The Doctor is dying.

He would go so far as to say that he's likely going to die alone, but it isn't true, and he's honest to himself, mostly, especially at a time like this. The TARDIS is there. The TARDIS pulses gently against his mind, just waiting.

"Hello," he says aloud, and his voice sounds pathetic and tired, like the Time Lords in the heyday of Gallifrey, hoarding their regenerations and wheezing through their tenth.

It occurs to him that he has no idea how old he is. Old enough, he thinks, and waits for hope to come to him, to dawn on him, as it always does.

But it doesn't.

"Don't," he hears his own voice say, and pauses, not remembering his dry lips parting for a second time.

He's standing over his own body. The other him waves.

He's hallucinating. Obviously.

"Stop that," the other Doctor warns him again. "You can't give up, not now."

"Why not?" he asks, and tries to swallow; oh, his throat aches.

The other Doctor crosses his arms, unimpressed. "You can regenerate."

"Can't," he retorts. "Hallucinating. 'm wasting my life away." He laughs, can't help it, and coughs.

"You're not hallucinating," the other Doctor says, and the image thins, and he understands. "It's me."

"Hologram," the Doctor says, and smiles, wryly. "Hello, old friend."

"Hello." The TARDIS hologram waves at him. "I tried to reach you telepathically but you weren't listening, so I'm here to tell you – as the only person you've ever listened to – you have to regenerate."

"Can't," the Doctor points out once more. Talk about a waste of breath. "Finished."

"No," the TARDIS says, stubborn.

He breathes shallowly, thinks it out instead. One day, someone will know what you are, and they might –

"They won't be you," the TARDIS says simply. "I want you."

The Doctor rests his cheek against the cool sheets on the emergency bed, and looks past the hologram, at the console. "I'm tired."

The TARDIS speaks firmly, and he recognizes his own tone in its adoption of his voice, it's terror, the terror of being alone. "You aren't. You never are. You run. You don't stop. Ever."

He closes his eyes, tightly, and waits for the moment. He has one chance to try, for both of them. "Yeah," he manages, and smiles, for both their sakes.

"Thank you," the TARDIS says in its borrowed voice, in relief and love and everything else, and he hears the hologram flick out.

His lungs are beginning to fail, his hearts thump erratically, and he's died enough times to know when his time has come; as he gasps for air, he tunes his mind into the steady hum of the TARDIS, and -

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