A/N: This is my first venture into writing both Doctor Who and Buffy fan fic, so let's celebrate for experiments! Anyhow, this was written for a friend of mine as her Christmas present: she's a huge Doctor Who and Buffy fan, so I wanted to see what happens when you put the two together. Happy Christmas, helenluvsboo!
The Doctor here was written with Eleven in mind, but some of the dialogue came out more like Ten's as we don't yet know how Eleven is going to act. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to which incarnation of the Doctor he is.
Never Say "Uneventful"
There was nothing quite like holidays on Earth. Perhaps it was the amusing way that humans insisted on doing some of the strangest things – the fake snow when the real stuff refused to fall, the real fires lit in real fireplaces during the dead of Australian summer heat, the endless seasonal commercialism, the blow-up snowmen decorating front lawns, running through the city streets in pocketless wedding dresses – but whatever it was, the Doctor usually tried to make it to Christmas. Considering that the TARDIS could take him anywhere and anywhen, he always did make it to Christmas: eventually. If he ever felt like he was in an exceptional Human Holiday Spirit Mode, he could always repeatedly revisit Christmas for every year of the Earth's existence since Christmas was invented; however, that might be considered overkill to some. Not to mention it would make things horribly boring. The best is most appreciated when you don't have too much of it, as it was said in some place… by someone… sometime… somewhere in the Galaxy. That was a lot of somes, so therefore the saying must have meaning and should be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, his past few visits to Earth during Christmas time didn't necessarily go according to plan. Despite the fact that his visits anywhere never went according to plan, Christmas on Earth had suddenly grown into a big, fat warning sign in bright red letters saying "Avoid: if at all possible." One would think that he would have learned to ignore the Christmas Hot Spot by now, but no. He kept being drawn back to it, like a fly to light. Perhaps someone should change the bright red letters to bright mauve letters: at least the standard universal warning colour would then, at least, be correct, even if it would then make him feel even more stupid for consistently walking into danger. Then again, he did that all the time so in the long run it didn't really matter.
So, it didn't really come as a surprise to him at all when he had been walking along the street, enjoying the Christmas spirit, and a noise like thunder sounded as the road began to shake. Moments later, with the sound very much like that of a vacuum cleaner, a square hole appeared in the pavement, as if the tarmac had been sucked away, leaving behind nothing but some black squishy substance that looked like it shouldn't, under any circumstances, be touched.
"Oh," the Doctor said to no one in particular. "How very… odd."
The black squishy substance didn't give him a particularly good vibe, so he got down on his hands and knees beside the crater-sized hole to inspect it. He just had the tiniest inkling that this couldn't be very good. Drawing out the sonic screwdriver from a pocket, he began shining the blue light on the substance, trying to determine exactly what it was and – if possible – why it was in the middle of a London street.
"If that's your idea of how to take control of humanity and turn us all into little meat pies for your little comrades-in-arms to gobble up, I think your plan needs some work."
The Doctor straightened up, shining the light across the crate of black goop. No one was on the other end.
"I'm over here, laser brains!"
He turned around and before he could react, the speaker punched him in the face. The Doctor teetered to the left, away from the crater, rubbing his cheek where he had been hit.
"Ow! That hurt!"
"Oh!" his assailant said in a voice of mock charm. "It notices things. How sweet." The blonde-haired woman aimed a kick at him, which he barely dodged, skipping away from her.
"What was that for?!" he shouted.
The girl didn't lower her fighting stance. "Do you really think that after all these years I'm going to be caught by that one?"
Her fist lashed out, cuffing him on the shoulder; the Doctor barely had time to react. Her reflexes and movement were surprisingly fast for a human.
"What d'you mean?"
Another kick and he was down on the ground. He held up his hands in surrender; it wasn't particularly amusing to be taken out by a girl who was half his size and only a sliver of a fraction of his age.
"Okay, seriously, that's enough!" he wheezed. "I'm not your enemy!"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Let me give you a teeny-tiny hint, mister," she said. "Demons bad. Portals to hell even more bad. Demons caught sneaking around portals equals demon mush." She raised her fist.
