Moment Thirty-five
The Doctor woke up from his seventh regeneration alone in a hospital mortuary, wrapped in a shroud and with a tag bearing the name John Doe attached to his toe. His mind was a confused jumble of thoughts, none of which made much sense; there was something about someone called the Master who seemed to be important to him. However, he could not recall who the Master was or why he was important - in fact, he couldn't even remember his own identity.
The Doctor was no stranger to post-regeneration amnesia, but he had never experienced it to such an extent before. As, with a burst of energy triggered by his regeneration, he broke out of the refrigerator where he had been placed following his apparent death, all he could recall were a few fragmented bits of information which may or may not have related to him. Nothing to tell him who he was, where he had come from, or why he had woken up in a hospital mortuary.
As he staggered out, still wrapped in a shroud, names kept popping into his head. Susan, Jamie, Sarah Jane, Romana, Adric, Ace . . . and many others. Something told him these names belonged to people who were important to him in some way. But who were they? Were they his friends? His family? Did he even have a family? And who was he? The image of a blue box briefly flickered into his mind; he sensed that box meant something to him. But what?
"Who . . . am . . . I?!" he yelled, falling to his knees and raising his arms as if in a desperate prayer for an answer to the question which had been echoing in his mind from the moment he woke up. But there was no-one around to hear him; the only person he had seen since he emerged from the mortuary was a security guard who, needless to say, had passed out at the sight of him.
Staggering to his feet, he continued to wander the corridors, searching for something without knowing what he was looking for. Presently, he reached the hospital's locker room where the doctors and nurses on duty stored their personal belongings. Looking inside the nearest locker, he found a long scarf, a scarf which seemed strangely familiar. Did he own one like it? Had he owned one like it in the past? For some reason, he felt sure he had, but that didn't help him to figure out who he was or where he had come from.
A face popped into the Doctor's mind, the face of a tall man with wildly curling hair. A man wearing a scarf very similar to the one in the locker. He had a strange feeling that he knew this man . . . no, that he had been this man, but he could not remember anything more specific. All he knew from the brief glimpse he had had of his reflection was that his current appearance did not match the image in his memory.
In another locker, he found a set of Edwardian-style clothing, clothing to which he found himself inexorably drawn. He could not remember what he had been wearing before he was brought to the hospital, but something told him that those clothes would no longer fit and, even if they did, the style would no longer appeal to him. On the other hand, it felt as though the clothes he had found in the locker had been made for him. As he dressed himself in the clothes, another fragmented memory slipped into his mind.
Another hospital. A tall man with grey hair. Another set of borrowed clothes. As with the man with the long scarf, the Doctor had a feeling that the grey-haired man used to be him. Was that who he was? A man who could change his appearance? And then there was the question of his name. Did he even have one and, if he did, what was it? John Smith? No, he didn't think that was his name, not his real name anyway.
Who was he? Somehow, he would have to find someone he had met before. But, if his appearance had changed, how would they recognise him?