"What can you see?" she whispered. From here she had to turn her head to look and she didn't want them to be spotted, even though they were in the shadows.

"I think--" Ian said before he stopped suddenly and kissed Barbara, surprising her.

When he stopped, she looked up at him, her fast heartbeat not just from the fear of being discovered. She'd forgotten where they were until she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked round to find the people they were watching had moved along and were trying to break into the post office. Worse, they were most definitely aliens - when they passed under a street light she could see their skin glowed gold. "We should call the police," she suggested.

Ian shook his head. "The police wouldn't know what to do with them." Before she could ask what the two of them could do against four aliens he said, "Stay there," and ran off towards the post office.

Now that all the aliens were inside and hadn't posted a look-out they could see from here, going closer wasn't so dangerous, but there was still a risk Ian could be seen. Barbara wanted to shout at him for going closer, but then they would definitely know he was there. So she stayed where she was and watched and worried as he opened the door of the aliens' car and started the engine. Then she understood what he was doing and ran over to meet him as he drove towards where she was waiting. The alarm that went off inside the post office suggested that the aliens weren't likely to be in there much longer.

"They won't get very far," he said, as he sped off around the corner and out of sight. "They should have had a getaway driver."

"They're very inept criminals." She smiled at him and he grinned back.

"Let's go to dinner and leave them to it." He parked the car down the road from what had been their intended destination, before they were waylaid by the promise of adventure.

"Didn't we come home to have a normal life free from aliens?" she asked, as they left the car with the keys in the ignition and walked up the road. There was no one following them, despite her worry that the aliens would find them. The police would surely get involved now and she wasn't sure what they would think about people with gold coloured skin. Or whether Ian was more interested in adventure and chasing aliens or dinner and a normal life. Come to think of it, she wasn't sure which she would prefer.

"We can do that too." Ian stopped suddenly and kissed her again.

Barbara smiled and found she had already forgotten all about the alien robbers.

2.
"That monkey has three arms," Jo said, frowning as she peered into the tree.

Cliff shrugged and didn't so much as glance up from the patch of ground he was studying for signs of the mushroom. "It's probably a mutation."

Jo didn't know enough about biology to know if monkeys were capable of that large a mutation, but if Cliff thought it was likely then it was good enough for her. Or it would be if that was its only difference from other monkeys. "It's also green," she said to his back.

"Good camouflage." He must have discovered the mushroom wasn't there and he started walking, writing something in his notebook as he went.

She folded her arms and waited. It took a few moments before he looked up and around and then finally back at her.

"Did you say it was a green monkey with three arms?" he asked as he returned to her.

She nodded. At least he'd been listening.

"You think it's an alien?" He didn't sound sure, but then she'd seen more aliens than he had.

"Yes, I do."

He looked up into the tree, watching as the monkey swung from branch to branch to settle down in the next tree along. "What do you want to do about it?"

Since they were in the middle of nowhere and the nearest phone was a day's walk away, they couldn't call anyone to help. Not that anyone would be able to get here before they lost the monkey. "Let's find out if it's intelligent," she suggested. She followed its path to stop underneath the tree it was currently sitting in. Then she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted up at it, "Hey, you!"

The monkey turned to look at them, then threw down the remains of a piece of fruit it had been eating. The fruit went splat at Jo's feet.

"I think that's a yes," Cliff unhelpfully pointed out.

Jo wasn't about to give up, especially if it could understand them. "Wouldn't you like to go home?" she called up to it.

Her answer was another piece of fruit. It would have landed on her shoes if she hadn't taken a step backwards just in time.

"I think it's happy here," Cliff said. "I don't think it's doing any harm."

She looked over at him. "If the Doctor was here he could take it home." Cliff took her hand and she smiled at him. "It might take him a few attempts," she admitted, smiling too. "It's happy here," she decided. "Let's just leave it."

She let him lead her onwards and they forgot all about the alien monkey for several years until they heard reports of a new species discovered in the Amazon. When they returned to see it for themselves they found the alien must have bred with the native monkey population to produce a variety of monkeys that were either green or had three arms. The experts were baffled, but neither Jo nor Cliff thought they would believe the truth. But Jo and Cliff knew and that was enough.

3.
"Why did I agree to do this?" Harry grimaced as he and Sarah stepped out of their hotel room and he locked the door. A night spent on the floor hadn't done his back any good and he ached all over.

"Because everyone here has to be married," Sarah reminded him, then suddenly turned and kissed him.

For a moment he remembered exactly why he'd given in to her pleading to help her with an investigation that apparently no one else in the world could help with. Then he opened his eyes and discovered she was looking at something over his shoulder. It wasn't as if he was asking for a bit of romance, but Sarah played pretending to be married badly. He ended the kiss, reminding himself not to be fooled, and waited for her to tell him what was going on.

"It's not just corruption," she said, "it's aliens." Her eyes sparkled.

He sighed. He had supposed that when he'd left UNIT that would be the end of deadly adventures with aliens. He hadn't reckoned on his friendship with Sarah pulling him right back into the world it seemed she'd never left.

"Come along, darling," she said, in a tone that Harry couldn't believe no one else found suspicious. At least he couldn't until they reached reception. Various couples were seated on the sofas dotted around the foyer. Most of them were kissing. Some of them looked like they were on their way to doing more than just that.

"Um," Harry said. That wasn't normal, even for this place, and it was an odd, badly-run hotel. Surprisingly, none of the other couples had any complaints about their stay.

"Why aren't we affected?" Sarah frowned at him. "Unless you have to be in love."

That couldn't possibly be it because Harry still had no desire to kiss Sarah like that in public. He didn't dare say it, though. "It could be any number of things. They did state that you had to be married, not just in love," he pointed out.

Sarah stuck out her left hand and stared at it. They had the rings and the forged papers, but not the actual marriage. "Kiss the receptionist," she said suddenly, putting her hand in her pocket.

"What?" he frowned.

"We have to do something, to shock them or break their hold. They won't be expecting adultery."

He had a feeling that even if it were adultery Sarah would still suggest it, if it meant getting a story. It didn't explain why he'd ended up being her skivvy and he attempted to put his foot down. "Why don't you kiss her?"

She sighed. "Look, she's pretty, Harry. What more do you want?"

As an attempt it was a miserable failure. Sarah always got what she wanted, it was merely a question of how long it took her to talk him into it. Kissing random strangers, no matter how pretty, wasn't something he did and nor was adultery. So he took off his ring and passed it to her, not intending to put it back on, no matter what happened next. Before he could change his mind, he walked up to the receptionist and kissed her.

She turned out to be an alien of course.

After that there was general chaos and Sarah trying to talk the aliens into leaving, while Harry tried to stay out of the way. He wasn't sure how successful she'd been given that they got thrown out.

"I don't know how I'm going to write this up," Sarah said, standing on the pavement and staring at the hotel.

Harry smiled. "I'm sure you'll think of something, old girl."

4.
"Rabbits," Tegan cursed as she heard the band say good night and the sound of music was replaced by the chatter of thousands of people leaving the arena. She'd been hoping the band would be on stage for longer. Now she would be trying to hunt a blue slithering alien while evading more security people. Not to mention the man carrying a guitar who came from around the corner and stopped right in front of her. "I don't suppose you've seen a big, blue caterpillar anywhere, have you?" she asked him. Sometimes brazenly telling the truth got you further than lying.

He gave her an odd look. "No, I can't say I have. Are you supposed to be back here?"

"That depends on how you look at it." She was probably the only person here qualified to know that the thing that looked like a big, blue caterpillar was really an alien.

"Right." He clearly didn't believe her. "I suppose you'd like an autograph."

She shook her head. "I'd rather wait until I caught the caterpillar-like thing, if it's all the same to you." Although it might stop Jenny from complaining Tegan abandoned her if she returned with an autograph.

He gave her an odd look. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

"Of course I do, you're in the band. And there it is!" She pointed toward where the creature had slithered off towards the toilets and ran after it.

The man put his guitar back around his neck and followed her. "Why would you come to a concert if you don't recognise the band?"

"Jenny dragged me."

"So you got bored and came backstage?"

Tegan decided to use the fact that she was running as an excuse not to answer that one. She knew the music, so she hadn't been that bored, they'd just been so far away they couldn't see anything, which made her wonder what the point of being here was. Having caught up to the caterpillar, she took a leap and rugby tackled it.

"It really is an alien."

Tegan was too busy stopping it from escaping under her that she failed to appreciate for a minute that she hadn't mentioned the creature was an alien. "A little help would be appreciated."

It turned out that the man's guitar strings came in handy for tying it up. By the time they were done all it could do was wriggle helplessly on the ground.

"You've seen aliens before?" Tegan asked, given his blasé attitude about the whole thing.

The man shook his head. "My parents always claimed they'd seen aliens. I never believed them." He smiled and stretched out a hand. "I'm Johnny."

"Tegan." She shook his hand.

"We're playing here again tomorrow night. I'll get you some free tickets, then you can see the songs you missed. And a proper backstage pass too." Tegan hesitated and he stepped closer to whisper in her ear. "Maybe you can check for aliens before we go on."

