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So, um…the Doctor exploded?
But that was really the least of my worries, because now that I knew he was alive and sort of well (as well as can be expected after bursting into a shower of golden flames), I’ve been confronted with the fact that my Doctor has a new face. And a new body. And a new, well, everything.
***
“Hello. Okay. Ooo, new teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona.”
“Sit your happy arse down, we are NOT going to Barcelona!”
***
And sit down he did, collapsing to the ground not a second later. There had been no time for questions, no time for doubt. I simply had to believe this was the Doctor and get on with it, because I hadn’t a clue if he’d be okay and that terrified me.
This new man was frightfully skinny. It could’ve been the leather jacket swallowing him whole that lended to the beanpole look, but the ease with which I could prop him up on my shoulder indicated otherwise. It took a good ten minutes of tedious trudging for me to transport all of those gangly limbs out of the console area, only taking a brief respite to lean him up against a wall and ask the TARDIS where the Doctor’s bedroom was.
How can I not know where his room is? Does he even have a room?
Scratch that. No time to wonder. I’d just have to take him to my room. It was usually just around this bend…ah. The ceiling lights blinked above the door just to the right of where I’d left the Doctor sleeping on his feet like a horse.
Muttering my thank yous to the TARDIS for disturbing her feng shui for my convenience, I readjusted my hold on the Doctor’s waist, plunked his arm back over my shoulders, and soldiered the two of us in with a heavy shove of my foot through the wooden door.
Sorry, I grimaced at the ceiling.
I continued our four-legged shuffle over misplaced t-shirts and around discarded shoes until I was within arms length of my bed. It took some readjusting, but I was able to deposit him on the downy cushions with a strained groan. The Doctor’s arms laid limply at his side, his head lulling to the left. Right. Good. Now what?
I took a breather at the door. Just a moment to collect my thoughts, but it was one in particular that screamed for my attention. The Doctor needed me, and what a horrible thing that was–to be needed by the Doctor. It shone a new light on all the times I had done the very same thing to him.
Returning to the bed with new resolve, I began immediately by stripping him of those heavy combat boots he was so fond of. Would he still wear them in this body? It’d taken a good tug or two before they came flying off, this Doctor’s feet seemingly a size or a half larger than his last. Maybe not, then.
Next was his jacket. This, too, took some effort. Carefully, I cradled the back of his neck with one arm, lifting him slightly as I managed to shimmy one then two arms out of the leather contraption. Once I’d managed to free him, I moved his shoes over by my desk, making sure to drape his jacket over the chair while I ran over what needed to be done next in my head.
As I adjusted the jacket, something fluttered to the ground. I crouched to investigate. A piece of paper?
From the wear on it alone, I assumed it was scrap, folded up into a tiny square and shoved into a pocket for some future time when the Doctor could be bothered to properly dispose of it. He was environmentally conscious, naturally. Unthinking, I opened it.
Shock. Pure and utter shock struck at the very core of my being as I frowned down at the paper.
It was a drawing of him looking intense and fixated as he worked on the TARDIS console. My drawing. He’d kept it all this time. So long, in fact, that the paper felt soft and weathered, as if it’d been folded and unfolded many times over. The edges curled in on themselves, yellowed, but the ink itself was black as the day I’d first laid it down.
I glanced back at the slumbering Doctor.
He kept it so long, it doesn’t even look like him anymore.
Deciding I had better things to worry about, I placed the paper on my nightstand before dragging the desk chair by his bedside so I could get a proper look at him. A palm to his forehead told me he was at about my temperature, which was slightly concerning for the usually cooler-running Time Lord. I decided it wasn’t too bad, moving on to check him for any other obvious wounds or maladies. I continued in this fashion, with my slightly bad-science measurements of health, only concluding when I found that both hearts seemed to be in perfectly working order.
Right. Good. What else? I gave the fragile Doctor another long look. He couldn’t be all too comfortable sleeping in those stiff, oversized jeans. And with his rising temperature, I was almost certain he had to be burning up in that jumper.
