Silent Night
A Doctor Who Christmas Special
written especially for Metropolis Kid
Brian Williams sat in his favorite upholstered armchair staring at the small cube. He'd been doing so for quite some time. Every few moments he'd give the cube a twist, then turn it in his hands and examine it, a look of consternation eventually crossing his sagging features. Then he'd give it another twist, another turn, and another stare.
His pattern was broken when the cube flew out of his hands, clattering across the wooden planks of his living room before lying still. An electronic warbling sounded from behind him, and before he could so much as turn toward it, the Doctor bustled past him, his eyes wide and his screwdriver zeroed in on the cube. Without a word of greeting, the Time Lord approached the cube, circling, alternately crouching and hovering over it as he muttered to himself.
"Six colors, randomly scattered." With the tip of his brown shoe, the Doctor gingerly nudged the cube, tilting it onto another side. The corners of his small mouth lifted in a cocky smirk. "Highly irritating, but easily tameable. It's harmless," he announced, standing straight and finally turning to the man in the chair. "But I'm surprised at you, Brian. Haven't you learned your lesson about playing with cubes?"
Mr. Williams opened his mouth to defend himself, but the Doctor's face had suddenly darkened and he began speaking to himself again, his eyes flicking around the room. "It wasn't the cube, the cube is fine, then why am I here…why am I here?" His attention once again snapped onto the homeowner. "Why am I here, Brian?"
"I'm supposed to know?" he grumbled, shifting in his seat.
The Doctor held up his screwdriver and leveled it at the man's face, "Circles under eyes, a bit puffy, slightly red. Jowls sagging more than usual. What do you call that? A scowl, yes, that's it. But the eyes again, something dull there. You're not sleeping well. Why are you not sleeping well, Brian?"
"Do you really have to ask?" Rory's dad growled and pushed himself up and off the chair to stand eyelevel with the Doctor.
"I just did."
Brian pressed his lips together and huffed through his nose. Then with his teeth gritted, he said, "The bloody silence keeps me up."
"Silents?" The Doctor grabbed Brian's wrist with one hand and with the other shoved the man's shirtsleeve up his arm, twisting the beefy appendage back and forth as his eyes scoured it. Then he did the same to the other arm. Not finding what he was looking for, he pushed what was left of the man's hairline back and flicked his irises over his face. Still unsatisfied, the Doctor smooshed the man's cheeks together, jerking his head sideways and scanning the side of his throat, before reversing and twisting his head in the opposite direction. Continuing to restrain the man's puckered mouth between his fingers, the Doctor said, "I need you to drop your trousers."
"The hell I will!" Brian roared, breaking free from the Doctor's hold.
"Look, I know this all might seem a tad bizarre, but you just told me that you've been seeing creatures that you can't possibly remember seeing, so you must be keeping track of the sightings somehow. As there are no hashmarks on your arms or face, I can only conclude you're keeping them on your legs. Or…oh Brian no, please tell me they're not on your—"
"What are you talking about? I didn't say anything about creatures! And if I can't remember them, how could I have told you about them?" Poor Brian's bulging eyes looked as if they might just explode on the spot.
"You said 'Silents.'"
"Yes, silence, as in 'When you're alone, silence is all you know.' As in my son and my lovely daughter-in-law are gone! And as I was informed months ago, won't be back." He roughly crossed his arms and plopped back into the chair.
"Ohhh, that's it." The Doctor crossed his arms too, in a more jovial way, and his mouth stretched far is it would go as he beamed on Rory's dad without another word.
"What's what?"
"Why I'm here. To cheer you up."
Brian opened one eye wide while the other narrowed. He looked through his uneven eyes at the Doctor, and then he grunted. "You're not doing a very good job of it."
"That's because I've only just figured it out. But oh, Brian…" He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "Now that I know, let's have some cheer!" He spun around and said, "It's two weeks before Christmas…where are the trimmings and trappings?"
"Rory and Amy used to help me with that sort of thing. Was sort of a tradition, ever since they were teenagers. We'd have a nip of port and play Christmas music…" A sad little groan sounded from the back of his throat.
