A/N: This is a look at what might have happened when the Doctor did choose to end the Time War by destroying Gallifrey. It does not take into account events that took place in the 50th special. We start with the War Doctor…

Never cruel, nor cowardly. Never give up. Never give in.

The TARDIS not far off now and the Doctor was relieved. He stumbled as his pace quickened to get to her even sooner; already his vision was darkening from the pain. The screaming in his head was building and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold it off. He was using all of his energy to stifle it but still it was reaching a nearly unbearable level. Yet he knew this was just a fraction of what he would hear when he let go of the mental block he was holding and he knew when he heard the full extent of it, it would be overwhelming. He didn't want that to happen until he got back to the TARDIS.

He fell to his knees just a few steps from her doors the pressure and pulsing in his head so bad now that it completely blocked his vision. He crawled the remaining steps and once inside he simply collapsed to the ground. He rolled over on to his back and closed his eyes. He felt the cold metal of the floor pressing on him and he let out a sigh of relief that he had made it. She closed the door behind him.

The TARDIS's presence was hovering around him. He knew her feeling well. It was warm and bright like the warmth and light of deep summer day. It was good and comforting but he didn't want to feel it now. He felt hints of her curiosity and concern at what was going on and what was troubling him. He felt her touch him but she could not get in his mind enough to find out. He raked his hands over his face trying in vain to hide himself from her. He didn't want her to know what had happened; he didn't want her to know what he had done. Ashamed didn't even close to describing the intensity of regret and shame he felt for what he had just done. He didn't want her to know but soon she would.

His mental block was stronger than it ever had been, stronger than he had ever wished or needed it to be. She couldn't penetrate it. The billions of voices that pressed against it were weakening it and barley getting through. It was muffled but he knew what to expect. Billions of screams surrounding him. The sound of his people dying. The sound of his sin, the people he had murdered. He braced himself for that. He knew he would hear them; he had been the one to cause them. He had pushed a button and in that instant he had ended the Time War, the Daleks, and his very own people.

The second he started to let off the mental block he cried out in agony as the shield around his mind completely caved in and allowed the onslaught of stimuli to fill his mind. Billions of screams at the same moment, all within his mind. He had never heard so many in his mind at once and never such great suffering. He could hear every single one of them, every person on Gallifrey. They were the screams of his people, all suffering, all burning, all dying at this very moment. He could feel their pain and fear and sadness. He could feel the burning and death.

He curled up on the ground, wrapping his arms around himself as he writhed in pain. He screamed at the top of his lungs and he sobbed with everything that in him. It was overwhelming. He was hearing an entire species end. Futures and entire timelines exploded in front of him. He could feel each one severing off at the end as one by one they succumbed to the fire that would end their lives.

As bad as the screaming was there was something much worse.

Silence

Cold silence came to wash over him. It was such a contrast to the screaming that had been there before that he was momentarily stunned by it. His ears, even his mind rung as the silence replaced the deafening screaming. But it did not take long for the shock to subside and the silence to begin reeking more havoc on his mind than the screams ever could. Where before there had been an overwhelming number of minds inside of his, now there was not a single one. Never in all his life had there not been at least one conscious presence around. What the silence meant was almost more than he could bear; they were all gone and he was all alone.

His own mind felt completely foreign to him; he'd never known it this way. The moment their voices stopped he felt like his mind was stripped of everything that was familiar to him. The silence was so dark he couldn't find his way in it. What was his mind without the presence of others? It felt ravished and bare and completely dead. Could it even exist that way? He did not know.

The Doctor was temporarily lost. There had never ever been silence in his head. He panicked at it; he didn't know what to do with it. Like a man who had been robbed of his sight he literally scrambled to find his way around, to find a way out of this, a way to live with the silence. He started to hyperventilate, crawling at the air, desperately trying to make his silent mind make some kind of sense.

In the next moment he felt the TARDIS reach out to his mind, gently stroking it and telling him it would be alright. He had never felt her presence so strong in his mind and he whimpered when he felt it, falling back to the ground. It helped; he wasn't comepletly alone. His mind clung back at her for dear life, desperate to make the silence stop. His mind felt burned and ravaged and she felt cool over it, taking away the pain.

This new intensity of her presence was surely because he was so desperate at the moment. She'd never been this strong before but he had never needed her so much. Even still, it didn't feel like enough to save his mind. The deathly screams followed by the dark silence seemed like too much for him to bear.

It was too much to bear.

He felt the thump thump thump thump of his dual heart beat stop. He was glad. The absence of this sound was music to his ears. But it was only an instant before he felt the regeneration energy starting to build from the core of his body to save his life.

He fought it as it began to build rapidly in his body, preparing to regenerate this dead body into a new one. He fought his body's intense urge to regenerate, resisting the glowing energy that was starting to come off. He willed it back where it came from, pushing it back down and not allowing it to radiate all over his body. His body did this on its own; it wanted to regenerate. This was what was supposed to happen; he would have to fight for it not to happen. He could refuse to let it bring him back to life but it would be hard. It would be painful. He welcomed that. He gritted his teeth as the pain burned inside of him.

He felt the TARDIS's presence on him even stronger than before. She wrapped around his mind again, concern and sadness heavy in her touch. There was also realization; she knew what he planned to do, what he was refusing to do. When it occurred to her what he was doing he felt her concern for him spike.

