A/N: If you recognize it, I don't own it.

I'm sick of seeing those "redoing Human Nature with Rose" fics where Rose tells John Smith that old "yes you'll die but it's okay" crap. Rose always says the right thing, so she would say something like "you'll still be you, just more you." If you're going to write a fic, use that line. Seriously. This isn't actually about HN, but that concept inspired this.

Open the Watch

Sometimes, you can see it in his eyes. You know it's there and you know what it is, but you don't want to admit it. Admitting it would mean that he's far more broken than you want to realize, and far more than he ever imagined he could be.

He's always hyperactive, always smiling and manic as he leaps around the console, runs across alien worlds as if a herd of wild horses would tire out before they caught him, laughing and grinning and being so him. He's so him that sometimes you forget about that look in his eyes, until you see it again – and then you remember about it, and the memory hits you like a bucket of icy water, cold and shocking.

And you remember what he said about John Smith's last words. "What sort of man is that? And now you expect me to die! Your job was to execute me."

And he might not realize it himself, even now, but you know those words aren't true.

Because John Smith is part of the Doctor, and the Doctor is part of John Smith, and they're both part of the same man. They couldn't exist without each other, not really, and it was killing John Smith to try. You don't remember the look in John Smith's eyes, but you can imagine it. You imagine that it looks very like the look he has now, but worse, if it were possible for that look to be worse – because, back then, he was missing two parts of himself and he didn't know about it. He couldn't remember what he was missing, or even that something was missing. Everything should have been fine for him but it wasn't, and that's probably what hurt him worst of all.

But you have to wonder: is it really so much better that he does remember? That he remembers what he's missing and smiles anyway, and goes on with things, because he can't have what he needs? Is it really better that he pretends everything is fine when it's clearly so very not?

Sometimes, you think it's killing him. But those moments are rare. He's too … he's too him, really, and he would never let something like that finish him off.

The fact remains that you know he's still not a complete man. He's still missing part of himself.

Because she took one of his hearts with her when she left, and he won't be a full man until he gets her back. He might as well be just John Smith, still just half a man. Having one heart is crippling him just as much as not realizing that he was only half of himself. And what he wants, more than anything, is to have her back. Because between the two of them there are three hearts, and that's the way it should be. If he has her back then that's better than having his second heart – oh, so much better. But he can't have her back. He can never have her back, and it breaks your heart to see the heartbreak in his eyes. The worst part is that he never realized he still has two: because when he gave her one of his, she gave him hers in return.

Sometimes, you can see it in his eyes, that he desperately wants that other heart. Most times, though, he's too busy being him to let it show. Sometimes, you wish there was a fob watch you could open that would fix all of his troubles and take away all of that pain. But you know, rationally, that there isn't. There can't be.

If there was, nothing in the universe could have stopped him from opening it.