Forsaken Christmas

To say that Caroline Attwater enjoyed riding in public transit would be an exaggeration for the record books. She did not enjoy the crowds, or the noise, or the smells, or the lines. There was not a single aspect of public transit that she found at all enjoyable.

Making the situation that Caroline Attwater found herself in that cold winter's day even worse, even more impossibly horrible, was that it was Christmas time and she was on her way back to the city after attending her parents' funeral. She sat on the floor, as far away from any other person as she possibly could, with her head in her hands as she hid away.

She wasn't crying, but that was only because she was actively fighting it. She didn't want people to feel sorry for her, to think she was weak in any sense of the word, even though her response was perfectly reasonable. But her sorrow was strong, nearly breaking through what she was attempting to block. All she wanted was to wait until she was home, until she was safe, and then she would cry.

She had cried when she got the news. Had cried at the funeral. Had cried in her parents old home before she left neighbors to take care of everything before she could return. She had cried and she wanted to cry even more, but she couldn't cry in front of people. She couldn't.

She wouldn't.

"Are you alright, dear?" the voice, some quality in it informing Caroline that it was an older woman, interfered with Caroline's attempts to control her emotions and very nearly caused her to burst out sobbing. "Do you need anything?"

Caroline shook her head in her hands, not bringing herself to look up because she needed the force on her face to remind herself to not cry. "I'm fine, thank you."

Before she could react, there were small footsteps and the sound of somebody sliding to the ground down the wall next to her. From the direction of the older woman was a sigh, almost of annoyance. "You know," a young boy, a child, spoke beside her, "whenever I feel sad I sing a song."

"Now, Timothy, don't bother the nice lady."

Caroline brought herself to look up from her hands, to look over at the boy while resting her head against her drawn up knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. Timothy was a sweet looking boy, dressed in a puffy coat that almost seemed to engulf him. "What song do you sing?" it was harder to not cry without her hands against her face.

Timothy grinned widely, his joy contagious. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little star." Caroline found herself smiling shyly as well; that had been her favorite song as a child. She had never sung it when she was feeling sad, but it had been something she'd greatly annoyed her parents with by singing it at an impossibly high volume for days on end. "Do you know it?"

"Of course," she nodded as best she could while keeping her face on her knees. "Can you sing it for me?"

Timothy nodded extremely eagerly, straightening and crossing his legs so that he was able to sit facing her completely rather than lean against the wall. His singing voice was rather horrible, Caroline had to admit, but he looked so excited to sing it for her that Caroline couldn't help but enjoy it. At one point she had glanced at the older woman and found the woman looking at her with a combination of embarrassment and amusement.

Once Timothy finished, Caroline was certain to applaud him. She straightened in order to do so, admittedly feeling better after listening to the boy sing. "That was wonderful Timothy. Thank you very much."

"Did it help you feel better?"

She nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

He leapt up, the coat looking as though it could easily touch the ground, it was so impossibly large. "I hope you have a happy Christmas."

"And I hope you do as well."

Timothy almost jumped to look at the older woman. "Are you ready to leave, Granny?"

The woman nodded to the boy, reaching for his hand. "Thank you," she told Caroline. "Miss…"

"Caroline."

The woman, Timothy's grandmother, smiled kindly at her. "Thank you Miss Caroline. I hope you have a very happy Christmas." Then, gently, she took Timothy's hand and led him away, the boy looking back to wave cheerfully at Caroline as he walked away.

The moment she was alone Caroline wrapped her arms around her legs again, pressing her face against her legs and breathing in deeply. She felt better, she did, strangely, after Timothy's singing. But she was still very near crying.

A few minutes later Caroline stood and, dragging the small bag she had managed to shove together after getting the phone call behind her, made her way to the toilets to splash water on her face. She stood for a moment, gripping the sides of the sink, and took slow deep breaths.

The train station was almost completely empty. No one in their right mind was staying in London that Christmas, not after what had happened the previous years, but Caroline had no other choice. Normally she would have gone to her parents but…she couldn't this year. Never again.

She glanced down at her watch before she left the toilets, knowing that her train was going to be leaving soon. She wasn't surprised to find no one returning to London. She was completely alone, and all she did was rest her head against the window and clutch her bag to her chest, nearly falling asleep.

The length of the ride didn't matter to her. It had seemed like an eternity the last time she had ridden it, when she had been traveling in the opposite direction, but this time it was over in what felt like a few short moments. All too quickly she was returning to London and returning to her empty home.

