How the Miffgiffs Came to Live in the TARDIS Garden (1/1)
Title - How the Miffgiffs Came to Live in the TARDIS Garden (1/1)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, Jackie, OCs
Spoilers - Through S2
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids, they're all mine.)
Summary - Halloween on the TARDIS.
Author's Notes - I don't think this story has been beta'd, despite living on my hard drive for a year now, but I'm sure jlrpuck would have done a stellar job had I asked! Kristin adores this story, so this one's for her. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!
From Chapter 17 of "Chaos Theory on Dimensionally Stable Objects on Earth College Campuses": He’d been enjoying the artificial sunlight that flooded the TARDIS garden, sprawled on his back on the apple grass, listening idly to the high-pitched chatter of the miffgiffs, over in the mud by the pond.
The icon was created by swankkat, commissioned by jlrpuck for my birthday.
The Doctor hated Halloween. He hated the way the wardrobe filled itself to bursting with costumes. He hated the way his kids expected him to don ridiculous things like capes. As if vampires wore capes! The silliness of that notion! From his otherwise blindingly intelligent children! And he especially hated trick-or-treating, when Rose and Jackie dragged him along the streets while his children collected various candies that the TARDIS would have provided without him being subjected to so much time with Jackie.
The Doctor, frowning, pushed a spider web out of his way so he could see into the tiny slot of the console that he was concerned with. Not a real spider web, of course. Oh, no, he would never let his TARDIS get into such a state. A fake spider web that the TARDIS was using as decoration. Because the TARDIS foolishly supported Rose’s encouragement of ridiculous Halloween shenanigans.
Which continued when Rose walked in, kids in tow, all of them rosy-cheeked and looking exhilarated. Jackie followed them in, looking a bit less rosy-cheeked but no less exhilarated.
“Look what we got!” Rose said to him, happily.
The Doctor, warily, surveyed the pumpkins each member of his family was holding.
“They’re pumpkins!” Fortuna informed him, enthusiastically. “Pumpkins! Like what Cinderella rode in!”
“What are we going to do with them?” he asked, looking at Rose.
“Why, we’re goin’ to carve them!” Jackie answered, as if he was daft.
“Silly!” Athena finished for her grandmother, and they marched past him in a line of determined, pumpkin-bearing females.
Brem brought up the rear, also holding a pumpkin. Two, actually.
“Not you, too,” the Doctor said to him.
“I’m going to carve mine with the mathematical equation for quark paths,” Brem replied. “And I got one for you, too.”
The Doctor lifted his eyebrows. “What am I going to do with-“
“Carve it,” answered Brem, trotting out of the console room.
The Doctor, sighing and not knowing what else to do, followed all of them to the kitchen, where the carving was underway. Rose and Jackie and the girls seemed to be going the traditional route, but Brem fell immediately to writing his quark equation on the pumpkin.
“For a guide,” he said.
“And what are you going to make, Daddy?” Fortuna asked him.
“I…” The Doctor looked at his pumpkin. “I’ve no idea.”
“Can’t you just make a face like a normal person?” Jackie asked him.
“What, with the little triangle eyes and nose? That looks like a yfu, it does, and they are not pleasant creatures.”
“I think you make up half the things you say,” sniffed Jackie.
Brem had finished his guide. The Doctor watched him as he took out his sonic and aimed it carefully at the lines on his pumpkin, where the design began to be carved.
“You’ve got a pumpkin-carving feature on your sonic?” the Doctor asked him, in surprise.
Brem kept his attention on his pumpkin. “Uh-huh.”
The Doctor watched him for a second. He hated to admit it, but the pumpkin-carving feature looked fun. “How’d you do that?” he asked, finally.
“Jealous?” Rose asked him.
He glanced over at her. She was grinning at him, tongue caught between her teeth.
“No,” he lied. He paused. “Maybe.”
“You can borrow it when I’m done,” Brem told him, matter-of-factly.
