Fic: This is (Probably) Perfectly Normal
Nov. 20th, 2010 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kTitle: This is (Probably) Perfectly Normal
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: girl!Doctor, River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2017
Summary: The Doctor regenerates as a woman, River ruins some of the local geography, and Rory may or may not be wearing Amy's underwear.
"Do something."
"Like what?"
"How should I know? You're the nurse."
"Sorry, Amy, but I was ill the day they covered what to do when the thousand year old alien you're travelling through space with keels over and turns into a woman."
The Doctor, lying on the TARDIS floor, smiled. Amy and Rory. Wonderful, amazing, ridiculous Amy and Rory.
Hang on-- woman?
The Doctor sat bolt upright.
"Gaaah!" said Rory.
"Hello?" said Amy.
"I'm a woman?"
The Doctor held his hands in front of his face. They were smaller than they'd been before, and, actually, a different colour; light brown with short, blunt fingernails.
He clasped his hands to his chest and yelped. "I've got breasts."
"Nice ones," said Amy reassuringly.
"I hadn't noticed," said Rory, staring up at the ceiling.
"I'm a girl."
"Yes," said Amy.
"Again," said Rory, "I hadn't noticed."
Amy elbowed him in the ribs. "You know, I think you could be less help if you really tried. Doctor--" She stopped and squinted. "You are the Doctor, aren't you?"
The Doctor had to think about that one for a minute. "Yes. Yes, of course I'm the Doctor. Who else would I be?"
Before anyone, particularly Amy, could think of answering that question, the Doctor got to his-- No, that wasn't right, was it? She got to her feet in shoes that were far too large and clothes that somehow managed to be too big and too small at the same time.
"It's perfectly normal," she said, kicking off the shoes and tripping over to the console in the previous Doctor's socks.
"Normal?" said Rory. "You were dead. And a man."
"Oh, you were there the day they studied that, were you?" said Amy, rolling her eyes.
"Normal for Time Lords, I mean. When I'm dying I can regenerate. Change my face. Change my everything, really. It's all a bit of a blur, was it the radiation that killed me?"
Amy and Rory nodded reluctantly.
"But you two are okay?"
"Yes, Doctor."
"Fine, but--"
The Doctor gave a final nod. "Well worth it, then. And I've had worse deaths."
"So," said Amy, "this has happened to you before?"
"Oh, a dozen times," said the Doctor. She could see her new face, slightly distorted, in the reflective bits of the console. Dusky skin with a smattering of freckles, kind eyes and hair that fell in dark twists and curls just past her shoulders.
A good face as these things went.
"You've been a girl before, then?" said Amy.
"Well, not as such, no. There used to be rules about regeneration, back when the Time Lords were around, now there's just me."
"You and your secret desire to be a woman?" suggested Amy.
"No. Yes. No. What was the question?"
And that was when the TARDIS proximity alarm started blaring.
The Doctor flicked the monitor on. Well, tried to. It was broken, perfect. She skipped over to the main doors and threw them open. "Oh." There was an asteroid bearing down on them. The words "Hello, sweetie," were engraved in mile high letters on its surface.
"I think," said Amy, wandering up beside her and leaning her elbow on the Doctor's shoulder, "that the Mrs is looking for you."
"Sorry," said Rory. "But shouldn't we get out of the way of that asteroid?"
The Doctor ducked out from under Amy's arm, leaving Amy to lurch sideways, and dashed back to the console.
"Yes, that's absolutely what we should do."
"Where are we going?" asked Amy as the Doctor flipped a lever up and did a little spin in her socks on the glass floor.
"Inside the asteroid."
"Inside the... what?" exclaimed Rory.
"Inside the asteroid. It's hollow and there's a human colony inside. You people, you get everywhere. I've never worked out if that's good or not."
"Hey!" objected Amy.
"Right," said the Doctor. "We've landed. Let's go and see what River's done this time."
"Not so fast," said Amy, catching the Doctor's wrist as she rushed past and spinning her to face Amy. "Shouldn't you change first?"
"Why bother?"
"Because you're not wearing any shoes and that bowtie looks even more ridiculous than it did before."
"Bowties are co..." the Doctor looked into Amy's eyes. "They're not, are they?"
"No, Doctor," said Amy, shaking her head.
"Right," said the Doctor. "I'll change. Just be one minute."
"Ha!" said Rory, and then, "Ow," when Amy poked him in the ribs.
"Just think of it as finally finding a use for those eighteen rooms of women's clothing that I know you've got back there," Amy called after her.
