A/N: I'm posting this today in order to wish the utterly gorgeous Serenity's Lady a very Happy Birthday!

A/N2: it really helps if you are aware that this time last year, David Tennant was playing Richard II on the London stage.

Christmas Angel

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Oh my gawd! If this was the newest way to travel, they could keep it. She had been warned about the brain-sized headache that battled with the inside of her skull and threatened to break out of it, but she was sure she could easily beat it.

After staggering forward for a few seconds, Donna stood up straight, blinked and looked about her. Well, this was new, she considered. Everything looked really ornate. In fact the room was full of heavily carved wood and embroidered tapestries intertwined with golden threads. But that wasn't the most surprising thing in the room. No, that privilege went to the slim man before her, handsomely encased in a long brocade tunic. Not only was his hair unusual in that it flowed down far passed his shoulders and down towards his rather pert bottom - not that she was looking, but facts are facts – but on top of those flowing auburn locks was a gold crown. A dead giveaway if ever there was one.

The man had been down on his hands and knees in prayer, and he immediately gasped out, "An angel!"

"Where?" Donna wondered, swirling around to look behind her. Inevitably there was no such sign of one; which rather left the finger pointing at her. "Do you mean me?" she asked incredulously. "Because I assure you, I am no such thing."

Alas, the richly dressed man seemed to have not heard her; or didn't want to hear her, she couldn't quite be sure. "Why is an angel visiting my chambers?" he questioned, clearly in awe.

Oh, this could be used to her advantage, she thought. It's not every day a decent looking posh bloke looks upon you with such admiration. "I was just passing so I thought I'd pop by," she heard herself lamely explain. Cringing, she quickly vowed to say something a little better. Any moment now, once she had thought of it. "So erm… Do you come here often?"

"This is my place of sleep," the man warily replied. His expression spoke of disappointment. "Do you have a message for me from the angelic host?"

"I don't know. Do I?" Donna retorted before she could stop herself.

Oh gawd! Now she'd gone and done it. Any moment now he'd cotton on that she was not the being he obviously thought she was, and then have her arrested, banged up in a tower, or any number of possible punishments. It was certainly clear to her now that this was a medieval setting and he was a nobleman of notable power.

"Yes!" she quickly tacked on. "Yes, I do. It's a very complicated life, all this being an angel. I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on." She then nervously gulped. Not the wisest of things to say in a century long gone by. They were executing people that way left, right and centre. That is, when they weren't torturing them with hot tongs; and not of the hair curling variety.

"Oh wondrous angel with hair so lustrous, pray tell me what message you bring," the man requested; not surprisingly, in the circumstances.

"You like the hair?" she idly pondered, lifting up a strand to inspect in her confusion. He must be nuts like the Doctor, because no one else ever said anything nice about her hair. Seriously, the Martian had a fetish about ginger hair; she'd swear black to blue that he did.

And that's when she took a proper look at this authoritative man now stood before her, dressed like a king. Okay, he probably WAS an actual king. That possibility was becoming increasingly believable. The weird thing, out of all the weird things that happened to her on a regular, day to day basis, was that the man before her struck an incredibly close resemblance to her travelling companion and best friend. When she got back home she'd ask him about how much he could have shared some of his genetic material with these people; and not in the "do you fancy one of my sandwiches" sort of way.

"It is beautiful," the man responded; upping his chances of being one of the Doctor's offspring by a notch or two, in her mind.

"Thanks," she bashfully acknowledged. Oh, this was going to be shaming when she got back home if she wasn't careful. "But enough about me. Tell me, sweetheart; what can I do for you?" Donna immediately wanted to take the offer back, since it opened her up to all sorts of kinky requests; ones she had no intention of carrying out.

Fortunately the man was not thinking along such lines. Not in the slightest. "I have the Lord's blessing this Christmas morn' that I am His representative on Earth."

"Hang on, I've heard that sort of thing before," Donna mused, trying to reason it out from dredged up memories of history lessons in school, long ago. "It's the Divine Right of Kings, isn't it?" she asked triumphantly. "You think that whatever you do is okay because God appointed you. Well it ain't the case, mate! So you'd better get your act together otherwise the people will have you out on your earhole."

The man looked most affronted. "I am Richard the Second, King of England," he imperially stated, drawing himself up to his full haughty stature.

"The pretty king," Donna noted to herself; pleased that she finally had him pegged in the list of kings and queens within her head. And then she remembered that this one had a mysterious, unsavoury end; so she frowned in sympathy. "You really got it wrong. I mean, all your subjects thought you were trying way too hard with the kingship stuff, and Wat Tyler became some sort of martyr for the common man after the Peasants Revolt. History basically has you down as some sort of spoilt brat."

There was an indignant splutter from the king.

So she stepped forward and placed a kind hand upon his sleeve. "Oh my, that is nice!" she commented to herself as she felt the richness of the cloth beneath her fingertips, and then shook herself to get rid of the thought. "Back to the point, thanks to Shakespeare, we know you didn't mean some it, living in your ivory tower like you do. But you have got to stop all the arresting and executing people for trifling and jumped up accusations; you really have. Otherwise your crown will be taken away from you."

"Who would dare do such a thing?" he demanded to know.

