Starfall
Chapter 00: Children in Need 2005
Almadynis
Disclaimer: I would love to own Doctor Who… however, I am but a lowly college student and all I happen to own is my car...and Astrid, no takies! *sniffles* Nor do I own David Tennant, who has finally made an entrance. *sigh*
AN: This is the sequel to "Sister Star", if you haven't read that, this will be a bit confusing… okay, a LOT confusing. Go read it!
AN2: This chapter is brought to you by YouTube! Specifically, the account of laurencewho. *bows* Thank you, mighty Whovian!
Astrid's thoughts
[flashback]
The Doctor smiled widely back at her for the last few moments before suddenly, he convulsed and orange, yellow, and golden energy exploded from his skin, blasting out of the neck of his jumper, the sleeves of his jacket and the bottoms of his trousers. Rose and Astrid staggered backwards, shielding their eyes from the heat and light - but they cannot look away. Rose stared transfixed, as gradually, the Doctor's hair lengthened, his face changed... until the energy eventually died away and a completely new man stood before her, still wearing the old Doctor's clothes. He looked slightly surprised for a moment, before turning to look at Rose and Astrid.
"Hello! Okay-oo." He gulped and ran his tongue over his teeth, brow furrowed in a small frown. He looks just like David Tennant! Why the heck does that sort of coincidence occur? If this is all a delusion in my head, I'm going to be really pissed off when I wake up in the mental hospital! He was still talking. "New teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right! Barcelona."
Rose stared at him with undisguised shock and he grinned at her.
Astrid had no such compunction. She marched right up to Ten, balled up her fist, and punched him directly in his nose. "That's for handcuffing me to the railing! Where the hell did you get psychic handcuffs anyway?" He hand one hand over his nose, staring at her in shock, unable to answer. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket—well, the Ninth Doctor's jacket—and pulled him close to kiss the dickens out of him. He grinned into her mouth and she mapped out his mouth with her tongue and he with hers. When she finally pulled back, she was breathless, but she still managed to say, "And that's for not dying." She smiled up at him and his new brown eyes stared down at her, smiling. "Oh, and if you EVER handcuff me again without my consent first, I will force you into an early Eleven. Got it?" He nodded quickly.
[end flashback]
He suddenly dashed to the console computer screen and began to flick switches, turn dials, and constantly checked the monitor. "Six p.m…Tuesday…"
Rose watched, hidden partly behind a coral-themed pillar, while Astrid took the time to sit on the bus seat and look at her right hand. It felt weird. Not pain, exactly. A bit like it fell asleep…but more. But the feeling was slowly fading away, so it couldn't be that bad, could it?
The Doctor turned another knob. "October… 5006… On the way to Barcelona!" He backed away from the console and faced Rose. He knew that Astrid liked him this way, the kiss proved it. Rose was a bit more of a questionable factor. She probably still didn't understand what had happened, he didn't blame her, when he was in school he took a course on regeneration. Rose didn't have that luxury. He grinned at Rose. "Now then… what do I look like?" Wait, what if he was ugly? What if he had no head? He didn't give her a chance to reply. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Don't tell me."
Rose didn't quite know what to make of this man. He was all sorts of weird.
Astrid began to giggle slightly to herself as she watched him figure out his own new body. This is one way to take attention away from my hand. Well, the feeling is almost completely back now, nothing to worry about.
"Let's see… two legs, two arms, two hands…" He tested his right wrist, encircling it with his left as he slowly rotated it. "Slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle." Hmmm…this one seems to be an ACTUAL doctor…how interesting. I wonder if we could play 'Doctor' one day? Maybe. His hands flew to his head and ruffled the spiky 'hair of an idiot'. "HAIR! I'm not bald!"
Rose really didn't understand what was going on; she was shocked to her core. This made no sense.
The Doctor didn't seem to see the blond as he continued to analyze his new body. "Oh! Oh! Big hair!" His hands traveled down. "Sideburns. I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin. Little bit thinner…" He patted his stomach. "That's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it." Then he made a discovery as he was feeling his waist. "I… have got…a mole. I can feel it."
