Title: Watching For Shapes
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Jethro Cane
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: "If you were" challenge, 5_prompts
Prompt: If I was in jail I know you'd spring me
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Jethro Cane. Please do not sue.

***

Jethro leaned back on the couch in the library of the Tardis, closing his eyes and letting himself relax. This was his favorite place on the ship, the place where he always came when he wanted to spend a little quiet time and think about his life.

It seemed incredible to him, even after nearly a year with the Doctor, that he could be here. He had always thought that he was destined to be with the Time Lord, but he had almost given up hope of them finding each other again when they'd met accidentally on Midnight.

All of the time that he'd spent looking for the Doctor had been worth it; he'd known that from their first kiss, from the first time they'd made love. Even though that first time had been rushed, it had been one of the most intense experiences he'd ever had.

What would he have done if he hadn't met the Doctor again, and embarked on this new and exciting life with the man he loved? He couldn't have gone back home to his parents; he'd felt as thought he'd escaped from jail when he'd left. He couldn't go back to that.

The Doctor had sprung him out of the prison he was in, giving him a freedom that he'd longed for all of his life. The Doctor accepted him exactly the way he was, even with all of his differences. The Doctor even appreciated those differences and thought that they made him special.

They did make him special, Jethro told himself firmly. He was an important person in the Doctor's life; he had been important to other people since he began his travels with the Time Lord, as well. He was someone who could make a difference in the world.

No one else had ever done that for him. Everyone had always thought that his empathic abilities made him a freak; no one had wanted to know about what he could do, and even the people who had been his friends had always seemed to be a little afraid of him.

And his parents .... Jethro pushed the thought of them away. It was still painful for him to deal with; he didn't like thinking about the people who had so vociferously urged him to try to bury what he was, to hide his abilities and even try to get rid of them if he could.

He hated to think about them now. They had never seemed to care about what happened to him once they'd realized that they couldn't control him and make him turn his back on his empathic abilities. All they had wanted was for him to conform, to be like everyone else.

He'd spent so much of his life feeling as though he was a prisoner, kept behind bars, not allowed to be who he really was. But once he'd met the Doctor, even though that first meeting had been brief, those bars had melted away, and he'd realized what he really wanted out of life.

How many more years would he have spent trying to live life in the way that his parents wanted him to if he hadn't happened to run into the Doctor again? Would he have given up if he hadn't found the Time Lord on Midnight, gone back home and resigned himself to a life he would have hated?

Jethro shook his head, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. He didn't want to think that he would have done something like that, but it was possible that he could have. His spirit could have been broken; he could have ended up being in that kind of jail for the rest of his days.

That was the last thing he would have wanted. To live the kind of life that his parents planned for him, the kind of life that they themselves led, seemed a fate worse than death. He could never have forced himself to live like that; he'd rather have been dead.

Would his parents have cared if he had killed himself because of a life they'd forced him into? Jethro didn't like to think along those lines, but he had to admit that it was true; they wouldn't have cared about anything other than how it would look to society.

His parents were only concerned with conformity, with being exactly like everyone else. They had never been able to see the beauty of individuality; they never would. He had tried to make them see it, but they had always shut their eyes to anything that was different.

If it was different, it was bad and wrong. That was what he had always been taught when he was a child; that was why he had been a teenager who hated himself, hated what he was, and had wanted to rebel against the entire world that didn't seem to accept him.

Meeting the Doctor had broken the chains that had bound him; he would still be in that prison that his parents and the conformists of society had created for him if it hadn't been for that first fateful train trip across Midnight when they had first come into each other's orbit.

In the intervening few years, he had never forgotten the Doctor. That face, that smile, had stayed in his mind for so long that he was sure they were permanently etched there; he hadn't wanted to let himself forget one thing about the fascinating man he'd met all too briefly.

And the Doctor hadn't forgotten him, either. It seemed the mark of a capricious fate that the two of them had met again, but Jethro was convinced that it was destiny. He could help the Time Lord in so many ways; he had been meant to find what he searched for.

Now that he had found the Doctor, nothing would take him away from his lover's side, he vowed. He would always be here, loving the Doctor, doing all that he could to help the Time Lord. He was right where he belonged, where he could be of the most use.

He would never go back to being in the kind of jail that his parents had wanted to keep him in. He'd lived there for too many years, spent too much time trying to be what others wanted him to be, attempting to force himself into shapes that didn't fit.

He was still watching for those shapes, Jethro thought with a sigh. He was still trying his best to avoid becoming what his parents had wanted him to be -- a conformist who went along with the crowd, who was afraid to be himself, to have abilities and interests that set him apart from everyone else.

Trying to live that kind of life was like condemning himself to jail -- a prison that the Doctor had sprung him out of without even realizing it. He doubted that the Doctor had known on their first meeting what a profound effect he'd had on one person's life.

But he had been able to find the Time Lord again and let him know just what he'd done -- and how much he appreciated being set free from that prison he would have otherwise ended up spending his life in, Jethro thought with a sigh of contentment.

He was happier with the Doctor than he'd ever been at any other time in his life. And he wanted to have that happiness go on and on, to last for the rest of his days. As long as he was here with the Doctor, loving the Time Lord and helping him, he was sure that it would.

There was nothing to keep him from achieving that complete happiness, he told himself firmly. He was out of the jail that he'd been kept in for so long -- thanks to the man he loved helping him find a way out of it. And he was determined that he would never go back.

***