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Doctor Who S7 • Episode 9

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[Caliburn House]

(It is a dark and stormy night. The paranormal investigators are completing their set up in the entrance hall by the staircase.)

EMMA: How are we looking?
PALMER: Oh, about ready, I think.
EMMA: Any thoughts on the interference?
PALMER: Er, a stray FM broadcast, possibly. I've fitted some ferrite suppressors and some RF chokes, just in case. Are you sure you want to go through with this? I mean, the last time, it was very
EMMA: But she's so lonely.
PALMER: Excellent, then. Excellent. (into microphone) Caliburn House, night four, November 25th, 1974. 11.04 pm.
EMMA: I'm talking to the spirit that inhabits this house. Are you there? Can you hear me? I'm speaking to the lost soul that abides in this place.

(There is a reaction on the paper graph.)

EMMA: Come to me. Speak to me. Let me show you the way home.

(Something painful comes through the Major's headphones.)

EMMA: Let me show you the way home!

(Palmer grabs his Nikon camera and starts taking photographs of the white image approaching them. Emma gasps then staggers for a chair.)

PALMER: Emma?
EMMA: She's so
PALMER: So what?
EMMA: Dead.

(There is a knock on the door. Palmer opens it carefully. No one there.)

DOCTOR: Boo! Hello, I'm looking for a ghost.
PALMER: And you are?
CLARA: Ghostbusters.
DOCTOR: I'm the Doctor.

(He holds up his psychic paper.)

PALMER: Doctor what?
DOCTOR: If you like. And this is Clara.

(He runs over to the tables of equipment.)

DOCTOR: Ah, but you are very different. You are Major Alec Palmer. Member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Specialised in espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance behind enemy lines. You're a talented watercolourist, professor of psychology and ghost hunter. Total pleasure. Massive.
EMMA: Actually, you're wrong. Professor Palmer spent most of the war as a POW.
DOCTOR: Actually, that's a like told by a very brave man involved in very secret operations. The type of man who keeps a Victoria Cross in a box in the attic, eh? But you know that, because you're Emma Grayling, the Professor's companion.
EMMA: Assistant.
DOCTOR: It's 1974. You're the assistant and non-objective equipment. Meaning psychic.
CLARA: Getting that. Bless you, though.
PALMER: Relax, Emma. He's Military Intelligence. So, what is all this in aid of?
DOCTOR: Health and safety. Yeah, the Ministry got wind of what's going on down here. Sent me to check that everything's in order.
PALMER: They don't have the right.
DOCTOR: Don't worry, guv'nor, I'll be out of your hair in five minutes. Oh! Oh, look. Oh, lovely. The ACR 99821. Oh, bliss. Nice action on the toggle switches. You know, I do love a toggle switch. Actually, I like the word toggle. Nice noun. Excellent verb. Oi, don't mess with the settings.

(The Doctor does a quick sweep with the sonic screwdriver.)

PALMER: What's that?
DOCTOR: Gadget. Health and safety. Classified, I'm afraid. You know, while the back room boffins work out a few kinks.
CLARA: What's it telling you?
DOCTOR: It's telling me that you haven't been exposed to any life-threatening transmundane emanations. So, where's the ghost? Show me the ghost. It's ghost time.

[Corridor]

(The Doctor leads the way with a three pronged candelabra.)

PALMER: I will not have this stolen out from under me, do you understand.
DOCTOR: Er, no, not really, sorry.
PALMER: I will not have my work stolen, then be fobbed off with a pat on the back and a letter from the Queen. Never again. This is my house, Doctor, and it belongs to me.
CLARA: This is actually your house?
PALMER: It is.
CLARA: Sorry. You went to the bank and said, you know that gigantic old haunted house on the moors? The one the dossers are too scared to doss in? The one the birds are too scared to fly over? And then you said, I'd like to buy it, please, with my money.
PALMER: Yes, I did, actually.
CLARA: That's incredibly brave.

(Something creaks.)

DOCTOR: Listen, Major, we just need to know what's going on here.
PALMER: For the Ministry.
DOCTOR: You know I can't answer that.
PALMER: Very well, follow me.

[Living room]

(Warmly furnished. The Doctor takes photographs of himself. Food and drink is stocked on a collapsible table.)

