trans_9 | So We'll Meet At The End Of The Tour [Open, but see note]

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So We'll Meet At The End Of The Tour [Open, but see note]

Jamie's been taking the Doctors on a tour. He's tried to show them the places that he thinks they might find interesting - Engineering, Neuropathy, the City. He's even gone so far as to show them the Art Hall, which he doesn't care much for, and tends to not visit. There's one place he wants to show them more than all the rest, however, so he decides to end the tour there. Not surprisingly, that place is the Sensoriums.

Rather than go there with them immediately, he asks them to meet him there instead, as he wants to set up something that can show off what the Sensoriums can really do. As he enters, he's still trying to make up his mind, so there's a few different places that briefly flicker into being before being discarded for one reason or another.

Finally, the warm humidity of Stacy is replaced by the cool dampness of a Scottish evening. The bright light of a full moon illuminates a well-trodden path through the moors. The smell of heather is carried on a faint breeze, and one can hear small rustling sounds from the occasional nocturnal animal. Without electricity and pollution to hide them, the stars seem to almost entirely cover the night sky.

The path winds for some time, turning into a somewhat steep climb that would be treacherous if the moon wasn't out. Finally it ends on a ledge of sorts, although he's made sure to place some light colored stones on either side to mark the boundaries of the area. Looking out, one can make out the shapes of villages below - although they're mostly dark at the moment. He should probably change that, he thinks. But he'll wait for the Doctor to get here before he does so. Right now he settles down and leans back against an outcropping of rock, watching the stars.

((OOC: Open, but please contact first if you want to jump in on a Doctor/Jamie thread just so people have a heads-up. Separate pester-Jamie threads are fine. :) Also, Doctors, completely up to you if you want one thread or separate ones.))

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“Fascinating!”

That had been, for most of the rooms Jamie had shown him, the Doctor’s instinctive first reaction. Of course that single word could be used to describe the ship itself, its size, complexity, functions and abilities; the rooms, being extensions of such sheer magnificence, could only be expected to mirror its brilliance and, thus, capture the Doctor’s undivided attention.

This was probably the reason for why he and Jamie hadn’t conversed much during their exploration, despite the Doctor’s desperate wanting to. It’d been centuries, after all, not to mention several regenerations, and there was no doubt that Jamie had a lot to say about his time on the ship that the blond Time Lord was equally interested in hearing. At the time he was only able to babble about how he suspected those machines worked, or what that tentacle did, or where that passage went (and why), and, thus, the whole thing had been rather unfortunately one-sided.

Hopefully this last meeting would change the trend for more productive discussion.

The Doctor stopped at the far end of the ledge, hands in the pockets of brown and beige-striped trousers—complements to his complete outfit as provided by the Sensoriums. “You couldn’t have made this path end a bit closer to the door, could you?”

Apparently he already understood how this worked.

At first, Jamie's response to that reaction was simply to let the Doctor be the Doctor. Jamie had known full well what would happen when he pointed this or that bit and, in some way, it made him happy to see the Doctor so fascinated by this strange place the Scot had grown to call home.

Even so, Jamie had found himself growing impatient from time to time and the phrase "Och, will ye come on!" had, indeed, popped up more than once. It didn't mean he wasn't any less happy, however. If anything, it felt quite like old times.

At the voice - the blond Doctor, by the sound of it - Jamie turned his head and commented dryly, "Aye, I could have. But a wee bit of a hike never hurt anyone."

Besides, if Jamie's going to recreate Scotland, he might as well enjoy himself in the process.

"It gave ye time to figure out how to change your outfit, anyway." Jamie, for his part, has gone back to the sheepskin vest/shirt/kilt combination, with a red neckerchief to match. "Do ye want me to go ahead and make it daylight, then? Or do ye want to wait for the other one of ye to get here?"

Well, no arguments there—if you have a holographic projection chamber at your disposal, might as well make good use of it, right? The Doctor certainly would have, given the opportunity, but for right now he was content with just having clothing that didn’t have its own pulse, thank you very much. Albeit such thoughts had played havoc with his perception of this whole thing when he first entered; the Sensoriums made use of illusions, after all, and there were few things more fruitless than attempting to convince the will of a Time Lord that an intangible space contained something real. It took a considerable amount of effort on part of the Doctor to keep himself from automatically dismissing the artificial matter underneath his feet.

Not that it showed or anything.

