"Home! and dried on the pig's back!" she enthused. "Oh dear, I have spent entirely too much time in England of late," she quickly decided

As she opened the TARDIS'es exterior scanner bay doors, and the exterior door in preparation to leaving, dizziness once again returned, but this time it seemed different somehow.

Staggering round the Primary Control Room she collapsed against the cream coloured wall. Then unknown to her ... seven additional identical blue, police boxes quickly ... silently materialized round hers.

By the time the Doctor regained consciousness, and shakily stood, eight other Doctors had left their TARDIS'es, and were busy talking among themselves.

The Doctor pouted at the scene before her. "Looks like I wasn't the only Doctor summoned to Gallifrey. The Time Lords must be in even more direr straits than I." She grinned widely. "Boy, are my counterparts ever in for a shock!" She chuckled. "Not to mention what Gallifrey is going to think!"

"So, seven of us, with me making it eight," she ruminated. "Wait a minute ... I'm the seventh one! That fellow in the golf sweater is an imposter!"

Watching her other selves, she felt strangely left out, till she realized. "What? Again no sound?" Glaring at the mute viewer screen she began to tap her foot in aggravation. A moment later she had decided. "Will fix you ... later, or sooner, or whatever," she promised herself, with a very vague promise.

Turning to the console in front of her, she patted it affectionately. "So, my dear old broken thing, here goes me, again, and again, and redundantly ..." her words broke off, as once more she felt faint.

"Wonder what has happened to our number seven?" Number One (persona #1) asked. "His TARDIS after all, arrived before mine, and I was second."

Norm (persona #8) and Ed (persona # 9) softly chuckled to each other.

"Curious," Fancy Pants (persona #3) sniffed at the perfumed air, wafting from the opened TARDIS. "Wonder how many more of us will be summoned?" he queried, tugging at his brown velvet smoking jacket, smoothing it.

"We may all be here already, young fellow," Number One interjected. "Thirteen selves is the maximum number of lives any Time Lord is given but there is no guarantee of that eventual, total number."

Fancy Pants nodded soberly in agreement. "Especially, considering our propensity for finding ourselves under the harrow."

The Doctors agreed.

"Well, the way I see it," Joseph (persona #6) said refastening the black and white, cat pin on his Technicolor coat. "This seventh one of us has had plenty of time to come out on his own."

"I agree," Cricket (persona #5) concurred. "I say we go in and find out what's keeping the old boy."

"Good plan, Doctor," Teeth & Curls (persona #4) stated to Cricket, a Mona Lisa type smile on the intelligent, inquiring face.

For a second time Norm's eyes began to shine with his foreknowledge. And he winked at Ed.

And just what was it that these two persona found so amusing in all of this? Teeth & Curls wondered. He sighed to himself. Well, TIME would tell.

"After you, Doctor," Scarecrow (persona #2) bowed politely to Teeth & Curls, popping a grape jelly baby into his mouth.

One by one, the Doctors solemnly entered this seventh persona's TARDIS.

Once inside it was Joseph, dressed beneath his coat of many colors, in a costume much like Fancy Pants. Speaking first to Teeth & Curls he said: "This is the Console Room you used for awhile, isn't it, Doctor?"

Teeth & Curls nodded.

By far the oldest looking and yet in reality the youngest, Number One looked round, well pleased at the changes to the Primary Console Room. "So it is, " he iterated, swinging his elegant cane in the familiar gesture. Grabbing the lapels of his coat he beamed. 'His" antique hall stand had also caught his eye. "I must say this Doctor certainly has excellent tastes regarding interior design of control rooms."

"Doctor?" Cricket's voice reflected concern, his eyes coming to rest on the sprawled, unmoving form of the seventh persona.

Teeth & Curls bent down, talking the caped part of the Doctor's coat from off her face.

"Well ... well ... well, another little fellow! Scarecrow beamed.

"Who also seems to be a mass of curls and teeth," said Joseph, looking towards the fourth persona, chortling softly, as he tilted back his cranberry fedora.

The original Teeth & Curls merely shrugged with a sly, pixie grin.

"At least he does have a dapper, good dress sense!" Fancy Pants snorted.

The Doctors laughed.

Looking round him, Scarecrow was the first to spy something else. A cream colored, cream tasseled recorder atop the antique hall stand. Narrowing his eyes he walked over to the small wooden flute and picked it up. "And he plays the recorder!" Scarecrow was overjoyed.

