A/N: I have editing chapters 1-5. 02/04/2021
Chapter three: Not Quite Dead
Inside the TARDIS it was mayhem. The whole ship was shaking and alarms were going off.
"Hold that one down!" the Doctor yelled to me pointing to a button.
"I'm still holding this one down." I yelled back to him.
"Well, hold them both down." He shouted stumbling slightly as the TARDIS shook violently to one side.
I raised an eyebrow, then with a great deal of effort reached across the console and held the button down despite the fact that I was holding a button down on the other side. "It's not going to work." I shouted when the TARDIS shook violently under us nearly dislodging the both of us from our perches.
"Oi! I promised you a time machine and that's what you're getting. Now, you've seen the future – let's have a look at the past. 1860. How does 1860 sound?"
"What when Charles Dickens was around?" I asked excitement creeping into my voice, much to the Doctor's joy, he had just randomly thrown out a date hoping it would be far enough into the past to interest Annamae.
"Hold on, here we go!" the TARDIS screeched through the time vortex before coming to an abrupt holt that threw both the Doctor and I to the floor where we lay laughing.
"Blimey!" I said getting up.
"You're telling me! Are you alright?" the Doctor asked jumping to the console to look at the display screen.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I think. Did we make it? Where have we landed?" I asked moving to his side to look at the screen even though I couldn't actually read what it said.
"I did it! Give the man a medal. Earth – Naples – December 24th, 1860."
I looked at him questioningly. "You know, saying it like it doesn't happen often does not increase my confidence in your driving skills." I laughed as I dodged his hand that was aimed to swat my head in offense at the statement.
The Doctor gestured towards the door. "All yours." He said to me.
"It's Christmas eve out there." I said looking to the doors. "It will only happen once, never again. It's finished. Except for you, and mind you I've been through 97 Christmas's if you count my first life and 25 of them where repeats." I studied him intently. "You can go back and see days that are dead and gone and a hundred thousand sunsets ago … no wonder you never stay still…"
"Not a bad life." He answered.
"Better with two." I told him. We grin at each other for a few minutes. Then I slapped his bum and dashed towards the corridor leading further into the TARDIS.
"Where are you going?" The Doctor called after me.
"To get changed. If I go out there dressed like this…" I motioned to the skin tight black jeans, and long-sleeved forest green shirt with a neckline that showed of my collar bone which the TARDIS had given me when I showered after the whole 'end of the word' incident. "I'll start a riot."
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When I walked back into the control room it was to find the Doctor was doing some unnecessary repair work. I watched him from the shadows of the archway to the stairs. I had chosen one of the dresses that the TARDIS personally picked out for me.
It was an elegant TARDIS blue, black and silver satin gothic Victorian dress. It had ruffles at the bottom which was a blend of the blue and silver. The bottom part of the dress was elegantly rounded so as to accentuate the curve of my hips and the fact that the top half of the dress was much tighter on the body. Coming from the waist line of the dress and up across the front was a silver patch that soon faded into the black. It was similar to a corset design with blue threads weaved through it. The arms were black and clung to the top of the arm but started to fan out at the elbow, hiding the hands from view but remaining perfectly functional.
My long black hair was drawn up in a twirled bun on my head so as to keep it out of my face. Unfortunately, the dress highlighted how very pale I was in comparison to most people. Because I was wearing black heeled boots, I didn't need to pick up the skirt as I started to walk down the stairs.
At the sound of my approached, the Doctor looked up, turning off his sonic screwdriver as he did so. "Blimey!" he looked shocked.
"Does it look stupid?" I asked self-consciously. I hadn't worn a dress since Dad's funeral but I couldn't wear trousers in the 1800s – it just wasn't done.
"You look beautiful!" the Doctor exclaimed. I blushed lightly and ducked my head as I came to stand in front of the Doctor. There was a pause and the Doctor awkwardly looks away "Considering…," he turns on his screwdriver again.
"Considering what?" I asked curiously, leaning on the console.
"That you're human."
"You should have stopped at 'you look beautiful,' Doctor. Don't forget I'm a witch and I know where you sleep." I threatened in amusement. "Aren't you going to change?" I asked looking down at his clothes. They were the same design as the ones he had worn last time.
"I've changed my jumper! Come on!" he jumps out of the space beneath the controls. He takes my hand and we both run towards the doors but the Doctor stepped back to allow me to go first. I step forward and open them. Looking out on the street I noticed that the ground was covered in snow. With a big smile I stepped out of the TARDIS and into the past.
"Ready for this?" the Doctor asked as he follows me out, closing the door behind me. He offered me his arm, which I took with a smile. Back on the platform, I had been the one to take his arm, this time he had taken the initiative to offer his arm. A small gesture, but it suggests that he was starting to trust me.
