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Fact: Yasmin Khan likes boys.
She climbed through Danny Biswas’ window in Year 10 and spent a somewhat underwhelming fifteen minutes with her hot, sweaty hand on the boy’s knee and their tongues kind of sickeningly in each other’s throats before Danny’s mum knocked on the door and Yaz had to scramble back out, disappearing down the fragile lattice not a second too soon. She ran into a bush of nettles in the settling darkness while sneaking out through the family’s garden, and had to keep pulling her socks up at school the next day to cover the angry red rash circling her legs.
There have been other, more graceful encounters with boys – dinner-and-a-film dates with nice young men who wore well-ironed shirts and good-smelling cologne, casual we’re-just-hanging-out dates with equally nice young men in t-shirts and ripped jeans. Also, some less nice encounters with less nice boys, but Yaz is tough and remains optimistic. She knows from experience that she’s capable of breaking the small, brittle bones of a hand placed on her body without her permission, and she knows she’s capable of softness and kindness and love and light, as well.
Fact: Yasmin Khan likes girls.
She was fourteen when she first realised with absolute clarity that besides her lukewarm feelings towards Danny she also fancied a girl in her class, realised that the awkwardness and jumpiness she felt around Amanda, the prettiest girl in the whole school, wasn’t just because Amanda was popular and Yaz desperately wanted to be her friend. She was fifteen when she first kissed a girl: a giggly sleepover, the smell of wet nail polish and burnt popcorn lingering in the air. It was on a dare, of course, and neither Yaz nor the other girl really even liked-liked each other, but it was nice, soft, tentative. Like a door opening, like getting on a plane, like knowing something for sure but also not knowing.
She hasn’t ever seriously dated a woman but then she’s never really seriously dated men either. She still feels she’s too young for that kind of commitment, too focused on getting somewhere in her career and finally moving out. But the possibility is out there. One day, with her job less hectic, she might go out and meet someone. A girl. Or a boy.
Fact: Aliens exist, apparently.
One day an alien literally falls from the sky while Yaz is on duty. There is another alien too, hunting a man through Sheffield, and then a lot of things happen very quickly, including Yaz’s old school friend Ryan’s nan dying, and Yaz, Ryan, and Ryan’s dead nan’s husband being transported to dark cold open outer space, and there’s an alien planet, and 1950’s America, and all of this should probably feel a lot worse than it does but Yaz can’t quite take her eyes off the alien calling herself the Doctor. The alien looks like a gorgeous blonde human woman and she’s kind and brave and brilliant, and Yaz feels an odd sense of peace and security when they are together. And Yaz is probably still a bit dazed and a bit off-balance when she agrees to keep travelling with the Doctor, even after she’s successfully returned the gang to Sheffield and 2018. It’s dangerous and probably a little bit stupid, but Yaz wants to keep following the Doctor, wants more time, wants to see where the adventure and the adrenaline and the “Are we?” might take her.
Eventually she finds herself alone with the Doctor, Ryan and Graham having decided to stay behind on Earth for a bit. After the boys leave there’s a second or two of silence inside the TARDIS, like the ship is also holding its breath, gauging possibilities, calculating, speculating. Then the Doctor is off again, talking at a million words per minute, hands on the controls already.
“There’s a planet I’ve been meaning to show you. It’s all pink – trees, sky, water, grass, everything. Smells like candy floss, looks like it too. Local fauna consists entirely of fluffy pink kittens and soft puppies. It’s the best. I once went there with… Ah, never mind.” The Doctor tugs her hair behind her ears and beams at Yaz, pulling the lever.
Yaz realises she’s probably been staring, and shaking herself out of a vague daydream as the TARDIS whirrs to life, says, “Sounds like fun. Let’s do it.”
The landing after a short ride is a bit bumpy and the impact throws Yaz against the control panel. The Doctor’s arm instinctively comes up to steady her and the Time Lord frowns.
“I swear you’re doing this on purpose! What is your problem?”
Yaz flushes. “Sorry, I’m just – clumsy –”
“Oh!” The Doctor turns to look at her, their bodies still pressed up against each other. Yaz is suddenly very warm. “Didn’t mean you. That landing should’ve been super smooth and easy, I don’t know what the TARDIS thinks it’s doing.”
“Or do you just not know how to park this thing?” Yaz grins, falling back on a topic she knows will draw attention away from the fact that her cheeks are very red and the interior of the ship feels hot and close and airless and the Doctor’s arm is still wrapped around Yaz’s waist.
The Doctor rolls her eyes. “I’d like to see you do a better job. It’s the TARDIS that keeps messing these things up, I’m telling you.”
“Oh really? Don’t you just press a couple of buttons and wait for a custard cream to fall out?”
“Excuse me! I mean, that’s kind of it really. Press there?”
The Doctor’s arm is gone from YAz’s waist now, and the body attached to the arm is moving away to fiddle with something. Yaz presses the button and silence falls inside the ship. The Doctor is already at the door, pulling on her coat.
“Right then. Ready? You’ll love this, I promise.”
Fact: Yasmin Khan really likes the Doctor.
