I don't own Doctor Who. If I did then The Power of the Doctor would have ended like this. I truly hope that Mandip Gill returns and meets with the Fifteenth Doctor.
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Old Friends.
By TimeTraveller-1900.
Graham smiled nervously as he introduced himself to the Doctor Club, as he had come to see it, "I'm Graham. And apparently I've got to be the first one to talk, so," be grinned at their laughter. "… Right. I have this problem. See, I met this person, and I got whooshed away across all space and time. I mean, I had the most amazing adventures, really, and I know all of you did."
Everyone nodded.
Graham briefly looked over the group. It was a motley collection of people whom he knew now, thanks to Kate Stewart who had been only too glad to help with UNIT's resources backing up their search for the Doctor's former companions so they could then set this up. It was quite a collection of men and women; there was Dan, whom Graham had just met, an old man called Ian, who had apparently been one of the first people to travel with the Doctor, and he had come with a woman who'd travelled with them and was his wife called Barbara.
There was also Melanie Bush, a woman called Liv Chenka, Ace, Tegan, a glamorous woman called Jo Jones, Martha Smith and her husband Mickey, there was a woman called Grace Holloway from San Francisco, and there was Kate Stewart herself, and Yaz.
Graham studied Yaz for a moment, seeing her melancholic expression. He knew how much the Doctor meant to Yaz, and to know that the Doc was about to change, to regenerate…
Graham wished that the Doctor hadn't been so vague with the explanation of what regeneration actually did and what was involved, but what they did know made him sad he would likely never see the Doctor as he had known her, and it was highly unlikely, from what everybody else had been saying, that the Doctor would stop off for a visit.
Graham cleared his throat when he realised he had been silent too long. "I mean, you wait till you hear, 'cause I'm going to tell you 'em all. But... But I came back, and I actually can't tell anyone, because they'd have me put away. And that's... That started me thinking, though. I can't be the only one. I can't. And look! I'm not. I reckon there are more people out there too. So maybe this is where we share stories about the Doc."
Kate chuckled as she looked around the row of faces; she knew Martha and Mickey, Ace, Tegan, Yaz and Jo, but some of the others she didn't, "I will also say, I may want to recruit you for some work."
Everyone chuckled.
Jo smiled at Kate. "Thanks, Kate. It would be a good thing to get back into the thrill of things. I might have left UNIT a long time ago, but I wouldn't say no to coming back."
"I'd be glad to have you, Jo," Kate smiled back at the woman who had once been one of her father's dearest colleagues.
Ace turned to Jo. "Sorry, you worked for UNIT before?"
"In the 1970s," Jo confirmed with a smile and a nod. "I'd been brought in as a lab assistant for the Doctor, who'd been exiled on Earth by the Time Lords for interference. The Brigadier noted that my work would be passing him his test tubes, and saying how brilliant he was." She shook her head, a sad smile on her face. "But he was better than that, and I saw quite a lot; Daleks, Draconians, A Daemon, Axons, Cybermen, Ogrons, Sea Devils-."
"Sorry, did you just say Sea Devils?" Yaz interrupted while Dan also perked up.
"Yeah, why?" Jo asked before the penny dropped. "You've met them?"
"Yes. We met them in China, back in 1807. They were trying to flood the planet and wipe out humanity," Yaz nodded, "the Doctor said they once dominated the Earth."
"They did," Kate confirmed. "They were the marine cousins of another race, called the Silurians. They went into hibernation when they saw the moon approaching and they were afraid it would wipe them out, but it went into orbit instead and they slept on. UNIT has a policy to scan for Silurian and Sea Devil shelters and keep watch over them. Let me tell you, they're powerful, old, and they don't like humans; to them, we're vermin."
"Yeah, I've met them as well; the Doctor wanted the Silurians and the Sea Devils to make peace with us, but they were so prepared to spark a terrible nuclear war," Tegan said. "In the end, he had to kill them all because they were too dangerous, and they refused to listen."
"Tell us about it," Yaz sighed before turning back to Jo. "How did it go with the Sea Devils?"
