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Player Information
Player Name: Jchan
Player LJ: vampydirector
E-mail and/or AIM: vampwrite
Timezone: EST
Current Characters: n/a
Character Information
Character: The Doctor (Tenth)
Fandom/Series: Doctor Who
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Used: The television series, both new and classic series, the BBC books such as those released for the new series, such as Martha in the Mirror and Beautiful Chaos for example, as well as the Big Finish Short Trips books and Big Finish audios for additional canon adventures in the Doctor's past.
Age: 905, but really he's lost track and just pulls that number out whenever he wants to establish himself as the oldest (and therefore most authoritative) person in the room.
Gender: Male
Species: Time Lord
Appearance:
Little over six feet tall, thin like a rail with lean muscle. Appears to be in his mid to late thirties, brown eyes. Has pale skin with freckles, especially on his face, and brown hair that practically has a life of its own. (Prefers to style it rather spiky, as of late.) Wears a close-fitted brown suit with blue pinstripes, cream coloured Converse trainers, and a long, light brown overcoat with big pockets, given to him by Janis Joplin. Also wears tortoise-shell specs when he's trying to concentrate or examine something--but mostly wears them to appear even smarter than he is. There's no prescription in them.
Personality:
The Doctor, in his tenth incarnation, is a genuinely friendly guy when one first meets him. Usually. There have been exceptions. Normally though, he's rather happy, jolly, and bubbly on the surface and is always filled with a nosy curiosity for the things around him. The universe, even after all his many years, can still fill him with wonder and excitement for all the things he's yet to see. He can, and will, poke his nose into things, whether he has permission to or not, because if there is anything he loves, he loves a good mystery and the thrill of solving it no matter how dangerous it is. He'll never say no to experiencing something new, as there are still things he hasn't tried yet.
He also loves a good joke, playing around with people, and has a brilliant and witty sense of humour, though he's been known to use horrible puns at the worst times (and, for that matter, at good times as well.) Really, he ought to lay off the bad puns altogether, but he just can't help himself. Really, he can't. Even said so himself. He can be quite cheeky too, but it's all part of his charm, really.
At times, he's really just a big kid. Turning up on Christmas day, no matter what year, is such a joy for him, especially if he arrives on Earth (or an Earth colony or some place that celebrates it.) At no other time of year can he see peace and happiness in the species he loves, and on the planet that is his second home. He very much enjoys hand holding, revelling in that sense of connection and warmth with another person, and of all of his previous selves, he just adores hugs. Congratulatory hugs, consoling hugs, hugs for the hell of it--he loves them all. There's a bit of desperation in these actions as he wants and yearns for these connections to people. He wants people to understand him and get things innately, and he appreciates, above all, anyone who is brave and clever in the face of adversity--and who would stay with him in spite of the potential dangers they'll face. Oh, and standing up to him or even solving something before he does, even if that is a blow to his ego. He admires all those things in people, but at the same time, he doesn't tolerate anyone who isn't willing to try to help. It irritates him. Waver for a moment or try to weasel your way out of doing something, and he'll write that person off as useless and ignore them. He doesn't have time to be wasting on such nonsense.
On the whole, he's chatty, sarcastic, and boy, can he babble on about nonsensical and sensible things. Often, his prattling is used as a means to distract his enemies, often angering them because honestly, he doesn't shut up once he's gotten going, but at the same time, he uses his babbling to discreetly pass along important information to his companion and allies. Oh yes, and he is unintentionally rude at times, and intentionally rude at other times. Sometimes he doesn't recognize when he is, and might need someone to point this fact out, but depending on the situation, he might feel bad, but most likely he won't.
