Chapter Text
The humans were asleep, and the Doctor was trying to install a tea dispenser at the console. Was this strictly necessary? No. But it would be nice to have tea right next to the biscuits.
Also, she really couldn’t be alone with her thoughts right now (or ever, if she was being honest with herself) (which she tried to avoid at all costs), so she may have gotten creative in her tinkering. The TARDIS did not approve.
“Ow! Stop trying to make me go away!” The Doctor complained when the ship threw sparks at her. “This will be fun! What do you mean you don’t want liquids next to the console? I’m sure you can handle it. Oi! I do not spill everything! I just get a little excited with hand gestures occasionally. Now hush and let me finish this.”
The TARDIS threw more sparks at her.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop, don’t blow a fuse. But you need to keep me distracted somehow. No, I will not go to sleep, thank you very much,” she said, almost sounding offended at the ship’s suggestion. “Come on, show me something I can fix, there’s got to be something!”
The TARDIS beeped and something rolled out from under the console.
“Ah, see, I knew you’d find something! Now, what’s that and why was it down there?” She picked it up and frowned. “A hologram pod? I didn’t even know we had more of these, after I gave that last one to Yaz during the whole Flux ordeal. Why would you give me this when I asked for a distraction?” She felt an idea nudging her mind. “Oh, of course you’d know what I’ve been thinking about, and this is certainly a way to achieve that… But then you know I’d need a lot more of these, I can’t summarize everything in one hologram! That wouldn’t be much of a distraction either, now, would it?” The TARDIS beeped a few times, questioningly. “No, don’t find them for me, that can be tonight’s distraction! I’ll look for the pods, you tell me when I’ve found them all!”
It took the Doctor a few nights – well, night is an abstract concept in the TARDIS, but a few of the humans’ sleep cycles – to find all available hologram pods. She could ask Yaz for the other one, but then she might get suspicious, and, besides, the Doctor had noticed the human was quite attached to the old thing.
“So, 31 hologram pods, nice number. What do you think, 30 stories and one explanation-slash-introduction hologram? That’s not a lot, with the number of stories I have in my head, but should be good enough. I should probably take some time to think about which she’d like to hear most, right?”
____________________
A few (fortunately distracting, adventure-filled) days later, the Doctor had come up with a game plan. A hologram plan? Anyway, a plan for the stories. She would start with the most complicated one, but also the one Yaz was probably the most curious about just then – River. That was an easy decision. After that, try to keep the stories fun and uplifting whenever possible, since she was afraid Yaz might have a hard time getting over her when their traveling stopped, and also leave some nice messages through the stories – oh, Van Gogh would be perfect for that! So that’s the first two sorted, she thought.
She took her time thinking about each story, making sure she had all the necessary details, glossing over anything she might not want Yaz to know about. Sometimes she wasn’t too happy with how the story was going, so she started over until she got it right or until she decided it was better to scrap that one and think of a new story. If this was a goodbye gift, it had to be perfect.
She always numbered the holograms so that she’d know which ones had already been used, and in case Yaz wanted to watch them in order. She probably would appreciate that. It would help Yaz see how dedicated she had been to this whole project.
Maybe she was scared that there wouldn’t be enough time to finish all the stories before they had to say goodbye, but she really couldn’t focus on that right now, or she would start rushing and this wouldn’t be as good as Yaz deserved it to be. And this was a good distraction for the Doctor. Recording holograms was keeping her sane while the humans weren’t there by her side; she wanted to take her time with it. So she took that worry and stuffed it in the farthest corner of her mind inside a neat little box where it couldn’t bother her.
Her new routine was working great. First, adventures with the humans, either helping whomever they could or just visiting new and exciting places, enjoying her friends’ company, seeing Yaz’s amazed expression at whatever they were doing that day, listening to Dan’s amused comments. Then, on good days, they’d go back to the TARDIS for tea, some happy conversation and rest; on bad days, they’d have tea and heavy silence. Those were the days when it got too close for comfort, when she thought that was it, that was when she’d lose herself, and half her mind was coming up with a plan to send Yaz to Earth safely while the other half dealt with everything else.
Later, when the humans were asleep (she asked the TARDIS to set an alarm that let her know when they woke up), she’d go to the library, far from the bedroom corridor, and record the holograms, talking to her imaginary future Yaz, picturing her sitting on her parents’ sofa, healthy and safe and happy. At first, she stuck to the planned stories, but eventually it got a bit more chaotic, and she would decide on the story right before recording. She always tried to make it all perfect and positive, but sometimes the bad days got to her and the sad stories came out. On one of those bad days, when Yaz had almost sacrificed herself to save everyone, she told Donna’s story; on another, one that reminded the two women of the night at Villa Diodati, she told her about Bill. Even if telling Yaz those stories wouldn’t help by now – she was too stubborn, too brave, she wouldn’t let the Doctor convince her to go home and be safe –, it was good to know someone else would go on to remember those two brilliant women.
