The Night Before Christmas
Donna Noble was too excited to sleep. She had lived through five whole Christmases already, but she was convinced that this was going to be the best one ever. The problem was, the time was just dragging on. It felt like it had been Christmas Eve for ages now, and what she wanted most in the world was for Christmas Day to begin.
But no matter how much she stared at the clock, how hard she concentrated on the hands, they didn't go round any faster. She tucked her head under the duvet and squeezed her eyes shut, and was confident that when she looked again it would be Christmas Day.
"You just have to be patient, love," her dad had told her, whilst tucking her into bed just a few hours ago. "It'll be Christmas soon enough."
Soon enough for him perhaps, and for her mum who was never really that keen on the whole Christmas malarkey, but not soon enough for Donna.
She clambered out of bed, pulled back the curtains, and looked out onto the street. One day, she was sure of it, she would catch a glimpse of Father Christmas' sleigh parked outside, and his trusty reindeers chewing on the front lawn and eating from the apple tree that she and Grandpa Wilf had planted a little while ago.
As Donna went to climb back into bed, she heard a noise coming from downstairs. She wondered, daring to hope, could it be him? Could it be Father Christmas, putting her presents under the Christmas tree?
Donna found herself smiling. She was going to find out.
She eased her bedroom door open and tiptoed across the landing. She pressed her ear to her mum and dad's room, and heard loud snoring from within. If Sylvia were deep asleep like that, no doubt Geoff would be too. Satisfied that she was safe to have a peek downstairs, Donna crept down the winding staircase, through the dining room, and her hand rested on the door handle leading to the living room.
She took a deep breath, and opened the door.
It was empty. Donna couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Finally, she had thought, she was going to see him this year. But no, there was no sign of Father Christmas...
Until, that is, her gaze found the plate of mince pies and glass of milk that she left out every year. But now, as she looked closer, it was just a plate with a few crumbs and an empty glass.
Someone had eaten the mince pies and drunk the milk!
Donna smiled again, and searched the rest of the room for any more clues. As she looked out the window, into the front garden, she saw a figure standing outside, looking at her and Gramps' apple tree.
Pressing her face to the window, Donna thought that the man didn't look much like the Father Christmas she always read about in books and saw on TV. No, he was much skinner, and younger, and wore a brown suit instead of a big red coat. But something in Donna's heart told her that this man was magical, so he must have been Father Christmas.
When she went to open the back door, she found that it was already open. Donna stepped out onto the front lawn, wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her shivering frame, and called out to the man, her breath appearing in the air in front of her.
"Hey," she said. "Hey, you."
The man turned, and looked at Donna.
"Oh," he said, startled. "Hello." He made his way over to her, and knelt down on the wet grass in front of her. "Who are you?"
Instinctively Donna took a few steps backwards. "Donna," she replied nervously. "Donna Noble."
The man's smile grew bigger and brighter, and he said, "No way!" Then he let out a great booming laugh, and shook his head in disbelief. "Absolutely ridiculous. Something binding us together, always."
Donna examined the man through narrowed eyes. He wasn't what she had been expecting. "What are you talking about, Father Christmas?"
The man laughed again. "I'm not Father Christmas. I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor Who?"
"Just the Doctor." He rubbed his hands together, trying to warm himself. "Chilly, isn't it? Shall we go back inside for a minute?"
Donna nodded, and led the man back into the living room. He sat in the armchair, and she was about to tell him that Dad sat there, nobody else, when he said, "Thanks for the mince pies, by the way. Love a mince pie, me. Oh, and the milk was good too. Even if it was, I suspect, slightly on-the-turn. Takes it out of you, this time travel lark. Leaves you parched and peckish."
"You're welcome," said Donna. Then she thought, and added, "What do you mean, time travel?"
"I mean I can travel in time. That's how I got here, to 1974."
Donna folded her arms, and said defiantly, "That's ridiculous. Time travel's impossible."
The Doctor laughed. "You believe in Father Christmas, though."
"Are you going to tell me," Donna began nervously, "that Father Christmas isn't real either? Cos Vena at school said he's not, but I said she doesn't know what she's talking about because she's stupid."
"Oh, he's real," the man replied firmly. "And so is time travel."
"Not convinced," huffed Donna.
"Maybe I'll convince you one day," the Doctor said.
He started to say something else, but then broke off and looked down at his hands. Tiny beads of white light, like the fairy lights on Donna's Christmas tree, started to play around his hands, circling up his arms, around his head and torso, and then his legs. His whole body was glowing now.
"You all right?" Donna asked warily.
The Doctor nodded, and smiled sadly. "Looks like I'm going now."
"Oh." Donna looked away. "Okay." Then she said, "Don't go."
"Not in my control, I'm afraid. Had a bit of an accident."
"What kind of accident?"
The Doctor shook his head, then he convulsed and tumbled out of the armchair and onto the floor, landing on his hands and knees.
"What's wrong?" Donna asked, staying back.
"I knew the milk was off," he said with a smile.
