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The Doctor had started running.
Graham was the first to notice. He was used to waking up at 5am, that had been his standard on the morning shift driving buses, and one morning he’d totally failed at going back to sleep again and had decided to just start the day. The other two wouldn’t be up for a while yet, and the Doc never seemed to sleep, but she might fancy a cuppa.
The TARDIS corridors were dark and quiet, the faint hum of the engines the only sound on an otherwise silent ship. Graham had noticed that, whilst the Doc’s sleeping pattern was sporadic at best, the TARDIS was very accommodating when it came to the humans and had adopted a day/night setting so they weren’t woken up by bright lights or loud noises.
Unless the Doc dropped a spanner on her toe and swore loudly down the corridor. That happened more often than not most lights.
On this occasion however, the lights in the console room were low and the Doc was nowhere to be seen. Graham was about to drink her mug of tea himself, figuring this must be one of the nights when she’d decided to sleep, when he realised the light drifting in from through the TARDIS doors was green. Usually, when the humans were asleep, the Doctor would park the TARDIS in deep space or in orbit around a moon, but by the looks of things they were parked on a planet this time.
Graham looked towards the doors leading back into the ship. All silent. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to look?
The doors creaked open and he peered outside.
It was a planet. A glorious sunrise lit up the sky and the grass beneath his feet was luscious green. There were hills and trees for miles and no sign of any kind of civilisation anywhere. It was stunningly beautiful and reminded Graham a little of the Yorkshire Dales. Tranquil, calming, and quiet.
The Doctor appeared then, walking towards the TARDIS with her face turned towards the sunrise. She was dressed in running gear. Black leggings, sturdy trainers, and a grey jumper to keep herself warm. Even her short hair was tied back in a tiny ponytail.
‘Oh!’ she said, catching sight of Graham in surprise. ‘Morning. Everything alright?’
‘Thought you might fancy a cuppa,’ Graham replied, realising he was still holding the mug in his hand.
‘Oooh I would, ta,’ the Doctor said, taking it out his hands gratefully as she kicked off her muddy shoes and left them near the door.
‘I thought that would be the last thing you’d want to do,’ Graham said, nodding out towards the planet as the Doctor sipped her tea and examined her controls. ‘Running, I mean. We do enough of it anyway.’
‘Nice to do it for pleasure though,’ the Doctor said absentmindedly, flicking a switch on the console. ‘Anyone else up yet?’
‘Nope, just me,’ Graham chuckled. ‘Early bird and all that. Want some breakfast? I was thinking omelettes.’
‘Nah, I’m gonna go shower. Thanks though.’
She disappeared from the console room and Graham headed off to the kitchen, thinking nothing of it. The Doc didn't seem to eat or sleep as much as her human friends did. Must be an alien thing.
Ryan was the next person to notice the Doctor's new hobby and - like Graham - he noticed it purely by accident.
It had been a long and difficult day. They’d visited a village where the inhabitants were dying from a plague like illness. Luckily, the don’t interfere with the fundamental principles of history thing hadn’t seemed to apply in this instance and the Doctor had managed to rustle up an antidote in the TARDIS’ chemistry lab relatively quickly, but by the time they’d gone round all the homes administering the cure it was late and they were all exhausted.
Yaz and Graham had gone to bed immediately, the Doctor had disappeared to document the new illness and its treatment in the ship’s logs - or equivalent thereof - and Ryan had lain in bed staring at the ceiling as he utterly failed to go to sleep.
It wasn’t that he didn't want to, he could feel exhaustion clawing at him, but his mind was too wired with images from the day. Tiny children who’d been suffering suddenly getting better, parents crying as their newly cured babies began to kick and cry like all babies should. Saving lives gave him a rush like nothing he’d ever experienced, and for the first time he understood why his new alien friend had chosen the name Doctor.
Speaking of, in their exhausted states and desperation to get to bed, no-one had gone to check she was alright. After all, the Doctor had been the one running back and forth to the TARDIS to alter the chemicals in order to get the solution just right.
Ryan left his bed and headed out into the corridor.
The lights were down, the TARDIS in night mode, and Ryan padded silently through the corridors to the console room, pausing in the doorway when he spotted the Doctor.
She was sitting on the bottom of the steps, head hanging low, bottle of water in her hands, dressed in running gear and looking miserable. She clearly hadn’t seen him, and Ryan hovered in the doorway for a moment; unsure whether or not he should interrupt. She was breathing hard and, judging by the mud and grass on her shoes, Ryan surmised that she’d just got back and was trying to catch her breath.
It was interesting how her face fell when she thought no-one could see her.
