FIC: Decisions and Revisions
Title: Decisions and Revisions
Rating: PGish
Fandom: Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures
Pairing: Eight/Sarah Jane
Spoilers: "Journey's End"
Notes: This wouldn't exist without hailpoetry who provided both the inspiration and the beta.
Summary: She can never shake the feeling that the balance they've struck is a fragile one that might shatter at any moment, destroying both of them in the wake of its collapse.
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
It takes a year to get used to the fact that when he said he'd be back, he meant it. She never realized that he meant he'd be back often but she's hardly in a position to complain. He always arrives according to her timeline, and there's comfort in that. He never arrives with memories of adventures she has yet to experience, and he never doubles back.
She has no idea how much time passes for him, and there's no set pattern to how long she will wait between visits. When he does come, it may only be for a cup of tea, or he may stay for days without giving any indication that he intends to leave at all. Once she's sure he'll be back, she is grateful for each departure.
She loves him, but she's spent most of her life alone and she needs a measure of solitude. The only constant in his presence is that he usually manages to be gone when the world comes under threat; she suspects that much is intentional.
It's three years before she trusts herself to keep the fragmented scraps she knows of his future to herself.
The first time she met this regeneration, it was an accident, and she very nearly walked away. He asked for just a few more minutes, and really, what harm could there be in a few minutes? Minutes became hours, and without realizing what she was saying, she begged a trip to the one place she knew she absolutely should not go.
She cried when she stepped out of the TARDIS onto the firm ground of a world she knew was doomed. They made love in the grass of the Ataraxian Meadows as the sun sank below the mountains and set the planet ablaze. The older regeneration, the skinny wisp of a man in pinstripes and plimsolls assured her that it had always been that way for him. Still, knowing that a few whispered words might save his planet and destroy the universe is not something she takes lightly.
With Luke, she stresses the importance of discretion on a daily basis. He's never needed reminding of anything, but she worries.
When she finally agrees to let them meet she fully expects it to result in the end of the world. She over-prepares, and he goes around her to ensure that all her planning was little more than a waste of nervous energy. They agree to a shared meal, which suits her need for control. There's a set beginning and end, easy to extend if it goes well, easy to cut short if it doesn't. It's a perfect plan, but he doesn't stick to it. The day before he's meant to join them for supper, she looks out the window to find the two of them rounding the corner onto Bannerman Road.
They pass the afternoon engrossed in a conversation about physics that's well beyond her own understanding of the subject. Luke has the good sense not to say anything that might ripple forward or backwards through time, and the Doctor asks nothing that she feels would be better kept from him.
That night, she finds the Doctor in the attic replacing the lock on a filing cabinet.
"Deadlock seal," he explains, sonic screwdriver held between his teeth. "In case I get a bit curious." He looks up at her, eyes soft and sincere.
Her own ability to keep silent is still imperfect, and she is floored by the lack of judgement in his acknowledgment of her flaws. His eyes slide past her to settle on a picture hung against the far wall. She turns to follow his gaze, and her heart leaps into her throat.
"Oh, so that's what I'll look like, hmm?" he asks, studying the man in the picture and running a hand through his own, somewhat tamer, hair.
They are looking at themselves, huddled around K-9. He is older and she is younger, and she had forgotten that the picture existed at all. Once, she thought that would be the last she saw of him, and to mark the moment she pulled a frame from a bit of CCTV footage, touched it up, and added it to the collection of old memories.
"I told you," she says, snatching the picture from the wall. "Too tall, too young, and far too skinny."
"You didn't, actually. Luke told me. You merely confirmed it. Although he was a bit nicer about it, wasn't he?"
She can't decide if she wants to hit him or kiss him. She settles for tucking the picture into the filing cabinet and when she turns back around, everything is as she left it. Crisis averted, then.
Some things never change, his navigation skills among them. He manages days well enough, but pinpointing a specific time seems beyond him. Sometimes he arrives for dinner before she's started on breakfast, but most of the time he shows up in the middle of the night. Sometimes he'll spend the hours until sunrise on his own. He's played chess with Mr. Smith, read every book in her attic, and tinkered with every bit of alien technology she's collected over the years. One night, he modifies every tube of lipstick she owns, leaving twelve new sonic devices sitting at her desk. After all, you never know when an extra might come in handy.
When the attic's contents no longer provide adequate mental stimulation, he slides into bed alongside her. The first time, he catches her by surprise and she nearly breaks his jaw as she pushes him out of the bed and raises her bedside lamp to strike the perceived intruder. Within a few months, he ceases to startle her, no matter how he might choose to make his presence known. Sometimes, he seems content to lie next to her as she sleeps, silently watching her breathe. Sometimes he wants her awake, and if pulling her into his arms fails to garner a response, he presses soft kisses against her cheeks and forehead. Sometimes, her smile is enough to satisfy him; sometimes his touch turns from gentle to deliberate, kisses moving from cheeks to neck to mouth, demanding a response.
