The doors opened with a shove, even though he was sure he left them locked, but Gallifrey knew his head wasn't the best before a regeneration, or during, or after, for that matter. He could feel it, burning inside of him, the equivalent of a four megaton nuclear warhead. The Doctor stumbled inside, kicking the door closed behind him. He needed to disappear; the vortex was the safest place to regenerate. He could feel his cells beginning to give way, accepting the tingle of regeneration on the edges of his being, but he held them back, not yet, it wasn't safe, not on this planet. They were going to start a nuclear war, they would destroy themselves without even knowing the reason why, so he stopped them, absorbing the energy of the first warhead into his own body. The decision had been mathematically simple: Five billion lives who don't regenerate verses one who does. He was still alone, no one to travel with him, he would have to rely on the TARDIS to help him. He lent on the consol, desperately trying to find which control triggered dematerialization. His fingers hovered over a button, but the TARDIS grumbled in reply. He tried a few more, but each time, she encouraged him not to. He ran his hands through his hair, it was such a simple task, one lever and he would disappear, but which one?

"Help me, TARDIS" he begged silently. Glancing down at his hands, he noticed one was resting on a black lever that wasn't there before. He grinned and pulled. The TARDIS was always moving controls around, things always seemed to be where they were needed, but you could never see them move.

Stumbling backwards, he gripped the railing and let the energy consume him. It hurt. Regeneration always hurt. Billions of daggers pierced every cell in his body. Bones shrank and stretched, eyes burned, his hearts compressed too small, and everything itched. Every cell in his body was ripped away and replaced, for an instant, he feels like he is not in existence, feels nothing, sees nothing, then all his senses scramble and change. It is over. He is different.

Different. Changed. He is no longer the man he was. But he is still the Doctor. Always the Doctor.

He held a hand up to his face, and then pulled it away. Long sighted again. His hands went to his head. Hair, thank Rasillon. Longer this time, slightly curly. He caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye, orangey red.

'Damn it,' the Doctor thought, 'of all the colours it could have been, it had to be ginger.'

Then he froze. Last regeneration, he had been hoping for ginger, now he hated it? This was the hardest part of regenerating, the change in the personality. The body, he could cope with, but, hating things he had loved? That was a completely different story.

The Doctor numbly realized that he had not spoken a word out loud yet. The last him had always talked, even when there was no one else to talk to.

'Silly thing to do, really.' The Doctor thought, 'Why bother speaking out loud to yourself, you can hear better in your mind.'

He stumbled forward, taking first steps on new legs. He left the control room of the TARDIS, down the winding hallway. Thankfully, the TARDIS moved his room closer to where he was, so he didn't have to walk far. He closed the door behind him, asking the TARDIS to keep it locked until the regeneration sickness wore off, and collapsed onto the bed. He slept, his mind filled with images of the inner workings of the TARDIS, theories of Parallel worlds and the words Bad Wolf.

He sat bolt upright in his bed, his mind on one thought: He could get back to her.