Sarah Jane Smith was sat in her attic, kindly regarding a gift she had recently been left by a visiting Star Poet. The small, beautifully carved metallic item whispered out poetry in a sweet, sing-song voice. The poem depended on the mood of whoever was holding it, and so far it had only spoken words of joy.
Sarah Jane looked down at her watch – it was almost midnight. She should be off to bed, really. Luke was visiting and she had already forced him to get to sleep in his old room, leaving K9 to rest overnight in the living room. As the Star Poet’s gift finished another verse, Sarah Jane placed it gently back on top of her cluttered desk and got to her feet, stretching out her arms in a long yawn. She froze. Arms still outstretched, mouth still half open, she had heard something. From outside. At first it had sounded like nothing more than a gust of wind, but after all these years she couldn’t mistake it. She rushed to the window, throwing it open and looking down on the darkened garden. Sat there, visible by the light from its roof and windows, sat that ancient blue police box. The TARDIS.
Having slipped her boots on and run down her house’s many stairs, Sarah Jane burst through the back door into the garden. As soon as she had crossed the threshold, her pace slowed and she stood, staring in wonder at the time machine she had known for so long, unable to describe the warmth the sight of it brought to her.
With a rickety wooden sound, one of the doors swung open and the Doctor appeared in the doorway – he looked exactly the same as when Sarah had last seen him. She gave a silent sigh of relief at the fact he hadn’t had to suffer another death. She barely knew this Doctor yet.
“Doctor!” she beamed.
“Sarah! Hello! Fancy seeing you here!” he was grinning broadly as he stepped into the garden, closing the TARDIS door behind him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, running over to the Time Lord.
“Well, you know, just came to check up on you… in the middle of the night… Actually, if I’m honest, bit of a mistake. You know what the TARDIS is like. But, still, a sort of good mistake! I’ve ended up in much worse places!”
A happy laugh escaped Sarah’s mouth, as he listened to her old friend.
“Yes, you have!” she said with a smile. “Like Metebilis Three…”
“And Skaro…” he recalled quietly, his tone drifting somewhat as he reminisced of days long since gone.
“And Aberdeen.” Sarah Jane stated firmly, at which the Doctor looked around the garden, a little sheepishly.
“Ah, yes… erm, sorry, about that. Again.”
But Sarah was laughing, happy to see the Doctor again and to remember her past with him. And the Doctor was laughing happily with her, regarding his former companion with his kind emerald eyes.
“Master!” came the cry of a small, robotic voice. Sarah Jane looked back at the doorway, the Doctor’s gaze following hers and they both laid eyes on K9, trundling out of the house.
“K9! Hello!” the Doctor called out, his face fixed in a broad, beaming grin. He dashed over to the metal dog, laying his hand on the back of its box-like head, while looking over his shoulder at Sarah. “What’s he doing here? Is Luke visiting?”
“Yes, but he’s asleep at the minute. Maybe if you came back in the morning…”
“Nah, it’s alright. I’m sure I’ll bump into him at some other point. So, what have you been up to, protecting the world from your attic in Ealing?”
Letting out a long, happy sigh, Sarah took a seat on the bench, the Doctor slumping into the seat beside her.
“Same old busy life! Saw off a lone Slitheen last week, then helped a lost star fleet find its way home, had a visit from a Star Poet…”
“Ah! Star Poets! Lovely bunch. Visited their home world a few times – you would love it! They have towers carved from mountains of shining crystals and the queen’s palace is one of the greatest sights in the universe! I met four of their queens – and I may have accidentally married one.”
Sarah’s eyes drifted up towards the sky as the Doctor spoke, and she sat, gazing out into the vast ocean of glimmering stars. K9 slowly moved over to the bench where the two time travellers were sat, raising his head at the Doctor, who looked back down at his old dog.
“So, K9, how’s Luke been doing at uni? Working hard?”
“Master Luke’s work at university has been produced at his maximum capacity.”
Both the Doctor and Sarah Jane laughed at that. K9 had never quite grasped normal human speech, but that metal dog was a friend that had served them both well in the past. Looking back from his former pet to his former companion, the Doctor noticed Sarah’s gaze was still resting on the stars that shone down on them from the swirling darkness of the night sky.
“You’ve seen your fair share of them up close, I’d say.” the Doctor whispered, his attention now slowly being absorbed by the view of space.
“Yeah… funny, though, how rarely we just stop and admire the beauty of it. All of it. Space. The universe. Time.”
“Mmm.” The Doctor nodded his agreement. “It is beautiful. All of time and space – it’s just… incredible. But, sometimes, not as incredible as the wonders I find here on Earth. All those times, places… people. Like you, Sarah.”
Sarah Jane just smiled and whispered a quiet “Thank you.”
The Doctor tore his gaze away from the sky above, looking instead at his dear friend.
“I mean it, Sarah. All that time we spent travelling, and now this, all these years on, you’re still protecting the Earth, saving the human race, finding the best in people – very few people have quite the claim to greatness that you do. My Sarah Jane Smith, shining brighter than any star!”
A small smile remained on Sarah’s lips as she looked back into the Doctor’s eyes. She paused, speechless for a moment, before speaking again, slowly asking her friend a question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to.
“All these years, doing what I do, doing what we did... sometimes, Doctor, sometimes I wonder – how many years do I have left? How much longer can I carry on?”
The Doctor smiled reassuringly, his green eyes twinkling like the stars as he spoke.
“Sarah. There are some things that can never end. No matter what the universe throws at you, no matter what happens, you will go on forever. In hundreds of thousands of years to come, people will still remember you. They’ll sing songs and tell stories of the noble and valiant Sarah Jane Smith, and how she was the perfect example of the best that humanity could ever be. Your work, your memory, your legacy will live on forever, Sarah, never ever forgotten. Life can come and go so quickly, but real life – that lasts forever. And, in centuries and millennia to come, people will be looking up to the stars and seeing a universe that is so much better than it once was, thanks to you, Sarah Jane.”
Sarah was sat with the echoes of tears shining in her eyes, a smile brushing over her lips. The Doctor returned her gaze in that funny way he had of being both sad and incredibly happy.
After taking one final look up at the stars, the Doctor got to his feet and walked back over to the TARDIS, opening the doors with a click of his fingers, and stepping inside.
Stopping on the threshold before he made another trip through time, he looked back into the garden, proudly regarding his friend.
“Goodbye, Sarah Jane.”
No comments:
Post a Comment