Archive of Our Own ^beta

“So.” The Doctor’s fingers were busily fiddling at his collar, pulling it away from his neck so his shirt buttons strained against the buttonholes, tugging at his almost unnervingly neat bow tie. It was easier to watch his fingers than his face, and Jamie drank in the distraction greedily. At any other time, he might have fallen over himself laughing at the sight of the Doctor looking so neat and tidy. But too much was at stake here. “We know what we need to do.”

“Aye.” He nodded, keeping his head bowed so his eyes didn’t flick up to the Doctor’s face. It was difficult to avoid, with his sequinned, feathered masquerade mask perched atop his head, all dark blue shine glinting in the low light – but looking at his face was dangerous just now. “Find out anythin’ we can about what might’ve happened to the ship.”

“Quite.” Satisfied at last, the Doctor smoothed down his shirt front and tucked his hands into his pockets. The shifting of the fabric betrayed their restless movement. “We remember our story.” Jamie simply mumbled his agreement to that one. “We met on Earth five years ago, we’ve been married for two, we’re here on holiday -”

“Aye, aye.” Jamie’s cheeks were already burning uncontrollably. Actually acting it out… He couldn’t imagine how on earth he was going to get through the night without giving their ruse away. “I remember.”

How could the Doctor be so calm about it?

It’s not real, he reminded himself sternly. He’s calm about it because he knows none of it means anything. And we’ll never see any of these people again, after tonight. There’s no reason to be so embarrassed.

The Doctor must have seen whatever odd expression was on his face, because he had reached out to rest his hand on Jamie’s shoulder, his eyes set into a picture of concern. “It’s quite alright,” he said gently. “If we’re going to find anything, we’ll find it here.” He paused, his eyes flicking past Jamie for a moment. “Here.” Shifting his hand down to Jamie’s waist, he pulled him aside, falling quiet until a gaggle of people had moved past them and opened the door to the ballroom. “There you are, see? Two generals, the husband of the government’s treasurer -”

“Fine time for them to be takin’ a holiday,” Jamie muttered.

“Well, yes,” the Doctor said. “But these sorts of people always do, Jamie.” Jamie just scoffed. “And someone’s bound to know something about what’s happened to Ben and Polly.”

Ben and Polly. No matter how terribly embarrassed he might get – or how much he might want to throttle some of their fellow guests, for that matter – he had to play along. For their sake. He would grit his teeth and do anything, if it meant having them home safe. “Aye, you’re right,” he said, pressing his lips together into a tight smile. “Someone will know.”

“There we are.” The Doctor patted his side bracingly. “Now, are we ready? All we need to do is -”

“Ask a few questions,” Jamie interrupted hurriedly. “Aye, I know.”

“- and hold hands occasionally,” the Doctor finished. “Quite simple, really.”

“Aye.” It didn’t feel simple. “Ready.”

He reached up to his mask, pulling it down over his face and nestling it in, its contours finding his nose, his cheeks, his eyes. The elastic strap was tangled in his hair, biting at him as he adjusted it, but he gritted his teeth against the pain. Half the world was gold now, the corners of his vision cut in by the eye holes, and he cast around wildly for the Doctor. He hadn’t moved, standing there adjusting his own mask one-handed.

A moment later, his other hand slipped into Jamie’s, cold against his palm, catching his breath in his throat and making him half-jerk his arm away. “Alright?” he murmured.

“Aye.” Jamie cleared his throat. “Just – caught me by surprise, that’s all.”

But now that the Doctor’s hand was in his, he had to admit he did feel better for it. He had only caught a brief glimpse of the room beyond the doorway, but he had seen enough to know that it would be a sea of light and glitter and colours, suffocated by too-strong perfumes and the fake, tittering conversations of those too rich and powerful to realise there was a war on. All too easy to drown, in a place like that. But if he could hold onto the Doctor, then maybe they could keep each other afloat.

They pulled the door open together, pausing on the threshold. It was a beautiful space, really, Jamie had to admit that. If he forgot about the gaudiness below, anyway. Great vaults of steel curved up to meet the sky, with panes of glass laid in between them. The view up to the stars was not clear and perfect, but blurred somehow, like a layer of iridescence had been laid over everything. Green and blue and purple swimming through the black sky. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said it was some kind of aurora – but even if it had been, there wasn’t enough breath in his lungs for him to put a name to it out loud.

The Doctor’s hand tightened in his. “Wonderful, isn’t it?” he murmured.

Jamie could only nod wordlessly. “What is it?” he managed at last. “That makes the colours, I mean.”

“It’s the glass.” The Doctor’s words were fast, breathless, as if he had been waiting for Jamie to ask, poised on the threshold of letting them tumble out of him. “They’ve treated it so it scatters even the small amount of light coming in from the stars, you see – it’s based on what hyperspace pilots see through their screens. A great fashion around this time, I believe. None of these people are likely to experience hyperspace travel in their lives. It’s still far too risky for anyone but the military fleets. But glass like this – ah – gives them a sense of adventure, I believe.”

The words dropped like a stone into Jamie’s stomach, and he tore his eyes away from the glass. There was something bitter about it, now, knowing that it was nothing but a trick to fool these people into thinking they were having some kind of adventure. Ben and Polly were trapped out there. In a time bubble, the Doctor had said, some kind of deep-space anomaly where the space-time continuum had worn thin, and reality refused to obey its usual rules. Or, as Jamie had managed to cobble together, time was moving slower for them than it was for the rest of the universe. They would have been thrown out of hyperspace when they hit the bubble – and if the impact hadn’t killed them, they and the rest of the ship’s occupants would surely be clustered around the pilot’s screens, praying to see those colours. He doubted they would have the luxury of seeing them as beautiful, just now.

“Come on,” he murmured, tugging at the Doctor’s hand. “We’re blockin’ the door.”

They wandered further into the hall, still clutching their hands together. Now, with his attention pulled away from the ceiling, the gaudy, overwrought splendour of the ballroom was beginning to set in. Music drifted down from the far end of the hall, whining, electronic, almost piercing, but graceful somehow, like a strange sort of waltz. A warm, spicy smell lay over the whole room, drifting up from the drinks that crowded the buffet tables, the sort of aroma that would have been pleasant had the room not been so noisy and crowded. The people of this system were taller than most humans – that much had been obvious from the moment they arrived. Even Polly, so much taller than he was, had seemed dwarfed by her crewmates when she and Ben had set off on… Well, he told himself, best not to think about that. But here the people seemed even taller, pressing in around him and the Doctor like they might step on them if they were just a little too careless. The masks hardly helped, he supposed, sprays of feathers and frills leaping out above people’s heads. Reaching up with one hand, he brushed his fingers against the little red jewels that lined the edges of his own mask. So small and shabby next to the finery of everyone around them.

They’ll know, a voice in his head was saying. How could they not? It’s obvious we don’t belong here.

“Hey.” He leant over to murmur in the Doctor’s ear, chest against his side. When the Doctor twisted around to face him, he nodded towards a gap in the crowd ahead of them. Through it, he could just barely see tables laden with food, and the sight was beginning to make his nerves give way to hunger. He had forgotten just how hungry he was, in the rush of getting ready. “Let’s go over there.”

He just barely caught the Doctor’s eyebrows raising behind his mask. “Really, Jamie,” he said, his voice dripping with mock-surprise. “You think of nothing but your stomach, don’t you?”

“I’m hungry, that’s all,” Jamie protested. “It’s no’ my fault we skipped dinner.”

“And it’s not my fault that call came through when it did. You could have come down without me.”

He could have – but he hadn’t been particularly keen to face the crowds alone. And besides, they had been waiting for that call for days. One of the Doctor’s contacts on the other side of this endless war, calling to tell them when the next meeting would be. Their only hope for peace. He had been as keen to hear whatever news they brought as the Doctor had been. Not that there had been much, in the end. “I’m no’ that hungry,” he lied. “But I could do with some food. An’ we might – bump into someone interestin’, ye know.”

The Doctor inclined his head, unable to argue with that, and they wandered over to the table as meanderingly and as casually as they could, shifting so their arms were linked together. A small, optimistic part of Jamie had been expecting to see something more earthly when they finally reached the food, but whatever all this was, earthly was no way to describe it. Piles of small, dark spheres, like smoothed-over, shiny peppercorns – balls of something that might have been fried, studded with what looked suspiciously like twigs – thin slices of a yellowish meat that Jamie couldn’t quite believe wasn’t half-rotted. And the tall glasses of frothy liquids, yellow and purple and red. The smell of them was even stronger here, the very air sitting heavy in his throat as he breathed it in. He scanned back and forth over the table, searching for something that looked even remotely familiar.

“I thought they’d have sandwiches,” he murmured to the Doctor, who burst into quickly-muffled laughter. “I thought these places always had sandwiches.”

“No sandwiches, I’m afraid,” the Doctor said through his chuckles. “But – here.” Stepping over to one end of the table, he plucked a large napkin from a pile and cupped it in his hand. When he was satisfied that the thing was curved enough, he lifted one of the fried balls from its plate, nestling it in. “This should be edible for you.”

Jamie eyed the thing with a touch of suspicion for a moment. The Doctor had said that many times before – sometimes followed by great success, sometimes by great disaster. Still, there was only one way to find out which it would be today. And he would be lying if he said he wasn’t hungry enough to eat it, no matter how it tasted. Taking the napkin from the Doctor, he weighed it in his hand before picking it up. It was surprisingly heavy, like it had been filled with lead. But it did feel fried, at least, ever so slightly slippery with oil, leaving a shine on his fingers. A reassuringly familiar feeling. Shrugging, he lifted it a little higher, studied its golden surface, and tilted his mask back to take a bite.

