This is a Lie

Title: Eight to Nine
Characters: Ninth Incarnation
Rating: General Audience
Word Count: ~490
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None

In the simplest of terms, he was something over nine hundred years old. Nine hundred and some change. Without a planet to call home and a calendar to keep accurate time however, it was all just numbers. It was easier to just measure it in regenerations. This was his ninth body, taller than his last, and lankier.

After his regeneration it took him three “days” to learn how to walk and then run with any sort of control. He spent hours tearing through the labyrinthine hallways of the TARDIS just getting used to how his feet and legs worked, feeling the double-pump of his circulatory system barely taxed, even though the walls blurred past at unknown speeds. He hit the walls several times, miscalculating turns (or, he suspected, the TARDIS, given her odd sense of humour, moved the walls) and at one point ran up a wall and backflipped to the floor in a move that he’d seen in some Earth musical. (this secretly delighted him.)

For a while, he hovered near where Gallifrey had been, watching the dust and asteroids drift in lazy circles. There was no one to speak to and he had nothing to say.

The first time he heard himself say “hello” it had thrown him. He still had the memory of his previous voice. This one was louder and harshly accented. He locked himself in the TARDIS again and spent another three days (Earth time, monitored by watching the sun rise and set through the viewscreen) talking to himself, reading books aloud, and singing until he was used to the sound. He discovered he had no singing voice whatsoever. Not that he had ever had much of one, but he always hoped for some small improvement with each new body.

The decision to shave his head was spontaneous, done after what he estimated to be several months in the new, ninth body. His previous hair had been thicker, curlier. This time he was left with fine, soft hair that seemed to do nothing but get dirty, collect static, and stick out in odd and unflattering ways. He learned too late that having his head shaved made his ears stick out in odd and unflattering ways, but convenience outweighed vanity by that point. The haircut stayed.

He’d been short and tall, skinny and plump, quick and slow, young and old, and strong and delicate. Each body brought with it new rules and never a guide book. Never an instruction to tell him what the new body was allergic to, or how it reacted to different sorts of stress. Probably because none of the other Time Lords had ever really put themselves into positions where these things would be tested. They’d just grow old, switch to a new form, and carry on in their soft, quiet lives.

He dressed in black, mourning his planet, his people, and his family. Mourning the fact that he’d survived.