Title: Happy Holidays (From Heck)
Author: Unknown Kadath (aka kadath_or_bust_)
Rating: G
Genre: Fluff, Humor
Characters: TenII, Rose, Jackie, Pete, Tony
Summary: The human Doctor's first Solstice with the Tylers on Pete's world. Some presents are more of a surprise than others.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, or any major holiday.
Happy Holidays (From Heck)
Author's Note: This is a bit of fluff I wrote today (Christmas 2009), having just got the idea last night. It's part of my "Other Egg of the Phoenix" series, but written out of order, and contains a few references to stories I haven't written yet. Hopefully, it'll all make sense anyway.
Oh, and I'm in South Jersey, which was just hit by a nor'easter last week, and still looks like God got plastered on eggnog while doing His decorating and blasted the state with tree flocking.
1. Mistletoe Morning
On December 21st, the Doctor tiptoed into the bedroom in the dark, careful not to spill the brimming mug of coffee. Well, he wasn't sure if he could spill it, with the stasis attachment on the handle. But best not to take chances.
He set the mug on the table and slipped under the covers on his side of the bed. He was still in his pajamas—well, back in his pajamas. He'd woken as usual at three in the morning (even half-human, he didn't need anything like a full eight hours sleep), dressed in his suit, puttered around in his workshop till seven, changed back into his jammies, and brought Rose her coffee.
Rose. She was the best part of his new life—the part that made his new life worth living, because nothing he'd lost was as important as her.
She was as beautiful asleep as awake. He'd taken a picture once, so he could demonstrate this fact to her, but she'd made him burn it. Said she looked frumpy. Frumpy! She looked adorable to him, with her hair a silky gold mess tumbled over the dark blue of the pillowcase, and her eyelashes dark against her freckled cheeks, her face half-buried in the pillow and relaxed in sleep.
The Doctor reached over and unclipped the stasis attachment from the coffee mug. Steam started to rise from it immediately, and the smell of freshly-brewed coffee.
Only then did he edge closer to her, easing her limp weight into his arms and nuzzling her hair. It was as soft as it looked, and smelled of pricey strawberry-kiwi shampoo.
"Mnnn," she mumbled in protest, beginning to stir. She moved aimlessly for a moment, pushing against him, before changing her mind and snuggling closer instead. So warm and soft, the pink flannel of her pajamas softer than velvet under his hands.
He held her for a moment of perfect peace and contentment. It was funny. When he'd been a full Time Lord, he'd never felt like this—like time had stopped. He'd always been aware of events rushing forwards, the seconds ticking past, the present slipping away and the future slipping up.
He could still feel time passing, but now, sometimes, it seemed to pass him by. Strange how it had loosened its grip on him, when he had only one human life left.
Rose stirred again, sniffing the air. "Uh?"
"Good morning, love," said the Doctor, sitting up with her and passing her the steaming coffee mug. Rose wasn't exactly a morning person. She wasn't exactly not a morning person, either, but he'd learned it helped to have caffeine on hand when she first opened her eyes.
"Fanks," she mumbled, taking a long sip and cuddling even closer to him. "Oh, this is good."
"I'm glad you like it." The Doctor held her while she drank, waiting for her to wake up just a bit more. Waiting for the right moment …
Her eyebrows drew together in a frown, and she ran her fingers over his flannel-clad chest. "You're still in your jammies."
"I am. Yes."
"Why?"
"Christmas! Nobody gets dressed Christmas morning. Or Solstice morning. They go downstairs and open presents in their jim-jams, and then they eat sticky things for breakfast and play with their new toys."
She sat up a little more fully, leaning away just a bit so she could look him up and down. Mostly up.
"What's that daft fing you got on your head?" she demanded.
Ah. Now she was all the way awake. "It's a hat," said the Doctor, contriving to look innocent.
"Yeah, I can see that," retorted Rose. She was trying to look stern, but her lips were twitching. "It's a very silly hat. An' the answer's no."
"No? No?" The Doctor widened his eyes. The 'puppy-dog look,' she called it. "Why not? And what's wrong with this hat? I like this hat!"
