Tweed and Tinsel

Title: Lonely
Fandom: Doctor Who
Character/s: The Doctor (any)
Word Count: 280
Rating: G
Summary: For a prompt on comment_fic: the TARDIS always seems so much bigger when he's travelling alone.
Warnings/Notes: None

No more companions. It was a hard decision to make, but he knew it was for the best. He loved his companions; loved that willing eagerness and will to survive that was ingrained in humans. He loved how emotional and driven they could be.

And that's why he knew that this decision had to be made. Because he loved them. His was a dangerous life, and he made no pretences about it. He never tried to hide this fact from anybody who ever followed him into the great expanse that was time and space. He told them in plain terms, as though posting a warning in 20-foot-tall neon letters, that it was Not Safe to come with him.

And still they followed. And every time, he'd grow attached, and love them. His wasn't a romantic love -- not the way humans use the words. It's more of a connection; a feeling of deep belonging. Almost as though he grew to need his companions near him to feel complete.

He knew, that with time, he could learn to live with the emptiness that came with travelling alone. He'd travelled solo for centuries and had become quite comfortable with it. And then he took on a companion, and when he saw how badly he had changed the poor girl, how badly she had suffered in the end, and how it at all been for him, he knew that his was no life for a human. Even with all the spirit and fire they posses, he recognised that they're still very fragile creatures, and he refused to be responsible for the suffering of the species he had come to fall in love with.