FIC: The Apparition (1/1)
Author: Regency
Title: The Apparition
Fandom: Sarah Jane Adventures.
Pairing: Sarah Jane/ adult Maria, implied Sarah Jane/ other
Spoilers: General knowledge. I guess this could be considered post-series.
Rating: G
Word count: ~4,378
Summary: Every time Maria came to Sarah Jane’s door, she saw something she didn’t want to see. Sarah Jane told her it was nothing and Sarah Jane would never lie to her.
Author’s Note: Answer the “First line” challenge offered by elisbelle at the_second_time. I chose prompt #1 on the original post. ETA: I wrote this about five years ago and never got to post it because my old computer crashed. Now that I've got it back, I thought I'd share. It was originally going to be a smidge longer, but I decided to leave it here. Let me know what you think!
AN II: Constructive criticism always accepted, especially with regard to characterization. I’ve watched quite a bit of these two, but grown-up Maria particularly eludes me, so I’ve had to improvise. Also, I’m not fluent in Brit-speak, so I have done the best I can. However, if I’ve made any massive errors, I’m totally up for tweaking.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any characters recognizable as being from The Sarah Jane Adventures. They are the property of their producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~!~
Years ago when a strange woman answered Sarah Jane’s door in a bathrobe, it was because Sarah Jane had been pulled out of time by the Trickster and replaced by a dead woman. A small part of Maria hoped that was the case again this time.
Maria bit her lip uncertainly at the sight of her, unconsciously stepping backward on the doorstep. She was a fair height, dark hair and dark eyes. Her bathrobe was light blue and looked as though it had been hastily tied. Her cheeks were pink with exhilaration. Maria could feel her own flushing embarrassment.
Sarah Jane hadn’t disappeared. No, Sarah Jane had company.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Sarah Jane was seeing anyone tonight-er, having anyone over,” she rambled, flustered. “I’ll-I’ll come back tomorrow.” Unless you’re still here, she thought but didn’t say. She was backing away again, as fast as she could hope to move without encountering a crack in the walk.
The woman smiled without a hint of annoyance and asked, “Shall I tell her you stopped by?”
Maria shook her head and waved her off. “No, that’s all right. Don’t bother, I’ll see her soon.” She didn’t wait for the woman to close the door before she darted across Bannerman Road.
Before she knew it, she’d fled up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door shut and slid down to the floor. Her actions had all the makings of a cliché but she didn’t care. She felt odd, bereft, and a little bit betrayed. Sarah Jane was her best friend; in spite of all their differences, she knew that. There wasn’t anyone she trusted more, not even Luke. She had thought, she had hoped, the feeling was mutual. The woman at her door had proven that, no, the feeling wasn’t mutual.
Best friends tell each other things, Sarah Jane. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, because she refused to shed a single tear. They don’t keep secrets. Boyfriends, girlfriends-lovers are secrets.
She knew she could have been jumping to conclusions, mistakenly assuming wrongdoing based on a single encounter. She knew she could have been, but she didn’t think she was. Sarah Jane had lied to her-by omission-and she intended to find out why.
But not tonight. Tonight, she was just going to wish that the woman in the bathrobe would disappear and let her trust her best friend again.
~!~ Maria didn’t go to Sarah Jane’s again until late evening the next day. It was summer on Bannerman Road and she was visiting from her graduate studies for the duration. Her father had moved back months ago, having found the States not to his taste. He was glad to be home; he claimed to have even missed the oddity that being near Sarah Jane wrought. Maria was glad to have her room back, though it was more grown-up now, with pictures of Sarah Jane and cut-out articles on politics and world news on the walls instead of her favorite pop stars. She was more grown-up now and Sarah Jane had been the one she meant to show.
She hadn’t guessed that there’d come a time when she wouldn’t have the chance. She hadn’t guessed the Sarah Jane would find someone else. And now she felt the fool for not knowing better.
Still, she tucked her pride in her pocket and set off across Bannerman Road. This woman meant the world to her and she wouldn’t let the feelings she’d seen fit to hide for so long be what drove them apart. If Sarah Jane had found someone else, if Sarah Jane was in love, then Maria would congratulate her. It was about time someone healed the heart the Doctor had bruised. It was the least she was owed by the world she had saved time and again.
Maria would have been selfish to take that from her, selfish to think herself more entitled to that prized affection. At least, that’s what she told herself as the soles of her trainers met the pavement. They were loud enough to drown out her doubts. She knocked on the door she never knocked on anymore and waited.
She heard the familiar cadence of familiar boots and took a deep breath for strength. Maria had seen women in love. She didn’t know if she could bear to see them in Sarah Jane.
The door swung open and there she was: Sarah Jane in her boots, but dressed to go out; coat in hand and shoulder bag at the ready. She looked surprised, but not in the least unhappy.
“Maria! I was just about to come searching for you. I was expecting you last night and you never showed. Is everything all right?” she asked, immediately reaching out to take Maria’s hand in a soothing grip.
Maria waffled at her question. Everything was fine, would have remained fine if not for the woman who’d been waiting when she’d come. I guess she didn’t tell her after all, she mused.
“I came last night, but I saw you had a guest and I didn’t want to interfere. You know, two’s company and all that,” she reasoned, weakly. She couldn’t look her mentor in the eye. The coat was nice to look at, the color of her stockings, the boots that weren’t so familiar after all. Sarah Jane was draped in all the lovely trappings of a woman on the way to a very important date.
