The Time of Change

Prologue: the Regeneration

Just a little further. Just a little more. Come on, come on... Just a few more steps.

The Doctor stumbled at least ten feet from the box, and he felt something like a thousand knives pierce his chest. It hurt—it hurt so badly. And what was more, he was all alone this time. The bitter, snowy cold swirled around him and lifted his long overcoat off the ground. His knees buckled; he was so weak from his battles. As he began to drop to the snow—as his pant leg came within an inch of being drenched by it—a bright golden light shone beside him, illuminating the white powder below. It lasted for a good six seconds, all of which he counted agonizingly. Next thing he knew, a strong arm had caught him around the waist.

"Oh, no you don't," a woman's voice said. He looked to his right, and through the freezing mist, he saw a pair of shocking blue eyes pierce the night. They were tucked securely behind square spectacles; the lenses caught the flare from a streetlamp nearby, for a brief moment illuminating the heart-shaped face in which they were set.

A stunned moment of silence passed, the only outwardly audible sound that of crunching snow and bare trees creaking in the wind. Inside his head, the Doctor was screaming, This is impossible!

"How are you here?" he croaked as they began to walk toward the box unsteadily, her arms holding him on his feet. He had to force shock not to overtake him. She had died, right before his eyes. He remembered far too clearly how. She had been shot by a dalek's extermination beam when it should have been him. She had diverted his attention to save him, just like she always did. Dying to save him was what she existed for, she said. He did not know she had been shot until she told him over an hour later. She managed to feign that everything was fine, fighting the bad guys and winning the minor war like there was not a care in the world. Only when it was all said and done did she tell him the truth. Then she had kissed him gently on the forehead, that hauntingly beautiful golden light shimmering in her eyes, and simply disintegrated.

The Doctor knew that she came back. Every single time she died, she came back again, but never when he still had the last face she had seen before she died. She saw a different face each time, after he had regenerated. She appeared once per cycle; it was a sort of unwritten rule by which she abided. She could not really be here, no matter how badly he wanted her to be. It was impossible.

Her eyebrows furrowed, thoughtful creases forming between them and standing out on her young face. "I... I don't know," she whispered. "I honestly don't. Something let me come back, just this once." Her mouth broke into a shyly reminiscent little smile. "Although I'm sure I am burning up a sun somewhere just to say goodbye to you. Sound familiar?" The Doctor chuckled weakly, for this was what he had said to another girl—Rose—the last time he saw her. The Doctor's girl knew that, and she laughed as they hobbled along. It was a very quiet sound, but in it was love and happiness and purity and hope and despair and sadness. Her laugh, as old as she was, held so many things. He never tired of hearing it.

"But this isn't about me," she added after a beat. "I'm not important; this is about you. Come on..."

The Doctor snapped, "Stop that."

She glanced at him, bemused. "Stop what?" He felt her grip on his arm loosen, like she thought she was hurting him by how tightly she held him.

"Stop saying that you're not important and that you don't matter," he told her. "Because you are and you do. More than anyone else in all the universes."

She blinked a couple of times, then averted her eyes with a wobbly smile, opting not to respond. The Doctor imagined he could see her blush, but it was hard to tell the difference between that and the rosy flush of her cheeks from the biting cold.