The end (of episode two) is nigh. Thank you for all your kind words, they are always sooo motivating. Thanks also to you, almighty creators and owners of Doctor Who, and please, don't rain your rage upon me. It's just that I love the Doctor:). By the by, let me invite you all to episode three of virtual season five - "The August Sky". Coming soon. And I mean very soon:).

.18. Ever, For One Moment...

"Your plan is bound to fail," Theta announced. The voice coming from the translator ball was calm and even, but the Ood's eyes dimmed with pain. There was just one level separating them from the Cells' Chamber now and the alien song bore into minds of all three of them. Even Phillip felt some discomfort; he folded his hands on his chest and was rubbing goose bumps on his forearms.

"What plan?" the Doctor laughed. He tried to pretend everything was all right, but Theta listened to his mind's song (as much as it was audible in the Cells' racket) and was aware that the man was barely standing. "I didn't plan anything; and what does it mean – bound – anyway? Nothing is bound to fail; if we thought so, we wouldn't get anywhere. Defeatism does not pay."

"The Cells will kill you before you'll be able to reach the computer," the Ood said. "It's not defeatism, it's a fact."

"Not so easy to kill the Time Lord." The Doctor stuck his sonic screwdriver in between two bunches of cables, ripped from the panel. "Believe me."

"A Time Lord?" Phillip spoke. "So, you're like a king or something?"

"A king? No." Tweaking with the panel, the Doctor laughed heartily. "It's the name of my species, just like Human, or Ood; and yes, I know, it's a bit bumptious. Can't help it, not my idea, see? Give me that mergin nut, will you. And your chewing gum."

Phillip obediently spat out a lump of chewed gum on the Doctor's outstretched hand.

"A brilliant invention – chewing gum," said the Doctor, placing the lump somewhere inside the panel. "Millions of applications. Fantastic!"

The door blocking their way opened with a hiss and the intensity of Cells' telepathic scream reached a level of a hurricane. Theta stumbled and stepped backwards instinctively. The Doctor looked back at him, concerned.

"Right," he said. "Just stay where you are, Theta. Wait for us here. Phillip..."

He reached to the boy. Phillip grabbed his elbow and groaned, surprised, as the Doctor leaned on his shoulder with all his weight.

"Sorry," he gasped into his ear. "I need you. Without you I won't be able to get there."

"What's wrong with you?" Phillip asked hesitantly as they started down the wide stairs; the Doctor dragging his feet and hanging on to the handrail.

"The Cells are telepathic," the man said. "Even you, almost completely deaf to their signals, must feel it. The Oods are very sensitive to telepathy and I am... well, a little less... But just a little."

"But what does it mean?"

"It means that the Cells don't need all that complicated hardware of dream chambers to reach into my thoughts," the Doctor mumbled. "Here, on this level, they can seep into your mind as well; so we will wear helmets, blocking the Cell's transmissions. They should be over there, in that room," he pointed at the glazed door at the bottom of the stairs. "Would you be so kind and bring them here? I don't think I can get to the very bottom... Not without a helmet..."

Phillip left him there, clutching at the handrail, expression of pain on his face. The boy looked up the stairs briefly, but couldn't see Theta in the darkness of the corridor.

"What are we doing here?" he growled irritably. "We should have evacuated with the rest of the Adventure Emporium. You said it yourself; the computer will only hold for two hours. And what happens then?"

"Best case scenario – everything simply switches off," the Doctor gasped. "Worst case – we lose atmosphere and power, and without the gravitrons, the base's dome collapses, squashing everything below."

"So we'll be mashed before we can suffocate to death?" Phillip mocked, one hand on the doorknob.

"Another defeatist!" The Doctor's hands slipped from the handrail. He slumped to the step of the stairs. "We have plenty of time. That is, if you hurry up, will you!"

"All right, all right!" Phillip opened the door and entered a small room, filled with complicated apparatus, monitors, control panels and plexiglas pipes, pumping phosphorescent liquid, full of large bubbles of air, or some other gas. The Emporium's lighting was on a complete frizz now, and the ceiling lamps blinked only now and then, but liquid in the see-through pipes provided enough glow for Phillip to look around. Under one wall he noticed wide shelves with helmets lined on them – shiny and black; they remained old-fashioned bikers' helmets. Phillip grabbed two of them and dashed up the stairs, to the Doctor, half lying on the steps. The man snatched one of the helmets greedily, and put it on without a second thought. Phillip heard a deep sigh of relief from under the helmet's visor.

"Phew, at least." The Doctor got up cautiously, still clinging to the handrail. "Let's go, quickly; there's no time."

Phillip grabbed his shoulder and led him down the stairs; helmet or not, the Doctor was very unsteady and might have toppled down the steps any moment. The man paused for a while in front of the glazed door, obviously intrigued by his own reflection.

"Well, isn't it nice?" he snorted. "I look like a Slab."

"Like what?" Phillip traditionally couldn't catch up with the man's comments. The Doctor just shrugged and pointed down the corridor.

