Title: Burn
Author: Gillian Taylor
Character/Pairing: Tenth Doctor
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's like regeneration, only worse. (Spoilers for 42)
Disclaimer: Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.
A/N: This is a challenge fic for an explanation of why the Doctor behaved as he did during '42' by neadods. Thanks, as always, to my fabulous beta WMR.
Burn
by Gillian Taylor
It burns.
It's like regeneration, only worse, because he's screaming. All of him, screaming into the darkness and no-one is there to reply. He feels the sun's rage, its pain, and it's crippling. It threatens to swamp him but he can't let it. There are too many innocents here, too many people who're depending on him to let go.
Not now. Please, Rassilon, not now.
Fires scorch his mind, threatening to steal the only thing he has left of Gallifrey with each passing second. His identity, his very being is at stake. He doesn't know if regeneration can spare him this, doesn't know if there is any going back.
Once he thought he was ready to die, to give up, but he isn't. He's not. But, oh god, it hurts.
He's screaming now, his throat hurting with each vocalisation of his agony. He can't, he can't…
"I'm scared," he confesses, tears escaping his control as he cries out to a cosmos that won't listen. There is no pity there, no compassion. He's going to die here and take everyone with him.
When Martha touches him, he tries not to jerk away. He doesn't want to hurt her. Doesn't want to hurt anyone.
It burns, taking with it memory after memory. In barely the time it takes for his hearts to beat, his first incarnation is gone. He doesn't know if it'll come back or if this is it. The end of the Time Lords. The end of him.
There's no hope now, is there? No way out. There's only the fire.
He's scared. Terrified. It's taking him over; soon the Doctor will be gone and everyone will die.
Then there's cold. It burns as much as the sun and he screams, feeling the sun scream with him. Yes. This will work, he thinks in those moments when coherent thought is possible. He can almost, almost feel his memories return and then the cold is gone. Warmth is returning and his fear notches upwards.
His second life, his third, his fourth – all gone. He's being consumed. Somehow he manages to tell Martha what to do, to give himself that miniscule amount of hope, but he knows it's pointless.
He's going to burn and take them with him.
He's going to burn and Gallifrey will be truly gone.
Perhaps it's better this way, freedom from the pain of existence, freedom from the future and the past, freedom from everything.
The instant the sun feels him give in, he's overwhelmed.
The Doctor is gone.
Now there's only fire and rage.
He stares blankly at the console, feeling hollow. He thought he experienced all there was of pain, of agony. He thought he knew what it was like to be afraid.
He didn't. Now he knows and it's a lesson he never wants to learn again.
In his mind, fire still smoulders but somehow he manages to keep it contained. It's nothing more than a memory now, he supposes, but he knows the truth.
The sun left him with a parting gift. A bit of itself.
It wants to live. Now it lives in him.
Martha turns to him and asks, "How you doing?"
He doesn't directly answer her question, hiding behind prattle and keys and thanks.
As he smiles to hide his lies, deep in his mind, it burns.
END