Title: Right To Love
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: past Doctor/Jack
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 30_forbidden
Prompt: 3, Love
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.

***

Love. The Doctor snorted inwardly, shaking his head. That was one thing that he'd been told from an early age not to look for in life, and the one thing that he'd spent most of his time chasing after and never quite managing to find.

Why was it that some people seemed to be able to find love wherever they looked for it, and others -- like himself -- were denied the right to feel that emotion? It didn't seem fair that there were some people who could look at love as something to be used and thrown away.

The Doctor winced at the thought, wishing that he could turn his mind away from Jack. But it was probably inevitable that his thoughts should rest on the immortal when they headed in this direction, he told himself with a sigh.

Jack had no problems finding what he called "love," with anyone who took his eye. And when he was done with them, he had no qualms about walking away from them.

He knew that from personal experience, the Doctor thought sourly, his small hands clenching into fists at his sides. He's been one of the many people whom Jack had used and thrown away -- one more casualty of the immortal's idea of "love."

Ever since the day that Jack had said he was leaving and walked away from him, he'd tried to close himself off to the concept of love. He'd let himself care about people, of course -- that was impossible not to do. But no one had ever gotten that close again.

He couldn't let anyone burrow that deeply into his hearts again. It would cause him too much pain when they eventually left in the way that Jack had -- or when they inevitably came to the end of their life span and left him forever.

Human lives ended all too soon. And it was too hard to let himself love someone completely and then have to give them up.

At least when Jack had left him, he'd had the bittersweet knowledge that they were still friends, that their paths would still cross at points in both of their lifetimes. But when someone died .... that was the final severance. One that he couldn't deal with.

It seemed so easy for Jack -- the immortal knew how to step back and not get his emotions too deeply involved with the people he cared for. He knew precisely when to turn and walk away, no matter what it did to the other person.

Maybe Jack had it right, the Doctor told himself. He knew when to distance himself. He took what he needed from the people who loved him, and then left without a backward glance. That was the way to stave off the pain of separation.

But at what cost to those people who cared? He couldn't be like that. He couldn't deliberately engage people's affections and then crush them.

He wasn't like Jack, as much as he sometimes thought he'd like to be. He couldn't be that heartless. He'd been told by others of his race that he should be more like that, but he couldn't bring himself so act so coldy towards anyone he cared for.

He'd been accused of being cold before, but that wasn't true. Yes, maybe he did appear that way on the surface at times -- but that was because he was trying so desperately to cover up what he really felt, to hide the uncertainties that lived within him.

The walls he'd built around his hearts had started out small, but over time, they'd grown to such gigantic proportions that he couldn't help but wonder if he was now trapped behind them -- unable to let himself love anyone.

Those walls hadn't started with Jack, though his relationship with the immortal had causd them to grow much higher. Their building had started a very long time ago.

Maybe it had even started when he was a young Time Lord, long before he'd had the experiences that now made up his memories of his life over the past centuries. He'd been told so many times by so many people that he couldn't allow himself to love, and he'd believed them.

He'd denied himself the opportunity to truly fall in love -- until Jack. And he'd come to find out that he'd given his hearts to the wrong person -- someone who said they would stay forever, and who had the ability to do so, but who hadn't wanted to stay in the end.

Jack had certainly cured him of jumping into a situation where he felt that he wanted to give his hearts to anyone. But he wasn't going to let that experience turn him against falling in love entirely -- it would simply teach him to be more cautious.

Why was it that everyone else in the world seemed to have the right to fall in love -- yet that right was denied to him because of what he was?

That certainly didn't seem fair -- but then, he'd never expected life to be fair. That had always been one thing that was pointed out time and time again in his days at the Academy -- that he couldn't expect anything specific out of life other than to live it.

He couldn't expect love. That was something that most Time Lords -- in fact, all of them but him, it seemed -- turned their backs on. It was an expectation that he wasn't allowed to have, though he'd never paid much attention to that edict.

At least he'd had the experience of falling in love, even if he never found anyone to feel that way about again. He knew what it was like -- the falling, the sensation of being giddy with desire, that nothing could touch him, nothing could make him unhappy.

Jack had given him all that -- and then snatched it away just as quickly as it had come. It had been a long time since their involvement, and he still wasn't past it yet.

Was that a failing in him, some crossed wiring in his hearts and soul and mind that made him different from every other Time Lord? Should he be able to get past seeing the man he loved walk away from him, shrug his shoulders and turn away just as Jack had?

He couldn't be that philosophical about it. His hearts were still wounded, still bleeding. Jack had given him a simple Band-Aid to cover those gaping wounds he'd caused, when what the Doctor needed was major surgery for those wounds.

Love wasn't a closed door to him, but it was a door that was going to be hard for anyone to get through again. First, they would have to scale the walls that he was building around himself, walls that grew higher and more sturdy with each day that passed.

That was another lesson that loving Jack had taught him. Build the walls high enough, and only the most determined people could get past them.

If someone cared enough to spend time trying to break down those walls, then perhaps they'd care enough in the end to stay with him, after they'd spent so much time trying to get close. It stood to reason that they wouldn't want to have wasted that time for nothing.

But that was what he'd thought about Jack -- that this man would stay by his side after all the time they'd spent together, after Jack had gotten to know him better than anyone else did. After Jack had claimed to love him more than he'd ever loved anyone.

He should have known that wasn't true. But he'd clung to those words, even as a voice in the back of his mind had screamed at him not to listen, not to believe what he was hearing. He would have been much better off if he'd listened to that voice.

But he hadn't -- and this was what he was left with. Putting the pieces back together, one by one, in a painstakingly slow progress. And hoping that one day in his future, he wouldn't feel that he was denied the right to love -- and be loved.

***