Disclaimer- Don't own Doctor Who or we would have had Eccleston for another season. Obviously? That didn't happen! Therefore, this chick doesn't own it.
Authors note- Yes, I should be working on my other stories, but I am stuck on it due to losing the computer. So we get..Alternate Journey's end...Also...I'm going to say Nine and Ten for the different doctors while I need to because really that makes it less complicated for us all I believe
Donna watched as a form materialized right in front of her. A…naked form? A man. Definitely a man. But who? He sat up, and she staggered backwards. She'd never seen this man before. Oh did this happen? What was going on!
"Who the hell are you?"
The Doctor's eyes widened for a moment. "Donna, what are you nattering on about? It's me."
He paused, hands at his throat, blue eyes widening for a moment. "Oi, that's not right." His hands traveled up to his ears. A very familiar (Not to Donna of course) grin appeared, the manic grin reforming on his face. "Oh yes! I'm back! Fantastic, abosultley fantastic Donna!"
He looked back at Donna and spoke seriously. "Donna, this is going to be hard to believe even after everything you've seen…but it's me. I'm the Doctor. I can prove it. One thing, I am not a martian. Two, I am going to remind you, you are not just a temp and have never been just a temp. Who else would have gone searching for me? No one, not like you did it anyway. And when we first met, you told me I needed someone with me and you were so very right. And then? You stayed because…" He paused and grinned at her. "Well, because you're amazing."
She watched him warily for a moment. "How..did this happen then?"
He titled his head. "Time Lord and you. Simple explanation really. Oh, it just a simple instantaneous biological metacrisis. Bit complicated. ."
"Doctor," she stared at him for a moment and then grinned.
"Yup, that's me," he poked himself for a moment grinning.
"No," she hesitated. "Doctor, you're naked!"
He looked down for a moment, losing the grin. "That's a bit embarrassing, hold on a tick..." With that, he was up and leaving the console room. He'd found the wardrobe room, changed into a jumper and pants and frowned when he couldn't find his jacket. He couldn't go anywhere without it, but then he reminded himself where he'd seen it last.
Rose's room. She'd kept it after he regenerated after the game station. He hurried into her room, which looked the same as the last time she'd left the TARDIS. And there was his jacket, folded up neatly on the stand beside her bed. He threw it on, sending her room one last look and then ran back out towards Donna.
He came back out and looked towards Donna who still looked confused. "Here's what happened. I put all that energy into the spare hand, and then you touched it, creating a spontaneous biological metacrisis. I grew back out of my hand, though I will have to think on how on earth I came back like this, but it doesn't really matter at this point much does it?"
He paused again, realizing something. "Wait a tick, what..." He pressed his hand against his chest. "One heart? I only have one heart?" Donna reached out, pressing her hand to his chest.
"Doctor...you're human."
He grinned for a moment, possibilities rushing over him as things started to click together. "Oh no...I'm more. Part time Lord, Part Human. The best of both. That's brilliant. That's fantastic!"
"I don't get it, I kept hearing that heartbeat."
"That was me Donna, my heartbeat, my single heartbeat,because what I am is a complicated event..." Even then he was starting to see things clearly, he wondered if perhaps Rose had a hand in this event, because he should have looked just like his newer regeneration instead of this old one. Perhaps Bad Wolf, Rose, had seen this coming, had realized he could come back? No, that couldn't be it. It had to be something else.
"Why me Doctor? Why me then?"
"Donna, you are so very special."
"I keep telling you, I am not."
"Donna, why don't you see how fantastic you really are? I can see, Donna, what you're thinking. All that attitude, all that lip, because all this time you think you're not worth it. But you are more then worth it Donna Noble."
"Just stop Doctor."
"Donna, look at what you did. No...it's so much more then that. It's like we were always heading for this. You came to the TARDIS. Right when I most needed help, when I had lost Rose. Then you left... And you found me again. Your granddad. Your car. Donna, your car. You parked your car right where the TARDIS was going land. That's not coincidence at all! We've been blind. Something's been drawing us together for such a long time."
