A/N: Trigger warning for mention of suicide & suicidal thoughts. Epilogue to come.

Chapter 5

"Doctor?" Yaz said nervously. "You're OK now, right?"

The Doctor didn't answer. She put her hand to the hole in her shirt, then put her fingers through, golden light emanating from the wound. She stared ahead for a long moment while the Master inched between her and the console, trying to hide the gaping empy space in it.

Finally she looked up, surveyed them all once in turn.

"I died," she said. She looked at the Master. "Didn't I?"

His tone was one the others would never have expected from him: pleading. "Doctor..."

"The time vortex," she said, the golden light growing brighter, lifting the tips of her hair in a supernatural wind, "It has to be returned to the TARDIS."

"No," the Master said, now putting himself deliberately between her and the console. "Doctor, listen to me. You were shot with a time disruptor. You know-"

"I know what it is, what it does." Her voice was becoming flatter by the second, more remote and unfamiliar. She scronched her face up suddenly, squeezed her eyes shut. "No. One minute, one minute. She needs one minute."

She pulled at her hair, grabbing onto the TARDIS for support.

"Doc, what's happenin'?"

"You're all right, love," the Master said, rubbing her back. "Take a minute and let it settle. Handle it."

"I can't," she said softly. She looked to the companions and they were shocked to see her eyes full of unshed tears. "No Time Lord is meant to possess the vortex because the vortex will possess them. They become like a god... they lose themselves-"

"You and I already are like gods. We are gods," he said, stroked her hair in a gesture that would have been shockingly intimate if the others weren't too shocked by everything else. "Now you have all the power in the world. Use it. Don't run from it."

He tipped her chin up, catching the tears starting to fall from the golden-brown eyes, cupped her face in his hands. Then he very gently kissed her. That did shock the others, even more so when the Doctor shut her eyes, didn't pull away, rested her forehead against the Master's when he let go.

He whispered something to her then, something in an alien language they couldn't make out. She shook her head, saying something equally alien back. He flinched away from her.

"Even now I can feel it... feel it changing me." A shudder shook her frame, the Master rubbing at her shoulder blade and still shaking his head. "I see all timelines... everything the Time Lords did. The truth about the Timeless Child."

She looked helplessly at the companions. "You're confused. That's OK. The Doctor was at war with herself for so long... wanting you safe, wanting you with her. Not able to have both."

Another grimace, another pull of the hair. "Could fix all of it. All the bad in space and time, so easily gone..."

The Master leant close. "Do it," he whispered. "You know your carnage is so much prettier than mine."

"The Time Lords too," she said and the Master flinched back. "No more of the arrogance and the meddling."

"What?"

She looked at his frozen expression and laughed. "You say you hate humans? You don't. You hate them because she loves them. But you should know the Doctor.. hates Time Lords." More tears welled up but didn't fall. "All of them. The Doctor is the worst of all."

Another scrunched up grimace of pain. "No, shut up. I can't do that." She looked the Master in the eye and gently touched his face. "You need to listen to me and do as I ask. While there's still time."

He shifted closer. "I'm not letting you go like this."

She was quiet, except for suppressed whimpers of pain as the golden light flared up and died down around her. "...You almost did."

"I- don't understand..."

"The last time around, she- I-" And the Doctor giggled, beckoning him closer like she was sharing a secret. "Almost didn't go through with it."

"Y- you don't mean-"

"Yes. Regeneration." She watched him as he flinched back from her, the gold in her eyes taking over. "The Doctor was billions of years old, sad and tired and grieving."

She looked off into the distance. "Tired of grieving. So many dead or lost. Never able to keep a friend around long enough to - to make it easier." Another head shake, another wince. "I was going to drive the TARDIS where stars are born and die. I was going to watch them and just... not. Just not regenerate. Just not come back again."

The Master's fists clenched as the companions exchanged horrified looks. "Don't you talk like that," he said, voice low. "How could you even think it?"

The Doctor looked so peaceful from the admission she didn't seem to hear him. "I've done terrible things. I didn't want to die a monster then, so I thought...one more time. No harm done." She looked at him again. "And I choose it now. I will die as the Doctor, not as Destroyer of Worlds."

When he went to protest again she grabbed him in a hug, whispering something the others couldn't hear. They didn't dare speak, the sense that this was something ancient and incomprehensible keeping them silent. She drew back, looked over at them. "It's all right, everyone. Your safety is assured."

The Master's shoulders shook. A sound like a sob escaped him. "What- what am I supposed to do without-"

"I saved your life," she told him sternly. "Listen to me, because this is what you do: take them home to earth. 2020. Whatever date they ask for at the right time." She turned, rubbing her head as she paced. "Get in contact with your buddies at MI6. Tell them they have to reform Torchwood or UNIT or something to protect the Earth, because as of now it's undefended."

She turned back, looking past him. "Keep my death a secret. If you can stop news getting off this planet, do it, because any remaining Daleks won't wait around on their next plan. What else...?"

"Doctor," he said, his voice flat.

"No, you OWE me!" she yelled suddenly, eyes blazing and golden light crackling around her. "I'm running out of time! The Doctor needs you to promise her you will do as she says!"

"What then, Theta?" he said, softly. "What am- what am I supposed to do then?"

She stopped, light fading. "I-I don't know..." She took his hands in both of hers. "I think you should be... the best of yourself."

"You still haven't given up on me?"

And the Doctor smiled at him, such a helpless, hopeless smile that they all felt it.

It was over.

She turned to the console, stroking her hand along it as she faced the space for the time vortex to return to.

"All of you will be OK. I just need two more things."

"Name it, cockle," Graham said. He was watery eyed, Yaz openly sobbing again, Ryan shell-shocked and silent.

"Take care of... the old girl. If you hide her do it with dignity. And... I'd like to be buried on Earth. Somewhere where something can grow. Maybe if you plant a red flower there... no marked grave. Let Captain Jack know. He'll know who to trust with the news. It's... too dangerous to tell anyone else."

She raised her hand to touch the console, looked over at the Master. "I'm going to fall. Catch me?"

He nodded. He couldn't get a word out.

The Doctor raised her hand higher, shut her eyes, and touched the TARDIS.

For the second time that day, the lights went out.