locker_monster (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
locker_monster) wrote2013-07-15 07:39 pm
locker_monster) wrote2013-07-15 07:39 pm
Entry tags:
Doctor Who fic: Echoes (9/10)
Title: Echoes (9/10)
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. Chapter Five. Chapter Six. Chapter Seven. Chapter Eight.
Their instant came and went and no weapons were raised or fired. The Doctor took this as a good sign. He moved further into the room, the cyber-conversion room as he suspected, making sure to keep Amy behind him. Though, since they were the same height, he wasn’t much of a shield.
His gaze flew over the room, taking in all the details in a second. There were two levels, five conversion units on each level, covering three of the four walls. The Cybermen had been working on the inhabitants to the right of the door so the Doctor made sure to circle left to keep as much room as possible between him and the metal men. He felt Amy’s hand tighten on the back of his jacket as he noticed the Cyber-Leader and the bodies piled on the floor around its feet. He thought she was drawing his attention to the bodies but then he felt her hand leave the back of his jacket.
“Rory.” Amy muttered her husband’s name with a sigh of relief. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder. Amy’s attention was on a conversion unit in the back corner. Rory was plugged into the unit with thin tubes inserted into his skin; he was unconscious but still pink and fleshy, not grey and metallic.
The Cyber-Leader turned its head, its blank gaze landing on Amy. The Doctor took that as his cue.
“Blimey, you’ve been busy.” He jumped into the Cyber-Leader’s field of vision, blocking its view of Amy. “Attacking Scottish villages, converting the local population.” The Doctor looked down at the bodies around the Cyber-Leader’s feet. He would have called them Cybermen, but they were incomplete. Certain body parts had been replaced with cybernetic hardware, but from the look of things, the conversion process hadn’t taken. The bits of human skin he could see were livid and looked like melted wax and blood seeped from where metal joined tissue. “Only it’s not going so well, is it?”
He expected the Cyber-Leader to boast, to ramble on about how Cybermen were the superior race, but it just stared at the Doctor. Its subordinates behind it slowly fanned out, stalking around to stand opposite the Doctor. They stood directly in front of the door. Even if they got Rory out, they wouldn’t be able to leave. At least, not right at that moment. The situation was fluid. Anything could happen if they waited long enough.
“I haven’t seen you lot in ages.” He smiled at the Cyber-Leader like he was greeting an old friend. Behind him, he heard the sonic screwdriver whir softly though the sound was quickly followed by an annoyed grumble from Amy. “I always wondered why I didn’t see you during the Time War, but maybe now I know why.”
The Cyber-Leader’s right hand twitched and its head shook like it had a nervous tic. All of the Cybermen were a pale grey like the Cybermen on the bridge. The Doctor could imagine their temperatures were rising, cooking the organic brains within their helmets like a boiled egg.
“You encountered something a bit more potent than gold. Ran afoul with a race that could fight back?” The Cyber-Leader made no indication the Doctor had hit upon a sore subject, but he had always found that Cybermen were lousy conversationalists.
The sonic screwdriver buzzed again and Amy seemed to have more success this time. A heavy clang sounded from conversion unit. The Cyber-Leader lurched forward, drawn to the noise like a curious dog.
The Doctor leapt forward, putting himself closer to the Cyber-Leader. The only thing separating them now was a railing that ran around the console where the Cyber-Leader stood. The Cyberman could reach out and grab the Doctor around the throat if it liked. Banishing the thought to the back of his mind, the Doctor leaned casually on the railing. He bounced slightly on his feet, prepared to make a hasty retreat if the Cyber-Leader decided to lash out.
“I saw your head in a museum once. Not your head, but a random Cyberman head. It was in a glass case and it had a title card and everything. You were an oddity, not an intergalactic horror.”
More clangs sounded as the rest of the units unlocked. It was like Amy had tipped over a row of dominoes.
“Amy…” The Doctor kept his gaze trained on the Cyber-Leader.
“Blame the sonic,” she snapped.
