Title: A Different Man
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Arthur Eddington
Fandom: Doctor Who/Einstein and Eddington
Rating: PG-13
Table: 5, sound_of_drums
Prompt: 48, My Love
Author's Note: Continuation of Place Your Hand.
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Arthur Eddington. Please do not sue.

***

Arthur stared at the Doctor with wide eyes, one hand raised as though he'd been about to reach out and touch the Time Lord's face or stroke his hair when the other man's words had stopped him. He seemed frozen in time, unable to move or speak.

When he finally did speak, his words weren't coherent. "You mean .... you're .... John?" He shook his head, the movement vehement and definite. "N-no. You can't be. You're .... you're not like him .... you can't be my John. You're .... two different people. Altogether."

The Doctor shook his head, completely at a loss as to how he was going to explain all of this to Arthur, but knowing that he had to. He had to be honest with this man, before their relationship went any further. He couldn't hide behind lies and deceit.

"Yes, I am," he said softly, taking a deep breath and trying to marshal his whirling thoughts into some semblance of coherent words that would expain the situation and make sense to Arthur. "I .... I was John Smith when I was human. But I-I'm not human now."

Arthur shook his head, raising a hand to run it through his hair. "Jack, you're not making any sense at all. Have you gone completely barmy? How can you not be human? You're sitting right here in front of me, talking to me. You can't tell me that I'm imagining you."

"No, of course you're not." The Doctor reached for Arthur's hand, grasping it and twining their fingers togehter. He wasn't sure just how he was going to get the truth across, but somehow, he had to. Arthur deserved that much from him.

"You have to understand, Arthur." The Doctor realized that he was pleading, but he couldn't stop the words from pouring out now that they'd started. "I never meant to hurt you. I didn't think that I would fall in love with you when I was John Smith."

"Do you expect me to believe that you and John are the same person?" Arthur looked bewildered, and no closer to belief than he had been a few minutes ago. "You look just like him, but you're so .... you're so different from him. I don't believe what you're telling me."

"You have to believe it," the Doctor said quietly, letting go of Arthur's hand. He raised his hands to the top button of his pajamas, starting to undo it. "Look at my body, Arthur. You know this body as well as you know your own. You know my physical marks. See for yourself."

The Doctor shrugged out of the pajama top and tossed it aside, shifting his position so that his back was to Arthur. "There's a mole on my back, right between my shoulder blades. There isn't any way that two separate men could have that in exactly the same place."

He felt Arthur's hand touch his back, searchingly, moving down his spine, those warm fingers caressing the small mole. "Y-you can't be John," Arthur whispered, his voice sounding as though he was on the verge of tears. "He's d-dead."

"John Smith is dead, yes," the Doctor said softly, turning around again and regarding Arthur, his dark eyes compassionate. "He was another part of me ,Arthur. But as long as I'm alive, you still have a part of him. You see, I never forgot you, even when that side of me died."

"So .... you're telling me that you were John, and that John .... died .... and that only left you?" Arthur looked confused, as well he might be. The Doctor realized that he wasn't making much sense; even he himself would have had a hard time believing his words.

"Yes and no," he sighed, wishing that he'd thought about what to say before starting to tell Arthur the truth about himself. "I had to become human because I was being pursued by creatures who wanted my Time Lord lives. You see, I .... have more than one life. And more than one body."

"What?" Arthur's hand withdrew from where it had been resting on his arm as though he'd been burned; the Doctor cursed himself for not choosing his words more carefully. "Do you mean to tell me that there are .... other bodies out there that are you?"

"No, no," the Doctor hastened to assure the other man, reaching to take Arthur's hand. "I mean that when I die, I regenerate into another body. Another life. I have the same memories, I'm the same man, but I'm in a different body. I look different. And my personality changes a bit, as well."

"So, when you died as John, you came back?" Arthur's brow wrinkled; he shook his head, his gaze not leaving the Doctor's face. "But you look exactly the same. You haven't changed at all. You have John's body, so how can you expect me to believe what you're saying?"

"I didn't regenerate when the human part of me died," the Doctor explained, hoping that he would make sense and get through to Arthur. "I had hidden the essence of my true self in a pocket watch, and when it was released, the part of me that was John had to go."

"So .... in some ways, you are John," Arthur whispered, raising a hand to stroke his fingertips across the Doctor's cheek. "He's still within you -- in essence, at least. You aren't technically him, but he's a fragment of the person you are."

"Yes," the Time Lord managed to say, his throat closing on the single word. Arthur seemed to be able to grasp the gist of what he was saying, even if he was a little fuzzy on the details. "John is a part of me, Arthur. The part that loves you and came back to find you again."

"I never stopped loving John," Arthur said, his voice catching in his throat. "I couldn't. But I don't know if I can love you. You are John -- and yet you aren't. You're a different person in so many ways. But yet .... you're so much like hm."

"I am John," the Doctor whispered, almost feeling his hearts tremble in his chest. All it would take was one word from Arthur, one gesture of rejection, and he knew that they would both break -- and never be the same again, even if they were pieced back together.

"I know that he still lives on in you," Arthur said, looking down. "But it's going to take some time for me to get used to the fact that he isn't coming back to me. I'd thought that ...." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head before he looked up again. "It doesn't matter."

"You had thought that I could somehow be a replacement for him because I look like him," the Doctor finished, wanting to move forward and take Arthur into his arms, but not daring to. "I know this isn't easy for you, Arthur. It's not easy for me, either."

"All I need to know is --" Arthur swallowed hard, closing his eyes for a few moments and looking down. He reached for the Doctor's hands, groping before the Time Lord grasped them and entwined their fingers. When Arthur looked up at him again, there were tears in his eyes.

"I need to know if you love me," Arthur whispered, the words coming from the depths of his being. "I need to know if there's enough of John in you, and what John felt for me, to make a future together. I need to know that I can believe in you the way that I believed in him."

The Doctor didn't know what to say for a moment; how could Arthur possibly doubt his love? But the other man had absorbed so much in the past moments, and he hadn't refuted what he'd heard, or pushed the Doctor away. The Time Lord was sure that he wasn't going to do so.

"Of course I love you," he said softly, his intent gaze never leaving Arthur's face. "If I didn't love you, then I wouldn't have come back. I wanted to be with you, Arthur. I might be a different man from the one you first met, but there's still enough of him in me for that love to be there."

"I love you, too," Arthur told him, his voice barely a whisper, almost inaudible. "You may not be John -- but I couldn't help falling in love with you. With you. Not with some memory of him that I desperately wanted you to live up to."

The Doctor's eyes filled with tears at Arthur's words; that was all he'd needed to hear. He'd been right to come back here, to find Arthur again. Even if he was no longer the man who Arthur had originally met and fallen in love with, his hearts carried the same emotions.

"We belong together, my love," Arthur told him, stroking gentle fingers through his hair. "Whether you're John or Jack -- that doesn't matter to me. All that matters is that I've found you again -- and that this time, we don't let anything separate us ever again."

The Doctor nodded, his hearts too full for him to speak without the words coming out on a sob. As he leaned forward to embrace Arthur, he vowed to himself that nothing would part him from this man again -- though he was sure that there would be obstacles for them to face in the very near future.

***

Next story in series - Love Sick.