"The Doctor was forced to blow up their base. He had tried to make peace with them, but it failed. It didn't help that the Master was involved. As usual," Jo spat out the evil Time Lord's name with a grimace.
"The Master?" Ace, Tegan, Mel, Liv, Martha, Barbara and Ian and Grace repeated. All of them had similar expressions.
Jo sighed, "Let me guess, he's still out there."
It was impossible for Yaz to keep her cool where the Master was concerned. "We've just seen him injure the Doctor, causing her to begin this regeneration in the first place!"
Ace nodded, "And he apparently stole the Doctor's body into the bargain, but I'm still not a hundred percent sure how we got it back."
"Hold on, did you just say the Master stole the Doctor's body?" Martha yelped in horror.
"Sorry, but did you just say the Master stole the Doctor's body?" Grace demanded at the same time. "The Master tried to do that to the Doctor when I'd met him; the Master had been shot and his body was lost, but he survived - I didn't really hear the details, I'd thought the Doctor was insane, but the Master stole the body of some poor ambulance driver; there was a report he'd gone mad, and murdered his wife, but once I saw their pictures, I knew the Master had been responsible when he took the paramedic's body. Anyway, the Master was on his last life at the time, and he wanted to steal the Doctor's. The Doctor was captured and the Master came close to stealing his regenerations."
"Steal his regenerations? Why am I not surprised?" Martha spat, "But he doesn't need to do that anymore. He seems to have a new set of lives."
"No, he doesn't need to steal anything," Liv commented with a glance towards her successor. "I've met different versions of the Master; a bald man, a white-haired bearded man, a tall man with sunglasses, a burnt-out corpse who was desperate to survive, and a friend of mine said she'd met a woman who looked like Mary Poppins from Star Trek's Mirror Universe."
"The woman sounds like Missy, the Master's female incarnation. The description matches," Kate frowned.
"The tall man with the sunglasses sounds like the Master I met," Grace nodded before she turned to Yaz sympathetically, "What did the Master do to the Doctor this time?"
Yaz sighed, "I don't know all of the details, but the Master apparently stole a being of energy to power up the technology he needed to power his attempt to steal her body. The Doctor set the energy free, but she told it to destroy the Master's setup. When he returned he was pretty badly injured, although I hope he dies this time round, and he sent the energy straight into the Doctor," she closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes.
Silence dominated the room. In a quavering voice, Ian Chesterton spoke up, "The Doctor I knew said he and the Master had once been friends, but I can never understand what kind of grudge would make somebody do that."
"He was a monster," Barbara added, "He hypnotised us, made us betray the Doctor and Susan, and go off with him in the TARDIS because he lied to us that he could return us home after the Doctor stupidly took off after we had confronted him to learn more about Susan's performance at our school instead of taking into account he could have left quickly without us being any the wiser, and make us ignore his meddling in provoking two sides into a global war."
"That sounds like the Master, alright," Jo spat. "He doesn't care about what happens to others, or who else suffers so long as he gets power for himself. When I first met him, the Master had prepared to wipe out thousands of people with plastic daffodils which shot out plastic films into the faces of their victims, suffocating them, another time he tried to start an interstellar war with humans and the Draconians for the Daleks benefit."
"That sounds like the Master as well; he saw nothing wrong with experimenting on humans when I met him," Liv nodded.
Dan raised a hand, "Dan. I've never met this 'Master' before, and I wish I had now, so I could've decked the bastard. But I've, er... I've only been back a month, and I've got to say, I'm glad I'm not on the verge of being exterminated anymore. But I do miss her."
Some of the other companions looked at each other, but Ian piped up, "Sorry. Did you say her?"
"Yes, she's a woman now," Yaz explained.
"How many Doctors are there?" Mel asked in bemused puzzlement.
Jo sighed, "I think we're going to be here quite some time," she said, making them all laugh.
"Well, why don't we try to work out how many Doctor's there are," Martha suggested practically.
"Well, I've met five Doctors," Tegan piped up. "One was an elderly man with white hair, dressed like a Victorian professor-."
