fic: SJA / TW crossover, "The Other" (2/5)
Part 1
Part 2
Sarah Jane woke up to sunlight slicing through a small gap in the curtains, and Maria sitting quietly on the floor, smiling at her. On the other side of the room, the sound of rusty breathing from the sofa told her that her unplanned houseguest was still asleep.
"Morning!" Maria whispered.
"Oooh... what time is it?" Sarah Jane stretched, feeling everything creak disagreeably.
"Eightish. Luke and Clyde are getting breakfast. Why don't you go to bed for a few hours? Get some real sleep - we can keep an eye on Ian."
"Are you sure?" Sarah Jane said, though the thought of a cup of tea and a nap in her own bed was terribly tempting.
"Yeah, we'll be fine. And look - I've borrowed a couple of things from Dad, for when Ian wakes up." She rummaged in a carrier bag, pulling out sweatpants and a t-shirt. "They're sort of the same size, so I think these should fit him OK. They'll do for now, at any rate."
"What did you tell your father?" Sarah Jane said, alarmed.
Maria rolled her eyes. "Nothing! Ian's supposed to be hiding, right? Dad's gone to the gym. He won't notice."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah!" Maria laughed. "We're talking about the man who couldn't find a single pair of his own pants the day after we moved! Mind you, I think Mum might have hidden them deliberately when we were packing, just to see how he'd cope."
"Well, thank you. Good thinking - I'm sure Ian will be grateful, when he wakes up. It's probably best to let him sleep for now. And I'll be back down before lunchtime, but call me if there's anything you need before then, right?"
She went by the kitchen to wish the boys a half-awake, "Good morning!"
Clyde waved a disgustingly lurid cereal box at her. "You have Coooookie Crisp! I think I need to come round here for breakfast more often!"
"How's Ian?" Luke asked.
"Still asleep. I expect that's the best thing for him right now. And I'm going to do the same thing, in my own bed. Will you all be OK for a few hours?"
"Yes," Luke replied, and Clyde grimaced and nodded, mouth full of cereal.
A decent nap turned out to be just what she needed. When Sarah Jane cane back downstairs a few hours later, she found that Ian hadn't woken up at all, and that the children had been quietly busy all morning. There was a fresh jug of Ribena and a box of Strepsils next to the painkillers on the coffee table, and Maria was tapping away on the laptop, while Luke and Clyde worked their way through a big pile of local and national newspapers strewn all over the carpet.
"Missing Persons ads," Luke stage-whispered. "But none of them sound like Ian."
"No mystery millionaires either," Clyde added, looking disappointed. "Though I'm still looking."
Maria showed her a list of addresses and telephone numbers.
"These are all the local charity shelters, Salvation Army, anything like that. I thought we could start calling round this afternoon."
Sarah Jane beamed at them all. "This is really impressive!" she began, but her voice must have been louder than the children's, as the duvet on the sofa shifted, and Ian peered blearily out at her, blinking.
He looked confused. "Morning!" she said, smiling reassuringly. "Well, lunchtime, really. You've had a good long sleep - how are you feeling?"
Ian opened his mouth - his lips moved, but no sound came out.
Behind her, Clyde let out a hoot of laughter. "Oh my God, how funny is that!"
"That's funny?" Luke said uncertainly.
"No it isn't!" Maria snapped. "Stop laughing, Clyde, you're scaring him."
Ian did actually look quite shocked. Sarah Jane grabbed a notepad and pen from her desk drawer, handing them to him. "Don't worry! You sounded rather hoarse last night, it's probably laryngitis. I had it last winter - oh, it's completely annoying, I know, but you'll get your voice back in a day or two, I promise. In the meantime, use these..."
She trailed off: Ian was still staring at her. "You do remember me, don't you?"
He nodded, taking the pad and pen and writing before holding it up.
Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, Clive
"That's 'Clyde'," she whispered, grinning at Clyde's squawk of outrage over her shoulder. Ian was scribbling again, in loose but clear handwriting. He turned the page to show her.
no memory and no voice
I'm vanishing
"No, you're not, really!" She leaned in, made the blue eyes meet hers. "Look, this time yesterday you'd been hiding in a damp cupboard for a week. At least you're indoors now, nice and warm. And you're not alone - that has to be better, right?"
Ian nodded slowly, taking the notepad again.
sorry
thank you
can I use your bathroom?
"Of course! And don't worry about anything. You're probably the most undemanding guest I've ever had. You should see what Alistair's like in the mornings when he stays here." She handed him Maria's carrier bag. "There are some clean clothes in there - we think they'll fit you. The bathroom's upstairs, second door on the left. Will you be alright?"
He nodded again, with a quick, shy smile, before wrapping the duvet modestly around himself and shuffling off. Sarah Jane stripped the sofa, handing the sheets to Luke.
"Laundry basket for those, please. Ian can sleep in the spare bedroom tonight, I think. Now, we need to work out how to use your list, Maria. Will it be better to phone around, or to visit each of the shelters?"
"Phone would be quicker," Luke said.
"But most people tell you more when they're face-to-face," Clyde countered. "You can connect with them - read their body language and all that."
"And - " Maria held up her mobile phone. "We all took pictures of Ian when he was asleep. That way, we can show people what he looks like, see if anyone recognises him!"
Sarah Jane shook her head. "Hang on - we need to be careful about this. If Ian's right that someone is after him, we can't just dash about letting everyone know that he's here with us. Whoever did this to him may well be thinking the same way as us - checking places where missing persons get reported. I don't think we should show anyone those photos, not for now, at least."
The kids looked crestfallen. "I thought it was such a good idea," Maria said glumly.
"It was! Don't get rid of those, we may need them later. For now though, I think you're right, Clyde. Face-to-face is probably the best way to go about this."
"Well..." Maria rustled the newspaper in her hand. "You are a proper journalist, with a proper NUJ card you can show them, so I suppose it wouldn't be odd for you to go asking around the shelters."
"You could say you were... doing a piece on homeless people, missing people, then ask them about who's been recently reported missing?" Luke suggested.
"Yes, that would be plausible. But what happens to Ian while I'm out?"
Clyde sighed. "Weren't you the one saying he's not a problem? Look, it'll be fine. We'll stay here and keep an eye on him, and that way we can also carry on checking through the papers and the internet for you."
