Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tenth Doctor (duplicate)/Rose Tyler Characters: Tenth Doctor (duplicate), Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler Additional Tags: Pete's World, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Angst, Cuddling Summary:

“Aren’t you curious?” The [full Time Lord] smirks at him, flopping his long fringe back with a twitch of his neck.

“What about?” he asks. Still cheeky, that’s good. Some things should never change.

“How I managed to redefine impossible.” The Doctor smiles, fiddling with his shirt cuff.

“You, my friend, are talking to a human-Time Lord biological metacrisis. My very existence redefines the impossible,” he quips back. He thinks it’s strange to feel the need to compete with oneself. Not strange enough to let him get the last word, though.

“Right, yes.” The Doctor chuckles. “No forgetting that.”

“You did get here quickly,” he answers, mumbling. “Rose’d only been back half an hour or so.”

“A little longer for me, but not much, really. I did take it easy through the vortex. To be safe, you know.”

“Right.”

“Actually, we should talk. I noticed a few things that might be part of the problem.” The Doctor drops his voice, brows furrowing.

“We all should talk,” he retorts. “I’m anxious to get started, believe me, but Rose should be in on it. And Jake and Pete’ll be here soon.”

“Yes. Well.” The Doctor blanches, straightens his back. “Right. Waiting. Slowly.”

“Welcome to the slow path, mate.” He smiles at his older self, slapping his shoulder. The Doctor tenses, steps forward to catch his balance.»

- Not Expecting This, by @bookishandi (Chap.3)

“That from the void?”

The Doctor jumps. The metacrisis is beside him, looking over his shoulder. “Yes.” The Doctor stands up straight, adjusts his bowtie, and rocks on his heels in an effort to force the metacrisis out of his personal bubble. [...]

“So the x axis here is the KK field, and the y is the ekpyrotic energy levels?” The other Doctor didn’t take the hint. He leans over the Doctor’s shoulder, pointing at the screen.

“Yes. Can you see the abnormalities?” the Doctor asks. He decides to forget his opinions on personal space and switches into problem-solving mode. Two heads, and all. And two Doctor heads? Particularly effective.

“Right there?” The Metacrisis points again, directly at one of the abnormalities.

“Precisely.” The Doctor nods, proud of himself.

“Where?” A feminine voice this time. Rose. She’s pressing against him on his other side. He can feel her on her tiptoes, swallows as her small hands use his shoulders to steady herself.

“See that line there?” the metacrisis answers before the Doctor gets the chance. “It should wave regularly. It’s a bit spikey.”

“Those few spikes then?” It’s Rose’s turn to point at the screen, arm over his shoulders. He feels her body pressed against his, can’t help but notice her curves or remember lingering embraces. How is she acting like the contact isn’t monumental? It sets his neurons sparking, re-firing long-buried memories and feelings. She acts like not a day has passed; she’s eased back into his life, as though she still belongs here. Maybe she does. Perhaps she always will. His discomfort slowly changes form, something uncanny. Literally unheimlich–an unhomely home. Or a home in an unhomely place. Or both.»

- Not Expecting This, by @bookishandi (Chap.3)

"I do,” [the Doctor] answers immediately. Forgone conclusion. He believes in her.

"Just not about Torchwood?” the metacrisis scoffs.

A simple fact, one he’s overlooked–his inherent trust of Rose clashed with the engrained distrust of Torchwood. And Torchwood won. He pauses, considers. Yes. Distrust of Torchwood wins. "It has a way of making good people do bad things."

"Come on, you've mostly made that up.” The metacrisis laughs. “What about Jack?"

"He's made some decisions I wouldn'tve."

"Not that you were there to help him?"

"I can't save everyone, you know that. I have to make choices."

"And so do we, you pompous prick. I've learned a lot of things here; one of them is that some decisions are a lot harder when you can't just run away in the TARDIS.” The metacrisis is angry. The Doctor’s not sure how to react. He feels his own anger bubbling up between his hearts, but it’s irrational. Too emotional. Perhaps he just doesn’t like the name-calling. His (former) double continues, closer to him now, gesturing emphatically. “We have to make choices, every day. Some we don't like. Some we do like--and some that don’t bother us as much as they should. That's life for us mortals, Doctor." He feels droplets of saliva hit his cheek. The metacrisis is, quite literally, in his face. He ends the tirade poking a long finger sharply into the hollow of the Doctor’s chest.»

- Not Expecting This, by @bookishandi (Chap.4)

“What?”

“Donna?”

“Alive,” the Doctor starts, swallowing the rising emotion. He closes his eyes to tamp it down. No tears. Not again, not any more. “Safe. Married!”

