Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine): How are we looking?
Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott): Oh! About ready I think.
Emma: Hm. Any thoughts on the, ah, interference?
Alec: Um, a stray FM broadcast possibly. But I’ve fitted some ferrite suppressors and some RF chokes. Just in case.
Alec: Are you sure you wanted to go through with this? I mean the last time it was very…
Emma: But she’s so lonely.
Alec: Excellent then. Excellent.
Alec: Caliburn House. Night four. November 25th, 1974. 11:04pm.
Emma: I’m talking to the spirit that inhabits this house. Are you there? Can you hear me? {nothing} I’m speaking to the lost soul that abides in this place. Come to me. Speak to me. Let me show you the way home. Let me show you the way home!
Alec: Emma?!
Emma: She’s so…
Alec: So, so what?
Emma: Dead. {there’s an ominous knock on the door and Alec goes to answer}
The Doctor: Boo! Hello. I’m looking for a ghost.
Alec: And you are?
Clara: Ghost busters.
The Doctor: I’m the Doctor.
Alec: Doctor what?
The Doctor: If you like.
The Doctor looking at the machines: Ah, but you are very different! {back to Palmer} Ha! You are Major Alec Palmer. Member of the Baker Street Irregulars. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Specialize in espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance behind enemy lines. You’re a talented water-colorist, professor of psychology and ghost hunter. Total pleasure. Massive.
Emma: Actually, you’re wrong. Professor Palmer spent most of the war as a POW.
The Doctor: Actually that’s a lie told by a very brave man involved in very secret operations. {to Palmer} The type of man who keeps a Victoria cross in a box in the attic, eh? {to Emma} But you know that, because you’re Emma Grayling! The professor’s companion.
Emma: Assistant.
The Doctor: It’s 1974. You’re the assistant and non-objective equipment. {to Clara} Meaning psychic.
Clara: Getting that. Bless you though.
Alec: Relax, Emma. He’s military intelligence. So what is all this in aid of?
The 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.
Alec: They don’t have the right.
The Doctor: Don’t worry, governor. I’ll be out of here in five minutes.
The Doctor: 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.
Alec: What’s that?
The Doctor: Gadget. Health and Safety. Classified, I’m afraid. You know. While the back room boffins work out a few kinks.
Emma: What’s it telling you?
The Doctor: It’s telling me that you haven’t been exposed to any life-threatening transmundane emanations.
The Doctor: So… where’s the ghost? Show me the ghost. It’s ghost time!
Alec: I will not have this stolen out from under me. Do you understand?
The Doctor: Um, no. Not really. Sorry.
Alec: I will not have my work stolen and 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?
Alec: It is.
Clara: Sorry. You went to the bank and said, “You know that gigantic, old haunted house on the moors—the one that 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.”?
Alec: Yes I did, actually.
Clara: That’s incredibly brave.
The Doctor: The most compassionate people you will ever meet, empathics. And the loneliest. I mean, exposing themselves to all those hidden feelings, all that guilt. Pain and sorrow and…
Clara: Doctor?
The Doctor: Yes?
Clara: Sh.
Alec: Caliburn House is over four hundred years old, but she has been around much longer. The Caliburn Ghast. 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?
Alec: Oh she’s real. In the 17th 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?
Alec: We don’t know. She’s an objective phenomenon. But objective recording equipment can’t detect her.
The Doctor: Without the presence of a powerful psychic.
Alec: 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.
The Doctor: The Witch of the Well. So where’s the well?
The Doctor: You coming?
Clara: What?
The Doctor: To find the ghost.
Clara: Why would I want to do that?
The Doctor: Because you want to. Come on.
Clara: Well I dispute that assertion.
The Doctor: Eh? I’m giving you a face. Here. Can you see me? Look at my face.
Clara: Fine. Dare me.
The Doctor: I dare you. No takesy-backsies?
The music room is the heart of the house.
Clara: Say we actually find her. What do we say?
