Time Crash

By: Light-Eco-Sage

Rated: Teen for romance (Ten/Rose).

Summary: Episode Re-write of "Time Crash" with Rose. You try saving the universe while keeping your love life secret from your younger self sometime. It's not easy at all.

Disclaimer: Doctor Who is owned by the BBC.

LES: Don't expect this story to be very long. After all, it is a simple re-write of the Children in Need special, Time Crash. Proper stories will start again when I move on to Series 4 re-writes.

A great jolt shook the entire Tardis, nearly knocking the Doctor and Rose together. They hastily grabbed onto each other, steadying each other as the Tardis stopped shaking.

"What was that?" Rose asked, as she slowly released her hold on the Doctor.

"I'm not sure." The Doctor said. "I'll just have to run a few scans in order to determine the nature of the…" He trailed off as a third person appeared around the Tardis' main console, quite out of nowhere.

He appeared to be a man past middle age, but with a surplus of maniac energy in his step as he whizzed around the Tardis console as if he had been doing this forever.

The Doctor, however, had a much different reaction, staring at the stranger in the Tardis with a look of pleased shock on his face. "No!" He gasped. "No way!"

The stranger finally looked at the couple, who appeared to him to be in a tight embrace. "What's this? How did you two manage to get on board my Tardis?" He asked.

"Your Tardis?" Rose repeated.

"Yes, my Tardis." The stranger repeated. "I'm the Doctor. How did you manage to get on board?"

"Yes, you are the Doctor." Rose's Doctor said with a wide smile on his face. "You most definitely are the Doctor!" He got closer to the younger Doctor, examining his face. "Although you are a mite bit older than you should be right now, a little grey. That's just the temporal displacement. It should be put right when you head back… and you'll be able to close this jacket again." The younger Doctor self-consciously pulled at his jacket, unable to close it in the front. He leaned to Rose and whispered. "This is me in my fifth regeneration."

"Oh." Rose replied. She finally got a really good look at this version of the Doctor. At a second glance, she could see that it was her same Doctor, only younger. Because their bond had happened after this Doctor's time, she could not sense it in him. But he shared the same time lines with her Doctor. There was no doubt who he was. Her Doctor also took the opportunity to study himself.

"I remember being that!" He told her excitedly. "The suit, the hat, the crickety-cricket stuff, the…" He trailed off, staring at the vegetable that was pinned to the front of the Doctor's jacket. "…the stick of celery." Rose couldn't help it, she started to giggle uncontrollably. "Mind you, not many people could pull off a decorative vegetable." The Doctor finished.

The younger version of the Doctor looked up upon hearing Rose's giggle. "Never mind that, I don't really care how you two have managed to get on board my Tardis." He took off his hat, tossing it on the console, and turned his back to them.

"Wow! The back of my own head!" Rose's Doctor said, moving closer and examining the back of his younger version's head. "How often do you get to examine the back of your own head?" His smiled faded slightly when he noticed the slight hair loss that seemed to have affected his fifth regeneration with the temporal aging. "Mind you, I see why I wore a hat. I don't mean to sound vain, but could you put that back on?"

The younger Doctor turned around, staring at the new Doctor in confusion. "Just who are you?" He asked.

"I think you know." The new Doctor replied.

The younger Doctor stared at the new Doctor for a few seconds. "Of course I know who you are." He said finally, turning away from him. "A fan."

"I'm the… a fan?" The new Doctor repeated, confused.

"Look, I know I lead an adventurous and enviable life, traveling through time and space, saving worlds, stopping monsters and being, frankly, rather sort of marvelous. People end up noticing me… starting their little groups. You're not part of that LINDA, are you?"

"No, I'm not part of LINDA." The new Doctor said.

"Good. I can't have that lot knowing where I live." The younger Doctor muttered, pulling out a pair of glasses and putting them on.

That really got Rose's Doctor excited. "Oh! And here come the brainy specs! You don't even need them! You just use them because you think it makes you look clever!"

"Listen!" The younger Doctor yelled. "There is something very, very wrong with my Tardis and the last thing I need right now is a skinny idiot in my face, ranting about everything that pops into his mind!"

"But… I'm you. You in a future incarnation."

"Bah!" The younger Doctor said dismissively.

"No, really. Look at me. Look at my Time Line. Look at this bone structure because one day you're going to be shaving it! You've met other versions of yourself before. I'm just another case of that."

"If that's true, then we are in a lot of trouble." The younger Doctor said. "The universe never brings us together unless it is to fix some massive problem." He apparently got fed up with the Doctor's controls on the Tardis. "What is this? What have you done to the Tardis? Most of these parts are most certainly not regulation! This switch won't even work!"

"Try this." The new Doctor said, trying to hand over his sonic screwdriver. The younger Doctor took one glance at it before dismissing it. "Oh, right. I forgot. You like to do these things hands-on. It all, 'I'm the Doctor! I can save the universe using a kettle and some string. And, look at me, I'm wearing a vegetable'!" The younger Doctor glared at him. Rose's Doctor took things over from there, moving over to the main monitor and beginning to make complex calculations on it.

"I think I've isolated the problem." The younger Doctor said, finally making head-way with the unfamiliar controls on the Tardis. "Apparently, you didn't have the Tardis' force field engaged, causing two different versions of the Tardis to merge. Two timelines at war within the heart of the Tardis. If I'm right, and I'm always right, that would create a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum about the size of, oh…" He trailed off thoughtfully. Rose's Doctor apparently finished his calculations and swung the main monitor over to where the younger Doctor could see the readings. "About the size of… Belgium, actually." He said, reading the information off the monitor. "That's a bit undramatic isn't it? Belgium?"

