"What's the big fishy done to you…?" The Doctor held the lower, broken half of the sonic screwdriver, the green core flickering unsteadily. "Half a screwdriver, what use is that? Bad, big fishy…"

The two were out on the roof, the TARDIS just nearby, with the shark not far either, laying on the roof inert.

"Doctor?" Kazran called. "I think she's dying."

The Doctor walked over, pressing the button on the broken half. "The other half's still inside… But that's not the problem, I think. I don't think they can last for very long outside the cloud belt. Just quick raiding trips on a…" He looked to the child, tears silently falling. "Foggy night."

Kazran sniffled, looking to the shark. "Can't we get it back up there? I didn't want to kill it."

"She was trying to eat you." The Doctor pointed out.

"…she was hungry." Kazran replied.

"…I don't know if there's anything I can do." The Doctor admitted. "I could take her back up, but… I doubt she'd survive the trip. We'd need a fully functioning life support."

"What, like an ice box?" Kazran suggested.


Old Kazran watched with rapt interest as the the boy led the Doctor down into the massive halls of the Sardick household, down into a room that looked like a giant, industrial freezer, built in Victorian times.

"What is this?" The Doctor asked, looking through the window on the door.

"The surplus population." Young Kazran answered, helping the Doctor to turn the wheel to open the door. "That's what my dad calls it. It's not turning."

"What's the number?" The Doctor ran over to a keypad, trying to sonic it, only to fail as the exposed core flickered.

Old Kazran blinked. "7258."

"I don't know!" Young Kazran replied to the Time Lord.

"This place is full of alarms." The Doctor tried brute-forcing the keypad. "It isn't just the door, I need the code!"

"7258!" Old Kazran repeated.

"I need the number!"

"I'm not allowed to know until I'm older!"

"7258!" Old Kazran shouted.

"Perfect!" The Doctor called from the door. "Just what I needed, thanks!" He slammed the door, appearing back on the screen.


"7258!" The Doctor told Kazran, the boy punching it into the number pad.

The lock flashed green, and the Doctor turned the wheel, pulling the heavy metal door open.

"Ah, there's fish down here too." The Doctor noted as he and Kazran entered.

"Yeah, but only tiny ones." Kazran replied. "The house is built on a fog lake, that's how dad freezes the people." He explained, leading the Doctor down the aisles of cryo chambers. "They're all full, but we could borrow one." He stopped, looking at one. "Yeah, this one."

The Doctor took the lamp, peering through the glass. It was the same blonde woman Old Kazran had taunted the family of poor people with. Whoever she was, she'd been down there for a while. "Hello again."

"You know her?" Kazran looked to the Doctor.

"Why, uh…" He looked to the boy. "Important, is she?"

"She won't mind. She loves the fish." The boy looked onto the side of the chamber, pressing something into a keypad on the side.

"My name is Abigail Pettigrew," A blue hologram of the woman, appearing on the window, recited. "And I'm very grateful for Mister Sardick's kindness…"

"She starts to talk about the fish in a minute." Kazran recalled, evidentially having seen the recording before.

The Time Lord turned, slowly walking down the row, looking into each pod. "Why are all these people here? What's all this for?"

"My dad lends money." Kazran answered. "He always takes a family member as… collateral?"

The Doctor huffed. "Hard man to like, your dad. I suppose you know something about that…"

Kazran glanced away, pressing the button on the chamber to start the defrosting sequence.

The Doctor's half of the sonic screwdriver warbled.

"What's that?" Kazran inquired.

The Doctor took the half of the screwdriver out of his coat pocket. "Just my half of the screwdriver trying to repair itself, signaling the other half." The Time Lord sharply inhaled, looking up, as he heard a sonar-like beep echo in the chamber.

"The other half's inside the shark…" Kazran recalled.

"Yep." The Doctor swallowed. "Sounds like she's woken up… Okay, so, it's homing in on the other half of the screwdriver.