"There'll be no moaning, Brian. I miss them too. Dreadfully. But wallowing won't bring them back. I've tried it." His narrow features fell for a moment before resuming their determinedly upbeat expression. "The best we can do is keep the spirit of Amy and Rory with us. Now, you get the port and put on the music, and I'll pull out the boxes of lights and tinsel." He walked off toward the next room and then turned on his heel. "Just as soon as you tell me where you keep them."
Twenty minutes later, a recording of a children's chorus rang through the living room, and Brian carried in a tray with two glasses and a plate of cheese and olives. He found the Doctor holding fists full of tangled Christmas lights.
"What've ya done?" Brian asked, setting the tray down and shuffling over to yank the strings from him.
"I dunno. Just pulled them out of the box and this happened."
Brian merely grunted and began organizing the lights while the doctor went back to the box.
"Ooh, what's this?" He pulled out a rounded piece of deep red, satiny fabric and flourished it over his shoulders, fastening the Velcro tab around his neck and letting the hem fall to just above his elbows. "A cape!"
Brian quirked an eye from his work. "It's a tree skirt."
The Doctor admired his reflection in the glass of a nearby framed picture on the wall. "Looks like a cape to me."
Brian snorted. "At that length, it's more like what my wife would've called a capelet."
The Doctor swished his shoulders back and forth, still watching himself in the glass. "Capelets are cool."
Brian finally untangled the lights and the two men went outside to hang them on the front of the house with the Doctor producing several gadgets from his brown jacket that proved remarkably handy for the task. When they flipped the switch for the big reveal and the place lit up into something more bright and stunning than at least half the galaxies the Doctor had ever travelled, Brian actually smiled.
Back inside the house, the mood was considerably more jovial than when they'd left it. They assembled the artificial tree, and Brian insisted on keeping control of the lights until the Christmas tree was strung, but then he let the Doctor hang the ornaments while he set up the Nativity on the sideboard cabinet.
"I think you might want to hang this one yourself," the Doctor said, bringing over a huge and misshapen…something…that Rory had obviously made as a primary school project.
Brian took it and smiled a sad little sentimental smile, then said thank you and went to the tree. While he hung the treasured keepsake, the Doctor looked over the hand-painted figurines that depicted the first Christmas. The holy infant Jesus slept tenderly and mildly in the hay while the young virgin Mary, her husband Joseph, sheeps and shepherds looked upon him.
When Brian wandered back, the Doctor asked, "Where are the wise men?"
"Who?"
"The astrologers from the east. The ones who saw the star and followed it."
"The men who came to Herod asking about the king of the Jews?"
"Yeah."
"They never found the mother and child. Why would they be part of the Nativity?"
"What do you mean they never found them? They gave the gold, frankincense & myrrh. Of course they found them."
Brian shrugged. "I don't know what histories they teach you in out in the rest of the universe, but those men never found what they were looking for and went back home."
The Doctor let out an offended squeak. "I don't get taught histories; I am history. And I'm telling you—they were there."
Brain squared his shoulders, standing directly in front of the doctor, only inches away. His scowl from earlier in the evening had returned, only now it was challenging. "Prove it."
"Oh-ho-ho, I will." The Doctor gestured to the TARDIS, and without giving himself time to think about it, Brian strutted over, opened the door, and with a grand gesture of his hand motioned the capeleted Doctor in.
At the blipping and flickering controls, the Doctor pushed buttons and pulled levers, calculated, adjusted, and they were off. Before long, the TARDIS landed with a with a muted whump. Opening the door, they stepped out onto a vast plane of sand.
"Well?" Brian asked. "Where is it? All I see is desert."
"It's…" The Doctor spun around. "Ah… just over…" He extended an arm to point and turned half way around, squinted, and lowered his arm.
Brian huffed.
"Give me a second." The Doctor looked up into the night sky, scanning the stars. "There's one that's much brighter than the others. Directly underneath it is where we'll find the child."
Brian looked up too and saw a smattering of stars, but none stood out as particularly special among the others.
Suddenly, the Doctor snapped his fingers. "Aha! Don't you see, Brian?"
Rory's father continued to crane his neck, searching the sky. "No, I don't."
"Not up there. You definitely won't see it up there—and do you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because Herod wasn't the only one who wanted to stop the Earth from properly receiving its king!" the Doctor rushed back to the blue police box with Brian following as closely as he could. Once inside, the Doctor dashed around the console, pulling and pressing the controls until an image appeared on a small screen. "Look at this."
