Notes: the brief mention of Jamie's "stint in a Time Lord body" is a reference to a fic I wrote last year called "Metamorphosis."
The silence was finally broken by Victoria.
"Well, what do we do now?" she asked.
"There's only one thing we can do," Yates said, going over the map. "We need to get to the A9 road and go to Inverness that way."
Jamie and the Doctor exchanged glances; the Brigadier saw the exchange in the rearview mirror, and was grateful when they said nothing about how Jamie had insisted upon the A9 road earlier.
They changed routes with difficulty; the wind and rain was still increasing in intensity, even this far from the start of the storm, and the Brigadier was unwilling to go at any higher speeds than the conditions would allow.
Nevertheless, they made it to the A9 road and continued northward, maintaining a slow but steady pace. Jamie was practically glued to the window of the vehicle, watching as views of the land he once knew so well sped past him, now distorted by the passage of time.
He wasn't really in the mood to talk, so he just sighed and mulled over his thoughts in silence. The Doctor understood his feelings and placed a supportive hand on his shoulder, silently transmitting that if Jamie changed his mind and wanted to talk, he could do so at any moment.
As evening fell and the view out of the window became obscured, Jamie probably would have said something at some point, had the Brigadier not suddenly let out another curse, bringing the vehicle to a halt once again.
"Don't tell me that the rest of the A9 road is closed, as well!" the Doctor exclaimed, wringing his hands.
"I should have expected it," the Brigadier said, bitterly. "They were renovating the road here before the storm started; of course, the downpour would have rendered it impassable. Yates, how far are we from Inverness?"
"Nearly thirty miles, we just passed Aviemore," Yates said, consulting the map. "If we can find another detour—"
"If the main roads are this bad, any other road won't have conditions that will allow us passage," the Brigadier muttered. "There'll be downed trees, accidents, floods…"
"Shall we try going off of the roads, Sir?" Benton asked, quietly.
"It's the only other chance we've got keeping us from walking the rest of the way," the Brigadier sighed. "But with that ground saturated with water, I cannot imagine that we'll get very far."
"I suggest we try," the Doctor said. "The less we have to walk in that storm, the better. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, after all…"
Progress off of the road was even slower as the Brigadier tried his best not to get the vehicle stuck. But the heavy vehicle on the soggy ground was not a favorable combination; they had barely inched forward a mile when the vehicle got stuck.
"I knew it sounded too easy," Victoria sighed, in resignation. "We spent seven-and-a-half hours in this vehicle, traveling a route that should have taken only half that time, and we're stuck thirty miles from our destination."
"Oh, Victoria, it's not as bad as all that," the Doctor said. "True, we shall have to brave the elements, but it's far from an impossible goal. And we still have two-and-a-half days to get to Inverness. And don't forget that we've got the best navigator possible for this journey northward."
It took Jamie a moment to realize that the Doctor was talking about him.
"Oh, aye!" he exclaimed. "I can lead us t' Inverness the most direct way possible! It's my home, after all—"
"You are overestimating the amount of time we have for traveling," the Brigadier said. "To travel on foot in this weather at night is certain death! I don't care how confident McCrimmon is with his navigational skills—I have no doubt that he is the best man for the job. But even so, I cannot allow anyone to take such a risk!"
"I find myself having to agree with the Brigadier in this case," the Master said. "There is only one among us who currently has the capability to cheat death, should it befall him out there in the elements."
Now it was the Doctor's turn to take a moment to realize that he was the one being referred to.
"What? Oh. Oh, yes; I suppose that's true. I would have regeneration as a fallback, I suppose…" the Doctor mused. "Very well, then; as I know the code to stop the machine, I can head to Inverness by myself."
"No," Jamie said, flatly.
"Oh, Jamie; I will be careful, of course."
"Ye're nae going oot there alone," the piper insisted. "If ye're going, then I am going with ye, and the only way ye can stop me is to tie me up and knock me senseless."
"That can be arranged," the Master said, dryly.
"Oh, shush," the Doctor chided the Master.
"I have to agree with McCrimmon," the Brigadier stated. "Whether you have a fallback or not, it shan't do you or anyone else much good if you get turned around out there."
"Well, it was a thought, anyway," the Time Lord sighed. He gave Jamie a lopsided smile. "Looks like you win this argument, Jamie."
Jamie was more than satisfied with this, but it still left them with the dilemma of what to do.
Zoe, on the other hand, had taken matters into her own hands, and was going over the map with Captain Yates.
"Assuming we make full use of available daylight hours, as well as Jamie's navigational skills, I don't see any reason why we cannot make the journey on foot," she decided. "The average walking speed is three miles an hour; we'll probably have to slow down to a bit less than half that pace on account of the weather. Even then, after factoring in the time necessary for meals and rest, we should still arrive at Inverness the afternoon after tomorrow—and we would have to wait until midnight to program the code, anyway."
"Then, it's settled," the Brigadier declared. "It's already gotten dark; we continue tomorrow on foot."
"All of us, Sir?" Yates asked. "If we carry too many provisions, it may slow us down further. Also, someone should stay with the vehicle, just in case."
"It'll have t' be ye," Jamie realized. "Remember, ye're going to call for backup to reach ye here on the A9 road. And ye have t' stay here to call me to tell the Brigadier to bring the TARDIS."
"Right," Yates realized. "And I suppose I can spend tonight trying to see if they can find any sort of vehicle that could travel across this mud, while I'm at it—futile as that may be, of course."
Benton also opted to stay, in the event that Yates would need any assistance. And that led to a discussion as to who would stay and who would go.