It was a small place. Her parents had paid for it in full, a present the year before, when she had decided exactly where she'd wanted to live. Caroline didn't even bother changing; she simply fell on top of her bed and began sobbing, falling asleep amidst her tears.

The alarm blaring was not a sound Caroline preferred to wake up to. She rolled over on her bed, struggling to actually register which direction the sound was coming from so that she could turn it off. When she finally found it, she very nearly fell back asleep, barely registering the fact that her alarm was still set for work despite being it being a holiday season.

She grumbled, pressing her palms against her face, letting the cold touch attempt to wake her up. She felt horrible, and she knew exactly why.

It was almost Christmas and her parents were dead.

Her only family was dead. She had no siblings. No aunts or uncles or grandparents. Now, there was just her.

Caroline Alice Attwater.

The orphaned woman at Christmas.

When Caroline finally managed to push herself standing, her first actions were to change. She had slept in the clothing she had returned in, and she couldn't remain in them for much longer. And she couldn't wear black, because black was a mourning color.

She was mourning her parents, most certainly, and she missed them terribly, but she couldn't wear black. She couldn't let people, even if she was planning on staying inside her home the entire holiday period, to see her sadness, to see that anything was wrong. It was the reason she hadn't been able to cry in the train station; she couldn't let people see her suffering.

Caroline spent the day avoiding her small Christmas tree. She watched television, drank tea, and slept. But she avoided the Christmas tree, because she had presents from her parents there. The last presents they would ever give her for the rest of her life.

She didn't actually know what she wanted to do. If anything, she wished she was able to see a friend, to go out drinking or just stay over at their house. But her friends had all gone home for Christmas, like the rest of London. Caroline Attwater had no one to be with.

On the news, something she had been avoiding previously, she saw that the Queen was staying in Buckingham Palace to prove everything was safe. Caroline had no idea exactly how many people were staying in London, how many people had risked it, but she knew they were a select few.

The few people brave enough to stay in London at Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Caroline decided to leave the house. She had been enclosed inside for three days, and even for her that was a long amount of time.

Her mother would have scolded her about it, and the thought almost made Caroline laugh.

The street was empty, most of the lights off. Caroline ducked her head and kept walking. She lived near the center of London, close enough to walk. The fact her family had been able to afford the house was a mystery in itself, but not one Caroline had ever bothered to look into.

After an undetermined amount of time, as all Caroline was paying attention to was the path she was taking so that she could walk back, she found herself on one of the many deserted shopping streets. Lights were still on, of course, and she could see one small stall that was completely open. Almost smiling to herself, Caroline took a step forward towards it when a group of people suddenly appeared in the middle of the street.

Instinctively, Caroline drew back, hiding around the corner, eyes wide. They had just appeared. Out of nowhere, the people had appeared.

And one was little. And red! People weren't little and red. Well, sure, some of them were little, but they weren't bright red and covered in spikes.

And people didn't appear out of nowhere.

There was one man, tall and in a suit and tie, that looked to be in the middle of speaking when he appeared, looking around them as though surprised at where they were. "Oh," he breathed, furrowing his brow.

"Now, spending money," an older man, not in as nice a suit as the tall one, spoke to the group. "I have a credit card in Earth currency if you want to buy trinkets, or stockings, or the local delicacy, which is known as beef. But don't stray too far, it could be dangerous. Any day now they start boxing."

If it was possible, Caroline's eyes widened even more. She was quite an accepting person naturally, almost the complete opposite of her parents. Old teachers had informed her that she had the eye of a scientist, analyzing what she saw and making connections, not applying any of her previous judgements when first looking at something.

These people, if they were people, were not from Earth. That wasn't a surprise, not after what had happened the past few years. Caroline knew, the entire world knew, that there were creatures from outer space out there, creatures that, for some reason, had a strange obsession with planet Earth.

The crowd of people she was presented with looked human, if being human was a qualification that could be applied to alien races. Even the red one, who was about the same height as Timothy, looked vaguely humanoid. Either the shape humans were was some type of base code for all alien races, or there were some remarkable evolutionary coincidences.

Caroline had never actually seen any of the aliens in person before. She had seen them on the news, seen the spaceships appearing in the skies, but she had never actually been in the exact same place as where the aliens had decided to land. This was the first time she was actually seeing creatures from another planet, and it was fascinating.

It was wonderful.

