He calls himself John Smith, which the Doctor understands completely—of course he does, he's him, or, well, he was, he used to be—but the Doctor thinks of him as Ten. Because that's who he is, his tenth regeneration, or at least a half-human duplicate of his tenth regeneration.
When they first meet, Ten's running and the Doctor finds him, and he opens the door and yanks him into the TARDIS. Ten is breathing hard and curled up on the floor of the TARDIS, but that doesn't stop him from looking around and exclaiming, with indignant surprise, "What have you done to her?"
Same person, after all. The TARDIS has always been a living, thinking, female thing to them. But Ten never experienced what Doctor has—meeting the TARDIS in person, in a woman's body.
"You mean, what you did," the Doctor says, wagging a finger in his face. Then he blinks. "Well, me, actually. But more you. Because you're… you. Me. Before. Though you never got that far." He taps his chin with a long, slender finger. "Right… How do I say this? When I looked like you, I blew up our poor girl here while regenerating." He pats the console, careful not to accidentally flip a lever or press a button. "I think it was because I didn't want to go. Explosive, a Time Lord with regrets." He points at Ten once again. "But you never had to go. You don't have to. And here you are, running away anyway."
Ten looks at him. "I've got a good reason."
"Nothing to hear." The Doctor waves his hand at him and tilts his head up to look at the high ceiling of his TARDIS, his wonderful, beautiful TARDIS. Here they are again; madman present, box also present. He wishes she could speak to him just once more, simply to save him from loneliness. The solitude is bleak and it hurts, aches, rises in the form of a lump in his throat.
So he doesn't need to think twice and whirls around, smiling as brightly as he can at the clone of his younger self. "Come along now! Adventure awaits!"
~oooooo~
They do an awful lot of running together, and they talk an awful lot as they run.
"I don't know why you won't wear a bowtie," the Doctor huffs as they're sprinting away from a parked spaceship that's practically ticking, it's so set to explode. He pulls curiously on the knot of Ten's tie and chokes him and he nearly trips. Oops. "Bowties are cool." He rambles on that for a while.
But although he talks a lot, the Doctor's choosy about the topics. There are some things he avoids entirely, and Ten begins to realize that, besides the DNA, this is the main difference between him and the older version of the person he was duplicated from. In his eleventh body with his eleventh personality, the Doctor has very nearly perfected his skill of hiding his pain, and Ten envies that.
"Well, I can't see why you wear your hair like that," Ten pants. "Use some product."
"Product," scoffs the Doctor. "Humany wumany." He looks like he's about to say something else, and Ten can guess the words on the tip of his tongue—that he's different now, he's not like he used to be, he doesn't have big ears nor sideburns, he's less human, and he's almost relieved for that, he's not like them at all—but the Doctor doesn't say anything. Instead, he grips Ten's arm and pulls hard as everything explodes behind them in big bright orange and yellow like an Earth twenty-first century action flick, like every other day for the man who is the Doctor, and Ten can feel the heat on his back through his coat and suit. They're on the edge of the cliff now and alarms go off ringing in Ten's head.
But they're all right because the TARDIS, reliable, amazing blue, is waiting as usual—extra gravity-defying today, perched sideways on the cliff, that's a strange but not unfamiliar sight for the Doctor—and automatically, not even thinking, they both snap their fingers and the doors open willingly.
Ten hesitates, which is very human, but he is human. And constantly reminded of that fact. The Doctor's still holding onto his arm when he rushes forward, so his companion has no choice but to follow, and the Doctor aims for the TARDIS doors and they go sprawling and falling headfirst. Then the madman opens his mouth wide—and he laughs."GERONIMO!"
~oooooo~
At some point, they visit Ancient Rome to get sloshed—if taking a single mouthful each and spewing wine across the room in unison qualifies as getting sloshed, which, the Doctor is quite sure, it does not.
"I can't understand," the Doctor says, throwing his ceramic cup over his shoulder without looking, "why anyone would enjoy ingesting this stuff. It's still putrid. Hasn't changed."
Ten watches as he babbles on, all chin movements (how does he do that?) and wild hand gestures. "Right," he then says in the middle of a sentence, "Right, I've got a question for you."
The Doctor, cut off short, stills (just for a second) and raises his thin brows. "Yes?"
Ten gives a little jerk of the head, indicating their surroundings, the draping togas and sandals and prosperity. "What does this time make you think of?"
The Doctor knows what Ten is doing, and he doesn't like it, but they both know that it's not hard to figure out: if his purpose had truly been to taste good wine, which is positively stupid because wine is always horrible, no matter what time period,they would've traveled to a French chateau-slash-vineyard, maybe nineteenth century or earlier. But they're here, and the Doctor's got just a slight clue why he chose this place, he's sure it was mostly his subconscious making the decision, which is awful because he knows that Ten would find satisfaction in talking about that.
