Disclaimer: The world of Doctor Who and all of its characters belong to the BBC. I do not profit from the writing of this story and am just a fan who simply loves the work.

Timeline: As the Tenth Doctor regenerates

Author's Note: Just a one-shot I have had rolling around in my head.

*update* I went through and made some changes and cleaned up some glaring issues. I wrote another one-shot recently and might make this space a collection for them. This story has no beta so there are still probably issues but hopefully not as bad as they were.

Pairing: Tenth Doctor x Rose T.
(Mention of Mickey x Martha)

Enjoy!

Radioactive Awakening

The Doctor lay on the floor of the TARDIS writhing in pain. His body convulsed involuntary as glowing gold regeneration energy began to course through his body and he knew that these were some of his last moments in this form. He was slowly and painfully dying of radiation poisoning after saving one of the people that he held in the highest esteem, Donna's Grandfather, Wilf. He always assumed that the knocks signaling his expiration were in reference to the only other Time Lord alive and the drums that plagued the Master but as soon as the four knocks rang out from behind him he knew it was the end for him, at least in this form.

Much like the last time he regenerated, with his big ears and northern accent, the Doctor's thoughts were consolidated on one woman. Rose Tyler, his Rose. The, dare he say, love of his life and the woman who he fell for in two of his incarnations. She was the first companion he took after the horror of the Time War and Rose healed him more than she would ever know. The Doctor hoped that his duplicate self-had told her how important she was in rehabilitating him after the war.

The glaring difference between this regeneration and the last was that now he was alone. Losing Donna - the woman who became his best friend, the most important woman in the universe, the one who always gave him lip but pulled him out of his rut, and brought his Rose back to him one last time - was such a blow that the regret which engulfed him after she lost her memories served to push away anyone who could possibly stand next to him in that special place many had before.

Suddenly a searing pain from within his right heart made him realize that the time before he would be lost to his next regeneration was shorter than he had previously anticipated. The doctor was angry that this life was over. He had never achieved what was always on the back of his mind, finding his Rose. Well, over a century had passed for him, and sure, he left her with an alternate version of himself but why was he, the real Doctor unable to ever have just a small bit of happiness. He let his thoughts drift back for a second to when he was still young, and left his granddaughter behind. Oftentimes he felt that all he ever did was leave the people he cared about behind. During this regeneration He had lost so much and now the only thing that he desired was more time. The irony wasn't lost on the Doctor, about how a Time Lord was requesting that which he ruled over.

After this regeneration was complete he would no longer be the properly skinny, pinstripe wearing man he is now. Sure, technically speaking, he was the same man he was over 900 years ago, and realistically this life's memories would still be there, but eventually they would fade and become nothing more than background noise in his complex mind. These memories would become fuzzy, and soon, they would only be called upon if he desired. In this regeneration the Doctor was rude, and not ginger, he was a man that didn't give second chances but, out of all of the qualities that this Doctor developed, the most important one of all was that he was a man who double heartedly belonged to an exquisitely pink and yellow human. A human that the Doctor never directly told how much he loved when he left her on that beach, not once, but twice, in Norway.

Realizing how alone he was and not wanting his last few moment to be consumed by writhing on the floor of the TARDIS the Doctor decided to visit his past companions, quickly searching their timelines for very specific instance where he could lend them a helping hand. He assured that Donna and her family would have an easy life for all the pain he caused them. For Mickey and Martha, he saved their lives. The Doctor was trying to atone for the time he felt he stole from the two, giving them the chance to could grow old together and have a family, something he could never really do. For Jack he gave the best gift he could, a number and a name for his very promiscuous, omnisexual friend. He did manage to successfully block the former Time Agent from hooking up with Rose after all, and with a shrug that was the best reasoning he could muster for that decision. He continued to visit various companions from all of his previous incarnations like Sara Jane Smith, her son and even one of Joan Redfern's descendants to see if she ended up happy after all of the trouble he caused her.

