Chapter Text
Jane and Yaz lurked in a stairwell, peering down the narrow hallway toward the wine cellars.
Yaz keyed the sonic, and felt the telltale crackle of energy that was pointing straight ahead. "Definitely here," she whispered.
"I don't see anybody," Jane whispered back. "Maybe we got lucky?"
Yaz wasn't inclined to question that, so much as she was inclined to grab the tech and get Jane the hell away from whatever nefarious plans were in motion before them. She took a deep breath and stepped out of the stairwell, then moved quickly down the stone passage, using the sonic like a sort of time travel dowsing rod. She passed the room where the auction items had been on display earlier, then stopped a couple doors away.
She turned to Jane, who was only a step behind. "It's in here," she whispered.
At that, Jane took the sonic, quickly recalibrated it, and fired off a burst of energy to pop the lock on the door. They stole inside, only to find a room with a single table, where the node activator unceremoniously sat by itself.
Yaz blinked, even as the gadget buzzed in her general direction. "That's suspicious," she murmured.
"Isn't it, just," came a voice behind them.
They whirled to see the man Graham had identified as "Prentis" looming in the doorway. His manner oozed with a sort of casual menace even though he didn't appear to be in possession of any weapons. He peered down his nose at them, looking annoyed before pushing between them to snatch the node activator.
"You lured us here," Yaz accused.
"I lured her here," he admitted, glaring down at Jane. "That little trick with the doors under Liverpool - that was clever. I was stuck on that rock for a hundred years half an eon ago before a mining craft wandered by," he said, disdainfully. "Thought we ought to meet again."
"Trick with the doors, you say," Jane muttered. She gave Yaz a tiny, speculative shrug.
"And then by the time I made it back here, UNIT was already defunct. These idiotic, short-sighted humans had shut the only organization that might have seen me coming. Even if they didn't the first time around."
"Shame, that," Yaz agreed, just to keep him talking. She shifted, moving closer to Jane, looking to put herself in front of Prentis as his anger mounted.
"And then I waited for the Flux to come." At that, he bared his teeth, as a hint of seething rage peeked out from the otherwise genteel, conversational manner. "But there was no Flux, this time," he hissed. "I thought your kind was opposed to that kind of tampering."
Jane's eyebrows shot up at the reference to her kind. "I mean, I suppose," she said. "Depends on our mood, really."
"It was a fixed point in time," he insisted. "The Flux has to be. The destruction of the entire universe, centered on Earth just to inflict maximum pain on you." He jabbed a finger in Jane's face.
"But that didn't happen here," Yaz said, fully shifting between them. She gave Jane a thoughtful look over her shoulder, then turned back to Prentis. "Mate, I think that door took you a bit further away than you thought."
He directed a glare at her, but didn't bother replying.
"And I think he thinks you're a time lord," Yaz continued, to Jane.
"Of course she's a time lord," he snapped. "Don't be obtuse."
"Really am not," Jane countered. "Have a scan, since I'm guessing you've the means."
He faltered, at that, but pulled out a scanning device and pointed it her direction. "Another trick?" he snarled. "Another of your doppelgängers?"
Jane only blinked. "Not sure what that means. Just the one of me, here."
"But how... why aren't you a time lord?"
"Oi, rude," Jane snapped. "You can't just go around asking people why they aren't some other species."
He ignored her, and scanned Yaz instead. "You're the one bleeding artron energy." He put away his scanner and smoothed down his jacket, attempting to regain his composure. "No matter. The plan worked. Between the two of you, I have what I need to bind the node activator."
"Implying that you have a pair of dimensional nodes lying about," Yaz said.
"Of course," he said. "Unearthed from that crater in Russia a century ago by agents I have meticulously 'recruited.'"
"Oh, the blast in Tunguska," Jane said to herself, muttering in regret. "Never did get around to cleaning that up."
"No, you never did, which meant I could locate the salvage and relevant components from those feckless Americans, which I'll use to escape exile on this pathetic rock and retake my position," he said.
"Well, we're not gonna help you," Jane said. "I probably couldn't even if I wanted to. Not a lot of time lord rattling around up here any more." She tapped her forehead with a wry look.
"Really? You won't even try? Not even to save your precious companion?" He held his hand out toward Yaz, gesturing as if fully expecting her to react.
Yaz and Jane both tensed, but... nothing happened.
After a long moment, Prentis flicked his eyes between them, clenched his fist in frustration, and loosed a feral growl. "Why are you such tedious impediments?" he demanded, before whirling on his heel and storming out the door.
Jane grabbed Yaz's arm. "You're all right?" she asked.
"Fine," Yaz answered. "Really confused. We're going after him, yeah?"
"Too right," Jane replied, and they set off to chase him.
