#sorry this took so long asjfd

[the--highlanders]

For the drabble game, can I request Two and Jamie, one is recovering from a wound/illness, "you didn't have to do this, you know"?

“You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

on ao3.

“I brought grapes.”

Jamie was sitting up in bed, the Doctor told himself bracingly. That was something, at least. Nevermind that the bed in question was a sparse cot in an understaffed field medic’s hut. They had been given the only empty room in the place, somewhere quiet for Jamie to recover. Everything was quietening down, now he came to think of it. The constant flow of wounded soldiers and panicked nurses had slowed to a trickle, the ever-present sounds of agony and fear dulling down into a softer hum of activity. And there was Jamie, the cause of all that unfamiliar calmness, sitting there like he had no idea what he had done. Just staring through the half-closed slats over the window, looking out over the wasteland he had walked across just a few hours before.

“I’m told it’s traditional,” he said, a little more loudly. “To bring grapes, when someone’s in hospital.”

“Mm.” Jamie leant his head back against the rusty metal bedframe, rolling over but not quite looking up at the Doctor. “Is it?”

“Well – someone told me so, once. I’m sure of it. Not that they’re really grapes, anyway – but they were the closest thing I could find.”

“Nevermind.” A faint smile flitted across Jamie’s face. “I’m no’ hungry.”

“You will be later,” the Doctor said. Brusque. Businesslike. Entirely sure of himself that there would be a later. It was a good deal more confident than he felt. Settling himself down on the empty cot beside Jamie’s, he deposited the bag of grapes on the bedside table between them and clasped his hands together in his lap. “How are you feeling?”

It had been a rather stupid thing to ask, he supposed. A cut marred Jamie’s cheek, the blood strikingly red against the greyish pallor that still hung over his skin. Just above his lip, a darker smudge was crusted on, the last remnants of the bloody nose he had been left with after – afterwards. Jamie’s snort at the question gave way into a series of hacking coughs, and the Doctor leant forwards to hover his hand over his arm, not quite daring to touch him. But Jamie was waving him away, leaning forward to shut him out. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice still scratchy and hoarse. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Jamie -” The Doctor shook his head. “You walked over there -” he gestured towards the window, out across the wasteland - “and you faced that thing down on your own. That psychic blast was going to kill everyone in this settlement, and you absorbed everything the cannons couldn't siphon off, if you’ve forgotten – so tell me.” His voice trembled, full of something between tears and fury, and he curled his hands into fists, fingernails biting into his palms. “Tell me why I shouldn’t worry about you.”

He looked up to see Jamie turned away from him again, his cold, flat stare fixed on the opposite wall. “I’ve no’ forgotten,” he said, his voice hollow. “As far as I know.”

The Doctor swallowed, eyes wandering from Jamie to the window. On closer inspection, he caught a glimpse of what Jamie must have been looking at, before he had arrived – the great, hulking shape of the thing he had destroyed, its amorphous form collapsed in on itself and scorched from the blast of energy that had been redirected back towards it. He shuddered, remembering the sight of Jamie standing alone before it, impossibly small. It should have been himself who had gone, he knew – but the psychic cannons had needed his expertise for the final tweaks, and without them online – well, without them, nobody would have been able to stop it, himself or Jamie or anyone else.

Something about Jamie’s words struck at him. “What do you mean, as far as you know?”

Jamie sat there in silence for a long minute, twisting the bedsheets into swirls. His movements were still clumsy, his fingers twitching awkwardly as his mind struggled to reassert its control over his body, and the Doctor winced again, remembering the way he had thrashed and screamed when the medics had brought him in.

“I remembered somethin’,” he murmured at last. “When that thing was – ye know.”

“When it fired the blast,” the Doctor filled in softly.

“Aye.”

“What was it you remembered?”

“Somethin’ - somethin’ ye said I wouldn’t ever remember.” Jamie took in a deep breath, setting his shoulders. “But ye said I wouldnae be conscious when it hit me, an’ I was, an’ I remembered – them, takin’ my memories away. How it felt. It felt -” His fingers were dug into his sides as if to hold himself still, but their unsteadiness betrayed the tremors that shook through him. “It felt the same, havin’ that thing go through my mind. An’ when I woke up, an’ I could think again without it hurtin’, I got tae wondering whether I forgot anythin’ again, with it messin’ around in there.”

“I don’t know -” The Doctor shook his head. For Jamie to remember the moment of impact was one thing – an unpleasant thing, that was for sure, but there was still so much to be learnt about the weaponisation of psychic energy on this scale, even amongst his own people. Perhaps, he thought, it was best that things remain that way. For there to have been a little bit of wriggle-room in his estimates of when Jamie would lose consciousness was entirely normal. But for Jamie to remember the moment when the Time Lords had taken his memories was quite another. “That memory was never designed to be unlocked,” he said, more to himself than to Jamie. “All your other memories – they leave those intact, should they need to access them later. But there’s no reason to – they remove the moment of contact entirely, to avoid – ah – undue trauma to the patient, as it were. That memory should not have existed in your mind at all.”