The thing all but exploded in his mouth, and he staggered away, struggling to hold onto the rest of it. “God,” he mumbled around his mouthful as he straightened up and drifted back towards the Doctor. Once the shock of it started to fade, it was tasty enough. Something like cheese. And mushrooms. And a little bit like apples, deep down. He took another bite, more tentatively this time, but the shock didn’t come. The filling was a little fizzy, sure – but all of the pressure must have been released when he first bit into it. “That’s not bad,” he said at last, twisting his hand around so the blueberry-purple filling didn’t drip down his wrist. “Good, actually.”

The Doctor ducked his head and preened at that, like he always did when Jamie praised the food he picked out. He always seemed to take a funny sort of pleasure in it, some kind of pride in predicting what Jamie would like.

Before he could think about it too much, someone pushed past them, shoving him forwards towards the Doctor. Only after they had pushed him did they say “excuse me.”

“Good spread here, isn’t it?” they added cheerfully, filling a little paper cone with a spoonful of the smooth peppercorns.

Jamie mumbled his agreement, shoving the rest of his dumpling-thing into his mouth. It was still half-bursting in his mouth, even to the last. Like one of those bubbly drinks Ben and Polly liked, he realised. “Aye,” he said once he had swallowed. “An’ a nice place,” he added a little awkwardly, throwing the Doctor a pleading glance.

But their companion stepped in to fill the silence quite readily. “Oh, it’s marvellous.” They didn’t seem to be paying him too much mind, anyway, busy spreading a thick, black jelly over a handful of crackers. But they turned around when they were done, balancing their bounty in their arms, their eyes brightening beneath their lurid green mask. “First time here?” The Doctor and Jamie nodded in unison. “Ah. I envy you, you know. One gets rather used to it, after a while.”

“I suppose that’s the way with everything,” the Doctor said lightly. “The trick is to find new eyes.”

Their companion inclined their head slightly. “And thank you for lending me yours. Romulan Diggabbiy, at your service.”

The Doctor mirrored their bow, and Jamie hastily did the same, the two of them murmuring their names. “What brings you here?” the Doctor asked.

“Oh, benefits of the job, you know,” Romulan said with a sigh and a wave of one hand. As if it were such a hardship to come here, Jamie thought a little bitterly. “I’m in the health governor’s office.” They laughed. “But I’ve been on worse team-building sessions.”

The Doctor laughed again, and Jamie wondered if it sounded quite so false to Romulan, or if he simply knew him too well. The latter, probably, he decided. And besides, everyone else here shared that same false laugh. It was unnerving, really, just how well the Doctor was able to mimic it. “Just a holiday for us,” he said, tilting his head towards Jamie.

“Ah, I see.” Romulan’s eyes dropped to the Doctor’s hand, clutching firmly at Jamie’s elbow. Jamie looked down at it, too. He hadn’t even realised the Doctor had grabbed hold of him again. Must have been when Romulan pushed him, he supposed. “How long has it been?”

Before Jamie could even open his mouth to respond, the Doctor had slid in, as smooth as anything. He must have been practising all this somehow, Jamie thought. “Five years.” Romulan’s thin eyebrows raised. “Ah – we’ve spent a lot of time apart, lately. Business matters, you understand.”

Evidently Romulan did understand, given that they burst into laughter. Jamie wasn’t sure he could say the same. If they swallowed the story, though – that was the important thing. “I quite understand,” they said. “It’s so difficult, being in our position...”

And then they were off, rambling about something or other. Jamie’s mind was too numbed by shock to make much sense of it, though the Doctor was nodding along. He supposed he ought to be glad that Romulan’s job had nothing to do with their mission, and there was no need for him to pay much attention. Rehearsing their story beforehand had been one thing, and hearing the Doctor actually saying such things aloud was quite another, he had known that. But having someone believe them…

But Romulan didn’t have any particular reason to suspect that they were lying. He shouldn’t be so surprised that they had swallowed the Doctor’s story quite readily. And yet – the way they had looked at them… He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Romulan had thought they were behaving more like new sweethearts than an old married couple. And he couldn’t say he thought they were wrong, either.

Not that it was any more comforting, that thought.

Hot prickles of embarrassment were running up and down his spine, tickling at his forehead. All his hunger had drained away again, even the sight of the buffet table turning his stomach. He fixed his eyes on the arched ceiling above them instead, the great cavernous space and the glass looking out to the stars above, but it did little to distract him from the people pressing in around them, the warm, oily stickiness of the dumpling left on his hand, the Doctor’s fingers still curled around his arm. Everything had turned so busy in the space of a moment, and all he wanted was to breathe.

He had to breathe.

“I -” He swallowed, reminding himself of where he was. Of the fact that he had to talk properly. “It’s a bit stuffy in here, isn’t it?” he said, stiff and stilted.

Romulan and the Doctor fell quiet, turning to look at him in surprise, and he realised that he must have spoken over one of them. Untangling his arm from Jamie’s, the Doctor reached up to touch his shoulder. “Are you feeling alright?” he asked, his eyes a perfect picture of affectionate concern that only managed to make Jamie’s head spin faster.

“I’m alright,” he murmured back. “I’m just gonnae – going to take a walk outside.”

“Alright.” The Doctor patted his arm, letting him go. “Would you like me to come and find you later?”

“No – no, I’ll be alright.” He tossed a smile over his shoulder towards Romulan as he went, remembering too late that they wouldn’t see it beneath his mask. “It was nice meetin’ you.”

Romulan bobbed their head in return as he went, looking rather bemused. But the Doctor reached out to them a moment later, drawing their attention back towards him, and the pair of them were quickly lost in their conversation again. Shaking his head with a touch of a smile, Jamie scanned around the ballroom. There were doors, wrought from the same steel that made up the roof, and glazed with the same glass. And from what little he could see, they led to a balcony of some sort. Exactly how that was possible here, he wasn’t sure. Best not to question it too much, he decided. They were there, and that was what mattered.

But they were on the other side of the ballroom – and between him and them was a heaving crowd. Stumbling through the mass of people was like wading through water. Molasses, even. The other partygoers weren’t that much taller than him, he supposed, and they parted for him easily enough, but they were still pressed in too close around him, bearing down on him. By some mercy, though, the ballroom wasn’t nearly as wide as it was long, and he fumbled his way to a door soon enough, wrenching it open with a little too much force and stomping unsteadily outside.

It was the same air as inside the ballroom. That much was obvious from the fact that there was no real land outside, just a sheer drop a stone’s throw from the balcony. The end of the asteroid they were perched on. Some kind of air bubble. He should have guessed. But it was somehow cooler out here, the chatter and the music and the stamping of feet against the dancefloor muffled by the thick glass.

What had gotten into him?

It had been the Doctor, he knew that perfectly well. That concerned look was still floating around in Jamie’s mind, inscribed on the backs of his eyelids. Silly of him, to be getting all caught up over a game they had to play. He just had to get used to it, that was all.

But did he want to get used to it?

Maybe he did. Maybe that was the problem.

Shaking himself, he settled in against the railing to fix his eyes and mind on the view. He would never get used to a sight like this, he was sure of that. Where there were stars below him as well as above. Now that he was standing out here, he wasn’t nearly so surprised at there being balconies, in this place. He had seen similar enough things before, and the Doctor had explained it to him often enough, how invisible shields were wrapped around the space, keeping the air inside and the vast coldness of space outside. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was nothing between himself and that vacuum. The thought set his heart to pounding so hard and so fast that he had to step back from the edge again, staring down at the speckled concrete floor to ground himself, his stomach churning.

Drawing in the deepest breath he could, he turned his gaze upwards instead. The hyperspace glass was pretty, that was for sure, but there was something breathtaking about seeing everything more clearly. There was no glamour, no trickery put over the sky to make it more appealing, just the slow, gentle twinkling of the stars.

He could almost forget that there was a war on.

That was the thing about these wars in the future. The ones fought against a battlefield of stars and asteroids rather than fields and fences. It was so easy to look up to the sky and feel nothing but peace, and forget that there were people dying out there. Who knew what was happening at that very moment? An entire ship might have been destroyed, killing half its crew in the blast and leaving the others to suffocate in space or be buffeted to death by fragments of sword-sharp metal – and he would never know. It was a mercy in some ways, he supposed. If the war was far away from everyone, then there would be no curious onlookers to be caught in the crossfire or slaughtered by the victors in their bloodlust. He had seen enough of that, over the years. But for the people here, the people who ought to care about the war more than anyone else, the people in whose names it was being fought… It was all too easy for them to forget. To go gallivanting around enjoying drinks and dancing and dusky starlight, while people like Ben and Polly were goodness knew where, thinking goodness knew what.

And there he was himself, almost falling into the same trap. Guilt twinged in his stomach, and he set his shoulders, jerking his head up to redouble his squint at the stars. Ben and Polly’s ship would be invisible from here, the Doctor had said. Thousands of miles away, and far too small and dull to be seen amongst the stars. But it was out there somewhere, trapped in that wretched time bubble. He wondered how much time had passed for them. Would they even know what was wrong? Would they expect him and the Doctor to be trying to help, or would they think that they had been abandoned? Would they see enemy ships approaching on the horizon, and do the same calculations that he had seen the Doctor do a thousand times, measuring how long they had before a missile would reach them?

“Mind if I join you?”

He leapt back from the railing, turning to face the newcomer sheepishly. There was nothing wrong with what he had been doing, he reminded himself sternly. He had every right to be there. And he had to be confident.

A part of him had expected it to be the Doctor, even though he knew full well it hadn’t been his voice. But he inclined his head to the young man – the boy, really, he was too slight to have been older than Jamie was himself – and his companion wandered over, resting his own forearms against the railing.

“Pleasant night for it,” he said idly. “Last time we were here we were rained out.”

