Author's Note: This is one extremely delayed chapter. As I have said in my profile update, I'm very sorry for that. I'm not sure if anyone is reading this any more, but just in case they are, I promise I will try to be more prompt with my updates and review replies from now on! Love you all, and Merry Christmas! XXX

-Chapter Sixteen-

As soon as Allie stepped out into the corridor, the relief was palpable, like a steel vice being released from around her temples. Gasping, she fell to her knees, the dizziness almost overwhelming her.

"Doctor, that was horrible!" she exclaimed in a choked voice. "They were all talking about the Gruffalo, and then my parents were there – only not them, more like some sort of nightmare version – and then Charlie came, and..."

She broke off abruptly, suddenly realising there had been no answer. "Doctor?"

Her heart pounding with horror, she whirled around, desperately searching for him. A blank wall mocked her, with no sign of the door she had just come through, as if it had never existed. Empty corridors stretched away to either side of her. She was all alone.

"DOCTOR!" Her voice rose to a scream, her tiny fists pounding on the wall, as it slowly dawned on her what had happened. He'd known this would happen. He'd saved her, but he'd never intended to come. And now he was trapped back in that room, with all those monstrous nightmares. "No, no, NO! Let me in! You stupid ship, open the DOOR!"

It was no use. The wall remained as unyielding as ever, her frantic blows making not the slightest impression. Swallowing back her fear, she stood back and tried to think rationally. Panicking wasn't going to help him. There had to be a way for her to make the door reappear, there had to be. Her soft lips tightened in determination.

"Door opening mechanism," she told herself aloud, thinking back to all the sci-fi movies she had ever seen. "Spaceships always have them, right? I just have to find it."

Instead of beating fruitlessly at the wall, she began to search it, running her palms all over it, trying to find some sort of indentation that might indicate a concealed panel. But the minutes ticked past and she found nothing. The surface was completely smooth. Just like the original door she and the Doctor had entered by, it had completely vanished.

Again she stood back. "Think, Allie, you have to think." Pressing her hands firmly to her head, as if willing herself to focus, she began to pace up and down. "The Doctor said this was an organically-grown ship. Which means... someone must have grown it. Which means, there must be a control room somewhere."

Biting her lip, she looked up and down the featureless corridor, leading away out of sight in each direction. The Doctor had also told her that this ship was as big as a city. Her chances of finding a control room in such a sprawling maze were slim at best. But standing here wasn't achieving anything either, she reasoned to herself. Finding someone to help had to be her best option.

Crouching down, she slipped off one of her small golden hoop earrings, placing it carefully by the wall where the door had disappeared, marking the place so that hopefully she could find it again. Then she stood, and took a deep breath, fighting down the fear that threatened to paralyse her into immobility. Now she had to decide which direction to head in. Both ends of the passageway looked perplexingly identical.

"Eeeny meeny miney mo..." she whispered, pointing back and forth between the two. "That's the way that I should go."

Her finger was indicating left.

And that was why, true to her own unique brand of logic, Allie turned on her heel and went right. It had already been a topsy-turvy sort of a day. Fate had been playing tricks on her ever since she met the Doctor, so it made a strange kind of sense not to put her faith in it now.

"I'll find you some help, Travelling Man, I promise," she murmured, wrapping his jacket comfortingly close around her shoulders, as she ventured further and further away from the room where he was trapped. "I'm not going to lose you now!"

"Such superb mind control!" Ranyan exclaimed, gazing at the monitor screen in gleeful satisfaction. The two aliens had watched every part of the ugly, traumatic scene as it had unfolded, their excitement mounting by the second. "Even subject to the full intensity of the Dreaming Room, he does not break."

Erka nodded, his cruel, cold eyes never leaving the stricken Time Lord, his expression equally jubilant at their prize. "And so naively altruistic. He values his companion's life over his own."

"That may yet come in useful."

"Indeed." Erka sat back, a smile twisting his mouth, as on the screen, the Doctor fell to his knees. "It seems we have found our Chosen One."

"But, wait! What is this?" Ranyan tensed in alarm, gesturing towards the screen. "What is he doing?"

For the Doctor, reaching the absolute limit of his mental endurance, had rolled over on to his back on the floor and closed his eyes. His hand lifted and he made a strange gesture in the air above him. Then, as they continued to watch, his arm fell limply back by his side, and his whole body began to rise off the ground.

"He is levitating!" Ranyan gasped. "How is this possible?"

"He is trying to protect his mind with a suspension trance!" Erka thrust himself upright out of his chair, urgency radiating from every line of his body. "We must stop him! If he succeeds, not even we will be able to reach his mind – all doors to it will be sealed! He will be useless to us!"

Down in the Dreaming Room, all the Doctor knew was pain. His mind was burning. Allie was as safe as he could make her. He'd seen the door close behind her. Now, at last, he could let go.

Looming over him, the nightmarish faces drawn from his own subconscious began to blur, as he began to steadily slip into a self-induced coma. His breathing, hearts-beat and brain activity all began to slow, reducing his bodily functions to the barest minimum.

"No!" the Master snarled, his spectral hands reaching down desperately to seize the other Time Lord by the throat. "You can't do this! You can't escape me this way! This isn't over, Doctor! It will never be over!"

"I think you'll find..." The Doctor exhaled softly, his last breath little more now than the tiniest thread, his old friend's face receding rapidly away from him. "That it is. Goodbye, Master."

And with that, darkness claimed him fully, and he slid away into a deep well of blissful nothingness.

Stumbling along the seemingly never-ending corridors, Allie was also unaware of the surveillance of the two aliens, but at this point, she would have been only too happy to find them. Or anyone at all, for that matter. For all its size, the city-ship appeared to be completely deserted.

