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Characterized by excessive fidgeting, the instigation of farcical fights, endless work on the TARDIS, and the avoidance of all forms of social interaction, and there was no mistaking it. The Doctor was in one of his...moods. Not that I entirely minded. Usually, it meant that I had a day or two to myself before launching into another endless adventure of running and, well, more running. It was good to take a break every once in a while. And even if the Doctor could go a few weeks without really needing to sleep, the stillness did him good.
Except for the fact it’d been a week. Usually he’d have worked himself out of one of these bouts by now, but alas, I was the one growing restless for a change.
I’d constructed a sort of regimen, but lurking seemed like a better word for it. From library to pool to kitchen to room, I’d enlisted myself in the foot dragging, sleepy eyed boredom of my own company. Not to knock the TARDIS, because occasionally, she’d lead me to a new room hoping to distract me for an hour or two with gardens and observatories and zero gravity stations before my attention, inevitably, went sideways.
I missed the Doctor.
I know I was meant to be his companion–every lonely god needs some company–but he was my companion, too. The only friend with which I had all of time and space to share, the only constant I had to help me tame the enormity of it all, and the only person who could cheer me up with a single, split-faced grin. But at the moment, it seemed he couldn’t be bothered. And believe me, I tried not to be, but it hurt.
It was a Wednesday, I think, or at least a midweekish day. The Doctor was doing god knows what under the TARDIS console, sprawled out on the ground with his toolkit like he was working the undercarriage of a car, and I was sat on the jumpseat being astutely ignored. Occasionally, I’d throw out a line to see if I could catch his attention.
“Do you think Daleks have their own beauty standards, or are they that ugly by accident?”
“Since the Face of Boe is a member of Boekind, aren’t they all faces of Boe?”
“Are you always this crabby, or have you just not been laid in a century?”
Usually, my remarks warranted their own unique merging of hems and haws when the Doctor was interested, but otherwise occupied with some task or other. Today was all “mhms,” so I knew for a fact that not a word made it past those big ears.
I could take a hint. I needed to find a way to occupy myself before “mhm” turned into the third screaming match this week, but what more was there to do? Another stroll around the TARDIS? Eating away my sorrows? A nap?
A glance to my left revealed a scrap sheet of paper.
Poised precariously between grate holes was a pen.
I snatched the two up gleefully, and like any kid with time to spare on a road trip or plane ride, I knew exactly what to do with those two mighty instruments of entertainment.
I swept an arm across the TARDIS console to try and best clear a spot for my paper. Between two squiggly-looking gears, I got to work. I positioned myself as discreetly as possible, hoping to get a good angle of the Doctor without raising suspicion when my chaste glances inevitably grew to be long and deliberate in their search for detail.
I was no artist, but I had a penchant for doodling in class and on restaurant napkins growing up. I could do a mean flower, maybe a dog on a good day, but faces were my specialty.
The angle would be slightly difficult. Three-quarters facing me. I sketched a head-shaped blob before preparing the essential face guidelines.
Eyes first. I shaded in where they were likely to stay for the next ten minutes, should the Doctor remain in this stiff, concentrated position.
I stole another glance.
Definitely concentrated. I drew in the tense angle of his eyebrows, furrowed and somewhat sparse. They hid in the shadow of his defined brow, further emphasized by the dramatic glowy lighting of the console room. His eyes squinted, but a good portion of his icy irises remained visible. I made sure to avoid the reflective light in his eyes, keeping them on the lighter side. It was a shame. I liked a good, pensive brown when it came to my irises.
The Doctor made up for it with his hooded eyes. They were some of my favorite to draw. Getting the shadows down just right was important if you didn’t want to age your subject with fleshy, gravity-worn lids. Beautiful in their own right, but not what the Doctor had. His showed just enough of the eyelid to give his ancient eyes a bit of youth. Defining his lashline a bit more, I moved on, satisfied.
Now, how to approach that nose? It was really, quite magnificent. Long, but not particularly thin, and ending in a downward sloping point. The place where his smile line and nostril met had that characteristic curl of roman sculptures, lending to an ancient sort of beauty.
My eyes returned to the paper. Gripping light on the pencil, I left barely-there marks in the vague shape of a triangle. Slowly, I carved into it, hoping to get the precise angle of his nose. It was hard, what with him working in the shadow cast by the lip of the TARDIS’s console, but I could almost manage.
I was surprised to find that next time I glanced up at the Doctor, the lighting had adjusted to my particular needs. I blinked at the ceiling in surprise.
You have anything to do with this?
The TARDIS hummed as if to say, You’re welcome.
I grinned down at my paper, finishing up the Doctor’s nose with precision.
His lips were just as big. Not in the plush way that someone might describe a pair of lips like Angelina Jolie’s, but broad and defined. His cupid's bow dipped sharply, like the exaggerated lipstick on a 1920s flapper, and rounded out into a tense line. I marveled for a moment at how quickly those lips could turn one his cheeky grins into the fiercest scowl known to man. They were harsh, and versatile, and made perfect sense for the type of words that so frequently flew out of them at lightning.
