epilogue: full circle

Sarah Jane Smith, older and supposedly wiser, walked slowly and woodenly away from the school, her oldest friend beside her. His arm was slung supportively across her shoulders, but his eyes were distant. Rose and Mickey had hung back, stayed behind, to give them space to mourn their lost companion. For Sarah's part, the hardest thing – the bit keeping her silent – was fathoming how to express the wave of grief she was feeling without it sounding hopelessly sentimental and stupid.

Daft metal dog. Right?

This was the first day like this in a long time, for her – the excitement, the thrill, the winning, and the cost of it all. The loss. She forgot sometimes that this was something that went along with the adventure and splendor – the pain, and the hard choices, and the plans that went wrong, and the people you couldn't save. Because you could never save them all.

Glancing up at the Doctor, at the hard and distant set of his expression, the pain edging those unfamiliar and delicate dark eyes, it was clear that this was just the latest in a long line of such days for him. He didn't get a break from them, from the days of pain and sacrifice and cutting his losses, always just cutting, never eliminating – the days that break your heart.

So much time between them, now.

So many wounds and barely-healing scars and she could see them when he turned to meet her eyes, sensing her watching him. Cuts and dents in the armor, catching the light, reflecting and refracting his brilliance and pain and loneliness and love for life, more obvious and broken than ever. And he was older for them all, and she knew that some of them, she put there.

Weren't dark eyes supposed to be harder to read than light ones? So why was she seeing things in them now that she never did before?

"Sistina Seven," she offered into the silence, heavy with some unfathomable sentiment.

The Doctor seemed thrown for a moment by the non sequitur, and his eyes focussed off in middle distance, mouth hanging open slightly as he tried to place the reference – then, memory offering itself up, looked back to Sarah's face, hesitant. "What about it?"

Sarah was looking ahead now, trying to keep the conversation casual, because that was the only way she could handle it. One step in front of the other. Couldn't meet those new eyes when she asked, with their depths laid open and bare for her to see. "Was it... was it as permanent as you said it would be?"

Silence for a moment, only the sharp tap of her shoes hitting the pavement and the softer tread of his. The hand on her shoulder tightened incrementally. "Yeah. Yeah, it was."

"I never apologized properly," she said, voice rushed and starting to break, head ducking to her chest.

"No need." There was a smile in his voice, and it was almost genuine. "It was a mistake, everyone makes mistakes. Even me – well. Less than most. But it's been known to happen."

Sure has, and he knows it, more now than he ever did before.

Sarah bit her lip, dredging up memories she had hoped would stay buried – the blood on the decking, the color not quite the same as hers - the way the console room had echoed. But that was part of really growing up, wasn't it? Facing the unpleasant bits to do what's right. And this, this apology, is what's right. "You suffered for my mistake. And it was permanent. And I can't undo that, but I just wanted to say how sorry I am, that it happened."

Nothing in response, for a long moment. Sarah dared to glance up at the Doctor, and found him staring off, a different sort of pain playing across his face. Just when did he become this open? "Sarah, I'm going to tell you something here, that I don't often talk about. Okay?" All seriousness now, the playful self-deprecation of a moment ago gone in a heartbeat.

She nodded assent, mutely wondering where this was going, the conversation seemingly having veered off course all of a sudden. She was in no way prepared for what he said next.

"Gallifrey's gone. Lost in a war."

Sarah just stared for a moment, then remembered – in the dark, under the school. The glow of blue light, shock, joy, anger, and shock again. "You said... you said that everyone died."

A deep breath. "I did. But more than just died, Sarah. Removed from time and space like they never existed. Never were, never would be. Just a myth, now, hanging about like ghosts in the back of the universe's subconscious mind. But not real."

Nothing but shocked silence answered him, and he tightened his grip on her shoulder again, a gesture so like clinging that she could scarcely believe it was coming from him – from the Doctor, her Doctor, the aloof and independent wanderer who claimed to not need a home in the first place. "Do you know why I survived?"

"Astute planning?" she offered, and it was the sort of thing that might normally have been a joke, but in this context, could never be.

The Doctor turned his head fractionally away from her, looking off at something in the distance, something not quite there. "Nah, you know me. Dumb luck's more my style." A beat of silence. "But, no. Nearest I can figure – and this is just a theory, I'll probably never know for sure. But what went on back there on Sistina – it unhooked me from time, sort of. Offset me just this slight little bit – not enough for you lot to notice, even I barely notice it anymore, and that's saying something. But enough that when the continuity wave hit, I was just-" And he stepped them both to the side, around a lamppost in their path. "- a half step to the left."

Sarah sharpened her gaze on him, realization unfolding.

"Slipped right by me," he continued, scrunching his face in thought. "Barely ruffled my – well, ruffles. Had a thing for ruffles that time round, odd thing really. Anyway." He stopped walking and turned towards her, hands squaring on both her shoulders, needing to say this face to face. Needing her to understand. "Your 'mistake' caused that, Sarah. All the time that's passed, all the things I've seen and done and the places I've been since I left you on Earth," And her eyes flickered painfully at that, but he pressed on, leaning forward slightly to lock her gaze and hold it. "All these years later, Sarah Jane Smith, and you are still saving my life."

Sarah took a deep breath, let it out, smile warm and real when it came, unflinching under the intensity of his gaze. "I always did try."

The smile was returned, and for just a moment, the brightness of life in his eyes crowded out the pain. "Thank you."