In the light of our delectable Mr Tennant doing Nativity! The Second Coming, I decided to write this. It has a sort of religious theme to it and hope nobody feels offended. I do not believe or want anyone to believe that our human Doctor's child would be the Messiah, but I do think he would be pretty special!
Happy Christmas to all and to all a Good night! XXXX
The little dark blue mini bus trundled slowly along the narrow country lane and the blonde beside the driver shifted uncomfortably in her seat again.
The driver’s eyes flickered across at her, concern etching against his concentration but she just smiled sweetly and shook her head.
“Admit it, your navigational skills aren’t quite up to it…” she teased.
“I’m not used to this… used to pressing a button and just arriving!”
“Even then there was something dodgy with the navigation… admit it!”
“Rose… Tommy says he’s gonna be sick… I want to move seats…” a little voice whined from the back and Rose turned awkwardly to the little girl who had spoken up.
“Now, Clara, you know he’s all talk, ignore him… shall we sing it one more time?” There was a loud groan from the back and the driver snorted by reaction.
“You can laugh…” Rose muttered to her husband.
“We’ve been driving for AGES…” moaned another voice from the back of the bus.
“Tony… it was you who persuaded us it was a good idea to drive you… you who suggested cutting across the countryside… you can’t start moaning now!” Rose called back to her brother who glared at her.
“But it’s freezing back here!”
“I feel sick!”
“I’m hungry…”
“I’m tired…”
“I want me Mam!”
“Snow!” It was Connie’s timid voice that called out the last and all little noses were suddenly glued to the windows to watch the swirling flakes hit the darkened windows.
Within moments the snow was a thick blizzard and the driver slowed down to a snail’s pace as the dark blue mini bus slid over the tiny, icy country lane.
“We’ll have to stop!” he called over to his wife.
“Here? We’re in the middle of nowhere… we’ll all freeze!”
“We passed a farmhouse back there; about quarter of a mile… if we don’t hang about they’ll think it an adventure…” He stopped the bus without waiting for her response and the children within all crowed with excited delight.
He pulled a long scarf from nowhere, like a magician with handkerchieves and proceeded to tie them all to one another.
“The snow is getting stronger, don’t want anyone lost or left behind! We need to walk as quickly as possible… Connie you can ride on my shoulders… she’s little, that’s why Jimmy… Kevin, get your finger out of your nose… you’ll freeze like that!” The Doctor looked happily at his charges and cast another worried look at his wife. “You can walk it, yeah?”
“Shut up… not exactly gonna fit on your shoulders, am I?” she retorted as she led the children single file out into the snow.
It didn’t take long to reach the property that he had indicated and only two of the children slid over. Rose stumbled on a particularly tricky patch which had alarmed him somewhat, but they had continued and it wasn’t long before he was banging on the farmhouse door.
“There’s nobody home…” Rose’s voice carried through the snow as the eleven children huddled together. Indeed, the windows were all in darkness and nobody answered his knocks.
A blue light flashed, a muffled buzz competing with the soft sound of snowflakes about them.
“Wooden and dead locked… who’d have thought?”
“Doctor?” Rose’s voice was frightened and he knew he had to find them shelter of some sort immediately.
The barn door swung open easily and he led them inside, shutting them in, sheltering them from the cruel northerly wind.
“Come on you lot, keep moving, drag some bails over here, we can soon make it warm!”
“It’s dark…” Connie was right beside him where he had lowered her to. She hadn’t moved.
“Scary…” A little boy sniffed, indeed the light was too dim to tell which boy it was, but the Doctor had a sneaking suspicion it was Kevin.
“Soon sort that!” exclaimed the Doctor and with a flurry, he had found a paraffin lamp, soniced it into submission and hung it from a rafter above them. It gave a friendly glow and pretty soon he had also found an old heater used to incubate newborn lambs. With a few blasts of the same screwdriver it was working as if it were new and eleven little pairs of hands were being warmed in front of it.
The Doctor eased himself down on the bale beside his wife and took her hand, “alright?”
“Yup… worried about them… no signal on my ‘super phone’ and no food or blankets between us… they’re so little.”
“I’m sure I can muster up something… and there is hay, plenty of hay… we can bed them down all together, they’ll be like pigs in blankets!”
“Speaking of which, what is that smell?”
