Paulina Newman cursed and slammed her finger on the big red button on the remote, cutting off the reporter mid-sentence. But even though the TV screen was black, she could still see the images from last night in her mind's eye: a giant silver star in the night sky, destruction everywhere, and a constant reminder that she had been wrong about everything. Her parents had fled London for the holidays and had urged her to do the same, but she had vehemently refused. Her boyfriend, Joe Murray, had wanted some space from her, just for a couple weeks, so he could get settled into his new job at the new Chinese restaurant downtown.
But aliens had attacked London at Christmas (again), and Joe had just wanted time to stick his cock in another woman's cunt.
Fuck them, Paulina seethed. She stormed into the small cramped, kitchen and searched the cupboards for some leftover whisky she might have missed the night before. There, at the back; one green bottle was hiding behind the faucet pipes. Solid.
She poured herself a glass and tried to make it last as she stared disdainfully at the kitchen around her. She had come with her family from America in the hope that rent prices were lower in London, but that didn't seem to apply to these apartments (or "flats" as they were called around here). She had dreamed of opening a café with Joe, just like they'd always wanted, but she was too busy worrying about her rent to even consider it. The apartment she was stuck with wasn't even that good; the rooms were smaller than anything she ever had in America. Although there were two bedrooms, the biggest one had barely enough room for its queen-sized bed. She was used to her parent's old house, with a separate room reserved solely for house parties and late-night dinner events. And her budding chef inside of her was most certainly used to a bigger kitchen, or at least one with functioning appliances.
The only reason she agreed to purchasing it was how low the price had been. Apparently the previous owners had gone missing (presumed dead) on the day of the Battle for Canary Wharf. The landlord said that all their stuff was gathering dust, and Paulina figured she could save money and use their electronics while she got back on her feet. Suffice it to say, that was the last time she would ever purchase something so cheap without seeing it first. She had marched into her new flat, suitcase and all, and realized immediately that when the landlord said the previous owners had left everything, he meant everything. Dirty laundry littered the bedrooms, reeking of sweat and female body odor. The stink of rotten food hung over the furniture like a cloud. And to make matters worse, a family of flies had taken over the kitchen. Jeez, she had thought, kicking aside a camping backpack that had been thrown against the wall, it's only been a year and already this place has turned into a pigsty!
Not knowing what to do with all of the junk and once-owned valuables, she had gathered it all up and had stored it as best she could in the closet of one of the bedrooms. She had tried not to look closely at the photographs, but she couldn't help it. It was hard not to see a picture of a pretty blond girl, around 20 or so, and her mother and not realize that these women were dead. That she was living in a flat that used to belong to people she could never meet. In one or two photos she would spy an older man holding hands with the mother; was that the father? And in another photo, the daughter and a dark-skinned man were laughing in front of a large fountain. On the back of the frame someone had written "Love you! 3 Mickey" in black ink. Paulina had absently wondered if the men were still alive, or if they had "disappeared", too. She figured it was the latter; months had passed and no one had come to collect the prior family's things.
There was one photo that particularly interested her. Paulina had been clearing out the daughter's nightstand, hoping to use it herself, and she came across a small square photograph; a little dusty but still vibrant in color. It showed the daughter and another man at Christmas time, with her wearing a pink paper crown and he wearing a red one. They were leaning against each other on one side of the kitchen table, their arms around each other's shoulders and their faces bright and happy. The daughter was wearing a light grey jacket with pink embellishments over a white t-shirt, completely and utterly casual. But Paulina was drawn to the man even though she had never met him, and probably never will. He wore a striped suit and a dark red tie, with a brown coat draped on the back of his chair. His brown hair spiked up and everywhere at once, and sideburns framed his high cheekbones. He was visually attractive; the way he smiled spoke volumes not only about his mood but also his apparent relationship with the young woman. Their arms were hanging so casually around each other, their bodies pressed and fitted together so perfectly; anyone could tell that there was love all around them, but it was unclear as to whether they knew it themselves.
Paulina had been jealous then and she was jealous now. Joe had never looked at her like that, even in the beginning. People only knew they had been dating if they had been told so, or if they ran into them making out in front of the pizza house where he used to work. She drained her glass and quickly poured herself another.
All at once there was a knocking at her door. The knock wasn't particularly loud (it was rather hesitant, actually), but Paulina jumped all the same. No one came to her flat, no one, especially since her entire family was busy laughing at her stubbornness while they ate buttered crab legs in Barcelona. Maybe they had come back early. Maybe it was the landlord, coming to tell her that the price of rent had gone up—again. Or maybe (a slim chance, but one nonetheless) it was Joe, crawling back to her with some half-baked apology about how he had "never meant to let it go so far". In a flash of annoyance she hoped it was Joe; at least with him she had something of a comeback.
