Searching for the Doctor [attn: Rose] cont

"It's not just that. I think it fell." Rose told her in a quiet hiss, though she handed over the light. She wasn't sure she wanted to look up at the moment. Her mind filled with an image of the ceiling swarming with the things, and she shook it away.

"Take that and go on, better not throw it though, or we might end up losing it..." A brief moment of inspiration stuck her. "I'll use the light on my mobile, better then nothing." She pulled it from her pocket, pressing a button so the screen lit. The light was dim, but it was something. Trying a clean bit of her sleeve, she rubbed at the tower again.

"It's not just that. I think it fell."

Donna squeezed her eyes closed tighter and swallowed harder as her stomach turned uncomfortably. Part of her wanted to look up, reflexively, while the other part wanted to pass out from the fear.

"Take that and go on, better not throw it though, or we might end up losing it... I'll use the light on my mobile, better then nothing."

Rose's voice pulled her back into focus. "Right, okay, let's hurry," Donna breathed, leaving Rose and making her way as quickly and carefully as she could to the next tower. Rubbing the soot away was much easier on this tower and Donna's stomach dropped. "Rose..." she choked.

There was a golden glow against the sides of the glass...but no liquid; there was a long, spindly crack rising from the base of the tower and stretching up just past Donna's height. Her heart sank.

Rose turned from the tower she'd finally got enough soot rubbed off of to invalidate it and looked toward Donna. The older woman's tone made her breath catch, and she made her way over to the cracked tower. She just stared at it for a moment, before putting a hand on it lightly.

When she finally spoke, she didn't look away from it. "You're sure there was only one? Couldn't be another one, could there?" Rose held onto the possibility, reaching for straws. It couldn't just be that close and then...

"You're sure there was only one? Couldn't be another one, could there?"

"Could be..." Donna said doubtfully. "I don't remember another, but there could've been. I suppose we should keep looking. If there's not another, the only thing I can think of trying is breaking the rest of the glass and seeing if we can't scrape some of those particles into a bottle of water or something. Might work, might not...and we'd have to come back to do it, which I honestly don't fancy one bit," she admitted.

Letting out a sigh, Donna frowned at the tower before looking over at Rose. "Let's keep looking. Just in case," she said.

"Yeah. Just in case." Rose whispered, giving the tower one last look before turning to Donna for a moment. There could be another one, it wouldn't be the strangest thing to ever happen. If they had to come back, they'd at least know to prepare then. She tried to force a smile.

"I'll go try the one two down, you do the next one, okay?" She barely waited for the answer before starting on her way over to it, phone held out in front of her.

"I'll go try the one two down, you do the next one, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Donna agreed as she started toward the next tower. "Please God," she whispered more to herself than to Rose.

There was the eerily familiar sound of movement from behind her and Donna froze. Then, as she went to take another step, she felt something scamper over her left foot. She let out a strangled cry and jumped back, nearly tripping over her own two feet as she did so. "Oi, one of those bloody things just ran across my foot!" she squeaked.

Rose spun around at the cry, squinting into the darkness. She was about to ask what had happened when Donna spoke again, and she relaxed some. "Alright? Might mean they're more or less just ignoring us now..." Which could be a good thing.

If she strained her ears she could make out more distant noises, probably at the edges of the room. She pressed another button to relight her mobile's screen before holding it up to see.

"Alright? Might mean they're more or less just ignoring us now..."

Donna made her way back in front of the tower and rubbed her sleeve against it, cringing inwardly at what her sleeve would look like when they got back out into the light. The jacket would likely be ruined. If they found the particles, it'd be worth it, but...

"Yeah, or it might mean they're not afraid of us," Donna countered slowly. "Nothin' 'ere. Next," she sighed, making her way past Rose and to the tower at the very end. "Last ones," she muttered, waiting for Rose to let her know if she'd found anything in her tower before Donna moved to look into the one in front of her now.

"Could be both." Rose mused as she turned back to her own tower, closing her eyes as she wiped off a patch of it. Opening one of them a smidgen to peer disapointedly at the darkness inside of the tank. "Nothing." She told Donna, turning to face her once more.

Just the one more then, and if that wasn't it... The whole thing would have been more or less a waste and they'd be down to hoping Sarah Jane called back, or that they could do something with the residue from the one. She crossed her fingers on the hand that wasn't holding her phone.

"Nothing."

Donna's heart sank. She wasn't feeling hopeful that this tower would hold the Huan Particles. Something made her believe that if there was more than one tower containing them, the towers would be together.

