THE SNOWMEN PART TWO
edited as of july 23rd, 2021
A minute later, Charlotte crouches behind the bushes across from Latimer House's entrance alongside Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. A carriage pulls up past them and, through the window, they caught sight of Simeon inside.
"It's the human male from the Institute," said Strax. "What's he doing here? Suggest we melt his brain using projectile acid fish, and then interrogate him."
Charlotte gave Strax a strange look. "Other way around," she says.
The four move to follow the carriage. Keeping quiet, they watched as Simeon extends a pole above the House's barrier, beginning to blow snow onto the property. Understanding what was occurring, the group slowly and quietly gets up from their hiding spot.
Knowing they didn't have enough to stop Simeon at that moment, they quietly left to enter the house through the back. Not knowing the quickest entrance into the home, the group splits into three: Vastra and Jenny took the front door, Strax went around the house, and Charlotte tries a window.
Meanwhile, in the front hall, all in the house gathered when becoming aware of the attack. Alice, the now hysterical maid, runs in. "Captain Latimer, in the garden, there's snowmen!" she exclaims. "And they're just growing, out of nowhere, all by themselves- look!" Alice rushes to the front door and opens it, only to come across a Silurian with her arm hooked with a human woman.
"Good evening, I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time and this is my wife."
Alice screams in terror, running to the side room, only to see a woman fall into the house after breaking in through a window. Charlotte's eyebrows furrow as she watches the maid continue to scream, hurrying down the hall only to stop in front of Strax.
"This dwelling is under attack!" the Sontaran alerted. "Remain calm, human scum!"
With a final scream, Alice faints. Charlotte, who closed the window she opened outside, awkwardly scratches the back of her neck when watching her fall to the ground. From where he stood in the middle of the stairway beside Clara, the Doctor runs down to stand in front of Latimer- the bearded captain and father of the two children Clara watches as a governess.
"So! Any questions?" asked the Doctor.
Latimer looks up to Clara. "You have a... gentleman friend?"
Blinking in surprise, Charlotte crosses her arms over her chest. "That's the excuse you used?" Of course, she neither should have been surprised nor hurt. After all, they weren't together and he only quickly thought of that excuse, but it was still enough to make Charlotte raise her eyebrows.
"No," he immediately answers. "Yes," corrected the Doctor. "Why?"
Charlotte looks around and, while everyone couldn't care less about her and the Doctor's conversation during this moment, she felt as if a thousand eyes were watching. "Nothing."
A second later, they had to move on because of the Snowmen, but Charlotte knew how close she was to admit how much she cares for him. Since the last time checking her timer, she tried to not think about what it displayed to her: 24 hours.
Walking into the Parlor room with him, Charlotte knew that before the day finished she had to let go of the lies she created to hide every truth (including those she had hidden before learning of her death).
"The snow is highly localized," says Vastra when entering the parlor, "and on this occasion not naturally occurring."
Charlotte glances out of the window. "It's coming out of that cab..." she pauses, a sudden wave of heat coming over her. "The one parked by the gates."
Before anyone had a second longer to think of her pause, Strax says: "Sir, one pulver grenade would blow these snowmen to smithereens."
"They're made of snow, Strax-" the Doctor pulls on his ear. "-they're already smithereens." He walks into the front hall followed by the rest. "See, Clara- our friends again."
Latimer furrows his eyebrows. "Clara? Who's Clara?"
"Gosh, your out of the loop," commented Charlotte. "Your current governess is really a former barmaid called Clara."
The previous governess, who walks and talks but is completely made of ice, shuffles down to the stair landing. "That's the way to do it," she said.
The Doctor's eyes widened. "Meanwhile, your previous governess is now a living ice sculpture impersonating Mr. Punch. Jenny, what have you got?"
From her pocket, Jenny quickly readies and throws a grenade up the stairway, thus, creating a force field around the ex-governess. "Should hold it."
"Brilliant!" exclaimed Charlotte.
From the study, Strax steps into the hall. "Sir, this room: one observational window on the line of attack and one defendable entrance."
Nodding, the Doctor urges them into the room. Charlotte, noticing Latimer struggling to carry Alice's unconscious body, grabs her ankles and helps her into the room behind Clara. Vastra, unlike them, stays behind to speak with the Doctor for a moment.