Was he really like this before? All emotional and full of feelings?
Oh yes, and he's still like that. But he's different now. He doesn't like to talk about his emotions. They're just… there. He's an old man. He shies away from open sentimentality.
"This place," the Doctor says slowly, "reminds me of a time many, many years ago, before I—we—regenerated for the first time. But that was a time later than this. Nero, you know. And I've been here more recently. Well, not recently, but—sort of. Pompeii, really. Doesn't count."
Ten doesn't move, waiting. He's clever. Of course he is. And the Doctor's stumbling over words.
"And," the Doctor sighs, "and I suppose it does remind me of my… my friend Rory. I think of him as a Roman. He's the Last Centurion, but of course, you don't know him. Maybe you do. Depends. Should you? He's a myth, but that was in a completely different universe. I can't tell my memories apart anymore." He moves his jaw. "I haven't seen him in a while. I haven't seen anyone in a while." He looks at Ten grimly for a moment, pale green eyes solemn—but it doesn't last for long. He claps his hands and rubs them together. "Now, let's go somewhere more exciting! Let's fast-forward and see this empire fall!" He looks at Ten, who is still staring at him, eyebrows furrowed in thought. The Doctor thinks back fondly on those eyebrows. Oh, they were so thick and dark then. Now he's barely got any. And he really wouldn't mind it if he was ginger."You know, you're very boring for a version of me."
"What?" Ten bursts, and the Doctor's face splits into a grin. It seems like so long ago, when he was deep and a bit brooding and shouted what quite a lot.
"Yes, yes," he says, grabbing Ten's arm once again. "What do the French say?" He glances at him, remembers that this is an early duplicate of his old self, before he got all catch-phrasey and cool. Still, a duplicate is a duplicate. "Allons-y!"
~oooooo~
They swim in the TARDIS's swimming pool often. Ten's not the best, but the Doctor, on the other hand (ha, hand puns!), could be mistaken for a fish. He's a merman. A lanky, pale-chested merman.
"Different body," he explains to the astonished Ten, rising to the surface with a grin and slicked-back wet hair. "Better swimmer. Always good at swimming, but this version of me is… aquatic." To prove his point, he flips back under and glides away, smooth, like he was born in the water.
Ten tries not to react negatively. It doesn't suit him. Neither does swimming, really, but he likes the feeling of water against his skin. The Doctor can stay under for as long as he wants, with that respiratory bypass system, but Ten… cannot. He's not quite bitter, but he really does miss being a full Time Lord, feeling invincible, brave, with two hearts and all that. Not that that was ever him, just his memories, and it makes him feel could knock him down with a bad cold. It's pathetic, and it's part of the reason why he ran away in the first place: he feels utterly helpless, like he can't do anything, can't protect certain people that he loves, like R—
He decides, oh, what the hell. There's no point in being dark and gloomy. He's with the Doctor, the regeneration he sort of almost became, and this Doctor is positively insane.
And fun.
He treads restlessly in the shallow end and bumps something with his foot. "Doctor," Ten says, though it still feels strange to call him that, "D'you notice there's a book at the bottom of the pool?"
The Doctor's head pops up on the opposite end of the swimming pool. He squints at the small dark shape below the surface, on the floor. "Oh. Must've been left here from before. Whole library fell in here, you know. Be a good chap and get it for me, will you?"
Ten dives down and grabs the book, and while he's still holding his breath, he decides to take a moment, take a look. Underwater, opens his eyes and sees an expanse of clear blue, not as blue-blue as the TARDIS, but tranquil pretty pale blue, like the TARDIS gone through the laundry.
And then the soggy-soft brown book in his hand. The title is faded, but still decipherable, and when Ten reads it he snorts, bubbles streaming from his mouth and water shooting up his nose.
The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells.
~oooooo~
They land on a planet that they haven't been to for centuries—for Ten, not in actual experience, but in memory. (They both wonder, is there a difference?) Before they get out, the Doctor stabs something into Ten's neck, and he flinches violently. "Ouch! What was that for?"
"Extra measure of safety," the Doctor says, injecting himself as well. Then he tosses the syringe aside and flings open the TARDIS doors. "Now, shall we?"
The planet was ravaged by wars and revolutions during the Doctor's last visit, but in the time of this visit, a mere hundred years in the future of his last, everything living here seems to be at peace. The economy is booming, and the residents have figured out how to develop technology that repairs their problematic atmosphere and previously withering ecosystems. It's absolutely beautiful, a much better version of earth, everything it could be but it's not. Yet.
That's fine, though. The Doctor loves Earth, and he knows that the half-human man beside him does as well. After all, they are almost the same person, and the Doctor, all eleven-point-five of him, knows where he should be. Home stopped being Gallifrey long ago; it was always either Earth, or the TARDIS, or nothing. But most of the time, in his heart, it has been nothing.
