Mask or Menace: IC Contact

[exceptfebruary]

Julian Day. [ Day, month, year. ]

Text | Video | Voice | Action

Comments

video;

[exceptfebruary]

[ Julian spends the first ten minutes after he gets this feeling rather angry with a sense of not AGAIN. But he can't pass up this opportunity to meet a previous Doctor, either. (especially one who was so flattering).

He calls back shortly, torn between curiosity, confusion, and annoyance. But with VIDEO, in the hopes that he can actually see what this Doctor looks like to match up with the Regeneration Descriptions. ]

Doctor. You don't remember me again, it seems.

video;

[helpline]

[ The Doctor clicks on the camera and just gives Julian a big wide smile. He's wearing clothes that actually fit him, thank god, though his style is a bit more 'eccentric professor' than the Twelfth Doctor's 'magician with occasional hoodies.' He's also wearing a bow tie. Bow ties are cool. ]

Course I don't remember you, why would I remember you in the first place? I'd remember someone with a cool name like Calendar Man—you sound like a superhero.

[exceptfebruary]

[ Julian checks against the drawing and the list -- Bowtie No Eybrows, he assumes. His story checks out, unfortunately. ]

You haven't met me yet. But you will.

I'm not a superhero, unfortunately, but your guess is close.

[helpline]

[ And there's a little frown on the Doctor's end. Because, as far as this Doctor knows, he's dead. No more regenerations, no more Time Lords to hand them out, it's just him. So yeah, it's just him frowning a bit at 'you will meet me.' ]

Funny. I had a feeling that I wouldn't.

[exceptfebruary]

[ Julian doesn't understand the context behind that reaction at all, since from his perspective he's just once again meeting a Doctor regeneration. ]

Trust me.

You said you had questions?

[helpline]

Well, one of my questions relates to the point of being confused that you know a future me. Technically, I'm dead.

[ no sugar coating this, the Doctor's just going to be a bit blunt. Sorry buddy. ]

[exceptfebruary]

[ Slightly confused, isn't... dying just a thing he does before he gets better? ] Yes, then you regenerated.

[helpline]

No, I didn't. I'm the last of my regenerations...twelfth body technically, but then there was that bit with the metahuman crisis, he doesn't really count except that he does.

[ The Doctor didn't mention that, did he. Whoops....... ]

[exceptfebruary]

[ Julian doesn't understand what that means at all. Metahuman crisis -- in his world, that just means superpowers. And they're always having crises.

He frowns, trying to figure this out. ]

I've met your thirteenth. He said he was an exception. [ He highly doubts there's someone else running around talking about regenerations, calling themselves the Doctor, looking and acting exactly as described. ]

But you don't seem to think that's possible.

[helpline]

I know that's not possible. [ spurred on by this confusion, the Doctor keeps talking. ] I'm the last of the Time Lords. If the rest of the Time Lords still existed then yeah, I could be granted more regenerations, but as it is? That's a big fat nope.

[exceptfebruary]

But you were granted more. [ From what he can understand, anyway. Wasn't that what Twelve had implied? Doctor, why are you a puzzle that he's having difficulty solving. ]

What happened to the other Time Lords?

[helpline]

Well, I don't want to be blunt, but they're dead. I said last of the Time Lords, after all.

[exceptfebruary]

I had been wondering how. [ That contradicts what the other Doctor said. Didn't it? After a moment's pause, he realizes he doesn't know enough about the Doctor's timeline to piece it together that way.

He tries a different course. ]

The Doctor -- the other Doctor described his earlier selves to me. [ He picks up his notes, and reads from them, word for word: ] "Bowtie No Eyebrows: he thinks bowties are cool, terrible taste in food, acts ridiculously immature."

[helpline]

Bowties are cool, [ he says, in a bit of a sulky manner. Ding ding ding, Twelve hit the nail on the head with this one. ]

[exceptfebruary]

[ Dryly: ] You'd like the Ventriloquist.

He told me about all of you. He remembered being you.

[helpline]

Which I don't see how it'd happen considering the Time Lords are all dead in my world. [ there's a pause, and a frown. ] Unless this is some sort of alternate universe exchange and he's popped off back to my universe while I'm here.

[exceptfebruary]

A possibility. It was only a few weeks ago he was replaced with another regeneration. Curly hair. Cravat.

The porter, magic, other circumstances. There could be many explanations. It wouldn't be the first time something unusual occurred.

[helpline]

Now that's interesting. I would have remembered this place as Curly Hair Pretty Boy—well, at least I hope I would have remembered this place as Curly Hair Pretty Boy. He was a touch amnesiac.

[exceptfebruary]

Hm. Amnesiac. That was mentioned, yes. [ Thank you Twelve for your handy-dandy guide. It came in use much sooner than expected. ]

An alternate Doctor from an alternate timeline?

[helpline]

Why not! I've met an alternate Brigadier before and an alternate Amy. Why not an alternate Doctor?

[exceptfebruary]

Brigadier. Title, or name? [ Ignoring Amy, because that just sounds mundane. Sorry. ]

[helpline]

Title. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, one of the best men I've ever known.

[ he is also hella dead. poor, poor Brig. :( ]

[exceptfebruary]

I see. [ Not a time lord, therefore uninteresting. ]

[helpline]

I worked with him a lot back in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Time Lords shunted me off to Earth.

[exceptfebruary]

Oh? That sounds like a story. Do tell.