~ELEVEN~
All around her was a strange, whitish room, with no doors, no windows, not even a source of light she could see – the walls themselves seemed to glow. It smelled of seawater and salt and sand – in fact, the floor felt rather like sand, only it was utterly unmovable, and hard. Donna stood and walked over to one wall, pressing against it. It was made of the same material as the floor – in fact, the room was a perfect square. She couldn't even tell which was the right wall and which the left – or if she was in fact walking across the ceiling. She sat down – just to be safe.
"Doctor?"
Her voice echoed hollowly in the room. They really were going from bad to worse since they'd first arrived on the Caribbean beach.
"Doctor? Anyone?" She hesitated for a moment. "Dancing Star?" Hadn't the Doctor just said the alien wouldn't even recognise them as a being, just some annoying fly to be waved off? Perhaps that was exactly what had happened – they'd been smashed like an annoying bug? Or not? Donna didn't feel dead, but then she wouldn't know how that felt, anyway. She dug into her pockets and found the compass, switching it open. The tiny needle was perfectly steady, and pointing at the far corner. Donna sighed. "I really wish the Doctor was here right now."
Suddenly, there was a shrill whine, another flash of light, and at the exact point where the needle had been pointing – it wasn't now, any more, but flickering irritatingly – the Doctor knelt on the floor, his fists pressed to his temples.
"No, no, no, no, no... You've got it all wrong! We're not a threat! We're here to help, I promise! If you release my ship, I'll refuel and take your offspring to a planet where they will thrive..."
"Doctor?" Donna asked, tentatively. She was certain he wasn't talking to her, but she couldn't just sit still and watch.
The Doctor dropped his hands and turned around. "Hello, Donna." He forced a tiny smile. "All right?"
"Where are we?"
The Doctor reached out to poke the wall. "Subdimensional pocket, Dancing Star Style."
"I thought we didn't fit the template."
"We don't." The Doctor sat back onto his haunches. "She was going through the TARDIS systems one by one, salvaging from the temporal engine what she could, then the translation circuit, and then she found the telepathic link – to me, of course, and then to you, and to everyone else who has ever travelled in the TARDIS – only they are all so far away."
"Except for Jack and Gibbs."
"Yes, regrettably. They'll be in their own pocket by now – just one trip, not so well forged a link... Anyway, the Dancing Star figured we were trying to prevent her from reproducing, and so she put us out of the way; she's just protecting her children... I tried talking to her – I'm not sure she heard. The thing is, now that we're inside, I could stop her." The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver – Donna hadn't seen him picking it up again after he'd dropped it into the sand, but she supposed he could have done so during the bright flash of light – and started tossing it around in one hand. "I could stop her easily. Just one flick of this switch and her subdimensional bubbles would burst, condemning her to starvation. The TARDIS picked them up when we crashed into the ocean – little holes in the very fabric of reality, where time and space don't exist... An anomaly." He shuddered. "And the perfect cooling house for food. We could be in here for years, centuries, and nothing would ever change, unless she chooses to release us – or I'll flick the switch."
"Then why don't you?"
"Because just before we were brought here, I realised why the TARDIS was dragged off course, jumping right out of the time stream in the first place – I should have listened! But I was so caught up in ships, malfunctions and ancient aliens that I didn't even think to look! This, Donna, is a fixed point in time. The TARDIS needed to be here, always has needed and always will need to be here at this precise moment, because if she isn't, the Dancing Star will never find enough energy to reproduce in this era – and the island of Great Inagua won't ever exist."
"You're saying this alien will always be there? Turning into a real island, with a name, with more than just a few palm trees?"
"Yes... There are even people living on it in your time – and lots of flamingos." The Doctor rose and started striding around the room.
"So you're just going to do nothing? Who says, then, that we won't be here forever?"
"We could be..."
"No way!"
The Doctor flipped the screwdriver about and poked the nearest wall with it. "Maybe I can at least convince her to get Jack and Gibbs here, too."
"If you think I want to spend eternity with two stinking pirates, spaceman, you are- oh!"
Out of thin air, a figure had appeared right in front of the Doctor. She looked disturbingly like the figurehead of the Black Pearl – a beautiful winged woman in a very lose dress of seemingly endless folds of fabric, leaving her shoulders naked, her hair bound into a perfect plait, and a little bird – a sparrow, perhaps? - sitting on her hand. She was translucent, a speck of curious blackness in the all too white room.
The Doctor had whirled his screwdriver around and was scanning the hovering figure, then pocketed the little device with a beaming smile. "Oh, so you did hear me! Brilliant! You are so brilliant!"
