Title: Possibility

Fandom: Doctor Who

Rating: PG/K+

Summary: The TARDIS collides with a ship called Possibility where, after experiencing the failure of its experimental time drive, anything can happen and frequently does.

Characters: Ten, Donna, OC's

Word Count: 10,699

Disclaimer: Oh no, not me. Not mine. Allow me to direct you to the BBC...

"Captain, this is Curtis in engineering. We're ready to bring the drive online."

"Proceed Mr. Curtis, I'll join you shortly," responded the Captain.

It was a big moment and Captain James Rush wanted to be there to observe. He rose from his place on the bridge and indicated with a nod that his first officer Pamela Stewart should join him. The two left the ship's pilot behind as they made their way towards engineering.

The Possibility was not a military vessel. They were a ship of internationally funded scientists mostly, space travel being the one area where the nations of the world still came together admirably. That meant that apart from their ship's Captain they could dispense with the usual military rank and chain of command except where it was most practical and necessary. Someone had to be in charge, so each department of the small exploration vessel appointed Chiefs and Supervisors, with Rush being the CEO of the whole affair. Ms. Stewart having the most experience with space travel was quickly appointment second in command.

"You're about to witness history Ms. Stewart," the Captain told her proudly as they went, "Quite literally, in fact. It will be something to tell your grandchildren some day."

"Yes sir," said Stewart, smiling. "All of the simulations have been run. Everything should go smoothly."

Despite the paternal tone in his voice, Captain Rush was not much older than Stewart. Classically handsome yet surprisingly unaware, it was his confident and assuring manner that gave him an air of leadership, causing others to defer to him with respect. He always took the opinions of others into account before making the final decisions, and had he been in the military Stewart had no doubt that he would be the sort of man that a regiment would run head long into battle for, fighting alongside him to whatever end.

"I've always longed to meet an old sea Captain," Rush mused, "one of those 15th century explorers out looking for a new world. What do you reckon?"

"The future for me," replied Stewart, eyes dreamy, "I'd quite like to know how everything turns out."

"We're a race of limitless potential," said Rush, beaming at her, "How could it not turn out marvellous?"

A fleeting twinkle appeared in his eye and then it was gone. Pamela felt a flutter in her chest. There were times when he looked at her and she could almost imagine there was something more there, something that went beyond their professional relationship. But then she would chastise herself silently. Wishful thinking Pamela. The Captain could be with anyone he chose. Why in the known galaxy would it be you?

They were almost at engineering when the ship rocked suddenly, listing to one side. Rush and Stewart stumbled a few steps and then braced themselves to keep from falling, but the Captain still reached out for his first officer's arm, making sure she was all right. The ship righted itself with a groan like an ancient wooden sailing vessel.

"What the hell..." said Rush.

There were computer terminals for communication and information on the walls throughout the ship. Rush accessed the nearest one and called engineering.

"Curtis, report!" he ordered succinctly, gripping the wall as this time the ship lurched sharply as though it had been rear-ended by a careless driver. Stewart tensed alongside him.

The only reply at first was the sound of chaos, shouting and panic along with fast moving footsteps overlapping one another. A red alert klaxon alarm sounded throughout the ship.

"Curtis!" The Captain called again, screaming into the communicator over the melee.

Stewart was about to suggest that they check with the pilot on the bridge when finally the voice of Chief Engineer Curtis responded. He sounded out of breath, possibly injured.

"Captain..." he panted, "I can't explain it. Something's happened to my team. It's like they're... they're... oh my God."

"Just stay calm, we're on our way," said the Captain.

Rush had almost broken communication when he and Stewart heard a horrible throat tearing scream followed by an even more horrifying silence. At the same moment the computer panel went black and then came to life again. Rush began slapping the panel desperate for information.

"Are we going sir?" asked Stewart, knees bent ready to take off.

"Stay right there," he told her. "I want to know what we're dealing with first."

On his command the terminal showed the status of the engineering room. The Captain read the panel and then froze. Stewart read over his shoulder.

There were no life readings; she could see that straight away, even though the engineering department had a crew of six. A flashing alert indicated an integrity breach, the outer bulkhead highlighted in an alarming red. Then before her eyes the red was gone and all appeared normal, apart from the fact that the room still contained no life signs.

She glanced at the Captain and saw that he was now leaning heavily against the wall with his outstretched hands, his head hanging down in despair. She had hoped she was misinterpreting what she had just seen but his reaction had told her otherwise.

The entire engineering crew had been sucked out into space.

~*~

The Doctor had been mid-sentence at the console when the TARDIS shook like a snow globe sending him and Donna sprawling to the floor.

"What did you do?" asked Donna, getting up.

"It wasn't me," he protested, leaping back to the controls, "It's a ship. It just came out of nowhere."

"Sounds like what I told the police from my mum's car once," she remarked, "He didn't believe me either."

"No really, Donna," the Doctor said, eyes fixed to the view screen, "one minute there was nothing and the next..."

But the Doctor was cut off again by a tremendous bang that made Donna's teeth rattle. This time it felt like the snow globe had been smashed with a hammer. The Doctor had been holding on but Donna had fallen again, cursing.

"It's back again!" he said, paying her little attention, "Every time it appears it collides with us. We're sharing the same space!"

"Well, tell it to move and then get their license number," she groaned, brushing herself off and rubbing her sore hip. "Bloody student drivers."

The Doctor freed the TARDIS from the pile-up and then parked it on board the other ship.

"There," he said, turning to her with a grin and applying the brake, clearly pleased with himself, "that'll show it. I hopped in the boot!"

The Doctor took off down the ramp with Donna close behind. Throwing the doors open, he marched out, confronting two uniformed humanoids who stood staring at the sudden appearance of a blue police box.

"Now look here...," the Doctor began, indignant, but then quickly stopped, sensing the odd disturbances around him. "Oooh," he said instead, "you've got a situation haven't you?"

"Captain, I can't reach anyone in the medical bay," said a young woman, snapping back to attention and ignoring the two newcomers, "or the science stations..."

