THE POISON SKY PART ONE
updated as of november 11th, 2020
Charlotte kept pulling at the door but still had no luck. They had to get Wilfred out of the gas-filled car somehow but, under the pressure, her head couldn't think of any way. From beneath the trunk, the Doctor sonics the car. They were running out of time, and their options were running low.
Charlotte was just about to punch the window when she heard someone walk behind her. Turning her head, she watched as Sylvia rejoined them with an ax.
Her mouth went wide open when she finally recalls how he was saved. "Oh!"
Wilf quickly puts his hands over his head, and with a crash, Sylvia smashes the window with the ax. The windshield shatters into the car, but luckily not hurting Wilfred, who is waving the fumes out of the car as he hacks.
"Well, don't just stand there!" says Sylvia, noticing them staring at her- Donna, flabbergasted, didn't see that coming. "Get him out!"
A moment later, Sylvia and Donna both have an arm under Wilf as they help him to the house. Walking behind the family, the Doctor and Charlotte follow them to the house- the latter wondering where Ross went off to.
"I can't believe you've got an ax!" remarked Donna to her mum, the said ax being left by the car.
"Burglars!" They make it to the door, Sylvia opening it up for Wilfred.
"In, in, in," repeated Charlotte. "Make sure to block off the doors and windows."
As Charlotte ushered the two in the house, a black cab pulls up outside the driveway. When squinting her eyes, she could make out Ross in the driver's seat, causing her shoulders to slump down with relief he was alright.
"Doctor!" He calls the man, who lingered in the driveway. "This is all I could find that hasn't got ATMOS." At that, the Doctor jumped into the backseat and was followed by Charlotte, who sat in the front passenger seat.
"Donna, you coming?" shouted the Doctor out the window.
Standing alongside her family, Donna replies, "Yeah!"
Gobsmacked, Sylvia looked like she was slapped across the face. "Donna! Don't go! Look what happens every time they appear!" She put her hand on her wrist in an attempt to plead for her stay. "Stay with us, please."
Wilfred took her hand away from her and ushered the hesitant Donna away from the house. "You go my darling!" he calls to her as she rushes to the car.
"Dad!"
"Don't listen to her!" continued Wilf, ignoring his daughter. "You go with them! That's my girl!'
Donna finally gets into the backseat, closing the door behind herself.
While Ross began driving the cab, Charlotte looked out the window to see Wilfred waving them off before Sylvia steered him into the house. Once they get out-of-view, she turns to face the windshield, only to see their view blocked by the gas-fog.
"Careful," she warned Ross, craning her neck for any help. A car, with its lights on, drives parallel to them. "Careful!" She snapped.
"I'm driving fine..."
Scoffing, Charlotte kept her eyes out for oncoming cars or people throughout the ride and still did when Ross turned to the outside the ATMOS factory. Immediately putting the cab in park, the Doctor and Donna jumped out of the car. As they do, Charlotte searched inside of her pockets.
"Ross, look after yourself," the Doctor tells him, "get inside the building."
"Will do."
Charlotte takes out her phone- well, Wilfred's friend's phone. "Don't wait up for me!" She called over at him. "I'll be there in a second." Waving, the Doctor left with Donna down an alleyway.
"I have to go," stated Ross, a hand at the wheel despite the cab being turned off.
Nodding, Charlotte messed with the phone. "I know, I know. Just a second." She scoots to the far right of her seat and raises the phone's camera above the two of them. "Smile," she says to Ross, who does as told before she brought the phone down to look at the picture that'll be printed into her book soon enough.
"What was that for?"
She stuffed the phone back into her pocket. "I-" Charlotte stopped mid-sentence, knowing she was so close to slipping how he'll die after they part ways, how he'll be alone when he's shot and how she wants something to remember him. "I'm a scrapbooker."
He chuckled. "My mum scrapbooks." The second he remembered their situation, Ross fixed his composure. "I have to go, now, ma'am."
