Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Doctor (Take 2! Metacrisis! Clone! Duplicate! Whatever they were calling him today...) twitched.

Twitch. That’s a funny word. His mind supplied groggily. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Hm.

He twitched again, then burrowed deeper into his pillows. He still wasn’t used to needing 8 hours of sleep a night and usually he had a hard time staying down for more than 5 but today the sun seemed to have risen too early.

He growled in irritation when the light followed him into his pillows.

Wait, hadn’t he closed the blinds last night?

..Yes, he had! Maybe Rose had opened them? No…she was still angry about the toast fiasco. He had another two days until her temper died down and she deigned to come near him again. Jackie? Eh…possible, but she most likely would have accompanied opening the blinds with a screeching comment on how he couldn’t laze the day away.

(He’d never been on the receiving end of that one but he’d heard it delivered to Rose. He was far more likely to get a pillow chucked at his head and a screech to “Go to bed! It’s four in the bleedin’ morning!”)

He was very nearly awake by now, only keeping his eyes closed out of sheer stubbornness.

“…’s too early…” He mumbled at the room at large, hoping the mysterious blinds opener would reply.

Nope.

Finally, he gave a last groan, stretched, and sat up. Without opening his eyes, he threw the covers back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His usual bouncy gait had been downgraded to a slow shuffle as he wandered blindly into the bathroom, ignoring how the light seemed to follow him even after he’d woken up.

Finally, he closed the door and opened his eyes.

“WHAT?!”

The only reason his shout didn’t wake up the entire manor was the sound proofed walls.

He was glowing. The light hadn’t been the sun, it had been him. A soft golden-orange haze of energy surrounded him. (Was it being emitted by his skin?)The Doctor spun around in front of the mirror, trying to take in the whole picture but only managing to make himself dizzy.

“No no nonono…! This can’t be…I don’t…I can’t regenerate! I’m not a timelord!”

He stood firm for a minute, looking resolute, until he realized he was talking to himself, then he started pacing. Two strides left, hit the wall, Two right, hit the wall…he had a very tiny bathroom, come to think of it.

“Alright, objectivity is the key!” He gripped the sink and stared at himself in the mirror, fighting not to panic as his features blurred away under the energy.

“I can’t be regenerating. Never mind the fact that I’m not a timelord; I didn’t die!” Unless humans could die in their sleep…did that happen? Could you literally sleep your life away? He shook the thought away, resolving to ask Jackie later. “But it doesn’t feel like regeneration either…So what’s happening?”

Time to play WWDD: what would Doctor/Donna do.

He considered his progenitor.

Nope. He’d flit around the TARDIS shouting that it’s impossible for a half hour, then find something to prove it IS impossible and it’s just an illusion.

Is it?

He tentatively licked one glowing finger tip and instantly coughed at the taste of ozone. Nope, not an illusion.

He considered Donna

She’d take it in stride then…then…make the Doctor fix it? That doesn’t help! He thought harder… and remembered the Adipose.

“I can’t save them! One million people are going to die!”

“Doctor, what do you need?”

"…"

“Doctor, tell me, what do you NEED?”

...

“Of course! The human way!”

The Doctor spun out of the bathroom, the bounce back in his step (and, hey! That’s one way to go from asleep to hyperactive in two minutes: spontaneous radioactivity!) and dug around in his desk for a moment, finally pulling out a felt pen and notepad.

“Now we; Well, I; compile the evidence and facts!”

Five minutes later he was seated on the floor, staring gloomily at the blank notepad. Even his glowing aura seemed to be dimmer in response to his abrupt mood change.

“This was so much easier when they did it on TV” he grumbled, ruffling his hair. He didn’t notice the golden sparks the action gave off.

“I know! Rose is human, I’ll ask her!” He bounded up (the aura flared in response) but froze with his hand on the doorknob. Slowly, he pulled it away and took a step back.

The first time he’d left his room before 5am, he’d been told it was too early. The next three times he’d avoided directly waking people up but the racket that followed in his wake proved just as bad.

After that, Jackie had threatened to lock him in his room if he ever left it before 5am again.

Then things took an unpleasant turn.

He’d forgotten Jackie’s threat (she made so many of them) and been forcibly escorted back to his bedroom a few days later. When they finally let him out at 2pm, he was quiet, calm, and refused to look Jackie in the eye for the rest of the day. In fact, he avoided her entirely.

That night, she’d come to his room and demanded to know what his problem was. He’d gotten in her face about locking him up, and she’d informed him that the orders hadn’t been hers. In fact, she’d been properly horrified when she found out he’d been locked in a small room for ten hours. She said it would be like expecting a little kid to sit still for that long. He’d been slightly insulted by the comparison but grateful for an ally.

After a bit of snooping (which required Jackie speaking with security while the Doctor eavesdropped from around the corner) they found out who the culprit was.

Rose.

The Doctor had confronted her alone but Rose had been disinterested, claiming he needed to learn to be human and part of that was sleeping. In a Donna-esque slip up, he’d demanded to know how human it was to be locked up for ten hours. She’d gotten teary eyed and started to whimper about how she’d only wanted to help. He hadn’t been able to stay angry and instantly assured her that he understood and it was okay. She’d rebuffed him, going from sad to angry in less than a second and told him there was no way he could understand what she’d been through then stomped off.

She never lifted the order to lock him in.

After that, he became more cautious about his actions and watched visiting Torchwood agents with more wariness then disdain.

The Doctor shook off the memory with difficulty, stepping away from the doorknob. His place in the household was shaky at best and waking Rose up at 2am because he had an ‘alien problem’ would not be a good move. Especially since the ‘alien problem’ could not be fixed by Torchwood agents waving their guns around.

Well, it could but they’d be waving their guns at him so he wasn’t inclined to give them a call.

He sprawled out on the floor and started to write.

PROBLEM: Glowing skin

Reasons: ? (Metacrisis? Allergic Reaction? Medical condition?)

Appropriate Response: ?

Observations: not immediately harmful (hasn’t changed in ten minutes), looks like first stages of regeneration, composed primarily of artron radiation (based on taste and appearance)

The Doctor stared at his list of observations before scowling and ripping it out of the notebook and setting it to one side. The next sheet of paper had one word scrawled at the top: FACTS

He chewed on the tip of the pen for a moment before beginning to write

1. human/timelord metacrisis (timelord tissue sample)
2. Timelord DNA dominant
3. Human physiology dominant
4. Timelord mentality dominant
5. Human emotion dominant

He stopped and looked at the bizarre list. He’d never really given it much thought before, beyond the basic facts of his creation but how were his two natures co-existing? Time lord DNA was naturally dominant and it encoded physiology, so how could he have human physiology with Timelord DNA? Maybe the glowing was a sign of incompatibility?

He swallowed nervously but returned to the previous paper and wrote ‘Molecular Destabilization’ under Reasons.

Then again, who was to say it was a side effect of the metacrisis? It could just be an allergic reaction to something in dinner last night, right?

No. Timelords didn’t have food allergies and, so far, that was a trait he’d inherited. Besides, somehow he knew the glowing was a result of his state of being, not something that had come after. It just felt right.

He crossed ‘reaction’ and ‘medical condition’ off the list under reasons then dropped the pen and rolled over on his back.