Jealousy Is A Passion
A/N: It's official now: I'm evil!
I keep getting ideas to rewrite these episodes in all those delicious ways that torture our poor Doctor's human morality.
And I love every damn minute of it!
Spoilers: This is a post Journey's End fic, so there are spoilers up until there.
Chapter 1: Jealousy
They came running into the TARDIS. Rose was shoved in first by the half-human Doctor, who quickly followed on her heel. Straight after his companions, his family, the Time Lord stumbled inside. Ducking to avoid the gunfire, he slammed the door shut while his metacrisis was already busying himself with sending their magnificent ship hurtling into the vortex. Rose had to grab on to the railing as the ancient ship shook. Her two Doctors went tumbling to the ground.
No one was laughing this time.
The Doctor got up first. Running around the console, he quietly helped his twin onto his feet before checking out the alien writings on the monitor. The human Doctor looked over his shoulder, paling just as he did. In perfect sync they raised their hands, and shoved them worriedly through their already messed up mobs of hair. Rose looked at them disconcerted. If something worried her Doctors, it couldn't be good.
Not good at all.
"They're following us," the Doctor in brown said glumly.
"But...", Rose protested, "how? We've got a time machine."
"And they've got a vortex manipulator, I'd guess," the Doctor in blue answered. "Probably stolen from a time agent."
"They can sniff out anyone, and me being a Time Lord... I'm unique! They'll follow us everywhere- everywhen. They'll never stop! Unless...", the Time Lord announced in the heavy silence that encompassed them, the note of panic in his voice barely contained. He turned to look at them. His gaze wandered over their faces, back and forth between his twin and his Rose, finally coming to rest on her concerned features. He was by her side in two long, quick steps, catching her face between his hands. His lips crashed onto hers in a chaste, but desperate kiss. "I'll have to do it. I have to stop being a Time Lord, and become human- just long enough for their time to run out."
"Of course!", his twin suddenly cheered. "They'll only live a couple of months, if they don't consume you... But, you'll have to use IT. I never thought I... you... we ever would."
"Use what? What are you talking about? How can you become human? I mean... Is it like regeneration, a Time Lord trick? Can you just change species?"
They exchanged a look, and then the Time Lord pulled a lever. A helmet was lowered from the ceiling. The Doctor in blue grabbed hold of it, and came back with a fob watch in his hand a moment later. He showed this to Rose, and explained their plan. She didn't seem very happy, and neither did them, she noticed. Her brown-clad Doctor told her, they'd program the TARDIS to land somewhere on Earth, for some familiarity. Where or when, would be the ship's choice.
Rose was not appeased.
"We have to do this, Rose. Or they'll hunt us forever, and... if something happened to either one of you because of me, I couldn't live with myself. Please, understand. I'm doing this for you- both of you."
He was still holding her face between his hands, caressing them with his thumbs.
"What about you?", Rose asked the Doctor in blue. "Won't they just go after you?"
"Nah!", he replied, waving her worry away. "My body is mostly human, only my brain chemistry is Time Lord. I might smell a bit funny for an ape, but nothing like him. Nothing like a real Time Lord- not unless I used the chameleon arch to change species as well."
"We could do that?", Rose asked, then looked at the Doctor in brown. "If he could... you'd never have to be alone again." And you... you wouldn't get your senses confused all the time because of your humanity..."
They exchanged another look.
"There's a catch, right," she realized. "Oh, of course, there's always a catch. What is it this time?"
"Well... Rewriting your entire biology... Let's just say, it's not the nicest experience," they answered in unison, both shuffling their feet in exactly the same way. And no matter how much they tried to convince her that it was alright, she still pleaded with him not to do it, to find another way. A way that wouldn't hurt him. Her Time Lord tried to kiss her worries away furiously, but her soul would not find peace.
She buried her head in the human Doctor's chest when the procedure began.
