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“What about Metebelis III? At night, the entire planet turns blue!” The Doctor showed his teeth in a manic grin, eyes wide with excitement.
Bill crossed her arms over her chest, skeptical of his enthusiasm. “Isn’t that the place where you said you were attacked by wildlife and barely got out alive?”
The Doctor waved it off and walked to the opposite side of the TARDIS console, pressing a seemingly random sequence of buttons on the way. After reflecting on this habit of his ever since she had first come on board the TARDIS, Bill had come to the conclusion that the buttons did absolutely nothing and he pressed them just to look impressive.
“If we get there before it was populated with the native lifeforms, we’ll be fine.” The Doctor rested his hand on a lever and craned his neck to one side of the central column, raising his eyebrows at her.
Bill had to chuckle at his statement. “‘Fine?’ Seriously?”
The Doctor’s face fell, his lips settling into a deep frown. “What do you mean?”
“No matter where we go, something’s always trying to kill us,” she said, resting her arm against the edge of the console and leaning her weight into it. “I mean, it’s amazing, but just once it’d be nice to take break from being chased by a giant alien monkey halfway across a jungle planet.” Bill stretched out her calves to emphasise the statement and pain shot up through her sore muscles. She had once thought that running with the Doctor was better than a gym membership, but now she wondered if she might be ready for the Olympics in a few years.
“Humans,” the Doctor sighed. “Your endurance is laughable.”
“You’ve been doing this for two thousand years!” Bill countered.
The Doctor gestured to his tall, lanky frame. “Yeah, and I still look great!”
Bill sighed and rolled her eyes. Leave it to him to turn things around in order to compliment himself on his appearance. She thought up a witty comeback about his age that was sure to irritate him, but the Doctor spoke again first.
“Where do you want to go, then?” His lips twitched into a small smirk. Bill knew he thought that he had already won. Ultimately, he was going to have to choose where they went because she knew next to nothing about the universe outside the Milky Way.
Bill almost let it go and told him to pick the destination anyway, but then she remembered that Shireen had told her she was going to California with her mum over the summer. Bill had acted more jealous than she had felt—she had all of time and space with the Doctor, anyway—but one thing she had really been envious of was the thought of a real, warm beach.
“What about a beach?”
The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “A beach?”
Bill grinned, stepping forward as she grew more excited at the prospect. “Yeah, you know, like a proper one, with really blue water and white sand.”
“And I suppose you’d just want to sit there and get sunburned?” The excited light in his eyes faded and boredom coloured his tone.
“Oh, come on. You have to like the beach. Everyone loves the beach.”
“I don’t,” a new voice declared, heavy footsteps accompanying the statement. Bill spun around to see Nardole trudging up the stairs from below the console. “Have you seen this skin? Starts burning at the thought of sunlight.”
“Are you finished?” the Doctor asked, looking expectantly at Nardole.
“I think that should just about do it, yeah.” Nardole wiped his hands together. “Mind you, it wasn’t easy. How long was I down there?” He continued forward, watching the Doctor, but the old time lord didn’t seem to be interested in the conversation anymore. He pulled one of the console monitors towards him and began studying it intently: one of his avoidance tactics.
“Lost track,” the Doctor muttered.
“Yeah, don’t think so,” Bill said, wondering if it was even possible for him to lose track of time.
The Doctor shot her a stern look. “Maybe a day,” he said finally, still avoiding Nardole’s gaze.
“You forgot I was down there, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t forget, I just had more important things to think about.”
Nardole shook his head and turned to Bill instead, gesturing towards the Doctor. “After all I do for him.” The Doctor remained absorbed in his screen, either ignoring Nardole or being so wrapped up in what he was doing that he actually didn’t hear.
“Anyway, I’m hungry,” Nardole continued, patting his stomach.
Bill lowered her voice so the Doctor couldn’t hear even if he was actually listening. “I think there’s still some leftover Chinese in the Doctor’s office fridge.”
Nardole smiled at her and nodded in thanks. Then his smile faded and he glanced at the Doctor, then back at her. “Keep an eye on him.”
Bill nodded, finding herself wondering, not for the first time, at Nardole’s faithful care of the Doctor and their seemingly strenuous relationship.
