Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“How come you ain’t taken us here before, then?” Graham asks, mouth agape at the sights surrounding them. Even the Doctor is slightly taken aback by how realistic the waterfalls are, although she knows they’re computer simulations. If she were to find the off switch, the vast depths of space would reveal themselves because they’re actually on a remote outpost in the last of the leisure galaxies, thousands of lightyears from home. Well, Earth, anyway. The Doctor almost considers it a second home, now, given that her found family are all from there; she tries not to think of Gallifrey. Travelling helps keep her mind off things.

“Thought I’d save this one for a rainy day,” she shrugs as she regards the others. They are desperately in need of some rest and relaxation. The Doctor’s companions look bone-tired and weary and the Doctor herself would not deny that she could also do with a little time to recoup some mental energy. The past few months have yielded several revelations that not only have made her question almost everything she knows, but have simultaneously driven a wedge between them all. This is her attempt to fix that, or at least make a start on patching things up.  

“Over there are the tidepools,” she points out, “and right over there is the beachfront and the arcade.” She sees Ryan’s face light up and grins at him. Things have been a little strained with Ryan in particular and the Doctor is relieved that he seems a bit more engaged than he has of late. 

“Can we?” he asks, and the Doctor nods. 

“We’re in one of the safest pockets in the universe,” she smiles. It's been a while since she's smiled so much and it feels a little strange but she's missed it and she makes a mental note to try it more often. “Go and have fun.”

Ryan hesitates only briefly before he departs, taking Graham with him when the older man expresses an interest in finding some ice cream and a deck chair. They're out of sight within seconds and the Doctor tries to relax and assume they will return unharmed.

That leaves the Doctor with the one remaining member of her fam. 

She turns to see Yaz still watching the waterfalls, her eyes wide and a delighted expression on her face. Despite everything they’ve been through, Yaz sees everything with fresh eyes. She doesn’t seem jaded. Their travels together seem to have given her confidence, yes, but she maintains a sense of wonder and the Doctor knows it’s this that will keep Yaz with her, far longer than Graham or Ryan. She can feel the boys slipping away a little, putting some distance between them, and she doesn’t blame them. When she recalls how distant she was and how she kept them at arm’s length, it’s almost to be expected. 

But Yaz...Yaz persisted and Yaz tried to understand. The Doctor flinches when she thinks about some of the things she’s said to her. 

My mood’s fine. 

You ask too many questions.

Get off me, Yaz!

The last outburst is raw and fresh in her mind and the Doctor briefly shuts her eyes in regret. She can still picture Yaz’s expression, the lone tear that escaped when Yaz realised what she was about to do. It had hurt the Doctor to leave them, but most of all it had hurt to leave Yaz like that. She’s incredibly grateful that they’ve been given another chance because for one terrible, terrifying moment, the Doctor had been convinced she’d never see Yasmin Khan again. The thought makes her feel a little nauseous.

She clears her throat and decides to stop torturing herself. Despite everything, Yaz doesn’t seem to hold a grudge. If anything, she is more self-assured than ever. But while the Doctor likes to see her resilience, it also makes her worry. Whenever her companions have become too headstrong, things have not ended well. She inevitably thinks of Clara, trying to do the right thing and paying the ultimate price. 

And yet she'd forgotten all about Clara Oswald until only recently. The thought of forgetting anyone else - of forgetting Yaz - is too difficult to contemplate. Memories are so important, and now the Doctor strives to remember everything she can about her wonderful, brave companions. They have taught her so much. Yaz is still teaching her things, even now. 

“Nice, aren’t they?” the Doctor says as she walks up to Yaz’s side. Yaz turns to look at her with a dazzling, genuine smile.

“Bit more than nice,” Yaz replies. “They’re also lime green.”

“I’m still waiting for them to introduce rainbow colours but apparently that’s beyond their engineering capabilities.”

“Let me guess...they declined your offer of assistance?”

The Doctor kicks at a stone with her boot. Yaz can read her like a book. 

“Perhaps,” she pouts, then shoves her hands in her coat pockets. “Did you want to go for a walk? See what else there is to see?”

To her surprise, Yaz shakes her head. 

“I think I’m good here, actually. It’s nice just to take it in. Sit still for a bit.”

Yaz wanders over to a nearby bench and the Doctor obediently follows. She’s not very good at staying put, but she also doesn’t want to leave Yaz and she wants to make an effort. She plonks herself down onto the wooden seat and tries to relax. 

“You don’t have to stay with me,” Yaz says, surprised. “I know you like to go and explore.”

“Think I’ve had enough of that for a little bit,” the Doctor admits. “You’re right. Sometimes it’s nice just to sit still.”

Her hands are clenched awkwardly in her lap, the only clue to her discomfort. In truth, when the Doctor stops moving it’s very hard to ignore the noise in her mind. It’s partly why she is always on the run. But sitting down here, with Yaz, is relaxing and it brings her some peace. Perhaps she should have tried that mindfulness course Bill had suggested. The mere thought of Bill sends a spike of grief through her and she's not quite ready for it. Her hands clench so tightly that her knuckles turn white. 

When Yaz reaches for her hand, she almost jumps out of her skin. 

“Hey, it’s just me. Is this alright?” Yaz asks, running her thumb over the back of her hand. It doesn’t take long for the Doctor to settle into the touch, although it’s very light. So light, in fact, that it’s barely tangible. 

The Doctor looks down and realises she’s stroking her own hand. 

Her head jerks up in shock. Yaz is not beside her. In fact, when she looks around, nobody is there, not even Graham or Ryan, even though she swears she can still hear the ghost of Ryan’s laugh. 

Instead, she’s surrounded by four stone walls and a barred window. The bench isn’t there, either; cold concrete is keeping her upright and it is seeping into her bones. Not that she can really feel much of anything: the Doctor feels numb to her surroundings, numb to the cold air, numb to the distant mechanical noise outside her cell. Beyond that are the depths of space and she knows they make a low kind of hum that only she can hear but right now she’s numb to them, too. 

Her whole head feels like it’s full of cotton wool and she blinks, her eyes aching with tiredness. She doesn’t know how long she’s been daydreaming for but it wasn’t quite long enough and she tries to cling to the idea but it slips away too easily, receding into reality. She wasn’t ready for Yaz to leave. The Doctor closes her eyes, tries to conjure the happy images once more, but the cold has well and truly sunk in; she is aware of it, now, when moments before she had been blissfully unaware and floating in a world of her own creation. 

Leaving that world hurts. It's becoming harder and harder to make the distinction between reality and her imagination but it's also increasingly difficult to remember what Yaz actually looks like. The Doctor wishes she had paid more attention but deep down she knows that she has practically memorised Yaz's face, just like those of her other companions: they are seared onto her mind like a brand. It seems that captivity is to blame for the erosion of her memories and her sanity. That, and the simple passage of time. Memories fade, no matter how hard she tries to keep them alive. One day she’ll forget them entirely. They will simply slip away and she’ll be none the wiser, because that’s how memory works and the Doctor despises it.

The Doctor blinks again. She doesn’t know when she ended up lying on the floor - she doesn't know how long it's been since she was so rudely pulled out of her daydream - but lying there takes up less energy and she turns her gaze to the blank expanse of the ceiling. Try as she might, she can’t even summon the strength she's saved to fill it with the comforting images that have been keeping her company. She stares at the cracks and the bumps and tries to let her mind relax.

All she knows is that time has passed. Time always passes but for the Doctor, linear time is incomprehensible. She doesn't know how her humans do it. Cutting in and out of time and space is the only way she knows how to live and even if she wasn't alone in a prison cell, simply living in a linear fashion would be a cruel and unusual punishment. 

The isolation is just the cherry on top. The thought of food makes her stomach ache. She has no idea when she last ate but she knows that what passes for food here isn’t nearly appetising enough and her appetite is currently a bit hit or miss, anyway. She has too much on her mind. The Doctor groans as she concedes to lethargy and drapes an arm across her eyes. The weight of it is grounding and she concentrates on it. 

"Come on, Doctor. Remember them. Think. Or you'll turn into a pudding brain."

She snorts lightly at her choice of words. Apparently she's regressing. 

The Doctor rolls onto her side, her arm falling heavily to the ground. At first, she'd rolled up her coat and used it as a pillow but now she's so cold that she endures the physical discomfort for the meagre warmth it offers her. She turns her head, eyes still closed, and speaks backwards, over her shoulder and into the room. 

"You're not a pudding brain, Yaz. Help me. How do I get out of this?"

The Doctor forgets she's alone for a second and realises she is waiting for an answer that will not come. She really would value Yaz's thoughts right about now. Or even just her company. Yaz could simply be sitting in the corner, doing nothing much at all, and the Doctor would feel much better.

Mixing reality with imagination can be dangerous because the mind is a powerful thing and the Doctor's mind is a very powerful thing indeed. But when she feels herself starting to slip she lets herself entertain such idle fantasies. They give her comfort and right now she very much needs all the comfort she can get. She's been deprived of it for a very long time, reluctant to pursue it even when her companions were by her side. So many missed opportunities.

The Doctor imagines what it would be like to be hugged by Yaz. She tries not to think like this because the more days that pass, the more likely it is that it will never happen. The Doctor tries not to dwell on the past, and the mistakes she's made; pushing Yaz away is something she deeply regrets and it's almost too painful to think about. But the thought of simple human contact soothes her and she wraps her arm around her aching stomach. It’s a feeble imitation but it works and she starts to relax, so much so that at some point she actually manages to fall asleep. Her dreams, as always, are restless and hectic. She despises sleeping but it passes the time and right now it seems to be the only thing she can actually do. Feeling helpless is never something she enjoys and her dreams are a whirlwind, leaving her even more confused and befuddled when she awakes.

This time she comes to with a gasp because something has woken her up, mid-dream. A sound, a very loud sound, is blaring and causing her eardrums all sorts of grief. It sounds like an alarm, she realises. No doubt one of her fellow prisoners has managed to cause trouble, and she sits up and stares at the red lights that flicker across her wall and pretends they’re the fireworks she took her fam to see for New Year’s. It's the most stimulation she's had in a very long time and it's almost unbearable; for a brief moment, the Doctor wonders if she's actually imagining it, because she’s started hearing things of late. 

For instance, she could have sworn she'd heard Amy's voice at some point in recent history. Perhaps it had been weeks, or months, or perhaps it had been three hours ago; regardless, the Doctor thinks about Amelia Pond as she pulls her knees up to her chest and tries to ignore the chaos that's causing her such discomfort. 

Amelia Pond. The Doctor can almost hear her Scottish lilt if she thinks hard enough, which is very difficult to do with the noise surrounding her, but she tries, anyway. Amy Pond had waited for 12 long years. Inevitably, the Doctor wonders if her fam are waiting for her now. If Yaz is waiting for her now. She hopes that Yaz made it home safe, with the others. She wonders how long she's been back on Earth. It's hard to know when she has no idea how long she's even been in this cell. It could have been two weeks or two years or two decades and the Doctor tightens her grip around her bony knees as the idea takes hold. She hopes it hasn't been that long, although right now it feels like she's been trapped for a very long time indeed.

"Stop it," she moans. She's speaking to herself again but that's not always a bad thing. It had helped her get out of the Matrix, after all. But the thought of the Matrix brings with it the memories that the Master had brought to light and she shudders as they threaten to engulf her once and for all. 

She forces herself to think of Graham's cheese and pickle sandwiches. 

That helps. The Doctor laughs in despair when she realises that she could actually murder one of them right about now. 

She scrambles for something else to cling on to as she rides a frightening wave of disorientation. There’s a different noise now, footsteps outside. At least, she thinks they’re footsteps. She thinks of Ryan trying to teach her how to floss, and then she thinks of that time she and Yaz danced together under the moonlight. 

Except she and Yaz had never danced together. The Doctor had just pretended they had so she could imagine what Yaz would look like in her arms as they moved together, in sync, partners. She adds it to the long list of things she wished she’d done and hadn’t.  

