THE UNQUIET DEAD
chapter iv

The TARDIS is in a rather jerky flight, shaking and unstable, but this is something the Master can easily fix, of course.

(Or not.)

Rose Tyler is sitting down in a chair near the console room, munching at chips as she watches the bumpy ride. The Master is running across the console, holding down levers and pushing buttons, and she can barely contain her laughter, the insufferable human that she is. "Need any help?" she asks as she takes another chip and bites into it, the crunching sound barely heard over the sound of the TARDIS.

"I told you already!" he shouts, "I can do this by myself!"

"If you say so." she shrugs. She grips to the armrest of her chair as the TARDIS makes another sharp turn, her chips spilling on the floor. He grins. Serves her right, questioning his piloting abilities. He tries reaching across the console to hold something down and he hears her laugh. "You won't be able to reach that!"

"Yes, I will!" he says, punctuating each word as he stretches across the console. He succeeds. "Ha!" Another rapid movement of the TARDIS and his grip slips, as his pink and yellow kitten stands up to hold it down for him. "I could've done that." he mutters, not expecting her to hear him above the sounds the TARDIS was making.

She rolls her eyes. "No, you couldn't have." she says, "Where are we going?"

"1860!"

"Why 1860?!"

"Because!"

He nearly scoffs because this human girl is questioning him and she asked for a time machine, dammit, so she's getting one, past included. (And of course this has nothing to do with the fact that this is the date that the TARDIS is set to, by accident of course, and it's all the way across the console and he can't let go of this button to change it or else the ship will crash.)

The ship crashes anyway and she ends up falling down as he loses his balance and lands on the floor. The TARDIS makes one final movement that causes him to roll to the right, landing right on top of her. He loathes to admit it, but he's the one whose face flushes red, while hers just has a raised eyebrow. He smirks to cover it up and she rolls her eyes. "Think you're getting off of me anytime soon?"

He scowls at her and stands up, dusting off some dirt from his outfit. "There we go." he says, "Step outside and it's 1860. December 24th, to be exact. Go on."

"Oh, Rose, are you all right?" she mocks his accent, before reverting to hers. "Yes, I am, nothing's broken, thanks for asking."

The Master rolls his eyes. "To be fair," he starts, "You didn't ask me if I was okay either."

"What happened to your 'superior Time Lord physiology'?"

She steps out of the TARDIS and he follows her after holding out the door, and immediately a woman passing by points at Rose's outfit and shrieks. He laughs, forgetting about her apparel and shoves her back inside. "Go to the wardrobe find something else to wear or else you'll give some little old lady a heart attack. 1860, remember? Try something Christmas-y."

She makes a somewhat annoyed noise (and she wonders why he considers her a kitten), crossing her arms. "What about you? Don't you need to change?"

He examines his outfit. A simple suit without a tie because ties are stupid. He drums his fingers on the console and suddenly he realizes what he should add. "Oh!" he exclaims, "Rose Tyler, bring me a top hat when you come back, will you?"

"Come with me yourself so you can tell me where the bloody wardrobe is!"

He sighs and takes in a deep breath. "First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left. Now, hurry up, will you?"

She makes a frustrated noise and he can hear her repeating the instructions under her breath, but the TARDIS would probably help her find it considering how much the blue box liked her. He's right. She arrives around twelve minutes after, dressed up with a top hat in her hands. Rose Tyler is wearing a dress black and red in color, with her hair up instead of down, some strands in her hair that he feels the need to push out of her face. It's such a simple dress, but she looks absolutely–

She tosses him the hat and interrupts his train of thought. "Don't laugh."

He's distracted by her and ends up not catching the hat midair, so he bends down to pick it up. "No, no, no, no, no. You look…" he trails off.

"I look what?"

"Fine." he finishes lamely, "You'll fit in just perfectly."

She looks somewhat deflated but he beams at her instead. She walks down some of the steps in the console room and stops next to him looking at him expectantly. "Aren't you going to offer me your arm or something?"

He almost rolls his eyes. "Your Excellency," he tells her, his face a mask of complete seriousness, extending his hand to her. "Would you do me the honor of accompanying me on an adventure?"

Pink tints her cheeks and the Master feels almost too triumphant at being able to make Rose Tyler blush. "If you insist." she replies, taking his hand, and she's smiling so brightly that it's almost blinding. She's swinging their hands back and forth, but it doesn't really bother him as he leads her out the TARDIS door.

As they walk, Rose lets go of his hand and picks up a newspaper before setting it down. "Master? Look at this."

He doesn't look at that, but instead lets a smug but silly grin appear on his face. "You just called me Master!"

Rose Tyler's eyes widen just a bit and her face turns even redder. "Shut it."

"But you did!" he exclaims, "You've never called me 'Master' before."

