Title: Fill in the Gaps
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: past Jack/Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 30_losses
Prompt: 38A, A life of lies
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Tenth Doctor, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

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How many lies had he told people over the centuries? There were so many that he couldn't remember them all; some had been for the good of the people who were hearing them, and some had been for his own safety. Thre had been a need for some of those untruths.

But he didn't want to keep doing that; living a life of lies wasn't something he was proud of, the Doctor thought, heaving a sigh. He might not have a choice at times, but some of the lies he'd had to tell had cut into his very soul, and he wasn't proud of them.

That wasn't exactly a wonderful legacy to leave, was it? The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes as he leaned back in his chair by the Tardis' console. There were times when he felt that he'd had to spend his life -- all of his lives -- lying to the entire universe.

The Doctor almost snorted aloud at his thoughts. Legacy? He couldn't think of his life or anything that he might leave behind in that way. He had no one to leave a legacy to. No one in his life who would come after him, who would even remember him long into the future.

All the humans he'd known would die -- except for Jack. The immortal would remember him, but those memories wouldn't always be good ones. After all, Jack had chosen to leave him. He wouldn't have left if he'd enjoyed the life he'd led with the Doctor.

But was that entirely true? Jack had loved traveling through space and time. What was it exactly that had made him turn away? He'd never really explained his decision, not fully. He'd said that Torchwood needed him, but to the Doctor, that was hardly an explanation.

He'd accepted it, of course. He hadn't had any other choice. If Jack had wanted to leave, he'd had every right to do so without his lover standing in his way. But there had been that little seed of doubt growing in the back of the Doctor's mind ever since.

Had Jack left because he was tired of the lies, tired of the evasions? The Doctor had never outwardlly lied to him, of course; he'd never told any blatant untruths and tried to pass them off as fact. But he'd lied by omission, more times than he wanted to remember.

There were so many things that he should have told Jack about his past at the very beginning of their relationship, secrets that he would have preferred to keep hidden but that Jack had a right to know. That was part of what had driven his lover away.

He hated to admit that his own secretiveness, his own omissions, had been the catalyst for Jack's leaving. But if he was honest with himself, that was exactly what had caused the man he loved to turn his back. His own shortcomings had been his downfall.

He couldn't blame their breakup on Jack. No, he had to lay the blame for that squarely on his own slender shoulders. If he had told Jack everything about his past from the beginning, then they might very likely still be together, and he would still be happy.

If only he'd had the courage to admit the truth about his past with the Master, instead of telling Jack half-truths and denials. He should have been honest and told his lover that there had been a time when, yes, he did fancy himself in love with his greatest enemy.

Of course, that time had been long ago, and he'd been little more than a child. He'd still been discovering just who he was and what his place in the world would be; Jack wouldn't have hated him for having such a weakness. He would have understood.

But no, he hadn't trusted Jack enough to believe that his lover would understand how complicated his emotions had been at the time. Instead, he'd told Jack only parts of the story, only given him nuggets of the truth about what he'd felt for the man who was now his nemesis.

Those half-truths had been what had driven Jack away from him. Those, and his evasions, his omissions. If he'd only been able to force himself to tell Jack the unvarnished truth .... but it was far too late to think wistfully of what might have been.

Maybe that was part of what had driven his other companions away as well -- the feeling that, no matter how long they stayed with him, they would never truly know him. They all knew that he kept a part of him locked away, never revealing himself completely.

They had all wanted to know him more intimately -- some of them in a physical way, which he hadn't wanted with anyone but Jack. By keeping them apart from him in the more physically intimate sense, he'd also kept them at arm's length in other ways.

He had never lied to any of his companions -- at least, not unless he was sure that the lie was for their own good. Or was that entirely true? he asked himself, frowning. Hadn't he sometimes lied to them for his own good, rather than for theirs?

The Doctor sighed again, wishing that he could push these thoughts away, keep them hidden in the back of his mind and not have to pull them out into the light. But he couldn't do that; they would always be there, ready to jump out at him with teeth and claws extended.

He'd lived a life of lies. He'd lied to his companions, to the man who had been his lover, to the people who'd meant the most to him. Maybe not outright lies that they could point a finger at -- but lying by omission was just as bad.

To be brutally honest, his companions hadn't left him. He'd driven them away -- by not being completely open with them. If he had let them in, opened the door to his soul just a little more, been willing to talk about his past more, maybe some of them would have stayed.

Not Jack, of course. He could never have expected that. Jack had his own life to live -- and really, so did all the others. The lives that they'd put on hold to be with him, the lives that they needed to go back to. Lives that couldn't include him.

Even the ones who hadn't wanted to leave, who hadn't had a choice -- they probably still felt that he'd withheld a part of himself from them, that he'd lied by omission in so many ways. And he would never have the chance to put that right.

But was that entirely true? The Doctor felt a hope surge through him, one that he hadn't allowed himself to have before. Jack was still at the Hub, still with Torchwood. He could go to Jack, tell him all the things that he should have said when they were still together.

It wouldn't bring Jack back to him. He knew that. But it would ease his conscience somewhat -- and he could tell himself that he hadn't left anything out. That he'd been open with Jack about his past and filled in the gaps, even if it was too late to do him any good.

The Doctor got to his feet, going to the console and punching in the coordinates for Earth. This wouldn't make up for the life of lies he'd led, but at least he could feel that it was a step in the right direction. And if he was lucky, he might be rewarded in ways that he didn't expect.

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