PARENTHOOD

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Five

"Pa-paw?" nine year old Zoe asked as she walked inside Duer's TARDIS and looked at the two pair of legs sticking out from under the console.

"Which pa-paw do you want?" Jamie asked as he wiggled his feet back and forth and she sat down on his legs.

"I need tae talk tae you," she said and Jamie looked up at her.

"Ah, well, what do you need?" he asked as she got off his legs and he slowly sat up, placing his sonic screwdriver on his leg.

"I wanted tae ask you something."

"Aye, and that is?"

"Why arenae you old anymore?" she asked and Duer yelped after hitting his head. "Are you alright, Pa-paw?"

"Yeah," he said as he carefully sat up and looked at Jamie. They had explained to Lucy and Hamish about why Jamie looked the way he did but they forgot that Zoe was four when Jamie brought them to live with him in the future. Jamie looked at Duer as he looked at Zoe and thought for a few seconds. "Come on."

They got up as they left the control room then walked down the hallway and headed for the door. They stopped in front of the door as he looked at Zoe and sighed.

"Now, I have explained about my other lives, right?" he asked and she nodded. "Ok, well, this is my simulation room and it will allow you to see what happened to your grandfather."

"You mean like when he showed me how you met him during Culloden?" she asked and Jamie shrugged, smiling.

"Yeah, like that," Duer said, shaking his head. Closing his eyes, he thought for a few seconds then opened his eyes and opened the door. The room looked like how the control room looked in his second life and Duer smiled at his second life standing near the console. "I forgot how frumpy I looked back then."

"That looks like Pa-paw Trevor," Zoe said with a smile and Jamie nodded. Trevor, who looked like the Doctor's second life, came from another universe when the Doctor rescued him and his Jamie and Zoe from Trevor's Time Lords and Trevor had been officially adopted as one of the children's grandfathers.

Duer was looking at the screens when the door to the right opened and Jamie walked inside the room. He looked like he did now except for wearing a kilt, a black turtleneck jumper, a sporran and tan boots, and waked to the console.

"Ah, Jamie, I was just coming to get you," Duer said but Jamie didn't look happy and leaned against the jump seat.

"Why do you look so angry, Pa-Paw?" Zoe asked and Jamie hushed her.

"Where's Victoria?" Jamie asked.

"Oh, they, um, they already took her."

"So our assignments are over then?" Jamie asked when Duer paused the simulation and explained that, like the Doctor, his Time Lords were sending him into exile and allowed him to take Jamie on some assignments and that their time together was over. He told the TARDIS to start the simulation again as the other Duer sighed and strummed his fingers on the console.

"I'm afraid so, dear boy."

"Which means you're going tae have tae send me home."

"Yes."

"What if I dinnae want tae go home?"

"Jamie, we've talked about this. They only allowed me to send for you with the understanding that you go back when we were done."

"So my say in this mean na'?"

"Jamie, please be reasonable."

"No, I will nae be reasonable! What they did was...was...Well, it's just plain wrong! I only went along with it the last time because we had no other choice. This time, we do have a choice. Cannae you just hide me in the TARDIS an' tell them that you sent me home?"

"They'll scan the TARDIS before sending me off into exile. They'll find you and who knows what they would do to you."

"Then send me tae be with Victoria!"

"I can't do that."

"Why?"

"Well, you see, she didn't want me to tell you this but she has someone in her life."

"An' she loves him?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Then mebbe you should send me home," Jamie sighed as Duer walked closer and tears trickled down Jamie's cheeks.

"I know that you love her, Jamie, but you never know. There might be someone waiting for you back home."

"That's a laugh. You ken why I want tae stay here? It's because THIS is the only place where I feel at home!"

"It is?"

"Aye, it is. Let me ask you this. Do I look like the Jamie you remember the last time you saw me?"

"No, you look...older."

"That's because I am older. I was seventeen when I last saw you. I'm twenty-six now."

"That means they picked you up in seventeen fifty-five."

"Aye an' do you ken what it was like for me over those nine years? I survived the war but had tae go into hiding. During that time, I had these weird dreams an' visions. My kin and clan thought I had gone mad. They started calling me "Crazy Jamie" an' I ended up alone."