“Maria,” Sarah Jane said softly, gently nudging Maria’s gaze upwards by her chin. “I didn’t have a date last night. I was here, all alone, waiting for you. I was worried sick, I’ll admit. I thought you’d forgotten or just found something more interesting to do. If I’d realized the misunderstanding, I’d have called you right up and set things straight.” She rested her hand on Maria’s shoulder and gave her a sweet smile. “I don’t break dates with you, Maria.”
Sheer force of will prevented Maria from throwing herself into Sarah Jane’s arms and telling her everything. I love you seemed trite after they’d faced death together countless times; of course she loved her, of course she’d already know. Do you love me felt a foolish question to ask someone who’d been in love before; yet, she desperately wanted to ask. At this moment, Maria felt every one of her twenty-one years; but, they were nothing compared to Sarah Jane’s decades more.
“What’s the matter, love?” Sarah Jane wrapped one steady arm around her and ushered her inside. The coat was laid aside, along with the shoulder bag. The spunky girl reporter with important places to be was putting her first. Maria felt like a child.
“Nothing, it’s nothing.” She smiled tremulously. “I just didn’t want to be a bother.” She pulled out of Sarah Jane’s embrace just so. It felt too intimate for her tender heart and didn’t mean what she needed it to mean.
Sarah Jane looked incredulous, uncharacteristically painted lips forming an irritable fault on an otherwise faultless face. “What do I have to do to make you understand that there was no one here last night? There was no one, certainly not someone worthy of my turning you away.”
Maria turned toward her slowly. “So, you’re not going to see her now?” She gestured towards the scoop-neck top and the knee-length skirt that was positively revealing on someone as lacking in scandal as Sarah Jane. Her stockings-coal black-did more to allure than to conceal, as skin gleamed through under the light. On her boots, the buckles shone.
Sarah Jane shrugged, bashfully. “Luke and Clyde have been taking the mickey out of me for not dressing up more. I thought it might shut them up if I fixed myself up a bit.” She bit her lip. “Too much?”
Maria was embarrassed again and she knew it showed. No other woman, no other girl. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re just right.”
“Excellent,” Sarah Jane clapped. “Then, I suggest we take advantage of my stunning transformation and go out for a night on the town. What do you think?”
Maria thought it was a splendid idea, too splendid, really. The two of them out together was probably more temptation than she could stand. She stared at Sarah Jane in all her unearthly glow. To hell with it, she decided. She was going to let temptation lead.
“I can’t wait. Just let me change into something more appropriate and we can go, yeah?”
Sarah Jane pulled her back into her arms and pressed a reverent kiss to her temple. “Absolutely.”
Maria buried her face in the crook between her shoulder and her neck, a bit difficult since she’d come to tower over Sarah Jane by a couple of inches, but she managed. The warmth was worth the discomfort. She knew she held on longer than necessary, yet it was a challenge to let go. It was always a challenge to let go.
“I should go now,” she whispered, breathing in the smell of Sarah Jane’s soap. She refused to acknowledge the fingers weaving through her hair; if she did, she wouldn’t be leaving-neither would Sarah Jane, and absolutely not with her stockings intact. “I should go,” she reaffirmed aloud, dropping a featherweight kiss where she’d laid her head.
She didn’t allow herself to freeze afterwards, moving smoothly toward the door without pause in case Sarah Jane suddenly realized what she’d done and was outraged. Her fingers wrapped around the knob, there wasn’t a peep from her dearest friend, who stood watching her go with the oddest expression.
Maria couldn’t read it, but it made her wish she could get her bloody skin under control. Twenty-one years-old and, still, only a second under those eyes set her aflame. There were days when she simply didn’t think that Sarah Jane understood the power she had over people.
Most days Maria didn’t totally understand the power Sarah Jane had over her.
~!~
She would have cursed her head of curly hair if she didn’t know that Sarah Jane liked to stroke it. It hung around her shoulders, sweet-smelling and soft to the touch. That had been the purpose of all the brushing and the tending, to keep it pleasant and attractive when she easily could have done away with it altogether.
When she held it away from her face and posed, she thought she might be able to survive a haircut or twenty. She’d still be Maria-just more accessible, easier to reach and touch. And wasn’t that what she’d wanted for as long as she could remember? To be touched?
She exhaled shakily, forcing herself not to think along those lines. Thoughts like that distracted her, kept her from seeing what really existed, what wonders she could actually touch …and kiss. She brushed her fingers across her lips. They had touched what she desired in their cowardly, hit-and-run way. The moment had been so brief that she hadn’t been able to experience it, could only remember it as something she couldn’t believe she’d done.
I kissed Sarah Jane, she reflected, shocked.
I kissed her and I wondered why she was looking at me strangely. She dropped her head into her hands, retroactively appalled at her own daft behaviour. She was appalled and terrified at the idea of their next meeting until she thought again.
I kissed her and she didn’t push me away. She lifted her head up to peruse her reflection once more.
I kissed her and she didn’t run away from me. She began to smile slowly, as though fearful about what else she might conceive of.
I kissed her and, for all I know, I’m wasting the opportunity to kiss her again. She tossed her hair hurriedly, grabbed her evening bag and dashed out the door.
She might have cheeks like beacons, but she didn’t have the mind of one. Certain things were just more crucial than what might have been.
Like what might come to be.
~!~ She was thinking of what might have been on the pavement where she found herself so often lately. The weather was too cool for the shoes she had chosen, but she’d put them on anyway. They made her feel sexier; according to an American friend, they made her irresistible.
As she pondered the sight before her, she wondered if that friend had ever felt as lovesick as she felt right now.