Jamie was looking at him like his ramble had made him feel worse, not better. “What’s wrong with me?” he said at last. “Did that thing break somethin’, am I gonnae forget again -” Something wild and frenzied with panic was creeping into the edges of his eyes. “I dinnae want tae forget again, please -”

You won’t, the Doctor wanted to say. You’re quite safe now. But – could he really stomach telling Jamie that, when even he was far less than sure? Anything could have caused the removal of that memory to be compromised, he told himself. An accident. Jamie’s mind proving tougher to manipulate than they had expected, with their ridiculous habit of underestimating humans. Long-term exposure to the TARDIS making his mind more resilient to inconsistencies. Sheer incompetence on the part of the agent who had tried to remove the memory. All of those things and more were entirely possible.

“I don’t know why you remembered,” he murmured at last. “I can’t understand why – you shouldn’t have. It should be entirely gone.”

“Aye, I know,” Jamie said. His voice wavered, like his patience was hanging on by the tiniest thread. “You’ve told me that before. But it’s here now, isn’t it?” He paused, fingers opening and closing rhythmically. “I was tellin’ them – beggin’ them not tae make me forget. I’d already seen them do it tae Zoe, see, an’ -” Falling silent, he looked up, and the Doctor saw that his eyes were full of tears. “Do ye think she could remember, too?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said again. “I simply don’t know, Jamie. But – ah – if it’s any consolation -” It had to be. For himself, if not for Jamie. “You have just been on the receiving end of an immensely strong psychic attack, even with the cannons redirecting most of it. What you went through – it’s unlike anything your average human is likely to face in their life, even someone from Zoe’s time. It’s highly unlikely that she would be able to – to trigger it, as it were.”

Jamie let out a long breath. “So it’s just me who remembers.”

“If I had to guess – yes, it is.” Something was settling into his gut, deep and unshakeable. “Ah – Jamie – I am sorry.” It should have been him, not Jamie, walking across that wasteland to face that thing down. “If I had been just a little faster -” He was better equipped to deal with such an onslaught. Goodness knew what sort of effect it might have had on Jamie’s mind. He was lucky – they were both lucky – that he was still alive, and relatively intact. “You didn’t have to do this,” he finished weakly. “And if you hadn’t, then – well, you wouldn’t have remembered.”

“I know,” was all Jamie said. His head was bowed, his face too hidden for the Doctor to make out his expression – but that was worse, if anything, the anger he was surely feeling too easy to imagine.

“It should have been me,” the Doctor carried on despite himself. He was babbling away, he knew, when Jamie was hurting, but the words came tripping out of him regardless. “I could have withstood it better – you shouldn’t have been the one to do this. It was always going to be me who did it, and now -” There was something he could do, he realised. Something that could fix everything. Leaning forwards, he snatched up Jamie’s hand. “I could take the memory away,” he said breathlessly. “Reach into your mind. Make you forget.” Turning Jamie’s hand over, he closed his fingers around his wrist. It would be so easy, just to open the psychic connection. He could feel it thumping away, as clearly as he could feel Jamie’s pulse. It was such a small thing to do over, properly this time…

“No!” Jamie wrenched his hand away, clutching it to his chest like the Doctor’s touch had burnt it. Sitting back in alarm, the Doctor stared at him, stomach churning with dismay. Perhaps Jamie really had forgotten something, he thought. He had never thought he would see him recoiling from his touch with such disgust. “No, I don’t – I don’t want tae forget again, don’t ye understand? I don’t want people messin’ about with my head anymore!”

“I was only offering -”

“I know.” Jamie shook his head. “Just – don’t, alright?”

“Alright.” The Doctor clasped his hands in his lap, as steadily as he could manage. “Ah,” he said, but no words came out to follow it. “Mm,” he added a moment later. “Ah – Jamie – is there anything I can do?”

Jamie simply shrugged, hunching himself over a little more. “I don’t know.” Sheer tiredness was written into the set of his shoulders, the way he let his hands fall to the bed. “Sit with me,” he said at last. “Don’t – don’t say anythin’, just – sit with me.” The corner of his mouth twitched into a small, bitter smile. “I spent all that time wantin’ my memories back, an’ now here I am with the last of them, an’ I wish I hadn’t remembered.” The Doctor opened his mouth, but Jamie held up his hand before any words could escape him. “Don’t. I know ye want tae – fix it, just like that, but I don’t want ye to. Not this time.”

It was a terrible thing, the Doctor thought, to have to listen to anyone deny help and not protest. To hear such a thing coming from Jamie – his fingers itched to reach out and touch him, to take his pain away. To take his own pain away, and assure himself that he knew best. But Jamie was determined – and he was right, as he always was, that it would fix nothing. However hard it would be to live with what he had already done, in leaving Jamie to face that thing alone, it would be even harder to live with having betrayed his trust. The only thing to do was to sit and wait.

Glancing up, he saw Jamie’s hand stretched out to him, and took it, understanding the trust implicit in the simple gesture. He could feel the potential energy of the psychic link again, swirling through their veins, and tapped at the edge of it, just enough to bleed the fringes of their consciousnesses together. Jamie drew in a sharp breath, leaning back – but he tightened his grip on the Doctor’s hand, and there was trust in that too, in the way his mind relaxed just enough for the Doctor to catch a glimpse of his fright and sadness and heavy, suffocating exhaustion.

“I’m alright,” Jamie said softly. “I’ll be alright.”

The Doctor squeezed his hand. “Yes, I know.”

#second doctor #two/jamie #(ish) #fanfic archive #my writing #thanks!! #sorry this took so long asjfd #observethewalrus