Jamie spent the next few hours pouring out the coffee on demand. Zoe didn't require much, having pulled all-nighters on more than one occasion during her days on the Wheel, but Salamander seemed to find some enjoyment in snapping his fingers every so often so that Jamie could serve him—something that earned him a rather nasty glare from the Doctor whenever he did so.

In addition, the Brigadier, Benton, and Yates needed coffee to stay awake and remain on guard, but they had refused to partake of the Master's coffee and had another member of the UNIT squad deliver some to them. The UNIT member had, on instructions from the Brigadier, also brought blankets for Jamie and Victoria, who wouldn't need to stay awake all night long as the others would.

Jamie didn't really care about anything as long as it meant less work from him, but as Victoria wrapped herself in one of the blankets and quickly drifted off, the piper found himself longing to take a break and sleep.

"McCrimmon!" Salamander barked, snapping his fingers again.

Muttering oaths under his breath, Jamie refilled Salamander's coffee as the Doctor once again responded with a glare.

"Jamie is not your personal servant!" he snapped.

"You forget, Doctor—he was once my personal guard," Salamander replied, smugly. "Though I did have him arrested, I never officially terminated his employment."

"Aye? Then I quit!" Jamie exclaimed, setting the coffeepot down after he had finished dispensing the refill. "I am going t' get some sleep." He paused. "And I want all my back pay, too!"

"The space-time continuum is going to be destroyed, and you are concerned about money, huh?" Salamander queried.

"Pay him no mind, Jamie," the Doctor said, as the Scot was readying a retort. "He's just trying to be difficult."

"Something you are quite familiar with," the Master intoned.

"Just get some sleep," the Doctor continued, ignoring him. "Things will hopefully look better for all of us in the morning."

"Aye," Jamie said. "Goodnight, Doctor."

"Goodnight, Jamie," the Doctor replied, giving him a warm smile.

Jamie resisted the temptation to give the Master a smug look as he bid goodnight to Zoe and to the three UNIT members before grabbing his blanket and retreating to an unoccupied spot along the circular wall of the console room.

He let out a quiet yawn as he sat down, wrapping himself in the blanket. Casting one last look over at the crew of four working at the console, Jamie sought out the Doctor. He was back to focusing on the calculations, but Jamie was appreciative of the fact that the Doctor had taken a moment to wish him goodnight.

The piper closed his eyes and nestled deeper in the blanket. Even since the beginning of Jamie's stay on the TARDIS, the Doctor had treated him very warmly. Something between them had quickly connected, and Jamie recalled distinctly that he, though initially cautious, had warmed up to the Doctor very quickly during their misadventure in Atlantis. From then on, they had only seemed to grow closer. And the testament to how close they were was reflected in how, despite the Time Lords' best efforts to separate them, they had still managed to find each other again. That hiccup aside, the last thirteen years had been even more wonderful than he could have ever imagined.

Even more than the things he had seen and places he had been had been the kindness and love that the Doctor had shown him. Even though the Doctor could be ruthless and merciless towards threats, the one thing that always remained constant was that he still had compassion and love in his hearts. And that was what made the prospect of the Valeyard so frightening for Jamie; it wasn't the Valeyard's ruthlessness that horrified the piper, but the fact that for the brief instant that he had locked eyes with the Valeyard, Jamie saw that there wasn't a single shred of love or compassion in him.

The worst thing to see, of course, had been what his Doctor had looked like in the alternate universe. Jamie seeing the Valeyard with no love in his eyes had been bad enough; seeing his Doctor with no love in his eyes had been even worse. And that was why Jamie had vowed that as long as he was alive, he would do his best to ensure that the Valeyard did not get a hold on the Doctor.

It was these thoughts that filled the piper's mind as he drifted off to sleep and began to lapse into the Dream World.

Jamie was standing out on a vast, grassy expanse. Night had fallen upon this unfamiliar place, but something about it didn't seem right. Looking up, Jamie was surprised to see that there were no stars visible in the sky; instead, the moon, larger than the piper could ever have imagined it to get, seemed to engulf the sky. The brightness of the moon, now so much closer than normal, had obscured the stars from view.

The piper stared at the moon for a while, until he was suddenly aware of the sounds of a struggle—shouts and the sounds of fists striking, coming from a wooded area not too far away; whoever was out there was close by, but obscured by trees. Jamie hesitated for a moment before realizing that he recognized one of the voices.

"Doctor…!" he gasped, running towards the wooded area.

After slipping past a few trees, Jamie could see the Doctor attempting to make an escape from his unseen attacker. The bright moonlight fell upon the Time Lord, revealing a painful-looking bruise on his cheek and a bleeding cut on his forehead.

"Doctor, over here!" Jamie called, shuddering at his condition.

The Doctor looked up, hope filling his harrowed features at last.

"Jamie…?!"

Jamie started towards him, but froze as someone now stepped out from the other direction; the Doctor paled, turning around to face his assailant.

"Who are you!?" the Doctor demanded.

Jamie stepped closer, trying to get a good look at the Doctor's foe. He had been expecting Salamander or the Master; instead, it was a tall, cold-looking being—one that Jamie had seen only once before.

"The Valeyard…" the Scot whispered, fear seemingly taking hold of his throat.

The Doctor continued to stare down the Valeyard, completely unaware that he was looking at a twisted offshoot of himself.