"Wait, wait, wait!" The Doctor threw himself to his feet and scuffled backwards away from this wild, super-strong woman. She's worse than Leela! he groaned inwardly.
"Oh," she said, "another point: I don't wait."
She leaped at him and he dodged her.
"WAIT!"
"Don't you know how pointless this is?" she said irritably.
"I'm not a demon!" the Doctor stressed.
The girl raised an eyebrow. "Then what are you? An alien with a British accent? Please. I can spot a non-human a mile away."
"Actually," the Doctor said, "I'm not human."
The girl put her hands on her hips. "And you really have no idea who I am, do you."
"Okay, look," the Doctor said, "why don't you run along and help yourself to some Christmas pudding or something, I have more urgent things to attend to than getting accidentally killed by a twenty-year-old human who is... super-powered and… and really strong and who really wants to kill me!"
"Things like that portal right there?"
"Ah… yes." He paused. 'Wait, how do you know this is a portal? And where does it portal to?"
"I know," she answered, "because I've been through one before. Senior year. I had a very pleasant trip, complete with fistfights and scything. It goes to Hell. Literally. And I have to close it up, which means—" her hand clenched into a fist again – "I have to find and kill whatever came out of it, which assuming, is you. Now, if we're done with all the small talk, can we get back to business?"
"If by 'business' you mean trying to kill me, uh… no."
"Okay, listen buddy," the girl said, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder, "this is my first time in Britain and I'm supposed to be visiting some friends right now, but naturally things don't go according to plan. I've had a fairly miserable year and I really want my Christmas to work out, so: don't push your luck."
"I'm not trying to push it," the Doctor said, "I'm just trying to stop what apparently is a bright young girl from committing murder."
"Killing demons and vampires and all sorts of nasties doesn't really register as murder in my mind anymore," the girl replied coldly.
"For the last time I am not a demon!"
The girl sighed. "Okay. I am so bored of this right now. You people have no imagination!" She lunched at him, a sharp object in her hand. The Doctor did the most logical thing that came to mind: he ran.
He felt like he spent half his time running. Running seemed to be a key component in being a travelling Time Lord. It was unfortunate that they never thought to include it their training at the academy back in the day.
The TARDIS was, thankfully, not very far away. The girl was quickly catching up to him; she could definitely run faster than any human being. Perhaps she herself was an alien. He vaguely wondered which world she could be from when something went zinging past his ear, missing him narrowly. Moments later, he was pelting up the alleyway where he had parked the TARDIS. He slammed into the door, fumbled for the keys, trying to find them in the endless bits of nonsensical mess that resided in his pockets. Finally, he found it, unlocked the door and slammed it closed in the girl's face.
It was pretty close.
"Oh, come on!" he heard her shout through the door. "Is this the best you got? A little blue box?" She banged on the door, but it didn't budge. "OUCH!"
The Doctor sprinted to the consol and turned on the speakers and the monitor. "Serve you right," he told her.
"This is unbelievable!" she said, kicking the door. "You – are – such – a – coward!"
"You – are – such – a – maniac!"
She blinked and her kicking ceased. "Oh, ha ha ha," she said sarcastically. "Very funny, coward."
Well, at least you can never say that Christmas is a dull time of year, the Doctor thought.
"All right," he said aloud. "It's clear that I am not coming out there and you are not getting in here, so you might as well stop trying to get in because my ship doesn't like it very much and if you're not careful, she might decide to seek retribution, which I hear is very nasty indeed."
"Ship?" The girl laughed. "As in ship from outer space? Are you serious? You know I was joking about the whole alien thing, right?"
"Uh… were you?"
"Ye-ah." She walked around the TARDIS, a puzzled look on her face. "This is a ship?"
"Oi!" the Doctor said sharply. "She's the best ship in the entire history of the universe!"
"A hyperbole if I ever heard one," the girl muttered under her breath.
"What did you say?" the Doctor demanded.
"Nothing!" she chimed. "I'm just taking in your so-called alien sights! Nice… uh… ship, you've got here. What part of Hell did it come from again?"
The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, gnashing his teeth in frustration. "For the last time, I am NOT a demon!"
