Vignette 50: Jamie McCrimmon and the Second Doctor; part 5 of 5.

A huge thanks to everyone who has been following this; I have plans for more fics in the future (including ones of Two's TARDIS team reunited in 6B), so I'm far from finished in this fandom!

Jamie hadn't known what to expect. He certainly hadn't expected to regain consciousness; nor had he expected to see Rory Williams checking his vital signs upon awakening.

"Rory?" he asked, stunned.

Rory blinked.

"Have we met before?"

"Of course we've met before!" Jamie said. "You and Amy and the Doctors—in that jungle temple!"

"You know Amy?" Rory asked. "Did you go to school with her before she moved to Leadworth? I…" He trailed off as a little girl tugged on his arm. "Melody, not now…"

Amy now ran over to them, gathering the girl in her arms.

"Melody, how many times have I told you—when Dad is looking after patients, you can't trouble him," she chided.

"Amy, he says he knows you," Rory said.

Amy looked down at Jamie, and she shook her head.

"Never met him," she stated, carrying Melody away.

"What is going on here…?" Jamie asked. "When I met yer daughter, she was all grown up—with golden hair. That girl had brown hair…"

"You know, I think you might have a concussion," Rory said. He looked over to a line of other beds, where various patients were lying—a blonde woman, a man in a captain's uniform, and a young man watching over them; two doctors were tending to the patients. "Grace? Martha?"

Jamie stared as Grace Holloway approached with a woman that Jamie didn't recognize.

"I think he's got a concussion—or he's seriously delirious," Rory said. He turned back to Jamie. "Dr. Holloway and Dr. Jones will look after you; you're going to be just fine."

"Och, I'm fine now!" Jamie insisted. "Look, is the Doctor alright?"

"We're both fine," said Martha.

"Not ye—I mean… Och, never mind!" the piper said. "Grace, ye know who I'm talking aboot, don' ye?"

"No…" she said, staring at him as though he'd lost his mind. "Rory, I think you're right; he might have a concussion. Any signs of head trauma?"

"None—that's the thing," Rory sighed. "…Do you think it's true—what that woman said?"

"About someone falling through time and space from a different universe?" Grace asked. "I still don't think it's possible."

Martha sighed, finishing up her examination of Jamie.

"Well, I can say he has no head trauma," she said. "Either it's true, or he's mad."

"But it is true!" Jamie exclaimed. "I…" He trailed off, remembering what he had done—removed himself from the Doctor's timestream. That meant that he hadn't met the Doctor—or any of the others. "Oh."

"Something wrong?" Martha asked.

"No," he said. But then, he frowned. Something didn't seem right—even if he hadn't met the Doctor or the other companions, why hadn't Rory and Grace understood when he had mentioned the Doctor?

He looked to Rory and Grace now.

"Look, I need to know what happened to a man who calls himself the Doctor."

Jamie hadn't expected the flash of fear that went across their faces, as well as Martha's.

"Did he send you?" Martha asked. "Are you here because of him? To spy on us? Because I promise you, we haven't even considered any sort of uprising."

"What?" Jamie asked. "Why would anyone stage an uprising against the Doctor?"

"Exactly—everyone knows how foolish it would be," Grace said, suppressing a shudder. "We know that we're the lucky ones—having been spared…"

"Spared?" Jamie asked. "But… ye're the Doctor's friends—ye and Rory!"

"Friends?" Rory repeated. "Of that tyrant?"

"What!?" Jamie asked. "The Doctor—a tyrant!?"

"He must've been in a coma all this time if he has no clue," Martha declared. "Or he's an incredible actor."

"He's neither," a woman said, entering the room. "James Robert McCrimmon?"

"Aye?"

"I am Romanadvoratrelundar."

"…Eh?"

"I am a Gallifreyan, like the Doctor. I need you to come with me," she said.

"He should probably rest," Grace protested. "If he really has been comatose—"

"And I can assure you, he hasn't been," the Time Lady said. "If we are to have any hope, he is the key."

Jamie eased out of the hospital bed, pulling his shirt back on as he followed the Time Lady down the corridors.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"A safehouse," she said. "You will see many faces you recognize, but they will not recognize you."

"But I don' understand," Jamie said. "Why were they saying that the Doctor is a tyrant? He's kind and gentle and…"

"He was… once," she said.