"Very good," the red creature squeaked.

"It should be full," the tall man frowned, still turning around in confusion. Caroline had the strong feeling he had actually been to Earth before. "It should be busy. Something's wrong."

There was a blonde with him, in some type of waitress or maid uniform. Something Caroline had seen in old fashioned dramas. "But it's beautiful," she breathed, looking in wonder at what she saw.

"Really?" the tall man turned to the blonde so that his back was to Caroline. "Do you think so?" he stood so that he could see what the blonde could see, frowning as though he didn't understand exactly what was special about it. "It's just a street. The pyramids are beautiful, and New Zealand."

"But it's a different planet." The blonde walked forward, slowly as though she was worried it wasn't real. For some reason, Caroline found herself grinning. "I'm standing on a different planet. There's concrete and shops." She spun to look at some of the stores, though granted most were closed down. "Alien shops. Real alien shops!" she pointed up towards the stars, the man looking up with her. "Look, no stars in the sky." She lowered her arm, sniffing before grinning. "And it smells. It stinks!" she laughed. "Oh this is amazing. Thank you!" she gave the tall man an excited hug, even lifting her feet off the ground.

"Yeah?" the man asked, seeming overjoyed at the fact the blonde was excited. "Come on then," he laced his fingers through her's, "let's have a look." They ran across the street to a stand, the one Caroline had been going towards. She stepped out slightly from where she'd been standing, all of the other aliens having moved further down the street.

"Hello there," the tall man practically leapt in front of the stand, the older man running it looking up from the papers he'd been organizing. "Sorry, obvious question, but where's everybody gone?"

The older man chuckled. "Oh ho, scared!"

The tall man nodded before leaning forward a second later. "Right. Yes. Scared of what?"

"Where've you been living?" Caroline would have been interested to learn the answer. "London at Christmas? Not safe, is it?"

The tall man frowned. "Why?"

"Well, it's them, up above," the older man pointed up, as though that was the exact direction the aliens were. "Look, Christmas before last we had that big bloody spaceship," he vaguely mimed out the shape of the ship, "everyone standing on a roof." He made the shape like a roof in the air. "And then last year," he pointed to the small red television beside him, which was showing a news report about previous Christmas attacks, "that Christmas Star electrocuting all over the place, draining the Thames." He pointed in the vague direction.

The blonde looked around her briefly, but not towards Caroline. "This place is amazing."

"And this year, Lord knows what," the older man explained. "So, everybody's scarpered. Gone to the country. All except me," he pointed at himself, "and Her Majesty." And a few other people, Caroline knew, at least her herself if no one else.

The older man stood as the television switched to a reporter. "Her Majesty the Queen has confirmed that she'll be staying in Buckingham Palace throughout the festive season to show the people of London, and the world, that there's nothing to fear."

"God bless her," he saluted. "We stand vigil."

"Well," the tall man shrugged, "between you and me, I think her Majesty's got it right. Far as I know, this year, nothing to worry about."

He, the blonde, and every other of the aliens he had arrived with, vanished in the same blue and white light they had appeared in.

Immediately, the older man could see Caroline, who had slowly been moving closer to the tall man and the blonde. "Then again," she shrugged, making him nod in agreement. "Perhaps there is something to worry about." The older man nodded, moving as though he was going to tap the television to ensure it was still there. "Happy Christmas."

"And you," he called as she walked away, deciding to return home.

Seeing aliens appear and vanish was more excitement then Caroline had wanted to experience on her short walk.

After warming up suitably, wrapping herself in a large blanket and clutching a cup of tea, Caroline made her way to where her Christmas tree was. It was a tradition in her family to open presents from family on Christmas Eve, with presents from Father Christmas and friends left until Christmas morning.

She sat on the ground, tucked her legs beneath her, and stared at the two boxes from her parents. They had always insisted in giving her separate presents, no matter what was happening. Her father's was wrapped much nicer, but both looked nice, both reminded her of childhood Christmas Eves.

Caroline decided to open her mother's present first. It was a small box, about the size of her palm, and wrapped in red and white stripped paper. Written in her mother's wonderfully messy handwriting was Love Mum and a small heart.

She took her time opening it, treasuring the last present her mother would ever give her while fighting tears that had decided to choose that exact moment to return. It was a jewelry box, something Caroline had never worn despite her mother's best efforts to the contrary.

