Waiting On A Rival

Chapter 7

The two Doctors looked at each other. I stayed silent. Finally, the fifth Doctor asked, "Who are you?"

"Oh, brilliant."

"I mean, totally wrong," I corrected, "Bit emergency, universe goes bang in five minutes."

"But, brilliant," the Doctor repeated. He was overjoyed.

"I'm the Doctor," Five demanded, "Who are you two?"

"Yes, you are," he agreed, "You are the Doctor."

"Yes, I am. I'm the Doctor." Five was not amused.

"Oh, good for you, Doctor," He smiled widely, "Good for brilliant old you."

Five asked mockingly, "Is there something wrong with you?"

"Yes," I answered immediately, "Oh, there it goes, the frowny face."

"I remember that one. Mind you, bit saggier than I ought to be. Hair's a bit greyer. That's because of me, though," the Doctor rambled, "The two of us together has shorted out the time differential. Should all snap back in place when we get you home."

"Be able to close that coat again," I noted.

"But never mind that. Look at you! The coat, the crickety cricket stuff, the stick of celery," he hesitated on the celery, "Yeah. Brave choice, celery, but fair play to you. Not a lot of men can carry off a decorative vegetable."

"Shut up! There is something very wrong with my TARDIS, and I've got to do something about it very, very quickly, and it would help," Five snapped, "It really would help if there wasn't some skinny idiot with his girlfriend ranting in my face about every single think that happens to be in front of them!"

The Doctor shrunk back a bit. "Oh. Okay. Sorry. Doctor," he enunciated the last word.

"Thank you." He turned back around to the counsel only to have the Doctor yell, "Oh, the back of my head!"

"What?"

"Sorry, sorry," I apologized for him, "It's not something you see every day, is it, the back of your own head."

"Mind you, I can see why you wear a hat." His expression darkened a bit. "I don't want to seem vain, but could you keep that on?"

Five noticed his surroundings, "What have you done to my TARDIS? You've changed the desktop theme, haven't you? What's this one, coral?"

"Well-"

"It's worse than the leopard skin." I nodded in agreement.
Five placed his half moon spectacles on his face. "Oh, and out they come, the brainy specs." The Doctor spread his legs to an open stance and leaned back and forth. "You don't even need them. You just think they make you look a bit clever."

An alarm goes off and he checked the counsel. "That's an alert, level five, indicating a temporal collision. It like two TARDISes have merged, but there's definitely only one TARDIS present. It's like two time zones or more at the heart of the TARDIS." He whispered, "That's a paradox that could blow a hole in the space time continuum the size of-" The Doctor and I turned the screen towards him for the exactness. "Well, actually, the exact size of Belgium."

"That's a bit undramatic, isn't it?" I commented, "Belgium?"

The Doctor ignored us and offered his sonic screwdriver. "Need this?"

Five insisted, "No, I'm fine."

"Oh no, of course, you liked to go hands free," I mocked, "Didn't you, like 'hey, I'm the Doctor. I can save the universe using a kettle and some string. And look at me, I'm wearing a vegetable'."