Author's Note: Hello again ! :) I'm back with another regeneration chapter. This one is about The Tenth Doctor's first regeneration from the episodes, 'The Stolen Earth' and 'The Journey's End'. I hope you all enjoy it. Please, please, please leave a review and possibly favorite or follow this story. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Regeneration.

As The Doctor and Donna exited the TARDIS, they looked around, looking for other people. Finding none, Donna simply said, "Like a ghost town."

She wasn't far off. Abandoned cars were everywhere on the roads, shops were broken into, and all sorts of things were scattered across the roads and sidewalks.

"Sarah Jane said they were taking the people. What for?" asked The Doctor, before turning toward Donna. "Think, Donna. When you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say?"

"Just, 'the darkness is coming.'" she answered.

"Anything else?" he asked calmly, but with panic and worry etched all over his face.

Donna just looked around some more, about to answer until she saw something behind The Doctor. Or rather, someone. "Why don't you ask her yourself?" she said.

The Doctor just looked at her, his panic and worry replaced with confusion. Donna just continued to look over his shoulder. He turned around, following her gaze.

His hearts stopped.

He dared not to believe his eyes. He couldn't. It was impossible. But there she was.

Rose.

He saw her smiling at him, her joy at seeing her Doctor again reaching unimaginable heights. He just stood there with his eyes wide open. The rational part of his brain knew that this was bad. Very bad. She couldn't be here. Her being here meant that there was a breach in time and space. But the rational part of his brain was quickly being drowned out by the sudden flood of emotions he was feeling just by looking at her. Joy, happiness, relief, and . . . love. At this moment, he did not care in the slightest about the ramifications of her being here.

Not. One. Bit.

She continued to smile at him before she started running towards him. His feet seemed to have suddenly possessed a mind of their own because now, he was running towards her as well. As they ran, their happiest, most ridiculous smiles quickly became plastered onto each of their faces. Their exhilaration at having found each other again was monumental. He had missed her each and every day. Every single day, every moment, every second, with every beat of his hearts, he racked his brain, over and over, thinking that there might be some way that he could reach her, touch her, and see her again. He knew that it was impossible, well, almost impossible, apparently. But that never stopped him from trying. He would never stop trying to find her again.

And he had. He had finally found her. The Doctor remembered all those times they had ran together, with him watching her laugh and smile. And now, they were running towards each other. It was in this moment, he promised himself that nothing would ever keep them apart from each other again. Nothing!

And then suddenly . . .

"EXTERMINATE!"

A flash of light erupted from nowhere, grazing The Doctor in the shoulder. In that moment, when the beam struck him, part of his skeleton could be seen before the light vanished, and The Doctor fell to the ground.

Donna gasped as she watched him fall. Suddenly, Captain Jack Harkness appeared in a flash, with a giant laser gun and fired it at the hidden Dalek, which exploded into oblivion. Rose continued to run, horrified at seeing her love fall. She then kneeled down to The Doctor, holding his hand.

"I've got you!" she exclaimed as she looked into those deep, brown eyes that she missed. "I've missed you." she said. "Look, it's me."

"Rose." he gasped as he smiled. He desperately tried to keep his eyes open, to see her again. But his eyelids felt like they weighed a ton.

"Hi." she said.

"Long time, no see." he joked. Despite the current setting and circumstances, The Doctor couldn't help but show off his sense of humor. Rose, similarly, couldn't help but grin at what he said.

"Yeah. Been busy, you know." she answered with a slight tremor in her voice.

Suddenly, The Doctor gasped in pain. "Don't die!" she exclaimed. "Please don't die. Oh, my gosh please don't die." Rose begged as he continued to grunt from the pain he was feeling.

"Get him into the TARDIS, quick! Move!" Jack ordered as he quickly picked up the gun that Rose had brought with her, now having a weapon in each hand, as Rose and Donna held The Doctor by his arms and dragged him toward the blue police box.

Once inside, they placed The Doctor onto the ground as he continued to grunt in pain.

"What – what do we do?" Donna asked as she started to go hysterical with worry. "There must be some medicine or something." she continued, not knowing how lethal a Dalek's laser blast is or what was about to happen.

Rose knew, however, but she wouldn't move. She was in shock. She had blown a hole in the universe just to see him again. She had just got him back, she was so close, and in just one moment, that Dalek had ripped her Doctor away from her. It wasn't fair! There was nothing she could do. But for now, she was determined to have one last, good look at the person she loved most because soon, he would be gone. Forever.

"Just step back." Jack said as he placed the weapons on the two seats near the TARDIS console.

Seeing that she wasn't doing what he said, Jack firmly said, "Rose, do as I say and get back. He's dying," he continued, "and you know what happens next."

Rose then started to tear up, still not believing that this was happening.

"What do you mean?" Donna asked, her voice completely possessed with panic and worry.

"But he can't." Rose told Jack, her tears now flowing freely. "Not now, I came all this way." she whispered, her voice shaking, as she kept looking at her Doctor, who continued to grunt as his face contorted in pain.

