Fic: A Spot of Festive Shopping
I wrote a Christmas story! From a randomiser prompt, which gave me First Doctor/Tegan + Shopping. What else could I do?
A Spot of Festive Shopping
Tegan, First Doctor, Ffth Doctor (All Ages)
Story:
***
Tegan left the console room and blinked to find everything had turned misty and cold. Confused, she grabbed at someone in passing, assuming it had to be the Doctor.
“What is it now? The Time Lords?”
Everything cleared and she found that she was standing on a pavement in the middle of a very ordinary town centre and while the figure opposite was the Doctor, it wasn’t the one she had expected. She gaped, finding herself at a loss for words. “Did you do that?”
“Do what, young lady?” he returned, looking about him with bright blue eyes. “Interesting.”
She recovered herself. “Look, whatever’s going on, I want to get back to the TARDIS and my Doctor. Where are we?”
“You seem to be labouring under a misapprehension,” he said. “This is none of my doing. The trouble is that my people have always had a misplaced faith in their abilities, even the greatest of them, shall we say?”
Tegan folded her arms. “You mean Rassilon messed up getting you home? Typical. What about me?”
“I imagine that’s what caused the trouble,” he said. “Something a little odd happened when I parted with Susan a moment ago. The timelines must have collided again and when you caught hold of me, it interfered with my path home. Does this look familiar to you?”
She shook her head. “Well, it looks like present day earth. Christmas, unless someone’s forgotten to take the lights down. I don’t know this place, though.”
“I left Ben and Polly in the 1930s,” he said. He shook his head. “Once you were caught up in the transportation procedure, it stopped short at your proper time, if not the proper place. Dear me. And who knows what those reckless young people might get up to without me?”
Tegan sighed. “Right, so what do we do?”
“Do?” he echoed. Then he chuckled. “My dear girl, there’s not the slightest thing either of us can do about it!”
*
“And it’s no good shouting at me,” he said, after she’d finished. “You’ll have to wait for the future me to track us down. I’m sure it won’t take me too long, as I shall remember precisely where we are.”
Tegan bit her lip. “Oh. What if he doesn’t?”
“Miss Jovanka,” he said. “I know I may not be the man I once was, but he - I - will have all the information he needs to reach us. Of course, it may be a few minutes or hours, but -.”
She folded her arms against herself. “I didn’t mean that, although he never turns up in the right time or place. I’m just not sure he’d bother coming back for me.”
“I think,” said the Doctor, “you should allow me to know myself a little better than that. And in any case, I can’t leave me stranded here without wrecking my own timeline.” He glanced at her surreptitiously, but said nothing further.
Tegan shivered and wished she still had her coat on. “So what next, then? Window shopping?”
“Christmas,” he said, apparently paying her no attention. No change there, then, she thought. “I must admit I’m rather fond of the festive period here.” Then he looked straight across at her and chuckled to himself. “I think we can do better than that, young lady!”
Across the road from them, the Salvation Army began playing Christmas carols.
*
Tegan was finding that the Doctor had changed in more ways than just looks. He’d glanced around the shops and headed off for a nearby bank - a bank - and reappeared with money, which he brandished at her as if it were the result of a particularly clever magician’s trick. She could have fainted on the spot.
“You have a bank account here?” she hissed. “All that running around, leaving alien coins and getting arrested and you have a bank account?”
He coughed. “Well, I was here for rather a while a decade or two back. I made arrangements, shall we say? I don’t think I need bore you with the details, although it does appear that more than one of me has been making use of them in the mean time.”
“I can’t believe this,” she said. “You!”
He crooked his elbow to her. “Miss Jovanka -.”
“Call me Tegan,” she said.
He smiled widely. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s freezing out here.”
He looked her up and down and tutted at her. “You aren’t very suitably dressed, are you?”
“I was going to my room. I didn’t expect to suddenly find myself Christmas shopping!”
*
Now they were sitting in the County Stores and he was insisting she have whatever she want off the menu. She kept looking at him, nervously suspecting him of playing some trick on her.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked. He missed nothing, she was beginning to realise. Unless he chose. Her Doctor was rarely this observant.
