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Yaz knew her mum always noticed her feelings before she noticed them herself. As she watched the Doctor pull another lever of the Tardis, spinning around to connect eyes with Yaz and grin at her, before spinning back around to pressing more buttons, she was surprised that it had taken her so long to notice.
In hindsight, Yaz should have questioned her own feelings for the Doctor right when her mother asked if they were seeing each other. Her heartbeat had increased rapidly at the thought, but she’d blamed it on the adrenaline and fear that she was going to be killed by a spider, at the time.
As they encountered alien planet after alien planet, Yaz only realised more and more that she was falling for the Doctor fast. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Ryan and Graham had already noticed.
The major problem with falling in love with the Doctor was that when their lives were in danger every other day, Yaz never knew if it was her last chance to see the Doctor and if it would be appropriate to do something completely impulsive, like kissing her or confessing her love.
Due to their current status of still being alive and unharmed and the Doctor’s ridiculous intelligence and quick thinking, Yaz had mainly talked herself out of doing anything drastic, just in case they did survive.
However, today their ‘unharmed’ and ‘alive’ status was certainly being tested. The team had arrived on a supposedly peaceful planet and were just getting acquainted with the inhabitants when some kind of alien robots (Yaz had missed the name the Doctor yelled out) decided they were going to commence open fire.
Yaz, Graham, Ryan and the Doctor immediately ran for cover, helping as many civilians as possible to get to the shelter. It was only once everyone was safe and inside that the shooting seemed to stop.
“C’mon, gang,” the Doctor said, pulling a slight face at her use of the word ‘gang’, “let’s get back to the Tardis while we still can.”
Yaz nodded from where she was crouched between the doctor and a young alien girl.
“Thanks for having us here,” she said as a goodbye before standing up and following the Doctor to the exit. She watched as the blonde haired alien peeked her head around the corner before pulling it back.
“They’re still out there, so we’ll have to run fast. They’ll leave once we’ve left. Think we set off an intruder alarm. Are you ready?” the Doctor asked.
“Yeah,” Yaz nodded.
“I guess,” Ryan agreed.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Graham huffed. The Doctor nodded.
“Let’s go, then,” she said, “NOW!”
The four of them sprinted across the alien terrain when, sure enough, gunshots could be heard again. Yaz kept her head down, running for her life when she nearly fell over due to a tug at her sleeve. It was the girl she’d been talking to.
“Miss, you’ve got to come back inside, they’ll hurt you!” she demanded.
“I’m sorry, we have to leave so you can all be safe,” Yaz explained hurriedly, turning around to run back with the girl, hoping the others wouldn’t leave without her. She couldn’t let the girl get hurt. She was definitely not going to die doing this.
Just as she was about to push the girl back inside the shelter, she caught something red rushing towards them at an immense velocity. Acting out of impulse more than anything, Yaz turned around, pulling the girl into her chest and baring her back straight to the shot of red light the gun had fired.
She heard a loud scream just as a searing pain shot through her shoulder and it took her too long to realise the scream had been from her.
“Yaz!” the Doctor’s voice called out all the way from where the Tardis was situated. Yaz stumbled into the shelter with the girl and fell on the floor, grasping at her shoulder frantically.
“Miss, are you ok?” the girl gasped, noticing the burnt wound.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Yaz lied, attempting to smile through gritted teeth. “They’ll go away once we leave. I promise.”
“Your shoulder’s hurt!” the girl pointed out.
“I’ll be fine,” Yaz promised, “go back to your family and stay safe, ok?”
The girl nodded and ran off, glancing back at Yaz as she did so.
“Yasmin Kahn, what were you thinking?” a familiar voice said from behind her. Yaz looked up and saw the Doctor’s beautiful eyes staring intensely down at her.
“Doctor, why did you come back over here? I’m fine,” Yaz complained, feeling herself growing weaker.
“You nearly got yourself killed. I’m not letting you die on an alien planet,” the Doctor muttered, more to herself than anyone else, as she crouched down and put her arms around Yaz, managing to pick her up bridal style. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you viewed it), Yaz was in too much pain to take note of how strong the Doctor’s arms were and how safe they felt wrapped around her.
With Yaz leaning into the Doctor’s chest, the weariness and pain erasing her shame at such a thing, the Doctor sprinted back across the ground and towards the Tardis. It took a couple of seconds for the alien robots to notice that they were there, giving the Doctor the head start she needed, now that she had Yaz weighing her down.
