FIC: Jamie - Chapter 7
May. 18th, 2009 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nentariTitle: Jamie - Chapter 7
Author: Me
Beta-Reader:alouzon
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3592
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all its characters belong to the BBC. I own nothing - not even the Fourteenth Doctor.
Summary: Jamie McCrimmon was returned to 18th century Scotland, his memories erased... But one day, a ghost from those lost days shows up at his doorstep.
Warning: Spoilers for The Highlanders and Trial of a Time Lord.
Chapter 7
Jamie yawned and opened his eyes. He tried to stretch, but soon realized his movements were somewhat hampered due to being tightly wrapped in the tablecloth that had been used in the picnic earlier; looking up, he also noticed that a white umbrella with a strange red handle had been placed open above his head, to protect him from the elements. Slowly and lazily, he released himself from his makeshift blanket and folded it. He closed the umbrella and carried the two items with him as he returned to the TARDIS in search of the Doctor.
He could see from the angle of the sun that he had been unconscious for only a few hours. And yet, he felt as if he had just woken from a good night's sleep - something he hadn't experienced for a long time. He was calm, relaxed... and he could remember. Everything. All the adventures he had lived with the Doctor, without the distortions caused by his dreams.
The moment Jamie stepped inside the TARDIS, he froze in surprise. He was expecting to see the dark, organic-looking console room of this "new" TARDIS; instead, he was now inside the white, luminous console room of old, with the scanner propped up overhead, the much larger roundels on the walls, and everything else just the way it used to be. The fake oak chest, which the Doctor had forgotten to take to her room, only helped to add the sense of familiarity. The only difference being that the small figure sitting on top of it, still wearing the sparkly catsuit, was not Zoe, but the new, female Doctor, who had once again strapped the strangely wired metal hat to her head and seemed to be in deep concentration.
"Eh? What's been going on here?" Jamie asked, looking around.
"Quiet, Jamie," the Doctor said, absent-mindedly. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and did a doubletake, finally acknowledging his presence, and broke into a huge smile. "You're awake."
"Aye, I'm awake," he said, as the Doctor removed the contraption from her head and jumped off the chest towards him, still beaming.
"Welcome back," she said.
"I didnae know I was not here before," he said dryly. "Look, what's all this?"
"What, the redecoration?" I just felt you'd appreciate some more familiar surroundings. And besides, I was getting bored with the old desktop, after so many centuries." She looked at him again. "Do you like it?"
"Well..." He looked around once more. "Aye, I do. I mean, it looked good the way you had it, but this way it's more like the good old TARDIS again, isn't it?"
"Well, it's 'the good old TARDIS' no matter what it looks like, but I know what you mean." She took hold of his arm in that overaffectionate manner she was now prone to displaying, and he felt his face flush again. "So," she asked, "how are you feeling?"
"What do you mean?"
"Any dizziness? Sense of confusion?"
"No."
"Some sort of buzzing inside your head?"
Jamie shook his head. "I'm feeling fine."
"What about visions of bearded dwarves frolicking around in pink tutus?"
Jamie's eyes widened in surprise. "Eh?"
"Oh." The Doctor grinned. "Just me, then." Jamie scowled. "Oh, I'm sorry, Jamie," the Doctor said, still grinning. "I'm delighted to see there are no after-effects this time." She pulled him by the arm towards the chest. "I have something for you, by the way. I found it when I was searching for clothes the other day, but thought it would probably be better to give it to you only after you could remember it." She let go of his arm and opened the chest, looking inside. "Now, where is it..." She began rummaging the contents of the chest, leaning so far inside it that, to Jamie's utter embarrassment, all that was visible of her were her legs and her sparkly bottom. He quickly turned his attention elsewhere, flushing furiously.
"Doctor, be careful. You don't want to fall in."
"I'm alright," her muffled voice reassured him from the depths of the chest. "It's just that it's bigger on the inside. Now where is that blasted... oh, here it is." She stood up, closing the chest while carefully hiding something from Jamie's sight. "Close your eyes and hold out your hands," she said.
"Och, come on," Jamie said, looking suspiciously at her. "I'm not a wee bairn."
The Doctor gave him an exaggerated pout. "Humour me, please?" Jamie rolled his eyes and, taking a deep breath, did as she asked. He felt something leathery touch his hands. "You can open them now," the Doctor said. Jamie looked at the object in his hands and gasped. "Well?" the Doctor asked.
