Author's Note: Many thanks to BMG and cassiekat for their tireless support as always! Alec truly has taken on a life of his own and I can't wait to take you with me on his continuing adventures.

Alec stepped away from Pete and Jack as they had their heads together in deep discussion, the dread was building in his heart when he felt the insistent prodding from the Tardis that something was going wrong with the rift.

Alec barely noticed when Pete nodded and hurried out of the lab, his hands were already flying over the controls of the rift monitoring equipment in order to fine tune the scans to the appropriate wavelength from which the disturbances seemed to originate. The readings were faint, but there was a definite surge of energy from a different reality that was beginning to resonate with the barriers in this universe.

"That's impossible." Alec frowned as the readings became more distinct.

"What's impossible, Alec? Do you recognize what the energy could be?"

Alec looked up at Jack's question, not at all surprised that the immortal had immediately come to his side when Pete had left the lab. He looked back to the readings as he thought about Jack's question and replied, "I'm not sure, Jack. Some things look familiar but I don't know how these readings could be possible, at least not without examining the energy further. There is a definite danger to our reality though."

A faint buzzing suddenly burst into life in the back of Alec's mind, it was a feeling so intense that it momentarily forced the presence of the Tardis from his mind before it faded once more. He looked around the lab, wondering what piece of equipment could have caused that buzzing, but nothing seemed out of place. The puzzle of the strange buzzing was pushed to the back of his thoughts when the energy suddenly spiked into another frequency where it began to ricochet through different realities.

"What in the world could that be, Alec? It looks like it's ripping through different levels of reality, could it be the Cybermen again? Or maybe these Daleks you mentioned?" Jack's eyes were glued to the monitors as Alec continued to fine tune the readings, his fingers tracing the edges of the energy signature that had appeared out of nowhere.

Alec shook his head, his thoughts becoming scattered as a blinding headache speared through his temple and caused his vision to blur into multiple after images before coalescing once more. He rubbed his forehead in a bid to bring focus to his thoughts, trying to force the pain back to the recesses of his head so that he could focus on the crisis that was fast approaching.

"The energy signature isn't right for it to be either Daleks or Cybermen, so thankfully we can rule those two threats out but it's resonating along a wavelength that I haven't seen in a long time." He paused thoughtfully before continuing. "It looks almost like Time Lord energy, but other than the primary universe, the Time Lords had postulated that there were no other realities in which they ever existed."

He gnawed thoughtfully on his lip as he watched the energy continuing to bounce through the deeper levels of reality, there was no way to tell what damage it was causing in those other realities and he couldn't really even get a solid lock on the energy signature before it would shift track and spear through a different reality.

The pain in his head was getting worse and he could hear a faint murmuring in his thoughts that was lingering just below the level of understanding. He tried to block the voices from his mind, too much was at stake for him to waste precious time or energy on flights of fancy.

"I thought you said that all the Time Lords, except the Doctor, were dead. I also thought that you said that the Doctor was a champion of all reality?"

There was no mistaking the faint tone of suspicion in Jack's voice and when Alec looked up to meet the man's gaze, he felt his heart constrict that Jack would think that he had lied to him. "The Doctor is a champion of all realities, Jack. It would take years upon years to tell you of all the times that he has saved reality at great cost to himself, but he unfortunately was not the only Time Lord that ever lived. There was another, but he had been killed and the Doctor had made sure that he burned his body so that he could never return. At least, he shouldn't have been able to return."

Alec refused to let his mind wander down that very dangerous line of thinking, his thoughts were swirling in a million different directions as he tried to make sense of the energy signature that would all too soon be ripping through their own reality. "Who was this other Time Lord, Alec and why do you think it could be him?"

Alec sighed softly, his hands rising to scrub tiredly at his face as he tried to focus through the pain that was pounding through his temples. "He was the greatest adversary of the Doctor, though they had grown up as childhood friends. Over the centuries that followed, they grew apart and the Master was…." Alec paused as he tried to find the right word to describe the insanity that had gripped the Master so early in their lives, the madness that had made him a renegade. "The Master was broken by events in his youth, the Doctor was never quite certain what had happened, but there was a test that all young Time Lords had to take in order to proceed with their training at the Time Lord academy. Those tests unfortunately drove some of the applicants insane. It was, however, an insanity that was usually not readily apparent until their first regeneration."

