Lonely Angel

by Ava Montgomery

The Doctor and Donna are lured to a gothic school in the countryside where nothing is what it seems and unable to escape when their pasts come back to haunt them.

While the Doctor was remembering Ann Radcliffe novels, Donna was thinking more along the lines of bad episodes of Most Haunted. She looked across at the Doctor, but he was looking at the people gathered round the table, and with a sigh, she sipped some of her water, only to nearly spit it out again. Ugh. Well, at least the water had taste. Not every day you got to taste water that tasted like dirt.

She looked around and suppressed a shudder. This was worse than Southfield Primary, with all that Edwardian architecture. This was much more... gothic, she decided. She half-expected Dracula from fall down the eaves and take a bite out of her. She pulled some hair down in front of her neck, vowing that if a vampire took a bite out of her, it was going to get a hairball. She noticed the Doctor watching her with a wry smile. She made a face at him, brushed more of her hair forward, and turned pointedly away.

There were twelve people gathered around the table, seven women and five men, and Donna's smug grin at finding women the superiors here had been replaced by doubt as she had seen how creepy all the women were. Upon entering the room, she had made a snide comment to the Doctor about Macbeth's witches, but the Doctor had only told her not to be silly, he had taken care of them ages ago, and then gone over to talk to the headmistress.

Who, it just so happened, did look like a witch straight out of Macbeth, no matter what the Doctor thought. All oversized nose and scraggly gray hair pulled back in a tight bun. Well, all right, not exactly like a witch out of Macbeth, more like a witch pretending to be a headmistress. Which, given Donna's experience with headmistresses, seemed to be par for the course.

She took another sip of water and reprimanded herself. She wasn't here for unpleasant reminiscences. She was here because the TARDIS had gotten a distress signal. It did seem to her that the TARDIS could have parked closer to the school, but who was she to argue with Time Lord logic? Not that she hadn't argued all the way here.

She sighed and looked around the table. Nothing interesting about any of them. They were all old (except for the music teacher, and Miss Haviland) and ugly (except for Miss Haviland).

"And you were saying you were thinking of sending one of your children here?" the headmistress asked. Donna suspected Mrs Thompson-Wallace had been the headmistress since prehistoric times. The hair certainly would have fit right in. It then sank in what, precisely, the woman had said.

"Oh, no," the Doctor was already saying. "We're not together."

"So not together," Donna agreed.

"But what of your children?"

"Children?" She looked at the Doctor, who looked back.

"Oh!" the Doctor exclaimed. "You mean Donna's niece!" He leaned in to Mrs Thompson-Wallace and said conspiratorially, "She's not used to kids. And not always there. You know." He tapped his temple. "There."

She kicked him under the table, and at the look on his face, she smiled for the first time that evening. "I just have to have him along so I can watch him. His doctor asked me. You know." She gave the Doctor a meaningful look. "'Cause he's a loon."

The room was silent for several seconds.

"Ah," said Mrs. Thompson-Wallace. Her spoon dinged against the edge of the bowl.

"Soooooo," the Doctor said. "Do all the children live here?"

"Of course. It is a boarding school. We believe the children do best if they are truly immersed in an educational environment. I'm sure you will agree."

Donna was about to say that no, she did not, and she thought it was the worst idea imaginable, but the Doctor sent her a warning look. "Oh, absolutely. How long has the school been around then? I take it's old enough to have an established tradition and all."

"Oh, very. Victoria School is one of the oldest in Britain, one of the finest. Our children still learn Latin, as well as French and German. They all know their arithmetic and study a variety of sciences, including biology, chemistry, even physics."

"Sounds exceptional," the Doctor said with a grin, holding his soup spoon in the air. Realizing he'd been holding it there for twenty seconds, he quickly stuck it in his mouth and made a face. It had not taken this soup long to grow cold. He hated cold soup. He glanced at Donna, promising a spin for fish and chips after this. "How many children do you have here?"

"Seventy-four. And though we are but a small school, we give them every opportunity we can. We have a variety of clubs, including archery and chess, and they are allowed to go down into the village once every Saturday. Though," she added with a thin-lipped smile, "none of them ever take us up on the offer. Most of us remain here as well. We are all very attached to it and see no reason to leave."

"Seems pretty boring," Donna said. Unlike the others, she was already scraping her bowl.

Mrs. Thompson-Wallace turned on her with a smile that had suddenly gone cold and lipless. "One of lesser breeding might think so."

Donna's eyes widened. "Show you lesser breeding in a minute," she promised.

The Doctor cleared his throat and debated whether or not to ask another question.

"If your niece were to come here, Miss Noble —" (here Donna's jaw dropped. Miss indeed) "— she would be taught the very best of etiquette. Perhaps you might like to sit in on a few classes. Or, better yet, speak to Mr. Reynolds privately for some one-on-one after supper."

In the end, he decided to just settle back and watch the fireworks. He hated boring dinners.

