Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who that goes to the BBC
In Yorkshire, 1893, workers trudged up the cobbled street away from the mills with the chimneys of tall buildings around them belching smoke.
"If I have not returned in an hour, you must fetch the police," a man with light skin, dark brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a Victorian suit urged a woman with light skin, blonde hair and hazel eyes, wearing a Victorian dress as they stood in one of the factories' corridors.
"Edmund!" The woman pleaded with the man before she approached him and grabbed him by the head and kissed him with Edmund kissing her back.
"Don't fret, Effie, my dear," Edmund urged her as they stopped kissing, "All will be well. But we must get to the bottom of this dark and queer business, no matter what the cost."
Edmund then walked down the hall to the door at the end, which had a round window and a red glow on the other side. He looked back at Effie before he walked through the door. Almost as soon as he had gone through, a lift arrived. Effie turned around to see a number of women exit the lift, all of them were clad in demure black gowns with black bonnets and being led by an elderly woman with light skin, grey hair and brown eyes.
"Mrs. Gillyflower," Effie greeted the elderly woman.
"We have come about your husband, my dear," Gillyflower told Effie with a Yorkshire accent, "A tragedy."
"My husband?" Effie repeated with confusion in her voice.
"Your... late husband," Gillyflower explained.
"There must be some mistake," Effie stated with confusion in her voice, "My husband is quite well."
Suddenly, they heard an agonized scream from behind the closed door on the opposite side of the room. Effie turned around to look at the door before turning back around to face Gillyflower. The old woman had a look of feigned concern on her face.
"We're so very sorry for your loss," Gillyflower told her before Effie screamed as the other women advanced towards her.
In a morgue, a coroner named Amos with light skin, brown hair and eyes lowered a sheet from the body to reveal the corpse of Edmund to his brother, Jonas, who had light skin, blue eyes and brown hair with a moustache and was wearing a Victorian suit and held a handkerchief in his right hand and held it over his nose and mouth. Edmund's skin was a deep red and his face was set in terror.
"Well fire," Amos muttered with a Northern accent, "That's put me right off me mash." He then chuckled to himself, "Another one."
"Another?" Jonas repeated with confusion in his voice as he lowered his handkerchief.
"He's not the first I've had in here looking like that," Amos explained before he leaned towards him, "The Crimson Horror. That's what they're calling it."
"I have no interest in the deplorable excesses of the penny dreadfuls," Jonas stated as he turned around to leave.
"Hey, hey," Amos called out to Jonas as he snapped his right hand's fingers, "Payment in advance, flower." Jonas then reached into his pocket with his right hand and took out some coins as he reached across the body to pay the coroner before Amos grabbed his hand with his own right hand, "Taking a big risk, you see, I am. They'd have me vitals for fiddle strings if they knew I'd let you come to have a look at one of their precious stiffs."
"This stiff is my brother," Jonas stated as he pulled his right hand free from Amos' hand, "I've come up from London to bring him home."
"Oh, aye?" Amos replied as Jonas walked away from him as his brother's corpse.
A few hours later in London, a horse-drawn hansom cab passes in front of an impeccably kept row of white houses, probably somewhere in Mayfair with one of the houses belonging to Madame Vastra.
"Thank you for agreeing to this meeting," Jonas stated as he sat in a chair opposite from Vastra in her conservatory as she sat on a large wicker chair with Jenny standing next to her, dressed in her maid outfit, "I'm told you are the investigator to see if there are strange goings on."
"I read of your brother's death," Vastra told him, "Another victim of the Crimson Horror, I believe?"
"So it is claimed," Jonas answered, "He was a newspaper man. He and a young woman were working undercover." He then leaned forward, "Tell me, Madame… Do you know what an optogram is?"
"It is a silly superstition, sir," Vastra scoffed, "The belief that the eye can retain an image of the last thing it sees."
A few hours earlier at the morgue in Yorkshire, Jonas had a camera hovering over his brother's corpse and pulled its shutter release with his right hand to take a photograph of his brother's staring eyes.
Back in the present, Jonas stood up as he reached into his jacket's inside pocket with his right hand. He took out a photograph and handed it to Jenny as she took it from him with her right hand and stared at it for a few seconds. Jenny then passed the photogram to Vastra as she took it from her with her own right hand and stared at it for a few seconds as well.
