As the Doctor checked that the TARDIS was parked safely, he found himself admiring Kerry's courage and determination. He hadn't known her long – he had met her on a trip to Earth just days before Amy and Rory departed for the Sun of Tranquility, and she knew how to get her own way, but she also knew how to use it for the benefit of others.
Amy was brave (as well as attractive!) and she was quick with her tongue. She was also fiercely determined and, at times, downright scary. Rory, on the other hand, was rather slower to grasp what the Doctor was on about at the best of times and sometimes seemed a bit thick. However, he was very loyal to both the Doctor and Amy (and Kerry, of course!) even when he had thought that Amy loved the Doctor more than him. Kerry had the best of both, always ready with a quick-witted, often sarcastic, remark, and also very loyal – to certain people, that is – and she reminded him of Donna, dear old Donna Noble, Queen of the Oi's, who had saved his life more than once. He quite understood Kerry's desire to rescue this strange young boy, as he felt the same way about it…
Suddenly, a fierce pain shot through the Doctor's head, and he had to grab the edge of the console to steady himself. He clutched his head, feeling dizzy, and had just enough time to wonder what had caused it when another pang exploded in his head, paralysing him, and he felt as if he was falling helplessly into a dark, bottomless void…
Kerry, still standing at the door, was mentally pushing her fear and thoughts that she didn't have to go in to the back of her head, focusing instead on the task ahead. She was vaguely aware of a slight disturbance behind her, but she was preoccupied and automatically passed it off as her senses playing tricks on her. Finally she took a deep breath.
"I'm ready now, Doctor. Let's go," she said, as much for her benefit as his. There was no answer. Assuming he just hadn't heard her, she repeated herself. "Doctor, let's go."
When he again gave no reply, Kerry began to grow impatient. "Doctor, are you listening to me?" she demanded, whirling around on the spot as she did so, "I said 'Let's go in n-.'" And stopped, the sentence dying on her lips. Because the Doctor wouldn't be able to hear her anyway, for he was lying sprawled at the base of the console, his left arm dangling down the steps from the platform to Kerry's level.
"Doctor!" she cried, rushing across to him. He was unconscious, but Kerry could find no injuries that would suggest he'd been attacked or otherwise. Neither could she see any marks on his head that might show that he'd accidently knocked himself out somehow. The only conclusion that Kerry could make was that he'd just fainted. 'But why?' she asked herself. She was sure that he was just acting to get out of entering the Caves – he was not like that. He may be hyperactive, goofy and idiotic, but he was not a coward. After a few failed attempts to wake him, Kerry found herself facing a huge decision – leave the Doctor alone in the TARDIS and try to rescue the boy, or abandon her rescue plan and stay with the Doctor until he recovered? She eventually chose the former, reasoning that if she became trapped in there with the lad, the Doctor would come to her rescue, whereas if she remained with the Doctor it might then become impossible to save the boy anyway. So, arming herself with three blankets (one of which she threw over the Doctor) and a large, working electric torch – not forgetting the Doctor's box of everlasting matches – Kerry was ready. Taking the TARDIS key and the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor's coat pocket, she left the safety of the TARDIS, locking the door behind her.
As Kerry stepped across the threshold of the Caves, she suddenly thought that it was almost like walking into the mouth of a waiting shark. The ceiling of the Caves were covered with large, stone spikes, like giant icicles, and, from her perspective, as sharp as needles, and in places the walls jutted out, forming very narrow areas. Kerry wanted to preserve the torch's power for as long as possible, so she struck one of the everlasting matches as she began to reach deeper into the ever-growing darkness.
Down in the underground chamber, the ancient old man was sitting in his favourite, deeply cushioned arm-chair, watching a hologram of Kerry's progress into the Caves. He could not hear any sound on the hologram – his eyesight wasn't very good either (but then, for a Gallifreyan man who'd reached the grand old age of 2000-odd years, that wasn't surprising) but he could make out that Kerry held a small flame in one hand and had a sense of rigid determination about her.
Beneath him, the armchair's wooden legs creaked slightly under his weight as it snored softly. The candles were playing – some swapping their flames with the neighbours and back again; some were playing piggy-in-the-middle with one candle in the middle of two others, which were tossing the 'piggy's flame over its head; some twisting their flames into unnatural patterns on the wall. The little inkwell was playing with a glass marble on the desk, rolling along then scooting after it, to catch it and roll it again. The old man laughed at its antics, then muttered a word and the hologram disappeared. He slid out of his sleeping chair and went across to the desk, picking up the runaway marble from the floor and replacing it before the inkwell, and grinned, his wrinkled mouth making him look positively evil, and said "So far, so good!"…
Both the torch and the sonic screwdriver had come into action by now. The Doctor had taken a reading from the information on the TARDIS scanner with the sonic screwdriver just before he had collapsed, and Kerry was using this data with a setting that worked a bit like a Sat-Nav (or a metal detector). The sonic gave a continuous, high-pitched whirr when she was heading in the right direction and short, frantic beeps of varying irregularity whenever she deviated from the set route – which, she hoped, would lead her straight to the boy. She had just discovered, quite by accident, that if she pressed a certain button on the screwdriver, a holographic map of the Caves would flash into being in front of her, giving her information on how deep in the Caves she was and the distance she needed to cover to reach the boy. It also showed her her position in relation to the layout of the Caves, with a small arrow pointing in the direction she was currently facing. At the moment she was facing directly towards the boy, but her path was still a very long, twisting and arduous journey before she got anywhere near him.