“Rained out?” Jamie scrunched up his face. Surely it couldn’t rain here, where there was no real air, no ocean or rivers to make clouds.

“Mm.” The boy jerked his chin towards the sky, tossing the tassels on his red-and-black mask. “Meteor shower.”

“Oh.”

“I’m Kyo, by the way.” He held his hand out, and Jamie took it cautiously.

“Jamie,” he replied.

“Jamie,” Kyo repeated. He rolled it around in his mouth with a sort of bemused fascination, as aliens sometimes did. “What an unusual name.” He glanced up and down Jamie, clearly taking in the fact that he was far shorter than Kyo himself. “Where are you from?”

“Earth,” Jamie said, a little reluctantly. If Kyo started asking questions -

Sure enough, Kyo’s eyes crinkled like he had broken into a wide smile, and Jamie’s heart sank right into his stomach. “Oh, I’ve never been to Earth, but I’d love to visit. I’ve heard it’s a wonderful planet.”

Something about hearing the Earth talked about so casually dragged a laugh into Jamie’s throat, and it was all he could do to stop it from actually escaping him. For the first time, he was glad of his mask. He must look like a fish beneath it, gulping at the air, struggling to keep his mouth pressed closed. But it was so terribly strange. He had heard it said many times, that a planet was lovely, but it had never struck him as it had now. If Kyo had asked him what the Earth was like – how could he sum it all up? All the funny little complexities of it, the familiar places and the ones that felt like they were alien themselves? “Aye, it’s not bad,” he said at last. Then - “I’ve no’ lived there in a while.” It was the truth, at least. Kyo didn’t need to know exactly how long it was from his own time to the time he they found themselves in now.

“Oh.” Kyo looked a little crestfallen, but at least he was put off asking any more. “Where have you been living, then?” He was bubbly enough to make Jamie feel old and tired just trying to keep up with him. ‘Not the Kthotis System, I suppose, or I would have seen you around somewhere.”

“No, not the Kthotis System.” Had the Doctor said anything about where they would pretend they had been living? He was sure he hadn’t – but it was all slipping away from him, and he couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t forgotten something vitally important. There were other planets around the system, he knew – but what if he got the name wrong, and said they were living somewhere on the other side of the war? Best not to take a chance on it. “We’re not really – living anywhere at the moment. We travel a lot, see.” He knew exactly what he had to say next, but a lump had risen in his throat, and try as he might, the words refused to move past it. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the Doctor through the crowd, talking animatedly to a woman wearing an extravagantly pink mask, only slightly less gaudy than her matching magenta dress. “For my husband’s work,” he managed, his voice far too hoarse to sound believable.

If Kyo noticed, he was too polite to say anything. “Well, you’ve picked a terrible time to visit,” he said. “This is a lovely system, really -”

“When you’re no’ at war,” Jamie finished. “Still,” he added tentatively, “won’t it be over soon?”

“That’s what they say. They should be bringing in the ships soon.”

For the briefest of moments, Jamie’s heart leapt into his chest. But he already knew that, he remembered. The announcement had been made a few days ago. And besides, it made little difference to them. Nobody quite knew what bringing in the ships meant. There was a very real possibility that Ben and Polly’s ship would be deemed too hard to recover, and be left to rot out there. Just one last waste of money and effort for the government. One that they would hardly feel, after years of letting money flow into the war like water out of a dam.

“Wonder what’ll happen to the ships that’re stuck,” he said, as carelessly as he could mange. “There’s a few of them, aren’t there?”

“Oh, yes. In minefield space.” Kyo shrugged. “I don’t know what they’re thinking. It would be a difficult operation to get them out of there, that’s for sure. They’d need to send in an escort, with scientific staff to prevent more ships getting stuck.”

All things he already knew. That everyone already knew. The Doctor, the people on the streets, all the people who had family and friends trapped out there in that time bubble-dotted stretch of space. Minefield-space, Kyo had called it. If he wanted to hear those thoughts spoken aloud, he simply had to go back to one of the Kthotis System’s more populated chunks of rock and ask someone. They would speak the words with more passion, too, the same outrage and hopelessness that he felt himself. Not this flippancy that Kyo had, the casualness of someone who had no particular care for the ships’ survival.

What had he been thinking, asking this – this boy so many questions? Risking blowing his cover, and for what? For some pompous brat to reel off the government’s official statements to him?

The Doctor would be doing far better, he was sure of it.

Too late, he realised that Kyo had spoken, and he pulled his head around to look at him. “What was that?” he asked.

“Would you like to dance?” Kyo repeated. The very edges of his cheeks were visible through his eye-holes, blushing bright purple. Kthoteans blushed like that, Jamie had realised early on, like all their blood was empty of oxygen. He glanced over his shoulder again, this time studying the dance floor. There didn’t seem to be any particular pairs, people being whisked from partner to partner as they twirled around the room. Every so often, half the floor would pause and form their arms into arches for the others to pass underneath, laughing. It wouldn’t be too embarrassing, he supposed, to dance with a stranger, if it was like that – but, he remembered, he had no idea what the steps were. Dancing was a sure-fire way of getting them noticed.

And besides – there was something odd lodged in his throat. Guilt, maybe. Like saying yes would be some sort of betrayal of trust. The Doctor’s trust. It was utterly ridiculous, of course. He was taking this pretence of theirs much too seriously. But it didn’t make the idea of dancing with Kyo any more appealing.

How to turn Kyo down, though? He might be young and foolish and know little of the war, but that just made it all the worse. Anyone rich enough to be here at his age would not take kindly to being turned down. He could hardly just say no, I don’t want to.

He was, of course, meant to be a married man.

“Sorry,” he choked out at last, his cheeks stinging. “I have tae – I should go and find my.” He swallowed. “Husband.” Without waiting for an answer, or even glancing at Kyo’s face to see his reaction, he darted away through the doors, closing them behind him with a snap.

Well. That had hardly gone the way he wanted it to. Much less calm and collected, for a start.

He shoved his way through the crowds with a little less dignity than he would have liked, scanning around desperately for the Doctor. If only, he thought, everyone in this useless system wasn’t so tall. Then maybe he would be able to see the Doctor more easily.

To his relief, the Doctor was not far from where he had left him, standing alone beside one of the buffet tables. If it had been him standing there, Jamie was sure he would have looked terribly awkward, hovering around by the food and toying with some little round thing on the end of a stick. He would have been cursing the fact that he was surely blowing their cover. But this was the Doctor, of course, and the rules that governed everyone else in the universe never seemed to apply to him. He looked perfectly at ease, one foot tucked back to rest his weight on his other leg, gazing placidly around the ballroom. Each flashy, gemstone-encrusted partygoer who passed him drew his eyes like magnets, regardless of whether they were skipping by in a jig or strolling in front of him, immersed in gentle conversation. The Doctor seemed almost as much a part of the furniture as the table he stood beside – perfectly unobtrusive, like it made perfect sense that it would be standing there. How, Jamie wondered, could anyone help but feel a little annoyed?

But he hurried over to the Doctor anyway, reaching out to brush their hands together for the briefest of moments. He should do more, he knew. They were meant to be a married couple. Such a short and bashful touch was hardly believable. A squeeze of the Doctor’s hand would be more appropriate. Draping his arm over his shoulders would be even better. He could only be grateful that the masks meant that a kiss on the cheek was out of the question. For his part, though, the Doctor seemed equally unwilling to make too much of a show.

“Any luck?” he murmured without looking up, and Jamie shook his head.

“Nothin’,” he hissed back. “Ran into someone, but he didnae know anything. Just a boy, really.”

The Doctor gave him an odd look, and his throat tightened. “I thought I saw you talking to Kyo aci’Ocmotis.”

There was something urgent in his voice. Something he knew that Jamie didn’t. “Kyo, aye.” Pushing himself up onto his tiptoes, he caught sight of Kyo through the crowd, and jerked his head towards him. “The lad over there.” The Doctor stretched upwards himself. His eyes had already been stern, but they grew entirely icy when he caught sight of Kyo. “We talked a wee bit about the war, but he didnae seem tae know anythin’. Just told me stuff we already knew.”

Should he tell the Doctor why he had left Kyo in such a hurry? There was no particular reason why he needed to know. He had turned Kyo down, after all. And, he told himself firmly, there was no reason for the Doctor to care, either. There was no – arrangement between them. No understanding. They were pretending to be married, sure, but it was none of the Doctor’s business, really. And even if they weren’t, there was no reason why Jamie shouldn’t dance quite casually with someone he met.

But there was still a little voice in his head saying that it was the Doctor’s business. That he was keeping some sort of a secret from him. And the more he tried to ignore it, the more insistent it became.

“Actually,’ he said, choking out the word in a half-strangled laugh, “he asked me tae dance. I told him – well, I didnae want tae dance with him, so I came back here.” He glanced over at the Doctor, his stomach all tied in knots, waiting for some kind of reaction. “Doctor?” But the Doctor was still staring out at Kyo, his frown deep and his eyes glazed over. He hadn’t heard any of it, Jamie realised. His annoyance was starting to grow into full-blown irritation now. There he was, working up the courage to confess it – even if it wasn’t really anything to confess at all, even if he very much shouldn’t be feeling that sharp guilt in his windpipe – and the Doctor hadn’t even bothered to listen. “Doctor!”

“Kyo,” the Doctor said slowly, “is general of the C-Class warship fleet.”

“I told ye, he didnae know anything – eh?”

“C-Class,” the Doctor repeated. Something in his voice told Jamie that his patience was waning, too. “The class, if you’ve quite forgotten, that Ben and Polly were travelling on.”

“Oh.” Jamie glanced back over to Kyo. “Oh.” Then - “but he’s so young.”

“He inherited the position a year ago.” The Doctor pursed his lips. “I don’t suppose we’ll have another chance to talk to him.”

