Title: And It Could Be Wonderful (Just Not This Time Around)

Summary: Nine-hundred years and counting, and there are still some things that The Doctor is just beginning to understand. Ten/Jethro. Takes place in the aftermath of 4x10 Midnight.

A/N: Angst. Lots and lots of angst. And also probably some OOC-ness. I blame Jethro. He is a bit of an emo after all.

The Doctor doesn't understand it.

He's been around for longer than he cares to remember at times (nine hundred and something odd years, counting), and he understands more of the universe than anyone else he knows. He can tell you why planets spin and the TARDIS works, why people cry and love, why everything dies, and if he tried he could probably even make a decent guess as to why the universe exists. The Doctor understands many, many things.

What he doesn't understand, what he has never been able to understand, is this: why, in the name of all that is good (or even halfway decent), would a person deny themselves someone that they might just be able to love?

People do it all the time, he knows. One person finds another and somehow they work—they click—and it's good, or it could be good if they tried. But then someone has to ask "Is this right?" and someone has to ask "Do I deserve this?" and someone has to say "I can't do this." Most of the time it's for some silly reason too, like stupid friends or being afraid of being judged.

Maybe it's just that people don't realize how rare it is, to find someone that clicks. How rare it is in the whole universe. Maybe he just sees things like this because he's traveled so long and so far, and he knows that all of his companions were ones out of very large millions, little statistical improbabilities that somehow managed to come true, and that if he didn't have the TARDIS lugging him around the universe…well, he wouldn't have found any of them at all.

Even so, The Doctor finds it hard to understand.

And then he meets Jethro.

When The Doctor meets Jethro, he thinks he might understand, if just in some small, inkling way. Because Jethro is sort of beautiful, and Jethro is absolutely brilliant, and Jethro is stupid in all the best, wonderful ways that sum up human kind. Because when everyone is collapsed on the bus floor after all is said and done, and Jethro ends up sitting two inches too close to him, fingers curled softly into The Doctor's palm, The Doctor knows he can't take him along.

"The Hostess…what was her name?" The Doctor asks, and no one responds for a long time. He can feel Jethro's fingers tense under his, the black painted nails scraping lightly over his skin. "She saved us all, and no one even knew her name."

He feels something like anger. He feels something like sadness.

The Doctor is getting so old, he thinks, that sometimes he can't tell what emotions are what anymore. Then Jethro leans over, close enough that he can feel the boy's heartbeat thrumming in his chest, and says so quietly that the words barely exist: "Pamela. Her name tag said Pamela."

The Doctor thinks he understands.

He could be happy, bringing Jethro along. He could be happy going on adventures in the TARDIS, the boy never far behind. He could be happy waking up with his hand curled over Jethro's hip, their bodies so close that all night they would have been breathing in each other's air.

Because Jethro is sort of beautiful, and absolutely brilliant, and stupid in all the best, wonderful ways that sum up human kind, and now Jethro is broken—just a little. Just like The Doctor. And The Doctor could be happy with that.

The Doctor keeps thinking, though, that if he takes him it'll be the most screwed up thing he's ever done, because he doesn't deserve the way Jethro's hand feels so warm in his—the way the smell of him manages to somehow remind him of some stupid flower on Gallifrey that he hasn't even heard of in ages, let alone seen or touched or smelled. The Doctor can't deserve anyone to fit so perfectly, after he's screwed up so many times. He's sure that Jethro's own brokenness is partly his own fault too, in the end, like everything is.

It feels so natural with Jethro. The Doctor could be happy.

It would be wrong.

He squeezes Jethro's hand tightly, once, before the bus lands and then he lets go. Before the boy can stand, The Doctor is out the door and running as fast as he can. As far as he can possibly go.

By the time Jethro is out too, blinking the sunlight from his eyes and looking for a glimpse of his brown, pinstriped coat, The Doctor wants to be galaxies away.

He understands now.