********
In the end, the Doctor carved a pumpkin with the distinctive face of a vug: seven eyes, and no nose, and a squiggly mouth. Jackie said it looked ridiculous, but Rose said it was beautiful and the kids said it was a very good likeness, so the Doctor was pleased. Plus, Rose toasted the pumpkin seeds, and the Doctor decided that there were a few good things to be said for jack o’lanterns.
Until the following day, when all three of the kids, shouting, came barreling into the library. The Doctor had rather been enjoying the fact that the kids had been off somewhere playing quietly, taking the opportunity to cuddle Rose while she was watching one of her soap operas that he pretended not to be interested in, and he and Rose both stared at the kids in astonishment, as their cacophony of voices tumbled over each other.
“What is going on?” Rose asked them in bewilderment.
“Slow down,” the Doctor said. “You have to appoint a spokesman.”
This began an argument instead over who ought to be nominated spokesman. Rose rolled her eyes at the Doctor. “Good job,” she muttered, sarcastically.
At that moment, someone on the TARDIS screamed. Not anyone who was in the library. The squabbling kids fell silent and looked at their parents with wide eyes.
“What the bloody hell was that?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh, no,” said Brem. “Grandma found them.”
“Found what?” responded the Doctor, with growing dread.
Jackie suddenly came racing into the library. “There are things living in your pumpkins!” she screeched at them.
“There’s what?” said Rose.
The kids were now tugging on their hands, trying to get them to stand up. “Come see, come see,” they were begging.
The jack o’lanterns had been placed around the console (clearly indicating to the Doctor that he was not allowed to take them anywhere until after Halloween was over). The special everlasting candles Rose had uncovered in a deep, dark TARDIS wardrobe were flickering inside of them, casting weird shadows about the dim control room. The kids led them to the nearest jack o’lantern, which happened to be Athena’s. Athena had glued pink glitter to it, predictably, in what she insisted was eye makeup. The Doctor had made some comment about Athena learning how to apply eye makeup from her mother, which had somehow upset Rose enough that he had not been allowed to snuggle with her until just that moment in the library, which was why the Doctor was hoping it had been interrupted for a good reason.
Brem lifted off the top of the pumpkin, and the Doctor and Rose both looked inside. Rose gave a little squeak.
Because there, living in the pumpkin, was a family of miffgiffs. Tiny creatures, smaller than his little finger, shaped like sleeker, more slender humans, only with very long fingers and toes, and completely hairless skin the color of mud. The miffgiffs were huddled around Rose’s special candle, fingers spread toward it, evidently for warmth, and they looked up at the hole that had suddenly appeared in their roof and the people gaping down at them and frowned and then began chattering in very high-pitched voices. The Doctor caught only that they were very upset that these rude people kept spying on them.
“Replace the top,” he told Brem. “You’re upsetting them.”
“Listen to you!” exclaimed Jackie. “As if that’s normal! I come in to check on the candles, left here burning unattended, you’ll burn the whole place down-“
“It’s impossible,” the Doctor told her, “the TARDIS is made of special, non-flammable-“
“So I lift up the top of the pumpkin and there are these tiny, naked people inside and all you can tell us to do is not to upset them?!” finished Jackie.
“Well, I don’t want to upset them. They’re harmless, and they’re very rare, so we can at least be hospitable,” he sniffed.
Jackie stared at him in disbelief, then turned to Rose. “Now, all of a sudden, the git develops manners.”
“What are they?” Rose asked him.
“Do you know what they are?” he asked his children, who all shook their heads no. “They’re miffgiffs,” he said. “Tiny amphibious creatures, rather like frogs. That’s why their fingers and toes are so long, they’re used for swimming. They used to be plentiful in, oh, every planet that has mud anywhere, but they’re so tiny that they’re very susceptible to predators. It’s gotten worse for them as the natural food supply has dwindled on so many planets. Miffgiffs aren’t very tasty, but they’re an easy meal for a starving carnivore.”
“Miffgiffs live here?” Rose clarified.
“Welllllll, they used to.” The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. “Ages ago. Apparently, a few of them survived. Or we could have picked them up somewhere on our travels.”