He's filled with self-confidence, erring on the side of arrogance, and yes, he can be an insufferable, impossible, know-it-all dick. (It's all part of the rude thing, but he's always been a bit of dick. This incarnation is just more so than most of his past selves--with the exception of his sixth incarnation, especially those very early years.) He's very clever and he's very intelligent--and by very, I mean extremely, and when I say extremely, I mean he makes Einstein look like a half-wit (and that's on a bad day, mind you)--and has an intellect that registers far off the normal human scale of IQ testing. He's been known to say that he's a doctor of practically everything (or plain old 'everything' depending on his mood and the situation he's in), and that is no lie. He's technologically minded and can make anything out of nothing. One look at the TARDIS console will show how he's cobbled everyday ordinary things to operate his wonderful and powerful ship. But not only that, but he can create a device for just about any given purpose. You name it, he can make it. As much as he uses his sonic screwdriver, he does use those devices too...when he feels like it. He really is a genius, and he will tell you all this too without a hint of modesty or humility. He doesn't take too kindly to being wrong about some things or being unable to solve a problem right off the bat. But for other things, he welcomes the surprise. As much as he loves being right--and he does--he also loves that the universe still has things that can catch him off-guard.
He's also eager to explain to people, well at times, about the things that interest him (like how things work, why something is like it is or why he thinks it is, etc), but his explanations often fly over the heads of those he's explaining to (or come at really inappropriate times, i.e. while in the middle of running away from something because he'll never pass on the chance to show off how damn clever he is.) Often, he needs to translate his "simple" explanations filled with technobabble and jargon and, really, it usually only makes sense to him--to something even more simplistic and basic. It's a whole lot less fun, but he'll do it if asked, if there's time to, that is. And other times, he won't bother to explain the important things at all. But even a great mind like his can be a little forgetful and absent-minded at times, or even lack common sense in situations. At times, he's overlooked the most obvious thing--well, the most obvious thing to him. He can get annoyed with himself for his occasional, honest-to-god forgetful moments, and admonish himself, saying he's stupid. He'll neglect to tell people things that might be important at the time--like the next part of a plan, for instance--but ah, sometimes that's deliberate, so one never can quite tell with him. He's extremely good at feigning ignorance at any given time, sometimes so he won't have to answer a question and sometimes so he can be brought face-to-face with the baddy who's causing all the trouble (or someone who might seem bad but is actually on his side and didn't get the memo about that yet.)
He's also musically inclined, and this incarnation can play the organ/piano, but likes composing more than anything--whether he's any good at composing is another thing entirely. But he loves pop culture, especially 20th to 21st century Earth pop culture, but his random bits of knowledge extend far backwards and forwards into history and across the universe. He's also a notorious and horrible name-dropper, and it's been debated many times between his companions over the years about how truthful he is about this. He might be pulling their leg--or telling the truth--and he never lets on which way it really is. Only once they encounter said person will the truth come out. He also loves running--and thank goodness he does, because he does a lot of it in his day to day activities--and is highly energetic. Just watching him bounce around the TARDIS' console could make someone feel like they've run a marathon. But he you can bet he uses that energy wisely. He's constantly thinking and adapting his spur of the moment plans, and he has more trains of thought than a normal person can ever handle (and this leads to his babbling and getting sidetracked when a different thought pops into his head).
He's a big fan of bananas in any form, especially the daiquiri version, and cupcakes with the little edible ball bearings sprinkled on top. He's a big lover of just about anything-except pears. Pears are right out, and he's not as big a fan of sweets as he used to be, saying they're bad for his teeth--but the truth of this statement is really anyone's guess.
In complete contrast to his playful, happy self is this very serious side that lacks the kind of mercy he used to possess in previous incarnations, and at times, he shows absolutely no mercy for the people or creatures who have truly angered him. He can have an awful temper when people don't listen to him--even if what he says is for their own good, and dear lord how many times has he been right that X group will get in trouble if they do Y thing?--and unfortunately, when he's forced to act against his enemies, he has been known to get carried away and needs someone to tell him to stop. Unfortunately, the person who did that is no longer with him and he seems to have forgotten that little detail as he doesn't want any other companions and therefore, he doesn't have anyone to stop him. His anger has driven him to more violent means of solving problems and dealing with his enemies or anyone who seeks to harm someone else. He's been pushed very far by this point in his life, and while he hasn't gone quite over that edge just yet, there'll come a time in the future where something will finally cause him to snap.