At first, the sexuality of the relationship throws her, and her response to his touch is eager, though uncharacteristically timid. There were invisible lines drawn between them once, and he now steps over them without a backward glance. She is more hesitant, afraid to brush up against whatever limits still exist for him. It takes time for her to realize that the old rules no longer apply and that he is as unlikely to refuse her as she is him. In the darkness of her room, they become equals.
Still, she can never shake the feeling that the balance they've struck is a fragile one that might shatter at any moment, destroying both of them in the wake of its collapse. She knows far too much to think that such intensity is more than a lovely, ephemeral thing.
On the rare occasions that she crosses paths with the his older self, they are both more guarded and less trusting. She sometimes wonders if she won't eventually break his hearts. She knows the true cause of the darkness in the older man's eyes, but she has grown accustomed to allowing herself pretend that the younger's future has yet to be written. The thought that the gentle creature who has somehow injected himself into her life will face such nightmares is almost unbearable. The weight the older man carries would probably kill a human, and she sometimes thinks the knowledge of it may kill her.
She sees Donna Noble in line for a film one day, and when she calls her name the other woman looks up with eyes that are somehow changed. "Sorry, do I know you?" she asks before pushing past her into the theater. The next time the older Doctor turns up, she begs him to do for her what he must have done for Donna.
"It's not that I don't want to remember you," she protests when he refuses to selectively wipe her memory for the third time in an hour. "It's that I don't know how much longer I can bear it, knowing that there's nothing I can do."
The pain she sees as he shakes his head again is enough to make it the last time she asks. It's twenty years before she truly understands why he can't say 'yes.'
She's in her seventies when she finally meets the Doctor who lived between the man who is her lover and the man her lover will become. He is freshly regenerated, still wearing the clothing of his previous self, and the familiarity of brocade and velvet softens the hard angles of this new body. He slams through the house, turning on every light she owns, sometimes shouting, sometimes muttering curses under his breath. At last, he settles at her bedroom window, staring silently into the blackness of the night.
When he finally speaks, his voice is a choked sob, and the picture he paints is more horrific than she'd ever dared to envision. As he describes planets burning, turning to dust against the sky before the fabric of time and space splinters and the void absorbs their ashes, she silently thanks his successor. Years of knowing that this day would come do little to prepare her for the truth of it, and she is nearly pulled into the darkness with him.
They do not sleep, and he slips away before the sun rises. It is only when he is gone that she allows herself to cry. She cries for Gallifrey, cries for his suffering, even cries for Skaro. When the sun is once again low in the sky, the tears turn bitter and selfish. She has become a widow without ever having worn a ring.
Ten years after he dies, she wakes to find Luke drawing back the thick curtains over her windows. They both know that it will take more than a bit of sunlight to chase away her age and its accompanying frailty, but Luke is losing his mother, and she knows that he has to try.
When he realizes that she's awake, he turns to her, eyes sparkling. "You have a visitor," he whispers, and she hasn't seen him smile like that since he was a boy. As he fusses over her, adjusting pillows and helping her sit, she wonders which Doctor must be waiting in the hall. She expects that it will be the skinny one, allows herself to hope for one of the men she knew when she was barely more than a girl. Perhaps her first one, all ruffles and green velvet, or maybe the second, the one she first fell in love with though she was too young to recognize it as love at the time. Maybe she'll meet a new Doctor, one she's never seen before. When the eyes that meet hers are those of the man she loved best of all, tears roll in fat drops down her cheeks.
When he takes his place beside her in the bed they shared for so many years, he whispers that Gallifrey is at war, admits that he is afraid. She presses dry kisses against his forehead and tells him what he must do. She sends him into battle, drawing on the last of her strength to replenish his own waning reserves. She knows that she will never see another sunrise, and he stays with her until she is sleeping.
Centuries later, he's been lying about his age so long that he's not sure how long she's been gone. He doesn't speak of her, tries not to think of her. The temptation to go back is strong, but he can't. She lived for decades as his secret keeper, and he owes it to her to do the same. In spite of himself, he lets Rose become everything to him, just as Sarah was and as someone else will someday be. He can't help it.
Then suddenly she's standing before him, so vibrant, so full of life. He searches his brain for the alias he's given a thousand times before, needing time to calm his racing hearts before he can handle a proper reunion. She extends a hand and it takes him a second too long to take it. The heat of her, the smell of her perfume, the light in her eyes -- it's almost too much, and he knows he must sound like a fool but he can't stop himself from babbling.
He grins as she turns back into the professional, making polite introductions to mask her true objective. Sarah Jane Smith is alive and strong, the same woman she's always been and always will be. He knows the intimate details of her future, but seeing her now he can only stare. He has so much to learn.
