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locker_monsterTitle: Echoes (5/10)
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Eleven, Amy, Rory, Amy/Rory
Timeline: Post-"Death of the Doctor" and post-"A Christmas Carol" and pre-"An Impossible Astronaut"
Summary: The Doctor runs into an old enemy, and an old friend, when the TARDIS lands in 18th century Scotland.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Once again, a big thank you to my beta
punch_kicker15. You rock!
Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four.
“Going somewhere?”
Amy’s horse riding experience was minimal. A quick ride to Stonehenge was about the extent of it and that had only been a one way trip. So she knew very little about whether someone was heading out for a short run or something longer. Still, she knew the look of someone wanting to get away from it all and she definitely saw that in Jamie McCrimmon as he stood ready to mount a horse. It wasn’t a nervous energy that radiated from him. It was the barely contained excitement of someone about to embark on an adventure. She saw the same with the Doctor all the time. It was impossible they didn’t know each other. They had so many quirks in common.
“Amy, wasna it?” Jamie absently patted the nose of the saddled horse he stood next to. The horse stamped one of its hooves impatiently, like a child who was promised ice cream but was currently getting nothing.
“You didn’t answer my question.” She moved to stand across from him, the horse between them. Amy was slightly amused to notice she was a littler taller than Jamie.
“Oh? Aye. Fiona gets a wee moody if she dinnae get in a good run.”
Away from the confusing presence of the Doctor, Jamie was more relaxed. It didn’t seem right to bring up the Doctor just then, but Amy didn’t want to leave either. “Do you want some company?” She could use a good run, too, after all the blood and pain she had seen inside the house.
“Our mysterious metal men could be lurking about.” Jamie was concerned for her safety, but not in a sexist way. More a gentlemanly, 18th century sort of way.
“Well, that’s not stopping you, now is it?” She looked around for another saddle.
“Here.” He handed her the reins to Fiona, sounding vaguely annoyed but slightly amused as well. “Up ye go.”
“What about you?” Amy stuck her right foot in the stirrup and hauled herself up over the horse. It wasn’t the most graceful mount but she got herself settled. The animal gave a short whinny but it didn’t buck her off.
“Shift forward.” At first, she thought Jamie was talking to his horse. Then she realized he was talking to her. He didn’t wait for her to move and he deftly mounted the horse, coming to rest behind her in the saddle. Jamie leaned forward, to take the reins from her, and he must have felt the muscles in her back stiffen. “Would yer husband protest? It’s easier to flee on one horse.”
From any other guy, the whole ‘easier to flee on one horse’ thing would have been a weak excuse to get up close and personal, but Amy didn’t get that from Jamie. He knew she had people waiting for her and he just wanted to make sure she got back safe. She seemed to be making a habit of running off with strange men though.
“Just don’t try anything or you’ll be eating a mouthful of grass.”
A brief smile tugged at the corners of Jamie’s mouth. Gently nudging Fiona in the sides, he urged the horse on in Gaelic. They left the barn at a steady trot and soon they left Glen Beagan behind.
The last time Amy rode a horse, she had been more concerned about staying on than about enjoying the ride or the scenery. But this time, with Jamie behind her doing all of the steering and helping her to stay in the saddle, the experience was much more satisfying. The closest thing she could relate it to was riding a motorcycle. You were exposed to the open air with the wind whipping at your hair, a powerful motor – or this case, animal – to carry you along. There was no roar of the engine though, just the pounding of hooves.
For the first ten minutes of the ride, they didn’t talk. They shot over the ragged landscape, putting miles behind them as though Fiona had wings. Amy had seen a lot of places while with the Doctor – planets with green skies and fields full of singing flowers – but this was different. It was a simple beauty of a gently curving hill or the stately serenity of a cloud filled sky streaked with orange from the setting sun. Ordinary things she took for granted while speeding down a motorway stuffed inside a car or while hopping from star to star in a blue box.