"D'you think you could get me there?" he asked and threw his arm across the boy's shoulders. "And put on your helmet. It's a thing about Slabs, they always come in pairs."

The Doctor's underweight really suited Phillip, as he hauled him through the long corridor, in the darkness broken by sudden outbursts of light. At some point he carried him for a several steps, and when he looked down, he noticed, that the man's feet were dragging behind him on the green carpet.

"Hey, how are you holding?" he gasped.

"Don't worry about me." The Doctor's voice came from under his helmet as if from the bottom of a deep well.

"I was wondering..." Phillip hesitated. "Do you think she... I mean the computer... Could it do something for... Could it save Ace? I mean, if you managed to fix it somehow?"

"I'm afraid not. The computer's dying, Phillip, I don't think I can do anything about it. And anyway... Ace's been saved already."

"But..."

"I knew an Ace once, you know?" the Doctor said. "Wasn't her real name as well. Her name was Dorothy. Just sixteen years old, pretty explosive she was; now, when I think about it, hmmm, it seems that Aces and Excaliburs also come in pairs..."

He chuckled and leaned his shoulder against the wall.

"So," he wheezed. "Your Ace's been saved."

He tapped his fingers on Phillip's helmet, approximately at the level of the boy's forehead.

"Forever."

Phillip was grateful for the opaque visor which completely hid the expression of disappointment on his face. He used the opportunity to stretch his shoulders.

"And the same will happen to your friend?" he asked dryly. "With Donna?"

"Ow, I'm afraid it's not possible anymore," the Doctor said quietly. "You don't even know how it scares me."

"Still talking in riddles, Doctor," Phillip snorted.

"Aren't I just?" The man straightened up and put his hand on the glossy, black surface of the double door. "Ready?"

Phillip wanted to say that no, he wasn't ready, but the Doctor cracked the door open and the boy's brain filled up with something definitely unpleasant, with a hostile, alien awareness screaming hysterically. He groaned and raised his hands to his temples, surprised as they met the smooth surface of the helmet. Next to him the Doctor doubled, as if somebody punched him hard straight in the solar plexus.

"What's... that...?" Phillip managed.

The door swung to the sides. Beyond them, in stroboscope outbursts of light, there was a large chamber. Waves of emerald and golden phosphorescence were crawling along the smooth, tiled walls. A pane of glass divided the chamber in half, beyond the glass there was nothing but a pool, wall to wall, recessed, and full of undulant liquid, glimmering as if covered by a layer of oil.

"The Cells," the Doctor gasped. He held on to the door and straightened up slowly. "Microscopic organisms from the primordial ocean on a distant planet. Tiny living and feeling beings, alone on this desolate world. Hungry, always hungry. Starving."

"My... head..." Phillip whispered. "Oh... it... hurts..."

"Close the door behind you," the Doctor ordered, making one, little step into the chamber. "If I'm not out of here within the next fifteen minutes... Well, I presume, you know what to do?"

"I won't leave you!"

"Don't be daft," the Doctor turned the visor of his black helmet towards the boy. "Stay here too long and your brain will turn into jelly. Think of Theta; even one level above us he must feel what we feel now. You'll have to take him out of here, kid, you understand?"

"But, Doctor... You have no... no weapon... How do you plan... to... to kill them?" Phillip muttered.

"Kill?" the man repeated incredulously. "Did you really think I've came here to kill them?"

"I thought you wanted to fix the computer," Phillip said tearfully. "These... Cells... You know what they've done... They would have killed all of us... But for Donna... But for you... And now you're saying you don't want to kill them? What do you want to do... then...?"

"I'll feed them," calmly said the Doctor.

Terrified, Phillip saw the man's hands going up, closing on the helmet and lifting it, exposing a face twisted in an expression of pain and determination. The boy shouted wordlessly. The Doctor's helmet hit the stone floor with a dull thud and rolled along, reflecting green and gold waves of light. The man fell to one knee, breaking his fall with a hand. He looked at Phillip and opened his mouth, but didn't manage to utter any word. He only gulped and gestured with a free hand, ordering the boy to close the door. Bells ringing under his skull, ready to shatter it to pieces, half-conscious and certain that there was nothing that could save the Doctor now, Phillip reached his trembling hands and pulled both wings of the door, leaving the man on the other side, at mercy of the hungry, deadly Cells. Phillip's helmet hit the surface of the door, as he lowered his head, defeated. A horrible clamour of telepathic transmission subsided to a constant, irritating thudding. Phillip swivelled round, leaned his back against the door and slid to the floor.

"You need emotions," he heard the Doctor's muffled and slurred voice from behind the door. "You need my emotions to regenerate. I know you're hungry, but... Please, try to be gentle... Please..."

Phillip shook his head in disbelief. The Doctor went quiet. And then there was his scream and a clash of broken glass. Even though the black door remained closed, the Cells' presence in Phillip's brain rose to the level which almost rendered him unconscious. He wasn't sure if he heard the Doctor's screams, or if he screamed himself. And later yet he saw it... Visions... Just like fragments of his own memories, but not belonging to him at all...

