Magician

They found him alone in the control room in the middle of a call, which, even in this possible dream, Adelaide refused to let the Doctor interrupt.

Instead, she wanted to prove to the humans that they were all in fact dreaming. "The Helman-Ziegler test. Quite a reliable dream test."

The Doctor nodded, holding up four books. "Your base manual. I take it none of you have memorized this."

Shona laughed. "Oh, I haven't...I haven't read it."

"The books should be identical in the real world but, if they don't exist in your memory, they can't be identical in a dream. Understand?" they all nodded. "Clara, a two digit number, please."

"Fifty-seven."

The Doctor handed out copies of the book. "Now, everyone turn to page fifty-seven and look at the first word. Read it out as the Doctor points to you." Adelaide nodded at him, and he pointed to Ashley.

"Isotope."

He moved to Bellows. "Well?"

"Extremely."

Albert. "Inside."

Shona. "Chocolate." She frowned. "Why did I get chocolate? What's that about?"

Albert shook his head. "This can't be right. We must have got it wrong, that's all."

"Then we'll do it again. Always repeat experiments to attempt to eliminate error. Clara?"

"Twenty-four."

The Doctor nodded. "Twenty-four." He pointed at them all in the same order.

"We."

"Are."

"All."

"Shona?" the Doctor asked when the woman didn't immediately answer.

"Dead."

They fell silent. "Since the attack in the infirmary, nothing has been real?" Ashley asked.

"The attack is still going on. This is it!"

"We've been dreaming since then?"

"Oh, for Easter's sake!" Santa called, hurrying over. "Of course you've been dreaming. Adelaide, I'm ashamed. Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Rudolph," an elf said. "Did you see the nose?"

"The North Pole? Come on, with stripes?"

"This."

"Is."

"A dream!" the three finished in unison.

"How much more obvious do you want me to make it? Because I can text the Easter Bunny, you know."

The Doctor frowned at him. "Seriously? You're trying to help?"

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

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

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

Adelaide nodded. "Of course...Dream Crabs attempt to make the dream as real as possible to trap you inside it, creating dreams within dreams so that you're never certain when you're awake, but brains are clever. Subconscious is clever. Subconscious fights back."

The Doctor gestured at Santa. "This is your mind trying to tell you this isn't real."

"So it gives you me. Sweet Papa Chrimbo."

"It gives you comedy elves, flying reindeer."

"Exactly."

"A time-traveling magician in love with a scientist."

The elf laughed. "Classic!"

"No," the Doctor tried, "no, no, hang on, no, no, no, no..."

"Living in a phone box..."

"It's a spaceship in disguise!"

"You see how none of this makes any sense?"

"Shut up, Santa," the Doctor snapped.

Santa calmed. "I have watched over you all your lives. I've taken care of you from Christmas to Christmas."

Bellows shook his head. "But you're not real."

"And yet that never stopped me." He gestured them closer. "All of you, come near. Come here, come on. Join hands."

The Doctor made a face. "Look, no, look...we don't need all this touchy-feely stuff."

"Shut up, Doctor. Join hands. Come on, concentrate."

The crew drew closer, Bellows hesitating. "Why?"

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

"No, no, no, no, no," the Doctor interrupted. "Line in the sand. Santa Claus does not do the scientific explanation, that's Adelaide's thing."

"Technically, that's both of our things," Adelaide shrugged.

"As the Doctor might say," Santa put on a Scottish accent. "Oh, it's all a bit dreamy-weamy."

That made the Doctor glare. "Why don't you just go and...and make a naughty list?"

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

"Don't give me that." The Doctor crossed his arms. "Look, you're supposed to be warm and friendly and cheerful."

"Oh, yeah," the accent was back. "Well, look at your great bedside manner."

"Don't be so hostile..."

"Doctor," Clara cut in, "behave."

"This is very sweet," Ashley continued, "but right now I have an alien life form wrapped around my face and apparently it's digesting my brain. When you speak, how do I know it's not the Dream Crab?"