But before she could ask, Nardole turned and walked out of the TARDIS. Bill walked over to the Doctor, close enough that he couldn’t pretend like he didn’t hear her.
“You know, I know you like to look all ‘time lord-y’ and aloof, but you really could care just a little bit more.”
He glanced over at the TARDIS doors. “About Nardole?” He scoffed. “He can take care of himself.”
“Yeah, so can you, but he still takes care of you.”
He didn’t respond, but after a moment of silence the Doctor looked at her like he was wondering why she was still there. “You’d better get ready for the beach.”
Excitement quickly replaced irritation as Bill’s dominant emotion. “We’re actually going?”
“I know a great place,” the Doctor said, turning to her and giving her that smile he had whenever he was describing a new place. “The entire planet is a beach; half water, half sand. It has six suns, so it’s always daytime, no matter where the planet is facing. And there’s only one season: summer.”
Bill grinned, already forming a picture of the planet in her mind. “Six suns? Doesn’t that mean it’s going to be really hot?”
“They’re not as hot as your sun. The temperature stays at twenty-nine degrees constantly.”
“That’s amazing!”
The Doctor turned towards the monitor again and waved back at the corridor. “The wardrobe should have something for you.”
Still smiling, Bill hurried to the wardrobe and heard the TARDIS engines start up behind her.
No more than five minutes later Bill sprinted into the console room, out of breath, amidst a blaring alarm and flashing red lights.
“Doctor!” she yelled. She tried to get his attention, but her voice was drowned out by the Doctor’s own cries.
“No!” The Doctor danced around the console as the central column went up and down and the TARDIS’ telltale racket announced their landing. “No, no, no!”
The room lurched sideways and Bill’s ribs slammed into one of the metal railings. The towel she had been holding flew out of her grasp, falling through the gap in the flooring to the room below. Suddenly, a tremendous thump shook the room. Bill held onto the rail for a moment after the room righted itself and then let go with a sigh, rubbing the impact spot on her right side. She looked down at her sundress and adjusted a shoulder strap that had gone askew in the chaos.
She turned to ask the Doctor what was going on, but then thick, grey smoke started to curl up from underneath the console. It stuck in Bill’s throat as she took another breath, making her cough. “Doctor!” she called in a strangled voice.
The Doctor lapsed into a coughing fit but ran over and grabbed her arm, tugging her towards the doors. “Out!” he said, his voice strained. He coughed a couple more times. “We have to get out!”
Bill let him lead her to the TARDIS doors. He flung open one door, ushering in a flurry of snowflakes. Bill planted herself just inside the threshold. “I can’t go out there!” she said, gesturing to her attire. A shiver ran through her as she felt a chill wind sting her skin.
The Doctor walked out of the TARDIS nonetheless, his shoes crunching in snow. He took in an audible gulp of air and pulled insistently on her arm. “We don’t have a choice!”
Clenching her teeth and trying the best she could to brace herself for the worst, Bill stepped out into a world of icy wind and snow. The TARDIS doors immediately slammed behind her on their own and Bill gasped in crisp, clean air. At least she could breathe again.
“Are you okay?” The Doctor gently squeezed her arm, his cold blue eyes seeming even more intense than usual amidst the backdrop of grey clouds and white snow.
Bill crossed her arms over her chest and a shudder ran through her. Her sandals and sundress were poor protection against a climate like this. “This is what I meant by never being ‘fine’ with you,” she managed through chattering teeth. “Seriously? Ice planet instead of a beach?”
“Sometimes even the TARDIS has bad days,” he muttered, releasing his grip on her and turning around. His head moved back and forth, up and down, and then he crouched and dug out a handful of snow from the ground. He let it fall slowly through his fingers as he stood back up.
Bill hugged herself and surveyed the land. The white terrain was uneven, with lots of hills and valleys. She wondered if they could even still be on Earth. “Do you know where we are?”
“Not Earth.” He faced her again and his eyebrows drew together as he looked her over. By the way his eyes widened, he seemed to only just notice how unprepared she was for this kind of weather. Without a moment’s hesitation he swept off his outer coat, leaving him in a black pullover that hugged his frame. He stepped closer to Bill and laid the coat on her shoulders. Without his staple article of clothing, the Doctor looked rather less intimidating, with his clothes emphasising his scrawny body and snow beginning to coat his hair and his eyebrows. Suddenly Bill felt like she was carrying a piece of him on her shoulders, something that made him who he was. She opened her mouth to protest, but the Doctor beat her to it.
