"I don't want to go." His voice broke as he admitted it to himself in the empty TARDIS. There was no one there to reassure him, he was on his own again, alone. His hands started to glow with that infernal yellow light, and he remembered sitting in the cafe with Wilfred. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away…and I'm dead. The truth of it happening now was still painful to admit. The tingles were traveling through his arms, down through his body, replacing the burning that was from the radiation, but it was only a matter of time before it really started to hurt.
It was never fair. He thought bitterly and he felt his throat tighten. He may as well fall apart because there was no one here to watch him. He closed his eyes and felt the frustrated tears building. His breathing quickened as he prepared for the change, but knowing it was coming never made it any easier.
Then the pain was everywhere at once, sharp and all consuming, his body shaking with the effort to stay standing. He ground his teeth together and groaned as the pain throttled through him in waves. He was vaguely aware of the smell of ozone and the crackle of the TARDIS burning around him, explosions shook the ground beneath him as he fought with his own regeneration. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind a red flag went up, the TARDIS had never burned before, something was wrong. But he couldn't spare the thought long; the agony was unbearable and threatened to drop him to his knees while trying to tear him apart. He sucked in the burning air around him, still wanting to fight, wanting to delay the inevitable. And then with a shocking abruptness, it stopped. The pain ceased and the ground dropped out from beneath his feet.
His eyes shot open and his gasp for air turned to a startled yelp as he fell. He saw himself rising, but not really rising, instead, staying put on the floor of the TARDIS. It was his newer self, longer hair and limbs, the glow of the regeneration fading from around the figure. He had regenerated, that man above him was proof of that, but he was still here, falling, slipping away from the TARDIS console. What was going on? He swung his arms around, trying to grab hold of anything, but he seemed to have lost substance. He fell through the ship and into the open emptiness outside, the new Doctor never once looking back. The floor of the blue box that he had called home was above him, the only visible thing in space, and then it disappeared. He was alone, in the freezing airless void. It was cold, so bloody cold.
It's over now. He told himself, clutching his arms together, accepting that this was to be his death. He had not known that this was how his previous incarnations had experienced their deaths. Perhaps he was just a ghost, an echo of his former self, dying out slower than his body had. He closed his eyes and prepared to breathe in the nothingness, only another moment and the cold would have him. But a warm breeze brushed up against his face, folding around him like the comfort of an embrace. He smiled and opened his eyes once more, glad that his final moments would not be filled with fear. But oddly enough, his lungs filled with air, blessed breathable air. There was a blue glow, surrounding him in a web of warmth that spread down to his limbs. He felt safe, but he also didn't feel as though he were dying any longer. His mind was sluggish as he tried to make sense of it, nothing seemed to add up and he was so tired. He felt the web around him hum against him tightly in a reassuring way and recognition fought its way through his confusion.
"Astrid?" His voice sounded so strange in the emptiness, he hadn't realized how quiet it had been until he had broken the silence. She fluttered around him in response and he felt a hysterical chuckle threaten to emerge from his throat.
I'll keep you safe Doctor. I'll bring you home.
Her voice was faint in his mind, but it was there, she was real. And she was stronger than he had thought, managing to pull herself together in such a way. He wanted to ask how, but when he opened his mouth, all he could manage was a yawn. Everything felt weak, as though all the energy had been sucked out of him and was left behind in the TARDIS. He tried to thank her, but it was too much to stay awake now, too hard to ask the questions that burned to be answered. He closed his eyes one final time and lay motionless in the cocoon, dreaming of a beach on a far away world, dreaming of a girl with a silly grin. Dreaming of Rose.