Archive of Our Own

Jamie lies in bed. His skin, despite being freshly cleaned, is awash with sweat as he stares at the spinning ceiling of the room, the fuzzy darkness threading through the edges of his vision, encroaching clouds of black like the sky with its belly full of thunder. He remembers how he got here, and he remembers why he stayed: 

After Atlantis, they piled into the TARDIS, all relieved hugs and cries for joy at finding everyone alive and well. Jamie couldn’t bear seeing Polly so distraught over Ben, and he felt similarly terrified. He was in the middle of a strange, collapsing city, after all, and the man who brought them there was nowhere to be found. But then Ben and the Doctor emerged, and all was well – until the terrible departure, which, although startled, Ben and Polly didn’t seem too terribly worried by. 

The TARDIS groaned and creaked under the Doctor’s ministrations, settling after its raucous fit that sent them all flying across the room. When Jamie pressed his white-knuckled hands into the center piece, he felt something buzz beneath him, something hot and alive and pulsing, and he’d grown dizzy with it before stumbling backwards. 

“Oh, dear, oh dear oh dear.” The Doctor fretted as the room settled. “It seems the old girl might need some tending to. Why don’t you all get some rest in the meantime?” It was only after a few minutes, when the Doctor grumbled and rapped his knuckles sourly on the console, that Ben and Polly took their leave. Jamie watched the Doctor a moment longer, but he was engrossed in the cylinder of the center room, so he turned and followed the others. 

He barely processed the path of blinking lights they took as they led him deep into this other world. They stopped in front of another door, this one dark and wood, stark against the rolling corridors of white and something akin to metal but not quite so echoing, the floor whispering under the scrape of Jamie’s boots. The door was slightly open, just enough to draw attention, but not so wide as to swing its weight across the hinges. 

“I’m not really sure how the doors work,” Polly admitted. Jamie wondered, briefly, how many doors the Doctor was hiding in his world - the first, of course, leading into his impossibly small blue box, which must have only been the gateway. And now the many, many unique ones branching off down this vein of white. 

“As long as it’ll not take me back to Zaroff.” Jamie said lightly. Polly laughed, pushed open the door, and insisted that the TARDIS must have chosen it for him; why else would it wait ajar? To which he decided to not question further, because learning about this new world was quite one thing for the day, though he was itching to understand how the blue box, the door to this universe, could choose things for him. It felt a bit like fate, but he fought the feeling, because it was a dangerous one. Polly waved, and Ben left him with a final comment about his smelling of fish. 

He stepped into the room. The door clicked softly shut behind him, and the inside was much gentler and more soothing than the out, not unlike the TARDIS. The light, which seemed to come from nowhere at all, was warm and dim; there was an odd bed tucked into the wall, not quite an alcove but tight enough in the corner to look it; the floor was carpeted in a rich tasseled rug that felt far too fancy underneath his muddied shoes; and finally, another door.

It wasn’t a blur from there so much as insignificant, menial. The basin, his wash, the strange multi-mouthed pipes that brought liquid of all colors streaming out, the weird scents and the way the water never flooded — all of it was strange, yet home, yet not. It should have been unsettling, but Jamie was too bone tired to care. The Doctor’s world was winding into his limbs, his head, making his eyelids droop in the thick comfort and near-luxury, of it all. He put his tattered shirt back on, worn ragged with stains and tearing at the seams, and found his tartan suspiciously cleaner when he donned it again. He left his muddy socks balled in his wet boots before he tentatively curled up in the odd bed, seeking only sleep. 

And when all he had was sleep - quiet, dark, soothing - well. There was no adventure to keep him occupied. He rolled on his side, his back, his stomach, trying to find the right set of the sheets to sand down his thoughts. Trying to fight the echoing fire and the way they always went so still before they fell to the earth’s open arms. 

So now, he’s here. 

It’s dull and gray, the soft world of subconscious, eerie and void of sound. The grass is high, too high for the way the wind sweeps it sidewards, and the sky is wrongly clear despite the patter of rain. There’s something heavy on Jamie’s shoulder. When he turns, shrugging the bearing hand off, he finds it’s only Jimmy, though he can’t make out his face. He’s mouthing something, he’s sure of it, but his jaw is falling off now, his hold is seeping wet blood into Jamie’s back. It’s not red; Jamie can never dream in color; but it’s thick, and belongs to the laird. Somewhere far away, he’s sure Alexander is being gunned down like a dog. There’s the taste of sea salt in the air, sweat, the screams of men meant to be quartered. He tries to speak, but of course there is no noise, his throat spasming fruitlessly. And–

And now he lies - awake - in the bed, nausea gently winding down like an adrenaline high, like a cry swallowed in the storm of battle. 

And now he remembers that he is in the Doctor’s world - the world Ben and Polly are a part of, be they victims or survivors or subjects - that he has crossed his bridge, his door, his line. That he is gone, from home, forever. It should hit him harder, but he’s never really been there — he knows this, well and true, because the first thing Jamie misses is his pipes. 

He knows he should think of other things - the grit of the battle, Alexander, the laird, Kirsty (Kirsty) - but if he does, his hands will quiver, tightly fisted in the soft material below as they, and once they start, they won’t stop. His heart will swell in his throat until his teeth bare around it, and his ribs will bite his greedy lungs. He knows this because it happened only moments - a day? a night, hours, a week? time is funny in the Doctor’s world - ago, when he lost his guts on Drummossie. He knows because now, as he sits in the fading wisps of a dream, that he is still there, a piece of him, his pipes. Sound. Something real, colorful, chaotic, loud.

Jamie tries to find the moment in his memory where he let go of them, when he pulled his mouth from the chanter and tasted the blood in the air, the battle so lightning quick he could hardly process it, the aches in his bones from marching to Nairn and back, the empty cavern of hunger in his stomach, the cold, the wet and the cold, skidding to the earth to pool Jimmy in his arms—

And he must be dreaming again, sliding back into uneasy sleep, the weight of a body in his lap - when he went from a man to a body - the torn flesh and smashed bone over his thigh, the shouts and clatter and waning skirl slicing the damp, bruised sky. Faintly, Jamie remembers wondering if anyone will ever see inside him the way he has seen inside James Drummond, inside his skull, between the torn tissue, under the thick smears of copper, cloying blood. 

It’s not his first night since the battle. It was not his first battle. But it was one thing to watch men fall — quite another to feel them collapse against his chest, the dirt, with no eyes left to forgive him of his cowardice. 

Jamie sits up in bed. 

He isn’t dreaming. He never was. 

It’s some odd in-between, surely a result of this strange nowhere-everywhere world, because he’s never dreamed like this before. Gladsmuir was gory as all righteous things tend to be, but silent, and while he’d felt nothing but fear setting down his pipes and walking in the dark of the early morning, it hadn’t been like Drummossie, like this. He had Alexander beside him. And the battle before was hardly that; it had been easy enough to focus on fighting the drifts of snow rather than any soldier. (It’s a good thing, that, because Jamie couldn’t face a soldier. He’s hardly a man. He’s hardly anything.) Even as hope whittled itself away, as they turned home, even as time dragged on and Jamie knew in his bones how this would end —

Enough. 

Jamie swings his legs off the side of the bed, and rises to his feet. He’s unsteady, but he’ll not wallow. There is no point thinking about this. Not when it makes his hands shake, as he inevitably knew it would. It’s not much - it’s just a little, just a bit. Tiny vibrations rocking the bones of his hands, like there’s a loud tune beside him, like a rhythm drilling in his skeleton. But he knows this rhythm well. It’s the same reason he dropped his dirk. It’s the same reason Jimmy is left unavenged, the same reason Jamie’s insides are left churning. 

Enough. It’s gone now, it’s over now. He’s somewhere else, somewhere other, and he’s not damn well staying in the same room any longer. His foot hits something soft, and he finds his socks - impossibly dry - laid out before him. After he pulls them on, he walks to the door, eyes adjusting to the stifling darkness. It’s terrifying, in the way that all things unknown are, just as it’s equally exhilarating — the sharp corners of his vision shorn down, so as he feels his way to the door all he can see are the remnants of sleep. He wasn’t having a nightmare; there’s nothing dreamt about memories. But the smearing sounds of clashing weapons and dying screams and smoking gunfire don’t leave a clean taste on his tongue, like the rot of the grass in the rain is inside him. 

His hand meets the doorknob, set into the handsome wood, and he steps out into the corridor. It’s not as blindingly white and awash with bright heaven as it was when Polly showed him around; instead, it’s a warm, orange sort of glow. Though it’s still hollow and repeating, strangely empty. Jamie peers down either end of the liminal infinity before picking a random direction and striding down it. Now, despite being without shoes, his steps seem to thunder against the floor and he cringes. The hall seems to lengthen the further he walks, but the glimmer of it is more enticing than the stifling quiet of his room, so he keeps going. It’s impossibly huge, this realm of the TARDIS, and he’s not quite sure if they’re inside the funny wee blue box, or if that was, as he suspected, just a gateway. Jamie’s ears prick when he hears a hushing hint of music, something so, so far away he could have imagined it. 

And he must just be wishing, again. His pipes are lost in the moor, no doubt trampled and bloodied and gone. It’s for the best, most likely. What use would they be here, in this strange world of long corridors and bright lights and metal walls? They would hardly make a good sound in this shifting home of the Doctor’s. 

