The Sneed parlor was dimly lit as everyone sat around a round table. Sitting in between Dickens and Gwyneth, Charlotte looked over to the woman on her left as she began speaking. "This is how Madam Mortlock summons those from the Land of Mists," Gwyneth tells them. "Down in Mid Town. Come. We must all join hands."

With a shake of his head, Charles stood up from his spot. "I can't take part in this," he said.

"Humbug?" replied the Doctor, "Come on, open mind."

"This is precisely the sort of cheap mummery I try to un-mask. Seances? Nothing but tambourines and a squeezebox concealed between the knees. This girl knows nothing."

"Now, don't antagonize her." The Doctor grins, looking over at Rose. "I love a happy medium."

As Charlotte rolled her eyes, Rose shook her head with a smile. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Come on, we might need you," the Doctor tells Charles. Begrudgingly, he sits back down and takes hold of Charlotte and Rose's outstretched hands. "Good man. Now, Gwyneth. Reach out."

Gwyneth takes in a deep breath before beginning. "Speak to us. Are you there? Spirits? Come. Speak to us that we may relieve your burden." Gwyneth raises her head to the ceiling as quiet, murmuring voices filled the room.

"Can you hear that?" Asked Rose in a whisper.

"Nothing can happen," Charles denied again. "This is sheer folly."

"Look at her." Rose nods her head over at Gwyneth, who still looks up to the ceiling.

"I see them. I feel them!" The blue, gaseous beings began to fill the room, but their mumblings were still unclear.

"What're they saying?" Rose questioned.

"They can't get through the rift." The Doctor looks back at Gwyneth. "Gwyneth, it's not controlling you, you're controlling it. Now look deep. Allow them through."

"I can't!"

Charlotte looks away from the gas and looked straight at her. "Yes, you can. We have faith in you, Gwyneth. Just make the link."

Closing her eyes, Gwyneth continues to look up as she tried to create the link. Then, she lowered her head and opened up her eyes. "Yes." Suddenly, three blue figures made of the gas appear behind her; the Gelth. In shock, Charles' mouth was agape.

"Great God!" Exclaimed Sneed. "Spirits from the other side."

"The other side of the universe," the Doctor added.

The Gelth, with Gwyneth, began speaking in childlike voices, "Pity us. Pity the Gelth. There is so little time, help us."

"What do you want us to do?"

"The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge."

The Doctor looked up to them, continuing to question further, "What for?"

"We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction."

"Why?" The Doctor asked them. "What happened?"

"Once we had a physical form like you. But then the war."

Intrigued, Charles looks up to the Gelth. "War? What war?"

"The Time War." Both Charlotte and Rose glanced at the Doctor, who looked back at them with outwardly no reaction.

"The whole universe convulsed," the Gelth continued. "The Time War raged invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms. Our bodies wasted away. We're trapped in this gaseous state."

"So that's why you need the corpses," the Doctor realized.

"We want to stand tall. To feel the sunlight. To live again. We need a physical form, and your dead are abandoned. They're going to waste, give them to us!"

Rose's eyebrows furrowed together, "But we can't."

The Doctor looked over to her. "Why not?"

"It's not… I mean, it's not…"

"Not decent? Not polite? It could save their lives," the Doctor tells her. Looking away from the Gelth and to them, Charlotte saw an unhappy Rose giving him no arguments.

"Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth!" Quickly, the Gelth return to the lamps and disappear, leaving Gwyneth to collapse forward onto the table from holding the connection up so long.

"Gwyneth!" Charlotte gasped, standing up from her spot, she held the woman up- easily seeing she fell unconscious.

"Is she alright?" Rose worried, moving to stand close behind her.

Charlotte nodded her head, thankful for her concern. "She'll be fine, just help me get her to the couch." Rose then aided her in helping Gwyneth up and to the couch.

Charles, meanwhile, was still awestruck at what happened in front of him. "All true… it's all true…" he said to himself, while the Doctor remains as silent as a doorknob.

