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As soon as she rang the bell, Nerys could hear Donna shouting across the house. “What did I say? I throw a party on Christmas Eve and she's thirty minutes early, that is just like her! Didn't I tell you? She'll be early, I said, she always is—” Donna opened the door and hugged Nerys as if she hadn't just been audibly complaining about her. “Come in, come in! Merry Christmas!”
Nerys hugged her back, one-armed, then handed over a plate of homemade biscuits. They hadn't come out as nicely as she’d hoped, and she was slightly embarrassed about them. “Happy Christmas, Donna. I don't know what you're moaning about, anyway, I'm not even the first one here.” She nodded at the lanky man stood behind Donna. He was decidedly not Donna’s husband. “I don't believe we've met. I'm Nerys.”
The man, who was wearing a garish waistcoat of red and green tartan with a matching tie, held out a hand for her to shake without actually coming closer. “I'm the Doctor. But I live here, actually. And we have met before. Well, we've sort of met. Well, I've… seen you.” He pointed at her triumphantly. “At Donna’s wedding!”
Nerys looked him up and down, humming doubtfully. “I think I’d remember you. Hold on… which wedding?” It came out a bit more snidely than she’d intended.
Donna and the Doctor did not look at each other in any way. “Both of them,” he said evenly.
“He's my cousin,” said Donna, by way of explanation, and gestured vaguely with the plate. Nerys peered up at him. That is not her cousin, she thought. “Come on into the parlor, I'm just gonna go and set these down.”
Shaun and Rose were in the parlor already, Shaun turning down the volume on Donna’s Christmas playlist. “Hello, Nerys!” he said cheerfully. “Can I get you a mulled wine?”
“Oh, if you insist. Just one, though. I'm going to a real party later.” Shaun blinked, shook his head slightly, and headed for the kitchen.
Sylvia, whom Nerys had always rather liked, wheeled her dad into the parlor and smiled at Nerys. Wilf was wearing a headband with antlers on and beamed at everyone as Sylvia parked his wheelchair beside the sofa. “It's been too long, Nerys. Why, I haven't seen you since…” Sylvia trailed off, awkwardly, before she could say the accident. Nerys winced and Sylvia finished, “Merry Christmas, anyway.”
Rose was in a red skater dress, brilliant green eyeshadow, and glittery shoes that Nerys thought had far too much heel for a girl her age. If Nerys’s twins had ever asked her for shoes like that… It didn't bear thinking about, really. She would never understand Donna’s parenting. “Hello, darling. You look lovely. You're so good with your makeup, you must teach me to do that one day,” said Nerys, giving Rose a side hug before they sat down on the loveseat together. Turning her attention back to Donna and the so-called Doctor, Nerys said, “I didn't know Donna even had a cousin. She's never mentioned you before. And you live here?”
“Oh, sure,” said the Doctor, settling beside Donna, one leg slung up against the arm of the sofa in what Nerys considered an obnoxious manner. He winked at Wilf. “Isn't that right, Granddad? Well, I've been away for a while. But I'm back now.” Obviously, thought Nerys acidly.
“He was doing Doctors without Borders,” Donna put in helpfully.
The Doctor nodded in agreement. “Hate a border, me.”
Nerys peered at the man, whom she had assumed, based on his appalling fashion sense, was a doctor of maths or maybe history, and was reluctantly intrigued. “Doctors Without Borders? Where?”
“Mm. I dunno. There were no borders.” He shook his head, raising his eyebrows as he briefly made eye contact with Rose. Beside Nerys, she stifled a giggle. “But we were very close when we were younger, Donna and I.”
“Inseparable, really,” Donna agreed, and they grinned at one another. Shaun came back in and handed Nerys her wine before sitting on the other side of Donna, an arm around her. The Doctor grinned at him, too. Nerys watched them suspiciously, sipped her wine, and thought the three of them were a strange trio indeed. Donna, living with another man, and sitting that close to him on the sofa? And Shaun, just fine with it? It may take all kinds, but something really weird was happening here. She wondered what Susie Mair would make of this. Her fingers itched to text her.
