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Bill let out a long sigh and leaned back against a countertop in the university kitchen. Just one hour left to go, and she could go to her lesson with the Doctor. She allowed herself a moment to wonder about where the Doctor would take her today. Hopefully somewhere relaxing, where she wouldn’t have to tax her already weary body.
Shaking the thoughts away, Bill stood and looked over at the oversized kitchen sink. A large pile of dirty dishes waited inside, and Bill approached it slowly like she would approach a dangerous alien. Actually, a hungry alien would be preferable to this. Washing all these dishes alone would probably occupy the entire hour.
With another sigh, Bill grabbed the sponge, turned on the water, and started washing a large bowl with leftover potato peels sticking to the sides. She let her hands automatically take over the familiar task, though her arms protested against the weight of the bowl she held. She knew the soreness was the result of climbing a giant tree yesterday—a sentient tree, actually—in order to see “one of the best views in the universe,” according to the Doctor.
And it had been amazing. But after six months under the rule of the Monks, she was out of practice with all the running and intense physical exertion.
“Time to get back in shape,” she muttered to herself. While she did hope for a relaxing trip today, the Doctor somehow always ended up getting them into some sort of danger where they were running for their lives.
But the thought of the Monks brought up a pressing question she had been harboring ever since the world had gone back to normal three days ago. It was a question she had had dreams about, a question she was wary to ask the Doctor for fear of his answer.
Why had there been a golden glow coming from him after she thought she shot him?
Bill paused her thoughts, realising that the drying rack was already full, though she had barely touched the mountain of dirty dishes. She grabbed a dishtowel off the counter and began drying the dishes she had just washed.
As soon as her hands were methodically working again, her mind ran back to the question of the Doctor’s mortality. She had never really considered it until recently. He always acted like he could die just as easily as any human, but Bill had realised that it might not be the case. He was a time lord after all, and she knew very little about them, other than that they had two hearts.
But it seemed like something important, something she should know about him. She knew he was keeping it from—
A boisterous crash stopped Bill’s thoughts in her tracks. She jumped, only just stopping herself from dropping the plate in her hands. With a relieved sigh, she looked up to see the Doctor staring at her from across the room with wide eyes, holding onto a shelf. Several bottles of cleaning products lay scattered on the floor around his feet. He grinned sheepishly.
“Hey?” Bill said, conveying her confusion at his presence in the lift of her voice.
“Hey.” Of course, any decent person would have put back all of the things they had knocked over, but the Doctor merely stepped over them, leaving Bill to sigh and know that she would have to put them away after doing the washing up.
“What are you doing down here?” she wondered, setting the dry plate in her hands aside.
The Doctor shrugged, leaning over the sink so he could see the mound of dishes inside. His nostrils flared in distaste and he straightened to look at Bill, raising his eyebrows like he was about to state the obvious. “I got bored.”
“You? Bored?” Bill chuckled as she grabbed another plate and began drying it. “But you can go anywhere.”
He frowned. “I was waiting for you.”
Bill glanced up at the clock mounted on the opposite wall. “Yeah, well I’ve still got half an hour. Need to finish up here.” She nodded at the sink.
The Doctor’s gaze shifted up and around. He turned his body in a full circle. “So this is what you do every day? Shouldn’t there be others?”
Bill set the dry plate on top of the previous one. “Jess was sick today and Martin had a dentist appointment, so that leaves me to do this.” She gestured grandly to the pile of dirty dishes and grabbed a dripping pot from where it was sitting to dry. The Doctor just stared at her.
“If you’re really that bored,” Bill continued, only mostly joking, “maybe you could grab the sponge and start washing.”
The Doctor stared at the sink for a moment before shrugging off his coat and tossing it onto the nearest counter. Bill stared at him in disbelief as he rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt to his elbows and then grabbed a plate from the sink in one hand the soapy sponge in the other.
“Stop making that face,” the Doctor said with a glance in her direction. “Do you think I’ve never done the dishes before?”
“It doesn’t seem like something that such a sophisticated old time lord would do,” Bill said, trying not to laugh as she smiled over at him.
