Chapter Text
“I’ll drop you off, come back in a week, let you do some of your normal human things, laundry and working and visiting your grandparents, and I’ll be back before you know it.” The Doctor smiles, that beautiful, uninhibited smile, a smile that Yaz would do anything to see.
Yaz can’t lie to herself, she does want to go home, just for a little while. She never thought she’d miss her family as much as she does – even Sonia, and her prattling and loud music. She misses her job, too, even if it was more parking disputes than excitement. But after some of the recent excitement, something relatively normal for a little while might be healthy. She can survive a week without the Doctor.
“Ooh, I can get you back there about forty-five minutes after we left, that should be fine, shouldn’t it?”
“Sounds perfect, Doc,” Graham says, looking eager. “Don’t have to worry about the plants.”
Yaz glances down, realises that she was definitely not wearing this shirt when she left home forty-five minutes – or three weeks – ago. “Mind if I just run to my room for a few?”
---
The outfit she wore last time she was in Sheffield is neatly folded, waiting for her to walk into the flat as though it hadn’t been weeks since she left - though, as far as her family are concerned, it won’t have been. An hour, barely, not even long enough to have gone out for lunch. She leaves her book on the little bedside table that had appeared out of nowhere – she’ll be back for it soon enough, and she doesn’t want to explain to her parents why she has a book that was published in 2549. She changes quickly, folds her clothes that she’d put on barely a few hours earlier – they’ll be fine to wear again.
She gets back to the console room last, with Graham and Ryan already back. Neither of them have changed their clothes – but they’re going home to a flat where there’s nobody to ask questions. She doesn’t envy them that.
“Righto, forty-five minutes after we left, same place, nobody will even know you’ve gone.” The groaning and wheezing of the TARDIS fills the room, but it lands steadily, and the Doctor checks a few screens, double checks a sticky note attached to one of them. “Eighth of October, just past four in the afternoon, 2018, that sound about right?”
“We’ll figure it out if it’s not,” Ryan says, chuckling a little. “We’ll see you in a week!”
“See you ‘round.” Graham gives a little wave as he wanders towards the doors, Ryan following behind him.
Yaz takes a moment, smiles at the Doctor, hoping to see her smile in return. “I’ll see you soon, yeah?”
“Of course.” Yaz sees that smile, and it warms her from deep within, but she only sees it for a moment, as the Doctor wraps her in a hug before she has a chance to do it first. She lets the hug linger, revels in the warmth.
And when she steps outside the TARDIS, and hears it disappear behind her, she doesn’t let herself think about how leaving the Doctor for a week makes her heart hurt more than she’d like to admit.
---
It has not been a week. She wishes it had only been a week, or two, little enough time that it felt like a mistake, like a little slip of the buttons. They’d landed in so many sticky situations because of the inconsistent precision, and she tells herself that this is one of those times, that the Doctor will be back soon, it’s only been three weeks, a month. But she doesn’t come.
No. It’s been a year. Not that she’s been counting. Not that she’s been staring down the calendar since that first week ended, hoping that the worst hasn’t happened.
A year, to the exact day, and she isn’t even working, and can’t take her mind off of the Doctor, wondering where she is, when she is, if she’s okay. Wondering if she found a new set of friends, and forgot about those she had left. Wondering if she’ll ever be back.
The others have moved on, far more easily than she did. A week went by, and then a few, and they let themselves move on. Ryan finished his NVQ, found work in a garage – he loves it, loves how easily he’s taken to it, and how much his boss appreciates his recently-developed calmness under duress. Graham, with fidgety hands and an empty flat, started working in a tiny cafe, a few hours a week. Turns out, he makes a lovely cake, which he’s very proud of, as it’s a new discovery for him, too.
Meanwhile, Yaz is at least no longer a probationary officer, but her work hardly feels exciting compared to what she’s seen. She’s still facing down parking disputes, but they’re fewer and farther between. Now, she’s also dealing with drunken brawls and car accidents. For a few weeks, right as her probationary period ended, she thought she was going somewhere, but her new normal feels mere inches away from her old.
The days off are worse. Particularly this one. It’s been a year, exactly, almost to the hour since she last saw the Doctor.
---
She wants to forget, for a night.
Sonia, of course, knows where to go, taking no meaning from Yaz just wanting to go out and dance, and not have men hit on her. “I mean, it’s a bit weird in there, but they play good music and nobody really pushes it. Girls’ll actually take no for an answer.”
She doesn’t need to know that that’s almost what Yaz is looking for. Nothing needs to happen, but it’ll be fine if it does – if the opportunity is there, so be it.
