My Alternatives fic for the episode Tooth and Claw.
Acting Out
He was happy.
The regeneration had done him a world of good in that regard. While he still felt a bit of sadness from all he had lost, he was able to once again enjoy what he did.
It felt less like an obligation and more something to do for fun, like it had been in the old days when Gallifrey still existed. Travelling for the pure joy of travelling, of seeing new sights, of exploring places he'd never been, of eating odd foods and trying strange drinks.
And, of course, meeting a bad guy and fighting it. Always happened with him.
He missed the concert by 100 years, but the fun he had had while with Queen Victoria quite made up for it, until the end.
When everything was done and safe and good again, he had been told words that he knew were definitely true for himself, and he was beginning to see in Rose more and more often.
She had watched, fascinated and without the slightest bit of grief or feeling sorry, the Captain being eaten by a werewolf. If he hadn't dragged her into the library with him, she probably would have been eaten too.
Though it is possible Rose would have survived, or become a werewolf herself. It would be fitting in a way, considering the whole Bad Wolf thing, not long ago.
After his Knighthood, he realised, quite out of the blue, that he had acted too happy during the entire time the bad things were going on. And so had Rose.
The bet they had made was truly childish of both of them, but he honestly didn't think she'd win it. And the way it had been won, which had made him act all put out at the time, was completely unfair. Rose didn't win that bet, the wolf did. So, he wasn't going to pay her the 10 quid. No matter how much she might ask for it.
He was now truly settling into this incarnation.
The manic excitement he had felt throughout their little werewolf adventure had been true to his nature as it was now, in this body. The mania, the sheer joy at every little thing, was him. If Queen Victoria didn't like that, well, that was her choice.
He had acted out of line, but he was only being true to his own nature, like she had been by banishing him, like the wolf had been in his own hunting of them and going after what it wanted.
He was likely to act like that in any given situation. He honestly couldn't help it, it was such a deep part of who he was now. Rose on the other hand...Rose hadn't been acting like Rose. Rose had been acting like him. Taking in traits of this new incarnation and trying to put them into her own personality.
She had been acting. And she had gotten so used to this type of life by now, that she had been able to actually pull it off. And it had been completely the wrong situation to do so in. And she had no idea of why that was.
Not one word that Queen Victoria had said at the end penetrated her brain further than a passing thought, before it was dumped out and forgotten, or maybe thought of as a complete lie.
He knew Rose thought that this life was better, that this life was the only life for her. He knew she thought that she was going to stay with him for the rest of her life.
How wrong she was.
He hoped that she grew out of trying to behave like him, in what he could only take as some sort of form of human flattery, or perhaps a seduction.
It wasn't working. He was not interested in her like that anymore, and it would have affected him in the same way as his last self too. By doing nothing but annoying him.
God help the universe if Rose decided to 'be' him.
It would be a complete disaster.