Regeneration
Title: Regeneration
Author: hopenight
Beta: runriggers
Characters: Doctor Spencer Reid (The Doctor), Jennifer ‘J.J.’ Jareau, Aaron Hotchner, Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart
Series: Alien!Spencer Verse
Warnings: crossover, spoilers for The End of Time Part 2
Rating: PG-13
Word Count:
Series Summary: There’s more to Doctor Spencer Reid then people think. A lot more. The question is that are the BAU ready to find out?
Summary: J.J. asks how Reid found his way to the B.A.U.
A/N: So I absolutely sobbed tonight at The End of Time Part 2! Anyone else? All the best luck to Matt Smith. You'll be just fine dollface. ;) And David you were great and thank you! Onto happier news! So the pairing for the series is Hotch/Reid!!!!
GERONIMO! -Eleventh Doctor
“How?” asked J.J. one night on the plane ride home. The two of them are in the most remote corner of the plane. They knew that the team would not disturb them, mainly due to the fact they all have a major fear of J.J.’s wrath. Reid wondered if they knew what he was capable of would they fear him too.
Then he seriously considered who he works with before dismissing that thought.
Besides Morgan is asleep, headphones clamped down over his ears. Prentiss is also in the land of dreams and earplugs were firmly in her ears. Rossi had given up the fight to do work halfway through and is listening to his own iPod. Hotch’s posture shows that he has fallen asleep as well. He knows that his teammates sleep like the dead. (He has a rather dark sense of humor in this form.)
“How what?” he asked pushing up his glasses a little. It’s a trait he inherited from his fifth and tenth regenerations since he knows that he looks clever in them. (Honestly Morgan just doesn’t understand fashion.)
“How did you get to the B.A.U.?”
“Oh so you want that story, huh?” asked the young doctor teasingly.
“Please, Spence? I’ve been wondering about if for awhile.”
Reid nodded before closing up his files. He grabbed something for his fingers to fiddle with. J.J. cracked a grin at his tick.
“Alright,” he said with a smile before going to the best place to find a story, “My tenth form did not want to die. He was a good man. He could be dark and damned frightening when angered. But he was…is a good man. Like most people he feared death. Then there was prophecy about his death and he knew that it was coming. For longest time, he thought that it was this old enemy.”
“The Master, right?” asked J.J. nodding along with the story. She had long since realized that Reid viewed his regenerations as separate men because they WERE separate men at least in body and personality. However she knew that their inner selves were the same.
“Yeah well the bringer of his death would knock four times. The Master never did that. Actually none of the obvious people did, the bad guys I mean. They were all defeated so he thought that he was safe. But there was an old man, grandfather of a past companion of mine, Donna. I told you about her.”
J.J. dragged up the inner picture: a loud, proud red headed woman who was the Doctor’s best friend, the one he had to lose. She nodded showing that she remembered.
“Well Wilf was locked in this radiation box. He knocked four times to get his attention. This part in the prophecy that was specific was that the bringer of his death would knock four times. He knew that in order to save him then he would have to sacrifice himself,” Reid paused and his eyes went fuzzy, “All of us tend sacrifice ourselves in the end…I would do it for anyone even if it meant losing myself.”
J.J. could tell he was lost in his memories. She was silent as Reid twirled the pencil between his long fingers. She listened intently as he told her his birth story basically.
“Wilf got off safe. My previous form said good-bye to old companions,” he smiled sadly, “He didn’t even tell them what was happening. Though now I know that they knew. …Because it was me that told them.”
“Time travel gives me a headache.”
“It gives everyone a headache except a Time Lord,” answered Reid with a wicked grin pulling away from his memories.
J.J. chuckled relieved to see that he wasn’t dancing to close with old ghosts.
“So he got into the TARDIS and took of his coat. I remember it was this long, brown coat that Janice Joplin had given to one of us. He started up the old girl trying to get away from Earth into space. He realized that he just didn’t want to go. Then it happened.”