Sitting down beside the couch, Charlotte watches Gwyneth carefully as Rose patted her forehead with a cloth. Noticing her fidgeting ever so slightly, Charlotte leans in her seat as Gwyneth's eyes open… growing when she realizes she's laying on the parlor's couch.

"It's alright," Rose tells her. "You just sleep."

"But my angels,"- Charlotte quailed at Gwyneth's use of the word- "miss. They came, didn't they? They need me?"

The Doctor, who leaned against the doorframe, watching intently, spoke up, "They do need you, Gwyneth. You're they're only chance of survival."

Charlotte turns to face him angrily. "You need to let her rest a moment. She's exhausted." Turning back to Gwyneth, she couldn't see the Doctor sigh exasperatedly. "Here, drink up." Charlotte handed her a glass of water, and Gwyneth took it.

"Well, what did you say, Doctor?" Sneed, sitting down in the room beside the parlor, asked. "Explain it again. What are they?"

"Aliens."

"Like… foreigners, you mean?"

"Pretty foreign, yeah. From up there." He pointed up to the ceiling.

Mr. Sneed tilts his head. "Brecon?" From her spot, Charlotte chuckled.

"Close," the Doctor responds. "They've been trying to get through from Brecon to Cardiff but the road's blocked. Only a few can get through and even then they're weak. They can only test drive the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas and hide in the pipes."

Charles sets his drink on the fireplace mantle. "Which is why they need the girl," he discerned.

Rose turns to face them from where she sat beside Gwyneth. "They're not having her!"

"But she can help," said the Doctor. "Living on the rift, she's become part of it, she can open it up, make a bridge and let them through."

Charles begins to pace around in the lounge area. "Incredible. Ghosts that are not ghosts but beings from another world who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers."

"Good system. It might work."

Rose stood up from her seat and moved in front of the Doctor. "You can't let them run around inside dead people!"

"Why not? It's like recycling."

"Seriously though, you can't!"

"Seriously though, I can!"

Charlotte rolled her eyes at their exchange. In fact, she agreed with both of them to a point. Yes, she wanted to respect the deceased, and having the Gelth possess their bodies felt wrong. Knowing how it'll end, she knew they couldn't. But if there were actually only a few, perhaps she'd agree with the Doctor more so than Rose (no matter how awful it felt).

"It's just… wrong!" Rose tells him. "Those bodies were living people! We should respect them even in death!"

He thought for a second. "Do you carry a donor card?"

"That's different, that's…"

"It's different, yeah. It's a different morality. Get used to it or go home." At that, Rose stood in silent surprise at his harsh words. The Doctor begins speaking gentler, "You heard what they said, time's short. I can't worry about a few corpses when the last of the Gelth could be dying."

"I don't care, they're not using her."

"Don't I get a say, miss?" They both turn over to where Gwyneth sits up on the couch.

"Look," Rose began, smiling down at her. "You don't understand what's going on."

"You would say that miss. Because that's very clear inside your head, that you think I'm stupid."

Rose immediately shook her head. "That's not fair!"

"It's true, though. Things might be very different where you're from. But here and now, I know my own mind. And the angels need me. Doctor, what do I have to do?"

Instead of him, Charlotte looked over at Gwyneth, worried for her newfound friend. "You're sure that you want to do this?"

"They've been singing to me since I was a child," said Gwyneth with a bright smile. "Sent by my mum on a holy mission. So tell me."

The Doctor grins down at her. "We need to find the rift," he said, approaching the table Charles and Sneed sat at. "This house is on a weak spot, so there must be a spot that's weaker than any other. Mr. Sneed, what's the weakest part of this house? The place where most of the ghosts have been seen?"

"That would be…" he thinks for a second. "- the morgue."

Rose, sitting on the couch beside Gwyneth, sighed. "No chance you were gonna say gazebo, was there?"

Charlotte smirks, "Now, where's the fun in that?"

