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It was hard to keep track of how long it had been, but in the time Yaz had known her, she had never confirmed if the Doctor regularly slept. Or indeed if she needed to. Countless exhausting adventures and not so much as a yawn out of the ever-buzzing Doctor. Yaz suspected she would get used to questioning the possibilities of an alien species the longer she spent in the TARDIS, though perhaps there was the slightest chance that, like the Doctor, she would one day have more answers than questions. Fat chance, she thought, arming her way into an overlarge nightshirt. But still, a chance.
Yaz couldn’t keep an accurate count of the days, as the fam had popped from planet to planet, terrestrial dawn to galactic dawn, and every time in between, so it was easiest to keep track of the times she, Graham and Ryan had bid each other “sleep well” (“good night” being accurate maybe half the time) and retired to their rooms aboard the TARDIS. Yaz had reached fourteen sleeps or so before she lost count, and by that point she stopped caring about matters in Earth time anyway.
It was a wonder they didn’t get massive jet lag when they went home, Yaz thought as she brushed her teeth. They seemed to go to bed whenever they had a break between running from aliens and saving Earth, or whenever there was a lull in their travels, and they had taken to lounging in the control room with tea, swapping stories and banter until someone (usually Graham) began to nod against a wall. On these occasions, adventure done for the moment, the Doctor would wish them pleasant dreams while pacing around the center console, bending here and there to twiddle a dial, or adjust a lever. Sometimes, she absently dunked a biscuit while reading a monitor with the same consternation Yaz’s father reserved for the morning paper.
They had even gotten to choose their own rooms. “Down the hall, pick one you like,” said the grinning Doctor when it became apparent that, after her fourth failed attempt to return them to Sheffield, all three humans were cranky, worn out, and in desperate need of a long rest. “Don’t mind the bunk beds. I love a good bunk bed.”
Yaz had managed to find a room without a bunk bed, situated in what she determined to be the ideal location between control room, bathroom, kitchen, and swimming pool. Though it took her a several attempts to find her room in the beginning, the winding halls of the TARDIS were becoming more familiar in their own, convoluted, crisscrossing way. Yaz was pleased to find herself situated at such a vital multi-intersection of what she judged to be the most important rooms. She wasn’t sure, however, that the hallways and rooms always stayed in the same places, as some days she would amble toward the control room from the kitchen with a plate of sandwiches for the team and find herself passing the library rather than the pool on her way out.
And now, as she left the bathroom in her pajamas, on the track she was sure would lead to her room, she found herself in the doorway of the control room, the hushed whir of the TARDIS at rest swelling softly around her in the amber glow. Yaz scanned the room but couldn’t see the Doctor. Then she spotted the long blue coat, draped over a display, somehow both rumpled and effortlessly just so in the careless way it hung. It was a good coat, sturdy and casual, with a trim of rainbow whimsy and dramatic hem. Its owner couldn’t be too far; she loved it too much to leave it lying around out of her line of sight.
The metal floor was warm and pulsed gently against Yaz’s bare feet as she edged around the border of glowing crystal pillars. She found the Doctor in a chair, slumped against the console, sonic still in hand, mouth agape, just visible under the mop of blond covering the rest of her face. Yaz paused, unsure of whether to check the Doctor’s pulse, until she heard a soft snore, which disturbed a few strands of hair. Still frenetic, though in a different way from when she was awake, the Doctor’s legs sprawled in different directions, one knee folded, one arm a pillow, the hand holding her sonic dangling. Yellow suspenders akimbo, one side drooping down an arm, boots still laced. Yaz couldn’t suppress a smile. So the Doctor did need to sleep on occasion, and, it seemed, she slept wherever and however she happened to collapse. Like a child, flung into and out of space and time, suspended between the two, though most often it was the Doctor herself who had done the flinging. Asleep, she seemed both incredibly old and impossibly young; a timeless being allowed to exist without the weight of centuries-old worries for this short window.