"Is this a banana?" Ten asks, holding up the fruit of a nearby plant. It's curved and yellow, but it's not growing in bushels and the tree is bright purple. He peels it. Inside, it looks like a banana, too, pale yellow and slightly bruised, but the Doctor is skeptical.
"Don't be fooled," he says, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. He aims it at the banana-like fruit and glances down when it's finished scanning. "Aha! See—"
He's cut off when the banana-ish object releases an enormous cloud of gas, and the Doctor trips and Ten begins to cough uncontrollably. He kicks up dusty gray dirt with those ridiculous high-tops that the Doctor can't possibly imagine wearing now, and when the wheezing finally stops, Ten raises his head, dark eyes unfocused.
And in front of him, the Doctor is practically vibrating. "Oh, you are terrible," he says, and his voices sounds jittery because he is shaking too much and too rapidly.
"Haven't you ever learned not to take mysterious fruit from foreign trees? Of course you did. But you never apply what you learn. You're me, only younger and more humany!" He's vibrating so badly that he's buzzing, and then something seems to change. His mind clicks. Or unclicks.
"But, look, it's a banana," Ten says, but the Doctor knocks the fruit away with a quivering hand and his companion frowns. "Barmy nut." He crouches down again to pick it up but is distracted, and begins touching the moss growing at the base of the purple tree. "And look, vegetation. Ve-ge-ta-tion." He pronounces it like it's the most complex, fascinating thing in the universe.
The Doctor stops vibrating, and laughs a laugh that dips from high to low like a roller coaster. Slightly hysterical. "Vegetation. Isn't that funny, Pond? No, hold on. Pond's not here."
Ten's eyebrows draw together. "The banana did something to us," he says, then strokes the leaf of the purple fruit tree, and he loses his previous train of thought. "Soft like… hair."
"I gave Pond a car," the Doctor goes on. "Mr. Pond, that is. I wonder if he still has it. Probably. I was sort of like that American woman… Op—Oprah? Giving free cars. I should've brought him a horse-drawn carriage. Wouldn't that be a laugh?"
"Hair," Ten whispers, "In London. Blonde, the prettiest, softest…"
"For the love of custard!" Frustrated, the Doctor chucks his screwdriver without looking. It bounces off a particularly squishy stone and lands out of sight—probably in a puddle of something sticky, because its landing is indicated by a sploosh. He sighs and starts crawling around on his hands and knees on the forest floor, looking for his sonic screwdriver.
"Bad wolf," Ten chirps.
This makes the Doctor angry for some reason but his attention span won't allow him to stay that way or remember why. He finds his sonic screwdriver in a puddle, yes, a puddle of something sort of opaque and thicker than water. It makes him think of custard again. He craves custard. Experimentally, because the world is spinning already, he tastes the stuff.
It is custard.
He jumps to his feet, wiping his mouth, though he'd really love to sit here and lap custard like a cat for the end of his days. No, don't think that! We have an issue at hand! "Uh-oh."
But he loses track of why he's alarmed. Why should he be alarmed? There's so much to think about. Like the carriage that's suddenly parked beside the banana tree, followed by Rory's car, and the Ponds and Oprah slowly materializing into view, waving cheerily, that familiar glint in Amy's eyes—
He quickly thinks about blank nothingness and the people disappear.
"Ten! John Smith! Hand!" The Doctor shouts, tackling him. "Stop! No Roses!"
"Rose?" Ten repeats, and that triggers some image in his mind. And then there she is, much clearer and more visible than the Doctor's figures were. Solid. Almost real.
She looks so different. Older, her hair longer but not any less blonde, her face even more heart-shaped than it was before. She's beautiful. This is what she must look like now. And when she smiles, his two hearts thunder in sync, but she doesn't seem to recognize the Doctor and reaches for Ten instead—
"HAND!" The Doctor screams, and Ten jumps and Rose vanishes.
Ten, furious, looks down at his hand. "Hand," he repeats, and curls his fingers into a fist.
The Doctor prepares himself. In the end, as eccentric as he might seem, he is always more level-headed than any human, or half-human. Bracing himself, he makes a fist as well.
They knock each other's lights out.
~oooooo~
Ten opens his eyes, sits up, and glances around blearily. "What?" He says immediately.
"You're fine," assures the Doctor, sliding down the banister of the nearest staircase. He lands on the platform and walks over, studying his companion carefully. They're in the TARDIS, and Ten's got the worst migraine he's ever experienced. He grimaces. "Aspirin?" The Doctor offers. Ten glances at him warily, and the Doctor's lips curve into a grin. "Just checking."
Ten rubs his eye with the knuckle of his thumb, and it stings. "What happened?"