"Honestly, you have no idea? There are loads of possible lords who would stop your tyranny at the drop of a hat. Or is it a crown? I can never remember." He watched the confusion creep across her face again as she tried to recall a documentary she had watched once on the telly. "Anyway, just take it as read that you aren't making yourself liked."

"I do not need to be liked by my subjects; only feared," Richard stated.

"Keep thinking that way, mate, and you'll end up chained in a dungeon," she retorted. "Listen, do yourself a favour and tone down the godlike behaviour. You're a decent looking bloke. Good enough to be a film star if you put your mind to it; so consider a change of career."

"Your words do not make sense to me," he confessed; although he certainly didn't like the threat of the chains or the dungeon, let alone the two combined. "I have not understood a great deal of what you have said since you emerged from the fireplace."

"I came out of the fireplace?" she wondered, turning to regard the ornate chimney behind her. "Who'd have thought I'd pull off a Harry Potter. Wait till the Doctor hears about this one!" she then boasted. "Was there a puff of green smoke?" she then eagerly asked Richard.

"No," he answered in some confusion. "You merely appeared by stepping out of it."

"Still, you've got to be impressed, haven't you," she considered, feeling rather chuffed with herself.

Richard then asked her a question that brought her up short. "Pray tell me; what is your name, oh precious angel?"

"I'm Donna," she introduced herself, sticking out a hand for him to shake. "Pleased to meet you, Richard."

He didn't shake her hand, much to her surprise. Instead he brought the back of her hand reverently up to his lips, and he pressed a kiss on the soft skin there. "Angel Donna, blessed messenger of God," Richard murmured.

"Woah! Turn the flirting down a notch or two, history boy," she blustered in embarrassment at his turn of phrasing. "You'll turn my head at this rate, and we can't have that. There's not room for two enormous egos in the TARDIS."

"What is the TARDIS?" Richard inevitably asked.

"It's how I travel about. Just a special carriage," she supplied offhandly, hoping he wouldn't ask anything further about it. "We were playing about with this vortex manipulator thing…" She then pointed at a large flat leather bangle wrapped tightly around her wrist. "…and suddenly I ended up here. Of course I didn't believe him when he said I'd end up in the distant past if I wasn't careful. I mean, he babbles on about everything so much that I never know whether to believe him or not. All that 'I'm a Time Lord' nonsense he spouts is half made up at the best of times, so I decided to test it out and prove him wrong, like you do. So here I am, doing that, and looking a right nutter. Are you okay, Richard? You don't look well at all."

"I am fine if a little confused by your strange speech, Angel Donna," Richard responded. "I am not a dim-witted man but all I understood within all that was the fact you mentioned the Lord."

"I did," she agreed, giving him a mischievous grin. "But don't let him know I called him that otherwise I'll never hear the end of it." A sudden thought struck her. "What year is this, Richard?"

"It is the year of our Lord, 1398, Angel Donna."

"Oh," she sadly gasped, remembering that this was his last Christmas as king. "In that case, do you mind if I do this?" Without waiting, she took hold of his head and pressed their lips together in a tender kiss. Well, she couldn't go back empty handed, as it were, could she? Breaking away from him, she said, "Good luck, love. Use that mouth of yours for good because you've got a powerful kiss there. Phew! You could almost call it a secret weapon." Lifting up a hand to place a finger on the device on her wrist, she gleefully informed him, "Step back, this might be dangerous; but hopefully it'll be spectacular. Just you wait until I tell the Doctor I snogged the King of England! That definitely trumps some royal's French tart, don't you think? Bye!"

In the next second she was gone and Richard was back to being on his own within his bedchamber. Immediately he fell onto his knees in prayer, thanking God for his own personal Christmas miracle by sending a visitation from Angel Donna. He vowed he would commission a commemorative piece of artwork, but alas he would never get the chance to see the work completed.

As for Donna, she was grinning from ear to ear when she reappeared in front of the Doctor. "Guess who I just snogged. Only the king of flipping England!" she crowed in triumph. "And not just any old king, but the best looking one. Richard II."

"Donna!" he whined in jealous irritation. "It isn't a competition. You were supposed to merely pop in and then pop back out again."

"And that's exactly what I did, Time boy," she huffed. "You're just jealous that I locked lips with a bona fide royal instead of one merely by association. One up to me!" She added an imaginary point to the air with a wet digit. "By the way, do you have any relatives back in the fourteenth century, as there was an uncanny resemblance between you and Richard?"

A broad and extremely smug grin broke out across his face. "That implies you think I am handsome."

"It does not!" she indignantly denied. "I merely said you look alike."

"And you also stated that Richard II is the best looking king," he reminded her in triumph, leaning forward to press home his point. "Ergo, you think I'm handsome, Donna Noble."

"Yeah yeah, keep thinking that, Martian," she repudiated. Well, she couldn't have him going around thinking that she considered him attractive or anything remotely like that. It'd go straight to his head, and it was big enough as it was without her adding to it. Plus there was that whole business with Martha, so let's forget it was even mentioned it, eh? "Now that I've buzzed a distant royal, is there anything else we can do with your friend's device?"

"Hmm. Let's go and have a cup of tea while we decide," the Doctor suggested.

"Wizard idea," she happily agreed, and then threw him a challenging glance that he couldn't resist. "Last one there is a wuss!"

Without much provocation, the pair of them raced down the corridor at a fast rate of knots in competitive joy.