CHAPTER 56
I do not own Doctor Who and I am making no profit off of this story.
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We watched the Doctor tear through the front door to the museum from the safety of his TARDIS on the monitor. The Doctor screamed in pain and fury as he raced for the TARDIS.
"He won't be able to get to us in here. Nothing can get in the TARDIS if we don't want it to," I explained to the Brigadier as he tensed up and became ready for a fight.
"He does have the key, Mrs. Wright," the Brigadier pointed out.
"Yes but believe me when I say that he won't have enough brains at the moment to use it," I said.
"How do you know that?" Rose asked.
"That was me once a long time ago. I went through the same thing," I admitted.
"I'm sorry, Mum. I never knew," Rose said.
"I don't like to talk about those days. I'll tell you about them sometime though if you want me to," I said.
"Yes, I do. At the moment though, I can only think about the Doctor. I'd try to fix him with my powers, but I can sense that he's changing so fast that I might make him worse. I'm afraid to even try until he stops," Rose said in a worried and upset voice.
"He's going to be alright," I said in a gentle, calming tone.
I was lying through my teeth of course. I had no idea if he was going to be alright or not. I wasn't about to say that to her though at a time like this. At a time like this when your daughter is worried sick about the man that she loves, you lie like it's going out of style.
"Thanks for lying," Rose said as she grabbed my hand for strength.
"I'm your mother. That's my job," I said as I squeezed her hand reassuringly.
The Doctor started pounding loudly on the door to the TARDIS then, and Rose squeezed my hand so hard that I thought it would crack. She started to sob when the Doctor's screams became even louder, and he started calling out her name.
"Rose, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" he somehow managed to say over and over again.
"That's amazing. I wasn't even able to speak at this stage," I said.
"It's because he loves her so much, Mrs. Wright. I can tell that by the way his face lights up every time that she comes in the room. I never saw him that happy even once in all of the time that I knew him back at UNIT," the Brigadier said.
"Brigadier, please start calling me Lily. I think that we've been through enough together lately that you can do that now," I said.
"Sorry, it's just the way that I was raised, Mrs. Wright," the Brigadier admitted.
"I think that you're going to have to give that up, Lily," Robin said.
"Maybe so but I least I finally got you to do it. No more 'my lady' then?" I asked with a grin.
"Not a chance. You'll always be my lady, Lily," Robin said as he grabbed my other hand.
He knew that I was almost as upset as Rose was by the whole thing. I was just much better at hiding it than she was at the moment.
Despite what I say about him here and there, I do love the thick git deep down. I would be completely devastated if anything happened to him.
Don't ever tell him that I said that though. That's just between us. I can trust all of you not to say anything, right?
I suppose it doesn't really matter. I think that he secretly knows anyway.
The Doctor suddenly became quiet then, and I ran to the monitor to see what was happening. I was shocked to see that the Doctor was starting to glow all over.
"He's trying to regenerate!" I shouted.
"Will that help him?" Rose asked.
"I don't know. I doubt it. I'm not sure even regeneration will take my blood out of him," I said.
We heard the Doctor start to scream again now as he regenerated. As the glow of the regeneration faded, we all gasped as we saw his new face.
It was the face of the Tenth Doctor. He had degenerated somehow!
Rose threw caution to the wind as she ran outside the TARDIS. I quickly followed after her just in case the Doctor became violent again.
"Doctor, are you alright? Doctor?" Rose called out to him as she ran to him.
The Doctor smiled and said, "Welll, I've certainly had better days, Rose. I'm not in pain anymore though so that's good. So what do I look like now? Am I ginger?"
"No, Doctor. You're not. Don't you recognize your voice?" Rose asked.
"Should I? Wait a minute! No! It can't be! You've got to be kidding me!" the Doctor said as it finally dawned on him at last that he was his previous self once again.
"That's right, Doctor. You're you again," Rose said with a smile.
The Doctor began to grin like an idiot as he said, "Sounds good to me. I missed being me. I don't have to tell you that I really hated to go when the time came. I don't know what happened, and I really don't care now that I'm back again. I'm just glad to get rid of that chin. I wonder if I still have my trainers," the Doctor said as he headed towards the TARDIS.
"Whoa! Wait a minute, Doctor! Aren't you the least bit curious as to why you're suddenly your previous self again?" I asked.