It was his wristwatch. The gift given to him by the Doctor to teach him how to read time, and which he had never removed, until the moment the Time Lords confiscated it before returning him to his own era.
"Where... where did you get it?" he asked. His voice was filled with emotion, and he traced a finger reverently over the worn face, before eagerly strapping it onto his wrist.
"Oh, I returned to Gallifrey on a few occasions. Sometimes to be put on trial again - later, Jamie," she said firmly, as Jamie was about to react to this. "Sometimes I was dragged back to the planet for other reasons (more often than not a trap), and sometimes of my own accord. I don't remember exactly when I recovered your possessions, but I know it was before my first visit to Zoe because-"
"Zoe?" Jamie interrupted. "Have you seen Zoe, then?"
She sighed at the look of anxiety in Jamie's face. "I did. She's doing very well. You'd be proud."
"Did you return her memories to her, then?"
The Doctor smiled. "I didn't have to. Our amazing little genius managed to figure out that something was wrong and did it herself - with the aid of machinery, incidentally, as you thought I would do."
Jamie did not reply. The combination of getting his memories back, having his beloved watch unexpectedly returned to him, and receiving such good news about his friend, seemed to block his ability to speak. He just stared at the Doctor, his eyes clouded over with unshed tears of joy, and drinking every word she said.
"It makes sense that she figured it out so quickly," she continued, "if her memory block was as botched up as your own. The moment she was released from her job at the Wheel, she got in touch with a place called the Torchwood Institute, as she figured they had the necessary equipment to deal with her problem. It helped that the man in charge happens to be a very good friend of mine, though at the time, obviously, she had no idea of this. An accidental comment about meeting me was enough for her to get access to everything she needed, apparently."
Jamie finally managed to speak. "Where is she now?"
"Oh, she's working for Torchwood. She keeps Jack on his toes and stops him from fooling around." She chuckled. "I'll bet he regrets ever hiring her..." She paused, as she saw the look on his face. "Jamie, what's the matter?"
"Can we go and see her?" he asked anxiously.
She looked at him for a few moments with visible fondness. "Of course."
"I mean, after we go to Tory Something," he added quickly.
"Thoros Beta."
"Aye, that. It's just that I never got to say goodbye, and I want to be sure she really is well."
"Jamie, it's all right," the Doctor said reassuringly, as she squeezed his arm. "You don't need to explain. I understand perfectly."
"But Thoros Beta first."
"Thoros Beta first," the Doctor repeated. "I'm sure Peri will appreciate it."
"Peri?"
"Oh, did I forget to tell you?" the Doctor asked, with the most unconvincing expression of innocence Jamie had ever seen. "Peri is the queen we have to save. Queen Perpugilliam of the Brown, to be more precise, wife of King Yrcanos."
"It must have slipped your mind," Jamie said, sarcastically, "together with everything else you didnae want to spoil for me."
"Oh, don't be like that, Jamie," the Doctor said with a frown, as she started to re-familiarise herself with the new/old locations of the TARDIS controls.
"When did that happen?" he asked. "Peri becoming a queen, I mean."
The Doctor paused in her contemplation of the controls, and sat on one of the old wooden chairs in the console room, gesturing for Jamie to do the same, which he promptly obeyed. "That was right before one of those other trials I just mentioned. Peri had been captured, and the Time Lords ripped me out of time and brought me back to Gallifrey before I could rescue her."
Jamie grumbled, but said nothing as the Doctor sighed.
"I suffered from temporary amnesia during the trial, due to the force with which they had removed me from that point in time, and the evidence given at the trial had been tampered with: I was led to believe that Peri had died on Thoros Beta. After the sabotage was revealed and I was acquitted, it was finally discovered that she was alive and well, and had married Yrcanos, who had been our ally during that escapade. As soon as the trial was over I went to rescue her, as I was under the impression that she disliked Yrcanos, and assumed she had married against her will."
"I can see from your face that it was not so," Jamie commented, with a small grin.
"You're right," the Doctor said, her eyebrows raised. "Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only Peri was happy married to that brute, but that she had him wrapped around her little finger!" She chuckled. "They took over Thoros Beta from the Mentors and were rebuilding it together; Peri even started to give Yrcanos some lessons in good manners, though I doubt that she'll totally succeed in that endeavour."
"But she's in trouble now, isn't she?"
"Yes." The Doctor sighed. "The typical story - a councillor trying to steal the power from his rightful rulers with the aid of the surviving Mentors. I went to pay her a visit - to say goodbye, since it would probably be the last time we'd ever see each other - when we were attacked and taken as hostages. I had managed to escape, and was just about to free Peri when..." She paused and let out a sigh.