“And they moved into our pumpkins?” asked Athena, wrinkling her nose. She picked up the pumpkin cover again, immediately setting off an angry chatter.
The Doctor gently replaced it. “Why not? It’s warm, and dim, and damp. I’d imagine the inside is a bit like a riverbank. Plus, they can probably eat it. Ideal for them.”
“I love them,” Brem announced, definitively. He was peering through one of the seven eyes on his father’s pumpkin. “Can we keep them?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rose answered. “Don’t you think we have enough to deal with on this TARDIS, what with Madrid and Seville and you lot?”
“And your father?” added Jackie.
“Are there some in my pumpkin, too?” asked the Doctor, in amazement, leaning down so he, too, could peer through one of the eyes.
“They’re in every pumpkin,” said Fortuna, rapturously.
“Oh, Mum, I love them, too!” exclaimed Athena. “Please can we keep them?”
“Where are we going to keep them?” Rose asked, patiently. “The pumpkins won’t last forever, and the dogs will hate them.”
The Doctor, trying to count how many miffgiffs had taken up residence in his pumpkin, found himself soundly poked in the eye by a determined miffgiff patriarch. “Ow,” he complained, pulling back and rubbing at it.
“And they don’t seem very friendly,” Rose remarked.
“Nah,” he said. “They’re just terrified, poor little things. I’d poke a giant in the eye, too, if he was scoping out the five of you. I just need to figure out which one is the riughrueihgurgpahgurhgeuhrrgh.”
“Which one is the what?” said Jackie.
“The miffgiff leader,” he explained, mildly.
“I bet he’s in my pumpkin,” said Brem, importantly.
“Let’s see.” Brem pulled the top of the pumpkin off, and the Doctor peered in. There was instantly a lot of high-pitched shrieking about giants never having the courtesy to knock before barging in on them. “Hang on, hang on,” the Doctor said, reasonably, dodging a tiny piece of pumpkin gut that came flying out of Brem’s pumpkin at him. “I’m looking for your riughrueihgurgpahgurhgeuhrrgh.”
There was more chattering, sounding less panicked now. Rose listened as hard as she could but could only make out a few words here and there. They seemed to speak extremely quickly.
“Ah,” said the Doctor, after a moment. “Thank you so much.” He straightened, and Brem replaced the pumpkin lid.
“How do you understand them?” Brem asked.
“Takes practice,” the Doctor said.
“Was the riughrueihgurgpahgurhgeuhrrgh in there?”
“No. That’s a sorority. And they’re appreciate it if the male giants not look in there anymore. That means you and me,” he said to Brem.
“A sorority?” Brem repeated, while Athena dissolved into fits of giggles. “You mean girls? There are all girls in my pumpkin?”
“Someday, Brem, you’re going to be happy to be such a girl magnet,” Rose informed him, smiling.
Brem sighed.
“Aren’t you going to write about this in your journal?”Athena asked him. “’My pumpkin is an ideal house for girls-‘”
“Stop it,” he sulked.
“Leave him alone,” Rose told her, simply, and then turned to the Doctor. “Where is the riughrueihgurgpahgurhgeuhrrgh?”
“Why, here in Fortuna’s pumpkin,” the Doctor said, winking at Fortuna, who gasped with delight at such an honor and leaned up to take the lid off the pumpkin. The Doctor leaned over and asked again for the riughrueihgurgpahgurhgeuhrrgh, and then said, “Ah. Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m the Doctor.” The riughrueihgurgpahgurhgeuhrrgh chattered back at him, something about riverbanks and pleasant. “But these aren’t riverbanks,” the Doctor answered. “They’re pumpkins. And they’re not going to last very long. You’ll just have to move again.” This provoked much chattering of different miffgiffs, and Rose couldn’t understand a word of it. “I’ll take you to any planet you like,” the Doctor told them. There was only one chatter in return, a sad one, and Rose caught the word “death.” “I know,” said the Doctor, somberly. “And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I-“
“They can stay in the garden,” she heard herself saying, suddenly.
