They wrestled with the Tardis controls as the it buckled and wheezed, The Doctor furiously turning dials while glaring at the screen, Joule flipping switches as she just hanged on for dear life occasionally holding down buttons or pulling levers when ordered to. Honestly it was a miracle she didn't get motion sickness while on this thing. Maybe that was another thing that the Tardis did, along with the straight to brain translations, curing motion sickness.
"She does." Joule said suddenly to her.
"What?"
"Motion sickness, Tardis. She doesn't like people throwing up inside her. "
She blinked, "Did you just..?"
"No mind reading!" the Doctor called from the other side of the console, "And hold that down!"
"Mind reading?" she demanded.
"You never said that." Joule ignored her.
"Yes, I did!"
"You said, 'don't read my mind'."
"Well, change it to 'no mind reading' then! And press that button!"
"I've got it." She muttered reaching over. "You sure you actually got it right this time?"
"Excuse you, I've been flying this thing solo for hundreds of years now." He staggered as the Tardis shook a bit more violently than before, "Now, you've seen the future, let's have a look at the past. 1860. How does 1860 sound?"
"What happened in 1860?" she asked.
"I don't know, let's find out. And Joule, don't spoil things." He added, "Hold on, here we go!"
The console began beeping.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Gravity stabilizers!" Joule shouted over the alarm, "They're short circuiting."
"Oh, that's not goo-"
Wham
She was thrown up in the air as the Tardis landed, weightless for a few seconds before gravity took hold again and she fell in a heap next to the Doctor.
She took a moment to catch her breath, groaning. Then their eyes met, and they burst out laughing. "Blimey!"
"You're telling me. You all right?"
"Yeah. I think so. Nothing broken," she patted herself down "Did we make it? Where are we?"
He ran up to the screen, "Earth, Naples, December 24th, 1860. I did it." He said looking extremely proud of himself, "Give the man a medal."
"That's so weird." She thought out loud, "It's Christmas."
"All yours." He grinned.
"But, it's like, think about it, though. Christmas. 1860." She said, "Happens once, just once and it's gone, it's finished, it'll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone a hundred thousand sunsets ago. No wonder you two never stay still."
"Not a bad life." He crossed his arms.
A smile crept onto her face, "The more the merrier." She skipped towards the door, "Come on, then."
He caught her arm, "Hey, where do you think you're going?"
"1860." Obviously.
"Go out there dressed like that, you'll start a riot, Barbarella." He thumbed towards the corridors, "There's a wardrobe through there. First left, second right, theirs on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left. Hurry up!"
.
.
Forget getting lost on her way to the wardrobe she was going to get lost in the wardrobe. A spiraling room filled with racks and racks of clothes for men, women, and looking at the shirt with four arm holes, aliens too, and in all shapes and sizes, from every time period she knew and more. How was she supposed to find clothes fit for 1860 in all of this? How did he find any type of clothes at all?
She thought of heading back to ask when a slight humming brought her attention to a rack of clothes which held precisely what she was thinking of. The Doctor had said about the Tardis getting inside her brain and Joule had said she could read her mind, hadn't they?
Okay, telepathic ship then. Wonderful. She was going to have such a hard time going to sleep tonight.
She changed into the give clothes and made her way back to the console room where the Doctor was under the grating examining the wires while Joule was nowhere in sight.
"Blimey!" he exclaimed when he saw her.
"Don't laugh," she warned.
"You look beautiful." And she blushed slightly at that.
"Considering." He added ruining it.
"Considering what?" she protested.
"That you're human."
"I, think, that's a compliment." She rolled her eyes, "Aren't you going to change?"
"I've changed my jumper." He said gesturing, "Come one." He leapt out of the hole but she stopped him.
"You stay there." She said heading to the door, "You've done this before. This is mine."
.
It definitely felt like Christmas. Cold fresh air brushed against her cheeks, snow crunching beneath her feet. Way better than the end of the world business from before.
