Patience

"Patience" was the name given by Tegan Jovanka to the Time Lady wife of Omega and of the Doctor — both of the Doctor as he existed prior to being the First Doctor, and of the bespectacled Doctor who resided on Gallifrey in another universe.

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
In an alternate universe, she was widowed when Omega disappeared after causing Qqaba to go supernova. She became the Doctor's nurse and tutor, as she had been his father's and grandfather's. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Her husband, one of the first to explore the Time Vortex, married her upon his return to Gallifrey and they had thirteen children. When the Lord President at that time, Rassilon, targeted her family because of the natural birth of her granddaughter, Susan, as she was not Loom-born, despite her eldest son and Susan's father complaints, she was taken to the Machine of her husband for safety by the First Doctor transgressing to Laws of Time, while he kept Susan. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)

Exile
The Machine crashed on an ice planet, where it was eventually found by human colonists in the 26th century.

Patience, meanwhile, had her first regeneration 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)

In an alternate universe, the Doctor had a picture of her on the wall of his rooms on Gallifrey. The caption read "Death is but a door." (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

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)

Legacy
The Fifth Doctor briefly interacted with an illusory young woman inside Melanicus' temporal aberration, "the Maelstrom", (COMIC: The Tides of Time) who resembled the incarnation of Patience who lived on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Cold Fusion) The Doctor confusedly recognised her, though he couldn't put his finger on who she was. She tried to speak to her, but she darted out of sight. (COMIC: The Tides of Time)

Physical appearance
In the incarnation (PROSE: Cold Fusion) glimpsed by the Fifth Doctor in Melanicus' Maelstrom, who greatly resembled (COMIC: The Tides of Time) the Doctor's on-time companion Zoe Heriot, (TV: The Wheel in Space, etc.) 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".
 * The woman glimpsed in COMIC: The Tides of Time, whom Lance Parkin used as a reference when establishing the appearance of the early incarnation of Patience who lived on Gallifrey, was likely originally intended to be, and is, at any rate, often interpreted as, Zoe Heriot. REF: AHistorys entry on The Tides of Time sees Lance Parkin acknowledge the common assumption but reassert that she better resembles Patience's incarnation from PROSE: Cold Fusions flashback, to whom he refers as Patience's first incarnation.
 * An illustration of her was made in DWM illustrated previews of DWM 509.