Tidings of Comfort and Joy
Title: Tidings of Comfort and Joy
Rating: T
Author: jlrpuck
Disclaimer: Characters from Doctor Who are the property of the BBC, and are used with the greatest of love and respect; no profit is intended from the writing or sharing of this story.
Summary: Rose spends some time getting to know the Tenth Doctor.
Authors Notes: Written for the Advent Calendar at time_and_chips. Although this works as a stand-alone, it’s actually a direct follow-on to “ Post-match Analysis.”
Thank you to earlgreytea68 for making time to beta this week; and to chicklet73 for both her beta, and for providing the line which really inspired this story (even if it is from a different Christmas carol): A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Tidings of Comfort and Joy
She’s slowly walking to her room, down the familiar corridors-wondering about all that’s happened: about Jack, and ash falling as snow, and what the new year will bring-when she suddenly realizes she’s passing the library.
She jerks to a stop, her hand reaching out to gently stroke the doorjamb, memories of her time in that room with the Doctor-the old Doctor, the one with the large ears and the gawky stance and the stunning blue eyes; the Doctor who, she’s rather startled to realize, she’d fallen in love with-coming to the fore and, suddenly, bringing tears to her eyes.
He’s gone. Her Doctor is gone. Jack, too, is gone-but he’s rebuilding the earth which isn’t quite the same thing. No, Jack’s still alive; but her Doctor…he was there, babbling nonsense, trying to make her smile or laugh, and then up he went in a golden fire. And then there, in his clothes, was someone else; someone new, with a strange accent, and normal ears, and warm brown eyes instead of icy blue.
The new Doctor. She knows it’s him, knows it’s the same man, simply reborn into something different, but she still is mourning her old one. The one she’d fallen in love with; who had made love to her just the once before it all went horribly wrong.
She wipes her eyes hastily with the back of her hand, shaking her head. She’s not a crier; she hates it, in fact, having always been taught that it was a sign of weakness in the estate. She’ll not cry now, not when the fire dancing in the fireplace of the library is a comforting orange, a vintage Earth fire projecting just the right amount of warmth into the room. No, if she’s going to cry-and she knows she will, eventually-she’ll do it in the cold dark of her room, where she won’t be discovered.
She sighs, brushing her hands dry on her hoodie, still gazing into the library. It beckons to her tonight, offering warmth from the Earth fire and the comfort of happy memories-some more recent than others. And really-what are the odds that the Doctor, should he be looking for her, would look in the library of all places? No, he’d go first to her room, and then to the kitchen to see if she’d made a cuppa for them both.
At least, her old Doctor would have. This one? Well, she’s not too certain about that. Still, she’d rather hide in the library for a bit than go back to her room; she doesn’t want to go back there, not yet, not until she’s absolutely sure she’ll fall asleep immediately.
She slowly makes her way into library, the wood on the walls a deep brown in the flickering firelight. It looks much as it did before their trip to Kyoto, as it did any and every other time she’s been in there, with one change. Well, two changes: the first being the addition of a Christmas tree in a corner, lights twinkling merrily on the branches, tinsel and ornaments hanging off it in a riot of Christmas cheer. The other change is the stranger in the room with her. Except, he's not a stranger. He’s the Doctor, after all, and surely under that sort of brown exterior he’s exactly the same man.
The man in question is currently asleep on the sofa-the comfy one, in fact, his limbs hanging awkwardly off the sides, his feet dangling over one of the well-padded armrests. His not-ginger hair is sticking in every direction, as though searching for a form of expression beyond the three dimensions ’it’s forced to inhabit; and she’s struck, suddenly, by how young this impossibly old man looks. His fair skin reminds her of the adverts she used to see for beauty products; it’s flawless, like that of a newborn. Which, she supposes, he is.
He’s also snoring, which surprises her into a brief giggle; a giggle which is stifled as she steps closer to him, and sees a book lying under one of his slack hands. It’s the book they’d been reading before Kyoto; the book from his home.