She couldn't resist that grin or another chance to see him.

5.
Performing CPR on an alien was a tricky thing. It was hard enough to work out where the heart was (or even if there was just the one) with medical equipment and a heartbeat. It was harder when you were kneeling in the road in the middle of a crowd of onlookers, trying to establish if there was a heartbeat. Or even a heart, in this case.

"Allow me, I'm a doctor."

Harry looked up from his patient to see a young woman kneeling across from him on the other side of the alien. "Not of him you're not," he said, although the alien could have female, it was hard to tell. It was generally simplest to pick a pronoun until the aliens could reveal which they preferred. If they had one of those too.

"You'd be surprised," the woman said, pulling a stethoscope out of her bag and pressing it against various parts of the alien's torso. She was at least more prepared for a traffic accident than he was, but then he had just been for a quiet walk and not expecting his medical skills to be needed.

"Who are you?" She didn't looked fazed by the alien's appearance. Harry was sure he could see crumpled wings beneath it. Unless it was just his coat, it was hard to tell.

She smiled. "Martha Jones. And don't worry, I'm sure he's going to be fine."

Harry wasn't so sure. "Harry Sullivan. I have seen aliens before." He wasn't going to let her pull the wool over his eyes.

"Oh." She took the stethoscope out of her ears to look up at him instead.

"I'm a doctor too," he added. "I think he might be dead."

"I think you're right," she admitted. She sighed and sat back on her heels. He was tempted to tell her it wasn't her fault, she only just got here, but this was unlikely to be the first time she'd lost a patient, despite how young she looked. "But we can't leave him here."

"Leave it to me," he said and then realised that calling UNIT would be tricky from the middle of the road and there weren't as many phone boxes as there used to be. "Er, I don't suppose you have one of those mobile phone things?"

She laughed and passed him her phone. After Martha's introduction to UNIT, Harry took her to the pub to tell her all about how he knew about aliens. At least, that was how he justified it...

"Emma Peel," she introduced herself, holding out her hand. "I heard you're the person to go to when the world needs saving."

"Sarah Jane Smith." She shook Emma's hand. "I suppose I am. Where did you hear about me?"

"Steed has connections," she said cryptically and smiled. "Get in."

The car was old, but Sarah Jane had to admit, it was fun to drive in. "What needs saving exactly?" she asked, going back to the important question.

"Time." Emma looked over at her, smiling. "A diabolical mastermind is wiping out whole decades of history. It was the 1960s only this morning."

"I have a computer that could help." Admittedly, Sarah Jane could phone him, if she dared get her mobile out in this wind, but he was a lot easier to talk to from the attic, which they were now travelling away from at a ludicrous speed for an old car.

"We don't need computers." Emma turned the car off down a lane and towards a large house.

Half of the house looked Tudor from the front, the other half looked like it had been built in the past twenty years. The two halves didn't quite mesh. As Emma parked the car in front of it, what Sarah Jane assumed was the butler opened the door.

"Mrs Peel," the butler said. "We've been expecting you."

"I do hope I'm not late. It's so hard to tell with the year changing so rapidly." Despite her light tone there was an underside of sarcasm that told Sarah Jane that perhaps Emma hadn't been expecting them to expect her.

"I'll sneak round the back," Sarah Jane said.

Emma gave a small nod and headed inside the house.

Sarah Jane left her to the mercies of the butler and meandered up the drive, pretending to look at the flowers. Once the front door was shut she ran as quietly as she could around the house until she found the back door. She soniced the lock and then set about finding the diabolical mastermind in charge of this house.

After two hallways, a kitchen, a library and a laundry room, she finally heard voices. One sounded a little like the butler, but the other was definitely Emma. They were behind a heavy, wooden door that was open a crack. Sarah Jane pushed it, hoping it wouldn't creak. Once she had it open far enough, she peered inside.

Emma was tied to a table, but pulling at the ropes that secured her. The butler was smiling and standing in front of a machine that took up a whole wall. It reminded her of the console in the TARDIS. This had the same buttons and levers, but was a different shape. As she watched, the butler pulled a lever and Emma began to grow wrinkles and her hair turned grey.

Sarah Jane opened the door with a crash. She couldn't let him age Emma. She aimed the sonic lipstick at the machine and it sparked.

"No!" the butler cried. "I won't let you get away with this!" He began pulling out wires, and as he was preoccupied, Sarah Jane went over to Emma to undo the ropes.

Her hands had some age spots, Sarah Jane noticed. "I'm sorry," she said.

"We haven't finished yet." As soon as she was free, Emma jumped up and kicked the butler, sending him flying into the machine.

It sparked some more, and Sarah Jane and Emma jumped back out of the way. The machine screeched before its humming quieted and finally stopped. The butler aged from forty to eighty in the space of a few minutes and finally dropped to the floor.

"Is that it?" Sarah Jane asked. But she could see that it was, just by looking at Emma. She was already going back to the age she'd been when they first met. "We did it!" She hugged Emma, who looked a bit surprised at the gesture.

"We're going back to the times we came from." That would explain why Emma was starting to look transparent. "I'm afraid you'll have to make your own way home."

As she disappeared the room around her changed and became a sitting room.

"How did you get in here?"

Sarah Jane turned to see a cross, well-dressed woman looking furious. She didn't stay and explain - it was always far better to run.

"Just making a few repairs." The Doctor came out from under the desk and aimed his sonic screwdriver at a box with a cable running from it. "Pass me that screwdriver would you?" He gestured at one that looked a little like his, but bigger and with a green end.

Wanting to get out of here before the neighbours reported a break-in, she picked it up and handed it to him.

"I just need to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow..." A few hums later and he had finished.

With the computers fixed (why did anyone need more than one?) and the rabbits bored with the strangers who didn't offer them food, they returned to the TARDIS.

"While we're in the area," the Doctor asked, as he opened the door, "how about a trip to the Empire State Building?"

The view would be spectacular but... "If you can get us there."

"Of course I can."

Sarah said nothing at his offended tone, but the London Eye didn't have quite the same skyline.

Sarah gave Harry a look for the 'old girl'. "I'd hardly call two a collection."

"For someone who didn't want any..." He left the sentence unfinished, but they both remembered that she'd often said she wasn't interested in getting married and having babies.

She sighed and leaned back against the counter. "I know." She gave him a chance to remind her of the time during their brief relationship when he'd wanted one thing and she the other, but he stayed quiet, which she was glad about. "It was easier to decide to adopt the second one." After all, she knew what to expect this time. And what to do too, she hoped.

The front door slamming announced Sky's arrival home from school, just as the kettle boiled and switched itself off. Sarah pushed herself off the counter to stand up straight again. "Tea, Sky?" she called, letting her know they were in the kitchen and not up in the attic.

"Yes, please," Sky shouted back. A moment later she arrived in the kitchen and flung her school bag on a chair. She stopped when she noticed Harry. "What are you doing here?"

It was just as well Sarah had chosen that moment to attend to the tea because neither of the other two occupants would see her try and contain her laughter. Although she didn't make a sound she had to put the kettle down, otherwise she'd end up pouring boiling water all over the place. As much as she longed to see Harry's reaction to Sky's question, she didn't turn round.

However, Harry leaned down and whispered, "Sounds like something you'd say." She couldn't answer that with her hand over her mouth and he didn't give her time to. Out loud, he said, "I'm Harry. I'm a friend of your mother's." He didn't sound offended by Sky's attitude at all. Maybe he'd got used to her, although she was never quite as blunt as Sky tended to be.

"I call her Sarah Jane." Sky's tone was matter-of-fact, as it was about most things.

"You're a lot like Luke," Harry said thoughtfully.

"No, I'm not. He's a boy and he's older than me."

The tea made, Sarah pressed a mug into Harry's hand. "Sky doesn't have much experience of this world. One minute she was a baby, the next..." She waved a hand in Sky's direction. Sky was still looking confused at Harry's comparison. "What Harry means," she said to Sky, "is that your reactions remind him of how Luke was when I first adopted him."

"Oh." She thought about that, while Sarah passed her a mug of tea. "I like Luke, so that's all right. Of course, I've only seen him on screen."

"Don't worry, you'll meet him soon enough." Sarah was sure the two of them would be friends.

"I'm not worried." Sky smiled to prove she wasn't. "But I have homework." She took her mug with her, out of the kitchen. The thumps on the stairs suggested she was intending to ask Mr Smith to help with it. Fortunately, he was clever enough to know not to do it all for her.

"I suppose we're too boring for children," Harry said, sitting down at the table.

Sarah joined him. "Speak for yourself!"

"I don't think anyone could ever say you were boring."

She smiled, taking it as a compliment. "So what do you think of her?"

He turned serious at her question. "Are you asking my personal or professional opinion?"

She put her mug down. "Both. She was a bomb. She can still sense electricity. I'm just worried that..."

He put a hand over hers. "She'll need to be scanned to be sure. I'll sort something out and give you a call."

"Thank you." She smiled. "I knew I could reply on you."

Harry smiled at the compliment. "And I like her. If only you were alien too, that would explain you."

She punched him on the arm, but grinned as she did so, glad that Harry was the one thing in her life that never changed.

