Archive of Our Own

“And you won’t have to. I’m right here with you and always will be.” The Doctor rubbed her hand up and down Yaz’s back in comfort when a high pitched wailing suddenly caused them to jump and break apart, before gripping onto each other's upper arms. 

“What’s that?” Yaz shouted, panic creeping up in her voice. It wasn’t a sound she had heard before, but the siren continued as the TARDIS then shook clumsily, the lights dimming down to the emergency back up. 

The Doctor gasped as they witnessed books fall off their shelves. Yaz’s tea cup on the side table had travelled to the edge too, the now cold liquid spilling over. "Um… can't say I've ever heard that alarm before. Maybe the toaster is on fire?" She tried to playfully ponder, to not to let the fear creep up in her voice.

"Doctor!" Yaz exclaimed. She couldn’t believe she was trying to make jokes in right now. 

"Okay, not the toaster! Too big to be the toaster. I have no idea what it is. But there’s only one way to find out!" The Time Lord grasped Yaz's hand tightly in her own before sprinting to the console room to investigate, both still dressed in their pyjamas. The Doctor's bare feet slapped against the floor as various objects went flying around them, some smashing and others bouncing around. She really wished whatever it was would be an easy fix. Maybe she left the breaks off, something stupid that they could all laugh about in an hour's time. 

With all the chaos in their surroundings, neither of them heard Graham and Ryan run around the corner straight into them, causing for all, not for four of them to yelp in surprise. "What the hell is going on?" Graham exclaimed. "This better be a real emergency or I swear to god… I was rather enjoying my sleep-"

"Grandad, shut up!" Ryan hissed, lightly slapping his shoulder.

The Doctor let go of Yaz's hand briefly to gesture her hands in front of her. "Look, it's all fine. Or it will be anyway." Yaz felt her hand be dragged again towards the console room, the boys following. 

Graham groaned in frustration. "This doesn't seem like nothing!"

“It’s fine. It’s all fine.” Her tone wasn’t only trying to convince the others, it was trying to convince herself as she raced around the console with a million and one thoughts swimming around in her head. The Doctor swivelled the monitor towards her so only she could see and her expression saddened slightly, her face hidden behind the screen. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’ll be safe.”

Graham snapped. He was still half asleep admittedly and the Doctor’s games were testing his patience. “I don’t believe that! Why won’t you tell us what’s really going on?!”

A part of the Doctor died a little inside, he knew she was concealing something. He saw right through her. Graham knew something was up. “And what makes you think I’d be lying to you exactly?!”

“Rule number one. The Doctor lies.” At the last syllable that came out of Graham’s mouth, the TARDIS fell silent. The walls had stopped shaking, leaving only a mess of debris scattered all over the floor.

The Doctor’s stone cold eyes stared into Graham’s. He was right. Of course, he was. The Doctor always lied. It was the only way she had gotten this far. “Graham. Ryan.” She sighed. “Yaz” She took a momentary pause to look at Yaz, giving her a brief smile before looking back at the three together. Her fam. “Sometimes I do lie. But when I do, it’s only ever to protect those that I love.”

Yaz stepped forward, taking the Doctor’s hand in her own with worried eyes. “What could be so bad that we wouldn’t be safe within the TARDIS? I thought this was a danger free zone?”

The Doctor sighed. “Danger can still happen within the TARDIS, Yaz. It’s rare but it happens. But no, the danger isn’t in here. It’s outside those doors”

“What do you mean? Where are we? I didn’t even see you pilot the TARDIS.” Yaz wondered whether the Doctor had done something before she found her in the library.

The Time Lord took a deep breath before bringing Yaz round to look at what was displayed on the monitor. “It wasn’t me who flew the TARDIS. Technically the TARDIS hasn’t even been flown at all. Not properly anyway. Think of it like the attraction of a magnet. Someone used one giant magnet forcing my ship to where they want it.” Before Yaz could question who ‘they’ were, the Doctor beckoned her to look up. On the screen, an army stood before the TARDIS, fifteen guns pointing towards the doors.

Yaz frowned. “Can’t you just take off again? Fly far away?”