She swallowed. “No. It’s just -.” What? she asked herself. You’re not normally this nice to me, so stop it, it’s making my hair stand on end? “Oh, all right, I’ll have a mince pie and cream, thanks.”
*
“Now,” he said, “why don’t you tell me how you met me?”
She opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Isn’t that against the laws of time or something?”
“Hmm, yes, of course,” he said, frowning. “Yes, I should have thought of that. You’ll have to watch what you say to me, young lady.”
She smiled. “In that case, you’ll have to do the talking.”
So he entertained her by relating the time he’d met the Emperor Nero and the inventive way he’d got around the inconvenience of being a famous lyre player who couldn’t play the lyre.
“Seriously?” said Tegan, who wasn’t sure she believed a word of it.
He said, “I assure you, it’s all true. It’s such a shame that Ian and Barbara weren’t there to see it. They never believed me, either. And of course, it was unfortunate about the fire -.”
“The fire?”
The Doctor chuckled to himself. “I’m afraid I seem to have been partly responsible for the Great Fire of Rome.”
“You -.” Tegan had to bite her lip, but she couldn’t keep from laughing helplessly. “Well, you’re a happy little arsonist, aren’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
She choked back her amusement. “Look, I won’t tell you how or when, but, you’re responsible for the Great Fire of London as well.”
“Now there’s no need to be ridiculous, young lady,” he said and then gave a giggle. “Dear me. Oh, dear. What a shame I couldn’t have told that to Pepys while we were having coffee.”
She shook her head. Name dropper.
*
They walked back out again. He took one look at her and said, “Well, we can’t have you going around with your teeth chattering like that. Why don’t you buy yourself a coat?”
She coloured brightly as he handed her some money. Who knows what this might look like to passers by? Still, provided he hadn’t stolen the cash - and, to be honest, she wouldn’t put it past this version of him - it was his, and if he was offering, it might be time to find something sensible to wear for once. The TARDIS wardrobe always seemed to hate her.
They went into Debenhams department store and while Tegan went off to look for a coat, the Doctor inspected the rest of the shop with considerable interest and amusement.
Afterwards, he said, they could feed the ducks if his future self still hadn’t arrived.
*
Tegan emerged, the owner of a new coat. She wondered guiltily what her Doctor would say when he eventually caught up with them.
She looked around for the Doctor, but there was no sign of him, so she set out to track him down, floor by floor.
*
“Is there something wrong?” he asked.
She looked back at him, surprised yet again. “Yes, there is!”
“What would that be, then, hmm? Didn’t you manage to find a coat to your liking?”
She swallowed. “Yes, I did, thanks. But you - I leave you alone in a shop for ten minutes and when I come back you're dressed as Santa? There'd better be a good reason for it!”
“You noticed, did you?” He chuckled to himself. “There was a most distressing incident with a thug and the store’s Father Christmas - and of course, one can’t disappoint the children. You know, I think there’s space for an elf as well. One of them was most upset by the whole thing and stormed out in tears.”
Tegan opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Somehow, she had a feeling she was going to be an elf.
This never happened with her Doctor, either. This one hadn’t even tried giving her that pleading look, or that dazzling smile and she was still going to be Santa’s Little Helper.
*
When her Doctor found them, armed with a tracking device, he stopped in shock to find them dressed as Santa and an elf, having a cup of tea, this time on the house by way of thanks from the shop manager.
*
“You make a great Father Christmas,” said Tegan.
He removed his beard. “I have always been rather good at anything theatrical.”
“What did you say to that obnoxious little brat who wanted half the shop?”
He tapped his nose and chuckled to himself.
“I hope it wasn’t anything you could get arrested for,” she said.
He looked outraged. “Of course not, Tegan. I merely suggested that while he might have successfully seen through my disguise that I was on very good terms with the real Father Christmas and if he wasn’t careful, mistakes might be made and he might receive a Dream Castle rather than a Castle Grayskull.”
“You know,” said Tegan. “I’d almost believe you meant that.”
He laughed to himself again. “I suppose I do.”
“Look, I know there’s no such person as Father Christmas. I mean - you’re not about to tell me that there is and he’s really some alien who keeps an army of midget slaves at the North Pole, are you?”