"Not like you're willing to share a real name," she mutters, "Just give me your real name and I'll call you that, then. See? Problem solved. Look at this." She holds up the newspaper and he pushes it back down.

He doesn't let her change the topic so easily. "Now, why would I give you a different alias for me to go by?" he asks her, "'The Master' is my name." he pauses just for a while as she's looking at him like he's insufferable, which, he has to admit, he is. He adds the last bit a couple seconds after. "And I like it when you say it."

He almost laughs because she looks as if she's choked on air. "Master," she insists, and he lets the smug smile cross his features again, which just causes her to blush harder. "Look. At. The paper."

The Master does look at the paper. He looks up with a slightly less amused expression, still rather glad that Rose Tyler has finally said his name. "What about it?"

"It's not 1860. It's 1869."

"Yes."

"And it's not Naples."

"Yes."

"It's–"

"Cardiff." they finish at the same time, he continues speaking as he leads her into a theater, quickly showing the psychic paper to the usher at the front. "Now, here we go again with the stating the obvious, Rose Tyler," he says, "I was thinking that you had finally undergone some development in the personality section of life."

"...was nothing particular at all about the knocker on the door of this house, but let any man explain to me if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without it's undergoing any intermediate process of change–" the voice from the stage says as they enter the theater and try to find seats, which they luckily do.

"After you, m'lady." he tells her, and she does sit down, and he follows her.

"Scrooge?" she asks him, "As in A Christmas Carol? Which means this is that Charles Dickens bloke, right?" she points at the stage at the man with a slightly scruffy beard telling the story.

"Ah, yes. I suppose it would be, wouldn't it?" he says, "I hated this story."

"Probably because you're a total Grinch." she teases him, "I bet you're the type of person who hates Christmas."

"Of course I do." he says, "What's the point of having one day where everybody is obliged to give gifts to one another? Isn't it much more special if someone comes up to you on any random day of the year, and gives you this wonderful present?"

"Hmm." she considers it, and the fact that she doesn't just laugh it off surprises him. "I guess you're right."

He smirks. "Of course I am."

"–Not a knocker, but Marley's face. Marley's face! It looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look. It looked like..." Suddenly, Dickens stops talking and his face is etched in surprise and confusion, as he points at something in the crowd. "That! It looked exactly like that!" The Master cranes his neck and sees the old lady who's starting to glow and give off a faint green-blue gas. "Oh my lord! What phantasmagoria is this?"

The old lady, who looks very much like a corpse begins to rise and groan as everybody else in the auditorium begin to scream and panic, most of which running out of their seats. Dickens continues, "Stay in your seats, I beg you. It is a lantern show. It's trickery."

"What's happening?" Rose asks as she stands up, ready trying to get a better view of the old woman, when suddenly a bald man in a top hat pushes past the two of them, knocking off the Master's own hat in the process.

A much younger girl in a maid's outfit follows him. "There she is, sir!" the girl exclaims, "There she is!"

"I can see that. The whole blooming world can see that!" the man replies as they rush towards the glowing woman.

The Master can hear the sound of the police blowing their whistles and he grins. "Wonderful." he says, "Just wonderful. Rose Tyler, you go outside, will you? Stall the cops and all that." She nods and runs outside, choosing to fulfill the role of obedient companion rather than be stubborn and hardheaded like she always is, and instead of pleasing him, it somewhat unnerves him. The lady suddenly collapses, but he's running towards Charles Dickens and he doesn't really notice it. He taps Dickens on the shoulder and he turns to face him. "Hello. Did you see where that came from?"

"Ah, the wag reveals himself, does he?" Dickens immediately accuses him, "I trust you're satisfied, sir!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Rose changing the direction that she's running in, to go to the back exit instead of the main one, following the man and the girl from a while ago, who are both carrying the body of the old lady out the theatre. Now that's more like Rose Tyler. "Actually," he replies to Charles, "I am quite amused."

"Your tomfoolery has cost me my show!"

He makes a tsk, tsk sound at the author and wags his finger disapprovingly. "Just because it amuses me doesn't mean it is my prank. Now, did it say anything?" he asks out of pure curiosity, because this looks like a ghost story which really means it's just alien, and he's wondering what Cardiff 1869 could possible have in store for him. "Does it even speak?" The blue entity that escaped from the woman flies into a gaslight and suddenly it all clicks. "Ah. Got it. Gaseous being."

He starts walking outside the theater, after Charles Dickens tries to escape the auditorium and as he does he catches the ending bit of Rose Tyler confronting the two from a while ago. "–dead! What did you do to–" Rose is suddenly cut off.

"What did you do that for?" he hears the maid ask.

"She knows too much!" the man replies hastily, "Help me get her in the hearse and pick up her legs. Come on, Gwyneth! Godspeed!"

