Fic: Just Another Doctor, chapter 1
Title: Just Another Doctor, Ch. 1/?
Author: meself, fid_gin
Beta: unfolded73
Pairing: alt!Ten/Ten/Rose
Rating: This chapter, PG. Next chapter, woo-boy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: Torchwood meets the Loved 'verse
Notes: Erm, well, yes. *nervously thrusts fic at you* I am attempting a multi-chaptered fic, which as we all know, I suck at. But! I have the skilled and patient hand of my former partner-in-crime unfolded73 to guide me along the way, so I have high hopes of actually finishing this thing and having it make sense when all is said and done. Reading of the other Loved 'verse fics is probably not necessary, so long as you can wrap your brain around the fact that these three are traveling together. And shagging. Oh, and one of them has a tattoo. ;)
Deep below the streets of Cardiff, the Doctor crossed the blue arms of his suit jacket in front of him and leaned back against a railing, craning his neck up slightly to behold a wheeling, screeching pterodactyl.
Torchwood Three, located directly under what was commonly known to the rest of the world as Roald Dahl Plass. He'd been here, above ground, briefly to fuel up with Martha and then many years before with Rose and Jack and Mickey. Now the Doctor watched those same three people before him, changed so much by the time and adventures they'd shared with him, hugging and laughing and talking and looking more-or-less exactly the same as they had on that sunny day in Cardiff so long ago.
Only he had changed.
First his body and his face thanks to the process of regeneration, then his entire genetic make-up with a little help from a temp named Donna Noble and a Dalek fleet re-invented by their insane and impossibly-alive creator. But standing here, now, the Doctor realized he had never felt more like back when he was that big-eared, blue-eyed man in the leather jacket than he did at this moment, watching over his one current and two former companions. The illusion was only broken when he himself, dressed in brown instead of blue, stepped forward to join them, throwing one arm over Mickey's shoulder in a familiar gesture and brushing a kiss across Rose's cheek. It was an action that, coming from anyone else, would have made him seethe with jealousy. Coming from himself, welll...it was tolerable, he thought with a small smile.
********
Their arrival went surprisingly smoothly, the Doctor in blue thought. No alien invasions, no missing years, and only one salute.
The entrance of the Torchwood hub rolled back amidst flashing lights and warning klaxons, and a small crowd of gawking, familiar faces peered from the other side of it.
“Hey, boss!” Mickey chirped finally, running forward, screeching to a halt as the other Doctor stepped out from behind the first one, his hand brushing his double's shoulder as he passed. “Boss?” he asked, looking from one to the other. “Oh my god! It's him, isn't it? It's the other one!”
“Mickey!” the other Doctor shouted joyfully, stepping up and punching his knuckles against the hand which he'd raised to greet the first Doctor in brown.
Jack walked forward. “Doctors,” he said, addressing both of them and snapping off said salute. Coming from Jack it was bearable, and the Doctor wondered why it should be, that he was willing to forgive Jack so much that he abhorred in others. Guilt? “Saw you materialize in the monitors. Though, I admit,” he added, lowering his hand and letting his eyes rove over the three of them. “There's at least one more in your party than we were expecting.” The Doctor began to sputter at that, as Jack nodded at Rose, a flirty smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Ma'am.”
“Oh don't 'ma'am' me, c'mere!” She ran, laughing, over to Jack as he swept her up into a large hug, twirling her around before setting her feet back on the ground. “You look amazing!”
“It's only been three months,” Jack said, feigning insult. “Why, how long's it been for you?”
“I...I'm not sure,” she said, smiling bashfully back at the two Doctors. "A long time."
“Well, that's different, then,” Mickey said. “Used to be the other way around. Good to know he's still a rubbish driver, though.”
“Mr. Mickey!” the Doctor in brown said, ducking around his double to embrace the young man in a hug, much to Mickey's apparent surprise at this display of affection. “How's Torchwood treating you?”
“He's completely useless,” Jack said, winking at Rose to show he was kidding.
“Don't listen to him, you're brilliant!” Gwen spoke, stepping forward finally and putting a hand on Mickey's shoulder. “He captured his first Weevil last week.” Mickey smiled and shrugged, obviously enjoying the praise.
She offered her hand. “Gwen Cooper,” she said in a strong Welsh accent. Something about her looked strikingly familiar, and the Doctor realized this must have been the woman Rose and his other self had spoken to that day in the TARDIS. The one whom they recognized from 1869.
“Pleasure to meet you, Gwen Cooper.”
“We've met...” she started.
“Ah no, that was...that wasn't me.” the Doctor said. Somehow, his mouth kept moving. “She was very brave, your ancestor. Gwyneth, her name was, Gwyneth. Closed the rift opened by the Gelth who were using it to get through and inhabit human corpses...this is probably all old news to you, isn't it?” Gwen shook her head, her mouth opened slightly. “Well then, that's brilliant! Here you are, working on the rift that was sealed by your...fore-sister? fore-mother? never exactly sure how that goes...”
Jack cut him off before he could get into a really good ramble. “Ianto and Martha are out on a recovery mission at the moment, you'll all get to say hello to them later.”
“And...what are they recovering?” the Doctor in brown asked.
“Dinner,” Gwen and Mickey said simultaneously.
********
“You're awfully quiet,” Jack said, sidling up next to him where he stood now with his arms crossed, watching Rose and Mickey having a good laugh over something and the Doctor pointing excitedly at a screen, talking a mile-a-minute by the look of it while Gwen looked on, amused. “Is that because of the...” Jack gestured toward the Doctor in brown and then back at him.
“Metacrisis, and are you kidding? I'm part Donna if you remember.” The Doctor's voice trailed off a bit at the end of his sentence as his mind wandered back to the events of that day, and the later realization, back aboard the TARDIS, that she was gone.
Jack seemed to allow him his moment of nostalgia. “We know about her, you know,” he finally interjected. The Doctor's eyebrows shot up.
“How can you know about that?”
“We're Torchwood, Doctor. When there's a human woman wandering around Chiswick with a suppressed Time Lord consciousness in her brain that could go off like a bomb with the slightest memory twinge, we make it a point to keep tabs on her.”
The Doctor gave a sad little smirk. “Quite right.” He stole a quick glance over toward where Mickey and Gwen seemed to be discussing something conspiratorially, looking in his direction every couple of sentences. “Jack?” he said, his voice hushed. “Everyone is staring at me.”
Jack chuckled. “Good manners probably aren't our strong point. They're just surprised to see you.”
“Why? I mean, if you lot knew about Donna, what did you think...?”
The other man crossed his arms mimicking the Doctor's akimbo stance, tilted his head down and looked thoughtful. “We all had our theories about that. Needless to say, when Donna Noble turned up with her mind wiped and all her memories of traveling with the Doctor removed, more than one of us figured it was a two-way process just like the metacrisis. A few weeks ago, CCTV in London picked up an image of...one of you, standing alone outside a shop. Only a few seconds, but it seemed to confirm our suspicions.”
“Really? Was it a tattoo parlour?”
Jack looked back to the Doctor, the dimple in his chin growing more pronounced as he grinned somewhat lecherously. “I think the one thing none of us suspected was that the three of you would be together.”
The Doctor resisted the urge to grow defensive. “What are you insinuating, Jack?” Was that a wink?
He changed the subject effortlessly. “I'm sorry, by the way. About Donna.”
The Doctor's eyes flickered back to his companion and his other self before he turned his body toward Jack and faced him fully. “Actually...that's sort-of the reason we're here.”
The other Doctor would never admit it, but it had been this Doctor's idea to come. A whispered conversation over Rose's sleeping body had somehow led to the subject, and the admission on both their parts that they'd enjoy visiting Jack. And Martha. And Mickey. What the Doctor had not told his original self, however, was his deeper motive for wanting to plunder the Torchwood archives of alien bits and bobs. Donna Noble.
Not that he didn't believe that the other Doctor did not miss her as terribly as he did: he knew, well, assumed that he did. But the Doctor, this Doctor, more than missed her - he felt he needed her, now that he had made peace with the Time Lord half of his consciousness and body he needed to come to understand the human half. The part that so often made embarrassing words spill from his mouth, the part that made him smell and snore and age. The part that had taken his right heart which he still occasionally woke searching for, desperately clutching his chest, feeling he was dying. He had what he reckoned to probably be a ridiculous notion that he could learn from Donna. Learn how not to be so afraid, how to be bold and brilliant like she had always been.
That, and he just missed his friend.
“Donna?” The Doctor nodded somberly, and Jack looked surprised. “There's nothing we can do. If you couldn't...I mean, he couldn't, what makes you think...?”
“Like you said, Jack: you're Torchwood. Every alien artifact that's fallen to Earth, been confiscated by law enforcement, fallen into the wrong hands: it all ends up here.” He raised his left eyebrow, tilted up his chin in his favourite expression of bemused self-importance. “All you need is someone to show you how to use it.”
Jack regarded him silently for a moment, a mysterious smile on his face. “You're right,” he said finally. The Doctor was in mid-satisfied nod, when Jack spoke again. “Come work for us.”
He froze, tilted his head slightly. “Wh-what?”
“I'm asking you to come work for Torchwood. With us. Permanently.” Jack glanced over toward the group. “We lost two members of our team recently. Owen and Tosh. Hasn't been the same without them. We haven't been the same.” He glanced down, looking almost embarrassed. “We need help, Doctor. We need the best, and your little team seems to have an extra Doctor they can spare.”
“Oi! I'm not an 'extra',” the Doctor said, trying not to look as flattered as he felt by the "best" comment, then shook himself out of it. “I sympathize, Jack. Really. But this whole saving-the-universe thing, it's a bit of a full time job I'm afraid.” He clapped the other man on the shoulder and began to walk away.
“Not your job though, is it Doctor?” The Doctor in blue froze, as Jack stepped up close behind him, keeping his voice low so the others wouldn't hear. “You're you, I get that. But so's he, and that box has got to be getting awfully crowded by now. I know you, Doctor. Ask yourself: is your place on the TARDIS, where you're just another helping hand? Or could it be here, where you could make a difference, every day?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak the one word that would always stop him: “Rose...”
“What better service could you do for her, for them, than to work here on Earth? I know you love her. I know you love him, too. But this is Earth we're talking about Doctor - the planet's in turmoil after being moved across the galaxy and back. People are still struggling to understand what happened, and they need you.” Jack leaned over, his breath hot against the Doctor's ear. “You're the one who destroyed all the Daleks,” he hissed. “You could be a champion for humankind, you could teach us so much.” He leaned back, and his voice grew lighter. Sadder. “Or you could be just another Doctor on a ship that already has one.” Jack stepped past him and toward the staircase to the upper level. “Think about it.”
He watched the retreating shape of Jack's back as he walked away, his words echoing like a drumbeat in his ears.
Chapter 2
Author: meself, fid_gin
Beta: unfolded73
Pairing: alt!Ten/Ten/Rose
Rating: This chapter, PG. Next chapter, woo-boy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: Torchwood meets the Loved 'verse
Notes: Erm, well, yes. *nervously thrusts fic at you* I am attempting a multi-chaptered fic, which as we all know, I suck at. But! I have the skilled and patient hand of my former partner-in-crime unfolded73 to guide me along the way, so I have high hopes of actually finishing this thing and having it make sense when all is said and done. Reading of the other Loved 'verse fics is probably not necessary, so long as you can wrap your brain around the fact that these three are traveling together. And shagging. Oh, and one of them has a tattoo. ;)
Deep below the streets of Cardiff, the Doctor crossed the blue arms of his suit jacket in front of him and leaned back against a railing, craning his neck up slightly to behold a wheeling, screeching pterodactyl.
Torchwood Three, located directly under what was commonly known to the rest of the world as Roald Dahl Plass. He'd been here, above ground, briefly to fuel up with Martha and then many years before with Rose and Jack and Mickey. Now the Doctor watched those same three people before him, changed so much by the time and adventures they'd shared with him, hugging and laughing and talking and looking more-or-less exactly the same as they had on that sunny day in Cardiff so long ago.
Only he had changed.
First his body and his face thanks to the process of regeneration, then his entire genetic make-up with a little help from a temp named Donna Noble and a Dalek fleet re-invented by their insane and impossibly-alive creator. But standing here, now, the Doctor realized he had never felt more like back when he was that big-eared, blue-eyed man in the leather jacket than he did at this moment, watching over his one current and two former companions. The illusion was only broken when he himself, dressed in brown instead of blue, stepped forward to join them, throwing one arm over Mickey's shoulder in a familiar gesture and brushing a kiss across Rose's cheek. It was an action that, coming from anyone else, would have made him seethe with jealousy. Coming from himself, welll...it was tolerable, he thought with a small smile.
********
Their arrival went surprisingly smoothly, the Doctor in blue thought. No alien invasions, no missing years, and only one salute.
