Disclaimer: I know I have been forgetting to put disclaimers on recently. To contradict any notions you may conceived due to this, I don't own Doctor Who and make no money from this.
"You can't be." Rose stared at the man in shock. The Tenth Doctor had explained the concept to her, told her that he could regenerate twelve times, have thirteen bodies, told her this was his tenth.
"Oh, I can be. I can be and I am. But I shouldn't be."
"How?"
"Something terrible has happened. Something that has violated the very fabric of the universe. The ripples are spreading out through time and space as we speak. The foundations have gone; it's only a matter of…time before everything collapses."
"Why do you need us?" Sarah interrupted.
The Doctor looked genuinely surprised. "To fix things, of course."
They all looked fairly stunned. Something had violated the very fabric of the universe and he made it sound so easy.
"You are all humans, your lives have crossed a millennium boundary, and you travelled with my Pentaler incarnations, that is One, Five and Ten."
"Your memory must be going in your old age, Doctor. I never travelled with your fifth incarnation." Sarah had just been starting to live a life of her own, had finally stopped waiting for him, and he dragged her back.
"You're the nearest after Tegan. And my memory is not going. Whatever state my body-" he gave a short bitter laugh "-is in, my mind is not fractured. I remember quite clearly that she told me she never wanted to see any of my faces again."
"How do you know that something has happened?"
Humans were always so inquisitive. "I can feel it, Barbara. I know it. I know myself. And I am wrong. The universe is wounded and I am…festering." The last word was spat out with venom.
"Maybe you've regenerated again because…I don't know. Something to do with the Time Lords being gone?" Rose suggested.
"Do you have any proof?"
"Oh, you always were one for proof, Chesterton. You want actual physical proof?"
He pulled a ring from his finger and held in the palm of his hand.
"That's the Doctor's ring!"
The Doctor agreed. "I modified it." He dropped it at his feet.
They all took a step back. Barbara gasped and Ian wrapped a protective arm around her.
"Are you satisfied?" His voice had changed too. Every syllable was spoken in a different voice; but sounded overall harsh and grating.
"Gallifreyan DNA simply doesn't provide for a fourteenth body. Once a particular pattern of DNA is used, it can't be used again."
The Ninth's Doctor blue eye gazed at Rose; the Fourth Doctor's blue eye, situated an inch lower, gazed at Sarah. The face surrounding the eyes was a hotchpotch of different skin tones, alternating sagging and stretching as both the skin and the bone underneath it changed. Tufts, strands, spikes and curls of brown, blond, grey, black, white, and ginger hair failed to hide the mismatched ears, both the nose and the mouth were horribly lopsided and distorted, and when he spoke, they could see the uneven assortment of teeth inside.
One of his shoes had a very thick sole, to compensate for the fact that that leg was a few inches shorter, as was one arm. As he bent down to pick up the ring, they noticed that every finger on his patchwork hands had quite clearly come from a different hand. Then he was hidden from view once more, by the illusion projected by the ring when it touched his skin.
"Oh God." Rose breathed.
"Doctor…you're…" Sarah trailed off.
"A monster." the Doctor supplied flatly. "The original Frankenstein's monster."
"But Doctor…how could you- how could things end like this?"
The Doctor smiled grimly. "End? My dear Barbara, things are only just beginning."
A/N: Sorry for the really, really short chapter. They will hopefully get longer later. To any readers of Torn reading this, I have not abandoned it. I will update, I'm just reluctant to end it.