He shook his head. “No, but in a sense I do. I got on rather well with St Nicholas, you see. Charming fellow, very generous.”
“You’re impossible!”
Someone coughed to the side of them and they both turned to see the other Doctor. He had an expression of mild alarm on his face as he sat down at their table.
“What are you doing?”
Tegan stared back at him. “What does it look like?”
“For once,” he said, “I can’t even begin to answer that. I’m sure the memory will come to me in time if I haven’t deliberately suppressed centuries ago.”
The First Doctor sniffed. “I seem to have grown rather staid in my old age,” he commented to Tegan.
She laughed.
“If you two can bear to tear yourselves away,” he said, looking a little hurt, “I’ll take you back to the TARDIS. Hopefully, once you get inside that should solve the problem.”
The First Doctor nodded and glanced down at himself rather regretfully. “I suppose I’d better change, hadn’t I? The shop will want the costume back.” She could have sworn he looked regretful.
“Me, too,” said Tegan. She hesitated. “Doctor, I don’t exactly need the coat now -.”
He patted her hand. “I’m sure you will soon enough.”
“True,” she said and grinned at him. “Thanks.”
Her Doctor folded his arms. “If you two don’t mind -.”
“Turlough’s not here, is he?” said Tegan, suddenly having terrible visions of her fellow companion’s reaction to her current outfit.
He smiled at her. “No. As soon as he saw it was earth again, he went off to his room.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
*
Back in the TARDIS, she sighed. “I meant to get you a Christmas present, but you found us too soon.”
“And if I’d taken any longer, you’d have complained about that, no doubt,” he returned pettishly.
She clutched at her carrier bag with the coat in it. “You know, you used to be a lot more fun when you were younger, even if you didn’t look it.”
“That is untrue,” he protested. “It’s hardly my fault if we keep running into trouble. We had a nice time on the Eye of Orion, didn’t we?”
Tegan threw him a look. Then she had to laugh again. “Doctor, you’re not jealous of yourself, are you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. He looked back at her. “We could go Christmas shopping, if that’s what you’d like.”
She said, “Thanks, but I bet we’d end up arriving before they’d invented shops - or Christmas.”
“Tegan -.”
“And you have a bank account in the twentieth century?”
He coughed and looked embarrassed. “I can’t use that, even when I am in the right place and time.”
“Why not?”
He coloured further. “It’s irritating, but the date of birth he gave at the time - I don’t look old enough.”
“Oh,” she said and bit back laughter.
“Besides, it’s not really me, is it? It was only that there was Susan at the time and I had rather a particular reason for being on earth.”
She hesitated in the doorway to the console room. “Look, this is crazy. You’re mad, Doctor, but I like all of the versions of you I’ve met.”
“Really?” he said. “I’m not sure I do.”
Tegan shook her head. “But next time you start being a party pooper I’m going to remind you that you were more than happy to play at being Santa Claus once!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” he said mildly and gave her a smile. “If you bring that up, I’ll tell Turlough I found you dressed as an elf.”
She glared. “Merry Christmas to you, too!”
*
Really, thought the First Doctor, as he arrived back at his TARDIS and pottered off in search of his two latest travelling companions, he would have to leave a reminder in his 500 year diary to his future self. Tegan was an livelya nd somewhat opinionated young lady, but a charming companion, he felt. She obviously had no confidence that his future self actually liked having her aaround - that much had been plain - and that was a nonsensical state of affairs.
*
The events of the past few days had left the Doctor initially reluctant to dwell on the past, but his mind was a jumble of confused memories after after his past selves being plucked out of history and simultaneously exploring the Death Zone. He reached for his diary for the first time in an age, in the hope that would help.
Strangely enough, at the back, he found a large reminder:
DON’T BE UNKIND TO TEGAN, it read. DEAR ME, DO I REALLY HAVE TO TELL MYSELF SOMETHING LIKE THAT?
He raised his eyebrows. That was a cheek, when he considered how unpleasant he could be in his first incarnation.
“And I’m not unkind to Tegan,” he said aloud. Still, he thought to himself, he supposed he could always ask her if there was anywhere she’d like to go…
As long as it wasn’t Christmas shopping.