The Cyber-Leader raised its arm and the Cybermen behind it raised their weapons. “You will become like us,” croaked the Cyber-Leader.
The Doctor couldn’t help but chuckle. “You said that the first time we met. But I don’t think it’s true this time. You can’t make any more Cybermen. The floor is literally littered with your failures. How many of you are left, I wonder? Were you the last of your fleet? One ship hurled back through time because there’s always one ship, one of you always survives. One Cybership to rule the universe. No, wait, that’s one ring.” He looked away from the Cyber-Leader, trying to reclaim his train of thought.
“You will become like us,” repeated the Cyber-Leader. Its intonation didn’t change, but to the Doctor’s ears it sounded desperate, like it was trying to convince itself that its race wasn’t on the brink of failure.
He looked back at the Cyberman or at the pale imitation of what it had become. All the times Cybermen claimed they didn’t have emotions the Doctor couldn’t help but think that was a lie. Their emotions were just buried and ignored, only rising to the surface when logic wasn’t enough.
These Cybermen were afraid.
“The virus is destroying everything you are. That head I saw in the museum won’t just be an oddity; it’ll be the truth.”
The Cyber-Leader clenched its raised hand into a fist. “We will survive.”
“Creag an tuire!”
The Gaelic war cry, going strangely untranslated by the TARDIS, drowned out any other threats the Cyber-Leader was about to utter. The seven Cybermen blocking the door turned, ready to shoot the next thing that moved.
The next thing that moved was Jamie. The Cybermen, perhaps remembering the last time they had met the Scot, hesitated in firing their weapons. It was all Jamie needed. He flung his arm, throwing a cloud of gold dust into the Cybermen’s faces. The ones closest to him immediately started to choke as their respiratory systems were clogged with the dust.
Shouting his war cry again, Jamie moved in for the kill. He raised the mighty axe he carried in his other hand and with a powerful swing he knocked off the head of the Cyberman to his right. A shower of sparks exploded from the Cyberman’s neck as its head flew across the room.
Shadows moved out in the corridor and the Doctor realized Jamie hadn’t come alone. Other townsfolk from Glen Beagan stormed into the cyber-conversion room, carrying weapons they had scrounged from their homes. Hatchets and scythes and shovels and hammers. They attacked the Cybermen with unparalleled ferocity, the need to defend their home pushing them forward. Blades flashed and blows were rained down on anything a shade of grey. The Cybermen tried to shoot their weapons but metal hands and arms were chopped off before their fingers could squeeze the trigger.
Choking on gold dust and overwhelmed, the seven Cybermen guarding the door were quickly on their way to becoming spare parts. Their death throes sounded like engines dying.
The Cyber-Leader reached for the weapon hanging at its side, intent on slaughtering the humans destroying its troops. The Doctor reached over the railing and he made a grab for the Cyber-Leader’s right arm. The metallic skin was hot to the touch, but he held on and he pulled, hoping to throw off the Cyberman’s aim. The Cyber-Leader pulled back and it yanked the Doctor clear off his feet and over the railing. The Doctor crashed head first amongst the dead bodies around the Cyber-Leader’s feet, smacking his forehead against the mangled helmet of a partly converted townsfolk. His vision swam and he struggled to get off the heap of failed Cybermen, but he couldn’t find any purchase amid the limp limbs and slippery metal. The smell of blood and oil was thick in the air, choking him as he drew in a frantic breath.
The Doctor blinked, his vision clearing. He recognized the expressionless face of the badly converted body before him. It was Donald.
“Doctor!”
Two voices rang out, both with a Scottish accent and both urgently trying to grab his attention. He looked up. And up. The Cyber-Leader towered over the Doctor, the barrel of its energy weapon pointed at his head.
“Let him go, beastie!” Jamie charged at the Cyber-Leader, his axe raised to cleave the metal man in the back.