"Ooo, good question," Santa nodded. "Spoken like a scientist. Watch out, Miss Bossy, otherwise Adelaide might replace you."

Clara just shook her head. "Can I put it another way? Why would the part of our brain that is trying to keep all of us alive choose you for a face?"

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

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

"Why me? It's the North Pole, it's Christmas Day. You're dying. Who you gonna call? Just one last time, huh? One last Christmas, as if your lives depended on it. Please! Ho, ho, ho. Believe in Santa."

The humans, after a moment, formed a circle, Adelaide and the Doctor joining in. "I'm not very good with this holdy-hand thing," the Doctor said.

"Tough."

"I will hold Clara and Adelaide's hand, but that's it."

"Pity that's not how we're standing, then," Clara said, Adelaide between her and the Time Lord. "Shona, take his hand."

"This is very Christmassy, isn't it?" the Doctor said, doing as Clara ordered only when Adelaide gave him a look.

"Okay, so what do we..." Ashley looked around, only to find that Santa and his elves had vanished.

"Where did he go?"

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

"Well, then. What do we do?"

"That pain in your head. Make it worse. Head towards it."

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

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

"I'm scared," Shona mumbled.

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

Clara glanced at him. "It's not like the last time."

"Last time wasn't real."

Ashley looked at them all. "Good luck. Stay calm. And God bless us, every one."

|C-S|

Everyone jumped awake as the Dream Crabs fell from their faces, the Sleepers clutching their heads and writhing from pain. They all coughed, but the Time Lords leaped up first. "Run!" one of the Sleepers grabbed Clara's arm. "Clara!"

"Doctor!"

He pulled her free. "Clara? Come on!"

"Out, out, now! Now!"

They rushed out of the room, closing the doors, though Bellows had to hit back a stray hand before they could close fully.

"Everyone alright?" the Doctor asked, sonicing the door closed, as the humans nodded. "Good. Bye." Without another word, he turned and, taking Adelaide's hand, walked down the corridor. Clara, after a moment, followed. "No need for chatting, you'll only get attached. This isn't Facebook."

They hurried back into the cold. "Er...what about the Dream Crabs?"

"Oh, they're fine."

"And the people that they're eating?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Beyond help."

"Doctor, the others are still in danger."

"Only if they're stupid." He shrugged. "There are polar bears on this ice cap. Am I supposed to do something about that, too?"

"No messing with ecosystems," Adelaide said.

Clara frowned. "We know Dream Crabs are still on Earth."

"There are lots of dangerous things on this funny little planet of yours, Clara, most of which you eat. We're the Doctor and Adelaide, not your mam." They reached the TARDIS.

"Adelaide, Doctor? If Santa was only in the dream, why was he on my roof?"

The Time Lords paused, their minds finally fully understanding the situation. "Four," Adelaide breathed. "Four patients, four manuals."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Hurry!" they ran back towards the base. "Do you know what I hate about the obvious?"

"What?"

"Missing it." They ran through the halls back to the control room, finding the crew again. "As you were. No saluting. Are you the same people as before?"

"Of course they are."

"Oh, sorry," he waved a hand, "I deleted you."

"Well," Shona crossed her arms, "that's not a very nice attitude, is it?"

"Four manuals," Adelaide said, taking the manuals.

"Yes, why?" Ashley asked.

"One each."

"One each, yes. What's the problem?"

"Well, the problem is...you can't see the problem. For instance, you, gobby one," the Doctor pointed at Shona, Adelaide throwing her a manual.

"I have a name, actually."

He waved a hand again. "Doesn't matter, I don't need it. When we first met you in the infirmary, what were you doing?"

"It's a long story."

"Uptight boss one," to Ashley. "What is the primary mission of this polar base?"

"It's a long story."

"Idea one." Bellows. "What brings you to the North Pole at your age?"

"It's a long...story."

Clara stepped back. "Okay, why are they all giving the same answer, because that is a tiny bit freaky."

"If you think that's freaky, try this." He turned to Clara. "We were in the TARDIS. Why did we come here?"

