Notes: Welcome to the next installment of my Family Timelines Series! I've got plans! I really hope they all work out and I hope you like them. Please leave me reviews, I really appreciate the feedback.

"Alright, love, we are getting out of here," the Doctor told Rose as he pushed her into a tiny, one person escape pod.

"Yes, we. So why aren't you getting in here with me?" she argued while he tightened the harness over her shoulders securely.

"An extra person in there would throw off the balance. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you. I promise," he assured her as he held up a space suit. "Impact suit. It will protect me from the fall and fix anything that might happen as well."

"Intruder alert," the computer on the ship announced.

"As soon as I let go of this button, the ship is going to explode. That's good, because it means they can't attack Earth, but it also means we need to get out of here rather quickly, so," he paused to give her a quick kiss and pulled the top of the pod down to seal it. "Out you go!" he shouted and pushed the little pod out of the airlock next to him.

The computer continued to announce the intruder alert as he held tight to the impact suit and dove out of the airlock himself, tossing the detonation device over his shoulder. The ship behind him began to explode as he wrestled with the space suit through the vacuum, frantically trying to get it on before he hit the atmosphere and started to burn. Very thankful for his respiratory bypass, he somehow managed to get it sealed, but couldn't see a thing as he plummeted to Earth after his wife's escape pod.

Rose felt very strongly the landing of her little pod, but when she hit the button to release the door, it didn't work. She started pounding on the door from the inside, shouting, "Hello? Is there anyone out there?" Not getting an answer, she thought to her husband, "The door won't open. I'm stuck in here. Are you alright?"

The Doctor tried to calm himself a bit before responding, despite the fact that the ground was approaching rather quickly. "Just fine, love, I'll be down in a few seconds."

He hit the ground with a rather loud crash and likely left a large hole, but he couldn't really tell because he couldn't see anything.

"Hello? Hello? Hello, are you all right?" a woman's voice called nearby.

"Ow," he managed to reply.

"Are you hurt? Did you fall? Where did you fall from?" she asked confusedly.

"Helmet," he requested, hoping to regain his sight and try to find his wife, who was still stuck in her escape pod.

"Alright, just, just let me. I don't want to hurt you," she told him as she helped him up out of the small crater and lifted the visor of the helmet. The now transparent section, however, only showed a mess of brown hair on the back of his head. "Oh," she gasped.

"I can't see. I'm blind!" he shouted in a panic.

"Oh no, love, no. I think you've just got your helmet on backwards. How did you manage that?" she wondered.

"I got dressed in a hurry. Don't suppose you've seen an escape pod landing around here? Kind of like a large, metal, egg shaped thing," he wondered.

"Why yes. I did see something like that just over the other side of the park. Is that yours?" she asked, leading him in that direction.

"Well, not exactly, but my wife is inside it and I need to help her get out. Then, I don't suppose you could help me into town to find a police box?" he replied.

"Alright, just give me a moment and I'll borrow the neighbour's car. Can't have you tripping all the way to town," she told him and she disappeared for a few minutes.

"Found a very nice lady who is helping me. Be there soon. Have you tried using your sonic to get it open?" he informed his wife.

"Of course I did. I think the latch got mangled in the landing," she responded with a mental sigh.

It was awkward, but once the woman took him to find the escape pod, they had to lift it together into the car and bring it with them into town.

"Ow! Did we just bump into something?" the Doctor asked when he felt the car jolt rather abruptly.

"No, no," she assured him.

"We seem to bump into quite a lot of things," he insisted through his backward helmet.

"Well, a lot of things get in the way. It's hardly my fault. You need to take that silly thing off," the woman told him.

"Can't. Impact suit. It's still repairing me," he replied.

"Repairing you?" she questioned, helping him out of the car before they both lifted the pod once again and placed it on the ground next to the police box where she had parked.

"Yeah, well, you know, that's the idea," he told her.

"Won't it repair you all back to front?" she wondered, seemingly not bothered by the idea of a suit that could do that despite it being the 1930s.

"No. No," he assured her, not entirely positive, but hoping that it wouldn't. Shouldn't do that, anyway.

"Well, that's good. Oh, that's a street lamp," she informed him after he bumped into it rather painfully.

"Yes, I got that impression," he responded with a groan.

"Round this way. Don't you want me to take you to hospital or something? You're welcome to come to our house," she told him.

"No, no, no. We're fine. I just need to find the, er, the key," he told her as he realized that his pockets were inside the impact suit and his wife's key was trapped in the escape pod with her.

"Do you want me to do it with a pin? I'm good with a pin," she said, taking a pin from her hair and trying to jimmy the lock.

"Multi-dimensional, triple encoded temporal interface. Not really susceptible to pointy things," he informed her.

"Got it," she cried as the lock clicked open.