He did like the hat. He'd fallen a bit in love with it when he'd seen it in the shop. It was made out of bright red felt, with a fluffy white trim, and it had a sort of miniature fishing-pole stuck to the top. With a bit of plastic mistletoe hanging from the end.
"Cos. Morning breath," said Rose, leaning back a little further so she was out of range of the plastic leaves. "And I s'pose the hat's all right … if you're fighting werewolves."
"Morning breath!" said the Doctor. "Ya can't have flippin' morning breath! The coffee'll wash it away!"
"Coffee breath, then," said Rose, taking another sip. "You and your hat are gonna have to wait." But her eyes were sparkling with mischief, and he could see the tip of her tongue poking out from between her teeth.
"But I like coffee. And anyway, it's tradition. Tradition in two universes! It doesn't matter what we want, we've got a solemn duty to kiss."
The eyes narrowed again. "Are you saying that kissing me is a duty?"
Uh-oh … "A duty and a privilege."
"Well, in that case …" She grinned openly. "Can't argue with tradition."
Just before their lips met, the stasis attachment burst into flames.
2. First Solstice
Tony beat them downstairs. Well, even without the minor delay caused by the exploding stasis device, admitted Rose, they were never gonna beat a three-year-old (going on four) to the presents. Fortunately, Jackie had put fire extinguishers in every room since the Doctor had come to live with them, so they were able to contain the damage and arrive in front of the "tree" at the same time as the elder Tylers.
"Hurry up! Hurry up!" bellowed Tony, stomping up and down in his impatience. He was a chubby little terror, with his mum's attitude and his dad's ginger hair, spoiled not-quite-rotten by everyone and always a bit too cheerful to manage a really serious tantrum. If he was old enough to read the labels and figure out which gifts were his own, reflected Rose, he probably wouldn't have waited for them.
"Tone-tone-tony-tones!" said the Doctor, picking the boy up and turning the shouts to giggles with an attack of tickles. He was brilliant with Rose's baby brother, and she loved watching them together. He'd told her the genetics were probably too dissimilar for them to have one of their own … but 'probably' was different from 'definitely,' and besides, they'd managed the impossible often enough. "Oooh, fruitcake!"
Mrs. Barnes had left a tray of tea, coffee, muffins, and what her mum called "the dreaded confection" for them. Normally, only Pete ate fruitcake, but it looked like there was another fan in the house.
"All right, already," grumbled Jackie, bustling into the room with a steaming mug of coffee and towing a yawning Pete behind her. Rose-the-dog trotted in after, determined not to be left behind despite her arthritis.
She paused momentarily to glare at the Doctor. He was wearing a fluffy pink robe identical to hers over his blue Harriet Potter pajamas. Rose had made him put on a robe before they came down—he got chilled very easily, now that he was half-human, and the weather was bitterly cold, though it hadn't snowed yet as they'd all hoped. But somehow in the rush he'd managed to put on Rose's robe (which she swore was deliberate) and she'd ended up in his blue one, which came down to her ankles.
Oh, well. At least her fluffy pink bunny slippers didn't fit him. And she'd made him take off the hat.
"What?" asked the Doctor.
Pete snickered. Jackie just rolled her eyes and reached for Tony. "Ooh, there's my little man. You want your presents, do ya?"
"Yeah!" shouted Tony. He squirmed until he was set down, and sat in front of the brightly-wrapped pile. Rose had been going to sit on the sofa, but the Doctor plunked himself down besides Tony, so she joined him on the floor and watched him exclaim in delight as he saw how many had his name on them.
Rose let the Doctor find her presents and hand them to her. She was more interested in watching him. With his tousled hair standing out in all directions and his eyes wide behind his glasses, he seemed almost as excited as Tony. Well, it was his first Christmas, in this body at least.
He was a different man than he'd been, in many ways. He looked younger now, and this morning his eyes were softer than they'd ever been in the old universe, and his smile was sweeter. Donna's smile.
And there was something missing in those eyes, behind that smile. As she'd first known him, all big ears and leather jacket, he would never have come near her family during a holiday—would have shut down and run off to another galaxy before he'd even sit down to dinner with her mum. After he'd regenerated, he was mellower. But when even when he'd come inside and sat down to Christmas dinner with them, part of him was always elsewhere. You could see it. He was always waiting for it to be time to leave.