“You bloody fool,” she mutters in frustration, grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes as if she could erase the mental image. It hadn’t happened and it wouldn’t, at this rate. 

The footsteps are even closer now, ringing off the metal floor outside, but the Doctor is almost afraid to open her eyes. It’s one thing hearing voices, but as much as she’d love to see a familiar face one last time, she’s deathly scared that she’ll be imagining that, too. 

So she focuses on her other senses. Her hearing is very good and it can differentiate the steps from the alarm; whoever she can hear is wearing heels. Not a very practical choice, but apparently this person is well-practiced at running in them. 

River was always good at running in heels. 

The Doctor hasn’t thought of River in so long that the abrupt memory almost takes her breath away. She reels with guilt. Recently, Yaz has taken up many of her waking thoughts, so much so that she’s almost forgotten about her wife. To her relief and dismay, she can still picture River so vividly that she can smell her perfume. 

The door to her cell opens; at least, she thinks it does, but her eyes are still closed and her hands are firmly clamped over her ears to try and drown out the sound. When a hand grabs her arm, the Doctor shrinks in on herself on instinct, terrified at the sudden contact. There’s nobody here. There can’t be. This is a particularly cruel trick her mind is playing on her and she cries out, kicking her feet so that she can press herself against the wall. The wall is real, that much she knows to be true. 

“Doctor?”

She can hear River’s voice, too, and it breaks her hearts. Why is her mind this cruel? 

“No. Stop!” The Doctor keeps her eyes firmly shut, twisting her head away, until a gentle touch on her cheek makes them fly open, despite her best efforts. Her jaw drops, horrified. 

“Doctor, can you hear me?”

River Song is in front of her, crouching on her heels. She’s illuminated by the flashing red lights and the Doctor congratulates her brain on being so clever it can create such a realistic hallucination. 

“This is what happens when I’m left on my own for too long,” she says, and then she makes a sound that could very well be a laugh. But she’s out of practice and the sound is as broken and jagged as she is. River frowns. The Doctor does, too, when she sees her response: River should be in on the joke, given that she’s a figment of her imagination. 

“What?” The Doctor reaches out in disbelief, her arm trembling with the effort. The moment her fingertips touch the end of River’s hair, she gasps. 

“Sweetie, I’m here,” River smiles, but her eyes are shining and she looks so distraught that the Doctor simply can’t bear it. Whether River is actually there or not, the last thing the Doctor ever wants is for her to be sad, even if she feels like a shell of a person herself.

“Your timing is impeccable,” she jokes weakly, because she wants to see River smile again. It works, but tears still spill onto River’s cheeks as she cups the Doctor’s shaking arm with a steady hand. The support is much needed but, even more, the contact with another person is what finally breaks through to the Doctor. Her mind might be clever, but it isn’t that clever.

“I wish I’d got here earlier,” River admits as she takes stock of the Doctor’s appearance. The Doctor feels self-conscious when she remembers that this is the first time River has seen her...like this . They were never meant to meet and yet River is here, somehow. It does not make sense in the slightest, but the Doctor’s mind is churning and her thoughts are so far from logical that she doesn’t have the capacity to question it. 

River is still talking while the Doctor struggles to catch up. 

“...but right now, we need to get you out of here.”

“How?” the Doctor asks, genuinely despondent. She’s not sure how River broke in, never mind how she plans to get them out. It doesn’t seem feasible but River does not seem too concerned about the logistics and that helps put the Doctor’s mind at ease.

Rather than answer, River holds out her other hand and starts to guide the Doctor to her feet but it’s been a while since she has stood upright and the effort it takes is monumental. Even once she’s upright, she loses her balance within seconds thanks to a sudden wave of vertigo, but River is there. The Doctor thanks her lucky stars that she is. River reaches for one of the Doctor’s arms and drapes it around her neck to help keep her up, then starts to fiddle with the device on her wrist. 

“Oh no,” the Doctor groans when she sees what River is up to. She doesn’t like vortex manipulators in the slightest, but there is another sound now, heavy footsteps approaching. And there are a lot of them. 

“Don’t,” River warns her. She knows what the Doctor is about to say. “Cheap and nasty time travel is what’s going to get you out of here, love.”

The Doctor braces herself as River finalises her preparations and just as her captors reach the door, River presses a button and the space around them warps and disappears completely. 

The fresh air is almost overwhelming when they arrive at their destination. 

The Doctor falls to her knees onto the wet sand and takes several shuddering breaths, her fingers digging into the ground and holding on tight as she closes her eyes against the wave of nausea that threatens to empty her stomach. It’s a losing battle, though, and she gags on nothing, her stomach heaving and her eyes stinging as her body protests against River’s chosen method of transport. 

She feels a warm hand on her back, right between her shoulder blades, and River is muttering something soothing but the sound of waves crashing against the shore is so loud that it almost drowns them out. The shock of the open air is like a slap to the face and once the Doctor catches her breath, she lifts her head just high enough to take in their surroundings. A cold, strong wind blows her hair in front of her face and obscures her vision but she’s not felt the elements in so long that she doesn’t find it as annoying as she might once have done. There are storm clouds on the horizon, low and mean-looking. But the Doctor has always enjoyed a good storm. They’re cathartic. The wind whips the waves into a frenzy but the water, although it looks baltic, also looks appealing and the Doctor pushes herself to her feet with a grunt. River steadies her as she manages to work her way upright. 

She feels dizzy, again, for a second and then she feels her centre of balance settle enough that she can kick off her boots. Clad only in her socks, she takes a wobbly step forward, then another. It feels strange to wear socks on the beach but she can’t be bothered to take them off and besides, what’s the point? It's not like she looks remotely presentable as it is. The thought makes a smile tug at her lips, the feeling foreign. She can still taste bile. She needs to feel clean. She takes another step, then another.

“Doctor? What are you doing?”

The Doctor hears River, but she does not respond. Thankfully, River doesn’t push; she offers silent support in the form of a comforting hand. 

When they reach the water, the Doctor hears River’s sharp intake of breath as the icy waves smash into and break over their legs. It’s shockingly cold but the Doctor is already so numb that she barely feels it. She does, however, feel the sensation of water against her tired skin, and that feels incredible.

She can see their shoes behind them - her boots and, a little further down, River’s heels - and the sight of their footwear lying so close together brings a smile to her face. Then she looks at River, who seems utterly bemused by the Doctor’s antics. She’s shivering. 

“If you wanted a bath, all you had to do was ask,” River shouts over the noise of the waves. “There’s one inside.”

She turns to point down the shoreline and, sure enough, there’s a cottage tucked into the ridge.

“Is that yours?” the Doctor asks, and finally, finally , the cold of the waves is starting to register. As if on cue, a peal of thunder rumbles across the sky. She’d missed the lightning but moments later she sees more, streaking across the sky and lighting up the clouds from inside. It’s magical to watch and the Doctor is enthralled by the pure, raw beauty of nature. She hasn’t seen it in so long and being in it makes her feel alive, again, even if they are completely exposed. Fat rain drops start to pelt her coat and she’s soaked through from head to foot within seconds, apparently deaf to River’s entreaties to get inside. 

“Doctor, come on,” she pleads again, raising her voice above the noise of the oncoming storm. “You need to rest.”

River has moved to stand in front of her now, shielding her from the surf. She has to hold onto the Doctor’s arms for balance and together, they keep one another upright, like they always have. She takes up the Doctor’s field of vision; behind her, jagged lines of lightning fill the sky, but the Doctor is instead taken in by the natural beauty in front of her. River sees her watching and the smile that teases at her lips is one that the Doctor has very much missed.

“Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s get somewhere a little warmer, hmm?”

It’s only once they’re out of the waves that the Doctor realises she’s shivering. River picks up her boots for her and when the Doctor insists on carrying them, she protests for as long as it takes the Doctor to slide her free hand into River’s own. The familiar gesture leaves her speechless and they walk the short distance in comfortable silence. It would be futile to talk over the sound of the downpour and River suspects they will have quite a lot of time to catch up over the coming days. She hopes so. Besides, River knows better than to push and it’s clear that the Doctor is going to need time to recuperate, if the way her clothes hang off her frame is anything to go by.

She squeezes the Doctor’s hand. No matter what body the Doctor is in, they always feel the same on some elemental level and this version of her Doctor is no different, despite outward appearances. 

River closes the solid wooden door behind them with a sigh of relief. The storm has picked up outside and they are both dripping all over the floor but they are safe, for now. Safe and alone and, River is relieved to note, warm. The fire she’d lit a few hours ago is still alive, barely, and she guides the Doctor to an armchair in front of it before she stokes it back to life. She wonders if she’ll have to do the same with her wife.

Her wife.  

The thought brings a smile to her face but it evaporates when she turns to look at her. The Doctor looks like a ghost and she’s shaking, clearly uncomfortable. 

“I’m going to run you a bath, alright?” River says, and it’s not a question but she knows the Doctor needs the illusion of control. The Doctor nods and she’s still fumbling with her braces when River returns moments later, accompanied by the distant sound of running water. 

“Here,” she murmurs, crouching by the Doctor’s knees. She guides the golden elastic from her narrow shoulders, fingertips briefly outlining her defined collarbones. Her hair is longer than it had been in the picture the TARDIS had shown her, far past her shoulders, and it gives River a rough idea of how long the Doctor must have been in captivity.

"Why here?" the Doctor asks, her voice quiet. She's got a Yorkshire accent and it takes River a moment to adjust to it, but it suits her. Her hazel eyes regard River as she starts to lift her shirts away. She shivers violently then, and River makes a soothing sound as she helps her to her feet to remove her trousers. It's business-like and efficient and the Doctor is grateful because she won't admit it but she really needs to sit down. She had no idea that standing up required quite so much energy and it's in short supply.

"Thought I'd take a holiday. Get away from it all," River tries to lighten the mood. It’s a little strange undressing somebody for the first time, particularly when it’s an intimate acquaintance who just happens to possess an entirely new body.

The Doctor sniffs the air, apparently unbothered by the fact she’s now completely naked. 

"Scotland?" she guesses. "Brave choice at this time of year."

“I thought you’d appreciate a change of scene,” River says wryly, trying to keep her eyes at face level. She can practically hear the Doctor chattering with cold and she pulls away just briefly to grab a warm towel, but a cold grip around her wrist stops her from moving away properly. 

“Wait,” the Doctor murmurs. “Can I…”

River waits for the Doctor to clarify but when she feels skinny arms wrap around her waist, she almost drops the towel in her hands.

She wasn’t expecting a hug. Judging by the clumsy grasp, the Doctor isn’t used to giving them, either, so River abandons the material in her hands and gives them both the simple comfort of a shared embrace. When she feels just how small and slender the woman in her arms is, River is glad her face is hidden because it helps hide her tears.

Chapter Text

River wants to burn the Doctor's clothes but she resists temptation and washes them instead. Several times. The rainbow colours start to shine through with each wash and they give her hope that the Doctor will be able to do something similar; that with a bit of time and patience, she will return to her true self. Despite not having met this particular Doctor before, River knows she is not herself, because her eyes - when they are open - are more haunted than they’ve ever been. Thankfully, the Doctor is resting and River does not have to witness her pain too often. 

Cleaning the clothes also gives River something to do while the Doctor sleeps and although she's never had the patience for needlework, she has a good stab at it - pun intended when she keeps pricking her finger with the needle. It all feels a little more domestic than she’s used to but River knows the facade will disintegrate once the Doctor has recovered, so she takes what comfort she can from it, despite never considering herself to be true housewife material. 

The pretence also makes her new reality a little easier to accommodate. The Doctor is so quiet that River has to check she's actually breathing on one occasion and she longs for her to wake so that the silence is broken. It's never a good sign when the Doctor is quiet, but River regrets her thoughts when, after several hours of nothing, the Doctor's dreams turn restless and a constant murmur of sound streams from her lips. 