Wonder, excitement. She wondered if she'd ever get tired of this feeling of dreaming with her eyes open.
The Doctor stepped beside her and offered her his arm. "Ready for this?" he grinned, "Here we go. History."
She took his arm and grinned back.
.
.
"Is it okay to let Joule go off on her own like that?" she asked.
He glanced at her, "I was under the impression that you didn't like her that much."
"I don't not like her, It's just…" she sighed, "She's looks so young. How old is she? Fourteen, fifteen?"
"Biologically probably around that much," he agreed.
"Biologically?" she noted the wording.
"She's not exactly quantum dimensionally stable, or trans-temporary stable."
"She's what?" not understanding a word he'd just said.
"Exactly."
"Doctor," she tugged at his arm, "Really though, what is she?"
"Why are you so insistent on knowing what she is?" he asked, trying to throw her off with his smile, "Honestly I'm starting to get a bit jealous."
"You don't teleport around the place."
"I have a Tardis." He deadpanned.
"No! Not like that!" she snickered, "I mean, she talks like you, acts like you-"
"She does?" he frowned.
"I mean, it's only natural isn't it? You've been with her, how long exactly?"
He didn't answer, his face closing off fast.
"What I mean is," she said quickly, "It's like she's trying to act normal, but it's just so obvious that she isn't, like there's something just wrong with her."
"What do you think it is that's wrong with her?"
"I don't know." She scratched her ear, "Everything I suppose, The way she is just a bit, off. Oh, I know!" she snapped her fingers, "It's like those sci-fi movies where the CGI seems good enough but it's just obviously fake."
He stopped to look at her, "That is… quite an interesting expression."
"So, is there something wrong with her?" She asked, not allowing him to stray from the subject.
"Enough chattering, more exploring." he broke off, heading to a newspaper vendor instead of answering the question.
She sighed. Joule, what was she? What was she that made the Doctor so reluctant to talk about her?
.
.
"I got the flight a bit wrong." He said scanning the newspaper he bought, "It's 1869, Cardiff."
"So, not Naples." She deadpanned.
"Cardiff, Naples. 1860, 1869." He shrugged, "Close enough."
"Oh, really?"
"Oi, you want to try driving the Tardis?" he lifted a finger as she opened her mouth, "Don't answer that."
She grinned silently.
Then they heard the screaming.
"That's more like it," she literally could see his gears changing from grumpy to adventure as he tossed the newspaper behind him, running off and she couldn't help but smile as she followed suit.
.
.
A ghost in a theatre. Blimey and she thought she was done getting surprised by things like this. And a pale old woman from where the ghost came from, an old woman who was also being kidnapped.
"Oi! Leave her alone!" she shouted at the pair, "Doctor, I'll get them!"
Barely acknowledging his shout to be careful, which was frankly a bit ridiculous considering she was going after a pair of kidnappers, she pushed her way through the crowd following them outside to a hearse where they were hurriedly putting the woman in a hearse.
"What're you doing?!" she demanded, and the woman of the kidnapper startled, blocking her view.
"Oh, it's a tragedy, miss. Don't worry yourself. Me and the master will deal with it." She tried to explain, "The fact is, this poor lady's been taken with the brain fever and-"
Rolling her eyes at the obvious lie she shoved her out of the way to examine the old woman.
"-we have to take her to the infirmary." She finished lamely.
"She's cold. She's dead!" she accused, "Oh, my God what'd you do to her?"
She blamed her shock of touching a corpse for her not noticing the man sneaking up behind her to shove a cloth over her mouth.
Not again.
.
.
She came to slowly with, thankfully, not much of a headache.
People knocking her out, again. God she was going to get some self-defense lessons if this was going to be a thing.
Someone groaned behind her and she saw a finely dressed man sitting up inside a coffin, pale and stiff, staring at her.
"Are you all right?"
He let out a low groan, gripping the sides of the coffin.
