So, I wrote me this here Doctor/Sarah fic, because I clearly hate joy.
Inspired by Sarah’s resisting hypnotic suggestion in The Man Who Never Was. Ten-or-Eleven/Sarah, reflecting back on a romantic relationship with Four and potentially Three. Pounded out rather late at night, so I’m sorry for the rough bits.
”Ha! Not so big and scary now, is it Doctor?”
Seeing the shadow still cast on the Doctor’s face, Sarah adopts a more serious tone. ”I told you it was alright, Doctor, you needn’t have worried. I’m not as easily controlled now as I was before, I’ve had quite enough hypnotism for one life, thank you very much.” And then, quieter, more unsure, “Doctor, please, say something.”
He knows he should be relieved. Had the Xaxatu hatchling gained control over Sarah’s mind, there is no telling what it would have done to her, or, more accurately, would have made her do to herself. They are not known for being gentle with their prey.
But there is something else in his hearts that replaces relief, squeezes it out until there is simply no room left for it. A dark, selfish thing that will not contain itself for anything.
He knows he should have told her the truth years ago, when they were still traveling together, but greed and guilt in equal parts waged a war inside of him, and in the end he thought it best to simply remain silent. To allow her to believe, for all of these years, that it was some personal failing in herself, some weakness, that allowed every telepathic baddie in time and space to exercise their control over her.
The truth was, and still is, an emotional land mine.
He isn’t sure she really understood it. She’s a human - an extraordinary one, to be certain, for it to have even happened at all, but a human all the same - and the link could have only ever been weak. She sensed it though, he knows she did, the bond between them, mind to mind, the rarest and most profound link that can exist between two Time Lords. Binding them together from one body to the next, through all of time and space, forever.
But Miss Sarah Jane Smith, journalist girl extraordinare, was not a Time Lady, and never will be.
He would like to believe that, if he had noticed the side effects right away, he would have put a stop to it immediately. Told her that, although recent events suggested otherwise, humans and Time Lords were simply incompatible, and that they must continue on as they had before, only the very best of friends. A clever lie for both of their well beings. But he lied to himself far too easily, and so he convinced himself that it was merely a coincidence.
They continued on, as one, exploring everything, two brains and three hearts and two bodies, merging together, inseparable. And one by one, they came for her, as though drawn to the growing holes in her psychic barriers, crawling into her mind like otherworldly ants, and taking control of all the wonderful abilities and faculties that they found there.
He knew. He knew, and yet he let them all come, left the doors to her mind wide open, because he was too intoxicated by what he found there himself. Too addicted to the stars he found exploding in her mind when she came apart in his arms, a sight far more beautiful then anything he could ever find in space. Too obsessed with the little thoughts and brief daydreams he was privy to as he watched her sleep, fickle and unimportant but so unmistakably Sarah. Too moved by the love for him that radiated off of her just as subtely as a scream, the love that so very closely mirrored his own for her. He would drown in it all if he could, and somewhere along the way, he had allowed himself to risk her safety for a few more brief moments he could fool himself would last an eternity.
It wasn’t until Eldrad that he had to face reality. Nothing, not even the impossible gift of being closer to her then merely skin on skin, could possibly be worth her life. And so he’d let her go, let the mental link they had forged between them stretch and stretch and stretch and snap as he all but ran to Gallifrey, and she remained on Earth. Let the brief remnants of it wither and decay, even as the emotional link beneath it remained as strong as ever. Let himself believe that it had all been for the best for both of them.
Things had to change.
Things always do.
And now, to look at her, still so strong and independent, and now and forever in complete control of her own willpower, one can’t help but see that it was worth it. It is worth the loneliness, the emptiness when he desires nothing more than to curl up in her mind like a blanket, safe in her love for him and soothed into peace by the witticisms and cheeky jabs and comfortable understanding she has stored there for him. All he wants is to feel it all one last time, and then walk away again - or lie to himself that he could.
But instead he simply smiles, the gesture failing to quite meet his eyes, just as it had failed him all those many years ago in Aberdeen.
“Sorry, Sarah. I’m just… so very proud of you.”