Jamie is still buzzing with the knowledge that he’s been to a mythical world of fish-people and mad men. (He does wonder if that’s just where the Doctor and his folk Ben and Polly fit in. Madmen and creatures. He does wonder why he isn’t more scared, why he isn’t more ashamed to step beside them so easily. But it is easy, and it did feel right, adventuring, fighting through the mines with Ben and defeating Zaroff and doing — doing something good. Besides, they hadn’t asked him to kill anyone. They hadn’t made him watch. They hadn’t done anything but take him away, far away, like they’d always known the deep, dark desire in Jamie, lodged there long before the retreat, before the Prince, before, before, before.) 

It doesn’t matter, anyway: Jamie left, and that’s a fact. He cannot go back, and he does not want to. His bagpipes are on Drummossie, churned up in the earth or the blood of Inverness or maybe cradled in somebody else’s arms; they’re gone from him nonetheless. Ridiculously, as the dregs of Jimmy’s face - left in pieces - recede from his mind, what he remembers is his promise to the Doctor. That is, teaching him to play the pipes.

How will Jamie fulfill it? 

A darker thought needles at him: maybe the Doctor won’t accept him into this world if he does not pay up. He wonders how Ben and Polly have paid for their travels into the Doctor’s world, the things they gave up.

Jamie gave his music up long ago, though, and it would be wrong to force it back in these foreign halls. Except even now he can hear the music growing louder, and he knows it’s real - as real as things can get, here - and he’s drawn to it, reeled in by the promise of something sweet and soft. Jamie’s always been easy to lure. 

All he knows is he needs to get out, needs to be outside, needs to clear the brambles from his brain. So, quiet, gently, he continues down the path, hoping no one will wake as he delves deeper into the belly of the beast. He isn’t sure how the TARDIS works or how he was transported into this world from outside, but he’s always known, in a way, about the other, about the music that people at home could never hear. 

Rounding a corner, he comes face to face with huge, wooden double doors, set impossible high in the low hall. Shapes don’t make sense here, like the three dimensions are shoving up against one another in a secret, chattering joke only the TARDIS is privy to. But then, nothing fits the logic of home around here, and Jamie is starting to accept that he may never understand how things go with the Doctor. 

One of the door whines, just barely, and Jamie frowns. The hint couldn’t be more obvious, and it should make his hackles rise that this world — this gate, these doors — is so alive. But it only feels right, so he trusts, and pushes open the door. 

The first thing Jamie processes is the sound: the strange, hissing, bouncing song that billows up from the center of the vast room. Jamie steps in, breath held. Shelves arc up the high walls, towards the vaulted ceiling, all of them stuffed end to end with books. So many, too many to count, too many to ever read in hundreds of lifetimes he’d imagine. There’s a warm, bright light emitting from somewhere, basking the whole place in a kind glow, casting gentle shadows in all angles, without form, without shape, like most things in this world, Jamie is starting to learn. The walls are wood, just like the door, only polished, less rustic and heavy, and more rich, like the elaborate red and gold carpet underneath, soft and plush. Following the patterns woven into the fabric, Jamie finds the source of the strange sound, and it’s what he should have expected. 

The Doctor is sitting on the floor, his back to Jamie. It isn’t the center of the room, but it certainly feels like it, with the light dappling gracefully over his small, hunched figure, with the colors of the rug racing towards him, with the furniture framing him on all sides, with the bookshelves almost leaning in, as if straining eagerly to hear a secret.

There’s a lull in the music - if it is music, that is, the strange burbling noises - and, opportunely, the door claps shut loudly behind Jamie. The Doctor jolts, turning his head around. His expression of shock - almost fear, if Jamie ever knew it - melts into something pleasantly surprised. 

“Oh, hello, Jamie.” 

At the sound of his name, Jamie freezes. What is he doing? The Doctor turns around fully and watches him curiously. 

“I–” 

“Do come in,” The Doctor pushes to his feet, hands clasped together. He’s swallowed in the spotlight - sunlight, that’s what it looks like, impossibly, sunlight - of the spacious room, a strange man in his strange big coat and strange baggy trousers and strange mussed hair. He almost appears too human, caught young and unawares. 

“Sorry,” Jamie blurts, although he’s not. 

“I didn’t expect you to be awake.” The Doctor takes a tentative step forward, hands unfurling. “That is – any of you–not you personally–it’s just been a rough few days, see–although I suppose you did see, you were there–” Jamie can’t help a weak laugh, and the Doctor’s eyes crinkle. “I do hope the TARDIS didn’t wake you. She does have an awful habit. Is the night cycle already over?” The Doctor frowns. “Oh, dear, how many hours has it been?”

“Not many.” Jamie interrupts, because he has a feeling the odd man is going to keep babbling to himself. “I think – er – Ben an’ Polly are still away.” 

The Doctor relaxes. “Ah, well. That’s good. Can I be of any help to you, then?” He looks over Jamie curiously, and Jamie’s caught with an urge to cover himself. What a sight he must be. 

“I didn't mean to wander.” Jamie excuses quickly. “Only, I thought I heard somethin’ and–”

“Oh, that.” The Doctor looks over his shoulder; there’s a strange device on the floor, a sort of black box. “It’s just a bit of music, that’s all.” 

“Where from?” Jamie asks, and then regrets it. Who is he to interrogate the Doctor? 

“Ah.” The Doctor looks down, almost apologetic. “Well. Atlantis.” 

“Atlantis.” Jamie repeats. “The music of those - of those fish folk?” 

The Doctor rubs his hands together, a gleam budding in his gaze. “Yes, exactly.” He regards Jamie for a moment, his intelligent eyes uncomfortably perceptive. “Would you like to hear some?” 

“Aye,” Jamie says automatically though he’s not sure why, but it makes the Doctor beam so he nods, “Aye, I would.” 

“Lovely. Come, come, sit here.” The Doctor sits back down on the carpet, legs crossed neatly, hands balanced on his knees, and Jamie carefully approaches, kneeling slowly beside him.

“What is this place, Doctor?” He asks as the Doctor sets about fussing with the black box. He’s never seen so many books in one place - never seen a room so endless yet somehow so cozy. A glance down one of the winding halls that cut between the walls of books confirms that it does look infinite. 

“The library! One of my favorites, anyway. I’m surprised I managed to find it this time, actually, especially with how fussy the TARDIS has been lately….”

“Can you not control the rooms, either?” Jamie wonders genuinely; that nothing makes sense in this strange world is starting to make sense in itself. 

The Doctor gives an indignant scoff. “If I ever wanted to,” he mutters dourly, and Jamie grins. He thinks he’s beginning to understand. 

“Now, this–” the Doctor leans over and hits a switch on the box. “Isn’t actually from Earth, but far in your future, humans will develop similar devices. Nothing quite so adaptable, though. The Shan’tee have quite outdone you there. Comes with the territory I suppose….” He shakes himself out of his trance. “It allows me to play different recorded pieces. The Atlanteans have a funny way of keeping their music, in all their worlds. Took me quite a while to dig this up.”

“So, you didn't take this on our way out?” Jamie asks. 

The Doctor stills. “No. I, ah, I just thought to look for it now. I have quite a lot of old things lying around, you see, so I thought I should find something from, well, something from Atlantis.” 

Jamie observes the sudden weight that leans upon the Doctor’s shoulders and the way he sags under it. It’s not quite guilt but it’s certainly something adjacent, and certainly something Jamie himself is familiar with. What would he want? 

He places his hand on the Doctor’s arm, tentative. “Hey, you saved those strange folk, you know? From Zaroff.” 

“I know.” The Doctor speaks lightly, but he won’t look at Jamie as sound begins to waft out of the strange box. It’s not the wildest thing Jamie’s seen in the past few hours by far, but it comes close. Jamie pulls his hand back into his lap. He’s beginning to accept the Doctor’s strange talents. 

The music is odd - it’s the same springy sound he heard earlier, down the hall. The Doctor must only have a little bit of it. But Jamie doesn’t question any further, only sits in the silence, listening to the tune, trying to catch the rhythm of it, but it keeps slipping past, changing, changing, changing. He figures music everywhere is shaped by its home, its surroundings, and down in the wet, echoing caverns of Atlantis, this must sound far better - even better than it does from the Doctor’s strange box, which seems to play the music as if they are in one of those caves, resounding and reflecting off of stone, despite the spacious and notably wooden walls of the library. It’s hypnotic.

Jamie’s eyelids begin to droop. He’s bone-tired. But sitting here, with only the music and the Doctor’s almost imperceptible breathing, is almost like his first break from the chaos. On Atlantis, he was only acting - only pretending - living as the daring hero or adventurer that he never was, exploring an unknown land of myth and trial and power. Here, he is nothing. Here, there is music. 

“They’ll recover.” Jamie jumps - more tired than he cares to admit - when the Doctor speaks at the end of the piece. “I know they will. But I might have destroyed an entire culture, if Zaroff didn’t–if he–oh.” The Doctor fixes Jamie with a stare, trailing into silence. Jamie shifts, uncomfortable. “Are you alright, Jamie?”

“Aye.” He replies, though his voice is thick and dry. He searches for something to say. “Hang on – earlier, did you say – Atlant— in all their worlds?” 

The Doctor brightens, his concern dissipating. “Yes! You’d be surprised at how many worlds have their version of Atlantis.”

“How do you mean?” 

“Well,” the Doctor starts like he’s about to give a grand speech, and Jamie settles in for it. “There’s life on other planets, you know. Not just your tiny Earth. Many stars have solar systems with intelligent life – not the sort your lot would consider intelligent life, though, hm…in any case, they’ve all got their own societies and histories—millions and millions and, oh, trillions, really…yes…well, it’s a lot of history! A lot of different stories.” 