***
A Spot of Festive Shopping
Tegan, First Doctor, Ffth Doctor (All Ages)
Story:
***
Tegan left the console room and blinked to find everything had turned misty and cold. Confused, she grabbed at someone in passing, assuming it had to be the Doctor.
“What is it now? The Time Lords?”
Everything cleared and she found that she was standing on a pavement in the middle of a very ordinary town centre and while the figure opposite was the Doctor, it wasn’t the one she had expected. She gaped, finding herself at a loss for words. “Did you do that?”
“Do what, young lady?” he returned, looking about him with bright blue eyes. “Interesting.”
She recovered herself. “Look, whatever’s going on, I want to get back to the TARDIS and my Doctor. Where are we?”
“You seem to be labouring under a misapprehension,” he said. “This is none of my doing. The trouble is that my people have always had a misplaced faith in their abilities, even the greatest of them, shall we say?”
Tegan folded her arms. “You mean Rassilon messed up getting you home? Typical. What about me?”
“I imagine that’s what caused the trouble,” he said. “Something a little odd happened when I parted with Susan a moment ago. The timelines must have collided again and when you caught hold of me, it interfered with my path home. Does this look familiar to you?”
She shook her head. “Well, it looks like present day earth. Christmas, unless someone’s forgotten to take the lights down. I don’t know this place, though.”
“I left Ben and Polly in the 1930s,” he said. He shook his head. “Once you were caught up in the transportation procedure, it stopped short at your proper time, if not the proper place. Dear me. And who knows what those reckless young people might get up to without me?”
Tegan sighed. “Right, so what do we do?”
“Do?” he echoed. Then he chuckled. “My dear girl, there’s not the slightest thing either of us can do about it!”
*
“And it’s no good shouting at me,” he said, after she’d finished. “You’ll have to wait for the future me to track us down. I’m sure it won’t take me too long, as I shall remember precisely where we are.”
Tegan bit her lip. “Oh. What if he doesn’t?”
“Miss Jovanka,” he said. “I know I may not be the man I once was, but he - I - will have all the information he needs to reach us. Of course, it may be a few minutes or hours, but -.”
She folded her arms against herself. “I didn’t mean that, although he never turns up in the right time or place. I’m just not sure he’d bother coming back for me.”
“I think,” said the Doctor, “you should allow me to know myself a little better than that. And in any case, I can’t leave me stranded here without wrecking my own timeline.” He glanced at her surreptitiously, but said nothing further.
Tegan shivered and wished she still had her coat on. “So what next, then? Window shopping?”
“Christmas,” he said, apparently paying her no attention. No change there, then, she thought. “I must admit I’m rather fond of the festive period here.” Then he looked straight across at her and chuckled to himself. “I think we can do better than that, young lady!”
Across the road from them, the Salvation Army began playing Christmas carols.
*
Tegan was finding that the Doctor had changed in more ways than just looks. He’d glanced around the shops and headed off for a nearby bank - a bank - and reappeared with money, which he brandished at her as if it were the result of a particularly clever magician’s trick. She could have fainted on the spot.
“You have a bank account here?” she hissed. “All that running around, leaving alien coins and getting arrested and you have a bank account?”
He coughed. “Well, I was here for rather a while a decade or two back. I made arrangements, shall we say? I don’t think I need bore you with the details, although it does appear that more than one of me has been making use of them in the mean time.”
“I can’t believe this,” she said. “You!”
He crooked his elbow to her. “Miss Jovanka -.”
“Call me Tegan,” she said.
He smiled widely. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s freezing out here.”
He looked her up and down and tutted at her. “You aren’t very suitably dressed, are you?”
“I was going to my room. I didn’t expect to suddenly find myself Christmas shopping!”
*
Now they were sitting in the County Stores and he was insisting she have whatever she want off the menu. She kept looking at him, nervously suspecting him of playing some trick on her.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked. He missed nothing, she was beginning to realise. Unless he chose. Her Doctor was rarely this observant.
