Nine Lives

Prologue

"Where Is she?" Nine hissed into the phone, gripping it do hard that his knuckles went white, "What have you done with Rose?"

"She'll be fine," the voice on the other end promised, "So long as you take the knife and stab yourself." Nine looked down at the knife in his hand and back up at the sky, contemplating.

"Is she with you, now?"

"Yes," the voice replied.

"Can... Can I talk to her, before I go?" he pleaded. There was silence for a moment.

"Yes," they answered, at last. The phone was passes to Rose, who instantly began talking.

"Doctor!"

"Rose!" he called back, relief washing his features, "Thank goodness, you're alive."

"Doctor! Don't do it! I'm not worth it!" she insisted.

"Don't be stupid, Rose," he chuckled, "Of course you are." He weighed the knife with his hand.

"No! Doctor! You-"

"Rose," he interrupted her, "Before I go-"

"Don't say that!"

"Rose," he said, sternly, but was back to happy just as quickly, "Before I go, I just wanted to say... You were fantastic... And you know what? So was I."

"I love you," she whispered, after a moment.

"You, too," he whispered back, "I love you too, Rose." With this, she dropped the phone and plunged the knife into his right heart, creating an incredible amount if pain. He struggled to keep hold of the knife as he started glowing.

"Don't regenerate, Doctor," the voice warned, "Or it'll be little Rose's life we take, instead." He swallowed and raised the knife again, over his other heart.

"So many centuries to have it end like this," he let himself cry a little, "This planet full of stupid apes... Almost every one of those lives were lost for you... And not one of them went to waste... Not even now."

With that, he drove the knife into his second heart, cutting off the regeneration before it could save him.