'How much longer do you think we've got?' Stoker asked.

'I don't know.' The Doctor pa.s.sed the lighter to her and she took it in trembling fingers. 'Don't drop it!' he warned.

'What are you doing?' Trapped inside the little bubble of flickering yellow light, Stoker had never felt so close to anyone she hadn't actually made love to. She could feel the heat of the Doctor's body. She could sense him fumbling through his coat pockets. 'What are you looking for?'

'This,' the Doctor said, producing a small metal pistol. It was the gun Silas Cadwell had bequeathed him. He c.o.c.ked the weapon with a loud metallic click.

Stoker gaped. 'W-what are you going to do? Shoot the Dark?'

He shook his head. 'No. That would be pointless. I'm going to shoot you.'

For a second Stoker was speechless. And then it all seemed to fall into place. A great weight of despair settled on her shoulders and neck, crushing her almost to the floor.

After everything that had happened, after all she'd been through, wasn't this the most obvious and sensible result?

After discovering the lexium and then losing it; after arguing with Bunny and losing him... after finding Lawrence again, only to see him die under the control of the Dark... What else was there for Jyl Stoker?

Even if she survived, what would be the point? what would be the point? All this seemed to swell up inside her head like a vast grey balloon of misery until she was able to stare straight into the barrel of the gun without the slightest flinch. All this seemed to swell up inside her head like a vast grey balloon of misery until she was able to stare straight into the barrel of the gun without the slightest flinch.

But she still, perhaps automatically, said, 'What?'

The Doctor held the gun steadily and aimed right at the centre of her forehead. 'We've reached the end of the line, I'm afraid. The choice is simple: stay alive for the last few minutes worth of lighter fuel that remains, and then die horribly and terribly at the hands of the Dark... or take matters into our own hands now. Kill ourselves before the Dark can get to us. Quick and painless. I'll shoot you and then shoot myself.'

Stoker blinked. The Doctor sounded under strain but reasonable.

'This is a trick, isn't it?' she whispered.

No,' he said. 'We can do it the other way around, if you prefer. You shoot me and then shoot yourself. It doesn't really matter, does it, so long as we're both dead before the Dark has a chance to get to us.'

Just beyond the edge of the light, the Dark seemed to writhe impatiently, as if aware that its prey was about to escape.

Stoker's gaze focussed on the muzzle of the gun again.

She was amazed that it didn't tremble or waver.

'Is this the only way?' she asked in a small, child's voice.

She wanted a.s.surance, comfort, from someone who knew better. Someone she could trust to look after her.

The Doctor nodded. 'I'm sorry.'

A tear rolled down Stoker's cheek. It was, she realised, going to be the last tear she ever shed. 'Please,' she croaked. 'You'll have to do it. I don't think I could... do that to anyone.'

'It's all right,' he told her gently. Was that a tear glimmering in the corner of his eye as well? 'I understand. I...

just wish there could have been another way. But what the Dark wants... what it's hungry for... I cannot let it have. I'm sorry.'

The flame of the lighter was almost gone. If Stoker's hand shook any more it would disappear completely. The thing hiding just beyond the fringe of the light hissed and moved closer, eager for the chance to strike.

The lighter flame faltered and shrank to a tiny nub of light. The Doctor's finger tightened on the trigger.

'Guess what,' said a little girl's voice out of the darkness.

'A cat poo'd in our garden yesterday and mummy had to pick it up with a stick.'

The little girl appeared from nowhere, as bright and silvery as an angel; the Doctor looked quickly away and Stoker blinked. The Dark snarled and recoiled as if stung, the light of the angel throwing into sharp relief the rough rock walls of the cave. The Dark itself, black and glutinous, bled away into the shadows.

Tegan and Nyssa rushed over to the Doctor, who looked at them with complete shock.

'You're supposed to be dead,' he said, almost sounding hurt.

'No way, Doc,' said Tegan. 'Haven't you heard: we're indestructible!'

Nyssa was holding Bunny Cheung's bionic arm, the heavy ring on its finger still projecting its startling hologram.

The Doctor scrambled to his feet, too amazed, it seemed, to even smile with relief. Instead, he looked rather quizzical. 'Are you sure you're not dead?'

Tegan grinned. 'One hundred per cent.'

The Doctor stared at them both, open-mouthed, and then looked down at the gun he was still holding his hand. He glanced at Stoker.

'Get rid of it,' she sobbed.

The Doctor, dazed, looked back to Tegan and Nyssa.

'What were you two up to?' Tegan asked. 'Why the gun?'

'Kooka's arm needs fixing again,' said the hologram of the little girl brightly. 'It's come right off this time.'

'Who's that?' asked the Doctor.

'That's Rosie Cheung,' Tegan said. 'Our guardian angel against the Dark.'

'No, I meant, who's that?' that?' The Doctor pointed past the hologram, to a figure standing bent and huddled in the entrance to the cave. The figure shuffled forward. The Doctor pointed past the hologram, to a figure standing bent and huddled in the entrance to the cave. The figure shuffled forward.

Stoker let out a choked cry. 'Lawrence!'