"Good grief," Vastra muttered as she removed her veil with her left hand.
"Oh, God!" Jonas said as he looked at her appearance before he fainted and fell to the floor with a thud.
A while later in a dark room within Vastra's house, Jenny was making enlargements of the photograph as she clipped it on a line within the room to dry and looked at it closer.
"Well, I'll be blowed," Jenny muttered to herself, "I think, Madame, that we'd better make plans to head North."
Vastra then came over to look at the photo and saw that in the dead man's eye was the Doctor with Rose and Sydney on either side of him.
"According to my research, Sweetville's proprietor holds recruitment drives for her little community," Vastra stated as she sat in her carriage's cab as she and Jenny sat on one side of it with Jenny now wearing more of a middle-class outfit than her maid outfit with a long grey-black coat and a black bonnet over her head, while Strax sat on the other side, wearing his butler uniform, "She is only interested in the fittest and the most beautiful."
"You may rely on me, ma'am," Strax replied, thinking she was referring to him.
"I was in fact speaking to Jenny," Vastra told him.
"Jenny," Strax repeated with disbelief in his voice as Jenny smiled and nodded her head at him, "If this weak and fleshy boy is to represent us…"
"Uh…" Vastra began to protest.
"I strongly recommend the issuing of scissor grenades, limbo vapour and triple blast brain splitters," Strax went on.
"What for?" Vastra asked him with confusion in her voice.
"Just generally," Strax explained, "Remember, we are going to the North."
A poster had been pasted to the brick wall of a building. It read 'Tonight! In Person! Mrs. Winifred Gillyflower on the Present Moral Decay and the Coming Apocalypse!'
Mrs. Gillyflower stood inside the building on a raised podium in the centre of the building's room and was flanked by two young men and two young women, all dressed in black. To one side was a screened area and on the other was an easel with a cloth draped over it. There was a large audience with Jenny standing in the audience.
"Bradford, that Babylon for the Moderns, with its crystal light and its glitter," Gillyflower stated, "All aswarm with the wretched ruins of humanity." As she spoke, people in the audience murmured to themselves, "Men and women crushed by the devil's juggernaut. And moral turpitude can destroy the most delicate of lives. Believe me, I know. I know."
One of the young women then pulled a cord from the screen with her right hand, causing the screen to open to reveal another young woman with brown hair sitting down and dressed in a light grey coat As Gillyflower looked at her.
"My own daughter. Blinded in a drunken rage by my late husband," Gillyflower went on as her daughter turned around to reveal that her face had been scarred and her eyes missing its colouration and were just pale white, causing everyone to gasp with Jenny placing her right hand over her mouth in shock, "Her once beautiful eyes, pale and white as mistletoe berries." The daughter then stood up and walked across the stage with a cane, "And what, my friends, is your story? Will you be found wanting when the End of Days is come? When judgement rains down upon us all? Or will you be preserved against the coming apocalypse? Do not despair. I offer a way out. There is a different path. Sweetville." The daughter then removed the drape on the easel with her left hand to reveal an artistic rendering of an idyllic village, causing everyone to gasp, "Join us! Join us in this shining city on the hill." She then began to sing with everyone else but Jenny singing with her, "Bring me my bow of burning gold Bring me my arrows of desire…"
A while later, Jenny was in line to sign up to join Sweetville as a man, who was dressed in a Victorian suit, finished signing up and walked away from the line.
"You wish to join us, my dear?" Gillyflower asked Jenny.
"If it's all the same with you, ma'am," Jenny answered.
"Oh, yes, dear. You'll do very nicely," Gillyflower replied before she handed Jenny the pen as Jenny signed the ledger with it.
Vastra and Strax both stood in an alleyway opposite a wall bearing one of the posters for Mrs. Gillyflower's lecture with the Silurian wearing her veil over her face.
"If our strategy is to succeed, Jenny will infiltrate deep into the black heart of this place," Vastra told the Sontaran.
"And how will she locate the Doctor, Rose and Sydney?" Strax asked her.
"To find them, she needs only to ignore all keep-out signs," Vastra answered, "Go through every locked door and run towards any form of danger that presents itself."
"Business as usual, then," Strax realised.
"Business as usual," Vastra confirmed.
