Warless

Is this what it feels like, after regeneration? I suppose I've never found out what it feels like for the old me to burn up. Possibly because that's the Time Lord equivalent of death and once you're dead, you can't come back.

I'm in the console room I used when I lived as someone else entirely. One pleasant thing is that I didn't destroy this console room. No rubble for me to tread over. No debris. No ash. Hurrah.

And I can hear the sound of breaking mirrors. Whoever came after me must be pretty ashamed then. I can't think why, given how I saved all the Time Lords and locked them into a pocket universe.

Ah. But he won't know that. Of course he won't.

I won't let him know. He wouldn't believe me, let alone accept my existence. He'd assume I was some sort of ghost or phantom or ghoul.

I think I'll just get out of his life.

I'll set the controls for somewhere nice and leave this place alone.

I've landed on Earth, which is nice, I suppose. I did have to steal a spare set of clothes from the wardrobe, given how I appeared without any clothes on, so I'm wearing a white pinstripe shirt, a black waistcoat and black trousers, with a firm pair of boots. Admittedly it is a little cowboyish, to use a very human word, but it'll do.

I've also stolen one of my old sonic screwdrivers. It's the one I had when I was all teeth and curls and scarf. He was a happy man. The Time War would have broken his hearts and made him a monster. And all his friends would have been lost to the flames.

But this TARDIS can't stay here. He needs time to recover from being me and time to process the loss of his people. I'll set the sonic screwdriver to activate the dematerialisation circuit and send the TARDIS spinning off into the infinite unknown. Setting 98 should do the trick, I think.

There. All gone.

So what do I do now?

Okay, what are my surroundings?

It's a beach. A long, wide beach. It's a pebbled beach, which is disappointing, but the sound of the waves crashing against the shore is pleasant.

I think I'll go for a walk. Maybe an ice cream later, if there's any money in these pockets.

There's a bench over there. I think I'll have a sit down. This body is quite old after all. I'm quite old.

It's comfy, to a certain extent.

I'll sit here and watch the waves for a while. Yes, watch the waves. Yes.

Watch the waves.

Watch the waves.

"Er, excuse me, sir. May I leave this here?"

What? Who's that, talking to me?

Oh, a middle aged American man, dressed in a leather jacket and denim shorts. He's carrying a wrapped up bundle, but I can't say anything more than that. What is under all that cloth? Clothes? A child? Something else entirely?

It's hard to tell.

"Of course. I'll look after it." I tell him, taking the bundle off his hands and watching him walk away.

I look down at the bundle, peel away some of the cloth and see the sleeping face of a baby girl. She's so peaceful. So sweet. So innocent.

I could be her father. Admittedly, I may not be the right person to be her father, but I could learn. It'll give me something to do after all. The universe thinks I'm dead and this seems like the best afterlife I could have.

But where do I live with her, now?

I'll have to make plans.

Before I can make plans to raise this child, my sonic screwdriver starts bleeping. I'd better find out what that's all about, but…

I can't leave this baby all alone on the bench. So, I think I'll make a papoose of sorts and hurry towards the reason why my sonic screwdriver's began to bleep. It feels odd to me to be all… fatherly. I've just spent millennia fighting in the worst war ever to happen and not happen, for Rassilon's sake, and this is what terrifies me.

Still, no Daleks to spook me out.

Right, so, I'm running now. Running with a baby attached to me, following the trail of my sonic screwdriver and trying my best to get the little girl to keep quiet. This is still exciting though. It reminds me of when I was the Doctor.

Actually, no, what am I talking about?

I am the Doctor again. There's no war. No Daleks. No Time Lords (as far as I know). I can start again.

And so my sonic screwdriver has led me to a tear in space and time. Thankfully nobody's noticed. I suppose coastal towns are quite quiet, meaning that nobody's around to notice the weird things that occur, if any weird things do occur.

It's blue and, I hate to sound all young, but it is a little… fuzzly.

I am never using a word like that again.

But it is… fuzzly. And, if my hearing isn't deceiving me, I can hear a very familiar noise. The rush of engines. The sound of something wheezing and groaning, hurrying into this plain of existence.

I take a quick scan with my sonic screwdriver and rock the baby to sleep.

Ah.

So this portal opens up into a dimension my sonic screwdriver has no idea about. This could mean that something horrible could come through the portal or something absolutely delightful.

It's another TARDIS. Another TARDIS with the exterior appearance of a police box.

I believe it's the delightful option then.

The door opens and a stranger collapses to the ground. He's old, with a thin face and curled hair. His clothes had once been a smart shirt, a grey waistcoat and a black jacket, but they look all scuffed and torn now.

His eyes are closed. Is he dead?

I check his pulse.

A double heartbeat.

Interesting. Could mean a regeneration soon.

Ah.

A slightly dead Time Lord in a TARDIS that looks like a police box.

I really did have a bad future then.

Having shut the portal with some equipment stolen from this other Doctor's TARDIS, I decided to get him into a nearby hotel for safety. To avoid anyone suspicious poking their heads in, I flashed my psychic paper (which had remained undamaged despite being exposed to immense temporal pressures on multiple occasions) and wandered on past.

I sit on the edge of his bed and watch him sleep. The child I seem to have adopted rests peacefully on a chair in the corner of the room, a blanket draped over it. She's extremely quiet and, once in a while, murmurs a little.

I think these two will be alright for a while.

I'm inside the other Doctor's TARDIS console room and it is not what I had expected it to look like. It resembles the console room I had long ago. The white walls with large roundels. The large doors and the small antechamber between interior and exterior shell. The time rotor that physically rose up and down rather than being connected to the ceiling.

This could be my TARDIS, if that other Doctor doesn't recover. Or we could…

No. This universe isn't big enough for the pair of us.

One of us would have to stay behind.

I'm back at the hotel room, about ten minutes after I'd left. The TARDIS is parked in the bedroom, snugly squeezed in between the TV and the wardrobe. I'm sat on another chair, reading an evidently well-thumbed copy of Good Omens I stole from the other Doctor's TARDIS. What a cracking book that is.

And the other Doctor sits upright. He looks at me.

"Is this it?" he asks. There's hope in his voice. I wonder why.

"Is this what?" I respond, still engrossed in the book.

"Is this reality? Do I actually exist now?"

I look up from the book, baffled. Of course he exists. If you are here, if you are physical, you exist. That's a hard fact. Admittedly, the Interstitial Wraiths of Kaligon IV may disagree, but what do they know? They float between seventeen different dimensions and-

The baby's gurgling.

That's nice. I've missed noises like that. Those noises are so much better than screams.

The other Doctor - now wearing unscuffed clothes - sits on the bed, facing me. He's got a serious look in his eye.

"You're the Doctor, yes?" he asks me. I say that I am, which feels remarkable in itself. This has to be the first time in centuries I feel no reason to be guilty in admitting that.

"Well, you've got to help me. You see, I come from a nowhere. A nothingness. That other Doctor who came through said it was Schrodinger's Multiverse." he explains to me.

Schrodinger's Multiverse. That rings a bell.

But he's not finished just yet.

"There's something coming. Something ancient and old, rising up from that multiverse of absolute nothing, and heading straight for reality. We need to stop it."

I tell him that there are quite a few Doctors swirling around in this universe, so our chances of defeating what's coming are pretty high.

He disagrees.

"You haven't met her yet. But, when you do, if you do, you won't get out alive."

I consider what course of action I should take.

I either:

1) Battle the strange being who threatens this reality

2) Leave it for someone else to fight

I come to a decision.

I've got a child to look after.

I've got another Doctor to keep an eye on.

I think this battle can be left for another time.