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regenderate-fic · 2 years

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Coming Back for You

Fandom: Doctor Who Ships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan Characters: Thirteenth Doctor, Yasmin Khan, Dan Lewis Rating: General Word Count: 11,681 Other Tags: Episode: Legend of the Sea Devils, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending

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Summary: The Doctor goes down with the Sea Devils-- but Yaz will never give up on her.

(Piece for the 2022 Thasmin Big Bang!)

NOTES: this is my piece for the thasmin big bang! check out the podfic by ari @pro-daydreamer :) it was so much fun to write this with the knowledge that it would be read out loud, it added a really interesting dimension to the writing.

“Yaz, you have to go. Get the others out. I’ll keep this in place.” The Doctor was jamming two cables together, looking from them to Yaz, her hair flying everywhere.

Yaz stared at her. “What?”

The Doctor jerked her head towards the door. Her eyes were wide with urgency. “Go! I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t!” Yaz looked around wildly. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Yaz.” The Doctor’s voice was low and serious. “You’re the only one who can pilot the TARDIS. If you don’t go now, Dan and Ji-Hun will never get back home.” And then she faltered, her voice breaking as she spoke. “I need to know you’re safe.”

Yaz held the Doctor’s gaze. The Doctor could see the moment understanding set in.

“Fine,” she said. “But I’m coming back for you.”

“Yaz—” The Doctor cut off. There were so many things she wanted to say to Yaz, and none of them were small enough to be put into words. But— she and Yaz were likely never going to see each other again.

The Doctor had nothing left to lose.

She leaned forward, teetering awkwardly over the cables, and pressed a swift, desperate kiss to Yaz’s lips. Yaz stumbled back, staring in shock, and the Doctor jerked her head towards the door again. “Go. You don’t have much time.”

“I will come back for you,” Yaz promised. And then she was gone, out the door, leaving the Doctor alone at the bottom of the ship, her eyes screwed shut, Yaz’s sweet-smelling breath still on her lips as she watched her death approach.

—

Yaz burst into the room with the TARDIS. It was still there, lying on its side in the dark little room. The ship lurched, and Yaz scrambled, launching herself towards the TARDIS. She clambered through the doors, falling to the TARDIS floor as the TARDIS’s interior gravity kicked in. Only slightly disoriented, she picked herself up, looking around. She breathed a sigh of relief: everyone was there. Dan. Ji-Hun. Madam Ching. Ying Ki.

“Thanks,” she said to Dan.

“Glad you’re okay.” His eyes darted to the space behind her. “Where’s the Doctor?”

Yaz shook her head. “No time. We’ve got to get out of here.” She ran to the console. There was an emergency sequence the Doctor had shown her— with three quick jabs at a big red button and a quick flip of a lever, the TARDIS began to move.

—

Time exploded in the Doctor’s mind. Pastpresentfuture all converged. And she, at the center of the blast, was still.

—

Yaz managed to keep herself steady long enough to get everyone home without a hitch, keeping a friendly smile on her face as she dropped off Madame Ching, Ying Ki, and Ji-Hun in their respective time periods. The Doctor had taught her well: even with just the ten percent of her brain that hadn’t shut down the second the Doctor had kissed her and told her to go, she was still able to go through the motions of piloting the TARDIS, darting around the console and saying cheery good-byes.

Just like the Doctor would have.

She kept it up all the way until she landed in Liverpool, 2022. Finally, with just Dan to witness, she deflated, clutching at the console for support as the fight went out of her body.

The Doctor was gone.

Dead, probably, although Yaz wasn’t sure the Doctor could die.

Yaz took a deep breath. If the Doctor could die, she was probably dead. But— if there was any chance the Doctor couldn’t die— or if there was any chance she hadn’t died— well, then, she would be needing a rescue.

Her thoughts raced. In the space of a second, she was already coming up with a million different plans, different ways to get the Doctor back. Until, somewhere in her haze, she was aware of a hand on her shoulder.

Right. Dan was still here.

“You all right?” he asked.

Yaz turned to face him. The words I’m fine were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say them: not to Dan, not after everything that had happened. She shook her head, opening her mouth in an attempt at speech. Nothing came out.

Dan understood, though. He always did. He knew Yaz better than she knew herself, at this point. He swept her into a hug, surrounding her in his friendly warmth, and she fell into it, finally letting herself cry big, ugly sobs into the shoulder of his pirate outfit.

They stood there for a long time, in the center of the console room, Yaz falling apart, Dan holding her together. It felt like hours before Yaz’s tears began to subside. She stepped back, wiping at her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said weakly.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Dan said, his hands still on Yaz’s shoulders. He was looking at her with pride spilling out of his eyes. “You did brilliantly back there.”

Yaz managed a teary smile.

“What happened?” Dan added. “I mean, with the Doctor—”

“She—” Yaz swallowed. “She had to stay back. To save Earth.” She lifted her chin, her jaw set. “And I’ve got to find her.”

“Yaz—”

Yaz shook her head, fixing her gaze on Dan’s. “If there’s any chance she’s still alive,” she said, “I’ve got to go back for her.”

Dan sighed. “I worry about you, you know. You put so much of yourself into her.”

“I—” Yaz faltered, tears forming at the edges of her eyes. “Dan, I’ve got to.”

“I know.” Dan was giving her that look he always gave her, the kind eyes he’d turned on her so many times over the past few years. “And if you’re going to go running after her, I’m coming with you.”

Yaz glanced at the TARDIS doors. “Your home is right out there. You’re sure you want to leave again?”

“We’ve got a time machine,” Dan replied. “Home will be here whenever.” He nodded his head towards Yaz. “You’re the one I’m worried about right now.”

Yaz hesitated, hovering in the space between responsible loneliness and reckless companionship. She was starting to understand the Doctor from a whole new point of view.

“All right, then,” she finally said. “Glad to have you on board.”

Dan gave her a lazy mock-salute. “Where to first, Captain?”

Yaz turned to the console, gesturing as she spoke. “I’ll have to find the coordinates for where we were last. And we ought to be careful about when we show up. We want to time it so we’re just after the explosion, but not so early we cross our own timeline. Don’t want to mess with that.”

She reached for the controls. If they started now, they could get to the Doctor by— well, time was a nebulous concept, inside the TARDIS, but they could get to her soon. Probably. But the second Yaz touched the metal of the console, Dan tapped her shoulder again. Yaz turned around, pushing down a flare of irritation.

“Yaz,” he said. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Yaz blinked. “What?”

“I think we’ve got time for a rest,” Dan said.

Yaz stared at the TARDIS console, the Doctor’s last words playing in her mind on repeat. “I don’t know if I can rest,” she said.

“You’ll be no good to the Doctor if you collapse of exhaustion,” Dan chided. “Come on, Yaz, we can find the right moment tomorrow just the same as we can today.”

For a long moment, Yaz didn’t say anything. She just looked from the console to Dan, feeling increasingly helpless.

But she was tired.

“Yeah,” she finally said. “Fine. I’ll take a rest.” The minute she said it, the full weight of her exhaustion hit her, dragging at her limbs. She took a step, and her head spun: the last few days were catching up to her.

Fortunately, Dan was there. Dan was always there, a steady presence in Yaz’s worst moments, lending her a little bit of strength, a little bit of warmth, and now was no exception. Before Yaz could take another step (or fall trying), he came up next to her and tugged one of her arms around his shoulder, letting her lean on him as they walked into the TARDIS corridor.