Taking a deep breath and holding it without really realizing it, Donna raised her arm and started to rub the glass. At first, nothing happened and then, she felt the tower begin to vibrate a little beneath her arm. "...I don't think it's supposed to do that..." she said softly.

Her sleeve began to sag with moisture. "Whatever it is...it's got a leak," she said. "And I can't...get the soot off..." she grunted as she rubbed harder. "Bloody hell," she snapped and pulled her arm away as it began to ache from the effort. She shook her arm in the air to regain proper circulation when she hear the scampering again. This time it was loud and clearly there were multiple feet; more than one of them. Lots of them, in fact.

Donna's heart began to race and her eyes went wide with fear. And then a curious thing happened.

Donna's sleeve began to glow a soft gold.

When the scampering started again Rose had been watching Donna, and she made her way over to her. She figured it would be better to stay as close as possible in case the things were trying something. As she walked her foot caught on something and she nearly jumped before realizing it was just some more debris.

"They're on the move again, what's the-" She looked back up and froze, a few feet away from Donna, her eyes widened. The soft glow of Donna's sleeve was more than visible in the darkness of the room. Her voice, wary at first grew a tinge of excitement constrained by the whisper she forced herself to keep. "Donna, your sleeve-"

Within a few seconds she'd covered the last few feet, utterly distracted.

The sound of pitter-pattering paws - or feet? - was growing louder, still. More and more of them... Donna was frozen in panic, her arm still suspended in midair when she heard Rose's voice, although was unfocused and unable to make out what she'd said.

"Sorry, what...? I think they've brought some friends...we've gotta go," Donna insisted, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Look at your sleeve." Rose whispered back insistently, eyes almost shining. She reached for Donna's arm, holding it up for her to see. She was aware of the growing sound of the feet, but she'd had more than a little experience with being mobile during danger. And hell if she was going to leave just then.

Donna looked down at her sleeve and saw the glow of gold there where the moisture had seeped out of the glass tower. "Oh, my God..." she breathed, heart thumping inside her chest, both out of fear for the unseen creatures and pure, unadulterated excitement for having found what they were looking for. "That's it! That's the particles!" she shrieked. As she did, the particles glowed more intensely to rise with her emotion.

Without giving herself time to think it over, she threw her arms around Rose in a tight hug. "That's it; we've found it!"

Rose was caught off guard for a moment, but she returned the hug, grinning. Her own emotions soared, they'd found them and if the leak was any evidence, just in time. If it had been a month later.. But it hadn't been! In the burst of excitement when Donna confirmed their identity Rose almost forgot about the other things inhabiting the room.

"How do we get into them?" She asked once she'd pulled back, glancing towards the tower. "You said something about ingesting them before, right?"

"How do we get into them?" She asked once she'd pulled back, glancing towards the tower. "You said something about ingesting them before, right?"

"Right, yeah," Donna said. "Well...I'd been dosed with them over six months...Lance had been putting some in my coffee every day at work. Who knows how much or how little, but if we can figure a way to just...I don't know, drink --"

The tower made a creaking sound and vibrated again. Donna looked up at it and then back at Rose. "That doesn't sound good..."

"It doesn't." Rose agreed, eyeing the tower warily, before glancing back at Donna. "We've got to think quick. There's got to be some way to get the stuff out, some sort of I don't know..." She motioned a hand rather uselessly, trying to get her brain working faster. "A spigot or something. It can't have just been meant to sit in there."

Another button pressed on her phone turned the light on for a few more moments and she shone it at the tower, walking around the side slightly in hopes that something would be revealed.

"There were..." Donna's voice trailed off. She didn't know how to explain it. "Sort of like spigots, yeah...but they already had...the little containers in them. Wonder if we just..." her voice trailed off again as she shined her light on the base of the glass tube. It was blackened and somewhat melted, but there was the spigot-thing. "Here," Donna said. "Let me just..."

Donna poked at it a bit and pulled out the stopper. For a moment, nothing happened, only a large bubble loudly made its way up the entire tower. "You know...they don't really glow on their own," she thought aloud. "I've only just remembered, but they don't. They were clear liquid, clear bubbles...only when the Doctor brought the little tube thing of them toward me, both the tube of them and I started to glow. I've still got them inside me...some, at least," she mused. "Maybe I just need more...or I haven't had enough emotions and hormones running through me to get pulled in again..."

Another large bubble made its way up the tower and then the spigot began to leak, very drizzly and light at first and then free-flowing. "Oi, hurry! Do we just...I dunno, take turns drinkin' from it like a drinking fountain or what?" she asked Rose, speaking so quickly that her words practically merged together.

