Back in the TARDIS, Zo turned to the Doctor, grinning. "So, where to next?" she asked, bouncing on her toes a little bit. She couldn't keep her excitement contained. Rose looked between the two of them, a little out of breath—she and Zo had raced back after their snack of chips. Rose won, being steadier on her trainers than Zo was with her heels.

The Doctor grinned back at her. "You'll see," he said, flipping a few switches.

They immediately launched into a shaky flight. Rose and Zo surged forward, reaching towards the console so they wouldn't fall. The Doctor pointed, shouting to Rose over the noise, "Hold that down!" Looking slightly panicked, the blonde pulled on the lever he was pointing to until it slammed against the console. He pointed again, at another halfway across the console from Zo. "Get that one!"

Zo stared at him for a moment. "I can't reach that!" she said. "It's not going to work." She reached over anyway, though, stretching as far as she could to reach the lever. It was a close thing, though.

"I promised you a time machine," the Doctor said to Rose, "and that's what you're getting. Now, you've seen the future, let's have a look at the past. 1860. How does 1860 sound?"

Rose looked up. "What happened in 1860?"

The Doctor grinned a wild grin. "I don't know, let's find out. Hold on!" He pulled another lever, sending them into an even more shaky flight. Zo's stomach smacked into the console and then she was thrown backwards without warning. She lost her grip on the console and fell to the floor, smacking her head hard on the grating.

She was dazed for a moment, blinking up at the ceiling. She hadn't noticed before how high it was from the main floor. Zo pushed herself up, shaking the hair out of her face and straightening her dress.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked from across the console. He was already standing.

On Zo's left, Rose struggled to her knees. "I think so," she said. "Zo?"

Zo rose to her feet, brushing off her dress. "Nothing broken," she said. "I'm good."

"Did we make it?" Rose asked, "Where are we?" She pulled herself up using the console, looking around with a familiar wonderous expression. Zo grinned.

The Doctor rushed to a panel on the console, one Zo'd seen him reading from before. She couldn't understand a word of it, but he seemed to. "I did it," he said, "give the man a medal. Earth, Naples, December 24th, 1860."

Zo cheered, twirling on the spot, as Rose said, "That's so weird. It's Christmas."

The Doctor gestured to the door. "It's all yours."

Zo and Rose exchanged excited glances, then bolted for the door in unison, black and blonde hair flying behind them. Rose arrived at the doorway first, flinging it open.

They were greeted by falling snow. The TARDIS sat at the end of a small street, snow gathering around the sides of the time machine. The buildings were old-fashioned, and at the end of the street Zo could see people walking by, men and women dressed in full skirts and tails. A grin spread across her face.

The Doctor came up behind them as Rose said, "Think about it, though. Christmas, 1860. Happens once, just once, and it's gone, it's finished, it'll never happen again." She turned to look at the Doctor. "Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone a hundred thousand sunsets ago. No wonder you never stay still."

Zo nodded along. "No one can really blame you, Doctor," she said. "I never want to go home."

He shrugged. "Not a bad life."

"Better with three," Rose said with a grin. She grabbed Zo and the Doctor's hands and began to pull them out the door.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" the Doctor asked, pulling her back.

Rose looked confused. "1860."

The Doctor shook his head, and Zo laughed, pulling her inside. "Go out there like that, they'll riot," she said, motioning to Rose's jeans and light zip-up jacket. "We need to find some local clothes."

"There's a wardrobe through there," the Doctor said, pointing to a hallway jutting off the main room. He shut the door. "First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left. Hurry up!" he added as the pair of them left the room.

—

The wardrobe was harder to find than either girl expected, but they managed in the end. The organization was, quite honestly, terrible, but they managed to find a bunch of late 19th-century gowns pressed up against each other. With matching hats. Zo silently cheered.

Rose quickly found a black and maroon dress with a black cape and shoes. When she showed them to Zo, all she could do was nod. She was too busy looking for one for herself. After a few minutes of searching, she stumbled across a beautiful silver brocade, just on the edge of being too fancy, that looked like it would fit her perfectly tucked at the back of the row of gowns.

Once dressed, the pair of them headed back to the console room—luckily Rose remembered the way, because Zo had no idea. She had a very strong feeling that she would regularly get lost here. At first, Zo couldn't see the Doctor. The room looked empty. When she looked around, though, she could see him standing in a section of removed grating, doing something underneath the console. The pair of them stopped in front of him.

He looked up, his mouth dropping open. "Blimey..." he whispered. Zo rolled her eyes.

Rose held up a hand. "Don't laugh," she said, looking like she was about to laugh herself. Zo gave her a look out of the corner of her eye. She was gorgeous, in Zo's opinion, more beautiful than any woman Zo had ever seen. If he laughed at Rose, Zo would be surprised.

She was right. "You look beautiful," the Doctor said, "both of you. Considering."

Zo frowned. "Considering what, exactly?" she asked, crossing her arms.

He blinked, looking confused. "That you're human."

"Excuse me?" Zo said at the same time Rose said, "I think that's a compliment." Zo frowned at her, but Rose didn't seem to notice. "Aren't you going to change?" Rose asked the Doctor, looking him up and down as he pulled himself up out of the hole in the floor.

"I've changed my jumper," he said cheerfully, grabbing his leather jacket. "Come on."

Rose grabbed his arm to stop him before he reached the door. "You stay there!" she told him, "You've done this before. This is mine." And she pulled open the door.

Stepping out into the snow after Rose, Zo tilted her head up to the sky, letting the snow fall on her face. She liked snow and the cold. Something about it woke her up inside, energized her. Once she had enough space, she stretched out her arms and twirled in a slow circle, face still upturned. The Doctor laughed at her.

"Ready for this?" he asked as Zo stopped spinning. "Here we go: history."

Zo and Rose each hooked an arm through his, and off they went.

—

A few streets over from the TARDIS, they found a major town square, full of people and buildings and with a few carriages driving through. A choir across the square sang a Christmas song—"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" if Zo was right—and a black carriage rumbled past.

The Doctor dropped behind for a moment, buying a paper as Rose and Zo looked around. It was absolutely beautiful here, though Zo's disbelief kept her from enjoying it quite as much as she would like. Though she could see all of it right in front of her, she couldn't quite believe it. The past was so much harder to believe than the future.

The Doctor rejoined them and they began walking again as he flipped open his newspaper. "I got the flight a bit wrong," he said after a moment.

Rose, peering at what looked like a theatre ahead of them, said, "I don't care."

"It's not 1860, it's 1869," the Doctor told them.

Zo snorted. "I don't care."

"And it's not Naples."

"I don't care," Rose and Zo said at once, grinning at each other.

"It's Cardiff."

