The Doctor:
"Hit me, hit me, hit me with your rhythm stick." I sang to myself, lying under the console as I worked on it. Jace and Rose had gone to bed a while ago, and I never really slept, so decided to have a go at turning off the inbuilt timing, so no time really passed. It meant Jace and Rose would only age when we were out of the TARDIS.
Problem was, I couldn't see time passing, so I didn't know if it worked, so was just tinkering by this point. Until the cat decided to come and lie on my face. "Rain, you're supposed to be with Jace!" I told her, getting up and moving the tiny cat, who like Jace, had been adopted off the streets and had become part of the family.
Rain had loved Jack, but every single ounce of me had to leave him because what he was would have driven me insane. The cat also hated Rose, but Rose was more of a dog person. Strange. "Rain, you're not supposed to be here."
She meowed plentifully, then jumped off me and started walking back into the rest of the TARDIS, then looked back to me expectantly. "Oh, am I supposed to follow you, am I?" I asked her, getting to my feet. "I thought I was the intelligent Time Lord here, not you." Rain just meowed again, and stalked off, long tail waving in the air. "Oh, you're full of yourself, aren't you?"
I followed her back through the TARDIS, and heard music coming light and airy through the corridors, and realised Jace couldn't sleep again, so had come back to her favourite room. Her piano skills had tripled since her awakening, and she was harder on herself when she messed up, because she was pure sound. "Ah, is this what you wanted to show me, little cat?"
"Meow mow meow mow." Well, obviously. "Meow Meow Meow mow."
"Rain, she's 15, and she doesn't sleep walk."
"Meow meow meow."
"Seriously. Rain, she's fine, she just can't sleep." I followed the cat into the music room and saw her sat at the piano. "Jace? Love, come on, bed." She kept playing, and the tablet wasn't on yet she was playing something I'd never heard her play. "OK, Rain, you win. She's playing piano in her sleep."
The cat just meowed back and jumped onto the piano, curled into a ball, and fell asleep. Well, that was useful. "Jace? Love, don't freak out, I'm just going to pick you up, OK?" Nothing happened, she just kept playing, soft and simple, but like the northern lights were in here. I carefully scooped her up and she cuddled into me, and Rain got frustrated when she had to get up and follow us again.
Her room, was a tip. Jace had always been tidy, and she hated anything not being in what she called a harmonious balance because it gave her a headache, and now, it was giving me a headache because there were clothes and books everywhere, her guitar lying on the floor, the plec next to it. "What have you been up to, Dear?" I asked my little girl as I lay her on the bed. "Your mind is so troubled."
"Meow, meow mow meow."
"Rain, I'm not going into her head, that's not a good thing to do. She'll wake up later."
This cat was relentless. "Meow meow meow meow meow."
"Come on, its just a side affect of these tablets. She'll be fine." She finally gave up and just fell asleep, nestled in a pile of clothes. "OK, Jace, whenever you're ready." Her nose started bleeding. "Jace? Jace, wake up. Come on, wake up!"
She stirred, her eyes flickering open, staring sightlessly up. "Dad? Dad, my head..." Her eyes were now swirling with different colours again, purples and red and blues, before settling on the blue. "Theres something in my head, a song, and its so loud..."
"It's OK, just go back to sleep." I whispered, pressing my fingers lightly to her temple and making her brain shut down for a while as Rain came back over, nuzzling her face. "OK, you win, cat, I'm going into her head. But you're coming with me."
I moved one of my hands to the cat, who I had a habit of arguing with as I spoke cat, and kept the other on Jace as I pushed carefully into her head, and heard the music as I reached where she was inside. It was the streets again, a long, dark alley with the rain coming down hard above us. "Jace? Jace, where are you?"
There was a crash and someone fell out of the bin next to me, a girl with long tawny hair, pale skin and eyes the colour of Rain. "Ow! Come on, how come you get to land safely?!"
"Rain?!"
"Well, who else were you expecting, Doctor?" She paused. "Hang on, fingers! I actually have fingers, and thumbs, opposable thumbs!"
This was ridiculous. "Are you telling me this whole time you've been in my TARDIS, and staying with my little girl, you've been a woman stuck as a cat?"
Rain nodded. "Yeah, thats about it. I got stuck like this after a genetic experiment on my world, and when they couldn't get me back to human form, they stuck me here to get rid of the evidence."
"And you just decided to tell me this now?"
The woman shrugged, running her long fingers through her hair. "Would you have believed me?" Fair point. "Jace has been having nightmares recently, even though she's taking those pills you gave her. They smell like crap by the way." Oh, everyones a critic.
