9Maria Jackson walked out of her kitchen and glanced out the window. She had been living in the United States for nearly two years by then, but some things were hard to get used to. Like for example the fact that her new home was situated so close to the city's centre (or 'center', as they called it there) that she could see the White House from her kitchen window. It was a spacious flat, she had to admit - especially since she and her dad were the only people inhabiting it - but it was amazing and the huge amount of space did not bother either of them.
"Maria, there's someone at the door. Please do check who it is." Alan's voice sounded all the way from his bedroom. Maria smiled.
"Yes, dad. Right away."
She had to admit that moving here hadn't been as hard as she had expected it to be. Initially she had thought that not being able to talk with anyone about aliens and the such would be hard, but she had been wrong - her father's new part-time job told her as much. Well, technically it wasn't actually a job, since UNIT only consulted him in very special circumstances, but they did pay. And the fact that Maria herself had encountered more aliens in her sixteen-years-old life than most of the soldiers had turned out to be enough of a pass to the supposedly secret organisation. So yes, Maria's life was now not quite unlike a James Bond movie, except with aliens. It was cool. Amazing. She loved it.
Still, she missed her friends from England. No one was as smart as Luke, and she hadn't met a guy as funny as Clyde. There wasn't anyone she would bond with stronger than with Sarah Jane. Her new friends weren't bad, but they couldn't even compare to what she had lost.
The knocking at the door repeated itself and Maria found herself sighing with exasperation.
"Coming!" She called out, mainly to keep the person on the other side from approaching it too nervously. She rubbed her eyes - it was nearly ten, but on a Saturday it counted as morning.
She swung the door open and froze.
Standing in the doorway was no one else than Luke Smith. Luke, Sarah Jane's adopted son. Luke, the boy created by aliens to destroy the world. Luke, the smartest person in the whole wide universe. Luke, the boy she had come to care for in a way she had never felt about a boy before. Luke, the person who couldn't possibly be so casually standing on her doorstep. And the person who was doing just that.
"Surprise!" He exclaimed, exactly as childishly as she remembered him. "I bet you didn't expect this!"
He was getting good, she realised. He even said "I bet". Maria thought to later thank Clyde for making Luke more human.
"No, I didn't." She laughed and embraced him. He stiffened.
"This is a hug, right?" Luke asked, and it was so completely him that she had to laugh again. "You're happy?"
"Yes," she said between laughs. "Yes, I am."
"Good." He smiled widely. "Happy is good. I like it."
"You can also construct more complex sentences with an intelligence quantity like that," said the man who had accompanied Luke in the first place, shaking his head. "Really, if you keep on like that, someone will think you really are three."
The man was thirty-five years old at most. Tall, skinny and dressed in a blue suit, he seemed distinctively familiar, although Maria was sure she had never seen him before in her life.
Luke scratched his neck.
"Sorry, dad," he muttered. "Force of habit."
If she hadn't been staring already, they would have noticed the way Maria gaped at the two of them, completely at a loss of words. Had Sarah Jane gotten married in the end? She had thought the wedding turned out to be a trap set by the Trickster. Clearly, there was someone Luke considered his father now - did she really not know what was going on at all?
Alan walked up to them - clearly the long time his daughter was spending in the door was enough to make him alarmed.
"Luke!" He exclaimed upon seeing the boy. "I had no idea you were in the US!"
"Hello, Mr Jackson." Luke shook his hand politely. "I just thought I would pop in for a visit, since we were already in the city."
"And who's your friend?" Mr Jackson asked hesitantly, nodding his head towards the Doctor. Luke suddenly realised just how hard to explain this was going to be.
"This is... umm..." He stammered, quite unlike himself. Thankfully, the situation seemed to sort itself out as the Time Lord in question gave his most dashing smile and eagerly shook Alan's hand.
"Hello," he said cheerfully. "You must be Maria's dad, Luke has told me all about you. It's such a shame we haven't met in the end... Well, we have now, I suppose, so it is nice to meet you!"
"And you are...?"
"I'm the Doctor," he claimed with a grin, but didn't give them the time to cope with that information as he went on. "That's what they call me, at least. Never did figure out why exactly that, but I kinda got used to it, so it's fine. You can call me that."
"The Doctor..." Maria repeated. "The Doctor as in the Doctor. As in Sarah Jane's alien boyfriend who left her for thirty years the Doctor. As in the Time Lord. As in the Doctor the Doctor."
Luke nodded, even though it pretty much didn't need confirming.
Alan wrinkled his forehead.
"I thought he would be older," he whispered to his daughter.
"Well, you always do!" The Doctor appeared offended. "What's wrong with my age?!"