She didn't say anything more, even though Jamie continued to inquire the meaning of her words. She was right; Jamie saw several people in the safehouse—Donna, Ace, Peri, Mel, Turlough, Leela, Sarah Jane—and none of them gave him a second look. There were also more people he didn't recognize—a brown-haired boy wearing a gold star badge, a woman dressed in a flight attendant's uniform, and many others, including a penguin.

"Who are all these people?" he asked.

"They were spared by the Doctor," Romanadvoratrelundar said. "All others on this planet—and neighboring ones—were forced into servitude."

"Servitude!?" Jamie exclaimed. "The Doctor is nae like that! This does nae make any sense! He…"

He trailed off as the Time Lady led him to a room where there were several faces he recognized.

"Brigadier!" he exclaimed. "Ben! Polly! Och, I don' believe it! Zoe! Victoria!"

Like the others, they stared at him, blankly. Jamie's face fell, and he now looked to the others in the room. These faces, he didn't recognize, except for Susan, who was clinging miserably to a smartly-dressed couple.

"Hey… ye're the Doctor's granddaughter, aren't ye?" Jamie asked.

Her eyes welled up with tears, but she nodded.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "What's happened to the Doctor? People are calling him a tyrant…"

"They will explain," said Romanadvoratrelundar.

"I wish I knew what happened to Grandfather," Susan said, as she clung to the couple. "Even before he warmed up to humans, he wasn't like this! And then, when he met Ian and Barbara…" She looked to the couple. "He changed. He began to care about humans and other species. When we parted ways, I had so much hope for him."

"So did we, Susan," Barbara said, softly. "He helped us get back home—even if reluctantly…"

"And then, when he changed into a younger body…" Polly said. "He just seemed so happy—so full of life."

"He was he nicest bloke you'd ever have met," Ben agreed.

"When my father was killed by the Daleks, he was ever so kind," Victoria said. "He rescued me, looked after me…."

"I know—I was there!" Jamie said.

Victoria looked at him, blankly.

"No…" she said, puzzled.

"Oh, sorry; don' mind me," Jamie said. "But that sounds aboot right. Why would the Doctor change?"

"I'll tell you why," the Brigadier said. "It happened during that incident in the London Underground—1968."

"…What…?"

"The Doctor was a nice enough fellow when I first met him—offered to help with that Yeti business, and that Great Intelligence, whatever it was," the Brigadier said. "He pulled off an excellent plan to defeat the creature—drain it, when it was trying to drain him. …And that's when he went… strange."

"Strange?" Jamie asked.

"When he drained the Great Intelligence, something came over him," Victoria said, with a shudder. "He wasn't the same anymore. He just… became so cold. I couldn't stay with him any longer."

"It's as though draining that creature corrupted him," the Brigadier said, shaking his head. "Pity."

Susan held back a sob.

"He's so clever, though," Zoe said. "Such knowledge! …Makes me wonder if he could've saved the Wheel instead of destroying it along with the Cybermen."

"But he did save the Wheel!" Jamie said. "…Didn't he?"

"When the Wheel was overrun, he just… blew it up," she said. "I was the only survivor; he decided I was clever enough to accompany him… until the Time Lords caught up with us."

"Aye, and they captured him?"

"No," Zoe said, giving him a look. "He led them right into a trap—with help of some old school friends of his… the Master, the Rani, the War Chief…"

"What!?"

"They took over Gallifrey," Susan said, quietly. "They make Rassilon look benevolent. And then Grandfather came back here and took control."

"All this because he defeated the Great Intelliegence?" Jamie asked, quietly.

"If I'd have known that he'd have turned into this, I'd have stopped him from draining that Great Intelligence," the Brigadier stated, flatly. "The price of this victory wasn't worth it."

"And… And there's nothing ye can do?" Jamie asked.

"The Doctor has decided to spare us," Barbara said. "I don't think there's any one of us who'd want to chance trying to talk to him."

"I would," Susan said. "He might listen to me…"

"It's too risky, Susan," Ian said. "I know you feel you want to help, but if he is… corrupted, he's only going to end up hurting you."

"There is nothing you can do," Romanadvoratrelundar told her. "But he can help."

Jamie's eyes widened as she looked to him.

"What?!"

"You are a temporal anomaly," she said. "You aren't supposed to be in existence."

"What do ye mean?"

"I mean that James Robert McCrimmon was documented as a casualty of the Battle of Culloden—dead at the age of twenty-two."

"That cannae be!" he said. "I'm here! I'm alive! I'm thirty-five!"