"What happened?"
The Doctor rose, and approached the hat stand next to the door. She picked the grey jacket she had worn in her previous incarnation, and showed it to her companion. "This happened." Jamie noticed something that he had missed before: the back of the jacket seemed to be scorched, though it was almost imperceptible.
"A ray gun," the Doctor told him. "Neither the Mentors nor Yrcanos' people create this sort of weapon, though I believe this is more the result of interplanetary black market than an association with other species. But whatever the origin of this, it caused enough damage for me to regenerate."
Jamie touched the scorch marks on the jacket, as the Doctor continued. "I couldn't get Peri out of her cell, but I believed that I would still be able to reach Yrcanos before I died, and give him the location that would help him and his men get Peri back and break the Mentors' schemes. But, of course, the TARDIS had other plans." She looked around, as if glaring at the ship. The TARDIS shuddered in response, almost a mechanical shrug, and the Doctor's face softened.
"But you can now find the king," Jamie said. She smiled.
"Yes, Jamie. I can now." The smile was quickly replaced by a frown, as her eyes moved towards the headgear, which was now lying on the floor besides the chest. "If only I could figure out why."
"Does it matter?"
"What?"
"I asked, does it matter why you're still alive?"
"Well, of course it matters. I should be dead. This is an impossibility!"
"And what's so bad about that?"
The Doctor looked at him with a confused look. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Jamie."
"Well, Doctor, you are an impossible person, are you not?"
The Doctor looked at him with an indefinable expression. "I have the feeling I have just been insulted."
"I mean, you can live much longer than anyone on Earth," Jamie hastily amended. "How old are you again? I seem to remember you telling me you were four hundred and something."
"Yes, well..." The Doctor seemed to be slightly embarrassed at this. "A long time has passed for me since we parted company. I'm much older now."
Jamie looked at her, puzzled by her hesitancy. "Alright. How much older?"
"Erm." She hesitated. "I'm... over nine hundred years old, now." She gave him a strange, embarrassed look. Jamie raised his eyebrows, not just at how impossibly huge this number seemed to him, but at the Doctor's reaction. He knew her well enough to be certain she was not being completely truthful - and that she was, in fact, much older than that. However, he decided not to press the issue.
"You're nine hundred, then," he continued. "And you travel through time and space in a blue box that is much bigger on the inside. That's pretty impossible to me. I wouldnae believe it had I not travelled with you myself."
"Nothing is impossible as long as it can be explained."
Jamie smirked. "And what's troubling you is having no explanation for this, eh?"
"Exactly," said the Doctor, sounded both frustrated, and relieved that Jamie understood the source of her irritation.
"Ah, but were you not the one who tried to convince me of how much fun it was not knowing a few things about my past?"
The Doctor gestured exasperatedly. "That's hardly the same thing!"
Jamie put an arm around her shoulders. "Och, come on, Doctor. So you cannae find the answer to something right away. Instead of being angry about it, why not think of it as a mystery?" The Doctor gave him one of the childish pouty glares he knew so well, but said nothing. "Nobody knows everything," Jamie continued. "Not even you."
She grumbled.
"And besides," Jamie added, "nobody knows when they're going to die. What's the fun of knowing that? I think you should just enjoy the life you've got and wait and see what will happen next. You might regenerate again, or you might not. And you might end up finding out why you're still alive when you're not searching for it."
The Doctor sighed and looked at Jamie with a strange expression. "You know something, Jamie? I think you are right: the universe is probably collapsing."
"Doctor..." He knew she was teasing him, that she respected his way of looking at things, but it seemed fair to protest all the same; he'd only gotten his memory back this afternoon. She gave Jamie an exaggeratedly angelical smile, which made him roll his eyes.
"Thoros Beta, then?" she asked.
"Aye. But..." He paused for a second.
"Is anything the matter, Jamie?"
"Well..." He hesitated. "Before we go, can I have one last look...?" He nodded towards the door.
The Doctor smiled tenderly at him. "Of course, my dear. Take your time."
Slowly, he stood up and headed towards the door. Once outside, he looked around as if trying to commit everything to memory - the mountains, the wind blowing in his face, the sound of the burn nearby...