“That's right. In fact, in fact, you, you might say,” Wilf began, with the air of someone trying to tell a joke they're inordinately proud of, “they were practically the same person!” He and all the rest of them burst out laughing for no reason Nerys could understand. She chuckled along, feeling rather like the butt of a joke somehow.
Donna’s phone rang. The Doctor leaned well into her personal space (Nerys narrowed her eyes disapprovingly) to see the display and frowned. “What are they playing at, calling you this week? You're on holiday. Give me that.”
He took the phone and answered it. “Donna Noble speaking. Well, clearly I'm not her. I'm her secretary.” Donna rolled her eyes and he grinned at her. “She's on holiday, so this is the best you're going to—” He paused as the caller spoke. “Oh. Speaking. Yes, I'll hold.” He looked at Donna, preening. “It's not even for you. It's for me. So there.”
Donna snorted. “Yeah, well, you just make sure they pay you for your time, Mister Consultant. You've got bills to pay for the first time in your life.” Nerys wondered if Doctors Without Borders paid well in addition to providing room and board. She doubted it. It didn't look like they'd fed him at all, frankly.
“Shirley Anne Bingham, hello! How lovely to hear from you. And it's lovely of you to ring me up for once instead of leaping directly to kidnapping. I take it you're not calling to wish us a merry Chr—” The person on the other end of the line cut him off, and he replied mildly, “There's no holiday spirit in you. All right, let's hear it.”
He listened, sitting up. Donna mouthed something at him, but he waved her off. “Green? Lower than satellites, though, aren't they? Sort of square things? Spaced equidistantly around an entire planet? Of course I know what they are, Shirley. They're called terradrones. Wonderfully clever devices. Solar-powered. Chlorophyll-based, in fact, hence the green. They spend a while up there absorbing light and converting it to electricity, and then they all fire into the atmosphere simultaneously to supercharge the atoms and kick-start this massive chain reaction—hang on, why are you asking me about terradrones?” He screwed up his face, baffled at the reply. “What, over Earth? But that doesn't make any sense!”
Everyone else had gone very quiet, watching him. He strode to the window and looked out, squinting up into the sky. Rose and Donna followed, and then so did Shaun. Sylvia pushed Wilf over and they peered up, too. Nerys, not wanting to be left out, joined the rest of them. Nerys wasn't sure what she was meant to see, but she couldn't see anything but flat gray clouds. The Doctor clicked his tongue. “No, not from where we are, there's weather. Give me a second.”
He took something out of his pocket and aimed it absentmindedly at the telly, flipping through the channels. Rose sighed dramatically. “Every time you use the sonic for that, I have to reprogram the remote.” He ignored her, stopping on the news, which showed thousands of little green floating squares hovering in the sky over Beijing, as far as the eye could see. He changed the channel again, showing the same squares over New York City. ANOTHER CHRISTMAS INVASION? the chyron asked.
This did always seem to happen at Christmas, thought Nerys. Every bloody year there was something. It didn't particularly surprise her that somehow Donna was involved. After all, hadn't her first wedding been interrupted by something like this? And on Christmas Day, as well. Of course, that was after Donna had already interrupted the wedding herself by running away in the middle of it. It’d be just like Donna to take a job as some sort of… some sort of Agent Mulder. Not a serious person, Donna. Head in the clouds. She could never cut it in a serious job like marketing, Nerys reflected.
“Nerys, dear,” said Sylvia, “would you like to come and help me with, er, the dishes?” Nerys looked at her quizzically. “Oh, never mind.” Sylvia flapped a hand at her.