When Jamie finally slowed Fiona to a stop, Glen Beagan was just a collection of grey squares in the distance. Without any visible lights from the homes, the hamlet was slowly blending in with the mountainside as the sun set.
The small size of Leadworth used to drive Amy mad, but she couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life in a puny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. “How did you end up out here?” she asked Jamie, turning as far as she could in the saddle to catch a glimpse of him.
He swung down off the saddle and offered a hand to Amy. “I had nowhere else to go.” It was simple fact for Jamie and he spoke without a hint of resentment.
She took his hand and hopped off Fiona. The horse seemed to give a grateful snort. It wandered off to graze on a clump of grass, leaving her and Jamie to sit down on a nearby rock to watch the sunset.
“You didn’t want to go somewhere more exciting?”
Jamie looked at Amy like she had spoken in another language. “Why would I want exciting?”
Without realizing it, they had come back to the topic of the Doctor. Amy couldn’t see the harm in talking about Jamie’s memory of him, or lack thereof, now. “I just thought, after all the things you’ve seen–”
“Aye, men being slaughtered before my eyes. I’d want to see more of that.” Jamie’s tone was very dry, but there was a hint of bitterness in his voice as well.
“I don’t mean Culloden.” That was the last thing Amy wanted to imply. “I mean all the things you saw while travelling with the Doctor.”
“The Doctor? Yer strange friend with the big hair?”
She tried not to laugh at the accurate description. “You must have travelled with him, Jamie. You just don’t remember.”
Jamie shook his head. “Yer wrong, Amy.”
“Come on. Cybermen. How do you know about them? The English didn’t use big metal men during the Uprising. And all that medical knowledge. People in the 18th century don’t believe in germs.”
“I dinnae ken!” Jamie’s voice rang out sharply across the vast foothills. There wasn’t a bite of anger to his words. It was desperation. He took a deep breath as he tried to regain his calm composure. “I ken things I dinnae understand. I can read and write but I never learned how. I dream of places and men that belong in stories. It’s like I lived another life.”
Amy’s hands tightened in her lap. Another life. She knew exactly how that felt, to have an echo of an existence hanging over you like a ghost. She leaned close to Jamie and looked him right in the eyes. “You’re not crazy. You’ve visited those places and you’ve met those men. You just forgot.”
Jamie stared back at her, his gaze searching her face for any signs that she was lying or just having a laugh at his expense. All he saw was Amy’s open face, her eyes shining with truth. “Ye dinnae just forget something so daft.”
“You can forget, but you can remember, too. It’s all there, Jamie. No one ever forgets the Doctor.” All it Jamie needed was the right catalyst, the right word to set off a cascade of memories. It had happened at her wedding; why couldn’t it happen here?
“Amy!”
The Doctor’s approach should have been anything but silent, but she didn’t hear him gallop up on a horse until he was nearly on top of them. He shouted her name like he had caught his youngest daughter snogging a boy in the shrubbery. Guiding his horse to a swift stop, he jumped down from the saddle.
She had to wonder how he had found her and Jamie out in the middle of nowhere; she wasn’t even carrying a mobile for him to track.
Before she could ask, or say anything at all, the Doctor grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “Congratulations; you’ve achieved a new world record for wandering off in the middle of a crisis.”
Amy tugged her arm free. “You didn’t say I had to stay in the hamlet. And even if you did, you know I wouldn’t have listened.”
The Doctor might have been amused by her comment, but he remained resolute. “Back to Glen Beagan. Now.”
“Fine, but only if you tell me why Jamie can’t remember you.”
Jamie had watched them silently, his gaze whipping back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. His gaze settled on the Doctor now and he stared keenly at the Time Lord.
The Doctor spared a glance at the Scot, but he quickly looked away. Instead, he guided Amy out of earshot from Jamie. “He can’t remember.”
“You told me nothing’s forgotten. If I remember people who didn’t exist how hard can it be for Jamie to bring back some memories.”