The Cyber-Leader turned and with one swipe of its arm, it batted Jamie aside like he was an errant fly. The blow sent Jamie flying back and he crashed into an empty conversion unit with enough force to crack the glass front. The Scot fell limply to the floor and he didn’t stir.
The Doctor felt his hearts leap into his throat. The pile of bodies shifted beneath him as he tried to rise to his feet. He didn’t have a plan in mind, not this time, but he was overcome with the need to do something. He had lost one friend because of the Cybermen and he was not about to lose another.
The Cyber-Leader’s back was still turned to him as it seemed to bask in its defeat of Jamie. Pride was one emotion it had no problem embracing.
“Oi! Cyberman!”
The Doctor, and the Cyber-Leader, turned, but he already knew who was shouting. Amy’s accent fit right in with the other Scottish voices, but it was her use of slang that set her apart.
She had found a Cyber-gun from one of the fallen Cybermen and though the weapon was probably longer than her arm, she wielded it with confidence. “No one lays a hand on my husband except me.” Amy squeezed the trigger on the gun.
A bolt of energy discharged from the barrel of the gun, hitting the Cyber-Leader right in its chest unit. The Doctor dove forward, sliding underneath the railing to avoid the shower of sparks. The Cyber-Leader staggered backwards, crying out in pain in a tinny voice. A blow from one of the townsfolk brought it to its knees and a powerful swing with an axe knocked its head from its shoulders.
Violence was always a last resort, but the Doctor couldn’t chide Amy for her actions. She was protecting a loved one, as were the people of Glen Beagan. It was hard to stick to your principles when danger was on your doorstep.
The Doctor hurried over to Jamie’s side. To his relief, Jamie was still breathing but a smear of blood down the cracked glass of the conversion unit made him cringe. Sure enough, when the Doctor slid his hand underneath Jamie’s head his fingers touched something damp and warm.
“Jamie! Can you hear me?” If Rory had been conscious, he might have warned the Doctor not to move the Scot in case there was spinal damage, but the nurse was still out and being tended to by Amy. The Doctor went ahead and angled Jamie’s head towards him. He was hesitant to delve into Jamie’s mind but it was the only way he could make sure his old friend hadn’t suffered a serious head injury.
The Doctor closed his eyes and he put his hands on either side of Jamie’s face. With a slight push of will, he formed a psychic bond between them and with this bridge he crossed the mental landscape into Jamie’s consciousness.
On the surface everything was fine. Jamie’s thoughts zoomed around the Doctor, moving as fast as light. He caught glimpses of today’s events viewed through Jamie’s eyes and Jamie’s life since Culloden. The Scot would wake up with a headache but his brain had escaped injury. It was deeper down, though, where the true damage lay. The Doctor could feel the mental blocks the Time Lords had put in place. Even a race as powerful as the Time Lords couldn’t erase someone’s memories completely. A tiny part of Jamie still remembered their travels.
In the mental landscape of Jamie’s mind, the Doctor pushed deeper. In essence, he wasn’t pushing through anything, but his mind was presented with black veils that he shoved aside to reach the memory blocks. The material grew thinner with each step and soon he saw the glow of a distant light.
The mental projection of himself parted the last of the veils with a quick swipe of his arms and the flimsy barriers flew away. The Doctor found himself in a dark room with multiple windows all around him. He turned around on the spot, counting ten in all. Each window was boarded over with pieces of wood, only allowing small shafts of light in. When he put his eye to one crack, he saw the windows were like stained glass only instead of multiple colours the different sections were made up of different memories. Jamie’s life aboard the TARDIS.
When the Doctor pulled back from the window and he turned around, he was surprised to see he wasn’t alone anymore. Jamie, the young Jamie who he had met at Culloden Field, was seated in a chair in the middle of the room. He sat limply in the chair, his chin resting on his chest. The shafts of light came to rest on him but they weren’t enough to illuminate Jamie completely.