“How did you save her, in the end?” He sits down as he asks, deflated.

“I had to take away her memories of me. Any shred of us.” The Doctor fiddles with his cuffs. “Reset to her first hen’s night, pretty much.”

“She would not go gentle into that good night.” The metacrisis chuckles sadly.

“No. She didn’t. But I couldn’t let her burn.” Swallowing and fiddling isn’t working. He turns to the console again, fiddles with those tools.

“No, I suppose not,” the metacrisis answers, curt and defeated. “But…I can’t help thinking. If she would have been happier dying but remembering?”

“You are quite human.”

“Doesn’t make me wrong.”

“No, I suppose not.” The Doctor laughs.

“Was there any other way?” his double asks, looking past him, beyond now, off into another dimension.

“She hid the effects well, and for too long. By the time I realized…”

“That’s very Donna.” The metacrisis smiles, remembers.»

- Not Expecting This, by @bookishandi (Chap.4)

“Your mum looks pleased,” the Doctor huffs.

“Making you squirm is one of her favorite hobbies. You,” she pauses to poke his chest, “have built up an immunity. That one’s probably well out of practice.” Her hand drifts up and down his arm. “You okay? No lyin’.”

“I’m…” He shrugs. “Thrown.”

“You saw him before, though, yeah?”

“Yes, but , it’s weird to have him here, I’ll admit.”

“Yeah, I know. My heart’s racin’. I knew he was coming, but…” She drops her head to rest on his shoulder. He removes his hand from the TARDIS and pulls her in to him. He feels her other hand clutch at his jacket, bunching it in her fist. He puts his own feelings aside for a moment to help her relax a bit. After all, the stress can’t be good for the baby. Blimey. The baby. He’s trying to stop his very singular and not superhuman heart from dancing right through his ribcage. That thought just added another step to the waltz.

“He is strange. A bow tie, really? I mean, I like the tweed, but he’s not even using a good pattern …” He frowns and sniffs in disapproval, the ease of their banter bringing him back to the world outside his mind.

“The bow tie’s all right. But he’s got nothing on this.” Rose smiles, reaches up, combing and gently tugging on his unkempt hair.

“Ta.” He grins at her.»

- Not Expecting This, by @bookishandi (Chap.3)

Not by a wayward remote control mouse or an unexpected stair step. He feels it–something he hasn’t felt in years.

Time Lord.

It’s a tiny tickle at his brain. Tiny. It’s either far away or…underdeveloped. Like…

He scrambles to his feet, all the grace of a drunken giraffe in this body, and runs into the console room, pushing off corners as he goes, leather soles slipping against metal grating. He rounds the final corner and skids to a stop, breathing heavily.

“Rose?” he gasps. Not what–or who–he expected.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” She steps toward him from the other side of the console. She’s smiling, but there’s a sadness behind it. He tries to answer, but can’t. It’s Rose in his console room, in this console room. “You look good,” she says, stuffing her hands in her pockets. She toes at the grating absentmindedly. She did that when she was nervous. Does that, he supposes.

“Well,” he finally manages. It’s higher pitched than he’d like. “You do, too.” He pulls out his sonic and points it at her, scans it.

“The grabby bit’s a bit weird, yeah?” She smirks as he checks the readout.

“You’re actually here,” he sputters before she finishes.

“Seems so.”»

- Not Expecting This, by @bookishandi (Chap.1)

“And where’s the missus?”

“That’s why…” His older face stops short, his eyes losing focus before his adam’s apple bobs and he looks forward again.

“What’s happened to Rose?” he asks, suddenly feeling there is nothing so urgent in the universe as the answer to this question.

“Nothing yet.” The hologram shakes his head. “Something, maybe? I don’t know. I think it’s something to do with the Bad Wolf. Astronomical signs have been off the charts lately and at first I thought it was just coincidence. A flu, maybe, then I figured it was just normal for this stage of…but that doesn’t matter now.”

“What’s happened?” Anger pushes up from his gut, punching its way up to his throat. He’s a bit more familiar with the feeling in this incarnation than he’d like to admit.

“I don’t know!” His former face explodes in annoyance, then breathes. “I don’t…Nothing and everything. But something’s wrong, it’s like she’s…shorting out…like a faulty wire…and I’ve never seen anything like it before and nothing I do is working and if…”

“If this message is getting through it’s something big,” his voice squeezes through the fingers pressed to his mouth.

“Right.” His older face nods, kicking at the ground of an alternate universe with his toes. The sand in this universe is not upset. A strange visual.»

- Not Expecting This, by @bookishandi (Chap.1)