#also i watched a documentary about the '45 then went into overdrive complaining about it for like 45 minutes and then collapsed into sleep

[the--highlanders]

Birdlike

The Doctor is stuck typing up notes. Jamie keeps him company.

on ao3.

If he closed his eyes and thought about it – really thought about it, deliberately, like he was trying to pull it into being in front of him – then he could believe he was somewhere else entirely. Alone, or very nearly, sat on a rock by the river, the sort of place where the water split around old stones and new trees. Each little stream taking its own path as it burbled and sloshed its way downhill. The feeling of the rock beneath his fingers was not so clear as the sound of water, but he could remember it well enough, bumps and pits smoothed over after a thousand years of rainfall, splodged here and there with lichen like some painter had taken a brush to it. And there was a bird, not too far away, pecking at the rock. Tap tap tap and then a pause as it tilted its head to consider whatever fragment of seed or berry it was struggling to pick up. Tap tap tap – pause. A curious little crow, or something very like it.

And then something whistled past overhead, something too loud and harsh and mechanical to be passed off as the wind, and the image was shattered. Sighing, he opened his eyes.

It was not a bad view, he supposed. The window was half-open, letting in that sound of running water – though he was not sat on a quiet Highland riverbank. Instead he was sprawled across a bed on his stomach, ten floors up in a two-room apartment on an alien planet. A noisy room, the people here called it, for being right by the aqueduct that kept the city supplied with water. They were not so keen on the noise. He didn’t mind it, himself. It reminded him a little of Edinburgh, or what little time he had spent there, and the constant white noise that filled the place. There it had been the bustle of the city, here it was running water. He had liked Edinburgh. He might have liked Glasgow, too, if they had been given a warmer reception there. But he had missed that riverbank.

He missed it still, and the little house he would walk there from. This apartment was surely half the size of the house, though it felt twice as large. Maybe because there were only half as many people in it. And he was perfectly happy to lounge about watching the place’s other inhabitant.

Tap tap tap – pause. A curious little bird, pecking away at something, just as in Jamie’s imagination. But this little bird was pecking at a keyboard, not a scrap of food, and he was rather more human-shaped than most birds. The Doctor was hunched over the desk crammed into the corner of the room, laboriously typing away. Occasionally he paused to turn a page of the book he was reading from, or let out a disgruntled grumble, but he would always be back at it soon enough. Tap tap tap – pause, tap tap tap – pause, over and over again. Jamie knew perfectly well that he could type no faster himself, but something about the way the Doctor did it still seemed agonisingly slow.

Still, that just bought him more time to lie there and watch. The Doctor’s tongue was caught between his teeth, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Tap tap tap – pause, and then a longer pause this time, a sigh and a frantic bashing of one of the keys. Slowly but surely, half a line of text disappeared from the screen in front of him. Slumping back in his chair, the Doctor sighed again. “Quite why I can’t write this by hand, I don’t know,” he mumbled to himself, his voice too full of weariness to hold any real frustration. “They will insist on putting things through the system. If they want an official record of it -” He tapped at the book. “It’s all here.”

It was always hard to tell, Jamie thought, whether the Doctor was wanting a reply, or just chattering away to himself. It was usually safest to assume the latter. This time, though, he took a gamble on the former. “Why don’t ye take a break? They dinnae need it that soon.”

“Oh, I suppose so.” Throwing his arms up over his head, the Doctor rolled his shoulders and let out a long, deep breath. “But there’s only a few pages to go.”

He made no attempt to get out of his chair, and Jamie plonked his chin down onto the bed. Plans foiled, then. He had hoped that the Doctor might spend a little longer away from the book – that he might come and sit beside him, perhaps, or even just talk. In the depths of his wildest imagination, he had wondered if he might even have stood up and suggested that they leave the room altogether. But no such luck. “I’d offer tae help,” he said. “Only I dinnae think I’d do a good job.” He had done a little, early in the morning. It had taken him half an hour to get through one page – and it had taken the Doctor an hour to nitpick at everything he had written.

“Oh, nonsense.” The Doctor waved one hand dismissively. “You did a perfectly fine job.” Jamie snorted. “But I won’t bore you with it.” He tilted his head back, frowning when he saw Jamie lying on the bed. “Ah – what are you looking at?”