“Why aren’t you more tired?” Yaz asked. “You’ve had the same few days I have.”

“You and I both know that’s not true. No one I’ve been pining after for seven years just got stuck at the bottom of the ocean.”

Yaz breathed out a laugh. “Maybe not.”

“Anyway,” Dan added, “I’m plenty tired. Just not to the wobbly-when-I-walk stage yet.”

“Guess maybe I have been running pretty ragged.”

Dan chortled. “You don’t say?”

They came to the door of Yaz’s room. It slid open, and Yaz stumbled away from Dan.

“Night, Scouse,” she said, her eyes watering with the effort of keeping them open.

“Night, Sheffield.”

Yaz hovered by the open door. Dan waited.

“I just wanted to say,” she said, her fingers twisting together. “Thanks for being there.”

“Anytime, Sheffield.” Dan smiled. “Good night.”

“Night.” Yaz held his eyes for another moment before she backed away, falling towards her bed. The door to her room slid shut, and then she was alone, nothing but the faint gurgles of the TARDIS to keep her company.

She collapsed onto her bed, not even bothering to change out of her long skirt. She was sure, despite all her exhaustion, that she would lie awake for hours, worrying about the Doctor, but she was wrong: the second her head hit the pillow, she felt herself start to slip away.

The last thing in her mind was the Doctor’s lips, burning on hers, a too-quick kiss in the depths of a doomed ship.

—

Was she regenerating? The Doctor couldn’t tell. She hurt, all over: every cell, every part of her self.

And she was stuck. She couldn’t move, in time or in space. If she was regenerating, she would never finish. The ship was in smithereens around her, fragments of wood hovering in midair: she would regenerate, if she got out of this moment: she’d drown before she could reach the ocean’s surface, and then, in the vulnerable moments immediately after, she would drown again.

There was no hope for her.

—

Yaz only slept a couple hours before all the stress and worry boiled over in her chest and woke her up. She rubbed her eyes and stretched, feeling decidedly unrested. But anxiety was grinding away in her bones, overriding her exhaustion entirely, and besides— she had work to do.

She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and got up, changing into dark jeans and a blue-and-red striped blouse. She pulled her favorite brown leather jacket on over it, and then she went out into the corridors.

It was strange, being in the TARDIS without the Doctor. It wasn’t uncomfortable, really— Yaz had long since begun to consider the TARDIS a home, Doctor or no— but it was empty. Lacking. Yaz often wandered the corridors alone, usually when she couldn’t sleep, but it felt different knowing the Doctor wasn’t there to jump out at her as she turned a corner, wouldn’t be hanging out by happenstance in the swimming pool or the library.

Still, Yaz wasn’t wandering for long. She found the console room quickly and took up her position at the controls. She had a lot of work to do: she’d been too busy getting the TARDIS off the Sea Devil ship to take note of its coordinates in time and space, and she was still a little shaky on the TARDIS’s “history” function.

The real problem was that she didn’t have a telepathic connection to the TARDIS, like the Doctor did: she had to rely on manual controls and her own memory and basic instincts. It had made it hard, at the beginning, for the Doctor to explain the controls. Eventually, she’d had to sever her own telepathic connection to force herself to remember what each individual button and lever did, and in that way she and Yaz had learned together, laughing when they opened the doors to wildly incorrect places, fumbling to hit six buttons at once.

But now the Doctor was gone, and it was just Yaz, who didn’t even have the memory of a telepathic connection, who had no choice but to fiddle with dials until she got the right one. She felt the Doctor’s absence keenly, a ghost at her side. She could pilot the TARDIS alone: she knew she could. It was just that… she didn’t want to. She wanted to feel the Doctor’s body heat next to her, wanted the Doctor’s chipper voice dancing through the air.

She wanted the Doctor.

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. The Doctor wasn’t there— it was all up to Yaz.

Years ago, she would’ve asked herself what the Doctor would do. She would’ve written it on her palm, a constant reminder. But four years away had changed her, given her her own strategies, given her the confidence to stop asking what the Doctor would do and instead do what Yaz would do.

Today, she decided, Yaz would overcome the overwhelming urge to collapse on the floor in tears, and she’d try a set of coordinates, and if those were wrong she’d try another, and she’d keep doing that until she found the Doctor. Yaz would persevere, no matter what, because she’d spent too long missing the Doctor to ever accept her absence.

So she set some coordinates. Threw a lever. The TARDIS began its whir. Yaz hit the buttons for the oxygen bubble and the aquashield, made sure to set the ship’s internal pressure, fiddled with the stabilizers.

The TARDIS’s wheezing died down, and Yaz stepped to the door, steeling herself for what she would find. She hoped, desperately, that it would be the Doctor, but—

Nothing. Just the ocean floor. It was just as breathtaking as the last time Yaz had been here, but she felt none of the thrill or awe she’d felt then.

It wasn’t the same, after all, without the Doctor.

Yaz closed the doors and went back to the console, plugging in another set of coordinates. Same time, different place. She ran back out to the doors, hoping against hope— and—

Nothing.

She didn’t linger this time. She just went right back to the console and tried again. This time, she barely poked her head out the doors long enough to see what she wasn’t seeing. She ran back to the console and tried again— and again— and again— running back and forth across the console room.

Until finally, on what had to have been her fiftieth attempt, she stared out at an abyss of blue as all the fight went out of her. She fell to the ground, her head slumped against the doorframe, staring blankly out at reefs and fish and seaweed. She reached out a hand. An electric tingle tickled her skin as it passed through the shields, and then she felt the cold weight of the ocean water. She moved her hand back and forth through the water, her mind blank. A red fish came up to her hand, bumping its forehead against her palm, and Yaz almost managed a smile. She pulled her hand back in. It was completely dry: the aquashield was doing its job.

Her eyes slipped closed. She couldn’t stop thinking about being in much the same position with the Doctor: standing under the ocean, the mix of confusion and painful, breathless hope, on the threshold of acknowledgment.

There were footsteps behind her.

“Hiya,” Yaz said. She opened her eyes, but she didn’t turn around.

“Nice view.” Dan’s voice came from just behind her: if she looked up, she was sure she’d see him looming over her. And then he dropped down next to her, cross-legged in the doorway. “You all right there, Sheffield?”

“What do you think?” Yaz said, and winced at the sharp edge that had appeared, unbidden, in her tone.

Dan understood, though. He knew her too well not to. “We were in Liverpool, last I checked. Either Liverpool looks very different now, or—”

“I was looking for the shipwreck,” Yaz said. “I know it’s here somewhere. I just can’t remember the coordinates.” She shook her head. “I should’ve been paying more attention.”

“You had a lot going on, back there,” Dan said mildly.

Yaz sighed. “I guess so.”

“You never did tell me, you know,” Dan said. “What the Doctor said to you.”

“You never told me what you said to her,” Yaz replied. Again, it came out sharper than intended— and again, Dan brushed it off.

“All I said was that you liked her,” Dan said. “She tried to tell me she didn’t know what I was talking about, and I told her she definitely did, even if she was lying about it.”

Yaz managed half a laugh, shaking her head at the ocean in front of her. “Yeah,” she said. “That sounds about right.” She paused. “Yesterday, with the Sea Devils— she kept flirting with me. It was proper weird. Like, it was definitely different to how she talks to me normally.” She sighed. “And then she said she doesn’t date, but if she were going to, it’d be me.”