River can practically feel the heat radiating from the body in the bed when she draws near. She places the back of her hand against the Doctor’s forehead, then her cheeks, noting the rosy flush and the rapid movement of her eyes behind their lids. 

“You’re burning up,” she mutters to the room, worrying at her lower lip as she strides over to the wardrobe and rummages for some material to soak in cold water. Another storm is raging outside and an echoing rumble of thunder accompanies River’s movements as she runs the tap in the adjoining bathroom.

River briefly eyes the bathtub and the mess they’ve left behind - there is a small mountain of damp towels on the floor, and a puddle from where she’d dried the Doctor off - and she is distracted by the memory of it. The Doctor had tried to laugh off any potential awkwardness but it had been torture to see the way her ribs were protruding, the jut of her hipbones. 

“When was the last time you ate?”

River reached for another towel, busying herself with the task of drying the Doctor’s legs. 

“Prison food doesn’t agree with me.”

“If it’s anything like what I used to get, I can understand that.” River was sympathetic, already mentally calculating how she could help the Doctor regain her strength. She had no idea what this particular Doctor even liked to eat, but she knew that fish fingers and custard would probably be out of the question.

The Doctor started to tilt alarmingly to one side, and River could see her thighs trembling with the effort of standing for so long. 

“Hold onto my shoulder, love,” she suggested, the endearment slipping out before she could stop it. The Doctor wordlessly reached out a hand and rested it on River’s shoulder, taking her advice without comment. That in itself was unusual and River glanced up to see the Doctor watching her like a hawk. 

“Nearly done,” River said, smiling in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “And then you can rest for a little while, and I’ll see what I can whip up for breakfast, hm? I’m sure some sleep will do you good.”

That had been 15 hours ago.

The noise of the storm now provokes sounds of distress from the woman in the bed and River hurries back to her, cool cloth in hand. She tries to forget what she’s seen. The Doctor wouldn’t want River to remember her like that and River thinks it’s desperately unfair that she even has to. 

“Shhh,” she soothes, placing the cool cloth on the Doctor’s forehead. She rests it there for a moment, making sure the Doctor won’t pull it away in agitation, and is relieved when she settles a little. But River can still feel the heat emanating from her and she knows she needs to cool her down as a matter of urgency.

They weren’t in the sea for long enough, or exposed to the elements for enough time for the Doctor to have been made ill by exposure. No, this is something else entirely. River knows what solitary confinement can do to a person, although she’d been lucky enough to manage several excursions from prison; if she hadn’t managed to leave, every now and again, she dreads to think what it would have done to her. She fears the evidence of it is right in front of her now. 

River contemplates the strange woman in her bed as she tries to cool her down. 

The Doctor is incredibly resilient, River knows that much. But she also knows they are not infallible; that, despite how well travelled they may be, they are not immune to the same emotions and flaws that characterise their human companions. This particular Doctor seems a little different to the one she left on Darillium. She's younger, and her clothes - although they were filthy and torn when River first saw them - are now bright and colourful, restored to their former glory. They speak volumes about the person who wears them and River hopes the Doctor will be equally revived and returned to herself before too long.  

This Doctor has younger eyes, too. River can see subtle lines at the creases of them, suggesting that she laughs and smiles a lot. River hopes she can witness this for herself, once the Doctor is back on her feet. But there’s also a furrow in her brow that looks like it makes a regular appearance. Perhaps this Doctor is not as light-hearted as River assumes. She picks up one of the Doctor’s hands and can’t help but compare how small it is to all the others. It’s only a little larger than her own, but the tell-tale calluses are there. River imagines these hands working on the TARDIS, no doubt causing more harm than good, and smiles. Some things never change. 

But something is wrong. When the Doctor starts to talk in her sleep, River’s heart sinks. She knows a little of the burden the Doctor bears but they’ve never truly talked about it. It’s only when the Doctor is on the edge of delirium that it becomes apparent. 

River loses count of the names that fall from the Doctor's chapped lips, but there’s one that seems to appear more often than the others. At first, she’s not sure what the Doctor is saying, but in a rare moment of clarity, the Doctor’s eyes fly open and she asks, panicked, if Yaz is coming. 

River has no idea who that is, but she smiles and nods and assures her wife that yes, Yaz is coming soon, now try and get some rest. 

The fever shows no sign of loosening its grip but it doesn’t worsen, so River does what she always does - she is patient, and she waits. She thinks a lot, because there isn’t much else to do and the alternative is to exhaust herself even more with worry. It feels like they are living on borrowed time and River has rarely been as aware of time passing as she is right now. Each moment is excruciating. Deep down, River is still adjusting to the shock of seeing this Doctor - a woman, no less, caged in the prison that she herself had once called home. River often wonders if the universe has a sense of humour but when the Doctor continues to twist restlessly in the sheets, River decides that none of this is very funny, at all. 

She hates seeing the Doctor like this, and she wants to curse the circumstances that led them here. But River made a vow: in sickness and in health. Then again, their marriage was hardly ever conventional. River has to force herself to think of it in the past tense. River Song and this Doctor were never meant to meet, but they have, somehow. River clings to the fact that this Doctor at least knows who she is. It makes caring for her easier and harder all at once because River knows she needs to put up some boundaries and she suspects it will pain them both to acknowledge them. She does not look forward to that discussion but she knows it will come.

The next time the Doctor opens her eyes, her fever has finally broken. River is still worried sick. The Doctor has been in turmoil for the best part of two days, no doubt made even weaker by the ravages of such a pernicious fever, and she’s barely audible.

"River?" 

"I'm here," she says, instantly dropping the cloth in favour of what she hopes is a soothing hand across the Doctor's brow. She’s relieved to feel that it’s already cooler. "I'm here. I always will be." It’s a lie, but it slips out before River can stop it. 

"I know," the Doctor smiles, and it's the first sign of recognition she's shown in days. A rare lucid moment. 

“You were burning up,” River informs her. “And I still don’t know what’s wrong.”  

“Been through worse,” the Doctor says, her voice quiet. The look of pain in her eyes re-emerges before she can mask it fully.

“I can only imagine,” River replies, wishing she could do more to take that pain away. They regard each other openly, both taking in each other’s appearance. 

“You look like you’ve seen better days,” the Doctor comments, her eyes bloodshot. River huffs out a laugh. 

“Are you really insulting my appearance right now?” she chides, and her own eyes start to sting with unshed tears. She’s not upset by what the Doctor has said, rather the characteristic way in which she has hidden her pain by using humour. River falls in love with her all over again in that moment and she curses herself for it because she’d been so certain they’d said goodbye. She hadn’t expected an epilogue.

The Doctor’s answering grin is lopsided and her eyes start to drift closed, but not before she tugs on River’s hand. 

“Get in. Sleep.”

“You need to rest,” River retorts, shaking her head. As tired as she is, she doesn’t want to compromise the Doctor’s recovery by crowding her. The bed is slightly smaller than a double, just big enough for two. 

“So do you,” the Doctor mumbles, and the lines in her forehead start to smoothen out. River watches her for a moment. She seems less distressed than before, and the sleep she’s drifting into already seems far more restful. River feels her forehead again to be certain the fever has gone and when the Doctor makes a contented sound at the touch, her resolve starts to crumble. Rest would do them both good and she is at the end of her tether, worn out by worry and grief. 

When the Doctor starts to shiver with cold, River’s decision is made for her. She knows it's probably a bad idea, that she'll get too attached, but the woman in the bed is so small and so fragile-looking that River simply stops thinking and lets her instincts take over. She climbs into the bed and helps guide the Doctor onto her side, moulding herself to her back and sliding an arm around her waist. 

The other woman is tiny, like a bird, and River worries she'll break her if she holds on too tightly. But a surprisingly strong grip pulls her arm closer and she finds herself tucking her nose into the Doctor's hair, not an inch of space between them.

“Better,” the Doctor sighs happily, and River feels her heart breaking all over again. She recalls the tentative hug they’d shared and wonders how starved of contact the Doctor has been. 

“Just rest. You're safe, I promise. You're with me, and you're safe. You're safe.”  

When the Doctor awakes the next morning, the storms have passed, leaving peace in their wake. The sound of the ocean is calm and distant, and sunlight streams around the edges of the curtains. Her body aches and it’s stiff, and she longs to move, but there’s an arm around her waist and the tickle of regular breaths on her neck. River is still sleeping behind her, and the Doctor doesn’t want to wake her. 

It’s a relief to wake up and be aware of where she is. Her dreams had been so vivid and so detailed that they had felt real, akin to the daydreams she’d conjured up in her prison cell. But the fever had been far less kind, stifling her in a relentless vice that meant she couldn’t escape her thoughts of the Master, Gallifrey, and the contents of the Matrix. Blowing it up with her memories would have been alright if she’d had the capacity to restore her mind afterwards, but the Judoon had put paid to that by isolating her, instead. She’d needed the comfort of familiar faces and some time to think - but instead had received nothing but time to think and no comfort at all. The balance had been all wrong and she had paid for it when River had broken her free because she might well have escaped from a physical prison, but the mental one took a lot longer to be free of. River had been the unfortunate witness to that. 

A familiar sound behind her pulls the Doctor from her thoughts. River is waking up. She’d know that sound anywhere: the shift in her breathing, the gentle sigh as wakefulness shatters the remnants of her dreams. The Doctor hopes they were happy dreams, at least, and finally breaks the contact to turn and greet River when she opens her eyes. 

“Morning,” she murmurs, and it feels strange to talk after so long without sensible person-to-person contact. “Afternoon?” she amends. “Maybe.”

River’s answering smile is sleepy and the Doctor resists the urge to brush the curls from her face. She knows they have to be careful. 

River props herself up on an elbow, and the gesture floods the Doctor’s mind with different memories. They are less of an assault on the senses but they still leave her reeling; all those times she’d woken up in bed with River Song, condensed into one concise flashback. 

The aftershocks are clearly visible because River curses softly and cups the Doctor’s chin in one hand. 

“Doctor? Come back to me, please.”

The entreaty works and the echoes fade, and the Doctor slips back into their reality once more. It’s scary how easy it was to get lost but she knows that with practice, she can stop doing it. Eventually. It had kept her sane, in a way, but it’s a bad habit to rely on her mind for comfort when it’s so fractured. River is here and that is a comfort in and of itself. 

“That’s starting to get annoying,” the Doctor admits, finally easing herself up up and scrubbing at her face with her hand. Although she knows River already helped her bathe, she’s certain she’s in need of a wash and she wrinkles her nose at the thought. 

“I definitely need to get out of these clothes,” she mutters, picking at the loose shirt River has dressed her in. But she’s fallen into a trap of her own making and her choice of words instantly makes her think of Yasmin Khan. This time, the memories that flood her mind are entirely different and she slams her eyes shut, trying to forget the agonising expression on Yaz’s face when she’d left her behind. 

She shuts them for too long, though, and River notices. Of course she does. And of course she’s there, rubbing circles into her back as she mutters soothing nonsense in her ear, waiting for the tide to turn. When it does, the Doctor takes a heaving breath, hearts hammering wildly, and pulls her knees up to her chest. 

“I’m not going to ask if you want to talk about it,” River says, and the Doctor is grateful. She suspects that River is protecting herself, too, because she is a wise woman. “But I am going to make you something to eat.”

The Doctor showers slowly, focusing on the things she can touch. She feels the cool tile of the bathroom underneath her feet, the slick condensation on the mirror as she wipes it away. It takes her a second to recognise her own reflection. She’s lost weight, which would explain why River is intent on mentioning food so much, but her whole face has changed. The arrangement of her eyes and nose are the same as ever but there are different lines there and her mouth turns down, slightly, where it used to turn up. The Doctor tries a smile and almost frightens herself with it. 

She turns away, shaken by her appearance, and focuses on her hair instead. It’s now so long that she actually needs to brush it properly and tie it up, and she focuses on that task, which is new and distracting. She misses her short hair. This long hair is far too impractical although being able to get it out of her face is something of a relief. 

