Flashes of light and color.
A bowtie.
A gleeful face, one eye covered by an eyepatch.
Fear and anger.
Three people, surrounded by smoke.
Herself.
Jessica jolted awake, her body tense. She consciously relaxed, shutting her eyes and counting to ten before she slowly sat up so as not to disturb the small ball that was curled up next to her. A peek of reddish-blonde hair showed above the blanket, hair that couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be curly or straight.
Jess slowly eased away from the pallet they'd made to sleep on, reaching out to flick on their lantern. It illuminated their corner, making shadows dance against the walls of the warehouse. The warehouse was their newest home, an abandoned place not far from the apartment building they'd run through earlier. They'd have to move tomorrow. It wasn't safe to stay in one place for very long, for either of them.
She pulled a sketchbook out of her backpack and ran her fingers over its tattered cover. She'd bought it two years ago, when the dreams first started getting weird. It had reminded her of something she'd seen in a dream. A blue box.
Such impossible, amazing dreams that she had at times.
Lately, the dreams were impossible and creepy. Not the best combination in the world. She flipped the book open and, after a pause as she gathered her thoughts, it moved across the paper in quick, sure movements as she rendered what she'd seen.
She rarely drew these days. She'd remember what she'd seen, there was no need. Especially if it just showed the astronaut suit or the eyepatch woman…or if she couldn't remember them. Those were the ones that made her the most frightened, because she knew that it meant that, very soon, she'd be forgetting chunks of her life, like a tape that had been exposed to a magnet.
There was a drawing in her sketchbook she could never remember, no matter how long she knew she'd been staring at it. Nothing worked, no trick of her mind, no mental drawing of it. The moment she looked away, it was as if she'd never seen it at all. She remembered very well when she'd drawn it: she and Mel had hunched in the window of a shop front for half an hour, watching it sit across the way. Mel had seemed upset, though she couldn't tell Jess why. She just seemed on-edge, and said that the creature gave her a bad feeling. But when they looked away, they couldn't remember what they'd been looking at. Only the narrow pencil drawing in Jess' book told them they'd been doing anything.
But tonight, she wasn't interested in the people she couldn't remember, nor even in the eyepatch woman. Goodness knew she'd seen enough of that face to last her for a whole lifetime.
It was the man with the bowtie. And the woman with him. And the tall, thin man dressed in armor.
The last was a new addition. Jessica couldn't remember him, not his face or the armor he wore like a second skin. She remembered a mention of him once before, just the barest suggestion. Rory. The woman she still didn't know by name, only by her title: the girl who waited. For what, Jessica wondered?
The other man, the one with the bowtie, didn't seem to have a name. He was just the Doctor. The others looked up to him. He was their leader, she supposed, though why they'd need a leader, she didn't know.
But one thing was certain, and that was that they were looking for something. It was something precious, something important. Something more than important. Something that could change the universe.
The outline of the woman's face wandered from Jessica's pencil as she considered that. How could one thing be so important?
A blocky outline. The box. It should be blue, but she'd used up her colored pencils. It seemed wrong for it just to be black and white.
Behind her, Mel shifted in her sleep, muttering something about hamburgers. Jess glanced back at her just long enough to be sure she was still asleep, then continued. Delicate shading on the armor, getting it just right.
She set the pencil down and sat back, studying the drawing.
"Another dream?" Mel asked, her voice bleary from sleep.
"Yeah. No biggie." Jess answered. She heard Mel get up, drag a blanket over and settle down next to her. The little girl pulled the sketchbook over, lifting it up so she could see.
"Oh, look. It's the bowtie man again."
"The Doctor." Jess corrected quietly, her finger running over the pencil rendering of the instrument he held. She still didn't have a name for it.
"Do you think he could help us?" Mel asked, looking hopefully up at Jess.
Jess grinned. "I bet so."
Mel leaned her head on Jessica's shoulder, feeling a story. "How would he help us?"
"Well, you see that man there? His name is Rory, and he's a very famous Roman general. He's from the past, you know, and the Doctor brought him forward in time to help find the one person who would always wait for him…"