Chapter 4: The Image of Him

It was another two months. How fast did the year fly! It was coming back to winter, and even this universe's increased temperatures were returning slowly to normal. Not much of a chance for a white Christmas in London, but there never was. It was getting cold enough to wear a winter jacket, and the rain rarely relented.

Rose went to her parents every Wednesday when she didn't have a gig. She didn't know why she chose Wednesdays, as though to give a day's buffer, as if that would even farther reduce their chances of crossing each other's paths. It was weird that was going consistently to spend Friday nights with her parents. Weird to think he knew her father better than she did, that he knew Tommy better than she did. It made her oddly resentful whenever Pete or Jackie referenced the Doctor in some anecdote about his visits.

After dinner Pete would drive her home or have the chauffeur do it if he had too much wine, but all in all she grew to enjoy those evenings with her family. It took the edge off of her loneliness and venom. Made her remember who she used to be, even if she'd never become that person again. Gave her some order and something to look forward to.

Now she was strolling through a busy London street at night, with her breath misting in front of her. She had the hood of her jacket up against the rain. A man up on a ladder was setting the last of the Christmas lights on this street. The rest of the street was covered in multi-colored lights and the trees had bright white lights in them looking like sparkling icicles.

Christmas shopping. She hadn't bothered with the holidays in the last three years. It was enough to try and keep track of jumping through time/space in the dimension cannon, let alone keep track of how much time was passing in her own adoptive world.

That's when she saw him. The Doctor. Who else?

He was leaving a store with a small paper bag, the ones with the little handles and the rice paper sticking out of it. Like a bag you'd carry presents in. He turned back and waved at someone inside, and his face is what stuck with her.

He looked… happy. His smile was genuine. He was distracted from all worry at the moment at the aftermath of a good laugh.

Then he looked left and right and jogged across the street. A man was waiting there, a man about the same physical age as him, and they exchanged some casual words and walked off. A friend. He stopped walking, and instinct made Rose duck between the two buildings she was standing beside. He looked around behind him, perplexed, before continuing down the street at the urging of his friend. She couldn't explain why she hid. Maybe it was the years spent on the TARDIS, where everything could be both beautiful or deadly and very often both at the same time.

.

Two more weeks passed. Christmas was just around the corner. In a way this was the first Christmas of the rest of her life. She wondered vaguely if something terrible was going to happen this Christmas, as it had a tendency to in the other world. But in earnest she could only wonder at it vaguely because her entire last two weeks were spent almost exclusively thinking about what she had seen that night. The Doctor looking happy. Doing Christmas shopping downtown with a friend.

She was lying diagonally on her bed again, in her pajamas, having not even bothered to get dressed today. Her feet still on the floor and the light of the room turned off. Late afternoon dimness drowned the space, but she couldn't care enough to get up and turn on the light or change out of her nightie.

His smile, earnest with that edge of sadness as he sometimes had. But a smile nonetheless. He looked carefree. He looked happy. He looked like he was moving on.

It bothered her every second of every day since.

How could he move on!?

The thought tormented her constantly. Did he not love her anymore? She did specifically made him promise they'll keep apart until "she sorts all this out" and it's been five months. What did she expect him to do? Sit and cry? He had to eventually arrive at the logical conclusion that she didn't love him anymore, which was nonesense, in a way. She loved The Doctor. She wasn't sure where he stood in all that.

But to just move on? Wasn't he a bit torn up about it? Did the other Doctor forget her that easily? How could he claim to love her and then just jaunt down the street, laughing with a friend? How?

On the other hand, what did she expect him to do? Pine and waste away for her? Ignore her expressed wish and come see her? Would that have helped or made things worse?

"The last three months were brilliant." He had said. How could he say that? The last five months were a blur of depression and anger, and if she wasn't feeling those then she was in this numb, apathetic state which still permeated a good chunk of her waking hours. When's the last time she had honestly laughed? Or hung out with friends?

Of course this reminded her that she didn't have any. That lunch with the Doctor and Janica (not that she would call her a friend) was the first social outing she had done in the last three, almost four years. Jumping from universe to universe, finding UNIT or Torchwood in each one and working working working… All to get back to the Doctor.

And in a flash, she was back here, locked away from him forever. Back to square one.

Except that he was here. But he wasn't. It wasn't him. It wasn't the man who left her, but she was angry at him as though he was.

Thank goodness it wasn't a woman he was strolling with. She didn't know how she would have taken it. Told him to leave her alone but the thought of him with a woman was enough to anger and frustrated her. So unfair to him.

He had such a capacity for love, maybe he was moving on.

"The last three months had been brilliant." He had said.

How could they have been?

She couldn't even begin to guess. He was working at the library out on the outskirts of London. Where did he live? He went to visit her parents once a week. Why? She knew nothing about him. Knew him so well, and yet suddenly not at all.

Who was this Doctor who made regular, timely visits to the nearest thing he had to family? Who was this Doctor who refused a job because he wanted peace?

She was determined to call him.

But without fail every time she picked up the phone she hesitated. It was too early in the day, it was too late at night, she wasn't feeling up to it, she was feeling too angry and would just yell at him, she was just out of the shower and forgot by the time she had dried, she just stepped out of the house and made a mental note to call the moment she got back in then forgot.

Rinse, repeat.

Until it was two days to Christmas and it was morning and the doorbell rang. No one ever visited her, so she was neither disappointed nor surprised when it was the postman with a registered letter for her. She often got invites and suchlike through registered mail.

This time, it was a Christmas card. Who sends a card through registered mail? It had to be a card due to its proportions and the fact that envelop was bright holiday red. There was no return address.

