Chapter 9

Frowning, Kathryn alternated between looking at her watch and gazing out the window, hoping to catch Jamie arriving. She had made it to the restaurant at exactly ten minutes past noon, the time she and Jamie had agreed upon to meet for lunch. He hadn't shown up yet so she decided to take a seat at a table near the front so he'd be able to find her when he did arrive.

She decided to give him ten minutes, fifteen at the most in case something was making him late. As the minutes drifted by, however, Jamie still hadn't shown up. It was now almost half past noon. Wondering if he had stood her up, she felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Was he indeed too good to be true? After her experience with Tom, it didn't seem so far-fetched.

Blimey. Stop overreacting. She reminded herself that she and Jamie were just friends and it did her no favors to dredge up Tom. Besides that, Jamie didn't seem the type to do such a thing. He seemed like such a caring, considerate young man. If he hadn't shown up, he probably had a good reason.

If he wasn't standing her up, why wasn't he here, then? Her mind raced with possibilities, the first that he'd gotten waylaid somewhere. Perhaps Ben had tried to talk him into doing something he wasn't all that keen on. She chuckled briefly, trying to picture the situation. She then began fearing that something had happened to him.

One more glance at her watch told her it had just gone half past noon. Damn it, where was he?! Her lunch hour ended at one and her boss wouldn't take kindly to her getting back late. If Jamie was still planning to show up, they'd be lucky if they had ten or fifteen minutes to eat.

Sighing, she went up to the counter and decided to order some food herself. She ate quickly, stopping only for a brief moment to look out the window and then toward the front doors in case he had showed up. When it became obvious that wasn't happening, she deposited her trash and approached the wait staff, asking them to give Jamie a message from her in case he arrived after she'd left. Dejected, she left the restaurant at nearly ten minutes to one.

As she slowly walked back down the street in the direction of her place of employment, she hoped he was alright. Perhaps she would pop by Polly and Ben's this evening and find out what happened.

… If he was alright.

The first thing Jamie felt as he returned to the land of consciousness was a dull, persistent ache at the back of his head that pierced through the overwhelming sense of grogginess. As he opened his eyes and his vision came into focus, he found himself lying on a cot of some sort in a brightly lit room that looked like an office. What on Earth had happened? He suddenly remembered he was about to meet Kathryn for lunch and saw a strange car following him. He had just reached the restaurant when another car had pulled up alongside, a man had grabbed him, and … That was all he could remember.

Kathryn! She must have been worried. He needed to get back to her. He quickly raised his head and struggled to get off the cot when he suddenly felt a large hand grab his shoulder and gently ease him back down.

"Oh, good, you're awake, McCrimmon."

"Aye," he replied automatically, trying once again to get off the bed. "Wait a minute. How d'ye know my name?" The voice that had addressed him sounded so familiar. He turned his head in its direction and felt his jaw drop.

"Yes, it's me: Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart," the man continued, this time with a disarming smile. "Fancy running into you again."

All Jamie could do was stare at him in shock before his mind once again focused on Kathryn and how he was captured. He eyed the Brigadier angrily. "Fancy running into me, eh? Yer goons almost ran me over! Why did ye bring me here? I've not done anything!" The pain at the back of his skull returning, he grabbed his head and screwed his eyes shut. "Gah!"

"Ah, yes. I'm sorry about that. Sergeant Benton was a little rough unnecessarily. Not to worry, I gave him a good talking-to." He then looked up and another man came into view.

Jamie immediately recognized him: Corporal John Benton from the Cybermen invasion. Apparently, he'd moved up in the world. He regarded the Brigadier a bit awkwardly before turning to Jamie. "Yes, I'm awfully sorry about that. I didn't mean to be so rough, but we had to subdue you quickly without drawing much attention. Can I get you anything for your head?"

"Och, no, I'm alright," Jamie sighed as the pain started ebbing away. "Wha' happened? Why am I here?"

"Your questions will be answered all in good time, McCrimmon. But first -"

Jamie uttered a sound of disbelief. "Forgive me fer bein' a wee bit impatient, but ye grabbed me, smashed me over the head and brought me here, an' now yer bein' real cagey aboot it. I was supposed tae meet a friend and she's no doubt thinkin' I'm a heel or somethin' terrible happened tae me-"

"For heaven's sake, man, I'm getting to that!" the Brigadier raised his voice impatiently. Jamie regarded him curiously as he sighed and his stern expression softened. "You will get the answers you seek, I promise. But I need to ask you a few questions first. We're in the middle of investigating some strange goings-on in this part of the city when we happened to see you involved, smack dab in the middle of it. James Robert McCrimmon, young Scots lad, companion of the Doctor, whom we had not seen since the Cybermen invasion. Just appearing. Alone, without the Doctor. Now, I want you to be truthful." He bent so that he was eye level with Jamie. "How did you get here?"

"Um.." Jamie started, feeling his mouth parched and licking his lips. "The Doctor brought me here."

