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Vaguely, Jamie was aware that his chest was heaving, lungs fighting to draw in breaths that came thin and airless. His heart was slamming relentlessly against his ribs, the echo of it pounding in his skull and stomach and the palms of his hands until he was dizzy. The world beyond him was a blur, even with his eyes stretched wide open, shapes and colours all blended together into one incomprehensible whole. His hands were shaking, fingers scrabbling for purchase against rough wooden floors, legs jerking like he was trying to find a foothold on a cliffside, even when he was huddled on the ground.
In some deep part of himself, he knew all this, like he was standing on the other side of the room, watching himself gasp and heave and choke from afar. But it was all numb, dulled down and cast away by the one thought that kept echoing in his mind above all else.
He’d really gone and ruined things this time.
It was funny, really, how some thoughts floated to the top of this mist he was lost in. Like cream rising to the top of a bucket of milk. He was frozen, curled on the floor, not a single part of his body obeying him – but every so often, something came to him clear as day. The thoughts might have been hours apart, for all he knew, but they arrived all the same. Maybe they came from that other him, the one standing across the room, watching him fall apart.
Here was another one, now – he had to run.
Easier said than done, he scoffed back at himself. All his limbs were paralysed. He couldn’t even draw breath, let alone get to his feet and fight his way out.
His lungs kicked themselves up another octave at that, like they were trying to prove him wrong, but it didn’t matter. There still wasn’t any air getting in.
It was a miracle, that other him thought, that he’d made it up here at all. Distantly, he recalled standing up from his chair, scrambling up the stairs on his hands as much as on his feet, and then shoving the door closed behind him, clumsy fingers fumbling for a lock that wasn’t there. Any semblance of coordination had given up, after that, once he’d gotten it through his foggy head that he had no way to bar the door. So here he was, back pressed against it instead, trembling so hard that his weight wouldn’t have made a bit of difference to anyone trying to force their way inside.
It was funny, that strange, lucid part of him thought, that he’d locked himself away in the Doctor’s room, when it was the Doctor himself he was trying to avoid.
But it wasn’t like he’d had any choice, in this house. It had been the safest place he could imagine, with his head all falling to bits. The only place he could close himself away.
Still, he would’ve expected the Doctor to be half-breaking down the door by now, trying to get in – or to get him out. His breathing had slowed just about enough that he managed to raise his head, blinking until his surroundings resolved themselves from a blur into something that might have been a room, if he looked hard enough. His heart was still thudding away in his chest, lurching back and forth until he was nearly nauseous with it, but there was no banging on the door in reply. Scrounging back through his fuzzy memory, he couldn’t recall a hint of any footsteps on the stairs, either, nothing to suggest the Doctor had followed him up here. As best he could tell, the Doctor wasn’t on the landing.
In fact, the whole house was quiet enough that he might not have been anywhere. The Doctor wasn’t always a subtle kind of person, not when he moved, at least. If he was awake and in the house, Jamie had always known it, from his muttering or the clattering of pots or the thumping of books hitting the table as he cast them aside. The Doctor wasn’t still, and he certainly wasn’t silent. Even when he slept, he snored, rattling away in the bedroom like a thunderstorm. A quiet like this one only emerged when he was out of the house entirely.
Just the thought made his throat seize right back up again, his vision fading away into blind terror. If the Doctor had left the house – if he’d seen what he’d seen, said what he’d said, and then left – Jamie could only imagine one reason for it.
Ice was spreading through his chest, crackling out along every capillary. Nobody could know what the Doctor knew, and then leave the house, and not have gone to fetch help. He knew it. He’d been living with that certainty for years, now, sharing his space with it like a second shadow.
The Doctor had gone. And sooner or later, he’d be coming back with soldiers on his coattails.
The panic was rising in him again, flooding up his throat like bile, but he gritted his teeth to swallow it back down. It was better this way, he told himself sternly. If the Doctor was gone, then the house down below was empty. He didn’t have to worry about – fighting his way out, or whatever magic tricks the Doctor might have up his sleeve to stop him. Even if he’d laid some sort of trap, surely it was better than facing him directly. All he had to do was fetch his things and slip away, out through a window if he had to. And then he’d be gone, into the forest where not even the Doctor could track him down.