Before leaving, she threw him a mock salute; he salutes her, far more professionally than she, but still not as perfect as he would with anyone else as the smile he wore was as against code as his posture. Opening her door, Charlotte stepped out of the cab and into the gas.
Charlotte slammed the door shut, looking around for any sight of the Doctor and Donna, but in the fog found nothing. Keeping her shirt balanced on the arch of her nose, Charlotte squints as she starts to cough.
She needed to get inside now. Charlotte had no clue where the Doctor went off to- the trailer from earlier? She can't be sure, and from where she stood, she has no clue where that is. On the other hand, the TARDIS was nearby for sure, and Donna was definitely there.
Without a second thought, she ran in the TARDIS' direction while coughing from the gas. Turning the corner, her shoulders relaxed when she spotted the blue box exactly where they left it.
Standing in front of it- and dropping the shirt off her nose- Charlotte took the cord of twine hanging around her neck. With the key in hand, she unlocked the door. Coughing, she put the twine back around her neck and stepped inside.
"Close the door!" said Donna, in between her own coughs from gas billowing in.
Charlotte closes the door immediately after stepping fully in. Leaning over a bar, Charlotte wheezes as the gas dissipates. "Sorry, sorry!" She was able to cough out an apology. Donna gave her a wave as if saying, "Whatever" and sat down on the pilot's seat.
As the smoke finally leaves the TARDIS, Charlotte stood awkwardly at the entrance area; she's been with Donna multiple times, yet doesn't know her well, not even given time to speak one-on-one. Girl to girl. Woman to woman. Flesh and bones to flesh and bones.
Hearing her mind stall creating conversation, Charlotte rolled her eyes, walking forward and leaning on the console in front of Donna. "He's going to die. Ross." Of all topics, why did I choose the most uncomfortable conversation starter?
Donna, who didn't get much time to know him unlike Charlotte, frowned. "Sorry, he seemed nice."
"He is." Her eyebrows scrunched up. "Or was."
There was a moment of heavy silence before Donna piped up, "If you don't mind me asking... Do you think it'll get easier? With all of these people dying. It's just, I haven't been here long, and I can't imagine how you two handle it."
Charlotte hasn't thought of it. She's just assumed she'll always be playing a game of tug-of-war with her pain, where she is on the team trying to stay alive. Her team was losing earlier in the game, when the pain seemed to take over her mind when she should be focused on staying alive.
Right now, neither team is winning. Both teams are pulling on the rope, yet not one player has fallen. Her pain will always be there: for Gwyneth, Ross, the loss of her family, and the lack of what she can do. At moments like now, however, the pain isn't visible to her.
Charlotte shook her head. "Well, no. I don't think any sane person will either find it easier when people die."
"But the Doctor doesn't exactly seem..."
"What? Seem what?" Charlotte would have laughed at her, despite never seeing him as sad as she felt, she knew he did (not only from TV, but from intuition). "It will never get easier for him. It will just get easier for him to hide it. For both of us it will."
Donna nods, and they talked a little more on different topics: stories from secondary school, their exes, and movies. Charlotte found herself bending over at Donna's impression of Jack from the Titanic.
---
With her legs growing weak from standing so long, Charlotte becomes frustrated at not only herself but at the TARDIS. Her fingers twisted the knobs at the edge of the screen, trying to hone in back to Earth (which she has been attempting to do ever since they found they were transported onto the Sontaran ship). To get to the right channel could bring a faster victory, but alas the only channels operating from this far away were football, Japanese news, and a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.
Charlotte groaned, to which she was shushed by Donna.
"It's no good working on that thing when the only thing you're getting is Passport to Paris," Donna whispered a remark across the console.
With her back now facing the screen, she huffed. "I- ugh. How long does it take for him to start to worry?"
Donna mumbled something incoherent, but says after, "I'm sure he'll call in some time. Hopefully."
"Shut it, you."
About to say something, Donna was cut off by the TARDS' control screen, finally transmitting the voice they've been hoping for: the Doctor.
