Fighting Against Fire [One] (The Protector Chronicles)

The Unquiet Dead - II

"That's how I got the house so cheap," Sneed explained. "Stories going back generations."

The Protector raised a brow as the door shut behind Charles who had left the room. The Doctor sighed, feeling the Time Lady's eyes burning into the back of his skull. "Fine." He grumbled into her head. "I'll go and apologise."

"Good boy." She snickered back at him, the Doctor whipped his head around, eyes shooting daggers at her before he left the room in search of Charles.

The Doctor raised a brow as he heard a scoff and Charles' voice. "Impossible." He followed the sound and watched as Charles walked into the chapel of rest. Charles removed the lid of the dead man's coffin and waved a hand in front of the man's face. The Doctor leaned against the door, silently watching while Charles looked under the coffin.

"Checking for strings?" 

The man didn't even jump but glanced in the direction of the Time Lord. "Wires, perhaps." He hummed. "There must be some mechanism behind this fraud."

"Oh, come on, Charles." He sighed and leaned his head out the door, looking down the corridor before walking inside and up to the man. "All right, don't tell the Protector this but she was right. I shouldn't have told you to shut up. I'm sorry. But you've got one of the best minds in the world. You saw those gas creatures." "I cannot accept that."

"And what does the human body do when it decomposes?" The Doctor asked, shaking his head. "It breaks down and produces gas. Perfect home for these gas things. They can slip inside and use it as a vehicle, just like your driver and his coach."

"Stop it." Charles furiously shook his head. "Can it be that I have the world entirely wrong?"

"Not wrong. There's just more to learn."

"I've always railed against the fantasists." He smiled. "Oh, I loved an illusion as much as the next man, revelled in them, but that's exactly what they were, illusions." He explained. "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. Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of spectres and jack-o'-lanterns. In which case, have I wasted my brief span here, Doctor? Has it all been for nothing?"

The Protector stood in the pantry doorway, watching Rose and the maid, Gwyneth as she lit a gas lamp. "Please, miss, you shouldn't be helping." Gwyneth turned to Rose as she began to do the washing up. "It's not right."

Rose shook her head, ignoring her wish as she continued. "Don't be daft. Sneed works you to death. How much do you get paid?" "Eight pound a year, miss." Rose blinked before repeating herself.

"How much?"

"I know." Gwyneth nodded. "I would've been happy with six."

"So, did you go to school or what?"

"Of course I did." She slowly turned around, smiling at the silliness of Rose's question. "What do you think I am, an urchin? I went every Sunday, nice and proper." She nodded proudly.

"What," Rose looked at the Protector who just merely shrugged, keeping quiet. "Once a week?"

"We did sums and everything. To be honest, I hated every second."

The Time Lady smiled sadly thinking back to her time on Gallifrey and in the Academy, true she did hate it, she hated every second but at the same time, she adored it. She loved learning about Gallifrey's history and sneaking off to the library when she shouldn't with the Master who started that bad habit, more than often if she wasn't where she was supposed to be she was in the library, reading up on all of the off-limits books about different planets and species. It was one of the only things she and the Doctor had an agreement on at times during their school years, they'd never tell on where the other one was if they were in the library. It was theirs and the Master's spot.