**Notes: Ok, here's part 2, I hope you like how this turned out as much as I do. I used an idea that came from a reviewer on Teaspoon, so I can't take credit for using the Wolf reference, but I loved it. Anyway, enjoy and the last bits of this story arc are in the process of being edited and finished up right now. **

Chapter Twenty-Three – Last Christmas: Part 2

Alex and Evander were examining the thing in the jar as Ashley leaned on the table across from them. Rose found the things needed to make tea and was passing the blessedly warm mugs around to everyone. When she reached between the two Doctors to hand them their tea, both turned to kiss her on either cheek in thanks. She hummed happily, then moved to sit on a stool at the end of the table.

Clara was sulking in the corner of the room and seemed to be pondering the dynamics of the Doctor's new relationship.

"Is it dead?" Rose asked from her perch on the stool.

"I don't know. Possibly," Evander said as he checked some readings on his sonic again.

"I'm assuming extra-terrestrial," Ashley interjected as she looked at the thing curiously.

"Oh definitely," Alex replied and leaned back to sip his tea.

"Then how can you have heard of these things?" Ashley asked them.

"I'm willing to bet that you can guess the answer to that one," Rose replied with a smirk.

Looking between the three of them nervously, she deduced, "Because you're extra-terrestrial too?"

"Do you believe that?" Evander asked with a raised eyebrow.

They could hear Shona arguing with Santa and the two elves in the hallway. She was questioning them relentlessly as she tried to prove that they weren't real.

Ashley was staring blankly at the creature in the jar as she processed the idea that she was working with aliens to save people's lives. She seemed to come to some kind of decision and stood up to start her own string of questions.

"Why's it called a Dream Crab, for a start?" she asked.

"Theorize," Evander responded curtly and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Because it generates a telepathic field," she said tentatively.

"Ooh, very good," Alex praised her.

"And?" Evander pressed for more deductions.

"Alters perception," she added.

"Meaning?" Evander continued as he tried to get the others in the room to reach the same conclusions that he was coming to.

"I seem to be doing all the work here," Ashley complained as she backed away from the table.

"Meaning we can't trust anything that we see or hear," Clara said as she started to see where this was going.

Rose looked up at her husbands with an alarmed expression. How did they get out of that attack earlier? How long have they been dreaming?

"Go to the window," Evander said to Ashley.

"Why?" Ashley questioned him suspiciously as she made her way towards the window while keeping an eye on these people who were supposedly aliens themselves.

"Because it gets worse," Evander said.

Ashely looked through a small, circular window to see the TARDIS parked outside of the science base. "What is that?" she asked incredulously.

"THAT is how the four of us got here," Alex replied.

"In a box?" she said as she gave him a dubious look.

"Technically, in a telephone kiosk," Evander replied.

Ashley laughed at the ridiculousness of it all and Rose struggled to hide her own giggles at the way Evander chose to describe all of this to her.

"How?" Ashley asked, though it was clear that she didn't believe anything that was happening anymore.

"Because it's a spaceship in disguise," Rose said with wide eyes as she hopped down from the stool to join in the explanation of their mode of transportation.

"Do you know what the big problem is in telling fantasy and reality apart?" Evander asked Ashley.

"What?"

"They're both ridiculous," he told her.

Clara decided that she needed to stop moping and start problem solving. "So we don't know what is real and what isn't?" she asked as she tried to establish the facts.

"Exactly," Alex responded and took Rose by the arm to pull her aside and discuss the things that they'd already figured out.

"How long have we been dreaming?" Rose whispered to him once they were out of earshot.

"I"m not sure. At least since Father Christmas blew the wall open," Alex replied.

"But Doctor, what about the fact that we saw Father Christmas before that? What about the fact that Evander saw him even before we reunited?" Rose said urgently as she looked him straight in the eye.

"Oh my god..." Alex whispered in growing horror at the possibilities of that notion. "Keep that to yourself for now, Rose. They'll all panic if we push too hard, but we WILL get out of here, love. And if we haven't really found him in the real world, then we WILL."

With a quick hug, they rejoin the conversation.

"Are we in danger?" Clara asked.

"Oh, we are way past danger, Clara. If I'm right, and I usually am, we're dying," Evander replied ominously.

"Then how do we stay alive?" Ashley asked as she entered her problem solving commander mode.

"I like you, straight to the point. I want you to show me how you first encountered those creatures and what happened to those people in the infirmary," Evander ordered. "I notice that you all wear mini-cams. So I assume there is footage."

Rose and Alex had rejoined the group as he started giving instructions and Rose wrapped an arm around Evander's waist. He awkwardly allowed her to nestle herself under his arm and looked down at her with a half-smile.

"Is it possible I'm about to work with someone who might be a dream?" Ashley asked him.

"If it helps, so am I," Evander replied and Rose shot a nervous look at Alex.

Ashley started heading towards the main room in the base that held computer monitors mounted over an entire wall. "We have footage on the drives. I'll see what I can pull up," she said on her way to the door.

"Ashley?" Evander asked before she left. "What's this polar base for? Why are you all here?"