Rose stopped instantly. "Right..." she muttered, her nose wrinkled a little. Zo let out her breath in a sigh.

"Well, no matter, right?" Zo said, right before the screaming started.

—

The three of them ran towards the theatre—as much as they could, anyway. If Zo thought running in her other dress was hard, she was wrong. Running in a nineteenth-century gown was even worse. Her shoes didn't even have that big a heel this time! She managed to keep up with the Doctor, though, picking up her skirts to free her legs a little bit.

They dashed into the theatre, easily making their way through the rapidly-emptying lobby and into the theatre itself. There, they saw the remains of the crowd and a man on the stage, who stared out in shock and what looked to Zo like anger. A blue something flew around the ceiling. It didn't have a shape that Zo could figure out, and looked like some kind of gas.

The Doctor saw it too. "Did you see where it came from?" he asked the man on the stage, running a bit closer. Zo walked down the aisle, looking down the rows just in case. She saw nothing but an old woman, so she sped up to catch up with the Doctor.

"Ah, the wag reveals himself, does he?" the man onstage asked. "I trust you're satisfied, sir!"

Zo frowned. "What does he mean?" she mumbled to the Doctor. He didn't answer, clearly confused himself. Behind them, Rose shouted something that Zo couldn't really hear.

The Doctor must have understood Rose, though, because he shouted back, "Be careful!" He turned back to the man on stage, who looked oddly familiar to Zo. "Did it say anything? Can it speak? I'm the Doctor by the way, this is Zo." She waved.

"Doctor?" the man said, "You look more like a navvie."

The Doctor looked down at his clothes. "What's wrong with this jumper?"

Zo punched him in the arm, though not very hard. "That's not important right now," she mumbled, squinting up at the floating form. While she knew about a lot of aliens, she didn't know what this could possibly be. As she watched, the form flew towards one of the gas lights affixed to the wall. "It's made of gas!" she exclaimed, exchanging looks with the Doctor.

He grabbed her hand, pulling her back outside. "We've got to find Rose," he told her. Zo nodded. This adventure should be very interesting.

Really interesting, she thought, seeing a pair of people loading Rose into what she swore was a hearse. "Doctor, look!" she said, grabbing his arm and pointing.

He turned, took in the scene for a moment, and shouted, "Rose!" He ran in the direction of the hearse, Zo just behind him, holding her skirts up again.

Behind them, the man from the theatre shouted after them: "You're not escaping me, sir! What do you know about that hobgoblin? Projection on glass, I suppose. Who put you up to it?"

Zo whirled around, letting the Doctor take care of Rose. "Sir, what makes you think we had anything to do with this?" she demanded. "'Cos from my point of view, if I saw us stumbling in there, I'd think we were very confused, and wanted to help. Which we do. So stay out of our way, sir."

She turned back around just in time to see the Doctor climb into a carriage stationed outside the theatre. She darted after him, swinging herself into the carriage just in time. "You couldn't wait?" she mumbled to him.

"No time," the Doctor breathed. "Follow that hearse!"

The carriage driver turned to look at them both, his eyebrow raised. "I can't do that, sir," he said.

The Doctor blinked. "Why not?"

"I'll tell you why not!" said the man from the theatre that Zo had just told off. He hauled himself into the carriage, forcing Zo to scoot over. She pulled her skirts out of his way, glaring. "I'll give you a very good reason why not. Because this is my coach!"

"Well come on then!" the Doctor said, "Move!" he yelled up to the coachman, who shrugged, snapped the reins, and sent the carriage moving.

The Doctor, seemingly unable to sit still, leaned out of the small window beside him a little bit. Zo wished this carriage was built for more than one person. She was squished between the Doctor and the stranger, and very uncomfortable because of it. "Come on, you're loosing them!" the Doctor said, sliding back inside the carriage until his back rested against the back of the seat.

Zo elbowed him in the side as the coachman called back, "Everything in order, Mr. Dickens?"

The stranger glared at the pair of them. "No!" he called, "It is not!"

Zo stared at the man beside her. "What did you say?" she asked. "No, what did he say? What's your name?"

"Let me say this first," the man demanded. "I'm not without a sense of humor."

Zo doubted that a little, but the Doctor didn't let him get much further. "Dickens?" he asked, leaning over Zo.

The man stared at him. "Yes."

"Charles Dickens?" Zo asked. She didn't poke him, though she wanted to.

"Yes."

"The Charles Dickens?" the Doctor asked. He looked like a little kid at Christmas.

"Should I remove them, sir?" the coachman called back, interrupting the miniature interrogation.

The Doctor ignored him, completely focused on Dickens. "Charles Dickens? You're brilliant, you are. Completely one hundred percent brilliant. I've read them all. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and what's the other one, the one with the ghost?"

"A Christmas Carol?" Charles freaking Dickens said, seeming rather tired at the mention of it.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no, no, the one with the trains. 'The Signal Man', that's it. Terrifying! The best short story ever written. You're a genius."

The coachman twisted around again. "You want me to get rid of them, sir?"

Charles Dickens gave the pair of them a considering look. "Er, no, I think they can stay."

"Honestly, Charles," the Doctor said, "can I call you Charles? I'm such a big fan."

"What? A big what?" Charles Dickens asked, squinting at them.

"A big fan." Zo said, "You know."

From Charles Dickens' face, he didn't know. "How exactly are you a fan? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, it means fanatic, devoted to. Mind you, I've got to say, that American bit in Martin Chuzzlewit, what's that about? Was that just padding or what? I mean, it's rubbish, that bit." Zo stared at him. She thought he was joking when he said he'd read all of Dickens' work.

"I thought you said you were my fan," Charles Dickens said dryly.

The Doctor shrugged. "Ah, well, if you can't take criticism," he mumbled. He blinked after a moment and said, "Well, never mind. Come on, faster!"

"Who exactly is in that hearse?" Dickens asked, looking at them curiously.

"Our friend," Zo said. "She's been kidnapped."

"She's only nineteen," the Doctor added, "It's my fault. She's in my care, and now she's in danger."

Dickens stared at them both for a second. "Why are we wasting my time talking about old dry books?" he asked. "This is much more important. Driver, be swift! The chase is on!" He sat back, smiling carefully at them.

"Yes, sir!" the driver said, immediately urging the horses faster.

The Doctor grinned. "Attaboy, Charlie!" he said.

Dickens frowned. "Nobody calls me Charlie." Zo rolled her eyes.

—

It was several minutes before the hearse turned into a small yard before a house-like building. There was a sign out front proclaiming it as the Chapel of Rest. A morgue.

"Stay here," Dickens said to the driver as the three of them clambered out of the carriage. Zo dusted off her dress and smoothed out the many new wrinkles, scanning the outside of the building. The hearse wasn't in the yard, but there was a small stable off to the side where she saw a team of horses resting. They'd been back long enough to take care of their transport, at least.

