By Any Other Name
Title: By Any Other Name
Author: Sara Ellison
Fandom: Secret Diary of a Call Girl/Doctor Who
Pairing: past (canon) Doctor/Rose, vague (canon) Hannah/Ben, background Amy/Rory/Doctor
Rating: PG-13 for references to Hannah's job
Spoilers: Doctor Who some time after "The Big Bang" with allusions to "Almost People", Secret Diary end of season 1
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these!
Warnings: Angst.
Summary: A chance encounter results in mistaken identities and much confusion all around.
Author's notes: Er, this one got away from me. It was meant to be just a brief drabble, really. It takes place after Belle's book has been published, and after Amy and Rory's wedding, but before any of the major events of series 6. Also, it's terrible, I'm really sorry.
"What's a police public call box?" Ben asked, staring up at the blue panels.
Hannah shrugged. "They're from before mobile phones," she said. "People used to use them to call the police station. Funny, I thought they'd all been decommissioned. Must've missed this one." She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Come on, shops aren't going to stay open all night."
Ben narrowed his eyes at the blue box. "I could swear this wasn't here last time I came this way," he said.
The doors swung inwards suddenly, revealing a stunningly beautiful ginger woman who nearly bowled Ben over on her way out. "Oh! Sorry, didn't see you there," she said. She blinked at Ben. "Do you know, you look remarkably like my husband. Oi, Rory!" This last was shouted back over her shoulder, and a man appeared beside her. He did, indeed, vaguely resemble a lighter-haired, Gentile version of Ben. "Don't you think he looks like you, Rory?"
Rory shook his head. "I don't see the resemblance," he declared.
Ben turned to look at Hannah. The expression on her face was, he thought, probably very similar to his own--utterly dumbfounded, mouth slightly agape. "Sorry, but how many of you are in there?" he asked.
Hannah elbowed him. "Don't be rude," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "You wouldn't believe some of the places I've been with clients. No harm in a married couple wanting a little adventure."
"It's not as crowded as you think," the other woman said. "It's actually...well..." She stepped back from the doorway, letting them see the interior of the police box...only it wasn't the interior of a police box at all. It was like something out of a science fiction programme. "It's bigger on the inside," she finished.
"It's actually a separate dimension," Rory put in.
"That would've been my guess," Ben agreed. Cautiously, he stepped over the threshold. There was no telltale tingling sensation to signal that he'd crossed into another dimension, but then he wasn't entirely sure he should have expected one at all.
"Amy," said a voice from somewhere up and to the right, "are you letting muggles into the TARDIS again? Didn't we--" The voice cut off abruptly as its owner appeared, and Ben was surprised to recognise him. He hadn't been wearing the bow tie and braces the last time they'd met, but it was hard to mistake a face that Ben had seen from three inches away. Thought he was gonna jump out the window, he heard his own voice commenting.
Clearly, the bloke remembered him and Hannah too--he'd gone white as a sheet. "Rose," he murmured. He was staring at her as though nothing else existed. Perhaps, Ben thought, the hint he'd seemed to have taken that day in Hannah's flat hadn't stuck as well as it should have.
"N-no," Hannah said, "I'm Hannah. Or Belle. You're Tim, aren't you? We met in that wedding shop..."
Now that was odd. Ben couldn't refrain from a derisive comment. "You were that clingy and you can't even remember her name?"
"Doctor, what's going on?" the woman called Amy demanded. "You know these people?"
"Rose, it's me," the man who may have been called Tim said, a slightly pleading note in his voice. "I've regenerated since the last time you saw me. Again. But it's still me. Again." He spoke softly, but his voice carried across the impossibly large interior of the...police box, or whatever it was.
"Right," Hannah said, "let's just say I have any idea what you're on about. My name's not Rose. I'm sorry I didn't tell you the whole truth about who I am, but I'd only just met you. It was only a one-night stand. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was looking for anything more, Tim."
"Tim?" Rory repeated. "Doctor, I think this is a slight case of mistaken identity."
His wife nodded. "I'm with Rory on this one," she agreed. "Anyway, Doctor, who's Rose?" With the last question her voice became cold.