"It's a long story," she responded and turned through the doorway.

Rose gasped at that. Her husbands both looked at her questioningly. At that, she shared with them her memory of Alex giving that exact answer as he was setting the course for this place and Evander giving that answer to Clara when she asked about why there was an extra Doctor on the TARDIS. The two Doctors looked at each other worriedly as they tried to calculate exactly when this had all started.

Clara interrupted their calculations with a sudden question, "What did you mean when you said you were all married? How long have you been gone?"

Evander closed his eyes and sighed as he resolved to explain this as best he could. With a squeeze to Rose's shoulder, he turned to face his friend. "Before I get into what is a very long story, how much do you remember from my timeline? I'm unclear about what you know because sometimes you seem to know almost everything about me and other times you ask silly questions like, 'who's Amy?' I guess, most importantly, do you remember anything about Rose Tyler?"

"It's fuzzy. I guess the parts that I experienced were usually when you didn't have any companions because they were there to help you instead of me," Clara said. "I don't recall Rose Tyler being mentioned specifically."

"To keep this explanation short, I've loved Rose Tyler since I wore the leather jacket. You remember that I told you that I kept pinstripes' face through a regeneration?" he said as he gestured toward Alex. She nodded and he continued, "I siphoned off the regeneration energy and ended up creating a copy of myself rather than changing and he and Rose went off to live a fantastic life together. It didn't turn out the way we had planned and they are back. We all needed each other and now I can have a real forever with the woman that I've loved for over a thousand years."

"Oh," she said quietly as she looked down at the floor and fidgeted her fingers together. "So, you married three other women while you were in love with someone else?"

"Three?" Alex asked incredulously.

"Are you trying to get me relegated to the couch tonight, Clara?" Evander said as he threw his arms in the air. "Look, you two already knew about River and Queen Elizabeth. Marilyn Monroe was NOT my fault! Kazran and Abigail refused to leave the party before I could run away."

Rose tried to hide her giggles behind her hand as he defended the accidents of his past incarnations. She knew that she was missing from his life for a thousand years and couldn't blame him for trying to fill that void in his life with River. The others were silly misunderstandings. How many times had he likely accidentally married her during their travels?

"I think the rings will help prevent any more accidental marriages, love," Rose told Evander and he relaxed when he realized that she wasn't angry.

Clara tried to smile, but it wouldn't reach her eyes. "So, we're dying then?" she asked in an awkward bid to change the subject.

"Yes," Evander replied thankful to leave the subject of his accidental marriages behind.

"Why?" Clara continued.

"Oh, complicated," he answered, not wanting to get into just how bad this was at the moment.

"How long do we have?"

Looking back towards Alex and Rose for an opinion, all he got was a shrug from Alex. "No idea," Evander answered.

"Just... Doctor, give me something to do," she said, needing to keep herself busy to stop the tears that she felt threatening. There were too many thoughts circling her brain at once. Thoughts of the Doctor in love with someone that again wasn't her, thoughts of Danny and how he should be stronger in her grief than the man in front of her, thoughts of the danger that they were in now that she was finally seeing him again... if she didn't occupy her mind with something else, she thought she might shatter.

"Trust nothing. Accept nothing you see. Whatever happens, interrogate everything," Evander told her.

"In case it's a lie?" Clara asked.

"In case it's a lie," he responded with a nod.

The Doctors, Rose and Clara entered the room with the wall of monitors just in time to hear a bit of a scuffle from the hallway as Shona stormed in, scribbling in a notebook furiously.

"You alright?" Rose asked Shona.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to talk sense into Beardy-Weirdy," Shona replied with a glare at the man calling himself Santa Claus.

"You don't seem much like a scientist," Evander commented to her.

"That's a bit rude, coming from a magician!" she snarked back at him.

"Why are you out here? What brought you to the North Pole?" he asked, testing her.

"Long story, isn't it?" she said as she looked down to the floor for a moment.

"Oh my god!" Rose gasped and turned white as a sheet.

"What is it, love?" Alex asked as he grabbed her arm to keep her from collapsing on the floor.

Evander turned quickly to see what the problem was and found her staring at the elves. He followed her gaze and his jaw dropped as well. He had noticed that one of them had the word "wolf" embroidered into the back of his vest earlier, but the other's jacket had been blank. It wasn't now. In glowing, gold letters, the word "bad" was now emblazoned across his shoulders.

"Why now?" Evander asked rhetorically as he furrowed his brows.

"To give YOU something to believe in, Doctor," Santa replied.

Alex whispered reassurances to Rose as he stroked her arms soothingly, "It'll be alright, Rose. Bad Wolf has been helping us this whole time. I'm sure this isn't a bad sign. Maybe it means that all of this was part of the plan."

Rose took a few deep breaths and nodded her agreement. Alex hugged her tightly and gave a reassuring kiss to her forehead. She then went to Evander to wrap her arms around him as well. She placed her forehead against his and looked deeply into his steel blue eyes.

"I don't know what's real or not, but the three of us, are real and we will always be together, Doctor," she told him assuredly. She kissed him lightly and he gave her a squeeze before turning to acknowledge Ashley who had come up behind him and coughed to get his attention.

