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“Bloody Madonna,” grumbled Rose over the rim of her mug, her eyes fixed on the TV. “This universe has no Jaffa Cakes, Punkyfish or David Beckham, but somehow that cow makes it.”
Her harsh words were completely at odds with the rest of her, wrapped in fluffy, mismatched pyjamas and Rudolph socks. Without the death glare, she’d be positively cute in the Doctor’s eyes. As it was he was too concerned that she’d leave his side in a huff if he responded with anything more than a hum.
“And of all the songs…” Rose shook her head, apparently too filled with just rage to continue. “This one. Why this one?”
“What’s wrong with All I Want For Christmas? That time at your mum’s you and Mickey nearly broke a window singing along.”
As predicted, contributing more than a hum was a mistake. Rose sat up, leaving his right hand side cold, and looked at him as though he was the new Madonna – something that he couldn’t say had happened to him before. Well, recently.
“Nothing is wrong with it. Everything is wrong with her singing it. It should be Mariah.”
Turning his attention back to the TV, the Doctor watched Madonna in a red dress, playing around in the snow. Rose had a point; it wasn’t a great version, but he still couldn’t see why Rose was so worked up about it. Nodding seemed like the safe thing to do so he went with that.
“I looked it up and everything,” Rose carried on, snuggling back into his side. “Mariah exists here but she’s never done a cover of this. She co-wrote it in our universe, but here there’s nothing.”
On the screen Madonna finished singing. It really wasn’t the same without the vocal gymnastics at the end. “Haven’t you got a copy of the old version?” the Doctor asked.
“Obviously. Fell through the void with nothing but the clothes on my back and a copy of my favourite Christmas song.”
“Sorry,” the Doctor said, though mentioning what had been one of the worst days of her life didn’t seem to upset Rose. Ever since they’d settled into their relationship, casual mentions of what happened at Torchwood Tower hadn’t caused the unbearable pain they once had. “I bet you looked for one while you were looking for me though.”
Thankfully, Rose laughed. Although the Doctor wasn’t sure if it was because of him or because Shakin’ Stevens was on now. “Yep. If I couldn’t find you I was going to kidnap Mariah. I’m almost disappointed that you showed up.”
“Oi!”
The ensuing tickle fight ended when the Doctor fell off the sofa and had to pretend it was intentional. Under Rose’s knowing eye, he traipsed into the kitchen to make hot chocolate like he had totally intending to do all along.
While checking the cupboard for marshmallows, the Doctor wondered how different Christmas was in Pete’s World. Minor differences in songs and TV specials had been pointed out to him by Rose and Jackie already, but everything else was a mystery to him. He’d asked Rose a couple of weeks ago when the shops had become a disaster of tinsel and bells if there was anything he should be aware but she’d just shrugged.
“Couldn’t tell you,” she’d told him as she inconspicuously picked up a candle from the shelf and gave the woman they suspected wasn’t really human a side-ways glance. “Not really done Christmas since I’ve been here.”
“What? But this is your fifth one!”
“Well, the first was… It wasn’t good.” She looked from him and put the candle back. They’d talked about what they both went through, the things they did and the people they became without the other. It wasn’t ground either covered lightly. Before she’d pulled away fully, he’d squeezed her hand to let her know that he was there now and wished he had been then, too.
The woman they were surveying glanced at them before she bent down to read the price tag on a bottle of bleach.
“That still leaves three others.”
“The next two I was working for and last Christmas was… odd.”
The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her, completely forgetting why they were there. Something about how Rose was avoiding his eye intrigued him far more than his job ever could.
“The cannon was in full working order by that point, but we still weren’t any good at aiming. Anyway, long story short, I missed Christmas and New Year because I ended up in the 1800s for two weeks,” Rose explained with a nonchalant shrug.
“Right. Wow.” The Doctor ran his hand through his hair. “My story about spending Christmas stowed away on an intergalactic Titanic seems rather tame now.”