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Two months later, he woke from this strange dream with a start. The aftershocks of his dream rippling the air around him, bringing forth visions of familiar, and unknown faces. Staying put for a moment, he let his eyes adjust to the relative darkness of the early morning; the curtains still closed tightly in front of the windows. He raised a hand to rub his face then, forcing the sleepiness out of his body. A groan emerged from his lips still as he raised himself into a sitting position. Lifting the covers, and swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, he stood, shivering in the cold room. He quickly grabbed his robe, and put it on over his white-and-blue pinstriped pyjamas. He tightened the knot, just as someone knocked on his door.
"Come in!", he called.
The door opened to reveal a tall man, carrying a tray in his hands. The man was smiling cheerily, his brown eyes sparkling under a mess of uncombed brown hair, as if he'd just gotten out of bed himself. Or as if he had done very naughty things in bed. With his wife. His beautiful, dazzling, ever charming brunette wife. Shaking his head clear of that inappropriate notion, he welcomed his twin brother, and helped him set down the enormous amount of food, he'd been carrying around with him. Then he walked around his desk to sit down right opposite his brother.
"Good morning, James," he said, smiling as his brother filled all three cups with tea.
"Mornin', John. Rose will be here any moment. It takes her a bit longer to get dressed in all those skirts. You know how it is," James replied cheerfully.
No, John Smith almost said, I don't know. After all, he did not have such a wonderful wife like his little brother. But that comment would have been inappropriate, and Professor John Smith was nothing if not a proper gentleman as could be expected of someone with his upbringing. Then again, James, who worked as a librarian in the same school as John, had grown up in the same household, and had still become quite unruly for a man of his position. And yet, John could not help but think that his dear brother had achieved more than him in the end.
Much more.
He had earned the love of a beautiful young lady. A good and cultured woman who always looked at him with such devotion in her eyes, and barely ever looked at another man- barely even looked at him. James had proposed to her, and soon after they were married in a charming, small ceremony.
"I hope you left something for me!", chimed a woman's voice from the door. There she stood, her hair still undone, golden and glimmering in the morning light, wearing the same simple blue dress and white apron as the school's matron. Upon arriving, she had insisted to do something useful to help with the school's affairs, so the headmaster had been so kind to allow her to help the matron in keeping the boys healthy. He admired her for that.
Both men looked up, and John stood as she quietly entered his study, and closed the door behind her. He threw an annoyed glance at his brother, who would not give such courtesy to his own wife. Rose did not seem to mind as she approached them. She reached John first, and hugged him to her softly. This was not how a woman should behave towards her brother-in-law, but James never said anything, nor did he appear bothered, and John enjoyed this fleeting contact with her warm, soft body too much to do something about it himself. Still, he always hesitated in closing his own arms around her.
Even after over two months of this daily routine.
And still, she would not look at him.
"Oh, John, how many times must I say this. Please be yourself around me!", she chided him once again. Her mocking voice took the bite out of her words, and yet he could not help the heat arise to colour his cheeks. "You might as well imagine me to be another gentleman, if that eases your discomfort."
Shocked by her proposal, he could only gape at her for a minute while his brother broke out into very unmanly giggles.
"N...no, that, I-I fear, is n-not in my power to d-do," he stammered helplessly entrances by her cheeky smile that had her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth.
With a sigh, and a shake of her head, Rose moved on to his brother. A hand caressed James' cheek as he kept his eyes closed to enjoy the tender touch. Then Rose leaned down to kiss him lightly but without haste. John turned his head away, partly to give his brother and his sister-in-law some privacy, and partly because he was ashamed of the vile humours this proof of their love unleashed inside him. Watching them reminded him of what he had yet to achieve, and of how much he would like to be in his brother's place...
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All throughout his lecture his head had been elsewhere. In his study, to be precise, having breakfast with a beautiful brunette... and her husband, who also happened to be his brother. Why must he lust after his brother's woman? Sure, she was beautiful with her light brown hair, and sparkling hazel eyes, her rosy lips that fitted her name so well, and that pearly skin. But she was also his brother's bloody wife! Why was she causing him such passions? During the day she haunted his every breath, seemed to lurk around every metaphorical corner of his thoughts, and even at night he would not be at peace from her. Frequently, she starred in his dreams lately, at first alone- running together, holding hands, hugging and laughing. Lately, though, his brother appeared holding her other hand as she laid between them on their huge, soft bed with it's sinful red sheets, naked as the Lord made them. And tangled up together with their various limbs all over each other, their eyes still hazy in the aftermath of what must have been a very intense bout of...