*
The Doctor dressed in trainers, a black knee length skirt which she chose for it's practicality and usefulness in world saving situations and not because she liked the way it twirled round her legs when she moved, a white t-shirt and a black and white striped jacket.
On her way back to the console room she ducked into the arboretum and tucked a red flower behind her ear.
*
When she walked back into the console room Amy burst out laughing. "There's a flower in your hair, you know."
"I do know. Flowers are co..." Amy's face closed off and the Doctor changed tack. "Pretty. Flowers are pretty."
"You're as rubbish at being a girl as you were at being a bloke."
"And with that ringing endorsement," said the Doctor, snatching up the sonic screwdriver, "time to go."
"Doctor," said Amy. "All this. This new you. It's not going to change anything, is it?"
"Oh, Amy," said the Doctor sadly. "Everything changes."
"Oh. Okay. Whatever."
"But not the important stuff, not for ages yet." The Doctor took Amy's hands in hers. "The Doctor in the TARDIS with Amy Pond, the girl who waited."
Rory cleared his throat and raised his hand. "Er, hello."
"And Rory Pond, the boy who waited," the Doctor added.
"It's, er, Williams, actually," said Rory.
Amy and the Doctor just looked at him.
*
The inside of the asteroid looked more like the inside of an Ikea at night than anything else - all white hallways and objects of dubious and as yet undiscovered purpose. Amy and Rory followed the Doctor. The Doctor followed a series of bleeps from the sonic screwdriver.
"What's it like?" Rory asked. "I mean, it must be weird, being a man one minute and a woman the next."
"New regenerations are always a bit odd at first. Like wearing somebody else's shoes, somebody else's entire wardrobe, really."
"Yeah. But aren't there some very specific things that change when you go from being a boy alien to a girl alien?"
"If you're that curious about the whole thing," snapped the Doctor, "you should ask Amy if you can borrow her underwear."
"He already has," said Amy from behind them.
"Amy!"
"In fact, he's wearing them right now."
"I am not! Amy, tell the Doctor I'm not wearing your pants!"
"Doctor--"
"I really don't care either way," said the Doctor, leading them off down a side corridor.
"I was only asking for, you know, medical reasons," grumbled Rory.
"Right," said Amy, catching up to him and looping her arm through his. "You were asking for science."
"So," said Amy, turning her attention to the Doctor. "How come you can use the sonic to find River, anyway?"
"I've programmed her bio-signature into it. I can find her anywhere in the universe."
"Very romantic, Doctor."
"It's not meant to be romantic, it's meant to stop her graffiting "Hello, Sweetie" all over the local geography."
"Ri-ight," said Amy. "And how's that working out for you?"
"But isn't it going to be strange?" Rory asked. "Seeing River again? Now that you're... different."
"River and I keep meeting out of order. Right now she probably knows more about me than I do. And isn't that a depressing thought."
The Doctor spun round and took a little skipping step back towards her companions, narrowly missing the air vent cover that came crashing to the floor just before River Song jumped down.
"River, fancy meeting you here," said the Doctor.
"It's about time too," said River. "I had to arrange my own jailbreak."
"That's a sad story, River. I feel sad for you."
"We've been a bit busy," said Rory.
"Speaking of," said Amy, giving the Doctor a little shove in River's direction. "Do you like the Doctor's new look?"
"I do, actually. I've always liked this regeneration." River reached out and fingered the flower still tangled in the Doctor's hair. "Although I'd forgotten that you were obsessed with wearing flora in you hair."
"Flowers are good," insisted the Doctor stubbornly.
"You know what else I've just remembered about this regeneration," said River with a sly smirk, "is that you've got a birthmark on your inner thigh the exact shape of--"
"Thank you, River, but nobody here wants to know about my birthmark."
"I do," said Amy.
The Doctor put her finger to River's lips to stop her answering. "No. Why were you in jail this time?"
River shrugged. "A misunderstanding." Which was when they heard the unmistakable sounds of guards searching the hallways. "A misunderstanding that we should probably talk about back in the TARDIS."
The Doctor rolled her eyes, but grabbed one of River's hands, one of Amy's and ran in the direction of the TARDIS.
She always felt better about a new body once she knew that it could outrun most things chasing her.
*
Back in the TARDIS Rory doubled over and gave an exaggerated wheeze. "That was exhausting."
"What?" said Amy. "No, it wasn't."
"Well, I'm very tired and I'm going to bed. And I think you should come with me, Amy."