The two men headed straight for the door, Zo right behind them. Dickens knocked on the wooden door, once, twice. It took a minute for it to open, revealing a young woman with dark hair dressed in a maid's uniform. "I'm sorry, we're closed," she said, ducking her head to avoid looking them in the eyes.

Mr. Dickens scoffed. "Nonsense. Since when does an undertaker keep office hours?" He reached out to hold the door open in case the girl decided to close it. "The dead don't die on schedule. I demand to see your master."

The girl shook her head. "He's not in, sir."

"Don't lie to me, child. Summon him at once." He really could sound pompous, couldn't he?

"Please?" Zo put in, peeking around the Doctor. He glanced back, giving her a small smile. She raised her eyebrows. This talking was a waste of time, they needed to find Rose.

"I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Dickens," the maid said, "but the master's indisposed." She looked nervous. She kept glancing between the three of them, and held her arms close to her body. Guarded.

In the hallway, one of the gas lamps flickered, then flared. Zo frowned on seeing it, remembering the moment back at the theatre. "Having trouble with your gas, are you?" she asked, looking back down to meet the girl's eyes.

Dickens glanced back at her before focusing on the maid again. "What the Shakespeare is going on?" he demanded. Zo had to stifle a giggle. Who used Shakespeare as a curse word?

The Doctor pushed past the maid, looking up the light that flickered. "You're not allowed inside, sir!" she said, turning to him in shock.

He ignored her, but Zo gave the girl a little smile as she stepped past. "He's like this sometimes," she said softly, "We're just looking for our friend."

"There's something inside the walls," the Doctor said. He stared at the gas lamp as if it held all the answers. "The gas pipes. Something's living inside the gas."

The maid gave Zo a panicked look, but all she could do was shrug. She had no idea what he was on about. Zo stepped past the Doctor, edging by the maid, and peered down the dim hallway. She couldn't tell where the hallway went or where Rose would have been taken, but she had to be in here somewhere. They weren't cruel enough to keep her outside, were they?

As she took another step, a call of "Open the door!" caught her ear. It sounded just like Rose.

Zo turned to look at the Doctor, the maid, and Dickens. "That's her!" she said, already starting down the hallway.

The Doctor threw a glance over his shoulder at the maid as Rose yelled, "Please, please, let me out!" Then both he and Zo were running down the hall. From the footsteps behind them, Zo guessed Dickens was following, though slower.

Around a corner, they bumped into an older man dressed in a dark suit, who gaped at them and said, "How dare you!" As they moved past him, Zo heard him say, "This is my house!" The undertaker, Zo thought. She ignored him.

The Doctor reached Rose first, due to the fact that he wasn't wearing a period-accurate nineteenth century evening gown with matching undergarments and heeled shoes. He kicked in the door Rose's voice was coming from, grabbing her as soon as the door was out of the way. Zo and Dickens arrived behind them as the Doctor said, "I think this is my dance." Inside the room, a man that looked a whole lot like a corpse shambled forward, attempting to reach for Rose. She'd never seen a walking corpse before, and she decided she didn't like them very much.

Beside her, Dickens seemed very startled. "It's a prank. It must be. We're under some mesmeric influence."

Zo glanced at him, surprised by his denial. "No we're not," she said.

"The dead are walking," the Doctor confirmed, turning to Rose. "Hi," he said, smiling at her.

"Hi," Rose replied. She glanced back at Zo, who waved, and Dickens, who stared at the walking corpse. Turning back to the Doctor, Rose asked, "Who's your friend?"

"Charles Dickens," he said.

"Okay."

The Doctor looked at the corpse, a tall man in a fine suit. "My name's the Doctor," he said. "Who are you, then? What do you want?"

The corpse opened its mouth, but it was not a man's voice that came out. In what sounded like several wispy, air-filled voices, the corpse said, "Falling. Open the rift. We're dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us." Then the voices cried out. The gas Zo and the Doctor saw in the theatre flew out of the body and into the lamp. The corpse collapsed.

Rose, the Doctor, and Zo all looked at each other. "We need to talk to the undertaker," Zo said. The Doctor nodded.

—

They cornered the undertaker, Mr. Sneed, and the maid, Gwyneth, in a sitting room. Seeing that they were not going to leave or be deterred, Sneed called for tea, which Gwyneth brought to them.

Rose glared at Sneed for a full five minutes before she opened her mouth. And when she did, boy did she shout. "First of all you drug me," she was saying as Gwyneth poured the tea, "then you kidnap me, and don't think I didn't feel your hands having a quick wander, you dirty old man."

Zo wrinkled her nose at that. Disgusting. She and the Doctor stood against the wall near the fireplace, watching Rose go off on the old undertaker. Zo was glad: he deserved it.

"I won't be spoken to like this!" Sneed shouted back, but Rose ignored him and just kept going.

"Then you stuck me in a room full of zombies!" she went on. "And if that ain't enough, you swan off and leave me to die! So come on, talk!"

Sneed stuttered for a minute, clearly afraid of the shouty blonde. Zo couldn't blame him. "It's not my fault," he said after a moment. "It's this house." He looked up at the ceiling, as if the house was listening to him. "It always had a reputation. Haunted. But I never had much bother until a few months back, and then the stiffs," he faltered for a moment, looking at Zo and then Rose, "er, the dear departed started getting restless."

Dickens scoffed, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Tommyrot," he said, looking like he was about to roll his eyes.

Sneed shook his head. "You witnessed it. Can't keep the beggars down, sir. They walk. And it's the queerest thing, but they hang onto scraps."

Zo frowned. "Scraps?" she questioned, "What kind of scraps?"

Sneed glanced over at her again, frowning, as Gwyneth brought the Doctor his tea. "One old fellow," Sneed began slowly, like he didn't want to say, "who used to be a sexton almost walked into his own memorial service." He turned back to Dickens. "Like the old lady going to your performance, sir, just as she planned."

Dickens waved a hand. "Morbid fancy."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, Charles, you were there."

"I saw nothing but an illusion," Dickens insisted.

"Just shut up, will you?" Zo said, crossing her arms at him. "You're not helping."

Dickens gaped at her. "Watch who you're talking to!" he said, "You forget your place."

Zo narrowed her eyes. "I said shut up," she said firmly. "My place is where I decide it to be."

The Doctor stepped between her and the author. "What about the gas?" he asked Sneed, pulling the conversation back to the main question.

Sneed shook his head. "That's new, sir. Never seen anything like that."

"Means it's getting stronger, then," the Doctor said, "the rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through."

"What's the rift?" Rose asked, cocking her head to one side.

