Closer to Fine
Art by Lady Amarra (LJ | comment) and and attempt-unique (LJ | e-mail | comment)
Chapter 2
When they got back to the house, Sarah's car was in the driveway, but she wasn't downstairs. Luke wasn't at all surprised, and once they had made a quick survey, Luke led the Doctor up to the attic and pushed open the door.
Sarah didn't look up from the alien artefact she was tinkering, but that didn't stop her from asking, "and what are you doing here? I thought you were planning to go bowling with the others."
"Something came up."
The Doctor was certain that he'd learnt that particular tone of voice from Sarah.
Luke walked up behind his mum and gave her a quick hug. "We have a visitor."
Sarah tensed slightly, as though she was expecting the worst, and turned slowly.
"Just thought I'd stop by for a visit," the Doctor said a little too innocently, as he leaned comfortably against the table she was working at. "You left so quickly. We didn't really have the chance to talk with everyone else around." To his relief, Sarah's wariness was replaced with a big grin and she carefully laid down the tools she was working with, before throwing her arms round his neck and giving him a big hug.
"I'm always glad to see you, Doctor. You know that. But don't you have wandering round the galaxy to be doing and wrongs to be righting?" She let go of his neck and looked him in the eyes. "Put me down. I don't know why you're suddenly so obsessed with parting me from the floor.
"It's easier to meet you face to face," the Doctor offered, but then, noticing that Luke was looking a little embarrassed by their antics, lowered Sarah to the floor. "It's not as though I got to spend much time with you during our last adventure. " He started absently fiddling with gadgets and gizmos scattered all over the table. "We saved the world and then you ran off." He considered that he might be overdoing the "injured friend" bit and stopped there.
Sarah had to slap his hands a few times when he absently tried to slip something into his pockets. "You know why I left. You had plenty of younger assistants around and the adventure was over. You didn't need me."
"But that didn't mean I didn't want to catch up with you over a cuppa." The Doctor grinned, trusting that Sarah would take the hint. He was feeling a bit peckish.
"You did make tea, didn't you, mum?" Luke jumped in. Sarah supposed it had been a long day at school.
"I've been working up here all afternoon," Sarah said guiltily. looking at the two eager faces. "Fine, tea it is. Doctor, leave the Mimbarian Xens Crystal where you found it."
Now it was the Doctor's turn to look guilty. He hadn't come to steal from Sarah, and it did look like she had some concept of safe handling of her alien artefacts, unlike Torchwood. "Coming." He followed her down to the kitchen, with Luke close on his heels. This conversation would go much more pleasantly over cakes with jam or whatever Sarah had in her cupboards.
Sarah put the kettle on and rummaged through the cupboard. "Jaffa Cakes? Or I could mix up some scones?"
"I'll mix up the scones, mum." Luke actually liked mixing stuff up in the kitchen ever since Sarah had pointed out that it was just a different form of chemistry.
"Good lad. And you, you've gone all mumsy. Look at you, offering to make me scones. Time was, when you wouldn't even make me a cup of tea." He couldn't help grinning at Sarah. He'd never seen this side of her before, but he quite approved.
"No she hasn't," Luke interjected. "She still fights aliens. And forgets to feed me." Not that he minded. He'd rather have Sarah than any ordinary mum.
"It's a good thing you're old enough to feed yourself." Sarah was embarrassed anyway. "Heaven knows what I'd do with an actual baby." Probably run off to Australia at the first sign of a story and forget to make arrangements for it.
This bewildered the Doctor. Surely Luke had been a baby at some point. He hadn't planned to broach the subject with Luke in the room, but his curiosity got the better of him. "So, about Luke. Why didn't you tell me, Sarah?"
"Tell you what?" Sarah was confused. Though, just then the kettle whistled and she busied herself with sorting out the tea things.
That was strange. Why would she think that he wouldn't be curious about why she'd lied to him. Had she thought she would get away with it? "You said that any grandchildren you had would be someone else's, and here you are with a son. Did you think I wouldn't find out?"
Sarah turned to stare at him. If anything, she seemed even more bewildered. "It's not-"
"Don't tell me it isn't my business. He's our son. My son. You could have at least told me." Why was she continuing this charade?
She tried again. "But he's not-"
Now he was getting irritated. "Sarah, don't lie to me. Look at him. He's brilliant with maths. Reminds me of me at that age. And you when I knew you. If I tried to picture the child we would have together, I would have come up with Luke." There it had been said. She couldn't deny it now.
"He's -" The Doctor tried to interrupt again, but Sarah continued speaking. "No, you are going to listen to me! He is not your son. He's not even my son. I adopted him a year ago. After I saw you. So I was telling the truth as I knew it then. I wasn't planning for Luke to come into my life. I wasn't even expecting it. In fact, he can tell you that I resisted the idea very strenuously. But he didn't have any place else to go and the thought of UNIT or Torchwood getting their hands on him made me feel sick," she snapped.
The Doctor sat back in his chair and stared at her. "You mean he isn't ours."
"I'm not even sure why you thought he was. The maths don't add up at all. Any more than they did when you said it had been half a dozen regenerations since I saw you last. Which incarnation were you counting from?" she asked tiredly. "Your logic is even stranger than usual. Are you sure you're feeling alright?"
The Doctor ignored the last question. He was perfectly fine. "The one that left you in Aberdeen. Everything after that...well, it might have got changed during the war. And, to be honest, I didn't really think of our quick meetings after that as having seen you. Not properly." She'd died in one timeline, the one he didn't like to think about, and in another she had avoided him, as he'd been travelling with her younger self. There had been other fleeting meetings, and a few more close misses- and that whole Paul Morley business.
"I do think I would have noticed if I'd slept with you 15 years ago, Doctor. Your body temperature and double heartsbeat would have given it away." She wondered if he'd bring the Paul Morley thing up, but suspected he wouldn't. Unless he had found out that she knew. Anyway, the maths were all wrong for that too, since the wedding had been 12 years ago, and a two-year-old at the ceremony would have been very obvious.
Luke cleared his throat, and they both turned to look at him. "Forgot I was in the room, did you?" It had been interesting. He hadn't thought that his mum had had that sort of relationship with the Doctor, but here they were behaving like a couple from one of the soaps Maria's mum had been addicted to.
The two adults had the grace to look embarrassed.
Finally the Doctor said, "Scrumptious tea, Sarah Jane. Your cooking has improved."
"All you've had so far is tea," Sarah looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
"Well there was a time when you wouldn't even get me that." He gave her a cheeky grin, that turned into a wince due to the sharp pain in his ankle. He attempted a glare, but she gave him an innocent look and whatever he was going to say next was swallowed as the timer buzzed, and Luke got up to fetch the scones from the oven. "You do have marmalade, don't you?"
"Marmalade on scones?" Luke asked, befuddled.
Sarah, however, was accustomed to the Doctor's sweet tooth. "We have orange or grapefruit in the fridge. Take your pick."
The Doctor stuck his nose in the fridge, and emerged with both the orange and the grapefruit marmalade, butter and clotted cream, with a satisfied look on his face.
By the time they were settled back at the table with scones and toppings and more tea, the moment was lost, and the conversation turned to more general things - what Luke was studying, the latest alien incursions, the incompetence of Torchwood. And the question of Luke's origins disappeared into the back of the Doctor's mind, to be brought up again later on.