Gallifreyan Consciousness - The Edit
It just wasn't The Doctor's day.
Travelling back to 1987 had been a cinch. A few levers wrenched, a few buttons pressed, a few knobs twiddled, and there they were. Meeting Rose's father had also been relatively simple - he'd found it rather amusing that Pete Tyler had believed him to be his daughter's boyfriend. Oh, how he wished... sadly, however, it had been but an integral misinterpretation. Even seeing his companion's mother in a peach dress - the like of which had been adorned with various, equally distasteful frills - hadn't been THIS bad.
No, the worst thing that had happened to the final remaining Time Lord this very day was nothing more than being swallowed by a Reaper. A large, jet black creation with a fierce attitude and an even fiercer digestive transit.
Today, he mused in annoyance, whilst attempting to avoid the potent acid that lined the Alien's stomach by scaling its intestinal wall, isn't going too well.
"Well, that's a slight understatement, don't we think?!" He snapped at himself, livid at his personal lack of self-depracation, gripping onto the folds of skin that laced the Reaper's innards incredibly tightly as it took off once again, content in its luncheon: him.
"I'm glad YOU'RE having fun!" He shrieked, almost being thrown from his position as his consumer made a sharp, aerial dive of sorts, catapulting through the Earth's atomsphere with the agility of a peregrine falcon.
After several minutes, the Reaper's flight pattern appeared to have steadied somewhat, and he clutched the folds with a touch less severity.
Now, he contemplated dryly, securing his feet in a intricately locked position almost in spite of himself, how do I get out of THIS one?
"I suggest a course of intensive therapy under Carl Jung, then possibly a fortnight's retreat to a health spa - complete, of course, with a selection of fine wines, continental cheeses and at least three gorgeous masseuses," a voice below him remarked sarcastically.
Stealing a shocked glance downwards, The Doctor noticed that, floating in the acid that resided several feet south of his current location in a small, orange raft, was a man who looked very much like himself, aside from the brilliant red attire he sported and the tiny but obvious horns that protuded from his cranium.
"Look, I know I'm going straight to Hell and all, but you don't have to be quite so metaphorical about it!" He yelled furiously, emotionally wanting to lash out but being physically incapable of doing so.
"What do you think I am, the bloody Anti-Christ?!" The doppelganger retorted irately.
"How should I know? You could be!"
"With THESE ears?" He muttered indignantly.
"Dear man, don't tease!" Another tone - this one softer, more genuine than the other - ignited the air, forcing him to tilt his head back somewhat drastically in order to view the new presence.
As he had shrewdly suspected, floating a handful of metres away from him was yet another version of himself - this one, however, was clad rather proudly in gleamingly pristine white, complete with shimmering, golden halo and translucent wings.
"It's official," The Doctor muttered to himself in sheer delusion, "I'm insane."
"No, your mental state is perfectly adequate," the angelic version of himself reassured gently. "You can thank your TARDIS for this one, actually."
"What?" The Gallifreyan queried, curious as to how his timeship could possibly be held responsible for his current insanity.
"She acknowledged that you needed a little emotional support," his satanic form called cheerily. "Also, if I'm not mistaken - and I'm not, because I'm fantastic - Reapers have the psychic capability to sense how resilient their prey is, and accordingly frightens it by making it believe itself deluded."
"Joy," The Doctor grumbled in extreme aggravation. "So, do either of you psychological misfits know an escape route?"
"Hey!" The demonic frame replied hotly. "I'm not a psychological mis -"
"Look, if you're a part of me, then you're about as psychologically maladjusted as it gets," the Time Lord reminded him coolly.
"Fair point."
"I repeat - escape plots, anyone?"
"Can it involve a savage beating?" The devilish Doctor asked in mock politeness.
"If it gets me the hell out of here, then yes."
"Good."
"Why, do you have an idea?"
"No. Just curious."
"Has anyone ever told you that no one would care if you were gunned down in a drive-by shooting on a Birmingham estate?" The Doctor questioned in intense annoyance.
"No..."
"Well, consider yourself told," he snapped, the slime that oozed from random portions of the Reaper's biology quite disgusting him as it poured over his hands in torrents.