Rating: PGish
Fandom: Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures
Pairing: Eight/Sarah Jane
Spoilers: "Journey's End"
Notes: This wouldn't exist without hailpoetry who provided both the inspiration and the beta.
Summary: She can never shake the feeling that the balance they've struck is a fragile one that might shatter at any moment, destroying both of them in the wake of its collapse.
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
It takes a year to get used to the fact that when he said he'd be back, he meant it. She never realized that he meant he'd be back often but she's hardly in a position to complain. He always arrives according to her timeline, and there's comfort in that. He never arrives with memories of adventures she has yet to experience, and he never doubles back.
She has no idea how much time passes for him, and there's no set pattern to how long she will wait between visits. When he does come, it may only be for a cup of tea, or he may stay for days without giving any indication that he intends to leave at all. Once she's sure he'll be back, she is grateful for each departure.
She loves him, but she's spent most of her life alone and she needs a measure of solitude. The only constant in his presence is that he usually manages to be gone when the world comes under threat; she suspects that much is intentional.
It's three years before she trusts herself to keep the fragmented scraps she knows of his future to herself.
The first time she met this regeneration, it was an accident, and she very nearly walked away. He asked for just a few more minutes, and really, what harm could there be in a few minutes? Minutes became hours, and without realizing what she was saying, she begged a trip to the one place she knew she absolutely should not go.
She cried when she stepped out of the TARDIS onto the firm ground of a world she knew was doomed. They made love in the grass of the Ataraxian Meadows as the sun sank below the mountains and set the planet ablaze. The older regeneration, the skinny wisp of a man in pinstripes and plimsolls assured her that it had always been that way for him. Still, knowing that a few whispered words might save his planet and destroy the universe is not something she takes lightly.
With Luke, she stresses the importance of discretion on a daily basis. He's never needed reminding of anything, but she worries.
When she finally agrees to let them meet she fully expects it to result in the end of the world. She over-prepares, and he goes around her to ensure that all her planning was little more than a waste of nervous energy. They agree to a shared meal, which suits her need for control. There's a set beginning and end, easy to extend if it goes well, easy to cut short if it doesn't. It's a perfect plan, but he doesn't stick to it. The day before he's meant to join them for supper, she looks out the window to find the two of them rounding the corner onto Bannerman Road.
They pass the afternoon engrossed in a conversation about physics that's well beyond her own understanding of the subject. Luke has the good sense not to say anything that might ripple forward or backwards through time, and the Doctor asks nothing that she feels would be better kept from him.
That night, she finds the Doctor in the attic replacing the lock on a filing cabinet.
"Deadlock seal," he explains, sonic screwdriver held between his teeth. "In case I get a bit curious." He looks up at her, eyes soft and sincere.
Her own ability to keep silent is still imperfect, and she is floored by the lack of judgement in his acknowledgment of her flaws. His eyes slide past her to settle on a picture hung against the far wall. She turns to follow his gaze, and her heart leaps into her throat.
"Oh, so that's what I'll look like, hmm?" he asks, studying the man in the picture and running a hand through his own, somewhat tamer, hair.
They are looking at themselves, huddled around K-9. He is older and she is younger, and she had forgotten that the picture existed at all. Once, she thought that would be the last she saw of him, and to mark the moment she pulled a frame from a bit of CCTV footage, touched it up, and added it to the collection of old memories.
"I told you," she says, snatching the picture from the wall. "Too tall, too young, and far too skinny."
"You didn't, actually. Luke told me. You merely confirmed it. Although he was a bit nicer about it, wasn't he?"
She can't decide if she wants to hit him or kiss him. She settles for tucking the picture into the filing cabinet and when she turns back around, everything is as she left it. Crisis averted, then.
Some things never change, his navigation skills among them. He manages days well enough, but pinpointing a specific time seems beyond him. Sometimes he arrives for dinner before she's started on breakfast, but most of the time he shows up in the middle of the night. Sometimes he'll spend the hours until sunrise on his own. He's played chess with Mr. Smith, read every book in her attic, and tinkered with every bit of alien technology she's collected over the years. One night, he modifies every tube of lipstick she owns, leaving twelve new sonic devices sitting at her desk. After all, you never know when an extra might come in handy.
When the attic's contents no longer provide adequate mental stimulation, he slides into bed alongside her. The first time, he catches her by surprise and she nearly breaks his jaw as she pushes him out of the bed and raises her bedside lamp to strike the perceived intruder. Within a few months, he ceases to startle her, no matter how he might choose to make his presence known. Sometimes, he seems content to lie next to her as she sleeps, silently watching her breathe. Sometimes he wants her awake, and if pulling her into his arms fails to garner a response, he presses soft kisses against her cheeks and forehead. Sometimes, her smile is enough to satisfy him; sometimes his touch turns from gentle to deliberate, kisses moving from cheeks to neck to mouth, demanding a response.