"Alright..." She wondered what Chrissy Jackson would have to say about mad 'Mary-Jane' leaving three children alone in the house with a grown man they knew absolutely nothing about. Even if Ian seemed to be more apprehensive about all of them than they were about him.
In the end, she knew, it came down to trusting your instincts. The Doctor had always been ready to give pretty much anyone the benefit of the doubt, which might have something to do with the amazing amount of danger he was always getting himself into, of course. Then again, she'd never seen him turn his back on anyone in trouble, and she didn't doubt for a moment that Ian needed their help.
More than that, there was something about this man that reminded her of Luke, even though he was clearly not another Archetype. Not a child, but lost like Luke had been, and confused, with no-one else looking out for him. She couldn't say why, but her instincts told her that he wasn't any kind of a threat.
She'd been doing so well, in her years of self-imposed exile after the Doctor - or so she'd always believed. A career, a big house, a solitude she'd called independence, and maybe all of those things had been right, in their time. But meeting the Doctor again had thrown all her carefully-structured certainties on their head, just as he had the first time they'd met, showing her the things she was missing.
She watched Luke with an armful of sheets, laughing at a picture Clyde was pointing out to him in one of the newspapers, and Maria sitting on the sofa next to her, studying the laptop and making quick notes on the pad balanced on her knee. Did the Doctor even have a clue, how easily and completely he changed the lives of the people he met? Probably not.
"I fancy cheese on toast," she said brightly. "Anyone else?"
She heard footsteps on the stairs while they were all eating in the kitchen, but Ian didn't join them. Back in the living room, it turned out that he'd drunk all the Ribena and promptly fallen asleep again, sitting upright on the sofa with his hands clasped neatly in his lap and his head lolling against the back.
In daylight, with damp hair and a clean face, and Alan Jackson's old Chelsea football shirt hanging a bit loose, he looked younger than Sarah Jane had originally guessed, though the scraggly stubble made it hard to tell. Early thirties, maybe. Still, young or old, he was going to wake up with a stiff neck if he stayed like that. She yanked his feet up, and he slid sideways and curled over without waking, even when Luke carefully pushed a pillow back under his head.
"Right, I'm off," Sarah Jane said. "If he wakes up again, see if you can get him to eat something, yes? And I'll be as quick as I can, but you call me right away if you're worried about anything."
"Why would we be worried?" Luke looked completely puzzled, and she sighed. He was far worse than the Doctor when it came to blithely trusting anyone.
Before she could reply, Clyde chipped in. "She means, in case he wakes up and suddenly turns out to be a raving nutcase. Come on, Sarah Jane, have some faith! You don't think he's going to be any worse than the Slitheen, do you? And we're the team who sorted them out!"
"The Graske, the Gorgon," Maria added proudly.
"And the Bane," Luke said. "But Ian's just an ordinary man, like Mr Smith said. So there's nothing to worry about."
Sarah Jane opened her mouth, trying to think of what a good, responsible mother was supposed to say at this point, about ordinary human beings sometimes being just as bad as any of the more monstrous species that found their way to Earth. Though the responsible mothers probably didn't have an attic full of alien technology and the experience of travelling across half the Universe, of course.
"You’re right, I’ll stop worrying - but promise you'll call me right away if you need to. See you later!"
***
Her circuit of the local shelters took longer than she'd thought, and proved to be frustrating. The places themselves were shabby but warm and friendly, and the volunteers who showed her around were all helpful, but there was no sign of anyone resembling Ian in any of the 'missing persons' registers or files that she saw.
Before heading back, she stopped off to buy a few t-shirts and a pair of jeans, guessing at the size - despite what Maria had said, she didn't fancy the idea of Alan knocking at her door and being greeted by a strange man wearing his clothes. In Boots, she grabbed disposable razors, a comb and toothbrush, Solpadol and Lemsip, and checked her phone for the umpteenth time while she waited at the till. No calls. Well, silence was a good sign, she told herself firmly, and tried not to run too many lights on the way home
When she opened the door, Sarah Jane caught the tail-end of a burst of laughter from the living room, and Clyde yelling, "Oh no mate - Transformers was for little kids! You can't like that!"
The living room was a mess, with newspapers and crockery all over the place, and Ian in the middle of the couch, sitting up in an untidy cocoon of duvet and blankets. He smiled and gave her a weak little wave as Luke came over to show her the notepad.
"Maria had this great idea! We've been making lists of things and getting Ian to write down what he likes and hates. To see what he remembers."
"Like Twenty Questions," Maria elaborated. Ian reached for the pad, wrote quickly and handed it back to Sarah Jane with a wry smile.
"20,000 Questions", it said: then did you find anything out about me?
He looked hopefully at her, but his face fell when she shook her head.
"I'm sorry. Nothing yet - but don't worry. We've hardly started looking yet, I'm sure we'll get this all figured out."
She went into the kitchen and hunted around in the cupboard for pasta, as Maria joined her, filling a saucepan with water and putting it on the hob without needing to be asked, practical as ever.
"So, come on - what's he like?" Sarah Jane said quietly. She knew how smart all of the children were - Luke's IQ, of course, was off the scale - but it was Maria's quiet intuition that she trusted to pick up odd things that the boys would have missed.
"Hmmm," Maria was clearing space on the table. "He's nice, actually. Funny, too - I mean, it's hard to tell when he can't speak, but I'm sure some of his answers were just to try and wind Clyde up, and then you look at him and he looks really innocent, like he hasn't a clue, but then he just does this thing with his eyebrows..."
"Funny and nice, that's good. Anything else?"
"He's sad," Maria said, after a pause. "I think he's still scared, but he didn't want us to see that. A car backfired outside and he really jumped. And he doesn't like not remembering, but it's weird, all the different bits... He remembers all the James Bond films, but not what his house looks like. Or where he went on holiday, or if he's got a girlfriend."
The children's questions must have been bewilderingly random to the poor man, Sarah Jane thought, though the idea of getting him to make lists was a good one. She'd have to look at the answers herself, later, see what sense she could make of him from them. "But you don't think he's lying, about his memory?" she asked.
Maria shook her head firmly. "No way. He got really upset, when he couldn't remember some things. Luke asked him about his job, and that made him all... I got him to come in here and have a cup of coffee, to take his mind off it. And so the boys wouldn't see him, you know."
