The Bell on Christmas Day
Rose and the Doctor laughed hysterically. Then something changed. Rose began to cough. It became an all-out choke, and she took deep, hoarse inhales as if she couldn't get a full breath.
The Doctor pulled back and dropped his hands from her waist. "Rose! What's wrong?" His frantic brown eyes flicked all over her face "Breathe, Rose, breathe."
Her doe eyes opened wide as she attempted another croaking breath, then the corners of her wide mouth twitched just before she launched herself at the Doctor, fluttering her fingers wildly into his sides.
"Bahahahaha!" he chortled, stepping back and stumbling. He reached behind to grab onto TARDIS's console, but Rose dug her fingers in deeper, connecting with his very most ticklish spot, and his arms bent in reflexive reaction, causing him to sink and fall to his ship's floor.
Rose pounced onto him. "No mercy!" She tickled and tickled until the Doctor lay on his back and howled, kicking his heels and pounding his fists into the floor.
"Uncle. Uu-haheHA-ncle!" he cried.
The victor of the tickle fight threw her arms into the air for a brief couple of seconds before she collapsed breathlessly onto the Doctor. They resumed laughing but at a lower, calmer level. Resting her head on his narrow chest, Rose let her eyes wander around the TARDIS. Coloured lights were strewn around the ship's console, and a small but perfectly-shaped Christmas tree stood not far away. Tiny trinkets hung all over the tree—souvenirs they'd picked up from various planets and times.
They'd intended to celebrate the holiday with Rose's mum, but instead of Jackie, they'd found a note she'd left for Rose on the chance she stopped by—she informed her daughter that she was on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, ringing in the holiday with her man friend. And so, the Doctor and Rose had invaded her attic to pull out an artificial tree and Christmas lights. Then they'd turned TARDIS into the site of a nice, quiet Christmas.
Rose let her eyelids flutter closed and sighed in perfect contentment. From somewhere along the strings of decorations, a tiny, tinny ping clinked.
"Hear that, Rose?" The Doctor's voice vibrated in his chest, tickling her cheek.
"Mhmm."
"You know what they say—every time a Christmas bell rings in outer space, a Prime Minister gets her wings."
"Her? So Margaret Thatcher, then?"
"Yep. Way to go, Lady Thatcher."
A shudder ran through him, causing Rose to lift her head. "If you don't like her, why did you say 'Way to go'?"
"Don't like her?" He pushed himself to sitting, forcing Rose to do the same. "What kind of Anglophile would I be if I didn't like the woman who took nineteen seventy-nine Britain—the sick man of Europe—and turned it back into an economically viable, diplomatically influential powerhouse? Why would you possibly think that I have anything against Margaret Thatcher?"
Rose quirked an eyebrow as she watched the shiver run up his torso and shake his shoulders. "Oh, I dunno, maybe because you do this every time you say her name." She shimmied her shoulders and squirmed her hips, twisting her face into an exaggerated look of oblivion.
"No I don't."
"Yes, you do." She repeated the action.
He bent his skinny legs and pushed up to stand. "That's preposterous."
"Oh yeah?" Rose also stood, placing her hands on her hips in a dare. "Say it, then. Say 'Thatcher'."
He pursed his lips and gave a dismissive roll of his eyes. "Thatcher." His eyes popped wide when his body trembled. "What? No. I didn't mean to do that. Thatcher." Tremors rocked his arms and shoulders, and his legs got bendy as he turned a circle in place, his head whipping from side to side and up and down as he searched for the source of his spasm. "Thatcher." This time an audible shudder of his vocal chords accompanied his involuntary shake. "Thatcher!" He changed the direction of his spin. "Thatcher." He looked to Rose, utter confusion pinching his pointy features as his body continued to jerk without his permission. "Thatcher, Thatcher, Thatcher!"
"Doctor!" Rose jumped forward and caught him underneath his armpits just as his wobbly legs gave out. She'd been laughing, but the panic she read in the ever higher pitch of his voice sobered her. "What's happening to you?"
