Fic - Doctor Who This Time
Yes, my very first fic for a fandom other than XF (Doctor Who). It's a bit of a character study, I guess, for a scene I passionately adore.
Title: How We Were
Spoilers: CiN Special, 2005
Rating: PG
Summary: He *was* fantastic. But what were Rose's thoughts as she unknowingly said good-bye to the Ninth Doctor, and met the Tenth?
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or this show.
Author's Note: Thanks to who-transcripts.atsendspace.com for the excellent reminder of exactly what happens in these scenes.
Also, thanks for the edits and comments, belsum!
~~~~~~~
She looks at him uneasily. Why is he talking like that? He sounds almost like he's preparing to say good-bye, but doesn't he know by now that she won't leave? And he wouldn't leave her - would he? “Then, why can't we go?” Barcelona sounds fun.
“Maybe you will,” he says, but something about his tone doesn't really reassure her. “And maybe I will. But not like this.” He smiles slightly, perhaps wistfully.
This is beginning to really worry her. “You're not making any sense!”
“I might never make sense again! I might have two heads. Or no head!” Now he's acting giddy, but she thinks he's hiding something beneath it. Still, she smiles, because she can't not.
“Imagine me with no head! And don't say that's an improvement...”
Her smile widens, but falters when he goes on. “But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're gonna end up with-” Suddenly, he staggers backward, and there is a burst of golden light around him. It reminds her of - something she can't quite remember, like part of a dream.
Anyway, that doesn't matter because the Doctor is in pain, clearly. She runs forward to him. “Doctor!”
He waves her back urgently. “Stay away!”
He never uses that tone of voice unless he means it. She stops, heart pounding. “Doctor, tell me what's going on!” She, in turn, has never meant that demand as much as she does now.
He is trying not to worry her. “I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one's meant to do that!” He grimaces, and finally can't pretend that it isn't serious. “Every cell in my body is dying.”
Dying. The Doctor can't die. That's impossible. “Can't you do something?” She refuses to believe that he is dying. Certainly they've both faced dangers in their travels, but he's the Doctor!
“Yeah, I'm doing it now! Time Lords have this little trick, it's... sort of a way of cheating death. Except...” Her relief at his first words wavers a bit as he meets her eyes carefully. “It means I'm gonna change.”
What can he possibly mean by that? She shakes her head, still not believing, and definitely not understanding.
“And I'm not gonna see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face.” He laughs, and she can't comprehend finding this funny in any way. “And, before I go...”
She has to stop this somehow. “Don't say that!”
But he insists gently. “Rose. Before I go, I just wanna tell you... you were fantastic.” He grins, that oh-so-Doctor grin that she knows and loves, and his eyes are full of pride in her. “Absolutely fantastic.” He pauses, but she can't speak. “And d'you know what?”
She shakes her head, ready to be surprised by him, as always, in spite of what's happening.
“So was I.”
She has to smile at that, nodding in agreement as she hears the peace and acceptance in that phrase. He grins back, and then his head tilts back slightly and suddenly the whole room is bathed in brilliant light, and it's coming from him. His very skin is giving off this light, and she staggers back but can't stop looking. Something else is happening to the Doctor. His hair is getting longer, his body and face look different. When the light finally stops, there is someone else standing there in the Doctor's clothes.
He looks bemused, then stares at Rose. “Hello!” he says cheerily. “Okay - ooh.” He swallows, and runs his tongue over his teeth, almost as if he's as surprised as Rose. “New teeth. That's weird. So. Where was I? Oh, that's right - Barcelona!” He grins hugely.
Rose can't believe her eyes or her ears. All she can do is stare blankly, watching in fascination and some horror as this person runs to the console, flipping switches and turning knobs as if he owns the place. “Six pm, Tuesday...” he mutters, continuing to adjust and fiddle, “October... 5006 - on the way to Barcelona!” Finally he turns to look at her, smiling again, seeming very pleased. “Now then, what do I look like?”
Before Rose can get her vocal chords to work, he's talking again.
“No! No, no no no no no no no no no. No,” he says, waving a hand at her, “don't tell me.”
No fear of that, Rose almost says, but still can't get her mouth to work properly.
