Reverse to The Flipside. The happier way it could have turned out. :)
She tries to make it work, she really does. For his sake. But deep down, she knows she settled. And she hates herself for it. Hates herself with a loathing so deep she feels she can hardly breathe around the choke hold it has on her throat.
A few words: forever, love, human and she gave in. Weak, selfish, B.L.I.N.D.
They had never needed words before, and she always knew how he felt. But all this one, this not-really-her-doctor, had to do was whisper a few to her and she betrayed Him. Kissed the other one and let Him walk away.
But she tries. Tries to smile, tries to kiss him without wishing he was someone else, tries not to wince when he hugs her; so similar but so, so different that she aches with the loss of what's not there.
She knows he sees the lines of strain around her eyes where she tries to smile when she pulls back from kissing him, knows he's trying too. They both are. For his sake. This was his gift to them, but still, it's not enough and with every touch of this one's fingers, every breath that's not His on her lips, she crumbles a little more inside.
But still, she tries. Because that is her gift to Him. He needed her to do this, and she owes it to him to try and make it work.
She tries to think of them as twins instead of as the same man. Because they're NOT the same, no matter what He promised her; this one is angrier, darker and with less mercy than her Doctor. Almost like her old Doctor, and that thought helps.
She loved that doctor too. It was different to how she loved Her Doctor now, a calmer, deeply simmering love, but she did love him. And maybe she can love this one too. Eventually.
Counting the ways they are the same isn't helping her, its just reminding her of what isn't there anymore so she stops doing it. It isn't easy at first, every time she glances up at him she sees Him first of all and then reality hits and that quiet pang of disappointment follows. But she keeps trying, tries to see new things about this man: how he Loves to watch the sunset every night- waiting patiently for the stars to appear and then turning around and smiling slightly at her. He's not bitter and that surprises her, he likes living as a human, even though she can see the wistfulness and envy in his eyes when he looks at the stars. It eases her guilt a little that she still wishes she could be flying through them too. But it's something, a small connection between them as they are now so she takes it and stands beside him at the window each night. And when he takes her hand she doesn't flinch and doesn't try to pull away.
He makes the effort to dance with her whenever they are at party because he knows she loves it and they never got enough chances to do it before. She laughs as he spins her around madly to the fast songs, and her eyes mist over as she stares at him during the slower ones: this man and The Doctor and the Other Doctor all merging together in front of her eyes. He is slowly burrowing his way into her heart and she realises she may just be able to love this one too after all.
The day she looks up and sees only his face staring back at her she cries. He sits beside her, tense like he hasn't been in months and with the stormy expression that reminds her so much of her first doctor that she buries her face in his neck and doesn't let go until all her tears are gone and he's relaxed down on the bed beside her.
It gets easier after that. There's only one man in her vision now, not two and while the realisation makes her ache a little inside sometimes she can live with it. This man, her John is as different to The Doctor as a twin. They're different people and she finds she doesn't mind that like she used to. There's enough of both the men she's loved before in him to make her put up with his occasional temper tantrum and to make her laugh in reminiscence at his occasional 'fashionable' moment.
And he brings so much more to their life; so much that marks him as John. Not Doctor. The way he chatters on about his work from torchwood, all animated hands and not too wide grins and slightly condescending tone as he tells her about their "scientists".
He's a curious mix Her John, so basely male and human sometimes she wants to dissolve into laughter and never stop: like when she sees him sitting around outside the shops, chatting morosely with all the other boyfriends about the tortures of taking their girlfriends shopping. But he still has his Alien side to him too, the side that makes her smile the most gently; the one that can spout on for hours in language she's never going to understand, about all the tech at work and the way the scientists are all 'blundering silly apes'
But she loves him now, she knows she does. She loves his mix of dark, brooding angst when something is bothering him and he can't work it out, to his almost hyperactive excitement when they're going out somewhere and he wants to show her off. She loves his gentle and calm way of lying on the sofa; back propped up against it and feet tangled with hers as he reads a book and she lies against his chest- half asleep with his fingers combing through her hair.
It's not as exciting and amazing as she once thought her life would always be, but she can't think of any better way to live sometimes than with someone who's loved her across three lifetimes and she's loved in return. It may be human and 'chips' but there are still enough explosions and the occasional global crisis with torchwood to keep from ever being bored. And when there isn't, there's John: making a mess of his lab downstairs and concocting weird and wonderful foods for her to try, claiming they make them exactly like this on such and such a planet. She smiles and warily takes a bite and waits for herself to turn green or her face to turn red. But she loves her life, loves the mad normality of it all.
And when she's lying in bed at night, curled up beside the man she thinks she may just love the most out of them all, she's happy.
She melts into kisses now, flings her arms around John's neck to make them last longer, runs her fingers through that amazing hair and tugs just enough to make him groan.
There are no strain lines around her eyes when he touches her, only one or two laughter ones beginning to creep into her skin. She loves the feel of his fingers smoothing over her hair or ghosting over her cheek. She curls into the feel of his body late at night and doesn't want to let go when morning comes.
And the lingering guilt she once felt has long since melted away under his gaze. He wanted her to be happy more than anything else in life, more even than his own happiness. And he wanted this life for her, saw how it could be if she let it, because she knows he could never have given her this. Always too many lives to save and wars to stop and threats to fight to be able to phone into work and cancel for the day, just to stay in bed with her.
This life was his ultimate gift to her, and she's determined to live it to the full.