It was Christmas Eve. The tree was sparkly and tinsely like Mum liked. The presents were wrapped and everyone was smiling. Outside it was just getting dark and it had been snowing all day. London looked just like a idyllic Christmas card. Dad had made his gross, healthy-drink eggnog and they were pretending they liked it. It tasted of seaweed, rose hips and of course, egg...

Mickey would be up in a bit and her mum would complain of him hanging around like it always was. Rose felt quite at ease, the only worry on her mind was perhaps Mickey wouldn't like the scarf she'd bought him half as much as she'd originally thought. As always, there was a loneliness at the edge of her mind; she couldn't help but remember the first Christmas she'd spent with the Doctor. Aliens, world in peril, and the first time he'd agreed to a proper sit-down with her mum. Pete looked over at her, concerned at the look of yearning on her face, "What's the matter, Rose?"

She sighed in spite of herself, "Just miss the Doctor a bit is all..."

"Who?" Jackie asked lightly, obviously busy tuning in a Christmas special on TV.

"The Doctor."

Pete looked back at her, "What doctor?"

This was wrong. "The Doctor. Skinny bloke, big hair, teeth, blue box that travels through space and time?"

"What are you talking about?" Her mum frowned, "Has the nog gone to your head?"

"Can't have," chuckled Pete, "it's not that strong..."

"You must be joking!" Exclaimed Rose, getting up, "You don't know the Doctor? Mum, you hated him! And he's the whole reason we've got Dad!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, sweetheart."

"Something is really wrong here..." said, Rose, reeling. That was when she realized something didn't make sense; "Dad, you shouldn't be here."

"What?" Pete was no longer chuckling.

"Dad, you were dead before the Doctor. You never lived in the flat with us."

"Tha's just not funny," The tone of Jackie's voice told her daughter that she'd had quite enough.

"I know!" Rose exclaimed, "I don't think it's funny either, but none of this makes any sorta sense! We never had a Christmas with Dad in the flat, always at his house. And where's Egan?!"

"You're talking like a crazy person," said Pete, obviously beyond fed-up, "Who is Egan?"

Their daughter was close to tears. "My baby brother!"

She had to leave. Something was terribly wrong. She needed to find the Doctor, he'd know what was happening. Without saying anything, Rose left. As soon as her foot fell beyond the door frame, everything was gone.

Once again, the Doctor found himself in a place he only remembered vaguely. It was as though he'd been there before, but was not meant to know. There were fairly dank, victorian-looking houses on a hill with a graveyard, one was squat, the the other tall and thin, both their sets of windows staring down at him. "Lovely. You think we might be able to have a cuppa?" he asked his pocket.

"Urkle."

"Houses of secrets and mysteries? Sounds like our cuppa tea alright."

The tiny gargoyle voiced it's opinion on that subject as he made his way up the path toward one of the houses. "If you feel that strongly," said the Doctor, tapping politely on the door, "might want to stay out here. Can't be all that bad."

A pudgey, short little man with a sheepish look on his face came to the door. "Cuh-can I, uh, heh-help you?"

"Hullo!" exclaimed the Doctor cheerfully, "I'm the Doctor! My associate," he motioned to the gargoyle in his pocket, "and I were wondering if we might come in and ask some questions?"

A little, bashful, grin played across the man's face. "The Duh-Doctor? Cuh-come in, uh, guh-good Duh-Doctor." He opened the door a bit wider to let the Doctor inside. "Muh-my bruh-brother will, uh, be by shortly fuh-for, uh, tuh-tea."

The Doctor nodded his approval, "Tha's lovely; tea with family," he looked around the parlour where the tea had been set. The inside of the house was just as antique and creepy as the outside. Odd pictures of odd people hung on the walls, stuffed creatures that had never existed haunted every corner. "We won't keep you long then..."

The gargoyle climbed out of the Doctor's pocket and fluttered to the short man's shoulder. "Urkle!" It chirped.

"Oh, he's yours then, Mr., uh...?"

The little man nodded, "Abel," he said, "Juh-just, uh, Abel."