Jamie blinks. “Oh, aye. Ben and Polly said–but…” He tries to wrap his mind around that one. “Are they anything like Earth?”

The Doctor watches him curiously, like he was expecting something else. “Hm, some planets, yes. I wouldn’t say there are other creatures like humans, if that’s what you’re asking. In physical shape, sure, but you–” He smiles. “Well, humanity is quite something, isn’t it?”

Is it? Jamie works his jaw and looks at the wall, the intricate design of the bookcases and the many, many cluttered objects within. “Anyway, what’s this about – multiple worlds with crazy men like Zaroff?”

The Doctor laughs. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean they were all replicas of that Atlantis. It’s only the concept, you see. A lost, hidden city, somewhere unexplorable, or at the time of the legend’s invention anyway.”

“Like the ocean.”

“Like the ocean! But–” The Doctor struggles. “For every star, for every planet orbiting that star, for all the civilizations on those planets–they’ve all got some version of it. A lost world. Dreams. Mysterious people of preserved history, relics of the past.” Like me? Jamie wants to ask. Is that how Polly and Ben see me? As though his yesterday was their history? “And they all have their own music and–”

“And they all have fish people?” Jamie wonders, crinkling his nose. 

“I wouldn’t think so.” The Doctor’s brow furrows in deep thought, and Jamie can’t tell if he’s being serious or not. “But that is certainly an idea…I wonder…”

Jamie has tried to count the stars in the sky, of course, though it was impossible; before he could make any progress, eventually someone would always come fetch him at night and tell him to get his head out of the clouds. The idea that there were that many stars with that many planets and each with their own Atlantis…it wasn’t conceivable. Let alone that there were that many people—if people was the right word?

“That’s a lot of fish-people.” Jamie decides to point out with a bit of finality.

“You were a fish, once.” The Doctor retaliates, just as quick.

“What?” He’s never heard that one before. “You—what?”

“Hmmm.” The Doctor considers Jamie, then leans over and pats his hand. “Maybe not now. How about we look for some other Atlantean music?”

“You don't really mean Atlantean, though, do you?” Jamie asks as they both stand up and the Doctor leads him to one of the shelves. He hasn’t the faintest idea what’s going on – or, well, maybe he does. It just doesn’t make sense, like everything else here. “Just the other lost places.” 

He can hear the beam in the Doctor’s voice. “Now you’re getting it.” 

Jamie can’t remember how much music they listen to, or how many questions he barrages the Doctor with, but the Doctor does his very best to answer, and Jamie does his very best to place everything he learns against what he already knows. All the music is unique, it’s true, but now that Jamie knows the story behind most of these sunken cities, they seem to flow together, each individual story of civilizations lost and unearthed and lost again settling into his bones. He doesn’t understand a lick of them, of course, which the Doctor explains as something about the matrix being picky and the tunes not being quite words and the intricacies of translating cultural concepts, but he doesn’t mind. Songs are something he can understand, matrix-thing or no. 

Neither keep track of time as they make trips from shelves to the funny box. The Doctor is pulling those wee cases from Jamie’s arms - which he heaped there in the first place after commenting on Jamie’s shoulders, though Jamie grumbled they were of the same build - and muttering to himself when Jamie lets out a loud yawn. 

The Doctor snaps to attention. “Are you quite sure you’ve slept enough, Jamie? You look awfully tired.” 

“It’s okay.” Jamie says a bit quickly, picking a random case and holding it out to the Doctor to play next. He doesn’t want to leave, not yet. He wants to hear what the Doctor has to say, about everything, about anything. He’s only known him a few days, but there’s something enticing about the way he speaks, the way he draws everyone in. Well, maybe just Jamie, simple Jamie, easy Jamie. Both Ben and Polly seem equally unimpressed with whatever comes out of the Doctor’s mouth. “But–what about you? Do you not–” 

“I don't need …as much sleep.” The Doctor pauses, considering as if he’ll continue, but he says no more, like he’s gauging Jamie’s reaction. 

It should be a shock, a wakeup call for Jamie. He has no idea where he is. He hardly knows a thing about the Doctor nor his odd companions, and now the Doctor has admitted to being something strangely other, something he already suspected. But it just feels right - much more than this warping world of the TARDIS; the Doctor is clearly no man, not with his glittering eyes and faerie doors and groaning, breathing, beast of a machine. It only fits that he doesn’t sleep. It would be stranger if he did. 

“I wish I didn't need sleep,” Jamie offers, and the Doctor laughs, and Jamie glows. Something crosses the Doctor’s face, and he turns off the music all of a sudden. 

“Say, Jamie, if I can dig up all these Atlantean tunes, I bet I could find some bagpipes.” 

Oh.

That.

How could he play them now? Jamie almost laughs. Almost. It’s so ridiculous. It would be wrong to play. It would be a betrayal, wouldn’t it? He can’t think about that now. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t.” Jamie says a bit too quickly. “I mean, it’s not the open moors, is it? It’ll just sound—“ he waves his hand a bit desperately. “Clanky?” 

But maybe it would be wrong to stay here, too, if he isn’t going to fulfill his promise. Jamie comes over with an itch to run, to leave, the Doctor’s eyes burning through him like they belong to someone else. 

“I’m sure the TARDIS will provide a better space,” the Doctor offers. “But if you’d really rather not…”

“Ach, just — not yet, aye?” Jamie winces at how weak his voice sounds. 

“Of course, Jamie.” The Doctor says softly. Then he brightens. “Hey, would you like to hear some other music? Not Atlantean of any sort, completely different! It’s a far cry from your pipes, but I’m sure I could scrounge up something interesting!” And before Jamie can reply, the Doctor is already pushing to his feet and scrambling around the immense library. 

Jamie doesn’t protest, exactly, when the Doctor returns with his arms stacked high with strange little shiny boxes, but he is tired. 

“See, if I just pop this in here,” the Doctor fiddles with the big box and it makes some whirring noises. Jamie can’t quite catch what he does to make the sound go; his eyes are beginning to burn and his senses are fuzzy, not quite as sharp as they need to be. Not that there’s danger — he feels safer here than he did in Atlantis or…before. And there’s a charming calm to the Doctor amidst all his fluttering chaos as the soft tones breach the air. But Jamie would still rather not fall asleep defenseless. Besides, how much time passed anyway?

“Say, Doctor?” Jamie begins carefully, like he’ll disturb the sound of the curious box. “How do you know the time, while you’re in this — while you’re in the TARDIS?” 

“Hm? Oh, it’s quite simple, really. There’s a twenty-four hour cycle in turns of eight, set just for you —” he frowns for a moment, “—which an old friend of mine asked for. He couldn’t stand the bright white lights all the time.” The Doctor goes quiet, and Jamie recognizes that faraway look, the sharp clarity of sensation with the context all blurred, like a fragment of a dream. The Doctor is somewhere else, but not for long: “After I put it into place, I did wonder why no one before him bothered asking…but it’s alright now.” Another pause. “Isn’t it?” 

Truthfully, Jamie can hardly make head nor tail of it. But that doesn’t seem to matter. (Nor does he want to think about what anyone before him means.)

“After those fish folk and their tunes, I don't think much can surprise me.” Jamie offers jokingly, and the Doctor gives him an odd, almost fond look. 

“You like it, then? It’s not too much?”

Too much? Jamie’s world has grown so much bigger in the past few hours, and not just because the TARDIS is impossibly huge, impossibly other. So much has changed. He’s not quite sure what, yet. He shakes his head. 

“I understand that a lot of things have changed.” The Doctor ventures vaguely. Jamie gets the feeling he isn’t talking about Atlantis, or even Drummossie. 

“Aye, I know what you mean.” Jamie expects the Doctor to look at him reproachfully, no, you don’t understand. Instead there’s a relieved glint in his eyes, like he thinks Jamie does understand, and it’s refreshing. 

“I hope you’re adjusting alright, then, to this.”

“I can't quite believe it,” Jamie admits. “But it makes sense, in a way.”

“And you’re sure you’re not too tired, Jamie?” The Doctor presses gently. 

Jamie shrugs. The rooms are vast, but the halls are small, and the company is good. Most importantly, his thoughts can’t wander, not while he’s sitting on this soft rug and listening to foreign music with the Doctor’s voice in his ears. “I’ll stay here.”

“Alright.” The Doctor leans for the little music box of wonders as the song winds to an end. “Would you like to choose the next one?” 

***

Life through the TARDIS, Jamie learns, is a hell of a lot bigger than he ever could have imagined. Gathering in that central room and watching worlds unfold on what they all call the scanner is dizzying enough - now actually entering those worlds is something else entirely. 

His second venture out of the TARDIS, Jamie was immediately incapacitated. But the third…

Leaving the colony left no bad taste in his mouth. The music was still ringing in his ears (having danced their way out of the celebration) as the Doctor set some control on the TARDIS - which Jamie was also learning probably meant nothing at all, and that the blue box was the one choosing all of their destinations. Ben and Polly agree that the Doctor wasn’t really captaining the strange machine, but they gave Jamie funny looks when he offered that the TARDIS was, quite simply, doing it all on its own. He doesn’t appreciate the sympathetic condescension they deal him from time to time, but after this adventure, there is none of that. The cheerful energy seems to collapse upon itself as soon as the doors snick shut, sealing the four of them inside. 