"Should I be? I mean I learned a long time ago not to look a gift horse in the mouth. As far as I'm concerned, that's what this is. It's a gift. It's a second chance, and I'm going to enjoy it. Now let's go to the wardrobe. I need to find my trainers. Allons-y!" the Doctor said with a huge smile on his face.
Rose grabbed the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor's pocket and scanned him with it. Her smile at seeing the Tenth Doctor again fell as she saw what it said.
"What is it, Rose?" I asked.
"It says that he's still changing. You haven't stabilized, Doctor. You're still changing. Mum's blood is still affecting you," Rose warned him.
"The sonic must be wrong. I feel fine now. There's no more pain," the Doctor said in concern as he finally stopped smiling.
Rose handed him the sonic and he looked at it in dismay as he said, "You're right, Rose. Something's wrong. I should be stabilizing but instead I'm still changing. According to this, my body is still rapidly changing by the moment."
The Doctor used the sonic again as he scanned himself this time. He frowned as he saw the results.
"When I tried to regenerate, it just made things worse. Now my body is going backwards through my lives. According to this, I'm about to turn into Shouty again. This is getting bad. If I don't find a way to stabilize myself somehow soon, I'll just keep on degenerating right out of existence," the Doctor said.
"How can we stop this?" the Brigadier asked in concern.
"It sounds to me as if the Doctor has somehow started unraveling his own personal timeline by what he did. He's not degenerating. He's going backwards in time because he's knocked himself out of sync with the causal nexus. He needs something to stop this process before it's too late. I think what the Doctor needs is to be in contact with someone who was around him a long time in his current incarnation in order to stabilize himself. His body will become in sync with theirs since they were a part of his timeline back at that point in time, and he'll be set back into his proper place inside the nexus as a result as his timeline corrects itself," I theorized.
What? I'm not just a beautiful girl you know! I have brains too.
"Why isn't it working? I traveled with him for two years in this incarnation," Rose said.
"Yes, but you're not the same person now as you were back then, Rose. You're not human anymore for starters," I said.
"We need to find Martha then. I'm sure she'll be at UNIT. Come on, Doctor. Let's get into the TARDIS," Rose said.
"I think it's already too late, Rose," the Doctor said as he began to glow again.
He screamed again as he changed, and then he was the Ninth Doctor once again. I could tell that Rose wanted to smile because she had such fond memories of this Doctor. She knew that this was not a happy reunion though so she didn't.
"Great. I was the only one who was his companion in this incarnation as far as I know. What do we do now?" Rose asked.
"Doctor, where you around anyone else in this incarnation for a long period of time?" I asked.
"No, not really. Why should I have been? I was stuck on a planet full of stupid little apes who couldn't possibly understand what I was going through at the time. I couldn't exactly engage any of them in any kind of meaningful conversation, could I?" the Doctor asked.
"I missed you so much," Rose said with a grin.
"Why?" I asked.
"Who cares anymore anyway? Maybe I should just accept it. It's all over with. Maybe it's for the best this way," the Doctor said.
"Boy, he's a real downer, isn't he?" I said with a sigh.
"I never met this version of the Doctor until now and I'm almost glad that I didn't. He certainly doesn't seem to be a very optimistic sort of chap, does he?" the Brigadier asked.
"That's the understatement of the year, Brigadier," I said.
"You're not giving up, Doctor. I didn't give up on you then, and I'm not about to now. Come on. You get in the TARDIS right now before you change again. I'm taking you to see Megan. She's always with Donald so we know where she is. Once you change into your eighth self then she can help you," Rose said.
"I certainly hope so but Megan's probably not the same as she was back then either really. She is an android now after all and probably doesn't have all of the original parts that she had when she knew the Doctor even after first becoming an android," I said.
"You mean she might not work either? Wonderful! Who else is there? What about Charley Pollard? Can we find her?" Rose asked.
"I have no idea where she is now, Rose. I might as well give up," the Doctor said.
Rose glared at him then, and I wasn't too surprised by what came next. The Doctor certainly was though when Rose slapped him. He screamed like a little girl and then rubbed his face.
