Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Duplicate Doctor (who was going to have to come up with a name soon, as he wasn’t going to go round with everyone calling him the Duplicate Doctor) was pissed off. Not only had he been booted out of his own TARDIS for helping save the universe, but he’d been stuck with Rose bloody Tyler who obviously only saw him as a poor substitute for what she really wanted.

Mentally he was kicking himself for being stupid enough to kiss her, his mind had been clouded by the Doctor’s unrealistically idealistic views where Rose was concerned, but her running to the TARDIS moments later trying to get back to who she really wanted had quickly demolished the pedestal he’d put her on and suddenly he was viewing her with a whole new perspective. One that was utilizing the memories and attitudes of Donna and he didn’t like what he was seeing one bit.

The wait for the Zeppelin was in Jackie’s opinion some of the most awkward silence she’d ever endured. While they were waiting less than half an hour for one to come from a nearby city it had seemed like an eternity. She couldn’t believe how her daughter had acted and knew it was going to backfire on her. What had she been thinking racing after the TARDIS moments after kissing that human version of the Doctor. Nobody wanted to be seen as second choice for someone’s affections and certainly not to someone who looked exactly like you.

Jackie knew that better than most people, save for her current husband, the Pete of this world. Before they had even gone on one date they had both insisted on a very frank discussion which had allowed them to both reassure the other that they weren’t seen as a quick replacement and put the other’s worries to rest. Rose knew that, but instead of doing the sensible thing she’d jumped in feet first and then screwed up monumentally. It wasn’t that Jackie didn’t love her daughter, she did but she had become more and more aware of her flaws in last few years and judging by the thunderous look on the human Doctor’s face she wasn’t the only one.

Rose attributed the not Doctor’s mood to the bad weather, he didn’t have the superior abilities that Time Lord’s did so he was probably just miffed about that. Rose couldn’t help but think it was yet another way this copy failed to live up to the original, it had to be the influence of Donna that had tainted him. It was a small mercy that he didn’t look like her or have any of her physical characteristics. Rose grimaced at the thought of any version of the Doctor being ginger.

She realised that her wonderful, gorgeous, perfect Doctor was trying to be kind to her mum, he obviously still felt guilty over the fact that Jackie had thought that she was dead for a year, so he hadn’t wanted to part them. That was her Doctor, so kind and considerate, he truly was the perfect man. While she knew she wouldn’t be able to get the Dimension Cannon working again, there where other options, she could convince the Torchwood team to build her some sort of vortex manipulator. Then it would be a simple matter of travelling back in time to when the Cybermen had been crossing over to her world as ‘ghosts’ and returning to her own universe and then finding the Doctor shortly after he’d made the biggest mistake of any of his lives, leaving her stranded with the pale imitation of him.

Not that she couldn’t make use of the clone while she waited, infact it would probably speed her plans up expedientially if she could make him believe that she loved him as much as she loved the Doctor, he was part Donna so the eventual rejection shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise to him. Happy that she had her plan to get back to the Doctor Rose decided to start putting it into action. She was confused at why her first few attempts at flirting with him fell flat.

“C’mon you haven’t still got a cob on because of the weather, have you? Don’t worry I’m sure I can warm you up.” She smiled coyly as she pressed up against him.

“I didn’t think it was possible.” The Duplicate stated flatly as he quickly moved, reinstating the space that had been between them. He’d been having a bit of a sulk about the Doctor been the one who got to stay with Donna, if the Time Lord was that keen on Rose why couldn’t he stay with this stupid bint and let him stay with Donna? But no the Time Lord had instead made a decision that made both him and Rose equally unhappy all instead of admitting that his feelings for Rose had changed—Not that they had been anywhere nearly as strong as he acted they where—As doing so would require the Doctor to be honest about his feelings, something the Duplicate knew that would never happen.

“You didn’t think what was possible? That you’d register cold like a human would?” Rose asked.

