Charlotte Bolton wasn't supposed to disappear in the middle of the aisle. She was supposed to get married. Instead, she finds herself jumping around a fictional character's timeline and learning something new every day.
[#1 in #rosetyler on 1/31/202...
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MUMMY ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS PART TWO
edited as of january 18th, 2020
Contained in the sarcophagus were piles of paperwork from past ships. When recognizing the names of these ships, Maisie remembers them as missing ships... the Gloriana, the Valiant Heart, the Argo-II were a few. Sitting on the ground, Clara and Maisie continue to flip through the paperwork when Charlotte calls the Doctor.
"Charlotte Mary Bolton," he answers.
"'Kay, well, the sarcophagus is actually a secure stasis unit."
At the other end, he nods. "Yes. It's where they want us to put the Foretold if we capture it."
Charlotte sighed. "That would've been good to know."
"Sorry," he replies, "Teeny bit busy round here. What else?" In the background, Charlotte heard the train's voice interface say something but refrains from asking what it said.
"There's some paperwork from past ships. Maisie says they're missing ships," she told him. "Which means we aren't the first."
After the voice interface (Gus?) says something more, Charlotte continues, "There's some progress reports, too. The Gloriana, it lasted three days being picked off by the Foretold. Its performance was marked as poor." She walks back to the piles of paperwork, picking up one paper, looking it over, she then adds, "The Valiant Heart. 42 crew, four died. It says their performance was promising."
On the other end, the Doctor turned quiet when he looked out the train's window to see the kitchen staff floating in space. "Charlotte, I have to go," he said before hanging up.
After almost ten minutes of shuffling through the paperwork, Charlotte answers another call from the Doctor. When he says Maisie is next, while she knows it to be true, she can't help but be offended they had such little hope for her.
"She's had a bad day," whispers Charlotte into the phone. "There has to be a possibility it isn't her."
"Charlotte, it doesn't care," he said to her. "Her bad day, her bereavement, her little breakdown puts her squarely in its crosshairs. She's next. Every simulation we've run confirms it."
Charlotte glimpses over to Maisie. "You would have it kill her, just to see the Foretold?"
"She needs to be here, of course. You need to bring her here."
Charlotte bites her tongue. "I'm not lying to her."
"You need to if that's what it takes," he countered. "Tell her I can save her, I don't know."
Maisie looks up from the paperwork. "What's he saying?" she asks.
Charlotte wanted to say the truth, when she opened her mouth she planned to, but when she began speaking she understood she couldn't. "He says he can save you," Charlotte tells Maisie, giving her a sad smile before following the Doctor's directions to get out of the vault (and ignoring Maisie as far as she could).
