Is it just me or is Nine a really REALLY hard character to write for?! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this next (very melodramatic) chapter. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing guys! :)

Chapter Five

The Oncoming Storm

Everything was burning.

The Eighth Doctor could do nothing but close his eyes, hear the endless screams and let the winds of a thousand deaths wash over him. His tunic was almost destroyed revealing his upper body, while the weapon in his hand was dropped as though in slow motion. It was over. It was done.

He stood in the Citadel of the Time Lords, locked in the enormous glass dome. The moment had been in his grasp for a second, and he took the chance - Daleks swarmed above and below, their cries echoing around the entire planet as Gallifrey, home of the Time Lords, burned again and again. In the highest tower of the citadel, the centre of the planet, The Doctor, an old, foolish man who had once simply wanted to see the stars, threw the moment into Gallifrey's broken and beaten heart.

It had taken less than a second's hesitation. He knew, there was not one single bone in his body that didn't know the devastation and ruin he was about to cause - but he closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel it. The greater good. A reason to die. The fate of the universe in his hands.

The planet couldn't withstand the paradoxes, and the moment destroyed them all. There were so many dead that shouldn't be, so many living soldiers who had died countless times again and again, and for what purpose? To fight - and die - another day. The entire Time War imploded, and The Doctor, standing on the brink of the citadel, let a small tear fall from his closed eyes.

"I'm sorry, Susan," he whispered.

The ground beneath him crumbled, and he fell. The fire was raging everywhere, Time Lords and Daleks alike falling and burning through space along with the planet itself. The Time War ripped itself apart and Gallifrey burned.

Amidst the screams and echoes of past regenerations of hundreds of dead Time Lords, The Doctor remained composed. He was scared and in pain, oh yes. But he was content. Ready.

Falling through the stars now, as Gallifrey became nothing but a broken puzzle. Bodies and weapons and broken TARDISes floated through the air, with the madmen still screaming, desperately trying to find a way to reverse the Eye of Harmony's implosion, while The Doctor himself caught fire. The phoenix had reached the end of its life.

It happened quicker than he'd ever felt it. The agony was unbearable, the burnt flesh on The Doctor's body rewriting its own DNA, yet still he remained composed. It would not be for long. Up was down and left was right, but The Doctor still raised his arms and fell like an angel losing its wings. The golden glow gave off a dreamlike ecstasy, and he closed his eyes harder and waited for the oblivion. Fitting that this body, the most human of them all, should die so far from home.

The regeneration was starting to take hold, and The Doctor had mere seconds left. The fire burned brighter and fiercer around him, but there were no Time Lords or Daleks anymore. He was alone.

With a deep breath, he raised his head, and the golden light shot out at all angles. He tried so hard, he really did, but in the end he had no choice. The pain was excruciating. He screamed.

And so it was that even on Earth, somewhere hundreds of galaxies away, they witnessed a great surge of light and, as though from nowhere, a shooting star made its way across their atmosphere. The Doctor.

Opening his eyes, he found he was still in free fall but slowing down. He couldn't tell where he was.

Please let it be over, he thought. I don't deserve this.

Out of nowhere, he heard the engines. That whirring sound of home, and without even a second to consider it, he slammed down on hard metal. A ship?

He turned round weakly, every single part of him aching and longing for a release. But there she was. She'd caught him, even amongst all of that destruction.

The TARDIS put on a desperate surge of speed to distance itself from the horrific destruction of its home planet, and The Doctor struggled to regain his footing.

"Where…how…?" The voice that came out of his new body was hoarse and unkind - a growl, like that of a tiger. A wounded animal. Alone in the wilderness.

But he knew there was one more thing he had to do, and it killed him inside knowing that this would be his first act in this incarnation. At the back of his mind, the question of whether or not he was going to carry on at all still lingered, but for now he dashed around the TARDIS console. "Alright then," he mumbled. "If we're going to do it," he said more to the TARDIS than himself. "We'd better do it properly."