Yaz’s smile vanished almost as soon as it had appeared: she was gripped by a sudden feeling that she was witnessing something she was not supposed to see. Bright and brilliant and kind as the Doctor was, she did her best to hide vulnerability from Yaz, Graham, and Ryan, which never went unnoticed. Getting any personal information out of the Doctor was like pulling teeth, and what little they did get out of her, she seemed loath to share. Since their run-in with the Master, the Doctor had taken more to brooding on her own, dropping her human companions in Sheffield for longer and longer stints of Earth time; returning quieter and more pensive than when she had left them.
“Where do you go?”
“Home.”
The corner of the Doctor’s mouth twitched. Was she dreaming? Where did she go in her dreams? Her grip on the sonic tightened for a millisecond, and Yaz considered waking her so she could properly go to bed. Or would that be too disturbing? Yaz could envision reaching out to touch the Doctor’s shoulder, let’s get you to bed, come on. Every imagined detail sprang out to her: the Doctor’s slow blink as she readjusted her sticky mouth; the way she would brush her hair out of her face; her exaggerated yawn and stretch; toddling over to pick up her coat and disappearing down the hall. (Did the Doctor even have a bedroom? Wherever it was, if it existed, it was seldom used, thought Yaz.)
I’ll do it, she decided finally, mustering her courage. It felt as though someone else was moving her hand, which landed between the Doctor’s shoulder blades. Her hearts tapped against Yaz’s palm, a tranquil, quadruple beat. Yaz could feel hot blood flooding her face as she leaned over the Doctor’s ear.
“Doctor,” she murmured, “Hey, that can’t be comfortable.” She smoothed the Doctor’s shirt in a small circle. “Doctor?”
The Doctor didn’t move, except to breathe, deep and easy. Dead to the universe, Yaz chuckled to herself. Can’t just leave her here, though. Moving the Doctor was out of the question; Yaz wouldn’t even know where to drag her. Certainly not to her own room, she thought as heat crept up the nape of her neck, hairs standing on end there. She imagined waking to bright hazel eyes watching her and shook the image out of her head.
Biting her lip, she deftly brushed the Doctor’s hair out of her mouth and behind her ear. Yaz glanced around the room for something that would make the Doctor even slightly more comfortable than being passed out against her TARDIS controls. She winced to think about the cramps the Doctor would most likely wake to. The hanging coat caught her eye; it would have to do. Yaz gently draped it over the Doctor’s shoulders.
She stepped back for a moment, the Doctor now a silent mound of pale blue. Yaz was about to head off in search of her own dreams in her own bed, when the Doctor made a soft noise and stirred. Holding her breath, Yaz froze in place, her own heart jumping in her chest. How would she explain herself? There was no emergency that merited interrupting the Doctor’s solitary time, there wasn’t something that needed fixing—but then the Doctor sighed, and somehow seemed to melt further into the console. Yaz exhaled too, and without thinking too hard about it, tenderly kissed the top of the Doctor’s head.
“Sweet dreams.”
---
The Doctor could hear herself laughing as she dashed down an alley in the Citadel. She was vaguely aware that in the short time before her mind followed her waking body, this would feel more like a memory than a dream. She pointed her sonic at each of the lamps lining the street, fusing their circuits and igniting them as she went, darkness collapsing before and behind her. What a game, her friend at her heels, snuffing the lights as he chased her, calling her true name. She turned half a step too soon and they tumbled into each other, falling onto the pavement. It was O but not O, blissful and manic as he laughed along with her, and they wrestled for the sonic screwdriver. Until she punched him in the nose.
Blood gushed between his fingers and he laughed harder. “What did you do that for?” And it wasn’t only blood gushing, but also golden splashes of energy. The Master was changing before her eyes. She would remember too late to apologize with a quip about how his face was in her way. But then his face warped into Yaz, and Yaz was smiling cruelly down at her and the Citadel started to burn—
“Gotcha.”
She couldn’t see through her hair, but she knew Yaz was there before she felt her touch, and she willed herself not to flinch when Yaz’s hand landed on her back. The Doctor closed her eyes and forced her muscles to remain slack. She controlled her breathing, resisting the urge to close her dry mouth. She could feel the TARDIS pulsing around her, as though she were chuckling knowingly and thrumming with anticipation at the same time.