"That doesn't sound good." Rose commented.

"It's not, young lady." The younger Doctor said. "That will lead to the creation of a black hole so powerful that it could destroy the Tardis and the whole universe." Suddenly, the Tardis started to groan and the younger Doctor leapt into action. "We have to stop the black hole from forming!" Suddenly, the cloister bells began to alarm from within the Tardis. "The Cloister bells! Almost time for Belgium! If only there were more time!"

"Ah, that's my cue… Step aside." Rose's Doctor said, stepping forward and taking control of the console from his younger self. "It's only a simple matter of creating a supernova to counter the force of the black hole and cancel it out."

"But that's impossible to create in a few seconds!" The younger Doctor said.

"Watch and learn!" Rose's Doctor said, his fingers flying over the controls as he described out loud everything that he was doing. Most of it went over Rose's head, but the younger Doctor watched in complete amazement. Within seconds, Rose's Doctor had done it, and the crisis had passed as the black hole and supernova consumed each other without anything left over, perfectly balanced.

"How did you do that?" The younger Doctor asked, gesturing at the controls. "The calculations that were required! Even I couldn't have worked all that out so quickly!"

"I didn't have to work it out." Rose's Doctor said, leaning against the console, smiling at his younger self.

Slowly, it occurred to the younger Doctor what had happened and his smile mirrored that of his older self. "You didn't have to work it out… because you remember being me… watching you… doing that!"

"Wibbely-wobbly…" Rose's Doctor began.

"Timey-whimey!" They both finished, laughing.

"Oh, good Lord." Rose sighed at the two Time Lords.

They glanced at her, and the younger Doctor held out his hand. "So you are one of my future companions?"

Rose took his hand and shook it. "Yes. My name is…"

Her Doctor jumped forward. "Wait a minute… spoilers!" He said.

The younger Doctor shrugged. "Fair enough."

"So, where are you right now?" Rose's Doctor asked his counterpart. "Nyya and Tegan? The Mora and Time Lords in funny hats? Is it that bit with the Master? We just happened to have seen the Master recently."

"Really? How is he?" The younger Doctor asked. "Has he still got that rubbish beard?"

"Oh… no beard." Rose's Doctor said. "Got himself a wife."

"Really? Didn't think any woman in the universe would be that insane." The younger Doctor commented. Suddenly, he began to fade away. "Well, it seems like the two Tardises are separating."

Rose's Doctor jumped towards his controls and adjusted them until the image of the younger Doctor stabilized. "Can I just say, before you go…" He began, smiling at his younger self. "That I just loved being you? When I was young… oh, I tried to act all important and grumpy… just like you do when you're younger. But when I was you… I was all about playing cricket and having fun. And my voice gets all high when I yell. I got that from you! And the trainers!" He propped his foot up against the Tardis console to show off his converse. "And check this out…" He pulled out his clever glasses and put them on. "Snap. I got that from you! Anyway, my point is, Doctor, that you were my Doctor."

The younger Doctor smiled, tipping his hat towards his older self. "To the future."

The older Doctor nodded in return. "All my love to long ago."

The younger Doctor faded completely, and Rose turned to her Doctor. "Why didn't he say anything about me being a Time Lady?"

"Back when I was him, the Time Lords were still around." The Doctor said. "Meeting a Time Lord or Time Lady wasn't really that special."

"Okay… then why didn't you want me to say my name and why couldn't he tell that we were bonded?"

"It's always harder to see future bond that belongs to you. He would have had to look for it." The Doctor said. "Back then, I was bonded to my first wife on Gallifrey, so it didn't even occur to him… me… that I'd eventually bond with someone else. So he… I… didn't look for it. And as for your name… if he found out your name and our relationship, it would create a causality loop."

"Really?"

"Yes. If I found out in my fifth incarnation that I would eventually bond with a woman named Rose Tyler, I would have known about our eventual relationship from the moment that we met. If that happened, my feelings for our relationship would be simply the need to close the loop by having the relationship with you that I'd seen having in my fifth incarnation." He glanced at Rose, smiling. "I don't know about you, but I like the natural progression of our relationship better."

Rose smiled at him. "You're right. That causality loop thing is a bit unromantic, isn't it?"

"So, from now on, yeah? If you meet younger versions of myself… don't say anything about our relationship."

"What about future yous?" Rose asked.

"Talk to your heart's content." The Doctor said. He was about to kiss her when his younger incarnation's voice filled the Tardis.

"By the way, remember to turn the shields back on." He said.

Rose and the Doctor stared at each other for a few seconds. "Maybe later." The Doctor said. "What could possibly happen?" He was about to kiss her when the console room seemingly exploded.

One of the walls of the Tardis caved in as the bow of a massive ship punched a hole in the wall. The Doctor and Rose hit the ground as debris fell all around them. The Doctor instinctively covered her body with his own. Thankfully, nothing hit them hard enough to cause any real damage.

A fog horn sounded, and both the Doctor and Rose looked up, staring in shock at the front of a ship that had penetrated the Tardis. "What?" The Doctor gasped, crawling across the floor towards a life preserver that had fallen on the Tardis' metal grating. "What?" He repeated, grabbing it and turning it over to read the ship's name.

Rose stared along with the Doctor as they read the name upon the preserver. It was the most famous ship in Earth's history: TITANIC.

Rose and the Doctor met each other's surprised eyes. "What?" They both gasped.

To Be Continued…

LES: Um… yeah… I couldn't resist that slight little dig at River Song at the end there. I could probably rant for an hour on her two episodes in Series 4, but I won't. Lucky for you guys.

They story will continued with the "Voyage of the Damned" re-write. Marvelous episode. But I really can't wait to bring you-know-who into the show.