"Might be they wear off some after awhile." Rose hurried back to it, unsure of what to do really. As Donna kept talking though, she found herself agreeing. "Water fountain, yeah.. Only way to go about it really, isn't it?" She spoke fast herself, shoving her phone into a pocket, and without really thinking cupping her hands together and putting them below the spigot. It took a few seconds for her hands to full and she pulled them away, just staring at the liquid in her palms for a moment.

The realization struck her that she was in the burnt out basement of some random building that was filled with...things, about to drink something that she'd seen glow upon the reccomendation of someone she'd known less than a day. Where that would have, at one point stopped her she instead found herself thinking that surely that was a sign she was headed in the right direction. Before she had a chance to think it over any further Rose gulped down what was in her hands. She was too preoccupied thinking about what would happen eventually if this worked to even taste it.

Donna followed suit and cupped her hands beneath the running stream of clear liquid, which glowed a faint gold as it fell over her hands, where it hadn't under Rose's. "Bottoms up..." she said wryly before sucking it down. "Oh, God, that's awful without the coffee," she sputtered after swallowing. "Wonder how much we've got to drink..."

Without waiting for a reply from Rose, she cupped her hands beneath the spigot again - the gold glowed a little brighter this time - and filled them. As she brought her hands up to her mouth, the tower creaked again, this time much more loudly.

And a very long, jagged shadow came into view. "Rose..." she breathed, not noticing as some of the liquid began to trickle out from the small spaces between her two hands.

It would, Rose rationalized, be a very good idea to run. The tower's creaking had gotten worse, and she was sure it was just a matter of time until the thing burst. A part of her brain thought that maybe as the tower lost more of the liquid the pressure would drop some, but it didn't seem to be. It wouldn't help them at all to end up right there when it went, in the way of the glass and the surge of liquid.

The sight of the shadow didn't help her urge to get out of there, and she froze from where she'd been about to put her hands back under the spigot. Her plan of one more minute, maybe two, seemed suddenly an even worse idea.

"It's big." For a moment stating the obvious was the most she could manage. "Maybe it's what they were waiting for, if they were waiting..."

Donna looked over at Rose as the latter began to glow a dull gold. Donna stepped closer to her; Rose glowed brighter. "I've got an idea. Issat real denim? If it is, it should hold, at least until we can get the bloody hell out of here...we could tear off the sleeves and have makeshift holders for some of this stuff to take with us. I could buy you a new one, if that's any persuasion," she told Rose.

Looking over at the shadow, she noticed that some parts of it moved ever so slightly while others remained static. "I dunno that it's...just one," she thought aloud. "Not that I'm lookin' a gift horse in the mouth, but what's it waitin' for...?"

"Yeah, it is." At the suggestion Rose had already started shelling the denim jacket off. "Don''t worry about it." She joked. Once it was off she pulled at the sleeves, but they wouldn't budge. A flash of inspiration led her to search the ground with the aid of her mobile, and it only took a few moments to find what she was looking for. She stabbed at the seam where the sleeves were attached with the sharp piece of debris she'd picked up, putting a hole in both before making use of them to finally rip the sleeves off.

Rose slipped her new 'vest' back on and handed one of the sleeves to Donna while she tied off the very end of the one she still held, using as little sleeve as possible. She shoved the knotted sleeve under the spigot, glancing back at the shadow when it seemed to hold. "Think you're right... Long as it waits till we're out of here though, I'm not going to question it."

Donna took the other sleeve of Rose's jacket and smiled a little, feeling a bit guilty. If she'd been wearing a coat that she thought would hold water, so to speak, she'd have done it herself. She waited as Rose filled her own with the liquid in which the particles were floating and kept an eye on the shadows.

"Think you're right... Long as it waits till we're out of here though, I'm not going to question it."

"Same here," Donna laughed nervously. "One thing I'm a bit worried about..." she said slowly as she noticed a small, dim halo of light forming on the floor beneath the women's feet. "The more emotional we get, the brighter we're starting to glow and yet we're not going anywhere... Could be that we haven't enough ingested, yet, but if we start glowing too much brighter, we're gonna be able to see those things and I'm not sure I want to," she admitted.

The sleeve seemed to be holding, and when she looked back Rose couldn't help the hint of a smile. It was something, in any case. Once it was filled almost to the brim she pulled it back, careful not to spill and moved aside to let Donna get access to fill her own. She gulped down some from the top with a grimace as she waited for Donna to fill hers, more so she could get some sort of hold on the thing once they were mobile than anything else.

"Just remember when we can see them, they've been there the whole time. Better for them to be something than for them to have the possibility of being anything, yeah?" Unless of course, you had a particularly bad imagination. Than it was probably better not to know. "And anyway- might be good for that last jolt."