To Yaz’s surprise, they got back inside the blue box safely and Ryan and Graham were there to catch her as they did.
“Yaz, you’re alive,” Ryan declared gratefully.
“Be careful, she’s injured,” the Doctor warned as she set Yaz down with the two men, running over to the controls to get the Tardis off the planet. Yaz couldn’t help but think that the Doctor’s tone seemed sort of hostile.
“What happened, Yaz?” Graham gasped as he caught sight of her shoulder.
“That little girl followed me out,” Yaz explained, “I had to take her back and protect her.”
“Right,” the Doctor declared, walking back over to the others. “You two, out. I need to see what I can do about this wound.”
Ryan and Graham nodded at the Doctor, glanced at each other briefly and left the console room.
“Sorry for getting injured,” Yaz apologised as the Doctor slipped her jacket over her injured shoulder. Yaz hissed in pain, digging her fingers into her legs.
“The girl would have run back if you’d kept going. You didn’t need to go back with her. Then no one would have been injured,” the Doctor responded, her tone definitely holding an underlying hostility now. Yaz gulped, feeling a bit taken aback. She’d acted on impulse, having just wanted to save the girl.
“Doctor, I really am sorry,” she apologised again, “I didn’t think it through. I just wanted to help her; make sure she was safe.”
“And put your life at risk whilst doing so? I might have a time machine, but that doesn’t mean I can just magically nip back in time and bring you back to life if you die. You can’t be so reckless, okay?” the Doctor snapped.
Yaz bit her lip.
“Right, I won't. I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said.
The Doctor refused to meet her gaze as she moved her sonic over the wound and gently smoothed some sort of cream on it. At least Yaz could blame the tears in her eyes on the pain rather than what the Doctor had said, despite the cream quickly easing the burning sensation in her shoulder.
She should have known falling in love with the Doctor was a stupid thing to do. It was only ever going to hurt her.
Yaz wasn’t used to sleeping on her left side, not that she was getting that much sleep at all. The Doctor had barely said a word to Yaz all through the rest of the day after her outburst and she couldn’t help but feel horrible about it.
The Doctor was the best person Yaz had ever known. She didn’t know how she could cope without her, now. She didn’t know what to do or say to fix this. Maybe she should ask Graham in the morning. He was always one to recommend asking a bus driver if you needed help.
A sudden knock at the door distracted Yaz from her thoughts and she nearly rolled over before remembering about her injured shoulder and opting to sit up carefully instead.
“Who is it?” Yaz called out into the darkness. A whirring sound that led to the click of a lock soon informed Yaz of exactly who was at her door and she sat up more eagerly, trying not to get her hopes too high. It seemed that conversation with Graham might not be needed, after all.
“Yaz, it’s me. Can I come in?” the Doctor asked, peeking her head around the door, her hair slightly more tousled than usual. Yaz wanted to run her fingers through it.
“Considering you just unlocked my door, I guess I don’t have much choice in the matter,” Yaz stated pointedly.
“Sorry,” the Doctor shrugged, stepping into the room. Yaz noted that she was still in her usual clothes, despite it apparently being three o’clock in the morning as a quick glance at her watch informed her.
“Is everything okay?” Yaz asked.
“Well, I wanted to put some more cream on your wound. The effects only last for eight hours and I didn’t want you to be kept awake in pain,” the Doctor explained. “Also, I need to apologise. Can you walk to the console room or do you want me to bring the cream here?”
“Oh,” Yaz said, trying not to think about how ridiculously kind the Doctor was, even when she was upset with her. “I should be fine walking.”
Yaz slid herself to the side of the bed with caution and stood up, becoming hyper-aware of her fluffy pyjamas when stood next to the Doctor in her ordinary clothes. The Doctor smiled at her, something Yaz was very relieved to see, having been worried that it would never happen again, before turning around and walking off down the corridor to lead Yaz to the console room.
“Sit down, here, I’ll get the cream,” the Doctor instructed, her voice so much softer than it had been earlier.
Yaz sat herself down, careful not to put any weight on her right shoulder as she did so, noticing that the pain was beginning to return just as the Doctor had predicted.
“I do need to apologise for what I said earlier,” the Doctor started.
“Don’t worry about it,” Yaz insisted, “I understand why you said it.”
“How I said it was pretty harsh, though. I know I upset you and you’d only wanted to help. You did exactly what I would have done,” the Doctor sighed. Yaz studied her, feeling relief flood her body that the blonde alien wasn’t actually mad at her.