The man seems to be cataloging himself now. “Let's see... two legs, two arms, two hands...” he puts a hand around one wrist and sounds clinical, not displeased as he flexes and makes a remark about some slight weakness in it. Then both hands go to his hair. “Hair! I'm not bald!” He runs his hands through it.
She is surprised she hasn't screamed or even been forced to sit down at this point. But she simply keeps watching in bemused fascination.
He is downright thrilled about the hair, apparently. “Big hair!” His hands move down to his face, and he sounds even more pleased, if possible. “Sideburns - I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin.” Moving on immediately, he slaps his sides. “Little bit thinner, that's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it.” And all of a sudden, he acts as if he has made a marvelous discovery. “I... have got... a mole. I can feel it!”
Rose has to restrain herself from trembling. Maybe the shock is finally kicking in, she thinks, past the whirl of thoughts still madly rushing through her head. Whoever the man is, though, he hasn't noticed.
“Between my shoulder blades! There's a mole.” He rotates his shoulders, looking at her again. “That's all right. Love the mole.” He smiles slightly. “Go on then, tell me.” He straightens up. “What do you think?”
Rose finds her voice, finally, and the first thing that comes out is, “Who are you?”
He seems surprised and slightly hurt. “I'm the Doctor!”
She shakes her head firmly. “No. Where is he? What have you done to him?” Her voice rises as the realization that he is gone comes back to her full force.
“You saw me, I - I changed,” he says earnestly, gesturing over his shoulder, “right in front of you.”
She is not having this. “I saw him sort of- explode, and then you replaced him, like a... a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something.” The strange intruder doesn't respond, and she gathers her courage and steps toward him. She reaches out and pushes on his chest. He seems solid, at least, though he rocks back at her touch. “You're not fooling me.” She does her best to keep her voice from trembling. It's time to show this man she can and must be taken seriously. “I've seen all sorts of things: Nanogenes... Gelth...” she narrows her eyes as an idea strikes her, “Slitheen.” Recoiling slightly, she demands, “Oh, my God, are you a Slitheen?”
He calmly denies it, and this infuriates her. This is not something she's willing to be calm about. “Send him back. I'm warning you, send the Doctor back, right now!”
“Rose, it's me!” He's less calm now, pleading. “It's, honestly, it's me.”
She doesn't say anything, but now she starts to wonder if, maybe, it could be true...
“I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but... it's still me.”
Could it be? “You can't be,” she whispers. How can this man be the same man, her Doctor?
He walks toward her, and even though she wants to move back, she doesn't. “Then how could I remember this? The very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar, surrounded by shop window dummies... oh, such a long time ago.” His voice sounds like perhaps he's teasing her gently. If he were the Doctor, maybe he would be, calling that a long time. When he continues, his voice is serious again. “I took your hand,” and suits actions to words. She glances down hesitantly, still very unsure. “I said one word. Just one word, I said, 'Run!'” He looks into her eyes.
Hers are now full of tears. Wonderingly, she says, “Doctor.”
He grins cheekily. “Hello.”
She sighs. That's the Doctor, all right. It has to be. But her mind still whirls from the shock of it all. She stumbles back slightly, breathing, “Oh, my God.”
He, meanwhile, has turned back to the console, super-speed, chattering. “And we never stopped, did we? All across the universe. Running, running, running...” He flips a few switches. “One time we had to hop. D'you remember? Hopping for our lives?” He begins to hop up and down in place, full of manic energy.
She watches him, unable to take it in. He certainly has changed. She doesn't remember the Doctor acting like this. It scares her a little.
He's still hopping and still chattering. “Yeah? All that hopping? Remember hopping for your life? Yeah? Hop? With the-” He finally notices her lack of response, and slows down. “No?”
Rose gathers her courage again. “Can you change back?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Oh,” he says, sounding surprised and disappointed.
“Can you?” she presses.
“No,” he says firmly. He looks down, all excitement gone. “D'you wanna leave?”
She's shocked all over again, and saddened. “D'you want me to leave?”
