Hey there! Just a little oneshot that was keeping me awake tonight... Dashed it off and I really like it so hopefully you do too! Please read and review! Inspired by the English translation of "Vale Decem", Ten's regeneration theme.

Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who I wouldn't need to write fanfiction, now would I?

The Doctor awoke with a start, his single heart pounding wildly in his chest. A very faint sensation crept over his skin – like pins and needles, painful but numb simultaneously. It spread deeper, ghosting over muscle, bone and organs before settling into a slow, dull ache. A fuzzy picture erupted in his mind – the inside of the dark, empty TARDIS. His lone heart, still thumping wildly, sank. He knew what this meant.

A sleeping Rose lay next to him, curled into his side with her cheek pillowed on his chest. Although he was loathe to wake her, he knew this was not something he could endure alone. The Doctor brushed his lips against the top of her head, his whispered utterance of her name still gruff from sleep. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him groggily.

"S'matter?" she muttered, smoothing her hand down his side and cuddling closer. He took a deep breath, wondering whether telling her would actually be the right thing to do. After all, it had taken such a long time for her to fully trust him, and to accept that he was indeed an almost-clone of the Doctor she had known and loved for so long – the only differences were small ones; unimportant. But now, he was regenerating. Something had brought him to the brink of death, and he was finally relinquishing his hold on life. The human Doctor still possessed a measure of telepathy – almost entirely touch related, with only this final, tenuous link to his other self. The thought shook him, and he swallowed loudly. The tingling feeling intensified.

"I'm- he's- that is to say, the other me… He's regenerating. I can feel it," he said quietly, his voice hard with repressed emotion. Rose blinked once, twice, three times up at him, biting her pouting bottom lip with an unsure expression.

"You're not gonna…" she whispered slowly, rising up to lean on her elbow with a sudden, creeping panic edging into her voice. He shook his head quickly.

"No, of course not. I can't," the Doctor sighed, passing a hand over his face tiredly. "But I can feel him – I can see it. I can feel a distant echo of the regeneration – his cells are dying, starting to change. There's some kind of telepathic connection still lingering. I think he wants me to see. But why – oh," he trailed off. Rose gazed down him, desperately searching his dark eyes from something she could make sense of – this was far too much to compute after just waking.

"What? What is it? Why would he want you to see?" she pleaded, tears beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes. The heavy look in her Doctor's eyes was frightening her. The man in question looked at her, his gaze almost burning a hole in her very soul. He bit back a sob.

"He's alone. He found a way to open the connection so he won't be by himself when it happens. He-" Rose cut him off with a cry of her own, gathering him up into her arms and cradling him against her chest. His breath was ragged but no tears fell.

"Can you like, I dunno, tune me in too? I can't bear it if he's alone, I just can't. Not after everything."

"I don't-"

"Please, Doctor! You must be able to do something! Send him a message, tell him I'm here. That we're both here," she whispered, kissing his closed eyelids gently. The Doctor breathed deeply through his nose and extricated himself from Rose's embrace, sitting up and settling his large hands on either side of her head. He didn't open his eyes.

"It'll be like a fuzzy connection on a radio, okay? You won't be able to talk to him, but you'll be able to see what he sees, what he thinks. Once the regeneration happens I don't know what we'll see, just… It's nearly time."

Rose saw a tear finally slide down her own Doctor's cheek before another image appeared before her eyes, like a faulty picture on a television screen. Pictures flicked before her, seemingly out of sequence.

A man with white-blonde hair laughing, people clad in luscious red robes, a gun held out in front by a thin, pinstripe clad arm. The Doctor felt confusion and fear an indecision and self-hatred.

A woman with red hair in a wedding dress, bemoaning that someone bought her a lottery ticket for a wedding present. It was the Doctor Donna. She looked happy. The Doctor was happy for her, but melancholic.

An old man trapped in a glass case, rapping gently four times in sequence to ask for his release. The Doctor, momentarily elated, felt his stomach drop, his hearts stutter.

A Sontaran soldier keeling over, and two black clad figures in the distance waving wildly – Rose recognised one of them as Mickey. The other was Martha – they also looked happy, their joined hands a signal of their unity. The Doctor was truly happy.

The final images made Rose reach up to her temples and cover the Doctor's hands with her own, caressing him and letting her tears flow freely.

A young blonde headed towards a high rise flat in the snow, flakes settling gently in her hair. The girl conversed with someone in the shadows, light hearted and kind. The Doctor was in every kind of pain imaginable. The girl left and the Doctor watched her go. He stumbled towards his TARDIS, stopped briefly by an Ood who had no place on the Powell Estate. Heart-breaking words were spoken before the man in the suit finally entered his empty ship.

Rose could feel her own Doctor shaking just as clearly as she could feel the smothering loneliness of the other as he began to die. She heard a voice in her head whisper something in a language she now recognised but never speak or understand – Gallifreyan. A reply was made, and a wave of anguish swept through the other Doctor. She heard him speak his final words out loud to them (for she knew he knew they were with him) and to his empty TARDIS.

"I don't wanna go!"

Her mind exploded with a bright golden light and she knew he was gone – her new, new Doctor, gone forever. She broke the connection then, gently pulling her new, new, new human Doctor's hands away and gripping them tightly as he rode out the storm, his eyes screwed up and his mouth pressed into a hard line. She left him be for several minutes, simply stroking her small fingers against his palm to comfort him.

Eventually, his eyes opened and he stared at her, his expression unfathomable.

"He's okay. Bit manic, crashing the TARDIS as we speak, but the new him or, well, me, or… us is okay. He'll be fine. Still not ginger though, sadly," he said wistfully, a small smile playing on his thin lips. Rose blanched.

"What did he say to you? The new guy?" she asked.

"Thank you. That was all. I saw his mind – he's so much better now. He isn't going to pine after you, he's not going to pine after being slim and just a little bit foxy, he's happy for Donna, whatever happened… He's a mad man with a box and a lot of damage to do and worlds to save. I like him already," the Doctor grinned, his tongue touching the roof of his mouth. A wave of relief passed over Rose as she leaned across and kissed him.

"The connection is closed now," he explained as they lay back down, lying on their sides and facing one another. "He just didn't want to go alone. So much happened to him after we left… But he's at peace now, and I'm happy."

"Really? You just saw yourself… die!"

"I didn't die. I'm right here, with you. Are you okay?"

"Not in the slightest… And yet yeah. I just want you to hold me for a bit. I need to remember you're still here… At least he wasn't on his own. That's the main thing."

"Exactly. He wasn't alone."