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“Nothing?” The TARDIS beeped in affirmation. “Absolutely nothing on the scanners?” She chirped again, more insistently. “Unprecedented, unusual, but not unwanted,” said the Doctor, flicking through the monitor. “You won’t mind if I double check that.” The TARDIS made a grumpy gurgle over the sonic’s buzzing. “No, you’re right, there is absolutely nothing of consequence in this pocket of time.”
The TARDIS gave a series of clicks as if to say I told you so. “You win this round,” said the Doctor ruefully. She sprawled on the stair beside the console. “I can’t remember the last time I had nothing to do,” she said, reclining onto her elbows so she could stare up at the ceiling, blue hexagonal windows and screens winking down at her. “Be good to have a rest.” She closed her eyes, her sense of hearing stretching its fingers beyond what sight usually allowed. The Doctor could hear the TARDIS breathing: the inhale of artron energy through her systems, the way the particles fizzed and sloshed against her inner mechanisms, the exhale of recycled radiation back out into the universe. She timed her own breathing with the TARDIS; a momentary peace, for once, nothing out of place.
And, almost on its own, her foot started tapping. She opened one eye and watched the toe of her boot jog up and down. And then her ear started twitching, thumping the chain of her earring against the cartilage. And the fingers of her right hand started playing air piano—when had she even learned to play air piano?—and the TARDIS had fallen silent, amused as she watched the Doctor fidget. Boredom was a rare occasion for her, and it seemed as though this regeneration disliked it most of any other.
“Ugh, FINE,” she said, rising from the floor. From deep in her pocket, she pulled out her phone and thanked herself for installing speed dial. She pressed the first three buttons in quick succession and then wiggled her sonic over the phone.
Graham picked up first. “Doc? You have any idea what time it is?” He sounded congested and muffled, like his face was half-pressed into a pillow.
“Sure I do, Graham, it’s…” She peered at a miniature clock on the console. “Oh. Sorry about that.” She grimaced and buzzed the phone with the sonic again, closing the other two lines. “But listen, I was thinking we could get the fam together for a picnic on the other side of the constellation Lyra. There’s a lovely park and—”
“Sure love to, Doc, but Ryan and I’ve caught cold.” The Doctor heard Graham cough loudly on the other end.
“Cold? Common or exotic?” Her eyebrows shot up, and her hand strayed toward a compartment of cure-alls on the console.
“If by ‘exotic’ you mean summat we caught in space that makes you grow an extra head or what, it’s common.” He set the phone down and the Doctor could hear him blow his nose in the background.
The Doctor’s smile faltered, and her hand retracted from the cabinet. All the wonders and miracle cures of the universe at her fingertips and still no one had invented a cure for the common Earth cold. Tricky virus family.
“You still there?” Graham coughed.
“Yeah, Graham, you and Ryan rest up. Catch you up when you’re better.” She hung up, tapping the sonic against her pursed lips, eyebrows furrowed. A moment passed, then her eyes lit up and she twiddled the hour hand forward on the console. She pressed the first button on her phone and to her delight, Yaz answered, sounding utterly awake, well, and like herself.
“Yaz! Glad I caught you. Fancy a picnic?”
A frantically packed basket, one pickup and a TARDIS trip across a constellation later, they found themselves in what the Doctor described as “one of the galaxy’s best public parks.” Which it was, as she promised: everything from the fountains to the rocks and topiaries levitated on its own disc of soil, hovering a few feet above crystal water. To Yaz’s surprise and slight embarrassment, the Doctor took her hand in the TARDIS doorway and they hopscotched their way toward a hovering island large enough to spread a blanket and park their basket.
While the Doctor occupied herself playing parachute with the blanket, Yaz surveyed their surroundings. The weather was perfect, if a little hot, the sky above them clear as the nearest star radiated down. A humanoid couple took turns chasing their child around the playground further out. Yaz knelt at the edge of their plot and beneath her, she could see a rainbow of fish and coral in the clear water, sheltering in the shade.
“Don’t touch the water,” the Doctor called over, scanning the depths with her sonic. “Highly toxic inhabitants.” Yaz could have sworn one of the fish winked at her, grinning with teeth long as her fingers, and she scooted backward.
“Ryan and Graham are out ill?” Yaz seated herself at the edge of the blanket and opened the basket.
“Yeah, best not to hype this up too much to them, they’ll be devastated.” The Doctor scrunched her nose a little guiltily. She nibbled the end of a twig she’d found, and her eyes lit up. “Oh! I forgot this was a conservatory.” She pointed up at their tree, which sported long purple leaves shot through with gold veins, not unlike a vibrant laurel. “It’s an endangered species of tree found only in two places in the universe. Commonly called a scholar’s tree or sometimes a ribbonleaf. Here,” she said, reaching up to a lower branch and taking a tiny pink flower, which she tucked behind Yaz’s ear. She grinned with her mouth open, skin crinkling warmly around her eyes, and Yaz found it difficult to maintain eye contact, so she busied herself trying to unscrew the top of the first UFO-print thermos.