Almost before she has finished asking, he interjects, “No! But.. your choice. If you wanna go home...” When she doesn't answer, too flustered to say anything, he goes to the console and narrates, “Cancel Barcelona. Change to London, the Powell Estate... ah... let's say the 24th of December.” He looks sideways at her, almost shy. “Consider it a Christmas present.”
Rose approaches him slowly. He stands back from the console, arms crossed defensively, with his hands tucked under. The gesture reminds her of the Doctor - the one she's used to. God, this is confusing. She feels the TARDIS change course. “Going home?”
He answers lightly, but she can tell he's still disappointed. “Up to you. Back to your mum... it's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast- no, Christmas! Turkey!” He adds slyly, “Although, having met your mother... nut loaf would be more appropriate.”
She looks down at the console, smiling a little despite herself.
He catches it immediately. “Was that a smile?”
“No,” she says quickly.
He speaks teasingly. “That was a smile.”
“No, it wasn't,” she says, briefly feeling like a little girl again.
He's smiling, speaking in the same tone. “You smiled!”
“No, I didn't,” she retorts.
“Oh, come on, all I did was change,” he says, both pleading and annoyed. “I didn't-” and suddenly he's making strange, nonsense sounds that make him sound ill.
“What?” she asks, worried that she'll have to be worried for this unfamiliar new Doctor.
“I said I didn't-” but he makes more of those sounds, more violently, and bends over as if in pain. The TARDIS shudders, too. “Uh oh.”
She really is worried about him, she realizes, and worried about what could be happening. He is driving this ship, after all. “Er... are you all right?” she asks nervously.
He opens his mouth, and a bit of gold - energy, or something, comes out of it and floats away. It looks a little bit like what happened before, when the Doctor changed.
“What's that?” she says.
His eyes wide open, he replies, “Oh... the change is going a bit wrong. I'm all ff-” and then he makes those same almost gagging noises again, and collapses forward, clearly in pain.
She has to do something. She can't just stand here and watch something huge happen to him again. “Look... maybe we should go back. Let's go and find Captain Jack, he'd know what to do.” Though it has taken her a while to think of it, she now realizes their friend must have been left on the Game Station.
The Doctor's mood has changed again, and she's just about dizzy with it all. “Nah, he's busy!” he says dismissively. “He's got plenty to do, rebuilding the Earth!” He bends over and sees a lever on the console, remarking out loud that he hasn't used it in years. When he flips it, the TARDIS shudders violently, almost knocking them both to their feet.
She doesn't like this. It seems to be getting worse. “What are you doing?” she yells, clinging to the console.
“Putting on a bit of speed!” he responds, loudly and gleefully. The manic energy is back tenfold. “That's it!” He's turning more knobs as fast as he can. “My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! That's a girl!”
She wonders if he's completely crazy. She wonders if he remembers that he apparently almost died just a few minutes ago. He continues to yell. “Faster! Wanna break the time limit??”
She doesn't know what that is, but it doesn't sound at all safe. She doesn't mind danger when they find it, but this seems to be just for the sake of it. She is more scared than she has been in a while, and it shows in her voice when she demands he stop.
He sounds distinctly annoyed with her. “Ah, don't be so dull, let's have a bit of fun! Let's rip through that vortex!” And then before she can react, his face changes, and he stares at her. His voice is softer and very worried when he speaks again. “The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself.” He grimaces again, and mutters, “Ah, my head!” Then he's up again, and shouting. “Faster! Let's open those engines!”
A bell rings, and a deep tolling sound starts. “What's that?” Rose asks, a cold, sinking feeling starting in the pit of her stomach.
“We're gonna crash land!” the Doctor yells, and he sounds delighted about it. He laughs crazily.
“Well, then, do something!” she yells back, hoping to jar him back to himself, the self that is about saving people and not about deliberately putting them into danger.
But he doesn't seem to be there. This Doctor shouts back hysterically, “Too late! Out of control!” He runs around the console, thrilled, even jumping into the air again while continuing to shout his insane excitement.
“You're gonna kill us!” Rose cries. She doesn't know what else to try. That chime is still going on in the background.
As if he hasn't heard, he meets her eyes across the console, grinning. “Hold on tight, here we go!” He doesn't notice her gasping for breath, or see that she's trying not to break down into complete panic. “Christmas Eve!”
