Doctor Who and The Ghost of Time.

Where have you been?

The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and leaned out, taking in the daylight sky. He saw Big Ben in the distance, its chimes ringing out across the city. Stepping out, he closed the door behind him and locked it with a familiar click. He walked down the street, his eyes scanning the familiar surroundings, until he reached a building with a big blue wooden fence.

"Wow, it's still here," The Doctor murmured to himself. He pushed open the gate and stepped into the yard. Just then, a woman emerged from the building, carrying a box of mechanical parts. She looked up, her eyes widening in shock when she saw The Doctor.

"Sorry, this is private property," she said, her voice guarded.

"Hello, Susan, my dear child," The Doctor replied, a warm smile spreading across his face.

Susan's shock quickly turned to anger. She dropped the box, the clattering of parts echoing in the quiet yard. She marched over to him and slapped him hard across the cheek.

"I haven't seen you at all since you dumped me here! I've had a life here, raised grandchildren here, all while you've been out there. I've seen countless iterations of you, but you never came back to see me!" she shouted, her voice trembling with emotion.

The Doctor winced, holding the back of his hand to his stinging cheek. "Susan, that wasn't me. It was me from another universe. I've been stuck there," he explained gently.

Susan took a deep breath, her anger giving way to confusion. She turned and walked back inside. The Doctor followed her, watching as she busied herself making a cup of tea. She leaned against the counter, and he sat down at the table.

"Okay then, which one am I talking to?" she asked, her tone softer but still wary.

"This is my tenth incarnation," The Doctor replied.

"Funny, he wore a brown coat with those same sand shoes you're wearing," Susan remarked, glancing at his attire.

"Yeah, when I regenerated, I was in the '90s. That was probably the only time I've ever been that afraid. I was stuck in this manor in the woods. A new form of the Cybermen were hunting me down. They weren't like anything I'd seen before, their faces were like melted human faces with pointed claws. Their skeletal bodies moved with a terrifying precision, and there were holes in their knuckles. When they made a fist, six-inch blades shot out, like something out of a nightmare," The Doctor recounted, his voice tinged with the memory of pain and fear.

He continued, his gaze distant as he relived the ordeal. "I barricaded myself in, but those claws were relentless. They shot out of their hands, cracking open the door. One of them caught me, shoving its claw through my chest. I managed to destroy them, but not before the Cyber-leader struck the fatal blow. It was a close call. That body was very aristocratic and gothy, though. I did like the voice, I sounded so elegant," The Doctor added, a faint smile playing on his lips as he remembered.

Susan's expression softened. She set down her cup of tea and sat at the other end of the table looking at him. "I've missed you, you know. Despite everything," she said quietly.

The Doctor reached out, taking her hand in his. "I've missed you too, Susan. More than you can imagine."

"Sooo... what has the other Doctor done whilst I was away?"

"Well, we've had the Master find Gallifrey and destroy it. The Time War happened, and luckily for me, I escaped before it got to the boiling point. Also, last time I checked, the last Doctor was in their 17th incarnation. Oh, and I forgot to mention, apparently you're the first of the Time Lords and you have countless regenerations, and your 17th was made via a bi-regeneration," Susan explained. The Doctor held his hand up.

"What on earth is bi-regeneration?"

"It's where you regenerate, but instead, the body splits in two, so your previous incarnation and your new incarnation are now separated. But it also means every regeneration you've had has now gone through the same thing," she explained. Again, he held his hand up, laughing under his breath.

"What has he done? See, that wouldn't work. We regenerate to trick the timeline so we don't cause a paradox, so if this bi-regeneration happened, and we have tons of me, the timeline would shatter. So yeah, lucky I got out of Tyler's World when I did. I can fix it now and no, I'm just a random guy. The only thing that makes me unique to the other Time Lords is the fact, I'm a hybrid, half Time Lord, half human. In fact, my father was a Time Lord and my mother was human. Come with me," he said. He stood up, and they walked into the TARDIS. He walked to the console and started to type on the TARDIS's computer.

"Have you ever wondered why, after there are more advanced types of TARDIS, I still have this one?" The Doctor asked. Susan shook her head. The Doctor opened his hand, pointing to the screen, and when she looked at it she saw Gallifreyan text. It said it was by their will and testament that the TARDIS was to be given to the eldest son of the family.

"This is mine because it was my father's TARDIS," he explained. Susan took a step back, shocked by the revelation.