"Did they really call you that?" Zoe asked and Jamie nodded, hushing her.

"You mean to say there wasn't one woman that didn't want to be with you?" Duer asked.

"Och, aye, there were a few that fancied me but their fathers, uncles or brothers would tell them that I was crazy an' they would leave me. I ended up living in this wee flat an' unload fish for a living. I didnae talk tae anyone nor did anyone talk tae me. Now do you understand why I want tae stay?" Jamie asked.

"Yes, I do."

"You ken, if there was a way that I could keep my memories, you could drop me off somewhere an' I could start over. Mebbe somewhere where they dinnae ken me."

"That does sound nice but I'm afraid there is..." Duer said as he looked up at the ceiling then saw something and his eyes went wide. "Of course, why didn't I think of that before?"

"What are you talking aboot?"

"This!" Duer said as he pushed the buttons on the console and the chameleon arch came down from the ceiling.

"What is that?"

"This is my chameleon arch. I use it when I need to become someone else."

"Eh?"

"Take for instance if I wanted to become human. I would use this and my mind and body would be made human while my Time Lord mind would be stored in this!" Theta in his second life said as he removed the fob watch from the holder and showed it to him.

"Your mind would fit in there?" Jamie asked, pointing to the watch.

"Like the TARDIS, it's bigger on the inside," Duer teased and Jamie smiled.

"You're saying that you can use that on me an' store my memories of you in this?"

"Exactly!" Duer said as he placed the fob watch back into the holder then walked to the console. "Now, all you would have to do it place the headpiece on your head and I would do this."

They watched as Duer pushed the buttons on the console and he smiled, rubbing his hands together.

"Now, if I was going to do this, I would press this button and..." Duer said when someone pounded on the doors and he jumped, pushing the button.

"But that shouldn't have happened. My so called father, damn him to all the hells in all the universes, ordered that guard to do that! He wanted me to feel such remorse for hurting Jamie that I would fall in line and be the good son he always wanted me to be," Duer thought after placing up a privacy block and thought about when he found out when he was reunited with his mother. The man that he had believed to be his father, who had called himself "Rassilon", had been vaporized by the Judoon after Duer helped his mother defeat Rassilon and his real father died saving his life as well as Cam's life.

"Pa-paw, look!" Zoe said as she pointed to Jamie holding onto the headpiece and he was screaming.

"Aye, I wanted tae stay so badly that I just placed the headpiece on my head an'..." he said and Zoe nodded.

"Jamie? Oh, no, what have I done!" Duer shouted as he pushed the buttons and Jamie fell to the floor.

"Doctor, open this door!" the voice behind the doors said and he ran to Jamie, kneeling down beside him. Placing his head on Jamie's chest, Duer sat back on his legs and stroked Jamie's hair. After a few minutes, he thought of something as he stood up and ran to the console. They watched him pushing buttons, flipping switches and turning levers and the rotor bopped up and down. The engines hummed around them as the sound of voices shouting for him to stop and Duer walked to Jamie, sitting on the floor next to him.

"Was he alright, Pa-paw?" Zoe asked.

"No, it absorbed his mind. All of it except for that which controlled breathing, heartbeat and organ functions! In short, he was brain dead," Duer said then paused the simulation and . Jamie nodded as Zoe walked to Duer and he slowly looked up at her. She knelt down as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he hugged her.

"But it wasnae your fault," she whispered and he kissed her hair.

"Yes, it was," he whispered then rocked her back and forth as she looked at the other Duer and saw something in his hand.

"You put the watch in his sporran?" she asked as he looked at what she was looking at and nodded.

"I panicked. I thought that, if I could get him some help, I'd have time to figure out how to put his memories back into his head without killing him."

"Aye, he brought me tae a hospital and spent weeks sitting by my bedside, hoping that I'd wake up," Jamie said as he sat on the floor next to them and Zoe smiled at him.

"Then what happened?" she asked as Duer looked at Jamie and Jamie moved closer, leaning up against his arm.

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