“What?”
Before either of them could explain why their last Christmases could have made a much more interesting song than George Michael’s, their target realised she was being followed and promptly grew a tail not dissimilar to that of a scorpion.
To be honest, the Doctor mused, adding a ridiculous amount of whipped cream to the mugs in front of him, this would be the first proper Christmas either of them would be having in a long time. Not since the day he regenerated, in fact. And even that day had involved a full scale invasion.
Seeing as this was his first Christmas partly-human, and his first with his fully human… Rose (terms like girlfriend still made him shudder), he decided then to make it spectacular and, if possible, only a little bit dangerous. After all, he couldn’t help it if other aliens had no sense of timing.
“Are you eating the squirty cream out of can again?” Rose called from the living room.
“No!” he replied around a mouthful of cream. As Rose laughed at his obvious lie, the Doctor wondered how on Earth he was going to make this Christmas special – without the help of invading alien forces.
With two weeks to go before the big day, the Doctor was no closer to planning his Christmas extravaganza than when he’d first came up with the rather brilliant idea. Jackie had already ruled out anything to do with the dinner when she’d insisted that under no circumstances would the two of them not be around hers for lunch. Although once they’d found out Jackie wouldn’t be the one cooking, he found he didn’t really mind all that much.
In the privacy of Tony’s treehouse, his sort-of-almost brother-in-law confided that he was giving Rose a hand-painted mug that he was making at school. While he knew Rose would likely treasure anything from her little brother, the Doctor doubted he could make her Christmas with just a mug. He briefly considered making her something himself, but the gleam in the little boy’s eyes as he went through his design made him rethink. It seemed callous to show up Tony, after all.
Quickly running out of the half-formed ideas he never liked in the first place, the Doctor asked the people he shared a lab with at Torchwood for help. Despite only being there a few months and (according to his eight-week review) being a ‘bloody nuisance to everyone and everything’, he liked to think he had made friends with them and that they’d be willing to help.
Besides, even if they found him annoying for some bizarre reason, surely they’d want to help Rose? Everyone loved Rose.
“Don’t ask me,” chuckled Greg, the balding man who occupied the bench opposite his, humourlessly. “I haven’t had a girlfriend since the nineties.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something comforting but Raj, the young technician who was currently assisting him, placed a hand on his arm and shook his head. Since joining Torchwood, Raj had taken a shine to the Doctor and often helped him with his more… unofficial projects. In return for the Doctor taking all the blame for whatever havoc they caused, Raj helped him navigate his way through the baffling minefield of office politics.
“What do you think I should do?” he asked once Greg had despondently gone back to his paperwork.
“Seeing as you were at my wedding, this shouldn’t come as a shock to you, Doc, but I’m gay,” Raj grinned.
“So,” shrugged the Doctor in reply. “Same principals apply.”
Raj shook his head. “Not even slightly. And I’m biologically incapable of being arsed to work out how women think.”
“Grow up, Raj. I think you should go for something classic,” called Jen from across the lab, her focus still on the beaker in front of her. “Something with mistletoe.”
“The last Christmas we were together I represented the planet in a sword fight and won. While wearing pyjamas.”
Jen dropped the beaker, but didn’t seem to notice as she was too busy gawking at the Doctor. “You can’t possibly top that!”
“Exactly,” the Doctor sighed, sagging in his chair.
“Could always genetically engineer a real Santa,” suggested Raj. He seemed unfazed when he was met with a dubious look. “What? There’s all those songs about women kissing Santa! Even in that Madonna video she’s grinding on him!”
The Doctor considered this. Time Lords were dab hands at genetic engineering, after all.
“Probably best if I avoid anything Madonna-inspired,” he concluded, remembering last week when Rose had thrown their clock radio across the room when it had woken her up with the wrong version of All I Want For Christmas.