"Obviously, I need t' go," Jamie said. "The Doctor and I can handle it on our own. And we'll need Salamander in case we need t' make any last-minute adjustments on the machine before we put the code in."
Salamander looked at the storm outside.
"Thank you for volunteering me for this," he said, sardonically.
"The three of us will be all we need," Jamie stated.
"Nevertheless," the Master said. "You may come across a situation that will require my intellect. Salamander's machine has been modified by me, after all."
"If the Master and Salamander are both going, I would feel better about this whole thing if I went along to back you up," the Brigadier stated.
"Aye, fine; then it will just be the five of us," Jamie went on. "The lassies should stay where it's safe—"
Zoe and Victoria rounded on him, both glaring at him.
"You may wish to amend that statement, Jamie, if you value your safety," the Doctor observed.
"Aye, but… Och, Zoe! Victoria! Ye don' want to go oot in that mess, do ye?"
"Seeing as though I invested a lot of time and effort into arriving at the proper code, I ought to be there to see the final results," Zoe insisted.
"And I ought to be there, seeing as though I'm just as involved in this as any one of us here," Victoria said.
Jamie let out a quiet squawk before turning to the Doctor, who was staring determinedly at the roof of the vehicle, twiddling his thumbs.
"Besides, I don't think it's really up to you as to who goes or stays," Zoe added. "You're just the navigator."
"Och, fine. Brigadier?" Jamie asked.
The Brigadier looked as though that this was one argument he wanted no part of, but nevertheless had to contribute to.
"Miss Heriot brings up a valid point about her knowledge of the code; God forbid we get into a situation where we're separated or reduced in number, but if that should happen, we would need to make sure that someone can program the machine. In fact, Doctor, I think you ought to tell McCrimmon and Miss Waterfield the code. Just in case…"
"Yes, I suppose you're right," the Doctor agreed, and he wrote it down for them.
"Then it's decided," the Brigadier said. "Yates and Benton will stay here, and the rest of us will leave first thing in the morning."
"Then you should get a good night's rest," the Doctor said. "Any human going out there tomorrow will need it—you're not immune to this, Brigadier."
"Benton and I will keep watch, Sir," Yates assured him. "I need to be up with the communications, anyway."
"Very well," the Brigadier agreed, though he seemed to dislike the idea of partaking in the luxury of sleep when his men could not.
The girls were given the back of the vehicle for themselves; they had enough room to lie down, wrapped in blankets, and were soon asleep.
The others stayed in their seats; Salamander, though grumpy, nodded off fairly quickly, while the Brigadier made sure Yates and Benton were alright before following suit.
It was Jamie, however, who was finding sleep difficult. The vivid nightmare he'd had the other night—the same night, actually, seeing as though they'd gone back in time—was still in his mind, and the last thing he wanted was to once again see the Valeyard stealing the Doctor's lives, even if it was only in his dreams.
He sat quietly in the darkened car, listening to Captain Yates attempting to call for backup as flashes of lightning momentarily lit up the sky outside, coupled with the sounds of thunder.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and the Master were looking at each other, silently; it took Jamie a moment to realize that they were communicating telepathically. Jamie couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy that they could communicate so easily like that, while he struggled to, given humans' lack of telepathic abilities—a brief stint in a Time Lord body had given him a very mild increase in natural telepathy, but it just wasn't enough sometimes. The Doctor pointed out that they had always been on the same wavelength prior to the incident, and that he had never had any trouble understanding what Jamie wanted to put across.
As if to illustrate this point, Jamie gave a start as the Doctor placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Jamie?" he asked, softly.
"I'm alright," the piper murmured back.
"You must get some sleep," the Doctor responded, not convinced. "You need to be well-rested for your duties as our navigator."
"I know; I just…" Jamie said, but trailed off as remembered that there wasn't much he could tell the Doctor now in regards to the Valeyard. "It's nothing. I was just wondering if ye could somehow see to it that I had a dreamless sleep."
The Doctor blinked in surprise.
"It's been a long time since you asked me for that," the Doctor pointed out. "Not since the Sontaran massacre aboard the Space Station Chimera."
"I know," Jamie said. "But, like ye said, I need to be well-rested—which I cannae be if I have nightmares."
"If you think you'll have another, then I certainly will see to it that you won't have any dreams tonight," the Doctor promised. He gently placed his index finger on Jamie's forehead. "Are you ready?"
"Aye," he replied, and an instant later, the piper was asleep, slumping forward in his seat.
The Doctor gently caught him as he fell forward and now drew him closer, resting the piper's head on the Doctor's own shoulder. Something was troubling Jamie, the Time Lord knew, but he knew better than to press for the answer or to poke in Jamie's mind and find out that way. If Jamie was willing to tell him, then he would.
Whatever the dream had been, it had to be something truly horrifying. During the start of their travels together, Jamie had asked for dreamless nights a lot, on account of revisiting Culloden in his dreams. After a while, the requests had stopped, returning only on rare occasions—the time after the Doctor had been in a coma for months after being presumed dead, the time the Doctor had been presumed dead and had woken up just prior to a space burial, and the aforementioned Sontaran attack, when the Doctor had been presumed dead again…
Oh, Jamie… the Time Lord silently transmitted, as he finally connected the dots and also recalled Jamie's insistence on refusing to let him go out alone just a little while ago. He brushed a stray strand of hair out of the Scot's eyes. It'll be alright, Jamie; you'll see. No matter what happens this time, we shall be together. I can promise you that.
Their future was still unknown, but whatever it was—whether it ended in success or failure—it would be a fate that they would share.