Everyone in the control room looked at her in surprise. “What?” asked the Doctor.
“There’s the goldfish pond, in the garden. There should be mud there for them to stay in. Will the fish eat them?”
“No, but-“
“We’ll have to keep the dogs out of there, but the TARDIS will help us with that.”
The Doctor stared at her. “You want to start a miffgiff colony in the TARDIS garden?”
Rose stared back. “They’re dying, right? Isn’t that what he just said to you? That it doesn’t matter which planet you take them to, they all bring death? Isn’t that what he said?”
The Doctor paused. His eyes flickered to the children, hanging on their every word. He looked back at Rose, and then he reached out his hand toward her. “Come here,” he said. She took his hand, walked to stand beside him, as he looked back down into the pumpkin. “We have mud here,” he said to the tiny creatures who were staring up at them. “Lots of mud, with no predators. You are welcome to stay. All of you.”
The miffgiffs blinked. They had very large eyes, disproportionate to the size of their tiny faces, and they were very bright. They blinked, and then a cheer went up. They fell on each other in hugs, they danced about the pumpkin, and one of them looked up at them and chattered, very clearly, “Thank you.”
Rose smiled and turned to the kids, who looked as jubilant with this decision as the miffgiffs themselves were.
They solemnly carried the pumpkins to the TARDIS garden, and carefully deposited the miffgiffs onto the mud by the goldfish pond. The miffgiffs were plainly terrified, standing clinging to each other fearfully as their huge eyes looked around. The riughrueihgurgpahgurhgeuhrrgh stood in front of them, delivering a speech. Rose could only catch a few words.
“Tell us what he’s saying,” she said to the Doctor, intertwining their hands.
“You really can’t understand him?”
She shook his head. “They talk too quickly.”
“Wellllll, it’ll come. He’s saying that this is a great day for the miffgiffs, for today they have found home, and they owe it to the Doctor’s yellow-haired giantess.” He looked at her, eyes crinkling as he smiled. “I know that feeling.”
The kids had sat in the mud, the better to survey the miffgiffs as they cautiously went around testing the mud. A few leaped into the water, clearly chattering with excitement.
“Tell them we won’t hurt them,” Fortuna said, trying to reach for one who went scurrying away in alarm.
“You can tell them yourself,” the Doctor answered her. “It’s just that you’re enormous to them, though. It might take them a little bit of time to get used to you.”
“Poor little things,” said Jackie, suddenly, and sniffled.
Rose, surprised, looked beyond the Doctor to her mother, who was dabbing at her eyes. “Are you cryin’?” she asked, startled.
“Well, it’s just…I mean, look at how happy they are! I would have just stomped on all of them! Poor little things.” She looked at them. “How can you bear it?” she asked, abruptly. “For every amazing thing you see out there, you see something like this, don’t you? Something that breaks your heart. How can you bear it?”
There was a long pause. “We bear it by giving them a home in the mud,” said Rose, simply. “Whatever we can do, we do. That’s the only way you can bear it.”
Jackie moved suddenly, to kneel in the mud beside the kids, and to extend her hand out toward a miffgiff. “Gently,” she said to the kids. “Look. See?” A miffgiff climbed experimentally onto her hand, and then hugged her finger tightly. Jackie gave an exclamation of surprise.
“You’re warm,” the Doctor explained. “Miffgiffs are always desperate to get warm.”
“They feel funny,” said Jackie. “Like…like…I don’t know.”
The kids were now clustered over their grandmother’s hand, each of them in turn reaching out to stroke a finger gently over the miffgiff there.
“We should make them mittens,” said Athena, with soft reverence. “I bet their fingers get cold.”
The Doctor smiled at the tableau, then turned to Rose and brushed his nose against her cheek. “Rose Tyler,” he murmured. “I do believe you’re making it your duty to save every nearly-extinct species in the universe.”
“Well,” she said. “At least I didn’t have to give birth to a hybrid human-miffgiff baby in order to save this race.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Let’s not think too hard about that idea.”
She laughed and kissed him until the kids complained that they were being gross.