CLARA: So, what's an empathic psychic?
EMMA: Sometimes I sense feelings, the way a telepath can sense thoughts. Sometimes, though. Not always.
DOCTOR: The most compassionate people you'll ever meet, empathics. And the loneliest. I mean, exposing themselves to all those hidden feelings, all that guilt, pain and sorrow and
CLARA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
CLARA: Shush.
PALMER: Would you care to have a look?

(Palmer has a lot of photographs pinned to a board.)

PALMER: Caliburn House is over four hundred years old, but she has been here much longer. The Caliburn Ghast.

(Classic Edwardian ghost photographs.)

PALMER: She's mentioned in local Saxon poetry and parish folk tales. The Wraith of the Lady, the Maiden in the Dark, the Witch of the Well.
CLARA: Is she real? As in, actually real?
PALMER: Oh, she's real. In the seventeenth century, a local clergyman saw her. He wrote that her presence was accompanied by a dreadful knocking, as if the Devil himself demanded entry. During the war, American airmen stationed here left offerings of tinned Spam. The tins were found in 1965, bricked up in the servants' pantry, along with a number of handwritten notes. Appeals to the Ghast. For the love of God, stop screaming.
CLARA: She never changes. The angle's different, the framing, but she's always in exactly the same position. Why is that?
PALMER: We don't know. She's an objective phenomenon, but objective recording equipment can't detect her
DOCTOR: Without the presence of a powerful psychic.
PALMER: Absolutely. Very well done.
EMMA: She knows I'm here. I can feel her calling out to me.
CLARA: What's she saying?
EMMA: Help me.

(A shadow whizzes past the entrance to the room.)

DOCTOR: The Witch of the Well. So where's the well?
PALMER: A copy of the oldest plan that we could find. There is no well on the property. None that we could find, anyway.

(The Doctor taps Clara on the head, making her jump.)

DOCTOR: (sotto) You coming?
CLARA: (sotto) Where?
DOCTOR: (sotto) To find the ghost.
CLARA: (sotto) Why would I want to do that?
DOCTOR: (sotto) Because you want to. Come on.
CLARA: (sotto) Well, I dispute that assertion.
DOCTOR: (sotto) Eh? I'm giving you a face. Can you see me? Look at my face.
CLARA: (sotto) Fine. Dare me.
DOCTOR: I dare you. No takesies backsies.

(Clara takes the candelabra and leaves.)

EMMA: The music room is the heart of the house.

[Corridor]

CLARA: Say we actually find her. What do we say?
DOCTOR: We ask her how she came to be whatever she is.
CLARA: Why?
DOCTOR: Because I don't know, and ignorance is, what's the opposite of bliss?
CLARA: Carlisle.
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, Carlisle. Ignorance is Carlisle.

(Something moves in the shadows behind them. They find the kitchen.)

[Living room]

EMMA: Is he really from the Ministry?
PALMER: Er, I don't know. He's certainly got the right demeanour. Capricious, brilliant.
EMMA: Deceitful.
PALMER: Yes. Ha. He's a liar. But, you know, that's often the way that it is when someone's seen a thing or two. Experience makes liars of us all. We lie about who we are, about what we've done.
EMMA: And how we feel?
PALMER: Yes. Always. Always that. You know, I have to, have to be getting on with things. The er, the equipment and so forth.
EMMA: Of course.

[Music room]

(The big harp gives it away.)

DOCTOR: Ah, the music room. The heart of the house. Do you feel anything?
CLARA: No.
DOCTOR: Your pants are so on fire.

(The sonic screwdriver stutters.)

CLARA: (sotto) Do you feel like you're being watched?
DOCTOR: (sotto) What does being watched feel like? Is it that funny tickly feeling on the back of your neck?
CLARA: (sotto) That's the chap.
DOCTOR: (sotto) Then yes, a bit. Well, quite a big bit.

(Wood creaking.)

CLARA: I think she's here.

(By a door, the Doctor can see his breath.)

DOCTOR: Cold spot. Spooky. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold.

(The Doctor draws a chalk circle around the cold area.)

CLARA: Doctor? Doctor!
DOCTOR: What?
CLARA: I'm not happy.
DOCTOR: No.
CLARA: Hey!