“No, that you could be as stupid as you looked. Less than a minute after snogging me you were running after the TARDIS to get to him and now you’ve probably concocted the beginnings of some new hair-brained scheme to get back to him you’re sniffing round me like a bitch in heat.”

“God she really has ruined you, hasn’t she.” Rose said with a sad shake of her head.

“Sorry I don’t speak demented stalker, you’re going to have to elaborate.”

Jackie had heard far too many arguments between her daughter and people who Rose was determined to use to get what she wanted. Hell even before Rose had even met the Doctor she’d witnessed her more than her fair share of arguments between Rose and the men who had found out Rose was trying to manipulate them into getting what she wanted. It was no bleeding wonder that Torchwood was so understaffed.

Not willing to witness yet another one of those arguments she stood up and walked towards the small office all Torchwood Zeppelins had. She could tell where this was going, it had become all too familiar ever since she’d become the HR person for Torchwood. Due to the devastation that the Cybermen had caused everyone who was able to had to work and since by the time Tony was a few months old Pete was having an incredibly difficult time getting anyone to stay in the HR role for more than a few months. She and Pete had agreed for her to go back to school and gain the qualifications she’d need and then she’d taken over the role. At first the staff at Torchwood had been incredibly unhappy that Rose’s mother had taken the role, but soon Jackie had proved that she was one of the few people capable of somewhat reigning Rose in.

Not for the first time Jackie wondered where she’d went wrong rasing Rose. She knew she had gone a little softer on her than she should have after Pete’s death but surely that couldn’t be the reason why Rose seemed to only see people in terms of what she could get them to do for her. Jackie wondered if it made her a terrible person or at the very least a bad mother that she wished that the Duplicate was able to put Rose straight for at least a little while?

Rose demanded to know what the clone meant by calling her a demented stalker.

“Why are you too stupid to look up the meaning of the words?” he glared at her hoping she’d soon shut up and let him have a bit of peace.

“See this is what I mean, the real Doctor, the proper Doctor would never talk to me like this. This is all because she’s tainted you.”

“Do you realise how bloody insane you sound? Granted that daft…” The Duplicate only just managed to stop himself from saying Martian, “bugger is too emotionally stunted to realise just what a manipulative user you truly are without someone guiding him through it, but I’d hardly say it’s because I’m tainted by Donna.”

“I am not a manipulative user, if anyone is it’s that jumped up temp,” Rose said with a sneer. “What is she to you? Your mother? Your twin sister?”

“Are you off your rocker? She’s a companion, we’re not related.” He was beginning to think the dimension cannon had scrambled what little amount of brains that Rose had to begun with.

“I’m not talking about the her relationship to the real Doctor, I know she’s nothing but a poor substitute for me.” She ignored the clone’s scoff, “but what is she to you? You have her memories, you talk a bit like her, you even have some of her attitude.”

“Believe me, you’d know if I had her attitude,” in his opinion the fact that he hadn’t tried to slap some sense into the Doctor proved Rose was wrong. “We don’t share any DNA our connection is purely psychic.”

“Then why have you only got one heart?”

“Because there wasn’t enough regeneration energy to both form a full Time Lord body and two Time Lord consciousnesses.”

“So it is her fault that you’re like this.”

“No it’s not her fault, there’s nothing wrong with me. You’re just in a mood because you haven’t got what you think you deserve.”

“I don’t think…” She was cut off by that hybrid's awful laughter.

“Truer words were never spoken!”

Rose scrunched her face up in disgust, he even had Donna’s laugh, well she assumed it was her laugh as it certainly wasn’t the Doctor’s. “As I was saying; I know that I deserve to be with the real Doctor, we’re in love and he needs me.”

“Why would he? You nearly got him killed more than anyone else he’d ever travelled with! You are the reason that his ninth incarnation died”

“Liar.”

“Great comeback there you daft cow.”

“That’s not what really happened Donna’s memories have destroyed your own and caused you to forget what really happened.”

“That’s not how a metacrisis works. I remember all my of the Doctor's memories and I remember all of hers”

Back in the small office space that she’d shut herself in desperately trying to drown out their shouting as there were some things a mother didn’t need to know, Jackie answered the video call from Pete.