She’d spied her silhouette in the window, pacing at her usual clip, waiting with all the impatience she’d ever shown. That was Sarah Jane, forever the answer when Fate asked, “Why wait?” She didn’t wait, she never had. She wasn’t waiting now even though that was exactly what she’d said she’d do.
The worst part of being on the outside of things was being able to see the whole picture. At least, for Maria, that was the worst: Pacing figures and shadows that she had to be imagining. She couldn’t believe….
That was a woman. If Maria was breathing, that was a woman she saw-and not Sarah Jane. That was the woman who’d invaded her sanctuary with a sleepy smile, who was that dragon that haunted the moat of her castle. That woman was very real and she was very much here.
Maria surrendered to the chill rushing up and down her spine. It all felt wrong. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t trusted Sarah Jane. Even when reality had tried to force her into accepting that the woman didn’t exist, she had balked. She would believe the very ground she stood on was fiction before she’d concede that Sarah Jane wasn’t true. For the first time in years, she felt unsteady on her feet.
She could have walked away right then and washed her hands of Sarah Jane entirely. There was clearly something she was missing and if Sarah Jane didn’t wish to share it with her that was the end of it. She very well should have put toe to ground and done just that.
She didn’t.
She was still standing around the curve of the drive when the front door opened. Her expectations sank into her stomach and her weak knees turned to lead. She couldn’t leave now. Maybe Sarah Jane had made a masochist of her.
Out stepped the buffed boots and the stiff wind struck her coattails. She brushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear as she pulled the door shut. Alone.
Maria frowned, arms still tucked around her, fighting off the chill that wasn’t. There was no other to accompany the shadow that had flitted around Sarah Jane. The lights were decidedly off inside, but there was no other; just Sarah Jane and a look that left Maria feeling small.
Sarah Jane paused at the bottom step, at the very last place from which Maria could be seen. She folded her hands in front of her and watched. The smile Maria had come to adore was missing and there were shadows she hadn’t noticed. Maybe they weren’t there before, she considered.
Sarah Jane took a great breath and said, “When you say you’ll be back, I expect you to come back, Maria.”
Maria wet her lips, both enraged and chastened. She had said she’d return, but neither of them had counted on many, many things intervening. “When you say there isn’t anyone else, I expect you to mean there isn’t anyone else. Not, there isn’t anyone at this moment or there’s someone but they aren’t here. I expect the truth from you, Sarah Jane. When I don’t get that….” She hesitated before finally saying, “I don’t know who I am.”
Sarah Jane took a half-step forward. “I know who you are and you should know, because I have never been dishonest with you if I didn’t have to be. You are too important for me to subject you to little white lies. Above all, you are the person I tell my secrets to.”
Maria squeezed her eyes shut and looked away. “Why not this one? If we’re the best of friends, if your secrets are mine and mine yours, why won’t you just admit that you’ve fallen in love? I wouldn’t be upset. It wouldn’t change the way I feel about you. Why this lie and is this the only one?”
Sarah Jane clutched her shoulder bag against her and took her half-step back. “We cannot guide our hearts, Maria. We can only be responsible for what we do with where they take us.” She shrugged, frowning. “So, I fell in love. It isn’t the first time and I’m sure it will pass.” She looked uneasy, nearly embarrassed. It was not an expression Maria associated with Sarah Jane.
“If it makes you feel better, I fell in love, too.” Maria pursed her lips and tasted bitterness. “But I’m sure it will pass.” She said it with steel, but she hardly believed it.
“First loves often do,” Sarah Jane uttered wistfully. She lowered her eyes and let out a sigh.
Maria’s feet had been attuned to her heart for too long. They carried her over the distance between them in seconds. Before she realized, she was standing toe-to-toe with the woman she loved who loved someone else. Her heart gave a harsh thud when Sarah Jane looked at her.
“I mean it, you know,” Maria began and took Sarah Jane’s hand. It was the same hand Sarah Jane had always offered her when she was troubled; the least she could do was grasp it with the intent of returning the favour. “I won’t care any less about you. I just want you to be honest.”
“Okay,” Sarah Jane said. “I’ll be honest.” She seemed to take a moment to fortify herself before facing Maria squarely and saying, “The only person I have truly loved in years is you, Maria. I don’t know where you’ve gotten the idea that there’s anyone else in my life. There is no one else. There is you, Luke when he’s home, and of course Clyde when he comes along. The three of you are everything. But you, Maria, are the centre of everything to me.”
Maria blinked and her fingers began to spasm in Sarah Jane’s grasp and she instinctively made to pull away. The words were all wonderful and exactly what she needed to hear, if only she could believe them. She wanted to more than she wanted to feel warm again, more than she wanted out of these wretched shoes, more than she wanted Sarah Jane to run her fingers through her hair a second time, she wanted to believe.
“I saw her,” she said and recalled her in pristine detail.
“Who?” Sarah Jane asked in an exasperated fashion.
“The woman at your door. She had on a bathrobe and she asked me if I wanted you to know I’d come by.”
Sarah Jane looked dreadfully confused and Maria was less than comforted by that.
“And when I came back after changing, I saw you with her inside.”
Sarah Jane glanced back at her home in surprise. There wasn’t an open window or conspicuous shadow to be seen. The old place seemed to tower above them in its mystery. Maria didn’t see the dragon now; she didn’t even feel her.
“Who did you see, Maria? Where? Was she familiar,” Sarah Jane inquired, sounding every bit the investigator-cum-time traveller Maria had come to know. In that moment, her eyes cast at the place they had both come to see as home, Maria had the sense that she had been tricked by the universe once again.
