Title: A Time For Grief
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: Epsilon, challenge_the
Prompt: 33, Grief
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 didn't usually give himself over to grief. But there was one date in all of his long life that stood out, one particular time that he looked back on and let himself indulge in an outpouring of grief for what might have been, and what he would never know.

Gallifrey's destruction hadn't been some spur-of-the-moment decision. He'd had to think long and hard about it, and he'd tried his best to keep from having to be a part of it. But in the end, it had been an inevitable occurrence, as had his part in it.

He was the one who'd caused it. He would never be able to assuage the guilt that would always weigh on him for that; no matter how often he tried to tell himself that it had to be done, he'd never be able to lift that weight from his shoulders.

At least he was handling the grief better now, the Doctor told himself with a sigh, raising a hand to his face to wipe away the tears.

He didn't give himself over to this often. Once a year -- in Earth time -- he would look back on the destruction of his home planet and allow his hearts to open, let the tears fall. He was the last being in the universe who could remember it, after all.

Oh, there were other races who had heard of Gallifrey. It wasn't completely forgotten. But he was the last being who knew what it had been like to live there, to grow up there. No one else could have the same sorts of memories of his home planet that he did.

Now that it was gone, it could never be replaced. Somehow, when he was younger, he'd thought that it would always be there -- his home, his people, who would always be waiting for him to come back. It had never occurred to him that it would disappear.

And by his own hand .... He gulped, drawing in a breath and trying to keep himself from bursting into tears again. It was a good thing that he was here on the Tardis, alone, with no one to see or hear him break down like this, he thought wryly.

Well, there was the Tardis -- but she probably shared his own feelings, and his own grief matched hers, and entwined with it in a way.

He'd thought that he was lonely before the destruction of his home -- but now, knowing that he was not only the last of his kind in the entire galaxy, but the last Time Lord as well, that loneliness ate into him more and more with each passing year.

Even when he had a companion on the ship with him, he could never push that loneliness away entirely; he always knew that this person was only temporary in his life, that sooner or later, they would return to their own lives and leave him on his own again.

They'd never be able to understand his grief, and even if he tried to explain to them, they wouldn't feel it. They could sympathize, but they could never know. It was only one more thing that made him feel more alone than ever, even when someone was there.

It was odd how he felt that he could only cry over Gallifrey on the anniversary date of its end, the Doctor thought, sighing and sniffling a little as he leaned back on the couch. He should be able to cry over the demise of his home whenever he felt like it, shouldn't he?

No, he couldn't do that. He had to keep up his facade of being "all right," the mask that he always wore to convince the rest of the world that nothing ever got to him. He'd always been able to put on that mask, always been able to hide his true feelings.

A few people had seen past that mask to the man inside, but he'd pushed them away before they could get close enough for more than a brief glimpse. He'd been terrified of letting them see him as he was, naked and unadorned from the inside out.

It was just another form of self-protection, that tendency he had to hide behind masks. He'd gotten quite good at it over the centuries, too.

So good that now, he found it almost impossible to let anyone into his life past a certain point. He'd gladly have friends, care about people -- but he wouldn't let them care about him. If he did, he would have to reveal too much.

And truth be told, his own feelings for them wouldn't go past the walls he'd built up around himself, either. He'd had enough of caring about people who always broke his hearts. He couldn't keep letting that happen, not if he wanted to keep himself whole.

The loneliness and the grief swirled in him until they were entwined; there were times when he had a hard time differentiating one from the other. They seemed to draw on the same reservoir of pain that existed deep within him, one that apparently never dried up.

Losing his home planet had been a greater blow than any he'd ever had to deal with; that was what had shown him the true meaning of loneliness. He'd thought that he understood it before -- but he hadn't, not really, not until that fateful day.

Not until he'd come face to face with the stunning realization that he was the last of his kind .That there were no more Gallifreyans, that he was the only person left in the entire universe who could remember his home planet with love.

It was still hard for him to believe that Gallifrey was gone, that he would never be able to stand on the solid firm soil of his home and look up at the burnt-orange sky and feel .... safe.

In the blink of an eye, it had disappeared. And he'd not been able to do anything but stand there helplessly and watch it vaporize into nothing but wisps of cloud and ash, and know that he had been responsible for the destruction of a planet and a people.

His planet. His people. The only real home that he'd known, no matter how many other places he'd been and how comfortable he'd felt in them. The only place that he could say with certainty was where he felt that he belonged.

The grief was overwhelming; he couldn't help raising his hands to his face and letting the tears come. He wasn't only crying for Gallfirey and for the lives lost, but for his own loneliness and the fact that he would never be amongst his own people again.

He had no idea how long he sat there with his face buried in his hands; after what seemed like an inordinately long time, he raised his face, wiping ineffectually at his eyes with the sleeve of his suit, wishing that he'd thought to avail himself of a box of tissues, or at least a handkerchief.

Closing his eyes and exhaling a long, heavy sigh, he ran his hands over his face, trying to marshal his thoughts and get his emotions under control.

After all, he had responsibilities. He was a Time Lord, not a child who'd been abandoned. Yes, he'd lost his home -- but that had been a decision that he'd had to make. He'd done the best he could with the cards he'd been given, knowing all along that he was playing a losing hand.

He would always grieve for Gallifrey. Every year at this time, he'd lose himself in a storm of weeping, regrets, and thoughts of what his life could have been like if his home still existed. He felt that he had a right to that.

But he would get past the grief. He would take some time to mourn, and then put his emotions back into their proper place, slide the mask back on over them, and get on with his life. It was what he had to do -- what he'd done ever since Gallifrey had been gone.

He was used to living this way, used to hiding his grief, even from the few people who had grown close to him. The facade was holding up; there were times when it wasn't easy to put that mask on, but he'd grown used to wearing it. It was almost comfortable now, almost a part of him.

***