“Don’t argue,” he said before she could even speak a word.
With a sigh of resignation, Bill pushed her arms through the sleeves of his coat and buttoned it up, aware that it reached below her knees. The chill from the air lessened considerably as the soft fabric hugged her body and a shudder ran down her spine.
“Better?”
Bill looked up just in time to see the Doctor put up his hood. He visibly shook for a moment and then crossed his arms tightly over his chest.
Bill felt guilty for taking the only warmth between them, but she’d only waste her breath arguing about it. “Yeah, thanks.” She drew her hands inside the sleeves and felt rather cozy, other than her freezing feet. “Is there some sort of time lord magic in this to keep you from ever getting cold?”
The Doctor gave her a look of disappointment. “Not ‘magic.’ Science.” He nodded in a direction left of the TARDIS and started walking. “We need to find shelter.”
“Shelter?” Bill asked, though she followed him anyway.
“Nardole must have done something wrong.” He glanced back at the TARDIS. “Even I couldn’t survive the fumes in there. She’ll clean herself out in a few hours.”
“Hours?” Bill thought about her feet and shivered. “I’m not going to survive for hours. And neither are you,” she added as she looked over at his trembling form.
The Doctor stared ahead. “We’re going to be fine,” he stated firmly, like he was trying to convince himself as well.
Though the situation looked rather bleak, Bill didn’t question the Doctor. On a scale of being chased by an Emoji robot to being exposed to the vacuum of space, being cold didn’t even come close to the worst they had been through. She had trusted him so far, and she would trust him now.
Several minutes of silence passed as they trudged through hills of snow. The Doctor paused frequently, but never seemed to find whatever sort of “shelter” he was looking for. After a while, Bill’s face and her feet ceased to feel the sting of the cold and fear hit her like a stab in the gut.
“Doctor,” she said with a quaver in her voice, though whether it was from worry or the cold, she didn’t know. “Please tell me you have a plan.”
“We’re doing the plan. The plan is finding shelter.” Bill looked over at him, but she couldn’t see his expression past the hood of his pullover. “Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Great,” she muttered, “I get killed by an ice planet after I survive loads of crazy alien monsters.”
“Bill.” The Doctor turned his head and met her eyes. His expression was as cold and hard as the rock that lay beneath the layers of snow. From his deep frown to his hands clenched into fists at his sides, everything about him exuded determination. “Trust me.”
It wasn’t often that he asked for her trust; he usually just proved that he deserved it, leaving her with unwavering faith in him. The fact that he was asking her to trust him made her a little nervous. Did he even trust himself to get them out of this?
It was one of those moments where Bill became all too aware that the Doctor had emotions that were more human than he would ever admit. Deep in his eyes there was a need for affirmation, to know that she had faith in him. Bill wondered if the Doctor would still be the Doctor if no one believed in him.
Bill placed her hand on the Doctor’s arm and pressed it gently. “Yeah. Of course I do.”
Before the Doctor could react to the statement his steps halted and he stared past her. Bill turned and followed his gaze to see a drop off only yards away. The Doctor barreled towards it, tramping through the snow past Bill.
Bill followed suit at a slower pace as she struggled through the deep snow. She panted as she finally reached the Doctor’s side on the edge of a cliff that dropped into a small valley several yards below. As she stared down at the sloping mountain of snow, the world began to spin before her eyes. Bill staggered and closed her eyes as a reflex, feeling the Doctor grab onto her shoulder and hang on like a vice.
“No,” the Doctor said. “No no no. Not now. Hang on, Bill, we’re close.”
Bill opened her eyes and saw the Doctor’s concerned expression before his face went out of focus. She squeezed her eyes shut again and wanted nothing more than to just sit down and quit the whole pointless search. The warmth of the Doctor’s coat even seemed to be wearing off by now, and her head was pounding.
The Doctor’s hands squeezed her shoulders. “Bill,” he said, his voice filled with urgency. “Listen to me. It’s hypothermia. Your body’s telling you to stop so it can conserve energy to keep you warm, but you have to keep going. There’s a cave just beneath us. It’ll be warmer in there. But first I need you to jump.”
