The Doctor looked around the expanse of sea and sky and closed her eyes as she inhaled the air, "Oh, the blossomiest blossom," she whispered as she took a moment to reflect on the last adventure; she had always found some of her recent adventures to be extremely vague, lacking sense, and the last one was even worse. "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 flinched before she threw out her arms and let the regeneration begin, her mind racing as she tried to work out who she was going to be next; the encounter she'd had with some of her previous selves had echoed the encounter she'd had with the Curator, a man who resembled her fourth incarnation, she'd wondered if she would finally get some answers to that mystery; she'd had one or two thoughts as to how she could come to pop back into the body of her fourth self, but she hadn't had anything concrete.
The last thing the Thirteenth Doctor felt was the first thing the Fourteenth Doctor felt; she could feel her body changing, but she was in too much fiery pain from her rebirth to tell if she was growing taller or shorter, but she felt different. Where her predecessor felt fiery pain and death, she felt fiery rebirth from her fiery death and pain. She came into the world through a burst of swirling blast of fiery energy. The pain was easing off as her cells died and then came back to life before it started to finish.
Finally, the change ended, and she staggered around for a second before she quickly found her foot and she took a second to catch her breath. It was then she quickly went through her memory, and she looked down at her body, running a hand through her hair, feeling its length, while she felt her chest.
She was still a woman. But there were changes. Her hair was still short, judging from what she could determine, and her skin was dark instead of pale.
Dark skin?
That was a first, or was it? The Doctor closed her eyes dimly as she tried rooting through her memory. She couldn't help but feel that something was really, really wrong. The Doctor frowned, realising something was wrong. Looking back, her fashion choice was poor with the long lilac blue coat, the trousers and shirt with rainbow stripes; the boots and shirt, she could live with but the rest of the ensemble was horrible. The Doctor didn't know if it was her new persona peeking through the haze of post-regenerative trauma, but she didn't care. She now saw her previous self's clothes were awful, worse than the patchwork coat and long scarf.
But not anymore. Her clothes had changed with the regeneration. Wow, that hadn't happened for centuries!
Gone was the long coat, now replaced with a dark blue velvet jacket and matching trousers, and a black shirt with what looked like space and vortex patterns printed on it. Looking down at her shoes, which were trainers reminiscent of her tenth incarnation, and at her clothes, the Doctor smiled at her new outfit. It was stylish and better than her predecessor's.
The Doctor looked at the view around her. She had been regenerating in the TARDIS and causing massive internal damage, and the old girl had had enough of it, and besides she had wanted to not crash this time around, while she was in the middle of recovery. It had happened during that regeneration when Rose and Mickey and Jackie had looked after her, it happened when the TARDIS crashed into Amy's shed during that mess with Prisoner Zero, and when the old girl had crashed into the dinosaur's throat before she'd fallen out of the TARDIS into the train in Sheffield.
Right now this was the more pleasant view, she'd had for a long time.
The Doctor smiled and turned to the TARDIS. She was just fishing the key out of her pocket, pleased her old things had survived the regeneration, but just as she was about to open the door, the Doctor froze.
Suddenly her head was awash with memories.
Visions of her childhood on Gallifrey, she and her father watching a meteor storm in the sky, dancing with brilliant lights….
She was a nervous little boy, walking towards the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality, through which could be seen the whole of the Timer Vortex; as she looked into the Time Vortex, she saw images that frightened her so much she ran away and it required a long search and three TARDISes working in synch to track her down….
She was at the Academy, foolishly playing with paper aeroplanes, fiddling with time portals built from transmats, but deep down she was absorbing the information like a sponge, determined to be seen as an idiot, as a below-average student to keep others making plans for her, and she wanted to be left alone…
Meeting the Corsair is a dream come true, but it's a disappointment as he doesn't want to take her with him in his pirate ship TARDIS, the Esperanza as she's too young; at first she was dismayed but later she realised it was in her best interests…
She's running away from the Celestial Toymaker after losing Rallon and Millennia, two of her best friends because of her arrogance and stupidity….
She's on Gallifrey, rushing to the TARDIS workshops to escape Gallifrey with Susan, dismissing her registered Type 50 because of the symbiotic link which would make it easier to track, and she meets an echo of Clara nearby who recommends her a different Type 40; soon she's fleeing Gallifrey, with the Hand of Omega wired into the systems to tear through the Transduction barriers….
She was travelling across Marius with Susan, Ian and Barbara, to collect keys to control a machine she didn't like…..
She was on the Wheel, confronted by two Cybermen who were threatening her life, while she tried to discover what their plan for the Earth was…
She was exiled to the 1970s, Earth, in a new body, bitter and frustrated with her new life and trying to repair her TARDIS, while she worked with UNIT while coping with a never-ending war against alien invasions of Earth-based stupidity….
She was in Skaro's past with her friends Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith, meeting Davros for the first time, uncovering more of Dalek history, while she tried to negotiate with the insane scientist as the Daleks began to rise, destroying what was left of their forebears, the Kaleds and ending the war with the Thals, temporarily….
She is on Gallifrey, standing in the Tomb of Rassilon with three more of her other selves, facing down the now insane Borusa, her old teacher and friend who'd gone mad in a new incarnation, feeling the weight of the betrayal and Rassilon's presence….
She is confronting Robert Knox, a time meddler from an unknown era, who had acquired a Model 70 TARDIS clone and is trying to meddle in history…
She was on an alternative Earth which diverged from the real world when her third incarnation died before he could finish the cure to the Silurian plague virus, trying to find her companions and stop the embittered Brigadier from launching a major war that would likely doom both races, while trying to uncover the mystery of who was responsible for the change in history…
She was chained up in the TARDIS cloister room, trying to reason with Chang Lee to make him see sense and make him see the Master was lying to him, while the Master threatened to rip the universe apart to gain new lives….
She was in the barn on Gallifrey where she'd spent so many nights sobbing, coming full circle as she tried to end the Last Great Time War and to stop more deaths while Rassilon plotted to destroy the universe….
She was confronting the Dalek Emperor on his flagship with Rose and Captain Jack, trying to stop herself from losing her temper and feeling sympathy for the Daleks for becoming insane, driven mad by their flesh…
She has been forcibly aged while Martha is holding her while the Master's plan to conquer the Earth begins unfolding before their eyes; she whispers a last-minute, desperate plan she quickly works through to Martha, having faith she could do this, and cursing herself for the mistakes she's made that got them here; the deposing of Harriet Jones and not taking her warnings seriously, not getting to the Master quickly enough to stop him launching these plans, to begin with, and not making sure the TARDIS only responded to her and her alone…
She's at Demon's Run, confronted with more of her mistakes, watching on in horror as her so-called triumph over the Silence and the Army assembled there is revealed as nothing more than a decoy to steal an innocent baby, and now she's coping with the parent's emotions while River Song rebukes her harshly for her arrogance….
She's once more confronted with the Master, now Missy as a new race of Cybermen is born…
She was….here…
But something was wrong, really wrong?
The Doctor frowned, leaning against the shell of the TARDIS, worried a little. Why couldn't she recall much from her previous life?
And then it hit her.
Fresh memories were bubbling to the surface of her mind.
A/N - This alternate version of the 14th Doctor is portrayed by Georgina Campbell.
