A/N- Apparently there are fans who are torn between RTD and Moffat- going so far as to say one was absolutely perfect and the other was/is terrible and the show was miserable when they ran it. I believe both have/had equally great strengths and equally low weaknesses, just in different ways. This is the start of a non-connected crack series where I explore their shared shortcomings- the rule is nearly any character is fair game, as long as both producers are equally represented and the shortcomings explored are at least comparable between the two.
Disclaimer: I admire both producers and much of what each brings/brought to the show despite the issues being scrutinised. All of this is written in good fun and with the intention of humour, not malice.
The characters contained or discussed in this story are the Tenth Doctor Duplicate, Eleventh Era Clara, and Tenth Era Rose.
Big thank you to morganfm and kehwie for the beta. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Somewhere off on a distant beach in an alternate dimension of the Doctor's timestream, two lone travellers conveniently and not at all coincidentally meet. I'd tell you why or how, but I'd rather skip over that explanation and get on with the more exciting bits instead- besides, it's sci-fi, so it obviously doesn't REALLY need an explanation anyway.
"Who are you?" the petite, preposterously attractive young brunette woman with an alluring smirk, short skirt, and captivating brown eyes asks.
"I'm the Doctor- well, a clone of him anyway," responds the scandalously gorgeous, young (though, admittedly, not as young as the female), charming man with a flirtatious smile and tempting wink.
"Oh- I remember this- you grew out of his hand after a convenient half- regeneration!" the woman cheers excitedly.
"Yup," the man says, popping the p, "that's me. Although, it's only considered a half-regeneration until after my show hits 50 years. Then, we're going to start to consider it a full- regeneration in which the original Doctor chose not to regenerate and to just heal. Not previously canon, but what is canon really, but loose, fluid concept only relied upon when convenient? Call me Handy."
"Ah- because of the hand thing," she says with a knowing nod before taking a sip of the tea that has suddenly appeared in her hand.
"No, no- that'd be ridiculous. It's because I was a handy excuse to bring back a familiar that had already been written off, but my production team was trying to tie up loose ends quickly and needed to bring her back. No unhappy endings with me. Unless your name is Donna. Or you're a redshirt on this show. Long story."
"Ooh- that makes sense. I'm handy too! Well, I'm always called some form of Clara Oswald, though sometimes I do add an Oswin in there to mix things up. But handy would really be a better name for me." she exclaims with a clap, her tea now mysteriously gone. Forget the tea, the tea was a silly idea anyway. Moving on with the conversation, the tea is in the past and doesn't have any bearing past the point where she just finished sipping it, so pretend the tea never existed. Maybe she'll remember the tea later on at the very end for a brief moment, but we won't speak of it again until I decide whether or not that'll be convenient. So for now- no tea.
"Oh, did you grow out of an amputated limb someone decided to keep on a whim as well? As you do. Nostalgic, that."
"No: I'm the Impossible Girl! I can do anything- literally! Just tell me what the plot needs, and I'm your girl," she explains, looking up into the sky where all the stars were suddenly blinking out of existence, the darkness threatening to overcome everything but the beach on which they were standing.
"That does sound handy," the Doctor Duplicate agrees pensively, his mind filling with the endless possibilities of scenarios he could now insert this stand-in body known as the Impossible Girl into.
"It is. And if that's not enough- I'm also scattered along the original Doctor's timeline- rewriting every decision he's made- including choosing his TARDIS," she declares smugly, crossing her arms and snapping her fingers to prove a point no one was asking her to. Without warning, a random door opens to their left.
"But, he chose his TARDIS because his TARDIS chose him," Handy argues with Donna's conviction, his voice as firm and yell-y as hers once was. Then he goes through the millennia of memories he had inherited from the Doctor, trying to recall the day not-him ran away, but keeps getting caught up with trying to close off his mind from the Time Lord consciousness that was burning his human- no, wait. Conveniently, though human in aging and lack of second heart, his mind is completely Time Lord so he could still maintain that consciousness in his not-Time Lord body and not burn up. Ah well, Donna. Forget I said anything. Oh. Wait...
