Note- To the memory of Kate O'Mara. The characters described here are only inspired by those owned by BBC Corporation.
xxx
"Excellent landing, right on the money."
The Doctor looked on proudly as she looked at the blue box that stood in the corner of UNIT HQ laboratory. The time and space machine, or TARDIS, had materialised in precisely the same spot where it had remained from 1970 until 1974.
This had been during the third persona of the renegade Time Lord when he had been exiled to Earth as a punishment by the Gallifreyan bureaucracy.
"Hah! It still smells the same!"
The newly regenerated female persona sniffed the air and detected the smell of scorched and burnt circuitry. A reminder of the futile attempts trying to fix the defunct dematerialisation circuit.
Now in 1975 The same green lights lit the room and the one window let in the afternoon sun.
"And just who the blazes are you woman!"
"My dear chap, so nice to see you, the one and only Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart."
He looked stunned as the blonde flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
"So you know who I am. And who might you be madam?"
"Why it's me! You sent me an urgent request for assistance. I'm here to help in my role as scientific advisor."
"I called for my advisor yes. The Doctor. And if I am not mistaken that blue box belongs to him."
"Belongs to me, my dear chap. I am the Doctor!"
"I don't believe it!"
"It's quite true. I regenerated into a woman, and about time too."
The Brig made gaping shapes with his mouth like a goldfish as he looked at the strange female.
She spread her arms and did a complete twirl in front of him.
"Here we go again." Sighed the commander of UNIT. "How can it be possible to change gender?"
"Twelfth time lucky?" She shrugged.
"TWELVE TIMES! Surely you jest."
"And still not ginger." She pouted.
"And still no dress sense."
The Brigadier pointed at the odd attire the platinum blonde was wearing.
A floor length woollen coat over a striped navy sweater and ankle length culottes held up by two braces from the high waist to shoulders.
"Maybe you'd rather I wear military green?"
The Doctor looked into the face of the straight backed man with her sparkling green eyes and put her hands on her hips.
Dark haired with a trim moustache and that predictable frown he always seemed to have.
"You know you have a nice smile when you choose to use it."
She sat at her old desk and put her big boots up on the top, much to the Brigadier's annoyance.
"Quite. Comfortable?"
The woman nodded, stretched out looked around the small laboratory.
"What memories eh? How is Miss Grant these days?"
"Still in the Amazon jungle I presume. Now Doctor."
The still sceptical man raised an eyebrow as he paused in speech. Was this really the man who once had a Beatles haircut, blonde bouffant and later all brown curls and teeth?
"You may remember five years ago when we had that scare with the Silurians attempting to wake from their hibernation in their caves in Wenley Moor. Their purpose to take their rightful place as Earth's prime inhabitants, yes?"
"Yes I do Brigadier, and I also remember you sneakily sealed up their base with explosives so that they could never return. Gosh, five years, more five hundred and five."
They both referred to the race of prehistoric sentient reptiles that had existed before the human race and had chosen to hide underground in suspended animation until a close approaching planet had passed the Earth.
Unaware this had become the Moon the Silurians had never been woken, allowing the evolution of man.
"Well, reports are coming in of unusual activity near the sealed site. I have reason to suspect someone is attempting to revive them again."
"Good lord. Any idea who? The Master?"
"Possibly, who knows with that one. Anyway, I thought who else could help but that splendid chap, the Doctor."
"Or even splendid lass."
"Very good. And by the way, how do you happen to have a Yorkshire accent?"
"It is quite thick isn't it. Still, better than Scottish."
x
The Doctor arrived in the TARDIS right at the cave entrance at the Wenley Moor nuclear research plant next to a curiously shaped rock of about six feet in height.
Her UNIT identification card had been lost long ago and she showed her psychic paper to the stationed guards at the roped off area.
The men would never equate her to being the curly haired man with the ridiculous scarf they were familiar with anyway.
"Doctor Jane Smith, scientific advisor to UNIT. Feel free to pass, madam."
The young soldier saluted and the Doctor began a thorough search of the earth and rocks.
As she moved her sonic screwdriver in the air she made a ninety degree sweep and suddenly stopped when she noticed someone over by the sealed cave entrance.
"Hello, hello? I say, are you with UNIT?"
There was a person in a full length Monk's habit that brushed the ground.
The Doctor was basically ignored until she saw an imperceptive move of the head.
The hunched figure rose to full height, with back turned to the Doctor, the brown robes obscuring any vision of the person underneath.
"Just who are you?" Asked the Doctor directly. The man seemed more likely to be at home in a Monastery.
The large hood was lowered by two slender hands and revealed a mass of titian style ringlets in a cascade of copper hair.
Slowly turning the person opened her habit and stood erect.
It was surprisingly a woman, a quite attractive one too.
The female was adorned in a simple white woollen shirt underneath and was the epitome of famed artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti's favourite model Elizabeth Siddal.
"It is I Doctor, you may remember me as the Meddling Monk. Time Meddler is my preferred moniker."
The Doctor looked stunned as she realised who it was. The Time Meddler indeed.
And he was now a she! And ginger!
