Christmas for the Doctor
This little ficlet is sort of an echo of, or homage to, this fic by my friend Aubrey, allfireburns.
“Marvelous!”
It was Christmas night, and for once the Doctor was having a good holiday. Of course, it wasn’t his Christmas. In Martha’s personal timeline, it was 22 May, but they’d just spent half a week on the Underground Railroad by accident. To cheer both of their spirits, the Doctor had decided on a whirlwind tour of momentous kindness during wartime. So they’d stepped out of the TARDIS into a German trench in Belgium. As the snow blanketed the police box, they scrambled up to the surface and stared through barbed wire into No Man’s Land.
Blond soldiers with bruises on their cheeks crunched through the snow, matches in hand. They lit candles and propped them in the branches of scrawny fir trees.
“Absolutely marvelous,” the Doctor whispered to Martha. “It’s wartime, but there will be no gunfire tonight. Nobody ordered this, nobody signed a truce, but all these men decided together. Christmas is that important to you.” The Doctor pointed. “They were playing football over there this afternoon.” He looked around, grinning. “And now, yes, we’re just in time!”
The German soldiers joined hands and the Doctor raised his voice along with theirs. He sang in the original German, while Martha squeezed his hand and hummed the beloved tune.
“Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht …”
I do not own the Doctor or Martha.
“Marvelous!”
It was Christmas night, and for once the Doctor was having a good holiday. Of course, it wasn’t his Christmas. In Martha’s personal timeline, it was 22 May, but they’d just spent half a week on the Underground Railroad by accident. To cheer both of their spirits, the Doctor had decided on a whirlwind tour of momentous kindness during wartime. So they’d stepped out of the TARDIS into a German trench in Belgium. As the snow blanketed the police box, they scrambled up to the surface and stared through barbed wire into No Man’s Land.
Blond soldiers with bruises on their cheeks crunched through the snow, matches in hand. They lit candles and propped them in the branches of scrawny fir trees.
“Absolutely marvelous,” the Doctor whispered to Martha. “It’s wartime, but there will be no gunfire tonight. Nobody ordered this, nobody signed a truce, but all these men decided together. Christmas is that important to you.” The Doctor pointed. “They were playing football over there this afternoon.” He looked around, grinning. “And now, yes, we’re just in time!”
The German soldiers joined hands and the Doctor raised his voice along with theirs. He sang in the original German, while Martha squeezed his hand and hummed the beloved tune.
“Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht …”
I do not own the Doctor or Martha.