From One to Eleven

Something was very wrong.  The Doctor sucked in a deep breath and looked down ... at himself.

The other him, technically the First him, scowled up at him.  Then down and up him.  Then, he harrumphed.  None of the hims since the First had ever quite harrumphed with as much skill.  “So, this is me now, hmm?” 

The Doctor number Eleven folded his arms in his tweed jacket and squinted at the other one.  “You never did approve of much of anything, did you?”

“Nonsense!  I approve of plenty that’s worth approving of!”  He seized the lapels of his coat and shook his white hair back.  “Of course, it’s folly for any of you to think you could be as good as,” he chuckled, “the original.  But to be such poor replacements!”  He shook his head and clucked his tongue. 

The Eleventh straightened and thrust his fists at his sides, his mouth scrunched up like a child having a tantrum.  “Oh, the nerve!”  A finger pointed directly at his younger nose.  “You have always thought you’re better than everyone, and that is one thing I am quite happy to say I outgrew a long while ago!”

“Indeed?”  Unperturbed by the finger in his face, the First smirked at his elder.  “Then, why is it that you argue when a serious situation has landed us in this conversation, hmm?  You know, this is just like the first time, when I’m the only one who can stay on task.”  He strolled off, tugging smugly at the lapels of his jacket, and a look on his face that said he might start whistling any moment. 

Eleven stared at the place his original predecessor had been standing, his finger still pointed at now empty air, his mouth working furiously for some kind of retort that wouldn’t just make him sound petty.  In the end, he whirled around and spat out, “You started it!”

“Ah-ah.”  One twitched a finger over his shoulder in reprimand.  “I merely commented that we were the same person.  You insulted me first.  So, what are we to do about the TARDIS, hmm?”

Growling under his breath, the Eleventh stalked over to stand next to One and folded his arms to eye the two TARDISs, their back ends fused together, with the doors facing opposite directions.  Even the control rooms inside had been fused together, but as they’d crashed together, both TARDISs had been evacuated too quickly to do anything about it then.

Amy was standing near the door of the older TARDIS, her jaw hanging open and staring at the old man, while Ian and Barbara stood opposite her, staring at the two Doctors and speaking in low tones.  Ah, good old Ian and Barbara.  But they were alone.  Susan must have just left.  A small, sad smile tugged at the Doctor’s mouth as he thought of Susan. 

Another harrumph broke the Eleventh Doctor out of his reminiscing, and he blinked at the scowl of his younger self.  “You really ought to have been more careful!”

“What?”  Eleven blinked again.  “I should have been more careful?  Why is it specifically my fault and not ours?”

“I don’t know my own future,” the First pointed out with a firm nod.  “You landed right in your own timestream.  And I’m supposed to be the young, inexperienced one, hmm?”  Another harrumph.  The Doctor had never quite realized how annoying that habit of his was.

“Now, wait just a minute—”

“There are two of you?” Amy broke in, taking a step forward and putting her hands on her sassy hips.  The Eleventh smacked himself in the forehead. 

“Pond, priorities.  There are two TARDISs fused together.”  His hands did a little mime of his words, gesturing to one TARDIS, then the other, then lacing his fingers together. 

“Well, exactly.  That’s a big deal.”  Now it was Ian’s turn to speak up, and Barbara nodded along with him, then added, “We know you can travel in time, but why is he,” she pointed to the Eleventh, “the older one?  And you look nothing alike.”

The Doctor might’ve torn his hair out in frustration.  “Humans.  Always have to satisfy their curiosity before they can solve problems.  Would it help if I hunched over and barked ‘nonsense’ at you a few times, Barbara?  And Chesterfield, you’re usually better at being practical than this.”

Ian’s mouth pinched.  “My name is Chesterton, Doc—Doctor?” he caught himself in the middle of what he was saying and his eyes widened.  Barbara was already there, but she recovered from the shock faster and covered her mouth to hide her giggles at Ian’s rote reaction to the little jab.

While they absorbed that information, he whirled to face Pond.  “Pond, meet the first me.”  His hands showcased the First, who was squinting at him thoughtfully.  “Meet my old friends Barbara and Ian.”  His hands swept over to point them out next, with flourishes and all.  “Meet my TARDIS.”  His hands went to the faded, battered side of the two TARDISs.  “She sort of exists outside of regular time, so she’s pretty much the same now as she was then, although we’ve gotten closer and she’s had a few makeovers.”

“If she exists outside of regular time, then wouldn’t you be just as close then as now?” Amy asked, arching an eyebrow.

The First laughed and pointed his pinky at her without letting go of his lapels.  “Very good, my girl!  Very good.”

Eleven worked his mouth for a moment, scowled at his predecessor, then snapped, “Yes, technically.  I was stupider then.”  That shut the First one up, and they glared at each other for a moment.  “So, if all that is cleared up, can we move along?”

“Still not sure I get it, but yeah, sure.  Fused TARDISs.  Can’t you just....”  She flailed her hands at the two of them, then fluttered them up in the air, miming dematerialization.  “Move them?  I mean, they don’t exactly just roll around on wheels, so when they dematerialize, won’t that separate them?”

