Chapter II: Regeneration

"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
–Albus Dumbledore–
–Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone–

Captain's Log
STARDATE 50685.2

The Dominion has been disturbingly quiet recently. With Gul Dukat in charge of the large systems of Cardassia, now a part of the even larger Dominion, I halfway expected more trouble than usual from him. However, our luck appears to be holding…for now.

Quiet days on the Federation Space Station Deep Space 9 were few and far between and usually were a precursor some sort of trouble from the Dominion. But, like Captain Sisko had said, the Federation's luck appeared to be holding.

Well, that was about to change.

Captain Sisko was in Ops, looking around at the controls. Only he, Lieutenant Jadzia Dax and Chief Miles O'Brien were present. Both of the officers were at their respective stations. Commander Worf was on the Defiant, making a standard search around the perimeter. He would be back the next day. Major Kira was in the holodeck, running a battle simulation against the Jem'Hadar, but only a comm-call away.

"Benjamin," said Jadzia Dax, the station's science officer. Worry was etched across her beautiful face. "Something's coming through the wormhole."

"Are you sure, old man?" he asked her.

"Yes, it's very small, probably only a few meters long at most." Her head snapped up. "Possibly a probe." At over three hundred years old and eight lifetimes, Jadzia Dax was spiritually old, although physically she was only in her twenties.

The wormhole spilled open, the lights of the Celestial Temple a splash of vibrant blue color against the inky cold blackness of space. Out of those lights came a dark blue box, a small blot against the background of undulating white lights.

"Magnify."

The blue box was magnified. White markings were across the top but Sisko couldn't see exactly what was written. It spun, silently and slowly.

"Life signs?"

Jadzia's fingers danced across her board. "It's hard to tell. The box has chroniton particles emanating from it and its physical structure doesn't seem to be all there. Hold on." More buttons were pressed. "I've got it. One humanoid life sign aboard, very weak. There's another life sign registering as well, but it seems to be part of the box."

"Can we beam it on board?"

Jadzia nodded. "It's possible. It's a little over two meters tall, so it should fit safely on the transporter."

"I've got it, Captain," said O'Brien. "It'll be here in a few minutes. I'm having to adapt the transporter for it." A faint shape started to appear on the transporter pad.

Sisko slapped his commbadge. "Doctor Bashir, Odo, please report to Ops on the double. Doctor, bring your emergency kit, we may have wounded."

"Aye, Captain, coming," came the response from Bashir.

"On my way," came the gravelly response from Odo.

"Major Kira, please report to Ops."

A grunt answered his call, followed by, "Yes, Captain." And the signal cut off.

As Bashir, Kira, and Odo appeared in the lift, the blue box fully materialized in a haze of golden sparkles. Written on the top, in English, of all languages, were the words "Police Public Call Box." Puzzled, Sisko reached up to push the entrance open, but it wouldn't give. He stood back as Bashir stepped forward with his tricorder.

"I'm reading one life sign just on the other side of the door, if that's what it really is."

Everyone started as the door suddenly opened and a figure spilled out. He was wearing what appeared to be late nineteenth or early twentieth century wear, with a glittery fabric melted into the outfit. His long, light brown hair was matted to his head and blood dripped from his burned face and hands. More blood flowed from his right side, leaking through his long, pale fingers.

He seemed to assess his surroundings before focusing on Bashir.

"Help me," he whispered. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed.

"Whoa!" Gently, Bashir caught the man before he hit the ground, thankful for the swiftness caused by his genetic enhancements of long ago. He scanned the man and his eyes widened in shock.

"Two hearts, binary vascular system. Damage done to secondary heart by some kind of energy blast. Second and third degree burns to the face and hands." He jumped as a wave of golden energy appeared under the man's facial skin. "That's weird."

The man gasped, coming back to consciousness. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, the skin around his cracked lips bleeding anew.

"Relax," murmured Bashir. "You're onboard the Federation Space Station Deep Space Nine. We're trying to help. Do you understand me?" This last part was said in the hope that the stranger understood Federation standard and that two word phrase wasn't a fluke, or at least understood Bashir's soothing tone.

The man bobbed his head, and opened to mouth to say something, but his body arched up in pain before he collapsed again. Bashir's tricorder began beeping wildly.

"His other heart's destabilizing! I need to get him to sickbay! Chief!"

"Got it!" O'Brien's fingers moved with precision as he locked the transporter on the two and beamed them into sickbay.

As soon as he rematerialized, Bashir began barking out orders at high speed. The Bajoran nurses flew around, trying to save the alien's life, but to no avail. They moved him into a side room, where Sisko and the rest of the senior staff could watch in safety. Kira slid in silently next to Dax. The heart monitor that was regulating the primary heart continued to drop.

Once again, the man awoke.

"Keep still, we're doing what we can," said Bashir, but the man grabbed his arm. He struggled to speak, but his words were comprehensible.

