Um, weird things happened when I wrote this chapter. It went to places I never expected to go, and while nothing particularly nasty actually happens, there's some conversation that might upset people. I doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to stick a warning in. Thanks to the people who have reviewed so far!

Sarah Jane and company found themselves being hustled off the estate in short order once the Duchess had been carried to her rooms. Normally, she would have found some way to evade the order - Blenheim was a large estate, and years of investigative journalism and ruffling people's feathers had taught her how to get her own way. Unfortunately the secretary proved to be a wary lady with some experience of cunning journalists, and she sent one of the estate's people to escort Sarah Jane's little car to the gatehouse and on to the road beyond.

"Isn't there another way in?" Clyde asked as Sarah Jane continued to drive away from Blenheim Palace. "'Cos we managed before, remember, with the freaky nuns playing Statues."

"That was the Gorgon, Clyde," Maria admonished.

Luke remained very quiet, and Sarah Jane glanced at him in her rearview mirror. "Well, Luke?" Her son hardly seemed to hear her and looked at him again. Now that they were back in the car his excitement had faded and he seemed unwell. "Luke?" she repeated with more urgency.

Maria clearly caught her tone and turned to him. Not for the first time, Sarah Jane blessed the day that the girl had barged into her life. "Luke!" she was saying, adding force to her words with a good shake. "Are you OK? You look a bit sick."

"It was all the dogs," he said quietly. "We've seen aliens, but - but I've never seen anything normal dead before." He shuddered, and Sarah Jane blinked as she saw Maria put an arm around him. "They were so limp and lifeless and I couldn't help thinking of Amber like that and - and their eyes. Mum, their eyes were glowing! They were dead and their eyes were glowing!"

Sarah Jane was very glad that they were on a deserted road, for her son's words made her swerve, even though she had expected them on some level. "Was anything else odd?" she asked.

"Nah, don't think so," Clyde said. "Luke's right though. It was kinda nasty. All those poor little dogs and then - whew! Spooky glowing eyes!" He gave an exaggerated shudder and wiggled his fingers, but Sarah Jane knew he was not as offhand as he pretended. She glanced at her watch. It was almost four o'clock and they could all, she felt, do with something to eat before they continued home. Consequently, she turned into the next service station she saw, and the kids visibly cheered up.

"Are we getting grub?" Ricky asked hopefully, his blue eyes growing impossibly large.

"Do you ever think of anything apart from your stomach?" Ned retorted, sounding so much like an ordinary brother that Sarah Jane laughed.

Ricky's simple 'no' made her laugh more, and even Luke seemed less upset once they were seated in Pizza Hut and waiting for someone to take their order.

Sarah Jane placed an embargo discussing the day's events whilst they were eating, and instead turned the conversation to school. Her original team had just started their GCSE courses, whilst Ned and Ricky would be starting school for the first time the following Monday.

"Are you looking forward to it?" Maria asked as she happily munched her way through a three cheese stuffed crust deep pan pizza.

"It's gonna be cool," Ricky said with an enthusiasm that made the others smile. Then his mobile face dimmed a little. "The only thing is, it's just gonna be me. At least the rest of you will all be together."

"It's just for a few months," Sarah Jane comforted. "In September you'll be joining the others at Park Vale. I'd keep you at home until then if it wasn't for the fact that if you go now you should have some friends in your year before September. Starting school when you're completely new isn't easy, is it, Clyde?"

Clyde shook his head vigorously. "You bet it isn't! I was lucky. I hooked up with Luke and Maria on the first day so it was cool."

"That wasn't what you said at the time," Maria murmured, giving Luke a sidelong grin that Sarah Jane was glad to see he tentatively returned.

"What about you, Ned?" Sarah Jane asked.

The older boy looked anxious. "I will be OK," he said. "I am - I mean, I'm - in the same class as Luke and Clyde, am I not? They will let no ill befall me."

