Oh hey look I'm back! I didn't wanna post here again until I got far enough into writing this season, but I'm up to The Girl In the Fireplace and life has been just insane recently, you have no idea. I was on a different continent last time I posted here. So here's the Children In Need Special with Alex thrown in, for your enjoyment.

The Doctor ran about the console, jumpy as usual as he piloted the Tardis, talking out loud as he set the co-ordinates.

"6PM, Tuesday, October, 5006, on the way to Barcelona! Now then" He stopped in front of them. "What do I look like? No, no no, no no no no no no no. No. Don't tell me, let's see" He looked himself over. "Two legs, two arms, two hands" He grabbed one of his wrists, feeling it as he rotated the joint. "Slight weakness in the dorsal tubercule" He left his wrist alone, moving his hands upwards until they found what he had been waiting for. "Hair!" He exclaimed happily. "I'm not bald! Oh, oh! Big hair! Side burns, I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin… Little bit thinner, that's weird, give me time, I'll get used to it" He dropped his shirt back down and froze suddenly. "I. Have got. A mole. I can feel it, between my shoulder blades there's a mole" He shifted his shoulders a bit more before grinning. "That's alright. Love the mole. Go on then, tell me, what do you think?"

"Who are you?" Rose asked, finally having pause in his talking to ask. His face fell.

"I'm the Doctor"

"No, where is he? Where's the Doctor? What have you done to him?"

"You saw me, I- I changed, right in front of you" He tried, pointing over his shoulder to the very spot he had regenerated.

"I saw him sort of explode and then you replaced him like a- a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something" She inched closer slightly, poking his chest with one finger. "You're not fooling me. I've seen all sorts of things, Nanogenes, Gelth, Slitheen… Oh my god, are you a slitheen?"

"I'm not a Slitheen" He spoke evenly.

"Send him back. I'm warning you send the Doctor back right now! He's not gonna be happy to find you've upset Alex" Rose ranted at him. The Doctor went to answer but his eyes locked on Alex, just now noticing how she bit her lip to keep from crying, tears coming anyway. She looked like she could barely stand on her own. He froze. How could he do this to her.

Alex still stared at him, sniffing slightly. Her eyes moved over his new face, his hair, his thinner body mostly concealed by his old clothes hanging off him, even his hands looked different. Then one of them was reaching out to her. She stared at it a moment before lifting her own, slipping it into his like they were made to fit. She sniffed once more, trying to regain her composure.

"It's him Rose" She told the blonde. "This is the Doctor. He had to change to keep himself from dying, he's done it before. And although it may seem to be nothing like him… It's him. The things on the inside, that's the only thing that doesn't change, his mind. But that's what makes him. He's still the Doctor" The man in question nodded, tugging on her hand to pull her in for a hug. She returned it quickly, burying her face in that familiar spot in his neck that seems a bit higher up now. Amazingly, he still almost smelled the same. He still had that familiar scent that was so uniquely him, even if now it was tinged with something different and a hint of ash.

She pulled away after a bit, giving him a small smile, which he returned with a grin.

"I want to hear it from him" Rose declared suddenly. The Doctor turned to her. "Prove it" He gave Alex one last glance and she nodded, pulling her hands from his and pushing him in the other girl's direction.

"Very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar, surrounded by shop window dummies… oh… such a long time ago. I took your hand…" He took her hand slowly, watching as she glanced down at them together. "I said one word, just one word. I said… Run"

"Doctor?" Rose breathed out, finally believing it. He grinned.

"Hello. And we never stopped, did we. Picked up a passenger" He got to Alex and twirled her under his arm, grinning as she laughed slightly. "And just kept running. All across the universe. Running, running, running" He continued around the console, stopping at the other side and looking up at them. "One time we had to hop, remember? Hopping for our lives?" He hopped on the spot to demonstrate. "Yeah? All that hopping? Remember hopping for your life? Yeah? Hop? With the…No?" He stopped hopping, staring at the two girls.

"Can you change back?" Rose asked quietly.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah"

"Oh"

There was a moment of silence.

"Can you?"

"No. Do you want to leave?" He asked hesitantly. Rose stared at him, shocked and almost offended.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No! But… your choice… if you want to go home" He looked at Alex a moment as he said this. Neither girl answered so he turned back to the console. "Cancel Barcelona, change to… London, the Powell Estate… ah… let's say the 24th of December. Consider it a Christmas present. There" That done, he stepped back to watch the two again, his arms crossed with his hand shoved in under his armpits in an almost defensive position.

"I'm going home?" Rose asked slowly.

"Up to you, back to your mum… it's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast. No, Christmas! Turkey! Although knowing your mother, nut loaf would be more appropriate" Alex rolled her eyes but smiled with a shake of her head. Rose looked away as a slight smile graced her lips. "Was that a smile?"

"No"

"That was a smile" He corrected with a grin and a sing song voice.

"No it wasn't"

"You smiled"

"No I didn't" She shook her head, looking down at the console beside her.

"Oh come on, I only changed, I didn't-" He convulsed suddenly, gagging on his words. Alex took a step forward, her eyes shining with fear for her friend.

"What?" Rose blinked.

"I said I didn't-" It happened again, more violently this time and Alex rushed forward just in time to catch him and fall to her knees herself. She grunted slightly under his weight, still attempting to hold him up as he leaned against the console. "Uh oh"

"Er, are you alright?" Rose asked hesitantly, unsure what was happening to him. "What's that?"

"Oh, the change is going a bit wrong and all" he waved off.

"Look… maybe we should go back and find Captain Jack, he'd know what to do" Rose suggested.

"Gah, he's busy!" The Doctor brushed off. "He's got plenty to do, rebuilding the Earth!" Alex was about to say something about it when something on the console caught his eye. "I haven't used this one in years" He reached out a flicked a switch before Alex could stop him. The Tardis lurched suddenly and the entire ship shook violently.

"What're you doing?" Rose demanded, grabbing at the console in an attempt to stay on her feet.

"Putting on a bit of speed!" The Doctor declared in a slightly crazed voice, jumping up and away from Alex to run around the console, pressing more buttons and flicking more switches. "That's it! My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! That's a girl! Faster! Wanna break the time limit?"

Alex stood, trying her best to calm the ship in any way she could without the Doctor noticing. Post-regeneration can do all sorts of things to a person, and he seemed pretty happy to let them crash, it was likely he wouldn't take well her fixing his mistakes.

"Stop it!" Rose cried, still struggling to stay upright.

"Ah don't be so dull. Let's have a bit of fun" He told her. He stopped suddenly.

Alex was suddenly yanked backwards and she cried out in shock as she fell to the ground, her head hitting one of the bars of the railing. She closed her eyes tightly, hissing in pain as she carefully touched the back of her head. When she looked up the Doctor was staring at her in absolute horror.

"The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself. Ah, my head…" He lowered his head on the console, breathing heavily a moment before he popped back up, forgetting all about the girl behind him. "Faster!" He cried again, the crazed tone coming back. "Let's open those engines!" The cloister bells rung loudly in protest and Alex squeezed her eyes shut at the sound amplifying her sudden headache.

"What's that?" Rose asked, terrified.

"We're gonna crash land!" The Doctor declared, popping up over her shoulder with a manic laugh.

"Well then, do something!"

"Too late! Out of control!" He rushed around the console once more. "Oh, I love it. Hot dawg!"

"You're gonna kill us!"

"Hold on tight, here we go! Christmas eve!"

Alex, even in her slightly dazed state, grabbed at the railing and held on tightly as she could. This was not going to be as fun for them as it seemed to be for the Doctor.