Chapter 1: An Uncanny Introduction
"Amy! Quick, grab that control! Rory, grab that thing there! Something is pulling the TARDIS and I don't know why…or where. Or when, really! Hold on tight, I've got a feeling this is gonna be a bumpy ride."
The words had barely left the Doctor's lips when a sudden jolt had him on his backside, lying flat on the durable glass floor. "Like I said, bumpy ride."
"Yeah, no kidding," Amy shot back, falling into her fiancé's less than stable arms. "Doctor, what's happening?"
"I don't know…but my guess is that we're about to find out." The TARDIS wretched once more before coming to a final stop. "Shall we?" He gestured to the door in anticipating curiosity.
"Yeah, what other choice is there, right?"
"Right! Come along, Pond, Rory." The Doctor lead the way out of the TARDIS and into, what appeared to be, nothing.
"Well it's not Rio. Again."
"No, this is…this is impossible! Something like this can't exist!" The Doctor twirled into the white space, holding out his arms in wonder.
"What is?" Rory asked, looking around in confusion. "What's impossible?"
"If I'm not terribly mistaken, we have been pulled so far into the time vortex that there is nothing here," The Doctor ran back to the TARDIS. "You, you did this! Clever thing, you! But why? Why would you bring us here? It must have been you, Sexy, no one else has this sort of power over the vortex."
A hole appeared just between the Doctor and his companions. He knelt down and probed the one dark space in the otherwise completely white area with his sonic screwdriver.
"She wants us to go there. It's safe…I think. I'll go first, Rory then you. Amy, jump in after, okay?" The Doctor leaped into the hole with a shout of "Geronimooooo!"
As the Doctor hit solid ground, the darkness around him was broken by a gradual succession of flood lights lining the walls, all steep and white and crawling endlessly up, stretching an impossible length of emptiness save the lamps and one solitary splotch of a figure down the left wall.
"Ah, fantastic! It's about time someone turned up! Been waitin long enough." The shape revealed a man in a black leather jumper sitting crisscrossed in a plain chair under one of the lights, grinning up at the bow-tied bloke, who blinked once, hand raised and paralyzed in question, then dropped it to the side, mouth opened, closed.
"Excuse me, but um…you-you're me."
The other doctor just grinned wider and nodded. "Yeah, seems to be. And you are me."
Thud. Thud. Amy and Rory landed in the corridor.
"Doctor?"
"Yeah?"
"That's me."
The two Doctors replied simultaneously, the ninth incarnation looking rather pleased by the unforeseen circumstances. "So these are my future companions, huh? Great to meet you two, I'm the Doctor!" he greeted, all combat ready and easy smile.
"What? But, he's the Doctor! How can you be him and him be him? Isn't there something about your own timeline or something?" Amy asked, obviously perplexed.
"Yep. Sure is, but not here and we don't know why."
"Exactly completely very what he said. This should be impossible and it's absolutely wrong. But we're here and not dreaming, I don't think, so it's happening. But how?! Yes, how and why? Why us and why now? How now brown cow…no, sorry, what was I saying, yes, this makes no sense. Less sense than me right now and that is saying something." The current doctor rambled, tapping his chin, lips pursed, glancing over to the thoroughly confused couple just before another voice broke the barrier.
"—No! I said DO press that-no, not –why does no one ever listen to me-oof!" Another window split the stillness, a black flash of empty anything giving way to an elbow, then an arm, then two bodies falling down and sideways suspended through the rift- a gangly man in a brown stripped suit and a blonde girl tumbling after. "Waitwaitwait, that doesn't make any sense-we were falling down, proper gravity plummeting us to our deaths, and nowww-oh!" head tilting back to see four faces inverted "Hullo!" a charmed smile before clamoring to rubber soles under red canvas, tugging the girl to her feet beside him. "I'm the Doct-no…wait, what? What? What th'ell is going on here-why are you here?" gesturing at his previous incarnation, adjusting black spectacles and looking the other three over again. "What?"
"Hallo me, meet the new you!" The Doctor in black said to the newest arrival, jerking his thumb towards the Time Lord in the bow-tie. "Good to see you again, Rose!"
The blonde skipped over to the older man, "Doctor!" she exclaimed, jumping into a welcoming embrace. "Oh, I've missed you!"
"Have you now? At least you've got him," he said, pointing to the next Doctor, "I've been here since regeneration. Just waiting. But waiting for what, I think now's the time I find out." Rose's first Doctor released her and turned to examine his next form. "Oh now that was a good one. Look at that hair!"
"Well mine's good too! Right?" The Doctor with the bow tie interrupted with a puppy-like grin as he sought the approval of his previous regenerations. "Hello, who are you, lovely girl?"
"What?" Rose's brow furrowed in disbelief. "Why don't you know who I am? You have the same memories, don't you? If you're him, really the Doctor…"
The redhead butted in, "Oh, he is the Doctor. Absolutely. Don't know about those two though," she pointed at the two others with a scoff.
