A/N: So, this is a plot bunny I've had for a while. I took a Children's Literature course this past semester and wrote a critical analysis paper on Derek Landy's Tenth Doctor and Martha e-book, The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage. Then, for my final project, I asked if I could write a "Twelfth Doctor" story in the style of a "December e-book," since they only did e-books for Doctors (and months) 1-11. She said yes! So yay, fanfiction for my final project, and this is what happened…
Father Christmas
Chapter One
It was a lovely color, pink, but that just wasn't Jeff. No, that was entirely inadequate. The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the perception filter clipped to his waist and gave the gradient a quick buzz. A moment later the velvet hat and suit bled into a decadent red that rivaled that of a poinsettia. He checked his reflection in the view screen and, satisfied, reached for a plush bag crumpled at his boots. The second he picked it up be realized they had a problem.
The Doctor held the bag up to his time rotor, an enormous clear cylinder with six green rods inside that glowed like lightsabers. He turned the bag inside out and fitfully shook it. "Does this look dimentionally transcendental to you? We don't have time for games, Dear. The children are waiting."
The TARDIS answered with a sound like a metal beam resisting the urge to collapse beneath arduous weight.
After a millennia of travel, The Doctor had a pretty good idea of what that meant. He stubbornly aimed his sonic at the bag and waved it in a clockwise motion until his arm grew tired. His latest body just didn't have the dexterity of the previous one. "Fine. Have it your way. I guess I'm going Christmas shopping."
Round lights along the circumference of the console room flashed merrily like a carnival ride.
The Doctor trounced up the ramp leading to the front doors and pulled them inward to make a point. He reached for his key to lock them, but they swung outwards to sting his rear and clambered shut with the beep of an armed car. The Doctor grit his teeth and stumbled into the street.
Solar powered air conditioning units the size of 21st century London double-decker buses combed the cookie crumbling streets. The 61st century marked the second wave of severe solar flare activity that had baked the Earth and caused most humans to take to space only thirty centuries earlier. That was excellent for cold blooded Silurians, but not so much for Humans. Even so, they were a surprisingly resilient race and in sixty-five years they would be up hibernating in their space Ark until Earth proved habitable again.
"No, that's not right," The Doctor muttered. He paused, licked the pad of his right index finger, and waved it back and forth like a radar beacon. "Sixty-nine years." That—whatever that was—and the artificial sun bleached Charlie Brown trees in the shop windows placed him squarely in December 6018. The hologram decorated windows had fallen out of use by this time due to the maintenance costs associated with the contemptuous relationship between technology and the sun.
"Yer gonna die o' heat stroke wearin' that, Mx!"
"Oh?" The Doctor asked. He eyed the young child who had addressed him using the gender neutral alternative—pronounced mix—for Mrs., Ms., Miss, and Mr. that had taken dominance in early 4090s and quickly realized his perception filter was still projecting a Santa Claus costume. "And quite right you are!" He fingered the device on his belt. "Better now?"
"How'd ya do that?!"
"Old trick I learned in Venice. Had to modify it though, it was a bit fishy."
"Don't be shtupid, Venice's been underwater fer cent'ries!"
"Perhaps I'm lying then. Sometimes even I can't tell anymore." The Doctor tipped a nonexistent hat and resumed his stroll to the end of the lane. An air conditioning unit lumbered by and when it had gone he noticed a promising sign: Sidney's Toy Shoppe.
The bell above the door chimed. It was hotter inside than it had been outside. A group of porcelain dolls were strategically placed on a shelf just beyond the door and their layered dresses of Victorian lace and Mandarin silk were splotched with yellow as if even they were sweating. Aside from a black shorthair Catkind litter clawing at the screen of a 21st century inspired dog stroller as their father perused a selection of feline jungle gyms.
"Wouldn't go with that one," The Doctor said casually. He pinched at some of the carpeting and pulled out a small clump of beige fibers. "Shoddy materials. Your lot would have it destroyed just as soon as it was out of the wrapping." He waggled his finger at the door of the stroller as he passed and was rewarded with a chorus of mewls.
"You sound like a man who knows his toys." The voice came not from the Catkind father, but from somewhere on the other side of the aisle.
The Doctor followed it around the corner to an old woman that was using an archaic feather duster to whisk the faces of a collection of toy clowns. "Sidney, I presume?"
"Sid," the old woman answered. Her joints made cricket sounds as she stood and smoothed off her mistletoe colored cheongsam, embroidered with thin gold leaves. The Doctor offered his hand. "The Doctor."
Sid smiled, her teeth small and beadlike. "I don't get many doctors. One? Six? Eight, perhaps, in all my years? Never like this though."
"I imagine not," The Doctor replied. He absently thumbed a question mark shaped cufflink on his gray pinstripe suit. "Not much of a shopper, me. But today I came with a list!" He flicked his wrist, revealing his psychic paper that appeared to be nothing more than an inconspicuous leather wallet from the outside.
"Ah!" Sid clasped her hands together. "Quite the list! A family affair?"
The Doctor rubbed his knuckles with his left thumb. "My – my wife…it was something we used to do together."