The towel stays tucked around her while she searches for her clothes. River has apparently cleaned them, for they sit neatly folded on an armchair in the bedroom. But the Doctor takes one look at them and realises she doesn’t want to dress herself with them just yet. She needs a change and she plunders the wardrobe for some corduroy trousers that are far too long and a fisherman’s jumper, which hangs loosely on her frame. But it feels nice to be in something so shapeless, drowning in material. Her normal clothes make her feel confident and strong and the Doctor is neither of those things right now. She doesn’t feel worthy of wearing them.

“Lunch is ready,” River says, poking her head through the door. She grins when she sees what the Doctor has picked out to wear. “Fisherman chic?”

The Doctor pulls at the jumper with a shrug, then bends over to roll up the trousers so that she won’t trip on them.

“Thought I’d try something new.”

River doesn’t question her rationale and her gentle support puts the Doctor at ease. She follows River to the kitchen, where she discovers that she is a huge fan of cheese on toast. River cautions her to slow down and she tries, she really does, but she hasn’t eaten properly in what must be months and she practically inhales her food even as she burns her mouth on molten cheese. 

“Oh. I think I was hungry.”

“You don’t say?” River waits for her to digest a little, pleasantly surprised when the Doctor asks for another helping instead of getting indigestion. Perhaps she does, but her hunger is savage and River does what she can to sate it. 

After that, and to avoid a cheese coma - as the Doctor calls it, and River laughs at her words - River suggests they get some air. Not far, since the Doctor is still gaining her strength, but perhaps day by day they can walk a little further. 

Over the next few days, they slip into a routine. River is patient as the Doctor adjusts, and they walk slowly, taking in the sounds of the sea and the birds and the fresh air. After the first walk, the Doctor heads straight for bed and sleeps for nine hours, not moving once. River is concerned until she wakes the next day even hungrier than before, and itching to go for another walk. 

They repeat the pattern and while River was worried they’d find it boring, it’s anything but. It gives them time to talk, and the Doctor much needed time to collect herself. They reminisce to start with, because that is reasonably safe territory. They have shared memories and it helps the Doctor to know that what she remembers is real, because it is shared by the woman next to her. They steer clear of some of the more contentious memories by unspoken agreement, guided largely by River as she selects from a long and convoluted history of crossed paths. 

By the time they catch up properly, the Doctor’s mind is on a more even keel; she is less prone to distraction, although her mind still does wander. River can take a guess as to where it’s wandering but she doesn’t push, and she doesn’t pry. She knows it will come out eventually. 

One day, her patience pays off and it does.

Once again, they’re walking by the sea and the weather is warm enough that they can walk barefoot in the surf. Still, the water is cold, and the Doctor flinches a little every time the waves hit, but she seems to enjoy being anchored by her senses and River leaves her to it. She knows better than to question the Doctor’s logic and besides, she can see some sense in it.

“How did you find me?” the Doctor asks, out of the blue. River supposes she should have prepared herself for this question - she’s had more than enough time, after all, but still she finds it hard to explain. Something of the Doctor’s laser-sharp focus has returned and River almost feels like she’s being put on the spot.

“The TARDIS sent me a message,” she eventually says. It had come out of the blue, just as she was about to leave for the Library, but she’s not going to tell the Doctor that. 

“I suppose it was about time I returned the favour after all those times you scooped me up, although you know it makes life a lot easier if you leave coordinates?” she jokes, but the Doctor is quiet, obviously pondering her response. River ploughs on.

“I had to do some research. We weren’t sure where you’d been taken, at first. And I didn’t know what you were even going to look like. When the TARDIS showed me your face...well, I was surprised, to say the least. All that time and you never once were a woman.”

River feels herself becoming wistful and she mentally scolds herself. It won’t do either of them any good and with the way this conversation was going, things were about to take a leap forward that River is not quite prepared for. She’s not ready to let this Doctor go just yet, but she might have to.

“We were never meant to meet, were we?” the Doctor asks, and she’s clearly just as hung up on this point as River is. 

“No, we weren’t. But you were also not meant to be trapped there. Someone had to get you out and when I realised where you were, I knew it had to be me because I knew just how to do it.”

“How did you do it?”

That’s an easier question to answer.

“Oh, sweetie,” River drawls. It’s easy to slip back into their old ways of speaking. “I lost count of how many times I got out of Stormcage. I just disabled the Tesla binding field.” In reality, it had been a lot harder than I remembered, but once again, the Doctor doesn’t need to know that. 

“And honestly, I'm a little offended at your lack of faith in me. All this time and you think I don't know what I'm doing?”

River’s lighthearted barb lands and she’s relieved when the Doctor cracks a genuine smile, the first in a long time. It falters after a second, though, perhaps because the Doctor hasn’t smiled like that in so long. 

“What’s wrong, my love?” River slows to a stop and encourages the Doctor to do the same, waves still splashing around their feet, unheeded.

“I was cooped up alone for too long with nothing but my thoughts for company,” the Doctor starts. “I've done it before, a few months stranded here and there...”

“But this is different. I can see it in your face.”

“You don't know this face,” the Doctor replies, prickling slightly, but River isn’t thrown off by her defensiveness. She’d almost been expecting it; in their conversations thus far, the Doctor has veered from open honesty to closed off sentences that leave River guessing. One day, she knows this Doctor will open up and River suspects she’s needed to for a long while, even before prison. She’s just not sure this Doctor will open up to her.

River cups her cheek, ignoring her inner monologue and brushing aside any hurt feelings. The Doctor still needs her, that much is abundantly clear, and if this is what the universe had contrived for them then she will do her best to help the one person in it whom she loves most of all.

“But I know you, sweetie. Your face may change but you...you’re always the same. On one level, at least.”

The Doctor breaks eye contact, and River lets her hand fall away. 

“You’re worried about something.”

The Doctor nods, lips pursed. River knows she’s going to have to try a different tactic and she plays the best hand she has. She’s been saving it for this moment. 

“Are you ready to see her?”

The Doctor’s head turns so fast that River knows her aim is as accurate as ever. 

“Yaz,” River clarifies, and the Doctor ducks her head. She looks almost guilty, and River scolds herself again for reading into things.

“Straight to the point as ever, River.”

River bites her tongue and waits for the Doctor to meet her eye again. 

“Maybe,” the Doctor finally concedes, and she starts to walk. 

“You say her name a lot in your sleep,” River comments calmly, and the Doctor tries to kick a wave. The action leaves her with one very wet trouser leg and a scowl. 

“I hate sleep. It gives too much away.” Her response is petty and River reminds herself to be patient. 

“You needed it. You were worn out.”

The Doctor stops walking again and looks up to the sky, as if it holds all the answers. 

“I owe Yaz an apology, but I don't want her to see me like this,” she finally admits, and River realises that the Doctor is nervous. She’s not sure she’s ever seen the Doctor be nervous, and suddenly everything clicks into place.

“Look at me, please. What happened wasn't your fault. And she deserves to know you're alive.”

“I just hope she sees it that way.” 

River wonders what happened between them; it can’t have been good. She longs to ask, but what good would that do?

“Would you like me to come with you?” she asks instead. 

“I don't know,” the Doctor admits after a beat. “I'd like you to meet her, I think. But it's...complicated.”

“She means something to you doesn't she?” River's tone is deliberately neutral, but the Doctor knows exactly what she’s getting at.

“Not in the way you think.”

“You don't have to lie to me, love. Like I say, I know you.”

“I really didn't think we'd see one another again,” the Doctor repeats, but this time it’s almost as if she’s apologising. River feels guilty for digging. She is clearly no longer part of the Doctor’s life and this feels very much like forcing a conversation that isn’t even about her. Or eavesdropping on something she was never meant to hear. She’s the third party, either way. At least she and the Doctor are both in the same boat when it comes to confusion over their current circumstances.

“Nor did I,” River agrees. “The universe has a way of playing tricks doesn't it?”

“It never fails to surprise me. Constantly.”

The Doctor chuckles at that and River knows she’s just quoted herself. She rolls her eyes at the Doctor’s predictability and slides an arm through the Doctor’s, binding them closer together as they continue their walk down the deserted beach, back towards the cottage. To an observer they would look just like any other couple taking a stroll, but it’s been one of the most painful conversations of River Song’s life.

“How are we going to get there, anyway?” the Doctor asks after a while, cheeks pink from the breeze and the gentle sunshine. She looks far healthier than she had only days ago. “I’m not a huge fan of that knock-off you’ve got lying around.”

River shakes her head. She wasn’t planning on using her vortex manipulator; she’s got something even better, and she knows the Doctor will be pleased with her suggestion.

“Come with me,” she smiles, walking them around to the side of the cottage. River is surprised the Doctor hadn’t ventured out and found it already, but then she hasn’t really gone anywhere without River since they came here.

The moment the shed opens, the Doctor’s face lights up. 

“There you are,” she breathes, and River is almost certain the TARDIS windows start to glow in response. She watches silently as the Doctor assesses her ship, murmuring compliments as she smoothes her hands over the wood, reacquainting herself. For a brief moment, she wishes the Doctor would do that with her. 

“I swear you spent more time chatting your ship up than you did me,” she says, clearing her throat as she tries to get the images out of her head. 

“I didn’t need to chat you up,” the Doctor beams. “You fell into my life, back to front and just...magnificent.”

River can sense the Doctor coming back to life with each passing second. It’s like the sight of the TARDIS has reminded her of who she truly is. River feels herself blushing at the compliment. The Doctor always had a way with words. It takes her a moment to realise that they’ve started talking about their relationship in the past tense.

“It seems I have a lot of explaining to do.” The Doctor draws up in front of River, her expression earnest. “I may as well start now.” 

River knows what’s coming, but she doesn't need the Doctor’s gratitude, or an explanation. She thinks it will make things even more painful.

“River, I-”

“Don't. Save your strength. I think you're going to need it.”

The Doctor’s shoulders slump just slightly, the wind taken out of her sails. But she nods. River is right, as always. The thought of their next destination - of Yasmin Khan - makes her straighten up, holding her head high. 

“I just need a minute.”

When River sees the Doctor return in her clothes, she knows their time together is well and truly drawing to a close. The outfit does suit her, even if it looks a little mismatched; but when had the Doctor not been different? The rainbow stripes and the gold are vibrant against her chest and River knows her hearts, as always, are thumping away underneath, full of love and hope once more. She also knows the Doctor is ready to share that love and hope with someone else, someone that isn’t River. She’s had her time. This is just one last farewell before she continues the journey she knows she has to make. Their paths will never cross again but before she leaves, she can do one last thing. She can set the Doctor off on the road she needs to travel.

So, when they arrive in Sheffield, River doesn’t comment when the Doctor sonics them into a block of flats. She doesn’t ask questions, and she doesn’t speak as the Doctor prepares herself for the upcoming conversation. Once again, it’s a discussion that doesn’t involve her, that can’t involve her, really. 

“Here goes nothing,” the Doctor says, and she strides to a door a hundred feet away. River hangs back and the Doctor casts her one last, long look as she raises her arm. That look defies definition and River memorises it, a snapshot that she will take with her to the end of her days. They aren’t far off, now. 

It takes all of her grit and determination to stay put and watch from a distance as the Doctor knocks on the door. 

Chapter Text

Yasmin Khan winces as the yawn grows wide enough to make her jaw pop. Night shifts are still a chore and even though she’s been on them for the past few days, she’s still not adjusted to her new routine. Sleeping the day away feels antisocial, not that she has much of a social life to speak of anymore: work has largely put paid to that, but over the past several months she has abandoned all hope of adventure in any sense. The mundanity of her life had been restored literally overnight and with each passing month, Yaz feels her hope eroding, despite her best intentions. 

The Doctor is clearly not coming back. 

She'd have been there by now. She has a time machine, for goodness sake; she can simply hop back and reappear whenever she wants to.