I was already running through the logistics of changing him in my head–I could run down to the wardrobe real quick, try and find something that fits him. My, is he skinny. Mind you, he could use the fashion advice–before my brain really caught up. A blush crept down my neck as I brushed some sweat-dampened hair out of his face. Yeah, no, maybe best I didn’t go exposing his birthday suit before he’d had a chance to celebrate the occasion himself. He’d worn this get-up almost every day I knew him. He could survive one more.
*Things to ask when the Doctor wakes up: Do rebirths count as birthdays?
Can I keep him alive long enough to get answers?
Soured by the thought, I glared at the Doctor uselessly. And somehow, having expected my Doctor’s big-eared, split-grinned face, I gave a start to find this new man once more. How would I ever get used to that?
God, I’d miss his daft old smile. And the stupid way he used to scrunch up his nose when I was onto something, but not quite up to his speed. Would this Doctor walk the same? He certainly sounded different, posher. But I supposed none of that mattered if the Doctor didn’t wake up soon.
With a sigh, I leant forward to brush a kiss to the Doctor’s forehead before puttering off to make us some tea to kill the time. Or, I guess, make myself some tea.
I found myself shooting one last sorry glance at him over my shoulder. Rest up. You’ve got an interrogation waiting for you.
***
The Doctor woke with a violent, sputtering cough of golden regeneration energy. Gulping up the TARDIS air with a few more shuddering breaths, he found that he couldn’t help the smile that broke onto his face.
“Well, that wasn’t half bad,” he said, testing his fingers with a wriggle. He pounded a fist against his chest to loosen a bit more of the regeneration energy from his lungs before jumping out of bed and onto his feet. It was only when his bare toes collided with a discarded bit of clothing on the floor that he bothered to take notice of his surroundings.
He was in the TARDIS, that was proven by the supremely comfortable 62nd century mattress technology of the bed (mattresses go supremely downhill after the year 6103), but it wasn’t a room he was familiar with. Not that that was unusual.
The TARDIS had a knack for spitting up new rooms like a cat with hairballs, but there was no reason for her to have made a whole new one just for him to finish his regeneration cycle in. He could’ve easily roughed it out on the floor of the console room, or if the ship had been properly worried, she might’ve transported him to the Medbay, but certainly not wherever this was.
He staggered about the room with interest, stopping briefly to glance at his foot when whatever clothing he had previously trampled on trailed along behind him. His face reddened at the sight of a lacey bra wrapped around his ankle, and he shook it off with vigor. He tugged at his ear, embarrassed that it had actually helped him identify the room. It was his companion’s.
How odd. What was he doing here?
But once his mind had made the connection, he couldn’t stop seeing glimpses of her within the four walls of her bedroom. There, on a shelf, stood the snow globe she’d bought on the fourth moon of Kretox after gleefully bargaining the vendor UP in price, having just learned that the psychic paper could falsify more than just IDs. And on the couch was a hand knit blanket that she’d been gifted by a suitor (though she hadn’t known it at the time), back in 1812 Scotland. Oh, and there! There on the nightstand was that 21st century lamp he’d souped up to run solely on the carbon dioxide she naturally produced. And right next to that lamp was a–
Wait, what was that?
The Doctor picked up the paper gingerly, melting at the unexpected sight. It had that effect, even still. It was the portrait his companion had done of him all that time ago. He’d kept it, of course, in a pocket of his jacket that he’d emptied for its sole habitation, never thanking her for it for fear she’d ask for it back. Perhaps its presence on the nightstand spoke to that very desire.
The thought pained him. Maybe he could convince her to let him keep it?
Determining it would be best to put it back where he found it, the Doctor took in one last, regretful eyeful of the drawing. But it was as he did so that the bedroom door flung right open.
He brightened immediately, and without a word, his companion ran at him, arms wide open for a hug. The Doctor spun her around with a booming sort of laughter, recognizing that of course, it was she that had taken him here. The very thought of it warmed his hearts. He only hoped he hadn’t worried her too much.
She pulled away with a start, attacking him with a flurry of biting questions. “What are you doing up? You just died on me, and you’re walking around barefoot? Two days out in a coma and you want to add on a cold?” Her eyes trailed down the rest of him, checking to see if he was steady on his feet, before catching on the bit of paper in his closed hand. “Ah, found that, did you?” Her face softened.
