Disclaimer - I don't own Doctor Who.

As I was watching The Timeless Children, I thought to myself what could happen if things went very very different. Anyway, please enjoy. Please let me know what you think of this story.

Thanks.

Damage.

Looking Ko Sharmus in the face, the Doctor was unsure of whether to feel angry or relieved that this human was taking over the responsibility of ending the threat of the Cyber-Masters. A part of her was more angry with herself because once more she had hesitated in taking direct action in the face of destructive threat; the Daleks and Davros had been bad enough, especially since her fifth self had told Turlough and Tegan and Stien and Mercer in the TARDIS about making one of the biggest mistakes in her lives, failing to end the Daleks, but what the Master had done to the Time Lords, setting everything up so they would be able to regenerate inside cybernetic bodies….

Like she had told the Dalek Prime Minister two regenerations back, the Doctor had long since thought the Master had run out of ways to make her want to feel sick; the Toclafane were bad enough, but what he had done to the Time Lords…She was disgusted that she had even tried to rehabilitate one of the Master's previous regenerations, and on top of the devastating revelations she'd endured now about the Timeless Child, the last thing she had needed was to hesitate.

But at the same time she was relieved, she no longer had the responsibility; the Master might goad her all he liked, but she had never liked taking action like this, never like this.

This was why she never liked war; because it made so easy to become a monster.

"The universe still needs you," Ko Sharmus said softly, looking kindly at her without looking at her with contempt for what she had failed to do before he arrived. "So I suggest you run."

"But-," the Doctor immediately began protecting, hating the fact this wise old human was prepared to sacrifice his life because she hadn't had the guts to do the dirty work herself. She was prepared to say they could come up with a better plan, but he interrupted her loudly before she could even finish her protest.

"Run, Doctor!"

The Doctor jumped at the sound of the shot, but inwardly she smiled because it meant she didn't need to shoulder the responsibility even though she knew if she had shown some strength, she could give this group of Time Lords the Master had experimented and mutilated some peace that regeneration could not provide.

The Doctor glanced down at the bomb with the shrunken remains of the Lone Cyberman stuck to it, cursing herself for giving this man such a terrible burden, but one look into his eyes told her Ko Sharmus was only too happy to make amends because of his own failures. A part of her wished to know more about the circumstances behind the war, behind the Lone Cyberman and his hunt for the Cyberium in the first place, but she knew she would never have the chance even though she would understand it better than she did the revelation of the Timeless Child.

"Don't you dare!" she heard the Master hiss behind her, but the Doctor refused to listen to her old friend. She had come to see that the Master was irredeemable, and she cursed her previous self for even letting Missy get close only to be stabbed in the back, and that was before discovering what the Master had done to Gallifrey, to the Time Lords, and converting some of the bodies into Cybermen (the Doctor didn't know for sure if these were the only Cyber-Masters on Gallifrey, but she wasn't willing to chance it).

The Doctor gasped and she broke into a run out of the Matrix room.

"DOCTOR!" She heard the Master yell behind her, but the yell made her keep running out of the room (she thought she heard Ko Sharmus say something, but she was running out too fast to get a proper idea of what he was saying), and she ran towards the TARDIS bay where she'd sent the TARDIS containing the last human survivors and Yaz, Graham, and Ryan to Earth.

As she turned the corner and found the door leading to the bay, the Doctor dug a hand into the pocket of her coat where her sonic screwdriver was kept and she pulled it out and opened the door with a quick burst of energy from her screwdriver. The door opened and she rushed into the bay where there was a small number of TARDISes that had survived the end of Gallifrey (when she and her friends had arrived in the bay earlier, she had momentarily wondered if some of the more inventive and imaginative Time Lords, realising what the Master was doing, had tried to escape with their own TARDISes, but she had no way of knowing unless she went out looking for them), and she headed for the nearest with a plan already in mind; she would use this TARDIS to return to the Refugee Planet, and recover her own TARDIS, and go to Earth to reunite with her Fam…

She was halfway across the floor of the landing bay when-

The Doctor screamed in sudden pain as she felt a searing pain burning through her chest, her ears buzzing as she heard the blast of a laser weapon, and her strength - already strained due to the stress and exposure to the Matrix - dwindled, and she dropped to the floor, gasping for air as the blast ripped through her body before the buzzing stopped, leaving her panting in agony.