The light was shining brighter now, his features disappearing into a blur. "Stay back, Donna Noble," he warned. "And don't be sad. We'll meet again one day, I promise you."
Donna shrugged. "All right."
"Oh, and one more thing, Donna..."
"What?"
"Merry Christmas."
And with that, in a flash of light, the Doctor disappeared.
Donna had to shield her eyes from the light, and when she moved her hand away, she was all alone, in the darkness. She sat there for a few minutes, looking up at the moon outside, and wondering what had just happened, and why she felt so happy inside.
She trudged back up the stairs, climbed into bed, and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, finally, it was Christmas Day.
40 Years Later...
It was the longest night of her life, quite literally.
Captain Mei Yang of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce stood outside of UNIT HQ, looking up at the night sky. It had begun to snow earlier that evening, and she and her colleagues had taken it as a sign that this Christmas they were going to be safe. No alien invasions, no nothing. It was going to be the best Christmas ever, they were adamant of that.
Then, of course, things took a turn for the worse.
The snow in the air was frozen still. The tiny white beads were stuck in the air, as if frozen in time, suspended in a single moment.
"We knew this was coming," said Mei grimly, as she looked around. It was strangely beautiful, actually, to see the snow just floating there, in the air. She would have allowed herself a smile if she hadn't known if were the omen of something dark and terrible lurking on the horizon, as it always was.
Her right-hand man, the brains of her team at UNIT, Doctor Raj Patel, was standing at her side, only occasionally looking up from his smartphone to see the terrible beauty of the suspended snow. "Hmm," he said, nodding.
"Every Christmas," Mei went on, "every bloody Christmas, something goes wrong." She let out a great sigh. "And it's always on us to fix it."
"And yet," Raj said, seemingly to his phone, "we decided to take the Christmas shift. We must be mad, eh?"
This time it was Mei who simply said, "Hmm." She wasn't mad, no. She was determined. Determined to succeed, and to do her bit for planet Earth. She wasn't going to get that promotion by sitting at home eating an overcooked turkey with her father and the latest woman he had found online. No, she was happier out in the field, doing something, making a difference.
"It's definitely global, yeah?" she asked, though she knew the answer.
Doctor Patel nodded. "Right across the world, everything's just stopped. But it's weird, like, the people can still move around. So, you know, there are planes up in the sky, suspended in the clouds, but the people on board are free to have a wander. Animals, too, are just frozen. But us humans..."
"We're sort of immune?" suggested Mei.
"Maybe." Raj rubbed his furry chin. "Or maybe we're the victims."
"Victims?"
"Of this torment. Cos it's beautiful, yeah, but it's hell. Imagine if this went on forever. You know, like, the whole world stopped, and we had to live like this." He checked his watch, and Mei instinctively did the same.
The time was 11.59.59... and it had been for ages now.
"Stuck at one minute to midnight, on Christmas Eve," Raj went on. "A nightmare, isn't it? Every kid thinks you have to wait forever for Christmas Day to come, right? Well, we actually might just have to."
"Unless," said Mei, refusing to be so pessimistic, "we end this."
"But how?" Raj threw his hands up. "I don't know how."
"Nor do I," conceded Mei. "But I'm sure someone does."
The Doctor. He would know. Of course he would. Where was he?
"It's been a year, ma'am," said Raj quietly, tucking his phone away. "Twelve whole months without so much as a single world. Maybe he's..."
"Maybe he's what? Don't say it. Just don't. He's been gone longer than this before. Remember the Nineties? No, he'll be back for us. To save us all."
"Hmm." Raj reached for his phone. "Let's hope so, eh?"
Mei nodded. She hadn't stopped hoping yet. And she never would.
It was strange, though, how long he'd been gone. She had to admit that. An entire year, and not a single sighting across the whole wide world. Though Mei hadn't lost hope, it was clear that some people had. UNIT was, as an organisation, now becoming increasingly militarised to counter the threats that had landed on Earth's doorstep in those twelve months.
With no Doctor, UNIT had a greater responsibility to defend the safety of this world, and it was lying heavy on everyone's shoulders.
As Mei scanned the skies for that sweet little blue box that she had read so much about in all the files, a fresh-faced young UNIT soldier whose name she hadn't bothered to learn yet came rushing out of the doors.
"Uh, ma'am?" he said. "There's a, uh, there's an incoming message."
"From him?" asked Mei, daring to hope.
"No, ma'am," he replied. "It's, uh... Well, frankly, it's aliens."
Mei looked to Doctor Patel, sighed, and said, "Well, it's about time."
The video screens in the command centre at UNIT HQ flickered into life, all showing the same crackling static for a while, until the image slowly dissolved into something clearer and altogether stranger.
Standing at the centre of the room, surrounded by half a dozen UNIT soldiers manning computer stations, and with Doctor Patel at her side at always, Mei felt herself gasp. "What?" she asked, as she looked closer.
On screen was a humanoid creature, with dark-green skin and beady little yellow eyes that bulged out of its head. It smiled, baring its pointed fangs, and said, "Greetings, people of Earth. How are you all holding up?"
