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“There now, I knew I had one somewhere!”
The Doctor extricated himself from one of the cluttered cabinets lining the walls, satisfied. He looked for all the world like a child proud of their new toy as he brandished a battered green and white carton at Jamie, who tried not to disappoint him by appearing too doubtful.
He still wasn’t quite sure what the Doctor was on about, but he trusted him to know what he was doing and trusted himself not to care very much, so he had already begun to strip off slowly in one corner of the room where an empty clothes rack stood. He was being careful, taking much longer to undress than he normally would, not because he felt particularly shy about taking his clothes off in front of the Doctor – not that it was even in front of him, really, not while he’d had his back turned, ferreting around the other side of the room scouring shelves and cupboards for this precious carton of his – but because his growing collection of aches and pains were providing a very good argument against making sudden movements.
Of course, now that Jamie had thought of it, he was wondering if he should be a bit shyer about it. After all, it was hardly as if he had never thought vaguely of the prospect of . . . well, of maybe showing the Doctor a little more of himself in a slightly more agreeable setting than this – if he were interested, that was, if he’d like that kind of thing. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure what the Doctor might like, or if he even thought like that at all – lord knows he forgot to consider it himself often enough – but he did like being close to him, and as familiar as they already were, there were only so many ideas even his own underactive imagination could come up with for how they might potentially get closer still.
Distracted, he fumbled with his belt buckle and dipped his head down to concentrate, glad that trying to undo everything one-handed required enough of his attention to take his mind off whatever thoughts were jostling around at the edge of his mind.
For the most part, Jamie had been fairly content with how things had turned out on The Edge – in the end, anyway. Despite the catastrophic damage he’d caused to the laboratories and secret mining operations, the airlocks had held firm, like the Doctor had guessed, and there were very few casualties even among the scientists who’d refused to leave – an impressive feat, given the fact that the stress had caused entire segments of the asteroid they were standing on to crack and split off into space.
Curtis, of course, had been crushed as they fled, and Jamie was even more conflicted thinking of him than he usually was remembering any of the evil men they’d fought and the fates that they had met. Curtis had been captivated, absolutely fascinated by him, and while Jaime had not had the luxury of getting too curious about how odd Curtis himself was at the time, now that it was over so many of the man’s words were sticking in Jamie’s head he almost found it hard to concentrate.
But only almost. He had other things to worry about, for now. His fall from one segment of the massive asteroid to another – his attempted murder, he ought to call it – had left him considerably more alive than he was supposed to be, it was true, but he had known from the instant he crashed into the walkway on the surface below that he was not getting away completely unscathed. It hadn’t been so bad bounding around outside in the same low gravity that had saved his life, but as soon as he set foot inside the artificial gravity of the surviving buildings, he began to feel his aches properly, and as they changed out of their spacesuits, Jamie saw that the Doctor had also noticed some of the bruising that was already starting to cover the entire left side of his body.
They’d bowed out hastily, as they always did, and as soon as they were in flight, the Doctor started fussing over him, asking where it hurt, how exactly he landed, what might help. Jamie didn’t think there was much exact about hurtling into the ground, but he did admit that moving around on the surface without the gravity-replicating boots had helped him to feel it less.
The Doctor had hmm-ed and ha-ed over this for a bit, muttering something to himself about zero rooms, before he came to a decision and dragged Jamie – carefully, making a point of taking him by his right arm – off to one of the nicer but more private bathrooms buried deep inside the Tardis, where they were now.
Bathroom was a good name for it, Jamie thought, since there wasn’t much else inside but one large bathtub, surrounded by small tables and cabinets full of towels and soaps and bottles with unpronounceable names on them. The air in the room was warm and inviting before they even touched a tap, and the sparkling amber lights that danced across the ceiling like magic were a welcome departure from the glaring white of the laboratories on The Edge and even the rest of Tardis.
The tub itself had about a dozen more knobs and levers attached to it than Jamie ever could’ve dreamed up a used for, but the Doctor made straight for them, and in spite of its size the water level rose surprisingly quickly while he set about searching the shelves. He might as well have been talking to himself the whole time, but Jamie was used to his chatter and found it comforting and familiar even when he wasn’t paying much attention.
“Now the gravity in the zero room – or should I say, the lack thereof – might make you feel your injuries less for now, but it would hardly treat the problem – not geared towards your biology, I’m afraid, I really should look into creating a setting for humans. But this should be relaxing enough, for the time being, and I should have something here that will take some of the sting off, and hopefully help with the bruising a bit too.”
Jamie had already taken off his vest, his scarf, his shoes, and socks and unbuttoned his shirt by the time the Doctor turned around proudly having found the battered old carton and presented it to him. He fiddled with the straps of his sporran and his belt, glancing up blankly and eventually explaining, “I’ve no idea what that is, Doctor.”
“It’s a 23rd century variation on Magnesium Sulfate, as I said, but you’d probably know it better as Epsom salt.”