“Donkey, over in the far stall, poor thing looks done in, probably be doing the rounds this time of year…”
The children didn’t take long to discover the shivering creature and with some persuasion it was led over to the warmth of the nook they had created.
Rose let out a soft groan as she watched the children happily fussing the donkey.
“It isn’t nothing, is it?” He was beside her once again.
“I’m just tired and cold…” she snipped back, shifting on the hay bale uncomfortably. The Doctor smiled gently and pulled her blue cashmere pashmina up over her head, wrapping her warmly.
“I think someone is eager to join us…”
“You’re very calm…”
“Weell… someone will realise… I have a signal going out; satellite right above us… shouldn’t be long…”
“The roads are treacherous, I doubt whether anyone will even attempt a rescue tonight…”
“They can’t just leave us here…”
“Rose… I’m hungry…” Connie was by them again and Rose smiled fondly at her. The Doctor stood up and began to rummage in his pockets producing packets of crisps; large bunches of bananas, jars of jam and copious bags of jelly babies. A blast of his Sonic Screwdriver made the water pump work with ease and soon they were all tucking into an unusual and very Doctory feast. All except Rose, who was looking more and more uncomfortable sitting quietly on her hay bale with her blue pashmina about her soft blonde hair.
“Maybe I should take a look?” he asked her softly and she stared at him dumbly, shaking her head, the tears pricking her eyes.
“Not supposed to be yet, not now, not here…”
“One of those things you couldn’t possibly dictate, Rose… besides it’s only a couple of weeks off…”
“I’m scared…” she whispered; her large brown eyes boring into his and he pulled her gently into an embrace.
“Don’t be… you’re in the best hands… it will be fine…” As he held her he could feel her whole body tensing and she gasped at the pain of it.
“The children?”
“…will have to deal with it… some will sleep through it, some will help… it’s an age old thing, Rose and…” But whatever words of comfort and reassurance he was about to offer were stopped abruptly by a knocking at the large barn doors.
Quickly, he unbolted the door and allowed the snow covered visitors’ entrance, ushering them near to the paraffin lamp and makeshift heater.
Three men in long coats unfit for the weather that they had been caught in, shivered by the heater, stretching out their frozen fingers to the welcome warmth.
“Car came off the road up the way… freakish weather… we were off to a lecture in Coventry City… unpredicted snowstorm… the light above this barn was all we could see to head towards…”
Rose was in too much discomfort to really understand, but she noticed that there suddenly seemed to be steaming mugs of cocoa and the Doctor explaining their own circumstances before there was yet more knocking at those blasted wooden doors.
“Oh arr… fough’ there migh’ be sumwon yer… got caught on them hills up by yonder and saw t’light… blessed ewe decided t’lamb yerly… what can ye do, aye?”
Rose was dimly aware of the sheep that scuttled in bringing a cool draught with them as they began to munch on the hay all about and of the three new men, old men with strong accents and such a feral smell to them before she cried out. It had all got too much and the Doctor was by her side in an instant.
“Rose?”
“It bloody hurts and you promised… you bloody promised… said it would all be proper and look at me!”
“Ummm… Rose you swore… telling Mum!”
“Shut up, Tony!” hissed Rose.
“Right… need a plan… gentlemen… as you can see, my wife is not in brilliant shape and I can’t see that we’ll be able to get an ambulance up here in time… there are eleven children here who all need rest and comfort and I’m going to need help if anyone has experience?” He looked hopefully at the three gentlemen who had arrived first, but all looked positively petrified at the idea.
“The lectures were in quantum physics and the likelihood of travelling between dimensions… we are physicists… not midwives!”
“Dimensions you say? How fascinating…”
“Doctordon’tyoudarestartaconverstaionabouttravellingbetweendimensions whenI’minagonyandabouttogivebirthtoyourpreciousspawnorelseIwillneverallow younearenoughforustoproduceanother,understand?” screeched Rose, interrupting his diversion.
“Babysitting duties then?” His voice pitched to a squeal almost as if his wife had a grip on his proverbials. “You can practise your speeches… soon have them asleep… and you… any of you experienced in midwifery?”
“We be sheep ‘erders, young man, ain’t nuffin’ as we don’t knows bout it… I be seein’ my seventieth lambing season this comin’ Spring…” The old man grinned down at him, showing yellowing and gapped teeth, his two slightly younger companions nodded happily their agreement
The Doctor wasn’t sure quite how to react, but suddenly it didn’t seem to matter anymore as Rose’s natural instincts kicked in.
