A/N: This is when the story really starts to diverge.

Prologue I

-~- Merry Christmas, Ponds -~-

As the children unwrapped their presents, and Reg held her tightly in his arms, Madge Arwell could have sworn she saw the Caretaker lurking in the doorway. She frowned as he disappeared into the gloom, and resolved in that instant to follow him and thank him for everything he'd done for their family.

Reg was supposed to be dead, after all. It had only been sheer luck that she'd been able to save him and the rest of the bomber crew as they were going down over the Channel. She shuddered to think what would have happened to her and the children without him, and even though the Caretaker had nearly doomed them all in that alien forest her husband owed him his life and her family owed him their happiness.

She would not forget that in a hurry.

Making her excuses to Reg and the children, she hurried after the Caretaker. That tall, funny man, who always wore a tweed jacket and bowtie, had never told her his name, and truth be told she'd never really bothered to ask.

She'd been too caught up in her grief over Reg and her desire to let the children enjoy one more Christmas, and then too elated at his safe return, to get around to it. Mounting the stairs, she quickly reached the door leading to the Caretaker's small annex in the attic. Gingerly, she knocked on the wood. When she heard no reply, she pushed it open and poked her head in.

The room was dark, lit only by moonlight.

In the gloom, Madge made out something made her heart stop. A tall, blue box with lit windows and a light on top. She recognised it as a police box immediately, and suddenly she knew who the Caretaker was. She walked towards it, taken in by the wonder of the sight.

The police box's door creaked open, and the Caretaker stepped out. He came to a stop when he realised she was there.

"Ah," he said, a little awkwardly.

Madge grinned, lifting her finger to point at the man. "Of course! It's you, isn't it? My spaceman angel with his head on backwards!"

"How do I look the right way 'round?" he said with a grin, doing a ridiculous little turn.

"Funnier," she quipped, taking in his ridiculous outfit.

"Okay," he responded, sounding a little deflated.

"You came back," Madge continued, a smile brightening her face.

The Caretaker smiled broadly as he approached, his walk more of a long-legged lope. "You helped me out when I had a bad day. I always like to return a favour. Got a bit clinchy in the middle there, but it sort of worked out in the end. Story of my life."

Madge sighed, and threw her arms open. "Thank you!"

The Doctor folded her in a hug, but said "Oh, you did it all yourself, Madge Arwell. But thanks for thanking me."

Releasing each other from their hug, they took a moment just to smile at each other, to take in the joy of what had happened over the last few days. The Caretaker, his eyes impossibly old, seemed to have new life breathed into him by the few moments they shared together.

Suddenly, Madge remembered something. "Now the last time I saw you, I went back the next day and the police box had gone."

"Yeah!" the Caretaker said gleefully, spinning towards his box. "Would you like to see how it's done?"

"No!" Madge cried warningly. "I'd like you to stay for Christmas, please."

The Caretaker seemed genuinely shocked by that offer, and his stumbling answer betrayed the fact that he didn't quite know how to respond. Pointing his thumb towards his box, he managed lamely: "Things to do, people to see!"

"Of course, yes. Family of your own." Madge nodded indulgently.

"Well…" the Caretaker came up short. "No, actually."

"Oh," Madge said, sympathy in her tone. "Yes, you said 'no family'. There must have people who love you. Friends?"

The Caretaker folded his hands together uncomfortably. "No. Well, yes, but… it's a long story. They all think I'm dead."

Madge was taken aback by that, but the Caretaker didn't seem to notice.

"Never mind, anyway," he said, and once again turned back towards his police box. "Watch my box do its thing, you'll love it!"

"No, no!" she repeated, reaching for him. "No one should be alone on Christmas!"

"No, really," the Caretaker protested, "I really don't mind…"

"I'm not talking about you!" Madge said, affecting her best mothering tone and speaking over the Caretaker's muttered protestations. "I'm talking about your friends! No one should think you're dead, not at Christmas. You must go and tell them. At once."

Her tone brooked no argument.

"Off you go," she said quietly, gesturing towards the police box.

The Caretaker crossed his arms and said sulkily "Yes, mum." Madge offered and encouraging smile, and he ducked forward to plant a kiss on her cheek. Stepping back to his box, he said "Now, eyes on the box."

"Oh, Caretaker!" Madge called, just before he was about to open the door. "What if I require you again?"

"Make a wish," he said with a little smile, and he disappeared inside.

Madge, determined to do as he'd said, kept her eyes on the box and was shocked to see it suddenly take on a brilliant light. With a roar and rushing of wind, it began to fade in and out of existence. She stepped back, awed, and heard the door open as Reg stepped in beside her to watch the box finally vanish.

