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Regeneration. That’s what the professors at the Academy had called it. The complete rejuvenation of a Gallifreyan body on a cellular level, with the side effect of altering the mind and body.
Sooner or later he would change, and some new man – he hoped he would be younger, but from what he had heard it was something of a lottery – would go sauntering off in his place. Some had tried to describe it as little more than a change of appearance, simply a method of extending the lifespan, but he wasn’t fooled. The man known as the Doctor may live on, but this version of him would be no more. The end of an era.
Then again, he supposed he had little to complain about. Most people in his position would give anything to have such an ability. Even without it he had exceeded this body’s natural lifespan by a good deal; he was certainly starting to feel it. By human standards, living for a hundred years was exceptional. In contrast, a hundred-year-old Time Lord was practically still a child.
For the first time in his life, he felt old. Gadding about the universe was a young man’s game. He supposed he had had it coming for a while now, and all the chaos with the Cybermen might just prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
To tell the truth, it frightened him.
It was a silly thing for a man in his circumstance to be afraid of death, but fear was rarely rational.
And what about Ben and Polly? When they next entered the TARDIS they would be greeted by a man they didn’t know, and who might not know them either, perish the thought.
Unless… he refused. While uncommon, it wasn’t unheard of for Time Lords to somehow prevent the regenerative process, ending their lives there and then.
No. Out of the question. Such an act would be tantamount to suicide, the coward’s way out.
On the other hand, his only real alternative was to sit here, alone, waiting to die.
All of a sudden the TARDIS’ control room fell away from beneath his feet. He found himself being flung faster than light through space and time, billions upon billions of lightyears. Images flashed through his mind; a mysterious black hole. Energy draining from the cosmos. And last but not least, he saw a group of people in a TARDIS control room not unlike his own. Chief among them was an older man in frills and a shorter dark-haired fellow who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a vaudeville routine. He felt inexplicably drawn to them, like there was something special about them that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Whoever these people were, he somehow knew for certain that they needed his help.
Then just as suddenly, everything slammed to a halt, and once again there was solid ground beneath his feet. The Doctor found himself in a completely dark room, forced into a seating position. There was barely enough space to sit, let alone stand.
An image appeared before him. Their faces were unfamiliar, but their uniforms weren’t. These men were members of the Gallifreyan High Council; the Chancellor and the Lord President himself, if he was not mistaken.
So, they had caught up with him at last. The theft of a TARDIS was serious enough, never mind the fact that he’d been blatantly using it to break their precious golden rule about interfering in the affairs of other worlds and dragged multiple people along for the ride. He wasn’t sure how they had lifted him from his own TARDIS – with the shields up, no less – and placed him in some kind of holding cell, but even he had to admit that it was bloody clever.
But what was there to do? A quick scan of the room betrayed no structural weakness or locks to pick, and there was nobody else who knew where he was or what had happened to him. The truth was staring him in the face: he was cornered. No allies, no tricks up his sleeve, no way out.
He became aware that the President was speaking.
‘Are you there, Doctor?’
‘I should think so, after that little parlour trick of yours!’ He snapped.
‘Good. Our apologies for-‘
The Doctor cut him off. ‘Now, you listen to me! I’m not sure how you were able to put me in here or what kind of punishment you have in store, but let me make one thing clear: throughout my travels, while I may have interfered in the fate of worlds throughout time, it was for nothing but good. And leave Susan out of this! This whole endeavour was my idea, and so was abducting her teachers from their time. The child had nothing to do with it!’ He took a deep breath. ‘Now, whatever sentence you see fit to pronounce, I suggest you keep that in mind.’
He looked up to see the Time Lords’ reactions. But if anything, they seemed confused. ‘I believe there’s been a misunderstanding, Doctor. We have not brought you here to stand trial. It’s actually because, well… we need your help.’
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with some business about a cosmic energy drain, would it?’
‘As a matter of fact, it would. Unfortunately your debriefing was interrupted.’
‘So that slideshow was your doing. I see.’ The Doctor said. ‘Well, go on then. Out with it.’
