I stood there, frozen in place, for what seemed like an eternity. It was difficult for me to comprehend what was happening. I had expected to feel the jolt of the extermination blast flowing through myself, but instead I stood frozen in horror, when the Doctor had jumped in front of me, taking the blast for himself. He fell to the ground instantly.

Once I could comprehend what was happening, I called out, "Doctor!" and ran over to him, bewildered as to why he would deliberately jump in front of the extermination beam that was meant for me. "Why would you—"

I stopped when he grabbed my arm firmly, eyes wide with a swirling amount of urgency. The hand that griped my arm glowed faintly orange with the regeneration energy, surging from the molecular explosion now starting to occur throughout his body. "Daleks…we have to get back to the Tardis," he said, breathing heavily.

Daleks, I remembered, glancing to my sides to see that there were still daleks around us. I cringed as Davros' voice echoed throughout the ship.

"WHAT! I said exterminate her, not him!" he cried, seemingly losing his sanity for a moment (Well, losing it even more). "What are you all standing around for!? EXTERMINATE HER!"

Cries of "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" echoed throughout the dalek ship.

The Doctor pointed in the direction of the tardis. "Run!" he exclaimed, pushing me towards the corridor, as the daleks advanced.

But, I jumped back, and grabbed his arm, pulling him up off the floor. Not without you I don't, I thought to myself and said, "You risked your life for me once, I'm not gonna let you do it again!" I tugged him along behind me as energy beams blasted the white walls on all sides of us, turning them a dark grey.

He ran quickly beside me as we were nearly at the Tardis, but I could see that each step he took was painful, as his body was starting to prepare for the regeneration process, and the cells in his body were rearranging and deleting themselves slowly to form new ones.

We flew through the Tardis door, and I shut them quickly behind us, ignoring the annoyed outbursts of the angered daleks. I led the Doctor over to the console saying, "we have to get out of here," as he fell against the console, fingers sliding awkwardly across the controls, frantically trying to control the ship. This continued for a moment in an uncomfortable silence, as the Tardis groaned in response to landing, where I presumed was Gallifrey.

He fumbled with a last switch, falling to the floor. I grabbed him and attempted to stand him upright again. The orange glow in his hands returned again, except this time brighter, and I saw a hint of the same glow reflected all throughout his skin.

He looked at me with a wide eyed and almost pleading look. "I'm sorry," was all he said.

"It's… okay…" I lied awkwardly because the truth was, it was very far from okay. It was in fact so far away from okay that I had to stop thinking about its not-okay-ness or else I would break down into a huge crying fit, and I really didn't prefer to do that; at least not at the present time, and not in front of the Doctor.

But the Doctor did not respond to me, just continued to give me that sad, pleading, hopeless look. Then, he pushed away from my grasp as the energy inside him grew stronger and brighter. I could feel the heat radiating from the regeneration energy, and covered my eyes, as it finally exploded inside him. All the molecules in the Doctor body were rearranged, deleted, and simultaneously re-created, as the orange glowing energy burst out of him. I uncovered my eyes, as I watched his face transform into a different one, as this man who had once been the Doctor died, and a new, unknown one was born.

Suddenly the energy stopped bursting out of his body, and the new Doctor stood in front of me. He was old, his face full of wrinkles, and his hair gray and short, along with has small gray beard and whiskers. He looked out of place in the young man's Victorian England style attire, though it wasn't too big or too small. When I looked into his dark brown eyes, I could see his age, seemingly more than before; however old his body looked, his eyes looked centuries older, seemingly displaying all that he had seen and down within his many years. Those wise old eyes looked at me sadly, yet I saw determination and strength in them, behind the sad look, similar, yet different, to the one he had given me in his last regeneration.

When he spoke, a fittingly gravelly, low tone filled the room. "The war will start now," he said simply, "There is nothing I can do to stop it." Though his deep, gravelly voice did not convey it, I saw a hint of regret in his now determined eyes.

I did not know how to respond to this new Doctor; my old Doctor was lost and would never return. I did however feel the pit in my stomach become bottomless and endless as his words were processed in my mind. War, I thought, with daleks. I tried to form words, tried to tell him that he was supposed to have stopped this from happening, hasn't he saved other worlds like this before; and can't we do something, anything, to stop this? But, I couldn't. The words were stuck in my mouth, and I could feel them falling into the bottomless pit of fear. I could see my Doctor's face, telling me 'I'm sorry' with a painful, hopeless look in his eyes, in my mind. I could only swallow loudly, trying to regain my composure.

"We have to fight," the Doctor said, furrowing his brow in determination, "I have to fight, stop them from taking our Gallifrey; from taking control of time."

I tried to feel comforted by these words, at the now determined Doctor; but, I could only feel the already endless pit inside me growing, as I thought of my people in a war against daleks.

War. The implications of the word floated around in my mind, trying, yet failing, to grasp at a coherent thought. War


A/N: The new Doctor is indeed John Hurt's DOctor as seen the end of "The Name of the Doctor." Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! See you in the next chapter!