"And the bridge is sealed off, I know," said the Captain, "Standard protocol. The ship thinks it's under attack. But first things first Ms. Stewart," he said, turning to the Doctor and Donna, "now would you kindly tell me who the hell you two are."

The Doctor relaxed his stance and stepped forward, holding out his hand with a cheery grin. "I'm the Doctor and this is Donna," he said.

The Captain stared at it for a moment before accepting it with a confused expression.

"Hello!" the Doctor continued after they shook, "We were just in the neighbourhood, travelling by." He indicated his blue box with a thumb over his shoulder. "Our ships seem to have collided with one another. Having a spot of trouble? Maybe we can help, well, I say maybe but that's just me being modest, I'm sure we can help. Feels like a temporal disturbance, I'm brilliant with those, temporal matters. You could say it's my specialty."

"So modest," breathed Donna beside him through her teeth. The Doctor just shrugged.

The Captain stared in disbelief for a long moment and then shook his head, "Well, I'd like to say you're the strangest things we've seen all day but that would be a lie."

"Why, what's happened?" asked Donna.

Instead of explaining, the Captain introduced himself and his officer, as though that said it all. "I'm Captain James Rush and this is my first officer Pamela Stewart. Welcome to the Possibility," he said with a sarcastic flourish, "where anything can happen and frequently does."

"What?" asked Donna. "What's he on about Doctor?"

Donna looked to the Doctor for an explanation, and saw that the Doctor was suddenly on alert, arms out, tense and eyes wide. He looked up at the ceiling, and then all at once he spun round on the spot. Donna turned too on his reaction to see that the TARDIS was now gone.

"Ohhh, I was afraid of that," the Doctor muttered with regret.

"Will someone explain to me what is going on here!" cried Donna.

~*~

After the TARDIS did its disappearing act, the Doctor put on his glasses and started exploring the lab they had materialised in, picking up slides and test tubes and placing them back down.

"This is a... 25th century Earth science vessel isn't it," asked the Doctor as he poked around.

The Captain nodded, "we're an experimental vessel for testing technology in space. Our most recent mission involved the installation of a transdimensional time drive. We were using it as our ship's engine to attempt time travel. But the time drive failed and now we're experiencing strange occurrences all over the ship..."

"Wait, what?" said the Doctor. He put a flask down, whipped off his glasses and turned round on them, suddenly furious, "A transdimensional time drive? Are you mad? Your lot don't invent a safe form of time travel for thousands of years, and even then it's limited. A Transdimensional time drive is the crudest and riskiest form of time travel there is!"

"Now wait just a minute," replied the Captain, stepping up to confront him, "Are you lecturing us?"

"Yes!" said the Doctor, matching the Captain's stance with his own, "Don't you realise what you've done? You've taken the fabric of time and you've ripped it apart! You've got huge tears all over your ship where anything could be happening." He backed off the Captain and began to pace madly around the lab, raving, "You couldn't have left time travel to the experts could you? Oh no. What you did was like trying to open a window with a sledgehammer!"

The Captain and his officer stood staring at this strange intruder, tempers flaring, when Donna came over and stopped the Doctor by taking his arm before he began another revolution around the room.

"Doctor, have a look at this over here," she said, pulling him to one side and away from their hosts. The Doctor stopped his tirade just long enough for Donna to whisper, "Give them a break, would you? They're humans. That's how we learn and discover things, through trial and error."

"Donna," he told her, calmer now, "they've got a major catastrophe on their hands. I'm not sure I can fix this without the TARDIS."

From somewhere on the ship came a distant scream and the sounds of more chaos. Donna looked over her shoulder at the two officers. For the first time she noticed how tired and concerned the Captain looked. It also struck her how Ms. Stewart regarded her Captain, her eyes begging for guidance and reassurance. This Captain and his officer were both clearly helpless. Donna turned back to the Doctor.

"But you can try?" she asked him.

He looked at her and a familiar grin spread across his face, "Oh yes, I can try. Trial and error, that's me too! Well, hopefully more trial than error, eh?"

Just then the Captain cleared his throat. The Doctor and Donna turned back round.

"If it would help," said the Captain, "this ship was first equipped with a conventional space drive but it was dismantled and stored. We have it here though, in the storage bay. I was just about to work out a plan to get it when you two showed up."

The Doctor was quickly all business again. "Good. We need to reinstall it and get it back online. If it works, moving the ship away from the disturbances might just solve your immediate problem. Let's get to the storage bay and then get that drive over to engineering."

"But you should know that engineering is the eye of the storm," retorted the Captain, hesitating. "When the time drive malfunctioned, the entire engineering crew were thrown out into space. The breach sealed itself but now there are reports of things like that happening all over the ship."

"It's the holes," explained the Doctor, "You've got open pockets of time everywhere."

"Pockets of time?" asked Donna.

"Like bubbles of different sizes," replied the Doctor, "when they activated their time drive they tore holes in the fabric of space. Those holes are now appearing and disappearing all over the ship. If you get caught in one anything can happen -- time and space are random, uncontrolled. That's why we collided and it's why the TARDIS disappeared. It's trapped in a time pocket, it could be anywhere, and the only way we might be able to bring it back is to move this ship away from here. I hope. That's the trial and error bit I'm afraid."

"You seemed to know about your ship disappearing just before it happened," said Ms. Stewart, regarding the Doctor with a kind of awe, "Can you tell where these pockets will appear?"

"Oooh," the Doctor hesitated with a regretful sigh, trying to explain, "not very well. It was more a feeling in the air. I can tell if there's one standing in place but they move. I might be able to sense something coming, but not exactly where or what will happen until it's too late. If a hole should open all at once I'm as helpless as you. We'll just have to stick together and move carefully through the ship."

"How many of you are there," asked Donna, thinking of the screams she heard earlier.

The Captain's face darkened and his officer spoke for him. "The ship had a complement of twenty," she said, "We lost six from engineering. Since then, all communications have gone down, we don't know how many survivors there are."

The Doctor turned to the nearest communications panel, opened it up and surveyed it. He removed his sonic screwdriver and attempted a diagnostic and repair to the wiring to no avail.

"The link's been severed," he explained. "There's a time pocket interfering with the ship's systems. Just be glad we've still got life support...for now."

