It has been both hours and eternities for Donna, spent within the whiteroom, within that purgatory, and she has begun to develop an uneasy feeling (or at least a new and stronger uneasy feeling.) Donna was trying to wrench open the door, when she felt a tickle, just that lightest touch behind her, and then it was gone. Like the baby's breath on a spring breeze, a little tickle, like someone was there. Donna spins around, searching, looking at every corner and crevice of that room...
DONNA
Hey! Who's there?
...and finds nothing. Always the same emptiness, always the same square shape, and always the same sterile whiteness of that. But she knows that something was there, that something had to have been there, why would she imagine something as inconsequential as a touch of air?
DONNA (reaching behind to touch the back of her neck)
There was definitely something.
Unconsciously Donna's hand begins to slide down from the back of her neck to the small of her back, it's as if, almost as if...
DONNA
No way!
Dread swells in her gut as an unwanted thought comes to her unbidden.
DONNA (grasping blindly behind her)
No! No, no, no!
There is a brief pause, and then a thump. Followed by another, and another, and another.
DONNA (dread overwhelming her voice)
Please, please, not again!
It's not her heart that's beating, but something behind her, directly behind her. And then there's a brilliant flash of light in front of her eyes, coming from a corner of the room.
DONNA (Looking at the corner.)
Who?
A figure in white appears in the once vacant corner.
FIGURE (Pointing over Donna's shoulder)
There's something on your back.
--
A sentient glitch in time and his mad Dalek companion sit together in the dark, above an impossibly large Draconean eye, with the embodiment of the Time Vortex hovering up above them.
DOCTOR (tapping the Dalek on his segmented brain canister.)
So are you just going to stay there hating me, or should I find the fabulous miss Donna Noble on my own?
CAAN (waving the chrono-copy away with a tentacle, staring upwards)
Hush, something's happening with the Time Vortex, it's changing.
DOCTOR (bored)
It's always changing. That's why it's called timey wimey.
CAAN (scholarly)
This is different, one of the few constants is changing, something's wrong.
DOCTOR (curious, looks up also)
How wrong?
The broken pepper-pot shell slowly swivels towards the imitation Time-Lord.
CAAN (A dangerous glint in his eye)
Very, very wrong. I think, I think someone else is trying to find Donna Noble.
DOCTOR
And?
CAAN
And they're succeeding.
DOCTOR
Isn't that what we want?
CAAN
No. I mean yes, but not like this. It's not us.
The Doctor paces around the Dalek considering.
DOCTOR (touching his chin thoughtfully)
You said that the universe would have need of the DoctorDonna again, why does it matter who finds her so long as she's found?
CAAN (irritated)
Because she's the key to it all, it all turns on her, she's the one, the Doctor in the Donna.
The Doctor stops his pacing and smiles at the diminutive destiny-maker.
DOCTOR (amused)
You know, for a Dalek, you talk an awful lot about keys and time, are you sure your not a Time Lord? If finding Donna is so important, why are we here anyway, at the Dragon's Eye; shouldn't we be off wherever the thing that's changing the constants in the Vortex is?
CAAN (serious)
We're here because I don't know where she is, I can follow her fragments but not her ghost, and that trail ends here, outside the Vortex, outside of Time Itself.
Finally it seems the severity of the situation begins to sink in with the Doctor who is not the Doctor.
DOCTOR
So your saying this key, this Donna, is about to be found.
CAAN
Yes.
DOCTOR
But not by us.
CAAN
Yes!
DOCTOR
And that's bad?
CAAN
Very bad!
--
DONNA (still reaching behind her)
I bloody well know there's something on my back! You, crazy flashing light man, how bout you stop standing there waving a finger at the problem, and actually try and fix the bloomin problem.
The figure in white looks at his finger and blinks, staring at it curiously and then back at the loud woman who was shouting at him; he puts the finger away in his pocket, along with the rest of his hand.
DONNA (exasperated)
Well, don't just stand there, help get this thing off of me!
FIGURE (sounding unsure)
Well, er I augh, I suppose...
DONNA
You bloody well more than suppose. I'm bloody well standing here with a time-skewing beetle on my back and your supposing.
VOICE
Awaken my child, and know that for every end, there might also be another beginning. Your time is not done, for Time is-
DONNA
Oi! No, don't you start too, I've had it enough with mysterious figures and voices appearing and disappearing. If someone doesn't do something about this right this-
The thumping is louder now, but also further away. Donna feels that sickly warm breath leave the back of her neck, it has long since stopped being pleasant like spring breezes.
