‘Rose, it’s me. Honestly. It’s me.’
Rose couldn’t catch her breath. Her brain couldn’t take in what he was saying.
‘I was dying,’ it said. ‘To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but… it’s still me.’
‘Time Lords have this little trick. It’s a sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I’m going to change.’
She’d heard it for herself, still couldn’t believe her own eyes.
‘You can’t be.’
Time Lords have this little trick. It ran through her head, over and over. This little trick. Like it was only a bit of conjuring, a bit of fun. Just a prank to be played on primitive apes like her.
Now the figure moved towards her, closer, and looked her straight in the eye, his voice low. ‘If I’m not him, how could I remember this? Very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar, surrounded by shop window dummies—oh!’
He seemed, suddenly, overwhelmed at the recollection, and Rose suddenly found herself back there too with him, for the very first time. Before everything in her world—in the entire universe—had changed. The very first moment.
‘Such a long time ago,’ he said. ‘I took your hand.’
Rose flinched. Suddenly a hand—a different hand?—was in hers, as naturally as if it had always been there. She looked at it. He carried on talking, gentler now, as if trying to calm a frightened animal.
‘I said one word… just one word, I said: “Run”.’
But it didn’t sound the same when he said it and his hand did not feel the same. Then he said it again, very, very quietly, and squeezed her hand… and suddenly, there it was, like a tolling bell. She felt it. Somehow, deep down, she knew. She couldn’t prove it but—she had faith. She trusted him. She knew.
‘I’m not going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face.’
Tears started to roll down her cheeks.
‘Doctor,’ she said, and her voice was a whisper.
The Doctor’s voice was still gentle.
‘Hello,’ he said.
Then he dropped her hand, and Rose nearly tripped over backwards, a million questions burning through her brain. Was he the same man? How? Did he know everything? Did he feel the same way? Would he act the same way? Could he dance now?
The Doctor—this Doctor—had bounced back round the console.
‘And we never stopped, did we? All across the universe. Running, running, running…’
He started messing about with the console, flicking switches without even glancing at them now; and the TARDIS was letting him, completely unconcerned.
‘One time we had to hop. Do you remember? Hopping for our lives?’
He started hopping. Rose did not remember and stared at him. He slowed down.
‘Yeah? All that hopping? Remember hopping for your life? Yeah? Hop? With the… no?’
Rose blinked.
‘Can you change back?’
‘Do you want me to?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh.’
‘Can you?’
‘No.’
The Doctor stared at his shoes. ‘Do you want to leave?’
‘Do you want me to leave?’ Rose shot back straightaway.
‘No! But… it’s your choice. If you want to go home…’
Rose looked at him, her eyes sad.
‘Cancel Barcelona,’ he said suddenly. ‘Change to… London. The Powell Estate. Ah, let’s say… the 24th of December. Consider it a Christmas present.’
Rose moved towards him again, then hesitated, desperately confused as the Doctor hit the buttons.
‘There.’ The Doctor stood back and folded his arms, looking hurt as the TARDIS lurched to a sudden halt.
‘I’m going home?’ said Rose, feeling wounded.
‘Up to you. Back to your mum. It’s all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast… No. No, it’s Christmas. Turkey! Although… having met your mother… nut loaf would be more appropriate.’
Rose let out a short burst of surprised laughter.
‘Was that a smile?’
‘No.’
‘That was a smile.’
‘No it wasn’t.’
‘You smiled.’
‘No I didn’t!’
‘Oh come on, all I did was change, I didn’t—’
Out of the blue, his entire body took a sudden lurch, and his face changed. Rose’s first thought was that he was about to be sick. She moved forward.
‘What?’
‘I said, I didn’t—’
This time he collapsed over the console. Rose was really worried now and inched her way towards him.
‘Uh-oh.’