One can easily describe him and his moods as manic. He can easily go from joking around one second, to being completely annoyed and serious the next. His moods flip-flop easily, making him pretty unpredictable in terms of his emotional state at any given point in time. This can unsettle those who aren't used to him or haven't seen him in action. And when he's in his element, oh, he's absolutely brilliant and can amaze the people who initially doubted him. Though...he sometimes has scared people with his ways, such as Queen Victoria with his flippant manner toward the danger they'd faced which earned him a knighthood and a banishment practically in the same breath.
While he's not the incarnation directly after that of the one who fought in the Time War, he still carries that emotional baggage with him. Not quite as on his sleeve as his ninth self, but it's still there. He's been called the lonely god (and Reinette's lonely angel) because he is the last of the Time Lords, and with that comes a very long life. It used to be known that a Time Lord could practically be an immortal if he was careful with his lives, and on Gallifrey, there were those who were a couple thousand years old, but the Doctor only has a few regenerative cycles left thanks to the sort of life he leads. He knows one day that his life will end and often when he's been mortally wounded, he doesn't know what sort of man he'll become or if he'll even be able to regenerate. Some injuries even a Time Lord can't overcome, and there have been times when he feared that he would, in fact, die for good. Instead, he's always survived his regenerations, no matter how painful they've been or how wrong they've gone, because he wants to continue living. He wants to continue exploring and seeing things, and as the last of the Time Lords, he's the only one who can preserve the Web of Time. It's his burden to bear.
He's very protective of those he cares for, as well as for the innocent parties that get caught up in the bad things that happen around him, and they occur quite often as his lifestyle attracts danger. In some parts of the universe, it is known that the Doctor brings death in his wake, but to be fair, the death bringers are usually there first and he walks into the middle of it. He can be very self-righteous in his sense of justice. He's often the only one willing to make the choice between what is right and wrong--and sometimes what is right might not be right in the moral sense, but right for what must be done to save the day. He's also the type who will purposefully taunt and provoke his enemies and not show any fear in front of them while doing so (he's very good at masking it) so he can gain an upper-hand on them. It's a tactic he's particularly fond of. He comes off as particularly scary when he's truly angry. His anger can range from slight annoyance to shouty indignant rage to seemingly-calm-but-boiling-hot-under-the-surface fury. Sometimes, he acts as though he has a death wish, often acting recklessly and always making up plans as he goes along. If he has to, though, he would--and has tried to--sacrifice his life because if his actions, resulting in his death, were the only things he could do so that others could live and he could stop the bad guys permanently, then so be it. He's yet to get it through his thick head that the universe needs him.
He detests firearms with a passion and really, weapons of any kind, but he can fight (and has fought) with a sword and quite possibly in hand-to-hand combat thanks to his third incarnation's knowledge of Venusian Aikido. He is, however, more likely to try to solve a fight through words and diplomacy before resorting to other means. At times, he's forced to run away and re-evaluate the situation once he's gathered more information--the first encounter usually serving that sort of purpose. But when it comes down to the final showdown, he's not running and shows no fear when facing his enemies head on. One must remember he is a man of "no second chances"--or so he tries to be. He does have a bit of a tendency to break his own rules, though he'll hold others to them without any leeway whatsoever. After he's exhausted most of his options of a peaceful resolution, he'll issue his one chance warning to stop what they're doing and straighten up to even the greatest of his foes. Unfortunately, the option to help them is usually thrown back in his face, which only leaves him with his final and least desirable option of punishing them in some way, shape or form.
He always talks about choice, and he'll talk about it to his friends, acquaintances, strangers and enemies. Everyone always has a choice--and he holds himself to this with every decision he makes. Some decisions are easier to make than others, like should he wear the brown or blue suit? Others...are very much not easy at all, especially when it comes to preserving the time line. His decision often could mean the death of millions or only a hundred, and as time has gone on, this awful choice seems to crop up more and more. It comes down to what is ultimately the right thing to do at that moment, and it might not always be the best choice, but it is the right one--or so he believes at that moment. Others might not agree. Discovering what that right one is, though, is difficult and doesn't always make sense to those around him. But they don't get that he doesn't always like making those decisions, but he has to because no on else can or will. It's his duty as a Time Lord, and as such, he is bound by the Laws of Time set down by his people.
