Title: Focus on the Future
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Ross Jenkins
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 4, 50ficlets
Prompt: 20, Future
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 Ross Jenkins, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

"What do you think the future holds for us?" Ross asked softly, leaning back against the pillows and looking up at the ceiling of their hotel room. This was only their second night here, but he knew that this little interlude had to come to an end soon.

One thing that he'd already learned about the Doctor was that the Time Lord didn't like to stay in any one place for too long. Ross wasn't sure just why that was, but he had his suspicions, even though he didn't feel that now was the time to talk about them.

He had the definite feeling that the Doctor didn't like to feel settled because of the fact that he didn't have a home to go back to any more. With Gallifrey destroyed, there was nowhere that he could go where he would feel completely at home.

Of course, there was the Tardis -- but that was different. As wonderful as she was, she was still a ship, not an entire planet. There were no other people there for the Doctor to feel close to, other than himself. And that had to make the Time Lord feel lonely.

Even though Ross was there with him, the young man couldn't help feeling that there were times when the Doctor felt melancholy about the loss of his home planet. Ross didn't blame him; anyone would feel the same knowing that the entire planet they came from was gone.

But it was the past; it was over and done. They couldn't bring Gallifrey back, and the Doctor couldn't go back in time and be there as though it had never been done away with. In this case, they could only go forward. And Ross thought that was a good idea.

He didn't want the Doctor to brood on what he had lost. It would be impossible for him not to feel sad at times; Ross expected that. But he wasn't going to let his lover sink into a miasma that he might never be able to work his way out of if he immersed himself too deeply.

Really, he didn't think that the Doctor would allow himself to do that, Ross thought. But just in case, he was going to do his best to try and keep his lover's focus on the future -- a future that the two of them would share from now on.

"I don't know, love," the Doctor replied, settling closer to Ross and draping one slender arm across his young lover's stomach. "I could take us into the future, of course, but I'd prefer not to look that far ahead. I don't want to know what it's like."

"Sometimes I think I'd like to know what my future will be like," Ross said slowly, musing over his words. "But then when I really think about it, that almost seems like .... well, cheating. You should live your life, not know exactly what's coming."

"That's true," the Doctor said, sighing softly. "Sometimes there are pitfalls that it might be nice to know about, but I think that everyone has to look at those as being a learning experience, as part of their lives that they're meant to go through to build their character."

"You sound like my parents," Ross laughed, raising a hand to tousle the Time Lord's hair. "That's exactly what my mother and father would say to me. That I had to go through hard times to make me a stronger person. I think they would have liked you. A lot."

"Even though they would have known that their son was involved with a man?" the Doctor inquired, one eyebrow raised in question. "Most parents wouldn't be too enthused about that. Especially considering that you're with a man who's a good deal older than you."

"I don't think I'd actually tell them that I'm in love with a man who's over nine hundred years old," Ross told him, laughing again. "But no, they wouldn't be all that thrilled to find out that I'm gay. They .... never knew. I never could bring myself to tell them."

"Because it would have been too much of a disappointment?" the Doctor asked, his voice soft. "I don't blame you, love. Sometimes it's better to keep things like that from those we love until we know that they're ready to accept the fact."

Ross nodded, sighing softly. "But you know, I think that eventually I could have told them about us. They would have just been happy to know that I'm with someone I love. Someone who loves me, and makes me happy. That's all that would have mattered to them in the end."

Raising the young man's hand to his lips, the Doctor brushed a kiss against Ross' palm. "I'm going to try to make your future absolutely wonderful, Ross," he said softly, his voice barely a whisper. "I'll try to live up to what your parents would have wanted me to be."

"I know you'll be able to do that, Doctor," Ross told him, tilting the Time Lord's face up to his and bowing his head to claim those soft lips with his own. As long as his future was spent with this man, he was sure that it would indeed be all that anyone could possibly want.

***