The TARDIS at Christmas, a doctor who fanfic

Written for DWSecretSanta, put on by Tumblr users Kilodalton and FadewithFury.

This is for you, thetimetravellersblogger.

"We're stuck, aren't we, Doctor?"River asked suspiciously.

"Of course we aren't!"He told her, but River heard the uncertainty in his voice. She came up beside him, staring intently at the boxy bronze monitor, fiddling dials. She slung one arm lazily around his shoulders, and rested the other on the TARDIS's console. River rolled her eyes heavenward. They were stuck, very much so, and the TARDIS was very peeved about her sweetheart of a husband's driving skills, or lack of them.

"Are you sure, sweetie?"She asked. The Doctor glanced at her haughtily. He straightened his bow tie.

"Of course I'm sure." He said, squaring his shoulders and rising a bit to her challenges. Then he saw her hand on the console and dropped a bit instead. Swatting her palm from the metallic surface, he glowered at her from underneath non-existent eyebrows. "Quit that!" He complained.

"I would never."she taunted.

"I know you wouldn't."

"Sweetie, you're terrible."

"Where do you think I learnt that, Doctor Song?"

"Professor, to you."She remarked.

He scoffed "Archeologist."

She grinned and swatted him on the shoulder "Shut up."River glanced around the TARDIS console room. It was bright and warm, cheery, with the glowing round things and bronzed colour scheme. But in honour of the season, blinking colourful christmas lights were hung in strands and loops from the ceiling, and twirled around the console beam. Silver garlands were spun around the railings and draped everywhere. "I like what you've done with the place."

"Thank you." He said proudly. "I did it myself."

"Bet you did."She teased.

"I did!" He cried indignantly.

"I believe you, sweetie. Don't worry."She slung both her arms around his neck possessively. River pecked him on the lips, and he pulled her closer, taking her and kissing her deeply. She hummed pleasantly and murmered against his lips.

"I'm not happy with you"she said.

"Why not, Doctor Song?"he asked her back.

"We're stuck!"They kissed again. The TARDIS air was warm and smelled good, like something baking.

"Is that such a bad thing?"He asked, then kissed her again, sweetly, softly.

River woke curled on the sofa in one of the many living rooms of the TARDIS. This one had always been one of her favourites, with the plushy soft couches and long velvet curtains over fake windows. Today, he'd programmed them just for her. They were a live image (or however live you could get in the TARDIS) of her parents house in London. She gazed at it for a moment, wondering if she'd be able to get dropped off there after he'd gotten the TARDIS unstuck. He wouldn't even let her help. Stupid sweetie.

River got up and wandered to the doorway of the living room. Her main aim was trying to find something decent to wear. But when she emerged from the room, she didn't recognize the corridor.

"Sweetie?"She called. The word echoed down the halls like a lost sparrow. She shook her head, curls bouncing in a mess. "That's wonderful."She muttered, then patted the wall of the TARDIS. "What have you got for me this time, girl?"

River checked that her blaster was still on her hip, which it was. Then she set off down the hallway in any which direction. She was a child of the TARDIS. It wasn't possible for her to get lost in here.

River was rethinking that thought.

Maybe it wasn't possible for her to get lost in the TARDIS's many random rooms and chambers on her own, but if the TARDIS herself wanted River lost, for whatever reason... Even so, it wasn't like she was the Doctor, whom she knew got lost in his own spaceship on a regular basis.

River poked her head into a room, and found a massive bronze door staring her in the face.

"Okay." She muttered. "Not that way."She headed onwards and opened another door, to find a huge room. Interested, she poked her curly blonde head inside, only to find it a large metal sphere that she was standing in the bottom of, staring up. The door she must've come through had vanished.

The walls were steel, without any seams or bolts holding them together, and they were cold to her touch. There didn't seem to be a way out.

Then, from somewhere she couldn't see, cold, clear water began bubbling up around her. The tank filled alarmingly fast, and soon River was floating, her feet unable to touch the floor. She could swim very well, but her swimming wasn't helping her sense of building confusion.

