Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of its properties. If I did, Steven Moffat would not be in charge right now.
Notes: This was written forever ago and posted to Tumblr. In an attempt to update this account with some things, I decided to post it here. Takes place when Tony is fourteen, and bears in mind the deleted scene from "Journey's End" wherein Rose and TenToo are given a piece of TARDIS coral and are taught how to accelerate its growth.
A Christmas Moment
"Now we just need to put this little star at the top of the tree, isn't that right?"
Tony flipped the switch on his handheld camcorder to 'ON' before he looked up, aiming it at the Doctor as he backed toward the tree, star in hand. The Doctor was looking over at Rose, who was sitting in a squishy armchair not too far from where Tony sat on the floor, hugging a pillow against her stomach.
"Be careful with that," she warned the Doctor, a little smile curling her lips. "Mum'll kill you if you break anything."
"I'm not going to break anything, Rose," the Doctor said, and Tony watched through the little screen of his camera as the Doctor's jumper brushed across the leaves of the tree. "I once rebuilt the TARDIS from scrap metal and an energy core; I think I can manage attaching a little glowing star to the top of a—"
The rest of the Doctor's sentence cut off in an undignified yelp as he backed up too far and knocked the tree over, falling right along with it in his clumsy haste to catch it before it fell. Tony couldn't help it; he started laughing hard enough to make his camera shake, and Rose wasn't much better, doubled over the pillow she was hugging as her laughter drowned out the sound of the Doctor's grunts as he tried to untangle himself from the tree branches, ornaments, and Christmas lights.
"Oh, look at what you've gone and done now!" Tony turned, swinging his camera along with him, as his mother entered the sitting room, a tray of Christmas biscuits and tea in hand. It was a job any one of their serving staff could have easily done, but as far back as Tony could remember, his mother had insisted on doing that sort of thing herself. He adjusted the zoom on his camera to focus on the biscuits. "I don't care how many hearts you have; you're as alien as the day we meet you."
"Thanks, Jackie," the Doctor said flatly, as Tony's father passed his mother and offered him a hand. He allowed Pete to pull him to his feet, and brushed himself off as Rose wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. "I appreciate it. Ooh, Christmas biscuits! I love Christmas biscuits!" Any embarrassment the Doctor seemed to feel at falling on the tree evaporated in the face of Christmas biscuits, his eyes lit up and a bright smile stretched across his face. As he reached for one, Jackie reached over and smacked his hand away.
"No. No biscuits for you until you fix the tree." Tony shifted the view of his camera to the Doctor's offended look, and then to his mother's stern stare. "I mean it." The Doctor huffed.
"Fine, fine. And what, are you just going to sit there and laugh?" he demanded of Rose, who was still grinning at him, her breathing a bit off-pace due to residual giggles. "Fat lot of good you are, Rose Tyler."
"Still rude, and still not ginger," Rose fired back. "And I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. You should have seen the look on your face!" She started laughing again, and even their parents joined in a little, though Jackie hid her smile behind her teacup and Pete hastily bit into a Christmas biscuit. The Doctor's expression was mutinous for a moment before he smirked.
"You didn't seem to find that sort of thing that funny three years ago," he said, and Rose's eyes widened, her laughter vanishing.
"Don't."
"When we were on the planet Phryxus—"
"Doctor, I'm warning you!"
"—and you just so happened to take a wrong step as we were on our way to meet the Alpha—"
Rose threw her pillow at him, which he caught and dropped to the floor. "Doctor, cut it out, I mean it!"
"—and ended up toppling all the way down that hill into the—"
"Doctor!" Rose punctuated her yell by leaping to her feet and running over to him, smacking him lightly on his arms and chest. "I told you not to tell anyone tha—" This time, she was the one interrupting her words with shrieking as he turned her own assault against her, grabbing her around the middle and tickling her furiously in her sides and stomach. Rose tried to bat his hands away, to no avail. As Tony caught the whole thing on tape, he rolled his eyes—especially as the Doctor started nibbling along Rose's neck, peppering kisses along her jawline.
"Do you surrender?" he asked in a low voice. Rose turned her head toward him, smiling against his mouth.
"What do you promise me if I do?" As their lips met, Tony heaved an exaggerated sigh.
"D'you guys mind? There are other people in the room, you know. The least you could do is get your own if you're going to start this up." The Doctor and Rose broke apart, exchanged looks, and then smirked as Rose pulled away.
"All this complaining, and yet someone thinks he's mature enough to ride around in the TARDIS with us," Rose said loftily, snatching a biscuit off the tray. The Doctor nodded, and with Pete's help, picked the tree up off the floor.
"It's a good thing we decided against giving him a key to the TARDIS in his stocking this year, then. Definitely can't have him along if he can't handle a little kissing."
Tony's eyes widened in horror. "No! No, I take it back! Kiss as much as you want! Film a porno for all I care, just give me the key!"
"Anthony Michael Tyler, you watch your mouth," Jackie said sharply, and Tony decided against turning his camera in her direction, filming Rose instead as she got up to help their father and the Doctor fix the tree. "The only thing you'll be getting in your stocking is soap to wash out your mouth if you talk about things like that again."
"Yes, Mum," Tony said with a sigh.
"That's better. And you could do with turning that thing off, couldn't you? It's Christmas; you don't need to hide behind it every second."
"I'm not hiding behind it, I'm filming—making a Christmas movie. Besides, the Doctor and Rose got it for me; it'd be a shame not to use their gift." He gave them a thumbs-up as they looked over, and his mother sighed.
"Better that than a TARDIS key. Who knows what you'd be filming if you went to Mars or something." Tony made a face his camera couldn't catch, and the Doctor plugged in the Christmas tree.
"There, all fixed! . . . Oh." The Christmas star remained unlit, and Tony moved his camera from face to face as each member of his family stared at it in expressions ranging from confusion, to disappointment, to horror. "Is it supposed to light up?"
"It's supposed to," Pete said, reaching up to take it off the tree. He examined it for a moment before he replaced it on the tree top, frowning at it. "The battery's fine. Maybe last year wore it out."
"'I rebuilt the TARDIS from scrap, I think I can handle putting a star on a tree,'" Rose mocked quietly, and the Doctor reached into he inside of his suit jacket to pull out his sonic screwdriver, turning to give her a look as he did so.
"Hushhhhhh. Now." Pressing a button on the side of his screwdriver, he reached up and held it against the star, waiting a moment until the star flared to life with bright light. Jackie smiled, an expression her daughter mirrored as she lightly nudged the Doctor in the side with her elbow. "There, all better! Good as new. Better than new, even. I don't remember it glowing that brightly last year, do you?"
"Nope," Rose said, her tongue sticking between her teeth. Jackie lifted the tray of Christmas biscuits up to the Doctor, who took three with a happy little grin before he allowed Rose to pull him over to the chair, where she settled on his lap.
"Happy Christmas, Doctor," Jackie said, and then—to the room at large—asked, "Now, who's ready for presents? And Tony, do put that away, would you? Pay attention to what's going on with your actual eyes, not that camera."
"All right, all right, sheesh." Tony flipped the camera around to take a self shot, grinning at it with a little shrug. "Happy Christmas," he said, before flipping the switch to turn the camera off.