(She runs after him, stepping in the circle. The paper graph registers something. Steam rises from the edges of the circle.)

[Passageway]

CLARA: What was that?

(A slamming noise. The candles are blown out.)

[Caliburn House]

PALMER: Does it seem colder?

(The thermometer is dropping towards zero. Ice forms on the inside of the windows.)

EMMA: She's coming.

[Top of the stairs]

CLARA: Okay, what is that?
DOCTOR: It's a very loud noise. It's a very loud, very angry noise.
CLARA: What's making it?
DOCTOR: I don't know. Are you making it?

(Bang! Bang!)

CLARA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
CLARA: I may be a teeny, tiny bit terrified.
DOCTOR: Yes?
CLARA: But I'm still a grown-up.
DOCTOR: Mainly, yes, and?
CLARA: There's no need to actually hold my hand.
DOCTOR: Clara.
CLARA: Yeah?
DOCTOR: I'm not holding your hand.

(They look behind them, scream and run down the stairs.)

[Caliburn House]

(A concave black thing has appeared, gyrating in mid-air.)

DOCTOR: Has this happened before?
PALMER: Never.
DOCTOR: Camera. Camera!

(Click, and glass inside the thing cracks. Something materialises in front of Emma, but no one else notices. She is seeing a shiny figure in the woods. Clara turns.)

CLARA: Doctor?

(The Doctor takes pictures.)

WOMAN [OC]: Help me!

(Emma collapses into Palmer's arms.)

CLARA: Doctor.

(The words Help Me are frozen into the wall by the staircase, then they evaporate and the black concave vanishes.)

[Living room]

(Emma takes a sip of whisky.)

EMMA: Urgh. I'd rather have a nice cup of tea.
CLARA: Me too. Whisky is the eleventh most disgusting thing ever invented.

[Dark room]

(Developing the night's film.)

DOCTOR: I had a little peek at your records, back at the Ministry. You've certainly seen a thing or two in your time. Disrupting U-boat operations across the North Sea, sabotaging railway lines across Europe. Operation Gibbon. The one with the carrier pigeons, brilliant. I do love a carrier pigeon.
PALMER: I did my duty, but then so did thousands of others. Millions of others. I was just lucky enough to come back.
DOCTOR: Yes, but how does that man, that war hero, end up here in a lonely old house, looking for ghosts?
PALMER: Because I killed, and I caused to have killed. I sent young men and women to their deaths, but here I am, still alive and it does tend to haunt you. Living, after so much of the other thing.

[Living room]

CLARA: So, you and Professor Palmer, have you ever, you know?
EMMA: No.
CLARA: Why not? You do know how he feels about you, don't you? You, of all people?
EMMA: I don't know. People like me, sometimes we get our signals mixed up. We think people are feeling the way we want them to feel, you know, when they are special to us, when really there's nothing there.
CLARA: Oh, this is there.
EMMA: How do you know?
CLARA: Because it's obvious. It sticks out like a big chin.

[Dark room]

PALMER: You see, I was alone and unmarried and I didn't mind dying. I mean, not for that cause. It was a very, very fine cause, defeating the enemy.
DOCTOR: And if you could contact them, what would you say?
PALMER: Well, I'd very much like to thank them.
DOCTOR: Ah ha. Ping!

(He hangs up a photograph to dry.)

PALMER: Who do you think she is?

(The screaming face behind the Doctor in the photograph.)

DOCTOR: Not what I thought she'd be.
PALMER: What did you think she's be?
DOCTOR: Fun. Can I borrow your camera? Ta.

[Living room]

EMMA: What about you and the Doctor?
CLARA: Oh, I don't think so.
EMMA: Good.
CLARA: Sorry?
EMMA: Don't trust him. There's a sliver of ice in his heart.
DOCTOR [OC]: Clara!

[Outside the TARDIS]

(They run out in the pouring rain to where the TARDIS has parked herself in what look like old cloisters.)

CLARA: (sotto) I've got this weird feeling it's looking at me. It doesn't like me.
DOCTOR: The TARDIS is like a cat. A bit slow to trust, but you'll get there in the end.

(He runs inside and the door shuts. Clara has to knock.)

[TARDIS]

(The Doctor opens the door.)

