Those Times

Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.

*A/N* Nothing naughty about the mixer affair, all I had in mind really was the device he'd built in Amy's Choice (but well River doesn't know that, does she?)
I just couldn't resist to add that drop of sadness at the end - a Doctor Who story written by me would be sorta incomplete without it. I wish it was longer, I just can't seem to expand it in the right places… well, I have faith in your imagination there ;)
It's not all that Christmas-y(time machine, remember?), but it's a little domestic fluffy something and I really hope you like it (go check out my other stories "Drops of Jupiter" and "Here's to You" if you are in need of more fluff - they're all happy and sweet).

Special thanks to LetMeWalkTheEarthWithYou who gave this a read beforehand.

Aaaaanyways, as I said, I hope you'll enjoy it and a happy third Advent to you lot!

"How many eggs again?"

"Dunno, but did you know the hens on Mephisto all lay eggs that-"

"Just check the recipe, sweetie, would you?"

Given that he was such a genius, it took him a surprisingly long time to look up the number of eggs.

The TARDIS hummed amusedly in the back of her head. She seemed to find their little domestic escapade highly entertaining.

"Three eggs!" he exclaimed triumphantly, sounding like he'd calculated pi down to the last number instead of having successfully read out from a sheet of paper.

"Great, thanks," she muttered, wondering not for the first time who had come up with the stupid idea of baking Christmas cookies. Just because he'd picked her up on Christmas Eve… they were in a time machine, they could have any day of the year the bloody well wanted.

"Could you hand me the mixer?"

"Er," he stuttered. "I might have used that for… alternative use, I'll find it, though. I hope. Gimme a minute."

And he was gone, leaving her to wonder what the hell he'd done to the poor thing. Or whether anything in his box ever was in its place.

He returned ten minutes later with the mixer still looking rather intact. She couldn't help to be impressed he'd found such a little thing in all the mess he'd made, and decided not to ask what he'd been doing with it in the first place.

"Thank you." She snatched it from his fingers before he could do something stupid with it.

"Something the matter?" he asked happily while he weighed the last ingredients (probably adding two extra spoons of sugar when she wasn't looking).

"No. 'cause not, I'm fine, you know me. I'm always fine. Why?"

"You seem a bit grumpy."

"I'm not," she bit back grumpily and shot the eggs, that just would not get "fluffy" as they should according to the recipe, an angry glare.

Grinning, he tapped a finger lightly on her nose. "Cheer up, River, it's Christmas."

"I don't particularly like Christmas and-" she broke off when he suddenly started to laugh, "what?"

"You've got something on your nose."

"I can't imagine where that came from," she muttered and rubbed her nose, nodding at his fingers that were full of chocolate and sugar.

"Me neither," he replied, hiding his hands behind his back. Gosh, he was such a bad liar.

She avenged herself with a smear of half-finished cookie over his cheek.

"Oi, stop it," he squealed, taking a few steps back and raising his hands in mock self-defence.

"Oh, I barely got started," River gave back, a malicious smile on her face. Now this was more like her idea of fun.

"Really?" A reckless spark lit up in his green eyes. He grabbed the spoon they had used for the liquid chocolate.

The TARDIS enjoyed the fencing match that followed almost as much as River did. She won, of course, smearing jam all over his face. Though he got one over her again with a well-aimed shot of chocolate in her hair.

She grabbed a handful of sugar behind her back and, distracting him with a kiss (that always worked), dropped it in his shirt. The sound he made at that had her in fits of laughter shaking her so badly she was completely defenceless against his next attack.

.

In retrospective, she couldn't quite remember who had first grabbed the half-emptied bag of flour or how exactly they had ended up on the floor, covered in white, coughing and laughing.

They lay on their back next to each other for a long while, giggling and gasping for air.

"You're such an idiot," she noted tenderly.

"You started," he muttered, pushing her white-powdered curls out of her face.

"Definitely not." Smiling at the sight of her husband, with chalky white hair and flour sticking to his eyelashes, she pulled him closer and kissed him.

She couldn't say how long it had taken them to actually finish the cookies in the end. Or when exactly they had proceeded to more adult ways to spend a winter night.

It was easy, after all, to lose track of time in the TARDIS every now and then.

They sat on the big couch in the library with two steaming cups of tea with a few very clearly handmade cookies. Her hair was still damp from a long hot shower (it had taken her ages to get rid of the chocolate).

The Doctor was reading in an incredibly boring book, reading out passages to her from time to time.

"Actually, I think I'll give some cookies to the guards tomorrow, just to see their faces," she declared suddenly, grinning.

"If there are any left until then," he answered and grabbed another one. "They are pretty good."

"Considering that you were involved in the making, they are haute cuisine, sweetie."

She got a soft whack with the book and a long kiss for that.

That was them all the way, small moments of peace in between the chaos. Fighting hostile creatures in their free time, held at gunpoint on every second date, bantering and fighting, pillow fights on their honeymoon and wreaking havoc wherever they went.

And she wouldn't have it any other way.

-"Time can be re-written!"

-"Not those times, not one line, don't you dare."

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