[Fandom Muses] May Prompt (Word)
Date
“You be a good dog, K-9. I’m sure Sarah Jane will find you soon enough. She’s a bright girl, that one. You’ll love her.”
His brow furrowed as he turned on the sonic screwdriver to seal the box shut. The smile that had been on his face moments ago when chatting with the mechanical canine was now gone. In place, the Doctor’s lips were pursed close together, thoughtful and sad. He had purchased this unit off the stock only a few days ago and downloaded K-9’s personality file from the ship. He’d be the perfect companion for Sarah Jane. The companion he knew he could no longer provide.
It was dangerous, what he was doing. Messing about with time like this could lead to a multitude of paradoxes. The Doctor had to be careful. He couldn’t be caught. She wasn’t supposed to meet him until that date in the future, when suspicious circumstances at Deffry Vale School brought them together again. Timey wimey stuff and the like. Still, he had double checked. Lavinia Smith was out of town. Sarah Jane Smith was at the office. No one would catch him leaving a package in the attic for Sarah to find years later.
“Goodbye, old boy,” he whispered.
The Doctor stood there for a moment more in quiet contemplation. He knew that she’d someday find the box and K-9 would be reactivated, only to eventually fail her. Still. It was something. An apology of some sorts maybe, triggered by farewells to Martha and Jack, triggered by Astrid’s death.
Nostalgia never became him, except in those dark moments of time.
He nodded and turned, quietly closing the attic door behind him. Soon enough, she would find K-9. It wouldn’t be the same to her as having him about - “You were my life.”; the words echoed in his mind - but perhaps it would be a start.
***
Check the mail, feed the cat, and make sure nothing had been disturbed. Sarah Jane ran through the checklist of house sitting duties her aunt had assigned her while away in America. It was her third day (out of the five in which Lavinia had been away) and the commute from South Croydon to Ealing and back was starting to grate at her nerves. She had other things that she could be doing. Working on her column for Metropolitan for one, or, perhaps, visiting Harry and Alastair at UNIT’s London headquarters.
She sighed, rolling her eyes as she walked up the stairs. A couple of drinks with the blokes as they reminisced about the Doctor and the life she used to have sounded more than welcomed right about now. Anything would be better than dealing with that devil of a cat Aunt Lavinia kept. Or being reminded of the very event that had led her to meeting him: house sitting for Aunt Lavinia four years ago and spying that faithful request to join the protective cell UNIT had put together as Britain’s top minds disappeared.
Had it really been that long ago?
“Oh, bullocks,” Sarah Jane muttered as she unlocked the gate and began to make her way up the driveway lane to the house. “It’s absolutely hopeless. Stop being such a daft bloody - oh!”
She hadn’t expected anyone else to be about. Yet, a rather tall and skinny man was standing on the steps of her aunt’s house. He had a newspaper in his hand and was beaming in a rather idiotic manner. His brown hair was an absolute mess and those red trainers didn’t match his blue (rather ridiculous looking) suit at all. One hand moved from the paper to push his glasses up his face and Sarah found herself giggling.
It was rather adorable. In fact, she realised as her eyes raked over his body, the stranger was rather attractive. Her gaze moved from those silly trainers up to his face again and she gasped. He had noticed her and was, for the briefest of moments, staring at Sarah with a look of disbelief on his face. That look of disbelief was accompanied by something akin to recognition. It confused her.
Sarah Jane took a couple of steps closer, clutching her purse closer to her side. There was something odd about this man and it set her on edge. She raised an eyebrow, never taking her eyes off of him. He looked back at her, very much like a deer caught in the headlights. Finally, she stopped a few paces away and placed her hands on her hips.
“Aunt Lavinia didn’t tell me that she would be expecting someone,” she stated plainly. An attractive stranger was, after all, still a stranger. At least she had learned that while travelling with the Doctor. “I’m her niece, Sarah Jane. I’m afraid that my aunt is out of town at the moment. Can I help you?”
“What?” The man sounded almost incredulous. Then he blinked and shook his head. He stuffed the paper behind his back and he took a step forward and offered her hand. That bright grin he had while reading the paper now returned and he nodded.
