Vignette 36: Jamie McCrimmon and the Ninth Doctor; part 1 of 2.
The second pub-crawl ended up with the Doctor and Jamie arriving somewhere in Hawaii. The Doctor was very pleased by this and insisted that they stay for a while.
"It's not the Caribbean, but it's still warm and pleasant," he declared, arriving in the console room with a flowery Hawaiian shirt and matching swim trunks on. He paused, realizing that Jamie wasn't there. "Jamie? Where are you?"
"Right here," he called from his room. "And I'm staying right here. I look like a fool, dressed like this…"
He stepped outside of the room long enough for the Doctor to see Jamie's Hawaiian shirt and trunks.
"I think you look quite nice," the Doctor said.
"People are going to stare at me like this… Can I just wear my kilt…?"
"They'll stare at you even more if you do—though I suppose we could find you a grass skirt?"
Jamie responded with a look, but after much wheedling and coaxing from the Doctor, the Scot was finally convinced to exit the TARDIS in his Hawaiian clothes, dragging a pair of beach chairs with them.
The Doctor proceeded to sunbathe while Jamie purchased a drink, certain that he would need it if he was to be wearing this get-up for much longer.
"They put a wee umbrella in my drink…" he said, as he sat back down.
"How nice," the Doctor said, removing his shirt and flopping over onto his stomach as he rested in his beach chair. He sighed in contentment.
Jamie glanced over at him and smiled, despite himself. It had been a long time since he had seen the Doctor so happy and relaxed; he was almost reverting to his old self. In fact, if it weren't for the serpent that had been tattooed on his arm by the Time Lords as a mark of his criminal status, Jamie would have thought that nothing had changed.
Jamie finished his drink.
"There's a stretch of shoreline down there," Jamie said. "I'd like to go for a walk."
"Alright, but be careful," the Doctor said. "Some of the beaches here are privately owned; don't make me have to bail you out of jail for trespassing. One criminal among the two of us is more than enough…"
Subconsciously, he moved his other hand to cover his serpent tattoo, and Jamie's face fell upon that return to reality.
"I'll be careful," he promised.
He sighed to himself and began to wander down the beach, looking out into the ocean. The waves lapped at his feet, and a smile was starting to return to his face when something in the sky caught his eye.
A blue police box was hurtling through the sky, crash landing in a sand dune.
Jamie gaped at it, looking back in the direction he had come from for a moment, as if wondering if his Doctor had somehow gotten back to the TARDIS and parked it here. He shook his head, realizing the improbability of that, and he ran up to the TARDIS, unlocking it with the key he wore around his neck.
The TARDIS had landed on its side, so Jamie had to jump in—and he immediately stared at the console room. It had changed—drastically changed. It was suddenly dark, as opposed to the warm, light white-and-gray interior he knew so well. The interiors of the other Doctor's TARDISes that he had seen had stuck to a similar scheme.
It took Jamie a moment to notice the man lying slumped over the console.
"Doctor!" he exclaimed, for he knew it had to be him, despite that fact that this was yet another Doctor he hadn't seen. "Doctor, are ye alright!? What happened!?"
The man slowly came around, lifting his head as the TARDIS lights flickered on and off; the Scot could see glimpses of him—the short hair, the cheekbones, the big ears…
The Doctor's eyes glowed as the lights flickered; he could see better than Jamie could, and he turned sharply in his direction.
"Jamie…?!" he murmured. "No… no, it can't be…"
"It's me, Doctor," Jamie promised. "I'm really here. Ye know how it works; ye always seem to end up finding me right when ye need me most—"
This Doctor suddenly pulled away from him.
"…Doctor…?" Jamie asked, suddenly hurt. The other Doctors had always greeted him so warmly; why was this one rebuffing him?
"You shouldn't be here," this Doctor said, now getting to his feet as he attempted to work the console again. "Timestreams are crossing."
"That's ne'er stopped us before," Jamie said. "Me and my Doctor—and all the rest of ye. Why was that ne'er an issue?"
"Because things are different now!" the Doctor snapped. "Don't look at me like that!"
"Like what?"
"Like you're pitying me! I don't need your pity!"
Jamie's eyes widened slightly; those words held a significance for him. It had been on one of the piper's first nights aboard the TARDIS; the terrors of the Battle of Culloden fresh in his mind… He had been on the hearth-rug in front of the fireplace in the TARDIS's study, angrily snapping at his Doctor for not being willing to alter the timestreams and save Jamie's family, saying almost the same thing as the Doctor attempted to sympathize—
"I don' need yer words, and I don' need yer pity!"
And his Doctor's response had been to hold him close in a warm embrace. And now, the piper knew he had to return the favor.
Wordlessly, he drew this angry, cold version of the Doctor into a hug. The Doctor froze in stunned silence for several minutes before finally wrapping his arms around the Scot. There was pain and anger—more than Jamie had ever felt from any of the other Doctors.
But one thing hadn't changed; despite his best efforts to make it seem like he didn't, the Doctor still needed him.