Hopefully.
And – there wasn’t much hope. But surely he had to try.
Now, though, despair was washing over the fear. His limbs were turning lax, but they were no less frozen than before, as if someone had pinned him to the floorboards like a bug. He could get away alright, like this – but God only knew where he’d go. He couldn’t go back to the village without the Doctor’s head stuck on his knife like a trophy, after all. No matter what lies he spun or excuses he tried, they’d never let him back in.
He’d just have to – keep going, he supposed. Find his way, find somewhere new. He’d done it before, and he could do it again.
It was harder this time, that was all. Because he’d found something good, somewhere he’d thought he was safe, and then he’d gone and messed it up. He’d let the Doctor get too close.
Everything had happened so fast, that was all.
It was starting to come back to him, now, piece by piece.
The Doctor’s hands on his leg, cool and just a little rough but gentle, as they always were.
The scene had been so familiar. Him lounging in a chair, and the Doctor inspecting his old wound, feeling around the edges of it.
His kilt rucked up his thigh, folds of wool constantly threatening to slide loose as the Doctor worked.
The Doctor, humming in sympathy whenever his touch brought a hitch of breath out of Jamie.
He had been – relaxed, more than anything. A little sleepy, even. Halfway to dozing off.
And then the Doctor had prodded a little harder than usual, and paused, and looked up at Jamie, eyes so wide, brow furrowed in, and he’d said -
Why on Earth is there a piece of metal stuck inside, eyes wide and brow furrowed, and Jamie had -
He’d run.
Blind instinct had taken him over, carrying him out of his chair and up the stairs and all the way here. He’d realised, in the split second between slamming the door shut and searching for a lock, what it all meant. And then the panic had set in.
His time here was over.
But maybe it was all for the best, he thought. He was losing something good now, sure – but this thing with the Doctor could never have lasted, in the end. Not with his quest hanging over his head. Sooner or later, he would have had to make a choice. But this way, he got to leave. Leave the village, leave the Doctor. Leave it all behind. A clean break, with no regrets, and no blood on his coward’s hands. Just him, alone again, like he’d always expected. Like he should be.
For the first time since he’d closed the door, he dared to make a noise. The groan broke from his lips half-of its own accord, guttural and growling and frustrated, and he tipped his head back until it met wood with a bang. Pain lanced through him at the impact, but he just bumped his head against the door again and again – gentler, this time, but still with enough force to make the tender spot burn.
This was all his fault. All his stupid, stupid fault. Just because he’d had the audacity to believe he got to live, after everything he’d done.
And then a voice sounded from downstairs, unsteady and startled, and he froze all over again.
“Jamie?” the Doctor called. He was – at the bottom of the stairs, probably. One tentative hand on the railing, one foot braced against the first step. Like he couldn’t quite muster the courage to come any closer. “Are you, ah – are you alright?”
So that was the idea, then. To pretend everything was fine, to play the concerned friend, until Jamie lowered his guard enough to emerge and let himself be captured.
Gritting his teeth, he bent his head until his chin hit his chest, and didn’t grace the Doctor with a reply.
Something about the story he’d concocted didn’t quite make sense. He knew that, even through the noise of his pounding heart. Time had melted into water, since he’d been up here, flowing through his fingers like he’d dipped his hands into a swift stream – but his vision had cleared enough that he could see out the window, now. The sun had barely moved, still bright white above the trees. He couldn’t have been up here for more than an hour. And the Doctor certainly couldn’t have had time to fetch any soldiers.
This wasn’t some big town, after all, or even the village. There weren’t men loitering on the streets who would be more than glad to stick their bayonets through his stomach for sport. There was just – him, and the Doctor, and the endless forest.
But nothing else made sense, either. The reasons didn’t matter. Only what he was sure he knew. So, then, there were soldiers in the house. Downstairs, most likely. He would have heard them, if they’d come up the stairs. No, they’d be waiting in the big room, muskets loaded in readiness, waiting for him to step through the doorway.
“I’m not comin’ down,” he called. His voice was muffled against his shirt, but he didn’t doubt the Doctor could hear him all the same. He was as sharp as a cat, when he wanted to be. “I’m not stupid, ye know. I’m not gonnae – give myself up.”