‘Morning,’ Ryan said quietly, and she jumped a little at his voice but immediately plastered a smile on her face. Ryan wasn’t a fool. He could see it was fake.
‘Hey,’ she said, taking another swig of her water. ‘Burning the midnight oil?’
‘Yeah, couldn’t sleep. Guessing you couldn’t either?’
Ryan sat beside her, keeping a respectable distance. The Doctor's face was pink and strands of her hair had come loose from its tiny ponytail and were falling in her face. She made no effort to brush them away.
‘Needed some fresh air,’ she mumbled, and Ryan hardly blamed her. The village had been filthy and the air putrid. He wasn’t surprised the disease had spread so fast.
‘I’m rubbish at running,’ he said, trying to make small talk though he was getting the feeling that the Doctor preferred to be alone. ‘Can’t stay in a straight line.’
‘If you find a big enough area you don’t need to,’ she said, and this time that tiny smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth looked real.
‘Where did you go?’ he asked, nodding towards the door. ‘Somewhere nice.’
‘Only Phenix,’ the Doctor said, stretching out her legs. ‘Life won’t evolve for at least another nine thousand years, give or take. For now it’s just a grass planet. Literally. All there is is grass. Pretty sunset though.’
‘Sounds quiet.’
‘Yeah. It is. Wanna take a look? We’re still parked.’
She tugged her short hair out of its ponytail, yawning into her hand when she though Ryan wasn’t looking.
He was looking, and now he was looking he had the chance to realise she looked exhausted.
He crossed the console and opened the door, the TARDIS’ customary squeak from an unoiled hinge echoing in the cavernous chamber. He’d asked the Doctor once if she was ever going to oil it, but apparently she had a universe that constantly needed saving and no time to oil squeaky doors.
Secretly, he suspected she liked the noise.
The planet was beautiful. Green grass, blue sky, trees for miles. It was weirdly peaceful and Ryan felt a strange sense of serenity passing over him at the sight. A planet with no life, only nature. It was a far cry from Orphan 55 and Ryan dropped his head to his chest. Of all the stupid things the human race had done. Surely destroying their own world was the worst?
‘What life evolves here?’ he called back to his silent companion. But when he turned around she’d gone and left an empty and dimly lit console room in her wake.
Yaz was more attuned to the Doctor's mardy behaviour than the boys, and had made it her personal mission to find out what was wrong with her.
That was extremely difficult when the woman in question was about as closed up about her feelings as it was possible for a person to be. Yaz’s cheerful and probing questions of ‘what did you play as a child?’ and ‘were you a little boy or a little girl?’ were ignored or, in the case of the last question, met with a terse: ‘gender is a concept.’
Well. That told her.
Yaz was no fool though, far from it in fact. She didn't want to guess what had been bothering the Doctor, though she was pretty sure it had something to do with the Master, but - all things considered - the Doctor seemed to be otherwise fine in herself and Yaz was willing to let it slide as long as she continued to get a little brighter and more cheerful with each morning that passed.
It didn't take Yaz long to realise that that, too, was a facade.
It had been a long shift and Yaz’s feet were aching by the time she’d finished. The sun was beginning to rise over Sheffield and she’d decided to go straight to the TARDIS rather than head back to the flat. She was too wired to sleep, exhausted though she was, and the TARDIS had a bathtub the size of a hot tub she was just aching to slide into.
Maybe she’d just get in the hot tub, it was one of those days.
The TARDIS was still parked where the Doctor had left it outside the estate and Yaz dug her key out of her pocket, the shining metal catching the early morning sun. She’d been so proud when the Doctor had handed it to her, so grateful she was being trusted with something so precious.
The TARDIS console room was dim and Yaz spotted a pair of muddy trainers by the door. She, like the others, had noticed the Doctor's new habit of running but hadn’t thought much of it. She must do something when the humans were asleep, god knows she didn't sleep herself.
Yaz headed towards the bathroom, yawning and unbuttoning her coat as she went. She could already picture herself in that bath, sliding down beneath the water, and she was so wrapped up in the idea that she didn't see the Doctor until she was stood in the doorway.
The bathroom on the TARDIS was similar to the set up you’d find in a public swimming pool, except the shower stalls were far grander and the tiles clean and polished with old fashioned victorian taps and proper bathtubs you could sink down into. She shared it with the Doctor, though she very rarely saw the other woman in it, and occasionally the TARDIS would play music or alternate the colour of the lights if she was in a playful mood. Once, when Yaz had been washing her hair after a long day chasing around after aliens, the TARDIS had suddenly started blasting out Cake By The Ocean. When she’d asked the Doctor about it, the Doctor had only shrugged and had told her it was one of her ship’s favourite songs. Yaz wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.