Jack listened to Alec's explanation, his mind trying to make sense of the completely alien concepts that Alec had described. He remembered his own training by the Time Agency and how brutal that had seemed to him at the time, but he had never feared that the training itself would drive him insane. No, that special privilege was reserved for the years of decay that time travel using a Vortex Manipulator could sometimes inflict on agents. He blew out a frustrated breath, forcing his thoughts back to the present and away from the life that he would never be able to call his own again.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Jack studied Alec intently, wanting with all his heart to believe that Alec was indeed telling the truth and that this Doctor that he claimed as his progenitor was not in fact a lunatic bent on the destruction of all realities. "If it is this Master that you mentioned, what's our best option?"

Alec shrugged, his gaze roaming around the lab and coming to rest on the dimension cannon for a moment before he dropped his head. "I honestly don't know yet, Jack. I need better readings though for starters."

Alec tried hard to conceal the wince as the pain continued to pound through his temples, it was a sharp, angry throb that was shredding what little control he had left and left his mind and thoughts reeling. It reminded him of the pain that he felt when the Doctor had suppressed Donna's memories and his link with them had been forcibly severed, but he knew that that was impossible because if Donna ever remembered him or the Doctor then she would burn to a crisp.

No, this was a new threat and one that seemed to bring with it an echo of Time Lord energy that was simply awakening parts of his mind that had been dormant for years. He was still more Time Lord then human and so he was more sensitive to time disturbances than most other people. He didn't like to reflect too often on the pain that he had sometimes endured during the Cybermen Wars, when they had tried to use the rift and other rifts around the world to spread into other realities. It had been that energy that had allowed Alec to pinpoint the nerve center of their operation so that the defense forces could focus their attack and finally bring the threat to an end.

"What's going on, Jack?"

Alec and Jack looked up at the sound of Pete's voice as he hurried back into the lab, his gaze drifting down to the displays that they were both studying so intently. "Why haven't the alarms sounded yet? Is there a danger?"

Alec straightened, his fingers deftly tapping several more commands into the controls before he nodded. "There is definitely a danger to this reality, Pete, but I don't know how soon it will arrive. The energy is still too far away for it to register on our instruments, but it is coming closer and frankly I don't know what it is or what we can do about it."

"I'll set the building to a code yellow alert status, so that everyone is ready for anything should the threat turn out to be a global threat. We can't be caught sitting on our heels when this thing arrives."

Pete nodded when he heard Jack's words, stepping aside when the man hurried from the lab and into his main office in order to send the orders down to his lieutenants. Torchwood was a well-oiled machine, but it needed the guidance of its director during times of crisis. Pete couldn't be more thankful that the council had chosen Jack for the thankless job all those years ago, and he found that he was quite happy as Jack's second. Never mind the danger that was associated with the job of Director, he was just happy that he was able to enjoy a moderately normal life with his wife, Jackie, during the slower times.

Pete frowned when he noticed Alec wincing and rubbing his forehead several times, a faint sheen of sweat seemed to have broken out over the man's brow and his face was flushed. "Alec? Alec, are you alright?"

Alec jerked when he heard Pete's question, his gaze rising quickly to meet Pete's before it darted back towards the strange object that occupied the other side of the lab. "I've suddenly got a pounding headache, it just started very recently and I'm not sure that it doesn't have something to do with what's going on with this energy surge."

"Do you need me to call for a medic, Alec?"

Alec shook his head, his hand flying to his temple as the room seemed to sway around him with the sudden motion. "No, I need all my faculties intact right now. I don't know what this energy wave is but I'm going to ask the Tardis to see if she has any ideas that might protect this reality when it arrives."

"I'm sorry, did you say that you were going to ask your…. Tardis?" Pete could barely hide the incredulity from his voice at Alec's words, he was wondering if he should call the medics despite Alec's assurances if he thought that he could actually get answers from an object that closely resembled a metal cylinder but otherwise didn't look like any great repository of knowledge.

Alec smiled wanly at Pete's question, not at all surprised at the look of confusion that crossed the man's face, he most likely would have been just as confused if he had been in a similar position to Pete. The Tardis was like nothing this reality had ever seen, and so it was no surprise that people would think that he was something of a madman to think that a supposedly inanimate object would be able to offer any guidance.