"You're talking like it is Destiny. There's not something like that. Is there?"
"Its not finished yet Donna Noble, the Pattern's not complete. The time line..its driving us somewhere else, to something else."
"Right now? We have to get the TARDIS into space correctly and figure out the next move." He barked out a few orders then, running around as he worked on it, before they took a look at the screen, looking outside. "That's the planets, all twenty seven of them...but why..."
Then the Planets started to glow. "That's Z-neutrino energy, flattened by the alignments of the planets into a simple string. No, Davros. Davros, you can't! You can't! No!" He bit back a curse then. They had to get the TARDIS onto the ship, save everyone and deal with the mess it's become.
"Doctor, what does it do? What did it do?"
"Donna, I think it's electrical energy. Every atom in existence is bound by an electrical field. The device they would be using, it cancels it out. Structure falls apart. If this works, The twenty seven planets. They become one vast transmitter, blasting that wavelength. Across the entire universe. Never stopping, never faltering, never fading. People and planets and stars will become dust, and the dust will become atoms, and the atoms will become nothing. And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the Rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation. But I can only guess this without seeing everything. I don't know yet..." He bit back more curses, what was happening on that ship without him.
He started grabbing things and building. "Doctor, what is that?"
"Our last hope Donna, our only hope. A Z-neutrino biological inversion catalyser."
"What? Earth girl, remember?"
"Davros built those Dalek's himself. His genetic code runs through the entire race. If I can use this to lock the Crucible's transmission onto Davros himself..."
"It'll destroy the Daleks?"
"Biggest backfire in History Donna..."
He finished his building shortly after, it looked like a gun basically and then spoke. "Maximum power now Donna. We're ready to go. Coordinates are locked in." The TARDIS materialized then and he turned towards Donna. "Let's do this. And Donna? If ..."
She sent him a glare. "Don't even say it martian."
"Told you before, I'm not a martian Donna." But he opened the door and stepped out.
She couldn't help but grin. The TARDIS was safe, Donna was safe, they still had hope. They could still do this somehow. She grinned until those doors slammed open and she caught site of Black leather, big ears and a maniac grin. Oh no, oh no. She was losing it wasn't she? He couldn't be here, he really couldn't be here. He'd regenerated. It was not possible.
Eyes squeezed shut and she was about to speak, but everything was happening too fast for her and then he was flying across that floor before she could even even begin to wrap her mind around it. Then? A blast of light hit him and she couldn't help but scream out.
"No!" It was like a dream, she couldn't wrap her mind around it She wasn't even able to move more then a few inches, but she could see him sprawled out on the ground, moving, alive, her Doctor, her original Doctor, the one she'd looked into the heart of the TARDIS for. How? How was this possible? How was he, this Doctor standing in front of her...
Honestly, she couldn't even tell you how this had happened, how anything happened moments after that, until he was trapped and he was looking directly at her. Those eyes of his? Dark, unreadable and she couldn't help but smile as he spoke. "Rose Tyler, it's been too long." A glimmer of emotion then, something dark and buried beneath with everything that had happened, but still there in those blue eyes that she honestly hadn't realized she'd missed more then anything in the world. She loved the Doctor regardless of regeneration but this...this was the man she'd fell in love with. All leather, rudeness, the bright blue eyes of his, those ears...it was him.
"How-." She couldn't even get the rest of the words out of her lips, it didn't make sense. She'd lost her mind and it had to show on her face, that confusion. Suddenly she didn't feel like a women who'd traveled across parallel worlds to find him. She felt like a nineteen year old shop girl, a girl who'd grieved for the man she'd lost, a man she'd found in a new appearance But...it didn't make sense to her yet.
"Simple Rose. A human biological metacrisis. I promise to explain that and more later."
"That explains it then." Ten said then.
"Ah, that's where the pretty boy is then."
"Oi, I have nice ears at least."
"You two, cut it out right now." Rose interjected before a full force argument ensued while they needed to save the world.