She hadn't felt anything peculiar before it happened and now she was just cold and wet, so she opted for going indoors where it was at least dry. Inside was an ordinary kitchen, albeit one built for giants. And a few decades out of date too, based on what she could see from this angle. It looked familiar, but she couldn't place it. Based on its size she had visions of being in Jack and the Beanstalk land, which made her afraid to call out to whoever might live here, so she tiptoed to the other end of the kitchen, listening for any giants crying "Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum," as she went.

"Sarah Jane, there you are."

Sarah stopped dead and looked up at the woman who had spoken. It was her Aunt Lavinia, although much younger and much taller. Maybe this was some sort of Brobdingnag in the past. Which made as much sense as anything else at the moment.

"Less than a day in this house and I'd already lost you," Aunt Lavinia said fondly. "And you're all wet. What were you doing out in the rain?"

Sarah shook her head. She didn't have a good answer for what was going on. She was supposed to be going to dinner with Harry, but having just got back from a job, she'd been running late as usual. She'd only stepped outside to see how cold it was, then she smelt the rain. None of which explained how she got here.

Aunt Lavinia sighed. "Let's get you out of those wet things." She put an arm around Sarah's shoulders, so Sarah had no choice but to go with her up the stairs. Despite Aunt Lavinia's size Sarah felt safe around her. Although she told herself she shouldn't, because Aunt Lavinia could be anyone in disguise, so she tried to stay on her guard.

"I'll get a towel," Aunt Lavinia said, then left Sarah in the bedroom.

It was definitely her bedroom. Now she knew where she was she knew why she recognised the rest of the house. Her bedroom looked exactly as Sarah remembered when she was little. The bed had white sheets on it, the chest of drawers was at the other end of the room and the curtains had blue flowers on. There was even her teddy propped up beside her pillow. He looked newer than she remembered - he had been falling apart by the time Aunt Lavinia convinced her to get rid of him.

Sarah started when she looked round and saw the full-length mirror by the door. The reflection in it was her childhood self. As she stepped forward and reached out to touch it, it was clear that it was an ordinary mirror and she was looking at herself. It explained why everything looked so big, but not how she ended up in her younger body and back in time.

She turned away from the mirror just as Aunt Lavinia came back with a towel. "Let's get your hair dry." She started rubbing at Sarah's hair and Sarah ducked out of her reach.

"I can do it," Sarah complained, putting her arms up to stop Aunt Lavinia getting near her head again.

"All right." Aunt Lavinia seemed happy about that and handed the towel over. "Can you dress yourself too?"

Sarah was about to say that of course she could, when she remembered she was just a child and she should sound like a child. Which would be fine if she knew what she'd sounded like at this age. She didn't know at what point small children said proper sentences and how many long words she was likely to know. So she just said, "Yes."

Aunt Lavinia nodded. "I'll be downstairs if you need me."

After she left Sarah dried her hair on the towel and found a t-shirt and some dungarees in a drawer. Getting dressed took more effort than usual, because this body didn't work in the way she was used to. And everything was a different size, even if her clothes were in proportion.

Afterwards, she went down the stairs cautiously, still unsure how she was supposed to behave. Once she reached the living room she found it didn't matter because Aunt Lavinia was leaning against the fireplace, handkerchief in one hand, crying. Sarah didn't remember ever seeing Aunt Lavinia cry before.

At her entrance Aunt Lavinia looked up and dried her eyes on her handkerchief. "Don't mind me, Sarah Jane." She sat on the sofa and gave Sarah a small smile.

Sarah abandoned her caution and went over to sit next to her. She'd never thought before that Aunt Lavinia would have been upset at her brother's death. You didn't when you were a child. In Lavinia's position Sarah thought she would probably have been overwhelmed. It couldn't have been easy to be mourning your brother while having to look after your five year old niece. So Sarah leaned over and hugged her aunt.

Aunt Lavinia hugged her back. "You're a good girl, Sarah Jane."

Sarah smiled up at her. There was a part of her that was glad to be spending some time with Aunt Lavinia. They were rarely in the same place at the same time these days, and as much as Sarah liked Moreton Harwood, it wasn't home the same way this house had become.

Aunt Lavinia wasn't one for such displays of sentiment, so a few moments later she said, "I think it's time for tea. Are you hungry, Sarah Jane?"

Sarah nodded, thinking it was far better for Aunt Lavinia to think she was unusually quiet, rather than sounding oddly like an adult. But she wasn't interested in playing like a child with whatever toys she had here while her aunt cooked, so she asked, "Can I help?"

Aunt Lavinia smiled. "Of course you can."

It turned out that being in a child's body meant she couldn't reach much and Aunt Lavinia wouldn't allow her near a sharp knife, so Sarah's help mostly consisted of working the egg-timer and tasting things. Although that was about her usual level of skill when it came to cooking, even when she was an adult, so she didn't mind.

After dinner they played cards, although Sarah had to let Aunt Lavinia suggest the game. She suspected that at the age she looked now she wouldn't have known gin rummy or poker. Snap turned out to be surprisingly hard to play as an adult and Aunt Lavinia wasn't inclined to let Sarah win.

Bedtime was earlier than Sarah expected, but she was more tired than she would have thought this early in the evening. Maybe it was this body needing more sleep or maybe it was the effect of being brought here. She lay in bed trying to sleep and worried about what she was going to do tomorrow before she realised she wouldn't be here tomorrow.

She remembered coming to Aunt Lavinia's house the day after her parents died, once they let her out of hospital. She'd gone outside, smelt something she couldn't place, and ended up outside another house she didn't recognise. Eventually a strange, but kind old man who'd known her name had looked after her. He'd told her a story too and in the morning she'd woken up back here.

When she finally fell asleep she dreamed her parents death all over again. So it came as a relief when Aunt Lavinia opening Sarah's bedroom door a crack to check on her woke her up. Her heart was racing and she sat up.

"You're supposed to be asleep," Aunt Lavinia said, although she came in and sat on the edge of Sarah's bed anyway.

"I was. But I had a bad dream." She hoped that was the right phrasing. Would she have known the word 'nightmare'?

Aunt Lavinia reached for Sarah's teddy and handed it to her. "Nothing can hurt you as long as Teddy and I are here."

Sarah smiled and lay back down. She knew nothing bad was going to happen, otherwise she'd have remembered it. "I'm glad you're here," she said, realising she'd never told Aunt Lavinia how grateful she was for looking after her after her parents died. She wished they were here, of course, but Aunt Lavinia was the next best thing.

Aunt Lavinia smiled. "I'm glad you're here too." She leaned down to kiss Sarah on the forehead, then left her to sleep.

After that, she didn't dream again.

~*~*~

When Sarah woke she could hear someone in the house. For a moment she thought it was Aunt Lavinia, until she remembered she wasn't in that house any more. She wasn't fully awake yet, so when whoever it was came closer and touched Sarah on the shoulder she didn't jump. When she opened her eyes she was glad to see Harry kneeling by the sofa. Surely she'd gone to bed in bed last night?

"How did I get here?" She sat up, yawning.

Harry studied her carefully, but avoided her question. She didn't know why. "Would you like some tea?"

"Oh, yes, please," she said with feeling.

He smiled and went to the kitchen. While he was gone Sarah inspected her surroundings. There wasn't anything out of place, but if Harry was here so early in the morning, he must have stayed the night. She only had one bedroom, but if she'd slept on the sofa, why had he slept in her bed? He was always adamant about her having the bed if either of them ever needed to stay at the other's flat.

She struggled to think back to what had happened last night, from his perspective, but it was a long time ago for her and she could only remember bits and pieces. Out of everything it was his story about the giant robot that had stuck with her. She had enjoyed it more than any of Aunt Lavinia's tales.

By the time Harry came back with tea and, unexpectedly, some toast too, she'd cleared the sofa so there was enough space for them both to sit down.

"Can you tell me what happened yesterday?" he asked, then started eating his slice of toast.

She had a sip of her tea before putting it on the coffee table and exchanging it for the plate. "It was the day after my parents died and Aunt Lavinia took me in." She bit her lip. She'd told Harry some of this, but it had been long enough ago that she hadn't had so many emotions associated with it. Now it felt like it had happened yesterday all over again. "I wish it had been the day before so I could have seen them again."

Harry looked as if he was going to say something, but the phone rang. Sarah left her toast behind and got up to answer it. If she'd given a moment's thought to who might be calling her at this time of the morning, she might have been more worried. But as it was, she didn't have any idea until the voice at the other end told her Aunt Lavinia was dead.

Sarah couldn't say much through the lump in her throat as they told her Lavinia didn't suffer. Sarah briefly promised to go to Moreton Harwood to deal with the funeral arrangements before she put the phone down. She couldn't quite believe this was all happening now and she stood by the phone, trying to work out what she should do next.

She looked over at Harry, who was staring at her with a worried expression on his face. "Aunt Lavinia's died," she told him. She wasn't sure if it was her saying it and making it real, or him hugging her, but it was then that she cried and held on tightly to him.