She’d had quite enough of that, thank you very much.
“I was so shocked, I didn’t even think to see if I recognized her,” she rattled off, biting her lower lip.
“Try to remember. What did she look like?”
Maria made to bite her thumb when she encountered Sarah Jane’s fingers instead. She reddened and would have dropped her hand, if Sarah Jane had seemed at all interested in letting go.
“Maria,” Sarah Jane prompted again, letting the rest go unsaid save her hand brushing Maria’s cheek.
“Uh, uh” she stuttered and exhaled shakily. “She was wearing a blue bathrobe. She was smiling at me. It was a nice smile, I suppose. Her hair was dark, maybe black, and her eyes were brown. Very brown. She was older…than me.”
It was like peering into a mirror in her mind’s eye. A woman of fair height with a satisfied smile and inexplicable blush. She was in her natural habitat. Dark hair, dark eyes. Maria tried very hard not to hyperventilate for fear that Sarah Jane would see and come to the conclusion she had.
It’s me, she thought. I’m imagining me as Sarah Jane’s lover. I’m seeing myself with her. I’m competing with myself. I’m hallucinating.
“Oh, bugger,” she whimpered, covering her eyes. “I’ve gone barking.”
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter? What have you remembered?” Sarah Jane asked and began to stroke Maria’s hair.
Maria shook her head, refusing to speak much less look at Sarah Jane. This was perhaps the one time Sarah Jane’s touch failed to comfort.
Her embrace did not. Sarah Jane pulled her into a crushing hug and Maria held on as though it were a matter of life and death. It feels like one.
“Nothing is as terrible as this. Just tell me,” Sarah Jane murmured into her hair.
Maria dredged up her courage. It nearly got away from her and sent her across the road she had crossed so many times recently. She thought it would have been safer to run and hide, rather than face whatever was happening, but she stayed because Sarah Jane held on to her. She stayed because there was nowhere else she wanted to be more.
“I keep seeing her,” she began. “But, I think I know why you don’t.” She glanced up at Sarah Jane from underneath her lashes and was met with more of her affectionate concern. She couldn’t believe that the feeling that gave her existed in nature. It felt alien, but ever so persistent.
“I’m listening,” Sarah Jane prompted.
“I don’t think she’s real, Sarah Jane. I think I’m making her up.”
Sarah Jane frowned and for a moment Maria expected her to take a cautious step away from her. She expected her to take many steps away from her.
“I’ve gone mental, haven’t I?”
She didn’t take any steps, much less away. Sarah Jane remained right where she was with her arms draped around Maria’s waist and her fondness evident. She even caressed her face with the back of her hand, something Maria realized that Sarah Jane loved to do. That alien sensation was positively domestic inside her, she’d felt it for so long.
“Oh, no, Maria. I don’t think so,” Sarah Jane countered, wearing an air of certainty Maria envied. “You’re as sane as I am-no jokes, please-and I’ll prove it to you.” She took one of Maria’s hands and kissed it soundly. “Come along.”
Sarah Jane began to lead her back to the house and Maria could only follow. They entered through the door and climbed the stairs post-haste. Maria admitted that she clung to Sarah Jane’s touch. She was real, she defined real. If anyone could be an anchor, she could be.
“Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith, I need you,” Sarah Jane called to her ever-ready super computer. It whirred to beeping life, buttons flickering in natural time.
“Good evening, Sarah Jane. Good evening, Maria.” In other instances, Maria would have smiled at the mannerly machine. In other instances, it would have felt right to do so.
“It nearly was. Mr. Smith, I need you to test Bannerman Road for spatial and temporal anomalies. I have reason to believe that someone out there is up to no good.”
“Affirmative. Scanning in progress.” The subtle machine began to work even louder and Maria’s only response was to move closer.
The scan seemed to be lasting forever and Maria could feel herself growing paler, shrinking against Sarah Jane because she’d always been safer when she was small. She was safer when these feelings were easily labeled as hero worship and stowed away behind youthful curiosity. She didn’t need to love her, as essential a part of her it felt now. She could be happy just being her friend. She’d told them both that before and had believed it at the time. Now, now that she might be faced with the idea that this other woman wasn’t a product of her hysterical envy or fantasy run amok she was so mortified she could hardly breathe.
Sarah Jane knew that Maria loved her or, at least, she had an idea. Friends didn’t take perceived slights as personally as Maria had. But she loves me back, she consoled herself, pathetically. Of course, she doesn’t. She can’t. She wouldn’t.
Except…something about the way Sarah Jane had steadied herself before telling her how she felt gave Maria reason to believe that what she’d expressed was far from just platonic love. The way she touched her told her the same. The signs have been there for ages, haven’t they, she asked herself in utter disbelief. Of course, they had. Why else would the idea of another woman seem so absurd? The same reason my American friend never got her wish. She squeezed Sarah Jane around the waist where she’d been clinging for dear life. When you’re in love, there isn’t anyone else in the world.
Sarah Jane, who’d been anxiously watching the analyses speeding across Mr. Smith’s screen, turned to her curiously. Maria brushed a bit of non-existent lint from her shoulder. Sarah Jane smiled slightly, eyebrows rising in curiosity.
“I meant to tell you,” Maria began, “a long time ago, that I really love you, Sarah Jane.”
Sarah Jane parted her lips as if to speak, but no words came out. Her smile didn’t fade. She didn’t run away. But her eyes brightened and she reached up to caress Maria’s face again. “I already told you, Maria. You’re the centre of my life.” She nudged back Maria’s much-loved hair. “I love you, too.”