The Doctor nodded as well, testing the name out, "Abel... That's familiar..." There was a knocking at the door. "Hullo, that must be your brother now." Abel hesitated, so the Doctor moved toward the door helpfully, "get it, shall I?"

The man who'd been knocking was tall, wild and angry-looking. Instead of politely waiting to be invited in, he looked over the Doctor's head and demanded, "Who is this?"

His rudeness went as unnoticed as water on a duck's back, "Hullo," the Doctor held out his hand to be shook, "I'm the Doctor, good to meet you."

The tall man came in without response. The Doctor felt there might be something disagreeable about this man, but he believed in giving people the benefit of a doubt. "Thu-This is muh-my, uh, brother, Cuh-Cain."

"The Doctor..." sneered Cain, sitting down to tea, "What is he doing here? What have you gotten yourself into now?"

"He, uh, wuh-wants to ah-ask some queh-questions," said Abel, nervously pouring out.

"And what exactly have you told him?" Cain motioned flippantly to the Doctor, who was now finding his own seat.

"Nuh-Nothing, brother," Abel was trying his hardest not to shake while serving the tea, but spilled a little, despite his effort. The hairs on the back of the Doctor's neck rose slightly at the murderous look in Cain's blood-red eyes.

Rose was becoming more and more unnerved. This was not the London she knew; first of all, there were no people on the streets. Everything was completely quiet, no birds sang, no cars motored by, it was as though she was alone in the world. She'd left the flat, but there seemed to be no hope of finding it again; she'd lost Powell Estate completely. Street signs made absolutely no sense. Rose would stop and read them, but they didn't seem to be in English, or the writing would move and change the second she glanced away. Frankly, it was giving her a bit of a headache, so she wandered, looking for anything that presented itself as familiar.

Suddenly, things became all too familiar. Rose walked right by the church where she and the Doctor had sheltered what seemed like forever ago. The place gave her a shiver, but she kept walking, thankful for some sort of familiarity. It wasn't long after that she stumbled upon the TARDIS.

There it stood, just like she'd remembered it, as out of place as ever. She ran up to it and wanted to throw her arms around it. Instead, she threw open the doors, hoping more than anything that the Doctor would be waiting inside. But it was empty. Not just empty, but as hollow as a plain old police box.

Dark clouds loomed over head, a thunderclap sounded, announcing the downpour just before it arrived. Rose stood for a moment in the driving rain, shocked. She was soaked in the matter of a moment and seeing no other options, stepped inside the police box. She felt betrayed. For a moment, the box had been a life raft in the midst of a stormy sea. Now Rose just felt as though she was drowning. It was impossible to tell if there was something wrong with the world around her, or if the matter was with, frighteningly, her mind. She was lost in the city where she'd spent her whole life and it felt as though locations, street signs, even what was happening around her was slipping through her fingers. It felt like she was losing her mind.

Suddenly, it felt as though her head might explode. Intense pain manifested behind her right eye and spread until she was clutching at herself, unable to do anything but crumple to the floor of the box, wrything in agony.

White. White lights. Everything, white. And her mum's face, no make-up. She was worried, looking down, tears in her eyes. The pain was incredible, enough to blur her vision, or her mind, there was no way to think about which. "Rose?" said her mother, fear in her voice, "Rose, sweetheart? Can you hear me?"

The lights were moving overhead, quickly. A strange, male voice spoke, "She seems to be in a lot of pain, Mrs. Tyler, we're going to administer another sedative..."

Her mother nodded and turned her attention back to her daughter, "Rose, you'll be just fine, they're fixing you up right now. Just hold on, hold on for me, Rose..."

"Rose?" Someone shook her as the pain began to fade, "Rose, you all right?"

She looked up, forcing herself to focus, despite her fear. Big, pointed nose, big ears, close-cropped hair... the smell of an old leather jacket. Rose knew who he was, but it didn't make sense. Crouching over her was the Doctor, but not the Doctor as he had been when she'd last seen him, the Doctor as he'd been before. The first Doctor she'd met. "Doctor?"

He nodded with satisfaction, "'Bout time you come 'round. Very nearly had me worried."

She let him help her up, still reeling from what must have been the worst migraine of her life. "What are you doing here? I thought I'd never see you again..."