"Here we go. History." The Doctor exclaimed as we walked down the street observing everything. We passed a group of carol singers and the Doctor buys a newspaper from a little boy. I blinked in shock, confused by the fact that he just happened to have the right currency floating around in his pocket.
"I got the flight a bit wrong." He told me sheepishly as he looked at the newspaper.
"See, increasing my confidence by the sentence." I teased him.
"It's not 1860, it's 1869." He turns to look at me.
"Nine years, that's not too bad." I comforted him.
"And it's not Naples." His light sky-blue eyes connect with my emerald green ones.
"I don't care." I told him honestly.
"It's Cardiff." He said seriously.
"Could have been worse." I answered after a pause.
Then the Doctor and I hear the screaming. We grin at each other.
"That's more like it!" he tosses the newspaper over his shoulder and runs in the direction of the screaming. I followed, barely half a step behind him. He looks at me with a raised eyebrow, when he remembers that I'm wearing heels. "How are you running with heels?" he asked.
"Practise." I answered as we entered the building with people running out of it. Being so short, I was almost always wearing shoes or boots with heals just to give me an extra couple of inches. Because of this I had learnt early on how to run with all types of heals.
Flying around the room was what looked like a gas figure. It was originating from an old woman who was sat in one of the chairs.
"Fantastic." The Doctor said as the last of the gas leaves the women's mouth and she slumps forward. Dead. The Doctor approaches the man on the stage while I move towards the women curious as to why I hadn't been notified of the death despite being there when it happened. Most of the audience had already run from the building, but there were still a few stragglers trying to get away.
"Did you see where it came from?" the Doctor asked.
"Ah. The wag reveals himself, does he? I trust you're satisfied, sir." I turned to look at the Doctor who looked slightly taken back. However, when I turned back to the old women it was to see that some old man and a girl around Rose's age was making off with her.
"Oi, leave her alone." I called after them, vaulting the chairs so that I could catch up with them instead of taking the long way round which I had been doing before. "Doctor, I'm going to check them out." I called back over my shoulder.
"Be careful!" he calls back before jumping on the stage, "Did it say anything? Could it speak? I'm the Doctor, by the way."
"Doctor? You look more like a navy." The old man on the stage said.
"What is wrong with this jumper?" was the last thing I heard before I left the theatre. The girl and the old man had successfully loaded the body into the back of a hearse, by the time I got through the people and reached them.
"What are you doing?" I demanded of the girl when the man disappeared around the side of the hearse – presumable to get in the driver's seat.
"Oh, it's such a tragedy, miss. Don't worry yourself, me and the master will deal with it." She tries to bar me from seeing inside the hearse. "The fact is, this poor lady's been taken with the brain fever and we have to get her to the infirmary."
"You are a terrible liar," I told the girl moving her aside without any difficulty and leaning into the hearse. I placed my hand on the women's forehead to feel that she was cold. Lifting her arm slightly I felt for a pulse to confirm what my instincts were telling me.
"She'd dead, has been for at least thirty hours. But that's… that's impossible." I muttered.
I was so distracted trying to figure out how this dead person could have possible been up and moving I didn't notice a man approaching me from behind until he placed a cloth over my mouth. I struggled to get free but the chloroform in the cloth was strong and covering both my mouth and nose. Just before I blacked out, I could see that the girl was looking behind me in alarm. Well at least she didn't know her master was going to attack me.
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When I came to my head was spinning.
"Oh, I so hate drugs." I mutter sitting up only to find myself in a coffin. At least they had been kind enough to leave the lid off. Looking around I noticed that there were another two coffins in the room. And the occupants of both were sitting up and staring at me. I jumped out of the coffin and backed up into the door. Grabbing the candle on my way past. One of the dead people was the old women while the other was most likely her (grand) son judging by the similarities.
I tried opening the door but it was locked. I couldn't Apparate because I had no idea what was on the other side of the door. I held the candle stick in front of me like a weapon. "SOMEBODY OPEN THIS DOOR OR SO GOD HELP ME I WILL KILL SOMEBODY!" I shouted through the door. Now if I wasn't so preoccupied with the whole walking dead thing, I would have probably tried unlocking the door with my magic. However, the dead were getting closer to me. "LET ME OUT!" I shouted once again, swinging the candle at the man. It cut his arm, causing him to stumble but the dead don't bleed and so it did not stop him.
The corpse grabbed me round the neck while the other one grabbed my hands stopping me from hitting the thing. At that very moment the Doctor kicks the door in. "I think this is MY dance." He said, releasing me from their grip. He backed us out of the room.
"It's a prank? It must be. We're under some mesmeric influence." The old man from before said, trying to make heads and tails out of the situation.
