We Don't Talk Anymore.
Song: We Don’t Talk Anymore. Artist: Cliff Richard.
Pairing: Sarah Jane/(older) Maria.
Rating: Not sure really. It's nothing graphic, a tiny bit angsty maybe. PG/ PG-13?
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pulwa9s7Q_4
...
It surprised her when the tears didn’t come. But she supposed she’d been building herself up for this, had seen it coming, and knew that this was it. That there was someone else.
…
‘I didn’t mean for this- I mean, I didn’t want to hurt you’, Sarah Jane began, her hands twisting in her lap as she stared at Maria with wide open eyes.
‘I know. I guess we just weren’t meant to be, however unbelievably cliché that sounds’, Maria said as brightly as she could, taking Sarah Jane’s hand in her own. ‘I understand, you know. I was just your midlife crisis as they say-‘
‘No!’ Sarah Jane said sharply, squeezing the younger woman’s hands, ‘don’t. I loved you. I love you. But we’re both-‘
‘Different. I know. I do’.
‘But don’t ever think that you were my midlife crisis. Promise me’, Sarah Jane said, and for a moment it was as if they were back to the beginning of it all, something less complicated, something they fell into easier than breathing.
Maria gave a nod of her head. ‘I hope you’re happy with him,’ she said earnestly, ‘I really do’.
…
The first night without Sarah Jane lying next to her had been easier than she thought it would be. She drew the duvet to her chin, and pressed her back up against the wall, before falling asleep without the need for counting sheep.
…
There was only one thing that cut Maria deeply from the entire break up situation. It wasn’t the fact that she no longer had the woman she used to daydream about, at her side. Nor was it the overwhelming loneliness she felt sometimes. It was the fact that Sarah Jane, the woman who had made sure that they talked at least twice a week when she’d moved to America with her father, no longer talked to her.
The conversations over the phone had been replaced, within week two of the break up, with texts. Those texts turned to one word answers. And soon, those answers became nothing at all.
She’d been forgotten about. Discarded. Replaced.
But she wouldn’t let it bring her down. Maria refused to be the one who clung to the sad ashes of their relationship, unable to let go. So, with a heavy heart, she set aside the past ten years of her life, and hoped that, if she was lucky, a certain Time Lord would come along in his telephone box.
And perhaps invite her to travel with him.
Then, maybe, Sarah Jane could feel what she felt when she’d been replaced.