"Clara, what the Hell did you just do?" The Doctor whipped around to face his companion straight on. She still clutched the gun tightly enough to make her fingers turn white, but she began to lower it. The Time Lord moved towards her and snatched the gun out of her hand. She offered no resistance and allowed him to take it. He dropped it on the ground and kicked it away.

Clara took in a deep breath and regained her stature. Then she began to explain what she had done, shaking a little bit at first.

"You said you could interrupt regenerations and she wasn't really regenerating so I figured I might as well try," Clara said. She turned to face the Doctor as she cried, "She was in so much pain, I had to help her!"

"But you could have killed her!" the Doctor replied, sending a short glance over towards Brook. She was still in the process of regenerating, still shrieking out from the pain.

"She said so herself that she'd rather die than suffer through that! I couldn't handle it anymore, didn't you hear her crying and screaming like that? And, anyways, Doctor...I...I think it worked." Clara looked back over at Brook. Sure enough, flames continued to erupt from every part of her, putting her through the process of regenerating all over again.

"It is working, isn't it?" Clara had become rather worried that she had done the wrong thing. The Doctor turned around and stared directly Brook. With a start, he realised that his companion was right. Clara had fixed the regeneration process. She had saved Brook from burning herself out.

"Oh, yes, it is working!" the Doctor said. "Oh, you clever girl!" he laughed, walking over and quickly kissing Clara on the forehead in his glee.

While the Doctor was busy praising Clara for her successful idea, Brook's regeneration was winding down. Her cries of pain had faded out entirely, it was just a matter of the flames dissapated. Soon it was all over, and the two of them turned around to see the girl's new body and face.

For the first time, Clara understood just how much change was involved in these regenerations. Brook was completely unrecognisable. The largest difference was that her blonde curls had been traded in for long black hair. Now instead of bouncing around in a mound of spirals, it cascaded down her back.

She was visibly younger and smaller, as if she had taken a step backwards in time. The clothes that had fit her quite well before the regeneration had become baggy in many places. Brook now appeared to be several years younger than when she had begun to regenerate.

Her body had become more wispy than anything, skinny and slight. Even though the Doctor and Clara were sure this was not the case, it looked like someone could walk over to Brook and snap her in half. She opened her mouth to speak for the first time, showing that her voice directly reflected her new look.

"Oh wow, this is very different!" Brook exclaimed, her voice light and high like a cloud. It was clear that whatever she was saying would dictate how she would sound. Silly words would make the voice sound flimsy and ditzy, but words with power behind them would make it sound strong and commanding.

Brook was running her hands all over herself, feeling out her new body in whatever way she could. She attempted to get an image of herself from sticking her arms out in front of her and twisting around, but this didn't work. No, she was going to have to find a mirror in order to see what she looked like.

"After all this time, my whole life spent in this house, and I can't find a mirror!" Brook hissed. "There must be a mirror around here somewhere! Mirror, mirror, come out!"

Brook began to search around the room, looking for the mirror. It only took a few seconds before she gave up on her search. She would just have to find one later.

"Oh well. No mirrors for me today. What do you think?" she asked, spinning around to face the Doctor and Clara. "I have everything, right? Head, shoulders, knees, toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, hair." She touched each body part as she said it, her words colliding into one another in her energy.

Brook pulled her new hair in front her face and after getting over her initial shock, she gave it a dirty look.

"Oh no, this is wrong!" she cried out. "I want my old hair back. Well, maybe not, because it always got in the way, and the only thing I could ever do to hold it back was wear a hat! At least maybe I can braid this or something...but I want my old hair back. I want to hold it back again."

After staring at Brook for such a long time, Clara decided it was time to turn back to the Doctor and possibly bring up a new point of conversation. But she found that he wore an odd look on his face.

With a start, Clara understood that the Doctor recognised this new Brook. Her newly regenerated face and body was familiar to him. Somehow, he knew her, even though he hadn't known her when she had been curly haired.

Brook didn't seem to have any clue these sudden realisations was going on, though. She kept babbling on and on as she skittered around, her tiny new feet beating against the floor as she attempted to get herself used to being a different person.

"But maybe I'm missing something, something important about this new body!" Brook exclaimed. "Ugh, I need a mirror! Mirro,r mirror on the wall...or on the ground or somewhere, just come out! I want to make sure that I still look okay because the last time this happened I caught on fire."

After thinking for a few moments about this, Brook opened her mouth up again and said, "Spontaneously combusted." She laughed a little bit, still buzzing around like crazy. Brook starting humming, and then she opened up her mouth. Out came a clear and resonant note, showing that she had gained a musical talent after regenerating.