"Listen to me," he said, blood gathering at the corners of his mouth. When Bashir tried to pull away, he tightened his grip. "Listen to me!" Once he was sure he had Bashir's attention, he continued. "I'm dying. I know that. There's nothing you can do to stop it." His voice had the lilt of a cultured Englishman, but the blood made him sound like he had cotton in his mouth.

"Don't have that attitude!" said Bashir.

The man grinned. "Trust me, I'm not." He looked around at the Bajoran nurses and doctors. "You need to get everyone out of here."

"But–"

"Now! Just do it!" He let go as a wave of golden energy surged through him again.

Bashir was ready to argue until he saw the man's eyes. They were a blue-green, far older than the dying face they were set in. But they were also confident. Whatever was happening to this man, he knew what the results would be and that they wouldn't fail.

"Everyone out!" barked Bashir.

"Sir?" asked one of the nurses.

"That's an order! Get with Captain Sisko!"

The nurses scrambled to obey.

"You too, Doctor," said the man. "I don't want any chance of the energy backlash killing you. Rassilon knows I've been responsible for enough deaths today." He groaned as the mysterious golden energy showed itself again. It was getting harder and harder to hold the regeneration back. If he chose not to regenerate now, the energy explosion alone would kill anybody on this station.

Bashir was shocked, but he put aside his personal beliefs for now. This man was a patient and, murderer or victim, he was to be treated fairly and his last wishes honored.

"Go! Just go!"

Bashir scrambled out and practically ran to Sisko's side.

"You're just going to let him die?" asked Kira incredulously.

Bashir shrugged. "He threw me out. I can't treat a person who refuses treatment. At least we've still got audio feed though." He thumbed a switch. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," came the response. "Is everyone out?"

"Yes."

"Good. I promise, I'll answer all your questions in just a few minutes. See you then."

In silence, the crew watched as the man stumbled to his feet, though they didn't why. He took a deep breath and the crew jumped as he threw his head back and arms out and suddenly erupted into pure golden light streaming out his arms and upward from his head. As they watched, they heard the already ripped cloth tear as the man's body appeared to grow longer and thinner. The long, curly brown hair regressed into his skull to a few short centimeters and changed color from light brown to jet black. His nose changed from straight to a noticeable beak and his ears extended outward. A small Adam's apple formed on his previously smooth throat.

On the walls and ceiling, black burn marks appeared and Bashir saw why the man had told him to get out. If he'd still been in there, he would have easily been incinerated by the blast. With a twang of his heart, Bashir noticed that the equipment that had been in the room was being turned to black dust before his eyes. Starfleet Medical wouldn't be happy about that.

Finally, the golden light cut off and the "new" stranger panted heavily. Now slate-blue eyes scanned the room in confusion before shaking his head and coughing.

"Ouch, that always hurts," came across the speaker. But it wasn't the same voice. Rather than sounding like an Englishman, now he sounded slightly Scottish. And his voice had dropped about half an octave. "Mm, let's see, teeth are the same. Hands are bigger, that'll take some getting used to." He tried to step forward and almost tripped over his feet. "And I'm taller too. A lot taller. I'll have to remember to duck through the doorway now." He sighed audibly. "You can come back in now, it's safe."

Cautiously, Bashir stepped inside the room.

"Hello!" said the man cheerfully, smiling at the Starfleet and Bajoran crew. He managed to sit down without falling and only vaguely noticed that while he was sitting down, he was almost eye-to-eye with Bashir. Yep, at least four inches taller.

"You don't look the same," said Bashir, frowning.

The man waved a now larger hand and stared at it in fascination. "Huh." His attention snapped back to Bashir. "Just a technicality. Actually, if you'll scan me, you'll find I'm in tip-top condition. Fantastic, huh?"

Bashir did so and his eyes widened. "Your secondary heart's been fully repaired, and your cellular structure has been reorganized. Matter of fact, it's still reorganizing itself." He looked up. "It's like you were just born."

"Regenerated, actually. Specialty of my species. Nice little trick to avoid death, don't you think?" His eyes sparkled with a sad joy.

"Yes, very nice," said a deeper voice.

The man grinned. "Hello to you too!" He stuck out a hand. "I'm the Doctor, who're you?"

"Captain Benjamin Sisko."

"Nice to meet you, Captain."

"I didn't catch a last name. Doctor Who?"

The Doctor grinned. "Exactly."

Sisko sighed, but let it pass. "You've met Doctor Bashir. This is the rest of my staff. Major Kira Nerys–"

"Are you related to Romana?" the Doctor asked.

"Who?"

"Old friend, bitter enemy, depending on who you ask. Just making sure."

"My head of security, Constable Odo–"

"Ah, shapeshifter, always a perk of your job, eh?"

Odo, startled at this deep observation, simply nodded.

