A Desire to Leave
He woke up in the TARDIS with a groan, about half an hour after he had died.
He got up with a start. This felt odd.
"I didn't go." he murmured to himself, "I'm still here. I didn't go."
Excited, his old eyes looked around, made curious by the chaos around him. Because chaos was the right word to describe what had once been his beautiful TARDIS.
The coral-like structures that had been here and there were now on the floor, nothing more than rubble. He'd hung his overcoat over those structures. They'd been lovely. Emphasis on the been.
The console had bits of rubble scattered all over it. There was also a faint burnt smell coming from the console, as if several minute explosions had taken place while he had been unconscious. Evidently something must have happened while the Doctor had been fast asleep.
But what made him, deep down, the most appalled was that the roundels had also been smashed to pieces. No more light in the console room. He could only see around him because the door was slightly open and some natural light from outside was streaming in.
Wait.
Outside.
There was an outside.
The Doctor smiled at this, excited that he had somehow survived his regeneration and excited at the prospect of there being a brand new outside. He headed for the doors, an eager spring in his step and with a wolfish grin on his face, only to notice one crucial thing.
He was absolutely naked.
He'd better find the wardrobe first.
The wardrobe, unlike the console room, was unscathed. It's cathedral-like grandeur had gone undamaged, much to the Doctor's joy. He weaved and wandered through the many floors of clothes, trying to find another suit of his. It would feel wrong if he would stop wearing that suit. He would feel wrong.
After a few moments of wandering (and two minutes considering whether to wear the Wild Bill Hickok outfit he wore in the early days of his eighth incarnation), he found his blue pinstripe suit. It was freshly ironed and without a crease in sight. There was even a spare sonic screwdriver in the pocket, probably left over from an earlier adventure.
He dressed into this suit and smoothed himself down before returning to the console room, eager to see the new outside.
He was in a garden. This was very unexpected, but then again that was starting to become a theme for today. He didn't expect to survive a regeneration either, meaning that he should probably go and meet all the people he'd said goodbye to to explain that all those goodbyes weren't really necessary.
But first, he sniffed the air. Really, really sniffed. A deep, thoughtful sniff.
And that's what made things interesting.
"Regeneration energy." he murmured to himself, "But how could I have regenerated and still survived? No lopped-off hands to send all the energy into. Did I channel it into the TARDIS? Maybe. Maybe."
He decided the best course of action, given how his TARDIS probably would need time to repair itself, was to have a look around in the big empty house that was just a few metres away. There was nothing weird about a big, lonely, empty house. He'd been to plenty and survived. Almost.
But this house didn't look that harmless, he thought, as he strode towards the front door and, after a quick whirr of the sonic screwdriver, stepped inside.
Inside the house, all was quiet. There was nobody about. Or was there?
"Hello?!" the Doctor called out, not being a fan of talking to himself.
No, there wasn't anybody about. The Doctor felt like making sure.
"Anyone home? Don't mind me, I'm just curious as to why your house is so big and lonely and empty."
No. Now he definitely knew there was nobody at home.
Oh well, the Doctor thought to himself. A look around won't do anyone any harm.
There was a bedroom upstairs. Possibly that of a child.
The Doctor barged in and glanced around, his eyes glazing over a large crack in the wall and focusing on a big wooden box in the corner of the room. What made this box appeal to him was that it was painted blue. He might even have called that shade "TARDIS blue".
He grabbed the box and, to his joy, discovered it had been left unlocked. Inside the box were drawings, books, figures made out of toilet rolls and a whole load of other things about a strange man called the Raggedy Doctor.
The Doctor frowned at the drawings of the Raggedy Doctor. They were of a young man, with a thin face, a prominent chin and a noticeable fringe. They also depicted him wearing his old brown pinstripe suit. And they showed him stood near the TARDIS.
"Oh." was all the Doctor could say, when he realised what had happened.
