Fifteen times.
Reincarnation was, as one would call it, a bitch! Quite the bitch, really. It hurt. And for a few brief seconds - which for him lasted a lifetime - he felt as if he was torn apart at a molecular bases, as millions of memories from 14 previous incarnations came flooding into his brain. Pain. Suffering. Laughs. Tears. All from 14 lives he had lived before, but never his origin. Never the first life he had lived. Because that seemed hidden away. Deep inside behind invisible doors with invisible locks and invisible guards.
The TARDIS was home. Comfortable. A mother who silently approved of her new son. And cared for him immediately in the same way as she had done for so many years. Countless years. Too many years. And she would do so for many more.
His new body felt somewhat .. uncomfortable. Strangely young compared to his last. But that passed quickly. It was after all his fifteenth body. Sixteenth, if you counted his origin, but again .. he had no recollection whatsoever about what he had looked like back then, those many years ago. And how many years was it again?
"Close to 800 now," he said to himself, testing his voice. Again uncannily British, and that seemed to have been his lot. He always sounded British. And right now even quite dorkily so, which made him grin as he found the first reflective surface on the "bridge" of the TARDIS so he could take a look at himself.
"Could have been worse," he said, as he touched his face and closely examined his teeth and tongue. Because that seemed the thing to do. As if he was giving himself a short physical of sorts. A quite unnecessary one at that.
If memory served him correctly he was alone. Yet again. His last human companion had left him a while ago, and he had preferred to go a few incarnations without company. Although he briefly had taken on some form of company. A gilly rat. A dog. A Muthosian female named Lurr Dimnh, with whom he played countless games of Muthosian chess. And a small droid named Crumb, who got blown to bits on Mars, the last world he had visited. In truth the damn thing had always been quite unlucky to begin with. Always in need of repairs.
So now he was alone again, and had barely made it off of Mars, before the colonist wars started. If his memory served him correctly however he had gotten shot. And quite lethally so, hence his latest incarnation. And the TARDIS was now materializing elsewhere. Earth again, which seemed to be his fallback place amongst millions of worlds. Perhaps the TARDIS had chosen for him to go there. Malfunctioning as it was, for some reason the malfunctions even seemed to serve a purpose. And perhaps the malfunctions were basically nothing more than the TARDIS enforcing her will.
No time but the present. Were it future or past. It was time to face the music and see where he had landed himself.