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In a day of many surprises, Goliath has found another. The ship that has stolen him from his home - or rescued him from its destruction - did not take him alone.

It took his castle, too.

There is no breeze in the city to fly on, so Goliath stands in the middle of the street he has walked, staring at what is either a very convincing replica of Wyvern Castle, or the real thing. It comes complete with clawmarks and laser burns from the battles he and his clan have fought there over the ages.

The reminder of his clan draws his heart into sorrow again, but morning is coming, and he will not have time before the sun rises to think more on their fate. He puts his emotions behind him and climbs the castle wall in the light before dawn, coming to rest atop the highest turret.

Almost unbidden, the memory rises again, as he retakes the place where he had it. His last clear memory of Earth - his last clear memory of anything before waking in the Statuary. The sun on the verge of rising. Elisa at his side.

You know how I feel about you, right?

How we both feel. Yes.

Good.

Without his heart in it, he takes his position for sleep - wings spread, talons on display, snarling furiously to discourage invaders.

The sun rises . . . and nothing happens.

Goliath lifts a wing to shield himself from the brightness of the artificial sun. When it becomes clear that he is NOT going to fall into a stone sleep, he jumps from the main turret, spiralling downward to the street again, where there is more shade.

He growls as he stands, looking himself over - still flesh and blood, and nothing close to happy about it.

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He turns his gaze to the castle, hooking his wings across his chest like a cape, now that his eyes have adjusted. He breathes in and out deeply to calm himself.

"It is a kind thought," he says. His tone suggests that he believes the kindness was more of a formality. "But I would have preferred members of my clan - even over our ancestral home."

There was a time he would have died for this castle. Now, having lost and regained it - technically three times - he knows that a castle has nothing worth defending without a family to live in it.

"I understand," Jamie says quietly. "Without your clan to be there with ye..." It's just a place.

"There may be some of them there, though. Just not awake yet." It's a small comfort, he knows, but it's all he can offer.

He nods, still looking to the castle and the blue sky beyond it. It is the not knowing that will drive him mad long before anything else does.

"Are you missing someone as well?" he asks, at length.

Jamie's not entirely sure how to answer that. "Yes...and no. I dinna think my original clan is here at all. So many of them had already been killed..." He trails off. "But I think that some of my second family may be here, just not awake."

He frowns a little. "There's one person, but I'm not sure where he is right now." He wonders why he's not more worried about the Doctor, and that bothers him slightly. But he puts it to the back of his mind, and instead comments, "I've met some verra good people here, though, and made some friends, so it's not as lonely as when I first woke up."

His original clan . . . killed. That provokes Goliath's sympathy.

"I am sorry for your losses."

He pauses before adding, "With luck, we will both find ourselves reunited with our surviving families." Surviving being the keyword there. He doesn't want to think about his Manhattan Clan not surviving. Not yet.

"Thank ye. But they died in battle, for a cause they believed in." And Jamie left before finding out just how futile those deaths were, so he still thinks they died well.

"I hope we do. Family is a good thing to have."

He considers something, then. "I'm curious, if ye don't mind a question. Have ye ever seen our kind before?" After talking raptors, there's not much that would phase Jamie, but he's noticed Goliath doesn't seem all that taken aback by /him/, so he's interested in knowing. That and he likes to ask a lot of questions.

"Of course. Your kind and mine lived together in peace for much of history."

Well, peace is a bit of a stretch, considering gargoyles were mostly tolerated by the humans they protected, rather than accepted.

"Once my clan were the night guard of Castle Wyvern in 10th century Scotland. In exchange for human protection during the day and a place to sleep, we protected the castle at night. This way was common for many clans."

The memory of the massacre always saddens him. This, of all times, is no exception.

"For many years, it was a good arrangement. Not perfect. But good."

Jamie listens intently, nodding from time to time. He is not oblivious to the tone in the gargoyle's voice, however, and frowns slightly.

"Ye sound as though something must have happened," he murmurs. He's curious - but wants to provide a way Goliath can disregard the statement, if he doesn't want to discuss what is obviously a sad subject.

"We were betrayed."

He doesn't want to go into how much.

"The smallest fraction of my clan was all that survived. I only hope they still do."

"I'm sorry," Jamie says, his own sympathy triggered by that revelation. "It seems we have a few things in common, aye?"

He considers something for a moment, chewing on his lip, then offers his hand to shake. "I'm Jamie - Jamie McCrimmon, piper to Clan McLaren."

"Aye. That it does."

He looks at the hand, blankly for a moment before taking it in his own. His hand is massive, four-fingered, his talons long and formidable, but he is careful as he shakes Jaime's hand. His grip is firm, but Goliath knows his own strength. "I am called Goliath. Leader of the Wyvern Clan." If it has survived.