By the time he's made it past the crowd, pushing past every single person, not caring if any of them have fallen to the ground or not and he catches the briefest glimpse of an unconscious pink and yellow kitten before their hearse starts to move. "Rose!"

Dickens grabs his arms and he turns to the author abruptly, anger in his eyes. "You're not escaping me, sir. What do you know about that hobgoblin, hmm? Projection on glass, I suppose. Who put you up to it?"

"I told you, it's not my prank!" he snaps. Rose Tyler is in danger. Rassilon, Rose Tyler is in danger and this author cares about the mysterious blue entity that interrupted his performance. What screwed up priorities. He promptly enters a random carriage and exclaims, "Follow that hearse!"

"I can't do that, sir." the driver replies.

His glare has turned murderous and he asks his next question in a rather quiet yet threatening manner. "Why. Not?"

"I'll tell you why not. I'll give you a very good reason why not. This is my coach." Dickens proclaims, "Explain to me what has happened?"

"Not until we start to follow that bloody hearse!"

The author gets into the carriage with him. "What's so important about it? Who is in it?"

"A..." and in that moment, he's unsure of what to refer to Rose Tyler as, because by now, he guesses she's much more than just a companion to travel with. "Friend." he finishes, resolutely. "She's in danger and your driver doesn't want to get this carriage moving and help her!" his volume increases with the last bit, remembering the predicament that Rose has gotten herself into.

"Why are we wasting my time, then? This is much more important, but I do expect answers. Driver, be swift! The chase is on!"

"Yes, sir!" the driver replies, and the carriage starts moving immediately.

"In the meantime," Dickens says, "Would you please care to tell me what happened during my..."

The Master looks at him dead in the eye, still somewhat worried and still definitely furious. Does it fucking look like I want to talk about that right now? His gaze seems to ask, and the author falters under its intensity. The sound of the horse's hooves on the pavement almost matches the sound of the drums in his head, which only get louder and louder and louder and louder.

Dickens gains some courage and continues to pester him. "I said I'd bring you to your friends in exchange for answers, sir!"

"Look," the Master says, facing him. "I'm not exactly your number one fan–"

Dickens interrupts his statement. "Of course you aren't." he says, "How exactly are you a fan? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?"

"Shortened form of fanatic. Whatever." the Master clarifies, waving his hand dismissively, "Point is, if I didn't get that point across earlier, my friend has a knack for getting herself into danger, and I have a knack of saving her life, which I'd very much rather do right now." That is, he thinks to himself, if she doesn't save herself first.

The moment he spots the Chapel of Rest and he deems it near enough, he jumps out of the carriage even if he knows it's still moving, surprisingly landing pretty well. He knocks on the door to the beating of the drums in his head, and he knocks hard.

'Gwyneth' answers soon enough. "I'm sorry, sir. We're closed."

Dickens is behind him in a few seconds. "Nonsense. Since when did an Undertaker keep office hours? The dead don't die on schedule. I demand to see your master."

"He's not in, sir." she replies, meekly.

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

"I am the Master." the Time Lord clarifies, "And I suggest that you step aside right now unless you want to be the next dead body in this chapel." he threatens her, and she seems to shrink into her shell even more. A gas lamp suddenly flares and he points at it. "That. How long's it been happening?"

He pushes past her and he can vaguely hear Dickens' disbelief. "What the Shakespeare is going on?"

"You're not allowed inside, sir!" Gwyneth protests.

"As you can see, I have a talent for doing what I'm not allowed to do."

"Open the door! Please, please let me out!"

Suddenly, he hears Rose Tyler and he smiles a bit at that, mostly just glad that she's still alive. "Rose Tyler banging on a door, screaming for help, and demanding to be let out," he says, mock-thoughtfully, "Now, where have I seen this before?"

"Not funny, Master! Unlock the door right now!"

"And there you go using my name again. Wonderful." he says, trying to lighten the mood just a little bit, because surely, whatever's in there can't be that bad, right?

He hears Rose scream. (Wrong.)

Suddenly, the man from earlier makes an appearance, joining them in the hallway. So much for 'being indisposed'. "How dare you, sir," he tells Dickens, "This is my house!"

"Shut up!" the Master shouts, close to panicking because Rose is in there and he knows that maybe before this wouldn't have bothered him much but it's all her fault, blundering into his life and now being alone is not a desirable option anymore. "Where's the key to this door?" Gwyneth scampers off to find it, presumably, but she's taking too long.

The Master forgets about his Tissue Compression Eliminator, and even if he remembered it he still wouldn't have shrunk the door.

Instead, he kicks it down.