"She is sentient, Pete and even though she is still an infant in relative terms, she can touch all eleven dimensions simultaneously and she may have better readings of this energy surge than our primitive technology can detect."

Pete watched Alec turn without another word and slip into the opening that still stood open along the side of the object that was facing into the lab, vanishing into an object that looked barely big enough for him to be able to turn right around. He shook his head, no longer surprised by the strange things that Alec said or did and Rose's ramblings only seemed to validate the things that Alec seemed to take for granted but were fantastic for everyone else around him. He turned back and made his way to the monitors that were showing the progress of the strange energy wave, the surge was building in power and he could see that Alec was correct that it would hit their reality all too soon.

Alec sighed softly when he stepped into the confines of the Tardis and felt the stabbing pain fade to the back of his mind as the ship's temporal field enveloped him in its embrace.

"Alright, Girl, we've got to find out what's going on. Can you tell me if that really is Time Lord energy?"

He felt a wave of dismay radiate from the ship before he even made his way to the control console, the rapidly flashing symbols erased any hope that he had been mistaken. "Doctor, what the hell is going on?" He whispered the question into the quiet confines of the Tardis, knowing that it was ridiculous to hope for an answer from the Time Lord when he was trapped in another reality. Having uttered the question though made him feel a little better, he could at least pretend that he would receive an answer from the absent Time Lord.

It was definitely Time Lord energy ripping its way through realities, and there was only one other Time Lord that could possibly be responsible for such willful destruction. It seemed that the Master hadn't been killed after all, and the Doctor was most likely engaged in a battle not only for his life but for all realities.

The Tardis had scanned all the realities that the energy wave had intercepted and informed him that several of them had already begun to collapse as the wave had moved on while different realities were simply breached. These other realities seemed to be bleeding energy into the void but other than that damage, they seemed to be relatively stable.

"What if we were to project your temporal field into the rift, but sent it through the rift manipulator? Would we be able to strengthen the barrier of our reality to repulse this energy wave? Or at least lessen its impact?"

He could feel the thoughtful silence from the ship as she quickly calculated the modifications that would need to be made. She warned him that she was still too young to be able to project a very powerful temporal field and she would require extensive repairs afterwards, but she believed that the modifications would be enough to at least stop the energy wave from completely destroying their reality.

"I'll take care of you once the crisis is over, you don't have to worry about that. You're the only thing that would be able to survive a direct impact from this energy wave if it hit at just the wrong frequency; we've got to do everything that we can to protect this reality and the people that call it home. "

The Tardis gave her grudging approval of Alec's plan and showed him the modifications that needed to be made to her matrix. He ducked under the control console and popped open the panel that she directed him towards, her thoughts guiding his hands as surely as if she were making the changes herself.

They fell into an easy rhythm as he worked his way around the interior of the control room, popping different panels open and rewiring circuits before moving on to the next junction.

"Alec?"

He jerked when he heard Jack's voice, his thoughts were so enmeshed in the thoughts of the Tardis that he hadn't even heard the immortal enter the ship. Alec reached up to rub tiredly at the back of his neck, he had lost track of time as he sometimes tended to do when he was in the Tardis but he knew that the preparations would fast be reaching a frantic level back at Torchwood.

"How are the preparations going, Jack?"

"They're going fine, Alec, but if I understand these readouts after you tinkered with them, there isn't much we can do to protect ourselves?"

There was no mistaking the concern in Jack's voice as he searched Alec's gaze for answers, his shoulders were tense with the unfamiliar sensation of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm him. He hadn't felt this powerless since he had first discovered that he was immortal, and it was a feeling that he didn't like.

Alec winced, so subtly that if Jack hadn't been looking for any telltale sign of agitation, he would have missed the flicker before it vanished. "I've actually got a plan for that, Jack and the Tardis has agreed to help though she's going to need extensive repairs afterwards. I've just finished making modifications to her matrix in order to allow her to project her temporal field into the rift itself, since she has determined that the energy wave is indeed Time Lord energy. Her energy is compatible with that wave and may be enough to help lessen the impact with this reality and hopefully save it from being destroyed."

The color drained from Jack's face when he heard Alec's words, his gaze rising to the monitors that were filled with incomprehensible symbols in the hopes of different news. "Is the danger really that severe, Alec? If it's Time Lord energy, is it possible that this Doctor is trying to reach this reality like Rose thinks he is and that's what you're really detecting?"