The Doctor frowned at her, one eyebrow raised. “I’m not sophisticated or old.”
“Think you’d better take a look in the mirror.”
As Bill ran her towel over the bowl in her hands one more time, water from the sink’s faucet sprayed all over the once-dry bowl and Bill’s apron. She looked up at the Doctor to see if the attack had been intentional, but his expression was passive. Bill decided to let it pass, but she kept a wary eye on him as she continued to dry.
“Any more nightmares?” the Doctor asked.
First washing dishes, now making conversation. He had to be really bored.
“Not nightmares exactly.” Bill thought back to her terrible dreams about killing the Doctor. After she had reconciled with the Doctor, those dreams had ceased. Now in their place were stranger dreams about the Doctor dying and then miraculously coming back to life unscathed. She knew it had to do with her curiosity about whether or not he could really die.
In that moment, she resolved to tell him. She wanted to know the truth.
“I have these dreams where you die, but then you sort of glow like you did after I…” Bill swallowed. Even though they had been through this already, it still wasn’t easy to say. “After I shot you. And then you just pop right back up again like you were never hurt. I know it’s just my brain replaying what it’s seen, but I did see it, and I don’t know what it means.”
The Doctor stood still, staring down at the pot he was scrubbing.
“Doctor?” she prompted, setting down the towel and taking a tentative step forward.
Suddenly he continued washing, rinsed the pot off, and handed it to her without a word. Bill put it down without taking her eyes off him. “Look, I know there are some things you’re never going to tell me. But if you really didn’t want me to know about this, you would have just pretended like you died.”
“I wasn’t sure if you knew,” he said quietly. “Nardole could have let it slip, or you could have found something in the TARDIS that gave it away.”
“Knew about what?” she asked.
“Regeneration.” He finally looked over at her, his expression weary and his eyes heavy with sadness and an emotion akin to fear.
Now Bill understood why he hadn’t brought it up before. The Doctor wasn’t scared of many things at all, but she was sure that he was scared of whatever this was.
Bill lowered her voice and spoke softly. Somehow, it seemed appropriate. “What does that mean?”
“It means that your dreams were wrong. I don’t just heal myself and get back up again. There’s a cost.”
There was a short silence, filled only by the water running from the faucet.
“Who I am. My body, my mind, it all changes into something new. Someone new.”
Bill pressed her lips together, trying to understand the weight of what he was saying. It didn’t make any sense. “I don’t understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” His lips curled into a bitter smile. “Humans are always looking for ways to become immortal, to keep on living forever.” He looked down at his hands. “But there’s a price. There’s always a price.” He met Bill’s eyes again, his expression hard and unflinching like he was trying to cover up what he really felt. “I’ve died many times, Bill. More times than I care to remember. And each time I die, I change into somebody new. That’s how time lords survive.”
Bill stared at him, only vaguely aware of her mouth falling open in shock. She felt frozen. There was no doubting the truth in what he said. But how…how could it be? How could the Doctor not be the man standing in front of her? How could he change into someone new? Did it mean he wasn’t the Doctor anymore?
“Bill?” the Doctor asked gently.
Bill looked down and realised she was gripping the edge of the countertop so tight that her knuckles were turning white. “Yeah, sorry,” she breathed, letting out some of the tension, “just trying to take it all in.”
The Doctor turned back to the sink and began slowly scrubbing at a bowl. Bill watched him, still just trying to comprehend what he had told her.
“So…so you…haven’t always been you?” she stuttered, wrapping her mind around the concept.
“No.” He offered her the bowl he had just cleaned and Bill, still slightly dazed, stared for a moment before taking it. The Doctor smiled a little, looking over at her as he spoke. “Last time I was young,” he explained, “with a giant chin and floppy hair. I wore bow ties,” he added, touching his collar as if making sure there wasn’t one there now.
Bill couldn’t even begin to imagine the Doctor young. How could the Doctor be anyone different than who he was now?
“Okay, that’s just weird,” she concluded. Her brain was starting to hurt from thinking about it too much.
The Doctor passed her a plate and then looked down at his palms with a frown.