Eventually she managed to stop, refused Harry's offer of his handkerchief and wandered into the kitchen. She wasn't sure what she thought would be in there and it was only after she was standing in the middle of it that she remembered the mug of tea she'd left in the living room.

Outside it was raining and she was glad. It wouldn't be right for it to be bright and sunny today. She took another step and leant against the sink to watch the raindrops splatter into the puddles on the path. From Harry's reflection in the window she could see he'd followed her and not yet put his handkerchief away. "Even the weather knows," she said.

He put a hand on her shoulder and it was a comfort to know he was here and she didn't have to do this on her own. "That only happens in stories. In reality the weather does as it pleases."

Of course Harry would be practical like that, but she remembered the smell of the rain yesterday before dinner. It hadn't been normal rain - it had to be caused by something else, even if she didn't care what it was at the moment. "It was the rain that did it."

Harry said nothing. He probably didn't believe her, but she knew she was right, so she turned to face him. "Didn't you smell it?" He had been here at some point yesterday evening.

"Well, yes, I did." He frowned, still not understanding. "But--"

"It knew." She took his hands and almost managed to smile as she realised what it all meant. "It knew it was my last chance to see Aunt Lavinia and took me back there." Of course, had she known, she would have gone last night without the aid of the rain. But no one could guess the future.

"Sarah, we're not living in a story."

He squeezed her hands, which was probably supposed to be comforting. But Harry was always so disbelieving, even when the evidence was right in front of him. "And time travel is impossible," she reminded him.

He sighed. "All right, you win."

He took her back to the living room, but she couldn't face the toast now. She did manage to take the tea with her when Harry suggested she ought to get dressed at least. Once she was dressed she wondered if the odd rain was still working. So she pushed her feet into a pair of shoes and rushed outside, not stopping to close the back door. She looked up at the sky, willing the rain to take her again.

"What on earth are you doing?"

She shouldn't have been surprised Harry had followed her, given how concerned he'd looked. But Sarah only care about the rain, which smelt ordinary and wasn't going to work. "I want to go back. I want to see her again."

"Sarah." Harry reached out and put a hand on either side of her head, so she had to look at him. "Lavinia knew you loved her."

She bit her lip. He'd only met her the once, how could he know? She was sure he was right, but she still wanted to be able to tell her. "It's not fair." She leaned against him.

He put his arms around her again and stroked her hair. "Life isn't. The good guys don't always win."

Except in Harry's stories. In his world the good guys always won and evil was always vanquished. Sarah wished she could live in that world, for a while, like she had when she was five years old and found herself here. "And the robot doesn't always live."

At his silence she lifted her head to look at him. He looked shocked that she remembered that. She wanted to laugh at his expression, but settled for a grin and kissed him on the cheek, thanking him for all he'd done the past couple of days, and all she'd need him to do now she didn't have Aunt Lavinia any more.

Except when he reached for her, she sighed.

"Sorry, Harry. I'm just not in the mood."

He leaned away again. It wasn't as if every dinner had to result in them going to bed together, which was what they told themselves to make it seem less sordid, but generally they at least tried. "You were when you invited me over."

She shrugged. "Maybe it's just too easy now Luke's at university. There's no excitement in it."

Harry tried not to take offence at the insinuation that their sex life was boring. But given how it had been since she'd adopted Luke, he'd live with boring over non-existent. Somehow Sarah always had something on, and when he did come over other people being around would spoil the mood. He was glad she had Luke but he was nostalgic for the old days. "You weren't like this before you adopted Luke."

She gave him an apologetic look.

"So we have to come up with something to make it exciting." Whether Sarah agreed or not, he felt that the onus was on him. Not least because she'd not come up with anything herself. Although he thought his previous attempts with blindfolds and handcuffs had been good ideas, they had failed in their execution, so he would have to think of something different. Maybe if adding things didn't work, changing the location would. "How about the sofa? No one else has a key, do they?"

"No," she said slowly, and not sounding very confident about it.

He sighed. "You still keep a key under the plant pot, don't you?"

She didn't have to answer, he could tell by her guilty look.

"I've told you that isn't safe."

"Harry, having an argument isn't going to help."

She was right. He would wait until he left before telling her again. She might have Mr Smith, but he wouldn't be much use against someone breaking in to steal her valuables. "Are you going to throw me out, or do I get to stay the night?"

"Of course you can stay, Harry. I need a man to deal with any burglars," she said in an innocent tone that didn't match her grin.

"I think you'd be more than a match for any burglar." He knew she didn't always have a very high opinion of his usefulness, but then he didn't have a very high opinion of her regard for her own safety. They just had to stay off those subjects and they would be fine.

She smiled at him, but the effect was spoilt by a yawn.

"Bed?" he suggested and she nodded. "I'd ask what you've been up to, but I prefer living in blissful ignorance." He stood and offered her a hand up, which she took. And then didn't let go as they went upstairs to her bedroom.

They could almost be an old married couple, he thought, as they cleaned their teeth and put their pyjamas on. When she cuddled up to him in bed, he wondered if she'd changed her mind, until she said, "Perhaps I should just get a vibrator. It would always be there when I wanted it."

"If that was what you wanted you'd have got one years ago. Or married me." That wouldn't have just made their sex life simpler, it would have meant he could keep more of an eye on her and her dangerous activities. It was, he suspected, at least part of the reason why she'd never wanted to.

"I'm not marrying you, Harry."

He smiled. "I wasn't going to ask." He'd tried once and had been far too scared by her response to ever attempt it again. Besides, he wasn't in love with her any more. "Maybe I should come round for dinner every week while Luke's away. You're bound to be in the right mood at one of them."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For being understanding."

"With you, I don't have a choice."

She rested her head on his shoulder and he held her tight until he fell asleep.

"But their skin is see-through." He does say it quietly, so the aliens won't hear.

"Are an alien's insides really that interesting?" Sarah asks in his ear.

Harry nods. "You see, they're up-side down. Their lungs and heart are towards the bottom of their torso and their intestines are at the top."

"Are you saying what I think you are?" She looks worried.

"If it's that we shouldn't go to their feast in our honour, then yes."

Even the Doctor looks horrified now and it's not long before they're safely inside the TARDIS again.

He nodded. "I think so. I don't have much to pack."

That was true. Having only been around for four years, Luke hadn't had the chance to accumulate too much. "If you've forgotten anything I can always post it. And if you need warmer clothes you can buy some more."

"I know how to shop," he pointed out.

She smiled. "I'm going overboard with the mothering again, aren't I?"

Luke smiled too. "A bit."

But he allowed her to pull him into a hug anyway. "You can do what you want while you're away. That's what going away to university's all about. Having fun."

"And doing work?"

"That too." She pulled back and looked at him. "But make sure you have fun." He was always so conscientious about doing his homework that she knew she didn't have to worry about that.

"I will."

She smiled as she watched Luke go, thinking how much he'd grown up and looking forward to hearing stories of what he'd got up to at Oxford.

"We'll be safe in here." Sarah Jane put her arms around Jo.

Jo buried her face against Sarah Jane's shoulder as they heard the explosion around them. When she realised they were safe, she smiled. It was an impulse she didn't think about when she kissed Sarah Jane in relief.

There was a scary moment when Sarah Jane didn't move, but then she started laughing and Jo, laughing along with her, knew that everything was going to be alright.

When he did eventually step through the front door, his clothes were damp and his hair stuck up. Sarah wondered briefly if he'd got into a fight. She was torn between relief at seeing he was all right and anger at him scaring her. He could have stopped to find a phone if he tried, she was sure.

"What happened to you?" she asked as he hung up his coat and carefully left his shoes by the door. Although she'd decided on anger, her tone had come out as relief.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, old girl."

Now she was annoyed. "Harry." This time her tone was a warning.

"I need a shower and a change of clothes," was all he said and Sarah seriously considered throttling him.

Instead, she stood outside the bathroom door and thought about how much effort she'd have to put in to break the door down. And how much more effort it would take to fix. So she made herself a cup of tea instead.

Back in the living room she settled down with a nice, hot mug of tea and told herself it was relaxing. But mostly she glared at the mug in place of glaring at Harry. She'd nearly finished it by the time he came out of the bathroom. He did at least look like everything was back in place and he smelled flowery, which meant he'd accidentally used her shower gel again. Sarah decided not to mention it and glared at him when he finished her lukewarm tea.

"Your tea's gone cold," he said, as he sat down.

Sarah folded her arms. "I'm still waiting."

He frowned. "What for?"

"For you to tell me where you've been." From the state of him she guessed that nothing that bad had happened to him at least.

"Oh." He leaned back on the sofa. "I was on my way here, taking a stroll along the Thames. It's very pretty with the lights reflecting off it." He smiled at her look. He was clearly going to take his time over the story. "The water rippled a bit, which I thought was odd, so I stopped to look. The next thing I know some monster has capsized a boat - you know, one of those tour boats for tourists. And they're not easy to capsize, believe me. Well, I couldn't just stand there, could I?"

He paused. Wondering if he wanted some sort of reaction, Sarah softly said, "Of course not."

"I thought it was the Loch Ness Monster back again for a moment. But this was far smaller and had more legs. I think it was an octopus. I didn't stop to count them, but they have eight legs, don't they?"

