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"Is a blindfold really necessary?"
Yaz waved her arms blindly in front of her, resisting the urge to pull the material away from her eyes. She knew the Doctor would be disappointed if she did. Luckily, the scarf had loosened slightly at the bottom so she could just about see where her feet were going, but that sliver of insight gave her no clues to their destination.
"It would spoil everything," the Doctor insisted and Yaz jumped a little from the sound of her voice so close to her ear. She could sense the Doctor nearby but hadn't realised she'd moved her head quite so close.
“But we must be nearly there. Right? We’ve been walking for ages.”
“Nearly, only….a little….more, hang on,” the Doctor said, reaching for Yaz’s arm. “Just adjusting your course.”
Yaz nearly rolled her eyes before realising the gesture would be fruitless. She bit her tongue instead, knowing that the Doctor was only trying to surprise her for her birthday. She’d turned up in Sheffield unexpectedly - Yaz hadn’t remembered even mentioning what date her birthday was on, never mind agreeing to see the Doctor on it - and had whisked Yaz away without any clues as to their destination. All Yaz had to go on was the sight of grass beneath her feet. The blindfold - the Doctor’s favourite rainbow scarf - was big enough to cover her nose and Yaz could only smell the faint aroma of the Doctor anyway. Sniffing out their destination was out of the question but Yaz was quite content to be surrounded by the comforting scent of Early Grey tea.
She could feel the sun warming her skin, which was nice. The weather back home had been a bit dreary and she’d not made plans for the day because she hadn’t really seen the point. Her birthday wasn’t a day she particularly enjoyed, and hadn’t enjoyed celebrating for many years. Then, like she’d tended to do ever since the day Yaz had met her, the Doctor had come along and changed things in subtle and marvellous ways.
“Okay...and….voila!”
The scarf fell away and Yaz winced as broad daylight hit her eyes. She blinked, taking in their surroundings. They were atop a small hill, looking down into a valley lined with trees and bushes, with a large body of water at the very bottom.
They weren’t alone, either: Yaz could make out people milling around the landscape, and then-
“Whoah,” she exclaimed, watching as a large winged creature swooped down to gather water from the lake. It looked like a pelican but judging by the size of the people nearby, it was much, much bigger.
“Pterodactyl,” the Doctor stated, equally awed. Yaz turned to look at her in shock.
“Have you brought me to Jurassic Park?” she asked, half-amazed, half-terrified. She knew how those films had ended and whenever the Doctor was around, trouble was sure to follow. A trip to an island of dinosaurs would probably not end well.
“Almost. All of the animals here were once extinct on Earth. But in the 23rd century, some bright sparks figured out how to bring them back and created the ultimate petting zoo.”
Yaz gawped. She looked around and true to the Doctor’s word, there were several large enclosures but otherwise, most animals were free to roam. She could make out groups of people feeding a herd of what looked like strange goats.
“A petting zoo?”
The Doctor nodded. “You can get up close and personal with everything here! Except the larger carnivores. They’re on the other side of the planet. Figured we’d keep things a bit more pedestrian today.”
The pterodactyl squawked and Yaz flinched at the sound as it echoed around the valley. She was certain she didn’t fancy petting that particular creature and she was relieved when it flew off in the other direction.
“Not to sound rude, but...why did you bring me here?” Yaz frowned, utterly confused. The Doctor’s face fell slightly.
“D’you not remember, Yaz? Your best birthday ever.”
Yaz was still struggling to remember when she’d even told the Doctor her birthday, never mind her favourite one.
“Your mum said it was, anyway, and since you never mention it I had to take her word for it. I hope I got that right," the Doctor added, uncharacteristically uncertain.
At the mention of her mum, it came back to Yaz in a rush. They’d been having tea when Najia had brought out some old family albums, insisting on showing them to the Doctor. Yaz had had to leave the room but not before her mum had pointed out pictures from her tenth birthday at Sheffield city farm. Her mum had been right - it was Yaz’s favourite birthday by far.
Although Yaz had been mortified beyond belief at the sight of the old photographs, she’d remembered the day vividly; it was the last birthday she’d enjoyed before the bullies at school had made her life a misery and deprived her of friends. It had been the last birthday she’d truly celebrated. And now…
Now, the Doctor was trying to recreate it for her, in a way that only the Doctor would.
She grinned tearily, pulling the Doctor into a sudden hug.
“Thank you,” she murmured, feeling the Doctor relax into the embrace. She wasn’t much of a hugger, but Yaz was working on it. “I can’t believe you remembered.”
“Of course I did, Yaz. Wouldn’t forget something as important as that. Although I don’t actually remember when my own is, funnily enough.”
Yaz felt her heart clench at the sound of melancholy in the Doctor’s tone. But then she was looking to her right, alerted by the sound of an animal that was prowling nearby.
“Yaz, look! A Tasmanian tiger!”
A hand gripped Yaz’s own and then they were off, the Doctor exuberantly leading the way and rattling off facts that Yaz barely took in. The Doctor was holding her hand. This was already turning into the best birthday ever.
Except the Doctor’s enthusiasm wasn’t limited to just pointing out the animals and educating Yaz about the finer points of bringing an organism back from extinction. It was a petting zoo, and she was fully intent on getting the most out of the experience. She leaned over one of the waist-high fences surrounding this particular enclosure, just about able to reach one of the animals that had come over to sniff her out.
“Look, I bet the fur is just as-”
The Tasmanian tiger bit her viciously, mid-sentence.
“-real-ow!”
Yaz winced as the Doctor yanked her hand back, shaking it to deal with the shock of the bite. Even though she was alien, she still seemed to feel pain and deal with it in a very human way, Yaz mused. In which case, that bite would certainly have hurt because the creature’s teeth were stained with blood and it had got her right in the join between thumb and forefinger.
“You okay?” Yaz asked, alarmed to see blood starting to bead up. She wondered how hygienic this all was.
“Yes. Although that was a bit rude,” the Doctor glared at the beast, taking a step back nonetheless. She was clearly about to stick the damaged skin in her mouth but Yaz beat her to it, carefully grabbing hold of her hand and reaching for one of the plasters she’d started carrying in her pockets. The Doctor had a tendency of nipping her fingers when she was fixing the TARDIS or burning herself when she was cooking, or...well...hurting herself in the most clumsy ways possible, at times. Yaz mentally questioned if a petting zoo full of wild animals was such a good idea, but she kept the thought to herself. The Doctor was clearly making a lot of effort on her behalf.
“Maybe we can just look, rather than touch?” she gently suggested, peeling the plaster out of its wrapper and carefully affixing it to the punctured skin.
“But that defeats the point, Yaz,” the Doctor protested, apparently not remotely bothered that an animal had tried to eat her.
“In that case, can we stick to the herbivores?” Yaz asked, passing her thumb over the fabric in a comforting motion.
“Fine,” the Doctor sighed, placated by the soothing gesture. “Dodos it is.”
It didn’t take long to find the flightless birds; they were bigger than Yaz had imagined, with wicked-looking beaks and beady eyes. They were roaming freely, which suggested they were much safer to approach than the Tasmanian tigers. Yaz watched as a family interacted with one, the children even clumsily stroking its feathers, but she couldn’t quite ignore the way their eyes freaked her out.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked, watching warily as the Doctor cautiously crept up to one, crouching with a handful of food. Yaz had no idea where it had come from, other than the depths of her coat pockets. One day she’d find out how the Doctor stored so much in there.
She breathed a sigh of relief as the bird ate the food without incident.
“See? Nothing to be scared of,” the Doctor grinned at Yaz, and then her face twisted as another bird boldly waddled over and viciously pecked at her palm, prompting her to drop the remaining food to the grass in surprise.
“Oi!”
If they’d been able to fly or had any sense of self-preservation, they’d have scattered at the sudden noise of alarm. Instead, the dodos looked dumbly at the Doctor and Yaz, before turning their attention to the food now scattered on the ground.
“No wonder they ended up getting eaten,” Yaz mused. “Too busy thinking about food. One-track minds.”
“Kind of ironic when you think about it,” the Doctor smiled, despite the fact she’d been on the receiving end of an animal attack for the second time in fifteen minutes. Her enthusiasm was infectious and Yaz found herself laughing at the situation she’d found herself in. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought she’d spend a birthday like this. The Doctor’s face lit up as she scanned the horizon and found something new to rave about.
“Ooh look, Yaz! A quagga!”
“A what?!” Yaz laughed again. She was certain the Doctor had started to invent words up by this point and she scrambled to keep up with her train of thought, wondering what animal she was referring to now. She’d heard of Tasmanian tigers and dodos, but a quagga sounded like a last-ditch attempt to get rid of Scrabble letters.
The Doctor had started running energetically towards a herd of what looked like zebras, slowing her pace slightly as she neared them. She was far closer than Yaz would have gotten but she avidly encouraged Yaz to follow her, beaming at her as she closed the gap between them.
“They look like zebras,” Yaz murmured, struck by the patterning of their fur. She’d always been a bit intimidated by horses, but she could ignore the fact that zebras were related simply because they looked much more exotic.
One thing she did know: horses (and their relatives) didn’t much like being stood behind, a fact she was just about to remind the Doctor of as she wandered too close to a quagga’s hind legs.
The reminder was just on the tip of her tongue when the animal kicked backwards in fright, clipping the Doctor in the side and galloping off, followed immediately by the others in the herd.
“No!” The Doctor exclaimed, distraught.
“Doctor!” Yaz shouted, scared out of her mind. But when the Doctor remained standing, seemingly winded only slightly, her unusual response finally registered. “No?” Yaz queried.
The Doctor patted her coat pocket gingerly, and Yaz could tell the animal had definitely made contact because she pulled a face as she moved her arm.
“Are you alright?” Safe in the knowledge that there were no other animals in the vicinity - she checked, first - Yaz approached the wincing Doctor, who was now rummaging in her pocket.
“I’m fine, Yaz. Just injured my pride a bit, is all. Get it? Oh wait, no. That’s lions.” Her face crumpled as her hand encountered something and she froze. “Great.”
“What’s wrong?”
The Doctor sighed. “Your cake.”
Yaz felt all sorts of emotions for a second - surprise, affection, empathy - before settling on a mix of the three.
“You brought me a cake?” she asked, genuinely touched. Once again, she wondered how the Doctor had managed to keep that safe and presumably upright within her coat pockets but when she saw the mangled mess of sponge and icing that the Doctor retrieved with her clean hand, she realised it didn’t really matter.
“Made you one,” the Doctor admitted, scrunching her face at the mess in her hand.
“Come on. It still looks good to eat. Sit with me?” Yaz asked, plonking herself on the grass and patting the space next to her. The Doctor eased herself down, knee briefly brushing against Yaz’s own. The sun had started to set, casting their surroundings in a beautiful pink and yellow glow.
“Sorry, Yaz. I just wanted today to be perfect but then, of all the things that could go wrong, the quagga had to kick the wrong pocket and throw a proverbial spanner in the works.”
The Doctor seemed genuinely disheartened, and Yaz felt affection win over. She reached across, gathering some of the sponge between her fingers and scooping it up and into her mouth, laughing at the mess she made as crumbs fell all over the place.
“It’s perfect, Doctor. You made it perfect.”
The Doctor’s expression softened.
“Really?” She was always so eager to please, and the least Yaz could do was convince her that she’d made her birthday truly special.
She nodded enthusiastically, reaching over for more cake and humming in happiness as she enjoyed the flavour. She wondered how much of her enjoyment stemmed from the fact the Doctor had made it but it really did taste good. Yaz could imagine the Doctor failing a few attempts before finally making something half-decent; baking was not her strong point. After a moment, the Doctor tried some for herself and her expression of surprise at how good it was made Yaz grin to herself.
They sat quietly for several moments, taking in the scenery and eating birthday cake.
In the distance, a woolly mammoth strode past.
Yaz could sense the Doctor turn to look at her, ready for the next adventure.
“We’ll be trampled, Doctor. I think, maybe...we shouldn’t go near anything. At all. We can admire from afar, instead.”
Yaz could feel her heart pounding as she turned to finally look at the woman next to her.
“Or close up. You know. Whatever works.”
To her relief, the Doctor’s expression of confusion turned to one of surprise and then acknowledgment. She smiled and Yaz felt her whole universe turn on its axis as nerves twisted her guts. Why had she said that? She didn’t know quite what to follow up with and the Doctor wasn’t saying anything, so she opted for the polite avenue of conversation.
“Thank you, Doctor, for bringing me here.”
“Any time, Yaz. Are you sure there’s nothing I could do to make it better?”
The Doctor knew exactly how that could be interpreted, Yaz realised, judging by the way her gaze flicked down to Yaz’s lips. She’d leaned in just a touch, close enough that Yaz could see a smudge of chocolate icing on the side of her mouth, the dusting of freckles on her cheeks from their afternoon spent together in the sun.
“Well, there is one thing…”
Yaz wasn’t sure who kissed who first, but there was one thing she was certain of: this was one birthday she would never forget.