Not this man.
"What?" he asked, looking up and catching the sadness in her smile.
"Just … wondering what he's doing right now."
Her Doctor's grin lost a few watts of brightness, and she wished she'd kept her mouth shut. But it was never any use lying to him.
"Do you miss him?"
He was more uncertain that her last Doctor had been, too, more fragile—or at least, less good at hiding it.
"No," she said firmly, reaching out to take his hand and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Just hoping he ain't alone on Christmas."
It was true, or close enough. They'd had some rough patches in the beginning—still did, from time to time, with his new human insecurities and new human weaknesses making him as short-tempered as, well, Donna—but he was her Doctor now. The man she'd chosen, and the man who'd chosen to stay with her.
Her Doctor smiled at her, reassured, and brushed his fingertips over the narrow band of the engagement ring on her hand.
"Come on!" yelled Tony, losing his patience and setting the dog off again. "I want my presents!"
"Oh, shush," said Jackie, but handed him a box anyway. He started to tear it open.
"Wait, wait, I haven't got the camera ready," said Pete.
"Daaaaaa-deee!"
"Okay, okay, everybody gather together under the—gather together and smile!"
The rest of the family clustered together under the "tree"—actually a brightly-colored poster of a tree. Jackie allowed a real tree in the great-room, insisted on it, in fact, for appearances sake. But in the cozy family room, no trees were allowed. Pete didn't like it and didn't quite understand it, no matter how many times it was explained to him, but Jackie was adamant.
"If you'd seen a tree turn half your furniture to splinters and come through a bloody wall at ya, you wouldn't be able to sit under one an' open your presents, either," she always said.
"It's not even a proper Christmas tree," Rose had tried explaining. "It's a Solstice tree." In Pete's world, Christianity had taken a rather different path, absorbing even more of the old pagan religions it had co-opted in the old universe. The C of E sometimes looked almost Wiccan.
"Close enough that they play "Jingle Bells,"" said Jackie. "That song still gives me nightmares."
Click!
The picture later turned out to show Tony with his face obscured by a strip of paper he couldn't wait another second to tear off his gift, the Doctor laughing at the spectacle and a glaring Jackie smacking him for it, and Rose grimacing as her canine counterpart climbed into her lap—with her tail end facing the camera, natch.
Following Tony's example, the rest of the family got down to the serious business of the day—that of unwrapping their presents.
"Ooo-er," said Jackie, admiring the massive diamonds in her new earrings before turning and giving her husband a crushing hug and a passionate kiss. Then she went back to staring at the earrings. Mum never changed, thought Rose, grinning. (At least, not this version of her.) It was just that now, she got what she wanted.
She let the Doctor open an envelope addressed to him and herself, from her parents. "Ooh! Two tickets to the Hotel Tranquility on the Moon!" He was practically jumping up and down. In fact, he did jump up, and went over to shake Pete's hand and give a startled Jackie a massive hug.
Pete got a tie covered in little gray alien heads with green LED eyes from Rose (because what did you get the man who could afford anything, anyway?) and laughed for five minutes straight. Jackie got a gift certificate to a spa and a set of overpriced designer skin-creams from the Doctor and Rose, respectively. Tony got more toys, books, and movies than even he knew what to do with (all, surprisingly, age-appropriate). The Doctor got a small box from Jackie which proved to contain a customized ornament. It read, "Baby's First Solstice. The Doctor, 2012."
He gave her such a scandalized look that Rose fell over laughing, before he broke into a wicked grin. "Thanks, Mum!" he said.
Jackie sputtered. Rose howled, and fell over again.
Pete got a strange-looking device about the size of a toaster from the Doctor. "It's a home entropy detector," explained the Doctor. "It'll help you detect incursions from extra-universal spaces with entropy gradients different from the local norms."
"Ah," said Pete. "Just what every home needs!"
He grinned, fiddling with the buttons, and Rose smiled. Dad loved his gadgets.
"This is from me," said Rose, handing a package to the Doctor. She'd agonized over what to get him—after all, she wanted his first Solstice to be special. But she'd been reluctantly forced to admit that there wasn't anything on this earth (or any other) quite special enough to match how she felt.
