Boy/Girl Thing - Doctor Who

[sushigal007.livejournal.com]

While investigating a crashed spaceship, Zoe plays with a mysterious machine and accidently turns Jamie into a girl.

A split second later, Captain Truman burst through the doors, brandishing a rifle. “What do-oh, it’s you lot,” he said, relaxing slightly. Then he caught sight of Jamie. “Oh no, you poor girl, what’s happened to you?!” he exclaimed in horror.

Jamie grinned nervously. “Well…”

“Really, Doctor, I would’ve thought you’d know better than to play around with this machine,” he scolded. “Still, it’s all right, Jamie, Bob and Tracie tell me they’ve fixed it, so if you’ll just wait a second, I’ll get them to turn you back.”

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary,” the Doctor said hastily.

“But…” Captain Truman waved his hands in Jamie’s direction. “She’s a boy!” he hissed. “Such a thing must be awfully traumatic.”

The Doctor sighed. “I’m afraid we’ve misled you, Captain,” he said apologetically. “Jamie always was a boy.”

Captain Truman looked blankly from the Doctor to Jamie. “What?”

“Aye, it’s true,” Jamie said awkwardly. “It was an accident. Well, sort of an accident,” he added, glaring at Zoe.

“What? I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” she said defensively.

“You mean when you were first found here, you… oh god.” Captain Truman perched on the edge of the control panel, looking stunned. “I mean… oh my god. I mean…”

“Perhaps you could just tell the rest of the crew we went, hmm?” the Doctor said gently, patting him on the shoulder. “They don’t need to know the details.”

“I asked you to marry me!” Captain Truman wailed. He cradled his head in his hands. “What was I thinking?!”

“It was the DNA machine,” Zoe explained, walking over and patting him on the shoulder. “It made Jamie… well, it made us all do silly things.” She paused suddenly, her hand in mid-air. “Oh my, did I really…?”

Jamie folded his arms and nodded crossly. “Aye, y did.”

Zoe rubbed her temples and groaned in shame. “Oh noooooo.”

“I think we’d better get going back to the TARDIS before anyone else comes to see what’s happening,” the Doctor said gently. He glanced at Captain Truman. “Er… are you all right?”

The captain looked up at him with a glazed expression. “Me? Yes, I’m fine. Just… go away so I can pretend this never happened.”

The Doctor nodded and began herding his two companions out of the door. “Wouldnae be nice if it were that easy?” Jamie muttered just loudly enough for his friends to hear.

Neither of them replied.

/\/\/\

Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor didn’t take off immediately. If Jamie wasn’t back to normal, he wanted to be in the right point in time and space to fix it. Instead, he occupied himself by cleaning up the lab. Various bits of equipment that had dared to stand between Zoe and Jamie had been smashed to bits by the former, and sweeping up glass and metal fragments was very therapeutic.

Jamie, meanwhile, had given in to curiosity and gone to the library to read up on female biology. He was just getting revolted by the whole process of reproduction when Zoe strolled in and sat on his feet. “What d’ye want?” he asked suspiciously, lowering the book and poking her with his toes.

“I just… well, I wanted to let you know I really am sorry I turned you into a girl,” she said awkwardly. “And I’m sorry I molested you. Several times.”

Jamie shrugged. “Och, it’s fine. Dinnae do it again though.”

“Oh, I won’t, don’t worry,” Zoe said quickly. “You’re not sexy anymore. I mean, you’re moderately attractive, I’ll admit,” she added hastily as he puffed up in outrage. “But I don’t want to have sex with you any more. You’re not my type.”

“Good. You’re no’ my type either,” the Scot replied, slightly sulkily. He lifted the book up again and began reading.

“Jamie?”

He lowered the book again. “Aye?”

Zoe fidgeted for a moment, and then asked in a rush, “wasIanygoodatkissing?”

Jamie paused, trying to decipher the sentence in his head and then frowned. “Well, y’ bit me. Which wasnae very nice.”

“But other than that?” Zoe persisted. “I wasn’t slobbery or anything, was I?”

“Well… no… you were just…” Jamie paused, trying to think of a nice way to put it. “Determined.”

Zoe thought about that for a moment. “OK. But was it good or bad?”

“I dinnae know!” Jamie said, exasperated. “It was weird!”

“Weird?” Zoe looked surprised. “Weird how?”

“Because… because I were a lass,” Jamie explained, turning pink at the memory. “And so are ye.”

Zoe laughed incredulously. “You travel through time and space in a London police box happily enough, but kissing girls is weird? Sorry, sorry,” she added quickly as he glared at her.

“It’s unnatural,” Jamie muttered.

“So is the food synthesizer in the kitchen,” Zoe pointed out. “But you don’t say that’s weird.” She suddenly smiled mischievously. “Does that mean it wasn’t weird when the Doctor kissed you?”

She watched in amusement as Jamie turned even pinker and spluttered protests. “It wasnae-I didn’t… I mean, we weren’t… stop laughing at me!” He shifted his feet and Zoe toppled off the sofa with a satisfying squeal.

The Doctor appeared in the doorway, alerted by Zoe’s yell. “What’s going on?!”

Zoe sat up, looking petulant. “Jamie pushed me off the sofa for asking whether it was weirmmph!”

“It’s nowt, we’re fine,” Jamie said hastily, holding a hand over the girl’s mouth. “Can we-eurgh!” He whipped his hand away from Zoe’s mouth in disgust and wiped it on his kilt.

“Next time you do that, I’ll bite instead,” Zoe said crossly.

The Doctor looked from one companion to the other with a slight smile. “Well, it would appear that Jamie’s pheromone levels are back to normal at least.”

“Can we go then?” Jamie asked eagerly.

“If you like,” the Doctor agreed. “Would you like to go anywhere in particular?”

“How about prehistoric Earth?” Zoe muttered. “Then Jamie can kill some buffalo with his bare hands, drag some girls around by their hair and regain confidence in his sexuality.”

“There’s a black hole forming a few galaxies over, it should be quite a spectacle,” the Doctor said quickly before Jamie could retaliate. “Let’s go there. Zoe, would you be a dear and go check the mercury levels before we go?”

He waited until Zoe had stomped out of the room, grumbling under her breath, and then turned to face Jamie. “So… how do you feel?” he asked carefully.

“Fine,” the boy said unconvincingly. “Everything seems t’ be in the right place and Zoe says I’m no’ attractive anymore. And nobody seems t’ want to jump on me.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to disagree with that last statement and then thought better or it. He didn’t want to confuse the boy any more; from now on he was going to keep his own hormonal urges under control. “Good, good,” he said with a smile. “Now, why don’t you put that book down and come to the control room?”

“Well… I wanted t’ find out about that mensu… mestra… chemical cycle thing Zoe was talking about,” Jamie said slowly.

“Ah. Well… I think that’s really a need-to-know thing,” the Doctor said with a grimace. “And now you’re no longer a girl, you don’t need to know.” He held out a hand encouragingly. “Come on. I think you deserve a break.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Jamie took his hand and stood up. He could work out his feelings another time. For now it was just good to be back to normal.