Calufrax

Story: The Curse of Mandragora
Author: Amilyn
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 6126
Author's Summary: Josh and Sarah are stranded in a crippled spaceship, high above earth, and a bright light is coming toward them. How will they get out of it? And what does the Mandragora Helix have to do with their situation and possibly their solution?
Characters/Pairings: Sarah Jane Smith, Josh Townsend, Nat Redfern
Warnings: None

Recced because: I was so excited when I saw this among this year's Yuletide selections because I've been looking for a fic like this for ages - the SJS Big Finish audios end on a hell of a cliffhanger. The Curse of Mandragora picks up from where Dreamland leaves off, resolving and continuing the story so believably that I had no trouble accepting this as my personal canon. Told from Nat's point of view, this fic wraps up the Mandragora storyline first started in 1976. There's action, drama, a definite bittersweetness, and the team in fine form - like the Doctor, Sarah chose her companions well, and that's especially apparent in Amilyn's version of Nat. There's an equally brilliant sequel, Everything Ends, which follows Nat and Sarah's correspondence over the following years and sets up the Sarah Jane we see both in School Reunion and at the beginning of SJA.