The Doctor peeled away the wrapping paper with more care than he'd been using, and eased the lid of the box open, as if afraid it might shatter, or startle and run off. Then his eyebrows shot up, and he extracted another, much smaller box from the first.
He unwrapped the smaller box, opened it, and stared. Rose's breath hitched.
Then he burst out laughing.
Rose grinned, and he jumped up, pulled her to her feet, swept her into a hug and spun her around. "Brilliant!" he said. "That's flippin' fantastic! Where'd you get it?"
"Had it custom made," Rose explained. The Doctor took the little silver earring out of its box and putting it on. It was in the shape of a tiny bunch of bananas.
She leaned close and whispered in his newly-decorated ear. "Your other present is hidden in the back of our closet. I'll put it on and show it to you tonight. And you can wear your hat."
"Oh," he said. "Ah. Something lacy?"
"It's made out of lace," said Rose. "Not a lot of lace, but lace."
There were only a few more presents left. Tony had got bored and was walking around the room with his new toy zeppelin, making soft whirring noises. Jackie was trying on the diamond earrings. Pete was still fiddling with his entropy-meter, which had started beeping and wouldn't stop. Rose the dog was worrying a vicious scrap of wrapping paper and growling.
"So which one's mine?" asked Rose, reaching out.
"Ah," said the Doctor. He looked very pleased with himself, and Rose hoped whatever it was wasn't going to burst into flames. "I'm coming to that. First off … a little something for Audrey! Yes, yes, of course daddy got you something. You don't think I'd forget you, do you? No no no no …"
He scooped up a small CD-sized package. "Here, girl."
Pete looked up from his gizmo and jumped when he saw the door behind him. It was made of glossy polished ebony, richly carved and inlaid with semi-precious stones and ivory, and it hadn't been there when he'd come into the room. The young TARDIS, having grown into the Doctor's shed, had been manifesting doors inside the mansion for months now. But Pete still wasn't used to architecture that followed people around the house like a dog.
He was even less used to an outbuilding that wandered around the lawn when no one was looking. Twice Audrey had wandered onto the neighbor's property, which took a deal of explaining. Fortunately, she wasn't old enough to travel more than a few yards at a time in space, and a few minutes in time.
The door sidled along the wall towards the Doctor and opened for him obediently. He disappeared inside, and a moment later the carvings on the wood changed from phoenixes and wolfs to snowmen and Solstice trees. Strings of lights sprouted around them.
"There ya go, girl!" said the Doctor, emerging with another, larger present under his arm. "New program for the chameleon circuit! And here's your present, Rose."
She could tell what it was the moment he handed it to her. First, because it had air-holes cut in the paper. Second, because it was shaking like something was trying to get out of it. Third, because the "something" was meowing loudly.
She pulled off the lid and the most adorable little black kitten she'd ever seen jumped for freedom, missed, and fell back into the box. It had a little white mustache, and big amber eyes.
"Oooh!" she cooed, delighted. "Oh, he's perfect!"
The Doctor grinned. "I knew you'd like him."
"Oh, yes, thank you …" Rose stood up, brushing paper from her lap and trying to disentangle the kitten from the front of her robe, where it had climbed and stuck like Velcro. She gave up and turned sideways so she could give the Doctor a half-hug and a kiss without squashing the little ball of fluff. "I thought about getting' a cat before, but …" She frowned. "How did you know?"
"You told me," said the Doctor. Like the cat that got the canary. "Well, you will tell me. When you meet my seventh incarnation."
"Oi," said Pete. "That's cheating, mate."
"Only one present left," said Jackie, reaching out and picking up the tiny white box. It was no more than an inch square, and had a little note tied to the blue bow on its lid. "Now who's this for? "The Tyler Household. From Heck.""
3. From Heck
"Well, that's odd. Some sort of family-friendly Jack the Ripper …" She grimaced. "Hope it don't have half a kidney or somethin' in it."
"Don't open it!" shouted Pete, the Doctor, and Rose simultaneously.
"Well, it says "Do not open indoors,"" said Jackie. "Why? What's it got in it?"