“What’s that then?” Jamie hung his belts on a prong on the rack and turned back to the Doctor as he shrugged out of the right sleeve of his shirt and began carefully tugging off the left one. He could see the Doctor’s eyes crinkle in concern and glanced down at the reddish-purple bruises that bloomed over his arm and down his side.
“Epsom,” he repeated a little distantly, before he seemed to realize that it might be rude to stare and tore his eyes away, his sad expression hidden again as he went on explaining. “Named for the spa town in England – I’d thought it was up and coming sometime around your era?”
“Well I never heard of it, but I didnae exactly pay much attention to up-and-coming spa towns in England, ye ken.”
“Quite. Well, it doesn’t all come from there, anyway. This carton certainly didn’t.” Jamie allowed himself a small smile at that; the Doctor never seemed to notice exactly how English he was until Jamie pointed out things like this, but once he did he usually made a little backtrack as if to try and agree with him. It was sweet, really.
“But what is it? I mean, what does it do?”
“Oh, they’re just bath salts. Tiny crystals you add to the water, and they act as a sort of pain killer and muscle relaxant. Nothing severe enough to impede motor skills, of course, but it should help take the, ah, edge off, if I’m allowed the pun.”
“You’re not,” Jamie groaned with only a half-hearted grin. He was still wary after the Acumen. “It’s wee crystals, is it? And you’re sure it’s safe? I mean, they’re no’ alive, right? They won’t try to tell me they’re trapped and make me to go to England to stop people digging them out of the Earth?”
“No, Jamie, they’re perfectly normal, non-sentient rocks. I can give you the chemical formula if you’d like.”
“I’d just like to know they’re not gonna turn everyone blue or make me smarter than you and Zoe.”
“Not unless you achieve nirvana in the bath.”
“What’s that?”
“Hmm? Oh nothing, nothing we need to worry about. A state of peace, some believe an all-knowing peace, if you like.”
“Right.”
Jamie knew the Doctor could tell he still wasn’t totally at ease. He gestured to the water with the carton but didn’t move to tip out its contents yet. “May I . . ?”
“Ah, go on then.”
Smiling gratefully, the Doctor went over to the bath and poured what Jamie hoped was not far too many of the tiny crystals into the water. He saw him press a button on the side of the tub and heard a whirling sound start up as he turned away to face the rack, undoing the buckles on his hip and unwrapping his kilt, taking care to fold it so it hung evenly on the bar instead of sliding off onto the floor. Doing his best to be casual about it – and then trying not to wonder if it was a bad sign that he wasn’t blushing – he slipped off his pants and stepped over toward the tub, stopping a few feet behind where the Doctor knelt and waited, watching the water swirling. He pressed another button and the movement slowed, the crystals now mixed in so thoroughly that Jamie could no longer see them, even though he knew there were plenty in there.
Now that the sound had stopped, the Doctor noticed Jamie behind him and turned to face him with a slight start. He frowned at the general vicinity of his hips, and Jamie thought he was surely about to die of embarrassment, but before he could, the Doctor stood up and gestured to his wrist instead.
“You’ll want to take that off,” he said, pointing at his watch. “I did make it waterproof, of course, but it’s bound to get uncomfortable with the swelling. May I?” Jamie raised his arm and watched as the Doctor carefully undid the clasp, gingerly supporting him at the elbow.
“It’s not that bad, you know,” he insisted, almost surprised by how gentle the Doctor was being, how he could barely even feel his fingertips.
“Oh Jamie,” he sighed, removing the watch, and stood absently rubbing his thumb over the glass face while he peered at the bruises stretching over his shoulder and down his back. Almost reluctantly, he stepped aside, clearing Jamie’s way to the bath. “You can get right in, it should be warm enough. Do you need a hand? It’s a little deeper than it looks.”
“I’m alright,” Jamie assured him, taking hold of the rim of the tub with his good hand and carefully stepping over into the water. “Are you trying to tell me it’s bigger on the inside?” He lowered himself down so he could sit. He didn’t know what the tub was made of either, but it was softer on the inside too, which he was grateful for right now.
“Not really,” the Doctor said, and even though he had his back to Jamie as he went to place the watch on the table by his clothes, Jamie could hear a smile in his voice. “It’s just built into the floor with a slight slope, so one end’s a little deeper than the other.”
“Ah. Nothing fancy, then.”
“No, I thought you might’ve had enough of poorly disguised dimensional stabilizers today.” Jamie shivered in spite of himself, remembering how the laboratory blocks had creaked and groaned as they were shoved apart after he tore the stabilizer device from the control panel, revealing the giant Acumen mining operation Curtis had kept hidden inside its own dimension. Before today, he wouldn’t’ve thought his mind could replay the silence that had followed when the air was all sucked out of the corridor the same way it sometimes provided him with unwanted echoes of cannon fire straight off Culloden moor. But now that he’d heard it, he knew the faint whistle of atmosphere escaping over the deep silence of space was surely a sound distinctive enough to keep him up on a bad night.
