A/N: Christ. I'm so sorry. I'm awful at this thing called updating. BUT regardless, thank you all for your incredible response to this story. I'm glad so many of you enjoy it. I hope this was worth the wait. Enjoy, and please review.

Also, I'm three followers away from 100 on tumblr, and I'm taking prompts for a drabble to celebrate when I reach that number. So follow me and submit a prompt! Maybe I'll pick yours :) my URL is stolenbyasexytardis.

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 One

Rose buckled her seatbelt as quickly as she could as Jack sped down the streets of downtown London. He was on the phone with Toshiko, the computer genius at Torchwood, who was giving him directions to wherever it was the angels were. She looked to the backseat. Both of her parents looked exactly as Rose felt – purely, utterly terrified. Gwen had said that the angels had the lights. What did that mean?

Jack must have noticed the confused look on her face. "When they're particularly strong, the Angels can sometimes control electricity for a short period of time… enough to flicker the lights and allow them to move towards their target. They are also incredibly proficient at surrounding whatever it is they are hunting, which, in this case, is our team. We need to get there fast. Hold on!" He swung around a corner, hardly slowing down and throwing everyone up against the left wall of the car.

Rose watched her knuckles turn white as she gripped the door handle with all of her strength. Her mind was whirring; she was trying to remember what it was that these angels did, how they killed people. Mickey had said something about being sent back in time. Living to death. Christ. If they lost any members of their team, especially Mickey… Rose didn't want to think about that.

Five minutes later they skidded to a halt in front of a tall, ancient-looking building, made of red brick with vines climbing the walls. It was obvious that no one had been maintaining the building for many, many years. In bright contrast to the dull structure, neon yellow police tape was stretched across the entrance and cop cars littered the front lawn. Looking closer, Rose realized that the building was a chapel, and the surrounding area was actually a cemetery. There were headstones poking up out of the tall grass, all different shades of grey and brown, worn with age. The chapel itself was derelict and almost sad. Nearly all the windows had been knocked out, and one of the doors looked like someone had tried to nail it shut and then given up halfway through. It was dismal and dreary. She shuddered. This was certainly the place for statues to hide. It was creepy as all hell, she decided. "Woodgrange Park Cemetery," Jack stated.

He climbed out and slammed the car door behind him, jogging up to the entrance of the building. Rose followed, hearing her parents' footsteps behind her. A large man in a police uniform stood near the doorway, and held out his hands as they ducked under the tape and made their way quickly towards him. "Excuse me, sir, this is a crime scene…"

"Torchwood." Jack held up his credentials for the man to see, and without stopping, brushed past the officer into the chapel. "They're with me," he shouted back, and the man stepped aside to let Rose and her parents go ahead.

They stood in the middle of the long room, dim light filtering in through the windows and streaking the dirt floor of the chapel. Jack already had Gwen on the phone. "We're here. Where the hell are you guys?" There was some shouting on the other end, and Jack started walking towards a hallway on the left, motioning for them to follow. "On our way. Hang tight." He pressed a button on his earpiece. "Basement," he explained to the other three. Reaching into his long military coat, Jack pulled out a few torches and handed them to Rose and her parents. "Turn those on when we get to the bottom. They may not stay on once we get down there but it will distract the Angels for a little bit, enough for us to get our team out of there and into the graveyard. I expect that the Angels will follow us out there but I can't be sure." They had reached the stairwell that led downwards to what Rose assumed was the basement where everyone else was. It was pitch black. "Follow my lead," Jack said, and took the first step.

They descended quietly but quickly, Jack first, followed by Rose, Pete, and Jackie. Rose could see a light flickering ahead, down a long hall. They reached the corner, and now she could hear the distinct voices of Gwen, Larry, and Sally, giving quiet directions. Mickey and Jake weren't talking. Rose did not want to think about the implications of that. They were still there, of course. Gwen wouldn't let anything happen to them, they were still safe with the others. Right? Rose gulped. She certainly hoped.

In the flickering light, Rose saw that Jack had pulled out his own torch. He leaned back to the others and whispered, "On my cue." And with that, he stood up straight, holding the torch like a gun, and took a deep breath before stepping out into the basement with his light shining right on the back of one of the statues.

"Peek-a-boo, bitches."

Rose stepped next to Jack, switching the torch on and aiming it in another direction. She caught two angels in her beam of light, and out of the corner of her eye she could see five human forms standing, huddled together in the corner of the room. She breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone was okay. In her peripheral she saw two more lights go on, and three more angel statues frozen in place. "Everyone go!" Jack shouted, his eyes focused in on the statue in front of him. "Out! Into the graveyard, run!" There were footsteps behind her as the other five people ran upstairs, just as her torchlight began to dim.