The Doctor felt like a wee child with his hand caught down the biscuit jar. Curiously, he found his own embarrassment mirrored on the face of his companion. “Right, sorry about that. Really, I am sorry, I never meant to steal your hard work. It’s just–I quite liked it. I was hoping you’d let me keep it safe for you?”
Her face grew redder by the second. What was the Doctor missing? Humans–sometimes they could be so simple, yet so far out of his reach.
“No, I mean yeah, yeah, of course you can keep it, Doctor.” He positively beamed at that. And blimey, was it a good smile. Offering a wane smile of her own, she continued: “I’m glad you liked it. I’m not much of an artist is all. Just promise not to go introducing me to Da Vinci, or anything, okay? I’d shrivel up and die of embarrassment.”
How she’d known he’d been planning to do just that, the Doctor had not a clue. And anyway, he was far too pleased with being allowed the drawing to care, and additionally, far too amazed by her humility to question it. Her drawing was nothing short of fantastic, and here she was, embarrassed. Humans!
He decided to capitalize on the opportunity. “Only if you promise to draw me again. New face. It’ll be like renewing my driver’s license,” he shot her a cheeky grin.
"What, like one of my French girls?" She’d laughed.
The Doctor's eyebrows shot upwards. "Am I a girl this time? I've never been a girl before," he brushed two flattened palms down his torso with befuddled speed.
"Well I don't know, I suppose that's up to you," his companion mused, serious. "Do you feel like a girl?"
He took a moment to consider, perking up when he had an answer. "No, no, I don't think so. Maybe in another body. But French. I like the sound of that. What do the French say?" He fell back onto the bed, propping up his head on a hand as if already posing for the portrait she hadn’t yet agreed to. "Allons-y!"
She laughed at his wildly diverted train of thought before attempting to get the two back on track. "Anyway, I meant like in Titanic. You can’t seriously have never seen Titanic?"
"Now why would I bother watching that when I've already been. Mind you, hanging onto the side of an iceberg isn't nearly as romantic."
She simply shook her head, used to these antics. And then, suddenly, she was pleased at the thought of him pulling antics she was used to. Maybe he wasn’t all too different after all. “Full of surprises, aren’t you? You know, I have questions,” she paused. “Like a lot of questions.”
“Perfect! I can answer while you draw.”
“Oh yeah? Well–” she wondered how she could stall. “I haven’t anything to draw with!”
It was at that moment a sketchbook fell to the floor with a heavy and unignorable thud. She glared up at the ceiling, cursing the TARDIS silently, when a pencil came tumbling down right on her head after it.
“You haven’t even seen yourself in the mirror yet,” she protested uselessly, neglecting the items on the floor.
“Am I ginger?” He asked with all seriousness.
She shook her head, unsure how it was relevant.
“Then it doesn’t matter.”
The Doctor beamed as his companion picked up the sketchbook and the pencil with a theatrically long-suffering sigh. “Rude and not ginger,” she muttered under her breath with a grin.
***
Well, I suppose this was one way to get used to his new face…
I propped the sketchbook up on my knee, using my foot against the bed frame as some leverage so my back wouldn’t tire from leaning as I drew.
I started with two amorphous blobs this time, rather than just the one, because man did he have hair. I grinned, knowing he would be pleased at that particular change. The Time Lord couldn’t go more than ten minutes on any of our chillier excursions without complaining that he should’ve brought a hat. Mind you, the few times I’d offered to go back and grab one for him, he’d complained further that no hats properly matched his outfit. Vain bastard.
It was for that reason I chose to start with the hair. A little backwards, sure, but I could get the strands that fell in his eyes out of the way, and it meant less work on the face later. I worked in large chunks, leaving the odd wild strand for last. For a man who’d just been reborn, his hair was rather well behaved. I wondered how it might look with a bit of gel in it.
I was about to move on to the eyes when I caught sight of his sideburns. With a childish sort of glee, I penciled those in, too, taking care to slot in his ears while I was at it, somewhat relieved I wouldn’t have to make them quite as detailed as his last. I’d had a bit of a thing for sideburns ever since I’d seen 90’s heartthrob, Harvey Kinkle, swagger onto screen in Sabrina the Teenage Witch when I was ten, but maybe that was just me. They’d make for some good 50s adventures, anyway. Maybe a bit of Elvis Presley in our future?
