The Protector helped Rose carry Gwyneth to a chair in the room and let her rest. A short while after being moved Gwyneth slowly opened her eyes and went to sit up. "It's all right. You just sleep," Rose told her.
"But my angels, miss. They came, didn't they?" Gwyneth ask. "They need me?"
"They do need you, Gwyneth. You're their only chance of survival."
"I've told you, leave her alone." Rose narrowed her eyes at the Doctor. "She's exhausted and she's not fighting your battles."
The Protector crossed her arms and opted in for staying quiet while Rose handed the young woman a glass of water. "Drink this."
"Well, what did you say, Doctor? Explain it again. What are they?"
"Aliens." The Doctor replied.
"Like foreigners, you mean?" Sneed asked.
"You can say that." The Protector nodded. "And they've been trying to get through from one place to Cardiff but imagine the road." She shrugged. "It's blocked and the bridge the road is on is brittle and breaking so only a small few can get through and even then they're not able to stay across for long. They can only hang around in the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas and hide in the pipes."
"Which is why they need the girl." Charles nodded.
"They're not having her."
"Big ears didn't explain it very well but Gwyneth can help." The Time Lady told Rose, ignoring the glare the Doctor sent her way. "Living on the rift, she's become part of it and she can open it up, support the bridge and let them through."
"Incredible." Charles breathed. "Ghosts that are not ghosts but beings from another world, who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers."
"Good system." The Doctor nodded. "It might work.
"You can't let them run around inside of dead people." Rose protested.
"Why not?" The Doctor questioned. "It's like recycling."
"Seriously though, you can't."
"But we can." The Protector added, crossing her arms.
Rose shook her head and looked at the Protector. "It's just wrong. Those bodies were living people. We should respect them even in death."
"Rose let me ask you think." The Time Lady sighed, letting her arms fall to her sides. "Do you carry a donor card?"
"That's different. That's..."
"It is different, yeah." The Doctor cut in, eyes shooting daggers at the blonde. "It's a different morality. Get used to it or go home."
"Doctor!" The Protector shouted at him, eyes wide.
"Shut up and get out of my head." He snapped back, not even looking at her as he continued talking to Rose aloud. "You heard what they said, time's short. I can't worry about a few corpses when the last of the Gelth could be dying."
The Protector mentally sighed at him."I get it, you know I get it but Rose doesn't-"
"Which is exactly why she does not get a say!" He cut in angrily.
The blonde human shook her head, looking between the two Time Lords who were just glaring at each other. "I don't care. They're not using her."
"Don't I get a say, miss?" Gwyneth quietly asked.
"Look, you don't understand what's going on," Rose spoke to her softly, moving towards the young woman resting in the chair.
"You would say that, miss, because that's very clear inside your head, that you think I'm stupid," Gwyneth replied.
"That's not fair." Rose protested.
"It's true, though. Things might be very different where you're from, but here and now, I know my own mind, and the angels need me. Doctor, Protector, what do I have to do?"
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to." The Time Lady walked towards the young woman and knelt down beside her. "We can't and we won't make you do anything."
"They've been singing to me since I was a child, sent by my mam on a holy mission. So tell me." "We need to find the rift." The Doctor cut in. "This house is on a weak spot, so there must be a spot that's weaker than any other." He looked at the owner of the house. "Mister Sneed, what's the weakest part of this house? The place where most of the ghosts have been seen?"
"That would be the morgue."
The Protector rolled her eyes. Of course, he would say that.
"No chance you were going to say gazebo, is there?" Rose joked.
The Time Lady shook her head.
×××
"Urgh. Talk about Bleak House." The Doctor complained as he walked through the door. The Protector and Rose were behind him followed by Sneed, Charles and Gwyneth.
"The thing is, the Gelth don't succeed," Rose said, looking at the Time Lords. "'Cos I know they don't. I know for a fact there weren't corpses walking around in 1869."