The other Doctors however were not so enthusiastic. As one they moaned, vehemently protesting their displeasure in one united front.

The little man with daisy applique braces, and dark, straight hair just ignored them. He was perfectly delighted.

Teeth & Curls lightly touched the side of the Doctor's nose.

"Is he alive, Doctor?" the one attired as an Edwardian cricketer asked.

"Apparently, just fainted," Teeth & Curls replied, rubbing his chin. "Quite probably at the sight of eight other selves!"

Stepping closer to the console's deck, Number One noticed an additional thing. 'His' notebook. That is, this later persona's notebook. Running a wrinkled hand across the battered old cover Number One nodded in approval, thinking to himself that this regeneration of self was certainly the one showing the greatest promise.

Number One's benevolent thoughts were rudely interrupted by a very annoyed Scarecrow. "Well, old chap, don't just crouch there taking his pulses. Do wake him up so we can play a duet for all of you. I mean," he began to stammer. "All of us." Removing his own blue and white flute from its special pocket in his dark blue coat, he held both recorders so they could be plainly seen by all.

The Doctors protested loudly with strains of: "Spare us! Oh no, no, old bean. Bad show! Let sleeping ... 'wannabe' musicians lie!"

Scarecrow frowned.

Amid the din, Teeth & Curls solemnly picked up the Doctor, carrying her to one of two of the over-sized Console Room chairs. As he did, something in his brain clicked, and his eyes shot towards Norm as if to say, ('surely not').

But Norm was slowly nodding with a very wry smile.

And Ed pulled on his nose.

In the Victorian captain's chair the Doctor began to rouse. "Daleks! Change! The Cloister Bell! The Call!" The words tumbled from her lips in broken strands. She sighed, briefly covering her face. "I do believe this is quite enough! This stabilization is proving to be as difficult as the last one was."

Joseph nodded with compassionate understanding. Though he would never admit to anyone, just how difficult it truly had been for him.

"Just how long did you regenerate, my boy?" Number One asked with concern."

The Doctor briefly computed. "Ten days ago."

Rubbing her chin she looked across to the voice that had spoken with such sincere solicitousness. "Well, hullo, Doctor." A silly grin spread itself across her slender face. "You I recognize, at least."

"Hullo, my boy. Regeneration? Number One politely inquired.

"Ah, sixth ... that is unless I changed again while I was napping." She felt herself. "No." She shook her jumble of locks. "Persona number seven still."

Norm chuckled to himself.

The Doctor turned towards the sounds of Norm's laughter.

"Personnna number eight, Doctor," Norm bowed. "At your service, though you may call me Norm, if you so desire. A very special friend tagged me thusly, and the name just sort of stuck. Something to do with a return to NORMalcy, in the Doctor's lives, I believe."

The Doctor smiled warmly.

"And this gentleman at my elbow is Ed short for ..."

"Edwardian Gentleman," Ed said, finishing the sentence for him.

"Don't fret my boy," Number One nodded. "You'll get use to it. It is after all, the hardest part of any regeneration."

The Doctor snorted. "Want to bet?" she muttered distrustfully. "NORM-ally I would probably agree with you."

Ed and Norm chuckled.

"Well, which ever one of us you are my boy," Number One said smiling kindly. "I must say, I certainly approve of your method of note keeping, and of the way you've re-designed this Console Room." He chuckled. "I only hope you can get it to work for you."

"So far it's not disappointed me." She began to beam. "Besides, why change a good thing ... unless it is to change it back."

The Doctors agreed. Anyone else probably would have been a bit puzzled.

"Now," she began, clasping her hands together. "Perhaps one of us ... we ... could tell me why we were summoned to Gallifrey, Doctor ... Doctors."

Cricket smiled. This future persona's body language was very much like his. So of course he approved.

The Doctor continued her scan of her other selves, anxious for an answer, from any persona.

But it was to be Scarecrow, with a teasing smile, who jumped in with the answer. "When it comes to the bone, we were rather counting on you knowing Doctor, being you are if not, the oldest, the present model.

"Sorry, no idea," she said, shaking her head. "Apparently all I seem capable of doing of late is fainting." She began to rub the back of her neck.

Fancy Pants smiled, nodding his approval of the simple gesture. This persona not only dressed like him, he moved much like him too.

"Wait a minute, Doctor," she addressed Scarecrow. "If this is indeed, my time line ... Then why are you two here, Doctors?" she asked Norm and Ed somewhat vaguely.

Norm shrugged. "Don't know ... received The Call ... here I am."