"I do believe, dear acquaintances, that we're stuck here until Rose figures out how to end this paradox," the enlightened Doctor commented soberly, obviously agrieved at that fact. "Honestly, this is awful! My hair gel is meant to be kept at console room temperature, and this place is at least thrice as warm!"
"Oh, the overwhelming follicle TRAGEDY!" The Time Lord stormed, retaining a firm grip on his handholds. "I hate to be a spirit breaker, but all Rose knows about paradoxes is what I've told her in the last half an hour."
"Is that a Gallifreyan half an hour, or an Earth half an hour?" The angel implored curiously. "She could read the entire TARDIS library in the former..."
A small smile graced the features of the true Doctor.
"The latter."
"... Bollocks."
"My sentiments exactly."
"Why," the devilish Time Lord enquired coldly, "have you not told her anything about this before?"
"Didn't think it'd be necessary, to be honest..." the real one muttered to himself.
"You know what thought did, Doctor," the angel interjected peacefully, seemingly over his desire to complain about hair gel.
"Shut it," the Gallifreyan growled cordially, contemplating the angle at which he currently resided, and accordingly swinging his legs up as high as they could get. With a swift and carefully calculated motion, he landed - with a respectable amount of grace - directly on top of the intestine he'd been hanging off mere moments beforehand.
"So... any other escape routes, folks?" He pondered smugly, securing his hands once again in the Reaper's folds of loose skin as his doppelgangers gaped at him, suitably impressed.
"For the second time, Doctor," the heavenly version remarked tiredly, "there's no way out of here until the wounds of time have been properly sterilised."
The Doctor raised a disbelieving brow in scepticism.
"Well, you COULD hover there and be damningly pessimistic, yes," he admitted cheerfully. "However, no offence, but the whole 'Damsel in Distress' thing really isn't my Earl Grey."
"I believe the phrase you're searching for might be 'isn't my cup of tea'..." the scarlet-clad frame called up sarcastically.
"That too."
"Well, Doctor - what would you suggest?" The enlightened clone asked, genuinely interested.
"Have to confess that I hadn't thought that far ahead," the Time Lord commented sincerely, watching in amusement as his evil frame jolted unpleasantly around in the stomach acid of the Reaper. "However, nothing's impossible if you attempt a little creative thinking."
"Shocking as this revelation may be," the demonic Doctor snapped, clinging tightly to his tiny, floating craft, "we're not in a Secondary School Art lesson."
"Oh, give it a rest, would you?" The realistic Gallifreyan retorted furiously. "You know what?"
"Fascinate us," the demon shouted wearily and sarcastically.
"I think we should play Scrabble. Always helps me think."
"And with that statement, you've just proved the pathetic extent of your mentality."
"Oi! There's nothing wrong with Scrabble!"
"Galactic Mastermind, Doctor! Mindbending! TARDIS operation! Don't you think a little Human game is going to be somewhat timid compared to that?"
"... No."
"You disgust me," the demon replied haughtily, shaking his head fervently. "How do you propose we play it, anyway? As big a shock as this may be to your stunningly low cerebral capacities, I can't bloody reach you."
"As much as it pains me to admit it, he has a point, Doctor," the angel commented fairly, the very vision of emotional equilibrium and mental harmony.
"Well, there IS a way to do this," the true Time Lord answered, his thoughts being provoked somewhat by his entirely rational feelings of extreme aggravation at the version of himself that floated directly below him.
"Explain," the said frame snapped.
"Your wish," The Doctor remarked in vague amusement, pulling his Sonic Screwdriver from his pocket carefully, "is my command."
A flick of a switch and a release of a trigger later, the raft of the metaphorically evil Gallifreyan exploded in a shower of orange rubber, plunging the doomed and indignant male to his instant demise in the Reaper's acidic stomach.
"Bullseye," he commented with an edge of ruthlessness, suddenly cheerful, grinning at the applauding angel.
"Took you long enough, I must say..."
The Doctor chuckled appreciatively as he replaced his multi-purpose tool back in his jacket, and delved into an alternate pocket, producing a miniature version of the popular Earth board game.
"Shall we?" He asked hopefully, rattling the box slightly to indicate his enthusiasm. "Oh, and if you put TARDIS down as a word, you end up as the main course, do I make myself clear?"
The End!