"No, we're not. The dead are walking." The Doctor grins down at me. "Hi."
"Hi," I replied rolling my eyes. "Who's your friend?" I asked.
"Charles Dickens."
"Not quite as open minded as I had expected." I responded before turning my attention back to the corpses.
"My name's the Doctor. Who are you, then? What do you want?" the Doctor asked.
"We're falling, open the rift, we're dying. Trapped in this form – cannot sustain – help us." A wispy voice came from the corpse. But it sounded faint, like it was coming through water. Both corpses raise their heads to the ceiling. Blue gas leaves them with a wailing sound and both corpses fall to the floor.
Possessed corpses, much worse than zombies.
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The girl – Gwyneth – poured us all tea while I was having a go at the old man – Sneed. I needed a way to vent my frustrations and he was the only one stupid enough to piss me off.
"First of all, you drug me for no reason at all. Then you kidnap me and don't you dare think for one moment that I didn't feel your hands having a wander – you dirty old man." The Doctor sniggers from his seat.
"I won't be spoken to like this!" Sneed tried to protest since it was probably unheard of for a woman of this time to be speaking to him like I was now. But I just ignored him.
"Then you stick me in a room full of zombies. And you can't even claim to not know they weren't capably of getting up and wondering about. You chased that lady to the theatre after all. You knew very well that they could get up but you just went and swanned off. Ignoring my calls for help – you left me to die. You have a lot of explaining to do. So, start talking." I demanded of him. Not once had I raised my voice at him, nor was I looming over the man. I was stood calmly in front of him with my hands folded neatly in front of me but my eyes were hard and narrowed on Sneed making him shift nervously in his seat.
"It's not my fault, it's this house. It always had a reputation. Haunted. But I never had much bother until a few months back. And then the stiffs," Dickens and I looked offended at his name for the dead so he quickly backtracked, "the dear departed started getting restless."
"Tommyrot." Dickens denied.
"You witnessed it! Can't keep the beggars down, sir! They walk. And it's the queerest thing that they hang on to scraps…"
Gwyneth gives the Doctor his tea. "Two sugars, sir, just how you like it." The Doctor and I look at her retreating back curiously.
"… One old fella 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 said to us.
"Morbid fancy." Dickens scoffed in denial.
"Oh, Charles, you were there." The Doctor said to him.
"I saw nothing but an illusion," Dickens looked to the Doctor.
"If you're going to deny it, don't waste my time. Just shut up." Dickens looks stunned. "What about the gas?" the Doctor asked Sneed gathering up as much information on what was happening as possible.
"That's new, sir, never seen anything like that." Sneed told him.
"Means it's getting stronger, the rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through." The Doctor looked around the house.
"What's the rift?" Gwyneth asked.
"A weak point in time and space. The connection between this place and another. That's the cause of ghost stories, most of the time." he gave a half-hearted smile of remembrance.
"That's how I got the house so cheap." Sneed said in realisation. I watched Dickens sneak out of the room. "Stories going back generations. 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."
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Gwyneth was lighting the lamps in another room when I came in and started doing the washing up. It was a habit ingrained into my personality because of the Dursleys and then mum's depression. I had sent the Doctor off to apologise for snapping at Dickens so I decided to check on Gwyneth instead of waiting around.
"Please, miss! You shouldn't be helping! It's not right!" she fluttered.
"Don't be daft. Sneed works you to death." I said handing her the cloth to dry up so as to prevent her taking over the job I had picked. "How much do you get paid?"
"Eight pound a year, miss."
"That's quite good for this time, isn't it?" I asked trying to remember the inflation and conversion rates.
"Oh yes miss, I would have been happy with six." She replied happily.
"Anyone special in your life?" I asked her.
"I've got a sister but it's just me and Mr Sneed now that she has gotten married." She replied a bit too quickly, embarrassment flowing of her.
"Oh, come on, you've got your eye on someone. You can tell me." I coxed her into talking.
"I suppose. There is one lad…" I look at her, smiling encouragingly. "The butcher's boy. He comes by every Tuesday. Such a lovely smile on him!"
"Oh, I do love a smile." I said smiling softly. "Have you talked to him?"
"No miss, not really."
"Well then you should, don't let him get away from you. The nice ones are really hard to come by. Trust me, you wait too long and he'll be snatched up by someone else." I advised her. She was young yet, but in this time that means nothing.
"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!" Gwyneth said as we finished the last dish.
"Maybe I am. Maybe that's a good thing. You need a bit more in your life then just one man."
"Ah, that's not fair. 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."
"I'm sorry about your parents." I told her softly. "But I didn't mean anything against Mr Sneed, I just meant that you need more people in your life, Sweetheart."
