One of the most unique traits of Time Lords is the regeneration cycle. Starting out as an anomaly caused by prolonged exposure to the Time Vortex, it took some time before evolution brought it to be the basic survival instinct most knew it as in present times. And, as other basic survival instincts, regeneration isn't a conscious decision.

At least, not completely.

There were only three ways to stop regeneration from ensuing – or, at least, that was what the teachers at the Academy said when they taught the subject.

The first was to consciously stop the regeneration energy from releasing. Those cases were few and far in-between, partly because a Time Lord had to possess great control and be conscious in order to keep the energy at bay, but mostly because for most, the mere suggestion was unimaginable. For someone to consciously refuse to regenerate was equivalent to committing suicide.

The second way was if the Time Lord in question induced a second lethal hit while the energy was building up. This was, too, almost unheard of – until the War when the Daleks used this to their advantage in every twist and turn.

The third one was slightly more common than the two that preceded it, but not by much. If a Time Lord was beyond saving – whether by one of the few diseases Time Lords weren't immune to or by a certain kind of poison – their body won't set the regeneration into motion. It was said that in those cases, their energy would find its way back to the Vortex, existing there until the end of time and all things.

The third one was also the only one Spencer witnessed personally. It was back when he was just a Time Tot, a few months before he was taken for initiation. He wasn't the Professor yet – technically, he wasn't even Statum yet.

He sat at his mother's bedside, his biological mother. Kagmar left a long time ago, unable to keep watching her in that state, but he stayed, occasionally lighting a candle to make sure there were always four of them around her bed.

He sat there, alone, not even eight years old as his mother's breaths became slower and fewer. He and Kagmar didn't talk about it later, so he never shared with anyone what he saw when the last breath left her mouth and her hearts stopped. Nobody but him knew about the golden trail of energy that left her mouth and divided into four, each of the parts attracting into one of the candles.

More than once, in the centuries that followed, he wondered what it felt like – if it hurt, if it brought relief. Later on, he wondered if it felt similar to what regeneration felt like.

When Charles pushed his chair down, his head hit the ground. Immediately, he felt his vision blurring and darkening, he felt himself convulsing, struggling for air, dying. There was no familiar buildup of regeneration energy inside him and he thought maybe now, he'd know what his mother felt in her last moments.

What he didn't think when he closed his eyes for what he believed to be the last time was that there would be a bright light, voices whispering soothingly, and then pain as he was brutally dragged back to life.

Everything hurt when he came back to. Both of his hearts stopped when he died – if it can even be called that – but only one was functioning right now. Tobias was next to him, clearly being the one who performed the CPR to bring him back.

If this was what it felt to have only one functioning heart, he didn't fully appreciate his second one until this very moment.

He opened his eyes, still lying on the floor, and caught what he thought was a tombstone at the corner of his eye. Before he could think about it further, the man next to him stood up and observed him from above.

"You came back to life."

This was clearly not Tobias anymore. Spencer may have not known how long it had been since he was taken, but it was long enough for him to know the difference between the three personalities who shared Tobias' body.

"Raphael," he breathed out.

"There can be only one of two reasons," Raphael went on, ignoring him.

"I was given CPR," Spencer tried to explain, even though he knew the 'Angel' would ignore him completely.

"There are no accidents," Raphael declared, and Spencer closed his eyes again as the thick scent in the air messed with his brain once again.

With his brainwaves interfered, his body exhausted at the abuse it had been going through and one heart down, Spencer was amazed that he was even able to focus on what Raphael was saying. Desperately, he tried to send another message to the Doctor, to tell him about what he saw, but even though he wasn't as blocked as before he still wasn't able to get through.

"How many members are on your team?" Raphael questioned. "The 7 angels who had the 7 trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail and they were thrown to earth."

Raphael was under the belief that this was Revelations. In his mind, he was killing the sinners, the wrongdoers… there were two people – if one might call them that – that were the biggest sinners in the universe, that did more wrong than a single human mind could even begin to conceive.

And, as much as he would have happily accepted death, something told Spencer it was a bad idea to let Raphael know he was one of those two.

Raphael pulled his chair back up, and Spencer closed his eyes. The smell was stronger up here, thicker somehow. He wanted to vomit, but he was too tired to move his head, let alone retch.

"Tell me who you serve," Raphael demanded.

I serve no one, Spencer thought. No one but myself.

He didn't serve his father when Kagmar commanded him to do one thing or another. He didn't serve the teachers at the Academy, often getting into trouble for disobeying. He didn't serve the Time Lords, going as far as to run away when the War had begun, an action which led him to where he was now.

Even when his human parents took him to church on Sundays, he never served God. If there was a God, and he caused Deanna to go through everything she went through, he didn't want to believe in him. The only thing he could honestly say he believed in was the power of the candles his mother taught him about, and even that was partly because he had seen it firsthand.

He believed in very few things. He had faith in a small number of people, and trusted not many more.

But he served no one. No man, no God, no species and no other power.

However, if he told this to Raphael, he'll be dead on the spot.

"I serve you," he lied, hoping to, at the very least, live just a little longer.

He didn't think he would make it for much longer. His body was barely functioning as it was and his second heart seemed to be slowly failing. He was about to die again, very soon. And this time, he might not be brought back.

Raphael looked at him for a moment before speaking again. In the seconds that passed, a million different scripts passed through Spencer's mind in regards to what he could say, and how should Spencer react.

None of them prepared him for the words that left his mouth.

"Then choose one to die."