"That was very kind of you."
"Maybe not," Maria said, grinning as she pointed to a note on the shopping list board. In what she recognised as Ian’s quick handwriting, Sarah Jane read, sorry, this coffee is terrible is there any more Ribena?
They ate together in the chaos of the living room, with the TV on. "Harry Hill's TV Burp," Luke had said proudly, handing her the notepad. "It's on his favourites list." And there it was, listed between Antiques Roadshow and Top Gear. Ian definitely had eclectic tastes. Sarah Jane sat back, watching Maria and Clyde laughing, Ian smiling in between mouthfuls, and Luke's attention flitting between the TV screen and his friends' reactions. He still seemed to find some of the nuances of humour almost impossible to grasp.
Maria left afterwards, looking torn. "I need to get back. Dad's joking that I don't love him anymore. I shouldn't leave him on his own so much, I know."
"You can tell him he's welcome to come over here, any time," Sarah Jane said, and she meant it: Alan was a lovely man. Maria grinned, then nodded over at Ian, on to his third bowl of pasta. "Hmm, maybe I should wait to tell him that after, you know..."
"After we get this all sorted, yes, good idea." They were both speaking quietly, but she saw Ian's quick glance over at them both, then away.
"Come on," she said to Clyde. "I'll give you a lift home - no arguments!" she added, seeing Clyde's mouth open in protest. "Your mother won't want you standing around waiting for the bus at this time of night.
In the car, Clyde was unusually quiet for most of the short trip. At the end of his road, he looked up and sighed. "I didn't think it still mattered to him, you know? Luke, being - different. I thought he was happy, happy with us."
"Oh, I think he is happy. He loves school, and has good friends. I'm sure he knows that."
"And he's got you!" Clyde added firmly, then sighed. "Thing is, he was so sure Ian was another Archetype. Last night, when we were talking. He kept wondering if Mr Smith might have made some mistake. He'd spent all week thinking there was someone else just like him, kept going on about it..."
She smiled gently. "You're an only child too, right?"
Clyde shrugged. "No telling what my old man got up to after he walked out on us. Me and Mum have got each other, though, and we're fine. We don't need anyone else."
"I was an orphan," Sarah Jane said. "My Aunt brought me up - don't get me wrong, she loved me, and I was never exactly unhappy. Except, I used to wonder, all the time, what my parents had been like. What it would be like to have a proper family, you know, brothers and sisters too. I had friends, but sometimes I just felt so alone, I suppose. So I can understand why Luke wanted that, wanted Ian to be like a brother, maybe."
Clyde nodded, looking thoughtful, then he grinned and gave her arm a little mock-punch.
"Well, you've both got me and Maria now, so you'll just have to get used to never being alone again. I'll be back round tomorrow morning - and hey, if you're in trouble at all tonight, you've got to call me straight away, right?"
"Yes, I promise!" He made her smile all the way back home: she'd never have had Clyde's self-assurance at that age. Aunt Lavinia had been eccentric, but she'd always believed that children needed to know their place. Treating adults as if they were equals would have been scandalous - well, no way was Luke going to grow up thinking like that, meek and submissive to any one, no matter who they were, or how old. Clyde's breezy but absolute respect for his mother, or the way Maria and Alan Jackson trusted and supported each other - those were the best examples her son could have.
Back home, Luke was still watching the TV, one of those endless talent show competitions that he seemed to be fascinated by. There was no sign of Ian, but the living room itself had been transformed. Everything was neat and straight, newspapers folded into a precise pile, cushions plumped up, the duvet rolled up, dirty plates and cups nowhere to be seen.
"Thanks, Luke!" She leaned over and ruffled his hair. When it came to clearing up after himself, Luke was usually a completely typical teenager. She gestured at the immaculate room. "That was lovely of you!"
"Oh, that was Ian," Luke said, not looking around. "I helped him, but he did most of it himself. He's pretty good at tidying up - he wouldn't let me help him in the kitchen."
"Oh, no!" She hurried through. Her strange visitor was at the sink, scouring the pasta saucepan. Luckily, he hadn't had time to tackle the rest of the mess. "You really don't have to do this!"
He glanced at her, shrugging apologetically, but carried on with the saucepan until she tugged on the sleeve of his t-shirt.
"I'm serious. You're our guest, and you're still unwell. You need to be resting, not going around cleaning up after everyone else!"
He frowned, opening his mouth then shutting it with an impatient sigh. Drying his hands, he rubbed some space on the shopping list board with a tissue.
there's nothing else I can do to thank you
"You don't need to!" But he shook his head, raising the marker pen again.
I need something to do or and he stared at her, hands spread wide. Sarah Jane reached for his free hand, ignoring the small flinch when she touched him.
"Or you'll disappear? I understand, I do - you want to remember. Not knowing who you are must be so frustrating, but the best thing you can do right now is concentrate on getting better. Rest, sleep, eat, don't worry about anything else. Will you do that?"
He bowed his head, nodding slightly without looking up.
"Good. Okay, first we need to change that dressing on your arm, make sure it's still healing. And after that, I picked up a bakewell tart this afternoon - could you manage a slice?" Ah, at least that got her a slight smile.
He was writing again - yes please - ♥ bakewell tart!
"Me too. And - " she reached for the first aid box, giving his hand one last shake. "I won't make you drink any coffee with it, don't worry."
She could see the blush rising, even under his scruffy almost-beard. He grabbed the tissue and scrubbed hastily at the incriminating message on the whiteboard, frowning again.
They were all tired: Ian looked bleary as he ate the dessert, and Luke was stifling yawns - he and Clyde would have been up half the night talking, no doubt. Before Ian dozed off again, Sarah Jane made another mug of Lemsip, and showed him to the spare bedroom.
"Sorry," she said with a grimace. "It's a bit drab, I know." What used to be her guest bedroom was now Luke's room. This had been a not-quite office, filled with clutter over the years. The bed took up most of the space now, and it all needed redecorating, but Ian promptly sat down with a happy sigh, pointing at the pillows and giving her a thumbs-up.
She handed him the things she'd bought that afternoon, and a new notepad and pen - "In case anything crosses your mind in the night." He nodded. "And you know where everything is - kitchen, bathroom. Sleep in as long as you want."