She stood up just as the burnt figure staggered forward and collapsed into her arms. She held him tightly and he groaned. His lips brushed her ear. Wanted... to be with you...'

Stoker sobbed. 'I'm here, I'm here! I've got you. Don't worry!'

The Doctor stared at them. They held their embrace in the silvery light of the little girl's hologram. Rosie Cheung said, I've got to go now, Daddy, the puter says my time's all used up. So bye.'

The Doctor looked down again at the gun in his hand. An expression of revulsion twisted his features and he hurled the weapon viciously away from him. It landed with a clatter next to Stoker.

Lawrence was leaning against Stoker, and she had to take nearly all of his weight. But she kept him close, kept whispering to him, kept pushing her fingers through the brittle remains of his hair. 'I love you,'

she told him. 'Thank G.o.d you're here. I love you.'

Lawrence returned the embrace with as much strength as he could muster, weeping into the soft skin of her throat.

The Doctor turned back to Tegan and Nyssa. After a moment's hesitation, he said, 'I really thought I'd lost you both. The Dark has been eating away at my resolve ever since. But I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you, because we simply don't have the time. You've sent the Dark skulking back into its shadow dimension but it will be back very soon.'

'What should we do?' Nyssa asked.

The Doctor looked across to where Stoker and Lawrence were still holding each other. 'Fight,' he said.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

The Doctor looked up at Stoker and shook his head sadly. 'I don't know how much longer he can last,' he told her quietly.

'I'm very sorry.'

Tears streamed down Stoker's face as she cradled Lawrence in her arms. His breathing was shallow and noisy, and he was clearly in great pain.

'I don't even have any medical equipment with me,' the Doctor said.

'We might've made him comfortable with basic a.n.a.lgesics, but I'm afraid his burns are life-threatening.'

Stoker pulled Lawrence closer to her. His blackened fingers gripped her arm tightly.

The Doctor stood up. They were in the stalact.i.te forest again, trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the Dark before it attempted another a.s.sault.

Tegan was holding a makeshift torch very gingerly.' the Doctor had improvised using a metal rod and an oil-soaked handkerchief, lit with the last vestige of fuel from Stoker's cigarette lighter. The flame cracked and spat at the end of the stick, throwing out greasy smoke.

Its flickering orange light was their only source of illumination, but it made the shadows move around them in unsettling ways.

The handle of the torch was getting hotter by the minute, and droplets of flaming oil kept falling from the hanky.

'This is useless,' Tegan told the Doctor bluntly as she struggled to hold the brazier. 'We're trapped. There's nowhere to run, Doctor.'

'I know. We can't afford to sit and wait for the Dark to come and get us, Tegan. We have to do something.'

And going back there there is your best idea?' Tegan nodded down the slope towards the dark entrance to the crypt. is your best idea?' Tegan nodded down the slope towards the dark entrance to the crypt.

'You said it yourself, there's nowhere else for us to go.'

They helped Stoker carry Lawrence through the stalact.i.tes until they reached the crypt. Inside, the empty pit was in darkness. The glow-snakes that had lived in the ceiling were no more than lifeless grey stripes in the rock. In the flickering light of Tegan's torch they were little more than a mottled discolouration in the glossy black stone.

They rested Lawrence against the wall and Stoker cradled his head in her arms. His breathing was faint and shallow, and he felt deathly cold to the touch.

'Doctor,' said Stoker in a small, alarmed voice. 'I... I think he's dying.' Lawrence raised a skeletal hand to Stoker's face, but his strength was failing. The hand drooped and then lay on the floor, curled up like a dead spider.

'Take it easy,' whispered Stoker.

His mouth moved silently, desperately.

'Shh.' Stoker clutched him tighter. 'Please... Please, don't go. Don't leave me.'

'I love you...' Lawrence said quietly, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper but somehow carried to everyone in the chamber. 'I will... always... love you.' With tremendous effort he raised his hand again towards Stoker's cheek. 'Don't waste... tears on me. Save them for when... you might need them.'

'Oh G.o.d,' Stoker sobbed, pulling him closer. She grasped his fingers with one hand and held them to her lips, kissing the scorched flesh, tasting her own tears. 'Don't die.

Don't die. Don't die.' Don't die.'

'Got to go now...'

Her mouth fell open in a rictus of despair. 'I won't let you die!'

'No good... getting very cold now.'

'I won't let you...' insisted Stoker. 'I won't let you!'

Lawrence was trembling. 'C-can't feel anything. Can't feel... you any more.'

She dug her fingers deep into his arms. 'I'm here!'

Lawrence said nothing.

'I'm here!' Stoker cried. 'I'm here! Don't go!'

Still Lawrence said nothing. He lay, stiff and unmoving, in her arms.

She kissed him again, awkwardly and hurriedly, but there was no breath between his lips.

The Doctor had knelt down quietly beside Stoker. He rested a hand on Lawrence's head and looked gravely at Stoker. 'He's gone. His pain is over.'

In a low, wretched voice Stoker ground out, 'The Dark did this!' She held grimly on to Lawrence's empty body. 'The Dark did this!' Her voice fell into a wail of despair. 'It was was the Dark, wasn't it?' the Dark, wasn't it?'