“Jump?” she repeated.
“It’s not far. I’ll go first. Focus, Bill.”
Bill willed herself to open her eyes. The Doctor grinned at her, and his smile gave her a surge of strength and determination. If he believed she could do this, then she knew she could.
“Good.” The Doctor let go of her slowly, keeping his eyes on her all the while. Then he turned and launched himself off the cliff. Bill watched him fall for only a moment before he plunged up to his knees in snow. “Your turn!” he called up to her.
Bill didn’t allow herself to think about it. She simply followed his lead and jumped, a yell ripping itself from her throat. Only a moment later, however, she felt her feet break through the snow and the Doctor’s hands rest on her arms, steadying her and keeping her from falling.
“This way.” He kept a hand on her arm and guided her in a half-circle to face the dark opening of a cave. It was wide enough that they could walk side by side, but low enough that they had to duck in order to get through. As the darkness of the cave seemed to spin before her, Bill was glad that the Doctor kept a gentle hold on her.
The cave grew bigger as they trekked forward until they could at last stand up straight. The width of the cave multiplied as well, and could fit at least twenty people walking side by side. The Doctor paused and Bill stopped at his side.
The warmth was almost immediate. A shiver ran through Bill’s body as heat washed over her skin in methodical waves from further in the cave. Her head cleared a little and the dizziness ebbed away, though her extremities were still numb. She sighed with relief and rubbed her hands together.
The Doctor, however, still seemed to be on alert. He bent forward, sniffing, looking towards the back of the cave that was shrouded in shadow. There was just enough light from outside for Bill to see his furrowed eyebrows.
“Doctor?”
“Something’s not right.” He lowered his hood and took a step towards the back of the cave.
Bill put a hand on his arm. “You know, for once, I don’t care. I’m gonna enjoy the heat waves while they last.”
“Those aren’t heat waves.” The Doctor’s eyes met hers, conveying the seriousness of the situation. “Those are exhales.”
Bill let that sink in for a moment. It didn’t scare her as much as she knew it should have; she had seen too much and was too exhausted to really mind. “I’m okay with that as long as it keeps its distance.”
The Doctor frowned and patted himself down, finally extending a hand over to Bill. “Sonic screwdriver.”
Bill placed her hand over the inside coat pocket where she knew the Doctor kept his screwdriver . “What if you just make it angry?” she asked, lowering her voice now that she knew something else was alive in here.
He just raised his eyebrows and flexed his fingers backward, indicating that he still wanted the sonic screwdriver.
Bill shook her head, determined. “Look, it’s warm, and that’s all I care about.”
“It won’t be when that creature eats you,” he muttered grumpily, crossing his arms over his chest.
“If it’s between being eaten by a monster or freezing to death, I think I’ll take the first.”
“You think I’d let you die out here?” His voice was quiet but there was still a soft echo in the cave, and the words seemed to sound more injured every time they echoed back to Bill’s ears.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Bill paused, wondering if her fingers and toes were going to make it out of this okay. “But I think there are some things even you can’t control, Doctor.”
He frowned as he looked over at her. “You’re alive now, aren’t you?”
Bill chuckled. “You tell me. I still can’t feel my toes.”
It might have been the lack of light, or maybe he was just that good at controlling his facial expression, but Bill couldn’t quite discern the look on his face. He shifted his gaze to the back of the cave but then resignedly walked over to the right side of the cave and sat back against the wall. Bill followed suit and lowered herself down next to him.
“Great day at the beach,” she muttered sarcastically. She shivered hard and pulled her knees up to her chest. It was a lot warmer in the cave, yes, but the air still had a chill.
“Are you angry with me?”
Bill looked up to see his gaze fixed on her. He didn’t seem sad this time, but curious, maybe a little unsure. She considered his question carefully and smiled a little.
“Nah. This is just a normal day out, isn’t it?”
The Doctor’s lips twitched into a smile matching hers. “I wasn’t sure,” he continued. “You seem to be using more sarcasm, and usually for humans that means you’re more irritated.”