“Amy.” The Doctor grabbed her arms and pulled her close until their foreheads were nearly touching. “He can’t remember.”
It wasn’t an angry rebuke. It was a regretful plea. Jamie just couldn’t remember; he wasn’t allowed to. The realization hit Amy hard in the chest and she struggled to breathe for a moment. She had seen some horrible things be done to people, but this was something else entirely. Memories were your own. It was unusually cruel to take them away for a purpose. No wonder the Doctor didn’t like to talk about it.
Amy slipped free from the Doctor’s grip, a terrible thought dawning on her. “Did you make him forget?”
The Doctor went still as a Weeping Angel. He should have dismissed her immediately, but that moment’s hesitation said it all. Jamie’s missing memories was the Doctor’s fault. Amy took a step away from him, surprised she was right but wishing like hell she had been wrong.
“Doctor?”
“Not now, Jamie,” snapped the Doctor. The reply seemed to come to him automatically and he didn’t even glance over at the Scot. “Amy…” His tone softened. She thought for a second he was going to explain. “Get back to Glen Beagan. We can search the mountains for the Cybership in the morning.”
There were times when Amy could put up with the Doctor and his inability to express himself properly. This wasn’t one of them. “What happened?” she demanded, stressing each word.
Without anything to fiddle with, the Doctor was a bundle of nervous energy. He clenched his fists anxiously.
The thunder of hooves drowned out anything the Doctor was about the say. Jamie, a hunched form mounted atop Fiona, took off across the open field, his coat tails flapping behind him. He was gone in a flash, disappearing into the dusty twilight back to Glen Beagan.
Amy was ready to follow his example, and leave the Doctor to walk back, when she noticed the hamlet. At first she thought a sliver of dying daylight had lit one of the buildings, but then she noticed the orange streaks were moving far too much to be part of the sunset.
The hamlet was on fire.
Amy felt her throat tighten. Rory.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Eleven, Amy, Rory, Amy/Rory
Timeline: Post-"Death of the Doctor" and post-"A Christmas Carol" and pre-"An Impossible Astronaut"
Summary: The Doctor runs into an old enemy, and an old friend, when the TARDIS lands in 18th century Scotland.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Once again, a big thank you to my beta
punch_kicker15. You rock!Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four.
“Going somewhere?”
Amy’s horse riding experience was minimal. A quick ride to Stonehenge was about the extent of it and that had only been a one way trip. So she knew very little about whether someone was heading out for a short run or something longer. Still, she knew the look of someone wanting to get away from it all and she definitely saw that in Jamie McCrimmon as he stood ready to mount a horse. It wasn’t a nervous energy that radiated from him. It was the barely contained excitement of someone about to embark on an adventure. She saw the same with the Doctor all the time. It was impossible they didn’t know each other. They had so many quirks in common.
“Amy, wasna it?” Jamie absently patted the nose of the saddled horse he stood next to. The horse stamped one of its hooves impatiently, like a child who was promised ice cream but was currently getting nothing.
“You didn’t answer my question.” She moved to stand across from him, the horse between them. Amy was slightly amused to notice she was a littler taller than Jamie.
“Oh? Aye. Fiona gets a wee moody if she dinnae get in a good run.”
Away from the confusing presence of the Doctor, Jamie was more relaxed. It didn’t seem right to bring up the Doctor just then, but Amy didn’t want to leave either. “Do you want some company?” She could use a good run, too, after all the blood and pain she had seen inside the house.
“Our mysterious metal men could be lurking about.” Jamie was concerned for her safety, but not in a sexist way. More a gentlemanly, 18th century sort of way.
“Well, that’s not stopping you, now is it?” She looked around for another saddle.
“Here.” He handed her the reins to Fiona, sounding vaguely annoyed but slightly amused as well. “Up ye go.”
“What about you?” Amy stuck her right foot in the stirrup and hauled herself up over the horse. It wasn’t the most graceful mount but she got herself settled. The animal gave a short whinny but it didn’t buck her off.