The Doctor finally broke his gaze away from Hannah. He looked like he was going to say something to Amy, but he paused and shut his mouth again without a word. He was still pale, and clutching the rail near the console as though it were the only thing keeping him up.
"He looks like he's about to faint," Ben remarked to no one in particular.
"Why don't we all sit down," Rory suggested, "Amy can make us some tea--" At a glare from his wife, he hastily tried again, "I can make us some tea, and we can figure this whole thing out."
The TARDIS' kitchen reminded Ben of something that a 1960s sci-fi writer would have imagined a futuristic kitchen would look like, if said writer had been stark raving mad. It had ordinary things like pots and pans, plates and bowls and flatware, as well as a score of machines that definitely didn't belong in a kitchen and another dozen strange objects that Ben couldn't even have tried to identify. Rory seemed to know his way around, though, and soon enough produced five cups of tea, though Ben couldn't have said how.
The little round table was a bit cramped with all five of them sitting around it, but Ben scooted his chair close to Hannah's and Amy was not quite in Rory's lap, and they managed to find room for all their limbs and the tea. Rory looked like he was expecting the Doctor/Tim to say something, but he just kept staring at Hannah and not starting to speak, and Amy kept giving strange looks to the Doctor, so Ben cleared his throat. "Let's start at the beginning," he suggested. "Obviously something strange is going on here. This--TARDIS, you called it?--is some sort of...inter-dimensional space?"
"It's more than that," Amy told him. "It's a time-travelling spaceship, actually."
"TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space," the Doctor put in, absently.
Ben thought he probably should have had more trouble believing it, but he seemed to have turned off his scepticism at bigger on the inside. "Right," he said, "Okay. Are you aliens?"
"He is," Rory said, jerking his head at the Doctor. "We're not."
"He's a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and he's got two hearts," Amy added.
"Hey," the Doctor said, sounding slightly hurt, "that was my line."
"So..." Ben prompted, "you're humans, but you live on a time-travelling spaceship with an alien."
"That's about the sum of it," Rory confirmed.
Hannah, who had been nervously watching Tim watching her, spoke up at last. "And how did that start? I mean, how do you end up with a life like that?"
Ben snorted. Considering what Hannah did for a living...
"We didn't always travel with the Doctor," Amy said. "Rory and I used to be a nurse and..." She trailed off with a sidelong glance at the Doctor.
"A kissogram," the Doctor said loudly, "which is hardly--"
"We've been through this, Doctor!" she interrupted. "We're not having this argument again."
Hannah broke into a fit of coughing which Ben recognised as an attempt to disguise laughter. "Well, I'm Ben," he said, "and this is Hannah. I work at a pub and she's a...nighttimelegalsecretary." He'd memorised Hannah's cover, at her insistence, and the words came out all strung together.
"Ben," Hannah murmured, "I admitted to Tim that I was a masseuse."
Amy, whose eyebrows had been slowly ascending since "nighttimelegalsecretary", cried "Oh! I read that!" As everyone turned to stare at her, she continued, "That book! You read it too, Rory, remember? Belle took a break, and met Tim in a wedding shop, and oh my God you were Tim?!" The last bit was shouted at the Doctor and she thwacked him hard on the arm. "You hypocrite! Giving me grief about being a kissogram when you were off with--" She jabbed a finger in Hannah's direction, then suddenly grinned. "Belle. It's an honour to meet you! I loved your book."
Hannah grinned back. "Thank you! It's always nice to meet a fan."
"Wait, you know who she is?" Tim asked, looking bewildered.
"There was a book," Rory said, "a while back, very popular and controversial. You remember. Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl...well, she's the London call girl."
Tim's jaw dropped as he stared at Hannah. "She's what?"
"I wasn't expecting you to pay me, or anything, Tim," Hannah told him. "I thought you'd figured it out when you guessed I was a masseuse."
"I am not and have never been called Tim!" the Doctor protested. "My name is the Doctor. I don't know why you think I am Tim, but I can assure you, if I had ever..." He looked suddenly awkward and lowered his voice. "...slept with you, I would have remembered, and it wouldn't have been just a, a one-night stand."
Ben raised his eyebrows. Glancing around the table, he saw that the rest of them looked even more surprised than he felt. For a long moment, no one spoke. The Doctor avoided eye contact with any of them; his ears were rather red.