"Thanks! I needed that. I do know where someone else that I was with as my eighth self is though. Dr. Grace Holloway lived in San Francisco, and she should still be there. I knew something of her future, and she was supposed to become a famous surgeon later on. She pioneered many new techniques in surgery and helped to save a lot of lives. I like to think that I had a little something to do with it," the Doctor said smugly.
"This version of you is just as full of it as ever I see," Rose said with a grin.
"He was always full of it. I don't see any difference really between any of him. He's a smug arrogant prick in all of his incarnations," I said.
"I love you too, Lily," the Doctor said with a smirk.
See, I told you he knew.
We all got back on the TARDIS, and Rose set the coordinates for San Francisco as we set off to find Grace. On the way there, the Doctor changed yet again, and now he was in his eighth incarnation. I had to admit that this wasn't so bad. He was almost pleasant. He was certainly better company than old Big Ears.
As the TARDIS landed outside of what had been Grace's house in 1999, I said, "Are you sure that she's even still here? I mean it has been about fifteen years since she lived here. A lot of people move in that amount of time. Of course I don't expect you to know that. You don't do domestic."
"That was the other me, Lily. This me is much more pleasant I assure you. As for Grace, I know that she'll still be here. I know a little something about her future," the Doctor said as we left the TARDIS.
"Oh, you checked up on her, did you?" Rose asked with a jealous tone in her voice.
"I heard about her before I even met her, Rose. She becomes a specialist on alien biology in the future. That automatically drew my interest," the Doctor said.
"Then in your typical fashion you wound up causing her to have an interest in aliens in the first place by meeting her. What an amazing 'coincidence'!" I said.
"It was just a coincidence, Lily. I had no intentions of meeting her. I came across her entirely by accident. I had been shot, and I was taken to her for surgery. She almost killed me in fact because she didn't know that I was an alien. It was a very close call. I imagine that inspired her to learn more about aliens, but it wasn't on purpose. I certainly wouldn't have almost died just to meet her," the Doctor said.
"Personally, I wouldn't put it past you to do just that," I said.
"You're entirely too suspicious, Lily," the Doctor said.
A woman came out of the house then and stared at the Doctor as if he wasn't real. Then her face lit up with happiness, and she raced towards him. I assumed it was Grace when she planted a big wet kiss right on his lips.
"I can't imagine why I'd be suspicious, Doctor," I said.
"Oi! I'm right here, Doctor!" Rose said after she cleared her throat loudly.
Grace looked at Rose with confusion as she said, "Doctor, did I just make a huge mistake?"
"In a way, but it wasn't your fault, Grace. You didn't know. You see I'm married," the Doctor said.
Grace looked at Rose in shock as it suddenly dawned on her what she had just done now. Her face reddened with embarrassment as she looked away from Rose in shame.
"It's okay. You didn't know. It's not like I'm trying very hard to keep myself from ripping your hair out right now or anything," Rose said between gritted teeth.
"I'm proud of you, Rose. I'd have already lost it by now. Sekhmet would already be bouncing her around like a tennis ball if she had just kissed Robin like that," I said.
"It would never happen, my lady," Robin assured me.
I groaned as I said, "I had actually hoped for half a second that you were going to stop calling me that."
Okay. I admit it. I secretly loved it when he called me that, but I did want him to actually use my name sometimes.
"I'm sorry. He never said that he was married," Grace said apologetically to Rose.
Then she slapped the Doctor in the face so loud that it made a loud popping noise that could be heard for miles. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little. It could definitely be heard across the street anyway. We received several stares from Grace's neighbors who had come outside to look after hearing it.
"Why is everyone always slapping me?" the Doctor asked in frustration as he rubbed his throbbing face.
"I can't imagine why. You're just such a nice friendly fellow," I said with a sarcastic grin.
"Exactly. I just can't understand it," the Doctor said with complete seriousness as my attempt at humor obviously went over his head.
"You never told me that you were married. That's why!" Grace shouted.
"I wasn't married when I first met you, Grace. At least I didn't think that I was anyway. You see I thought that my wife was dead so that's why I never said anything," the Doctor explained as he continued to rub his face.
Grace looked at Rose for confirmation of this and she said, "It's true. I almost died, and as a result of that I lost my memory. We didn't meet again until after he met you."
