Title: Flood of Tears
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ten.5
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 6, 50ficlets
Prompt: 31, Mourn
Author's Note: Continuation of Cry Me A River.
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.

***

"How could you have done this?" The Doctor's voice was muffled against Jamie's hair, but the anguish in his tone was loud and clear. "How could you take him from me? Were you that jealous of the fact that he was a part of me? That I loved him beyond all reason?"

The Tardis was silent, of course; she would never answer him. She couldn't. There was a bond between them, yes, but it didn't extend to the kind of communication he needed at the moment. He needed answers, some kind of explanation for what had taken place.

He would more than likely never know. The Tardis couldn't tell him, not in so many words; and anything that he managed to piece together might be the wrong answer. She could guide him, but she couldn't tell him definitively what had caused this tragedy.

All that he could assume was that she had somehow wanted to orchestrate this. But he found it hard to believe that she had wanted to hurt him this badly; she knew better than any other being in the universe just what losing Jamie would do to him.

Raising his head, he looked around the control room, wishing that the ship had some kind of face, eyes that he could look into, something that would give him answers to the questions in his mind. But even those questions seemed secondary to what he was feeling.

He'd had to mourn for so many people he'd lost in his lifetime, but he had thought that it would still be a very long time before that mourning would extend to Jamie. He had been so sure that he could keep his lover safe, protected from any harm that could befall him.

What had taken place here? The only thing that made sense was that the Tardis had somehow caused Jamie's death -- no one could get to him here, and the ship wouldn't let anyone on board. He knew that better than anyone; no threat had come from outside these walls.

"What did you do?" he whispered, searching the blank walls of his ship for some kind of sign, something that would tell him what had happened. "Did you take him away from me purposely? Did you? Were you jealous of how I feel about him? Is that it?"

It still didn't seem real to him, even though he was kneeling here with Jamie's lifeless body in his arms. It felt like a fever dream, something that would happen in his worst nightmares. It didn't seem possible that those dreams could have crossed over into the real world.

But it had. With horrible finality, his nightmares had invaded reality and come true, right down to the empty ache in his hearts and the gaping chasm of a life lived without the love of his life stretched out in front of him. A prospect that made him want to die, too.

Alone. He would be alone, bitterly alone, the man he loved taken from him cruelly, with no explanations as to why. He would never know what had happened, why he was alone; he would only feel that aching void growing deeper and darker with each passing day.

He would mourn for Jamie all of his life. Every day that remained to him, no matter what body he might be in, every minute, every second, he would feel that ache in his hearts, that emptiness in his soul that reminded him of losing the person he loved most in the world.

How could he live the rest of his life in that way? It would be utterly unbearable to know that there was no one beside him, that there would never be another love in his life. Jamie was the one man he could ever love so completely; no one else would ever compare.

"Did you think of that?" he asked the Tardis, looking back down at the man in his arms. "Did you stop to think of how I would feel, of how this would incapacitate me? I should congratulate you. You've come up with a better way to completely destroy me than the Master could ever think of."

The Tardis' lights dimmed again; the Doctor could feel the agitation that hummed through her. Their bond was still strong; he could sense that whatever had happened, it hadn't been done maliciously. His ship hadn't deliberately tried to rob him of his lover.

That didn't change the fact that he would mourn Jamie's loss forever, and that his life would never be the same again. Clutching his love close to him, he let out an anguished sob, abandoning himself to a flood of tears that he was sure would never run day.

***

Next story - Have Faith.