The Doctor spoke into the phone again, eyes on the screen. “There should be a carrier? Er, that'll be a great big ship. Loud. Yellow, most likely. Can't miss it. That's where the crew’ll be. The terradrones are, well, they're drones. Anyone seen it?” A pause. “Scotland? Oh, no, that's another language, I forgot.” He changed the channel (TERROR OVER AOTEAROA, the chyron cried, and it was odd, because this was a news channel out of New Zealand, and Nerys wasn't sure how Donna’s house was picking that one up. They probably had some expensive special telly that people could only afford if they’d won the bloody lottery) and there were the squares again, along with a large, yellow, blocky spaceship hanging in the sky above a beach.
It didn't look like any spaceship Nerys had seen before. In fact, although it had a few bits jutting out here and there, it looked rather like a particularly complicated brick. “There you are,” the Doctor murmured, as if to the ship itself. He stepped closer to the screen, squinting at the pixels. Speaking up, he continued, “Shirley, there’ll be a company logo on the side of the ship. Can you send me an image? I can't quite make it out here—” The phone dinged and he held it out at arm’s length, putting on a pair of reading glasses and peering at the image. “Ohhh, bless them. Marbenno & Larvae Planetary Construction, it says. I do like to see a family business.” He nodded slowly and put the phone back to his ear. “No, I know what’s happened. Put your boss on, please? Thank you, Shirley. Yes, merry Christmas to you too.”
Nerys looked at Donna, who was looking at the Doctor, then at Rose, who was looking at the Doctor, then at Sylvia, who was looking at the Doctor, then at Wilf, who was looking at the Doctor, then at Shaun, who smiled politely at her and said, “Let me get you some more wine.”
“Kate Stewart. It's me. Not that me. The older—the younger—We sound completely different! I'm the one who—Oh, that's very funny. Well, I'm glad you can still have a laugh at my expense in times of stress.” The Doctor opened a closet and started putting on a jacket, having difficulty as he kept the phone between his ear and his shoulder. Sylvia went to him and helped him put his arms into the sleeves, as if she were helping the world’s tallest toddler, and then tugged on his lapels and brushed his shoulders to smooth the wrinkles out. He mouthed “Thanks” at her and kissed her on the forehead. Donna went to the closet next, but he shook his head at her, holding the phone away for a moment. “You stay here. I’m just going to talk to the foreman.” Donna frowned, but shrugged.
As he spoke on the phone, his voice grew increasingly annoyed. “No, I’m not. At this time of year? He's busy. No, I haven't spoken with him, but I can absolutely guarantee you, with one hundred percent certainty, that he's busy today, with something a hell of a lot more important than this. No, I haven't got his number. It's not a real call box, as you know perfectly well. Phones don't even work where he is, you can't just call him—”
“Liar,” said Donna in a stage whisper, and he stuck his tongue out at her as he turned away.
“How's school going?” Nerys asked Rose, trying to touch ground somewhere, but Rose, very disrespectfully, only looked at her like she was the odd one here. Shaun came back and handed her another mulled wine. Nerys drank gratefully, not knowing anything else to do. She wished she hadn't come to Donna’s stupid party at all.
“Look, we don't need him. I’m on my way to sort it out. Yes, Kate, I am retired. Normally I’d say no, but this is just a misunderstanding. I know what species they are and I know what’s gone wrong. I'll have it dealt with in… call it twenty minutes. No, there won't be any complications.” The Doctor caught Wilfred’s eye and said it again, more loudly, as if trying to convince everyone. “There won't be any complications! They don't even have weapons on those carriers.” He let his head roll back, hand over his eyes. “Because that's not what they're for! Believe it or not, Kate, but not everyone in the universe goes around armed to the teeth all the time like you do. No, no contingency plan. You blow that ship up, and not only will you have murdered innocent people, but there'll be no way to recall the drones. Under no circumstances is anyone to fire on that carrier, do you understand?” He spun and paced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s a Presidential order, in fact. Well, you shouldn't have given me the rank if you didn't want me to pull it!” he shouted.
