Doctor who the unquiet dead Page #5

Season #1 Episode #3

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[Street]

GELTH:
Failing! Atmosphere hostile!

(The Gelph dives into the street lamp.)

DICKENS:
Gas. The gas!

[Morgue]

ROSE:
But it's 1869. How can I die now?

DOCTOR:
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.

ROSE:
It's not your fault. I wanted to come.

DOCTOR:
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 in Cardiff.

ROSE:
It's not just dying. We'll become one of them.

(Dickens runs back into Sneed's house and turns the gas lamps off then on again. He holds a handkerchief to his mouth to try and stop himself choking on the unlit town gas as he goes.)

ROSE:
We'll go down fighting, yeah?

DOCTOR:
Yeah.

ROSE:
Together?

DOCTOR:
Yeah.

(They hold hands.)

DOCTOR:
I'm so glad I met you.

ROSE:
Me too.

(Dickens runs in.)

DICKENS:
Doctor! Doctor! Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now, fill the room, all of it, now!

DOCTOR:
What're you doing?

DICKENS:
Turn it all on. Flood the place!

DOCTOR:
Brilliant. Gas.

ROSE:
What, so we choke to death instead?

DICKENS:
Am I correct, Doctor? These creatures are gaseous.

DOCTOR:
Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!

(The corpses leave the Doctor and Rose, and start shambling towards Dickens.)

DICKENS:
I hope, oh Lord, I hope that this theory will be validated soon, if not immediately.

DOCTOR:
Plenty more!

(The Doctor rips a gas pipe from the wall. The Gelphs leave the corpses.)

DICKENS:
It's working.

(The Doctor and Rose come out of the alcove.)

DOCTOR:
Gwyneth, send them back. They lied. They're not angels.

GWYNETH:
Liars?

DOCTOR:
Look at me. 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!

ROSE:
I can't breathe.

DOCTOR:
Charles, get her out.

ROSE:
I'm not leaving her.

GWYNETH:
They're too strong.

DOCTOR:
Remember that world you saw? Rose's world? All those people. None of it will exist unless you send them back through the rift.

GWYNETH:
I can't send them back. But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out.

(Gwyneth takes a box of matches from her apron pocket.)

ROSE:
You can't!

GWYNETH:
Leave this place!

DOCTOR:
Rose, get out. Go now. I won't leave her while she's still in danger. Now go!

(Rose and Dickens leave.)

DOCTOR:
Come on, leave give that to me.

[Hallway]

DICKENS:
This way!

[Morgue]

(Gwyneth doesn't move. The Doctor feels for a pulse in her neck.)

DOCTOR:
I'm sorry.

(He kisses her forehead.)

DOCTOR:
Thank you.

(The Doctor runs out. Gwyneth opens the box and takes out a match. The Gelph swirl around her as the Doctor runs through the house.)

[Street]

(The Doctor runs out and KaBOOM! The Doctor goes flying across the street.)

ROSE:
She didn't make it.

DOCTOR:
I'm sorry. She closed the rift.

DICKENS:
At such a cost. The poor child.

DOCTOR:
I did try, Rose, but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes.

ROSE:
What do you mean?

DOCTOR:
I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch.

ROSE:
But she can't have. She spoke to us. She helped us. She saved us. How could she have done that?

DICKENS:
There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Even for you, Doctor.

ROSE:
She saved the world. A servant girl. No one will ever know.

[Outside the Tardis]

DOCTOR:
Right then, Charlie boy, I've just got to go into my, er, shed. Won't be long.

ROSE:
What are you going to do now?

DICKENS:
I shall take the mail coach back to London, 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.

DOCTOR:
You've cheered up.

DICKENS:
Exceedingly! 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. I must write about them.

ROSE:
Do you think that's wise?

DICKENS:
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.

DOCTOR:
Good luck with it. Nice to meet you. Fantastic.

ROSE:
Bye, then, and thanks.

(Rose shakes Dickens' hand then kisses his cheek.)

DICKENS:
Oh, my dear. How modern. Thank you, but, I don't understand. In what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?

DOCTOR:
You'll see. In the shed.

DICKENS:
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?

DOCTOR:
Just a friend passing through.

DICKENS:
But you have such knowledge of future times. I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books. Doctor, do they last?

DOCTOR:
Oh, yes!

DICKENS:
For how long?

DOCTOR:
Forever. Right. Shed. Come on, Rose.

DICKENS:
In the box? Both of you?

DOCTOR:
Down boy. See you.

[Tardis]

ROSE:
Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?

DOCTOR:
In a week's time it's 1870, and that's the year he dies. Sorry. He'll never get to tell his story.

ROSE:
Oh, no. He was so nice.

DOCTOR:
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. Let's give him one last surprise.

[Street]

(The Tardis dematerialises in front of Charles Dickens' astonished eyes. He laughs, and walks away. Somewhere a choir sings Hark the Herald Angels.)

MAN:
Merry Christmas, sir.

DICKENS:
Merry Christmas to you. God bless us, every one!

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