“I should say so. I’m Joh- Johnson. Jude Johnson,” he said quickly and Sarah could almost swear that she could hear the lyrics from “Hey Jude” play from a passing car as he introduced himself. Jude shook her hand briskly and nodded again. That daft smile was still in place. He was flustered still; absolutely endearing. “I’m Jude Johnson. Professor of biomechanics at Cambridge and an acquaintance of your aunt’s. Brilliant, it’s absolutely brilliant to meet you, Miss Smith. It is Miss Smith, isn’t it?”
She smiled softly, a rosy colour filling her cheeks. Was this his way of finding out if she was single? He couldn’t be much older than her. And, as it appeared, quite talkative than nervous. Not at all the sort of man Sarah Jane had been interested in lately. It took a certain sort of man to agree to one night stands and the sort of dates she hoped would get her back on track with this barmy relationship stuff.
“It is,” she finally answered. “But please, call me Sarah.”
The paper dropped on the step as he wrapped his other hand around his and shook her broadly. He couldn’t believe it. There she was, standing right in front of him and the universe wasn’t imploding from any sort of paradox. Thankfully, the Doctor had parked the TARDIS far enough away that she wouldn’t ever find it. He knew he ought to run. He ought to get as far away from her as possible and never look back.
But there was something in the way she looked at him that made him want to stay.
“Sarah Jane! Brilliant name! I’m Jude, then. Please call me Jude!” Then he remembered. He wasn’t her Doctor, couldn’t ever be to this woman. Jude Johnson wouldn’t be this enthused. He’d be curious to know when he could pay visit to Lavinia Smith again. He took a breath and let his smile drop down a few notches. Trying to look as earnest as possible, he asked, “When will your aunt be back?”
“In a few days.”
Sarah was smiling, a very alluring sort of smile. It confused the Doctor. Why was she smiling like that? She had absolutely no reason to. After all, he was just a stranger standing on her aunt’s doorstep. She shrugged and he frowned in confusion as she continued.
“I can take a message, but if you honestly want the company, I wouldn’t mind stepping in. There’s a pub not far. Certainly beats having dinner alone… oh, well, assuming that there’s no Mrs Johnson that is.”
“No, no Mrs Johnson,” he answered quickly, noting as her smile turn into a beam. While there was still something rather odd about him, Sarah Jane had decided to ignore it. He was a good enough looking chap, a supposed friend of her aunts, and apparently unattached. Any awkwardness she attributed to his probable scientific profession. Probably not used to women asking him out, she supposed. Well, there was a first time for everything.
“Brilliant,” Sarah said, reaching for his hand and slipping her own within it. She grinned up at him and gave it a little squeeze. Absolutely brilliant. She wouldn’t have to spend the night alone after all. “It’s a date.”
“Wha- What? What? Date?”
The words came out as a shocked and stuttered whisper that Sarah (thankfully) didn’t hear. Clearly honestly replying to her inquiry of a wife had been a mistake. But he hadn’t ever expected this! Caught up in his own stupefaction, the Doctor put up little resistance as she tugged him away from the stairs. He looked at her, looked down at the byline lying on the steps. Sarah Jane Smith, it read. A force to be reckoned with he realised, and not for the first time.
***
One Sheppard’s pie, one sausage and mash, and four ales later, Jude’s flustered nature had worn off - much to Sarah Jane’s chagrin. She watched as he gestured animatedly while explaining some microorganism or another to her. He was indeed a scientist, as she had coaxed out of him during what he later nicknamed an interrogation. It made absolute sense. Lavinia very much had a one track mind when it came to her work and life, very much like Sarah herself had been in between those years after Andrew and before the Doctor.
But she had changed, she had admitted during a slightly slurred rant that followed. Travelling broadened the mind and after spending nearly three years doing so with her best friend, she couldn’t ever go back to being that same woman. Her aunt never understood, still finding her career to be the most important part of her life. It irked Sarah at times, but she never fully let it get like that.
“And what about you?” Sarah tilted her head, looking in to his brown eyes as she sipped at her third glass of ale. “Which lot do you fall in? The one eager to explore all that the world has to offer or the one narrowly stuck on one path?”