Running a hand through his hair, he held the phone to his chest and addressed the room. “So sorry. I'll be literally one minute. Just have to stop the entire Earth from being… well.” And he stepped out the back door into the garden, putting the phone back to his ear. As the door closed, Nerys heard him say, “What's happened is that lot up there have got turned around. They just need someone to…”
A quiet moment followed. Shaun hugged Rose and Donna to him, and Sylvia reached down for Wilf’s hand. Nerys finished her wine.
There was a loud VWOOORP! sound outside, but when Nerys looked, she couldn't tell what had made it. “I should have gone with him,” Donna muttered. “I know what he said, but I should have gone.”
“He'll be fine,” Wilf declared, but his voice quavered a bit. “He always is. You'll see.”
Eventually, realizing that no one intended to volunteer any information, Nerys asked, “What’s he president of?”
…
Nerys had finally remembered seeing the Doctor at Donna’s wedding after all. The first wedding, the one Donna had run away from, only to return to the reception with a strange man on her arm. This strange man, in fact. Then Donna, her fiance Lance, and the stranger had run away together, and only Donna had ever come home. They'd never even found poor Lance’s body! Donna had refused to tell anyone what had happened. And now this man was back, years later, and apparently living with Donna and her current husband. If she were Shaun, Nerys thought grimly, she’d be sleeping with one eye open.
She had only just excused herself to the loo, intending to text the gossip to Susie, when she heard the VWOOORP! sound again, and then the back door opening and closing. From inside the loo, she pressed her ear to the door and listened to the conversation.
“Terraforming, is what that was,” the Doctor announced triumphantly. “What it was going to be in a few minutes, anyway.”
“Why would anyone terraform Earth?”
“Fantastic question, Rose, yes! No one would terraform Earth, because it's already… formed of… terra. Yeah, shut up. My point is, they thought they were terraforming Neptune.”
“Neptune.” Donna sounded extremely skeptical. It was the same way she had when Nerys had explained about the accident, which hadn't even been her fault, no matter what the investigators said.
“Ehhh. Same system. They were told it was ‘the blue planet.’ Simple mistake. Could happen to anyone.”
Sylvia asked, “Has it happened to you, then?”
Nerys couldn't hear him reply, but she supposed he must have answered somehow, because everyone laughed, and Donna said, “You idiot!”
“Here, but isn’t Neptune the size of fifty Earths?” asked Wilf, puzzled. “And it's got all moons.”
“Well remembered, Granddad. But you've got to think, there's not really anything you can use for scale, out there, in space. Moons? Ha. Moons are unreliable. Planets are always picking them up and shaking them off. You should see what's going to happen to your moon in a few years, in fact. Talk about weird. Anyway, they're construction workers competing for contracts. They don't get paid enough to check more than ‘Is it blue?’”
“But they almost electrocuted the Earth!” Wilfred wailed. “Just because it's blue?”
“Tell me about it,” said the Doctor darkly. “I told them, the whole industry really ought to unionize.”
“Space construction workers,” mused Shaun, sounding fascinated. “Huh! Never would have thought of that, jobs like we've got. Have they got space taxis, then? Space post offices? Space libraries?” Silence answered him. “Oh, wow. What are those faces for?”
Flatly, Donna said, “We don't want to talk about it.”
“Right. Message received! Who wants wine?”
Nerys had had enough. She stormed out of the loo and scowled at Donna. “I know you think it's very funny to play pranks on me, Donna Noble, but if you don't want me to come round anymore, you should just say so instead of—”
The Doctor’s face fell. “Oh, no, Nerys, I am so sorry. I completely forgot you were here.”
“Forgot I was here? You were gone for less than a minute!” Nerys snapped.
He made a face. “To you,” he said enigmatically. He gave Shaun a pointed, penetrating stare.
“I've got an idea. Let's the rest of us go to the kitchen and see about that wine, yeah?” Shaun suggested brightly, and Sylvia didn't need to be told twice. She and Wilfred were gone in a flash. Shaun nudged Rose and the pair of them left the room, leaving Nerys alone with Donna and the Doctor.