"That's just my luck. I wait for the perfect guy for me to return for fifteen years as I continuously kick myself for not traveling with him in the first place, and it turns out that he was actually married the whole time anyway. It's so true, isn't it? The good ones are already taken," Grace said sadly.
"Really? You thought I was the perfect man for you?" the Doctor said with a smug grin on his face.
"You're married, Doctor. Remember?" I reminded him.
"Yes, but it's always nice to know that I've still got it," the Doctor said.
"Excuse me. I'm right here," Rose said in an angry voice.
The Doctor realized what he was doing then and said, "I didn't mean anything by it, Rose. I love you. You're the only one that I've ever loved. You know that."
"Why did she kiss you then?" Rose asked with a hurt look on her face.
"That's a good question, Doctor. Care to answer it?" I asked.
I'm always willing to lend a helping hand to a worthy cause. Humiliating the Doctor is the most worthy cause that I can think of.
"After I almost died, I may have been so happy just to be alive again that I kissed her . . . once or twice," the Doctor admitted sheepishly.
"It wasn't as bad as it sounds. Nothing happened between us," Grace insisted.
Rose nodded and smiled at her reassuringly as she said, "I know. I know the Doctor wouldn't lie to me. I just get incredibly jealous sometimes. Sorry about that."
"It's her one and only character flaw. Otherwise, she's perfect," the Doctor said proudly.
"She's too good for you. That's for sure," I said.
"Thank you so much, Lily. I can always count on you to make things better," the Doctor said.
"That's what I'm here for. It's a part of my job as your mother-in-law. You don't want me to shirk my duties, do you?" I asked with a chuckle.
Grace was smiling at us now, but I could still see great sadness in her eyes. Rose obviously noticed it too. She went up to her and said, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just waited my whole life for someone to return only to find out that I was wasting my time. It's not like he actually said that he was going to return or anything. I just always hoped that he would. I feel like an idiot," Grace said.
"At least you didn't wait a billion years. I had to wait that long before I found my perfect man again. Compared to that, fifteen years is a like a drop in the bucket," I said to her.
"A billion years?!" Grace asked in shock.
"I know I look young, hip, and with it; but I'm actually older than the hills," I said in a low voice as if I was telling her a great secret.
"You're hip and with it?" the Doctor said with a chuckle.
"Shut up!" I said with a growl.
"I can understand what you mean, Grace. The Doctor's the kind of man that a lot of people wait the rest of their lives for. You're not an idiot. Not unless I'm one too. I did the exact same thing, and I didn't even know that I was his wife at the time. At least now you can find yourself a fellow at last and move on," Rose said encouragingly.
I smiled at her in pride. That was my girl. She was always thinking of others and trying to comfort them even the ones who just snogged her husband.
"Thank you. What's your real name? I'm sure it's not Rose if you're an alien like him," Grace said as she suddenly had a thoughtful look on her face.
"As far as I'm concerned, Rose is my real name. My original name was Arkytior though," Rose said.
Grace nodded to herself as she said, "It was you."
"What? What was me?" Rose asked confused.
"When I was operating on him, I heard him say a word over and over again. I didn't know what it meant at the time but now I do. It was your name. He was calling for you, Rose," Grace said with a warm smile as she looked at both the Doctor and Rose.
"Why did you have to go and do that for, Grace? You're making the Doctor look good. That's making my job harder," I said as I pretended to complain.
The Doctor looked surprised by this as he said, "I don't remember doing that."
"You were pretty out of it at the time," Grace said.
Rose smiled at the Doctor and gave him a passionate kiss. I was conflicted. I was happy for Rose but also feeling bad as if I was falling down on the job somehow.
As soon as the Doctor stopped kissing Rose, he glowed again and screamed as he changed back to his usual irritating bow tie wearing self. I grabbed the sonic from Rose and scanned him with it. I nodded at her as she gave me a questioning glance and smiled.
He was going to be alright now. Being around Grace had fixed him, and my blood had now been burned out of his system by the combination of the attempted regeneration and his subsequent unraveling of his own timeline. It was certainly a lot of trouble to go through to fix himself, but it had worked somehow.
"I always knew that your kisses were magic, Rose," the Doctor said as he smiled from ear to ear and twirled around.
"You changed your face again. Why? I thought that didn't happen unless you were dying," Grace said.
