I had terrible trouble coming up with a title for this. I listed possible titles at the top of the file of my final version, which reads:

The Same but Different
The Opposition Harmony
An Equivalent Peculiarity
You Can Never Go Home Again (or use this as summary)
Home Again (or Home, Again)

I have no idea where I got some of those from, or why I ever thought they might be a good idea. The home in this case refers to the TARDIS, which Sarah discovers isn't quite home any more, and her visit to Aunt Lavinia, which isn't quite home either. And now I come to think about it, to the ending too.

It would have been nice to have gone through all the episodes, but this was for a ficathon, so I had a limited amount of time. So I decided to focus on the Cybermen two-parters, and Army of Ghosts/Doomsday in particular, to show the consequences of Sarah's decision.

Sarah's voice over at the start was copied from Rose's. The idea being to make people think I wasn't going to kill Sarah off, just as Rose says she died and she didn't, technically.

I worried at one point that this would be too long to fit into one LJ entry. So I split the story into two parts, one for the first Cyberman two-parter and the angsty stuff, the other for the end of season two-parter and the action stuff. Although it did fit in, I'd started thinking of it in two parts by that point, so they stayed that way.

When I sat there and thought about it, some of the problems with the episodes was that three companions was just too many. Which is partly why Sarah isn't involved in any of the action in Age of Steel/Rise of the Cybermen. Although she does the same thing as Rose and Mickey, which is to go and see her dead relative (since it seems to be a world filled with them). That the Doctor's done the same thing to her mobile as Rose's (of course) makes that easy for Sarah to do.

I did wonder for a while about whether there was a Doctor in this world, for Sarah to have gone with. Eventually I decided that there being a Torchwood suggests there is a Doctor, and that was enough evidence for me to justify it.

This way we get to see what the alternative Sarah has been up to, although she's probably dead - but just as Aunt Lavinia can't be sure, I don't know either. It's a sad thing for Sarah to do - to see her aunt again and then have to leave her. I was tempted to make her stay, like Mickey did, but she's practical enough to know her aunt is old and is therefore only going to die on her again. Although what really swings it is finding out the action she's missed out on - that's what she's gone with the Doctor for after all. Sarah turning up is equally sad for Lavinia too, as it gives her possibly false hope of seeing her niece again.

In the first draft, I had Sarah tell Lavinia exactly what she'd been up to - without revealing she's from an alternate universe. It didn't make it to the second draft, and annoyingly, I can't remember exactly why I dropped it. Probably because that's a bit much to make Lavinia believe, especially when she's upset.

The talks between the Doctor and Sarah were partly because her going with them meant that they'd not had the talk outside the TARDIS in School Reunion, just before he leaves. So I put some of that in here. Also, it had bugged me that Sarah didn't ask the Doctor for more details when he told her everyone died, in the cafe. Although I'm sort of glad she didn't because we already knew and it would have made the episode boring.

The Doctor's just not very good at talking about what he's feeling, when Sarah tries to comfort him - or at least get him to talk. I remember either reading something about that in an interview, or hearing it in a commentary, so I was quite impressed that I'd picked up on it and written it in here before it was spelled out to me.

Since Sarah's there to comfort Rose, after Mickey leaves, I didn't have them go to see Jackie at the end of Rise of the Cybermen. It would have meant that Sarah and Jackie meeting would be earlier, and would have made the start of Army of Ghosts less interesting from that perspective.

The scenes between Sarah and Rose were partly to mention that other episodes had happened - every time they spoke I picked a setting and went through them in order. They were also because Rose had asked Sarah questions in School Reunion, and would only have more, so it made sense for them to talk about them. But mostly they were to fill in gaps in the action. I couldn't really go through everything that happened in the last two episodes because everyone knows what happened and it would have been boring. So where there's nothing substantially different going on, there's a Sarah & Rose scene. And I quite liked writing them being really good friends as well.

Since Rose goes off on her own, snooping, in Army of Ghosts, it only seems right that Sarah does too, since that's what she does best. So she finds out about the Cybermen before the Doctor. Sadly, though, he's omitted to tell her the important part about these Cybermen, namely that they're immune to gold. So Sarah goes off thinking she knows how to deal with them and ends up getting herself into trouble. Sarah and Jackie both saving each other's lives helps enormously with their relationship. Although Jackie having someone with her doesn't stop her from panicking - which is not unreasonable since it's a scary situation, especially when you're not used to that sort of thing.

Once everyone meets back up, though, for the final plan, the only change is Rose going to the other world of her own free will. Having Sarah on board has changed her, so she's better at sharing the Doctor. And since Sarah and Rose know each other well by this point, Sarah knows the right things to say to convince her. The big change that does it, is that although the Doctor needs one or the other of them, Sarah will be no help to Jackie.

But there's no Pete to save Sarah when she falls, just as Rose does.

The point of the story was to show that ultimately the decision Sarah makes in School Reunion was the right one, because otherwise she would have died. Here, she makes it mostly based on the idea that she has no one on Earth to stay for. Which she briefly discusses with Rose about the idea of husbands. Sarah going to see her dead aunt, underlines for her, the reason why she went with the Doctor again.

However, Sarah's wrong. In Army of Ghosts, she checks her mobile to find she has text messages on it, from people who have noticed her disappearance. Which she doesn't worry about because Sarah often drops everything at a moments notice to go and investigate something. So when she ultimately dies, the epilogue shows that actually she was wrong, and she has touched many lives.

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