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It was Christmas Eve, and the Doctor was late.
“I thought you said you always brought me to where I needed to be,” he groused, ignoring the quizzical looks he drew from passersby. Given the season it was not at all surprising how crowded the streets were - the lamps were aglow, a light dusting of snow was in the air, and somewhere in the city square a choir of carolers were only slightly off-tune in their proclamation of the birth of Christ.
It was as though the TARDIS had a checklist.
Green wreaths on every door - check.
Christmas carolers - yes.
Paper-wrapped parcels - as far as the eye could see.
She had even gone to the trouble of ensuring a picturesque, scenic landscape and just the right amount of snow to make it truly feel like the night before Christmas. And, having apparently exhausted every item on this proverbial checklist, the TARDIS had seen fit to disappear.
There was a sound in his mind, like a sulky sigh. The Doctor rolled his eyes.
“I know I asked for Christmas Eve,” he snapped, under his breath this time. No need to attract even more attention - merry and bright or not, people would only accept so much otherness before their store of goodwill ran out and someone called for a constable. “But I had a rather more specific Christmas Eve in mind, you know I did. Leadworth, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight, to be exact! I am going to be late!”
He paused. He did some mental math (and counted on his fingers). “That, or I am very, very early.”
Was that amusement? Oh, how lovely. He’d amused his spaceship.
“When am I, old girl?” he asked quietly, and no sooner had the words left his mouth was his attention drawn to a scrap of newspaper lying in a wet, crumpled heap in a mound of slush and snow. He stooped and plucked it from the ground, holding it away from himself so as not to let it drip dirty water on his clothes (he’d worn his nicest bowtie for the occasion), and squinted at the soggy jumble of letters.
There - at the top right-hand corner, barely legible.
24 December, 1845.
The Doctor swallowed. His throat suddenly felt dry. Finding himself in unexpected periods of time was nothing new for him - that was half the fun of traveling in the TARDIS, after all - but…
“Of all the nights to take a detour,” he murmured, passing a hand over his jaw.
Amelia Pond was not a woman to be kept waiting.
The hour was growing late. The temperature was steadily dropping. The shops had closed their doors, their keepers having shooed away any would-be last-minute patrons, for they had families of their own to go home to. Even the carolers in the square were beginning to succumb to the cold, and were singing the scant few remaining lines of one final hymn.
The songs had been sung. The lamps had been dimmed. Children were snuggling deep into their beds, sleep warring with excitement for what the morning would bring. Every window in the city was darkened as its inhabitants turned in for the night. All was quiet, calm - peaceful. Not a creature was stirring.
Except for the Doctor.
His breath was a cloud of white as he darted from one alley to another, scanning each shadow, each nook and cranny, for a hint of the TARDIS. He’d long since stopped asking for hints as to her whereabouts, exasperated and a bit insulted by the growing sense of amusement in the farthest corners of his mind. She was toying with him.
At five minutes to midnight, the Doctor paused and wiped the sweat from his brow. His bowtie was crooked, jostled out of its neat and tidy place at the base of his throat from the evening’s exertions, and the top hat he’d donned for the occasion sat haphazardly atop his head, perilously close to drifting away on the next gust of wind.
The Doctor braced a hand against the nearest lamppost and squinted up at the dying embers. How he missed the familiar glow of his ship, the warmth that emanated from within. She was a beacon of safety, hope - home.
“Come on, old girl,” he pleaded. Then he played his trump card. “Come on, sexy. Show me where you are. We’re going to visit Amy, and Rory. You remember - you called him the pretty one.”
There came the familiar note of amusement, playing like a song from a distant memory. But entwined within was something else.
Fear?
Uncertainty?
The Doctor stilled.
Hurry.
Urgency - clear and unmistakable.
The Doctor listened for the TARDIS. He waited to hear the sound of her materializing, that whooshing, wheezing, fantastic sound.
Instead, he heard a cough.
Wet. Hoarse. Croaky, deep in the throat, settled in the chest.
Not good.
The person whimpered. The Doctor blinked.
A child?
Then, from the mouth of the next alley, he saw the hint of a light. It started in low, then it started to grow.