She turns, intent on leaving him be, not yet ready to face him, or even to face what’s happened. No, she’ll just go back to her room, hoping to ignore the memories of the last night she spent sleeping in that bed and instead praying for a quick descent into sleep. It’s been a long day, after all, and she’s really not sure at all when that day began. Perhaps the morning they went to Kyoto? Maybe on the Estate, when he’d sent her back?
Her vision blurs again, and she moves more quickly towards the door, not wanting to even think about shedding a tear in the presence of the Doctor-and certainly not in front of the new Doctor.
“Leaving so soon?” the new voice asks quietly from behind her. It’s so odd to hear that accent; to hear the different timbre and rhythm to the words. “Rose, is anything wrong?” His voice is still soft, but she can hear the concern in it.
She hastily wipes her eyes, hoping he’ll not notice; he’s still tired, still a bit woozy from regeneration-or so he’d told her, after they’d gone out to see the ash falling from the sky. So she turns, sliding her hands along her jeans, and gives him the brightest smile she can muster. “No,” she says, cheerily, hoping her joviality doesn’t appear as forced as it is. “Just wanted t’let you sleep.”
He gazes steadily at her. He’s not moved from his position on the sofa, and yet she still feels utterly pinned. He knows exactly what’s going on, what she’s trying to hide-assuming he remembers anything at all from…from before…and she wondered how this new him will react.
“Thank you,” he finally says, giving her a faint smile. He moves, the gangly limbs now helping him to effortlessly sit up, making room on the sofa. He tilts his head, and lets out a little sigh of contentment as something gives with a pop. “Hate sleeping like that; my neck always gets a bit wonky, no matter what.”
“No matter what you look like?” she asks boldly, taking a step towards him. She doesn’t want to talk to him, not about this, but she can’t seem to help herself.
He looks surprised, but answers, “Yes.”
“How many?”
He sighs. “Nine times.” He turns away from her, and lets out a sound of delight. “Cocoa!”
She’s startled by the rapid shift in not only the topic, but his tone of voice, and she pauses several feet away from where he’s seated.
“D’ you want some cocoa? There’s plenty enough here,” he says, turning back to her, a steaming mug in his hand.
No, she doesn’t want cocoa. But he looks so hopeful as he offers her the mug. She’s reminded, yet again, of how new he is. He doesn’t appear to have a care in the world, not anymore-not like his old self, certainly. And especially now that he’s wearing brown wool instead of battered black leather.
“No cocoa, then?” He slowly brings the mug back towards his body, his shoulders slumping just a touch.
“I’ll have some,” she says, something within her reacting to the note of bewilderment in his tone.
His posture straightens, and he happily extends the mug to her as she moves to sit next to him on the sofa. Not too close-that would be too weird, especially so soon after he’s changed. And so soon after they’d slept together.
Does he remember? Surely he must. She glances down at the book, sitting by her feet now, and wonders if he was remembering as he read it. How he’d gone through it with her, in that very room, not five feet from where she’s now sitting; how they’d kissed in front of the fire, then moved to her room. It feels like years ago, but it couldn’t have been more than a day. Perhaps two.
“Rose? Are you alright?” he asks gently. She’s been staring into her cocoa, she realizes, and turns quickly to look at him.
“’m fine,” she replies, holding his gaze.
He nods once, and then takes a sip of his cocoa. She follows suit, and relaxes fractionally as she feels the warmth from the beverage spread through her.
“She really does make the best cocoa,” she says, glancing up to the ceiling of the ship. She’s well used to the idea of the ship being alive, now; has learned not to be alarmed by the sudden, unexpected appearance of a plate of sarnies, or a dress.
“That she does. She’s a fine old thing, is this ship.” He smiles-a real smile, full of affection-and she notes once more how very young this version of the Doctor looks.
He’s so different, this man next to her. Not just the hair, or the eye colour, or the clothes; it’s there in everything. In how he talks, how he runs on at the gob like the maths teacher she had in secondary school; how he moves so much more freely than…than he used to. His sense of humour is different-and he came to dinner with her mum, did domestic, and on Christmas to boot.
How cold he was, when Harriet Jones had the Sycorax shot from the sky.