"What are you doing!" She shouted randomly at the TARDIS's walls. The water kept coming.

She was rising towards the top of the sphere now, and it's ceiling was alarmingly close, and no different from feet away than it had been from metres. River held her breath and ducked her head, pulling her flashlight (Waterproof, thank heavens) from her belt.

There was a trapdoor. At the very bottom of the tank. River swore it hadn't been there before, but it didn't matter. She poked her head into the shrinking airspace above her and dived under, swimming down as quickly as she could.

River grabbed hold of the ring on the trapdoor and shoved downwards. She pushed again, and the door came free.

River Song, along with hundreds of gallons of water, poured free and into a very average hallway of the TARDIS, except this one had a door in the ceiling that was gushing cold water. River landed on her bottom, coughing and spluttering at the sudden pressure change.

She was in a hallway. For all she knew, the direction that she chose not to go in led back to the console room. River walked to a door and opened it, to find herself staring at a familiar sight.

"The library!"She gasped. A familiar sight. She hurried in, glad to have found it. The ancient bookshelves climbed to the domed ceiling, dusty tomes and books and even old scrolls lining shelves. The carpet let out heavy puffs of dust as she walked on it, searching for a different exit.

She passed racks of test tubes, and sections of the Library marked in English, in Atraxan, in Dalven and... River squinted. Elvish? She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Wonderful

The largest section was no doubt the one written in Circular Gallifreyan, the ancient language of the Time Lords. Modern Gallifreyan took up a number of shelves, and Ancient sat next to it, but Circular was in a class of all it's own. River almost got sidetracked, before she remembered that she was lost. But besides the soaking hair and clothes, this was turning into an interesting adventure all of it's own.

There! A heavy oak door stood sandwhiched between two shelves, looking like it didn't belong there. River didn't care. She hurried towards it and tossed it open.

"OW!"thud.

River swirled around the door to find the Doctor sitting on the floor where the door had threw him, rubbing his nose. "River! What are you doing here?"

"I'm lost, same as you."

"I'm not lost!"River eyed his rumpled clothes and wet hair.

"Yes."She said. "You are, sweetie."

The Doctor squirmed a bit, but took her hand and helped her up. He stared at her, then looked stared around a bit more.

"I'm lost. More to the point, you're lost, and you're never lost here."He studied her "You are lost, aren't you?"

River nodded curiously. "I am. The TARDIS must want us lost, for some reason."

The Doctor nodded. "So the question isn't how we get back, because she'll never let us, or where are we. It's why."

The Doctor opened another door to another room, and River found herself looking at the console room.

But not the room as she remembered it. Instead of being bronze and gleaming with steampunk-era memorbilia, this one looked natural, coral, with great trees of matter spreading up to the ceiling. The Doctor shut the door again.

"Nope, wrong one."He opened another door, to another, different, console room. It was small and light-coloured, and looked as if it had been built out of spare parts. "Nope.

Another door, another old console room. "Nope."

And another "Nope."

And another "I don't remember this one."The Doctor said. River smiled as she saw the familiar bookshelves and chalkboards, a bizarre mixture of science fiction and old-fashioned schoolhouse. River shut the door "Spoilers."

"What's wrong with you, sexy?"The Doctor laid his hand against the simple metal wall. "You can tell me."He said. Then River heard something odd. A rumble, but a healthy, merry rumble. The TARDIS was laughing.

River set her hand on the wall. "Doctor"She said warningly.

"What is it? What's wrong, what's she saying?"

"Nothing's wrong"River said, her brow coming together as she concentrated. "She's happy, she's laughing."

"What?"He asked, in his adorable confused way. "We're lost, why's she laughing? River, what-?"

But she cut him off suddenly, straightening up. "I know which way the console room is."The Doctor let out a breath.

"That's great, River. Which way is-"

"But she says that we should go the opposite way."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know, sweetie. She's your sexy, remember?"She said sharply.

"Oh, River, you know I-"

"Shut up"She said, laughing. "We're going this way."

"Is this the way to the console room?"

