Chapter Text
The Tardis doors swung open to the sound of big band jazz and the roar of a party. Three drunk humans and one drunk Time Lady stumbled in. “You were right Doc, can’t beat a holiday party with Louis Armstrong,” Graham said as he slumped against the Tardis console.
“Good old Louis, he taught me to play the trumpet a while back,” the Doctor started digging in a cabinet “Actually, I think I still have a trumpet around here somewhere.”
“Right, well that’s my cue to take off,” Graham started walking off.
“Nah, don’t be like that, she can’t be that bad,” Ryan lifted the lampshade he’d been wearing as a hat off his eyes and tugged on his grandad’s coat.
“I’m sure she’s brilliant, I’m just knackered. You lot stay up and have you’re fun, I’ll see you in the morning,” and with that, he was away to his room.
The doctor finally dug out her trumpet and gave it a blow, “Oof sorry, bit rusty. Haven’t played in three hundred years.”
“Hold on, am I drunk or did you say three hundred years? Hells, how old are you?”
Yaz smacked Ryan’s shoulder, “You are drunk, that’s a rude question,” her eyes turned toward the Doctor who was busy fiddling with her sonic on the trumpet, “Although… Doctor?”
The Doctor set the trumpet down to give her her full attention, “Yes, Yaz?” Yaz felt her face heat up under the gaze of this beautiful alien. She took a drunken step forward and lost her balance, falling face first into the Doctor’s arms, “Woah, you alright there?”
If possible Yaz’s blush deepened, “Yeah, thanks for catching me.” She stayed there, enjoying the feeling of the Doctor’s arms wrapped around her. She’d never admit it to anyone, but she fancied the Doctor. This alien who fell to Earth and then accidentally kidnapped the lot of them had stolen her heart.
“Were you going to ask me a question?” The Doctor was looking into her eyes now, with those gorgeous green eyes. Had she had a question? All she wanted to know now was how long she could stay here without the Doctor getting curious as to why she wasn’t standing up.
“I umm…” she figured she was just about approaching that limit, and she better come up with a question, the Doctor was starting to make that cute scronchy face she made when she didn’t understand something, “Do Timelords have holidays?”
“Course we do, Timelord Christmas, Timelord Easter, Timelord Halloween,” The Doctor started fiddling with her trumpet again, “and can’t forget Timelord Arbor Day, that’s a big one.”
Yaz playfully pushed the Doctor’s shoulder, “I’m serious! I want to know more about where you’re from,” she looked over at Ryan, “We’ve been all over the universe with you, but you’ve never mentioned where you’re from.”
“Haven’t I? It’s beautiful. When the twin suns hit the silver leaves in the burnt orange sky, there’s not a sight like it in the universe. I went and lost it for about a thousand years there, but it’s fine now. It’s back where it should be.” The Doctor seemed finally satisfied with the adjustments she’d made to her trumpet and started playing.
Yaz turned to Ryan and extended her hand, the blush finally fading from her cheeks, “Care for a dance?”
Ryan stood up straight as he could, “Don’t know, I might step on your feet.”
“It’s alright, I’ll lead.” Yaz grabbed his hand and started dragging him along to the beat.
“That’s not what I meant!”
***
Yaz led Ryan dancing around the console room to the Doctor’s trumpet playing until he was too drunk and tired to stand. At which point the Doctor cued up the Tardis to play the best jazz hits from across time and she fell into step with Yaz, following her as she bopped around the room. It scared her how easy it was to let Yaz take the lead, she couldn’t afford to get wrapped up in a human again. But it was starting to get so easy to imagine the life they could have together…
“So Yaz, how are you enjoying your first Christmas in the Tardis? I know Christmas isn’t really your thing but I hope you—” Yaz put her finger to the Doctor’s lips as she brought her back in from a spin.
“I had a lovely time.” Yaz blushed as she realized what she had just done. She had touched the Doctor’s lips. Her! With her own finger! A blush that would not go away crept upon her face.
They continued dancing around the Tardis console room with Ryan passed out on the floor for a couple hours. Neither one wanting to admit what the act of dancing was doing to them. Neither one wanting it to stop. Finally, the Doctor brought herself to ask a question that she hoped she could avoid. She really could spend the rest of time dancing with Yasmin Khan and make that night last forever, “You must be getting pretty tired, it’s awfully late. You don’t need to stay up on my account.”
“No, I’m fine. I’ve always needed less sleep than most people. My mum thinks I have insomnia but I feel fine on three hours sleep. What about you, don’t you need to be getting to bed?”
“Timelord, or well Timelady. I don’t need as much sleep as you humans do.” The Doctor rested her head against Yaz’s shoulder as they swayed to the beat. She hoped Yaz wouldn’t question why she was being so hands on tonight, she knew she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to lie to the police officer from Sheffield, and she didn’t know if she could face her response.
For Yaz’s part she couldn’t believe her luck, she didn’t dare imagine that it was more than the alcohol making the Doctor’s head heavy, but here she was with the most incredible woman in the universe, wrapped in her arms, leaning her head against her shoulder, dancing to a love song from the 43rd century. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on anything that wasn’t the beautiful alien in her arms. The console. That was something she’d been meaning to ask anyway, “Doctor?” said woman muttered a stifled “hmm?” from where her head sat, “how do you remember how to work that thing? I’ve watched you fly and you never seem to do the same thing twice.”