"Ditto," Ed echoed.

The Doctor did a quick double take towards Scarecrow. "My recorder!"

Scarecrow grimaced, realizing he was on the horns of a delicate dilemma, trying to remember just which flute was his. (Well ... they both were ... but which color was the one he was using at present?)

Finally, he decided, handing what he hoped was the correct pipe back to the bemused Doctor.

Very solemnly she tried a few notes. Removing the flute from her lips, eying Cricket, she began to filk; quickly joined by Scarecrow on his flute:

"Doctor is Welch man ... Doctor is a thief ... Doctor came to my TARDIS ... and stole a lick of beef."

Cricket nodded distastefully.

Satisfied, she did indeed have "her" recorder back, she smiled warmly at Scarecrow. "Thank you, Doctor."

Tucking the recorder in her caped coat she mused. "Wonder if any of this, has anything to do with the Cloister Bell?"

"The Cloister Bell!" Cricket and Joseph exclaimed as one.

"Yes, it's been ringing all day." She thought a moment longer. "Wait a minute," her eyes narrowed. "I collapsed on the deck. I don't remember moving ..."

"Guilty," Teeth & Curls interrupted, raising his hand. "I moved you to higher ground, so you could breathe easier."

The Doctor put a hand to her forehead, running it across the jangle of her curls. "Phew! I was beginning to think this regeneration had picked up the nasty habit of sleepwalking! Then, sometime, when the TARDIS slipped into Vortex ..." she shivered, leaving her sentence unfinished.

The Doctors sniggered.

The Doctor looked back at Teeth & Curls. "Thank you, Doctor."

"You're most welcome, ah, Doctor." Teeth & Curls' grin was most suspect.

"How do you feel now, Doctor?" Cricket asked, his voice full of concern.

"Champion! thank you, Doctor," she replied, smiling at the cricketer.

"Spoken like a true batsman," Cricket said nodding.

"You did stay in the Zero Room long enough, didn't you, Doctor?" asked Joseph.

"The what?" she answered looking at Joseph vacuously. Standing up, her vacant look swiftly changed to a teasing, lopsided grin. "Actually Doctor, I discovered the most unique, that is ..." Suddenly she was lively animate. "I now know why the Zero Room is pink and why it smells like roses!" Excitedly she continued. "It all came to me while I was playing my recorder ..." Her eyes narrowed, "Or was it while I was doing my sums? Hum, something to do with Diff-E-Q, I'm sure."

Scarecrow chuckled. He did the very same thing, whenever he was trying to muddle through a puzzle; play the flute, or mutter mock theta computations.

"That's all very interesting, Doctor, I'm sure," Teeth & Curls interrupted her, unable to contain himself any longer. "But I'm far more curious about ..." Once again his somewhat, annoying habit of leaving a sentence hanging in the air grabbed a hold of him. Teeth & Curls cleared his throat. "When did you first discover the most unusual effect this regeneration had on you ..." he paused ever so briefly. "... my dear?"

The Doctor smiled widely at Teeth & Curls insight. "About fifteen minutes after it happened. It came to me in a flash, in the shower."

Teeth & Curls nodded soberly. "I see."

The other Doctors were puzzled by the dialog passing between the two aspects of self, but at the same time , they too were intensely curious, aware that something was obviously being shared by the two who were one.

"But I can't begin to understand the how, nor the why of it, Doctor" she said softly, beginning to pace. Her eyes fell questioningly on Norm.

"But if I share everything I know with you, Doctor, where would be the fun?"

"Fun? Fun?" she echoed mockingly.

Teeth & Curls stroked his chin, grinning compassionately. Turning to the others he smiled. Extending his arm widely, with a flourish, he began. "Doctors, this regeneration of us is female."

"Impossible!" Joseph snorted, stepping closer to the two, unwilling to admit, even for a moment, he had been that close to being a female himself.

The Doctor shook her small head slowly but determinedly, taking her 500 year diary (volume 2) from a pocket in the Cape. No, it is not an impossibility, the nod said. "See, Doctors, it's all here on page one." She began to read from the entry: "Dear diary... Woke up today to discover I had regenerated female. Went back to bed. Really! This was not a particularly good day! 'I could immediately tell this was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day,' actually, to quote Judith Viorst. Will save the Universe ... tomorrow. Maybe. I really need to think about this. Love, the Doctor."

The Doctor looked towards Joseph, suddenly puzzled.

"Something the matter, Doctor?" Joseph asked tentatively.

