Title: Spread Your Wings
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ten.5
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: Amnesty in January, 5_prompts
Prompt: 5, from Table 31 -- Fireflies in a jar
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.

***

"Fireflies are beautiful, aren't they?" Jamie mused, blinking as one of the creatures flew past his face. He and the Doctor were lying back on a blanket in a secluded area of the London park they'd chosen to spend the day in, enjoying the warm summer twilight.

"Yes, they are -- and it's a pity that some people want to capture them and keep them prisoners in jars," the Doctor told him, watching a few children who were gleefully chasing the fireflies around the park. He frowned as he spoke, shaking his head.

"Fireflies are meant to be free, to spread their light over the world," he murmured, watching as the children disappeared behind some trees. "They shouldn't be kept in jars to extinguish their light -- and their lives. It's one of the cruelest things I've ever seen."

"So many creatures are kept away from the world like that," Jamie commented, frowning at the thought. "I may not have seen that with my own eyes, but I have your memories, Doctor. I can see through your eyes -- and you've seen a lot of that sort of thing in the world."

"Unfortunately, yes, I have," the Doctor said with a sigh, leaning back on his elbows and looking up at the stars. "It's more prevalent here on Earth than anywhere else -- but it's a part of the universe. I wish it wasn't, but there's nothing I can do to stop it completely."

"Sometimes I feel like a firefly in a jar," Jamie said absently, his tone faraway. "Like I'm kept away from most of the world -- not intentionally, mind you," he hastened to add, glancing at the Doctor. "But that I'm not really a part of the world because of what I am."

"Because you're in a human body with a Time Lord brain?" the Doctor asked, his voice soft. "I wish there was something I could do to make that easier for you, Jamie. But all I can do is keep you safe, and love you. And make sure that your life is as happy as I can possibly make it."

"You do all that, Doctor," Jamie told him, reaching out to caress the Time Lord's cheek. "And I love you for it. But you can't eradicate the fact that I have a very short life span. That's what gets to me the most, you know. The fact that I can't be with you always."

"Fireflies have a notoriously short life span, even when they're not kept in a jar," the Doctor told him, his voice still soft and loving. "I would never keep you a prisoner, or keep you from living your life in the way that you want to, Jamie. You know that."

Jamie nodded, feeling frustrated, wanting to put his feelings into words and not quite knowing how to do so. "It's not that, Doctor. I don't feel that you've ever kept me from living -- or that you ever would. It's just the very fact that I'm in a human body that holds me back."

"It's because of the short life span, isn't it?" the Doctor asked, feeling helpless and inadequate even as he put the question into words. "Fireflies have a short life span too -- and that makes you feel like you're akin to them. It's an apt comparison, I suppose."

Jamie could hear the weight of regret in the Time Lord's voice; he turned to look at the Doctor, wishing that he had kept his mouth shut about how he felt. The last thing he'd wanted to do was to make the Doctor feel badly, but it seemed as though he had a talent for doing just that.

Why was it that he could always manage to bring up the wrong thing at the wrong time? Jamie wanted to curse himself for causing the Doctor to feel uncomfortable; he had planned on this day being one that they could enjoy, with no cares or worries getting in their way.

But, as usual, he'd managed to say something that had cast a pall over their day. Sighing, he leaned back and looked up at the stars starting to twinkle in the night sky above them, trying to marshal his whirling thoughts into some semblance of coherence.

"Doctor ...." he began, then stopped, not knowing what to say. There were so many thoughts going through his mind at the moment that he couldn't pick out one single thing to put into words; he felt too confused, pulled in too many different directions.

"It's all right, Jamie." The Doctor's hand slid into his, squeezing his fingers gently, reassuringly. "I know what you're trying to say. You have a short life span, so you feel like those fireflies, in a way -- as though your human body limits you, keeps you imprisoned in a jar."

Jamie nodded thankfully, relieved that his lover understood what he was trying to say. But then, if anyone could possibly understand how he felt, it would be the Doctor, he thought, trying to relax as he perused the night sky spread out above them.

This man had brought him into being; the Doctor might not understand what it was like to feel frustrated by being trapped in a human body, but he knew Jamie's thoughts, his emotions. They were so alike that each of them could sense what the other was feeling at any given time.

Even if the Time Lord didn't use his telepathy -- which he never would unless he had permission to do so -- he could always sense Jamie's emotions; they had the sort of symbiosis that gave the Doctor access to everything about him. And Jamie didn't mind that at all.

In fact, it made him feel safe and protected -- and loved. There were other things about his existence that made him that he was behind the walls of a jar, trapped just like those fireflies -- but the Doctor's love and protection would never give him that trapped sensation.

He didn't want to spend his life feeling like a firefly trapped in a jar, forever beating his wings against the glass and trying to escape into a bigger, better world than the one that he knew. He didn't want to feel that his human body kept him from living his life as he wanted to.

But it seemed that he had no choice; he certainly wasn't going to magically become a Time Lord; he'd always have a Time Lord brain, but he would never be able to get out of this human body that was so limiting for him, so restrictive.

He loved this body because it was an exact replica of the Doctor's; he loved knowing that he looked just like the man he loved. He couldn't complain about the outer image of the body he'd been given. It was that body's inner workings that he wasn't pleased with.

Having a human body, with its limits and its short life span, would always make him feel trapped. He was used to having the life span of a Time Lord, used to thinking that when this body gave out from age or was damaged beyond repair, he would have another one.

And that would never happen. He should probably be glad that he wouldn't have to worry about the next body he was given being hideously ugly, or that he would go through some sort of mourning period for this body when it was time to give it up.

He wanted to do that, if it meant that he wouldn't have to accept the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, human. He would never feel like a human in his mind, but he was. He hadn't asked for it, but that had been the luck of the draw.

There was nothing he could do to change what he was, nothing that the Doctor could do. They would both just have to grudgingly accept the fact that he was trapped in a human body, just like those fireflies had been trapped behind a wall of glass.

"I wish you didn't feel that you're trapped in your body, Jamie," the Doctor said softly, regret in his tone. "If there was anything I could do to change that and make it better, then I would. But I'm just happy that you exist, and that you're here with me."

Jamie nodded, smiling as he moved closer to the Doctor. "I won't think of myself as a firefly, then. I'll think of myself as a butterfly -- coming out of a chrysalis to spread my colourful wings. Wings that I owe to you, Doctor. If not for you, I wouldn't be able to spread them so far."

The Doctor said nothing, only pulled Jamie into his arms and lowered his head to brush his lips across the other man's. As Jamie returned the kiss fervently, he knew that his words were true. He would never be captured and trapped like a firefly. Not with this man.

The Time Lord would always hold his heart -- but he would also always give Jamie the freedom to do what he wanted, and more importantly, to be the person he wanted to become. There would be nothing to hold him back, no restraints put on him.

He didn't need to feel trapped. Not with this man. The Doctor would always give him the freedom to spread his wings and fly -- and no matter how far and how high those wings might take him, Jamie knew that he would always come back to rest in the arms of the man he loved.

***