But when she opened her apartment door, the man who stood there wasn't the landlord or Joe or anyone she knew (not personally, anyway). It was the man from the photograph, the handsome one that had had his arms around that pretty blond woman. He was wearing the same pinstripe suit (did this guy ever change clothes?) under his distinctive brown overcoat, and his hair looked even more wild and crazy than in the picture. Her mind wandered a bit and wondered what it would be like to run her fingers through such thick hair. And he was so tall! But then she looked at his face and she shrunk back a little. He wasn't smiling like he had been in the picture; in fact he was doing the exact opposite. Every muscle in his face looked so lashed and battered, his eyes so old and desolate despite his apparent youth. But he was surprised, too, and Paulina could guess why. He probably wasn't expecting a scrawny, black-haired, sweat-paint-wearing, whisky-drinking American to open the door to his dead girlfriend's flat.
"Ah, hello," the man said, his voice low and full of age and sorrow. But man, was it silky smooth! Paulina was all too conscious of her unwashed hair and foul breath. "Is this the home of the Tyler family?"
Shit, he doesn't know! How could he not know? She dug her nails into her glass and answered, as politely as she could, "I'm sorry, but, uh, they don't live here anymore."
"I know. I was told this was where I could find their things."
Well, duh, of course he knew they were dead and gone. Why else would he be looking so miserable? Paulina rubbed her temple and cursed her headache; all this pain and death did not make a happy Christmas elf. She said, "Right, sorry. What's your name?" Stupid, stupid! You can't just ask that! He's in mourning!
But the man didn't seem to notice her bluntness. He gingerly scratched behind his left ear and replied, "John Smith."
Paulina nodded slowly and bit her lip, hard. She didn't want to keep pressing such mundane topics on a man who was obviously not in the mood for small talk, but she felt more proof was necessary in this situation. He was about to enter the apartment that had since become hers. "You got any ID?" she asked.
The corners of his mouth twitched ever-so-slightly and he wordlessly held up a piece of paper. At first Paulina thought it was blank, but then she assumed that it must have been a trick of the light; the paper was clearly a driver's license.
Paulina nodded, trying to look as mature as possible, but in the back of her mind she wondered if he had just gotten his license today. The card was completely scratch-free and his mug shot was exactly the same as his present face. "Family friend?" She asked.
He nodded and started looking anywhere but her face: the door frame, her shoulder, the apartment behind her. He muttered, "Something like that," and Paulina had to resist the urge to raise a skeptical eyebrow. According to that photo she had seen, he had been much more than a "family friend". But that was an old photo, and there had been only one; maybe they had had a falling out?
She shrugged off her other questions and turned around quickly, saying, "Come on in, then." She heard him step inside the flat and shut the door behind him, and Paulina took another sip of her whiskey. Now that she had finally met this good-looking chunk of human (in her own apartment, no less!), she was surprised at how much she wanted him to leave. This "John Smith" didn't feel entirely truthful, and he seemed to have this air about him, like he carried Death with him everywhere he went. She wondered if he had been involved in that Christmas Star attack. But then she brushed those thoughts away and cursed her roaming mind. It always got her into more trouble than it was worth. Maybe it was the alcohol.
Paulina tapped her glass quickly and waited for the man in front of one of the bedrooms. According to her, the man was taking his sweet time walking down the short hallway, pausing to brush his fingers over a series of cuts that ran lengthwise across a section of the wall. She had been meaning to paint over them, but had delayed doing so because of her curiosity as to how they had gotten there. It was too straight to be an accident, and too deep to be caused by furniture. Joe had thought maybe it was made by a sword, but that was simply too unlikely. Maybe this man knew…but Paulina bit her tongue and resisted the urge to ask. The man even glanced into the blond girl's old room, which had finally been converted into Paulina Land. Out of habits she had gained during her high school years, she was this close to cruelly asking him whether he had been able to bring their relationship to the bedroom.
"In here," Paulina said (she tried not to snap at him, she really did), pointing him into the room across the hall from the daughter's old bedroom, a room that was painted entirely in pink. Not particularly caring for the color, she used the room as storage for the countless clothing items, heirlooms, and other things that once belonged to the Tyler's and were useless to Paulina. The clothes took up a majority of the closet, so everything else just overflowed from there. Most of the floor and part of the bed were just boxes full of green, expired liquids with no labels. Someone in this flat had had a problem.