The idea smarts and Yaz moves on quickly, but the ache resonates deep in her chest. She’s not even uttered the words aloud because to do so would to lend them credence. They stay quiet, lingering in her mind and her thoughts like an unwelcome guest that she can’t quite get rid of; if anything, they are starting to bed in, to become louder, and she’s not sure for how much longer she can ignore them. 

Her mum had abandoned asking her about things after the first few weeks. Yaz remembers that first evening she’d returned home, barely holding it together. Najia had asked her if her secondment was over and it had taken Yaz a moment to realise what she was talking about. Some secondment that had been - the Doctor had literally sent them packing and sacrificed herself. Yaz could picture the slump in her shoulders as she'd turned her back on them all, resigned to her fate.

Yaz had blurted out an excuse and hurried to her room before the facade crumbled. 

Najia still watches Yaz warily, and it puts her on edge. Even her sister had taken the hint and stopped asking why she was so miserable. At first Yaz had been relieved for the peace and quiet, but her family are walking on eggshells around her, even now. She’s stopped counting the days but they’re easily into the hundreds (she hates to think of them in terms of years because that just makes them seem much more final), and each day feels longer than it should. She knows she needs to move out and move on, but she can’t quite bring herself to. What if the Doctor comes back to try and find her here? It’s the only home she knows.

She isn’t coming back. She left you and she died. Or if she miraculously survived, she didn’t come back for you. Why would she? Either way, the Doctor made her choice. 

Yaz hears the voice and wishes she couldn’t. She doesn't know what's more painful - that the Doctor could be dead, or that she could be alive and not coming back. Yaz scolds herself for thinking so selfishly as she drifts aimlessly around the empty flat, relieved that she at least has it to herself for the rest of the weekend. For once, she’d actually been glad to have a block of night shifts because they overlapped so perfectly with a family wedding. Her mum had been disappointed that she’d not been able to swap them but in truth, Yaz hadn’t even tried to. She simply wasn’t in the mood for all of the questions about her life, or if she was ever going to get a move on and get married. Yaz doesn’t need another reminder that her life has gone back to what it was, that she has done nothing but pass probation in the past 2 years, and that there is a very obvious Doctor-shaped hole in her existence. She’d been so sure they’d have longer together. She’d been a fool. 

She doesn’t even see Graham or Ryan anymore. They’d stopped reaching out when she kept cancelling on them, although they still have a Whatsapp group - that Yaz has muted - but to which she contributes every now and again, just to let them know she’s still there. They don’t take it personally, she’s relieved to note. Things hadn’t quite been the same since their intervention a few months previously.

Only a few metres away, a sudden knock on the front door erupts and scatters her thoughts. 

Yaz startles a little at the sound. She’s so unused to quiet in the flat that the sound seems louder, almost official in nature, but it’s hardly likely to be anything important. After all, she didn’t buzz anybody in. Probably her neighbour asking for more sugar, she thinks. The same neighbour who replaced the one who had been killed by a giant spider. 

At least there aren’t giant spiders in Sheffield anymore, but then again, there’s not much of anything exciting nowadays. Yaz misses the thrill that came with travelling alongside the Doctor almost as much as she misses the Doctor herself. The memory of the spiders brings to mind that daft bum bag the Doctor had insisted on wearing. Ryan had tried and failed to wear it over her shoulder instead. By then, Yaz had realised that the Doctor cared very little for looking fashionable or for worrying what people thought about her. At first, she’d thought she was eccentric but over time, she’d come to realise that lack of self-consciousness was one of her favourite things about the Doctor. She really was unique. 

Is unique , she corrects herself. As much as it hurts to think she’s been left behind, it’s far better to think that the Doctor is alive somewhere in the universe, travelling without her. Not dead.

On bad days, Yaz reminisces like this. She can't help the way her thoughts wander, as frustrating as it is; they give her comfort, however short-lived. On really bad days, she daydreams about the Doctor turning up on her door, grinning ear to ear and bouncing with that constant energy she seemed (seems) to possess in spades, ready to take Yaz away on another adventure. Yaz isn't fussy about where they go, only that it's far away from Sheffield and, preferably, that it's just the two of them. Towards the end they'd rarely had the chance to spend time together and the Doctor had been so withdrawn and elusive that the version that Yaz pictures is the one she first met. The one she knew before it all went to shit. If she could even say she knew her at all.

It hurts to think about those memories. Yaz wonders when it will stop hurting. 

“Alright, alright. I'm coming,” she grumbles when the knocking resumes, sounding less official and more panicked. It calls Yaz to the door with a question on her lips, wondering what all the fuss is about. 

The moment the door swings open, Yaz wonders if she’s still asleep after all, because the person standing on the other side is someone that lives on only in her dreams.

On the other side stands the Doctor, and she smiles at Yaz like she always used to. 

Yaz is so spooked that she almost shuts the door again in fright. To all intents and purposes she is looking at a ghost, but the Doctor seems so tangible that Yaz clings to the door instead, staring blankly at the woman before her. 

“Hiya, Yaz.”

To all intents and purposes, apart from the length of her hair, the Doctor looks the same. But she already sounds different and the closer Yaz looks, the more she realises that the Doctor doesn’t look the same at all. She seems drained, subdued, almost defeated. Yaz sees something in the Doctor’s eyes that wasn’t there before. It’s not necessarily good or bad, just...new, and Yaz doesn’t know what to make of it. She’s so shocked at the change that her hand trembles when she raises it to her mouth, her voice shaking just as badly. 

"You…"

Tears spring to her eyes.

"Doctor? Are you really here? Is that really you?”

"I think so," the Doctor shrugs, then frowns, and that telltale crinkle in her forehead emerges. "I mean, yes. I am. It's really me."

The Doctor shifts on her feet, oddly nervous. She knows this is a crucial moment and she worries she will say the wrong thing, so she waits for Yaz to say something instead. They have a lot to catch up on but she knows she can tend to overdo it when she starts to talk and she doesn’t want to scare Yaz away. She already looks shell-shocked to say the least.

Yaz holds out her hand but pulls it back. Something is wrong. Yaz no longer looks as fresh-faced as she had when the Doctor had last seen her, even though she’d changed in the time the Doctor has known her; no, this is different. She seems older, a little harder around the eyes and mouth. The Doctor sees it all in one terrible moment of realisation and has a horrible feeling it's because of her. 

“How long has it been?” she asks in the end, because she has no idea and she really does need to know. It might explain Yaz's reaction, and Yaz is clearly speechless. Her face hardens and she clears her throat.

“Two years, Doctor.” Yaz’s tone is so cold that the Doctor is taken aback by that more than the news that she has been gone for so long. “I thought you were dead.”

Then, to her immense surprise, Yaz’s stony expression crumples completely, her hands clenching at her sides as she starts to cry. The Doctor panics. She hasn’t been expecting tears like this, and she isn’t sure what she can do to make it better. 

“I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead, but you weren’t. You aren’t dead. I knew it. I knew it. You aren’t dead.”

Each time Yaz says the word it sounds different, and the Doctor turns in a panic to look for River. She’s already approaching, clearly concerned, and the Doctor is relieved to feel a reassuring hand come to rest on her lower back. 

River can feel the Doctor trembling with the strain of being upright for so long and decides they need to at least go inside. She faces Yasmin Khan head on for the first time and notes that she’s young and beautiful and crying. Her reaction is probably to be expected, although River was hoping the tears would look less anguished and more relieved. But River can see why the Doctor likes Yasmin Khan, because there is still kindness in her expression, a kindness that persists despite how upset she clearly is. The Doctor always was good at finding good people.

“Hello, Yaz,” she soothes. “My name is River Song and I think we all need to chat. May we come in?”

The moment they’re safely inside and seated in Yasmin Khan’s living room, an awkward silence falls. River watches as the Doctor and her companion subconsciously mirror one another, sitting on opposite ends of the room, arms folded in a gesture that looks more like self-comfort than defence. 

It’s not at all what she was expecting, although she has a feeling she understands a little of how Yaz feels. Seeing the Doctor like that had been a shock for River, too, but it’s obvious that something else is going on. She recalls what the Doctor had told her on the beach. 

“I owe Yaz an apology, but I don't want her to see me like this.”

“Look at me, please. What happened wasn't your fault. And she deserves to know you're alive.”

“I just hope she sees it that way.” 

It seems the Doctor had predicted well how she was going to be received. River realises she will have to take a more active role in proceedings if nobody is going to say anything, but it’s made harder by the fact that something has clearly happened between them and she is none the wiser as to what that is.

“I know this must be strange, but I was expecting a more joyful reunion,” she comments, trying to lighten the mood, and Yaz sighs.

“This is just...a lot.” Yaz loosens her grip to clasp her hands together instead. River can see the tension in them and she watches, warily, as Yaz continues to speak. If she needs to, she’ll intervene. 

“I blamed you, you know.” Yaz finally looks at the Doctor and River can practically feel the intensity of her expression from her position by the door. “For leaving us here. Leaving me here. Telling us to live good lives and then just leaving us to them, like it was that easy.”

The Doctor tightens her grip around herself and River wishes she could be the one to provide that comfort. This is hard to watch. 

“Yaz-”

“You wouldn't even let me go with you,” Yaz interrupts, the words coming more quickly than before. “And then Ko Sharmus ran out of the door and I thought you'd come back, but…you didn't. You didn't come back. I waited and waited. And you never came.”

Her voice breaks and River is startled to realise that she’s switched from anger to sadness in the blink of an eye. 

“I'm such an idiot,” Yaz sighs bitterly.

“It was something that only I could do, Yaz. I couldn't let you come with me,” the Doctor insists. 

“But you shouldn't have had to do that alone,” Yaz protests earnestly. “You should have let me go with you,” she repeats.

The Doctor shakes her head stubbornly. 

“You would have died,” she says, and River hears something of the old Doctor come through. The one she knows so well. “I can’t have that.”

But the Doctor’s words have no effect. They roll off Yaz like she’s impervious and River wonders which one of them has come out of this worse. 

“I wouldn’t care.”

River inhales sharply. Yaz keeps speaking before anybody can comment on what she’s just admitted. 

“Then again, all you've ever done is push me away,” Yaz scoffs. “I should have expected it.”

River watches silently, biding her time. She has no idea who Ko Sharmus is but she can glean enough from the context that the Doctor and Yaz really did not part ways amicably. It’s not her place to say anything but she sees the Doctor looking guilty. It’s patently obvious to River that Yaz harbours feelings of some kind for the Doctor. But does the Doctor realise that? Is she trying to protect her? It’s still unclear whether guilt or another emotion is responsible for the fact that Yaz’s name is the one the Doctor speaks in her sleep. 

“How did you even survive?” Yaz asks, apparently giving up on that topic of conversation for the time being. River breathes a sigh of relief as they retreat onto less shaky ground. The Doctor is always better at dealing with facts.

“Ko Sharmus took my place and I was on my way back to you, I swear I was, but the Judoon found me.”

Yaz looks genuinely surprised. To be fair to her, it’s probably the last thing River would have expected to hear, too.

“What?”

“Yeah. They got into the TARDIS and sentenced me, imprisoned me on my own. River broke me out.”

River holds her head high as Yaz’s laser focus turns on her. She’s a grown woman and Yaz is probably half her age, but something in her eye makes River flinch slightly. For someone so young, she seems terribly jaded.  

“No offence, but who are you?” Yaz tries to be polite but in all of her imaginings, the Doctor had never been returned to her with someone else in tow. And there’s something about this woman, a confidence in the way she takes charge and the way the Doctor doesn’t protest it, that gives Yaz pause. 

“It’s a long story,” River sighs. “I’m...a good friend of the Doctor’s.” She’s a little stung that the Doctor has not mentioned her but then, why would she? The River Song she knew was dead. 

“She's never talked about you,” Yaz frowns. The name doesn’t ring a bell at all. 

