Chapter Text
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Donna watched open-mouthed as the glowing form of a humanoid took shape on the floor of the TARDIS and slowly coalesced into the body of an unfamiliar man--a very naked one. She looked at the newly-formed creature, shocked when he leapt to his feet, shaking the sparkling residual energy from his body. “Who the bloody hell are you?” Her mouth was hanging open in shock. “What the hell just happened?”
“Oh don’t be stupid!” The man gave her a maniacal grin and leaned over to input the TARDIS de-materialization sequence, taking them out of the core of the Dalek Crucible. “My hand in the jar, filled with the extra regeneration energy I didn’t need. Then you touched it--here I am. Just in time to save you silly apes.” He stopped short. “Bloody hell, the Northern accent again!”
“So you’re…another Doctor?” She stared at him, taking in the piercing blue eyes and short dark hair that framed his dominant features and ears. “What is it with you Time Lords? Lop off a piece and grow another? You’re like worms, you are!”
“No, I’m unique, me.” He moved around the console, completely undisturbed that his naked body was now on open display in front of Donna, who was looking at him with piqued interest. “Instantaneous biological meta crisis.” A few quick flicks of the TARDIS controls took them far enough away from the Dalek Crucible to repair some of the more severe damage to the ship. “I’m him, maybe a bit of you thrown in.” He considered her briefly, then grimaced. “Don’t know how bad that’s gonna be. Might need an exorcism.”
“Oi! Naked space man!” She put her hands on her hips, glaring pointedly below his waist. “Better be careful who you insult with your bits hanging out like that!”
“Humans.“ He snorted. “Try and restrain yourself.” He moved so the console was safely back between them. “We’re practically related now.” He stopped and thought about it for a moment, pressing a hand to his chest. “One heart? But that means… I’m…. human! I regenerated into an ape! Could it get any worse?”
Donna narrowed her eyes at the blue eyed stranger, and he held up both his hands recognizing the threat she conveyed silently. “Gonna get some clothes,” he backed away from her. “I’ve got work to do, planets to rescue, universe to save…”
He made his way hastily to the wardrobe room, stopping to look at himself in the full-length mirror. “Bloody hell!” The face that stared back at him was a shock. Instead of seeing deep brown eyes and thick tawny hair, his face featured prominent ears and blue eyes. “You are kidding me!” He stopped short at the sound of Donna’s favorite expression coming out of his mouth in a Northern accent, and immediately vowed to never say that again. His thoughts then turned to Rose and he touched his now-unfamiliar face, shaking his head. What would she think? Now there were two of him, one of each version she’d known. How was this ever going to work? And which one would she prefer? He was terribly afraid it wouldn’t be him.
Quickly he shoved the unsettling thoughts from his mind and ran his hands over his chest and hips. Yes. He had not only the looks of his Ninth self, but the greater size and weight as well. Wouldn’t be hard to figure out what to wear then, not that he really cared. Moving past the racks of coats and wildly colored apparel, he went to the farthest racks….and yes. Just there where he’d left them. Quickly he pulled on a pair of jeans and winced, yanking them back off and went searching for a pair of briefs. He’d forgotten how rough denim could be against the bare skin, or maybe it was just this new body? Were humans more sensitive to skin chafing? Had he ever even noticed it before?
After a few moments he’d suited up and returned to the console room, where Donna waited for him. She looked him up and down, taking in the jumper, jeans, and leather jacket. She watched him as he pulled up the floor grates and crawled down to work on the damaged TARDIS without a word to her.
“So…” she finally broke the silence after a few minutes, “if you’re the Doctor, why do you look like that?”
“Like what?” He swung himself back up out of the floor easily and pilfered through the console until he found a spare sonic screwdriver.
She watched him disappear back into the floor. “The hair…” she wandered over and peeked down at him. “The real Doctor’s nothing like you. He’s kind of fluffy and pretty. You’re kind of…rough and Northern-sounding. Big ears too. ”
“Oi! Donna, I am the Doctor, it’s still me no matter what I look like!” He glanced up at her, annoyed. “Metacrisis from my hand!” He waved it at her. “My newly regenerated hand from my last regeneration. Old me, current me-it could have gone either way! This situation calls for a soldier and my Ninth form was much more a soldier than my Tenth.” He began stripping and cutting wires, rapidly determining the most important repairs to complete before going back to the Crucible. “Don’t have time for you to sit ‘round holding a summit. Quit the chatter and hand me a spanner!”
