A/N: This fic has video for mosth of paragraphs, to see them please go to my profile :)
How has it started?
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He was asking himself it more frequently than months ago. Planets were stolen. Davros and Daleks came, then they were gone once again (or so most hoped) and all elements returned on theirs right places.
Yes, the harmony has returned. A hint of sarcasm was felt in his thoughts.
Did it really?
An extra puzzle was left on the galactic table. A duplicate?
Doctor's duplicate.
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Oh, I remember now. It was in Pete's world, at the Bad Wolf bay.
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"I've spent all that time trying to find you, I will not back now." Rose said frustrated.
"But you have to. We saved the world, but with a cost." Doctor explained and glanced at his duplicate. "And the cost is him. The only safe place for him is the Tardis."
What? The time lord was clearly upset. The copy didn't understand why he was blamed. It wasn't his choice to be born!
"You made me." the clone said with a harsher tone than intended.
The glare, which he received in the response, could stun even a demon from hell.
"You are my responsibility from now on." Doctor declared coldly. "The only time lords in existence."
A similar sentence was told Master after that year. And just like him (even with Rose's objections), Meta-crisis version didn't have any choice.
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Was it like that?
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They were getting used to each other.
Some things were simple. Doctor chose wearing his brown suits and gave all blue ones to the duplicate. Tardis didn't complain if any of them tried to drive. They both liked sweets. They did not image other life than the constant travel... seeing new places, meeting new people...
Some things were hard to admit.
Teeth of the second Doctor needed to see a dentist quite often. He also got tired more quickly and had to change his dinner menu. (Sometimes he had so many bandages that if he went on a costume party, all visitors would think that he was a mummy.) Meta-crisis version prefered to avoid checking what else changed. Doctor knew that it was better not to insist.
"Do I really have only one heart?" Duplicate asked once, where they were spending a quiet evening in Tardis. He was depressed more than usually.
"Here, let me check." Doctor said and took his stethoscope.
He put it at clone's chest. Deep down, the duplicate knew that even his creator would not hear any double heartbeat. A sad frown on Docto's face only confirmed it.
"Let's find out. You and me."
He gave the decoy his stethoscope. After several seconds, the duplicate lost all delusions.
"I have only one heart." he said between tears. "I have only one life. I will die and never regenerate... "
He didn't have time, when he was a real time lord. Now, the clone had it even less than before. How could he live like that? Whom should he be?
"A friend, I swear..." Doctor replied warmly, while squeezing the hand of his copy.
For a moment all seemed to be better.
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Yes, I think that it was like that.
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An adventure, which went wrong. They survived, but the cost was too high.
Doctor hid himself aboard the Tardis. Duplicate managed to find him after two days in one gloomy room. The site of his original self just sitting and staring at empty space made his heart broke.
"I wish that things could be different," he started softly. "but they are not. If you want to tell me anything about what has happen. I will be there. Just come and see me."
Doctor glanced at him with unseen eyes.
"I will listen. OK?" clone repeated hopefully. If it managed to wake his companion up, then not everything was lost.
The meta-crisis version wanted to help, it was in his nature, he was the DOCTOR as well.
Only silence answered him.
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Really?
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"Really, you can't trust anyone," the duplicate said, when he couldn't stand Doctor's cold posture anymore. "even the people, who you love."
The clone thought that somehow they would be able to support each other. The time lord had never been telling his companions the truth (The decoy wasn't the Doctor, he would never be. There was reserved only one role for him), however the Duplicate believed that with the time, the Doctor would trust him and regard him as something more than a temporary visitor.
"You must be so tired of lying." the clone continued. "So say it, so we could be released from this." Doctor was just the Doctor, somehow he became much worse actor than in his last generation.
"Ultimately, we are all alone." the copy looked down at the helpless time lord lying on the floor. "You – more than ever, right now."
Doctor managed to sit up right now, a painful disappointment in his eyes.
"No one will come to rescue you. This is it."
Meta-crisis let him live, only because it caused more pain than dying.
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What? Wait!
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He left and gained power. It was really easy, as human didn't even expected that under Doctor's face could lurk something much darker and sinister than all hells combined.