Donna felts a cold chill run through her at the sound of his ominous words. She turned towards the group.

"I think we'd better hurry," she said.

~*~

They walked the corridors of the ship towards engineering, Officer Stewart and Donna slightly in front, chatting.

"He's not human, is he, your friend," Stewart asked her quietly.

"Is it that obvious?" joked Donna. "But it's all right. He may seem a few circuits short of a motherboard but he's brilliant, and he really does know all about time travel. He'll sort it out."

"Are you from the future?" she asked.

Donna thought, wondering how to explain, "I suppose compared to you I'm from the past, but as the Doctor says it's all relative. And he's from everywhere, if that makes any sense. He just travels, never stops. I'm just along for the ride."

"It must be terribly exciting," said Stewart.

"It's the same as you, out there in space, discovering new things. You lot are amazing, you really are. I don't know if I could do it without the Doctor. But enough about time travel, tell me about your Captain. I saw you looking," said Donna, with a conspiratorial grin.

Pamela Stewart blushed and was about to deny everything when she and Donna were grabbed from behind and pulled backwards. Both women cried out in surprise.

A large irregular shaped hole had opened in the deck plate at their feet, outlined by glowing energy. One more step and they would have had plummeted down into what appeared to be nothingness. Instead they landed in an awkward pile cushioned only by the Doctor beneath them, squirming free. Donna turned and realised he had saved them just in time from taking that last step.

"Thanks," Donna said to him.

The four watched as the hole closed up again. Stewart crawled forward and tested the integrity of the deck with her fingers. It was as solid as before.

"That was close," said the Doctor, rising and offering Donna a hand up as the Captain stepped forward to help his first officer, "You'd better let me go first."

"No argument from me," Donna said.

"Oh that's a change," quipped the Doctor as he breezed past her, hands in his pockets.

Donna gave him a light slap for that as he went by. Pamela observed their easy friendship and smiled. She looked over at Captain Rush, who was walking more carefully now, deep in concentration, on alert for whatever might happen next. In stark contrast the Doctor and Donna looked as though they faced this sort of thing all the time.

They continued on. To Donna's right she saw a door vanish and then reappear. It felt a bit like a carnival funhouse only she preferred the kind with the silly mirrors that made your head look like a peanut. She trained her eyes on the deck in front of her as she stepped for any more disappearing floors.

When she heard quick footsteps Donna looked up. At the end of a long corridor appeared another uniformed crewmember, coming round a corner toward them. The frightened young man saw his Captain and increased his speed.

"Captain!" the man shouted.

"Wait! Slow down!" cautioned the Doctor, arms out, but the man wasn't listening to this stranger.

The Captain stepped forward. "Farris, stay where you are!" he ordered.

But he was seconds too late.

The crewmember called Farris heard the command and slowed but not before colliding with an invisible time pocket halfway down the hall. There was a white flash accompanied by an ear splitting bang and everyone dropped to the floor, covering their heads.

Farris' sidearm had exploded in its holster.

The Doctor was the first up, running forward to help the man, with the Captain on his heels.

"Doctor, be careful," Donna called to him, thinking of the hidden time pocket.

"It's all right," the Doctor replied. Demonstrating, he stuck his hand in first into the air above the man's prone body, wiggled his fingers and then moved fully forward. "This pocket is only a few minutes ahead," he explained, "just enough to cause his plasma weapon to become unstable and explode. If he hadn't been armed he might not even have noticed it."

The Doctor checked the man's pulse but it was quite obvious even to Donna that the man was dead. He lay completely still and half his body was scorched black by the weapon. The Captain came forward, laid a hand on the man's one good shoulder, and looked as though he had just had one more burden placed upon his own already laden ones.

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor.

"It was his first voyage," said the Captain as Stewart and Donna gathered round. "He was twenty. I met his parents just before we sailed. They were so proud of their son."

"Captain," asked the Doctor as gently as he could, "I need to know if there are any other weapons on the ship."

Captain Rush stood, returning to the crisis at hand and responded, "We've learned the hard way not to travel in space undefended. There is a munitions locker with some guns and a small cache of grenades."

"You're lucky you're not a battleship," said the Doctor, looking down at Farris' body for the last time, "if you'd been equipped with missiles there'd likely be nothing left of you now. Okay, we've got a new priority. We have to get those explosives and throw them out an airlock because if they come into contact with a time pocket they'll detonate."

~*~

They encountered more oddities as the group doubled back and headed for the munitions lockers. Unfamiliar objects were strewn about randomly in various places – pairs of shoes, plates of food, a tuba -- some of the items came from other locations on the ship and others were like nothing they'd ever seen and completely unidentifiable.

Passing crews' quarters, the common room and the ship's mess, the Captain checked each one but found them either unoccupied or containing corpses in various states of advanced age, some little more than bones and dust.

My crew, the Captain lamented silently, my entire crew. Are we the only ones left?

They were more sedate after that, refraining from any idle chatter the rest of the way. It seemed less likely to Donna that they would find any survivors, and she wondered how long the Doctor already suspected it but hadn't said anything. Even he was being uncharacteristically silent now.

They reached the weapons locker and stoically set about the work of removing the offending explosives. Taking handfuls of guns and small grenades, they each carried them a short walk back down the hall to the nearest airlock, placing them in a pile to be ejected out into space.

The heavy silence meant they were all well aware of how dangerous their task was. Donna's heart was pounding. She fought to control the shaking in her arms at the thought of walking into a time pocket loaded with explosives.

They went in a line, hoping to minimise the risk by following in each other's footsteps. It worked with minefields but Donna knew that in their case this gave only the illusion of safety; mines didn't disappear and reappear in different locations like time pockets did. As she went she glanced up at the Doctor in front of her, hoping he would give her a warning if he sensed anything, but he was intent on his own steps, as vulnerable as the rest of them.

Donna reached the airlock with a heavy sigh and knelt down to add her weapons to the pile. Then she went back for another load. Two trips each and they were nearly done. After her second trip Donna looked back at the locker and saw that there were just two grenades left.

"I've got them," said Stewart, who was closest.