Kerry was beginning to feel hungry and she regretted not having thought to bring any food.
But then, if you'd brought food, said a little voice in her head, you'd be weighed down and you wouldn't be able to carry the boy if necessary.
Yes, but she'd need to keep her strength up, wouldn't she? argued another. Personally, Kerry agreed with the second little voice more, but she couldn't go back to the TARDIS for food now – she'd come too far for that to be practical.
It was only then that it occurred to her that the torch was rather heavy, even for its size. Then she remembered seeing a similar gadget hanging in the Gallifreyan soldier's belt. And quite a lot of Gallifreyan things were larger on the inside… Unscrewing the head of the torch, which miraculously continued to shine, Kerry peered into the depths of the torch. Her suspicions were confirmed because instead of there being the normal mechanisms of a torch, the torch handle actually disguised an area as large as a crate behind it, which was brimming with food. Thrusting her hand into this unbelievable – impossible – space, Kerry located a couple of fresh-looking ham sandwiches and a bottle of water. She took a swig of water (it tasted good) and returned the bottle to the torch, and screwed the head back on. Then, munching a sandwich, she continued on her way.
The going had become tough for Kerry now. She had already created a wristband for the torch using a bit of string and the screwdriver to fuse it to the plastic so that she wouldn't drop the torch as she crossed a deep crevice in the floor by means of a series of tall, rickety stepping stones. The holographic map didn't warn her of these oncoming, nature-built challenges, so she had to watch her step.
Kerry had first heard the crashing of water on rock a while back, so when she reached the waterfall that flowed into a frothing, angry river, she was prepared. She was surprised, though, to see a bridge had formed over the rushing torrents below her (there was a sheer drop on either side), and it appeared quite stable. She hurried across it, pushing the possibility that she might never be able to get across again away, and disappeared into a narrow tunnel in the opposite wall. There can't be much further to go now, thought Kerry wearily, there's not much food left, and I've got to save some for the boy. A lot of the sandwiches and other items within the torch had gone off long before Kerry had discovered its hidden capacity, and the remaining food that was safe to eat was only a very small portion. Kerry idly found herself wondering if the Doctor had been aware of the torch's secret – she doubted it, as he would have surely have waved it proudly at her much earlier if he had.
She flicked the switch on the screwdriver and the map flickered into existence, showing her that she was more than halfway to her destination, and that she was currently facing North-West of him, needing to take the next left tunnel. She had also realised that each of the natural dangers along the way seemed to all occur in large chambers within the Caves, so when she came to another of these chambers she instinctively looked around for danger. This particular chamber was gloomy, but not dark enough for Kerry to need the torch's light. She edged into the chamber and it soon became evident what the challenge was this time. The centre of the chamber was more like a giant abyss, dropping so steeply that it would be impossible to get out of. A few, smaller caves lined the walls above the abyss, one of which had large rocks almost completely blocking the entrance, some teetering dangerously on the very edge of the pit. The only way to get to these holes was a very narrow ledge that ran all the way around the chamber, just wide enough for one, small person to fit on. Kerry was glad that she didn't have a problem with heights as she shone the torch into the depths of the pit. A series of large holes covered the bottom, along with a few, broken skeletons that had clearly been there for decades. Kerry crawled away for the edge and switched on the map. It told her that her target was in the obstructed cave, which of course meant that she'd have to crawl almost halfway around the ledge to get there. She placed the torch, still switched on, just outside the entrance to the chamber, pocketed the sonic screwdriver and prepared to risk her life on the narrow ledge.
The search for the boy was still continuing on the surface of Gallifrey, as the old man had instructed his earlier visitor not to raise the hopes of the people by telling them the boy was safe – he was far from it, in truth. The only person who knew exactly what was happening – well, approximately the most – was the wise old man himself.
Some of the Gallifreyans were completely oblivious to what was going on around them, even, and carried on with their normal routines. But nobody except the old man, hidden in his room below Gallifrey, knew that a young girl, a complete stranger, was at that very moment risking her very existence to try to rescue one of their people…