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A Lasting Impression

Summary:

Jamie only knew him for a brief moment, but a certain boy had left an impact on him.
Written as a tribute to Hamish Wilson (1942-2020), who would have been 83 this month.

Work Text:

Throughout his travels across the universe, Jamie McCrimmon had met a lot of memorable people, but none of them had impacted him as much as the mysterious boy whose body he'd temporarily assumed in the dark and foreboding place that was the Land of Fiction.
For as long as they'd been able to escape the nightmarish universe, he had constantly thought about the boy. Who was he and where did he come from? He wished there were some way he could just put his queries out to the universe, for the mysterious boy to find them and reach out.

He hadn't forgotten that they'd met under cruel and unusual conditions, which Jamie felt partially guilty for, even though he was also a victim. What Jamie hadn't been around to see came to him in his subsequent dreams. He learned the boy had been brought to the Land of Fiction by the Stranger, who'd devised and coerced the boy into the face game. The boy had put up a fight against the Stranger, standing up for himself and unafraid to go toe to toe with a man who was bigger and stronger than him. He continued to put up a fight, even when the Stranger and the Master used Jamie to host the boy's mind, demanding to know what they were doing with both of them.

The chilling contrast between the way the Stranger had presented himself to the Doctor and the way he acted towards the boy made Jamie's blood run cold. He didn't fully trust the Stranger, and at the time, he couldn't pinpoint why. Now, he had the reason.

When a severe episode of depression pushed Jamie to confide in the Doctor that the boy was an imposter, the Doctor admitted he already knew and chose to believe the boy was Jamie, because he didn't want to think that he'd lost Jamie forever. He had to let the Master think he accepted the boy so that he could get Jamie back and defeat the Master. The Doctor knew what went into accomplishing the face game, and it angered him. The mind swap procedure was unregulated, and in many places, completely banned.

It was at that time that Jamie dropped a bombshell on the Doctor: the boy was an alien, and he had two hearts. There was only one race in the galaxy that possessed two hearts, and it was his people. It was the plot twist that he never saw coming, and he was beginning to see the situation in a whole new light.

Being in someone else's body, let alone an alien boy's, was both strange and frightening. Jamie had no idea how to feel about the two hearts he suddenly possessed, and a temporary but worrying case of farsightedness. Or perhaps it was an intentional choice by the Stranger and the Master to make him slightly less effective, but just enough to make sure things went their way. The subsequent panic attack that he tried to suppress gave him all sorts of aches and pains that he'd never experienced before, and he truly believed he was having a heart attack. He could only imagine how strange and uneasy it felt for the boy to be in his human body.

They had been together as one for a brief moment in time, and in some way, Jamie had bonded with him without really meeting him. He was glad to be back in his own body, but felt like he'd lost a friend. Despite the mind swap, some of the boy's personality remained. He was a kind and funny boy with a mischievous streak, who was strong and feisty, and Jamie liked that. Jamie was sure that he'd subconsciously channelled the boy's anger towards the Stranger when the man betrayed them to the toy soldiers. Ever since Ben had left, Jamie missed having a brother figure in his new life. If the Doctor were a father figure to him, then Ben was his brother in time and space. He wanted a brother to joke with, to laugh with, and a brother who understood him a bit better than the Doctor and Zoe did. It brought tears to his eyes to know that the boy stood up for him and refused to let the matter slide.

The Doctor bought a diary for Jamie and encouraged him to fill it with "letters" to the boy for the time being. As much as he knew that Jamie wanted to find the boy, he reminded Jamie that the boy might not wish to see him at the moment. When he felt that it was the right time, he would look for the boy.

When Jamie filled the last page of his diary, they transferred the writings to a small, white box and sent it out to the universe. The Doctor assured Jamie that, despite the vastness of the galaxy, it would reach the boy.

On the next adventure, Jamie relaxed outside the TARDIS on a warm night, admiring the beauty of the planets and the stars in the night sky. As he gazed at the stars, he remembered the little white box he had sent out into the universe and asked himself if his messages had reached the boy.

A star immediately twinkled with the most intense brightness he'd ever seen. The boy had received his messages.