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“I’m back! Sorry I was gone so long, the queue was mental―”
Yaz kicked the front door shut behind her using the heel of her boot, hampered somewhat by the bulging shopping bags clutched in both hands. A few strides into the hallway she dropped her load next to the sideboard and bent down to untie her shoes and slot them into the shoe rack.
“I said, I’m back!” Yaz called out again once she’d straightened up and realised that no one had responded to her first shout. She cocked her head, frowning in confusion, before she slipped her phone from her pocket to check the time. 14:27. Of course. Her parents had left fifteen minutes previously, meeting Umbreen for afternoon tea at the hotel Najia was in charge of. But that still didn’t account for―
“Jane? Everything okay?” Yaz took a couple more steps forward closer to the main room of the flat, groceries forgotten.
She could hear the faint murmurings of the TV, so Jane was definitely at home and just wasn’t acknowledging her for some reason. Or―and suddenly Yaz could feel the beginnings of anxiety curling in her insides as it occurred to her―she’d gone roaming and left the set playing to an empty flat.
It shouldn’t, really, given that Jane had spent a good few months surviving by herself in the city before they’d found her, but the thought of a vulnerable woman who was the Doctor but also wasn’t wandering the city where anything could happen or anyone could take advantage of her made Yaz feel sick to her stomach.
But as she turned the corner into the living room, it turned out she needn’t have worried, for there was a body stretched out across the sofa that Yaz immediately identified as Jane by the blue beanie she could see poking just above the armrest, obviously fast asleep.
The wave of relief that the sight carried nearly had Yaz sagging against the nearest wall as she mentally reprimanded herself for worrying. Of course Jane wouldn’t have just left the flat with no prior warning―she was practically agoraphobic, had had more than her fill of being outdoors after spending half a year on the streets. Just the other day Yaz had managed to persuade her into going for a walk in the park, but they’d only just made it to the car park exit before Jane had turned tail and dashed back into the block in panic.
The Doctor’s world had spanned the whole universe and beyond, but Jane’s had shrunk until it was confined to within these four walls, and that realization had left Yaz with a lingering dull ache in her heart as she’d followed her back inside.
And besides, even if she had been able to leave the flat, there was really only one other place she could have gone. Yaz would have been able to find her no problem. She’d worried for nothing.
Still feeling foolish, Yaz padded closer to the sofa, trying to remain as quiet as possible so as not to wake Jane up. She plucked the remote off the coffee table and muted the TV, then turned back to face the couch, kneeling next to it as her eyes travelled over the figure stretched across it.
Fluffy-socked feet were resting against one armrest as Jane’s head lolled across the other, face turned inwards towards the back of the sofa and lips parted slightly, skin aglow with the soft mid-afternoon sun spilling through the window. The cream coloured hoodie she’d borrowed from Yaz had ridden up her torso to expose a few inches of stomach that was softer than Yaz would have ever expected, small rolls that poked slightly over the waistband of her―Yaz’s―old plaid pyjama bottoms and rose and fell with each slow even breath. Now that Yaz was able to study Jane’s features properly, she could see that the shadows under her eyes were paler, the planes of her face less prominent.
Yaz made a note to tell her mother that Operation Get Jane To A Healthy Weight was working.
She looked so young lying there all bundled up in Yaz’s old school leavers hoodie, beanie pulled down over her head low enough to send soft blonde waves of hair tumbling into her face, all traces of the lines around her eyes and mouth smoothed away. She looked untroubled, content, completely at peace. The sight made Yaz’s heart grow about three sizes in her chest, a surge of fondness that brought a smile to her face. Unable to stop herself, she reached out a hand, tenderly brushing a lock of hair out of Jane’s eyes before cupping her face, the pad of her thumb stroking across a cheek dusted with freckles that Yaz had never noticed before.
Jane muttered inaudibly as Yaz’s fingertips came to rest against her temple, eyelashes fluttering slightly and Yaz, heart stuttering with yearning and fear, almost pulled back as if scalded. But instead of waking Jane let out a contented little sigh and leaned closer into Yaz’s touch, one corner of her mouth curling up in a small smile.
“I love you, you know,” Yaz found herself whispering, and damn it, this wasn’t at all how she’d ever envisioned her very first declaration of love for the Doctor, but she was terrified that if she didn’t do something, anything, to acknowledge the overwhelming depth of emotion crawling up her throat it would cut off her breath, choke her.
“And I―I don’t know if I’ll ever get you back, the real you,” she continued. “I don’t even know how much of the real you’s been left behind. But I guess it doesn’t―not matter, exactly, because a universe without the real you in is one I can’t bear thinking about, but I―”
Scrubbing her free hand across her face, Yaz cut herself off with a sigh of frustration―at the whole bloody situation, but mostly at herself. Because it was stupid, and she knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was betraying the Doctor somehow, by falling a bit in love with this silhouette of her. Someone who had the Doctor’s mouth but not her bright smile, had her eyes but not the sparkle that lit up those hazel-green irises.
Don’t get her wrong; Jane was wonderful, in a completely different way to the Doctor. She felt like more of an equal, vulnerable and open in a way that the Doctor wasn’t, and Yaz found that intoxicating after getting used to the Doctor’s more closed off nature. Jane was softer, and shyer, and sweeter than the Doctor was, and to be honest, had more in common with the sort of girls Yaz usually fell for than the Doctor ever had.
But being around her, it was like someone had taken the radio and messed up the tuning, so instead of turning it on and hoping to hear her favourite station loud and clear, all Yaz got was static instead.
The crux of it was this―Yaz had always planned to settle down eventually, and that just wasn’t possible with the Doctor. Even just trying to imagine it was impossible, because it was the complete antithesis of who she was. Trying to imagine the Doctor shopping in ASDA was like trying to imagine a lion in the dentist’s office.
Yaz couldn’t tie the Doctor down, wouldn’t. But with Jane she could. She could take this shadow, a stripped down version of the woman who’d crashed right through that train roof and right into her heart, and mold her into someone she could wake up next to every morning. Grow old with.
She could feel the telltale burning promise of tears building behind her eyes, and closed them for a long moment, breathing in deeply through her nose until the moment passed.
“I just―love you, okay?” she finished once she was certain it was safe to talk without her voice trembling. She stood up, knees protesting after spending minutes resting on the hard floor, and went to finally put the shopping away.
She didn’t see Jane crack an eye open, nor the tear that spilled from it.