Inside the attic corridor of the main building of Sweetville, Mrs. Gillyflower's daughter, Ada, climbed up a spiral staircase with her cane under her left arm and three plates in her left hand and on top of each other. She soon reached the top of the stairs and walked up to a locked door. She fumbled with her right hand on the door until she found a handle. She knelt and slid a panel up from the bottom with her right hand. She then pushed the plates inside and closed the panel.
"Did either of you think I'd forgotten you, dear friends?" Ada asked whatever creatures were inside the locked room, "Hmm?"
The response she got were three loud rattles of heavy chains just inside the door, causing Ada to pull back with a gasp. She slowly stood back up and headed back down the stairs using her cane.
Back in London, Jonas was wearing a black top hat over his head as he walked up to the door of Vastra's house, pushing hanging sheets out of the way. He grabbed the door's knocker with his left hand and used it to knock on the door before Strax opened the door.
"I have travelled from London expressly to see Madame Vastra," Jonas told Strax, "If you'd be so kind as to announce me, my good man." He then pulled out his calling card with his right hand and placed it in his left hand before he handed it over to the Sontaran.
"Whom should I say is calling?" Strax asked him as he took it from him with his right hand as Jonas looked at his hands and saw they looked non-human before he looked up at his appearance and saw that he didn't look human at all and promptly fainted and fell to the ground like he did with Vastra before.
A while later in the parlour of Vastra's house, Jonas had his top hat removed and was unconscious on the couch as Strax was using a lady's fan to give him air with his left hand. Vastra was sitting on a chair looking at a photograph as she had her veil removed.
"It asked for permission to enter and then it fell over," Strax reported to the Silurian, "What are we to make of it?"
"I imagine Mr. Thursday wants to know what progress we are making," Vastra surmised before she stood up, "The question is… How did the Doctor, Rose and Sydney's images come to be preserved on a dead man's eye? It is a scientific impossibility. I wonder how Jenny is getting on."
"If she hasn't made contact by nightfall, I suggest a massive frontal assault on the factory, Madame," Strax suggested, "Casualties can be kept to perhaps as little as 80%."
"I think there may be subtler ways of proceeding, Strax," Vastra told him.
"Suit yourself," Strax relented before he turned back to fanning Jonas with the lady's fan.
In a corridor of the main building of Sweetville, Jenny was waiting in a long line for entry into the community. A young local woman with light skin, light brown hair and eyes stood beside her.
"I'm dead nervous, aren't you?" The woman asked Jenny, "They have to be sure, you see. Only the best for Sweetville. I hope me teeth don't let me down. I'm Abigail."
"Pleased to meet you," Jenny replied.
"You're not local, are you?" Abigail realised, noticing Jenny's accent.
"Nah, up from London," Jenny confirmed.
"Oh, different here, I bet," Abigail surmised.
"Oh, yeah! Like a bleedin' horse-market," Jenny joked before they chuckled, "Do you know anyone who's come to live here? In Sweetville, I mean."
"I had a pal who come here three month back," Abigail told her, "She wrote to tell me how perfect it all were. Funny, though. I've not heard a peep from her since."
"Next, please!" They suddenly heard a masculine voice call out to the line they were in.
"Hang on, we're moving," Abigail told her before she stepped forward as Jenny slipped over to a door marked 'No Entry' before she looked around before she took out a pack of lock-picks and unrolled them and pulled out of them out with her right hand, "What you doin'?"
"Do me a favour," Jenny urged her as she began working on the door's lock with her lock-pick, "Cause a distraction."
"What?" Abigail asked her with confusion in her voice.
"Swoon. Have a funny turn," Jenny explained, "Fit of the vapours."
"Are you crackers?" Abigail said with disbelief in her voice as she smiled.
"Go on," Jenny urged her, "There's a guinea in it for you." She then held out a guinea coin towards her with her right hand.
"Done," Abigail replied as she took the coin from her with her own right hand.
With that said, Abigail suddenly took deep wheezing breaths before she fainted. As she did this, the people in line rushed to her aid, while Jenny finally finished picking the door's lock and slipped through the door unnoticed.
As Jenny went through the door, she entered another corridor and quickly approached a large heavy door and opened it with her right hand. She then entered the room and realised that it was a factory floor as she looked around in amazement. There was loud rhythmic banging from machinery as she walked into the room.
