Posting this here because a really awesome person asked if I would and who am I to say no? It's also over on my Ao3 account ToshiChan along with another Sarah-Jane Adventures story if you're interested.

Please enjoy

Sarah-Jane's journalist work took her to far too many a dangerous place for her to be surprised by anything anymore. Each new story that found its way to her was tackled in much the same manner as the one before it and the one before that one and so on. There wasn't any situation that Sarah-Jane got herself into that she couldn't immediately get out of. It was as she always said, keep a cool mind and you'll never lose.

Still, there was always going to be the rare exception in her field of work. Now and again she would stumble across something new to work on and it would catch her completely off guard. The story she'd done on asylum seekers had been a tough one and she'd spent many a teary night wearily typing away at her computer, trying to make sense of all the horrors she'd just seen. And of course, the story she'd had to write about a bombing at a school had given her nightmares for a few weeks afterwards.

But she was always able to move on from them afterwards. She would write her stories and publish them and then move on to the next big thing to catch her attention.

This new story was something different.

Sarah-Jane worked for herself, but she also worked for the people. A great deal of the stories she had written had originated as people coming to her with a potential idea. A father came to her once with knowledge that there'd been some occurrences of richer parents forcing children from lower class homes out of a kindergarten. A small business owner helped out with an article on an upcoming fundraiser. An anonymous source tipped her off to misuse of power in the government.

This most recent story came to her in the form of three different people, totally unaware that they had all seen Sarah-Jane to complain about the same thing.

"They're shouting and screaming at each other all hours of the day." Amelia Pond rocked her newborn baby back and forth while she complained to Sarah-Jane about her next-door neighbours, the Wormwoods. Amelia knew of Sarah-Jane, but she was a friend of a friend of a friend. "When Rory called the police, they didn't do anything. The Wormwoods could be bribing them. Melody isn't getting any sleep which means we're not. I'm going insane and it's their fault."

"Me and a mate got called round to do some work at their house and it was really weird." Micky Smith, also a friend of a friend of a friend dropped by one day, having heard high praise from his ex-girlfriend about Sarah-Jane's prowess. "Jake needed to check out the boiler, but they wouldn't let him into the basement. It's all locked up tight. We had to leave the job half done. What do you reckon they're hiding down there?"

"I think they're keeping someone locked up in there." Bill Potts whispered conspiratorially as she had her usual weekly dinner with Sarah-Jane, who she'd met two years ago at her university where Sarah-Jane had been guest lecturing. "They keep really odd hours, you know. They get into these horrible fights, and the only people who ever go in and out are them."

"Them?" Sarah-Jane had gotten distracted briefly.

"The Wormwoods."

It was the third time the Wormwoods and their odd behaviour had been brought up to Sarah-Jane. Nothing sounded too suspicious about them, bar perhaps the police not getting involved despite complaints. Still, it was worth a little snoop around. The people who had come to her were friends, or friends of friends. It was the least she could do. And besides, Sarah-Jane could never resist an investigation.

She had expected the investigation into the Wormwoods to lead to two unpolite neighbours with serious trust issues and perhaps a friend on the force.

Instead, Sarah-Jane found herself face to face with a young boy.

Sarah-Jane hadn't meant to break into the Wormwood house, honest. It was just nobody had been home and she had her trusty lockpick and what was stopping her? A little snooping never hurt anyone, as long as she didn't get caught. She told herself it would just be on quick check to set her nerves at ease. The more she'd looked into the Wormwoods, the more she found things she didn't like and she wanted to calm the rapidly growing anxiety within her.

Then she'd stumbled her way into the basement to avoid Mrs Wormwood who had turned up out of the blue and found a small room outfitted with a table, a chair and a single bed mattress. A boy sat on the makeshift bed, staring up at her with narrowed eyes, squinting at her as she shone her torch on him. He was unnaturally skinny, with untamed hair and a baggy white oversized t-shirt for clothes.

"Hello." Sarah-Jane really wasn't one for shock, and yet…

"Hello." The boy replied. His voice was quiet but steady.

"Who are you?" Sarah-Jane asked next, a journalist at heart. As her mind scrabbled to conjure up possible reasons for this boy's existence, her mouth set itself on auto-pilot to start asking the usual questions.