The man didn't even glance at the clothes or the bottles; he went straight to the bed, as she knew he would. On the top of one the photo boxes was a picture of the Tyler girl, placed there simply because, for whatever reason, Paulina couldn't bear to just stuff it in a box with the rest of the photos. Women tend to have this sense when they're looking at something beautiful; when it comes to other women, that sense is almost instinctual. Paulina loved and hated that photo, because it was the most natural (and, therefore, the most beautiful) image of the Tyler girl: a full-body portrait with her sitting on a picnic blanket in a park somewhere. In this photo she was wearing an entirely pink jacket and long black pants, lying back in a pose so casual one would think she hadn't realized her picture was being taken. Her long blond hair shined like gold in the sunlight, and she was smiling at the camera. She looked like she had just finished laughing at a joke someone had said; her grin was wide and coy, and her eyes had a kind of twinkle that seemed to know exactly what you were thinking. She was beautiful, there was no other word for it, and that just didn't seem fair. Why wasn't Paulina that pretty? How come this girl got to have all the boys at her feet? How did someone so stunning end up on the list of the dead? Paulina wondered if they could have been friends; the Tyler girl looked like someone who would have been able to make her laugh.
The man sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the Tyler girl's photograph, and Paulina sneaked off to the kitchen. It felt weird, standing there and watching him reminisce about his lost love. And besides, her glass was empty. She poured the last of the whisky, threw away the bottle, and prayed that the man wouldn't ask to stay for tea.
Paulina flipped on the TV and wasn't surprised to see even more repeated footage of last night's Crystal Star disaster. It was a new day, where were the car wrecks and the subway fires? Typical of news stations to milk ratings out of big events for all they're worth.
She went to flip the channel, but then she realized that the man had entered the room and was watching the news reel intently. The same picture was still clutched in his right hand, and his eyes were ringed with small red circles, as if he had been crying. But despite the obvious signs of distress, he was watching the TV with a slight smile playing on his face, like he was remembering some private joke about the event. Once more Paulina wondered if he had been involved with the Christmas Star. But before she could ask him about last night, the reporter started comparing the Star with the Battle for Canary Wharf, and the man's face changed. As pictures of Torchwood Tower (before and after the alien invasion) flashed across the screen, the man's expression turned darker and darker, until his face was a heavy mixture of anger, guilt, regret, and sadness. A picture of Yvonne Hartman, the deceased administrator of Torchwood Tower, came up, and he scowled. Paulina watched the screen thoughtfully, thinking that maybe—
There! It was only for a moment, but she saw "John Smith" in his long brown coat behind a team of ambulances. He was walking along a small garden path with slightly slumped shoulders, completely ignoring the violence around him. The camera shot shifted as he neared what looked like a blue phone box, and when the camera returned to the original angle, the box and the man were gone.
Paulina gently clicked the TV off and went to stand in front of the man. He seemed to have calmed down, but he looked like his mind was somewhere else, with another woman. Paulina tried her best to keep any edge out of her voice as she asked, "Do you want to keep that?"
The man glanced down at the photo in his hand, as if he had forgotten that he was still holding it. "Yes, actually, I do," he said, looking back at Paulina gratefully, "Thank you." Those big, brown puppy dog eyes…he must kill all the ladies with that look.
"Yeah, well…" She nodded towards the pink bedroom still filled with dead memories, "Do you want the rest of it or…"
"No. You should donate it. All of it. Give it to someone who'll actually use it," he said, nodding and once again looking anywhere but her. His grip had tightened on the photo of his apparent beloved, as if afraid that if he let go of it, she would be lost to him forever. Maybe she already was.
Paulina nodded and said, "Oh, uh, okay." She rubbed her empty glass anxiously; now, what was she supposed to say to that? She finally asked him, "What was her name?"
"Rose Tyler," the man said bluntly; and that was all Paulina would know about her. He tucked the photo into his brown coat and stuttered out, "I should, uh, go, yeah. I should really…" He flicked his eyes towards the door and made his mouth go into some backwards facial expression Paulina couldn't recognize or even describe. Maybe it was a British thing.
She cut him off mid-ramble with, "Yeah, I think you should." Jeez, for someone so tall, handsome, and serious he could be such a bumbling idiot. She could see why Rose Tyler had fallen for him. But she admired the man for his restraint; as Paulina followed him to the apartment's front door he didn't even attempt to glance into the bedrooms one last time. "Bye," Paulina said, before practically slamming the door in the man's face. Just like that, the mysterious, gorgeous stranger who called himself "John Smith" was out of her life for good. She almost tripped over herself in her rush to reach the phone and dial the goodwill collection house down the road, and be rid of the infernal Tyler legacy once and for all.
- - -
Below the old Tyler apartment, inside a blue police box, a man who calls himself the Doctor looks at Rose Tyler's face for what he believes to be the last time. Then he wordlessly tucks the photo safely in his wooden trunk and locks them both underneath the metal grating that makes up the walkway of the TARDIS.
I've lost my touch. I...I've lost what it means to be the Doctor, he thinks, A trip to a hospital might do me good. One with a little shop in it. At least there I can meet some doctors who actually do good in this world. He picks at his dark grey suit and wonders if he should go for something spunkier. A nice blue one would do nicely: the color of the TARDIS.
The Doctor sets his new coordinates and pulls the lever.
ns 15.158.61.23da2