Alec stopped dead at Jack's question, his gaze filled with an implacable knowledge that Jack could never hope to understand. He saw universes being born and dying in that gaze, before he was able to tear his eyes away. In that instance, he understood better than he ever had before that Alec was not of this universe and that he was not bound by the rules that they all seemed to be. He also finally understood what Alec meant when he had said he wasn't wholly human and that the man with whom he shared a history was a being of awesome purpose who would not be deterred from the path that he deemed right.

"The Doctor would never purposely breach the walls between realities simply to rescue an old companion, not when he explicitly stated that those walls could never be breached again without endangering the entire multiverse. Besides, the Doctor has no reason to come to this reality. He gave Rose to me after all, I was supposed to be enough for her."

Alec turned abruptly away from Jack's gaze, but not before Jack saw the bitter anger that the younger man was unable to hide. He knew all too well how Alec felt about Rose's bitter castigations and how angry he was at his progenitor for forcing him into this unintended hell. He didn't know everything that Alec was running from, but he knew enough to know that there were demons in the man's past that would drive lesser men insane.

Alec walked to the portal in the side of the Tardis, his hand reaching out to pat the wall tenderly for a moment before he stepped through the opening and back into the Torchwood lab. He stumbled when the pain returned with a vengeance, the whispering in the back of his mind exploding to the forefront of his consciousness before he very clearly heard a single voice cry out. DOCTOR!

Alec spun around at the sound of that voice, his eyes wild as he scanned the lab for any sign that he wasn't starting to lose his mind. Was he really so desperate for telepathic communication that he would just imagine hearing Donna's voice? His heart was racing with adrenaline because she had sounded so terrified in that single word, her voice had been filled with agony and the pain had echoed in sympathetic waves through Alec's own body.

He looked all around the lab, trying to see if there was anything that had been missed; it was not the first time that he cursed having lost his Time Lord vision when he had been separated from Donna and the Doctor though he knew that that vision would have faded with time as the Metacrisis had stabilized.

Pete stood by the control console, but he had been joined by several technicians that were making adjustments to the readings on the console but there were no other people in the lab. The rest of the equipment in the room was silent for the time being and there were no obvious ruptures in reality that could explain the voice that Alec was now positive that he had heard.

"Easy there, Alec. Are you sure you're up to this?" Jack caught Alec's elbow as he stumbled, his hand steadying the man as his panicked gaze began to dart around the room. He could feel the muscles in Alec's arm trembling violently, his steps faltered when his gaze fell on Pete and didn't discover anyone else in the lab. "What's wrong?"

Alec pulled his arm away from Jack's grip, his hands rising to grip his hair while he took several deep breaths to try to calm himself. "I heard her, Jack. I'm positive that I just heard her, and that can't be. She's been silent for years, she has to be silent otherwise the possibility is…"

Alec clenched his eyes closed, straining to focus through the pain that was pounding through his head, trying to reach back along that bond that had been silent for so many years. Something must have happened to make Donna remember enough to cry out to the Doctor, and now he feared that the pain he was feeling was actually her death throes. And there wasn't a damn thing that he could do about it.

"Who'd you hear, Alec? Come on, man, pull it together. You need to tell me what you know and how to protect this planet and all its people from what's coming. We need you, Alec. We need you more than we've probably ever needed you."

Jack's words seemed to have a calming effect on Alec, his wild-eyed gaze settled and the maddened grip that he had on his hair loosened before he straightened his shoulders and nodded in grim response to Jack's plea. "Quite right, Jack. There's nothing that I can do anyway if she's in trouble, so let's focus on the problem at hand."

Jack chose to ignore Alec's comment about the mysterious woman that he seemed to feel he was hearing, but he knew enough to know that Alec wasn't nearly as crazy as someone else might think him. He needed Alec to focus on the emergency at hand, afterwards would be enough time to ask him about what truly was going on.

They hurried across the lab and into an adjoining room to find that the rift manipulator was already pulsing with energy, enough energy that Jack was amazed that there wasn't already a hole through reality blazing in the other room. It was only a matter of time before the Dimension Cannon fired up as well, and Jack didn't even want to think about the problems that would bring.

Alec's fingers flew over the controls of the rift manipulator, he was far more comfortable with the alien technology than anyone in Torchwood and in just a few moments he stepped away from the device with a soft grunt. "There, that should be just what the Tardis needs to interface and hopefully it'll be enough to blunt the impact of the energy wave."

