"Regeneration"


STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. I'm not making any money from this.

Special thanks to Drox for the e-mails regarding the Doctor being half-human; I've incorporated a lot of what we discussed into this fic. I hope you don't mind.


The Doctor staggered back into the TARDIS.
"Grace… Grace… Grace…" he moaned, falling in a heap at her feet. She immediately saw that one of his arms was shrunken to the size of a doll's.
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed, kneeling at his side and brushing his fine chestnut curls away from his forehead. "What happened to you?"
"The Master… Tissue Compression Eliminator… missed, though. Just got the arm."
"Oh my God!" Grace repeated. "Wait a minute, the Master fell into the Eye of Harmony!"
"Yes… I'll… explain… later." Before her eyes, his features shimmered, blurred, and changed. He sat up abruptly. "Right," he said briskly, rising to his feet.
"Oh my God! You changed again!"
"Yes, well, I had to."
"But why?" she asked with a frown. "That injury didn't look fatal to me... it was just a shrunken arm!"
"That was the hand I used for wanking off! So how do I look?" He was nothing like his previous incarnation; black hair hung down around an elastic face with a prominent nose and bulging eyes. There was a large mole on his cheek.
"Welllll…. you have brown eyes," she began. A light on the console blipped, and he pressed a button. The Master's face appeared on the viewscreen.
"Ah, my dear Doctor… you've regenerated, I see." He frowned. "I'm not sure about that face – "
"I wouldn't talk about faces if I were you," the Doctor said acidly. "If my dog had a face like yours, I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards!" The Master scowled.
"You've beaten me this time, Doctor, but I'll be back! Mwua ha ha ha ha hahahahahahah!" The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"How tiresome," he sighed.
"Until next time, Doctor!" The Master terminated the connection, and the viewscreen went blank. "Mwua ha ha ha ha hahahahahahahahahahah!"
"I knew it," the Doctor said. "I knew he carried on like that even when he's all by himself."
"What?" came the Master's voice.
"You haven't cut the connection, you stupid git. You've just turned the picture off. We can still hear you."
"Curses!" This time the villain got it right; whatever he did next, he did it in the privacy of his own TARDIS.
"Right," the Doctor said. "That's settled. Now I've got to find some new clothes."
"What's wrong with your clothes?" Grace asked, puzzled.
"Well, you can hardly expect me to go prancing around in this get-up like a great Nancy!"
"I think it looks nice!" she protested.
"Besides, the audience expects it."
"Oh," Grace said, nodding. "OK."
"Won't be a moment," he said. "In fact, how about I take you back to San Francisco for a nice romantic dinner?" He began to set coordinates.
"Uh… all right," she said, sounding unsure. He smiled… it was nothing like the sweet smile of his predecessor. Maybe it'll grow on me, she thought. Yeah, like a nasty green fungus, another part of her brain replied with a shudder.
"Just be a moment," he assured her, disappearing through the door to the TARDIS interior. After a few minutes, the Time Rotor stopped moving, and the Doctor reappeared from the TARDIS interior, wearing black pants, a maroon shirt and a long black coat. "All ready to go?" he asked, hitting the door switch. Still in shock, she nodded wordlessly.
"Right. Come on then." He walked out the doors, leaving her hurrying to catch up. "Ah, smell that San Francisco air," he said, inhaling deeply. He set a brisk pace up the sidewalk, talking all the while. "I love Earth… and humans. I'm half-human, you know. On my father's side." Grace stopped walking.
"Wait a minute," she said, frowning. "You told me before that you're half-human on your mother's side." He looked uncomfortable.
"Surely not. You must have heard me wrong."
"No, you said you're half-human on your mother's side. In fact, you said it several times. I heard you quite distinctly."
"Ah," he said, obviously fishing for some kind of plausible story. "Post regeneration trauma. Yes, that's it."
"Then or now?"
"Um…" She stared at him suspiciously.
"You're not half-human at all, are you? That's just a line you feed the girls, isn't it?"
"I'll explain later," he tried. She folded her arms across her chest and gave him a look. "All right, I made it up. Look, you have to admit that it did add to the whole Byron-esque tortured poet thing I was going for last time around." He smirked. "And it worked, too. You can't imagine all the girls I've gotten! Why, there was Benny – "
"Wait a minute!" Grace exclaimed angrily. "I thought you said that Time Lords don't have sex! You told me you'd never kissed a girl before, that you'd never had sex before!" She burst into tears. "You told me how special I was, the first, the one and only!"
"Um…"
"I don't believe this!"
"All right. You want the truth?" She nodded, wiping her eyes. "I've had more tarts than Pepperidge Farm! The San Francisco Humane Society hasn't had as much puss – "
"Arrrgh! You bastard!" she yelled, storming off into the San Francisco night.
"Oh well," he said with a shrug. "Plenty more human girls out there!" With a grin, he headed back to his TARDIS, where he set coordinates for London.


He was very charming, Emma decided. Plus, he was so mysterious… coming from another planet, having two hearts, et cetera, et cetera. And even though he was an alien, he was half-human, making him a stranger to both worlds, never at home anywhere… she sighed. Looking up into his dark brown puppy dog eyes, she decided she'd follow him anywhere. With another deep sigh, she drained her pint, took his hand, and walked out of the pub with him and into the cool London night.


FINIS.