"Who are you?"

Fair.

"My name is Sarah-Jane."

"My name is Sarah-Jane." The boy parroted.

Oh…

"What are you doing here?" Sarah-Jane tried a final time. Any sort of excuses she might have had to explain why the Wormwoods kept this boy (their son?) in the basement were quickly slipping away. Sarah-Jane had been working for a long time and she knew exactly what was going on.

"What are you doing here?"

"Looks like I'm rescuing you." Sarah-Jane answered the repeated question, not a trace of hesitation or worry to be found in her voice.

"Rescuing?" The boy got stuck on one word.

"I'm going to save you." Sarah-Jane told him. She was acutely aware that Mrs Wormwood was somewhere above them, unaware of Sarah-Jane's presence but certainly aware of the boy's.

"Save me." The boy titled his head and looked at her with wide eyes, and suddenly Sarah-Jane was in love.

Funny how the world worked.

The story hit the papers a week after Sarah-Jane saved the unnamed boy from the Wormwoods' basement.

Kept for Cruelty the headline sang. Not one of Sarah-Jane's best but in her opinion, the entire article was a mess. She'd been far too occupied on helping her new temporary charge, trying to track down any potential family that might want him, since his own parents had only ever looked at him with hate and malice and worse.

A photo of the boy imbedded in the article had its own small caption. The unnamed Wormwood boy sees the sun for the first time.

It sounded dramatic, but it was also the truth. When Sarah-Jane had led the boy from the basement after a confrontation with the Wormwoods that had led to them both being escorted out in handcuffs by un-bribed police, he had recoiled instantly back into the darkness of the house.

"What's wrong?" Sarah-Jane had asked.

"It hurts." The boy cried, and Sarah-Jane had to lend him her sunglasses before he would step out again. "What is it?"

How did you begin to explain the sun to a boy who had never seen it?

"It's the sun." Sarah-Jane could only name it. "You can read about it later."

"Read?" The boy stared at her in wonder.

It was then that Sarah-Jane realised that if his life had been restricted to a small basement with only three pieces of furniture, then he probably didn't know how to read.

With uncertainty in the future, the question remains, will this child be able to live the normal life he should have earned so long ago?

The ending was so cheesy that Sarah-Jane could almost feel it clogging her arteries, but she found she could easily forget about it when she brought Luke to her house and introduced it as a home.

When Sarah-Jane had set out to investigate three separate complaints about the behaviour of the Wormwoods, she hadn't expected to find a boy in the basement, and she certainly hadn't expected him to wiggle his way into her heart and home.

When Luke first saw the bedroom she'd prepared for him, he turned to her with wide eyes that never seemed to stop staring.

"Is it mine?" He asked nervously.

"All yours." Sarah-Jane assured him. "Do you…do you like it?"

How did you build a room for a boy who'd never had one?

She'd done her best, filling it with more stuff than was probably necessary. There were two bookshelves crammed full with books to help him read and learn and grow. The bed was big, bigger than the pathetic excuse for one he'd had in the basement. There was a desk to do work at, a laptop to research on and a wardrobe with clothes that Bill had helped her shop for. There was a window seat looking over the backyard and curtains to cover them in case he wanted to hide for a bit. The floor was a soft carpet that was as far away from the cold concrete of the basement as possible.

"It's amazing." Luke told her, his eyes never leaving the books. "Thank you."

Sarah-Jane would never figure out how Luke had learned to be so polite.

Or rather, she did (polite boys don't get hit, polite boys get to eat food, polite boys don't get hit, don't get hurt don't get hurt don't hurt me) and she hated it.

"It's no problem at all." Sarah-Jane told an overwhelmed Luke. "It was my pleasure."

Luke turned his eyes away from the books to gaze at her with clear adoration in his eyes.

The Wormwoods had never bothered to name the son they'd had, choosing to view him as a possession instead of an individual human being. When a well-meaning nurse had asked the boy his name at the hospital, he quietly told her he didn't have one and watched nervously as tears sprung to her eyes and she hastened to find a reason to leave so she could hide and cry.

"Names are important?" The boy asked Sarah-Jane when she came to visit.

"Yes." Sarah-Jane answered simply. "They let people know who you are, and they let you do the same."

