The Doctor, Dickens, and Virgo all watched the blue, misty figure fly into a gas lamp, making it flicker a bit before disappearing completely. Now this was new: dealing with some gas-like creature that takes over dead corpses that had recently become corpses. So... they're ghosts, right?

"Gas!" the Doctor exclaimed. "It's made of gas." That's when he took Virgo's hand and dashed outside the theatre, Dickens following them because he wanted to know how this man was able create these illusions that cost him his audience. Granted, he could do this tomorrow night or the night after that, but would people still come after the audience tonight have told everyone about the illusion?

The three of them made it outside, just in time to spot Gwyneth stuff Rose's head into the hearse that had the dead woman inside, shutting and locking the tiny doors, then dashing back to the front to drive the hearse back to their chapel.

"Again?" Virgo breathed, watching the hearse drive off... or trot off, as it was the horse doing the work and not gas and engines... hmm. "Does she not know self defense?" She shook her head in disbelief.

"You're not escaping me," Dickens finally caught up to them, as he was not very fit for running anymore. "What do you know about that hobgoblin, hmm? Projection on glass, I suppose. Who put you up to it?"

"We don't have time for you right now!" Virgo shouted at him, startling both Dickens and the Doctor, but she didn't have time for apologies. Their companion just got kidnapped by two humans, and she knew human kidnappers could be very cruel people when they do unkind things to the victims, and she was not about to let Rose suffer that fate.

So, she lifted up her dress, silently saying, "I told you so" to Rose because she did have to run, and ran over to a nearby carriage, opened the door, and settled herself inside. The Doctor was right behind her, but so was Mr. Dickens.

"Oi, you!" the Doctor told the driver as he shut the door to the coach. "Follow that hearse!"

"I can't do that, sir," the driver replied to him with a glare.

"Why not?" the Time Lord frowned, just wanting to help Virgo save Rose, because right now she was tearing up the seat with her nails to keep herself from getting out and pushing the driver out of the way so she could just follow the hearse, herself.

Dickens opened the door closest to the Doctor, "I'll tell you why not, I'll give you a very good reason why not because this is my coach!"

"Well, get in, then!" the Doctor grabbed Dickens by the collar and pulled him inside the carriage.

"Move!" Virgo shouted at the driver, but he just shook his head at her.

"Afraid I can't do that, ma'am," the driver stated. "You see, you're a-"

He didn't have time to finish that sentence, because at that point, Virgo actually got out of the coach, stormed over to the driver, grabbed his collar, and tossed him to the side of the street. She then climbed up to the little seat that the driver was sitting in and grabbed the reigns, ignoring the whip (that's just a cruel way to make a horse go), and got the horse trotting down the street to where she last saw the hearse go.

"What the Devil is she doing?!" Dickens gaped through the window, very shocked and surprised that a woman was doing a man's job, not to mention that she just, literally, threw him out into the streets! Was she mad?

"Come on, you're losing them!" the Doctor told her, trying to see out the window.

"Mister Dickens, please distract him for me, would you?" Virgo grumbled, though she was feeling better after she had thrown the poor driver out, but feeling guilty because he probably had a rather bad bruise on his bottom or back now. Well, serves him right for not listening to a woman.

"Stop this coach right now!" Dickens demanded, refusing to listen to her command.

The Doctor, on the other hand, merely widened his eyes and looked between the wall separating him from Virgo and the brilliant man called Charles Dickens, "What did she say?"

"Let me say this first: I'm not without a sense of humour," Dickens said.

"Dickens?" the Doctor stared at him.

"Yes."

"Charles Dickens?"

"Yes."

"The Charles Dickens?"

"Did you not pay attention to the date, Doctor?" Virgo scoffed from upfront, able to hear everything they're saying. "It's 1869, who else could he be? Caesar?"

"Charles Dickens?" the Doctor laughed with joy, beaming that he was sitting in the same coach as the master, himself. "You're brilliant, you are. Completely 100 percent brilliant. I've read them all! Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and... what's the other one, the one with the ghost?"

"A Christmas Carol?" Dickens eyed him oddly, liking the praise as he always had been, but still had no idea what was going on and why they were following the hearse and why the woman up front was so angry and/or worried.

"No, no, no, the one with the trains," the Doctor snapped his fingers repeatedly as he searched for the title. "The Signal-Man, that's it. Terrifying! The best short story ever written. You're a genius! Honestly, Charles - can I call you Charles? I'm such a big fan."

"A what?" the brilliant man frowned at the last sentence. "A big what?"

"Fan. Number one fan, that's me."

"How exactly are you a fan? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?"