"Oh." Amy's gaze flicked between the Doctor and River. "Oh. Yes, tired. Busy day; near fatal radiation poisoning, imaginary friend's gender dysmorphia, near collision with an asteroid. Very busy. Night, Doctor. Night, River."
"Very subtle," said River when Amy and Rory had departed. She wrapped her fingers around the Doctor's wrist. "This body feels new, how new exactly?"
"About three hours now. I'm settling into my skin."
"Oh, you'll settle in well, believe me," said River.
The Doctor smiled. "I suppose that means Rory is wrong."
"Wrong about what?"
"He was worried you'd only be attracted to my ruggedly handsome previous regenerations."
River laughed, the Doctor wasn't sure she wanted to know at what exactly. "How charmingly binary of him. Anyway, I've liked all of your incarnations. Even the eunuch."
"Oh, River, River, River. I'm a Time Lord, and over nine hundred years, and currently a woman. That isn't going to work." The Doctor pulled her hand free of River's grip but didn't step away. "You were going to tell me about your little misunderstanding?"
"Oh, yes. There was a very valuable historical artifact in the private collection of a colonist, I... liberated it. In about, oh, sixty years a rather brilliant and dashing PhD candidate is going to dig it up and write her thesis on it."
"Let me guess, this candidate's name is River Song?"
"I wanted to be a doctor from when I was very young, I can't imagine why."
"You're shameless."
"Yes, lying about academic qualifications is just dreadful, isn't it, Doctor?"
"That could be a guess."
"But it isn't," said River with a smirk. She spun away from the Doctor towards the console. "I'll set my own landing coordinates, if you don't mind?"
The Doctor gestured expansively at the console. "Be my guest. Don't break the handbrake again."
"Fix."
"Break."
The TARDIS landed, without making the sound, which the Doctor still thought didn't properly count.
"The next time we see each other will be Lyceen Incursion," said River. "You'll enjoy that."
"Why will I enjoy that?"
"Let's just say that I spend a lot of time up close and personal with that birthmark on your inner thigh. Really do love the new body." And with that, River departed.
*
Six months later it turned out that the Doctor's birthmark was a precise, small-scale map of the Lyceen mothership.
She enjoyed herself anyway.
Podfic of This is (Probably) Perfectly Normal read bysuch_heights
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: girl!Doctor, River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2017
Summary: The Doctor regenerates as a woman, River ruins some of the local geography, and Rory may or may not be wearing Amy's underwear.
"Do something."
"Like what?"
"How should I know? You're the nurse."
"Sorry, Amy, but I was ill the day they covered what to do when the thousand year old alien you're travelling through space with keels over and turns into a woman."
The Doctor, lying on the TARDIS floor, smiled. Amy and Rory. Wonderful, amazing, ridiculous Amy and Rory.
Hang on-- woman?
The Doctor sat bolt upright.
"Gaaah!" said Rory.
"Hello?" said Amy.
"I'm a woman?"
The Doctor held his hands in front of his face. They were smaller than they'd been before, and, actually, a different colour; light brown with short, blunt fingernails.
He clasped his hands to his chest and yelped. "I've got breasts."
"Nice ones," said Amy reassuringly.
"I hadn't noticed," said Rory, staring up at the ceiling.
"I'm a girl."
"Yes," said Amy.
"Again," said Rory, "I hadn't noticed."
Amy elbowed him in the ribs. "You know, I think you could be less help if you really tried. Doctor--" She stopped and squinted. "You are the Doctor, aren't you?"
The Doctor had to think about that one for a minute. "Yes. Yes, of course I'm the Doctor. Who else would I be?"
Before anyone, particularly Amy, could think of answering that question, the Doctor got to his-- No, that wasn't right, was it? She got to her feet in shoes that were far too large and clothes that somehow managed to be too big and too small at the same time.
"It's perfectly normal," she said, kicking off the shoes and tripping over to the console in the previous Doctor's socks.
"Normal?" said Rory. "You were dead. And a man."
"Oh, you were there the day they studied that, were you?" said Amy, rolling her eyes.
"Normal for Time Lords, I mean. When I'm dying I can regenerate. Change my face. Change my everything, really. It's all a bit of a blur, was it the radiation that killed me?"
Amy and Rory nodded reluctantly.
"But you two are okay?"
"Yes, Doctor."
"Fine, but--"
The Doctor gave a final nod. "Well worth it, then. And I've had worse deaths."
"So," said Amy, "this has happened to you before?"