“You all right there, mate?” Bill asked as she finished drying the plate.
“I don’t like it when my fingers get all wrinkly.” He rubbed his fingertips together and frowned.
Bill chuckled but refrained from making a joke about how he was always wrinkly. “We can switch, then.” Bill walked over to the other side of him and nudged him towards the drying rack, handing him the towel. She picked up the sponge sitting on the edge of the sink and began washing another plate. As she rinsed the soap off, the Doctor asked,
“Haven’t you finished with that yet?”
Bill glanced over at him to see that he was drumming his fingers on the countertop, waiting, though only a few seconds had passed since she had started washing the plate. Bill raised her hand and flicked water at his face, hearing him sputter. She couldn’t help but laugh out loud, especially when she turned to see indignation clear on his face.
She should have known, the Doctor being as childish as he was, that he was going to retaliate.
With a competitive gleam in his eyes, the Doctor chucked the damp drying towel right into her face. Bill staggered backwards in surprise, letting the clean plate fall back into the sink with a clang. She caught the towel before it could fall to the ground and drenched it under the running water. The Doctor had already raised his arms in front of his face when Bill turned to him, but she whipped the towel towards him anyway, splattering water all over his arms and waist.
Quick as lightning, the Doctor reached out and grabbed the towel, yanking it from Bill’s grasp. With a triumphant smirk he flicked the towel at her over and over again, splashing her apron with water. Bill started laughing and found herself unable to stop. A two thousand year old time lord and a twenty-six year old human flinging water at each other in a university kitchen; could anything be more absurd?
Bill retreated backwards and shielded her face with her hands as the Doctor relentlessly slung water at her. After a few steps, she felt a shelf at her back. She dropped one of her arms and reached back for a package she knew would be on the third shelf up from the floor. She thrust her arm into the bag, hoping it was the right one, and submerged her hand in a cool powder. She grabbed a handful in her fist, waited for the Doctor to leave his front wide open, and flung the white flour at him.
The Doctor stopped in his tracks, a cloud of white surrounding him. Flour clung to his vest, his face, and even a little on his trousers. His eyes were wide, uncomprehending, and Bill just couldn’t stand it. She slid to the ground laughing, holding her sides, unable to stand the silly sight of the Doctor, time lord and saver of worlds, covered in flour.
“Oh my god,” Bill gasped in between fits of laughter. “You look hilarious.”
The Doctor sighed and dropped the towel to the ground, looking down at himself. He swiped his hand over his face, but it mostly just smeared the flour further, and Bill resumed giggling at the sight.
“Ha-ha,” the Doctor said sarcastically, the spirit of competition drained from his expression. Yet, there was still a spark of amusement in his eyes. He pressed his lips together and shook his head, offering Bill his hand. She grabbed onto him, the last of her laughter dying away.
The Doctor pulled her up with much more force than she anticipated and Bill stumbled into him, letting out a surprised exclamation as a puff of flour encompassed them. Bill stepped away and saw that her front was now covered in flour as well, and she looked up as the Doctor began to chuckle, beaming a wide grin.
Bill joined in with his laughter, thinking that she had never had a friend like him. He was an idiot sometimes, maybe even most of the time, but he was also kind. He made her laugh. He protected her and risked his life for her time and time again. He was, simply, the Doctor, and Bill could never imagine him being anyone else.
As their laughter subsided, Bill looked into his eyes and spoke her thoughts out loud. “I don’t want you to change.”
The Doctor’s smile melted into a frown. Bill mentally kicked herself for ruining the moment, but the damage was already done. The Doctor’s expression sagged and he frowned. “I don’t want me to change either.”
Bill wondered at the look of fear and sadness in his eyes. It was something much more vulnerable than she had ever seen in the Doctor before, and she couldn’t stand seeing something do this to him. This regeneration thing…it had to really scare him.
So Bill did exactly what she knew the Doctor would have done. She smiled at him, then bent down and grabbed the towel from the ground. She lightly smacked it against his arm “I don’t think you ever will, old man.”
From that day on, Bill never had to do the washing up alone.