His voice was still stern – a little cross, even – pointed enough that Jamie could read the accusation in it quite clearly. You’ve messed this one up. We had a chance to find out what he knows, and you ruined it. That was just like the Doctor, to look at you like you had let him down, and then leave you to your own misery. Well, not this time. This time Jamie was in the right. “How did ye expect me tae recognise him?” he hissed. “It’s no’ like ye pointed everyone out to me an’ told me he was important. If you’re the only one who knows who anyone is, then I don’t know why ye invited me here.”

“I thought,” the Doctor threw back, “that you would use some common sense and ask who he was.”

“He told me his name! He just didnae tell me he was the general. An’ I wasnae about tae go insisting he gave me his full title.” Folding his arms over his chest, Jamie drew himself up to his full height. It might have been unimpressive beside the other partygoers, but he could at least loom over the Doctor. “How do ye know, anyway?”

“He was pointed out to me by -”

“Pointed out!” Jamie crowed. One or two of the people around him turned to glance disapprovingly at him, and he grinned back at them sheepishly before leaning in closer to the Doctor and lowering his voice again. “So ye didn’t know either. How did ye expect me tae know?”

“I expected you to ask,” the Doctor said again. There was definite disappointment in his voice, now. The sinking feeling it left in Jamie’s stomach only made his frustration burn higher. “In the same way that I asked who he was.”

“Well -” He was right. He knew he was. Only – the Doctor had a point. But he could hardly go admitting that, not after arguing with him like this. “Well, go an’ ask him yourself, then!”

Drawing himself up to his own rather unimpressive full height, the Doctor clutched at his lapels. They crinkled under his tight hold, lending him a touch of his usual scruffiness in amongst the sharpness of his suit, and Jamie could not help but soften a little. “Hmph.” The Doctor was softening too, now, the corners of his eyes crinkling like his lapels, and Jamie let himself grin beneath his mask. “Perhaps I will.”

“Go on, then.” He gave a gentle tap to the Doctor’s lower back as he marched away, pushing him on a little. Shaking his head as he vanished into the crowd, Jamie reached over to the table beside him to grab a drink of – something. It was green, less spiced than most of the drinks, sloshing around more thickly than water would have. When he raised the bulbous glass to his mouth, he found it was cold and sweet, filling enough to dampen down the sharper edges of his hunger.

Almost automatically, his eyes scanned the crowd for the Doctor. He had envied him earlier, the way he stood around so naturally. But the last of his irritation had drained away, and he found that there was something easy about standing back and watching the people here. Maybe it was the spice, the warm, jovial atmosphere. Or maybe it was the fact that all around the hall, others were doing the same, taking the time to savour their food or drinks and take in the sight. He sipped his own drink slowly, swirling it around his glass and letting it fill him up. It glittered a little, too, he realised – or perhaps that was just reflections from the sky above.

Kyo was across the hall from him, he realised eventually, but there was no sign of the Doctor. Had he not found him? Surely they would have spoken for longer – unless, he thought with a hint of satisfaction, Kyo really hadn’t know anything. That would make him laugh. Just a little. And he wouldn’t be particularly surprised, either. After all, he had asked Kyo about the ships himself, and been told nothing he didn’t know already.

Suppose that was just an act, though. Suppose Kyo knew more than he was letting on, and was keeping himself carefully tight-lipped. If he did – the Doctor would be the one to worm it out of him.

And he shouldn’t go around hoping that the Doctor wouldn’t find anything, he told himself sternly. Ben and Polly’s lives were on the line. And the lives of the rest of the people on board their ship, too. There was more to this than just him and the Doctor.

He had been staring blankly out at the crowd for so long that the sound of a voice in his ear made him jump. “You two look happy together.”

The shock made him bob forwards over his glass, gulping his mouthful down. Eyes watering, he pulled himself upright again and wiped his hand over his mouth as he turned towards the speaker. “Eh?”

He wondered, briefly, if it had been sarcasm. People must have seen them arguing – and they couldn’t have looked particularly happy, then. But from what he could see through the enormous feathered mask splayed across the woman’s face, there was nothing but genuine mirth in her eyes, nothing to show she had even noticed his awkwardness, let alone his argument with the Doctor. This was the woman he had seen the Doctor talking to earlier, he realised. Nobody else in the hall could be wearing such eye-wateringly bright shades of pink. She was no taller than the other partygoers – shorter than some, even – but there was something expansive about her presence, in the breadth of her gestures and the weight of her apparently boundless amusement. She had that sense about her, he thought, of the sort of person who thought everything was worth tittering at. The kind of gentle, warm amusement that only someone rich enough to have never worried about anything could have.

“Thank you,” he said at last, hoping that was the right answer. Whatever he had said, though, he was sure she wouldn’t have listened to it anyway.

“I -” She placed her hand over the great white gemstone at her chest with a flourish. “Am Lady Plovni. Great Duchess of Plu’s southern hemisphere.” It must have been her who had given the Doctor Kyo’s title, if she introduced everyone like she introduced herself. She giggled, in just the same girlish manner that Jamie had imagined she would, cupping her hand around her mouth like she was about to impart some great secret. “But you may call me Eadie. Just for this evening.” Another giggle. Just on the wrong side of grating.

“I’m Jamie. Jamie McCrimmon.”

“Delighted, I’m sure.” She peered down into her drink, and he wondered if she had picked it out just to match the colour of her dress. “Now, I simply must know. How long have you been married?”

“Um,” was all Jamie could think to say. He cast around wildly for the answer, scrabbling at the inside of his own mind, trying to dredge up whatever the Doctor had told him before they had entered the hall. It seemed like days ago, now. “A few months,” he blurted out at last. A few months since I met him, he finished in his own head – but it would do. His face was surely as bright as Eadie’s extravagant dress, but at least he had come up with an answer.

But she leant forward, pressing her mask closer against her eyes, studying him like he was some pinned-down insect she was about to dissect. “A few months?” she echoed. “Now, that is strange – you see, I remember now, your delightful husband said you’d been married for two years.”

“Ah.” Again, he wondered if there was more to her question than she was letting on. Had she been testing him? Seeing if they would tell the same story? But again, there was no sign of anything so cunning in her eyes. “Well, ye see -” His brain was too scrambled to make up any sort of excuse, and his mouth was too dry to throw something out of its own accord. “Actually -”

“Actually,” came the Doctor’s voice from behind him, and Jamie could have melted into a puddle of relief. The Doctor’s hand brushed over his elbow, then slid around his back, just above his waist. Good, was all Jamie could think. Any lower, and he might have keeled over on the spot. “It’s a funny story, really. I come from Xinos-Three, you see, and Jamie’s from Earth. We’ve had two marriage ceremonies, so, ah – we count our anniversaries differently.”

“Oh!” Eadie burst into loud, exuberant laughter, and again Jamie was thankful for his mask, because his smile was surely more like a grimace. Something about the way she was cooing over them really did make him feel like an insect pinned to a bit of cardboard. “Oh, you are charming, you two. Charming.”

Beside him, the Doctor bobbed back and forth in an odd sort of bow. “Your Ladyship is too kind.” To Jamie’s ears, his voice was soaked with sarcasm, but Eadie didn’t seem to notice, pressing one hand to her chest and laughing uproariously. “Now, if you don’t mind -”

But Eadie didn’t even seem to realise that the Doctor was gripping Jamie’s elbow like he was about to drag him away. Her eyes had drifted off to fix on someone across the room, some new entertainment. “Goodness me,” she exclaimed, loud enough to make Jamie wince, “is that Major Hudsent over there? I haven’t seen him in an age!” Bending down over the Doctor and Jamie, she tapped at the nose of her mask. “Do excuse me, dears. I simply must catch him.”

They watched her swan away through the crowd, people parting around her like water until she was entirely swallowed up. Tilting his head over towards the Doctor, Jamie threw him a wry look.

“That’s who told ye about Kyo?” he asked softly.

“She’s an acquired taste,” the Doctor admitted. “And, ah -” Leaning in closer to Jamie’s ear, he dropped his voice. “Not one I’m too keen to acquire myself.” Jamie laughed at that, lifting one hand to his mask like he could muffle his giggles with it. “But you really must get your facts straight, you know. I can’t cover for you every time.”

“We’ve only been here since last night,” Jamie protested. “An’ we’ve no’ talked to many people until now. I’ve no’ had much time tae practice.” But he grinned anyway. “Worked, though, didn’t it?”

“We may not be so lucky next time.” There was no humour in the Doctor’s voice, only a sort of urgency. “Now – I need to talk to you.”

Jamie glanced around them. The buffet tables were less crowded than they had been, most people drifting off towards the dance floor as the night wore on – but that was more dangerous than anything, he supposed. If there were more people around them, talking and laughing noisily enough to mask their conversation, and tall enough to cocoon them, they might have been a little safer. But out in the open, with the sound of chatter more distant… “Here?”

“Not here. Outside.”

It’s not what you think it is, Jamie told himself sternly. It’s not good news. He couldn’t go getting his hopes up. Maybe someone suspected they weren’t quite who they said they were – or maybe it was something that would make Ben and Polly’s situation worse, not better. Something terrible might have happened to their ship already. Ice flooded his stomach at the thought, cold and heavy. They could hardly talk here, the Doctor was right – but he had to know. He couldn’t bear to wait, even for a few brief seconds.

“Is it – ye know – what we wanted tae know?” he asked at last, his voice low.

The Doctor’s nod was so slight that he almost missed it. “It’s good news,” he murmured, as simply as if Jamie’s legs weren’t threatening to give way beneath him. It was all he could do not to slump against the Doctor and bury his shouts of joy in his coat. But he couldn’t do that. People would ask questions. Later, he told himself. When there was nobody around to watch, and touching the Doctor didn’t electrify every nerve in his body with embarrassment.