Donna stood in the middle of the hall near Stewart as the Doctor and Captain Rush waited down at the airlock controls, ready to operate them as soon as the last of the grenades were in. Pamela Stewart reached into the locker and removed the grenades.

This time they had no warning at all.

A time pocket opened up right where the first officer stood. Two tremendous fiery explosions threw everyone off their feet and scattered them in all directions along the hall like skittles. Shrapnel rained down on them from thick grey clouds of smoke.

For quite a while, time lost all meaning for any of them.

~*~

Someone was shaking the Doctor's shoulder with a firm grip.

"Doctor, wake up!" he said once and then again.

It was Rush. The Doctor groaned. He was flat on his stomach. He reached up to feel a sharp pain in the back of his head where something must have hit him. Inhaling, he swallowed a mouthful of noxious charcoal flavoured air and immediately began to choke. Curling up onto his elbows, he was still coughing in heaves and trying to remember what had happened when the Captain took him by both shoulders and pulled him up to sit.

"Are you all right?" Rush asked him.

The Doctor held his head to quell the throbbing from the sudden movement. His throat was too raw to speak at first so he just nodded. He wanted to ask the Captain the same question but instead just looked him over, satisfied that he seemed fine, though a bit dirty and dazed like himself. The Doctor squinted and looked around. They were at one end of a smoke filled corridor, across from an airlock...

An airlock.

He remembered now.

He grabbed the Captain's arm and hoarsely forced out the words, "The airlock...weapons..."

"Already ejected," nodded the Captain in understanding and freeing himself from the Doctor's grip. "That was the first thing I did when I came to."

"Good man," the Doctor sighed, pulling his knees up and leaning back against the wall, eyes closed.

"Rest here, I need to find Ms. Stewart," said the Captain, patting the Doctor's shoulder and standing up. Moving away, he disappeared into the smoke and down the hall.

That reminded the Doctor of something else.

Donna.

He stood up much too quickly and almost fell over, dizzy. Fighting the sensation, he held on to the wall and dragged himself along, hunched half over where the smoke was clearer.

"Donna!" he called into the fog.

The Doctor groped his way through the thick smoke, until he emerged out the other side where it seemed a bit clearer. His chest ached, wracked with coughs.

"Donna!" he called again and again.

He scanned the deck around his feet and then a bit further out when the visibility improved. Where he couldn't see he put his arms out in front of him, remembering the treacherous time pockets. His eyes burned and he squeezed out tears.

It was the smoke, he told himself, they were stinging from the smoke, because Donna's fine, she's just over this way, I'm sure of it.

"Donna!"

The corridor felt endless. He might have been turning in circles, so he oriented himself and began to search more methodically by grids. He was nearly to the opposite end of the hall now, and he told himself that it was a good sign that he had yet to come across a body, and then immediately pushed the darker thought aside.

When his fingers brushed the static edge of a temporal disturbance, he jumped back, startled. Slowly, he put his hand out again and sensed the vibrating energy, different from the rest of the space around him. A time pocket stood just in front of him, distorting the space inside it by years, possibly decades. He could go no further.

The pocket formed a barrier from the blast, which was the fortunate thing. Inside there was no smoke, no debris, explaining why the person within didn't seem at all bothered by the chaos around her. But that didn't mean she wasn't frightened.

She was a little girl lost.

The Doctor looked into the pocket and his eyes went wide in amazement. He knelt down at the sight before him. Huddled in the far corner, her arms wrapped tight around her knees, was a girl of no more than six or seven in a plaid dress, white socks and ginger hair in bunches.

She seemed so out of place that the mere sight of her was jarring to the Doctor, as instinctively wrong as the impossible Captain Jack Harkness. Swallowing the impulse to cringe at what was really the result of damaged time, he focused instead on the wonder of the sight before him.

With a small smile the Doctor called out softly. "Donna? Is that you?"

The little girl looked at him, confirming his suspicion. This is Donna, the Doctor marvelled, little Donna Noble, perfectly safe inside her own protective bubble.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

Donna nodded.

"Where are we?" she asked in her little girl voice.

Her bottom lip started to tremble, but the Doctor could see her struggle to hide it, wanting to appear brave. It made his smile grow wider.

"We're sort of... travelling," he told her.

Her eyes lit up, "Like a holiday? Oh, I love holidays! Mummy said we weren't taking one this year and I was so disappointed. When I grow up I'm going to travel the world."

"You know, I believe you will," the Doctor replied. "You'll be brilliant."

"Where's my mummy?" she asked.

The Doctor beckoned, "Come with me, I'll take you to her."

"She's going to be cross at me for going missing again," Donna observed.

"Well, I'll explain it to her," said the Doctor. "It wasn't your fault."

Donna stood up. "You're a nice man. What's your name?"

The Doctor thought. "Why don't you just call me Spaceman?"

She giggled. "That's a funny name. You're funny."

"Yes, I am," he said. "Come on now, off we go."

The Doctor stood up and held out his hand for her to take it, his fingers just brushing the edge of the pocket, feeling the temporal disturbance holding him back.

Donna walked towards him and held her own tiny hand out to meet his. Their fingers met and he gently pulled her forward and out of the pocket. As she crossed over, Donna reappeared fully grown. Dizzy, she gasped and pitched forward into the Doctor's arms. He held onto her for a moment out of sheer relief and then set her back to restore her balance, beaming at her.

"What just happened?" she asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said.

"It was like everything was bigger," she said, "you were bigger, and then it was all put right again."

Donna looked around at the devastation she was seeing for the first time. She waved a hand in front of her face and grimaced. "Where's all this smoke coming from?"

The Doctor's smile faded as the joy of seeing Donna as a little girl evaporated, replaced by their reality and the reminder that they were still no safer.

"What's the last thing you remember?" he asked her.

Donna thought and then her face went wide in shock. "The weapons! We were moving the weapons! Pamela!"

Donna took off back down the hall and the Doctor followed. They stopped at the weapons locker where the Captain was crouched down on the floor, having searched the area. The metal doors to the locker were twisted and mangled, hanging half off their hinges, and the floor and nearby bulkhead were scorched.

"She's gone," Rush said sadly, "She was standing right here, but... I can't find her, she's just gone."

