Let's do some damage!

Disclaimer (Hurley's style;D): You may think they're mine, the way I play with them, but, dudes, they're not.

.12. Shadows in the Cave

The Doctor slowly got up from a rough floor. He dusted off his hands and looked around quite pointlessly – darkness surrounding him seemed deeper than the heart of the black hole. He reached for the sonic screwdriver and uttered a loud sigh of relief when he found it in his pocket. He flipped the switch, summoning soothingly familiar blue glow of the device. After a brief while he slapped his forehead and sunk a hand in his pocket again. He produced a small flashlight; a simple plastic gadget; except maybe for the fact that its batteries were nothing like ordinary, Earth's double As. He charged them with the energy drawn directly from the TARDIS's core; the torch would work until the Triangalla's sun grew old, fell apart and turned the twenty six planets of the system – together with their numerous moons (including the Emporia moon, where he was presently) – into charcoal and ashes. Of course an incandescent xenon bulb would burn out long before that. Of course it was not the same flashlight batteries of which he charged with the TARDIS's energy; it was a projection of the torch, held by the projection of the Doctor, standing in the projection of the cave, in the projection of impenetrable darkness. If any of these assumptions were aimed at improving his mood, they suffered a disgraceful defeat.

"I've almost made it, Theta," he said quietly. He chuckled and added: "Over."

"Who's there?"

The voice was muffled, trembling, close to a whisper.

The Doctor swivelled round, sweeping his flashlight's beam across stone walls, dark tunnels entrances and stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

"Huh?"

"Who is there?" the voice repeated. There was something familiar to the voice, but it did not provoke the subtle sensation of joy likely to be felt when meeting people one hasn't seen for a very long time.

"Where are you?" the Doctor asked. The torch's light zigzagged wildly from wall to wall, drowning in the deeper darkness just out of its reach. "I can't see you. Where are you?"

"Your voice sounds familiar."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes instinctively, as if expecting a blow.

"So does yours," he answered. Although the voice was quiet and muffled, there was a trace of vibration in it – of unnatural, mechanical distortion. Fine hair on the Doctor's neck started to bristle, as if the air was charged with electricity.

"Long time no see... Doctor."

"Davros," the Doctor whispered.

A dark silhouette appeared in the light; with a buzz of servomotors a vehicle/armchair/life support system drove out from behind the rocks and into the centre of the cave. The Doctor had to struggle to suppress an instant flight response.

"We were destined to meet again, Doctor," Davros said. "Murderer. Killer of my kind. We have unfinished business craving a conclusion. You did not, by any chance, think you could escape me?"

"No," the Doctor spoke huskily. He cleared his throat. "No. I couldn't escape you, because I can't forget you. You are my memory, Davros. That's where you came from – straight from my head. You're not real."

"Oh, but..." Davros tapped his claw-like fingers, chuckling quietly, "...in here you're not real as well."

"Yes. Right. You're a nightmare. I've been expecting that." The Doctor took a deep breath. "I intend to ignore you. You're just a nightmare, you can't hurt me."

"Can't I? I was able to show you a mirror reflecting your soul; I was able to show you, who you really were; I was able to force your surrender. You begged me on your knees to stop. In my hands I held your life, those of your friends and of all the beings you cared for. And I did break you, Time Lord. I, Davros, the Maker of the Daleks, did break your spirit. Even burning up I laughed aloud, because that was the last drop I needed to make your pain brim over, and to break you forever. Pretend as much as you like, in front of your Children of Time, in front of your Torchwood, in front of yourself; I know that you will never rise up from your knees. I made you into a pathetic last example of an extinct species, clinging to life at all cost, any way you could; you, a Time Lord, a proud observer, a wise sage, a god. I've ground you down to dust, Doctor. Everything goes to ruin, and I've ruined you."

"You are not... real," the Doctor hissed through his clenched teeth. The circle of the torch's light jerked against the rocky wall. Slowly, the Doctor relaxed his fingers, trying to stop his hand from shaking.