The Doctor shrugs and spins on one heel. His nose is slightly crooked, Ten notices, and he jumps a foot off the floor when the Doctor winces and shifts his nose and it just cracks back into place. "The Thought Trees have grown back since I was last on that planet. The fruit brings any conscious thought to life—or at least, it replicates any conscious thought. Magnificent things, finally growing again." He pauses. "'Course, I didn't expect any less, since all of nature on that planet was recently restored."
Ten glares at him. "So you knew that would happen all along?"
The Doctor looks uncomfortable. "Well, I initially suspected so. That's why I injected you with that antidote. But I forgot—I forgot it only works if you're knocked unconscious first. When I got up, you were still out, so I dragged you back to the TARDIS." He sighs wistfully. "We should go back some day. Maybe more urban metropolitan places next time? I heard that the capital city is a beauty."
"Hold on," says Ten, raising a hand to stop him. "Why couldn't you just think up the TARDIS?"
"It'd only be a duplicate," explains the Doctor, fiddling expertly with the controls, and the TARDIS hums contentedly. "Fake, damaged."
"I see," Ten says quietly.
The Doctor realizes his mistake and whirls around, gazing at him. "That's not what I meant."
For a few heartbeats, Ten doesn't say anything at all. Then, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets, he gets to his feet. "Aren't you going to ask me about what… about who I conjured up? Ro—" He breaks off and glances at the Doctor expectantly. Something in his eyes looks a lot like guilt.
"No," the Doctor says, and turns back to his console. "Nothing to hear."
~oooooo~
But the Doctor remembers how he used to be. How he still is. A relative week later, as they're floating past some of the universe's most obscure stars, Ten confesses, and it comes as no surprise.
"I ran away because I was ill and I worried Rose. I felt useless. I know she'd rather have her Doctor, not the human duplicate who can't do anything, who can't protect her properly." He puts his hands in his pockets. "So… I took the coward's way out, and I left her… to travel with you. I wanted to be like you. You regenerated, but you're still the same person. You were the one she fell in love with."
For a moment, the Doctor just stares at him. Then he smiles, eyes crinkling. Old eyes on a young face. "That's ridiculous," he says. "Rose doesn't need protecting, you know that. She never did, though I never admitted it. I always wanted to keep her safe, like you. But she turned out fine, didn't she?"
Ten hesitates. "Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so."
"And it was never me, or the Time Lord factor, it was just… you. Ten. The personality." The Doctor steps back, touches one of the screens of the TARDIS. He looks at his companion, and before he can control it, sadness flickers over his features. "So I have no choice but to send you back now. I was waiting for you to tell me. I didn't want to ask. I mean, it's got to do with… Rose…" At the name, his forehead wrinkles in pain. "Anyway. You'd tell me the truth when you wanted to go back, right?"
"Right," Ten says quietly. "I'm sorry. For leaving you alone again. I'm so sorry."
"I'll be fine." The Doctor folds his hands on his lap. "And so you know," he stares at him hard, "you are not a duplicate. We are alike, but we are not the same. You are an entirely different person, you are not me, and you will never, ever become like me. It doesn't make you a coward at all." The Doctor flips some switches and pulls the lever. "Right, then. Off to Bad Wolf Bay?"
~oooooo~
The sand feels the same, under the soles of his shoes. When Ten steps out behind him, the expression on his face shows that he is home, and that it is a wonderful sensation to come back to the place where you belong. And it makes the Doctor long for that feeling.
"Thank you," Ten says. "Really."
"Just doing my job," says the Doctor with a small smile. "Defender of the universe and not particularly helpful psychiatrist, but the best getaway trip you will ever go on; oh, definitely." He steps back into the TARDIS, hand on the frame, and touches his bowtie. "And now, I'll take my leave."
Ten's eyebrows furrow. "You're not going to see her?"
The Doctor inches back a bit. "I couldn't." He rights his jacket. "See you again someday?"
"As if that's going to happen," says Ten. "You're… you're the Doctor."
"Yes, yes," he replies, with a wave of his hand. "I'm the Doctor, and I will visit again." He salutes with two fingers. "That's a promise, John Smith."
At his name, Ten—no, John Smith—smiles. "The Doctor doesn't keep his promises."
"I am aware." The Doctor smiles, fingers on the TARDIS door latch. "Goodbye, my friend."
"Goodbye."
And then he's gone.
~oooooo~
But he does visit, like he promised. For him, the visit might have been only seconds after he left; nobody knows, after all, he's the one with the time machine. He could've waltzed back into his TARDIS and fast-forwarded immediately, just to keep his promise.
But for those without Time Lord technology, a year has passed when the Doctor pops his head out again on Bad Wolf Bay and calls out to what was once his hand, of all things, but is now a man, a changed man, and a good one, "Come along now! Adventure awaits!"
*figures out horizontal lines* -_-
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