Jude’s smile turned shy as he ran his hand through his air and shrugged. She found the smile to be almost out of place on his typically manic face and, yet, it made her blush. It was a thoughtful smile. A considerate smile.
“The prior. I fancy myself a bit of traveler at times. Well! When I can, that is. Which isn’t often - no, it’s not often at all. Got the job, after all, and I can’t just go and leave whenever I want.” For only a second, he stopped talking. Then: “I like it, though. Love the travelling.”
“Something we have in common then, Jude,” Sarah Jane responded as she gently tapped her raised glass against his. “I wonder why my aunt never mentioned you before. You’d think she’d know us well enough to think we’d get on this famously.”
“Well,” he protested, “she is only an acquaintance. It’s a very common thing, not to know an acquaintance well enough to… to…”
She laughed. He was becoming anxious all over again. With the slightest of flirtatious smiles, she asked him innocently: “Set him up with one’s niece?”
“Wha- Yes!” Beat. “No! I mean-”
His sentence was interrupted by a kiss. Her lips were warm against his and it caught the Doctor so off guard that for a moment, he almost forgot to return it. The Doctor would never return it but, perhaps, maybe Jude would.
Her tongue played against his lips, tempting him and teasing him. Oh. Jude definitely would. Wide eyes finally closed and while his hearts continued to beat out a tarantella of nerves, he had a façade to keep up. Gently, he put a hand to her cheek. She shivered a little at his cool touch but didn’t break the kiss. He didn’t want to either.
Never in three hundred years had he considered kissing Sarah Jane Smith. He was her best friend, already too far under his skin to be let in any closer. And yet, here he was; his eyes just as lust-fogged as hers when they finally broke. Humans did have a smaller air capacity than any other bipedal species he had ever encountered.
But they had something else he found many others to lack. They had words. And when she batted her eyes playfully and whispered, “Hey, Jude, don’t let her down. You have found her, now go and get her,” his stomach lurched.
Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff. There hadn’t ever been anyone else for her except that one guy. A guy she travelled with for a while. But he was a tough act to follow.
***
The door shut loudly behind them as Sarah Jane (or was it Jude?) kicked it closed. Her handbag dropped to the floor and his blue suit coat fell on the floor. He scraped at her blouse. His fingers frantically attempted to undo buttons as they kissed roughly and sloppily. Sarah was certain that when Aunt Lavinia had asked her to house sit, she had never meant that Sarah Jane come home with a man, even if it was a man Lavinia knew.
Still, she moaned when he plunged his tongue into her mouth. His fingers will still vainly attempting to undo buttons and she knew that at some point, she’d have to help him with it. Vaguely, she considered leading him up to her ‘room’. But the stairs seemed so far away, the first story even more so.
“Jude,” she groaned before another devouring kiss. Her hands succeeded in pulling the pale pinstripe shirt from his trousers. His skin was colder than she expected. Odd, considering how bloody hot the room felt to Sarah right now. “Oh, Jude.”
He laughed happily, whispering her name as he pulled away ever so much. Jude gazed down at her with a joy in his eyes that, if Sarah searched hard enough, was almost masked by some hidden anguish. It confused Sarah Jane, to say the least, but she would not call him on it. Not while he tenderly stroked her cheek and told her how brilliant this might very well be. This Jude was a far stretch from the disconcerted man she started dinner with. Sarah didn’t know which she liked better.
“I think,” she declared a moment later, letting go of his arse to finally undo the last of the buttons on her blouse. “I think, Jude, that we’re both in firm need of a shag right now.”
The Doctor’s eyes went wide again. He had been doing perfectly fine with all of this pretend game thing until she actually said something. A shag. She wanted to shag him?
“Weeeeell,” he murmured, lips quirked as a smile started to play in his eyes. He could do this. She wouldn’t ever know. His little secret and nothing - not a single thing - would ever be affected.
--”You could’ve come back.”
“I couldn’t.”--
“A snog and a shag and more of that getting on with our lives thing? You getting over that git that left you and me - me just enjoying the ride?” The Doctor shrugged and nod. “Yeah, I can do that.”