Prentis had long legs, and was moving fast, but they managed to track him down to the service entrance, where a clump of emergency personnel were attending to the fallen concierge.
Ryan waved them down as Prentis wove deftly through the crowd and disappeared on the other side.
"The guy! That was the guy!" Ryan shouted, as Jane and Yaz ran up, breathless.
"He headed for the snowmobile garage," came a voice from behind them.
They all turned to see bespectacled woman in a long, pastel coat and a striped jumper.
"Osgood?" Jane asked, in disbelief.
"That man may die to protect Prentis," Osgood said, with a nod to the concierge, who was being loaded into an ambulance. "And Prentis will definitely try to kill others. Shall we stop him?" She strode quickly toward the garage she'd indicated, and Jane and Yaz hurried to follow.
Yaz spun on her heel to wave to the boys. "Stay here, we'll be back!" she called.
Yaz couldn't help the wild grin even as she lumbered over to a snowmobile in an ill-fitting snowsuit. She put on her helmet, waited for Jane to settle in behind her, then gunned the throttle, following the tracks Prentis and Osgood had left behind.
"Know how to do this?" Jane yelled.
"Not as complicated as the bikes on Kalisperon!" Yaz yelled back, with a whoop as they crested the top of a snowbank and dipped down the hill beyond. Jane clung to her tightly, and Yaz could hear her breathless laugh.
"There they are!" Jane cried, pointing downhill to Osgood, racing after Prentis. "Try to get in close."
While Yaz drove furiously, chipping away at the distance by anticipating where Prentis was going to turn next, Jane pulled out her sonic screwdriver. She craned her neck to peer over Yaz's shoulder as she made an adjustment to the settings, and made a mental note to attach some kind of lanyard to the device for their next adventure.
"Ready?" Yaz asked.
"Ready!" Jane replied. "Bring us in, Mrs. Smith!"
With that, Yaz made a smart maneuver to cut just behind Prentis, off to his left. Jane took careful aim with the sonic, then set it off, hitting him with an energy wave that knocked him limp. His snowmobile slowed and turned wildly, spilling him from the driver's seat before spiraling off into a copse of evergreen trees.
Yaz pulled around in a wide circle and stopped near where Prentis was sprawled, half under a snowdrift. Osgood bounced off her own snowmobile and trudged over, fighting through the snow that came halfway up her thighs.
"Ah, an overloading psychic charge," Osgood said, with a nod. "Nicely done." She rolled him over to handcuff him, then fished a radio out of her pocket to summon the rest of her team.
"Thought there weren't gonna be backup," Yaz observed, as she took off her helmet and caught her breath.
"Oh, please," Osgood said. She pulled out an inhaler and took a deep draw of the medication. "Have you met Kate Stewart? There's backup for the backup. She doesn't leave these things to chance."
"So this man was the real target?" Jane asked.
Osgood nodded. "Kate's been on his trail for years. For personal reasons as well as professional, apparently." She eyed him curiously. "He's a strange one. Binary demi-species. Can psychically project part of himself elsewhere. Likes to use that to suffocate people from the inside, then reabsorbs the projection and leaves no evidence behind."
"So he could have killed us!" Yaz exclaimed.
"Not likely. You had the psychic manifest shields," Osgood explained.
They blinked at her in confusion.
"In the wedding rings," Osgood added, slowly, as if they were quite dim.
Jane and Yaz held up their left hands in concert to inspect the rings in question, even though they were both wearing gloves.
"Kate told you to wear them, right?"
Jane shrugged. "Thought she were just being sentimental."
Osgood snorted, but offered no further comment on that notion.
"He set up the auction to lure in a time lord," Yaz said.
"He did," Osgood agreed.
"And you used us to lure him out," Jane said.
"We did," Osgood agreed again. "Well played, the both of you."
The thumping approach of a helicopter drew their attention, and Osgood grinned. "The backup for the backup," she explained, nodding at the approaching craft. She knelt in the snow at Prentis' side and dug into his pockets to fish out the node activator, then tossed it to Jane. "Kate promised you could have that," she said. "As long as you tell us what you learn from it."
The unmarked helicopter swooped to a hover overhead, and a few agents rappelled down lines, including one who looked very much like Osgood herself, save for a pinstripe suit and red trainers that were definitely not suited for the snow.
Yaz started and opened her mouth to ask questions, but Jane waved her off with a an expression that very clearly indicated she would explain later.
Osgood reported to... herself, apparently, then quickly teamed up with a couple other agents to fit Prentis into a harness to haul him away.
"Hope to work with you again," Osgood called, after her other self and the UNIT operatives ascended back into the helicopter. She gave them a nod, then grabbed a line to be pulled upward. The chopper promptly flew away, leaving Jane and Yaz standing in the snow.