As Charlotte helps Latimer sit Alice in a chair, Strax gives a rundown. "They're not going to attack. They made no attempt to conceal their arrival. An attack force would never abandon surprise so easily- and they're clearly in defence formation."
Hearing this as he enters the room, the Doctor mock-boxes Strax. "Well down, Straxie! Still got it!" He gives him a noogie before kissing the top of his head.
Irritated, Strax says, "Sir, please do not noogie me during combat prep."
"So, there's something here they want," said Charlotte, based on Strax's noticings.
Clara stands up from her chair. "The Ice Woman."
"Exactly," replied the Doctor.
"Why's she so important?" asked Jenny.
"Because she's a perfect duplication of human DNA in ice crystal form." The Doctor moves over to a shelf of alcohol, beginning to pour Latimer some whisky. "The ultimate fusion of snow and humanity." He hands the whisky to the stressed Latimer. "To live here, the snow needs to evolve- and she's the blueprint. She's what they need to become." The Doctor snaps and points to Clara. "When the snow melted last night, did the pond?"
She recalled the night before shaking her head. "No."
"Living ice that will never melt," said the Doctor as he paces around the room. "If the snow gets hold of that creature on the stairs, it will learn to make more of them. It will build an army of ice." He runs his hands through his hair. "And it will be the last day of humanity on this planet."
The doorbell rings, and at that note, the Doctor cracks his neck. "Stay here," he says, leaving the room. A second passed after he leaves and, after repeating his instruction, Charlotte leaves the room.
Hearing the door open and close behind him, the Doctor faces Charlotte. "Oi, I told you to stay in there."
Charlotte looked up to him as if he was joking. "Please, when has anyone 'stayed in there.'"
"Well, when you do it it makes other people think I'm just joking," responds the Doctor, poking her shoulder.
Charlotte grins. "You wouldn't have it any other way."
He scoffs. "I don't know who told you that, but they're wrong."
It was like a snap, how quick Charlotte got over her worries. She knew his leadership back in the study made her unmeasurably happy after seeing him isolated for so long.
If there was any doubt to Charlotte Mary Thomas-Bolton that she loved the Doctor, it was ended then and there. And with the mixture of pent-up attraction and the ticking clock, she pulls him down by the lapels of his coat and into a slow kiss.
Without thinking about it, the Doctor kissed back before remembering how early it may be for her. His eyes widened while simultaneously noticing the fever-like heat coming off her skin and the realization he never asked where she was before arriving.
Charlotte, hearing the governess bang on her force field, pulled away only to see an utterly shocked Doctor. "You're hot," he says.
Blushing, she wasn't expecting him to say that of all things. "Well, I'm flattered."
"Not like that." He put the back of his hand on her forehead, before removing it immediately. The Doctor looked at her confusedly as the wheels turned in his head until they clicked into the right position. "You're dying."
Charlotte inhaled sharply. "Yes. Simeon's at the door." Once admitting so, she moved towards the front door confidently. The Doctor, however, stayed standing in the hall momentarily before straightening his bow tie and following suit.
Charlotte opens the front door to see the pale, top-hat-wearing Simeon. "Release her to us," said Simeon with a monotone. "You have five minutes."
Charlotte closes the door on Simeon, moving down the hall as Clara joins them. "We have to get her out of here, but away from them."
"How?" asked Clara.
"Doctor?"
"With this." He takes an umbrella from a stand. "Do I always have to state the obvious?"
"You don't," stated Charlotte as Latimer joins them.
He glances around at the three of them. "Those creatures outside, what are they?"
"Not dangerous to you unless that thing gets out!" Charlotte waves her hand, urging Latimer back into the study. "In there, now."
Latimer goes back into the room and the Doctor goes up halfway up the stairs and takes out the sonic screwdriver. "He stays in there," he mumbled.
From behind him and beside Charlotte, who ignores the Doctor's comment, Clara narrows her eyes at the sonic in an attempt to discern what it is. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Between you and me, I can't wait to find out." The Doctor uses the sonic to move the force field containing the governess behind him. "Right, if you look after everyone here, then I can..." he turns his head over his shoulder before realizing he accidentally made the force field go just enough back to include the two women. "Charlotte!"