"Nothing," Maria assured him quickly, as she had no idea how he was going to react. She grabbed Luke's shoulders with a smile. "The important thing is: what are you doing here? I mean, it must be very important if you dragged the Doctor all the way from Galli-"
Luke frowned deeply and cut her off before she managed to finish the word.
"Nothing is happening." His smile was back, but now it seemed just a little forced. "Nothing bad, that is. It's just that you said that I could visit you any time I wanted, and I wanted now... So here I am."
"No alien invasion to worry about?" Alan breathed a sigh of relief. "That's a nice break from the usual."
"Yes," Luke confirmed. "Just a casual visit among friends, nothing dangerous. And no aliens this time."
His smile was so earnest that it was nearly impossible not to believe him.
=ooO*Ooo=
"This is so surreal," Maria said, and Luke could only nod. Here he was, taking a stroll through the streets of a major American city. He suspected that was not what she meant, though.
"Surreal?" He asked. "How?"
"I mean, you meet aliens all the time so you think you get used to it, but when it's something like him..." She drifted off. "He looks just like us, Luke. It kind of just... reminds you that the universe is far more complex than that."
An awkward silence fell between the two, and Luke desperately tried to re-engage the conversation.
"So..." he said, his mind reeling through all possible subjects. Focus, Luke. It's just Maria, she's your friend, you've got no reason to be nervous. "How's America?" He asked awkwardly. Then, he realised that the question was actually quite pointless.
Maria laughed at his awkwardness.
"Like you can see," she said. "Not much different from back home." The girl sighed. "Still, I get terribly homesick here from time to time. I know it is home, but..."
"But it's different?" Luke finished for her. He glanced down with a blush. "Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off."
She looked at him thoroughly.
"You've changed, Luke. You know that?"
"I... How?"
"You're much more mature. And you seem responsible."
"It's been two years. People change." He tried not to make it sound as though he were excusing himself.
"Not like you did. You've grown up."
She was right. Even Luke no longer considered himself a three-year-old. He was sixteen now. What had happened in his life to make him change that much?
"The Doctor," Maria said, and for a moment Luke thought she was somehow reading his thoughts. "What's up with him?"
"Oh..." He muttered. "Nothing special. He's just a friend... A very good friend."
She shook her head to show just how unconvinced she was.
"You called him your dad. And he didn't protest. Did he and Sarah Jane get back together?"
Luke sighed.
"To be honest, I don't think they had ever been a couple at all. Now that I've got to know the Doctor better, I really doubt it. It's clear she meant much to him, but... I really don't think he's the kind of person who just gets into relationships." Luke pursed his lips. "It's like the more I learn about Mum's past, the less I know. There are just so many things I had had no idea about."
"You'll find out," she assured him in a calm voice. "And even if not, it's probably for the best."
Luke nodded, but wasn't entirely convinced.
"Do you think I should-?" He began, but didn't get the chance to finish.
"Oh my god."
Luke nearly walked into Maria, who had stopped and now was staring at something ahead of them. He nearly asked her what was wrong, when he saw it too: an enormous spaceship hovering above the city. Aliens. An invasion.
Of course.
=ooO*Ooo=
Alan nervously sipped the tea he had made, all the while carefully watching the man seated on the opposite side of the small coffee table.
"So..." He began, but the situation was just too awkward for him to carry on.
"So?" The Doctor didn't have any trouble with human communication. "If you say something like that, someone will think you are trying to begin a conversation." He took a sip of his tea. "Very misleading if you're not trying to begin a conversation."
Cheeky, Alan thought. Though maybe that's what it took to get Sarah Jane's attention. It was strange, he thought, how they were just sitting together, having a cup of tea. He felt awkward around the Doctor, and not because he was an alien. No, it was because he had been trying to get Sarah Jane to like him for months, without any result, and the Doctor was the man who had her love and didn't do anything with it. It wasn't unfair - it was just life, and Sarah Jane was a special woman who only deserved the best of life - but it was enough for Alan to classify his relation with the Doctor as awkward.
Well, he had to begin some kind of conversation anyway, so he might as well start with the thing that had been bugging him the most.
"Does Sarah Jane know about this? I don't mean to pry, but you are taking her son to another country."
The Doctor looked at him gravelly.
"I love Sarah," he said seriously. "Perhaps in a way you wouldn't understand, but I do love her. And I love that boy, too." He looked down. "Luke is completely safe. He is under my personal protection."
Alan was just contemplating whether asking how much that protection was worth would be a good idea when suddenly, just like in some movie, many things happened at once. The Doctor shouted something and threw himself to the floor. Alan quickly mimicked his actions, simply out of instinct. There was a loud thud and the whole house shook.
And then, just outside the window, something exploded.
A/N: Never been to the States, much less Washington, so don't judge my bad descriptions. Please.
Also, actioooon 3 Finally, eh? I know you all've been waiting for this.