Last Timelady In Space

Born again

The new Doctor dashes to the console and flicks a few switches, checking the monitor.
"6 PM... Tuesday..." The Doctor says. Kyraiah steps forward slowly.
Rose watches, half concealed by a pillar wondering why her friend is going near this stranger. The Doctor turns a knob.
"October... 5006... On the way to Barcelona!" He finishes.
Straightens up and faces Rose and Kyraiah, grinning as if extremely pleased with himself.
"Now then... what do I look like?" He says, Ky opens her mouth but he gives her no chance to reply before holding up a hand to silence her.
"No, no no, no no no no no no no. No. Don't tell me."
Rose looks completely bemused. Ky is just looking at her dad, wondering if he be okay with her calling him that.
"Let's see... two legs, two arms, two hands..." Tests his wrist, circling it.
"Slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle." His hands fly to his head. "Hair! I'm not bald!"
Rose now looks shocked and Ky starts giggling. The Doctor runs his hands through his hair gleefully.
"Oh, Oh! Big hair!" Feels his sideburns, looks and sounds delighted "Sideburns, I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin. Little bit thinner..." Slaps his stomach.
"That's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it." With the air of someone making a most wonderful discovery the Doctor announces "I... have got... a mole. I can feel it." Rose is breathing heavily. She looks scared. The Doctor seems not to notice. Ky does and turns to her friend and smile encouragingly.
"Between my shoulder blades, there's a mole. "Rotating his shoulders as it to show the girls through his clothes.
"That's all right. Love the mole." He grins at Rose and Ky.
"Go on then, tell me.
Stands straight up before the both, ready for assessment. His hair is all ruffled
"What do you think?"
Rose timidly asks "Who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor." The Doctor says slightly upset
Rose just shakes her head not believing him. "No... Where is he? Where's the Doctor? What have you done to him?" Her voice getting loud towards the end.
"You saw me, I, I changed..."he points the the spot over his shoulder, the spot where he regenerated. "... right in front of you."
"I saw him sort of explode, and then you replaced him, like a... a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something." The Doctor does not interject. He seems lost for words. Rose takes a few steps towards him. At arm's length, she pushes him in the chest.
"You're not fooling me."
The Doctor rocks back on his heels as though he cannot believe what he is hearing. Ky'a face falls as she hears what her bestfriends is saying.
"Dad...do you mind if I still call you that?..." she start thinking to him. He smiles. He knew she would know what was going on but to hear her still call him that was even better. She'd only just started too before, he regenerated, but she still saw him as so now. It warmed his hearts.
"I've seen all sorts of things. Nano genes... Gelth...Slitheen..." she narrows her eyes at him and he just raises his eyebrows. "Oh, my God, are you a Slitheen?" She asks.
"I'm not a Slitheen." He calmly tells her.
"Ky, oh my sweet Kyraiah, of course you can....as long as you want to you can always call me that." He projects to her.
Rose raises her voice "Send him back. I'm warning you; send the Doctor back right now!"
The Doctor pleads with her to believe him. "Rose, it's me..."
He leans forward in his urgency to make her believe him.
"Honestly, it's me."
Rose stares at him, her chest rising and falling very fast. She looks to her best friend who is frowning back at her and she nods telling her he's telling the truth. But she can't believe it.

