TITLE: Pushing Forward.
AUTHOR: Mexx.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Boo.
FANDOM: Doctor Who, Tenth Doctor.
RATING: Suitable for all.
SUMMARY: TPOW Coda. (I'm sorry, I really am.) Ten explains regeneration, and Rose does not angst.
"Where was I? Oh, that's right: Barcelona!"
"What'd you just do?" Rose asked, startled.
The man in front of her - the Doctor? - shrugged. "Told you, it's a thing my race do. Sorta like a cat with nine lives; we regenerate."
"Regenerate?" she echoed stupidly.
"I suppose you could say that when our bodies die we morph into new ones."
"And you were planning on telling me about this when?" Rose asked sarcastically, glaring at him.
"I told you just now, didn't I?" he replied in an annoyingly pompous tone, and Rose supposed he might just have been infuriating enough to actually be the Doctor.
Rose let out a heavy sigh, trying to wrap her mind around this new information. Wrapping her arms around herself uncertainly, she sank to the floor and leant against one of the textured columns.
The man in front of her quietened. He fiddled with the controls a little, but mostly remained still. That was new. All very new, all very peculiar, and yet somehow, she wasn't entirely surprised by all of this. It was the Doctor, nothing was normal about him, and this well, this new version of him, she supposed, still retained something that was inexplicably him. Despite the longer hair, the darker features, the southern accent, something about him hadn't changed. She couldn't explain it in words in her head, but she could feel it.
"So, what? You've got nine lives?" she asked, finally looking up at him.
"Nah, thirteen. This is number ten."
"Thought you said you were like a cat!" Rose argued.
"Sort of like a cat, I said. Didn't say I only had nine lives, did I?" he retorted, and poked again at the TARDIS controls.
Rose pushed her tongue behind her teeth, and fought back a smile. She could definitely feel it was him. No one else would argue with her quite like it. "You still you though, right?"
"Sort of, yeah," he replied. The Doctor - yes, she thought to herself, the Doctor - slunk towards her and slipped down onto the floor next to her. He rested his forearms on his knees and clasped his hands together. "I say," he whispered conspiratorily to her, "how are my ears this time?"
Rose turned and looked at him, the sly, cheeky grin on his face impossible to frown on. "You'll do," she laughed.