"Time's in flux, changing every second." The Doctor explained. "Your cosy little world can be rewritten like that." He clicked his fingers. "Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing."
"It's like the butterfly effects." The Protector added, crossing her arms over her chest. "Even the smallest of things can have a big impact." She frowned slightly. "Except this is a big thing but the point still stands, no matter what happens here it could affect the future."
"Doctor, Protector," Charles spoke up, looking between them. "I think the room is getting colder."
"Here they come," Rose said as whispers filled the air, a moment later one of the Gelth flew out of a gas lamp and floated under a large stone archway in the morgue.
"You've come to help. Praise the Doctor and Protector. Praise them!" "Promise you won't hurt her!" Rose ordered. "Hurry!" The Gelth told them. "Please, so little time. Pity the Gelth."
"I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer." The Doctor told the Gelth. "Somewhere you can build proper bodies. This isn't a permanent solution, all right?"
"My angels." Gwyneth smiled. "I can help them live."
"Okay," the Protector nodded at Gwyneth and then looked at the Gelth. "Where's the weak point?"
"Here, beneath the arch."
"Beneath the arch," Gwyneth repeated as she stepped towards it. Rose followed her and stood in front of her. "You don't have to do this."
Gwyneth smiled and placed a hand on Rose's cheek. "My angels."
"Establish the bridge." The Gelth said and Rose jumped back, standing next to the Protector. "Reach out to the void. Let us through!"
"Yes, I can see you. I can see you. Come!" Gwyneth ordered.
"Bridgehead establishing." The Gelth said.
"Come to me. Come to this world, poor lost souls!"
"It is begun. The bridge is made." Gwyneth opened her mouth and blue gas flew out of her mouth and around the room. "She has given herself to the Gelth. The bridge is open. We descend."
The Protector stepped back eyes wide in horror as Charles frowned. "You said that you were few in number."
"A few billion." The Gelth replied, the innocent child-like voices gone, replaced with a deep and scratchy evil one. The blue flame of the Gelth under the archway also changed to a ran firey one. "And all of us in need of corpses." "Gwyneth, stop this." Sneed stepped towards the girl. "Listen to your master. This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, and leave these things alone, I beg of you-"
Rose gasped, jumping back as one of the dead bodies grabbed Sneed. "Mister Sneed, get back!" She cried but it was too late and it snapped his neck. His mouth opened a moment after and one of the Gelth flew into his mouth. The Doctor swallowed hard and the Protector stepped back with Rose, putting the young woman behind her and the Doctor. "I think it's gone a little bit wrong..." The Time Lord muttered.
"I agree." The Protector winced.
"I have joined the legions of the Gelth." Sneed or rather the Gelth now in Sneed's body stated as it stepped towards the Time Lords and Rose. "Come, march with us."
"No." Charles shook his head, backing away as more of the deceased bodies now controlled by the Gelth stood up.
"We need bodies. All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead."
"Gwyneth, stop them!" The Doctor shouted. "Send them back now!"
"Four more bodies." The Gelth said together. "Convert them. Make them vessels for the Gelth."
Charles who had managed to move himself towards the morgue exit stepped back towards it. "Doctor, Protector, I can't." He cried as the Gelth moved towards him. "I'm sorry. This new world of yours is too much for me. I'm so-" He stopped talking, turned and ran while the Doctor and the Protector backed themselves and Rose to a gate and moved behind it, closing it on the corpses.
"Give yourself to glory. Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth!"
"I trusted you. I pitied you!" The Doctor shouted at it.
"We don't want your pity. We want this world and all its flesh."
"Not while I'm its protector." The Time Lady narrowed her eyes. "You'll have to kill me first."
"Then live no more." The Gelth replied.
"But I can't die." Rose looked at them as the Gelth put their hands through the bars to reach them. "Tell me I can't. I haven't even been born yet. It's impossible for me to die. Isn't it?"
The Protector slowly shook her head and pulled Rose closer to her. "I'm really sorry Rose." "But it's 1869. How can I die now?" Rose asked.
