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Something's wrong. Well, of course something's wrong. He's himself, but in a different body. His body, mind, at least a body grown of his own lost hand, but still. It's a bit more complicated than that.
It's only when Donna looks at him with fear in her eyes that he realizes exactly how complicated it is.
“Who are you?!” She yells, her voice growing in octaves with each word. She steps back a few paces and immediately jumps forward having backed into the console. Still, she keeps her distance and he senses her taking stock of the objects in the TARDIS that could be used as weapons.
“Donna, it's me.” And even as he says it, it doesn't seem right. For one, his voice isn't right. It's a voice he's heard before, a voice he's spoken with before, but it's not the one he expected to hear coming from his vocal cords.
Donna's mouth is still hanging open with shock and fear, but she quickly closes it when her eyes travel downwards and suddenly jump up towards the still burning ceiling. “You're naked.” Her voice is still high but she sounds more uncomfortable than scared.
When he looks down at himself it finally becomes clear to him why he feels so utterly wrong. And like that, it's as if the realization locks him in place because he can feel himself almost floating away, the thoughts in his head changing in their perspective, the memories of his current regeneration skewing themselves a bit as he remembers them differently, people who he liked who he suddenly thinks he should have told to shut their mouths and places he went that he'd never want to set foot in.
As his eyes take in the sight before him, his head lowered to examine himself a bit more closely, he sees his lean form having been replaced by a sturdier frame. Thighs a bit thicker, feet a bit bigger. Genitals, well, he's had that set before, hasn't he?
Immediately his hands snap up to his head to grip his ears and when he feels how they've grown he just knows.
She's still trying not to stare and he can't help but think how much more complicated this is going to make everything.
“Oh, fantastic.” He sighs, rolling his eyes.
--
Once he's taken them out of the burning flames and set the TARDIS to start repairing itself, he decides he really should put some clothes on since Donna is already traumatized enough and well, he's become quite cold.
He has a hard time finding his old jumper and trousers in the wardrobe and really, is it possible to be annoyed with your own lack of organizational skills? He remembers tossing the old leather thing somewhere in the back, which in the TARDIS could mean miles past the racks of clothes, and he really wants to slap himself a little.
He takes too long finding it, he knows, there's other things he should be doing. But he's damned if he doesn't feel uncomfortable enough in this new-old body of his, he needs something to help him feel at ease.
When he finally finds the tattered thing and shrugs it onto his shoulders, he grins for the first time since he opened his eyes to a frightened Donna. When he comes back out into the console room, she glances quickly at him before she rolls her eyes and finally looks at him without cringing.
“About time you put some clothes on. I mean, it was becoming a bit distracting, your nakedness.” He can't help but flash her a smirk with a upturned eyebrow, old habits die hard, and she blushes. It's funny how she reacts this way towards him now. He thinks she really doesn't like skinny blokes, does she?
He's still checking the TARDIS for signs of damage when she speaks.
“So, are you gonna tell me what the hell is going on?” She's standing next to him, and she's not staring as if she's scared any longer so he thinks that's a good sign. “It's you, yeah? I mean I believe that. With everything I've seen, I'll believe anything. And Jack said, you'd change. But you didn't, you just, poured yourself or whatever into that hand. So where did you come from?”
Too many questions, this one. He knows that about her, of course. But now, having gone back a regeneration, he feels his patience wearing a bit thin. “Yes, you're right. I didn't regenerate.” She cocks an eyebrow and he realizes he's going to have to explain everything and quickly, too.
“I didn't change. I did, so you put it, pour myself into my hand. But that hand wasn't from my current regen-” I can tell she doesn't comprehend that word so he runs a hand over his face and tries again. “That hand was from a past self. This self. The version before the one you know, yeah? So instead of changing into me, I changed into. Into...” Bugger, if he wasn't confusing the hell out of himself.
“But why are you here? I thought that was it, the pouring thing.”
He grins because this bit is rather exciting. “No, but see all that regeneration, um, changing energy went into the hand. But then you touched it! Instantaneous biological metacrisis! I grew, out of you.” He looks her up and down. “Still, could be worse.”
“Oi, watch it, space man!” She yelps, insulted.
