Out Of the Frying Pan

She'd been standing still a very long time. Thre Raston Robot Assasins blinked in and out around her. She'd be safe as long as she could stand perfectly still. They knew she was here, but could not see her unless she moved, much like hunting cats.

It was her job to distract them while the Doctor went to turn off the generator. It seemed like he'd been gone hours, though in reality it was not quite a single hour.

If he did not return, she wondered how long she could stand here like this. It was the not knowing that tormented her. And an itch on the palm of her left hand.

The Doctor emerged from his TARDIS, prepped and ready for an afternoon tea in Paris. He adjusted his jumper, parasol in arm and hat on head, and ran right into the cave wall. He stood for a moment in the obscurity of the situation. The first thought that popped through his head was Paris doesn't have any caves.

The second was How intoxicated am I?

He snapped out of his stupor and collected himself. He took off his sunglasses, and looked around. This definitely wasn't Paris. Nor was it a cafe. But more importantly, it wasn't outside. He folded the sunglasses and put them into his pocket. He took off his hat, recollected his frock coat from the TARDIS, and reemerged.

There were three tunnels to where his TARDIS had landed. He seemed confused as to where to go. He took a deep breath, calmed his heartbeat, and listened. Sat in silence. Not a sound Doctor...

Coming from one of the near-by tunnels was a constant and steady woosh.....woosh....woosh....woosh....woosh.... He suddenly opened his eyes, and ran directly into the tunnel. As the sound of the woosh got louder and louder, he slowed his pace. He peeked around the corner. In an instant, his hearts stopped.

Three Raston robots wooshing around a poor woman trapped in the middle. He couldn't get a closer look at her face, but she looked painfully uncomfortable, and in dire need of rescuing. He rummaged through his pockets for something to distract them with. He pulled out a cricket ball. I'm sure Edward wont mind if we borrow one of his balls for the game later....besides he owes me one.

He held his breath as he tossed the ball down the other end of the hallway. Simultaneously the three robots disappeared down the hallways chasing after the noisy ball. He knew he only had moments before the ball was incinerated and they would return to the woman. He ran to her, grabbed her hand, and stood her up.

"No questions, just follow me!" He dragged her down the other end of the hallway, far away from the Raston guards and towards the TARDIS.

She had no idea how he'd gotten the TARDIS back, but she could hear it.  At it's low strange grind, all her worry left her.  Not only had the Doctor gotten to the generator, he'd fetched the TARDIS as well and all should go smoothly from here.  When the ball dropped past her and went bouncing down the rough tunnel, she let herself sink to the ground as she watched them go.  She could hear the Doctor's footsteps behind her and was surprised to hear him running.  She turned to see what was the matter, and it was not the Doctor.

She could not have been more stunned and was caught on an in breath as he snatched her to her feet.  Momentum was in his favor as they ran, and she was hardly going to turn and go the other way when she saw they were headed for the TARDIS.

Had he sent a friend?

"What's going on!" She insisted with her second gasp as he dragged her into the TARDIS.  In they went, door slammed shut behind them.  She yanked her hand loose, quite cross with this stranger. "Who do you think you are? Where is the Doctor?"

She retrieved her hand and rubbed it like he'd hurt her.  He hadn't, but she'd been intellectually offended by this stranger's manhandling and sudden usurping of the TARDIS.

The Doctor brought the strange woman into his TARDIS, slammed the door, and was immediately hit with a barrage of questions. He ran over to the console and began to circle it, twisting knobs and do-dads. "What's going ON?!" she asked.

Without looking up or assessing the situation, the Doctor spoke. "Those were nasty creatures you got yourself tangled up with, miss. Don't you know better?" He seemed to rebuttle her stern and cross attitude.

"Who the hell are you? Where is the Doctor?" The Doctor stopped in his tracks, back facing the woman. "How do you know of that name? Who exactly are yo--"

He stopped mid-sentance. He felt his mouth get dry and felt his eyebrows crinkle in concern. "What exactly does that name mean to you?"

He turned slowly to face the woman. His eyes met hers. He knew exactly who he was dealing with, and couldn't resist letting out a laugh. A smile streaked across his face, meeting the woman's rather concerned eyes.

His hair was pale and soft, framing a long, strong face and an overly -straight nose.  He looked like some sort of side line cricket fanatic.  He had the darkest blue eyes she'd ever seen. His face changed from sever to smiling in an untrustworthy instant.

When he challenged her she strode up to him and stopped within just a few inches of him and glared up at him, hands on her hips.

"That name means I'm going to win, and you're going to be sorry!" His impertinent grin made her angry.

He strode up to her, and as he approached, she stuck her chest out in the bravado she always seemed to inhabit. He couldn't stop his smiling. She gave him the dagger and handgun glare she was so famous for. "That name means I'm going to win, and you're going to be sorry!"

"You know you really haven't changed one bit. Truly you haven't! Maybe a bit of age, but nothing that would destroy your elegance." He leaned in a bit closer. Inspecting something on her face....

He stood back up and ran back over to the console. "I suspect you're waiting for scarves and teeth. I mean, it HAS been a while, and we all change every now and then, but I suppose none of this is making sense to you."

He stopped in the middle of the panels. "Sarah Jane Smith-----Sarah Jane-----Sarah....how on Earth could you get yourself into a situation like this?" He looked over his shoulder at her with a smitten smile.