Jenny covered her ears as she saw that the sound was a recording being projected by three large bell-shaped speakers. She stepped past them before she uncovered her ears and looked around at the large empty space. She then saw some men crossing the floor, carrying large glass flasks and ducked behind one of the speakers. In one of the flasks she could see a red liquid before the men entered a lift.
In the morgue, Amos pushed open a curtain, revealing a number of glass jars on shelves as Vastra stood behind him with her veil over her face again as she looked over his left shoulder.
"Them new manufacturers can do horrible things to a person," Amos stated, "Horrible. I've pickled things in here that'd fair turn your hair snowy as top of Buckden Pike." He then rubbed his tongue along his lips in anticipation.
"You know what I'm looking for," Vastra told him.
"Oh, aye," Amos replied, "All them bits found at canal. The Crimson Horror."
He then bent over and picked up a long-necked bottle containing a red liquid with his left hand. He turned around and handed it to Vastra, who took it from him with her right hand before she lifted her veil from over her face.
"It hardly seems possible," Vastra said with recognition in her voice as she stared at the bottle with disbelief on her face.
"Aye?" Amos asked her with confusion in his voice.
"I think…" Vastra began to say, "I think I've seen these symptoms before."
"Oh, aye?" Amos said with surprise in his voice.
"A long time ago," Vastra explained.
"Oh, aye, how long?" Amos asked her.
"About 65 million years," Vastra answered as she turned around towards him.
In the parlour of the main building of Sweetville, Mrs. Gillyflower and Ada were sitting at a table across from each other for dinner. Ada sat ramrod straight, delicately eating soup as her mother slouched forward and slurped her soup. And on one side of the table was a third plate that remained untouched.
"I trust you had a pleasant day, Mama?" Ada asked her mother.
"Tolerable," Gillyflower answered.
"Will Mr. Sweet ever join us for dinner, Mama?" Ada asked her.
"Mr. Sweet is rather tired tonight, I fear," Gillyflower answered as Gillyflower reached for the salt cellar with her right hand, only to knock it over and spilled some of its salt on the table, "Oh! Dear me. How clumsy I'm getting." She then chuckled to herself and tossed salt over her right shoulder, "To keep the Devil at bay."
Mrs. Gillyflower looked up at the man waiting on them. He nodded and walked away. When she was sure he couldn't see, Gillyflower pulled the napkin from the neckline of her gown and put some salt down inside with her right hand.
Jenny stepped out of a lift and walked into a corridor. She looked both ways and saw that it was empty. At one end was a door with a round window through which she could see red. Jenny walked cautiously towards the door and peered through the window. She suddenly heard a noise and walked towards the other end of the corridor and found the spiral staircase that Ada went up earlier.
As she climbed up the stairs, Jenny heard the banging coming from the room that contains Ada's 'friends'. And as she finished climbing up the staircase, she stepped up towards the door and grabbed its handle with her right hand as she tried to open it, only to find that it was locked. She then knelt down and lifted the panel up with her right hand to peer inside before a left hand with red skin reached out and grabbed her neck. Jenny fell back as the hand let go as the panel slammed back shut.
"All right, mate," Jenny said as she stood up and stood by the door, "You just stay calm now!" She then heard the sound of three separate chains slam against the door, causing her to gasp, "Oh, mates, not mate. I could open this door. Would you three like that?" She then heard three chains rattle a little softer, "Thought you three might. But the three of you and me have got to come to an arrangement. Savvy?" The three chains then knocked again, "Now, you three stand well back." She then pulled out her pack of lock-picks again, "Do either of you hear me? I don't mean no harm to any of you. But if either of you try anything funny and I'll leave you three here to rot. Is that understood?" She then heard two knocks from each chain inside the room, "Right." She then pulled one of her lock-picks out from her pack of lock-picks with her right hand.
A few seconds later, Jenny slowly opened the door and she saw standing directly opposite the door were three figures wearing combinations with two of them being male and the other female.
"Doctor?" Jenny gasped with shock in her voice, "Rose? Sydney?"
All three Gallifreyans had their skins red like the bodies found in the canal. Their mouths were locked open as they reached out towards her with groans. They lunged towards her awkwardly as if they were regular Frankenstein's monsters, Rose and Sydney moved slightly more fluidly, showing some residual mobility and resilience.