“That’s a step,” Dan said.

“Yeah.” Yaz still felt empty inside. “But it was—” She let out her air in a long sigh, tilting her head back. “A lot, all at once.” She took another deep breath. “And there’s more.”

She could feel Dan’s eyes on her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Yaz’s own eyes were fixed on the scene in front of her, following fish as they swam across her field of vision. She didn’t think she could bear Dan’s kind eyes right now: he always saw her, all of her, and she wasn’t sure she could handle that. “There were these wires, yeah? The whole ship was about to explode, and she had to stay to hold them together. I—” Her voice broke. “I didn’t want to leave her again. I almost didn’t. But she— she reminded me that if I didn’t go, you and the others would never get back home. And then—” Yaz choked on the words. “Dan, she— she kissed me.”

Dan’s reaction was immediate. Yaz felt him shift, angle his body towards her, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw his mouth open, wide eyes fixed on her. “No way.”

Yaz nodded. She watched a blue fish make its way over to the reef. “And then she told me to go.”

“Wow.” Dan bumped his shoulder against hers. “Big day.”

“So I’ve got to get her back.” It was almost a whisper. “I told her I’d come back for her. What happened to the ship, it— the Doctor said it would make that spot the densest place on Earth, and no one would leave for a very long time. And that implies—”

“They could leave eventually,” Dan finished, sudden understanding coloring his tone.

“Exactly.” Yaz took a deep breath. “But I’ve tried so many coordinates, and they’ve all been totally empty.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“Hang on a second, though,” Dan said. “If she made it the densest place on Earth— isn’t that the sort of thing the TARDIS could track?”

Yaz finally turned to look at him. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Dan said, shrugging. “You’re the one who knows how to pilot this thing. I just know that back there—” he jerked his head towards the console— “there are millions of little devices and sensors, and I’ll bet anything one of them could trace your shipwreck.”

“I don’t know what they all do,” Yaz said. “The Doctor was teaching me, but—” She spread her hands, helpless.

Dan nudged her. “Now, I know you’re more resourceful than that. Didn’t you get us around the world three times over?”

“I don’t know,” Yaz said. “The TARDIS isn’t exactly easy to read.” She sighed. “But I suppose I’ve got to try.” She pushed herself to her feet, holding out a hand for Dan. Already, her mask was coming up— her competent and good-natured captain’s persona, the one that had gotten her across oceans and over mountains. “You ready to help, Scouse?”

“About time I earned my keep around here,” Dan joked.

Yaz walked over to the console, Dan at her heels. She was moving a little more slowly now: less frantic, more methodical. She inspected the controls, trying to remember everything the Doctor had ever told her about the TARDIS: the offhand comments on the way out the door, the instruments she’d checked every now and then. Why hadn’t she been paying closer attention?

“Wish this thing had a manual I could look up,” Yaz said.

“It doesn’t have one?” Dan asked.

Yaz shook her head. “I asked the Doctor once. She said she threw it out.”

Dan barked out a laugh. “‘Course she did.”

“I know, right?” Yaz shook her head. “I’ve got some notes, but only the things she showed me. Nothing like a full manual.”

“To be fair,” Dan said, “a manual for this thing’s got to be huge.”

“Wouldn’t that just make it harder to throw out?” Yaz sighed. “I guess I’ll have to find my notes. There’s plenty I might’ve forgotten, with four years away.” She stared up at the ceiling, the shining, impenetrable chrome. “Wish I could communicate with it properly.”

“How d’you mean?”

Yaz looked at him. They’d spent so much time together in the past that she forgot, sometimes, how little he really knew of the Doctor or the TARDIS.

“It’s telepathic,” she said. “The Doctor’s got a telepathic link to it.”

“No.” Dan raised his eyebrows, staring open-mouthed at Yaz.

Yaz nodded.

“Really?” He shook his head. “Just when I think I’ve gotten used to being on a bigger-on-the-inside seemingly infinite timeship, I find out it’s also got telepathy.”

Yaz laughed. Thank goodness for Dan, really— he always managed to bring good humor to even the direst of situations. Just when she was sure there was nothing left in the universe to be happy about, Dan would remind her that life’s simple joys were still available: laughter. Friendship. Warmth, although that one was often only there in the metaphorical sense.

“She told me, right when she started teaching me to fly it,” Yaz said, “that TARDISes are grown, not made. This ship— I know I sound daft. But it’s alive.” She trailed an affectionate hand over the console before she’d thought twice about it.

“Now you mention it,” Dan said, “there is a sort of personality to it. I could swear some of these gurgles are laughing at us.”

“Probably.” Yaz shrugged. “I would think it was funny, too, if I were thousands of years old and could see all of time and space and suddenly a couple humans started trying to tell me where to go.”

“Point taken.”

“On the other hand,” Yaz added, “the Doctor and the TARDIS— they’re sort of inseparable. Which is another reason we have to find her.” She patted the console. “Would be cruel, to keep the TARDIS and the Doctor apart.”

There was an emphatic gurgle from the TARDIS. Yaz looked up again.

“Don’t worry,” she said, quiet, intense. “We’ll get her back.”

The lights flashed blue.

“Come on, Dan,” Yaz said. “Let’s go find my notes.”

—

But then again, the Doctor thought, there was always hope.

Wasn’t there?

It was hard to see, through the pain. Hard to even imagine.

But— somewhere in the Doctor’s mind, somewhere deep in the fog, there it was.

The TARDIS. Yaz’s last words.

I will come back for you.

The Doctor had never been one for prayer. What was a god, after all, to someone who’d been alive thousands of years, who’d seen the birth of stars, who’d seen planets form and fall apart?

But now—

Now she prayed.

—

Yaz’s notes were all in her room, filed in a neat red binder, still lying open on her desk. She hadn’t studied it in four years now— the instincts had stuck with her, and anything she didn’t remember was likely obscure and seldom-used.

Which, of course, was exactly what she needed right now.

She tucked the binder under her arm and joined Dan in the doorway. Together, they set off through the corridors again until they reached the console room. Yaz propped the binder up against the biscuit dispenser— the one mechanism she was absolutely sure had nothing to do with a successful landing.

“Right,” she said. “Tracking the shipwreck. Densest thing on Earth.” She took a deep breath. “I can do this.”

“You definitely can.” Dan flipped open the binder, staring at the first page of notes— a labeled diagram of the TARDIS console, drawn by the Doctor, labeled by Yaz. “If you can understand— any of this.”

“It’s not so hard,” Yaz said. “Not once you get the hang of it.” She glanced at Dan. “I’d offer to teach you, but I don’t know if the Doctor would like it.”

“Nah, that’s all right,” Dan said, stepping back. “Too much responsibility.”

Yaz shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She turned to the next page of notes. Most of the early ones were just the basics: page one explained, in detail, how to get back to Sheffield, and after that were explanations of each instrument used in takeoff and landing— just the bare bones of what a novice pilot would need. Yaz had memorized all of it years ago— she didn’t need it now.

She kept flipping through. Words jumped out at her, some written in the Doctor’s slanted handwriting, some written by her 21-year-old self: “temporal fission,” “probability factor,” “interior warp shield.”

None of it was what she was looking for, though. She scoured each page, searching for something: some sensor, some tool she could use. Until finally—

Her head snapped up. “I’ve got it.”

