Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, the TARDIS, Fitz, Trix, K9, the Vore, Daleks, Madame Xing (From 'Halflife') or the Nestene Consciousness; they're all the BBC. I just own this plot.
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Filling in the Blanks
Leaping off the console, the Doctor turned around to face the controls, tapping desperately at the various buttons and levers in front of him, before turning around to look at the viewscreen behind him.
As he watched, a vast planet appeared on the screen, briefly dominating it before it shrunk down to a scale that allowed the Doctor to see what was going on behind it.
If he'd been more emotional, he would have sworn.
The Dalek war ships and the Time Lord's WarTARDISes, firing away at each other, driven to the furthest reaches of Kasterbourus as the Time Lords tried to force the Daleks away from Gallifrey…
The Doctor ignored those, however; he could change nothing there without altering history to an unpredictable degree, the possibilities made all the more serious by the presence of his past self so close to his current location.
He couldn't change the outcome of the Time War in any way; the new history was already creating time-locks on this conflict to prevent the two time-active combatants from changing history and constantly altering the outcome of any battle they might win or lose.
Right now, the only thing the Doctor could even hope to save the planet caught in the middle of this fight.
It was, so far, managing to avoid getting seriously damaged by the battlefire, but the Doctor knew that couldn't last with two such powerful combatants exchanging weapons' blasts; sooner or later, a shot would go wild, and that planet would be annihilated.
The Doctor had never been to the planet, but he knew its inhabitants well; he'd encountered its inhabitants at least four times in his travels. Twice in his third incarnation and twice in his sixth, he'd found himself locked in a desperate struggle with the native of that planet.
The Nestene Consciousness, a being composed entirely of sentient plastic.
He swallowed.
That would not be good.
He didn't know precisely what the Consciousness would do without its native planet, but he could make a few guesses, and none of them were promising. From what he now remembered of the Nestenes- after encountering them on five occasions in three different lifetimes, certain things were bound to stick more than others, they required certain chemicals in the atmosphere of the planet they were on to survive on a long-term basic, and right now, at this point in time and space, there was only one planet within range that fulfilled the necessary requirements.
Earth.
The Doctor quickly raced over his options. He could always try and stop the Nestenes once they got to Earth, but, given the choice, he'd rather not risk it; it would be far easier to try and stop them even having to go to Earth in the first place.
Then he smiled, as an old memory returned to him.
The Silurian Earth trick… he smiled to himself.
Of course, it was risky; the old girl may not take kindly to having this forced upon her after she'd had to take on the whole of Time Lord society at the same time- particularly not when some parts of her were still trying to reconstruct themselves after containing Marnal's cold fusion reactor-, and, of course, the Web of Time might try to stop him anyway…
But, given the somewhat malleable nature of the universe at that point, the Doctor was fairly confident that he could manage.
Quite frankly, with the unstable way things were at the moment as history restructured itself, what was one final little tweek for the better?
Reaching over, the Doctor triggered the TARDIS dematerialisation sequences, already falling comfortably back into the old patterns that his amnesia had blocked from him.
He smiled at the thought.
He may lack for a companion… He may lack for a home… He may even suffer from a slight uncertainty about what exactly had caused this whole situation he was now dealing with in the first place (Was it the Daleks or the Faction now; the memories were starting to run together…?)…
But he was the Doctor-the Doctor- once again.
Right now, that was all he needed to be as far as he was concerned.
He pushed the materialisation control, his fingers crossed.
Please let this work… he thought, offering it up as a prayer to whoever was listening to him.
If he'd timed everything correctly, then the TARDIS would materialise around the Nestene homeworld, shielding it from the worst of the Dalek and Time Lord firepower and taking the damage onto its own nigh-on indestructible shell. Therefore, all the Doctor would have to do would be to wait out the fight in the TARDIS, make sure the Consciousness didn't infiltrate any part of his ship, and then
The familiar wheezing, groaning sound of materialisation filled the room, and the Doctor sighed with relief.
It all seemed to be going well…
Then the TARDIS shuddered violently under his fingers, nearly throwing him off his feet.
Staggering back up to stand beside the console, the Doctor quickly checked the instruments. On the one hand, his idea had worked; the TARDIS had materialised around the Nestene home planet, which was now protected from any outside damage that the Dalek saucers and the WarTARDISes might have caused it while leaving the TARDIS itself virtually unnoticeable by the warring ships (At this size the chameleon circuit- even one as badly damaged as this one- automatically altered to resemble the planet they surrounded as part of its overwhelming 'camouflage matrix'; at its normal size this feature was too weak to funcion).
On the other hand, the TARDIS was proving incapable of handling the strain that the Doctor was now forcing upon it; as when the Doctor had attempted this to save the Silurian Earth in his last incarnation, if he didn't dematerialise soon, the tremors caused by the strain to the TARDIS could shake the ship apart…
"NO!" the Doctor cried, slamming his fist down on the console. "Come on, old thing; we can do this! We have to-"
And then a console exploded in his face.
The Doctor screamed in agony as chunks of metal, wood, and the other elements that made up the console struck him in the face and chest, throwing him off his feet as the TARDIS rocked violently once again.
The Doctor tried to cope with the pain, but it was impossible; even if the pounding that the TARDIS was taking all because of his desperate bid wasn't enough on its own, the pain the TARDIS was feeling was being transferred into his own head due to his psychic link with his ship.
If he didn't dematerialise now, than not only would the Nestene homeworld die…
He would die.
His TARDIS would die.
And then what would happen to Earth?
Gritting his teeth, trying to fight back the pain that was shooting through his body- he wasn't even sure if his left eye was there anymore; it felt like something had struck it-, the Doctor staggered up to his feet, staggering over towards the nearest intact console, desperately reaching out for the dematerialisation control as the TARDIS shuddered, screaming in his mind as the battle's crossfire struck her shell again and again…
His hand slammed down on the necessary lever, and the familiar sounds of dematerialisation filled the room.
He smiled; at least that worry wasn't there anymore.
Then the smile fell as pain began to tear through his body, accompanied by the now-remembered feeling of a biological implosion on the cellular level…
It was just as the Doctor had suspected would happen when the first explosion occurred.
The damage had been too great.
He was regenerating.
The Doctor smiled slightly. He couldn't really complain, after all; this incarnation had been his longest to date, as far as he could remember, despite such close calls as that tumble over the cliff when he fought against the reborn Morbius, his temporary possession by the forces of anti-time, or even his final fight against the Council of Eight.
It may have been riddled by all kinds of complications- at least four different counts of amnesia of various lengths and exiles to both an alternate universe and the entire twentieth century of Earth, among other things- but, in the end, the Doctor could safely say that his eighth incarnation had been a good life.
But, as he'd once said- or had someone else said it; he really couldn't remember any more?-, all good things must come to an end.
He looked around the TARDIS.
This time, like for his second regeneration, she would be the only witness to his end…
And, in a way, he wouldn't have it any other way; after everything that Fitz had been through with him, he deserved to remember the Doctor as he'd been, rather than actually witness the life of his old friend finally cease.
"Goodbye, old girl," he said to the ship weakly, reaching up to lightly pat the console.
As his eyes began to blur, he stared at the damaged console, and sighed.
"I'm sorry…" he began to say, his strength rapidly fading even as he spoke, trying to convey his regret to his old friend for causing her so much pain over this incarnation…
And then his eyes were surrounded by a brilliant glow, energy tore through his body, and the Eighth Doctor effectively ceased to exist.