A/N: So... Pretty sure I was possessed by Steven Moffat when I wrote this. I don't really know how it happened, to be honest, but I do hope you enjoy!
In a pitch-black room, drowned in lost hopes and forgotten dreams, lay the loneliest man in the universe. He was a dying man, chest heaving as he struggled against the inevitable.
He had lost everyone. The valiant child, the tin dog, the medical student, the immortal soldier, the most important woman in the universe, the girl who waited, the last Centurion, his beloved wife, and even precious soufflé girl.
They were all gone. Stolen from him. Eternally lost.
Regeneration wasn't something he fancied. At some points in his timeline, he had considered it a way of cheating death, but the ageless man had come to realize that it wasn't. His current self would die while his new self sauntered off a happy, new man. (Or woman, for that matter, though it was a possibility he refused to acknowledge). No more bow ties, no more tweed jacket and drainpipe pants. No more floppy hair or the slicked back look he'd most recently acquired. No more stetsons or fezzes or jammie dodgers.
His look, personality, hobbies, and notions. All dead.
The Doctor pushed himself to his feet, panting. The TARDIS towered above him only feet away. He found it in him to hold on, as there was one last thing he needed to do, one last favor he had promised to himself.
Stumbling into the console room, he slammed the doors behind them and leaned against them, closing his eyes. A slight glow began to emit from the tips of his fingers, and he jolted up, knowing he only had so much time.
He shot forward, gaze moving around rapidly in pursuit of the dusty old trunk. He pulled it from beneath a counter and began to dig through it frantically. Inside was a variety of old items. Valuables, you could say. Things he had packed away after the loss of Amy and Rory. He had exchanged them for all things new, as it was the only way he could press on through the seemingly perpetual grief that followed their loss.
The Doctor thought about the Ponds. Every day, almost, just as he thought about the others that had preceded them. And though they weren't the only ones to travel with this particular face, they were the first. They had formed a special bond and held a very specific place in his heart. And they were the only thing on his mind right now.
Slipping out his brown tweed jacket, his hands immediately found the inner pockets, slipping out a folded slip of paper.
When Rory and Amy were sent back in time by the angels, Amy had written – dedicated to him – an afterword. Initially, the Doctor had been in a state of denial. There was no motivation, no reason to react.
But one day… sometime shortly following the loss of the Ponds, he'd sat down with a pen and paper.
This is what he wrote:
Amelia Pond,
Ah. The Girl Who Waited. That's whom you've always been, hasn't it? A chivalrous young girl waiting on a lonely madman.
I've come to realize that you were never that. Because that sounds like something out of a fairytale, doesn't it? But, dear Amy Pond, you're not a fairytale. Because fairytales are made-up stories, things you know in your gut aren't real, things that ultimately remain in the sub-conscious part of your mind and are – for the most part – irrelevant and unimportant.
And you… you've always been important. To me, and more crucially, to Rory. I wish you two the best of luck in starting this new chapter of your life. You and your Roman. I now know that it was always meant to be that way.
Thank you, miss Amelia Pond, for being there. For clinging to hope and not letting go. For giving me adventure never to be forgotten. I always thought you would see through the end of me, but the universe doesn't quite work like that, and I'm sorry. But you were the first, and that will stick with me in the centuries to come. You'll always be there, in my hearts. I'll never be alone again.
All my best,
Your Raggedy Doctor.
The Doctor read over it once more, fighting back a tear in the corner of his eye as he did so. "Goodbye, Ponds," he said as he folded the slip back up, sliding it gently into the pocket of his new coat.
"Hey, old girl," he uttered as he looked dazedly into the central time rotor of the console, "What do you say? One last adventure, eh?" The TARDIS hummed in response and, mindlessly, he punched in some coordinates, flipped a few switches, yanked a lever, and he was off.
xxxx
It was the year 1900, a small town in New Jersey. There was no need for much chit-chat. The Doctor had this planned out precisely and knew of a way to deliver the note to Amy at the right time.
He met with a man by the name of Tobias Hetland. He was a thin man with long, lanky arms. He always wore a stern expression and appeared to possess little sense of humor. Tobias was an old friend of the Doctor's. A man he met long ago, and a man he could entrust this letter to.
"I assure you, Doctor, this letter will get to where it needs to go," Tobias remarked, forcing a slight smile.
"After the afterword is written, correct?"
"You have my word."
And with an appreciative nod and a tiny salute, the Doctor was off. Back to the TARDIS, where he would live out his final moments as the quirky, bow-tied man.
He sat in silence for a while, the glow in his fingers radiating brighter with each passing moment. He couldn't bear to look at it. In his mind, flashbacks began to haunt him. He silently repeated the names of the ones he'd loved, each with their own set of memories, and as he went on he couldn't help the tears. There were several of them, all silent.
A tear for Rose.
A tear for Martha and a tear for Mickey.
A tear for Donna, the one who'd forgotten him.
A tear for the Ponds.
A tear for River.
And lastly, a tear for the impossible Clara Oswald.
The glow finally reached its maximum brightness and the Doctor stood to his feet, his stomach churning and his hearts pounding as he braced himself for this next chapter in his life. This wasn't the end, no, but it was a new beginning. He didn't like it, but he had come to accept it.
The golden glow crawled up his arms and began to swirl all around him, covering nearly every inch of his body.
"Geronimo…" he whispered.
His head flew back, and so it happened.
The Doctor became, yet again, a new man.