As they began walking down the hallway to the morgue, where Gwyneth will meet her end, Charlotte stopped her while everyone continued down. "Gwyneth? Could we talk?"

"Yes, miss. Just make it quick."

"I just…" Charlotte sighed. 'I met this other psychic not long ago, and I got a little put off by her… snooping. Not her fault, I know, just got a little emotional and said something about "hating psychics." And… I just wanted you to know if anything happens, that after meeting you I, um, realize how wrong I was.'

Gwyneth smiled. "It's quite alright, miss."

"Yeah, yeah. It's just, she tried to help me talk about something that happened and I sort of ran off. But I think now I might be ready to take her advice, and that wouldn't have happened if I didn't- didn't…" Charlotte sniffled slightly as she began to tear up, finally catching hold of the time that's running out. All of a sudden, she caught Gwyneth off guard when she wrapped her in a hug.

"Gwyneth!" They heard the Doctor calling from ahead, where the morgue's door stood intimidatingly. "Charlotte!"

Walking into the bleak, lamp-lit morgue, Charlotte rubbed away the few tears on her cheeks and looked down at the deceased bodies covered with tarps sadly. However, she quickly got disgusted at the sight of seeing one's pale hand hanging off the edge.

Rose turns to the Doctor once taking the room in. "The thing is, Doctor, the Gelth don't succeed. 'Cause I know they don't. I know for a fact there weren't corpses walking around in 1869."

"Time's in flux. It's changing every second. Your cozy little world could be rewritten like that." He snaps his fingers. "Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing." On his final word, Charlotte felt the hair at the back of her neck stick up as it became cooler.

"Doctor," Charles catches his attention, "I think the room is getting colder."

"Here they come."

From the lamps, the Gelth leader appears before them, floating in the archway. With its childlike voice, it spoke quickly, "You have come to help! Praise the Doctor! Praise him!"

"Promise you won't hurt her!" Rose demands the Gelth.

"Hurry! Please. So little time. Pity the Gelth."

"I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer. Somewhere you can build proper bodies," the Doctor informs the Gelth. "This isn't a permanent solution, alright?"

Gwyneth looked up to the creature kindly. "My angels. I can help them live."

"Okay, where's the weak point?"

"Here, beneath the arch."

Gwyneth, without question, moved beneath the arch and stood in front of the Gelth. From the crowd, Charlotte admired her sadly- she was so ready, without question, to help the Gelth and they'll stab her in the back. Rose rushed forward to Gwyneth, "You don't have to do this."

Gwyneth cups her hands on Rose's cheeks. "My angels." Then, Rose stumbled back as Gwyneth's face grew stony as she became focused.

"Establish the bridge, reach out of the void, let us through!"

"Yes. I can see you! I can see you! Come!"

"Bridgehead establishing."

"Come! Come to me! Come to this world, poor lost souls!"

"It is begun!" The Gelth leader announced. "The bridge is made!"

Gwyneth opened up her mouth and the blue, gaseous Gelth began pouring out by the dozen into the room. "She has given herself to the Gelth!" The leader exclaimed in pride.

Looking around as they swarmed around the room, Charles says, "There's rather a lot of them, eh?"

"The bridge is open. We descend." The Gelth's once kind, blue appearance turns red and produces sharp teeth. It's childlike voice now deepened and become raspier, "The Gelth will come through in force."

"You said that you were few in number!" Charles reminded, looking at the Gelth leader in shock from its transformation.

"A few billion. And all of us in need of corpses." The Gelth roaming around the room began entering the bodies of the dead- one sitting up perfectly straight in bed under a tarp.

"Gwyneth… stop this!" Mr. Sneed stepped forward to order her. "Listen to your master! This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, leave these things alone. I beg of you-"

"Mr. Sneed! Get back!" Warned Rose, but it was too late. A pale, bearded man in a hospital gown grabs the old Sneed from behind and holds him back as another Gelth takes refuge in his body through his mouth. Moving back together the Doctor, Rose, and Charlotte watched in silent fear as Mr. Sneed looked back at them with his dead, white eyes.