You rascal, the Doctor thought at her ship, you wanted this to happen. The TARDIS warmed the console under the Doctor’s face as though to say, ‘got me’. Cheeky, she scolded.
The TARDIS had taken to this crew very well, all things considered. At least, she would let them in when they knocked; all three were so polite to the blue box. (Clara had never noticed that the TARDIS opened to a snap of her fingers—more often than not—sarcastically: oh yes, sure, go right ahead, your majesty.) Of course she would redirect Yaz to find the Doctor just as she woken from a nightmare on the console. Clever girl, always looking out for me.
“Doctor, hey, that can’t be comfortable,” said Yaz, and the Doctor didn’t respond. Sure, she was comfortable, she had been in just the right position to doze, scanners showing no trace of the Master in this galaxy or the next one over. Safe, for now, just not in dreams. “Doctor?” Yaz’s breath expanded into the space between them and brushed against the Doctor’s neck. She loved how even the sparsest of atoms could reach out to tickle her skin. She let that thought settle half her nerves.
What would she even say to Yaz, if she pretended to wake up for her and broke this momentary peace? Still a bit socially awkward, she allowed herself, trying very hard not to panic as Yaz rubbed her back. It wasn’t that she disliked touch so much as she preferred to touch and be touched on her own terms. Still, this felt nice. Yasmin Khan, always so full of compassion and curiosity, making sure she was alright. The Doctor allowed Yaz to clear the hair from her face, though she very much liked the privacy of her own temporary curtain. (That was another thing that took some getting used to: having more hair on her head than when she was a man. Pros and cons to the extra length, though she hadn’t yet considered needing a hair tie. Too busy, she supposed.)
The Doctor could feel Yaz’s warmth depart from her for a moment, then the sweep of cool air against her ankles, and the weighted drape of her coat coming to rest on her shoulders. Under her ear, the Doctor could hear the TARDIS happily burble. That’s enough, you. She adjusted her stiff neck with a slight groan, and only just remembered she was supposed to be pretending to sleep when she heard Yaz stop breathing. Oh, right. Neither of them moved. What should I—oh. The Doctor took a deep breath, pressing into the console, and she heard Yaz exhale. What came next was a surprise.
The spot atop her head tingled when Yaz kissed it. Thousands of electrical signals firing from the roots of her hair into her brain, and still she forced herself to breathe evenly, hyperaware of the desperate hope that Yaz wouldn’t be able to feel her hearts pounding harder and faster. But then, Yaz had retreated from their shared space again.
“Sweet dreams.” The patter of bare feet across the room and into the hall, a distant door opening and closing.
So that was it. The Doctor heard her stiff joints crack as she sat up. She caught her coat by the shoulders before it could fall off, and stood, pulling her arms into it. Humans never failed to fascinate her, and she was not so thick as to miss when one was falling into more-than-friendship feelings. The TARDIS made a plaintive noise at her.
“No, I will not be chasing her down, you hopeless romantic,” said the Doctor. She arched her back a little, stretching the sleep out of her neck and legs. To her small relief, the monitor still showed no signs of the Master. “Got to admire the poetic parallels, though,” she added, taking a biscuit from the dispenser. “I love a parallel.”
It was selfish of her to have wanted to wipe several nights ago from Yaz’s memory. Not that she needed to, Yaz seemed to have forgotten on her own, or else just never mentioned it. Graham and Ryan weren’t sure how to proceed at the time, as Yaz had fallen asleep on the stair opposite the front door during or just after post-adventure tea.
“I’ll look after her, you two turn in,” said the Doctor, nodding them toward the hall. “Off you pop.” The fam can’t have known it, but she did her best to regulate their circadian rhythms. Best to avoid TARDIS-lag when she took them home, and best to let spontaneously sleeping humans lie until they woke naturally and went to bed, if they were on-rhythm. “This one must’ve taken it out of you, Yaz,” murmured the Doctor once Graham and Ryan had bid her good night, taking mugs and the kettle with them. “Not often you’re the first asleep.”