"What the hell was that?" Reg asked, plainly astonished.

"Oh, it's just the Caretaker returning to the Time Vortex," Madge assured him as though it were nothing. "I've been there myself. It's a lovely place. Shall we go back downstairs?"

For the Doctor, the choice of destination after leaving Madge, Reg and the children was simple. He set the TARDIS coordinates for a street in outer-borough London, a street had hadn't set foot on since he'd said goodbye to Amy and Rory. Sighing, he flung down a lever on the console and felt the TARDIS shake around him as it set course through the Vortex.

A few moments later, he stepped out onto the bitter, frozen street.

It was the middle of the night, and the road was much more crowded than it had been the last time he was here. Some of the houses featured darkened windows, but many were festooned with Christmas lights and tinsel, and in more than a few he saw decorated trees. Snow was falling lightly and had dusted the road and the bare limbs of the trees that hung over the community green.

Nowhere did Christmas quite the way Britain did.

The TARDIS had landed in the village green, not far from the swings and just across the road from the house with the blue door he'd presented to Amy and Rory. He took a deep breath, trying to decide what to do next.

He'd left them behind after their battle with the minotaur because it had seemed the best thing to do. They had watched him die at Lake Silencio, and even after he'd figured out how to fake his own death, how to switch positions with a robotic spaceship bearing his likeness, he'd decided to let them get on with their own lives. He'd sworn River to secrecy, made her promise not to tell them he was still alive. That, too, had been done to keep them safe.

If the Silence were to learn that he hadn't died at Lake Silencio after all, if the question Dorium had warned him about were ever asked, they'd come after his friends first. That, after all, was the easiest way to find him: endanger his friends, and he'd come running, much like he had at Demon's Run.

Madge had been right; Amy and Rory didn't deserve to believe that he'd been killed, and he didn't deserve to spend Christmas alone. By the same token, however, they deserved to be kept safe.

He walked towards their house slowly, his hearts beating way too fast. He wanted so badly to knock on their door, to be welcomed into their home and back into their lives. The Christmases he'd spent with his friends, whether with Rose, Mickey and Jackie in 2006 or with Jackson, Rosita and Frederick in the 1870s or with Amy and Rory on Sardick's World not so long ago, where among the most memorable he'd ever had.

River had sworn up and down that she would never tell her parents that he was still alive for as long as he needed to keep that fact quiet.

Maybe tonight he'd finally be able to tell them. Maybe tonight he would be able to stop travelling alone. He reached their blue front door, decorated with a wreath, and stood with his right hand poised to knock.

"No," he said to himself. "No."

He turned away from their door and started to walk back to the TARDIS. He heard a peal of laughter, tinged with a Scottish brogue, and turned back. His hearts stopped and his breath left him.

Framed in the window of their lounge room, he could see Amy and Rory. They were both wearing ridiculous sweaters and they were holding each other, dancing to music he could only faintly hear. They shared a kiss, and they looked so happy together, so content. He swallowed painfully. How could he jeopardise that? How could he put that in danger? How could he risk their lives and their happiness again?

As he stood in the park, with snow falling gently around him, he felt a tear leak from the corner of his eye. He reached up to brush it away, and stared at his fingers for a moment.

"Humany-wumany," he said to himself, and he missed them more than ever. "Merry Christmas, Ponds."

In her living room, Amy Pond paused. "Turn the music down, Rory."

Rory, closer to the stereo than she was, did as she asked. "What's wrong? Don't tell me you don't like the Ronettes."

Amy held up a finger to silence her, and she frowned as though straining to hear something. "Can you hear that?"

Rory lifted an eyebrow. "Hear what?"

She closed her eyes for a second, and turned her head towards the living room window. Opening her eyes again, she said "I could have sworn I could have heard something out there."

Following her gaze, Rory saw nothing but the empty, deserted park and a few falling snowflakes.

"There's nothing out there, Amy," he said, concerned. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Always the nurse," she said lightly, teasing him. "I guess it was nothing, I just thought I heard the TARDIS is all."

Rory's concern collapsed into compassion. He stepped over and scooped his wife into a hug. Pulling her tight against him, he brushed her beautiful red hair aside. "Oh, Amy."

Despite her best efforts, tears began to fall unrestrained from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Rory, I know he's gone. I know he is. But every now and then I could swear I hear the TARDIS, or I see someone wearing a ridiculous bowtie and I think that maybe it's him. Maybe he didn't die after all."

"Amy…" Rory said, but she cut him off before he could go on.

"I know, Rory. I know he's gone."

Rory turned the music back up, and enfolded his wife in another bear hug. He let her cry in his arms beneath the glittering lights of the Christmas tree.