Yaz exhaled loudly, trying to process the events of the past hour. She realized she was somewhat out of practice with breakneck adventure and feats of daring. "What just happened?" she asked.
"The rebirth of UNIT," Jane said, with a grin. "Courtesy of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, one of the most stubborn humans I've had the pleasure of infuriating, and Osgood. Who is still a credit to both her species."
"But, two of them?" Yaz asked. "And the one was dressed like y-..." She paused, almost imperceptibly. "Dressed like the Doctor."
"She's always been a fan," Jane said, with a shrug.
Yaz laughed, because what else could she do, really? She flopped down to sit in the snow, heedless of her ill-fitting snowsuit. Jane sat next to her, and watched the beams of alpine sunset cut dramatically across the mountaintops around them.
After a moment, Yaz awkwardly dug in between layers of clothing to find her phone, and sent Ryan and Graham a text to let them know all was well. She bumped against Jane with a fond lean, and grinned about the success of their mission, even as the adrenaline bled out of her system and left her entirely wrung out.
Jane looked over at Yaz, at that beloved profile and that smile that always gave her butterflies. For a moment, she imagined herself a different being, an unknowably ancient Doctor who felt profound affection for her human friend, but was burdened by accompanying profound guilt and sadness that she could hardly even stand.
And in that moment, she felt a peculiar kinship to Osgood, imagining her existence as a complicated consciousness split across dozens of lifetimes. But with a blink, she was back to being Jane Smith, the singular human with the singular lifetime who remembered a little too much of old and terrible sadness. She simultaneously felt very, very old, and very, very young. It was dizzying, and she took a lurching breath to fight through it.
"You okay?" Yaz asked, quietly, watching her.
She had to take a second to think about her answer, but Jane nodded. "I wasn't sure I was up for an adventure, but I think we did all right." She handed over the node activator, watching it flare with blue energy in Yaz's presence. "Here. It likes you." She chuckled. "Can't say I blame it."
Yaz held up the small gadget, enjoying the glow, before tucking it safely into a pocket to take home with them.
With their mission safely accomplished, that left Jane with one task yet undone. She cleared her throat. "So... what are we gonna tell your family about this trip?" she asked.
Yaz could only shake her head and smile.
"I guess... maybe you could tell them we got engaged," Jane continued, in a vague, halting cadence. "If you wanted to keep wearing that ring. Well, a ring. The one I made is better. Not objectively better, given that it doesn't have a psychic manifest shield. Suppose I could add one. But you could have it. If you wanted it. If you wanted to marry me," she added, as a timid afterthought.
"If you actually asked me to," Yaz said, in fond exasperation, as she bumped against Jane's shoulder again.
"Oh, right. Keep missing that bit." Jane rolled up on one knee in the snow, looking down at Yaz. Her breath hung in a cloud between them as she took Yaz's hand. "Honestly thought I'd be more nervous about this," Jane admitted. "But... spending my life with you is everything I want." She looked around a bit at the evidence of their adventure. "Even when it's a bit mad," she added.
"Me, too," Yaz said quietly.
Jane smiled. "Yasmin Khan, will you..."
Yaz heard a crackle above them, where Prentis' snowmobile had crashed into the trees. She yelped and sprung up to tackle Jane sideways into the snow, just before a snow-laden tree branch smashed to the ground where they'd been sitting, triggering a tiny avalanche down the cliffside below.
From her position sprawled under a protective Yaz, Jane could only laugh.
Yaz sighed and dropped her head to Jane's shoulder. "Please hurry up and finish the question," she said.
"Marry me, Yaz," Jane said, still chuckling.
Yaz lifted her head, and smiled down at Jane. "Yeah," she whispered.
Jane tilted up to meet her for a kiss. "Amazin,'" she whispered back, against her lips.
Yaz indulged in the kiss for a long moment, before breaking away and pushing herself upright, pulling Jane along, and brushing all the snow off them. She grabbed hold of a bit of Jane's snowsuit, keeping her close. "I still want more of the universe," she said, quietly. "And more time with you."
Jane's eyes swam with happy tears, as she nodded her agreement. "Wanna go to Liverpool and look for some doors?"
"Oh, it'd be rude not to," Yaz said, entirely pragmatic, even as she tilted in for another kiss.
When they parted, Jane startled a bit, and pointed to the sky, where a shooting star blazed across the twilight. "Hey, make a wish!"
Yaz didn't even look up. "Don't need to," she replied. "Got everything I want."
"Make a wish for some other Yaz, then," Jane murmured. "A Yaz behind one of those doors. Wishes matter. She might need them."
At that, Yaz caught her breath, and wrapped her fingers around the dimensional node activator in her pocket as she looked to the streak of dust in the sky.
And she wished, as hard as she could, for another Yaz to find a life of joy alongside the woman she loved.
