[Our Magic Place] Response
2. You've just had one of the most grueling days of your life when you stumble upon a wishing well. While you don't typically believe in such things, you need a pick-me-up. So you toss a penny down the well and make a wish. Lo and behold, it comes true.
Sarah Jane didn’t think she could take it anymore. As much as she adored travelling with the Doctor, as much as she adored him, after the past week - after Sontaran mind experiments and never ending wars and poison and Cybermen - she couldn’t take it anymore. The Doctor promised them a reprise. The Brigadier needed them back on Earth. First, he said, they’d go to a very peaceful and very safe (“oh, I doubt that!”) planet that he often liked to visit. Show Harry the perks of being a travelling companion in the TARDIS.
Perhaps he was right about this place. On the whole, it reminded Sarah of some giant market out of Arabian Nights. There were men and women trying to sell her exotic goods at every turn. Animals she had never seen before. Peoples she had never seen before. It was enchanting. The wishing well she found in the center of town even more so.
She never believed much in wishes growing up. As a child, Sarah would wish on star after star for her parents to be alive. It never came true. She always woke up in her aunt’s house on Bannerman Road in Ealing, alone and orphaned. So, at some point, she had stopped believing in wishes and dreams coming true all together.
But after the week she had, after being tortured and enslaved and poisoned, Sarah Jane was almost tempted to be that naïve seven year old who had wanted her wish to come true. Wishes never came true. So it there would be no harm in acting foolish just for a few seconds.
She closed her eyes, fished a penny out from her trouser pocket and tossed it in. “I wish Mum and Dad never died.”
***
It had been another night of strange dreams. This time it involved colourful planets and wishing wells and daft wishes of things she already had. Those men had been in it again, the prim doctor and the curly haired alien. There was no danger in this dream, only a sense of loss and wonder that lingered with Sarah Jane even after she had crawled out of bed and showered. A quick glance at the calendar on the wall revealed the day: June 29, the day her Aunt Lavinia had died in a horrible automobile accident en route to visit the Smith family.
Mum would be calling any moment to remind her to phone Dad and remind him just how much she loved him. It had become ritual. She sighed as she finished getting dressed - trousers and blouse, absolutely simple and comfortable today. As she was on pregnancy leave still, she had no reason to dress fancy at all. It was quite the change to the typical business suit she wore to the office. But in the past week, she had grown used to it. In a way, Sarah had reached the point where she was certain to miss time at home with her family.
“Won’t be soon until you join us, little one,” she murmured, looking at her bulging stomach in the mirror. Her Liverpool accent was still thick despite not having lived there since Matthew had been offered a research position in London three years ago. “Your father and I-”
Her smile widened when she noticed a shadow shift in the mirror. A new face joined hers as hands fell on her shoulder and stomach. The man in the mirror was tall and of tanned skin, with well defined features and beautiful green eyes. Sarah laughed and turned away from the reflection to look her husband in the eye.
Matthew Harrison: American turned Brit after a study abroad programme at the University of Liverpool changed both their lives. A Masters in ancient languages, warm and caring, not to mention quite the genius: quite certainly his three most defining characteristics, if Sarah Jane’s opinion held any sway. Matthew had stolen her heart when they had met in a course on Greek and Roman law. He had never given it back.
“Spy,” she teased, kissing his lips gently. Sarah had to stand on her tiptoes to do so. Her eight month and two week pregnant stomach didn’t make matters any easier. “Thought you’d let me sleep in today, did you?”
“You looked like an angel from Heaven,” was the deep and rumbling response, muffled as lips grazed her cheek. “I couldn’t bear to wake you, even after your mother called. She wants you to call your-”
“I know.” Her eyes darted to the calendar again. This day always set her unease, as if something had happened that ought not to have. “After a walk. Scout’s honour. And if she has any qualms, I’m certain you can handle her after five years. You’ve become quite good with handling us Smith woman, after all.”
He smiled warmly and nodded. A few more minutes of harmless chit chat followed before Sarah Jane kissed him goodbye and headed out for her weekly walk through Hyde Park. Just her and the baby, as it had been for the past eight months.