"No, it means fanatic, devoted to," the Doctor explained to him, mentally slapping him for forgetting that there was no such thing as a number one fan in these times. Well, that's another thing he created early: fans. "Mind you, I've got to say, that American bit in Martin Chuzzlewit, what's that about? Was that just padding or what? I mean, it's rubbish, that bit."

Dickens just looked like a mix between crushed and puzzled, "I thought you said you were my fan."

"Ah, well, if you can't take criticism," the Doctor shrugged. "Go on, do the death of Little Nell, it cracks me up." He then shook his head, remembering why they were in Dickens's coach in the first place. "No, sorry, forget about that. Come on, faster!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Virgo shouted back at him. In fact, the horse was probably moving faster than it should be, but she really didn't care.

"Who exactly is in that hearse?" Dickens questioned the Doctor.

"Our friend," he replied. "She's only nineteen. It's my fault. She's in my care, and now she's in danger."

"Our care!" Virgo corrected, making the Doctor chuckle a bit.

The only human in the coach nodded in understanding, now understanding why Virgo had been lashing out at his driver (he'd have to see if he was alright later).

"Why are we wasting my time talking about dry, old books?" he declared. "This is much more important. Madame, be swift. The chase is on!"

"No problem!" Virgo laughed, her worry slowly vanishing now that Dickens was in on following the hearse, now, too, so he wouldn't be an issue later. Fantastic! Oh, she was turning into the Doctor now, they had been alone in the TARDIS too long.

"Attaboy, Charlie," the Doctor patted the man's back.

"Nobody calls me Charlie," the said man stared at him as if the Doctor had two heads.

"The ladies do."

"How do you know that?"

"I told you, I'm your number one-"

"Number one fan," Dickens finished the Doctor's sentence with a laugh.

SCENE BREAK

Gwyneth and Sneed had managed to get back to the chapel before Virgo could catch them, so they had time to get Rose and the old woman inside, starting with the old woman because neither of them wanted the poor girl to wake up directly next to a corpse; Sneed wasn't that mean.

They had finished putting the old woman back into her coffin, so now it was Rose's turn. No, they weren't going to put her in a coffin, so they just decided to lay her on the table where the old woman's coffin had been.

"The poor girl's still alive, sir!" Gwyneth helped her master heave Rose onto the targeted table. "What're we going to do with her?"

"I don't know!" Sneed snapped at her. "I didn't plan any of this, did I? It isn't my fault if the dead won't stay dead!"

"Then who's fault is it, sir?" Gwyneth asked sadly. "Why is this happening to us?" She turned and walked out of the room, Sneed following behind her, locking and closing the door.

As soon as they left, the gas lamps were flickering mysteriously while hushed voices were heard throughout the room.

Out in the hallway, Gwyneth took off her winter cloak and fixed herself as she walked around, Sneed following her around.

"I did the Bishop a favour once," he said. "Made his nephew look like a cherub even though he'd been a fortnight in the weir. Perhaps he'll do us an exorcism on the cheap."

The two of them paused in their walking when there was a knocking on the front door, both of them already guessing who it could be.

"Say I'm not in," Sneed told the maid. "Tell them we're closed. Just... just get rid of them."

He walked into another room to eavesdrop on the conversation in case something goes wrong, while Gwyneth obeyed his orders and went over to the front door.

SCENE BREAK

Rose woke up with a pounding headache, wincing immediately at the pain, a side effect from the stupid knock out thing. What was it called again? Chloroform! It's a nasty, little bugger.

She slowly sat up, not paying attention at her surroundings just yet (she'll get to that later); she needed to try and get rid of the headache, which was slowly fading away.

Since she was doing that, she was completely oblivious that a Mr. Redpath had sat up from his coffin and stared at her, mouth slightly open and eyes similar to his grandmother's.

SCENE BREAK

Gwyneth opened the front door to reveal Dickens, the Doctor, and Virgo standing outside, Dickens directly in front of the door.

"I'm sorry, sir," the maid apologized with a shaking voice. "We're closed."

"Nonsense," Dickens scoffed. "Since when did an Undertaker keep office hours? The dead don't die on schedule. I demand to see your master."

"He's not in, sir," Gwyneth shook her head quickly, silently pleading for them to go away.

"Don't lie to me, child. Summon him at once."

"I'm awfully sorry, Mister Dickens, but the master's indisposed."

A gas lamp on the wall by the stairs behind Gwyneth started to flicker, like in Rose's little prison room, something that didn't go unnoticed by everyone outside the chapel.

"Having trouble with your gas?" the Doctor taunted, Gwyneth swallowing hard, knowing that Sneed wasn't going to be very pleased by this later on.