"I think it's gone a little bit wrong…" says the Doctor.

Then, Mr. Sneed begins to speak alongside the demonic Gelth leader. "I have joined the legions of the Gelth," he said. "Come. March with us."

As Charles stands away from them, the corpses begin to close in on the three. Charlotte gulps looking towards Mr. Sneed as he marches in front of them.

"We need bodies. All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead."

They continued to be pushed towards a dungeon door as the Doctor shouts to Gwyneth, "Gwyneth, stop them! Send them back! Now!"

"Four more bodies," the Gelth leader counted. "Make them vessels for the Gelth."

Charles looks around the room in a great panic as corpses begin to near him. "I… I can't! I'm sorry!"

The Doctor pays no attention to Charles as he pushes Rose and Charlotte into the small dungeon in the morgue. Following them, the Doctor closes the gate behind him, locking them inside as the possessed corpses clamber at the bar door to get in.

Charles continued to look around in the morgue, unsure what to do, "It's too much for me! I'm so…" Seeing no other choice, Charles Dickens books it from the room.

"Give yourself to glory!" Implored their leader. "Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth."

"I trusted you," said the Doctor, looking at them as they stood at their door with their arms outstretched through the door, causing them to resort to pressing their back to the rock. "I pitied you!"

"We don't want your pity! We want this world and all its flesh."

"Not while I'm alive."

"Then live no more." The corpses began rattling at their door, trying to get in.

"But I can't die," Rose said, looking back-and-forth to the both of them. "Tell me I can't! I haven't even been born yet, it's impossible for me to die! Isn't it?!"

The Doctor looks away from the dead and to her. "I'm sorry."

"But it's 1869, how can I die now?"

"Time isn't a straight line. It can twist into any shape," he tells her. "You can be born in the 20th century and die in the 19th and it's all my fault. I brought you two here."

"It's not your fault," Charlotte told him as she stood on the left side of Rose.

"Yeah, it's not your fault," Rose agreed. "I wanted to come."

The Doctor doesn't seem moved as he continues to look at the corpses standing in front of them. "What about me?" He began. "I saw the fall of Troy! World War Five! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party, now I'm going to die in a dungeon!" His eyes widen, becoming more terrified. "In Cardiff!"

Sighing loudly, Charlotte turned over to him. "This isn't a time to be dramatic, Doctor. I know we aren't going to die."

"If we do die," Rose began with a gulp, "we'll go down fighting, yeah?"

Charlotte violently nodded her head, as she'd expect no other end from either of them. "Of course."

"Together?"

"Yeah!" says the Doctor as Rose links hands with him and takes Charlotte's too.

"I might be scared out of my mind," Charlotte began, looking over at the two. "But I'm so happy I met you."

Rose grinned. "Me too, both of you." She smiled up to the Doctor, who looked down at her.

Right then, Charles came back into the room and frantically moved over to a wall. "Doctor! Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now fill the room, all of it, now!"

"What're you doing?" The Doctor asks him.

"Turn it all on!" He advises them as he turns the flames off of one gaslight, causing the gas to be released into the air. "Gas the place!"

Finally realizing what Charles was telling them, his face lit up. "Brilliant," the Doctor says. "Gas!"

Rose looks on in confusion. "What, so we choke to death instead?"

"Am I correct, Doctor? These creatures are gaseous!" Charles puts a handkerchief over his mouth and nose as the gas was released into the air.

Still watching the corpses at the dungeon door, the Doctor nodded. "Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!"

Sensing the gas being released, the group of corpses all turn around to face Charles. His eyes widened as they began to advance on him. "I hope…" He began but lost his train of thought as they got closer to him. "Oh, Lord. I hope that this theory will be validated soon." They began to approach him quicker. Charles gulps. "... If not immediately."