"But I don't have one." The boy's face fell.

"Well…" Sarah-Jane was rarely stumped for an answer and this certainly wasn't going to be one of those rare times. "I guess you'll just have to choose one."

They thought of names together, with Sarah-Jane contributing more than the boy who was smart and spoke well but had been denied so much knowledge because he didn't know a whole world existed outside his room.

She gave him options like Billy, Sam, Harry, Alistair, Teddy. He declined each one politely and seemed embarrassed by his lack of ideas.

When Sarah-Jane suggested Luke, the boy finally smiled.

"Luke. I like Luke." Luke said.

"Luke it is." Sarah-Jane beamed. "I'll sort out the paperwork."

"Paperwork?"

"When I get you home, I'm going to teach you the world." Sarah-Jane told Luke firmly. He didn't seem to understand what she meant, but he smiled anyway and asked if she'd ever tried sugary cereal because the doctors at the hospital had just let him and he thought it was great.

"You'll have to introduce me to it." Sarah-Jane laughed, and he laughed too.

It was a little one.

It was wonderful.

Luke picked up the alphabet quicker than Sarah-Jane was expecting and powered through all the simple books she'd bought him, with their large text and colourful pictures. Soon she had to go out and swap them for bigger and better ones with harder words. The dictionary became his best friend as he sat down on the window seat every afternoon and poured through all the knowledge Sarah-Jane could possibly give him. It became clear very quickly that Luke was incredibly gifted and that if he'd only had the chance to grow, he could've been doing amazing things by now.

Sarah-Jane learnt to hide her anger at the unfairness of it all and whenever she went to work, she always made sure to come home with something new for Luke to read.

Bill Potts was Luke's babysitter. When Sarah-Jane had to dash off in pursuit of the latest scoop, Bill would come round and spend the day teaching Luke different things. Books were good for learning how deep the ocean was, or how space travel worked, or how many Prime Ministers Britain had had, but they didn't exactly teach you how to be street smart.

Bill taught Luke how to fight back. She showed him self-defence moves and never got mad when he struggled with them. She taught him about jokes and how to tell them. Bill showed Luke how to make beans on toast in case he got hungry and laughed with him through the first failed test. She searched up funny cat videos for them to watch and laughed when Luke shyly asked if they could watch some dog ones next because he thought that maybe he liked dogs better than cats, if that was okay.

Most importantly, Bill taught Luke about love.

She told him that love was one of the most important things in the world, and that people loved in many different, complicated ways. She explained that some love was bad for you.

"Like my parents…" Luke offered and Bill nodded tightly.

Then, she told him all about the best love, the good love, the amazing love that made you feel safe no matter what. She helped him remember all the words for it, because Luke loved words.

Platonic. Romantic. Familial. Paternal.

"What you and Sarah-Jane have is paternal." Bill told Luke when he asked. "What you have is good."

Luke thought about that and knew she was right.

Luke had nightmares. Not loud, screaming ones that some people had. Never once had he woken Sarah-Jane with heartbreaking cries. Instead, Luke's nightmares left him paralysed and afraid. He could barely breathe. It was as if the world had dropped a weight on his chest and if he struggled, all it would do was press down harder. Tears would leak from his eyes and he would fight so hard to keep them back, because good boys didn't cry, polite boys didn't cry and polite boys didn't get hurt, didn't get hit, didn't get hurt don't hurt me don't hurt me don't hurt don't hurt me please don't I don't want to be hurt please…

Sarah-Jane might not have been woken up by screams but she did have a knack for knowing when Luke had woken frozen in the night. She would go downstairs and heat up milk in a little pot on the stove. She'd add a touch of vanilla, because Luke liked it, and then bring it upstairs. When she'd gotten him sitting up and sipping at his drink, they would talk.

"I never knew it was wrong." Luke said one night, already speaking more elegantly than he ever had before now that he had access to every word and every way to string them together. "I thought it was normal, what they did to me."

"And that's their fault." Sarah-Jane told him, fierce love embedded in every word she said.

"I know." Luke set his milk down because his hands were shaking. "I didn't have the words for what was going on. I only knew bad words because that was all they ever said."

"You have them now."

"I know." Luke said again. "I just…I wanted them earlier. Is that bad?"

