Author's Note: This story takes place directly after the Episode "The Girl in the Fireplace" from the second series of the new Doctor Who.

The Ten Doctors

by Kolya

Chapter One: The Joke Goes Up In Flames

The planet Blah was actually quite as boring as its name suggested; in fact it was listed in the 521st edition of the Fodor's Planetary Guide, Outer-Rim Volume II as "Quite possibly the worst planet in the galaxy on which to spend your holiday". It was ranked twenty-five spots below Pluto and was often described as being "a lot like Earth's moon only without the inherent charm of all the craters or the nice view". In fact, there wasn't much of anything to Blah at all.

Roughly the size of Mercury, Blah resembled an impossibly vast, impossibly flat desert. It had no mountains, hills, plateaus, streams, valleys, gorges, or any other even remotely distinguishing features. As a point of absolutely trivial scientific fact, no bit of mineral debris existed on Blah that was larger than two microns squared. The space legend went that on Blah, if one were to walk out of view of their spacecraft, close their eyes, spin themselves round for a few seconds, then reopen their eyes they would be completely unable to determine in which direction to head in order to find their ship again and could quite possibly spend several years walking the planet's surface looking for it. Even trying to determine direction by the position of Blah's sun wouldn't help as Blah's sky was perpetually gloomy and any light was merely defused by the absolute cloud cover. These unfortunate traits were the source of the problem currently faced by three individuals who were trying desperately to find their "ride".

The "ride" in question actually stood out on Blah's bleak and hopelessly vacant surface like an enflamed boil and would be very hard to miss as long as it was actually within your field of vision. Visually a small blue rectangular box with a light on the top, a door on the side, and the words "Police Public Call Box" in lighted white letters above it; this ship was actually far more significant than first appearances let on. It was a TARDIS, and in fact it was the last TARDIS left in the universe.

The group of three individuals trying desperately to find this TARDIS consisted of two humans, one male and one female, as well as one Time Lord. The Time Lord, like the TARDIS was also the last of his kind, and, at the moment, very close to becoming as extinct as the rest of his people as the trio was currently being chased by a mob three hundred strong composed of very angry Cerlonians.

"I thought you said this planet was deserted!" the male human who went by the name Mickey Smith yelled towards the Time Lord, who was known simply as the Doctor. Mickey, due to a lifetime of shunning sports in favor Nintendo and comic books (which had since evolved into PS2 and novelizations of comic books), had fallen behind his two sprinting companions.

"No…I said that it's normally deserted…a good place to take a breather!" The Doctor said picking up the pace and leaving Mickey a little further behind. "How was I supposed to know we'd end up crashing the Cerlonian version of 'Burning Man'?!?"

"It might not have been a problem if you lot hadn't knocked over their 'Burning Man' and set their whole camp on fire!" The third member of the trio, the human female who was named Rose Tyler, retorted. Rose wasn't having quite the same problem Mickey was keeping up with the Doctor, but then again, she had been doing this sort of thing for a while now.

"You lot?!?" The Doctor yelled incredulously over his shoulder taking a moment to notice that the Cerlonians were starting to gain on them. "I can't help it if "Ricky" here can't catch or keep his composure under pressure!" and then mumbling to himself said, "Knew I should have left him onboard that ship…let the Clockwork Men deal with that one."

"Your being rude again, Doctor," Rose said having managed to catch the Doctor's statement.

"Was I? Well…good," the Doctor said. Mickey of course being at least three metres behind hadn't heard the last exchange and was working on catching his breath for a response to the initial bit of slander.

"Oi! Look here Doctor," Mickey said making the title sound like a curse as he had a habit of doing. "I can catch…it's you who can't throw! And I wouldn't have 'lost my composure' if you hadn't thrown that…that…THING at my head!"

"That 'thing' was a Cerlonian Caline, and I didn't throw it…it…jumped out of my hands!"

"JUMPED?!?" Mickey screamed. "Well it 'jumped' pretty damn fast at my head after you said 'Hey Mickey, look at this'!"

"You looked absolutely terrified," Rose said trying very hard to suppress a smile. She failed horribly and broke into a laugh. The Doctor didn't even attempt to stop himself and started laughing as well and soon the two had to slow to a stop to catch their breath putting their hands on their knees and continuing to giggle at their private joke. Mickey, who both thought this wasn't at all amusing and had remembered that they were still being chased by Cerlonians kept running and soon passed the Doctor and Rose. Rose's laughing started to peter out as she noticed Mickey pass them still running full tilt and she stood back up as a realization crossed her mind.

"Oh…they're still following us aren't they?" she said looking back to find their pursuers were still very much behind them. The Doctor jerked up looking back as well.

"Oh…right," the Doctor said looking quite concerned now. "Let's go then shall we," he said looking at Rose and the two of them began running again. It wasn't too long before both of them overtook Mickey again.

"Where's the TARDIS?" Rose asked concern now fully evident in her voice. "I thought you said this was the right direction."

"Once again, I said I 'thought' it was in this direction," the Doctor said looking around at the plain, empty horizon. "Bloody planet looks the same in every direction," the Doctor once again mumbled to himself. "Guess the space legends were true after all."

"Shouldn't you have like…a GPS tracking thing, or a locator, or something?" Mickey said sounding almost panicked by this point.

"Don't be stupid Mickey," the Doctor said condescendingly, "why would I have a…oh…wait a moment…" the Doctor said stopping suddenly causing Mickey to almost run right into him, and drawing his Sonic Screwdriver from his suit jacket pocket.

