New Year's Eve, 2019

The party was in full swing now. Friends and family dancing around the living room, jumping and swaying to the music of Queen blasting out from the speakers. Others stood in the kitchen, laughing and toasting the new year. The Christmas tree had been knocked over, it was now leaning against a wall uneasily, probably by some of the kids or someone who's had a bit too much beer.

Nicole stared at her drink, arms folded, laid back in her chair, watching as the air bubbles rose to the top of the glass, fizzling and crackling as they did. She was sat in the backgarden, early fireworks going off into the late night sky, contemplating her entire life up until this moment, this night, this party. It wasn't her party (in fact, she had been planning to spend this New Year's Eve on her own watching telly), so she didn't feel any obligation to socialise. Most of the people in there annoyed the hell out of her.

There was a knock from behind her and Nicole turned around to see Sandra, the party host and her closest friend, standing behind the glass pateo door that lead from the kitchen into the backgarden, with two mugs of tea and a smile on her face. Nicole grinned back and gestured for her to join her at the table. Sliding the door back, Sandra stepped out onto the crisp winter grass and placed the mugs on the table in front of her, passing one over to Nicole.

"I thought you'd prefer tea." Sandra said as she pulled up a chair beside her friend.

"Thanks, mum." Nicole joked and the two giggled away like they had always done ever since they'd hung out together on the primary school playgrounds.

They both watched as an array of gold sparkles erupted above them from the house next door. Nicole pushed her alcohol aside and took an overly large gulp of her tea, not realising how hot is was, causing her to cough and splutter for a moment. Sandra could do nothing but laugh.

"God, you're a mess." She sighed as Nicole relaxed.

"Yeah, I know. But you still love me?"

"Always, Nic. Hey, speaking of love, you never told me how that date went a few weeks ago with, uhh, what's her face? Shelia?"

"You mean Shona?"

"Yeah, her!"

"It's weird how I keep track of all your dates and you never remember any of mine." Stated Nicole.

"I remembered Shirley."

"No, it's not Shirley, it's Sho-" As she spoke, Nicole realised that Sandra was misremembering delibrately, given away by the guilty looking snigger she had just let out, "Stop!" She lightly punched her friend in the arm and they were back in heaps of giggles.

"So, how'd it go?" Sandra brought the conversation back around.

"Well, it was nice, at first," Nicole began, "until I saw her get a text from her girlfriend about feeding the cats."

"Oh, babes." Sandra put her hands over her wide open mouth.

"I know. I'm allergic to cats." Nic tried to quip, but Sandra was too sympathetic to laugh.

"Come 'ere." She spread out her arms and they shared a tentative warm hug.

"It's fine, really. Maybe I'm just no luck with girls. Should I try guys again?"

"Y'know, Nic, if I was bi too, I'd be all over you. Hey, that rhymed!"

"How much have you drunk tonight?" Nicole cocked an eyebrow, accusingly.

"Now who sounds like a mum?" More chuckling ensued.

The pateo door opened once again and a bloke with a shaggy mop of chesnut hair poked his head out.

"Only five minutes to go, ladies! We're gonna put on the TV and watch the countdown." He announced, his speech pattern suggesting he was slightly tipsy.

"Alright, Darren, we'll be in soon. Make sure everyone's in the living room for midnight, got it?" Sandra pointed a finger at him.

"Anything for you, my sweet Sandra." And with a flash of his pearly white teeth, Darren disappeared back into the house.

"Never liked the BBC One New Year's Show. Only good for the London fireworks." Sandra confessed, noticing Nicole was staring off into the dark abyss of her garden, "You gonna come in and watch too?"

"Yeah, sure. You go in first, I just wanna be out here for another minute." Nicole lied, knowing full well she wasnt going to come in and get trampled by the celebrating partiers.

"Hey, I know it's pretty late notice, but you can stay round here tonight, if you want? Saves you the trouble of driving back to yours, even though I know you ain't drunk nothing."

"Cheers, San." From inside the house, there was the sound of something smashing followed by a great big cheer, "Sounds like you better go sort that out."

"Yeah, s'pose. See ya in a bit." Sandra blew a kiss before quickly darting inside to stop everyone from destroying her house anymore.

Nicole got up from her seat and wandered out further into the garden. It wasn't a very big garden, square in shape, about 7 metres by 8 metres, a small wooden shed in the far righthand corner. Another few fireworks going off diverted her attention, as she snapped her head upwards to see three beautiful bursts of red, green and blue light, followed by the loud crashes of sound that accompanied them.