Clyde groaned. "Shot to pieces, that's what my street cred is gonna be, I tell ya. Ned my man, you've been with Sarah Jane for nearly six months. Can't you talk like a human being yet?"

Ned's fair skin flushed darkly and Maria glared at Clyde. "Come off it. I know you don't care about 'cool' as much as you pretend, Clyde Langer." She pointed her fork at him. "You'll help Ned or I'll know the reason why."

Clyde looked injured. "'Course I will, what you think I am? He's one of the team, isn't he? One of the gang. 'Sides, I think our year'll cope. Luke was nearly as bad but now we're all used to him."

Once everyone had had their fill, Sarah Jane put her hand over Luke's. "Are you all right?"

He gave her a weak grin. "Yeah. Sure. Don't worry about me, Mum." He still looked at little white around the lips, but the food and banter had restored him somewhat so his mother let it go. She would check on him again later in private, for she knew he was apt to worry about things.

Now she looked at Clyde. "And you? Anything else you want to add to what you told us in the car - and no explicit descriptions, please!"

Their 'joker' glanced about him for a moment and then put his hand into his pocket and withdrew something that he passed to Sarah Jane. "No descriptions, but I did get this. Thought it might be of some use," he ended casually.

Sarah Jane unfolded the hanky - which she was pleased to note was clean and pristine - with delicate fingers and found herself staring at a handful of chestnut and white hairs. She looked up and met Clyde's dark eyes and smiled. "Good for you," she murmured, and he relaxed.

"What is it?" Maria asked, leaning over to see.

The older woman put the hanky and its contents onto her napkin, and everyone drew a breath. Luke's eyebrows came together and then his eyes opened very widely. "DNA for Mr Smith! That's what it's for, isn't it?"

Clyde, nervous grin and swagger in place, nodded. "Yeah. Surprised you didn't think of it, Lukey-boy."

"I was too upset," Luke said frankly. "Those eyes!" He turned to Sarah Jane. "Honestly, Mum. They were black and iridescent and glowing, like - like- "

"Like oil in water on the road?" Maria suggested suddenly.

"Yeah. That's it. That's exactly it. Only the silvery-green was stronger."

"And then it faded," Clyde added. He nodded towards the tissue that Sarah Jane was folding. "The dog I took that from. Her - its - eyes were like that, all oily and glowing, and then ... they just faded to black. Flat, dead black."

"But Cavaliers have brown eyes," Maria objected, frowning. "At least Amber does."

"They all do," Ned reminded them. "Do you - don't you - remember what Luke told us of - about - what a Cavalier should be? The eyes should be a 'warm dark brown'."

"That was Canada's breed standard," Luke put in, perking up. "Ours isn't that specific. Just says 'dark'."

"That still isn't black," Maria observed.

Sarah Jane got to her feet. "No point in sitting here arguing about it," she told them firmly. "Ricky, I think you've had enough. You'll explode if you carry on - not literally, of course! - Luke, here's the keys. Get everyone into the car and I'll be with you as soon as I've paid." Clyde lingered as the others obeyed, and she smiled at him. "You OK?"

"Did I do right? About the - you know?"

She patted his shoulder. "You were brilliant, Clyde. That was going to be my next step and I don't mind telling you that I wasn't looking forward to it. Come on."

"You can't pay for all of us," Clyde argued as he followed her to the till. "I can pay for mine, honest."

"Don't be silly, it's my treat. Go on. I'm coming." She repressed a smile as Clyde reluctantly obeyed, and the woman at the till looked approvingly after him.

"He's rather cute, isn't he?" she asked as she processed Sarah Jane's card. "Not many young men like him would want to pay."

Sarah Jane smiled and entered her pin when the terminal was pushed towards her. "He's a good kid. They all are. Thanks!" She nodded at the young woman, collected her card, and walked quickly back to the car and its load of teenagers. "All right then?" she asked once she was in and Maria had confirmed that everyone was appropriately belted up (Clyde, Ricky and Ned tended to 'forget' about that little detail). "Let's go home. We have an appointment with Mr Smith."