Behind her, Luke appeared, holding out his hand. It was the bell from his bicycle. He handed it to Ian. "In case you need anything and you can't get up. It's really loud!"
Indeed it was - she'd bought him the noisiest one in the shop. If that started ringing in the middle of the night, Sarah Jane thought, she'd probably have a heart attack. Still, it was a nice thought, and Ian seemed to agree. He mouthed thank you, then tapped his temple, pointing at Luke. smart idea.
Luke, bless him, looked pleased to bits.
Downstairs, she finished half-heartedly clearing up the kitchen - the last 24 hours were catching up with her, too - and took a glass of wine and Ian's first notepad to her armchair, to study the lists he'd made. The children's questions had ranged wildly. What football team did he support (he didn't: he watched rugby). Favourite music, films, TV, food... From the answers, Ian appeared to have a sweet tooth and a fondness for crime dramas, silly comedies, and films old and new - there were a dozen black-and-white classics on his list, complete with what had to be Clyde's additions of "Huh?" and "???"
Some of the annotations were definitely Ian's own. On the "Food" list, Marmite was firmly underlined, with a little smiley winking next to it. You can stay, young man, Sarah Jane nodded to herself. "Science" was on the Favourites side, complete with little doodles of graphs and Heath Robinson-esque nonsense machines. "Astronomy" came next, then "Maths", with another Clyde amendment - "no wonder you and Luke get on!" and a response in Ian's hand: a long jumble of symbols and numbers, an equation she didn't recognise at all, though Luke clearly did, judging by the hurried "YES!" scribbled next to it.
He's funny, Maria had said, and Sarah Jane was starting to get a sense of that, though most of the answers were simply too random to tell her anything she could strictly call useful about the man - where he came from, what might have happened to him. Yawning herself, Sarah Jane finished her wine and headed for bed.
She forgot to set her alarm, and overslept the next morning. Before Luke, sleeping in on a Sunday wouldn't have mattered at all, but now she felt the need to be a bit more responsible, set a good example. She dragged her dressing gown on and stumbled to the bathroom, but the door was locked - Luke had beaten her to it.
Never mind. She headed for the stairs, thinking about putting the kettle on, when she heard the door open behind her. When she turned, it wasn't Luke coming out of the bathroom, but a tall, clean-shaven young man in jeans and a white t-shirt, dark hair combed neatly back. As he smiled politely at her, eyebrows raised, she realised with a slight shock that it was Ian.
"Oh my goodness, you look - um!" she said, feeling absurdly wrong-footed. Without the beard, scrubbed clean and in new clothes, it dawned on her that she'd have to revise his age down by yet another decade: he couldn't have been more than in his mid-twenties. Definitely handsome too, oh dear! "I mean, you look as if you had a good sleep. How are you feeling?"
"Much better, thank you." Ian's voice was back - still a faint whisper, but without the painful, choking rasp he'd had on that first evening. "And thank you for all these -" he gestured down at his torso. "Good fit. Don't know how to -"
"You're welcome," Sarah Jane cut in, smiling. "But listen, you need to go slowly with the voice. Stick to writing things down for now, if you can. You don't want to lose it as soon as you've started to get it back!"
He bowed his head, almost formal, with a smile. Nice manners, for someone who couldn't be that much older than Luke and Clyde, and wasn't that a disconcerting thought? "Now, what would you like for breakfast? How about some toast... I have Marmite!"
The grin she got for that was positively radiant. Sarah Jane laughed. "Do you feel up to helping yourself? I think I need a bath - I won't be long. Luke will show you where everything is."
She wasn't surprised, by now, to see that the bathroom had been left immaculately clean and neat, down to Alan's old clothes folded in a sharp-edged pile on top of the laundry basket. She pondered as the bath filled. Was Ian a hotelier, maybe? Or just someone with a bit of a tidying fetish? Well, David Beckham was supposed to love nothing more than hoovering the carpets of his luxury homes in nice neat lines. Maybe Clyde's dreams of an undercover millionaire weren't totally ruled out yet.
She soaked in the bath for a long time, enjoying the hot scented water and the peace and quiet of a Sunday morning, letting her mind wander. Ian had still been a little unsteady as he'd headed downstairs, though he was obviously recovering fast from the effects of his time in the Bubble Shock cupboard. He was breathing much less painfully now, at least. She didn't like to think what would have happened to him if Luke hadn't given in to his curiosity.
He looked so different without the beard! It was more than that, though: he'd been sick and groggy before, only half-there. Now, even in that short meeting on the landing, he was obviously more awake and aware. Younger than she'd guessed, taller than she'd realised, long pale feet... Oh God, she'd forgotten to buy him any underwear at all! Maybe it would be okay to ask Maria to swipe a pair of Alan's old socks, at least, when she smuggled his other clothes back home? After all, everybody expected socks to go missing completely at random. She had an idea that the Doctor probably knew exactly which alternate dimension all the missing socks vanished into. She'd have to ask him, if they ever met again. After their reunion last year, that no longer seemed as unlikely as it used to. Or maybe it just wasn't quite as important as it had been, before Luke?
By the time she got out of the bath, her fingers and toes were pink and wrinkled, and the room was full of steam. She opened the window an inch, towelling her hair in front of the mirror. As the steam cleared, she noticed faint marks in the condensation on the mirror, like fingerprints, a neat double line of dots, more dots below making the outline of a letter...
She'd seen that pattern before. Sarah Jane put her hand over her mouth, stared at the fingermarked shape that was fading before her eyes as cold air filled the bathroom. But it wasn't the breeze that was making goosepimples spring up all over her arms.
She dried herself quickly, hurrying back to her bedroom to dress, with a towel wrapped around her head - time for the hairdryer later. Downstairs, Luke and Ian were sitting together in the living room, playing one of Luke's Wii games, with two discarded bowls of cereal on the floor next to them.
Maria was in the kitchen, making a pot of tea. She waved both hands excitedly at Sarah Jane as she came in.
"Wow, have you seen Ian this morning? He's a bit hot! Didn't you think..." She was whispering, a little breathlessly, as she grinned. Sarah Jane sat down, helping herself to tea. Two sugars this morning, definitely. Maria stared, the smile fading. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Oh, Maria," Sarah Jane sighed, staring at the teacup. "It's Ian - I think I know what happened to him now."