He used to be like that, too, she knows-she heard that “You will not cross me” tone of voice when he was addressing the ficivores not two days previous. But before, it was easy to tell it was coming; with this one, this new Doctor, it was as though he turned a switch. Happy one minute, homicidal the next.
Is this what he’ll be like, now? Her Doctor? Is he even her Doctor? she wonders. He says he is, and she wants to believe him. She wants to keep travelling with him, wants to learn how to hold his hand again, and have hers held by him; she doesn’t want to leave this fantastic life, or this beautiful ship.
They fall into an awkward silence, both of them sipping cocoa, neither of them willing-or sure-of what to say. By the time she is almost finished with her mug, Rose decides she has had enough.
“You put that tree up?” she asks, pointing to the evergreen in the corner of the room.
The Doctor glances over to it, surprised. “I’d not noticed it until now,” he says.
“’s been there since I came in,” she replies, not looking at the Doctor.
“It wasn’t there when I fell asleep,” he says thoughtfully. “Must have popped up just when you came in”
“’s it going to come alive and try to kill us?” She skates a glance to the man sitting next to her, wondering if he remembers.
“No, I don’t think you’ll be killed by the Christmas tree.” He sneaks a glance at her as he speaks, humour lurking in his eyes; she hurriedly averts her gaze, suddenly embarrassed at being caught looking. She is aware of him returning his attention to the tree in the corner before he continues, “Never did cotton to the idea of a tree. Poor living thing snatched from the woods simply to decorate someone’s parlour, to be scratched by cats and bedecked in ridiculous…frippery.”
“Frippery?” She can’t help but smile; he’s said the word as though it’s the worst possible fate for a tree, or any living thing.
“Frippery.” He nods decisively, and then continues. “And then you lot go let them dry out, poor trees, and if a flame gets too near - whoosh - they go up like a roman candle. A bit like me, I suppose,” he says.
She’s too stunned to say anything, and he smoothly continues on with his monologue. “There’s nothing quite so sad as seeing discarded trees lining the pavement after the holidays. Takes you forever to move on past that-centuries, really.” He tuts disapprovingly.
“You…don’t like Christmas?” she finally asks, her mind awhirl with thousands of possible questions.
“Oh, I love Christmas!” he says, drawing out the ‘o’ in love. He’s beaming, now, and she’s struck by a fresh wave of guilt as she’s reminded that he’s not at all like her former Doctor. The ears, the face, the build, the eyes…they’re nothing alike, and yet she’s already finding herself reacting to this new man in the same way she did to the old. It feels like a betrayal, somehow, in spite of him having told her he’s the same man; like she’s gone out and found a replacement for her Doctor without thinking twice about it, without properly mourning him-or at least what’s happened to him.
He blithely carries on. “It’s the tree abuse I can’t abide. Then again, it’s still better than how they celebrate Christmas on-” and here he makes a series of clicking noises, acting for the world as though nothing strange at all is happening.
“Er…”
He barrels on. “They decorate the youngest member of the family. Started doing it ages ago. He’s drawn out the ‘a’ in ages this time; Rose is feeling a bit dizzy from being so completely immersed in the differences between this man and the one she’d killed herself to come back for. “Still haven’t been able to work out why. Then there’s ‘Yap-" he pops the P on that one, and she blinks in surprise. “The planet, not the country. No decorations at all-they’re forbidden by law, result of a rather nasty experiment with exploding cantaloupe-but they spend the entirety of the season doing nothing but singing.”
He turns to her, grinning; he’s delighted-with himself, or the stories, she can’t be sure-and she finds herself reflexively smiling in return.
“They have Christmas everywhere, then?” she ventures.
“Oh, no no no no. Just on planets settled by humans. Although most planets-or societies-have a holiday recognizing rebirth and hope. And it’s almost always in the darkest days of the coldest months.” His smile fades, and his gaze intensifies. “Winter holidays, no matter where in the universe you are, are always preceded by a time of waiting. Of preparing, of anticipating the rebirth-of a season, of the light, of a person. Just like here,” he adds, his voice soft.