She doffed her coat and laid it over Yaz. “That’ll hold you until you’re ready for bed proper.” The Doctor cocked an eyebrow at her TARDIS, which trilled. “You hush,” she addressed the ship. She plopped herself into a chair and propped her feet against the console. And then put her feet on the floor. And then back up again. And then she stood to pace around the console, tinkering as quietly as she could with a few stray wires, her sonic, and a biscuit hanging out one side of her mouth. She wasn’t a fan of sitting still in this body, but also figured it would be best to appear busy when Yaz awoke.
She was just shimmying under the console for a closer look at the wiring behind a control panel when she heard Yaz yawn. The Doctor peered over her shoulder to see the hem of her own coat and Yaz’s shoes. She yelped as she whacked her forehead under the console and scooted out to meet Yaz’s sleepy gaze from the floor.
“How long was I out?” Yaz rubbed her eyes.
“Not too long, just enough for me to rewire the telepathic circuits for better efficiency.” Which was less than two hours. She picked herself up and beamed. “You’ve still got a good five or six hours of sleep left in you, what do you say?” Funny human quirk, needing so much sleep at once, every day. A full third their lives they spent asleep, as Earth turned under them and life elsewhere carried on.
“Lost my room,” Yaz mumbled. She hugged the coat closer around her.
“Well we can’t have that,” said the Doctor, dusting the front of her trousers. “Come on, I’ll walk you.” She wrapped an arm around Yaz’s waist and guided her gently to the hall. The TARDIS tittered to their backs, and the Doctor shot the center console a stern look.
Less than two minutes later, and she found the door she’d taken the time to engrave with Yaz in English and Gallifreyan. As soon as the fam had picked their rooms, she’d bounded around the TARDIS interior, marking their doors with her sonic. It felt more permanent, them all having their own rooms with their names on. More like a longstanding family. It had made Yaz and Ryan laugh that she’d also asked if they’d allow her to mark their heights against the doorframes, but this was vetoed, as it had yet to be proven if any of them had any growing yet to do, so she marked their heights anyway, invisible to their eyes.
“Here you are, Yaz,” said the Doctor, opening the door. She peeled her coat from Yaz’s shoulders and gave her a swift kiss on the temple as she did so. The Doctor pushed her own consciousness slightly beyond her own mind through her lips, against the borders of Yaz’s head. “Sweet dreams.” And she all but ran back to the control room, leaving Yaz dazed in her doorway, but sure to have pleasant dreams as she slept. Another lovely trick from Granny Five, who had a habit of implanting dreams about the possibilities of the Solitract into the Doctor’s head when she was a child. She even took dream requests and was able to induce them down to the finest details. It was her way of doting.
Perhaps the Doctor had overdone it, because Yaz didn’t seem to remember much of the previous night at breakfast, but she did say she’d had lovely dreams of their New Year’s tour.
The Doctor smoothed her hair where Yaz had kissed it. Funny things, humans. Endless potential and wonder, always changing, but still in need of routine. Capable of the greatest small kindnesses and largest of evils. Falling in love at the best and worst times. She allowed herself a small smile as she seated herself once more, eyelids drooping. The monitors and circuits whirred as the TARDIS rested, but for the bare scanners still sweeping the universe.
The TARDIS chirruped. “Of course I love her, I love my fam. Love my Yaz. And my Graham and my Ryan.” The Doctor leaned forward, elbows on the console. The TARDIS gave a pattern of beeps. “Oi, now, that’s not fair,” she said. “I tell them things!” The TARDIS fell silent and the Doctor yawned. “Doesn’t always have to be plainly spoken.” She rested her head on her elbow.
Rather than crane up at the monitor, she idly flourished her sonic above her head and examined it through her eyelashes, scrunching her nose as she squinted. No changes to the scan. Assurance enough to get another twenty minutes of rest.
She would wake well before the fam, who still had a good six hours of sleep left in their circadian rhythms. Time enough after routine maintenance and light travel to the other side of another star to try making waffles—which she hadn’t done in this body yet—and Graham would arrive in the kitchen first to a stack as tall as himself. Ryan would have three and wouldn’t be fully awake until he’d had coffee, and Yaz would be the last to arrive to the table, night owl that she was. It was enough of a comforting projection that the Doctor allowed herself again to doze, the top of her head still tingling.