"Jack…" she warned him. His light was going out, too. Hers flickered once and she gasped as she saw that the two angels in her view had turned towards her, their faces set in terrifying expressions as they reached out to her.

"Rose, Pete, Jackie, back up slowly. Keep your light on them as long as you can and then run. Get out with the others, I'm right behind you. I'll buy us some time, hold them off for a couple more seconds." She could hear her parents making their way back to the stairwell, but Rose hesitated. "Rose," Jack growled without losing eye contact with the angel statue. "Go."

She held her ground. "I'm not leaving you down here with six of them," she said defiantly. There was no way he could look at all of them at once.

"I can handle it, thank you," he spoke through clenched teeth. "Get out. Now. I'll follow you in a second." She did not budge, and he stomped his foot loudly on the floor, sending an echo crashing around the small basement. "Damn it, Rose, that's an order!" She huffed, and started to back away, being careful to keep her flickering light on the angels until her foot grazed the edge of the stairwell. And then she ran. She spun around and took the stairs two at a time, reaching the top in seconds and flying out of the backdoor of the church into the graveyard.

Without waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light, she kept running, looking around for her family and friends. They stood a couple feet away, underneath a dying tree. She jogged over to them. "Everyone okay?"

They all nodded, catching their breath. Gwen spoke first. "Where's Jack?" she asked in her Welsh accent.

"Um…" Rose breathed for a second, pointing back in the direction she had run from. "He made me leave. Told me he'd be right behind me." She turned back to look at the chapel. Jack was nowhere to be found. "Where is he?" Rose asked quietly. "He said he was coming." She stepped towards the building a little bit before she felt a hand grab her shoulder. It was Gwen. She spun Rose around to face her and gave her a stern look.

"Rose, no. It's not safe in there."

"But—" Rose started.

"Jack can take care of himself." Gwen let go of her arm and walked back to talk to Mickey and Jake. Damn it, Rose thought. I shouldn't have left him down there alone.

She eyed the church for another minute. Still, Jack hadn't shown up. Finally, she decided it was time to figure out what he was up to. "Jack!" she shouted. She could feel the eyes of the entire group on her back, but she couldn't care less. She needed to know that Jack was okay. "Jack?" she called again. Still no response. Without looking back, Rose broke into a trot, figuring that she would re-enter the chapel from where she had exited and see if Jack was around. She heard Gwen call her name angrily from somewhere behind her, and started to sprint.

There were footsteps behind her, muffled by the grass, but she could tell that at least two people were following, gaining on her. She bent forward and ran harder.

The exit of the church – the one she had come from, at least – wasn't actually a door, but a part of wall that had been knocked down and left a large hole that was bigger than an actual doorway. Being careful not to trip on any of the rubble and stray bricks that were cast across the ground both outside and inside the chapel, Rose stopped in the middle of the room, which was empty. "Jack!" she yelled. Nothing. "Shit!" she mumbled under her breath. She turned around to see Gwen and Mickey coming at her about ten feet away. She went to run for the stairwell when she hit something solid and gave a shout as she fell.

All the breath knocked out of her chest, Rose looked up and felt a sharp tug at her shoulder. Jack was standing above her, breathing heavily and pulling at her coat. "Come on! We have to go!" Scrambling to her feet, Rose followed Jack back out of the chapel into the graveyard, watching him grab the two that had followed Rose back and dragging them along. She was gulping for air but at the same time she was nearly certain the statue aliens were right behind them and wasn't going to risk stopping to check. She did, however, see the terrified looks of the rest of the group as they got closer. They finally made it to the tree and Rose bent down, hands on her knees, trying to suck in as much oxygen as possible. She hadn't known she was this out of shape. Again, there was a hand gripping her arm, too tight to be Gwen this time. "Damn it, Rose, I told you to let me handle it!" Jack breathed heavily as he spoke.

"I-I'm sorry!" she replied, straightening up. "I couldn't just leave you in there with all of them! You could have been dead for all I knew!"

"Even if I was, it wouldn't do the rest of us any good if you went and got yourself killed too!" Jack was yelling now.

"I was just trying to help!"

"You can help by doing what I tell you to do!" They were inches away from each other, huffing angrily with brows furrowed. Jack gritted his teeth. "When I give you an order, you follow. Understood?"