"Plenty more!" Exclaimed the Doctor. Taking a gas canister placed in the cell, he smashes it against the wall. The possessed corpses stopped dead in their tracks, raising their heads to the ceiling the Gelth inside of them was sucked from their bodies with a piercing shriek.

"It's working," Charles gasped, watching them leaving the bodies as he covers his mouth.

Opening up the dungeon door, the Doctor made his way over to Gwyneth with both Charlotte and Rose following close behind him. "Gwyneth! Send them back!" He begs her. "They lied, they're not angels."

Gwyneth's arms drop to her side as she looked back to the Doctor undisturbed. "Liars."

"Look at me," the Doctor said to Gwyneth as he stands in front of her. "If your mother and father could look down and see this, they'd tell you the same. They'd give you the strength. Now send them back!"

Even with their hands covering their mouths, both Charlotte and Rose started to struggle breathing with the gas. "Can't breathe," Rose choked out, erupting into a coughing fit as Charlotte too began coughing.

"Charles, get them out," he instructs him, only glimpsing at the two with a flash of concern.

The man tried to pull the women out by the arms, but Rose easily shook his grip loose. "I'm not leaving her!" said Rose. Charlotte, like her, couldn't leave yet, so she pulled herself free of Dickens' grip.

"They're too strong," Gwyneth tells him quietly as Charlotte starts a coughing fit behind him.

"Remember that world you saw? Rose's world?" He questions her, bringing Gwyneth back to the strange London she saw in Rose's head. "All those people, none of it will exist unless you send them back through the rift."

"I can't send them back," Gwyneth responds firmly, her eyes meeting the Doctor's as her face showed she's already reached her decision. "But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out." Her hand slips into her apron pocket, and all watched as she pulls out a box of matches.

Charlotte moved past the Doctor, looking to Gwyneth as silent tears poured down her cheeks. "You sure there's no other way?" She queried her in a whisper.

Ever so slightly Gwyneth nods her head. "This is the only way."

"You can't!" Rose cries, running forward as Charlotte moves back.

"Leave this place!" Gwyneth demands.

The Doctor finally spun to face the pair, holding them by their shoulders he stopped either of them from looking away as he instructed them. "Charlotte, Rose, get out, go now, I won't leave her while she's still in danger, now go!"

Rose turned around to immediately run out alongside Charles. For a moment, Charlotte stayed. Taking one last crestfallen look at Gwyneth, seeing her weakened state in the arch, she gulped. She gives the Doctor one glance, only long enough to see his stern face telling her to go, before hoisting up her dress and chasing after Rose and Dickens.

Sprinting down through the gas-filled home, Charlotte coughed hysterically. Running through the opened front door, she meets Charles and Rose standing apart from place. Leaning on the wall for support, she heaved from the hard run.

Seeing a flash of light and hearing a loud boom, Charlotte turned back to the house to see it up in flames as the Doctor dived out just in time to join the three others out of the fire's way. Brushing off his leather jacket, he looked back at them.

Rose looked up to him with her face desolate. While happy he survived unscathed, she was disappointed with no Gwyneth at his side. He bowed his head down.

"She didn't make it," Rose simply said.

"I'm sorry. She closed the rift." He looked back at the burning house, indicating the cost of her deed clearly.

Dickens too looked at the house. "At such a cost. The poor child."

The Doctor looked back at Rose, who has yet to look away from him. "I did try, Rose," he tells her, "but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes."

"What do you mean?"

"I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch."

Rose furrows her eyebrows, shaking her head as she speaks, "But… she can't have, she spoke to us. She helped us- she saved us. How could she have done that?"

Dickens watched the house burn solemnly beside Rose. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." He looks over to the Doctor. "Even for you, Doctor."

"She saved the world." Rose finally gives the house a good look. "A servant girl. No one will ever know."

"But, that's the thing," began Charlotte, wiping the last of her tears off her face. "Sometimes the greatest stories aren't supposed to be shown to many." She turned away from the house and looked back at Rose. "Sometimes, it's good enough to remember." They looked back to the burning house quietly.