That is, if this Doctor wanted to keep me around.
***
The Doctor took it upon himself to explain how regeneration worked while his companion quietly drew. He was properly pleased that he’d convinced her to do it at all. He was all too ready to face the disappointment when she would inevitably, but kindly reject, but it seemed the TARDIS had been on his side. Good girl.
He loved the look of complete and utter focus on his companion’s face as she worked. When she snuck glances at him for a particular point of reference, it was with a concentrated frown that carried just the slightest pink of tongue at its corner. It seemed she drew with enormous care, working in long, thought out strokes and small practiced measurements of her pencil, stuck out at arms length to compare his proportions to that of her drawing.
In between scribbles, she’d call out questions that arose from what he’d told her about regeneration.
How many times have you done this?
Do you usually sleep this long after?
Do you get to choose what you look like, or is it more like a random generator?
They were all good questions, and the Doctor marveled at her ability to think of them all while paying attention to his answers, working on the portrait, and most impressively, not freaking out in the slightest. Maybe she’d had time to get used to the concept while he was unconscious, but still. He couldn’t have asked for a better person to travel with.
The next time she looked up from the paper, he made sure to catch her eye and smile his gratitude.
***
The Doctor met my eyes, and having gotten my first good look at them (previously having been too busy trying to stop him from piloting us into Barcelona the planet, and later, them having been closed in a two-day-long coma), I startled to find they weren’t the same icy blue as his last. That made sense, of course. Why should they have stayed the same? Anyway, blue wouldn’t have suited this Doctor.
No, these eyes were just as lovely. Eyelashes that were fine and feathery, just a shade lighter than the hair on his head. And his irises were a warm, whisky brown. The sort I could imagine going golden in the sunlight and a brooding black when tucked under the pointed furrow of a brow.
And my, did he have eyebrows. Good, strong eyebrows with a slight asymmetricality that I was more than certain could keep up with the demand for scowls he tended to shoot me on any given day. I smudged them in with my pinky knuckle, taking advantage of my drawing medium to do some of the leg work for me in establishing the right values.
His nose, too, was slightly asymmetrical, angling just a bit to the left. Not unattractively, but in a way that seemed literary, if not a bit heroic, like he’d been on the wrong end of some hard-knuckled fist. But as it were, that nose was less than two days old, and just as lovely even having not been the cause of some brunt trauma. I carved out the slope of it, aquiline, and narrow, and most adorably, freckled. I had my fun peppering dots across that fine-boned nose and cheeks.
***
The Doctor watched on as she began dotting the paper with the very tip of the pencil. Did he have freckles? Acne? Warts?That was kind of fun. Though, they could give him some issue depending on the planet and time period. It was never fun being mistaken for a warlock or a diseased peasant, but he supposed his clothing choices were more likely to get him into trouble if he was going to go down that route. It was all about the confidence, anyway.
He pondered for a moment what clothes he might wear in this body. He was still in his old jeans and jumper, and his leather jacket still hung from the chair his companion now drew in. He would miss that jacket. He’d have to choose a new one. One with pockets that could house his two new portraits and now, maybe, his most treasured possessions. The Doctor had never been one for possessions before, but he was starting to see the appeal.
He watched his companion, drawn from his musings. She was smudging the pencil with a knuckle. It was strangely tender, watching her sacrifice the sanctity of her bare fingers as if she were kneading the drawing to life. The Doctor was suddenly struck by how intimately this whole situation could be interpreted.
Had he asked his companion for too much? Was that why she had been so hesitant to draw him?
He shook away the thought. No, it was like she’d said, they did this in that movie–what was it?--Titanic! Surely if it wasn’t too scandalous for the big screen, it certainly wasn’t too scandalous for him to have asked for.
Having reassured himself of the propriety of it all, he allowed himself to watch his companion as she worked with a fondness in his eyes.
***
Lips. It was easier to tell in profile that his bottom one was fuller than his top, sticking out in some unconscious, pitiful pout. Or a sexy one, I imagine the Doctor might argue, but that was yet to be determined and had a lot riding on what words might actually come to pass from those lips in the future. I took care in shading his upper lip and the divot just below his lower to give them the right dimension before rounding off the sketch with his chin.