"Oh really?" the girl shot back. "PROVE IT."
"FINE."
The TARDIS doors swung open. The girl stood in the entrance way, staring at the vastness of the console room. The Doctor drummed his fingers on the console, waiting for her to garner a response.
She did not look remotely impressed.
"Heh," she said. "Bigger on the inside. Cool." She walked inside and the doors closed behind her. "Though, you know you just proved that ships are not idiot proof. You just let your enemy walk right through your front doors."
"Not the first time I've let that happen," he replied.
The girl tossed her sharp object up and down with one hand as she surveyed him, a keen look in her eye. He finally realized what it was: a pointed stick, or, more specifically, a pointed stake. As he stared at her, trying to place where he had seen such a stake before, a piece of information dawned on him.
"Okay," the girl said, "can we quit the eye-watering staring contest, please? I can keep going, but it is kind of creepy and I just got a speck of 'alien' dirt in my eye."
"Slayer," the Doctor said.
"Pardon?"
"Slayer!" the Doctor repeated, nearly jumping up and down as he remembered the ancient human folklore. "Oh, it makes so much more sense now! Slayer… and look at you, all Slayerish with your Slayer training and your Slayer backtalk and your Slayer Slayerisms…"
The girl raised her eyebrows. "Oh, good for you," she said with false sweetness. "You've finally noticed. S-L-A-Y-E-R. Yes, I'm the Slayer." She raised her pointed stick. "Can we get down to business?"
"Oh, and look, you've got a stake! I've always wanted a stake. Never really had time for one, though. They're kind of pointy and… useless."
"Useless?!"
"I mean, what else do you use a stake for?" the Doctor mused. "Roasting marshmallows?"
"Oh, can you just—"
"No, there has got to be better use for a stake than roasting marshmallows. Perhaps I could use one here when the reverse temporal shift decides to get stuck – temperamental part of the ship, never did like it much even if it is important—"
"SHUT UP!"
"Yes?" The Doctor looked at his guest without any surprise about her outburst.
"Shut up," she repeated, "or… or else I… I'll… I'll throw Mr. Pointy at your temporal reverse clutch… thing." It seemed she had run out of steam.
"Mr. Pointy?"
The Slayer lowered her stake. "A… pet name, of sorts." She looked a little embarrassed and avoided eye-contact. "What's it to you?"
"Nothing!" the Doctor answered. "Mr. Pointy is an excellent name; very appropriate. I've heard of a lot stranger things. I knew a man once who named his TARDIS Gunter and I could never figure out why."
"TARDIS?"
"Yes. It's the name of this kind of ship. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It gets a bit harrowing to say that every time you have to explain something, so we go by TARDIS for short to avoid the unnecessary twisting of the tongue."
"Huh." The girl looked around the console-room. She hadn't moved an inch since she first came in. "Why do I get the feeling that you really are alien?"
"Maybe because I am?"
"No, no, no," she countered. "You shouldn't be alien. Aliens are space things that I don't deal with, if they do exist. I deal in demons and vampires and the undead. Not extra-terrestrials."
"Perhaps it's time to broaden your horizons, Slayer."
She was silent for a moment. She stood still, looking very uncertain about her surroundings. "So… am I correct in assuming that this thing can travel anywhere in space?"
"Yeah," the Doctor replied. "And time."
"Pardon?!"
"Time…? You know, tick-tock, tick-tock?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Now you're just being ridiculous!"
"Tick-tock… I am not!"
"Okay, if you're going to play it that way…" She put her stake away and sat down on the nearest available seat, putting her feet up on the console. "Say you are an alien and this thing does travel through space and time, that leaves us with the same question: what are you doing here and why were you near that portal?"
The Doctor's eyes focused in on her booted feet resting a little too close to some of the dials and switches. He gestured at them.
"What?" she said.
He gestured again. "Feet?"
She rolled her eyes. "Since when is putting your feet up hazardous?"
"Well, that depends: do you really want to go to Barcelona?"
"Barcelona?" She snorted. "I don't think I have time to go to Spain."
"I meant the planet Barcelona."