The entrance of the Torchwood hub rolled back amidst flashing lights and warning klaxons, and a small crowd of gawking, familiar faces peered from the other side of it.
“Hey, boss!” Mickey chirped finally, running forward, screeching to a halt as the other Doctor stepped out from behind the first one, his hand brushing his double's shoulder as he passed. “Boss?” he asked, looking from one to the other. “Oh my god! It's him, isn't it? It's the other one!”
“Mickey!” the other Doctor shouted joyfully, stepping up and punching his knuckles against the hand which he'd raised to greet the first Doctor in brown.
Jack walked forward. “Doctors,” he said, addressing both of them and snapping off said salute. Coming from Jack it was bearable, and the Doctor wondered why it should be, that he was willing to forgive Jack so much that he abhorred in others. Guilt? “Saw you materialize in the monitors. Though, I admit,” he added, lowering his hand and letting his eyes rove over the three of them. “There's at least one more in your party than we were expecting.” The Doctor began to sputter at that, as Jack nodded at Rose, a flirty smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Ma'am.”
“Oh don't 'ma'am' me, c'mere!” She ran, laughing, over to Jack as he swept her up into a large hug, twirling her around before setting her feet back on the ground. “You look amazing!”
“It's only been three months,” Jack said, feigning insult. “Why, how long's it been for you?”
“I...I'm not sure,” she said, smiling bashfully back at the two Doctors. "A long time."
“Well, that's different, then,” Mickey said. “Used to be the other way around. Good to know he's still a rubbish driver, though.”
“Mr. Mickey!” the Doctor in brown said, ducking around his double to embrace the young man in a hug, much to Mickey's apparent surprise at this display of affection. “How's Torchwood treating you?”
“He's completely useless,” Jack said, winking at Rose to show he was kidding.
“Don't listen to him, you're brilliant!” Gwen spoke, stepping forward finally and putting a hand on Mickey's shoulder. “He captured his first Weevil last week.” Mickey smiled and shrugged, obviously enjoying the praise.
She offered her hand. “Gwen Cooper,” she said in a strong Welsh accent. Something about her looked strikingly familiar, and the Doctor realized this must have been the woman Rose and his other self had spoken to that day in the TARDIS. The one whom they recognized from 1869.
“Pleasure to meet you, Gwen Cooper.”
“We've met...” she started.
“Ah no, that was...that wasn't me.” the Doctor said. Somehow, his mouth kept moving. “She was very brave, your ancestor. Gwyneth, her name was, Gwyneth. Closed the rift opened by the Gelth who were using it to get through and inhabit human corpses...this is probably all old news to you, isn't it?” Gwen shook her head, her mouth opened slightly. “Well then, that's brilliant! Here you are, working on the rift that was sealed by your...fore-sister? fore-mother? never exactly sure how that goes...”
Jack cut him off before he could get into a really good ramble. “Ianto and Martha are out on a recovery mission at the moment, you'll all get to say hello to them later.”
“And...what are they recovering?” the Doctor in brown asked.
“Dinner,” Gwen and Mickey said simultaneously.
********
“You're awfully quiet,” Jack said, sidling up next to him where he stood now with his arms crossed, watching Rose and Mickey having a good laugh over something and the Doctor pointing excitedly at a screen, talking a mile-a-minute by the look of it while Gwen looked on, amused. “Is that because of the...” Jack gestured toward the Doctor in brown and then back at him.
“Metacrisis, and are you kidding? I'm part Donna if you remember.” The Doctor's voice trailed off a bit at the end of his sentence as his mind wandered back to the events of that day, and the later realization, back aboard the TARDIS, that she was gone.
Jack seemed to allow him his moment of nostalgia. “We know about her, you know,” he finally interjected. The Doctor's eyebrows shot up.
“How can you know about that?”
“We're Torchwood, Doctor. When there's a human woman wandering around Chiswick with a suppressed Time Lord consciousness in her brain that could go off like a bomb with the slightest memory twinge, we make it a point to keep tabs on her.”
The Doctor gave a sad little smirk. “Quite right.” He stole a quick glance over toward where Mickey and Gwen seemed to be discussing something conspiratorially, looking in his direction every couple of sentences. “Jack?” he said, his voice hushed. “Everyone is staring at me.”
Jack chuckled. “Good manners probably aren't our strong point. They're just surprised to see you.”
“Why? I mean, if you lot knew about Donna, what did you think...?”