***
The walk was like every other. A chance to clear her head from the work week, from whatever cases her superiors had assigned her. Matthew supported her fully through her fledging law career, but sometimes she wondered if she shouldn’t be doing something else. Still, she enjoyed it well enough. Any excuse to cleverly craft words and arguments, not to mention helping others, was well worth the time and effort. Sarah just hoped that becoming a mum wouldn’t complicate anything more than necessary.
She laughed and nodded at the elderly woman who came up to ask her about the pregnancy. Sarah stopped to watch the ducks mill about the pond. She observed children run about, looking forward to the day she and Matthew could take their own darling child to the park. Her walk was her time alone to contemplate the rest of the world about her. She adored it. Always the same, but always different in some way.
And then? Then something happened that stopped her breath in her chest. Her heart stopped beating for a moment as she stared. There he was, the man from her dreams. He stood only two metres or so in front of her, tall and cocky with that curly brown hair and long colourful scarf. There was a police box next to him and every now and then, he checked his watch, almost as if he were waiting for someone.
Sarah couldn’t stop herself from marching straight up to him and asking, “Do I know you?”
The man seemed almost confused by the question. He tilted her head and regarded Sarah curiously. Something strange flickered through his eyes as they fell on her stomach. Instinctively, she placed her hands in a protective position above her unborn child. But she never stopped looking at the strange man.
“Do I?”
He shook his head and glanced at his watch once more. Almost as if he were giving up on something (someone?), the man turned away from Sarah and to the blue box. He opened the door, stepped inside, only to turn around and regard her once more.
“I don’t believe so.”
In all her life, Sarah Jane had never known any other words that felt so crushing.
***
That night, as a star passed overhead, Sarah Jane Harrison made a wish. She had been wishing on stars ever since she was young, for the fun and silliness the game provided.
“I wish I knew why that man seemed so familiar this afternoon.”
***
The multiverse, it turns out, is a complicated place. Every one decision an individual makes can lead to a plethora of new universes. There is no one set path. The multiverse is infinite. The multiverse is immense.
In her dreams, Sarah Jane realizes this. She floats about from universe to universe. In some, her parents die when she’s five. In others, it’s Aunt Lavinia. She watches Andrea Yates die again and again. She watches herself die in Andrea’s place.
There are universes where Sarah Jane Smith becomes a mum. She sees herself and Matthew holding their newborn daughter, baby Amelia Lavinia Harrison, in a hospital room - the new parents brimming with joy. Somewhere else, there’s a blond man holding a small blonde haired girl that has his blue eyes. He looks at her proudly, lovingly. Then the scene changes and there’s a teenage boy with all the innocence of a newborn. Another universe and there’s a house in Scotland, an unconventional relationship, and twins that are the promise of the future.
Sometimes she sees herself as a journalist. A lot of the time, really. Sometimes she’s a scientist and in a few others, she’s a lawyer. She saves the world. She blames herself for the end of the universe. The blue box is in that one and she sites behind it as a wiry man holds her and reassures her that she did her best.
That wiry man quickly becomes the man with curly hair and another man, a man dressed in velvet and lace. She sees herself with these men on adventure after adventure. At times, there are others involved. A lot of the times it’s just them. Surprisingly, the adventures remain rather constant. They’re suddenly in the American West or fifty thousand years into the future. Sometimes they kiss, sometimes they remain just friends and sometimes they part before he even changes face. One planet after another after another.
UNIT versus Torchwood, Crimson Chapter versus White Chapter . Friend or foe or something else entirely.
There are so many choices and so many decisions that lead to so many different outcomes. Sarah Jane quickly finds herself overwhelmed.
After what seems like an eternity, one bubbled universe grows bigger than the others. She sees herself on that planet from her dreams, at that wishing well, wishing for her parents to live. The woman in the universe doesn’t realise that the well works. Doesn’t know about all the timelines she erases with that one desperate wish.
With all her strength, Sarah Jane Smith reaches out.