“If they were different TARDISs, possibly,” the First answered, squinting thoughtfully at the problem.  “But they are the same.  The distortion in time caused by each would cut through the other.”

“And because they’re made of the same stuff, the time distortion wouldn’t easily distinguish between one or the other,” Eleven picked up, “so they’d try to take pieces of the TARDIS from the wrong time with them.  They’d be torn apart.”

“What about a way to distinguish them?” Barbara suggested.  “Maybe if you don’t try to move both of them at the same time, you could have one pull away while the other stayed put.”

“No, no, no, the same problem would happen,” the Eleventh said, shaking his head and pacing.  “Even if only one of them yanks the dimension open, they’re still—no wait.  Hang on.  Hang on!”  He dashed inside his own TARDIS door, habit to be sure he went in the same way he always did, and everyone followed after him.

While he dashed to his control panel, everyone else paused on the walkway to look at the comparison between the new control room and the old, merged in a jagged line at the far end of the room, so that the ceiling looked like it domed twice, with two complete control rooms and an opening the size of a small wall between them.

Amy wrinkled her nose.  “It’s so ... white.  And plain.  And kind of boring.”

The First scoffed at her.  “Boring?  It’s everything we need!  Not all this frivolous....”  He gestured around at the glass platform, all the different kinds of lights, the decorative paneling on the walls.

Ian, who had made it as far as the control panel, blinked at the gadgets and gizmos that replaced the dials, knobs, and switches he was used to.  “Junk?” he supplied.

Eleven slapped his hand as he reached for the ketchup dispenser.  “Don’t touch that.  Get ketchup all over the glass, and someone’ll slip.”

“Ketchup?” Ian asked, but took a step back from the control panel, anyway.

Amy sauntered onto the platform and leaned her butt against the railing, hands braced on it.  “Never know when it might come in handy.  I got a Dalek in the eyepiece with that once.”

“You,” Eleven said to One, as he continued dashing in circles around the control panel, fiddling with gizmos and flipping switches, “should never have come here.  I don’t remember ever being here, and especially not just with Ian and Barbara.  Right after Susan left—” he paused, looking up for a moment with a look on his face that clearly said he was reworking his words.  “Never mind.  You need to go.  Get in your TARDIS and prepare to leave.”

“If you’re wrong, my boy,” the First began, but the other Doctor waved a hand dismissively, still focused on the control panel.

“Yes, yes, they’ll be torn apart and the resulting explosion will wipe out at least half the universe, if not all of it.  Please, just go.”

All three companions froze where they were and stared at him with gaping mouths.

“Um, shouldn’t we be worried about that?” Amy demanded.

“Very worried,” was the terse reply.  “Just do as I say.  The TARDIS might exist out of regular time, but I do not.  I have a considerable amount of experience with her glitches, and I know what I’m doing!”  He put his hands back down on the control panel and hung his head for a moment.  When he lifted it, his voice was much calmer.  “If anyone in this room knows more about the TARDIS, take over the controls.  If not, let me fix it without nagging me.”

Amy gave Ian and Barbara a wide-eyed look and mouthed the word “okay” sarcastically.  Then, she rolled her eyes and gestured to them, shooing them toward the white-paneled control room.  One had already strolled over to his own control panel and began preparing to take off.  Amy stayed where she was, leaning against the railing, and watched the Doctor work.

Eleven proceeded to give instructions to his younger self, most of which went completely over the heads of his human companions.  Something about the Vortex, and alignment 83-12, and to be sure not to forget to release the magnetic containment capitalizer, until it seemed like he was just stringing random words and numbers together.

But then, that was par for the course.

On occasion, the First would grumble that he was going too fast and that old bones couldn’t keep up, but they eventually finished their preparations.

“Ready.  On my countdown, then, dematerialize.”  Eleven paused a moment with his hand on the switch and looked up.  He met his own eyes across the two control panels, as they were on opposite sides from each other.  One was in the same pose, one hand poised to send the TARDIS into the Time Vortex, the other resting on the edge of the control panel, looking across at him.

They shared a small smile.  A little nod.

None of the humans heard the countdown, but two hands—one old and wrinkled, the other fresh and lightly tanned—moved at exactly the same moment, and both TARDISs shuddered so that everyone had to scramble to hold onto something.

By the time things settled down and Amy looked up, the control room was whole again.

She looked at where the breach had been for a moment, then wandered over to stand next to the Doctor, planting her butt against the control panel, folding her arms, and looking up at the domed ceiling.  “The ‘first’ you, huh?”

“Yep.”  That nostalgic smile still in place, the Doctor leaned against the control panel and watched the gentle rising and falling of the glass.  “There have been eleven.  So far.  But that, Amelia Pond....  That was where it all began.”

She flashed him a teasing smile.  “You were such a crotchety old man.”

The Doctor smiled back.  “Some might say, still am.”