He beamed that manic grin she remembered from earlier in the evening when they had met on the steps of this very house. Using both hands, he brushed her hair out of her face and kissed the top of her heat. “Best night of your life, Sarah Jane Smith.”
The Doctor let his lips trail down to her brow and nose until he settled on her lips again. As he kissed her with renewed passion, he traced the curvature of her neck and shoulders, gently pushing the blouse off of her. She didn’t waste any time in thrusting her tongue into his mouth and the moment her fingers brushed by his navel he groaned. There were hot, hot hands doing dangerous things underneath his shirt. And, he discovered, her bum fit perfectly in his grasp.
They stumbled backwards around the room, the eye of the storm far long past by now. With renewed enthusiasm, Sarah Jane pushed Jude further into the living room. She nipped at his lips, interspersed with laughs as he scrunched his face and gave her absolutely confused and shocked looks when her hands slipped in to the front of his trousers. His hair was even messier than before and most of that daft blue suit was gone by the time they stumbled on top of the couch. Less than a minute later, Sarah and Jude tumbled off of the couch as he attempted to flip her over, landing with a loud thump.
“Well! Floor it is,” she laughed as she crawled from underneath him.
Jude had been having too much trouble with her bra and Sarah was quickly growing impatient. It seemed like a trend had been started. As she removed the remainder of her clothing, she could see him do the same. He was as every bit wiry as she expected. She giggled again as she launched herself upon him, tickling and kissing. Jude moaned her name. Clearly his stomach was a sensitive spot. She intended to take every advantage of that new bit of knowledge.
“Brilliant,” he whispered when he finally escaped her grasp. “Look at you. You’re beautiful.”
It was said with a hint of amazement, as if he didn’t expect such. She returned the compliment with a question in her eyes. Why? Why would this be so bloody amazing?
He didn’t answer, just kissed her instead.
And when he buried himself inside of her, head buried in her neck as they sought release together in a steady pace, Sarah felt certain that somehow, this was more than a one night stand. She couldn’t pinpoint why, why shagging Jude seemed to be different from shagging any other man. It just was.
It echoed in their cries when orgasms approached. It showed in the way he held her in his arms afterwards as she drifted off to sleep.
***
Sarah Jane had experienced many odd events. After all, she had travelled with an alien for the best years of her life. She had friends in UNIT and kept a watchful eye on that Torchwood group. Those were the reasons why she was here now, at Deffry Vale School. Something suspicious was occurring and, clever and plucky journalist she was, Sarah had to get to the bottom of the case.
Yet, when Mr Finch opened the door to the faculty room, the last feeling Sarah ever expected to feel was that on déjà vu. It started when she felt a pair of eyes watching her. They were a pair of brown eyes that hadn’t aged one day since she last saw them.
She heard her name mentioned and her cover story, an article for the Sunday Times. But Sarah Jane couldn’t pay attention. She plastered a fake smile on her face but she couldn’t stop staring at this one man. He was wiry with messy brown hair and those familiar brown eyes. She walked forward before Mr Finch had a chance to stop her.
"Hello!”
The teacher smiled a bright and hyper and overly happy smile. “Oh, I should think so!”
He was so, so familiar. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and he couldn’t get that smile off his face. Sarah tilted her head and looked at him, thoughtful if not confused.
--Somehow, they had gotten to her bed. Somehow, he had known which room was hers and not her aunt’s. He had dressed her in his shirt and pulled on his trousers. And when she had woken up, Jude had an arm draped around her waist and was gazing down at her with some daft expression of love.
She had dismissed it as a dream.--
But Jude would be old now. She had aged a good twenty or so years since their one and only date. She had never saw him again and, when her aunt had returned from the conference in Detroit, had only been confused at the mention of a Doctor Jude Johnson.
And soon, memories of him had faded - only to be brought suddenly back by these familiar brown eyes. Sarah Jane shook her head, unable to figure it out. A son, perhaps? Nephew? Relation of some sort?
So, she settled on the sort of activity a journalist does best: asking questions. Her smile returned, although it didn’t come anywhere close in matching his in intensity.
“And, you are…?”