As he's grown older in this incarnation, events that have taken place and decisions he's made in his life have made him grow colder. Long gone is the man who first regenerated into a cheeky, happy, and playful sort of man. Those traits are still there to some degree, but he's become much better at keeping up the pretence of being that old version of himself than truly feeling that way. His guilt over all the death and all the people who died fighting in his name weighs heavily on his mind and hearts. He still admires people for doing the brave things they do and perhaps, at a different point in his life, they might have made a good companion to bring with him on his travels, but he won't take on or even ask for one now. When he did have them, he never fought with them or tried to coax them into staying. It was their choice and if they didn't want to stay with him any more, that was fine. What he wanted before was someone who would stay with him. That was why Donna had worked so well for him. He knew that she would stay with him forever and had said so--and though he knew her forever would never be the same as his forever, he wanted that to be true, but doing what he did to her, one of his greatest best friends, was the final straw.
Nowadays, since he made the decision to never take on another companion, he's not as likely to be so dependent on people in the way he used to be. He refuses to acknowledge that he needs someone, in direct contrast to what Donna said to him years ago the day they first met. He's convinced himself that he's better off without anyone, but deep down, though, he's still very much a very lonely old man and has admitted on the very, very rare occasion that his companions break his heart. He simply hides those feelings, compartmentalising them away by saying that everything is fine. It's far easier to pretend that he isn't lonely rather than acknowledging and doing something about it. Having lived for many, many centuries, he's seen countless people live and die and leave him. They always leave him in the end. The reason he'll give even his worst enemies a chance to live is so that there won't be any more death. Even now, it's a vain and naive wish.
It must be said that without his TARDIS, he would be truly lost. And very much stranded in one location and if there's one thing he can't abide, it's being stuck in one place and time for far too long. Especially against his will. It drives him mad being stuck in one place. Makes him feel trapped and he doesn't like that feeling. It makes him antsy and impatient, and in a way, reminds him of the restrictions of life before he stole his TARDIS and ran away. He'll try anything and everything to find a way out and back to his TARDIS. She is the only thing that will always be with him, and has been since the very beginning. She is his home, his oldest and greatest best friend, his ship, and as much as he takes care of her, she takes care of him. It's not quite the same as what a companion used to do for him, but he'll always value the connection to his ship above all else.
And thanks to her, he keeps on going, never stopping or staying for long--and he certainly doesn't stay to clean-up or straighten out the messes he made. He'll forever be the traveller and wanderer at heart. And he'll always keep on running.
Strengths/Abilities:
He uses a sonic screwdriver that can do quite a lot of things (has thousands of uses for it, like unlocking things, using it to get medical read-outs on things, occasionally putting up the odd shelf or two, but it's not a weapon; it doesn't fire sonic beams or anything harmful). However! He can fight very damn well with a sword and has excellent hand-eye coordination. If he throws something or fires an arrow, his aim is always true and right on target.
Physically his body temperature is a lot lower than a humans (around 60F/15C); he can withstand temperatures as hot as 392F/200C and cold as absolute zero/-270C. He can also withstand extremely high levels of radiation (but up to a point, mind. There are levels that even his body can't safely process and will result in triggering a regeneration). He has a binary vascular system, and has possesses a lung bypass system, so he can feasibly go without air for up to twenty minutes if need be. Quite handy to possess, actually. He can also send himself into a healing coma at will if he's injured, and even if he doesn't, he recovers from flesh wounds a lot faster than a human would, with barely a scar to show for it. He also doesn't age all that fast, like an indeterminable amount of time had passed for the Doctor between the time he first met Donna and when he met her a second time (though only about a year or so had passed for her) and she said he looked exactly the same.
One major unique thing that comes from being a Time Lord is the ability to regenerate his body's cells if mortally wounded. Unfortunately, the process results in the loss of the current body as every single cell dies and has to be made anew, resulting in a different man with a slightly different personality getting up and walking away--though underneath the surface, it will always be the same man. The Doctor will always be the Doctor. He'll have the same memories and everything, just...with a different face and personality quirk brought to the forefront.