"Of course not, sweetie."she said "If you aren't going to take us to the singing towers today, then we may as well do something else! Besides"She continued "She might lead us to what's wrong!"She called over her shoulder. He followed her, wondering where they could be going, and what they could be getting into.

River followed the hallways, her hand rested on her blaster, just in case. She didn't trust everything the TARDIS held in her supposedly infinite hallways and rooms. She'd run into dangerous things before and she would again, but hopefully not today. It was Christmas, after all.

"River, where are we going?"The Doctor asked from behind her.

"I don't know sweetie. Will you please stop asking?"

"Are we there yet?"He joked. She could hear the infuriating grin in his voice.

"I've killed you before, Doctor. I just might do it again."A door appeared in front of her, plain and white.

"No!"The Doctor shouted "Not that one!"But it was too late, the door was already open. River was tugged in, back into her worst nightmare.

The air around her was full of familiar, terrifying sounds. Hisses of air, in and out as she breathed. Her gaze was tinted an odd colour, a sort of brown. Protection for delicate eyes from contact with the sun. Her arms were heavy, drowning in thick material, her feet were trapped in heavy boots, her entire body was encased, with no living skin allowed to feel the elements.

River Song was in the space suit.

Her breath started sucking in quicker and quicker, and the suit tried to regulate it, but she wouldn't let it. She couldn't. Her heart beat heavy and quick. She cried out, terrified. This was her childhood, her terrifying past that she wouldn't ever look back on. River couldn't control the suit. There was a room outside, and River recognized it from Luna University. Kovarian stood outside, her molded eyepatch glinting cruelly in the faint electric light.

"Why?"River screamed. "How do you know who I am? How could you find me?!"She shouted. Her words reached Kovarian and her well-dressed friends, muffled, through the suit's filter. Kovarian grinned.

"Dear Melody Pond. We never lost you."River cried then, her terror from her past and her present converging on top of her and tearing her to shreds.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in a lake. Knee deep, on earth. Her limbs were still heavy in the suit, her visor still tinting her sight. There was a beach, and there were her parents.

There was the Doctor, too. He came towards the edge of the lake. River cried, and tried to shout, to scream, to do anything to stop him moving forwards. She couldn't move forwards with this, couldn't do this again.

"No..."She cried. It didn't occur to her, she didn't remember the Teselecta, she was to destroyed, too distraught. "NO!"

But he came forwards anyways. The suit shoved her forwards, lifting her legs and putting them down without her permission. River shook in panic and terror and pain. "No, sweetie."She cried. "Please no."Her tears ticked down from her face, and she couldn't stop them, or wipe them away or pretend they weren't there.

"I know it's you."She heard him say. The visor opened

He said other things, other things that she didn't hear. He was making her watch, in the future. She remembered that part too...

"I want you to know that you are forgiven"She heard him saying. Her arm was up, the suit held it there. River fought it, she fought it as hard as she possibly could. She couldn't stop it.

She couldn't stop it.

She was going to kill him.

"Always and completely forgiven."

A green light. A faint gold glow, and another green light. River couldn't tell more than that. Her mother's cry of fear and anguish, rushing footsteps, wild tears. She had her eyes shut tight.

"This is a memory."River heard a voice, not her own, in her head. "River, hear me. You're alright, it'll all be alright. I'm still alive, I'm right here."She looked up. The suit was carrying her back into the cold water that couldn't touch her. The visor was back up, and she only saw in brown.

"Please, hear me, River! It's a memory room, in the TARDIS. You're on board, with me. We've gotten lost, and you stumbled in here by mistake."River whimpered, shaking her head. The water closed over her head, and she was lost in a world of bubbles for a moment.

"River. Wake up, please."What was there to lose? She had just lost her love, and now she was hearing him in her head. River forced herself to wake up.

And woke, collapsed in a foggy room with circular white walls. The Doctor was crouching over her protectively, his face close to hers.

"River"He breathed. "I'm so sorry."Her heart was still pounding, still sucking her breath from the air as if it was quickly disappearing. He bent and kissed her gently. The tension started to peel away, and she let her head rest back on the floor, cushioned by her wild blonde hair.

