Title: Take A Look Inside
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: slash_me_twice
Prompt: 58, Mask
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.

***

The Doctor looked around him guardedly as he walked through the streets of London, surprised to see that there were so many people out and about. But of course they'd be out, he told himself. It was Halloween, a night for having fun.

So many people wearing masks .... hiding their faces, delighted when a stranger on the street laughed and waved at them, finding some kind of camaraderie in recognizing whatever a particular mask was meant to portray.

He lifted a hand to his own face with a sigh. No, he wasn't wearing a mask -- not one that covered his face, anyway. To any of the people walking by, he would just look like a man ambling down the sidewalk who hadn't dressed up in a costume for the occasion.

But his mask was a part of him. It never came off, never changed. And it didn't portray some fictional character, something from a film or the telly. No, it was something that he presented to the world every day.

His mask was who he was.

That facade never changed. He presented his face to the world as someone who was in control of his life, who knew what he wanted, who was happy and upbeat no matter what happened in his life. His mask was that of contentment and satisfaction.

Underneath that mask, things couldn't be more different than what they appeared. Oh, he wasn't miserable. In fact, there were times when he actualy felt as though things were going well for him. But unfortunately, that feeling never seemed to be with him for very long.

No one was allowed to see under the facade. Jack had come close; that was one of the myriad of reasons he'd left the other man behind at one point, wondering if they'd ever meet again. Now that they had, he kept Jack at arm's length, never letting him get too close.

He'd been too close before, and that wasn't going to happen again. The Doctor knew all too well how dangerous it could be to care for someone, to let them have a part of the carefully guarded hearts he always kept well out of everyone's reach.

It was all too easy for him to let that iron control slip, to give away a piece of his hearts. He was too open, too needful of someone to care for him. Even if those people weren't lovers, only friends, he still had the tendency to give away too much of himself.

He cared too much. He always had. It would be his downfall one day -- he'd been warned of that when he was still on Gallifrey, when he'd first become a Time Lord and been fascinated with the universe, and especially with humans.

That was when he was still open to people, still ingenuous, still looking for the best in everyone. He'd never really lost that quality; he still tried to see the good in all the races of the universe, the side of them that could be turned away from whatever evil they might embrace.

He'd been warned about that optimism, and sometimes, the warnings had been right.

Over time, he'd learned to hide himself behind a facade. He'd presented what he thought people wanted to see, not who he really was. It had taken him a while to learn how to do that, but he'd certainly gotten better at it over time.

He was a past master at it now. No one could breach the walls he'd built up around himself; if anyone got in, it was because he'd reluctantly allowed them to scale those walls, or because he'd opened himself to them to let them have a glimpse inside.

But that never lasted for long. He was too wary of being hurt, being left, being .... abandoned. Any time he let someone behind those walls, that was always what happened -- and he'd vowed to himself that he'd never open himself up to that kind of pain again.

Even though the companions who always left him were never anything more than friends, it still hurt when they left, when they chose their lives over him. He'd expected it, of course. He'd known that it would inevitably happen from the moment he asked them to travel with him.

Who could blame them? They'd had lives before they'd come with him. Families, friends, all the things that he'd left behind him long ago, and hadn't been overly happy with when they'd been in his possession. How he wished he'd appreciated them more!

Hindsight was always 20/20, the Doctor thought with an inward sigh, a wry smile flitting across his features at the human saying. He was always coming up with those; it was just one more indication of his fascination with that particular race.

He had always known they would leave; he would probably have done the same, if he'd been in their places. But there was always that small spark of hope, lingering in the back of his mind, at a corner of his hearts, that hoped they wouldn't.

There was always the hope that maybe, just maybe, this time, someone would stay. And he was always disappointed. He wasn't enough for his companions; he couldn't keep them with him, couldn't give them what they most wanted.

If only they could accept him as he was .... but none of them did.

No one ever really looked behind the mask. No one really saw who he was -- or wanted to. They wanted to see who they thought he was, or rather, what they wanted him to be. They never really saw him, the Doctor, as he truly appeared.

His lips twisted into a wry smile as he ambled along, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking down at the ground. Of course no one ever saw him as he really was. That was because he didn't let them see. He didn't want them to.

How could he expect anyone to get a glimpse behind his facade if he never let his guard down? That was a question he'd asked himself countless times, and never gotten an answer for. He didn't need an answer. He knew all too well what it would be.

He had to tear down those walls he'd built around himself, let people in, trust them with his hearts. And he couldn't do that. He couldn't let anyone pierce his hearts, get too close to him -- and then inevitably lose them in any one of countless ways.

The mask was too firmly in place, and he didn't want to loosen it or even attempt to pull it off. The only time he could do that was when he was alone; he and his beloved Tardis were the only ones who would ever be able to take a look inside him.

No one else would be able to stay with him, no matter what they said. It was a sad but true fact of his existence -- that he would always be essentially alone. Even when he had a companion, he was still on his own in most of the ways that mattered.

All these people running past him to enjoy their little holiday celebration in their funny, scary, and silly masks -- they'd never know what it was like to really wear a mask, to hide what he was behind smiles and pretended happiness.

He hoped they never did.

No one deserved that kind of existence, the Doctor told himself, stopping for a light at the corner of the street and looking around him at the laughing, shouting humans. Not unless they'd chosen it for themselves, as he had, and hadn't had much of a choice when they did.

And if they'd made that choice, he reflected as the light changed and he hurried across the street, he hoped they made a better go of it than he'd managed to do thus far.

***