The chapters are going to start getting longer after this.
Still don't own Doctor Who.
Hours had passed, and Donna was getting hungry.
The wotgei had been delicious but not particularly filling. In truth, it had been a semi-solid. Like Jell-O's much prettier and more successful cousin. And it was hours behind them.
The Doctor, of course, was suffering no such hunger; he was successfully suppressing it. But he couldn't deny the fact that a good-sized meal would be lovely around now. The problem was that they had no food.
Donna had also complained briefly an hour or so ago about her hair getting frizzy in the dampness of the cave, and he would be lying if he claimed not to be grateful that Donna was the only one here to witness the gradual flattening of his glorious mane (and even she wasn't focusing on any more than was necessary for safety by the dim light of the sonic screwdriver).
"How far away are these people you sense?" Donna panted as they plopped down for a rest after successfully navigating around a who-knew-how-deep drop. The hole had been cavernous, and totally black. She shifted several more inches away from it and tried to block it from her memory.
The Doctor rubbed the back of his head, taking a moment to formulate a reply. "Hard to say."
Her stomach growled again, loudly. "'Hard to say'? You told me they were close!"
"'Close enough to get to before we die of thirst' is what I meant."
"Oh, well that's lovely," Donna huffed in an impressive mix of sarcasm and nervousness.
The Doctor smiled at her without thinking, but his expression quickly turned to a reassuring determination—all happening before he remembered they were in pitch black. He activated his screwdriver to offer a bit of reassuring light, and tried again. "I mean that. It'll be hard, and when we're done you'll need a nice long rest, but we'll get there."
After about ten more minutes of walking, he suddenly noticed that the musty scent of the cave had all but faded away. He twitched his nose. Well, at least that's a bit better.
It had been at least six hours, he decided. Six hours of near-constant movement without food or water. They rested when they needed to, but they needed to keep moving a whole lot more.
Six hours… and they were so close to their destination. Just half an hour ago he had whispered to Donna, "We're so close. I can feel it."
He had been giving the sonic screwdriver a rest since then, and as a result they were moving even more excruciatingly slowly and carefully than before. It was pitch black. It had unnerved Donna unbelievably for the first several minutes, but then she'd gradually begun to grow accustomed to it.
Six hours it had been, when Donna suddenly shifted his arm into her other hand so she could reach the other one around to his opposite shoulder and give him a side squeeze, and said, "Oh my God, it's light."
He blinked, shocked. "What?"
"Light, I can see, just dimly, but—it's gotta be cracks, or an opening or something, but—there's light!"
He continued to blink, and stare around, willing this light of which she spoke to appear to him.
"Doctor?" She still sounded excited.
He tried. But—
No. Just darkness.
"I can't see anything," he said, softly, shocked.
"Well, maybe I've just got better eyes than you," she said, unconcerned and teasingly smug.
"No you haven't, you're a human." He was looking every which way, trying to see what she was talking about. "So why can't I see anything?"
Though he couldn't see her face, it was clear that Donna was puzzled. "I've no idea."
His movements more panicked and jerky than he wanted them to be, he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew the sonic screwdriver. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, preparing himself, then opened them as he pushed the button to activate its whirring and faint blue light.
He saw nothing.