It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Christmas At The Little Hodcombe Dig

It was Christmas in Little Hodcombe. The archaeological team excavating the sight where a church had stood had taken the day off. What was left of the team anyway? Most of them had taken the week off to visit their families. It wasn't a big team. Bernice Summerfield, Erin Spencer, River Song and Jayne Eastick. The latter was very much amateur but nonetheless had a gift in the field. Then there were a handful of students, who had all gone home for a week or so, and a handful of UNIT soldiers, just in case. The UNIT troops were largely a precaution and after much negotiation with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart they had been allowed to go home over Christmas. And so the four of them were left alone at basecamp.

Dinnertime conversation was lively and somewhat argumentative.

"As much as I admire your work Erin. I have to disagree. King Arthur is a fine man, and a very good King. And as for Beowulf..." said Doctor River Song.

"Oh, I agree. Arthur is a great bloke but that doesn't discredit Erin's paper," Jayne said.

"Oh, it doesn't?" Benny said.

"No, it doesn't. The paper is about Arthur's representation in the surviving texts. And in those he comes across as a bit of a weenie."

"A weenie? Is that a proper academic term Jayne?" Benny said.

"Shut up. And your attack on my vernacular is further proof of the substance of my argument."

"I told you she was good," Erin said leaning into Jaynes more solid frame.

Jayne draped her arm unimposingly around Erin's waist in response. They were between courses by now and Benny wordlessly cleared the table and put the pudding on. It was one Jayne's grandmother, sister and cousin had made and sent over.

"Where is The Doctor?" River said, as if the thought were occurring to her for the first time.

"Too many Archaeologists for his liking," was Jaynes reply.

River laughed.

"That'd be right," Benny said taking her seat again.

Erin didn't quite follow. Jayne explained.

"Though he adores us individually he is a bit... shall we say unappreciative of our field."

"What's that got to do with having Christmas dinner?"

"Darling, what have we been talking about all day?"

"Well, we had the Sutton Hoo debate. Then we discussed my new paper... Then River's new paper... Then we talked about your recent Viking adventure and tried to work out exactly how we could publish about your little discovery and how and where we could find evidence to back it up... then we talked about Benny's next paper... yes, I see your point."

Then, as if to prove they could hold a discussion about something other than Archaeology River changed the subject.

"So, this new face of The Doctor's. What do we all think?"

"I like it," Benny said, "Taller than my usual one so eye contact is less of an issue. The accent's nice."

"Yea, the accent is nice, reminds me of my great granny. Wat are the other faces like?" Jayne said.

River, by way of answer handed over the photos she carried of each of The Doctor's faces.

"Hang on," Jayne said indicating the earth exile era Doctor, "I've met this one."

"Let me guess, Seventies?" River said.

"Well, yea. I was in a play in London. The Doctor had left me there because he didn't want to run into himself. So he came back at the end of the run to pick me up. The Brigadier and this Doctor came to see it."

They discussed the Doctor and his various faces for a while until Benny went to bring out the pudding.

"Don't swallow any of the thruppence coins. They're a hassle to replace," Jayne said when Benny set the pudding on the table and began serving it.