"What's happened to the three of you?" Jenny asked them.
With that said, the Doctor grunted as he looked over to his clothes lying on the floor, while Rose and Sydney did the same and looked at their clothes lying on the floor as well, but on opposite sides of the back of the room.
"Can't either of you speak?" Jenny asked them as they continued to groan before Jenny tentatively tapped the Doctor's face with her right hand and found that it sounded like wood before she did the same to Rose and Sydney and saw that theirs also sounded like wood, "Right. Right, we're getting out of here." She then began working on the locks on their shackles.
A few moments later, Jenny helped the Doctor walk down the hall with Rose and Sydney following them. He had his boots on but moved straight-legged, knees unable to bend. Rose wore heeled boots, while Sydney wore boots similar to his father's as unlike the Doctor, they moved with limited knee bending, though their movements were still somewhat stiff.
"Come on!" Jenny urged the three Gallifreyans as they passed the lift that was on its way up, "Come on!" She then hurried them along.
The lift suddenly opened up and Ada stepped out. She listened as the Doctor, Rose, Sydney and Jenny kept walking but dismissed it. She walked the way Jenny and the three Gallifreyans had come from, while the latter made their way through the door at the end of the hall.
As they entered the room that had a bright red tint to it, Jenny looked and stopped as she looked through a large window as the three Gallifreyans looked over her head. And saw that in the room next to the one they were in had a large vat that was bubbling away with the same red liquid that Jenny saw the men from before carrying. A large rack was moved over the vat with six people suspended from it. A man then moved a lever towards him, causing the people to be lowered into the liquid.
"Oh, my God," Jenny muttered before she looked at the three Gallifreyans with a look of horror on her face.
Jenny then pushed the Doctor forward with her right hand before he, Rose and Sydney raised their right arms and pointed down the corridor with their right hand's index fingers.
As Ada approached the door to where she kept the Doctor, Rose and Sydney hidden, she had three more plates in her hand.
"The three of you are important to me," Ada said firmly, "We'll get through this. Even with our imperfections, we have a place in this new world."
Ada then put her left hand on the door's handle before it moved as she pushed it open. She entered the room moving her cane back and forth over the floor. It then hit one of the unlocked chains before it hit another before it hit yet another unlocked chain. She knelt down and felt with her hands.
"No. No!" Ada cried, "Where are you, friends? Where are the three of you?"
As they entered the corridor of the room with the red tint, Jenny and the three Gallifreyans approached what looked like a set of two booths that were set into the wall. With groans, the Doctor and Rose reached both of their arms towards the handles on the doors of each booth with SYdney reaching out towards the same booth of his mother.
"You three want to go in those?" Jenny asked them before they groaned even louder.
With that said, Jenny opened the door of the one next to the Doctor and helped him inside, handing him his clothes. The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver and activated it as he used it on his booth's controls. Jenny then closed the door and opened the booth next to the Doctor's and helped Rose inside and handed the Time Lady her clothes as she pulled out her screwdriver as well and used it on her booth's controls as well and closed it in front of her. Suddenly, she saw people walking nearby and ducked out of sight as she saw two of Gillyflower's helpers walk by the open door. They heard strange noises coming from both booths as green lights showed through the slates before both of the booth's doors opened as the rejuvenated, tehir skin back to normal and clothed Doctor and Rose popped out with the Time Lady wearing the same clothes she wore when they were in their temporary retirement to raise Sydney.
"Ah! Missed us?" The Doctor asked Jenny.
"Yeah, have you missed us, Jenny?" Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"Doctor!" Jenny muttered with a smile on her face, "Rose!"
"Sydney needs it too," the Doctor said as he pointed at the booth he had just came from.
"Come on, let's get him sorted," Rose stated as Sydney groaned as he stepped out from behind the booths, "Can't leave him hanging, can we?"
"Agreed," Jenny said, agreeing with both Gallifreyans as she opened the door of the booth that the Doctor had come from and handed him his clothes, "All right, Sydney, same as your parents."
As the booth began working on Sydney, its lit shone red for a few seconds before switching back to green as its door suddenly opened and Sydney stepped out, rejuvenated and his skin back to normal as well, wearing the same clothes he was wearing during his parents' temporary retirement.
