanded.

Unsurprisingly, the blue streak he was hanging onto didn't answer him.

The Doctor struggled, but it was in vain. The new creature, this thing that he theorized about but wasn't really properly ready to meet, was significantly stronger than he was.

"Feeding on our negative emotions, are you?" he called out. "Fear? Grief? What is that? A psychic link? How did you fix that?"

He wanted an answer, all he got was a face. The face of a huge, purple, melting creature, seemingly suspended in the clouds. Its huge maw was open, and it was swallowing colored bands whole.

"I'd make a very bad dinner," the Doctor said. He cringed. "Right, yes that never works. But you really, really don't want to eat me."

This is so incredibly bad.

Which was why, naturally, Alan was shouting at a species when he wasn't even sure they comprehended what he was saying.

"You can't just keep zipping around when there's something up there! You're all frightened, right? Whatever you're frightened of took my friend and I need to help him!"

Nearly ripping his hair out, Alan looked around again, his eyes darting to and fro. He wasn't even sure where they had left the TARDIS, but his best judgment told him it was somewhere below them.

Below.... below.

The Doctor was wrong.

"You idiot." he breathed. "Of course! Subjective gravity!"

Feeling only vaguely ridiculous, he took a deep breath before spreading his arms out and allowing himself to fall forward. If he was right...

"OW!"

... he should be smashing his face up in what looked like, but didn't feel like, a cloud.

There was a jolt as suddenly Alan was thrown into the side of the creature that held onto the Doctor. Of course! Subjective gravity. That was---well, it was brilliant. The Doctor would never admit that Alan had remembered something he hadn't, of course.

"And what sort of time do you call this?" he said to the other man.

The creature let out a roar. What was it feeding on? The Doctor's irritation at himself? Probably. Oh, this was going to be very bad.

"Alan, I need your help," he said. "We have to get it to leave this world."

"If we're the ones who caused all the trouble, I guess it's only right." Alan remarked. "Do you have any idea what we can do? Think good thoughts, maybe?"

Tall order, that could be at this point.

The creature held onto the Doctor tighter. He let out a grunt of pain, but didn't cry out.

"More than that," the Doctor said. "We've got to reverse what we've fed it. We've got to give the creature the opposite of---"

Oh, he didn't want to say it. He didn't want to, but it was the only way.

"We've got to give it the opposite of our grief for Sarah Jane. You've got to concentrate, Alan, think about the good times with Sarah, think about the things you've been trying to suppress when you're trying not to hurt."

I was afraid you were going to say that.

"I'm not ready. I can't. I can't think of those times, not yet." How could he? How could he separate that precious time from the knowledge that it was gone, never to return or repeat?

Suddenly angry again, he thumped the creature that was holding so tightly to the Doctor. "Let him go! Take me instead! I'm the one you're feeding from, Barney!"

The creature roared again.

"Don't be stupid!" the Doctor snapped. "You're feeding it more!"

He felt himself get thrown about as the creature writhed around, but managed to keep himself centered. Had to be calm. Couldn't get angry. Not an easy thing for the angry Time Lord.

"Alan, no one's ever ready," he called down to him. "It took me this long to get here, and I'm still not ready to let her go! But we have to focus, we have to remember her the way she was. We have to fight this."

He took a breath. "Sarah loved you more than anyone in the universe, Alan. Do you really think she'd want you to end here, like this?"

"I'm being selfish. I don't want to be selfish."

He had so much still left to live for, even with the hole Sarah Jane's death had ripped in his heart and life. He had Maria and Luke and the possibility of eventual grandchildren from one or the other.

And what about Jack? You promised him you'd be around for a good while yet.

"Did..." Oh, God, he didn't even know if he was starting in a good place. "She talked about you... so much, sometimes. Before I understood, I was so... I was bloody jealous. Before I even knew why. She was... she almost ran me down the first time I saw her. I teased her about it later."

It wasn't working yet. It couldn't be working. The... thing that had the Doctor wasn't letting go.

The creature was still feeding. The Doctor looked over to it, then back to the man at its feet. Alan was just a man. He was just a silly little human, probably didn't even know a millionths of the things the Doctor knew. But there he was, pushing past something the Doctor ran from.