"Time isn't a straight line. It can twist into any shape. You can be born in the twentieth century and die in the nineteenth and it's all my fault. I brought you here."
"It's not your fault. I wanted to come."
"What about me? I saw the fall of Troy, World War Five. I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party. Now I'm going to die in a dungeon..." His face turned to disgust, "In Cardiff."
The Protector rolled her eyes at him. "No need to compete." The Time Lady shook her head. "And it's not just dying is it." She winced. "We'll become one of them."
"We'll go down fighting, yeah?" Rose asked, looking between them.
"Hell yeah." The Protector nodded. "I'm not going down without a fight," she looked at the Time Lord. "Doctor?"
"Yeah." He nodded in agreement.
"Together?" Rose asked, holding a hand to the Doctor and the Protector.
The Doctor looked at the Time Lady for a moment before looking back at Rose and nodding while taking her hand. "I'm so glad I met you."
"Me too."
"No thanks for me then?" The Protector raised a brow.
"Oh, shut up." The Time Lord rolled his eyes. They all blinked as Charles ran in holding a handkerchief to his nose and mouth. "Doctor! "Protector!" He shouted. "Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now, fill the room, all of it, now!"
"What're you doing?" The Doctor asked.
"Turn it all on. Flood the place!"
"Brilliant." The Doctor grinned. "Gas."
"What, so we choke to death instead?" Rose asked.
"No." The Protector shook her head. "The Gelth are gas, they need to survive but too much of it-"
"Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!" The Doctor finished grinning while Charles turned the gas lamp off by the exit and turned the gas all the way up. The corpses all slowly turned around and began to walk towards him. "I hope, oh Lord, I hope that this theory will be validated soon, if not immediately." Charles winced, running out of places to move to as he was backed towards the wall.
"Plenty more!" The Doctor exclaimed as he ripped a gas pipe from the wall and the Gelth suddenly left all of the corpses and the bodies fell to the floor.
"There we go!" The Protector laughed.
"It's working," Charles said through his handkerchief. while the Time Lords and Rose moved out from behind the metal gate.
"Gwyneth, send them back." The Doctor ran towards her. "They lied. They're not angels."
"Liars?" Gwyneth said calmly. The Protector frowned. Something hadn't been right since the young woman stepped under the archway.
"Look at me." The Doctor told her. "If your mother and father could look down and see this, they'd tell you the same. They'd give you the strength. Now send them back!"
"I can't breathe." Rose coughed.
"Charles, get her out."
"I'm not leaving her." Rose snapped at the Doctor.
The Protector spun around. "Rose I won't let anything happen. You're choking on gas now go!" She ordered.
The blonde woman blinked and swallowed hard before she ran out with Charles. "Protector-" The Doctor tried to telepathically speak to her.
"You won't convince me." The Time Lady cut him off and glared at him. "I know what you're thinking and no, I'm not letting you blow this place up with you in it. I'm not an idiot, Doctor."
The Doctor sighed at her response knowing there was really no use trying to convince her as Gwyneth spoke: "They're too strong."
"Remember that world you saw? Rose's world?" The Doctor asked. "All those people. None of it will exist unless you 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." She took a box of matches from her apron pocket. "Get out."
"Come on, leave give that to me." The Doctor told Gwyneth.
The Protector slapped the Doctor's hand away and the Time Lord opened his mouth in protest before he snapped it shut and frowned as the Time Lady placed two fingers on Gwyneths neck. "She's dead, Doctor." She looked at him. "There's no pulse."
The Doctor looked at Gwyneth sadly. "I'm sorry and thank you."
The Doctor and the Protector then ran out of the morgue and ran through the house, they got to the front door as the house exploded behind them, sending them both flying.
"Ugh." The Protector grumbled telepathically as she stood up. "Me and fire do not go well together."
The Doctor shook his head and stood up as well, wiping off a small amount of snow from the ground off his jacket. Rose stared at them. "She didn't make it." She looked at the Time Lady. "You promised..."