"It's all right, River."

"Sweetie?"She muttered. "What..."

"It was a memory room. I didn't know she still had any. River, I'm sorry. I don't know how you stumbled into one."

"I'm fine."River said, sitting up. The Doctor shook his head and tried to keep her lying down.

"No, River, you're really not. You were terrified."River met his eyes.

"How did you know?"

"You were panicking. I could tell."He finished.

"Did you know what I saw?"

"Know? No, no. I guessed. You had made the comment about killing me, and I figured..."River dropped her eyes from his. "River."

"What?"She snapped, then dropped her eyes again. She shouldn't be doing this, it was Christmas. She was fine. Fine.

"It's alright. There's nothing to be scared of."He told her, wrapping her in his arms.

"I'm not scared. Not anymore."She shook her head She held her knees up to her chest, hugging herself and rocking back and forth on the floor. He hugged her from behind, and they were both curled on the cold tile floor. He turned around her and stared into her eyes.

"You're embarrassed. You're ashamed."He said tentatively.

"I'm not."

"You are."He claimed. She was shaking, and her shield was collapsing in on itself in this mans arms. She was shaking and crying and curling into him, I'm sorry she thought I'm sorry.

"River, you don't have anything to be sorry for."River realized she had said her thoughts aloud.

"I'm a psychopath!"River shouted through her tears. "I don't know... I don't... I'm never stopped, I can't ever stop. I always remember."

"River"He said sweetly. "You are. Maybe you can't stop, but you can control it. I promise."He turned and kissed her, gently. "My bespoke psychopath"

River smiled at that, though she didn't believe it hardly at all. But it was Christmas. For a day, she could pretend. So she let him kiss her, anyway.

River recovered quickly, as she always could. They headed through the halls together. The fact that they had lost had faded, somewhat. Then they stumbled on something interesting. The bad kind of interesting.

"Look at this!"River said in awe. "These are claw marks, of something?"

"What?"The Doctor asked, coming in to peer over her shoulder. "That's impossible."

"They're old"She said. "They must be."

"They can't be."He scoffed. "I know my own TARDIS."

"We're lost, sweetie, remember?"She said distractedly, tracing her fingers over the rents in the metal. She squinted at them, second-guessing, then pulled her scanner from her belt and focused on the tears, then on what the scanner said. At the same time, the Doctor pointed his screwdriver at them.

"They're not old!"He exclaimed. "They're not old at all!"

River nodded. "They've only been here for..."

"Twelve minutes"They said together, facing each other. River put her scanner away.

"Doctor?"She asked "What's all around here, this deep in the TARDIS?"She asked warily

The Doctor shrugged uncomfortably. "There's a lot down here."

"Good lots, or dangerous lots?"She questioned him. The Doctor cast a glance at the scratches down the wall.

"Both, probably. What do you think?"

River nodded grimly. Her hand moved from the scanner in her belt to the blaster holstered beside it.

Something whipped past behind them, and River sensed it and turned, just a second too late. A huge screeching noise of metal being wrenched apart echoed through the hallways.

They both ran.

"Why are we running towards it, River?"

River had her blaster out, and they swung around the corner.

Four long scars in the metal had been drawn from floor to ceiling, but other than that, there was nothing.

The Doctor turned to her, to find the wrong end of her blaster at his forehead.

"River, what-!"

"Sweetie"She said tensely "Duck"

He hit the floor with a girlish yelp as River's blaster went off above his head with a ringing noise. A screech echoed down the halls along with it, and he scrambled around to see a massive creature falling backwards and flailing on the ground. He got to his feet quickly, straightening his bow tie.

He hurried to the creature and knelt beside it. "Amazing!"He said "Absolutely amazing!"

"What is it, sweetie?"River asked curiously.

"It's a creature of a paradox!"He said, still excited. "They feed off energy from displaced time."

"Like the angels"River commented. The Doctor nodded.

"Yes, like the angels. But they're paradox creatures, they use paradoxes to feed themselves. I met them once, before with-"He stuttered to a stop and glanced at her guiltily

"With who, sweetie?"