Sarah interrupted. "Harry, as much as I'm enjoying the story, do you think you could stick to the facts? I'd like to go to bed this side of midnight."

He looked hurt. "I am. I just thought you'd appreciate a little background."

She gave in. "Carry on, then," she said and patted him on the leg.

"Now where was I?"

Sarah gave him a look and Harry grinned.

"Ah, yes, the thing in the water - let's call it an octopus, shall we? - capsized a boat. Fortunately, there was a trained diver on a nearby boat and he jumped in to get all the people out. So I just had to worry about the octopus. And a bally great thing it was too. It probably would have filled your living room."

Sarah looked around at the room and decided she didn't want to face it, given a choice.

"The next thing I knew, something came up from the bottom of the river, nearly sucking all those people down! And it looked familiar, because it was an escape pod and the octopus was a crashed alien. With all the flailing about it was doing it was hard to get close to it in a boat, but it was coming closer to the shore, so I didn't have to. I called out to it, and I think it answered, but I didn't understand what it's saying."

"Because the TARDIS wasn't around," Sarah put in.

Harry nodded. "The only thing I could think to do is to call UNIT, but before I could dash off to find a phone box, there was a tremendous roar and a giant spaceship appeared over our heads. I'm surprised you didn't hear it, even out here."

Sarah was too and she had her suspicions about that, but she kept them quiet for now.

"It hovered over the Thames and nearly crashed into the Houses of Parliament. Then a hatch opened and there was another octopus, bigger than the one on the river. They talked to each other, as far as I could tell. And then they reached out an arm towards each other, the big one pulled the little one on board, and they closed the hatch. It flew off over my head and I had to throw myself to the ground to avoid having my head taken off."

Sarah looked at him closely and noticed he didn't have a scratch on him. That must have been very soft ground he'd thrown himself on.

"So then I went and got the escape pod and you'll never guess what I found inside."

"I probably won't," she agreed. "You might as well tell me." He looked like he was itching to.

"Eggs! Big octopus eggs."

She raised her eyebrows. "Where are they now?"

"I called UNIT and they came and took everything away. They're incubating the eggs, hoping they can teach the youngsters English, then they can tell us about their race."

Sarah wondered if, despite being a doctor, Harry knew the slightest thing about biology. Given that she'd heard nothing at all about this on the news (and she'd watched a lot of it while she'd been waiting), and UNIT weren't that good at covering up alien invasions, Sarah doubted most of his story. It wasn't the first tale Harry had told her and most of those had been exaggerated, if not a complete lie. But something must have happened and if it was by the Thames that would account for his clothes being wet. Mind you, being Harry, he could have just fallen in. "How much of that was actually true?"

Harry stood up. "Didn't you say something about bed?" he asked, changing the subject and holding out a hand. When she didn't move he added, "Does it matter?"

He had told an entertaining story and she had forgotten all her worry and anger. And bed might be the best place to tease the real story out of him. So she smiled at him, took his hand and let him lead her to the bedroom.

"You'll be fine," he said, with a wave of his hand.

It wasn't her safety she was worried about, but she knew it wasn't worth running after him, so with a sigh she turned to face the house. And discovered a woman was standing in the doorway, watching her. She put a smile on her face and went up the drive to meet her. "Hi, I'm Ace."

"Sarah Jane Smith," the woman replied. "Was that the Doctor I just heard?"

"Er, yeah. You know him then?"

Sarah Jane smiled. "I used to. Why don't you come in? There's a group of aliens digging a hole in my back garden and I could use the help."

Ace blinked. "Alright then."

The aliens, she found, were small, blue and looked a lot like Smurfs in brightly coloured hats. They were digging a big hole and simultaneously managing to avoid the three teenagers chasing them.

"Now we're even," Sarah Jane said. "Everyone choose a Smurf and don't stop until you've caught it."

Ace was sure this wouldn't be hard, and she chose the one in the red hat. She reached down for it, but it run between her legs. When she turned round it dug its spade into her shoe. "Ow. You little bugger." Since that hadn't worked, she decided to change tactics. This time she waited until it had got away from her and started digging again, then launched herself at it. She managed to get a hand round it and it wriggled in her grasp.

"Keep still," she told it.

"No." It hit her over the hand with its spade.

Ace gritted her teeth and held on. "What do I do with it?" she asked, looking up to see the others still running after theirs, with the exception of Sarah Jane, who held a yellow-hatted one in both hands.

"In here," Sarah Jane said, indicating the cat carrier on the bench.

Both Sarah Jane and Ace threw their Smurfs in and slammed the door, just before they could escape.

"Are they really called Smurfs?" Ace asked.

"Where do you think the idea came from?" Sarah Jane smiled.

Ace grinned and went back into the fray to help the others with the remaining Smurfs.

~*~

Afterwards, Sarah Jane made them all tea and brought out a packet of bourbon biscuits.

"Do you do this a lot?" Ace asked the other four, dipping her bourbon into her tea.

They nodded. "Last week, we met the Blathereen," Luke said.

"And the week before that, the Mona Lisa," Clyde added.

"And before that we went to a house with a ghost living in it," Rani said.

"It wasn't really a ghost, though," Sarah Jane corrected.

Ace didn't care what it was. "Wicked."

"And the next day we go to school like nothing ever happened."

That sounded like a good way to live, except for the going to school part. Ace looked over at the clock, then at her watch and finished her tea. "I should go. It's past the time the Doctor said he'd meet me and that probably means he's got into trouble. You know what he's like."

Sarah Jane smiled. "Oh, I do."

"So I'll have to go and rescue him."

"Come back and visit, any time." Sarah Jane hugged her. Ace didn't have the heart to tell her this was her future and she'd probably never remember the address, or the date in twenty-odd years time. "And give my love to the Doctor." That Ace could do. Just as soon as he explained why he'd sent her to a old friend of his to round up Smurfs in her garden.

"Sarah Jane!" Having spotted her, Jo came over for a welcoming hug and Sarah Jane wasn't quick enough to avoid spilling some of her drink on Jo's coat. Fortunately, Jo didn't seem to mind. "I haven't been to one of these for years," Jo said, when they let each other go. "It's so good to see everyone again."

"I haven't been for a few years either. We must have come to these alternate years or something." Sarah Jane was sure she'd have remembered Jo, if she'd met her before the Doctor's funeral.

"Well, it doesn't matter now. As long as there's no alien invasion." Jo grinned, not realising that she'd said the fatal words....

~*~

"What are they?" Jo asked, from where they were crouched under the buffet table.

"I think they're zombies," Sarah Jane answered. They looked dead and they were muttering something about brains.

"They're real?" Jo said, incredulously. "I know I saw some pretty amazing things with the Doctor and I wouldn't have believed them if I hadn't seen them for myself, but zombies?"

Sarah Jane shrugged. "Maybe they're some sort of alien that just looks like zombies. But whatever they are I think we should kill them before they kill us."

Jo nodded. "How do you kill a zombie?"

"Destroy the brain." Sarah Jane hadn't personally come across any before now, but she had come across Clyde and Luke watching a film one day and learnt a lot in the ten minutes of it she'd spent in the room.

She peered out from their hiding place. The zombies were mostly concentrating on the people gathered on the other side of the room, so she was free to look around. She was glad to see that none of the zombies had killed anyone, and most of the people were fighting back. They weren't having much luck killing the zombies though.

From here, she could just about see the corner of an old-fashioned fireplace with a warm, crackling fire in it. That would surely do it. So she ran out from under the table, shouting and waving her arms to get the zombie's attention. A few of them lumbered towards her and she ran for the fireplace. At the last minute she turned aside and the lead zombie hit his head against the stone. She kicked him and he fell; another kick and his head was burning.

Sarah Jane was momentarily surprised when he tumbled into another zombie, spreading the fire, until she saw Jo stood behind him.

"Venusian Akido. You never know when it might come in handy," Jo explained with a grin.

Sarah Jane smiled back. "You never do."

The Brigadier, it turned out, had got a sidearm from somewhere and efficiently put a bullet in the head of each of the zombies on the floor, which had been dying slowly. Then Doris followed that up with a fire extinguisher. Once everyone else saw what was going on they all pitched in and helped. Sarah Jane was glad the Brigadier had the sort of friends who were good in a crisis. It mean it didn't take long before the zombies had all been dispatched and the room only looked like a small bomb had hit it.

"Who needs the Doctor anyway?" Sarah Jane said, as she and Jo hugged in triumph.

"Hmm?" The Doctor didn't even look up from the controls.

Sarah sighed and leaned over so he couldn't ignore her. "You told Harry and the Brigadier that we'd be in London five minutes ago. That was half an hour ago." She'd had enough time to get changed. Which would surprise Harry, if he noticed, which was unlikely.

"Travel through the vortex is very tricky. Five minutes can take hours and centuries can take minutes." He grinned at her and moved around her to fiddle with more controls on the other side of the console.

"So how long is it going to take?" She folded her arms and gave him a look. Since he was peering at a readout, it was lost on him.

"Hmm?"

She began to feel like hitting her head against the wall would get more results. "Doctor, are you listening to me?"