“Kyo?” he asked instead.

“No.”

That deserved a grin, at least. Given that it was good news, and all. He was allowed a bit of humour. “Told ye so.”

Huffing, the Doctor folded his arms over his chest. “I found out more than you did, at least. You couldn’t have known for sure he didn’t know what had happened to the ship.

“’Course I knew,” Jamie retorted, but he knew his voice was too full of his smile for the Doctor to really believe him. “A man like that would never know what had happened tae the ship.”

Sure enough, the Doctor was eyeing him doubtfully. “Well, it doesn’t matter, at any rate,” he said at last. “But -” He glanced around them, dropping his voice again. “Perhaps it’s time to, ah, make a quiet exit, hm?”

“Aye.” Slipping his hand into the Doctor’s, Jamie set off towards the door at an eager march. The sooner they were out of the ballroom, the sooner this whole business would be over. Self-centred of him, maybe, to feel just as much relief about that as he did about the Doctor having good news, but it would mean he would be rid of the nasty pit in his stomach. No more pretending. No more worrying about whether they were believable enough, or getting completely tongue-tied when people swallowed the lie. They could go home, wait for Ben and Polly to arrive, secure some sort of peace, find the TARDIS, and then be off. Nothing could be simpler. He could forget about the whole thing.

What was it he was worrying about, exactly? What bothered him so much about this whole charade?

Don’t think about that, he told himself sternly. He didn’t need to know. Not when it would be over so soon. And besides, he might not like the answer.

The Doctor drew to a halt so abruptly that he yanked on Jamie’s arm, bouncing him back towards him. “What are ye doin’?” Jamie hissed. “Aren’t we supposed tae be gettin’ out of here?”

“Yes, but -” Twisting around, the Doctor nodded towards the dancefloor. “We’re supposed to be keeping up appearances, first of all.”

All the air vanished out of Jamie’s lungs, leaving him coughing and spluttering, and for a moment he wondered whether the invisible shields keeping the air around the asteroid had failed. But the Doctor looked perfectly normal, as did the crowds around them. “Och, but -” He tugged on the Doctor’s hand, then let go hurriedly, like he had been burnt. Since when had grabbing the Doctor’s hand become so easy? “We can go now. We dinnae have tae pretend anymore.”

“If they suspect anything,” the Doctor countered, slowly and deliberately, “then they may do some digging on us. And if they do that, then the alarm may be raised, and we may not have enough time to, ah – do what we need to do, if you understand what I mean.”

He could be so terribly stubborn, when he wanted to be. Well, two could play at that game. “We’re just havin’ an early night. Nothin’ suspicious about it.”

“No.” The Doctor jerked his head towards the dancefloor again. Following the motion with his eyes, Jamie sighed. There was nothing unusual about the dancers at all. Whatever notion the Doctor had gotten into his head was entirely beyond him. “Listen.”

Huffing, Jamie let go of the Doctor’s hand to fold his arms over his chest. He cocked his head to show that he was listening, even as he rolled his eyes. The chatter of people, the clinking of glasses, the murmur of footsteps, the sound of music. Nothing strange there. “What are ye -”Frowning out at the dance floor again, he fell quiet. The music was different now, slow and gentle, and his heart sank. Sure enough, the dancers were divided into pairs, leaning on each other and swaying in time with the music.

“Five more minutes,” the Doctor said. “One romantic dance. Then we can have our early night.”

And here he had been, thinking the confusion was over and done with. So much for that.

Well, he supposed, at least his mask was covering his red cheeks. He must be thankful for small mercies. “Five minutes,” he said. “An’ then we’re gone, alright?”

The Doctor nodded. “Alright,” he said, infuriatingly placidly. Why did he have to be so – so unbothered by the whole business? Not that the mask helped, Jamie supposed. He might look as unworried as the Doctor seemed, for all he knew. The thought buoyed his confidence just enough to stop him from jerking away when the Doctor’s hand slipped back into his.

They threaded their way through the crowd, murmuring excuses and apologies as they went until they tripped through into the front row of onlookers ringed around the dancefloor. Squeezing his way through after the Doctor, Jamie’s heart sank. Why couldn’t they have had their dance earlier, when everything was bouncy and exuberant and thankfully, mercifully impersonal? Now there seemed to be no set movements, no rules, just pairs of dancers and whatever rhythm they found between themselves.

“Ye want us tae do that?” he hissed over to the Doctor.

“It’s quite simple,” the Doctor said, as if that wasn’t obvious. As if that was even remotely the problem. “Come on.” Before Jamie could protest, he had dragged him out onto the dancefloor, whirling him around with surprising strength so they faced each other. “Just, ah – act natural.”

Well, that was hardly going to be possible. One of Jamie’s hands was still clasped tightly in the Doctor’s, his palm sweaty with nerves and with the heat of the room. But his other hand was still hanging awkwardly by his side, and he glanced down at it. “I dinnae know what tae do.”

“Oh.” Taking his free hand, too, the Doctor deposited both of them on his shoulders. That was better, Jamie thought. That was a safe place. He could curl his fingers into the fabric of the Doctor’s jacket, not yet softened with wear and washing. Close his eyes and pass these five minutes without thinking about much other than where to put his feet.

It was a good idea, anyway. Shame it was all blown out of the water by the Doctor’s hands settling over his waist.

He only barely managed not to leap away, half out of ticklishness, half out of embarrassed alarm. “What are ye doin’?” he whispered, snapping his eyes open to see the Doctor staring back at him.

“We’re dancing,” the Doctor said, sounding somewhat bemused. “This is how you dance.” He glanced around them. “You’re so terribly ticklish, darling,” he added, a bit louder than necessary.

“I am not -” Maybe these five minutes would pass slower than he had thought. “Go on, then,” he grumbled at last. “But don’t go surprisin’ me like that.”

The Doctor took hold of his waist again, a little tentatively, like he thought he might spring away a second time. But Jamie kept himself determinedly still, fighting back the urge to squirm out of the Doctor’s grip when his fingers tapped against his sides.

“There,” the Doctor murmured. “Now, just – sway in time to the music.”

His own hands were back to hanging awkwardly by his waist, Jamie realised. He raised them up to hover around the Doctor’s elbows – but holding onto him there was no less awkward. Holding the Doctor’s waist would only get them tangled together. Not that he would have put them there, anyway. No, draped around his shoulders really was the best place for them. He brought his hands together behind the Doctor’s back so he could tug on his own fingers rather than fiddling with his jacket.

Apparently oblivious to his struggle, the Doctor was swaying back and forth, his eyes half-closed and his feet shuffling from side to side. Tightening his grip on his own hands, Jamie set about trying to copy him, but his movements were always either too fast or too slow, his feet too clumsy. Once or twice, his feet kicked against the Doctor’s as they passed each other, and he scanned his face anxiously, searching for some trace of frustration, though he found none.

“Don’t think about it,” the Doctor said. “Just listen to the music.”

He ought to have been good at that, as funny as the music here was. If he was good at anything, it was listening to music and picking up its rhythm or its beat. He had always prided himself on how quickly he could learn a tune by ear. But not tonight. Not with his sides burning beneath the Doctor’s grip, his cheeks burning, his mind burning. Thought after thought was swirling around in there, drowning out the music until it was even more jangled and discordant than usual.

He was embarrassed. That was the thing he kept coming back to. Why was he embarrassed? It wasn’t like he cared about the people standing around the edges of the dancefloor, or the other dancers. He couldn’t see much of them, anyway, not with his mask blocking the edges of his vision. All he could see was the Doctor, his eyes serenely half-closed.

It was the Doctor he was thinking of. The fact that he had suggested this whole thing. Come up with the details just a little too easily. How long had he been thinking about it? What did it mean? Nothing at all, of course. He knew it meant nothing.

Did he want it to mean something?

Was he playing along just a little too easily himself?

Think about something else. Remember Ben and Polly.

“So what did ye find out?” he blurted out, mercifully quietly. “Are they gonnae be -”

The Doctor pressed one finger over his mask, just on the spot where his mouth was, and Jamie fell quiet as the lining bumped against his lips. “Not here,” he said. “Later.”

Huffing, Jamie closed his mouth as the Doctor moved his hand away. But it had worked well enough, even to think about Ben and Polly for that brief moment. His body had settled into more of a rhythm of its own accord, and he leant forward to rest more of his weight on the Doctor’s shoulders, steadying himself. His head fell forward, too, the top of his mask bumping against the Doctor’s, but he didn’t immediately spring away.

“This isn’t so bad,” he murmured, more to himself than to the Doctor.

“It isn’t, is it?” He hadn’t expected the Doctor to reply, and he was glad that he had locked his arms in place around his shoulders, stopping him from jerking away again. He would have gone careening into someone else, most likely, bringing the whole dance to a halt. Probably given them away, too. But his hands just twitched, his forehead lifting away from the Doctor’s for a moment. Somehow, it was worse to see him too clearly, so he leant in again, though his eyes stayed fixed on the Doctor’s. Their masks bumped together more firmly this time, edge scratching against sequinned edge, but he paid it no mind. “I think we’ve had, ah – a rather pleasant evening, all things considered.”

“Mm.” Pleasant wasn’t the word Jamie would have picked. Not with the way his heart had been racing all evening. But what else could they say, surrounded by other dancers like this? “Company’s good.”

The Doctor laughed at that, raising his head to glance pointedly around them. He thought he had meant the other partygoers, Jamie realised, and even with his mask covering his face, he could perfectly imagine the Doctor’s gently disbelieving expression. “The company has certainly been interesting,” he murmured. “Ah – unique, perhaps.”

“Aye.” Jamie laughed, too. “Eadie, ‘specially.”