As with Zoe, he never had the chance to say goodbye to Scotland, and to his home. When the rebellion began, he followed the Laird without a second thought; when he first entered the TARDIS, he had no idea of what it was, and that it would take him away to places more distant than he would have ever thought possible; when he returned to the Annabelle and headed to France, he was unconscious. But now, he could finally have a last look at the place he used to call home; he was about to depart forever in the ship that had taken over that position in his heart.
When he got back inside, he found the Doctor rummaging through the contents of the chest again. "Och, now what?" he grumbled, as he averted his eyes once again with embarrassment.
"Oh, you're here," she said as she quickly resurfaced. "Listen, Jamie, I was thinking. Do you mind if we take a little detour before Thoros Beta?"
"Don't tell me you're thinking of going somewhere else before helping Peri," Jamie said with surprise.
"Well, Jamie, the thing is that, the other day while I was searching for clothes I found something else besides your wristwatch. Since I know you would have retained your memories of it, I had considered showing it to you straight away, but after I remembered about the memory processor it just slipped my mind."
Jamie was intrigued. "And what is it that you found?"
The Doctor smiled, and showed him a small metallic object she was holding. "Does this look familiar?"
Jamie looked at it for a moment, and smiled as well. "Aye."
"I think it's about time it was returned to our good friends, don't you agree?"
***
After the blue box had vanished, taking Jamie and the witch away, Bruce and Kirsty returned to the settlement. The Laird was fast asleep, so they did not say a word or raise the alarm; they sat down, dispirited, Kirsty pouring some wine for the two of them to soothe their nerves. Not that they would have been able to say anything anyway, as the shock seemed to have rendered them speechless.
Bruce drank his wine with one gulp and rubbed his eyes with a sigh. Kirsty, on the other hand, hardly touched her glass, and stared transfixed at the liquid. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, when an unexpected noise made them start. The grating sound that the blue box had made as it vanished returned, and this time it was much stronger than when they had heard it before. It sounded as if it was right outside.
The Laird did not stir, not even when the young couple practically jumped from their seats and ran towards the door, Bruce once again holding his pistol.
"No, Kirsty," he finally said in a whisper. "You stay inside. We don't know what the witch might do."
Carefully, he opened the door - and, sure enough, there it was. The blue box.
"Our Lord, have mercy," Kirsty said, peering over his shoulder.
"I told you to stay inside, woman," Bruce grumbled. "It might be dan-"
The words died in his lips, as a powerful wind blew, and the box slowly disappeared once again with a final mighty roar that faded away. Once everything had calmed down again, the first thing he heard was Kirsty gasp.
"I cannae believe it!"
"What?" he asked, as he saw her pick something off the ground.
"Bruce, do you know what this is?"
With trembling hands, she showed him what she had just picked: a ring with the Stuarts' seal. "This is the ring given to Father by the Prince... it was lost all this time..." She paused, and looked at the spot where the box had been. "Jamie was right. The woman is not a witch - she's an angel of the Lord."
***
Jamie frowned.
"Well, Jamie?" the Doctor asked.
"Well... I wish we could have said goodbye."
The Doctor shook her head. "You said so yourself: they're under the impression that you were taken to hell or some such nonsense. We'd probably have gotten into some serious trouble if we had stayed behind."
"Aye, I know," he sighed.
"Anyway," the Doctor said cheerfully, clapping her hands, "we're off to Thoros Beta, finally! We'll contact Yrcanos, deliver Peri's message, and probably end up in a different pickle altogether."
"Just like old times, hey?" Jamie said with a smile.
"And then, I'll take you to see Zoe." She pressed a button on the console.
"Doctor..."
"Hmm?" she said, absentmindedly, as she checked the readings.
"After that, since you seem to be able to control the TARDIS now... can we go and see Victoria as well?"
The Doctor looked up at her companion, who looked back at her with some anxiety. To his enormous relief, she smiled. "Certainly." She pressed another button. "You know, Jamie, during my time in exile, I kept in touch with her. In fact..."
"So, she's all right as well?" he asked.
"Of course she is!" huffed the Doctor. "I told you the Harrises would take good care of her." Another button. "She was living in London while I was earthbound, though. I used to have tea with her every Sunday during those times." She tapped his arm tenderly. "I know she'll be delighted to see you again."
He smiled. "You do promise you'll take me to see them?"
"Yes, yes!" the Doctor said, outraged. "When did I ever let you down? Don't answer that," she quickly added, as Jamie began to smirk. "So that will be our itinerary then. First Peri, then Zoe, and then Victoria." The Doctor checked the readings again. "And afterwards..." She paused and tapped her lips with her finger. "Oh, I know. Jamie..." She looked at him, beaming. "Have I ever taken you to Barcelona?"
