Chapter Text
I can’t be in two places at once.
Funny phrase, that. Turns out it’s not true. I mean, for starters, with the Doctor you can go back in time and be in two places at the same time.
This wasn’t like that. There weren’t two versions of me from different points in time, who were basically different people. I was in two places at once. I felt like I had two whole bodies. I could feel two pairs of legs, in slightly different positions, partially superposed over each other. I had two pairs of arms, two heads. One of the bodies rolled and now I had two abdomens, one perpendicular to the other. I felt nauseated and dizzy. I had double vision. I was hot and cold at the same time, shivering, the hairs on my neck all standing on end, a cold sweat down my spine. My head, oh my head, it felt as if it had split open. Sound echoed around. I thought I could hear the Doctor speaking to me, but her voice was so distorted, she sounded like two people speaking at once.
And then it got worse. She sounded like an echoing hall full of voices, a choir all singing different songs at different tempos. I felt like I was spinning and staying still all at once. The perception of multiple bodies multiplied. I felt like some contorted hydra, a sprawling mass of limbs and heads.
At times I thought I was in the TARDIS console room. I caught glimpses of those towering crystals, the central console, the glittering ceiling. Other times I saw sheer whiteness, like the Zero Room. I felt myself lying on metal grates, on nothing at all, on something soft. I tasted bile and blood and saline. I felt giddily happy one moment, and then I sank, struggling to keep my eyes open, losing my will to carry on.
Eventually the world started to cohere. I was lying on a bed in a bright room, surrounded by blue blinds. It was hard to keep my eyes open, but the sense of having multiple bodies began to ease. A heartbeat monitor beeped. I think I must have fallen asleep a few times before I had the strength to look around. My vision was still blurred, but I could make out the outline of the Doctor. She held my hand and squeezed. It was comforting, not least because it helped me realise I definitely only had two hands.
I must have blacked out again, but I heard her calling my name. I tried to reply, but the words choked in my throat.
“Shh, shh, it’s OK,” she said. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Remarkable,” said a man’s voice to the other side. I couldn’t find the energy to turn my head much, and I couldn’t see anyone else in my peripheral vision. “You have been very lucky, Yasmin. Your symptoms were not consistent with any diagnosis on my systems. You seemed to have developed an idiopathic syndrome. I could only attempt to stabilise you. The Doctor assured me you would pull through, with the right support, but I must admit, it was touch and go there.”
Look, I felt better, but I didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel like I was going to die, I had a bit of a sense of identity, but I was exhausted, my head hurt like all hell, and I was pretty sure I was still hallucinating. Everything echoed, and sometimes objects would flicker a little bit.
I slept some more. When I woke, the only change was the Doctor, sat in a chair and reading aloud to me.
“Doct…” I said. Talking was something I had always taken for granted. Only now I had largely lost it did I realise how hard it was, and how much of an achievement it had been to learn to do it in the first place.
“Hey, steady, it’s OK,” said the Doctor. She reached out and stroked my hand. “Yaz, I’m sorry,” she said. I did my best to smile at her, but I’m not sure I moved all the right muscles. “I knew… I knew the process might go wrong, but I thought the Zero Room would sort you out. It only made things worse. I’ve never seen that happen before. You were burning up. It only got better when I took you out of the TARDIS.”
“How long?” I asked.
The Doctor pursed her lips. “Two weeks, Yaz. Well, this is day twelve. This place has been taking very good care of you. I mean, literally, the hospital has been taking care of you, it’s all AI and robots, way better than people. And it’s NHS, too. The timeline merger worked, at least.”
“Worth it.”
“I’m not so sure. Yaz, I don’t know if you’ll ever be better. I don’t think you’ll ever travel in the TARDIS again.”
I wanted to tell her not to be so daft. I was going to keep getting better. Soon I’d be strong enough to walk. How could the TARDIS ever be a problem?
***
The journey to recovery was tough. I never quite made it. Physio robots got me on my feet, but I couldn’t hold myself upright, and I couldn’t stand unsupported. The hospital gave me hearty meals fortified with all the nutrients a healing body needs, but I didn’t get stronger. The real killer was the cluster headaches, which came whenever I exerted myself and left me drained of energy and willpower. The hospital tried to titrate a suitable mix of painkillers, but nothing worked.
I spent most of my time right out of it, sometimes for days, so I wasn’t sure exactly how long I was in there. It could have been a couple of weeks. It could have been several months. Eventually, the Doctor wheeled me out. The wheelchair had an electric motor, but for the time being it was best if I didn’t control it. I was outside for the first time in a long time. It was slightly chilly. Just slightly. I pulled my jacket around me. It made me feel a bit more like Yaz.
We got on a train. The Doctor parked me in a disabled bay and sat on the fold-down chair opposite me. The other passengers were mostly robots and cyborgs, both human and reptile and even a few species I didn’t recognise. There might have been some people living in tanks, exploring virtual simulations of the world, but there were also some who treasured the experience of being out in the flesh. Only an hour later, we were in Edinburgh, where we changed trains for one to London. The train flew down to Newcastle, through Darlington and into the Yorkshire countryside. The verdant rolling dales were… not like I remembered. Not at all. They were yellow and brown, fields thick with mud and straw. Hedges that once neatly demarcated fields were sprawling and wild. The train stopped at York, and from there we didn’t see any more countryside, just urban sprawl right through Doncaster and Rotherham and Sheffield. That was where we got out.
I checked my watch. Assuming it was right, it was nearly midday. Even if it was wrong, we’d been in Aberdeen only two hours earlier. I wondered if I had blacked out and missed an overnight stay in Edinburgh, but no. The future didn’t just have a well-resourced NHS, but punctual railways.
We got a taxi – driverless, and step-free - out of the city. We headed west, into the Peak District. It was still recognisable. Sure, it was muddier and barer, and I didn’t see a sheep or cow anywhere, but this was definitely God’s own country, with gorgeous moorland and thriving forests.
The taxi turned down increasingly narrow roads, winding lanes snaking between fields, until we reached an old stone farmhouse. We got out and the taxi drove off, leaving us alone. Although I suppose we’d been alone the whole time.
The farmhouse looked like it would have been old even in my day. The paint was faded and rust caked the window frame. A few anachronistic features gave the façade a touch of modernity. Aside from the solar panels on the roof, the most obvious renovation was the gentle slope to the front door. I obviously wasn’t the first wheelchair user to come here.
“We’ll stay here for a little while,” the Doctor said. “The timeline should stabilise eventually. Then we can travel again.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“It’s the least I can do,” said the Doctor, sonicking the lock. She pushed the door open and we went in. The house was dark and unfurnished, the walls were bare, as were the wooden floors. The only item of furniture in the house that wasn’t built-in was a bed in a back room, which was the same height as my chair. This was my new home.