* * *

Once they had arrived back at Bannerman Road, all of the kids except Luke followed Clyde and Maria up to the attic. Luke headed straight for the kitchen and Amber, and Sarah Jane nodded at Ned when the boy stopped at the foot of the stairs.

"I'm sure she's fine," she assured him. "We'll bring her up with us. You go on."

Ned did not hesitate in obeying, and a rueful smile tugged at Sarah Jane's lips as she went through the living room into the kitchen. For a boy who had once been Heir Apparent to the throne, Ned was surprisingly biddable. Not that she was sorry. She still shuddered when she thought of what her life could have been like had he been the arrogant teenager she had half expected. When she entered the kitchen, she found Luke on the floor next to Amber's x-pen, and for a moment her heart plunged to her toes.

"Luke?" she whispered.

Her son looked up and she sighed in relief when she saw that the puppy was as fit as a fiddle. She was a sensitive little thing, though - she had clearly picked up on Luke's distress, his mother noted, and was curled against his collarbone with her small russet head snuggled in the hollow between his neck and shoulder.

"She's OK, Mum," Luke said. His eyes looked very bright all of a sudden and he turned his face away. He was a teenage boy, after all.

Sarah Jane sat down beside him on the floor and took boy and puppy into her arms. "I'm sorry for what you and Clyde saw this afternoon," she murmured as she pressed her forehead to his. "But you know the work we do. It's not always nice, and sometimes - sometimes it will be horrible for the very reason you said: because it's the ordinary twisted into something that shouldn't be. You've seen death before, but in ways that makes it less than real, I sometimes feel." She sighed. "I worry that coming with me hardens you children. You've seen some wonderful things, and some awful, awful things -"

"So did you, when you travelled with the Doctor," Luke returned softly.

His mother ruffled his hair. "Yes, but I was an adult by then. I was twenty three when I first hooked up with him and at least I did have some concept of normality, just as Clyde and Maria and even Ned and Ricky do. You've never known anything else."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Luke said fiercely. He slid down on the floor so that he could rest his head on her shoulder, something he had not done for some time. "You're my mum, and you and the princes and Maria and Clyde, you're my family. My normality. It was just - just that when we've seen aliens and stuff die before, it's been .... dramatic? Explosions and falls and so on. I've never seen that horrible stiff stillness before - and then Clyde touched them to get the hairs, and I know I should have thought of it but I didn't and I'm sorry -" He sniffed and Amber whimpered and licked his nose, and he gave a muffled laugh.

"It's a different sort of innocence," Sarah Jane said thoughtfully. "Clyde and Maria and Ned and Ricky have all seen death like that before. The princes especially, I'm sure. Even Clyde and Maria may have lost family members, or a pet, so it was less shocking for them than for you. Sadly it's something we all have to face, at some point."

Luke clutched her tightly. "Just don't die on me for a long long time."

Sarah Jane's throat closed as she tightened her arms around him, and then laughed as the puppy expressed her displeasure at being squashed. "Sorry, Amber... Oh, Luke. I won't, I promise I won't. I know I often seem as if I'm rushing in where angels - or aliens! - fear to tread, but I'm fifty-eight now. I know I'm mortal. Not like you young people who just go in headlong regardless of the consequences because you think you're invincible."

"Clyde doesn't think he's invincible, he knows he is," Luke retorted, sounding much more like himself.

"He doesn't, not really. That's just a front he puts up. Inside Clyde's just as scared as the rest of you most of the time."

"OI, Mum! I never said anything about being scared!" Luke's voice was almost indignant, and Sarah Jane smiled.

"You didn't have to. There's nothing wrong with being scared. 'The brave man is not he who feels no fear ... But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.' Joanna Baillie said that nearly two hundred years ago and she's absolutely right."

