Death and Rebirth -AN EXPLINATION FOR 10'S ABSENCE!-

-Tenth Doctor and Sonya-

[Everyone, we all know David is busy with important things, so consequently the tenth Doctor is MIA. David and I talked and agreed the best thing to do would be for me to write a fanfiction explaining what exactly happened during Sonya's most recent regeneration and how the Tenth Doctor handled it. The explanation to why ten is gone will be at the end.]

The groaning of a familiar TARDIS echoed around the narrow back streets of London, not far from the white cylinder Sonya now used. Stolen from the Interfector the day she killed him. As the Doctor left his TARDIS and began striding over to hers, his steps faltered as a sudden realization struck him. 'We're in London, why is it dead silent right now?' Stopping half way, he slowly turned in a circle, studying the area. Granted they were in a less-populated part, there were still people that lived here. Homeless, poor, runaways, but nothing reached his straining ears. Not a single sound other than his own breathing accompanied by the double beat of his hearts as they thudded in his chest. Something wasn't right, in fact, something was very, very wrong.

While the Doctor was distracted by his surroundings, Sonya slowly opened the door of her TARDIS, her lean form resting against the frame and arms crossed over her chest, a feverish look in her gold eyes as she watched him. Faintly she knew something was wrong, her own thoughts seemed to have taken a back seat to the much darker ones that formed, spat out by the hungry hole in her head. There was no reason to anything she did anymore. A prime example of that would be the hundred or so people that she had taken with her to Clom in exchange for tech she didn't really need. It had happened months ago, and yet the area stayed empty. Whispered stories passed from one person to the next she supposed.

Finally the Doctor's attention was once more drawn towards her TARDIS, his expression flashing through several emotions at once, anger, sadness, confusion and for the smallest fraction of a second, fear, before settling on his usual neutral expression once more, his hands tucking themselves into his trouser pockets as he stood there, his eyes locking onto her frame and noting that she seemed thinner than usual. Shifting herself forward, Sonya took a couple of slow steps towards him, her usual confident steps hindered slightly by the sudden wave of weakness in her limbs. "Doctor, I wondered when you would arrive. You should never keep a friend waiting." She finally said, her voice coming out with a double tenor, one dark and hovering on the edge of madness, the other her new regenerations normal voice, devoid of any emotion.

"Well... I had things to do, and I wouldn't really consider you a friend now... Perhaps a long time ago, but not now, not with how you are." The Doctor replied with a sniff, managing to keep the startled look from his face at the sound of her voice. His instincts telling him not to show it, not to show anything to this woman in front of him. He had suspected what happened, what she was after seeing her for the first time after Sonya had regenerated, but hearing her voice, seeing her deteriorating form and fire-bright eyes send a waver of revulsion coursing through him. The Sonya he once known and considered a close friend was gone, replaced by this thing of nightmares, this thing that fed, no... Gorged itself on the fears of others. Shifting his stance slightly into a more comfortable position, acutely aware of Sonya's unnerving eyes as they watched his every move.

"Doctor, you wound me." Sonya chuckled darkly, stopping a few feet in front of him and tucking her hands away in her own pockets while eyeing him up and down with an almost-curious expression before her eyes locked onto his brown ones. A small flicker of doubt shone behind the gold for a second before vanishing. "I've been waiting for ages, months. I had to find something to entertain myself while waiting..." She trailed off, her eyes shifting to focus on something only she could see over his shoulder. A faint image hovered in and out of view, something familiar about how it stood pricked at her interest. Blinking her gold eyes lazily, she watched the figure until it vanished completely from sight then looked back at the Doctor's face, already forgetting what she had been looking at.

Shifting once more on his feet, the Doctor shot a quick glance over his shoulder, trying to see what Sonya had been staring at only to see empty air behind him. A frown crossed his features and he looked back at Sonya only to have his eyes meet with her feverish gaze. 'Somethings wrong, she almost looks sick, not mentally, physically.... She looks about ready to fall over on her own feet right now.' The Doctor thought to himself, behind a carefully constructed mental block. Something he never cared to do until now, but a necessary inconvenience considering her slight psychic ability seemed to blow out of proportion with this regeneration. Considering her unusual bonding with Interfector, then the sudden break of it when she killed him would explain why. she continually searched for a bond to replace the one she lost. "Sonya, let me help you. With everything happening with you, your clever enough to realize something is terribly wrong." He tried, struggled to keep the worry from his voice, the desperation to get his old friend back.