They spend a wonderful afternoon on the most ridiculous planet Yaz has ever seen. The Doctor can be moody sometimes, like there’s some still-secret pain that she’s carrying around with her, almost crushed under its weight, but today she’s bubbly and upbeat, and they wander around bumping shoulders, laughing at the packs of kittens roaming the rolling landscape like tiny, baby pink sheep, mewling as they go. They buy an assortment mostly tasteless, pink food from a food truck inexplicably parked atop of a small deserted hill and manned by a bored-looking humanoid, the only other person they come across all day. The temperature is just right, the suns bright but not too bright, the grass they walk on is very soft and the air smells like fresh laundry and vanilla. The whole planet is laughably comfortable in every way and yet there’s something in the air, like a faint crackle of electricity, that only Yaz seems to notice. Whenever a part of her body brushes up against the Doctor’s, Yaz feels a jolt run through her body, like sparks might fly, like she could catch fire.
“One more thing before we go,” says the Doctor. “The sunsets here are amazing. Or are you tired? We can go back if you’re tired.”
“Love a sunset. Let’s stay.”
They walk to a beach where the milky pink sea foams and whispers against glittering sand. The Doctor takes off her coat and spreads it on the ground and Yaz must have done something very right at some point in her life to deserve this. They sit down and as dramatic as the long, flowy coat looks it’s actually not very big so they have to sit very close together, side by side facing the horizon. All afternoon the smaller sun has been higher up on the sky but now it seems to be catching up with the larger one, with some time still to go before proper sunset. Yaz wraps her arms around her knees and stares at the water stretching out in front of them.
“You said something before. In the TARDIS, about coming here with someone else.” She doesn’t look but she can sense the Doctor turning to face her.
“I think I did, yeah. Sorry. That’s probably not something you want to hear when, you know. It was a long time ago.”
“That’s okay.”
“Do you want me to tell you more?”
Yaz shrugs. She feels small and a bit ridiculous, suddenly. “You don’t have to tell me, honestly.”
“She was from Earth, too. We travelled together for… A while. She was my best friend.”
Yaz turns her head slightly. “What happened?”
The Doctor’s eyes glimmer in the soft glow cast by the setting suns. “She… I had to let her go. It’s dangerous, you know,” she swivels around, placing a hand on Yaz’s shoulder as their eyes meet. “I can’t keep you safe, no matter how much I try I can’t promise you that something bad won’t happen.”
Yaz swallows, hard. They’ve already been through this, multiple times actually, and a part of her brain is wondering why the Doctor is repeating herself with such intensity in her voice, her fingers digging into Yaz’s shoulder. And another part of her brain is whispering that maybe she already knows. That maybe the Doctor is asking her something, like she did back in Sheffield when she said they needed to be sure. Only this time, it’s only the two of them. It’s sightseeing and dinner and watching the sunset on a beach. Yaz gives her companion a shaky smile. “I know.”
The tiniest, gentlest breeze brushes past them, pushing the Doctor’s hair into her eyes. Yaz blesses the perfect weather of this perfect planet and reaches up to tug the strand of hair behind the Doctor’s ear, fingertips lingering on the warm metal of her earring. There’s a breathless pause, and then Yaz’s hand has slid to the back of the Doctor’s neck and their lips are touching, very lightly, very briefly. The Doctor pulls back and her eyes are wide and dark but her voice is so soft it’s barely audible.
“Yaz,” the Doctor breathes, and Yaz has never liked her name more. “Are you sure?”
Fact: Yasmin Khan is sure.
Yaz supposes it’s understandable that the Doctor would be an amazing kisser, considering she’s had centuries to perfect the craft. And it’s hard to be jealous of whoever the Doctor may have practiced with when it means that she, Yasmin Khan from Sheffield, Earth, gets to be here now, on this perfect beach, the sea on fire with the light of the setting suns and the Doctor’s warm body pressed against hers. She’s pretty sure she can feel the pulse of two hearts when she kisses the Doctor’s neck, and she can definitely feel her own heart jump when the Doctor’s hand slips under her shirt and trails up her back.
They’re interrupted by a familiar, although unexpected, noise. The suns have disappeared below the horizon but the pink sand glimmers in a strip of golden light pouring from the open door of the TARDIS. The Doctor’s hand remains tucked firmly inside Yaz’s top as she turns to frown at the ship.
“What now?”
The door opens wider.
“Actually, Doctor,” Yaz strokes the Doctor’s face, grinning stupidly. “It’s getting a bit cold out here. Who knows what feral horrors lurk out there in the darkness.”
“Puppies, Yaz. That’s what’s lurking in the darkness. And I don’t appreciate you interfering in my – “
If Yaz had known that kissing the Doctor was such an efficient way of shutting the Doctor up, she would have started doing it a long time ago. The Doctor is still glowering when they part, side-eyeing her ship. “She’s just trying to help, I think,” Yaz smirks. “And she’s right, we’d be way comfier inside.”
She starts to get up, looping her fingers around the Doctor’s suspenders to pull the hesitant Time Lord with her. They disappear inside the blue box limbs tangling together, lips meeting warm skin and hands finding their way under clothes, and Yasmin Khan has never been so sure of anything.