"Oh, a dozen times," said the Doctor. She could see her new face, slightly distorted, in the reflective bits of the console. Dusky skin with a smattering of freckles, kind eyes and hair that fell in dark twists and curls just past her shoulders.
A good face as these things went.
"You've been a girl before, then?" said Amy.
"Well, not as such, no. There used to be rules about regeneration, back when the Time Lords were around, now there's just me."
"You and your secret desire to be a woman?" suggested Amy.
"No. Yes. No. What was the question?"
And that was when the TARDIS proximity alarm started blaring.
The Doctor flicked the monitor on. Well, tried to. It was broken, perfect. She skipped over to the main doors and threw them open. "Oh." There was an asteroid bearing down on them. The words "Hello, sweetie," were engraved in mile high letters on its surface.
"I think," said Amy, wandering up beside her and leaning her elbow on the Doctor's shoulder, "that the Mrs is looking for you."
"Sorry," said Rory. "But shouldn't we get out of the way of that asteroid?"
The Doctor ducked out from under Amy's arm, leaving Amy to lurch sideways, and dashed back to the console.
"Yes, that's absolutely what we should do."
"Where are we going?" asked Amy as the Doctor flipped a lever up and did a little spin in her socks on the glass floor.
"Inside the asteroid."
"Inside the... what?" exclaimed Rory.
"Inside the asteroid. It's hollow and there's a human colony inside. You people, you get everywhere. I've never worked out if that's good or not."
"Hey!" objected Amy.
"Right," said the Doctor. "We've landed. Let's go and see what River's done this time."
"Not so fast," said Amy, catching the Doctor's wrist as she rushed past and spinning her to face Amy. "Shouldn't you change first?"
"Why bother?"
"Because you're not wearing any shoes and that bowtie looks even more ridiculous than it did before."
"Bowties are co..." the Doctor looked into Amy's eyes. "They're not, are they?"
"No, Doctor," said Amy, shaking her head.
"Right," said the Doctor. "I'll change. Just be one minute."
"Ha!" said Rory, and then, "Ow," when Amy poked him in the ribs.
"Just think of it as finally finding a use for those eighteen rooms of women's clothing that I know you've got back there," Amy called after her.
*
The Doctor dressed in trainers, a black knee length skirt which she chose for it's practicality and usefulness in world saving situations and not because she liked the way it twirled round her legs when she moved, a white t-shirt and a black and white striped jacket.
On her way back to the console room she ducked into the arboretum and tucked a red flower behind her ear.
*
When she walked back into the console room Amy burst out laughing. "There's a flower in your hair, you know."
"I do know. Flowers are co..." Amy's face closed off and the Doctor changed tack. "Pretty. Flowers are pretty."
"You're as rubbish at being a girl as you were at being a bloke."
"And with that ringing endorsement," said the Doctor, snatching up the sonic screwdriver, "time to go."
"Doctor," said Amy. "All this. This new you. It's not going to change anything, is it?"
"Oh, Amy," said the Doctor sadly. "Everything changes."
"Oh. Okay. Whatever."
"But not the important stuff, not for ages yet." The Doctor took Amy's hands in hers. "The Doctor in the TARDIS with Amy Pond, the girl who waited."
Rory cleared his throat and raised his hand. "Er, hello."
"And Rory Pond, the boy who waited," the Doctor added.
"It's, er, Williams, actually," said Rory.
Amy and the Doctor just looked at him.
*
The inside of the asteroid looked more like the inside of an Ikea at night than anything else - all white hallways and objects of dubious and as yet undiscovered purpose. Amy and Rory followed the Doctor. The Doctor followed a series of bleeps from the sonic screwdriver.
"What's it like?" Rory asked. "I mean, it must be weird, being a man one minute and a woman the next."
"New regenerations are always a bit odd at first. Like wearing somebody else's shoes, somebody else's entire wardrobe, really."
"Yeah. But aren't there some very specific things that change when you go from being a boy alien to a girl alien?"
"If you're that curious about the whole thing," snapped the Doctor, "you should ask Amy if you can borrow her underwear."
"He already has," said Amy from behind them.
"Amy!"
"In fact, he's wearing them right now."
"I am not! Amy, tell the Doctor I'm not wearing your pants!"
"Doctor--"
"I really don't care either way," said the Doctor, leading them off down a side corridor.
"I was only asking for, you know, medical reasons," grumbled Rory.
"Right," said Amy, catching up to him and looping her arm through his. "You were asking for science."