Honestly, she was too confused for the next bit because she was so confused and startled by it all to really get well anything. Sarah Jane, her mom, Mickey, Jake, everyone. She...she seriously was having attention problems, felt like she was silly idiotic human for a bit when she finally noticed something, when her original Doctor took control and Dalek's started to explode. She realized, that was what needed to happen, but she could hear the other, 10, yelling about what have you done?
Nine spoke, his voice serious, sparing Rose a glance. "Fulfilling the prophecy, that's what."
"Do you know what you have Done? DO you really? Everyone into the TARDIS, Run now!" He paused and spoke again. "IN!"
"C'mon everyone. Sarah Jane, Rose, Jackie, Jack, Mickey...get in!"
Everyone made it into the TARDIS then and she took a moment to breathe while things were still happening.
There was too much chaos to even gather her thoughts, and they were all working on it, but she could see Ten and Nine speaking as they hauled the Earth home.
She turned towards Jack then who wrapped her up into a hug finally. "Oh Jack, I missed you so much."
"I missed you too Rosie, more then you will ever know. When I found out you were on the list of dead for Canary Wharf...God..I was heartbroken." He wrapped her into tighter hug. "I just want you to know, thank you Rose. It was a pleasure to know you in my life. You and the Doctor." A subtle nod at Nine, though he knew both were the same man in a way was given.
Ten and Nine were off speaking in the corner for the time being as everyone else celebrated.
"So, I have a feeling I know where I'm going." Nine said, glaring at his newer regeneration.
Ten ran a hand through his mass of hair, messing it up a bit more. "I don't know yet. You know more then anyone what I'd be giving up if I leave her there with you.." He trailed off, looking at Rose and Jack embracing, Rose having tears in her eyes.
"Let me ask you this. Do you really want to keep her here? If you did? Well, you wouldn't have ran off after Madame DE Pompadour and stranded Rose so far in the future huh? Or pushed her away so many times after you, after I regenerated would you?"
"That is not fair and you know it. I have a ..."
"No," Nine said it sharply, blue eyes glaring at his newer form, "I don't want to hear about you or me. I want to hear about Rose. Do what we think is best for her. Not for one of us" He took two more steps nearer, closing in on the other man, his tone now as intense as his searing eyes. "Do you love her? Do you cherish her above all else in the universe? Would you, even though we are supposed to be the same man, would you be willing to send your TARDIS away, die so that she could be safe? Or put yourself in the Ultimate danger for her? Does the sun rise in her eyes and all of Time stand still when those eyes look into yours? " His voice cracked but he swallowed forcefully and fought on. "Do you know that no matter how long you live, your dying thought will inevitably be of her? And if she were standing before you dying, burning from within just to save you, would you be willing to do the same and lay down your own life for hers? Because I have and I would again. I am human now. I can give her everything, things you cant. Things I know you wont, because I wouldn't have if I wasn't a time lord anymore. But I have a chance, you have a chance to make Rose Tyler happy. " The Doctor paused, fire and ice flashing in his eyes. "But, we need to both give her choice and not decide for her this time what we do! Every time we send her away with no choice...something happens!" He finished, breathing forcefully.
"She gets to chose this time." He finished off at the end.
Ten looked back at him then. Dark eyes holding so many emotions. "You know how I feel about her. We're the same man, same memories, just doing things differently. I..you know we love her. But I cant give her what she needs, she loves me, us. It'd never work out right. I would have to lose her. I cant lose her to old age. If...I know she will chose you, I'll know she'll be happy. This is the way it needs to be. And maybe one day, she'll know how this me feels. I'm too damaged for her, but you? You get a chance to have the life I cant now. You're half human, you'll age with her, give her everything and she..missed you more then I think she missed me." Then the TARDIS materialized near Sarah Janes home and he walked away, trying to keep his own tears at bay. Rose needed the other him more, the one she'd originally fallen in love with. The Man who would have done everything for her, who hadn't mucked it all up yet. It would be the right thing to do and he knew, he knew that Rose would chose the old him. The one who hadn't made the mistakes, who could say I love you back to her.
Jack had just finished explaining what had happened to him as The TARDIS materialized. She hugged him again, tears falling once more.