"I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but... it's still me."
"You can't be." Rose whispered
The Doctor takes a few steps closer to her, looking straight down into her eyes. "Then how could I remember this? Very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar. Surrounded by shop window dummies.... oh..." Looks away for a moment, reminiscing. Then he looks back into her eyes "... such a long time ago. I took your hand..." To emphasize his point, he takes her hand... just like he did when Rose first asked who he was. Rose glances briefly down at their joint hands and then back up at his face. "I said one word... just one word, I said... "Run"." He gazes at her. Rose looks into his eyes, her own full of tears.
"Doctor." Rose whispered
The Doctor grins.
"Hello." He gently says.
Rose sighs in an almost exasperated fashion and stumbles backwards as the impact of what has just happened hits her. The Doctor takes off around the other side of the console.
"And we never stopped, did we? All across the universe. Running, running, running, that's what you did with Ky when we found her remember and ..." Flicks a few switches on the console. "One time we had to hop. Do you remember? Hopping for our lives." He hops madly up and down on the spot. Rose has her back against the pillar and is just watching him. "Yeah? All that hopping? Remember hopping for your life? Yeah?! Hop? With the..." The wild enthusiasm ebbs from his voice at Rose's lack of reaction. His hopping subsides. "No?"
"Can you change back?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"Can you?"
"No."
He seems rather disappointed. He glances briefly down at the floor, Ky can feel it rolling off him in waves and runs over to him and hugs him. He holds her tightly, not wanting her to change her mind about him.
"Do y-you, I mean, do you want to leave?" Ky asks her.
"Do you want me to leave?" Rose asks her best friend shocked.
"No! But... it's your choice... if you want to go home..." Ky tells her,
Rose still looks upset. The Doctor lets go of Kyraiah and goes to the console again.
"Cancel Barcelona. Change to... London... the Powell Estate... ah... let's say the 24th of December." The Doctor looks at her. "Consider it a Christmas present." He says as Rose edges closer the console slowly.
"There" says the Doctor.
He steps back, his arms tucked under his armpits in an almost defensive manner. Ky walk over to him and rests her head on his shoulder as she looks down. Rose looks at him, then her, then back at the console. The TARDIS shudders as it changes direction.
"I'm going home?" Rose asks.
"Up to you. Back to your mum... it's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast... no, Christmas! Turkey! Although... having met your mother... nut loaf would be more appropriate." The Doctor says and Rose looks down quickly, to hide a smile.
"Was that a smile?" Ky asks her, her own smile appearing.
"No." Rose says to her friend. Looking quickly between them she can see the connection between them both. It makes her slightly more sure of this man truly being The Doctor.
"That was a smile..." Ky says to her best friend.
"No it wasn't."
"You smiled..."
"No I didn't." The Doctor watches the two interact like nothing has changed. A lot changed for Rose though, but Ky was used to this happening around her as she grew up.
"Oh, come on, all I did was change, I didn't..." He starts
He suddenly gags as the TARDIS shudders. Rose looks at him questioningly.
"What?" Rose asks him
"I said I didn't..."
The same thing happens again, more violently. He makes nasty retching noises.
"Uh oh."
Rose edges cautiously around the console.
"Dad...dad come on please..." Ky begged him.
"Er... is you alright?" Rose looked at him funny.
A piece golden time regeneration energy flows from the Doctor's mouth.
"What's that?" Rose asks him pointing the glowing gold smoke coming from his mouth.
"No please don't dad come your okay." Kyraiah begged her father, she needed him to be okay. She just needed him.
"Oh... the change is going a bit wrong and all." He says as he gags again. He falls to his knees, his face contorted. Ky rushed forward and holds him, stroking his hair. He needed her too, more now than ever. With the regeneration going wrong and Rose somewhat rejecting him, he needed his daughter by his side.
"Look... maybe we should go back. Let's go and find Captain Jack, he'd know what to do." Rose says as she edges away.
"Gah, he's busy! He's got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth!" He hastily says as a lever on the console suddenly catches his eye. "I haven't used this one in years."
He flicks it. The TARDIS shudders violently and all three are nearly knocked to their feet.
"Dad stop, come on stop." Ky begs him.
"What're you doing?!" Rose ask nearly at the same time.
"Putting on a bit of speed! That's it!" He turns more knobs while Rose and Kyraiah try to maintain a more secure grip on the console.
"My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! That's a girl!" Rose looks distinctly alarmed. The Doctor looks and sounds violent, crazed. Ky just take the moment to try and reach some levers to slow down the Tardis but she doesn't get the chance. "Faster! Wanna to break the time limit?!"
"Stop it!" Rose shouts at him, scared and angry.
Ky just tries to look him in the eye and makes her way over too him.
The Doctor looks at Rose and says, in a slightly nastily and still crazed tone, "Ah, don't be so dull... let's have a bit of fun! Let's rip through that vortex!"
Catching Kyraiahs eye for just a moment, his voice calms.
"The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself...." he grimaces in pain. "....Ah, my head..." He violently springs up into standing position again, and his voice has gone back to being crazed.
".....Faster! Let's open those engines!" A bell rings.
"DAD..." Kyraiah yells at him "...Your scaring Rose and quite frankly your scaring me too, let me help you."
Rose looks around, frightened "What's that?"
The Doctor's face appears next to her looking and sounding delighted "We're gonna crash land!" He laughs manically.
Rose shouting over the sound of the bell at Kyraiah. "Well then, do something!"
"I'm bloody trying, he's really messed this up, I've got no control..." she shouts back, her accent coming out thick, as she stresses over what's happening
The Doctors voice rises hysterically "Too late! Out of control!" Runs around the console, giggling. "Oh, I love it! Hot dawg!" He hops in the air excitedly.
"You're gonna kill us!" Both girls yell.
"Hold on tight, here we go!" The Doctor says as their eyes meet across the console, the Doctor grinning madly, Rose looking scared. Ky looking angry.
"Christmas Eve...!"
"I'm gonna bloody kill you for this later." Ky shouts at her father, her accent thick and heavy still this time more with her anger than stress.