A flaming, orange sky above silver mountain tops... Painfully beautiful stars cluster against the deep darkness of space... Wild seashores; grey, rusty, cobalt black... A glimmering city among diamond rocks... An endless, phosphorescing ocean... Alien spaceships, burning in the sky... Terrifying monsters crawling out from the corners... Faces of loved ones in a maddening procession... A blue box dashing through a tunnel in time and space... Swaying apple-smelling grass... Curtains of rain... A soaring tower, sharp as an edge of a knife... Light, nothing but light, pouring out of a stone eye, and a sound of the bell, inspiring an atavistic awe... Fire and madness of regeneration...

Maybe he lost his senses, but certainly he lost a track of time. When he came to, the pressure in his brain lessened... no... it was gone. Phillip pushed himself up on his elbow and sat up unsteadily. Behind the black door there was silence. Except for emergency lights the corridor was completely dark; the ceiling lamps finally ceased twinkling. With a corner of his mind Phillip thought about gravitrons switching off and about the dome falling down, but, to be quite honest, he was to knackered to care. He removed his helmet and threw it into the corridor's perspective. His hair was plastered with sweat of panic.

He screamed when somebody's hand grasped his shoulder. He looked up and saw Theta's almond-shaped eyes in the light radiating from the translator ball, the Ood held in his hand.

"The Cells' song," Theta said. "It went quiet. The Doctor?"

Phillip's throat was too dry and sore to let him utter a single word. With his head he gestured towards the door behind him. The Ood grabbed his hand and lifted him from the floor. They both hesitated; none of them was eager to be the first to walk through the door and see the destruction on the other side. But when they were standing there, indecisive, the door opened suddenly and the Doctor stepped out.

The man was walking bent down, arms stretched in front of him. It seemed that he held a living light in his cupped hands. Gentle, turquoise glow illuminated his pinched face and half-closed eyes.

"Doctor!" Phillip exclaimed, sore throat completely forgotten.

"A receptacle," the Doctor mumbled feverishly. "Some... container... quickly..."

He stumbled and fell to his knees. A few drops of liquid he was holding in his cupped hands seeped through his fingers. The Doctor yelled in pain, not so much because of bruised knees, but because of the loss.

"Phillip... Theta... I need a container... Right now..."

The Ood straightened suddenly, took the translator ball in both his hands and decisively twisted them in opposite directions. The device's light went out; now in his hands the Ood had two plastic hemispheres, full of miniature processors and transmitters. He tipped them upside down, throwing valuable and fragile equipment to the floor. And then he slipped one hemisphere under the Doctor's cupped hands and let him pour the turquoise liquid inside. When the last drop fell into the plastic container, Theta covered it with another hemisphere and closed the lid. His translator gleamed blue now. The Ood slowly fell to his knees, opposite the Doctor. Large, gentle eyes in his grey face were full of tears.

"So few of them managed to regenerate..." the Doctor whispered. "So few..."

"That..." Phillip stammered. "That is the craziest... the most weird... idiotic thing anybody... did like... ever..."

"Thank you," the Doctor murmured. "We should probably evacuate before the dome collapses on our heads. Do you think you could help me get to the Penthouse One Thousand? I've got my ship there, my TARDIS."

"It can't be a particularly big ship," grumbled Phillip, gripping his arm and lifting him up.

"You are in for a surprise," the Doctor whispered dreamily.

"No. I don't think so. I don't think anything can surprise me anymore," stated Phillip.

"Theta?" The Doctor looked back at the Ood, getting up gingerly and holding his translator gently, cautiously, as if it was a Faberge egg, a precious, fragile jewel. "That was a brave decision. Is everything all right?"

The Ood nodded.

"Ooooh," said the Doctor, as if answering some unasked question. "You know how it is. Sometimes I have this feeling, you know, this weird conviction, that all the stars might just turn dark, and all the universes might just stop, if I ever, for one moment accepted the failure."

They started down the corridor, supporting each other, in the darkness and silence of the desolate Adventure Emporium.

"No, of course I'm not sure," the Doctor laughed. "And I don't intend to test it."

THE END OF EPISODE TWO

THE VIRTUAL SEASON FIVE CONTINUES IN EPISODE THREE

THE AUGUST SKY

"It seems that the world is falling into pieces," said Jack gloomily. "The Rift's activity increases continually; we are short of resources to control it. And Donna... What are we supposed to do?"

"Don't lose your hope, Jack." Harriet squeezed his elbow.

***

The whole Freezer shook; a net of cracks appeared on the wall in which the TARDIS had stuck while materialising. One after another, light bulbs started to burst, sowing sparks and gradually submerging the Freezer in the semidarkness of emergency lights.

"No!" yelled Jack.

"Yes!" the Doctor yelled back.

***

"Donna Noble saved the Universe," the Doctor said quietly and defiantly. "All the Universes. And all the Universes owe her something."

***

"You know what?" Jack said quietly. "I've just realised you're trouble. You're one big fucking trouble and you're drawing us all in your messed up world of continuous troubles.

***

"Blimey," Donna said uncertainly. "The dream I've had..."