The Brigadier lifted an eyebrow in apparent confusion. "But that's impossible. He's ..." He turned his head toward the doorway on the far side of the room. "Wait a minute. Can you tell me how the Doctor brought you here?"

Jamie gave a small nod. "Aye." He briefly stopped and screwed his eyes shut, wondering how he was going to explain all this and get the Brigadier to believe him. "He found me in prison at Culloden. He rescued me an' brought me back with him in the TARDIS."

The Brigadier stared at him, almost as if he had four heads. "I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me. This all seems a little far-fetched. Although, one would expect that as far as the Doctor is concerned."

"Alright, I'll start at the beginning. Ye see, after the Cybermen invasion, we traveled a great deal more an' then the Doctor's people, the Time Lords, caught up to us an' put the Doctor on trial. He lost an' was forced tae change his appearance, then exiled tae Earth with a broken TARDIS."

The Brigadier nodded. "Yes, I am aware of that."

"Eh?" Jamie felt his brows draw together in confusion. How would the Brigadier know all this? Had the version of the Doctor Jamie had just left shared this at some point, or some other version?

"The Doctor told me," the Brigadier supplied, as if he could read his mind. "But how did you know that? The Doctor never shared with me what had happened to you, or the girl you were with."

"Zoe," Jamie corrected him, nodding. "Well, the Time Lords sent us away, back to our own times and places and had our memories wiped of our adventures with the Doctor. I was in prison at Culloden fer a few weeks. Nearly got killed until the Doctor came back an' rescued me." He felt his lips tugging into a fond smile.

"Yes, you mentioned that. But how was he able to do so if he was exiled on Earth in this time, without a working TARDIS?" The Brigadier appeared quite lost, but seemed determined to figure out what he must have thought was an intricate riddle. Jamie was glad that he wasn't ready to dismiss him as completely daft.

Eager to explain all this to him, Jamie felt his smile widening in triumph. "Ah, well, I don' know if ye know this, but the Doctor is capable of changing his appearance when he's near death, almost becoming a new person. When I first saw him, I almost didnae believe it was him. He looked so different, but there was still somethin' aboot him that was very familiar. He was a different version of the wee chappie I'd come tae know during my first travels in the TARDIS. I cannae remember how many times he said he'd changed, but it was a lot."

The Brigadier's poker face remained, but his raised eyebrows reflected his obvious surprise. That wasn't a surprise to Jamie, as the man had only seen one version of the Doctor himself, or maybe two, given what he'd just said about the Doctor telling him about his broken TARDIS.

He took a deep breath and continued. "During my time in prison, I started havin' these dreams aboot things I'd done and people I'd known while I was with the Doctor. After he showed up, all these visions an' pictures hit me, an' all my memories started comin' back. The Doctor called it a 'memory stream.' We'd then gone tae find Zoe an' ended up battling these wee beasties called 'vashta'-somethin'-or-other. I almost got killed, but good old Doctor came tae the rescue and sent them away. After that, I decided tae take a break from travelin' with him. He was goin' tae drop me off in Paris in seventeen-forty-six tae be with my family, but for some reason I ended up here instead."

The Brigadier's eyebrows seemed to lift higher and one corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk, as if he were almost amused. His smirk faded and he seemed to regard Jamie with concern. "So you're all alone here in London, in the late twentieth century. When exactly did this happen?"

"Er..." Jamie turned his head and found a calendar on the near wall, confirming that it was Tuesday, the sixteenth of November. "A week ago Monday … the eighth."

"Huh. And have you had anywhere to stay this whole time?"

Jamie nodded. "Aye. I've been stayin' at Ben and Polly's. I don' think ye know them, but they had also traveled with the Doctor. In fact they were with him when I first met him at Culloden. They live here in London." A thought suddenly occurred to him and he briefly looked around. "Um … This is London, aye? We're not on yer aeroplane from last time?"

The Brigadier grinned and uttered an amused chuckle. "No, lad, this is London. This office building serves as our UNIT HQ. It's not all that special, but it suffices. We also have a laboratory in the other room." He gestured toward the door at the far end of the room.

Jamie nodded his head thoughtfully and then met the Brigadier's gaze once again. "So, have I answered all yer questions? Are ye gannae tell me what all this is aboot, why ye were following me an' brought me here?"

"Yes, I think you've answered all my questions sufficiently. Still going to take some time to process all this information you shared, but I'm satisfied. Now, as to why we were following you: I take it you know about the strange deaths occurring recently?"

"Aye. First one I saw was the first night I was here. Late that night I was woken up by a sound outside Ben and Polly's house. An old man had been rootin' through their rubbish bin an' shouted at me. He said 'Drix', whatever that means."

The Brigadier's eyes seemed to light up in recognition but he simply nodded, prompting Jamie to go on.

"He looked half mad and had run away. I didnae follow him, but the next morning in the paper I read he had died. And then this past Saturday, I'd gone with Ben, Polly and another friend Kathryn to a pub. We were outside talking when we saw a woman staggering aboot an' shouting the same thing. She ran an' after a while she collapsed. We'd gone tae the police, they called an ambulance but the lass had died an' they said it was a brain hemorrhage or somethin' like that. And then a reporter from the paper interviewed us."