"Well," Donna said huffily. "If that wasn't as useless as a dodo bird on the moon, I don't know what is."

"Dodo bird on the moon," the Doctor repeated. "What would a dodo bird do on the moon?"

"I don't know. That's why I said it was useless!"

He wondered sometimes how her brain worked. "Well, we're obviously going to have to investigate." He cleared his throat as Mr. Pennyworth and Mrs. Jenkins walked out of the room and tugged Donna away. "I need to get a look at the headmistress's office. If anything's going on here, and there is, then we'll find something about it there."

"Agreed." Donna shivered, then paused. "So they are up to something more than crushing children's souls and all?"

The Doctor glanced at her. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's a school, isn't it?"

He looked at her, "Are you saying you didn't like school?"

She almost asked if he had liked school but then remembered who she was talking to. "Oh, you would be like that. You probably sat at the front of the class and did extra science experiments for bonus points. Extra math problems, too. Took the teacher alien apples and wore a tie with a pressed suit." Probably the same pinstripe he had on now.

He glanced at her. "I was a rebel, actually. I stole the TARDIS." No need to let her think he'd been the smartest kid in class. Well, no need to let her think he'd been such a snob about it.

"Go on!" she exclaimed, disbelieving.

"I did. Never stopped going."

"No, I mean— You never!"

"I did. Years ago."

"Is that why the TARDIS hates you?"

"She doesn't hate me! She's just... temperamental sometimes. We've been through a lot together. She doesn't hate me."

Donna dug her heel into the ground and held up her fingers as he turned to face her in exasperation. "So what you're saying," she said happily, "is that she doesn't like you, but you two are stuck with each other, so she's trying to make do." Her smile slipped into a frown, and the Doctor decided against arguing further and took a step back. "And then, the TARDIS dropped us over a mile from here. Your TARDIS doesn't like me either! Why doesn't your TARDIS like me? I never did anything to it!"

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I told you. There was interference with the distress signal and the TARDIS had to land farther away. It turned out all right, didn't it? We both got here. Now, are you going to help me turn over Mrs. Thompson-Wallace's office or not?"

"Not," she said firmly.

"What?" He had thought that she would love to toss the office.

"Doctor, I don't like that woman, that's for certain, but my feet are killing me. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. And if you must know, she scares the willies out of me."

He drew back, confused. "What?"

"Scares me so much I haven't got any willies left," Donna clarified.

"What? You can't be serious. She's a schoolteacher!"

"Headmistress."

"But— it's not like she's— not like she's a Sontaran, or a giant wasp, or—"

Donna shrugged, apathetic. "She reminds me of my old headmistress, Mrs. Trebond. Breath smelled like dying cabbage. Horrible. Used to whack people with rulers. Good night, Doctor."

He blinked after her as she headed to the women's wing. "Night." He stood there for several more seconds and then headed off into the darkness of the school's halls.

Donna's room was smaller than her closet at home. There was a bed that looked as welcoming as a forest fire to a marshmallow. There was something in the corner that might have been a bureau or might have once been an anorexic block of wood. She sighed and sat on the cot, deemed it too hard, stood, walked around, nerves frazzling as she wondered how the Doctor was getting by. Sure, it was frightening here in that Alfred Hitchcock way, but what if he needed her for something? She knew he wasn't as self-assured as he always wanted people to think.

Something caught her eye in the window. For a moment, she thought it might be the Doctor, but it was far too small, and dressed in a white nightgown. She drew closer. One of the girls from earlier? Out at this time of night? Not that she knew what time of night it was, but dressed in a nightgown, that couldn't be good...

There were some things that frightened Donna Noble, but everything on the list could only frighten her so much, especially if someone was in trouble. Grabbing her coat, she walked quietly and purposely down the darkened halls, letting herself outside as quietly as she could and walking in the direction she had seen the girl going. She didn't have far to go before she saw the smaller figure, walking as if uncertain of where the ground was.

"You all right?" Donna asked.

The girl jumped and spun around; Donna hurried to catch her before she fell.

"Easy," she said softly. "I've got you." She made sure the girl was steady on the ground before loosening her grip. "What are you doing out here? It's late! And look at you– you don't even have any shoes!"

The girl scuffed the dirt with her toes. "Please, Miss, you've got to let me go."

Miss. Always miss. But for once, she'll let it slide. "I'm not keeping you."

"But I can't see!"

Donna frowned and sank to her knees in front of the girl, who was squinting around into the darkness. Donna frowned. She looked up at the moon, only at a quarter but bright enough for her to see. What was wrong with her? "My name's Donna."

"J- Julia, mum." Julia's fists clenched.

"Well, Julia. Where are you trying to go?"

Julia took a quick intake of breath; it sounded suspiciously like a sob. "I just want to go home."

Donna pulled her into a hug. "Where do you want to go, darling? Home to your parents? Is it so bad here?" She froze as an idea occurred to her. "Why, what do they do here? Has someone hurt you?"