He knew he was involved with it, that he was the one there encouraging and guiding the newborns way and yet, he almost felt as if he were a watcher observing the whole scene from above.
The donkey happily enjoying carrots and apples perused from his special supplies, the very clever academics’ being railroaded into listening to the very beautiful Christmas carols the children had been supposed to be performing that very night. Then there were the sheep milling about and helping themselves to the abundant hay all about them.
Rose was a star, a brilliant light in the epicentre of the whole scene, coping with the agony and urging their new charge into the world with such strength. It overwhelmed him and broke him into pieces. His heart was filled with such pride as the tiny new baby came into the world with barely a cry as it tumbled into his waiting hands.
“A boy!” he heard his own voice announce and he rested the bloody bundle across his mother’s chest.
When Rose was cleaned up and the baby covered and suckling discreetly at her breast, the whole of the barn gathered around, kneeling and sitting and admiring the new baby.
“Don’t have much to offer… s’pose he ought t’ave the first lamb of t’season tho…” whispered the old shepherd as he handed over the bleating bundle. The Doctor accepted it awkwardly whilst inwardly searching for its mother amongst the flock.
The lecturers were patting their pockets and looking awkward.
“I can offer the baby my watch… been in the family for generations, but it somehow seems right for him to have it.” The gold fob watch was handed to the Doctor who subconsciously checked to make sure it was innocent and not engraved with anything he might find too familiar.
“All I have to offer is the perfume that I bought my mother… but please accept it… it is timeless or so the shop assistant informed me.”
Again, the Doctor accepted the gift, wondering when on earth his son would ever need a large bottle of Chanel no 5, but Rose seemed happy enough.
“I have some root cuttings and resins that I was going to take home to my lab… he can have those?”
The Doctor reflected. A lot. His son was special, it was always on the cards that he was going to be and not just because he was their son. It seemed that these people knew this too, by pure human instinct.
The children began to sing again, their voices rising high above them and out into the snow filled air.
Outside the Torchwood probe hovered above the barn, its floodlight reflecting on the thick snow that covered the roof. It made a beacon clear enough for anyone to see.
It wouldn’t be long before rescue would get there.
In the meantime any passing travellers that were caught could make their way to the makeshift sanctuary of this barn guided by the light.
And it seemed that there were many doing just that on this cold winters night…
The driver’s eyes flickered across at her, concern etching against his concentration but she just smiled sweetly and shook her head.
“Admit it, your navigational skills aren’t quite up to it…” she teased.
“I’m not used to this… used to pressing a button and just arriving!”
“Even then there was something dodgy with the navigation… admit it!”
“Rose… Tommy says he’s gonna be sick… I want to move seats…” a little voice whined from the back and Rose turned awkwardly to the little girl who had spoken up.
“Now, Clara, you know he’s all talk, ignore him… shall we sing it one more time?” There was a loud groan from the back and the driver snorted by reaction.
“You can laugh…” Rose muttered to her husband.
“We’ve been driving for AGES…” moaned another voice from the back of the bus.
“Tony… it was you who persuaded us it was a good idea to drive you… you who suggested cutting across the countryside… you can’t start moaning now!” Rose called back to her brother who glared at her.
“But it’s freezing back here!”
“I feel sick!”
“I’m hungry…”
“I’m tired…”
“I want me Mam!”
“Snow!” It was Connie’s timid voice that called out the last and all little noses were suddenly glued to the windows to watch the swirling flakes hit the darkened windows.
Within moments the snow was a thick blizzard and the driver slowed down to a snail’s pace as the dark blue mini bus slid over the tiny, icy country lane.
“We’ll have to stop!” he called over to his wife.
“Here? We’re in the middle of nowhere… we’ll all freeze!”
“We passed a farmhouse back there; about quarter of a mile… if we don’t hang about they’ll think it an adventure…” He stopped the bus without waiting for her response and the children within all crowed with excited delight.
He pulled a long scarf from nowhere, like a magician with handkerchieves and proceeded to tie them all to one another.
“The snow is getting stronger, don’t want anyone lost or left behind! We need to walk as quickly as possible… Connie you can ride on my shoulders… she’s little, that’s why Jimmy… Kevin, get your finger out of your nose… you’ll freeze like that!” The Doctor looked happily at his charges and cast another worried look at his wife. “You can walk it, yeah?”