Donna gasped, "No."

"It could have been the time pocket or the force of the explosion," said the Doctor with intense regret, "but either way I don't see how she could have survived when she was holding the grenades."

Donna knelt down beside the Captain and put her arm around him. "I liked her," she said, "and she thought the world of you."

The Captain reached up and laid his hand over Donna's.

After a moment, the Doctor was faced with the grim task of bringing everyone back to the present. "We have to keep going. We need to get that drive back online so we can stop this."

~*~

The weapons now gone, they returned to their earlier priority of retrieving the conventional space drive. Moving carefully back through the ship, they thought they had managed to reach the storage bay without incident. But then they turned the last corner, stopped up short and retreated back behind the wall as one.

"Now that's something new," remarked the Doctor, peeking out.

Pacing back and forth in the corridor in front of the large double doors of the storage bay, was what looked for all the world like a large Earth grizzly bear, all claws and teeth.

"Do you keep animals on the ship?" the Doctor asked the Captain.

"No," said Rush, "I don't know where that came from."

"It must have been pulled aboard like we were. How are we going to get past it?" asked Donna.

"I don't know," the Captain muttered, "but I'm wishing now that we hadn't tossed all those guns."

The Doctor glared at him and replied harshly, "Don't you think we've had enough death for one day Captain?"

Donna returned the Doctor's glare with one of her own full of silent reproach. The Doctor regretted his outburst instantly, knowing that the Captain had just been cruelly reminded of the loss of his young first officer. Killing may always be the quick and easy solution for humans but he supposed Donna was right and now wasn't the time to be judgemental.

His anger past like a summer storm, the Doctor removed his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and waggled it in the air with a cheeky grin, "Anyway, why use a stick when you've got a carrot?"

He could lure the bear off but he didn't want to attract its attention until he was well away from the Captain and Donna. That meant he had to time his entrance just right. The bear was pacing in a regular pattern, like they do when they're caged, but stayed within the confines of the corridor. That at least was good news. It must have sensed the edges of the time pocket it was in and felt compelled to keep within its borders like an invisible fence.

They watched tensed as the bear came toward them, and then turned in the opposite direction away from them. It got nearly to the end of the corridor before it would turn back again.

The Doctor stepped out.

Slowly but with purpose, he crept towards the bear. Once again, he felt the limits of the static bubble as fuzzy energy, but unlike the one that held young Donna, this one contained a much greater spacial disturbance than a temporal one. As long as it held the bear in place, the Doctor could pass into it undisturbed. Of course that plan was shot to hell should the bear suddenly disappear, but for now it was stable.

Still, he knew he needed to act quickly, because apart from that for all intents and purposes he had just stepped into a bear cage and the bear was just about to notice his presence.

The Doctor raised the sonic screwdriver and the bear turned round. He kept his body as relaxed as possible; he didn't want to give the bear the impression that it was under attack. The bear spotted the Doctor and its lips curled back, showing its teeth with a low menacing growl.

He pressed the button and a steady whirring sound rang out accompanied by a blue light. He held it steady and at the same time locked eye contact on the beast. The growl increased and it sat back on its haunches like a coiled spring. They stayed that way for what felt like a long time, a stalemate between two fighters, neither wanting to be the first to give ground.

Eventually, the growling quieted and then ceased altogether and the Doctor felt safe enough to take a careful step closer. The bear was now transfixed by the sound and light.

Circling around but never breaking contact, he lured the bear off back to the far end of the hallway, giving Donna and Rush a clear path to the storage bay doors. He didn't dare look up to see if they realised that they should make for the doors. Instead, he kept his focus on the bear, whose eyelids were getting heavy.

The Doctor moved closer, holding the sonic between the bear's eyes, just above its nose, fully aware how close his arm was to those enormous jaws. Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor, bringing the mesmerised bear along with him. The bear sagged down into a comfortable position and seconds later its eyes were fully closed.

The Doctor gave it an extra minute for good measure to be sure the creature was asleep. When he heard the slow steady breathing, he turned off the sonic, and gave the bear a gentle pat.

"Night night teddy," he whispered as he tiptoed away quickly.

The storage bay doors were open. The Doctor strolled inside, tucking the sonic back in his pocket.

"Where's the bear?" asked Donna.

"Hibernating," he said proudly. "Where's the drive?"

"Over here," said the Captain from behind a stack of crates.

The Doctor went round to help him and together they removed the conventional space drive. It was quite heavy and cumbersome to move, about the size of an old porcelain bathtub. They brought it out to the centre of the bay and placed it on the floor. Donna came forward and stood on one side of the drive alongside the Captain as the Doctor crouched on the other and examined it. When he was done he stood and stepped back.

"It looks like your standard 25th century space drive, basically intact. It's built in one piece though," the Doctor said, "No way to break it down into easier to transport parts, sorry. It's also going to need a bit of work once we get it down there. Nothing for it, I suppose, that time drive's got to g..."

An enormous hole opened up in the wall behind the Doctor, revealing a vast landscape of stars.

There was a sound like a suction.

Donna screamed...

...as the Doctor was yanked violently backwards into the vacuum of space.

~*~

Donna was still screaming but she felt detached, as though the voice belonged to somebody else. She ran forward with no thought to her own safety.

In an instant the Captain was there, throwing his arms around her and holding her back. Donna struggled to pull herself free. For a few seconds the gaping hole hung there suspended, taunting her, black as death. The Doctor must have been inside the pocket's borders when it had opened because from where the Captain and Donna stood they were safely beyond its reach feeling no pull at all.

She watched the time pocket through her tears as the hole snapped closed again as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving her and Rush standing in the intact storage bay.

The Doctor was gone.

The Captain released his hold on her and Donna's knees turned to liquid. She sank to the floor, still staring at the spot where the Doctor had last stood.

No one can survive being thrown out into space, she knew, not even the Doctor.

It was as if their roles were reversed and now it was the Captain's turn to place a strong and supportive hand on Donna's shoulder. She barely felt it. She remembered telling Pamela how she didn't think she could travel in space without the Doctor, and feared now that she might have cursed herself with her own thoughtless words.