"You've changed, your costume, that is."

"You approve of the new look?" Joseph inquired, slipping off the familiar multi hued top coat, to reveal a cranberry colored velvet suit underneath, and a pair of corespondent cranberry & white wing tip shoes.

"Everything is beautifully coordinated!" she said somewhat stunned.

Joseph chuckled. "Yes, I know."

"Knickers and matching coat, white shirt and stockings, gold lame tie and waistcoat," she said, taking inventory. "Well, I'm impressed."

"Thank you." Joseph smiled at her, warmly. "I have dressed like this since Rassilon has seen to employ us as his inter retinue ..." Joseph stopped himself, as Number One began to slowly shake his head in disapproval.

"Then why not whole hog and opera Cape like me and Doctor three?"

"Because I still like the great coat, Madame!" Joseph insisted.

The Doctor smiled warmly. "Me too. Actually, I have one just like it."

Joseph's eyebrow arched. "And you wear it?"

She shrugged. "Occasionally. It is all right, isn't it?"

"Right as rain, lil" Doc," Joseph said, gently chucking her chin.

"Jumping' Jehosophat!" Fancy Pants exclaimed, as if he had only just realized, she was a girl.

"That's what I said," she replied, shutting her diary with a snap, putting it back in her pocket.

Fancy Pants smiled tenderly. "Does explain the flutterwing perfume, though. I was beginning to question my nose."

"But I have always questioned it, Doctor," she said facetiously, chuckling softly.

"Touche!" Fancy Pants conceded.

"My stars!" Scarecrow gasped, this he, who was so much like him, was in reality, a she.

"I remembering saying that also," the pint sized Doctor said, giggling.

"No wonder, you're having such a time of it," Number One stuttered. "This is far more than just dendrite, neuron, and synapse ambience, my boy ... ah, my girl ... ah, my word!"

The Doctor, just a bit annoyed, placed her hands on her hips. "Do tell."

"We know, how you knew, Doctor," Cricket said to Norm. "But how did you, the fourth persona, know, Doctor?" Cricket asked Teeth & Curls.

"When I first picked her up," Teeth & Curls began. "I couldn't help but notice her mass was distributed all wrong, for a chap anyway." He arched a brow. "And she was rather, ah, somewhat," he paused. "Lumpy."

The Doctors laughed ... all nine of them.

"Then," Teeth & Curls continued. "Following through with my theory, I listened very close to her voice, while observing her dainty, little hands, and tiny nose. And, as the third persona has already pointed out to us, there was the no small matter of perfume, and ..." Teeth & Curls paused, giving himself time to carefully lift the jangle of curls that just covered the Doctor's ears. "The piece de resistance, Doctors: earrings! Therefore ... what other logical conclusion could I devolve, but that of instant Doctorette, Doctors?" Grinning and with a flourish of his hand, Teeth & Curls rested his case.

Scarecrow snorted. "Maybe he's just a pint sized pirate!" he blustered. "Who sports a flute instead of carrying round a parrot."

All the Doctors chuckled then.

But just as quickly, eight of them became very solemn.

Realizing just who, and what she was, the Time Lords found themselves, suddenly very protective of this one of a kind self.

"What's the drill now, Doctor?" Scarecrow asked Fancy Pants.

Fancy Pants shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. He had no idea.

Cricket tugged at Joseph's sleeve. "She'll require special care and support. What with the Estrus and everything else."

Joseph's eyebrow arched even higher than usual, and he nodded solemnly in agreement. "Without question, Doctor."

Fancy Pants stroked his nose,and looked straight at Teeth & Curls. "I fear I must agree with, the fifth persona, Doctor. Whatever the present problem on Gallifrey is, we can't allow this Doctor to become embroiled in it. I feel somehow the lives of our other six future selves are already at risk due to ..." he awkwardly cleared his throat. "To, ah, her rather unfortunate turn of events."

Norm stepped towards Fancy Pants. He cleared his throat. "I wouldn't go so far as to say that, old chap," he informed, a trace of disgruntlement in his voice. Norm felt himself. "Seems everything turned out, right as nine pins to me."

In all the hubbub, the Doctor's face took on a cross between whimsey and irritation. She was being avidly discussed yet totally ignored. What she felt, or wanted, or even needed, seemed to her to be of little consequence to these other selves.

"If this is The Game of Rassilon the old boy has certainly altered the rules this time," Number One jested.

Scarecrow grinned coyly and nodded.

