rude_not_ginger | Christmas Open Thread

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Christmas Open Thread

•deck•the•halls•

• THE DOCTOR LEARNS THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS •

~•~

Christmas Eve. 2009.

The Doctor loved Christmas! Back when he was a wee Time Lord, the first place he ever landed was London on Christmas Eve. He promised himself he'd never miss another Christmas ever, but that promise went into the same pile as "Lose weight" and "Regenerate a better hairline" and "Stop leaving companions in other universes". But the Doctor had never quite gotten the hang of New Years'. (He once spent several hours commiserating on the similarity between the confusing nature of New Years and Thursdays with one Arthur Dent, who will sadly not be appearing in this piece of narrative. -editor)

But! Through all his travels in space and time, he still hadn't quite figured out what Christmas was for exactly. Except as a yearly excuse for turkey, too much wine, and plum pudding (all of which the Doctor approved of). This year, though, as he strode the streets on this wonderful Christmas Eve, the Doctor decided he would figure out exactly what Christmas was all about.

This may or may not have included use of a intergalactic manipulative detector and a full pack of radio stellar isotopian crystals. Oh, and a cup of hot chocolate. In a festively-coloured cup.

There was a lovely light snow, and the Doctor grinned madly at the stars. Christmas. This year, he was going to figure out what it was all about.

~•~

OOC: Open thread, feel free to tag in as if your character is a passerby or as if your character is a long-standing companion! I'll be working on this thread up until the New Year, most likely! Everyone from any verse (or no verse!) is welcome, just let me know if you'd prefer it from a community or specific universe! And, for this thread, threadhopping is totally welcome!

Happy Holidays, everyone! &hearts

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“My son said Christmas was wishing,” Alice said, looking forward, at something that wasn’t there and never would be again. “That for one night, you got to ask for anything in the world that you wanted. Even if you didn’t get it, you were still allowed to ask.”

Alice paused. Whatever she could do these days that sounded like laughter, that’s what Alice did.

“Of course, my son was very spoiled. Wasn’t any toy he asked for that we didn’t get him. Probably to make up for the things he asked for that he couldn’t have.” His parents together. His father there. A person, and not a phonecall. And his uncle. He always asked to have his Uncle Jack around at Christmas.

Alice stared a bit longer, seeing blonde hair out of the corner of her eye, and knowing it wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry about your daughter.”

Parents with living children didn’t speak in the past tense. Something new that Alice’d picked up on, this year.

((ooc: Sorry about the long reply time! Feel free to ignore this tag!))

"Not a clue," the Doctor said. He beamed madly at the other man. It had been a good long while since he'd had someone to bounce theories off of and be generally magnificent around. It would be good for him.

And besides, Alan was wearing the right sort of shoes for the Doctor's life.

"Best way to find out is to follow it to the source, which looks like it would be..." He pointed towards the opposite end of the Mall.

"This way!"

"Some sort of...change in the fabric of time," the Doctor said. "But I haven't seen anything like that since the Eternals."

The Doctor looked over his machine at the SUV. The word Torchwood was engraved on the side. Very subtle, that. Still, the Doctor did like a flair for the dramatic, and that was exactly that. Which one of Jack's team was it this time? Ah! That Ianto bloke. The Doctor had gotten to know Gwen's ancestor years prior, but he never did get to properly meet Ianto.

As he opened his mouth to say a greeting, the machine in his hands bleeped loudly, and he turned it towards the SUV. Another bleep. Psychic interference? In there?

"Carrying anything from the Greterica Cluster, Mr. Jones?" the Doctor called over.

OOC: Of course! =D

"Eternal... Eternals, what are they?" Wilf asked. "They anything to do with your people?" He was curious, and it was a chance to find out more about the Doctor. He wasn't going to miss that!

Ianto, quite reasonably, didn't even begin to process the sentence until he heard his name, at which point he looked over with a slight frown--and as for the words, he worked backward.

"No," he said, and then, with a quirk of an eyebrow, "Doctor?" He's a smart lad, Ianto.

Then, a second later, as he remembered something, turning very slightly toward the vehicle in consideration. "Maybe."

"Wait, not a clue?" Alan called after him. He shut his eyes for a moment. "Brilliant."

Realizing he didn't have much of a choice, he took off after the Doctor, shaking his head.

This was as far as he was going, though. If he saw the little blue box Maria had told him about, he was staying safely outside. On his own planet and in his own time. No trips.

"Hey, slow down!" he shouted. "I don't know what sort of stamina you Time Lords have, but we humans would like to breathe normally every once in a while!"

The request turned out to be unnecessary, for he soon found himself matching the thinner man stride for side.

"This signal, it's not leaking anything dangerous, right? Like fumes or radiation?"

"There!"

At the center of the rippling energy, the Doctor can see the tip of a white-hot crystal, poking out of the sky like it had been nailed right into reality. What it was, though, the Doctor had no idea.

"Yeah." He felt his eyes burn, just a bit, thinking back on Susan. His tiny granddaughter, all grown up and gone with the rest of his world. Jenny never got to see a Christmas.

He pushed through the hurt, though, and managed a smile. "I like that. Christmas is wishing. Wonder what she'd wish for. Probably a record or something. One of those bands she always loved."

He had a feeling he was talking like the very old man he was, but it didn't really matter. Not around Christmas.

He picked up on her tense change. Was. So many deaths. But he stayed in the present, for her sake. "It's good, that you spoil him, though. Oooh, if I could, I would. Pick up the moon for her, if I could. I was never---" He looked back at the woman and felt suddenly, strangely self-conscious. He never talked about his failures as a parent and guardian. Never. Not even with his closest friends. It was just not spoken about.

