amberfocus | I Believe in Santa Claus

A/N: Just some fluffery for Ladychi who has been feeling rather miserable of late. Based on a prompt from Ehmi which was: The Doctor meets Rose as a little girl and she is upset about something and he comforts her. Much thanks to amyo67 for the beta. PG for a couple of innuendo laden exchanges.

I Believe in Santa Claus

The Doctor had always been helpless in the face of Rose Tyler’s tears, but this was entirely a different matter. She was sobbing as if her little heart was breaking, as if her entire grip on reality had been loosened, as if nothing would ever be the same in her life again. And he ached to go to her, to soothe her, to find some small way in which he could make it better. He knew that he couldn’t, knew that he would be risking too much if he did. Still, the urge to swoop down and pick her up in his arms and hold her tightly to him and cuddle and comfort her until she stopped crying and kiss away every hurt ever inflicted on her was violently strong.

He could do none of these things though and not just because of the restraining hand of his companion on his shoulder. If he carried through on any of his thoughts he’d likely get arrested, because the Rose Tyler in question was four years old and she wasn’t his Rose yet. “Why are you so upset?” he asked the grown up Rose holding onto his arm.

Rose sighed and looked at the little golden-haired moppet she’d once been. “It’s Shireen’s fault, really,” she said with a sigh. “She told me there wasn’t any Santa Claus.”

The Doctor frowned. “Why would she do that?”

“Her brother ruined Christmas for her and I guess she wanted to share the misery with me,” Rose said. “I couldn’t have been more than four or five. I didn’t trust my mum again for ages because I thought if she had lied about something as important as Santa, she’d lied about everything else.”

“We need to put this right,” the Doctor said firmly. “All children should believe in Santa Claus.”

“Doctor, what about causing a paradox? What about the Reapers?” Rose asked.

“I’ll be careful. Just don’t touch yourself,” he said firmly. If he noticed Rose biting down hard on her lip to keep from making an inappropriate comment he didn’t let on.

He glanced around the playground looking for the terror known as Jackie Tyler and when he found the coast was clear he tugged Rose along with him in the direction of the little girl. He kneeled down in the sand beside her. “Hello,” he said. “Are you okay?”

She glanced up at him through her tears and ran one grubby hand over her face. “Not…not…not sup-supposed to—to talk to—st-strangers,” she stuttered.

“Then let me introduce myself and we won’t be strangers anymore, will we? I’m Nikolas Klaus and this is my best friend in all the universe, Rose.” He gestured up at the adult Rose and the little girl peered in her direction.

“My name’s Rose, too,” she said then hiccupped. “But—but everyone calls me Rosie. You’re pretty.”

Rose smiled. “Thank you, Rosie. So are you.”

The little girl smiled. “What’s got you so upset?” the Doctor asked Rosie.

“There’s no Santa,” she said flatly.

“What?” asked the Doctor imbuing his voice with surprise. “Who told you that?”

“Shireen. She’s my bestest friend and she wouldn’t lie to me ever. Her big brother told her Santa was just our mums and dads,” she said and then looked down at her lap again. “That means my mummy lied to me.”

“How do you know that Shireen’s brother didn’t lie to her just to make her feel bad?” the Doctor asked. “Big brothers can be awfully mean to little sisters if they think they can get away with it.”

Rosie thought about that for a minute and then a tiny smile stole across her face. “You mean Santa Claus is real?” she asked.

“He’s very real. I’ve met him meself,” the Doctor said. “Just you wait until Christmas morning. You’ll see.”

Her little smile broke into a huge one that he recognized as the one Rose used all the time with him when she was extraordinarily happy. “Promise?” she asked.

“Promise.”

“Oi, you, get away from my daughter!” The harsh, piercing tones of Jackie Tyler came from across the playground and Rose and the Doctor hastily took off in the other direction running.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Rose said. “You shouldn’t have promised her Santa Claus was real. Mum couldn’t afford anything that Christmas. We didn’t even have a tree. Money was too tight. It confirmed everything for me. She’s just going to get her heart broken again tomorrow morning.”

“Trust me, Rose Tyler. I know what I’m doing. I’m going to be Santa Claus. Or Nikolas Klaus as I told little you. And you can be my elf,” he said.

“I’m too tall to be an elf,” she muttered.

“Not a real elf,” he said.

Rose frowned. “Elves aren’t any more real than Santa Claus,” she told him.

“Exactly.”

“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

“You’ll find out,” he said giving her his manic grin. “Now, back to the TARDIS. I think the wardrobe room has just what we need.”

Rose stared at the Doctor in amazement. She never would have believed he’d go so far as to make her child self so happy, but he’d done one thing after another to do so today. For a man who protested doing domestic he was awfully good at it. They’d spent the afternoon shopping for toys and games for little Rosie and some more practical gifts for Jackie that Rose knew her mother would have appreciated. They’d picked out a tree and decorations and hauled it all back to the TARDIS. And now here he was dressed up as the jolly man himself.