"It's a long story." A pause, Clara's eyes widening. "Why..."

"Dreams, they're funny. Ha, ha, ha. They're disjointed They're...they're silly. They're full of gaps. But you don't notice because the dream protects itself. Stops you asking the right questions. For example, why do you have four manuals, one each, when you have a crew of eight?" he nodded at the screens. "Or did you forget about your friends in the infirmary here?"

"But we woke up."

"Dreams within dreams, I warned you."

Bellows shook her head. "This isn't a dream. I know it isn't."

"No one knows they're not dreaming. Not one of us. Not ever. Not for one single moment of our lives."

"Clara?" Adelaide looked to the human. "Page number, please."

"Twelve."

The crew opened their manuals, reading in the same order.

"Very."

"Very."

"Very."

"Dead."

The Doctor nodded. "And who's going to be the first to admit it?"

"Admit what?"

"That the pain" Adelaide tapped her temple "is still there."

Shona frowned. "Actually, I think it's getting worse."

"There is an alien organism eating your brain. Of course it's getting worse."

"What are they doing?" Clara called, pointing at the screen to let them see that the Sleepers had sat up.

"Factually, getting up," the Doctor said. "Significantly, sensing the endgame."

"How?"

"I don't understand."

"Look at them," Adelaide prompted. "Notice everything. Look at who they are...they're you."

The crew moved forward, all finally recognizing themselves in the respective Sleepers. "How can they be us?" Shona breathed.

"Because we're dreaming, all of us." The Doctor nodded. "This base isn't real. None of us are actually standing in the room. Adelaide and I are probably asleep in the TARDIS. Clara, you must be in bed. God knows where the rest of you are, probably scattered all over the world. But wherever you are, the Dream Crabs have got us, and we're all being networked into the same nightmare."

"What are they doing?" Bellows asked, watching as the Sleepers started to move towards the camera.

"It's your subconscious again. The Sleepers represent the part of your mind that's already surrendered to the attack. These are dream images of what's coming to kill you."

Albert leaned closer to the screen. "That's me? That's actually me?"

"No, it's a metaphorical construct representing a psychic attack within a shared dreamscape. Do please keep up."

Adelaide glanced at him. "See? Both of us do the scientific explanations."

"But it's me..." Albert leaned closer.

"Don't get too close," the Doctor warned as the Sleeper version of Albert put a hand up to the camera.

"Why?"

"Because this is a nightmare." As the Doctor spoke, the Sleeper had grabbed Albert through the screen, pulling him into the monitor with a scream. Clara rushed to try and grab him, but the Doctor grabbed her back. "No! Clara!" Ashley and Bellows started to do the same. "Look out, they're coming through. Out! Outside, now! Run, run, run, run! Run! Clara, run. Run, all of you, run. Run!"

The Sleepers came through the screen as the others ran, the Doctor trying to use a fire extinguisher to slow them down but failing, running when Adelaide grabbed his hand and pulled.

They burst outside together, Adelaide spinning to lock the doors behind them.

"We'll freeze to death out here," Bellows said, starting to shiver despite the fact that all the humans had somehow acquired coats.

"But it...it's just a dream."

"This dream just killed your friend," the Doctor told her. "Start taking it seriously."

"Where's Albert? Where's the professor?"

"He probably just woke up somewhere in the real world, dead. If we don't wake up now, we'll do the same."

Clara shook her head. "But how?"

The Doctor looked at Adelaide. "I don't know." The Sleepers started to hammer on the door, actually making indents in the metal. "The TARDIS! Come on! Come on!" he started to run towards it.

"Doctor, that's not the real TARDIS," Adelaide reminded him.

"Well, let's hope that we dreamed it really well, then."

But before he got close, the TARDIS doors opened and three more Sleepers – the Doctor, Adelaide, and Clara – emerged.

"It's us."

The Doctor nodded. "Of course it's us. We're dreaming too."

Shona looked around, gasping as the number of Sleepers started multiplying. "Oh my God..."