She didn't answer him, instead turning to Ben and Polly.

"What happened when the Doctor took you to Scotland?"

"Nothing," Polly said. "We wandered around for a little bit, and the Doctor decided that there was nothing interesting, so we got back into the TARDIS and left."

"The Doctor ne'er saved me because I di'n meet him," Jamie realized. "But how can I fix this, then?"

"Reality has been distorted," Romanadvoratrelundar said. "Your reality is different. Perhaps there is something with you that is the key."

Jamie's eyes widened, and he quickly pulled the items he had been carrying in his sporran—the slingshot and jelly babies he had taken from the Doctor's coat, and then the Stattenheim remote control and his copy of the TARDIS key.

"That's Time Lord technology," Susan said, her eyes widening upon seeing the Stattenheim. "How did you get it?"

"I took it from the Doctor—I mean, not this Doctor. Well, yes, this Doctor, but this Doctor in another reality. I… Oh, I don' know…"

"If he finds out you have that, he'll have your hide," the Brigadier warned. "Any technology that has anything to do with studying time or space is strictly forbidden. Those blasted Yetis and Whisper Men out there are his eyes and ears."

"Aye, well, I know what I have to do," Jamie said. "I have to use this, summon the TARDIS, and talk to the Doctor."

"You can't talk to him!" Ian said. "No one can! Anyone who tries to go into his citadel is never seen again!"

"Aye, then, I'll be the first!"

"Well, can you at least use that outside?" Ben asked. "We don't want the Doctor to think that we're in cahoots with you!"

Jamie stared at him; the fear was genuine. How cruel was this version of the Doctor? Had Jamie really made that much of a difference in his life?

"Aye, alright," Jamie said, at last.

Without another word, he left the room and headed down the corridor until he left the safehouse, stopping in his tracks as he stepped out under the darkened sky.

There were Yetis about—probably Whisper Men, too, only they were invisible amongst the shadows. The piper crept along, quietly, until he found a safe spot behind a tree. He used the Stattenheim.

He was absolutely startled, though, when a large, metal cylindrical craft appeared instead of the usual police box.

"What…?"

The roar of the nearby Yeti quickly pushed the thought from his mind; he used the key and found that it unlocked the door, and he entered the interior, locking the doors behind him.

It was then he noted how abandoned the interior of the TARDIS looked. This TARDIS hadn't been used in years. Baffled, Jamie looked at the Stattenheim in his hand. Had it gone wrong?

The console suddenly lit up, whirring her familiar, warm hum. Jamie was about to place a hand on the controls when, suddenly, a life-sized projection appeared beside the console. Then another. And another. And many more.

The piper stared; he recognized them all—the earliest Doctor, Sarah Jane's Doctor, Leela's Doctor… all of them… All of them except his Doctor.

"…Doctor…?" he asked, looking from one face to the next. "How… what…?"

"Hello, Jamie," Amy and Rory's Doctor said, giving him a sad smile. "I'm sorry we had to meet like this…"

"Except that we're not really here, of course…" the lone, leather-clad Doctor added.

"I don' understand…"

"We're just echoes," Donna's Doctor said. "Echoes kept alive by a dying TARDIS that somehow remembers an alternate reality. But she's fading fast—and so are we."

"Why is the TARDIS dying?" Jamie asked.

"She'd been abandoned," the earliest Doctor said, gruffly. "She was like that when I found her, actually—alongside a whole line of antiquated TARDISes in need of repairs. It seems that the young woman who convinced me to take her wasn't there to do so in this reality."

"That's because the woman was Clara—one of her copies," Clara's Doctor said. "Clara never threw herself into my timestream in this reality…"

"…Because the Great Intelligence ne'er did, either—my Doctor drained it in 1968 because I was nae here to stop him," Jamie realized. "Och, so it's my fault the TARDIS is dying, too!? I di'n want this! I only wanted to save ye!" Tears fell from his eyes. "E'ery time I try to help ye, I only make things worse! I don' understand how ye were able to put up with me for thirteen years!"

"Isn't it obvious after seeing all of this?" Sarah Jane's Doctor asked. "We needed you."

"And we still do," Grace's Doctor said. "If we even have a chance at restoring things to the way they were."

"Aye," Jamie said. "I just need to take the TARDIS to where'er the Doctor is and talk to him."

"It's not as simple as that, I'm afraid," Leela's Doctor sighed. "The Great Intelligence has corrupted our second self beyond all recognition. You haven't seen him yet…"

The TARDIS viewscreen flickered on, and Jamie couldn't help but let out a gasp.