A cold laugh cut through his thoughts, jerking him back into reality as Sonya waved an idle hand in the air, dismissing his offer without any consideration. "Why would I give this up? There is so much I can do now." She replied harshly, her eyes boring into his once more. Momentarily, the Doctor was reminded of Rose as the Bad Wolf. Although he suspected she knew he would, the Time Lady lived on causing pain in any form, it was how she functioned now. "It's killing you, your changing into this thing in your head, Sonya, you and I know this isn't you. This isn't who you are." The Doctor said carefully, taking another step towards her, a sudden plan popping into his head. Before she could stop him, both hands reached up and gripped her head, fingers at her temples as he forced the psychic connection.

"No... No!" Sonya managed to utter just before being pulled into the deepest recesses of her mind. "Wh- Wha..." She demanded, spinning around to glare at the Doctor's dark with a slight fissure of fear before realizing he wasn't staring at her, but behind her. Turning back around slowly, her eyes landed on what had been the locked door, the impossible time crack door. It was replaced by a black pit, waves of what looked like her own energy flooding into it even as she watched. "No..." Backing up, she instinctively groped behind her for the Doctor's hand for support. "What... What the hell is that thing, it wasn't there before." She finally managed to ask through numb lips, unable to move her eyes away from the horrid sight in front of them.

"That would be the other half of your consciousness showing her true form finally." He murmured, his hand gripping hers tightly for a second before letting go and stepping forward, facing the hole as it continued devouring everything around them. "Show yourself! Let her see what you really are!" He shouted in anger into the darkness, a low growl emitting from it in answer. Gasping softly, Sonya backed up farther as a familiar figure stalked forward, turning it's glowing eyes onto the Doctor. "You've known for so long, I wondered when you would come searching." A dark voice called, it's words oozing through her thoughts like a disgusting slime. Sonya shuddered unconsciously, her arms wrapping around herself as she stared with sickened fascination at the figure as it lifted an arm and waved it at her, before she realized what it was doing. "No!" She cried out, terror gripping her hearts tight as her feet began to walk forward unwillingly. "No! Doctor!"

"Sonya! Remember Attila? Remember what I said? The nightmare child is only in your head, it feeds off of your fears specifically, what are you so scared of Sonya?" The Doctor demanded quickly, his hands gripping her shoulders as he stopped her slow approach. He turned her around and stared intently into her eyes, not allowing the Time Lady to look anywhere else. "What are you so scared of that made it this powerful from just you?" With a shake of the head, he stopped her from looking over at the nightmare child, calling her attention back to his gaze. "Don't worry about her right now, it's just me and you in the TARDIS, no one else." He said softly, trying to calm the panic-stricken look in her eyes when they met with his brown ones, his fingers tightened on her shoulder, offering his strength to her as she trembled.

Inside, Sonya felt herself shaking apart, her head hurt. Rassilon did it hurt, like her mind was splitting into two again. "Why is it here? Why, how did it even get inside my head?" She demanded sharply, ignoring his question with one of hers. Looking up into his eyes, she reached up and gripped his wrists tightly, demanding the answer before she said anything else to him. She needed to know, it was trapped in a sketch the last she knew, it was gone, completely, entirely, locked away forever where it couldn't hurt anyone else anymore. Yet here it was, inside of her head and eating her fears and emotions like some great beast! Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down and looked over at the Child, a sudden flash of hate riding through her as she did. "How did it get in my head, Doctor?"

