Title: Here Beside You
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ten.5
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 6, 50ficlets
Prompt: 48, Where you belong
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.

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"You know, even with having the body of a Time Lord now, sometimes I still feel as though I don't rightfully belong here," Jamie said with a sigh, shaking his head as he looked at the Doctor across the console of the Tardis. "I still don't feel as though I fit in."

"What?" The Doctor's brow furrowed; he looked surprised for a moment, then worried. "Jamie, why would you think that? You fit in better than any other companion I've ever had. Not only are you now a Time Lord, but you're a part of me in a way that no one else has ever been."

"Yes, I know that's true," Jamie admitted, wishing that he could put his inner misgivings into words. "But there's a part of me that doesn't feel as though I'm worthy of being here with you, even though I do share your memories and your mind. I'm simply .... not you."

"Would you really want to be?" the Doctor asked, his voice soft. "I know you don't feel that you're on my level, Jamie, but I can assure you that you are. You don't have to feel inferior to me -- because you're not. Just because you began life in a human body doesn't mean that you're a lesser man."

"I know it doesn't," Jamie said with a sigh. "But I think I'll always feel that I can't live up to who you are, Doctor. And that this isn't truly the place where I should be. I've never felt any kind of an affinity for Earth, but maybe it's where I should more rightly be."

The Doctor shook his head firmly, his frown intensifying. "Jamie, you might have had some reason to feel that way when you were still in a human body, but now .... I don't understand where your train of thought is going. Why wouldn't you feel that you belong here with me?"

"Because I don't feel as though I should be a Time Lord," Jamie whispered, finally getting the words out that he had wanted to say ever since this miraculous change had taken place. Words that he had been afraid to say out loud, for fear of sounding ungrateful.

He had finally gotten his wish, achieved his goal. He was a Time Lord now; his fondest wish had been granted, and here he was, feeling as though he'd had no right to expect that to happen. He sounded like a child who couldn't make up his mind which toy he wanted to play with.

"I don't have a right to this," Jamie whispered, forcing the words out past a constriction in his throat. "You had to go through so much pain and heartache for me to become what I am now, and that isn't fair to you. You should hate me for putting you through that."

"Hate you?" the Doctor asked, stepping closer to Jamie, his eyes on the other man. "Jamie, if you believe for even one second that hating you would be possible for me to do, then you don't know me at all. I could never hate you for something that you had no control over."

"I hate the thought that you had to go through so much for me to get my wish," Jamie muttered, not looking up at the Doctor, unable to face his lover at the moment. "And now, it must seem as though you went through all of that in vain, with me questioning who and what I am."

"You have every right to question your existence," the Doctor told him, taking another step nearer to Jamie. "I don't blame you for that, love. And as for hating you .... I hate the circumstances that forced us into a situation neither of us would have wanted to be in, but it all worked out for the best."

"Are you sure that you still want me here?" Jamie asked, voicing the question that trembled within him every second of every day since he had become what he most wanted to be. "Now that I'm a Time Lord, do you still feel that I belong by your side?"

The Doctor moved to stand directly in front of Jamie, sliding his arms around his lover's waist and pulling the other man close against him. "You're exactly where you belong, sweetheart," he murmured against Jamie's hair. "And I never want you to be anywhere else."

"I never want to be anywhere else," Jamie mumbled into the Doctor's shoulder. "As long as you're sure that you want me here, and you feel that I belong here, this is where I want to be. Because the only place that I can ever be happy is here beside you."

"And the only way that I can be happy is to have you here," the Doctor told him, his voice a mere whisper of sound. But that sound, those words, were enough for Jamie. As long as the Doctor wanted him here, he was in the only place he could ever truly fit in -- the place where he had always belonged.

***