"Oh, that's so Series 6. Best not let's get caught up with previously established "canon" on such a show as this- I told you. Impossible Girl. And you're dreamy, and a duplicate of a "new series" Doctor. So I think I quite fancy you."
"Oh, that's nice. I'd fancy you too, except I don't fancy people, supposedly. Well, except for Lynda. And Jabe. Well, there was that time with Madame de Pompadour. And Joan Redfern- oh Astrid, too. Then there was River, but again, I don't fancy anyone except sometimes R- What are you doing?" he asks, watching Clara transform slowly, her hair elongating and growing lighter. He then holds up a hand to pause her transformation so they can stand still and have a brief chat about what had happened to the tea he could have sworn she had at one point, but then he realises its inconvenience in this part of the story, so he decides to move past that back into the main conversation, remembering the tea is not as important as I made it seem at the beginning when I first mentioned it. She resumes her transformation.
"Told you, Handy- I'm the Impossible Girl. I can do things that last week made no sense. I'm changing my hair to blonde. Now what do you think?"
"Ulp. Well, that's… You're perfect now," he comments, eyes dark, either with desire or angst and guilt, I couldn't really say. Probably both.
"I know! And I'll always do this- change according to what's most suitable," she offers- the gun now in one hand and computer in the other more representations of her flexibility and impossibility. "What's happening?" she asks as the darkness is really beginning to bother her now.
"Oh, my old companion Rose decided she'd rather have the real Doctor no matter what, then she changed her mind and came back when something better came along, so rather than let the universe be, she went against his explicit warnings and broke through the dimensions, and now the universe is ending." The Handy clone explains calmly.
"Oh! Not to worry. I have this big red button! Press it and everything bad will reverse, just like it never happened. Nobody other than you will even remember it. Well, maybe I will occasionally. When I need to." Blonde Clara hands him the button.
"We'll call it the Destruction of Time and Space that Never Was," Handy agrees fondly, even thinking his title in capital letters to give it more emphasis. He presses the button, and suddenly stars start reappearing as though they'd never left, the beach sunny and alive as it wasn't before and Blonde Clara is looking at him as though they were simply in the middle of a conversation.
He smiles and winks at her, his grin wide and flirtatious once more. "Well, I conveniently can only live a human life span now, because otherwise my old companion would do something ridiculously selfless like stay with the original me forever to keep him from being alone, like she used to claim was what she wanted. Well, before I came along. So, what do you say, Clara? Want to be whatever the week calls for together with me?"
"Sure- but only on Wednesdays. I can't afford to stop my life even for all of space and time, despite my original desire to travel," she rolls her eyes patronisingly, "that was so my first episode. But don't worry- I'll still miraculously grow fond enough to you during these brief meetings to be torn apart into a million pieces if that's what you need."
"And that's all I ask. That, and that you never give me a choice in the matter- I demand you leave me wherever we land, and assume that's what I want, don't ever actually ask my opinion," he says, remembering the wonderful day he was given to a young girl by his original on a beach not too different from this. He had offered to spend his life with her when he noticed he was going to be left behind either way and she had briefly turned her head from the Doctor she wanted. But now here was a Rose-lite to keep him company.
"Of course," she says, assuming a role she previously wouldn't have undertaken as though it were natural.
"And can I call you Rose, just to make sure you feel inferior to her regardless of how brilliant you are in your own right? I'd also like to ignore you and sulk more than I did at the horrible burning of my family, planet, and everything I'd ever known at my own hands."
"That's fine. Besides, I rescued your planet. Well, I saw you burn it in the first place, probably- you know how it goes, all shacks in the middle of a random desert do tend to look the same. But, I have a way of rewriting your history with me in it just for the sake of having me in it, so I went back to your infancy and planted it in your mind to rescue Gallifrey one day, so one way or the other, I saved your people- repeatedly throughout time. Then died," she said this last bit thoughtfully, before remembering his first question, "And actually, you can call me Rosewin."
"Well, since it's my first chance to say it: Rosewin- "