Against the quiet hum of the console room, Ben is miserable. Polly seems just as battered, and the two of them keep looking at each other, then glancing away, soot-smeared and drifting in and out of each other’s gravity like ashes. Ben breathes out, inhales, gathering up courage from the air. 

“You all – you all know I’m sorry, right?”

For a moment, it’s so silent Jamie swears he can hear the TARDIS whisper. Even the Doctor doesn’t speak, simply watching Polly watching Ben who is, inexplicably, watching Jamie.

Then Polly breaks in, “Oh, Ben, of course I know–”

And the Doctor – “You don’t have to–”

“It was only–”

“Really, there was nothing–”

“Don’t you remember how I—”

And they’re cutting each other off and tears well up in Polly’s eyes and the Doctor steps in, wringing his hands like a mother, and they are crowding around Ben with nervous half-touches. 

Jamie stands still for a moment, petrified by Ben’s gaze fixed so intensely on him, and then relents and moves forward, patting his shoulder a bit stiffly like the men would to him back home. He thinks that’s how he must always act with Ben.

“I am sorry.” Ben says, quieter, and Jamie knows it’s meant for him, because he knows what Ben is thinking; he knows, because he’s thought it before, over and over, with unsteady hands and aching lungs. Why me? And so Jamie gently steps in, and gently hugs him too. “I’m sorry.” Ben whispers. He sinks against him, the taut string between them coiling. “I’m sorry.”

After, Polly and Ben and the Doctor and Jamie all trickle out of the room, back to their own spaces. Jamie understands this is a habit of theirs – after a trip into another world, they come back, they curl together, they settle in. It’s routine. Jamie knows where Ben and Polly go, because he’s seen the door to their rooms. (He’s only seen one door, although he’s seen Ben halfheartedly point at another that neither of them go into. He’s not stupid.) But he doesn’t know where the Doctor stays afterwards. So as they all slink away, Jamie stands awkwardly in his own room, wondering what to do. 

He sits on the strange bed for a bit, and it reminds him a bit of the bed on the colony, thin and exposed and cold. He can hear rain, in his ears and in his chest, so he stands up quickly. He doesn’t feel like sleeping; he knows what will await him there. He managed to sleep on their venture to the moon, but it was more recovery than true sleep, and he’s exhausted. But he still can’t sleep. What else is there to do, though? 

Last time when the TARDIS dimmed like this - the second stage of its three, Jamie knows now - the Doctor was in the library. It wouldn’t hurt to go looking for him again, would it? He does want to see the funny man again, especially since he didn’t get much time to while they were busy navigating the colony. 

Jamie steps out of his door, then stops: only–what if he’s not there? Jamie doesn’t want to sit in the library alone. But it’s better than sitting in his room alone. Jamie glances down the corridor. He has no idea how he reached the library last time. So, again, he guesses and goes. 

It’s not long before he finds the first door, but it isn’t the huge, ancient double doors that he remembers from the library - instead, it’s a small, polished, metal door, barely as tall as Jamie is. But just like the entrance to the library, the door is ajar. Shrugging, Jamie pushes the door open and walks in.

The room is dark and cool, the metal of the door - which Jamie has to duck under – continuing down the walls and floor and ceiling, emitting a bluish hue that bathes the space in gentle light. There’s all sorts of strange, soft noises - not music, though, rather the cheeping of the shiny, confusing objects scattered about on the floor, which don’t look unlike the odd facilities of the colony. 

And, unbelievably, tinkering with something hooked up on the wall, is the Doctor. 

Jamie doesn’t speak for a while, holding his breath and watching the Doctor. He moves from the contraption and cranes his neck to look up at the ceiling where a thick pipe cuts through, following it with his eyes and feet across the room. Transfixed, Jamie only stares until the Doctor pulls up short in front of him.

“Hello,” says the Doctor. 

“Hello.” Jamie says, a bit baffled. The Doctor smiles. 

He tries to collect an explanation that the Doctor will inevitably demand, but as Jamie scrambles for words, the Doctor moves past him and towards the door. “You really ought to be nicer.” he mutters, pressing the door shut. 

Jamie has a feeling the Doctor isn’t talking to him. He doesn’t ask, worried that he’ll be questioned and sent back to his own room.

“Want to help?” the Doctor asks, popping up at Jamie’s other shoulder. 

“With what?” 

“The TARDIS has been a bit rumbly, that’s all. I wanted to check the spatial-temporal predictive scanning, so that that doesn’t happen again.”

“You mean – like going to the colony?” Jamie asks. “Seeing what was coming before we left the moon?” 

“Yes, exactly.” The Doctor affirms. “Can’t have us going off course like that every time we dematerialize, now, can we?”

“‘Off course’?” Jamie repeats, and the Doctor gives him a dirty look. Jamie shrugs lightheartedly but at the mention of the colony, he says, “Doctor, back there, did you—did you know it was wrong from the start?”

The Doctor presses his thin lips together. “I, ah, I wouldn’t say I knew it was wrong, but—well—we didn’t get a great first impression, did we, what with Medok being chased, now did we?”

“Maybe, but—” Jamie struggles, trying to understand what he wants to say. “Even when we got inside, Ben and Polly were calm. But it just felt—“

“Off.” The Doctor finishes. “Yes, I agree. It was too clean, too perfect. Everyone was too….”

“Too happy?” Jamie cringes. He doesn’t want to say that, but it’s true. He immediately felt unsettled there. And yet…their two friends had hardly held any suspicions, even when Jamie warned them, almost like they felt right at home in the lying tangle of the colony and its abuses. Jamie hasn’t felt this out of tune with them in a long time. “Why did Ben and Polly not notice?” 

“I’ve got a feeling,” the Doctor replies carefully, “that Ben and Polly are very different people than you or-or I.”

Jamie tries not to squirm thinking about that. Because when they were on the colony, he did see it — the Doctor was all suspicions and sniffing out poisons and turning over rocks, and for a moment or two it felt like the Doctor was the only one who could possibly understand Jamie amidst the monsters and mayhem. 

“And for all the ways they look after us,” the Doctor shifts on his heels to face Jamie properly. “We’ll just look after them, too.”

Jamie suppresses a smile at that. “Oh, aye.” He certainly doesn’t want to return to the colony. “Well, what can I do to help?” 

The Doctor bounces on the balls of his feet once, hands coming together excitedly, and leads Jamie over to the wall. “Here, there’s just….” 

Jamie does as the Doctor asks, handing him tools and doing his best going off of the Doctor’s odd descriptors. Then he pulls him to a strange box full of colorful ropes and wires and humming buttons. 

“Can you reach in there and just–pull that one–” he stands on his toes to point and Jamie peers up with him. A spark suddenly explodes from one of the wires and the Doctor winces, then laughs. 

“Me? But I’m too–I’m clumsy.” Jamie protests, eyeing the flickering box. It’s not exactly true, but it’s not exactly a lie, either, and he’s always thought his hands were a bit awkward around anything but his pipes. (That’s not a thought he wants to entertain now. The Doctor hasn’t asked after his music, not since the library.)

“Oh, surely not, you’re much more nimble than me–” 

“My hands are too big–”

“Now, I seriously doubt that–” 

“Ach, really.” Jamie grabs the Doctor’s wrist and presses their palms together. The Doctor stares at their hands, eyes narrowed in concentration, fingers fidgeting against Jamie’s. But no matter how he tries it, the Doctor's hand is, in fact, smaller than Jamie’s. The Doctor looks up, and Jamie pulls away nervously. He’s lucky for the hazy, sapphire lighting, or he’s sure the Doctor would see him red up to his ears. He clears his throat. “Which one d’you want me to take out?” 

And so Jamie paces about the small, dark room with the Doctor, adjusting what he’s asked to. They don’t talk much, though. The Doctor is very flighty, Jamie has realized, and it’s more than just his nerves or his chatter or his addiction to danger. He’s running from something. He ran from something, just like Jamie. And he never stopped. Jamie wonders if that’s what this is, this life aboard the TARDIS - a never ending escape, a dream he won’t wake up from. Thinking of dreams only makes him realize how tired he is, and the Doctor perceives it immediately.

“Jamie,” the Doctor starts offhandedly, setting down some sort of wrench with knobs down onto a short, sleek table and turning to face him. “It is rather late, you know, and I know you didn’t sleep much after Atlantis. You didn’t have an easy time of it in the colony. Nor did you on the moon.” 

“Aye, I know.” Jamie says. He shudders to remember the enormous creatures and the suffocating gas and the terrifying Cybermen. 

The Doctor knots his fingers together. “I hope you aren’t avoiding sleep.” 

“I’m not!” Jamie blurts, and it’s too knee-jerk; the Doctor raises his brow curiously. “I’m not. I’m just not–” He shrugs. “I just want to–well–” he deflates. “I don't know.” 

“It’s alright. I just hope you’re – rested.” The Doctor twists his hands tighter. 

“It’s fine.” Jamie promises, studying the floor. He hates how he can sense the Doctor’s worry. 

The Doctor doesn’t speak for a long moment, and then another, and another and Jamie figures he’s let it go – sometimes he really does just trail off and out of conversations, like loose yarn or the fraying threads on the sleeves of his ragged coat. Not this time, however: “Are you happy with us here in the TARDIS, Jamie?”

Jamie’s head snaps up. “Aye, of course I am.” 

“It’s…I realize it’s very strange.” 

“We’re all safe now.” Jamie helps. “That’s what matters, right?” 