Doesn't need a lot of sleep or food in order to function. He eats and drinks more for pleasure and company. But it must be said that his alcohol tolerance is pretty damn high. It takes a hell of a lot of alcohol to get a Time Lord drunk. He's not one you want to go up against in a drinking contest because he will drink you under the table. Of course, he can pretend to have gotten drunk, as well, to keep with the mood of a party, but he can sober up fairly quick. (Though there is a caveat to the drinking thing in the weakness section.) Has advanced senses--for example, he can tell the chemical makeup of something just by licking it or even sniffing the air, and is fairly telepathic--however, he has to be touching the person with whom he wants to share a telepathic link with. How much he truly is is also debatable. He can hear and receive telepathic messages just fine (or he'll receive them on his psychic paper, which sort of acts as an answer phone at times for him.) As far as sight and hearing, these are more finely tuned than your average biped, and he can see well in the dark without the aid of a light. The use of a torch is normally for his companion's benefit. His quick reading skills are nothing to sneeze at, and neither is his memory for the things he's just read.
Another sense, and an incredibly important one for him, is the sense of Time. He can sense the passage of time: what is in flux, fixed, what should be, what can't, and all the possibilities in-between. For example, a fixed point in time would be the destruction of Pompeii. It has to happen and he can't prevent the deaths of upwards of 20,000 people (and in his known history, he's actually the one who causes it.) A point in time that's in flux, however, can be regarded as something as big as the appearance of aliens in Downing Street--or the death of someone who might not have impacted the world on an extremely grand scale. He considered the possible death of Agatha Christie as a point in flux because she still would become famous for her books--she was well on her way to when he did meet her--just not for how many she wrote.
He has very, very strong psychic defences, and only someone with equally strong abilities stands a chance of breaking through those defences and reading his mind. He can feel if someone's trying to break in and really, you don't want to break into a Time Lord's mind, especially one like the Doctor's. Nobody's been there to tidy up in a while, most likely! In all seriousness though, the Doctor is someone who, by this point in his life, has encountered just about all the different devices in the universe that can break through someone's mind barriers, like mind probes. Don't get him started on mind probes. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, after all. There is the oft chance that he's let the barrier on his mind down--he does let the defences on the TARDIS down on occasion, even if that is a very bad idea--so there's a chance of getting a split-second glimpse of what's on his mind, but the moment he feels someone poking around, his mind will clam up tighter than a deadlock-sealed door.
On that same vein of psychic power, he can sense other Time Lords; he can feel their presence in the back of his mind. With other Time Lords, he can communicate with them telepathically, but only if one is touching the other's temples. He can use this same technique to scan someone's mind and memories--and he can also use it to suppress memories as well, as he's had to do to his best mate, Donna Noble. He was also trained in the art of psionics or hypnotism, but he doesn't like to do it (though he had no qualms about it in his fourth incarnation). He leaves hypnotism to the Master since that's his bag, not the Doctor's. But back to psychic connections! The connection with the Time Lords (or lack thereof in Ten's case since they're all gone) is very different from the connection he feels with his TARDIS. He can't--and won't even try--to fully express that connection. Theirs is a bond of countless different levels, and most of those are private; all of them intimate. It's a comforting presence, even if she can give him the silent treatment, and ohhh, he can tell when she's angry with him, but also when she's happy too.
Weaknesses:
As powerful and mighty as his sonic screwdriver is, he can't use it to open deadlocked sealed doors, windows, etc. It's actually quite annoying, but he's learned to live with that.
His tuxedo-he thinks it only brings him bad luck (and hasn't proven him differently yet), though whether that's isolated to the one he owns or any tuxedo he wears regardless of ownership is questionable, but all tuxedos will be considered bad luck until proven innocent.
At times, he has problems with ordinal lists and catches himself switching from numbers to letters, or vice-versa, then amending himself. It's all part of that occasional absentmindedness that has resulted in the TARDIS getting knocked out of the Time Vortex, the TARDIS getting penetrated by the bulkhead of the Titanic (the space cruiser version, not the one that's at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean), and several other instances such as those.