"You're kidding me, yeah?" she muttered more to herself than him. Knocked out and in the same room as a zombie, really? "You're just kidding. You're just kidding me, aren't you?"
He crawled out of the coffin and began staggering towards her, zombie like. Oh, she wished she hadn't seen those old zombie movies.
"Okay, not kidding." She ran for the door, which was, surprise surprise, locked. "Let me out! Please, Please, let me out!"
Muffled shouting on the other side of the door. She really hoped it was the Doctor because if things weren't bad enough the old dead lady that was at the theatre had come back to life too.
"Let me out!" she hit the door, "Somebody open the door! Open the do-"
A cold hand grabbed her from behind, but the Doctor kicked the door in just at that moment, freeing her from the zombies. "I think this is my dance."
"It's a prank." Protested the man from the stage at the theatre, "It must be. We're under some mesmeric influence."
"No, we're not. The dead are walking." He turned to smile at her, "Hi."
"Hi," she said once she got her heartbeat under control, "Who's your friend?"
"Charles Dickens."
Of course, he was. "Okay" she realized she might have come as a bit dismissive but… zombies.
"My name's the Doctor." He announced, "Who are you, then? What do you want?"
The voice of the zombie was layered with whispers and moans, echoing out of sync.
"Failing." They whispered and screamed, "Open the rift. We are dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us." And with a scream, ghostly blue lot swirled out of the corpses and shot into a wall lamp.
Okay than, not zombies but ghosts. She thought she could deal with that.
"We really need to do something about you talking to the wrong people and getting in danger." The Doctor muttered.
Oh, that reminded her.
.
.
"-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!"
"I won't be spoken to like thi-"
"Then you stuck me in a room full of zombies!" she cut him off, "And if that ain't enough, you swan off and leave me to die! So come on, talk!"
"It's not my fault." Sneed protested timidly, "It's this house. It always had a reputation. Haunted." He looked down at his cup, "But I never had much bother until a few months back, and then the stiffs," he paused at the looks he was given, "the er, dearly departed started getting restless."
"Tommyrot," She blinked, having forgotten Charles Dickens.
"You witnessed it." Sneed argued, "Can't keep the beggars down sir. They walk. And it's the queerest thing, but they hang on to scraps. One old fellow who used to be a section almost walked into his own memorial service, just like the old lady going to your performance sir, just as she planned."
"Morbid fancy." Dickens scoffed.
The Doctor sighed, "Oh, Charles, you were there."
Dickens, no Charles. Yep, that sounded better, stood up straight. "I saw nothing, but an illusion."
"If you're going to deny it, don't waste my time. Just shut up." He ignored the obviously flustered man and turned to Sneed, "What about the gas?"
"That's new sir. Never seen anything like that."
"Means it's getting stronger, the rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through."
"What's a rift?" she asked starting to feel lost.
"A weak point in time and space. A connection between this place and another." He nodded to Sneed, "That's the cause of ghost stories most of the time."
Most of the time… huh.
"That's how I got the house so cheap," Sneed agreed, "Stories going back generations. Echoes in the dark, queer songs in the air, and this feeling like a shadow passing over your soul."
She ignored Sneed's story in favor of watching Charles leave, slamming the door behind him.
'Culture shock', the Doctor had said, 'happens to the best of us.'
Even Charles Dickens apparently.
.
.
"Please, miss, you shouldn't be helping. It's not right." Gwyneth fretted as she tried to help with the dishes.
"Don't be daft. Sneed works you to death." She eventually relented though when Gwyneth insisted, "How much do you get paid?"
"Eight pound a year, miss."
She blinked, "How much?"
"I know." She shook her head looking ashamed, "I would've been happy with six."
Oookay. "So, did you go to school or what?"
"Of course, I did." She looked offended now, "What do you think I am, an urchin? I went every Sunday, nice and proper."
"What, once a week?"
"We did sums and everything." She added in a low whisper, "To be honest, I hated every second."