"Uh, hi," said Mei feebly. "Not too bad, you know."
Raj tapped her on the shoulder. "One-way message, I think," he said. "They can't hear us."
"Then why ask?" huffed Mei, before being shushed by Raj.
"By now you will surely have noticed," the alien went on, with a mischievous grin, "the damage to time and space that has been done to your world. It will be dawning on you primitive people now that this was our doing, a result of our meddling with the temporal structure of your planet.
"If you wish to continue existing in the same cause-and-effect universe with which you apes have become so accustomed, we have just one request."
The alien paused, as another identical creature appeared at the edge of the image and passed a plate of food to the speaker. Mei squinted as saw that the alien was now hurriedly tucking into a Christmas dinner.
"Christmas lunch," said Mei, aghast. "Roast turkey."
"With all the trimmings too," added Raj. "The little bugger."
Mei nodded in agreement. "Taunting us."
"Our request is simple," the alien went on, spraying half-eaten turkey at the screen. "You will hand over to us your associate, the man know as..."
"The Doctor," finished Mei, anticipating the end of that sentence. "They always want the Doctor. Well, join the club, you little green—"
"Shush... ma'am," Raj said feebly.
"We were going to ask you to surrender the Doctor to us within a certain time frame," the creature sneered, "but, as we have rendered such a thing impossible, you have until I finish my dinner. Don't worry, I eat slow."
With a manic laugh, the image of the alien fizzled away into nothing.
All eyes in the room were now on Mei. Her gaze dropped to the floor.
"What do we do?" asked Raj.
Honestly, Mei didn't know. They needed the Doctor, more than ever.
"We wait," she said quietly. "And hope, and pray...
"Forget Christmas," she continued, louder and more confident now, as the leader of men and women she had to be at this time. "It's on hold now. Forget the trees and the dinners and the decorations. Yes, even the presents. Cos right now, if the Doctor walked through those doors... Well...
"That would be the best present of all."
She looked to the doors, as did everyone else, and they waited.
Under her breath, Mei had to ask, "Where is he?"
"Where are we, Doctor?"
Donna Noble didn't like the look of this place one bit. There was just something about it. It had a bad vibe. She was good at vibes, at sensing them, and she could sense that this place had a bad one.
"This is Holulalulalalu's World," the Doctor said, beaming.
"Sorry," Donna replied, "did your brain explode halfway through that sentence? What does that even mean?"
"Shut up and come with me," the Doctor said, rolling his eyes.
He led her through the crowd of people packed into the tiny alleyway, without telling her where they were going. Just like normal, then.
Donna gazed around at all the dozens of different alien species they passed, in all shapes and sizes... Except for human. She was the only human here, and it made her feel odd and uncomfortable. Talk about bad vibes.
Though she loved travelling in the TARDIS and seeing all the sights and sniffing all the smells that the great wide universe had to offer, she was missing home a little. She had no idea exactly how long it had been since they had last touched down on Earth, but she knew in her heart it was too long.
"Here we go," announced the Doctor, as he led Donna by the hand into a tiny little shack that seemed to be some sort of bar or tavern. "They do the absolute best drinks here. Prepare to have your mind blown. Almost literally."
While the Doctor headed off to the bar, Donna meandered through the packed drinking den to find an empty table. Unfortunately, she realised, there were none. But she was always sociable, and good at making friends, including non-human ones, so when she spotted two free seats beside a creature that looked worryingly like a bonsai tree on legs, she made her way over to him/her/it.
"Uh, hello there," she said, flashing her most polite smile. "Mind if we sit here, my friend and me?"
The creature looked her up and down, then let out a noise not unlike a sigh, and wandered out of the bar.
"Oh, charming," mumbled Donna, as she sat down.
A few moments later the Doctor fought through the crowd of drunken patrons and set down two tankards on the table.
"What did you say to that bloke?" he asked.
"Hello."
The Doctor sniggered. "I love how you're so good with people."
"Shut up, spaceman," she said. She peered into the tankard, and didn't quite know how to describe it. A few words came to mind, but none of them were good ones. "What's this? Some Martian drink?"
"It's called Alfraxian ale," he explained. "Made by taking the juice of a Froodan slime slug and sort of mixing it up with the spores of the famous Ga'Garn swamp weed to get this thick, gloopy... stuff."
Donna stopped looking into the tankard now. "And you paid for this? Using actual, proper money? With the genuine intention of drinking it?"
The Doctor 's eyes narrowed. "What's wrong?"
"All those words you said about it," Donna replied, "not one of them made me want to drink this, but all of them made me want to vomit."
"It's an acquired taste," the Doctor conceded.
"And I don't plan on acquiring it." Donna pushed the drink away. "Can they do a rum and coke?"
"Of course, yes."
"Can they do a rum and coke without additional outer-spacey grossness?"
The Doctor hesitated. "Probably not."
Donna looked at the Doctor's tankard. "You can have mine too."
"What? Oh, no." The Doctor screwed his nose up in disgust. "Ugh. Blimey, no way I'm drinking that. It's disgusting. Just wanted you to try it."