"I couldn't be more real," answered Davros. "I'm in your memory. Even if I were flesh and blood, I couldn't torture you more efficiently than I do now, when I'm but a recollection. You hate me, Doctor, and you can't stop hating me, even though it shames you so much. You know perfectly well that although you came back for me, there, at the burning Crucible, although you reached out your hand, you didn't mean to save me. You wanted me to burn. You know that your honourable gesture was but that – a gesture. You are too much of a coward to kill; you had pointed a deadly weapon at me once before, and you couldn't make yourself to pull the trigger. You just step behind the line of your people and wait for somebody else to finish the job, to soil their hands, to die instead of you."

"You are repeating yourself," the Doctor growled. He turned his eyes from Davros and started quickly across the cave, towards one of the openings in its walls.

"Maybe. But now I will tell you something new. I made you kill Donna."

The Doctor stopped dead in the middle of the cave. He turned his head only, slowly, as if it was made of a fragile crystal, and looked at Davros with wide opened, dark eyes. His lips were pursed into a white line.

"I didn't kill Donna" he said in a muffled voice.

Davros burst out with laughter, filling the cave with a chorus of multiplied echoes. His harsh, inhuman voice vibrated among stalactites.

"I DIDN"T KILL DONNA!" the Doctor shouted and threw his flashlight at Davros. The torch described a glimmering arch and rebounded from dalekanium covering the lower body of a ghastly old man.

"I DIDN... AH!" the Doctor doubled in pain and slowly slid to his knees. He had to lean on his hands to stop himself from falling to the ground. No, it wasn't pain; something was bursting out of him, something was flowing out – some kind of an important living energy, he didn't even know existed. "What's happening? What are you doing? Davros! Ah, what're you doing?"

Just laughter.

"Dav..." His arms yielded and the Doctor fell on his side on the rough rock, gasping rapidly.

"Last of the Time Lords!" Davros screeched. His words merged into manic staccato, his voice turned into a vibrating, piercing shriek; now Davros was screaming as only a Dalek could scream; he screamed out of hatred for all that wasn't him. "Last in the Universe! Writhing in front of me like a bug pinned to the ground! It's my final victory! It's the hour of my triumph! It's the day I defeated..."

"Oh, shut your gob!"

She appeared at the Doctor's side holding a tar covered wooden torch, crackling vividly and bathing them in a circle of golden light. Her hair curled on her shoulders; the only make-up a brush of eye shadows on her eyelids, a touch of mascara. She wore denim trousers and a purple top, glimmering with jets and glass beads.

"Little Hitler, this one," she mocked, fearlessly meeting Davros's gaze. "Have you noticed how they scream, all of them? Not only Daleks; all the little tyrants, circumstances pushed to the front of great armies; all the midgets compensating their shortcomings with shrieks and fury? They are grinding the world down, killing millions in their wake, and they scream! Scream! SCREAM!!!"

She bent down, holding the torch away, and offered the Doctor a hand.

"Now, get up. Don't lie on the rocks; you'll catch a cold."

"Don...na?" he mumbled.

"Blimey, you know I'm not Donna, I thought we were over it already," she said. "Come on, get up. It's not the end yet. But if it started with that monstrosity, it can't get much worse."

"No. Leave me," the Doctor murmured. "I don't have time for this."

"You don't have time for me?" she laughed sadly. "Nothing new, y'know? My own, private Time Lord, who never made any time for me. Until it was too late. Until my thoughts circled and looped – loomed in the distance – stance – Constance – constant – distant – distract – tract – cracked – the mirror cracked from side to side, the curse has come upon me cried – cried – eye – storm's-eye – bull's eye – silence – silence --- SILENCE!"

She broke off and gasped for air.

"So that's how you remember me?" She tilted her head, watching him closely. "That's your most powerful memory, the strongest emotion? Hmm, I've expected something more... romantic."

With effort, the Doctor pulled himself up and got to his knees.

"You're a part of this program," he stated. "You exist because of the telepathic Regulating Cells, translating my thoughts directly into the Emporium's computer. You have been actualised for me by the Emporium Everdream. You are not Donna; you are my memories of Donna, my guilt, my sorrow. But I have other memories; why don't you use my other memories? And who's the other Donna; the ancient Donna? Why..."

"Didn't you hear me?" She offered him her hand again and this time he accepted. She lifted him from the ground with one tug. "Blimey, you're scraggy! Like a supermodel, excuse the comparison. Thin as a rack."

"Hear what?"

