A/N: Hi everyone! First off, let me apologize profusely about the long wait. I had half of this chapter written on my computer which my mom took in to get "fixed" (even though there wasn't really anything wrong with it) and it took the repairman over two weeks to get it back to me. I hope the wait was worth it. Anyways, please enjoy, and I promise the wait won't be near as long for the next chapter. Review if you'd like, and as always, my tumblr URL is stolenbyasexytardis :) I post updates and sneak peeks and such for this and my other stories there. Thanks for reading!

Pairing: Rose/Ten

Rose Tyler is an artist. At nineteen years old, she is living with her parents, Pete and Jackie, and has a normal life. But in her dreams, in her imagination, she creates incredible things: new worlds, new creatures, new people. She draws these odd characters and places, recreating her fantasies through art. She dreams up a man who she calls her guardian angel, and keeps him alive in her sketches. Little does she know that all of these things she draws, the things she thought were just figments of her wild imagination, are very, very real, and very, very dangerous.

The Paper Angel

Chapter Four

Rose strolled down the hallway, trying her hardest to keep her breathing even. It was okay. They believed her. They were going to figure out how to make the aliens go away. She had thoroughly convinced herself of this by the time she reached her bedroom door. Thinking through her mental library of drawings, she was fairly sure she had removed all of the angel drawings from her wall, apart from the guardian angel that hung above her bed. Something felt odd about taking those down, so she decided to leave them there. Having made up her mind, she opened the door for a final check. She did not expect to see what she saw.

Blank sheets of paper dotted her walls where her drawings had been. Not just angels, though. All sorts of creatures and people had just disappeared. The robot armies, the tentacle monsters and the gas mask children, the soldier girl and fire woman and the sparrow, the handsome time agent. Vanished. Gone. Spinning in a slow circle, she looked at all the papers. Out of the hundreds of drawings on her walls, there had to be at least fifty that had gone blank. She knew what she would find on the back of all those pieces of paper: the same black line as all the others. Letting a violent sob escape her throat, Rose sunk to the ground, tears filling her eyes. She could hear her mother calling for her. She tried to respond but she couldn't find her voice, so instead she curled her knees into her chest, bringing her hands up to cover her face. Seconds later she heard footsteps coming quickly down the hall. "Rose?" her mom's voice asked. She buried her head farther into her hands. She couldn't do this. "Rosie? Can I come in?" The door was flung open; Rose could hear it hit the wall.

She looked up at her mom, who asked what was wrong. "It's not just the angels, mum. They're all gone."

As Jackie looked around the room in terror, Rose realized what she had just said. It wasn't just the angels. All of those creatures in her drawings had just been released into the world, and who knew what kind of destruction they could cause? But they didn't know anything about the other aliens, if that was what they were. How could they get rid of them if they didn't even know what they were? Rose was terrified. She had no idea what to do. Her hope was disappearing as quickly as her drawings were.

Pete, Mickey, and Jake were still sitting in the living room, eyes glued to the papers on the wall, when there was a knock at the door. All three froze. None of them knew who would be knocking. Hardly anyone came to visit the Tyler residence unannounced. And especially now, when most people weren't leaving their houses for fear of being taken, there shouldn't be anyone knocking. "You guys heard that, yeah?" Jake asked quietly. Both Mickey and Pete murmured an agreement. "Well… who do you reckon it is?"

"I don't know," Pete whispered. The person knocked again, a quick succession of five raps on the door. "I guess I should answer it. Don't look away." Pete stood, straightening his shirt as he walked to the door. With a deep sigh, he turned the knob and opened the door just a crack.

A younger man was leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, a slight smile on his lips. He was flanked by another man and woman, who Pete quickly realized were pointing guns in his direction. Startled, Pete raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. He had never seen these people before in his life. Were they some sort of police?

"Hello," the man in the doorway said brightly, pushing himself up so he was standing merely inches away from Pete. "Captain Jack Harkness. Mind telling me what you were doing hacking into the Torchwood database?"