Licking his lips nervously, the Doctor stared down into her hardened face, unsure as to how he could go about explaining this in such a short amount of time. Finally, he settled on the truth, the best he could in such a situation. Taking a deep breath, he called her attention back to his face, his fingers gripping her shoulders again as she looked back over. "During the Time War, there was this creature that fed on Time Lord fears, it created itself really... It was named the Nightmare Child, causing destruction everywhere it went, killing Time Lords and Daleks alike, it had no preference." He began slowly, his eyes never leaving hers as he spoke, knowing she would need to see the truth in them with the next part he had to tell. "Sonya... Your other half was on Gallifrey longer than a few years. She was there during the Time War, she became the Nightmare Child through your parent's testing, they tried to make her the perfect killing machine only to make her too perfect, now she only wanted to kill. She didn't care who, and her first victim was her mother before she escaped their lab. For years she wandered around on both sides of the battle, killing millions in her wake before suddenly vanishing."

He trailed off, his eyes going out of focus as he tried to think back over everything he could recall from the information he looked up. "From what I can guess, she was captured, had her memories locked away securely and sent to the Alternate Earth with false memories of actually being there... She believed she lived there for as long as you lived in the other Earth, matching your pattern perfectly through the years by default. Both halves still calling to each other over the void." He finally said quietly, watching as shock registered in her eyes before they dropped away from his face. "So... I'm... I'm this thing, this thing that killed millions of our own people. This... This is who I am, but, why didn't she show up when we bonded back together? Why only after the regeneration?" The Doctor blinked, actually, he didn't think of that, why would it only show after her first regeneration as a whole again? A dark laugh echoed around and in their heads, causing them both to look over at the Child at the same time, watching carefully as it stalked back and forth in front of it's hole.

"The energy from your regeneration unlocked the memories, allowing me to access everything that I had lost. Everything I ever was locked away behind doors with cracks in time stuck inside. Warning myself and you off at the same time, no one would dare go near such a thing, you would only bury it deeper in your mind in hopes of it never escaping and becoming a reality. The most secure lock in the universe... A crack in the skin of it to keep all of those that my go seeking at bay." She cackled loudly, tossing her head back and laughing out at the ceiling. The motion wasn't what scared Sonya, not even the words it said, but the sound of it's laugh, devoid of anything but pure madness, caused a shiver of fear to run down her spine. "Your greatest fear, Sonya, your greatest fear gave me power, I can feed off of it for thousands of years from the strength behind it!" The Child suddenly cried out, turning it's burning eyes onto her as it spoke, striding forward until they stood only a foot apart, it's image shimmering slightly to match hers before resuming it's normal form. "Your fears are what fuel me, your nightmares give me strength... Your deepest fear is what brought me to life. The fear of being utterly alone, the last of the last and left to float about in your TARDIS without a single person to talk to or be near."

Sonya dropped her head down to stare at the floor, tears flooding her eyes as her final wall crumbled, all of the jumbled memories she ever had flashing around them in a myriad of images mixing together. The fake with the real, the battle-scarred with the innocent, all of them painting the picture of her lonely life. All of them telling the simple end to her story, she was born alone, she lived alone and she would die alone. That is what she was told, and that is what she feared to believe. The Doctor looked around the room, watching as images from Sonya's life flashed by him, little by little he grew angry, every memory she ever had flooding her mind, her barriers were down, broken by this creature in front of them by revealing her deepest fear to herself. The one she probably never wanted to admit to, one she never took the time to ever search for, that was what she ran from, never her past, but her fear of what may come. Clenching his fists, he took a calming breath before placing a hand on Sonya's shoulder, causing her head to jerk up in surprise. "Sonya, that is you in front of you. Only you can fight yourself, I can't do this for you." He murmured quietly, his eyes locked on the Child as she stared at them with what looked like interest. "What I can do is be here for you and offer strength and companionship."

Sonya felt her lower lip tremble slightly before she bit down on it and straightened her back, her eyes turning to the creature in front of her- No, not creature, herself. This was who she was, and she fought no matter what the terms were! "You are not what I stand for." She hissed suddenly, letting a lash of anger snake out and strike the Child, causing it to flinch back in shock at either her strength or just surprised she would attack. "You are what I deny, you are what I fight and you are what I hate most in the world. You talk of fears? What are yours? You are me... Remember this, my deepest fear is yours, Child." She said sharply, her eyes slowly loosing the cloud of sadness as they began to regain their usual fire, each word she said, she stepped forward, driving the Child back farther and farther until it was at the edge of the hole it climbed out of. "Your fear is being alone as well, dying alone. And I will tell you this. No one will care if you were to vanish, no one would care if you were to suddenly die! I have friends, I have a family that love me! You. Are. NOTHING!" She shouted, a sudden howl ripping from the creature as it was swallowed by the hole behind it.