The last couple of words cracked, splintering like glass, like the ice in his chest – but he’d done as much as he could. He couldn’t have asked any more of his own nerve. Not when it was taking all his strength to hold himself together, hands white-knuckled against the floor.
Something creaked, down below. The Doctor had taken a step up towards him.
“I, ah – I don’t pretend to know what you mean by giving yourself up.” His voice was lower than before, gentler, but just as clear through the door. Some new magic trick of his, no doubt. “But I never said you were stupid. I, ah – I really just wanted to know if you were alright.”
He was a good actor, Jamie had to give him that. If he hadn’t known better, he would almost have thought the Doctor really was worried, gentle and just a little hurt.
“You, ah -” The Doctor’s voice dropped just a little more, the rumble of it soft against Jamie’s ear like they were sitting side by side. Half of him wanted to shiver, and half of him wanted to melt down into the sound. He settled for squirming his back against the door, shaking off the sensation. “You scared me, you know.”
He sounded so genuine about it, that was the problem. Like Jamie really had scared him, by locking himself away. Like he could have an ounce of care left, after what he must have worked out.
And – Jamie couldn’t stand the thought of scaring him. He really, truly couldn’t.
But he didn’t know if he was safe.
The Doctor would have had to walk a long way, he thought, to go and fetch soldiers. This wasn’t like someone in the village discovering him. There wasn’t a good solid path around them for miles, let alone a stout military road. It wasn’t as if the Doctor could have walked out through the gate and just happened to bump into a man in a red coat. The sun would have had to set and rise again many times over before he could have left and returned with a soldier in tow. For someone to be waiting in the big room – it didn’t make sense.
Unless it did. Unless there’d been a squad prowling through the forest, looking for some other poor fugitive – or unless the Doctor had used some magic trick, some way of shrinking time or distance that he’d never shared with Jamie.
The Doctor’s voice in his ear had been persuasive, sure – but it couldn’t erase his doubts. Not entirely. There was still fear in him, wave after wave of chills that even the low rumble of the Doctor’s words couldn’t smooth away.
“You, ah – you don’t have to talk about it, you know,” the Doctor added, sudden enough that Jamie startled upright. “Not if you don’t want to. It, ah – it’s your business. I shan’t push.”
He was still gentle, still soothing. Like he was with the animals he found out in the forest, the sparrows and blackbirds he tempted closer to himself with an outstretched hand and a soft voice and a few tricks of his mind. Just the thought of that of being some wild animal to be tamed – Jamie felt something snap inside himself, almost audibly. Fear turning to anger. Flight turning to fight.
If the Doctor thought he was some sort of wild animal – he might as well remind him that he had claws.
“Of course ye don’t need tae ask,” he bit out. “Ye already know.”
That was met with silence, first of all.
If he hadn’t known the Doctor so well, he might have thought he’d stunned him. Might have counted it as a victory. But he could imagine him all too well, down there, thinking it over. Recalibrating. Like some sort of general, repelled on one front, mulling over which one to try next.
And sure enough – there was a creak at the bottom of the stairs. Then another, then another. The Doctor’s footsteps crept closer and closer until they hit the landing, right on the squeakiest floorboard in the whole house. He knew it was there, of course, and he knew Jamie did, too. He wanted Jamie to know he’d come closer. And at last, in one final tactical flourish, there was a thud against the door, clear as day. He’d sat down, right on the other side, no doubt perfectly back-to-back with where Jamie sat. Smaller, less threatening than if he’d been standing, but undeniably there.
“I’ll, ah – I’ll tell you what I know, shall I?” The Doctor’s voice was muffled, now, not so close against Jamie’s ear. Whatever spell he’d wrought had been dropped. It was just – him, as human as he’d ever been, and the door between them. “There’s a – a small piece of metal buried in your leg. Some sort of projectile, I imagine. It’s been in there for – oh, perhaps a year or two. Long enough for the wound to have fully healed around it.”
Somehow, Jamie found himself nodding along with the Doctor’s words. They were – true, so far, but a little clueless, too. Just like when he’d first explained the village to the Doctor, and all its sufferings, and found the Doctor didn’t know half as much as he’d thought he would.