“I suppose I can’t blame you for wanting to show off,” he chuckled with a casual air, trotting along the ledge with the comforting knowledge that he could pad a fall with some sort of ultra-buoyant material (or at any rate he could just extend the edge a foot or two), “This is a fantastic piece of technology—complex beyond comprehension, yet it can function with only a simple thought or requirement even unconsciously projected. Like a Zero Room, only…”

Only what, Doctor?

“…More flexible.”

The Doctor paused for several moments, staring at the stars. He really needed to visit pre-Industrial Revolution eras more.

“Let’s wait. I’m quite enjoying this view—no need to cut it off so soon after I’ve arrived.”

"It works well when ye have to eat the slop, too," Jamie points out. Not that he doesn't think the Doctor hasn't thought of this application, because he knows the Doctor understands how the technology works much, much better than Jamie ever could.

"Makes it taste like food, and not...och, what's that stuff ye can bend up and make boxes out of?" He frowns for a moment, then remembers, and looks pleased. "Oh, aye. Right. Card-ey-board."

Well, it's closer than Jamie gets with some of the words he's unfamiliar with. He watches the Doctor flirting with danger along the edge of the cliff, and hides a bit of a smile. "The safety things should kick in if ye go too far so ye won't get too hurt, but ye should probably still be careful, aye?"

Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "And what's a Zero room?"

The Doctor grinned, though it was less of a happy gesture and more of a rueful one—rueful in that he decided to test a sample of this ‘slop’ substance when they passed by the Mess Halls and, by extension, he instantly regretted doing so. At least it made him more motivated to find the TARDIS and its several-room kitchen. Regardless, Jamie’s irregular pronunciation turned that grin into a fond, quiet laugh, and he had no choice but to pull his mind away from such unpleasant necessities.

“Cardboard. Yes,” he sniffed, gazing over the edge and across the rolling moors and villages, thus proving him temporarily distracted before the next inevitable question arose, “—Hmm? Ah, yes, the Zero Room. It’s a space in which there exist no influences from the outside universe.”

Have fun trying to find an eighteenth-century analogue for that.

“Quite helpful for difficult regenerations.”

The Doctor squinted, looking somewhat uneasy. This topic was hitting a bit too close to home for his comfort. Thus he quickly changed the subject:

“—So we saw the Sleeping Halls, but I recall you mentioning something about separate ‘Crew Quarters’. Are any of those still available?”

"Aye, that's it," Jamie says, unperturbed by his mispronunciation. He's busy watching the Doctor watching the Scottish countryside, and waiting for his answer...which is not exactly helpful.

The Doctor is the recipient of a blank look, which may or may not be easily seen in the darkness. The nod that occurs a few moments later is rather more visible. Jamie doesn't always have to find an analogy, after all. Sometimes he just accepts what's being said, which makes life rather easier.

He does pull a face at the mention of the sleeping halls. "Och, ye don't want to sleep there. It's like being in a giant nose." He had to do that for a rather long time and if he never has to stay there again, he will be a happy man.

That's not quite answering the question, but he's getting to it. "I'm not sure if there's full ones available, aye? But I've got a wee bit of space...that is, if ye'd not mind staying with me and not your other self." Or Jenny or Rose, at that.

"I am not staying with him," said other self pronounces as he makes his way the last little distance to the ledge. Sure, he only caught the last bit of that exchange, but he doesn't need to hear any more to know that. He glances to the other Doctor through the darkness. "No offense... Doctor. I don't sleep much anyway, these days.

"And this," he says, swinging towards Jamie, "is brilliant. The last time I was in Scotland... Well, unless you're hiding a werewolf somewhere around here, this is much more pleasant."

The Doctor comes to a stop near the edge, leaning over it to peer down curiously into the darkness, hands in the pockets of his pinstriped trousers. He'd missed this suit - shame it'll vanish as soon as he walks out of here. After a moment of thought, he winces, straightens, and adds to the other Doctor, "... do me a favor and forget I said that about the werewolf. Just... on principle." Yes, it's pretty obvious at this point that there's something strange enough about his/their timelines that spoilers aren't much of a concern, but... call it habit.

Ah. There he was. The Doctor cocked his head to glance up at…well, himself, but otherwise he gave no other indication that he had entered, or that any sort of out-of-the-ordinary exchange was taking place. At any rate his response to Jamie’s question would’ve been roughly the same.

He raised his brow slightly. “Hmm. Did I ever?” And then he promptly pretended to immerse himself with mentally counting how many sides a nearby boulder had while the older Doctor babbled. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling, however, when the next statement came his way, and thus he disposed of this façade and cast himself a casual glance.