The Doctor seemed to notice his discomfort, but not its cause. “Is it too cold? I didn’t want to make it scalding, but I might’ve undershot a little, you humans run so warm already.”
“No, the temperature’s just fine.”
“Ah, well, I’m glad to hear it. If you want it to go up or down, there are settings for that right above the tap, see that panel there? It’ll be slower if you aren’t adding more water, though.”
“Aye, thank ye.”
“Not at all,” the Doctor smiled warmly. “Is, ah, is there anything else you’ll be needing?”
“I’m alright.”
“Well then,” he said, clearing his throat as he sidled towards the door, “I’ll just, ah, leave you to it, shall I—"
“Doctor?”
“Hmm?”
“Will ye stay with me?” The heat rising off the water formed a low mist that was already beginning to dampen the hair that hung over Jamie’s forehead, and he tilted his face upward so he could look the Doctor in the eye without having to peer through his fringe.
“I promise you it’s safe, Jamie,” the Doctor sighed, giving him a sad look, but at least it didn’t last long. “But yes, I’ll stay if you want. I’ll just nip across and grab a chair from one of the other—"
“Or, you could always join me here, since it’s so safe an’ all? It’s not like you can say there isnae enough room.” The Doctor paused and looked him over, clearly debating with himself, and Jamie kept his nerve and focused on neither blushing nor looking away.
“Oh, well, why not?” he finally agreed, shrugging as he turned to take off his coat and start undressing by another rack. “But I don’t know what you think this’ll prove, you know our bodies react completely differently to most things.” He lifted his chin as he undid the safety pin holding his rumpled bowtie in place and then began to unbutton his shirt. “But more importantly, I hope that you know I wouldn’t ask you to do it if it weren’t good for you.”
“Aye, I do know.”
Jamie watched him shrug off his suspenders and remove his shirt. He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks and Jamie watched and watched, realizing that without his baggy clothes to swallow him up he didn’t look half so slight, in fact, he was reasonably broad chested and not even quite so very short as he usually seemed. Jamie remembered how Curtis had been able to deal with him much more forcefully than he would’ve expected from his build, so perhaps he just didn’t know what things like strength looked like on an alien. His best friend was, after all, an alien.
The reminder came not a moment too soon, as the Doctor set about undoing his trousers and Jamie became aware of a powerful if unasked for curiosity prickling at the back of his mind. For the moment, he happened to have his back to Jamie, more out of necessity than modesty as he reached for another hanger on the rack, but all the same, the seconds stretched long enough for his subconscious mind to provide him with one question presented in alarming clarity – would the Doctor still look the same as him, undressed?
“Now I’m rather wishing I’d accepted that bottle Professor Allysian offered us when we were leaving Fontfia, do you remember? Of course, it wouldn’t have been safe for us to drink – not that getting as intoxicated as the Fontfians do is what I’d call safe, of course – but on reflection, I do believe it would have made a rather excellent bubble bath.”
“Oh aye,” Jamie agreed, trying to focus his attention on recalling the strange, four-armed, orange-spotted inhabitants of that planet and their bubbling drink the Doctor had warned him not to try – and found himself gladly distracted by the time he finally did turn back to face him without a stitch of clothing on.
Jamie was determined not to break eye contact but tried to look as nonchalant about it as he could – after all, the Doctor had hardly reacted to seeing him undressed, so it was his job to return the favor and not give him anything to be uncomfortable about either. But even what he could see in his peripheral vision was enough to tell Jamie that divested of the mountains of fabric he usually hid behind, the Doctor still looked quite the same as he’d expect any human to look.
At first he was so relieved he had to work to prevent it showing on his face – but as he tried to hide it, some of the relief really did slip away.
After all, just because the Doctor seemed human – no matter how hard you looked, apparently – that didn’t make him any less of an alien. It was so easy to forget that sometimes, with him, but maybe that was Jamie’s problem. If the Doctor had been blue like Curtis, would he still run the risk of forgetting the differences between them quite so often? Had he tricked himself into thinking he knew him better than he did just because they shared some superficial similarities?
In the time they’d been travelling together, the Doctor had come to know Jamie better than anyone in his life ever had, and Jamie generally felt that he knew the Doctor better than anybody else, too. But just because he believed he could guess what he was thinking when their eyes met – just because he felt warm and known and at home in those blue eyes – didn’t mean Jamie necessarily knew everything important about him. They had been together for years now, and he still didn’t know where he came from, for one, or what to call him, other than an alien. Until a moment ago, he couldn’t even have attested to half of his anatomy with much certainty.
Even if Jamie could live with not knowing everything about a person and love him anyway, there was still the Doctor’s perspective to consider – and what if Jamie’s inability to spot what was and wasn’t alien extended beyond biology? For a while now, he'd been confident he understood how they both felt about one another, but what if he was wrong, what if he'd just misinterpreted behavior that could be quite normal for an alien?