She heard the now-familiar sound of laughter and she weakly turned her head, and she wasn't surprised to see the Master standing there, gloating cruelly at her. She momentarily wondered how he had gotten here before her, but then the Master lifted his hand and showed off the teleport bracelet wrapped around his wrist.

She coughed weakly, gazing at him in shock at what he had just done to her although she wasn't surprised; all of the Masters she'd encountered over the centuries differed in how they handled their defeats, but from what she had seen of this one, he was an even sorer loser than others.

"We'll meet again, Doctor," he smirked at her, finding her pain to be the funniest joke even if no-one else would appreciate the humour. "So long for now!"

The Master rushed into another TARDIS and a few moments later the time machine dematerialised. The Doctor sighed weakly as she felt her body beginning to shut down after some of it had been burnt out, knowing she would encounter her former friend again at some point in the future.

Friend?

No. The Master had long since stopped being her friend, but her true friends were on Earth. Her Fam. Thinking about them gave the Doctor the strength she needed to get up off of the floor, well that and the knowledge Ko Sharmus would be detonating the bomb by now-

She heard the sound of a distant rumble, and she realised the bomb had already exploded. She had to get out of here before the shockwave reached her, and she gasped with pain as she pulled herself up and, using her remaining to get inside the TARDIS.

Somehow the Doctor was able to reach the console and quickly closing the doors, she started setting the controls. The TARDIS had just dematerialised when the shockwave hit the outer shell of the TARDIS, but in its dematerialising state with the time-ship halfway into the Time Vortex, the shockwave barely affected the TARDIS.

The Doctor smiled gratefully while she heard the sound of dematerialisation and the cycling sounds of the dimensional stabilisers working with the engines, and she leaned on the console, wincing in pain.

Her smile fell as she took note of a slow but sudden burning sensation tearing its way throughout her body. She closed her eyes in horror, knowing only too well what the sensation was.

Whatever the Master had done, the damage had simply been too great.

She was regenerating.

The Doctor opened her eyes and looked down at the console, feeling her head spinning while she was aware of the slight glow coming from her hands. The stress of being inside such a secreted part of the Matrix for a prolonged period and the damage the Master had just done to her meant she lacked the physical strength to do what her previous self had done, trying to stop the regeneration even if she had known at the time it had been futile.

In her current state, the Doctor was just too tired, too weak. She doubted she could even muster the strength to do more than to lean on the console for dear life never mind shout defiantly she was never going to regenerate again.

No. She wasn't going to die, not like this.

The Doctor took a deep breath, mustering as much of her energy as she could and she got to work on the console. First, she checked the sensors for the TARDIS trails and with a bit of work, she found the trail which led to Earth. That done she set the controls to follow the trail, but she also set the controls of the TARDIS to the Refugee Planet, homing in on the TARDIS signal on that planet. As she worked the Doctor found it increasingly hard to concentrate. She was holding the regeneration back with incredible will power, but it was sending waves of dizziness through her and the Doctor was having problems focusing on the task at hand.

She closed her eyes after a particularly bad case of dizziness made her almost collapse to the ground, but she caught herself just in time.

"Think of the Fam," she whispered to herself, thinking of the times she'd shared with them; that time on Desolation, their first journeys in the TARDIS, meeting Rosa Parks, visiting Pakistan, and all the others. The images of them all having a grand time gave her strength, and she managed to push the dizziness aside and she looked at the console with a renewed focus.

Her fingers danced around the controls, and the sound of materialisation filled the air and she turned around and saw the familiar blue police box shape of the Type 40 TARDIS she had stolen so many lifetimes ago from Gallifrey appearing in the console room, becoming more solid and more defined as the TARDIS she had taken from Gallifrey just now landed.

The sight of the one constant in her lives appearing made the Doctor smile while she fought the regeneration off for as long as she could just as the TARDIS dematerialised as it obeyed the commands she'd inputted to follow the time-trail of the TARDIS she'd sent the others in towards Earth.

Earth…

That reminded her.

The Doctor turned back to the console, and she looked down at the controls thoughtfully. Her renewed focus was fading fast, but she quickly remembered the two human survivors - what were their names again? - and she knew they would need time to adapt to the 21st century, and she knew her friends could handle it.

As much as it pained her, the Doctor knew it would be better if she gave them time to help the two survivors of the Cyber Wars. With that in mind, she began setting the controls, using her focus on Graham to give her the strength to keep going while the rest of her was exhausted. As she worked, the Doctor saw her hands. They were glowing with regeneration energy.

It was close…Oh, so close.