He was out there somewhere, she thought, the last Time Lord in the universe floating in space, all alone. Donna had to fight down the urge to be sick. What a horrible death, and somehow, Donna was the one who now had to find a way to carry on.

She almost envied him.

She stayed there for a long time, watching it happen again and again in her mind as she wept. She couldn't imagine how it could end that way for such an extraordinary man -- in a split second like it would for anyone else -- after all that he had done, after so many years. She had expected it would have been grander somehow and more meaningful, but life was unfair.

As Donna sat cradling her grief the Captain slipped out into the hall briefly and then returned.

"The bear is still asleep but it could wake up at any moment," he said to her kindly, "I understand your pain but we need to keep going."

He was right of course. She needed to focus on the task at hand and help the Captain get the space drive down to engineering. It was what the Doctor would have done. She nodded silently and stood, wiping at her tears.

"Can you fix it on your own?" she asked the Captain, knowing she wouldn't be much use installing an engine.

"I'm not sure but I'm going to try," he replied, "because it will only be a matter of time before a time pocket gets us too. The Doctor's plan was to move the ship, and that's just what we're going to do."

~*~

The shocking cold felt like falling through hundreds of panes of glass. He may have screamed but no sound came out.

Then he was spinning, with no orientation, no up or down, there was only pain as the lack of atmosphere squeezed him tight like a vice, drawing him into the merciful black.

The Doctor was travelling at an impossible rate of speed, through space and time and out the other side. The entire trip lasted seconds and then he came bursting through, shot like a bullet back onto the ship.

Rolling over and over he came to a stop only when he hit the far wall of the room. He lay there for a while, shivering violently, feeling every bit his 900 years, joints stiff and bones aching, drawing greedy, deep lungfuls of air.

At once he realised how lucky he was. That pocket had opened up on an interior bulkhead. Had he been standing against an outer wall he might have ended up adrift in space permanently just like the engineering crew. Instead it seemed as though it had dumped him back onto another part of the ship as he passed through it.

I may be all for counting my blessings but that was still nasty, he thought to himself as he recovered, I don't ever want to do that again.

When he felt his strength returning the Doctor slowly picked up his head and looked around. He was still on the Possibility, at least he thought he was, but he didn't recognize the room he was in. He knew he needed to get to engineering, and he hoped that the Captain and Donna were already taking the drive unit down there to finish the job.

Once again he thought of Donna, recalling the sound of her scream as he was pulled away, the last sound he heard. She and Rush would no doubt assume he was dead, but he could dispel them of that notion when he saw them again, which meant he had to get going.

Painfully, he rose and limped off, legs still stiff, hoping to avoid any more time pockets along the way.

~*~

Donna and the Captain carried the conventional drive with them as they went towards engineering. The going was slow; the drive was heavy and Donna's arms ached in protest.

She was about to suggest they take a break when they turned a corner and stopped. The bear was back. Whether it had fallen through another pocket and arrived here or finally realised it could leave its bubble didn't matter. Here it was again, snarling at them. Of course it was also possible there were two of them but she tried not to think of that. It looked like the same one anyway.

They stood there, silent and frozen with the drive between them, now feeling heavier than ever. Without the Doctor's sonic screwdriver Donna didn't know what to do. The bear moved slowly towards them and as it did Donna felt certain that it was no longer contained in a time pocket. It wasn't pacing as before, but walked with purpose, stalking them as though it had every intention of reaching its target.

"Toss the drive at it," Donna whispered to Rush.

"That's mad," said the Captain, "We need this drive. It's the only thing that will save us. If it breaks, we're as good as dead anyway."

"All right," agreed Donna, "then we just put it down slowly and walk away. We can come back to collect it later."

"On three," said the Captain, eyes on the approaching bear, "One...two...three."

Together they placed the drive down on the deck between themselves and the bear and began to back up. The bear approached the drive and sniffed it to investigate and as it did, the Captain and Donna ducked round the corner.

"Now what do we do?" asked Donna.

The Captain thought, wondering if there was another way to distract it like the Doctor had done, when they heard the sound of it coming closer. The bear lost interest in the machine and followed the scent of the living instead.

Donna heard its paws heavy on the deck, the click of its claws, and the snorting sound of its breathing. She recalled something about bears from watching nature shows with her grandfather. If you run from them they will chase you and they're much faster than you are. The thing to do is hold completely still and calm, playing dead if possible. Easier said than done, but she knew if they ran, they were instant dinner. The Captain must have been thinking the same thing because he pulled her into the nearest doorway where they could take cover behind a wall and wait.

They listened, and the bear moved closer. Donna's heart pounded as for the hundredth time she wished the Doctor was there. No matter how bad their situation, she was never quite as scared when he was around.

But he'll never be around again, she thought.

The thought ignited a surge of anger. It made her want to go out there and confront that bear head on, tell it who was boss and teach it for scaring her half to death.

Stepping past the Captain, Donna peered round the wall and looked out, and the sight extinguished her anger and instead caused her to burst out laughing. It felt so good to laugh that she couldn't stop. The Captain looked at her confused and then followed her gaze to where Donna was still looking in hysterics.

The bear had at some point walked into a time pocket and was now a small cub, smaller than her neighbour's terrier back home. She wanted to cuddle it and give it a bottle of milk.

The Captain joined her in the hall, smiling but still tense. Stepping wide around the animal to avoid the pocket it was in, they returned to retrieve the drive. Turning the corner, Donna's laughter got stuck in her throat and died there.

The corridor was now empty.

~*~

The Doctor left the room he was in and selected a direction at random. He could still feel the temporal disturbances everywhere, permeating the air like yesterday's fish. He treaded carefully at first, walking with his hands out as though it were dark, stepping around skeletal remains and fuzzy bubbles of displaced energy.

On the wall he discovered a map showing a cutaway layout of the ship. He studied it and located engineering. He wasn't far, just a few more corridors to his left.

He turned and headed down another empty hallway, quickening his pace, anxious to reach his destination. After a few steps his outstretched hand penetrated a pocket a bit too quickly and disappeared at the wrist.

"Whoops!" The Doctor pulled back in alarm, relieved when his hand reappeared.