She swallowed. “No. It’s just -.” What? she asked herself. You’re not normally this nice to me, so stop it, it’s making my hair stand on end? “Oh, all right, I’ll have a mince pie and cream, thanks.”
*
“Now,” he said, “why don’t you tell me how you met me?”
She opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Isn’t that against the laws of time or something?”
“Hmm, yes, of course,” he said, frowning. “Yes, I should have thought of that. You’ll have to watch what you say to me, young lady.”
She smiled. “In that case, you’ll have to do the talking.”
So he entertained her by relating the time he’d met the Emperor Nero and the inventive way he’d got around the inconvenience of being a famous lyre player who couldn’t play the lyre.
“Seriously?” said Tegan, who wasn’t sure she believed a word of it.
He said, “I assure you, it’s all true. It’s such a shame that Ian and Barbara weren’t there to see it. They never believed me, either. And of course, it was unfortunate about the fire -.”
“The fire?”
The Doctor chuckled to himself. “I’m afraid I seem to have been partly responsible for the Great Fire of Rome.”
“You -.” Tegan had to bite her lip, but she couldn’t keep from laughing helplessly. “Well, you’re a happy little arsonist, aren’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
She choked back her amusement. “Look, I won’t tell you how or when, but, you’re responsible for the Great Fire of London as well.”
“Now there’s no need to be ridiculous, young lady,” he said and then gave a giggle. “Dear me. Oh, dear. What a shame I couldn’t have told that to Pepys while we were having coffee.”
She shook her head. Name dropper.
*
They walked back out again. He took one look at her and said, “Well, we can’t have you going around with your teeth chattering like that. Why don’t you buy yourself a coat?”
She coloured brightly as he handed her some money. Who knows what this might look like to passers by? Still, provided he hadn’t stolen the cash - and, to be honest, she wouldn’t put it past this version of him - it was his, and if he was offering, it might be time to find something sensible to wear for once. The TARDIS wardrobe always seemed to hate her.
They went into Debenhams department store and while Tegan went off to look for a coat, the Doctor inspected the rest of the shop with considerable interest and amusement.
Afterwards, he said, they could feed the ducks if his future self still hadn’t arrived.
*
Tegan emerged, the owner of a new coat. She wondered guiltily what her Doctor would say when he eventually caught up with them.
She looked around for the Doctor, but there was no sign of him, so she set out to track him down, floor by floor.
*
“Is there something wrong?” he asked.
She looked back at him, surprised yet again. “Yes, there is!”
“What would that be, then, hmm? Didn’t you manage to find a coat to your liking?”
She swallowed. “Yes, I did, thanks. But you - I leave you alone in a shop for ten minutes and when I come back you're dressed as Santa? There'd better be a good reason for it!”
“You noticed, did you?” He chuckled to himself. “There was a most distressing incident with a thug and the store’s Father Christmas - and of course, one can’t disappoint the children. You know, I think there’s space for an elf as well. One of them was most upset by the whole thing and stormed out in tears.”
Tegan opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Somehow, she had a feeling she was going to be an elf.
This never happened with her Doctor, either. This one hadn’t even tried giving her that pleading look, or that dazzling smile and she was still going to be Santa’s Little Helper.
*
When her Doctor found them, armed with a tracking device, he stopped in shock to find them dressed as Santa and an elf, having a cup of tea, this time on the house by way of thanks from the shop manager.
*
“You make a great Father Christmas,” said Tegan.
He removed his beard. “I have always been rather good at anything theatrical.”
“What did you say to that obnoxious little brat who wanted half the shop?”
He tapped his nose and chuckled to himself.
“I hope it wasn’t anything you could get arrested for,” she said.
He looked outraged. “Of course not, Tegan. I merely suggested that while he might have successfully seen through my disguise that I was on very good terms with the real Father Christmas and if he wasn’t careful, mistakes might be made and he might receive a Dream Castle rather than a Castle Grayskull.”
“You know,” said Tegan. “I’d almost believe you meant that.”
He laughed to himself again. “I suppose I do.”
“Look, I know there’s no such person as Father Christmas. I mean - you’re not about to tell me that there is and he’s really some alien who keeps an army of midget slaves at the North Pole, are you?”