“I learned ages ago. It’s sort of like riding a bike, once you know how, it’s hard to forget. I could show you if you’d like.” She hadn’t meant to say that. The last person she properly taught to fly the Tardis was River, and that brought up some memories. She shook her head. It’d be nice to make some new memories. Yeah. This could be good.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You don’t always land where you want to go. If I learn wrong off you, I could land us in the middle of a star or something.”
“That’s not my fault! She has a mind of her own, the Tardis. And besides,” the Doctor cocked a half smile remembering a conversation she had with the Tardis a long time ago, “she always lands me where I need to go.” The Doctor picked her head up off Yaz’s shoulder and stopped dancing. She led Yaz gently by the hand to one section of the console, “Now this here is your flux capacitor,” she pointed at a glowing bit, “You need to make sure it stays in the yellow-purple-green range or the Tardis won’t reach enough jigawatts and she’ll spiral out of control. You change the color by hitting this gyroscope with a hammer.”
“You’re kidding, flux capacitors are real? Like Back to the Future flux capacitors.” Yaz accepted the children's squeaky mallet that the Doctor put in her hands.
“Yeah, only joking. That’s just a bit of coolant tubing, and that gyroscope is part of how you tell her where you want to go. But you will need that mallet for over here…” The Doctor went on to explain every instrument on the console, Yaz attentively listening the whole way through but only understanding the barest minimum. When the Doctor finished explaining everything, she quizzed Yaz on what she could remember, careful to more thoroughly explain things that she didn’t quite understand and go back over the things that she couldn’t remember, trying a slightly different explanation every time. And so it went for the next several hours until Graham poked his head in from the hallway.
“Good morning you lot. Have you been up all night?” He knelt down beside his grandson to carefully shake him awake.
“Yeah, the Doctor has been teaching me how to fly the Tardis,” Yaz said and then turned back to what she was doing at the console, “So when this light turns pink, I hit this stress ball with the red mallet and then turn this valve anticlockwise which should make the destination flash on this monitor at least twice but no more than five times. If it doesn’t then I grab this bicycle pump looking thing and pump two times for every time it flashed more than five. Do I have that right?” She looked hopefully over to where the Doctor was standing, waiting for confirmation.
“Almost, it’s when the light turns green you hit it with the polka dotted hammer, but other than that you did perfectly.”
“So what do I do if it doesn’t flash at least twice?”
Graham finally managed to get Ryan to wake up and the two of them left for the kitchen to get started on breakfast.
***
Twenty minutes later, Yaz and the Doctor walked into the kitchen giggling like a pair of school girls. “What are you two on about? And do you mind keeping it down? My head feels like it got steamrolled over.” Ryan asked as he sat drinking a cuppa, nursing his hangover.
“Oh nothing, the Tardis is just happy that she might have another pilot soon. So what’s for breakfast?” The Doctor turned to Graham who was standing over the stove.
“Only thing I know how to cook, fried eggs and sausage,” he offloaded some onto a plate and began passing it around.
“So where are we off to today then? Martian invasion? Spaceship headed for the sun?” Yaz teased the Doctor as she began eating, surprised at how hungry she was.
“Oi, I don’t mean to get us in so much trouble, I can’t help it. Trouble seems to follow me like the smell of burnt food follows Graham.” The Doctor went to take some of the food Graham cooked but it was pulled away before she could get any on her plate.
“If you don’t like how I cook you can manage yourself. Ryan like my cooking, don’t he?”
“Leave me out of this, I can’t think with all the noise.” Ryan had his face between his hands, he really wasn’t having a good morning.
“Actually I have something for that,” the Doctor got up from her chair and started digging in the back of one of the kitchen cupboards, “The Tardis likes to rearrange rooms, this one used to be a medical bay.” She pulled out a silver tube with a short thin needle on one end. “Some of those supplies are still in here, like this.” She quickly stuck Ryan in the back of the neck.
“Ouch! What was that for?” He started rubbing his neck where the needle had gone in. Moments later his face relaxed, “my hangover’s gone? Why didn’t you tell us you had this sooner?”
The Doctor stuck Yaz in the back of the neck “Never thought about it. There’s a lot about the Tardis that I’ve forgotten, like I found a sewing room the other day that I hadn’t seen in fifteen hundred years. I completely forgot I knew how to sew. I used to make my own clothes and everything.”
Ryan perked up as the Doctor stuck Graham with the hangover cure, “Fifteen hundred years? You said something like that last night when you were talking about your trumpet,” Yaz kicked Ryan under the table, sending him a look. Ryan ignored her and asked anyway, “How old are you?”
“Oh, have we not done ages? I’m about two thousand years old. At least I think I am. Can’t remember if I’m lying about it or I could just be wrong. Course it depends on how you look at it, you could say I’m four and a half billion give or take. But that doesn’t really count, it was the same maze over and over again.” The rest of them just sat staring at her, Graham abandoned the skillet, Ryan with his tea halfway to a sip and Yaz with her fork forgotten on the table, “What? Do I have something on my face? Please tell me I didn’t have something on my face when we were talking to Louis, happens every time I go see him. Honestly, I should start carrying a mirror,” the Doctor started rubbing her face trying to get whatever was there off.
It was Graham who finally broke the silence, “Hold on Doc, did you say four and a half billion? How’s that possible?”
“Long story, Timelords stuck me in a maze that was basically set on repeat. Your eggs are burning.” The Doctor tried to stealthily sneak a sausage link onto her plate while Graham went to go fuss with the stove “Anyway, I was thinking maybe Ellendera. Fjords like they have in Norway cover half the planet, the other half is all tropical beaches. Beautiful planet.”