He withdraws his hand, and his expression as he looks at Jamie is curious. "The humans here are far less intimidated by gargoyles than those I knew on Earth."

"It's..." Jamie scratches his head as he tries to explain. "There's a lot of different people here, but it's not just humans, aye? There's robots and beasties and talking raptors and..." He glances around, quickly, then lowers his voice. "I've seen those who look like the fair folk, too."

He looks back up at Goliath, sadly. He hasn't seen any other gargoyles, though. "And...ah. I've seen a lot of strange things in my time. Even before I was rescued by Stacy."

"I have mistaken many for Oberon's Children," Goliath agrees. "But I have not met any who claimed to be yet."

There is still one shot in the dark, he thinks, knowing that if any other gargoyles were on board, surely they would be known by now.

"How many of the human crew have you met? Would you know, if I named one, if she was on board or not?"

Jamie has to think about this - it's not something he's really kept track of. "Not too many - there's lots of people I've seen in passing that I'm not sure of. But if ye told me the lass ye are thinking of, if I know her, I'd certainly...oh!"

He snaps his fingers and suddenly looks pleased. "I have a better idea. Ye need to get one of those wee bitty computer things...er, an Omnicom. Ye could try and find her or your friends through that, if ye want."

Reaching into his sporran, he pulls out a small, hand held computer and shows it to Goliath. "Usually they hand these out when new crew members first arrive, but what with the zombies..." He shrugs helplessly. "I'm sure someone can find ye one, though, if ye don't have your own yet."

Goliath looks confused. "The zombies?"

He has not heard about these.

Jamie nods rather vigorously. "Aye, the undead that were on the ship recently. There were a bunch of us taking shelter over there..." He gestures over towards the area of the city where the Vatican is. "And then the sun went out, which was strange. Ye could smell them before ye could see them, and there were so /many/."

He shudders, just remembering. "For awhile, I didna think we were going to survive."

"I do not understand."

"Uh..." He's momentarily at a loss for words. How do you explain the concept of zombies when you barely understand it yourself?

"You're familiar with the Sluagh." It's more a statement, then a question. If he's familiar with Oberon's children, he likely knows who they are.

"Like them, but still with their bodies intact. Well, rotting, but mostly intact. And..." He takes a breath, then says, "They could infect ye, and turn ye into one of them. There...there were a lot of our crew here, on Stacy, who were lost because of this."

Spirits of restless dead. He remembers, now - Brooklyn, Broadway, and Lexington, returning from some movie one evening, chattering about "zombies," dead bodies come to life to consume the flesh of the living. He thought it no more than a storyteller's nightmarish imagining.

Walking corpses, infecting the living with death. And many of the crew have already been lost.

"Elisa," he says. "Her name is Elisa Maza - do you know her?"

Was she one of the ones lost?

"No," he says with regret. "I do not."

Stacy had said, though, that those who perished were not loved ones. Does that hold true for someone, though, who only had just awoken, and not known of the fighting?

"I..." He stops and falls silent, not sure what to say.

From the look on his face, she was very loved.

"I must know," he says, not so much desperate as stating a fact. He must know, if not where she is and if she is safe, then at least if she was one of the ones recently perished. Otherwise it will drive him mad.

If Victoria had been one of those who he didn't know if they were alive or dead? Jamie thinks he may have been in much of a similar state of mind.

"Stacy said there's a list of the names that was to be made available, so it can be found. She did say that those who died were not people we knew, if...if it brings ye any comfort." He knows it probably doesn't, not right now. But he'll offer the information up anyway.

"I...here." He offers out the Omnicom to Goliath. "If ye have problems with the keyboard, it'll recognize voices."

He takes the device. It is much too small for his hands, and although he looks at the monitor, he sees nothing to do with lists.

"I am more accustomed to using books to find information," he says, trying to keep his voice level. Trying not to think of yet another way that Elisa might be dead. "Others of my clan are familiar with technology. I do not know how to work this device."

That...is obviously something Jamie hadn't considered. "Och. I'm sorry. I didna think. Um. I could try to find it, or I could try to show ye how to work it, or..." He frowns as he tries to consider the options. Where's the Doctor when you need him?

"I can tell ye how to get to Engineering - there's a lot of verra smart people there who could show ye a lot better than I could. But if ye want me to try and find the list, I can. I just didna want to..." Put his foot into it more than he already has? "I didna want to assume that ye would want me to find something that personal for ye."

"The list is important." He doesn't care who sees it, he just wants to know if he's lost another . . . if the woman he loves is dead for certain or not. "I would be grateful if you helped me find it."

He says "grateful," but his tone says, politely, "now." He holds the omnicom out to Jamie. "Please."

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