"What…? You mean that thing does that?" Mickey said, a dumbfounded look crossing his face.

"Come now Mickey," the Doctor said adjusting the Sonic Screwdriver to one of its many settings, lifting it out in front of him, and sweeping it along the horizon. "You should know by now that this 'thing' can do everything."

The Screwdriver made a high-pitched humming noise and a boyish look of excitement crossed the Doctor's face.

"There we go!" The Doctor said through his wide-mouthed grin turning to his companions. "All right you lot…follow me," and then, noticing that the Cerlonians had gotten dangerously close, amended the statement with, "uhhh…quickly now."

Once again the trio started running but within 50 metres they were finally able to see the TARDIS once again. Pushing themselves even faster they quickly reached the blue box. The Doctor skidded to a stop and began patting himself down looking for the key.

"Where's the key?" he muttered to himself. The others started patting themselves down as well.

"Oh…got it!" Rose said pulling the TARDIS key from her back pocket and pushing past the Doctor to fit it into the lock. The Doctor once again looked back at the nearing mob of angry aliens.

"Faster would be better Rose," he said looking back his companion.

"Got it," she said as the key clicked home and she pushed the door inward. "Let's go."

Rose went through the doorway first followed closely by Mickey. As the Doctor waited his turn he didn't notice that one of the closer Cerlonians had pulled a short silver rod from his belt and was depressing a small button on the side. The device emitted a shrill noise and a burst of green energy which shot forth and hit the Doctor squarely in the back. He lurched forward slightly, more from shock than any pain as the energy hadn't in fact hurt him at all. Seeing the glow Rose and Mickey turned back to look at the Doctor.

"Are you okay?" Rose asked concerned.

"I'm fine, keep going," the Doctor said finally making it through the door of the TARDIS and slamming it firmly back into place and then running for the main console. A few switches thrown and a few knobs turned and the Time Rotor began its lazy up and down motion as the TADIS began to come to life.

Outside the vehicle the blue light began to flash in time with the "Rotor". The loud "whooshing" sound of the TARDIS engines spread out across the vast, empty plains of Blah as a wind picked up and began to force the closest Cerlonians to avert their eyes, and the TARDIS began to fade from Space and Time finally disappearing completely from the desolate planet. For their part the Cerlonians didn't seem to be exceedingly surprised by the disappearance of an object that had looked so out of place on the world to begin with. One of the male Cerlonians turned to the male that had fired the silver rod looking down at the object in his hand.

"What is that thing Bob?"

"Mark IV Persona Demarcator," Bob said. "Don't worry Steve…he'll be fine and maybe he'll figure out where his lack of consideration comes from and get in touch with his Inner Child."

"Far-out," Steve said.

And with that what was once a mob of angry Cerlonians became now a group of exceedingly mellow Cerlonians as they turned back to begin repairs to their camp.

Had anyone bothered to stay around for another moment or two they might have noticed that something had been left behind when the TARDIS had disappeared. It was hardly noticeable, no more than twelve centimetres in diameter but it glowed with a shallow green light as it hung in the air where the door to the TARDIS had just been.

The life form, which was quite possibly an accurate classification as it appeared to possess some measure of consciousness, was confused. It wasn't quite sure of what it was or where it was but it seemed to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it had been left behind, abandoned, and it didn't like that idea at all.

Deep in the recesses of what might be called its mind, the life form realized that it needed to find out who or what it was. It had the feeling of being incomplete and began to realize that it would need to find the rest of "itself" if it were ever going to fully understand what it was and what its place was in the universe. Unfortunately it didn't quite know where to start.

Suddenly the life form began to recall flitting bits and pieces of memories that were at once familiar and strange to it. Flashes of pictures were formed in its mind only to disappear just as quickly as they appeared. The life form saw an older gentleman with long white hair and a walking stick followed quickly by one slightly younger only this time with black hair and then another white haired man with a more distinguished air about him. These were replaced by an awkward looking man younger than the others all curls and teeth, then a still younger man with straight blond hair and a boyish smile, and then another curly topped young man appeared who looked more severe then the previous five. Without slowing these images were replaced first with another older man, shorter than the rest with dark hair once again and a funny looking hat and an umbrella, a rather elaborately dressed younger man with long flowing wavy hair, and finally a wide grinned man with practically no hair at all dressed completely in black.

The life form, who was growing tired of not having something to identify itself with, thought it recognized all these men in one way or another, as if they were somehow connected or close to it, and yet each one was somehow strange and somehow it also realized that there was an image missing. Somehow it knew there should be another picture, another man, and that this one was far closer to it than any of the others.

Then suddenly it started to remember other things beyond the pictures, things having to do with technology unseen anywhere in the universe but one place, a planet that for some reason had disassociated itself from the rest of the universe and it also knew that this place no longer existed in Time or Space. The being knew that the people of this dead world had been able to move about in Space and Time as easily as most life forms move about the countryside on a stroll, and the being also was starkly aware that it too could do this if it concentrated hard enough.

But where would it start? What was the first step? Everything in its mind was unfocused, scattered, and muddled. It thought to itself that the men in its mind would be the place to start. It focused again on the impressions it had of those nine men.

One of them, the last one it had seen in its mind, the young one with hardly any hair in all black. That man felt to be the closest of the nine, that would be the place to start.

The life form focused as hard as it could, unfocused as it was, on this man. The image of the man was clear in its mind. Then the being focused on the ability to travel to this man. It merely had to think it…and so it was….