He’d trusted him, back then, that he truly was innocent. And he’d never been given a reason to doubt that.
“The wound never quite healed right,” the Doctor was carrying on. “And it still causes you pain. When I pointed it out, you panicked. But how you came by it, I’ve no idea.”
All accurate enough. All perfectly innocent.
Jamie only wished he knew what to make of it. Or what the Doctor might have held back.
“What do ye -” He swallowed. “What do ye know about the war, then?”
Again, the Doctor fell silent for a moment – but it wasn’t a calculating silence, anymore. He shifted, just a little, the weight of him whispering against the floorboards, but as far as Jamie could tell, he didn’t really move. This time, he thought, this time he really was thinking it over.
“I, ah – I know there was a war,” he said slowly. “A year or two ago. I heard that much.” Silence lapsed back between them, but Jamie didn’t dare disturb it. Something more was coming, he was sure of that. “I never did find out what they were fighting for, I must say. Let alone who won.” Something ticked against the floor, dull and sharp all at once, like the Doctor was tapping the tips of his fingers against the wood as he chose his next words. “But I – I suppose, if you’re asking about it now, then that must have been when you were wounded, mustn’t it?”
So maybe it hadn’t been the brightest idea to just ask like that, then. If the Doctor truly hadn’t know before, he certainly did now.
Still, he was speaking so gently, quiet and calm and even, and Jamie couldn’t help but think he really did know what those birds felt like, just a little. There was so much to be frightened of, in the world, so much for his fluttering fear to seize hold of – but something in his heart was convinced that the safest thing to do was to leap right into the Doctor’s hands.
If it truly had been magic, he would have expected to feel something. A funny sort of buzzing in the back of his skull, maybe, like the prickling that came before a lightning strike. It was always there, whenever the Doctor dipped into his magic, even when he was just beckoning some little creature of the forest closer. But it wasn’t there now. Almost as if this strange effect was just because he was the Doctor, not because he was casting some sort of spell on Jamie. Like his heart really did want to leap out of his chest and through the door to land between the Doctor’s palms.
He liked the thought of that even less, somehow.
“Are -” He swallowed. “Are the soldiers comin’? Or are they already here?”
It was a silly question, he knew that. As if the Doctor would just tell him, if there really was someone downstairs. Surely the Doctor’s answering silence was proof of that. He couldn’t believe Jamie would bother asking something so obvious.
“I’ve no taste for soldiers, you know,” he said after a moment. “Nasty fellows, in my – ah – admittedly rather limited experience. I certainly wouldn’t want any of them wandering around my house.”
Which was – quite possibly the most Doctor-ish reply he could have given, Jamie thought. Of course someone like him wouldn’t be fond of soldiers. And that thought set his mind ticking, ticking, thinking it over again. Ferreting out all the loose threads, all the bits of the story in his head that didn’t make sense.
Where would the soldiers have come from, if the Doctor had brought them?
The village, almost certainly, unless he’d bumped into someone on what little road there was. There was nowhere closer on this side of the mountains.
And any soldiers coming from the village would have heard talk of a wizard. They’d see a price on the Doctor’s head, just as much as on Jamie’s. No man with a musket and a coin-greedy purse could have passed up the chance to nab both of them at once.
None of it hung together. There had been no time for the Doctor to fetch soldiers, and he wouldn’t even have thought to do it in the first place. Jamie knew that with more certainty than any of his panic could surmount.
And yet.
“Are ye sure?” he asked.
“Oh,” was all the Doctor said for a moment. He shuffled, on the other side of the door, but Jamie couldn’t imagine what he might be doing. “Oh, Jamie.”
Something cracked in his voice, on Jamie’s name. It was – sorrowful, maybe, but not pitiful. Like he’d finally managed to grasp something. And something in Jamie cracked, too, like the bullet had been lodged in his chest rather than in his thigh, and it had just wormed its way out, spilling over in a waterfall of blood and flesh and bone. His hands raised automatically, clutching against his ribs to catch a deluge that wasn’t there.