“Yeah, well.” Bill scooted closer to his side as the chill from the rocky cave floor started to creep slowly through her body. “I’m more irritated with this planet—and the TARDIS—than I am with you.”
“The TARDIS didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s Nardole’s fault,” the Doctor explained.
Bill shook her head. “Shut up.” She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.
The Doctor frowned at her. “What was that for?”
Bill couldn’t help but chuckle. “You’re caring about a spaceship more than an actual person.”
“It depends on what your definition of a ‘person’ is. And she’s not just a spaceship,” he continued defensively, his voice rising in pitch, “she’s a sentient being.”
Bill rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” As she shivered again she pressed up against the Doctor’s side and leaned her head on his shoulder. She could almost feel his shocked gaze on her as his body stiffened. Though Bill had only gotten closer to him for warmth and because, if she was telling the truth, he made her feel safe, she wondered if she had crossed some sort of boundary.
“This okay?” she asked, tensing up as she feared she had upset him.
The Doctor cleared his throat before answering. “Yeah.” His voice was gruff and low, like he was trying to sound aloof on purpose.
Bill shifted to try and see his expression, but his face was turned away from her. She’d give anything to know what he was thinking.
“My granddaughter,” he said, like he had been reading her mind. She wasn’t quite sure how he managed to do that so often.
Bill bit her lip, wondering if she should let it go or ask him about her, but curiosity won in the end. “The photo on your desk…”
“Yes.” A beat of silence passed. “Sometimes…” Bill heard the Doctor swallow and then sigh heavily through his nose. He paused for so long that Bill wondered if he was going to finish his sentence. But after several seconds of silence ticked by, he finally spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “…you remind me of her.”
Bill lifted her head from his shoulder so she could look at him, though his head was tilted down and his eyes were closed. His statement struck her very core, and she suddenly felt such a strong sense of belonging, of home, of family. Tears sprang to her eyes and she knew she couldn’t even begin to express what it meant to her, what he meant to her, and how much she could feel his sorrow.
Bill wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tight. She didn’t say a word, hoping that the hug was enough.
He didn’t smile at her as she drew away, but his eyes were soft, like he was hugging her back with just a look. Bill settled her head back on his shoulder and noticed that the light from outside was almost entirely gone, leaving them in darkness. Some sort of snore or grunt came from the back of the cave.
“Is this the part where we tell ghost stories?” Bill whispered.
“No need. I already win,” the Doctor responded at the same volume.
“What, you mean you have the best one?”
“I have loads. But there’s one that tops them all.”
Bill waited, but he said nothing further. She nudged her shoulder against his. “You can’t just say that and not tell me what it is.”
There was a smile in his voice. “Ghosts. In Victorian London.”
Bill shrugged. “Okay.”
“With Charles Dickens.”
She sat up and stared at him. “No way! Now you’re just making it up.”
He grinned, knowing he had impressed her. “It was a long time ago; I had big ears then.”
“Big ears?”
“Never mind.”
Bill laughed and rested her head on his shoulder once more. “What happened?”
“I decided to take a trip to the past with my friend Rose. We accidentally got caught up with this undertaker and…”
Listening with a smile on her face, Bill slowly fell asleep to the Doctor’s telling of an impossible ghost story. As he rambled on, just before she was totally asleep, she felt his arm slip around her shoulders. And somehow, millions of lightyears away from Earth and everything she knew, on an icy planet that had almost killed her, and now almost quite literally in the belly of a beast…Bill Potts felt like she was home.
Bill woke up blissfully and perfectly warm. She blinked open her eyes and looked down to see a mountain of blankets piled on top of her, not to mention she was still wearing the Doctor’s coat. A blazing fire burned in a fireplace right in front of the sofa she sat on. She tried to sit up and found that the blankets weighed down on her so much she could barely move.
“How do you feel?”
Bill looked over to see the Doctor on the other end of the sofa. She stared past him at a small table next to the sofa and let her gaze wander around the room. It was rather small, and there wasn’t much to see; other than the sofa and the table, there was only a large chair close to the fire and off-white paint on the walls.
“I’m fine,” Bill muttered, remembering to answer his question after the study of her surroundings. She wiggled her fingers and toes just to make sure, but they felt fine now. “Where are we?”
“The TARDIS,” he said simply.