Amy finally broke the silence. "Does River know about her?"
"Who's River?" Hannah asked.
"I don't know," the Doctor said, and Ben assumed he was addressing Amy's question until he continued. "River's another time-traveller, and we never meet in order. Her past is my future, so she knows a lot about me but I don't know much about her. I assume that at some point I have--am going to tell her about Rose..." He trailed off, and looked again at Hannah. "You look exactly like Rose. I mean, exactly. You don't have a long-lost twin, do you? No, I don't suppose...perhaps a dimensional duplicate..."
"You look exactly like Tim," Hannah retorted. "Is he a dimensional duplicate of yours, then?"
"Doctor, who is Rose?" Rory demanded. Ben silently thanked him--he was burning with curiosity as well, but it didn't feel like it was his place to ask.
"She used to travel with me," the Doctor said, and Ben was taken aback by the depth of sorrow in his eyes. "She ended up having to stay in a parallel universe, with a human duplicate of mine, so maybe, maybe she's happy." His voice broke on the last word.
Amy reached over and squeezed his hand. "If she's living with the Doctor, I'm sure she is," she said gently.
The Doctor ducked his head, scrubbing a hand across his face. "Sorry," he mumbled. He took a deep, shuddery breath. "I miss her so much. I wonder sometimes if she misses me too, but she has me, even if she's not travelling in the TARDIS anymore. I know she and the other Doctor are still saving the world together, over on their side, and I pray that's enough for her to be happy." He looked up at Hannah and gave her a sad smile. "I know you're not her, but it's still good to see you."
Ben cleared his throat. "You said there's another you, a copy. Could he have been Tim? I met the bloke and he did look exactly like you."
"No," the Doctor said, "my other self no longer looks like me. The metacrisis was before I regenerated--we looked like each other when it happened, but I've since regenerated. You see, we Time Lords have the option, instead of dying, to change every cell in our bodies so that--"
"You look different," Ben interrupted. "I think I get it, yeah."
Hannah hissed at him, "Don't be rude!" but the Doctor didn't seem to notice.
"Yeah," the Doctor repeated. "But my copy is human. He can't regenerate, so there's no way someone who looks like me could..." He trailed off, staring wide-eyed at nothing, apparently arrested by his own thoughts.
"Doctor?" Rory prompted.
"No," the Doctor said suddenly, "Tim must just be a dimensional duplicate. Just one of those tricks reality likes to play. There's no way he could be a copy of me without me knowing about it."
"So it's the same with me and your Rose, then?" Hannah asked. The Doctor nodded.
"Glad we've got that cleared up," Ben said.
Amy jumped suddenly and turned to frantically whisper in Rory's ear. Her husband nodded. "Doctor," he began, "they could come with us."
Ben bristled. "Hannah is not a replacement for your lost love," he reminded the Doctor, perhaps more loudly than necessary.
"We're not suggesting she should be," Amy said hastily. "But I think you would love travelling with the Doctor. Oh, some of the things we've seen--it's fantastic. We can go anywhere in the universe."
"Is that what you do, then?" Hannah asked the Doctor. "Pick up humans and take them on adventures through time and space?"
"Mostly, yeah," Amy answered for him.
"You could come with us," the Doctor agreed, looking between Ben and Hannah, "if you want to. We can go anywhere, and still be back in time for supper."
Hannah smiled, but shook her head. "Thanks for the offer, but I don't think so. My life is plenty exciting already. I make my own adventures."
Ben exhaled a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "Yeah," he said. "I'll stay with Hannah." Not that they'd even asked him if he wanted to stay without her, but he felt he ought to make that clear.
On their way out of the TARDIS, Amy caught Hannah's sleeve. "Hey," she said. "We should get together for coffee some time. Can I have your mobile number?"
Hannah smiled and gave it to her. "Give me a call next time you're in this decade, yeah?" she suggested. The Doctor looked at them both and said nothing.
As the blue doors of the police box latched shut, Hannah turned to Ben. "Did that really just happen?" she asked. Behind them, the TARDIS began emitting a strange squealing noise. They turned together just in time to see it vanish into thin air.
Wordlessly, Ben stretched out his hand. Hannah caught it and squeezed it tight.