FIGURE (pulling the beetle off)
There.
DONNA (relieved)
Thank you.
A distinct screeching of anger pierces the din, as the mewling and flailing beetle struggles impotently to reach back for it's former perch. The figure has it firmly by the shell, and at arms length away from his imperiously clean white suit.
DONNA
I thought I'd gotten rid of that bugger already, why is it back again?
FIGURE
Doubtlessly you did.
The figure raises the grotesque creature into the air, and then throws it vehemently towards a wall with an intestinal-wrenching squelch. Dark beetle shell fragments and green grotesqueries ooze slowly down the once clean white wall.
FIGURE
Time Beetles are hive creatures by nature, where there's been one, there are bound to be others.
About to wipe his hands (where he touched the beetle) off on his pale garments, the figure stops, as if thinking better of it, and puts them back in his pockets rather than spoiling the pallid attire.
DONNA
Great, just great, so much for a positive review. I can tell you that this place is getting a fail on its pest control.
The figure looks confused again, about to say something, but quickly closing his mouth again, before at last finding the words.
FIGURE (confused)
Review? You do know this is not a hotel right? You're trapped in the abstract, none of this is exactly real.
DONNA
Really, and here I was just about to order room service and dine in with a pay-TV movie?
Mouth hanging open before closing again, the figure looks around at the empty white room (avoiding looking at the shambled corpse) and then back at the fiery redhead.
FIGURE (still confused)
But er, there's nothing here, it's empty, completely and utterly...
Donna stares disbelievingly at the figure in white for a long moment till the newcomer trails off.
FIGURE (slowly gets it)
You're being, augh... sarcastic with me?
DONNA
Bingo! Give the man a medal and tell him what he's won.
A pained expression crosses the figure's face, and he looks almost as if he is about to begin regretting showing up.
DONNA
Oh, relax, don't be such a sensitive Charlie.
FIGURE
My name's not Charlie, it's-
DONNA
Hey, what are you exactly, are you like a guardian angel or something? Cause I got to say, I really needed one about now, I thought I'd gone off my rocker once I heard that pounding heart again.
FIGURE
I'm not an angel.
DONNA
No? A pity, I'd rather liked you as an angel, all innocent and easily bothered.
FIGURE (going flushed at the neck)
I.. I... I...
DONNA
Listen Chuckie boy, can we get out of here, you know I'd love to stay, but I really should be going, let's get out however you got in.
FIGURE
That's not possible, it's a one way trip.
DONNA
What! So you're telling me that not only was I trapped with an echo and a broken door before, but now I have to share these tiny accommodations with mister sensitive and him?
Donna gestures towards the puddling beetle bits.
DONNA (clearly aggravated)
All I want is a way out of here, or someone to get me out. Is that so much to ask? One little working door, or a knight in shining armour, (or that Jack Harkness,) is all I want; yet all I get is you. You, with your silly little white suit, you, who looks little more than a boy grown, do you even have to shave yet? How is this fair? All I wanted was a way out, not a kid and an un-opening door.
Looking embarrassed, 'Chuck' unconsciously raises a hand to his face and then, catching himself doing it, quickly snatches it back down, determined not to check his face for stubble. He doesn't actually look that young, he's at least twenty-something thinks Donna, but certainly baby faced, who is currently venting frustration.
FIGURE
If the door won't open, have you tried asking it?
DONNA
What?
FIGURE
The door. Have you tried asking it nicely?
DONNA
What?!
FIGURE
Ask the door to open for you.
DONNA
Are you telling me that I've been trapped here for what feels like a bloody eternity, and all I had to do was ask the bloody door to bloody well open for me?
FIGURE
Nicely.
DONNA
What?
FIGURE
Ask the door, nicely. You're saying you've been trapped here for an eternity and you've never once tried simply asking to be let out, politely?
Donna's face began to match the colouring of her hair at that remark.
DONNA
Oh be quiet, c'mon.
She grabs the figure by the hand, and pushes him up to the door.
DONNA (encouraging)
Well? Go on!
FIGURE (facing the door unsure)
Well, er augh, door, ser. Could you possibly, augh, maybe, open up for us. Please?
A second passes, and then another, and another. Donna appears about to say something more, a look of frustrated triumph on her face when there is a loud hissing and then a creak. It's like the hiss of equilibrium when two air-locks meet between vessels, and the creak of a vary old door on rusty hinges. The door swings outward revealing what lies beyond.
DONNA
Blimey!
--