***
Part 3
Part 2
Sarah Jane woke up to sunlight slicing through a small gap in the curtains, and Maria sitting quietly on the floor, smiling at her. On the other side of the room, the sound of rusty breathing from the sofa told her that her unplanned houseguest was still asleep.
"Morning!" Maria whispered.
"Oooh... what time is it?" Sarah Jane stretched, feeling everything creak disagreeably.
"Eightish. Luke and Clyde are getting breakfast. Why don't you go to bed for a few hours? Get some real sleep - we can keep an eye on Ian."
"Are you sure?" Sarah Jane said, though the thought of a cup of tea and a nap in her own bed was terribly tempting.
"Yeah, we'll be fine. And look - I've borrowed a couple of things from Dad, for when Ian wakes up." She rummaged in a carrier bag, pulling out sweatpants and a t-shirt. "They're sort of the same size, so I think these should fit him OK. They'll do for now, at any rate."
"What did you tell your father?" Sarah Jane said, alarmed.
Maria rolled her eyes. "Nothing! Ian's supposed to be hiding, right? Dad's gone to the gym. He won't notice."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah!" Maria laughed. "We're talking about the man who couldn't find a single pair of his own pants the day after we moved! Mind you, I think Mum might have hidden them deliberately when we were packing, just to see how he'd cope."
"Well, thank you. Good thinking - I'm sure Ian will be grateful, when he wakes up. It's probably best to let him sleep for now. And I'll be back down before lunchtime, but call me if there's anything you need before then, right?"
She went by the kitchen to wish the boys a half-awake, "Good morning!"
Clyde waved a disgustingly lurid cereal box at her. "You have Coooookie Crisp! I think I need to come round here for breakfast more often!"
"How's Ian?" Luke asked.
"Still asleep. I expect that's the best thing for him right now. And I'm going to do the same thing, in my own bed. Will you all be OK for a few hours?"
"Yes," Luke replied, and Clyde grimaced and nodded, mouth full of cereal.
A decent nap turned out to be just what she needed. When Sarah Jane cane back downstairs a few hours later, she found that Ian hadn't woken up at all, and that the children had been quietly busy all morning. There was a fresh jug of Ribena and a box of Strepsils next to the painkillers on the coffee table, and Maria was tapping away on the laptop, while Luke and Clyde worked their way through a big pile of local and national newspapers strewn all over the carpet.
"Missing Persons ads," Luke stage-whispered. "But none of them sound like Ian."
"No mystery millionaires either," Clyde added, looking disappointed. "Though I'm still looking."
Maria showed her a list of addresses and telephone numbers.
"These are all the local charity shelters, Salvation Army, anything like that. I thought we could start calling round this afternoon."
Sarah Jane beamed at them all. "This is really impressive!" she began, but her voice must have been louder than the children's, as the duvet on the sofa shifted, and Ian peered blearily out at her, blinking.
He looked confused. "Morning!" she said, smiling reassuringly. "Well, lunchtime, really. You've had a good long sleep - how are you feeling?"
Ian opened his mouth - his lips moved, but no sound came out.
Behind her, Clyde let out a hoot of laughter. "Oh my God, how funny is that!"
"That's funny?" Luke said uncertainly.
"No it isn't!" Maria snapped. "Stop laughing, Clyde, you're scaring him."
Ian did actually look quite shocked. Sarah Jane grabbed a notepad and pen from her desk drawer, handing them to him. "Don't worry! You sounded rather hoarse last night, it's probably laryngitis. I had it last winter - oh, it's completely annoying, I know, but you'll get your voice back in a day or two, I promise. In the meantime, use these..."
She trailed off: Ian was still staring at her. "You do remember me, don't you?"
He nodded, taking the pad and pen and writing before holding it up.
Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, Clive
"That's 'Clyde'," she whispered, grinning at Clyde's squawk of outrage over her shoulder. Ian was scribbling again, in loose but clear handwriting. He turned the page to show her.
no memory and no voice
I'm vanishing
"No, you're not, really!" She leaned in, made the blue eyes meet hers. "Look, this time yesterday you'd been hiding in a damp cupboard for a week. At least you're indoors now, nice and warm. And you're not alone - that has to be better, right?"
Ian nodded slowly, taking the notepad again.
sorry
thank you
can I use your bathroom?
"Of course! And don't worry about anything. You're probably the most undemanding guest I've ever had. You should see what Alistair's like in the mornings when he stays here." She handed him Maria's carrier bag. "There are some clean clothes in there - we think they'll fit you. The bathroom's upstairs, second door on the left. Will you be alright?"
He nodded again, with a quick, shy smile, before wrapping the duvet modestly around himself and shuffling off. Sarah Jane stripped the sofa, handing the sheets to Luke.
"Laundry basket for those, please. Ian can sleep in the spare bedroom tonight, I think. Now, we need to work out how to use your list, Maria. Will it be better to phone around, or to visit each of the shelters?"
"Phone would be quicker," Luke said.
"But most people tell you more when they're face-to-face," Clyde countered. "You can connect with them - read their body language and all that."
"And - " Maria held up her mobile phone. "We all took pictures of Ian when he was asleep. That way, we can show people what he looks like, see if anyone recognises him!"
Sarah Jane shook her head. "Hang on - we need to be careful about this. If Ian's right that someone is after him, we can't just dash about letting everyone know that he's here with us. Whoever did this to him may well be thinking the same way as us - checking places where missing persons get reported. I don't think we should show anyone those photos, not for now, at least."
The kids looked crestfallen. "I thought it was such a good idea," Maria said glumly.
"It was! Don't get rid of those, we may need them later. For now though, I think you're right, Clyde. Face-to-face is probably the best way to go about this."
"Well..." Maria rustled the newspaper in her hand. "You are a proper journalist, with a proper NUJ card you can show them, so I suppose it wouldn't be odd for you to go asking around the shelters."
"You could say you were... doing a piece on homeless people, missing people, then ask them about who's been recently reported missing?" Luke suggested.
"Yes, that would be plausible. But what happens to Ian while I'm out?"
Clyde sighed. "Weren't you the one saying he's not a problem? Look, it'll be fine. We'll stay here and keep an eye on him, and that way we can also carry on checking through the papers and the internet for you."
