Chapter 1
“Exterminate!”
He burnt up a sun just to say goodbye to her at Bad Wolf Bay, now he would die even before he got to say hi.
The universe was not kind. It was cruel.
The Dalek had come out of nowhere—or he just hadn't been paying attention. The world narrowed the moment he saw Rose Tyler’s smiling face, a face he thought he would never see again.
But the distance between them had been far too great, the distance of two species, two worlds, two ends of a street.
She met him in the middle, picked his head up from the pavement on which he now lay crumpled.
“I've got you, it missed you. Look, it's me.” There is denial on her lips, and fear in her eyes.
“Rose.” Her name on his tongue is a whisper, a prayer.
“Hi.”
Despite the pain, there's a smile on his lips. At least, she got to say it. “Long time no see…”
“Yeah, been busy, y'know.” There's a light teasing in her tone but a clever retort never makes it past his throat, drowned out instead by a scream of pain.
Her voice takes on a desperate, frantic note in an instant, pleading. “Don't die, oh, my God, don't die. Oh, my god, don't die.”
He wants to tell her he doesn't want to die either. He wants to tell her so many things, but time is slipping through his fingers like sand.
The next time he comes to he's on the TARDIS floor and Jack is yelling. Telling Rose to move away. Why? He wants her to stay. Stay with him for forever–
Donna is demanding answers, Rose is crying.
Oh.
Oh, right.
He's dying. Regenerating. It's all the same to him. All that he is will die, and some new man will go sauntering away.
It's not fair.
But the slither gold appearing in the veins of his hand reminds him life is hardly ever fair. “It's starting.” His end.
Jack pulls Rose away from him, wishing him good luck. He knows why it is necessary, yet his fingers still twitch to hold on to her.
“Will someone tell me what is going on?!” Donna demands, confused and worried. Jack and Rose are aware of what's coming–Donna not so much. He should've prepared her for the eventuality, but he wasn't prepared himself. Who's ever prepared for their death?
“When he's dying, his, his body... it repairs itself. It changes.” He almost doesn't catch Rose's explanation, spoken from experience. “But you can't!” Her hazel eyes filled with desperation and… anger.
He struggles to his feet. “I'm sorry.” He's so sorry. “It's too late, I'm regenerating.” Dying like the stars. But stars have to die to make way for new stars to be born. “Rose…” The last word on his lips, a sentence left incomplete as energy bursts out from his skin through the sleeves and neck of his suit.
Jack puts his arms around Donna and Rose as they hide their faces from the blinding light.
In one terrifying moment where he thinks he is going to die, she is born.
“Oh, brilliant!” A new voice, heavy on the accent. Important. Where was it from?
New teeth, grinning wide.
New hair, a lot of hair, soft against the fingers—yellow. No blonde… blonde like–.
Rose, struggling out of… (what was his name? All this fizzing inside–it's in there somewhere) the big one's arms, whose jaw is hanging open for some reason.
Rose.
The first face this face sees.
To Be Continued.