Work Text:
He can’t remember when it started, but Jamie has been feeling a bit run down for a while now. His muscles always feel achy even when he hasn’t done any exercise, and his joints are sore and often painful. But the biggest thing is how tired he feels; no matter how long he sleeps, he just feels tired all of the time.
He doesn’t bother to tell the Doctor how he’s feeling. It would only worry him, and, after all, there probably isn’t anything wrong with him. Maybe all of their adventures are finally getting to him, and he just needs a good rest. Either way, he’ll probably be all right soon. At least, he hopes he will.
---
One day, Jamie wakes up in the morning and is hit by the worst fatigue he has ever felt. It’s as though he hasn’t slept in days, his whole body aching with complete, overwhelming tiredness. He tries to stretch his arms, but his muscles still ache. He groans and rolls onto his side, random pain throbbing in his knees. But as he burrows his face into the pillow, a sharp pain twinges in his jaw, and he sits up sharply.
His sudden movement must wake the Doctor, because he sits up and grabs his arm. “What’s the matter, Jamie?”
Jamie looks at him, seeing the sleepiness on his face and the panic in his eyes. He sighs, rubbing his jaw. “Nothing’s the matter. Sorry for waking you.”
Sitting upright is making his back ache, so Jamie slumps backwards and lies back down. The Doctor lies beside him, but props himself up on one elbow and stares at him.
“Are you all right, Jamie?” the Doctor says, leaning closer.
“Aye, I’m fine,” he says, forcing himself to smile.
“Are you sure? Because you sounded like something was causing you pain.”
Jamie freezes. He didn’t know he’d made a noise. But the Doctor had obviously noticed. He sighs and glances at the Doctor, who pats his shoulder.
“What’s wrong? I might be able to help,” the Doctor says.
“I’m not sure you will, Doctor.”
The Doctor frowns and starts to wring his hands, rubbing his fingers together. Jamie recognises the action as stimming, and knows the Doctor only stims like that when he’s stressed. He sighs and presses his face against the Doctor’s shoulder, hating that he’s worrying him.
“It’s not anything bad, really. I’m just really tired, and I’m not sure you can help me be less tired.”
“No, I suppose not,” the Doctor says, but he’s still wringing his hands. “Did you have a bad night’s sleep?”
“Not at all,” Jamie says, closing his eyes. “And it’s not that sort of tired. Everything just feels achy.”
“Maybe you’re coming down with an illness. It’s quite common to ache and feel tired when your immune system is trying to fight off an infection.”
“Maybe,” Jamie mumbles, yawning. “Can that make your jaw hurt?”
The Doctor sits up, and Jamie’s face hits the pillow where the Doctor’s shoulder had just been. “Your jaw hurts?”
“Yeah... right here,” Jamie shuffles onto his back and points at the sight of pain.
The Doctor frowns, wringing his hands again.
“What’s the matter, Doctor?”
The Doctor sighs. “Nothing, Jamie. I’m just a bit concerned, because a painful jaw means you might be getting something like tonsillitis. It’s not very dangerous, but it’s very painful. Can I feel your jaw quickly?”
“Course you can,” Jamie says, yawning again.
He flinches slightly as the Doctor’s hands touch his head, his fingers carefully feeling along the underside of Jamie’s jaw and the sides of his neck, just below his ears. Every so often, he touches a place that sends one of those horrible pains through his jaw, and Jamie does his best not to wince.
“That’s odd,” the Doctor mutters, frowning.
“What is?”
“Your glands are causing you pain, but they’re not inflamed. That really is bizarre.”
Jamie doesn’t understand either, but he does know one thing: his mystery illness is getting stranger and stranger.
---
Despite his constant tiredness, Jamie tries to carry on as normal. But he seems to have lost his stamina, even when he doesn’t do anything remotely strenuous. Most days, he gets up when the Doctor does, but ends up back in bed a couple of hours later, completely exhausted. But being in bed doesn’t help him ‘recharge’, so to speak, in the slightest; when he gets up after a few hours resting, he feels just as exhausted as he did before.
