I'm crashing. Again. Just for once I want the regeneration to happen when I'm not crashing. I stumbled around blindly, my sense of direction thrown severely off due to the fact that it appeared I couldn't stand on two feet anymore and the fact that the guts to my ship had changed drastically.
I looked up. I'd be lucky to come out of this wreck alive.
The Time Vortex had thrown me to a relatively random location in space, so it seemed. I recognized no familiar celestial landmarks, and I was probably just a few parsecs from a truly massive nebula.
But the thing that scared me most was the planet I looked to be flying into.
The TARDIS was burning up, just like it had last time. I need to check that...I thought to myself distractedly. Generally speaking, the TARDIS didn’t catch on fire. Clearly, there was a problem in the system somewhere.
“FOCUS, DOCKIE!” I yelled. I jumped to the console, using the spinning motion of the box to carry me further. Spinning dials and shifting knobs, I set the TARDIS for autoland and hunkered down, preparing for the worst.
---
I sighed, staring up at Luna’s moon, the cause of almost all the discourse in my life. There were good nights, admittedly, but it was mostly bad.
Tomorrow night was the beginning of the full moon cycle. It always proved hellish for me.
I moaned and walked back inside. I was lucky to have my doctor to help me.
A tear slipped my eyes and made its way to the floor as I sat down behind my cello. I pulled the bow across the strings in a mournful, slow melody.
Doctor dear
I’ll be needing you soon...
Doctor dear
Before the call of the moon
Can you help me to find
What is right, what is good
Doctor dear
I believe that you could...
I rarely ever sang, but when I did, I tried my hardest to appreciate it for what it was. I let my forelegs go slack, the bow clattering to the floor and the cello leaning heavily against my chest.
My head turned to the window, and a red flare caught my attention. I smiled grimly.
“Welcome home, my dear Doctor.”
---
“BRACE FOR IMPACT!!!” I screamed as my box reached down towards ground level.
There was a resounding crack as the TARDIS hit the ground, probably from more than just the ship.
As it slid to a stop, I let out a moan and rubbed my head. I looked at my hands and flipped them over. They didn’t look any different from my last regeneration.
“Hold on...” I glanced over to the mirror at the other end of the TARDIS. “Nothing’s changed...I haven’t regenerated yet.” As I said this, a faint golden tinge marked the backs of my hands.
“There we are,” I said with a smile. I leaned back and let the process begin.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
I looked up at the door. “Not this again.” I slowed the process and pushed myself up.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Hold on, hold on,” I grunted, standing up. I clutched my chest as I stood, pain searing acrossed it. Probably a fracture, I thought to myself. I threw my coat off (as it would probably not fit when I finished regenerating) as I made my way to the door. I took a breath and pulled the door open.
“Hello again, my dear Doctor.”
---
“Hello again, my dear Doctor.”
This was the doctor in his earliest form anyone would know him, this I knew. It was still disconcerting seeing him as anything but a pony. I stood up on my back legs, trying to gain some height on him, but he still towered over me.
“Uhm...ah...I, uh...” The towering Time Lord stumbled backwards away from the door and me. “Who are you?”
I smiled and let myself into the big blue box. As I stepped in, I ran a hoof along the plaster walls of the early TARDIS, which still had faint burn marks from re-entry. “Someone you know very well.” I stopped and thought. “Or you will come to know me.”
He huffed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
I smiled. “Spoilers.”
All the blood left his face. “How do you know that phrase?” he asked quietly.
“There was once a pony that most knew by the name of Time Turner. I grew to become close friends with him. I was there as he hurt himself, over and over and over once more. I was there as he cried out for help from long dead friends, begging them to tell him their lies. I was there with him as he almost destroyed a lot of things we both held dear.”
I stopped, barely able to hold my tears. “And I couldn’t be there as he professed his love for me. I will regret that for a long time yet, Doctor.”
All at once, the Time Lord simply...stopped.
“You’re lying.”
I smiled, trying to make the sadness subtly evident in the small expression. “Doctor, I have already seen so much with you, and yet you have no idea who I am. And that makes me sad.” I turned on my hoof and prepared to leave. “Good evening to you, Doctor. I hope all goes well.”
As I shut the door behind me, leaving him behind, shocked expression still catching off the corner of my eye, I let the tears flow.
The distinct sound of the TARDIS engines sputtering alerted me to his departure. I didn’t turn as I usually do for my Doctor and just headed back inside.
---
“Please tell me this isn’t happening!” I screamed to my box, trying to pull levers and push buttons, all that jazz, as my body was reforming itself.
The odd ‘flames’, that I’d never bothered to learn the real name for, didn’t seem to be affecting anything I was doing, but it was doing a number on the TARDIS. I winced as another shot of pain laced its way down my spine.
I was looking for the Time Vortex, something that seemed to not exist wherever I was in the universe. I could find traces, but it seemed as though I was in a place where time did not exist.
This is certainly a compromising situation...
I ran to the other side of the TARDIS, intent on finding a way to quell the flames and the violent tremors that rocked the ship to and fro.
There was a resounding beep, and I glanced up at the screen. “There you are!” I yelled as I saw what flashed on the screen.
Timestream lock acquired. I flipped the ‘Wibbley Lever’, and the TARDIS slowly evened out in the proverbial ‘Time Tunnel’. It was just a section of space that had more temporal activity, and allowed me direct access to the timestream, which would shield anyone outside of the TARDIS from the regeneration radiation.
Unfortunately for me, it did little to help anyone inside.
A violent explosion rocked the entire ship from behind me, sending me flying. It barely registered with my already dulling senses when I heard the jarring CRACK of breaking vertebrae.
I slid over the railing of my ship onto the floor, ten feet below. A pain-filled tear welled up in my eye. “Not now,” I moaned to myself.
There was a violent explosion of energy from the pit of my stomach, and I screamed as the fire-tinted radiation enveloped my figure.
---