Something on the console started beeping and the Doctor hit a button hard to make it stop. "What's that, Sarah?"

"I said, are you listening to me?"

"Of course I am." He sounded hurt and put on a wounded expression, but Sarah wasn't fooled for a moment. "Just because I told the Brigadier we'd be in London five minutes ago doesn't mean I meant we'd go there next. Surely you want to go somewhere more exciting than boring, old London?"

Well, when he put it like that, she was tempted. However... "You did promise we'd go straight there."

"How about a trip to Florana?"

He sounded like a salesman, but she was half afraid he would leave her in London, if she let him take her back there. So she smiled and said, "I'll believe that when I see it."

He grinned. "To Florana!" He flicked a switch with a flourish.

"To Florana," she echoed, already getting excited about going to a new place.

"You knew the Doctor?" she asked them.

"We did, back in the sixties." Barbara smiled.

"You really haven't aged much."

They were both going grey and did look older than they must have been in the sixties - the rumours were unclear about exactly what age they had been. But they looked at least twenty years younger than they should be.

"I have a theory about that," Ian said. "I'm sure it's something to do with the Doctor's Ship."

Sarah considered how often she was told that she looked good for her age and Jo hadn't had the demeanour of someone in their fifties. "Tell me more." They were happy to oblige and the three of them spent a fun afternoon exchanging stories of their adventures in the TARDIS.

"I couldn't remember how long it had been since you left on your hush-hush mission, I had to check my diary. And not a word from you since." She'd found it had been longer than she cared to remember. "I should stop coming here. It only reminds me how much I miss you when I have dinner alone." She sighed. "But there's no one else I can talk to and it's not as if you have a grave I can go to."

Her glass was already half-empty and she didn't remember drinking any of it. Harry would tell her she shouldn't be drinking so much, but he wasn't here. She put the glass back down on the table all the same. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a woman at a nearby table giving her a funny look. Sarah turned away and caught sight of herself in the mirror that was set along one wall. Then she saw herself as others must have seen her: a sad, lonely, old woman having dinner on her own and talking to herself.

"They must all think I'm mad," she said to herself and smiled at the joke, however terrible it was. "Maybe I am, but I don't care." She poured out some of the water Harry always insisted they had and some of it sloshed onto the table. "Maybe I just miss my friends and my old life." She had a sip of the water. She would blame the wine for her melancholy, but the real cause was the occasion and the Christmas not long past that she'd spent on her own, watching the spaceship in the sky and wondering if the Doctor was alive.

"Now I'm just malingering." Since Harry wasn't there she had to imagine what he'd say to her. "Now then, old girl," she said, in a terrible imitation of Harry's voice, "things aren't all that bad. You still have your health." She shook her head. "As if that ever got anyone anywhere."

At the table opposite there were enough strange looks that she could see them without making an effort. She signalled the waiter to bring the bill. "I should stop coming here." But she knew she wouldn't, not until Harry was either found or dead.

***

Back home, she kicked off her shoes and lay back on the sofa. Despite the warm weather, her flat felt cold and empty. She'd never felt the need to get married and she didn't desperately want a husband, but it would be nice to return home and have someone there who was pleased to see you. Someone to talk to. But she'd either made enemies of all her friends or nearly got them killed. She was much better on her own and they were much better off without her.

Before she left for dinner she'd put her laptop on the floor, so she didn't have to reach far to pick it up now. She'd been running late, as usual, so she hadn't bothered shutting it down before she left. When she brought it back to life it showed her the article she'd been writing. It was about the vaccine Harry had created that had saved so many lives. Now he wasn't around she wanted people to know what he'd done. He should get recognition for it. But only a few people knew what the vaccine was really for and she couldn't publish that. Without that knowledge, he hadn't done anything that special.

She sighed, closed the document and turned back to her news searches. It was amazing how many UFO sightings there were, once you looked. Most of them were hoaxes, of course, but Sarah had been doing this long enough to spot the real ones. It helped that the Brigadier had sent her a few things about the forty UFO sightings there had been in one borough of London. If UNIT thought it worth keeping an eye on, it was definitely worth investigating. She really ought to make more of an effort to see the Brigadier, she thought. They communicated by email a few times a year, but that was usually work-related. The last Christmas party she'd been to at his house had been the year after Harry disappeared.

A few minutes cross-searching and she found that all those UFO sightings were in the same borough as a school that had record results and they began about the same time. There were no coincidences, and this certainly wasn't one. As she read about the headmaster she knew what angle to take to get access to information. A bit of flattery, the name of a good newspaper and she would find out just what was going on at Deffrey Vale.

"Tomorrow, we're going back to school," she said to K9, who was silent. He sat in a corner, dark and dead. And he'd likely stay that way until he was invented in three thousand years time. But she stood up and patted him anyway. She really ought to break this habit of talking to friends who weren't there any more.

*****

After the TARDIS had taken the Doctor away from the attic, Rani and Clyde were keen to show Santiago everything, so Sarah Jane brought Jo to the kitchen for a cup of tea while they waited for the taxi to arrive.

"It makes you think, doesn't it?" Jo said as she sat at the kitchen table. "Hearing that an old friend of yours is dead, even if he isn't really, makes you glad that everyone else who is still alive is still alive."

"I never believed he was dead." Having poured the tea out, Sarah Jane sat beside her and put a mug down in front of each of them. "But all the same, it did make me wonder what would happen if the Doctor really died."

"I'm sure it's not going to happen for a long time." Jo raised her mug. "To the Doctor."

Sarah Jane smiled and chinked her mug against Jo's. "To the Doctor."

After a sip, Jo smiled. "I'm so glad to see him again. I gave up ever thinking I would."

"I did too. I thought he was dead." Now, though, she could laugh about it, having met two regenerations of the Doctor since then. "But then I saw him again and he changed my life again."

"Did it need changing the second time?"

Sarah Jane nodded. "I'd had so many friends die or disappear that I got used to being alone. The Doctor gave me back two of them. Then I adopted Luke and now I have to struggle to get enough peace and quiet to do any work."

Jo laughed. "Children are like that." Then she sobered. "I wish I saw mine more often. It's good to have Santiago around but sometimes I wish that all of us could stay together all the time."

"They grow up and leave home." Sarah Jane couldn't quite smile about that, because she still missed Luke.

Jo nodded. "Oh, I wouldn't change their lives for anything. I only think that when I haven't seen Cliff for a while. He reminds me about all the great things they're doing in the world."

Sarah Jane thought about what Jo had said about where her husband was and where she'd been and she wondered just how often Jo saw him. At least Luke wasn't far away and she still had Rani and Clyde just round the corner. She wondered if, despite all those children and adventures Jo had had, if she was really better off. But then she realised she'd recognised a name. "Your husband isn't Cliff Jones, is he?" she asked, putting her mug down.

"He is. You've heard of him?"

Of course she had. It was a subject she was interested in after all. But it wasn't one she'd pursued for a long time. "There was a big piece in the paper about him at the climate conference."

"Well, I'm glad someone saw it." Jo grinned widely. "We're trying to educate more people about global warming."

"If it's articles you want, I'm still a journalist. Saving the world from aliens doesn't pay the bills."

Jo put a hand on Sarah Jane's arm. "That would be marvellous, if you could."

"I'd love to help. Call me next time you're in London, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."

Jo's smile broadened, if that was possible. She smiled so much it was infectious. "I will. I'm so glad I met you, Sarah Jane. We must make sure to keep in touch."

"We will." What with Harry being missing she welcomed an adult friend she could talk to about the Doctor. "I'll give your love to the Doctor, next time I see him."

"You see him that often?" There was a hint of jealousy in Jo's voice.

Sarah Jane shook her head. She hadn't meant to imply that and she could understand just how Jo was feeling. "The first time I left I thought I'd see him again soon. The second time I was sure it was the last. But now I think maybe I will. But if I don't, that's fine. I've had more than my fair share."

"You know, I am jealous of that," Jo admitted. "But I wouldn't give my life up for yours."

"I wouldn't change mine either."

They smiled at each other before they were interrupted by three teenagers.

"Gran, the taxi's here."

Jo finished her tea in one go. "I'm sorry. Here I am, nattering away and not paying enough attention. This is why I don't go anywhere alone," she said to Sarah Jane. "I'd never be where I was supposed to. I'd be forever missing boats and trains and going the wrong way."

"That's Gran all right," Santiago muttered fondly just loud enough for Sarah Jane to hear, as Clyde and Rani took him outside to see the street.

"It's been so good to meet someone else who knew the Doctor," Sarah Jane said, as she finished her tea and she and Jo followed them out.

As Jo enthusiastically said goodbye to Clyde and Rani, Sarah Jane could see what the Doctor saw in her because it was the same thing she saw in Clyde, Rani, Luke and Maria. All you needed was enthusiasm and friendship and you could do anything you put your mind to.

***

Sarah Jane smiled at the waiter who took her plate, and then pulled her wine glass closer. "I keep thinking I should bring Luke to meet you, but you're never here for him to meet. He's at Oxford University now. I don't know if it's the same college as you went to. You never told me which one it was." Given that Harry rarely spoke about anything personal, it was amazing that she even knew which university he'd gone to. She swilled the wine around in the glass. She was drinking it slowly, so she could justify not having bought a whole bottle.