CLARA: Hey. You need a place to keep this.

(The umbrella.)

DOCTOR: I've got one. Or I had one. I think I had one. Look around. See if you find it. Did I have one? Am I going mad?

(Clara shakes the water off the umbrella.)

DOCTOR: No, not in here. How do you expect her to like you? She's soaking wet. It's a health and safety nightmare.
CLARA: Sorry. So, where are we going?
DOCTOR: Nowhere. We're staying right here. Right here, on this exact spot, if I can work out how to do it.
CLARA: So, when are we going?
DOCTOR: Oh, that is good. That is top-notch.
CLARA: And the answer is?
DOCTOR: We're going always.
CLARA: We're going always.
DOCTOR: Totally.
CLARA: That's not actually a sentence.

(The Doctor gets his orange environment suit.)

DOCTOR: Well, it's got a verb in it. What do you think?
CLARA: Colour's a bit boisterous.
DOCTOR: I think it brings out my eyes.
CLARA: Makes my eyes hurt.

[Caliburn House]

(The TARDIS dematerialises.)

PALMER: Did you see where he went? I could hear an engine but I can't see any lights.

(The lightning flash illuminates the screaming figure behind them.)

[TARDIS]

(They have gone back a good few billion years, to when the Earth was still cooling. The Doctor takes a photograph and comes back inside.)

DOCTOR: Back off. Hot suit. Hot, hot, hot.
CLARA: When are we?
DOCTOR: About six billion years ago. It's a Tuesday, I think.

(Next stop, a tropical jungle with giant dragonflies. Eventually, Victorian times as a lady in crinoline and man in top hat walk up the stone steps in front of the house. Finally, he is in the environment suit again.)

DOCTOR: Back in a mo. Are you all right?
CLARA: Totally. Peachy keen.
DOCTOR: Okay then. Well, don't press any buttons or pull any levers or make any funny faces. Actually, don't move. Stand completely still. Don't breathe. Well, you can breathe, but shallow breaths.

(Clara watches the Doctor on the scanner. The ground is devastated, with just a bit of roof and chimney lying on the ground. The air shimmers in the heat. He takes his photograph. That old Nikon certainly can put up with a lot of different conditions. He returns.)

DOCTOR: Oh. What's wrong? Did the TARDIS say something to you? Are you being mean?
CLARA: No, it's not that. Have we just watched the entire life cycle of Earth, birth to death?
DOCTOR: Yes.
CLARA: And you're okay with that?
DOCTOR: Yes.
CLARA: How can you be?
DOCTOR: The TARDIS, she's time. We. Wibbly vortex and so on.
CLARA: That's not what I mean.
DOCTOR: Okay, some help. Context? Cheat sheet? Something?
CLARA: I mean, one minute you're in 1974 looking for ghosts, but all you have to do is open your eyes and talk to whoever's standing there. To you, I haven't been born yet, and to you I've been dead one hundred billion years. Is my body out there somewhere, in the ground?
DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose it is.
CLARA: But here we are, talking. So I am a ghost. To you, I'm a ghost. We're all ghosts to you. We must be nothing.
DOCTOR: No. No. You're not that.
CLARA: Then what are we? What can we possibly be?
DOCTOR: You are the only mystery worth solving.

[Living room]

(The TARDIS returns to their starting point as we are given a glimpse of something climbing in through a window. The Doctor hands over his roll of film for developing.)

EMMA: What's wrong?
CLARA: I just saw something I wish I hadn't.
EMMA: What did you see?
CLARA: That everything ends.
EMMA: No, not everything. Not love. Not always.
DOCTOR: Right, done. That's it. Gather round, gather round. Roll up, roll up.

(They have made slides from the negatives. The Doctor activates the projector with the sonic screwdriver.)

DOCTOR: The Ghast of Caliburn House. Never changing, trapped in a moment of fear and torment. But, what if she's not? What if she's just trapped somewhere time runs more slowly than it does here? What if a second to her was a hundred thousand years to us? And what if somebody has a magic box. A blue box, probably. What if said somebody could take a snapshot of her, say, every few million years?

(And up comes a shot of a dark woman in a white coverall, running.)

