Title: Unknown Quantity
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 30_forbidden
Prompt: 15, Unknown
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.

***

So much about who he was had always been unknown, even to the people closest to him.

The Doctor leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the console of his ship and crossing his arms behind his head. He didn't like that thought at all; he wanted to believe that he had been as forthcoming as possible to all his companions of the past.

But that wasn't true, was it? Even the people he'd been closest to, people he'd trusted with his very life, hadn't known all there was to know about him. He hadn't been able to bring himself to tell them so much of his past, the lives he'd led.

He'd told them bits and pieces, of course. That was unavoidable. He'd told them of places he had seen, adventures that he'd had. He'd told them of his more spectacular successes -- and in some cases, he had even talked regretfully of his failures.

However, he'd never been able to bring himself to open up completely about his past lives. There would have been so much to talk of if he had -- and there was too much buried in his past that he didn't want to relive. It was better to keep that past deeply buried.

If he was honest with himself, there were times when he'd wanted to be more open about his different lives. But he'd always stopped himself at a certain point, unable to go any further. There was still a part of him that didn't trust completely.

Of course, some of his companions hadn't wanted to know everything about him. They'd simply looked at his past lives as being those of another man -- and so they were, in a way. He was never completely the same in any of his bodies.

His personality changed, as well as his outward appearance. But he still had his memories -- the bad along with the good. Memories that both fascinated and repelled, memories that either begged to be brought into the open, or were content to hide themselves in darkness.

What would his companions have done if he'd insisted on talking about his past lives? The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes and thinking of each companion in turn. No, this one wouldn't have wanted to know. That one .... well, they'd always wanted to know too much.

They'd all been different, those companions of his. He'd cared about them all, though not in a romantic sort of way. He'd either thought of them as friends, or as children that he had to protect, even though in some ways they'd wanted to protect him.

Even the ones who had annoyed him still had a place in his lives. And yet .... he was still an unknown quantity to them in so many ways, no matter how much he'd trusted them. He had never really allowed himself to believe in them with all of his hearts.

Oh yes, the trust had been there, at least on the surface. Some he'd trusted more than others, but he had known that any of them would come to his rescue if he needed them, that they would watch his back, no matter how dangerous the situation might be.

Odd, then, that they themselves should be such unknown quantities to him. Most of them had been more than willing to talk about their pasts, their lives on Earth or whatever planet they'd come from -- but he'd never wanted to pry too deeply.

It had seemed such an invasion to look into people's lives; it was fascinating, but at the same time, he felt that he was stripping away a veil that he kept between himself and any companion, more for his own safety than for theirs.

He didn't want to get too close. He didn't want to know them too intimately. And he certainly didn't want any of them as a lover. That would have changed everything -- the entire dynamic of having them along as his companion would be turned on its head.

He'd done that once -- with Jack. After centuries of telling himself sternly that he would never take a companion as a lover, he'd allowed himself to give in to the attraction that flowed between them. And it had been one of his biggest mistakes.

It hadn't been a mistake to love Jack. He'd never think that; he still loved the other man, though he knew that emotion would come to nothing and it was better left buried with other memories in the past. But it had been a mistake to let it go on so long.

Would he always feel this way about the immortal? He was fairly sure that he would, at least as long as he was in this body. That was probably his punishment for giving in, for not keeping those barriers in place as he'd always done with every companion.

He'd let those walls come down, crashing around him and baring all. There had been nothing that he wanted to keep hidden from Jack; he'd been willing to let this man view him exactly as he was, with no veils of secrecy and no doors left unopened.

It had been a shock to realize that in spite of all he'd known about Jack, the other man had still been an unknown quantity to him. It was the first time that he could remember when his companion had seemed to hide behind more walls than he himself did.

Jack talked about himself, yes, but only to a point. He was more of an unknown quantity to the Doctor than the Time Lord would ever be to him. No matter how the Doctor tried to bring out tales of his past, Jack steadfastly refused to talk much about it.

That wasn't one of the things that had driven them apart. No, that parting had come from Jack's sense that he could do more good on Earth as the leader of Torchwood than he ever could traveling the galaxy with the Doctor.

Maybe he was right, the Doctor thought wryly. That was yet another unknown factor.

Anyway, Jack was on Earth, where he felt that he belonged -- and the Doctor was here, out in time and space, with no lover and no companion. He had all the freedom in the world -- and all the loneliness that such freedom inevitably caused.

The next time he took a companion, would he be able to open himself up to them more? Or would he still be largely unknown to them, only letting them catch small glimpses of the complete person who hid behind the veil he drew over himself?

Only time would tell, the Time Lord thought to himself as he lowered his feet to the ground and stood up, leaning over the console. For the moment, he was content to remain that unknown quantity in the lives of his past companions, until the next one came along.

***