Her wardrobe is hardly designed for clubbing, but needs must, and she doesn’t think she’ll look too out of place. Jeans and a grey tartan shirt, nice enough, and she can slip into the background, just a bit. She’s recently bought a new leather jacket, that she’s not had a chance to wear – it’s a very simple, classic design, but it’s waterproof with zipped pockets, and a small pocket on the inside lining, so she doesn’t have to worry about a bag, at least.
Their parents have long since given up on Sonia’s partying habits, but Yaz has never been one for it, and they’re a little baffled when they see her in heeled boots and lipstick at ten at night.
“I’ve got my keys, just meeting up with a few of the girls from school. I’ll text if we wind up staying at Ash’s.” Yaz announces her completely made-up plans as she’s halfway out the door, to avoid any questions.
Her mother looks a little suspicious, but doesn’t say anything out of the ordinary. “Don’t do anything Sonia would do.”
Yaz just laughs and quickly says, “See ya!”
She can hear Sonia’s protestations of “What was that for?” from behind the closed door, as she heads towards the city centre, alone.
---
It’s too loud, and too dark, but the floor isn’t too sticky, and she doesn’t feel too out of place. There’s a lingering smell of damp by the doors, but it’s been pouring rain for most of the evening, so she’s hardly surprised. The drinks are cheap – Sonia said they always were on Tuesdays – and her card is contactless, so moderation be damned.
And all of a sudden, there’s a woman, who looks almost like the Doctor, except she doesn’t. They’d have the same hair, if the woman’s wasn’t a little longer, and a little more unkempt. She’s wearing too much eye makeup, and her outfit is the wrong sort of unusual, but Yaz can’t stop looking at her anyway.
The woman notices her, and smirks, but she doesn’t look away. Yaz thinks nothing of it, until she turns around on the dance floor a moment later to find the woman beside her, smiling widely – but in a way she’d never expect from that face – with her tongue just visible between her teeth.
Through a haze of vodka lemonades, Yaz doesn’t quite notice how she winds up in an alleyway outside the club. She vaguely notices that it isn’t raining. And then, she has her arms around the woman’s neck, and her tongue down the woman’s throat.
The woman tastes like cigarette smoke and Yaz is acutely aware of her tongue piercing, and suddenly she can shake the Doctor’s image from her mind, pushed against the freezing bricks. Her mind is foggy, and blissfully empty of anything outside of the woman and the moment, and she’s happy for it to stay that way.
---
There’s a yell of a name in the far-off distance, and the woman breaks away to stare down the alley. Yaz belatedly realises that it’s the woman’s name, not that she can quite hear it. She doesn’t even know how long they’ve been outside.
She’s breathless as she follows the woman’s gaze, glances down the alleyway to a group of figures she can’t make the details out of, can barely even count. The woman still has a hand on Yaz’s hip, on bare skin above the waistband of her jeans, but she pulls it away, leaving the skin cold.
And then the woman winks at her, pulls an eyeliner pencil from her purse, and shakily scrawls a number on Yaz’s hand. She winks again, kisses her quickly, and whispers in her ear, “I’ll see you around, yeah?”
Her writing is too blurry, and the numbers almost indistinguishable, and Yaz still doesn’t know her name. Just the lingering taste of smoke and the intermingled alcohol and adrenaline in her veins. She doesn’t even know if she’d ever work up the courage to call her, if she could read the number at all.
She leans back into the wall, watching the woman leave with her friends, and lets the freezing night air fill her lungs, tries to let something resembling sense come back to her mind. The urge to follow the woman – to wherever she’s going, with her friends, or alone, back inside the now-closed club, or to her bed – fades, though the fuzz in her mind does not.
It’s after four, and her phone battery is getting low in the cool air. She couldn’t go back inside if she wanted to – that’s her night done, she thinks. She’s only a mile or so from home, so she could walk it, but she’d rather get a cab.
If she can find one. They usually tend to hover around the clubs, but not tonight, it seems, and none of them are answering their phones. Walking home it is, sticking to the brightly lit streets, and hoping she sees a cab soon.
---
She thinks she’s been walking for less than ten minutes, but when she looks at her phone, it’s been close to thirty, and she’s not sure where she is any more. Still on main roads, still no cabs, and when she rings again, her phone chooses that moment to go flat. She swears she hears something, like the far too familiar sound of machinery screaming, as it does.
It’s all she can do to not fling it against the ground, all she can do to not scream or cry in frustration. Light flashes across the sky, and there’s a clap of thunder - she may as well find a bus stop and wait there until the buses start or the oncoming storm stops, whichever comes first.
Instead, she turns around, and finds herself staring at an old phone box, that she swears wasn’t there a minute ago. It’s not the one on Surrey Street, she’s nowhere near there. And besides, this one’s blue.
