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There was a pain in her chest. A burning, stinging, hot pain. It was all she could do not to scream in agony. She had to get herself and her friends back to the TARDIS before anyone else got hurt. She would be fine (mostly), but the same couldn’t be said about her fam.
“Keep running!” She shouted to her friends. Her breath hitched with the effort of it, but she didn’t allow herself to stop for a single second. Not when there was Sontaran’s shooting at her and her friends. The mocking ‘Sontar Ha!’ followed them all the way back to her beautiful Ghost Monument.
She watched with relief as Graham stumbled into the TARDIS first, followed by Ryan, and then Yaz who looked back to make sure she was there. She made quick gesture to Yaz to reassure her she was fine despite the pain spreading from her chest to the base of her throat and the centre of her stomach.
Everything was starting to hurt, really, and she let out a relieved huff of breath when she practically threw herself through the doors and slammed them shut behind her.
There was no time to stall catching her breath, though, so she scrambled away from the doors and straight to the console, throwing levers and switches as she went about. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, her ship took off and landed with a thud in space, floating peacefully amongst the stars that stretched out for miles and miles, seeming to never end.
With the ship safe and her companions on board, unharmed and not dying or already dead, the Doctor finally let herself relax against her body’s cries to do something about the pain. There wasn’t much she could do anyway, she was dying. Well, not dying. Just regenerating. She leaned against the console, her kind ship whispering soothing words in her mind, and brought a hand out in front of her. It was glowing gold with regeneration energy. She made a fist and it immediately disappeared.
“Doc?” A curious voice piped up from behind her. “Y’alright?”
The Doctor looked down at her chest. It was hard to see against the maroon colour of her shirt, but against the rainbow colours on it, she could see aa dark red patch. “Fine,” she answered, “just- well, no. I’m not fine,” she admitted. She would need to tell them. Prepare them. They’d never seen anyone regenerate, and she’d hardly filled them in on all the little details. She’d only ever briefly told them time and time again about when she used to be different men, but they probably thought she was just rambling nonsense.
She spun around to face them, tears in her eyes that threatened to spill. Ryan put the back of his hand over his mouth in shock, immediately spotting the blood on her shirt. Graham gave her a sad, disbelieving look like the possibility of her dying had never crossed his mind. Yaz had a similar reaction to Ryan, but tears filled her own eyes. “I’m dying, fam,” she told them bravely.
“But you can’t,” Yaz cried, removing the hand from her mouth.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the Doctor tried to comfort her, but Yaz merely shook her head. “It’s okay, I’ll be fine. I’ll pop back up again with a new face.”
“You keep saying that, Doc,” Graham pointed out, “what d’ya mean?”
“Well,” she sighed, she could feel the regeneration energy building up. “I’m part of a race called the Time Lords. We’re not big fans of dying, huge cheaters, we are,” she nodded seriously, “so instead of dying, we change our entire physical body. We literally become new people. Well, we still have the same memories because we’re still us, but we look different. Sometimes our personalities change, too.”
“That’s wicked,” Ryan said in spite of the situation.
“I know,” the Doctor agreed giddily. Then her smile dropped. “It’s just... I’ve only had this body for a few months. I don’t want to change yet,” she admitted. The tears were back and she couldn’t find the want to blink them away. “The last time I changed in front of a friend, she could barely look me in the eye. She didn’t know who I was. She came around in the end, of course, but I just don’t want it to be like that with you lot.”
“Doctor, it could never be like that with us. No matter what you look like or how you act, you’re still the Doctor to us,” Yaz said seriously, taking one of the Doctor’s hands in her own. Graham took the other and Ryan put a hand on her shoulder.
“Promise you won’t leave me?” The Doctor anxiously asked.
“Promise,” they said at the same time.
The Doctor let go of their hands and took a step back, far enough that they wouldn’t be hurt by the regeneration energy. She looked down at her hands which were now glowing once again. She might’ve thought it beautiful if she didn’t know the pain that came with it.
“Oh, I should probably warn you,” the Doctor quickly said upon the feeling of her regeneration coming up. “All my previous regenerations have been men, this is the first time I’ve been a woman, so I dunno what to expect this time.”
“How many times have you done this?” Graham asked with concern.
“About thirteen times? This is my fourteenth regeneration.”
“You’ve died thirteen times?” Graham parroted.
“Yep. I never could keep out of trouble,” the Doctor grinned. “Also, whatever happens, do not come near me until this is over.” Her friends dutifully agreed, but they looked like they wanted to protest.
The glow on her hands slowly built and built until the area around her was much lighter than the rest of the TARDIS, the regeneration energy serving as a light source on its own. The energy crept up her neck and chin, until suddenly the golden energy exploded from her hands and neck, engulfing her in it. The Doctor’s screams could be heard muffled beneath the sound of regeneration itself.