Inside was a small ring, sitting in the middle of a bed of black velvet. It was simple, white, with what looked like flowers delicately painted on. Caroline extracted it carefully and slipped it onto her finger, smiling at the way it fit perfectly.

Her father's present was silver paper, with a red ribbon and bow. He had no note written on the outside, though it would have been in the immaculate handwriting that had first taught her to write. It was about the length of her hand from the edge of her palm to her fingertips.

Opening it revealed a small set of needles and thread, inside a wooden box engraved with her first name. Caroline gently ran her finger along the wood, tracing the pattern of her name. It was a beautiful gift, one Caroline knew she would use, even if her own sewing skills were terrible. One she would treasure for eternity.

She fell asleep right there, lying before her Christmas tree with her parents presents in her lap. Caroline Alice Attwater would have dared to say she felt happy.

"Hey dearie! It's Jen, though I should hope you'd be able to recognize my voice. Since you likely have failed to charge your phone again, I've had to call you on the home phone, whose number I actually forgot. But anyways. Just wanted to call to wish you a merry Christmas! Can't wait to see you again; it has been far too long already. See you soon; let's go out for drinks before we go back to work. I need to ensure you survived the alien attack! Call me soon! Love you!" There was a beep as the message that had woken Caroline up ended. Turning her head revealed that she had somehow managed to spill her tea through the night, though thankfully it had spilt in the opposite direction of any electronics.

It was slightly difficult for Caroline to navigate towards something she could use to clean the spill, as the spill was precisely where she needed to walk. After she finally managed to clean everything, Caroline returned to her position in front of the Christmas tree, a new cup of tea in hand. She had plans to be more careful with that cup, though knowing her she was fairly certain it would end up spilt despite all of her best efforts.

Before she'd even eaten anything or bothered to return Jen's call, Caroline opened the presents from her small collection of friends. The majority of them were from her work, as that was one of the few places Caroline spent her time outside of her home.

Jen's present was a collection of wine glasses, which had brought on a small smile. Another friend gave her a wine bottle. With her small collection of presents spread out on the floor around her on Christmas day, Caroline would have dared to say she felt happy.

She spent the day reading one of the books she'd received, enjoying how she was spending Christmas. She didn't watch the news, didn't see that a gigantic model of the Titanic had nearly crashed into Buckingham Palace. For all Caroline knew, nothing had happened.

Caroline barely remembered the aliens she had seen the night before.

After one of the few days Caroline hadn't cried about the loss of her parents, she decided to award herself with a long walk. Despite having seen a collection of aliens the night before when she'd dared to step outside, Caroline decided to risk it once again.

She wasn't certain what exactly had suddenly filled her with the desire to walk around the middle of the night through abandoned London, but perhaps it was the fact that it was almost completely empty that made her want to walk. She enjoyed being alone. It was why she stayed in her home for of the majority of the day.

Being around people was…difficult for Caroline. She was surprised she'd been able to survive as long as she had with a group of friends or a life near the city. Living in a small village as a child had been a blessing, but she had adapted to a city. She had even found a job that she was actually able to do.

The moment that Caroline even took a step outside she watched a few small snowflakes begin to fall, an instant smile growing on her face. She turned on her heel and hunted down the warmer clothing that she kept shoved to the very back of one of her closets, wrapping herself up suitably before venturing outside again.

As she walked it began to snow harder, until the ground around her feet was covered in white. Caroline enjoyed the snow as she walked, this time not actually paying attention to where she was going, which was something she would likely regret later. But even as she reveled in it, let it dust her shoulders and hat, there were shivers up Caroline's spine, and they weren't related to the cold.

She ended up near a river, though she did not actually know which one, or actually how long it had taken her to get there. There seemed to be a small stretch of land that was strangely uninhabited, and Caroline would have laughed at the sight in the middle of a large city had her gaze not fallen upon a large blue box.

Even from the distance she was looking at it, Caroline would have matched it to an image of an old fashioned police telephone box, like the ones she had seen in textbooks as a child. It would have been strange to see it on the streets of London, and seeing it on the empty land was even stranger. It looked alone, simple standing in the middle of the snow covered field, no signs anywhere how exactly it had gotten there.

The strip of land was far enough away that Caroline couldn't hear what was being said when two people somehow managed to reach that area, seeming to have emerged from the darkness themselves. They were two men, one much shorter than the other. When the taller man stopped at turned to face the city, Caroline knew she couldn't see his face. She knew there was no logical way she should have been able to know in any way who he was, not from that distance.