"No." Sarah-Jane had him in a hug before he knew what was happening. Luke might've had nightmares, might've been afraid to leave the house and might've been scared to talk to anyone but he was never afraid of Sarah-Jane. He was never afraid when she came at him with arms open wide, offering love and warmth and protection.

The Wormwoods had came had him with closed fists that hit hard and hit fast.

Sarah-Jane came to him slowly with arms open wide, every chance for him to run there and ready.

He never took them.

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" Luke asked shyly.

"I will never say no." Sarah-Jane promised.

And she wouldn't.

When Rani Chandra, future journalist and expert snooper found out that the house they'd just moved across from belonged to the famous Sarah-Jane and her famous adopted son Luke, she made it her personal mission to worm her way inside and get information for a potential story. She recruited Clyde Langer who she'd met at her new school and decided was quite funny, even if she was never going to let him know that.

"What's the master plan?" Clyde asked when he came round after school. They were watching 13 Bannerman Road through the kitchen window.

"I'm going to be neighbourly." Rani slipped a recording device into her skirt pocket and then dropped another one into the opposite pocket for good luck. "I'll bring round a plate of biscuits and hopefully start up a conversation over tea."

"And what's my job in all this?"

"Be quiet and act charming." Rani said sweetly.

"So no job at all." Clyde summed up glumly. "Why even invite me?"

Rani wasn't going to tell him it was because she wanted a friend and he'd been the first person to make her laugh after moving. "Because you're charming." She teased and rummaged through the kitchen cupboards to find the biscuits she'd made yesterday.

Sarah-Jane took one look at the two smiling kids in her front yard and slammed the door in their faces.

Rani wasn't perturbed by this and would spend the better half of two months trying to find a way into 13 Bannerman Road.

Clyde watched this all happen and drew funny comics in the back of his schoolbooks and sometimes chatted online with someone who called themselves L00k and was very interested in Clyde's knowledge on Star Wars and wanted to learn about it.

U have much to learn my young padawan

I got that reference!

It was a work in progress.

Luke was afraid to leave the house, afraid to expose himself to anybody who might look at him and see nothing more than the boy who spent eleven years in a basement, so he instead tried making friends online. Bill came round one day and introduced him to all the different types of social media. He came up with a screen name that wasn't very creative at all and set about meeting people. First to take up his offer of friendship was a girl named Maria who was English but lived in America because of a new job her dad had got. She was funny and supportive and never made Luke feel stupid for not knowing something. Luke liked her dad as well who sometimes dropped in during their Skype calls. He was nothing like Luke's father, thought Luke would never tell him that.

Then Luke met a boy named CLYDE who insisted on using caps lock every time for his screen name on a Star Wars (Luke had decided he liked sci-fi movies the most and was interested in finding out about them) forum. They never did Skype calls like Maria, but Clyde was always happy to teach Luke about Star Wars and other movies he thought Luke might like. Clyde said he lived in London like Luke did but he never pressured Luke about meeting up which was nice.

Sarah-Jane did worry about Luke's online presence, but she never had the heart to keep him away from things. Instead, she gave him lectures about being safe online and did discreet background checks on any friends he mentioned.

It did blow her mind to find out CLYDE who made Luke laugh and laugh like he never had before, was actually charming Clyde who kept appearing with Rani Chandra every time she tried to wiggle her way inside the house. So…

So when Sarah-Jane relented one day and let Rani in, it was not because of her constant badgering but rather because Sarah-Jane had seen the way Luke would light up when he spoke about CLYDE and she wanted a way for him to meet the real thing. She and Luke discussed having people over who weren't Bill in great lengths, but he eventually decided that he wanted to give it a try.

"I can't hide away." He said and Sarah-Jane heard her own determination in his voice and had to blink back proud tears.

"If you never wanted to leave the house, I would understand." She said and smiled when he shook his head.

"I'm working my way up to that. Having people over is the first step, I think."

"Good boy." Sarah-Jane busied away to send Rani a letter because she was a little too proud to invite the girl over face to face after all the times she'd told them to go away.

Rani got the letter on a Saturday and was at the door the next day, Clyde on her heels like he always was.

