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Missy had a habit of starting new hobbies and then quickly abandoning them. So when she told the Doctor she wanted to have a go at knitting, he expected that this too would be short-lived.
At first, he was wary of giving her knitting needles. Missy plus anything even remotely sharp was asking for trouble. But she promised, so sincerely and so many times, that she wouldn’t use them to murder him, or Bill, or even his annoying egg-like friend Nardole, that he eventually gave in.
And true to her word, she didn’t stab anyone. Only herself, as she began to learn. The Doctor visited her most evenings, and they would sit in the vault together, her following YouTube videos and beginner patterns, and him reading or listening to music or fixing something and trying to hide his grins whenever she hissed in pain and impatiently called her needles motherfuckers for the hundreth time.
She improved fast though, making granny squares, scarves, socks – although the Doctor rarely saw her projects after she’d finished them. He assumed she just liked the process of making them, and it kept her occupied, so he let her get on with it, glad she seemed to have found something that was holding her interest for longer.
As autumn drifted onwards, Missy sent the Doctor out with a shopping list of large amounts of very specific yarn colours. Again, he didn’t really question what for, noticing only that she appeared to be progressing to working on bigger and more detailed things. As usual, she didn’t seem interested in telling him what they were going to be, and he didn’t feel the need to ask, as long as she was enjoying it. He wasn’t so sure about that one evening in late November though, when he came back from making them both a cup of tea just in time to see Missy suddenly and violently hurl whatever she was knitting across the room, with a screech like an angry cat that made the Doctor jump out of his skin.
“What? What is it? Are you okay?”
Missy buried her head in her hands. “I missed a bloody stitch! Ten sodding rows back and I didn’t notice til now! Ugh! It’s ruined!”
The Doctor blinked. “Just the one stitch? Oh come now Missy, I’m sure that’s not the end of the world! I doubt anyone would even notice!”
He was trying to be encouraging, but Missy lowered her hands to glare at him with such ferocity over the top of her fingers that he physically recoiled.
“It. Needs. To. Be. PERFECT!” she snarled, and the Doctor, wisely, didn’t dare to say another word about it.
After that episode, she stopped knitting during their evenings together, and he concluded that this craft had joined all the others that she’d given up on or grown bored of. Ah well, he thought, at least it had kept her busy for a while. She’d come up with something new she wanted to try before long.
Christmas Day soon rolled around, and the Doctor approached the vault with a bag full of mince pies and bottles of mulled wine. Missy had never shown the slightest interest in celebrating Christmas, but over the last few years the 25th of December had developed into an evening of guaranteed friendly reminiscence that they both looked forward to.
Missy was waiting for him as he opened the door. He went to shut it behind him, but ended up doing a double take at what she was wearing.
As usual, she had on her high-heeled boots and favourite purple skirt, but her jacket had been replaced by an exquisitely knitted Christmas jumper. In an identical violet, it was decorated with rows of silver stars, snowflakes, crimson Santa hats, Christmas puddings, and emerald holly and ivy leaves. In the centre, a deep blue, snow-topped TARDIS took pride of place, with mistletoe above its doors and words that he recognised as being in Missy’s own handwriting woven in to circle it.
“‘All I want for Christmas...’” he read out loud from above the woollen police box, and then looked down to the last three words below it. “‘...is Doctor Who.’”
He couldn’t help but smile. Missy called him Doctor Who at least once a day, except when she could tell something else was already annoying him, in which case she did it ten times more. But he didn’t really mind, and secretly he’d started to find it quite endearing.
“This is why you wanted to learn to knit?” he asked. She nodded, and brought out a similarly purple garment from where she had been concealing it behind her back.
“And to make a matching one for you.”
The Doctor unfolded it and held it up, his smile widening. It was almost exactly the same as the one she was wearing, with only two differences. Somehow, she’d managed to work his handwriting into it this time, and one word had been changed.
“‘All I want for Christmas...’” he read again, as affection filled his hearts. “‘...is Missy Who?’”
He laughed, remembering that moment that felt like so long ago now, when she’d revealed her true identity to him. Who’s Missy?! For several seconds, he didn’t know what else to say. All the effort, all the detail, learning something entirely new, to make this for him. It was one of the most unique, thoughtful gifts he had ever received.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it. It’s beautiful,” he said, looking right into her eyes so she knew he meant it. “Perfect,” he added, suddenly remembering how much it had upset her when she’d missed a stitch. She smiled too then, and he took off the jacket he was wearing to replace it with the jumper. It was silky soft and exactly the right size.
He looked down at it admiringly, touched the carefully woven mistletoe over the TARDIS doors, and then before he could change his mind he leant down and pressed a short, soft kiss to her lips. He wasn’t really a fan of physical contact at all in this regeneration, but Missy’s arms came up around him and his instinctively wrapped around her too. And as Doctor Who embraced his oldest, dearest friend, in their matching handmade jumpers, he felt very deeply, and very appropriately for Christmas, at peace.