In a way, his friends can be only because their being captured or hurt is a way to provoke and injure him--and enrage him. One would think the villains would learn by now, but they haven't. But at the same time, mentioning certain names empowers him and makes him fight harder, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword in a way.
While his psychic abilities are strong, he can really only use his own through touch. (Unless he's trying to use his to communicate with another Time Lord--especially one of his previous selves--then that's a different story.) Also, though his psychic defences are strong, they do make him more sensitive to such presences.
The aforementioned caveat regarding alcohol is this: in previous incarnations, ginger beer has proven to get him absolutely stinking drunk--why is that? Nobody knows!--so trusting that it still can get him drunk in his current incarnation, he avoids it. Unless he wants to get drunk. (But more than likely, he'll just go for a lime soda or banana daiquiri for social drinking occasions, but he's not opposed to a pint either.) The only time the ginger beer fails to get him drunk is if he's detoxing his bodily systems since he expels all harmful toxins out of his body--including the chemical components in ginger beer. He can get hangovers just like anyone else though, especially after consuming a great deal of alcohol.
In the end, though, he can be mortally wounded like anyone else. (Doesn't like getting shot-had a bad experience getting shot once and doesn't care to repeat it.) Cut him, he bleeds. Punch him in the face, his nose might break (and if someone did, he might've deserved it.) His curiosity has and always will get him in trouble more often than not, and will walk into traps even if he's long since figured out that, surprise, it's going to be a trap. One thing that can really knock him flat is if his sense of time is taken away. It's happened before when he was stuck in a universe without time (really, time truly didn't exist; neither did the word) and to him, it felt like having a limb chopped off. And it hurts. Time sickness makes every single cell in his body ache with emptiness for what should be there but isn't, and at the same time, being in contact with someone who is made up of time (aka everybody), hurts him as well. It's a lose/lose situation, essentially. Ah yes, he also may or may not have a pesky, but deadly allergy to aspirin. At one time in his life, he was convinced of this fact, but he simply avoids it because why tempt fate that way? He's also decided to spurn anaesthesia, especially the Earth kind, as it simply doesn't work on him (see: the shooting incident mentioned earlier).
History:
His beginnings and past lives.
Current incarnation's recent history, though beware of spoilers for what happens in Planet of the Dead and the rest of the 2009 specials.
Some time later, long after he bid Donna and her family good-bye and still companion-less, he turned up in London, 1851, just in time for Christmas. He met a man who claimed he was called 'the Doctor' and the real Doctor believed this man might have been a future incarnation of himself and spent much of their time together, while fighting Cybershades and Cybermen, trying to jog his memory of past events, like 'not blinking' and Sally Sparrow, but nothing worked. The Doctor also made mention of his companions and how something always comes up and they leave him, either of their own volition or because they'd met someone else--or because they'd forgotten him, but this new Doctor didn't seem to share in his sadness or carry the weight of those memories. Any of them. Sure, he remembered things like the sonic screwdriver and the TARDIS, but the screwdriver turned out to be a real screwdriver and this Doctor's TARDIS was, well...a hot air balloon (i.e. Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style, instead of Time And Relative Dimension In Space, which the proper TARDIS stands for.) The man didn't even recognise the Doctor's face! Because of that and the fact the next Doctor had lost his memories, the proper Doctor thought and hoped that perhaps this man might have used the chameleon arch on himself as he had done to escape the Family of Blood, but the fobwatch contained nothing special, no stored away memories or anything that would reverse the process of the chameleon arch. It only proved the man's real identity, that of Jackson Lake, with the engraved letters of "J.L.". The Doctor...was disappointed, but at least things were starting to make sense.