"What do you want from me!?" the Doctor demanded, sounding a lot braver than he felt. "I assume you have some other purpose besides trying to knock me senseless! So what is it you want!? Out with it, then!"

"Your regenerations," the being hissed.

Instead of sounding afraid, the Doctor merely responded with an annoyed huff.

"Certainly not!" he retorted. "I have uses for those regenerations; I'm not about to let some overdressed upstart take them from me!"

The Valeyard's eyes narrowed angrily, prompting Jamie to run out into the open, placing himself between them.

"Jamie!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Jamie, get back!"

"Doctor, run! Get oot of here!" the piper ordered, staring into the cold eyes of the Valeyard. "I'll cover yer escape!"

The Valeyard took a step towards Jamie, but whatever he had been planning to do was preempted by the Doctor seizing Jamie's arm, pulling him with him as he ran. Though grateful that the piper had been willing to sacrifice himself for his sake, the Doctor certainly had no intentions of letting that happen.

The Doctor and Jamie darted through the trees, scrambling back towards the open field that Jamie had been standing in a moment ago. The duo glanced behind them, but the Valeyard had vanished.

"Jamie, thank you," the Doctor said, exhausted from their sprint. "Getting ambushed by whoever that was didn't look as though it would've ended well."

"Aye, ye're hurt," Jamie said, looking at the visible injuries on the Doctor's face—and realizing that there were probably more injuries that he couldn't see. "What happened to ye, Doctor?"

"I don't really know," the Time Lord admitted. "I was looking for you, and the next thing I knew, someone attacked me in the dark."

"I'm glad I found ye," Jamie said.

"So am I," the Doctor said, with a smile. "But I do wonder who that was—and why he wanted my regenerations. Obviously he must be a Gallifreyan; they wouldn't be of use to any other species."

"Aye…" Jamie said, knowing that he had to maintain his silence.

"I wouldn't put it past Goth to send someone after me; you know how he hates to see me happy…" The Doctor trailed off as he finally noticed that the moonlight was far too bright to be normal. "Oh, my word…! Jamie, look at the moon!"

"Aye; it's gotten bigger in the sky."

"Far too large!" the Doctor said. "Something must have happened to its orbit—it's on a collision course with Earth!"

"Oh, aye-what!?" the piper exclaimed, as the Doctor's words sunk in. "Collide!? …Is there a way to stop it!?"

"I don't know!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Patching up my injuries can wait; we must find a way to stop it first!"

"I can stop it for you, Doctor," the Valeyard said, as he emerged from the wooded area now. "But there is a price I demand in exchange."

"Yes, and I know exactly what that price is," the Doctor sighed.

"Don' ye pay it," Jamie ordered. "We can get oot of here in the TARDIS—and save whoever we can. But if he takes yer regenerations, we're all lost!"

The Doctor cast a glance at the moon before grabbing Jamie's arms; slowly, he pulled him back, trying to distance them from the Valeyard.

"Jamie, I want you to run."

"No! I cannae leave ye!"

"But, Jamie—Oh, Jamie! Stop! Look out behind us!"

The piper looked back, gasping as the grassy expanse suddenly ended at the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep body of water. The Doctor had his arms around Jamie, worried that he might fall, but the piper broke free from his hold as the Valeyard approached them.

Jamie stepped forward now, trying to block the Valeyard from reaching the Doctor again, but the Valeyard responded by suddenly using his telepathic powers to probe into Jamie's mind. The piper cringed, crying out in pain.

"Stop!" the Doctor cried. "Stop it now! He can't handle a mind probe!"

"Then you will surrender your regenerations to spare him this pain?" the Valeyard asked, without missing a beat.

There was a brief pause.

"Yes."

"No!" Jamie pleaded. "No, if he gets yer regenerations, we're all lost! Please, Doctor; I can handle a wee bit of pain!"

But the Doctor's hands started glowing with a golden light as the Valeyard walked past Jamie, aiming to claim his prize. The Scot turned, watching as the Valeyard slowly extended a hand towards the Doctor's glowing ones. And something snapped.

Forgetting about the pain in his head, and forgetting about the consequences of what he was about to do, Jamie rushed towards them, tackling the Valeyard from behind before he could claim the regeneration energy.

This, of course, led to both Jamie and the Valeyard free-falling off of the cliff, heading for the water.

It was all over in seconds; Jamie was vaguely aware of both the Doctor's agonized cries of his name and the Valeyard's furious yell. The last thing the piper saw before he lost all awareness was the moon in the sky growing larger as it drew closer. Wherever Jamie ended up, he would, at least, meet the Doctor there.

Jamie let out a shrill gasp as he awoke from his nightmare. He blinked several times as he looked around, finally realizing that he had been asleep in the Master's console room the entire time.

"Jamie?"

The Scot looked up to see the Doctor looking at him with concern.

"You must have been having an incredibly involved dream," the Doctor said, kindly. "Are you alright?"

"Aye, of course. It was just a dream," Jamie said, relived that it had been. He looked around again, noticing that Victoria was already up and about, listening to what the Master, Salamander, and Zoe were talking about, and that the UNIT members were still on guard. "How long have I been asleep? What time is it?"

"You were asleep all night," the Doctor said. "It's just after sunrise—though you can't really tell with the storm out there."

Jamie froze, realizing the significance of the Doctor's words.

"Ye di'n figure oot how to fix it," he realized.

"No, Jamie," the Doctor said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. Nothing has worked. And now we only have 48 hours left."