Grinning brightly, she turned around and began heading back towards the Doctor only to feel her head ache sharply, the floor pitching under their feet as it did. "What..?" She muttered, a hand reaching up to grip the side of her head as she turned around to look at the hole behind her, eyes widening in horror at what she saw. Energy, so much energy pouring out of this darkness as the edges appeared to fold in on themselves. It was swallowing itself, it was vanishing from her mind in the most permanent way possible. Erasing the Child from her thoughts completely as it struggled to pull free of her mental grip.

With a scream of complete and total pain, Sonya sank to her knees, both hands clutching her head as memories flashed through her head. One after another, lighting up the darkest parts of her mind with the truth of what happened, the truth about everything she did, who she was and why she was there. With tears in her eyes, she looked up at the Doctor, black clouding the edges of her vision and slowly blocking out his face before she gave herself into the dark, her body slumping over to the side as her mind continued to fast-forward through her life.

She was five again, being tested on by her parents, the anger fear and betrayal leaking through her young mind as she stared at them with confusion and pain with each test they did to her poor body. Her brother standing in the doorway of the small room she slept in, staring at the test subject that was his sister with curiosity.

She was staring through six-year-old eyes again, being held close by her adopted parents as they carried her away from the orphanage they found her in. But no, she was still at home, on Gallifrey, being poked and prodded in the head with more tubes and wires, the ghost pricks causing her own scalp to crawl before fading out into the image of a car once more.

She stood as a child of ten, staring down at the bodies of her mother and father on the floor, horror causing tears to fall unchecked down her face only to have the image fade away and reveal an empty room, devoid of any color or furniture, she was dressed in a simple white tunic and curled up in a corner, pain radiating from every inch of skin before fading away again.

She was thirteen once more, staring up at the TARDIS that had appeared in the living room she stayed in for that night. But it wasn't there at the same time, fading in and out of her view as the Doctor opened the doors and peered out of them at her with a friendly smile only to fade out into the inside of a test tank, a tube shoved down her throat as she watched her parents outside of the liquid she floated in.

She turned into a girl of seventeen, walking through London. Searching for the TARDIS as it's familiar sound echoed around her. But not, she swung a sword against the instructor in front of her, the clang of metal and power behind the hit causing her arms to vibrate with the force, but there! The sound once more, fading in and out of her range of hearing as the TARDIS had from the earlier memory. There but not there all the same.

She was twenty two, standing in an alleyway being shot in the chest by a mugger. But no, she stood over the body of her mother, an odd energy pouring through her body before turning around. Then it faded once more to his face as he stared at her down on the ground, her blood leaking from her chest only to be replaced by an image of a hallway full of bodies and fleeting Time Lords as she walked along behind them.

She ran on fifty year old legs through the endless maze of terror, helping this woman from the brink of death with her own energy- She blasted a Dalek with a wave of her hand, shattering it's cortex- she was holding the girl's head tightly, sending all she could to her only to collapse- she tossed the Dalek husk to the side in frustration and continued on her way, picking anything in her path to destroy.

She felt 200, thousands of memories buried themselves into her mind while being tortured by UNIT as they forced her into 'training' for fighting the Doctor. The hot brands pressing into her skin, burning, causing- She stared at Rassilon in fury as he descended on her, hands held out to her head- She screamed in pain as a jolt of electricity was passed through her temples, making her back arch- A simple mental brush sent her mind reeling, her memories slowly fading away and being replaced by the solid black of dreamless sleep.

She was 460 for the last time, staring at the button in front of her, debating on why she was there, remembering this was why she lived to protect the Doctor- She stepped into the shower, drawing the curtain closed behind her as she turned the water on, raising her face to the warm water as it- With a cry of pain, she lifted her face to the spray of acid, washing over her, dismantling her body and sending her to- A sudden pulling sensation yanked at her back, sending her flying backwards against the shower wall, only to fall through- With a final cry, she felt her body melt away, freeing her mind to float in the air just as- she blinked at the area around her, not her shower, not her home. Something odd and... It stank of something rotten.