Title: The Apparition
Fandom: Sarah Jane Adventures.
Pairing: Sarah Jane/ adult Maria, implied Sarah Jane/ other
Spoilers: General knowledge. I guess this could be considered post-series.
Rating: G
Word count: ~4,378
Summary: Every time Maria came to Sarah Jane’s door, she saw something she didn’t want to see. Sarah Jane told her it was nothing and Sarah Jane would never lie to her.
Author’s Note: Answer the “First line” challenge offered by elisbelle at the_second_time. I chose prompt #1 on the original post. ETA: I wrote this about five years ago and never got to post it because my old computer crashed. Now that I've got it back, I thought I'd share. It was originally going to be a smidge longer, but I decided to leave it here. Let me know what you think!
AN II: Constructive criticism always accepted, especially with regard to characterization. I’ve watched quite a bit of these two, but grown-up Maria particularly eludes me, so I’ve had to improvise. Also, I’m not fluent in Brit-speak, so I have done the best I can. However, if I’ve made any massive errors, I’m totally up for tweaking.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any characters recognizable as being from The Sarah Jane Adventures. They are the property of their producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~!~
Years ago when a strange woman answered Sarah Jane’s door in a bathrobe, it was because Sarah Jane had been pulled out of time by the Trickster and replaced by a dead woman. A small part of Maria hoped that was the case again this time.
Maria bit her lip uncertainly at the sight of her, unconsciously stepping backward on the doorstep. She was a fair height, dark hair and dark eyes. Her bathrobe was light blue and looked as though it had been hastily tied. Her cheeks were pink with exhilaration. Maria could feel her own flushing embarrassment.
Sarah Jane hadn’t disappeared. No, Sarah Jane had company.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Sarah Jane was seeing anyone tonight-er, having anyone over,” she rambled, flustered. “I’ll-I’ll come back tomorrow.” Unless you’re still here, she thought but didn’t say. She was backing away again, as fast as she could hope to move without encountering a crack in the walk.
The woman smiled without a hint of annoyance and asked, “Shall I tell her you stopped by?”
Maria shook her head and waved her off. “No, that’s all right. Don’t bother, I’ll see her soon.” She didn’t wait for the woman to close the door before she darted across Bannerman Road.
Before she knew it, she’d fled up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door shut and slid down to the floor. Her actions had all the makings of a cliché but she didn’t care. She felt odd, bereft, and a little bit betrayed. Sarah Jane was her best friend; in spite of all their differences, she knew that. There wasn’t anyone she trusted more, not even Luke. She had thought, she had hoped, the feeling was mutual. The woman at her door had proven that, no, the feeling wasn’t mutual.
Best friends tell each other things, Sarah Jane. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, because she refused to shed a single tear. They don’t keep secrets. Boyfriends, girlfriends-lovers are secrets.
She knew she could have been jumping to conclusions, mistakenly assuming wrongdoing based on a single encounter. She knew she could have been, but she didn’t think she was. Sarah Jane had lied to her-by omission-and she intended to find out why.
But not tonight. Tonight, she was just going to wish that the woman in the bathrobe would disappear and let her trust her best friend again.
~!~ Maria didn’t go to Sarah Jane’s again until late evening the next day. It was summer on Bannerman Road and she was visiting from her graduate studies for the duration. Her father had moved back months ago, having found the States not to his taste. He was glad to be home; he claimed to have even missed the oddity that being near Sarah Jane wrought. Maria was glad to have her room back, though it was more grown-up now, with pictures of Sarah Jane and cut-out articles on politics and world news on the walls instead of her favorite pop stars. She was more grown-up now and Sarah Jane had been the one she meant to show.
She hadn’t guessed that there’d come a time when she wouldn’t have the chance. She hadn’t guessed the Sarah Jane would find someone else. And now she felt the fool for not knowing better.
Still, she tucked her pride in her pocket and set off across Bannerman Road. This woman meant the world to her and she wouldn’t let the feelings she’d seen fit to hide for so long be what drove them apart. If Sarah Jane had found someone else, if Sarah Jane was in love, then Maria would congratulate her. It was about time someone healed the heart the Doctor had bruised. It was the least she was owed by the world she had saved time and again.
Maria would have been selfish to take that from her, selfish to think herself more entitled to that prized affection. At least, that’s what she told herself as the soles of her trainers met the pavement. They were loud enough to drown out her doubts. She knocked on the door she never knocked on anymore and waited.
She heard the familiar cadence of familiar boots and took a deep breath for strength. Maria had seen women in love. She didn’t know if she could bear to see them in Sarah Jane.
The door swung open and there she was: Sarah Jane in her boots, but dressed to go out; coat in hand and shoulder bag at the ready. She looked surprised, but not in the least unhappy.
“Maria! I was just about to come searching for you. I was expecting you last night and you never showed. Is everything all right?” she asked, immediately reaching out to take Maria’s hand in a soothing grip.
Maria waffled at her question. Everything was fine, would have remained fine if not for the woman who’d been waiting when she’d come. I guess she didn’t tell her after all, she mused.
“I came last night, but I saw you had a guest and I didn’t want to interfere. You know, two’s company and all that,” she reasoned, weakly. She couldn’t look her mentor in the eye. The coat was nice to look at, the color of her stockings, the boots that weren’t so familiar after all. Sarah Jane was draped in all the lovely trappings of a woman on the way to a very important date.