"A weak point in time and space," the Doctor said, turning to be able to see her again. "A connection between this place and another. That's the cause of ghost stories, most of the time."

"Really?" Zo asked, "I didn't know that." The Doctor nodded.

"That's how I got the house so cheap," Sneed said with a nod. "Stories going back generations."

Dickens shook his head, seemingly still refusing to believe them, and left the room. He slammed the door shut behind him. Zo sighed for about thirty full seconds. Sneed went on: "Echoes in the dark, queer songs in the air, and this feeling like a shadow passing over your soul. Mind you, truth be told, it's been good for business. Just what people expect from a gloomy old trade like mine."

Zo snorted. "Sounds very spooky to me," she mumbled. Shaking her head, she moved to Rose's side. "Come on," she said, "let's let the Doctor investigate." Gathering up some of the drained teacups and snagging Gwyneth's arm, Zo moved in the direction the maid had brought the tea from. If there was anything Rose was good at, it was talking to people and getting them to talk to her. Maybe they could get some information from Gwyneth.

—

Gwyneth lit a lamp in the kitchen as Zo and Rose piled up the dishes for washing. Gwyneth gaped at them. "Please, miss," she said to Rose, "you shouldn't be helping. It's not right."

Rose glanced over her shoulder at Gwyneth, smiling. "Don't be daft," she said, "Sneed works you to death. How much do you get paid?" Not much, Zo was willing to bet.

"Eight pounds a year, miss." Gwyneth said, and Zo grimced. She was right.

Rose gaped at Gwyneth, putting down the dish she was washing. "How much?"

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

Zo and Rose looked at each other, Rose with an expression of shock. "It's not too bad, considering," Zo told her, making Rose frown. Zo took the dish from her and began to dry it carefully.

Rose blinked at Zo for a moment, then turned back to Gwyneth. "So did you go to school or what?"

Zo had to restrain the urge to groan as Gwyneth laughed and said, "Of course I did. What do you think I am, an urchin?" Zo was too kind to say that yes, Rose probably did. "I went every Sunday, nice and proper."

Zo smiled. "That's great, Gwyneth," she said, at the same time Rose burst out with: "What, once a week?" Zo sighed again. She would have to educate Rose more thoroughly on history if they were going to keep this up.

Gwyneth nodded. "We did sums and everything." She looked at them, then around the small kitchen conspiratorially. "To be honest, I hated every second."

Rose giggled, and Zo said, "Me too."

"Don't tell anyone," Gwyneth whispered, "but one week, I didn't go and ran on the heath all on my own."

All three of them giggled and Rose said, "I did plenty of that. I used to go down to the shops with my mate Shareen. We used to go and look at boys." She raised her eyebrows comically, and Zo dropped her head into her hands, shaking with laughter.

Gwyneth blushed. "Well, I don't know about that, miss," she said as Zo lifted her face back up.

"Come on, times haven't changed that much," Rose said, "I bet you've done the same." Behind Gwyneth's back, Zo nodded in agreement.

"I don't think so, miss," Gwyneth said, shaking her head.

"You can tell us," Zo said.

Rose nodded. "I bet you've got your eye on someone."

Gwyneth was quiet for a moment, her cheeks still pinkish. "I...suppose," she said quietly. "There is one lad. The butcher's boy. He comes by every Tuesday. Such a lovely smile on him." As she spoke, she smiled too.

"I like a nice smile," Zo said, ducking her own head and trying not to think of a particularly nice smile.

Rose snorted. "Good smile, nice bum."

Zo dissolved into laughter again as Gwyneth said, "Well, I have never heard the like!"

Rose elbowed her. "Ask him out. Give him a cup of tea or something, that's a start." Zo didn't quite have the heart to tell her that's not how things were done in this century, but she was sure Gwyneth would in her own way.

Gwyneth shook her head, smiling. "I swear it's the strangest thing, miss," she said. "You've got all the clothes and the breeding, but you talk like some sort of wild thing."

"Maybe I am," Rose said, teasing, "Maybe that's a good thing. You need more in your life than Mr. Sneed."

"Oh, now that's not fair. He's not so bad, old Sneed," Gwyneth said, "He was very kind to me to take me in because I lost my mum and dad to the flu when I was twelve."

Zo stopped laughing immediately. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, putting a hopefully-comforting hand on Gwyneth's shoulder.

Gwyneth turned to her with a smile. "Thank you miss," she said, "But I'll be with them again, one day, sitting with them in paradise." She grinned, "I shall be so blessed. They're waiting for me." She turned back to Rose. "Maybe your dad's up there waiting for you too, miss." Zo frowned. She hadn't known Rose's dad was dead.

"Maybe," Rose said, then paused. "Er, who told you he was dead?"

Gwyneth looked down, taking up a dish. "I don't know. Must have been the Doctor."

"No, Rose hasn't told either of us about that," Zo said, still frowning at Gwyneth. How could Gwyneth know?

"My father died years back," Rose said, frowning as well. She exchanged a glance with Zo.

Gwyneth looked evenly at Rose, turning away from the cleaning. "But you've been thinking about him lately more than ever," she said, sounding so sure that Zo wanted to believe her.

"I suppose so," Rose said, looking away for a moment. "How do you know all this?"

Gwyneth shrugged. "Mr. Sneed says I think too much. I'm all alone down here." Zo felt her heart break a little. Gwyneth seemed like a kind and cheerful girl, she deserved to have friends her own age.

Gwyneth looked back up at Rose. "I bet you've got dozens of servants, haven't you, miss?" Her eyes darted to Zo for a moment, but she didn't say anything more. Zo crossed her arms.

Rose shook her head. "No, no servants where I'm from."

"And you've come such a long way," Gwyneth said. There was an almost wistful look in her eyes.

"What makes you think so?" Rose asked.

Gwyneth looked at her. "You're from London," she said. Easy enough to guess from their accents, Zo thought, but something else was going on here. "I've seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half-naked, for shame. And the noise, and the metal boxes racing past, and the birds in the sky... no, they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People are flying." Gwyneth sounded entranced by whatever it was she was seeing—London through their eyes, it seemed, but how was she able to?

Gwyneth focused her attention back on Zo and Rose. Zo instinctively took a step closer to Rose. "And you," she said, "you've flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you've seen. The darkness, the big bad wolf. I'm sorry." She reached out to them. "I'm sorry for both of you, Miss."

"...It's all right," Rose said, awkwardly.

"How do you know all this?" Zo asked Gwyneth, making her voice as kind as she could.

Gwyneth shook her head. "I can't help it. Ever since I was a little girl, my mam said I had the Sight. She told me to hide it."

"But it's getting stronger, more powerful, is that right?" said the Doctor from behind them. All three girls jumped.