Luke shifted again so that he was sitting up once more, his head against the wall. "I like that. Perhaps she knew the Doctor. Can we put it on Mr Smith's screensaver?"

Sarah Jane burst into startled laughter. "You may, if he'll let you. Otherwise we'll print it off and find somewhere to put it up there. It's something we can all do with remembering from time to time. Well, are you feeling better?"

Luke turned his head so that he was facing her, and grinned. The shadows were gone from his eyes and her worry lessened. He coped so very well most of the time that even she sometimes forgot that he was to all intents and purposes not much more than a year old. She returned his grin.

"Good. In that case, get up and we'll head upstairs - and don't forget to give me a hand up while you're at it!"

Luke's eyes sparkled with sudden mischief. "What's the matter, Mum, can't get up under your own steam?"

"Cheek. Give me your hand, young man. Thank you. Now, shall we bring the pup up with us?"

"We'll have to, or Ned'll come down after her," Luke responded, dumping Amber into his mother's arms. "I'm gonna get some crisps. Honestly, Mum, don't you think it would make more sense to leave food up there and ask some nice alien for a portable fridge?"

Sarah Jane's eyebrows went up as she saw him haul out two bumper packs of crisps and a bottle of Coke before heading out of the kitchen. "Why would you need an alien one when you can get a perfectly ordinary one from ASDA?" she called after him as he led the way back through the living room to the bottom of the stairs.

He turned and gave her a look that momentarily reminded her of the Doctor. "'Cause we're not ordinary, are we? We're the Smiths and Co. Why would we want a normal fridge when we could have one that talks or sonics or watches black holes. That's much more us!"

She shook her head in amusement and followed him up the three flights of stairs that Clyde was always complaining about and into the attic. "So?" she demanded, passing Amber to Maria. "What's the verdict?"

The girl looked up from the pup. "It's alien all right," she began gloomily, "and not the worst sort of alien, either. They seem pretty harmless by and large-"

"- you mean apart from an irresistable attraction to humanoid males?" Clyde supplemented sarcastically.

Sarah Jane's eyebrows shot up again and she fought the desire to giggle. "What? How do you mean?" Mr Smith whirred and beeped and she turned to look at the supercomputer. "What are they talking about, Mr Smith?"

"Hello, Sarah Jane. Maria and Clyde have summarised the situation accurately insofar as they know it. The dog's DNA has been impregnated with a symbiotic alien lifeform known as the Ospita. They can only survive on Earth-style planets by inhabiting a host. Recently my scanners picked up an alien craft that did not seem to be significant."

"Who said you could give an opinion?" Clyde muttered, and Sarah Jane threw him a warning glance.

The computer, needless to say, ignored him and went on. "The craft was not armed and did not in any way appear to pose a threat. However, its presence occurred two days before the news reports of mutiple canine deaths."

"And you think there's a connection," Maria prompted.

"I do not think, Maria. I know. The craft's signature matches that of the DNA sample that Clyde provided. Clearly, some or all of the dead dogs were playing host to this lifeform and their deaths were triggered by the resumption of the Ospita breeding cycle when the Hub entered Earth orbit. This is the only time the lifeform becomes active when in Earth-normal climate; the rest of the time it lies dormant."

Sarah Jane bit her lip. "But when the Ospita enter their breeding cycle their host needs change," she began. "Is that right? But because they've been in the dogs' systems for a while, they've become completely sybiotic and the dogs cannot survive their removal." She glanced nervously at Clyde and her sons. "What did Clyde mean when he mentioned humanoid males?"

Mr Smith began to answer, but then he interruped himself with a series of beeps before saying, "Sarah Jane, I have just scanned the latest news reports. Rioting and disorder has broken out in Woodstock, areas of Surrey and Berkshire, and several parts of London - including Mayfair and West Ealing and is spreading in this direction. The police advise that everyone in the affected areas secure their houses and remain indoors."

TBC