They arrive back at the TARDIS, with Charles still along with them looking at them strangely as they approached the blue box. "Right then, Charlie-boy, I've got to go into my…" pointing at the TARDIS, he tries to think of another word for her, "-shed. Won't be long!" He takes out a ring of keys from his jacket and quickly fits the right one into the lock.

Charlotte turned to Charles with a grin. "And what will you do now, Charles Dickens?"

"Please, it's Charles," he told her.

Charlotte turned to Rose with a giddy smile. "I'm on a first-name basis with Charles Dickens!"

Charles then answered her question, "I shall take the mail coach back to London. Quite literally post-haste. This is no time for me to be on my own. I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them." Listening to him, the three looked down at him all proud of how much he's changed in a few hours. "After all I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital."

"You've cheered up!" The Doctor grinned joyfully.

He turns lively as he looks back on what he's learned. "Exceedingly!" Exclaims Charles. "This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world and now I know I've just started! All these huge and wonderful notions, Doctor! I'm inspired. I must write about them!"

"Do you think that's wise?" Rose questioned him with an amused smile.

"I shall be subtle at first," he tells them. "The Mystery of Edwin Drood still lacks an ending." He leaned in, darkening his tone as he continued, "Perhaps the killer was not the boy's uncle? Perhaps he was not of this earth? The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Blue Elementals. I can spread the word! Tell the truth!"

"Good luck with it," the Doctor tells him with a smile. "Nice to meet you." His grin spread out across his face as they shook hands. "Fantastic." He turns back to the TARDIS doors as Rose begins her goodbye.

"Bye, then. And, thanks." Stepping forward, she gave him a kiss on his cheek and left him flabbergasted. Seeing his expression, Charlotte snickered under her breath.

"Oh, my dear, how modern," he responded. "Thank you, but, I don't understand, in what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?"

"You'll see." The Doctor pointed his head to the TARDIS door for Rose and Charlotte. "In the shed." He opens the door but closes it slightly when Charles goes on.

"Oh, my soul. Doctor, it's one riddle after another with you!" Charles looks up to the Doctor as he turns his focus away from 'the shed' and to him. "But after all these revelations, there's one mystery you still haven't explained. Answer me this: who are you?"

As he paused, thinking of an answer to Charles' question, Rose and Charlotte looked up at him exceptionally. "Just a friend passing through," he answered with a tight smile.

"But you have such knowledge of future times. I- I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you…" Charles gulped, afraid of the worst response from him. "My books. Doctor, do they last?"

The Doctor took his hand off the TARDIS doorway and grinned from ear to ear. "Oh, yes!"

"For how long?"

"Forever!" At his answer, Charles tries to remain modest by holding back his immensely pleased smile.

Charlotte chortled as his suppressed grin and held out her hand for him to shake. "Now, get to London!" She urged him as they shook hands, not wanting any of his Christmas spirit to waste away. "Make those amends!"

"I will, I will. Thank you, Charlotte…" He paused, not ever being told her surname.

"Charlotte Mary Bolton," she clarified with a laugh. At the TARDIS door, the Doctor paused at the part of her name he has yet to be told. Mary. His jolly smile drops from his face as he looks over at her.

"Thank you, Charlotte Bolton," he said to her.

The Doctor shakes his head. "Right. Shed. Come on, Rose… Charlotte." They all turned to the door, ready to step in after the other.

"In, in the box? All of you?" Charles asked as the Doctor stepped inside.

Poking his head outside, he looked over at him. "Down boy. See ya!" He steps fully inside. And, following after Rose, Charlotte paused to send the author one last smile before closing the door behind her. She meets the two as they surround the scanner, which shows Charles standing outside the doors.

"Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?" Asked Rose.

"In a week's time it's 1870," he told her, "and that's the year he dies. Sorry. He'll never get to tell his story."

Charlotte hummed, looking at the scanner as Charles confusedly looked at the TARDIS. "He was nice." The Doctor says nothing in response to her.

