A/N: Whew - was hard to keep this below 350 words! Written for who_contest's Prompt: Burn. Once again dark, horrifying and overly thinky. Sorry about that (again) - totally the Doctor's fault as usual! Tis un'beta'd (to an extent) to get it in on time (I know, I know!). For all its flaws, I do hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC Worldwide and FOX Networks. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!

They wouldn't open.

He retched miserably, barely aware of the flames and toxic gas spouting from the console behind him as he wrestled with the catch on the TARDIS doors. She groaned a protest, the sound leaking tiredly from the walls even as She stubbornly held tight, keeping him locked in.

But he had to see -

He called out the over-ride commands, feeling a twinge of remorse as She complied -

In the end She was only a machine.

She would never forgive him for thinking that...

He coughed, ragged, wet hacks flecked with blood and bile as he threw open the TARDIS doors in weak triumph; his first urge was to throw himself through them, break the atmospheric seal and meet his end with the rest of his people on the planet below.

He couldn't look away, he didn't dare; the surface now a liquid fireball that lashed out randomly at the tiny blue box above. She rocked with each hit, the both of them too paralysed with pain and grief to move beyond the TimeLock – and both of them too tired to even try.

The TARDIS sighed out a rattling wail behind him, glass shattering in tinkling cracks clearly heard above the raging fires both from behind him and below his feet.

It was coming – he could feel it burning in his limbs and his exhausted mind; he could only hope that She would allow him to fall, before It happened - end this miserable existance that stretched out before him.

Thief.

Renegade.

And now – mass-murderer.

He laughed - high barking shrieks of madness as golden light erupted from his hands; his fingers still anchored around her door-panels -

A coward even to the end.

"Don't let me come back," he pleaded. "Please don't -"

Searing light spilled from every pore, melting away what he was into something New.

But it could never erase what he had done.

He forced himself to look at the raging destruction below his feet; the fire of regeneration engulfing him -

And together, they burned.

END