River realises that, actually, she’s more than a little stung and fires back before she can think better of it.

“Well, since we're being honest, I'm the Doctor's wife.”

River curses her lack of patience: Yaz looks like she’s just been slapped and the Doctor pulls a face, looking sheepish. A new tension arises and River wonders if she’s just made things worse. 

“But does that matter right now?” she amends. “It's complicated.”

Yaz shakes her head and gets to her feet. Whatever progress they’ve made seems like it’s about to roll backwards imminently.

“What matters is that someone I thought was dead has just reappeared in my life like nothing happened. With her wife . Like those years of grief and mourning didn't count. I don't know you at all, do I?” Yaz turns on the Doctor and River sees her flinch. “Who was I mourning? As happy as I am to see you alive and well, Doctor, I don't think I can do this right now.”

But before Yaz can move away, the Doctor surprises them all by pushing herself to her feet, wavering only slightly. 

“You’re right, of course you are. I’m sorry, Yaz. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

River can sense what is about to happen. The Doctor is going to run. 

“I’m sorry, Yaz. I really am,” she murmurs again, backing out of the room with a swish of her coat tails. River is torn. She knows she should follow and when she hears the front door click closed, she is already making a move towards it. The Doctor shouldn’t be alone right now. 

But she surprises herself; the look of shock and disappointment that paints itself across Yaz’s face makes her pause for long enough to reconsider, and the pained sob that accompanies it cements her decision. She thinks she knows how Yaz feels and despite her reservations, her hearts go out to the young woman.

Perhaps she could fix this. Besides, the Doctor isn’t going anywhere: River has pocketed the TARDIS key and even if the Doctor gets inside - despite River’s express instructions to the TARDIS that she stay put - she’s left the secondary handbrake on. That should stump the Doctor for long enough to buy them some more time.

Yaz moves to the kitchen, swiping at her cheeks. Her own reaction has surprised her. When she'd pictured her reunion with the Doctor, she'd imagined a tearful hug. Once, she'd even considered what might happen if she'd taken the Doctor’s face into her hands and kissed her. But in reality, she'd been so angry and upset that she'd done none of those things. 

To see the Doctor looking the way she did was bad enough, but to find out the Doctor has a wife? Yaz can’t help but picture River and the Doctor in a romantic sense and her stomach clenches. She needs time and space and she wishes River would leave so that she can have some time to process this new information. But this woman saved the Doctor from imprisonment when Yaz couldn't...and they've both come here. Why?

“She may be alive, but she's not well,” River says, watching as Yaz starts rummaging in kitchen cupboards. Her back is to her, but River’s words give her pause. 

“When she came out of that place, the Doctor wasn't in a good way.” River opts not to tell Yaz just how bad things were. She doesn’t need to know that level of detail but River knows the Doctor won’t tell her, and Yaz needs to at least have an idea. It pains River to think that the Doctor would hide her distress. “In all the time I’ve known her, I've never seen her like that. And you know what? It scared me. She wouldn't tell me everything that happened. I have no idea. But I do know that she spoke about you, Yaz, most of all.”

Yaz abandons the box of tea she’s picked up and finally turns. River is relieved that the young woman is finally acknowledging her. Perhaps she’s getting through.

“Yasmin.”

“Sorry?”

“Only my friends call me Yaz. And I don't think you're a friend, even if you are one of the Doctor’s. Are you trying to make me feel bad?”

River takes a calming breath. She knows Yaz isn’t thinking rationally but it’s becoming harder to remove her own emotions from the equation. Still, she can’t help but admire the spark this young woman has. She gets the sense that her defensiveness might have evolved out of necessity, and the thought saddens her.

“The Doctor feels guilty enough already. I can tell you that for free, but I understand how you must feel.”

“Do you? Really?” Yaz scoffs. But River can see that this disdain doesn’t come naturally to her; there’s something akin to guilt in her expression even as she utters those words. River had spied a family photograph in the hallway and suspects that Yaz is normally far more polite than this. The perils of knowing the Doctor , River muses. No matter what, the Doctor changes you, for better or worse.  

“Yes, I do, actually. I’ve known the Doctor for longer than you can imagine. I've seen him- her...them in all sorts of danger,” she amends. “They thrive on it a lot of the time and do you know why? Because it means they can show off.”

Yaz gives a tiny smile at that.

“But this Doctor is not thriving right now. She needs you, Yasmin.”

“It looks like she just needs you, to be honest.” Yaz knows she sounds petty and she hates it. She hates that she's jealous and that River seems so calm and collected, and that River seems to see right through her, even though they've never even met until today. It's infuriating, but to act like this is not productive. She knows it isn’t.

“Wait. I didn’t-”

“Look, Yasmin. I haven't seen the Doctor in many years.” 

Yaz deflates. 

“We kept meeting out of order. I was never even meant to see her like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like a woman, for a start.”

Yaz huffs out a laugh at the unexpected words. Perhaps she and River have more in common than she thought; the Doctor has surprised them both recently, it seems. “I bet that was a shock.” 

River nods, and a smile starts to pull at her lips. Yaz realises that she’s in the company of a truly beautiful woman. She wonders how she didn’t see it before. 

“But when I found out what had happened to her, that she’d been imprisoned? I knew I had to help.”

“You really rescued her?”

River nods.  

“I haven't seen her in so long. I thought...I thought I'd never see her again.” Yaz turns on the tap to fill the kettle and let the noise of the water run while she gathers her thoughts. 

She had clung to hope for as long as she could, but each day without news, without the familiar noise of the TARDIS, made it harder to sustain her optimism. Graham and Ryan had eventually tried to talk to her about it. They’d tried to help her adjust. They'd even staged an intervention when Yaz kept looking for hints that weren’t there. 

“Yaz, you need to take some time. Give yourself a break, alright?”

“I can’t stop, Graham. She’s out there. She could need our help! Just like she did on Gallifrey.”

Graham shook his head and Yaz felt sick when she saw his expression mirrored on Ryan’s face. The thought that they’d given up on the Doctor only served to fuel her ire at the situation.

“You need time, Yaz. To deal with how you feel. To...you know. Grieve.” 

“She's not dead,” Yaz replied instantly, refusing to let the word settle.

Ryan and Graham looked at one another the way they often did now, when they tried to communicate without words. Yaz hated it. 

“Don't do that.”

“What?” Graham frowned.

“Look at me like I'm someone to be pitied. Like I'm an idiot.”

Yaz knew she wasn’t making sense but then, nothing made sense. Nothing made sense, except the fact that she couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t give up.

“We don't think that Yaz,” Ryan replied. 

“Then what do you think?”

Of the two of them, Ryan had far less patience than Graham did. 

“You need to move on, Yaz. She's not coming back.”

“Ryan, son-”

“She is.” Yaz fixed Ryan with a glare, cutting Graham off. 

Ryan rolled his eyes and walked away and Yaz bit back the retort she wanted to fire after him. Graham, thankfully, was a lot kinder. 

“Whatever happens, Yaz, we're worried about you. The Doc wouldn't want you to be unhappy. She told us to live great lives, remember? The best thing you can do is honour that.”

“But how can my life be great without her in it?”

It was a genuine question, one she didn’t have the answer to. But the more she thought about it, the more apparent it became that she’d invested too much in the Doctor; she had nobody to blame but herself for the situation she’d found herself in. Of course Ryan and Graham weren’t as affected. They were nowhere near as devoted as she was. Yaz started to wonder if she’d made a mistake by getting so attached. Perhaps she should have ignored those feelings rather than letting them blossom. 

“Remember what I told you on that ship, Yaz?” Graham replied. “You’re never afraid and you’re never beaten. You’ll get through this, love. I know you will.”

But Yaz hadn’t been so sure.

“Yasmin? Are you ok?”

With a start, Yaz realises River is right in front of her, looking concerned. She’s being far nicer to Yaz than Yaz thinks she deserves. After all, River has no real reason to be here. She owes Yaz nothing. The one person they have in common isn’t even in the room. And yet, she looks at Yaz with such genuine sympathy that Yaz wonders if she actually might understand how she feels, after all. And all Yaz has done is try and push her away. It’s something the Doctor had done to her, and Yaz suddenly realises the irony in the situation. She doesn’t want to be like that.

“I'm sorry,” she apologises, and River’s expression softens. “I'm sorry for being so rude. It's just a shock to see her again.” 

River moves to her side and pours hot water out of the kettle and into two mugs. 

“I never lost hope but even then, I hated myself for it, you know? One side of me wanted to believe she was coming back but I knew I should move on,” Yaz continues. “I really am glad to see her, believe it or not.” She laughs, but it’s not a happy laugh. It’s full of self-pity and relief and happiness and regret. River can hear every note of it. Seeing Yaz’s grief makes her own feel real. She’s had some time to adjust to seeing the Doctor again, but Yaz hasn’t really had any.

“Grief is a strange thing. You were grieving, Yasmin. You still are. I am, too. I'm mourning the wife I never got to know. But you know her better than I do. I don't know if the same Doctor has come back from that awful place, but the least you can do is let her explain.”

Yaz realises that River is right and the guilt she feels now is almost overwhelming. Not only has she pushed the Doctor away, she’s had a knee-jerk reaction to someone who actually wants to help her through this. She accepts a mug gratefully, wondering how she’s going to fix things. 

“Thank you. I've waited for this day for so long and never thought it would happen. But now that it's here, all these...these feelings, they just don't make sense,” Yaz admits. “I don't know how I should feel.”

She takes a sip of her tea and tries to get a handle on her thoughts.

“What do you feel the most?” River asks. 

Yaz filters through the chatter in her mind, tries to focus on what her gut is telling her. And when she can focus on that, it’s obvious.

“Relief,” she admits, surprised. But once she’s noticed it, the feeling becomes stronger, growing exponentially. It’s challenged only by a mounting sense of panic that the Doctor left her flat at least 20 minutes ago, and now Yaz has no idea where she is. 

“Go and talk with her,” River is emphatic. “Knowing the Doctor, it'll take a while. It might take weeks, or even months. But you need to start talking at some point, and I know that things will get better. You both deserve some kind of closure.”

Yaz nods. River is right. Of course she is, she’s the Doctor’s wife; for all her flaws, Yaz has to assume that the Doctor would only ever marry someone as wise and clever as she is. Or at least somebody who could understand someone like the Doctor, someone who could love her despite those flaws. Yaz realises she still loves the Doctor, too. No matter what’s happened or what will happen, Yaz realises that feeling will never truly go away; it’s love that has made all of this so complicated, after all. Yasmin Khan is in love with the most impossible person she’s ever met and after months and months of burying it, she lets it come back to the surface. This could hurt, she knows, but they’ve been given another chance and she isn’t going to waste it.

She puts down her mug and heads for the door, quickly grabbing her jacket and keys. After months of lethargy she is finally energised and motivated. The Doctor is nearby. Her Doctor is nearby, and alive, and in need of her help. 

“I don’t know where to start,” she admits as River joins her. Yaz has no idea how River walks so elegantly in those heels but she pulls it off. Rather than be jealous, Yaz is awed by her confidence. It’s not that difficult, really, when River Song is immensely likeable.

“Good thing I do,” she smiles. “Come on. Her TARDIS is just outside.”

Chapter Text

The Doctor closes Yaz’s front door behind her as softly as she can and takes a moment to collect herself. She’s trembling; she can feel ripples of tension running through her limbs, making the muscles of them bunch and tense sporadically, and she doesn’t quite trust them to move in a coordinated fashion just yet. 

Breathe in. 

Breathe out. 

Nobody follows her, and that suits the Doctor just fine. She needs a minute, a time out, a second just to catch her breath. On a superficial level the whole interaction she’s just fled feels anticlimactic. Nobody screamed, nobody cried (well, only a little), and nobody, thankfully, had died. 