“Oh, she’s quite the character, isn’t she?”

“Ye can say that again.”

“But – entertaining, you must admit.”

Jamie shook his head, though he was still laughing. “I didnae think so when I was stuck on my own with her.”

“Well, I did say she was an acquired taste.”

Their voices had turned soft, somewhere along the way, quiet and warm under their breaths. The light streaming in through the glass warmed the colder light of the stars, and the whole room seemed bathed in a kind of late-night golden glow. Everything was fuzzy, blurring into a mass of bright costumes and glittering masks and crystalline candlelight. Even Ben and Polly, wherever they were, felt distant in his mind again. Only the Doctor was clear enough to look at properly, still nose-to-nose with him. His face might have been hidden, but the gentle contentment in his eyes was clear enough.

A stray tuft of hair flicked over the top of the Doctor’s mask, and unthinkingly Jamie reached up to brush it back against his forehead. His hand froze just as he settled it back into place, realising what he had done – but they were meant to be pretending, weren’t they? And the Doctor didn’t so much as twitch, like he hadn’t thought anything of it. He was just acting, Jamie told himself. Getting into his role a bit too much. Or maybe just the right amount. He had wondered if they might be underdoing it a little, after all.

But it was the thoughtlessness of it that bothered him. Suppose he woke up tomorrow and did it again? No, he told himself. It would fade. Give him a few hours’ distance from it all, and he would be perfectly fine. A few hours’ sleep, and his thoughts wouldn’t be so muddled.

“It’s nice here,” he said. His voice was still soft, but he tilted his head up so he wouldn’t have to look at the Doctor. The view through the glass was impressive as ever, its beauty recovered in his eyes with the knowledge that they had good news – but it got him thinking about that look that had come over the Doctor when he had explained it. He was only sorry that the mask hadn’t let him see the Doctor’s face when he had first caught sight of the ceiling. The way his lips would have slightly parted, letting out an almost-silent breath of awe. The way his eyes would have widened to take everything in, all those colours. The stars reflected in them like a clear night over a grey-blue sea. And the way that look made Jamie’s heart and lungs and throat tighten with a feeling that was much too big to fit inside his body.

The Doctor called him fragile, sometimes – when he was hurt, or when he had done something he wouldn’t have done if he had given himself a moment longer to think about it. He had often wondered what the Doctor was hiding beneath his familiar shape, to think that humans were so breakable. But in those moments, when the Doctor looked up at the stars, and he found he couldn’t breathe, he felt just as fragile as the Doctor seemed to think he was.

The Doctor wasn’t looking at the stars now. His eyes were fixed on Jamie, steady like an anchor and almost-unblinking like a cat. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

It was a moment before Jamie remembered what he had said in the first place. “If ye forgot about everythin’ else goin’ on,” he added, grinning. Not that the Doctor could see his smile, of course – and if he smiled back, then Jamie saw no trace of it.

“Rather easy to do,” he said. “But we mustn’t.”

“No, we mustn’t.” His eyes flickered away from the Doctor’s face, even though there was no disappointment there, not like there had been earlier. Maybe because there was no disappointment there. He would have deserved it, after how terribly self-centred he had been tonight. Not just about Ben and Polly’s predicament, but about everything the Doctor had done, too. “I’m sorry I was cross with ye.”

“Oh, that’s alright.” The Doctor’s thumbs rubbed over his sides, and again Jamie had to stop himself from squirming away. But this wasn’t ticklishness, or even a shock. It was the way the motion buzzed around at the top of his skill that made him want to leap away and shake himself off. “Water under the bridge, hm?”

Jamie forced himself to laugh at that, just a little. “Well, maybe I should’ve talked to Kyo a wee bit more.”

“I’m sure you did all you could.” The Doctor’s eyes flickered down to the floor between them. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh.”

“But I could’ve asked him more,” Jamie protested. It was all tumbling out of his mouth, now, and he realised just how badly he had wanted to confess it all to the Doctor. He could only hope he really hadn’t been listening, the first time he had said it. It would be terribly embarrassing to tell him twice. “He asked me to dance,” he said. “With him,” he added, like he needed to spell it out. “An’ I – well, I ran away from him, I ‘spose. Said I needed tae find ye, an’ just left him. But if I had’ve said yes, maybe I would’ve gotten something out of him.”

Saying it aloud felt like coming clean after keeping a terrible secret, and being met with warm eyes and a careful embrace. But he still wasn’t sure why he had felt so guilty, or why he felt this need to tell the Doctor. He hadn’t done the wrong thing, had he? He hadn’t broken anybody’s trust. If Kyo wanted to dance with him, then that was hardly his fault. And he had said no, and gone back to the Doctor at once. Even if he had’ve said yes… It was just a dance. Everybody danced with everybody else, on nights like this.

He felt as if he had been unfaithful to the Doctor, he supposed. There he went again, taking this whole thing far too seriously.

It was too late now, though. He had already gone and said it. And the Doctor was watching him, his eyes unreadable. Even if his mask hadn’t been blocking his face, Jamie was sure he wouldn’t have known what he was thinking. “And you didn’t want to dance with him?”

“No’ really.” You’re being dramatic, he scolded himself. “Och, it – it wasnae that bad. He surprised me, more than anythin’, I ‘spose.”

“Oh.” The Doctor stilled a little, just enough to fall out of time with the music, and Jamie slowed to match him. “I’m terribly sorry, Jamie, I should have asked -”

“What?”

“Do you want to dance with me?”

He could say no, Jamie knew. And if he did, they would be free. They would leave the hall and go up to their room, and the Doctor would tell him what he had found out, and then they would sleep until it was almost time to leave. It would all be over, and his confusion would be over, too.

But they had to keep up their facade, as the Doctor had said. And if they were to leave in the middle of the last dance…

Besides, it wouldn’t be true, if he said no.

Settling his arms more firmly around the Doctor’s shoulders, he pulled him along into the music’s rhythm until they had fallen back into something more comfortable. “Aye. Aye, I do want to dance with ye.”

“Ah.” The corners of the Doctor’s eyes crinkled again, and Jamie knew he was smiling beneath his mask. “Splendid.”

He sounded so terribly pleased with himself. Like he had been so very clever. The fondness brewing in Jamie’s chest emerged as a low chuckle, barely more than a rumble. He would have laughed properly – but something deep inside him was standing in the way of breaking the bubble of comfortable quiet that had grown around the pair of them.

Somewhere along the line, the Doctor’s mask had slipped down a little, just enough to reveal a thin strip of skin on his forehead. “Here,” Jamie said, pulling one hand back to draw the Doctor in a little closer. Just close enough to push himself up onto his tiptoes and lean over the mask and kiss the spot. Again his mask bumped against the Doctor’s, the sequins and feathers and fabric scraping at each other as he pulled away.

Had that been – well, too forward? They were pretending to be married, yes, but neither of them had pushed the charade that far. There had been a sort of an unspoken line in the sand. Not that it seemed to have put a dent in the effectiveness of their act. So what had he been thinking, trampling all over that line on a whim? Apparently not too far beyond that pit of terrible thoughts that was bubbling away inside him, whispering things like I wonder what it would be like.

Shame and shock were surging through him now, prickling at his forehead and the back of his neck, stinging at his surely-reddening cheeks, and he glanced down at the Doctor, certain he would be met with some sort of anger. But the Doctor didn’t look upset. Didn’t even look particularly shocked, really. Just looked at him with soft, dark eyes. And before he could sink too far into regret or panic, the music faded out, and the dancers around them drew to slow, reluctant halt. The Doctor did the same, stepping back and trailing his hands away from Jamie’s sides to run down his arms until he had laced their fingers together. “There we are,” he murmured. “The last dance of the evening.”

“Is it?” Twisting around, Jamie surveyed the people surrounding them. “It cannae be over already, surely.”

“Officially, it is. But most people will linger for a while.” Sure enough, the dancefloor was slowly emptying, the crowd dispersing. Heading out onto the balconies, or clustering around the buffet tables to clear out the last of the food and drinks. They would stay for as long as they could, Jamie supposed, unwilling to let go of the night and let sleep carry them to morning. If he was completely honest with himself – perhaps for the first time that night – a part of him shared their unwillingness.

Maybe, just maybe, the Doctor did too, judging by the way he wasn’t pulling away yet. He ought to have been – especially after Jamie’s utterly stupid lapse of self-control – but he still seemed content to stand on the dancefloor with their hands locked together.

Not that he would be feeling the same unwillingness, Jamie was sure of that. His own reluctance to leave had nothing to do with parties, or drinks, or music. Not even anything to do with the stars. Nothing the Doctor would be thinking of. The party could have been over and done with hours ago, and he wouldn’t have cared.

It was the Doctor himself he was reluctant to let go of.

If they went upstairs now, he would have to let go. They were sharing a room, of course, because questions would be asked if they weren’t. Sharing a bed, even, with a no man’s land of cold sheets and blankets to be carefully laid out between them before they slept, backs turned against each other. But tonight, after everything, that small gulf would surely feel like a gaping chasm. Almost as great as the distance between them and Ben and Polly.

Even the thought of Ben and Polly couldn’t shake his mind from its trajectory, now. The Doctor had good news, after all. Their mission was done. Wasn’t he allowed this one moment of selfishness? And it was all so clear, now. So very simple. Too simple for him to avoid. Their charade had laid out something new before him, a whole road of things he hadn’t dared think about before. And dizzyingly, terrifyingly, he had found that he liked it. He liked taking the Doctor’s hand without a second thought. He had liked dancing with him. Even enjoyed the terrible little twist in his stomach when the Doctor introduced them together to people. And now he would have to go upstairs and forget about all that, and pretend things were the same as they had ever been, when he felt like something in his mind had broken, and all sorts of thoughts were pouring out.