She pried it open clumsily, standing in the living room in her long flannel pajamas. The card was handmade, folded card stock. The image on the front took Rose's breath away. A magnificently rendered pencil sketch of an alien landscape. It took a second and she recognized it as the planet Astokis, where the Doctor and her had visited. She was in the drawing, though he wasn't. The rocky terrain surrounded her, the waterfalls that took years to reach from the top of the cliffs to where they had stood, and by then the waterfall became a multi-colored veil of steam and gas and clouds… In the image, as in her memory, she stood before them with her arms up, just delighting in the sights before her. Her back was to the proverbial camera. She remembered that day; It was amazing. They had dinner at the restaurant at the end of the universe. It was made as an homage to the one from the book, which didn't even exist in this alternate universe. Well, there was only one person in this world who this beautiful card could be from. It was hand drawn, pencil on cardstock. Almost nervously, she opened it.

She couldn't imagine what he would have to say to her.

In clumsy handwriting, as though the writer was familiar with the shapes of the letters but not with writing them, was written in marker:

"Rose Tyler,

Have a fantastic Christmas,

And a brilliant new year."

And that was it. There was a signature of sorts in the corner; a circle with intersecting circles inside it and a couple of lines. Now this was drawn in an expert hand. Swift lines bourn of endless repetition. She recognized the Gallifreyen script in a an instant, it was all over the TARDIS. She wondered if she was looking directly at the Doctor's illusive name, but there was no one in the universe who could translate it.

There was one other thing inside the card. She picked it up and studied it. It was a simple white paper rectangle, about the size of a credit card. It was laminated.

Even as she looked at it, text appeared on it. It said in the same hard to read handwriting,

"Thought you could use one of these of your own." Then it faded and was replaced with "-The Doctor."

Then that faded too.

Did he just give her… psychic paper?

Her heart beating fast with excitement, she put aside the beautiful card and sat on the couch, absently shoving a pair of discarded pants out of the way.

"How does it work?" She wondered. The card felt warm in her hands, then the handwriting appeared. It said,

"Simple, present it to someone and think of the purpose you need it to serve." The text vanished like prank-ink, then wrote again, "The more general the purpose, the more freedom the psychic paper has to come up with something." By this point the end of the writing was bent and scrunched into the corner in tiny text.

Even on paper the Doctor talked too much.

"Wait, am I talking to you now? Doctor?"

"Nah," The paper told her. "I'm just a psychic echo of The Doctor's cognizance. He made it for you and wanted you to know how to use. I'm that purpose." It erased and wrote, "Eventually I will fade."

She wondered silently if the Doctor somehow made this. The paper said, "Yes."

"I didn't say anything!" She protested.

"Psychic paper." It wrote, and she got the feeling it was making fun of her.

She played with it between her fingers for a few minutes, feeling grateful for such a wondrous gift. She picked up the handmade card again. Looked it over. Good cheery text. Innocent enough that she could put it on display, as people did, and it won't draw too many questions. Personal, but not obligating. No "Yours forever", no "miss you". Not even an X and an O. Nothing that might obligate her to speak with him or even reply. Calculating. 'Thinking of you'. Is all it said. Another move in the chess game.

She sent out a few cards herself, but not to him. She didn't know his address. How did her learn hers? Her parents, probably. She could probably get his from them, but with only two days left until Christmas…

She didn't owe him a present. She lay down on the couch, using the crumpled pants as a pillow, still playing with the card between her fingers. Was this a wonderful gift? Sure! It was amazing and she was grateful, but she couldn't make anything even remotely as cool. Wouldn't it be more insulting if she got him a generic gift than nothing at all? Twirling the card in her hands, she noticed it was saying something again. She looked. It wasn't writing, it was a drawing. A drawing of the Doctor at his best. Smiling like he did when he'd talk about Barcelona (they never did go there). Smiling like they just managed to save the day and nobody died. Smiling like they were in deep trouble and having the time of their lives.

"Stop that." She told the card. The picture faded, but didn't disappear. Over it words showed up briefly,

"I show you what you want to see, remember? This isn't my doing."

Huffing in irritation, she reached out to her purse under the coffee table and stuffed the card in there.

She was being miserly. She should get him something. Even if it was a small token. Even if she just left it at her parents' at tonight's family Christmas party.

But what? What would be a gift to give to a man like him? A pen? A watch? Some penmanship lessons? His handwriting was far worse than she remembered it being, the few times they had to write things.

What could she possibly get him?

An answer would have been a nice thing to give him.

'Yes, I snogged you on the beach but I don't know if I can love you because you're not the man I didn't snog.' wasn't much an answer, but it was all she had right now.

'I love you so much it hurts every part of my body, but I can't stand to look at you, because that hurts just as much'.

She covered her eyes with the palms of her hands. So frustrated. So lost. She had finally found everything she wanted and it only made her cranky and argumentative. What was wrong with her? She thought she decided to get better now. To go out and do stuff. It was enough moping!

She thrust out with her legs, throwing her body to a sitting position and removing her hands. Enough! It was time to stop this.

Change was needed. It would start with getting him a gift, even if it was a small one. It wasn't his fault but she was punishing him, even if he was too "happy" to realize it.

What did he have to be happy about, anyway? Lost TARDIS, lost world, last of the Time Lords and first Meta-Crisis. What was he smiling about?

She reached into her purse and picked up the card again.

"What should I get him for Christmas?" She asked it. If it was a psychic echo of the Doctor, it might know!

"I'm a card, not a magic 8-ball." It chastised her. "Don't ask me."

"Loads of good you are." She tossed it back into her purse, her short-lived enthusiasm sputtering out. She dressed, combed her hair for the first time in a couple days, noted that she needed the roots touched up again, and stepped out, determined not to come back until she had found something for him.