"I had no idea you hated me," said Donna, smirking.
The Doctor scooped up the drinks and made for the bar. "Half a mo. I'll try to get a refund," he said. "Take you to Space Starbucks instead."
"How about, you know, regular Starbucks?" Donna said nervously.
The Doctor stopped, turned back to set down the tankards, and looked at Donna seriously for a moment. "What?"
"Just like, you know," she began softly, "we could go back home. Not to stay, or anything. I'm not leaving, before your get all soppy. No, it's just... It'd be nice to get back to Earth, see what I've missed, you know?"
The Doctor stared at her for a long while, and she was worried that she had hurt his feelings, that she sounded ungrateful, like she didn't enjoy travelling through all of time and space with him. Her heart was pounding.
"Donna?" The Doctor broke into the biggest grin. "Oh, I'm so happy."
She eyed him with suspicion. "You are?"
"Yes. Oh, yes! I've wanted to nip back for weeks now. Thought you'd think I was bored of all this or something. Oh, but no, I'd love to go back."
Donna found herself smiling. "Wow. Really?"
"Are you kidding? Why else do you think I bought you this horrible drink if not to make you yearn for those good old home comforts?" he said. "Why do you think I took you to the Planet of the Rubbish Dumps yesterday?"
"And why you brought me to this hot, sweaty, horrible little bar?"
"Hey, watch it!" roared the barman angrily.
"Oh, come on," said Donna, looking over at him through tired eyes.
The barman thought for a few moments, then admitted defeat, throwing his four arms up in surrender. "Fair enough."
"Shall we get going then, Miss Noble?"
Donna put her arm through the Doctor's, and they strolled back to the TARDIS, both wearing stupid grins on their face.
"You know what I fancy?" said the Doctor, as he unlocked the door.
"What?"
"Christmas."
"Doctor," said Donna, "look over there! It's snowing."
Perhaps a little out of practice of materialising on Earth, seeing as it had been, apparently, twelve months or so, the TARDIS had landed on the outskirts of London, a good distance away from where they wanted to be. The Doctor and Donna found themselves in thick, dense woodland, and it wasn't until they started to emerge through the trees that they could see the sky.
"No," the Doctor replied grimly. "No, Donna, you're wrong. You see? By definition, if it's snowing that means that snow is falling from the sky."
"Oh, I know," said Donna miserably. "Is it fake snow again? You know, like ash from a spaceship or something? That's rubbish."
"No, Donna, look. Actually, properly look. It's not the snow that's in question... It's the falling."
Donna did as she was told and looked, and saw that, unfortunately, the Doctor was exactly right. As they emerged from the shadowy woods, Donna looked at the snow in front of her face, just suspended in mid-air.
"Frozen," announced the Doctor.
"Frozen water, yeah, I'm not stupid," huffed Donna.
He mumbled something under his breath, then whipped out the sonic screwdriver and started scanning all around. "Frozen in time," he said. "Localised temporal distortions." He consulted the screwdriver and sighed.
"Actually, as it turns out, not localised. Global. The whole world."
"My God," breathed Donna. "Frozen in time," she echoed.
She checked her watch, set to local time always thanks to the Doctor's ingenuity, and saw that the hands were stuck at one minute to midnight.
"Christmas Eve forever," she said. "Always the night before."
The Doctor was busy with the sonic screwdriver, but he found time to glance over at her and nod, and she saw the worried look in his eyes.
"Isn't there a poem—?" Donna began to wonder aloud.
But she heard voices nearby, and stopped and listened.
"Over here!" she heard a man cry. "I see the box! It's him!"
"Doctor, someone's coming," she whispered.
The Doctor looked around, shaken out of his trance-like state, and looked over his shoulder. There were a dozen or so soldiers running out of the forest, headed straight for them. Donna was about to turn and run, almost instinctively, when she realised she recognised their uniforms.
"UNIT?"
A young woman who wore that traditional red beret better than anyone Donna had ever seen approached the Doctor and held out her hand.
"Oh, Doctor," she said, with the unmistakable look of relief in her face. "We're so glad you're here. Captain Mei Yang, at your service."
"Oh, cheers," said the Doctor. "You know Donna, right?"
Mei nodded. "Of course." She gave Donna a salute. "Miss Noble."
The Doctor pointed up at the sky. "What's going on here, Captain?"
"Well," she said, "we were rather hoping you could tell us."
The Doctor and Donna were escorted to UNIT Headquarters, and were led by Captain Mei Yang to the command centre, where she briefly explained the situation to them, including the disturbing threat from the aliens.
"They want me?" asked the Doctor.
"So they said," confirmed Doctor Raj Patel. "Didn't sound good."
"Doctor," breathed Donna. "What'll you do?"
He looked at her but didn't answer. Instead, he made his way over to a young, worried-looking UNIT soldier sat at one of the computer banks.
The young man stood up, and said, "John mumbles."
A little taken aback, the Doctor replied, "Oh. Does he? Well, can't you tell him to speak up a bit, then?"
