Author's Note: I am in a fit of updating. I am uploading a lot of things that have sat on my computer for years - some since high school, which has been more than a decade ago.

Episode 1 – Every New Beginning

The Doctor stood in the Tardis, alone again – and dripping wet to boot. He let the wave of melancholy and self-pity wash over him for a moment. It seemed like he was always leaving someone behind.

Donna could never be allowed to remember him. It would destroy her. Martha and Sarah Jane had moved on without him. Martha had UNIT and her fiancé and her family, and Jack and Mickey too, by the look of things. Sarah Jane had her son and her investigating. They didn't need him anymore – not really.

And then there was Rose.

Rose was stuck in a parallel dimension. He would never see her again. He wasn't sure which was worse – that she was gone, or that she still had some version of him – a version that would have all those things that they had once joked about on an impossible little planet circling the edge of a black hole. That version of himself could have a house and mortgage, a job. Maybe, one day, even children. He would grow old with her. With Rose. His Rose. The Doctor had loved Rose (he could still barely admit it even to himself) and he had had to let her go on without him too.

That didn't even touch on all the people that died around him all the time. Davros had been right about that – the countless people who died in his name or for his cause, his hearts ached to think of them. Yes, he saved people, but so many others died. Like Jenny – his daughter. It had been hard to believe that Jenny was real, that she was really his. "Dad shock," Donna had called it. She hadn't been too far wrong. He had been without family, alone, for so long. He had never expected to have family again. Just as he had started to hope, Jenny was gone again.

And he was alone again. In the end, he was always alone.

Well, enough of that!

With a sniff, the Doctor shoved the mood off. He went to change into something dry before drifting back to the Tardis' control room. He glanced around at all the levers and dials and buttons. He started to brighten. What he needed now was some travel, a bit of adventure! "Ooh, I know! A beach! I always say I'm going to go to the beach, but I never quite get there."

The Doctor turned his attention to the Tardis again, only to realize that while he had been distracted, it had parked itself somewhere. It wasn't often (hardly ever) that the Tardis took itself off somewhere on its own initiative. The last time, it had been trying to run away from Jack. No, it had gone after Jenny too, and that had been later. "Now what are you up to this time?" he wondered, feeling a twinge of curiosity.

Before he could wonder much more, the door creaked open. "Well, hello there."