He's met with the site of a corpse grabbing Rose and it's in that moment he remembers his TCE and uses it immediately. (Later, of course, he'll realize that this probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, nonetheless the gaseous beings leave the corpse and go back into the gas lamp.

He hears whispers as some enter another body. "Failing. Open the rift. We're dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us. Argh!" and the rest join its 'family' in the gas lamp and promptly disappear.

The Master looks at Rose Tyler before anything else. "Hello. Getting yourself into trouble again, just like always."

She smiles, the fear fading off of her face. "Hello." she says, sticking out her tongue at the corner of her smile, like always. "While you take impossibly long to help me again, I see."

"First of all you drug me, then you kidnap me, and don't think I didn't feel your hands having a quick wander, you dirty old man–"

"I won't be spoken to like this!"

"Then you stuck me in a room full of zombies! And if that ain't enough, you swan off and leave me to die! So come on, talk!"

He chuckles a bit at that. Now, that's my companion, he thinks to himself proudly. He raises an eyebrow when Rose mentions that Sneed's (as he learned was the name of the man) hands were 'having a quick wander', but he dismisses it as nothing, really and he takes another sip from the cuppa that Gwyneth has poured for him. ("No sugar at all, sir," she had told him, still kind of afraid of him. "This is how you like it, yes?" And he nodded because it's true; he likes it strong.)

"It's not my fault. It's this house. It always had a reputation. Haunted." Sneed says, seriously, "But I never had much bother until a few months back, and then the stiffs, the er, dear departed started getting restless."

Dickens lets out a pfft sound. "Tommyrot."

"You witnessed it. Can't keep the beggars down, sir. They walk. And it's the queerest thing, but they hang on to scraps." Sneed adds, hastily, after Dickens expressed his disbelief. "One old fellow who used to be a sexton almost walked into his own memorial service. Just like the old lady going to your performance, sir, just as she planned."

"Morbid fancy." Dickens dismisses it once more.

"You were there." the Master says, frustrated with the author's skepticism about the whole thing. And here he was thinking that he had met one of the most brilliant men in all of history. "Isn't that enough proof? Or is it still not good enough the oh-so wonderful Charles Dickens?"

"I saw nothing but an illusion."

"Still denying it? Don't waste my time. Shut up." the Master says bluntly, turning back to Sneed. "The gas, though. It's been flaring. What's with that?"

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

"Rift's getting bigger." Rose sends him a questioning look and he sighs and explains to the lesser minds in the room. "It's this weak point between time and space, sort of like a gateway between one world and another." He grins as he adds, as an afterthought, "It's the reason ghost stories exist." It's at this point Dickens leaves the room, huffing in frustration.

"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." Sneed says, quietly.

The Master shrugs and stands to go see where Dickens has gone off to, and eventually finds the man looking at the coffin of the corpse from a while ago, Redpath. "You won't find any strings there." he says.

"Wires, perhaps. There must be some mechanism behind this fraud."

"You really are quite daft, are you?"

Dickens looks indignant at the suggestion. "Excuse me, sir!"

He rolls his eyes. "Come on!" he says, "I thought you would be open-minded about these things, but no. Even when you've witnessed it with your own very eyes you refuse to believe that something is wrong with this house, and maybe, just maybe, it's something supernatural." he argues, "So, please enlighten me on why you're being so fucking difficult!"

The author is surprised at his language, and the Master realizes that maybe 1869 isn't the right time to curse, but really he doesn't care. Dickens sighs, resigned. "Can it be that I have the entire world wrong?" he asks, in a small voice.

"Oh, that's just wonderful. You're throwing yourself a pity party because you're not the smartest man in the universe after all. Is that really so hard to believe, Charles?"

"I loved an illusion as much as the next man, reveled in them, but that's exactly what they were, illusions. The real world is something else. I dedicated myself to that. Injustices, the great social causes. I hoped that I was a force for good." Dickens tells him, looking honest. " Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of specters and jack-o'-lanterns, and you're asking me if it's hard to believe?"

"That's exactly what I'm asking you. Is it that hard to believe something you've seen with your very eyes?" the Master asks, "You checked the coffin. No strings, no wires."

"Then have I wasted my brief span, here?" he asks, "Has it all been for nothing?"

The Master is very tempted to reply with yes, but this man's books last and he knows that saying so would be a lie. "Every life amounts to something," he points out, "Everyone makes an impact in their own way."

"Although my impact would be somewhat miniscule on the grand scale of things, wouldn't it?"

"That entirely depends on you. Now, stop being so bloody stupid, Charlie."

"Nobody calls me Charlie."

"Of course not." the Master says sarcastically.

When he arrives back in the living room, Sneed tells him that Rose is helping Gwyneth out with washing up, and he nearly snorts because she doesn't need to help people. By the time he finds the pantry, he almost announces himself immediately, but stops when he hears Gwyneth talk.