"No, no, no, it's exactly the opposite. Where was this Doctor of yours when the Daleks were invading Earth and the walls between the parallel worlds were breaking down? Or when Gallifrey tried to come back?" The Bad Wolf turned to the Doctor she wouldn't recognize, this was his question to answer now. "Do you remember any of that?"
"I-I don't know. Yeah, I know I should but I can't. There's something in the way, I can feel it. I'm supposed to know you and all of that but I don't."
The one with the black rimmed glasses chimed in, "It's this place. It's got to be. It's separating me, and you, and you. I am completely me, the tenth regeneration and the meta-crisis, and you are completely and purely you, both of you. When we were transported here something happened to distinguish us from each other, literally splitting us into different people. It's not good. No, this isn't supposed to happen, ever. It's impossible."
"Precisely." The darkest clad man asserted. "But it is happening, so what for?"
"More importantly, what the hell is that?" The spectacled one walked over to the newest manifestation and grabbed the bright red bowtie , inspecting it. "That's next? Really? We look like someone's grandfather!"
"What? Hey," he swatted his hand away, grinning. "Bowties are cool."
"Mm. Right." He pushed a hand back through spiked brown hair, clearing his throat. "Yeah, there's a word for it…anyway, right wonky bit in the space time continuum, blending up our timeline, all that lovely stuff. Any ideas?" raising an eyebrow, looking to the other two geniuses in the room.
"Yeah, over here-" Rory raised a hand, head titled. "Uhm, if you're all…him, do we just call you all 'The Doctor', or…? It's just a bit confusing."
"Nah, I'm good." The seated man leaned forward, fingers steepled. "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor." Nodding to each one and slipping into a wide grin.
The companion opened his mouth again, closed it. "That…actually isn't helping."
"How bout we just call 'em by numbers?" Rose suggested from beside the chair. "You're the ninth regeneration, right? So you're nine, the ninth Doctor, whatever, he's tenth, and I'm guessing that is the eleventh. So there we are, Nine, Ten, and Eleven."
The redhead nodded in approval, "Yeah, I suppose that works. Gives us a way to keep our boys straight anyway."
"Our, our boys?" Rose questioned. "Sorry, but who exactly are you anyway?"
"Me? I'm Amy Pond. The girl who waited and the one he trusts. And better yet I don't have to be his hussy to prove it!"
Nine and Ten both stood at that, going to Rose's defense, she held up a hand, stopping them.
"Excuse you," she snapped, "what exactly do you think this is?" Rose held up her left hand for the fiery girl to inspect. "I'm his fiancée."
"What?" Amy, Nine, and Eleven all shouted, taken aback for various reasons at various levels of surprise.
"I'll explain later, first," she turned on the Eleventh. "Does that mean you forget? Does'at mean you forget about me, or is it more of a casual movin' on?"
"Rose—" the Tenth took a step towards her, and she held up a finger.
"Hold up you, I'm talking." Turning back to the Eleventh, arms folded. "So?"
He smiled softly, something alight in his eyes. "Nothing's ever truly forgotten, Rose Tyler." Syllables suspended a spark against the silence. Ten's hand found hers and she looked down, back up. "But some things have a place, and some things have a time."
"Right," she nodded with a sad grin, realizing that he did still know her, "it's just really, really deep down, those memories."
"Exactly. Too deep, really," Ten interjected, "Rose you are so so important that it shouldn't be taking that much effort for him to remember you. Something is wrong, very wrong."
"Yeah, I think I would remember my own wedding, Why can't I remember that?"
"Well, that's because it didn't actually happen to you. I'm the Doctor, but I'm a meta-crisis." He explained, beginning to pace a circle. " See, I came out of the Doctor, took a in a touch'a sassy earth-girl DNA, and bingo- here I am. Half human, half Timelord." He paused, swinging his shoulders into a stop, hands in pockets. "And, living the life neither of you could ever live, settled, more or less, and with only one go left." Words unraveling in endsong. "But-that still doesn't explain you does it?!" sparking back, kinetic, jumping back over to Nine, resting his elbows on the top of the chair. "You're gone. So, we could be what, hmm, past present future? Well, I'm definitely a present, buuuut, I think it's a tad more complicated then all that. Three divisions of one fixed event—"
"—separated by some external manipulation, shouldn't be able to exist in the same moment as one another—"
"-unless we are existing in three separate yet perfectly overlapping strands. Or, what even about this bit? This doesn't even seem to be a real place, but of course it's a place, because we're in it-a perfectly place-like place. Actually, more like a holding area—"
"A place mark, a blip, a hole in the fabric of the universe. A suburb of the Void perhaps?" Nine looked up at Ten, then over at Eleven. "They say the Void's the afterlife, Hell, if you favor-which might explain why I'm bopping around back here—but if it is an overlap-"
"Then what happens if I do this?" Ten quirked an eyebrow, glanced around the room, then placed his hands on Nine's shoulders.