With all of these quick visits and the Doctor quickly deteriorating more and more he made sure that he saved the last of his remaining strength to see Rose, purposely saving her for last. Without a doubt, Rose needed to be the last thing he saw before this part of his life was over. He situated himself against a wall deep in the shadows on a cold, snowy, London road. He doubled checked and knew that Rose would cross his path if he stood in this very specific spot. The Doctor had decided that the perfect time to see her would be when she still didn't know his face, and in his condition she would think of him as nothing more than a bloke who had a little too much to drink taking a break on a dark street on his way home. New Year's Day, January 1st 2005, only a few months before his 9th self would change her life forever and eventually condemn the two of them to forcibly spend the rest of their lives apart in different dimensions.

When she came around the corner all he wished to do was run out and embrace the woman that had captured both of his hearts when he told her to run in that department store basement what felt like so long ago. He was breaking all of the rules just doing what he had been doing so he settled on a very short conversation and a cryptic, "Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a really great year."

After watching Rose's form disappear, The Doctor re-boarded the TARDIS one last time, giving the console a gentle pat he knew that in all of time and space the one companion that would be with him forever was his TARDIS, but he hoped that his future self wouldn't completely disregard the feelings he had developed for all of the people he met in this life, especially his beautiful Rose Tyler. As the internal burning increased, the light surrounding him began to reach a blinding level, his conciseness slowly faded to black. His final act in this form was a sad and final call out of, "I don't want to go."

Everything seemed to sit still, suspended, for what seemed like hours. The Doctor could no longer see the flow of the time stream, he couldn't feel the ground spinning 1,000 miles an hour, or the sensation of falling through space while clinging desperately to the place you planted your feet. He began to wonder if this is was simply what happened normally as the old consciousness faded and the new one took over. It was never really a philosophical subject he every actually considered before, but almost as suddenly as that thought entered his head the Doctor felt the flow of time shift. All of the normal sensations came flooding back, but the time stream was still wrong. It had started to shape itself into an odd pattern he was unfamiliar with and morphed into something similar to looking at a temporal anomaly mixed with a fixed point, but not quite. This was a feeling that was more like when he looked at Jack.

A sensation of being calm and complete washed over the Doctor before heaviness in his chest took over, his heartbeat was all wrong, it was much too slow. He was very confused by the sensations that were now taking over and breathing became harder. This really was nothing like how he felt when he regenerated last time, or any other time for that matter. When he felt like he could control his breathing better he let out a heavy sigh and attempted to test what he believed to be his fingers and toes. Opening and closing his very sluggish right hand the Doctor felt a soft, silk-like material slide around his digits and his left hand seemed to be tangled up in a mass of fine strings. Knowing he was not restrained gave him the courage to experiment a little more.

Tentatively the Doctor opened one eye, and then the other but found his vision blurry. On instinct he reached out to the right and grabbed a pair of glasses on a dark shape he assumed to be a night stand.

'Yes, night stand' he thought as he turned his head to the right after putting the glasses on.

Taking the time to try and figure out where he was, since the last thing he remembered was regenerating, the Doctor found himself on a large, fluffy pink bed in a highly ornate room. Upon further inspection he found that he was currently shirtless and, based on the sound of light snoring to his left, sharing the space with another being. Deciding to figure out what his left hand was tangled in, he took a hesitant look over and could hardly believe his eyes. Several blonde tendrils of hair were peeking out from under the large down comforter that was covering him, and the mystery person next to him. Not believing that any of this was real, the doctor cautiously pulled his hand away from the hair before gently ran his fingers though and smoothing down the mess he had made.

The Doctor then carefully pulled the covers down and was hit with a flood of memories that didn't belong to him. He remembered being the one to tell Rose that he loved her and watched himself, in brown pinstripes, walk away and finally fade with the grinding of the engine of the TARDIS. He still remembered being the one that left her on the beach so this was like he was sharing a body. But really this body was him and he had no idea who he should thank for this chance.

Letting out a disbelieving but happy laugh caused the woman next to him to stir. Flipping over on her side, she faced him and he was met with the last thing he ever expected to see again, his Rose lying sleepily next to him, her eyes bright and that beautiful smile gracing her lips.

Unable to contain his glee any longer the Doctor pounced on the unsuspecting blonde and quickly wrapped his arms and legs around her still drowsy form as he shouted out with glee, "Rose! My lovely, wonderful, amazingly fantastic Rose!"