DOCTOR: She's not a ghost. But she's definitely a lost soul. Her name is Hila Tacorian. She's a pioneer, a time traveller, or at least she will be in a few hundred years.
PALMER: Time travel's not possible. The paradoxes
DOCTOR: Resolve themselves, by and large.
EMMA: How long has she been alone?
DOCTOR: Well, time travel's a funny old thing. I mean, from her perspective, she crash landed three minutes ago.
EMMA: Crash landed? Where?
DOCTOR: She's in a pocket universe. A distorted echo of our own. They happen sometimes but never last for long.

(The Doctor blows up a blue balloon, then a red one. Our universe. Hila Tacorian's here, in a pocket universe. You're a lantern, shining across the dimensions, guiding her home, back to the land of the living.)

CLARA: But what's she running from?
DOCTOR: Well, that's the best bit. We don't know yet. Shall we see?

(Next slide.)

DOCTOR: Oh.

(There is a thing behind a tree.)

CLARA: What is that?
DOCTOR: I don't know. Still, not to worry.
EMMA: So, what do we do?
DOCTOR: Not we, you. You save Hila Tacorian because you are Emma Grayling. You are the lantern. The rest of us are just along for the ride, I'm afraid. We need some sturdy rope and a blue crystal from Metebelis Three. Plus some Kendal Mint Cake.

(The rain has stopped when the Doctor and Clara run back to the TARDIS.)

PALMER: Don't do it.
EMMA: I'm sorry?
PALMER: Nobody asked her to risk her life. This woman, she doesn't deserve. Whoever she is, however brilliant, however brave, she's not you. She is not worth risking a single hair on your head. Not to me.
EMMA: Tell me what I'm thinking.
PALMER: I can't. I don't have your gift.
EMMA: You don't need it. Just look at me and tell me.

(They gaze into each others eyes and smile.)

EMMA: There you are, you read my mind.

[TARDIS]

CLARA: Can't you just, you know?
DOCTOR: What?
CLARA: Fly the TARDIS into the parallel universe?
DOCTOR: Ah, it's not a parallel universe. It's a pocket universe. Plus, it is collapsing. I mean, the TARDIS could get in there all right, but entropy would bleed her power sources, you see? Trap her there until the entire universe decayed back into the quantum foam. Which would take about three minutes, give or take, you know.

[Music room]

(A thick silver cable and other wires run from the TARDIS into the house. A large crystal is held in a cradle at head height. Clocks have been places around the room. Emma and Palmer are wearing coats.)

CLARA: What is that?
DOCTOR: A subset of the Eye of Harmony.
CLARA: I don't
DOCTOR: Of course you don't. Be weird if you did. I barely do myself. Right. You, sit down. All the way from Metebelis Three.

(The Doctor puts a headset with a blue gem in it onto Emma.)

EMMA: What does it do?
DOCTOR: It amplifies your natural abilities like a microphone, or a pooper scooper.
PALMER: What exactly is this arrangement?
DOCTOR: A psychochronograph.
PALMER: Forgive me, but isn't it all a bit well, make do and mend?

(The Doctor puts on a parachute harness.)

DOCTOR: Non-psychic technology won't work where I'm going. Listen, all I need to do is dive into another dimension, find the time traveller, help her escape the monster. get home before the entire dimension collapses and Bob's your uncle.
EMMA: Doctor, will it hurt?
DOCTOR: No. Well, yes. Probably. A bit. Well, quite a lot. I don't know. It might be agony. To be perfectly honest, I'll be interested to find out.

(Emma looks at Palmer, who nods.)

EMMA: I'm talking to the lost soul that abides in this place. I'm speaking to Hila Tarcorian.

(The clocks start to go backwards. The Doctor hitches his harness to a thick rope as the black disc appears and a strong wind blows through.)

DOCTOR: See? The Witch of the Well! It's a wormhole! A reality well! A door to the echo universe. Ready?
EMMA: Ready!
DOCTOR: Geronimo.

(The Doctor leaps into the wormhole. The rope unwinds from the winch.)

CLARA: Doctor!

[Pocket universe]

(So small the bit of ground is only a few metres deep, and is in black and white. The Doctor removes his harness and runs.)

DOCTOR: Hila? Hila! Hila Tacorian!

(There is the sound of something else in the wood.)