The Doctor pressed multiple buttons to prove a point. “I can’t. They’ve disabled all functions, I can’t do anything. It’s fine, though. They only want me. They don’t want you, none of you. You lot stay here. I’ll go out there, give myself to them and tell them to lift the controls. The TARDIS will do the rest. She’ll take you all home, right back where we left off. She knows what to do.”

Yaz could feel her lip trembling. Being told she had to go away from her girlfriend split her heart in two. “Why do they want you? What about us?” The Doctor wasn’t sure if us meant the four of them or their relationship.

“You three don’t have a bad bone in your body.” Yaz wanted to argue but she couldn’t find her voice. “I do. I know I don’t show it but I’ve done terrible things, Yaz. I’ve told you before, my past is catching up with me. The things I’ve done… the people I’ve lost because of my stupid actions. I'm sorry.”

The Doctor began to move towards the doors but only getting so far as one step before her hand got dragged back, her eyes avoiding Yaz’s glare as her body was forced to turn. “I’m not going to let you give yourself to them! You’re better than who you think you are. You’re not this monster you’re making yourself out to be, you’re not a criminal!”

“I’m sorry, Yaz. But you’ve only known me for such a short time in comparison to how long little old me has been around for. Reading my journal entries doesn’t automatically make you understand just how much I have done and how many lives have been lost in my name.”

“Why are you acting like this?!” Tears were falling freely down Yaz’s face, choking on the words she wanted to say but couldn’t escape. The Doctor reached up one last time to wipe them from under her girlfriend’s eyes and kissed her farewell. It was soft and quick but full of meaning. Neither of them wanted it to be their last kiss. They had so much more to offer to each other, so much more to accomplish as one. All would be just a dream now. “Please don’t go…” Yaz’s voice broke and so did her heart, she could feel it racing, her palms getting sweaty with panic and dread. She didn’t want to be alone. She couldn’t.

“I love you, Yaz. Never forget that.” The blonde took a deep breath, holding back tears of her own and began to head towards her captors, opening the doors to reveal a dull white light and a mass of black.

“Doctor, no!!” Without looking back, she could hear lots of shuffling, a commotion. Yaz had attempted to head towards the Doctor but Graham and Ryan took charge, taking hold of her before she could. The boys hated the situation the Doctor was in just as much as Yaz but they understood, there wasn’t a lot they could do to change it. They witnessed the heartbreaking farewell between the two and at that point knew Yaz wouldn’t let go easily. She’d always been very attached to the Doctor since the start. She was her extraordinary girlfriend in this magical blue box.

The Doctor stepped outside and could hear Yaz’s cries behind her, ensuring she closed the doors so the fam didn’t get a first hand account of what was to happen. The Doctor equally couldn’t face hearing how broken she had caused her girlfriend to be. She influenced too many people’s lives, it was a burden.

With a click, the TARDIS doors shut and the Doctor begrudgingly looked up. “You know I’ve always hated guns. Never quite understood why you’d want to shoot anyone and inflict that much pain. Perhaps I’m just a lot nicer than you lot. You could have chosen a better time to do this though” She looked down at herself. “I’m still in my pyjamas.”

The men and women in military uniform tightened their grip around their weapons, one of them stepping forward. A girl, no more than twenty years old possibly. She was the youngest out of them all. “Don’t play your mind games with us. You know what you’ve done-”

“Yes, yes, I get it. And now you’re here to punish me. I know. I’m a bad Time Lord, what can I say? Should have focused more in the academy." 

"It's because of you my father is dead."

The Doctor's face hardened at that, sadness and guilt plastered all over. Her mind tried to picture who this girl's father could be. There had been so many in her time who lost their lives because of her. Men, women and children. It wasn't something she was proud of and it haunted her everyday, even if she had the brightest of smiles. She could picture them all, all of those lives lost. She never forgot. She would carry that guilt for the rest of her existence. "Whoever your father was, just know I am deeply and incredibly sorry." 

"He fought alongside you, you know. But when my mother and I heard about his death, I vowed to become stronger than he ever could, to join the army so I could help in defeating you. In honour of my dad. I was only eight when you murdered him." 

Rage flickered in the Doctor's eyes. "I can only apologise for your father but whatever you think happened that day, it wasn't murder" 

"You lie! You always lie!" The girl's eyes were swollen with tears as years of pent up emotion were finally let loose. "Everyone standing in front of you right now has had their lives turned upside down by the likes of you and we’re not going to deal with it anymore.”  The Doctor took a deep breath, anticipating what was about to happen.