Dan raised his eyebrows.

“It might still take a while,” she warned. She was already circling the console, her focus entirely on the controls. “I’m going to set it to drift. If I do it right, we’ll move through time and space, and I’ll be able to program it to scan for the shipwreck.” She paused, looking back at Dan. “And if I don’t do it right, we’ll be drifting for no reason, but—” She shrugged. “Could be worse.”

Dan nodded. “You’ll do it right,” he said.

“I hope so.” Yaz pressed her lips together, trying not to think about what would happen if she didn’t. Sure, she wouldn’t get hurt— but the Doctor would still be trapped below the ocean’s surface, stuck without hope. The one thing Yaz never wanted her to be.

She returned to her work, programming the sensors, setting a range of dates. It was lucky density was an easy thing to scan for: Yaz didn’t know what she would’ve done if she’d needed to find Artron energy or evidence of temporal displacement. Finally, she had it all set up, and she let her hand hover over the final lever. She caught Dan’s eye.

“Ready?” she asked.

“I’m always ready,” he said, puffing out his chest.

Yaz almost laughed.

“All right, then,” she said. “Bon voyage.” And with a decisive push, the lever went down, and the TARDIS began its whirring. The trademark wheeze was quiet now, in the background, and it didn’t end after a few seconds: it continued on.

“We’re traveling now,” Yaz said to Dan. “I’ve set it to alert us if it finds anything.”

“Okay,” Dan said. “So… what do we do now?”

A sigh pushed through Yaz’s throat, and she shook her head. “Nothing to do but wait,” she said. “No telling how long it’ll take.” She paused. “‘Course, we can always stop partway, if you want to go home or anything.”

“Nah,” Dan said. He rested a warm hand on Yaz’s shoulder. “I told you. Someone’s got to make sure you’re not worrying yourself to death.”

Yaz breathed out half a smile. “Thanks,” she said. “You’re a good mate.”

“Oh, you know.” Dan smiled down at her. “I do what I can.”

Yaz turned, collapsing into him. He wrapped his arms around her in a solid and reassuring hug— and they stayed like that, standing together in the empty TARDIS, for a long time.

—

Something was different. It was in the air— in time. Even suspended like this, even at the bottom of the ocean, the Doctor could feel it all: the turn of the Earth, the stars spinning above. Time, positioned around her, threatening to close in.

And there had been a shift. Something was interfering— the fabric of time was changing, ever so slightly. If she’d had breath, it would have caught in her throat, trapped in the place between hope and despair.

Very few things could manipulate time like that.

But— the Doctor remembered, again, Yaz’s last words. And she hoped, desperately she hoped, that what she was sensing—

She could barely allow herself the thought. Optimism did not come as naturally to her as she liked to pretend.

But all her faith, if there was any to be had— it was all in Yaz. Yaz, and the TARDIS, and the tiniest of shifts in the fabric of time.

—

Hours passed, and then days. Yaz tried to pretend everything was normal— she and the Doctor had spent multiple consecutive days on the TARDIS before, on the few occasions Yaz had begged for a rest. Yaz tried to convince herself this was just like that— she was relaxing, and the Doctor was around the corner, or in her study, or banging around in the console room.

It wasn’t like that, of course.

Yaz couldn’t relax, for one thing. She tried to distract herself, mostly by showing Dan around the TARDIS— the library, the swimming pool, the game room. They explored together, sometimes coming across a room Yaz had never seen before— the high ropes course, for example, was new— and sometimes stumbling upon her old favorites, like the gardens where she and Graham used to have picnics sometimes. Dan took it all in with the appropriate awe, and Yaz got as much enjoyment as she could, under the circumstances, from seeing the familiar magic through Dan’s eyes.

But then, every night, Dan would go to bed, and Yaz wouldn't be able to sleep. She reverted to her old habits: wandering the corridors, staying up in the console room, studying her notes and drawing up plans she knew she’d never put to use.

She started playing the Doctor’s hologram again, too, the one she’d half worn out back in the 20th century. The metal of the projector was scratched and tarnished by now, but the Doctor’s image still came through, fizzy and tinged with golden yellow. Most of it was no longer relevant— the Flux was history, and Yaz no longer had any need to travel the world for signs of it— but she had never been watching the hologram to remember her mission. No, it was always for the look in the Doctor’s eyes as she said the words Yaz had never expected to hear.

I’m sure I miss you.

“I miss you too,” Yaz still murmured, every time she heard it. She did: she missed the Doctor like a hole in her chest. It ached, it burned. The hologram would end, the Doctor’s image hovering frozen a few feet away, and Yaz would close her eyes, imagining the Doctor next to her, the ghost of a kiss— it was unbearable, getting the Doctor back just to lose her two days later. Unbearable, having the hole in her chest sealed up, finally healed, only for it to be immediately ripped open again, gaping wider than before.

Yaz didn’t know how long she and Dan spent in the TARDIS, waiting. She’d stopped counting the days: it all blurred together, morning after evening, meal after meal mechanically made and eaten. Dan seemed to be seeing the whole thing as a sort of vacation— which it was, compared to their time in the 1900’s. But even when she was in the swimming pool or the gardens or the spa, Yaz just felt like she was half-asleep, pushing herself through each day, wishing she could do something, anything, other than wait.

And then the alarm sounded.

Yaz was asleep, until she wasn’t: the shrill shriek was echoing off the walls, forcing itself into her ears, startling her awake. She jumped out of bed, stopping only long enough to pull on a pair of jeans before running to the console room. The alarm was still going off, bright lights flashing, and Yaz hurried to the console, turning them off, checking the monitor. It displayed a cube, floating in the screen’s blackness, rotating in space: this, Yaz knew, was the map of the area they’d been scanning, in both space and time. In the middle of the cube, there was a dot, labeled with Gallifreyan Yaz didn't need a translation for. You are here.

There were footsteps from the console room entrance. Yaz turned her head to see Dan, coming down the stairs in his flannel pajama set, his hair flat on one side, sticking up on the other.

“Is this it, then?” he asked.

Yaz nodded, her breath caught in her throat. “I think so.”

Dan broke into a grin. “I knew we could do it.”

“Yeah.” Yaz allowed herself just the barest hint of a smile— but it didn’t last. She looked back at the monitor, her brow furrowed. “But it’s not that easy. Densest place on the planet— she’s probably been— shrunk down, or something. We’re going to have to figure out how to get to her.” She hit a few buttons, and a view of the ocean floor outside appeared on one wall, sand and fish and water all dancing through the sun’s rays. But—

In the distance, brightly visible between the schools of fish, was a tiny and blinding pinprick of light.

“Is that her?” Dan asked.

“It’s got to be,” Yaz said. “Her, and the Sea Devils, and the ship.” She took a deep breath. “Which means I was right about her being shrunk down. We've got to figure out how to get in there.” She walked around the console, inspecting the controls. “Maybe we can find a way to reverse the physics of it, make everything big again. Except then we’re back to having the Sea Devils to deal with.”

“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you,” Dan said.

“Yeah,” Yaz said. “Me too.” She closed her eyes, trying to visualize the situation. The ship, trapped in its pocket of density— and the TARDIS, capable of going just about anywhere. “The TARDIS is bigger on the inside,” she said slowly. “What if we found a way to make the outside much, much smaller?”

Dan frowned. “What do you mean?”

