Title: Days Gone Down
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ten.5
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: doctorwho_100
Prompt: 7, Days
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.

***

The Doctor sighed as he leaned against the door frame of the Tardis, looking out at the last fading rays of sunlight and the streaks of brilliant color slashing across the sky. It was a beautiful sight, a breathtaking way of ending the day.

Jamie wasn't by his side, which was unusual. His lover usually enjoyed watching the sunset; after these last few days that they'd enjoyed on Earth, he would have expected the other man to feel more at peace with the planet that humans called their own.

But Jamie had come back to the Tardis before he had, saying that he wanted to lie down for a while. He'd had a headache, and the Doctor had reluctantly left his lover to his own devices, though he'd felt a bit guilty about doing so.

The other man was asleep now, curled up in their bed under the covers. He'd checked the moment he came in to make sure that Jamie was here on the Tardis, safe and unharmed, and of course he had been. There had been no need to worry about him.

It made sense for a human to have a headache, didn't it? He himself got them from time to time. It was nothing serious, nothing that he had to worry about. Jamie would feel better once he'd slept, and they would always have other days to enjoy watching the sunset.

How many more days would they have together? a voice piped up in the back of his head, a voice that the Doctor wanted to slam a door on and ignore -- but that he couldn't shut out. How many more days, weeks, years, before Jamie aged and died, as every human did?

Resolutely, he pushed those thoughts away, but they came back only moments later, refusing to leave him in peace. He hated to think about a time when he wouldn't have Jamie by his side; the loss of the love of his life would be unbearable.

Losing Jamie would be different from losing anyone else. Jamie was more than a companion; he was the Doctor's lover, and beyond that, the other man was literally a part of him. There had to be some way to keep Jamie from aging, to keep that loss from happening.

The Doctor closed his eyes, battling the feeling of helplessness that swept over him. Why was he thinking like this? Of course there wasn't a way to make Jamie something he wasn't. He was human, not a Time Lord, no matter how much they both wanted the reverse to be true.

What had happened with Jack Harkness, the cause of his immortality, was something that could never happen again. And the Doctor didn't want it to happen again. He'd been much too disturbed by the way that Jack had become immortal to go through that again.

He still didn't understand how that had happened -- and he wanted nothing like that in his life again. The ego it had given his companion at the time had gotten beyond annoying; all he'd wanted to do from that point on was boot her out of the Tardis.

But fortunately, she was out of his life now, in another dimension where she couldn't disrupt his life any more. That spoilt, whining brat had nearly destroyed more than one universe in her selfish attempts to force him back into her life, and he was well rid of her.

And he had Jamie. The man he loved with all of his hearts and soul, and always would. How could anyone have thought that he would, for even one second, countenance turning this man over to that sniveling, selfish bitch? He would never have allowed that to happen.

It would never come to pass. He'd taken Jamie away, leaving her to go back to the the place she belonged, safely locked away from both of them, unable to destroy any more people with her unbridled selfishness and egoism. Jamie was safe with him.

The Doctor shuddered at the direction his thoughts were taking, pushing them away and firmly slamming an inner door on them. There was no need to think of that, not now. It was in the past, over and done, and he had to look towards the future.

He would share that future with Jamie. All of the days, weeks, months, years, decades that lay ahead of them, he would spend with the man he loved. It didn't matter to him that Jamie would age. He would love the aging man even more than the young one.

How soon would it be before those days came to an end? He hated to think of losing Jamie; he hated to even contemplate the fact that there could be a day when his lover wasn't always by his side. But Jamie was human; losing him would be inevitable.

The days that had already gone down behind them seemed to have flown by so quickly. And the Doctor knew from experience that as one grew older, time slipped through one's fingers even faster. It could only be more so for a human, with such a limited life span.

Whatever he felt at losing Jamie, his lover was going to feel even more acutely. He would be the one who had to say goodbye, to turn towards a new realm of being and face it alone. That thought made the Doctor want to burst into tears, to rail against the fate that had made Jamie human.

But fate couldn't be changed. Even if he could go back in time to the moment when Jamie had come into existence, there was no way to be sure that his lover would spring into life as a Time Lord. And he couldn't simply leave that up to fate a second time.

He'd long ago learned the futility of trying to change fate -- or asking it to do him any favors. Fate had always seemed to laugh at him, and to have a special twist in mind that made him regret trusting it. No, it was better to leave something that capricious to its own devices.

All he could do was enjoy the time that he had with Jamie, and try to protect the man he loved from any harm that might possibly come his way. He had pledged himself to that, though he hadn't always done such a wonderful job of keeping that promise so far.

He wanted to protect Jamie from anything that could possibly hurt him, but he should have known from the beginning that he couldn't. If he tried to wrap the other man in cotton wool and keep him protected at every turn, then Jamie would never experience life to its fullest.

Jamie didn't have as many days in his life as the Doctor did. He had the right to live every day as though it was the only one he had, to make the most of his life in every possible way and experience everything that he could, even the less pleasurable moments.

So many days had already gone down behind them, fading out in a blaze of glory much like this one. Only on those days, the beauty of a sunset had been shared with Jamie, rather than him standing here alone and worrying about his lover's state of mind.

Those days had all been shared with Jamie -- from the moment he'd awakened in the morning, until the time he'd drifted off to sleep in his lover's arms. Those days had gone down quickly, but there were still many more days ahead of them. He would make sure of that.

The days that were still ahead of them, all the weeks, months, and years, would be filled with love and laughter -- and much as he could give the man he loved. He would make sure that Jamie's life was filled with an affection he'd never had himself.

Yes, they would invariably have to face danger at some point. And he might not be able to protect Jamie then. But he would do his best -- and he knew that Jamie would try to protect him, too. They loved each other; of course their protective feelings would come to the fore in bad situations.

He wanted to make sure that each and every day ahead of them counted. He'd let far too many days slip by without making them special, and he wasn't going to let them continue. From now on, all of their days would be lived to the fullest, in every possible way.

Sighing softly, he turned away from the sunset, closing the door of the Tardis and going back into the control room. It was time to leave Earth, to head for some other planet -- and to not let any more days go down behind him without enjoying every moment of each one.

***