Julia sniffled and shook her head violently. "No! I just want to go home again! But I can't leave! I can't leave! The fog won't let me!"

"The fog?" Donna looked around. Sure there was fog, but it was lower, in the valley. "It's just fog, sweetheart. It won't do anything to you."

"It won't let me," Julia repeated, firm.

Donna frowned and pulled back, keeping hold of the girl's hand. "Tell you what. Let's go see the fog, you'll see that there's nothing to be afraid of. Then we'll both go to bed, and if you still want to go home so badly, I'll see if my friend and I can take you. Just for a while, mind. But we'll see. How does that sound?"

The girl gulped. After a few moments, she nodded, and Donna gave her what she hoped was a reassuring grin.

Donna tugged the girl downhill, helping the girl as she stumbled. "Watch out for that rock," she warned, though she didn't really see why she ought to bother, as rocks were scattered all around.

"What rock?" Julia stopped and gingerly tapped the ground around her with a toe. "I don't like this, mum."

Donna pulled the girl around the rock in question. "How long have you been blind?"

Julia frowned. "I'm not, mum. It's the fog. I can't see naught but the fog."

Donna looked around and barely managed to not tell the girl she was being ridiculous. The fog was a good twenty feet downhill. As she and Julia got closer, she strode over and paused at the edge of it. The fog stretched like a blurry wall in either direction, and though she had thought it was simply pooling around the base of the hill, it now seemed to be rising up like a wall, stretching poorly-formed fingers toward her. "Just a fog," she told Julia, though she wanted a bit of assurance about it herself. "It's nothing." Holding Julia's hand, she stepped in.

The Doctor meandered through the corridors of the school, hands in his pockets, looking at portraits and statues as he went. Not particularly interesting, not particularly interesting... They were all copies of other portraits, and not very good copies at that. A sign pointing to the headmistress's room would have been an infinite improvement; it was harder to find than he thought.

His foot froze in mid-step, and his lips, which had been on the verge of whistling, went slack, his jaw following suit. No... No. Nononononono.

Losing his balance, his foot fell on the stone floor. The figure he had been staring at disappeared around the corner.

And with that, he gave chase.

She couldn't see a thing. She held up her free hand and squinted at it but couldn't make it out. She pulled it closer to see how bad visibility was and hit herself in the nose. She cursed, and her voice echoed around her. Her hand fell to her side. "Hello?"

The only thing to answer was an echo. "Hello? Hello? Hello?"

Donna's heart beat faster. "HELLO?"

"HELLO? Hello? Hello?"

She turned quickly, her breath going shallow. No. Nonononono. She couldn't see anything that way, either. What if this wasn't the direction she'd come from? Donna spun around again, twisting. Which way? Which way?

She found herself jerked back, landing hard on the rocks behind her. She gasped as she could see again, and she couldn't believe how relieved she was when it didn't echo around her.

"Mum? Mum?" Julia was on her knees beside her, running her hands over Donna's arm and head. "Are you all right, mum?"

"Fine," Donna said, not fine at all. She took a few moments to recollect herself and then pushed herself to her feet. "Come on. We've got to get the Doctor. He'll know what to do." She took Julia's hand again and hauled her back to the school. As she half-ran up the hill, she wondered why it felt as if the fog was following her toward the school.

Turning back, she saw that it was.

The Doctor turned a corner, his hearts beating faster than they had in ages. His— But it couldn't be. Everyone then was— And he should be able to smell it, but this didn't smell like artron energy, it smelled like dust and stone. His nose and his eyes were disagreeing, and he had been around too long to know to trust his eyes. Which meant something was trying to—

He rounded a corner at full speed and went sprawling in a tumble of arms and legs. "Oomf! Here! Get off me!"

"Get off me!" Donna snapped back, trying to shove him off of her.

"Oh, it would be you!" he moaned. He let her push him off, and once he was on the ground again, hopped to his feet and offered Donna a hand. "I thought you were in bed!" He caught sight of a small brown-haired girl and grinned. "Hello! She getting you into trouble? Figures."

Donna took his hand and got to her feet before batting the hand away. "I didn't— I'm not getting her into trouble! Something's going on, Doctor!"

He sobered. "Yes. Something here wants something from me."

"And it's got us surrounded."

"What?"

Donna hastily explained about the fog. "And I swear to God it was following us here."

"Don't be ridiculous!" the Doctor said. "That's just— I mean, that's not impossible, per se, but it's... extremely unlikely. It's just fog."

She dragged him to the window and pushed his face close to the glass. "Then how come it looks like that? All wall-like? Fog is not supposed to look like a wall, Doctor, I don't care what galaxy you're from."

The Doctor studied the fog. "We'd better go find out and investigate." He found himself rather looking forward to it. But then, he enjoyed investigating things.