Yaz was already pressing buttons: she’d spent the last two weeks channeling her nervous energy into in-depth study of the TARDIS, and it was paying off.

“If I’m right,” she said, “I can compress the police box outside, and we can get into the wreck.” She glanced at Dan. “The police box is like— it’s like a door into this extra dimension. In theory, can look like anything. Except this one can’t, because the thing that changes it is stuck on police box.” She was flipping switches, turning dials. It was a delicate dance, getting the TARDIS to do just what she wanted, and she was still a beginner. But— “I think, if I get the settings just right, I can compress it. Make it smaller. And then we can get into the shipwreck and pull out the Doctor.”

“Yaz, I’ve got to be honest with you,” Dan said, somewhere to Yaz’s right. “None of this is making any sense.”

Yaz didn’t look up from the console. “I’m not sure I get it either,” she said, fiddling with the stabilizers. “Honestly, it might not work. But I’ve got to try.” It was complicated— in addition to its density, the shipwreck was frozen in time, so Yaz was trying to break into that frozen moment while shrinking the outside of the TARDIS, and she was trying to do all of it without allowing the Sea Devils to escape. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t entirely sure it was possible, but if she’d learned anything in her last seven years of travels, it was that if she pretended she thought she could do something, she very often could.

“Dan, come here,” she said.

Dan was at her side in a second.

“Can you hold that button?” Yaz asked, pointing.

“‘Course.” Dan obliged, leaning easily against the console.

“Great.” Yaz twiddled a couple more dials. “And this one?” She pointed at another button about a quarter of the way around the console from the first.

“No problem.” Dan took a few steps, stretching both his arms to reach the two buttons.

“Thanks.” Yaz looked at the console. “All right,” she said. “Remember that storm we had in the Atlantic, the one that lasted almost a week?”

“‘Course I do,” Dan said. “Took me the full week to stop falling over all the time. No thanks to you, mind.”

Yaz suppressed a smirk— she had adjusted quickly to the constantly rolling deck and unexpected shifts in motion, and if she were being honest she would have to admit she’d been a little smug about it to Dan and Jericho.

“Yeah, well,” she said, “I’ve got a feeling you’re going to need that skill again in a second. Ready?”

“What?”

“Stay steady!” Yaz leapt from one side of the console to the other, performing a complicated tangle of actions along the way. It was all in the timing, was the thing— a button here, another button there, exactly three seconds later. Yaz had learned to listen to the TARDIS, get her cues from the lights and sounds around her, and it was starting to come easy as breathing, even a complicated task like this. The floor pitched to the side, like she’d warned Dan, and she bent her knees, determined not to fall over. A quick glance at Dan told her he was holding his own, braced against the console, still managing to keep his hands on those buttons— Yaz gave him a quick, wild grin, and then the floor pitched the other way, and Yaz scrambled around the console, glancing at the monitor, getting everything set up just right.

And then— it was just right.

Her stomach fluttered. If all went well— if she’d done everything the way she'd meant to—

She was about to see the Doctor again.

But there was no time for nerves, no time for sentimentality. There was only time for Yaz to hit the console with a mallet, for the TARDIS to tilt again, and then for Yaz to run up the incline to the doors. She took a breath.

“Here’s hoping I haven’t killed us both!” she called back to Dan, amid the sounds of sparks and banging from the console.

She barely heard his responding “What?” She was busy with the doors, unlocking, pushing open—

And there she was.

The Doctor.

Still holding the two cables together, light spilling out from where they met. Her eyes were shut, her hair all in her face, unmoving— she was frozen, Yaz realized. Frozen in time, frozen in the moment.

Well. Yaz would just have to unfreeze her.

She reached out.

—

The Doctor was only vaguely aware of what was going on.

She’d felt the changes, of course. The TARDIS, coming closer and closer until it was half on top of her. She’d felt warm arms around the waist, felt herself unstick as she tumbled, entangled in someone else’s warmth, onto cold metal, sliding down a slope until the floor moved underneath her, evening out, and she could open her eyes long enough to process that it was Yaz, holding her, her eyes only a few centimeters from the Doctor’s, wide and worried. The Doctor felt a rush of— something—

She was too tired to lie to herself. It was love, was what it was, pure and simple: love for Yaz, who’d commandeered the TARDIS just to get to her. She fell against Yaz, burying her head against a leather-clad shoulder, her arms tightening around a warm and solid waist. For a moment, she felt Yaz pull her closer, cheek pressed against her hair, but then—

“D’you still need me pressing these buttons?”

It was Dan’s voice, some part of the Doctor’s addled brain registered. Dan had come too, then.

“Good for him,” she mumbled, unable to put up her usual barrier between thoughts and speech.

“I've got to let go,” Yaz said softly, and the arms around the Doctor’s waist loosened, the pressure of Yaz’s cheek on her hair gone. Yaz was pulling away, in fact, saying, “Doctor, I’ve still got to get us out of here.”

The Doctor managed a nod, and Yaz stood, going to the console. Slowly, the Doctor got to her feet, wobbling a bit, stumbling towards the console— and then Dan’s hand was on her arm.

“Let Yaz do it,” he said. “You look knackered.”

“Think I am, a bit,” the Doctor said vaguely. She let Dan guide her over to the steps, where she sat down, trying to get her bearings. The TARDIS’s telepathic link washed over her, bringing a little bit of vitality with it— the Doctor never felt like herself without that echo of the TARDIS in the back of her head. It kept her stable, kept her steady, reminded her she was never alone.

She let her eyes slip closed for a long moment. She would need to sleep soon, and quite a lot, too— technically, no time had passed in that shipwreck, but also technically, that sort of thing was really very taxing for the Doctor, and it came after a very taxing day, which came after a very taxing week, which came after— well, the Doctor wasn’t exactly one to rest.

She would have to rest soon.

For now, she leaned back against one of the steps and watched Yaz at the console, braid flicking behind her as she piloted them away. She really was beautiful, the Doctor thought, as she’d thought many times before. But this time, she didn’t shove the thought back down— she wouldn’t have had the energy even if their last conversation hadn’t bordered on a love confession, even if she hadn’t kissed Yaz in a moment of desperation. But it was all out in the open now, more or less— Yaz knew how she felt, she knew how Yaz felt, and that kiss, still etched on the Doctor’s lips, meant they wouldn't be able to sidestep the issue.

The TARDIS’s wheezing started up, and the Doctor felt a tear roll down her cheek. She couldn’t help it— she was so tired, and it was so nice to be back here, to have the TARDIS, and Yaz running around the console, and even Dan sitting next to her, a steady, solid presence.

And then the wheezing faded away, and Yaz was there, holding out a hand to help the Doctor up, and the Doctor took it, lurching to her feet. Immediately, Yaz’s arm was around her waist, supporting her, and the Doctor sagged against Yaz’s side.

“You all right?” Yaz asked, barely above a whisper.

“Just tired,” the Doctor replied.

“Right,” Yaz said. “Let’s get you to bed. Can you get up the stairs?”

The Doctor nodded. Dan got out of the way, and Yaz helped the Doctor up the stairs, every step feeling like a mountain.

“I swear these steps weren’t so high before,” the Doctor said, her words slurring with exhaustion.

“You weren’t so tired before,” Yaz said, guiding the Doctor onto the top step. “But we’re up them now, and if the TARDIS knows what’s good for her, she’ll have moved the bedrooms a little closer to the console room.”

