Christmas Open Thread

[rude_not_ginger]

•deck•the•halls•

• THE DOCTOR LEARNS THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS •

~•~

Christmas Eve. 2009.

Comments

[dreams_in_red]

[have not!companion Lucy, if you so wish!]

"You're being silly," Lucy finally said, as she finished her hot chocolate and looked around for a bin to chuck the empty cup in. She'd been trailing not-quite-behind the Doctor in silence ever since they'd left the TARDIS. "You can't discover the meaning of Christmas with one of your little toys."

[rude_not_ginger]

"Well, it's not as if you're being helpful at all." The Doctor was not in the most fantastic of moods when it came to Lucy. The last Christmas they'd spent together had been on board the Valiant, and he wasn't happy about it then.

Still, he had to give her a chance, right?

Right?

[dreams_in_red]

He would probably keep telling himself that until she did something completely heinous (which wasn't outside the realm of impossibility), just as Lucy would keep telling herself that she ought to get used to her new lot in life.

"It's different for everyone," she replied, as if it should have been bleeding obvious, and to her it was. "For me Christmas was always fancy parties with boring people."

[rude_not_ginger]

"Doesn't sound like a lot of fun," the Doctor said, hopping back over to his not-quite-a-companion. "Christmas should be about spending time with the people you care about, enjoying the good things in the universe. And turkey. Definitely about turkey, too."

[dreams_in_red]

Lucy decided not to mention that she did have one Christmas like that, because it had been with Harry and thinking about him hurt too much. She pushed her hair away from her face--new hair, to go along with a new Lucy--to hide her momentary discomfort. "When has that ever been Christmas for you?"

[rude_not_ginger]

"A few times."

Most recently, with Rose, Jackie, and Mickey. Sitting around a table, picking at a clearly underdone turkey, and grinning madly about a successful regeneration and a new start at life. It all felt so good and so right, then.

"But things don't last."

[dreams_in_red]

With that particular comment, Lucy stared at the Doctor until she was sure he wasn't trying to make some kind of veiled attempt at imparting a Life Lesson. It was something she was always expecting him to do, since she was fairly certain he had only taken her on out of some sense of guilt befitting his martyr complex. Like he only thought of her as something he had to fix.

"Would you like to have a turkey?" she asked.

[rude_not_ginger]

"I'd like to have a device that worked," he said, smacking the side of the machine. He sighed. "No, no. No turkey for me this year. Just some hot chocolate and the hunt for the meaning of Christmas."

He turned, giving her a wide grin. "Aren't you glad you came along?"

[dreams_in_red]

This was another one of those moments where Lucy felt she would never understand the Doctor. Harry's mood swings had always seemed to make some sort of sense to her, at least. The Doctor's didn't. Perhaps loving one and hating the other made the difference.

She didn't return the grin, but she wasn't lying when she replied, "Yes."

[rude_not_ginger]

"Great! Now, hold these crystals here and keep them pointed outwards. We're trying to draw a corrolated subfusion biosector to the psychic energy and hopefully, if I can get this thing working, we can trace it."

He gave the small machine another thwack.

[dreams_in_red]

Lucy did as she was told and awkwardly snaked her hands in to keep the indicated crystals in the proper place. She had absolutely no idea what his technobabble meant and she didn't ask. More than likely "psychic energy" was a fancy term for "Christmas cheer". The idea that you could track such a thing struck her as faintly ludicrous and again she thought the Doctor silly for even trying.

But she was subject to his whims so there was no point in grousing overlong about it. She watched as he whacked the gadget and tried to keep the crystals steady.

[rude_not_ginger]

"There," the Doctor said, beaming as the machine finally started churning out interesting information. He scrunched his eyebrows together and looked directly upwards, towards the sky.

"I think we have a problem."

[dreams_in_red]

"Is it on the moon?" Lucy asked, her eyes following the Doctor's and her voice laced with sarcasm, while her hands continued to keep the crystals in place. A few people passing by gave them odd looks, but she ignored them.

[rude_not_ginger]

"No, why would it be on the moon?" the Doctor asked, looking back to her. He looked back up, and then pointed at a small, white star.

"It's there."

[dreams_in_red]

She bit back what she considered the obvious--how was she supposed to know where his silly gadget was pointing? Looking, Lucy had to admit that the star he'd indicated somehow seemed to stand out from the others.

"What star is it?" He'd probably say it was a Christmas star.

[rude_not_ginger]

"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.