She pulled away from the console, pleased with herself even if she was upset that her friends would be worried about her for a while. She had just set the controls to materialise in Grahams' house two months after the other TARDIS had landed on Earth. It took her a few moments to program the details for Graham's house into the TARDIS, and she needed to double her efforts to focus, but she managed it.

With her task completed, the Doctor slumped over the console while she ignored the glow coming from her hands. She just wanted to rest, she couldn't go on, not like this.

The Doctor winced as she felt the regeneration energy burning its way through her body as she clamped her hands on the telepathic circuits as tightly as she could, and she concentrated - this would have been easier if she had access to the telepathic circuits of her own TARDIS since her ship was accustomed to the minds of her friends, but since she was directing her temporary ship towards where Graham lived, it was easy for the Doctor to find him.

She smiled when her mind touched his. "Graham," she said.

Graham was asleep, but after a few more moments of telepathic prodding against his mind, she managed to get him awake. "What's that?"

"Graham, it's me," the Doctor sagged against the console. Honestly, it had taken her more energy than she'd have wanted just to wake him up. "The Doctor."

"Doc? Where are you? Where've you been? We've been waiting for weeks?"

"I'm using the telepathic circuits of the TARDIS I've taken from Gallifrey to contact you, Graham, please shut up," the Doctor whispered. "I don't have time to answer your questions. I'm dying!"

"What?!"

The Doctor closed her eyes. "The Master shot me just as I was getting into the TARDIS I'm using. It's started."

"What's started?" Fear crept into Graham's voice.

"I'm regenerating, Graham. In a bit, I won't be the same person anymore. But I wanted to see you and the rest of the Fam before I went."

"Oh, Doc," Graham whispered, and over the connection, she could feel the sadness and confusion coming over clearly; the Doctor knew she had only herself to blame since she had never really spoken about herself, never mind regeneration despite giving her friends a few odd tips and how she had been a man more than once, although it had been that idiot C who cleared it up for her friends she was not joking.

"Graham, please," she sighed as the pain bled through over the connection and she knew her friend could feel it. "Just…be there, all three of you. Please. I'll see ya soon."

The Doctor broke the connection but she didn't remove her hands from the telepathic contacts as she mentally directed the TARDIS to Graham's house. She wasn't particularly surprised by how easily the TARDIS followed her mental commands and she wasn't surprised when she mentally commanded the scanner screen to switch on the view showed her three friends standing in Graham's living room, all of them looking frightened and concerned.

The Doctor smiled at the sight of her friends. "Perfect landing," she whispered, and the small part of her mind which was always envious of fully operational TARDISes reared its head again, but she suppressed it. Ever since she had encountered House when she had endangered herself, Amy and Rory, and the TARDIS when she had thought she had finally found a group of Time Lord survivors who weren't as mad as the Master only to discover they were long since dead, the Doctor had developed a far greater rapport and understanding with the old Type 40. Unfortunately, there were times where even that patient understanding faded and became nothing but annoyed frustration.

She gasped again as the regeneration energy started surging from her even more. She looked at her friends in confusion, idly wondering why they weren't with her, and then she realised she hadn't opened the door of the TARDIS yet. Using the last of her strength she opened the doors for them. Her fam came running into the TARDIS console room, but her vision swam before she could say anything to them.

With that, the Thirteenth Doctor slid to the ground as blackness took her vision, but the last thing she saw was her glowing hands and the horrified faces of her Fam.

XXX

"Doctor!" Yaz cried as she ran into the console room, barely taking in the purple hue of the walls and the sight of the old police box as she saw her friend slide onto the floor by the console, her body glowing but even through the weird, otherworldly glow, she could see the fatigue on the Doctor's face.

She had been exhausted when they'd found her on Gallifrey - Yaz had no intention of letting the Doctor lie or evade the questions on her mind, like why she hadn't said anything about not admitting what had happened to her home, although granted she could understand some of the reasons; the loss of her world must have shattered the Doctor, and it certainly explained why she was desperate to find the Master and Yaz had little doubt, especially seeing his insanity, the evil Time Lord had something to do with the carnage on Gallifrey - but there hadn't been any time to properly ask the Doctor anything about what had happened, but she had managed to get back some of her old energy.

But seeing her glow…

Hearing from Graham the Master had shot the Doctor, and now she was regenerating was scary enough, but what made it worse was Yaz, Ryan, and Graham knew so little about regeneration. They knew that it changed the body since the Doctor hadn't recognised the Master when they'd assumed he was O, but beyond that, they knew nothing.