“Bit obvious, don’t ye think?” Heaving himself away from the blankets with a huff, Jamie propped himself up on his forearms. “I’m lookin’ at you.”

“Oh.” The Doctor glanced away again, looking for a moment as if he were about to go back to his typing, then swung his chair around to face Jamie fully. “You could get yourself a book, you know. Even go outside, if you wanted. I don’t mind.”

“I dinnae want tae leave ye here on your own,” Jamie protested. Silly thing to say, he scolded himself. Now it sounded like he didn’t trust the Doctor to mind himself without burning the building down. Not that he did trust the Doctor to keep out of trouble on his own, mind. Experience had taught him not to leave the Doctor alone for too long, or he was liable to go wandering off, no matter how many warnings he gave everyone else about staying put. But it was not what he had meant in that moment. “I like lookin’ at ye,” he added a little weakly.

A brief smile crossed the Doctor’s face, almost teasing, like he had been going to prod at Jamie a little but had decided against it. “Do you, now?” he said, eyes glinting – but with curiosity, it seemed, not mirth. “Why would you like a thing like that, hm?”

Jamie shrugged. “I’m in love with ye,” was all he said. He had said it often enough, over the past few weeks. Maybe too often, though the Doctor was kind enough that he never seemed to mind. But he had not said it so often that it had stopped sending a little thrill through him, like it was still something forbidden. He was breaking some sort of rule, surely, to be able to say it whenever he wanted, and have the Doctor’s cheeks dust themselves with orange, to have him open and close his mouth twice before he replied.

“You don’t have to say it,” he said at last, almost under his breath. “I do, ah – I do know.”

“Ye dinnae want me tae say it?”

“No!” The word came out rather forcefully, and the Doctor cleared his throat before carrying on. “Ah – if you want to say it, then please do continue saying it, Jamie. I certainly don’t have any qualms about it. But, ah – if you’re concerned I don’t know -”

“I’m no’,” Jamie interrupted. “I know ye know. I just like sayin’ it, that’s all.”

“Well, I’m – rather glad.” Leaning forward, the Doctor reached over to squeeze one of Jamie’s hands. For a brief, hopeful minute, Jamie wondered if he really was about to say oh, what’s the use, it can wait, set the thing aside and amble over and settle down on the bed. But that was wishful thinking, he knew, and sure enough the Doctor spun his chair back around to face the computer. “I won’t be long,” he said. “Just a few more pages. And then we can go out and explore the city, mm?”

“Aye, I’d like that.”

“Good.” Tap tap tap – pause. “Jamie?”

“Hm?”

“I, ah -” Another pause, but no tapping. The Doctor hung his head, like his expression was not already hidden. “I’m in love with you too, you know.” The words tumbled out all slurred together, half-muffled by being spoken into the desk, but they were clear enough to set Jamie’s heart pounding again.

“Aye,” he said. “I know.”

“Yes, well.” A shuffling of keyboard and book and mouse, like the Doctor did not quite know what to do with his hands. “Good.”

Still smiling to himself, Jamie rolled over onto his side, curling up with his knees almost against his chest. “I’m gonnae rest for a wee while, then.”

His eyes were already closed, but he knew from the creaking of the chair that the Doctor had turned around again. “You could sleep under the blankets, you know.”

“’m alright like this. I’m not gonnae sleep, anyway.”

“If you say so.”

There was quiet again, save for the water rushing past their window. It was a little faster now, the water maybe running a bit higher than it had been before. Like the riverbank after rain. The image was coming back to him. More water, tumbling faster, picking up gravel and small pebbles as it went, carrying them on further downstream. The rock beneath him was slick with water now, and he had picked his way over to it carefully from the muddy, footstep-worn path. But he was here, settled down securely, knees drawn up in front of him and arms hugged around them. Just looking out over the water, watching it flow by. The sky was still overcast, but the clouds were lightening and turning fluffy, a few weak patches of sunlight beginning to break through. And then there was a bird, sitting a little way away, pecking around for any scraps the rain had left behind.

It stopped, lifting its head to look at him. Something brushed over his hair, too firm in its touch to be the wind, but too light to entirely break him out of his imagination. “Sweet dreams, Jamie,” someone murmured. A moment of silence. Then – tap tap tap – pause, tap tap tap – pause, over and over again, the old familiar sound.