Title: Release
Author: Fiction_Junkie (DarcyPride on )
Pairing: TenII/Rose
Rating: E
A/N: Regeneration Fic. I wrote this before WoM so no spoilers, just the obvious JE and DT's last episode spoilers.
Summary: The Doctor feels a disturbance in the force.
The doctor shot awake with a start. Pain had stolen into his average human dreams (Something about Rose and the toaster exploding). The jolt was enough to shake the bed when that blinding light had burst behind his eyes. If it hadn't been for the comfort of Rose's warm body lying cuddled next to his he would've thought he was worlds away on a lonely spaceship circling the time vortex. With that thought, realization dawned on him. He tried to clamp down the agony that escaped from his chest, but the fight was lost. Rose stirred, her hand instinctively finding his, "wa's wrong?" she mumbled, still half asleep. The Doctor was afraid to respond, afraid to speak for fear that whatever tenuous connection he had with his counterpart would be snapped if he tried to verbalize it.
The memory of the pain, an all too familiar pain (this was what? His eleventh time now?) echoed through him, a ghost of muscle memory from a former body. He fought the oncoming identity crisis. He was no longer himself and yet he was now the only him in existence. He sucked in large quantities of air, missing his former self's respiratory-bypass system, as he felt the connection sputter and fade until it was just a distant echo across time and space.
Through these several moments Rose's question had gone unanswered. She repeated it once more, worry etched on her now fully awake face. He needed to tell her, to measure her reaction, to find answers to his own questions about who he was in the involuntary response of her eyes. He shifted, now facing her, his nose only inches away from hers, their breath mingling in the scant space between them. He saw the worry in her eyes and a bolt of fear shot through him. He no longer had the real Doctor's face, one more link for Rose to lose. Would she reject him now? Still, he had to tell her.
"I've regenerated," perhaps he should have said "he" but that would be like telling her he wasn't the Doctor anymore. He wasn't even a copy of his former self any longer but he was still him. That realization sent his mind down too many paths of panic.
Rose's eyes widened before filling with tears. She reached a hand up to stroke his face. "You're sure?" she asked. He noticed how much effort it took for her to keep her voice calm. He simply nodded his response. The dam broke and the tears spilled over. He watched as grief wrote its story across Rose's face as she cried for yet another loss. Silence overtook the room, her hand felt lifeless against his cheek. His single heart raced, fear and pain and yes, grief too swamped him. Grief for a man that wasn't him but was him all at once.
After what seemed like an eternity lived out in just a few moments Rose spoke. "I'm glad it wasn't you, my Doctor." There was sadness and pain that she did not verbalize, the ache was too raw, tempered with a tinge of guilt, but her words set something free inside of him. They released him from the prison of his fear and uncertainty. He didn't know what his new counterpart looked like, didn't know what sort of man this new him was, but he knew himself now. He may never be The Doctor again, but he would always be Her Doctor. Somehow, that was enough.