The days continued to slip by with no concern for the Doctor’s mounting anxiety. Rose remained blissfully unaware, showing off the toys she’d bought Tony and gushing about how much she was looking forward to seeing his face. It left the Doctor somewhere between lost in her thrilled expression and constantly having to remind himself that Rose wasn’t aware that she was making his seasonal panic even worse.
It wasn’t until the day before Christmas Eve, walking hand in hand back home with each other, that she finally gave him the hint that he’d been impatiently waiting for.
“It doesn’t feel that Christmassy, does it?” she commented.
“Really?”
He glanced at the shops lining the streets, packed with so many reminders that it was Christmas in two days that he suspected even the pigeons had taken the hint. They turned the corner and he spotted the electronics shop across the road had a TV in the window currently displaying the now familiar sight of Madonna in a red dress. He pulled at the Christmas jumper Rose was wearing to underline his point and distract her.
“I know,” she laughed, batting his hand away, “but there’s not that - thing - in the air?”
“Pollution?” Despite being behind in aviation, since arriving in Pete’s World the Doctor had been pleasantly surprised by their advancements in renewable energy.
“No, it’s…” Rose bit the end of her tongue and frowned. “When it’s cold and gets that bite in the air and you know Christmas is coming. You can feel it. Like before a storm.”
The Doctor nodded and stayed silent the rest of the way home, only half listening to Rose telling him about what her mother had planned for Christmas Day. He recalled the last Christmas they’d had together, standing in the snow and planning where to go next. Neither of them knew where they would end up and the heartache that would follow, but it hadn’t mattered in that moment.
Rose had been smiling, holding his hand and looking at him like she had always done.
It hadn’t been snow, but the ashes of the destroyed Sycorax ship, of course. It probably should have concerned him more than it had done, but it was hard to hear even his own worries over Rose saying she wanted to stay with him.
It had been the perfect moment, really. Looking to the future. Lost in each other.
Why couldn’t that happen again?
“Hey, you staying out here all night?”
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, the Doctor followed Rose into their building. She teased him all the way up the stairs for looking so lost, but it didn’t matter. He had finally decided how to make up for the Christmases they’d spent apart.
A little over twenty four hours later found the Doctor perched on top of the building he and Rose lived in, homemade sonic screwdriver in between his teeth, as he put the finishing touches to a device he’d only started on that morning. Rose had been texting him all day trying to work out where he was. He’d managed to convince her he had some last minute shopping to do, but that excuse wasn’t holding as well as he hoped.
“Who are you buying for?” she asked when he’d answered one of her calls that afternoon. “I got all the family joint gifts.”
“There’s…” The Doctor looked around his lab for inspiration. “There’s my work friends.”
“I bought those for you as well.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Christmas isn’t a Gallifreyan thing, is it? It’s okay if you don’t get caught up in it all. Just come home soon, yeah?”
Her words had only made him work quicker. She’d been unbelievably understanding since he’d starting his almost human life. It hadn’t all been easy and there had been many fights and frustrations, but she’d been more patient with him than he could have hoped for. Rose understood that sometimes he needed space, while he now knew that there were some human traditions that were important to her and he needed to participate in. They were gradually mixing the two together to make their own little world.
He’d always joined in with Christmas in the same way that he observed various other traditions across the universe; as an outsider, doing what the locals did, learning along the way. This time it was different. He’d lived through the build up and all the work that went into the day, not to mention the crash course of family and office politics he’s had gone through.
If there was one thing he’d learnt through all of it, it was that he needed to show Rose he cared about her, her family and the life they were building.
“BULLSEYE!” he cried when the last of the wiring was complete. “And I am very happy no one was around to hear that.”
Standing up with the cold wind ruffling his hair, he affixed the tiny box he’d been working on all day to the aerial. He stood back, a proud smile upon his face, and took a minute to put his sonic away and bask in his moment. Everything was eerily silent around him, most people already asleep, waiting for the day ahead of them.