Title: How We Were
Spoilers: CiN Special, 2005
Rating: PG
Summary: He *was* fantastic. But what were Rose's thoughts as she unknowingly said good-bye to the Ninth Doctor, and met the Tenth?
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or this show.
Author's Note: Thanks to who-transcripts.atsendspace.com for the excellent reminder of exactly what happens in these scenes.
Also, thanks for the edits and comments, belsum!
~~~~~~~
She looks at him uneasily. Why is he talking like that? He sounds almost like he's preparing to say good-bye, but doesn't he know by now that she won't leave? And he wouldn't leave her - would he? “Then, why can't we go?” Barcelona sounds fun.
“Maybe you will,” he says, but something about his tone doesn't really reassure her. “And maybe I will. But not like this.” He smiles slightly, perhaps wistfully.
This is beginning to really worry her. “You're not making any sense!”
“I might never make sense again! I might have two heads. Or no head!” Now he's acting giddy, but she thinks he's hiding something beneath it. Still, she smiles, because she can't not.
“Imagine me with no head! And don't say that's an improvement...”
Her smile widens, but falters when he goes on. “But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're gonna end up with-” Suddenly, he staggers backward, and there is a burst of golden light around him. It reminds her of - something she can't quite remember, like part of a dream.
Anyway, that doesn't matter because the Doctor is in pain, clearly. She runs forward to him. “Doctor!”
He waves her back urgently. “Stay away!”
He never uses that tone of voice unless he means it. She stops, heart pounding. “Doctor, tell me what's going on!” She, in turn, has never meant that demand as much as she does now.
He is trying not to worry her. “I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one's meant to do that!” He grimaces, and finally can't pretend that it isn't serious. “Every cell in my body is dying.”
Dying. The Doctor can't die. That's impossible. “Can't you do something?” She refuses to believe that he is dying. Certainly they've both faced dangers in their travels, but he's the Doctor!
“Yeah, I'm doing it now! Time Lords have this little trick, it's... sort of a way of cheating death. Except...” Her relief at his first words wavers a bit as he meets her eyes carefully. “It means I'm gonna change.”
What can he possibly mean by that? She shakes her head, still not believing, and definitely not understanding.
“And I'm not gonna see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face.” He laughs, and she can't comprehend finding this funny in any way. “And, before I go...”
She has to stop this somehow. “Don't say that!”
But he insists gently. “Rose. Before I go, I just wanna tell you... you were fantastic.” He grins, that oh-so-Doctor grin that she knows and loves, and his eyes are full of pride in her. “Absolutely fantastic.” He pauses, but she can't speak. “And d'you know what?”
She shakes her head, ready to be surprised by him, as always, in spite of what's happening.
“So was I.”
She has to smile at that, nodding in agreement as she hears the peace and acceptance in that phrase. He grins back, and then his head tilts back slightly and suddenly the whole room is bathed in brilliant light, and it's coming from him. His very skin is giving off this light, and she staggers back but can't stop looking. Something else is happening to the Doctor. His hair is getting longer, his body and face look different. When the light finally stops, there is someone else standing there in the Doctor's clothes.
He looks bemused, then stares at Rose. “Hello!” he says cheerily. “Okay - ooh.” He swallows, and runs his tongue over his teeth, almost as if he's as surprised as Rose. “New teeth. That's weird. So. Where was I? Oh, that's right - Barcelona!” He grins hugely.
Rose can't believe her eyes or her ears. All she can do is stare blankly, watching in fascination and some horror as this person runs to the console, flipping switches and turning knobs as if he owns the place. “Six pm, Tuesday...” he mutters, continuing to adjust and fiddle, “October... 5006 - on the way to Barcelona!” Finally he turns to look at her, smiling again, seeming very pleased. “Now then, what do I look like?”
Before Rose can get her vocal chords to work, he's talking again.
“No! No, no no no no no no no no no. No,” he says, waving a hand at her, “don't tell me.”
No fear of that, Rose almost says, but still can't get her mouth to work properly.