Reid paused before taking off his glasses closing his eyes.
“When I was born, J.J., it was so powerful that my regeneration energy set the TARDIS on fire. I blew out all her windows and her interior was in flames.”
The Doctor sat up scrambling as he looked around at the flames in the old girl. He stumbled on his new legs.
“Well that’s not good.”
He paused listening to his accent before trying it out.
“Hello? …Oh shit, I’m a Yank,” he said aloud stumbling as the TARDIS bucked, “Right! Sorry! Actually not that bad! Takes some getting used to after being British for so long. Ah well ce la vie!”
He began to check over his new body. He was still human looking, thank the stars.
“Oooh very gangly this time,” he began quickly. He did a quick run through of his body making sure everything was in the right place, “Long legs, long arms... HANDS! Fingers lots of fingers…ears, two eyes, nose…”
He was going through his mental checklist as he does at one point after every regeneration. He ran his hand through his hair. He hoped that it would be ginger this time. He paused feeling longer locks than he was used to.
“Wait! What’s this?” he shouted as he pawed through his hair. His eyes were wide, “I’m a girl!”
He felt his Adam’s apple, “NO! I’m not a girl! False alarm! Good because going bra shopping is something I never want to do in any regenerated form.”
He pulled at his hair, “Am I ginger?”
He quickly pulled a strand of hair fighting back a small sense of disappointment realizing it was brown, “Damn! My hair kind of looks a little greasy. Could be a possible after effect of the radiation absorption? No time to think about it now. Wait…something…”
He rubbed his temple with his fingers trying to remember, “Ooooh there’s something important. What is...?”
He fell as the TARDIS bucked again and stumbled. He quickly ran over to the computer screen.
“CRASHING! That’s right I’m crashing! Not good,” he yelled hearing his voice squeak a little. He desperately prayed that he wasn’t pre-pubescent. Heads would roll if he was. Still he threw his head back and laughed: long and hard as he crashed toward Earth in a flaming TARDIS.
He held on tightly riding the high of post regeneration energy laughing. His head kept on telling him statistics of plane crashes, car crashes, supposed alien crash landings, fires in ships, on ships, spaceship explosions. He grinned to himself liking this new brain of his.
He clung onto his girl like a lifeline.
“Here we go, old girl! HERE. WE. GO!!!!!”
He was thrown from the console once they crash landed and blacked out promptly.
“I crash-landed in America in woods outside of Virginia. UNIT, who saw my crash landing via one of their satellites, was able to extinguish the fire in the console room of the TARDIS. They pulled me out and took me to their nearest facility in Washington D.C., it’s underground actually. Once I was settled they called in an old friend of mine: Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.”
He opened his eyes slowly, almost like a newborn. He was in a white room. The smell of disinfectants permeated every part of the air. He groaned softly sitting up.
“Hello, old friend,” said a warm voice.
The Doctor turned his head before his face broke out into a grin.
“Alistair! You look well!”
“Not as well as yourself,” said the elder man with a laugh, “Keep getting younger huh Doctor? Change of accent is a bit of a surprise.”
“Younger…?” asked the Doctor prodding his face, “I don’t suppose I could see a mirror then?”
“Had a feeling that you would want to see one,” said the Brigadier as he grabbed a hand mirror from the table beside the bed.
“Always prepared, Alistair,” said the Doctor with a laugh. He glanced into the mirror and yelped in shock.
“We estimate that your form is in its early twenties to late teens,” said the elder man happy to see the Doctor shocked, “So you might want to use that paper of yours at bars now in case you get carded.”
The now younger Doctor threw a dirty look to the elderly man next to him. He looked at his face again.
“Did my eyes get bruised during the crash?”
“No they think that the skin discoloration is naturally occurring.”
“Could be an after effect of the radiation poisoning,” muttered the Doctor to himself.
“As far as the doctors here can tell, you are perfectly healthy doctor.”
“Thank you, Alistair. Could you tell me the year?”