The Doctor certainly seemed much less concerned about the situation they were in now than a person who was interested in the man who was naked and inviting him into a bathtub might act, but Jamie didn’t know what to think of that, either. On the one hand he was glad of it, grateful that this was easy instead of awkward – but the more he thought of it the more he had to wonder if he’d merely convinced himself, in the various moments when he was scared, happy, lonely, pining, or upset, that he and the Doctor were on the road to something Jamie now had to admit he wasn’t even sure aliens thought about at all. And the sudden loss of confidence made him nervous.
He must’ve done a decent job of hiding it – or perhaps the Doctor just didn’t care? – because he was smiling serenely as he climbed into the tub across from Jamie and slipped down into the water.
“Oh yes,” he sighed, eyes closed, “that’s very nice. Are you comfortable?” he asked, his piercing eyes snapping open just when Jamie had thought he’d settled.
“I am,” he admitted. “I think you were right about this salt stuff.”
Privately, Jamie tried to assure himself that any slight tingling he felt had been there all along, that it was the salt working its magic and not possibly anything to do with him and the Doctor. He just hadn’t noticed before, because he’d been distracted with worrying about the crystals and then getting the Doctor to stay, and with him undressing – only that wasn’t much better, was it?
“I’m glad you like it.” He grinned and slid over to sit next to Jamie on his left side, examining his arm and shoulder closely, but not touching. “You don’t think you’ve— I mean, we both know you know what a broken rib feels like, but it is a nasty bit of bruising.”
Jamie shook his head. “Oh, no, I don’t think so. Not this time. But you can still check, if ye want.”
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t want to press too hard,” he cautioned.
“It looks worse than it feels. And you’re more careful than you need to be. I don’t mind you touchin’ me,” Jamie added, wondering if that was the right way to put it. At any rate, the Doctor must not have thought it was an odd thing to say, because he was gazing intently at Jamie’s flank, apparently unbothered.
He reached out, careful but sure, until his fingertips could trace the band of paler skin encircling the bruises on the side of his chest. His touch was barely-there to Jamie’s senses, but he knew from the way he applied just slightly more pressure as he trailed his fingers over the area that he was able to follow the path of the bones well enough with his sharper senses. Jamie watched the color rise steadily in his face, and figured the Doctor was too absorbed in checking him over to notice that the bath might be a bit too warm for his lower body temperature, even though he’d mentioned it himself not five minutes ago.
He only glanced up at him once, and Jamie gave him a little half-smile in answer. He took a deep breath in as the Doctor’s hand drifted upward, well accustomed to him placing his hand there and asking Jamie to breathe deeply so he could feel – well, Jamie didn’t know if it was for testing his breathing or his heart, really, but he supposed it didn’t matter.
His hand stilled there, high on his chest just over where his heart was, and Jamie knew he was listening. A strangely unreadable expression came over his face, somewhere between sorrow and bliss but totally devoid of pretensions, one that even Jamie hardly ever saw.
“What is it?” he asked softly, reluctant to disturb the calm silence that had settled over them, but too curious to keep it to himself.
“Nothing,” he said, sighing out through a sad little smile, but he raised his eyes to meet Jamie’s anyway. “It’s just that if you’d told me, in my youth, how much comfort I would one day find in feeling a single heartbeat, I would never have believed it.”
“Thought you said you were still young?” Jamie teased, and was glad when the Doctor laughed, but less glad when he withdrew his hand to keep from jostling him with the motion.
“I am. But I meant before.”
“I know, I’m only pullin’ your leg. And I see what you mean, I do. If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d meet a man with two hearts . . .” he shook his head. The Doctor was such an indisputable fact of his life, it was only in the rarest moments that Jamie ever bothered to think too hard about how mad his simple existence was, and yet here he was, returning to it again and again.
“Yes?” the Doctor prompted, leaning forward just enough to keep his face in sight while Jamie looked down at the water.
He sighed, and smiled. “Well, I suppose I wouldnae be so surprised that it was you.”
“Your culture’s symbology is sweet, but rather more flattering than I think I deserve.”
“Well I didn’t just mean it that way,” Jamie admitted, still watching the lights glistening on the little ripples.
“No?”
“No. I mean, you’re certainly the strangest person I’ve ever met—” he began, grinning like it was a joke, because that made it easier to meet the Doctor’s eyes.
He laughed again, but more quietly this time. “Well, if that’s still true now after all the travels you’ve had, I can only imagine how alarming I must have been to you at the start.”
“No’ really. I knew you were different—” his mouth was dry all of a sudden, he reminded himself to take a deep breath of the humid air to help himself, “I think I knew you were different from anyone I’d ever known just about the moment we met. Mind, I suppose I didn’t really know how different, then.”
“No, the time and space travel did come as a bit of a shock to you, didn’t it?”
