Author's notes: I imagine this episode would have been a Christmas special, had the BBC known there were going to be any. By pure chance, I can now publish it at the correct time of year.

Disclaimer: As I did not own Doctor Who last time I uploaded a story. It goes without saying that I do not own it now.

The Unquiet Dead

Chapter 1: Mrs Peace's Ghost

Mrs Peace was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her memorial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Mr Redpath signed it: and Redpath's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Poor Mrs Peace was as dead as a door-nail.

It had been a small memorial. Mrs Peace had few living relatives. But she was well loved by them. Her grandson was the last to leave. He'd been largely raised by her after smallpox and the Crimea had claimed his parents. He was, therefore, far more affected than most.

"Sneed and companies offer their deepest condolences, sir, at this most trying hour." Said Mr Sneed, the undertaker.

"Grandma had a good innings," Mr Sneed." Redpath sighed. "She was so full of life. It's just hard to believe that she's gone."

"Not gone sir. Merely sleeping. You'll meet her again someday."

This comforted Redpath slightly. "May I have a moment alone."

"Certainly sir." Said Sneed, strolling out.

Redpath stood with his hands on the lip of the open coffin, with his head bowed, trying to come to terms with the fact that she was never going to move anywhere again.

As he closed his eyes in silent prayer, an unseen mass of gas began seeping from one of the lamps. The gas trailed around the room, vortexing and rippling to cope with currents and obstructions. Finally, it found the corpse's mouth and poured itself in.

Redpath looked at her face, and saw her eyes flying open. Except that they weren't her eyes. They were pearly white, with tiny pupils. This wasn't his grandmother staring at him. Before he had time to respond, her arm flew up and her hand clamped around his neck in an incredibly stiff grip.

Sneed returned to the room, just in time to see Redpath drop dead from strangulation. "Oh, not again." He groaned. He snatched a block of wood that stood by the door and clubbed Mrs Peace with it to make her lie down once more. " Gwyneth!" He roared. "Get down here quick! We've got another one!" He grabbed the lid and tried to wrestle in into position, but Peace grabbed at the sides and swung it into his chest, winding him. Before he had time to recover, she stood up from her coffin and staggered from the room.

Pulling himself up from the floor, Sneed just had time to see the deceased rocking her head back and screaming. A quantity of blue gas emitting from her mouth as she did so. With that, she disappeared round the corner and marched out into the street.

The floor of the TARDIS pitched and rolled as it hurtled through the vortex.

"I said hold that lever down!" The Doctor shouted at his companion as he operated some controls round the far side of the console..

"I am holding it!" Rose replied.

"Then try holding them both down!" He felt the TARDIS stabilise as she did so. "That's better. Now, you've been to the future. Let's have a look at the past. How does 1860 sound?"

"What happened in 1860?"

"Dunno. Let's find out, shall we?"

Sneed paced the hallways of the house frustrated. Finally he found his servant girl, Gwyneth, by the back door.

"And where have you been child? I was shouting."

"In the stables." She said. "Breaking the ice for Sampson."

"Then get back in there and bridle him. We've got bigger problems. The stiffs are getting restless again. Mr Redpath's grandmother, she's on her feet and roaming about out there in the street."

"Mr Sneed, for shame. How many more times? Its ungodly."

"Don't look at me like its my fault. Anyway, we need to find her. She was 86. She can't have got far."

"What about Mr Redpath? Did you deal with him?"

"No." He said solemnly. "She did."

"That's awful sir. I know this is not my place, and please forgive me for talking out of turn, but this is getting beyond us now. Something terrible is happening. We need to get help."

"And we will, child, as soon as that old woman is back here and safely locked up. Now stop prevaricating. Get the hearse ready. We're going body snatching."

"I did it. Give the man a medal!" Said The Doctor, bringing the TARDIS in to land. "Earth, Naples, 24th of December, 1860."

"That's so weird." Said Rose. "Christmas 1860. Only happens once, then its finished. It'll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone. 100,000 sunsets ago. No wonder you never stay still."

