The first thing you should know about Charlotte Elspeth Pollard or Charley to her friends, was that she had a complicated relationship with time. Not only had she escaped a catastrophe that history said should have claimed her life but she was currently traveling with her second of two incarnations of the timelord known only as the Doctor. Which she had met in rather the wrong order. As such time paradoxes clung to the young Elizabethan woman like barnacles. Suffice to say she and time didn't exactly get on and had time been a person it certainly wouldn't have called her Charley.
The second thing you should know is that she was about to have one of the most complicated days of her life. Twice.
Charley was walking from her room to the gleaming white control room used by the Doctor in his sixth incarnation, where said Doctor was waiting for her.
"Ah Miss Pollard, good to see you up and about. I believe I've found something rather interesting."
With a somewhat overly theatrical flourish he pressed some controls on the console and the Tardis scanner switched on displaying a view of the outside. In it Charley could see what appeared to be a pair of red velvet curtains.
"From the décor I'd guess somewhere around the Edwardian era earth but the coordinates don't seem to agree with that."
He checked the instruments again scratching the back of his head and mumbled
"Although that could be due to some of that space time distortion I detected throwing off the readings."
He straightened up again and looked to her, gripping his lapels
"So Charlotte, shall we investigate?'
He gave her a look which she had seen the other doctor give many times. It was filled with intelligence and curiosity but also a very boyish and hugely infectious enthusiasm. She had never been able to resist that look no matter which face wore it.
"A night at the theater and a mystery to boot? Sounds positively delightful."
And they left the Tardis to explore.
Meanwhile. Or possibly a few years earlier or a couple hundred years later depending on how you look at it. A younger Charley Pollard was about to embark on a very similar adventure. She was also with the doctor albeit a version of him currently wearing his eighth face. As such the two of them were in the gothic control room of his Tardis. The Doctor twirled around the ornate central console, his Byronic coat tails flapping behind him. Charley watched as he worked controls on the hexagonal mahogany dais in a seaming random order steering the craft god knows were.
"So where are we off to Doctor?"
Charley asked despite being sure they would get wrapped in some thrilling adventure wherever they ended up
"Not really sure, I'm getting a lot of strange temporal readings coming off it."
He said giving that same old look
"Shall we find out?"
The rise and fall of the central console thudded to a halt. She smiled back at him and the pair bolted for the door eager to see what lay on the other side.