[ooc: special thanks to telyn_timber for help in brainstorming and sarahs_attic for the beta’ing]
“You be a good dog, K-9. I’m sure Sarah Jane will find you soon enough. She’s a bright girl, that one. You’ll love her.”
His brow furrowed as he turned on the sonic screwdriver to seal the box shut. The smile that had been on his face moments ago when chatting with the mechanical canine was now gone. In place, the Doctor’s lips were pursed close together, thoughtful and sad. He had purchased this unit off the stock only a few days ago and downloaded K-9’s personality file from the ship. He’d be the perfect companion for Sarah Jane. The companion he knew he could no longer provide.
It was dangerous, what he was doing. Messing about with time like this could lead to a multitude of paradoxes. The Doctor had to be careful. He couldn’t be caught. She wasn’t supposed to meet him until that date in the future, when suspicious circumstances at Deffry Vale School brought them together again. Timey wimey stuff and the like. Still, he had double checked. Lavinia Smith was out of town. Sarah Jane Smith was at the office. No one would catch him leaving a package in the attic for Sarah to find years later.
“Goodbye, old boy,” he whispered.
The Doctor stood there for a moment more in quiet contemplation. He knew that she’d someday find the box and K-9 would be reactivated, only to eventually fail her. Still. It was something. An apology of some sorts maybe, triggered by farewells to Martha and Jack, triggered by Astrid’s death.
Nostalgia never became him, except in those dark moments of time.
He nodded and turned, quietly closing the attic door behind him. Soon enough, she would find K-9. It wouldn’t be the same to her as having him about - “You were my life.”; the words echoed in his mind - but perhaps it would be a start.
***
Check the mail, feed the cat, and make sure nothing had been disturbed. Sarah Jane ran through the checklist of house sitting duties her aunt had assigned her while away in America. It was her third day (out of the five in which Lavinia had been away) and the commute from South Croydon to Ealing and back was starting to grate at her nerves. She had other things that she could be doing. Working on her column for Metropolitan for one, or, perhaps, visiting Harry and Alastair at UNIT’s London headquarters.
She sighed, rolling her eyes as she walked up the stairs. A couple of drinks with the blokes as they reminisced about the Doctor and the life she used to have sounded more than welcomed right about now. Anything would be better than dealing with that devil of a cat Aunt Lavinia kept. Or being reminded of the very event that had led her to meeting him: house sitting for Aunt Lavinia four years ago and spying that faithful request to join the protective cell UNIT had put together as Britain’s top minds disappeared.
Had it really been that long ago?
“Oh, bullocks,” Sarah Jane muttered as she unlocked the gate and began to make her way up the driveway lane to the house. “It’s absolutely hopeless. Stop being such a daft bloody - oh!”
She hadn’t expected anyone else to be about. Yet, a rather tall and skinny man was standing on the steps of her aunt’s house. He had a newspaper in his hand and was beaming in a rather idiotic manner. His brown hair was an absolute mess and those red trainers didn’t match his blue (rather ridiculous looking) suit at all. One hand moved from the paper to push his glasses up his face and Sarah found herself giggling.
It was rather adorable. In fact, she realised as her eyes raked over his body, the stranger was rather attractive. Her gaze moved from those silly trainers up to his face again and she gasped. He had noticed her and was, for the briefest of moments, staring at Sarah with a look of disbelief on his face. That look of disbelief was accompanied by something akin to recognition. It confused her.
Sarah Jane took a couple of steps closer, clutching her purse closer to her side. There was something odd about this man and it set her on edge. She raised an eyebrow, never taking her eyes off of him. He looked back at her, very much like a deer caught in the headlights. Finally, she stopped a few paces away and placed her hands on her hips.
“Aunt Lavinia didn’t tell me that she would be expecting someone,” she stated plainly. An attractive stranger was, after all, still a stranger. At least she had learned that while travelling with the Doctor. “I’m her niece, Sarah Jane. I’m afraid that my aunt is out of town at the moment. Can I help you?”
“What?” The man sounded almost incredulous. Then he blinked and shook his head. He stuffed the paper behind his back and he took a step forward and offered her hand. That bright grin he had while reading the paper now returned and he nodded.