"What do you mean? What happens next?" Donna kept asking Jack.

The Doctor then held up his right hand, staring at it. Rose looked at it as well, and they both saw that his hand had begun to glow with a familiar golden light and shimmering sound.

"It's starting." The Doctor gasped, before resuming his pained grunts.

"Here we go!" Jack exclaimed before taking Rose and Donna by their arms, pulling them away from The Doctor. "Good luck, Doctor." he stated, before The Doctor gripped the console and began to drag himself into a standing position.

"Will somebody please tell me what is going on?!" Donna screamed, slightly irritated that no one was answering her questions.

"When he's dying, his, uh, his body, it – it repairs itself – it changes." Rose answered as she sobbed. "But you can't!" she cried, begging him to please, please find another way.

"I'm sorry." he apologized. His pain was beyond comprehension. Not his physical pain, but his emotional pain. He couldn't believe that after everything that he had done for the universe, for billions, perhaps trillions, of people and planets he saved, that it would end like this. To be so close to the woman that he loved, then to suddenly be ripped away from her. He had never, not once, in all of his lives, asked for anything in return. And now, just when he thinks he's found true happiness, it was taken from him.

"It's too late." he continued, breathing heavily as he spoke. It was almost time, only seconds away now. "I'm regenerating." The Doctor exclaimed before he fully straightened up and the light burst from his hands and head, with his companions quickly covering their eyes from the bright and intense light.

It took every ounce of willpower for him to not scream. Regeneration had always been painful, but now, in conjunction with his emotional turmoil, it was unbelievable. But he still kept silent, for Rose's sake. She did not need to her the man she loved most, cry out in agony.

"Is this what he felt like?" thought The Doctor in his pain, thinking about The Master. Thinking about how he had been forced to listen to him shriek in despair, back in the year 100,000,000,000,000. About how The Master had regenerated from old Professor Yana, to the youthful and charismatic Harold Saxon. This must have been what it felt like. In that moment, The Doctor couldn't help but feel a small amount of sympathy for his dead enemy.

As he felt himself being healed, he noticed a futuristic looking container with a blue liquid bubbling inside of it. He also noticed that in that container was a hand. No, not just any hand. His hand! The one that had been cut off during the invasion of the Sycorax, before he regrew a new hand, due to him still being within the first fifteen hours of his regeneration. It had fallen to Earth, where Jack had somehow found it.

At that moment, pure, wild, uncontained joy spread throughout The Doctor. With extreme effort, he turned and pointed both his hands and his head towards the jar containing his old hand. The hand suddenly seemed to become a magnet for energy, as the golden regeneration energy rushed towards and into the jar, which increased its bubbling to a very audible level. The energy continued to speed toward the container for approximately eight seconds for it finally stopped.

The Doctor then stumbled back looking . . . exactly the same?

"Now then, where were we?" he asked himself, his eyes wide with surprise. He wasn't entirely sure that would work, but he was extremely glad it did. Rose, Donna, and Jack just looked at him with their eyes wide open. Jack and Rose were very confused. Not that they were complaining, but why hadn't he changed his appearance?

Noticing their confusion, The Tenth Doctor got down on the floor, grinning as he did so, to the container holding his hand, golden energy still softly swirling around it.

"There now." he began, before softly blowing away the energy from the jar as it dissipated into thin air. "You see?" he continued with a smile, before going into a kneeling position. "Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but as soon as that was done, I didn't need to change. I didn't want to. Why would I? Look at me." he explained before straightening his tie. "So to stop the energy going all the way, I siphoned off the rest to a handy bio-matching receptacle. Namely, my hand. That hand there." gestured The Doctor. "My handy spare hand." he joked, before turning to Rose.

"Remember? Christmas Day, Sycorax? Lost my hand in a sword fight. That's my hand. What do you think?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't be scared like last time.

"You're still you?" she asked as she stepped towards him.

"I'm still me." he answered simply, with the beginnings of a grin appearing on his face.

Rose paused for a moment before she threw herself towards The Doctor, giving him the biggest hug she could muster. The Doctor responded with equal enthusiasm.

At long last, they were together again. Though they still had the Dalek invasion to deal with, right in now, in this moment, they were the two happiest people in the universe. They both had gone through so much pain, turmoil, and despair. But it was all worth it. Every last moment.

Thus continued the life of The Tenth Doctor.

Author's Note: I hope you all liked it. :) Please feel free to leave a review.

WARNING ! SPOILER'S AHEAD FOR 'THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR'.

I just wanted to let you guys know that due to The Eleventh Doctor gaining a new regeneration cycle, this story will continue until the Doctor Who show ends. Which is probably gonna mean that after I post the chapter about The Eleventh Doctor's regeneration, I probably won't be updating until The Twelfth Doctor regenerates into The Thirteenth Doctor and so on. I hope you all bear with me for the next few years. LOL ! Well, see ya'll later. ALLONS-Y !