‘As you know, we’ve detected a mysterious rift in the fabric of space-time which is sapping energy from the universe at a dangerous rate, so we’ve temporarily removed you from your part of the time stream and brought you forward in time to address the matter.’
‘Then what the devil am I doing in here?’ He spread his arms as far as his prison would allow.
‘I’m afraid your transportation unit’s been caught in a time eddy.’ The President explained. ‘We of course tried to free you, but we’re running dangerously low on power at the moment. The process of transporting the two of you has already cost a considerable amount.’
‘What do you mean, “the two of you?”’
‘Ah yes, I almost forgot. You were in dire need of assistance, but we had nobody to spare. So we thought it would be best if you were to help yourself.’
‘Stop speaking in riddles.’
‘We were attempting to send you forward in time so that you could assist your future selves.’
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Did you say selves?’
‘Yes. Your second and third incarnations, to be precise.’
Words failed him. He slumped back against the cell wall. Second and third! So he had gone through with it after all. He supposed the choice had already been made for him. His mind was bursting with questions.
‘But… the first Law of Time–‘
‘Yes, we are aware of that, but this is an emergency. Your second incarnation has already arrived, but they’re currently trapped in the TARDIS and seem more interested in squabbling than getting any work done.’
‘Well, if I can’t be with them in person, then what can I do?’
‘You’ll still be able to observe and advise from where you are. Hopefully you’ll be able to straighten them out. We’ll send your signal through to their TARDIS and you can communicate with them from there. Is that clear?’
The Doctor paused. He obviously couldn’t refuse; the matter was of astronomical importance, or else they wouldn’t have broken one of their chief rules of time travel.
Eventually the Doctor replied. ‘Yes.’
‘Excellent.’
Then something occurred to him. ‘On second thought, there is one more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘If these future selves of mine are trapped in their TARDIS, then why don’t they just take off?’
Suddenly the President looked rather sheepish. ‘I’m sorry Doctor, your connection seems to be breaking down. We’ll send your signal through to your other selves now. Good luck!’
With that the image disappeared, and he was left alone again. Within moments it was replaced by another, the future TARDIS control room from before. Evidently this latest version of him had redecorated. Ghastly design.
It occurred to him that he had no idea what his future selves actually looked like. He supposed he would know them when he saw them.
Oh.
It was the two men from before. Mister Secret Agent and the pantomime clown with the recorder. They seemed too busy bickering with each other to even notice that he was watching from the monitor.
A pair of stubborn fools who would never even consider that they weren’t the smartest man in the room.
He smiled; some things never changed. Here they were, who knew how many years later, still fighting the good fight and wearing the mantle with pride. Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in. Despite everything, they were still him.
Yes, these men were the Doctor, whether he liked it or not.
And these things they spoke of! Autons, Silurians, something about “units,” a Great Intelligence and someone called the Master - he hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant, but that just intrigued him all the more.
Of course, that was the marvellous thing about having the entirety of time and space at one’s fingertips: you could spend literal centuries exploring it and still barely scratch the surface. There would always be an infinity of new things for him to discover.
He thought back to all he had been able to do in his first few hundred years. Now to have that potential multiplied more than tenfold… imagine what he could do with all that time. The places he could see, the people he could meet… the lives he could save.
For was that not his role? When evil reared its ugly head, some daft old man in a time machine would appear from thin air and save the day, like something out of a fairy tale. There would always be some new threat, some terrible thing bred in the darkest corners of the universe. And from the look of it, there would always be a Doctor to fight it off. There had to be.
Twelve regenerations. Thirteen silly old men in a magic box. Perhaps the process had more merit than he had first thought.
Another of the group, a young blonde woman, noticed him on the screen. ‘Doctor, look! Both of you!’
Doctors Two and Three ceased their yammering and turned to face him. Every eye in the room was on the monitor. First impressions were everything.
‘Ah, there you are! I seem to be stuck up here.’ He said. ‘So you’re my replacements! A dandy and a clown!’