“How are you?”

“I’m alright apart from a migraine coming on from those two idiots.” The sounds of their arguing was able to come through the door only slightly muffled but it was still better than having to sit right in the middle of their row.

“I thought she’d be staying in his universe, not him coming to ours or is this because of the darkness?” Pete was suddenly worried for his wife and their son.

“No, that was some Daleks trying to destroy the entire multiverse, that got sorted thankfully. No what happened was that somehow another an identical but human version of the Doctor grew out of his old amputated hand and the original Doctor decided to dump his duplicate off with Rose in this world. By the looks of things he’d moved on to his latest Companion. As you can guess Rose and the Duplicate are taking it marvellously and have been arguing non stop since we got on this god forsaken Zeppelin.” Pete winced in sympathy, he mostly only tolerated Rose for Jackie’s sake.

“What about Mickey is he alright?”

“He decided to stay in that universe.”

Pete swore, Mickey was head of the computer science department in Torchwood and he wasn’t looking forward to having to find a replacement, over ten years of Rose working there had given Torchwood a bit of a bad reputation as a toxic work place.

“Oh fuck no, that’s it I quit!” A Scottish voice shouted having overheard the conversation. Pete managed to quickly pause the call to Jackie, she didn’t need to hear anything else about what his employees thought about her daughter.

“Me too! I’m not working with her a day longer!” A Welsh voice added.

“Amy, Gwen there’s no need for that, I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

“What arrangement can there be?” Adeola asked, “We get it she’s the daughter of your wife and your parallel self, but there is no way on the gods green earth that we are going to work with her any more. She’s unprofessional, manipulative and has forced several of our most talented co-workers to quit rather than be subjected to her. Now you’re saying the head of computer science has quit to live in another universe? Only a month after our Chief Scientific Officer quit because of Rose’s unreasonable demands. We’ve been running on a skeleton crew for years but this can’t continue. There’s nothing you can do to keep us working here. I'll have my resignation letter on your desk within an hour.”

“I’ll replace Mickey and Suzie with someone better!” Pete rushed out panic evident in his voice. If Gwen, Adeola and Amy left he knew it wouldn’t be long before Ianto, Jake and everyone else did.

“Really who have you got in mind?”

“Donna Nobel for Micky’s job and Luke Smith for Suzie’s.”

“Yeah right,” Amy scoffed, “Donna Nobel, who is in charge of UNIT is going to quit for a demotion and an incredibly dysfunctional workplace, and Brigadier Sarah Jane Smith’s son and Nobel prize laureate, Luke Smith is also going to slum it here.” Clearly living with Rose for ten years had finally made her boss go crazy.

“We’re not that dysfunctional.”

“How much did you pay in harassment suits and unfair dismissals since Rose started here?” Gwen asked rhetorically, she was best friends with Ianto who run accounts so she was well aware it was in the high seven figures.

“Okay, okay I suppose I could transfer Rose to a different department.”

“Nope not good enough.” Adeola told him. “If she’s working at Torchwood, then we won’t be.”

“Okay I’ll talk to Jacks and see if we can both get Rose to agree to a severance package. Get Ianto in here and get to work destroying that gods damned cannon!”

Adeola was happy to agree if only as she would get to take some of her anger out on Rose’s prized possession.

“You’re still going to need a good replacement for Mickey and Suzie.” Amy shouted over her shoulder as she joined her co-workers.

Pete sighed, Adeola was right they had been running on a skeleton crew for years. Micky and Suzie weren’t the only ones who needed replacing, but with so many vacant positions they tended to try and get the most senior positions filled as quickly as possible but the past few years it had been getting harder and harder to fill the seemingly ever increasing number of vacancies.