But it couldn’t be. She’s not coming back. That’s what she was trying to forget tonight.
And then the door swings in, even though it says to pull , and the Doctor is standing there, but she can’t be. She left, she’s gone, but she’s there, eyes bright, hair shining against the light from inside, with that smile that Yaz has been trying to forget, wide across her face.
“Hiya, Yaz!” she says as though it’s only been a few hours.
And she can’t hold back. “It can’t be, it can’t be you, you left, you left us a year ago, you can’t just come back whenever you like and pretend nothing has happened, you left me here--” and then Yaz can’t quite make the words come out, just a racking sob, and she can feel tears burning in her eyes.
And the Doctor steps forward, reaches out, the smile gone from her face. But Yaz steps away – it’s been a year, and she’s not even sure she isn’t dreaming this, doesn’t want to wake up from it.
She tries to push her away, but can’t bring herself to, can’t do anything more than let her hands press against the Doctor’s shoulders as she’s pulled into a hug. She can feel the Doctor’s hand rubbing circles against her back, and her other hand between her shoulder blades, holding her close.
And then, softly into her ear, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and Yaz can hear the catch in the Doctor’s voice, can hear how heartbroken she is, and that just makes her sob even more.
---
Yaz can’t quite fathom how the TARDIS can be off by an entire year, and then land barely a few hours after departing, but she has never been able to mentally connect the dots on that, let alone now. The first light of dawn is already reaching across the sky, the clouds glowing ever so slightly in contrast to the night Yaz had seen barely five minutes earlier.
They’re right outside Park Hill, but Yaz isn’t sure she can walk that far, the lingering alcohol making her feel worse as it dissipates. The Doctor is still by her side – she reaches for her hand, and instead feels an arm, stable and warm, against her waist. And she doesn’t let go, letting Yaz lean into her as they walk. She doesn’t even ask for the keys to the flat, instead opening the lock with her sonic.
And her mother is awake, of course she is, she’s always up early for work. Yaz braces herself for a lecture, but as she braces herself, she feels her entire body relax at the realisation of being home. Her head droops a little against the Doctor’s shoulder, and she feels the Doctor stiffen, as though she was expecting her to pass out.
She doesn’t, but she feels herself tune out, against her will. She knows the Doctor is talking, trying to justify-- something . And her mother is angry, but whether that’s at the Doctor, or at Yaz, or even at the kettle taking too long to boil, she’s not sure. She just clings to the Doctor, lets her guide her over to the couch.
She sits rather forcefully, feels the Doctor sit next to her before she looks up, and sees her face in proper light for the first time in too long. She’s missed that face, missed every little detail, the smattering of freckles, the furrow of her brow.
“Come on – jacket,” the Doctor murmurs, and Yaz feels herself obediently unzipping it, trying to tug it off; the Doctor guides it the last little way, and drapes it over the back of the couch. She doesn’t prompt her to kick off her shoes – Yaz does it automatically, before pulling her feet up next to her on the couch.
And then the Doctor scoots to the end of the couch, and taps her thigh lightly, watching Yaz, as though she’s waiting. Yaz takes it as a cue to lie down, her head resting on the Doctor’s thigh, and she feels fingers in her hair, lets her eyes drift shut, for a peaceful moment.
All too soon, she feels a finger under her chin, and opens her eyes again, everything a little blurry. Squinting against the light, she sees her mother, kneeling close.
“We’ll talk about this later.” She looks a little angry, but it’s mostly concern, and she follows it with a gentle thumb over Yaz’s cheek. And then she stands up, and speaks to the Doctor, sterner this time. “We are definitely talking later.”
Yaz is just glad that Sonia is the one making a habit of messy nights out, and not her – at least she isn’t a repeat offender. She’s worried for the Doctor, being on the receiving end of one of her mother’s talks.
The TV is on, the news banner looping at the bottom. All of a sudden, it’s playing old footage, of the invasion of ghosts that happened when she was a kid. She’d thought it must have been a dream for years, and never thought to ask, until she read about it on Wikipedia one day.
She feels the Doctor’s hand stop still, frozen in her hair. At the word inquest echoing from the TV – at least, Yaz thinks she heard inquest – she feels the Doctor’s hand move again, resume its soft stroking of her hair. At that, she lets her eyes drift shut, and she’s vaguely aware of a blanket being laid over her, and then the door closing as her mother leaves for the day.
She’s really not sure she wants to wake up later – she knows she’ll feel vile. But drifting off, with the Doctor still playing with her hair, she thinks that it won’t be so bad. Not with the Doctor there when she wakes up.