"Let me make one thing clear." Sarah-Jane said when she answered the door. "I'm not letting you in here so you can get your next big scoop and expose my son's secrets to the world. I'm letting you in here because Luke would like some friends and you both seem nice, even if you do like trespassing occasionally."

Rani took a moment to accept this, but eventually turned off her recorders and followed Sarah-Jane to the kitchen where she'd made cake and put on the kettle for tea.

"Did you know that roughly seventy three percent of British people don't know their neighbours' names." Luke said instead of introducing himself, which was just something he did. It was only when Sarah-Jane gave him an encouraging nod that he set down his book and offered Clyde and Rani his hand to shake. "I'm Luke."

"Funny." Clyde muttered.

"What?" Rani hissed.

"He just reminds me of someone I know."

It was a stilted, awkward afternoon, made slightly manageable by Clyde working hard to try and charm Sarah-Jane and Luke interspersing sips of tea with new facts he'd found out earlier that day.

When Rani and Clyde left, Luke and Sarah-Jane stood at the sink doing the dishes.

"Did you like them?" Sarah-Jane asked, dunking a mug into the water and scrubbing at the slight tea stain around the rim.

"I think so." Luke said thoughtfully. "Clyde's funny."

Sarah-Jane smiled a secret smile.

"Can we get a dog?" Luke wanted to know.

"Why on earth would you want a dog?" Sarah-Jane had a deadline approaching fast and most of her attention was focused on writing her latest article on the sudden decline of bees. She might've been a bit brisk with her reply, but it took her no time at all to notice Luke's lack of reply. When she looked at him, he stared anxiously back. "Sorry, didn't mean to sound short."

"Dogs are good companions." Luke started up again. "They keep you company. They play with you and love you. And I've read about how some are good for when…when you don't feel so good."

"You want a service dog?"

"Not a service dog specifically." Luke said patiently. He'd gotten used to Sarah-Jane's questions by now. After all, it was her job to ask them. "Just a dog who'll sleep with me at night and run around with me in the garden."

Sarah-Jane grumbled internally at how soft she'd gotten, but it wasn't like she could say no to Luke. She loved him far too much for that.

So they got a little Jack Russel Terrier Luke called K9 because he could never resist a good pun after Clyde had taught him what they were over a fun game of Scrabble one day.

Luke had won. He always won.

K9 was small and scruffy and chased his own tail and tripped over his own feet but he also growled at shadows and slept curled up next to Luke, protecting him from nightmares by simply being there.

Sarah-Jane would never admit it, but she loved K9 too, the daft dog. If Luke was in the bathroom or over at Rani's house (which was a thing now, and damnit if Sarah-Jane wasn't so proud) where K9 wasn't allowed, then the dog would follow her around and stare adoringly at her.

"How can someone so small have such a big heart?" She asked K9 jokingly one night, waiting patiently as if somehow, he might answer.

The first time Luke called Sarah-Jane mum, they both cried.

Luke's first sleepover at Clyde's was a big deal. After figuring out that CLYDE and Clyde were the same person, the two boys had become as thick as thieves. Sarah-Jane would walk past Luke's room late at night and hear him giggling over Clyde's latest comic or passionately debating the newer seasons of Star Trek. Some nights she told him to sign off and go to bed.

Other nights, she let him be.

When Luke came to her one day, silent and trembling with those same wide eyes that had flinched from the sun three years ago, Sarah-Jane put aside her work at once and opened her arms for him. He was on her lap in seconds and neither of them mentioned how he was certainly way too big for this now.

"Clyde's invited me to a sleepover." He said quietly.

"Well, that sounds like fun." Sarah-Jane took it in stride like she took most things.

"Yeah?" Luke smiled hopefully at her. It was obvious he wanted to go but was worried about what Sarah-Jane would think. She hated to admit it, but she was a little bit overprotective at times.

"When are you planning to have it?" She asked and let him draw her into the elaborate plan he had laid out while Clyde listened as intently as K9 listened to Luke's breathing at night and as intently as Rani hung onto Sarah-Jane's talks on journalism.

Sarah-Jane was up half the night Luke was gone. It was her first night without him and suddenly the three-storey house felt too small, too empty, too lonely. Clyde's mum had been more than happy to have K9 over as well so Sarah-Jane didn't even have the daft dog for company.

