Title: Hard To Handle
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: doctorwho_100
Prompt: 34, Too Much
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor. Please do not sue.

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When had it all started to feel like it was too much for one man to do?

The Doctor sighed, curling up under the covers of his bed, pulling them up over his bare shoulders and wishing that it was possible to hide under them for a satisfyingly long time. The way he felt at the moment, he'd be happy not to come out from under them again.

He couldn't help smiling wryly at his own thoughts. What a very human way for him to be acting. He'd often wondered what made humans want to hide away from reality, to shirk whatever duties they might happen to have.

Well, now he knew. He wasn't prone to feeling like this, but every once in a while, he was stricken with the realization that he'd taken on more than he might be able to live up to when he'd decided that the well-being of the world depended on him.

What had given him that idea, anyway? He couldn't be everywhere at once. He couldn't control everything that happened in the world.

There would always be races like the Daleks, the Cybermen .... and there would always be the Master. No matter what he did, he couldn't constantly stop them all. Sooner or later, they would become too powerful for him to defeat.

Maybe it would be better to renounce the responsibilities he'd taken on when he'd become a Time Lord, and leave the fate of the universe to someone else. He'd certainly done his share -- he'd spent his life protecting the world, with no thanks and nothing to show for it.

Now, that really was a ridiculous attitude to take, he chided himself. There was no one else to take up the mantle if he gave up. No one else to protect the universe. He was the only one who could do that -- the only one who would.

It was all that Torchwood could do to protect the Earth -- they certainly weren't equipped to do what he did, even though he had no doubt that they would try. No, he couldn't leave it up to them.

And now that there was no more Gallifrey, no other Time Lords -- everything fell to him. That was why it all seemed too much, he sighed, wanting to pull the covers under his face and not come out from that safety zone. It was all on his shoulders.

He'd taken on so much when he'd become a Time Lord. He'd known that at the time -- it was always impressed upon anyone who wanted to join that elite cadre just what was expected of them, and anyone who took it on knew the responsibilities.

That was never something he'd taken lightly. He'd always known that once he became a Time Lord, he would have to make sacrifices that wouldn't be expected of other people. He'd accepted that, and he'd told himself that any sacrifice he had to make would be well worth it.

He still believed that. He didn't regret the time he'd spent being what he was -- even though he did have too many regrets to even begin to enumerate them. There was so much that he would go back and change if he could, so much that he wished had never happened.

That was one of the reasons it all seemed too much for him to deal with at times. How many more people would he lose? How many people he cared about would be casualties of his inability to be everywhere at once, to protect the world in every way?

How many times had he told himself that he was only one man, that he couldn't save everyone, and that he should be grateful for what he could do?

Too many times to count, the Doctor thought wearily, closing his eyes and sighing heavily. It was a familiar litany, one that he had to repeat to himself every time things didn't go exactly the way he'd wanted them to.

It was a refrain that he'd become all too familiar with -- but it was no excuse, at least not in his own mind. He always thought that he should have done more, made a stronger effort -- even when he knew in his hearts that he'd done all he possibly could.

He should have learned to accept long ago that death was a part of life; after all, he'd died enough times himself before his regenerations to know that, hadn't he? But it was so hard to accept death when, for everyone but himself, it was so .... final.

Yet another thing that sometimes seemed too much for him to take, he thought, resisting the impulse to burrow down further under the blankets. He'd spent his life losing people he cared for, or having them walk away from him, and he was tired of it.

But that was no reason to feel that he wanted to leave his life as a Time Lord behind. He sighed again, turning over onto his stomach and wrapping his arms around his pillow.

Would there ever come a time when he'd be able to walk away from this life and the responsibilities he'd taken on ? That was a question that had loomed in front of hime ever since the Time Wars, a question that he'd never been able to formulate an answer to.

He wasn't going to try to come up with an answer now, either, not when he was feeling so .... the only word he could think of was depressed. It was silly for him to feel this way, but even a Time Lord had his down moments, he supposed.

Maybe this feeling was just coming about because he was alone. Would it help to go out there and actively search for a new companion? The Doctor rejected that thought almost as soon as it came into his head. No, that wasn't what he needed.

Yet another person to grow close with, to laugh with, to start feeling close to. And then, when he least expected it, would come the shattering revelation that they wanted to go back to their life, that they couldn't keep traveling with him indefinitely.

Or worse, they would start to become like so many others had in the past, demanding from him what he couldn't give -- and wasn't willing to give to anyone. His hearts, an affection that went beyond that of two friends.

He'd never be ready for that. He'd tried it with one man since he'd been in this body, and that had ended in disaster. He wasn't prepared to go that route again, not for anyone. He'd firmly closed the door on those emotions; he didn't want them in his life.

This was all too much for him to think about now, in his state of mind. He needed to take himself somewhere that he'd be able to forget about all of this, to relax and let his mind wander.

Sitting up in bed, the Doctor threw the covers back with a sigh. Lying here wasn't going to do him any good. All he would do was depress himself further -- and probably find it impossible not to let his mind keep traveling down the paths it was on at the moment.

He was acting far too much like a human, he thought with a wry laugh, shaking his head. He'd been spending too much time on Earth; it was time that he remembered who and what he was and tried to live up to that, rather than trying to run away from it.

This was the life he'd chosen to live, the life that he'd always wanted to live. If there were times when it seemed like he'd bitten off more than he could chew .... well, he'd known the consequences when he'd taken the tests to become what he was.

He had no one to blame for living this life but himself. And he'd done the best that he could with it, given the circumstances. He'd always tried his best, done his best for the world, even if that wasn't always what was best for himself.

He couldn't save everyone. It wasn't possible for one man to do; he couldn't be the savior of every situation that arose in the world, as much as he wanted to be.

No, he was only one man. But he did his best, and that was all that could be expected of him. More importantly, it was all that could expect of himself. He had to accept that, and learn to live with the fact that he wasn't omnipotent, much as he might want to be.

There were people in the world who would need him -- and who he couldn't help. It had happened before, and he'd agonized over it -- but he couldn't keep doing that. He had to focus on the ones he could save, not the ones he couldn't.

The Doctor swung his long legs over the side of the bed, stretching out his lean body and raising his arms over his head. It was time to get up, to stop hiding from life and go live it.

Standing up, he reached for his robe, pulling it on and striding out of his bedroom. It was past time for him to shake off this lethargy and get on with the business of life -- even if that life sometimes did seem as though it was too hard to handle at times.

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