The man seems to be cataloging himself now. “Let's see... two legs, two arms, two hands...” he puts a hand around one wrist and sounds clinical, not displeased as he flexes and makes a remark about some slight weakness in it. Then both hands go to his hair. “Hair! I'm not bald!” He runs his hands through it.
She is surprised she hasn't screamed or even been forced to sit down at this point. But she simply keeps watching in bemused fascination.
He is downright thrilled about the hair, apparently. “Big hair!” His hands move down to his face, and he sounds even more pleased, if possible. “Sideburns - I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin.” Moving on immediately, he slaps his sides. “Little bit thinner, that's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it.” And all of a sudden, he acts as if he has made a marvelous discovery. “I... have got... a mole. I can feel it!”
Rose has to restrain herself from trembling. Maybe the shock is finally kicking in, she thinks, past the whirl of thoughts still madly rushing through her head. Whoever the man is, though, he hasn't noticed.
“Between my shoulder blades! There's a mole.” He rotates his shoulders, looking at her again. “That's all right. Love the mole.” He smiles slightly. “Go on then, tell me.” He straightens up. “What do you think?”
Rose finds her voice, finally, and the first thing that comes out is, “Who are you?”
He seems surprised and slightly hurt. “I'm the Doctor!”
She shakes her head firmly. “No. Where is he? What have you done to him?” Her voice rises as the realization that he is gone comes back to her full force.
“You saw me, I - I changed,” he says earnestly, gesturing over his shoulder, “right in front of you.”
She is not having this. “I saw him sort of- explode, and then you replaced him, like a... a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something.” The strange intruder doesn't respond, and she gathers her courage and steps toward him. She reaches out and pushes on his chest. He seems solid, at least, though he rocks back at her touch. “You're not fooling me.” She does her best to keep her voice from trembling. It's time to show this man she can and must be taken seriously. “I've seen all sorts of things: Nanogenes... Gelth...” she narrows her eyes as an idea strikes her, “Slitheen.” Recoiling slightly, she demands, “Oh, my God, are you a Slitheen?”
He calmly denies it, and this infuriates her. This is not something she's willing to be calm about. “Send him back. I'm warning you, send the Doctor back, right now!”
“Rose, it's me!” He's less calm now, pleading. “It's, honestly, it's me.”
She doesn't say anything, but now she starts to wonder if, maybe, it could be true...
“I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but... it's still me.”
Could it be? “You can't be,” she whispers. How can this man be the same man, her Doctor?
He walks toward her, and even though she wants to move back, she doesn't. “Then how could I remember this? The very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar, surrounded by shop window dummies... oh, such a long time ago.” His voice sounds like perhaps he's teasing her gently. If he were the Doctor, maybe he would be, calling that a long time. When he continues, his voice is serious again. “I took your hand,” and suits actions to words. She glances down hesitantly, still very unsure. “I said one word. Just one word, I said, 'Run!'” He looks into her eyes.
Hers are now full of tears. Wonderingly, she says, “Doctor.”
He grins cheekily. “Hello.”
She sighs. That's the Doctor, all right. It has to be. But her mind still whirls from the shock of it all. She stumbles back slightly, breathing, “Oh, my God.”
He, meanwhile, has turned back to the console, super-speed, chattering. “And we never stopped, did we? All across the universe. Running, running, running...” He flips a few switches. “One time we had to hop. D'you remember? Hopping for our lives?” He begins to hop up and down in place, full of manic energy.
She watches him, unable to take it in. He certainly has changed. She doesn't remember the Doctor acting like this. It scares her a little.
He's still hopping and still chattering. “Yeah? All that hopping? Remember hopping for your life? Yeah? Hop? With the-” He finally notices her lack of response, and slows down. “No?”
Rose gathers her courage again. “Can you change back?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Oh,” he says, sounding surprised and disappointed.
“Can you?” she presses.
“No,” he says firmly. He looks down, all excitement gone. “D'you wanna leave?”
She's shocked all over again, and saddened. “D'you want me to leave?”
Almost before she has finished asking, he interjects, “No! But.. your choice. If you wanna go home...” When she doesn't answer, too flustered to say anything, he goes to the console and narrates, “Cancel Barcelona. Change to London, the Powell Estate... ah... let's say the 24th of December.” He looks sideways at her, almost shy. “Consider it a Christmas present.”