The only reason that Rose hadn’t been fired long ago (even been Jackie’s daughter could only carry her so far), had been due to the darkness putting out the stars and their desperate need for the Doctor to solve things. He may have saved the universe but that damned alien had left him with a massive problem that Pete had been praying would have solved itself. Not that he could blame the alien, even from the way Rose spoke about her time with him it was clear to everyone—apart from Rose herself—that things had been far from perfect between them. He’d often cringed thinking about how jealous and possessive she’d sounded when talking about not just the Doctor’s friends but the people he’d been trying to help.

“Of course he loved me, we were together for four years.” Rose stated with certainty.

“So what? he’s travelled with people for far longer than that.” The Duplicate was already sick of hearing about how Rose and the Doctor were ment to be together, was this how the Doctor had made Martha feel? If so he’d been lucky she didn’t punch him instead of saving him and the world when the Master had taken over the earth during that awful year.

Rose rolled her eyes obviously the Donna part of him had make him as thick as the annoying cow who had ruined him was. “No you dunce, we were in a relationship for four years!”

“First I’m hearing of it,” he laughed.

“You’ve finally proved my point that you don’t have all his memories,” Rose looked unreasonably smug about that.

“Of course I do, but let me clarify you mean to say that from your prospective you and him were in a relationship pretty much soon after you two started travelling together?”

“Yes!”

“And you claim he’s the man you love?”

“I don’t claim, he’s the man I love more than anyone else.”

“Okay, so if you love him so much why did you screw Mickey, Adam, Jack, Jake and Toby, when you were supposed to be in a relationship with him? And Don’t bother denying it not only are you a shit liar, but Time Lords have a far superior sense of smell, it was blatantly obvious.”

For a long few moments Rose sat there staring at him, eyes wide and mouth open trying and failing to think of something to say. Then she remembered; “Well what about Jabe and Reinette?” she demanded accusingly.

“Jabe was just a friend,” He couldn’t be bothered to explain to the dimwit that The Doctor’s ninth incarnation had been asexual and aromantic, she was to dim to understand it and he wasn’t in the mood for more of her stupidity “As for Reinette yeah he had a relationship for a few months and so what he was single at the time. You two didn’t start your relationship until after he defeated the wire.”

“You’re seriously only counting from when we made love?” Rose was disgusted with him and was completely ignoring everything else he’d said to her.

“Well I wouldn’t call it making love, it was just a bit of average sex,” and that was been very kind, Rose was absolutely terrible in bed or anywhere else for that matter. She was as incredibly selfish and manipulative during sex as she was at any other time.

Pete reconnected the call to Jackie.

“What’s happened?” she could guess some of it, it wasn’t exactly a secret that Rose was unpopular at Torchwood.

“I had three resignations in less than a minute as the team was expecting Rose to stay in your original universe.”

Jackie winced, she hated that her daughter was such a demanding entitled brat that she made those she worked closely with quit due to her treatment of them. She’d seen her manipulate and discard countless employees into doing what she wanted only to turn on them the moment they no longer fulfilled her increasingly unreasonable demands.

“Unless we do something that’s going to be the tip of the iceberg,” the expression still sounded foreign to Pete but Jackie had explained to him that in their world that the Titanic had been sunk by an iceburg in her original world. Which had explained why she hadn’t wanted to go on the newly refurbished ship on their honeymoon.

“Maybe if we offer a very generous severance package.” Pete wished he could have teleported right to the Zeppelin just to kiss Jackie then, he’d been worried about suggesting that. He knew how much Jackie loved her daughter and had done all she could to try and make Rose see how her actions were affecting those around them but it hadn’t had much impact on her, she been single minded and obsessive about getting back to the Doctor ever since he’d sent that damned hologram message.

“She can name any number, if Gwen, Adeola and Amy quit, we’re screwed. I’ve also ordered that the dimension cannon be destroyed.” He still regretted not doing that when Jacks had originally come to this universe and he’d only been waiting for news that she was back home safely to order the destruction of the devices and all related records. From what he could hear from his office it sounded like the entirety of Torchwood was using destroying the cannon as a team building exercise.

“I’ll have Ray draft some more job postings tomorrow.”