He had regenerated. Bi-generated, even. This old body had split off from the main, new, important Doctor like a snake shedding its' old skin. Except this skin was still alive and still had a brain.
The new Doctor could keep on travelling, righting wrongs, battling monsters, saving people and doing who knows what else. But as for the old Doctor, the one who was standing inside a bedroom in an old house, he didn't know what he should do.
He'd lived in eleven bodies so far. Ten Doctors and someone else entirely, running around the universe, fixing things and living their own lives. And then there were the future Doctors to consider. How many were to come? All the Doctors and bi-regenerated Doctors, all living forever, all running around, all existing. What a crowded universe that would be.
Because, sure, the universe was infinite, but many, many Doctors with many, many TARDISes made that universe quite small. It would reduce the number of things he could do. Maybe the Time Lord does live too long.
It was this haunting thought that made him get out of the house and back into his ruined TARDIS.
He re-entered his ruined ship and slammed the door shut behind him, just as the console room rebuilding program started up. The entire console room glowed a sharp white and, with a zhumph, vanished from the exterior shell of the TARDIS, leaving a smoky vapour trailing behind it.
The Doctor was still standing inside the currently-rebuilding console room when it had shot off into a new dimension entirely. This was not good.
There wasn't a way out via the front entrance, so he had no choice but to head deeper into the TARDIS, dodging the shifting, liquefying clumps of console room that rippled and changed as the console room reconfigured.
Now in the main corridor leading away from the console room, the Doctor wandered towards the secondary console room, an idea forming in his head. In the past, he'd jettisoned rooms of the TARDIS in times of dire emergencies. And, the secondary console room, by default, contained a chameleon circuit, which would be activated if the primary console room's chameleon circuit was utterly destroyed, and a shell enclosure circuit in the console. This could mean, in theory, that if he were to jettison the secondary console room, he would have a whole new TARDIS, albeit one with just a console room on the inside.
He didn't know if the theory would work, but then it didn't matter. Just so long as the primary console room returned to the TARDIS on Earth, all brand-spanking new, for the new, new Doctor. That was what mattered.
He entered the secondary console room, a place so gothic and so quaint. It had been a while since he had last been here. As he paced through this room of wood and stained glass roundels, he remembered travelling through time and space with Sarah Jane and Leela in this control room. Those were happy days. The days when he'd laugh hard at whatever the universe presented to him, the days before the deaths, the days before Adric and Lucie Miller and the Time War and all the tragedies.
He wanted those days back, so very much. And now, as he was free from his main self, he could go looking for those days. He could head off into another universe entirely and find a new home, where he could laugh and smile at whatever awaited him. Yes, there'd be dangers. Yes, there'd be chaos.
But he'd soon change that.
He opened up the console and started twiddling controls. A few buttons pressed here, a few switches flicked there, and, with a violent shudder, he had managed to jettison this console room from the main TARDIS. A small part of him wondered whether his future self would need the secondary control room, but then he remembered the existence of the tertiary control room and relaxed. There was always a backup.
The console room wobbled, shuddered and jolted as it surged away from the main TARDIS and into…
Ah.
That was the part of the plan the Doctor had forgotten to consider.
He was in, well, a place far, far away from where he wanted to be.
The Doctor, during his first ten lives and hopefully all the lives afterwards, had existed in the main N-Space universe. Sure, he had occasionally drifted into E-Space and other parallel universes for a time, but, for most of his lives, he had stayed put into the main N-Space dimension.
Whenever his TARDIS refurbished its' console room, it sent the main interior of the ship into another dimension entirely, just to let the ship get on with refurbishing in peace. This dimension wasn't E-Space or another, alternate universe. It was in a pocket of reality outside of reality, existing in a sort-of nowhere realm.
So, to jettison a console room and to send said console room spinning into this realm was a very bad idea, because no time traveller had ever returned from exploring this dimension.
You never knew what could be found here.
After a few tense moments, the new semi-TARDIS materialised. There wasn't any of the usual wheezing and grinding that usually heralded the TARDIS's arrival. Instead, there was just a loud thud and clunk.