“Yes–of course–it’s only, sometimes people do weary of this life, you understand. I know it’s a lot.”

Jamie shakes his head. “No! I–I like it.”

“You–like it?” The Doctor echoes. 

Jamie shrugs a little helplessly. “Just–I don't want any giant crab on my back, aye, but–meeting so many people, seeing so many new things, going to the moon...” His lips curl into a half smile. “It’s not half bad, is it?” 

“No,” the Doctor agrees in a voice made of glass. “No, it’s not.” Then he grins, watching Jamie with a glitter in his eyes. “You’re a very odd man, Jamie.” 

I’m hardly a man, Jamie wants to say. I’m just a musician. “I won’t hear that coming from you.” He retorts instead.

The Doctor laughs, and over the sound of his silent room and noisy dreams, Jamie would listen to that laugh every day. 

***

The third time Jamie awakes from his sleep with sweat down his neck, he doesn’t bother searching for any place in the TARDIS. The moment he steps out of his room and into the cool, blue-toned rooms - the third eight-hour stage of the cycle - he takes off down another random corridor, trusting the TARDIS to take him where he must go. Ben and Polly are away to bed, again, and Jamie is left alone with the quiet murmur of the time machine. 

He knows what he’s looking for. And the TARDIS, who Jamie is certain has a mind of her own, always seems to nudge him along so long as he trusts: so he trusts, and follows. This time, it’s the console room. 

The Doctor is lying underneath the console itself, body half submerged in a tangle of technology that Jamie doesn’t pretend to understand; he suspects the Doctor is pretending. 

“Doctor–”

The Doctor yelps in surprise, sitting up and slamming his head on the underside of the hexagonal table. He ducks out from under the console, rubbing his forehead with a doleful whimper. Jamie hurries to his side and crouches, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry,” Jamie says, trying to keep the bashful laugh from his voice. “I thought you heard me.” 

“I have now.” The Doctor grumbles, but when he looks up at Jamie, he’s smiling. Jamie sits down on the floor beside him. “Now, what are you doing here?”

“What are you doin’ here?” Jamie counters.

“Fair.” The Doctor’s legs slide out straight and he knocks his feet back and forth, the thin laces of his shoes coming undone. He’ll trip on those, Jamie thinks, imagining some giant, six-legged creature tearing after them, and I’ll be the one who has to carry him back and check his bruises. The Doctor’s clumsiness was a lot less endearing when it landed him in danger. 

“I remember you told me that when the lights go all blue in the halls it means it’s the night stage.” Jamie prompts instead of voicing his concerns over the Doctor’s attire. 

“So that means you also remember me telling you I don't need so much sleep, hm?” the Doctor suggests, a smile leaking into his voice. 

“Oh, aye, but–” Jamie nudges his shoulder into the Doctor’s. “That doesn't mean you can't sleep at all, does it?” 

“...I could sleep, I suppose.” He concedes. “But why ever would I want to? There’s so much to do!” He gestures broadly at the console room. 

Jamie narrows his eyes. The Doctor not needing as much sleep as Ben and Polly and himself, he can understand; he’s starting to accept that he may never truly know what the Doctor is. But never sleeping at all? Never needing rest? Never wanting it? 

“So, what, you stay up all this while? All the time, forever?” That’s definitely not true. Jamie knows he’s seen the Doctor catching a few winks on adventures before. 

The Doctor shrugs. “It doesn’t bother me. I would get terribly bored if I slept for as long as you three do! It’d be like–oh, it’d be like putting Ben on shore leave for a few months.” Jamie does have to laugh at that. The way Ben acts around the TARDIS sometimes, it seems he’s still trying to assemble a crew and pretend they’re seafaring, not timefaring. “Besides, there’s plenty to keep me occupied.” The Doctor gives Jamie a warm look, like they’re sharing a secret. “You know how much tending to the TARDIS needs.”

Jamie could prod back that the Doctor himself is probably the cause of half of the problems that need tending to, but instead he purses his lips and searches the Doctor’s gaze. 

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” 

The Doctor glances at Jamie, then looks up at the scanner, as if it will show him the answer. Carefully, he says, “I know you need your rest.” 

“Doctor.”

He looks down. “No.” 

But Jamie already made up his mind. 

***

If the Doctor notices that Jamie has started showing up every night, wherever he is, he doesn’t speak of it. 

(It’s not always because of nightmares. In fact, once Jamie starts chasing the Doctor’s company in favor of sleep, those seem to fade, only revived by brief encounters outside the TARDIS that remind him of before. No matter how many monsters they face, how many terrible humans and aliens and creatures they meet, Jamie never has any nightmares about them - he’s heard Polly complain of terrors, of course, and he knows that Ben gets them too, no matter how little he shares. He knows that no matter how happy they are, the pair of them are just as haunted by the beasts they meet. But Jamie never has nightmares about anything after he joined the TARDIS. The doors to the blue box are too warm, too alive, to shadow his sleep. 

It’s only being alone. It’s only there.) 

And so now, the Doctor sits at the edge of the TARDIS pool, his shoes and socks thrown haphazardly to the side and his enormous trousers rolled up to the knees; any lower and they’ll slip back down into the water, where he dips his feet. 

Jamie fights back a yawn as he paces around the enormous room. It’s like a dark cave, the only light coming from the strips of white that line the walls of the pool, illuminating the eerie, bright blue-green water. The Doctor apparently doesn’t spend all his nights doing useful repairs, and when Jamie found him this time, he was greedily eyeing the pool and probably deciding if it was worth getting his coat wet for. His coat, in fact, is discarded on the tiles by the pool, leaving him in his blue shirtsleeves. Jamie’s trying not to look at the Doctor or the curve of his shoulders or the bare skin of his forearms. He’s never seen so much of him, exposed without his jacket. It’s unnerving. 

The room is dense with quiet, just how they like it. Jamie likes that it’s just them, he likes that they don’t need to fill the air with words all the time. Mind, Ben and Polly would surely love the extravagant hall and the enormous pool, but they seem to leave the Doctor and Jamie alone more often, like they know something. The thought makes Jamie dizzy whenever he dwells on it too long. 

“I should like to go to a beach.” The Doctor wonders aloud, pulling Jamie from his own head, as he tends to. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“No. I can't swim.” 

“You can’t swim?” The Doctor exclaims, and Jamie hears a splash. For a moment, he thinks the Doctor’s fallen in, and he whirls around in fear. But he’s only twisted and pulled his legs out of the water, feet slapping loudly on the wet marble. He’s awkwardly pushing himself up as he says, “I can teach you!” 

Jamie yelps when the Doctor pads over to him with a glimmer in his eye. “Hey, no, you’re no’ gettin’ me in there!”

The Doctor frowns, but he doesn’t come any closer. “Now, really, I’m quite a good teacher. Or, at least, I should think I am. I don’t think I’ve ever taught anyone how to swim…well, there was that one time…” he begins to trail off into one of those distracted mumblings of his, and Jamie quickly walks over and squeezes his hand. 

“It’s fine. I don't want to learn, anyway.” 

“You don’t?” The Doctor looks at him so – so woefully. 

“Ach, maybe another time.” Jamie struggles. “It’s all a bit much.” He’s learned so much from his time through the TARDIS and her many, many doors. He’s in no rush to swim, of all things. And maybe a tiny part of him is just the littlest bit afraid. 

The Doctor studies Jamie, head tipped at one angle like those confused dogs do sometimes to coax sympathy. “I wouldn’t–that is, I don’t–” he fumbles for a moment, like he can’t grasp the words any better than Jamie, on the edge of something. “I wouldn’t let you get hurt.” He finishes. 

“I know.” Jamie says, and he does. “But—later.” 

“Well,” the Doctor says awkwardly, looking down at his shirt, at his damp trousers, like he wasn't expecting his body to be there. “The offer always stands.” Then he scurries back to the pool, leaning over and peaking into the water as if some great beast will have emerged in his time away. Knowing the TARDIS, Jamie wouldn’t put it past her. 

Jamie follows the Doctor, steering clear of the lip of the strange pool, and instead sitting beside his coat and mismatched socks and untied shoes. He takes to ordering the Doctor’s assortment, tucking his socks into his shoes and doing up the laces, placing them neatly against the strangely coral wall of the room. He folds the Doctor’s coat, gently, gently, though the creases and fraying edges have hardly been treated with care. The only sounds are the Doctor swishing his feet in the water. The rhythmic noise is beginning to lull him again, and he settles against the wall, eyes drifting shut. 

“Jamie?” says the Doctor, after they’ve gone on in a long silence. 

“Aye?” He doesn’t open his eyes, and he doesn’t quite catch what the Doctor says as he slips into sleep. 

“I’m glad you’re here.”

***

The next time, the TARDIS leads Jamie to the library. It’s the Doctor’s favorite spot, clearly. Or maybe it’s just Jamie’s favorite, and that’s why they choose it for these half sort of meetings of theirs. The space seems to shape around them, anyway, the sofas growing plusher and new plants popping up on tables or draping from the walls, as though the TARDIS is trying to welcome Jamie into this odd world, trying to soften the corners of metal and filtered air with leaves, with life. 

In any case, they go to the library the next time. And the next, and the next. Sometimes they talk a lot, the Doctor excitedly rattling off about his newest obsession. Sometimes Jamie will talk, when the Doctor coaxes him into speaking with those terribly deep blue eyes. Sometimes they’ll sit in silence, like the stars have been beaten out of a galaxy, leaving behind only their dust, only their stories. But they’ll always stay up a long while, and Jamie always ends up sleeping when they leave the TARDIS, catching naps here or there while the Doctor works, or while Ben and Polly are arguing each other’s ears off. He knows it isn’t the safest thing to be doing, but it’s the only time he’ll find to snatch a few moments to rest.

