(Untitled)

[notthesinger]

Alan awkwardly wrestles the front door open, both arms full of shopping bags.

"Maria!" he calls, in case she's back from Sarah Jane's. "Could you come help me bring in the shopping?"

Then he looks up.

". . . Maria?"

[Tiny tag: Alan Jackson]

[OOC: Taggable till it falls off the front page, and doubly so if you are a canon-mate. *g*]

Comments

[not_on_her_own]

Maria finds it hard to keep track of time in this place, and even harder keeping track of it out of this place. That is, she can't recall whether it's been a week, or longer, since she's been here last. It feels longer, but maybe because she just loves it here so much.

What's more important is that she's here, now, and has been enjoying a chocolate milkshake in a corner booth while taking a break from studies. The voice she hears calling her name is unmistakable. Instantly, she lets the straw fall away from her mouth and looks up, seeing her dad. Her dad, in Milliways.

"Dad?" She calls loudly, wondering if he can hear her over the din of the bar crowd.

[notthesinger]

Alan could hear his daughter's voice a mile away in a hurricane. He turns immediately to look in the direction it's coming from.

"Maria!" he calls, hurrying over, bags of shopping he's holding entirely forgotten. She looks all right - surprised, but not upset or distressed, which goes a long way toward calming Alan's own considerable anxiety at finding a restaurant in his front hall. This is clearly an alien thing, and Alan may be the father, but Maria still knows more about these things than he does.

"What's going on?" he asks when he reaches her. "What is this place?"

[not_on_her_own]

She pushes the glass away completely, then stands up, looking at him with an expression that's a mixture of surprise, delight, and worry. She's been here long enough to know that people come in from different times, so she wonders how much he knows about aliens already. If he's coming from her time, it won't be quite as hard to take in. So she treads carefully. Plus, she's not sure what he'll think about her being in a bar at the end of the universe.

"It's a...pub," she begins, uncertainly, looking away briefly, like she often does when she's fearful of reprimand. Her head ducks slightly, but then she looks back up at him. "At the end of the universe."

[notthesinger]

"A pub at the end of the universe," Alan repeats. He isn't sure which bit to start with first. A pub is a pub, regardless of where in the universe it's situated, but a pub that pops up in their home might need an approach other than the bog standard Disapproving Parent response. The alien stuff usually does. He settles for giving Maria the "I'm withholding judgement until I know more, but you'd best make it good" look.

[his_sarah_jane]

"I think you're in the wrong place," Sarah Jane answers with a dry chuckle.

She walks over from her seat at the bar, abandoning her cup of tea to give the man with the bags a helping hand. Despite being rather awake and content earlier in the day, she looks a little troubled now, lost in thought.

Sarah wants to head home, but she won't leave the bar until she's certain Allana's gone home.

"This isn't your kitchen, but I don't mind helping with the bags."

[notthesinger]

Alan lets the woman take one of the bags, mostly because he's busy doing a bit of a doubletake. She's the spitting image of Sarah Jane, maybe thirty years younger. Sarah Jane doesn't have a daughter, though. She would have mentioned by now. And he's heard her talk enough about travelling in time that . . .

"Sarah Jane?" he asks tentatively. The sensible reflex, the one from before he learnt the truth that he hasn't managed to kill yet, insists that he's being ridiculous and making a fool of himself, of course this woman isn't Sarah Jane. But Alan's getting better and better at ignoring it.

[his_sarah_jane]

Sarah blinks, startled at being recognised. Adjusting the bag in her arms, she looks at Alan for a couple of seconds. He does look familiar. There must be something about him...

"Oh! Agent Carter!"

She smiles brightly, if not unusually polite. Aside from Villiers and that one time visit from M, James never mentioned any of his coworkers showing up here.

"That's certainly a leap from the usual Mrs Bond. I didn't even know you knew my first name."

[notthesinger]

Alan is thrown. Agent what? This is, apparently, Sarah Jane, and of course he wouldn't expect a decades-younger Sarah Jane to recognise him. The only thing he might have expected even less, though, would have been being taken for someone else. And now he's not sure how to explain that he's gotten it right and she hasn't. It's probably not a good idea to meet someone decades too soon, anyway. There are probably rules.

(And: Mrs? When was she married?)

Still, it's too late. If she's anything now like she will be in thirty years, she won't let him brush it off with a half-formed excuse.

"I'm sorry," he says cautiously, "I think we've got our wires crossed. My name is Alan. Jackson," he adds, in case she doesn't know this Agent Carter's first name.