Astrid didn't know who to look at. Rose, who was starting to look really scared, or the Doctor who couldn't seem to stop talking long enough to notice.
"Between my shoulder blades, there's a mole." He rotated his shoulders to feel it better, making the cloth rub against it. "That's all right. Love the mole." He grinned at Rose, finally focusing back on her. "Go on then, tell me." He straightened, facing full forward at Rose. He was finally finished analyzing himself and was ready for how she saw him. "What do you think?"
Rose didn't understand, and him talking to himself at such a ridiculous pace hadn't helped, it had cemented the fact that he really wasn't the Ninth Doctor. Which he wasn't. He was now Ten. Her voice was very quiet, hesitant and timid. "Who are you?"
Ten didn't really know how to handle this. He was surprised and crestfallen all at the same time. "I'm the Doctor."
Rose shook her head. He was too different, he had just spent two minutes proving how different he was. He couldn't be the Doctor. "No, where is he? Where's the Doctor?" She had just crossed space and time with her best friend to save the man, and now he was gone? Her voice rose and gained strength. "What have you done to him?"
"You saw me, I—I changed…" he pointed over his shoulder at the exact spot where he regenerated. "…right in front of you."
She didn't believe him, not yet. "I saw him sort of explode, and then you replaced him. Like a—a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something." The Doctor didn't speak, he couldn't seem to come up with the words. Rose took a few steps toward him, only to push him backwards in the chest with a single finger. "You're not fooling me." I think that's my cue.
Astrid got to her feet, drawing both of their attention to her. She smiled gently at Rose. "This is the Doctor, Rose. Time Lords have a genetic mutation that lets them live a really long time by changing their own appearance. Their personality changes…as you have already seen, this one has got a mouth on him like you wouldn't believe."
"Oi!" The Doctor half-glared at her, which made her smile sweetly up at him.
"You do." She stepped between the Doctor and Rose as if she was a mediator, and went back to instructing Rose on the finer details of Time Lords. "Now, they can only do this twelve times, or a total of thirteen regenerations. Or is it twelve regenerations?" She looked over at the Doctor for confirmation.
"The first one."
"Right, thirteen regenerations. Thirteen different faces, but his core personality, the things that MAKE him the Doctor…those don't change, Rose. Those pieces never change." She smiled gently at the blond. "The one we've been traveling with, the one who tasted like leather and sandalwood…" a tear slid down her cheek, but the smile stayed even as her voice broke a little. "that was the Ninth Doctor, and he is now gone. This-" she gestured to the brown-eyed man to her left, "—is the Tenth Doctor."
Rose looked at Astrid, her eyes pleading with the female brunette. "Send him back."
Astrid took a breath. Her heart ached a bit, the Doctor she had known, had shared her first kiss with, her first dance with, was gone. She wanted him back more than Rose did. "No one can bring him back, Rose. Don't you think I want to see him again? But he's gone." A tear fell before she hastily wiped it away. "And yet, he's not. It's still him, Rose. It's just a little bit different him. He still cares for us in the same way. He is the Doctor."
Rose focused on him. "Can you change back?"
His response was very quick. "Do you want me to?"
Hers was just as fast. "Yeah."
Astrid however, was shaking her head vigorously. "No. Don't you dare."
Rose ignored her friend for the moment. "Can you?"
"No." He seemed rather disappointed in her. He glanced at the floor for a few moments before refocusing on Rose. "Do you want to leave?"
Rose was shocked, her face slack. "Do you want me to leave?"
The Doctor quickly rejected that idea. "No! But… your choice… if you want to go home…" Rose still didn't know what to think of the new him. He went to the console again and began to narrate as he flipped switches. "Cancel Barcelona. Change to… London… the Powell Estate… ah… let's say the 24th of December." He gave the blond a look over his shoulder as he spun a wheel. "Consider it a Christmas present." Rose slowly edged closer and closer to the console, and to him. "There." He stepped back, his arms tucked up under his armpits in a defensive position.