Duplicate also met his creator again. The time lord started running right away. It was even funny - Doctor believing that he could out run his "child/pupil". Tardis and its owner quickly became his. It was refreshing leaving Earth and moving to new locations, to see them or kill daleks/sontarans/cybermen/anyone who made inhabitants suffer. Sometimes he let Doctor leave his cell and come with him. The Doctor came with HIM. Roles had been changed and the decoy never allowed him to forget it.
In the end, the meta-crisis version had enough and his creator paid the cost. What could he say? Doctor always talked too much. You can't do it, you can't kill, you can't play with time like that, you can't keep me forever, please stop, please remember, who you are, you can do better, you could be beautiful, I am so sorry …
"I am so sorry." the clone cried above Doctor's lifeless body.
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No. It wasn't like that!
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"You are my responsibility from now on." Doctor declared at the Bad Wolf bay. "The only time lords in existence."
"I am part human." the clones said, as if quietly explaining that he was allowed to make mistakes, but in the same time he could correct them.
"Come with me," he said gently, recognizing his mistake. "Travel with me."
"I have got only one live." he said stunned.
"As my companion. We can start again, I would like that."
"Really?"
"Maybe, I have been wandering alone for too long." Doctor answered with the familiar smile.
Rose was devastated, Doctor had a new companion, but Donna had to forget about all their adventures. No human could survive with the knowledge of a time lord.
They were alone in Tardis.
"There haven't been a human meta crisis before. And you know why." the clone said.
The copy wondered if Doctor understood his words. He was dangerous and maybe it would be better if he was just put into a cell and threw the key away. Event unintentionally, his actions caused Donna to loose all memories. He wouldn't mind if Doctor broke his promise.
The time lord was awaken from his thoughts and looked at the decoy. The meta-crisis was expecting a long pause, he was nicely surprised that the Doctor answered right away:
"It's time to change."
They could leave lonely adventures, where companions grew up and left to start a travel of their own. Many wanted to help, but even knowing Doctor's history, no human could understand the pain of an immortal.
"Thank you."
There was a new journey before them.
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Yes, it was like that.
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Doctor hated him with every passing day.
No, he didn't.
The meta-crisis clone was alone. He wasn't a time lord, he wasn't a human as well.
No. What's going on? Am I in some B-class horror story?
His skills were unique, but Duplicate's emotions lacked the experience and knowledge of the original self.
Who are you?
He was stuck in one place and one time. The journey ended.
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"No. No! NO!" the Duplicate woke up.
"Easy. You are all right." the Doctor calmed him. "I've got you."
The meta-crisis version blinked and looked around. It seemed that they were in console room aboard Tardis. The clone did not know how he ended on the floor, additionally in Doctor's lap. Nor, what a huge bug-thing was doing next to them.
"Don't worry." the time lord said. "It is sleeping right now. It can't hurt any of us."
"What's that?"
"Cranial Parasite. They stick to a prey and then try to take control of it. They use its body to move and live. Its planet was stolen by Daleks, which they needed for the Reality Bomb, and somehow it entered the Tardis."
The duplicate saw as Doctor's mouth was moving, but in reality he didn't listen. His own brain was processing the data and came to his own conclusions. Parasite meant to find the real Doctor, but as both time travellers looked identical, it caught him by mistake. If the clone was a normal human, the parasite would easily take control over him. The insect had to be really surprised by the unique host, a time lord-human hybrid. It did not know what to do, the parasite tried creating an alternative version of his history with Doctor. However, the duplicate's mind was still fighting and with the original time lord on the other side, the invader had not stood a chance.
It was only a dream, a life-time nightmare.
"Thankfully, I found you rather quickly." the meta-crisis looked at the Doctor. The familiar compassion was clearly visible on his face. "At least from my point of view. I hope that whatever you have seen..."
The time lord was forced to stop, when the clone threw his long arms around the Doctor and clung to him, as a drowning man clung to his life.
"I am sorry." the clone said between tears.
"For what?"
"Everything."
"Don't say that. We have just begun. You will see, we will find a way out."
He sighed with relief. The Duplicate remembered the real past now. The Doctor could not leave him in Pete's world and asked his meta-crisis version to travel with him. It was said that he was to dangerous to stay there, but maybe the Doctor asked, because he also did no want to be alone again.
There was a new journey before them. Together.
END
A/N: I presume that you have noticed that the fic was inspired by 'Doctor Who Forgotten' series :)