A/N: Geez this ended up a lot more depressing than I thought it would be…Hope you enjoy~
It was over.
He pulled himself back into the TARDIS, every moment of the past years passing through his mind.
He had just lost Sarah Jane, Martha, Mickey, Jack, Donna, and Jackie for a second time.
He had had lost the love of his life for a third time—this time, she didn't even know who he was. He couldn't have visited her in the parallel world; he had to visit her here. But he wanted her to be the last person he saw, and when she didn't recognize him, it broke him. He knew she wouldn't. But it had taken all he had not to walk over and finish the sentence he had not yet started, but the one that he had never finished, as himself, anyway.
He lost them all.
And this time he knew for sure there would be no going back.
To any of them.
He knew he was slowly edging towards regeneration, and his throat seemed to have constricted as he walked slowly around the TARDIS, sending himself into the Vortex.
He had lost so many of them, and now, if he visited them again, it would mess up their lives, or bring back too many memories.
They were happy where they were, and here he was again, alone.
The last Time Lord in existence, once again completely and utterly alone.
"I don't want to go."
And he truly didn't.
He loved everything and everyone from this regeneration. He couldn't turn to someone else. As soon as he regenerated, everything from the past few years would be from a different man, with different quirks, looks, thoughts. He would simply be looking on someone else's memories. Because that's what it always felt like, at first. It didn't matter how much pain he had gone through in this body. He had grown attached to this life. It had slowly begun to feel as if this was the regeneration he was destined for—he was at ease in it. No matter what happened, who or what he lost, he was always able to go on with his life, without forgetting them.
And though it was horrible to go on and not be able to talk to any of them, it would be worse to lose this life. He was comfortable with these emotions, memories, hopes, thoughts. And they would all be wiped away.
But as he saw the gold glow surround his hands, he knew that he was kidding himself. It was all going to be gone soon.
And when his arms shot out, his head falling back, he could think of only one thing.
If he couldn't keep this life, he didn't want anything to remind him of it. He didn't want to be reminded of all those he had loved and lost in this regeneration, including this life. Thinking about it, the memories being brought up, it would break him.
He had to start over.
So when the TARDIS began crashing down all around him, he gave the instruction that when it fixed itself, as it always did, he didn't want the old control room. It, along with the rooms of every companion from this life, the ones he had kept near the front of the machine just in case, would be hidden, where he could find it only if he needed to, if he was regenerating and wanted somewhere that would remind him of ones loved, or if his life depended on it.
He needed a new start. A new body. A new TARDIS.
Things that wouldn't allow him to dwell on all that he loved and lost.
Maybe his new TARDIS, his new body, his new quirks, would allow him to forget.
Even if only for a little while.
It would be relief.