"Not a bad life." Grinned The Doctor.

"Better with two." She smiled. "Come on then." She hurried towards the door, only for The Doctor to stop her.

"And where are you going?" He said.

"1860."

"What, dressed like that?"

Rose looked down at herself. She was still wearing the purple hoodie and jeans she'd stepped into the TARDIS in. Truth be told, they were starting to smell.

"There's a wardrobe down there." The Doctor said, pointing to the interior door. "First left. second right. Under the stairs. Past the bins. Fifth door on your left. Hurry up!"

Sneed drove the hearse through the snow covered streets. They'd tried following the old woman's footprints but they'd quickly disappeared in the sheer mass of prints from the people and horses who'd walked through the streets since last it had snowed.

"She's vanished into the ether sir, where could she be?." Bemoaned Gwyneth.

"You tell me girl." Sneed suggested in a hushed tone.

"What do you mean sir?"

"You know full well."

Gwyneth went pale. "Sir I can't!"

"Use the sight. Find out where she is!"

"It's not right sir." She pleaded.

"Find the old lady. Or you're dismissed. Look inside girl. Look deep. Where is she?"

Gwyneth winced and closed her eyes. A moment later, she opened them again, though now they had an unfocused look about them. "She's lost." She said calmly. "And so alone. There's so many strange things in her head."

"But where?"

"She was excited. About tonight. She was going to see him."

"Who?"

"The great man. The great writer. Performing tonight."

Glancing on a poster on a nearby wall, Mr Sneed suddenly knew exactly where their runaway body would be.

Charles sat in his dressing room, weary from travelling, weary from the constant demand for readings. He looked up as a stagehand came into his room.

"Mr Dickens, sir." Said the stagehand. "This is your call." The man noticed that Charles was rubbing his temples and became concerned. "Everything alright sir?"

"What?" Said Charles. "Oh, fine, fine. It's just starting to get to me. Christmas eve. Not the best time to be alone."

"No-one with you sir?" Said the man. "No lady wife out front?"

"No. Not this time."

The man got a cheeky grin. "Well you can have mine if you like!"

Charles smiled. "I'd better not." He played along. "I've been, somewhat less than attentive with family matters. Don't want to be causing more trouble than I can handle. I don't think I can cope much longer with all of this."

"You speak as if it's all over, sir?"

"No. It'll never be over. I'm always in demand." He nodded to a poster on the wall, which announced that he'd be making a live reading tonight. "Every year, the same show. Like a ghost, I am doomed to repeat myself for all eternity."

"If that's the case, you could make some new stuff?"

"I don't think I have it in me anymore. There's only so many ideas a man can have. I'm old now. Perhaps I've seen all there is to see." He sighed and had some water to build his strength. "Still, the limelight beckons once more."

The TARDIS wardrobe was larger than the department store Rose had once worked in. A part of her mind wondered if someone had redeveloped part of Narnia to fit this all in.

The men's clothes were arranged higgledy-piggledy, it was just like The Doctor to pay little attention to neatness, but the women's clothes were much neater. Each row filled with clothes from a different planet, arranged in chronological order.

Rose wandered down the Earth aisle, which began with styles she'd seen the guests on Platform 1 wearing and varied as she wandered back chronologically. From clothing types similar to those she wore, to sparkly cat suits and strange pvc suits shirts with fins.

She passed the 20th century clothes, noting that they were nicer than anything she had at home, and finally got to the Victorian dresses. Here she picked one in her size, along with some earrings. She also found a book of Victorian hair styles and sat in a mirror sorting it out.

Finally, she was ready. She returned to the console room to find The Doctor having pulled up one of the floor panels to work on equipment under the grating. She cleared her throat loudly to get his attention, and his eyes abruptly went wide.

"Wow." He said. "You look beautiful... Considering."

"Considering what?"

"That you're human. Anyway, c'mon. Let's explore."

Rose looked him over. "Aren't you gonna' change?"

"I've changed my jumper."