“Shift forward.” At first, she thought Jamie was talking to his horse. Then she realized he was talking to her. He didn’t wait for her to move and he deftly mounted the horse, coming to rest behind her in the saddle. Jamie leaned forward, to take the reins from her, and he must have felt the muscles in her back stiffen. “Would yer husband protest? It’s easier to flee on one horse.”
From any other guy, the whole ‘easier to flee on one horse’ thing would have been a weak excuse to get up close and personal, but Amy didn’t get that from Jamie. He knew she had people waiting for her and he just wanted to make sure she got back safe. She seemed to be making a habit of running off with strange men though.
“Just don’t try anything or you’ll be eating a mouthful of grass.”
A brief smile tugged at the corners of Jamie’s mouth. Gently nudging Fiona in the sides, he urged the horse on in Gaelic. They left the barn at a steady trot and soon they left Glen Beagan behind.
The last time Amy rode a horse, she had been more concerned about staying on than about enjoying the ride or the scenery. But this time, with Jamie behind her doing all of the steering and helping her to stay in the saddle, the experience was much more satisfying. The closest thing she could relate it to was riding a motorcycle. You were exposed to the open air with the wind whipping at your hair, a powerful motor – or this case, animal – to carry you along. There was no roar of the engine though, just the pounding of hooves.
For the first ten minutes of the ride, they didn’t talk. They shot over the ragged landscape, putting miles behind them as though Fiona had wings. Amy had seen a lot of places while with the Doctor – planets with green skies and fields full of singing flowers – but this was different. It was a simple beauty of a gently curving hill or the stately serenity of a cloud filled sky streaked with orange from the setting sun. Ordinary things she took for granted while speeding down a motorway stuffed inside a car or while hopping from star to star in a blue box.
When Jamie finally slowed Fiona to a stop, Glen Beagan was just a collection of grey squares in the distance. Without any visible lights from the homes, the hamlet was slowly blending in with the mountainside as the sun set.
The small size of Leadworth used to drive Amy mad, but she couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life in a puny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. “How did you end up out here?” she asked Jamie, turning as far as she could in the saddle to catch a glimpse of him.
He swung down off the saddle and offered a hand to Amy. “I had nowhere else to go.” It was simple fact for Jamie and he spoke without a hint of resentment.
She took his hand and hopped off Fiona. The horse seemed to give a grateful snort. It wandered off to graze on a clump of grass, leaving her and Jamie to sit down on a nearby rock to watch the sunset.
“You didn’t want to go somewhere more exciting?”
Jamie looked at Amy like she had spoken in another language. “Why would I want exciting?”
Without realizing it, they had come back to the topic of the Doctor. Amy couldn’t see the harm in talking about Jamie’s memory of him, or lack thereof, now. “I just thought, after all the things you’ve seen–”
“Aye, men being slaughtered before my eyes. I’d want to see more of that.” Jamie’s tone was very dry, but there was a hint of bitterness in his voice as well.
“I don’t mean Culloden.” That was the last thing Amy wanted to imply. “I mean all the things you saw while travelling with the Doctor.”
“The Doctor? Yer strange friend with the big hair?”
She tried not to laugh at the accurate description. “You must have travelled with him, Jamie. You just don’t remember.”
Jamie shook his head. “Yer wrong, Amy.”
“Come on. Cybermen. How do you know about them? The English didn’t use big metal men during the Uprising. And all that medical knowledge. People in the 18th century don’t believe in germs.”
“I dinnae ken!” Jamie’s voice rang out sharply across the vast foothills. There wasn’t a bite of anger to his words. It was desperation. He took a deep breath as he tried to regain his calm composure. “I ken things I dinnae understand. I can read and write but I never learned how. I dream of places and men that belong in stories. It’s like I lived another life.”
Amy’s hands tightened in her lap. Another life. She knew exactly how that felt, to have an echo of an existence hanging over you like a ghost. She leaned close to Jamie and looked him right in the eyes. “You’re not crazy. You’ve visited those places and you’ve met those men. You just forgot.”
