A/N: This story contains major spoilers for the prequel minisode to the 50th Anniversary special. The title of this short refers to a line in the minisode, a line which is a Biblical quote (Luke 4:23) that has grown into a well-known proverb.
Will it hurt?
Yes.
Good.
Ohila hadn't been exaggerating. Drinking the Sister's elixir was like swallowing molten dwarf star alloy. The goblet slipped from his fingers, clattering forgotten to the floor. He staggered back a pace as the liquid fire seared down his throat.
For a moment that stretched into eternity, he wondered if something had gone wrong, that he was dying his final death.
Cass, I'm so sorry, he thought, eyes flickering to the corpse of the brave woman who had teleported everyone else from her failing ship, who had refused to save herself by trusting a Time Lord, no matter how he desperately he begged her to come with him, even in the last bitter seconds as they tumbled out of the sky and smashed into the ground.
As the pain coursed through him, her furious accusations flashed through his mind. Who could tell the difference between the Time Lords and the Daleks any longer, indeed? The Time War had become atrocities piled on horrors, an inescapable waking nightmare for the man dedicated to peace.
He called himself the Doctor.
And he was a good man.
But the universe didn't need a Doctor, anymore.
He'd taken the cup from Sister Ohila willingly, taking the potion she brewed to make him a warrior, a fighter, someone who could finally bring an end to the War, to restore peace and sanity. He had deserved Cass's disgust and repudiation, for the abomination his people had become. Their taint was his as well, for not getting involved before now. Ohila had been right; he could ignore the War no longer.
The deadly heat had spread to his hands - he could feel every cell burning, glowing with a brilliant golden light that danced before his eyes.
Was he to die, now?
NO!
The pain redoubled, filling his entire body; he felt a scream, or perhaps some more strangled sound, escape from his raw and burning throat.
If this was indeed regeneration, it was one far more agonizing than he'd ever experienced. Each and every cell in his body, every molecule, being torn apart, remade in fire. It seemed to last forever and a breath, but he couldn't even breathe. His hearts stuttered in their four beat rhythm.
He had been a good man, hadn't he?
The last coherent thought that flickered through his mind was an old saying he'd once heard somewhere, such a long time ago.
Demons run when a good man goes to war.