My Rival, My Doctor

Chapter 19

Picture of Celeste now!

The Doctor and I smiled at each other while Rose looked at us strangely. We both started flying the TARDIS for Barcelona. The new Doctor muttered, "6pm, Tuesday, October, 5006." I turned to Rose cheerfully. "On our way to Barcelona."

The Doctor took a step away to let Rose see him better. "Now then, what do I look like?" he asked, only to say quickly, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't tell me." The Doctor started examining himself. "Let's see, two legs, two arms, two hands." He paused, holding his wrist and rolling it slowly. "Slight weakness in the dorsal interossei."

His hands went up to his hair. "Hair! I'm not bald!" He felt the length. "Ohh, oo, big hair. Sideburns! I've got sideburns. Oh, really bad skin." The Doctor shrugged and placed his hands on his stomach. "Little bit thinner. That's weird. Give me time I'll get used to it."

It seemed like he was done, but the Doctor had a strange look on his face. He said slowly, "I have got a mole. I can feel it." The Doctor squirmed a bit. "Between my shoulder blades, there's a mole." He smiled. "That's alright. I love the mole." The Doctor finally finished and looked at Rose and I. "Go on, tell me," he asked, "What do you two think?"

I was too absorbed in my new body to really answer. I mean, it wasn't my first time seeing him like this. I looked down to see my arm, scar free. He saw me looking at my arm and frowned slightly. Rose spoke up, "Who are you two?"

"I'm the Doctor," he answered.

"And I'm Celeste," I said. I'm not sure if I like the voice. Hmm, who knows?

Rose shook her head. "No. Where are they? Where's the Doctor? What have you done to them?"

The Doctor looked a bit lost. "You saw me. We-we changed," he stuttered a bit.

I added, "Right in front of you."

"I saw them sort of...explode and then you replaced them like a teleport...or a transmat...or a body snatch or something." She pushed us so we swayed a bit. "You're not fooling me. I've seen all sorts of things. Nanogenes, Gelth, Slitheen." Rose paused, looking at us with disgust. "Oh my god, are you Slithhen?" She accused us.

I looked at myself. "I'm not enormous, am I?" The Doctor's eyes travel down the length of my body, stopping slightly at my chest, before looking into my unknown colored eyes, smiling crookedly. "You look beautiful," he assured. I felt my cheeks heat up slightly and tried to distract myself by correcting Rose, "We are not Slitheens."

Her voice rose(hee hee), "Send them back. I'm warning you. Send the Doctor and Celeste back right now!"

"Rose, it's me, us. It's-honestly- it's us," the Doctor almost pleaded, "We were dying. We saved our own lives by changing bodies. Every single cell, but it's still us."

"You aren't him." Rose turned to me. "You can't be her. He was dying to save you."

I tugged my ear. "Yeah, well remember when I said using time energy wouldn't kill me?"

"You didn't say that! Celeste did!"

"Ok, ok," I obliged, "Well, she was lying, but how can I remember this? The very first word I ever said to you. Granted the Doctor and I said together, but I didn't know it was him. Never mind that, we were in the basement, surrounded by shop window dummies. Oh, such a long time ago, for me. For all I know, it was last week for you. We each took one of your hands. We said one word. 'Run.'" We both grabbed a hand.

Rose looked carefully at me and him. "Celeste? Doctor?" Her voice cracked. At that point, I was staring at pillars, thinking.

So while he was hopping on one foot, mentioning 'hopping for our lives', sounding awkward at the end, I was scaling the pillar thingies. The Doctor finally noticed that I wasn't there and frantically turned. "Celeste?"