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"You're so happy now/Burning the candle at both ends/Your self-loving soothes/And softens the blows you've invented" -"Fury," Muse
The regeneration had been painful and that was a gross understatement. He had burned for what felt like a thousand suns, a thousand deaths. He had died screaming -which had been abruptly cut off by the scream of his successor as he was 'born.'
The Tenth Doctor had died screaming and alone, two things he had always feared would happen when it came to his death. He had tried so hard to escape it, to run away from the darkness nipping at his heels before it could latch onto him and wrap him in the golden tendrils of regenerative energy.
His last words had been to no one, just a last scream into the void before he became nothing, not even a body to bury and mourn. Ood Sigma had promised that the universe would sing him to rest, but all he had heard was the sounds of his own despair as he burned like he had burned Gallifrey in those last days.
This wasn't a hero's death, this was a death of a coward who had ran away from his fate until the last moment. The last moment had been swift and quick and cold oblivion greeted him like a long lost son.
He hadn't expected anything after his last breath, but a voice was calling him. So...familiar...He opened his eyes and he found himself under a blue sky. Earth. But why?
"Hey! Look over here, pretty boy!"
There was the voice again, so much closer this time. He turned his head and found green eyes and floppy brown hair. And- "Oh no, not the bow tie again," he signed half-heartedly. The other Time Lord laughed quietly.
"Miss me, Sand Shoes?"
"Yeah, quite a bit."
"Well, where you are right now, I'll never leave again. I'll be with you...forever..."