Ancient Hearts
They never realize he old he really is. Sure, they know he's over a millennium old, but they don't really know. Humans can't truly comprehend the meaning of living that long, especially when he looks like he's merely a child.
They never realize that he had a family. They never ask, not now that he started looking younger. And really, he did that on purpose. It saved him the pain from having to talk about them. But on some days, he wishes someone would ask him; just once, he would like to tell someone. Because they 're all talking about families down below, of children and grandchildren, aunts and uncles, and they all look at him as if he is the elephant in the room. As if he is the only one who couldn't possibly understand. Because to them, he is too young to have anything, to have a family of his own. Because no one remembers his age.
No one realizes just how old he is.
He had a wife once. They were married for nearly 600 years. He loved her dearly, more than life itself. He gave her everything, showed her the moon and stars, as if she needed those to love him. Time Lords only ever fell in love once in their lives, a one true love that filled their entre beings from head to toe. It was rare, but he had found it. They were so deeply in love that it hurt him to be away from her. Even now he could still remember every detail of her being, the feel of her skin, her hand in his, the warmth of her smile, the deep blue of her eyes, the incredible length of her curly, honey-colored hair, the enormous size of her hearts that could never stop giving. It killed him to be so empty now. Life without her was dull and numb. If he had a choice, he would've died with her.
He tried to compare their love to Rory and Amy's but even that love, one that transcended all of time, paled in comparison to his. They didn't care anyway. To them, he loved River, and as long as they believed that, he didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise.
He had children in the past, five to be exact. Three boys and two girls. All perfect in every way. His eldest daughter wanted to be the Lady President when she grew up. He could still remember her determined pouty face as she stomped about declaring her presidential speeches, a long curtain-cape falling off of her tiny shoulders. His wife would pretend to be the audience and cheer her on while he bowed to her, declaring he was unworthy to be in the presence of such a wonderful president. And when her siblings were born they too were subjugated to her speeches and rants which could last for hours on end. She never got the chance to actually run though. Rassilon was president right up until the very end.
His other children were just as wonderful, his sons all bold and headstrong like he was, and just as clever. They each had created their own sonics before they could crawl and had mastered the art of trouble making from birth. They all moved on to have careers in high official positions and families of their own. His youngest, quietest daughter was still in the Academy when all hell broke loose. He never got to see her much, and it was one of his biggest regrets.
He tried to tell Amy and Rory something about raising children, but they just shot him skeptical looks, eyebrows raised and distrusting. He knew all there was to know about children. He even spoke their language he had been around so many, but yet they didn't believe him. They believed the cot he gave them was his own, and in the past it was, a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation. It was his children's and their children's as well; their bodies more recently occupied that space than his, but of course, they would never suspect that. There was no way this baby-faced man could've had any experience with children. Rose Tyler had been the same way when he told her.
Because they had forgotten how old he was.
He was grandfather to one of the biggest families on all of Gallifrey. There were so many children flocked around him at all times that he often found it hard to find time to rest. When he began travelling, he would always bring them back small trinkets from the planets he landed on, a separate one for each so every child would be special. When his eldest granddaughter Susan reached her hundredth birthday, she began to travel with him, and they had the best of times, his favorite adventures for sure.
He missed their smiling, energetic faces so much. He missed being needed for simple things; he missed being relied on by someone who looked up to him. He had his companions, but it wasn't the same. He missed the arms of his children around him as they embraced after a long absence. He missed bragging about his grandchildren as they relished in their high marks at the Academy. He never got to see Susan's graduation. She never even got the chance to pick her official name.
Now all River talks about is babies and all Amy and Rory can do is gossip about how amazing it would be to be grandparents and all the Doctor can do is sit there in silent horror as his life loops on repeat in front of his eyes.
He wants to shout at River that having a child would be the worst idea in the world because all he would do is watch it die less than a hundred years later! He wanted to yell that any baby she had would grow up without a mother, and one loss is already bad enough for a family, for him and for a child to bear.
He wants to tell Amy and Rory that being a grandparent is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world, that it could change them forever, but he stays quiet. If it was up to him, he would never make them grandparents. He knows they wouldn't believe him anyway because to them, he is ignorant in the fact of families. To them, he would just be scared of responsibility, running from the domestic. He is just a crazy old man in a box, cut off from outside contact, from family, from love.