“I care about you too much to lose you,” the Doctor continued, causing Yaz’s heart to skip a beat, despite the Doctor’s words most likely not being meant in quite the way Yaz wanted them to be. “I hope you can forgive me for being so rude.”
“Of course,” Yaz spluttered, “Doctor, I could never be mad at you, or anything. I was just terrified that you’d never want to speak to me again after what I’d done.”
“Don’t be silly,” the Doctor smiled, finishing applying the cream to Yaz’s shoulder but staying sat there, “I could never stay away from you for long, Yaz.”
“You really are the best person I’ve ever met,” Yaz admitted, just as she had done the day she’d decided to travel with the Doctor. She still completely meant it, possibly even more, now, considering her newly realised feelings.
The Doctor smiled at Yaz in response, holding her gaze for a second before abruptly standing up and walking over to the centre console.
With her uninjured arm, Yaz pushed herself up and walked towards the Doctor, curious as to why her face had suddenly fallen and why she was staring at the levers and buttons as if they were confusing her.
“Is everything… okay, Doctor?” Yaz asked tentatively.
“I’m scared,” the Doctor whispered, quietly enough that Yaz would have missed it if she hadn’t been listening closely.
“Of what?” Yaz asked, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
“No, not scared, that’s the wrong word. I’m more… anxious.” the Doctor shook her head, walking around to the other side of the console and placing her hands either side of a lever.
“Doctor,” Yaz sighed, following after her and placing her hands next to the alien’s, growing steadily more worried “what’s wrong?”
“There’s a feeling I’ve been afraid to feel for years. Every time I feel it, I try and push it down, make sure it disappears. It never works, of course. Feelings are annoying like that,” the Doctor scrunched up her face and Yaz resisted the urge to reach and and cup it in her hands, no matter how adorable it was.
“Sometimes, I get close to admitting the feeling out loud, but I never quite manage. The words always get stuck in my throat. I don’t think I’ve ever run away from something as much as I do from this,” the Doctor explained, turning towards Yaz and placing her hand on top of Yaz’s own.
“Doctor-“ Yaz began, trailing off as she realised she didn’t quite know what to say. This was all very sudden considering the conversation they’d just been having.
“I’ve lost so many people, Yaz. More than you could count. I keep telling myself that if I just shut the world out, solve a problem and move on, I’ll stop getting attached to people and I’ll stop developing this feeling and then, if I’m lucky, it won’t hurt quite as much when I lose them.”
Yaz looked into the Doctor’s warm eyes. If you could feel pain through someone else’s eyes, Yaz definitely felt it through the Doctor’s right then. Yaz couldn’t bear to imagine holding on to that much grief. How the Doctor coped each day was beyond her.
Hoping to provide some minute form of comfort if possible, Yaz intertwined her fingers with the Doctor’s.
“Does it work?” Yaz asked.
The Doctor laughed, a sound that usually filled Yaz with a warm, tingling sensation but now felt devoid of all humour and warmth.
“No,” the Doctor huffed, “Don’t you think I’d have sent you, Ryan and Graham back to Sheffield for good, by now, if it worked? Why do you think I’m here with you right now, Yaz, if I haven’t fallen-?”
The Doctor stopped abruptly, looked into Yaz’s eyes and quickly turned her whole body away. Something suddenly clicked in Yaz’s mind.
That was why the Doctor had been so upset when Yaz had injured herself. That was why she’d woken Yaz up to treat her shoulder at three in the morning, when any sane person was asleep.
The feeling the Doctor was afraid of was love and, if Yaz’s ears weren’t deceiving her, the Doctor was experiencing that feeling right now. For her. The Doctor actually loved Yaz back. Possibly.
With a newfound courage rising within her due to her brain’s latest deduction, Yaz stepped forward again and took the Doctor’s hand in hers, turning her around to face her.
“I know it must hurt more than I can ever imagine to lose someone you-“ Yaz paused, feeling nervous about saying the word herself, now, “someone you love,” she glanced up at the Doctor, shocked to see her eyes looking watery, “but it must feel lonely to never love at all, right? To distance yourself from everyone else?”
“Loneliness is easier to cope with than grief,” the Doctor muttered darkly. Yaz noticed the small crack in her voice and realised that she had honestly never seen the Doctor look as miserable as this.