"Doctor!"
The governess lunges at them but the Doctor pulls Charlotte away, and she pulls Clara to the side. While the ice woman ran into the force field, they pulled each other up the stairs.
"That was stupid!" exclaimed the Doctor.
"You were stupid, too!" says Clara.
"I'm allowed, I'm good at stupid!"
The governess follows them up the stairs. "That's the way to do it!"
"Why does she keep saying that?" questions Charlotte as they reached the landing.
The Doctor swings the umbrella at the governess as a weapon. "Mirroring, random mirroring," he answers. "We need to get on the roof."
"This way!" Clara shouts, moving to take the lead of their line and pulling the Doctor up to the roof.
"I do the hand grabbing, that's my job," complains the Doctor, "that's always me!"
As the governess continues to climb the stairs behind them, Charlotte tells him: "You're hung up on that?!"
The Doctor first steps onto the roof through a window. He was followed by Charlotte, who wasn't wearing a bustle, and then Clara, who was.
"Come on, quickly!" shouts the Doctor, standing beside Charlotte on the roof while Clara began going through the window.
Clara gasps as she stops going through the window. "My bustle is stuck," she said, her eyes larger than normal.
"Your bustle?!" exclaimed the Doctor.
Charlotte sighs, going over to pull Clara out; however, as she doing the final pull, Clara falls onto the ground and Charlotte loses her balance. Flailing her arms around, the Doctor quickly catches on to them before she trips.
"So, 'cause I'm dying I can't fall to the ground?" she comments as she moves to help Clara up.
"What? No."
Clara looks at the Doctor, who still held the umbrella. "What's the plan?"
"Who said I've got a plan?"
"'Course you've got a plan," Charlotte corrected him. "You have that." She takes the umbrella from him unnoticed, lifting it to eye level.
"Maybe I'm an idiot."
She shrugged. "You knew what you were doing." Charlotte tosses the umbrella to him. "You're clever, really clever."
"Are you?" he tossed it back. "If I got a plan, what would it be?"
Charlotte couldn't recall whatever his plan was. Meanwhile, the governess appears in the window and Clara looks back at them. "Is this a test?" she questions.
"Yes," says Charlotte, tossing the umbrella to Clara. "For you."
"What will it do to us?" she asked.
The Doctor answers: "Kill us."
From the window, the governess said "That's the way to do it!" before she turns into snow, blowing through the window as she was unable to climb through in her ice-form.
"So, come on then," urged Charlotte. "Did he have a plan?"
"I knew straight away," she says, throwing the umbrella back to the Doctor.
The snow swirls on the ground, beginning to form the governess. "No, you didn't." The Doctor tossed the umbrella back to Clara.
"'Course I did."
"Show me!"
"Why should I?"
The Doctor looked back to the governess. "Because we'll be dead in under 30 seconds. Do I have a plan?"
Clara's eyebrows furrow. "If we'd be escaping, we'd be climbing down the building." She starts pacing slightly. "If we'd been hiding, we'd be on the other side of the roof. But we're standing here."
"So?" replied the Doctor.
"So!" Using the hook of the umbrella, Clara pulls down the ladder to the TARDIS. "After you."
The Doctor put his hand out. "After you."
"Doctor, we're in dresses," Charlotte tells him. "After you and eyes front."
He starts up the ladder, before realizing what she said. "My eyes are always front!"
"Okay." Confused by her tone, the Doctor looked down only to make eye contact with her.
He scrunches his nose. "Stop it!" he got a mere hum in response before they continued climbing up the ladder and, momentarily, away from the governess.
They went up the ladder, and Charlotte and the Doctor wait for Clara to appear. When she arrives off the ladder, she looked up at it before asking him, "So you can move your cloud? You can control it."
"No, no one can control clouds, that would be silly," he said as a matter of fact. "The wind, a little bit."
Charlotte looks at the ladder's exit, seeing it shake with the weight of the governess climbing up. "She's following us!" Charlotte alerted them.
"That's the idea. Keep her away from the snow." The Doctor begins to run up the staircase, leading them to the ship. "So, barmaid or governess, which is it?" he asks her.
"That thing is after us, and you want a chat?"