Now though, the light was blue and the Doctor was stood alone by one of the sinks, stripping off her running gear and leaving it on the floor by her feet until she was in only her dark leggings and sports bra. She hadn’t spotted Yaz, and Yaz padded quietly into the room just before she could unfasten her bra.
‘Something wrong with the lights?’ she asked.
The Doctor smiled at her, seemingly pleased to see her friend; though Yaz could tell she’d caught her by surprise.
‘Still in night mode. How was your shift?’ the Doctor said, yawning into her hand. She looked about as exhausted as Yaz felt and there were heavy shadows under her eyes. Yaz wondered when she’d last slept.
‘Hell,’ Yaz replied, stripping off her jacket and kicking off her shoes as she turned the taps on to run the bath. ‘It was busy, loud, chaotic. The usual Saturday night in Sheffield really. How was your run?’
‘Fine,’ the Doctor said, seemingly too exhausted to elaborate.
‘Wanna get in with me?’ Yaz offered, nodding at the bath. It was easily big enough for the two of them to sit away from each other with more than enough room, and the Doctor eyed it thoughtfully.
Yaz could see a refusal forming on her lips but then, surprisingly, she hung her head and mumbled a quiet: ‘yeah, that would be nice.’
‘Are you alright?’ Yaz asked gently, rummaging in the cupboard for some bubble bath. ‘You look - well - dead on your feet is probably the right expression. Long run, was it?’
The Doctor didn't respond, stubbornly looking at the sink instead, and it wasn’t until Yaz had reached out a hand to link their fingers together that she turned and looked at her with sad eyes.
‘We’re worried about you,’ Yaz said softly. ‘What’s going on? You’re not sleeping, clearly, you’re not eating, you’re pushing yourself to the max. You can’t go on like this.’
Truth be told, Yaz would never usually be so direct. The Doctor never responded well to questions about her health, if she responded at all, but she looked so solemn and miserable that Yaz couldn’t see the harm. This couldn’t go on.
The Doctor opened her mouth, perhaps to give her an honest answer, perhaps to tell her to mind her own, perhaps to make up some lie and totally brush her off. Sadly, Yaz would never know; as it was at that moment that the klaxons in the console room went off and the Doctor sprinted out of the bathroom.
Stood there alone, suddenly too miserable and dejected to get in the bath, Yaz heard the Doctor's voice in the distance:
‘Ryan! What did I tell you about touching the controls?!’
She headed to her bedroom, leaving the bath for the Doctor.
Graham woke up one morning to find the Corsair stood in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards, wet hair hanging down her back and a towel the only thing wrapped around her torso that barely covered the tops of her thighs.
He froze in the doorway, unsure how to proceed.
‘Morning, human,’ the Corsair mumbled absentmindedly, locating a box of cereal and pouring herself a generous amount of the stuff.
‘Uh, hey,’ Graham said. ‘How are you?’
‘Pretty good,’ she said, nodding thoughtfully as though really considering the question. ‘Started an uprising on Chaos Ten, got stabbed by a Merlock, got my bellybutton pierced, and taught a tavern in the Prizzian Cluster Toss A Coin To Your Witcher. It’s a great drinking song.’
‘You got stabbed?!’
‘Yeah, only a bit. It’ll buff out.’
She carried on happily munching her cereal, and Graham decided to just crack on and put the kettle on. He was hungry, toast waiteth for no man.
‘Oh, hey!’
Yaz seemed genuinely delighted to see the Corsair, if a little confused, and the other Time Lord grinned widely at her.
‘Other human!’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘The Doctor asked me if I wanted to run a marathon with her. Sounded like a laugh.’
‘A marathon?’
The Corsair grinned at Yaz and Graham’s shocked expressions, and tapped her chest in response.
‘Two hearts. Respiratory bypass system. Binary vascular system. Our marathons are the equivalent of your easy evening jog, just about.’
‘Should have stretched properly first though,’ the Doctor complained, appearing in the room with wet hair and stretching her arm up high above her head. She was wearing an old blue dressing gown, more a men’s size really, and she pinched a slice of Yaz’s toast.
Yaz let her. At least then she knew she was eating something.
‘You’ve got really into fitness recently, Doc,’ Graham pointed out, and Yaz didn't miss the way the Corsair’s eyebrows furrowed a little as she gave the Doctor a cautious sidewards glance.
‘Gotta do something while you lot are snoring,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Only so much Tetris I can play.’