He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strangled croak, too quiet to have filtered through the door. Still, he was sure the Doctor must have heard it.
“I suppose, ah -” The Doctor’s words were delicate, like he was stepping through a spider’s web, trying not to pluck on a single silk. “I suppose your side must have lost, then.”
Funny how he kept on nodding, even though the Doctor couldn’t see him.
“Look, ah, Jamie -” Again, he could hear the Doctor shuffling around out there, but try as he might, he couldn’t make out the purpose of it. “I really do just want to see that you’re alright, you know.”
And – Jamie believed him. He really, really did.
But believing him and opening the door were two different things.
“I’d like to come in, if you’ll allow me,” the Doctor carried on. “But, ah – I won’t, if you don’t want me to.”
Slowly, tremulously, Jamie tipped his head back against the door to look up at the handle above him. It was only a couple of inches away, blown larger by the odd angle, a plain knob of dented, scratched brass. But hanging over him like this – it felt more like an executioner’s axe, suspended over his neck and ready to drop.
He’d locked the Doctor out of his own room, running away up here. Which was silly, and thoughtless, and there was still a little part of him that couldn’t believe the Doctor wasn’t raging, but -
He’d come up here because it was safe. The Doctor’s room was safe.
Slowly, unsteadily, hand trembling all the way, he reached up to turn the doorknob.
He didn’t quite – push the door open, exactly. Just slipped it forward far enough that the latch couldn’t fall into place. Enough that the Doctor could see it was open, but couldn’t see anything of Jamie himself.
And then he let his hand fall back into his lap, and waited.
The door swayed slightly, loosened into the air – but it didn’t shift any further. Whatever the Doctor was doing out there, he wasn’t opening it himself.
And Jamie didn’t know what to do with that. Because he’d really thought the Doctor would push his way inside, one way or another, as soon as he was given the chance. Whether it was out of true concern, or whether he truly did have a soldier tucked away downstairs, or whether he was just frustrated at being locked out of his room – Jamie had been sure he’d be in there as soon as the opportunity presented itself. But instead, it seemed like he was just waiting. Letting Jamie come to him, not the other way around.
He was still a wild creature, then. Something the Doctor had befriended out in the forest. But he found he didn’t mind so much, anymore. The Doctor could be – impatient, when the mood took him. Rushing past everything and everyone in his single-minded determination to get what he wanted. Even with Jamie, he could be brusque, when he wasn’t quite being understood. More than one lazy afternoon spent bent over a book together had ended with the Doctor grumbling that it was quite simple, really, and Jamie snapping back.
But now, when it really mattered, he was just… quiet. Letting Jamie take things at his own pace.
That, more than anything, felt like safety.
Drawing in a deep breath, Jamie flexed his fingers open and closed, just once – and then pushed the door open a little further, just enough to catch a glimpse out into the corridor.
The Doctor was leaning against the wall, head tipped back against the plaster and knees pulled up against his chest. He looked for all the world like he was entirely relaxed, quite happy to keep on waiting for Jamie forever – but it was his hands that gave him away, as they so often did. They were cupped in the cradle between his thighs and his stomach, twisting endlessly, fingers tugging at thumbs and nails picking at skin. One spot was bleeding, a scarlet bead bright against the red, irritated skin around it.
The door had already started to creak open by the time Jamie realised he’d been leaning forward intently, head pressed against the wood – and the Doctor startled at the sharp sound, scrambling to turn towards Jamie, legs folding clumsily beneath him. His hands dipped down to tuck in between his thighs, pressed together until they were still.
“Jamie,” he said softly, eyes wide and lips parted, like he’d expected more words to come out of his own mouth.
“Do ye -” Jamie swallowed. It was – different, somehow, looking at him like this. Speaking these words while looking him in the eyes, watching every tiny shift in his face. Reluctantly, he settled his eyes on the Doctor’s collar instead, struggling to muster up the familiar desire to straighten the Doctor’s ever-crooked necktie just to take the edge off his whirling brain. “Do ye really not know?”
The Doctor’s mouth opened a little further, his breath sucking in with a whoosh of air and a slight hitching of his chest. “I, ah -” He wetted his lips. “I truly don’t, you know.”
He didn’t.