But she knew she had seen him. Just seeing his figure, silhouetted by darkness and fallen snow, and Caroline could place him. He was one of the aliens.

She had forgotten almost completely about what she had seen the night before, but the memories of the tall man that had appeared and vanished in blue light had returned as she stared at the man that had to be him. She had no idea how she was so certain, but she was. It was him. There was no question about it.

The two men had some sort of conversation, looking up at the stars, before moving to stand beside the blue box. They passed something between each other, and then the shorter man danced away, waving his hand in the air as though it held some type of prize. The tall man watched him before stepping inside the box, both him and the box fading away a moment later.

Caroline took a step backwards at that, blinking a few times to be certain what she had seen had actually happened. The man, the alien she had seen on Christmas Eve, had just stepped inside an old fashioned police telephone box and vanished.

As though the box was some type of ship, but what ship could vanish and reappear? And what ship would take the form of a police telephone box, which had never seemed particularly large anyways? For that matter, why did the alien disappear in blue light the first time, only to vanish into a box this time? Was that where the other people had gone, in that box? Was it bigger on the inside?

Caroline's mind reeled with an attempt to come up with some way to understand what she had just witnessed. The only way she realized exactly how long she had been standing there was when she realized she had lost feeling in quite a few places. Immediately she turned and rushed back to the main, lit, section of the city, finding a street she recognized and managing to get home.

Once she walked inside, and had warmed herself, she noticed a small light blinking on her answering machine. She had forgotten, again, to charge her phone, though she had carried it with her on her walk for some odd reason.

"Oh my god Caroline Attwater pick up your phone!" the voice needed no introduction; it was Emmitt, Jen's then boyfriend, who had become Caroline's friend as well. He was one of the few that did not work at the same place. "I need to know you're safe after what happened! Please tell me you haven't died or something; I would kill you!" he sighed. "Call me back the moment you hear this, Caroline, or I swear I will get a plane home from America tonight to make certain you're still alive."

Caroline frowned when the message ended. There were others, from any friend that knew she had been staying in London for the holidays. And they all wanted her to call them, to be certain she was okay. Slowly, almost without realizing it, Caroline turned to her small television and turned it to the news, eyes widening when she saw the report about a ship nearly crashing into Buckingham Palace.

A ship from the skies, named Titanic. No doubt fated for doom.

No one had been hurt on Earth, but something shifted inside of her at the report, as though she somehow knew someone had been hurt, so many people had. There was no way she could know that though; she hadn't even known it had happened originally.

Once Caroline actually understood what had happened in London that day, she sat down and began to call everyone back to inform them that she was okay, that nothing had happened, that no one had actually been hurt in the city. Each call took a few minutes, as they tended to become conversations of what had happened during the holidays.

She was finished quite late into the night; she had severely underestimated how many friends had called her. She didn't have that many friends, but every single one had called her, and some were quite talkative. She tended to be a quiet person, which meant people who loved to talk tended to gravitate to her.

Caroline fell backwards where she was sitting once she was finished, moving to rub her eyes when she realized she had actually hit her head quite strongly on the ground. "Ow…" she groaned, sitting up again to rub it. She had hit her head there a few days before she'd left for her parents funeral, and she'd somehow managed to hit it in precisely the same spot.

Caroline managed to get to her actual bed and fall asleep, somehow managing it while her head still ached slightly. Her dreams were filled with the tall man and his ability to vanish into nothingness, the aliens that she had encountered after somehow managing to avoid every other threat. And then there was a blonde woman, different than the one that had been with the man originally, but she and the man never appeared at the same time in her dream.

She'd been with her parents the previous Christmases, and been at home the times when a threat had actually come to London. The metal men a few years ago had been the most terrifying, but she hadn't been in London then either; her mother had been sick. She had somehow managed to avoid any of the threats.

Somehow, almost miraculously, Caroline Alice Attwater had avoided every single alien threat until the tall man that could vanish had appeared in a street in the middle of abandoned London. At Christmas.

A/N: Hello again! Caroline has been so enjoyable to write, so I hope she'll be enjoyable to read. Her relationship with the Doctor, and her reactions, are very interesting to work through. I will say now, even if this story will be following the show, Donna will still be a companion of the Doctor. But Caroline will be involved.

I claim no ownership over anything you recognize, and welcome any critique or comments you have :)

For reference, I picture Caroline to look like Felicity Jones.