I'm coming for you, Donna!

Alec's knees buckled when the Doctor's voice, his own voice, exploded through his head; the pain that he had been able to hold at bay suddenly leaped to the forefront and robbed him of breath as his entire body felt like it had exploded into burning fire.

"Oh god, Donna, no."

Jack rushed to Alec's side when he collapsed to his knees, Alec's hands rose to clutch his head before he let out a bloodcurdling scream. "Alec, what's wrong? Talk to me, man, what can I do? What the hell is going on?"

He reached out to touch Alec's arm and gasped when he felt the heat that was suddenly pouring off of his body. Alec was in real trouble and Jack didn't hesitate a moment before shouting for help. "Pete, get in here now! I need your help, Alec's in trouble. Get a damn medic up here before we lose him!"

Jack knew that with the fever that was suddenly raging in Alec's body that he was in very real danger of having a seizure or worse a stroke and that they needed to cool him off quickly, but he had no idea what had happened.

"Jack… "

Alec looked up at Jack, his entire body was shaking and he could barely find the strength to utter Jack's name through the screams that were pounding through his mind. The Doctor and Donna's voices were like cannon shots into the void and he knew that the walls between their realities were melting away and that they were in the midst of whatever had caused the energy wave that was even now barreling down on his own reality.

He clenched his eyes closed as another wave of searing agony washed over him, Donna's screams seemed to rise in counterpoint to the pain that was fast becoming unbearable and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he lost consciousness. He could see faint images strobing behind his closed eyelids; the Doctor standing resolute at the control console of the Tardis, Donna strapped to a strange table, screaming as she burned.

"What the hell, Alec?" Jack stepped back when a faint golden light began to dance along the skin of Alec's arm, it was thin wispy lines of energy that seemed to coalesce into a golden mist around Alec before vanishing once again. Jack was stunned when Alec looked up at him and the deep chocolate brown eyes that Jack had always secretly loved were burning with a brilliant golden light.

"He can't regenerate! The Doctor promised me that he wouldn't change. He can't change!"

Jack spun around as Alec collapsed onto his side on the floor of the Rift Manipulator lab, his wide eyed gaze taking in Rose as she stood in the doorway of the room with a look of pure terror on her face. Pete raced in behind Rose and tried to stop her, his hand rising to grab her arm in a bid to stop her headlong rush into the rift manipulator room. She cast such a glare of disgust over her shoulder that Pete was momentarily taken aback and loosened his grip enough that Rose was able to shrug off his restraining hand. Pete didn't notice the gun that she had strapped to her hip as she raced into the room and threw herself to the floor beside Alec. "You weren't supposed to change! He promised me that you wouldn't change, you can't change! You're all that I have left of him."

Alec shuddered when he heard Rose's words, his eyes widening before he managed to wrench himself away from her. His golden eyes narrowed in shocked dismay when he heard her words, before he growled, "You didn't want me before but now when I'm possibly dying or changing, NOW you don't want me to go? Just because you're going to lose your precious tie to this face that you're so besotted with? You don't even give a damn about me, you just care that I look like him! Get away from me, Rose!"

She reached out towards him, ignoring his angry voice as she repeated herself, "He said you didn't have the energy to regenerate, you were supposed to grow old with me if I wanted it."

Alec just shook his head even as he tried to struggle to his feet, his mind was reeling from the screams of Donna and the Doctor and he could barely focus through the terror that they were both feeling. "I'm sorry to disappoint you once again, Rose, but I don't think I'm regenerating. Donna's burning and I think I'm burning with her."

Rose frowned at his words, her head cocking before she pushed herself up to her feet so that she wouldn't be forced to look up at him from a position of weakness. She couldn't understand his obsession with Donna, or why he thought that Donna was his mother. He was the duplicate of the Doctor, the Doctor had assured her of that though he obviously hadn't known what he was talking about. It had been years since he had even mentioned Donna's name, Rose couldn't understand why he seemed to think she was suddenly dying now. "You'd told me when we first came back that Donna was going to die anyways, so what does it matter if she's dying now? It would've happened anyways and should have nothing to do with you."

Pete gasped when he heard Rose's callous words, his hand clenching around an object in his pocket when he realized that Rose truly was lost and that she only ever cared about herself and what she wanted from life. Her anger and bitterness over all the turns that her life had taken would never go away, and she would never learn her lesson or learn humility over her past enormous mistakes.

