Meanwhile, back in 1860

"What the hell!" exclaimed the blonde woman that the lady in red called Grandmother. "What are we doing in the middle of the nineteenth century?"

"I warned you not to go out that door, Grandmother," said the lady in red, still sitting at her desk and petting a nude future Rose Tyler.

"You didn't tell me we were going to the nineteenth century," said the blonde woman.

"Didn't I tell you that this thing we've been living in is a time machine?" asked the lady in red.

"No, you did not," said the blonde.

"Well, it must have slipped my mind," said the lady in red. "I didn't realize it myself until Rose told me and Marcie yesterday and then last night --"

"Yesterday?" asked the blonde. "You knew about this yesterday? And you didn't tell me?"

"I don't tell you lots of things, Grandmother," said the lady in red. "Just like you and Grandfather did not tell me lots of things. As I recall, you and Grandfather made a lot of plans about me without my consent. And you made plans about my family as well."

"You really need to stop playing the Angelus card with me," said the blonde. "I can't help what Angelus did to you and anyway, that was a long time ago."

"That's easy for you to say," said the lady in red. "You never had to go to sleep with the screams of your dying sisters ringing in your ears. You not only did nothing to stop Angelus from killing my family; you actually cheered him on. Then you had the nerve to celebrate his 'victory' by noisily screwing him in front of me."

"What's the matter, Dru?" asked the blonde. "Still jealous that he always liked me more than you?"

"I told you to never use that name," said the lady in red. "Call me Princess like Rose does or Empress like Marcie does or even the Lady in Red like Clara and her friend the Two-Hearted Witch do but do not address me by that name."

"Why not?" asked the blonde. "After all, it is your name."

"I know that and you know that but our friends who watch us from the past in the company of that hooded spirit do not know that," said the lady in red.

"Wait!" exclaimed future Rose. "You can see the past, Princess?"

"Call me Mistress," said the lady in red.

"But Clara is my Mistress," said future Rose.

The lady in red smiled. "Yes, Rose, I can see the past. Sometimes. Sometimes I can even see the future. And now thanks to you, I can even change the future."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the blonde woman who was not Rose Tyler. "Are you referring to the magic typewriter?"

"No, of course not," said the lady in red.

Then the lady in red turned and called, "Marcie."

"Yes, Empress," said the dark-haired woman who used to be Marcie Ross.

"Teach young Rose here how to use a crossbow and a stake," said the lady in red. "Then get her dressed. You and her are going out to retrieve my sisters and bring them back here to a place of safety."

"Oh, no, they aren't," said the blonde woman who was not Rose Tyler. "They aren't going anywhere."

The lady in red just looked at the woman and smiled. "Once I would have killed you for saying that. But I'm trying to be a good girl so that the Powers That Be will honor the vow I made to them in order to save my sisters. Plus I don't want to traumatize Rose. So instead I'll do this."

And then suddenly the woman whom the lady in red called Grandmother -- who had once been known by the name Darla -- found herself miles away in a darkened land wearing nothing but her shoes...