"You can't get through!" Donna tried to illustrate with her hands but wasn't entirely sure how to go about it; the end result were violent hand motions, signifying nothing. "I'm telling you, it's like putting your head in a refrigerated pillow and going on a roller coaster!" At his look, she elaborated. "You won't know which way you're going!"

He moved closer until he was looking down at her. "Time Lord," he reminded her simply. He added a wink and strode away.

Donna took Julia's hand and followed him. "Idiot."

"Just fog," the Doctor said lightly, "admittedly smelly fog. There's a touch of sulfur to it, not much, but in the aftertaste. Maybe not just fog. Hmm."

"Brilliant," Donna replied, tone scathing. She held the Doctor's hand tightly, her other hand wrapped equally tightly around Julia's. She had no idea how long they had been walking; as soon as the fog had engulfed her, she had lost all sense of direction, time, and space. If she had not had Julia behind her and the Doctor before her, she would not have known if she was going forwards or backwards; as it was... well, she didn't have a clue. "Are you in it yet?"

"No. Looking at it." And he was, too, tilting his head at it, lifting an eyebrow, peering over and through his spectacles depending on his mood.

"Well, quit looking at it and look into it," Donna snapped. Julia whimpered behind her, and Donna squeezed the girl's hand.

The Doctor sighed tragically. "Just thought you might want to hear about the phalanges. Fog isn't supposed to have phalanges. Normal fog that doesn't have a sulfuric aftertaste, at least. But this does. It's reaching for me. It wants me." He gave a start, and when his features settled, they wore an enthusiastic grin. "But what doesn't?" And with that, he stuck his head in.

He pulled it out a few seconds later. Stuck his head back in, then back out.

Donna could feel his hand moving back and forth. "Are you doing the pelvic thrust or sommat?"

"No, Donna." He leaned back and looked left and right. "Step back a bit, would you?"

"Which way is back?"

He turned to see Donna looking left and right, even behind her. "It's... behind you," he said.

Julia stepped back, pulling Donna with her.

"See?" the Doctor said. "She knows!"

Donna scowled. "Well, I don't."

"It's the lines, mum. You've got to go in lines. Straight one way, straight another. Just have to remember which way is which."

"And what happens," the Doctor said curiously, taking Donna's elbow and guiding her farther away, "if you don't get out of the fog by morning?"

"You wake up in your bed as if nothing happened, sir."

"Oh, well, that's good. Saves time and trouble if we get lost. Donna, we've got two problems."

"Wizard."

The Doctor shrugged and led them both back to the castle, throwing glances over his shoulder at the fog. "The first problem is that— three problems. One, I don't think I'd fare any better in that fog than you. Well, I would, but not for long. Two, that fog is getting closer. Which means we would have to go farther if we want to get out of here. And three, the TARDIS is in there. Which means we're stuck here."

"But I thought," Donna hissed over breakfast, where they sat alone at one end of the table, "that you had that link to your TARDIS. Like a maternal instinct on speed or something."

Really, now, the Doctor wondered. How did her mind work? "I get in the fog, I think the TARDIS is in all directions. It's really a brilliant move, when you think about it. The fog echoes everything in the fog. Like your voice. So the sense of where the TARDIS is... it's amplified. Scrambled. Neat trick. I didn't think it would work on me. But you learn something new every day." He shrugged and ate another egg, all the while marveling at how many ways humans could cook eggs and yet wondering why they bothered. It still tasted like an egg.

Donna glared at him. "So we're stuck here."

"Basically, yeah. Till I acclimate to the argon in the fog or we catch whoever is keeping everyone here." He frowned. "We should stick together today."

She looked at him sharply. "Why?" Argon in the fog? If he didn't have so many moments of brilliance, she would think he was bonkers. As it was, he had many moments of brilliance, and she usually thought he was bonkers.

"I thought I saw— never mind. But you can't always trust your brain here. Our chances might be better if we're together."

"Thought you saw what?" Donna pressed.

He made a face at her. "Nothing. Nothing! What part of 'Never mind' do you not get?" Before she could make a retort, he hastened on, "It could take me up to a week to get through that fog. Much easier to figure out what's doing it. 'Sides, that's what we're here for, isn't it? Answer the distress call, save everybody?" He glanced at Donna over his glass. Donna rolled her eyes in surrender. "Have you noticed that not everyone here is human?"

"Well, that makes sense, what with catching an alien signal and everything."

"There's a Krillon out there, and a Mapilleen. No one seems to notice. Why does no one seem to notice? Did you notice?"

"No."

"I noticed." The Doctor sipped his tea, his brows drawn, eyes staring into the distance.

"What's a Krillon then?" Donna asked. "Or a Mapilleen?"

The Doctor sat up and dropped his saucer on the table; it clattered loudly as he stood. "Doesn't matter. Come on. I need your super-temp powers to find the headmistress's office."