Rose looked at him, then at the console. The TARDIS shuddered underneath them as it abruptly shifted direction. "I'm going home?"
Astrid stayed out of it for the moment, letting Rose get used to the new him.
"Up to you. Back to your mum. It's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast—no, Christmas! Turkey! Although…having met your mother…nut loaf would be more appropriate." Rose looked down quickly to hide a smile. "Was that a smile?" She, of course, denied it instantly. He grinned and knowingly said, "That was a smile."
"No it wasn't."
He teased her gently. "You smiled."
"No I didn't."
"Oh, come on. All I did was change, I didn't-" He suddenly gagged as the TARDIS shuddered. He looked shocked, and Rose was confused again. Astrid crossed the console to go to his side and gave him a concerned look. He was looking at her, eyes wide, when the same thing happened again, only this time much more violently. "Uh oh." A bit of the Time Vortex escaped out of his mouth. "The change is going a bit wrong." He gagged again and Astrid caught him as he fell to his knees. She went down with him, he was much too heavy for her to properly catch, but it was the thought that counted, right?
Rose couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. "Look, maybe we should go back. Let's go and find Jack, he'd know what to do." Actually, he has already left the 2000th century to go to the 19th. And it will be a long time before he sees you again, an extremely long time for him.
His response was impatient. "Nah, he's busy! He's got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth!" He had been leaning toward the console and seemed to spot a really interesting lever. "I haven't used this one in years." He flicked it and the TARDIS shuddered violently, knocking all of them off of their feet…those of them that were still on their feet.
Rose yelled at him. "What're you doing?"
He wasn't exactly himself at the moment. Or he is, kinda hard to tell with a whole new him. His voice was a bit crazy. "Putting on a bit of speed! That's it!" He dodged a hose and began to turn more knobs. Astrid's eyes were a wide as she stared at him. Both Rose and she had to hastily find more secure handholds as he flicked switches. "My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! Thata girl!" Astrid was getting more alarmed by the second. Something was really wrong, and he was trying to get them to a safe location as quickly as possible so that whatever was going to go wrong wouldn't leave them stranded. Oh, this is SO bad… "What do you think? Faster! Wanna break the time limit?"
Rose was terrified and angry. "Stop it!"
His voice got a nasty tone, but still just as crazy. "Ah, don't be so dull! Let's have a bit of fun! Let's rip through the vortex!"
Astrid stared at him in horror. "We just got done fixing it!"
He caught her eye and for an instant they were back to himself, his normal caring self. His voice was semi-calm as he tried to make her understand. "The regeneration's gone wrong. I can't stop myself." He grimaced in pain and laid his head on the console. "Oh, my head!" He violently sprang into a standing position and his voice went back to the way it was before, slightly crazed. "Faster! Let's open those engines!"
A bell began to ring insistently throughout the ship. Rose looked at Astrid, frightened. "What's that?"
The Doctor had gone completely around the console by now and appeared at the blond's left shoulder. His face was so delighted as he grinned at her. "We're gonna crash land!" He laughed maniacally.
Rose had to shout to be heard over the bell. "Well then do something!"
His voice was bordering on hysterical. "Too late! Out of control!" He ran around the console, back toward Astrid, giggling as he went. "Oh, I love it! How dawg!" He hopped in the air excitedly.
Rose screamed at him. "You're gonna kill us!"
"Hold on tight, here we go!" The Doctor looked at Astrid beside him, her face a mask of fear. He couldn't stop grinning madly, the insane glint in his eyes. "Christmas Eve!"
Okay, so I lied. I couldn't just leave you guys stranded. It'll take me a little bit longer than usual to write 'Christmas Invasion' as I am messing with a lot of things and setting up the backdrop for the entirety of the second season, well some of the backdrop. Half. A third. Oh, you get the idea! So I thought I would give you this instead while you wait. Ain't I nice?
Remember to review! They are love!