The Doctor: We ask her how she came to be. Whatever she is.
Clara: Why?
The Doctor: Because I don’t know. And ignorance is… What’s the opposite of bliss?
Clara: Carlisle.
The Doctor: Yes! Carlisle. Ignorance is Carlisle.
Emma: Is he really from the Ministry?
Alec: Uh… I don’t know. He’s certainly got the right demeanor. Capricious. Brilliant.
Emma: Deceitful.
Alec: Yes. 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?
Alec: Yes. Always. Always that.
The Doctor: Ah. The music room. The heart of the house. Do you feel anything?
Clara: No.
The Doctor: Your pants are so on fire.
Clara: Do you feel like you’re being watched?
The Doctor: What does being watched feel like? Is it that funny, tickly feeling on the back of your neck?
Clara: That’s the chap.
The Doctor: Then yes, a bit. Well quite a big bit.
Clara: I think she’s here.
The Doctor: Cold spot. Spooky. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. …
Clara: Doctor!
The Doctor: What?
Clara: I’m not happy.
The Doctor: No.
Clara: Okay. What is that?
The Doctor: It’s uh, it uh… It’s a very loud noise. It’s a very loud, very angry noise.
Clara: What’s making it?
The Doctor: I don’t know. Are you making it?
Clara: Doctor.
The Doctor: Yes?
Clara: I may be a teeny tiny bit terrified.
The Doctor: Yes.
Clara: But I’m still a grown up.
The Doctor: Heh. Mainly. Yes, and?
Clara: There’s no need to actually hold my hand. {the Doctor checks}
The Doctor: Clara?
Clara: Yeah?
The Doctor: I’m not holding your hand.
The Doctor: How does that man, that war hero, end up here? In a lonely old house looking for ghosts.
Alec: Because I killed. And I caused to have killed. I sent young men and women to their deaths. And yet here I am, still alive. It does tend to haunt you. Living after so much of… the other thing.
Alec: What do you think she is?
The Doctor: Not what I thought she’d be.
Alec: What did you think she’d be?
The Doctor: Fun.
Emma: What about you and the Doctor?
Clara: Oh. Don’t think so.
Emma: Good.
Clara: Sorry?
Emma: Don’t trust him.
There’s a sliver of ice in his heart.
Clara: I’ve got this weird feeling it’s looking at me. Doesn’t like me.
The Doctor: The TARDIS is like a cat. A bit slow to trust, but it’ll get there in the end.
Clara: So. Where are we going?
The 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?
The Doctor: That is good. That is top notch.
Clara: And the answer is?
The Doctor: We’re going always.
Clara: “We’re going always.”
The Doctor: Totally.
Clara: That’s not actually a sentence.
The Doctor: Well it’s got a verb in it.
The Doctor: What do you think?
Clara: Color’s a bit boisterous.
The Doctor: I think it brings out my eyes.
Clara: When are we?
The Doctor: About six billion years ago. It’s a Tuesday, I think.
The Doctor: 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? And you’re okay with that?
The Doctor: Yes.
Clara: How can you be?
The Doctor: The TARDIS. She’s time. We… wibbly Vortex. And so on.
Clara: That’s not what I mean.
The 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 a hundred billion years. Is my body out there somewhere? In the ground?
The 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.
The Doctor: No. No. You’re not that.
Clara: Then what are we? What can we possibly be?
The Doctor: You are the only mystery worth solving.
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.
The 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 100,000 years to us? And what if somebody has a magic box–a blue box probably. What if said somebody could take a snapshot of it, say every few million years. 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.
Alec: Time travel’s not possible. The paradoxes–
The Doctor: Resolve themselves. By and large.
Emma: How long has she been alone?
The Doctor: Well, time travel’s a funny old thing. I mean, from her perspective, she crash-landed… {checks his watch} three minutes ago.
Emma: Crash landed? Where?
The Doctor: She’s in a pocket universe. A distorted echo of our own. They happen sometimes but never last for long.
Clara: But what’s she running from?