"All the time, sir," Gwyneth said, a little shyer now, as she turned to him. "Every night, voices in my head."

"You grew up on top of the rift," the Doctor said, nodding a little. "You're part of it. You're the key."

"The key to what?" Zo asked, but no one answered her.

Gwyneth shook her head. "I've tried to make sense of it, sir," she said. "Consulted with spiritualists, table rappers, all sorts."

"Well, that should help," the Doctor said with a smile. "You can show us what to do."

Zo frowned. What was he planning? "Show us what to do about what?" she asked, stepping closer to Gwyneth and crossing her arms.

The Doctor grinned at her. "We're going to have a seance."

—

Zo had never been to a seance before. She'd never cared to try it, as she didn't really believe in them, and found the whole thing creepy. But here she was, sitting between Rose and the Doctor around a table in the middle of a funeral home. Not for the last time, she contemplated how her choices led her here.

Candles had been placed on the table, and Gwyneth looked nervous. "This is how Madam Mortlock summons those from the Land of Mists, down in Bute Town," she said quietly. "Come, we must all join hands."

Dickens, who someone—probably the Doctor—had dragged in from the courtyard, crossed his arms. "I can't take part in this."

"Humbug?" the Doctor said in a teasing tone. "Come on, open mind."

"This is precisely the sort of cheap mummery I strive to unmask," Dickens said. "Seances? Nothing but luminous tambourines and a squeeze box concealed between the knees. This girl knows nothing."

Zo rolled her eyes. "Gwyneth has none of that," she pointed out, glaring at him. "And she's the only one of us who has any connection to what's going on, so we're going to listen to her, yeah?" The tone of her voice made it clear he could listen to her or be shouted at.

"Come on, we might need you," the Doctor added, and with a sigh, Dickens sat down between Rose and Gwyneth, reluctantly taking their hands.

"Good man," said the Doctor. "Now, Gwyneth, reach out."

She nodded, taking a deep breath. After a moment, she began to speak. "Speak to us. Are you there? Spirits, come. Speak to us that we may relieve your burden."

After another moment of silence, a strange whispering started, echoing around them. Zo lifted her head, looking around. She could see no real source of the whispers, and swallowed a lump in her throat. Beside her, Rose whispered, "Can you hear that?" Zo nodded.

"Nothing can happen," Dickens declared. "This is sheer folly."

"Oh, come off it," Zo breathed, not even sparing him a glance. Her eyes were fixed on Gwyneth. "Listen."

"I see them," Gwyneth said, "I feel them." As she spoke, Zo began to see them too: gas tendrils, twisting and moving above their heads just as the one in the theatre had done. She tilted her head back to gape at them.

"What's it saying?" Rose asked.

Then the Doctor spoke up: "They can't get through the rift. Gwyneth, it's not controlling you, you're controlling it. Now, look deep. Allow them through."

"I can't!" Gwyneth protested, and Zo looked back down at her. Her face was twisted, as though she was in pain, and she seemed to be concentrating scarily hard.

Her mouth was dry. Zo swallowed, then said, "You can!" at the same time the Doctor said, "I have faith in you, Gwyneth. Make the link."

Something shifted in Gwyneth. Zo didn't know what, didn't think she could know, but Gwyneth's face cleared. "Yes," she said, and her eyes changed as blue outlines of people appeared behind her.

"Great God!" Sneed exclaimed, "Spirits from the other side."

"The other side of the universe," the Doctor corrected.

Gwyneth opened her mouth, and the voice that came out was her own, but with it were two others—children's voices, layered and whispery and louder than Gwyneth. "Pity us. Pity the Gelth. There is so little time. Help us."

The Doctor leaned forward a little. "What do you want us to do?"

"The rift," the Gelth answered through Gwyneth. "Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge."

They could only mean Gwyneth by "the girl". She was the only one of the three of them capable of reaching the Gelth, after all.

"What for?" asked the Doctor.

"We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction," the Gelth said. Their forms wavered behind Gwyneth as though to prove their point.

"Why, what happened?"

The voices of the Gelth sounded sad when they answered, "Once, we had a physical form like you, but then the war came."

"War? What war?" Dickens asked, frowning.

"The Time War," the Gelth said, and Zo glanced at the Doctor. He looked odd, the way people looked when something terrible from their past was brought up. The way he'd looked when he told Zo and Rose he was the last of his kind.

"The whole universe convulsed," the Gelth continued. "The Time War raged. Invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms." Zo was pretty sure that was an insult to humans, but she held her tongue. "Our bodies wasted away. We're trapped in this gaseous state."

Zo had never heard of a creature that could live in that way, but she was far from an expert in extraterrestrial life. And the Doctor seemed to believe them, as he nodded and said, "That's why you need corpses."

"We want to stand tall," the Gelth said, "to feel the sunlight, to live again. We need a physical form, and your dead are abandoned. They're going to waste. Give them to us."

"But we can't," Rose said suddenly. Zo had to agree with her. The idea was rather unpleasant—giving the bodies of the dead to these beings. It would be strange, and painful, to see dead family and friends walking around but inhabited by someone else.

The Doctor, though, clearly didn't agree. "Why not?"

Rose blinked at him. "It's not- I mean, it's not-"

"Not decent?" the Doctor interrupted. "Not polite? It could save their lives."

"It's disrespectful!" Zo said, a surge of anger rising in her chest. She knew the Doctor wasn't human, but this was a level of disconnection she hadn't expected from him.

"Open the rift," the Gelth said insistently. "Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth." With that, the forms of the Gelth dissipated back into the gas lamps, and Gwyneth collapsed across the table.

The circle broke immediately. Zo stood up, rushing to Gwyneth's side, and Rose leaned forward, letting go of Dickens' hand. "Gwyneth?" she asked, her voice worried and tense.

Dickens himself seemed oblivious to Gwyneth's state. "All true," he murmured.

Zo ignored him. She gently touched Gwyneth's shoulder. "Can you hear me? Are you all right?" The other girl didn't answer her, and Zo raised her head, catching the Doctor's eye and motioning him over.

"It's all true."

—

Zo and Sneed had cleared away the seance materials while the Doctor moved Gwyneth to a chaise lounge across the room and Rose made her some tea. Gwyneth was almost completely out of it, as though accessing the rift like that sapped all her strength and she'd passed out. Zo was a little worried for her, and kept glancing over to make sure she was all right.

"It's all right," Rose said to Gwyneth when her eyes opened. "Just rest."

"But my angels, miss," Gwyneth protested. She tried to sit up, but Rose gently pressed her down. "They came, didn't they? They need me?"

Zo crossed her arms. Gwyneth didn't seem to remember much. She moved closer, preparing to tell Gwyneth what'd happened, but the Doctor beat her to it.