Nicole began thinking about her life again. How had she got here? Not literally how she got there (she'd driven), more in the sense of 'how had she got to this point in her life?' She was 23, working at a Clarkes shoe shop just up the town high-street, living in a one-bedroom flat with a landlord threatening to up the rent everytime he saw her, stuck in a perpetual cycle of the same routine. It might as well have been Groundhog Day, that's how little difference it would have made. Nicole was ready to make a change, to do something new.

New.

A new year can be a fresh start for a lot of people. A resolution to their lives. So why not her? Nicole was ready to make a change and that change started now; tonight! 2020 was going to be Nicole's year and she was going to make it happen. Nicole was going to be renewed. Oppurtunity was out there, all she had to do was go and find it. It wasn't just going to drop out of the sky...

94.5 Million Miles Away

Flares of solar energy ripped through the empty space, spewing out from the eye-melting ball of inferno that was the sun, ferociously burning like it had been doing since it was born and would continue to do so for millions upon millions more years. It was blindingly bright, almost impossible to see anything beyond or around it. However, something was very close to it, hurtling at tremendous speed towards the colossal tyrant of heat along with a cluster of asteroids and spacs debris that had been caught in its awesome slipstream:

A small, wooden, blue box.

The lantern on its roof illuminated on and off every few seconds, blue electrical sparks and flakes of paint flying off its edges as it journeyed closer to the star. A few large rocks that the box had swept up in its chaotic flight had now gained even more velocity and shot off ahead of it, colliding with one of the large previously mentioned solar flares, causing them to be torn apart, erupting in a huge whirlwind of dust, fire and stone that collided with the blue shooting casket. There was a tremendous clash, almost powerful enough to obliterate the thing. Yet, the box continued on its travel, bruised and battered, but still in one piece.

For now.

This was no ordinary box. That was obvious. It was a ship. A ship that was bigger on the inside. Within its four singed wooden walls held another entire room. In fact, it was another entire dimension! Through the doors that remained the same on the other side led to a wide open space. Hexagonal, criss-crossing metal walls that were stacked apart from each other held the machine together, slowly curving inwards that gave the impression of a dome. However, they reached such a high altitude it was impossible to determine how high the ceiling was, or how large the room expanded to.

At the centre of the lit area, on a raised level up off the ground, sat a sharp, mesmeric, six-sided control console. A time glass, two huge levers, dials, pressure gages, switches and pedals made up just a few of its devices, messily scattered across it. Embedded in the middle of the hexagon was a huge crystal that glowed a deep and strong orange, along with the floors, background walls, inner console and the six crystalline pillars that surrounded it. The monuments were curved towards the central crystal, almost as if they focussed power on it, giving it the strength to rise and fall in a melodic sequence, like the lantern on its roof.

However, it wasn't that peaceful. Steam and smoke bellowed out from the seams of the console, more firery sparks pinging off every surface, deafening explosions launching out from the mix-match checkered walls, flames violently pushing up out from the floor. The warm orange glow now flickered and stifled with every rise and fall from the crystal, which had gained a rather nasty looking crack straight down through its core. Unprecedented turbulence rocked the ship, unearthly groans shuddering through the very fabric of the capsule.

But it wasn't empty.

On the raised platform, lying amongst pieces of broken glass and burnt chunks of the walls and sizzling pipes that had been blown out from underneath the console, was a woman. She lay on her front, wriggling slightly, as if something was happening to her. There was a sudden and lethal jolt that launched her around 180 degrees so that she was now on her back. The lady was blond and wore a hooded, lilac-blue trench coat with a dark blue lining and a rainbow pattern on its edges, along with a dark blue t-shirt that featured another rainbow pattern running across its chest. For trousers, she had high-waisted teal blue culottes, held up by yellow braces. On her feet were thick blue striped socks and laced brown leather boots.

Now she was on back, it was clear to see why she was wriggling and twitching. Her face, her hands, her uncovered skin and her brown-rooted hair was all warping and shifting and glowing, glistening with some alien energy, pulsing away and somehow... changing her. Her features were morphing, becoming something else, somebody else. Whatever was happening, it wasn't important right then, as the impossible box was now dangerously close to the sun, so near to oblivion. Not even it could withstand that.

A holographical display on the console, projected onto one of the panels, read 'EARTH TIME: 31/12/19 - 11:58' before glitching to '11:59'. Exactly one minute until the new year and, entirely coincidentally, one minute until the ship was destroyed. All that needed to be done was to pull down on one single lever and divert its course away from the sun. There was only one person that could do that and she knew it. With all her strength, the woman swung one of her sparking arms up onto the panel, setting off an array of sparks around it when it crashed against the controls.