"No, no," the man replied. "That's, uh, well, that's me. John Mumbles." He held out his hand, and the Doctor shook it. "Nice to meet you. Great name, I love it. Now, John Mumbles, can you help me? I'd like to see that video message again. Can you replay it?"
As the soldier set to work at his computer, Mei came charging over the Doctor. "What are you doing?" she asked, panicked. "You can't waste time like this. We need a plan. We need a counter-attack."
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it?" countered the Doctor. "Don't bother asking questions, just work out where to point your weapons." He rolled his eyes and mumbled, "Blimey, you lot."
"The thing is, Doctor," said Mei, "like it or not, you've been gone for quite a while. One year and not a single word. No contact whatsoever."
For a moment Donna felt terrible, reminded that she hadn't phoned her mum or Gramps in so long, far too long in fact. They would be worried sick, she knew, and she had been so selfish...
"So, what?" the Doctor snapped. "You unpack your guns again because I'm not around to tell you off? Are you so desperate to shoot things?"
Mei rubbed her eyes. "No, Doctor, not at all. Your way is best, I know that, and I always believed you'd be back. I promise you, I never gave up hope. But for a year we've had to fend for ourselves, and we have had to defend ourselves once or twice. With lethal force."
The Doctor looked down at his trainers. "I... I'm sorry."
"I've, uh, I've got playback going, if you're interested," said John.
Donna stood by the Doctor's side as the alien made its demands. She felt her heart pounding in her chest, hoping that the Doctor had a plan, that she wouldn't have to surrender him to these aliens. She wouldn't let him give himself up to them. Whatever they had planned for him, it wouldn't be good.
When the message ended, everyone stayed silent for a while.
"When he finishes his dinner," said Mei, "time's up."
The Doctor nodded.
"What do we do?" asked Donna.
"We'll handle this," said Mei defiantly. "We've just got you back. We're not about to give you up to these alien meddlers so soon, Doctor." Doctor Patel passed her his mobile phone, and she held it up to the room. "We've triangulated the aliens' location. They're in a ship, just outside the Earth's atmosphere. Our missiles can hit it, knock it out, and put an end to whatever spell they've got over this planet. It ends now—"
The Doctor snatched the phone out of her hands. "No," he said.
"No?" asked Mei.
"No, Captain, you are not going to destroy that ship." He buzzed the sonic screwdriver at the smartphone, and it exploded and fell to the floor.
"No," breathed Raj, "my Angry Birds..."
"Doctor, there's no other choice—"
"There is always another choice, Captain. It's clear to me that there's only one thing I can do..."
"Doctor, please," mumbled Donna, so scared for him.
"Listen, John Mumbles, reverse the signal." He flourished the sonic screwdriver. "The wavelength will be open now. Get them on screen."
The solider nodded, and within seconds the alien reappeared on the video screen. He was just polishing off the final few scraps of his Christmas dinner, and he looked startled as he stared out of the screen.
"Oh," he said, "I was still... Never mind. What is your situation?"
"Can you hear me?" asked the Doctor, fiddling with the sonic. "Are you receiving this up there?"
"Doctor?" The alien bared its teeth. "Doctor, is that you?"
"It's me. I'm here. And I'm all yours. Come and get me."
"Engage trans-mat," said the alien, and the Doctor glowed with light.
Donna dived forward, shouting for him to stop, but it was too late.
The Doctor found himself on his hands and knees, at one end of a long, dark corridor on what he imagined was the aliens' spaceship, high above the Earth. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and ran his fingers through his hair. He had to do this, to save Christmas. The night before was always the longest. He wouldn't be the one to blame for making it any longer than it had to be.
At the far end of the corridor, the Doctor saw a figure. One of the aliens, he imagined, as his stomach startled doing summersaults and he prepared himself for whatever was going to happen next.
He stood tall and defiant, as the creature walked slowly towards him down the corridor, getting closer by the second. But as it did, the Doctor had to rub his eyes. He couldn't quite make sense of it. As it walked towards him, the alien seemed to be as tiny as it had looked all the way from the other end of the corridor.
And as the Doctor now stood in front of the alien, just a few inches away, he looked down at the creature that was barely taller than his knee, and said a nervous hello.
"Greetings, Doctor," said the alien, in a high-pitched squeak. "My colleagues and I are so glad you could make it." It smiled sweetly.
"Oh, uh, thanks?"
"Is something wrong? You seem worried. Are you worried?"
"Just a little sort of surprised," the Doctor replied. "You looked, you know, slightly taller on the... on the thing." He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "You know, never mind. Hard to judge scale on those video messages."
The alien nodded. "Well, regardless, welcome to our ship," the creature said proudly. "It's called the Fludalavadavara."
"Nice name. Catchy." Donna had been right. From the other person's point of view, that really was annoying. "It's, uh, it's lovely."
"Thank you. We built it ourselves. We're engineers, you see. Builders." The alien held out a tiny little green hand, and the Doctor shook it awkwardly. "My name is Bilvar. You have encountered our race before? We are Elvocci, cousins of the Zocci."