She laughed, glad that they'd finally landed on a subject that didn't have a century gap difference, "Me too."
"Don't tell anyone, but one week, I didn't go and ran on the heath all on my own." She confessed.
"I did plenty of that.", she giggled, "I used to go down the shops with my mate Shareen. We used to go and look at boys."
Gwyneth started laughing too but hurriedly looked away, "Well, I don't know much about that, miss" she said curtly.
"Come on, times haven't changed that much." She asked gently, "I bet you've done the same."
"I don't think so, miss." She said back turned towards her.
"Gwyneth, you can tell me. I bet you've got your eye on someone." She coaxed.
She turned around hesitantly, "I suppose. There is one lad. The butcher's boy." She looked away blushing, "Such a lovely smile on him."
"I like a nice smile." She agreed, "Good smile, nice bum."
"Well, I have never heard the like."
"Ask him out," she encouraged, "Give him a cup of tea or something, that's a start."
She gave her a curious look, "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. Maybe that's a good thing." She offered, "You need a bit more in your life than Mister Sneed."
"Oh, now that's not fair," she defended, "He's not so bad, old Sneed. He was very kind to me to take me in, because I lost my mum and dad to the flu when I was twelve." She explained.
She couldn't help but think of her own dad, "Oh, I'm sorry."
"Thank you, miss." A gentle smile, "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," She stopped as her brain registered the last part, "Er, who told you he was dead?"
Gwyneth quickly looked away, going back to her chores "I don't know. Must have been the Doctor."
It was so definitely not the Doctor, "My father died years back."
"But you've been thinking about him lately more than ever."
And she had been. "How do you know all this?"
"Mister Sneed says I think too much. I'm all alone down here." She tried to answer casually, "I bet you've got dozens of servants, haven't you, miss?"
"No," she shook her head, "no servants where I'm from."
"And you've come such a long way..."
She found it a bit more difficult to smile, "What makes you think so?"
Gwyneth stepped forward a faraway look in her eyes, "You're from London. I've seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half naked, for shame." She frowned, "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." Shock and fear, "People are flying. And you, you've flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you've seen. The almost child, the big bad wolf." She gasped staggering backwards, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, miss." She apologized profusely.
She stared at her struggling for words, "I… it's…"
"I can't help it. Ever since I was a little girl, my mam said I had the sight." Gwyneth tried to explain, "She told me to hide it."
"But it's getting stronger, more powerful, is that right?" She flinched as she noticed the Doctor stood by the doorway and she wondered how long he had been listening in on them.
"All the time, sit." Gwyneth nodded seemingly unalarmed, "Every night, voices in my head."
"You grew up on top of the rift." He explained, "You're part of it. You're the key."
"I've tried to make sense of it, sir. Consulted with spiritualists, table rappers, all sorts."
He nodded, "Well, that should help. You can show us what to do."
"What to do where, sir?"
"We're going to have a séance."
.
.
She listened with half a mind while Gwyneth explained how the séance was done.
You've been thinking about him more than ever.
Maybe your dad's waiting for you too, miss.
Was he? Could he be? Could there actually be a heaven where dead people go to? Would dad be there?
"Speak to us.", Gwyneth began, snapping her out of her thoughts, "Are you there? Spirits, come. Speak to us that we may relieve your burden."
She realized she was actually a little bit scared to be facing the corpse-possessing-gas-ghosts again, and that feeling doubled when she began hearing the muffled, silent whispering.
"Can you hear that?" she asked more to herself than anyone.
"Nothing can happen." Charles insisted, "This is sheer folly."
"Look at her." She nodded to Gwyneth who was looking straight up, staring at something far away.
"I see them." Gwyneth gasped as glowing gas tendrils slowly faded into view, "I feel them."
"What's it saying?"
"They can't get through the rift." The Doctor muttered, "Gwyneth, it's not controlling you, you're controlling it. Now, look deep. Allow them through."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can." He encouraged, "Just believe it. I have faith in you, Gwyneth. Make the link."