A thought occurred to her. "Do you ever change outfits?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I've got plenty of spares, so it's usually clean. When you have a good look why change it?" He'd climbed back onto the grating now and replaced the cover. "Let's go."

"No no." Said Rose. "You've led the way out enough times. Now it's my turn."

A cold breeze hit her as she pushed open the door and she briefly wished she'd brought a coat. It was a beautiful snowy night outside. She took a step out and felt the snow crunch underfoot. Once more, she marvelled at the fact that she was physically in the past, at a point which up till then had existed for her only in books.

The Doctor closed the doors behind her and took her arm, together, they walked round the corner into the main road. If Rose had had her camera, she could have made a Christmas card out of what she saw here. It was the typical Victorian Christmas scene, with horse drawn carriages rolling through the snow. Choirs out singing in the gas-lit streets and crowds dashing from shop to shop, preparing for Christmas day.

The Doctor, meanwhile, had found someone who'd finished the newspaper and took a look at it himself. "I went a bit wrong," he said, "this isn't 1860, its 1869."

But Rose was too entranced by the scenes around her. "I don't care."

"And this isn't Naples."

"I don't care."

"It's Cardiff."

Rose's face fell.

Charles read to the packed theatre. He paused and punctuated where it felt appropriate, putting as much emotion into his reading as possible, "Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including - which is a bold word - the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change - not a knocker, but Marley's face.

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look. It looked..." He faltered as he spotted something alarming in the crowd. "It looked... My God. It looked... like that!"

Everyone turned in the direction he was staring, to see the body that had once belonged to Mrs Peace sat in the centre of a row. But that wasn't the alarming thing. The creature that had inhabited her body was growing unstable and a blue, glowing gas was seeping from every orifice in her head. "What phantasmagoria is this?" Dickens growled.

Peace's head turned back and the body let out a screaming sound as the spirit poured from her mouth and spun around the room. The rest of the audience also began screaming and rushed for the exits more desperately than if the place had been set on fire.

Walking outside, The Doctor and Rose heard the screaming. "That's more like it!" He cried.

Sneed and Gwyneth entered via a side door. "There she is!" The servant girl cried. The spirit was circling the room like a snake, still streaming from the woman's mouth. The tongues of the gas seemed to be desperately trying to form a human shape, before currents in the air would disturb them again.

"I can see that!" Sneed cried. "The whole world can see that!"

The Doctor and Rose, meanwhile, were pushing their way past the crowds, into the theatre.

"Fantastic." Said The Doctor, staring at the creature swarming round the hall. Only Rose looked down at the crowd, where the last of it was emerging from Peace's mouth. The woman promptly collapsed to the floor.

The Doctor had run up to the stage, where the performer was trying to reassure the crowds that this was all a lantern show. Someone's idea of a joke.

"Did you see where it came from?" The Doctor asked.

"Ah, the wag reveals himself, does he?" Dickens snarled. "I trust you're satisfied!"

"It came from her!" Rose shouted. She pointed, only to see Gwyneth and Sneed carrying the woman out between them. "Oy!" She shouted. "I'll get them!"

"Be careful!" The Doctor replied. He hauled himself on stage to get a better look at the creature. "Did it say anything? Can it speak? I'm The Doctor, by the way."

"Doctor?" Said Charles. "You look more like a nanny to me."

The Doctor frowned. "What's wrong with this jumper?"

"What're you doing!" Rose shouted, running up to the undertakers as they stuffed the woman in the back of the hearse.

"Don't worry yourself miss. The master and I are dealing with it." Gwyneth said, blocking her from view. "The fact is, this woman's been taken ill with a brain fever, miss. We have to get her to the infirmary."

Rose shoved the Welshwoman aside and had a closer look. The old woman's face was pale and grey, feeling for a pulse, Rose found the skin stone cold. "She's dead! What have you done to her?"

Sneed had snuck up behind her and clamped a chloroform soaked rag across her face. A few seconds of struggling and Rose fell to the ground.

"What did you do that for?" Gwyneth cried.

"She's seen too much. We'll have to take her with us. Help me get her in the back."