The basic plot bunny of this fic does not belong to me. It belongs to fellow fan, Weimlady. Nor do the characters belong to me, they belong to Russel T Davies and the BBC. I'm just humbly playing in their sandboxes for a while.
This is a 10.5/Rose story, one shot, taking place right before and after the Tenth Doctor's regeneration.
Gone
He had never told Rose. Call it secretive, call it private, selfishness or jealousy, but he'd never told her about the bond.
Even though he was half human, with one heart and his Time Lord abilities lessened, even though the walls between the two worlds had been sealed tightly, he could still feel him. The Doctor. Same templates echoing each other he supposed, echoes weird enough to trespass universes. He just sensed the Doctor out there, as he was sure the Doctor sensed him over here as well. The bond between twins, strange ones as they were.
This day though, something was wrong. Around midday, a feeling of impending loss started to fill him. Something in pain, in lament, something about to fade away. No, not something, someone.
The Doctor.
He tried to deny it. His telepathy was limited, so he could very well be wrong. Yeah, wrong, something else is going on, yeah. Ignore it, just some glitch, everything is fine. He let himself be distracted by his everyday life, his work, his friends and, most of all, by Rose.
A little after midnight though... the feeling grew too much. He held on to the sleeping woman in his arms, desperately trying to push it away... but then it hit him as well.
A song. A farewell song. Distant, but so, so clear.
He couldn't ignore that song. He got out of bed, went to the balcony door, looked at the night sky and turned his senses full on.
In her sleep, Rose felt him leaving her. Unconsciously, she patted his side and woke up the moment her hand felt empty space.
"John?"
Sitting up, she saw him standing, leaning on the balcony door with both hands, his head held up, breathing hard. She ran towards him.
"John, what's wrong?"
He was too immersed into whatever he was sensing to answer her. His eyes were closed, his brow furrowed, his expression a mixture of feelings, all not good. His breathing grew harder and harder in urgency, tears started to fall on his cheeks. And then he gasped aloud, his arms fell to his sides and he went rigid. A few moments lasted this tension, until finally, he let all the air out of his lungs and snapped his eyes open, only to close them again in a groan of pain as he collapsed on the floor, both his hands pressed against his heart.
"John?! John, what happened?! Please tell me you're alright! JOHN!!" Rose was at a loss of what to do.
"Now I definitely know why Time Lords have two hearts..." he groaned. "A single one can't handle the metabolic pressure..." he breathed hard, trying to calm down.
"How can I help you? What should I do?" Rose asked deep in worry.
"A cup of tea?" he wondered aloud. "No, no, free radicals and tannin are good but take a little time to work. Orange juice? Yeah, yeah, sugars and vitamins, that sounds better..." he said almost in one breath.
Within less than a minute, Rose was back with a glass of orange juice and helping him take a few sips, since his right hand would not leave his chest and his left was shaking badly. She wiped the sweat from his face with her fingers and patiently waited for him to recover.
When his breathing slowed somewhat and the grimace of pain slowly gave way to a grimace of... was it loss?... Rose thought he was well enough for the explanations to begin.
"John.... what happened?"
He gazed at her silently. Should he tell her? Should she know? Wouldn't it be better if he spared her the news? But this was Rose. His Rose. And his own. And she knew both of them too well not to read between the lines on her own if needed.
And indeed, he saw the realization form on her face not a moment too late.
"It's the Doctor... isn't it?"
He nodded silently.
Rose waited for more. In fear and hope.
"I heard the universe singing him to his sleep... I felt him regenerate... He's gone..."
Silence stretched. After a while, John could not bare it anymore. He got up and left Rose behind, alone in her own grieving...
*
Regenerated. Gone. Her Doctor gone. A new man in his place, a man she had no idea what he looked like or was like. And would never ever know...
She had to cry away her pain.
When the tears lessened, she remembered John. Her John. He was not exactly her Doctor, even though he had his body and memories. Over the few years they had already spent together, she had come to know the differences between the two men, some subtle, some distinct. She had come to the conclusion that, same appearance aside, they basically had the same soul in a way. Just as the Doctor was this fundamentally good and caring man, so was John.
She found him sitting in the kitchen, his elbows on the table, his hands supporting his head. Noticing her entering, he sighed, rubbed his face and kept leaning his head against his clasped hands, his eyes avoiding hers. He was still shaking a little.
"Are you alright?" Rose sat a seat away and asked.
His doctorish impulse was to answer 'I'm always alright'. But the truth was that he was neither the Doctor nor alright.
"Are you?" he chose to return the question.
Rose tried to give a shrug, but it was so fake. She gave up.
"It would happen one day..." she admitted sadly. "And it just did."
John looked away.
"The Doctor had once told me that he could sense other Time Lords..." Rose trailed.
John's eyes shot to meet hers. Her suspicion was confirmed.
"You could sense each other, couldn't you?... All this time... even through the closed walls."
He nodded sadly. "We are... were... in a way the same. We could sense the echo of each other. The Doctor could sense me more than I could him, though. Full blood Time Lord and all."
"And now?" Rose wanted to know.
John's heavy eyes answered. He shook his head a little as well. "We're different men now, not echoes still linked... My psychic ability is limited at any rate, but I doubt that even the full blood Time Lord new Doctor can penetrate the walls now... We've separated."
Rose did not know what to say. She chose a classic line. "Well... I'm sure he'll be alright," she even attempted to smile. "He always is."
John swallowed hard and stayed silent. Should he tell her? Should he tell her about how much despair, pain, loneliness and fear the Doctor had felt during his last moments as his tenth self? It hadn't been an easy death, a quick death, a welcomed change. The Doctor hadn't wanted to go. He had clung to his self desperately, delaying his regeneration, drowning down the waves of energy burning to be released. He'd fought and fought and fought, until it had come down to his primal survival instinct, regenerate or die completely. His choice would always be life. He'd let go. And John had shared all this anguish with him.