“Maria,” Sarah Jane said softly, gently nudging Maria’s gaze upwards by her chin. “I didn’t have a date last night. I was here, all alone, waiting for you. I was worried sick, I’ll admit. I thought you’d forgotten or just found something more interesting to do. If I’d realized the misunderstanding, I’d have called you right up and set things straight.” She rested her hand on Maria’s shoulder and gave her a sweet smile. “I don’t break dates with you, Maria.”
Sheer force of will prevented Maria from throwing herself into Sarah Jane’s arms and telling her everything. I love you seemed trite after they’d faced death together countless times; of course she loved her, of course she’d already know. Do you love me felt a foolish question to ask someone who’d been in love before; yet, she desperately wanted to ask. At this moment, Maria felt every one of her twenty-one years; but, they were nothing compared to Sarah Jane’s decades more.
“What’s the matter, love?” Sarah Jane wrapped one steady arm around her and ushered her inside. The coat was laid aside, along with the shoulder bag. The spunky girl reporter with important places to be was putting her first. Maria felt like a child.
“Nothing, it’s nothing.” She smiled tremulously. “I just didn’t want to be a bother.” She pulled out of Sarah Jane’s embrace just so. It felt too intimate for her tender heart and didn’t mean what she needed it to mean.
Sarah Jane looked incredulous, uncharacteristically painted lips forming an irritable fault on an otherwise faultless face. “What do I have to do to make you understand that there was no one here last night? There was no one, certainly not someone worthy of my turning you away.”
Maria turned toward her slowly. “So, you’re not going to see her now?” She gestured towards the scoop-neck top and the knee-length skirt that was positively revealing on someone as lacking in scandal as Sarah Jane. Her stockings-coal black-did more to allure than to conceal, as skin gleamed through under the light. On her boots, the buckles shone.
Sarah Jane shrugged, bashfully. “Luke and Clyde have been taking the mickey out of me for not dressing up more. I thought it might shut them up if I fixed myself up a bit.” She bit her lip. “Too much?”
Maria was embarrassed again and she knew it showed. No other woman, no other girl. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re just right.”
“Excellent,” Sarah Jane clapped. “Then, I suggest we take advantage of my stunning transformation and go out for a night on the town. What do you think?”
Maria thought it was a splendid idea, too splendid, really. The two of them out together was probably more temptation than she could stand. She stared at Sarah Jane in all her unearthly glow. To hell with it, she decided. She was going to let temptation lead.
“I can’t wait. Just let me change into something more appropriate and we can go, yeah?”
Sarah Jane pulled her back into her arms and pressed a reverent kiss to her temple. “Absolutely.”
Maria buried her face in the crook between her shoulder and her neck, a bit difficult since she’d come to tower over Sarah Jane by a couple of inches, but she managed. The warmth was worth the discomfort. She knew she held on longer than necessary, yet it was a challenge to let go. It was always a challenge to let go.
“I should go now,” she whispered, breathing in the smell of Sarah Jane’s soap. She refused to acknowledge the fingers weaving through her hair; if she did, she wouldn’t be leaving-neither would Sarah Jane, and absolutely not with her stockings intact. “I should go,” she reaffirmed aloud, dropping a featherweight kiss where she’d laid her head.
She didn’t allow herself to freeze afterwards, moving smoothly toward the door without pause in case Sarah Jane suddenly realized what she’d done and was outraged. Her fingers wrapped around the knob, there wasn’t a peep from her dearest friend, who stood watching her go with the oddest expression.
Maria couldn’t read it, but it made her wish she could get her bloody skin under control. Twenty-one years-old and, still, only a second under those eyes set her aflame. There were days when she simply didn’t think that Sarah Jane understood the power she had over people.
Most days Maria didn’t totally understand the power Sarah Jane had over her.
~!~
She would have cursed her head of curly hair if she didn’t know that Sarah Jane liked to stroke it. It hung around her shoulders, sweet-smelling and soft to the touch. That had been the purpose of all the brushing and the tending, to keep it pleasant and attractive when she easily could have done away with it altogether.
When she held it away from her face and posed, she thought she might be able to survive a haircut or twenty. She’d still be Maria-just more accessible, easier to reach and touch. And wasn’t that what she’d wanted for as long as she could remember? To be touched?
She exhaled shakily, forcing herself not to think along those lines. Thoughts like that distracted her, kept her from seeing what really existed, what wonders she could actually touch …and kiss. She brushed her fingers across her lips. They had touched what she desired in their cowardly, hit-and-run way. The moment had been so brief that she hadn’t been able to experience it, could only remember it as something she couldn’t believe she’d done.
I kissed Sarah Jane, she reflected, shocked.
I kissed her and I wondered why she was looking at me strangely. She dropped her head into her hands, retroactively appalled at her own daft behaviour. She was appalled and terrified at the idea of their next meeting until she thought again.
I kissed her and she didn’t push me away. She lifted her head up to peruse her reflection once more.
I kissed her and she didn’t run away from me. She began to smile slowly, as though fearful about what else she might conceive of.
I kissed her and, for all I know, I’m wasting the opportunity to kiss her again. She tossed her hair hurriedly, grabbed her evening bag and dashed out the door.
She might have cheeks like beacons, but she didn’t have the mind of one. Certain things were just more crucial than what might have been.
Like what might come to be.
~!~ She was thinking of what might have been on the pavement where she found herself so often lately. The weather was too cool for the shoes she had chosen, but she’d put them on anyway. They made her feel sexier; according to an American friend, they made her irresistible.
As she pondered the sight before her, she wondered if that friend had ever felt as lovesick as she felt right now.