They both ended their thoughts and immediately surrounded the panel. When she turned around, Charlotte saw Rose Tyler again on the panel, but the second she blinked, the blonde was gone again... and for a second she frowned, before remembering the, frankly more important thing happening.
"-Jurisdiction Two of the Intergalactic Rules of Engagement. This is The Doctor," said the Doctor, who everyone else watching believed was only talking to the Sontarans.
"Doctor," said Donna, trying to get his attention. "We're here, can you hear me?"
General Staal, remaining stoic, responds, "Doctor, breathing your last?"
The Doctor replied to Colonel Mace's comment- which neither woman heard, then to the General he said, "So, tell me, General Staal, when have you lot become cowards?"
Staal's face contorts into fury. "How dare you! Doctor, you impugn my honor!"
From the TARDIS, Charlotte shook her head with a grin. She's always found the Sontarans speaking mannerisms funny (of course, she wouldn't be laughing if she were there).
"Yeah, I'm really glad you didn't say belittle 'cause then I'd have a field day," said the Doctor, lounging back in a chair. "But poison gas? That's the weapon of a coward and you know that. Staal, you could blast this planet out of the sky, and instead, you're sitting above watching it die. Where's the fight in that? Where's the honor? Or, are you lot planning something? 'Cause this isn't normal Sontaran warfare. What are you up to?"
"A general would be unwise to reveal his plot to opposing forces."
The Doctor nods, understanding what they're getting at, now. "The war's not going so well, then? Losing, are we?"
"Such a suggestion is impossible."
Colonel Mace asks the Doctor something, to which he answers, "The war between the Sontarans and the Rutans. It's been raging for over 50,000 years. 50,000 long years of bloodshed... and for what?"
"For victory!" Exclaimed General Staal. He repeatedly hits his baton against his palm, followed by the rest of the Sontarans. "Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!"
Rolling his eyes, the Doctor took out the sonic screwdriver, for a moment blocking out the video from them.
"Please, stay on," Charlotte begged the TARDIS. "Please."
To Charlotte's relief, the video turns back on and showed an annoyed Doctor. "Finished?"
"You will not be so quick to ridicule when you see our prize. Behold!" The camera turns to show the TARDIS in the Sontarans' War Room. "We are the first Sontarans in history to capture a TARDIS."
Despite the remarkable achievement, the Doctor didn't seem impressed. "Well, as far as achievements go, that's... noble." Donna's ears perk up as he continues, "As they say in Latin, donna nobis pacem."
Donna hit Charlotte's elbow, as if she wasn't watching. "That's me. I'm here!"
"Did you ever wonder about its design?" Questioned the Doctor, his head tilting on the screen. "It's a phone box. It contains a phone. A telephonic device for communication. Sort of symbolic. Like if only we could communicate." He pointed from himself to the camera. "You and I."
Charlotte took out her phone, ready to call. However, she quickly remembered she only had Clara's phone number in it and put the phone back in her pocket. Leaving the screen for a moment, she grabs the phone Martha gave to the Doctor and opens it- ready to call anyone.
"Big mistake, though. Showing it to me," said the Doctor when Charlotte returned.
She looked at Donna. "Who do we call?"
"Ghostbusters, I don't know!" exclaimed Donna, frustrated by the lack of instructions given by the Doctor.
The Doctor grins as he twirled the sonic screwdriver in between his fingers. "'Cause I've got remote control."
"Cease transmission!" Staal orders, the screen then going black.
"Doctor," shouts Donna, "what number are you on?"
Charlotte's hands push back her hair. "Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid."
Suddenly, the TARDIS begins to rattle, telling both of them the Sontarans were physically moving the ship out of their War Room.
"But what do we do?!" Questioned Donna, but it was clear to both of them neither knew.
_______
Next up: Charlotte Versus Rattigan Part Two (The Poison Sky Part Two)
GIF FROM spockvarietyhour ON TUMBLR
y/n: hahaha its the not updating in months for me