"They do need you, Gwyneth," he said. "You're their only chance of survival."

Rose and Zo glared at him in tandem. "I told you, leave her alone," Rose snapped. "She's exhausted and she's not fighting your battles." She turned back to Gwyneth, presenting her with the tea. "Drink this."

Sneed stepped closer to the Doctor. "Well, what do you say, Doctor? Explain it again. What are they?"

"Aliens," Zo answered before he could, her voice dry. He gave her a look she wasn't sure she liked.

"Like foreigners, you mean?" Sneed asked. Right, off-planet aliens weren't as common a concept in this time.

The Doctor nodded. "Pretty foreign, yeah. From up there." He pointed upwards, towards the night sky.

Sneed frowned. "Brecon?" Zo sighed, putting her head in her hands. Save her from idiotic men...

"Close," the Doctor said. "And they've been trying to get through from Brecon to Cardiff but the road's blocked. Only a few can get through and even then they're weak. They can only test drive the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas and hide in the pipes."

"Which is why they need the girl," Dickens said, turning to give Gwyneth, who looked a little worried, a glance.

"They're not having her," Rose insisted. She and Zo agreed on this, and had spent much of the last twenty minutes trying to get the men to listen to them. It wasn't going particularly well.

The Doctor turned to face the pair of them. "But she can help. Living on the rift, she's become a part of it. She can open it up, make a bridge, and let them through."

"Incredible," Dickens said, his tone one of awe. "Ghosts that are not ghosts but beings from another world, who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers."

"Incredible and weird," Zo muttered under her breath. No one heard her.

"Good system," the Doctor said with a nod. "It might work."

"You can't let them run around inside of dead people," Rose protested, standing up. She smoothed out her skirts automatically.

The Doctor shrugged. "Why not? It's like recycling."

"No it's not!" Zo protested. "It's about respect, Doctor. Their bodies are still theirs, them being dead doesn't make that not true anymore. It's- it's disrespectful! And think how everyone else will react to seeing the bodies of their loved ones in use again! It's not right, Doctor!"

Rose nodded. "Seriously, though, Doctor," she said, "you can't."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Seriously, though, I can." He paused for a moment. "Do either of you carry a donor card?"

"That's different," Rose said. "That's-"

"It is different, yeah," the Doctor interrupted, and Zo groaned.

"That's by our choice, Doctor!" she burst out, stepping up until she was toe-to-toe with him. "We choose to donate part of us after we die, but these poor people didn't. Can't you see the difference? Or are you too focused on thinking you know what's best for us all?"

The Doctor tightened his jaw, glaring down at Zo—even in heels, she was shorter than him. "It's a different morality," he said. "Get used to it or go home. 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."

Zo scoffed. She couldn't believe her ears, except she really, really could. "Glad to know what you'll think of us when we die," she said. "Glad to know all we are is a resource to be used." She turned on her heel and stomped out of the room, for the second time in as many days.

Maybe she should get a hold on her temper.

—

Zo sat on a small chair pulled into the hallway, pulling her hair down out of the bun she'd done up when getting dressed. The tightness of it was starting to hurt her head, and she liked having the curls down and free better anyway. She ran her hands through the dark strands, getting out the worst of the knots before letting it fall as it would.

She was still angry. She still wanted to punch the Doctor in the face, or perhaps yell at him some more, for dismissing her and Rose's concerns—their points of view—so out of hand like that. It was like what anyone else thought didn't matter to him, that his thoughts were all that mattered. It pissed Zo off, and she took a couple slow breaths, smoothing the fabric of her dress to calm herself.

She was stuck with him, for now at least. She could deal with it.

She looked up when the parlor door opened and the others—including Gwyneth—left. Rose looked resigned. "Gwyneth wants to help them," she told Zo. "And of course, we have to go to the morgue to do it." She rolled her eyes a little, and Zo sighed, standing up to join them.

The morgue, it turned out, was essentially just the basement of the house. Recently deceased people lay under sheets on tables in the main part of it, and there was a gate separating that area from a small alcove that didn't seem to have any real purpose. At least not that Zo could tell. It was bitterly cold.

Zo wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. "Had to be Christmas, didn't it?" she mumbled, and the Doctor nodded in agreement like they hadn't just had an argument.

"Talk about Bleak House," he agreed. Zo huffed out a breath in laughter.

"The thing is, Doctor," Rose started, like she'd been doing some thinking, "the Gelth don't succeed, 'cos I know they don't. I know for a fact there weren't corpses walking around in 1869."

The Doctor shook his head. "Time's in flux, changing every second. Your cozy little world can be rewritten like that." He snapped his fingers to demonstrate. "Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing."

Zo stepped up next to Rose, wrapping an arm around her. "Don't scare her," she told the Doctor, her voice hard. Rose leaned into the touch, and Zo's heart skipped a beat. She tried to ignore it. "Would it kill you to be kinder?"

The Doctor ignored her. Zo hoped that wouldn't become a habit of his.

"Doctor," said Dickens, shuddering. "I think the room is getting colder."

The group stepped into the main large room, and Rose's breath caught in her throat. "Here they come," she whispered.

A single Gelth slipped from the gas lamp situated by the door and settled itself underneath an archway on the far side of the room. "You've come to help," it said. "Praise the Doctor. Praise him."

Idly, Zo wondered when they'd heard his name.

"Promise you won't hurt her," Rose said firmly, staring the Gelth in the eyes—or at least, where the eyes would be.

The Gelth didn't answer her, acting as though Rose hadn't opened her mouth at all. Zo's feelings of anxiety worsened. This didn't feel right... "Hurry!" the Gelth said, "Plase, so little time. Pity the Gelth."

The Doctor stepped forward, addressing the Gelth. "I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer. Somewhere you can build proper bodies. This isn't a permanent solution, all right?"

Zo sure wished he'd said that before. She sighed, and turned to Gwyneth, making sure she was all right. "Are you sure about this?" she asked.

Gwyneth nodded. "My angels," she said. "I can help them live."

"Okay, where's the weak point?" the Doctor asked. Dickens and Sneed stood in the back, by the door. Out of the way. It was the Doctor and the girls actually dealing with this, and Zo couldn't even say she was surprised.

"Here," the Gelth answered. "Beneath the arch."

Gwyneth nodded, and quickly took her place beneath the archway. It looked as though the Gelth was on top of her body, somehow, the blue gaseous form layered over her own. Zo felt dread pool in her stomach, and she grabbed Rose's arm. "Stay close," she whispered.

"Establish the bridge," the Gelth said. "Reach out to the void. Let us through!"

Gwyneth tilted her head back. "Yes, I can see you. Come!"