She’d spied her silhouette in the window, pacing at her usual clip, waiting with all the impatience she’d ever shown. That was Sarah Jane, forever the answer when Fate asked, “Why wait?” She didn’t wait, she never had. She wasn’t waiting now even though that was exactly what she’d said she’d do.
The worst part of being on the outside of things was being able to see the whole picture. At least, for Maria, that was the worst: Pacing figures and shadows that she had to be imagining. She couldn’t believe….
That was a woman. If Maria was breathing, that was a woman she saw-and not Sarah Jane. That was the woman who’d invaded her sanctuary with a sleepy smile, who was that dragon that haunted the moat of her castle. That woman was very real and she was very much here.
Maria surrendered to the chill rushing up and down her spine. It all felt wrong. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t trusted Sarah Jane. Even when reality had tried to force her into accepting that the woman didn’t exist, she had balked. She would believe the very ground she stood on was fiction before she’d concede that Sarah Jane wasn’t true. For the first time in years, she felt unsteady on her feet.
She could have walked away right then and washed her hands of Sarah Jane entirely. There was clearly something she was missing and if Sarah Jane didn’t wish to share it with her that was the end of it. She very well should have put toe to ground and done just that.
She didn’t.
She was still standing around the curve of the drive when the front door opened. Her expectations sank into her stomach and her weak knees turned to lead. She couldn’t leave now. Maybe Sarah Jane had made a masochist of her.
Out stepped the buffed boots and the stiff wind struck her coattails. She brushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear as she pulled the door shut. Alone.
Maria frowned, arms still tucked around her, fighting off the chill that wasn’t. There was no other to accompany the shadow that had flitted around Sarah Jane. The lights were decidedly off inside, but there was no other; just Sarah Jane and a look that left Maria feeling small.
Sarah Jane paused at the bottom step, at the very last place from which Maria could be seen. She folded her hands in front of her and watched. The smile Maria had come to adore was missing and there were shadows she hadn’t noticed. Maybe they weren’t there before, she considered.
Sarah Jane took a great breath and said, “When you say you’ll be back, I expect you to come back, Maria.”
Maria wet her lips, both enraged and chastened. She had said she’d return, but neither of them had counted on many, many things intervening. “When you say there isn’t anyone else, I expect you to mean there isn’t anyone else. Not, there isn’t anyone at this moment or there’s someone but they aren’t here. I expect the truth from you, Sarah Jane. When I don’t get that….” She hesitated before finally saying, “I don’t know who I am.”
Sarah Jane took a half-step forward. “I know who you are and you should know, because I have never been dishonest with you if I didn’t have to be. You are too important for me to subject you to little white lies. Above all, you are the person I tell my secrets to.”
Maria squeezed her eyes shut and looked away. “Why not this one? If we’re the best of friends, if your secrets are mine and mine yours, why won’t you just admit that you’ve fallen in love? I wouldn’t be upset. It wouldn’t change the way I feel about you. Why this lie and is this the only one?”
Sarah Jane clutched her shoulder bag against her and took her half-step back. “We cannot guide our hearts, Maria. We can only be responsible for what we do with where they take us.” She shrugged, frowning. “So, I fell in love. It isn’t the first time and I’m sure it will pass.” She looked uneasy, nearly embarrassed. It was not an expression Maria associated with Sarah Jane.
“If it makes you feel better, I fell in love, too.” Maria pursed her lips and tasted bitterness. “But I’m sure it will pass.” She said it with steel, but she hardly believed it.
“First loves often do,” Sarah Jane uttered wistfully. She lowered her eyes and let out a sigh.
Maria’s feet had been attuned to her heart for too long. They carried her over the distance between them in seconds. Before she realized, she was standing toe-to-toe with the woman she loved who loved someone else. Her heart gave a harsh thud when Sarah Jane looked at her.
“I mean it, you know,” Maria began and took Sarah Jane’s hand. It was the same hand Sarah Jane had always offered her when she was troubled; the least she could do was grasp it with the intent of returning the favour. “I won’t care any less about you. I just want you to be honest.”
“Okay,” Sarah Jane said. “I’ll be honest.” She seemed to take a moment to fortify herself before facing Maria squarely and saying, “The only person I have truly loved in years is you, Maria. I don’t know where you’ve gotten the idea that there’s anyone else in my life. There is no one else. There is you, Luke when he’s home, and of course Clyde when he comes along. The three of you are everything. But you, Maria, are the centre of everything to me.”
Maria blinked and her fingers began to spasm in Sarah Jane’s grasp and she instinctively made to pull away. The words were all wonderful and exactly what she needed to hear, if only she could believe them. She wanted to more than she wanted to feel warm again, more than she wanted out of these wretched shoes, more than she wanted Sarah Jane to run her fingers through her hair a second time, she wanted to believe.
“I saw her,” she said and recalled her in pristine detail.
“Who?” Sarah Jane asked in an exasperated fashion.
“The woman at your door. She had on a bathrobe and she asked me if I wanted you to know I’d come by.”
Sarah Jane looked dreadfully confused and Maria was less than comforted by that.
“And when I came back after changing, I saw you with her inside.”
Sarah Jane glanced back at her home in surprise. There wasn’t an open window or conspicuous shadow to be seen. The old place seemed to tower above them in its mystery. Maria didn’t see the dragon now; she didn’t even feel her.
“Who did you see, Maria? Where? Was she familiar,” Sarah Jane inquired, sounding every bit the investigator-cum-time traveller Maria had come to know. In that moment, her eyes cast at the place they had both come to see as home, Maria had the sense that she had been tricked by the universe once again.
