Prologue: Vale Decem

Vale Decem.

It was the End of Time. The end of his time.

Pulsing.

Pain.

Silence.

Pulsing.

That's all he heard, now and then in the blink of an eye, this moment of fear was the only real eternity this incarnation knew. Except that everything about himself was going to be lost in the streams of infinity. Ad aeternum... But ironically, it was all over.

All of it. His old life. His travels with that face and personality, clothes and that estuary accent, that self of his that abandoned all desire to simply be above others, in favor of sharing life with them. That self that enjoyed life on its own value. All gone in far less time than any other incarnation to enjoy being comfortable in his own skin. Now this life was ending for the Doctor; he was turning into a new man, before he could even be himself. A new man, he was certain would most certainly swagger off from his old life and would repeat all of the same mistakes as his previous selves, disregarding anything he learned in this life, ignoring the times he had as this person. However, it wasn't that he got to enjoy everything forever. More than any other faucet of the greater whole that is the Doctor, this side of him lost his companions more easily than any other. Eternity was not something he could ever afford to indulge in. The pain and the fear were so intense that a part of him hoped that this would be the end, that he would die then and there.

This was unusual; almost every time he regenerated, there was somebody there to comfort him - generally not preferred among Time Lords, most preferred to do it in the privacy of their homes. But they always had somebody to come back to, in the end. Not for him though. A part of him just wished that there was somebody there, just to wish that fate be with him. Di meliora. Someone, anyone even….

Not this time. Not for him. This time, not only was he alone, he basically had nobody to come back to. An almost complete reboot of his life, should he live long enough to continue it. His life seemed to be charmed, blessed by the Heaves above. Beati. But then again, it also felt extremely cursed...

Was he even going to survive this regeneration? It felt extremely unlikely. This time he felt himself being eaten, bit by bit. He only felt this way on Androzani Minor, in San Francisco, and later on Karn, and he barely survived either time. Maybe this time he wouldn't make it. But would that be so bad? Who was there to go back to? Only people who remembered his moral vanity, at this point. Yes, he did so much wrong his his latter years. Nothing he could do would ever atone for it. Maybe this time, the only thing he should do is allow death to claim him. Forever. Ad aeternum.

But then he heard a familiar voice in his head, several in fact all familiar all close to his hearts. Voices, telling him [i]You mustn't die Doctor! You mustn't! I love you!...Don't Die Doctor...Ye always told us, Doctor, that among the trillions of people in this universe, there is only one of each of us...Grandfather![/i]

[i]Rose, Sarah, Luna….Susan[/i] he thought. Rose would not want him to die now, nor Sarah Jane, Luna, or even his beloved Granddaughter. There would be far too many who would have delighted at his death - the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Sontarans, Davros, the Zygons, the Black Guardian, Rassilon, Fenric, the Angels, and the Mara. No, no...he couldn't! He couldn't let them rampage across the Universe! All those innocent people, who barely got to taste the sweetness of life! All of them who lived in peace, because he brought peace to them! Pacifici. He couldn't die! Not here, not now!

Hoping that he could not only live longer, but also stall his regeneration one last time, this time living what could be his last life not only correctly with all memories of his mistakes and all memories of how to atone, but also with this face and self he grew to dearly attached to, he told himself, in anticipation of an increasingly bleak hope. So many regrets so many sins left to atone for, one that he will still live with for the rest of his life. But the song was ending, the Ood and the entire Universe bidding him farewell, singing him sweetly to his sleep. Vale Decem.

The song was nearing completion, one more verse to go:

So bleak was his mind, so sad was his heart that the last words he spoke were a simple whimper: "I don't want to go!"

However, nothing he could say could change it. It was too late for that, to keep going on as this self. He was going to go. Vale decem...It was now the End of Time for the man who regrets.

However, it wasn't too late to live...

He felt his face began to sear with a scorching heat, his body being devoured by its own inferno. The burning began to reach his hand, and reluctantly inspecting it, he saw that it was all over already. He was losing his own essence as he could see and feel it. The searing heat devoured his body, eating away at every inch of it, until he could not feel anything, but pain.

The radiation from his body burst out, heating the air around it, and causing the organic whorls of the TARDIS to fall apart, the windows bursting to pieces, as the RNA in his body rapidly suppressed previously active genes in every cell, and unleashing new ones, renewing his body entirely. It was actively being remade cell by cell.

Every part of him was turning itself inward and outward, leaving his whole body in excruciating agony. He could not stop himself from shrieking out his pain, and as he did so, a new voice began to crack through….

He was now a new man….A new life...and a new beginning in the ongoing story.

A new Doctor.

"And still not ginger!"