Jamie stared back at her, his gaze searching her face for any signs that she was lying or just having a laugh at his expense. All he saw was Amy’s open face, her eyes shining with truth. “Ye dinnae just forget something so daft.”
“You can forget, but you can remember, too. It’s all there, Jamie. No one ever forgets the Doctor.” All it Jamie needed was the right catalyst, the right word to set off a cascade of memories. It had happened at her wedding; why couldn’t it happen here?
“Amy!”
The Doctor’s approach should have been anything but silent, but she didn’t hear him gallop up on a horse until he was nearly on top of them. He shouted her name like he had caught his youngest daughter snogging a boy in the shrubbery. Guiding his horse to a swift stop, he jumped down from the saddle.
She had to wonder how he had found her and Jamie out in the middle of nowhere; she wasn’t even carrying a mobile for him to track.
Before she could ask, or say anything at all, the Doctor grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “Congratulations; you’ve achieved a new world record for wandering off in the middle of a crisis.”
Amy tugged her arm free. “You didn’t say I had to stay in the hamlet. And even if you did, you know I wouldn’t have listened.”
The Doctor might have been amused by her comment, but he remained resolute. “Back to Glen Beagan. Now.”
“Fine, but only if you tell me why Jamie can’t remember you.”
Jamie had watched them silently, his gaze whipping back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. His gaze settled on the Doctor now and he stared keenly at the Time Lord.
The Doctor spared a glance at the Scot, but he quickly looked away. Instead, he guided Amy out of earshot from Jamie. “He can’t remember.”
“You told me nothing’s forgotten. If I remember people who didn’t exist how hard can it be for Jamie to bring back some memories.”
“Amy.” The Doctor grabbed her arms and pulled her close until their foreheads were nearly touching. “He can’t remember.”
It wasn’t an angry rebuke. It was a regretful plea. Jamie just couldn’t remember; he wasn’t allowed to. The realization hit Amy hard in the chest and she struggled to breathe for a moment. She had seen some horrible things be done to people, but this was something else entirely. Memories were your own. It was unusually cruel to take them away for a purpose. No wonder the Doctor didn’t like to talk about it.
Amy slipped free from the Doctor’s grip, a terrible thought dawning on her. “Did you make him forget?”
The Doctor went still as a Weeping Angel. He should have dismissed her immediately, but that moment’s hesitation said it all. Jamie’s missing memories was the Doctor’s fault. Amy took a step away from him, surprised she was right but wishing like hell she had been wrong.
“Doctor?”
“Not now, Jamie,” snapped the Doctor. The reply seemed to come to him automatically and he didn’t even glance over at the Scot. “Amy…” His tone softened. She thought for a second he was going to explain. “Get back to Glen Beagan. We can search the mountains for the Cybership in the morning.”
There were times when Amy could put up with the Doctor and his inability to express himself properly. This wasn’t one of them. “What happened?” she demanded, stressing each word.
Without anything to fiddle with, the Doctor was a bundle of nervous energy. He clenched his fists anxiously.
The thunder of hooves drowned out anything the Doctor was about the say. Jamie, a hunched form mounted atop Fiona, took off across the open field, his coat tails flapping behind him. He was gone in a flash, disappearing into the dusty twilight back to Glen Beagan.
Amy was ready to follow his example, and leave the Doctor to walk back, when she noticed the hamlet. At first she thought a sliver of dying daylight had lit one of the buildings, but then she noticed the orange streaks were moving far too much to be part of the sunset.
The hamlet was on fire.
Amy felt her throat tighten. Rory.
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-06-18 01:04 am (UTC)*CRIES*
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Date: 2013-06-19 11:13 pm (UTC)re: Echoes 5/10
Date: 2013-06-18 08:37 pm (UTC)Re: Echoes 5/10
Date: 2013-06-19 11:14 pm (UTC)