She pushed and pushed at the Doctor; she wanted the alien planet trip! Valarie would laugh, insisting she was poking a bear by going to an alien planet.

"Oh," the Doctor cooed, "don't tell her that! Ruins the fun!" He flipped levers at random and stepped back, letting the TARDIS take them off.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"No idea. Completely random coordinates so this maybe new for all of us." He revealed as the ship rocked back and forth with its travels.

"Scared?" Valarie asked.

"Honestly, terrified. History is one thing. It's human. But this? Completely new." She sighed with a smile. She looked jittery, like that wonderful combination of excitement and fear.

"Yeah, I know what that's like." The Doctor revealed. Donna cocked her head.

"You? After all this time?"

"Oh of course!" He smiled. "The fear, the joy, the wonder. Everything you're feeling right now, I get it." He confirmed. That seemed so impossible to Valerie. He seemed to tuned in to it all. Every planet they had ever set foot on that wasn't Earth he nearly talked her head off with all the knowledge he had of it.

Valarie understood it though. The small pocket of something comparable to dread formed every-time the TARDIS would stop its groaning.

"You know, I was born in Chiswick. Only ever had package holidays." Donna began as she approached the doors. "Now I'm here. This is so- I mean it's just-." She smiled at them both as she gripped the doors, preparing to throw them open dramatically. "I don't even know the word." She opened the doors, and a terrible draft was the first thing they felt.

"Freezing." Donna groaned. "The word is freezing." She said as she looked out on what looked to be a Tundra. Valarie and the Doctor crowded out past her, stepping onto the snow.

"Snow! Real, proper snow!" He laughed. "That's more like it. Beautiful. Lovely! Just a lovely view isn't it Donna?-" He turned his head to see her already vanished, leaving the two in the snow. Valarie shivered slightly, standing in the snow that came up to her ankles easily. She looked to the Doctor.

"You aren't cold?" She asked him. He slightly shook his head. "All of those layers come in handy then huh." She giggled.

"Well, layers don't do much actually." He began, his tone shifting to the one he always took on when explaining things. Valarie had learned it by now. "Dual-circulatory system, remember? And one souped-up metabolism. Twice as much blood pumping as you and a metabolism that works faster than the fittest humans."

"Ah." She replied. "That's why being close to you is like standing next to a space heater constantly." She turned her head towards him, watching as he shrugged off the long trench coat and dropping it over her shoulders. She worked her arms through it, bunching the long sleeves up so her fingers came out.

"Oh, to me you feel like just a giant popsicle." He retorted.

"Oh, I'm sure I do!" She began to argue back when the TARDIS doors opened again. They turned to Donna who stepped out in a large, thick fur coat with a hood pulled over her head. Fur surrounded her head and face.

"Sorry, you were saying about the view?" She asked.

"Better?" The Doctor asked.

"Lovely, thanks."

"Comfy?" Valarie asked.

"Yep."

"Can you hear anything?"

"Pardon?" Donna asked. The two smiled, trying not to laugh. The Doctor ushered them forward. They followed in the snow, looking over horizons of white. In the sky, a soft rumble began to echo. Eyes trailed up.

"A rocket?" Valarie asked.

"A proper rocket," Donna commented. "Now that's what I call a spaceship. You've got a box, he's got a Ferrari. Let's go see where he's going now." Donna trudged ahead. Valarie shrugged towards the Doctor and the two began following. As they crossed over a small distance they began to seemed to be the outskirts of some sort of base.

As time passed with their journey, the sound began to grow. A soft, delicate sound. Music, unmistakable music.

"Hear that?" The Doctor asked. "Donna, your hood." He reminded her, only to earn in return her scrunching her nose up as if it would aid her hearing. Valarie reached up, snagging the back of her hood. "Donna, that noise." He turned his head to the east. "I think it's coming from over there." He led them over a mound of snow. At the bottom of the shallow snowbank laid a figure.

Upon approaching it, Valarie felt taken back. It was humanoid in shape until you reached its head. It was bald, with narrow, bloodshot eyes. Several deep wrinkles were between its eyes. Where the nose should have started was rather the beginning of fleshy red tendrils, moist in appearance and dropped down past where a chin might have been placed. Valarie would be lying if she said her first feeling wasn't to recoil.

"What, what is it?" Donna asked. "I mean- it's face, what's wrong-"

"Donna, it's an Ood. It's a he, not it. Now help me you two." He ordered. Valarie fell to her knees to the Oods side, Donna assuming the same position on the other. He wheezed. From below the tendrils, a tube extended, linking to a glowing orb. Donna took it into her hands.

"Talk to him. Keep him going." The Doctor suggested as he placed hands over the Oods body. "I can't find his heart." He murmured. "I don't know if he has a heart." He pondered.

"It's alright." Donna tried to comfort him. She gave Valarie a shifty gaze.

"What's your name?" Valarie suggested.

"Designated..." The orb he clutched lit up when he spoke, and off when he finished. His voice wasn't what Valarie expected. "Designated Ood Delta Fifty." Donna lifted the glowing orb that seemed to do his speaking to her mouth.

"My name is Donna. That is Valarie."

"No, no, no." The Doctor pushed the orb away from her mouth. "You don't need to." His gaze shifted back to the Oods body. "He's been shot."

"This is the Doctor." Donan continued. "Isn't that good? Just what you need, a Doctor."

"The circle." He groaned.

"What?" Valarie asked, leaning closer as her breath had become visible in the air. She gripped the brown trench coat closer to her body.

"The circle must be broken." He groaned, voice seemingly muffled and hoarse. The Doctor looked up, and scrambled closer to him, pressing into Valarie's side.

"What? Circle? What do you mean? Delta Fifty, what circle? Delta Fifty, what circle?" he called out to the dying creature. It blinked, eyes becoming a bright shade of red and it emitted a snarling sound. The Doctor grabbed onto the two women yanking them away from it as Delta Fifty shot up, letting a monstrous roar out. When it finished, he collapsed once again. For what felt like forever they waited - waited for him to rise again. But he didn't.

"He's gone." Donna mumbled.