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the--highlanders · 5 years

Text

Buttons and Levers

The Doctor disappears, and Jamie and Zoe try to bring him back.

on ao3.

A faint draught brushed over Jamie’s shoulder, and he rolled over, pulling the blankets more securely over himself. “What’ve I told ye about closin’ the door when ye come in?” he mumbled, reaching out to pat awkwardly at the Doctor. “Hey. Hey, Doctor, wake up.” His hand collided with cold, empty sheets, and he sat up suddenly, staring around at the darkened room.

The bedroom door swung further open, banging against the wall and letting in another gust of cold air from the corridor. There was no sign of the Doctor.

Scrambling out of bed, Jamie hurried into the corridor, hissing at the chill rising from the floor. He shoved Zoe’s bedroom door open, stumbling inside and scrabbling around for the light switch. Behind him, Zoe stirred, squinting up at him confusedly.

“What are you doing?” she asked, stifling a yawn. “What time do you think it is?”

“The Doctor’s disappeared,” Jamie said breathlessly, abandoning his search for the light switch.

“Is that all?” Zoe rolled over, pulling her pillow over her head. “Sounds like he’s caught up with something. Try looking in the library.”

“Ye dinnae understand.” Jamie tugged on her shoulder, trying to roll her back over. “He came tae bed, but now he’s disappeared.”

“Oh, he’s probably just woken up and wandered off. Unless...” Zoe sat up, slowly and reluctantly, but her expression was serious. “You don’t happen to know what the Doctor’s been working on lately, do you?”

“Aye, he’s been working on, erm...” Jamie frowned. “Somethin’ tae do with separatin’ bits of time.”

“Time-slices?” Zoe leapt out of bed, brushing past Jamie as she headed out the door. “Are you sure, Jamie?”

Hurrying after her, Jamie caught her by the arm. “Is it important?”

“Quite possibly.” Zoe shook him off with surprising strength, striding on towards the console room. “There’s a chance that the Doctor’s been trapped in a parallel time-slice to ours, just slightly out of reach. If we don’t reset the time stabiliser, the two slices will drift apart, and we’ll lose contact with him forever.”

“Zoe -”

Barrelling into the console room, Zoe stared at the array of controls before them. She circled the console once – twice – hesitated for a long moment, then rushed across the room, making as if to pull a lever.

“Zoe, don’t!”

Zoe froze, her hand still hovering barely an inch over the lever. “I’m sure this is the right one,” she said slowly, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself rather than Jamie. “We have to do something. If we don’t merge the time-slices -”

“Either the Doctor or us will be lost in time, aye, I remember.” Jamie moved Zoe’s hand away from the lever. “But I dinnae think we’ll fix it with that. The timeline stabiliser’s a button, no’ a lever.”

The look Zoe gave him was incredulous, and not a little scathing. “I think I know what a timeline stabiliser looks like, Jamie.”

Folding his arms, Jamie stared her down. “Oh, aye. An’ did they have them in your time, then?”

“Well, no, but -” Zoe floundered for a moment, but quickly narrowed her eyes, squaring her shoulders to match Jamie’s determination. “They didn’t even have spaceships in your time, let alone time travel devices.”

“I’ve been travelling in the TARDIS longer than ye have -”

“I think I’m more than qualified to operate the TARDIS -”

“If we dinnae get it right it’ll be worse than no’ doing anything at all -”

“It’s a perfectly simple control -”

“Zoe!” Startled, Zoe leapt away from the console, staring up at him. Jamie closed his eyes, taking in a long, slow breath. “Forget what ye think it should look like. Has the Doctor ever pointed out the timeline stabiliser to ye?” Zoe shook her head. “Are ye sure?”

Her glare was even more scorching than the last one. “I have an eidetic memory, Jamie. I can remember most of the controls perfectly.”

“Then it must be this button.” Jamie nodded towards a button on the opposite side of the console, bright red and almost comically large.

Zoe still looked sceptical. “Has the Doctor ever pointed out the timeline stabiliser to you?”

“Aye!” Jamie thought it over for a moment. “Well – no’ exactly pointed it out. But I’ve heard him talk about it lots of times.”

His reply seemed to take Zoe aback. “When does he talk about it?”

“When he’s fiddlin’ with the TARDIS. I’ve watched him fix it up more times than I can count. An’ he’s spent the last couple of days workin’ on the time stabiliser’s wiring, so he’s -” He raised his eyebrows at Zoe’s disbelieving scoff. “What’s wrong?”

“It hardly seems like the sort of thing you’d do for fun.”

Jamie shrugged. “He likes tae work on the TARDIS just before bed, an’ I like tae keep him company.”

Zoe’s expression was still sceptical. “How do you know you’ve got the right button?”

“I told ye, he’s been messin’ around with that one a lot lately.” Jamie threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “But what do I know, I’m only his husband.”

“Being his husband doesn’t give you an astrophysics degree, Jamie -”

“It’s no’ like ye would’ve learnt about the TARDIS at school, ye dinnae know it’s the same -”

“This isn’t helping!” It was Zoe’s turn to startle Jamie into silence. “We’re meant to be rescuing the Doctor, not arguing like this.”

“Aye, you’re right. But we still cannae go around pressing buttons without bein’ sure they’re the right ones.”

“Or pulling levers,” Zoe added with a wry smile. She reached out, hovering her hand over the button. “Are you sure it was this one?”

“Aye!” A sudden doubt seized Jamie, and he put his hand over Zoe’s hurriedly. “What happens if we’ve got the wrong one?”

“At best, nothing.”

“And at worst?”

The grim set of Zoe’s mouth told Jamie everything he needed to know before she even spoke. “The TARDIS gets shot off in the opposite direction temporally, and we lose the Doctor.”

“What are the chances of that happenin’?”

Zoe grimaced. “Fifty percent?”

“An’ if we’re wrong, an’ something else has happened tae the Doctor?”

Zoe crossed her arms, scowling up at him. “I can’t predict everything. All we can do is guess what happened, and what’s going to happen when we press that button.”

Closing his eyes, Jamie let out a deep breath. “Aye, alright then. If ye really think it’s the right thing to do.”

Zoe nodded, but there was something unsure in her eyes, and her hand wavered beneath Jamie’s. “Press it with me,” she said, sounding as young and frightened as Jamie had ever heard her. He pressed his hand over hers, but Zoe pulled her hand away, pointing across the console.

“The warning light’s off,” she murmured. “Now that I think of it, I don’t remember it being on before we came in.”

“What does that mean?” Jamie whispered back.

“Well, either the time-slices didn’t slip after all, and the Doctor’s still on board -”

“Or he’s forgotten to change the bulb,” Jamie finished, nodding. “So we shouldnae push the button after all?”

Before Zoe could answer, a flicker of movement in the doorway caught their attention. Stepping away from the console, they turned to see the Doctor standing in the doorway. Wrapped in his dressing gown and holding a small carton of ice cream, he looked rather more like someone who had left to fetch a midnight snack than someone who had been pulled through time. He stared at them, lips slightly parted, and they stared back as if seeing a ghost.

Jamie was vaguely aware of his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to pull together some question or explanation. When he glanced over to Zoe, her stricken face told him that she was facing the same dilemma. At last, the Doctor broke the silence between them, his voice thick with sleep and laced with disbelief.

“What on earth are you two doing?”

#second doctor #two/jamie #fanfic archive #my writing

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