“I should say so. I’m Joh- Johnson. Jude Johnson,” he said quickly and Sarah could almost swear that she could hear the lyrics from “Hey Jude” play from a passing car as he introduced himself. Jude shook her hand briskly and nodded again. That daft smile was still in place. He was flustered still; absolutely endearing. “I’m Jude Johnson. Professor of biomechanics at Cambridge and an acquaintance of your aunt’s. Brilliant, it’s absolutely brilliant to meet you, Miss Smith. It is Miss Smith, isn’t it?”
She smiled softly, a rosy colour filling her cheeks. Was this his way of finding out if she was single? He couldn’t be much older than her. And, as it appeared, quite talkative than nervous. Not at all the sort of man Sarah Jane had been interested in lately. It took a certain sort of man to agree to one night stands and the sort of dates she hoped would get her back on track with this barmy relationship stuff.
“It is,” she finally answered. “But please, call me Sarah.”
The paper dropped on the step as he wrapped his other hand around his and shook her broadly. He couldn’t believe it. There she was, standing right in front of him and the universe wasn’t imploding from any sort of paradox. Thankfully, the Doctor had parked the TARDIS far enough away that she wouldn’t ever find it. He knew he ought to run. He ought to get as far away from her as possible and never look back.
But there was something in the way she looked at him that made him want to stay.
“Sarah Jane! Brilliant name! I’m Jude, then. Please call me Jude!” Then he remembered. He wasn’t her Doctor, couldn’t ever be to this woman. Jude Johnson wouldn’t be this enthused. He’d be curious to know when he could pay visit to Lavinia Smith again. He took a breath and let his smile drop down a few notches. Trying to look as earnest as possible, he asked, “When will your aunt be back?”
“In a few days.”
Sarah was smiling, a very alluring sort of smile. It confused the Doctor. Why was she smiling like that? She had absolutely no reason to. After all, he was just a stranger standing on her aunt’s doorstep. She shrugged and he frowned in confusion as she continued.
“I can take a message, but if you honestly want the company, I wouldn’t mind stepping in. There’s a pub not far. Certainly beats having dinner alone… oh, well, assuming that there’s no Mrs Johnson that is.”
“No, no Mrs Johnson,” he answered quickly, noting as her smile turn into a beam. While there was still something rather odd about him, Sarah Jane had decided to ignore it. He was a good enough looking chap, a supposed friend of her aunts, and apparently unattached. Any awkwardness she attributed to his probable scientific profession. Probably not used to women asking him out, she supposed. Well, there was a first time for everything.
“Brilliant,” Sarah said, reaching for his hand and slipping her own within it. She grinned up at him and gave it a little squeeze. Absolutely brilliant. She wouldn’t have to spend the night alone after all. “It’s a date.”
“Wha- What? What? Date?”
The words came out as a shocked and stuttered whisper that Sarah (thankfully) didn’t hear. Clearly honestly replying to her inquiry of a wife had been a mistake. But he hadn’t ever expected this! Caught up in his own stupefaction, the Doctor put up little resistance as she tugged him away from the stairs. He looked at her, looked down at the byline lying on the steps. Sarah Jane Smith, it read. A force to be reckoned with he realised, and not for the first time.
***
One Sheppard’s pie, one sausage and mash, and four ales later, Jude’s flustered nature had worn off - much to Sarah Jane’s chagrin. She watched as he gestured animatedly while explaining some microorganism or another to her. He was indeed a scientist, as she had coaxed out of him during what he later nicknamed an interrogation. It made absolute sense. Lavinia very much had a one track mind when it came to her work and life, very much like Sarah herself had been in between those years after Andrew and before the Doctor.
But she had changed, she had admitted during a slightly slurred rant that followed. Travelling broadened the mind and after spending nearly three years doing so with her best friend, she couldn’t ever go back to being that same woman. Her aunt never understood, still finding her career to be the most important part of her life. It irked Sarah at times, but she never fully let it get like that.
“And what about you?” Sarah tilted her head, looking in to his brown eyes as she sipped at her third glass of ale. “Which lot do you fall in? The one eager to explore all that the world has to offer or the one narrowly stuck on one path?”