She’d had quite enough of that, thank you very much.
“I was so shocked, I didn’t even think to see if I recognized her,” she rattled off, biting her lower lip.
“Try to remember. What did she look like?”
Maria made to bite her thumb when she encountered Sarah Jane’s fingers instead. She reddened and would have dropped her hand, if Sarah Jane had seemed at all interested in letting go.
“Maria,” Sarah Jane prompted again, letting the rest go unsaid save her hand brushing Maria’s cheek.
“Uh, uh” she stuttered and exhaled shakily. “She was wearing a blue bathrobe. She was smiling at me. It was a nice smile, I suppose. Her hair was dark, maybe black, and her eyes were brown. Very brown. She was older…than me.”
It was like peering into a mirror in her mind’s eye. A woman of fair height with a satisfied smile and inexplicable blush. She was in her natural habitat. Dark hair, dark eyes. Maria tried very hard not to hyperventilate for fear that Sarah Jane would see and come to the conclusion she had.
It’s me, she thought. I’m imagining me as Sarah Jane’s lover. I’m seeing myself with her. I’m competing with myself. I’m hallucinating.
“Oh, bugger,” she whimpered, covering her eyes. “I’ve gone barking.”
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter? What have you remembered?” Sarah Jane asked and began to stroke Maria’s hair.
Maria shook her head, refusing to speak much less look at Sarah Jane. This was perhaps the one time Sarah Jane’s touch failed to comfort.
Her embrace did not. Sarah Jane pulled her into a crushing hug and Maria held on as though it were a matter of life and death. It feels like one.
“Nothing is as terrible as this. Just tell me,” Sarah Jane murmured into her hair.
Maria dredged up her courage. It nearly got away from her and sent her across the road she had crossed so many times recently. She thought it would have been safer to run and hide, rather than face whatever was happening, but she stayed because Sarah Jane held on to her. She stayed because there was nowhere else she wanted to be more.
“I keep seeing her,” she began. “But, I think I know why you don’t.” She glanced up at Sarah Jane from underneath her lashes and was met with more of her affectionate concern. She couldn’t believe that the feeling that gave her existed in nature. It felt alien, but ever so persistent.
“I’m listening,” Sarah Jane prompted.
“I don’t think she’s real, Sarah Jane. I think I’m making her up.”
Sarah Jane frowned and for a moment Maria expected her to take a cautious step away from her. She expected her to take many steps away from her.
“I’ve gone mental, haven’t I?”
She didn’t take any steps, much less away. Sarah Jane remained right where she was with her arms draped around Maria’s waist and her fondness evident. She even caressed her face with the back of her hand, something Maria realized that Sarah Jane loved to do. That alien sensation was positively domestic inside her, she’d felt it for so long.
“Oh, no, Maria. I don’t think so,” Sarah Jane countered, wearing an air of certainty Maria envied. “You’re as sane as I am-no jokes, please-and I’ll prove it to you.” She took one of Maria’s hands and kissed it soundly. “Come along.”
Sarah Jane began to lead her back to the house and Maria could only follow. They entered through the door and climbed the stairs post-haste. Maria admitted that she clung to Sarah Jane’s touch. She was real, she defined real. If anyone could be an anchor, she could be.
“Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith, I need you,” Sarah Jane called to her ever-ready super computer. It whirred to beeping life, buttons flickering in natural time.
“Good evening, Sarah Jane. Good evening, Maria.” In other instances, Maria would have smiled at the mannerly machine. In other instances, it would have felt right to do so.
“It nearly was. Mr. Smith, I need you to test Bannerman Road for spatial and temporal anomalies. I have reason to believe that someone out there is up to no good.”
“Affirmative. Scanning in progress.” The subtle machine began to work even louder and Maria’s only response was to move closer.
The scan seemed to be lasting forever and Maria could feel herself growing paler, shrinking against Sarah Jane because she’d always been safer when she was small. She was safer when these feelings were easily labeled as hero worship and stowed away behind youthful curiosity. She didn’t need to love her, as essential a part of her it felt now. She could be happy just being her friend. She’d told them both that before and had believed it at the time. Now, now that she might be faced with the idea that this other woman wasn’t a product of her hysterical envy or fantasy run amok she was so mortified she could hardly breathe.
Sarah Jane knew that Maria loved her or, at least, she had an idea. Friends didn’t take perceived slights as personally as Maria had. But she loves me back, she consoled herself, pathetically. Of course, she doesn’t. She can’t. She wouldn’t.
Except…something about the way Sarah Jane had steadied herself before telling her how she felt gave Maria reason to believe that what she’d expressed was far from just platonic love. The way she touched her told her the same. The signs have been there for ages, haven’t they, she asked herself in utter disbelief. Of course, they had. Why else would the idea of another woman seem so absurd? The same reason my American friend never got her wish. She squeezed Sarah Jane around the waist where she’d been clinging for dear life. When you’re in love, there isn’t anyone else in the world.
Sarah Jane, who’d been anxiously watching the analyses speeding across Mr. Smith’s screen, turned to her curiously. Maria brushed a bit of non-existent lint from her shoulder. Sarah Jane smiled slightly, eyebrows rising in curiosity.
“I meant to tell you,” Maria began, “a long time ago, that I really love you, Sarah Jane.”
Sarah Jane parted her lips as if to speak, but no words came out. Her smile didn’t fade. She didn’t run away. But her eyes brightened and she reached up to caress Maria’s face again. “I already told you, Maria. You’re the centre of my life.” She nudged back Maria’s much-loved hair. “I love you, too.”