"Okay. Suddenly the last nine hundred years of time travel seem that bit less secure. Thank you for taking care of us. You didn't have to, you know. You've been very kind," he thanked her.

"Oh, don't be silly. It's Christmas Eve. All in the holiday spirit at Christmas," she replied.

"What did you say your name was?" he asked, remembering that his wife said it was good to acknowledge people by name for their kindness.

"Madge. Madge Arwell," she answered.

"If there's anything that I can do for you, let me know," he promised.

"How?" she wondered.

"I don't know. Make a wish. That usually works," he thought, or it did sometimes anyway.

"Does it?"

"It did for me. You're here, aren't you? Well, don't wait around here. Just off you go home. I'll just go and, and wait inside here," he told her, starting to drag the pod next to him towards the doors of the police box, but quickly found that he bumped into the back of the wrong box. "Ow! Wrong one. Do you think we could try again?"

It took them a bit, but they eventually did find the right police box and the Doctor was reminded by his wife that he should be able to snap his fingers to get the doors open if he couldn't find his key. His hands seemed to be fully repaired, so he managed to get one of the gloves off and get the TARDIS open before Madge finally left them.

Once the TARDIS assured him that he was fine, he removed the impact suit and began working on opening the pod. Rose breathed a sigh of relief when the hatch finally opened and she got some fresh air again. The air recycler in the pod wasn't meant to be used for so long after landing and it was getting a bit stale in there.

"Oh, thank you, love. It was getting a bit stuffy in there," she sighed and stretched her legs. "We ought to see if there's something we can do for that woman. What was her name?"

"Madge Arwell," he replied, already typing her name into the TARDIS computer to check on her timeline. What showed up was a painful telegram sent to her three years in the future. It told her that her husband's plane had gone missing over the English Channel just before Christmas. Rose looked at the monitor over his shoulder.

"Oh no!" she gasped. She could see from the information the time ship provided that they had two children and the idea that they would spend their holiday without their father broke her heart. "There must be something we can do to help out a little."

"I've got an idea," he told her as he checked on a few details and piloted the ship to a new destination.

The Doctor explained to his wife that Madge and her children, Cyril and Lily, would be spending their holiday here because it was a much safer area. The house belonged to the children's uncle who was now living in a seniors' home. They sent the caretaker of the property on vacation for Christmas and got to work making things extra special for the sad little family.

They heard a loud knocking coming from the front door and ran to answer it together. They held each other's hand tightly as they descended the large staircase together, hoping to make the children's Christmas just a little bit better.

"Mister Cardew!" Madge called from outside.

"That was the caretaker's name, yeah?" Rose asked.

"Yes," the Doctor answered as he unbolted the door.

"Father!" the children cried.

Rose gasped as she realized that the kids didn't know about their father yet and were expecting to see him here.

"Sorry, it's the door. It's developed a fault," the Doctor shouted as he wrestled with the stuck door.

"Oh, hello? Mister Cardew?" Madge responded.

The Doctor and Rose finally managed to get the door open, but pulled it off its hinges in the process. He threw it aside as if he had intended to do that all along and greeted the family, "There we go. Well, come in. In you come. Mind your step. Now, don't worry. The back door is still, broadly speaking, operational."

Rose picked up the broken door and placed it back where it belonged before quickly sonicking the hinges back in place.

"Right then, may I take your cases?" the Doctor offered.

"Thank you," the three of them said as they handed them towards him.

"Lovely. Would you mind carrying them for me? I need to show you round," he told them and spun around to run up the staircase.

Rose rolled her eyes at her oblivious husband and grabbed their suitcases to help get them upstairs.

"Oh no, wait! Who are you?" Madge questioned, clearly expecting someone else.

"I'm the caretaker and this is my wife, Rose," the Doctor answered.

"But you're not Mister Cardew," she argued.

"I agree."

"I don't understand. Are you the new caretaker?" Madge wondered, thinking that she would have been informed if there had been a change like that.

The Doctor deflected the question a little bit by telling her, "Usually called the Doctor. Or the Caretaker or Get Off This Planet. Though, strictly speaking, that probably isn't a name. Hello, Madge Arwell."

"Hello," she responded hesitantly.

"Cyril and Lily, welcome," Rose greeted with a smile.

"Now, come on, come on. Lots to see. Whistle stop tour. Take notes, there will be questions," the Doctor rambled quickly as he led them all through the house. He had added several completely impossible for this time period things. The furniture moved around on its own, he had added a lemonade faucet in the kitchen, and so on.

"We sleep up there. Stay away. Beware of panthers," the Doctor rambled as they passed the staircase leading up to the attic space where they had parked the TARDIS.

"Panthers?" Lily questioned disbelievingly.

"They're terrifying. Have you never seen panthers? Cyril!" the Doctor responded, calling the young boy away from where he was trying to creep past them.