He found the co-ordinates for the Time War and fixed the TARDIS on to them - the last TARDIS in existence. No other ship could stop him or interfere. He found its date of origin, the night of the first attack on Skaro - and the TARDIS pulled it out of the time vortex like a fish on a hook. His mind on autopilot, The Doctor then found the final battle in the citadel - the moment where he finally ended the bloodshed. The TARDIS locked on to the time, date and location and pulled it out of the vortex.

"Locked. Unbreachable." The Doctor leaned forward on the console and put his head in his hands while the TARDIS drifted away from the hell that was born on his home planet.

He cried. It must have been at least half an hour he stood there and wept - exhaustion, grief, guilt, they all swept over him one after the other and devoured him. With an almighty scream, he pummelled his fist on to the central console tower, kicking the seats and throwing the clothes and screwdrivers and stupid fob watches all across his ship.

Hours later, he slept. The nightmares crept up on him though, and it was only when he awoke that he realised he was still in his predecessor's clothes. That wouldn't do.

Okay, he thought. Think. Where am I going now? Treading back to the console room, he came across the clothes he'd thrown in his tantrum - amongst which were a leather jacket. His new body was taller than the last, but when he attempted to examine himself in the mirror, the TARDIS jittered.

"Oi! D'you mind?" he shouted angrily as he was nearly thrown off his feet. There was little affection in his voice for his ship - she had saved him where he had hoped to die. "Trying to check out the new threads."

The TARDIS seemingly ignored him, instead choosing to thrash even harder, this time literally bowling The Doctor across the room. "What the bloody hell is up with you? Knock it off!"

The cloister bell rang louder than he'd ever heard it. Flashbacks of the war ran unbidden into his mind, but he closed them off as quickly as he could. "Oh for crying out loud…"

No sooner had he ran up to the main console than the TARDIS gave a huge clang, and sprawling letters appeared on the wall behind The Doctor.

BAD WOLF
BAD WOLF
BAD WOLF
BAD WOLF

There was an enormous crash and The Doctor felt the TARDIS land unwillingly. With an eerily sudden silence, the ship's interior glowed a horrific blood red.

"Fanastic," The Doctor rolled his eyes sarcastically and shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever." Grabbing his sonic screwdriver, the last of the Time Lords decided that he couldn't care less what happened next, but he certainly wasn't going to let it happen with him clueless.

"Right then. Where are we?"

He opened the doors and was met with absolute carnage in front of him. At his feet lay a man in a pinstriped brown suit and sneakers shouting some gibberish at a boy in a tweed suit jacket - who was currently being held up and about to be killed by some beast. How unfortunate.

The Doctor was about to turn away and go back into the TARDIS when the man on the ground suddenly did something incredibly alarming.

He waved a sonic screwdriver. Not just any sonic screwdriver - the exact same one that The Doctor held in his hands at this moment. He raised his eyes incredulously, and then frowned immediately afterwards. Raising his own screwdriver out of pure curiosity, The Doctor pushed the central button at the beast the same way that the man on the ground was attempting to do.

The beast roared and dropped the boy in the bow tie, and The Doctor's curiosity finally got the better of him. If these were Time Lords - which they couldn't possibly be considering what just happened - then he'd have to find an appropriate way to deal with them. Time Lords were dangerous creatures after all.

Stepping forward, he extended a hand to the pinstriped man in front of him.

"Thank you," the man said, and then widened his eyes to the size of dinner plates.

"Don't mention it," The Doctor shrugged. "That should be it buggered off for a while. At least until we all become lovely and dead and it can enjoy eating our corpses in peace from sonic screwdrivers."

"Uh huh…" the man stood up, and The Doctor was becoming very wary of his suspicious nature. Perhaps if he confessed who he was, he would get a straight answer out of this situation and figure out the best way to get out of it. Stepping up to the other occupant with the bow tie, he outstretched his hand.

"I'm The Doctor, by the way," he blatantly blurted out, hoping that the reaction from the younger man would give him a reason to act.

The boy's reaction wasn't quite what he expected, however. He was smiling - really smiling from ear to ear, and grabbing The Doctor's hand a little too enthusiastically for comfort.

"Yes, yes you are!" he exclaimed, beaming. "Oh, this is just fantastic! Absolutely fantastic!"

The Doctor sighed. This guy was either a fan or a lunatic - and he didn't have a great track record with either of those...