So this was how Jamie could only remember snippets from his previous life. The Doctor prodded one of the wooden boards and it felt mouldy and rotten. The barriers the Time Lords had put in place were slowly decaying. Jamie would remember more and more as time went on, but he wouldn’t be able to recall everything before he died. It’d just be a jumble of images and experiences with no context. It amazed the Doctor that Jamie hadn’t gone mad.
He had told Amy he had no right to restore Jamie’s memories, but standing there now amidst the consequences of a punishment that was his fault, the Doctor couldn’t just walk away. Jamie had the right to remember every world they visited, every species they encountered, every wonder of the universe they stumbled upon.
The first board tore away easily, practically falling apart in the Doctor’s hands. Among the memories displayed in the window, he saw the first time they met a Dalek together and the time they had visited Atlantis. He wrenched the other boards free, allowing more light into the room. The golden light fell upon young Jamie and he stirred, like he was waking from a deep slumber.
The Doctor attacked the other windows, ripping down the fragile barriers. More light streamed in and more memories were restored. Yeti in the London Underground, Cybermen on the Moon, Dominators on Dulkis. Soon the entire room was engulfed and not a single shadow remained. Young Jamie, the representation of real-life Jamie’s psyche, was bathed in the light. He soaked it in, like a sunbather on the beach, infusing every cell.
Jamie rose from his chair and he turned, sensing someone else was in the room with him. “Doctor?” he asked with a furrowed brow. As confused as Jamie looked, he spoke the one word with an air of familiarity.
Back in the tangible world, the Doctor broke the mental connection. He breathed deeply as he sat back on his haunches and his senses returned to him. The battle had died around them and the townsfolk were trying to identify the remains of their loved ones. The Doctor glanced around and he spotted Amy in the corner of the room, hugging an unconscious Rory.
“Ye changed yer face again.” Jamie struggled to sit up. He managed half-way before a wave of dizziness knocked him back down.
The Doctor held out his hand to Jamie and the Scot took it. He hauled his friend up into a sitting position and affectionately patted him on the side of the face. “Welcome back, James Robert McCrimmon.”
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. Chapter Five. Chapter Six. Chapter Seven. Chapter Eight.
Their instant came and went and no weapons were raised or fired. The Doctor took this as a good sign. He moved further into the room, the cyber-conversion room as he suspected, making sure to keep Amy behind him. Though, since they were the same height, he wasn’t much of a shield.
His gaze flew over the room, taking in all the details in a second. There were two levels, five conversion units on each level, covering three of the four walls. The Cybermen had been working on the inhabitants to the right of the door so the Doctor made sure to circle left to keep as much room as possible between him and the metal men. He felt Amy’s hand tighten on the back of his jacket as he noticed the Cyber-Leader and the bodies piled on the floor around its feet. He thought she was drawing his attention to the bodies but then he felt her hand leave the back of his jacket.
“Rory.” Amy muttered her husband’s name with a sigh of relief. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder. Amy’s attention was on a conversion unit in the back corner. Rory was plugged into the unit with thin tubes inserted into his skin; he was unconscious but still pink and fleshy, not grey and metallic.
The Cyber-Leader turned its head, its blank gaze landing on Amy. The Doctor took that as his cue.
“Blimey, you’ve been busy.” He jumped into the Cyber-Leader’s field of vision, blocking its view of Amy. “Attacking Scottish villages, converting the local population.” The Doctor looked down at the bodies around the Cyber-Leader’s feet. He would have called them Cybermen, but they were incomplete. Certain body parts had been replaced with cybernetic hardware, but from the look of things, the conversion process hadn’t taken. The bits of human skin he could see were livid and looked like melted wax and blood seeped from where metal joined tissue. “Only it’s not going so well, is it?”
He expected the Cyber-Leader to boast, to ramble on about how Cybermen were the superior race, but it just stared at the Doctor. Its subordinates behind it slowly fanned out, stalking around to stand opposite the Doctor. They stood directly in front of the door. Even if they got Rory out, they wouldn’t be able to leave. At least, not right at that moment. The situation was fluid. Anything could happen if they waited long enough.