"It's not the end. There's a whole maze of adventures here for you. You won't go far if you keep giving up so easily. Come on, let's go."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," the Doctor said sternly. "There's no time; there are people stranded in those adventures. I have to get them out, before the computer's malfunction causes irreversible damage to their brains."

"I need strong emotions." She smiled slightly. "Like this one."

She gestured vaguely with her hand, sending Davros, the cave and the darkness into oblivion, and calling forth a Gallifreyan landscape – red and silver under the burnt orange sky. The Doctor, now submerged up to his knees in rippling grass blades, blinked uncertainly.

"Is it...?"

"Oh, dear," Donna murmured. "And I had such a lovely increase of positive current the first time round. Burnt it out, huh? Pity, pity."

"What...?"

"Gallifrey?" she said. "Your home? Your lost planet? No? Nothing?"

The Doctor cast a sideways glance at her from under a furrowed brow.

"What are you talking about? Why are you doing this? Why are you showing me things that hurt me?"

"It caused you real pain the first time round; now you just think you can feel it. Besides, I don't care about your pain; I care about your emotional response. You have so many of them, so many emotions, and I am so hungry..."

"No," he said coldly.

"No?"

"No. I will not feed you with my emotions. Firstly, you didn't even bother to ask for my permission. Extremely impolite. Secondly, you're burning out memories, leaving empty shells. And although I would gladly get rid of some bad ones, it's not the way. And fourthly... no, thirdly... as I said, I don't have time for that. There are people lost in adventures. I know from a friendly Ood that their brainwaves are starting to dissipate. If I leave them here, they are going to die. All of them. So I will find them, and I'll lead them out of here, and you won't be able to stop me."

"Oh dear," said Donna with mock seriousness. "We shall see what we shall see. You're not doing so great so far. It's nice that you've came back, but your plan didn't pan out."

"My plan?" The Doctor laughed quietly. He lifted his face to feel the wind carrying freshness and the aroma of roses from that familiar but indifferent town under its crystal dome. "I have no plan. I am making it up as I go, and you, out of all the people, should know."

He sighed and closed his eyes. The red and silver landscape rippled, trembled and dissolved. Now the Doctor and Donna faced each other from opposite sides of the TARDIS's steering panel.

"All I can see here was build based upon my memories, my thoughts," the Doctor said. "And that means I can control it. I can change the adventure just thinking about it. Oh, yes!"

He walked to the panel and turned on the scanner.

"I can find people lost in adventures and lead them out of here just by thinking about doing it."

"Oh, dear!" said Donna for the third time. "Can you?"

And instantly he could see a familiar shoreline, all cold greys and blues; the Bad Wolf Bay in a frigid northern wind; and Rose looking at him with such plea in her eyes, with tears smudging her make-up and hair floating around her face like a golden halo. And although it was one of the memories that hurt the most, he didn't want to lose it.

Again the Doctor felt that something was being drained out of him, torn out of his body and mind. He reached out, blindly, and leaned against the familiar console. The effort of controlling his thoughts almost rendered him unconscious, but the beach dissolved slowly, replaced by the TARDIS's coral walls.

He faced Donna.

"Stop it," he said simply. "You are killing us."

"So what?" she snorted. "What do I care? I'm hungry... We're hungry..."

"We?" The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows. "You said we? Regulating Cells, right? Alien life forms Theta mentioned before?"

"Not enough food... Not enough food... Hungry... We have to eat... we have to eat... feed us... we're hungry..."

She did not even resemble Donna anymore, although she still looked like her. The expression on her face made it so inhuman, so unlike his companion, that the Doctor stepped back, frightened. Donna reached out her hand towards him, spreading her fingers as if she tried to curse him. And then the Doctor was buried under an avalanche of images, memories and emotions, so intertwined he could not even tell them apart. What had been only a sensation before, now become translated into an image as well – maybe he just thought it could take such form – in any case a pulsating thread of amber light connected him and Donna. Memories, feelings, impressions, thoughts sped along that golden and green thread, absorbed by Donna, devoured by the Cells, burned out from the Doctor's mind.

He started screaming, not in pain, but in terrible grief.

So that was it? So that was what Donna had felt? So that was what he had done to her when he tried to save her life? So...