Sid inclined her head. "Well, the hover scooters are this way and I have the entire Monique collection with the exception of the special editions. I have a room set aside for teddy bears, those will never go out of style–"
"They'll be around 'til the end of the universe."
"–and my comic collection upstairs, under Vinvocci glass."
Toys and books alike found their way into The Doctor's sack, including a cotton candy blue Furby and a robotic Yappy dog The Doctor spotted last minute on his way downstairs after two hours of shopping. He was proud of himself this time around, because many of his former incarnations would have taken double or triple that time. The thought passed through his mind as Sid rang up his purchases. He was staring into the counter display case when he noticed a slim white box. "Is that a Wii?"
"Twenty-first century antique!" Sid replied coolly. She stepped to the display case and massaged the glass with her twiggy fingers. "Are you interested in antiques, Doctor?"
A wave of nostalgia lubricated the words stuck in The Doctor's throat: "Do you have any games? I already have a console."
Sid licked her sandpaper lips. "I may have something. One moment." She picked up The Doctor's intergalactic Visa card before slipping into her back room. "For insurance."
The Doctor admired the Wii, just like the one back in his TARDIS.
Almost like the one back in his TARDIS.
After Amy and Rory had been trapped in 1938 New York, he'd taken the Wii from their house and wired it into the TARDIS circuitry. But he had not played in some time, not since his last tennis match with Clara, just before she told him needed a sabbatical:
"A sabbatical from Coal Hill?"
"That too."
"Too? No, that's not what you mean. You want a sabbatical from me. Is it the new face?"
"It's not the face. Well, sometimes it's the face." Clara smiled weakly. "The running and saving planets job. I love it, I genuinely do, but I always wanted to travel the world."
The Doctor tapped his foot. "We're in a time and space machine."
"Independently. When I was a little girl my mother and I used to read her book every night and I dreamed of seeing every place in her book. We always said we'd go together. And then – then she died…and I told myself I would go after I graduated university." Clara hugged the book in question, 101 Places to See, to her chest. "But then the Maitlands needed me. They were there for my father and I when my mum died and I had to return the favor. Then a year later you came along and we've done things—mad, impossible things! Things I'd never give up. I've lived a thousand lives, Doctor. Literally. I don't remember all of them either, but I did it for you. And Angie. Artie. My father. The universe! But now I'd like to do something for me. One-hundred-one places to see, all on Earth, all waiting for me, all on my own."
"I see." The Doctor turned his eyes to the fluctuating time rotor. "And when you're done…"
"I'll call."
He smiled. "Don't forget the postcards."
"Perhaps while I'm gone, you might find some time for other things," Clara said. "I'm sure you have at least one book unfinished book on your shelf."
The Doctor wrapped his hand around one of the console levers. He listened to the doors shut. He felt the TARDIS vibrate beneath the soles of his shoes. He wasn't ready for light reading.
"Here you are!" Sid announced. She slid a dusty black case into the top of The Doctor's sack.
"How much?"
"It's a gift."
The Doctor arched his right brow. "Oh?"
"Don't act so surprised. Even a toymaker can change the game every now and again."
"Is it violent?"
Sid patted the bloated sack. "It's a family game."
The Doctor slung the sack over his shoulder. "Thank you."
"No, Doctor, thank you." Sid pressed the Visa and a receipt into The Doctor's palm. "Come again soon!"
The road back to the TARDIS seemed somehow longer than it had originally. When he arrived, the air conditioning felt like butterfly kisses on The Doctor's sweat stricken neck and face. He dropped the sack at the console and leaned forward, resting his forehead against the cold glass of the time rotor. A ping caught his attention and he realized the Wii game had slipped from the sack onto the grated metal floor.
"What do you say, Dear? One-on-one?" The Doctor cracked open the case and pried the dim silver disc from its setting. It was so old the design on the disc itself had worn off. A part of The Doctor wondered if it would even work. "Only one way to find out!" He slid the disc into the slit of the Wii and glanced at his monitor.
Nothing.
Blackness.
And then…sound?
Yes! A flicker on the screen, as if the content was working its way through the miniscule scratches on the surface of the disc. The Doctor turned up the volume: ba-da-da-bum, ba-da-da-bum, ba-da-da-bum, oooo-we-oooo! As the game loaded, The Doctor slipped his sonic screwdriver into a specially designed Wii controller casing. It made the experience feel more authentic.
"'Choose your player.'" He gave the time rotor a playful slap. "I haven't chosen a player in ages!" But each time he tried to scroll through his selection options, the screen would glitch on the second option and boot him back to the first. "I guess we're playing as female."
The TARDIS returned a metallic hum.
The selection process continued to glitch. "A blonde female." Several clicks later, the game screen was loading again. Painstakingly so. "This might be more trouble than it's worth, Old Girl."
Then there was an image, only a silhouette at first. Next, a Santa hat emerged from the darkness. Finally, a pair of petite arms and a torso fitted in a red shirt holding a box wrapped in Circular Gallifreyan holiday paper and topped with a bushy green bow. And then there was a face.
The Doctor staggered against the console.
"Merry Christmas, Dad!" Jenny removed the lid from the box and tipped it forward, revealing a pulsating vortex.
A glitter whirlwind leapt from the box, through the monitor, and swallowed The Doctor whole.