Doctor Who fic

[icarus_chained]

For merfilly .

Title: Family
Rating: PG
Fandom: Doctor Who
Continuity: Set not long after 'Robot', at the start of the 4th doctor era
Characters/Pairings: the Brigadier
Summary: Alistair reminisces about his Doctor
Wordcount: 865
Disclaimer: Not mine

Family

Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart was not a man given to sentiment. Much. He was, instead, everything the British army expected of one of its finest officers. He was calm, unflappable, and the very model for the famous 'stiff upper lip'. Though that last may, he admitted, have something to do with his mustache. Certainly the Doctor swore it was the only reason. The man had no appreciation for proper grooming. Or proper anything. It was, he supposed, something he had always secretly admired about him.

It had been a while since he'd seen the Doctor, now. Months, maybe. And more than a year since he'd seen his Doctor. The Doctor from their glory days, the short-tempered dandy with his ridiculous lace sleeves. He'd met the other, the new Doctor. He'd been there when he'd changed, actually, and he knew beyond doubt that it was the same man, at heart. Where it mattered. But still. There was a small part of him that whispered, this is not the man you knew.

He wondered what the man would think, knowing he thought that way. The Doctor was always so terribly short-tempered about human inability to 'see beyond the surface'. This new Doctor even more so. Since his change, the man seemed so much more ... alien. Alistair snorted to himself at that. The man was alien. Humans didn't have two hearts, alien spaceships or the scientific knowledge to wave off enemy fleets with one unconcerned hand.

But there had been times, when the Doctor had seemed so close, so very like them ...

He missed him, Alistair realised. He missed the Doctor. More than he'd ever thought he would, and far, far more than he would ever admit to. Especially not to the man himself. But. He did. He missed the Doctor. He missed having him at his side, seeing him puttering around the labs at UNIT headquarters, seeing him snarl grumpily at Liz or Jo or Sarah-Jane. He missed knowing that the Doctor was there, ready and waiting, no matter what came to Earth, no matter what came hunting them. He missed knowing that his friend had his back.

He shouldn't, he knew that. The Doctor had only ever joined UNIT in the first place because his people stranded him on Earth. Alistair shouldn't have expected him to stay, once he was given his freedom once more. The Doctor, of all people, would not be caged. Not for long. Not happily. And that's what Earth was for him. A cage.

But he had stayed. Sort of. There had been a time, between regaining his freedom and that final transformation, when the Doctor had seemed perfectly willing to stay. Oh, he'd fly off to other planets, steal Sarah-Jane and traipse around through time, there and back again in a heartbeat after doing who-knew-what, but ... he always came back. He still treated the labs like a home, like his home. He still treated UNIT like his family, the way they'd become during his exile.

That had changed with the new Doctor. He'd seen it the moment the new man emerged, seen it in the easy but concealing smile, in the eyes that laughed too easily and saw things too far away for one poor human man to follow. He'd known, almost instinctively, that when this Doctor left ... he wasn't going to come back. This Doctor wanted freedom too much, wanted to fly too badly. This Doctor was an alien in truth.

Alistair knew that wasn't something he should begrudge the other man. Not what he was, what he wanted, where he came from. He shouldn't withdraw his caring simply because the man was no longer bound to a human life, simply because he wanted to go out and explore the way he'd always been meant to. The Doctor had never intended to be one of them. Never intended to become ... to become family. It wasn't his fault that he had to leave, to be who he had always been, deep inside. He couldn't blame the Doctor, not for that.

But, oh, how he wanted to ...

No. It wouldn't do! None of this, this ... pointless reminiscence. None of this maudlin moaning. Alistair straightened, lifting his chin, and pushed his chair back purposefully. He would go for a walk. Maybe a surprise inspection. Put the Doctor, new and old, from his mind and get back to the job at hand. The Doctor was who he was. He had his own life, and his own purpose. And so did Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart, Brigadier, UNIT commander.

Your men were your family, that was the first thing he'd learned. You did what you had to do, that was the second. And sometimes, doing what you had to do meant seeing part of that family leave. Sometimes it meant seeing them die, and if you were blessed enough that the parting was not on those terms, then you were damn well grateful for it!

The Doctor no longer counted them as family. Maybe he couldn't. But Alistair knew, he did know, that the man still counted them his friends. For now, for however long, for however many faces the man wore, that would be enough.

It would be enough.