He bounced back towards the aerial, pressed a few buttons and watched as it came to life. Everything shook for a second before a bolt of energy shot from the device, up the aerial and into the sky.
With baited breath, he waited. Any second now…
There was an almighty thunderclap and the heavens opened, drenching him in seconds.
“Ah.”
He heard a shriek behind him and twisted on the spot. By the door to the roof was Rose in her pyjamas and dressing gown, lifting it over her head to try and stop herself getting too wet. It was pointless though. He could barely make her out in the downpour and she was only a few metres away.
“What the hell are you doing up here?” she cried over the sound of the rain.
“I was - What are you doing up here?”
She stepped closer to him, giving up on trying to shelter herself. “Woke up and you’d left the flat. I just followed the trail of broken locks to find you.”
His brilliant brain ran through a hundred reasons, each more ludicrous than the last, about what he was doing on the roof in the early hours of Christmas morning. One look at Rose, however, her fringe matted to her face and her eyes already forgiving him, and he decided on the truth.
“This is your Christmas present,” he sighed, with a gesture around them. “I was trying to make it snow so you’d wake up to a white Christmas. I didn’t realise how different the atmosphere would be here so…” He glanced up at the sky and blinked the rain out of his eye. “The calculations to get the atmospheric excitation right will take another-”
He broke off when he noticed Rose was shaking, a hand over her mouth.
“You made it rain. In London.” She laughed. “Genius.”
He pulled on his ear. “I think it adds a certain… something.”
“You lunatic.”
Before he could defend himself, she taken his hands in hers and pulled him closer to her. Though she was now completely soaked, she was smiling up at him as though it was a summer’s day and nothing was wrong. She pushed some of her hair out of her eyes and paused, as though choosing her word carefully.
“This is the first Christmas I’ve ever had with two parents, a little brother, a job I love and a… you know…”
She squeezed his hands and nudged his foot with her slipper.
He knew he was grinning from ear to ear, but decided to play dumb anyway. “No.”
Rose rolled her eyes and stared at him pointedly but he refused to backdown.
Eventually she sighed. “A man willing to break his neck on a roof to make me happy - even if he really doesn’t have to.”
He let go of one of her hands to point at himself.
“Yeah, you.” She pushed him with her free hand, wiping the cocky grin off his face. Almost.
They stared at each other, both smiling as though this was the perfect way to start Christmas Day. In a way, the Doctor thought, ignoring the shiver that went through him, it pretty much was.
“I’m happy, Doctor,” Rose told him quietly. She looked up at the sky and laughed. “It’s chucking it down at three A.M on Christmas Day and I am freezing my nips off, but I sort of don’t mind. I’m that happy.” The disbelieving smile on her face changed into something softer. “And you are a huge part of that. Thank you.”
The way she said it left him with no doubt that she meant him, and not any other version of the man that she loved in spite of everything against them. His single heart swelled in his chest and he took a second to compose himself.
“So basically,” he started, noting the hitch in his voice and taking a step forward, “all you want for Christmas… is me.”
Rose giggled as he nuzzled her nose with his own. “Okay. Yeah.”
“Even more than Mariah?”
“Don’t push it.”
She moved in to kiss him, but he pulled back. “Because I can hit those notes. Don’t doubt me, Rose Tyler.”
They were both giggling as she looped her arms around his neck to pull him back against her. “Never.”
She closed the gap then and the Doctor did his best to wipe the grin off his face. He was soaked through on a roof, but he supposed it was a bit like a film, the two of them kissing in the rain. Not a Christmas film per say, but who were Hollywood types to decide what made Christmas? It wasn’t like he and Rose had ever subscribed to anyone else’s idea of normal anyway.
It was standing in the not-quite snow on Christmas Day that the Doctor asked Rose Tyler for the first, but also sort of the third time, if she’d stay with him. For the first time - definitely the first time - her positive reply was mumbled against his lips.