"Bridgehead establishing," said the Gelth. Zo gripped Rose's arm tighter. She'd never been this afraid, this sure that something was not right, in her life.

"Come to me," Gwyneth cried. "Come to this world, poor lost souls!" She spread her arms, the way Zo had seen people do in movies in scenes not unlike this one. It did nothing to reassure her.

"It is begun," said the many voices of the Gelth. "The bridge is made."

Gwenyth opened her mouth, though Zo wasn't sure if she was actually doing it of her own volition. Zo stumbled backwards when blue gas began to pour from Gwyneth. Rose stumbled with her, brown eyes wide and afraid. "She has given herself to the Gelth," said the creatures. "The bridge is open. We descend."

And then it went to shit and proved Zo right. Again.

The Gelth's form turned a violent red, and when it opened its mouth Zo saw teeth—sharp teeth, pointy teeth. When the Gelth spoke again, the voices were deeper, more threatening. "The Gelth will come through in force," they said.

"You said that you were few in number!" Dickens piped up from behind Zo.

The Gelth almost laughed. "A few billion. And all of us in need of corpses." The forms of the Gelth shifted in the air, and disappeared into the corpses laid out in the morgue, taking over them and raising them up.

Zo really hated it when she was right sometimes.

Sneed started forward, growing a spine suddenly. "Gwyneth, stop this," he said as he passed the girls. "Listen to your master. This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, and leave these things alone, I beg of you."

The corpse-inhabiting Gelth turned their attention towards Sneed, and Rose shouted, "Mr. Sneed, get back!"

She was too late. A corpse grabbed onto Sneed and snapped his neck, quickly and efficiently, like it was nothing. Zo shrieked. A red-gas Gelth slipped into Sneed's body's open mouth, reanimating it just like the others.

"I think it's gone a bit wrong," said the Doctor. At some point, he'd come close to Rose and Zo, and stood slightly in front of them. The three of them began to back up.

"You think?!" Zo demanded, resisting the urge to punch him. That wasn't helpful right now.

The Gelth inhabiting Sneed's body spoke through him, with his voice, "I have joined the legions of the Gelth. Come, march with us."

"No," said Dickens. The time travelers were even with him now, and he looked just as panicked as Zo felt.

"We need bodies," said the Gelth that still stood where Gwyneth was channeling. "All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead."

"Gwyneth, stop them!" the Doctor called. "Send them back now!" Something about the way Gwyneth was acting, though, seemed as though she couldn't hear him.

The Gelth didn't stop coming, led by what used to be Sneed. "Four more bodies. Convert them. Make them vessels for the Gelth." Zo felt cold metal against her back—the gate she'd noticed earlier. They'd been backed up against it, nowhere else in this part of the morgue to go. She was going to die here.

From somewhere else in the room, she heard Dickens say, "Doctor, I can't. I'm sorry. This new world of yours is too much for me." Before she heard footsteps. He was leaving them behind. Zo couldn't even blame him, not really.

The Doctor pulled open the iron gate behind them, ushering Zo and Rose through, then clanging it shut and barring it. Zo backed up more, out of the reach of the arms of the dead, against the wall, Rose at her side.

"Give yourself to glory," the Gelth hissed. "Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth." If they thought that was going to get Zo to give in, they were dead wrong.

"I trusted you," the Doctor said. "I pitied you!"

The Gelth sneered, "We don't want your pity. We want this world and all its flesh."

"Not while I'm alive," the Doctor declared. If Zo wasn't scared out of her mind, she would roll her eyes.

"Then live no more," the Gelth said. The dead reached for them.

"But I can't die," Rose said. Her face was pale. "Tell me I can't. I haven't even been born yet. It's impossible for me to die. Isn't it?"

Zo grabbed her hand. "It isn't that simple," she whispered.

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor.

Rose turned to him. Her hair was messy now, like Zo's. Zo wondered why she was noticing that. "But it's 1869. How can I die now?"

"Time isn't a straight line," the Doctor said. "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," Rose said. "I wanted to come."

"We wanted to come," Zo added. "After last time, I think we both knew it would be dangerous."

"What about me?" the Doctor asked. "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," he scrunched his nose up, "in Cardiff."

Rose shook her head. "It's not just dying," she said. "We'll become one of them." She nodded at the walking dead on the other side of the gate.

"I'd rather not," Zo said. "Like, really rather not."

Rose nodded. "We'll go down fighting, yeah?"

"Of course," Zo said, at the same time the Doctor said, "Yeah."

"Together?"

Zo and the Doctor looked at each other. "Yeah," they both said, sharing a smile. Rose grabbed the Doctor's hand, giving Zo's a squeeze.

"I'm so glad I met you. Both of you," the Doctor said.

Zo blinked away tears. Not now. "Wouldn't have it any other way," she whispered.

"Me too," Rose agreed, turning her head to smile at them both in turn. Zo felt herself smile back.

At that moment, Charles Dickens ran back into the room. "Doctor!" he shouted. "Doctor! Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now, fill the room, all of it, now!" He motioned with his hands like he expected them to understand that.

Zo blinked at him. "What?!" she said.

"What're you doing?" the Doctor echoed, watching the author run to the nearest gas lamp and fiddle with the controls of it.

"Turn it all on," Dickens repeated. "Flood the place!"

The Doctor looked confused for a moment, then grinned. "Brilliant. Gas!"

Rose and Zo exchanged a glance. "What, so we choke to death instead?" Rose asked.

"Am I correct, Doctor?" Dickens asked. He moved to another lamp. "These creatures are gaseous."

The Doctor started moving, helping Dickens. "Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!" It made sense, though Zo wouldn't have thought of it. At least Dickens was good for something.

The Gelth moved the bodies of the dead they were inhabiting away from the iron gate, instead focusing on Dickens as he sprinted to another lamp affixed to the wall. "I hope," he said, sounding slightly panicked, "oh Lord, I hope that this theory will be validated soon, if not immediately."

The Doctor grinned, almost manically. He gripped a pipe nearby—Zo tracked where it led straight to the gas lamps—and pulled, shouting, "Plenty more!"

With a shudder, the corpses stopped moving, and the Gelth poured out of them, letting the bodies slump to the ground. "It's working!" Zo said, a little breathless. "Oh my god, it's working!"

With Rose beside her, still holding her hand, Zo stepped carefully forward, out of the alcove the Gelth backed them into. Her heart was still beating impossibly fast, but she ignored it. The Doctor stood in front of Gwyneth, far enough away that the Gelth wouldn't bother him, but as close to her as he could get. "Gwyneth, send them back," he said. "They lied. They're not angels."

"Liars?" Gwyneth's voice was small, choked almost. It hurt Zo's heart to hear.

"Look at me," the Doctor said. Gwyneth blinked, dragging her gaze to him. "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!"