"Mum's bedroom. Grown up. Your basic boring," the Doctor told them as he showed them all the master bedroom.

"Oi! I decorated in here, thank you!" Rose protested.

"It looks lovely," Madge assured her, but the Doctor had already pulled the children down the hall towards their room.

"Lily and Cyril's room. I'm going to be honest, masterpiece. The ultimate bedroom. A sciencey-wiencey workbench. A jungle. A maze. A window disguised as a mirror. A mirror disguised as a window. Selection of torches for midnight feasts and secret reading. Zen garden, mysterious cupboard, zone of tranquillity, rubber wall, dream tank, exact model of the rest of the house, not quite to scale. Apologies. Dolls with comical expressions, the Magna Carta, a foot spa, Cluedo, a yellow fort," the Doctor listed excitedly as he dashed about the room to show them everything he had included.

"And bunk beds," Rose interrupted, making the Doctor frown comically. "Come on, love, you said that a bed with a ladder was cool."

"Yes, but I wanted to give them hammocks," he pouted.

"Bunk beds are perfectly cool, and probably safer," Rose insisted.

The children both giggled and ran to bounce excitedly on the beds.

"For God's sake!" Madge shouted, clearly irritated by the whole situation. She was upset and rightfully felt that everyone else should be as well, but since she hadn't told the children about their father yet, they had no reason not to enjoy the silliness around them. "Can you please stop talking? Can you please just stop!" Madge complained angrily.

"Sorry," the Doctor replied.

"Children, go downstairs," Madge instructed.

"Why?" Lily asked.

"Are we leaving?" Cyril wondered.

"Yes. No. I don't know. Just please go downstairs!" Madge told them, closing her eyes as she tried to get a hold of her emotional state.

"You don't need to shout," Lily grumbled as she led her brother out of the room and back downstairs.

"Why are you doing all this?" Madge asked them pointedly.

"I'm just trying to take care of things. I'm the caretaker," the Doctor answered.

"That's not what caretakers do," Madge pointed out.

"Then why are they called caretakers?" he wondered confusedly.

"We just want to give you all a really nice Christmas," Rose assured her.

"Their father's dead," Madge informed them bluntly.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor responded.

"We're both terribly sorry," Rose added.

"Lily and Cyril's father, my husband, is dead and they don't know yet, because if I tell them now, then Christmas will always be what took their father away from them, and no one should have to live like that. Of course, when the Christmas period is over, I shall. I don't know why I keep shouting at them," Madge told them, finally letting out what she had been bottling up from everyone. Rose put her arm around the woman's shoulders in support.

"Because very time you see them happy, you remember how sad they're going to be, and it breaks your heart," the Doctor said, knowing how painful it was to lose someone you cared deeply about.

"Mother, come and see!" Lily shouted from the main floor.

"Mother! You've got to see this!" Cyril echoed.

"Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later?" the Doctor continued.

"Mother," Cyril called.

"Mother, are you coming?" Lily insisted.

"The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later. Now, we'd better get downstairs. I think they may have found the main sitting room. I repaired it," the Doctor concluded and Rose guided the woman down to where her children were still calling to her.

In the main sitting room, there was an enormous Christmas tree. It was decorated with hundreds of lights, decorations, tinsel and even a rotating aeroplane flying around it. Beneath the tree was a present wrapped in silver and white paper, with a huge bow on top. The box was large enough to fit the whole family inside of it and the children were bouncing around it excitedly.

"I know," the Doctor beamed again as Madge looked at him expectantly.

"Look at that present. It's for me," Cyril told his mother.

"No, it says it's for all of us," Lily corrected him.

"I'm the youngest. I get to open it first," he argued.

"Doesn't say who it's from. Mother, who left this here?" Lily questioned.

Madge looked back to where the mysterious couple had been, but didn't see them. "That man is quite ridiculous. You must stay away from him," she instructed firmly.

"I like him and his wife," Lily told her.

"I like them, too," Cyril added.

"And it's a nice tree, isn't it?" Lily prompted, hoping to cheer up her mother a little.

"It's the best tree in the world," Cyril cheered.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it is," Madge admitted as she looked at the beautiful decorations.

"Say it, Mother. Go on, please. Say the thing you always say," Cyril pleaded.

"This Christmas is going to be the best Christmas ever," she responded, hugging both of them tightly.

Rose and the Doctor smiled at each other where they stood around the corner to listen. Madge seemed to be almost ready to accept the gift they were trying to give her and her children, but knew it would be hard for her. They might have to be content with giving the children the best Christmas possible, since the weight of the news Madge needed to tell them afterward would be hanging over her the whole time.

"Let's go upstairs, love. Give them some time to settle in," Rose suggested. He took her hand as they walked back up to the TARDIS.