Yaz’s eyes widened as she witnessed what was about to happen on the monitor. The girl that had been confronting the Doctor, positioned her gun and stepped forward once more. The screen wasn’t the clearest but even then Yaz could see clear as day what her intentions were and she couldn’t let it happen. Without even thinking, she raced down the console stairs, threw open the TARDIS doors and practically pushed her girlfriend so forcefully out the way that the Doctor hit the ground with a thud. 

“Yaz, no!” There was no time for the Doctor to react, it was too late. A shot fired and Yaz fell to the ground, clutching her side and panic frozen across both of their faces. Even Mia, the girl who held the gun was taken aback at the events that had just unfolded. She didn’t mean to wound anyone other than the Time Lord. She felt awful. That bullet was intended for the Doctor and the Doctor only.

The Doctor rushed towards Yaz and scooped her up so her head was resting in her arms. “Yaz? Can you hear me?” Tears were falling down the Doctor’s eyes as Graham and Ryan came out and stood shocked at what they saw in front of them. They had seen inside the TARDIS but seeing Yaz on the floor like that broke them. She stroked her hair gently and kissed her forehead, Yaz’s eyes were glazed over in disbelief and pain. “Yaz, stay with me. You’re going to be okay, I will make sure of it. They will pay-”

But before the Doctor could finish her sentence, Yaz felt her senses drift away. The pain from the bullet had become so intense that her body almost felt numb. The commotion around her became a distant echo before the world fell silent. 

When the Doctor had found Yaz reading her journal only a few hours ago, she certainly wasn’t expecting the day to pan out this way. They would have discussed the journal like they had done before taking Yaz back to bed. She would have carried her too, Yaz enjoyed that. Despite not sleeping as often as her partner, the Doctor loved nothing more than cuddling up to her girlfriend under the covers, Yaz’s soft scent of coconut filling the air around her. If only life could have been that simple.

Before her now, Yaz lay somewhat peacefully. The medics had assured her she wasn’t currently in pain which comforted them all to an extent. After Yaz had passed out, the army out to get the Doctor felt so bad for their mistake that they had agreed to let her go for now, with the promise that they’d be back. They had lifted all locks on the TARDIS and the Doctor, Graham and Ryan rushed Yaz to the northern general hospital back in Sheffield.

Everything had happened far too quickly today and only now was the Doctor’s mind having time to process what had happened. The doctor’s at the hospital had worked fast to stable Yaz’s injuries, she’d have a bit of pain and discomfort for the first few weeks and would need to rest a lot but otherwise, the bullet had narrowly missed what could have been fatal.

Graham and Ryan now stood at her bedside whilst the Doctor sat caressing Yaz’s hand in her own, feeling the warm skin beneath reminding her that was alive! Her girlfriend had been injured under her name but she was very much alive and would be okay. But would she always be?

“Can I have some time alone with her, please?” The Time Lord’s voice was hoarse as she struggled to hold back the tears. Ryan and Graham only nodded understandingly and left the ward to go and grab some lunch. Or breakfast. It had been an early start and yet in some ways, a long day.

Hearing the door close behind them, the Doctor’s voice broke and tears fell. She couldn’t contain her emotions anymore. “Oh, Yaz! I’m so sorry! You of all people should not be here like this, hooked up to all these machines, injured because of me-”

Her thought process got interrupted by other thoughts and her voice stopped abruptly, reevaluating what it was she was actually doing, what she should do.

Suddenly, seeing Yaz’s current state was too much to bare. Her tears stopped flowing as her face hardened with a painful decision. A decision she didn’t want to do but she knew she had to.

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor pulled the blanket that was around Yaz further up, tucking her in one last time. She stood up and leaned over to place a delicate kiss upon her forehead, savouring the moment, taking in her beautiful scent once more. “I’m sorry, Yaz.” She whispered. “I’m doing this because I love you. Stay safe, my beautiful angel”

And with a final stroke of Yaz’s hand and glance at her girlfriend, the Doctor strode out of the hospital ward without looking back. Leaving behind a family she had become so attached to, leaving them in a much safer world. Without her.