"What the Shakespeare is going on?" Dickens exclaimed, absolutely confused at how the gas lamps would react like that with no known cause.

SCENE BREAK

Rose finally heard the moaning that Redpath was producing and snapped her head in his direction, eyes widening at the sight. She quickly got off her table, nearly tripping in the process since everything was still a bit fuzzy, but she'll be alright in a minute or two.

"Are you all right?" she asked, backing away from the coffin. "You're kidding me, yeah? You're just kidding. You are kidding me, aren't you?"

Redpath was not kidding, as he slowly got out of his coffin and walked like a zombie toward her, while his grandmother rose out of her coffin as well.

"Okay, not kidding," Rose nodded to herself and raced to the door, and what do you know? It's locked! Wow, that's such a surprise! What would happen if she kept turning the knob like it'll open? Absolutely nothing.

SCENE BREAK

The Doctor ran past the maid and over to the wall with the gas lamp, putting his laughably large ear against the wall to try and see if there was something inside the wall that could make the gas lamp behave like it was right now.

"You're not allowed inside, sir," Gwyneth hissed at him, constantly looking down the hall in case Sneed walked in and saw the Doctor inside.

"There's something inside the walls," he waved her off, eyes full of curiosity, completely forgetting about Rose for a minute. "The gas pipes. Something's living inside the gas."

"Let me out!" the four of them heard Rose's voice shoutout through the door, slightly muffled. "Open the door!"

Gwyneth closed her eyes tightly; they had been caught... if that wasn't obvious enough.

"That's her," the Doctor confirmed.

"'Scuse me," Virgo squeezed past the slightly panicking maid and jogged over to where she heard Rose's frantic pleas, hoping that, if she was hurt, she wasn't in terrible and agonizing pain.

"Please, please, let me out!" her calls were getting closer until it sounded like she was right behind the door. That's when Virgo got out her sonic screwdriver and fixated it on lock, not the door because it was wood, and wood was a sonic's weakness (a very embarrassing weakness, mind you). When she heard a click, she pulled open the door as the Doctor, Dickens, Sneed, and Gwyneth reached her.

Virgo pulled Rose out of the room and into the safety part, more toward the Doctor and Dickens than Sneed and Gwyneth for obvious reasons, just when Redpath was about to grab her.

"Are you all right?" the Time Lady checked Rose over like a very worried mother, feeling her body parts and everything. "They didn't hurt you, right? Nothing broken?"

"I'm fine," Rose nodded slowly, in a daze from everything that had just happened. She had been drugged, woke up in another room with zombies walking toward her, and a horrible headache that was nearly gone now; she wasn't really functional at the moment.

"It's a prank, it must be," Dickens declared with the shake of his head when he saw Redpath and his grandmother standing side by side under the door frame. "We're under some mesmeric influence."

"No, we're not, the dead are walking," the Doctor disagreed, then turned to Rose. "Hi."

"Hi," she gave a small wave to him, then pointed at Dickens. "Who's your friend?"

"Charles Dickens."

"Okay."

The Time Lord turned back to the zombies, "My name's the Doctor. Who are you, then? What do you want?"

"Failing," Redpath spoke with multiple, high-pitched voices that were mixed in with his own. "Open the rift. We're dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us!" He and his grandmother opened their mouths wide open with a scream as gas around them flew into the gas lamps, and when the deed was done, they both collapsed on the floor.

SCENE BREAK

Gwyneth was busy pouring tea into cups on the table while Dickens, Sneed, and Virgo were sitting on the lounge chairs, the Doctor leaning against the fireplace, and Rose was pacing around the room, ranting at Sneed about her abduction. The Doctor was finding the show rather amusing, but Virgo, on the other hand, wasn't looking quite as pleased as him and kept glaring at Sneed. The said man was looking down at the floor in guilt, jumping at every possible opportunity to defend himself.

"First of all, you drug me, then you kidnap me, and don't think I didn't feel your hands having a quick wander, you dirty old man," Rose said angrily, occasionally glaring at him as she walked around the room.

"I won't be spoken to like this!" Sneed declared.

"Shut up, Mister Sneed!" Virgo hissed at him, the man actually looking scared of her terrifying expression. Once he settled more into his chair, she beamed. "Thank you. Rose, continue."

"Then you stuck me in a room full of zombies!" Rose continued, nodding a thanks to the Time Lady. "And if that ain't enough, you swan off and leave me to die! So come on, talk!"

"It's not my fault," Sneed muttered, Rose pausing in her pacing. "It's this house. It always had a reputation: haunted, but I never had much bother until a few months back, and the stiffs, the er... dearly departed started getting restless."

"Tommyrot," Dickens scoffed as he rubbed his forehead tiredly.

"You witnessed it!" Sneed turned around to turn on him. "Can't keep the beggars down, sir. They walk, and it's the queerest thing, but they hang onto the scraps."

Gwyneth went on over to the Doctor and placed his tea cup on the mantle of the fireplace, "Two sugars, sir, just how you like it."

The Doctor nodded... frowned when he realized he never told her that he wanted two sugars in his tea. Well, yes, it was true that he did like two sugars... but that was just weird.

"One old fellow who used to be a sexton almost walked into his own memorial service, just like the old lady going to your performance, sir, just as she planned," Sneed continued to try and convince Dickens, but he would have none of it.

"Morbid fancy," he replied with that.

"Oh, Charles, you were there," the Doctor groaned at him.

Dickens stood up, "I saw nothing but an illusion."

"If you're going to deny it, don't waste my time," the Doctor rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Just shut up. What about the gas?"

"That's new, sir," Sneed shrugged. "Never seen anything like that."

"If it's new, then that means the rift has something sneaking through it, the rift being a weak point in time and space," Virgo explained to them, forcing herself to look away from Sneed and glance at everyone to explain it properly, knowing that the man wouldn't be able to do anything to Rose while she and the Doctor were in the room. "It's a helper of creating ghost stories."

"That's how I got the house so cheap," Sneed nodded. "Stories going back generations."

Dickens shook his head and stood up to leave the room, slamming the door loudly on the way out, unable to believe what he was hearing. The Doctor watched him go, sharing a glance with Virgo, she nodding to him. He understood the message, so he got up from leaning on the fireplace and chased after Dickens while Sneed continued to talk.

"Echoes in the dark, queer songs in the air, and this feeling like a shadow passing over your soul. Mind you, truth be told, it's been good for business, just what people expect from a gloomy, old trade like mine."

SCENE BREAK

Dickens strolled through the hallway and over to the gas lamp he had saw flickering unexplainably (for him). He put his ear against the wall, much like the Doctor had done before.

"Impossible," he muttered with the shake of his head, not hearing anything, so he walked over to the room where Rose had been trapped in with the walking dead people. He took the lid off of Redpath's face and waved his hand in front of his face, expecting Redpath to wince or flinch or open his eyes, any of those would do. When he didn't get the reaction he was hoping for, he crouched down and checked under the table for something to get the man moving up and about.

"Checking for strings?" the Doctor's voice called from the entryway, startling the brilliant man for a moment or two.

"Wires, perhaps," Dickens sighed, standing up straight and fixed up his vest. "There must be some mechanism behind this fraud."

"Oh, come on, Charles," the Doctor strode over to him and put his hands on the human's shoulders. "All right, I shouldn't have told you to shut up. I'm sorry, but you've got one of the best minds in the world. You saw those gas creatures."

"I cannot accept that," Dickens argued.

"And what does the human body do when it decomposes? It breaks down and produces gas; perfect home for these gas things. They can slip inside and use it as a vehicle, just like your driver and his coach."

"Stop it," Dickens held a hand in front of the Doctor in the form of stopping someone. "Can it be that I have the world entirely wrong?"

"Not wrong, there's just more to learn."

"I've always railed against fantasists. Oh, I loved an illusion as much as the next man, revelled in them, but that's exactly what they were: illusions. The real world is something else. I dedicated myself to that; injustices, the great social causes. I hoped that I was a force for good. Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of spectres and jack-o-lanterns, in which case, have I wasted my brief span here, Doctor? Has is been for nothing?"

SCENE BREAK

Gwyneth was unaware that Rose was in the kitchen with her, washing up the dishes in the sink, as she was lighting up a gas lamp to put some light into the room. She blew out the match and tossed it in the trash before turning to go to the sink, then gasped when she saw what Rose was doing. She quickly dashed over to her and took the plate out of her hands.

"Please, miss, you shouldn't be helping, it's not right," the maid protested with wide eyes, as if horrified someone in an upper class was doing housework.

"Don't be daft," Rose scoffed, putting the rag down on the side table. "Sneed works you to death. How much do you get paid?"

"Eight pound a year, miss," Gwyneth answered with a shrug, as if it was a normal wage for maids and manservants throughout Cardiff.

"How much?" Rose gaped, forgetting for a second that this wasn't the 21st century.

"I know," Gwyneth nodded, taking Rose's surprise as shock that it was a lot of money for a maid. "I would've been happy with six."

"So, did you go to school or what?"