Donna prided herself on not being swayed by flattery. Well, not all the time. Not... well... She prided herself on it anyway. "Right, then. Come on. I thought you were going to find it last night?"

"Got interrupted, didn't I? By a woman who literally couldn't find her way through fog. I thought you were a Londoner!"

"Sorry, so when are we leaving on the TARDIS? Did you say? Because I could have sworn you said that not even the oh-so-great-and-powerful Doctor could find his way in there."

"I can! It would just... take a while."

She rolled her eyes. "Look, just leave it to Super Temp, all right?"

Julia yawned. She always felt bad yawning in Miss Haviland's class, but it wasn't as if she could do naught else, was it? She always felt tired after trying to run away, and each time it got harder and harder and harder, but this time, she'd had Miss Donna and the Doctor, though what he was a doctor of, she didn't know. Nor did she need to. She didn't need doctors anymore, not here. She never got sick.

She frowned at her paper, trying to concentrate on that thought. She never got sick anymore, never got rashes or fleas... Sometimes, more and more often, she thought it wasn't so bad, living here. But she didn't belong here, did she? She belonged back in London on the Thames, scavenging in the mud for things to sell. She had a family there, sort of. And— and— it was just different. Not that she could remember much of it now. But she remembered she had been called something different there. Julie, wasn't it?

"Julia?"

She looked up at Miss Haviland and tried to smile. She liked Miss Haviland. Everyone did. She was nice, and kind, and pretty, and everything the other teachers weren't. "Yes, Miss Haviland?"

"Your paper is still blank, darling. Is something the matter?"

The other children glanced at her, and Julia stifled the urge to glare back. This wasn't a public discussion. "No, mum."

"No, Miss Haviland," the teacher chided gently. "Come, Julia. Why do you look so tired? No nightmares, I hope."

"No, Miss Haviland," Julia said firmly. "I just didn't sleep well last night, is all."

Miss Haviland straightened, and Julia appreciated again how her hair seemed to absorb the light. "Ah. I'm sorry to hear it, Julia. But I'm afraid I still need you to do a little work, if you can." She offered Julia a soft smile, and Julia returned it full blast. Good thing she hadn't gotten in trouble. But then, Miss Haviland was always too nice for such things.

She sighed and looked back at her paper. As always, it was blank. Always would be, as far as she could tell. Clinging to the thought, she lifted her head to ask Miss Haviland about it. She didn't even know what Miss Haviland taught, much less what they were supposed to be learning.

But Miss Haviland was gone, all the other children asleep.

Julia stared at them all in surprise — how could they sleep? Where was Miss Haviland? — but after a moment, her eyes, too, grew heavy-lidded, and she drifted into thoughtless sleep.

Three hours later, the Doctor was humming a song that sounded like the theme for Superman, though Donna was not familiar enough with Superman to know. Still, he seemed pleased that she wasn't having any more luck than he'd had, and she knew he was taunting her and she was getting flustered accordingly. "It ought to be around here!" she said for the twelfth time.

"That's what I thought last night."

Donna turned and looked around the hall, her hands on her hips. So far, all the doors they had tried hadn't just been locked, they had been just... decoration. The Doctor, when he had managed to get one or two open, had opened it to reveal nothing but solid, white wall. "You know what it's like?" she asked after a moment.

"What?" The Doctor pulled on some door handles. Not because he thought it would accomplish anything, but because it was better than doing nothing. They were in the highest part of the castle. There had to be something here. Maybe they were looking in the wrong place after all and should try the basement?

"Like a set. You know, for a television show or movie or something. Painted in, almost. They're just props to make it look real."

The Doctor glanced at her as he turned a door handle. "You might be—" The door opened in his hand. "—on to something." He looked into the doorway, expecting to see a wall, and found instead that he was looking into a room, clean and bright and spacious. "Oooooh, what have we here?"

"Oh, my God! A couch!" Donna darted past him and threw herself on the cushions. "Oh my God! A bed!" She attacked the bed next, settling onto it with a grateful sigh. "This is more like it. That cot last night didn't do wonders for my back, I'll tell you that."

"You just going to lie there while I do all the work?" the Doctor asked as he poked around. He found the desk and started rifling through papers. "That... is weird."

She had been closing her eyes, because letting him do all the work while she lay there sounded very nice, actually, but at his second comment, she opened her eyes and sat up. "What?"

He held up a stack of papers. "I found the distress call."

"What?"

"The distress call. It's written down."

"A written down distress call that the TARDIS can pick up on," she muttered. "What'll the TARDIS do next, bake cookies on its own?"

"Not any that are safe for human consumption," the Doctor said distractedly, flipping through the pages. "But no, this is what the TARDIS was tracking. We're dealing with something psychic, that's for sure. Something strongly psychic and alone."

Donna crossed her arms, hugging herself. "How do you know it's alone?"

The Doctor tilted the pages so she could see — or could have, if she'd been closer. "Because it says it over and over. 'I'm alone. I'm alone. I'm alone.'"

