Ghost of Christmas Past (short story)

 was the eighth short story in Twelve Doctors of Christmas, featuring the Eighth Doctor.

Summary
The Doctor's TARDIS is caught in a bout of temporal turbulence, caused by a skirmish between the Temporal Powers. The TARDIS becomes caught between two opposing timelines, and the Doctor slips the TARDIS out of the vortex and back into real time. The Doctor finds himself in a time loop orbiting Earth on Christmas Eve, 2016. After a strange knocking sound on the TARDIS door, the Doctor investigates mysterious noises around the ship. He eventually finds a hypercube sent by Susan, which had taken centuries to get to him. Susan tells him of her accomplishments, and the birth of her son, Alex. The Doctor realises that the TARDIS had chosen to stay in the time loop so that the Doctor could receive the message. The message fills the Doctor with hope, in such a dark time of his life. He then dematerialises the TARDIS, heading towards another adventure.

Characters

 * Eighth Doctor
 * Susan Foreman

Continuity

 * A hypercube knocks on the TARDIS door. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
 * The Doctor remembers seeing Susan again. (AUDIO: An Earthly Child, Relative Dimensions, To the Death)
 * Susan tells the Doctor that she and David Campbell have had a child called Alex Campbell. (AUDIO: An Earthly Child)