The TARDIS had - finally - returned.
She was such a tiny little thing - a mere slip of a creature, not more than ten, huddled into her own limbs for warmth. Her shawl was threadbare, as was her dress; her long blonde locks were tangled and dirty, and when he gathered her into his arms, she was so light and delicate he feared that, should he drop her, she would shatter like a porcelain doll.
An empty matchbook lay forlorn on the ground where she had lain. A dozen spent matchsticks were scattered all around, their wicks blackened. Nearby, a tarnished tin cup, presumably positioned in hopes that some charitable soul would take pity and toss in a coin or two in exchange for a matchstick girl’s humble wares.
The TARDIS door swung open for him as he approached. And, granted, a spaceship with infinite space inside of it was bound to have rooms and chambers that even he was unaware of, but even so, the room that made itself available to him was so full with blankets and coverings and pillows of all sizes that the Doctor quirked a brow at the sight. He wrapped his young charge in as many blankets as he could fit around her small frame and carried her out into the console room, where the warmth of the engines would help ward off the chill of the night.
The TARDIS almost seemed to coo as he laid her carefully in the pilot’s seat, bundling the blankets under her head to cushion her scalp. He loved his ship, but traveling through time and space was never a relaxing trip - the time vortex had as many speed ramps as a car park, though he’d never let that slow him down before.
Tonight, however, he didn’t throw the levers as hard as he might have, and if the TARDIS flew just a tad smoother than she usually did, well… They both cared deeply for their tiny charge, the Time Lord and his ship.
She stirred only once as they were nearing the end of their journey, coughing herself awake. The Doctor was at her side with a cup of water, carefully guiding the rim to her lips.
She peered at him through eyes delirious with fever. “Grandma?” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
The Doctor smiled and stroked her brow as she drifted back into her slumber. “Not quite,” he whispered, and the TARDIS made a sound akin to a chuckle.
Not long after, he felt the ship tremble and jolt under his feet as they came to a halt on solid ground. He gave only a cursory glance toward the controls to gauge where they were as he gathered the matchstick girl into his arms. He didn’t need to look, not this time - somehow he knew exactly where they were, where the TARDIS had sent them.
Leadworth, 1938.
It was Christmas Eve, and the Doctor was nearly late for dinner.
Amelia Pond told him so the instant she opened the door for him - in fact, she was mid-lecture as she opened the door, face flushed and temper flaring.
“-and just what time do you call this, Doctor? I told you to be here at half-past, and it is just about going on-”
She halted suddenly. Her green eyes were locked on the bundle in the Doctor’s arms.
The Doctor shrugged as well as he was able without jostling the child. “Ah, yes. About that. We took a slight detour.”
She stared at him.
He smiled.
And said, “Merry Christmas.”
Amy sighed, held the door open wider, and groused, “Most people would have brought a bottle. You bring home strays.”
The church bells in the village chimed the hour. Midnight.
To his left, Amy stirred, and without opening her eyes, murmured, “Merry Christmas, raggedy Doctor.”
To his right, the stray - who had been accepted into the Ponds’ household without a protest from either - slept on. It would take time for her to regain her strength; both the fever and the exhaustion from traveling through the time vortex (even without knowing she had done so) had sapped her weak body of what little energy she had. But the medicine he had administered on the trip would repair that in no time, and the love and adoration from the Ponds would heal the wounds on her heart as she grew.
He did not know if her old life would remain in her memory, or, if it did, how much would linger. Perhaps, as she made new memories here, they would eclipse the old. It could be that the fever would erase all hints of that frostbitten life she’d known before. Perhaps it would be a merciful thing.
He pressed a kiss to the top of Amy’s head. “Merry Christmas, Amelia,” he whispered. Then he gently placed another kiss to the blonde curls that tickled his cheek. “Merry Christmas, Marie.”
Marie Pond - a matchstick girl no longer.
He gazed up at the dark ceiling, listening to the ever-present hum of the TARDIS in the corners of his consciousness.
Fine, he thought, smiling to himself. You were right.
On the Ponds’ front lawn, a blue police box hummed happily.
For it was Christmas Day, and she had delivered the Doctor to exactly where he needed to be.