It was worth it though, when Clyde's mum sent Sarah-Jane a photo of their sons trying to make pancakes in the morning. Luke had batter dripping in his hair and a wide smile on his face that rivalled Clyde's own as he drew bizarre patterns with the mixture that hadn't ended up on Luke.

Accompanying the text was an invitation to morning tea so the two mums could get to know each other.

Sarah-Jane actually felt nervous as she gathered her bag and touched up her lipstick. She felt better once she realised Luke had probably felt the same way and yet was still laughing and smiling as if nothing would ever go wrong again.

One thing about the Luke in this world, the world without Aliens and the Bane and everything else, was that he never once asked Sarah-Jane if something was good or a bad.

When he was a kid, he asked it all the time.

But his father would always sneer bad back at him, and his mother would hit him when she grew tired of the questions, so he eventually learned to stop.

Things could always go wrong, and this time, they did.

Mr and Mrs Wormwood, once locked up tight for imprisoning their child in a basement, now walking free again because of a mistake in the trial and because of some apparently good behaviour once behind bars. For once, Sarah-Jane was behind the news and found out at the same time as her son did.

Luke locked himself in his room with nobody to keep him company, not even K9 who whimpered and scratched at the door and wailed when he could feel Luke having nightmares. Clyde sent him messages and came round to knock and knock but to no avail. Sarah-Jane sat on the other side of the door and tried to imagine Luke doing the same. She sat there and held back tears because she knew this was Luke's time to cry and she waited.

Bill came round with movie soundtracks to play and promises of video games but Luke didn't budge. Maria called him again and again on Skype but not once did he press the accept call button. Sarah-Jane cuddled K9 and she made tea for Clyde and Bill and she waited.

In the end, it was Rani who got through to him.

She got dressed in her work experience clothes, grabbed her trusty trio of a pen, a recorder and a notebook and marched her way into Sarah-Jane's house and knocked on Luke's door.

"Tell me everything." She demanded and Luke was so surprised that he actually opened the door.

"What?"

"Tell me everything." Rani repeated like it was obvious. "It's not like we're going to let those horrible people walk free. Tell me what you remember and we can build another case."

So it was Rani the reporter who got Luke out of his bad place by acting professional and focusing on details rather than feelings and promising him her best work.

Then, when it was over and Luke had said everything he needed to say, Rani put down her pad and Luke got Rani the friend who held him tight and let him cry but never cried with him because she knew this was his time and that hers would come later.

Luke never read the article. He didn't need to. He trusted Rani had done her best work.

She had.

Five years after Sarah-Jane had broken into a house because of three different complaints and had found a boy in the basement with wide eyes and untamed hair and skinny limbs, Sarah-Jane took her beautiful son out to dinner. Accompanying them was a whole host of friends. Rani and her parents, dressed up and excited for a night out with the famous journalist and her famous son. Clyde and his mum, Clyde already hanging back to rag on Luke's tie while his mum talked university prices with Sarah-Jane. Bill, babysitter extraordinaire with her fiancé on her arm and a smile on her face. Even Maria and her dad had flown down from America to spend a week with Luke. Sarah-Jane had heard them the two friends chatting into all hours of the night but not once had she told them to stop.

Tonight wasn't about recognising that five years ago, Luke had been in a shitty situation but now he wasn't. Sure, it was the five-year anniversary, but that wasn't really on anyone's mind. Instead, they were out to dinner simply because they had the freedom to do such a thing. They had the freedom to make plans and go out and find a restaurant that would take dogs so that K9 could come along too.

They had a large table outside, warmed by two space heaters that surrounded them in a cosy bubble of heat. Over plates of food, they talked. Rani's parents joined in the conversation about university with Mrs Langer while Alan Jackson watched on and tried to offer his own input based on American experiences. Rani and Clyde discussed Clyde's latest batch of commissioned work and what had been his favourite piece to draw. Maria smiled hopefully at Bill and her fiancé and asked them question after question, warm on the inside and out at the thought of not being alone in her interests anymore.

And across the table, Sarah-Jane Smith met Luke Smith's eyes, and they both smiled.

"Feeling okay?" Sarah-Jane mouthed at her totally unexpected yet incredibly amazing son.

"Feeling great." Luke mouthed back.

And he was.

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