“—Oh of course,” the Doctor chuckled dryly (he seemed to be doing that a lot lately; something about this whole ordeal was making him unusually ironic), “With any luck I’ll forget it after some post-regenerative trauma. It’s happened before.”

He thought little more of the subject, deciding instead to answer back to Jamie. “—I’ll accept that offer. Unless, of course, I—rather, he—would like the space instead…”

"Doctor!" He's still comfortably sprawled out on the ground, so Jamie has to crane his head a bit to spot Ten. And that's...not so comfortable. He finally gets to his feet, rubbing at the back of his neck a little.

"I'd say there's not any werewolves here at the moment, but ye never really know when one of the crew wanders in unless they come over and speak to ye." He really should figure out how to lock the door sometime. Also, yes, there's werewolves on the crew.

He also should figure out that two Doctors means that there's two people who may want the share the space he's offering, and he looks rather chagrined. "Och, I'd not even thought about that."

Edited 2010-06-09 06:06 (UTC)

The Doctor raises an eyebrow at the mention of werewolves, but he decides not to inquire much further on that point. After all, if it were the big, maneating, part-alien sort of werewolf he's familiar with, surely someone would have warned him about that.

He laughs a bit at Jamie's next comment, and shakes his head, stepping back from the edge. "Nah, I don't mind. I'm used to being alone. He's... not." This time, he pointedly avoids looking at the other Doctor. There's more than one reason he misses being him.

An eyebrow raise from the other Doctor came in unison with the addressed, and he gave a small, broken noise of attention, raising a finger inquiringly, before the connection between werewolf and crew clicked into place and thereby silenced him. Not that he was terribly surprised—Ten’s reasoning was one of the primary points for this concluding emotion, but there was also the fact that he’d already met a vampire on the Observation Deck, newly awoken and (mostly) innocent no less, kind of took away from the shock of it all. Also she’d mentioned running into a werewolf before their particular encounter, though that didn’t register immediately because said meeting was hostile in nature and didn’t really count towards any marks of rational sentience.

But now he was just getting off topic.

Implications from the older Doctor’s statement did not immediately sink in as the younger flung himself at the chance to talk. “—Well I’m sure there’s other rooms open,” he claimed reassuringly, catching what he assumed was disappointment floating nigh tangibly through the simulated air, “Besides, I stumbled upon someone that you might be familiar with down in the Pod Caverns. Claimed to have traveled with a different version of me—she had long blond hair, brown eyes…” He blushed. “…shapely…”

A pause. The Doctor at this point registered something definitively wrong with what his other self had said a few moments ago, and he glanced up, only to notice that his eyes and head were turned elsewhere, anywhere than in his direction. A sudden, irrational fear made his brow rise and his throat clench (his voice would’ve jumped the octave if he’d been talking); that wasn’t disappointment he was projecting, not primarily at least. There was some terrible loss, some awful, awful event—innocence, aimlessness, spirit, completely wiped, discarded like single sheets of paper in the metaphysical wastebasket of emotional stresses. More than anything he wanted to inquire, at least ask if something were the matter, Doctor, I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt for you to give me a hint or two…

…But. Spoilers. Suddenly feeling inadequate somehow, sitting on the edge like this whilst everyone else was standing, the Doctor hopped to his feet and abruptly finished his description. It should be noted that his cheeks were still slightly flushed.

“—Called herself ‘Rose Tyler’. Does she sound familiar?”

Jamie's not at all sure why Ten would be used to being alone, having traveled with a Doctor that seemed to like having multiple companions in the TARDIS. He senses something is off, but isn't as good as picking up on the subtleties of the situation. It's mostly just based on the fact that Ten isn't looking at Five...and Five seems a bit flustered about something.

He flicks a glance back and forth between the both of them, trying to puzzle out what, exactly, is going on.

"...Or what about your daughter?" is his offering to the conversation. "She's here, too."

He knows that the Doctor thought Jenny was dead, but Jamie did mention he was here to her. He can't imagine she hasn't found him by now.

Feeling the weight of his past self's gaze on him, the Doctor glances back to him, and flinches a little under the weight of that regard. What is that - pity? concern? fear for his own future? All perfectly justified, possibly, but...

Whatever it is, this Doctor is fairly certain he doesn't want it. He puts on a bright grin, all cheerfulness and enthusiasm. "Oh, you've met Rose and Jenny! That's brilliant! Although... Jamie, I wouldn't believe everything Rose tells you about me. Especially if she's mocking me." Apparently, Jenny's safe to listen to. She still idolizes him, for the most part.