The glow intensified, seeming to engulf the Doctor before she seemed to explode. The force was enough to send Yaz back with a scream as the Doctor exploded with light, but she could see even from where she was standing with Graham and Ryan the Doctor was changing. Finally, the light disappeared and the glow faded, and the three ran towards the prone figure on the floor of the TARDIS.

It revealed the face of a woman who appeared to be physically the same age as the Doctor they'd known (Yaz had to bear in mind the Doctor had said she had once had the body of a white-haired Scotsman, and she also remembered the Doctor saying she had lived for a long time to the point where even she didn't know how old she was) with long dark hair who seemed to be around the same build as the Doctor, but it was hard to tell since she was still lying on the floor.

She was startled when someone moved past her and she realised it was Graham, who cautiously and tentatively leaned over the unconscious Time Lord, and gently touched her hand. Graham was still for a second while he counted the hearts beats.

"I can feel her pulses," Graham said at last with a shake of his head. "Trouble is, I dunno whether or not it's good or bad."

"How are they, her hearts?" Ryan whispered looking down at the Doctor with shock on his face. Yaz couldn't blame him; it was one thing hearing Time Lords could change their appearance, but seeing it like this….

"They seem to be working okay, but," Graham shook his head and sighed as he looked down at the Doctor sadly. "I dunno…I dunno anything about her people, so I dunno what's normal for her after a regeneration."

Ryan looked around the TARDIS. "What do we do with her, I mean where can we take her? I don't think she should be kept in here, on the floor."

"Good point," Yaz smiled at her friend before turning more solemnly to Graham. "I can keep the door of the TARDIS opened, you two pick her up and take her out and we can put her on the sofa to rest."

Graham looked at Ryan and nodded at his adopted grandson, and the older man gently picked her up under her armpits while Ryan grabbed the legs.

As they carried the Doctor out of the TARDIS, Yaz looked around the console room of the gleaming time machine before she focused on the screen which had the flowing circular script of the Time Lord language.

"Fuck, I wish we knew more about that language so we could help her. There might be a room in the TARDIS - hers and this one - where regenerating Time Lords could heal," Yaz commented.

"There's nothing we can do. I don't fancy playing with the controls in either ship - hers or this one," Ryan observed while he kept focused on holding onto the Doctor while he looked over her shoulder to make sure there wasn't anything in his path to block him. "For all we know, we could be thrown into a sun."

"It's academic now," Graham said as they took the Doctor to the sofa and laid her down while he took off her coat. Ryan went out of the room and came back a few minutes later carrying a blanket. Without a word, he quietly and gently draped the Doctor's body with it. Yaz took the coat and held onto it, bowing her head and crying softly.

"Hey, Yaz," Graham whispered, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "We know how you feel, but she's still the Doctor."

"It's not just that. She didn't deserve this. The Doctor we knew….she's gone, murdered by that monster who was once her friend. How could anyone do this?!" Yaz's voice rose in pitch as she got worked up.

"Shush," Graham hissed, looking over his shoulder to see if the shout had woken the Doctor up before he turned back when he saw she was still unconscious. He turned back and wrapped Yaz up in his arms. "I know how you feel, believe me. I do. I want nothing more than to find the Master, and make him pay for what he's done; not just to the Doctor, but for what he's done to the Time Lords. There's no doubt in my old noggin that he was responsible for all that destruction since it tallies with the way she's acted - when she wakes up, I am gonna get answers once and for all, but for now, we need to wait for her to wake up."

Yaz pulled away and sniffled as tears welled up in her eyes, but she nodded. "Yeah, answers," she said, "but will she give them?"

Graham couldn't answer that question.

"Hey, look," Yaz saw something over Graham's shoulder.

Graham turned and saw the glow of regeneration around the Doctor's body once more. For a horrible moment, he assumed something had gone wrong, and it was happening again, but the intensity of the glow seemed subdued.

"Ryan," Graham called.

Ryan entered and looked around for a second, confused about why he'd been called before he looked down at the Doctor.

"Is that what happened last time?" Graham asked the young man, remembering what Grace and he had said the last time the Doctor had been in this state.

"Yeah, just like this. It looks perfectly normal, and so does that," Ryan said.

While Ryan had been speaking, the Doctor's mouth opened gently, and a cloud of golden particles streamed out of her mouth.

"God, what was that?" Yaz asked, but no one answered her. They didn't know themselves.