The last thing Rose wanted to hear was ‘uh-oh’. Uh-oh what? ‘Uh-oh, I’ve finished eating the Doctor so it’s time to start on you?’ ‘Uh-oh, I’m about to die for real this time and the TARDIS doors are going to lock forever?’
‘Are you all right?’
She watched in awe as from out of the Doctor’s mouth came a long line of the golden miasma; Rose knew, could feel, it was the same time vortex energy that she’d had inside her, just for a few moments—and it had nearly destroyed her. If the Doctor, her Doctor, hadn’t drawn it out of her…
He—her Doctor. He had sent her away from Satellite Five, as he prepared to sacrifice himself to save the universe. The entire universe. And she hadn’t been having any of it. She had opened the heart of the TARDIS. The oddest thing; she had absolutely no memory as to what had happened after that; only that when she had come back to herself the Daleks had gone. Jack was alive, thank God—and her head was splitting, a pain so immense and overwhelming she felt it would destroy her.
Then the Doctor had taken her pain away: all of it.
How, she thought, jolted back to a place she could barely remember—how could you be full of that; have that inside you; the void of the endless; the heart of everything that could ever be. How could you live like that and not turn completely mad…?
Oh my God, thought Rose. That was it. He’d turned completely mad.
‘It’s all right.’ The man’s voice sounded pained. ‘The change is going a bit wrong, is all.’ Now the pain was written all over his face, and he slumped down onto his knees.
Rose made a decision. She would have to trust him because otherwise she couldn’t help him, and if she couldn’t help him, there was no help for anything.
‘Look… maybe we should go back. Let’s go and find Captain Jack, he’d know what to do.’
The Doctor shook his head, grasping up to hold on to the console from the floor. ‘Gah, he’s busy! He’s got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth.’ He glanced up suddenly as his hand felt something, and his eye lit upon a large red lever. ‘I haven’t used this one in years.’
He flicked it, and the TARDIS suddenly jerked to the side violently, and they both nearly tumbled to the floor.
‘What’re you doing?’ said Rose, panic gripping her.
‘Putting on a bit of speed! That’s it!’
Rose grabbed the console desperately.
‘My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! Thassa girl!’ His face was absolutely manic and terror gripped Rose. ‘Faster! Want to break the time limit?’
‘STOP IT!’ Rose couldn’t take any more.
‘Ah, don’t be so dull… let’s have a bit of fun! Let’s rip through the time vortex!’
Rose didn’t like this—this new version of the Doctor, this new thing. She glared at him. Then he caught her eye and gazed back at her and she felt it again; that odd, odd glimmer of recognition she had felt when he’d taken her hand.
His voice dropped.
‘The regeneration’s going wrong. I can’t stop myself.’ His face was a mask of pain as he jerked and twitched. ‘Ah, my head.’ Then he jumped back up again, the crazy look back on his face. ‘Faster! Let’s open those engines!’
Alarm bells were ringing, and not, Rose thought, just in the TARDIS.
‘We’re gonna crash-land!’ yelled the Doctor, his grin too wide for his face.
Rose shouted at him. ‘Well, then do something!’
He was hysterical now.
‘Too late! Out of control! Oh, I love it! Hot Dog!’
‘YOU’RE GOING TO KILL US!’
‘Hold on tight… Here we go…’
Rose was so frightened, so scared. Whoever this madman was, he was still grinning maniacally.
‘CHRISTMAS EVE!’
3
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Jackie Tyler was listening to Christmas songs and decorating the old tree and telling herself that things could be worse.
She told herself that a lot, these days.
Things could definitely be worse. Debbie Pringle’s daughter had got herself knocked up with triplets and all four of them were currently camping out in her front room.
‘Must be nice, having babies about the place again,’ she’d said to Debbie when they’d run into each other in the Costco, and Debbie, whose trolley was piled high with six boxes of nappies, eight tins of powdered milk and a bottle of unbranded vodka, had grabbed her wide-eyed and said, ‘Take one! Take any one! I don’t care which, they all look the same!’ then shrieked when her phone rang and dashed off, trailing baby powder and a faint whiff of something else less pleasant in her wake.