Looking at him, like this… It was harder to get the words out, sure – but it was easier, too. Easier to know that he was telling the truth.
Nodding to himself, Jamie sat back on his haunches, smoothing his palms over his thighs. They stuck to the wool of his kilt as he went, sticky with sweat, and for the first time he could feel the state he was in. Without fear flushing him with heat, his whole body felt cold and clammy. Something tacky was stuck across his cheeks, like salt had dried on his skin, but he couldn’t quite muster the courage to reach up and check whether he really had been crying. In truth, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
But the Doctor was still looking at him as if he was – some sort of miracle. Like he’d half-expected that the door would open and nobody would be behind it, even though he’d been speaking to Jamie for a good few minutes now.
“I, ah – I don’t need to know, either,” he added, a little more slowly. His eyes kept darting towards Jamie and away again, as if looking at him for too long might spook him. “I – I do realise this has caused you some distress -”
All that fading terror had left Jamie feeling – empty, more than anything. It wasn’t comfort that had vanquished his fear, but some great void inside him, swallowing up everything he might have felt. But some part of him must have recovered, at least, because he fought back the urge to snort at the Doctor’s words. Some distress was one way of putting it.
“But I truly don’t need to know,” the Doctor was carrying on. “I – I know who you are now.” Tentatively, he shuffled a little closer, propelling himself across the floor with his hands. “Whatever brought you here is – is yours, to share or forget as you wish.” His eyes were steady on Jamie’s, now, his voice solemn as an oath. “Just so long as you’re my friend. That’s, ah – that’s all that matters.”
And just like that, his words struck straight through Jamie’s chest, a lance all the way to the gap that had crumbled through his ribcage before. A new blow to an already-open wound. And the Doctor didn’t know a thing about it.
Because – the Doctor still didn’t know what had brought him here. Not really. He could guess at the war, at Jamie’s flight – he knew that Jamie had spent some time in the village down below – but there was no way he could figure out the rest. Maybe he thought something had caused Jamie to flee from the villagers. Or maybe he just thought Jamie had given up on life amongst other people entirely, heading into the forest as some sort of safe haven.
He couldn’t guess why Jamie had set foot here. He couldn’t know what – who – Jamie had been looking for.
Most of all, he couldn’t know that the knife tucked away amongst the rest of Jamie’s belongings had been intended for him.
Was it fair, then, to tell him anything? To let him think he knew Jamie, that Jamie had opened up his heart to him, when in reality he knew nothing at all?
“I think -” Jamie drew in a deep, rattling breath. He must have been crying, in those foggy minutes or hours when he’d been curled up against the door. There was still dampness sewn through his lungs. “I think ye deserve tae know.”
Maybe it was all the more reason to tell him something, the fact that he knew so little. After all his kindness, today more than any other day – the Doctor really did deserve some explanation.
“Oh – Jamie, no,” the Doctor protested, hands untangling to wave frantically towards Jamie, as if he could ward his words away. “I really don’t – I didn’t intend, you know, for you to -”
“There was a war,” Jamie cut across him, as firmly as he could manage. His voice wobbled, just a little, but it must have been firm enough, because the Doctor fell silent, mouth closing softly, slowly. His hands fell back into his lap automatically, like he’d been caught under one of his own spells. “’Cause people couldnae decide who they wanted tae be king. Or – we could decide, we just couldnae agree, I ‘spose.”
The words were strange, in his mouth, oddly-shaped, like he was trying to force them through a wrong-shaped hole. How could he possibly explain something so – so obvious to him, and so foreign to the Doctor?
“The man my side thought should be king -” He swallowed. Drew in a deep, steadying breath. Curled his hands into fists, knuckles pressed tight against the floor. “Well, he wasn’t, anymore. But we thought we could make him the king again. So we went tae war over it.”
The war had taken everything from him, piece by piece, flaying him open and leaving him bare and raw and bleeding. He’d only just started to grow his skin back again, up here, away from the world. Speaking these words to the Doctor – it was like he was bringing it in, looking at a creature with bared teeth and ravenous claws and inviting it in through the gate. The only way to explain it all was to bring the feeling back, to crack his ribcage apart again and let the Doctor see the emptiness inside.