"You're from London. I've seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half naked, for shame." he nearly laughs at the last bit, but he knows that this girl is afraid of him (she has good reason to be), and if he would interrupt then she would stop talking. She trusts Rose. Why is it that everyone trusts Rose? "And the noise, and the metal boxes racing past, and the birds in the sky, no, they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People are flying." How could Gwyneth know that? The airplane won't be invented for a couple more decades. "And you, you've flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you've seen. The darkness, the big bad wolf. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, miss."

"Big bad wolf?" he mouths to himself, dwelling on that bit more than he should, because he knows that the important thing here is that this girl is either looking into Rose Tyler's mind, or that she can see the future. She doesn't look alien, but then again, he doesn't either.

"It's all right." he hears Rose reply.

"I can't help it. Ever since I was a little girl, my mam said I had the sight. She told me to hide it."

"Don't." the Master says, and silently curses himself for not keeping his mouth shut. He almost smirks, though, when he hears a plate shatter on the ground, most probably the one that Gwyneth was putting away. "It's getting stronger, isn't it?" Gwyneth nods shyly, backing away from him. "Of course it is!" he exclaims, "You grew on top of rift!"

"E-Excuse me, sir?"

"You have any idea how to talk to the dead?" he asks, "No need to use a Ouija Board or anything, but do you have any idea at all? A séance of sorts."

Gwyneth is shaking and Rose taps him on the arm, and he turns to face her. "I think you're scaring her." she whispers.

He scoffs. "I'm not scaring her." he replies, "I already did. It was while you were busy almost dying."

Rose Tyler snorts. "Figures." she lays her hand on Gwyneth's arm and gives her this compassionate, reassuring look that makes him want to throw up. "Do you know how to do one, Gwyneth? A séance? You'd be able to help us very much."

She nods. "Yes, miss Rose." she says, "Come, we can perform one in the living room." Gwyneth leads the way and Rose looks at him somewhat triumphantly.

"Now that's how you get someone to help you. Remember what I said about being nice?"

The Master scowls at his companion. "Okay, fine. So I scared her. Sometimes it's good to scare people, you know."

"And sometimes," she retorts, "It's good to be kind. Why are you helping these people in the first place anyway? I thought that goes against everything you stand for."

"I'm curious." he replies instantly, "It's like solving a mystery."

She starts to walk, following Gwyneth and he walks beside her. "So, you're just going to play Sherlock Holmes until you find out what's causing the dead to come back to life, then you're not going to help them?"

"Knowing you, I'm in store for a ten minute long lecture about this, aren't I?"

"You should help them."

"I don't really do what I should do." he says, "'Sides. It's just the rift, nothing major. The world isn't ending this time. And if it is," he shrugs, "Well, Rose Tyler will be there to defend it."

"You'll be there too." she points out.

"Of course I'll be there." he tells her, "You're useless on your own."

He means it as a joke of sorts, but maybe it's three percent truth to him, and he's glad when Rose Tyler does nothing but laugh. "Are you sure the rift isn't anything serious?" she asks as they near the living room.

"Positive." he replies.

"Gather around the table, please, everybody." Gwyneth instructs, and everyone does so. The Master finds himself in between Rose and Sneed. "This is how Madam Mortlock summons those from the Land of Mists, down in big town. Come, we must all join hands."

Dickens stands, disconnecting his hands from Gwyneth and Sneed's. "I can't take part in this."

The Master looks at him and raises an eyebrow. "What happened to not being a stupid dunce, Charlie?"

"This is precisely the sort of cheap mummery I strive to unmask. Séances? Nothing but luminous tambourines and a squeezebox concealed between the knees. This girl knows nothing."

"But, you know what?" the Master asks, rhetorically, "She's still being more open-minded than you are, and that says a lot. At least she actually has a brain." Dickens glares at him and sits down again. "There we go. Gwyneth? Start. Now."

Gwyneth takes a deep breath. "Speak to us. Are you there? Spirits come. Speak to us that we may relieve your burden."

He rolls his eyes and almost scoffs at the words that Gwyneth is using, but then the whispering starts. Dickens gives him a pointed look after his eye roll, accusing him of hypocrisy, most probably, but suddenly his expression shifts to that of alarm.

"Can you hear that?" Rose asks.

He sends her a look, and he hopes he gets the message across because of course everyone can hear that, Rose Tyler, what do you think? "Look at her."

"I see them. I feel them." Gwyneth says, stuttering a bit as she takes another deep breath to calm herself. Gas tendrils begin to drift above their heads and Gwyneth continues to speak. "I can't hear them."

Sneed looks to him expectantly for an answer to this and he sighs. "They can't get through the rift."