She rather liked the way he looked, his eyes alight in anticipation. She glanced at herself in the elf costume. It was rather more revealing, just barely covering her bum and upper thighs, but the thick red and white striped tights kept her legs warm. “I look like a candy cane!” she protested.

“Yep, good enough to eat,” he said cheekily.

“Really? Tell me, do you lick or suck?” she couldn’t resist saying, her voice full of teasing.

“What?” he gulped.

“When you eat a candy cane? Do you lick or suck?” she asked innocently.

He coughed, recovered his equilibrium and said in a voice heavy with meaning, “I think you’ll find, Rose Tyler, that I bite.”

It was her turn to swallow hard. “We…we should get going if we’re going to do this before Rosie wakes up,” she managed.

“Yes. Let’s go.” All trace of flirting had vanished from his voice and he headed towards the console room. A few minutes later they had materialized on the landing outside the Tyler flat. “What about your mum? You sure she won’t wake up?”

“Mum went on a bender that night. She was so upset about not being able to afford a Christmas that she drank herself unconscious. She spent the next day hugging the toilet.”

“I’m so sorry, Rose.” The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, but Rose flashed her key at him and quickly unlocked the front door.

As silently as they could they hauled in the tree and set it up in the living room and then decorated it. A return to the TARDIS brought several packages that they placed beneath the lowest bows and then Rose put the prepared food in the nearly empty refrigerator with instructions on how to warm it up. The Doctor had mixed up a hangover remedy and left it on the middle of the kitchen table with a note for Jackie.

They were just preparing to sneak out when a small voice stopped them. Rosie was standing in the middle of the living room gazing at the twinkle lights on the decorated tree. “Are you…are you really him?” she asked with awe in her voice.

“Don’t I look like him?” he asked.

“If you’re really Santa Claus, how come you sound like you’re from the North?” she asked him skeptically her little hands on her hips. His lips twitched and he shared a look with the grown up Rose in remembrance of her using those very words when they first met.

He knelt down in front of Rosie. “You can’t get anymore North than the North Pole, can you?” he asked her logically.

“Guess not.”

He took her hands in his. “It’s okay to believe when others around you don’t, Rose Tyler. There are more things out there waiting for you than you can possibly imagine. And one day you’ll get to see them all. You just have to be willing to believe when others don’t.”

The little girl threw herself into his arms then. “Thank you! Oh, thank you, Santa!” She laid a little kiss on his cheek and then pulled herself away from him.

“Now, I think you should go back to sleep,” Rose told her younger self. “Morning will come soon enough.”

The Doctor rose and ushered Rosie back to her room and tucked her into bed, then planted a kiss on her forehead. “Sweet dreams, little Rose,” he said so softly Rose almost didn’t hear him. "I'll be back for you in fourteen years." They backed quietly out of the room and left the flat, locking it behind them.

As they entered the TARDIS Rose took off her elf hat and brushed her hair smooth with her hand. “That was a lovely thing to do for her.”

“Soon as we leave the time line should rewrite itself and these memories will become yours,” he told her.

“Isn’t it dangerous?” she asked.

“Nah. I mean usually, yeah, but I followed the time line through to make sure this alteration was safe enough before I made it. It didn’t alter much of anything; you just had a happier childhood. Besides, I already brought you that red bicycle when you were twelve. This is just a little bit more than that, that’s all,” he said waving expansively.

They dematerialized and entered the Vortex and immediately Rose felt the new memories writing over the old ones. The old ones didn’t quite disappear but the new ones felt more real, more permanent than the old ones. She laughed.

“What?”

“For years I insisted to mum that the real Santa had a Manchester accent,” she giggled. “Thank you, Doctor. What you did there was a lot more than give gifts to a little girl who wouldn’t have had any. You restored my faith.”

“Guess we’re even then, Rose Tyler, because you restored mine a long time ago.” He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. She returned the hug and stayed in his arms far longer than usual.

When he finally loosened his grip she was reluctant to let go. “Now, we have one more stop to make,” he said.

“Oh, yeah? Where are we going then?” she asked.

“Next stop, North Pole,” he told her.

“What?”

“I’m taking you to meet the real Santa Claus.”

“He’s real?” she asked in stunned amazement.

“Would I lie to you, Rose?” he asked.

“And he’s at the North Pole?”

“The planet, not the city!” he said with a manic grin and then with a dance about the console flipping switches and turning knobs and levers, the ship dematerialized.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ramblinsuze.livejournal.com

Awwwww. This is so sweet! I remember how awful I felt when I figured out Santa was just mom and dad (thankfully, I was a bit older than little Rosie here). The Doctor is just too damn adorable, making sure that little (and big) Rose believes.

Yay for fluff!

From:

Not Rose-Colored Glasses

I Believe in Santa Claus

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