“I’d seen – twenty-one summers,” he said. “When the war started. Ye think ye know what it’s gonnae be like, ye think ye can imagine it, but it’s -”
Blood and rain and mud and the stench of it, bodies strewn across the field, indescribable. He knew, now, why no man he knew had ever mentioned the smell of battle before. It crept into you like a miasma, trickled down your throat and into your lungs until it tainted your breath, heavy on your tongue with every exhale, and you thought you’d never be rid of it. He still tasted it sometimes, early in the morning or late at night when the memories grew too heavy to handle, that same scent rotting him from the inside out. Even now, he could feel it, thick and pasty at the base of his tongue.
His breath was rising, his heartbeat pounding ever-louder in his chest, his vision blurring around the edges -
But then it all froze. Every surging bit of panic stilled.
The Doctor had reached out to settle his hand over the back of Jamie’s. He didn’t move away, even when Jamie glanced up to meet his eyes. Just smiled, a wan, humourless thing, barely more than a press of lips. It wasn’t right, not for the Doctor, to be smiling without a hint of merriment on his face – but he looked just as grim as Jamie felt, in that moment, and somehow, that was better than anything.
He could tell it. For the Doctor’s sake.
“So many men died,” he choked out. “Good men. Men I knew, I – my friends. My family.” The Doctor’s hand tightened over his, but that only made his breath catch more, each word rising and falling unnaturally. “An’ it was all for nothin’, ‘cause – ‘cause we lost. There was a battle, at the end, an’ we lost, an’ – so many of them died. Too many. We couldnae go on.”
“But you survived,” the Doctor said softly.
One of his fingers had slipped down from the back of Jamie’s hand, brushing lightly over the web of skin between his forefinger and thumb. The gentle motion sent prickles down Jamie’s spine, the sort that he might have taken a guilty sort of pleasure in, on any other day. Now, though, it just made the churning in his stomach worsen.
“I ran away,” he snapped. “I left the others tae die. I ran away an’ saved my own skin.”
And he’d -
He’d never said that out loud before.
The realisation struck him like a bayonet, like a boot to the stomach forcing all the air out of him. He rocked backwards, steady though he was with his legs folded beneath him, the world spinning around him. Every breath was coming short and sharp, each higher and quicker than the last, his chest hitching in protest each time his lungs tried to draw in air. The Doctor’s hand was still pressed down over his, but he couldn’t feel it anymore, the whole world gone cold and quiet and distant.
Salt seeped through his lips and into his mouth, just far enough to perch on the tip of his tongue. Somewhere along the way, his frenzied breathing had turned into sobs, each one wracking his whole body until his stomach ached with them. Shaking off the Doctor’s hold, he wrapped his arms around himself as if he could stave off the pain.
And then – his arms were being pulled away. There was strength in the motion, but gentleness, too, his control over his own limbs far too distant for him to put up any sort of fight. The Doctor must have shuffled forwards across the floor, because he was gathering him up like a ragdoll, hauling Jamie upright and into a hug. He handled him as if he was shaping wet clay, wrapping Jamie’s arms loosely around his back and tucking his chin against his shoulder. Instead of salt against Jamie’s mouth, there was fabric, soft but just a little stiff, full of the odd smell of woodsmoke and herbs and sparking embers that followed the Doctor everywhere.
“There you are,” the Doctor was murmuring. He was moving, as if he was trying to rock Jamie back and forth, but could only manage to tip him this way and that at odd intervals. “There you are. It’s alright.”
“I -” Another round of sobs cut off Jamie’s words at the root, and he burrowed his face tighter against the Doctor’s shoulder, gasping for air. “I left – left them tae – die,” he spat out, the words horribly garbled in between his rolling, choking breaths. “I was – a coward, an’ -”
“Shh,” the Doctor soothed. One hand had come up to cup the back of Jamie’s head, now, fingers burrowing through his hair to move gently against his scalp. “It’s not your fault. And you certainly weren’t a coward.”
“Weren’t I?” Jamie had meant for it to come out biting, cynical – but in the end, it sounded more like a plea. The shame of it might have shrivelled up his heart.