“Oi, watch it, Earth-girl!” He furrows his brow, but then suddenly realizes what's happened. Wait, oh, oh no.
He holds a hand close to his chest and the single heartbeat he feels confirms his suspicions. “Well, isn't that wizard?”
--
He doesn't think. He can't stop to think. He's doing it again, and he doesn't give a damn. Because the whole stupid planet, the whole universe and every single universe out there is in danger and Rose is up there with that thing, that abomination and this time she doesn't have the power of the TARDIS heart running through her veins to protect her.
He grips the device tighter before he emerges from the TARDIS and he doesn't look anywhere but at the man who created the dangerous pests who would go on to ruin every single one of his lives and he runs.
As the laser hits him and knocks the wind out of his lungs, he hears Rose call his name and he finally looks over at her and sees a million emotions pass over her face.
“There's two of you!” She says later. “And why, why is it...” She can't finished her thought and it hurts him a little because maybe she doesn't like this version of him anymore.
The other him answers her, staring at him the whole time with something like disgust in his eyes. It's a weird sensation, because having been that man only hours before, he knows exactly what he's thinking and feeling and he can justify why, but still. Being the man he is now, it angers him to know.
“I told you how I lost a hand once before we met, and somehow Torchwood got a hold of it.” Both Doctors glance up at the image of Jack on the monitor as he shrugs a little. “It contains the DNA of my Ninth incarnation, along with his personality. But he--” And he nods in the direction of the leather clad version of himself. “He has all of my memories up until I fed that regeneration energy into my hand.”
Rose still looks a bit confused, and she begins to speak but Davros, the abomination, cuts her off.
But then, the Doctor sees Donna stir from her place on the floor and he grins to himself.
--
His other self is outside the TARDIS bidding fond farewells. He feels no need to do so himself, he thinks he can use the excuse that whatever one says the other is feeling as well. Really he's just anxious to speak to Rose and besides, Mickey didn't look too pleased to see his daft old face again. It's just not something he needs to do.
She's still shaking her head in fascination but now she's smiling a little, too. He leans back against the railing behind him and crosses his arms, feeling nervous at how she's letting her eyes roam up and down his long form. He feels a bit like a piece of meat but he hasn't felt that way underneath Rose's gaze in a while so he'll take whatever he can get.
“So it's you, again, yeah?” She tries to make sense of it, and his hearts, -- make that heart now, he'll have to get used to that disgusting idea, swells inside his chest. He's missed her, missed her of course when he lost her that day on the beach but he's missed her like this. Missed her as this part of himself would miss her. It's as if now all the hell he went through without her is intensified and thinking back on his time without her hand there to hold he wonders why he didn't go insane with loneliness.
He nods, even though there's more to everything than she really understands, but that can wait. Because her hand is suddenly on his chest and he moves his arms away and stands up a bit straighter. Her eyelids flutter to a close when her palm finds its way over his lonely heart, thump thumping away inside him. She opens her eyes and he feels himself floating as a grin spreads wide and bright over her face. “One heartbeat. You're half-ape now!” She teases, that damn tongue peeking out and hell if he didn't miss seeing that smile.
He doesn't tease back, just looks into her doll like eyes and smiles a thin smile. “Missed you, ya know.” And he hopes she realizes the double meaning.
Her grin fades, but not from lack of happiness. He sees the tears suddenly welling up in her eyes and suddenly he's wrapped up in her warmth, her arms a tight vice around his neck and her hair swept over his face. He smiles into her neck and snakes his own arms tight around her middle, the scent of sweat and soap from a shower she took in another universe sweet in his nostrils. She makes a sort of humming sound in the back of her throat and he thinks destroying two universes really would have been excusable if he could have just had this once more.
The other him returns then and throws him a look, his eyes flat and his face a full on poker, though he knows exactly what he's thinking since he is him, or was, hours before.
As he watches the tall, spike haired idiot set the exact coordinates he thought he would, he holds Rose just that much tighter to his chest.
--
“Well, if this ain't something out of a sci-fi romance novel. I wonder if they even have those...” He hears Jackie babbling behind them but his attention is trained on Rose as he grips her hand tighter.