“If you’re looking for tea, that’s not the one,” said the Doctor, kneeling to help.
“What all did you pack for lunch?” Yaz asked, bordering on nervous. The Doctor sometimes had odd tastes in food—when she wasn’t tasting the dirt or any other non-foodstuff particle of their surroundings.
“Just the essentials,” said the Doctor proudly. “Instant ramen in your thermos there, Yaz, couple of fried egg sandwiches, a tin of biscuits—most important bit, there…” As she spoke, the Doctor passed each item to Yaz, whose arms quickly filled. “—spot of Earl Grey, pair of apples, a good book, and...” She reached deeper into the basket than should have been possible, pulled out a slightly squashed straw hat, and plunked it on her head.
Yaz bit her lip too late to stop the bubble of laughter rising. Between the odd selection of high sodium for lunch piled in her arms, the blush she could not stem from rushing her cheeks, and the yellow brim of the hat being too wide for the Doctor’s face, it was just enough to prod her in the ribs. A giggle escaped and the Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, disappearing into her hat.
“Oi, don’t laugh, this was Vincent’s hat!” She did not explain who Vincent was, and poured them both mugs of ramen, curly noodles trailing from the thermos. “And as to lunch, be glad you know me now. A couple lives ago, I’d have brought fish fingers and custard and nothing else to eat.” She passed Yaz a mug, which was printed with a classic green Martian flashing the peace sign. “Maybe an odd Jammie Dodger.”
They tucked in and the Doctor slurped her noodles happily, glancing over at Yaz every few minutes. To her relief, Yaz, too, seemed to be enjoying herself. With wide-eyed curiosity, she pointed out different species of aliens who had also come to enjoy the park, and the Doctor explained what each one was.
“And that’s an Ood! Love an Ood. Well, when they’re not possessed. Generally good, kind creatures, when someone isn’t taking advantage. Lovely singers.” The Doctor trailed off, staring past the park’s floating fence, and even past that.
“You’re doing it again,” said Yaz. She drained her mug of soup and set it down.
“Doing what?”
“That thing you do when you don’t want us to know something.”
“I am not! I finished what I was saying about the Ood.” She took a large bite of sandwich to finish and took her time chewing.
Yaz sighed. “If it’s something bothering you, you can tell me. Any one of us. We’re your friends, that’s what friends do. Tell each other things.”
“I tell you things, Yaz.” The Doctor leaned against the trunk of the tree. She lowered her hat to cover her face. “I tell you what an Ood is and when to run from Daleks. And about the Solitract. I tell you things,” she insisted through the straw.
“No, but about… about you. Like where you’re from, who you were, who you are. Who you met and knew and… and loved.” Yaz sidled over to gently pull the hat away. The Doctor’s hazel eyes peered out at her, suddenly sad and pleading, and Yaz was struck with the feeling that thousands of years and previous lives and everything in them—good and bad—were staring out at her, too.
“I am brilliant, but not that interesting,” said the Doctor quietly. “And I do tell you things, Yaz.” And Yaz could tell she meant more behind this last repetition than she was saying. She resolved to pay more attention to the negative spaces in the Doctor’s rampant speech, the things she did not say when she prattled rapidly on to herself and others.
They were quiet for a bit, both mollified by the turn in their conversation, sitting side by side, backs against the tree. Yaz held her mug under her nose, comforting steam curling and unfurling against her face. The Doctor clasped her own mug between her knees and dipped a biscuit. Her eyes strayed to her left, where Yaz sipped her tea, flower still in her hair. The Doctor brightened as an idea struck her.
“Do you know how to plait?” Yaz looked at her quizzically. “I’d do yours up, except I’ve never had the occasion to. Mostly been a man until now, probably get it all wrong.” Her shoulders pulled inward apologetically.
There it was: Yaz’s brooding expression melted into amusement. “Of course I know how to plait, I only grew up with a younger sister.”
“Oh, brilliant! Could you show me?” The eager smile had returned.
“Of course, you weirdo,” said Yaz. “Come here.” And the Doctor scooted close to sit between Yaz’s knees, back to her, coat puddling on the ground between them. Trying not to focus on the soft scent of engine oil mingled with chamomile emanating from the Doctor, Yaz had to force her fingers to stop trembling as she separated three strands of hair and began weaving. She let herself sink into the familiar feel of braiding, all those weekends with Sonya when they were little returning to her fingers. Sometimes Sonya still braided Yaz’s hair when she noticed Yaz was sad, the understanding silence between them a comfort.
The Doctor was practically vibrating with excitement, and she attempted to look back at Yaz every few seconds. “If I could just see—” Yaz, braid in hand, turned the Doctor’s face back toward the park. “—what you’re—” Turn. “—doing—” Turn.
“Almost,” said Yaz, pressing her lips together. She took the flower from behind her ear and wove the long stem into the Doctor’s hair, accenting the two neat little plaits traced along the sides of her head. “There. That’s you done,” she said with satisfaction.
The Doctor’s hands shot up to touch. Her fingertips patted each smooth ridge gingerly, and she turned around to beam at Yaz. “I love it,” she said, her smile growing wider by the second. “I can’t even see it and I love it! You’re really good at this. What d’you think? Is it me?”
Yaz’s mouth hung open as she forgot to say anything. The Doctor could have been glowing: the small change in her hairstyle a brand-new sensory experience for her. “S’alright,” Yaz managed. “Sonya does the more intricate work.”
“But these are Yaz plaits,” said the Doctor, still rosy. Again, she ran her fingers along them. “Now show me on you so I can learn.”
Half an hour later, Yaz pretended to doze with her head on the Doctor’s lap, a single braid on one side. (“Not as good as yours, but it’ll do for a first try,” said the Doctor as she finished. “It’s wonderful,” said Yaz, blushing.) Yaz peeked up with one squinting eye, blinded by the sunlight filtering through the leaves above them. The Doctor had picked up her book—Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds—and had finally settled enough to read. It was as still as Yaz had ever seen her: the Doctor held the book open with one hand, reading as though she would burst into dramatic oration of its contents. Her free arm rested across Yaz’s chest, the hand on her shoulder only moving when she needed to turn a page.
“I met her once, Agatha Christie,” said the Doctor without looking away from the book. “Almost died right after, but we sorted it in the end.”
“Will you tell me the story sometime?” asked Yaz.
“If you don’t mind the parts about my antics when I was a man. My mantics.” The Doctor licked her thumb and turned the page. “Donna was right chuffed meeting Agatha. Though she may have accidentally created Murder on the Orient Express.”
“Donna?”
The Doctor’s lips pulled into a hard line, but it was gone almost as soon as it had arrived. “An old friend. You didn’t think I spent all my past lives traveling alone, did you?”
“There were others like us? Like Team TARDIS?” Yaz sat up.
“There’s nobody out there even in the far corners of universe like you, Yaz,” she said, dodging the question, eyes drifting along the page.
“But you had a fam before Ryan and Graham and me?”
“Wasn’t always a fam, wasn’t always me, was it?”
“Doctor.”
The Doctor sighed and closed her book with a snap. “Alright, yes. There have been others. Not quite the same team structure, but I had other friends. Have. Have other friends.”
What Yaz really wanted to say was, There’s something you’re not saying. What she said instead was: “Sounds lonely.”
“It’s not lonely, I just told you I have friends!”
“Right, you see them often? Give them a call?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Why not?”
“Yaz...”
“Go on, Doctor.”
“I can’t, Yaz!” the Doctor snapped, her eyes wet. “If I tell you about the others, you’ll ask me to take you home and you won’t come back.” She and Yaz looked at each other. “Might be safer for you that way. It’s selfish of me to bring you along sometimes.” Yaz turned her gaze to the ground. “Because you’re right, it is lonely being this old when everyone else is living their linear lives and there’s an entire universe of space and time out there that needs fixing. They’re being born and living and fighting and loving and dying and I’m still me, blundering along wherever my TARDIS sees fit to drop me.”
Yaz stared hard at the grass. The Doctor had kept a very firm levee on this rising tide, and Yaz had only just punctured it; pressurized anguish bursting forth at a boil before the Doctor quickly patched it again. “I don’t think anything could make me stop wanting to be with you, Doctor,” she said finally.
The Doctor dry swallowed. “You might change your mind,” she replied in a hush.
“My mind’s made up,” Yaz pushed back. “What happened to them? Your other friends?” Deep in her gut, she still dreaded the answer, which she was sure would be something nasty. Will that happen to us one day? Yaz wondered, the unknown fates of others before her looming over her head.
The Doctor took her time choosing an answer, the different conversational trajectories calculated, recalculated, and rejected in her eyes. And to Yaz’s surprise, the Doctor smiled sadly. “They lived their lives.” She started collecting the remains of their picnic into the basket. “Come on, let’s clear up. Prime real estate, this plot.” They folded the blanket together, meeting in the middle, edge to edge, corner to corner, fingers grazing. All belongings collected, they hopscotched back to the TARDIS in silence.
The Doctor toggled controls on the center console, the TARDIS thrumming awake around them.
“We’ll have to make it up to Ryan and Graham,” she said, rotating a crank. “I’m thinking… star gazing on the planet Nyx, darkest planet in all the cosmos, so little light pollution. You’ve never seen a night sky like that one.” She pressed a green button and darted to the other side of the console. “We’ll meet them a week from my first call, shall we?” She pushed a pedal. “Meteor shower’s due over there soon.”
“I meant it,” said Yaz, leaning against a crystal pillar. The Doctor didn’t look at her as she flipped switches and turned dials. “I’d travel with you forever if I could. ‘Til I’m old, if you’d have me along.”
The Doctor’s shining eyes were the saddest Yaz had seen them when she looked up, a single worried crease between her brows. Still, she smiled softly. “’Course you can, Yaz. I’d love that.” The steady gaze between them lingered, then snapped in two again as the Doctor pulled the last lever and the TARDIS dematerialized.