Author: Sara Ellison
Fandom: Secret Diary of a Call Girl/Doctor Who
Pairing: past (canon) Doctor/Rose, vague (canon) Hannah/Ben, background Amy/Rory/Doctor
Rating: PG-13 for references to Hannah's job
Spoilers: Doctor Who some time after "The Big Bang" with allusions to "Almost People", Secret Diary end of season 1
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these!
Warnings: Angst.
Summary: A chance encounter results in mistaken identities and much confusion all around.
Author's notes: Er, this one got away from me. It was meant to be just a brief drabble, really. It takes place after Belle's book has been published, and after Amy and Rory's wedding, but before any of the major events of series 6. Also, it's terrible, I'm really sorry.
"What's a police public call box?" Ben asked, staring up at the blue panels.
Hannah shrugged. "They're from before mobile phones," she said. "People used to use them to call the police station. Funny, I thought they'd all been decommissioned. Must've missed this one." She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Come on, shops aren't going to stay open all night."
Ben narrowed his eyes at the blue box. "I could swear this wasn't here last time I came this way," he said.
The doors swung inwards suddenly, revealing a stunningly beautiful ginger woman who nearly bowled Ben over on her way out. "Oh! Sorry, didn't see you there," she said. She blinked at Ben. "Do you know, you look remarkably like my husband. Oi, Rory!" This last was shouted back over her shoulder, and a man appeared beside her. He did, indeed, vaguely resemble a lighter-haired, Gentile version of Ben. "Don't you think he looks like you, Rory?"
Rory shook his head. "I don't see the resemblance," he declared.
Ben turned to look at Hannah. The expression on her face was, he thought, probably very similar to his own--utterly dumbfounded, mouth slightly agape. "Sorry, but how many of you are in there?" he asked.
Hannah elbowed him. "Don't be rude," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "You wouldn't believe some of the places I've been with clients. No harm in a married couple wanting a little adventure."
"It's not as crowded as you think," the other woman said. "It's actually...well..." She stepped back from the doorway, letting them see the interior of the police box...only it wasn't the interior of a police box at all. It was like something out of a science fiction programme. "It's bigger on the inside," she finished.
"It's actually a separate dimension," Rory put in.
"That would've been my guess," Ben agreed. Cautiously, he stepped over the threshold. There was no telltale tingling sensation to signal that he'd crossed into another dimension, but then he wasn't entirely sure he should have expected one at all.
"Amy," said a voice from somewhere up and to the right, "are you letting muggles into the TARDIS again? Didn't we--" The voice cut off abruptly as its owner appeared, and Ben was surprised to recognise him. He hadn't been wearing the bow tie and braces the last time they'd met, but it was hard to mistake a face that Ben had seen from three inches away. Thought he was gonna jump out the window, he heard his own voice commenting.
Clearly, the bloke remembered him and Hannah too--he'd gone white as a sheet. "Rose," he murmured. He was staring at her as though nothing else existed. Perhaps, Ben thought, the hint he'd seemed to have taken that day in Hannah's flat hadn't stuck as well as it should have.
"N-no," Hannah said, "I'm Hannah. Or Belle. You're Tim, aren't you? We met in that wedding shop..."
Now that was odd. Ben couldn't refrain from a derisive comment. "You were that clingy and you can't even remember her name?"
"Doctor, what's going on?" the woman called Amy demanded. "You know these people?"
"Rose, it's me," the man who may have been called Tim said, a slightly pleading note in his voice. "I've regenerated since the last time you saw me. Again. But it's still me. Again." He spoke softly, but his voice carried across the impossibly large interior of the...police box, or whatever it was.
"Right," Hannah said, "let's just say I have any idea what you're on about. My name's not Rose. I'm sorry I didn't tell you the whole truth about who I am, but I'd only just met you. It was only a one-night stand. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was looking for anything more, Tim."
"Tim?" Rory repeated. "Doctor, I think this is a slight case of mistaken identity."
His wife nodded. "I'm with Rory on this one," she agreed. "Anyway, Doctor, who's Rose?" With the last question her voice became cold.