"What are you thinking?" Rose's voice broke through the silence.
He considered his words. "The Doctor is a survivor. He loves life... Letting go of a regeneration is never easy. It feels like loosing a part of you, it feels like part of you dies... But you survive really, you go on and you get used to the new you... It's just that..." he trailed.
"What?.."
"Nothing..." he stiffened.
"John..." Rose insisted.
The fire in her eyes. There. She wouldn't stop until she got all her answers.
Taking a deep breath, he leaned back in his chair and tried to keep his voice steady. "I know he'll be alright. I do. Hell, I'm him! I've been though this many times already, off with the old, in with the new, it's how Time Lords are." He paused. "But this time... this time it was different..." his voice faltered. "He was alone... And didn't want to go... Letting go of someone he had found so comfortable being, that he so loved being... he fought to delay it... " John shook his head. "I strained myself to sense him at first, but then I didn't have to... He was crying out..."
John's face crumbled and he hid behind his hands. Wiping away his tears, he continued. "And then I felt him. Letting go. Bursting. Pouring out. Fading away... And now he's gone. I can't sense him any more, I've lost him... I've lost him and I can't help but worry for him. How he is, where he is, how he'll cope. How..." he bit his lip, "how I will cope... without him..."
Rose was in tears.
John stood up, took a few steps and leaned on the kitchen counter for support, his back to her.
"We were strangely jealous of each other, you know," he laughed a bit sadly. "Him of me being able to live the one adventure he could never have, a normal human life. And me of him being a full Time Lord, Tardis ready, off to other times and spaces as usual... But when we both realized our bond, it became sort of a tip between us, sharing a little of each other's feelings, as distant but enough as it was... But now it's gone."
"I'm sorry..." Rose whispered.
"Yeah, I know..." John said softly, turning around, folding his arms and giving her a quick glance.
"Why didn't you ever tell me about this? About this bond?" She wasn't accusing. She wasn't angry. She was just wondering.
John really smiled at that, lifting an eyebrow, shaking his head. "Would you have been able to let him go and accept me in his place if I had?" he asked seriously, sadly.
Rose lowered her head guiltily.
"That's why..." John confirmed. "Selfish you may call it. But he too wanted it so."
Another silence stretched for long moments.
"The Doctor is gone.... My Doctor... " Rose whispered.
"No. The Doctor is alive. But his tenth incarnation is dead, " John said. "And don't look at me, I'm just... the freak copy, " he added with bitterness.
The freak copy. Rose had once called him that. It was during the time when they were struggling to adapt, to accept each other, to re-get-to-know each other. It was upon a fight, spirits high, frustration and heartache. She had apologized later and taken it back, but John still felt the sting of it. After all, in a certain point of view, he really was a strange man, half Time Lord, half Human, part Doctor, some Donna.
"You are not a freak," Rose said looking straight at him.
John just shrugged. He was too tired, drained.
Rose stood and walked towards him. "And I love you. You. You know that by now."
"And you love me now more... just because the other is dead?" he couldn't stop himself asking.
It had always been his fear. His insecurity. The thought that Rose would love him just because he was a copy. She couldn't have the original, so she took the freak copy. And not really took either, the Doctor practically shoved him to her care, knowing that she just wouldn't, couldn't say no.
Rose gently placed her hands on his chest. Only under her right hand, his single heart was beating fast.
"You are my John. I love you for that. You may not be the Time Lord with time and space at your disposal, but you are a special man," she simply said.
The corners of his mouth slowly lifted into a smile. "Thank you."
"And besides," Rose continued with a cheeky glee, "our own home-grown Tardis will be ready one day. (*) You'll be able to fly me anywhere around the world at no cost. Airbuses, Boeings and sports' cars will have nothing on you."
He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. "Rose Tyler... Still sticking with me because I'm a good chauffer?"
"Um....no..." she purred suggestively. "I've learned that you're quite good at other things too..."
He smiled that smile that was uniquely his. A smile formed by the things that only he, John, had shared with Rose. Personal, intimate, soul bonding things.
He had lost his brother, his twin so to say. He'd miss him terribly. But his own adventure was not over yet... and it was the one adventure that he finally felt truly blessed to be living...
End.
(*) In a deleted/extended scene of "Journey's End" in the season 4 DVDs, we see the Doctor giving 10.5 a piece of the Tardis, a coral. We learn that it will take some years for it to grow into a fully functional Tardis, but still.
Author's note:
I have to make a shy confession. "Journey's End" and the 10.5 Doctor did not and still do not sit well with me. I found the concept of a doppelganger Doctor just self-satisfying, a way to indulge Rose fans by giving her a Doctor of her own. I looked at 10.5 and he was just wrong, off and disturbing, he was just a freak Doctor indeed. And I thought that it was totally off character of the Doctor to shove him and Rose back in the parallel world too, without asking, without giving them a choice, here, off you two go, be together. That still bothers me.
However... reading a post in "David Tennant: The Forum", where a fellow fan, Weimlady, had the idea "the 10.5 Doctor feels the 10th Doctor's death", it suddenly ticked my muse and I couldn't shut her up. I wrote this one-shot in literally one shot. And I have to say that now... now somehow I don't dislike 10.5 so much, on the contrary, I think I see him differently. I found a way to make some kind of sense of him and the Doctor, and make a kind of peace as well.
Weimlady is a writer herself. You will find her wonderful stories here
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Thank you for reading. Reviews welcome. :)