"That was our Doctor!" Barbara interrupted
"I've met him," Jo nodded. "He's the First Doctor. Was there a man who looked a bit like a tramp, bow tie, overlarge frock coat, and his hair was like a Beatle's performer?"
Everyone chuckled at the description, but Tegan laughed and nodded. "Yeah, that's right."
Jo smiled, but she looked down with a sigh. "Was there a tall man with thick white-silver locks wearing a long-lined cloak and a velvet jacket?" She asked sadly.
Tegan nodded, her smile becoming more solemn. She knew why Jo was upset. She was upset herself knowing that her Doctor, the fifth Doctor, was gone; while it was nice seeing that hologram of him again, it was still bittersweet, to say nothing of the memories conjured of her time with that one. "Yes," she replied.
Jo took a breath. "The Third Doctor. But I have met a future Doctor with floppy brown hair, no eyebrows and a large chin."
"The eleventh Doctor," Kate nodded, "And now I've met the twelfth and thirteenth Doctors, but there could be others; it's impossible to be sure, mostly because the Doctor won't tell us."
Martha turned to Mickey. "You met the ninth, and then we both met the tenth, right?"
"Yeah, that's right," Mickey nodded.
"I've met him too," Liv said. "The Ninth, I mean. But I travelled with the Eighth Doctor, and I met the Seventh."
Grace cleared her throat. "I first met the Doctor when he was a little Scottish man wearing a hat, and then he regenerated into a tall man with blue eyes."
"I think that was my Doctor," Ace said.
"I met that Doctor as well, but I later travelled with his eighth self," Liv turned to Ace, realising that they were alike.
"I met the fourth Doctor briefly, but he fell to his death fighting to stop the Master from destroying the universe," Tegan said, "and I travelled with the next one, the fifth Doctor."
"And I travelled with the sixth and the seventh, and that's when you and I met Ace," Mel said, but she shook her head. "But…I thought Time Lords could only regenerate twelve times, giving them thirteen lives?"
"Maybe something happened to change that? This is the Doctor we're talking about, but for goodness sake, how many more lives is he or she going to get?" Liv asked in frustration.
Everyone shared her exasperation. "If it's not one thing, it's another, isn't it?" Martha said to Liv.
"Yeah. But I can tell you, regeneration is unpleasant; another insane Time Lord called the Eleven used a piece of Time Lord technology to give millions of people the power to regenerate to feed a race of monsters who fed on the energy. I was subjected to it, and it bloody hurts," Liv said.
"A Time Lord? That means you met Time Lords and the Doctor before the Time War," Martha observed.
"Time War?" Yaz said, sitting up while the others looked surprised and worried about the implications of what Martha had just revealed. "What Time War?"
"You…don't know about the Time War?" Mickey asked. "Our Doctors sometimes referenced it. The Daleks and the Time Lords were caught in a war that destroyed their planet."
Yaz shared a look with Graham. "Why the hell didn't she say a word? Her and her bloody secrets!" She managed to get her act together. "When we knew the Doctor, she never spoke about it, but we have been to Gallifrey, the Doctor's world. The Master had killed all of the Time Lords, so I don't know if the planet somehow survived or if the Doctor did something, but whatever happened, the Master killed them all."
Martha clenched her fists. "The Master killed the Time Lords? The bastard! Why doesn't the Doctor do anything about him, for good?"
Yaz leaned back in her chair, thinking about the Doctor, wondering how she was getting on, wondering if she had regenerated at all yet, or if the newest Doctor was already having adventures.
"You okay?" Yaz turned and found Tegan looking Kindly at her.
"Is she okay?" Ace asked.
Yaz smiled. "Of course she's okay. She's the Doctor."
As if on cue, the wind picked up and everyone stood up as the familiar wheezing and groaning sound of a materialising TARDIS filled the air.
"What?" Yaz said.
"I thought the Doc would have just…left," Graham commented as the TARDIS appeared. The door opened and the Doctor stepped out, still female, blonde, and her hand was still glowing. She was very surprised to see them when she realised who was in front of her. "What-?" She looked around the room in surprise, seeing the faces of companions she had not seen for centuries.
"Doctor, is that you?" Ian asked slowly.