It was on one of those bad days that she first realized how often Yaz was waking up during the night. She had noticed that Yaz tended to wake up in the middle of her sleep cycle much more often than Dan did, but she assumed she was just a light sleeper. However, that night, when the TARDIS alarm chimed in her mind for the third time in two hours, she went to Yaz’s bedroom to see if there was anything wrong; standing by the closed door, she could hear her crying, and the TARDIS pushed the word nightmares in her mind. She wasn’t sure if she should go in – Yaz probably didn’t want to be seen crying – so, after hesitating a little, she went away again and asked the TARDIS to warn her if something else happened.
She worried about Yaz the rest of the night and didn’t record anything else then.
____________________
Sooner than she would have liked, the Doctor reached the last two holograms. She had decided to record the introductory one last, because then she would know all the stories and could explain this whole thing better (she hoped), but she still had to decide what the last story would be. She was 95% sure that Yaz would watch them in order, so the last one had to be amazing. She decided to take a few days to think it over.
The fact that she would be done and therefore back to empty nights with no distractions was a mere detail. She just needed the perfect story.
It was on a rather peaceful day, during a trip to a planet full of beautiful gardens and birds and butterflies, where they had a picnic and the Doctor and Yaz walked around chatting and looking at the flowers while Dan napped under a tree, that the perfect story occurred to her.
While they were walking, they came across some yellow flowers that reminded the Doctor of the flowers they wore in their hair in the Punjab, so it wasn’t a surprise when Yaz stopped to take a closer look at them. After a moment, she said:
“Doctor, can I ask you something?”
“Always,” she answered.
“Do you think my nani ever regretted marrying Prem? D’you think she wishes she had left sooner, to avoid all that pain?”
“From what we saw that day and the stories you’ve told me about Umbreen, no, I don’t think so. I think that, given the choice, she’d do everything exactly the same way again.”
“Then why are you so sure I would regret you?”
The Doctor had no answer to that, so she hugged Yaz and said, “Sometimes I forget you’ve always been so much braver than me”. Her past self was right – hugs are an easy way to hide your face.
But when Yaz tried to downplay the compliment, she thought of the perfect final story: she should record Yaz’s story, the way she saw it. The story of Yasmin Khan, from the Doctor’s point of view, so that Yaz could never forget how impressive she really is. How amazing.
____________________
The day after she recorded that last story, there was only the introduction hologram left to do. The Doctor realized that this was probably the best chance at a proper goodbye that she would get, given their track record, but she still couldn’t decide what to say in this last hologram. She had never been good at goodbye.
Just be honest, she thought. What do you have to lose at this point? If she’s watching this, you’re not there anymore. So the Doctor tried to be as open as she could, this last time. Even if it led to some sad places and she showed all her insecurities. Not like Yaz doesn’t know them by now, she pondered.
But she still didn’t know how to say goodbye, so she kept rambling and going off on tangents and talking in circles. She only forced herself to stop talking when the TARDIS alerted her that present Yaz, her Yaz, had woken up after barely sleeping at all. The nightmares must have gotten worse, and present Yaz was the priority. So she said goodbye quickly, stopped recording and tried to think of a way to help present Yaz.
If I still feel unsure about this hologram tomorrow, I’ll record it again, she promised herself, while going through bookshelves until she found what she was looking for. If Yaz was having nightmares, maybe some company would help her calm down and sleep better, so showing up at her room with an excuse to stay a while would probably work, and she hadn’t told Yaz the Solitract’s story properly yet. She’d meant to lend her the book, back when they met the sentient universe, but never got around to it. So, book in hand, she waited for the TARDIS’s confirmation that Yaz had stopped crying (she was still pretty sure Yaz would be uncomfortable if the Doctor saw her cry) and knocked on the door.
The next day, she saw that her idea had worked: Yaz looked rested and happy. Then the Doctor realized she had found her new routine – their new routine – bedtime stories. As long as she stayed only until Yaz fell asleep; she still knew they shouldn’t get even closer than they already were, it would hurt too much later. I can’t hurt Yaz any more than I already have, she thought, although she felt like it was too late already.
But all her sleepless nights eventually caught up with her and she fell asleep while she was reading. She had the feeling that she could hear Yaz’s voice in the distance, reading for her, their roles inverted that night. They woke up practically at the same time the next morning, so she couldn’t sneak out early either.
She felt very well-rested that day and resented it, afraid she’s made things worse; but Yaz looked happier.
That night, she organized the holograms and put the box away, with a note for her future self to deliver it (and she had the TARDIS set an alarm to remind them). She decided against recording over the last hologram, thinking that she wouldn’t manage to be that honest again and Yaz deserved nothing less from her. Then she hesitated, not sure if she should continue the bedtime stories after all. What if she made things worse?
But then the TARDIS pushed a thought in her head.
You know she’s waiting for you.
Sighing, she decided that, if it was too late anyway, they might as well steal some happy moments now, as they’ll surely be sad later, so she got another book and went to meet Yaz. Time to be brave, she thought. Or stupid. Definitely one of those.