"Dont cry Rosie. Think, you could have some fun with the two of them." He wiggled both eyebrows and hugged her, brushing those tears away as Nine stepped closer to them. Jack turned towards hm and spoke.
"Well, look at you big ears. It's time to say goodbye for real this time."
Nine chuckled, shaking his head. "What, you're not going to kiss me goodbye this time?"
"Too much work remember?"
He chuckled and Jack spoke one last time to them as the TARDIS started to move again. "If I don't see you two again for any reason. Thank you. Rose, you were worth dying for. I'd do it all again for you. I was proud to know you and I'm proud to see the women you became." She brushed tears away again, even as Nine reached out to take her hand for the moment.
Ten was talking to Jackie and Martha, eyes losing his light again as he noticed that, hearing Jack speak again.
"Doctor, you two. This you. You were worth it as well. The two of you changed me forever. Thank you. I'll miss you both." He reached out, hugging the both of them even as Mickey came over.
Rose knew it met Mickey was staying in this universe again, he'd been unhappy in the other one once his grandmother died again. "I'm leaving Rose."
She brushed back her tears again, throwing her arms around Mickey. "I..."
He just hugged her. "We'll talk about it later huh?" No, they wouldn't but it was almost necessary to say that because it would hurt too much. Mickey turned to the Ninth Doctor then and spoke.
"Who would have thought I'd say this,but I missed this you."
"Mickey the Idiot, turned hero. I'm proud of what you became."
Mickey smiled for a moment and spoke again. "Take care of her. It's you, it's always been you Doctor. Always will be too."
Nine just nodded as Mickey turned and left. He backed away for a moment, nodding to Ten and went towards the console, patting it lovingly for a moment.
Rose had turned and wrapped her arms around Ten, crying for a moment. He gave her a few minutes and then spoke. "One last trip then."
She nodded and spoke. "Ill be right back alright?" She broke away from him, walking away towards the hallway. Hands went to rubbing the TARDIS and she spoke. "I missed you old girl. So much more then you know. I missed hearing you at night..." She sighed, she didn't even know what to say really. Moments later it felt like anyway, she heard voices calling her name.
She moved then, stunned when the doors opened and they appeared on Bad Wolf Bay. She had a feeling this was coming but she didn't know quite what to say then.
"What happens next?" Her mum was standing off a bit, Donna by the TARDIS doors, Ten by her and Nine was moving towards her side. Ten and Nine looked at one another before Ten spoke.
"Well, I have to close the gaps between the universes once more." He dragged the words out, staring at her. She turned to Nine and spoke.
"And you?"
His dark blue eyes searched hers for a moment and then he spoke. One last glance was given to the TARDIS. "There is a universe out there that always needs saving. But me, this brilliant me, I missed you more then anything else in the Universe."
No one else was looking directly at them and she was glad,because he was staring at her like she was worth more then anything or anyone else in the universe and she knew she had to be looking at him the same way, like the stars, the sun, the moon, the galaxy rose in his eyes and in this moment? In every moment? They did.
"You know by now, I'd go anywhere with you Rose Tyler. " Nine murmured.
"I..." She paused, looking at Ten who looked back at her with such unadulterated pain in his eyes, yet the moment passed and he spoke. "This TARDIS is two small for two of us, so..." He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it at Nine. "TARDIS of your own" And then Donna went off into a speech about how it would work.
She paused. "But you-you..." She couldn't go on. She knew she loved the Doctor, the Doctor in any form and this was killing her.. The choice was there of choice...
"Oh, I'm always alright. And I've got Donna!"
Donna nodded and spoke "Forever..."
"But-." Rose. Oh, his Rose. Always fighting back.
"What?" Ten spoke then, hearts breaking his eyes as Nine watched solemnly
"You were...you were incredible and amazing...everything to me Doctor.," she whispered, breaking down.
Any sense of composure he may have had was running away from him, his face drawing closed to fight back the emotions. "You were Rose. Bad Wolf, defender of the Earth, Defender of the galaxy. You crossed Universes for me, you fought for me like no one else was. You were brilliant and amazing Rose Tyler. "
Donna spoke then. "Tell her Doctor...just tell her." This was directed at Nine then.