"Never see me again?" The Doctor nodded to the empty police box, "You didn't happen to hit your head?"

"I dunno. Feel like my head's all over the place. Like I'm losing my marbles. 'S painful..."

The Doctor looked into her eyes, scrutinizing, evaluating, "They all seem to be there t' me," he ruffled her hair and grinned. "Nothing that can't be taken care of by a little adventure. Doctor's orders."

"Is it really you?" she asked, not sure if she should believe her good fortune.

Without another word, she hugged him tight. Reunited with the Doctor even under these frightening circumstances, Rose couldn't help but feel better, like things were suddenly under control. Though they still made very little sense. She nodded and he smiled the old smile, "Fantastic. Off we go then, off to find the real TARDIS." The rain, which had lightened gradually soon stopped completely. It was amazing how quickly the sky cleared up.

"So," she said, "where do you think we start looking?"

He shrugged, "Who knows? Anyway, old girl's around here somewhere; I can feel it. Can't you?" And Rose realized, she could. She'd felt it since the flat, maybe even before. The energy, the life of the TARDIS, was calling out to her.

The Doctor held out his hand and she took it. Just as though they were out for a mid-day stroll, they went in search of adventure itself.

The sight of Abel's fallen body was horrifying. The Doctor had been able to do nothing but watch as Cain had murdered his brother in cold blood. Now he was sitting at the table, calmly getting himself a biscuit as though nothing had happened. "Need not worry about him," said Cain, "your tea's going to cool."

The Doctor was kneeling over the dead brother, mouth still agape in shock. There was very little blood and Abel didn't even seem surprised about the whole thing. Feeling his temper raise dangerously, the Doctor looked up at Cain, "How... how could...?!" The words wouldn't even come. What sort of monster had been invited for family tea?

Cain sighed, "Get a hold of yourself."

"Get a hold of myself? Get a hold of myself?! You just..."

"Murdered my own brother? Yes I did, because he is Abel, I am Cain. Some days I question how far we are from truly being solely form and function..." he motioned off-handedly to the body of his brother, "Give him a few moments and he'll start to come around again, as he always does..."

Sure enough, signs of life began to show themselves in Abel. He moaned a little bit, shifted a little bit. The Doctor stared at this miraculous recovery, utterly amazed. "I've seen regeneration," he said, "but I've never seen anything like this; he was really dead!"

Cain nodded slightly impatiently, "Yes, I know. One lump or two?"

"But...?"

The murderous brother was not the most patient biblical figure. "Let me spell it out for you; I am the father of all murderers, he is the father of all victims. We are what we do, it's a fairly simple, insanely complex situation. Now, I'm under the impression that you are looking for information, otherwise there would be no reason for you to be here, aside from perhaps returning my clumsy brother's lost pet...?"

The Doctor's eyes fell across the recovering Abel. Goldy stood beside, watching over him. He was not dead and the Doctor was coming under the impression that it probably wasn't possible for him to die perminantly, but it still struck a nerve that he was in the presence of an aspect of the very nature of humans that he could not stand. Killing was never ok, even if it wasn't at all for forever, but Rose was slipping away moment by moment.

"Thank you for bringing Goldy home, by the way," Abel was recovering more quickly than the Doctor had expected; he could speak, though the sound of it was unpleasant, and was trying to pull himself up, using the nearby chair. The Doctor helped him into it, where he just sat, like a dead thing. "It's okay," said Abel, smiling weakly, "blood, as you might have noticed, is a bit thicker than water."

The Doctor took a moment to calm himself before speaking again. "I'm looking for my friend, Rose. Have you seen her?"

Cain shook his head, "No. The only thing that I should tell you is to seek out the Dream King. Take the matter up with him."

"He lives," said Abel with a voice that sounded like sawdust and dankness, "in the great castle in the center of the Dreaming. He's expecting you."

Despite the fact that this odd family made his skin crawl, the Doctor thanked Abel warmly for his hospitality and managed to hold his tongue when it came to his older brother. Without a word to Cain, the Doctor began to make his leave. "Before you go," said Cain, not even bothering to stand, "just between us murderers: no man can truly escape the sins of his past."