DOCTOR: One, two, three.

(He spins around.)

HILA [OC]: Help me! Help!

(She runs into view.)

DOCTOR: Hila Tacorian, I presume.
HILA: Who are you?
DOCTOR: Collapsing universe. You and me, dead, two minutes. No time complete sentences. Abandon planet.
HILA: Wait. There's something in the mist.
DOCTOR: Then run. Run!
EMMA [OC]: Doctor! Doctor! Come home! Doctor, come home!
DOCTOR: Not that way, which means, er, probably.
HILA: What's wrong?
DOCTOR: You know that exit I mentioned?
HILA: Yes?
DOCTOR: I seem to have misplaced it.
EMMA [OC]: Doctor!
DOCTOR: This way.

[Music room]

EMMA: Doctor! Come home!

[Pocket universe]

EMMA [OC]: Doctor, we're here.
DOCTOR: Whoa.
HILA: What's that?
DOCTOR: An echo house, in an echo universe. Clever psychic. That is just top-notch.

[Music room]

EMMA: Doctor! Doctor!

[Echo house]

(The Doctor locks the main doors, and something scratches at them.)

DOCTOR: It's looking for a way in.

[Music room]

EMMA: I'm not strong enough!
CLARA: Just a few more seconds.

(Emma screams.)

[Echo music room]

DOCTOR: Grab the rope. Give it three tugs, quick as you like.

(Hila puts on the harness.)

HILA: What about you?
DOCTOR: I'll be next.

(Palmer winds in the rope. The Doctor secures the door and the thing hammers on it.)

DOCTOR: Oh, that's what that noise was. Lovely.

[Music room]

(Emma collapses.)

CLARA: No!

(The wormhole disappears.)

[Pocket universe]

(The Doctor is back in the woods with the thing.)

DOCTOR: Oh dear.

(The TARDIS Cloister bell tolls.)

DOCTOR: Oh dear. Where are you?

[Music room]

CLARA: Wake up! Wake up! Open the thing.
EMMA: I'm sorry.
PALMER: Don't be sorry. Don't be. What you did
CLARA: Wasn't enough. She needs to do it again.
PALMER: She can't. Look at her.
CLARA: She has to! We can't leave him.
PALMER: I know that you feel you can't do this, Emma, but look at that woman over there. You saved her. She's only here because of your strength, and so am I.

[Outside the TARDIS]

CLARA: Oh, come on! Let me in, you grumpy old cow!

(Clara turns to see herself.)

CLARA: Whoa.

[Music room]

PALMER: I was as lost as her, but being with you, you gave me a reason to be, Emma. You brought me back from the dead.

(Emma puts the headset back on and all three join hands.)

[Outside the TARDIS]

CLARA: What's this now?
HOLO-CLARA: The TARDIS Voice Visual Interface. I'm programmed to select the image of a person you esteem. Of several billion such images in my databanks, this one best meets the criterion.
CLARA: Oh. Oh, you are a cow. I knew it. Whatever. You have to help the Doctor.
HOLO-CLARA: The Doctor is in the pocket universe.
CLARA: You can enter the pocket universe.
HOLO-CLARA: The entropy would drain the energy from my heart. In four seconds, I'd be stranded. In ten, I'd be dead.
CLARA: You're talking, but all I hear is muh muh muh. Come on, let's go.

(The hologram vanishes.)

CLARA: Hey, hey, hey!

[Music room]

EMMA: Doctor.

(The wormhole reappears.)

EMMA: Can you hear me? Doctor!

[Outside the TARDIS]

CLARA: Oh, come on.

(The door opens.)

[Music room]

EMMA: Doctor, can you hear me?

[TARDIS]

(While the Doctor runs through the woods, the TARDIS plummets down a vortex, with Clara hanging on for dear life.)

CLARA: Ah! Whoa!

[Music room]

EMMA: Doctor!

[Pocket universe]

(The echo house appears.)

EMMA [OC]: Doctor, we're here. Come home.
DOCTOR: Emma?

(Snarl.)

DOCTOR: What do you want? To frighten me, I suppose, eh? Because that's what you do. You hide. You're the bogeyman under the bed, seeking whom you may devour.

(Laughter.)