"Rose."He glanced away from her eyes.

"Sweetie"He looked up at her nervously. "Rose was hundreds of years ago."She reminded him "I've never met her, I don't know her. But from what you've told me, we're nothing alike."

"So?"

"So, I don't mind if you mention Rose, sweetie."She said. "You change, you always change. You're a different person now."

"We all change."River smiled softly.

"That's true. But no one changes more than you do, Doctor."She said, reaching out to trail a hand down the face that could change so much. "You're a different man. And if I was jealous of every girl, or boy, or machine"River smacked the TARDIS on the metal wall "You ever fell in love with, well, I would have quite a problem, then, now wouldn't I?"

The Doctor grinned at this. "You would at that."He straightened his bow tie.

"Now, these creatures. What do we know about them?"

The creature was large, with massive wings like a dragons, and leathery grey skin. The blood that seeped from it's bullet wound was black and thick and sticky.

"If they're paradox creatures, what are they doing in the TARDIS?"She asked. The Doctor looked around.

"I don't quite know." River rolled her eyes.

"Typical of you, sweetie. It's your own TARDIS, shouldn't you be keeping track of the hitchhikers you pick up?"

"God, no. How would I ever do that?"River laughed. But her laugh was cut short as another screech sounded. The Doctor stood up, and pointed his screwdriver down one hallway, while River pointed her blaster down the other. For both of their sakes, she truly hoped the monsters came careening down at her, rather than at the man behind her who believed he could fend them off with a sonic screwdriver.

Instead, they came down both halls.

Claws clacked and tore at the metal, and the air was filled with the cavernous screeches. River and the Doctor stood back to back as they came. River started shooting. Every shot hit it's perfect target, and she aimed for heads and chests and eyes when she could. She was very glad the Doctor had his back turned. He got ever so cross.

The monsters on her side were dropping like flies, but they were still catching up, still coming closer with their metal-tearing claws and drawn-out screeches.

"River!"The Doctor shouted, his voice rising. River shot down one last creature, sending it backwards for others to stumble over, and tucked her blaster into it's holster, whipping out the squareness gun in it's place. River pointed it at the wall and pulled the trigger.

They sprinted down another hallway, taking random turns and corners. River shot over her shoulder. Even while running and shooting behind her back, her aim was near-perfect, leaving tiny burnt laser holes in chests and skulls of monsters. Their feet pounded on the metal floor out of sync, filling the corridors with the furious notes of echoing steel.

They passed doors, plenty of random doors every which way. Door flashed past that were made of oak or maple, with solid knockers and brass knobs, others were thick, patterned curtains or plain white, or painted in wild colours. They ducked into one of the rooms, and found a large, peaceful insect that clacked it's pincers at them, annoyed.

"Sorry, Jonathan!"The Doctor had squeaked, and they'd run on.

More doors passed, and River and the Doctor were both running quickly out of breath.

"Sweetie, what are we going to do!"River shouted, taking another perfect shot. "There's no end to them!"

"I was just about to ask you that!"

"It's your ship! You're the one who didn't get rid of them earlier!"Get rid of them earlier. River didn't hear his response as she thought rapidly over the question.

These creatures must be hurting the TARDIS, somehow. Well, River supposed, if she had hulking grey dragons tearing holes down her insides, that wouldn't feel too nice either. She wanted them to get rid of them for her. So she'd help them. It wasn't her and the Doctor against the creatures.

River sprinted down the hallway, with the Doctor in hot pursuit. A door was at the end of the hallway, a plain black door.

"River, no!"The Doctor shouted. "Don't open that door, don't you dare!"

"What is it?"She shouted back, over the terrible squealing and screeching behind them.

"It's the black hole!"River rolled her eyes and turned her head to glare at him.

"Should I even ask why you have a black hole inside your ship, sweetie?"

"No!"River glanced at the door, then at the creatures, a dangerous glint in her eye.

"You better hold on to something!"River shouted. She braced herself in a doorframe, and the Doctor followed her lead.

"Don't you dare!"