The Doctor pauses. "Well, we can't chat after we've been horribly killed, can we?" They continued going up, yet the chat continues.
"How did we get up so high so quick?"
As they neared the top of the staircase, Charlotte replies, "It's taller on the inside."
They stand at the start of the cloud and the Doctor turns around, pointing the sonic down at the stairs before directing it at Charlotte. "That's my line," he told her.
"Who said it then?"
He turns around, walking across the cloud and to the TARDIS. Clara follows behind, walking through the cloud she neither understood nor had time to understand. "So you actually live up here? On a cloud, in a box?"
"Have, for a long time," he answers, shuffling for his pockets to find the key.
"Blimey, you really know how to sulk."
At Clara's response, Charlotte chuckles. The Doctor, however, tells them adamantly: "I'm not sulking!"
"You live in a box!" said Clara.
"That's no more a box than you are a governess," he replied.
Clara rolled her eyes. "Oh, spoken like a man!" she roared. "You're the same as all the rest. Sweet Clara, works at the Rose and Crown, ideas above her station!" The Doctor finally opens the TARDIS door, and she follows him and Charlotte inside. "For your information, I'm not sweet on the inside, and I'm certainly not little."
Clara, fully inside the ship, stands in awe as the lights turn on, showing the true size of the box. For her first time stepping inside the TARDIS, Clara found it welcoming under the blue and green lights and the stack of books sitting beside the seat. Just a day ago it was cold and isolating inside, but for so many reasons- from both Charlotte and the Doctor- it was warmer and Clara was lucky she came in such great weather.
"It's called the TARDIS," the Doctor starts to explain, "It can travel anywhere in space and time. And it's mine."
Charlotte looks at the Doctor from where she leaned against a railing. "Ours," she corrects.
"Right, ours."
Clara didn't care for the correction on the 'mine' to 'our', as she ran out of the TARDIS to fully inspect it for herself. As she looked around the exterior, the Doctor moves beside Charlotte, looking at her like how Clara did to the TARDIS: confusion alongside the urge to know more.
"You're acting different," he noticed.
"Don't worry about me," Charlotte replies as Clara circles back to the front of the TARDIS, looking back inside before doing another lap. "Worry about her."
"How much longer?"
Charlotte bites the inside of her cheek. "Less than a day." Hearing as Clara comes closer to the front, she whispers: "I'm sorry." She grins seeing her return to the ship, getting another glance around the interior. "Go on, say it."
"It's smaller on the outside!"
"Now, that just sounds wrong," commented Charlotte, nudging the Doctor as they moved to the console.
Clara walked around the console. "Is it magic?" she questioned. "Is it a machine?"
"It's a ship," answers the Doctor.
"A ship?" she goes partway up the stairs as if testing if they were physical too or only a delusion.
"Best ship in the universe."
Clara comes down, standing beside them. "Is there a kitchen?"
The Doctor glanced at her. "Another first."
"I don't know why I asked, it's just," she pauses. "I like making soufflés."
From where he fiddled with the controls, the Doctor looks up at Clara. "Soufflés?"
Clara raises her head, moving to the side of the console to get a different angle of the lit column powering the console. "Why are you showing me all this?"
"You followed me, remember? I didn't invite you." the Doctor tells her, recalling how they initially met.
As they continued to speak, Charlotte watches from where she leaned against the railing to the TARDIS's exit. She takes off her coat, as it served no purpose anymore, and let it hang beside. Now, wearing a long and loose white nightgown, she was happier than she had been the past month.
Seeing him speaking to Clara made Charlotte happier than she knew. It made her forget the simple things that clouded her head previously: the heat, a blister growing on her foot, and most importantly, Clara's death. Charlotte was both physically and metaphorically above the clouds in happiness.
"What's this?" asks Clara, looking at the key in her hand.
"Me giving in," replies the Doctor.
Using her free hand, Clara wipes away a fallen tear. "I don't know why I'm crying..."
"I do. Remember this- this right now, remember all of it. Because this is the day-" he runs around the console enthusiastically. "-this is the day everything begins." When standing at the far end of the console, facing the door, the Doctor looks to Charlotte only for his smile to drop. He recognized her dress from years before, but it wasn't her specifically who it was on.