“Och, I didnae mean how like ‘how much.’ I meant that then, I didn’t know how you were different, just that you had to be.” There was a silence that stretched just an instant too long for the mood Jamie had caught himself in. “Of course, I’m sure even now, I still don’t know all the ways.”
He was staring out absently ahead, but he still saw the Doctor shift a little beside him. He could’ve been uncomfortable, Jamie supposed, but then why did it feel like they were now closer than before?
“Well, I think you’ve grasped the gist of it,” he said with a little cough. “Like you said, you’re aware of my age, and the two hearts – and you can see that, ah, physically I bear a strong resemblance to humans, of course, externally, at least. And you know me to be on my . . . my second regeneration, as it were.”
“Your what?” Jamie turned to face him, confused.
“It’s, well, it’s one word for the change that I underwent, shortly after I began travelling with Ben and Polly. That was the first time it’s ever happened to me, so what you have before you now is what you might call the second iteration of myself.”
“Oh, right,” Jamie mumbled, trying to absorb this. Then he realized the Doctor might think he hadn’t taken him seriously before. “I’d not forgotten everything you all told me about that, but you could see how it might be, well, a wee bit hard to hold in your head, sometimes,” he tried to explain.
“That’s true,” the Doctor agreed, nodding to himself as though it had never occurred to him before. “Perhaps I’ve been inconsiderate, not thinking how strange of a thing that can be to accept. Ben and Polly watched it happen, after all, and they still took a while to come to terms with it.” And now there was no doubt about it, he definitely shifted so he was turned in toward Jamie, still quite close but more face-to-face than at his side. “You know, I’m fairly certain Polly had a camera with her on one of the planets we visited before I changed. I ought to dig out the pictures so I can show you. Perhaps that might help – just to, ah, to make it feel more real?”
Jamie blinked; he hadn’t expected the Doctor to offer any kind of action. “Aye, I suppose. It’s difficult to say. But I’d still be interested to see,” he added, quickly.
“Of course.” He nodded to himself again as he settled back against the wall of the tub beside Jamie, and shrugged. “You deserve to know, after all. I’m awfully glad to’ve met you when I did, but still, if that could shed a little light. . .”
“Aye, maybe . . .” Jamie wasn’t sure what else to say, but he didn’t want the Doctor to stop talking.
“. . . Of course, I could give you some evidence that might feel more concrete than a photograph right now.”
“Oh aye?”
The Doctor nodded firmly, then held out his hands in a gentle request. “May I?” he asked for a third time, and Jamie knew he wanted both his hands and his permission.
He still wasn’t sure what the Doctor meant to do, but Jamie offered them up and the Doctor pivoted so they were closer to facing each other again. Gingerly, he took Jamie by the wrists and guided his hands onto his own chest, one either side of his sternum. When Jamie didn’t press any harder of his own accord, the Doctor leaned forward into his touch until his palms were flat against his breast.
Jamie stared down at his own hands and held his breath unconsciously as he waited for the water between them to stop sloshing against their bodies. The Doctor, on the other hand, was making a point of breathing deep and slow, and Jamie could feel his eyes studying his own face for some sign of recognition.
And then he felt it, a steady thrumming under each of his palms – the Doctor’s pulse, so near to where his own echoed in his wrists, the three hearts they had between them making something of an odd tempo together.
He hadn’t meant to gasp, but he felt his brow furrow as he breathed in again sharply, as much surprised by what he could feel as by the fact that it had shocked him at all, but the Doctor held him steady, flattening his own hands over Jamie’s. He didn't expect it to feel so strange – it was still a heartbeat, after all, what was the big deal if there were two in the same chest? – but his hands knew they had never felt anything like this before, even if his mind had tried to prepare them for it.
He looked up and locked eyes with the Doctor, wanting to apologize, to excuse his reaction – but while he had started out merely concentrating on not pulling away, now he felt his fingers twitching with the urge to hold on tighter, to pull him nearer; even if it would hurt his own injured arm, it’d be worth it to have him so close. The Doctor must have felt the change in Jamie’s touch, because his heartbeats suddenly took off on a much quicker pace, undoubtedly startled by whatever he saw in Jamie’s eyes. He started to lift his hands off, and Jamie snatched his own back before the Doctor could ask him to, not wanting to chase him away.
Desperate to cover up his haste with nonchalance, Jamie tried to shrug, forgetting his bruised shoulder for the moment, and ended up wincing far too obviously for his liking. The Doctor’s nervous look melted away immediately, replaced again by a more familiar expression of concern.
“It’s nothing,” Jamie insisted, but the Doctor had sat back beside him once again, shaking his head sadly at Jamie’s injuries.
“I’m sorry, that must have been very painful.”
“Would’ve been worse if I’d had those gravity boots on,” Jamie pointed out, making sure not to move much.
“Of course,” the Doctor nodded, thoughtful.
“So really I just got lucky.”
“I think Zoe and I were the ones who got lucky. We should’ve been more careful, but I didn’t realize anything was wrong until it was already too late. We were very fortunate to have you looking out for us.”
