Title: Spending My Time
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Owen Harper
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, letter100
Prompt: 16, Determined
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.

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Dear Doctor,

I'm not that much of a letter writer. Never have been. It's not that I can't express my thoughts in letters -- I've never had a problem with doing that. It's just that I've never seemed to have the time to write much more than medical reports.

But now that I'm with you, it feels like all I have is time. I have to wonder about that, though. At one point, I thought I'd be undead forever, so I felt like I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted. Now, I wonder if I'm back to having a very limited time.

I don't know if I'm back to being completely human again, with a human life span. Did something happen to me when you took me to New Earth that might have made me more than human? Am I like Jack now? Do I have more time than I think I do?

Sometimes I don't want to know, and sometimes I feel like I need to know. I keep wanting to ask you if there's any way we can find out, if we can go back to New Earth and have them do some kind of tests on me to know if I'm fully human.

But if I find out that I am, how is that going to make me feel? Will I still be the way I am now, running into danger because I almost feel like I'm invincible? I guess that's a little bit of my experience as the walking dead that still sticking with me.

Or will that make me shrink back from new experiences because I don't want to walk into anything that might get me killed? I died in a useless way the first time; I don't want that to happen to me again. But I don't want to become a shrinking violet, either.

Either way, I'm determined to live my life. And to spend it all with you. That's something I have a hard time saying; I've said it to people before, and they either ended up dying, or leaving me. I'm almost afraid to say those words again, because they seem like some kind of jinx.

Saying those words makes me feel vulnerable, more so than I have since I've been with you. I guess it's because they don't just leave me open physically to being rejected, but they leave my heart open too. And I'm not used to doing that.

Every time I've opened my heart to anybody, I've gotten hurt. Both of the women in my life who I was serious about -- even though the second one was just infatuation and not real love -- and even the closest friends I've had. Everybody has ended up either dying or leaving.

But you know what that's like, don't you? Your companions do the same to you. They either die on you, or they decide that they have to go back to the lives they had before you whisked them away in teh Tardis. I don't think anybody knows that feeling better than you do.

I don't want to make you feel like that again, Doctor -- I'm determined not to. Even if I'm still just a garden-variety human, who doesn't have an elongated life span, I'm still going to stay with you. I'm going to be the one who doesn't leave, not until my dying day.

But that means that when I die, you'll be alone again. I know that's your greatest fear, and even though I don't share it, I can understand how you feel. If I thought I would have to be alone for centuries, I'd probably feel the same way.

I don't want to leave you, Doctor. I'm determined to find out if I'm some kind of superhuman now, if I've got a longer life span than a normal human, or whether I'm just as I was before I died. And if I am just a normal human now, I want to find a way to extend that life.

That's what all humans want, isn't it? To live longer, to find some fountain of youth. I guess I've been like that in some ways, with all the skin creams and things like that. But now, I want that fountain of youth not for me, but for you. So I can be with you forever.

I don't know if that's going to be possible. I don't know if I can be granted that kind of wish. But if I can, then I promise you that I'll be the companion -- and the lover -- who never leaves. I'll be the one to stick by your side through everything life can throw at the both of us.

I'm sure other people have made you that promise, too. But you've got to remember that I'm not other people. I'm me. I've had different experiences than other people have, and I know what it's like on the other side. I know that it's a place I don't want to be.

I guess that a part of me is determined to stay alive for myself, because I don't want to go back to that cold darkness. And because I don't want to leave you, and leave behind all the light and love that you've brought into a life that used to be very dark.

You burst into that darkness like the sun coming out after a thunderstorm. And I don't want that sun to ever go behind a cloud again. I want you in my life for the rest of my life -- or for all eternity, if I've got that as one of my options.

If I don't .... well, then I guess we'll just have to learn to deal with that as I age. I do know one thing, Doctor. No matter how old I get, no matter how much I might change over the years, one thing is never going to change. I'm never going to stop loving you.

There. I said it. I love you, Doctor. Those are hard words for me to say; I've never had good luck with love until I met you. But this time, it's real love, and I'm determined to make it last, for however many years or decades -- or even centuries -- I might have left.

However long I do have left, rest assured that I'm going to spend all of that time with you. And if I find out that I've got more time than we think I do, then so much the better. Because I want to spend all of my time with you -- however long that might be.

Yours always,

Owen

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