He was getting too complacent, he needed to go slower and concentrate to avoid these disturbances. The sights and his own thoughts were distracting him, so he closed his eyes and focused. Instantly he could tell where the space around him felt wrong. He didn't need his sight to spot the pockets anyway, so he walked on, groping like a blind man down the empty hall.

At least he had thought the hall was empty last he checked. He got about twenty paces when he tripped over something hard in his path.

Landing on his hands and knees the Doctor opened his eyes, sat back up and looked behind him.

It was the conventional space drive, just sitting there abandoned.

"How did that get there?" he asked no one, scratching his head.

He felt around it. No more disturbance, whatever had dumped it there was now gone, which explained why he fell over it before he sensed anything. He wondered what had happened to Donna and Captain Rush, and how they got separated from the drive.

Picking up one end, he tried to move it, but it was too heavy even to drag on his own. He hoped the others were all right, but if he was the only one left, he needed to work out a way to get the drive down to engineering.

~*~

"We'd better hope that drive didn't just get sucked out into space," said Donna, thinking of the Doctor again.

She felt a pain in her chest at the thought as she stared at the spot on the floor from where their last hope had vanished. The Captain didn't know what to suggest either.

"Let's just get to engineering," he said finally, cursing their bad luck, "Maybe we'll find it on the way and if not, there might be something else we can do. We can access some bridge controls from down there in an emergency so if nothing else we can send out a distress signal."

Their options were limited so they continued on their way.

Donna thought about them sending out a distress signal. Even if they did get rescued where would she go? She was all alone in the wrong century, how would she ever get back to her own time? She would have to start a new life somewhere all on her own. Perhaps she still had family on Earth, descendants of the Noble or Mott clans somewhere; she could start by looking them up. Of course she'd have to come up with some story to explain who she was...

She was about to ask the Captain if he had any family when the lights dimmed and a shrill alarm cut her off.

'Life support systems failure', announced the computerised voice over the intercom.

Their luck had just run out.

~*~

The Doctor's head snapped up at the announcement.

'Life support systems failure', it repeated.

"Oh no, NO, NO, NO, NO!!" he cried.

A pocket had collided with the life support system.

He picked up the pace and began to run to engineering, dodging and weaving as he went, still mindful to avoid time pockets but risking it for speed. If the Captain and Donna were still on board the ship somewhere he knew they wouldn't survive more than twenty minutes once life support had shut down, the Doctor himself only slightly longer.

He had to work quickly now, and he still didn't know how he would get the drive down to engineering where it needed to be.

~*~

"The Doctor said this might happen," Donna shouted over the alarm, "how much time have we got?"

"Maybe twenty minutes," said the Captain, "but we're almost at engineering, come on!"

The Captain turned and took off down the hall with Donna on his heels. He made it a few metres when all at once he let out a strangled painful sound and collapsed to the deck in a ball.

"Captain!" yelled Donna.

She had stopped short and stepped back when he screamed but then approached again to where he now lay. His hands were mostly obscuring his face. They looked wrinkled, skin like paper, veins protruding grotesquely. His thick hair had turned white and thinned to almost nothing. He was straining to breathe, arms and legs curled in spasms, unable to move.

The time pocket had aged him nearly to his death.

Remembering what the Doctor had done with Farris, Donna reached forward and tried to penetrate the bubble with her fingers. All at once she realised her mistake and drew back, gasping in pain as though she had reached into an open fire. She saw her hand tighten and age before her eyes, only restoring itself when she pulled it back out. She rubbed it to ease the ache.

The Captain was trapped, she couldn't reach him.

"Captain," she called to him, "can you hear me? You need to move, get through the pocket."

He struggled and inched just a short distance before collapsing again. He looked like he was crippled with arthritis and in need of a wheelchair. Less than a metre away, he was beyond her grasp, unable to get out on his own.

In the meantime Donna could already feel the air getting thinner around her. Perhaps she could get to engineering. She couldn't fix the engines but she could send that distress call and that was something at least, provided help arrived in time. If she stayed here the only thing for certain was that they would both suffocate in minutes. Just as before, she knew she had to keep going.

"I'm sorry, Captain," she said to him, "I'll come back for you, I promise."

Donna got up and moved on towards engineering, hoping that the Captain didn't die of either asphyxiation or just plain old age before she could return.

She followed the path they had been on and turned the corner at the end. When she did she received another surprise, but the first pleasant one she could recall since arriving on the Possibility.

The conventional space drive was back, sitting in middle of the corridor.

Donna's heart leapt and she ran for it, so glad to see it she wasn't even bothered about how she was going to move it. She needn't have worried though, because just as she got there, it was enveloped in a blue sparkling light and vanished without a trace.

"Oh, that's just not fair!" she shouted into the quickly evaporating air.

~*~

The Doctor watched in engineering as the conventional drive materialised in the space in front of him.

"Bingo!" he exclaimed.

He giggled at his own cleverness. The Earth didn't yet have matter transport technology in the 25th century, but they were close -- if they only knew how close. They were so close that all the materials they needed to build one could be found on any standard space vessel.

All the Doctor had to do was find the parts and put it together. The hard bit was programming the transporter to locate the drive on the ship. Admittedly, that had taken a bit of trial and error and the Doctor wasted precious minutes transporting a chair, a wardrobe, a bacon sandwich that he quickly wolfed down starving and of all things, a young bear cub.

"I like you a lot better like that," he had said to the cub.

He'd waved the remains of his sandwich in front of the bear's nose and tossed it into the far corner. The bear followed the food, sat down and ate happily.

Giving it one more go, the Doctor had finally latched on to the drive. Using an antigravity platform, he set it into place where he had already dismantled and removed the offending transdimensional time drive. He sneered as he tossed the ruddy thing in a rubbish pile and began installing the correct drive. As he worked, he noticed he began to feel light headed. He breathed more deeply and refocused on his task, more aware than ever that time was now slipping away.

They were almost out of air.

~*~

Donna stood for a moment, stunned, unable to believe what she had just seen. Then she realised that there was something odd about it. That strange blue sparkle looked almost like a transmat beam. That was no time pocket.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts; it was getting hard to breathe. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen making her see things. Whatever had happened, she still had to get to engineering.