Tears of frustration and misery sprang to her eyes. As far as rescue missions went, hers was an absolute bust. Who knew what had happened to the Doctor by now? Maybe he was already dead. Maybe Larry was as well. Maybe this ship was the space version of the Flying Dutchman, the legendary ghost vessel that could never make port and was doom to sail on and on forever. The thought sent an icy shiver up her spine. A ship peopled by aliens was one thing; a ship peopled by nothing but ghosts was quite another.

The further she went, the more tired she got. The mental beating she had taken in the strange room had exhausted her, and it became a struggle just to put one foot in front of the other. As she walked, she couldn't help noticing that the appearance of the walls was gradually changing around her. When she had first started out, they had been polished, gleaming white. Now, beneath the pearlescent surface, they looked more textured, almost woven. It was as if the ship, having drawn them in and ensnared them, now couldn't be bothered keeping up the pretence of being anything other than one big living organism.

Still worse, the corridor she was walking along had turned so many corners, and branched off in so many different directions, she wasn't sure she would ever be able to find her way back to where she started from. She tried leaving a trail by taking off bits and pieces of her clothing as she went and leaving them at strategic points. Her other earring went that way, and both of her shoes, her socks, her belt, her bracelet and her ring. In the end, the only extra thing she had left to take off, without getting down to bare skin, was the Doctor's jacket, and she refused to part with that.

Eventually, worn out and dispirited, she sank down to the ground and leaned her head back against the wall of the corridor. She had no idea how long she'd been walking for, but it seemed like forever.

"I'll just rest a minute, Doctor," she murmured, talking to him as though he was still there, sitting right next to her. It was crazy, she knew, but it helped to her to cling to the belief that he was alive somewhere on this ship and that she would find him again. "Just a minute and then I'll go on again, I promise."

Almost without noticing it, her eyelids drooped shut. The next thing she knew, she was being rudely awoken by a gun barrel to her head. Glancing up with a start, she saw that she was surrounded by a semicircle of four figures, each heavily armed with a laser rifle. They were humanoid in appearance, although thinner and taller than she was used to back on Earth, dressed identically in a red and black military uniform. Disturbingly, she couldn't see their faces, which were hidden behind black, glossy helmets.

She scrambled to her feet, too relieved to even think of being scared. "Oh, thank goodness. You have to help me! My name is Allison Castiel. I came here by accident, with two friends, and now I think they're both in terrible danger."

"You will come with us," one of the soldiers said flatly, gesturing with his gun further up the corridor.

"But... you don't understand... the Doctor, he's back there!" Allie pointed back the way she had come. "There's this big room – the door just vanished! He's trapped!"

"You will come with us," the soldier repeated, shoving her roughly with his rifle, so that she stumbled and nearly fell.

"Hey!" Steadying herself on the wall, she glared around at them, shocked by the unexpected violence. "I'm asking you for your help! Please!"

"Our orders are to kill you if you resist, human. Now, move!"

"K-kill me?" Allie swallowed hard, suddenly realising that she'd fallen straight out of the frying pan into the fire. "But... why?"

The soldier moved to shove her again, but this time she kept ahead of him, allowing herself to be herded down the corridor. Fear and anger warred inside her. The only hope that she had left was that whoever was running this ship of horrors might be more reasonable to talk to. Perhaps, if she didn't give up, there might still be a chance. In desperation, she tried one last time.

"What about the Doctor and Larry? Please, I need to know what happened to them."

However, the only answer she received was the implacable sound of feet marching in military precision, as the soldiers strode down the corridor behind her. She had no choice but to go with them, traversing what seemed like endless corridors, and then at last, passing through a large archway, which led to a row of smaller doors. To Allie's dismay, she realised they were cells.

"Wait!" she cried, as her captors flung open one of the doors and pushed her unceremoniously towards it. "Aren't you going to take me to your leader?"

One of the soldiers turned his gleaming helmet towards her. She assumed it was the one who had spoken to her previously, although they looked so identical, it was very difficult to tell them any of them apart.

"Our leaders have no desire to speak to you, human female."

With that, she was thrust inside the cell, and the door was slammed behind her. She could hear them marching away, the weird rhythm of their boots fading into the distance.

Allie's heart felt like it couldn't sink any lower. How had her great adventure come to this? How had everything gone so very wrong? Dully, she turned to examine the cell. She was under no illusion that she could find a way to escape, but she needed something to occupy her mind, to stop herself from screaming.

The room wasn't as small as she had first feared. From the number of bunks built into the walls, it had obviously been intended to contain between eight and ten prisoners. Currently, however, there was only one other occupant, lying motionless on one of the beds. A long, lanky figure, dressed in pin-striped suit trousers, royal blue shirt and Converse trainers.

Allie's eyes widened and she threw herself across the room to kneel beside him. "DOCTOR!"

His eyes were closed and his face was as pale as paper. She couldn't see any sign that he was breathing. Terrified, she snatched up his wrist, feeling for a pulse, praying that he was only unconscious. But there was nothing. Reaching out with a trembling hand, she brushed his cheek gently with her fingertips. His skin was ice-cold to her touch.

Grief tore through her like a tidal wave. It seemed so wrong for him to be so still. He was never still. He was always bounding about, so full of energy and vibrancy. How could she possibly accept that he was dead? They'd been going to do so many things together. He'd promised to show her the universe. Her Travelling Man...

Moving stiffly, she took off his jacket and laid it over him tenderly, like a blanket.

Then, still holding his hand, she laid her head on his chest and cried as if her heart would break.