"Thank you, miss. I'll be with them again, one day. Sitting with them in paradise. I should be so blessed. They're waiting for me. Maybe your dad's up there waiting for you too, miss." She said in a very young voice. Younger than the nineteen years she appeared.
"Maybe he is," I said sadly. "But who told you he was dead?"
Gwyneth realized what she'd said and turned quickly back to the cups she was putting away. Luna used to say things like that, without being told things she would just know. But Luna hid her knowledge with imaginary creatures while Gwyneth had no control or way of hiding it.
"I don't know, must've been the Doctor." She said, trying to cover her tracks.
"I've never told the Doctor about him." I told her quietly. Not pushing for answers, but allowing her to talk and letting her know that I wouldn't be judging her.
"You've been thinking about him lately, more than ever." I nodded curtly to her statement; Rose was trying to get me to talk to her about the day he died. Mum didn't like talking about it, she preferred remembering the man he was before his death. And she hadn't been there. I had. I was the one who held his hand when he died and Rose knew that. Which was why she kept asking because she didn't know anything about her father accept what she had been told and I never spoke about what happened the day he died.
"Yes, but how do you know?" I asked softly.
"Mr Sneed says I think too much. I'm all alone down here. I bet you've got dozens of servants, haven't you miss?"
"No, no servants where I come from. Besides I prefer to do the work myself." I answered. Even the House-Elves in my first life weren't servants they were friends who wanted to work for the house – for the family – even if they needed the bond to survive.
"And you've come such a long way."
I stared at her questioningly. "What makes you think so?"
"You're from London. I've seen London in drawings, but never like that." She stares at me intently.
I felt the slight pressure on my mind and pulled my shields all the way up. I always had them around my most important memories but not my surface thoughts. However, now I pulled them up over them all. Gwyneth winced slightly but carries on talking with the information she had been able to obtain from my mind already.
"All those people rushing about. Half naked, for shame. And the noise… and the metal boxes racing past… and the birds in the sky… they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People flying. But that's not all. You've flown so far, further than anyone. The things you've seen, the things you've done… the darkness… the big bad wolf-" she staggers backways, looking afraid. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, miss!"
"It's alright," I soothed her, reaching out and placing a comforting hand on her arm like I used to do with Luna when she lost control or saw something that frightened her.
"Are you alright, miss?" Gwyneth asked, she must have noticed the sadness in my eyes.
"I'm fine, you just reminded me of someone I lost a long time ago."
"What was their name? If you don't mind me asking, miss."
I smiled slightly, a sad smile. "Her name was Luna. Luna Lovegood."
"What happened to her?" she asked after staring at me for a few moments as though she was unused to not knowing the answer to her questions and wasn't sure if she should even ask.
"My people, they weren't good people. They grew power hungry and wanted control of the planet. Some of my people they had the power to see things that others couldn't – like you can. Luna had this power and they took her – I tried so hard to stop them but I wasn't fast enough. I saved the others but by the time I got to Luna they had already taken her powers. But taking her power killed her, destroyed her mind and then her body." I said closing my eyes as the horrible memories came into my mind. I had held Luna in my arms as she died – her heart unable to cope with the violent removal of her powers and the pain.
"I'm sorry," Gwyneth whispered.
I turned and gentle cupped her face, smiling kindly. "Just be careful, Gwyneth. Don't let people know you have this gift because they will try and use you."
"I can't help it – ever since I was a little girl. My mum said I had the sight."
"But it's getting stronger. More powerful, is that right?" Gwyneth jumped at the unexpectedness of the Doctor's voice. We turned to see that he was standing in the doorway.
"All the time, sir. Every night. Voices in my head." The Doctor moved to my side.
"You grew up on top of the rift. You're part of it. You're the key." He told her.
"I've tried to make sense of it, sir. Consulted with spiritualists, table wrappers, all sorts." she looked at the both of us.
"Well, that should help. You can show us what to do." The Doctor grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the kitchen.
"How to do what, sir?" Gwyneth asked as she followed us.
"We're going to have a séance." The Doctor answered excitedly.
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We were all seated around a round table in the dining room.
"This is how Madam Mortlock summons those from the Land of the Mists. Down in Mid Town. Come. We must all join hands." Gwyneth takes a hold of my hand and the Doctor's. I reached over to Dickens but he got up instead of taking my hand.
"I can't take part in this." He said.
"Humbug? Come on, open mind." The Doctor said taking Mr Sneed's hand having realised that it may not be the best idea to put the one man I had a grudge against next to me.
"This is precisely the sort of cheap mummery I try to unmask. Séance? Nothing but luminous tambourines and a squeeze box concealed between the knees. This girl knows nothing."