“Don’t be daft, you know I always will.”
“I do. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be appreciative sometimes, does it? Not when we owe so much to you.”
“Aye, well, I guess we’re all lucky that I’m not as bright as the pair of you, or then we’d really be in trouble if I’d been recruited too.”
The Doctor looked at him skeptically, as if it truly hadn’t occurred to him that it was Jamie’s lack of intelligence that allowed him to go unnoticed at the research facility long enough to realize something suspicious was going on. “Oh, you’re bright alright. Math and science may not be your area of interest—”
“Or reading, or writing,” Jamie teased, rolling his eyes.
“But you are quite brilliant, you know, in your own way. Truly. It’s really rather breathtaking, actually.”
The Doctor was watching Jamie with something akin to wonder, but that didn’t help. Jamie chewed his lip, thoughtful, and this time the Doctor noticed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, only – that’s not so far off from what Curtis was sayin’ when I was destroyin’ his lab,” Jamie admitted, not totally sure why he was telling the Doctor this.
“Oh. I’m sorry if I—”
“You didn’t, you’re not—” Jamie began to assure him, and then stopped himself. What if he really never had understood what a genius of an alien would want with somebody like him all this time? “Well I mean, it’s not like that’s why I’m here, is it?”
“What is?” the Doctor asked, confused, and Jamie sighed, knowing he was in too deep to back out now, no matter how reluctant he was to even voice the possibility.
“I don’t know, it was strange. He was . . . interested in me, Doctor. I don’t know why. It was like I didn’t fit into what he thought he knew about the world, but after he’d stopped trying to kill me, it was almost like he liked that about me. Like I didn’t make sense to him yet, but he thought if he watched me long enough, one day I would, and that would make him cleverer in the end.”
The Doctor listened to him, and nodded. “Well, from what I saw of him, he surely wasn’t accustomed to your way of doing things, that’s for certain. And with or without the Acumen, he was still an intelligent enough person to want to learn from you for that. It’s the logical thing to do, trying to understand and rationalize the new and unknown.” Jamie nodded. It made sense, and it fit in with some of what Curtis had been saying too, although Jamie hadn’t been paying too much attention at the time, focused instead on finding a way to make him release the Doctor and Zoe.
There had been something predatory about Curtis, obviously, since he had wanted to kill Jamie at first and then keep his friends as hostages while studying his behavior. But there had also been something possessive about him, strangely enough, even though he far from owned Jamie – even though Jamie was doing everything he could to destroy his lab and all his work. If anyone did own him it was the Doctor, he’d freely admit that, but was it a bad thing he had that answer at the ready?
He found himself telling the Doctor about it even though he hadn’t worked out exactly how he felt himself yet. “He said it was like a craving, a kind of passion. That he needed it fed to him to keep going.”
“He was obsessed,” the Doctor acknowledged, softly, but the stillness of the room was grating at Jamie now. He didn’t want to, but he had to break it.
“Doctor, that’s not— I mean, after all this time we’ve been together, we’ve been a team, is that why I’m here?”
“I believe the official agreement was that you’d teach me to play the bagpipes, actually, which I can’t say you’ve been good enough to—”
“I mean it.”
“No.” He shook his head, abandoning his attempts at humor. “No, that’s not why you’re here.”
“But it’s part of it?” Jamie pressed, needing to understand, to be positive he knew what the Doctor saw in him.
He took a moment to think, and even though every second of waiting for his answer was a torment to Jamie, he was still reassured by the fact that he was truly considering it, rather than trying to brush him off with a false certainty. It made him feel less ridiculous for asking in the first place.
“I love getting to see the world through your eyes, it’s true,” he admitted at last. “I’ve been travelling for long enough, and I’ve seen so many things already, it’s a rare kind of joy to get to see you seeing them, too. But I wouldn’t think it’s the same as Curtis. I don’t just want your perspective, Jamie, as highly as I value it. I want . . . well, I also want you there too, otherwise, what’s the point of it all, right?” He met Jamie’s eyes and waited for him to give a nod of understanding before he continued. “Lots of people could teach me things about the universe that’ve never occurred to me before, but even if I had all of them travelling with me like some kind of exploratory expedition, I’d still want you to be here with me. Knowledge is one thing, but company, companionship – they have their own value, and no amount of learning could replace having you in my life. There’s only one Jamie McCrimmon, and I’m rather attached to him, you see.” He managed a small smile at that, and though it reached his eyes it couldn’t erase the tension there while he searched Jamie’s expression for a hint of his response.
In his heart, Jamie had known that this was different, but a weight still lifted at hearing a thing like that said aloud. He didn’t consider himself stupid, but there was a comfort to be had in the Doctor agreeing with him and reassuring him like this, an odd sort of relief that only the Doctor had ever given him, but that he gave him all the time – and he didn’t think it had anything to do with how smart or advanced or well-travelled he was; it was just specific to him. He felt safe and seen and understood with the Doctor, like getting to breathe out. He did, and felt the tension he’d been building up with his worrying shrink and fade away, unable to stand up in the face of the Doctor’s earnestness.