Rose and Jackie crept quietly up the hall. They had heard someone knocking a couple times. Peeking around the wall into the living room, Rose watched her father open the door. He was blocking her view of whoever was standing there, but from the way he was standing she could tell he was afraid. Suddenly, he raised his hands, and Rose gasped. Whoever was at the door was armed. A deep, warm voice started to speak. Rose listened intently before putting all the pieces together in her head. They were from Torchwood. That was the database that Mickey had hacked for the article on the Weeping Angels. She looked into the living room. Mickey had his backpack sitting by the couch. Rose shook her head. Damn it. He brought his laptop to her house. She deduced that whoever these people, whoever they were, must have traced his laptop to their location. Her question was answered right away.

"Earlier this morning, an unknown source hacked into the Torchwood mainframe, and ended up on an article about the Weeping Angels. Sound familiar? The file was downloaded and the breach only lasted a few minutes. We were able to trace the IP address back to the owner of the laptop, Mickey Smith, and also the location of said laptop, which is here in this household… precisely, over there, on that couch, inside of that backpack. So, may I ask again, what were you doing inside of a top-secret government database?"

Pete did not speak, at a loss of words. From behind Rose, Jackie stepped out from around the corner and strode confidently up to stand next to Pete. "Oi, you two, there'll be no pointin' any guns in my house, you hear?" The leader waved his hand and the other two lowered their guns. Rose tried to peek out farther, but between bother of her parents and the china case that stood between her and the front door, she could only catch glimpses of the strangers, and the occasional profile of the man's face.

"It's alright," the man reassured her, smiling and taking Jackie's hand. He brushed his lips over the top of it, and Rose saw her father clench his fists. "We just want to chat, Mrs…"

"Tyler," she replied firmly, snatching her hand away. The man's smile left his face quickly, and he looked back at his two companions. They both looked equally as surprised. He pointed at her, lost for words. "My name's Jackie Tyler." There was silence. "Well, go on then, what are you three lookin' at?" Jackie crossed her arms.

He turned to look at his comrades, then back to face Jackie. "You don't… you don't happen to have a daughter, do you?"

Rose took a deep breath and stepped out from the corner. "Yeah, that'd be me." He turned to look at her, and finally she caught sight of his whole face. They gasped simultaneously.

She had seen him before. This was the man, the handsome time agent from her drawings. She had seen the other two appear on paper once or twice before as well. The man walked towards her slowly, incredulously, as if he could not believe she actually existed.

The moment lasted for a few seconds before the man spoke softly. "Could, um, could I speak with you alone for a minute?" Rose nodded, gesturing back to the hallway she had come out from. She began walking, leading the way, but she could feel the man's eyes burning into her back, always watching her. She resisted the urge to stare back at him. Outside her bedroom door she finally stopped and turned to face him.

Despite the fact that Mickey had hacked a government database and aliens were loose on London, the man was smiling wistfully at Rose. She crossed her arms, in a way that was very like her mother.

"What are you looking at?"

He ignored her question, reaching out to touch her face. She almost flinched away, but thought better of it, remembering that she needed his help and his trust, and allowed him to rest his palm against her cheek. "Rose Tyler," he whispered. "So good to see you again."

"How do you know me?" she asked.

He sighed heavily. "You'd never believe me."

She scoffed. "Plenty of things are happening right now that should be completely impossible. Trust me, at this point, I'd believe anything."

He chuckled, pausing a moment to study her face before he spoke again. "We knew each other. We met a long time ago. Twenty two years ago, to be exact."

"But…" Rose's mind was struggling to grasp what he was saying to her. "But I'm only nineteen. How could you have known me twenty-two years ago? That's… impossible."

"I knew you wouldn't believe me," he laughed. "It's a long, long story, and we don't have time for me to tell it right now. He can explain it to you when we find him." Before Rose could ask who this mysterious "he" was, the man continued. "Anyway, we knew each other, but I know that you don't know who I am."

"You're a time agent," Rose blurted out. "A con man, too." He looked shocked again.

"H-how do you know that? I thought you didn't remember me!"