"Yes. In fact, that's how we found you. I read the story in the paper. It had mentioned two witnesses, a brunette girl and Scotsman, both in their early twenties. This gave me pause for a moment, but then I thought, 'not unusual.' However, one of our men, Jimmy, was there that night, snapping photos." He suddenly turned to a stack of papers on a desk and grabbed a photo from the top. "And he brought this back." He handed the photo to Jamie.

Jamie felt his throat go dry as he eyed the photo showing him and Kathryn talking to a reporter. Recalling how both of them wanted to remain anonymous and not draw any attention to themselves, a spark of anger suddenly lit up inside him and he shot a glare at the Brigadier. "If this gets oot tae the papers, I'll have ye know I –"

The older man held up a placating hand. "Take it easy, McCrimmon. The last thing we would ever do is make this public. Jimmy was just there taking photos of the scene and the victim in particular." He showed Jamie several more photos, showing mainly closeups of the woman and the condition she was in. "We would never release these, so not to worry."

Jamie's glare remained. "Ye better not, is all I've got tae say." His glare softened as he glanced at the other photos once again. In the stack, he was able to see several more photos of victims he had never seen before. One appeared to be a younger man in his thirties and another of a woman of similar age.

"We've been tracking these strange deaths and there have been a few more that haven't made it to the papers. From all we've seen, they have the same pattern. The victims are regular, well-to-do people who suddenly appear as vagrants who've gone half mad. They stagger about, mumbling incoherently and shout this same word every time: 'Drix.' They seem to get madder and madder, running about and finally collapsing. Some convulse for a bit but they are all found dead. The official cause of death is usually something like brain aneurysm or hemorrhage."

Jamie felt his jaw go slack. He had no idea these strange deaths were more common than he'd imagined, or that they all had the same pattern. Polly herself seemed so sure they were just a coincidence. Jamie wondered what she'd be saying now.

"Is there anything else you can share with us, McCrimmon?"

Jamie shook his head. This was all certainly news to him. "Ah, no. I wish I could say so, but I only know aboot the first two victims. How long has this been goin' on?"

"About a fortnight now. We're trying to see if there is some common biological thread in all of this." He turned back to the photos and grabbed one. "Now you'll notice there is some blood discharging out of the victims' ears, but there's something else that we can't quite get a handle on. We've requested some blood and tissue samples from the morgue. We've got one back so far and our – shall we say – 'special informant' is studying them."

"Special informant?"

"That's right." The Brigadier stood up and gestured for Jamie to follow him as he began walking toward the door on the far side of the room. "In fact, you may know him." He paused as Jamie saw another man in uniform enter the room. "Ah. Mike. Any progress yet?"

The other man regarded the Brigadier somewhat curiously and then shook his head. "No, he's still plugging away at it." He then seemed to notice Jamie standing next to him. "Oh. Hello."

"Captain, this is James McCrimmon." He turned to Jamie. "McCrimmon, this is Captain Mike Yates."

"How do ye do?" Jamie said, managing a slight smile as he shook the officer's outstretched hand.

"Very well." The Captain's eyes then seemed to notice his kilt. "You part of some Highland regiment?" The man had quirked an eyebrow at him and had an amused smirk on his face before he turned and walked away.

"Smartarse sassenach," Jamie muttered as the man passed.

The Brigadier chuckled. "Don't pay him any mind. I'll introduce you properly as soon as we've got more time. We're just really busy working on this case."

Jamie nodded as he continued to follow Lethbridge-Stewart out the door and into a corridor. "So, ye've got a 'special informant' helping ye with this, an' yer sayin' I may know him?"

"Yes. You may know him as 'The Doctor.'"

Jamie eyes widened and he stared at the Brigadier in shock. Finally he found his voice. "The … The Doctor. Ye mean, he's here?!"

The Brigadier nodded. "See for yourself," he prompted Jamie, holding out a hand and gesturing for him to enter a large room that appeared to be a laboratory.

Dumbfounded, Jamie obediently followed. The Doctor was here. But how...? It certainly couldn't have been "his" Doctor, the one with whom he'd originally traveled. Could the Doctor he had just left decided to return and pay a visit? How would he have known Jamie had landed in this time and place?

They entered the lab and Jamie found a man with a mass of gray hair wearing a mahogany colored suit sitting at a table with his back turned to them. Next to him was a woman with blonde hair, standing but bent over slightly and talking to him.

"Oh, Doctor, may I have a word with you?" the Brigadier called out to him.

"Oh, really, Lethbridge-Stewart, can't you see I'm -" the man started, sounding irritated. His voice trailed off as he finally turned around.

Jamie got one look at the man's face and felt his jaw drop nearly to the ground.

The man referred to as The Doctor seemed just as shocked, given the way the color quickly drained from his face.

"Jamie?"