The shark roared, leaping out of the fog, as the Doctor and Kazran jumped out of the way. The Time Lord knocked a few of the pods down, as Kazran ran between them, dodging and weaving through the rows as he sprinted.

Eventually, the boy came to a stop, turning around.

The shark growled, dorsal fin poking out of the fog as it moved behind the boy.

"In the bleak midwinter…" Kazran gasped, as a woman started to sing in an operatic manner. "Frosty wind made moan…"

Kazran got to his feet, slowly walking back in that direction.

"Earth stood hard as iron… Water like a stone…"

Kazran turned the bend, one of the pod doors open, as down the way, Abigail stood next to the shark, petting it as she sang.

"Snow had fallen, snow on snow… snow on snow… In the bleak midwinter… long ago…"

The Doctor jumped out of the row, dusting off his hair, looking about frantically. The Time Lord caught sight, approaching.

"It's not really the singing of course." The Doctor said, standing next to Kazran.

"Yes, it is." Kazran refuted, as Abigail continued to sing.

"Nah."

"The fish love the singing, it's true."

"Nah." The Doctor shook his head. "The vibrations resonate the ice crystals causing- Ow!" He smacked the back of his neck. "Fish bit me!"

"Shut up, then." Kazran ordered.

Abigail continued to sing, looking at the two of them.

"Of course, that's how the machine controls the cloud belt," The Doctor began. "The clouds are ice crystals, if you can vibrate the crystals, then- Ow! Did it again!"

"Look, the fish like the singing, okay!? Now, shut up!"


Old Kazran smiled, reminiscent, as he looked upon the scene. He turned, looking to the wall that, until just a few moments ago yet also for years, held a portrait of Abigail.

"It's bigger-"


"On the inside!" Kazran smiled, looking into the TARDIS.

"Yep, it's the colour, knocks the walls back." The Doctor rapped his knuckles on the ice box. "Shark in a box, ready to go!"


Old Kazran walked up to the wall, smiling fondly for days gone by that had still hadn't happened.

"Abigail…"


"This is amazing!" Abigail looked around the inside of the TARDIS with a smile.

"Nah, this is transport!" The Doctor replied, ignoring the TARDIS's little shock to his fingers, as the engines settled. "I keep amazing…" He ran over to the doors. "Out here!"

He opened the doors, the other two gasping in wonder at the schools of fish swimming through the air outside, moving through the clouds like they were reefs


Old Kazran moved swiftly over to a bookcase on the wall. Moving the small curtains on the very bottom out of the way, he grabbed a small black chest filled with the memories of things that were yet to come.


"Come on, then!" The Doctor turned to the ice box, entering the code into the keypad. "Let's get this shark out."

Kazran looked out, and then turned to Abigail. Deciding on it as a spur-of-the-moment impulse, he took his camera, and grabbed a snapshot of the moment.


Old Kazran reached into the black box, grabbing an old picture only taken moments ago. Abigail looked out onto the almost endless sky-reefs, smiling, as the sunlight bounced off her golden hair.

The old man smiled.


"Wa-hey!" Kazran smiled, looking out at the cloud reefs. "Look at them go!"

The Doctor smiled at the sight, as he closed the icebox. The little number counter on the front caught his attention, and his head tilted in curiosity. "Abigail, this number-what does it mean?"

"It pertains to me, sir, not the fish." The woman answered.

"Yeah, I guessed," He looked up. "But how?"

Abigail's brow knit together. "You are a doctor, you say? Are you one of mine?"

"Why?" The Time Lord absently stroked the wool lapels of his frock coat. He caught what he was doing, and his hands dropped. "Do you need a Doctor?" The console dinged, grabbing the Doctor's attention. "Ah, sorry, time's up, kids!" The Time Lord said, coat flapping as he ran back up to the controls.

"Why?" Kazran asked, a bit dejected.

"It's nearly Christmas day!" The Doctor answered with a smile.


"If you should ever wish to visit again-" Abigail said, looking to the Doctor, as she stood in her pod, still not having been refrozen.

"Well, if I'm ever in the neighborhood- Ow!"

Kazran elbowed the Doctor. "He comes by every Christmas!"

"What!?" The Time Lord turned to the boy, who was already shutting the pod door. "No, no I don't-"


"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" The Doctor and Kazran shouted, wearing oversized Santa hats and looking exactly the same as they had before.

"Doctor!" Abigail smiled.


"What are we gonna do!?" The woman asked, as the three of them ran away from the TARDIS.

"The Doctor's got a great plan!" Kazran answered. "Wait till you hear!"


"You are out of your mind!" Abigail said, as the Doctor hitched up a harness with just a few electronics to a small open carriage, barely large enough for the three of them. "This will never work!"

"Don't think shark," The Doctor replied. "Think Dolphin!" He placed Kazran on the driver's seat.

"A shark isn't a dolphin!" Abigail retorted.

"It's nearly a dolphin."

"No it isn't!" Abigail refuted.

"Well that's where you're wrong because-" He pointed the broken half of the screwdriver towards the sky. "Shut up!"

"Oh, it could be anywhere." Kazran hopped down from the seat, as the sonic screwdriver warbled uncertainly. "Will it really come?"

"No chance," The Doctor turned to the boy. "Completely impossible."

A sonar-like beeping echoed in the sky.

"Except at Christmas."


"How are we going to get back!?" Abigail asked over the roaring of the wind as the sky shark pulled the carriage along.

"I don't know!" The Doctor replied, gripping onto the reins for dear life.

"Do you have a plan!?" Abigail asked.

"Not at all!" The Doctor laughed. "All right, all together now… YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAW!"


"Best Christmas Eve ever!" Abigail proclaimed, stepping back in the pod.

"Til next one." Kazran pointed.

"What!?" The Doctor whipped around to him. "No! This was just a one time-"


Old Kazran sat in the floor of his sitting room, looking back on the old photos fondly. "New memories…" He murmured. "How can I have new memories?"

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" The Doctor and Kazran shouted, greeting Abigail with open arms and giant smiles.

"Doctor!" Abigail smiled. "Where to this time!?"

"Did I mention, all of time and space!?"

Kazran looked through the yellowed photographs, coming across one of him and the Doctor standing in an Egyptian bazaar.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" The Doctor and Kazran shouted, greeting Abigail with open arms, giant smiles, fezzes on both of their heads, and Kazran wearing a bow tie almost exactly like the Doctor's.

The old man smiled, looking at a photograph of Abigail standing in front of a pyramid.

"Merry Christmas!" The Doctor shouted, wrapped in a scarf about fourteen feet long. Next to him, Kazran stood, quite obviously having gone through a growth spurt, acne all over his face, which he tried to cover with his matching scarf.

Old Kazran laughed, remembering the sight of the Time Lord getting himself tangled up in the monstrosity of wool.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" The Doctor and Kazran beamed.

Abigail's eyes drifted over to Kazran, now eighteen. "Kazran…"


The door clicked shut as the Doctor hopped up to the TARDIS console, quickly typing in coordinates.

"You've grown." Abigail remarked, looking at Kazran.

The young man blushed. "Yeah."

"And now you're blushing."

"…sorry." Kazran awkwardly smiled.

"It's okay." Abigail smiled gently.

"So, Doctor," Kazran hurried to stand next to the Time Lord, "Where to this time?"

"Pick a Christmas Eve," The Doctor retorted. "I've got them all right here."

"Might I make a request?" Abigail politely asked.

The Doctor threw his hand up. "Of course."

"This one."

The Doctor smiled. He was already fifty steps ahead.


Abigail stood on the street, looking through the window of her family's household. It was a small place, run down. Almost the sort of place Charlie Bucket would be afraid to call home. Despite that… the people inside were happy, joyously going about their Christmas without a care in the world.

"Who are they?" Kazran whispered to the Doctor.

"Her family." The Time Lord answered. "The lady's her sister. I met her once, when she was older."

A teardrop fell from the blonde's eyes.

"Abigail's crying…"

"Yes." The Doctor quietly hissed in response. "Which is why you should go over there and make her feel better!"

Kazran quickly nodded, and took a few strides over, standing next to the woman.

"My sister's family." Abigail told the young man. "They're so happy."

"…they look very poor."

"They are very poor." Abigail granted. "That doesn't mean you can't be happy."

Kazran glanced at her, as the residents closed the curtains over the window. "Then why aren't you?"

Abigail sniffled. "Because this is the life I can never have."

"Why not?" Kazran asked.

The woman merely swallowed, taking Kazran's hand in her own.

Kazran's face flushed pink.

"I think you're blushing again."

The two jumped as the curtains were suddenly pulled open, the Doctor standing inside with a smile plastered on his face.

"Well don't just stand there! Come in!"


"Pick a card," The Doctor held the deck out to the young Benjamin. "Any card at all." The boy took it. "You memorize the card, you put it back in the deck, don't let me see it!"

"Is this what it looked like last year?" Abigail's brother-in-law, Eric, inquired of his wife, hanging a string of lights on a nearby mantle, enlisting the assistance of Kazran.

"It doesn't have to be exactly the same!" Isabella replied, sitting across from Abigail.

"…I'm starting again." Eric decided, pulling the decorations down. "Come on, Kazran, we're starting again."

"Three of clubs!" The Doctor held up the card.

Benjamin laughed. "No."

"You sure?" The Doctor looked at the face. "Cause I'm very good at card tricks."

"It wasn't the three of clubs."

"Well, of course it wasn't-" The Doctor threw the card into the fireplace without looking. "Cause it was actually… the seven of diamonds!"

"No!" The boy chuckled.

"Oi, stop it!" The Doctor hissed. "You're doing it wrong!"

Isabella suddenly slammed her hands down on the table, standing up. "Tomorrow's Christmas dinner is cancelled because my sister refuses to attend."

Abigail's jaw dropped in shock. "Isabella!"

"Instead," The woman amended, "We'll have it tonight."


"Three!" The Doctor began, a paper crown on his head and Christmas crackers in both hands. "Two! One! PULL!"

The people forming the chain of crackers all down the table pulled, each one of them cheering and laughing as the crackers popped.

Benjamin laughed, taking a folded-up card out of his. "How did you do that?"

The Doctor tapped his nose, winking, before gesturing. "Your card."

The boy unfolded it, smugly facing it towards the Doctor. "No."

"Oh…" The Time Lord spluttered. "Shut up!"


"Ah." The Doctor pulled back, smiling. "'Til the next one."

"I look forward to it." Abigail glanced at the young man standing not far away. "Now, I'd like to say goodnight to Kazran."

"Of course, yes." The Doctor turned, looking between the two expectantly. "Well, on you go."

Kazran glared at the Doctor.

"OH!" The Time Lord suddenly realized, starting to step back. "I'll… go then?" He turned about on his heel, breaking into a sprint.

"Doctor!" Kazran whispered, catching up to the Time Lord. "I think she's going to kiss me!"

"And the problem is!?" The Doctor pushed him back in that direction.

"I've," Kazran pulled the Doctor to a stop, "Never kissed anyone before! What do I do!?"

"Well," The Doctor threw an arm around the young man's shoulder. "Try to be all nervous and rubbish and a bit shaky."

"Why?"

"Cause you're going to be like that anyway might as well make it part of the plan and then it'll feel on purpose. Off you go."

"N-now!?" Kazran stammered. "I kiss her now!?"

"Kazran," The Doctor looked at him. "It's either this or stay in your bedroom inventing a new kind of screwdriver, don't make my mistakes. Now, go!" He shoved him in Abigail's direction. "Good God…" He muttered. "If this is what El's going to be like when she starts dating… Lord help me."