Donna pressed on, using the wall for support as her legs grew heavy. When that failed, she went on her knees. Her lungs burned and she crawled, her destination appearing to get further not closer.

She could see the doors to engineering now, just at the end of the hall, but she couldn't reach them. She needed air to get there and she had none. It was like she was swimming underwater with no way to reach the surface.

When the corridor grew dark Donna welcomed it and sank to the depths below.

~*~

He was nearly there. The drive was installed and booting itself up. It needed to run through a set up protocol and then it would be ready. When the little light turned green he could start the engines and move the ship into another part of space, away from the time pockets, and begin making repairs.

The Doctor sat down heavily next to the engine core, gasping for air. He had to stay awake long enough to move the ship so that life support could be restored. Every time he felt his lids lower he slapped himself. The floor looked comfortable; he wanted to lie down but resisted the temptation. The deck was calling to him like a soft warm bed. Spots appeared in his vision, threatening to take over.

A hole opened up in the floor to his left and swallowed the wardrobe he had accidentally transported. He didn't even react but just watched as though he had reached some inevitable end point. The bear cub had finished its meal and now lay curled up asleep in a corner, or possibly unconscious as he was about to be.

He felt himself drift again when the light on the drive flashed green. It was ready. The Doctor hauled himself up and slapped the controls to start the drive. It hummed into action. Then he crawled to the navigation console, set the coordinates for 'anywhere but here' and hit another button.

He felt the ship take off as he collapsed to the floor, triumphant and smiling, finally allowing himself to close his eyes.

~*~

Donna awoke slowly to the sound of a fly buzzing around her head.

She swatted at it still half asleep, but it was persistent. She tried again, this time opening her eyes just a crack to improve her aim, only it wasn't a fly after all.

It was a blue light at the end of a wand being waved over her.

But it couldn't be, she thought.

"There you are!" said a familiar voice as the blue light of the sonic screwdriver was switched off, "Welcome back, Donna."

The voice brought her fully back and she sat up with a cry, "Doctor! You're alive!"

She threw her arms around him, not caring if he was real or a dream. He felt real anyway and that was good enough for her. He accepted her embrace with a hearty laugh.

"Donna Noble, indestructible you are!" he cried, kneeling beside her.

"Me?" said Donna, "What about you? I saw you chucked out into space! I thought you died!"

"Nah, not me," he said, smiling. "Chucked out and chucked right back in. I couldn't find you though, so I fixed the ship instead."

Just then Donna remembered. "The Captain! He aged, is he..."

The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder to calm her as Captain Rush came into view. He looked as young and healthy as ever. He and the Doctor each took an arm and lifted Donna to stand.

"Once I moved the ship everything was back to normal," the Doctor explained, "life support came back, even the bear's gone. I found the Captain out here like you, he told me what had happened when he hit the time pocket, but it reversed itself once we pulled away. If anyone was trapped or injured they should still be somewhere on the ship. There's nothing I can do about the dead though, that can't be reversed."

"So the TARDIS is back?" asked Donna.

"Your chariot awaits," said the Doctor, "Help is on the way for the Possibility, so we can be off whenever you're ready."

Donna turned to the Captain, examining him more closely. Although he had recovered fully he still looked older somehow, more tired than when she had first met him. He'd lost so many of his crew yet no matter how many survivors he found, she had a feeling he would have a hard time getting over Pamela's death.

She wanted to offer to take him with them in the TARDIS, to show him the wonders of time travel that the crew had died trying to achieve. It couldn't bring back the dead but just maybe it would restore his faith that they might get there one day and when they did it would be wonderful.

She was about to suggest it to the Doctor when they heard the sound of someone calling out.

"Captain?"

The three turned and Pamela Stewart appeared at the end of the hallway. She saw them and smiled, while the Captain paled as though he had seen a ghost, staring speechless.

She ran to him and into his arms. Rush pulled back to look at her properly, placing a hand on her cheek.

"Are you real?" he asked, stunned. "You can't be."

It was as if after all he'd suffered, he couldn't imagine being handed such a gift. Donna moved forward to embrace her next, while the Doctor just watched smiling, anxious to hear her explanation of how she survived.

"How?" asked Donna.

"I was holding the grenades and the next thing I knew I was on the bridge," said Pamela, "I felt the explosion shake the whole ship and I thought I was the lucky one, the only one to escape it. I assumed you had all been killed. The bridge was sealed off and nothing was working. The pilot was dead. I was all alone and then the life support went down. Then everything came back online and I saw life signs. I went off to look for survivors and here we all are!"

"There must have been two pockets overlapping," reasoned the Doctor, "one hole in space and one in time. You were pulled out just a second before the grenades went off. The events were very nearly simultaneous, so close we didn't even notice you'd gone."

"I thought you'd been blown to bits," admitted the Captain, finding his voice at last. "It's good to see you Ms. Ste... Pamela."

Donna secretly flashed the Doctor a look that said it was time to make their exit. She suspected that the experience would bring the two crewmembers just a bit closer now. Hopefully the Captain would come to appreciate what he had nearly lost. There should be some happy ending to all this anyway, Donna thought, reminded of the many who had lost their lives here.

The Captain gave his thanks and they said their goodbyes.

"I put a warning beacon around the space where the time pockets are to keep other ships away. I can fix those once we get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor told Donna as they walked back.

"Do we ever manage time travel, we humans I mean?" asked Donna.

"Course you will, eventually," the Doctor answered. "You can manage anything if you work at it long enough. Mind you, there are a lot more bumps in the road on the way -- more mistakes and lots more damage to be done until you get there. You wouldn't be humans otherwise I suppose. But you'll learn. You always do."

"Isn't that one of the things you like about us?" asked Donna, smiling.

"Spot on," said the Doctor. "You never give up, you lot. Always reaching out, wanting to see what's out there, you're natural explorers. Brilliant!"

They reached the TARDIS, the Doctor unlocked the door and Donna stepped inside.

"Right, come on then Doctor," she said to him, "Let's see what else is out there."