It wasn't the first time the Doctor envied him.

"You didn't have anything to be jealous about," the Doctor said. "On her birthday last year, I offered her a trip around the universe. She said she'd rather stay with Luke and you. Something about a picnic, I wasn't really paying attention."

The Doctor had paid attention. He wanted to know what it was that was so much better than spending time with him. He was, after all, the Time Lord and all that rubbish. But Sarah wanted to stay at home. She was so excited about so many little things. She was so happy.

Alan looked up at the Doctor. Somehow he wasn't all that surprised to hear it.

"I wouldn't have minded. You were her best friend, Doctor. She worried about you, quite often." He wiped his running eyes. "You brought her so many friends, even when she thought she was past making new friends."

Maybe it didn't have to be joy versus grief. Maybe he could just stop being so damned angry with the Doctor for not being the person he really wished he was with.

"Maria came back from telling her -- Sarah Jane -- we weren't going to America after all... she said Sarah Jane was happier than she'd expected. She knew she'd be happy, of course... I knew how much Sarah Jane loved Maria."

He could feel the grip around him loosen. The creature was trying to feed on Alan's words, but couldn't feel anything it needed. It was working.

"She called me," the Doctor said. "When she thought you were leaving. Said she didn't want to lose the only new friends she'd made."

She didn't call when she knew they were staying. It wasn't until later that he learned they were there, that she had a family to go home to.

"You were her family," he said. "I envied that."

Suddenly, he found a small smile touched his lips. "Sarah told me that I shouldn't be so lonely. That I had the biggest family ever. And she said she was part of that."

He missed her. He had found himself so angry, so deep in self-pity that he hadn't realized how much he just missed his old friend.

Alan didn't even realize it was happening, but the anger was slowly subsiding.

"We would've loved to see you again. I'll never understand how you keep your own timeline straight. Remember that, Doctor. We would have loved to see you, no matter who you are."

And they had loved seeing a different him, a happier him. A him that had let so much of the terrible baggage behind. But he couldn't tell the man he was trying to save right now of those times. He'd been expressly forbidden.

"Sarah Jane... she..." he blew out, sighing wistfully. "She saw me out jogging one night, not long after we'd moved in. Invited me for some tea. We swapped some parenting stories. I told her... I told her to just wait until Luke gave her her first handmade card. The smile on her face... it just fit her perfectly. I knew she was beautiful the first time I saw her, but she was... breathtaking."

He could imagine her like that. He'd never thought she'd be a mother, but she fit the role so beautifully. She knew how to be young, and knew how to stay young even as she aged.

"I remember the first time I took her to a different world," the Doctor said. "All young with...with wide eyes and excitement. I felt young."

He'd been in a much older body, then. A sadder, older self. She made him young. She took care of him when he regenerated, she never gave up on him.

"She was my best friend," he said.

He shoved back the part of his mind that wanted to add in and you left her.

Alan looked up at the Doctor.

"Tell me?" he asked, desperately. He wanted to know. Short of returning to the cultured older man and the girl who wasn't all that dissimilar to the woman he'd fallen in love with later, it was the best thing. He wanted to hear about her, from someone who'd known her when she was younger than he was now.

He instantly retreated at the crestfallen look in the Doctor's eyes. Too painful.

"I had her on roller skates once." He quickly switched tactics. "Couldn't get her on a skateboard. But I put her in roller skates. She thought she looked ridiculous. She looked fantastic."

That brought a small smile to the Doctor's face. In his mind, she'd always be the twentysomething he traveled with, but he tried to turn the image of her in his mind, struggling on roller skates, into the older woman Alan fell in love with. It wasn't easy, but he could do it.

"I remember the first time she rode in my flying car," he said. "She was so startled that it was flying. So new to everything."

"She never told me about a flying car." And he found that he didn't mind that, at all. Not all the special memories had to be shared, after all. Just as he had his own special memories with her, the Doctor deserved his own. But he was grateful the Doctor was willing to share one of them. "I can just imagine the look on her face."