It was an image of his Doctor, standing on the balcony of his citadel. He had abandoned his usual shabby clothes for a scarlet Prydonian robe that Jamie had seen certain other Time Lords wear on Gallifrey. But it was his eyes that horrified Jamie; the warm, loving blue-green eyes had been replaced by a pair of cold eyes that the piper was certain he had seen once before. And then he had a flash of buried memory—the icy cell… the man who had held him captive until the Master had rescued him… and a name he should have forgotten now returned to his lips.

"The Valeyard…" Jamie gasped. "He's turning into the Valeyard!"

"The transformation is almost complete," Peri's Doctor said, solemnly. "Once the Valeyard gains full control, it'll be over. This TARDIS will die, our echoes will fade, and there will be no going back. And the Valeyard will not be as merciful as our corrupted second self—he will attack the companions that he has spared so far"

"How do I stop it!?" Jamie cried. "What do I do!?"

"This reality came about because you never met us," Ace's Doctor said. "That fateful day in Scotland—a Fixed Point that was changed and now has led us to this crisis! You must go back to that day and ensure that you meet our second self!"

"And that's it!?" Jamie asked. "That'll solve everything?"

"That will solve this problem," Clara's Doctor admitted. "You'll have to put your faith in Clara that she can save us in the other reality, if you succeed in time."

Jamie clutched at his head.

"I don't know why you doubt Clara," he said. "She's the way she is because of you. You didn't ruin things by allowing the Intelligence to escape in 1968—you set everything in motion. Isn't that reason enough to believe?"

"I suppose…"

"If you don't act now, we'll all be lost!" Turlough's Doctor pleaded.

"And not just us—you, too!" said an additional Doctor—one Jamie didn't recognize.

"Eh?" Jamie asked. "But… Romanadvoratrelundar—"

"Oh, really—call her Romana!" Leela's Doctor said. "We don't have time to keep saying her full name!"

"Aye, but… Romana said that I'm already dead in this reality! I died at Culloden!"

"And you haven't even stopped to question why you're standing here now—at age 35? Hmm?" the earliest Doctor asked.

Jamie stared.

"I'm an echo, too," he realized. "Just like all of ye—kept alive by the TARDIS."

"You are an echo, yes," the leather-clad Doctor said. "But that's not the TARDIS's doing. Don't you notice someone missing here?"

"Aye—my Doctor."

"The reason the Valeyard has taken this long to take control is because our second self's true spirit is still fighting," Donna's Doctor said. "And, just like this TARDIS, he can give existence to echoes from another reality."

"Ye mean… my Doctor is keeping me alive now?" Jamie asked.

"It's like I once said," Amy and Rory's Doctor said. "If something can be remembered, it can be brought back."

"But the Doctor forgot aboot me—even in the other reality!" Jamie protested.

"There'd always be a part of our mind that would never forget you," Grace's Doctor said. "A part of our mind where you would always be—never erased… just… asleep. I should know; I've lost my memory enough times, but still remembered you." He gave a wan smile. "We made a promise, after all."

Jamie looked away.

"And I broke all of mine," he said, bitterly.

"So, fix it!" the earliest Doctor chided him.

"It's not too late yet," Sarah Jane's Doctor agreed. "Take the Old Girl back to Culloden and set things right. She'll have to centralize all of her energy to get you there, though; that means we won't be visible to you. But we'll still be here."

Jamie looked back at the Doctors, and then nodded.

"Aye," he said. "I'll fix it."

"The Valeyard won't take this quietly; he'll know you're threatening his existence by doing this. He will use our second self to stop you," Peri's Doctor warned.

"And our corrupted second self will most certainly use the Yetis and the Whisper Men to stop you, too. You'll have to hold out until your rewrite catches up to him and fixes him," Ace's Doctor added.

"I will," Jamie vowed.

"Good luck, Jamie," Turlough's Doctor said, as they all vanished.

Jamie blinked back his tears and then set the controls to take him to Culloden. Even though he had only flown the TARDIS rarely, he had seen the Doctor do it enough times. The old, damaged TARDIS, however, did not fly as smoothly as she did in the reality that Jamie knew.

As he looked up at the viewscreen, he gasped again as he saw the Doctor sense something—his using the TARDIS, no doubt. The Doctor retreated to another TARDIS, which dematerialized. The piper stared at the blank screen for a moment, and then yelled out in fright as something massive crashed into the TARDIS he was now occupying.