"I almost asked the Doctor about you. He took me to another planet, after all this time." She smiled, remembering what it had been like to see a sky that was another, alien colour. "He said that last time he regenerated, he looked back on everyone. I wonder if he visited you, if he knows where you are." She sighed and had a sip of wine. "But I didn't want him to tell me if it was bad news. I think I'd rather live in hope that you're alive than believe you're dead." It was probably crazy, but she mostly confined her hopes to their annual dinner, these days. Before he disappeared she sometimes didn't see Harry between dinners, so it wasn't much different now.

"But I did meet Jo Grant. She's Jo Jones, these days. Did you ever know her, when you worked at UNIT?" She hadn't thought to ask Jo, given everything else that had been going on. Their reminiscences had stuck to the places the Doctor had taken them.

The waiter came round with the bill, keen for her to leave, she supposed, given how busy the restaurant was this evening. Another change of management, not to mention menu, had made the place more popular. "Everything changes," she said, as she left enough money for the meal and a tip before finishing the wine. "But if you ever come back, Harry, I'll be here, still saving the world from aliens." She smiled, enjoying the memories of Harry their annual dinners brought back to here. Even if he was dead, she would never stop coming to them.

Sarah sat down, surprised. She had been sure the Brigadier would understand. She'd originally come here independently of the Doctor, so why couldn't she stay now that he was gone? Alright, so she'd sneaked in, pretending to be her aunt, but she was hoping the Brigadier had forgotten about that. "How am I supposed to help you if I can't get on the base?"

"We'll call you, if we need a favourable report in the press."

"That's not what I meant."

The Brigadier leaned forward. "Sarah. We just can't allow civilians on the base any more. Orders from above. If it were up to me...." He gave her a sympathetic look.

She nodded, understanding the military mindset all too well - which was why she wanted nothing to do with it. Except for UNIT, of course. She stood up. "Thank you for trying, Brigadier." Although she wondered how much effort he'd put in and whether he'd try again now.

He stood too and shook her hand, giving no hint of any guilt he might be feeling. "Keep in touch, Miss Smith."

Being without a pass meant she was escorted out, although in her case it involved having a friendly chat with Benton as they walked to the front gate. She just wished she'd managed to convince him to let her stay a little longer, but he refused to go against orders. After he left her, she frowned when she saw someone by her car. It wasn't someone in uniform, so that automatically made her suspicious.

It was only when she got closer that she realised who it was: Harry Sullivan. She hadn't seen him since the last time they were on Earth in the present, not long after she'd had to deal with the android version of him. She'd wondered if he'd stayed in UNIT and now she knew. "Harry," she called out to him, cheerfully.

Harry straightened up from where he was peering at her windscreen. "Hullo, old girl."

She rolled her eyes. "I see you haven't changed a bit." Although she wasn't entirely unhappy about it. It was nice to know that some things never changed.

He smiled at her before he said, "Did you know your tax disc's three months out of date?"

"Oh, no." Her shoulders slumped as she checked it to confirm he was right. "I have a pile of post at home that I haven't had the energy to work my way through." She'd only got as far as the final demands, not wanting her electricity to be cut off.

"You can't drive it like that."

She wondered if Harry ever did anything that could be considered breaking the law, even if only a little bit. He'd probably never even had a speeding ticket. But at least you knew where you were with Harry, she supposed. "Harry, the chances of the police stopping me are pretty slim."

"Not the way you drive."

She punched him in the arm. He'd only experienced her driving once.

"Come on, I'll give you a lift home."

She sighed and gave in. She would have argued more, but she didn't have enough money to buy petrol with. At least if she didn't have to make the journey here, she could get everywhere she needed to on the bus. "So what have you been up to while I've been away?" she asked, glaring at him for holding the passenger door open for her.

"I'm still working at UNIT," he replied, if that wasn't obvious. Why else would he be hanging around the base?

"So no plans to go elsewhere?"

He shook his head. "I'm perfectly happy here, why would I leave?"

"You did say you'd like to leave the Navy and have your own practice in the country," she pointed out.

"Maybe one day. But my tour here isn't over and I'm just getting used to dealing with aliens."

Sarah smiled, remembering his reactions to the whole idea. He had improved a lot very quickly. She wondered what it would take for him to leave now. But even after seeing other planets and other times, Harry was still perfectly happy in good old London in the present. She envied him that a little. "It's very good to see you," she said. "I've had such a hard time explaining where I've been."

"I'm glad to see you're in one piece, old girl."

Oh, she hadn't missed that at all. "Don't ever change, Harry," she told him, fondly, thus scuppering her chances of ever getting him to stop calling her that.

2.
Sarah had to remind herself that dinner in a restaurant really did consist purely of foods found on Earth. Which, although boring, meant that nothing was about to kill her. She could have added some excitement to the meal by allowing Harry to order for her, but she wasn't so bored that she needed to get her kicks from a surprise main course. Besides, Harry had already held her chair and poured her wine, she wasn't going to let him get away with doing anything else for her.

In between the waiter bringing out their food they'd reminisced about the amazing things they'd seen. It might not be the best conversation to have in a public place, but for now it was all they had in common. And Sarah wanted to remember how real it was and not how dreamlike it was starting to become in the face of bus tickets and burst pipes.

"I wish we could see that future," Sarah said, when their coffee arrived and they'd run out of old times to talk about.

Harry shivered. "I'd rather not see an empty Earth again."

"It wasn't empty the first time," she pointed out, but it was eerie enough as it was. She much preferred London filled with people, not fields. "No, I want to see humans build spaceships and go into space."

He frowned. "You do remember the moon landing, don't you?"

She was half-tempted to pour the milk over his head for being so obtuse, but settled for adding some to her coffee instead. "It's not the same. They had to wear spacesuits and live in zero g. Nerva Station was just like being on Earth, only we were in orbit around it."

"It would be something worth seeing," he agreed. "But I'm afraid the chances of you living thousands of years are small." He grinned and had a sip of his coffee to cover it.

"Only small?" she teased, smiling. "I'll take any chance, no matter how small." After all, you never know. Scientists might discover the secret of eternal life. Or the Doctor might come back and take her to the near future, rather than the distant future. She tried not to dwell on that last thought.

Harry smiled back and shook his head. "Ever the optimist."

If only he knew. She sighed and played idly with the empty sugar sachet.

"What's wrong, Sarah?" he asked softly.

He was so content that she wasn't sure he'd understand if she explained it to him. But then, it wasn't as if there was anyone else she could tell. She dropped the sachet back on the table. "You know how going back to work after a good holiday is really depressing?"

He nodded.

"I feel like that, only it's not getting any better." It probably didn't help that she wasn't going to work on a regular basis. Writing about ordinary events seemed so unimportant after the the things she'd seen, but having very little to do only gave her more time to think.

He took her hand. "In that case, I think we had the holiday of a lifetime. Maybe we'll never do anything like that ever again, but we're luckier than most of the other people on this planet."

She didn't feel lucky, but she hadn't expected Harry, of all people, to look at it like that. She studied him closely, wondering if there was only a part of the real Harry he allowed people to see.

He frowned at her. "What is it?"

She shook her head and smiled. It was hardly something she could explain to him and she was sure that if she tried he would just tell her she was imagining things. So instead she squeezed his hand and said, "I never thought of it like that. Thank you."

"That's what I'm here for."

And, as it turned out, to refuse to allow her to pay the bill.

3.
Harry leaned over and whispered in her ear. "Aren't you supposed to be writing?"

Sarah looked guiltily down at the empty page in her notebook. She was here to review the concert. It wasn't quite what she was used to, but it paid the bills and she did enjoy listening to music. The magazine had given her two tickets, so she'd brought Harry along. She'd deliberated about who to bring, wondering how she'd managed to lose touch with all her friends, but in the end she'd decided that the problem wasn't that Harry had become the focal point of her social life, but that she was unexpectedly enjoying his company. They'd been out together a few times now and she had a vague idea he appreciated classical music, so inviting him made sense.

The concert was only an amateur affair, but she'd got caught up in the music and forgotten what she was here for. When she still hadn't written anything by the time the interval started, Harry went off for ice creams and returned with a programme as well. "Here," he said, passing the programme over. "If you forget to write in the second half at least you have something to start with."

"Thank you." She smiled at him, touched by his thoughtfulness.

Although she managed to write a couple of sentences while she had been waiting for Harry during the interval, she didn't manage to expand on any of them during the second half. So when Harry dropped her off at her flat she asked him, "Will you come in and help me think of something to say?"

"I don't think I'll be much help," he grumbled, but came in all the same.

He'd taken her coat, despite it being her flat, and then offered to make them coffee, which left her along in the living room with her notebook. There was nothing else for it, but to find a few sentences to sing the praises of the soloists. At least until Harry reappeared in the doorway.

"Do you have any coffee?" he asked.

She opened her mouth to tell him where it was before she realised he wouldn't find any there. "I think I've run out."

"Never mind, it doesn't have to be coffee."