I silently agreed, if she was anything like Luna then these things were using her, like the Ministry did to Luna. However, I simply held my hand out for Dickens to take once more.
"Now, don't antagonize her. I love a happy medium." The Doctor smiled at Gwyneth.
I raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. He just smirked at me, obviously not caring how cheesy that sounded.
"Come on, we might need you." The Doctor said to Dickens. He sat back down and took my hand. "Good man. Now, Gwyneth. Reach out."
"Speak to us. Are you there? Spirits? Come. Speak to us that we may relieve your burden." She raises her eyes to the ceiling. A murmuring fills the room.
"Can you hear that?" I asked, closing my eyes and trying to hear the words, reaching out my senses to try and connect to the room while also offering a ground to Gwyneth who was obviously channelling something like the seerer's ability but it felt different. More like the awakening of a telepathic and empathic gift that had mutated into one.
"Nothing can happen. This is sheer folly." Dickens commented.
"I feel them. I feel them!"
I snapped my eyes open and looked to Gwyneth. She looked so much like Luna, when she lost control of her power. The gas creatures begin to fill the room.
"What are they saying?" I asked softly. Their voices to faint to be heard.
"They can't get through the rift. Gwyneth, it's not controlling you, you're controlling it. Now look deep. Allow them through."
I tighten my hold on Gwyneth's hand as the Doctor spoke encouragingly. I would not let her power kill her, not again. I reached out to her, prepared to form a barrier between Gwyneth and the world in order to stop the drain.
"I can't." she told him.
"Yes, you can. Just believe it. I have faith in you, sweetheart." I told her softly.
She looked almost pained for a moment, then suddenly, she lowers her head and opens her eyes. "Yes." Her voice sounded like there was another speaking through her at the same time. Three gaseous figures appear behind her.
Dickens' mouth drops open in sock. "Great God. Spirits from the other side!"
"The other side of the universe." The Doctor muttered. I looked at him sharply but he was focusing on the gaseous figures, his brain running through all the alien species he knew and trying to identify the ones before him.
"Pity us. Pity the Gelth. There is so little time, help us."
"What do you want us to do?" I asked them suspiciously. My instincts were screaming at me to stop this from happening. Instincts that had saved my life, and the life of those around me so many times that I always listened to them.
"The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge."
"What for? Why should we?" I questioned even as my brain started to understand what they wanted; it was Luna's death all over again. Using her power to save themselves. Taking her life to do so. Now I had made the connection, Gwyneth's name appeared in my head, and there was nothing I could do to save her now. Her death was a fixed point in time and if she didn't open the rift then something worse would happen.
"We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction."
"Why, what happened?" I asked.
"Once we had a physical form like you. But then the war came."
"War? What war?" Dickens asked.
"The Time War."
The Doctor and I glanced at each other; the Doctor's gaze was tortured as he met mine which were understanding of his inner turmoil despite the limited knowledge I had of the War.
"The whole universe convulsed. The Time War raged invisible to the 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 said, his voice filled with realization.
"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."
"We can't." I exclaimed. The Doctor turns a sharp look on me. "No, it's not right." I said strongly.
"It could save-" I interrupted him before he could finish.
"The dead are not theirs to use, if they really wanted to live so badly they could do it on their planet, they could learn to adapt. To survive. Just because they don't have bodies doesn't mean they cannot survive. It makes no sense, them coming to Earth unless they wanted to take control. Using the dead to eradicate the whole of the human race."
The Doctor nodded his head thinking. But the Gelth were playing on his heart strings. On his compassion for others who were affected by the Time War which was still so fresh in his mind.
"Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth." They disappeared and Gwyneth collapsed forward onto the table. I got up immediately and went to her.
"Gwyneth!" I touched her shoulder, using the physical contact to insulate her systems to stop her from going into shock since this was the first time she had opened herself so much to the feelings, thoughts and energies of others.
"All true." I look up to Dickens. "It's all true."
The Doctor is silent.
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I was dabbing Gwyneth's forehead as she lay asleep on the couch. She was exhausted and her temperature had sky rocketed. Slowly, her eyes opened and she fidgeted.
"It's alright. You just rest." I cooed to her softly, brushing some hair away from her head.
"But my angles, miss. They came, didn't they? They need me?"
The Doctor was leaning on a wall just behind me. "They do need you, Gwyneth. You're they're only chance of survival."
I span around to face him angrily. "I told you, leave her alone. She isn't fighting your battles." The Doctor leans his head back against the wall and signs. I turn back to Gwyneth and offer her a drink. She needed her strength because despite my best efforts I knew it would be Gwyneth's choice in the end, and she was far to kind of heart to not try and help the Gelth.
"Well, what did you say, Doctor? Explain it again. What are they?" Sneed asked.