"Doctor, what is this?"
"Donna Noble, allow me to present Earth's very own Dancing Star! She took the only part of her template that fitted our image and used it to contact us – brilliant!"
"Time Lord," the Dancing Star said in a low gurgling murmur, like waves rolling onto the beach.
"Yes, that's right. Hello!" The Doctor stuck out his hand, but the figure made no move to take it, so he dropped it again. "Still analysing our speech, I suppose – come on, it isn't so difficult!"
The Dancing Star cocked her head. The bird on her hand did the same. "It is too simple."
For a moment, the Doctor gaped at her, his mouth hanging open.
"She's talking about English, is she?" Donna asked.
"No, not only... But of course – you are millions, perhaps billions of years old. We must seem like insects to you – literally!"
"Doctor. Noble."
"Donna," Donna said. "And before you ask, we're not even remotely married."
The Dancing Star did not even glance at her. Her gaze was fixed firmly on the Doctor's face. "You will help."
"I'll try," the Doctor replied, solemnly.
"There is no one else."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, but I can't allow you to freely reproduce on Earth. If the humans would ever discover... oh, the consequences for the very fabric of time would be horrendous!"
The Dancing Star shifted, and the tiny bird flapped its wings up and down. "It can't be stopped."
"I know! I know! I didn't mean now – if you release the TARDIS, I'll be able to refuel at the rift and get every single one of your children to safety – on a planet where there is enough food and enough space, and they can freely reproduce as they did so long ago. But you have to stop draining the TARDIS now!"
"Before the war."
For a moment, the Doctor wasn't sure what she was referring to, but then it dawned to him. His lips pressed together into a thin line out of their own accord. "Yes. I'm sorry."
"Jack Sparrow," the figure murmured. The little bird flapped in her hand as if trying to take off.
"Oh, so you did collect him, too! Yes, he's... Well, he's the owner of that other ship. The Pearl. The Black Pearl, she's called. You're her. Sort of. Anyway, he's not important."
"But without Jack, she wouldn't be her, would she?" Donna interjected. "If she modelled this image out of the Pearl, she wouldn't be here if we hadn't run into Jack."
"Yes, maybe – okay, probably – okay, quite likely, but you have to do something about the TARDIS now, before it's too late... what are you called?"
The Dancing Star regarded him in silence.
"Oh well, I suppose Pearl will do – anyway, Pearl, how about it? I give you my promise I will take your children to safety. Cross my hearts?"
But, much to the Doctor's concern, the Dancing Star had ceased to focus on him. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the little bird, which jumped up and down on her palm, and then, suddenly, took flight, swirling right past the Doctor and Donna, and disappearing into thin air.
And, just as suddenly, Jack and Gibbs stood in the room with them.
They had been in an intense conversation, apparently, Jack with his back to them. Gibbs had been caught mid-sentence, and was now staring wide-eyed at the translucent figure. "Bleedin' hell! Jack!"
Captain Sparrow turned around. Donna could see in his expression that he had no difficulties identifying the form the Dancing Star had taken. He nodded nonchalantly to the Doctor and Donna, then approached the figure without fear. "Hullo."
"Jack Sparrow", she answered, her voice gurgling like a gentle mountain stream.
"Aye."
"What's she, a ghost?" Gibbs demanded, but the Doctor just gave a harsh wave with his hand, silencing him. He wasn't quite sure exactly what was happening, but if he understood the Dancing Star at all – which was, frankly, horrendously complicated even for the mind of a Time Lord – this might just be the only chance they had.
"Jack, you've got to convince her to let the TARDIS go. That's the only chance we have of getting out of here – and it's the only chance she has."
If Jack heard, he didn't show it. He had reached out, trying to touch the floating figure with the tip of his fingers.
She didn't waver or float away, even as Jack froze in his motion, his fingertips just inches away from the slightly lighter coloured skin of her arm. "I have a question to put to you, Jack Sparrow," she said.
Jack started, as if jerking out of a trance. "Aye, me lass."
"Trust?"
"Whom, the Doc? Aye. He found the Pearl." Then, as if by chance, Jack's finger brushed against her skin and the Dancing Star suddenly seized his forearm in her grip. There was a brilliant flash of light, and then she was gone.
And so was the subdimensional bubble. Instead, they were standing on the beach of the island/alien, right next to the TARDIS. Night had fallen, but Donna could just glimpse the Pearl, anchoring safely just outside the shallows.