It is Christmas 2010, New Years Day evening to be precise. Picture a living room, dimly lit from little multicoloured fairy lights donning the tree in the corner, and the warm, cosy air filled with the fragrance of Glade cinnamon-scented candles. And, curled up on the sofa with a half-eaten mince pie and box of Kleenex well at hand, surrounded by a sea of numerous used tissues scattered around in a kind of white, crumpled, tear-and-snot-filled semi-circle, is a young woman. Her name is Felicity Page, and she is not crying. Definitely not crying, for as she would hasten to tell you she is too old to cry, especially over a silly children's television programme such as Doctor Who. Sobbing, perhaps, but only in the quiet, dark, private sanctuary of her own home, carefully away from the teasing eyes of her family and the sniggering grins of her colleague and irritatingly annoying best friend George.
Did you hear! She cried watching the tenth Doctor regenerate!
Grrrrrr…
Of course she wasn't ashamed. No. Of course not. It had just been rather an emotional moment, that was all. And, besides, wasn't it sad? Wasn't it sad that her favourite character from, yes, okay, a much-loved show of hers had completely changed into a brand new man before her eyes – completely uncaring of her persistent denials for the past month every time David Tennant appeared on TV? A stranger she no longer knew had sauntered away, madly declaring he had legs and suddenly crying out Geronimo, still dressed in her Doctor's suit and running about her Doctor's TARDIS.
I don't want to go, her Doctor had said.
Damn right she didn't want him to go.
And Felicity wasn't alone. She hadn't been the only one of us. Almost a whole planet (or at least a good three quarts) had grieved for the tenth Doctor's passing that night, as across the void, in another world not totally unlike our own, or at least the one RTD attempted to portray every Saturday night on our television screens, the real-life tenth Doctor did die. Regenerate, should I say. Eleven is in that world now, hanging for dear life onto the edge of the TARDIS' doorway, god only knows having how he got there, as his crashing, burning ship plummets down to Earth. Somewhere below is little Amelia Pond, praying to Santa of all people – the Tenth Doctor all but forgotten.
The all-but is important.
This is because a whole planet (or a good three quarts) grieving is rather a noticeable thing. In his domain of white, the Trickster sat up and grinned…and listened. Listened to a hundred or more English fan girls and a thousand or more even louder American fan girls…all demanding the Tenth Doctor's return.
A slight smile spread across the Trickster's thin lips like mould. His laugh echoed around the lost domain, and Time shook as the Trickster followed the sounds of the fans, more than willing to please…