"About time!" Sydney muttered as he stretched his arms and legs with a hint of relief on his face, "Thought I'd never get out of there. Thanks, Jenny."
"Good to have the family back together," the Doctor stated as he smiled at Rose and Sydney, "Right. Back at pressing matters at hand. Mrs. Gillyflower. We've got to stop her." He then backed towards the door they came from, "And then there's Clara. Poor Clara. Where's Clara?"
"Yeah, where is she?" Rose asked herself, "We have to find her. She could be in real danger."
"And she means a lot to us," Sydney added, concern evident in his voice, "We need to find her."
"Clara?" Jenny repeated with confusion in her voice, "Doctor, Rose, Sydney, wait!"
"Can't," the Doctor argued, "Clara. We've got to find."
"He's right, we have got to find her," Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"Absolutely," Sydney stated, agreeing with his parents and they walked around the corner, "Clara's safety is our priority."
"What happened to the three of you?" Jenny asked them, "How long have you three been like that?"
"Days, weeks, don't know," the Doctor answered as he, Rose and Sydney slid back down the corner, "Long story. We'll keep it short."
A few weeks earlier on a street in Yorkshire, the TARDIS materialised as the Doctor stepped out, followed by Rose, Sydney and Clara as the nanny was dressed in a brown coloured period Victorian dress that contained a bodice and a skirt, while the Doctor had a bowler cat over his head.
"Okay. So…" The Doctor muttered as he looked around them, "Not London, 1893. Yorkshire, 1893." He then walked back towards the TARDIS and closed the ship's door with his left hand, "Near enough."
"Close enough for us to get where we need to be," Rose stated with a smile on her face.
"And Yorkshire does have its charm," Sydney added as he looked around the area.
You both are making a habit of this," Clara told both older Gallifreyans, "Getting us lost."
"Sorry," the Doctor apologised, "It's much better than it used to be." The four of them then began to walk away from the TARDIS as Sydney put his left arm around Clara's right shoulder, "I once spent a hell of a long time trying to get a gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport."
"What for?" Clara asked him.
"Search me," the Doctor muttered to himself.
"To get her back home," Rose explained with a grin on her face, "I haven't met her yet, but Tegan was quite the handful, from what I hear!"
"Yeah, Dad, back when you were in your fifth incarnation," Sydney added with a smile on his face, "She really did keep you on your toes."
"And if we ever meet her, remind me to say 'Brave heart, Tegan' to her, love," Rose requested her husband as she turned towards him with a playful smile on her face.
"Of course, I will," the Doctor replied with a grin on his face, "Anyway…" They then heard a woman screaming in the distance ahead of them, "Brave heart, Clara."
With that said, the four of then began to run towards the source of where the scream was coming from.
At the canal's side, a body was floating face-down in the water. Its skin was red and was clothed in white combinations. Edmund was being restrained by a policeman.
"There's another one. Don't you see?" Edmund told the policeman, "Another victim. Why won't any one of you listen?"
"We'll listen," the Doctor assured him as he, Rose, Sydney and Clara appeared nearby.
"Mrs. Winifred Gillyflower, an astonishing woman," Edmund said as he walked with the Doctor, Rose, Sydney and Clara towards the gates of Sweetville as they looked through the gate's bars into the courtyard, "A prize-winning chemist and mechanical engineer. So why…"
"Why has she decided to open up a match factory in her old home town?" The Doctor finished for him.
"And no one who ever goes to live there ever seems to come out," Edmund added.
"Now, that is interesting," Rose muttered with an intrigued look on her face.
"Definitely interesting," Sydney said, agreeing with his mother.
In the morgue, the Doctor, Rose, Sydney, Clara, Edmund and Amos all looked at the body that was found in the canal, which was none other than of a young woman.
"Same as the rest," Edmund stated, "All dead from causes unknown and their flesh… Glowing."
"Like something manky in a coal cellar," Amos muttered, "They keep turning up in't canal. The Crimson Horror."
"Ooh. Good name. Hey, that's good, isn't it?" The Doctor said with a smile on his face, "The Crimson Horror." He then chuckled, "I wonder what it is." He then pulled out a small magnifying glass with his right hand and examined the corpse with it, "Do you know the old Romany superstition, Clara? That the eye of a dead person retains an image of the last thing it sees." Clara then took a look for herself as she grabbed the magnifying glass from him with her left hand's index and thumb and saw that Mrs. Gillyflower was reflected in the eye, "Nonsense, of course. Unless the chemical composition of the body has been massively corrupted."