"So," said Amy, turning her attention to the Doctor. "How come you can use the sonic to find River, anyway?"
"I've programmed her bio-signature into it. I can find her anywhere in the universe."
"Very romantic, Doctor."
"It's not meant to be romantic, it's meant to stop her graffiting "Hello, Sweetie" all over the local geography."
"Ri-ight," said Amy. "And how's that working out for you?"
"But isn't it going to be strange?" Rory asked. "Seeing River again? Now that you're... different."
"River and I keep meeting out of order. Right now she probably knows more about me than I do. And isn't that a depressing thought."
The Doctor spun round and took a little skipping step back towards her companions, narrowly missing the air vent cover that came crashing to the floor just before River Song jumped down.
"River, fancy meeting you here," said the Doctor.
"It's about time too," said River. "I had to arrange my own jailbreak."
"That's a sad story, River. I feel sad for you."
"We've been a bit busy," said Rory.
"Speaking of," said Amy, giving the Doctor a little shove in River's direction. "Do you like the Doctor's new look?"
"I do, actually. I've always liked this regeneration." River reached out and fingered the flower still tangled in the Doctor's hair. "Although I'd forgotten that you were obsessed with wearing flora in you hair."
"Flowers are good," insisted the Doctor stubbornly.
"You know what else I've just remembered about this regeneration," said River with a sly smirk, "is that you've got a birthmark on your inner thigh the exact shape of--"
"Thank you, River, but nobody here wants to know about my birthmark."
"I do," said Amy.
The Doctor put her finger to River's lips to stop her answering. "No. Why were you in jail this time?"
River shrugged. "A misunderstanding." Which was when they heard the unmistakable sounds of guards searching the hallways. "A misunderstanding that we should probably talk about back in the TARDIS."
The Doctor rolled her eyes, but grabbed one of River's hands, one of Amy's and ran in the direction of the TARDIS.
She always felt better about a new body once she knew that it could outrun most things chasing her.
*
Back in the TARDIS Rory doubled over and gave an exaggerated wheeze. "That was exhausting."
"What?" said Amy. "No, it wasn't."
"Well, I'm very tired and I'm going to bed. And I think you should come with me, Amy."
"Oh." Amy's gaze flicked between the Doctor and River. "Oh. Yes, tired. Busy day; near fatal radiation poisoning, imaginary friend's gender dysmorphia, near collision with an asteroid. Very busy. Night, Doctor. Night, River."
"Very subtle," said River when Amy and Rory had departed. She wrapped her fingers around the Doctor's wrist. "This body feels new, how new exactly?"
"About three hours now. I'm settling into my skin."
"Oh, you'll settle in well, believe me," said River.
The Doctor smiled. "I suppose that means Rory is wrong."
"Wrong about what?"
"He was worried you'd only be attracted to my ruggedly handsome previous regenerations."
River laughed, the Doctor wasn't sure she wanted to know at what exactly. "How charmingly binary of him. Anyway, I've liked all of your incarnations. Even the eunuch."
"Oh, River, River, River. I'm a Time Lord, and over nine hundred years, and currently a woman. That isn't going to work." The Doctor pulled her hand free of River's grip but didn't step away. "You were going to tell me about your little misunderstanding?"
"Oh, yes. There was a very valuable historical artifact in the private collection of a colonist, I... liberated it. In about, oh, sixty years a rather brilliant and dashing PhD candidate is going to dig it up and write her thesis on it."
"Let me guess, this candidate's name is River Song?"
"I wanted to be a doctor from when I was very young, I can't imagine why."
"You're shameless."
"Yes, lying about academic qualifications is just dreadful, isn't it, Doctor?"
"That could be a guess."
"But it isn't," said River with a smirk. She spun away from the Doctor towards the console. "I'll set my own landing coordinates, if you don't mind?"
The Doctor gestured expansively at the console. "Be my guest. Don't break the handbrake again."
"Fix."
"Break."
The TARDIS landed, without making the sound, which the Doctor still thought didn't properly count.
"The next time we see each other will be Lyceen Incursion," said River. "You'll enjoy that."
"Why will I enjoy that?"
"Let's just say that I spend a lot of time up close and personal with that birthmark on your inner thigh. Really do love the new body." And with that, River departed.
*
Six months later it turned out that the Doctor's birthmark was a precise, small-scale map of the Lyceen mothership.
She enjoyed herself anyway.
Podfic of This is (Probably) Perfectly Normal read by
such_heights
no subject
Date: 2011-06-23 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-23 06:31 pm (UTC)