"How is that possible? How can there be so many?"

"The logic of a nightmare," Adelaide said.

"So tell us how to wake up," Shona snapped at the Time Lords. "Because you're always talking like you're so clever, going on and on. So tell us what to do!"

"We have to leave this place."

"Leave it?"

"How?"

He shrugged. "Use your imagination."

"Excuse me?"

"Dream yourselves home."

"But how?"

The Doctor grinned. "Come on, it's Christmas, the North Pole. Who you gonna call?"

Something jingled above them, making them all look up as Santa, complete with sleigh and reindeer, flew down towards them, landing. "Whoa! Whoa! Get in the sleigh." They all hurried to climb in, the Doctor getting next to Santa, Adelaide and Clara behind him, and the rest of the crew in the back. "Fortunately, I know all your home addresses. Yah!" the reindeer pulled the sleigh into the sky.

"So what happens now?" Clara asked the Time Lords, shouting slightly to be heard over the wind. "This is us just waking up, right?"

"Possibly. Either waking up or..." but Adelaide cut herself off.

"Or?"

The Doctor glanced back at them. "Just focus on this. Do you believe in Santa Claus?"

Clara smiled. "I've always believed in Santa Claus. But he looks a little different to me." She put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder, pointing below them as they flew over the Thames. "Look!"

"Hey," Santa said, looking over to the Doctor. "You want to take the reins, Doctor?"

"You're a dream construct currently representing either my recovering or expiring mind."

Santa held out the reins. "Yeah, but do you want a go?"

The Doctor grinned. "Yeah, alright." He took them just as they passed Saint Pauls, nearly missing the nearby rooftops in the process. "Sorry, sorry, sorry!"

"Easy!" Santa guided him. "This way...up a bit, lift up. There we go."

"Look at me," he cheered. "Look. Look at me!" the humans in the back cheered, Adelaide laughing. "Look at me! I'm riding a sleigh. I'm riding a sleigh! Yippee ai-yay!" he actually stood in his excitement only for Santa to pull him down by his pant leg. "Oh. Maybe you could..."

"Yeah, yeah," Santa agreed, taking the reins back. "Want a go, Adelaide?"

"Even in a dream, flying Earth reindeer..." Adelaide shook her head, making the Doctor laugh.

"I work in a shop," Shona said suddenly, making them all turn to her.

"I'm sorry?" Ashley asked.

"I thought I was a scientist. That's rubbish."

"Finally," Bellows nodded, "something that makes sense."

"You're horrible, you."

"Perfume," Ashley mumbled.

"What?"

"I'm an account manager for perfume. Does this mean we're waking up?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Possibly. With any luck, we'll all wake up in our proper times and places."

Clara frowned. "Proper times?"

"Well, we could all be from different time zones. Time travel is always possible in dreams."

Shona shook her head. "We might not know each other? Not any of us?"

"No, possibly not."

"Well, you know what we should do?" Shona said. "We should swap numbers. We should have a reunion."

But when Ashley looked to the side, Bellows had vanished. "Bellows!"

Shona focused. "Er...now I'm pretty sure I can remember my number so, if you memorize it, then you text me, we can go for a curry and..."

"The chances of you remembering any of this are very slim," the Doctor interrupted.

"Well, don't say that. "We'll remember, won't we, Ashley?" but when she looked to the side, the woman was gone. "Ashley?" her eyes widened. "Am I next? Is it me now?"

"Shona, you're going home. You're surviving," Clara reminded her.

"Do you want to hang out sometime? We can just hang out."

Clara nodded. "Sure."

"Santa? Can I stay a bit longer?" but then she vanished too.

Clara sighed. "It's a pity we have to wake up, really. It's not really something we do every day, is it?"

Santa laughed. "No, no, strictly once a year."

"We stay, we die, Clara," the Doctor reminded her.

"You're always such a downer, Doctor."