Rose's eyes alighted on Nine's then who stepped up to her again, hand picking up her's gently and placing it on the left side of his chest. She could feel one heart beating in perfect rhythm. His hand shifted her hand to his right side. Nothing. He only had one heart now?
"What-." It barely came out, a brief whisper.
"Part human, part Time Lord." Donna said out, but Rose hardly heard her, as she stared up into his eyes.
"Rose Tyler, I only have one life, and I only want to spend it with you if you will let me. For our forever."
Lost for words, she really was, but she couldn't just let the other one walk away from her forever.. She looked over his shoulder at Ten who was moving Donna inside the TARDIS. "Wait!" Rose called.
Ten sighed and obeyed as she spoke. "Last time we were here, you were going to tell me something. What was it?" Her voice broke. Eyes on Ten's for now.
He stared at her sadly, then glanced at Nine who looked back. Ten looked back at Rose. "Does it need saying?"
She looked away, clenching Nine's hand. She knew exactly what he was giving her, but was it fair? They needed closure.
"Tell her," Donna's spoke again then and Nine moved closer once more.
He took Rose's chin in one hand and tilted her head up. He lowered his head, his lips brushing against her neck and then her ear before speaking quite clearly into it. "Rose Tyler, I have loved you since the word Run." She pulled Nine to her by his jacket and kissed him for everything she was worth. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her tightly to him and kissing her back.
Ten walked away, into the TARDIS, Donna moving to the controls. Suddenly the door swung open and Rose appeared.
Her turned just as Rose threw her arms around him. She kissed him desperately then. "Thank you, I know what you are giving me. I love you always too. " she whispered breathlessly in his ear. One last kiss and she was gone. Had he been dreaming? Had Rose kissed him? At least if she had, he'd finally kissed her too. Then Donna spoke, and he knew it was as painfully real as it felt.
"I;m sorry Doctor..." She said as the TARDIS dematerialized.
Back on the beach, Rose had wrapped her arms around her Doctor once more, holding him tightly as they watched the TARDIS disappear. Jackie was staying quiet for once and he sent her one smile as she nodded and backed away.
"Rose Tyler, there is something I need to tell you now.." He paused, hands moving to cup her face.
"I can't promise I won't muck things up between us or be the man you need me to be... human or not," he continued, dark eyes on hers now. Rose opened her eyes and fell into his. His eyes were showed everything, bare, dark and boundless, filled with passion, desire and his all-consuming love for her. "But I'm willing to try this if you are. I'm willing to try because...because I..." A strangled sound rose in his throat as these words fought their way to final freedom. " I love you. I love you, Rose Tyler and I need you. And if.."
She cut those words off by breaking his touch on her and throwing her arms around him, hands rising to cup his cheek tenderly. "Doctor, I don't expect this to be perfect. That's not who we are, and I don't expect that. I know that this will work.." She paused, her own eyes showing everything for him. "I love you with everything in me. I love this daft face beyond belief. I Have since, God, I cant pinpoint it, but at least since Cardiff, when you said you were glad you met me. I wanted this you for so long..." She broke off on a strangled breathe as he kissed her passionately.
They only broke apart when Jackie finally yelled out. "Oi, I hate to break this up you two but we can go home now!"
The Doctor spoke then and looked towards Rose. "And how are we doing that."
She grinned and pulled her transporter out. "Once back in this universe again? These are programmed to take us back to Torchwood. All I have to do is push the button. Are you ready?"
He took her hand then, Jackie was pulling her transporter out and speaking. "Oh I am! I'm going now. See you two in a moment." And she hit the button, disappearing then.
The Doctor finally spoke then. "As long as it's with you Rose, I am." He squeezed her hand and she handed him an extra, Mickey had hidden it in her pocket. Waiting for him to put his on, she nodded and they both hit the buttons, leaving Bad Wolf bay and materializing back in Torchwood.
A/N. So! Do you want more? I want to give you more