She grins. "What?" Then she realized she shouldn't be standing where she stood, she glances at Clara- who still admires the key. Charlotte takes a step forward but was too late to move as she felt the governess wrap her icy arms around her and start to pull her out of the TARDIS.
"Charlotte!" shouts the Doctor, running out of the TARDIS with Clara.
The woman attempts to push the arms off of her but to no avail. "Let go of me!" she yells, despite knowing nothing would come out of it.
The Doctor frantically aims the sonic at the governess. "Water vapor doesn't stop ice, I should've realized!"
As Clara shouts for the governess to let go of her, Charlotte looks at her hands wrapped around the ice-wrists. She notices the top layer begin to melt under her hands, maybe if she just let go of the subconscious hold she still had to live and let herself start the process of her soul dying then she could melt the governess?
"Let her go!" shouts the Doctor. "Now!"
Charlotte had no clue how to let go, even if that were possible. She only had hours left, surely the bridge keeping one from killing the other was crumbling and surely it could be sped up.
She didn't want to be killed intentionally, she wanted to die in a calming place in the TARDIS. Her idea of what her death would be like is leaving as no progress was made with her melting plan. Charlotte started to breathe heavily as she saw the TARDIS getting further away.
She didn't hear what the Doctor was saying because it was clear to her nothing will get her out of her destiny to die. It didn't even occur to her this Clara will stay alive. What felt like so long ago, the Doctor assured her that some people had to die to be a catalyst for a future event: Clara is a crucial death.
Charlotte tried digging her feet into the cloud with every backward step, but the next step she made didn't meet the cloud. The weight of the governess pulls her down and Charlotte falls off the cloud with her.
She watches the cloud get smaller and smaller. When the Doctor and Clara turned into nothing more than a speck in her vision, she closes her eyes and braces for impact.
In Latimer's study, a loud thud is heard from the garden. From where she stood beside Jenny, Vastra looked at her wife in confusion. "What was that?" she wondered.
Jenny looks through the blinds, only to see a disaster. "It's Charlotte," she told her.
Vastra takes a handheld device, pointing it out the window. She looks back to the device, only for it to come out inconclusive on any life signs.
Later Charlotte was placed on a table in Latimer's study with Strax using his advanced medical training to keep her alive temporarily. The woman couldn't move any part of her body without feeling severe pain, and on top of that, with her weakened state, the process was being sped up according to Strax (who was alerted of it by the Doctor when bringing her in).
Through her eyelashes, the furthest she could open her eyes, Charlotte watches the red energy above her from Strax's device.
She sees Clara bring a chair and sits it beside Charlotte's head. "Hi," she greets the dying woman. "We never got a chance to know each other."
"Yeah..." Charlotte breathes out, realizing the same.
"You know my name, so I won't start with that-" Charlotte would've laughed at that if it didn't make her lungs push against her bruised (or broken) ribs. "-I noticed you didn't have a key on you. Here." In Charlotte's opened hand, Clara places the key the Doctor gave her.
Charlotte moves her eyes to look at Clara. "I can't..."
"You need it more than me," Clara tells her. "In case there's a box on a cloud in heaven."
Charlotte had left her key in her coat, something that wasn't far away with the TARDIS placed in the corner of the study. Still, Clara gave up her own in case Charlotte were to need it later. With too little energy not to accept, Charlotte keeps it and slowly moves to place it in her pocket.
"Don't lose it, brave girl," said Clara. She looks up when the Doctor taps her shoulder. Clara smiles at Charlotte before giving the chair to the Doctor, who was in the TARDIS with Vastra.
He pulls the chair forward, taking one of her hands in his. "Hello," he greeted her quietly.
"I have a plan," she tells him, every word having a pause until the next.
He shook his head. "There's nothing we can do to stop it." Charlotte looks at him without a word, and continues speaking calmly, "I'm sorry."
"Not stop, remember," she corrected, weakly moving both hands to the sides of his face before he stopped them with his own before the tips of her fingers got to his temples.
"Charlotte, you can't," he warned her. "You'll still lose memories because you can't show me those from my future."
Her eyelids opened to their normal. "I know, I have to."