She feels herself blush as his brown eyes watch her, and she hastily averts her own gaze. “Readin’ before bed?” she blurts, verbalizing the words before her brain has a chance to stop them. The blush changes to a chill as she realizes what she’s said, and she feels sick to her stomach. She doesn’t want to talk about that-doesn’t want to, in any way, reference the book at her feet, and what it symbolizes. Not yet, not until she’s used to the man next to her, and has found some way to reconcile the reality of him with the memories of the man who last showed the book to her.
He leans forward, setting his mug on the floor before reaching for the book and bringing it to his lap. His fingers drift across the cover in a move reminiscent of his former self; but if the action is the same, the hands are very much not. These hands-his new hands, his fighting hand, in fact, and wasn’t that an odd thing to see?-are the hands of an artist, not the hands of a labourer. His fingers now are long and tapered; she knows from holding his hand outside that the skin is terribly soft. The nails, rather than being bitten down to the quick, remind her of those on the wealthy men she used to sometimes help at Henriks.
She is suddenly very aware of wanting to escape, and feels a flash of panic well up in her. He does too, apparently, for he moves a hand over to gently rest it on her knee. The touch is comforting, not over-familiar, and she slowly raises her eyes to his.
“This book has always been a favourite, Rose.” He looks at the book as he speaks, his hand moving from her knee to return to tracing the lines of the cover.
She remains silent, and slowly transfers her gaze from his hands to his face. His eyes are dark now, and he no longer appears young; he’s weary, she can tell, and she’s vividly reminded of her old Doctor.
“’s beautiful,” she offers, unsure of what else to say. She’s still so uncertain about him, but she knows even now that she can’t bear to see him unhappy.
She feels a sense of déjà vu as he quirks his lips sadly, his gaze still rooted on the book.
“May I?” she says, reaching over to the book. At his slight nod she pulls it towards her; his hands slide into his lap as she moves it to hers, and she gently opens it and begins to turn the pages. A literature primer, he’d called it the night before everything went wrong; a reminder of his dead planet, and his home.
She finds a page she doesn’t remember having seen; as with the others in the book, the page is covered in beautifully rendered interlocking circles. There is no art on the page other than that of the writing, and she delicately traces one of the lines.
“What’s it say?” she finally asks when it becomes apparent that the new Doctor isn’t going to say anything at all.
He remains silent, and she turns to him expectantly. She’s startled to find he’s watching her-not her hands, but her-and she blushes anew.
He continues to watch her as he speaks; she recognizes the sounds as being those of his native language. She has a sudden, irrational fear that he’s going to kiss her when he’s done-she’s not ready for that, may never be ready for that, no matter how handsome this Doctor is, and where did that thought come from?-and she tenses as he falls into silence, his recital at an end.
“Stereo instructions?” she jokes lamely, desperate to break the tension now lurking between them. His expression darkens, and she feels as though she’s just done or said something very, very wrong; she swallows, and hastily adds, “’m sorry, I jus’…you said, yesterday, that the book was-“
His expression clears, and she suddenly feels able to breathe again. “I’d forgotten about that. Stereo instructions; that’s what I’d told you.”
“Yes.”
He grins. “You believed me.”
“How was I to know?” she says, defensively.
“That, my dear Miss Tyler, was nothing remotely close to instructions on how to assemble a stereo. In fact, I suspect if your mum knew what I’d just said, she’d give me another slap.” He’s not the least bit embarrassed, which at least makes one of them.
“Oh,” she stutters, hastily turning a page.
“Hey, now,” he says, his hand moving to hers. “Gently, Rose,” he says, helping her to turn the next page. She watches their hands move together, the softness of his against the warmth of hers; his fighting hand covering the hand she remembers using to reach for him just before he regenerated.
The page is turned, and he slowly pulls his hand away as it reveals a drawing she recognizes immediately. It’s the poem he’d read to her the night before. The one on winter.
“Seems someone’s trying to send us a message,” he mutters thoughtfully as he, too, sees the stark picture on the page.
“How’s that?” She turns to him, curious in spite of herself. The old him would never have said something like that.
“Winter. Christmas.” He glances at the page before them, then back up to her with…embarrassment? She thinks that what it is. “I…never told you what the poem was about, Rose. When…” he trails off, the silence heavy now in the room. “Well, I never told you what the words meant,” he says briskly.