“Are you sure about this?” He asks around the lump in his throat. He's not even sure if he's, well, sure. But he'd feel better if he heard her speak finally.
She turns towards him, the wind sweeping her hair into her face and almost masking the tears that have spilled over her eyelids. “Yeah.” Her voice breaks a little when she says it, but she's smiling. “He, you... I had a choice, really.” Her own hand tightens around his grip and he wants to hold her close and never let her go.
She chuckles then and it's music to his sizable ears. “Not much we can do about it now, right? He's gone.” She looks back towards where the TARDIS once stood, her face a tad wistful but she tries to hide it from him, knowing it might hurt. She's so strong, his Rose. Even when she's in pain she's thinking of someone else's feelings.
“I'm sorry.” And he means it. Means it because the other him could never say it, could never say anything she needed to hear. And in the end he knows that's why they're here, because he thinks, knows, whatever that this is the best thing for her.
It's selfish and selfless all at once, because he couldn't lose her again but also, he wants to give her a chance to be happy with him. For real, for life, and this is the chance.
She turns back towards him and wraps her arms around his neck again, and he thinks of her lips on his just minutes ago and how much he wants that wet, delicious warmth back. “Can I just say...” She whispers, the wind almost carrying her words out of his range of hearing. “How much I missed you?”
And as she presses her lips to his once again, the double meaning of her words is clear and he smiles against her mouth.
--
He sleeps now.
It's such a mad thing, the fact that he sleeps. And he sleeps a lot, as well. She thinks if this is how he felt before, anxious and bored and waiting impatiently for her to awaken. It's too quiet and there's shit on the telly so she can't even distract herself with that.
So instead she just lays next to him in the same ray of light that's coming from the window and striped across his bare back. She studies the way his muscles flex and relax as he shifts under the covers. His arms are pulled up underneath his pillow and the angle makes his biceps harder and more defined and she resists the urge to run her hands over them, afraid suddenly to wake him as he really does need the rest.
She blinks and suddenly the back spread out over her bed is leaner and flecked with golden spots, freckles she's tried counting a billion times but never got further than twenty before he'd turn and grab her as she squealed with delight. The short, close cropped hair has grown into a mop of brown that peaks at the top of his skull. He groans in his sleep and she hears a different voice than the one she's become re-accustomed to.
Her eyes shut and open again and he's himself again, the man she first met, and she can't tell if she's just daydreaming or slowly going insane. Sometimes she just can't help but see his other self when she looks at him. She knows he can tell when she's doing it, knows it hurts him, but she can't help it. She tries to make it up to him with her words and her touches, because she knows how to heal his open wounds, but still. It's hard for both of them.
All the same, she had forgotten how much she missed this part of him. He rolls over and his chest is exposed, more defined than she remembered and lightly patched with baby soft hair that lessens as her gaze runs down his front before it collects thicker again as her view is cut off entirely by the sheet he's thrown over himself.
“See something you like?” His voice is low and still thick with sleep and it sets something off inside her.
She looks up into his eyes and the blue of his stare brings her in towards him to plant a soft, chaste kiss to his lips.
“I sleep too much, I'm sorry.” He says, his breath against her mouth and filling her nose, a bit more sour than she would have liked. He immediately recognizes her face and clamps a hand over his mouth. “Sorry about that.”
She giggles and shakes her head. “Shut up, you half-ape, you.” She pulls his hand down and kisses him deeper this time, telling him she'll take him however he is, love him however he is.
Their lips part and he hums a sound of contentment. “So what's it today, then? More clothes shopping? Or teaching me how to use the washing machine again? I told you Rose, I know how, I just haven't used one in so long--” She cuts him off with another quick kiss before bounding out of the bed, her feet loud on the floor as she walks towards her wardrobe.
“Nope. I got some news from the Hub about a possible alien break in at the local power plant.” She pretends to be closely inspecting her own choice of knickers but she watches his reaction out of the corner of his eye.
“An adventure?!” He exclaims, and his face lights up. She nods quickly, trying to hold back a smile as he jumps out of bed, and she squeals as his naked form presses close to her, his arms tight around her middle.
She waits for his inevitable exclamation of “Fantastic!” and holds him close, closing her eyes against the tell tale fluttering of happiness in her belly.