The Doctor finally broke his gaze away from Hannah. He looked like he was going to say something to Amy, but he paused and shut his mouth again without a word. He was still pale, and clutching the rail near the console as though it were the only thing keeping him up.
"He looks like he's about to faint," Ben remarked to no one in particular.
"Why don't we all sit down," Rory suggested, "Amy can make us some tea--" At a glare from his wife, he hastily tried again, "I can make us some tea, and we can figure this whole thing out."
The TARDIS' kitchen reminded Ben of something that a 1960s sci-fi writer would have imagined a futuristic kitchen would look like, if said writer had been stark raving mad. It had ordinary things like pots and pans, plates and bowls and flatware, as well as a score of machines that definitely didn't belong in a kitchen and another dozen strange objects that Ben couldn't even have tried to identify. Rory seemed to know his way around, though, and soon enough produced five cups of tea, though Ben couldn't have said how.
The little round table was a bit cramped with all five of them sitting around it, but Ben scooted his chair close to Hannah's and Amy was not quite in Rory's lap, and they managed to find room for all their limbs and the tea. Rory looked like he was expecting the Doctor/Tim to say something, but he just kept staring at Hannah and not starting to speak, and Amy kept giving strange looks to the Doctor, so Ben cleared his throat. "Let's start at the beginning," he suggested. "Obviously something strange is going on here. This--TARDIS, you called it?--is some sort of...inter-dimensional space?"
"It's more than that," Amy told him. "It's a time-travelling spaceship, actually."
"TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space," the Doctor put in, absently.
Ben thought he probably should have had more trouble believing it, but he seemed to have turned off his scepticism at bigger on the inside. "Right," he said, "Okay. Are you aliens?"
"He is," Rory said, jerking his head at the Doctor. "We're not."
"He's a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and he's got two hearts," Amy added.
"Hey," the Doctor said, sounding slightly hurt, "that was my line."
"So..." Ben prompted, "you're humans, but you live on a time-travelling spaceship with an alien."
"That's about the sum of it," Rory confirmed.
Hannah, who had been nervously watching Tim watching her, spoke up at last. "And how did that start? I mean, how do you end up with a life like that?"
Ben snorted. Considering what Hannah did for a living...
"We didn't always travel with the Doctor," Amy said. "Rory and I used to be a nurse and..." She trailed off with a sidelong glance at the Doctor.
"A kissogram," the Doctor said loudly, "which is hardly--"
"We've been through this, Doctor!" she interrupted. "We're not having this argument again."
Hannah broke into a fit of coughing which Ben recognised as an attempt to disguise laughter. "Well, I'm Ben," he said, "and this is Hannah. I work at a pub and she's a...nighttimelegalsecretary." He'd memorised Hannah's cover, at her insistence, and the words came out all strung together.
"Ben," Hannah murmured, "I admitted to Tim that I was a masseuse."
Amy, whose eyebrows had been slowly ascending since "nighttimelegalsecretary", cried "Oh! I read that!" As everyone turned to stare at her, she continued, "That book! You read it too, Rory, remember? Belle took a break, and met Tim in a wedding shop, and oh my God you were Tim?!" The last bit was shouted at the Doctor and she thwacked him hard on the arm. "You hypocrite! Giving me grief about being a kissogram when you were off with--" She jabbed a finger in Hannah's direction, then suddenly grinned. "Belle. It's an honour to meet you! I loved your book."
Hannah grinned back. "Thank you! It's always nice to meet a fan."
"Wait, you know who she is?" Tim asked, looking bewildered.
"There was a book," Rory said, "a while back, very popular and controversial. You remember. Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl...well, she's the London call girl."
Tim's jaw dropped as he stared at Hannah. "She's what?"
"I wasn't expecting you to pay me, or anything, Tim," Hannah told him. "I thought you'd figured it out when you guessed I was a masseuse."
"I am not and have never been called Tim!" the Doctor protested. "My name is the Doctor. I don't know why you think I am Tim, but I can assure you, if I had ever..." He looked suddenly awkward and lowered his voice. "...slept with you, I would have remembered, and it wouldn't have been just a, a one-night stand."
Ben raised his eyebrows. Glancing around the table, he saw that the rest of them looked even more surprised than he felt. For a long moment, no one spoke. The Doctor avoided eye contact with any of them; his ears were rather red.