"Doctor, the videos are ready," she said and gestured behind her toward the monitors.

The man in the group that they had learned was named Albert, was noisily chewing on a turkey leg as he watched the screens. Clara was leaning on the counter next to him and Rose cringed at the messy chewing sounds.

"Sorry, starving," he grumbled around his food.

"What are we looking at?" Alex asked as he stood with his hands buried deep in his pockets.

A dark haired woman with the name Bellows written on her uniform turned from the control panel to explain, "Footage from a week ago. A side expedition from our main mission."

"What is your main mission?" Evander asked, he hadn't been able to get any of them to answer this question yet.

"Long story," she answered quickly.

"So you've been here a week then?" Rose interjected, trying to get a sense of how long they felt like they had been here.

"Yeah," she said just as quickly before continuing, "Ice cave, directly beneath this base. Now, look at what we found."

On the screen, they could see four scientists exploring an area completely enclosed in ice and above them in the ceiling was a group of the creatures, huddled together.

"Dormant at first," Bellows continued.

"Until you looked at them too long," Evander said.

"'Til you thought about them," Alex continued.

"Exactly," she said, looking astonished that they had come to the same conclusion as her.

"They were sleeping," Alex says as he spun on his heel and paced along the side of the room. "They've probably been down there for centuries, waiting."

"And it wakes up when you think about it?" Clara asked.

Evander nodded and explained, "They can detect their own mental picture in any nearby mind."

"That's Bellows' theory," Ashley added.

"It's like it responds to the presence of any data concerning itself," Bellows concluded.

"That was always the legend. You think about a Dream Crab, a Dream Crab is coming for you," Evander said, staring off into the distance in thought.

"This is where it gets really nasty," Albert said, gesturing towards the monitor with his half-eaten turkey leg.

"Only now?" Clara scoffed at him sarcastically.

On the screen, one of the creatures hissed and dropped down onto the camera turning the feed to static.

"Ok, then what?" Evander asked, leaning toward the screen.

Bellows flicked a few switches and the monitors changed to a video from inside the infirmary, where she and Ashley were checking on the sleeping scientists.

Albert interrupted their investigation, saying, "They're a bit like face-huggers, aren't they?"

"Face-huggers?" Evander said slowly, looking confused.

"You know, Alien. The horror movie, Alien," Albert explained.

"There's a horror movie called Alien?" Evander asked and began to look disgusted by the thought. "That's really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you."

Behind him, Alex and Rose could barely contain their laughter. "You only took me to see the opening night premiers of all of the Alien movies, Doctor. It's no good pretending now," Rose said through her laughter.

"Oh, come on! Let me have a little fun with the silly humans," Evander complained. "If the pudding-brains would quit being so derogatory towards all of the aliens out there, maybe more of them would be nice, instead of trying to blow up the planet once a week. It would certainly make our job easier, wouldn't it?"

Bellows cleared her throat to draw their attention back to the matter at hand. "First, they just slept. Couple of days, just lying there," she said as she flicked some buttons to fast forward through the time they were sleeping.

"And then they became aggressive?" asked Evander.

"If we got close enough, yeah," Ashley said.

"It would take the Dream Crab a little while to take control. Depends how much of the host brain was..." Evander explained to the group at large and tapered off as he came to the uncomfortable part.

"Was what?" Ashley insisted.

"Digested," Alex filled in with a disgusted scowl. Evander nodded and looked uncomfortable when everyone looked back at him to see if that's what he was going to say.

"Are they still alive under those things?" Ashley asked. She seemed to be evaluating whether they were going to rescue their comrades or just try to escape.

"Depends what you call alive," Evander replied.

"Are they suffering?" Ashley clarified in frustration; a little tired of this Doctor's idea of helping.

"Nooo," Alex interjected as he strolled through the group of people. "The Dream Crab induces a dream state. It keeps you happy! It gives you a perfectly realized fantasy land while it slowly dissolves your brain."

"Merciful, I suppose," added Evander.

"Compared to what?" Albert asked incredulously.

"Compared to that turkey leg you keep eating," Evander said, pointedly leaning towards him. "Could you rewind? I'd like to see them dormant again," he continued as he turned to walk back to the monitors. "Rose, darling, could you fetch me the dead one?"

"I'll get it," Alex said and quickly strode toward the lab. He started humming 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' as he strolled along with his hands in his pockets. As he approached the lab, however, he heard broken glass crunching under his foot and stopped.

Focusing on the empty table which should have a large jar on it, he sent a quick warning to his spouses, ~'I think we have a problem.'~

He looked up to the ceiling just as a Dream Crab hissed and dropped onto his face.

Back in the monitor room, Rose and Evander quickly looked up at Alex's telepathic warning.

Clara noticed their sudden worry and asked, "What is it?"

"Oh my god!" Rose cried as she felt Alex fall unconscious and ran towards the lab.

"We're thinking about it. Alex!" Evander shouted and followed his wife.

"Who's Alex?" Clara called after him.