The Doctor nodded. "And related to the Vinvocci?" Then he stopped suddenly, and rubbed his head. He felt a sudden shooting pain in his temples. Where did he know that name from? Vinvocci? He didn't recognise it now, but for a moment then he was sure he had heard that somewhere before...
Bilvar sneered. "We do not speak of the filthy Vinvocci. Come, come!"
The Doctor was deeper into the ship. Apparently, he was expected in the laboratory, and he didn't want to be late.
When he got there, it looked less like a lab and more like a junkyard. Various pieces of equipment and electronics were just lying all about the place, with seemingly not regard for its value or preservation.
But the machine at the centre of the room caught the Doctor's eye.
It was a huge device, not just to Bilvar and his fellow Elvocci who were working away at it but to the Doctor as well. Pistons pumped and writhed, and steam erupted out of it from all sides. The Doctor didn't need to examine it any more closely to know that this was one sickly machine. It called to him, asking for help.
"Ah, Doctor!" One of the Elvocci stepped forward and introduced himself. The Doctor recognised him as the creature from the video message. "Yes, that was me," he confirmed. "I am Weldar, of the Elvocci."
Bilvar nodded, then went off to work on the machine.
"I'm the Doctor, and I'm also a little confused." He ran his fingers through his hair, and said nervously, "I was sort of under the impression that I was coming here to be killed, or sold on to the highest bidder or something. Now, I'm aware that might still be the case, but if it is you're all being terribly polite about it."
Weldar gave a squeak of laugher and said, "Doctor, whatever gave you that idea? We just need your help, that's all."
"Help?" repeated the Doctor. "But the message—"
"I'm sorry," said Weldar quietly. "I'm a terrible public speaker, but I'm the best we've got. Everyone's a bit nervous, you see, talking to people. We're used to working in the shadows, just tinkering away. Not people-people."
"Oh. Right." The Doctor thought for a moment. "Why the Christmas dinner, then? Why taunt everyone?"
Weldar clasped a hand to his little mouth. "Oh, is that how it looked? We thought we were echoing your customs of the season, to gain your trust. Plus, I was just glad to get a decent meal inside of me." He flashed his stumpy, pointed teeth. "Too many sweets, not enough vegetables."
The Doctor had to laugh. "A misunderstanding," he realised. "One hell of a misunderstanding. But you have frozen time on Earth, though?"
"Well, yes." Weldar gave a nervous titter. "We're curious, you see. The Elvocci, by our nature, like to build things, and test them, and so forth. However, as we realised, we are not as skilled at the theoretical aspects of temporal mechanics as the physical ones."
"You mean you don't have the brains to back it up?"
"Well, quite. We tried, you see, to manipulate time and space in small ways, a little hobby, on our travels through the universe, as we sought work. It started as a bit of harmless fun..."
"And then it stopped being harmless," said the Doctor seriously. "Because of your meddling, the Earth is suspended in time." He raised an eyebrow at Weldar. "You must've known something like this would happen."
Weldar shrugged. "We believe in our skills. That was our mistake."
"And what a mistake it is. Now you need me to fix it."
The Elvocci flashed its teeth. "Well, that would be lovely, yes please."
The Doctor pointed his finger sternly at Weldar. "For Earth. Not you."
Weldar nodded. "Of course. We do apologise."
The Doctor approached the machine nervously, and popped on his glasses to examine it closer. As a Time Lord, he had a sort of sixth sense about this stuff. He could sense the unstable chronons, the pure time energy raging inside the heart of the machine, reacting and combining and exploding. No doubt the shockwaves from these unstable chronons had rippled out and corrupted the Earth's time stream, putting the planet on pause.
"Well," said the Doctor with a weary sigh, "time to press play."
The Elvocci certainly had all the necessary tools to make a fully-functioning time and space manipulation machine, even if it was clear they didn't entirely know how to use them correctly. The Doctor had all he needed to fix the machine and restore the Earth to normal again. He just needed the time.
Suddenly, Donna's voice came on over the communication system.
"Doctor!" he heard her calling. "Doctor, can you hear me?"
"Donna!" he called out. "Yes, yes I can!"
He got no reply. He turned to Weldar and said, "Can she hear me?"
"Computer's on the blink," he replied. "Sometimes it's only one-way."
"Oh, I don't even know if you can hear this," Donna went on, "but I've got to warn you. John Mumbles is helping me send this to you and the captain and her sidekick don't know we're doing it... They're going to attack. They've found the co-ordinates again, and they're launching the missiles!"
"What!" the Doctor cried out.
"Listen, I know you're probably safe and you've found a way to sort this out peacefully... at least, I hope so... but the captain isn't prepared to wait. Doctor, you have to hurry—"
The message was interrupted and dissolved into static.
"Donna!" he shouted. "Donna!"
Weldar gulped. "That sounds bad."
"It is bad," the Doctor replied. "Extremely very bad indeed." He looked around frantically. "Weldar, do you have escape pods on this ship?"
The Elvocci nodded.
