On a related writing note, the epic that I kept talking about is finished and mostly posted, starting here. It's Sarah and Harry gen - this is how I see their relationship, however else I've written it too (I've nearly exhausted all the possibilities!)

Melli asked for a commentary on my favourite fic. My favourite is generally the one I wrote last, which is fortunately short. And a small snippet of what's in my head, so there's a lot more going on than is written - which makes it a good thing to do a commentary on.

Doing the Right Thing commentary (my comments in bold).

Ages ago, I wrote Doctor Who: The Soap Opera, where Sarah discovers she's pregnant. Harry's the father, and although they're going out, it's mostly come from her trying to get used to being on Earth again and they're about to split up, since it was never that serious. In it, Sarah ends up having the baby adopted, but Harry does try to get her to keep it and offers to marry her. In my head is the AU where they keep it and get married and it doesn't work, of course, because Sarah and Harry together would kill each other.

This is a small part of it that came to me one afternoon at work - fortunately late afternoon, so when I got home I wrote it straightaway. I was trying for a mood piece, and had no end of trouble keeping to the present tense.

Sarah can't remember the last time she felt like this. Admittedly she's been drinking, but Walt says all the right things to flatter her. Although she's sure he doesn't mean half of them and he's probably just saying them to get her into bed, she doesn't care. She's forgotten what it's like to flirt or to kiss someone without it being a duty.

Walt was the first name that came into my head - I'd recently been watching The Dead Zone. The idea is that Sarah and Harry are keeping up the pretence of marriage, so that means kissing each other goodbye for example.

Her anticipated evening of fun ends abruptly on the bed in her hotel room as Walt roughly unbuttons her blouse and it's guilt she feels, not lust.

"I'm sorry," she says to Walt, who berates her for leading him on before he leaves.

Poor guy. He and Sarah have actually known her for a few days by this point, and they've been flirting and she's been toying with the idea of taking it further.

Whenever she goes away for a story she takes her wedding ring off and it lives in her purse, hidden among the coins, until she's near home. She likes to feel single again, but tonight has reminded her that her married status is something she can't forget.

What happens isn't Walt's fault - he has no way of knowing she's married. Sarah goes away a lot - partly because she's a journalist going after stories, but also because she needs to get out of the house and get away from Harry.

Harry's a good man, but she doesn't love him and she never will. He would never cheat on her, but that's no longer enough; she needs something more in her life. Tomorrow she has to go home and tell him. And she doesn't know if she'll be able to face him at all.

Harry's just too good for his own good. Even if they came to some arrangement where they were sleeping in separate rooms or something, he'd still not at another woman.

~*~*~

The overnight flight means it's still early when she lands, although she has to fight the rush hour traffic on her way out of the airport. She nearly turns away, but she's expected and Elizabeth, at least, will be upset if she's not back.

I toyed with the idea of her not coming back, just meeting with Harry somewhere more neutral to tell him she's never coming back. But I wasn't considering their daughter at this point, and that Sarah's missed her.

Harry is behind the door as she opens it; he's on his way out. Sarah returns her daughter's enthusiastic greeting, but when her husband moves to kiss her, she turns her head away. He frowns but says nothing. She anticipates his return home with growing unease.

He doesn't need to say anything - he knows there are problems between them just as much as she does.

Although she's tired she does the washing and cleans the house like a good wife ought to. That way it won't matter if Harry doesn't get to it for a while. Then she packs and leaves her suitcase in the bedroom.

When they were first married Harry expected her to do the housework and look after the baby and he went out and earned the money. Since Sarah did need to be the one looking after the baby, at least until she was weaned, and she had no job that was fine at first. So she rebelled and got a job. There were many arguments over that, and Sarah ended up doing most of the housework for a quiet life.

After picking her daughter up from nursery, she watches as Elizabeth tries out the new crayons Sarah's brought her back from America. Sarah makes all the right noises over the drawings and later, when no one's looking, she slips them into her suitcase.

She makes the right noises because she doesn't feel the right things. I took it out of the story, but at one point there was a mention that as Sarah spent the whole of her pregnancy trying not to fall in love with the baby, she had forgotten how to stop once she was born. But she does love her - and she wants something of hers at least to take with her. Although she's leaving because she knows Harry loves Elizabeth more than her, and she doesn't want to take their daughter away from him.

Harry's home in time to put Elizabeth to bed, as he always is. He ignores his wife in favour of his tired daughter and Sarah is guiltily glad as she cooks. Harry spends longer on Elizabeth's bedtime story than usual and dinner is ready when he comes back downstairs.

That's always been his job, since he's out all day. It's become Harry and Elizabeth's time together that no one else is allowed into.

They don't speak until after they've eaten.

They were going to speak before dinner, but then I couldn't get them to eat dinner and it felt like such a waste of food.

"You're leaving me," he says, watching her wash a saucepan.

He's been thinking about it all day, and then went into their room when he took Elizabeth to bed, and saw her suitcase.

She doesn't know how he knows, she's just relieved she doesn't have to break it to him, and glad she has her back to him, so she can't see the expression on his face. By the time she says, "Yes," and turns around he's not quite looking at her.

"Why now?" he asks, head ducked. "What's different about today?"

Given that this has been going on for a long time.

The sponge she still holds drips soapy water on the floor, but neither of them notice. "I nearly had an affair." She didn't, but she could have.

I was tempted to have her have one too.

His gaze flicks up to where her left hand rests on the counter. Belatedly she realises she has forgotten to put her wedding ring back on.

It's the only time she's forgotten.

He sighs. "Where will you go?"

"Aunt Lavinia's." She doesn't have anyone else to go to. She doesn't want to have to admit to Lavinia that she had been wrong, that she'd made mistakes, but at least her house is big enough for Sarah to hide herself away in.

In the original, she didn't tell Lavinia she was pregnant because she was afraid Lavinia would tell her off for being stupid enough to get pregnant. Marrying Harry was the second mistake she made. She did it because she was broke and didn't want to bring up a baby on her own.

Although the topic is different, their conversation is the same as every other they've had recently. When they first married they argued constantly, although quietly so Elizabeth didn't hear. Later, it was easier to assume tacit agreement even when there was none, and silence was more common. Now Sarah suspects it was because they had nothing to say to each other.

It's either not talk or have an argument, so they don't talk.

When Harry says, "I'll get your suitcase," he doesn't wait for an argument and she doesn't offer one. They don't even say goodbye - he just puts her case in the boot of her car before going back inside the house and shutting the door.

Sarah should complain that she can do it herself. But they've gone beyond the point of even arguing about that. I originally had Harry make Sarah stay the night and say goodbye to Elizabeth. But she goes back the next day to do that, and have a proper talk with Harry about what they're going to do.

Sarah gets in her car and wonders why, when she'd finally made the right decision, that she is crying over it.

Because she won't get to see Elizabeth so often, and because she's leaving behind her home and the life she's got used to, even if she didn't always like it that much.

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