"I don't know. Could be anything," said the Doctor. He exchanged a nervous look with Rose and Pete, and then his eyes flicked to the still-beeping entropy meter. He reached over the discarded bits of paper and took the little box from Jackie, holding it at arm's length.
"An' who's it from?" Jackie demanded. She didn't look terribly alarmed yet. More like she was thinking of giving the sender a piece of her mind, when she figured out what she was supposed to be mad about.
"I told you about Heck, didn't I, Mum?" said Rose. She didn't edge away from the box, as the Doctor was holding it, but she folded her arms protectively over the kitten. "Hekaratos, The Faerie Queen?"
"Oh. Her." Jackie frowned. "You're all acting like it's a bomb. It ain't a bomb, is it? It's too small to be a bomb. Why would fairies be sendin' us bombs?"
"Diamonds and dynamite come in small packages, but I doubt it's a bomb," said the Doctor, darkly. "That's far too mundane for Heck."
"You don't know," said Rose. "Could be somefing nice. She's helped us before."
"Well, it could be, of course. Or something she thinks is nice."
The four of them regarded the little box dubiously. Whatever it was, the contents seemed to be under some pressure. The sides were bowed out.
"Let's get it into Torchwood," said Pete. He hadn't met Heck in person, but he'd heard enough—Rose had described the woman as a cross between Harriet Potter on crack and Wyatt Earp, with a bit of venomous snake and a pinch of leopard thrown in. "We can run some scans."
"I don't know that it'll last that long," said the Doctor. "Anyway, it might not like being scanned."
"How'd it get in here, anyway?" asked Jackie, glaring around suspiciously. "Magic?"
"Yeah, Mum," said Rose, rolling her eyes. "Faeries, yeah? TONY, NO, DON'T—"
FOOMPH!
Rose felt something like the world's biggest, coldest feather pillow hit her in the face, and everything went white.
And it stayed white. Even after she managed to wipe her eyes, everything was …
… covered in snow.
"Well, isn't that just … blizzard," said a skinny white shape in front of her. It shook its head, knocking the worst of the snow off its glasses, and started to laugh.
"She sent us … snow?" asked Rose. "In a box?"
"Tony!" shouted another shape, like a snowman with extremely expensive diamond earrings. It reached out and swatted a chubby little mound of snow that was giggling in delight. "What have I told you about opening other people's presents?"
"Mum!" said the mound. "It's snowing, Mum! It's snowing inside!"
The remaining snow-form made a strange choking noise and dissolved into guffaws.
Finally, even Jackie had to laugh. (Rose having lost it almost immediately.) "Well, I suppose we've gotten a white Solstice after all. Somebody find the dog before she freezes, will you?"
The Yorkie was too small to be visible even as a lump, but she was barking furiously enough to be readily located. Pete climbed to his feet, brushing snow off his shoulders. "Look, it's got outside, too," he said. "I'll have to call in to HQ, get them to check the satellite images and see how far it's spread."
"And it's broken the window," said Jackie. "You can call the cleaning service, while you're at it."
The Tylers used an outside cleaning service for unusual messes that were too much for their modest housekeeping staff. They'd given their chosen cleaners a good bit of service since the Doctor had arrived, and the cleaners had learned … not to ask.
The Doctor took off his frosty glasses and peered out the window. "Ooh, it looks like it goes on for miles and—" SPLAT! "Oi!"
Tony giggled and started to form another snowball—or something close enough. "Gotcha!"
"Not in the house!" said Jackie.
"Not that it makes much difference at this point," muttered Pete.
"You call that a snowball?" asked the Doctor, ignoring his future mother-in-law. "I'll teach you how to make a snowball, you little horror …"
He bent and scooped up a handful of snow. Tony screamed, delighted, and ran, the Doctor hot on his heels.
"Oi!" shouted Rose and Jackie together. "Put on your coats before you go outside!"
They looked at each other, rolled their eyes, and started laughing again.
"You take Tony," said Rose. "I'll take the Doctor." She handed the snow-dusted kitten to her father, and ran out the door while it batted at the blinking aliens on his tie.
The End—and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Everyone!