Disclaimer: Don't own anything Doctor who related. Not this Doctor, or the last one, or the flippin' next one!

Note: Well, I heard the official news about the new Doctor and I'm not happy. Not because I think he'll be bad (he could be the best for all I know!) just because I guess I was secretly hoping that the series would end for our generation with Tennant. …I guess our time will never come again..

Btw: this is set during the tenth doctor's regeneration.

The Doctor exhaled and opened his eyes slowly. What he saw, or more what he didn't alarmed him to some extent. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. He tried to sit up, but there wasn't anything to sit up on! Nor could he see his own body. Now he was panicking.

He'd regenerated, hadn't he? He hadn't been hit by a Dalek, so he couldn't be… That is to say; it had just been a venomous bite from the ugly spiky creature, hadn't it? The poison was burning his veins from the inside out, and then he'd regenerated. If so, then why wasn't Martha standing to his left screaming his name while Donna beat the intergalactic hell out of the stupid spiky beast?

"What happened?" He croaked, his voice laced with worry. "Martha? Donna?"

No one answered. The Doctors breathing quickened, so he wasn't dead, dead. Then where in the---

"You are in between, old friend." came a cool female voice from all around. The Doctor yelped in surprise and tried to see through the darkness. "Who are you?" He demanded. "What's happened?"

The voice chuckled kindly, as thought to an impatient child. "How can you not recognize my voice?"

The Doctor wrinkled his forehead in confusion. Then the otherworldly tones of the voice melted its way into his memory, and realization dawned upon him.

"Tardis?" he said incredulously. She hadn't spoken to him in her actual voice in years! Not since the Timewar! And even before then! The Tardis gave a light laugh. "Yes, Doctor."

Now he was really confused, and it's not a good thing for the Doctor to be confused.

"No, it isn't a good thing, is it Doctor?"

"Oh, that's right, sorry. I forgot that you could get inside my head there for a moment."

"Yes, I know."

"Right, sorry again. Um… Tardis, do mind telling me exactly what happened? I seem to have a bit of a blank."

"You regenerated."

So he had regenerated! "Then why or where exactly am I? Where are Martha and Donna?"

"They're with you."

Ok, confused again. "What? What do mean they're with me? How can they be with me? I'm right here, wherever here is, and look! No Martha, no Donna!"

"They are with your new regeneration." The Tardis replied calmly. The Doctor felt like he had been deprived of air for a few seconds and took a while before he could finally find his voice.

"Tardis, if I've regenerated and the process was a success, and both Martha and Donna are with my new me… then what am I doing here?"

"Doctor, what do you think happens to all your previous incarnations when you regenerate?"

The Doctor gaped. "Well, they kind of... explode into atoms and are absorbed into the surrounding air and are forgotten while the new body takes place."

"Close,"

"Close? What do you mean close? It's happened to me ten times! I should know."

"You only know half of the story." The Tardis said, with just enough haughtiness in her voice to make the Doctor annoyed.

"Well, tell me the other half then. Hmm?" He snapped, "Come on, I'm listening."

The Tardis sighed. "You know your last regeneration was a whole lot calmer about the whole process. But if you must know, well then you'd best get to know it."

"Alright, now you're making less sense then I usually do to my companions."

"Now we can't have that now, can we? Oh no. Why don't you just quite down for a bit and I'll let you know what's happening, alright?"

"Alright."

"Good, now… Regeneration isn't as simple a procedure as you think it is. When a Timelords body regenerates, and only when it regenerates, does the previous body get taken somewhere else."

"Which, I'm guessing, is here, am I right?" He interjected.

"Correct. Now here is a place of choice—"

"Well I certainly didn't choose to come here." The Doctor said.

"Do you mind?" the Tardis cut in impatiently.

"Sorry."

"As I was saying, here, the in between, is where a Timelords old body goes where he can choose what he wants the current body to do for the rest of that bodies life."

"What? That doesn't make any sense. If the body has died than how can you choose a place for it live?"

"Do you honestly think that Rassilon was so frivolous as to give the Timelords the ability to change bodies and just throw away the old ones? Of course not, Doctor. Every body comes here, free of all which was ailing it. And they are given a choice, because now, dear Doctor, your current body is mortal."

This bit of information hit him harder than the back of Jackie Tyler's hand across his face. While the Doctor tried to digest the information and make some sense of it all, the Tardis continued.

"Every time you regenerated, haven't you felt as though you are missing a certain part of you?"

"Yes… I suppose."

"That is because you have lost a part of yourself, in a figure of speech."

"Alright Tardis, now you've lost me."