At first, the sexuality of the relationship throws her, and her response to his touch is eager, though uncharacteristically timid. There were invisible lines drawn between them once, and he now steps over them without a backward glance. She is more hesitant, afraid to brush up against whatever limits still exist for him. It takes time for her to realize that the old rules no longer apply and that he is as unlikely to refuse her as she is him. In the darkness of her room, they become equals.
Still, she can never shake the feeling that the balance they've struck is a fragile one that might shatter at any moment, destroying both of them in the wake of its collapse. She knows far too much to think that such intensity is more than a lovely, ephemeral thing.
On the rare occasions that she crosses paths with the his older self, they are both more guarded and less trusting. She sometimes wonders if she won't eventually break his hearts. She knows the true cause of the darkness in the older man's eyes, but she has grown accustomed to allowing herself pretend that the younger's future has yet to be written. The thought that the gentle creature who has somehow injected himself into her life will face such nightmares is almost unbearable. The weight the older man carries would probably kill a human, and she sometimes thinks the knowledge of it may kill her.
She sees Donna Noble in line for a film one day, and when she calls her name the other woman looks up with eyes that are somehow changed. "Sorry, do I know you?" she asks before pushing past her into the theater. The next time the older Doctor turns up, she begs him to do for her what he must have done for Donna.
"It's not that I don't want to remember you," she protests when he refuses to selectively wipe her memory for the third time in an hour. "It's that I don't know how much longer I can bear it, knowing that there's nothing I can do."
The pain she sees as he shakes his head again is enough to make it the last time she asks. It's twenty years before she truly understands why he can't say 'yes.'
She's in her seventies when she finally meets the Doctor who lived between the man who is her lover and the man her lover will become. He is freshly regenerated, still wearing the clothing of his previous self, and the familiarity of brocade and velvet softens the hard angles of this new body. He slams through the house, turning on every light she owns, sometimes shouting, sometimes muttering curses under his breath. At last, he settles at her bedroom window, staring silently into the blackness of the night.
When he finally speaks, his voice is a choked sob, and the picture he paints is more horrific than she'd ever dared to envision. As he describes planets burning, turning to dust against the sky before the fabric of time and space splinters and the void absorbs their ashes, she silently thanks his successor. Years of knowing that this day would come do little to prepare her for the truth of it, and she is nearly pulled into the darkness with him.
They do not sleep, and he slips away before the sun rises. It is only when he is gone that she allows herself to cry. She cries for Gallifrey, cries for his suffering, even cries for Skaro. When the sun is once again low in the sky, the tears turn bitter and selfish. She has become a widow without ever having worn a ring.
Ten years after he dies, she wakes to find Luke drawing back the thick curtains over her windows. They both know that it will take more than a bit of sunlight to chase away her age and its accompanying frailty, but Luke is losing his mother, and she knows that he has to try.
When he realizes that she's awake, he turns to her, eyes sparkling. "You have a visitor," he whispers, and she hasn't seen him smile like that since he was a boy. As he fusses over her, adjusting pillows and helping her sit, she wonders which Doctor must be waiting in the hall. She expects that it will be the skinny one, allows herself to hope for one of the men she knew when she was barely more than a girl. Perhaps her first one, all ruffles and green velvet, or maybe the second, the one she first fell in love with though she was too young to recognize it as love at the time. Maybe she'll meet a new Doctor, one she's never seen before. When the eyes that meet hers are those of the man she loved best of all, tears roll in fat drops down her cheeks.
When he takes his place beside her in the bed they shared for so many years, he whispers that Gallifrey is at war, admits that he is afraid. She presses dry kisses against his forehead and tells him what he must do. She sends him into battle, drawing on the last of her strength to replenish his own waning reserves. She knows that she will never see another sunrise, and he stays with her until she is sleeping.
Centuries later, he's been lying about his age so long that he's not sure how long she's been gone. He doesn't speak of her, tries not to think of her. The temptation to go back is strong, but he can't. She lived for decades as his secret keeper, and he owes it to her to do the same. In spite of himself, he lets Rose become everything to him, just as Sarah was and as someone else will someday be. He can't help it.
Then suddenly she's standing before him, so vibrant, so full of life. He searches his brain for the alias he's given a thousand times before, needing time to calm his racing hearts before he can handle a proper reunion. She extends a hand and it takes him a second too long to take it. The heat of her, the smell of her perfume, the light in her eyes -- it's almost too much, and he knows he must sound like a fool but he can't stop himself from babbling.
He grins as she turns back into the professional, making polite introductions to mask her true objective. Sarah Jane Smith is alive and strong, the same woman she's always been and always will be. He knows the intimate details of her future, but seeing her now he can only stare. He has so much to learn.