And she could invite Howard round. Yeah. That’d be nice. Get some fruit in. Did they need a whole turkey? Probably not. Maybe get one of those crowns. Wouldn’t take up the whole oven, so that was nice.
Of course, she had a present for Rose. Of course she did. She’d keep it with the birthday present she’d popped back in the cupboard. Just in case she stopped by. And that top that she’d seen down the market; bright yellow, Rose would hate it. But it would light up her face. She looked good with a bit of colour.
Should she invite Mickey? It wasn’t right, him being all alone like that at Christmas. On the other hand, whenever she saw Mickey, they tried and tried to avoid the subject and they’d manage for a bit, and then there’d be a pause in the conversation and then somebody—okay, her—would have a brandy and Coke too many and then it would all come out, the endless agony of missing someone so badly it felt like a hook caught in your side, all the time, snagging on everything you saw every day. No, seeing Mickey wouldn’t help, especially not when he hit the brandy and Coke too.
Andy Williams started crooning ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’. Jackie considered throwing the CD player out of the window.
The good thing about me, thought Mickey, is that I’m good at compartmentalising.
In his weaker moments he thought it was just because he’d had so much practice; he’d managed with his gran, no bother, so he’d do it with Rose too, off getting up to God knows what with some stupid man in a stupid black leather jacket. As if he could compete with a stupid magic flying box. Stupid …
No. See, he reminded himself, grabbing a wrench with unnecessary force. Compartmentalising. That was what he was good at. Head down. Get on with the job—it wasn’t bad at Alfie’s garage, not at all, the lads were great, and they were going to have a drinks night out that would be a right laugh. Because he was good at compartmentalising so he was going to go out and have a night out and a curry and a…
‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ was screaming from the old radio in the garage. Work, Mickey knew, was the best way of getting over things. Everything. Just throw yourself into it. Never think about ‘out there’. If you could talk about the match on Saturday, and fix a car…
If a car has something broken, you fix it, thought Mickey. You don’t go all over space, you don’t mess about in time. You replace the parts and then it works again and it’s cause and effect and you don’t need to even think about any of that other…
Oh God, what if she doesn’t come home again?
That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m not going to be thinking about, he told himself firmly.
He’d lost people before. The thought didn’t cheer Mickey up any more than Slade blaring from the far-too-loud radio.
Thanks to Slade, it was Jackie who heard it first. The only sound she’d been waiting to hear. All this time, since she’d let her little girl go, again and again and again. She pretended it was fine; she pretended she was all right with her precious Rose—all she had in the world—vanishing with that dreadful man.
But there was still only one noise Jackie Tyler wanted to hear, and it was the signal that Rose was coming home. And she could hear it now. A grinding of phantom gears.
‘Rose!’
Back in the garage, the Christmas music was still blaring. Mickey blinked. He was sure he could hear something, definitely sure. Something that sounded a little like… a strange, loud, wheezing noise.
‘Hey, turn that down. Turn it off, Stevo. Turn that off! John, shut up!’
Sure enough, there it was. Clear as a bell.
Rose. She was back!
Mickey dropped his tools.
Mickey and Jackie almost collided down on the courtyard of the estate. A freezing wind blew through the concrete passageways; rattling the bin lids; sending crisp packets dancing around the flagstones.
‘Mickey!’
Mickey was tearing towards her. ‘Jackie, it’s the TARDIS!’
‘I know, I know, I heard it. She’s alive, Mickey! I said so, didn’t I? She’s alive!’
‘Just shut up a minute!’ said Mickey, desperate to hear where the sound was coming from. He turned round and flinched as, suddenly, the TARDIS simply appeared from nowhere, bouncing through mid-air. It crashed into one of the estate blocks; rebounded, narrowly missing a Royal Mail van, and finally came to rest against a pile of dustbins.