Gasping sharply, Sonya jerked upright, her eyes wide as she stared around the grimy street she lay on, blinking them wildly before landing on the Doctor seated only a few feet away from her, eyes downcast and staring at the pavement he sat on. "Do-" She tried only to have her voice come out as a painful croak, reaching up with mild surprise at the pain in her throat, she cleared it and tried again. "Doctor?" His head jerked up at his name, brown eyes searching her now blew eyes once more, a look of relief crossing his face as he jumped to his feet and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. "Sonya! I don't know what happened, you were screaming then I was forced out of your head and..." He trailed off, looking down at her confused expression before realizing what happened. "You don't remember, do you? None of it?"

Shaking her head slowly, she searched her thoughts, thinking over everything that had happened and came up empty, the last thing she remembered was regenerating in that satellite, but even that was fuzzy... A fabricated memory most likely to block out the truth of how painful it was. Shrugging her shoulders, she looked up at the Doctor and flashed him a bright smile. "I'm sure you have loads to tell me, Doctor. But Honestly... I'm thinking a vacation..." She trailed off herself, slightly surprised at the words to pop out of her mouth and blinked up at him in confusion once more. "We have a lot to talk about... Don't we?"

Rubbing the back of his head, The Doctor watched as Sonya struggled to remember what had happened, it was still fuzzy for him to be honest. He remembered the Child being pulled from Sonya's mind then the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the pavement between their TARDIS's while Sonya thrashed on the ground screaming at the top of her lungs. Just before she stopped, a sudden huff of regeneration energy escaped her lips and formed into a darker mass, condensing into a small sphere and vanishing into thin air. Brilliant he thought, sending the Child into the void to keep it away from her. Looking down at her once more, he felt a weary look pass across his face as he nodded in agreement. "I think we both need a vacation... Sonya, you just..." He suddenly pulled her into a tight hug, ignoring her silent struggles before she went limp in his arms once more. Frowning, he pulled away and looked at her face, shocked to find she had passed out again. Had she lost too much energy to the Child? No, he would have sensed that as well as her.

Picking her up carefully, the Doctor carried Sonya into his TARDIS and to the med bay, setting her down on the cot there and beginning to run tests on her, sticking a small wire to her forehead to check her mental readings. The second the tape touched her skin, she woke up with a scream, a hand reaching up to yank it off of her head and thrashing about on the table, struggling to get away from him as he tried to calm her down. Just as he reached out to grab her wrist, Sonya's eyes rolled into the back of her head again, sending her body listing to the side and laying on the cot once more. "Well... Blimey." He mumbled, his confusion slowly melting away into something more deep-seated as he watched her sleeping form. The memories that had been unlocked were causing mental trauma, that much was clear, but with her reactions and constant blackouts could only mean one thing, she was burning, her mind won't accept an alternate line of thoughts with only the one consciousness now, it was killing her to have two time lines crammed into one head.

Feeling a sigh slip out of him, the Doctor reached out, gently brushing his fingers to her temple and connecting warily, unsure of what he might see in her head as he entered. The second his feet touched red grass, he knew what he expected would never be as bad as what he witnessed in front of him. The Time War, waging in front of him, full color and sound as if a replay of his own memories. Time Lords shouting and running about with weapons as Dalek ships filled the orange sky above his head, and through all the chaos of this war, through all the blood and bodies laying about on the grass, a lone child lay, curled into a ball and hands over her ears trying to block everything out. "Sonya..." He murmured, feeling a lance of pain in his chest as he walked over to her, crouching down and gently placing a hand on the child's shoulder. "Sh... I'm here. Your not alone." He murmured softy, wrapping her into his arms as she flung her thin arms around his waist, sobbing into his shirt and shaking violently with each explosion around them.