Amy finally broke the silence. "Does River know about her?"
"Who's River?" Hannah asked.
"I don't know," the Doctor said, and Ben assumed he was addressing Amy's question until he continued. "River's another time-traveller, and we never meet in order. Her past is my future, so she knows a lot about me but I don't know much about her. I assume that at some point I have--am going to tell her about Rose..." He trailed off, and looked again at Hannah. "You look exactly like Rose. I mean, exactly. You don't have a long-lost twin, do you? No, I don't suppose...perhaps a dimensional duplicate..."
"You look exactly like Tim," Hannah retorted. "Is he a dimensional duplicate of yours, then?"
"Doctor, who is Rose?" Rory demanded. Ben silently thanked him--he was burning with curiosity as well, but it didn't feel like it was his place to ask.
"She used to travel with me," the Doctor said, and Ben was taken aback by the depth of sorrow in his eyes. "She ended up having to stay in a parallel universe, with a human duplicate of mine, so maybe, maybe she's happy." His voice broke on the last word.
Amy reached over and squeezed his hand. "If she's living with the Doctor, I'm sure she is," she said gently.
The Doctor ducked his head, scrubbing a hand across his face. "Sorry," he mumbled. He took a deep, shuddery breath. "I miss her so much. I wonder sometimes if she misses me too, but she has me, even if she's not travelling in the TARDIS anymore. I know she and the other Doctor are still saving the world together, over on their side, and I pray that's enough for her to be happy." He looked up at Hannah and gave her a sad smile. "I know you're not her, but it's still good to see you."
Ben cleared his throat. "You said there's another you, a copy. Could he have been Tim? I met the bloke and he did look exactly like you."
"No," the Doctor said, "my other self no longer looks like me. The metacrisis was before I regenerated--we looked like each other when it happened, but I've since regenerated. You see, we Time Lords have the option, instead of dying, to change every cell in our bodies so that--"
"You look different," Ben interrupted. "I think I get it, yeah."
Hannah hissed at him, "Don't be rude!" but the Doctor didn't seem to notice.
"Yeah," the Doctor repeated. "But my copy is human. He can't regenerate, so there's no way someone who looks like me could..." He trailed off, staring wide-eyed at nothing, apparently arrested by his own thoughts.
"Doctor?" Rory prompted.
"No," the Doctor said suddenly, "Tim must just be a dimensional duplicate. Just one of those tricks reality likes to play. There's no way he could be a copy of me without me knowing about it."
"So it's the same with me and your Rose, then?" Hannah asked. The Doctor nodded.
"Glad we've got that cleared up," Ben said.
Amy jumped suddenly and turned to frantically whisper in Rory's ear. Her husband nodded. "Doctor," he began, "they could come with us."
Ben bristled. "Hannah is not a replacement for your lost love," he reminded the Doctor, perhaps more loudly than necessary.
"We're not suggesting she should be," Amy said hastily. "But I think you would love travelling with the Doctor. Oh, some of the things we've seen--it's fantastic. We can go anywhere in the universe."
"Is that what you do, then?" Hannah asked the Doctor. "Pick up humans and take them on adventures through time and space?"
"Mostly, yeah," Amy answered for him.
"You could come with us," the Doctor agreed, looking between Ben and Hannah, "if you want to. We can go anywhere, and still be back in time for supper."
Hannah smiled, but shook her head. "Thanks for the offer, but I don't think so. My life is plenty exciting already. I make my own adventures."
Ben exhaled a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "Yeah," he said. "I'll stay with Hannah." Not that they'd even asked him if he wanted to stay without her, but he felt he ought to make that clear.
On their way out of the TARDIS, Amy caught Hannah's sleeve. "Hey," she said. "We should get together for coffee some time. Can I have your mobile number?"
Hannah smiled and gave it to her. "Give me a call next time you're in this decade, yeah?" she suggested. The Doctor looked at them both and said nothing.
As the blue doors of the police box latched shut, Hannah turned to Ben. "Did that really just happen?" she asked. Behind them, the TARDIS began emitting a strange squealing noise. They turned together just in time to see it vanish into thin air.
Wordlessly, Ben stretched out his hand. Hannah caught it and squeezed it tight.