Title: Solitary Man
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Table: Epsilon, challenge_the
Prompt: 11, Solitary
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.

***

The Doctor leaned back against the trunk of the tree he sat in front of, resting his head against it and closing his eyes. It was good to have this kind of time to himself, he thought inwardly, time to reflect on where his life appeared to be heading.

When the last companion had been forced to leave him, he'd decided that he wouldn't have another. He missed Donna; she'd been like a sister to him, their banter and bickering a treat that he hadn't known he enjoyed so much until it was gone.

But wasn't that the way his life had always gone? He should be used to his own solitude by now, and know that any companion he had would only be there temporarily.

Even if they weren't taken from him by unforeseen circumstances, they would eventually age and die, and leave him alone again. That was a sad but true fact of his life, a fact that he should have long ago accepted and stopped brooding over.

He was meant to be a solitary man; he'd known that from the first days that he'd been a Time Lord. He'd always been told that he would work best on his own, without giving too much trust to another person even if they were necessary.

Maybe the elders who'd insisted on that had been right, after all, he thought, a sigh escaping him. He hated to admit that; he'd argued with them over that point, saying that no one could survive for long completely on their own.

Everyone needed companionship, he'd insisted, only to be told firmly that Gallifreyans didn't, and especially not from inferior races. But he'd stubbornly insisted that they were wrong, and had gone his own way even in the face of their disapproval.

He'd been told in no uncertain terms that he was doing the wrong thing, that he would eventually make himself unhappy and that he'd be dissatisfied with the end result.

Was that so? he asked himself, running a hand over his face. It was true that he wasn't happy; but that was something he'd come to expect. He was content, at least most of the time, but it took more than a certain sense of contentment to achieve happiness.

Still, there was no guarantee that a companion would fill that empty chasm inside himself that never seemed to get any smaller. Just having someone with him to take the edge off his loneliness didn't insure that he'd be any happier than he was now.

In fact, some of his companions hadn't managed to fill that space at all. Yes, they'd kept him from being alone, but in the end, their presence had been more problematic than he'd expected, and he hadn't been sorry to see them leave.

Though he had to admit that there was always a certain tug at his hearts when anyone turned their backs on him and left. Even if he knew that their companionship wasn't what he needed, having someone there was always better than being completely alone.

It seemed that he was the only Gallifreyan who suffered from loneliness -- everyone else on his planet seemed to have no problem with being alone.

Of course, he wasn't like any other Gallifreyan, he told himself wryly, looking down at the ground. He had always been different, and others of his race had always been overly quick to point that out. Just one more reason why he'd never felt quite in step with any of them.

He didn't fit in with them. He didn't fit in anywhere, really. He certainly couldn't fit in on Earth, with the humans who so fascinted him; he might look like them, but they were an alien race to him, just as he was to them.

If only they weren't so quick to judge -- and to be afraid of anyone who was "different." He loved Earth, and the race that populated it; but they had some faults that made him wary of being there more than he had to be, at this point.

And Earth held quite a lot of emotionalism for him; people who he couldn't bear to see again, people who had once been close to him who had drifted away. As well as people who expected more from him than he could ever give, who made him uncomfortable.

He could always avoid those people, of course. But then he'd feel the guilt seep in, and he'd feel that he owed it to them to pay them a visit.

Then, when it was time for him to leave, he'd feel more alone than ever, having had them around him even for so brief a time. But it seemed as though that was the curse of his life, a curse that he had to learn there was no escape from.

The loneliness that ate into his soul seemed so consume him more and more as time went on. He'd been told this was a part of being a Time Lord, that he couldn't expect anyone to stay with him even if he did take on companions.

It was a large part of why the rest of his race eschewed companionship; that had been made clear to him when he was much, much younger. Though it hadn't really sunk in until recently just how much of a curse it was to be eternally alone.

Solitude had never been something that he welcomed, unless he wanted to think out a particularly knotty problem. And even when he'd had companions, they had always given him the personal space that he needed when those moods were upon him.

Being alone had always been his greatest fear, something that he'd tried to avoid. But it seemed that the more he tried to avoid it, the more it came to pass.

At this point, he'd almost decided that it would be best to stay like this -- alone and companionless. He'd given up finding the person who would be the one to stay with him forever -- the one man who could have done that had turned his back like all the others.

The Doctor almost snorted at that thought. He should have known better than to think Jack would be satisfied to stay with him shouldn't he? That hope had been doomed to be unfulfilled from the start, and he should never have allowed himself to let it grow.

He leaned his head back to look up at the blue sky above him, so different from the skies he was used to on Gallifrey. He could feel the soft breeze on his face, the rough bark of the tree behind his back, the warm sun shining down on him.

There was so much to embrace about this world -- but it would be so much easier for him to do so if he had someone by his side, someone to share all of this joy, this discovery. He might have that for a short time, but it would never be something that lasted.

He'd been told that, hadn't he? Warned of it, even. But his loneliness went deeper than any other of his race; he'd always been the one who had different needs, different desires. And his need to have someone in his life, by his side, set him apart more than anything else ever had.

Yet here he was, alone, solitary, and it looked as though that wasn't going to change. Not unless he pushed against fate and made it do so.

A part of him wanted to do just that -- and another part wanted to be able to finally heed the warnings of the rest of his race, and accept the fact that he was meant to be alone. He wasn't sure which was the lesser of two evils.

Sighing, he got to his feet, brushing the grass off his jeans as he headed back towards the Tardis. It was time to leave here, put this contemplation behind him, and get on with his life instead of reflecting on what he couldn't change about it.

Who knew what was in his future? There could be some exciting adventure just around the corner for him; and maybe, if he was lucky, he'd find a new companion and the mantle of the solitary man could be brushed away -- at least for a while.

***