“I haven’t seen you lot in ages.” He smiled at the Cyber-Leader like he was greeting an old friend. Behind him, he heard the sonic screwdriver whir softly though the sound was quickly followed by an annoyed grumble from Amy. “I always wondered why I didn’t see you during the Time War, but maybe now I know why.”
The Cyber-Leader’s right hand twitched and its head shook like it had a nervous tic. All of the Cybermen were a pale grey like the Cybermen on the bridge. The Doctor could imagine their temperatures were rising, cooking the organic brains within their helmets like a boiled egg.
“You encountered something a bit more potent than gold. Ran afoul with a race that could fight back?” The Cyber-Leader made no indication the Doctor had hit upon a sore subject, but he had always found that Cybermen were lousy conversationalists.
The sonic screwdriver buzzed again and Amy seemed to have more success this time. A heavy clang sounded from conversion unit. The Cyber-Leader lurched forward, drawn to the noise like a curious dog.
The Doctor leapt forward, putting himself closer to the Cyber-Leader. The only thing separating them now was a railing that ran around the console where the Cyber-Leader stood. The Cyberman could reach out and grab the Doctor around the throat if it liked. Banishing the thought to the back of his mind, the Doctor leaned casually on the railing. He bounced slightly on his feet, prepared to make a hasty retreat if the Cyber-Leader decided to lash out.
“I saw your head in a museum once. Not your head, but a random Cyberman head. It was in a glass case and it had a title card and everything. You were an oddity, not an intergalactic horror.”
More clangs sounded as the rest of the units unlocked. It was like Amy had tipped over a row of dominoes.
“Amy…” The Doctor kept his gaze trained on the Cyber-Leader.
“Blame the sonic,” she snapped.
The Cyber-Leader raised its arm and the Cybermen behind it raised their weapons. “You will become like us,” croaked the Cyber-Leader.
The Doctor couldn’t help but chuckle. “You said that the first time we met. But I don’t think it’s true this time. You can’t make any more Cybermen. The floor is literally littered with your failures. How many of you are left, I wonder? Were you the last of your fleet? One ship hurled back through time because there’s always one ship, one of you always survives. One Cybership to rule the universe. No, wait, that’s one ring.” He looked away from the Cyber-Leader, trying to reclaim his train of thought.
“You will become like us,” repeated the Cyber-Leader. Its intonation didn’t change, but to the Doctor’s ears it sounded desperate, like it was trying to convince itself that its race wasn’t on the brink of failure.
He looked back at the Cyberman or at the pale imitation of what it had become. All the times Cybermen claimed they didn’t have emotions the Doctor couldn’t help but think that was a lie. Their emotions were just buried and ignored, only rising to the surface when logic wasn’t enough.
These Cybermen were afraid.
“The virus is destroying everything you are. That head I saw in the museum won’t just be an oddity; it’ll be the truth.”
The Cyber-Leader clenched its raised hand into a fist. “We will survive.”
“Creag an tuire!”
The Gaelic war cry, going strangely untranslated by the TARDIS, drowned out any other threats the Cyber-Leader was about to utter. The seven Cybermen blocking the door turned, ready to shoot the next thing that moved.
The next thing that moved was Jamie. The Cybermen, perhaps remembering the last time they had met the Scot, hesitated in firing their weapons. It was all Jamie needed. He flung his arm, throwing a cloud of gold dust into the Cybermen’s faces. The ones closest to him immediately started to choke as their respiratory systems were clogged with the dust.
Shouting his war cry again, Jamie moved in for the kill. He raised the mighty axe he carried in his other hand and with a powerful swing he knocked off the head of the Cyberman to his right. A shower of sparks exploded from the Cyberman’s neck as its head flew across the room.