Jamie is very quickly understanding things about the Doctor, but mainly that no one has ever spoken about things - or to him - the way the strange man - man, as if that’s anywhere close to accurate - does. Like singing at the ceilidh or practicing by the hollows. He likes it. It just makes sense, like how the Doctor doesn’t sleep (much, anyway), like how the TARDIS never seems content with consistency. And the more he learns about the Doctor, the more he wonders how much the Doctor has learned about him. 

(There’s no real night time on the TARDIS. Only the cycles of lights, and the suppression of noise, and all the other things that work to settle the humans in the time machine. But if night is for secrecy, for hushed whispers–then of course it’s night now.)

“I ran away.” Jamie says, one night. “Or–or at least it feels like I did.”

“I know.” the Doctor says, and Jamie believes him. He knows, because Jamie knows he ran, too. Ran away in the blue box, ran away from it all. He touches Jamie’s arm. “Do you regret it?”

He doesn’t think the feeling is strong enough to call regret. But it’s there. “I don’t know.”

Hopeless, wavering:

“Do you want to go home?”

Jamie traces his thumb along the Doctor’s soft hand, smoothing out tremors. “No.” 

***

Jamie finds the Doctor in a vast hall with a vaulted, cavernous ceiling and neverending walls. When the Doctor produces the set of pipes they found some weeks ago and holds them out expectantly, Jamie knows there’s no escaping. But strangely, he doesn’t feel any fear at the prospect. There is no one he is betraying, not by playing again. 

The Doctor seems to sense his hesitance nonetheless. “If you don’t want to–”

“No.” Jamie says sharply. “I do. It’s just been a while.” He gives the Doctor a sad smile. “I don't know if I’ll be a good teacher. It might take a while.” 

“That’s okay,” the Doctor shrugs. “We have time.” 

“Alright.” Jamie says, building strength. He reaches forward. “Well, put this down. You’re no’ starting with those…”

***

Jamie sits on the bed in his room. The lights are off, but he’s awake, staring at his hands in his lap. 

Victoria is in her own room. Jamie does not know what happened to Ben and Polly’s room, and he doesn’t want to. All he knows is the TARDIS has produced a new space for Victoria, a new corner, more spaces for her to fill, and something in Jamie stings with the understanding of it, of the strange machine reaching out however she can, comforting the poor girl in the only way she knows how. 

Jamie wishes he knew a better way. Instead, he’s sitting in his room, and he’s alone. His limbs are sore, aching with exertion and wound up tight with stress. He hardly slept back on Skaro; no matter how easy Jamie finds it to fall asleep in awkward places, he just couldn’t, and he didn’t get much sleep the past few days before Ben and Polly left, either. He’s running on pure determination, and now even that has drained away. He can still taste soot on his tongue, still see burning skies when he closes his eyes, still hear the Doctor’s mechanical, complying voice. Obedient.

The Doctor is the last person he wants to be thinking of right now. The past few days have made very clear to Jamie that he has been wrong about everything, about the Doctor, about them. (He knows he isn’t—hasn’t—it’s just—what does he do? What does he say? What does he want the Doctor to say?)

And Jamie’s room is the last place he wants to be. He doesn’t want to sit here for hours, staring at the wall and waiting for his words to find him. Perhaps the TARDIS can help him, just as she helped Victoria. So Jamie gets out of bed and puts his shoes back on, though they’re still dirty, not unblemished as the TARDIS likes to clean them after adventures. 

“Aye, alright, I get it,” he mutters. “I’m goin’.” 

He walks down those familiar corridors for some time, long enough that his heart begins to steady and his breathing evens and all his gut-wrenching anxiety settles. The TARDIS is still kind. These halls are still home. He isn’t out of place, not really, not how he thought he would be, with the Doctor doing everything he can to throw Jamie into the water. He does manage to identify the swirling feeling in his chest as anger, though, and it only scares him as much as he allows it to. 

It’s then that he comes to the door, not the first he’s seen, but the only one that is ajar. It’s unusually welcoming, set into the expanding, indigo-lit walls of the TARDIS. Somehow, he knows. He knows this time, this time for sure. There’s no music, but it seems like there should be. 

Jamie steps into the Doctor’s room. 

He doesn’t pay attention to the details of it, because he knows it doesn’t matter, he knows the Doctor is only here because Jamie is here. There’s a bed and the Doctor’s sitting on it but he’s not sleeping, he’s just sitting, slouched and still with his head in his hands. He hasn’t changed out of his clothes, only his jacket is on the floor. He’s always so messy. 

“Y’know, I can't really believe you’re 450.”

The Doctor lurches, head snapping up. Jamie closes the door behind him as he moves in. 

“Jamie,” the Doctor says, standing up. His hands brush down his front, like he’s trying to clean himself up, dust himself off, like he must be presentable for Jamie. 

“I don't think you were lying about it, though,” Jamie goes on, closing the distance, crossing the chasm. “I know you’re no’ human. I just wasn’t expecting you to say it like so.” The measuring of years was a funny thing, too. The Doctor explained how years differed on planets, distance and mass and all that. He wonders what years look like for the Doctor. 

“I was trying to be more honest,” the Doctor says, softly. “I thought you would like that.”

“Aye, I would.” Jamie’s voice is dry and flat. The Doctor’s eyes dart about the room, tight and fast, as if Jamie’s presence has swollen the space and drawn the edges taut with tension. 

“I’m trying, Jamie.” The Doctor whispers. 

Jamie sighs, stopping in his tracks. “I just wish you would trust me.”

“I do.” 

“Do you?”

The Doctor steps forward and reaches for Jamie, then stops. His hands retreat to wring together. “I do.” He repeats firmly, but his hands are still shaking. “It was so complicated—and I had no time—and…I just—it was only, well, before, before this, this body, the last time I fought them, I just—“ The words are flooding out of the Doctor now. “I lost, Jamie, I lost so much, and seeing them, knowing they wanted you, knowing they had you—I couldn’t let anything—I had to—if you—“ his fingers twist harder. “I know what I did, Jamie, but, please, I couldn’t lose you.”

Jamie works his jaw. “You can't ever do that again.”

“I pro—“

“No,” Jamie shakes his head. “You won’t.” He pulls the Doctor's hands into his own. “You don't get to—to lose me. And next time, you trust me.”

“Yes.” The Doctor breathes. “Oh, Jamie, if only you knew—“

Jamie draws him into a tight hug, burying his face in the Doctor’s hair, trying to forget about the idea of a next time, trying to stop the Doctor from trembling. 

“Tell me,” Jamie says, because they have all night, because they have all the time in the world. “Tell me.”

***

After they’ve left Telos, it’s easy to forget that things have changed. 

“You must be exhausted,” The Doctor says to the both of them. “Why don’t you go rest?” 

“Thank you, Doctor.” Victoria says wearily, and they share a glance full of something Jamie can’t decipher. “I think I’ll sleep now. If, um, if you could show me the way to my room again?” She winces, casting a glance down the exit to the console room. “I’m terribly sorry. I can’t seem to remember.” 

“I’ll show you,” Jamie intercedes, partially to get that look of half-misery off of both their faces. Victoria looks so small all of a sudden, in her new dress all battered and dirtied, impossibly tiny in the vast whiteness of the TARDIS interior. He’s caught with an urge to hug her, but he has a feeling she wouldn’t want that quite yet. The Doctor told him, earlier, to be careful with Victoria. She’s not weak, he said. But she shouldn’t have to be strong, not with us. 

Jamie isn’t actually sure of the way to her room, but the TARDIS always seems to guide him quickly enough. As they walk, Jamie turns in whichever direction feels vaguely correct until they finally reach a familiar door. 

“Thank you, Jamie.” They stand outside for a moment, Victoria opening and closing her mouth a few times. Jamie stays quiet, waiting for her. Victoria speaks softly. “You must think me silly, but I seem to be having trouble remembering some things.” 

He knows she doesn’t just mean the way to her room. “It happened to me, too.” He confesses. “Not–directions, or anythin’. But sometimes I couldn’t remember things that happened only minutes ago. It’s like my head was in a rush all the time.” He smiles gently. “It goes away, though, once you get used to the TARDIS. The Doctor said it was something with our human minds trying to catch up with too much at once.” 

“So he’s not human?” Victoria asks, wavering. 

Jamie gauges her expression. “Does that scare you?”

Victoria squares her shoulders and gives him an indignant look. “Of course not. After those nasty Cybermen, I should hardly think the Doctor is scary.” 

Jamie smiles. “Alright, then. You sleep well, and if you need anything–well, the TARDIS will help.”

“Are you going to bed?” She asks.

“Ah. Erm. Aye, I’ll get to my room.” Jamie shrugs, face growing hot as it always does when he lies. He’s not sure why, but it’s faster than – explaining. “Goodnight.” 

Victoria gives him a small wave and vanishes into her room. He feels like he should have said more to her, but he’s not sure what. As soon as he knows she’s inside, he leaves. 

He used to wait for Ben and Polly to sleep before he sought out the Doctor, but he thinks they cottoned on eventually and just let two of them be. They never ran into Jamie on his night-cycle-excursions out looking for the Doctor often, and when they did, they would only smile. But now he’s got a sort of twist in his guts. He doesn’t know Victoria. And she’s from closer to his time than Ben or Polly. What if she’s–? 