Jude’s smile turned shy as he ran his hand through his air and shrugged. She found the smile to be almost out of place on his typically manic face and, yet, it made her blush. It was a thoughtful smile. A considerate smile.
“The prior. I fancy myself a bit of traveler at times. Well! When I can, that is. Which isn’t often - no, it’s not often at all. Got the job, after all, and I can’t just go and leave whenever I want.” For only a second, he stopped talking. Then: “I like it, though. Love the travelling.”
“Something we have in common then, Jude,” Sarah Jane responded as she gently tapped her raised glass against his. “I wonder why my aunt never mentioned you before. You’d think she’d know us well enough to think we’d get on this famously.”
“Well,” he protested, “she is only an acquaintance. It’s a very common thing, not to know an acquaintance well enough to… to…”
She laughed. He was becoming anxious all over again. With the slightest of flirtatious smiles, she asked him innocently: “Set him up with one’s niece?”
“Wha- Yes!” Beat. “No! I mean-”
His sentence was interrupted by a kiss. Her lips were warm against his and it caught the Doctor so off guard that for a moment, he almost forgot to return it. The Doctor would never return it but, perhaps, maybe Jude would.
Her tongue played against his lips, tempting him and teasing him. Oh. Jude definitely would. Wide eyes finally closed and while his hearts continued to beat out a tarantella of nerves, he had a façade to keep up. Gently, he put a hand to her cheek. She shivered a little at his cool touch but didn’t break the kiss. He didn’t want to either.
Never in three hundred years had he considered kissing Sarah Jane Smith. He was her best friend, already too far under his skin to be let in any closer. And yet, here he was; his eyes just as lust-fogged as hers when they finally broke. Humans did have a smaller air capacity than any other bipedal species he had ever encountered.
But they had something else he found many others to lack. They had words. And when she batted her eyes playfully and whispered, “Hey, Jude, don’t let her down. You have found her, now go and get her,” his stomach lurched.
Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff. There hadn’t ever been anyone else for her except that one guy. A guy she travelled with for a while. But he was a tough act to follow.
***
The door shut loudly behind them as Sarah Jane (or was it Jude?) kicked it closed. Her handbag dropped to the floor and his blue suit coat fell on the floor. He scraped at her blouse. His fingers frantically attempted to undo buttons as they kissed roughly and sloppily. Sarah was certain that when Aunt Lavinia had asked her to house sit, she had never meant that Sarah Jane come home with a man, even if it was a man Lavinia knew.
Still, she moaned when he plunged his tongue into her mouth. His fingers will still vainly attempting to undo buttons and she knew that at some point, she’d have to help him with it. Vaguely, she considered leading him up to her ‘room’. But the stairs seemed so far away, the first story even more so.
“Jude,” she groaned before another devouring kiss. Her hands succeeded in pulling the pale pinstripe shirt from his trousers. His skin was colder than she expected. Odd, considering how bloody hot the room felt to Sarah right now. “Oh, Jude.”
He laughed happily, whispering her name as he pulled away ever so much. Jude gazed down at her with a joy in his eyes that, if Sarah searched hard enough, was almost masked by some hidden anguish. It confused Sarah Jane, to say the least, but she would not call him on it. Not while he tenderly stroked her cheek and told her how brilliant this might very well be. This Jude was a far stretch from the disconcerted man she started dinner with. Sarah didn’t know which she liked better.
“I think,” she declared a moment later, letting go of his arse to finally undo the last of the buttons on her blouse. “I think, Jude, that we’re both in firm need of a shag right now.”
The Doctor’s eyes went wide again. He had been doing perfectly fine with all of this pretend game thing until she actually said something. A shag. She wanted to shag him?
“Weeeeell,” he murmured, lips quirked as a smile started to play in his eyes. He could do this. She wouldn’t ever know. His little secret and nothing - not a single thing - would ever be affected.
--”You could’ve come back.”
“I couldn’t.”--
“A snog and a shag and more of that getting on with our lives thing? You getting over that git that left you and me - me just enjoying the ride?” The Doctor shrugged and nod. “Yeah, I can do that.”