“Maybe,” Yaz agreed, “but it doesn’t make you happy. Not even for a small time. Grief only hurts so much because of how happy you felt before your loss. With loneliness, there’s never any happiness; only pain.”
The Doctor looked at Yaz contemplatively for a second as she paused. Before the Doctor could say anything, Yaz spoke again.
“I know it’s really cliche of me to say, but better to feel happy for short lengths of time than never to be happy at all, right?”
“Yasmin Kahn,” the Doctor finally said, twitching her mouth up into the smile Yaz had missed seeing during the brief time it had been gone for, “you are incredible.”
“Pretty sure you’re the incredible one, Doctor,” Yaz responded breathlessly, because she was just gay like that.
“It felt good to tell all of this to someone. Helped to clear my head, y’know. I’m glad it was you, Yaz. You really do make me think about things differently,” the Doctor smirked, twisting her hand around where Yaz’s was wrapped around her wrist, intertwining their fingers fully.
“I hope that’s a good thing,” Yaz smiled, noticing that there was definitely less space between the two of them than there had been before.
“Always,” the Doctor laughed, the sound returning to the hopeful, cheery tone Yaz had fallen in love with, “I’m still afraid of saying it out loud, but we all need to conquer our fears, right?”
Yaz’s heart pounded in her chest as she continued to smile at the Doctor, wondering whether the connotations behind what she’d just said were correctly translated by Yaz, because, if they were, Yaz thought she might just have a heart attack.
“Yasmin Khan, I think I love you,” were the next words out of the Doctor’s mouth. Yaz did the only thing she could possibly think to do in response. She kissed her.
The Doctor went still under Yaz’s touch for a moment and she almost drew back, but just before she did, the Doctor’s arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her in closer and she kissed back eagerly.
Yaz knew the Doctor was thousands of years old and that became evident when she kissed Yaz expertly, her practice clear as her tongue found its way into Yaz’s mouth, eliciting a soft gasp from her.
Yaz used her good arm to grasp onto one of the Doctor’s yellow braces, pulling the alien closer to her, craving contact from the woman she’d wanted to be this close to for months and now finally had the chance to be.
The Doctor slid her hand into Yaz’s long hair as she bit on Yaz’s lower lip gently. Yaz had to fight down a moan as she did so, kissing the Doctor back with more passion in an attempt to take control of the kiss.
“Yasmin Khan, how long have you been wanting to do this?” the Doctor asked slyly against Yaz’s lips, breaking the kiss to do so.
“For ages,” Yaz admitted with a sigh. “Now shut up and kiss me.”
“Yes, officer,” the Doctor teased, pressing her lips to Yaz’s again.
“Doctor, is that you I heard talking?” a voice from the stairwell caused Yaz to jump away from the Doctor so suddenly that she twisted her shoulder slightly, sending a small jolt of pain down her arm. Luckily the cream had worked its magic again.
“Sorry, Ryan, did we wake you?” the Doctor responded calmly, greeting the intruder who turned out to be no other than Yaz’s long time friend. Yaz envied how composed she was able to act.
As Ryan looked at the two of them, Yaz glared at him, hoping her eyes portrayed the message of ‘not a word’ she was trying to convey.
Unfortunately, the grin that was spreading across Ryan’s face proved that her efforts were futile.
Without another word to the two girls, Ryan spun on his heels and ran down the corridor, his voice echoing into the console room as he yelled.
“Graham, you owe me five quid, I just caught them making out!”
“They were betting on us?” Yaz spluttered, looking at the Doctor with disbelief. The two connected eyes for a few seconds before the Doctor burst out laughing, shortly followed by Yaz.
“We’re never going to hear the end of this,” the Doctor smirked. Yaz grinned back.
“Somehow, I can’t seem to mind,” she admitted, stepping back towards the Doctor, already missing the feeling of her arm around her waist.
“You need to go back to bed. That shoulder won’t heal quickly if you don’t get enough sleep,” the Doctor instructed. Yaz rolled her eyes, disappointed that she couldn’t just stay awake and kiss the Doctor.
“If you insist,” she said.
“And I do,” the Doctor added.
“Then I suppose I’d better say goodnight,” Yaz shrugged. The Doctor leant in and briefly pressed her lips to Yaz’s again.
“See you tomorrow,” she smiled.
“G’night, Doctor,” Yaz responded, walking away from the Doctor reluctantly, smiling to herself as she did so. Yaz was pretty sure she'd have an easier time getting to sleep, now.