Carefully, he began to work, his arms around his friend tightly as he set out locking away the memories one by one, sending them so deep into her mind that only he could unlock them. So Sonya would never be bothered with them again. Feeling his jaw clench tightly, he looked down at the child as she stilled her sobbing, feeling a wave of relief wash over him as he saw her sleeping face. Gently detangling himself from her arms, he left her mind and found himself in the Med Bay once more. Casting a last look at her face, he carried her to the room she used every time she traveled with him, covering her with the blanket on her bed before leaving the room and returning to the control room. Leaning against the edge of the controls, he stared blankly at them, unsure of what he could do next. He didn't know her state, how she would be when she woke up. But he couldn't sit there any longer. Before letting himself think too much about it, The Doctor began working the controls slowly, setting the TARDIS to fly into the void before falling back into the jump seat and staring up at the Time Rotor as it worked.

A sudden slapping sound on the floor behind him made his head spin around in time to see Sonya sprinting towards him. Startled to his feet, he barely had time to stop her from crashing straight into him and gripped her by the shoulders. "Sonya, what's going on? What are you even doing up, you shouldn't be after all you've gone through." What he heard next caused his mind to grind to a halt, his blood running cold at the child-like voice that answered him. "I had a nightmare, you were gone. You said you'd never leave me, Doctor! You were gone, you're always there when I wake up, and where are my animals, did the TARDIS take them away again because I was bad?" She sobbed into his shirt, sending him back to his own memories of her when she was only thirteen and alone, hiding in an abandoned living room before he took her onto his ship. "Oh no... Sonya. I'm so sorry." He murmured, wrapping the woman into a hug as she clung to his shirt like a child, still sobbing softly as she hid her face in the cloth.

"How about you and I go on an adventure?" He suddenly asked, feeling a forced smile make it's way onto his lips as she looked up at him, her face sparkling with tears and child-like excitement. "Really! Yes! Yes! I want to go to that planet full of singing flowers again, that was fun! Oh oh, and what about that one planet... With the... You know..." She trailed off, her face screwing up in concentration before pulling her hand up to her face and wiggling her fingers around in an imitation of tentacles. "Those spaghetti face guys!" Forcing out a chuckle, the Doctor rubbed her head like he would with a child and began plotting their course. "Ood, they're called Ood, Sonya." He murmured, feeling a low sigh try to work free only to bite it back. It would take years before she returned to normal, in her condition, he couldn't do anything but stay by her side, keeping an eye out for her as she struggled to heal her own mind. Looking over at her with a bright grin, he yanked the lever down and caused the TARDIS to jerk violently. "Oodspere here we come!" He crowed in false excitement, watching as she stumbled around the console before wrapping her arms and legs around one of the bars holding a handrail up. This would be a long few years...

((Ladies and gentlemen, Sonya! The woman who comes up with better plots than Moffat himself, secretly has had a canon character this entire time, and has just scarred me for life! A round of applause!))

(I can't take all the credit, David helped me figure out what the issue was )

((And her sidekick, Davidmon!))

((1. Not sidekick. Far from sidekick. 2. Niki, i don't do that much hugging lol. And some parts of 10's words don't fit him, more Niki-esk

But i still like it. *nod nod*))

(Well excuse me for not having any help. -_- I didn't know what to do with half of it so I improvised most of the time. And I ain't fixing it either so )

((See? He's totally the sidekick :3))

(Nat be nice, he did a lot of the plot work. I just wrote)

((*gives David an apology pickle... And also a hug cause she misses him*

((. A hug from Natty? Today must be a good day hehe))

((Well I miss you! I don't have anyone's hair to bother! :3))

(Nat you reminded me of the Potter Puppet Pals. "Let's go bother Professor Snape!" "Okay!" "Bother bother bother bother!" *Harry and Ron patting on Snape's head repeatedly.* "Get away..." "Bother bother bother bother!" "Get. Away!" "Bother Bother Bother Bo-" "AVADA KEDAVRA!" *they die* "oh... Oh bother.")

((Oh GIF xD that is beautiful))

(Just thought I'd share that bit of interesting informations)

(Heh, I read it all finally after breaking from writing. It's good. Though I didn't notice anything 10 said that didn't seem uncharacteristic. *shrug*)