The Doctor managed a smile. “Thanks, Yaz.” She waved an arm. “For all of it.”

“I told you I’d come and get you, Doctor.” They were moving into the corridor now, Yaz’s arm still solid around the Doctor’s waist. “Couldn’t just leave you there.”

“You could’ve,” the Doctor replied. “Maybe even should’ve. Would’ve been safer.”

Yaz laughed, a soft, affectionate laugh. “If I was trying to do the safer thing,” she said, “I never would’ve come with you to begin with.” She kicked at a big metal door, and it slid open, revealing an unfamiliar bedroom— full size bed with a dark blue blanket, dark wooden nightstand and desk, wardrobe and dresser in one corner. There was a fuzzy red rug on the ground, the Doctor noticed, and little fairy lights along the top corners of the room, and pictures on the nightstand— she could just make out one of her and Ryan and Graham in front of the Eiffel tower, and another of Yaz and her sister.

So this was what Yaz’s room looked like.

“Right,” Yaz said, leading the Doctor over to the bed and letting her go so she could sink down onto the edge of the mattress. “Let's get you out of those clothes.”

—

Yaz had brought the Doctor to her room for one simple reason: she didn't know where the Doctor's room was. She was sure it existed, somewhere on this ship, but she'd never heard the Doctor mention it, never seen the Doctor enter it, and honestly, odds were it was so cluttered as to be unlivable, even if Yaz could find it. Yaz's room was neatly kept, and it was comfortable, and it would be a fine place for the Doctor to rest and recover.

So Yaz had brought her there, and now the Doctor was sitting on Yaz's bed, looking… a bit worse for the wear, really. She was slumped over, her hair a mess, her face stained by tracks of glistening tears. And she was still wearing that red-and-blue top over obstinately cropped trousers.

“You all right wearing some of my pajamas?” Yaz asked as she made her way to the wardrobe.

“What's wrong with what I've got?” the Doctor asked. All the usual energy was drained from her voice, leaving her sounding bewildered.

“Nothing,” Yaz said, pulling a hoodie and flannel pajama bottoms out of a drawer. It was the closest she had to something the Doctor might wear normally. “Just thought you might want to be a little more comfortable.”

“Oh. Suppose that's all right.”

Yaz brought the bundle of fabric over to the Doctor, who'd started fumbling with the ties that were holding her top shut. Her fingers kept slipping, and without thinking, Yaz reached forward, her deft fingers brushing against the Doctor’s chest as she picked at the ribbons, undoing the knots. She was careful not to let the shirt fall open, careful not to let the moment become any more vulnerable than it already was. She already couldn’t look the Doctor in the eyes: she kept herself focused entirely on the bits of black fabric, keeping her breaths as even as she could as she worked them loose. Finally, the last tie dropped, and Yaz stepped back, turning away for privacy’s sake.

“Can you get the rest yourself?” she asked.

“Think so,” the Doctor said.

“Right.” Yaz walked over to the other side of the room. She hadn’t thought this whole thing through— namely, she hadn’t thought about where she was going to sleep, if the Doctor slept in her room. She’d have to grab her own pajamas and go to one of the libraries, maybe, where the sofas were certainly long and soft enough to make a comfortable bed— she’d had worse, after all, back in the 1900’s.

“All right,” the Doctor said quietly, and Yaz turned around to see her drowning in Yaz’s own oversized hoodie. It was just a plain gray hoodie with the name of Yaz’s secondary school across the front— she’d gotten it from some school event or another, and now she wore it to sleep when it was cold enough. The trick of the TARDIS, of course, was that it was always exactly the right temperature for whatever you were wearing, so Yaz found herself wearing the hoodie fairly often. But now it was on the Doctor, dwarfing her exhausted face, softening her around the edges, and Yaz smiled, just a little.

“Comfy?” she asked.

The Doctor nodded. She took half a breath, but it caught in her throat— Yaz waited, her own breath similarly stuck.

Back by Park Hill, when Yaz was a kid, there’d been seesaws outside her flat, proper seesaws that would launch you up in the air, and if you got someone about your same size, you could balance it so that both of you were hovering about halfway to the top. It was a tenuous balance: the slightest shift would send one or the other of you shooting up or crashing down. Somehow, this moment reminded Yaz of that. It felt so delicate, so careful— and whatever she happened next could shift the balance one way or another, for better or for worse.

Finally, the Doctor took another breath and used it to ask, “Are you going to stay here tonight?” Her voice was more fragile, more exhausted, than Yaz had ever heard. She chewed the inside of her bottom lip, trying to figure out how to respond.

“I don’t have to,” she said finally. “If you want space.” She took a deep breath, steeling her courage. “But I can. If you want me to.”

The Doctor nodded. There was something distant in her eyes— she wasn’t all there. It was like she was focused on something Yaz couldn’t see. “I want you to,” she said. “I want—” She broke off. Yaz waited another moment, but the Doctor didn’t continue.

“Keep your back turned while I change, then,” Yaz said.

The Doctor turned around, and Yaz pulled a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of loose shorts out of the dresser. She changed quickly, a little too conscious of the Doctor’s patient presence behind her, and then she sat down on the bed, leaning against the headboard. The Doctor moved herself to sit next to Yaz, her head dipping low.

“We’ll have to talk tomorrow,” Yaz said. “About— everything.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor breathed. “Yaz— I’m sorry.”

“It’s—” Yaz cut off. It wasn’t all right, not really. But it would be, maybe. It could be, if she could have a real conversation with the Doctor. “It doesn’t matter right now,” she finally said. “You’ve got to get some sleep. We can deal with everything else tomorrow. Okay?”

The Doctor nodded.

“I just— I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said.

“I know,” Yaz said quietly. “Doctor, you can’t— you can’t undo anything that’s happened. But you can move forward.” She rethought. “We can move forward. Okay? It’s—” She floundered, searching for the words. “I still want to be here with you,” she finally said. “All right? Everything else, we can talk about tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor said. “Okay.” She nodded, half to herself, and slumped down, curling up on top of the blankets and facing away from Yaz.

“D’you want to get under the covers?” Yaz asked. She lifted the blankets, tucking her own legs underneath in demonstration.

“Oh. Okay.” The Doctor awkwardly pulled the blankets over her body. Her hair fell across her face, and before Yaz could think about it, she brushed it away. In a flash, the Doctor’s hand was wrapped around her wrist— Yaz froze.

“D’you not like that?” she asked.

“No, I—” The Doctor tugged at Yaz’s wrist. “Come here.”

Gingerly, Yaz laid down all the way. The Doctor let go of her wrist long enough to roll over to face her, her eyes already half-closed. She wrapped an arm around Yaz’s waist, and Yaz held completely still, terrified that if she so much as moved, she’d scare the Doctor away.

“I missed you,” the Doctor mumbled.

“Yeah,” Yaz whispered. “I missed you too.”

“Maybe we should stop getting lost, after this,” the Doctor added. “Stick together, or something.”

Yaz let a smile curve across her face. “Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”

The Doctor nestled herself closer, and Yaz finally let herself move, wrapping her arm around the Doctor, holding her close, letting her hand filter through the Doctor’s hair. It was funny— Yaz had fallen in love with a Doctor who seemed larger than life, beyond human, bigger and better than Yaz could ever hope to be, but tonight the Doctor just seemed like… a person, really. A brilliant, wonderful, amazing person, but a person nonetheless, tangible, complicated, vulnerable.