The penny doesn’t land in the well.
***
“Oh, it wouldn’t have worked anyway,” she muttered as she bent down to pick up the coin. Frowning, Sarah eyed the well with distain. It was ornate and gaudy and clearly meant to sucker in hopeless dreamers who had the utmost contempt of their lives. Well, she wasn’t going to become one of those nutters. She wasn’t going to-
“What wouldn’t have worked, old girl?”
Sarah Jane didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. No one else in the whole universe would ever bother applying such a ridiculous pet name to a person. With one last look at the wishing well, she turned around to jab a finger into Harry’s chest. “Oh! How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t call me old girl!”
And yet, for whatever reason, Sarah found herself smiling as she said those words. As if something had happened in the few seconds that passed when she threw the coin into the well. Something that hung on the edge of her subconscious, teasing and taunting her. It was something that she would never remember.
Then she noticed a pink, furry kitten like creature sitting on Harry’s shoulder. Her lips quirked into an even brighter smile. “What is that?”
“Uh.” The good doctor was at a loss of words as he glanced at the animal. “It followed me. I had to pay twelve pounds for it and I’m rather sure that the woman had no idea as to what I was paying in. Don’t suppose you want a pet, do you, ol- Sarah Jane?”
Gently, Sarah reached upward to take the kitten creature from his shoulder. The animal cooed against her and she giggled.
“I don’t, but I can think of someone who might. About time the Doctor had a proper pet that wasn’t human, don’t you think?” She glanced from Harry back to the animal in her hands. “We’ll name you Alice. Like it, do you?”
After all, wishing wells couldn’t bring her parents back to her. Nothing in the entire universe ever could. But, Sarah Jane supposed as they began to walk away from the well in search of the Doctor, she had her memories. And she had ways of honouring her parents’ memory, by living her life to the fullest and being grateful for each day she spent travelling. Poisonings aside, how many other people could laugh at their friends for accidentally paying twelve quid for a pink fur ball?
In the end, that had to be enough.
[ooc: some scenarios mentioned roughly based upon role play games sj is in: milliways_bar, twood_hub, and relativespace.]
Sarah Jane didn’t think she could take it anymore. As much as she adored travelling with the Doctor, as much as she adored him, after the past week - after Sontaran mind experiments and never ending wars and poison and Cybermen - she couldn’t take it anymore. The Doctor promised them a reprise. The Brigadier needed them back on Earth. First, he said, they’d go to a very peaceful and very safe (“oh, I doubt that!”) planet that he often liked to visit. Show Harry the perks of being a travelling companion in the TARDIS.
Perhaps he was right about this place. On the whole, it reminded Sarah of some giant market out of Arabian Nights. There were men and women trying to sell her exotic goods at every turn. Animals she had never seen before. Peoples she had never seen before. It was enchanting. The wishing well she found in the center of town even more so.
She never believed much in wishes growing up. As a child, Sarah would wish on star after star for her parents to be alive. It never came true. She always woke up in her aunt’s house on Bannerman Road in Ealing, alone and orphaned. So, at some point, she had stopped believing in wishes and dreams coming true all together.
But after the week she had, after being tortured and enslaved and poisoned, Sarah Jane was almost tempted to be that naïve seven year old who had wanted her wish to come true. Wishes never came true. So it there would be no harm in acting foolish just for a few seconds.
She closed her eyes, fished a penny out from her trouser pocket and tossed it in. “I wish Mum and Dad never died.”
***
It had been another night of strange dreams. This time it involved colourful planets and wishing wells and daft wishes of things she already had. Those men had been in it again, the prim doctor and the curly haired alien. There was no danger in this dream, only a sense of loss and wonder that lingered with Sarah Jane even after she had crawled out of bed and showered. A quick glance at the calendar on the wall revealed the day: June 29, the day her Aunt Lavinia had died in a horrible automobile accident en route to visit the Smith family.