Jackie and Mickey watched, terrified. The door opened slowly. And out came… a figure, dressed in a leather jacket about four sizes too large for him. They’d never seen him before.
‘Here we are then. London. Earth. The Solar System. We did it. Jackie! Mickey! Blimey! No, no, no, no, hold on. Wait there. I’ve got something to say. There was something I had to tell you, something important. What was it? No, hold on, hold on. Hold on, shush, shush, shush, shush. Oh, I know! Merry Christmas!’
Then the strange figure collapsed in a heap.
Rose emerged. Jackie gasped, but her daughter’s attention was immediately on the splayed figure in front of the TARDIS.
‘What happened? Is he all right?’
Mickey moved over. ‘I don’t know, he just keeled over. But who is he? Where’s the Doctor?’
Rose quickly computed that she couldn’t go through with trying to explain it. She didn’t know how, and she didn’t know if she believed it herself. Maybe if she pretended to be fine with it, they would be too.
‘That’s him, right in front of you,’ she said, quickly. ‘That’s the Doctor.’
Jackie’s relief and delight at seeing her daughter turned to exasperation as it quickly became clear that once again Rose was totally fixated on yet another weird stranger.
‘What do you mean, that’s the Doctor? Doctor Who?’
4
Lonely This Christmas
In the end, they’d dressed the strange thin man in pyjamas Jackie had produced from somewhere, and put him to bed. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do. Then Jackie briefly vanished and returned brandishing a stethoscope triumphantly.
‘Here we go,’ she announced. ‘Tina the cleaner’s got this lodger, a medical student, and she was fast asleep, so I just took it. Though I still say we should take him to hospital.’
Rose shook her head ‘We can’t. They’d lock him up. They’d dissect him. One bottle of his blood could change the future of the human race. No! Shush!’
Carefully, she inched up the bed, closer to him. It seemed just so strange; this odd person, who had once been the Doctor. She approached him carefully. He smelled the same, that was funny; that odd combination of chalk dust, boiled sweets, lime and diesel.<
br />
She carefully placed the stethoscope down, first on one side, then the other. The soft thump in her ears stayed steady. There he was. It was the Doctor, absolutely.
She thought this ought to make her feel better. Oddly, it didn’t. It was a Time Lord, maybe. But it wasn’t her Time Lord.
‘Both working,’ she announced.
‘What do you mean, both?’ said Jackie, who had her arms folded.
‘Well, he’s got two hearts,’ explained Rose.
‘Oh, don’t be stupid,’ said Jackie.
‘He has.’
‘Anything else he’s got two of?’
‘Leave him alone!!’
With one backwards glance, Rose led Jackie out of the room, leaving him to sleep. As they left, a further stream of TARDIS energy, golden in the atmosphere, left his body, unobserved; spun off into the universe; setting alarms; drawing attention.
Rose realised, suddenly, that she was starving. Food would help. She rifled in the fridge. She saw the little turkey crown, but didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead she pulled out a mini pork pie, as Jackie bustled behind her making cups of tea, her answer to everything.
‘How can he go changing his face? Is that a different face or is he a different person?’ she was asking.
‘How should I know?’ shot back Rose. Then she relented, because that was exactly the question she was asking herself. ‘Sorry. The thing is I thought I knew him, Mum. I thought me and him were…’
Neither of them said anything. Rose found she had tears in her eyes.
‘And then he goes and does this.’ She rubbed her face crossly. ‘I keep forgetting he’s not human.’ To distract herself, she took another pork pie out of the fridge and looked at it. Then she took her mother’s sleeve.
‘The big question is: where’d you get a pair of men’s pyjamas from?’
Jackie shrugged. ‘Howard’s been staying over.’
‘What, Howard from the market? How long’s that been going on?’
‘A month or so. First of all, he starts delivering to the door and I thought, that’s odd. Next thing you know, it’s a bag of oranges…’
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