Work Text:
The Doctor dips her paintbrush into the paint on her pallet and brushes some light strokes on the canvas, her piece almost finished. She leans to the side, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
But that isn't who she really sees. What she sees is a man with sideburns and incredibly spiky hair, a man with big ears and a receding hairline. Even a man with curly, brown hair and a long scarf wrapped around his neck. She sees all of these different men, these men who were her at one point, and she paints a man with grey hair and thick eyebrows.
She's a lot better at painting now than when she had the big chin. That was something he had tried in his early days, simply looking for something to do when the Ponds weren't there. But it wasn't for him. It was more her style, she supposed. Eyebrows had been good at playing the guitar, she was good at painting. They all had their strong suits.
She leans back to face the canvas and pulls a face. She dips the paintbrush into black paint and runs it along his coat. The one she'd been wearing when she'd regenerated, though it had been battered and singed then. She misses that coat, she thinks, though she'd found it wasn't her style when she'd caught sight of herself in the changing room mirror. She was more light, hopeful colours whilst Eyebrows was dark and mysterious with a stern face.
He had been hurting, she supposes, yet he didn't know why. So, that's how she paints him. A stern expression and angry eyebrows with a hidden pain in his eyes that not even he can comprehend.
She leans to the side again to check the mirror and she sees him, the Eyebrows. He has his shades on and when she turns her head, so does he. There's a picture of her eighth self stuck to the corner of the mirror with bluetac and she runs the end of the paintbrush over it, tilting her head and taking in the detail.
Sitting up straight again, she continues painting her previous self.
"All right, Doc?"
The Doctor pauses and glances at the mirror, spotting Graham stood in the open doorway, her only source of her light. His shadow is cast on her other self portraits of men she had once been lying off to the side.
"What are you doin' up? I thought you lot were asleep," the Doctor comments, placing her paintbrush in a pot of water.
"Oh, I was, couldn't sleep," Graham admits.
"You're welcome to join me," the Doctor tells him.
Graham hesitates for a moment, the Doctor hears his bare feet shuffle on the metal floor before he makes up his mind and joins her, taking the stool pressed up against the wall.
"Ta," Graham thanks and moves the stool to sit down beside her.
She can feel him scrutinising her work, though not in a negative way.
"Who's this, then?" He asks.
The Doctor sees him looking at her portrait from her peripheral vision.
"Just a friend," she tells him.
She picks up another paintbrush, this one thicker than the other, and gathers some more black paint on it. She thinks she'll put his shades on; can't bare to look into those sad eyes any longer. She wonders how everyone else had managed it for so long. Maybe she can't stand it simply because she knows his pain. It's too familiar to her, though she no longer looks back with the same eyes.
"Oh," Graham says, "where is he now, then?"
"Gone," the Doctor admits as she covers his eyes in black paint, "just... gone."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Graham frowns, "what, uh, what was his name?"
The Doctor adds the final touches to the shades and places the paintbrush down to admire her work.
"The Doctor," she says, "his name was the Doctor."