Rose clenched her fists at her sides, trying to resist punching the arrogant man before her right in the nose. Without thinking about her words, Rose spoke. "What happened to you, Jack? You didn't used to be like this." She turned away from him, arms crossed.

She had expected him to rebuke, or to ignore her comment. But she didn't expect him to grab her and spin her around, or hold his vice-like grip on her arms while he stared at her with the most curious expression on his face. 'What did you say, Rose?"

"I said, 'you didn't…" Rose trailed off mid-sentence. What had she said? She didn't remember. This was terribly odd. She knew that she had made some sort of rude comment in her anger, but she honestly could not recall what it was she had said to him. "I said…" Rose gasped as a sharp pain bloomed just above her left eye, dropping to her knees in the dry grass and holding her head in her hands. She could hear Jack calling her name but she could not find it in her to respond or open her eyes. Images flitted across the inside of her eyelids, split seconds of pictures that seemed familiar but not enough for Rose to recognize them. She happened to notice herself in the pictures, much like she was now. Her hair was the same length, wavy and beautiful, and she was wearing a black jacket over a Union Jack t-shirt. There was a flash of blue light and she was cradled in strong arms, with a smiling face gazing down at her—none other than Captain Jack Harkness. Another flash and she and Jack were dancing on something she could not see, Glenn Miller playing in the background of the dark night. It all seemed incredibly surreal to Rose. Suddenly it went black, her eyes opened, and the pain in her temple subsided. Jack – the real one this time – was kneeling beside her, looking terribly worried.

"Rose! Are you okay?" She nodded, blinking a couple times and rubbing her face. Jack stood up and offered her a hand, and with his help she pulled herself to her feet. "What the hell was that?" he asked, staring at her like she had just sprouted three heads.

Her vision blurred and she stumbled dizzily, glad when Jack wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her upright. "I-I don't know," she replied honestly once she had regained her balance. "I saw… you. I saw us together, actually."

"Where? What were we doing?" Jack asked harshly.

"Um… I guess we were dancing or something?"

Jack's eyes widened. "Where, Rose? I need to know where!"

Rose smacked him on the chest. "Geez, what is this, some sort of interrogation? Lay off." When he raised his eyebrows at her, though, she answered. "I dunno, Jack, it was dark and hard to see. I couldn't see what it was, but it looked like there was nothing underneath us at all! I mean, I could feel something there under my feet but it just looked like we were floating."

It looked like Jack was about to say something to her, but at that precise moment, Sally interrupted them. "Um, I'm sorry to butt in, but we've got a bit of a problem here." She pointed just to Rose's right and the two turned to see the angel statues standing only about ten yards away, covering their faces with their hands. Rose counted quickly. There were still six of them.

"Eyes on them, everyone. Gwen, head count. How many people do we have?" Rose focused her eyes on the angels, struggling not to blink.

There was a slight pause, and then, "Nine! There are nine of us here." Jack didn't hesitate with the first plan that popped into his head.

"Okay then. Blondie," he called, motioning in Jake's direction, "take Pete and Jackie back to the apartment. The rest of my team will meet you there, and they'll tell you what else we need to do to take care of these aliens."

"Jack," Gwen cut in, a hint of caution in her voice as she approached her captain. "Wouldn't it be easier to fight these aliens right now if we outnumbered them?"

"No. I'm not taking any chances, and having more people means more room for error. We need everyone alive right now and I'm not going to risk that by having them stay." Out of the corner of her eye, Rose could see the three retreating back to the parking lot. "I want them safe, you hear?" Jack yelled in their general direction. When they heard the sound of an engine roaring to life and driving off, Rose breathed a sigh of relief. It made her feel better to know that her parents were okay for now. "Alright, everyone. Keep your eyes focused, no blinking, you know the drill. Sparrow, with me." The two moved off to the side to discuss their plan.

A familiar hand slipped into Rose's. Mickey. She smiled, stepping closer to him and weaving her fingers with his. It was nice to know he would always be right there next to her side when she needed him.

"What are we going to do?" Mickey asked. For the first time in a very long time, Rose realized, he sounded very, very scared. And he had every right to be. Those angels, standing mere feet away, had the power to kill them all. They were all facing the possibility of never seeing each other again, and she was scared, too. But they were still standing, hand in hand, and not blinking even in the face of death.

Squeezing his hand reassuringly, she spoke, trying to sound more confident than she actually was. "We do what we have to do. We fight."