He wasn't gone nearly as long this time before he came back, holding a tea bag. "Were you saving your last tea bag for something in particular?"

"Tea?"

He rolled his eyes. "Perhaps some hot milk instead. I'll turn the kettle off."

She had been intending to go shopping, but there was always something else more important to do. Tonight she had to get this review written, but the pressure she once used to enjoy being under now hindered her ability to write anything at all. Consequently, she hadn't managed to write any more before Harry returned. All she really wanted to do was to enjoy the rest of the evening, but she had invited him in because she knew he wouldn't let her until she'd done some work.

"What do you have so far?" he asked, putting two mugs down on the coffee table.

She showed him her notebook. "They looked very smart and sounded very professional," she summarised.

He nodded. "The audience seemed to enjoy it too. And I don't think they were all relatives of the orchestra."

She smiled. "Perhaps I'll leave that second bit out." She wrote and then paused, unable to think of anything else, so drank some of her hot milk, allowing Harry to do her thinking for her.

"What were you thinking about while they were playing?"

That was a good question. It was usually the first thing she wrote about, even if the paragraph got moved later. She was getting sloppy, waiting for an adventure. "I was watching how serious they looked and how hard they were concentrating. And how the music made me feel like I was on another world." They had played some of the The Planets Suite.

"I'd say Holst was imaginative chap. Or else the Doctor once took him on a tour."

"I wouldn't put it past him," she said, smiling. The Doctor wasn't a suitable subject for the review, but she wrote the rest down. She used to be able to do this on her own once, she just needed to be able to get back into the habit.

"I should go," he said, once they'd finished their milk and she had plenty of notes to write a glowing review from. "I have an early start in the morning."

She was disappointed he wasn't staying longer, but she couldn't argue with his reasons, so saw him to the door.

"Thank you for inviting me," he said as he put his coat on.

"I enjoyed your company."

He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek as was his habit at the end of an evening. But she turned her head so their lips met instead. She wondered for a moment if he'd pull away, but after a short hesitation, he kissed her back. And when they stopped he was smiling just as much as she was.

4.
"You really can cook," Sarah exclaimed over a roast dinner that was cooked to perfection.

"You needn't sound so surprised." Although Harry didn't sound too upset at her reaction.

"You just don't strike me as the type of man who can cook." Given Harry's views on what women should and shouldn't do, she was amazed he knew how to turn the oven on. "But I'm learning you have hidden depths."

He shook his head. "I'm just plain old Harry Sullivan."

Harry Sullivan he was, but plain he clearly wasn't. "Where did you learn?"

"At sea. I was friends with the chef. I saw him often, dealing with burns on his staff," he added with a smile. "It made a change from feet."

She frowned. "Feet?"

"A lot of standing up and wearing the same shoes all the time," he explained. "I think I saw the feet of every sailor on board in the space of six months."

"And there I was thinking your job was all glamour." She smiled.

"That's not the worst part. That's dealing with sea sickness."

Sarah made a face. "You'll put me off my dinner." Although it didn't done anything of the sort - it was too good not to eat. "I should let you cook more often," she said, thinking of the simple food she cooked that involved as little effort as possible.

"Better than that, I should teach you. After all, we can't have me being better at cooking than you, can we, old girl?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. He'd only eaten her cooking once and it wasn't that bad. She just hadn't learnt the art of finishing it all at the same time, so it ended up half burnt and half undercooked. But it wasn't too inedible and she'd never got ill from her own cooking. She didn't really need someone to teach her any more than she already knew, she just needed more practise. When she didn't get caught up in her writing and forgotten she'd got something in the oven or a saucepan boiling dry.

While they ate she considered Harry. He'd seem so ordinary when they first met, especially in comparison to the Doctor. But now Harry was here and the Doctor wasn't and she was learning all sorts of unexpected things about him. He supposed he was learning the same about her, although in her case she wasn't sure they were good things. It made her wonder what he saw in her.

"Why are you doing this, Harry?" she asked, putting her knife and fork down.

"Because you complained about always going to the same restaurants."

She shook her head, although that was a valid complaint. Harry seemed quite happy going to the same restaurant every Friday and eating the same thing and he'd been surprised when she'd said she wanted a change. "No, I mean why are you always doing so much for me?"

"Because you needed me," he replied and then, as if he was embarrassed by that show of emotion, he picked up both of their empty plates and took them into the kitchen.

Sarah followed him and leant against the door frame, watching him.

"I know I'll never measure up to the Doctor," he said, with his back to her, as he piled their plates in the sink. "But I hope I can show you there's life here on Earth too."

"There is, Harry," she said softly, and put a hand on his shoulder to turn him to face her. "Thank you," she said.

"For dinner?"

She shook her head. "For being there when I needed someone."

He had to wait until she'd finished kissing him before he could reply with, "My pleasure."

5.
"You know you really should leave this sort of thing to UNIT," Harry said, crouched beside her.

"And what are UNIT doing about it?"

"Nothing," he admitted. "They can't be everywhere and a Sontaran sighting in Sussex was more urgent."

Sarah gave him a look, considering he'd just answered his own question.

He sighed. "Come on then."

She smiled and they went opposite ways around the warehouse.

"You shouldn't be here," she said to the blue-skinned aliens, as she stood in the doorway with her arms folded. Telling them off always worked for the Doctor. Well, it was always the first thing he tried anyway.

"One human isn't going to stop us," one of them said to her and then went back to his packing.

They were, as far as she could tell, trading in weapons. Earth had enough problems as it was without adding ray guns into the mix. Especially when they looked more like water pistols than guns that could kill people.

She made a face at them dismissing her so quickly. It was just as well she had a backup plan. "Oh, I am going to stop you," she continued. The one who'd spoken to her made a noise dismissing her, but at least it covered the sound of the one at the back falling. "And you'd much rather I did because if you ignore me, then you'll have to deal with UNIT."

That did give him pause, she was glad to see. "What will they do?"

She wasn't sure exactly, but she wasn't going to let the aliens know that. "Lock you up, confiscate your weapons and send you home," she replied, in a confident tone.

"Your world doesn't have spaceship technology."

Sarah shrugged. "Then you'll sit in a cell and rot."

She thought for a moment that she might be getting through to him, but then Harry failed to catch one of the aliens he'd stunned before it fell. The one Sarah was talking to whirled round, a weapon in his hand trained on Harry. He was at least the only one left standing, but it still gave Sarah a fright.

"Harry!" she shouted, but he'd already seen, dropped his stun gun and put his hands up.

"Easy now," he said. "There's no need to shoot. I'm sure we can resolve this peacefully."

Sarah had a stun gun of her own tucked in her waistband - weapons that only stunned she was perfectly happy for UNIT to use. But she couldn't risk firing it in case the alien's finger twitched on the trigger.

"You killed them," the alien said.

Harry shook his head. "They're only stunned. See for yourself."

Harry looked very calm, Sarah noticed, as the alien bent to check the one lying nearest to him. Her heart was racing and her mouth was dry. Even though the Doctor wasn't around to get them out of trouble, Harry didn't seem to be scared for his own safety, but she was. Especially when Harry took the opportunity to kick the alien in the head.

"Sarah!" he shouted.

She got the message and while the alien was recovering, and not quite pointing his gun at Harry, Sarah pulled out her stun gun and shot him. She breathed a sigh of relief when he went down without a fuss. Then she ran over to Harry and hugged him hard. With her head near his shoulder she could hear his heart beating as fast as hers.

"Now we turn this over to UNIT?" he asked.

She nodded. "They have the equipment and manpower to lock them up," she conceded. "How long will they be unconscious for?"

"Oh, several hours, don't worry."

"Good," she said and kissed him, hard.

"I think," he said, when she let him go, "that you enjoyed that far too much."

She shook her head. "No, I think I enjoyed it just the right amount. But you didn't have to come."

"Someone has to keep an eye on you," he grumbled half-heartedly.

Maybe he was right, but on balance, she was glad that Harry was that someone.

She bit her lip and wouldn't look at him, which gave him a good clue as to what the answer was.

"Sarah," he said softly, "it doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?" She looked up at him then, a guilty expression on her face.

He shook his head. Of course it did, but he could hardly tell her that. "As long as we're still friends."

She smiled and he knew he'd done the right thing. Now he just had to work out how to fall out of love with Sarah Jane Smith.

"Oh, it was easy," he said, peeling her away from him. "All I had to do was--"

She cut him off, taking his hands briefly. "I don't care. You saved us, that's all I need to know." She beamed at him and stepped into the TARDIS.

Harry, who was no less grateful, but not so keen on the hugging, caught hold of the Doctor's arm before he could follow Sarah. "I'd like to know, Doctor."

The Doctor grinned at him and tapped the side of his nose.

"You're the only person I trust who can find the truth. If there was any other way..." She left the sentence hanging on a promise.

Will sighed. "I'll do it."

She smiled, but it didn't make him feel any better about lying to her.

"Why didn't women always have the vote?"

At this question, Sarah smiled. The treatment of women throughout history was something she knew about and it was comforting to know that Luke couldn't understand why women weren't treated as the equals of men.