With Lake, he managed to save children who had been abducted as the workforce for the Cybermen--them being "urchins" and orphans, no one would miss them--and to stop a woman named Mercy Hartigan, who had been willingly aiding the Cybermen in this task and was made the new Cyber-controller of a giant-sized Cyberman known as the Cyber-King (and somehow, it had been hiding in the Thames. Yeah.) The Doctor used a Cyberman infostamp--the same things that had confused Lake's memory and made him believe he was the Doctor--to sever Hartigan's connection to the Cyber-King and make her realise what she'd become, which ultimately destroyed her and the Cybermen who had used her. The Doctor used a dimension vault, something the Cybermen had used to escape the void the Doctor had trapped them in so long ago at the very end of the Battle of Canary Wharf, and sent the Cyber-King into the Time Vortex where it would eventually be destroyed by the raw power of the vortex itself. After a bit of coaxing, Lake convinced the Doctor to stay for Christmas dinner and honour those they'd both lost, but he left soon after, slipping away into the night as he always did.
The Doctor never picked up anybody else or invited anyone to travel with him after the events on the Dalek Crucible, and after what he had to do to Donna Noble. Couldn't allow himself to be hurt again, or to allow any more harm come to those he travelled with. In the end, it did more harm than good, so, he decided he wouldn't do that again. Travelling alone was safer for everyone. Far too many people had died already for him.
So, he continued travelling--always moving, never stopping, and never looking back--resolved to continue exploring on his own, with only the TARDIS for company.
Since leaving Luministi:
The Doctor did what he always did: continued to travel. He travelled to various times, like World War One, the war between China and Japan (well, one of them), the court of King Athelstan in 924 AD, and so many others. He found himself in several unpleasant situations as well, including a scuffle with the Slitheen in Ancient Greece, a period of imprisonment where he met Dalek X in a time before the start of the Time War; a time that the Doctor said should be impossible to get into, dealt with a troll in the dungeon!!!!!!! in an unexpected English wasteland, landed on a space cruiser, or the Interstitial Transposition Vehicle, bound for the planet Eternity but encountered beings that he still doesn't know what they were, and at one point had turned up in 1966 on a ship at sea that had broadcast various musics--but he was truly there to stop the Hush--and he did. Naturally. That was what he did, after all. Travel about, running into situations where people were hurt, caught in the crossfire, in horrible situations that only he had the ability to stop. Sure, not every place had been bad or led to trouble, but in general, his encounters and the deaths only continued to prove to him that he'd made the right decision about not taking on another companion. He couldn't go through that pain again.
At one point, he stopped off in modern-day Earth and was delighted when he realised that he'd arrived at Easter-time. Granted, he'd been to the original Easter, but he could never find it, what with Easter moving about the calendar every year. At the same time, he was tracking Rhodium particles and had discovered that there are far too many about, and wanted to find the source of them. He took no time in procuring a chocolate orange, occasionally munching on that while he listened for the particle detecting device in his pocket to go off.
The Doctor had heard and seen several police cars gathering in the area and decided that it'd be best if he tried his search elsewhere for the time being. He spotted a double-decker bus and decided it'd be easiest to get on there and avoid getting caught up in any police investigations. Just maybe his detector would turn something up while he was on it. So just before being brought to Luministi again, the Doctor had started to weave through the crowds, making his way towards that bus...
Canon Point:
His canon point is set at a time between The Next Doctor and Planet of the Dead. Updated 04/20/11: The Doctor is coming from the very, very beginning of Planet of the Dead. He's literally about to board that fated double-decker bus.
First Person Sample:
What? [he blinks furiously to rid the spots from his vision, his head whipping from side to side] What?! [finally, his eyes fall on the vidscreen and the smiling face of a man. his expression falls flat, eyebrows furrowing. he doesn't recognise this person, but he's not very happy either.] What.
[the man, the Mayor, takes no notice in the Doctor's distress and carries on rather cheerily, much to his annoyance.] Ohhh, you've got some nerve snatching me away like this...
[he falls silent for the rest of the message and once it's over, he immediately dives for the vidscreen, pressing its controls] Ohhh, no you don't. Come back here! Why have you brought me here?! Where's my TARDIS? [but all he gets in return is another recorded message, this time with the face of a severe woman telling him the mayor isn't in and to leave a message.]