“It’s two thousand and four, Doctor,” said Alistair, “Would you like your effects and to see the TARDIS? Your clothes were covered in radiation so we had to destroy them. But I’m sure I can find you some sort of clothing.”
“Please,” said the Doctor off handedly. He grabbed the remote turning on the telly as the Brigadier left.
“On the television, they were running a story about the B.A.U. after they had captured that killer in a West Virginia…”
“I know who you’re talking about the one who was killing people with coal mining tools?”
“Yes!” agreed Reid excitedly, “I was absorbed by the story. And I saw the camaraderie…”
The youngest member paused and stared at his hands for a moment. J.J. watched as he was lost in his own head, seeing the ghosts of his past.
“I realized that I wanted that again. I was just scared…”
She reached out and held Reid’s hand tightly. If it gave him any comfort, he didn’t show it. He was too lost in his head.
“Everyone I love always leaves me too soon. Sometimes I wonder if my people lived too long. Then again they sat on their pedestal and never moved. They were only concerned with themselves…only concerned with their own pompous arrogant agendas. When I was eight on Gallifrey, I was taken as all the children to see the Untempered Schism, the vortex of time and space itself. We had to look into it. It was a sunny day. I remember because the red sky was aglow so bright. It was like a ruby.”
He gripped J.J.’s hand tighter as a tear ran down his face.
“I remember looking into it. Seeing all of time and space lay out before. And I ran away. Ran as fast and far as my little feet could take me. It wasn’t because I was a coward, frightened of it. It was because what I saw in there was so beautifully frightening that I had to go see it. I had to go out and explore and feel and interact and help.”
Another tear followed, trickling down his face caressing his cheek.
“I broke so many rules. I went against my people over and over and over again. You know what, J.J.? I would do it again. Knowing what I know, I would do it all over again. And I would love it. A certain statistic…”
He smiled at her. It was full of sadness and a broken heart.
“I realized that I didn’t want to be alone. That I wanted to have a proper life with friends and family all muddled up into one.”
He bit his lip with tears shining in his eyes.
“I didn’t want to feel that lonely again. I wanted a different type of life. One where I still can do good but at the same time not run away from everything. So I asked Alistair if he could help me make a human identity. I didn’t want to become human. I did that once,” he sighed rubbing a fear hand over his face, “It always leads to pain in the end. I wanted to just for awhile be me. Not the hero, not the savior, not the destroyer, not the lonely god, not the crying angel…I wanted to be just me. Just the Doctor but a bit more content then I had been for awhile.”
“Congratulations Doctor, you are now a card carrying member of the planet Earth,” joked Alistair as he handed him a folder full of papers and back story.
“It’s Spencer now, Alistair, Doctor Spencer Reid.”
“Diana Reid?”
“She was a companion of my eighth self. He recognized the signs of her illness and got her some help. I caught her on a good day. When I asked if I could be her son, she said that it would be an honor. That she didn’t want to be alone with only the voices if there was someone out there who wanted her. So we put the memories in her of a genius son who loved her. I do love her. She has become a mother to me.”
“Why the B.A.U.?”
“That’s were all the action is. It’s too deeply ingrained in me not to help in the greatest way possible. Even if it’s just saving one life…”
Reid sniffled and wiped his eyes. J.J. gripped his hand tighter.
“It’ll be okay, Spence.”
“Thanks J.J.,” said Reid kissing her knuckle softly, “You’re my best friend. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“You’re mine too, Spence.”
“Right! Well it looks like we’ll be landing soon.”
“Really? I’ll go wake the others. Go and freshen up, alien boy.”
Reid laughed thickly as he went to the plane’s restroom. J.J. stood and began to wake the others.
Aaron Hotchner feigned sleep as he had been doing the whole time.
He had heard every word.
Now the fun can begin.
You're not him. Who we are is constantly evolving. I'm a lot older than you and I'm changing. This job changes me... you changed me. -Doctor Spencer Reid