"My Chief of Operations, Miles O'Brien–"

"Ah, an Irish man. I remember back in 1257, or was it 1342, can't ever remember. Met a chap named O'Brien. You look just like him."

"And my science officer, Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax."

"Dax? Is that you? Wow! You look even better than ever! Which body are you in now, your fifth? No, sixth?"

Dax's forehead creased. "I'm sorry, do I know you? Knew you?" she corrected.

The Doctor frowned. "Mm, guess not. Then again, I did look a bit different. I've gone through quite a few regenerations since then. Maybe you remember a young man, big scarf, big hair too, offered you a unique sweet?"

Dax stared at him, then began to sputter. "I can't – you can't – I thought he – you were him?!"

"What's going on?" asked Sisko. Rarely had he seen the aloof Trill demoted to sputtering.

"When I was Emony, my third host, I was in a gymnastics tournament. This young man was there, with a young woman and he offered me a small red candy! Oh, what was it called? A Jelly Belly! The woman couldn't stop laughing. And the scarf he had was huge! It looked like someone had forgotten when to stop knitting!"

The Doctor blushed slightly. "Yeah, well, that salesman told me it looked good with my skin tone. I'm sure it's still in the TARDIS somewhere."

"The what?" asked Kira.

"TARDIS. T-A-R-D-I-S. Stands for 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space'." He looked thoughtfully at Dax. "Do you still like Jelly Bellies?" he asked her.

"Too sweet for me," she replied. "And this is my eighth host now," she added.

The Doctor snapped his fingers. "Missed."

But Kira wasn't to be distracted. "So, you're a time traveler?" she asked him.

"Usually. I just came out of a big war, so I'm not inclined to travel right now. Matter of fact, I actually need to sleep for the next, say, twenty-four hours, at least. Allows my body to finish working its magic."

Now that he had stopped talking, they could see how tired he really was. Also, he suddenly hiccupped, and a wisp of golden energy came out of his mouth.

"Sorry. Leftover cellular energy. More an annoyance than anything else."

Sisko sighed. "Very well. Doctor Bashir will check on you every hour, make sure you're okay."

"Mm-hm, okay, I'll just go to sleep now." And true to his word, he settled onto the biobed and fell asleep almost instantly.

Bashir threw a blanket over him. "Computer, lights off," he whispered. The lights dimmed to the point of almost non-existence, casting the Doctor in shadow. Quietly, the DS9 staff walked out of the room and shut the separating door.

"What do you think of him?" Sisko asked his crew.

"I don't know, Captain, he could be a Dominion spy," answered Odo immediately.

Bashir shook his head. "At first, I too thought he might be a Changeling. Then I noticed his blood." He held up a vile with some of the man's blood in it. It was slowly turning black. "If this was Changeling blood, it would have already turned golden, not black. This was from when he came in." He poured it out into a sample dish and put it under a microscope. "Amazing!" He pulled out another vial, this one still bright red. "I slipped this while he was talking." Again, he poured and studied it. Finally, he moved to a large screen.

"Here's what human DNA looks like," said Bashir. A two dimensional version of it appeared on the screen.

"That's all well and good, Doctor, but he's not human. For that matter, neither am I," said Kira.

"True, but human and Bajoran blood are similar enough for this explanation. This is his blood before." Another genetic template appeared, this one with more strings packed closely together. "And now." A copy of the second template appeared, but as they watched, another string was wound into the DNA cord. "From this, I can tell you he's done that regeneration thing about eight times before now."

"He goes to the point of death," mused O'Brien. "Then, just as he's dying, he, what, is reborn?"

"Yes," said Bashir. "And that's what else is so interesting. The blood shows that the previous incarnation, if you will, was only about a decade old. The oldest, or should I say, the original template, looks hundreds of years old. I can't tell you for certain. There's some kind of chroniton particles that are fused with his DNA. The computer can't tell exactly what kind, but it is a variance of the ones we recognize from temporal rifts and the like. I'll have to run more tests to be sure."

"I don't think he's a threat," said Sisko. He turned to Odo. "But just in case, keep an eye on the box."

"Of course, Captain," said Odo stiffly, as though stung from the Captain's words.

And now the Doctor's on board. I wondered why the Jack was so stubborn on getting the Doctor into the TARDIS at the end of "The Stolen Earth" and this was my way of saying what would happen if he wasn't. In my humble opinion, only the TARDIS could stand the massive energy outflow without being severely damaged like the sickbay room in this story. Speaking of which, the ending was all right. It could've been worse, I suppose. (Sigh) At least, for now, RTD is safe from my finding him and hanging him upside down by his toenails while I disembowel him. Come to think of it, that's probably why he's leaving. Huh.

I hope to get some reviews with this chapter. If not, it'll be a while before I update. I'm trying to finish up two other stories, one of which has been hanging since the end of January. Please feel free to check those out, one of which is the last in a series, just to caution you. The next part is up to y'all.