Author: Me
Beta-Reader:
alouzonFandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3592
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all its characters belong to the BBC. I own nothing - not even the Fourteenth Doctor.
Summary: Jamie McCrimmon was returned to 18th century Scotland, his memories erased... But one day, a ghost from those lost days shows up at his doorstep.
Warning: Spoilers for The Highlanders and Trial of a Time Lord.
Jamie yawned and opened his eyes. He tried to stretch, but soon realized his movements were somewhat hampered due to being tightly wrapped in the tablecloth that had been used in the picnic earlier; looking up, he also noticed that a white umbrella with a strange red handle had been placed open above his head, to protect him from the elements. Slowly and lazily, he released himself from his makeshift blanket and folded it. He closed the umbrella and carried the two items with him as he returned to the TARDIS in search of the Doctor.
He could see from the angle of the sun that he had been unconscious for only a few hours. And yet, he felt as if he had just woken from a good night's sleep - something he hadn't experienced for a long time. He was calm, relaxed... and he could remember. Everything. All the adventures he had lived with the Doctor, without the distortions caused by his dreams.
The moment Jamie stepped inside the TARDIS, he froze in surprise. He was expecting to see the dark, organic-looking console room of this "new" TARDIS; instead, he was now inside the white, luminous console room of old, with the scanner propped up overhead, the much larger roundels on the walls, and everything else just the way it used to be. The fake oak chest, which the Doctor had forgotten to take to her room, only helped to add the sense of familiarity. The only difference being that the small figure sitting on top of it, still wearing the sparkly catsuit, was not Zoe, but the new, female Doctor, who had once again strapped the strangely wired metal hat to her head and seemed to be in deep concentration.
"Eh? What's been going on here?" Jamie asked, looking around.
"Quiet, Jamie," the Doctor said, absent-mindedly. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and did a doubletake, finally acknowledging his presence, and broke into a huge smile. "You're awake."
"Aye, I'm awake," he said, as the Doctor removed the contraption from her head and jumped off the chest towards him, still beaming.
"Welcome back," she said.
"I didnae know I was not here before," he said dryly. "Look, what's all this?"
"What, the redecoration?" I just felt you'd appreciate some more familiar surroundings. And besides, I was getting bored with the old desktop, after so many centuries." She looked at him again. "Do you like it?"
"Well..." He looked around once more. "Aye, I do. I mean, it looked good the way you had it, but this way it's more like the good old TARDIS again, isn't it?"
"Well, it's 'the good old TARDIS' no matter what it looks like, but I know what you mean." She took hold of his arm in that overaffectionate manner she was now prone to displaying, and he felt his face flush again. "So," she asked, "how are you feeling?"
"What do you mean?"
"Any dizziness? Sense of confusion?"
"No."
"Some sort of buzzing inside your head?"
Jamie shook his head. "I'm feeling fine."
"What about visions of bearded dwarves frolicking around in pink tutus?"
Jamie's eyes widened in surprise. "Eh?"
"Oh." The Doctor grinned. "Just me, then." Jamie scowled. "Oh, I'm sorry, Jamie," the Doctor said, still grinning. "I'm delighted to see there are no after-effects this time." She pulled him by the arm towards the chest. "I have something for you, by the way. I found it when I was searching for clothes the other day, but thought it would probably be better to give it to you only after you could remember it." She let go of his arm and opened the chest, looking inside. "Now, where is it..." She began rummaging the contents of the chest, leaning so far inside it that, to Jamie's utter embarrassment, all that was visible of her were her legs and her sparkly bottom. He quickly turned his attention elsewhere, flushing furiously.
"Doctor, be careful. You don't want to fall in."
"I'm alright," her muffled voice reassured him from the depths of the chest. "It's just that it's bigger on the inside. Now where is that blasted... oh, here it is." She stood up, closing the chest while carefully hiding something from Jamie's sight. "Close your eyes and hold out your hands," she said.
"Och, come on," Jamie said, looking suspiciously at her. "I'm not a wee bairn."
The Doctor gave him an exaggerated pout. "Humour me, please?" Jamie rolled his eyes and, taking a deep breath, did as she asked. He felt something leathery touch his hands. "You can open them now," the Doctor said. Jamie looked at the object in his hands and gasped. "Well?" the Doctor asked.
It was his wristwatch. The gift given to him by the Doctor to teach him how to read time, and which he had never removed, until the moment the Time Lords confiscated it before returning him to his own era.