As Sandra and the party goers gathered around the TV, watching the live coverage at Westminster before the world renowned fireworks display, the mysterious lady moved her hands along the console to where the lever was situated. The countdown had begun, Nicole could hear it from outside. The collective chant of,

"14. 13. 12. 11. 10!"

The woman found the saviour lever, wrapping her hand around it tightly. She attempted to yank it down, but it was stuck! A large shard of glass had become wedged in between the release mechanism.

"9! 8! 7! 6!"

She tried and tried and tried.

"5!"

With all her might.

"4!"

But then.

"3!"

In the nick of time.

"2!"

The glass smashed under the strength of the lever.

"1!"

And the woman was able to pull it down with an enormous and satisfying clank.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Came the earth-shuddering cry from inside the house.

In Westminster, the people cheered and screamed in absolute delight as the London Eye disappeared in the smoke and light that it had released, more fireworks launching from the top of the Elizabeth Tower. 2019 had been and gone. It was now 00:00am, 1st January 2020. A time to smile.

Nicole smiled too, as the sky around her was lit up with brightness, bathing her in an incredible rainbow glow, regenerating her into the new person she was going to become that day.

The same thing was happening to the mysterious lady, only in a more physical sense rather than Nicole's emotional regeneration. As soon as she had used the lever, which had immediatly caused the box to do a complete U-turn and shoot off in the exact opposite direction to the way it had come, the woman's arm completely transformed with the energy emanating off it dissipating. The arm dropped down behind the console before a totally new and different person clambered up to their feet.

With a blink, their eyes adjusted to their surroundings. All they could exclaim when they saw the state the room was in was,

"Bloody hell!" The Doctor boldly cried before a showering of sparks from the console caused them to jump back and shield their face with their hands.

Once it was over, the Time Lord opened their eyes again and realised the fact that they had brand new appendages. Not only that, but their entire body had changed. Regeneration!

"I'm alive! I'M ALIVE!" They proclaimed, beaming from ear to ear at this fact.

They began inspecting their new form. For starters, the skin colour was different. Brown. That was nice, they hadn't been anything but white so far, so it was a pleasant change. Soft and smooth skin too, they were off to a good start! Gender, now this one needed some feeling for... yep, still a woman. Size, not overweight, thin enough. About the same as last time. However, they were definitely taller. She estimated nearly 6 foot. She then ran her fingers through her hair, discovering it to be long and black. She had been hoping for possibly a pixie cut but it was fine. Everything seemed to be in order.

"Right then, change! And not a moment too-" Suddenly, the Doctor burst out laughing mid-sentence, beginning to pace around the console as she did, "HA! HA! HA! Fantastic!"

Then, the Time Lord stopped dead in her tracks, looking off wistfully into the distance with a reminiscent expression on her face. At this moment, smoke began rising up from the patch of floor directly beneath her feet.

"Doctor, I let you go." She uttered before hurrying back to the spot she had regenerated.

Seconds after she had moved, the patch of floor she had been previously standing on erupted outwards, with some kind of tank having overheated and exploded underneath it. The Doctor bumped into the console and began flicking switches in a panicked manner.

"No, no, no, no, no!" The time traveller worried, turning around and leaning against the controls, biting her bottom lip as she did, "Time and space... Time and space! There is no time. It's unravelling. Collapsing!" A devastating thought popped into her mind, "Entropy." She then realised that she was talking complete bollocks, "WHO. AM. I?"

As soon as the words had left the Doctor's mouth, she felt a massive surge of pain in her head. She groaned and clasped her hands around it, before more glowing regeneration energy spewed out in a line that split directly down her face.

"My head is splitting in two!" She squealed, but managed to retract the excess power with a sigh of relief.

Next thing she knew, the Time Lord started shivering uncontrollably as she experienced a spine-tingling chill across her entire body. She clutched the sides of her arms and started rubbing, frantically, to try and gain some heat. It was like having the worst cold flush ever.

"Cold... so cold..." The Doctor's teeth chattered.

Another thought and she stopped quaking and dug her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. Eventually, she gave a smug grin as she pulled out a short light blue scarf with a small rainbow pattern that she had worn on the last new year's day. In a flash, it was around her neck and she could feel the warmth returning almost instantly, closing her eyes and enjoying the feeling. For a moment, she was lost in herself, relaxed, unaware of the world around her.

A bump of turbulence soon snapped her out of it as the Doctor fell back onto the console and began laughing again. She looked at the hologram display in front of her, reading the ship's current flight pattern and the planet they were heading towards: Earth!

"Of course! HA!" She cheered, twisting a dial and spinning the time glass, causing the box to travel faster, spiralling downwards to the planet with a trail of smoke and flame bellowing out from behind.

"Happy New Me!"

END OF PART ONE