The Doctor: Well that’s the best bit. We don’t know yet. Shall we see?{checks the slides} Oh…
Clara: What is that?
The Doctor: I don’t know. Still, not to worry!
Emma: So what do we do?
The 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.
The Doctor: We need some sturdy rope and a blue crystal from Metebelis 3. Plus some Kendal Mint Cake.
Clara: What is that?
The Doctor: Subset of the Eye of Harmony.
Clara: I don’t–
The Doctor: Of course you don’t. Be great if you did. I barely do myself.
The Doctor: All the way from Metebelis 3.
Emma: What does it do?
The Doctor: It amplifies your natural abilities, like a microphone or a pooper scooper.
The Doctor: 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?
The 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.
The Doctor: See? The Witch of the Well! It’s a wormhole. A reality well. A door to the echo universe. Ready?
Emma: Ready!
The Doctor: Geronimo.
The Doctor: Hila Tacorian, I presume.
Hila Tacorian (Kemi-Bo Jacobs): Who are you?
The Doctor: Collapsing universe. You and me dead. Two minutes. No time. Complete sentences. Abandon planet.
Hila: Wait! There’s something in the mist.
The Doctor: Then run. Run!
Hila: What’s wrong?
The Doctor: You know that exit I mentioned?
Hila: Yeah.
The Doctor: I seem to have misplaced it.
The Doctor: Whoa!
Hila: What’s that?
The Doctor: Echo house in an echo universe. Clever psychic. That is just top-notch.
Clara: What’s this now?
TARDIS: The TARDIS voice visual interface. I’m programmed to select the image of a person you esteem. Of several billion such images in my database, this one best meets the criterion.
Clara: Ugh! Oh you are a cow. I knew it. Whatever. You have to help the Doctor.
TARDIS: The Doctor is in a pocket universe.
Clara: You can enter the pocket universe.
TARDIS: 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 can hear is meh meh meh meh meh. Come on, let’s go! {the TARDIS disappears}
The 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. You want me to be afraid. And well done. I am the Doctor. And I am afraid.
The Doctor: So why am I still here, huh? Why not just eat me? Huh? Come on. Because you still need me. Yeah, you need me to piggyback you across. Ah. To which I say… come on then, big boy. Chase me.
Emma: You wanted a word?
The Doctor: Why, if that’s…
Emma: That’s fine. You didn’t come here for the ghost, did you?
The Doctor: No.
Emma: You came here for me.
The Doctor: Yes.
Emma: Why?
The Doctor: I needed to ask you something.
Emma: Then ask.
The Doctor: Clara…
Emma: Yes?
The Doctor: What is she?
Emma: She’s a girl.
The Doctor: Yes, but what kind of girl specifically.
Emma: She’s a perfectly ordinary girl. Very pretty.
The Doctor: Hm.
Emma: Very clever.
The Doctor: Hm.
Emma: More scared than she lets on.
The Doctor: And that’s it, is it?
Emma: Why? Is that not enough?
Emma: Where will you go?
Hila: He can’t take me home. History says I went missing.
Emma: But he can change history.
The Doctor: No. No no, I can’t, actually. There are fixed points in time, you see–
Clara: Hi.
The Doctor: What? {she pulls him 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.
The Doctor: No, you can’t have met. But she can be your great, great, great, great, great granddaughter, eh? {Palmer walks up} Yours too, of course. But you guessed that already, didn’t you? Oh. Apparently not.
Alec: The paradoxes–
The 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.
The Doctor: Oh, I am 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?
The Doctor: How do sharks make babies?
Clara: Carefully.
The Doctor: No. 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 eat-y.
The Doctor: Exactly. The birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Every lonely monster needs a companion.
Clara: There’s two of them!
The 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.
The 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. Huh? Come on, then! She’s waiting. {he turns to find the Crooked Man} Well. Hello again, you old Romeo, you. Now. Here she comes. {the TARDIS whooshes in the distance} Get ready to jump.