It was a few more minutes before Jack and Sally returned, standing just behind Rose. "Listen up, everyone. We need to get into a circle and get them to surround us."

"Excuse me!" Mickey scoffed. "You actually want them to surround us?"

"Yes," Sally answered in her soft, kind voice. "It's the only way to stop them."

The four stepped into place next to Rose and Mickey so that they made a straight line. Jack was the one to give the first command. "On my count, then, we all blink. Quick as you can," he ordered. "We'll try our best to keep them at a safe enough distance to work with."

"That sounds reassuring," Mickey spoke under his breath, until Rose nudged him in the side to get him to shut up.

"Ready? One…" Jack paused. "Two…" Rose inhaled deeply. "Three!" She shut her eyes gratefully but opened them again as fast as possible. Sure enough, the statues had now moved a couple feet forward across the open field, two of them with their hands down from their faces, baring their sharp teeth. "Again, now, here we go! One, two, three!" They blinked again, and another few feet were lost between them and the angels. They repeated this four more times, the aliens creeping closer each time they closed their eyes. Finally, Jack deemed it time for them to circle up. They formed a tiny ring, shoulder to shoulder. Rose still hadn't let go of Mickey's hand. Jack and Sally both began shouting out names, telling one or two people to blink at a time, and slowly, the statues started to encircle them. There was exactly one person to each angel now, and the one in front of Rose sent chills up her spine. Its eyes were blank, but it had its mouth open and its slender fingers reaching out towards Rose. Clutching Mickey's hand tighter and fighting to keep her eyes open, she awaited the next order.

Rose was surprised when she heard laughter. "Yes! Perfect." It was Jack, and he was most definitely celebrating. But exactly what he was celebrating, Rose had no idea.

"Oi, what the hell are you on about? We're surrounded by killer statues and you're laughing?" Mickey shouted.

"On three, everyone, I want you to duck." Sally spoke again in her calm and collected demeanor. "Close your eyes and duck. Ready?" Rose was not ready. She had no clue how this was supposed to work out. If they closed their eyes, the angels would be able to move, and they were only inches away. If the statues got any closer, they were completely screwed. "On my count. One, two, three!"

There wasn't even time to think about it. Rose dropped to the ground, eyes shut, waiting to be grabbed by the alien and transported back to die in some other world. But she felt no such thing. Opening one of her eyes just a crack, she peeked up at the statue that had been reaching for her. It was frozen in place. So was the one next to it. Glancing around, she realized that all six of them were immobile. Mickey was still holding her hand, she realized. So the Angels hadn't taken him. There was more laughter, and she finally opened her eyes fully and did a quick count. Six. Everyone was there, alive and safe. Sally and Larry were hugging, sitting together on the grass. Jack was already wiggling his way out between two of the frozen statues, a giant grin on his face as he helped Gwen out, and Mickey just sat, looking stunned. "What the hell," he whispered.

"We did it!" Jack shouted. "We got 'em!"

Sally smiled at Rose as she looked around the circle. "Don't stand up. Can't let them break eye contact with each other." Ah, so that's how it worked. Now Rose remembered reading that the only way to defeat them was to make them look at each other. "These angels won't be taking any more people for a very, very long time." They all crawled out of the ring, sharing embraces and congratulations and laughter.

"So what do we do about them now?" Rose asked.

Larry winked at her. "Nothing. They become an old monument in a desolate graveyard. No one thinks to ask questions. As long as no one touches them or moves them, the problem is solved."

They walked back to the cars that were parked in front. Rose waited with Gwen and Mickey while Jack talked with the chubby police officer briefly. He strutted back to them with his hands in his pockets, a spring in his step now that they had one task down. "Good job, everyone," he said as he unlocked the car. "Now, let's get out of here. We've got work to do."

As Jack drove back to Powell Estate, he drowned out the noise of Rose and Mickey in the backseat talking with Gwen about their work at Torchwood. He was only thinking of one thing: the Doctor. Jack was glad he had left the Doctor when he had, or Rose would have found them and it would have ruined everything. At least that's what the Doctor had told him. He wasn't exactly sure why the Doctor didn't want Rose to see him just yet. Maybe it had something to do with the strange visions Rose was having. Or maybe he was just being stubborn—after all, he was known to do that. Either way, Jack was glad he heard the whirring of the TARDIS' engines when he was coming up those stairs and into the chapel. It made him feel a lot better that the Doctor knew what was happening and was helping them try to stop it, even if the rest of them didn't know. Jack laughed to himself. Maybe Rose had been right.

Maybe there was an angel watching over them.