"Alright..." She wondered what Chrissy Jackson would have to say about mad 'Mary-Jane' leaving three children alone in the house with a grown man they knew absolutely nothing about. Even if Ian seemed to be more apprehensive about all of them than they were about him.
In the end, she knew, it came down to trusting your instincts. The Doctor had always been ready to give pretty much anyone the benefit of the doubt, which might have something to do with the amazing amount of danger he was always getting himself into, of course. Then again, she'd never seen him turn his back on anyone in trouble, and she didn't doubt for a moment that Ian needed their help.
More than that, there was something about this man that reminded her of Luke, even though he was clearly not another Archetype. Not a child, but lost like Luke had been, and confused, with no-one else looking out for him. She couldn't say why, but her instincts told her that he wasn't any kind of a threat.
She'd been doing so well, in her years of self-imposed exile after the Doctor - or so she'd always believed. A career, a big house, a solitude she'd called independence, and maybe all of those things had been right, in their time. But meeting the Doctor again had thrown all her carefully-structured certainties on their head, just as he had the first time they'd met, showing her the things she was missing.
She watched Luke with an armful of sheets, laughing at a picture Clyde was pointing out to him in one of the newspapers, and Maria sitting on the sofa next to her, studying the laptop and making quick notes on the pad balanced on her knee. Did the Doctor even have a clue, how easily and completely he changed the lives of the people he met? Probably not.
"I fancy cheese on toast," she said brightly. "Anyone else?"
She heard footsteps on the stairs while they were all eating in the kitchen, but Ian didn't join them. Back in the living room, it turned out that he'd drunk all the Ribena and promptly fallen asleep again, sitting upright on the sofa with his hands clasped neatly in his lap and his head lolling against the back.
In daylight, with damp hair and a clean face, and Alan Jackson's old Chelsea football shirt hanging a bit loose, he looked younger than Sarah Jane had originally guessed, though the scraggly stubble made it hard to tell. Early thirties, maybe. Still, young or old, he was going to wake up with a stiff neck if he stayed like that. She yanked his feet up, and he slid sideways and curled over without waking, even when Luke carefully pushed a pillow back under his head.
"Right, I'm off," Sarah Jane said. "If he wakes up again, see if you can get him to eat something, yes? And I'll be as quick as I can, but you call me right away if you're worried about anything."
"Why would we be worried?" Luke looked completely puzzled, and she sighed. He was far worse than the Doctor when it came to blithely trusting anyone.
Before she could reply, Clyde chipped in. "She means, in case he wakes up and suddenly turns out to be a raving nutcase. Come on, Sarah Jane, have some faith! You don't think he's going to be any worse than the Slitheen, do you? And we're the team who sorted them out!"
"The Graske, the Gorgon," Maria added proudly.
"And the Bane," Luke said. "But Ian's just an ordinary man, like Mr Smith said. So there's nothing to worry about."
Sarah Jane opened her mouth, trying to think of what a good, responsible mother was supposed to say at this point, about ordinary human beings sometimes being just as bad as any of the more monstrous species that found their way to Earth. Though the responsible mothers probably didn't have an attic full of alien technology and the experience of travelling across half the Universe, of course.
"You’re right, I’ll stop worrying - but promise you'll call me right away if you need to. See you later!"
***
Her circuit of the local shelters took longer than she'd thought, and proved to be frustrating. The places themselves were shabby but warm and friendly, and the volunteers who showed her around were all helpful, but there was no sign of anyone resembling Ian in any of the 'missing persons' registers or files that she saw.
Before heading back, she stopped off to buy a few t-shirts and a pair of jeans, guessing at the size - despite what Maria had said, she didn't fancy the idea of Alan knocking at her door and being greeted by a strange man wearing his clothes. In Boots, she grabbed disposable razors, a comb and toothbrush, Solpadol and Lemsip, and checked her phone for the umpteenth time while she waited at the till. No calls. Well, silence was a good sign, she told herself firmly, and tried not to run too many lights on the way home
When she opened the door, Sarah Jane caught the tail-end of a burst of laughter from the living room, and Clyde yelling, "Oh no mate - Transformers was for little kids! You can't like that!"
The living room was a mess, with newspapers and crockery all over the place, and Ian in the middle of the couch, sitting up in an untidy cocoon of duvet and blankets. He smiled and gave her a weak little wave as Luke came over to show her the notepad.
"Maria had this great idea! We've been making lists of things and getting Ian to write down what he likes and hates. To see what he remembers."
"Like Twenty Questions," Maria elaborated. Ian reached for the pad, wrote quickly and handed it back to Sarah Jane with a wry smile.
"20,000 Questions", it said: then did you find anything out about me?
He looked hopefully at her, but his face fell when she shook her head.
"I'm sorry. Nothing yet - but don't worry. We've hardly started looking yet, I'm sure we'll get this all figured out."
She went into the kitchen and hunted around in the cupboard for pasta, as Maria joined her, filling a saucepan with water and putting it on the hob without needing to be asked, practical as ever.
"So, come on - what's he like?" Sarah Jane said quietly. She knew how smart all of the children were - Luke's IQ, of course, was off the scale - but it was Maria's quiet intuition that she trusted to pick up odd things that the boys would have missed.
"Hmmm," Maria was clearing space on the table. "He's nice, actually. Funny, too - I mean, it's hard to tell when he can't speak, but I'm sure some of his answers were just to try and wind Clyde up, and then you look at him and he looks really innocent, like he hasn't a clue, but then he just does this thing with his eyebrows..."
"Funny and nice, that's good. Anything else?"
"He's sad," Maria said, after a pause. "I think he's still scared, but he didn't want us to see that. A car backfired outside and he really jumped. And he doesn't like not remembering, but it's weird, all the different bits... He remembers all the James Bond films, but not what his house looks like. Or where he went on holiday, or if he's got a girlfriend."
The children's questions must have been bewilderingly random to the poor man, Sarah Jane thought, though the idea of getting him to make lists was a good one. She'd have to look at the answers herself, later, see what sense she could make of him from them. "But you don't think he's lying, about his memory?" she asked.
Maria shook her head firmly. "No way. He got really upset, when he couldn't remember some things. Luke asked him about his job, and that made him all... I got him to come in here and have a cup of coffee, to take his mind off it. And so the boys wouldn't see him, you know."