Somewhere in the home behind her, two of her favourite people are talking about her. For once, the Doctor ignores her ego. She truly does not want to know what they’re saying. But the facade of polite conversation that's no doubt continuing behind her back somewhat masks the fact that what just happened is momentous, like tectonic plates have shifted just beneath the surface, toppling the life above and leaving destruction in their wake. Nothing will be the same again, at least not with Yasmin Khan.

In all the ways she’s imagined saying goodbye to Yaz, she hasn’t imagined anything quite like this. And with each passing second, the more certain the Doctor feels that what happened was precisely that: a goodbye, of a sort. Perhaps not their final one - like the one she is no doubt about to have with River, imminently - but something close to penultimate. Of the three of her current companions, Yaz was the person whom the Doctor was most apprehensive about seeing because she had been the one most opposed to her plan on Gallifrey. And of the three of them, she’s also the one whom the Doctor thought would be most pleased to see her, even if she was a bit annoyed about what had happened.

But Yaz is more than a bit annoyed. In fact, the Doctor has never seen her like that before and she’s not entirely sure what to make of it. Has Yaz always been capable of anger, or are recent events to blame? Either way, the Doctor is certain she’s at least partly responsible. The degree of emotion she has just experienced is nothing like what she expected, but it’s what she deserves. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

In light of the damage that’s clearly been done, perhaps slipping off would be a good thing, she thinks. It’s a normal way to say goodbye; it’s almost like she’s popped over for tea and is now going home. Except she isn’t going home because she can’t. Gallifrey burns in her mind’s eye and she closes it, with a not inconsiderable effort. 

Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind. 

The Doctor has tried her best to follow that motto but she doesn't laugh much anymore, her kindness has led her astray, and the prospect of running again is exhausting. She takes another breath, a single moment’s reprieve, before she pushes off from the door and strides towards the lift.

Her hearts ache with each step she takes away from Yaz’s front door. She doesn’t turn to look back because what good would that do? Besides, she can picture the Khan family’s front door as clear as anything when she closes her eyes. It’s a home she was once invited into and made welcome in. Not anymore.

Despite herself, she chuckles when she recalls Najia’s interrogation while they were trying to investigate Sheffield's invasion by giant spiders. 

Are you two seeing each other?

She’d had no clue and hoped Yaz would provide an answer, which, she realises now, she hadn’t. 

We’re friends. 

From the Doctor’s (admittedly sometimes flawed) understanding of human relationships, she didn’t think the two were mutually exclusive, but it had been enough to get Najia off her back. At the time, anyway; she’d later pulled her to one side and asked why Yaz seemed so tired when they returned from Tsuranga. Graham had thankfully interrupted with an offer of tea, but the Doctor sensed she was never quite off the hook with Najia Khan and she’d always made a concerted effort to ensure that Yaz was safe. Graham and Ryan had one another but Yaz had a whole family at home who were expecting her to come back. She couldn’t contemplate how Najia would react if Yaz one day didn’t return.

I owe the Doctor my life, quite a few times over. 

The Doctor had taken that to heart. When Yaz had started to push for more independence, expressing a desire to go off on her own, the Doctor had only let her because she’d been so wrapped up in her own problems. Looking back on it, she realises it had been incredibly reckless. Perhaps leaving Yaz behind would be the best thing for both of them, before she irrevocably ruins her life.

It is only when she reaches the TARDIS that the Doctor thinks to look for her key. She’s so distracted by her thoughts that it takes her a good few minutes of rummaging to realise it’s not actually on her person. 

“Huh,” she exhales, puzzled. It occurs to her that the key might have fallen out but that seems unlikely, given how deep her pockets are. She can already tell that the TARDIS isn’t going to be happy at the prospect of making more keys, given the recent antics she’s pulled. 

“Hello, mate,” she sighs, laying her palms flat on the doors in a conciliatory manner. She knows she needs to convince her ship she’s worthy of letting in without a key, but she needs a moment to gather herself again. The thoughts that had plagued her on her walk back have drained her and that would be alarming, if she had the energy to even consider how alarming that is. 

She needs to sleep. 

“Could do with a sit down,” she concedes, pulling an apologetic face. The wood under her hands feels warm, despite the cool air, and the windows start to illuminate with a familiar hazy glow that suggests the TARDIS is empathetic to her current state. She keeps getting free passes but for once the Doctor isn’t questioning them. She accepts them willingly, even if she is less willing to accept precisely why she needs them. She’s never been good at stomaching sympathy.

The door clicks open. A small sound, but the relief the Doctor feels is exponential. 

“Thank you,” she beams tiredly, and steps inside.

She’s always felt safest in her ship, although recent experience suggests she’d be wise to be wary of unwanted guests. There are no Judoon here this morning but she has a horrible feeling they’re probably looking for her and until that particular situation resolves itself, she’ll need to get used to looking over her shoulder. Then again, she’s somewhat used to life on the run. She’s quicker on her own, too. Less likely to get bogged down. The Doctor starts to convince herself that this is for the best, really. 

She risks a quick glance back at Park Hill before she closes the door behind her. It seems apt that her journey with Yaz essentially began and ended in the same place; it has a nice symmetry to it. At some point she will need to say farewell to the rest of her fam, but she had hoped her meeting with Yaz was going to end differently and saying farewell is the last thing on her mind. Right now, she needs to lick her wounds.  

“Just you and me for a bit, old girl. How about it?"

The Doctor consoles herself with that thought rather than focusing on the hollow ache in her chest that lingers and worsens as she moves around the console. Her ship feels empty and although the TARDIS had been obliging and let her in, the screens remain dark, as if she’s in low-power mode. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks, placing her hands on her hips as she frowns at the time rotor. The pang in her chest is starting to hurt and she could really do without a recalcitrant ship.

The TARDIS hums obligingly.

“What do you mean, there’s a second parking brake?”

The Doctor sighs heavily when the TARDIS does not respond. Her missing key wasn’t such an accident after all, then; only person could even know about the existence of a second parking brake and she’s currently in Yaz’s flat. 

“Alright, then. I suppose I’ll wait until River gets back,” she grumbles, secretly eager to take a seat. Her shoulders feel heavier than usual, and all of her pacing around the console has made her light-headed. “River never would forgive me if I left without saying goodbye, even if she has got her own mode of transport.”

The Doctor eases herself onto one of the steps at the back of the room with a muffled groan. She hadn't quite expected Yaz to react the way she had and she needs to concentrate. Her precious final moments with River are about to slip through her fingers at this rate.

“Getting too old for this," she mutters, letting her head rest in her hands for a brief moment of reprieve. Her thoughts are whirling to the point that they leave her dizzy. Even though her recuperation until this point has been frustratingly slow, thanks in no small part to River's insistence that she take things at a snail's pace, she is still not back to her usual self. She is losing patience with her progress. 

The TARDIS chirps, at last. 

“Oh, now you speak up! If I’m old then what does that make you?”

The Doctor doesn’t get a response to that.

“Your silence speaks volumes."

But the silence is broken by the sound of voices by the door, and a key in the lock, and her face falls. Her body stiffens, alert to intruders. 

That has to be River, but by the sound of it, she isn’t alone.

The Doctor doesn’t want to be seen resting. She pushes herself to her feet and busies herself with the console just as the door creaks open and River Song enters. 

“Where do you think you're going?” River asks she draws up to the console, hand on her hip. Even though the Doctor tries not to be distracted, she is; seeing River like that is always arresting. 

“Just giving you some space,” the Doctor waves her hands around the vicinity of the dematerialisation lever, which is fruitless because it’s not functional.

“Well, I would be if you hadn’t put the second parking brake on. Which, by the way, rude. Also, I’m 93% certain that didn’t even exist the last time I was in here.”

The Doctor straightens, fixing her gaze on River, but over her shoulder she can see Yaz stepping inside. Her gaze inevitably flickers to the younger woman but Yaz seems nervous and the Doctor momentarily steadies herself on the console. Perhaps they'll get another chance to talk properly. It's a good sign that Yaz is here but that makes the conversation to come no less difficult.

“It gave me something to do while you recovered,” River replies drily, and that catches Yaz’s attention. 

Yaz takes the opportunity to get a good long look at the Doctor while she bickers with River. She moves more slowly than usual, as if she has aged considerably since Yaz last saw her. With a start, Yaz remembers that they are in a time machine; two years for her might have been even longer for the Doctor. But there's still something in her expression, subtly guarded and pained as it may be, that remains the same. Yaz had seen it in her flat and she sees it again now: the light still lingers behind her eyes, dimmed but impossibly resilient, even if it has changed. Yaz takes courage from it and she ventures further into the room. Within moments she feels at home, as if with every step closer to the Doctor, she's returned to her rightful place by her side.

"The least you can do is drop me off first, sweetie," River comments. She runs a comforting hand down the Doctor's arm and Yaz turns her head at the intimate gesture; nobody touches the Doctor like that and Yaz has a suspicion that the Doctor, as gregarious as she may be, is not normally that comfortable with such personal touches. But she doesn’t move away from it and Yaz realises she is probably intruding. She hangs back again, lingering on the other side of the console as River flips a lever and the TARDIS comes to life.

"Come on. Time to go." Her tone is brisk.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asks. When they land, River will leave and that will be that: the end of the line. The Doctor herself isn't certain she's ready to say goodbye but then she's never had much of a say when it comes to her time with River, apparently, and her wife's curls bounce as she nods her head decisively. Even so, she can see that River is putting a face on things and her own expression twists a little in displeasure at the situation. It seems awfully cruel to be reunited, only to have to say goodbye again. The last time had been painful enough. 

"Ancient Egypt, if you wouldn't mind. I'd quite like to see my other wife, since I seem to be doing something of a farewell tour."

River turns and winks at Yaz and the younger woman laughs in surprise. She’s not sure if River is joking and she glances briefly at the Doctor for a clue. But she seems preoccupied and not even remotely surprised by River’s request, inputting coordinates instead. Yaz feels her jealousy diminish as she realises that River is not actually joking. Now she feels foolish and naive for reacting the way she did to the revelation that the Doctor had a wife. Their marriage is clearly not conventional and Yaz realises it probably never would be with the Doctor involved.

Then they’re off, and her thoughts are sidelined by the reality that she’s once again travelling through time and space. Yaz feels herself grinning at the twin sensations of freedom and adventure, which make her blood race with excitement. She has missed this thrill so very much. But when they land, the Doctor doesn't bounce towards the doors like she normally would. She stays at the console, not looking at either of them, twiddling several knobs and muttering under her breath about calibrations.

“So,” River starts, clearing her throat when the Doctor doesn’t stop what she’s doing. Yaz can see that the ruse is up; the Doctor reluctantly abandons her fruitless task, shoulders slumped in defeat.

When River starts to speak with her in hushed tones, Yaz steps away to give them some privacy. She can't go far - she doesn't feel like she can simply leave through the doors, even if ancient Egypt is right outside - and there's an awkward moment when she overhears the Doctor sound as upset as she's ever heard her. It distresses Yaz to hear her sounding so vulnerable and it immediately casts her back to their tense interaction on Gallifrey. Those exchanges have haunted her for months and they make it all too easy to draw parallels with the sadness the Doctor is exhibiting now.  

The vivid reminder of the Doctor's anguish is unpleasant. Yaz almost can't bear to witness it, to even be in the same room, but the route to her bedroom is blocked by the Doctor and her wife parting ways and it's not like she can ask them to move. So Yaz does the next best thing and tries not to listen. It proves to be borderline impossible when her innate curiosity wins out.

"I think I’ve been saying goodbye ever since you put on these clothes." River fingers the cuff of the Doctor’s coat sleeve. 

"I’m sorry, River." The Doctor's voice trembles slightly and she hates the sound of weakness at such a crucial juncture.

"Whatever for?" River tuts softly. "You have nothing to be sorry for, my love. But please, do just one thing for me?"

"Name it," the Doctor says, reaching for River's hand. Her wife gives it an emphatic squeeze. 

"Look forward. Always look forwards."

The Doctor shakes her head.