She slowly put her feet down on the floor. "Okay… I'll pretend I didn't hear that…"
"What?" the Doctor said. "Something wrong with a time travelling extra-terrestrial?"
"Yes, there is!"
"Well, then, what is it?"
"I'm not trained to deal with time travelling extra-terrestrials, that's what!" she said hotly. "They don't exactly cover that in the Slayer handbook! Not that I paid any attention to it, but still!"
"There's a Slayer handbook?" the Doctor asked curiously.
"Aargh!" She let out an indistinct sound and pulled at her hair in frustration.
The Doctor let her have her moment of quiet, but aggravated, contemplation. While the Slayer sat somewhat dejectedly on her chair, he examined the data the TARDIS had been analysing, pulling up information on the screens. There was something very wrong about that crater and its black goop. He had to get rid of it, but how?
Suddenly, a whole set of alarms went off, buzzing and bleeping and causing a racket.
"What's that?" the girl asked, jumping to her feet, her hands pressed over her ears.
"Trouble!" the Doctor replied. "Come on!"
He sprinted towards the doors, the girl following, and burst through them to the street outside. The Doctor began running back towards the location of the crater.
"What's going on?" the Slayer asked.
"You were right about that portal," the Doctor said as they galloped down the street. "It does go to another dimension. Which one doesn't really matter, but what does is that it's playing with the walls between worlds, which is never a good thing, take my word for it. If we don't get it closed then this whole universe will collapse!"
"Ugh," she commented, "I hate it when that happens!"
"Me, too," he agreed. "So what we have to do now—"
They pelted to the edge of the road and skidded to a halt in front of the crater, whose goop now looked like it was bubbling.
"—is find a way to close it down." The Doctor stared at the bubbling goop. "Huh. That doesn't look good."
"I bet you anything there's another one of them coming through right now," the Slayer said. "God knows where the first one went—" She spun around, looking for something. "Stay here!" she called.
"What?!"
The girl disappeared, leaving the Doctor standing on the brink of the crater alone, watching whatever it was come hurtling through the void towards Earth and this dimension and he was powerless to stop it. The goop thickened and hardened, stretching horizontally: something was on the other side, threatening to break through.
A knobbly grey hand poked through the substance. It was followed by another hand – and then yet another. Whatever the creature was, it was gigantic in size. The Doctor stepped back and watched, uncertain of what to do, as the creature rose out of the crater, looking very much like a misshapen elephant standing on all fours but terrifying all the same.
"And here I was hoping for a quiet Christmas," the Doctor said to himself.
Something buzzed past his ear and struck the creature dead-centre. With a roar, it collapsed back on itself, landing in the crater. It rumbled discontentedly.
The Doctor wheeled around to see the Slayer standing a few feet behind him, carrying a large cross-bow and wearing a frown.
"That didn't seem to have worked," she said.
"No," the Doctor agreed. "If anything, it's only made it angrier."
"Oops."
"Yeah."
"If only I had that blowtorch," she mused.
"No, no blowtorches necessary," the Doctor said. "We'll think of something." He scanned the tops of the houses, hoping that there might be something there that would help them. "I'm assuming that's your demon right there, by the way," he added.
"Yeah," she said. "Would an apology be okay right now?"
"Sure, if I didn't have something larger on my mind right now." The Doctor was staring at the demon, which was trying to pick itself up. It looked even bigger than before.
"Oh boy," the Slayer said. "That's not good." She re-adjusted herself, taking aim with her cross-bow once again.
"No, that won't do," the Doctor said, seizing her arm and sprinting down the road.
"What?! Why are we going this way?"
"Trust me, the best course of action right now is to RUN!"
Running: one hundred percent necessary when you are a Time Lord.
"By the way," the Doctor said as they darted down the street, the sounds of the growling, angry giant demon following them, "I'm the Doctor."
"All right!" the girl replied. "I'm Buffy."
"I would say nice to meet you, but under the circumstances—"
The ground shook, sending them flying. Buffy rolled and sprung agilely back up on her feet. She drew her stake out and turned to face the demon.
"What are you doing?" the Doctor shouted.
"Standing and fighting!" she shouted back.