"That's a shame," mused Rose, as well finding him quite nice.

"But in your time, he was already dead! We've brought him back to life! He's more alive now than he's ever been, old Charlie-boy." He beams down at her, proud of himself. "Let's give him one last surprise." Hitting down a button, the TARDIS engines started up and outside Charles Dickens watched in astonishment as the blue box disappeared before him.

It was a day later. A day of suspicious looks being sent to Charlotte from the Doctor, and a day of her wanting nothing more than to leave. Ever since the talk with Gwyneth in the hallway, she wanted to speak to someone about Midnight. But it was clear to her she'd have to wait, as not even the Doctor seems to be trusting her these days.

And Rose? She just didn't want to speak to her about something so personal.

Charlotte was reading in the console room, alone with the Doctor as Rose went to take a shower. As he was doing small repairs to the console, she had the last straw when she spotted him glancing at her for the thousandth time. "Stop that," she hissed at him, setting her book to the side.

"Stop what?" He questions, trying to play dumb.

"You know what I'm talking about, don't play dumb!" After a moment of silence, where he gave no hints of understanding her, she sighed loudly. "Quit looking at me like I'm doing something weird!"

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are!"

Seeing he was getting nowhere in convincing her, the Doctor set his tools down and turned over to where she sat facing him on the captain's seat. "Fine. I am."

Charlotte raised her eyebrows for emphasis as she asked him, "Why?"

He breathes in sharply, seeing himself in a hole he couldn't get out of with another lie. "I don't trust you."

Like a fish out of water, her mouth hung open in surprise. "How… how can you not trust me? I know everything that'll happen to you, the TARDIS likes me-" at least she thinks she does- "and I've done nothing wrong!"

"You know so much, yet you don't use it!"

'What do you mean, "I don't use it?"' Charlotte asked him, her eyes narrowing.

The Doctor sighed. "You haven't been using what you know to make a plan to save people."

Once again, Charlotte's mouth gaped open and she was speechless. Thinking on it more as he paused, her shoulders slumped when she realized he had more of a point than she believed… She thought about Mr. Sneed's dead look, Gwyneth's pale face, and all the way back to Ricky and the Krafayis. Maybe if she was more clever than they'd still be here… But then Charlotte thought back to the hostess, while the only person yet she's saved, the woman was enough to make her point her head back at the Doctor.

"But I have," she says to him, trying to look at him straight-on but ultimately failed. "I saved someone and almost died doing it. And I have tried-"

"No, no you haven't." He interrupted her, the flurry of emotions that have been built up over the past day finally exploding all at once. "If you tried, less people would be dead. You need to stop acting like you've got a leg up on us and actually have a plan!"

She tried to think of something else to say but, as the Doctor turned on his heel to leave the console room, the only words that came out of her mouth were a silent, "I'm sorry." At the beginning of the corridors, he stopped a moment, looking back at her before continuing down.

Charlotte closed her eyes as she moved her head back. To her, she believed wholeheartedly that he had a point- if she'd try harder, she'd actually help. But she also thought about other things… maybe if she went along with Mickey instead of Rose in Pete's World all those weeks ago, she could've saved Ricky? But, then she remembers he was part of the reason Mickey stayed there in the first place and without him there they wouldn't come back in Doomsday.

And then she thought of how she decided to go with Rose instead of him- was that really the best choice? Charlotte began to feel guilty for it, all the time in her old universe thinking down on the Doctor for looking past him and she did the exact same thing! What worse, she didn't even think about it until weeks later.

She tried to look past that small act, but instead, Charlotte was met with a list of every questionable choice she's made; dating Ian, not studying enough in school, and her impulsiveness getting her into trouble with both the authorities and petty drama. And all of these memories, decisions, and acts led her to one big question:

How could she ask anyone to trust her when she can't even trust herself in this dangerous universe?

Next up: The Rebel Flesh (Anger and Gangers)

A/N: about to write one of my least favorite episodes woohoo.