Title: Cry Me A River
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ten.5
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: R
Table: 6, 50ficlets
Prompt: 5, Pain
Author's Note: Continuation of Not Meant To Happen.
Author's Note: The inspiration for this story arc was provided by the lovely fortisgreen. The muses and I all thank her for suggesting a storyline and letting us run with it!
Warnings: Character death.
Author's Note: The human version of the Doctor is being referred to as John Smith in this fic, since it's the Doctor's human alias and his clone needed a name.
Author's Note: Spoilers for Journey's End, somewhat. This is an completely alternate take on the ending of Season Four.
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 his human clone. Please do not sue.

***

"Jamie!" the Doctor called as he entered the Tardis, bounding up the three steps that led from the door of the ship into the control room. "Where are you, love? We have to get the problem fixed and be on our way. Let's get moving!"

He stopped in his tracks as his eyes took in the chaos of the room; wires protruding from the console, what looked like the blackened soot from some sort of explosion -- and Jamie lying pale and unmoving near the far wall near the corridor leading to their bedroom.

His heart seeming to stand still in his chest, he stumbled towards his lover, falling to his knees beside Jamie and gathering the other man into his arms. Hesitantly, he placed his fingers at the base of Jamie's throat, where a pulse should be beating strong and true.

There was no pulse.

For just a moment, he couldn't believe what he was feeling; there had to be a pulse. Jamie was the love of his life, the other half of his soul; he couldn't be dead, and certainly not through something that had apparently happened with the Tardis.

He'd made a mistake. He must have. That was the only explanation. Frantically, he reached for Jamie's wrist, curling his fingers around the other man's slender arm and pressing them against the spot that he knew the pulse should be beating.

Again, there was no pulse. The Doctor blinked, refusing to believe the evidence in his arms, the truth that his fingers rested upon. Jamie was dead. Dead. No. It couldn't be. He wouldn't let it happen -- not to Jamie. Anyone else but his Jamie.

The sense of abandonment, the horrible crushing feeling of loneliness, came pouring over him so sharply and suddenly that he gasped, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. The pain that rushed through him along with that loneliness was almost too much to bear.

All he could do was scream, a long, keening, never-ending wail that filled the air around him and bounced off the walls of the Tardis. The Doctor could feel his hearts crumbling to dust within him; he wanted to tear them out and stop their beating entirely.

Everything that meant the most fo him was gone -- and he didn't even know why. Something had taken Jamie away from him while his lover was safe here on the Tardis; in a place where no one should ever have been able to reach him and put him in harm's way.

The pain that flooded his senses was unlike anything he'd ever felt before; it was unimaginable, beyond even his sense of understanding. It wasn't just his lover who was dead; it was a part of himself, a part that he had thought to hold close to him forever.

He'd known that Jamie would die someday, of course; he was human, and death was inevitable in a human life. But this hadn't been his time. This was wrong, in every possible way. This was the worst tragedy that he'd ever had to endure.

If someone had managed to get inside the Tardis .... but no. Jamie wouldn't have let anyone in, and he was sure that the ship would have tried to protect Jamie if that had somehow happened. This had to have been caused by something here inside the ship.

He raised his head, trying to focus on something, anything, grasping at any straw that would make this unbearable pain disappear, even if only for an instant. His gaze lit upon the wires under the console -- wires that hadn't been exposed when he'd left a short while ago.

He looked around the room, his dark eyes widening, realization sinking in.

"You did this," he whispered, shaking his head as though he was unable to believe the words he was uttering. "You took him from me. You were jealous of how I feel about him, and you took him from me. You destroyed him. You."

The Tardis' lights dimmed again, becoming brighter in the area of the control room where the Chameleon Arch descended from the ceiling, as though the ship was trying to draw the Doctor's gaze in that direction. But the Time Lord didn't see -- at least not yet.

All he could see or hear was the pain that rushed through him like a river, bringing tears to his eyes that streamed down his face. He didn't move; he simply sat on the floor, crying a veritable river of tears and cradling the lifeless body of his love in his arms.

***

Next story in series - Flood of Tears.