DOCTOR: You want me to be afraid. Then well done. I am the Doctor, and I am afraid.

(Ho, ho, ho, ho.)

[Music room]

EMMA: Doctor, hurry!

[Pocket universe]

DOCTOR: So why am I still here, huh? Why not just eat me? Ha? Come on. Because you still need me.

(A bizarre quadruped peers round the trunk of a tree.)

DOCTOR: Yeah, you need me to piggyback you across. To which I say, come on then, big boy, chase me.

(It catches him and knocks him down. Then the TARDIS comes whirling through the air with Clara still screaming. The Doctor runs and grabs the sill. In the music room, Emma screams and the TARDIS materialises with the Doctor still outside. The morning sun shines in.)

[Caliburn House]

EMMA: You wanted a word?
DOCTOR: Well, if that's
EMMA: That's fine. You didn't come here for the ghost, did you?
DOCTOR: No.
EMMA: You came here for me.
DOCTOR: Yes.
EMMA: Why?
DOCTOR: I needed to ask you something.
EMMA: Then ask.
DOCTOR: Clara.
EMMA: Yes?
DOCTOR: What is she?
EMMA: She's a girl.
DOCTOR: Yes, but what kind of girl, specifically?
EMMA: She's a perfectly ordinary girl. Very pretty, very clever, more scared than she lets on.
DOCTOR: And that's it, is it?
EMMA: Why? Is that not enough?

[Outside the TARDIS]

(Emma hugs Hila goodbye.)

EMMA: Where will you go?
HILA: He can't take me home. History says I went missing.
EMMA: But he can change history.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, I can't, actually. There are fixed points in time, you see
CLARA: Hi.
DOCTOR: What?

(Clara takes the Doctor away.)

HILA: I knew you were there. I could feel you.
EMMA: I know.
HILA: Have we?
EMMA: We can't have. You haven't even been born yet.
DOCTOR: No, you can't have met but she can be your great, great, great, great, great granddaughter. Yours too, of course. But you guessed that already, didn't you. Oh. Apparently not.
PALMER: The paradoxes
DOCTOR: Resolve themselves, by and large. That's why the psychic link was so powerful. Blood calling to blood, out of time. Not everything ends. Not love. Not always.
PALMER: Doctor, what about, what about us? Emma and me?
DOCTOR: What about you?
PALMER: Well, what's supposed to happen? I mean, what do we do now?
DOCTOR: Hold hands. That's what you're meant to do. Keep doing that and don't let go. That's the secret.
CLARA [memory]: Doctor! I'm not happy.
DOCTOR [memory]: Yeah, you need me to piggyback you across.
DOCTOR [memory]: I'm not holding your hand.
DOCTOR: Oh, I'm so slow! I am slow. I'm notorious for it. That's always been my problem. But, but I get there in the end. Oh yes.
CLARA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: How do sharks make babies?
CLARA: Carefully?
DOCTOR: No, no, no. Happily!
CLARA: Sharks don't actually smile. They're just, well, they've got lots and lots of teeth. They're quite eaty.
DOCTOR: Exactly. But birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Every lonely monster needs a companion.

(There is movement at an upper window of the house.)

CLARA: There's two of them?
DOCTOR: It's the oldest story in the universe, this one or any other. Boy and girl fall in love, get separated by events. War, politics, accidents in time. She's thrown out of the hex, or he's thrown into it. Since then they've been yearning for each other across time and space, across dimensions. This isn't a ghost story, it's a love story!

(Then he realises he has put his arm around Clara's shoulders.)

DOCTOR: Sorry.

(He runs back to Hila, Emma and Palmer.)

DOCTOR: Excuse me. Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt the rest of your life. So. Tiny favour to ask.

[Pocket universe]

DOCTOR: I'm sorry! I understand now! I can take you to her! I can take you to a safe place far away from here! You can be together! Well, come on, then. She's waiting!

(The creature is next to him.)

DOCTOR: Well, hello again, you old Romeo, you. Now, here she comes.

(It is the TARDIS, with Clara on board.)

DOCTOR: Get ready to jump.

Transcript originally provided by Chrissie. Adapted by TARDIS.guide. The transcripts are for educational and entertainment purposes only. All other copyrights property of their respective holders.

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