The Tardis made an irritated tutting noise. "Honestly Doctor, I passed you as a much more intelligent person than you are making known at the present."

"Well, then simplify it for me, pretend I'm really stupid." He countered.

"Now you sound just like your eighth body!" she sighed.

"What?"

"Oh never mind. The point is, simplified version; any memories you have so far from all your previous regenerations up until this one, are all packed into this body. And now, as a kind of gift from Rassilon to all his Timelords and Ladies, the gift to live a mortal life, that is unless you wish to die, then I can chuck you out in the middle of a battlefield and let you get killed…"

"Wait, wait, wait, hold on." The Doctors mind was rushing now. "You mean to tell me, that I'm still living in my new regeneration as a Timelord, but I'm also living a mortal life in this body! Right now?"

A beat.

"Yes, that would be the common jist of things."

The Doctor laughed, "Un-be-lievable! Rassilon… brilliant! Absolutely brilliant."

"Doctor, will you please listen."

"Sorry… again."

"So, now you have the free choice to go wherever you want to live for the remainder of your mortal life, with your big brown hair, cheeky grin and the mole between your shoulder blades."

"Hang on a tick, wouldn't me being out in this body cause a kind of paradox or something. Like if my new regeneration or one my companions saw me wandering around somewhere and decided they wanted to see what was going on or something…"

"No."

"Well, why not?"

"Because in a sense, by living a normal, well close to normal life (you'll still have all your memories and knowledge in tact) you could be changing something and therefore creating a parallel universe. Sort of… I'm not good at explaining that bit"

The Doctor merely nodded, his mind reeling. Was it possible, or did that venom have a really, really bad side-effect on him? Had he even regenerated? Or was he just staying dead for too long, like his seventh regeneration? He was lost.

"Tardis?" he said suddenly.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Did this happen to the Timelords in the Timewar?" He asked hopefully. The Tardis took her time before answering. "No. Both your last two bodies asked the same question. But those that were in the war did not regenerate after the war."

The Doctors face fell.

"I'm sorry." She offered.

"No, it's… ah, it's alright." Neither of them said anything for a moment before the Doctor broke the silence again, "Where did my previous regenerations decide to go?"

The Tardis laughed again, "I can't tell you what all of them did, because there may be—"

"--may be colossal consequences… yes, yes, alright. I know." He said impatiently. "Then how about just a few of them? Hmm? My last one? Old big ears, where'd that one scamper off to?"

"Well, if you'd really like to know… he returned to Gallifrey." Tardis said with a smile in her tone. "He went away from the cities though, he said that he'd be content just being able to feel the Timlords living in his mind and watching the orange sky."

The Doctor gulped and cleared his throat, "I had quite a way with words back then, didn't I?" he said with a weak laugh. The Tardis merely hummed her agreement and continued. "Your eighth body wanted to return to Colbin—"

"Colbin…" the name lingered on his lips, he hadn't heard it spoken since… "How far back did he go? Because when I'd gone back to Gallifrey the last time, I was aiming for my sons'… Colbins graduation from the Academy. But I was off by a few years and ended up arriving right at the beginning of the Timwar, he had already been sent out into battle."

"He, that is you, went as far back as he could. He wished to make up for the time he'd lost; he wanted to be with his family. As did your fifth body, he found your mother. Your mortal and earthly mother and he took care of her."

The Doctor sniffed noisily. "Ok, I get it. And… thank you." He added in a softer tone. "I don't suppose I'll be allowed to do what any of them did, will I?"

"You know you can't Doctor."

The Doctor nodded, knowingly. He wasn't sure he'd be able to return to Gallifrey, he'd grown too different (as though he wasn't different enough to begin with). And as for Colbin, or any of his children for that matter, they'd never seen him such a young body before! But his mother, he hadn't seen his mother in ages… literally, ages. He had to admire his fifth body for such an act. His thoughts were broken by the Tardis humming softly so as to grab his attention.

"Well, Doctor. My tenth Doctor, where do you desire to spend the rest of your mortal days? I can take you anywhere, but only once. Then I shall never have contact with you again. But I want to know that you are happy."

That information touched him. Deeply. But now, he had to make the decision of a lifetime. The last lifetime this body would ever have.

A. Note: As some of you may be able to tell, this is a Denial fic! I'm trying to make myself feel better because of the fact that we will no longer have David around, and that really upsets me. So, I hope you liked it (and understood it!). my last two fics didn't do too well, apprantly (hides face in shame). NEXT CHAPTER: Where will the Tenth doctor decide to live the rest of his life?? I'd like to hear what you guys think!! ;)