He can vaguely hear Sneed in the background. ("Do we even want this creatures to get through this so-called rift?") He's focusing on Rose and what she's saying quietly to Gwyneth. If it weren't for his superior hearing, he wouldn't have heard it at all. "You can do it, Gwyn," she says, using a somewhat affectionate nickname. "Help them cross the rift."

Gwyneth takes another deep breath and suddenly blue outlines of people appear behind her. "Great God!" Sneed exclaims, "Spirits from the other side!" Idiot. And he was so sure that he thought that bit, but it seems he had spoken out loud based on the glare Sneed is giving him and the smile Rose is trying to conceal.

"Identify yourself." the Master says.

"We are the Gelth." the figures speak, and Gwyneth as well. "Pity the Gelth. There is so little time. Help us." The Gelth! Of course. "The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge."

"What for?" he asks.

"We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction. Once we had a physical form like you, but then the war came. The Time War. 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."

The last of their kind, the Master muses. A twinge of pity adds to his emotions, his curiosity finally quenched. They're the last of their kind, the same way he is the last of his. There's no more Theta or Romana or anybody else. And he knows Rose Tyler is there for him, but she's human. It's not the same.

Then, suddenly, the thought hits him.

That's why they need the corpses!

Either he's spoken out loud or the Gelth know what he's thinking, because they answer. "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."

"No." it's Rose who speaks and he looks at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Rose Tyler," he begins, "It makes perfect sense. It's not like you need the dead anymore."

"But, but, but it's not–"

"I don't give a flying fuck about what's nice." It's then he realizes; he pities the Gelth. Rassilon, what's happened to him? It's not like they're helping him in return, he doesn't have a single thing to gain from this. But then, he thinks, if there was even the slightest chance that Gallifrey and all its inhabitants could return, he'd want outside help too.

"Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth."

Gwyneth collapses and falls on the table.

"All true." he hears Dickens mutter, "It's all true."

"Oh, so you just hate saving the world," Rose Tyler says, "But when strange blue things want to possess the dead and bring everyone back to life as zombies it's perfectly okay. I'm starting to think that you're fine with playing hero. It's just Earth and humans that you find disgusting."

"Humans are nothing but apes." he argues, "You sleep and you drool and you laze around at home and eat chips. Can you honestly blame me if I find you lot disgusting?"

"Excuse me, sir," Sneed interrupts, "But did you just say that you're not human?"

Gwyneth wakes up with a start and Rose immediately rushes to her side. "It's okay," she says, "You can sleep."

"But my angels, miss. They came, didn't they? They need me?"

The Master speaks before Rose can. "Pity them, Gwyneth. Pity the Gelth." he says, mocking the aliens' words. "To put it in a way your tiny brain can understand, you're their last chance at survival."

"I've told you, leave her alone." Rose glares at him, "She's exhausted and she's not fighting your battles. Drink this." She hands Gwyneth a cup of tea and smile reassuringly before narrowing her eyes at him again.

"Well, what did you say?" Sneed asks, "Explain it again. What are they?"

"None of your damn business." he says, the exact same time Rose says, "Aliens." He rolls his eyes at Rose's openness and honesty, and continues. "By aliens, she means foreigners. Foreigners who need the girl to stabilize."

"Using the dead bodies." Dickens realizes, sitting down. "It finally makes sense now."

Rose is quick to defend. "You can't let them run around inside of dead people."

"Oh, believe me, I can." the Master replies, "It's like that silly human thing you do. What's it called? Reduce, reuse–"

"It's nothing like recycling!"

"There we go! Recycling!" he says, clasping his hands together. "Exactly. You don't need those bodies anymore. They're just going to rot in the ground and turn to ash, leaving nothing but bones, but they can serve a better purpose."

"It's just wrong. Those bodies were living people. We have to respect them. Even in death."

"Rose Tyler, what was it you said on Platform Five?" he asks, "Oh, yes. Don't argue with the designated driver. Get used to my type of morality, or our next trip will be the Powell Estate, year 2005."

"Sorry," Dickens interrupts, "But did you just say year 2005?"

He ignores the author. "You know what, Rose?" he asks, "Why don't we ask Gwyneth what she wants to do? You've just been harping about this and that and making all her decisions for her." he turns to the maid, "Gwyneth. An entire species depends on you. Make your choice."

"That's not fair!" Rose exclaims, "You're pressuring her!"

Gwyneth thinks about it for a moment. "I want to help my angels." The Master smirks triumphantly. He's won. Now it's time for Rose Tyler to give up and accept the fact that sometimes things aren't all sunshine and rainbows.

"Look, you don't understand what's going on." Rose tries to argue.

Gwyneth sends her a pointed look. "You would say that, miss, because that's very clear inside your head, that you think I'm stupid." He laughs and Gwyneth finally grows a backbone and turns to him, exclaiming, "You do too! And I didn't even have to look into your head to see that, sir!"