"Aliens." The Doctor said simply.
"Like… foreigners, you mean?"
"Pretty foreign, yeah. From up there." He points skywards.
"Brecon?"
"Close. They're 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 test drive the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas and hide in the pipes." The Doctor explains in terms that Sneed would understand.
"Which is why they need the girl." they all looked at Gwyneth who shifted slightly in nervousness at all the attention being on her.
"They're not having her." I snapped, turning back round to face the lot of them, annoyed at the way they were putting pressure on the young women's shoulders.
"But she can help. Living on the rift, she's become part of it, she can open it up, make a bridge and let them through." The Doctor looked at me, I narrowed my eyes in turn.
"Incredible. Ghosts that are not ghosts but beings from another world who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers." Dickens said in amassment, interrupting anything I might have said in turn.
"Good system. It might work."
I got up and walked over to the Doctor. "It won't work." I told him seriously, yet keeping my tone even because I didn't want to provoke his temper on the matter.
"Why not? It's like recycling."
"Opening the rift will kill Gwyneth. She isn't strong enough to support that much energy. Beside even if we could, what the hell do you think the governments of the world would say about the dead walking? Without the memories of who they were. It would kill the families of those who died. And our bodies decompose, the Gelth would have maybe seventy-two hours in a body before it could no longer support them. Probably less since they would be using the bodies thereby making them decompose quicker." I spoke softly, keeping my voice quiet enough that only the Doctor could hear what I was saying despite the fact that we remained in the same room as the others.
"Do you carry a donna card?"
I looked him straight in the eye. "No, I don't. And there is a difference. The people who have a donor card choose to donate their bodies to help others, and the family still gets the closure of a burial. By giving the Gelth the use of human bodies you are taking away that choice from them and you don't have that right." I snapped at him.
"It is different, yeah. It's a different morality. Get used to it or go home." I glared at him. "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." He spoke to me in a softer tone this time, recognising that the tone he was taking was less likely to result in cooperation.
"Not only did you just ignore everything I just said, Doctor, I don't care." I told him; my voice flat.
"Don't I get a say, miss?" both the Doctor and I turn to look at Gwyneth. At some point in their conversation, she had sat up.
"Look, you don't understand." I said softly. I felt something trying to poke around my shields, I immediately tightened them. "Stay out of my head, Gwyneth. No one should see the things that are there."
"I-I know my own mind. And the angles need me. Doctor, what do I have to do?" Gwyneth turned to the Doctor, although she looked wary of her decision. Like she wasn't quite as confident as she used to be.
"You don't have to do anything." He looked to her, seeing her cautiousness.
"They've been singing to me since I was a child. Sent by my mum on a holy mission."
I knelt down in front of her and cupped her cheeks with my hands. Making her look down at me. "This could kill you Gwyneth. Do you understand that? The rift, the Gelth, they will strip you of your strength. Killing you to support the rift. Please, just think carefully." I begged of her.
"I'm sorry, miss." She turned back to the Doctor when I lowered my hands in defeat. "Tell me."
The Doctor smiles at her. "We need to find the rift." He approaches Sneed and Dickens. "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 the morgue."
"Of course, it would be." I grumbled, helping Gwyneth to her feet. I knew I wouldn't be able to tell her otherwise, but I had tried. Told her the risks.
The Doctor led us down to the morgue. It was an open space with an archway separating the two parts of the morgue.
"Talk about Bleak House." The Doctor said. I glared at his back; really not happy with him at the moment.
"Doctor – the room is getting colder." I told him despite my own feelings since he would need to be aware of his surroundings.
"Here they come."
The Gelth flood the room. Their leader positions itself in an archway. It had the voice of a child.
"You have come to help. Praise the Doctor. Praise him!"
"Promise you won't hurt her!" my voice broke at the end. I felt the Doctor take my hand and squeeze it but I ignored him.
"Hurry. Please. So little time. Pity the Gelth."
"I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer. Somewhere you can build proper bodies. This isn't a permanent solution, alright?" the Doctor told them, trying to subtly tell Annamae that he understood and recognised her argument and this was the best compromise that he could think off.
"My angles. I can help them live." Gwyneth moved towards the Gelth.
"Okay, where's the weak point?" the Doctor asked.
"Here, beneath the arch." Gwyneth positions herself beneath the arch and repeats what they'd said. I rushed over to her.
"You don't have to do this." I said reaching up to place a hand on her cheek once more.
"My angles." She told me before whispering in my ear, "I'm sorry." I fell back as I was forced to claim her soul. She was embracing death like an old friend, just I had once done, a long time ago.
"Establish the bridge, reach out of the void, and let us through!"
"Yes. I can see you! I can see you! Come!" Gwyneth shouted to the arch.