The Doctor, who was getting up off the floor and dusting himself down after the chaotic maiden flight of his new ship, didn't bother getting annoyed about this. He like the wheezing and groaning. But, then again, who doesn't like a fanfare?
"So, I'm somewhere." he said to himself, checking the console, "But where?"
The scanner screen whirred into life and, to the Doctor's surprise, displayed the familiar view of the Powell Estate. That block of flats he could see on the scanner screen was very familiar to him especially, because that's where Rose Tyler lived.
He stared at the image on the scanner for several minutes.
He'd gotten over losing Rose a long time ago. There'd been Martha and Donna and a whole load of other friends to fill the gap she'd left behind since then. He'd even met her, when the Daleks had stolen the Earth. He knew full well she was safe in another universe with a human version of him.
And there it was again. Another version of him, saving an alternate version of Earth.
Another version of him. Not him.
But, he couldn't linger here forever.
How could he resist stepping outside his new TARDIS, to see the brand new world he'd found?
Outside, it was definitely Earth. The sun was high in the sky, its' gentle heat palpable on the Doctor's skin. It wasn't too warm or too cold, but just right.
And everything was as it should be.
He, a pleased smirk on his face, strolled towards Enoch Tower, in the hope of saying hello to Jackie and Rose, if Jackie and Rose lived there in this new, weird dimension. But then he saw someone totally unexpected.
It was Rose, heading towards him in angry strides. She had a scowl on her face and wore a bright blue denim jacket and jeans.
And she slapped him. Hard.
"Oh, so you've showed your face round here again, have you?!" she yelled at him, slapping him again, "Good!"
He frowned.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked her, only to be answered, to his amazement, by the arrival of another version of Rose. This Rose (who, for the sake of simplicity, shall be called Rose #2) was dressed in the stained clothes of a car mechanic. Rose #2 also wore a grey beanie hat, which made the Doctor think of someone, long ago. But he couldn't remember who that was.
"I thought we'd killed him." Rose #2 said to Rose #1, "Me and Shireen dumped his body in the Thames the other Thursday. I remember."
"Yeah, I can see that Mickey. He looks pretty dead to me."
The Doctor's eyes widened.
"Sorry, wait, Mickey?" he asked Rose #1, "You called your twin Mickey. Why?"
"Cos I am Mickey, you idiot." Rose #2 said, making things a whole lot clearer, "Although you left me stuck with this face. It's not easy wearing the face of your dead girlfriend."
"Or your dead daughter."
Dead daughter. Rose #1 had said 'dead daughter'.
That could only mean…
"Jackie?" the Doctor wondered, earning a nod from Rose #1.
He ran off, desperate to check something.
He found a scrap of newspaper beside the TARDIS, which, to his joy, had transformed into a blue police box. At least that was good.
But, back to the newspaper, he studied the date.
20th November 2008.
Two years(ish) after the Battle of Canary Wharf.
And on the front page was a photo of Prime Minister Harriet Jones. Harriet Jones had the face of Rose Tyler, albeit with her hair long and wearing a sleek pair of black glasses. Harriet Jones was surrounded by many advisors, who all had their hair in different styles and colours. They all wore different business suits and had different rings on their fingers.
But they all had the face of Rose Tyler too.
He flicked through the rest of the paper. On one page, Rose Tyler was advertising a new broadband package. On the next, Rose Tyler was photographed in a lake, holding up a wet wipe. Rose Tyler was the star of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a film directed by Rose Tyler, written by Rose Tyler and also starring Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler and Rose Tyler. Rose Tyler was the opinion columnist who complained about the various politicians messing up financial policies. All these politicians had the face of Rose Tyler.
Of course, they all had different names, but the Doctor knew the face of Rose Tyler when he saw it.
And he had no idea how he was going to cope on a version of Earth where (it seemed) everyone had the face of Rose Tyler.