"Of course I did," the maid looked moderately offended. "What do you think I am, an urchin? I went every Sunday, nice and proper."

"What, once a week?!"

"We did sums and everything. To be honest, I hated every second."

"Me, too," Rose laughed, remembering the times where she acted like her stomach was hurting so bad so that Jackie wouldn't make her go to school, and then she would be able to listen to her tunes when her mother wasn't in the room, giving her soup.

"Don't tell anyone, but one week, I didn't go and ran on the heath all on my own," Gwyneth got real close to her, as if it was a secret, and laughed excitedly.

"I did plenty of that," Rose nodded in relation. "I used to go down the shops with my mate, Shareen. We used to go and look at boys."

Gwyneth's laughter suddenly stopped with a frown, "Well, I don't know much about that, miss." She turned and put a bottle on a shelf, causing Rose to smirk. How cute, she was probably embarrassed or something... or she really didn't know much about that.

"Come on, times haven't changed that much," Rose pushed the maid playfully. "I bet you've done the same."

"I don't think so, miss."

"Gwyneth, you can tell me. I bet you've got your eye on someone."

The said maid slowly turned around with a small smile, "I suppose. There is one lad. The butcher's boy. He comes by every Tuesday. Such a lovely smile on him." Though she wasn't about to tell her that the boy was being eyed by many women around the block, as he was certainly a pleasant view to look at. The odds of her and him ever getting together were very, very slim, sadly.

"I like a nice smile," Rose agreed with a nod. "Good smile, nice bum."

"Well, I have never heard the like," Gwyneth frowned again after a chuckle.

"Ask him out, give him a cup of tea or something; that's a start."

"I swear it is the strangest thing, miss. You've got all the clothes and the breeding, but you talk like some sort of wild thing."

"Maybe I am," Rose shrugged distantly. "Maybe that's a good thing. You need a bit more in your life than Mister Sneed."

"Oh, now that's not fair," Gwyneth pouted. "He's not so bad, old Sneed. He was very kind to take me in because I lost my mum and dad to the flu when I was twelve."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rose frowned and patted the maid's shoulder.

"Thank you, miss, but I'll be with them again, one day, sitting with them in paradise. I shall be so blessed. They're waiting for me... maybe your dad's up there waiting for you, too, miss."

"Maybe," Rose eyed her oddly. "Er, who told you he was dead?"

"I don't know... must have been the Doctor or Virgo."

"My father died years back," the blonde eyed the maid suspiciously now. Rose hadn't even told the Time Lords anything about her father yet, though she was planning to eventually. She wasn't exactly 'friends' with them yet... more like good acquaintances. It takes a lot from a person to be her friend, and she only tells close friends about her father... unlike Jackie, who blurts it out to anyone who'll listen, though she has gotten better recently.

"But you've been thinking about him lately more than ever."

"I suppose so... how do you know all this?"

"Mister Sneed says I think too much," Gwyneth gestured to her head. "I'm all alone down here. I bet you've got dozens of servants, haven't you, miss?"

"No, no servants where I'm from," Rose shook her head, though not minding the idea of someone coming over to her flat to do her laundry for her from time to time.

"And you've come such a long way," Gwyneth stated.

"What makes you think so?"

"You're from London," Gwyneth stared into Rose's eyes, somehow knowing everything about her now. "I've seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half naked, for shame. And the noise, and the metal boxes racing past, and the birds in the sky... no, they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People are flying. And you, you've flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you've seen. The darkness... the big Bad Wolf." The maid suddenly stumbled, Rose jumping out of her shock and rushed over to help support her. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, miss."

"It's all right," Rose reassured her, though still clearly weirded out by Gwyneth's accurate description for a woman in this time period.

"I can't help it!" the maid shook her head quickly. "Ever since I was a little girl, my mum said I had the Sight. She told me to hide it."

"But it's getting stronger, more powerful, is that right?" the Doctor's voice from the doorway startled both girls, Virgo not with any of them because she wanted to keep a close eye on Sneed, not trusting him for one minute, even if what he did was out in fear.

"All the time, sir," Gwyneth nodded solemnly. "Every night, voices in my head."

"You grew up on top of it," he said. "You're part of it, you're the key."

"I've tried to make sense of it, sir," Gwyneth promised. "Consulted with spiritualists, tables rappers, all sorts."

"Well, that should help. You can show us what to do."

"What to do where, sir?"

"We're going to have a séance."

A/N: Just wanted to say right now that this certainly isn't my favorite episode of all time, so that could be why the last two chapters have been a little... well, blah, you know? It's just kind of boring with no immediate danger (compared to other episodes) anytime soon, but we do get Dickens, which is very nice :)