"Oh! Listen to that! Listen! Isn't that wonderful!" A little bird-like laugh erupted from her lips. "I can sing! I can sing! Now that I'm not a Song I can sing! That's wonderful and beautiful! And ironic. Isn't that ironic? Wait, is that what ironic means? I'm not sure. I'm not sure!" Brook spun around and pointed at the Doctor. "Daddy, what's the definition of ironic?" He started to reply but she cut him off. "No, no, no! Never mind, never mind! I'll go look it up. I'll look it up myself!"

She pranced over to the book shelf happily, but with an underlying layer of madness. She gleefully looked around for the dictionary, lifting herself up on her toes to see farther. Finally, Brook found the dictionary and began to yanked it out. The moment it left the shelf her giant smile faltered and drooped into a frown.

Brook took a few steps back from the bookshelf, holding the dictionary cradled in both of her hands.

"It's so heavy. It's so, so heavy." She started to hunch over, and then dropped the dictionary on the ground. Brook stared at the dictionary sprawled open on the floor, completely silent. Then she suddenly collapsed. Clara and the Doctor watched on in shock. After they shared a worried look, they ran over to see what had happened to her.

"Brook, are you okay?" Clara said, bending over next to her.

Her eyes were droopy and her body was limp, but Brook was still conscious. She batted her eyelashes, attempting to get her eyes to get open and stay open. Her lips were still curved up in the hint of a smile.

"Oh, Doctor, did I do this? I thought everything was all right but apparently it's not," Clara said, finding herself beginning to ramble in a moment of stress.

"No, Clara, I don't think this is your fault at all," the Doctor replied, putting a hand on her shoulder in order to help calm her. "She'll be okay. I think you more likely saved her." But the Doctor wasn't looking at Brook nor Clara. He was more distracted by the dictionary. He slipped his hand off of his companion's back and began to crawl towards it.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Clara was slightly irritated by the Time Lord's behavior. There could potentially be something seriously wrong with Brook and yet the Doctor was off doing something else.

"Just give me one moment." The Doctor picked up Brook's dictionary and began flipping through, moving to a specific tab in it. He went straight past the one saying Doctor, but then when he got to Foreman he started flipping back a bit, as he had gone too far.

He found a tab right in the middle of the two and stopped. After quickly surveying the page his lips began to turn up a little and he closed the dictionary. Whatever answers he had been looking for, he had apparently found.

Now the Doctor was able to turn his thoughts back towards his daughter. He made his way back over to her, and then spoke to her. "Brook, how are you feeling?"

"Tired. So tired..." Brook said, able to get out her words perfectly clearly. "I'm not in pain. I'm just tired...like I've never been before." Her back was pressed up against the floor. Although she attempted it, she was unable to get herself to sit up. After she tried to get up for a few moments, she decided it would be better if she just continued laying back.

"Just as I thought." The Doctor backed away a bit now that he was more confident that Brook was going to be all right. "She just regenerated twice in a row, in less than an hour. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if she didn't have an ounce of energy left."

"Is this what dying feels like?" Brook asked, her voice filled with air. The Doctor became suddenly concerned until Brook continued. "No. It's not...it's just being so very tired." She allowed herself to relax, closing her eyelids for several moments.

"Better get some sleep then," Clara said, a little smile making its way on her face. She just couldn't help herself with the way that the Doctor's daughter was starting to act.

"Everything is starting to clear up now," Brook said, her eyes popping open so that she could stare at the ceiling. While she had been allowing herself to get a moment of rest, she had also been thinking. "I think I know why everything went so wrong when I regenerated the first time."

'Oh...really?" the Doctor asked, finding himself grimacing slightly. This wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to talk about at the moment.

"It's because I'm a mistake. I'm afraid that I'm a mistake." Brook's voice wobbled a bit, her emotions starting to flow back into her as she thought over what she had just realised.

"What?" the Doctor replied, making a start towards her. He didn't want his daughter talking like this, especially not after everything that she'd been through. "Brook, what are you talking about?"

She let out a tiny sigh, exhaling softly like a soft breeze escaped from between her lips. "I've lived my whole life just completely and utterly afraid that I was a mistake. That I only existed because I had to exist. It was just some trick of time that made me a reality. But I don't know. And so I'm still afraid."

"Brook, you don't have to know everything," the Doctor said quietly, reaching over to take his daughter's hand. Her fingers curled around his, giving them a light squeeze.

"But I know so much about you and your future," Brook explained. "It's like I know everything, absolute everything. I mean, I even know who Clara is, and everything about that."

She let out a sound that was supposed to be a laugh but ended up sounding a bit more like she was gagging. Clara turned her gaze down at the ground, not completely understanding what this meant. In reality, she was afraid to know exactly what Brook meant by this. Sometimes she found it was better just to stay ignorant of the truth.

"I know everything, except what really mattered to me. So then I was afraid, so afraid that I wasn't supposed to be alive," Brook continued, making sure to control her breathing to keep stay calm. "I'm really just a mistake in time. But I'm also fairly sure that I'm a mistake that had to be there in order to prevent everything else from unraveling.The tragedy of being the daughter of two time travelers."

