The Girl Who Never Was (audio story)

 was the one hundred and third story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Alan Barnes and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard.

This was the last audio story to feature the Eighth Doctor and Charlotte Pollard travelling together. However it is not the final appearance for Charlotte Pollard who goes on to travel with the Sixth Doctor beginning with The Condemned.

Publisher's summary
"Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. Someone's listening. Somewhere."

A ghost ship.

A girl with no memory, adrift in time.

An old enemy.

This could be Charlotte Pollard's finest hour — or her last.

Set course for Singapore, 1931.

Journey's end.

Part 1
Still grieving the death of C'rizz, the Doctor unhappily sets the controls to take Charley back to her own place and time. The TARDIS lands and the Doctor makes one more plea to Charley to reconsider her decision to leave, but she refuses to be dissuaded. She asks for confirmation that they are back where she requested, which the Doctor obliges. He reminds her that the R101 would have been completely destroyed by this time, but she still doesn't listen and ignores the Doctor's further pleads to be rational. The Doctor opens the doors after Charley ensures him that she isn't planning on going back home. The Doctor reveals that he had instead directed the TARDIS to Singapore, 1930, where Charley was headed when she met him; they've arrived on New Years Day, 1931. Charley is elated about this, and requests that the Doctor leave once she's turned her back so they can leave on good terms. As Charley is counting, the Doctor takes note that the skyline is incorrect and the technology around them isn't from the 1930s. The fireworks in the sky reveal that they had instead arrived in 2008. Charley accuses the Doctor of bringing them here deliberately, so as to minimise the risk of her presence damaging the Web of Time. She refuses to listen to his defence and storms off angrily after the Doctor had gone back inside to TARDIS to confirm that something was wrong.

In the control room, the Doctor checks the reading on the controls and the scanner. Charley finds her way to a hotel where she writes a note for the Doctor to find and leaves it with the receptionist. After leaving her name with the receptionist, another guest who had been on the phone and overheard the discussion, follows her out. The Doctor comes out of the TARDIS to discover Charley gone and goes in search of her. Charley is approached by the guest from the reception and introduces himself as Byron. He suggests that she come away with him on his boat, to which she heartily accepts, and Byron hails a taxi. The Doctor finally catches up with Charley as they are driving away and tries to convince Charley that he found what drove the TARDIS off course and that it still exists out at sea, having originated in 1942, but she still refuses to listen to him. Byron, on the other hand, shows a remarkable degree of interest, to Charley's irritation. Suddenly, Byron pulls a gun on the pair and orders the Doctor come with them. Before the car can leave, a detective pulls it over and calls Byron out for a number of explosives placed under the car. The Doctor convinces the detective that he is a fugitive from Interpol and that Charley is a police officer sent to bring him in, with Byron being her informant. When everyone is clear of the car, the Doctor detonates the explosives with his sonic screwdriver and Byron flees, while the Doctor and Charley make for the TARDIS. In the control room, the Doctor tries to establish the mystery surrounding who Byron is and how he knew about the temporal hump that drew the TARDIS there. Charley finally gives in and agrees to accompany the Doctor for 'one last lap of glory', before the Doctor sets course for the location of the hump.

Elsewhere, a woman receives a call from Byron, who tells about the Doctor and Charley and their interest in the Karimata Strait, and that a car has been sent to collect her. The TARDIS lands aboard a wrecked boat and Charley notes the ball room. She also notes that the boat is empty, and the Doctor suggests that there hasn't been anyone there for 66 years; the TARDIS wouldn't go to 1942 because of the temporal hump. He identifies the boat as the S.S. Batavia. The pair of them make their way through the boat and the Doctor theories that the boat was sank in 1942 while Singapore was at siege, and that it was the last ship out of the harbour. Charley burns her hand on a rail on what she assumes to be acid, but the Doctor concludes it's temporal corrosion, a condition found in the time vortex. Charley surmises that the boat has been in the vortex, when they notice that the corrosion is eating it's way over their footsteps, heading back towards the TARDIS. The Doctor and Charley race back through the boat, trying to get to the TARDIS before the corrosion kills it. Charley trips and falls on the floor, the wood having been rotted by the temporal corrosion. When the Doctor returns to bring her to her feet, the floor gives way beneath him and he falls into the water. He sends Charley back to the TARDIS to get some cable from the console. The corrosion is already affecting the outer shell and the Doctor warns her that the HADS may soon activate, but Charley doesn't her him. Before she can bring the cable outside, the TARDIS closes the doors and takes off without the Doctor.