Brian came over and squinted, but all he saw was a dark, hazy blob.
"Looks like nothing now," the Doctor said, "But keep watching." He tightened the focus, magnifying the image more and more until the blob became the black limbs of thousands of tiny, armored creatures. "Sploids. They're harmless, really, but their exoskeletons are nearly impenetrable and can withstand extreme temperatures. Their brains are very small, but they're remarkably loyal, and once given an order by whomever they deem to be their master, they won't budge."
"What does this matter to us?"
"Look. Really look."
Brian squinted again and saw tiny shards of light shining out from between the limbs. "That's our star!"
"Yes! Exactly. Someone has ordered the swarm to block it."
"Why?"
"Don't know. My guess is to keep the wise men from finding the manger."
"I still don't understand—why are these men so important? What do they do besides drop off a few gifts?"
The Doctor had backed away from the console and haphazardly paced while his eyes darted around the room. "It's more than gifts. It's worship—these wise and important men travelled a great distance to give homage to the king, the king. It was the first sign that he was the Messiah of more than just the Jews. I don't have time to explain it all right now, but trust me, these men are very important. Important enough for someone to want to foil their plans."
"So we're going to shoo these Sploids away, then?"
"Us? No, afraid not even the TARDIS can pry them from their duty. But don't worry, I have a plan." The Doctor's eyes sparkled as he finished his sentence, and the TARDIS was off.
When Brian again stepped outside of the time traveling spacecraft, he was surprised, and more than a bit disappointed, to find himself back in his living room. "Right, makes sense for me to stay behind so I don't slow you down from saving the universe," he said with a sigh.
"Nonsense, I wouldn't dream of taking this adventure alone. Come one, we've got work to do."
Before long, the blue police box was back up in the sky, a few miles below the swarm-covered star. TARDIS was wrapped in wires and tiny LED lights—the ones they'd ripped from Brian's house and tree and the ones the Doctor had been sure to touch with his sonic screwdriver.
"Care to do the honors?" the Doctor asked, and Brian's beefy face widened as he grinned and took the end of the extension cord, plugging it into a slot on TARDIS's control board. A loud hum sounded, and the Doctor handed Rory's dad a pair of thick sunglasses. When they opened the door, they were instantly bathed in a brilliant glow.
"All we have to do is hover here until we're sure the travelers have found their way."
Brian scrunched his face and bit the inside of his mouth, staring downward.
"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked.
"This seems…aren't we messing with divine intervention? Isn't there some kind of taboo against it?"
"Someone else messed with it first, we're just messing back. Don't worry, He uses humans all the time to accomplish His will." With a wink he added, "Sometimes He even uses Time Lords."
This seemed to reassure Rory's dad, but then he had a new concern. "Aren't you worried about the Sploids swarming us?"
"Nope. Their orders were to guard the star, they won't veer from it. And by the time their master notices anything amiss, we'll be long gone. So relax, Brian, and merry Christmas." He adjusted a dial on the side of Brian's glasses to bring the scene far below into focus.
Brian saw a small herd of sheep just outside a modest building on the outskirts of the city of Bethlehem. He couldn't see inside the structure, but just knowing who was in there and the blessing that all the Earth had received filled his astonished eyes with tears of awe. When the camels and the resplendent Magi appeared, drawing ever closer to their destination, a quick, strangled sob escaped him before the night once again became silent, except for the white noise of the electric hum. He now remembered everything he'd ever learned about the Magi's part in the story.
After the wise men had dismounted and disappeared inside, the doctor said, "I know you miss your son, Brian. And I know you blame me; I blame myself. But I hope that you will find much comfort and whatever strength you need in the one true son who was given to all us."
Brian's eyes stayed fixed on the small, humble structure, but he nodded, setting a stream of tears free to run down both sides of his face. The Doctor unplugged the lights, but the two men stayed around for a while longer, quietly paying their own homage in the calm, bright night.
After the astrologers had retired, the Doctor looked sideways at his companion, "Ready to whisper in the Magi's ears? Someone's got to warn them not to go back to Herod."
"Don't the angels do that?"
"Is that what they taught you?"
Author's Note: Merry Christmas! May your holidays be bright and may your 2013 be brilliant.