Maybe it was the season. Maybe it was because this woman was sharing, too.

{{OOC: As if I would!}}

"Of course I have a birthday," the Doctor said. "It just doesn't fall on an Earth day. So! I just don't worry about it, and neither should you."

Age may or may not have been a particularly sore subject.

He stopped abruptly, and then reached out to turn Marco and face him in a different direction.

"This way."

It was strange, but the Doctor felt a surge of envy run through him. He couldn't see what Jo could, all he saw was Donna, still looking so sad. But the gesture she made was gentle, and the Doctor could imagine she was holding its shoulder or cupping its cheek. Ridiculous thing to be envious of, perhaps, but it had been quite a long time since someone had shown that sort of sympathy towards him.

"You're going to need to lead it back with me. My ship isn't far, but she's a whirlwind of energy and if we can't contain it, it might burn out." He took half a step back, making sure to keep his hand steadily on Jo's.

"Just make sure it comes with you. It trusts you."

The Doctor looked over to Jim. Did he really prompt that often? He must've, thinking back on it.

"I-I don't actually know, that's why I was asking."

"It's a Christmas Star!" the Doctor said. "Well, ish. It's off the end of Orion's belt, but we should be able to get to it quick enough."

He considered reaching down and taking her hand, but shook his head and bolted towards the TARDIS, instead.

If the man was speaking older than he looked, Alice was hardly one to point it out. She'd been old since she was twelve, since she'd realized that she was dying, everyone was dying, save her father.

She didn't talk about these things. Didn't even think of them, on her better days. But it was Christmas, and this man was no one. She looked at him, encouragingly. Like she looked at her students, when they were just on the cusp of something.

"I didn't teach him to tie his shoes," Susan said. "When he was at the age where you learn that sort of thing. I didn't spend much time around children before him, and it slipped my mind that people weren't born knowing how to tie shoes. It wasn't until last year, at breakfast. We're sitting at the table, and he tells me about the time that Gram taught him how to tie his shoes."

Felt like it'd happened this morning, but to someone else. A different Alice. She'd been split in two the moment that Steven died, and one Alice was off, staying in her memories and not having to move forward in the present.

"I forget things like that. Obvious things. Always have."

((ooc: You minx!))

"You have a ship?" she asked with a frown. It would be useful to take whatever this creature was home, but she didn't know Torchwood had spaceships. She and Cliff were going to visit his family after Christmas, so perhaps they could stop off in Cardiff and have a look.

That wasn't important at the moment though. "We're going to take you home," she said to the creature and held out her hand for it to take. The image of her home in South America appeared around them again and Jo smiled. "Yes, but your home, not mine."

'Cliff' smiled back at her and took her hand - or at least appeared to. And when she took a step in Jack's direction, it did the same. "How far away is it?" she asked Jack.

Yes. Yes, he did prompt that often, and she would appreciate it if he cut back on that.

"What if it's just hidden in the tree? Or the tree's some kind of... illusion?"

Hiro stares at the crystal. It's singing.

"What is that?" Part of him wants to touch it, but the heat from it keeps him back.

Unseen by the Doctor, Lucy briefly rolled her eyes as she took off after him. Of course it was a Christmas star--though how it could be "ish" was completely lost on her--and what was a Christmas star, anyway? Did it only shine on Christmas? That was preposterous. Lucy knew enough science to know that stars didn't turn themselves off for 364 days of the Earth year.

"And you think," she called as she ran, breath puffing out in front of her, "that you'll find the meaning of an Earth holiday there?"

"I dunno," the Doctor says. He puts a hand to his forehead. "Ugh, my head."

He doesn't expect Hiro to hear the singing, of course. He knows he's a time sensitive, but that sort of aptitude isn't something he'd expect in someone who wasn't a Time Lord by birth.

He reaches out a hand. "If something happens, I need you to restart time, yes?"

"Nah, it's all right, you were learning," the Doctor said. "I'm sure he doesn't think ill of that. Everyone makes mistakes when they're learning."

He'd made so many with Susan's mother, it was almost easy when he took care of Susan. Almost like he'd had a rough draft and he was finally able to properly write the essay. It was...cruel, he thought. Cruel to think of his own child that way.

"I was never a good dad, though," he said, continuing on his thoughts. "Always figured I knew what I was doing. Always thought I had more time."

And then time ran out.

“He isn’t old enough to think ill of me. Isn’t old enough to think anything other than I’m his mother, and I’ll look out for him.” Which she hadn’t, of course. He’d of been better off if she’d given him up when he was born. Let some other family take him. Some family that had a real name and a real history. Someone safe.

She looked away from the man. Not because of what she saw in his face, but because of what she didn’t want to be seen in hers.

“We always think we have more time. But I’m sure you’re a better dad than you think. You’d be amazed, what children will forgive their fathers.”

The Doctor took in a breath. He had his sonic, he could sacrifice that if he absolutely had to, and Martha's mobile, and---

Wait.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. "It's very faint," he said. "Maybe we're standing in the eye of the storm."

"Really?" she asked, an eyebrow shooting up. "Why would an alien bother with another area of low psychic disturbances when we're supposed to be getting closer to it? Do aliens really bother with safe areas for other species when they're being guarded by robotic dogs?"

"Are you ok?" He looks worried. If the Doctor is having so much trouble with this thing, it can't be good, despite how pretty it is.

Hiro nods. "Yes, I will." He prepares himself.

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Christmas Open Thread

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