She struggled, eyes strained twitching then- her eyes snapped open, "Yes."
The light bloomed. Baby blue gas wisped around forming outlines that resembled… people. Ghosts that that barely held any detail except for the fact that they seemed human.
"Great god!" Sneed gulped, "Spirit's from the other side!"
"The other side of the universe." The Doctor agreed, grinning.
"Pity us." The ghost spoke with the voice of children along with Gwyneth, "Pity the Gelth. There is so little time. Help us."
"What do you want us to do?" he asked.
"The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge."
"What for?"
"We are so very few." They pleaded, "The last of our kind. We face extinction."
"Why what happened?"
"Once we had a physical form like you, but then the war came."
"War, what war?" Charles asked, finally getting over his shock.
"The Time War." They explained and she glanced at the sober look on the Doctor's face realizing what they were, "The whole universe convulsed. 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."
"We want to stand tall, to feel the sunlight, to live again." They chorused, "We need a physical form, and your dead are abandoned. They're going to waste. Give them to us."
"But we can't." she blurted out.
"Why not?" The Doctor asked.
"It's not. I mean, it's not" It was strange how sure she was of something but didn't know why.
"Not decent? Not polite?" he caught her struggling to reply, "It could save their lives."
"Open the rift. Let the Gelth through." They pleaded one last time, "We're dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth."
.
The Gelth faded away and Gwyneth slumped over.
.
.
"On the other side of the universe the Gelth are at the other side of the rift." He murmured, "In gaseous form. Waiting for the rift to open so that they can find the right host."
"Why did they turn into gas though?" she asked, "I mean, what could happen to 'em that instead of dying they'd turn into gas?"
"It was the Time War Rose," he waved her off, "Not a Time War, The Time War, with a capital letter on every single word. The war where things humanity only ever dreamt of achieving were never used because they were so primitive compared to what actually could be done. But that's not important right now, something doesn't sit right with this."
"I hope so." She muttered. Giving corpses away would probably never sit right with her no matter how many aliens she saw, and it was times like this that she realized how alien he was to her.
"Not the corpses part."
Of course it wasn't. "We can't let them do that.", she insisted.
"Go to Gwyneth," he told her instead starting to pace around the room, "She's waking up."
"She's…" she trailed off seeing that Gwyneth actually was coming to.
"My angel's miss." she whispered weakly, "They came, didn't they? They need me?"
"Don't worry about that now." She handed her a glass of water, "Drink this, you're probably exhausted."
"Incredible," Charles muttered, deciding to participate in the conversation, "Ghost that are not ghosts but beings from another world, who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers."
"Good system," Doctor commented, "It might work."
"I said-", she started, way beyond annoyed.
"I know what you said Rose." He cut her off, "Just be quiet for a moment, I'm thinking." He stared up at the ceiling. "Gelth, gas, bodies, War. There's something wrong with this picture." He muttered, "What's wrong?"
"We can't give them human corpses for them to... ride around in?" she tried again.
"Why not?", he challenged, "It's like recycling."
Recycling? That was what he was going to compare this situation to? "Seriously, you can't."
"Seriously, I can."
"It's just wrong," she argued, "Those bodies were living people. We should respect them even in death." Not only that. She didn't want to imagine her dad's body walking around, glowing and screaming like the old woman had.
"Do you carry a donor card?" he said not looking impressed.
She gritted her teeth, knowing where this was going, "That's different. That's-"
"It is different, yeah. It's a different morality." He snapped, "Get used to it or go home. You heard what they said, time's short and all in all a few living corpses should be the least of our worries."
She shrugged, "I don't care. They're not using her.", she lowered her voice, "What if something goes wrong and she…" she trailed off thinking of another girl that seemed to have similar unnerving abilities, "what if she ends up like Joule?"
That seemed to sober him up, "That won't ever happen."
