It breaks the Doctor’s hearts to see Jamie in that sort of state. He tries not to show it. The last thing his human needs is to see his Doctor having any second thoughts. “I had hoped it was more of a rhetorical question,” the Doctor says.

He looks around for a place to sit and short of chairs to pull over, he opts to fold himself down onto a squishy little knob protruding out the side of Stacy. Like Jamie’s cell, it’s white, run-through with veins of some sort, and so far not having issues with Time Lords using it as a chair. The Doctor folds his hands in his lap, long fingers interlaced as he regards his Scot with one of those thoughtful expressions of his. For a moment, he looks alien, that too-young too-old face of his smoothed out.

“I can think of loads of uses, Jamie! Useless at regenerating, I think.” The Doctor ticks off the points. “So you’ve really only got one go at it. Not much fun sitting in a brig with that one go. And you’re on a ship that bends time and space. There’s third and fourth and fifth chances.”

He doesn’t add that those chances might be incredibly hard to come by, not without fully understanding Stacy and her capabilities.