Continued from Variations in Time and Space, chapter 1

01

A Harem of One

Inward Jealously

It is a well known fact that with the exception of First, the Doctor is never more competitive than when he competes only with one of his other lives. He is never more jealous or more prone to prove his worth than when one of his other selves has done something special, particularly something special for for someone that matters to him. Like Rose.

The first clue that the Eleventh had that Rose wasn't coming back to him after she ran out of the TARDIS was in the form of new memories unlocking from his Eighth form...of finding Rose laying on the ground in front of his version of their TARDIS, out cold, a bruise on her forehead as well as a bleeding laceration under the bruise...she'd gotten hurt after he'd said some perfectly awful things to her and he, for a moment or two, counted himself lucky that he'd found her, if a different him. He recalled scooping up the injured unknown young human female and taking her, quite properly, to the med-bay.

It was when this earlier version of himself found the pregnancy she'd claimed and which he'd denied in the later body, this body and had a run purely routine DNA profile on the infants to check for abnormalities that he'd discovered that the children were his. Yes, children...Rose was carrying twins. His children, the ones he had denied and then accused her of being a slut and trying to pass some human male's offspring off on him. Because he'd not believed her when she'd told him they were his...and that was why she'd run from him. He had gone after her, actually, because this wasn't Earth and while it did have a human population, she had no resources on her.

In that regard, he supposed it was as well, therefore, that his Eighth form had her safely inside his TARDIS.

The proof from the past that she'd been telling him the truth nearly killed the older Doctor. The memory of Rose explaining why he'd found her like he had, who she'd run from and why, then flat refusing to return to the elder self came very close to finishing the job.

"At most I'd go to the form after the pinstriped one, but I'd rather just stay here with this you." He could hear the echo of her voice through the regenerations because he knew the speaker and she was a part...or she used to be a part...of his present. "The pinstriped you is, at best, unstable and if I can't trust that form with myself he's sure as hell not getting anywhere near the children until they're old enough to defend themselves from him. I'll be going from you to Twelve anyway, since I started this ride about two months, from what you told me later, after you stopped being Nine and there's some stuff in late this body and all of Nine that I can't be present for...because I wasn't."

Those words had his pinstriped clad form on his knees on the library floor, sobbing his hearts out as he realized exactly what he'd lost. He had been Eight for nearly seven hundred years before the whispers of Fate and War had begun to scrap across his sensitivities and he knew Rose wasn't aging at all. It was worse because he'd done it to himself, all by himself.

His loss was devastating, but at least she was willing to come back, if not to this him, then to the next. He'd done it to himself, though. This time it wasn't over-reacting to blame himself...Eight certainly did, as did Nine, last him and next him...and his children when he finally met them. They hadn't said a word, though, just looking at him with their mother's eyes and unhappy, hurt expressions...and then they'd just turned and walked around him before going into another of his self's ships.

Next him or the one after, he wasn't sure. He was sure of one thing...it contained a self descended from the Eight on the other timeline, a self where this self had never denied they were his...which was why, of course, Time had allowed Rose to change hims, he knew.

But the Doctor, as has been pointed out, is never as competitive as he is with himself...and that was why Eight's version of himself, this himself was standing there looking like a pissed off twin and glaring at him. He knew Rose was still on Eighth, so this was a closed loop...that meant there could only be one viable ending to it...and he knew that this himself was going to lose the toss. He could already feel his time-stream's strong anchors to this reality loosening.

"Get lost, alter-Eleven. She's mine, now, not your's. You have had your chance and you blew it, there's no more Rose for you. Go away, she asked this me to get the point across to you, because she doesn't need to see you, she has me, all of me and none of my selves have ever called her a whore to her face. She forgives my mes many things, but she will not forgive that. Nor should she. For you, it's over...there is nothing left for you. LEAVE."

He raised his tear soaked face to look at himself, saw the compassion written there but also the resolve. He flung his timeline at the other self, holding it until he took it, eyes troubled as he understood what the prior him was going to do.

"I can't survive without Rose, I don't want to and I'm not going to try to. My TARDIS will merge with your's as soon as I've faded away, this timestream will end."

The other this him didn't reply, understanding as only another Eleven could, and nodded acceptance that his timestream was to become the only one in this universe...there would be no mourning, dangerously suicidal version of the Doctor wandering about and able, therefore, to dangerously tamper with time. He bowed his head and went back to his TARDIS...and as the doors closed, he released his timeline, allowing the one that Rose was with to overlap it and dominate it until he felt himself fade away.

He had peace at least, for it was true that when two versions of the same regeneration vied for dominance, only one timestream survived the encounter...for the Doctor was never more competitive than when he competed with himself.

TBC