He tried to ignore her and her rapidly growing distress. He focused instead on the pain. The physical pain was building so much that he let out a scream. The regeneration energy wanted to repair him. It wanted to change and bring new life; it didn't want to be pushed aside and stopped. He fought back roughly to keep it from doing what it was made to do. He deserved the pain that he was getting. They had all felt pain. They had all died, all burned because of him and he should too.

He had no desire to live after what he had done. He didn't want to know what kind of man would result from this. Surely, that man would be a monster to have been born in battle formed by the blood, revenge and anger around him. He already was a monster. No one would want him alive. He himself didn't want to be alive.

Don't do this

He was momentarily caught off guard as he heard the voice of the TARDIS quietly call out in his head. Never before had he heard her voice in actual words and he jumped in surprise at the sound of it.

He felt the regeneration energy get ahead of him as his attention had been focused on this temporary distraction. He focused all his attention back on it, pushing it back with a vengeance, least it should get the upper hand.

Don't do this she cried again.

"Stop it!" he cried out at her. His face contorted in pain. His body was getting weaker as he continued to fight the energy. He was starting to win the battle but he had not done it yet.

Live

"No!" he cried firmly.

Why?

"I can't. I just…can't."

Doctor

"I am not the Doctor anymore." It was terrible to not be yourself anymore and he wasn't the Doctor anymore. He had broken the promise, the promise that made him who he was. The promise that guided his actions. Without it he didn't know who he was.

Please...please don't

"Why not? Why won't you just let me die? I want to die."

He felt her plant a memory into his head. It was a memory of the day he had chosen her, the day that he had picked her to travel away in. He could feel what that meant to her. He had chosen her even though she was old and broken. He had called her beautiful and made her feel special. He had chosen her and gave her a chance to see the universe. He had saved her life and she loved him. She was begging him not to leave her.

The memory struck him deep inside. That day was special to him too. She was special to him. They'd shared so many memories together over the centuries. Lots of things changed but one thing did not: It was always him and her.

But now everything had changed. Those times were in the past now. "Didn't you see what I did?" he cried out brokenly. Some may have thought it foolishness that he walked so far away from her to do it. But he hadn't wanted her to see it. It was silly to do because she would have sensed it from his mind the second he let off of the mental block.

He felt from her that she knew it all. He covered his face. It hurt even more to know that she had seen the terrible thing he had done. This terrible feeling, the feeling of having blood on your hands, of being a murder and having others see you for that, was what he would feel every day of his life if he survived this. He would have to carry this guilt forever.

Surely, she hated him for what he'd done. This was not what they had agreed on. This is not what they did with their lives. She should kick him out of her doors and never turn back.

But she didn't. Instead she begged again. Please

She still wanted him. She still loved him and was sending those feelings to him. He could feel that there was no judgment, no hate, not even fear in the way she held his mind right now. He only felt her sadness at the thought of losing him and hoping that it wouldn't happen. How could she possibly still care for him?

He didn't deserve any of it. She may still want him around but he did not. He was a wretched excuse for a person and he did not want to allow himself to keep on living.

"I can't live with myself anymore. I hate myself. I hate what I am, my very being, my existence. How can someone possibly live with that?"

There was sympathy from her. She didn't want him blaming himself for what had happened. She knew how terrible he felt for his actions but she didn't think he should make himself feel them. It had to be done.

She understood. They both knew that it had to be done. But that did not erase the guilt he felt for having done it. And it did not take away all the grief he felt in losing them. This wasn't just about punishing himself; it was also about having no will to go on.

"I can't stand the silence. It's so lonely. Too terribly lonely."

He felt her radiate something else: Understanding. Just as he was the last of his kind, so was she. There would be no other TARDISs anymore. Just as he was mourning the loss of his kind, so was she.

Somehow, in his selfish emotions, in the middle of this self-centered act he was considering he felt a small trickle of sympathy. How could he possibly do this to her? How could he leave her? After all they had been through, after he was the one to destroy their planet, how could he then leave her too? What would happen to her, all alone?

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he cried several times, he didn't even know how many. She held him closer, knowing what he thinking and feeling. It was his fault. He had destroyed her kind as well as his own. She understood what had to be done. She had not tried to stop him. She had known what the destruction of his planet would mean for her and she had helped him get there.

All of it was his fault and he didn't want to give up on her but he didn't know how to keep from giving up. The more he was getting upset the less he was winning the battle with the regeneration energy. He felt her coaxing his heart and soul trying to push it over the edge to let the healing begin.

"How? How?" he asked.

Hold on to the promise.

"But I broke it."

You need the promise. Holding on to it is the only way you will make it.

"What does that mean?"

For now, 'never cowardly.' Do not take the easy way out. 'Don't give up'.

She wasn't giving up yet. Not on him, not on life. So, he decided to try for her. He felt her wiggling in, coaxing him to let go of the restraint and let the regeneration energy do what it was supposed to.

He knew this would be bad. He had never held off the regeneration energy for so long and he knew that now when he did let it free it would hurt. Dread filled him and he took a deep breath. "Here we go," he simply said as he stopped pushing the energy back and let it do what it wanted to do. He screamed at the top of his lungs as the energy sprung from his body and flowed out of his limbs, burning the whole way out.