Title: Best Mistake
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ten.5
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: Buffet 1, fc_smorgasbord
Prompt: 60, Mistake
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 sighed softly as he rested his elbows on the console, watching the Doctor press a few buttons. He had a slight frown between his brows that intensified with the passing moments, until the Doctor looked over at him with a frown creasing his own forehead.

"What's the matter, love?" he asked, his tone curious and more than a little worried. "You've been standing there looking like a thundercloud for a while now. And don't try to tell me there's nothing wrong. I know you too well for that."

Jamie started to shake his head, then realized that he would be doing exactly what the Doctor was cautioning him against. "I was just thinking about us -- about the reasons why I'm here," he murmured, wishing that he'd kept his facial expression blank.

"The reasons you're here," the Doctor echoed, propping his own elbows on the console and staring at Jamie across the expanse that separated them. "You're here because I wanted you to be with me. And because this is where you wanted to be."

"It's not just that," Jamie sighed, shrugging. "Sometimes I can't help wondering if you'll eventually feel that you made a mistake by keeping me here. I know that you didn't want to at first -- you kept saying that it was impossible for me to stay."

"And I was proved wrong, wasn't I?" the Doctor asked, his tone soft. Jamie could almost hear a bit of a hurt undertone in his words. "You're not only my companion, Jamie, you're the man I love. You have more reason to be here with me than anyone else ever has."

"But are there still times when you feel that me being here is a mistake?" Jamie persisted. He didn't know why he was bringing this up now; he knew that it was a subject the Doctor didn't like. But it had been on his mind lately, and he couldn't push the thoughts away.

The Doctor began to shake his head in the negative, then sighed and nodded. "Yes, sometimes I do think that," he said softly, his voice contemplative. "But not because I don't want you here. Because I wonder if I've done you a disservice by tying you to me."

"I don't feel that I'm tied to you," Jamie protested, his single heart starting to beat frantically. He hadn't had any idea that the Doctor still had those thoughts sometimes; he'd been so sure that the Time Lord was absolutely confident in his decision to keep Jamie with him.

What if he wasn't? The idea caught at Jamie's heart in a way that made it lurch in his chest. What if the Doctor was thinking of taking him back to Earth at some point, telling him that he had to learn to live as a normal human would? What would happen to him then?

"Do you want me here?" he asked in a small voice, not looking at the Time Lord. If the Doctor had any doubts about keeping him here as a part of his life, Jamie wanted to know. Even if it hurt, it would be better to know the truth than to believe a lie.

"Of course I want you here." The Doctor moved around the console, coming to take Jamie into his arms. "I'll never change my mind about that, Jamie. It's just that sometimes I feel guilty for making you live a life that no other human would want to live for more than a brief time."

"But I'm not just any human," Jamie told him, swallowing back the tears he could feel rising in his throat and taking a deep breath. "You keep forgetting that, Doctor. I don't have a life on Earth to go back to. This is my life. It has been from the moment I came into existence."

The Doctor nodded hesitantly, sighing softly and resting his cheek against Jamie's hair. "I know it is, love. But it's not the kind of life that anyone should lead because they have to. You should have had a choice, rather than having this be the only option."

"I had another option, remember?" Jamie made a face at the thought. "And I didn't want it. I rejected that option from the first. I didn't want to go to an alternate universe with someone I didn't love and be forced to separate from you. I wanted to be here. I still do."

"I know you do, sweetheart," the Doctor whispered, his voice sounding strained. "And I want you here. If I had to give you up .... I honestly don't think I would want to be in this body any more. I'd want to be a completely different person."

"Why?" Jamie asked, his curiosity roused. "You love this body, Doctor. You've said that you wanted to keep it for as long as you can. There would be no reason to not want it any more just because I'm not with you, would there?"

The Doctor's voice was quiet when he answered. "Yes, there would be. Every time I looked in the mirror, I'd be reminded of you, and what I lost. I'd know that I'd made the biggest mistake of my entire life by letting you go if I had this face to remind me of you."

"That's never going to happen," Jamie whispered, hugging the Doctor as tightly as he could. "My being here isn't a mistake. I know that, and even if you have doubts sometimes, you know it, too. I belong here with you. Not anywhere else in the universe."

"I do know that," the Doctor told him, his voice cracking on the last word. "Even if I might sometimes think that it's selfish of me to keep you here when you might have a better life somewhere else, I know that if it was a mistake, it's the best mistake I've ever made."

Jamie buried his face against the Time Lord's shoulder, admonishing himself not to cry. The Doctor wasn't going to push him aside. This man truly wanted him here; any doubts that he had were doubts of himself and his motivations, not doubts of Jamie's devotion to him.

"It wasn't a mistake," he finally managed to say, making a concentrated effort to keep his voice steady. "We belong together, Doctor. You have to admit that. I don't belong with her in some alternate universe, and I don't belong by myself on Earth. I belong with you. I always have, and I always will."

The Doctor raised a hand to stroke Jamie's hair, his own voice soft and husky. "Jack and the others thought that you coming into being was a mistake at first. But I never did. You could never be a mistake, love, and neither could your being here with me."

"Like you said, it's the best mistake that could ever be," Jamie told him, raising his head and looking into those dark eyes. He wanted to spend the rest of his life looking into those eyes; he wanted that loving gaze to be the last thing he saw at the end of his life.

""I don't believe any of this was a mistake," the Doctor said, brushing his lips across the softness of the other man's mouth. "I might have my doubts as to whether this is the best life for you sometimes, but we aren't a mistake."

"The only mistake would have been for us not to be together," Jamie murmured, his heart feeling lighter at the Doctor's words. "I think we would have both regretted it if we weren't. We'd have spent our lives wondering what might have been."

"Neither of us needs that kind of regret in our lives," the Doctor agreed, loosening his arms from Jamie's waist and looking back towards the console. "And I believe that we're coming to our destination now, love. Shall we take a look outside and see what's waiting for us?"

Jamie nodded, the last of his worries dispelled by the words that the Doctor had said. Maybe others looked on the two of them as a mistake, he told himself -- but, as he'd told the Time Lord, choosing to be with each other was the best mistake that they could have possibly made.

***