Title: This Is How A Heart Breaks
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: doctorwho_100
Prompt: 96, Writer's Choice - Heartbreak
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.

***

He shouldn't think of Gallifrey. The more he thought of his home planet, the more depressed he would become, and that definitely wasn't a good thing.

The Doctor sighed, leaning back against the couch cushions and looking up at the ceiling of the Tardis' control room. Depression wasn't a good state for anyone to be in, and he certainly didn't enjoy it. But it was hard not to be depressed at the thought of his home.

His hearts had broken when Gallifrey had been destroyed -- he was sure of that. He had been utterly devastated, and he'd let himself sink into depression over it for a while. It had been the darkest part of his life, a part that he preferred not to remember.

But the memories wouldn't go away simply because he wanted them to. They would stick with him for the rest of his life; they would always be there, either in his dreams or his conscious mind, to jump out at him when he least expected it.

Memories were meant to fade, of course. And perhaps these would, eventually. But only after they'd torn out a piece of his hearts and chipped away at his soul bit by bit, the guilt eating into him until it was buried too deeply inside him to ever be cast away.

That was all he was left with -- the memories of his home, and what it had been like. Not perfect, of course -- but then, he didn't believe in perfection.

Sometimes he wondered if it was possible for memories to break hearts -- that was, if they weren't already broken from the actions that the memories resulted from. It seemed that his hearts grew more and more weary every day.

He tried to ignore those guilt feelings that pressed down on him. It had been inevitable, he argued with his inward self. He'd had no choice; it had been a decision that he hadn't wanted to make, but he'd done it for the good of the universe.

After all, as he'd tried to reason out to himself at the time, one world wasn't much in comparison with the entire universe, and all the worlds he would be saving. But destroying his own world, his own people .... he'd hesitated, and almost waited too long.

But in the end, he'd done what he knew he had to do, even though it had almost destroyed him in the process. And for a long while afterwards, he'd felt that he was destroyed -- as though moving, speaking, doing anything at all would make him fall apart.

He'd only gone through the motions of living, feeling like the human concept of a zombie. It had been the blackest period of his existence; there were parts of it that were nothing but a blur.

He'd come out of that eventually, emerging from the blackness of despair into the bright light of the world. And he'd eventually thrown off that cloak of shadow -- but his hearts still felt bruised and tender, as though the cracks in them were growing more pronounced.

That was something he'd tried to ignore, too. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge the fact that he was hurting; he'd pretended to be "fine," telling everyone that he had no problems and no worries. And he'd managed to pull it off, at least outwardly.

Inwardly .... ah, that was a different matter altogether. He struggled to keep his hearts intact, to not let his memories overwhelm him -- but sometimes that was impossible to do. Day by day, he could feel his hearts breaking a little more.

It almost seemed as though with each day that went by, a minute piece of him was ripped away, another small chip breaking from his hearts. In time, they would shatter completely, leaving him with only shards to piece back together as best he could.

And, of course, he'd do his best to keep putting those pieces back where they belonged. He had to hold himself together; he couldn't simply give up.

The universe depended on him. And as long as the Master was still running free in the world, he had to be on his guard; there was no way that he could allow himself to give in to the despair he felt at times. He had to be stronger than that.

His personal feelings didn't matter when weighed against the possible fate of the universe. He had to push his own troubles aside to focus on the problems of the world; one man didn't matter in the face of the well-being of billions of other beings.

But that didn't stop him from thinking about Gallifrey when he was alone, as he was now. When there was no one around to divert his mind from these memories, they ran rampant, holding his mind in a vise and refusing to let it go.

And his hearts broke a little more every time he thought of his home. A home that he would never see again, a race that was gone forever, except for him and the Master. The best and the worst of them -- both sides of the spectrum.

The Master had taunted him more than once about allowing his hearts to feel so deeply, knowing full well that the erosion of their friendship over the centuries only added to the Doctor's pain.

His hearts were still there; they had to be, to keep the blood pumping through his veins. They were still working, still capable of feeling equal amounts of joy and pain. They worked, even though at times he thought a part of them had been damaged beyond repair.

But there was something missing, something that was taken away each time he remembered that he had no home planet any more, that he and the Master were the last of their people. He kept them pieced together as best he could, but that wasn't always enough.

This was how hearts were broken, he told himself, placing a hand on his chest so that he could feel his own dual heartbeats under his palm. A small bit at a time, until that final shattering break that reduced them to millions of tiny shards.

They didn't merely break -- they exploded, shattering into such small pieces that it felt as though it would be impossible pick them all up and piece them back together. They could be painstakingly glued back, but they would always shatter again.

And eventually, there would be nothing left of them -- nothing but the glue that was used to keep those pieces in place, waiting for the next blow to scatter them yet again.

He could glue those pieces back together; he'd never had a problem with doing that. As many times as his hearts had shattered, he was always able to find those pieces and glue them back into place, so that none of the cracks showed outwardly.

But eventually, the cracks became wider, and it became harder to make the pieces fit into place correctly. The pain would begin to show through -- and he would have to cover his emotions even more carefully, hide behind a carefully constructed mask of his own making.

No matter how he tried to hide that pain, he could feel those pieces that had been fitted back into place trembling, waiting to fall apart, waiting to scatter themselves again so that it would take him even longer to put them back into their proper places when he had to do so.

At some point, there would come a time when the pieces were gone, when he would be working not with pieces of his hearts, but with nothing more than the shattered shards of glue that had long ago covered anything that was left of himself.

There would come a time when glue could no longer hold shattered glue. And he had the sinking feeling that time was coming more quickly than he could have imagined.

Yes, this was how hearts broke, the Doctor thought, closing his eyes and pressing his hand harder against his chest. A little at a time, before the final explosion that shatted them for good. And then pieced back together to resemble what they once were, but would never be again.

His hearts were rapidly approaching that point; he wasn't even sure that there was anything left of them other than shards that were so minute he wasn't sure if he'd put them back into the right spots, or shifted them around to create something completely different.

A wry smile twisted his lips at that idea. He'd always been different in so many ways, and maybe this was just one more difference between himself and the rest of the world. One more way to point out to him that he would always be apart .... different .... alone.

Just one more thing to set him apart from everyone else; one more thing to make him feel like a pariah. Shouldn't he be used to that by now? After all, he'd spent his entire life being different and trying to pretend that he wasn't.

So, this is how any heart breaks, he told himself, closing his eyes and swallowing hard. Slowly, a bit at a time, being pieced back together painstakingly, piece by piece -- until all the pieces have shattered so many times that in the end, there's nothing left.

***