Pete sighed when he saw the disgust and anger on Alec's tormented face, the golden tears of fire that were leaking from his eyes were a disturbing counterpoint to the terrible rage that suddenly seemed to be enough for Alec to overcome the very real agony that was ravaging him.

"I can't believe that even you would be so selfish, Rose. Donna is the reason that you and I and Jack and Pete and every reality that ever was, still exists. Donna gave of herself completely so that we all would have a chance to live and the Doctor tried to do everything in his power to make sure that Donna survived long enough for him to figure out a way to fix the metacrisis."

"Why would he try to fix the metacrisis? It made her like him, that should be more than enough for her! She got everything she could've possibly wanted. A Time Lord brain, the Doctor… she got it all!"

Alec laughed, it was a mean and ugly laugh that he had no control over and it momentarily overwhelmed the fire that was fast consuming him. "You really have no clue do you, Rose? You haven't listened to anything I have told you over the past years have you? I'm the stable half of the metacrisis, Donna was not. She was the Doctor's best friend and he was devastated that she might die because of what the universe demanded of her."

Rose scowled at Alec's words, refusing to believe what Alec was saying but the chance was taken away from her when he growled, "Like it or not, I'm either dying or regenerating and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. So deal with it, or get the hell away from me!"

With that last comment, he stumbled away from Rose back into the main Torchwood lab, his body crashing into the doorway before he fell against the control console that showed the energy wave had nearly arrived. He looked up and threw his arms over his face as a blinding flash of light erupted from the far end of the lab.

There were confused shouts and cries of pain as people around the lab were blinded by the impact of the energy wave, but only Alec noticed the golden streamer of energy that erupted from the middle of the disturbance and slammed into the middle of his chest with the force of a freight train.

Jack had just been reaching for Alec, concerned with the anger that he had sensed dripping from his words, an anger that he could ill afford as his body was obviously in very real distress. As Alec stumbled against the control console, Jack's hand connected with his shoulder and the golden stream of energy arced between the two of them. Jack's body went ramrod straight, his eyes flaring wide and his mouth opening around a soundless scream as the energy sent them both flying through to air to slam against the wall behind the suddenly operational Dimension Cannon.

Alec strained to look at Jack, but he already knew that the impact had killed the immortal. The Time Lord energy would have a devastating effect on Jack's Artron fueled physiology and would most likely make this resurrection his most painful to date.

The energy built within Alec's body and he knew that it would suddenly make the impossible possible.

He barely noticed Rose pulling her gun on the technician that was standing by the controls of the Dimension Cannon, his eyes widening when she motioned for the confused man to unlock the controls. He couldn't shout a warning to Pete as the man was so focused on Alec and Jack that he failed to notice the actions of his daughter. He only hoped that Jack had locked the controls with impenetrable codes from the future, but that thought was suddenly the least of his worries.

Somehow, the energy that had been missing from him for his entire life was now filling his body to bursting and would allow him to assume the mantle of a Time Lord's legacy. Medics were rushing into the room and hurrying over to his and Jack's side, but there was nothing that they could do to halt the process once it had begun.

Alec surrendered himself to the burning fire and threw his head back to let out one final scream of agony before he collapsed to the ground surrounded by golden fire. He felt his entire body being remolded, the external energy was overpowering his own weak human systems and was taxing his heart to the breaking point.

He felt like he was teetering on the edge of a heart attack as his single heart raced dangerously fast in an attempt to keep up with a process that it was never meant to experience, his brain felt like it was too big for his skull and his eyesight had gone completely black.

He was thrown across the room as a surge of energy lifted his body and tossed it like a rag doll, his heart pounding so hard he felt like it was going to beat its way out of his chest. He felt his muscles and bones popping and cracking as they reshaped themselves, his human bones were far too fragile to contain the strength of a Time Lord and so he had to be shattered before he could be reborn. His lungs were struggling to catch a breath, the agony of breaking ribs was overwhelming and the pain was quickly driving him out of his mind. He cried out at a sudden constriction in his chest, a familiar echo fluttered on the right side of his chest before a stabbing pain erupted that quite literally stopped his heart.

It was a blessing when Alec finally lost consciousness as the regeneration energy stole away his human life.