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"Patience" was the name given by Tegan Jovanka to the Time Lady wife of Omega, the Other, and the Doctor.
Biography
Early life
Patience was born in the House of Blyledge on Gallifrey, one of the last Womb-born Gallifreyans. She was apparently "immortal, barring accidents" and lived to be two million years old. She was a young woman when the Pythia cursed Gallifrey with sterility. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
Life on Gallifrey
Her husband, one of the first to explore the Time Vortex, married her upon his return to Gallifrey. She was widowed when Omega disappeared after causing Qqaba to go supernova.
Patience became the Doctor's nurse and tutor, as she had been his father's and grandfather's. They fell in love, got married and had thirteen children. When the Lord President at that time targeted the Doctor's family, the Doctor took Patience to the Machine for safety. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
Exile
The Machine crashed on an ice planet, where it was eventually found by human colonists in the 26th century. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
Patience, meanwhile, regenerated shortly after the Fifth Doctor discovered her. Provost-General Tertullian Medford, believing Patience to be a threat, shot her in the head, and her body vanished. The Ferutu told the Doctor that "it's not the first time you've met her, nor will it be the last." (PROSE: Cold Fusion) The Doctor had a picture of her on the wall of his rooms on Gallifrey. The caption read "Death is but a door."
Moments before Patience's death, Omega, who had control of history, took her to the anti-matter universe. In this universe, Omega was able to give her the ability to regenerate. The Doctor was reunited with her there, but once in a "paradise", he began to doubt whether his memories with Patience were real. He began to consider that his memories, life, and love with Patience were fabricated by Omega to convince the Doctor to take his place within anti-matter. When the Doctor thought this, the anti-matter universe shifted into a broiling thunderstorm, and Patience's character suddenly and inexplicably shifted, implying the assumption was correct. With the Doctor faced with the choice of eternal happiness with her in a fictional world or returning to stop Omega, Patience spurred his decision to leave and help others. His departure from Omega's universe apparently caused the world to collapse, taking Patience with it. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
Physical appearance
In one incarnation, Patience was slender with black hair cut in a bob and vivid green eyes. She had freckled shoulders and a birthmark on her ankle, and in the Doctor's picture of her wore an archaic Gallifreyan dress of a gold material. After regenerating in Omega's world, she had long blonde hair and blue eyes. (PROSE: Cold Fusion, The Infinity Doctors)
Behind the scenes
- "Patience" being the name of the Doctor's wife is a pun based on the word "patient".
- In AHistory's entry on The Tides of Time, Lance Parkin acknowledges the common assumption that the woman seen by the Fifth Doctor within the Maelstrom is Zoe Heriot, but he also asserts that she closely resembles Patience's first incarnation.