“Shut up… not exactly gonna fit on your shoulders, am I?” she retorted as she led the children single file out into the snow.
It didn’t take long to reach the property that he had indicated and only two of the children slid over. Rose stumbled on a particularly tricky patch which had alarmed him somewhat, but they had continued and it wasn’t long before he was banging on the farmhouse door.
“There’s nobody home…” Rose’s voice carried through the snow as the eleven children huddled together. Indeed, the windows were all in darkness and nobody answered his knocks.
A blue light flashed, a muffled buzz competing with the soft sound of snowflakes about them.
“Wooden and dead locked… who’d have thought?”
“Doctor?” Rose’s voice was frightened and he knew he had to find them shelter of some sort immediately.
The barn door swung open easily and he led them inside, shutting them in, sheltering them from the cruel northerly wind.
“Come on you lot, keep moving, drag some bails over here, we can soon make it warm!”
“It’s dark…” Connie was right beside him where he had lowered her to. She hadn’t moved.
“Scary…” A little boy sniffed, indeed the light was too dim to tell which boy it was, but the Doctor had a sneaking suspicion it was Kevin.
“Soon sort that!” exclaimed the Doctor and with a flurry, he had found a paraffin lamp, soniced it into submission and hung it from a rafter above them. It gave a friendly glow and pretty soon he had also found an old heater used to incubate newborn lambs. With a few blasts of the same screwdriver it was working as if it were new and eleven little pairs of hands were being warmed in front of it.
The Doctor eased himself down on the bale beside his wife and took her hand, “alright?”
“Yup… worried about them… no signal on my ‘super phone’ and no food or blankets between us… they’re so little.”
“I’m sure I can muster up something… and there is hay, plenty of hay… we can bed them down all together, they’ll be like pigs in blankets!”
“Speaking of which, what is that smell?”
“Donkey, over in the far stall, poor thing looks done in, probably be doing the rounds this time of year…”
The children didn’t take long to discover the shivering creature and with some persuasion it was led over to the warmth of the nook they had created.
Rose let out a soft groan as she watched the children happily fussing the donkey.
“It isn’t nothing, is it?” He was beside her once again.
“I’m just tired and cold…” she snipped back, shifting on the hay bale uncomfortably. The Doctor smiled gently and pulled her blue cashmere pashmina up over her head, wrapping her warmly.
“I think someone is eager to join us…”
“You’re very calm…”
“Weell… someone will realise… I have a signal going out; satellite right above us… shouldn’t be long…”
“The roads are treacherous, I doubt whether anyone will even attempt a rescue tonight…”
“They can’t just leave us here…”
“Rose… I’m hungry…” Connie was by them again and Rose smiled fondly at her. The Doctor stood up and began to rummage in his pockets producing packets of crisps; large bunches of bananas, jars of jam and copious bags of jelly babies. A blast of his Sonic Screwdriver made the water pump work with ease and soon they were all tucking into an unusual and very Doctory feast. All except Rose, who was looking more and more uncomfortable sitting quietly on her hay bale with her blue pashmina about her soft blonde hair.
“Maybe I should take a look?” he asked her softly and she stared at him dumbly, shaking her head, the tears pricking her eyes.
“Not supposed to be yet, not now, not here…”
“One of those things you couldn’t possibly dictate, Rose… besides it’s only a couple of weeks off…”
“I’m scared…” she whispered; her large brown eyes boring into his and he pulled her gently into an embrace.
“Don’t be… you’re in the best hands… it will be fine…” As he held her he could feel her whole body tensing and she gasped at the pain of it.
“The children?”
“…will have to deal with it… some will sleep through it, some will help… it’s an age old thing, Rose and…” But whatever words of comfort and reassurance he was about to offer were stopped abruptly by a knocking at the large barn doors.
Quickly, he unbolted the door and allowed the snow covered visitors’ entrance, ushering them near to the paraffin lamp and makeshift heater.
Three men in long coats unfit for the weather that they had been caught in, shivered by the heater, stretching out their frozen fingers to the welcome warmth.
“Car came off the road up the way… freakish weather… we were off to a lecture in Coventry City… unpredicted snowstorm… the light above this barn was all we could see to head towards…”
Rose was in too much discomfort to really understand, but she noticed that there suddenly seemed to be steaming mugs of cocoa and the Doctor explaining their own circumstances before there was yet more knocking at those blasted wooden doors.