"Then get to them," the Doctor said. "Leave this ship before anything happens and get down to Earth safely. I'll catch up with you later."
"And what about you, Doctor?"
"I have to carry on fixing this machine," he replied. "If the missiles hit it while it's malfunctioning like this... Well, anything could happen, and chances are it'll be something bad. Look, don't worry about me, just go!"
"Thank you, Doctor," said Weldar, before pounding a nearby switch on the wall, causing the alarms to ring out on the ship. "Escape pods, everyone!" he ordered. "Move, move, move!"
The Doctor carried on studying the machine, as the room emptied.
He needed time to repair it, but now that was the one thing he didn't have. If... when... the missiles from UNIT hit the ship, the machine would explode, releasing all the unstable chronons into the atmosphere, causing all sorts of nasty reactions. The Doctor had to stop that from happening.
The problem was, he had no idea how to do that.
Looking all around the room frantically, the Doctor spotted the computer terminal that the Elvocci had used to send their message to Earth. Setting down his tools, he slowly made his way over to it and sat down. He activated it, and nervously said, "Hello? Is anyone there? Can you hear me?"
He worked his magic with the sonic screwdriver, until the crackling dissolved into Captain Mei Yang's stern reply. "We hear you, Doctor."
"You have to stop the missiles," he said firmly. "Look, this isn't the spaceship of some evil intergalactic empire, okay? These people are builders, engineers who engineered something bad, unintentionally so, and they need help to stop it. I can help them, but I need time to fix their machine."
"You know time is the one thing we don't have now."
The Doctor rubbed his eyes. "I want to speak to Donna. Where is she?"
"Out of the way," Mei snapped. "She can't interfere anymore."
The Doctor pounded his fist on the console, and then checked the computer's readouts. The escape pods had been jettisoned. The Elvocci were safely on their way down to Earth. When the missiles hit, it would just be him on board.
"Please," he said. "Stop the missiles."
"I can't," said Mei, a little sadly. "It's too late. They're on their way."
"Then you've put everyone on Earth at risk."
But he thought about the missiles, about why the missile programme had been put into place in the last year. It was like Mei said...
It was because of him.
The Doctor ended the call, and made his way back over to the machine.
There was a way out, a way to keep the ship and the Earth safe. Because it wasn't just a strange feeling in his stomach when he had come aboard the ship, or an affinity he had felt, as a Time Lord, with the chronons raging inside the machine. It was a calling, a desire to merge oneself with pure time energy, an ancient, animalistic desire to be wild and free within the vortex itself, a shameful feeling taught to be repressed that burned inside everyone born beneath the red skies of Gallifrey.
If the Doctor absorbed the chronons, there was no telling what would happen to him, to his body. He only knew that his beloved Earth and everyone on it would be safe.
And that was all he needed to know.
He opened up the heart of the machine, and poured the chronons into himself. He felt his body burning with white-hot light. He felt the chronons coursing through his veins, through his whole body, reacting inside of him. It was a terrible, powerful feeling, an ecstasy unlike anything he had ever felt before. He cursed Rassilon and the other teachers for demanding they suppress this desire, this natural, innate, carnal pleasure.
And then he felt himself being ripped out of this time, falling through the vortex itself, a thousand colours filling his vision and all his senses being overwhelmed at once.
When he opened his eyes, he didn't know where he was.
All he knew was he felt hungry and thirsty.
"Doctor? Doctor, wake up!"
Donna ran over to him, his skinny little body on the ground. The snow was falling again, and it had started to bury him. It had been her idea to go back to the place where the TARDIS had landed, and she hadn't been surprised to find him there. But finding him unconscious, and glowing with light from within, that had surprised her.
"Don't be dead," she whispered, feeling her eyes flood with tears. "Don't regenerate. Not yet. You're my Doctor. Stay with me. Please, stay."
She looked over her shoulder at Captain Mei Yang and her UNIT officers, who were standing around uselessly. "Do something!" she cried out.
Doctor Patel consulted his smartphone, hastily stuck back together again with masking tape. "There's nothing we can do," he said. "It's in the files. When the regeneration's started... It's the end."
"And I'm not prepared," Donna breathed. "I'm not ready."
She laid her head on the Doctor's chest, and listened to his hearts beating. He was sick, she could hear that, but he couldn't die, he just couldn't.
"Please live," she said, gazing at his pale, still features. "Please stay with me." Light was dancing all around his body. "That can be my present. The best Christmas present ever. Your gift to me, Doctor. Live. Live."
"Oh," he croaked. "But I already got you a new jacket."
"Doctor!" she cried out, smiling.
He opened his eyes, and the light subsided. He coughed and spluttered, and looked up at Donna as she knelt over him.
"You thought I was dying?" he said with a grin. "Gotcha."
"I hate you," she replied. "And that light..."
"Oh, Donna Noble," the Doctor said, picking himself up off the snow. "I thought you'd be able to tell the difference between unstable chronons and the regeneration glow. Totally different forms of Gallifreyan energy."
"Right," Donna said. "Sorry. Always get those two mixed up."
Mei came forward, and saluted the Doctor. He didn't look at her.
"Listen, Doctor... I'm sorry. But I did what I had to do."
"I know. But you'll never need to do it again. I'm back now. I won't disappear off for a year like this ever again. You have my word, Captain. I'm here to stay."
Donna put her arm around him. "We both are."
"What happened to the spaceship?" the Doctor asked.
"Destroyed," said Mei. "The missiles did their job."
The Doctor nodded. "I got everyone off the ship in time. Which reminds me, I've got to get going. I promised some friends I'd pick 'em up."
"Very well." Mei saluted again. "Doctor. Miss Noble. Merry Christmas."
"And to you, Captain," the Doctor said.
Donna said her goodbyes to Mei, and Doctor Patel and John Mumbles, and followed the Doctor into the TARDIS.
The Doctor immediately set to work and stared intently at the scanner. "Hmm," he said quietly. "That's strange."
"What's strange?" asked Donna, joining him.
"The aliens on the ship, who were sweet and lovely if slightly ineffectual, by the way, not villains at all... I sent them to the escape pods and told them to meet me on Earth. Promised to take them back home."
"Maybe they got home on their own," Donna suggested.
"Yeah, maybe." The Doctor looked deep in thought. "Hope so."
"Could they have, you know, got caught in the blast? From the ship?"
"Not the explosion, no," he replied. "Not from the missiles. But there was a machine up there, for time experiments. I wonder if some rogue chronons could have broken loose and caught up with them..."
"Okay, you've lost me again," said Donna. "Sorry."
"No, it's okay." The Doctor flicked a few switches on the console. "Received a signal that the pods touched down somewhere, so they've landed. They're safe. Definitely alive and well. Question is, though, where and when?"
"Well," Donna replied, "not the biggest question this time of year, is it? I mean, all those questions about Father Christmas and his deliveries..."
"Oh!" the Doctor cried out suddenly. "Now I remember, yes."
"Remember what?"
"After I flooded the ship with chronons... No, don't interrupt, just stick with me... After I did that, I woke up somewhere."
"Yeah, I know, beside the TARDIS."
He shook his head. "Not straight away. I fell through time, and woke up somewhere else entirely. Somewhere unexpected. Somewhere wonderful."
"Where?"
The Doctor smiled, but said nothing else about it.
"So," he said, "you have questions about Father Christmas, do you? Like, how does he manage to eat all that food and drink all that milk in all those homes?"
Donna smirked. "Don't be daft. Mums and dads do that. It's a trick."
"What, every year?"
"Every year," Donna confirmed wearily.
The Doctor smiled, and Donna began to suspect why.
"Wait, Mum didn't tell you about that weird vivid dream I had when I was, like, six years old, did she? Oh, I'm going to kill her."
"Vivid dream?" he echoed. "Always such a rational woman, Sylvia. Wrong of course, but oh so rational."
"Wrong? Doctor, what are you talking—?"
"Now," the Doctor cried, cutting her off, "the wait is over."
Donna checked her watch. Time was moving on again, of course.
"The longest night of the year has ended," the Doctor said.
"And now," Donna added, "it's finally here. Christmas Day!"
"Yeah. Christmas Day."
A long time ago...
He was so tired now, and sad. He was sad because he faced an impossible task. Physically, he couldn't do it. He had all those deliveries to make, and just one single night to do it in. It couldn't be done. He had to admit that.
With the best intentions in the world, which he certainly had, there was still no way. He had a dream, and he had come so far. He had to make a difference, to do something worthwhile with his life, to leave a lasting legacy.
He wanted to make everyone happy. Why was that so hard to do?
As he sat by his home in the cold and the dark, ankle-deep in snow, he noticed a thick plume of black smoke rising up into the sky, coming from beyond a ridge in the distance. Curious, and already having given up on achieving his wish for yet another year, he set off to investigate.
He looked down and saw a spherical object, like some sort of pod, buried in the snow. A section of it was hanging open, and he could see what he thought were bodies within. Bodies of children, he thought at first. But no, he realised, these people... if they were people... were smaller and altogether stranger.
Looking closer, he saw that they weren't even entirely human. Humanoid in shape, yes, with arms and legs, but their skin was green for a start. He went closer to one of them crawling through the snow, visibly weak and hurt. He helped the creature to stand on its feet.
"Thank... thank you," it said. "We are... we are elv... elv..."
"Elves?" he said. "Is that what you are?"
"My colleagues... we... we are alive but injured," the creature said.
"I'll help you," the man said. "I'll take you home and help you."
"You are kind, sir... You will... will be rewarded."
He looked over at the pod, as it twinkled with a white light.
"What's happening to that thing of yours?" he asked.
"Time," the creature replied. "We are adrift... lost in time."
"You can manipulate time?"
The creature nodded. "Would you like us to teach you how?"
He mirrored the creature's nod. "Yes, of course."
"Is your cause... a worthy one?"
"The worthiest," he said. "Spreading love and joy. My cause? Well...
"It's Christmas."
THE END