“Aye, I know,” he nodded, fighting the urge to actually laugh at himself now. “Still, good to hear every now and again.”
The Doctor looked relieved. “I can say it more often, if you’d like,” he offered quietly.
“You say it or don’t say it whenever you want. I’m bein’ silly lettin’ him get to me. I know what a good team we make.” He couldn’t resist a smile at the thought.
“Oh, we certainly do. I really don’t think I’d know how to face the world, by myself—” Jamie found himself laughing, but he wasn’t sure if it was at the idea of the Doctor managing to go two minutes without collecting company, or the idea that he might not be capable on his own. “I mean it. We’ve been a pair so long, I don't even want to imagine how lost I’d be without you,” the Doctor explained reproachfully.
But Jamie couldn’t be drawn back into melancholy thoughts, not now that he’d finally managed to relax. “Well, then I promise not to leave ye any time soon,” he flashed a playful grin at the Doctor, and only realized too late that it might’ve made him doubt how seriously he meant it.
“You don’t have to promise that,” the Doctor told him, but Jamie could hear the flicker of hope he was trying to keep out of his voice.
“Doesn’t matter – I want to,” he told him frankly, reaching his good arm across himself so he could hold one of the Doctor’s hands firmly in his own. He pressed their palms together and threaded his fingers over the Doctor’s. “I like the way we work together too, you know.”
“Ah. Well then . . . then that’s alright, then.”
“More than just alright, I’d like to think.”
“Oh, well, yes, me too, of course.”
“It’s nice.”
“Mmm.”
Maybe Jamie was simply carried away by how close they were sitting, how warm the water was, how gentle the light in the Doctor’s eyes, but without thinking, he inclined his head ever so slightly towards him and somehow the Doctor didn’t pull away, even though they were much too near each other for him not to have noticed it. Instead, he leaned just a fraction of an inch closer, angled his face towards Jamie’s, and stopped there, as if unsure of what he would do, but leaving the way open for him once he made up his mind.
And then Jamie just couldn’t move again.
Heat flooded his cheeks as he realized that he’d really just been about to kiss to the Doctor – all that thinking about it, all that considering, and now, now he could do it if he wanted, without interruption or danger or taxing emotional implications.
But how would that work, naked and wet and in the bath? That couldn’t be the right way to do this, could it? Clearly neither of them were all that bothered about indecency or impropriety, but surely it would still be too much, too soon. Oh, he felt like he could do it now – and the Doctor wouldn’t stop him, he was practically encouraging him, after all – but what if he got the wrong idea? Would that even be the wrong idea? The more Jamie thought about it, the less firm he felt.
For all his daydreaming, there were still sides of a relationship that Jamie had never really believed he’d figured out properly. When he was younger, at the age when boys started to whisper about that kind of thing and men stopped refraining from mentioning it in front of him, he had been confused at first, and then simply assumed that when he was older and met the right person, those feelings would make themselves known and everything would fall into place. Now he was a grown man – and not only that, but one who had squared with the fact that he’d fallen for another man some time ago – and yet, he hadn’t experienced any kind of change on that front. To Jamie, that particular motivation was still as absent as it had ever been.
It might not be the direction his instincts tended towards, but Jamie still wasn’t a fool – he knew that path might be exactly what was open to him right now, and if ever there were a time for an epiphany, this was it. But all he had was a quiet sense of simplicity, the knowledge that it was an option whether or not he wanted to pursue it and with no great pull in any particular direction to help him tell up from down – and it couldn’t really be that easy, could it? For the second time today, he had to wonder if he’d just lulled himself into a false sense of security, only now instead of the Doctor’s intentions under scrutiny it was his own, and that thought left him quite unsteady indeed.
Jamie had always known that there were parts of himself that just didn’t fit right in the place where he’d grown up, and this was undoubtedly one of them. Traveling in the Tardis had made many of those concerns irrelevant, and if anything, after all he’d seen he’d probably become even more of a stranger to the century he was born in than he'd ever been before. He felt at home in the Tardis, but was that enough? This was important – this was about if Jamie knew how to love a person correctly, and he had to remind himself that just because something hadn’t fit in 1746 didn’t necessarily mean it would fit here. He knew he could trust the Doctor to show him the same kindness and acceptance he always did, but that didn’t guarantee he’d understand.
What would he think, if this was the chance Jamie suddenly couldn’t let himself pass up? If this one won out over all the calm nights in front of the television or even the adrenaline-ridden moments when he’d almost kissed him because he was afraid that if he didn’t, he’d die without ever having done so? The desire to be near to him was overwhelming, but they were already close – so close – and they’d had so many chances before, heaps and heaps of chances squandered and wasted and taken for granted. If he picked now, when he hadn’t been able to convince himself to do it any of those other, easier times, wouldn’t the Doctor have to think that Jamie’s intentions had always swayed this way – to getting him undressed and cornered in the bathtub, as if that had been what mattered to him all along? It would be one thing if he could clear it up easily by saying no, categorically, he would absolutely never want to sleep with the Doctor at all – but he wasn’t sure that was totally true, either.