"True." he says, "Very true."

"This is my decision." Gwyneth says, calming down. "Here and now, I know my own mind, and the angels need me. What do I have to do? They've been singing to me since I was a child, sent by my mam on a holy mission. So tell me."

"Wonderful." he says, turning to Rose to send her a gloating look. He turns to Sneed. "What's the spookiest part of the house? The one with all the ghosts?"

"The morgue." Sneed replies immediately.

Rose is still annoyed with him but she sighs anyway. "No chance you were going to say gazebo, is there?"

The basement is dark and cold.

Rose Tyler trips on a step and he offers his hand to her, but she shakes it off immediately and he can feel her glare even if there isn't enough light to see her face. "The Gelth don't succeed." she mutters to him, "I know for a fact there weren't any corpses walking around in 1869."

"And I know for a fact that I'm smarter than you." he replies, "So you better believe me when I tell you that anything can change. Time's weird like that."

"I think the room's getting colder." Dickens remarks.

"Here they come." Rose mutters, rolling her eyes.

The blue figures come out of the gas lamp and illuminate the room just a bit. "My name is the Doctor." he says, "And I seek audience with the Gelth."

Rose Tyler nudges him on the shoulder and whispers in his ear. "You're not the Doctor."

He whispers back. "Want a repeat of what happened on Platform Five?" he keeps the sentence as short as possible but he knows that she knows he's talking about when everybody recognized him for who he is and tried to kill him. He grimaces at the memory, but cracks a smile when he remembers the Moxx's burnt body.

"Praise the Doctor!" the Gelth exclaim, "The Doctor, the man who makes things better. Praise him! Praise him! You have come to help!"

Rose raises an eyebrow and he can tell it's because she's wondering what Theta did to merit such a good reputation, and him, a bad one. "Promise you won't hurt her." she says, before turning to Gwyneth. "You don't have to do this."

"Hurry! Please, so little time. Pity the Gelth."

"My angels. I can help them live." Gwyneth exclaims.

"Stand under the arch." the Gelth instruct, "Hurry!" Gwyneth does as told. "Establish the bridge. Reach out to the void. Let us through!"

"Angels! I can see you! I can see you! Please, come, angels! Come to me. Come to this world, poor lost souls!" Gwyneth opens her mouth suddenly, and blue gas comes out. Suddenly, a blue apparition turns red and bares its teeth.

"The Gelth will come through in force."

Dickens looks horrified. "You said you were few in number!"

"A few billion." the Gelth reply, "All in need of corpses."

The Gelth fly into the dead bodies in the morgue, and each of them stand, white sheets falling to the ground. The Master lets out a shout of frustration. He trusted them! He pitied them! This is what emotion does to people.

"Gwyneth, stop this." Sneed commands, "Listen to your master. This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, and leave these things alone, I beg of you–" A corpse grabs the man, snaps his neck and Sneed is no more as blue gas flies into his mouth.

He immediately grabs the Tissue Compressor Eliminator in his suit pocket and aims it at the corpses, his arm shaking. He doesn't hesitate in aiming it at Sneed and the corpse that killed the man, and pressing the button. The gas entities fly out of the corpses and into another two. He readily aims it at another group of the walking dead but in the corner of his eye he notices Rose being grabbed by one and she puts up a good fight so the corpse lets her go, and he's somewhat proud of her before another one, that of a rather big man, approaches her from behind and covers her mouth and nose, attempting to suffocate her. She struggles, but she's weak and he's ready to aim his eliminator at that zombie.

Until he notices it's no longer in his hands. One of the corpses had knocked it out of his hands while he was distracted.

The drums get louder in his head. Pity, love, compassion, these emotions will be your undoing, a voice in his head tells him.

"Give yourself to glory. Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth." they say. He barely notices Dickens running out of the house. Coward, he thinks.

He suddenly feels Rose grabbing his hand and shutting them both behind a metal gate to keep away from the corpses. "I can't die." she says, her voice cracking. "Tell me I can't. I haven't even been born yet. It's impossible for me to die. Isn't it?"

He's silent for a few seconds. "It's a possibility."

"But it's 1869. How can I die now?"

"Because you agreed to come with me," he replies, frustrated. He's frustrated with the fact that there's no chance of him to escape. He's frustrated with the fact he let emotions get the better of him. And he's frustrated with the fact that although he thought Charles Dickens was a coward just a minute earlier, he's no better than he is, always running away. "You idiot. You should've stayed with that boyfriend of yours and lived out your life and forgot about me, but no, you came anyway."

"You wouldn't take no for an answer." she says, then adds, "And I wanted to come anyway. We'll go down fighting, yeah?" This is a chance to fight. This is a chance not to run away. He nods. "I'm glad I met you."