"That was very kind of you."
"Maybe not," Maria said, grinning as she pointed to a note on the shopping list board. In what she recognised as Ian’s quick handwriting, Sarah Jane read, sorry, this coffee is terrible is there any more Ribena?
They ate together in the chaos of the living room, with the TV on. "Harry Hill's TV Burp," Luke had said proudly, handing her the notepad. "It's on his favourites list." And there it was, listed between Antiques Roadshow and Top Gear. Ian definitely had eclectic tastes. Sarah Jane sat back, watching Maria and Clyde laughing, Ian smiling in between mouthfuls, and Luke's attention flitting between the TV screen and his friends' reactions. He still seemed to find some of the nuances of humour almost impossible to grasp.
Maria left afterwards, looking torn. "I need to get back. Dad's joking that I don't love him anymore. I shouldn't leave him on his own so much, I know."
"You can tell him he's welcome to come over here, any time," Sarah Jane said, and she meant it: Alan was a lovely man. Maria grinned, then nodded over at Ian, on to his third bowl of pasta. "Hmm, maybe I should wait to tell him that after, you know..."
"After we get this all sorted, yes, good idea." They were both speaking quietly, but she saw Ian's quick glance over at them both, then away.
"Come on," she said to Clyde. "I'll give you a lift home - no arguments!" she added, seeing Clyde's mouth open in protest. "Your mother won't want you standing around waiting for the bus at this time of night.
In the car, Clyde was unusually quiet for most of the short trip. At the end of his road, he looked up and sighed. "I didn't think it still mattered to him, you know? Luke, being - different. I thought he was happy, happy with us."
"Oh, I think he is happy. He loves school, and has good friends. I'm sure he knows that."
"And he's got you!" Clyde added firmly, then sighed. "Thing is, he was so sure Ian was another Archetype. Last night, when we were talking. He kept wondering if Mr Smith might have made some mistake. He'd spent all week thinking there was someone else just like him, kept going on about it..."
She smiled gently. "You're an only child too, right?"
Clyde shrugged. "No telling what my old man got up to after he walked out on us. Me and Mum have got each other, though, and we're fine. We don't need anyone else."
"I was an orphan," Sarah Jane said. "My Aunt brought me up - don't get me wrong, she loved me, and I was never exactly unhappy. Except, I used to wonder, all the time, what my parents had been like. What it would be like to have a proper family, you know, brothers and sisters too. I had friends, but sometimes I just felt so alone, I suppose. So I can understand why Luke wanted that, wanted Ian to be like a brother, maybe."
Clyde nodded, looking thoughtful, then he grinned and gave her arm a little mock-punch.
"Well, you've both got me and Maria now, so you'll just have to get used to never being alone again. I'll be back round tomorrow morning - and hey, if you're in trouble at all tonight, you've got to call me straight away, right?"
"Yes, I promise!" He made her smile all the way back home: she'd never have had Clyde's self-assurance at that age. Aunt Lavinia had been eccentric, but she'd always believed that children needed to know their place. Treating adults as if they were equals would have been scandalous - well, no way was Luke going to grow up thinking like that, meek and submissive to any one, no matter who they were, or how old. Clyde's breezy but absolute respect for his mother, or the way Maria and Alan Jackson trusted and supported each other - those were the best examples her son could have.
Back home, Luke was still watching the TV, one of those endless talent show competitions that he seemed to be fascinated by. There was no sign of Ian, but the living room itself had been transformed. Everything was neat and straight, newspapers folded into a precise pile, cushions plumped up, the duvet rolled up, dirty plates and cups nowhere to be seen.
"Thanks, Luke!" She leaned over and ruffled his hair. When it came to clearing up after himself, Luke was usually a completely typical teenager. She gestured at the immaculate room. "That was lovely of you!"
"Oh, that was Ian," Luke said, not looking around. "I helped him, but he did most of it himself. He's pretty good at tidying up - he wouldn't let me help him in the kitchen."
"Oh, no!" She hurried through. Her strange visitor was at the sink, scouring the pasta saucepan. Luckily, he hadn't had time to tackle the rest of the mess. "You really don't have to do this!"
He glanced at her, shrugging apologetically, but carried on with the saucepan until she tugged on the sleeve of his t-shirt.
"I'm serious. You're our guest, and you're still unwell. You need to be resting, not going around cleaning up after everyone else!"
He frowned, opening his mouth then shutting it with an impatient sigh. Drying his hands, he rubbed some space on the shopping list board with a tissue.
there's nothing else I can do to thank you
"You don't need to!" But he shook his head, raising the marker pen again.
I need something to do or and he stared at her, hands spread wide. Sarah Jane reached for his free hand, ignoring the small flinch when she touched him.
"Or you'll disappear? I understand, I do - you want to remember. Not knowing who you are must be so frustrating, but the best thing you can do right now is concentrate on getting better. Rest, sleep, eat, don't worry about anything else. Will you do that?"
He bowed his head, nodding slightly without looking up.
"Good. Okay, first we need to change that dressing on your arm, make sure it's still healing. And after that, I picked up a bakewell tart this afternoon - could you manage a slice?" Ah, at least that got her a slight smile.
He was writing again - yes please - ♥ bakewell tart!
"Me too. And - " she reached for the first aid box, giving his hand one last shake. "I won't make you drink any coffee with it, don't worry."
She could see the blush rising, even under his scruffy almost-beard. He grabbed the tissue and scrubbed hastily at the incriminating message on the whiteboard, frowning again.
They were all tired: Ian looked bleary as he ate the dessert, and Luke was stifling yawns - he and Clyde would have been up half the night talking, no doubt. Before Ian dozed off again, Sarah Jane made another mug of Lemsip, and showed him to the spare bedroom.
"Sorry," she said with a grimace. "It's a bit drab, I know." What used to be her guest bedroom was now Luke's room. This had been a not-quite office, filled with clutter over the years. The bed took up most of the space now, and it all needed redecorating, but Ian promptly sat down with a happy sigh, pointing at the pillows and giving her a thumbs-up.
She handed him the things she'd bought that afternoon, and a new notepad and pen - "In case anything crosses your mind in the night." He nodded. "And you know where everything is - kitchen, bathroom. Sleep in as long as you want."