‘That something being sleeping,’ the Corsair said, leaning back against the kitchen counter with her face almost completely in her cereal bowl.
‘I thought you lot don’t need to sleep as much as we do,’ Yaz said.
‘Not as much, no,’ the Corsair agreed. ‘But we do still need a good eight hours every now and then.’
She nudged the Doctor's leg with her bare foot, looking pointedly at her, and the Doctor glared in response.
Her cereal finished, the Corsair sliced a bagel in half and popped it in the toaster, humming to herself as she waited for it to cook. She picked up a discarded ukulele - though where she'd got it from was anyone's guess - and started to sing in a quiet, gentle voice.
'Toss a bagel to your Time Lord, oh toaster of plenty -'
The Doctor laughed and it was the first proper laugh Yaz had heard from her in a while.
It was at this moment that Ryan chose to make his entrance, standing in the doorway rubbing his eyes sleepily and blinking, startled, when he spotted the Corsair serenading the toaster.
‘Morning third human,’ she said. 'I’m glad you’re here. Stand there for me would you?’
She pointed to a spot in front of the sofa, just behind the Doctor, and Ryan did as she asked with a bemused smile on his face; still too tired to question why.
‘Great, stay there,’ the Corsair said. Then she put her ukulele on the kitchen counter, walked up to the Doctor, and put both her hands on either side of the other Time Lord’s face before she could figure out what was happening.
‘Go to sleep,’ the Corsair told her firmly and, unbelievably, the Doctor's eyes shut and she did just that, falling backwards so quickly Ryan barely had time to shoot his arms out to catch her.
‘What on earth-?’ Graham said, shocked.
‘Touch telepathy,’ the Corsair replied, bending down to grab the Doctor's legs so she could help Ryan in transferring their friend onto the sofa. ‘Better than a bedtime story. I’m amazed she let me do it to be honest. I mean I knew she was tired but for her to be that exhausted…’
Once the Doctor was on the sofa and had a blanket over her, the Corsair turned back to them with dark eyes. The ping! of the toaster as it spat out her bagel ignored for the time being.
‘Tell me everything,’ she said firmly. ‘Start at the top, miss out no details.’
To say the Doctor was mad when she woke up would be an understatement. She was fuming.
‘You knocked me out,’ she said angrily, storming into the library where the Corsair was playing Snakes and Ladders with Yaz and Ryan, and Graham was sat in an armchair reading a book.
‘Yaz told me about what happened with the Master,’ the Corsair said, not looking up, and the Doctor froze like a statue.
Yaz was too stunned that the Corsair had called her by her actual name to notice the Doctor's expression.
‘I tried to go to Gallifrey,’ the Corsair continued, looking up and tilting her head at her friend. ‘Thought I’d pop by, just to see if there was anything urgent going on I should know about, but your TARDIS wouldn’t take me.’
The Doctor looked like she was about to faint. Or start crying. Or maybe turn and run from the room. At this point, Graham wouldn’t have been surprised if she did a combination of all three.
‘Our timelines are out of sync,’ the Doctor said in a cracked voice. ‘It would risk a paradox. The TARDIS probably -’
‘Chronolocked it, yes. I noticed,’ the Corsair said, turning back to the board and shaking the dice across it, glaring when her meeple fell down a snake.
‘What does that mean?’ Ryan asked.
‘It means the TARDIS has, essentially, locked it away,’ the Corsair said absentmindedly. ‘Only for me though. My timeline is out of sync with the Doctor's. I used to be older than her, believe it or not. I think it might be the other way round now. If I go to Gallifrey in the Doctor’s timeline, or more specifically the TARDIS’ current timeline, I risk ripping a hole in my own. Does that make sense?’
‘No,’ the three humans said in unison, and the Corsair sighed.
‘Trying to explain temporal mechanics to humans is like trying to get a wasp to play chess.’
‘That’s probably accurate, I’m not even offended,’ Graham said.
‘Thing is,’ the Corsair continued, ‘and this is the bit your friends couldn’t help me with, Gallifrey is used to us crashing out of various timelines and wreaking havoc. If you’ve got a planet full of time travelers you have to be. So the only thing which would cause a chronolock would be if something catastrophically bad had happened to Gallifrey in your timeline, which hasn’t happened in mine yet.’
The Doctor said nothing, and the Corsair stood, walked over to her, and put a hand on her shoulder.
‘I know you can’t tell me,’ she said gently. ‘But you need to tell your friends. Do it now, please. I’ll go put the kettle on.’
She left the room and the Doctor stood, unsure, with three sets of human eyes looking expectantly at her.
‘I like her,’ Graham announced. ‘Even if she did get us all arrested. She’s a laugh.’