"You can't know that." He probably could, considering he was the expert in the room, but the point still stood either way.
"I can know that." He said, "Joule, she's a onetime thing and exposure to the rift alone doesn't hurt humans. Stop worrying and leave that to me." He tried to give her a reassuring smile.
"Still…"
"Don't I get a say, miss?" Gwyneth said quietly.
"Gwyneth, this… everything's a bit complicated." She could tell from the tone of her voice that Gwyneth had already made up her mind.
"Complicated it may be miss, but I think I can decide this for myself," she straightened, "Things may be different where you're from, but here and now, I know my own mind, and the angels need me. Doctor," she said turning to said man, "What do I have to do?"
He glanced at her, "You don't have to do anything."
"They've been singing to me since I was a child," she said unwavering, "sent by my mam on a holy mission. So, tell me."
"We need to find the rift. This house is on a weak spot, so there must be a spot that's weaker than any other. Mister Sneed," he said circling the table, "What's the weakest part of this house? The place where most of the ghosts have been seen?"
Sneed blinked, "That would be the morgue."
"No chance you were going to say gazebo, is there?" she muttered. She didn't like that Gwyneth was willing to take the risk that even made the Doctor hesitate, which meant that there was probably something else going on behind the scenes. How was it fair that the Gwyneth was being used to do something she didn't fully understand? Something that even the Doctor didn't seem to be fully sure of.
.
.
The morgue was like… well a morgue.
"Urgh." The Doctor made a face, looking at the damp walls, "Talk about Bleak House."
"The thing is, Doctor," she said, staying as far away from the corpses as possible, "the Gelth don't succeed, 'cos I know they don't. I know for a fact there weren't corpses walking around in 1869."
"Time's in flux, changing every second. Your cozy little world can be rewritten like that." He snapped his fingers, "Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing."
"Doctor," she was surprised Charles hadn't run off yet, "I think the room is getting colder."
"Here they come." She muttered.
A gas lamp flared and a Gelth burst out and flew towards the stone archway.
"You've come to help." They chorused, "Praise the Doctor. Praise him."
"Promise you won't hurt her." She demanded.
"Hurry!" they ignored, "Please, so little time. Pity the Gelth."
"I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer. Somewhere you can build proper bodies." The Doctor told them, "This isn't a permanent solution, all right?"
"My angels." Gwyneth stepped forward, "I can help them live."
"Okay, where's the weak point?"
"Here, beneath the arch."
"Gwyneth," she took her hand, uneasy, "You don't have to do this."
She gave her a gentle smile and stepped beneath the arch, "My angels."
"Establish the bridge." They chanted, "Reach out to the void. Let us through!"
She stole a glance at the Doctor who was staring at the Gelth, not even blinking.
"Yes, I can see you." Gwyneth stiffened, "I can see you. Come!"
"Bridgehead establishing."
"Come to me." She whispered, "Come to this world, poor lost sould!"
"It is begun. The bridge is made."
And then everything went wrong. The previously blue Gelth flared red, and Gwyneth's body seemed to be shrouded in blue light as a dozens of blue Gelth poured out of her, their numbers rising by the second.
"She has given herself to the Gelth." They chanted, "The bridge is open. We descend. The Gelth will come through in force."
"You said that you were few in number!" Charles yelled, terrified.
"A few billion," they answered, "And all of us in need of corpses."
They blue gas flew to the already existing bodies and they began to rise. All of them pale and twitching.
"Gwyneth, stop this. Listen to your master.", Sneed stepped forward, "This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, and leave these things alone, I beg of you."
"Mister Sneed, get back," she cried but it was too late a Gelth possessed corpse grabbed him from behind and snapped his neck with an audible crack.
"I have joined the legions of the Gelth." He droned, his voice warped as another Gelth flew into him, "Come, march with us."
"Charles! Run!" Doctor shouted and said man wasted no time running away.
"We need bodies." They Gelth proclaimed, "All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead."
"Gwyneth, stop them! Send them back now!"
"Three more bodies. Convert them." They continued, "Make them vessels for the Gelth."
"I trusted you." The Doctor spat, "I pitied you!"
"We don't want your pity. We want this world and all it's flesh."
"Not while I'm alive." He growled. "Gelth! I'm giving you one last chance to honor your word."
"We want to feel the sunlight! We want to feel alive!"
He grabbed her hand and locked themselves behind a metal gate where the corpses couldn't reach them.
"But it's 1869." She murmured, "How can I die now?"
"Time isn't a straight line. It can twist into any shape." He explained, "You can be born in the twentieth century and die in the nineteenth and it would be my fault."
"It's not your fault." She gripped his hand tighter, "I wanted to come."
"Was it worth it?" he asked.
"I think so, yeah," she tried to smile, "We'll go down fighting, yeah?"
"Go down fighting?" she turned to look at him and he just smiled, "Who said anything about going down at all?"
She couldn't help but smile back, "Okay then, what's the plan?"
"Well," he pulled out his sonic, "Sure, let's call it a plan."
"Seriously?" she deadpanned.
"Kind of a plan," he fiddled with the screwdriver, "Well, more of a wrecking ball than a plan but-"
"Doctor!" Charles ran back in heaving before he could continue, "Doctor! Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now, fill the room, all of it, now!"
"Oh," he blinked, "That is a plan! Brilliant!"
"What, so we choke to death instead?" she covered her mouth, the smelling already getting to her.
"Am I correct, Doctor?" Charles asked, "These creatures are gaseous."
"Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the host." He grinned, explaining, "Suck them into the air like poison from the wound!"
"I hope, oh Lord," Charles stopped as he noticed that the corpses had turned their attention towards him, "I hope that this theory will be validated soon, if not immediately."
"We're too close to the rift. Too many of them and not enough gas." He pulled barred gate open and brought his sonic to his lips, "Silver Sun. Gentle night."
"Doctor?" she stared at him confused. Was he reciting poetry?
He ignored her and stared at his sonic, "You know what to do."
"Doc-"
Then with a high-pitched squeal the gas pipes burst out the walls while the gas lamps popped one by one.
"My Lord!" Charles cried out as he ducked a piece of shrapnel. "What in the world!?"
"Rose, get out!" the Doctor dragged her out from behind the bars and pushed her towards the stairs.
"Gwyneth!" she choked, "We can't leave Gwyneth!"
"I'll get her!" he told her, "Charles! Get her out!"
She tried to protest but choked on the gas before she could get a word out.
"The density of the gas is rising every second." He gave her one final push, "If you don't leave now, you'll suffocate before you reach the door! Now go!"
Reluctantly she let Charles lead her out and they ran through the corridors and into the winter night, gasping the cold, fresh air.
"You all right?"
She jumped as Joule just appeared behind her. "Where the hell were you?"
Joule shrugged, "Here."
She rolled her eyes, "Of course, you were."
"I'm sorry," Charles interrupted, "But who are you child? Are you, perhaps, another one of those creatures?"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Wait, hold on." She grabbed Joule by the shoulder, "Joule, you have to go in there and get the Doctor and Gwyneth out of there."
"He's already out." She paused, "No, will be out."
Then the Doctor ran out slamming the door shut, "Get down!"
And then the house blew up behind him.
.
.
They watched the fire rage within the night.
"She didn't make it." She murmured.
"I'm sorry." The Doctor told her, "She closed the rift."
"At such a cost." Charles hung his head, "The poor child."
"I did try, Rose" he said, "but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes."
She tore her sight away from the flames, "What do you mean?"
"I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch."
"But she can't have." She insisted weakly, "She spoke to us. She helped us. She saved us. How could she have done that?"
He stayed silent.
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Charles quoted solemnly.
"She saved the world." She murmured, "A servant girl. No one will ever know."