“Hopefully we can get someone to take over the computer department and the scientific department.” Suzie Costello's resignation last month had left them barely able to finish the portable dimension jumps. All because Rose had been unable to stop herself from berating and bullying the other woman calling her an idiot and far worse as the dimension cannon and then the portable dimension jumps weren’t been completed as quickly as she wanted. The final straw had been when Rose had thrown a tantrum when Suzie requested a fortnight off after her older sister Sandra had been killed by a cyberman and Rose had continuously hounded her to get back to work.

Suzie had shown up two days into her leave and had screamed and shouted at Rose telling her what a selfish bitch she was and that everyone knew the reason the Cybermen where still such a problem was because she’d diverted most of Torchwood’s resources to building the cannon and then Suzie had promptly quit refusing to work the customary month of notice.

If it had been anyone else to have quit in such a manner they probably wouldn’t have worked again. However Suzie was a genius and her talents were in high demand she had only been staying at Torchwood due to the threat of the stars going out but there was only so much she could take. It didn’t surprise anyone that Suzie had managed to get a job at UNIT which was a promotion and a hefty pay raise. Now Torchwood’s former Chief Scientific Officer was now helping UNIT defeat the Cybermen.

The Duplicate was sick and tired of Rose’s continued refrain of; ‘because he loves me’ and ‘because he needs me’

“Alright if he loves and needs you so much, why after you ripping countless holes into the multiverse to get back to him, did he drop you off back where you started from as soon as he possibly could?”

“He still feels guilty for making mum think that I was dead for a year, but he’ll have realised his mistake soon enough.”

“Congratulations you’ve finally got one thing half right, that must be a record for you. He and now I do feel guilty for making Jackie worry that she’d lost her only child for a year and also that Mickey was treated as a murderer. But that certainly wasn’t why he left you here, and it wasn’t a mistake.”

A bit of doubt briefly swam over Rose’s awareness but then she realised that there was another reason. “He didn’t want to have to see me age and die, he’s just trying to stop himself from hurting in the future but he doesn’t need to worry I’m sure we can get some of those chihuahua nano genes and then we could have forever together.”

The mere thought of an eternity with Rose was enough to give him worse nightmare’s than the Doctor had after the Time War. “Chula, not chihuahua and if that’s truly the case then care to explain why if he was so worried about your time been cut short by you ageing and dying like humans do, did he remove the vortex energy from you as quickly as he possibly could to ensure minimal risk of you becoming immortal or Menti Celesti forbid a Time Lord?” he shuddered at the thought.

“You’re lying that’s not how it works.”

“You made Jack immortal with the energy so even someone like you must realise that it’s possible.”

“The Doctor didn’t know that then, that’s why he left Jack there to rebuild things.”

“Nope, wrong again. The Doctor was fully aware of what had happened to Jack, he left him there as he was too painful to look at, Time Lords see cause and effect, we see how time lines intertwine with each other and Jack became something that should never exist. He’d become something that went against all the laws of physics and against everything a Time Lord was taught could ever be allowed to happen. Be thankful they weren’t still around when you pulled you little stunt as they were a vicious bunch when someone overstepped their place, especially one of the lesser beings.” The Duplicate was glad that Jack didn’t have to suffer through what the Time Lords would have done to him. The Immortal had suffered enough as it was due to Rose’s unthinking ways, the last thing he would have needed was the Time Lords torturing him to try and permanently kill him and/or to extend their own lifespans so they would be able to better fight off the Daleks, the Time War had brought out the worst in them and he knew they would have made Jack’s eternal life a living hell had they survived.

“Okay maybe the TARDIS could have made me immortal too, not that we knew that back then but it definitely couldn’t have made me into a Time Lord, it can’t change your species.” If it could have done that the Doctor would have definitely made her a Time Lord so he didn’t have to be the last of his kind. Also why would it have left Blon as a stinking Slitheen instead of making her human? No that idiot male version of Donna wearing the Doctor’s face was clearly lying. He had to be.