Yaz patted the space beside her on the sofa and the Doctor reluctantly sat down, staring resolutely at the half finished board game in front of her and pouting like a petulant child. She was dressed back in her usual outfit and Yaz had to admit she looked a lot better after spending the whole day asleep, though there was none of her usual joy or enthusiasm on her face now.
‘We can’t make you tell us,’ Yaz said to her gently. ‘But we’d appreciate it if you did.’
‘Especially since the Corsair obviously picked up on it as well,’ Graham pointed out. ‘You should have seen her face, Doc. When she tried to fly to your planet. She was so confused, but then it was like… I dunno. Horror, I guess.’
‘Why won’t you take us there?’ Ryan asked. ‘Why can’t we visit your home? You’ve been to ours so many times -’
‘Because the Master destroyed it,’ the Doctor blurted out, seemingly all in one breath and so quickly her three friends only stared at her for a moment whilst her words sunk in.
She let out a deep breath, slumping forwards as though finally admitting it was a weight off her shoulders, and looked down at her hands.
‘The Master found out about something,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘Something about our people, and he destroyed the whole planet in retaliation. He burnt the citadel, nuked the streets, murdered every last citizen there. Even the mountains are gone.’
Yaz’s hand went to her mouth and Graham paled.
‘And the thing is,’ the Doctor said, her voice catching. ‘I don’t even know why he did it. I’ve got no answers. I go back there to look for him but also to try and find a clue about why he destroyed our home but there’s nothing -’
She pressed her face into her hands and Ryan reached out and put a hand on her back, as comforting as he could be whilst they all sat in silence and tried to think of something - anything - that might help.
‘Is that why all the running?’ Yaz asked quietly. ‘Are you running to get away from it all, or because you don’t know how else to process it?’
‘Both, maybe,’ the Doctor mumbled, looking up at her with red eyes. ‘And cause it’s healthy?’
‘Who are you trying to convince, Doc,’ Graham chuckled. ‘You do enough running as it is, you don’t need to do anymore.’
‘And if you’re trying to be healthy you miiight want to consider cutting back on the custard creams,’ Ryan said, and that got a small smile out of her.
‘I’m sorry we kept asking you to take us there,’ Yaz said quietly. ‘That can’t have helped.’
‘S’not your fault if I don’t tell you,’ the Doctor admitted. ‘Though to be honest even if there was any of it left it wouldn’t be safe for you. Other species aren’t really allowed on Gallifrey.’
‘Why? Not known for their hospitality are they?’ Graham asked.
‘You could say that,’ the Doctor said. ‘Aside from me and the Corsair, and maybe a few others, the rest are pretty much douchebags.’
‘If you’re talking about Time Lords I agree,’ the Corsair said, coming back into the library bearing a tray with a teapot and cups. She looked at the Doctor's red eyes, then at the crestfallen faces of the three humans, and nodded in satisfaction. She put the tray down on the coffee table, poured the Doctor a hot cup of tea, kissed her forehead and pressed the tea into her hands.
‘You know I hate to see you upset,’ she said. ‘But you honestly do it to yourself sometimes. Come on, human. Let’s get this over with.’
She sat down, resigned, in front of the game board. By the looks of things, the Corsair wasn’t doing so well and Ryan looked set for an easy victory.
Graham went back to his book and Yaz sat next to the Doctor, carefully folding her legs beneath her on the sofa and pressing herself against the Doctor's side whilst she drank her tea and watched Ryan and the Corsair finish their game. At the last moment, the Corsair landed on a ladder which brought her four squares away from the finish line. Ryan was scandalised.
‘Do you really think he’s escaped?’ Yaz whispered to the Doctor when their voices were drowned out by the Corsair’s enthusiastic ‘YES!’ of triumph as she snatched the victory out of Ryan’s hands and into her own.
‘More than likely,’ the Doctor replied quietly, watching Ryan press his hands against his eyes and let out a noooooo of annoyance. ‘I can’t picture him being stuck anywhere for very long.’
‘And will he be looking for you?’
‘More than likely.’
Yaz put her hand on the Doctor's arm and squeezed lightly.
‘Let him come,’ she said softly. ‘We’ll be here, where we always are, by your side.’
‘I might not be able to protect you, Yaz,’ the Doctor warned her, but Yaz only shrugged.
‘I could get knocked down by a bus tomorrow. I’m not afraid of him. In fact I think my fist has a meeting with his nose in the near future.’
‘My foot’s got an appointment with him somewhere far more sensitive,’ Graham muttered darkly from the armchair he was in, and the Doctor laughed.