"It can actually happen whenever we want it to. In my case though, I didn't really regenerate because this is my current face and being around you long enough has readjusted my timeline back to its correct place. It's kind of like kicking a television set to fix it only it's not. If it helps you to understand what's going on better though then you can go with that. I don't look half bad in this body either really as long as you don't mind the chin. My dress sense is much better too. As we all know, bow ties are and always will be cool," the Doctor said cheerily.
"If I understood any of that correctly, I helped fix him. I'm glad. I think," Grace said as she looked at the current version of the Doctor as if he was mad.
"Believe it or not, you actually did a good thing. This is what he's normally like in this incarnation. Hard to believe, isn't it?" I asked with an evil grin.
"I prefer the other Doctor better. Sorry," Grace said truthfully.
Oh, he was cool and all, but I'm so much better. Stick around me long enough, and I'll grow on you, Grace," the Doctor said with a warm smile.
"Yes, like a wart," I added.
"I prefer to think of it as like a wart that you learn not to mind so much because it becomes like a part of you. It helps to define you in some way," the Doctor said proudly.
"Doctor, you just compared yourself favorably to a wart. What am I going to do with you?" Rose asked as she shook her head.
"I can think of a few things," the Doctor said as he looked at her with a suggestive raise of his eyebrows.
"Pardon me, Robin. I'm going to be sick," I said.
"Stop that, Lily. You know that you're glad that she has someone like him in her life," Robin whispered.
"That still doesn't help the sickening feeling that I get in my stomach when they act like that in front of me. She is my little girl after all. Thanks for calling me Lily again by the way," I said as I gave him a quick kiss on the lips.
"You know I think that Rose is right, and that I should move on with my life. San Francisco's not really for me anymore anyway. Maybe I'll move to London," Grace said.
"In that case, I believe that I have a job offer that I can make you, Doctor Holloway. I have a position at UNIT available for someone who's as skilled at surgery as the Doctor says that you are if you'd like it. You'll have to move to England though. It's at UNIT HQ in London," the Brigadier said.
"Does the Doctor ever show up there?" Grace asked.
"Quite frequently actually. He has his own parking spot with his name on it as a matter of fact. Not that he ever uses it. We also come across many other aliens as well. They're usually trying to attack us though but not always," the Brigadier said with a smile.
"Sounds good. Sign me up," Grace said as she shook his hand.
"Is the Doctor okay now?" Robin asked me.
"Yes, he's fine. He didn't even use up a regeneration since he didn't actually change into a new body. I hate to admit it, but it actually was pretty smart to try to regenerate like that in order to fix himself," I said.
"You're giving me a compliment, Lily? You?" the Doctor asked me in surprise.
"Yes, I am, Doctor. I must be going soft. I'm glad you're okay," I said as I completely shocked him by hugging him and kissing him on the cheek.
I love to keep that man on his toes. He never knows what to expect when I'm around, and that's just the way that I want it.
"Don't get used to this. Next time I'll be back to my usual sarcastic self. This is just because we almost lost you," I said.
"I always knew that you secretly liked me. Now I'm going to let the world know it. Lily loves me, everyone!" the Doctor shouted out proudly as he twirled around.
That's when I punched him in the jaw and knocked him out cold. The others all looked at me in shock, but I just smiled a mad grin at them.
It's like I said. I like to keep him on his toes and constantly guessing and dreading my next move. That'll teach him for thinking that he knows me.
Meanwhile back inside of my TARDIS which was still back at UNIT HQ, a mysterious woman in black appeared and freed Goth from the mini Matrix that I had placed him in. She smiled to herself as she held Goth's mental essence in the palm of her hand.
"Come along, Goth. I can always use someone like you in my employ. I need all of the devious minds full of secrets and lies that I can get, and I know that you definitely need a new body. Maybe I'll be generous and give you one in exchange for helping me. Maybe," the mysterious woman said with an evil grin before disappearing.
Now if you're wondering how I know about that. It's because my TARDIS had recorded it for me, and I watched it once I returned. That still didn't help me much though because I was still left wondering just who she was and having an ominous feeling that I already knew.
Next: Lily and Ron both get to know more about Isabella as she opens up about her past at last. Just who was she before she met them? Also Holly finally admits something to herself at last that Lily knew all along. I'm sure you know what it is.