"Where... where did you get it?" he asked. His voice was filled with emotion, and he traced a finger reverently over the worn face, before eagerly strapping it onto his wrist.
"Oh, I returned to Gallifrey on a few occasions. Sometimes to be put on trial again - later, Jamie," she said firmly, as Jamie was about to react to this. "Sometimes I was dragged back to the planet for other reasons (more often than not a trap), and sometimes of my own accord. I don't remember exactly when I recovered your possessions, but I know it was before my first visit to Zoe because-"
"Zoe?" Jamie interrupted. "Have you seen Zoe, then?"
She sighed at the look of anxiety in Jamie's face. "I did. She's doing very well. You'd be proud."
"Did you return her memories to her, then?"
The Doctor smiled. "I didn't have to. Our amazing little genius managed to figure out that something was wrong and did it herself - with the aid of machinery, incidentally, as you thought I would do."
Jamie did not reply. The combination of getting his memories back, having his beloved watch unexpectedly returned to him, and receiving such good news about his friend, seemed to block his ability to speak. He just stared at the Doctor, his eyes clouded over with unshed tears of joy, and drinking every word she said.
"It makes sense that she figured it out so quickly," she continued, "if her memory block was as botched up as your own. The moment she was released from her job at the Wheel, she got in touch with a place called the Torchwood Institute, as she figured they had the necessary equipment to deal with her problem. It helped that the man in charge happens to be a very good friend of mine, though at the time, obviously, she had no idea of this. An accidental comment about meeting me was enough for her to get access to everything she needed, apparently."
Jamie finally managed to speak. "Where is she now?"
"Oh, she's working for Torchwood. She keeps Jack on his toes and stops him from fooling around." She chuckled. "I'll bet he regrets ever hiring her..." She paused, as she saw the look on his face. "Jamie, what's the matter?"
"Can we go and see her?" he asked anxiously.
She looked at him for a few moments with visible fondness. "Of course."
"I mean, after we go to Tory Something," he added quickly.
"Thoros Beta."
"Aye, that. It's just that I never got to say goodbye, and I want to be sure she really is well."
"Jamie, it's all right," the Doctor said reassuringly, as she squeezed his arm. "You don't need to explain. I understand perfectly."
"But Thoros Beta first."
"Thoros Beta first," the Doctor repeated. "I'm sure Peri will appreciate it."
"Peri?"
"Oh, did I forget to tell you?" the Doctor asked, with the most unconvincing expression of innocence Jamie had ever seen. "Peri is the queen we have to save. Queen Perpugilliam of the Brown, to be more precise, wife of King Yrcanos."
"It must have slipped your mind," Jamie said, sarcastically, "together with everything else you didnae want to spoil for me."
"Oh, don't be like that, Jamie," the Doctor said with a frown, as she started to re-familiarise herself with the new/old locations of the TARDIS controls.
"When did that happen?" he asked. "Peri becoming a queen, I mean."
The Doctor paused in her contemplation of the controls, and sat on one of the old wooden chairs in the console room, gesturing for Jamie to do the same, which he promptly obeyed. "That was right before one of those other trials I just mentioned. Peri had been captured, and the Time Lords ripped me out of time and brought me back to Gallifrey before I could rescue her."
Jamie grumbled, but said nothing as the Doctor sighed.
"I suffered from temporary amnesia during the trial, due to the force with which they had removed me from that point in time, and the evidence given at the trial had been tampered with: I was led to believe that Peri had died on Thoros Beta. After the sabotage was revealed and I was acquitted, it was finally discovered that she was alive and well, and had married Yrcanos, who had been our ally during that escapade. As soon as the trial was over I went to rescue her, as I was under the impression that she disliked Yrcanos, and assumed she had married against her will."
"I can see from your face that it was not so," Jamie commented, with a small grin.
"You're right," the Doctor said, her eyebrows raised. "Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only Peri was happy married to that brute, but that she had him wrapped around her little finger!" She chuckled. "They took over Thoros Beta from the Mentors and were rebuilding it together; Peri even started to give Yrcanos some lessons in good manners, though I doubt that she'll totally succeed in that endeavour."
"But she's in trouble now, isn't she?"
"Yes." The Doctor sighed. "The typical story - a councillor trying to steal the power from his rightful rulers with the aid of the surviving Mentors. I went to pay her a visit - to say goodbye, since it would probably be the last time we'd ever see each other - when we were attacked and taken as hostages. I had managed to escape, and was just about to free Peri when..." She paused and let out a sigh.