And Yaz liked that better. She preferred this new Doctor, the Doctor who looked too small in her hoodie and clung to her at night. There was a novel sort of domesticity to it— the Doctor Yaz had first fallen for never would have done this, and Yaz always would have longed for it.

The Doctor’s breaths were slowing, evening out, but her grip on Yaz didn’t loosen. And Yaz didn't want it to. She gathered the Doctor close, her chin resting in the Doctor's hair. Feeling a bit bold, she pressed a soft kiss to the top of the Doctor’s head— and then she closed her eyes. The adrenaline from earlier was fully out of her system, leaving a dull exhaustion behind, and Yaz succumbed: there was nothing she needed to be awake for now.

When she woke up, the Doctor was snoring softly. Her grip on Yaz had loosened, but when Yaz let her fingers drift through her hair, the Doctor moved closer, nestling against Yaz's chest. Yaz closed her eyes. She dozed for a while, drifting in and out of wakefulness— every time she woke, she had to remind herself where she was, that not only was she back in the TARDIS, but she was back in the TARDIS with the Doctor, and the Doctor was sleeping in her bed with her, snoring into her T-shirt.

Finally, though, Yaz was awake enough that she didn't want to doze anymore. The Doctor was still completely out, her chest slowly rising and falling, hair everywhere, so Yaz carefully extricated herself, shoving her feet into a pair of slippers before stepping out the door and into the hallway. The Doctor would wake up soon, she figured, and when she did, she'd need food.

Dan was in the kitchen, sipping a mug of black tea and reading a book. He looked up when Yaz came in.

“How's she doing?”

“All right.” Yaz moved into the kitchen and started filling the kettle— the first step to a good breakfast. “She's asleep now.”

“That's good,” Dan said. “She needed it.”

“Yeah.” Yaz placed the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner before pulling a skillet out of a cupboard. She'd make eggs. That seemed like a good filling meal for the morning after being pulled out of some kind of temporal prison. She started grabbing things out of the fridge.

—

The Doctor woke up to an emptiness next to her. This was entirely usual—although generally speaking she woke up on the floor somewhere, or a sofa: wherever she'd finally become so exhausted she couldn't help but sleep. Today she was in a bed, which was unusual. A soft, comfortable bed, with blankets pulled up around her, no less, and— this was the really unusual part— there was a warm spot next to her where someone else had been sleeping.

Yaz. Yaz had been sleeping here. The Doctor shot straight up. Where was Yaz? A slew of nightmare scenarios hit her, too fast for her usual calm logic to kick in. Yaz could've been captured in the middle of the night— could've fallen somewhere and need help— could've disappeared entirely, fizzling out like a dream.

The Doctor got out of bed. Still on a groggy autopilot, she went out into the corridor— Yaz wasn't there. The Doctor started walking, her footsteps coming faster and faster until she was on the verge of a run.

She’d only been running for a minute, though, before her brain caught up with her, reminding her how silly it was to be this worried when she and Yaz had fallen asleep in the TARDIS, arguably the safest place in the universe. Her steps slowed. She pushed her hair out of her face and took a deep breath. Yaz was surely around here somewhere. Surely she’d just popped out for a walk, or to find a book to read, or—

The Doctor rounded a corner, and there she was, her hair still in its messy braid from the night before, holding a tray full of breakfast. The Doctor screeched to a halt just short of a collision.

“Doctor,” Yaz said. “I was just on my way back.”

“I thought—” The words died on the Doctor’s tongue. “I was wondering where you went.”

Yaz held up the tray. “Figured you’d be hungry when you woke up.”

“Oh.” The Doctor swallowed. She really felt silly now. “That was very thoughtful of you.” Her eyes met Yaz’s, and they held each other’s gaze. The Doctor forced herself not to look away. “I am hungry, as it happens,” she said. “Maybe we can find someplace on the TARDIS to have breakfast? Like a picnic, sort of. Except it’s not outside. Technically.”

“Yeah, all right,” Yaz said. There was so much potential in the softness of her smile. “Got a place in mind?”

The Doctor considered, then nodded. “I think so.”

“Right, then,” Yaz said, still smiling. Lead the way.”

—

Yaz followed the Doctor through the corridors, keeping the tray carefully balanced. They stopped along the way to pick up blankets— it wasn’t a picnic without a blanket, the Doctor said, and loaded her arms with way more than they needed. And then, after another minute or so of walking through the halls, the Doctor stopped at a metal door, completely identical to every other— the only thing distinguishing it was a wave shape engraved in the metal roughly at eye level.

“Think this is it,” she said. She tapped at the doorframe, and the door slid open. A gray sort of light hit Yaz, and a salty breeze— the Doctor stepped forward, and Yaz followed. The second she crossed the threshold, sand filled her slippers, and she toed them off.

“Doctor,” she said, halfway to a laugh as she took in the scene before her. “Have you had a beach on the TARDIS this whole time?”

“I’ve got loads of things on the TARDIS,” the Doctor said over her shoulder. “Forgot this was here, honestly, except I was thinking about how we were supposed to go to a beach, and this popped right into my head.”

It was an impressive scene, even for the TARDIS: the waves lapping against the sand, the rocky shore, the half-clouded sky. Yaz glanced around and saw the door they’d come through was set into a gray cliff face. It was familiar, a perfect facsimile of the early morning in the sort of place Yaz’s family would’ve gone over the summer holidays— she kept reminding herself this was still the TARDIS, even if there were sounds of seagulls in the background.

The Doctor laid out one of her blankets, and Yaz set down the tray before sitting down herself. The Doctor sat next to her.

“Did you sleep all right?” Yaz asked, fiddling with the plates.

“Better than I have in ages,” the Doctor said.

Yaz glanced at her. Her hair was blowing in the breeze, flicking itself around her face. She was still wearing Yaz’s hoodie, but she didn’t look quite as dwarfed by it now.

Yaz picked up one of the mugs of tea, inspected it, and handed it to the Doctor.

“This one’s yours,” she said. She picked up the other one— more milk, no sugar— and took a sip.

“Thanks,” the Doctor said. She held the mug in both hands, staring out at the waves. For a long moment, neither one of them said anything, both sipping at their tea and not looking at each other.

Finally, Yaz tried a question. “How long were you trapped there?”

“Technically, no time at all,” the Doctor said. “Was suspended inside a fraction of a second.” She glanced at Yaz. “Felt longer, though. How long did it take you to get to me?”

“Few weeks,” Yaz said. “I forgot to make note of the coordinates. Was too busy getting everyone home.”

“But they all got home?” the Doctor checked.

“Yeah,” Yaz said. “Safe and sound. Even got Dan back to Liverpool, before he insisted on coming with me.”

The Doctor laughed. “He’s a good one.”

“Yeah.” Yaz let out a breath. “He helped a lot.”

The Doctor nodded, still staring out at the ocean. “Thanks,” she said. The word came out barely above a whisper, a fleeting puff of air. “For rescuing me, I mean. I didn’t know if it would be possible.”

“Wouldn’t have been, if you hadn’t shown me how to pilot the TARDIS.” Yaz looked down at the sand, idly etching circles with her free hand. “So, you know. It was really a team effort.”

She heard the smile in the Doctor’s voice. “Glad you’re on my team, then.”

Yaz smiled back at her. For a moment, her eyes were caught in the Doctor’s, and her breath caught.

