Night fell, as Sarah Jane carried four glasses of lemonade into the garden and set it down on a wooden table. Maria sat on the wooden chair.
"Cheers," Maria and Sarah Jane said, clicking their glasses together.
"And it's normal pop?" Maria asked, a twinkle in her eye.
"Hurray for normal pop," Sarah Jane grinned back.
"How's your friend Kelsey?" asked Sarah Jane.
"She's backtracking like mad," Maria said. "Saying that it was all hallucinations. Saying that there's no such thing as aliens."
"But we know better," Sarah Jane winking at Maria.
And then, Cicely and the Archetype walked in through the gate. Instead of the white medical dress, he was dressed in a normal set of clothes - trousers, a T-shirt and a brown jacket.
"Oh, that's more like it," Maria said, settling back into the chair.
"Cicely's barely left his side since the factory," Sarah Jane smiled. "I think then they realised how alike they were."
"Despite being about 271 years and 134 days older than him," Cicely said, dropping into her seat.
"This is good?" he asked, looking at his new clothes.
"Yep," Maria said.
Sarah Jane patted the bench and the boy sat down in between Sarah Jane and Cicely.
"How are you going to adopt them then?" asked Maria.
"You need forms and things. Behind are you going to say their mothers are? The Bane mother and an extinct red-skinned unidentified alien?"
"Mr Smith sorted that," Sarah Jane said, bringing out a slim file. "Officially done and dusted. All we need are names."
Cicely felt a thrill of excitement. It was really going to happen. She was going to be a part of Sarah Jane's family!
"You can choose your own," Maria suggested.
"I'd like yours - Maria," the boy said.
"Maybe not," Maria giggled.
"How about Jack. Josh? Nathan?"
"Edward? Charles? John?" Cicely suggested.
"Harry? Alistair? Luke?" Sarah Jane pondered.
Cicely immediately knew that she had hit the jackpot. There was certain rightness about the name, that suited him perfectly, and Maria leaned forwards and said, "I like Luke."
"I like Luke," Sarah Jane agreed.
"Me too," Cicely said.
"If you like Luke, I like Luke," the boy smiled.
"That's the name I was going to choose if ever I had kids," Sarah Jane said, her face saturated with happiness. "But it never happened."
"But now it has," Maria pointed out. "And what about you? Do you want to keep Cicely?"
Cicely hesitated for a full second.
"Yes," she said eventually. "It's the name you know me by now. I'm not changing it. I am Cicely."
"Luke and Cicely Smith," Maria smiled, turning to Sarah Jane.
"You're a mum!" she grinned.
"I am!" she said, in a very surprised voice.
"Does that make us brother and sister?" Cicely asked, looking at Luke.
"Yes!" Sarah Jane laughed, and she held hands with Luke, and Luke held Cicely's hand as well.
For once, Cicely could forget that she was designed to hunt humans, that she could see into the future and fiddle with people's minds, or even that her skin was sparkling with a thousand different shapes and sizes. She was content. She had a life, a mother and a brother, and Maria was her friend.
"All this time, I never asked if you had a boyfriend, or..."
But Sarah Jane replied, "Oh, there was only ever one man for me, and after him...nothing compared. Whether I was your age, you see, or grown up, I'd think I know what I want and then I'd be sorted. But you never really know what you want. You never grow up, not really, you never sort it all out. So, I thought, I can handle life on my own. But after today," she smiled at them, as if a switch had been flicked, "I don't want to!"
Luke looked up at the sky.
"What's that?" he asked. We all looked up.
"It's just a plane," Maria said, watching the white light pass quickly by over their heads.
"That's a flying machine, right?" asked Luke, gazing upwards. Cicely gave his hand a gentle squeeze, remembering just in time how fragile humans were.
"Or perhaps it's a spaceship," Sarah Jane grinned, and everyone's face lit up.
Sarah Jane looked up at the sky.
"I saw amazing things out there in space," Sarah Jane said, softly.
"But there's strangeness wherever you turn. Life on Earth can be an adventure too. You just need to know where to look."
And I grinned, skin sparkling in the night, happy that I, Cicely Smith, had found my place in the Universe at last.
However, there was the small matter of the vision that I had seen before. A woman, facing Sarah Jane. She was garbed in a purple hooded robe instead of a leather jacket, and she had a pleading, almost greedy look in her eye, but it was definitely her.
Mrs Wormwood.
THE END
CICELY'S STORY WILL CONTINUE SOON IN REVENGE OF THE SLITHEEN.