What do you want from me?
Title: What Do You Want From Me?
Fandom: Sarah Jane Adventures
Characters & Pairings: Sarah Jane/(older) Maria
Rating: (I have no idea how ratings work but child friendly)
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is just for fun
Summary: Sarah Jane's response to Maria's feelings.
‘What do you want me to say, Maria?!’ Sarah Jane’s voice was sharp and bitter but Maria didn’t flinch. ‘That I am in love with a twenty three year old girl? Someone I am meant to be responsible for?’
No, Maria wasn’t going to let her friend push her away, not this time. She but her lip and stood silent but defiant. Sarah Jane raised her voice in response to the young woman’s calm. ‘Or do you want to know that you make a grown woman catch her breath every time you accidently touch my skin? Would that make you happy?!’
Maria didn’t actually know what she had wanted Sarah Jane to say, she knew what would make her happy, but this hadn’t been what she was expecting. She tried to read her friend’s eyes the way she so often could, but all she could see twas he resentment that was masking the woman she knew. Quite suddenly, Maria felt lonlier than she had ever been in her entire life. She felt every hair on her body stand on end as the older woman advanced towards her continuing her verbal assault. She tried to stand tall, tried not to think about where she had gone wrong, tried to ignore what might be at stake, concentrated on fighting against her body’s impulse to convulse with tears.
‘Do you want to know how I can’t stand to be near you?’ Tears welled up and betrayed Sarah Jane’s fury. It was her body and not Maria’s that gave in first and she visibly sank a couple of inches, a quick intake of air fuelling the silent sobbing that she was trying to ignore. Despite her body’s reluctance, she continued to stand her ground. ‘What is-’
Maria cut her off with the tears that she allowed to fall silently down her cheek. ‘Please,’ she barely made any sound at all, ‘please don’t…’
‘What do you want?’ Anger still bit through Sarah Jane’s voice, but it was notably quieter and Maria recognised something like fear in her tone.
‘You.’ Maria whispered with pointed determination. She had never been so sure of anything in her entire life. ‘Just you.’
Sarah Jane couldn’t maintain the heat in her argument but was still trying to fight her corner. ‘We don’t have a future.’
‘We’ve got today’. Maria voiced, feeling her confidence grow. She held out her hands to console her friend, but Sarah Jane pulled away sharply and the faint edge of bitterness returned to her somewhat calmer voice.
‘You are living in a fantasy, Maria. Fairytales don’t come true. I’m not what you need.’
‘Sarah…’
‘I need you to leave now.’ Sarah Jane said forcefully. ‘Go’. The word came out in a half shout, half cry.
Sarah Jane closed her eyes and let her head hit the wall beside her as Maria ran crying out the front door. Her body sank to the floor but her mind was already a thousand miles away. It had just been a kiss. Nothing earth shattering, nothing of great global consequence, just a single moment that in the span of the universe fleeted past in the blink of an eye. So why was Sarah Jane’s stomach tightening?
She slowly opened her eyes, but she might as well have kept them closed for all that she could see through her tears. This was not happening. It couldn’t happen.
She wrapped her arms around her knees, desperately wanting someone to hold her. Knowing who that someone should be. ‘I don’t know how to do this without you’, she whispered into the empty room.