But a light came on in Teeth & Curls' intensely blue eyes. "Doctor, you may be on to something."

"I could, I mean, I am? What?" Number One asked, taken slightly aback.

Teeth & Curls nodded. "Maybe Rassilon is the key to all of this. No telling what the wily, old bird might be dabbling in now." He turned his head towards the Doctor. "Or what possible, long term effects his tampering could have on us." Then as an after thought added: "Or Gallifrey."

For the very first time, when their time lines merged, the Doctors were in total agreement. The thing to be done was to seek out Rassilon, and that meant a trip to The Dead Zone.

As one the Doctors turned to face this nonpareil self.

Fancy Pants was the first to speak. "Up to a trip to The Dead Zone, my dear?"

The Doctor started to nod when suddenly, without warning Fancy Pants silently disappeared!

"Hard to disappear Sarah, he's just not visible," she muttered to herself.

"Shall we each take our own TARDIS gentlemen, or are we invited to share in this one, dear Time Lady?" Number One asked, stepping up to her to gallantly take her hand. When as before, with no warning, the hand, along with the rest of the first persona, slowly dissolved before the Doctor's eyes.

"A united front would definitely the advised course of action," Cricket affirmed, apparently, totally unaware of the other Doctors' fates. "Don't you agree, Doctor?"

But before she could respond, Cricket too was gone.

"I don't care if you are a girl," Scarecrow soothed. "You'll always be, a little chap with flute, to me!"

"Indeed!" she exclaimed zestfully, but as the Doctor continued to gaze lovingly towards Scarecrow; he, like the three previous simply vanished.

"I'll set the controls. These short hops are always so unpredictable," Joseph said smiling. "Like some Doctors."

When the Doctor smiled back at that, Joseph commenced to fade.

Quickly turning her head towards Norm and Ed, the Doctor asked. "We are a male, once again?" As if seeking some reassurance before they too might be whisked away.

Norm looked at Ed and chuckled. "Screaming from every cell. Just as you are the real Mc Coy, Doctor ... uniquely female ..."

"So are we, the next two Doctors, the true eight and true ninth personas, and with a promise from Rassilon ..." Ed began.

"Forever male, perpetually," Norm ended.

The Doctor giggled.

Norm then winked. "Rest assured, Doctor, Rassilon has the most ..."

And Norm too was gone.

Then at almost the same moment, even Ed was no longer standing next to Norm. He wasn't standing anywhere!

Turning towards Teeth & Curls, the Doctor looked at him quite wistfully. "You're the only one left. I suppose you're going to disappear now too?"

Teeth & Curls flashed her a toothy grin and shrugged, tousling his curls about in total ignorance.

This time she wasn't surprised in the least when Teeth & Curls simply winked out, with no more than a wink of his own and a wave.

First ... she was laying on the deck of the TARDIS'es original control room, surrounded by Munchkin and K9.

Second ... the encounter with her other selves had just been a dream, an illusion.

The Doctor jerked her caped coat from her face. "Now I'm hallucinating!"

Gruffly grabbing the lapels of her coat she admonished. "Doctor, pull yourselves together or it's three more days in the Zero Room for you!"

Slowly up righting herself, she began to speak to herself once more.

"Although," she slowly considered. "Maybe all that rot, rubbish, and Danny Deever stuff has provided me with a key. Rassilon! Rassilon, the greatest architect, engineer, and thinker in all of Time Lord history. Could Rassilon be the answer? If so ... what is his question?" She pouted. "Am I on Jeopardy?" The Doctor sighed. "Or perhaps I should put that in the form of a question. Am I in jeopardy ...due somehow to Rassilon?"

Scrambling to her feet she looked at the still silent, exterior scanner. "But first things first, Doctor."

A troop of Chancellery guardsmen were slowly advancing on the TARDIS. In the lead was Commander Maxil.

The Doctor smiled, arching a brow. "An official escort?" She swiped a hand across her face. "Why, for a change, they almost seem friendly." She contemplated further. "Shall we take a chance, my fellow conscripts?" she asked rhetorically. "Take a little recce?" Patting the console she grinned. "Well, ol' thing, here goes the seventh persona of Dokk-tor to welcome her very first Gallifreyan sunrise."

"Bring him to me," the CyberLeader commanded just as mechanically.

As impersonal as a machine the CyberLieutenant saluted, turned and obeyed.

In but a few moments the Master, with his all too familiar pas de chat, was escorted, between two CyberMen, into the control room.