He doesn’t think she would be. Not that there was anything for her to be suspicious of. But he hadn’t wanted to frighten her, and he thinks the Doctor will understand. Perhaps she would just feel better – safer – if they didn’t say anything.

But saying nothing meant there was something to say, didn’t it? 

What is this becoming? 

Jamie stands beside the Doctor in the console room. “D’you maybe think…it might be better no’ to say?” he cringes, expecting the Doctor to press him further, and hurriedly adds, “Just for a little while, just to make sure Victoria’s alright.” 

The Doctor turns to face Jamie. “Of course.” He says, and he’s got an easy smile on his face, but his gaze is fixed to the left of Jamie, just shy of meeting his eyes. “Of course.”

***

If anyone could ever ask, the TARDIS doesn’t try to move rooms. She’s only reorganizing, readjusting, shifting and shaping her bones each time they materialize. One doesn’t shake a snowglobe and expect the powder to settle in the same pattern every time! But humans are so terribly small-dimensioned, you know, and small-minded at that. Sure, occasionally she will shift around a room just because. (It’s getting uncomfortable in that corridor! Why can’t they see that the baths would look lovely in the gardens?) Or sometimes, after a room has gone on in disuse for a while, she forgets to put it back in the same relative space, and it just slides away - under the rug, if you will. (Though she does terribly resent carpets and all the flying they brag about; she flies perfectly well, thank you, and without magic at that!) She’ll try to be more prompt about it sometimes, like she was with the sailor and the secretary - it only took one shift and they gave up on the sailor’s room entirely. But sometimes, truly, the door will remain closed for long enough that she doesn’t think to connect it to the same room. And after that…well, she won’t be hard-pressed to dig it up again. 

It’s no worry, though. It’s not like Jamie will go looking for his room.

In fact, it’s only when the young girl asks the thief about it that the subject comes up— “Where does Jamie stay, Doctor? I haven’t seen any other bedrooms around here.”

“That would be telling,” her thief says. 

“I just worry he isn’t sleeping much. He gets so tired when we leave the TARDIS! I see him sleep often. Is he sick?”

And if the TARDIS had eyes, she would see her thief cast his eyes anywhere but the young girl. “I’m sure he’s alright, Victoria.”

***

(When Jamie stays up beside the Doctor, it’s not always about keeping company, and it’s not always about running from sleep.)

“Go away, Jamie.” The Doctor mutters, but there’s no weight to it. “I don’t want to hear your lecture.” 

“I’m not sorry that I saved you.” Jamie says, breathing through his nose. “So?”

“So, what?”

“Aren’t you goin’ to apologize?”

“For what?” The Doctor grumbles. “Almost defeating the Intelligence before you interrupted?”

“Before I–before I interrupted?” Jamie demands. 

The Doctor shrugs silently, angling his body away from Jamie where he sits on the sofa in the library. 

“Oh, you just don’t–” Jamie buries his head in his hands and fights back a long groan. He doesn’t want to do this now, not when he’s tired and still shaking, not when Victoria can probably hear them from where she sits, further between the shelves of the library. She followed them to the library after they left London, completely mute as they walked deeper into the TARDIS, and found a corner to curl up in as Jamie and the Doctor sat down. Jamie doesn’t want her to see this. But it’s been nagging at him, and he wasn’t going to sleep anyway. 

“I don’t see why you’re the one who is upset.” The Doctor remarks primly then, and Victoria sucks in a sharp breath and Jamie explodes.

“Because I want to – I want you to – we want to be with you! Don’t you get it? Why do you think I care so much when you put yourself at risk like this with the Intelligence!”

The Doctor immediately turns to face him. “I wasn’t at risk!”

“But I didn't know! I didn't know that! Can you not – och, just see it from my point of view, won't you? You didn't tell me, you didn't trust me.” 

The Doctor freezes, and Jamie can see the fear petrifying his body. “Jamie, that’s not what this is. If I told you, the Intelligence could have seen it in your mind!”

“Could you not have–” He gesticulates between them, words drying in his throat. “Through–doesn’t it–with us–” He doesn’t know how to describe what the Doctor does, when their minds leak together through their skin. 

“No, that wouldn’t have worked, I couldn’t stay in contact the whole time.” The Doctor shakes his head hard, overwhelmed and squeezing his eyes shut. “I had no choice!”

“Aye, I’ve heard those words before.” Jamie snarls. 

“Well, what about you?” The Doctor demands. “I’m not the only one, you know. You’ve been getting–you were paralyzed by the Ice Warriors!” He wrings his hands, glancing over at Victoria, who is now pointedly staring at a book in her hands. “Tell him, Victoria! You must see how reckless he is.”

She looks up, eyes hard and glistening. “Doctor, Jamie saved your life.”

Jamie can see the Doctor’s jaw working. Ignoring Victoria, he whips back to Jamie. “And if you hadn’t pulled me away–”

“If you had just trusted me–”

“What, like I did with Salamander?”

“Oh, don’t you dare.” Jamie bites. The Doctor actually flinches at that, and it’s only satisfactory for a moment before Jamie feels a twinge of guilt. 

“I am sorry, Jamie.” The Doctor says at length. More firmly, “But I’m not making any promises. Maybe, you just have to trust me. ”

Jamie doesn’t speak, because he knows that the Doctor is right. He knows he should have had more trust, more faith – but that’s just it, isn’t it? For all he knew that the Doctor was capable, seeing him just sitting there, helpless, hapless, it was like his heart had pounded up his throat. Jamie had never been so scared in his life, not like that.

***

Victoria leaves. It’s wet, and cold, and gray and Victoria leaves, rooted on the beach with the ocean waves still lapping in her eyes. 

Jamie doesn’t go to the Doctor, not for a long time, not while he can still taste the salt of the sea on his tongue. They travel alone, and meet only in the console room or the sickbay if one of them needs healing, and their conversations are tight, as if they’re conserving words. 

It’s only after the Doctor moves heaven and earth for Jamie that he shares a room with him again. The Doctor is out cold, and has been, for several days. Jamie didn’t know what to do, so he brought him to his room. He’s not even sure if it is his room, because it doesn’t look the same, because Jamie hasn’t been to his room since — longer than he can remember. But that hardly matters now.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie says thickly. “I’m so sorry. Please, just wake up. I’ll stay with you every night. Forever. I promise. Please, Doctor.” Jamie scrubs his palms over his eyes, tears dripping onto the sheets. “Come back.”

***

Zoe doesn’t ask. She likes to figure things out by herself, sometimes, while Jamie sleeps on tables and benches and alien escape pods. (Like the little puzzles she was allowed to do back in the program, before the wheel.) It’s not difficult, anyway, not with those two. 

***

“Jamie, you ought to rest.” Zoe observes as the TARDIS doors shut behind them. 

“Ach, I’m fine.” Jamie rolls his shoulder and strides across the console room – well, striding isn’t really the word. More of an awkward, prideful hobble. 

The Doctor sighs, walking to Jamie’s side slinging Jamie’s arm over his shoulder. “Come on. I don’t know how well UNIT patched up that leg of yours. Let me take a look.” 

“It’s just a graze.” When the Doctor gives him a cool look, he protests, “The nurse said so!”The Doctor tightens his arm around Jamie’s waist. Jamie relents. “Alright.” 

Zoe follows them to the medical bay, which isn’t the only one, but the TARDIS knows it’s Jamie’s favorite because of the warm lights and green walls. It’s much cozier than the sterile, white spaces of Earth hospitals, and in fact, many hospitals across alien worlds. Jamie is well versed in those, now. The Doctor sits Jamie down on a bed and crouches in front of him. Zoe hesitantly sits down on the other end of the bed, peering down at the Doctor. 

Of course, Jamie and the Doctor and the TARDIS all know that this ritual is completely pointless. The Doctor isn’t actually healing Jamie, not today; there isn’t much to do, it’s true the nurses did the best possible. He could dig up some contraption to speed up the process, but it truly was a graze – the shock of it must have knocked Jamie down more than anything. But seeing him drop…the Doctor never knows the right words to say to Jamie. So he presses a hand to his knee, his calf, his ankle. He’s staring at Jamie’s socks, so he doesn’t catch the nervous glance Jamie shoots Zoe from the side of his eye before gently placing a hand in the Doctor’s hair. 

“Come here, you fool.” Jamie says lightly. “It’s alright.” The Doctor stands up, eyes big and sad. 

“You’re exhausted,” The Doctor says.

“You’re tellin’ me.” Jamie replies dryly. 

“You aren’t sleeping enough,” the Doctor presses. “This shouldn’t have happened.” 

“You callin’ me sloppy?” Jamie narrows his eyes, and Zoe watches. 

“Doctor, it was bound to happen. You yourself told me life on the TARDIS was extremely dangerous.” Zoe points out. She turns to Jamie before he can swell all triumphantly. “And I think you are getting sloppy. How come you’re always so sleepy?”

The Doctor frowns at them for a moment. “Jamie, why don’t you sleep a little, hm? Zoe and I will clear out.”

“No, don't–” Jamie grabs Zoe’s sleeve before she can shift off the bed, his eyes wide with panic. “I don't need sleep, really. I sleep plenty.” Zoe and the Doctor both scrutinize Jamie, and he seems to shrink under the shared force of their gazes. Ever since Zoe joined them, it’s always been like this, the two of them inspecting him. “Well, maybe not enough.” He admits. 

