The ship shuddered, the Red Alert alarms blaring as loud as they could as sparks flew on the bridge. Out of the viewport, a strange, cloudlike material blocked the ship's path like a thick fog, lighting striking from it to the ship.

"Would all passengers return to their seats and fasten their safety belts." The ship's computer announced far too calmly for the emergency at hand. "We are experiencing slight turbulence."

"Both engines failed," The Captain came striding into the bridge, smoke hissing from the conduits in the ceiling. "And the storm gate's gone critical! The ship is going down!" She flinched as something in the room exploded into a mess of sparks. "Christmas is cancelled!"

"Entering atmosphere now!" The Pilot announced, as the ship began to tilt to one side, out of his control. "Level, keep her level!"

"With what!?" The Co-Pilot, a man with a visor of some sort attached to his face covering his eyes, snapped back. "I can't see, I'm flying blind! What the hell is this stuff!?"

"Clouds?" The Captain suggested, tapping the touchscreen terminal directly in front of her chair, trying to run a scan. Starfleet training may have prepared you for all sorts of odd events over the course of the ship's lifespan, but that didn't mean they stopped being exciting… or terrifying.

A wireframe model of the ship came up on the screen, with text above it. Someone was transmitting a distress signal.

"Are you sending a distress signal?" The Captain inquired.

"It's not me!" The Pilot denied.

The woman tapped a command, and a small section of the ship highlighted, showing the point of origin.

"Who's in the Presidential Suite?" The Captain questioned.

The door to the bridge opened, and someone stepped in, jumping as sparks flew behind her.

"I've sent for help." El said, leaning on the railing of the slightly raised level.

The Captain snapped over to face her. "Who the hell are you!?"

"Look, my dad's an expert." El said. "He can fix this, he'll come."

She looked the girl up and down. "And what are you wearing?"

El spluttered. It was a perfectly normal, blue suit. The last Doctor's one, actually. Then again… one of the sleeves was ripped, it was unraveling near the end, and the whole thing was just way too big for her. Not her fault. There was a wardrobe malfunction on the TARDIS.

Literally. The wardrobe shredded all the clothes and the suit just happened to be the one that was most intact.

"That doesn't matter." El waved away.

"Are you from the Presidential Suite?" The Captain inquired.

"Well, yeah, actually."

"El!" Will came tumbling in, slamming into the wall. Poor boy looked like he was constantly about to lose his balance.

Plate armor wasn't easy to move around in.

"The light's stopped flashing," Will heaved. Not long into his TARDIS traveling career and they had to fight Autons in medieval times, stop the planet from being destroyed countless times over, and run so much his legs might never recover. What was supposed to be a nice, calming retreat to one of the highest-rated galactic cruises was quickly going sour. "Does that mean he's coming?"

The Pilot glanced over his shoulders. "Presidential Suite?"

"Oh!" Will looked down at himself. "Oh, this. We didn't have any other clothes."

"Will, don't tell people what they don't need to know!" El admonished him, the boy smacking himself in the face.

"Excessive oscillating in the centre hull!" The Co-Pilot warned.

"I'm sorry, does this mean he's coming," Will pointed to the walkie-talkie like device in his hand, as he and El moved down onto the lower level of the bridge, "Or does that mean I need to change the bulb!?"

"He'll come!" El replied. "He always comes!"

"Well, he's cutting it a bit close!"

"If we can't stabilize the orbit, we're finished!" The Captain stated gravely, El and Will looking to each other in alarm.

"Come on, dad, come on." El practically prayed, as the ship dove into atmosphere.

"There's something coming alongside us." The Co-Pilot alerted. "Something small, like a shuttle."

"Dad, don't be late…" El willed.

"Ma'am, we're receiving a message!" The Pilot informed.

"On-screen." The woman ordered.

A block of text flashed across the viewport, El and Will beaming as they read it.

'Come along, El!'

The TARDIS tore through the clouds, lightning sparking off of the blue box, light flashing on top, as it buzzed the viewport.

"What does that mean?" The Captain wondered.

El, despite the situation, never found her smile leaving her. "It's Christmas!"