“Of course you weren’t,” the Doctor said, just as low and calm and steady as before. He seemed very sure about it, somehow, as if he couldn’t imagine a world where Jamie was a coward.
Jamie couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t.
“It sounds to me,” the Doctor went on, “as if you couldn’t have done anything, or else you would have been killed, too. And what good would that have done, hm?”
And Jamie was -
Weak.
Terribly, terribly weak.
Because those were the words that he’d been hoping to hear for so long, now. Just the sort of – excuse, justification, explanation, he didn’t know what. Just the sort of comfort he’d craved. And here was the Doctor, saying it as if it was obvious, as if anyone would think the same way.
The dead men Jamie had left behind wouldn’t have thought so, he was sure of that. But he was weak. And his feeble heart wanted to believe the Doctor’s words more than anything.
“It is not your fault,” the Doctor repeated. “Truly, it isn’t. You couldn’t have saved them. And you are most certainly not responsible for the fact that they died.”
All the deepest, greediest parts of Jamie were rejoicing, somewhere inside him. There were the words that they’d always wanted to hear, tripping so readily off the Doctor’s tongue.
The rush of relief that came with them nearly had him retching, even more than the stale taste of battle in his mouth. It was all mixing together, grief and greed and guilt. Two guilts, in fact, because the Doctor was saying all this without knowing a thing about what had brought Jamie to his door. He as cradling Jamie like a child without so much as an inkling that Jamie had been tasked with slitting his throat.
“I’ve never -” His breathing had evened out, just a little, but the effort of speech still made him break out into a fit of coughs. The Doctor rubbed his back through it, coaxing air back into his lungs with a firm palm against his spine. “I’ve never – told anyone all that, before.”
He was all mixed up inside, he knew. Confused and frightened, clinging to the Doctor like he was a splintering branch sprouting from a cliff-face, the only thing between him and empty air and oblivion. He’d been so mixed up since he bolted away from the Doctor downstairs, else he would never have let everything spill out like this.
Maybe it had been a mistake. No – he was certain it had been. It couldn’t be anything else.
“Well, ah -” The Doctor’s hand stilled against his back, like he could feel the turmoil of Jamie’s thoughts through shirt and skin and flesh. “I’m honoured to be the first, then.”
Jamie was all mixed up inside, yes – but that was how he knew things had gone too far. He was in too deep.
If he hadn’t been, he would never have told the Doctor this.
For far too long, he’d been playing around with his own heart. Letting himself know the Doctor, trust the Doctor, like the Doctor. Letting himself look the man he was supposed to kill in the eyes, rather than cutting him down quick. All because he hadn’t had the stomach to do it straight away, and then because he’d discovered he was innocent.
Coward. Coward, coward, coward.
And now he’d gone and told the Doctor all his secrets. Everything that put a price on his head, everything that could take his life.
Well, all his secrets bar one. And that one was lethal all on its own.
What would the people in the village think, if they could see him now? Crying in the arms of the person he was supposed to kill?
The Doctor was still speaking, still soothing him, still rubbing his back and arms and neck and head in turns – but Jamie could barely feel it anymore. His eyes were pressed shut, his hands curled in his lap, his shoulders hunched in on themselves. The Doctor’s comfort seemed terribly far away.
He’d let this go on for far too long. Let things go too far. And he couldn’t kid himself any longer. The creature was at the gate, teeth bared and claws hungry for blood, and whatever peaceful little dream-world he’d built for himself had shattered in the face of its slitted, furious eyes. The real world had forced its way inside. This wasn’t about the village, anymore, or what the Doctor might or might not have done to them. This was about what he’d done to Jamie.
Because – he’d made Jamie believe that he could have a life. That he could be forgiven, when he didn’t deserve to be. That the past was the past, and the future was his to take.
And Jamie couldn’t afford to believe any of it.
So no more cowardice, then. No more handing over the soft, bleeding parts of himself as thoughtlessly as if he was tossing aside a stone. It didn’t matter whether the Doctor was dangerous to other people. He was dangerous to Jamie, now, hands turning red with the weight of all Jamie’s secrets. And that meant only one thing.
This had to end.
More than that – Jamie had to finish it. And soon.
Before he had no way out.