[he rolls his eyes; exasperatedly:] Come on. I've heard that line before and it's never true! I've got half a mind to march there this instant and prove it! [then he pauses] Well. After I find the town hall, that is, but then! Ohhh, then I'll come barging in and you'll tell me exactly why I'm here!
[thoroughly annoyed by this point, he shuts the vidscreen off and stalks out of the bedroom, his eyes scanning for any sort of camera or listening device, but his cursory glance tells him there aren't any. nothing a scan with the sonic screwdriver can't fix, but he's quickly distracted by the large basket awaiting him on the coffee table.] Blimey, look at all this! I can't even remember the last time I got one of these and it certainly didn't have half the amount of stuff in--ohhh hello, what have we got here...? [he plucks the silver device up out of its nest of fruit and glances at it curiously. he can feel it vibrate very subtly as it turns on, but the rest of basket's contents draw his attentions back to it and he slips the device away into his pocket for the moment while he peruses. unfortunately, the contents soon fail to answer any questions he has, though he definitely thinks the mayor is a big old cheat for using the same speech in his letter and the video.]
[he lets out a breath as he runs a hand through his hair and thinks for all of a moment before he hears a pleasant little beeping noise from his pocket and he draws the device back out, his eyebrows shooting upward in mild surprise.] C.A.T., huh? Shame you don't look like one--well. Maybe it is. I haven't made up my mind whether I like you lot again or not. [still, his fingers run gently along its side as though he were petting it and decides he'll let the little device distract him for the time being.]
[well, long enough before he finally does march on over to town hall, anyway.]
Third Person Sample:
In the back of an auditorium filled full to burst with students, teachers, and a number of representatives from varied news agencies stood the Doctor. He had an amused, but proud smile playing on his lips as he listened to the lone speaker up on stage. Not because the speaker was a comedian of any kind, no. Though, to be fair, a few of the man's past theories had rather tickled him from how close, yet so far, he was to the truth because even a great mind like his was limited by the human thought processes.
But he couldn't help admiring this great thinker, this brilliant man confined to a wheelchair. He'd always meant to sit in at one of the man's lectures before, but was always distracted by some other adventure, impending invasion, or the odd shopping excursion he couldn't wheedle out of. Or he'd been waylaid somewhere else entirely, thanks to a minor malfunction of the TARDIS' controls. So, he had put it off, and put it off, and seeing as he'd landed on Earth again at this point in time with nothing else earning his attentions, he figured he might as well finally go see the man speak.
It was before the invasions of Earth had earned their own media circuses. Before the Slitheen made their mark on Big Ben and the Sycorax had stumbled upon the space probe "Guinevere One". He almost missed those days when the general population of his beloved humans were still sheltered from the knowledge that other species existed besides their own. At the same time, however, he was glad they knew. That knowledge would eventually spur them to explore the vast reaches of the universe and discover so many great and terrible things. The descendants of every person in the room with him would see and do things their ancestors never thought possible.
All except, that is, for the man speaking right now, the one who would later postulate on the presence of life throughout the universe and how it could affect those on this planet--and come so close to the truth.
At one point in time, he'd thought about giving the man a glimpse at the universe he very much loved. The Doctor more than understood that love and curiosity, and if there was ever a man born who did so more than he, it was this one. Oh, the discussions they'd have while gazing at any number of nebulae in the universe! He'd let the man choose which one to start with, naturally. And of course, as they spoke for hours on end, he'd prove just how very wrong some of those theories and formulae of his had been, but all in good fun, really.
And maybe, had this day come sooner in the Doctor's life, he would have approached the man after the speech and arranged to meet him after everyone else had gone so he could invite him in for the ride of a lifetime.
As the crowd began to thin and the camera crews had packed up at last, the Doctor found himself standing in front of the greatest theoretical physicist, a broad grin on his face even as the sadness of his decision filled his chest. He knew he couldn't show this man, of all people, the wonders of the universe. There were still so many important things he had to do, and the Doctor couldn't let any harm come to this man thanks to any meddling done to his timeline.
So instead of leaning down and issuing those words, he merely said, "Thank you. Thank you for being so brilliant. You are right, you know."
And then he walked away.
Did you read the rules? You betcha!