.
.
"Right then, Charlie boy, I've just got to go into my, er, shed." He patted the Tardis "Won't be long."
"What are you going to do now?" she asked Charles.
"I shall take the mail coach back to London, quite literally post-haste." The author said excitedly, "This is no time for me to be on my own. I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them. After all I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital."
"You've cheered up." The Doctor noted.
"Exceedingly!" a broad smile, "This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world. Now I know I've just started. All these huge and wonderful notions, Doctor. I'm inspired. I must write about them."
She blinked, "Do you think that's wise?" she asked. As far as she knew Charles Dickens hadn't written anything that could correspond with what happened today.
"I shall be subtle at first. The Mystery of Edwin Drood still lacks an ending." He mused, "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 shook his hand, "Nice to meet you. Fantastic."
"Bye, then, and thanks." She kissed his cheek.
"Oh, my dear. How modern." He blushed slightly "Thank you, but, I don't understand. In what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?"
"You'll see." He nodded towards the Tardis, "In the shed."
Upon my soul, Doctor, it's one riddle after another with you." He shook his head, "But after all these revelations, all these mysteries you still haven't explained. Just, answer me this. Who are you? And the young child? Don't think I hadn't noticed."
He gave him a tight smile, "Just a friend passing through."
"But you have such knowledge of future times." Charles hurriedly said before he could escape into the Tardis, "I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you one last thing. My books. Doctor, do they last?"
"Oh, yes!" he gave him a wide grin at that.
"For how long?" the question was asked hopefully, and almost desperate.
"Forever." He beamed, "Right. Shed. Come on, Rose."
"In the box? Both of you?" he asked.
"Down boy. See you." He opened the door for her to let through first.
.
"Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?" she asked immediately after the Tardis door shut behind them.
"In a week's time it's 1870, the year he dies." Joule piped up appearing on the flight seat, "He can't write about ghosts if he's one himself."
"Oh," she said sadly, "He was so nice though."
"Look at it this way," the Doctor pointed at the screen, "We've brought him back to life, and he's more alive now than he's ever been, old Charlie boy." He grinned at her, "Let's give him one last surprise. Want to do the honors?"
She grinned back at him and reached for the lever.
"The other one." Joule and Doctor said at the same time.
She snorted as the Doctor looked at Joule in surprise and reached for the other lever and watched as Charles's face lit up in wonder like a child opening his first Christmas present.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Nobody ever really expected the Great Time War to last as long it did. In fact, most civilizations wagered that it would be over before it ever began. After all the Time lords were called Time Lords for a reason. The Daleks, as intelligent as they were, were so incredibly young and primitive compared to the Time Lords and it should have been impossible for them to keep up with the technological marvels of the ancient race that ruled over time itself.
.
Then it came.
It wasn't that bad at first. A small hole in reality, nothing that was worth noting, which was why the Time Lords had ignored it, but the Daleks hadn't.
Not soon after the tide of the war turned. Whatever had made said hole had given the Daleks access to new heights, which still may have not been on the same level of the Time Lords, but combined with their ever-increasing numbers and their strive for absolute efficiency they quickly grew from a small annoying problem to a unignorable threat. They lost ground quicker than they could afford as other species joined the Time War inspired by the new unexpected turn of the war, some wishing revenge upon the Time Lords, others out of fear of what would happen if they fell.
The casualties grew, the war escalated and when they thought it couldn't get worse- they learned what had made the hole in reality.
A dozen galaxies. Gone.
Two scores of Tardises. Burned.
The entire Gallifreyan force that were sent. Dead.
.
Permanantly.
.
.
.
He remembered when he had could look at children with hope and gratification. No matter where they were from, no matter what they did. He had always loved children.
He stared at the image of a fourteen year old girl, wearing jeans and a clean t-shirt, a space helmet covering her head, her hands busy fixing the circuit boards of the Tardis.
.
One day…
.
.
One day.