All his worrying – all his uncertainty, and his guilt, and his nervousness – and it had all come to this. Just the thought that he didn’t want to let go, even when they didn’t have to pretend anymore.

But the Doctor had already let go of one of his hands, and was tugging at the other one. “Come along,” he said softly. “We’d best be off.”

“A- aye.” Jamie lifted his shoulders, drawing in a deep breath, then let himself slump down again with a sigh. Almost a yawn. Tonight would be ripped away from him, one way or another. “Aye, we should.”

And then they were back to weaving through the crowd, and Jamie’s empty stomach was gnawing itself into dread again, though something quite different was filling the empty corners of his mind. What if you’re just getting caught up in pretending? a little voice was saying. That same one had been hearing all night. How can you be sure?

He shook himself again, as best as he could without disturbing the Doctor’s grip on his hand. He had always been sure. Even if he hadn’t known it.

“Here.” He squeezed the Doctor’s hand just as they left the hall, drawing him to a halt in the little atrium outside. Right on the spot where they had rehearsed their story before going inside in the first place. If they passed that spot, it would all be over. They would be out of view of the hall, then. The Doctor’s hand would finally draw away from his, and they would make their way up to their room shoulder-to-shoulder but with a respectable distance between them. Fall asleep, wake up, get themselves ready for the ship home, only a little over a day after they had arrived. And then all of this would end.

But until they passed that spot, he still had two paths laid out before him.

The Doctor wheeled back around towards him, frowning. “Is something the matter?”

“No!” Jamie exclaimed, a little too loudly. “No,” he repeated a moment later – but he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to come up with some sort of lie. He could only hold the Doctor here for so long, anyway. Soon he would be bounding off again, and he would have to run after him, as he always did. “I just thought – ye might tell me what ye heard, that’s all. In case they’re onto us,” he added, each new word firmer than the last. “Ye know, they might’ve put one of those wee insects in our room.”

“Insects?”

“Aye. So they can listen tae what we’re saying.”

“Ah.” The Doctor nodded. “Bugs.”

“Aye, that’s the things.”

“Well, you do have a point.” The Doctor glanced around them, eyes flashing triumphantly when they settled on an alcove in the atrium wall. Its rounded peak towered over them, but there was precious little room for them to crowd into. Most of its space was taken up by the base of an enormous statue. Some hero of the system, no doubt. Maybe even of this very war. But it would do to hide them, for now, and they wedged themselves as far in as they could. The shadow was wide and deep enough that casual passer-by’s eyes might slide right over them, Jamie supposed. And it was their words that would do the damage, anyway, not their presence. “So,” the Doctor began, and Jamie struggled to wrench his mind back around to what he was saying. Ben and Polly, he reminded himself. Ben and Polly. “I talked to Kyo, as you know.”

“Aye.”

“And as you know, he had very little of value to tell me. But he did direct me to his deputy, who knew rather more about – well, about the running of things, I suppose. And he happened to know about the time bubble.”

Jamie leant in a little further, reaching up to grip the Doctor by the shoulders. He should have thought more of that, something in the back of his mind was saying. But the rest of his brain was too caught up in the roaring of blood in his ears, the strain to hear the Doctor over the thundering of his heartbeat.

“So I enquired about the time bubble,” the Doctor was saying. “For purely scientific reasons, of course. A simple spatio-geographic curiosity, you understand.” His voice shifted a little on the last sentence, turning milder and croakier, and he tapped at the nose of his mask. Harmless scientist, indeed. “Now, the first good news is that they’ve received a transmission from the ship – with data on the time bubble, you see.”

“A- aye.” A deep breath rattled in and out of Jamie’s chest, letting go of something that he hadn’t known was clenched there. So the jump out of hyperspace hadn’t killed them, then. His eyes drifted up towards the ceiling again, the scattering of light to splash colours over the stars, and he wondered if Ben and Polly were out in that direction somewhere. “Good.”

“Now, ah – next there’s some good news, and some bad news. Or – some good news, some bad news, and some information that makes the good news good.”

“Oh,” Jamie said, his mind still struggling to untangle the Doctor’s last sentence. “Um. Can I have the information first, then?”

“Certainly,” the Doctor said, with as much flourish as if he was bringing Jamie a cup of tea with a saucer. Something he only did for special occasions, rare as they were on board the TARDIS, or when he was trying to apologise for something. This was certainly no celebration – but every step closer to getting Ben and Polly back was one step closer to a celebration, he supposed. “The information is that the bubble is rather bigger than we estimated. And that the approaching ships are too small to carry long-range missiles, let alone fire them without suffering catastrophic damage.”

“Oh.” That seemed good enough, even without knowing the good news. “An’ what’s the bad news?”

“Well, the bad news is that there are approaching ships.”

“Aye, alright.” Not as bad as it could have been. Nothing they hadn’t suspected already. “Alright.” Of course there would be ships coming to ambush anyone stuck in the time bubble. Getting out of there would be a challenge for Ben and Polly’s ship, yes – but not an insurmountable one. There was still a chance. Especially if their pursuers were small. “Are they far?”

“A few parsecs.”

“Oh.” Jamie nodded, biting his lip in an effort to look like he really was thinking it over. But it was no good pretending, now. Knowing what was happening to Ben and Polly was more important than pretending he knew everything. And there was no point in that, anyway. Surely the Doctor knew he had no idea how big a parsec was. “Is that far?”

The Doctor bobbed his head back and forth, as if he were weighing it up. “Relatively speaking, it’s rather close,” he said at last. “But, ah – the time dilation is a crucial detail here. After they break out of the bubble, you see, they’ll be able to accelerate away from their pursuers. And while the other ships are still in the time bubble, that distance they gain will be exponentially more valuable. It could always be greater, of course, but – it’s something.”

“Aye.” Drawing in a deep breath, Jamie let it out slowly, raising and lowering his shoulders along with it. “That’s good,” he said at last. “Better than good.” Then, a moment later - “what’s the good news?”

“There isn’t much more to it than that, I’m afraid,” the Doctor said. “But the fact that the bubble is bigger means that the other ships are further behind than I expected them to be. And if Ben and Polly’s ship can travel far enough and reach a fast enough speed to achieve hyperdrive before the other ships even make it out of the bubble – well, I see no reason why they shouldn’t be home safely within a few days.”

He said it so nonchalantly, but Jamie’s legs could have buckled beneath him at those words. “A few days?” he echoed breathlessly, his fingers grasping at the shoulders of the Doctor’s coat, wrinkling the crisply-pressed fabric beneath his tight grip. “They’re gonnae be okay?”

“They’re going to be quite alright,” the Doctor said, and Jamie let his head fall forward onto his chest at last. A laugh was bubbling up somewhere beneath his ribcage, and he let it flow silently out of him, shaking with it, tears beading in the corners of his eyes. And the Doctor was laughing, too, patting Jamie’s back. “Perfectly alright,” he added, a little redundantly. “We may even arrive at the same time, if we’re lucky.”

Everything was so heavy, all of a sudden, like gravity was somehow twice as strong as usual. All his limbs were being dragged down towards the ground, and a part of him wanted nothing more than to give in and flop down onto the cool marble floor. He should have felt light, surely, with all his worries washed away – but it was the emotion of the last few days crashing over him, turning into a relief he almost didn’t have the strength to hold, and a laughter he couldn’t stop. There was nothing even particularly funny about their situation. No ironic twist or impossible coincidence. Just an overflow of gratitude towards the universe with nowhere else to go.

But he staggered backwards instead of letting himself fall, palms flattening out to smooth over the creases he had left in the Doctor’s jacket. “I think we’ve already been lucky enough, don’t you?” he murmured as he worked. “Seein’ as they’re gonnae be safe, an’ all that.”

“Yes.” The Doctor’s voice was as unsteady as his own must have been. A little teary, even, if that wasn’t pushing things too far. “Yes, we’ve been terribly lucky. I was rather concerned about the time bubble, you know -” Jamie snorted. Rather concerned was surely the understatement of whatever century they were in. “But it seems it may have done more good than harm.”

“Aye, it did.”

“But, ah – there is some other bad news, you know.” Jamie froze, his heart plummeting into his stomach, his eyes fixed on the Doctor. “Well – not bad news, precisely. Simply something rather unfortunate.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, you see -” The Doctor was tapping his fingers together, shifting his weight from one side to the other, and Jamie’s heart sank further. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be said easily, then. “I simply didn’t think to check the size of the time bubble particularly carefully. I assumed my basic calculations would be correct – accounting for the descriptions I was given, distance from the nearest star, and the average time bubble size in that part of the galaxy. They’re not usually quite so large as this.”

“Meanin’?”

“Meaning,” the Doctor repeated, drawing the word out like he was reluctant to move on to the next one, “given the relative velocity between the two ships, and, ah, their time of entry into the time bubble -”

Grinning, Jamie clapped his hand firmly down onto the Doctor’s shoulder. “Spit it out.”

“Well, as it turns out,” the Doctor murmured at last, “there was never any real danger. Even if the other ship had been carrying heavy-duty missiles. It would have been incredibly unlikely that they’d come within a range where the missile could hit our ship before it exited the bubble.”

“So what you’re sayin’ is that there was no need tae come here in the first place.”

“Ah – something like that, yes.”

That was something to laugh about, and Jamie gave in to it fully, leaning back in to muffle it against the Doctor’s lapels. The fabric was warm beneath his hands, soft, something like tightly woven wool. Almost dense enough to be felted. Pulling away for a moment, he ripped his mask off, grimacing when the elastic caught against his hair, then pressed his face against the Doctor’s jacket properly. It smelled natural, too, somewhere beneath fake-fresh washing powder and the aroma of warm-spiced drinks and the Doctor’s own familiar honey smell. He should have been cross. The Doctor expected him to be cross. But instead everything just seemed so terribly simple. Ben and Polly would be home soon. And now, with the distance of thinking about something else, he knew he still didn’t want to let go.