One of the weirdest things about his random illness is that whilst he may feel tired all the time, he’s also starting to find it hard to sleep. Some nights, he lies awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling as his joints ache and his brain just doesn’t want to sleep, despite the fact his body and mind are exhausted. The Doctor tells him he has insomnia and gives him some natural remedies to help him sleep, but they don’t do much to help.
He just doesn’t understand what is going on. His body seems to be failing him, and it terrifies Jamie when he realises he doesn’t know why.
---
When, after a couple of months, Jamie is still feeling ill, the Doctor begins to consider other causes for Jamie’s constant fatigue. He takes Jamie into the TARDIS’ sick bay, and runs a whole array of tests on him: blood tests, scans, physical exams, and so on. But they all come back negative. It gets to the point where Jamie starts to wish that the Doctor can find something wrong with him, because only then he can be treated and hopefully feel better.
After the tests fail, the Doctor types Jamie’s symptoms into the databank, and scrolls through endless medical conditions, constantly searching for a cause of Jamie’s illness. It makes Jamie want to cry when he sees the Doctor worrying and fussing about him. Every so often, the Doctor will think he’s made a breakthrough, only to realise that it couldn’t possibly be that, and sighing in frustration.
Eventually, after hours of reading, the Doctor comes into their room and sits on the end of the bed.
“I think I’ve found what’s wrong with you, Jamie,” he says softly.
“What is it?” Jamie asks, part of him scared to ask, but most of him desperate to find out why he feels so tired.
“I think you have something called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.”
“Huh?”
The Doctor kicks off his shoes and gets into bed beside Jamie. As they snuggle up under the blankets, he says, “It’s called that because ‘chronic’ means long-term, ‘fatigue’ means extreme tiredness, and ‘syndrome’ means a whole cluster of symptoms that add up to make the condition. And you’ve got most of them, Jamie, including your sore glands. And what people call ‘brain fog’, where your brain can’t process things properly, and the Post Exertional Malaise, which means you get very fatigued after you physically exert yourself. The symptoms match, Jamie. I really think this is what you have.”
Jamie stares at him. “Well... what causes it?”
“No one really knows,” the Doctor says. “There are various theories, but none of them have ever been proven. To be honest, it’s a medical mystery.”
Jamie sighs. Trust him to get a weird chronic thing that no one knows much about.
“And can you cure it?”
It’s the Doctor’s turn to sigh. “I’m afraid not, Jamie. It often goes away on its own, but there’s no way to cure it, and the possible treatments aren’t very effective.”
“So I might feel like this for the rest of my life?” Jamie says, and he’s starting to feel a wee bit tearful.
Silently, the Doctor nods his head. Jamie doesn’t give into his tears until his face is buried into the Doctor’s chest.
---
Although he never would have thought it when he first became ill, things don’t change that much. He can still do everything they used to do, going on all sorts of adventures with the Doctor and causing havoc throughout the universe. He just has to pace himself. If they do something one day, the Doctor makes sure Jamie spends the next day recovering, just staying in bed and resting. As long as he rests, he’s usually all right.
If he pushes himself too far, however, he has a relapse. When that happens, he spends the next few weeks struggling to do anything more than get out of bed. He can spend weeks just sitting down in his pyjamas, needing help from the Doctor to wash his hair and change his clothes and even stand up when he’s particularly wobbly.
The TARDIS seems to know when this happens, because a weird chair with wheels will appear (it’s called an electric wheelchair, and Jamie finds it amazing that he can make the thing go wherever he wants it to just by moving the joystick), and Jamie can use it until the relapse is over. They first tried a manual wheelchair, but that meant the Doctor had to push Jamie around; not only did the Doctor’s dyspraxic clumsiness mean that he was always crashing it into things, but Jamie felt vulnerable and hated having to rely totally on someone else to move around. The Doctor obviously understood, because the next time Jamie relapsed, the TARDIS gave him the electric wheelchair instead.