"What happened?"
The Doctor rose, and approached the hat stand next to the door. She picked the grey jacket she had worn in her previous incarnation, and showed it to her companion. "This happened." Jamie noticed something that he had missed before: the back of the jacket seemed to be scorched, though it was almost imperceptible.
"A ray gun," the Doctor told him. "Neither the Mentors nor Yrcanos' people create this sort of weapon, though I believe this is more the result of interplanetary black market than an association with other species. But whatever the origin of this, it caused enough damage for me to regenerate."
Jamie touched the scorch marks on the jacket, as the Doctor continued. "I couldn't get Peri out of her cell, but I believed that I would still be able to reach Yrcanos before I died, and give him the location that would help him and his men get Peri back and break the Mentors' schemes. But, of course, the TARDIS had other plans." She looked around, as if glaring at the ship. The TARDIS shuddered in response, almost a mechanical shrug, and the Doctor's face softened.
"But you can now find the king," Jamie said. She smiled.
"Yes, Jamie. I can now." The smile was quickly replaced by a frown, as her eyes moved towards the headgear, which was now lying on the floor besides the chest. "If only I could figure out why."
"Does it matter?"
"What?"
"I asked, does it matter why you're still alive?"
"Well, of course it matters. I should be dead. This is an impossibility!"
"And what's so bad about that?"
The Doctor looked at him with a confused look. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Jamie."
"Well, Doctor, you are an impossible person, are you not?"
The Doctor looked at him with an indefinable expression. "I have the feeling I have just been insulted."
"I mean, you can live much longer than anyone on Earth," Jamie hastily amended. "How old are you again? I seem to remember you telling me you were four hundred and something."
"Yes, well..." The Doctor seemed to be slightly embarrassed at this. "A long time has passed for me since we parted company. I'm much older now."
Jamie looked at her, puzzled by her hesitancy. "Alright. How much older?"
"Erm." She hesitated. "I'm... over nine hundred years old, now." She gave him a strange, embarrassed look. Jamie raised his eyebrows, not just at how impossibly huge this number seemed to him, but at the Doctor's reaction. He knew her well enough to be certain she was not being completely truthful - and that she was, in fact, much older than that. However, he decided not to press the issue.
"You're nine hundred, then," he continued. "And you travel through time and space in a blue box that is much bigger on the inside. That's pretty impossible to me. I wouldnae believe it had I not travelled with you myself."
"Nothing is impossible as long as it can be explained."
Jamie smirked. "And what's troubling you is having no explanation for this, eh?"
"Exactly," said the Doctor, sounded both frustrated, and relieved that Jamie understood the source of her irritation.
"Ah, but were you not the one who tried to convince me of how much fun it was not knowing a few things about my past?"
The Doctor gestured exasperatedly. "That's hardly the same thing!"
Jamie put an arm around her shoulders. "Och, come on, Doctor. So you cannae find the answer to something right away. Instead of being angry about it, why not think of it as a mystery?" The Doctor gave him one of the childish pouty glares he knew so well, but said nothing. "Nobody knows everything," Jamie continued. "Not even you."
She grumbled.
"And besides," Jamie added, "nobody knows when they're going to die. What's the fun of knowing that? I think you should just enjoy the life you've got and wait and see what will happen next. You might regenerate again, or you might not. And you might end up finding out why you're still alive when you're not searching for it."
The Doctor sighed and looked at Jamie with a strange expression. "You know something, Jamie? I think you are right: the universe is probably collapsing."
"Doctor..." He knew she was teasing him, that she respected his way of looking at things, but it seemed fair to protest all the same; he'd only gotten his memory back this afternoon. She gave Jamie an exaggeratedly angelical smile, which made him roll his eyes.
"Thoros Beta, then?" she asked.
"Aye. But..." He paused for a second.
"Is anything the matter, Jamie?"
"Well..." He hesitated. "Before we go, can I have one last look...?" He nodded towards the door.
The Doctor smiled tenderly at him. "Of course, my dear. Take your time."
Slowly, he stood up and headed towards the door. Once outside, he looked around as if trying to commit everything to memory - the mountains, the wind blowing in his face, the sound of the burn nearby...
As with Zoe, he never had the chance to say goodbye to Scotland, and to his home. When the rebellion began, he followed the Laird without a second thought; when he first entered the TARDIS, he had no idea of what it was, and that it would take him away to places more distant than he would have ever thought possible; when he returned to the Annabelle and headed to France, he was unconscious. But now, he could finally have a last look at the place he used to call home; he was about to depart forever in the ship that had taken over that position in his heart.