He beamed that manic grin she remembered from earlier in the evening when they had met on the steps of this very house. Using both hands, he brushed her hair out of her face and kissed the top of her heat. “Best night of your life, Sarah Jane Smith.”
The Doctor let his lips trail down to her brow and nose until he settled on her lips again. As he kissed her with renewed passion, he traced the curvature of her neck and shoulders, gently pushing the blouse off of her. She didn’t waste any time in thrusting her tongue into his mouth and the moment her fingers brushed by his navel he groaned. There were hot, hot hands doing dangerous things underneath his shirt. And, he discovered, her bum fit perfectly in his grasp.
They stumbled backwards around the room, the eye of the storm far long past by now. With renewed enthusiasm, Sarah Jane pushed Jude further into the living room. She nipped at his lips, interspersed with laughs as he scrunched his face and gave her absolutely confused and shocked looks when her hands slipped in to the front of his trousers. His hair was even messier than before and most of that daft blue suit was gone by the time they stumbled on top of the couch. Less than a minute later, Sarah and Jude tumbled off of the couch as he attempted to flip her over, landing with a loud thump.
“Well! Floor it is,” she laughed as she crawled from underneath him.
Jude had been having too much trouble with her bra and Sarah was quickly growing impatient. It seemed like a trend had been started. As she removed the remainder of her clothing, she could see him do the same. He was as every bit wiry as she expected. She giggled again as she launched herself upon him, tickling and kissing. Jude moaned her name. Clearly his stomach was a sensitive spot. She intended to take every advantage of that new bit of knowledge.
“Brilliant,” he whispered when he finally escaped her grasp. “Look at you. You’re beautiful.”
It was said with a hint of amazement, as if he didn’t expect such. She returned the compliment with a question in her eyes. Why? Why would this be so bloody amazing?
He didn’t answer, just kissed her instead.
And when he buried himself inside of her, head buried in her neck as they sought release together in a steady pace, Sarah felt certain that somehow, this was more than a one night stand. She couldn’t pinpoint why, why shagging Jude seemed to be different from shagging any other man. It just was.
It echoed in their cries when orgasms approached. It showed in the way he held her in his arms afterwards as she drifted off to sleep.
***
Sarah Jane had experienced many odd events. After all, she had travelled with an alien for the best years of her life. She had friends in UNIT and kept a watchful eye on that Torchwood group. Those were the reasons why she was here now, at Deffry Vale School. Something suspicious was occurring and, clever and plucky journalist she was, Sarah had to get to the bottom of the case.
Yet, when Mr Finch opened the door to the faculty room, the last feeling Sarah ever expected to feel was that on déjà vu. It started when she felt a pair of eyes watching her. They were a pair of brown eyes that hadn’t aged one day since she last saw them.
She heard her name mentioned and her cover story, an article for the Sunday Times. But Sarah Jane couldn’t pay attention. She plastered a fake smile on her face but she couldn’t stop staring at this one man. He was wiry with messy brown hair and those familiar brown eyes. She walked forward before Mr Finch had a chance to stop her.
"Hello!”
The teacher smiled a bright and hyper and overly happy smile. “Oh, I should think so!”
He was so, so familiar. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and he couldn’t get that smile off his face. Sarah tilted her head and looked at him, thoughtful if not confused.
--Somehow, they had gotten to her bed. Somehow, he had known which room was hers and not her aunt’s. He had dressed her in his shirt and pulled on his trousers. And when she had woken up, Jude had an arm draped around her waist and was gazing down at her with some daft expression of love.
She had dismissed it as a dream.--
But Jude would be old now. She had aged a good twenty or so years since their one and only date. She had never saw him again and, when her aunt had returned from the conference in Detroit, had only been confused at the mention of a Doctor Jude Johnson.
And soon, memories of him had faded - only to be brought suddenly back by these familiar brown eyes. Sarah Jane shook her head, unable to figure it out. A son, perhaps? Nephew? Relation of some sort?
So, she settled on the sort of activity a journalist does best: asking questions. Her smile returned, although it didn’t come anywhere close in matching his in intensity.
“And, you are…?”
[ooc: special thanks to telyn_timber for help in brainstorming and sarahs_attic for the beta’ing]