Even if I change it feels like dying. Everything I am dies, a new man goes sauntering away.

And I'm dead.

Damn you Wilfred Mott. Damn you for being so wonderfully human. If you hadn't saved that man, I wouldn't have to regenerate. If you hadn't been the very best of humanity. The very best.

Radiation poising, not the most dignified way to go, but at least it gives me time. Possibly the longest regeneration I'll ever have to go through... my body is fighting the poisoning even now.

So I go to claim my reward.

I visit Mickey and Martha, they've gotten married. I save them from a Sontaran, Mickey calls out. I can't bring myself to reply. I'd only get talking... cling to them in the hopes that they'll ground me somehow.

I save Luke, Sarah Jane's son from getting hit by a car.... and I wave, even manage a smile. Sort of. She smiles back. Does she know? Probably, Sarah was always clever and for a moment I know that even when I change, I'll still be Sarah Jane's Doctor... no matter what I look like.

Jack's drinking his sorrows away in some alien cantina. I pass him a note introducing him to Midshipman Frame. "His name is Alonso." Alons-y to the both of you. Jack salutes me, and I think of Wilf again.

I meet Joan's great granddaughter at a book signing... she's published a book based on John Smith.... on my journal. "A journey of impossible things". I hear her explaining that it was based on a true story, that her great grandmother fell in love with a man from space. When it gets to me all I can ask is, I tell her my name and she looks at me with realisation.

"Was she happy? At the end." She was.

"Were you?" I simply smile.

And then.... finally, I see Jackie and Rose Tyler. New Year's Eve.... Rose lecturing her mum not to stay out all night.

"Try and stop me," She replies. I grin despite myself. Good ol' Jackie. They walk by, the tall man in the suit in the shadows goes unnoticed to them..... probably a good thing, otherwise I'd look creepy.

Time to go.

But before I can, the radiation finally becomes too much and the pain racks through my body.

"Are you alright?" Rose calls out,

"Yeah" I reply,

"Too much to drink?" She teases gently

"Something like that."

We part ways... but part of me can't let her go that easy. The part with big ears and a shaved head and a leather jacket.

"What year is it?"

"Blimey, how much have you had?" She asks "January 1st 2005"

"I bet you're going to have a really great year."

Then, I return to the TARDIS. The one companion who will never leave me. Ood Sigma offers me a song to help ease the pain. The entire universe sings in my head. It helps a little.

"This song is ending. But the story never ends." I'm ready.

And as I return home, taking the TARDIS into orbit, knowing this regeneration will be a violent one not so much internally as externally. That amount of radiation expelling will be like a bomb going off and as I stand alone in my TARDIS ready to face the change I realize one thing...

"I don't wanna go..."