Title: Too Far To Fall
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: past Jack/Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: R
Table: Epsilon, challenge_the
Prompt: 5, Fall
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.

***

The Doctor stalked into the Tardis, nearly slamming the door of his ship behind him. He bounded up the three steps, moving to the console and pressing the controls that would send the ship back into time and space, away from Earth.

He and Jack rarely argued, but when they did, he couldn't stand to be around the immortal. Not because anything that Jack said was right, he told himself angrily, but because the other man could be so damned insufferable.

How dare he say that the Gallifreyan race had set themselves up as the gods of the universe, judging others and thinking that they were too far above the rest of the world to be judged themselves? His people hadn't been like that.

He'd defended his race vociferously -- and at every turn, Jack seemed to have something else to say. Something that had made the Doctor's annoyance flare even higher, until he'd finally turned and walked away, left the Hub, and come back to the Tardis.

Jack always had that effect on him lately, the Doctor thought with a sigh as he felt the displacement of time and space, bracing himself against the console. Why was it that the man who had been his former lover was also the person who could most easily make him angry?

Probably because the feelings between them hadn't been resolved, he told himself with an inward sigh. Jack had always been able to arouse him to passion -- whether a physical passion or the passion of anger depended upon the situation.

Leaving the Hub had been the best thing for him to do, before he'd lost his temper and said things that he might regret. It was all too easy to do that when he and Jack disagreed on some issue; he'd done it before, to his everlasting chagrin.

Losing his temper wasn't going to do either of them any good, so it was better for him to leave until he felt that he could talk to Jack again. The immortal was used to it; the Doctor had stormed out of the Hub before, too many times to count.

The Time Lord could almost feel his ire slipping away from him as he moved further away from Jack in terms of physical distance. Maybe he had been wrong to get so angry; after all, Jack had a right to his opinion, just as everyone else did.

But Jack was wrong, he told himself fiercely. His race hadn't set themselves up as the ultimate judge and jury of the universe. They didn't meddle in history, or in others' lives. They simply observed. He was the one who defied the rules.

Jack had never been to Gallifrey. He'd never met a Time Lord other than himself and the Master -- two very different sides of the same coin. He'd never met another Gallifreyan; he didn't know what the majority of the Doctor's race could be like.

He had never been on Gallifrey, never studied what the Doctor's people were like. He'd never lived amongst them, never known any of them except two very different men -- one whom he had loved, and one that he'd felt an implacable enmity towards.

So he couldn't really take Jack's words seriously, could he? The Doctor sighed, slumping against the console and closing his eyes. Yes, he could -- especially when those words hit so close to home because they were essentially the truth.

His former lover had been right, really. His race had tried to raise themselves up to a higher level than the rest of the universe. All of them hadn't been like that, but there were more than enough of his race who had considered themselves better than anyone else.

He didn't fall into that percentage of Gallifreyans -- at least, he certainly hoped not. He'd always hated that attitude in anyone, whether they were of his own race or another. He didn't think that he was worth more than, say, a human, simply because of his race.

If he was brutally honest with himself, he had to admit that his people did have a tendency to put themselves high upon a pedestal -- and maybe that was why they'd fallen so far during the Time Wars. The higher the climb, the further the fall, or so the saying went.

Gallifrey had climbed far too high, like Icarus flying too close to the sun. They'd had too far to fall -- and so they had come crashing down. Perhaps it had been because of their very vanity that their destruction had been brought about by one of their own.

At least Jack hadn't mentioned that, the Doctor thought, sighing heavily as he sat down and rested his head in his hands. Conversations between the two of them where that subject was brought up never ended well, and he was thankful that it hadn't been broached.

But Jack had still managed to push his buttons, the Time Lord reflected wryly. How did his former lover always have the ability to do that, more so than anyone else? Maybe it was because Jack knew him so well -- and knew just how far to push.

He usually pushed too far, and sent the Doctor storming away from him for a brief time. But he always went back -- and their friendship remained intact. The Doctor doubted that anyone else could command that friendship in exactly the way that Jack did.

Was that simply because of their past physical relationship, or was it something deeper than that? The Doctor didn't want to analyze those feelings at the moment; it was enough for him to concede that Jack had an influence over him that no one else possibly could.

A wry smile spread over his features as he lifted his head to stare at the console. Earth was still there on the viewscreen; the Tardis hadn't traveled far. It was as though she knew that he would be going back, and that a part of him hadn't really wanted to leave.

The Time Lord sighed again, standing up and going back to the console. He would go back to Earth, back to the Hub -- but he wouldn't apologize to Jack for leaving in the way he had. And Jack wouldn't expect him to. He would simply smile and say "welcome back."

Maybe he, like his people, had fallen from a great height. But he'd been lucky in that he'd had someone there to be his safety net. And even though they were no longer lovers, that friendship was still there to catch him if ever he found that he had too far to fall again.

***