When he got back inside, he found the Doctor rummaging through the contents of the chest again. "Och, now what?" he grumbled, as he averted his eyes once again with embarrassment.
"Oh, you're here," she said as she quickly resurfaced. "Listen, Jamie, I was thinking. Do you mind if we take a little detour before Thoros Beta?"
"Don't tell me you're thinking of going somewhere else before helping Peri," Jamie said with surprise.
"Well, Jamie, the thing is that, the other day while I was searching for clothes I found something else besides your wristwatch. Since I know you would have retained your memories of it, I had considered showing it to you straight away, but after I remembered about the memory processor it just slipped my mind."
Jamie was intrigued. "And what is it that you found?"
The Doctor smiled, and showed him a small metallic object she was holding. "Does this look familiar?"
Jamie looked at it for a moment, and smiled as well. "Aye."
"I think it's about time it was returned to our good friends, don't you agree?"
After the blue box had vanished, taking Jamie and the witch away, Bruce and Kirsty returned to the settlement. The Laird was fast asleep, so they did not say a word or raise the alarm; they sat down, dispirited, Kirsty pouring some wine for the two of them to soothe their nerves. Not that they would have been able to say anything anyway, as the shock seemed to have rendered them speechless.
Bruce drank his wine with one gulp and rubbed his eyes with a sigh. Kirsty, on the other hand, hardly touched her glass, and stared transfixed at the liquid. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, when an unexpected noise made them start. The grating sound that the blue box had made as it vanished returned, and this time it was much stronger than when they had heard it before. It sounded as if it was right outside.
The Laird did not stir, not even when the young couple practically jumped from their seats and ran towards the door, Bruce once again holding his pistol.
"No, Kirsty," he finally said in a whisper. "You stay inside. We don't know what the witch might do."
Carefully, he opened the door - and, sure enough, there it was. The blue box.
"Our Lord, have mercy," Kirsty said, peering over his shoulder.
"I told you to stay inside, woman," Bruce grumbled. "It might be dan-"
The words died in his lips, as a powerful wind blew, and the box slowly disappeared once again with a final mighty roar that faded away. Once everything had calmed down again, the first thing he heard was Kirsty gasp.
"I cannae believe it!"
"What?" he asked, as he saw her pick something off the ground.
"Bruce, do you know what this is?"
With trembling hands, she showed him what she had just picked: a ring with the Stuarts' seal. "This is the ring given to Father by the Prince... it was lost all this time..." She paused, and looked at the spot where the box had been. "Jamie was right. The woman is not a witch - she's an angel of the Lord."
Jamie frowned.
"Well, Jamie?" the Doctor asked.
"Well... I wish we could have said goodbye."
The Doctor shook her head. "You said so yourself: they're under the impression that you were taken to hell or some such nonsense. We'd probably have gotten into some serious trouble if we had stayed behind."
"Aye, I know," he sighed.
"Anyway," the Doctor said cheerfully, clapping her hands, "we're off to Thoros Beta, finally! We'll contact Yrcanos, deliver Peri's message, and probably end up in a different pickle altogether."
"Just like old times, hey?" Jamie said with a smile.
"And then, I'll take you to see Zoe." She pressed a button on the console.
"Doctor..."
"Hmm?" she said, absentmindedly, as she checked the readings.
"After that, since you seem to be able to control the TARDIS now... can we go and see Victoria as well?"
The Doctor looked up at her companion, who looked back at her with some anxiety. To his enormous relief, she smiled. "Certainly." She pressed another button. "You know, Jamie, during my time in exile, I kept in touch with her. In fact..."
"So, she's all right as well?" he asked.
"Of course she is!" huffed the Doctor. "I told you the Harrises would take good care of her." Another button. "She was living in London while I was earthbound, though. I used to have tea with her every Sunday during those times." She tapped his arm tenderly. "I know she'll be delighted to see you again."
He smiled. "You do promise you'll take me to see them?"
"Yes, yes!" the Doctor said, outraged. "When did I ever let you down? Don't answer that," she quickly added, as Jamie began to smirk. "So that will be our itinerary then. First Peri, then Zoe, and then Victoria." The Doctor checked the readings again. "And afterwards..." She paused and tapped her lips with her finger. "Oh, I know. Jamie..." She looked at him, beaming. "Have I ever taken you to Barcelona?"