The Protector shook her head sadly. "She was already dead Rose, opening the gateway killed her but she hung on, her brain was alive and she closed the rift. Gwyneth saved us all."
Rose frowned. "How could she have done that?"
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Even for you, Doctor, Protector."
"She saved the world." Rose looked at them. "A servant girl. No one will ever know."
The Protector slowly nodded. "But we know." She forced a small smile and looked at the blonde human. "We'll know it was her."
×××
The Protector leaned against the TARDIS as they arrived back where they had left the box. "Right then, Charlie boy, I've just got to go into my, er, shed." He glanced at the man and at the TARDIS, Rose struggled to hold in her laugh as the Doctor looked unsure of what he was trying to sell. "Won't be long."
"What are you going to do now?" Rose asked Charles.
"I shall take the mail coach back to London, quite literally post-haste. This is no time for me to be on my own." He smiled. "I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them. After all, I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital."
The Protector raised an eyebrow as she crossed her arms. "You've cheered up a bit."
"Exceedingly!" He grinned widely. "This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world. Now I know I've just started. All these huge and wonderful notions, Protector. I'm inspired. I must write about them."
Rose frowned, worryingly glancing at the Time Lords. "Do you think that's wise?"
Charles shook his head. "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. "
"Good luck with it." The Doctor grinned. "Nice to meet you. Fantastic!"
"Bye, then, and thanks." Rose shook Charles's hand and kissed his cheek before moving away from the man and standing next to the Time Lady.
"Oh, my dear. How modern." He replied and nodded back at the blonde. "Thank you, but, I don't understand. In what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?"
"You'll see." The Doctor nodded his head in the direction of the TARDIS. "In the shed."
"Upon my soul, Doctor, it's one riddle after another with you. But after all these revelations, there's one mystery neither you nor the Protector still haven't explained." He looked between them. "Answer me this. Who are you?"
"Just a friend passing through." The Doctor replied.
"And just a protector." The Time Lady winked. "Nothing more, nothing less." the Doctor rolled his eyes at the Time Lady while Charles continued to talk. "But you have such knowledge of future times. I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books. Doctor, Protector, do they last?"
"Oh, yes!" The Doctor grinned while the Time Lady wordlessly nodded her head, smiling at the man.
"For how long?"
"Forever Charles." The Protector replied, slipping into the TARDIS a moment later.
The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Right. Shed." He looked at the blonde. "Come on, Rose."
Rose nodded and without saying another word went inside the TARDIS.
"In the box? All three of you?" He blinked.
"Down boy." The Doctor warned while the Protector rolled her eyes as she walked inside the TARDIS. "See you." He headed in.
The Doctor stepped inside and joined Rose who was now standing by the console and the Protector who quietly watched from where she was sitting in the jump seat. "Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?"
"In a week's time, it's 1870, and that's the year he dies." The Doctor replied, shaking his head. "Sorry. He'll never get to tell his story."
"Oh, no. He was so nice." "But in your time, he was already dead. We've brought him back to life, and he's more alive now than he's ever been, old Charlie boy."
"What do you say to giving him one last surprise?" The Protector questioned, the Doctor grinned with a nod and began to run around the console, pulling leavers and pressing buttons as the TARDIS wheezed, dematerialising right in front of Charles Dickens.
---
The end of the episode does warm to me a bit, I just never really enjoyed it so it naturally took a long while to actually finish and want to edit it but we did get there in the end!
Normally if I was (and I am I promise) keeping to my book rotation we'd be going to the Parallel Series to see the Doctor and the Stone, however, I need to put that one on hold for a few rotations for a few reasons that may or may not be in relation to some sort of cross over plan I have... I give no spoilers but it will be very, very exciting.
ANYWAYS because of this we're going back to the Doctor and Hollie who we last left in in the middle of the Earth in a Silurian city (if that's what we're now calling it?) 'Cold Blood - I' will be out for 'A Crack in Time' very soon!