"Bridgehead establishing."
"Come! Come to me! Come to this world, poor lost souls!" she continued.
"It has begun! The Bridge is made!" Gwyneth's mouth opened and the Gelth poured out of it. "She has given herself to the Gelth!"
"No!" I whispered as I watched Gwyneth's soul leave her. She went with less pain than Luna but she seemed glade to finally be enfolded in Death's cloak.
"There's rather a lot of them, eh?" Dickens stated.
"The bridge is open. We descend." Suddenly, the figure becomes demonic. The gas turned from blue to red.
"The Gelth will come through in force." Instead of the innocent child like voice that it had been using before, it was now deeper and darker.
"You said that you were few in number." Dickens shouted, moving towards the door.
"A few billion. And all of us in need of corpses." The bodies raised from the morgue tables.
"Gwyneth… stop this. Listen to your master. This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, leave these things alone. I beg of you-"
"Mr Sneed! Get Back!" I shouted.
A corpse grabbed Sneed from behind and held him still while another of the Gelth fills his body through his mouth. The Doctor and I leapt back. Mr Sneed looks up at us through bland, dead eyes.
"I think it's gone a little bit wrong." I turned a sharp look on the Doctor.
"I have joined the legions of the Gelth. Come. March with us."
"NO!" the corpses advance on the Doctor and me.
"We need bodies. All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead." They were backing us against a dungeon door.
"Gwyneth, stop them! Send them back! Now!" I grabbed the Doctors hand, turning his attention to me.
"She can't, Doctor. She can't." My bottom lip wavered, along with my voice as I fought back tears. Gwyneth's death was hitting me harder than any other death since Pete's because I had started feeling again and it reminded me far too much of Luna's death. The Doctor stared down at me, comprehension dawning in his eyes as he realised that they were in this mess because he wouldn't listen and now they were going to die, and after them the rest of the human race.
"Three more bodies. Make them vessels for the Gelth."
"I-I can't! I'm sorry." Dickens backed towards the stairs.
The Doctor looked behind him and spotted the dungeon door. He pulled me inside with him and slams it shut again so we were both locked in there. Dickens jumped away from one of the reaching hands and ran from the morgue; the corpses were clamouring to get into the dungeon room that the Doctor and I had barricaded ourselves in but they couldn't make it through the bars of the door.
"Give yourself to glory. Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth."
"I trusted you. I pitied you." The Doctor shouted at the Gelth. I buried my face into his chest, squeezing my eyes shut tight as I tried to collect myself and think of a way of stopping the Gelth and shutting the rift. Blocking the sight of the animated bodies helped slightly because I was no longer looking at something that caused shivers of disgust and a feeling of unnaturalness in the pit of my stomach.
"We don't want your pity! We want this world and all its flesh." They rattled the door.
"Not while I'm alive." The Doctor wrapped an arm around my shoulders in a comforting and protective gesture.
"Then live no more!"
The Doctor and I flattened against the dungeon wall while the Gelth rattle the door. I pointed my hand at the Gelth, my fingers spread wide and palm up, creating a shield between us which pushed the Gelth back away from the door a little before one of them got the idea to try the lock.
"Doctor, next time, listen to me." I told him softly.
"I'm sorry." He said looking down at me with sad eyes.
"It's 1869, how could I die?" I questioned quietly. I wasn't afraid of death, I was afraid of what these creatures would do with my body once I was dead – especially if they still had access to my magic or knowledge. I was self-aware enough to know that if they had access to even half my knowledge and power, they could easily wipe out every human on the planet.
"Time isn't a straight lie. It can twist into any shape. You can be born in the 20th century and die in the 19th and it's all my fault. I brought you here." The Doctor explained, his voice taking on a tone of self-reproach.
"It's not your fault. I wanted to come." I reassured him. "Besides, time's in flux. It's changing every second. We could be rewritten in seconds."
"What about me? 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!" the Doctor looked horrified, "in Cardiff!"
"It's not just dying. We'll become one of them." I spoke. "We'll go down fighting, yeah." I asked him.
"Yeah." He agreed.
"Together?"
"Together." He agreed, linking his hand with my free one. "I'm so glad I met you."
I looked up at him, surprised that he would say something like that aloud. "Me to."
We smiled at each other. At that moment, Dickens rushes into the room.
"Doctor! Turn OFF the flame, turn UP the gas! Now fill the room, all of it, now!" he told us.
"What are you doing?" the Doctor questions.
"Turn it all on! Gas the place!" he turns off the flame of the closest lamp while leaving the gas turned on.
"Brilliant, Gas!" the Doctor exclaimed.
"Am I correct, Doctor? These creatures are gaseous!"
"Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!" the corpses all decide to turn on Dickens instead since he was more easily reached.