The creatures rounded the corner, flapping their wings and slashing their claws down the poor TARDIS's intestines. River pulled the squareness gun and blasted the door away.

A massive force, more than anything she'd ever felt before, was pulling her in, drawing her in. River ducked in behind the door as the paradox creatures were pulled into the wild distortion and eaten by the black hole that the Doctor had in his ship, for some unknowable reason.

"River! Put the door back!"The Doctor shouted. River shot blindly, and the massive, intense, impossible force faded, thankfully.

River emerged back into the hallway, messy and panting. The Doctor joined her there, staring at the black door.

She straightened his bow tie for him. "Sweetie. Where in all the galaxies did you find a black hole?"She asked him seriously. He grinned and turned away, strutting down the hallway. A few steps away, he turned back to her with an exaggerated spin and pointed to her. "Moldavar market"He said dramatically "You can find anything there."

River put her hand on the TARDIS's wall. No matter what, they were still lost. But River translated the vibrations of the TARDIS's walls.

"She's saying thank you!"River exclaimed. The Doctor scanned the hallway with his screwdriver.

His eyebrows lifted. "So she is"He said, surprised. River smacked at the hand that held the screwdriver.

"You don't need to scan everything, sweetie. I'm a child of the TARDIS."River glanced at him. "I can hear her."

"Then what's she saying?"

"She's saying..."River paused, then glanced up. "Run."The Doctor looked in her same direction. "Oh."

One of the paradox creatures was flying at them awkwardly, squaking and squealing. River pulled her blaster, aimed, and shot.

And glanced at it curiously. It hadn't made any noise, no monster had collpased, dead. She clicked the trigger, and again.

"My blaster! It's jammed!"She shouted over the screeching of tearing metal. The Doctor looked up, hair flipping dramatically, from where he'd collapsed on the ground with the threat of a blaster going off. "It never jams!"She stared at the weapon.

"She doesn't like you shooting inside her!"River jammed the blaster back into her belt. The creature was still coming at them, unfazed.

The Doctor scrambled up from the floor. "Run?"

River nodded. "Run."

They ran.

They stumbled to a stop after long minutes of running. The screeching hadn't diminished behind them, and the hallway in front of them was a dead end.

River glanced at it, then behind her, where the monster was charging towards them.

"River, what's she saying?"

Taken aback, she looked at him oddly.

"About the door! What's she saying about the door!"The Doctor shouted, his hand on the doorknob.

"She's not saying anything, Doctor! But we don't have another choice!"The monster was closing in, glaring at them with eyes of liquid gold. Angry liquid gold.

The Doctor shoved the door open. "Geronimo."

The door opened, and slammed shut behind him. River had shut her eyes as they plunged headlong into the unknown room. She opened them when she felt odd lights on her eyelids and the Doctor's hand squeezing her arm.

"River? Is it okay to look now, or...?"River blinked her eyes open.

She laughed.

She laughed along with the TARDIS's now-familiar comidic rumble. The Doctor blinked open his eyes, confused.

"No way."

"Yes!"She shouted. "Look!"

They stood shoulder to shoulder before a Christmas tree, stretching high into a massive room with glass ceilings. It was lit with a thousand tiny, blinking white lights all through the branches, it's live roots weaving all over the metal floor.

"It's a Christmas tree"The Doctor said in amazement.

"It's beautiful"River said breathlessly.

And it was beautiful. Twinkling like the stars that shone somewhere above them, outside the TARDIS's impenetrable maze.

The screeching had disappeared from outside now, and River wondered if the TARDIS was pulling her own strings, tugging them here in the first place. Maybe her blaster hadn't jammed all on its own. Whatever it was, she didn't care.

River leant into her Doctor's shoulder, and he leant into her, supporting one another, content in one anothers company. The beautiful, living green tree stretched its long, impossible needles out towards them, like the hands of a billion friends, wishing them a merry Christmas.

River didn't know at what point he turned to kiss her. But he did, and she linked her arms around his neck, pulling them closer together. They stayed that way, bathed in the blinking little lights of the impossible Christmas tree, for a very long time.

This is for you, Timetravellersblogger