He doesn't reply, but he knows that deep down, he's glad that he met her too.

Dickens runs into the room. It's time for the coward to redeem himself, he thinks. "Doctor! Doctor!" And at first he's confused, but then he realized that he used Thete's title to introduce himself to the Gelth, and Dickens must've assumed that's the right thing to call him. " Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now, fill the room, all of it, now!"

Fill the room with gas and it will draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound! "It's just what I was going to do." he replies. (It wasn't.) The corpses leave the Master and Rose, and start walking towards Dickens.

"I hope, oh Lord, I hope that this theory will be validated soon, if not immediately." Dickens says. The Master reaches his hand out of the bars keeping him and Rose Tyler separate from the rest of the room and rips a gas pipe from the wall. The Gelth start to leave the corpses and he laughs triumphantly. "It's working!"

Rose immediately rushes to Gwyneth. "Gwyn? Gwyneth! They lied, Gwyneth! Send them–" his friend immediately starts a coughing fit, and she turns to face him. "I can't breathe."

He turns to Dickens. "Get her out of here. Now!"

"They're liars?" Gwyneth asks, a confused expression crossing her face.

"Yes, they are!" the Master exclaims, "Send them back through the rift, Gwyneth! A completely different species is depending on you now: your own. Just, send them back through the rift."

"I can't send them back. But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out." Gwyneth suddenly takes a matchbox out of her apron pocket and he can vaguely hear Rose shouting that she can't in the background.

"What happened to getting the fuck out, Rose Tyler?" he asks, "Go! Now!" When she doesn't move, Dickens grabs her hand and brings her out of the room. He smiles gratefully. He notices that Gwyneth isn't moving and he feels for a pulse in her wrist, then her neck.

He finds none.

He doesn't say thank you. She's not sacrificing any life to save them. She's been dead for at least a few minutes now.

"Do what you have to do." he says, instead.

The Master runs out of the house just as it goes ka-boom.

He shakes his head when Rose asks him if Gwyneth made it. "Of course she didn't," he says, and she deflates even more. "If it helps, she was already dead. Ever since the moment she stood in the arch."

"But she can't have. She spoke to us. She helped us. She saved us. How could she have done that?" she asks.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Dickens quotes, before turning to him. "Even for you."

"She saved the world." she says, "A servant girl. No one will ever know."

The Master grabs Rose Tyler's hand and faces Dickens. "Right then, Charlie, I've just got to go."

The author nods. "What are you going to do now?" Rose says.

"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 replies. He can sees Rose Tyler smile at that, and the happiness is somewhat contagious. Still, he quickly wipes the smile of his face. No use getting attached to her now. " This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world. Now I know I've just started. All these huge and wonderful notions. I'm inspired. I must write about them."

"Do you think that's wise?" Rose asks, worried.

"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."

"But–"

He cuts Rose off. "Good luck then. Nice meeting you, Charlie. We best be off." he shakes Dickens' hand and Rose leans in to kiss Charlie's cheek.

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

"Away." the Master replies.

"Upon my soul, it's one riddle after another with you." Dickens says, "But after all these revelations, there's one mystery you still haven't explained. Answer me this. Who are you?"

"You don't need to know that."

"But you have such knowledge of future times. I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books. Do they last?"

The author looks so hopeful and so vulnerable in this very moment and the Master supposes there can't be anything wrong with telling the truth just this once. "They will." he says, honestly, "Forever. Now, come along, Rose Tyler."

Rose waves bye at Dickens, who has rushed off, most probably to his mail coach as the pair make their way back into the TARDIS. "Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?" Rose asks.

"He dies next year and never finishes that book."

"Oh, he was nice." Rose says, but he's not really minding her anymore. The TARDIS is in a less jerky flight now, thank Rassilon for that, and he's pressing the different buttons and setting the date. He drums his fingers on the console as he waits for them to land. "Where are we going now?"

"Back."

"Back where?"

"The Powell Estate, 2005." he replies, just as the TARDIS lands, "Go home, Rose Tyler."

The Master doesn't want to let her go, honestly. He wants to be selfish and keep her with him and never bring her back. But today is just another example of how his emotions are going to get the better of him. Today is just another example of why he should travel alone.

Rose Tyler freezes in her spot. "What?"

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*V: You have a very good point there, and I'll try to keep it in mind. Thank you for the constructive criticism, I really appreciate it. :))

AN: Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favorites! They're wonderful and I appreciate every single bit of them. I'm sorry for the late update, my internet has been crashing lately, but I hope that you enjoyed it. It's 2000 words longer than the norm though, so I hope that counts for something! Anyway, thank you again, and if you liked it, please leave a review.