Title: A Gallifreyan Christmas Carol

Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

Story Summary: The Doctor is depressed about the events of Series Four when an Eternal abruptly drags him to different points in his timeline, claiming to be his personal Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

Setting: Some time just after series four.

Author notes:

I dedicate this fic to all my readers, but especially to Wiggiemomsi, for reading all my stuff the way she does, and Jessa L'Rynn, for writing stuff of a quality that we all envy and enjoy. :)

Poor Ten, he really is a tortured soul, deep down. :(

A GALLIFREYAN CHRISTMAS CAROL

PART TWO

"Was that really necessary?" the Doctor complained, still holding his drink, complete with little decorative umbrella. Five centuries, and humans were still decorating their drinks with miniature parasols.

"Sure it was," Time said. "Don't want you getting all depressed and megalomaniac on us. 'The laws of Time are mine! And they will obey me!' You'd be like the inverse of the Master, only worse."

The Doctor blinked at her, but she looked totally serious.

"I'm not saying it would last, but if you managed to postpone your next regeneration past the optimal time, which I wouldn't put past you, then we'll have a rather unhappy universe for a while there."

The Doctor decided to take her word on it and abandoned the rather scary (and honestly, faintly tempting) train of thought in order to look around.

It was the TARDIS console room, but as it had been in one of his earlier incarnations, all pristine and white.

"When am I?" he asked Time. The Eternal smiled.

"Let's go see."

She started to walk away.

The Doctor frowned as he walked past semi-familiar rooms, everything he saw ringing a faint bell, but try as he might he couldn't work out what period of life she had brought him to. Then Time stopped and opened a door and he knew, as his eyes widened and all the air left his lungs.

A teenage girl in a minidress, her black hair cut in a 1960s-era bob and her eyes large and thoughtful, sat on the floor contemplating a Christmas tree with her arms around her knees.

"Susan," the Doctor whispered, eyes stinging. He blinked, but the prickling in his eyes just got worse and his vision blurred for a minute. He wiped his eyes without looking away from the bittersweet sight of his granddaughter.

The door opened and an older woman walked in, also dressed as though she were from the sixties, closely followed by a dapper man of about the same age dressed in a suit.

"What do you think?" the woman asked.

Susan continued to look at the tree, head tilted slightly on one side.

"It's certainly decorative," she observed in a slightly puzzled voice, as though she couldn't quite understand why it was there.

"Your grandfather was quite upset to find a trail of pine needles right through the TARDIS," the woman observed dryly. "There was a bit of a mess."

"He's rather like Scrooge at times, isn't he?" the man remarked.

"Ian," the woman rebuked him.

"I don't quite understand what the point of a Christmas tree is," Susan announced. "I mean, it's nice to look at, but it doesn't really serve much purpose, does it?"

"Does it have to?" the woman returned gently.

"Not everything has to have a reason," Ian told the Time Lord child. "Some things are just there for aesthetic value or because they evolved for traditional reasons we can no longer recall."

Susan's gaze turned pensive. As a refugee from Time Lord society she certainly understood that concept.

"She was so young," the Doctor said quietly, watching the scene with a wistful, longing look in his eyes. For once he didn't try to hide how he felt.

At this point an old man with white hair and a sharp blue-eyed gaze entered the room.

"Hmm, examining the tree, are we?" asked the Past Doctor. "Ridiculous tradition."

Susan's eyes turned faintly mischievous as she looked brightly at her grandfather.

Past Doctor 'harrumphed'; to the humans there seemed to be no particular reason for it beyond simple grumpiness; but the Doctor had caught a flicker of the exchange, and in fact Susan had telepathically sent Past Doctor an image of one of the Gallifreyan ceremonies, performed in full Time Lord regalia.

The Doctor had to admit that there was a good reason Susan had always referred to a certain official group as the Silly Hat Brigade. Those robes looked ridiculous, and that hats had only topped the cake. Only he knew that the Past Doctor had harrumphed to subdue a laugh.

Susan cast her eyes down and smiled, able to guess from her grandfather's emotions what his genuine reaction had been.

"I still miss her, you know," the Doctor told Time quietly. "I'd had children of my own, but I was never as close to them as I was Susan. Maybe it's a physical old age thing, that the young endear themselves to you so much more when you're older. Rassilon knows I had the crotchety old man impression down pat."

The Eternal just listened, not trying to interrupt.

"I thought I did the right thing, leaving her with that human, what was his name? – Daoud or Davin or whatever it was, but afterwards, I wondered if that was just as good as abandoning her."

The Doctor's eyes brimmed with pain.

"And then, in the Time War, I killed her. I killed all of them, from the smallest child to the oldest octodecacentenarian, but the one person I could think of, when I set it off was Susan, and how I was ending her life without her ever knowing how or why."

The Doctor's voice cracked. Tears were pouring silently down his face as Time put one comforting hand on his shoulder.

Susan was alone in the room now, curled up on a pile of cushions reading a book.

"Go on," said Time. "She's alone. Tell her what you need to." She gave him a little push.

The Doctor was about to protest that he couldn't, but Susan heard the sound of his footsteps and looked up.

Her eyes widened as brown eyes met brown, and recognition passed between them.

"Oh, Grandfather!" Susan exclaimed in distress, and flung herself at him.

The Doctor held her tightly close, even as his brain argued that she couldn't do this and tried to tell Susan to leave but couldn't find the words.

"Susan," the Doctor managed. "I'm so, so sorry."

Susan pulled back a tiny bit to look into his face with concern.

"What happened? What's wrong?" she asked. "Why are you here?"

"It's my fault," the Doctor said. His brain was yelling at him to stop, and he agreed, but his mouth had a mind of its own. "It's my fault you're dead, Susan, I killed you."

The tears were soaking into her dress where he had pressed his face into her shoulder.

"Oh, Grandfather," Susan said, sounding sad. "I'm sure you did your best to avoid it."

"I couldn't," the Doctor whispered. "I had to do it."

Susan rested a hand on his cheek, her eyes pained and empathetic.

"Then you did the right thing."

"Don't you understand?!" the Doctor yelled, sitting back. "You're DEAD!"

"I heard you the first time," Susan shot back. "Grandfather, I know you'd never do something like that unless you had to. Please don't let it eat at you." She grabbed his hand. "I love you, and I forgive you. Please, forgive yourself!"

The Eternal put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder again, and Susan blinked, looking around as though the Doctor were suddenly invisible.

After a moment she sighed to herself, looking deeply anxious.

"Oh, I do hope he's alright," she said to herself.

The Doctor turned on Time.

"Make her see me!" he demanded.

"No," she replied, but not ungently. "You've seen what you needed to see here."

Susan was left by herself as the Doctor and the Eternal vanished to another time and place.

-

End Part Two

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Apologies for any typos; I typed this without my glasses on.

I haven't yet seen the Waters of Mars, alas, but I've heard all about the Doctor's little speech.