"That's impossible," Rose interjected as she shook her head with disbelief, "It's just a superstition. The eye can't retain an image like that."
"Yeah, that's just a myth," Sydney added, agreeing with his mother before the Doctor rubbed the skin with his white gloves.
A while later, the Doctor used the lab's chemistry set to analyse the red liquid as he held a tube with the red liquid in his left hand and a beaker in his right hand with red liquid in it as well.
"Wow. This is nasty," the Doctor said as he poured both liquids into another chemistry glass, "An organic poison. A sort of venom." He then stopped pouring the liquid from the beaker into the other chemistry glass, "And you think it's connected to Sweetville?"
"I do," Edmund answered.
"Well, then," the Doctor muttered as he looked at the beaker with the red liquid, "We need a plan."
"Doctor and Mrs. Smith," Gillyflower greeted the Doctor and Rose from the parlour of the main building of Sweetville before she looked at Sydney and Clara as the four of them stood side-by-side with Sydney and Clara acting as a couple, "And these must be your son, Sydney and daughter-in-law, Clara. Oh, yes. You'll all do very nicely."
"Oh, grand. Smashing," the Doctor replied with a broad Northern accent, "Eh, me, the missus, our son and daughter-in-law couldn't be more chuffed, could we, love?" He then put his left arm around Rose's shoulders and hugged her as they smiled.
"Absolutely, love," Rose said, agreeing with him as she put on a Mancunian accent, "Our Sydney's such a good lad, always takin' care of his lovely wife. We're right proud of 'em."
"Aye, can't complain, Mum and Dad," Sydney replied with a smile as he adopted a similar Northern accent to his parents' as he squeezed Clara's right hand with his left hand for emphasis, "Me and Clara are proper excited to be here."
"Aye, Sydney's been wonderful," Clara added as she adopted her native Blackpool accent and leaned slightly closer towards Sydney, "We're truly grateful to be part of this."
A while later, the Doctor and Rose had their arms linked, while Sydney and Clara also had their arms linked as they followed Mrs. Gillyflower through Sweetville's courtyard as she escorted them by the houses.
"Sweetville will provide you with everything you need," Gillyflower told them, "Neither one of you will have to worry about a thing ever again."
"The name, Sweetville," Clara stated as she stared at her.
"Yes?" Gillyflower asked her.
"Why not name it after yourself?" Clara inquired, "After all, it's your creation."
"That's a good point," Rose said, agreeing with her as she gave Clara a supportive smile.
"Aye, makes sense," Sydney added, agreeing with them, "It's a grand idea, Clara."
"Gillyflowertown, eh?" The Doctor muttered, agreeing with them as he walked up in front of Gillyflower, "Gillyflowerland! You could have roller coasters."
"It is named in tribute to my partner," Gillyflower explained as she stopped walking.
"Your late partner?" The Doctor asked her.
"Aye, is that what you mean?" Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"No. My... silent partner," Gillyflower explained, "Mr Sweet likes to keep himself to himself. Shall we move on?" She then motioned to the door next to them with her left hand.
"Who lives here?" The Doctor asked her.
"Aye, curious about that as well," Sydney said, agreeing with his father.
"Oh, names don't matter here," Gillyflower chuckled before she patted Clara on her right cheek with her left hand, "All you need to know is that we only recruit the brightest and the best."
"Ey up, is that right?" Rose muttered under her breath as she gave the Doctor, Sydney and Clara a knowing look as the four of them exchanged a glance.
Mrs. Gillyflower then opened the door with her right hand before the Doctor, Rose, Sydney and Clara all looked in to see a tableau of a husband and wife, sitting motionless at their afternoon tea. They were covered by a giant bell jar hooked up to , men came up behind the Doctor, Rose, Sydney and Clara, while the women came from inside the house.
Not that long later, the Doctor, Rose and Sydney were on a rack in the vat room and were lowered into a bubbling vat. All three Gallifreyans regained consciousness as they went under.
A while later, Clara was one of many women standing in a row, catatonic. Mrs. Gillyflower walked in front of them as if they were soldiers on parade. Ada stood opposite the women.
"Like pretty maids all in a row. The process improves with every attempt," Gillyflower stated, "Mr. Sweet is such a clever old thing." She then looked down on the floor, "Oh, into the canal with the rejects, Ada."
"Yes," Ada replied as her mother walked away as Ada walked over to the reject pile and heard three grunts before she knelt down and reached out a hand and found another that moved before two more moved towards her and grabbed her legs, "Ma…" She then gasped as she put her hand in the palm of the first one that grabbed her and it gripped it in hers before she felt the other two hands.
In the attic room where Ada would keep the Doctor, Rose and Sydney, she locked the shackles around the wrists of all three Gallifreyans.
"Sometimes, the preservation process goes wrong," Ada told them, "Only Mr. Sweet knows why. And only Mama is allowed to talk to Mr. Sweet. But if the three of you are very good, you three can stay here. You three will be my secret. My special friends."
The three Gallifreyans looked at Ada as she walked towards the door as they grunted and reached out to her before she closed the door in front of them as they screamed.
A week or so later, the Doctor, Rose and Sydney all sat on the floor with Rose and Sydney sitting on either side of the Time Lord with their legs stretched out in front of them. There was a noise from outside before the door suddenly burst open and Edmund entered screaming, dressed in combinations and dripping with the same red venom as the other victims were. The last thing he saw was the Doctor, Rose and Sydney. The Doctor put his hands out before Edmund fell to the floor.
"Poor Edmund must have come looking for us," the Doctor muttered as he, Rose and Sydney finished their story to Jenny as they walked down a corridor, "And then fallen into a vat of the pure venom." They then stopped at a window and looked out the window, "Or was pushed. Didn't stand a chance."
"A push seems more likely," Rose surmised, "Given what Edmund was investigating. He didn't seem the type to just fall."
"Yeah, Mum's right," Sydney said, agreeing with his mother, "And with all the danger around, he could have been targeted on Mrs. Gillyflower's orders."
"What is that stuff, though?" Jenny asked them.
"Deadly poison," the Doctor answered as he walked across the corridor as they followed him before he pulled his screwdriver back out from his jacket's inside pocket and scanned a valve with it, "And Mrs. Gillyflower's dipping her Pilgrims in a dilute form to protect them." He then flicked his screwdriver open and read its readings, "Preserve them." He then closed his screwdriver and placed it back inside his jacket's inside pocket, "Process didn't work on us. Maybe because we're not human. We ended up on the reject pile."
"That makes sense," Rose said, agreeing with her husband, "The poison likely doesn't work on Gallifreyans the same way it does on humans. Our physiology might make us resistant to its effects."
"Yeah, that's probably why it didn't affect us," Sydney muttered, agreeing with his parents as they approached a different window before the Doctor looked out the window.
"Preserve them against what?" Jenny asked them.
"Well, according to her, the coming apocalypse," the Doctor answered before he whistled as he spun his right hand's index finger on the side of his head as he made the crazy gesture with it.
"Yeah, from what we've seen of Mrs. Gillyflower, she's absolutely mad," Rose chuckled, agreeing with her husband.
"The world will never end the way these apocalypticists think it will," Sydney added with disbelief in his voice.
"'When the End of Days is come and judgement rains down upon us all,'" Jenny repeated as all three Gallifreyans walked away from her.
"What?" The Doctor said as he, Rose and Sydney turned around and walked back towards her.
"Nothing," Jenny answered.
"It may not be nothing, Jenny," Rose told her gently, "It could be important. What did you hear?"
"Something Mrs. Gillyflower said," Jenny explained, "One of her sermons. Madame will come looking for me. We'd best get on."
"Yes. Clara," the Doctor replied, "Got to find Clara." He then hurried off down the corridor towards a door at the end of the corridor.
"He's right," Rose said, agreeing with her husband as she followed him, "We've got to find Clara."
"Yeah, let's find her," Sydney muttered, agreeing with his parents with a hint of concern in his voice as he followed his parents, "We can't leave her in danger."
"But, Doctor, Rose, Sydney…" Jenny began to say as she followed them as the Doctor opening it with his right hand, "Clara's dead… Isn't she?"
"It's complicated," the Doctor explained as he turned towards her.
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