As far as chins went, I was sure the Doctor’s qualified as “rugged.” He had that perpetual five o’clock shadow, despite my never having witnessed the Doctor shaving a day in his life–even on our days long excursions holed up in prison cells or rented tavern rooms. I spent some time shading in the gray stubble, pausing briefly to sketch in the mole visible to the right of his nose. I’d never really noticed it before, but it was fitting. I wondered briefly what it might feel like to kiss him there, the prickle of his cheek against my skin.
I shook away the thought with a flush.
Jawline. I solidified the shaky lines I had first put down as a guide, letting his ears indicate where to stop. Ugh, the ears. They were my least favorite things to draw, what with their complicated, curving structures, but I couldn’t half ass them for…obvious reasons.
When it came to any sort of verbal sparring with the aliens the Doctor and I so often found ourselves up against, it wasn’t uncommon for that particular feature of his to become the subject of their taunts. And I’d, admittedly, joined in my fair share of snickers with them.
Despite that, his ears really were quite interesting, artistically and otherwise. Bottom heavy lobes that led into narrow, somewhat crumpled looking helixes. They were flat, sticking out in that goofy-charming way only a face like that could pull off. And should he ever want piercings to round off that biker aesthetic of his, he certainly seemed to have the anatomy to compensate.
I was nearing the end. A quick few strokes made up the black hair of his crew cut. A few more to cover the hollow of his cheek bones and the flat of his temples. A dimple at his chin, the worry lines at his brow, and the wrinkles on his well-frowned forehead were all placed with care.
A satisfied hum escaped my lips.
There was nothing quite like drawing someone to get to know their face intimately. And whereas most people had just the one defining feature, the Doctor had many. From description alone, I would’ve expected them to crowd his face, too-big ears, strong nose, sharp cheekbones, broad lips. But they worked. Made up that stupid face I so loved talking to when he wasn’t too busy moping about the TARDIS.
I caught myself staring at him, stupid smile on my face.
Not that he would notice.
Tucking the pen behind my ear, I lifted myself from the jumpseat with a sigh. I mumbled my goodbyes to the still-occupied Doctor and received a grunt of a farewell in return before toeing the way back to my room.
The TARDIS kindly deposited the proper door in front of me, more than likely noticing the tired slope of my shoulders. I patted the wall, grateful, before promptly slumping into bed. The drawing was all but forgotten.
***
Hours passed, the Doctor hardly stirring from his determined spot on the floor. And he would’ve stayed there, probably for hours more to come, should the TARDIS have not shocked her thief through the metal grating of her console floor with a determined spark.
“Ow!” He shot an accusatory glance to the ceiling. “What was that for?” He whined.
A low groan creaked somewhere deep in the TARDIS followed by another warning shock.
A wrench clattered to the ground with annoyance.
“Fine, fine. I’ll get some sleep. Don’ need to tell me three times.” The Doctor grumbled to his feet, giving his stiff neck an exploratory roll. He padded towards the console, checked a monitor, before deciding to pilot the TARDIS into the time vortex.
Floating through open space had its perks. The view, for one, and the fact that his companion had a particular fondness for dangling her feet out the open door, asking the name of any passing stars and planets with a smile that greatly pleased him, but occasionally, those stars and planets liked to pull his ship into their gravitational orbits—and that was not nearly as pleasing.
The TARDIS made her characteristic grinding whirrs as she rematerialized in the vortex. As her shaking settled down, the Doctor caught sight of a paper fluttering to the ground out of the corner of his eye.
Frowning, he bent to pick it up.
He turned the paper over in his hand, making sure there was nothing important on the back, before he stilled entirely.
It was a drawing.
In scratchy black ink was a man looking deep in thought, engrossed in a way that seemed impossible to interfere with. His hair fell back slightly, gravity taking its course as he worked on his back, eyes narrowed on some imminent problem that he had long set on fixing. He looked removed, distant. Immersed in his task, yes, but also lost in it.
But if nothing else, the man was beautiful.
Sometimes it caught the Doctor off guard, this face. In the span of things, he’d had it for almost no time at all. It was no wonder that mirrors, shop windows, and even the occasional shiny spoon all managed to startle him at a quick glance. It was still so strange to confront the brooding character, this war-torn Doctor clad in leather and a scowl.
It was why the Doctor had been so uncertain, peering down at the drawing. The short-cropped hair was familiar, the big nose, even bigger ears particularly spot on, but it was something in the eyes that made him hesitate to lay claim to the face.
They were kind. Even sparkling, in a way. The mouth, too, seemed to edge up in the ghost of a smile. Together, the features were the image of the gruff, irritable Doctor, but when he focused on the details, they became foreign and tender and warm.
If the Doctor hadn’t been so engrossed, so preoccupied with the drawing, he might have noticed his companion peering in sleepily from one of the console’s many branching hallways. And if he had been paying particular attention, the flaming pink tinge to her cheeks might have also been of note.
But as it were, the Doctor did not glance up, did not remove his gaze from the paper for even a moment.
But if he had, he would have seen his companion’s lips twist into a warm fondness. Would’ve heard her breath catch as he smiled stupidly at the drawing. Maybe, just maybe would’ve seen her heart melt as he folded the sheet up with an immense sort of care before carefully tucking it, safe and sound, into his jacket pocket where it would remain.
No, no he didn’t notice the moment she fell hard and fast for her strange and lovely friend.