Just like the War Chief had tried to do, the Doctor was trying to knock this TARDIS off-course.

"Hold on," Jamie pleaded to the console. "Please. We have to save him!"

The TARDIS let out a noise of protest, but quickly materialized on Culloden Moor. Jamie quickly fled as he heard the sounds of another TARDIS materializing, as well.

He was flat-out running, not even daring to look back as he began to search the familiar area. Eventually, he happened upon the Doctor—in his old, shabby clothes, accompanied by Ben and Polly—handling the hat that Jamie had first seen him holding back on that day.

Beyond the TARDIS team, Jamie could see the younger version of himself, with Alexander McLaren. Neither of them had noticed the Doctor and the others. And present-day Jamie knew that he had to make sure that his younger self saw the Doctor with the hat—without being seen himself.

But how!? He was running out of time; soon, they'd go their separate ways, never meeting. And it would be too late after that; the TARDIS wouldn't be able to have enough energy for another attempt.

Jamie now searched through the items he was carrying on him, desperate to find something to help. But all he had left were the jelly babies and the slingshot.

He cringed, hearing the roar of Yetis behind him. He was running out of time!

Desperate, he did the only thing he could think of—load a few jelly babies into the slingshot and aim it at his past self.

The younger Jamie yelped as one jelly baby smacked him in the side of his face, and the other hit him in the leg. Angrily, he turned towards his left to see the source of the errant gummies… and spotted the Doctor casually handling the hat.

Present-day Jamie quickly ducked behind a tree as his past self angrily nudged Alexander, and as the both of them headed towards the Doctor, Ben, and Polly and quickly took them prisoner.

But as his past self and Alexander marched the TARDIS team off, the present-day Jamie was grinning. He had done it! Now, all he had to do was wait until the rewrite caught up with the rest of space and time…

A crushing blow to his shoulder knocked Jamie off of his feet. The piper let out a cry and looked up, gasping to see the Doctor, in his Prydonian robe, glaring down at him.

"Doc… Doctor…!"

"Who are you!?" the Doctor hissed at him, seizing him by the collar of his jumper and hauling him to his feet. "Where did you get control of a TARDIS!?"

"I… Ye…"

"And what were you planning to do—try and destroy me at an earlier point in my timestream!? Is that who you are—a would-be assassin!?"

"No…! No, I'd ne'er—"

"Well, it looks as though you've failed!" the Doctor snarled, tossing Jamie back into the arms of two Yetis. "And now, you're going to answer my questions!"

Jamie's heart hammered in his chest as the Doctor seized him by the throat. How long would it take for the rewrite to catch up? How long!?

"Where did you get that TARDIS!? How did you get to Gallifrey!? ANSWER ME!"

The back of his hand struck Jamie's face.

"St… Stattenheim…" Jamie gasped.

"Where did you get a Stattenheim from!?" the Doctor demanded, apparently seething. "Who gave it to you!?"

"I got it from ye."

The Doctor struck him again, and Jamie cried out.

"The truth!" he roared. "I want the truth!"

"It is the truth!" Jamie cried. "Doctor, please! Please remember me!"

"I will get the truth from you," the Doctor vowed. "You can try all… all you…"

Jamie's eyes widened, hardly daring to hope as the Doctor trailed off, placing a hand over his face. His eyes were flickering from the colder eyes to the aquamarine eyes, repeatedly.

The Yetis holding Jamie now slouched over, deactivating; Jamie fell from their arms and landed on the ground.

"Doctor…?" he asked, looking up.

"What… what have you done…!?" the Doctor hissed, staring down at him. "What have you done to me!?"

He raised his arm back, as though to strike him again, and Jamie scrambled backwards until he hit a tree, trembling as the Doctor glared daggers at him.

"I'm sorry…" Jamie said. "I should ne'er have broken my promise nae to leave ye."

The Doctor's eyes suddenly flickered back to aquamarine, staring at Jamie cowering just feet from him. His eyes widened.

"Are you…?"

Jamie now looked up, trembling.

"…Jamie…" the Doctor said. "…You're my Jamie!"

Slowly, the piper got to his feet.

"Ye know me…?"

"Of course I… Oh, Jamie!"

He extended his arms, still clad in the Prydonian robe, and Jamie's face lit up in a grin as he ran towards him. They were close—almost touching—when a Whisper Man materialized in front of them.