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When the TARDIS rematerialized back inside the Crucible, it was a relatively short period of time before the Daleks were neutralized and the misplaced planets returned where they belonged. The shock of being hit by the energy blast, and seeing Rose in danger made it seem excruciatingly long though. Thankfully the newly formed Doctor didn’t have time to worry about Rose’s reaction to him while they were still on the Crucible, and when the opportunity came to destroy the Dalek fleet he didn’t hesitate. They were Daleks, would destroy anything and everything if left to survive. He almost relished destroying them if the truth were to be told. He pulled the lever, and felt a wave of fury from the other Doctor’s mind sweep over him when he realized what he’d done.
There was no time for them to do anything but run back to the TARDIS and make their escape, the alien ships exploding around them as she de-materialized. He felt the weight of the original Doctor’s anger in the back of his mind and he looked up to find him watching him. Their eyes met across the TARDIS console after the group piloted the Earth out of the Medusa Cascade and back home.
The new Doctor ignored the anger of the other though, and moved over to Rose, bumping her shoulder. “Hey.” He couldn’t hold back the wide smile that stretched across his face as he took her hand, touching her for the first time.
She grinned back, still unsure of what it meant to have two Doctors in the TARDIS, but unable to resist the flood of emotion that came with seeing his face again. “I don’t know how it’s you…” she launched herself into his arms and clung tightly to him, “but it is you isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” He held her close for a long moment, savoring the feel of her and only releasing her when his human body reacted quite noticeably. “Still the Doctor. Run for your life?” He squeezed her hand and searched her eyes.
“How’s this going to work?” She looked back and forth uncertainly between him and the Doctor in pin-stripes. “Both of you in the TARDIS?”
“Makes me want to sign back on,” Jack interrupted, leaning in from behind Rose, kissing her on the cheek and pulling her back against him. “You and two Doctors? It’s the stuff of my wildest fantasies.” He gave the new Doctor a look that positively dripped with his patented Harkness-sensuality.
The new Doctor ignored the Captain, instead glaring at his familiarity with Rose. “Always wanting to play with fire.“ He gave him a pointed look, silently warning him away from his old companion. “Dangerous fantasy, that.”
“But I’d die happy, over and over again.” Jack smiled raunchily. “And you’re just like I remember. Still have the same ‘hands off the blonde attitude’. This is almost too much for me. C’mere.” He released Rose and gave the Doctor a long, lingering hug. “I missed you.”
The Doctor let him hug him for a moment then stepped back as Jack’s hands began to wander down where they didn’t belong. “I’m the same as him.” he nodded over where the pinstriped Doctor pretended not to watch them. “Only missing a few minutes of memories is all. Just got my old face.”
“The old everything if I’m not mistaken,” Jack said flirtatiously with a wink. “If you give me a few minutes I’d be more than happy to check out the rest of you.”
“Jack, we’re coming to your stop!” The Doctor on the other side of the console interrupted loudly, throwing him an irritated look that was remarkably similar to the one the Doctor in leather had given him.
The new Doctor turned away as Rose hugged Jack tightly, moving over to Mickey and Sarah Jane. “Ricky.“ He nodded at the man. “You’ve come a long way since the Powell Estates and plastic dummies. Good work back there.“ He almost cracked a grin at the look on the other man’s face.
“It’s Mickey,“ he said in a long-suffering tone. “And you’ve come a long way too. Never thought I’d see those ears again.“
“Oi! Lay off the ears, Ricky boy!“ This time the human Doctor did grin, with a fondness not missed by the younger man. “And Sarah Jane,“ He turned to her and took her hands in his, stroking his thumbs over them. “My Sarah Jane.”
She looked up at him, taking in his new features, but concentrating on his eyes. “It really is you.” She smiled warmly after a moment, recognizing the ancient man housed in the new body. “Quite a bit different from the other versions I’ve known, but still the same man.”
“Do I need to apologize for Croyden in this form too? C’mere.” He pulled her close for a long hug. He felt the Time Lord watching him but took his time releasing her. “Still my Sarah Jane.” He kept hold of her hands, as the TARDIS began rumbling in her re-materialization sequence around them.
In the flurry of goodbyes that followed amongst the others, the new Doctor slipped off through the TARDIS, losing himself in the maze of corridors. He made his way to a room that was hidden away, where he could take stock of everything that had happened and hopefully pull himself together.
Orange skies and deep red grass greeted him, and he closed his eyes for a moment letting himself believe he was really back home on Gallifrey. A deep sadness filled him and he strode over to throw himself down at the base of a silver-leafed tree. In his mind he could feel the other Doctor’s anger towards him…and something else. He tested the link between them, realizing that the other had no intention of allowing him to stay. He closed his eyes, pressing harder, and felt the other’s mental shields slam up, blocking him out. He sat still for long moments, clenching and unclenching his fists. It wasn’t hard to guess that he intended to drop him off somewhere, taking Rose and the TARDIS with him.