"And that's supposed to be some sort of distress call?"

He sighed. Hadn't he just explained this? "It's drawing people in. And keeping them here. It's lonely." He frowned. "I've run into this sort of thing before. With Rose. But this... This is different. It knows what to use agai— we aren't in a drawing. We're in this world. It's just keeping us from leaving. Do you know—" He glanced at Donna and did a double-take, staring at something over her shoulder, then staring at her face resolutely. "Donna."

She froze. That wasn't a good expression. That was a bad expression. "What is it?"

"Come over here. Slowly."

She obeyed. "What is it, Doctor? What is it?"

"Very slowly. Don't look round. Just keep coming." He held her eyes as she took step after cautious step. When she was near enough, he stood and grabbed her hand. "Run!"

Donna didn't need to be told twice. She ran, trying not to scream when she heard glass breaking behind her. She shouted instead. "What is it? What is it?"

"I don't know! Just run!"

He didn't know? "What do you mean you don't know? You always know!"

He swung around a corner and pulled her along. "Donna! Wrong time to feed my ego! Come on!"

Donna frowned but ran as instructed, concentrating on moving without getting kicked by the Doctor or kicking him in turn. She heard things crashing in the hall behind her. "Doctooooooooooooooooooooooooooooor!"

"I hear it I hear it I hear it!" Now what was he going to do about it? His eyes darted from one side of the hall to another, looking for something they could use even as his brain flicked through the settings on the sonic screwdriver. His arm nearly dislocated as Donna stopped running behind him, and he turned, half expecting to see her in the creature's mouth. "DONNA!" But she was just standing there, looking down the hall. He glanced that way, saw nothing, turned back around to her. "What is it?" He glanced at the creature down the hall. "Donna? Donna!"

"Dad? What is Dad doing here?"

"Donna, it isn't Geoff. It isn't your dad! Come on!" He tugged her, pulling her forward a few steps, but she moved slowly, her limbs stiff. "Come on, Donna. It did the same thing to me. I saw— Just snap out of it, Donna!" He looked over her shoulder and saw not the creature from before but... "Stay away from her!" He wrapped his arms around Donna as if his arms would be enough to protect her.

Miss Haviland tilted her head. "She cannot leave. That is all I ask."

The Doctor stepped back, taking a stumbling Donna with him. "She's going to leave. I'm going to leave. We're all going to leave!" He pulled Donna back a little more and tried to ignore the way she fought him, the way she reached her arm out to someone he couldn't see.

"No one can leave," Miss Haviland said. "I won't let them." She looked at Donna. "Hers was a recent loss. Yours... you have so much loss, Doctor. Think. If you stayed here, you could be with them again. It will be as if you never lost anyone."

"Do you really think no one's tempted me with that before?" the Doctor shouted. He had faced this temptation before, and he hadn't given in then, no matter how much the thought had appealed to him. He could never have them back. That wasn't how it worked.

"But isn't it tempting nonetheless?" Miss Haviland asked. "Letting go? Living the sort of live you always dreamed of, with no cares, no concerns, surrounded by those you love and who love you in return?"

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver, desperately trying to think of what to do. Donna shivered in his arms. "You're taking her too deep into her own mind! Stop it! If you don't let her go, it will hurt her. And if you hurt her, then nothing — nothing! — in time and space will stop me from destroying you."

Miss Haviland tilted her head the other way, dark hair spilling over her shoulders, frowning. Suddenly she hissed, her small, dark eyes flicking to Donna.

The Doctor looked down at Donna as well and saw only her red hair, but it was shaking back and forth. He pulled back and looked at her face, dumfounded. "Donna?"

"Doctor?" Her sounded dizzy, weak, but as her gaze found his face, her eyes gained clarity. She stopped reaching for someone the Doctor couldn't see and instead reached up to touch his face.

"Impossible," Miss Haviland whispered.

"Not impossible," the Doctor said with a wide smile. "Just improbable." He gave Donna a tight grin. "You all right?"

"Never better," Donna lied, but she felt better than she had a moment ago, that was for certain. She turned to face the teacher, the popular one. The Doctor's expression was one of fire and ice, hardened by time into something merciless; Donna's was just fire, wild and untempered, and no less dangerous.

"You could be teachers here," Miss Haviland said quickly. "Surrounded by family. Surrounded by friends. Loved."

Donna pulled away from the Doctor's arms but kept a firm grip on his hand. "They aren't real," she snapped. "None of it. Not even the love. It's flat and fake, that's all it is."

The Doctor gave her an appreciative look. Good on her. He looked again at Miss Haviland. "I understand you're lonely. Believe me, I do. But you don't have to do this. You don't have to force people to love you. That's what this is all about, isn't it? You draw people in and don't let them leave. You made yourself the prettiest teacher here, the youngest, the most popular. The most loved. You just want to feel needed, wanted. You want to feel love. And I understand that, I do." He ignored Donna's glance. "But you don't have to get it by doing this. I can take you someplace. You can have a new start. You can do it the hard way, just like the rest of us. And it will be harder, I won't lie, but it will be worth it. It will be real."