As much as Jamie hates being reliant on a machine to move around, he has developed a strange fondness for the electric wheelchair. Maybe it’s because of the time the Doctor hurt his leg and they had to go back to the TARDIS with the Doctor sitting on Jamie’s lap and all the other times he’s had fun messing around on the chair, or maybe it’s because of the independence the chair gives him, but Jamie can’t help but smile fondly and feel grateful that technology is so advanced now.
---
“I just don’t understand,” he says, sighing.
The Doctor sighs too, and turns back to the control panel. Jamie hears him pressing buttons; he must be searching the databank again.
For the last half an hour or so, the Doctor has been trying to help Jamie find way to explain his limited energy supply. They haven’t had much success. The Doctor has just spent twenty five minutes trying to explain how the Battery Theory works. Jamie gets the basic premise (that your battery runs down quickly and doesn’t recharge properly if you are chronically ill), but he is still puzzled by modern technology. His brain fog probably isn’t helping, but, either way, the thing just won’t make sense to him.
“Sorry,” he says.
“Don’t be silly,” the Doctor says without turning around.
Jamie shuffles uncomfortably in his wheelchair as his hip starts to ache. The Doctor bought him a really thick cushion to sit on a while ago, but Jamie still gets achy sitting in the chair for too long. Or out of the chair, for that matter. Or sitting, standing or lying anywhere. Basically, he always gets achy.
“Ah, here’s one,” the Doctor mumbles to himself, before turning back to Jamie. “What about the Spoon Theory?”
“The what?”
“It’s sort of like the Battery theory, but with spoons instead.”
Jamie frowns, wondering if he has misheard the Doctor. “Spoons?”
“Yes, spoons,” the Doctor says. “It can be rather confusing to understand, but it’s actually quite a simple premise.”
“Aye, I get that, but spoons?” Jamie splutters, and the Doctor chuckles.
“It’s spoons because that’s what the creator had with her at the time when she was trying to explain her energy levels. Basically, you start the day with a certain amount of spoons, but you don’t know how many you’ve got. If you run out, you can take some of tomorrow’s spoons, but—”
“But then you’ll pay for it tomorrow,” Jamie says, starting to understand now. He knows all too well how unwell you feel if you overdo it the day before.
“Yes, exactly. Is it making sense?”
He nods. “Aye, I think so. It sounds a wee bit daft, but it’s actually quite a good way to explain it all.”
“And here’s the best part,” the Doctor says, clasping his hands together. “During the twenty first century, lots of chronically ill and otherwise disabled people who used the Spoon Theory used to refer to themselves as Spoonies. You can be a Spoonie too, Jamie.”
Jamie looks at the Doctor, and smiles when he sees the Doctor grinning at him. He looks so sweet when he smiles.
“Come here, you,” he says, and he holds his arms out.
The Doctor leans down and lets Jamie pull him into a hug. Jamie kisses the Doctor’s nose, which the Doctor then uses to nuzzle Jamie’s ear. It tickles, and Jamie lets out a strange giggle. The Doctor laughs too.
“So, are you Jamie the Spoonie?” the Doctor asks.
“Aye,” Jamie says. “And you’re the wee daft softy.”
“That sounds about right,” the Doctor says, and Jamie gives him a kiss.
---
One time, the TARDIS lands on Earth in the early 21st century (slightly too early for Zoe’s time, which intrigues her, because she wants to see how similar it is to her own time) when Jamie is having a bad week, and he doesn’t want to stay inside while Zoe goes out exploring. The Doctor doesn’t argue, so Jamie gets into the electric wheelchair and they head outside. He’s getting very skilled at controlling the chair now, and he doesn’t run over the Doctor’s foot once.
After a little walk, they end up in a busy town centre. They want to go shopping (well, the Doctor and Zoe do) and try out some of the restaurants, but they soon discover how inaccessible everywhere is. Whether its steps in front of the doorways, or doors so narrow they can’t get the chair through them without the wheels ripping the paint off of the doorframes, or shops so cramped that Jamie can barely move the wheelchair without crashing into something – it makes for a stressful and irritating experience.