And... that may not have been the most subtle means of steering the conversation in a direction he's comfortable with, but he's not looking for subtle now. He's not talking about it is the message here - the other Doctor will understand, and he's fairly certain he can direct Jamie's attention elsewhere without much trouble.

The Doctor took the lesser of two evils, his mind suddenly jarring back to a rather unpleasant conversation he had while on the Observation Deck with a young Time Lady that bore him a startling resemblance. Yes, he quite wanted to forget about her. What enthusiasm he’d conjured up quickly dissipated, and his face fell, mouth forming into the obligatory ‘O’ shape before he’d even thought of what to say.

“…So she is—“ he pursed his lips and folded his arms, latent frustration bringing about a miniature tantrum, “—will be, will be—my daughter, then?”

Because if that’s the case, then they both have a lot of explaining to do.

The Doctor hunches his shoulders a little, the tone and expression of his younger self making him automatically defensive on the matter. He manages to gather that defensiveness and shift it to a bit of protectiveness on Jenny's behalf - he knows how he acted towards her when they first met, after all. No need to make her fight that battle again with a different Doctor.

"Of course she is! There was a... thing... an incident, with a progenation machine. It's fine, and she saved my life, and I'm very fond of her, so be nice. Got it?"

"Aye, I have..." starts Jamie, but he trails off as the Doctor interjects. He rapidly finds himself looking back and forth between them yet again, and privately wonders just how much he'll wind up doing so when both Doctors are together.

"She seems nice," he adds, directing that portion of the comment at Five, before looking back to Ten. "A wee bit excitable, but since she was looking for ye, I don't blame her."

Pausing for a moment, his expression turns momentarily thoughtful. "Jenny's a bonny name," he muses - and that is directed toward neither Doctor. That's Jamie simply thinking out loud.

The Doctor seemed to soften, looking into the simulated night sky thoughtfully as he mulled this information around in his head. You know, this made so much more sense now! If it was a progenation machine tuned to a different species’ genetic code, then that would certainly explain why her innate Gallifreyan senses were off (and why her own signature was so faint); similarly, she was spawned directly from his own DNA, which explained why he found her so…familiar…

Oh no.

There was an awful moment of understanding and regret that caused the Doctor to look pretty uncomfortable, arms falling down to his sides, shoulders slumping dejectedly, before Jamie broke in with a casual musing and he couldn’t help but smile, moving his hands into his pockets. “Yes…quite.”

Hopefully she’d forgive him. In the meantime, he pushed further discussion of this matter into the back of his mind and, thus, abruptly changed the subject.

“—Well, I suppose now that we’ve gotten to know our surroundings we can get some rest and start looking for the TARDIS tomorrow,” came the usual, excited ramble, rocking onto his heels, “I’ll put a message on the comms (”http://community.livejournal.com/trans_channel/179513.html”) early in the morning so that we can search before the rest of the crew wakes up. Any objections, ideas?”

The Doctor shoots his other self a brief, baffled look, wondering at that reaction, but quickly shakes it off, glancing back to Jamie and smiling faintly. "I didn't name her. That was... a friend of mine. Lucky she didn't get stuck in the progenation machine, that would have been really... terrifying." He misses Donna, sure, but one of her is quite enough for any universe.

The mention of the TARDIS brings on a grin, and he nods firmly. "The TARDIS was right in front of me when I... before I ended up here. Whoever brought us here couldn't have passed up grabbing that too - it's bound to be around here somewhere. Possibly twice..." Two instances of the same TARDIS in one place could be useful, or it could be very very bad, but they'll work that out if they come to it. Can't be that much worse than two Doctors in the same place, anyway...

"Ye can say it was one of your companions, ye know," Jamie says dryly. "It's not like I'm not aware you've traveled with other people. I did meet Rose, aye?"

There's a pause, and he adds, "Besides, Jenny mentioned a few names as well." Which is part of why he's still a little baffled by the 'used to being alone' comment earlier, but since Ten isn't providing much in the way of information there, Jamie's filing it under 'Things the Doctor will probably never explain' category. He's used to that.

"Twice?" he asks, a bit baffled by that as well. "Why would it be here tw...oh." Never mind, he seems to have figured that out as well. He opens his mouth to maybe suggest it might be here more than that, then looks at Five and thinks better of it. He closes his mouth again, grimacing faintly.

A few moments later, he says instead, "Aye, tomorrow sounds fine to me."

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So We'll Meet At The End Of The Tour [Open, but see note]

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