The DOCTOR & SARAH enter. They pause at the doors.
DOCTOR: I see that young fella's been doing the TARDIS up a bit...I rather like it
The DOCTOR crosses to the console.
Sarah-Jane Smith stood in the doorway and watched as the Doctor studied the controls of the TARDIS console. It all seemed so familiar, so safe. Yet it had been some seven years since she had last been in the TARDIS. Or seen the Doctor. And then, without warning some alien thing, some cone made of liquid glass had dropped down out of the sky and snatched her away. She remembered the sickening sensation as she had felt herself being transported somewhere. K9 had warned her. "The Doc-tor is involved". And she hadn't believed him.
To find herself walking through a bank of fog and being rescued by...the Doctor. Her Doctor, looking the way he did before he changed. Regenerated. Changed before her very eyes into a completely different person. She watched him as he flitted from panel to panel, his eyes bright with interest. How often had she seen him...both of him...like this.
Seven years since she had been forced to leave the TARDIS for what she thought was the last time. Yet here she was, back again. And yet it seemed that their reunion was to be all too brief.
After all their adventure in The Death Zone and that final encounter in the Tomb of Rassilon, it had been brief goodbyes and they were all whisked off into the TARDIS to be taken home. In spite of herself, Sarah hoped that it wouldn't be by the direct route.
SARAH: Where are the others?
DOCTOR: In the TARDIS
SARAH: But we're in the TARDIS and they're not here, Doctor
DOCTOR: The other TARDIS
SARAH: What other TARDIS?
DOCTOR: Temporal Fission, my dear Sarah. Didn't I explain?
SARAH: No you didn't
DOCTOR: Never mind, I will later.
SARAH: That's what you said in the Tomb.
Who was that bloke in the cricket outfit?
DOCTOR: Me, unfortunately.
SARAH: What about the other two? Were they you as well?
DOCTOR: Yes, yes I'm afraid so. As for, er...
SARAH: "Teeth and Curls"?
DOCTOR: Yes. He got stuck in a Time Bubble, poor chap.
Sarah's thoughts were suddenly filled with that last image of her so-called best friend. Telling her she had to leave, telling her she had to go. She didn't want to go. Had he felt the same?
Sarah pushed the memories and questions to the back of her mind. They were more painful than they were meant to be.
SARAH: Well, are we going home or what?
DOCTOR: If by that you mean are we being taken back to your proper spatio-temporal location prior to your abduction, then yes we are.
SARAH: Oh good.
2. CGI. SPACE/TIME VORTEX. TARDIS IN FLIGHT
3.INT. TARDIS CONSOLE ROOM
SARAH: So Borusa lifted me from a point in time ten years after he lifted you.
DOCTOR: Yes, that's right
SARAH: And then this Rassilon split the TARDIS up into copies of itself to take us all home?
And this TARDIS will drop me off first and then you, yeah?
DOCTOR: That's a rather crude way of putting it, Sarah. But in effect, yes.
SARAH: Bit like an intergalactic taxi service. It'll be a novelty, to get to where we're meant to be first time.
The DOCTOR looks up from the instruments, a smile and a look of mock hurt on his face.
DOCTOR: Sarah, what do you mean?
SARAH: Oh come on, Doctor.
Even you have to admit we hardly ever ended up where you said we would.
DOCTOR: Yes... well... the old girl is a bit of an antique now, you know
SARAH: So's the pilot
DOCTOR: Eh?
Do you mind? I'm not a year over seven hundred and fifty, take a decade or two.
Anyway, Sarah, you've got nothing to worry about this time. This flight is under the control of Rassilon himself. It's nothing to do with me.
SARAH: So why have you been circling that console for the past ten minutes?
DOCTOR: Why? Because I'm interested, that's why. This is absolutely fascinating.
Slowly the smile faded from her face as she recalled how he had looked when he stumbled from the TARDIS that last time. She could see him now, collapsing to the floor...dying.
And then he changed and she was left with a stranger.
A stranger she would come to think of as her best friend.
A best friend who would betray her, tell her goodbye, so brutally, so unexpectedly.
Sarah could feel all the conflicting emotions fighting within her. Why couldn't the Doctor have taken her to Gallifrey? He'd never bothered much about doing what he was told before. Then the thought struck her again that if he hadn't received that summons, she would probably still be with him now. Or would she? Would she finally have tired of exploring the Universe? But all that was the other Doctor, not the Doctor who was in front of her now, fiddling with that dratted console. He hadn't become that Doctor yet, so how could she ask him why he abandoned her, kicked her out without so much as a goodbye hug? He wasn't that Doctor, not yet.
She shuddered at the memory of blue crystals and giant spiders.
How she wanted to warn him, to tell him what would happen. To ask him not to leave her behind. To never leave her behind. But how could she?
SARAH: It's funny, but...
DOCTOR: ...it feels like you've never been away?
Oh but that's just it, Sarah-Jane. You have been away.
The Doctor moved around the console to join her. As she watched him, Sarah realised just how much she had missed him. This him, the one before he had changed. Even though he had looked and sounded so different, somehow she knew that inside he was the same person.
But she still missed him.
DOCTOR: In your timescale, it's been some seven years or so since you said goodbye to my... successor.
But to me, Sarah-Jane, you and I have only recently come back from our trip to Peladon. Do you remember Peladon?
SARAH: How could I forget! Aggedor...Alpha Centauri...yes, I remember
DOCTOR: You see, Sarah, my future is part of your past. You know the circumstances of my regeneration, I don't.
He quickly raises his hand as Sarah opens her mouth to speak.
DOCTOR: And there's no point trying to tell me, either. It wouldn't work, believe me. Knowing how it will happen won't make any difference to the outcome.
One day I will regenerate, I know that.
But I don't need to know the details of how and why. How strange it seems to hear me say that... I've always thought that my curiosity would be my downfall.
Sarah watched as the Doctor fell silent for a moment. It was as if he was gazing into the future.
The shared memory of somebody else's future.
DOCTOR: Unfortunately, my future is something I don't have any say over
Sarah saw him suddenly brighten, a smile returning to his features.
DOCTOR: And everybody's future is somebody's past.
Your Doctor is me seven years ago...and you are my Sarah ten years from now.
You belong to my future, Sarah-Jane. And that's where we're going!