Shadows moved out in the corridor and the Doctor realized Jamie hadn’t come alone. Other townsfolk from Glen Beagan stormed into the cyber-conversion room, carrying weapons they had scrounged from their homes. Hatchets and scythes and shovels and hammers. They attacked the Cybermen with unparalleled ferocity, the need to defend their home pushing them forward. Blades flashed and blows were rained down on anything a shade of grey. The Cybermen tried to shoot their weapons but metal hands and arms were chopped off before their fingers could squeeze the trigger.
Choking on gold dust and overwhelmed, the seven Cybermen guarding the door were quickly on their way to becoming spare parts. Their death throes sounded like engines dying.
The Cyber-Leader reached for the weapon hanging at its side, intent on slaughtering the humans destroying its troops. The Doctor reached over the railing and he made a grab for the Cyber-Leader’s right arm. The metallic skin was hot to the touch, but he held on and he pulled, hoping to throw off the Cyberman’s aim. The Cyber-Leader pulled back and it yanked the Doctor clear off his feet and over the railing. The Doctor crashed head first amongst the dead bodies around the Cyber-Leader’s feet, smacking his forehead against the mangled helmet of a partly converted townsfolk. His vision swam and he struggled to get off the heap of failed Cybermen, but he couldn’t find any purchase amid the limp limbs and slippery metal. The smell of blood and oil was thick in the air, choking him as he drew in a frantic breath.
The Doctor blinked, his vision clearing. He recognized the expressionless face of the badly converted body before him. It was Donald.
“Doctor!”
Two voices rang out, both with a Scottish accent and both urgently trying to grab his attention. He looked up. And up. The Cyber-Leader towered over the Doctor, the barrel of its energy weapon pointed at his head.
“Let him go, beastie!” Jamie charged at the Cyber-Leader, his axe raised to cleave the metal man in the back.
The Cyber-Leader turned and with one swipe of its arm, it batted Jamie aside like he was an errant fly. The blow sent Jamie flying back and he crashed into an empty conversion unit with enough force to crack the glass front. The Scot fell limply to the floor and he didn’t stir.
The Doctor felt his hearts leap into his throat. The pile of bodies shifted beneath him as he tried to rise to his feet. He didn’t have a plan in mind, not this time, but he was overcome with the need to do something. He had lost one friend because of the Cybermen and he was not about to lose another.
The Cyber-Leader’s back was still turned to him as it seemed to bask in its defeat of Jamie. Pride was one emotion it had no problem embracing.
“Oi! Cyberman!”
The Doctor, and the Cyber-Leader, turned, but he already knew who was shouting. Amy’s accent fit right in with the other Scottish voices, but it was her use of slang that set her apart.
She had found a Cyber-gun from one of the fallen Cybermen and though the weapon was probably longer than her arm, she wielded it with confidence. “No one lays a hand on my husband except me.” Amy squeezed the trigger on the gun.
A bolt of energy discharged from the barrel of the gun, hitting the Cyber-Leader right in its chest unit. The Doctor dove forward, sliding underneath the railing to avoid the shower of sparks. The Cyber-Leader staggered backwards, crying out in pain in a tinny voice. A blow from one of the townsfolk brought it to its knees and a powerful swing with an axe knocked its head from its shoulders.
Violence was always a last resort, but the Doctor couldn’t chide Amy for her actions. She was protecting a loved one, as were the people of Glen Beagan. It was hard to stick to your principles when danger was on your doorstep.
The Doctor hurried over to Jamie’s side. To his relief, Jamie was still breathing but a smear of blood down the cracked glass of the conversion unit made him cringe. Sure enough, when the Doctor slid his hand underneath Jamie’s head his fingers touched something damp and warm.
“Jamie! Can you hear me?” If Rory had been conscious, he might have warned the Doctor not to move the Scot in case there was spinal damage, but the nurse was still out and being tended to by Amy. The Doctor went ahead and angled Jamie’s head towards him. He was hesitant to delve into Jamie’s mind but it was the only way he could make sure his old friend hadn’t suffered a serious head injury.
The Doctor closed his eyes and he put his hands on either side of Jamie’s face. With a slight push of will, he formed a psychic bond between them and with this bridge he crossed the mental landscape into Jamie’s consciousness.