"No, no – bad idea!"
"It's the only idea!"
"No, it's not!"
"Stop arguing! I have to take on this demon and kill it!"
"Yes – and don't kill yourself in the process! Come on!"
He grabbed her arm and they were running again.
"This is not a good idea!" Buffy yelled. "People aren't supposed to know about demons and the like!"
"By now, I'd say Britain's used to it!" the Doctor answered.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?"
"No! Yes!"
"What does that mean?!"
"I'm making it up as I go along!"
"Do you normally do that?"
The Doctor grinned at her. "All the time!"
They skidded to a stop in the centre of a square. There were several large Christmas trees around, all decked out with lights. Buffy stood in the centre, staring up at them and then back at the approaching giant demon.
"You're a pretty good shot, aren't you?" the Doctor said.
"Yeah, I have good aim," Buffy replied. "Why?"
"What would you say to charred black goop?" The Doctor was holding up a string of lights he had pulled from a nearby tree. In his free hand he held his sonic screwdriver. "Would you mind, Buffy?" he said, handing the lights to her.
She took it and gave him a puzzled look. "Are you sure about this?"
"Absolutely."
"If you say so." She wrapped the lights around her next arrow and fitted it on to her crossbow. The demon was rapidly approaching them now, its monstrous grey face looking nothing but angry and hungry.
The Doctor pressed the sonic screwdriver to the lights for a moment. Under the blue glow, they began to crackle and snap with electricity. Buffy raised the crossbow, took aim and fired the sizzling set of lights into the demon. It struck hard; moments later, with a dismal cry, the demon began dissolving and within moments, its substance had turned back into black goop which collapsed on itself and disappeared in a rather undramatic way.
Buffy lowered the crossbow. "Well, I can't say I was expecting that," she said.
"Electricity does marvellous things," the Doctor added.
They sprinted forwards to check if there were any remains of their adversary, but it was all gone. The crater that had appeared when the demon first forced its way through to this dimension was also gone.
"Well," the Doctor said as they walked back towards the TARDIS, "no more demons."
Buffy shrugged. "It could have been worse."
"Yeah," the Doctor said. "My past few Christmases haven't exactly been excellent. Seems to be a jinxed time of the year for me. This one definitely ranks lower on the mess, though, which is a change."
"Some Christmas spirit then," Buffy laughed. "Do you normally get attacked on Christmas?"
"Usually. Not by Slayers mistaking me for demons, though."
"I suppose I should apologize for that," Buffy said. "Sorry?"
"That works."
"If it's any comfort," she added, "if you think your Christmases suck, you should see my birthdays."
"I think I catch the gist," the Doctor said.
They were outside the TARDIS now. Buffy had slung her crossbow over her shoulder; she was standing by the door a little awkwardly. "I suppose this demon kind of took the spirit out of things," she said.
"A little bit, yeah," the Doctor admitted. "Although, there's always next year – which can come amazingly fast."
"Especially when you have a time machine," Buffy said, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh? So you do believe me?"
"Maybe," Buffy said.
"I could show you," the Doctor said.
"Tempting. Very tempting."
"I'm currently without a crew."
"Really?"
"You would have to sign a contract saying that you won't try to kill me, though."
"Darn. That's just too bad." She laughed. "It's a nice offer, but I'm afraid I have to decline. I'm kind of needed here. I have all my 'Slayerisms' to take care of, after all."
"At least I have the comfort of knowing that someone's looking out for this little planet when I'm not around," the Doctor said humorously.
"You have no idea," Buffy said. "See you around, Doctor. Perhaps we will run into each other again some time." She gave him a quirky salute, turned and began to walk down the street without a further glance backwards.
Interesting Slayer, that one, the Doctor thought, watching her go. He opened the door and went back inside his ship. Of all the people to run into on Christmas… Well, you could never say "uneventful" when you lead a life like his. He flipped the nearest switch on the console, sending the TARDIS rocketing towards its next randomized destination, which would hopefully be as far away from anything Christmas related as possible.
One could only hope that anticipated danger could hold off a little bit longer this time, though running would always be necessary no matter where he went.
fin