Miss Haviland's body shook. "No. I am loved here. I am needed. People are happy here because of me."

"They're miserable!" Donna shouted. "You think I want to see my Dad? He's dead, and it isn't real, and I know that."

Miss Haviland took a step back. "You should not have known that. You should not have been able to fight me!"

"Donna's brilliant," the Doctor said, as if he was reminding someone of a common fact.

Donna tried not to look as flattered as she felt. "Point is, mate, you're gonna undo all this and let everyone here go!"

"Never!" Miss Haviland screamed. "I will never be alone again! Never!" She threw her arms wide, and the Doctor could almost see a wave of psychic energy rushing toward them, smell it coming like burnt cotton candy.

"DONNA!" He kicked both feet against the ground and pushed her into another hallway. He secured his grasp on her hand and ran pell-mell through the halls as the psychic energy flowed after them. "Like a bad Disney movie!"

"What?" Donna asked, breath coming in spurts. "Like Mary Poppins?"

He glanced back at her. "No, not like Mary Poppins! How can you think Mary Poppins was bad?"

"Parrot on a stick. I mean. Honestly. Who has a. Flipping parrot. On a stick? Where are we going?"

He flashed her a grin. "Outside, of course!"

"WHAT?"

He smiled and threw open the doors to the outside.

They were immediately enveloped in fog.

Donna was a London girl, born and bred, and she had seen fog in life. She had also seen poisonous gas, but this was by far the worst. She stumbled blindly, calling for the Doctor. She couldn't remember if she was holding his hand or not. She wasn't sure she could breathe in fog this thick. And at least with ATMOS, she had been able to see a couple of feet. Here, there was nothing.

"Donna? Donna, I've got you. Look at me, Donna."

She was vaguely aware of his hands on her temples, but she still couldn't see him. She blinked, as if that might help. "Doctor? What are we going to do? I can't see!" She couldn't hear Miss Haviland following them, but she couldn't imagine Miss Haviland letting them go.

"Really? I can. Now, Donna, listen to me. What if there isn't any fog?"

"What? Doctor, let me go so I can slap some sense into you! Look around!"

"Donna, why didn't you believe your dad was here? Because you knew he was dead, right? That's why I didn't believe any of the things I saw. But we both saw fog here because we thought it was there. It's a sort of psychic booby-trap. Say it. Say, 'The fog isn't real.'"

"It is, though!"

"Donna!"

She sighed and closed her eyes tightly. "This fog— Should I click my heels together, too?"

"Donnaaaaaaaa."

"All right, all right." She took a deep breath. "The fog isn't real. The fog isn't real. The fog isn't real."

"Now, picture everything like when we first came here. No fog at all. Remember what it looked like?"

"Only vaguely. There was a rock in my shoe." In the silence that followed, she finally squirmed and said indignantly, "I was distracted."

The Doctor sighed. "Fine. Open your eyes. And just keep telling yourself it isn't real. Okay?"

She felt his hands move from her head, and after a few moments opened her eyes. "The fog's gone!"

The Doctor smiled. "Never was any fog. We saw it because we thought it was there." He looked back at the school as a screech rendered through the air. The creature had realized they were free of its hold. "Now. To business." He grinned at Donna and took out his sonic screwdriver. "It just so happens, Donna Noble, that I'm brilliant, too."

When Miss Haviland arrived at the top of the stairs, she sneered down at them in contempt. "Oh, stop pretending. I know you aren't affected anymore."

The Doctor and Donna ceased walking around and calling for one another, hands held out in front of them. "Ah, well," the Doctor said. "Fun while it lasted."

"Looking like an idiot?" Donna crossed her arms.

"Nooooooo, not like an idiot! Like a— like a—"

"'Cause you always look like an idiot," Donna finished smoothly. She glanced at him with a quirk of her lips, and he rolled his eyes and smiled in response.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She took his hand. "Always."

He smiled at her. "Right, then." His smile disappeared as he turned to Miss Haviland. "You had your chance." He paused. "I'm sorry," he admitted after a moment. Donna squeezed his hand, and the Doctor squeezed hers right back.

"What do you think you can do to me?" Miss Haviland demanded. The air around her wavered, and Donna's jaw dropped as she saw the true Miss Haviland for the first time. The woman might have still been a woman, or it might have been entirely sexless. The skin was dark gray, with an ash-like quality. Everything about the body was long and thin, from the blacked nails on the toes and fingers to the twisting horns on the top of its head. The eyes were black, empty, and didn't shine so much as absorb light.

"Doctor," Donna breathed. "What is that thing?"

"I told you, I don't— Oooooh, it's a maren! That's right!" He grinned at the maren, even gave it a little wave. "A sort of nightmare creature. Descended from the Mara. Kind of like a goblin."

Donna gaped. "I never saw a goblin that tall."

The Doctor glanced at her. "Riiiiight. On to business. Ready?" Not waiting for another distraction, he closed his eyes. Donna quickly followed suit.

It didn't take long for the creature to scream. "What are you doing?" it demanded. "What are— Stop it! STOP IT!"

The Doctor shrugged. When he answered, he sounded distracted. Though Donna was trying to shape their plan to the best of her ability, the Doctor, with his Time Lord brain, was racing through the checklist and had enough brain power to answer, if not concentrate fully on the conversation. "You really ought to know by now. It was you, after all, who planted the amplifiers."

"You— you—" The maren screamed again.

"It might be best," the Doctor said gently, "if you simply gave in."

The maren didn't stop screaming, and the Doctor closed her off as he felt Donna run into a snag. The trick was to imagine things just as they wanted them. The Doctor had found the amplifiers the maren had hidden in the ground around the school and had sonicked one — the one he held in his hand — to increase its amplification properties. He had also improved its sensitivity to psychic energy — well, his and Donna's unique psychic signatures, at any rate, so the maren couldn't use it against them. He figured he had enough psychic energy to put up a fight, and Donna, though not the best with such energy, admittedly, was still exceptional at controlling situations to suit her. In theory, all he and Donna had to do was imagine the school and the people in it just as they wanted, and the psychic network around the school, together with the maren's power of illusion still tapped in, would make their version of reality the true one.

He peeked at Donna's snag and grinned. She didn't know what the different aliens were supposed to look like. "I'll take care of that." He took over, imagining the people of the school as they were supposed to be.

"Stop it!" the maren cried. "You can't destroy me! You can not destroy me!" The Doctor could feel the maren reach for himself and Donna through the psychic connection and closed the maren off. This was going to be hard enough to do not listening to it plead its case for mercy. He couldn't afford to show her that mercy, not if he wanted to save the people here.

"Your own fault for using amplifiers in the first place," the Doctor said. "And since you won't let everyone go, you've forced me to do this." His grip tightened on Donna's hand. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked quietly. "You don't have to. Honestly. I can do it."

She frowned at him. "I'm not letting you do this alone, Doctor."

He didn't know whether to feel relieved that she'd be with him or worried about what he was making her become, but he couldn't wonder about it now. "Right, then."

Not for the first time, and not for the last, they began to shape the universe to suit themselves.

When Julia walked through the front doors, she sound the sun shining and green hills rolling as far as she could see, a forest in the distance.

"But flowers?" the Doctor was saying. Julia smiled and bounded over to where he was arguing with Donna.

"Why not flowers? I thought she'd look good with flowers!"

"Donna, she— it held a bunch of people from across the universe captive in a school. It was evil! Why did you give it flowers?"

"Cause I thought she'd like them. I felt bad for her! She was like you!"

"What do you mean, it was like—"

Donna shook her head at him. "She was alone, Doctor! The last of her kind, like you! That's why she was so lonely, you bleeding numbskull!" She spun and faced Julia. "And what do you want?"

Julia stumbled back, and the Doctor caught her arm to keep her from falling. "J- Julia, mum."

Donna's eyes widened. "Nooooooooooo. But she— she looks like she's twenty! Julia was... She was a child!"

The Doctor made sure Julia was steady on her feet before letting her go. "'Fraid so. See, the maren didn't just bring people here and keep them from staying, it made them think, act, and look like children. Probably because children are more open and loving and it thought its chances were better. Now." He smiled down at Julia. "Ready to go home?"

At long last, Donna and the Doctor were alone in the TARDIS. He sat in the pilot's chair, feet on the console, staring up at the ceiling. She leaned against the railing, arms crossed. "I should have slapped him one proper."

The Doctor roused himself. "No. No, it's okay."

"No, it's bloody not okay! You saved them? We saved them! And what do we get for it? He had no right! And that one lady spitting on me? Ooooooooh. She's lucky I was wearing my good shoes, or I'd have stuck my boot so far up her—"

"All right, Donna! I get it!" He hopped out of the chair and walked around the console. "Look, point is, some people don't want to be saved. Some people prefer the lie. I should have asked first."

No, he shouldn't have. Those morons should have thanked him and moved on with their lives. "Would you have done it, Doctor? Lived a lie like that? Liked living a lie?"

He didn't seem to hear, but after several moments, he shrugged. "No." He didn't sound convinced.

"Who did you see, Doctor? You never said."

He studied the controls, scrubbed at an imaginary spot with his thumb. "My wife. I saw my wife. And at one point, my son. And yes, I could have done it."

"But you wouldn't have been happy," Donna said, unwilling to believe otherwise.

He looked at her for the first time since they had been left alone. "No," he agreed. "I wouldn't have been." He forced a smile. "So, Donna Noble. Where to?"