“The TARDIS? Is it safe to be in here?”
The Doctor sat back against the sofa cushion. “Perfectly safe for now.” He frowned looked down at his hands. “I’ll have to get someone else to look at the problem soon.”
Bill caught on to his slightly guilty look. “You mean Missy?”
The Doctor didn’t answer, and Bill took that as confirmation. She maneuvered her arms outside of the blankets and looked at her hands. There didn’t seem to be any lasting damage. Then she noticed a long brown hair, the length of her arm, stuck to her sleeve. She pinched it between her fingers and stared at it.
“How’d you get me all the way here?” Bill asked, suddenly realising that the Doctor would have had to carry her up that steep rise and go back across that ice planet all the way to the TARDIS.
The Doctor glanced at her and saw the hair she held. “A friend.”
“Friend?” Bill noticed the sonic screwdriver sitting on the table next to the Doctor. “You woke up whatever was in the cave, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be up for the return trip, so I asked Smokey for help.”
“Smokey?”
“Yeah, the bear living in the back of the cave. Well, a sort of bear. Evolved from the bears on Earth; a lot bigger and a lot hairier.”
Bill just stared at him for a moment, then looked at the piece of fur, trying to imagine how big the bear was. “You asked a giant bear to carry me?”
He looked at her innocently, like it was no big deal. “I speak bear. He was a little grouchy at first that I woke him up from hibernation, but once I told him I could get him some honey from the TARDIS, he was more than willing to help.”
Bill leaned back into the sofa, dropped the hair, and decided that she was just going to accept it and move on. “Thank you,” she said. When the Doctor didn’t respond, she looked down and pushed off a couple layer of blankets. “Did you do all of this?”
“I had to make sure you were warm enough. More cold like that, and you could have gotten frostbite. As it was, you were close to hypothermia. Oh, and there’s some tea here, if you want.” He grabbed a steaming mug of tea from the table and offered it to her with eyebrows raised.
“That’d be great, thanks.”
The Doctor handed it to her and Bill immediately brought it to her lips, taking a small sip of the dark liquid. She smiled as she relished the feeling of the tea leaving a warm trail down her throat.
“Guess we’ll leave the beach for another day,” Bill said with a chuckle.
“Oh.”
Bill looked over to see his eyes widen. “What?”
“We’ve already landed on one. I was just waiting for you to wake up.”
Bill grinned. “Seriously?” She pushed off the rest of the blankets, but was somehow stuck with one more on her. After a moment, she realised why it had been more difficult to get off.
“Is this a Snuggie?”
“It’s not mine,” the Doctor said quickly. “I just found it in the TARDIS.”
Bill laughed. “Oh my god, you totally wear these all the time, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” he muttered with a frown, getting grouchy now.
Between fits of giggles, Bill managed to say, “I already know you’re an old granddad, Doctor, just admit it!” She slid the Snuggie off of her and tossed it at him. “Bet you’ve got one in every colour.”
The Doctor glared at her, thoroughly unamused, as he caught the bundled up Snuggie and hurled it onto the floor. Bill only laughed all the harder.
“It’s really not funny.”
Bill’s laughter faded but she continued to grin at the thought of the Doctor, saviour of the universe, walking around in a Snuggie. With one last chuckle she looked down at herself and removed the last layer of warmth, the Doctor’s coat.
She hopped to the next cushion over and offered it to him. “Here.”
The Doctor took it with muttered thanks. Bill smiled at him and scooted even closer so she could hug him around the neck. “Really, Doctor, thank you. For everything.” She pulled away from the hug and watched his reaction. He frowned, his expression clouding over, but then he smiled a little. But he wasn’t blind anymore and he didn’t wear those ridiculous shades, so Bill could see his troubled eyes. He was worried. Scared, even. But of what, she couldn’t even begin to guess.
“I think you’re the one who needs the trip to the beach, old man,” Bill said, standing up from the couch and stretching out her arms and legs. It was good to be able to feel her fingers and toes again. “This time, we both need a break.”
“Break?” The Doctor stood and shrugged on his coat as he walked towards the door. “Who said anything about a break? This is a lesson in marine biology!”
Bill groaned as she followed him towards the door. “Great,” she sighed. “Just what I wanted.”