But both Time Lords vanished a second later.

|C-S|

They woke on a volcanic ledge, the ice cream pain more noticeable now than ever. "Clara!" they ran back to the TARDIS, tracking the Dream Carb psychic signal to, indeed, Clara's home. Adelaide found a specimen jar in her arms just as they reached Clara's bedroom, finding her with a Dream Crab still attached.

"Oh, Clara," the Doctor breathed, pulling out his sonic. "I might have known that you would be the one to sleep in. Okay, we tracked the psychic signal here. I'm pretty sure that I know how to do this now. One of the advantages of actually being awake. So, you just hold still. I've just got to zap the neural centers..." he soniced the edges of the Dream Crab. "Okay, there we go." He pulled it from Clara's face, dropping it into the specimen jar. Clara sat up, coughing, and turned to her light. "The Dream Crabs must have got to Adelaide and me first then found you in our memories. The others were collateral damage." The light came on. "Well, good to see you properly at last. How long has it been?"

The human turned to face them and the Time Lords stilled, seeing her wrinkled skin and grey hair. She'd aged. "Oh, you know, about sixty-two years." She smiled at them. "Doctor, Adelaide, I have missed you very much, you clever girl and foolish boy." She hugged the Doctor, still sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I've missed you, too."

Clara frowned at him. "Can you really see no difference in me?"

"Clara Oswald, you will never look any different to me." The Doctor smiled, leaving Adelaide to work with her sonic and the Dream Crab to attempt and think of a way to get them out of this dream...though by the way the Doctor looked, he didn't think it was a dream at all. "So, how was it then?"

"How was what?"

"The sixty-two years that we missed."

Clara nodded. "Oh, how was my life, you mean?"

"Is there a Mr. Clara?"

She sighed. "No. But there were plenty of proposals."

"They all turned you down, though?"

Clara lifted her chin. "I turned them down. I traveled. I taught in every country in Europe. I learned to fly a plane."

"Regrets?"

"Oh, hundreds." She sighed. "I just wish there were time for a few more."

"Yeah, they were always the best part." He looked around. "Christmas cracker...we should do one..." back to Clara. "No one ever matched up to Danny, eh?"

"There was one other man, but that would never have worked out." Clara shook her head.

"Why not?"

"He was incredibly taken."

The Doctor smiled slightly, taking Clara's hand. "We should do this every Christmas."

"Because every Christmas is last Christmas."

He looked down. "I'm sorry. I was stupid, I should have, we should have, come back earlier. I wish that we had..."

"Then it's a very good thing that this is a dream," Adelaide said, knowing it would take too long to try and do any of the ideas she'd come up with. "Neural shock..." she slapped Clara gently, but enough to shock the woman, before turning and kissing the Doctor soundly.

Thankfully, the two, as she was well aware, worked quite well to shock someone back to consciousness.

|C-S|

Back to the volcano, but this there was no ice cream pain. They hurried back to Clara's home, wasting no time in removing the Dream Crab, letting Clara jolt awake, coughing.

Immediately, the woman's hands went to her face. "Am I young?"

"Yes," Adelaide said, at the same time as the Doctor's, "no idea."

Clara grinned. "Oh, that's good."

The Doctor grinned too. "The TARDIS is outside..."

The human lifted her eyebrows. "So..."

"So, all of time and all of space is sitting out there. A big blue box. Please, don't even argue."

Clara paused for a moment before giving the Doctor her hand, her grin growing. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Clara Oswald." Without another word, the Doctor pulled Clara outside, Adelaide following...and turning off the lights as she went.

They paused outside of the TARDIS as Clara pulled on her boots and jacket. "Well, look at you, all happy." She looked the Doctor over. "That's rare."

"Do you know what's rarer? Second chances." He took Adelaide's hand. "I almost never get a second chance, so what happened this time?" he shook his head. "Don't even know who to thank."

They all stepped into the TARDIS together, off to see all that time and all that space the Doctor had mentioned.

A/N: Of course Adelaide realized the last scene was a dream :)

This story will be continued in the sequel, The Mighty Fall, which is now posted on my profile. Hope you enjoy ;)