“No.”
“We didn’t have Christmas, but we did celebrate the turning of the year. The change from days growing shorter to days growing longer. We celebrated a returning of the light, and although no one would admit it, we celebrated the return of hope.” He sighs. “Not a popular word, that. Hope. Too…amorphous. Ephemeral. Hope leads to bad things, we were taught; far better to focus on tangibles, on facts, on threads and timelines and not on ‘maybes’ or ‘might be’s’.” His voice has hardened, and she can see the tension in his jaw.
“But the poem, it was about that. Hope,” she says gently, trying to bring him back from memories which clearly are not happy.
“Yes-and the promise of new life.” He shifts, leaning closer to her as he moves to drift his hand across the shapes on the page in front of her. “This one talks of the darkest night of the year, and of the movement of the stars across the sky just before dawn breaks. Of the cold; and of the sharp clarity. And then, at the end, the sun rises, the light dispelling the cold but not the clarity, showing the way forward into the new year; about how the light promises a rebirth of things.”
His voice has warmed, although he still sounds weary; she moves her hand to cover his, and gives a gentle squeeze as he turns his hand over to clasp hers.
“’s lovely,” she says, looking at him. She thinks it possible that she’s really seeing him, properly, for the first time; not just his brown eyes, and his long eyelashes, and the freckles covering his fair skin, but the man underneath it all. The man who really is the Doctor, who remains the same no matter what he looks or sounds like.
“Not half bad as poets, really,” he says, straightening, bringing his eyes to hers. His tone is full of joviality, but his eyes are still haunted.
“I’ll take your word for it,” she says, teasingly, trying to pull him out of his melancholy. Her hand is still clasped in the Doctor’s, but neither of them appears inclined to separate them, and so she struggles with turning the page.
“Oh,” she breathes as the next drawing is revealed to her. It’s a picture of what must be the sun on his home planet, illuminating a stark landscape save for one small blossom on a tree in the lower corner of the drawing. As with the one on the page before, it is rendered in black and white-but the lone blossom is a stunning shade of deep blue.
“That’d be the one for spring, then,” the Doctor offers wryly. He shifts, bringing his free hand to the page. “See that? Blue’s a bit different wherever you go, depending on chemical composition, reflectivity, and the visible spectrum, but it almost always means hope or rebirth.” He’s pointing to the blossom, once again energized, eager to talk and to share.
“So’d you lot decorate trees with blue garland and flowers?” she asks. She wants to ask, instead, if that’s why the TARDIS is blue, but she already knows her new Doctor well enough to know he’ll not answer that particular question.
He sighs heavily. “Rose. I’ve told you how I feel about the trees. We didn’t decorate anything; just wished each other well, and moved on. Time marches forward, even for a Time Lord, and while we had a grand time playing with it, even we weren’t too keen to waste it.”
“You sing carols?”
“No. Not much frivolity at all, really; it's one of the reasons why I left. Besides, I had a terrible singing voice, back then.” He pauses, tilting his head as he thinks. “Come to that, I’ve not often been able to sing. Played a mean recorder, of course, but couldn’t carry a tune in the proverbial bucket.”
“You played the recorder?” She’s unable to keep from laughing at him.
“Oi! I played it very well. Oooh, maybe I’ll be inclined to take it up again. Or perhaps the tuba. The bassoon? Ooh, that’s a lovely one to say. Bassoon.” He rolls the word in his mouth, savouring the consonants and vowels, grinning the entire time.
“You’d have to shut your gob to do that,” she teases, her tongue moving to the corner of her mouth as she grins at him. He turns his attention to her, and while he’s still grinning she can see his expression soften as he meets her eye.
“Quite right; can’t have that. I suppose I’ll just have to see how I am at singing.” He winks at her as he attempts to sing a simple scale. By the fourth note he’s singing the song from “The Sound of Music”, and she is doubled over with laughter, gasping for breath.
She listens to him launch into another verse and thinks about how it might just be all right again, someday. He’s not her old Doctor, and she’ll always miss that man, and his daft old face. But she thinks that she and her new Doctor will find their way. Together.
~ fin ~