Mum would be calling any moment to remind her to phone Dad and remind him just how much she loved him. It had become ritual. She sighed as she finished getting dressed - trousers and blouse, absolutely simple and comfortable today. As she was on pregnancy leave still, she had no reason to dress fancy at all. It was quite the change to the typical business suit she wore to the office. But in the past week, she had grown used to it. In a way, Sarah had reached the point where she was certain to miss time at home with her family.
“Won’t be soon until you join us, little one,” she murmured, looking at her bulging stomach in the mirror. Her Liverpool accent was still thick despite not having lived there since Matthew had been offered a research position in London three years ago. “Your father and I-”
Her smile widened when she noticed a shadow shift in the mirror. A new face joined hers as hands fell on her shoulder and stomach. The man in the mirror was tall and of tanned skin, with well defined features and beautiful green eyes. Sarah laughed and turned away from the reflection to look her husband in the eye.
Matthew Harrison: American turned Brit after a study abroad programme at the University of Liverpool changed both their lives. A Masters in ancient languages, warm and caring, not to mention quite the genius: quite certainly his three most defining characteristics, if Sarah Jane’s opinion held any sway. Matthew had stolen her heart when they had met in a course on Greek and Roman law. He had never given it back.
“Spy,” she teased, kissing his lips gently. Sarah had to stand on her tiptoes to do so. Her eight month and two week pregnant stomach didn’t make matters any easier. “Thought you’d let me sleep in today, did you?”
“You looked like an angel from Heaven,” was the deep and rumbling response, muffled as lips grazed her cheek. “I couldn’t bear to wake you, even after your mother called. She wants you to call your-”
“I know.” Her eyes darted to the calendar again. This day always set her unease, as if something had happened that ought not to have. “After a walk. Scout’s honour. And if she has any qualms, I’m certain you can handle her after five years. You’ve become quite good with handling us Smith woman, after all.”
He smiled warmly and nodded. A few more minutes of harmless chit chat followed before Sarah Jane kissed him goodbye and headed out for her weekly walk through Hyde Park. Just her and the baby, as it had been for the past eight months.
***
The walk was like every other. A chance to clear her head from the work week, from whatever cases her superiors had assigned her. Matthew supported her fully through her fledging law career, but sometimes she wondered if she shouldn’t be doing something else. Still, she enjoyed it well enough. Any excuse to cleverly craft words and arguments, not to mention helping others, was well worth the time and effort. Sarah just hoped that becoming a mum wouldn’t complicate anything more than necessary.
She laughed and nodded at the elderly woman who came up to ask her about the pregnancy. Sarah stopped to watch the ducks mill about the pond. She observed children run about, looking forward to the day she and Matthew could take their own darling child to the park. Her walk was her time alone to contemplate the rest of the world about her. She adored it. Always the same, but always different in some way.
And then? Then something happened that stopped her breath in her chest. Her heart stopped beating for a moment as she stared. There he was, the man from her dreams. He stood only two metres or so in front of her, tall and cocky with that curly brown hair and long colourful scarf. There was a police box next to him and every now and then, he checked his watch, almost as if he were waiting for someone.
Sarah couldn’t stop herself from marching straight up to him and asking, “Do I know you?”
The man seemed almost confused by the question. He tilted her head and regarded Sarah curiously. Something strange flickered through his eyes as they fell on her stomach. Instinctively, she placed her hands in a protective position above her unborn child. But she never stopped looking at the strange man.
“Do I?”
He shook his head and glanced at his watch once more. Almost as if he were giving up on something (someone?), the man turned away from Sarah and to the blue box. He opened the door, stepped inside, only to turn around and regard her once more.
“I don’t believe so.”
In all her life, Sarah Jane had never known any other words that felt so crushing.
***
That night, as a star passed overhead, Sarah Jane Harrison made a wish. She had been wishing on stars ever since she was young, for the fun and silliness the game provided.
“I wish I knew why that man seemed so familiar this afternoon.”
***
The multiverse, it turns out, is a complicated place. Every one decision an individual makes can lead to a plethora of new universes. There is no one set path. The multiverse is infinite. The multiverse is immense.
In her dreams, Sarah Jane realizes this. She floats about from universe to universe. In some, her parents die when she’s five. In others, it’s Aunt Lavinia. She watches Andrea Yates die again and again. She watches herself die in Andrea’s place.
There are universes where Sarah Jane Smith becomes a mum. She sees herself and Matthew holding their newborn daughter, baby Amelia Lavinia Harrison, in a hospital room - the new parents brimming with joy. Somewhere else, there’s a blond man holding a small blonde haired girl that has his blue eyes. He looks at her proudly, lovingly. Then the scene changes and there’s a teenage boy with all the innocence of a newborn. Another universe and there’s a house in Scotland, an unconventional relationship, and twins that are the promise of the future.
Sometimes she sees herself as a journalist. A lot of the time, really. Sometimes she’s a scientist and in a few others, she’s a lawyer. She saves the world. She blames herself for the end of the universe. The blue box is in that one and she sites behind it as a wiry man holds her and reassures her that she did her best.
That wiry man quickly becomes the man with curly hair and another man, a man dressed in velvet and lace. She sees herself with these men on adventure after adventure. At times, there are others involved. A lot of the times it’s just them. Surprisingly, the adventures remain rather constant. They’re suddenly in the American West or fifty thousand years into the future. Sometimes they kiss, sometimes they remain just friends and sometimes they part before he even changes face. One planet after another after another.
UNIT versus Torchwood, Crimson Chapter versus White Chapter . Friend or foe or something else entirely.
There are so many choices and so many decisions that lead to so many different outcomes. Sarah Jane quickly finds herself overwhelmed.
After what seems like an eternity, one bubbled universe grows bigger than the others. She sees herself on that planet from her dreams, at that wishing well, wishing for her parents to live. The woman in the universe doesn’t realise that the well works. Doesn’t know about all the timelines she erases with that one desperate wish.
With all her strength, Sarah Jane Smith reaches out.
The penny doesn’t land in the well.
***
“Oh, it wouldn’t have worked anyway,” she muttered as she bent down to pick up the coin. Frowning, Sarah eyed the well with distain. It was ornate and gaudy and clearly meant to sucker in hopeless dreamers who had the utmost contempt of their lives. Well, she wasn’t going to become one of those nutters. She wasn’t going to-
“What wouldn’t have worked, old girl?”
Sarah Jane didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. No one else in the whole universe would ever bother applying such a ridiculous pet name to a person. With one last look at the wishing well, she turned around to jab a finger into Harry’s chest. “Oh! How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t call me old girl!”
And yet, for whatever reason, Sarah found herself smiling as she said those words. As if something had happened in the few seconds that passed when she threw the coin into the well. Something that hung on the edge of her subconscious, teasing and taunting her. It was something that she would never remember.
Then she noticed a pink, furry kitten like creature sitting on Harry’s shoulder. Her lips quirked into an even brighter smile. “What is that?”
“Uh.” The good doctor was at a loss of words as he glanced at the animal. “It followed me. I had to pay twelve pounds for it and I’m rather sure that the woman had no idea as to what I was paying in. Don’t suppose you want a pet, do you, ol- Sarah Jane?”
Gently, Sarah reached upward to take the kitten creature from his shoulder. The animal cooed against her and she giggled.
“I don’t, but I can think of someone who might. About time the Doctor had a proper pet that wasn’t human, don’t you think?” She glanced from Harry back to the animal in her hands. “We’ll name you Alice. Like it, do you?”
After all, wishing wells couldn’t bring her parents back to her. Nothing in the entire universe ever could. But, Sarah Jane supposed as they began to walk away from the well in search of the Doctor, she had her memories. And she had ways of honouring her parents’ memory, by living her life to the fullest and being grateful for each day she spent travelling. Poisonings aside, how many other people could laugh at their friends for accidentally paying twelve quid for a pink fur ball?
In the end, that had to be enough.
[ooc: some scenarios mentioned roughly based upon role play games sj is in: milliways_bar, twood_hub, and relativespace.]