Title: Prophecy
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Table: 50ficlets
Prompt: 7, Curse
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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A curse. His long life span was a curse.

He'd been telling himself that for so long that he'd come to believe it, the Doctor thought sourly, resting his chin on his hand and glaring around the control room of his ship. Of course he believed it. It was true, after all.

No one could stay with him. He would outlive them all; the people he cared the most for would either leave him through their own free will, or they would age and die. He was doomed to be alone for most of his life, even if he managed to find temporary companionship.

If that wasn't a curse, he didn't know what was. And he'd willingly entered into a partnership with that curse when he'd become a Time Lord.

He sighed, shaking his head at his own thoughts. He had never wanted anything so much when he was younger as to become what he was, and if he was completely honest with himself, he would do the same thing again. He couldn't deny that.

But maybe he would have been a bit more hesitant about it if he'd known just how lonely his life would be. He would have still wanted to be a Time Lord -- but he would have weighed the decision more carefully, and gone into it with more trepidation.

As it was, he'd stepped forward into this life without a backward glance. He'd been so sure that this was all he wanted, and that any drawbacks would be compensated for. And in some ways, they were -- but not all the time.

Being a Time Lord didn't compensate for feeling that he would always be alone. As much as he tried to assuage that loneliness, it always came back to him.

He could try to push it away as much as he wanted to -- but it would always be there, lurking in the back of his mind, waiting to taunt him, to come out and rend him to pieces when he least expected it. He always had to be on his guard to keep it back.

Was that the curse of being what he was, or was it his own personal curse? Maybe it wasn't just the fact that he was a Time Lord that kept that loneliness barking at his heels. Maybe it was something within himself, something that he couldn't see.

Most people would think that his long life span compensated for anything. Not so, the Doctor thought with another sigh. Long life simply meant that everyone he cared about left him in what felt like the blink of an eye -- though they thought their own lives were long and full.

It wasn't their fault that they left, a little voice in his head argued. They couldn't help it.

Of course they couldn't. Another sigh, as his thoughts switched gears again. His companions hadn't wanted to leave -- well, not some of them, anyway. But they'd felt that they couldn't give him the time he needed, that they had to get back to their lives.

The lives that he'd somehow .... interrupted. Was that all he was destined to be in the lifetimes of the people he cared for? Nothing more than an interruption, a bother?

Was that what the curse of his long life had reduced him to? He didn't want to think that way, but the thought had hit him like a slap in the face.

No. His companions wouldn't think of him in that way. He tried to scoff at the idea, to shove it away as though it had never come into his mind. No one would think of him like that. He'd shown them things they'd never otherwise have seen; he'd brightened their lives.

And yet .... in the end, they'd still chosen to leave. That was undeniable.

Maybe he was just an interruption. Maybe every person who'd been with him, who'd been his friend and companion, had always known that they wouldn't stay. Maybe they'd never really wanted to, even when they'd said that they did.

He'd known that they would leave all along. And somehow, that knowledge had communicated itself -- and it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So his loneliness wasn't due to a curse after all. It was of his own making. The Doctor sighed, running a hand over his face and closing his eyes. Well. At least he had that figured out. But at the moment, he wasn't sure if knowing that was a blessing -- or just a replacement curse.

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