"I hope… oh, Lord. I hope that this theory will be validated soon." The corpses advance dangerously on him as he covered his face with a hanky and backed away. "If not immediately."
"Plenty more!" the Doctor smashed a gas canister against the wall as I lowered my shield. All the creatures are sucked from the bodies with a scream.
"It's working." The Doctor and I were free to come out of the dungeon room.
"Gwyneth! Send them back. They lied; they're not angles." The Doctor said to her.
"Liars." She said simply. A shadow of herself speaking.
"Look at me. 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!" the Doctor shouted at her.
"She can't." I chocked, not on the gas but on the sobs that wanted to escape.
The Doctor looked at me worriedly. "Charles get her out." Dickens grabs my arm, but I shake him off. Moving towards were Gwyneth's corpse stood.
"They're too strong." She spoke.
"Remember that world you saw. Annamae's world? All those people – none of it will exist unless you send them back through the rift." The Doctor tried to convince her.
"I can't send them back." Gwyneth repeated through gritted teeth. "But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out." She finished firmly. Her hand went to her apron pocket and she took out a box of matches.
I reached out and cupped her face once more. "You brilliant girl. I'm sorry that I couldn't save you but I can protect you now. You will know no more pain, only light and happiness." I whispered to her, my magic wrapped around her, marking her as pure and under my protection. Death will recognise it and protect her.
"Go!" she hissed at me.
"I'm sorry, I thought I could save you unlike with Luna" I told her before turning and grabbing Dickens, who was choking on the gas, and pulling him from the house. I knew the Doctor would follow after trying to save Gwyneth.
Just as the house went up in flames he dove from the doorway. I look at the Doctor tears pouring down my cheeks. I look down at the ground as he walks towards me.
"I'm sorry. She closed the rift." He said pulling me into a hug. I let him, hiding my face in his chest.
"At such a cost. The poor child." Dickens said.
"I did try, Annamae, but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes."
"From the moment she stepped into the arch she was dead. I watched her soul leave." I whispered into his chest my voice quiet enough that Dickens couldn't hear what was said.
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Even for you, Doctor." Dickens said.
"A servant girl saved the world. A servant girl. And no one will ever know, no one but us." I said sadly from the shelter of the Doctors arms as we watched the house burn. Gwyneth couldn't be buried, but we could show respect for what she had done by watching the house as one would watch a funeral pyre.
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The Doctor, Dickens and I arrived back at the TARDIS having been forced to leave when people started arriving to put the fire out nearly half an hour after it started.
"Right then, Charlie-boy, I've just got to go into my um… shed. Won't be long!" the Doctor fits the key in the lock.
"What're you going to do now?" I asked Dickens.
"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. After all I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital." He told me excitedly with a smile on his face for the first time that night.
"You've cheered up!" the Doctor said happily.
"Exceedingly! 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." Dickens said enthusiastically.
"Do you think that's wise?" I asked cautiously.
"I shall be subtle at first. The Mystery of Edwin Drood still lacks an ending. 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!" Dickens told us.
"Good luck with it. Nice to meet you." The Doctor shakes Dickens hand. "Fantastic." He turns back to the TARDIS door.
"Bye, and thanks." I kissed him on the cheek. Dickens looked taken aback.
"Oh, dear – how modern. Thank you, but I don't understand – in what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?" he asked us.
"You'll see. In the shed." The Doctor opens the door of the TARDIS.
"Oh, my soul. Doctor, its one riddle after another with you. But after all these revelations, there's one mystery you still haven't explained. Answer me this – who are you?"
There was a pause. "Just a friend. Passing through." The Doctor answered simple.
"But you have such knowledge of future times. I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books. Doctor – do they last?" he asked the Doctor.
"Oh, yes!" the Doctor answered.
"For how long?"
"Forever." I said smiling at him, unable to believe that his works would ever be forgotten. Dickens tried to look pleased and modest at the same time.
"Right. Shed. Come on, Annamae…" we both turn to the door.
"In – in the box? Both of you?" Dickens said suggestively.
"Down boy. See ya!" the Doctor laughed. We entered the TARDIS and shut the door after us.
"He dies in the year 1870. He'll never get to tell his story." I said softly.
"Then let's give him one last surprise." The Doctor hits a button and the engines starts up. We smiled as we watched Dickens face when the TARDIS disappears before his eyes. After a while the Doctor turns to me.
"Annamae." I looked up at him when he spoke my name so seriously.
"Yes, Doctor?" I tilted my head just a bit.
"Who's Luna?"
"She was a friend, from my first life. I failed to protect her." I told him before I left, going to get changed and signalling that I wasn't yet ready to talk more about the topic. The Doctor had his demons and so did I.