“Oh arr… fough’ there migh’ be sumwon yer… got caught on them hills up by yonder and saw t’light… blessed ewe decided t’lamb yerly… what can ye do, aye?”
Rose was dimly aware of the sheep that scuttled in bringing a cool draught with them as they began to munch on the hay all about and of the three new men, old men with strong accents and such a feral smell to them before she cried out. It had all got too much and the Doctor was by her side in an instant.
“Rose?”
“It bloody hurts and you promised… you bloody promised… said it would all be proper and look at me!”
“Ummm… Rose you swore… telling Mum!”
“Shut up, Tony!” hissed Rose.
“Right… need a plan… gentlemen… as you can see, my wife is not in brilliant shape and I can’t see that we’ll be able to get an ambulance up here in time… there are eleven children here who all need rest and comfort and I’m going to need help if anyone has experience?” He looked hopefully at the three gentlemen who had arrived first, but all looked positively petrified at the idea.
“The lectures were in quantum physics and the likelihood of travelling between dimensions… we are physicists… not midwives!”
“Dimensions you say? How fascinating…”
“Doctordon’tyoudarestartaconverstaionabouttravellingbetweendimensions whenI’minagonyandabouttogivebirthtoyourpreciousspawnorelseIwillneverallow younearenoughforustoproduceanother,understand?” screeched Rose, interrupting his diversion.
“Babysitting duties then?” His voice pitched to a squeal almost as if his wife had a grip on his proverbials. “You can practise your speeches… soon have them asleep… and you… any of you experienced in midwifery?”
“We be sheep ‘erders, young man, ain’t nuffin’ as we don’t knows bout it… I be seein’ my seventieth lambing season this comin’ Spring…” The old man grinned down at him, showing yellowing and gapped teeth, his two slightly younger companions nodded happily their agreement
The Doctor wasn’t sure quite how to react, but suddenly it didn’t seem to matter anymore as Rose’s natural instincts kicked in.
He knew he was involved with it, that he was the one there encouraging and guiding the newborns way and yet, he almost felt as if he were a watcher observing the whole scene from above.
The donkey happily enjoying carrots and apples perused from his special supplies, the very clever academics’ being railroaded into listening to the very beautiful Christmas carols the children had been supposed to be performing that very night. Then there were the sheep milling about and helping themselves to the abundant hay all about them.
Rose was a star, a brilliant light in the epicentre of the whole scene, coping with the agony and urging their new charge into the world with such strength. It overwhelmed him and broke him into pieces. His heart was filled with such pride as the tiny new baby came into the world with barely a cry as it tumbled into his waiting hands.
“A boy!” he heard his own voice announce and he rested the bloody bundle across his mother’s chest.
When Rose was cleaned up and the baby covered and suckling discreetly at her breast, the whole of the barn gathered around, kneeling and sitting and admiring the new baby.
“Don’t have much to offer… s’pose he ought t’ave the first lamb of t’season tho…” whispered the old shepherd as he handed over the bleating bundle. The Doctor accepted it awkwardly whilst inwardly searching for its mother amongst the flock.
The lecturers were patting their pockets and looking awkward.
“I can offer the baby my watch… been in the family for generations, but it somehow seems right for him to have it.” The gold fob watch was handed to the Doctor who subconsciously checked to make sure it was innocent and not engraved with anything he might find too familiar.
“All I have to offer is the perfume that I bought my mother… but please accept it… it is timeless or so the shop assistant informed me.”
Again, the Doctor accepted the gift, wondering when on earth his son would ever need a large bottle of Chanel no 5, but Rose seemed happy enough.
“I have some root cuttings and resins that I was going to take home to my lab… he can have those?”
The Doctor reflected. A lot. His son was special, it was always on the cards that he was going to be and not just because he was their son. It seemed that these people knew this too, by pure human instinct.
The children began to sing again, their voices rising high above them and out into the snow filled air.
Outside the Torchwood probe hovered above the barn, its floodlight reflecting on the thick snow that covered the roof. It made a beacon clear enough for anyone to see.
It wouldn’t be long before rescue would get there.
In the meantime any passing travellers that were caught could make their way to the makeshift sanctuary of this barn guided by the light.
And it seemed that there were many doing just that on this cold winters night…