In a ship's cabin, the crew is discussing the lack of light, when Byron comes in and berates their ill-enthusiasm. One of the crew members starts playing something on the piano, and the rest of crew join in with the singing. Suddenly, Charley wanders into the cabin, and asks if the year in 1942. Byron finds her presence quite amusing, while Charley finds his startling. Back in 2008, Byron nears the sunken boat and calls back to the woman at the back in celebration of it's discovery. The woman spots the Doctor on the bottom deck and Byron has the helicopter head down to collect. In 1942, Byron takes Charley to another cabin, and is confused that she knows who he is already. Charley makes an effort to convince him that she's armed, but Byron sees through her ruse almost instantly and then threatens her. He releases her when she spots fighter planes approaching. In 2008, Byron has his men point their arms at the Doctor, while he helps the woman, his mother, off the helicopter. To the Doctor's shock, the woman identifies herself as Charlotte Pollard...

Part 2
To be added

Part 3
To be added

Part 4
To be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Charley Pollard - India Fisher
 * Byron - Danny Webb
 * Miss Pollard - Anna Massey
 * Madeleine Fairweather - Amanda Root
 * Curly - David Yip
 * Borthwick - Robert Duncan
 * Receptionist - Natalie Mendoza
 * Colville - Tim Sutton
 * Young Man - Jake McGann
 * Cybermen/Soldier - Nicholas Briggs

Astronomical objects

 * Charley mentions the Garazone system.

Locations

 * The Eighth Doctor mentions Casablanca.

Cybermen

 * There is a Cyber-Planner present.
 * There are several Cybermen present.

The Doctor

 * The Doctor has had a room at the Singapore Hilton since 1872.

Individuals

 * Charley mentions C'rizz.

Technology

 * The Doctor and Charley saw a form of radar-jamming device on Quaxan IV.

Theories and concepts

 * Both the Doctor and Charley mention the Web of Time.

Time travel

 * The SS Batavia is transported through time to Earth after a solar flare.
 * Temporal corrosion is a fungal organism which grows in the Time Vortex. The Doctor states that is fatal to TARDISes.

Continuity

 * Charley first met the Doctor aboard the British airship R101 on 5 October 1930. (AUDIO: Storm Warning)
 * The Doctor tried to get Charley to the right Singapore in AUDIO: Seasons of Fear.
 * The Doctor and Charley refer to their trip to Venice in 2294 (AUDIO: The Stones of Venice) and their encounter with Orson Welles on 30 October 1938 (AUDIO: Invader from Mars).
 * Charley first encountered the Cybermen aboard a Telosian star destroyer in the Garazone system in 2503. (AUDIO: Sword of Orion)
 * Charley mentions her uncle Jacques. (AUDIO: Memory Lane)
 * The Doctor and Charley discuss Daleks boarding the Mary Celeste in 1872, and Charley guesses correctly that Daleks invaded it. (TV: The Chase)
 * HADS kicks in and sends Charley, who's inside, away to 17 January 1942. (TV: The Krotons)
 * The Doctor employs the technique of wiping Charley's mind but is unsuccessful as she almost immediately remembers everything. The Tenth Doctor later did the same thing to Donna Noble, though in her case the process was more successful. (TV: Journey's End)
 * Upon entering the TARDIS and seeing the Sixth Doctor, Charley tells him that she was "expecting someone else." (TV: The Caves of Androzani)
 * Later in his personal timeline, the Doctor would meet Charley on one further occasion when he and Lucie Miller encountered his younger self while he was travelling with her and C'rizz in an American frontier town in the 1870s. This encounter was observed by the Sixth Doctor and his companion Evelyn Smythe. (AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor)
 * When the Doctor returns to the hotel, the receptionist says the clocks can't be wrong, because they all have beryllium chips. (TV: Doctor Who)