She'd never met someone so cheeky in her life.  His words and the insolence on his face brought a quick heat to her own.  The crack about her age swirled with her fear for her friend and she reached the boiling point.  Her arm cocked back and pistoned forward, catching him square on the chin.  When he went down, she slipped into shadow, her heart in her throat as she waited around the bend of the small room, listening, trying to plot and shaking out her singing knuckles.  

Her name on his lips drew her out, that and how he moved about the console, not paying her much mind even as he spoke to her.

"He told you about me.  The Doctor. Where is he?"  Her voice dripped threat even as she half hid from him.

Seeing stars was something the Doctor was used to. Traveling in time and space, the Doctor often opened up the doors of the TARDIS to have tea and watch galaxies and planets pass by. He often circled around nebulas so he could watch stars being born and die. But never once would he ever thing that he would be seeing stars in his own TARDIS, particularly surrounding his own head.

These things were going through the Doctors head as he slowly regained cognitive ability. He found himself lying underneath the console looking up at the bottom panels. I really need to dust under here....

SNAP OUT OF IT DOCTOR. He stood up cradling his jaw, stumbling over himself. "For Rassilon's sake Sarah! Am I really that different to you? I thought you would have recognized me by now. Key to the TARDIS? Recognizing your name? Knowing how to distract the robots?"

He looked around the TARDIS. She was nowhere to be found, but he knew she was in there. Sarah, I'M THE DOCTOR!" He looked around, waiting for her to respond.

At that moment, the TARDIS began to rumble and shake. Something was scraping on the outside of the door wanting to get in. He flipped the panel screen on and observed the guests outside. The Raston Robots had found the TARDIS and were lancing it with full power. "And whether you like it or not, Sarah, they're waiting right outside the door. They would give nothing more than to have you back in their clutches..."

There was no time.  Not the timelessness of the TARDIS.  Really, not enough time.  If the Doctor were somewhere outside the TARDIS, she'd have to fight this tall pale man away from the controls before she could be taken away from this time and place.  

But maybe it was him, here to snatch her away from her troubles.  He moved like him, was impatient with her humanity; like him.  And not coming to strike her for striking her, just like her Doctor.

This lightning quick debate ended abruptly in her head as the TARDIS, the safest place in the Universe (mostly), shook as though like an Earthquake.    It surprised a shriek out of her, short and sharp.  She clutched at the wall, dark eyes wide and searching.  

He said her name again.   Half of it, anyway.  It sounded full on his lips.  So did the threat he poked her with.

"No! Don't!" Sarah Jane came out of the shadows, her face most serious and her brow troubled as she nailed him with her eyes.  The time just past had been most horrible, and her reluctance to return to it was visceral.  Her eyes went nearly square with the desperation of her choice.  "Get us away from them, please!"

The Doctor zoomed over to the far side of the TARDIS console and hurriedly flipped switches and jammed buttons. The TARDIS was starting to dematerialize, but was whirring and grinding with a terrible sound, as if something was forcing it to stay. The Doctor was becoming increasingly frustrated and slammed the console. In an instant the TARDIS resumed it's normal flight pattern and began to take off normally.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He took out a pocket handkerchief and dabbed his brow. The TARDIS was flying through the vortex once more and there was no sign of the Raston Warrior Robots. At least for now....

He glanced over at Sarah Jane, who had now migrated over to the console. "A lot has changed since I dropped you off last. I can understand the confusion. New console, new face, new wardrobe. But I can promise you it's still the same old Doctor. Well, more or less."

He gave her a small smile, and walked over to the vector screen. He leaned over the screen and began to twiddle with the knobs on either side. "There we go. Come here Sarah, and take a look."

On the screen was his former incarnation, clad in burgundy, laying on the ground with three unfamiliar faces. The Doctor was laying on the ground with the life leaving his face. "I fell Sarah. I fell for ages. Off a radio satellite mind you. And I saw my brief 700 years pass before my eyes. You, Susan, Ian, Jamie, Victoria, Zoe, all of them. I've changed Sarah. But I'm still the same Doctor you know."

He smiled down at her, hoping she would understand.

Funny that she didn't believe him until he showed her the captured images. It wasn't that the film was considerably more convincing. It was just because only he could be so thoughtlessly inhuman. Because he wasn't human. She could not argue that his joy to see her, such a familiar joy, was at complete odds with the terrible tale told on the monitor. Her fingertips actually barked on the surface of it as she tried to reach for him. To hold him back. The sound she made was not a sob, but the odd whoop of air dragging in past the lump in her throat. She white knuckled the rail as the face most dear to her in all the Universe seemed to melt away before her eyes. Taken by fog and chaos. Then there grew this fellow. This sandy haired man with his sky slope nose and his rather kind looking mouth.

She broke her gaze from the screen, whipped around too confront him, but gave him a good kick the shin instead. She growled at him, clenching and baring her perfectly squared, straight teeth. Her hands came up, splay fingered she reached out and shook her hands, as if she was reaching to shake him but only got half way.

"I loved him." She shouted, knowing she'd have to explain. She got her voice under control and nailed his deep, deep blue eyes with her own sea storm green. "I loved him." she dropped her arms. "You shouldn't have showed me that."