The Doctor pauses, thinking and re-thinking this decision of hers. "Everything from my future behind a closed door, alright?" he was about to move her hands to the correct spot before confirming. "I'll know everything about your life, Charlotte. Do you want that?"
"Yes," she says. Of course, she was hiding the memories of his future but there was more she was letting herself forget.
The Doctor inhales slightly before placing her hands in the correct spot; as learned from Reinette, he put his own memories behind a closed door and Charlotte does the same with some of hers. The Doctor saw all of the memories she wanted him to, including the first birthday party she had, when her pet fish died when she was thirteen, her first date, and everything beyond that.
As for whenever Doctor Who came on, the screen was black and the sound was completely missing. It has become nothing more than a curse when knowing there was a death she couldn't stop. She may come across a situation as such later on, but for the start, she didn't need to worry. And, as things began going over her head, it'd give her less guilt when those situations occur.
Charlotte's hands return to her sides and the Doctor looks down at her with more appreciation than he had previously. "I... didn't know about 1913."
"Mhm," Charlotte hums, glancing to see Vastra standing beside the TARDIS. "You have to go."
"I'll be back soon." He kisses her forehead, whispering in her ear, "Mary Thomas."
Once he left with Vastra, Charlotte closed her eyes trying to keep her soul at bay until they returned. Her fingers brushed against her watch, as if she was psyching herself up for the moment she had to open the glass that contained all of Aino's memories and genetic code.
It was clear to her by now that with how much this body has been through, she'll regenerate after opening the watch. When she realized that long after the Doctor left, Charlotte didn't know how to take it: not only was she leaving her memories temporarily, but she was saying goodbye to her reflection and the small scars leftover from her life.
Jenny, who has been keeping watch outside of the window, alerts them of the snowmen growing outside. Clara moves to stand beside her. "What do we do?" she asked.
A blast of heat goes over Charlotte, and her eyes widen as far as they could as pain like nothing else takes over her body. A repeating beep occurs on Strax's device. "No, you must fight!" he ordered Charlotte. "Hang on and fight, boy, you can do it!"
As Charlotte struggles to create a single thought against the knives driving throughout each of her cells, Clara sees Latimer standing away from his children huddled close together in the corner.
"Captain Latimer," Clara said just loud enough for him to hear as she kept them in an embrace, "your children are scared." After another word from Clara, Latimer joins to comfort his children while the snow begins to turn into strange rain.
At the Great Intelligence Headquarters, the Doctor and Vastra looked at the rain the snow began to mimic out of an open window. Vastra puts her hand out to catch rain before bringing it in just as quickly. "It's very hot... hot rain," she told the Doctor.
The Doctor watches the rainfall, clenching his jaw. "It's mimicking Charlotte," he revealed quickly, "We need to go back."
The TARDIS arrives moments later to see a weak Charlotte sitting in the middle of the table. The Doctor rushes forward, "Charlotte? Charlotte...?"
The woman was looking at her watch, unable to take her eyes off it as she had to do it soon. Her breathing hitched when seeing the Doctor standing in front of her. "I can't do it," she whispers. "I'm scared."
"You need to do this, okay?" He puts her left hand on her right, right above her watch. "If you survive in any way, it'll be through this."
Charlotte already began to look like a ghost to him, despite how living she was now. Her hand above the watch was shaky, but before she broke the glass- the only way she could find that would open this watch- she used all of her saved energy to kiss the Doctor for the second time that day.
"Alright," she says. While the Doctor ushers everyone out of the room, Charlotte turns the watch face to the back of her wrist. Now alone with the door closed, she breaks the glass of the watch.
Aino opened her eyes, and for the first time in so long, she felt utterly alone. She glances around the room but sees no one. She puts a hand on the right side of her chest, checking for her heart before realizing she was still human.
A second later, however, every human cell in her body began to change into that of a Time Lady in an excruciating process. Aino screamed as her second heart was being reformed and the feeling of needles going through her flesh and dancing around beneath. Right as she thought the process was finished, she looked at her hands only to see regeneration energy radiating off of them.
_______
Next up: The Gone and the Appeared
GIF FROM tessacarstrs ON TUMBLR
a/n: so, I guess that wraps up the major plot... I was planning on putting this out a little while after the last chp but after wrapping up editing for this bitch I just want this out so here ya go