'Over my dead, cold body!’
He savagely flung the thought back at the other Doctor. He shoved himself up, and walked deeper into the room, anger and loneliness threatening to overcome him. He didn’t belong, was definitely being rejected by his Time Lord self. He wasn’t of Earth, wasn’t of Gallifrey, he belonged nowhere and even his own body felt foreign to him. He began to run testing it out, and found himself getting winded much sooner than he’d expected. Damned human body, single-hearted and frail, no respiratory bypass…
He kept running, his anger brewing as he catalogued the differences, the weaknesses that he felt plagueing him now. He finally slowed, knowing he’d run the circumference of the room many times, but the TARDIS had changed the appearance as he’d moved, giving him the feeling of having traveled a long distance. “Thanks old girl,” he whispered, then became aware of the presence of the original Doctor as he entered the room.
He moved to face him, crossing his arms over his chest. “I can hear your mind, I know what you’re thinking.” He gave him a moody stare. “What’s it to be?”
The other Doctor avoided his eyes, looking into the distance. “We’ve left Earth, starting the journey back to the parallel world.” His shoulders were taut with tension. “You…you’re unpredictable, dangerous. I can’t take you with me.”
“Knew that’s what you’d say.” The new Doctor pulled off his leather jacket and let it drop to the ground, uncomfortably sweaty after his run. “You’re pissed off that I made a decision without consulting you.”
“You may have come from me, but you didn’t handle that situation the way I would have!” The original Doctor raked his hand through his hair and began to pace. “ You killed an entire race without even a second thought!” He turned and stopped, this time meeting his eyes directly. “You gave no thought to any other possibility, any other outcome, you just killed them all!” He jammed his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “And you did it without any thought to the people with us! What if the TARDIS hadn’t been able to get us out in time before the whole place went up? You‘d have been responsible for killing everyone!”
“Oh don’t give me that! I repaired the TARDIS myself. I knew we‘d escape.” The other Doctor’s voice raised and his accent became even stronger. “They were Daleks! You’d have done the same damn thing! You have! That fleet could have wiped out half the universe even without the Reality Bomb!”
“No.” The Tenth Doctor’s eyes were hard and cold. “You may be part Time Lord, but you’re also part human and acting with the impulses of one. I can’t be responsible for letting you loose in this universe. I won’t take you with me. I won‘t risk it.”
“The TARDIS is as much mine as yours!” The new Doctor felt anger consume him and wanted to strike out at the other. He strode over to him and stopped inches from him, fury radiating from him. “And I’ve as much right to Rose too. Maybe more now.” He glared in open challenge, his blue eyes fiery with barely-suppressed emotion. “Human now, me! I won’t push her away like we did before!”
“No, I don’t imagine you would.” A look of intense sadness washed over the Tenth Doctor’s face. He finally shook his head and straightened to his full height. “But Rose isn’t some sort of prize to be fought over, and neither is the TARDIS. You’re not Gallifreyan, you only have whatever is left of the lifespan of that human body. The TARDIS needs an actual Time Lord. That‘s not you.” His words weren’t meant to be unkind; if anything there was a hint of apology in them.
The new Doctor was silent, his anger deflating somewhat with a sick acknowledgement of the truth in the other‘s words. He shivered, suddenly feeling chilled by more than the lower temperature in the room. He cursed the human body he’d been stuck with, and shrugged back into his leather coat. “What d’you mean to do?” His tone was rough, and he shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the clenching of his fists.
“Well,” the brown-eyed Doctor tugged his ear and looked up at the ‘sky’. “That’s a problem. I can’t take you with me, you’d probably end up destroying any aliens we met before giving them a chance to speak. I can’t leave you alone either, not until you’ve acclimated to your new body and had a chance to work through some of that anger you’re projecting all over the place.” He paused and shook his head. “You’ve got the fuse of a human and the knowledge of a Time Lord. You’re quite possibly the most dangerous being in the universe right now, Rassilon help us all.”
“Who are you to bloody decide what I am?" The new Doctor hissed taking several steps away. “Don’t give me your ‘Almighty Time Lord’ speech! I was you not long ago!”
“But you’re not now.” The Doctor said quietly, looking at him with pity. “So much knowledge, so much experience and all packed into that so-human body.”
The man in leather saw red at the slight. “Sod off!” He strode back to him, breathing heavily as he battled futilely to hold back his temper. “I might have come from you, but don’t you dare look down on me!” Turning on his heel, he slammed his hand hard against the wall, then stormed out of the room.
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