Behind her, Luke appeared, holding out his hand. It was the bell from his bicycle. He handed it to Ian. "In case you need anything and you can't get up. It's really loud!"
Indeed it was - she'd bought him the noisiest one in the shop. If that started ringing in the middle of the night, Sarah Jane thought, she'd probably have a heart attack. Still, it was a nice thought, and Ian seemed to agree. He mouthed thank you, then tapped his temple, pointing at Luke. smart idea.
Luke, bless him, looked pleased to bits.
Downstairs, she finished half-heartedly clearing up the kitchen - the last 24 hours were catching up with her, too - and took a glass of wine and Ian's first notepad to her armchair, to study the lists he'd made. The children's questions had ranged wildly. What football team did he support (he didn't: he watched rugby). Favourite music, films, TV, food... From the answers, Ian appeared to have a sweet tooth and a fondness for crime dramas, silly comedies, and films old and new - there were a dozen black-and-white classics on his list, complete with what had to be Clyde's additions of "Huh?" and "???"
Some of the annotations were definitely Ian's own. On the "Food" list, Marmite was firmly underlined, with a little smiley winking next to it. You can stay, young man, Sarah Jane nodded to herself. "Science" was on the Favourites side, complete with little doodles of graphs and Heath Robinson-esque nonsense machines. "Astronomy" came next, then "Maths", with another Clyde amendment - "no wonder you and Luke get on!" and a response in Ian's hand: a long jumble of symbols and numbers, an equation she didn't recognise at all, though Luke clearly did, judging by the hurried "YES!" scribbled next to it.
He's funny, Maria had said, and Sarah Jane was starting to get a sense of that, though most of the answers were simply too random to tell her anything she could strictly call useful about the man - where he came from, what might have happened to him. Yawning herself, Sarah Jane finished her wine and headed for bed.
She forgot to set her alarm, and overslept the next morning. Before Luke, sleeping in on a Sunday wouldn't have mattered at all, but now she felt the need to be a bit more responsible, set a good example. She dragged her dressing gown on and stumbled to the bathroom, but the door was locked - Luke had beaten her to it.
Never mind. She headed for the stairs, thinking about putting the kettle on, when she heard the door open behind her. When she turned, it wasn't Luke coming out of the bathroom, but a tall, clean-shaven young man in jeans and a white t-shirt, dark hair combed neatly back. As he smiled politely at her, eyebrows raised, she realised with a slight shock that it was Ian.
"Oh my goodness, you look - um!" she said, feeling absurdly wrong-footed. Without the beard, scrubbed clean and in new clothes, it dawned on her that she'd have to revise his age down by yet another decade: he couldn't have been more than in his mid-twenties. Definitely handsome too, oh dear! "I mean, you look as if you had a good sleep. How are you feeling?"
"Much better, thank you." Ian's voice was back - still a faint whisper, but without the painful, choking rasp he'd had on that first evening. "And thank you for all these -" he gestured down at his torso. "Good fit. Don't know how to -"
"You're welcome," Sarah Jane cut in, smiling. "But listen, you need to go slowly with the voice. Stick to writing things down for now, if you can. You don't want to lose it as soon as you've started to get it back!"
He bowed his head, almost formal, with a smile. Nice manners, for someone who couldn't be that much older than Luke and Clyde, and wasn't that a disconcerting thought? "Now, what would you like for breakfast? How about some toast... I have Marmite!"
The grin she got for that was positively radiant. Sarah Jane laughed. "Do you feel up to helping yourself? I think I need a bath - I won't be long. Luke will show you where everything is."
She wasn't surprised, by now, to see that the bathroom had been left immaculately clean and neat, down to Alan's old clothes folded in a sharp-edged pile on top of the laundry basket. She pondered as the bath filled. Was Ian a hotelier, maybe? Or just someone with a bit of a tidying fetish? Well, David Beckham was supposed to love nothing more than hoovering the carpets of his luxury homes in nice neat lines. Maybe Clyde's dreams of an undercover millionaire weren't totally ruled out yet.
She soaked in the bath for a long time, enjoying the hot scented water and the peace and quiet of a Sunday morning, letting her mind wander. Ian had still been a little unsteady as he'd headed downstairs, though he was obviously recovering fast from the effects of his time in the Bubble Shock cupboard. He was breathing much less painfully now, at least. She didn't like to think what would have happened to him if Luke hadn't given in to his curiosity.
He looked so different without the beard! It was more than that, though: he'd been sick and groggy before, only half-there. Now, even in that short meeting on the landing, he was obviously more awake and aware. Younger than she'd guessed, taller than she'd realised, long pale feet... Oh God, she'd forgotten to buy him any underwear at all! Maybe it would be okay to ask Maria to swipe a pair of Alan's old socks, at least, when she smuggled his other clothes back home? After all, everybody expected socks to go missing completely at random. She had an idea that the Doctor probably knew exactly which alternate dimension all the missing socks vanished into. She'd have to ask him, if they ever met again. After their reunion last year, that no longer seemed as unlikely as it used to. Or maybe it just wasn't quite as important as it had been, before Luke?
By the time she got out of the bath, her fingers and toes were pink and wrinkled, and the room was full of steam. She opened the window an inch, towelling her hair in front of the mirror. As the steam cleared, she noticed faint marks in the condensation on the mirror, like fingerprints, a neat double line of dots, more dots below making the outline of a letter...
She'd seen that pattern before. Sarah Jane put her hand over her mouth, stared at the fingermarked shape that was fading before her eyes as cold air filled the bathroom. But it wasn't the breeze that was making goosepimples spring up all over her arms.
She dried herself quickly, hurrying back to her bedroom to dress, with a towel wrapped around her head - time for the hairdryer later. Downstairs, Luke and Ian were sitting together in the living room, playing one of Luke's Wii games, with two discarded bowls of cereal on the floor next to them.
Maria was in the kitchen, making a pot of tea. She waved both hands excitedly at Sarah Jane as she came in.
"Wow, have you seen Ian this morning? He's a bit hot! Didn't you think..." She was whispering, a little breathlessly, as she grinned. Sarah Jane sat down, helping herself to tea. Two sugars this morning, definitely. Maria stared, the smile fading. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Oh, Maria," Sarah Jane sighed, staring at the teacup. "It's Ian - I think I know what happened to him now."
***
Part 3