“That’s alright,” he said, surfacing again. The Doctor quietened himself down, too, his elbow bumping against Jamie’s side as he raised one hand to poke his fingers through the eyeholes of his mask and scrub at his face. “I mean – it’s no’ like we had a bad time.”

“No. No, I suppose we didn’t.” Readjusting his mask again, the Doctor set his shoulders and tilted his head towards the stairs. “Shall we?”

“No!” Jamie exclaimed before he could stop himself. They couldn’t step past the place where all this had started. In the ballroom, they were pretending. Upstairs, they were businesslike, distracted, readying themselves for Ben and Polly to return, and then the work that still remained to be done. Here, they were in the empty space outside of everything. There was nothing between them, pressed together as they were, chests rumbling with the last echoes of each other’s laughter. No lies, no acts. Just the two of them, and the knowledge that soon enough they would be four again. And his last chance.

His last chance to do what, exactly?

The Doctor’s hand was back to probing beneath his mask, his eyes scrunched up, and Jamie was overtaken by a sudden urge to look at him properly. Like he would know what to do if he could just see the Doctor’s face. His hands moved before his brain could catch up, reaching across the little gap that had grown between them so his fingers were toying with the mask’s edges.

The Doctor’s hands raised, too, halfway to Jamie’s wrists, pausing before he could catch old of them and pull them down. “Jamie -” His voice hitched on Jamie’s name, like his breath had caught in his throat. “We’re not supposed to -” Clearing his throat, he straightened up. “We’re not supposed to take these off where other people can see us.”

That wasn’t the rule of the game. Jamie knew that perfectly well. And the Doctor couldn’t believe it himself, or he would have said something when Jamie had taken his own mask off. No, there was something else the Doctor thought they couldn’t do. But Jamie took him by the arms anyway, steering them in the last few centimetres towards the base of the statue. “Come in here, then. I want tae see ye.”

The Doctor pulled in another barely-audible breath, but no words emerged, and Jamie took that as permission. Even one-handed, he removed the Doctor’s mask with more care than he had his own, tugging it away from his face by degrees and inching the elastic away with it until it sat unfastened on top of his head. Impressions were carved around the Doctor’s eyes, little lines of stitching where the mask hadn’t quite been fitted right, and he almost moved to feel around for marks on his own face. But he just pulled the Doctor’s mask away entirely, passing it over to his other hand so it dangled beside his own, midnight blue against bright gold.

“There,” he said softly. “I don’t think we’ll see anyone else tonight. It’s not like we’ll be needin’ them.”

He had grown so used to just seeing the Doctor’s eyes, tonight, that seeing the rest of his face was almost too much. His eyes had been soft before, but now he could see the gentle quirk of his mouth, the way his eyebrows were a little raised. Surprise and affection and something he couldn’t quite name. His free hand brushed against the side of the Doctor’s face, trailing down towards his shoulder but not quite making it, the back of his knuckles coming to a halt against his neck instead. Not so far down that his thumb couldn’t brush against the Doctor’s jaw.

The Doctor’s lips parted a little. More surprise, maybe. Or just ticklishness. But he wasn’t doing anything. Just standing there watching whatever Jamie’s own face was doing.

You’re just mixed up after the night you’ve had. There was that little voice again. He wished it would make up its mind, rather than just arguing with whatever he was thinking at the time. That’s all. You’re still thinking you have to pretend.

Only – he wasn’t. He wasn’t mixed up at all. And he certainly wasn’t thinking he had to pretend. He was done with that.

Starlight was still falling out of the hall and over the two of them, and he could see the Doctor’s face clearly, and surely the Doctor could see his. He must know what was written there. And he still hadn’t moved away.

It would be perfectly simple to do, after all. The Doctor would clear his throat, pirouette out of Jamie’s grasp, gather his mask back up and trot away towards the stairs, saying that they had an early start tomorrow if they were to stand any chance of making it back before Ben and Polly. And he would follow, as he always did. Neither of them had anything to lose from backing out now. No words had been said. Nothing had happened that they couldn’t forget.

But the Doctor hadn’t moved. Almost like he was waiting. For once, he was the one who was following.

Then his head dipped forward in a nod so small Jamie almost missed it.

The masks in Jamie’s hand tumbled to the ground, but neither of them so much as glanced down at the noise. Bringing his now-unburdened hand up to curl his fingers in the hair at the back of the Doctor’s neck, Jamie leant forwards and kissed him.

It was a long moment before the Doctor kissed back. Almost like he was surprised that Jamie had leant in and done it. He kissed him slowly, tentatively, without any of Jamie’s urgency, and Jamie let himself meet the Doctor where he was. Followed along with him. Their noses were bumping together, the kiss sometimes half-breaking when they moved in the wrong direction. But none of it mattered, really, the little imperfections sinking into the rhythm they had fallen into. The Doctor’s hands were back on his waist. He must like that spot, Jamie thought with a dizzying sort of certainty – and he liked it too, if he thought about it, liked the way the Doctor’s hands fit there. Kissing him was like honey, slow-flowing and so sweet Jamie thought his heart might give out from it.

He had to say something. Anything. Any of the thousand and one things that were crowding into his brain. “I’m,” he mumbled against the Doctor’s mouth, but the Doctor just kissed him quiet again, and he let his words be washed away. “I -” He couldn’t quite let go of kissing the Doctor for long enough that the words could come out. Every time he tried to pull away, he went back for one more kiss. Just one more. Just in case he pulled back properly and found that none of this was real, or that the Doctor had changed his mind, somehow.

“Doctor,” he murmured around his kisses at last, pulling himself up even as the Doctor tried to follow him. “Doctor, I -”

“When I said.” The Doctor’s voice was a touch too high, a touch too breathless. “That we ought to pretend to be married. I don’t remember telling you to actually kiss me.”

His words were stern, but they couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his lips, and if Jamie had been any more composed he would have leant in again and kissed the grin off his face. But his heart was pounding, and his limbs were starting to seize up, some funny sort of panic setting in much too late. It didn’t matter, anyway, he supposed. There would be other smiles to kiss away. Unless he was terribly, terribly wrong, of course. He couldn’t quite believe that, not with the Doctor looking so disarmed, so disarmingly delighted. “No, ye didn’t,” he said. “Good thing I wasn’t acting, then.”

“Mm.” The Doctor was giving him that look, eyes narrowed and mouth a little pressed, like Jamie had told a particularly bad joke. “Cheeky.”

“Ye love me for it.” At last, Jamie leant in to kiss him again – but he froze halfway there, staring down at the Doctor in mortified horror. “I mean -”

But the Doctor just laughed, meeting him in the middle. He kissed him just once, briefly but perfectly. Collected and composed where Jamie had been desperate. But his hands were still shaking against Jamie’s sides, and Jamie took them and squeezed them tight enough that they stopped trembling. The Doctor glanced down at their joined hands, then said “I’m rather afraid I do,” his voice full of his half-bashful, half-wry smile. “And I should hope that – that you -”

After everything, Jamie couldn’t quite bear to hear it spoken aloud, or to say the words himself. Not just yet. In time, perhaps, when everything wasn’t quite so fragile and new. “A- aye,” he fumbled out. “Aye, I do.”

“Ah – splendid.” Splendid wasn’t quite what you hoped to hear, Jamie imagined, after – after something like that. But there was a little bit of flightiness in the Doctor’s eyes, too, the way they were flicking from side to side. Not quite enough frenzied deer-like fear to make Jamie think he might bolt at any moment, but enough to tell him that the Doctor didn’t quite know what to do with himself. That was alright, he thought. It could wait. Everything could wait. “I’m, ah – I’m afraid I’m not sure what to do next.”

And Jamie couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t thought much ahead of kissing the Doctor – hadn’t really thought of kissing the Doctor at all, until suddenly he had, and only now was the reality of it crashing down on him. But before he could think of something to say, a yawn snowballed in his throat and through to his mouth, and he ducked away, muffling it in his fist. “Sleep, I think,” he said, and the Doctor laughed. “It’s been a long night. An’ then we’ve got a ride back home.”

There were a thousand other things that needed saying. And no doubt the Doctor had another thousand of his own. But they could wait. He drew the Doctor forwards again – but this time he just wrapped his arms around his waist and hugged him, resting his chin on the Doctor’s shoulder and turning his head to bury his face in his hair.

The Doctor hugged back for a moment, squeezing him so tightly that he thought his feet might lift off the ground. But he let go just as quickly, ducking forwards to pick up their masks from where Jamie had let them fall to the floor. “Come on, then,” he said, taking Jamie’s hand, more slowly and deliberately than he had in the ballroom. With a bit more weight. A bit more intent, even. “Let’s get you to bed, hm?”

“Mm.” Jamie swallowed down another yawn. “Hey -” He reached over to bat at the masks. “We dinnae need those anymore.”

“Well, it wouldn’t do to leave them lying around,” the Doctor pointed out. Jamie just mumbled in admission. “And besides,” he added with a smile, “I don’t think it would do any harm to have a keepsake of tonight, would it?”

“’Spose not.” Jamie huffed out a breath of laughter. Exhaustion had come over him so quickly, all the excitement of the night and the adrenaline of kissing the Doctor wearing away until he was left with nothing but a bone-deep tiredness. He wanted nothing more than to flop into bed and sleep until the ship was ready to take them back. Maybe this time, he thought with a ghost of a smile, without the void of empty space between him and the Doctor. “Just as long as we dinnae have to wear them again.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” He leant his head in towards the Doctor, and was rewarded with a kiss pressed against his forehead. “I don’t plan on any more masquerading for a long time.”