He had a dimple in it–a trait he shared with his previous body. That, and the five o’clock shadow which had definitely never seen a razor before. I solidified the line of his jaw, softened in his lying position, and shaded down his neck until the collar of his jumper.
Basically done, I wasted another few minutes going back, sharpening lines and smoothing out gradients until I was satisfied that the portrait resembled the man in front of me.
It was easier to be objective about the likeness, having had almost no time to attribute much judgement to the way his features might interact with one another when he frowns, or cheers, or smiles. Just this one, earnest face.
The whole time I’d spent drawing, I hadn’t quite been able to put my finger on that expression. It could maybe be mistaken for tender, or fond, or maybe even dopey, but who was to say? That could very well just be his resting face. I should hope it was, in fact, having spent the better part of an hour sitting for me with that same exact expression. He would’ve tired out of it otherwise a good five minutes in, I was sure of it.
I could tell the Doctor was finally getting antsy, and I, too, couldn’t stall for much longer.
“Right then,” I took in a nerve-steeling breath. “Come see what you look like.”
***
The Doctor jumped up from the bed with glee, bounding towards his companion like a faun on shaky legs. He positioned himself behind her, crooning over her shoulder to get a good look at the drawing.
He grew quiet as he took it in. It was a man, yes, but beyond that, the Doctor couldn’t quite make sense of the features. There was a head, and hair, eyes, nose, mouth, yes, and they all came together with the skilled placement of values he knew his companion was capable of. But he didn’t see himself.
Not that he knew what he looked like to begin with. No. It was because when the Doctor looked at that freckled nose, he saw his companion, dotting the paper with a pleased grin. And when he looked at the mouth, he saw her again, hair in her eyes, staring at his lips with a burning intensity he couldn’t shake. And when he looked at the eyes, he saw her looking into his, warm and tender and something else. And when he looked at the hair, he felt her–her fingers–brushing away the dampened strands from his burning face as he fought with everything in him not to spew regeneration energy from his lungs, alarming her, and her lovely hands, away.
His hearts beat painfully in his chest as he glanced down at his companion’s eager face, waiting for his reaction. He looked back at the drawing, at a loss for words.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, mistakenly, but not inaccurately. “Sorry, mixed up my words there. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful?” This was getting worse by the second.
Then, came his companion’s tinkling laugh. “Haven’t even looked in a mirror and we’re already feeling smug?”
The Doctor joined in her laughter before smacking a kiss to the top of her head, where he could reach. “What I meant was the drawing is lovely,” he said, moving so he could face her. His eyes softened when they met hers, and he could only hope they showed the same gratitude he felt in every bone of this new body. “Thank you. The drawing, taking care of me. For everything.”
Then, cutting through the somber moment with practiced levity, the Doctor snatched the sketchbook from her hands, hoisting it up to the light with a booming cackle. “I’m rather handsome.” He shot her a cheeky grin. “What d’you think? Pretty good face then, yeah? Unless you’re like one of those courtesan painters that lie to get their inbred royals betrothed to far off suitors. Let me tell you, Giovanna of Aragon was not pleased when I showed up to one of the sittings for the portrait she had intended to send off to good friend of mine, Henry VII. Little did she know, TARDIS and all that–”
His companion cut him off with a light smack to his arm. “I’d say the drawing captures your likeness, if that’s what you want to hear, cocky bastard. Now go and get dressed. I’ll start on some food. Like I said, you haven’t eaten in days and I’m sure your body needs the energy to finish regenerating, or whatever.”
The Doctor returned to the back of her chair, forcing his companion to turn awkwardly to face him. “Just a mo',” he reassured, fishing through one of the leather coat’s pockets. He withdrew his screwdriver with a cheer, proceeding to sonic the drawing with a smile.
“What are you doing?” She asked with fond exasperation.
“If I can just get it to the same frequency as the graphite of the pencil..." He trailed off with intense focus, the faint buzzing of the sonic the only sound in the room. "Aha! There we go. It'll never smudge again.” He shot her another cheeky grin, well chuffed that he'd gotten it to work. That the drawing would remain forever the same.
Because even when he inevitably changed, when this was no longer his body, when this drawing was no longer his face, he wanted to remember: It was the one that fell in love.