She snapped her gaze down to the tray. “D’you want your food?” she asked.

There was a pause. “Oh. Right.” The Doctor picked up one of the plates. “Breakfast with Yaz. Brilliant.”

“And if you land right, we can even do tea at Yaz’s tonight,” Yaz teased.

“Oi, we’re copilots now,” the Doctor said, her mouth full of egg. “If we land wrong, it’s at least half your fault.”

“It’s still your ship,” Yaz protested. “I’m not the one with the telepathic link.”

“If you say so,” the Doctor said. She crammed a sausage into her mouth. “She likes you, though.”

Yaz shook her head. “Still not the same as being telepathically linked.”

“If you say so.”

“Think I do, yeah.”

They ate in silence for a little longer, watching the artificial sun grow higher in the sky. Yaz was itching to start a real conversation, something about the kiss, or maybe the talk she was sure the Doctor had had with Dan, or something, but she couldn’t figure out how to say it.

Finally, though, the Doctor set down her empty plate, leaned back on her hands, and said, “Suppose we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Suppose so,” Yaz said, eyeing her profile.

“I thought I was going to die,” the Doctor said. She was looking up now, up at the false sky, streaked with the golden reds and pinks of sunrise. “My last moments, ever. The end of a universe, Yasmin Khan, and I kissed you.”

“Yeah,” Yaz said. “You did.”

The Doctor nodded. “That— that means something,” she said. “Doesn’t it?”

“I—” Yaz swallowed. “I’d like it to.”

“Yeah.” There was a long pause. “I’m not— historically, I mean, I don’t do very well in relationships.” Her words came slowly, carefully. “They don’t… work, for me. Or… they work too well, sometimes, but the other person dies, and I’ve got to live thousands more years.” She glanced at Yaz. “It’s good when I’m in them. Lots of pain later.”

“What are you saying?” Yaz asked. A lump was rising in her throat. She pushed it back down, desperately hoping her tears wouldn't fall.

“I’m not sure,” the Doctor admitted. “I want—” She shook her head. “I want so much. Too much. I want us to be— I don’t want to be separated from you anymore.”

The tears were just behind Yaz's eyes, waiting for their opportunity to fall. “Me either.”

“It’s just hard,” the Doctor continued. “I’d do anything to protect the people I’m close to. But I can’t seem to stop them from dying, and then I’m alone again. So I try so hard not to get close, not to get so attached, because they die for me, protecting me, helping me, trying to stay with me.” She glanced at Yaz. “So if I don’t get attached, if I don’t let you get attached, it’s safer. ‘Cause I’m not a stable person to be attached to.”

“If you didn’t want me to be attached,” Yaz said, “you should’ve kicked me out the second I said you were the most amazing person I’d ever met.”

The Doctor managed a weak laugh. “Suppose you’re right about that.” She took a deep breath, the air flowing through her and back out onto the wind. “It gets hard to deny myself, sometimes.” Tears were running silently down her face, and something in Yaz broke to see it. She slid a little closer to the Doctor, holding out an arm, and the Doctor didn't protest, didn't hesitate. She just fell into Yaz, curling against her chest. Yaz felt hot damp tears against her T-shirt, and she pulled the Doctor closer, stroking her hair, ignoring the tears making their way down her own cheeks.

They sat that way for a while, not saying much. It was a long time before Yaz’s thoughts cohered enough to speak.

“Doctor,” she said, each word coming slowly, “I’m here now. Even if I disappear tomorrow, I’m here with you today. But—” She took a deep breath. “If you’re going to deny yourself, you’ve got to deny yourself everything. You’ve got to send me home.” Her words came out more forcefully than she expected, but— well, it was about time.

“I don’t want to do that,” the Doctor said into Yaz’s shirt. “I like having you here. With me.”

“Exactly,” Yaz said. She was still stroking the Doctor’s hair, rubbing circles into her back, staring out at the water. “I get it if you’re worried about me getting hurt, Doctor. But if what you’re afraid of is your own pain—” She took a deep breath. “It sounds like it's too late.”

She felt the Doctor’s body go limp in her arms. She waited, and after a moment, the Doctor sat up, pushing hair out of her eyes and looking at Yaz.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “It's too late.”

Yaz glanced down and took the Doctor's hand, surrounding it with both of her own.

“I can't promise forever,” she said, “but I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Right now, I'm here.”

“Maybe we can stay in the TARDIS for today?” The Doctor’s eyes were plaintive, her voice so very fragile.

“After we take Dan home,” Yaz replied. “If he wants to go home. He might not.”

“We'll ask,” the Doctor said. “But other than that—”

Yaz squeezed her hand. “We can stay here. Okay?”

“Yeah.” The Doctor let her head rest against Yaz's shoulder. “I'm so tired, Yaz.”

“I know.” Yaz turned her head just enough to press her lips to the Doctor's hair. “It's okay. You can rest.”

“I've got more to tell you,” the Doctor added. “Division. Gallifrey.”

“We can take it slow,” Yaz said. “I don't have to hear everything right away.” She paused. “I mean, I want to hear it. But— it's not worth you burning out on it.”

The Doctor lifted her head, looking at Yaz. “I will tell you.”

“I know.” Yaz reached up to push a bit of hair behind the Doctor’s ear. She let her hand linger there, just at the top of the Doctor's neck. “I just— I don't know. I sort of want a quiet moment.” Her voice was soft. “Before we have to deal with the big stuff.”

The Doctor closed her eyes. She nodded, taking a shaky breath. “Yeah,” she said. “That sounds nice.”

Yaz smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” The word was little more than an exhale from tired lungs.

The Doctor was looking at Yaz with such a soft, sad smile, and Yaz couldn't stop herself, at this point, from leaning forward, or from letting her hand drift down to cup the Doctor's neck, or from brushing her lips, ever so gently, against the Doctor's. When she pulled away, the Doctor's eyes were closed, her lips parted, with that little dimple in her forehead she got when she was trying to figure something out.

“That all right?” Yaz asked, just to be sure.

The Doctor opened her eyes, a smile curling on her lips as her forehead smoothed over. “Yasmin Khan,” she breathed. “It's brilliant.”

It felt like a bright light was expanding in Yaz's chest, lifting her up, widening her smile. She leaned in to kiss the Doctor again, and this time the Doctor kissed her back, slowly, brilliantly.

They pulled apart, and the Doctor laid back on the blanket, extending an arm for Yaz. Yaz moved the tray, now laden with empty dishes, and laid down next to the Doctor, resting her head on the Doctor's chest. Right away, there was a hand in her hair, fiddling with her braid, scratching at her scalp. She felt the Doctor’s chest rising and falling underneath her, heard the too-quick double heartbeat. She felt a contented sigh escape her: she'd never let herself even dream of having this moment, and now she had it, and it was better than she could have imagined.

“Yaz?” the Doctor asked, and Yaz felt the word in the rise and fall of her chest.

“Yeah?” Yaz was absently fiddling with the fingers on the Doctor’s free hand, her eyes drifting shut every few seconds only to open again.

“I wish we could just stay here,” the Doctor breathed. “Forever.”

Yaz smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

They both knew they couldn't have forever. But maybe this moment could be enough.

#doctor who #my fic #fanfiction #thirteenth doctor #yasmin khan #thasmin #thirteen x yaz #dan lewis #thasmin big bang #canon divergence #angst #long

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