He didn’t want to give the Doctor the wrong idea, but maybe the worst part was that it wasn’t exactly the wrong idea, at least, not entirely. Jamie didn’t really think he would mind, if that was something the Doctor wanted. In fact, the thought of the two of them, together, alone in bed at night and with nothing between them at all, not clothes or empty space or even the weight of wondering what it might be like – the thought of making the Doctor feel good and cared for and satisfied, and the idea of being the one who’d gotten him that way, of being as close to him is it was physically possible to be – well, all those things did appeal to Jamie, even if he couldn’t honestly say it was what had drawn him here in the first place. Even if he didn’t think he’d ever felt it the way people made it sound like you were supposed to.
But, if he did want to be with the Doctor like that, for any reason at all, then first he’d have to find a way of explaining that that wasn’t all there was to it – that he’d arrived there by a sort of round-about way that didn’t mean he meant it any less, but only that it just wasn’t how he worked, somehow. And right now, he wasn’t sure he knew how to do that.
The Doctor and Curtis had both theorized that the act of mining Acumen out of the asteroid had led everyone on The Edge to feel some of its psychic effects, but Jamie had never taken any of the concentrated drug form that made people’s brains work more efficiently. His mind was still very much firing at its usual speed, so this was too much to for him figure out all at once.
He jerked away, perhaps too suddenly, and the Doctor coughed and followed suit, rapidly searching for something to distract them both from what had almost just happened.
“Rigel 9!” he all but shouted, before Jamie had even properly cleared his air space, reluctant to pull his hand away even though he needed it to straighten up without leaning on his bad arm.
“Eh?”
“Rigel 9, it must’ve been, when Polly had the camera. Yes, now that I think about it, I can clearly recall warning her not to act like such a tourist everywhere we went, while she tried to get a photo of the three of us in front of the obelisk at the center of their capitol.”
“Oh, aye,” Jamie agreed, grateful for the Doctor’s ability to ramble on at will. He shook himself and tried to play along. “But, uh, how de ye know that was before ye changed though? It could’ve just been before you met me.”
“Well, not very much time passed between when I changed and when I met you. You’ve been around for, well, more or less all of me. . . Besides, the obelisk really is quite impressive, I must’ve been being a bit of a fuss pot to tell her not to. . . That, and, ah, I do believe I called her ‘young lady.’”
Jamie laughed in earnest, both at the Doctor’s sheepish expression and the thought of what Polly’s indignant face must’ve looked like at the time. “You called Polly ‘young lady’?”
“Well, she was one,” the Doctor defended lamely. “And we didn’t know each other half so well then, and I was . . . well, I was different.”
But Jamie waved him off, unable to worry about complicated questions of identity right now, or even feel a mite uncomfortable about how alien the idea of it was. “I don’t care what you were like, it’s hard to imagine Polly letting anybody call her 'young lady' and get away with it.”
Even the Doctor was beginning to smile a little bashfully. “Yes, well, I never said she liked it. I’m afraid we hadn’t known each other very long, before I changed, so I don’t know if it was me, really, or just our getting used to each other – but by the time you joined us, I think we were a bit better friends than at the start.”
“‘Young lady,’” Jamie repeated to himself, unable to stop chuckling.
“Does sound a bit silly now, doesn’t it?” he admitted, beginning to laugh himself.
Jamie nodded. “I wonder where Polly is, now,” he said, then quickly threw his hands up in mock-surrender before the Doctor could say the inevitable. “I know, I know – it’s relative and all that.”
The Doctor grinned. “Oh, she’ll be fine I’m sure. Her and Ben both. They’ve got each other to look out for, after all.”
“Aye. It’s good for them, that. Whether or no’ they’d ever admit to it.”
“Oh, I certainly hope that by now they’ve gotten over all that nonsense.”
“Aye, but ye never know. They both had it in ‘em to be stubborn when they wanted to, and that sort of thing isn’t always easy to admit to – from what I heard from them, anyway.”
“Of course,” the Doctor agreed, nodding decisively. “And I suppose when you’re already so close with a person like that – when you’ve lived together, like they did on the Tardis – you don’t really want to take any chances at getting the timing wrong.”
“Aye, that’d be a pity if they did.”
“Still I think, when you’re as well-matched as they are, it’s bound to happen eventually – don’t you think so?”
“Couldn’t agree more,” he said, smiling right at him.
He would try again later, Jamie resolved. Later, when they were dressed and dry and presentable and there wasn’t anything at all untoward about their situation, then, if the Doctor looked at him that way again, invitingly, he would do it then.