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purple_bugTitle: But Do You Recall
Rating: G
Spoilers: The Chimes of Midnight
Words: 620
Characters: Charley, Eight
Summary: The Doctor has an odd way of dealing with Edward Grove and plum pudding.
Beta: Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
agapi42 :o)
A/N: Birthday!fic forglitterfairy25 - happy 20th! :oD Also, sort-of apologies for out-of-season Christmassy fic. That's twice I've done that now, hope it doesn't throw anyone for a loop :o)
oOoOoOo
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Charley asked, mostly rhetorically. It was obvious that he was baking, and it was obvious that he was singing a strange song about a reindeer. What wasn't obvious was why he was doing this in the middle of the night.
He looked round with a grin, which fell a little when he saw her dressing gown.
"I'm sorry, Charley, did I wake you?"
She sighed, tightening the belt of her gown and wrapping her arms around her middle. "No, I couldn't sleep."
"Bad dreams?"
"Something like that."
The Doctor left his crumb-strewn kitchen counter and pulled her into a floury hug.
"Here, have a biscuit," he said, picking one up and handing it to her with a smile. "It's not decorated yet, but it's still warm." Charley took it and studied it with a raised eyebrow.
"Which brings me back to, what are you doing?"
"I'm making gingerbread men!"
She held up the biscuit and gave him a look.
"Okay, gingerbread shapes."
"Yes, I can see that. Why? And why now?" She smiled at him a little and nibbled a bit that might've been intended to be a snowman's hat.
"I don't sleep half as much as you do, so I have to entertain myself at night while you're being all tortoise-y." She frowned in puzzlement at that, but he carried on without any explanation, so she put it down to general oddness. "And as for why gingerbread; creepy houses at Christmas have one of two effects." He twisted a dial on the oven and ducked to peek through the door. "Nightmares, or the sudden need to be festive."
Charley smirked. "Doctor, only you could see bizarre and impossible suicides and then want to bake and sing." She took another bite out of the wonky snowman and added, "What were you singing, anyway?"
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," he replied, as though it should be obvious. Charley merely blinked at him and gestured with the biscuit for him to elaborate. "Oh, of course, you missed that! 1939, that story was written. Robert Lewis May, nice chap. I helped him convince the president of his company to turn over the copyright to him in '47, a couple of years before the song came out."
Charley took a seat at the kitchen table and got invested in her gingerbread snowman. The Doctor whisked a tray of gingerbread shapes from the counter and sat down opposite with pastry bags and icing. He piped outlines and faces and various shapes onto the biscuits as he talked, and they began to look a bit more like the things he'd intended them to be.
He taught her the secondary words to the reindeer song, which they sang with several giggles, then he wandered down a tangent about Monopoly. Once he remembered that was also after her time, he abandoned his mostly-decorated gingerbread objects and led the way to a room full of board games.
It was well into what passed for early-morning on the TARDIS by the time they gave up, neither of them having won or lost. The Doctor was too left-wing to put up a decent fight, and Charley couldn't bring herself to bankrupt him, so they'd just gone round and round the board for a few hours until mutually deciding it wasn't their game.
The gingerbread Santas in the oven had become blackened hunchbacked shapes. The Doctor tipped them into the bin with a frown, while Charley took up one of the pastry bags and started drawing berries on the gingerbread holly.
There was no reason she had to fall on the 'nightmare' side of the consequences of creepy Christmas houses, after all.
oOoOoOo
Rating: G
Spoilers: The Chimes of Midnight
Words: 620
Characters: Charley, Eight
Summary: The Doctor has an odd way of dealing with Edward Grove and plum pudding.
Beta: Many thanks to
agapi42 :o)A/N: Birthday!fic for
glitterfairy25 - happy 20th! :oD Also, sort-of apologies for out-of-season Christmassy fic. That's twice I've done that now, hope it doesn't throw anyone for a loop :o)oOoOoOo
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Charley asked, mostly rhetorically. It was obvious that he was baking, and it was obvious that he was singing a strange song about a reindeer. What wasn't obvious was why he was doing this in the middle of the night.
He looked round with a grin, which fell a little when he saw her dressing gown.
"I'm sorry, Charley, did I wake you?"
She sighed, tightening the belt of her gown and wrapping her arms around her middle. "No, I couldn't sleep."
"Bad dreams?"
"Something like that."
The Doctor left his crumb-strewn kitchen counter and pulled her into a floury hug.
"Here, have a biscuit," he said, picking one up and handing it to her with a smile. "It's not decorated yet, but it's still warm." Charley took it and studied it with a raised eyebrow.
"Which brings me back to, what are you doing?"
"I'm making gingerbread men!"
She held up the biscuit and gave him a look.
"Okay, gingerbread shapes."
"Yes, I can see that. Why? And why now?" She smiled at him a little and nibbled a bit that might've been intended to be a snowman's hat.
"I don't sleep half as much as you do, so I have to entertain myself at night while you're being all tortoise-y." She frowned in puzzlement at that, but he carried on without any explanation, so she put it down to general oddness. "And as for why gingerbread; creepy houses at Christmas have one of two effects." He twisted a dial on the oven and ducked to peek through the door. "Nightmares, or the sudden need to be festive."
Charley smirked. "Doctor, only you could see bizarre and impossible suicides and then want to bake and sing." She took another bite out of the wonky snowman and added, "What were you singing, anyway?"
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," he replied, as though it should be obvious. Charley merely blinked at him and gestured with the biscuit for him to elaborate. "Oh, of course, you missed that! 1939, that story was written. Robert Lewis May, nice chap. I helped him convince the president of his company to turn over the copyright to him in '47, a couple of years before the song came out."
Charley took a seat at the kitchen table and got invested in her gingerbread snowman. The Doctor whisked a tray of gingerbread shapes from the counter and sat down opposite with pastry bags and icing. He piped outlines and faces and various shapes onto the biscuits as he talked, and they began to look a bit more like the things he'd intended them to be.
He taught her the secondary words to the reindeer song, which they sang with several giggles, then he wandered down a tangent about Monopoly. Once he remembered that was also after her time, he abandoned his mostly-decorated gingerbread objects and led the way to a room full of board games.
It was well into what passed for early-morning on the TARDIS by the time they gave up, neither of them having won or lost. The Doctor was too left-wing to put up a decent fight, and Charley couldn't bring herself to bankrupt him, so they'd just gone round and round the board for a few hours until mutually deciding it wasn't their game.
The gingerbread Santas in the oven had become blackened hunchbacked shapes. The Doctor tipped them into the bin with a frown, while Charley took up one of the pastry bags and started drawing berries on the gingerbread holly.
There was no reason she had to fall on the 'nightmare' side of the consequences of creepy Christmas houses, after all.
oOoOoOo