The engines of the Galaxy-class starship Thrasymachus (built, owned, and operated by Carnival Cruise Line) roared as the ship desperately tried to stay above the cloud layer.

Far below, past the thick clouds that caused the eternal night of the planet, there was a city. Sardicktown. It was locked in a sort of stasis, aesthetically speaking, bearing a striking similarity to Victorian London, with futuristic tech far beyond what humans of the time had managed. The place was named for the famed Sardicks, the first family of the planet Ember to create a machine that could control the sky.

It was thus, far from coincident, that at the very center of Sardicktown, from an enormous, cathedral-like building, that a cyclone of the same cloud-like substance streamed into the sky, covering the city in a blanket.

"On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of winter, at the exact midpoint…" Kazran Sardick, the current inhabitant of the enormous hall, began. He was a man of about seventy or eighty (Visibly. Even in Sardicktown, so far behind the rest of galactic civilization, people could live to be about three hundred, if they had the money, and he had all of it), no spouse, no children. Not because he didn't want a spouse, but he had not the care nor the inclination to chase after anyone, man or woman.

Remember this, it will be important later.

"Everybody stops. And turns… and hugs… As if to say 'Well done! Well done everyone! We're halfway out of the dark.'" Kazran scowled, shaking his head distastefully, as he looked out the window on the sea of fog in the sky. "Back on Earth, we called this Christmas. Or the Winter Solstice. The first settlers here called it the Crystal Feast. But do you know what I call it?" He turned around, glaring at the family of urchins that had the gall to try and make demands of him. "I call it expecting something for nothing!" He started walking over, cane clacking against the floor as he approached.

"Sir," The father of the urchin family, Benjamin, begged, "Mister Sardick. We're only asking for one day. Just… let her out for Christmas. She loves Christmas."

Two of Kazran's servants wheeled over a cryogenic chamber, shaped like a standing, curved metal coffin with a porthole on the lid and a rotating counter on the front, and left it in front of the family. In the chamber, there was a woman, perhaps about thirty or forty (There really was no way to tell anymore. The skin care routines of the future…) with her eyes closed, like she was forever locked in sleep.

Kazran gasped sarcastically in false sympathy as he turned around. "Does she? Oh, does she? I see." He turned back to the chamber, knocking the end of his cane on the class. "Hello? Hello!? Oh, wakey, wakey! It's Christmas!" Kazran took a step back, cocking his head. "Do you know what? I think she's a bit cool about the whole thing." He erupted into laughter, before abruptly stopping, glaring at his servants. "That was funny."

The four men erupted into forced laughter.

"She's frozen." A tiny voice piped up, the son, we'll call him Nathan.

Kazran turned around, looking repulsed at the little urchin boy standing there with his family. "I'm sorry? She's what?"

"She's in the ice." The little snot-nosed street rat continued. "She can't hear you."

"Oh, what a clever little boy…" Kazran ruffled the scoundrel's hair, before he scowled, looking at the two oldest of the group. "You must be very annoyed. How much!?" He pointed to the servants.

One of the servants stepped forward. "It's, uh, four-thousand, five-hundred gideons, sir."

Kazran shook his head, turning back to the family, as a phone rang, the servant going to answer it. "You took a loan of four-thousand five-hundred gideons, and little miss Christmas over there," He pointed, "Is my collateral!"

"We're not asking for her back." Benjamin responded. "Just a day. One day. Please… let her have Christmas with us."

"Sir," The servant grabbed Kazran's attention, carrying a phone in his hands, "It's the President."

"Tell him I'm busy!" Kazran replied. Kicking the hope out of poor people personally was one of his favorite pastimes. "Now," He turned back to the urchins, chuckling humorlessly, "Where were we? Oh, yes…" He turned to the cryo chamber. "She is pretty though, your daughter. Maybe I should keep her…"

"She's not my daughter, sir." Benjamin corrected, perhaps at making his case even harder to argue.

"She's my sister." The oldest woman, Isabella, spoke up. "She volunteered for the ice when the family were in difficulties many years ago."

"Sorry, sir," The servant interrupted again, "The President says there's a Galaxy-class ship trapped in the cloud layer and, well, we have to let it land."

"Or?" Kazran demanded.

"…or it will crash, sir."

"Oh." Kazran made a gesture with his hand. "Well, it's a sort of landing, isn't it?"

The servant fought back a sigh. "It's from Earth, sir, registering over four-thousand life forms on board."

Kazran laughed, over the distant sound of scraping, almost like a key on piano wire. "Not for much longer, I think!"

"We can't just let it crash, sir."

Kazran scowled. "Says who? Give it here." He growled, taking the phone. "Look, petal, we already have a surplus population. No more people allowed on this planet. I don't make the rules-oh wait, I do." He slammed the phone's speaker back on the microphone.

Nathan looked over at the fireplace on one wall, eyebrows knitting as soot began to fall from further up onto the fire.

"Alright, you lot." Kazran turned back to the urchins, no longer in the mood to be poking fun at them. "Poor, begging people. Off home and pray for a miracle."

Benjamin, defeated, began to lead his family out…

The fireplace erupted into a massive plume of flame, soot, ash, and dust scattering all over the floor as the fire was smothered out.

A man in a tweed frock coat with Persian wool lapels, dark brown trousers, and a wool waistcoat, came tumbling out of the fireplace, rolling across the floor.

The Doctor shot to his feet, dusting himself off, coughing, wafting away the dust and ash out of the air. "Ah! Sorry!" He coughed. "Christmas Eve on a rooftop, saw a chimney, my whole brain just went… 'What the hell!?'" The Time Lord clapped his hands, walking up to the family. "Don't worry, fat fella will be doing the rounds later." He said, shaking the hands of each family member. "I'm just scoping out the general chimney… ness. Yes!" He walked back over to the fireplace, putting his hand on the mantle. "Nice size, good traction, ah!" He yanked his hand back, as his skin sizzled on the hot stone. "Big tick."

Benjamin frowned. "Fat fella?"

"Father Christmas." The Doctor answered, walking back over. "Santa Claus. Or, as I've always known him, Nick."

"There's no such thing as Father Christmas." The boy called him out.

"Oh yeah!?" The Doctor asked in response, pulling a picture out of his pocket. The thing about his clothes he really liked, the pockets in every single article of clothing he owned linked to the same storage dimension. He didn't have to move everything over when switching sets. "Me and Father Christmas," He flashed the picture in the boy's face, "Frank Sinatra's hunting lodge, 1952. See the blonde in the back? Albert Einstein! Oh, the three of us together, watch out!" He shoved the picture back in his pocket, before pointing at the boy. "Keep the faith. Stay off the naughty list. Oh!" He turned to the massive, flashing bank of controls in an alcove, "What's this?" The Doctor darted over in curiosity. "A big, flashy lighty thing! Big flashy lighty things have me written all over them! Well, not actually," He ran his hands over all the controls, before flopping down in the chair, spinning around. "Give me time. And a crayon. Now, this big flashy thing is connected to the spire in your dome, yeah? And it controls the sky. Well," The Doctor shot back to his feet, "Technically, it controls the clouds, which aren't clouds at all. Well, they're clouds of tiny particles of ice. Ice clouds, love that. Who's she?" He pointed to the cryo chamber.

"Nobody important." Kazran responded.

"Nobody important?" The Doctor replied, looking through the window on the chamber. "Blimey, that's amazing. Did you know, in nine-hundred years of time and space, I never met anyone who wasn't important before?" He stared down Kazran. "Now, that console is the key to saving that ship," The Doctor ran back over to the control systems, "Or I'll eat my hat," He tried flicking a switch, but the machine beeped, the switch staying in place, "If I had a hat. Why isn't this working!?"

"Controls are isomorphic." Kazran informed the Doctor, marching over. "One-to-one. They only respond to me."

"Oh, you fibber!" The Doctor turned around. "Isomorphic, ha! There's no such thing!"

Kazran flicked the switch, the machine powering down, before he put it back into position.

The Doctor tried moving the switch himself, the control not budging. The Time Lord scowled, scanning it with the sonic screwdriver. "…these controls are isomorphic."

"The skies of this entire world are mine." Kazran proclaimed. "My family tamed them and now I own them."

"Tame the sky?" The Doctor repeated, laughing. "What does that mean?"

"It means I'm Kazran Sardick!" He turned, walking away from the control alcove. "How could you possibly not know who I am!?"

"Well, my daughter says I have ADHD, and to be perfectly honest, she's probably right." The Doctor clapped his hands, approaching. "So, I need your help, then."

"Make an appointment." Kazran grumbled.

The Doctor tilted his head. "There are four-thousand and two people on that starship trapped in your cloud belt. Without your help, they're going to die."

"Yes." Kazran concurred.

The Time Lord started to let his jovial exterior melt. "You don't have to let that happen."

"I don't." Kazran agreed. "But I'm going to. Bye-bye, bored now, Chuck!"

The servant moved, grabbing onto the Doctor, as the others moved to push the poor family out the door.

The Time Lord slipped effortlessly out of the servant's grasp, stomping over to Sardick.

"Oh, look at you, all tough now." Kazran remarked as he sat down in a chair

"There are four-thousand and three people I won't let die tonight; do you know where that puts you?" The Doctor growled. Four thousand and two people Will and El included.

"Where?" Kazran asked in response.

"Four-thousand and three."

Kazran didn't look intimidated in the slightest. "Was that a sort of threaty thing?"

"Whatever happens tonight, remember…" The Doctor stared the man down. "You brought it on yourself."

"Yeah, yeah, right." Kazran grumbled, gesturing to one of the servants. "Get him out of here!" The man walked over, pulling the Doctor along. "And next time, try bringing me some funny poor people!"

As the family were led out, Nathan slipped out of the grasp of the servants, grabbing an old, burnt charring of wood.

The boy wound up and tossed it, the object smacking Kazran right in the forehead.

The old man shot to his feet in rage, stomping over, pulling his hand back.

"STOP!" The Doctor bellowed. "DON'T HIT HIM, DON'T YOU DARE!" As far as the Time Lord was concerned, the children of the universe were all his children, under his protection. The moment Kazran struck, he would unleash a righteous fury not even the Daleks would be able to incur.

But the strike never came. Instead, Kazran stood there, frozen and shaking with rage. The Doctor watched in confusion as the man's hand limply fell and he looked to be… holding back tears?

"Get them out! Get that foul-smelling family out!" Kazran snarled.

The servants did as they obeyed, but the Doctor remained, standing there, looking at Kazran curiously.

"What?" The old man demanded. "What do you want?"

"A simple life." The Doctor answered. "But you didn't hit the boy."

"Well, I will next time!"

"No… I don't think you will." The Doctor slowly approached. "Now, why?" That was the puzzle. Kazran was a hateful, spiteful, vindictive old man, willing to let a ship go down with thousands of people on board, children most definitely included, but when confronted with actually striking a child himself… he wouldn't? Why? "There's something I'm missing here…" He slowly walked past, looking around.

"Get out of here…" Kazran hissed. "Get out of this house!"

"The chairs." The Doctor inhaled, turning on his heel to face Kazran. "Of course, the chairs. Stupid me, the chairs."

"The chairs?" Kazran repeated.

"There's a portrait on the wall behind me." The Doctor recalled; the painting being held in a brass frame. "Looks like you but it's too old so it's your father. All the chairs are angled away from it; daddy's been dead for twenty years but you still can't bring yourself to look at him. There's a Christmas tree in the painting but not one in here, on Christmas Eve. You're scared of him, scared of being like him, and good, because you're not, you're not like him, do you know why?"

Kazran stumbled over his words, the Doctor having read him like an open book. "Why?"

The Doctor smiled. "Because you didn't hit the boy." Perhaps, then, there was some hope for Kazran yet. "Merry Christmas, Mister Sardick."

"I despise Christmas!" Kazran replied.

The Doctor chuckled quietly, moving past him. "Shouldn't. It's very you."

"It's what?" Kazran turned around. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor stopped, looking to the old man. "Halfway out of the dark." He turned, walking towards the exit, as the servants came walking back in.

"Get her downstairs with the others!" Kazran ordered his employees. "And clean up this mess!"