Not quite trusting his legs, he stayed in her grip and bent his head slightly back so he could look up at her. "I've no idea. But I think that until we figure it out, I'd better not say Thatch— that name anymore."
After a couple of deep inhales, the Doctor tested his balance, and seeing that he was again steady, he made his way to the console and began pushing buttons and tweaking small levers. TARDIS whirred, and the Doctor said, "Mind if we make one little pit stop before we continue Christmas?"
"Where?"
"Trafalgar Square, April thirteenth in the year twenty-thirteen."
"Will it help to cure your twitch?"
"I hope so."
Rose scrunched her mouth, biting her bottom lip. "Mmm, I don't know. I sorta like you having a weakness. Can't you keep it for a while?"
He looked up from his button pushing. "This"—he gave a mock shudder—"is only an irritation. My weakness…that is something I hope to keep around for a good, long while."
"Yeah?" She smiled. "What's your weakness?"
His eyes softened as he trapped her gaze in his. "Don't you know by now, Rose Tyler?" TARDIS gave a lurch, drawing his attention to the time stream statistics as they approached London. "We're a bit early. To be safe, let's park in Earl's Court and take the tube to Trafalgar. That should give me plenty of time to leave before I get there."
"Huh?"
After a few jarring thumps followed by stillness, he answered, "I've been in Trafalgar on this day before. Briefly. Some misguided citizens arranged for a celebration of Lady…You Know Who's death. There was some fear of things getting out of control, and I couldn't let that happen. Happily, the demonstration was a failure and only attracted a crowd far smaller than anticipated, so I didn't stay long. Even still, it's the only place and time I can think of where I may have contracted anything to encourage a negative reaction to the proper name of…the…Iron…Lady." He'd said those last words gingerly, and when he'd successfully maintained bodily control though them, he jauntily flickered his eyebrows. "So we'll go there to investigate."
They made their way to the square, and from across the street watched the angry protesters. "They've gathered to celebrate the death of an old woman," the Doctor said in a low, sad voice. "And in despair I bowed my head, 'There is no peace on earth,' I said. 'For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men.*" To his companion, he murmured, "I don't want you to catch anything that may be running rampant out there, so why don't you go have a drink at the Sherlock Holmes pub."
Rose pressed her full lips together and scowled, but she well knew that resolute look in his eyes. "Don't be long. Eggnog is chilling in TARDIS." She turned on her heel and went to the pub.
A mere forty-five minutes later, the Doctor sidled up next to her at the bar, tapping his fingers on the counter and singing under his breath, "The wrong shall fail, the right prevail with peace on earth, good will to men.*"
"I take it your mission was accomplished," Rose said.
His thin lips slanted in a smirk. "It was almost too easy. After talking to a few protesters and getting the same illogical, rote responses, I realized that what we're dealing with here is a nasty case of little groupthink mite thingies."
"Is that a technical term?"
He shrugged. "They're hardly worth giving a real name."
"So you're rid of them, then?"
"Easy squeezy." He pointed his sonic screwdriver at one ear and then the other. "Rest in peace, Lady Margaret Thatcher," he said, holding a steady hand out in front of him.
"And you fixed all those people in the square too?"
He frowned. "No. 'Fraid the human brain isn't quite so easy to rid of the groupthink thingies. I could give those people a zap, but until they start thinking for themselves, it wouldn't do any good. But not to worry. Looks like this particular strain will die out quickly—lots of bark without any real bite. It's already weakening, and I suspect will be nearly gone by—"
"Christmas!"
He winked "Speaking of which…"
Back on TARDIS, floating in space, they tapped glasses of thick, creamy eggnog, and after a sip, the Doctor took Rose's cup from her and set both glasses on a flat space of the console. "Time for presents." Grasping a sprig of mistletoe, he held it above their heads. "My gift to you this Christmas is one very important lesson."
Rose's eyes flicked up toward the greenery then wandered down to the Doctor's observant face. Arching an eyebrow and pushing out her lips, she asked softly, "And what might that lesson be?"
"That payback is indeed a bitch." He dropped the mistletoe and plunged his fingers into her sides, wiggling them like mad.
* Lyrics from "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" based on the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow