The Copy

Author's Note: This was inspired by the 30 Days of Summer Break Doctor Who that's going on at tumblr. I wrote a short scene crossing over Inception and Doctor Who, and I decided to write out the whole story. Please read and review. Thanks!

Chapter 1: Convincing Myself

The tall, lean man with a face that reflected sadness through all of his features stepped into the Parisian warehouse. He wore a suit that would have fit in perfectly in Arthur's dreams of opulent ballrooms and dinner parties that lasted far into the night. He gazed at the inception team.

"How the hell did you get in here?" Cobb demanded, hopping off the warehouse table and reaching for his gun.

"My name is John Smith," the man introduced himself, pulling at the collar of his jacket. "I used to be someone else. Once. Well, that's not entirely true, is it? I was never that person."

Arthur cocked his gun, too, holding it by his side. Although this man looked clean-shaven and presentable, his words were almost insane. "Did you want something, Mr. Smith?"

"Yes, well. I need all of you to go in here." He paused and tapped the side of his head. "I rather suspect it might be difficult, but I need to convince myself of something."

"If you already have the idea, it's impossible for us to plant it," Cobb insisted.

"I did impossible things every day. And so do you, I heard." John Smith stared down the leader of the group. "I have never begged for anything as long as I've lived. And let me assure you, it's been a very, very long time. But I wasn't human then. I need you to try."

John Smith reached out a hand to the group leader, and, before Cobb realized what he was doing, closed his hand around the other man's.

"Right then!" the tall man said, snapping his fingers together and straightening, as if the forlorn man of just minutes ago was a mere fabrication.

Cobb glared at him, suspicious. "So what do you need us to try?"

"Well, it's just that I'm not quite real. I'm real in the sense that I have ten fingers, ten toes, and hair that's not ginger, but I'm not really real." He wiggled his fingers at no one in particular. He laughed, a hollow sort that came from his throat. "I suspect she's starting to miss me, even though she says she isn't, and she says it's all in my head. He has a big blue box that opens with a snap of his fingers and sails among the stars, and I have a closed off reality that occasionally gets bothered by aliens. Wonderful aliens, but I'm stuck here, all the same. And you lot actually have to buy plane tickets to get anywhere! I'm stuck with my feet on the ground on a tiny, insignificant speck of a planet, and I'm not even real!" John Smith stopped for breath.

"I don't see how-," Arthur began, his narrow eyes becoming even narrower.

"But we can see you. And you look solid," a voice came from behind the point man and leader. A short woman stepped out, her wide eyes staring right into John Smith's. She adjusted the dark red scarf around her neck and offered him a half smile. Her voice was soft and entreating. "We don't need to plant the idea that you're real in your head."

John Smith frowned. He'd heard the edge in her voice, the calm tone that mothers use on their children when it's clear those children don't understand anything about the world. He realized she thought him mad—talking about another him out there among the stars in a banged-up police box as a spaceship... of course these people wouldn't believe him.

"When you look outside into the streets of Paris, what do you see? You see people, walking around, living their lives, and it's a beautiful thing. But you know there's more, there's something sinister and wonderful lurking under the surface, right in their minds, something they think it's private, but you know it's not. But if you told anyone, they'd never believe you," John Smith said. "That's me, exactly, except all the worlds and things I know are up there, in the stars. And some things just happen, and here I am, real and not real. But I need to convince myself that I am real, or I'm going to lose her, and she's the only reason I'm here."

"How are you going to pay us?" Arthur looked up at the man who wasn't quite making sense, but who wished for something different than the usual client—he wished for satisfaction, for love, for recognition. He stole a sideways glance at Ariadne who was biting her lip and toying with her scarf. He could see it in her face: she wanted to help. She believed this strange man. Surprised, Arthur realized he did, too.

John Smith pulled a long, round, silver piece of hardware out of his pocket. He pointed it upward, and it emit a strange, electronic sound while one end lit up blue. "I have ways." He pocketed the strange tool and raised his eyebrows. "So, how do we get started?"

"Let me get this straight," Cobb interjected, "all you want us to do is to convince you that you're real."

"Yep."

"And just existing isn't enough for you?"

"Let's put it this way. I'm a rather poorly made copy of another person, and I need to believe that I'm real."

"You're a clone?" Cobb wrinkled his nose and furrowed his eyebrows. He couldn't believe the conversation he was having, but it wasn't as if he could back out now. He'd shook the man's hand.

"Something like that, yeah." John Smith thought it best to not go into another long-winded speech about being a metacrisis copy of an alien named the Doctor.

"But if you think you're the real one of you, isn't there going to be a problem when he comes back? What were you made for? Harvesting organs? Is the real you suffering from some life-threatening disease, and he needs you for kidney transplants?" Eames, who had since been quiet, offered.

"You have no idea how far from the truth you are. I, I mean the real me, is going to be alive for a very, very long time. And it's impossible for him to come back here, even if he wanted to." John Smith remembered the look the Doctor had when they saw him re-entering the TARDIS for the last time at Bad Wolf Bay. The last person he'd gazed at was Rose Tyler, the girl who crossed universes to meet with him, and then he disappeared, leaving Rose behind with the metacrisis human Doctor whose only advantage over the real one was the ability to age. He personally thought Rose Tyler was the better deal, but that was a very human way to be thinking.

"So you want to be believe you're the real one?"

"No, that won't work. Then I'll wonder why I only have one heart, and why I don't regenerate. Not that I'm careless with the regenerations but recently, I only lasted one year on that one and who knows how long on this one." The last bit was muttered quickly, and the inception team missed it completely. "I just need to believe I'm more than just a clone."

"You want to believe you're a real boy, mate?" Eames asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Well, we're not going to be doing this job, whatever it is, here in Paris," Cobb muttered.

"I'm from Cardiff." John Smith almost laughed at his own words. From Cardiff? He used to have the whole universe and all of its wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff as his backyard, and now he was reduced to saying he was from Cardiff.

"That's a terrible place to be from," Eames said, tapping a beat out on his armrest. "But it's a good place as any to go on the run. Cardiff! No one will look for us there."

"Cardiff then. We'll all need to go separately," Cobb said.

"I have a flight out tonight," John Smith said, producing a ticket from his pocket. He hated planes. They were such a slow and inefficient way to travel. "Here's how you can contact me." He handed a piece of paper to Cobb, and then turned to leave, waving as he exited.

A man emerged from the shadows, a smirk on his round face. His wide eyes looked crazed. "Funny how these things work out, team. Our target just strolled in by himself, practically begging all of you to slither your way into his brain."

"You mean he's the guy you need the extraction from?" Cobb asked. He briefly wondered about the morality behind taking both of their requests, but he then reminded himself that he already worked on the wrong side of the law.

"It's like killing two birds with one stone, isn't it?" The man laughed, baring his perfectly straight teeth. "Or killing the same stupid bird twice. See you all in Cardiff."

"Good-bye, Mr. Saxon."