Title: On Your Shore
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Owen Harper
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: "If you were" challenge, 5_prompts
Prompt: If you were a sailboat I would sail you to the shore
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Owen Harper, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

***

Owen propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at the Doctor as the two of them lay in bed. His other arm moved around the Time Lord's waist, pulling the other man close against him as his lover slept on, oblivious to Owen's protective gesture.

Could the Doctor feel that arm around him in his subconscious mind? Owen wondered, his brow furrowing in thought. Could he possibly know, though the realm of sleep that he was currently lost in, that he was being held and protected, kept safe in his lover's embrace?

Did it really matter if the other man consciously felt how much he was loved when he was sleeping? Owen asked himself with a reluctant smile. The Doctor might not feel that love now, but he would know it from the moment he woke up until he fell asleep again.

And he was convinced that the Time Lord did feel his love, even though the realm of sleep. The love he felt for the Doctor was too strong to be contained in only one realm of being; Owen was positive that the Doctor could always feel how much he was loved.

The Doctor had uncanny powers of perception; it was one of the first things that Owen had noticed about this man. He would be able to feel it when love was directed at him -- just as Owen could feel the power of the love that the Time Lord had for him.

What would he do without that love? Owen pushed the thought away from him as quickly as it had popped into his head; he didn't want to think of where he would be without the Doctor. He would be nothing and nowhere -- he would be dead. Nonexistent. SImply gone.

Without the Doctor, he wouldn't exist. He owed this man everything -- not just his love and loyalty, but his very life. If the Doctor hadn't seen fit to answer Jack's plea for help and rescue him, he wouldn't have been given this second -- no, third -- chance at life.

And what a life! He had never even imagined that some of the things he'd seen since he'd been traveling with the Doctor could exist; he would never have believed them if he hadn't witnessed them with his own eyes. Seeing really was believing.

Owen sighed softly, running a gentle hand over the Time Lord's bare shoulder before pulling the covers up over his lover's body. He could lie here and watch the Doctor sleep all night; just being beside this man gave him a sense of peace such as he'd never known.

Before the Doctor had come into his life, he'd been drifting on a sea of uncertainty, not really knowing what he was going to do with himself. He wasn't really dead, but he wasn't alive, either. He was somewhere in a limbo that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't even exist.

The Doctor had been like a boat that had come upon him when he was floundering in a sea of doubt, and had picked him up to let him sail to the safety of a calm, firm shore. He'd been given another chance, one that he very likely didn't deserve and never would.

But he was doing his best to deserve the chance he'd been given, Owen told himself. He was here with the Doctor, loving him, being by his side, trying to help the Time Lord as much as he could. Even though he had to admit that he was doing it as much for himself as for the other man.

He had been flailing around in a sea where he was slowly drowning when the Doctor had held out a hand, navigating him to the safety of his shore. He would have gone under for the last time and never come up again if not for this man; he owed the Doctor everything.

And he could never forget that the Time Lord was the first person who had truly loved him. Yes, the woman who he'd fallen in love with in his first chance at life had loved him, but their life together had been cut short by a tragedy that he didn't want to think about.

The second one .... Owen almost snorted at the memory of her that flitted through his mind like an elusive butterfly. She'd used him, but she had never really loved him. She had only wanted a temporary sensation, nothing more. She'd been a slut who was well out of his life.

Had he really loved her, though? He didn't think so. He'd thought that he was in love, because she had aroused some protective instinct in him that he shoudln't have felt. He had been the one who needed protecting from that circling piranha, not the other way around.

He had finally found the right person to be with, after all the time that he'd spent chasing ephemeral shadows and wondering if he would ever fall in love again. This time, he was more in love than he had ever been -- and this time, he knew that love was returned.

If it hadn't been for the Doctor, he would have been killed in that meltdown; there would have been no coming back again, not in any way. The Doctor had given him a second chance at life and love, without even really knowing him. He had taken a leap of faith.

He had to prove to the Time Lord that his leap hadn't been misguided. He had sailed the boat that the Doctor had pulled him into until he'd found a safe shore; and now that he had stepped out onto firm ground, he had to build on that ground and make a sturdy future for them both.

That wasn't going to be easy, Owen reflected. He wasn't the kind of man who had ever thought he would settle down and be with one person after his first love had died; but so many things about his life had changed since he'd been with the Doctor.

As he watched, the Doctor murmured, his eyelids fluttering, then opened his eyes to look up at Owen. After a few seconds, a slow, sleepy smile spread across the Time Lord's face; Owen smiled back, reaching out a hand to caress his lover's cheek.

"What are you doing awake so early?" the Doctor asked, his voice soft and husky. He turned over to face Owen, snuggling close against the other man. "I'm usually the first one up of the two of us. Is something bothering you to make you wake up so early, love?"

Owen shook his head, smiling at the other man's concern. "No, nothing's bothering me," he answered, his tone soft and loving. "I was just watching you sleep, and thinking of how I was floundering in a sea of doubt when you came along and rescued me."

"Ah, you rescued me too, you know," the Doctor told him, wrapping his arms around Owen's waist. "You saved me from a life of loneliness, Owen. Without you here, I'd be a very lonely man -- and I wouldn't be happy. So we've helped each other."

"I'm glad I ended up on your shore," Owen whispered, his heart feeling as though it had swelled in his chest. "I spent so much of my life treading water -- but thanks to you, I've been able to sail to the place where I think I just might have always belonged."

The Doctor didn't answer him; he just raised a hand to stroke Owen's hair, those fathomless dark eyes gazing into his. In that moment, Owen knew that this was the only shore he ever wanted to sail into -- and that it was where he'd always been intended to spend his life.

***