"Ian? Barbara? Wha-? Ooh," the Doctor flinched as the golden glow of regeneration peaked. "I can't…hold it off….much longer." The Doctor groaned before she looked around the room. "I don't know if this room is big enough….Oooh," the Doctor gasped and she fell back into the TARDIS.
"Doctor!" Yaz leapt to her feet and rushed into the TARDIS. She hadn't wanted to leave her friend, not after everything that had happened. She had wanted to stay. There was still so much to see, so much to do, and she wanted to learn more about the Doctor. The young Pakistani police officer noticed the others coming into the TARDIS with her.
Once the console room was full and everyone was looking around the different console room before the TARDIS doors closed and took off.
"You've redecorated," Liv commented, throwing the Doctor a concerned look.
"Several times. What were you guys doing in there anyway?" The Doctor asked weakly as she closed her eyes for a second.
"Talking about you, trading notes," Graham replied, looking sadly at the Doctor.
The Doctor gaped. "Talking about me, trading notes? Oh no. Oooh, that was a nasty one," she flinched while the glow was getting worse.
"Is this regeneration?" Ian asked in confusion.
"No, this is the start," Liv replied.
"We heard about the Master," Martha sent her a pointed look. "Honestly, when are you ever going to learn?"
The Doctor sighed. "I know, Martha. This is the fifth time the Master has been directly or indirectly the cause of my regenerations. The trouble is I wasn't expecting him to turn that beam over to me."
"You should have been prepared," Martha snapped, "honestly I sometimes think you are a sucker for that monster. How many times are you going to let him get away with this? I mean, I know he's a Time Lord and now it looks like you're the only ones left, but-"
"I'm not from Gallifrey, Martha."
Martha blinked at him in surprise. "What?"
"I'm not from Gallifrey. I'm known as the Timeless Child. The Master discovered the early Gallifreyan explorers discovered a child from a parallel universe, who had the power of regeneration. Indefinite regeneration, that is. And I am that child. They tortured and experimented on me, just to learn how to live forever. And they based the Time Lords on what they found. Later they wiped my memories of the event and stored them in a fob watch like I did with the Family of Blood. When the Master found out…. He went mad, he couldn't bear knowing everything he is because of me. And I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to think about it, I just wanted to come to terms with what I'd learnt," The Doctor bowed her head, but nobody could add anything else when the TARDIS landed.
The Doctor sighed and she painfully got to her feet and walked to the doors.
"Hold on, don't you check the instruments anymore?" Ian asked.
The Doctor paused. Unseen by her former companions, she had closed her eyes, remembering her habit from her first and third lives, and how her later and more recent lives had just ditched the habit. After that mess with the older Amy, she should have done it again, but she didn't have time to think about it anymore, and flinched. "No, not anymore, though I should get back into the habit."
When she opened the doors, she stepped out onto a cliff, but she held up a hand to stop her friends from coming out. "No, let me do this on my own," she said as she took a few breaths. "Oh, the blossomiest blossom," they heard her say. "That's the only sad thing. I want to know what happens next. Right, then. Doctor Whoever-I'm-about-to-be. Tag, you're it."
The Doctor flung her glowing arms out, and she exploded in a flash of light, like streams of fire coming from her head and arms. Liv, who had seen this before, shielded her eyes while the others watched on. For Yaz, seeing the sight of the woman she had a crush on…dying….was heartbreaking.
To their surprise, the Doctor's clothes changed and when the light faded away, the Doctor staggered and they could all tell that she was a man once more.
"I know these teeth," they heard him say slowly in surprise.
Martha gasped and she looked at Mickey. "How is that possible?"
"I don't know, Martha," Mickey replied, looking just as stunned.
"What is it?" Tegan demanded.
The Doctor turned, revealing the face of a man in his 40s or 50s, with spiky brown hair, wearing a dark suit covered by a dark blue coat. He was very surprised. "What? What?" He felt his face in growing worry and surprise. "WHAT?"
"What's going on?" Ian asked the others.
"He looks like he did when we knew him," Martha said. "How is it possible?"
"What?" Yaz asked.