He shook his head. “No, but in a sense I do. I got on rather well with St Nicholas, you see. Charming fellow, very generous.”
“You’re impossible!”
Someone coughed to the side of them and they both turned to see the other Doctor. He had an expression of mild alarm on his face as he sat down at their table.
“What are you doing?”
Tegan stared back at him. “What does it look like?”
“For once,” he said, “I can’t even begin to answer that. I’m sure the memory will come to me in time if I haven’t deliberately suppressed centuries ago.”
The First Doctor sniffed. “I seem to have grown rather staid in my old age,” he commented to Tegan.
She laughed.
“If you two can bear to tear yourselves away,” he said, looking a little hurt, “I’ll take you back to the TARDIS. Hopefully, once you get inside that should solve the problem.”
The First Doctor nodded and glanced down at himself rather regretfully. “I suppose I’d better change, hadn’t I? The shop will want the costume back.” She could have sworn he looked regretful.
“Me, too,” said Tegan. She hesitated. “Doctor, I don’t exactly need the coat now -.”
He patted her hand. “I’m sure you will soon enough.”
“True,” she said and grinned at him. “Thanks.”
Her Doctor folded his arms. “If you two don’t mind -.”
“Turlough’s not here, is he?” said Tegan, suddenly having terrible visions of her fellow companion’s reaction to her current outfit.
He smiled at her. “No. As soon as he saw it was earth again, he went off to his room.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
*
Back in the TARDIS, she sighed. “I meant to get you a Christmas present, but you found us too soon.”
“And if I’d taken any longer, you’d have complained about that, no doubt,” he returned pettishly.
She clutched at her carrier bag with the coat in it. “You know, you used to be a lot more fun when you were younger, even if you didn’t look it.”
“That is untrue,” he protested. “It’s hardly my fault if we keep running into trouble. We had a nice time on the Eye of Orion, didn’t we?”
Tegan threw him a look. Then she had to laugh again. “Doctor, you’re not jealous of yourself, are you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. He looked back at her. “We could go Christmas shopping, if that’s what you’d like.”
She said, “Thanks, but I bet we’d end up arriving before they’d invented shops - or Christmas.”
“Tegan -.”
“And you have a bank account in the twentieth century?”
He coughed and looked embarrassed. “I can’t use that, even when I am in the right place and time.”
“Why not?”
He coloured further. “It’s irritating, but the date of birth he gave at the time - I don’t look old enough.”
“Oh,” she said and bit back laughter.
“Besides, it’s not really me, is it? It was only that there was Susan at the time and I had rather a particular reason for being on earth.”
She hesitated in the doorway to the console room. “Look, this is crazy. You’re mad, Doctor, but I like all of the versions of you I’ve met.”
“Really?” he said. “I’m not sure I do.”
Tegan shook her head. “But next time you start being a party pooper I’m going to remind you that you were more than happy to play at being Santa Claus once!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” he said mildly and gave her a smile. “If you bring that up, I’ll tell Turlough I found you dressed as an elf.”
She glared. “Merry Christmas to you, too!”
*
Really, thought the First Doctor, as he arrived back at his TARDIS and pottered off in search of his two latest travelling companions, he would have to leave a reminder in his 500 year diary to his future self. Tegan was an livelya nd somewhat opinionated young lady, but a charming companion, he felt. She obviously had no confidence that his future self actually liked having her aaround - that much had been plain - and that was a nonsensical state of affairs.
*
The events of the past few days had left the Doctor initially reluctant to dwell on the past, but his mind was a jumble of confused memories after after his past selves being plucked out of history and simultaneously exploring the Death Zone. He reached for his diary for the first time in an age, in the hope that would help.
Strangely enough, at the back, he found a large reminder:
DON’T BE UNKIND TO TEGAN, it read. DEAR ME, DO I REALLY HAVE TO TELL MYSELF SOMETHING LIKE THAT?
He raised his eyebrows. That was a cheek, when he considered how unpleasant he could be in his first incarnation.
“And I’m not unkind to Tegan,” he said aloud. Still, he thought to himself, he supposed he could always ask her if there was anywhere she’d like to go…
As long as it wasn’t Christmas shopping.
***