Rose shrugged. "I've never met you… at least that I know of. But I've seen your face, and that's what my head told me when I saw your face. I just… seem to know, somehow."

"How?" he asked again.

Rose didn't reply, but opened the door to her room and beckoned for him to follow. She led him to the wall where a couple of stunningly accurate portraits of him were hanging. He silently approached one of the drawings, reaching out to touch it before drawing his hand away. He almost looked scared.

"You drew this," he said finally, more of a statement than a question. Rose nodded. Now it was him who could not make sense of things, she could see it written all over his face. "But you don't know me, you shouldn't remember, you've never seen me in this world!"

"But I see you," Rose told him, cutting him off. "I see you, inside my head, in my dreams, in my imagination, ever since I was a little girl. That picture, I drew that five years ago, and I don't even know your name. But I do know you. Somehow."

It was silent for what seemed like hours. But then he spoke. "Jack," he said, looking at Rose. "My name's Jack. Nice to finally meet you." He looked so sad; Rose didn't know how to react. He stroked her cheek again.

"So many memories," he whispered. "All those amazing things we did. Having adventures, fighting Dalek armies, running away from gas mask zombies, getting rid of the Slitheen, nanogenes, dancing on top of an invisible spaceship next to Big Ben during a German air raid… Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, and she doesn't remember." Rose didn't know what half of those things meant, but she was certain that what he was telling her was true. This was terrifying; being told all of the sudden that there were years of your life you couldn't recall. She didn't know what those years were, or who those people were that she met, or what she did, but she wanted them back. She looked up at Jack and found him staring at her with sad eyes full of sympathy. "I know it's scary, and I'm sorry to dump it on you all at once. I know what it's like. I've had memories taken from me in the past. Significantly less, only two years, but I know. We'll figure it out, Rose." She nodded. Even though she had really just met him, she felt the truth in his words, a deep recess of her mind recognizing the bond they had twenty-two years ago. She trusted him.

Jack was walking around the room, admiring Rose's drawings. He smiled sadly, and Rose could tell he recognized them; he knew the people, the creatures. He would point to certain ones, chuckle to himself or run his fingers across the pages. It was all slightly bittersweet. Finally, he looked upwards and saw the drawings of her guardian angel. He studied them closely for a while before turning back to Rose. "All of these, you drew them? You see them?" Again, Rose nodded. To her surprise, Jack grinned. "That's the Rose that I know. Always fighting back. You didn't let them take us away from you." Rose didn't understand that, but she guessed it was a good thing. He paused, looking at the wall again. "Why are there so many blank sheets of paper?" he asked.

Ah. Rose had forgotten, momentarily, the situation they were in. "We need your help, Jack. I don't know what Torchwood is or what you do, but we need you." She began to retell the whole story of her gift for art and the disappearances.

Jack had his head in his hands by the time she had finished talking. "Oh boy," he groaned, dragging the vowels out and rubbing his face. Placing his hands on his hips, he turned to Rose, looking worried. "We caught on to the alien activity—it was hard not to, people are disappearing, no trace of them anywhere—but we had no idea. This is bad, Rose, it's volcano day… oh, you don't remember that. Anyway. This is so, so bad."

"You're the expert!" Rose said. "What are we going to do?"

"Oh, Rose," Jack smiled sadly. "I am hardly an expert. But I know who is, and we need to find him."

"Who is he, then?" Rose was getting impatient.

Jack cocked an eyebrow at her. "You don't know? His face is all over your room. Hanging from the ceiling."

Rose looked up at her artwork, spinning from fishing wire pinned to the ceiling above her. "Him? The angel?" Jack threw his head back and laughed.

"The angel? Ha. Well, I guess you could call him that. No, he's an alien, too. The good kind, I promise!" he added when Rose's eyes widened. "He can help us. He's the only one who can help us."

"Well, who is he?" Rose repeated.

Jack grinned again, grabbing one of the drawings on the ceiling, holding it still so that the angel's eyes stared into hers. "This, dear Rose…" He flicked the drawing, letting it spin wildly on its string. "This man is the Doctor."