"Enough!", he ordered himself quietly as his imagination ran away with him.
Without even noticing, he had dismissed the class, and was now carrying a stack of books towards the library. He could not see anything beyond his pile, and walked down the hall, trusting the students to avoid running into him. A door suddenly opened, and a shriek could be heard, and then some laughing, and a quiet reprimand. By this time, John had already dropped the books, cursed silently, and knelled to pick them back up. Soon enough, two more figures could be found kneeling on the floor as they helped gathering his equipment. Looking up for the first time, he realized them to be Matron Redfern, and his Rose- no, not his, his brother's wife, Rose.
"Oh, thank you, ladies."
"My pleasure, Professor Smith," the Matron replied smilingly.
"Our pleasure," Rose insisted.
Matron Redfern blushed.
"Oh, of course, my dear. Of course. I do apologize."
It didn't sound very sincere, blush or no blush. They stood, and Rose grabbed some more of his books, insisting that the journey through the school would be easier if he saw where he was going. The Matron kindly offered to take a few books as well, but John was mesmerized by the warmth in Rose's eyes, and the depth of the emotion in them. He cast his eyes down, and his gaze inadvertently fell upon her pink lips, which were curved upwards into a gentle smile. Oh, how he'd like to kiss those lips, to feel their soft texture against his mouth, or nibbling on his earlobe as she had done in so many of his dreams...
"...it's just you and me, I'd much rather you'd call me Nurse Redfern. Matron sound so... well, matronly."
He came back to reality with a start once more, and realized that they'd almost reached the staircase. The Matron's words registered a moment later, just as she suggested he call her by her given name, Joan, and then the topic of their one-sided conversation jumped on to the village dance held the day after tomorrow. He could not help but notice that this rude woman would not acknowledge Rose's presence. He risked a glance at the young woman, and found her staring at her feet, apparently disappointed about something. And maybe she was angered by that woman's crude manners.
No, she seemed to have the same look he often saw in the mirror when thinking about his brother and her...
"Do you think you'll go?"
"Hmm?..." The village dance. Right. "Oh, I don't... know. I hadn't... thought about it."
"It's been ages since I've been to a dance. Only, no one's asked me."
"Well…I should imagine that you'd be…I mean, I-I-I never thought you'd be one for…If you do! You may not. I-I probably won't. But even if I did, I couldn't… I mean..."
"Actually," a soft voice came to his aid from the background, "I had hoped John would accompany me. James is not one for such festivities, and I could not go alone, obviously, but I wouldn't want to miss it. James had wanted to ask you, if that was all right, apparently, he forgot."
She had turned to him now, smiling wickedly, and winking at him.
"No, no, he did. I must have forgotten in all this confusion, and the boys starting to get sick at the beginning of the cold season. I am terribly sorry, Ma... Joan, but I'm a man of my word."
"Oh, I see. Of course you must..."
Apparently, Joan had given up. Thank the Lord for little wonders.
"Yes, well... we should really...", he was saying as he started moving again.
"The stairs!", Rose panicked voice interrupted him.
"What?"
"The stairs! They're right..."
She had pointed over his shoulder but he was already tumbling down the unrelentingly hard, wooden staircase, books being ripped from his hands and flying everywhere. As the world finally stopped spinning, his eyes sought out Rose's without being asked. A cold hand seemed to grip his heart when he saw the desperate worry on her pretty face. She was running down the stairs, jumping over books, and running around his stretched out form to get a hold of his head. Carefully, she lifted it onto her lap, stroking her fingers through his hair as tenderly as she had touched his brother's cheek that morning, and thereby sending him back to those warm, sweaty sheets in the dimly lid bedroom of the three of them. His eyes never leaving hers, he lifted his hand, and, instinctively it seemed, she grabbed hold of it, lacing their fingers together, squeezing reassuringly.
Then his world went black.
End of chapter 1!
A/N: I decided to start out soft for the first chapter. I'm not sure how many will follow, but I'm pretty sure we'll get to a point where this fic deserves it's high read and review!