“I thought places are meant to be disabled friendly by this century,” Jamie says as he parks his wheelchair.
Trying to find a restaurant was impossible, so they have decided to sit in a pub garden. Zoe is drinking a weird black drink called Coca Cola, and Jamie and the Doctor chose lemonade. The Doctor sighs and stretches his arms, before pressing the tips of his fingers against his face.
“They are, technically,” he says wearily. “There are anti-discrimination laws in place, but enforcing the laws never seems to happen. It’s unfortunately normal in a ‘progressive’ country for disabled people to struggle to get into the majority of places, and it doesn’t seem to bother most people.”
“Why would it?” Zoe says, and her tone is a wee bit bitter. “After all, why would people bother to care about things that don’t affect them?”
After they have some lunch at the pub (Jamie started to feel sick, but what he had of his roast dinner was delicious), they head back into the high street. Jamie’s back is starting to ache from sitting upright in the chair, so he parks the wheelchair and joins Zoe and the Doctor on a bench. As he flexes his ankles and stretches his aching arms above his head, Jamie realises that someone is looking at him.
A man is sat on the opposite bench, staring intently at Jamie. Well, he’s actually looking at Jamie’s legs. Jamie wonders if he’s surprised to see a man wearing a kilt outside of Scotland, but it turns out that his actual legs are what the man is so focused on.
“You just moved your legs,” the man says when he has Jamie’s attention.
The Doctor says nothing, but he tightens his grip on Jamie’s hand. Zoe nudges Jamie’s arm and whispers, “Just ignore him.”
But Jamie doesn’t want to ignore him. This man is probably just being ignorant, and he should understand once Jamie has explained about why he uses a wheelchair.
“Aye, I did,” he says, trying to sound friendly.
Unfortunately, the man doesn’t want to be friendly. He jumps to his feet and rushes towards him, and his voice is loud and rather threatening as he shouts, “Then you’re a faker! You don’t need a wheelchair!”
Jamie just stares at him, not knowing how to counter such a hateful comment. He’s never experienced anything like this before. Luckily, the Doctor comes to his aid.
Standing up, the Doctor looks down at Jamie’s legs, and then makes the loudest, most exaggerated gasp Jamie has ever heard. He drops to his knees and raises his arms up in the air. And then, in a hilariously overdramatic tone, he cries, “Halleluiah! He’s cured! It’s a miracle! Because he can flex his legs and isn’t one hundred percent paralysed from the waist down there’s clearly nothing wrong with him,” the Doctor finishes, his voice becoming quiet, but bitingly sarcastic.
Alarmed, the man takes a step back. Jamie and Zoe are both stifling laughter, unable to believe what the Doctor just did.
“What you going on about?” the man says.
“I’m saying,” the Doctor says, wringing his hands as he gets to his feet, “that there’s more to being a wheelchair user than compete paralysis. Try to educate yourself before you accuse my partner of faking his debilitating chronic illness just because he can move his legs. It just makes you look like a very hateful, ignorant person. All right?”
Not daring to argue, the man gives the Doctor a hideous look and hurries off. Once the man is out of sight, Jamie and Zoe give into their laughter. It feels so good to laugh about someone hateful getting their comeuppance, and even better to know the Doctor will do anything to defend him.
“That was amazing, Doctor,” Zoe says, still giggling. “His face!”
The Doctor smiles bashfully, his face flushing slightly. “Well, I had to do something, didn’t I? I’m not going to let anyone treat my Jamie like that.”
Jamie makes a spluttering noise, not sure whether he is going to laugh or cry. “My Jamie?”
The Doctor blushes, starting to bounce up and down on the balls of his feet. “I tried to say ‘Jamie’ and ‘my partner’ at the same time.”
Zoe hugs the Doctor. “I don’t blame you for looking after your Jamie.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor mumbles.
“Seriously though, thank you,” Jamie says. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
And he gives the Doctor, his wonderful, caring, supportive Doctor, a cuddle and a kiss.