“No he knew both outcomes were a possibility. Exposure to the vortex energy made Time Lords what they were, allowed us to regenerate, to see the possibilities in the time lines.” He chose not to mention that the TARDIS also had the chameleon arch which could change a person’s species.

“That’s not how evolution works.”

“So you’re trying to say species don’t evolve to become better suited to their environments? Wow you really earned your GCSEs… oh wait you didn’t get any because you were booted out,” he laughed.

Rose was seething with rage at his insinuation that she was stupid. So she decided to hit him where it would hurt. For god only knows why reason he was infatuated with that horrible ginger bitch the time lines had all converged on so she decided to use that against him.

“Well I know that the Doctor loves me, you can’t claim the same about Donna she was just as keen to get rid of you as he was.” Rose smirked smugly when she saw the flash of hurt on the Duplicate’s face before he managed to hide it.

The Duplicate wasn’t going to give Rose the satisfaction of knowing about the dangers of the metacrisis that had effected Donna. He tried to reassure himself that the Doctor would have fixed it by now, it would be easily to slowly and safely draw the energy out of her with no detriment to either of them by simply making a few alterations to the chameleon arch and allowing the device to filter the energy into his fob watch, it would even allow him to heal from a fatal wound without having to fully regenerate the next time he was near death. But the duplicate didn’t want to tell Rose about the metacrisis’ downsides so he lied about why Donna hadn’t spoke out against the Doctor’s stupid plan.

“The Doctor convinced her that I needed you to stop me from committing any more genocides, if she hadn’t have been so worried about her family she would have realised how ludicrous an idea that was given your history.” He was unable to resist adding in a dig at Rose.

“My history? I’ve never committed genocide! I talked the Doctor out of killing a Dalek! I always managed to pull him back from going to far.”

“You’re a delusional hypocrite, you may have talked him out of killing a Dalek once, only for you to latter wipe out millions.”

“I had no other option!”

“You had stolen the power of the TARDIS, all that power and you chose to kill. You could have done anything turned them back to Kaleds with no memory of what Daleks were but instead with all that power you chose death.”

“I saved Jack.”

“What you did to him was beyond cruel forcing him to experience countless gruesome deaths, and never to have any peace. You’ve forced him to watch everyone he’s ever loved die while knowing that he has no option but to carry on. That’s one of the most sadistic tortures I can think of.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“Yeah you never mean to do any of your many mistakes do you? It’s because your to stupid to think and you don’t know how to listen. It’s probably your fault that Dalek Cann could breach the time lock.”

“Now you’re just making things up.”

“No I’m not you shooting yourself between the dimensional walls did untold damage, it’s a strong possibility that you enabled Dalek Cann to get through the time lock. I’ll be able to tell for certain once I’ve analysed the signature of the dimensional canon.”

As soon as they landed Jackie called Rose into her office, telling her that it was best if they parted ways professionally. Rose had protested first but Jackie remained firm and informed her daughter that the dimension canon was destroyed. Rose had ripped up the check screaming she wasn’t going to take their bribe and that she was going to get back to the Doctor.

As Jackie was doing that Pete made the split second decision to interview the duplicate and then hastily hired him as a replacement for Suzie. Moments later they heard the all too familiar sounds of the TARDIS materialising and Rose raced out of Jackie’s Office triumphantly crying out that the Doctor had seen sense and come back for her. The Duplicate was right behind her shouting just as loudly that it was Donna who’d come to see sense and wasn’t going to leave him stranded with Rose. With her head start Rose was the first to get to the Doors and flung them open and strode in confidently only to come to a dead stop and the sight before her eyes.

Meanwhile, the Duplicate slammed into Rose’s back as he hadn’t been expecting her to stop so suddenly, taking in the sight before his eyes of his doppelganger fucking Donna against the console, he now had a new favourite memory to contest with the one where he’d seen Donna coming out of the pool on Midnight looking every inch the goddess Venus. Naturally, Rose had to open her big gob and prove exactly how dim she was by asking the world’s stupidest question.