"But it doesn't have to be a tragedy," the Doctor insisted. He made sure to give her hand a gentle squeeze before he continued. After a moment of thought, he knew he wanted to go through with it. "You could come with me, you know. You could live in the TARDIS, have all sorts of adventures."

Brook seemed happy at the notion at first, but then she let herself think for a moment.

"Except I can't," she replied, inhaling a deep breath. "We both know I can't. I don't remember seeing anyone else with you when I was little. My past, your future, remember? Too much...too much timey wimey. She'll come whenever I need you anyway," she continued, now turning her head to look at the TARDIS. "She always does. Always"

Brook was far from done with her explanation. She didn't want her father to have any sort of misguided thought about what she was trying to say, so she wanted to be as clear and honest as possible.

"I want to start a family anyway. Foreman and I." Her mind instantly drifted away to thoughts of married life and children. She got a grin on her face just thinking about it. "Speaking of Foreman..." Brook began, her voice getting quiet.

"Yes?" the Doctor and Clara both asked, urging her to go on.

"Foreman's going to back to Gallifrey," Brook admitted.

"What, what do you mean? I thought you two were starting a family," the Doctor said, his countenance becoming concerned

"I should have said one day," Brook said, correcting herself with another little grin. "He's going to leave and go back there one day. I can feel it, I just know it. It might take a while, but one day he's going to go back. And then, then you'll be the last real Time Lord again, and I'm sorry. I am very sorry, Daddy."

"It's not your fault, Brook," the Doctor replied, trying to maintain his smile from before and finding it beginning to falter.

"That doesn't mean I can't be sorry," Brook said, her voice clipped as she tried to say it as matter-of-factly as possible. This was an attempt to keep emotion out of the equation, but she just wasn't capable of doing such a thing.

There was a moment of absolute silence. There was no awkwardness or sadness or any other sort of emotion hung within the air. It was pure silence, and that in its own way was brilliant.

"Brook," the Doctor said, interrupting the quiet. A very important thought had entered his mind and he needed to release it in some way. "There's something I need to tell you."

The Doctor removed his hand from Brook's in order to lean over and whisper into her ear. Clara watched on while leaning forwards, hoping to catch a snippet of whatever he was saying. Of course he made very well sure that Brook was the only one to hear, but what she did hear must have been nothing short of wonderful.

Her eyes widened until they were fish eyed when he first began, and she got a huge grin on her face. For the beginning, she looked as if she had never been happier in her entire life. Then she looked a bit confused as he continued on, but the smile on her lips or the gleam in her eyes didn't fade for single moment.

"Is it true?" she said once the Doctor had drawn away. "All of that, is it all true?"

"Of course it's true," the Doctor replied, laughing. "Don't you trust me?"

Brook pursed her lips slightly, blinking as she looked up at her father. "I kind of have to, don't I?"

"Yes, you do," the Doctor said. "I don't see why you wouldn't trust me. I'm your father, after all. You should most certainly trust me."

"Hm," Brook said happily, a smile gracing her lips once again. "Might as well, then."

"I'm guessing everything is okay now, then," Clara said. After such a deep father daughter moment, it felt strange for her to invade. Nevertheless, she knew that everything had been patched up. "All the loose ends have been tied up and such."

"Yes. Clara! Back to the TARDIS. We've got to actually go to Artang this time, and I promise you that it will be just as extraordinary as I said it would be before." He crouched down next to Brook in order to say his goodbye. But before he could speak a word, Brook interrupted him.

"Daddy?" Brook said, her voice now soft as it had been when she had first fallen over.

"Yes?"

"Your bowtie is crooked," Brook explained.

"Oh," the Doctor said quietly, making sure to lean over her. She reached up and quickly fixed it, and allowed her hands to float back down to her sides. The Doctor looked on with a small smile on his face. "Thank you, Brook."

"Goodbye, Clara," Brook began. "Goodbye, Daddy."

"Bye, Brook. I'm sure I'll see you again sometime soon," Clara said.

"Goodbye, Brook," the Doctor said, allowing the smile that had grown on his lips to remain.

Brook nodded a tiny bit, a smile not too different from her father's now on her face. Then her eyes drifted closed and her muscles all relaxed. She had gone unconscious with that slight smile still perched on her dainty lips. Now the Time Lord felt ready to get up and walk back to his TARDIS, knowing that his daughter was okay.

Everything was turning out quite well, or so it seemed. But in the fiasco of the past several hours, the Doctor and Clara had forgotten something dreadfully important. Or rather, someone.

After a flash of blue light, a voice rang out through the room exclaiming, "What the Hell happened to my wife?"

A/N Only one chapter left. And then this entire story will be revised. Won't that just be absolutely loverly? I certainly think so. I like this chapter title because it ties into the sequel. Love, love, love.