"This is the alley I first met her in. If she's having a nightmare again, then this is probably her thinking I'm abandoning her." There was movement further up the alley. "Jace? Love, where are you?" We both ran up over and saw her making her way back through the Powell Estate through the rain, her hair up in that hat again, tumbling down out of it. "JACE!"
"Just leave me alone! You left me, everyone leaves me!" She screamed back, running faster, but I cut through the flats, cutting her off and she crashed into us both and we went tumbling to the ground. "Let go of me! Doctor, let go!"
But I held her tight, and refused to let go. "Jace! This is a dream, it's not real!"
Rain, or whatever her real name was, was also holding her, though more like a mum, stroking her hair and whispering things until she stopped fighting. "It's OK, Jacey, it's OK..."
"Why are you here, you left me. You left me months ago..."
"I didn't leave you, you're just dreaming. You're in the TARDIS, I promise."
She pulled free, leaning against a wall, knowing we'd catch her again if she tried to run, but not wanting us to touch her. "That's not what I meant. I ran because you left me when you changed. You died, and you became someone else."
Oh, the regeneration... I thought she'd come to terms with exactly what happened, how I'd been close to dying but I changed to stay with her, to make sure she had a dad and that she would't be alone in the world again. To her, even though she knew it was still me, it felt as though she'd lost me. "Jace..."
But then Rain came to the rescue. "The Doctor, your dad, he's still here, love. This is him, and he became this person to be with you. He loves you more than anything, and if he had to die for you, he would. He just didn't have to."
Jake's eyes finally found the woman, her eyes confused. "W, who are you? I don't know you."
"Well, maybe if I meowed that would make more sense to you." Rain laughed, walking a little closer. "I'm Rain, though my real name is Imogen. You can call me Rain though, if that makes you feel better." Imogen, and she got turned into a cat... Oh! I was so thick!
"Imogen Marcle! Disappeared October 31st, 25 years ago back on Hoenn!" I cried, looking at her. "No one ever knew what happened to you, your daughter is still searching!"
"Well, been a long time since anyone called me that. And I know, I tried to find her, but I got stuck on Earth. Well, until you took me in, but after that I couldn't really tell you who I was. The fact you could understand me was baffling enough."
"Well, you're famous, well, I say famous, more infamous, as no one off world knew if you were a myth or real." Jace was trying to sneak off. "Hey, stay. You're asleep, Jace. I won't leave you. I will never leave you, because you're my little girl. Well, you're not so little now, more growing into an amazing Time Lord woman. I would have died to save you, and I would do it a thousand times just to make sure you're safe, though for a while, I don't have to worry. Because I'll always be here for you."
She paused, looking back at us as the rain slowly stopped, the sun rising over the east side, lighting her face as she became more like the Jace we knew, skinny jeans, multi-coloured hair, and clean, glowing face. Just as she woke up.
DW
"Ok, are you ready?" I asked the cat, who was now sat in a machine in the lab. Rose and Jace were in the main part, looking in confusion. Jace was feeling better now, and she understood regeneration a little better, though she admitted the idea of suddenly becoming someone else terrified her. "And, 5, 4, 3, 2..."
The machine switched on and there was a blinding light coming from the chamber she was sat in and we all looked away, Jace hiding her eyes in my chest.
When it stopped, we looked back to see a woman lying on the floor of it, naked, but human. Well, mostly, as she had a long, tortoise shell tail, with matching ears on top of her head, her collar still around her neck. So it mostly worked, I'd call that a success.
"Rain?" Jace asked, walking a little closer, before throwing a dressing gown over her naked form as she stirred. "Rain, are you OK?"
She sat up slowly, pulling the fabric around her shoulders, before frowning as she felt her tail, looking behind herself to try and spot it. "Doctor! I still have a tail." Now she felt the ears. "What?!"
I looked sheepish, helping her to her feet. "Sorry, I should have said, there was a change your DNA could have been changed with how long you spent as a cat. I can't get rid of them, because they're a part of you."
"Oh... Um, right. So, what now?"
"You travel with us, right?" Jace asked her, sitting down on a work bench. "I mean, you can actually come on proper adventures now."
But Imogen shook her head, looking at the girl. "Jace, I've been missing for 25 years. My daughter will be about 30 now, she'd think I abandoned her. I need to go back to her."
"What? But... Why can't she come with us too?" She looked at me now. "Dad?"
Oh, Jacey... "Jace, Rain, Imogen, came to us for help, and she deserves to go back to her family, before she's forgotten."
Jace looked upset, but she nodded. "I guess. Come on, I'll help you walk to the wardrobe."
They headed off and Rose and I went to the console room, landing us on Hoenn before they came back. We lost a pet, but Rain got her life and family.
Good luck, Imogen.