“How long’s she been here? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes, let's say.” The Doctor rolled up his sleeves. “Come here, Nerys.”
“Oh.” Donna put herself between him and Nerys. “No, I can't let you do it to her, Doctor.”
He held up a hand as if Donna were a wild horse he was trying to soothe. “This is not like what I had to do to you, Donna. Not even remotely. Twenty minutes is not that much time. A person can lose that much time daydreaming. Easily.”
Nerys had the sense that, somehow, her fate was being decided. She wondered if she could make it to her car if she scarpered. She looked down at her heels, which were much higher than Rose’s, and decided she probably couldn't. “I was leaving anyway,” she tried. Neither of them acknowledged her.
Donna shook her head. “I don't like it. It's a violation.”
He bounced a little, antsy. “Mmmmm, right. And you've got a point. Sure. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, she did flirt with Lance at your own wedding.”
“After she’d left him at the altar!” Nerys objected.
“Lance?” Donna scoffed. “That miserable excuse for a—I wish she'd kept him!”
“What happened to him?” Nerys demanded. “You and your cousin here took him away and he never came back!”
At once, they both said, “Spiders ate him,” like that was any kind of answer at all.
“I really don't want you to do it, Doctor, I'm sorry.”
“What about…” The Doctor cast about, glancing at Nerys again. “What about that job she stole from you? Hm?” He must have seen something in Donna’s face, because his eyes gleamed triumphantly. “What about that?”
Nerys couldn't let this pass. “I never!”
Donna wheeled on her. “You absolutely did!”
“No I didn't! I was more qualified than you, Donna! Sometimes people might just like me better!” Nerys drew herself up, genuinely furious now. “And anyway, if you had beaten me out for that job, you would have just spilled a coffee on something important and gotten the sack in a week! I don't even know how you keep getting hired!”
“Shut it, Nerys!” Donna bellowed. “I'm trying to help you, you silly cow!”
“It's twenty minutes.” The Doctor looked at Donna pleadingly. “It's so much easier to do this than it is to explain. And I'll be honest, the way you talk about her, I don't love the idea of her knowing I'm not human.”
Nerys scowled at Donna, who looked mildly ashamed. “What do you mean, the way she talks about me? And hang on, I knew you weren't her cousin! I should have told Susie.”
“Yes, well done, Nerys, Arthur Conan Doyle'd be proud. Tell you what, though, you might think about gossiping a bit less, mm? Maybe then these things wouldn't happen to you. Donna?”
Nerys realized something. “Oh that is sick, dragging Shaun into whatever the pair of you have going on.”
“What?” they asked simultaneously.
“I knew you were a bit loopy, Donna, but shagging an alien? I mean, that's, that's like, that's like bestiality!”
“Oh, it’s really not!” yelped the Doctor, rocking back on his heels as if she’d slapped him. “And anyway, we're not—that's exactly the opposite—you've got the wrong end of the—Donna? Back me up here?”
Nerys knew she’d gone too far when Donna opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again with an audible snap instead. Donna turned back to the Doctor. “Do you know what?” she said, as if thinking of this all by herself. “Twenty minutes isn’t that much time,” she conceded as she stepped out of the way.
He nodded sagely at Donna. “It is not that much time.” He rubbed his hands together and held them out toward Nerys’s head. “Nerys, if you could just hold still for a moment? Now, I promise, this is not going to hurt.”
“And for the record, Nerys?” Donna said, her voice dripping with false sweetness, as the Doctor touched Nerys’s temples. “Not even if he was the last person in the universe.”
“You said it,” agreed the Doctor, looking ill.
…
Once the party was in full swing, Donna pulled Susie Mair aside and whispered to her about how Nerys had showed up early and gotten so drunk before any of the other guests arrived that Shaun had had to drive her home. “I’d be surprised if she even remembered being here,” she finished, shaking her head. As Donna walked away, Susie pulled out her phone. The mighty Nerys, brought low by drink? She couldn't wait to text Bethan.