So he just lets them talk about families and he pretends not listen. Sometimes they ask him questions; sometimes they talk about him as he pretends to be occupied fixing the TARDIS. He's learned to just rewire and unwire the temporal links to pass the time, and mostly it works in avoiding conversation. He never answers the rarely asked questions honestly anyway.
"Doctor, do you have a room?"
No, not anymore. It was her room, our room, and it is still our room. It's my favorite and most hated room in the entire ship, one of the oldest and most sacred rooms aboard, saved from the very beginning. But, the memories are still too painful to relive; I'm not strong enough to part with her, so no, I don't have a room. I never enter it out of fear. I wander around at night with the nightmares that plague me in her absence since her presence was the only thing that made them go away. I don't sleep anymore, because I can't without her by my side.
"All of the rooms are my rooms. My TARDIS, my rooms."
"Were you ever a father, Doctor?"
I was once, and I always thought I would be, but now I'm not. I had it all and now I have nothing. I let everything I love slip into the fire, and now everything I held dear has been destroyed by my hand.
"Technically, I am the father of modern science!"
"Do you love me Doctor?"
That depends on the type of love you are referring to. If you are referring to the platonic, non-romantic love, then yes. I love you and always will love you because I care about you and your well-being. If you are referring to the romantic, head-over-heels, true love type love, then no. I cannot physically or emotionally love you in that sense. I had already fallen in love, found my soul mate, and committed myself to her. Her death has left me devastated and I will never love anyone like that ever again. You are no exception and I am truly sorry for that.
"Of course I do River. After all, I am not just your husband for anything."
And he can never tell them the truth. The truth is never what they want to hear. They want to hear the stupid remarks, the jesting, silly Doctor who holds no cares in the world. They don't care about his past, his family, his heartache. No, the Ponds were definitely too caught up with their own reality to deal with his. So he played the role of happy husband just to make their lives easier. He rolled with the punches as much as he could.
But even he has a limit.
One night, the questioning gets too far out of hand. A fun game of Q & A soon turns into an interrogation of the Doctor by Amy and River. They're deluded and tipsy; they grill him about why he hasn't had a child with River despite being in love, married, etc…After all, Amy points out that she is only getting older and would like a baby of her own to hold that wouldn't be taken away moments later. River, on the other hand, feels hurt and upset by Amy's comments and wants to know why the Doctor doesn't want a family with her. Rory glares in agreement, and the Doctor feels cornered with no way out.
He's had too much of this. He's sick of the badgering, of the neglect to his feelings. He knows it's not their job to know about him; he keeps to himself for a reason after all, but just once he wants them to see things his way. If only they understood. But he knows they won't, so in frustration, he leaves. He straight up walks away without so much as a word.
He hears them chasing after him, but he is clever. He weaves and bobs through various hallways, his path sporadic and constantly changing course. The TARDIS is on his side for once and aids her thief in his need for invisibility, hiding him within the heart of the giant ship. She twists and turns more than he does, and after navigating through more rooms than he ever thought possible, he realizes that the footsteps are gone.
He is finally alone, but that isn't enough. No.
She's led him to that room, his room, their room, and for the first time since the war, he opens up that preserved sanctuary. He finds more solitude than he thought possible in that huge space, warm memories and feelings flooding his angry body. He lies down upon the magnificent king size bed and closes his eyes, wishing the days away, wishing his new 'family' would leave him alone.
He wasn't ready for his hearts to be ripped out again. He wasn't ready to be so attached to something so fleeting. He had already been bitten once, and that love was supposed to last forever. Now he was supposed to live on a pointless existence without them all. His friends were all he had left, and watching them die was bad enough; throwing in an innocent child into the mix would double his devastation. He would have to be the one to watch the poor hybrid suffer, watch it grow and learn at a rapid pace, be ostracized by its peers and grow up an outcast, only to die alone, an alien to its own race. It would be torture for both parties. He had seen this before; he already knew how this would end, and it hadn't even happened yet. He promised to never make it happen again.
And maybe that was selfish, but he didn't care. He knows he couldn't live through another heartbreak like that.
Because sometimes, even though he is powerful and strong, the one willing to make all the tough choices, details get cast aside. And through all the travelling and running, sometimes even he forgets how old he is.