“How about this,” the Doctor suggests, already kneeling again and grasping the laces of Jamie’s boots. “You promise to sleep now, for a little, and we won’t bother you about it again until we have to.” 

Jamie droops, letting the Doctor pull off his shoes and swing his legs up onto the mattress. “Aye, alright. But–”

“And move over.” The Doctor says, promptly rolling Jamie over to the other side, sitting down heavily and nearly dislodging Zoe from her precarious perch on the edge. “Now, we’ve got quite the catching up to do, hm?”

“What d’you mean?” Jamie eyes him suspiciously.

“Well, aren’t you curious what Zoe and I did while you were recovering?”

“Oh, yes, Jamie, it was quite a lot that went down all at once,” Zoe said, and the Doctor can’t tell if she caught on or if she’s just excited to share. It lulls Jamie soon enough, and the Doctor assures her that she can retire to her room and he’ll look after Jamie. She gives him an odd glance at that, something half-knowing, half-confused. He almost feels bad, almost, but Jamie was never comfortable with Victoria knowing, so he….

“Jamie?” the Doctor pokes Jamie’s arm. “Are you awake?”

“Aye.” He grumbles. 

“Now, really.” The Doctor sighs, craning his neck to look at the ceiling. The lights have begun to dim, just the littlest, the TARDIS urging them towards sleep. “Do you think you can sleep?”

“I don't want to.” 

“It’s not healthy, you know–”

“Ach, don't tell me all about that.” Jamie groans. “I know that.”

“When was the last time you slept in your room?” the Doctor wonders, turning back to face Jamie, who has crossed his arms over his chest where he’s settled against the pillows. He shrugs. 

“I can't find it.”

“You–you can’t find your room?” The Doctor asks, incredulous. 

“It disappeared a while back. It’s no’ like I ever went there, anyway.” Jamie glances at him. “What would be the point? I stay with you.”

“But I’m…” the Doctor trails off. He was going to protest that he doesn’t sleep in any one place every night, but it’s true, isn't it? Wherever his boredom takes him, every TARDIS night cycle, Jamie is there. It would be odd if he wasn’t. He’s even noticed, wherever he goes, the TARDIS will create cozier spaces – blankets and pillows and warmth, in all different corners, if Jamie is there. The Doctor sees him sleep then, of course, but it’s still never much. “Oh.” 

Jamie looks away again. 

“Jamie,” the Doctor tries gently. 

“It’s not–”

“You really should–”

“I didn't mean for–”

“It’s only, well, I never—”

“Will you stay now?” 

The Doctor blinks. “You mean–stay–sleep here?”

Jamie’s cheeks color. “Or, or until I fall asleep. I don't think I can, without you. I mean–if you’re not–I just–it’s only that I’m so used to staying awake, and I–just beside me, that’s all–”

After this adventure, he would sorely like a shower, or perhaps a bath. But right now Jamie is just watching him, expecting, terrified. 

Jamie’s fear seems to expand in the air the longer the Doctor stares back at him. “I mean, you don't have–”

“Of course I will.” 

The Doctor reaches down and unties his shoes, and after a moment’s consideration, pulls off his jacket and suspenders, laying them on the floor. He tentatively pulls the covers down, and Jamie squirms under them, wincing as his leg brushes against the bedclothes. Awkwardly, gingerly, the Doctor lays down beside him, pulling the covers to his chest. The lights grow darker, and darker, until the TARDIS has left everything but a soft glow. 

Jamie’s shoulder is pressed to his, and he can feel it move with his breathing, and he cannot see his eyes. Already, his breathing is evening, and he’s sinking into the mattress, head heavy on the pillow beside the Doctor.

“If I stayed with you, would you sleep more?” the Doctor asks softly. 

“I’m alright, Doctor.” Jamie insists, but his words are weak with sleep. “It’s just today, that’s all.”

“Would you?” 

Jamie doesn’t answer. 

“Why is it that you stay with me, Jamie?” the Doctor presses. 

“Och, you know.”

“I do?” The Doctor wonders, and Jamie heaves a sigh.

“My time with you,” Jamie finally speaks, quiet, so quiet the Doctor almost doesn't hear, “it’s all I have.”

“Jamie.” the Doctor says, because it’s not what he’s asking, or maybe because it’s exactly what he tells himself every night idled away in Jamie’s company.

“You don't know?”

The Doctor sighs. “I can sleep, you know.”

“You don't sleep.” Jamie remarks. 

“I–I do.” The Doctor shifts to look at Jamie. “I don’t need to, and I don’t–I don’t usually choose to, but I can. I really can. If you need to, if you want to, you could just…” He fumbles. “I have a room, you know. It’s not really mine, but I go there sometimes.”

“Aye, I know.” Jamie says. 

“Well,” the Doctor clasps his hands over the covers. “You could always sleep there?”

“You mean you’d–” Jamie cuts himself off. “You’d sleep? You’d–?”

“If you’d like.” The Doctor’s voice is barely a whisper, crushed under the weight of the offer.

Jamie ducks his head. “I’d like that.”

***

The first few times, the Doctor lies stiffly beside Jamie, ramrod straight even as he slips into subconsciousness, or his own, alien version of it. But as it goes with them, distance never lasts long.

The Doctor is sleeping on Jamie’s chest. Jamie likes the weight of the Doctor pressing into him, the heavy, vulnerable pressure of the Doctor completely trusting him with his body as he relaxes on top of Jamie. He breathes softly, lips parting in short breaths. Jamie tightens his arm around the Doctor’s waist, looking down at him as he sleeps. Funnily enough, the Doctor seems to fall asleep easier than Jamie does, although he always wakes up after a few hours or less, curled around Jamie and watching him with wide, curious eyes. 

Jamie reaches in with his other hand to tuck a strand of his messy hair off his forehead. The Doctor makes a small sound and turns his face into Jamie’s hand. The press of his forehead under Jamie’s palm seems to spark. Something impossibly warm floods Jamie, unbearably infinite, the Doctor’s subconscious threading through his.

Oh.

***

When Jamie isn’t sleeping, when he and the Doctor are aimlessly wandering around the TARDIS, sometimes Zoe will join them. The first time is by accident, of course, when they’re spying on Shakespeare and Marlowe and Galileo through the time-space visualiser.

The Doctor’s chewing on gummies he nicked from a station on Titan and chatting to Jamie when she stumbles upon them. “You know, that one fancied my friend–”

“Sorry.” Zoe blurts from where she stands in the doorframe. Jamie whips around to face her.

“Whatever for?” the Doctor asks calmly as if he knew she was there the whole time. “You’re welcome to join.” 

Zoe blinks. “Erm. I’m not allowed to stay up past curfew.” She protests weakly.

“Well,” the Doctor says, voice conspiratorially low as he beckons her. “Good thing there’s no curfew.”

***

“Jamie?” Zoe’s voice is impossibly small. “Are you up?” 

“Aye. I can't sleep much, not now.” His hoarse words float up from where he’s stretched out on the floor. As far as Zoe can tell from where she’s curled in a chair, everyone else is asleep. So many different people, from different places and times, all united against brainwashing, all fighting for their minds, all resting together. The air is brimming with tangible trust. 

“Me neither.” Zoe breathes. “I’m scared.” 

“The Doctor will be okay.” 

“How do you know?” 

Jamie’s only awake because the Doctor isn’t here. Because he isn’t safe. Zoe hears him inhale shakily. “He always is.” 

“Jamie?” Zoe says again, already unfurling from the chair and stepping onto the floor. She feels terribly small. “Can I sleep next to you?”

“Of course,” Jamie whispers, surprised. “Of course. Come here.” He opens his arms. As soon as Zoe sinks into them, Jamie pulls her into a tight, warm hug, smothering her slight grumble. Months ago, Zoe never could have imagined she would grow this close to Jamie, nor the Doctor. But now all she wants is Jamie’s big, secure hands to card through her hair and for him to tell her, against all logic, that things will be all right. She’s got a notion he wants the same from her.

“I want to go home.” Zoe confesses, burying her head in his chest. 

“I know.” Jamie says. “As soon as this is all over, I’m going to run straight to the TARDIS. I won’t go into those strange machines – I’ll walk if I have to!”

Zoe laughs and he feels it deep in his ribs. “Alright, me too. And–Jamie?”

“Mm?”

“You’re right. He’ll be fine.”

***

He wakes up. 

It’s dark, dark and slightly warm from the heat of his own body within the wool blankets. No one has roused him, and the day is far from beginning, if the silence is anything to go by. No dream has woken him – he doesn’t dream anymore, or if he does, he can’t remember – and no sound nor fear, either. His eyes just open. He sits up too quickly and hits his head on the roof of his bed, biting back a hiss of pain as he slips out.

It’s dark. 

He walks outside, barefoot, onto the dew-wet earth, under the stars. He cranes his neck up to see the cloudless sky and his mouth pulls down into a deep frown. 

But – no, this isn’t where he’s meant to be. He’s supposed to–he has somewhere to go, doesn’t he? Like instinct, he turns his head left and right, expecting some path to lead him from the dark, dark moors, and then back up into the abysmal night. But for the wind whispering in the grass, he’s completely alone. 

It’s dark.

I have somewhere to be, he thinks firmly, and it’s urgent, a hot pressure at the back of his throat, something akin to panic, a heartbeat thrumming in his skull. But where? 

(Like a blade over stone–)

(Like breathing–)

Shaking his head, he turns back inside. A dream, after all.