Doctor Who - 03 - The August Sky

.2. Melody Eternal

A few snowflakes touched down on his outstretched arm. Those that landed on his palm melted almost immediately, but some snowflakes settled on a sleeve of his coat. Unique in their fragile beauty. The Doctor made a few steps forward, wading in knee-deep fluff, sweeping the snow with a hem of his coat. He halted and took a deep breath of clear, frosty air. This world was magnificent – whiteness carved with blue shadows, under a milky sky, slightly coloured with golden sunrays. Voluminous, grey clouds were passing above, like herds of gigantic animals.

The Doctor looked back at Theta, who was waiting next to the TARDIS's door. Somehow there was a fleeting moment of surprise at a sight of the Ood in his grey clothing; some tiny part of the Doctor's mind expected to see Donna standing there, bare arms crossed on her chest and covered in goose-bumps, and an expression of disappointment on her pursed lips. Immediately his memory offered him a vision of her face, encircled by wavy hair and by a fur rimmed hood. She has never looked more beautiful than at that moment – fiery on the background of an almost monochromatic landscape. He hadn't realised it then; he was memorising an amazing woman in picturesque scenery; but all he could see was Donna Noble from Chiswick, London, a citizen of the Earth, so irritating with all her fussiness, and with lack of appropriate admiration.

"And? Anything?" he asked.

The Ood shook his head slowly. He carefully lifted up a translator ball, filled with sea-blue fluorescence of the Cells.

"I didn't expect them to be compatible," he said.

Compatible? It was a word almost certainly offered to him by the Cells, still speaking the language of the Emporium Everdream, a computer program from a far away moon in the Triangalla system.

"Maybe we are too far from the Oods' population centres?" the Doctor suggested.

"Distance shouldn't be an issue. The connection encompasses the whole planet. No, it's because of the broken thread." Theta's shoulders sagged even more.

"A little patience." The Doctor met Theta's gaze and broke off sheepishly. He just tried to give a lesson in patience to one of the most patient beings in the universe; he, a man rather poorly qualified in that area. "Let's just wait."

He sniffled and turned again to face the majestic landscape of the Ood Sphere. His brow was furrowed. He needed a happy ending, he needed it so much, but he knew that not all endings could be happy. Theta still stuck around the TARDIS. It seemed that her blue planks made him feel secure. Snow sparkled like mounds of diamonds.

Music burst out unexpectedly, indescribably powerful, moving from nothingness into a crescendo of recognition, salutation and joy. Thousands of individual voices chirruped and screamed for a while, just like instruments being keyed before a great concert; then a motif appeared and dragged subsequent voices along, while leaving others in counterpoints and their harmonics, underlying the basic theme. The Doctor swayed, as if lashed by a sudden gust of wind. He stepped back, struggling against the urge to plug his ears. What good would it do against a telepathic symphony anyway? He looked back and saw Theta kneeling in a deep snow, clutching his temples with both his hands. The translator rested next to him, on top of a snowdrift, glowing with an intense shade of indigo, the Doctor had never seen before performed by the Cells.

"Theta!"

His scream didn't even scratch the wall of sounds. He reached his friend in three long jumps and bent over him, alarmed.

"Theta! Are you all right?"

The Ood looked up, his eyes completely glazed.

"Doctor..."