The other man crossed his arms mimicking the Doctor's akimbo stance, tilted his head down and looked thoughtful. “We all had our theories about that. Needless to say, when Donna Noble turned up with her mind wiped and all her memories of traveling with the Doctor removed, more than one of us figured it was a two-way process just like the metacrisis. A few weeks ago, CCTV in London picked up an image of...one of you, standing alone outside a shop. Only a few seconds, but it seemed to confirm our suspicions.”
“Really? Was it a tattoo parlour?”
Jack looked back to the Doctor, the dimple in his chin growing more pronounced as he grinned somewhat lecherously. “I think the one thing none of us suspected was that the three of you would be together.”
The Doctor resisted the urge to grow defensive. “What are you insinuating, Jack?” Was that a wink?
He changed the subject effortlessly. “I'm sorry, by the way. About Donna.”
The Doctor's eyes flickered back to his companion and his other self before he turned his body toward Jack and faced him fully. “Actually...that's sort-of the reason we're here.”
The other Doctor would never admit it, but it had been this Doctor's idea to come. A whispered conversation over Rose's sleeping body had somehow led to the subject, and the admission on both their parts that they'd enjoy visiting Jack. And Martha. And Mickey. What the Doctor had not told his original self, however, was his deeper motive for wanting to plunder the Torchwood archives of alien bits and bobs. Donna Noble.
Not that he didn't believe that the other Doctor did not miss her as terribly as he did: he knew, well, assumed that he did. But the Doctor, this Doctor, more than missed her - he felt he needed her, now that he had made peace with the Time Lord half of his consciousness and body he needed to come to understand the human half. The part that so often made embarrassing words spill from his mouth, the part that made him smell and snore and age. The part that had taken his right heart which he still occasionally woke searching for, desperately clutching his chest, feeling he was dying. He had what he reckoned to probably be a ridiculous notion that he could learn from Donna. Learn how not to be so afraid, how to be bold and brilliant like she had always been.
That, and he just missed his friend.
“Donna?” The Doctor nodded somberly, and Jack looked surprised. “There's nothing we can do. If you couldn't...I mean, he couldn't, what makes you think...?”
“Like you said, Jack: you're Torchwood. Every alien artifact that's fallen to Earth, been confiscated by law enforcement, fallen into the wrong hands: it all ends up here.” He raised his left eyebrow, tilted up his chin in his favourite expression of bemused self-importance. “All you need is someone to show you how to use it.”
Jack regarded him silently for a moment, a mysterious smile on his face. “You're right,” he said finally. The Doctor was in mid-satisfied nod, when Jack spoke again. “Come work for us.”
He froze, tilted his head slightly. “Wh-what?”
“I'm asking you to come work for Torchwood. With us. Permanently.” Jack glanced over toward the group. “We lost two members of our team recently. Owen and Tosh. Hasn't been the same without them. We haven't been the same.” He glanced down, looking almost embarrassed. “We need help, Doctor. We need the best, and your little team seems to have an extra Doctor they can spare.”
“Oi! I'm not an 'extra',” the Doctor said, trying not to look as flattered as he felt by the "best" comment, then shook himself out of it. “I sympathize, Jack. Really. But this whole saving-the-universe thing, it's a bit of a full time job I'm afraid.” He clapped the other man on the shoulder and began to walk away.
“Not your job though, is it Doctor?” The Doctor in blue froze, as Jack stepped up close behind him, keeping his voice low so the others wouldn't hear. “You're you, I get that. But so's he, and that box has got to be getting awfully crowded by now. I know you, Doctor. Ask yourself: is your place on the TARDIS, where you're just another helping hand? Or could it be here, where you could make a difference, every day?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak the one word that would always stop him: “Rose...”
“What better service could you do for her, for them, than to work here on Earth? I know you love her. I know you love him, too. But this is Earth we're talking about Doctor - the planet's in turmoil after being moved across the galaxy and back. People are still struggling to understand what happened, and they need you.” Jack leaned over, his breath hot against the Doctor's ear. “You're the one who destroyed all the Daleks,” he hissed. “You could be a champion for humankind, you could teach us so much.” He leaned back, and his voice grew lighter. Sadder. “Or you could be just another Doctor on a ship that already has one.” Jack stepped past him and toward the staircase to the upper level. “Think about it.”
He watched the retreating shape of Jack's back as he walked away, his words echoing like a drumbeat in his ears.
Chapter 2