Beside Zo, Rose lifted a hand to her throat. "I can't breathe," she gasped.

Zo tried to respond, but found herself having difficulty breathing too. It felt as though her throat were closing in on itself, stopping her from getting any air. She knew it was because of the gas. What else could it be? Knowing still didn't stop the panic from rising again. She dropped Rose's hand to grasp at her own throat with both hands.

"Charles, get them out," the Doctor said, glancing back at the two girls. Dickens seemed to be struggling to breathe as well, and Zo wondered how Gwyneth and the Doctor weren't at all.

"I'm not leaving her," Rose protested, even as she choked on her own attempts to breathe.

Zo shook her head. "We can't stay," she managed to say, already stumbling towards Dickens and the door.

"They're too strong," Gwyneth cried.

"Remember that world you saw?" the Doctor said, more gently. "Rose and Zo's world? All those people. None of it will exist unless you send them back through the rift."

Gwyneth shook her head as Rose joined Zo at the door out of the basement. "I can't send them back," Gwyneth said. "But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out." As she spoke, she reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a little book of matches. Zo's eyes widened.

"No!" she said.

Rose protested as well, crying out, "You can't!"

"Leave this place!" Gwyneth cried. Tears pricked in the corners of Zo's eyes.

"Rose, Zo, get out," the Doctor said, turning back around to look at them. "Go now. I won't leave her while she's still in danger. Now go!"

Zo reached for Rose's hand again, and reluctantly they followed Dickens out. They ran up the stairs to the main part of the house, clutching each other like a lifeline. Dickens had tampered with the gas lamps here too, and the hallway was flooded with gas. Zo yanked a handkerchief out of her sleeve and pressed it to her nose, motionning for Rose to do the same.

After a moment, they burst out into the street, where Dickens' coachman had long since fled. Zo couldn't blame him. Once she was far enough away from the house to not breathe in gas, she lowered her handkerchief and doubled over, straining to take in clean air again. Her lungs burned.

She whirled around at a loud boom shaking the street and bringing the Doctor stumbling towards them. Rose straightened as well, crossing her arms. "She didn't make it," she said flatly.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. He dusted off his jacket. "She closed the rift."

"God..." Zo muttered, shaking her head. She felt like crying again, and this time she didn't bother to hold the tears back.

"At such a cost," Dickens said. "The poor child."

The Doctor stepped over to Rose, putting his hands on her shoulders. "I did try, Rose, but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes."

Zo frowned. "How is that possible?" She'd noticed Gwyneth acting a little oddly, but she couldn't have been dead.

The Doctor glanced over at her. "I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch."

"But she can't have," Rose proteste. "She spoke to us. She helped us. She saved us. How could she have done that?"

Dickens shook his head. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Even for you, Doctor."

Rose glanced back at where the house used to be, her lips pressed together. "She saved the world. A servant girl. No one will ever know."

Zo shook her head. "No. We know. The four of us. We'll never forget."

—

The walk back to the TARDIS was a quiet one. Zo didn't bother fixing her messy hair, nor did Rose. At some point they'd both lost half their accessories, but Zo couldn't bring herself to care. Not when Gwyneth had given her life for them.

Dickens followed them, a silent shadow, and when they reached the familiar blue shed, the Doctor turned to him a bit awkwardly. "Right then, Charlie boy," he said, "I've just got to go into my, er, shed. Won't be long."

"What are you going to do now?" Rose asked the author, tilting her head to one said. She hadn't cried as obviously as Zo had, though she was certain they would both need a moment once they were back in their own clothes, and alone.

"I shall take the mail coach back to London," Dickens said, "quite literally post-haste. This is no time for me to be on my own. I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them. After all I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital."

Zo couldn't help but smile. "That's great," she said. "I'm glad for you."

"You've cheered up," the Doctor pointed out to him. He leaned against the door of the TARDIS.

"Exceedingly!" Dickens said, smiling. "This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world. Now I know I've just started. All these huge and wonderful notions, Doctor. I'm inspired!" His smile grew, the grin of the creative. "I must write about them."

Rose frowned. "Do you think that's wise?" she asked.

"I shall be subtle at first," Dickens said. "The Mystery of Edwin Drood still lacks and 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 said, genuinely. "Nice to meet you." He shook his head, smiling. "Fantastic."

Zo grinned at him and waved. "I'm sure it'll be a hit," she said. "I hope to read it someday."

"Bye then," Rose said, "and thanks." She reached out for Dickens' hand, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Dickens flushed. "Oh, my dear. How modern. Thank you, but," he looked at the three of them quizzically, "I don't understand. In what way is this a goodbye? Where are you going?"

"Somewhere wonderful," Zo said with a smile.

The Doctor motioned to the TARDIS. "You'll see. In the shed."

Dickens blinked. "Upon my soul, Doctor, it's one riddle after another with you. But after all these revelations, there's one mystery you still haven't explained. Answer me this: who are you?"

"Just a friend passing through," the Doctor said.

"But you have such knowledge of future times," Dickens protested. Rose and Zo looked at each other, and grinned. "I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books. Doctor, do they last?"

"Oh yes!" the Doctor said.

"For how long?"

Zo stepped forward, clasping Dickens' hands in her own. She remembered reading A Christmas Carol when she was little, before her family ended up in Rose's neighborhood. "Forever," she told Dickens, grinning. "They last for as long as you can imagine."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Right. Shed. Come on, girls."

Zo squeezed Dickens' hands before letting go, turning and linking her arm with Rose's as the Doctor opened the TARDIS door. He let them in first, leaning a little on each other as Dickens said incredulously, "In the box? All three of you?"

"Down boy," said the Doctor with a little chuckle. "See you." He shut the door behind him.

Zo sat on the cushy seat, reaching down and pulling off her shoes, as Rose asked, "Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?"

The Doctor shook his head, busying himself at the console. "In a week's time it's 1870, and that's the year he dies." He glanced up at them both. "Sorry. He'll never get to tell his story."

"That's a bit sad," Zo said, frowning. She examined the shoes. It was doubtful they could be worn again, they were so caked in snow and dirt.

"He was so nice," Rose mused.

"But in your time, he was already dead," the Doctor pointed out. "We've brought him back to life, and he's more alive now than he's ever been, old Charlie boy." He smiled at them. "Let's give him one last surprise."

With the flip of a switch, the motor of the TARDIS came to life, wheezing them out of 1869 and into somewhere else entirely.

—

10946 words.

I swear these chapters get longer every time. And that's part of why I struggle to write them, but I'm trying to be better! Zo's story is far from over. Next I have planned a short interlude with Rose and Zo, because I intend to keep dropping hints that Zo is very into Rose lol
💛magnus/gerard