"Traveling through the time vortex without a capsule…never a good idea." Groaning softly as he opened his eyes to the harsh light of the sun, he promptly shut his eyes again. After drawing in a couple deep breaths, he allowed himself to open his eyes again. "Where in the world did the Angels send me this time? Smells like London, with an underlying hint of something else. Something not quite right." Muttering under his breath he took a couple more deep breaths before pulling his screwdriver from his pocket, standing up and taking some readings.
Lifting his head towards the sky at the sound of turbines slowly cutting through the air, he let out a low moan. "Oh! This is not good. This is so very not good!"
Hurriedly shoving the screwdriver back into his pocket, he hastily straightened his bowtie and headed for the mouth of the alley, not taking his eyes off the zeppelins powering through the sky above him. In his rush to get out of the alley he found himself in, he failed to notice as a black clad woman walked forward to block his progress.
"Stop where you are."
Not paying the woman any heed, the Doctor nearly walked into her as he tried to get out onto the main street.
"I said stop." Pulling her behemoth gun up from where it had been hanging on her side, she pointed the gun straight at the Doctor.
Stopping at the sound of the gun priming, he finally looked down to see the barrel of the gun pointed straight at his left heart. "A gun? Really? Why do you lot always point guns at people you don't know. I mean, have you ever considered just inviting people over for tea and Jammy Dodgers. Jammy Dodgers are quite delicious and a wonderful way of making new friends. Why do you always ignore the niceties and go straight to violence?"
Finally getting a good look at the woman holding up his progress, the Doctor jumped slightly back in shock and started mumbling under his breath. "Really? Could there have been anyone worse to meet straight off in this world. Why couldn't they have dropped me somewhere boring, like
Leadworth? Meeting alternate Amy would be so much better than this."
"What are you going on about? Why is meeting me so bad?" Letting her gun stoop just slight as she leaned in to hear what the strange man before her was saying, the woman stared curiously at the man before her. "Who are you? Where'd ya come from?"
"That Rose Tyler isn't something I can answer. At least, not easily. Although I guess that right there answers one of your questions. You are Rose Tyler. That is why it is so bad to be meeting you. By all rights, I shouldn't be meeting you at all. This is so, so very bad. I really do need to be going. I can't stay here. The longer I stay here the worse off my chances of getting back are. Good day to you Rose." Not waiting for her response, the Doctor shoved past her and managed to get back on the street.
"Stop!" swiveling around, Rose raised her gun at the quickly retreating back of the confounding man. "Stop or I shoot."
At the no nonsense sound in her voice, the Doctor halted in his footsteps.
"How do you know my name? Answer me. How do you know my name?" As she spoke, Rose slowly circled around the man so that she was once again facing him.
"How do you think I know your name?"
"I don't know. Why do you think I am asking you?" When the Doctor failed to answer, Rose kept going. "Well, all I can say with any certainty is that you are from the other universe. But just cause you are from another universe doesn't explain how you know my name."
"How did…" Running forwards before Rose could react; the Doctor snagged the pair of glasses she had been wearing off her face and put them on. "Oh! Cool! Void stuff! Would you look at that?!"
Staring at the man, Rose could help but laugh a little as he waved his hands before his face before grabbing her hands—forcing her to drop her hold on her gun—as if to compare.
"How did you get these? I have only seen one pair of Void stuff detectors before and they were
lost. Oh did you bring them with you? But, what have you done with them. They seem to do more than just detect Void stuff." Pulling is screwdriver out of his pocket once more, he fiddled with the settings before hold them over the glasses that were now being held in his left hand.
"What is that?" Staring at the vaguely familiar object, Rose felt her jaw drop just slightly. "But…how can you…It's not possible."
Realizing what Rose was staring at, the Doctor tried to surreptitiously hide the screwdriver back in his pocket. "What was what? Here are your glasses back, by the way. Fantastic piece of equipment. Really, I wouldn't mind a pair for myself. Although, I think Amy, or River, might kill me or blow up the glasses if I came back wearing them. I already have enough trouble trying to convince them that bowties are cool. What do you say? Bowties. Cool, right?"
"Um…no. Not so much. But don't think you are going to distract me that easily. My friend used to try that on me all the time and I am immune. Now tell me, what was that that you just put in your pocket. The sonic…" Not allowing herself to continue Rose reached forward and grabbed her glasses back from the Doctor and jammed them on her face.
"What? This? Just my sonic screwdriver. Now, back to those glasses. What exactly do they do since they clearly do more than I thought they did on first impression?"
"Sonic screwdriver? But, I only know of one person in the entire universe who used a sonic screwdriver. But, you can't be that man. I just saw him, not a month ago. You most certainly are not him."
"Come on. Think about it. Maybe I am not that man. I mean, that friend of yours can't be the only man in the universe who uses a sonic screwdriver. There must be hundreds of people who would think a sonic screwdriver to be useful."
"Would you lay off it already? I don't know why you are so reluctant to say it. But everything adds up to you being the Doctor. But, what'd you do?" Walking forwards, Rose raised a hand to the Doctor's face. "Why'd you regenerate? How could you have died in less than a month apart? Although, I see you still aren't Ginger."
"I know! Isn't it awful. No matter how many times I regenerate I can't seem to manage the simple task of giving myself red hair. Would it really be that hard? A switch of a gene here or there and voila! But no, I am stuck with brown hair. Again! So, besides the lack of red hair, what do you think? How do I look?" Spinning around, arms holding his jacket open so Rose could see, the doctor showed off his new self.
"Different."
"Good different or bad different? No wait! Don't answer that. We've had this conversation before. You're just going to say 'just different'. Right?"
"Well, are you going to say anything?" sighing exasperatedly at having to ask, the Doctor looked pointedly at Rose.
"You seemed to have been doing such a fine job of answering your own questions; I thought I would just wait to see how you'd answer that one." Rose said with a cheeky smile.
Grabbing his hand, Rose started walking down the road towards her van. "So, are you ever going to tell me how this new body came about? Or how you even came to be back in this universe? Is it possible for me to get back over there? I have been trying, but so far nothing is working. But, if you could manage it, there must be a way to get back across. How did you manage it?"
Suddenly stopping, the Doctor pulled Rose around so that she was facing him. "You know I can't tell you that. If I tell you anything, it could mess up either, or both, of our timelines."
"Doesn't the fact that you are here with me now mess up our timelines? How could my knowing how you die mess them up any more than that? It isn't like I'm going to see you again, so why can't you tell me? And, I thought you would have been more worried at the idea of tearing the universes apart then messing up timelines." Eyes widening, Rose lets out a small gasp. "Does this mean I do it? I make it back to the other universe? Please, Doctor, you have to tell me."
"Rose…"
A/N: This is my first ever attempt at a Dr Who fic. I wrote this as a gift for my team mod at Castleland on LJ and partially as a challenge to maybe convince myself that the 11th Doctor is okay. Not sure it worked, but it was definitely an interesting experiment.