On the surface everything was fine. Jamie’s thoughts zoomed around the Doctor, moving as fast as light. He caught glimpses of today’s events viewed through Jamie’s eyes and Jamie’s life since Culloden. The Scot would wake up with a headache but his brain had escaped injury. It was deeper down, though, where the true damage lay. The Doctor could feel the mental blocks the Time Lords had put in place. Even a race as powerful as the Time Lords couldn’t erase someone’s memories completely. A tiny part of Jamie still remembered their travels.
In the mental landscape of Jamie’s mind, the Doctor pushed deeper. In essence, he wasn’t pushing through anything, but his mind was presented with black veils that he shoved aside to reach the memory blocks. The material grew thinner with each step and soon he saw the glow of a distant light.
The mental projection of himself parted the last of the veils with a quick swipe of his arms and the flimsy barriers flew away. The Doctor found himself in a dark room with multiple windows all around him. He turned around on the spot, counting ten in all. Each window was boarded over with pieces of wood, only allowing small shafts of light in. When he put his eye to one crack, he saw the windows were like stained glass only instead of multiple colours the different sections were made up of different memories. Jamie’s life aboard the TARDIS.
When the Doctor pulled back from the window and he turned around, he was surprised to see he wasn’t alone anymore. Jamie, the young Jamie who he had met at Culloden Field, was seated in a chair in the middle of the room. He sat limply in the chair, his chin resting on his chest. The shafts of light came to rest on him but they weren’t enough to illuminate Jamie completely.
So this was how Jamie could only remember snippets from his previous life. The Doctor prodded one of the wooden boards and it felt mouldy and rotten. The barriers the Time Lords had put in place were slowly decaying. Jamie would remember more and more as time went on, but he wouldn’t be able to recall everything before he died. It’d just be a jumble of images and experiences with no context. It amazed the Doctor that Jamie hadn’t gone mad.
He had told Amy he had no right to restore Jamie’s memories, but standing there now amidst the consequences of a punishment that was his fault, the Doctor couldn’t just walk away. Jamie had the right to remember every world they visited, every species they encountered, every wonder of the universe they stumbled upon.
The first board tore away easily, practically falling apart in the Doctor’s hands. Among the memories displayed in the window, he saw the first time they met a Dalek together and the time they had visited Atlantis. He wrenched the other boards free, allowing more light into the room. The golden light fell upon young Jamie and he stirred, like he was waking from a deep slumber.
The Doctor attacked the other windows, ripping down the fragile barriers. More light streamed in and more memories were restored. Yeti in the London Underground, Cybermen on the Moon, Dominators on Dulkis. Soon the entire room was engulfed and not a single shadow remained. Young Jamie, the representation of real-life Jamie’s psyche, was bathed in the light. He soaked it in, like a sunbather on the beach, infusing every cell.
Jamie rose from his chair and he turned, sensing someone else was in the room with him. “Doctor?” he asked with a furrowed brow. As confused as Jamie looked, he spoke the one word with an air of familiarity.
Back in the tangible world, the Doctor broke the mental connection. He breathed deeply as he sat back on his haunches and his senses returned to him. The battle had died around them and the townsfolk were trying to identify the remains of their loved ones. The Doctor glanced around and he spotted Amy in the corner of the room, hugging an unconscious Rory.
“Ye changed yer face again.” Jamie struggled to sit up. He managed half-way before a wave of dizziness knocked him back down.
The Doctor held out his hand to Jamie and the Scot took it. He hauled his friend up into a sitting position and affectionately patted him on the side of the face. “Welcome back, James Robert McCrimmon.”
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*sniffles*
*HUGS*
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(Btw, you do have a minor typo: In Amy's line about nobody touching Rory you have "expect" instead of "except"... just two letters swapped and both are real words, so it's easy to miss... I might not have even noticed but it's kind of a big line. Anyway, just figured I'd point it out.)
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