He laughed suddenly. "If only she would have gotten out of her own way on those skates." He suddenly looked up at the Doctor. "I didn't blame her, I could tell it'd been a good long while for her, if she'd ever been on skates at all. But she was so... nervous over falling... I kept telling her to just relax, keep her legs relaxed, don't worry too much." Fat lot of good that had done. "She fell. Right on top of me. Banged my head right good. Scared her and Maria and Luke to death."

"She loved you," the Doctor said, firmly. "Some people go their entire lives never feeling loved like that. And you two had it."

While there was still jealousy boiling under his skin, he had to admit he didn't mind so much. Sarah Jane spent so long loving the Doctor and him unable to love her back---not the same way, at least---that it was right that she found someone who loved her exactly for who she was. No "excepts" or "maybes" or "Oh, look, I've taken you home rather than coming with me"s.

"What happened on that birthday?" he asked. "With the picnic?"

"Everyone came home from school for it."

He was quite proud of how that picnic had gone off.

"I wasn't quite fool enough to believe we could keep everything a secret. She knew Luke and Maria were coming home to celebrate her birthday with us." He smiled as he thought of the days leading up. "I don't think either of us ever quite got used to having them out of the house. She was so excited."

He then smiled at the Doctor, broadly. "We called some of her friends to come and celebrate with us. Clyde and Rani turned up, excited and happy to do so. I managed to get hold of Jack and then Mickey and Martha made some time for us, brought the kids and Martha's mum and sister. You know, a good deal of that's because of you, Doctor."

"This isn't about me," he said, trying not to sound stern. "It's about her. Keep thinking about her. Talking about her."

If he started to think about himself, negativity was sure to follow. But Sarah, Sarah was good things. She made such a wonderful impact on the people she touched. She changed them, she saved them.

The Doctor felt the creature's hand was loosening. It was growing weaker, and quickly.

"We, uh... I wasn't quite sure whether to invite Gwen and Rhys and Anwen. When I finally got hold of Jack, I was too busy lecturing him on the virtues of answering his phone because he'd damn near missed the whole thing. But he turned up with them."

Here he had to be cautious.

"A few others came around as well, the Chandras and some of her old friends. You know the Brigadier made a special point of getting out of Peru for the occasion? She was so surprised, and so touched."

"What did she tell you, when you invited her for the trip?" he asked curiously. "I wish she'd mentioned it, we could have worked it out." But, then, that might lead to regrets.

Hurriedly, he pressed on, prompted by the Doctor's nods to do so.

"Clyde and his mother made a big cake."

"Nothing," he admitted. "Just a picnic and I was invited. But..you know me, I don't---"

Not about himself. He couldn't make it about himself.

"Sounds brilliant, though. I wouldn't have wanted to miss that, in her place. Though, I bet she'd have stayed even if it was just you and Luke."

Not this him, he didn't.

He was giving himself a headache now.

"We'd've thrown you a party, too." Alan shifted to a more comfortable position. "Sarah Jane and Martha... they hadn't seen each other in a bit, so once the picnic started breaking up, they ordered us boys out. And at the very mention of girlie talk, Jack broke out a few bottles and we all went back to the house, sat in the garden for a while, just talking."

He smiled. "Then the women came back and we spent a few hours out there. Sarah Jane, she said later she wouldn't have missed it." He sighed, feeling all the old feelings returning. "I... loved being a family. I loved it so much."

"You still are," the Doctor said. "Just because---just because people go away, it doesn't stop them being part of you."

It was something Sarah had said to him once, when he talked about leaving. It made so much sense, now. He could almost imagine her saying it to him. How everything had a time and everything ended.

He gave Alan a small smile. "We might never see Sarah Jane Smith again, Alan. But we saw her. She was part of us, and she always will be. That's her immortality. And it's in us."

"I can't accept that I won't see her again someday." Alan replied. "Maybe it'll be easier, believing she's waiting for me."

Oddly, he and Sarah Jane hadn't spoken much on the subject. Maybe because they both knew he would likely outlive her by some years. He hadn't cared to think of it and maybe she'd known, for she hadn't brought it up herself.

"Maybe we should have talked about it once or twice." But there was no real regret or anger there.

Ten Years Later (for alan_skater_boy)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject