The connection was broken with a screech of the crabs and a gasp of the humans. The Dream Crabs fell off of Belle and Mr Gold's faces, twitching and convulsing on the floor while Belle and Mr Gold jerked awake with a cry. Belle gripped her head from the phantom pain she still felt while dreaming.

The Doctor rushed to her side. "Belle, Belle, look at me," he said. "You were in there the longest. Just breath! Breathe, breathe, breathe." He then looked over at Mr Gold, who was panting a little more quietly and shallowly than Belle was – due to him not being in there for a long time.

He looked over at the ground, where the Dream Crabs now were, and saw them turn and crumble to dust.

Mr Gold stood and reached out a hand to help Belle up while the Doctor scanned them both with his sonic screwdriver, ensuring there wasn't any permanent damage inflicted by the crabs. Then, the base team got to work cleaning up the remnants of the crab, the bits and pieces left and sweeping up the dust and glass.

"So these creatures," Bellows began once she was sure Mr Gold and Belle were alright, "when their feeding goes wrong, they die?"

Belle reached up to rub the side of her head before heading to a mirror as though she was trying to find a puncture wound.

"The carnivore's hazard," the Doctor remarked, "Food has teeth, too." He looked over at Belle and tilted his head. "Are you okay?"

Belle turned around to look at the Time Lord. "No," she answered. The dream felt so natural to her. And to think that the Dream Crab was preying on her deepest fantasies and making them come alive didn't make things feel easy. And she was still thinking about what Mr Gold had told her while she was under.

"Good," the Doctor answered. "There are some things we should never be okay about."

Belle frowned as she looked at him. "There doesn't seem to be a wound. Rumple said …"

"That the creatures push open the skull to feast upon the brain?" the Doctor asked. "The pain is still there, isn't it?"

"Is it the ice cream pain?" Shona asked, seeing where Clara was rubbing her head, "Just here?" she patted the same spot, "Cos I've got that."

"It's the cold, I think," Bellows shrugged, unintentionally revealing that she felt it as well, "Some sort of reaction."

"But only on one side?" the Doctor asked. "Just that spot there. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

"Well, we've all got it," the other human man shrugged.

"Then why do we all have that pain?" Mr Gold asked. "In that dream, I felt it, but I woke up. I know I woke up."

The Doctor turned around to face him. "Do you?" he asked. "Have you woken up from a dream and discovered you're still dreaming? Dreams within dreams, dream states nested inside each other. All perfectly possible. Especially when dealing with creatures who have weaponized our dreams against us."

"I don't know about anybody else, but I'm pretty certain I'm awake right now," Bellows scoffed.

"Which is odd when you think about it."

"Odd?" Ashley gave him a look, not understanding how that was odd.

"Impossible, in fact. How can any of us be awake?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't understand," Shona frowned.

"Remember how we all first met? In the infirmary? All those creatures coming down from the ceiling, attacking us. We never stood a chance. How did we survive that?"

"Well, we were rescued," Shona remarked.

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded, "We were rescued. And who was it that rescued us?"

The answer hit them all at once. They were rescued by someone who indeed could NOT exist. Someone who could only be real in a dream.

Santa Claus.

Santa sat in the base's control room on his mobile, seeming quite frustrated with the person on the other end of the line. "No, no, no, I need you to do the east coast right now. Well, otherwise, you'll be delivering to the islands in broad daylight," he glanced over when the others entered the room, "Yeah, listen...please try and remember that our mugshots are on every Christmas card. Yeah, just get it done, head towards the northern lights. Yes, I remembered to switch them on!" he huffed, seeing that the others weren't going to leave him in privacy. So he got up and moved to an alcove to continue the conversation.

The Doctor's jaw clenched at the man dragging this out, crossing his arms, about to start tapping his foot in impatience, before heading to the shelf, pulling a handful of thick paperbacks and turning to the humans. "The Helman-Ziegler test," he began, "The only reliable dream test I know. Your base manual. I take it none of you has memorized this?"

"Oh, erm … I haven't," Shona said, raising her hand, "I haven't read it."

The Doctor nodded, beginning to pass them out just to Bellows, Shona, Ashley, and their last associate. "These books should be identical in the real world. But as they don't exist in your memory, in a dream, they can't be. Agreed?" He turned to Mr Gold. "Rumple, give me any two-digit number," the Doctor called.

"12," he answered.

"Alright, all of you, turn to page 12 and look at the first word," the Doctor instructed, waiting till they did so, "Right ... When I point at you…what is it?" he pointed at Ashley.

"Isotope," she read.

When he moved to Bellows, she hesitated, "Well?"

"Extremely," she answered, the other humans freezing with the realization of what that meant.

"Inside," their associate continued.

"Chocolate," Shona finished, before blinking, "Why did I get chocolate? What's that about?"

"This can't be right," their associate argued, "We must have got it wrong, that's all."

The Doctor didn't seem pleased to have to repeat this to prove a point, but he needed the others to believe it was a dream to wake from. "Well, we'll do it again. Belle?"

Belle blinked, a little startled, but threw out, "57."

"Page 57," the Doctor turned to the other humans, "First word. Go."

"We," Ashley started off in the same order as before.

"Are."

"All."

But Shona hesitated.

"Shona?" the Doctor asked the woman gently, seeing her looking hesitant but very scared.

"Dead," Shona swallowed.

Ashley breathed. "Since the attack in the infirmary, nothing has been real?"

The Doctor shook his head, grim, "The attack is still going on. This is it!"

"We've been dreaming since then?" the other man frowned.

"Oh, for Easter's sake!" Santa huffed, ending his call and returning with Ian and Wolf, "Of course, you've been dreaming! Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Rudolph," Ian remarked, "Did you see the nose?"

"The North Pole?" Wolf added with a scoff, "Come on, with stripes?!"

"This..."

"Is..."

"…a dream!" both elves and Santa shouted.

Though Santa added with a sigh, "How much more obvious do you want me to make it? Because I can text the Easter Bunny, you know," the man looked at the Doctor.

"Seriously?" the Doctor asked. "You're trying to help?"

"As you stand here, chatting, chatting, your lives are ending," Santa stated. "Unless you wake up - unless you free yourselves from these dreadful creatures - they're going to destroy you."

"You're a dream who's trying to save us?" Shona eyed him.

"Shona, sweetheart, I'm Santa Claus. I think you just defined me!"

"This makes perfect sense," the Doctor realized, latching onto that, needing to focus on that, on this way to wake up, this clue to reality. "The Dream Crab tries to make the dream as real as possible to trap you inside it. It creates dreams within dreams, so you can never be sure if you are really awake. But your brain knows something is wrong. Your subconscious fights back. THIS is your mind, trying to tell you this isn't real."

"And so it gives you me," Santa shrugged. "Sweet Papa Crimbo!"

"And comedy elves," Ian agreed.

"Flying reindeer…" Wolf added.

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded.

"A time travelling Scientist," Santa added, pointing to the Doctor. Then pointed to Mr Gold. "And a magician."

The Doctor turned around. "No, no, no. Hang on, no, no, no, no!"

"Living in a town where fictional characters are real," Ian added.

"That is very much real," Mr Gold stated.

"You see how none of this makes any sense," Santa said.

"Shut up, Santa," the Doctor told him.

Santa looked at the group before him. "I've watched over you all your lives," he spoke. "I've taken care of you from Christmas to Christmas."

"But you're not real!" Bellows shouted.

"And yet, that never stopped me. All of you, come near. Come here, come on! Join hands."

"No," the Doctor drew the line there, "Look, we don't need all this touchy-feely stuff…."

Santa glared at him. "Shut up, Doctor. Join hands, come on, concentrate."

"Why?" Bellows asked as they all moved, noticing that the Doctor made sure to take hands with Mr Gold and Belle.

"You are deep inside this dream, alright, and it is a shared mental state, so it's drawing power from the multi-consciousness gestalt which has now formed telepathically..."

"No, no. No, no, no," the Doctor interrupted. "Line in the sand. Santa Claus does not do the scientific explanation."

"All right, as the Doctor might say, 'Oh, it's all a bit dreamy-weamy'."

The Doctor dropped hands with Belle and Mr Gold and approached Santa. "why don't you just go and make a naughty list?"

"I have, mate, and you're on it."

"Don't give me that look. You're supposed to be warm and friendly and cheerful."

"Oh, yeah, look at your great bedside manner."

"Don't be so hostile."

Mr Gold turned to look at them. "Doctor, behave."

"This is very sweet," Ashley took a breath, "but right now I have an alien life form wrapped around my face, and apparently it's digesting my brain," she eyed Santa, needing to ask, needing to be sure because it wasn't just her life on the line but her crew, "When you speak, how do I know it's not the Dream Crab?"

"Ooh, good question," Santa smiled, "Spoken like a scientist!"

"Why would the part of our brain that is trying to keep all of us alive choose you for a face?" Mr Gold asked Santa.

"Is anyone else asking that?" Santa looked around.

"Yeah, yeah," Shona nodded, "Yeah. All of us. All of us. Why you?"

"Well..." he shrugged, moving over to the elves. "... Look where you are all at. The North Pole. All dreaming that it's Christmas when you know deep down it isn't. You all need just a tiny, little bit of hope. That's why you've chosen this dream. Pretending it's just one last Christmas as if your lives depended on it. Please! Ho-ho-ho! Believe in Santa!"

The small group took a breath and closed their eyes, expecting Santa to give them instructions on how to beat this…only for him to say nothing.

"Ok?" Ashley called, "So what do we..." she opened her eyes to ask…but… "They're gone!"

The others opened their eyes too, and Santa and his elves had vanished.

"Where did he go?" Bellows gasped.

But it was Belle that realized, having seen the same thing happen. "We're waking up!" she nearly cheered.

"That part of the dream is over," the Doctor agreed. "We're on our own now."

"Well, then…" the male scientist looked around at the empty room, fearing Santa might just jump out from behind the door, "What do we do?"

"That pain in your head," the Doctor spoke. "Make it worse. Head towards it."

"So when we wake up, what do we expect?" Ashley asked.

"Only a few moments will have passed at the most. The attack is still in progress."

Shona couldn't help but fidget at that. "I'm scared."

"Congratulations. That means you're not an idiot."

"Good luck," Ashley said to her crew and the others, "Stay calm. And God bless us, everyone."

The light above them began to shine brightly, encompassing all of them in a blinding glow.