Rose approaches him slowly. He stands back from the console, arms crossed defensively, with his hands tucked under. The gesture reminds her of the Doctor - the one she's used to. God, this is confusing. She feels the TARDIS change course. “Going home?”
He answers lightly, but she can tell he's still disappointed. “Up to you. Back to your mum... it's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast- no, Christmas! Turkey!” He adds slyly, “Although, having met your mother... nut loaf would be more appropriate.”
She looks down at the console, smiling a little despite herself.
He catches it immediately. “Was that a smile?”
“No,” she says quickly.
He speaks teasingly. “That was a smile.”
“No, it wasn't,” she says, briefly feeling like a little girl again.
He's smiling, speaking in the same tone. “You smiled!”
“No, I didn't,” she retorts.
“Oh, come on, all I did was change,” he says, both pleading and annoyed. “I didn't-” and suddenly he's making strange, nonsense sounds that make him sound ill.
“What?” she asks, worried that she'll have to be worried for this unfamiliar new Doctor.
“I said I didn't-” but he makes more of those sounds, more violently, and bends over as if in pain. The TARDIS shudders, too. “Uh oh.”
She really is worried about him, she realizes, and worried about what could be happening. He is driving this ship, after all. “Er... are you all right?” she asks nervously.
He opens his mouth, and a bit of gold - energy, or something, comes out of it and floats away. It looks a little bit like what happened before, when the Doctor changed.
“What's that?” she says.
His eyes wide open, he replies, “Oh... the change is going a bit wrong. I'm all ff-” and then he makes those same almost gagging noises again, and collapses forward, clearly in pain.
She has to do something. She can't just stand here and watch something huge happen to him again. “Look... maybe we should go back. Let's go and find Captain Jack, he'd know what to do.” Though it has taken her a while to think of it, she now realizes their friend must have been left on the Game Station.
The Doctor's mood has changed again, and she's just about dizzy with it all. “Nah, he's busy!” he says dismissively. “He's got plenty to do, rebuilding the Earth!” He bends over and sees a lever on the console, remarking out loud that he hasn't used it in years. When he flips it, the TARDIS shudders violently, almost knocking them both to their feet.
She doesn't like this. It seems to be getting worse. “What are you doing?” she yells, clinging to the console.
“Putting on a bit of speed!” he responds, loudly and gleefully. The manic energy is back tenfold. “That's it!” He's turning more knobs as fast as he can. “My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! That's a girl!”
She wonders if he's completely crazy. She wonders if he remembers that he apparently almost died just a few minutes ago. He continues to yell. “Faster! Wanna break the time limit??”
She doesn't know what that is, but it doesn't sound at all safe. She doesn't mind danger when they find it, but this seems to be just for the sake of it. She is more scared than she has been in a while, and it shows in her voice when she demands he stop.
He sounds distinctly annoyed with her. “Ah, don't be so dull, let's have a bit of fun! Let's rip through that vortex!” And then before she can react, his face changes, and he stares at her. His voice is softer and very worried when he speaks again. “The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself.” He grimaces again, and mutters, “Ah, my head!” Then he's up again, and shouting. “Faster! Let's open those engines!”
A bell rings, and a deep tolling sound starts. “What's that?” Rose asks, a cold, sinking feeling starting in the pit of her stomach.
“We're gonna crash land!” the Doctor yells, and he sounds delighted about it. He laughs crazily.
“Well, then, do something!” she yells back, hoping to jar him back to himself, the self that is about saving people and not about deliberately putting them into danger.
But he doesn't seem to be there. This Doctor shouts back hysterically, “Too late! Out of control!” He runs around the console, thrilled, even jumping into the air again while continuing to shout his insane excitement.
“You're gonna kill us!” Rose cries. She doesn't know what else to try. That chime is still going on in the background.
As if he hasn't heard, he meets her eyes across the console, grinning. “Hold on tight, here we go!” He doesn't notice her gasping for breath, or see that she's trying not to break down into complete panic. “Christmas Eve!”