"Doctor!" Jamie cried.

"Oh, my word!"

A footstep caused both the Time Lord and the piper to look away from each other, seeing the human form of the Great Intelligence glaring at the both of them in utter hatred.

"Stop his heart," it hissed.

Jamie let out a cry as the Whisper Man plunged its icy hand into his chest and began to squeeze the fragile organ.

"No!" the Doctor cried, his hands passing uselessly through the creature as he tried, in vain, to stop it. "NO!"

"I worked as hard as I could to create this reality, Doctor," the Intelligence sneered. "I knew, after seeing those copies of the Oswald girl, that you would have had some contingency plan for my attempt to corrupt your timestream. So, I arranged for this to happen. I found the one way of separating you from the piper—playing on his loyalty to you. But now, this reality is fading. Very well; you have your victory, but this is the price I demand—the life of your loyal companion."

Jamie cried out one last time as the Intelligence and the Whisper Man faded away—but the damage had been done. He fell forward into the Doctor's arms.

"Jamie! JAMIE!"

His world was darkening all around him, but the piper felt one point of light in the growing darkness—the Doctor was restored to the way he should be.

And the last thing he was aware of was the Doctor calling his name.

Epilogue

One again, Jamie returned to awareness upon extremely unexpected circumstances. He could hear the Doctor—his Doctor—but his voice… Jamie had never heard him sound so broken before.

"Jamie…" his Doctor whispered. "Oh, my poor Jamie…"

The piper forced his eyes open, seeing only a white expanse of nothingness—and dark hair filling his immediate line of vision as he realized that the Doctor had buried his face in his shoulder.

Jamie tried to speak, desperate to communicate, but only a slight squeak emerged from his lips. But it was enough; the Doctor—back in his shabby clothes again—heard him, pulling away from him to see what he hoped more than anything else to see.

"…You're alive…"

Before Jamie could even reply, the Doctor kissed him on the forehead before hugging him close again.

"Oh, I see what happened now!" the Doctor exclaimed. "When the Whisper Man stopped your heart, it was still the alternate reality—but now we're back here! …Either that, or you were still dead here, and the nature of this place allowed me to bend reality enough to will you back to life… Perhaps a bit of both… Oh, I don't know…!"

"Back… here?" Jamie asked, his voice still hoarse.

"Yes…" he said. "We're in the White Void still… but look!"

It took Jamie a moment to realize what the Doctor was saying. He looked in time to see the rift closing—and that the Doctor's timestream was no longer an angry red, but white, like the rest of the void. The rift soon closed.

"Ye're alright," Jamie realized.

"And so are you!" the Doctor said. "Oh, Jamie, I… I really thought I had lost you."

"That's how I felt when the Intelligence corrupted yer timestream," Jamie said, shaking slightly. "Ye were dying, and I… I thought… I thought that by leaving yer timestream, ye'd be better off. But that's what the Intelligence wanted all along, wasn't it? It wanted me to leave yer timestream so that ye'd drain it and turn into… that."

The Doctor gently placed a hand on Jamie's face—where his corrupted self had struck him in the other reality.

"I'm so sorry, Jamie," he said. "Sorry you had to see me like that. Sorry for what he… what I did to you."

"It was all my fault anyway—ye have nothing to apologize for," Jamie said. "It was all because of me." A few more tears fell from his eyes. "I broke the promises I made to ye and yer other selves. I left ye!"

The Doctor hugged him even more tightly.

"What matters most," he said. "Is that you came back."

Still weak, Jamie gently hugged the Doctor back.

"And this time," he promised. "I'll ne'er leave ye. Ye need me too much. …And I need ye, too."

The Doctor just smiled, now helping Jamie to his feet and draping the Scot's arm around him to support him.

"Let's go home, Jamie."

"Home?"

The Doctor glanced pointedly at the TARDIS, now in her police box form once more. Her doors were wide open, as though welcoming them back.

"Home. First, to Gallifrey, to pick up Zoe and Victoria. And then… wherever the Old Girl decides to take us. How does that sound?"

Jamie looked to him with a smile.

"It sounds wonderful."

"Quite."

They headed inside the TARDIS, still clinging to each other. It would take time, but they would heal from this—together. The Great Intelligence's plan had only brought them even closer together than ever before.

Jamie had learned a lot from the Doctor—all of them, and the other companions, too. But the lessons to learn were not over yet. And both he and the Doctor were grateful for that.

The End