"Ah, no can do. I have to look back sometimes. I can’t forget you, can I?" She tries a grin but it feels watery and she abandons the attempt at jollity in favour of reaching out and taking River’s other hand. She contemplates kissing her one final time but it doesn’t feel right, and especially not with an audience. 

"You will, eventually."

"I don’t think I ever could. Please don't ask me to." The Doctor is vehement. She’s never been a fan of endings and forgetting River would be the ultimate farewell. Instead, the Doctor knows that she will cling to the memory of River for as long as she is able. It will burn brighter than most, and she hopes to tend that flame and nurture it for as long as she lives. Memories might fade but the Doctor will be damned if she'll ever forget River Song. 

River smiles, but her eyes are brimming with tears.

"Please look after her,” she says, voice raised above the quiet hush they’ve conducted their conversation in until now.

The Doctor frowns, confused as to whom River is referring, but when Yaz shifts on her feet it dawns on the Doctor that Yaz has been trying and failing not to listen in. 

"I think we both know the Doctor should never travel alone,” River continues, finally tearing her gaze away from the Doctor’s face to acknowledge Yaz. Both of them ignore the Doctor’s half-hearted protest that she can look after herself, thank you very much, and that she is still in the room. 

"Of course," Yaz replies, tilting her chin upwards. Although she is more than a little embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping - as much as she'd tried not to - she knows River is right. Whatever her own feelings on the matter, no matter how frustrated she is with the Doctor, deep down she thinks the same. The Doctor should never travel alone. 

And just as Yaz has learned and experienced so much by travelling with the Doctor, Yaz knows it's not entirely one-way: the Doctor must get something out of the arrangement too.Yaz just hasn't quite figured out what that is, yet. 

It strikes her, and not for the first time, that the Doctor is incredibly lonely, but that doesn't mean she is always the best company. Perhaps that's even more reason for Yaz to stay by her side. Yaz recalls how she closed herself off when she was bullied at school and even though their circumstances are nowhere near similar, Yaz knows she was probably just as difficult to deal with. Add in an eccentric personality, reams of intelligence, and the untold things the Doctor has seen, and Yaz starts to get to grips with just what she's dealing with. 

She strides forwards with renewed energy and makes a concerted effort to cast off the pall of melancholy that has plagued her for the past two years, even if only temporarily. The Doctor needs her more than ever. Yaz is not going to fail her.

River smiles warmly at her as she approaches and Yaz is once again impressed by her composure.

"Goodbye, Yasmin," she says. “And look after yourself, too."

“Bye, River. And I’m really, really sorry, by the way.”

“What for?”

“I was rude to you. Both of you,” Yaz turns slightly to include the Doctor, whose expression is still guarded. Yaz is keen to make amends for her earlier reaction. “You can call me Yaz. If we, y’know. Ever meet again.” 

They travel in time, so it doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility, but Yaz realises it was a foolish thing to say when she sees River’s smile falter. Hadn’t she just listened to them saying goodbye? It seems unlikely that they’ll ever see River again. Yaz mentally kicks herself but it’s too late. The damage has been done.

“‘Til next time,” River says, smoothly glossing over any potential awkwardness, and then with a poignant, lingering glance at the Doctor she leaves the TARDIS without another word. Yaz couldn't even try to decipher what was just communicated between them but then again, that's none of her business.

There is silence for a long, long moment. Yaz daren’t break it. She feels like she was just witness to something she was not meant to see. The Doctor looks like she’s aged again within the past ten minutes and her white-knuckle grip on the console is Yaz’s only indication that she’s upset. The muscles in her jaw clench and Yaz can see that her cheekbones are even more pronounced than usual, although her hair hides just how gaunt she is. 

All of a sudden, the Doctor springs into action, boots stomping more clumsily than usual. Yaz hears the distant sound of something outside before they depart but doesn’t give it much thought. The Doctor wouldn’t leave River somewhere dangerous, after all. But what she does not know is that River Song is no longer in ancient Egypt; she took several steps outside of the TARDIS, pressed a device on her wrist, and travelled to the Library, a place Yaz would never see but which the Doctor knows only too well. The sound they’d heard was that of her vortex manipulator.

“So, Yaz. Yasmin Khan. Where shall we go?” the Doctor grins but it’s forced, Yaz can tell. It doesn’t fit her face the way it once might have done.

Yaz shrugs. For once, she doesn’t actually care. All she does care about is the person she’s finally alone with. 

“Not sure? How about Mesopotamia? Haven’t been there in a while and I could do with checking in with-”

“No,” Yaz interrupts.

The Doctor frowns. 

“No?”

“I don’t want to go to Mesopotamia. I want us to stop, just for a minute. And maybe, if it’s okay, I would like for us to talk.”

The Doctor is stumped. Yaz can tell because her mouth opens and shuts several times without a sound. Yaz revises her approach.

“Actually, scratch that. I think you need a haircut first.”

“What’s wrong with it?” The Doctor runs her fingers through her hair in a way that reminds Yaz of the plume incident at Byron’s villa, but without the same effortless self-confidence. This time, she seems more than a little self-conscious. 

“Nothing,” Yaz assures her quickly. “But don’t you think you’ll feel better after a trim?” Yaz doesn’t verbalise what she’s thinking but she can see that her hair is still a bit of a tangled mess even from where she’s standing. The Doctor’s clothes also look slightly shabby, but Yaz decides to pick her battles one at a time.

“Now that you mention it, it does keep getting in my way,” the Doctor admits, wincing as her fingers get caught in a tangle. “Fancy doing the honours?”

Without River there, there’s a silence that hangs heavily between them. Neither are in a rush to fill it, so they let the noise of the scissors fill the bathroom they’ve ended up in. It’s a plush affair, all marble surfaces and a giant bathtub, but Yaz doesn’t pay much attention to their surroundings. She’s much more interested in the woman who’s sitting so quietly in front of her. She’s never heard the Doctor be this quiet for this long but the task is nerve-wracking enough - hairdressing isn’t something she’s ever attempted before - that Yaz focuses instead on keeping her hands steady. If the Doctor wants to speak, she’ll speak, and Yaz isn’t going to force things. 

But it’s only when Yaz finally puts the scissors down half an hour later that she does. Yaz is relieved to see that she looks much more like her old self, even if all that’s changed is the length of her hair. The Doctor runs her fingers through it again and again, as if she can’t believe it’s changed.

“Oh. Wow. That’s much better. Thank you, Yaz.”

The Doctor smiles softly at Yaz in the mirror and stands slowly. But when she moves to get past, Yaz stops her. If the Doctor isn’t going to talk freely, perhaps Yaz needs to get the ball rolling after all. And there’s one question she really wants to know the answer to, so she may as well start there. She knows better than to ask about River right now. 

“How are you, Doctor? Really?”

The Doctor looks awkwardly between Yaz and the door behind her, but Yaz isn’t sure she can let her off the hook that easily. She needs to toe the line between giving the Doctor some space but making sure she doesn’t run away, which is something she’s never quite managed to perfect. She’s always erred on the side of caution but the time for caution is gone when the Doctor looks like she's about to topple over at any minute.

“And don't lie to me. Please.”

The Doctor nods towards the door as if asking for permission to leave the room and Yaz follows her to the adjoining bedroom. She hovers uncertainly when the Doctor takes a seat on the edge of the bed with a heavy sigh. She isn’t sure where to look when the Doctor kicks off her boots. 

“I've been better,” the Doctor admits after a moment. “I had a lot of time to think when I was in prison. Too much."

The honesty catches Yaz by surprise and she hesitates only for a moment before she joins the Doctor on the bed. The Doctor has started to open up; it seems only fair that Yaz do the same.

“I've been thinking, too.”

Yaz reaches for the Doctor’s hand, eager for touch and hopeful that it will reassure the Doctor, too. She figures this is safe enough, given that they’ve held hands before. The Doctor’s knuckles feel bony, her clever fingers slender as they automatically twine between her own. Without thinking, Yaz starts to trace her thumb over the back of the Doctor’s hand, bemused when the Doctor stares at their joined palms in disbelief. 

The gesture is so reminiscent of one of the Doctor’s daydreams that she has to place her other hand on top to make sure Yaz is actually there.

This time, the hand doesn’t move away. It’s warm and strong and comforting. The Doctor memorises it for future reference. She hopes she won’t need to call on this particular memory for a while. 

“I missed you so much it hurt,” Yaz says bluntly, shocking herself, but already she feels better for saying the words aloud and she continues to speak, alleviating the burden on her shoulders. “I didn't realise it would hurt so much, but I should have known.”  

“I missed you, too.” The Doctor’s eyes flick up to Yaz’s own, eager to convey her sincerity. Yaz contemplates whether to continue but the Doctor remains quiet, as if she’s encouraging Yaz to keep going. 

Yaz takes a deep breath. River had said they both needed closure and she senses an opportunity to get it. 

“But now that you're here it still hurts. Maybe even more than before.” 

“Why?” 

“Because seeing you again reminded me of how painful it was when you left. And the way you left us. We were meant to be your family, you know. The way you left me, when all I wanted was to go with you...that's all I've ever wanted. All that time to think was a good thing. It put things in perspective.”

Yaz wishes she hadn’t quite gone down this route but perhaps it’s best to clear the air and she's said too much to stop. The Doctor doesn’t pull away, either; she nods. She was isolated for a long, long time, but she’s starting to sense that even if Yaz was at home, she was equally alone. 

“I thought that was the end,” Yaz admits. “It felt so unfair. Before I could even say anything about how I... how I feel.” She swallows hard, avoiding eye contact and moving swiftly on. Perhaps one day she’ll have the courage to return to that line of thought. “You were gone and that was it. You took the choice away from me. You left me behind.”

“I thought you’d be safe,” the Doctor insists, but now she realises she was wrong. Yaz has been languishing just as much as she has. 

Just as quickly as the words evolved they dry up and Yaz slumps slightly, out of steam. It feels like she’s taken a tiny step forward and there are still thousands left. She needs to pace herself for this emotional marathon.

“I don't really know what to say,” she shrugs. “You're back, but nothing will ever be the same, will it?” 

Yaz finally looks up but her voice has gone quiet, as if she’s afraid to verbalise what she’s thinking. “You aren't the same either. It can't just go back to the way it was, can it?” 

“No, it can’t,” the Doctor replies. 

Yaz ducks her head. 

"I understand," she mutters. She knew the answer to her question before she even asked it, but it still saddens her immensely to hear the Doctor say those words aloud. 

The bed shifts but instead of pulling away, like Yaz expects, the Doctor pulls her into a tight hug; their first. Will it also be their last? Yaz clings onto her, afraid to let go.

The Doctor only pulls back when she feels hot tears strike her coat, holding onto Yaz’s arms as she examines her face with concern. 

“Don’t cry, Yaz,” she murmurs. “I don't think that's a bad thing. It just means I discovered what it was like to have a universe without you, and I never want to feel that again.”

It’s Yaz’s turn to be speechless. She feels her heart swelling, even as she has to wipe tear tracks from her cheeks. 

“Please don't leave me behind again,” she pleads. The Doctor is still, by far, the best person she’s ever met and Yasmin Khan is not ready to give her up just yet. Not if she has any say in it.

“Not planning on it,” the Doctor agrees, and then her thumb is tracing over Yaz's cheek, ghosting over the tracks that still linger.

Yaz realises she probably looks like a complete state. Her eyes feel puffy and her cheeks feel warm from her crying jag but rather than worry about how she looks to the Doctor, she realises she doesn’t actually mind. 

She’s spent so long trying to impress the Doctor and worrying about what she thought of her, but the way the Doctor is looking at her now is somehow different. It's like she’s looking at Yaz for the first time. Being upfront with one another means it’s less easy to hide, and Yaz knows that she’s now seen the Doctor at one of her most vulnerable moments, saying goodbye to her wife. She wonders if the Doctor would ever let Ryan or Graham see her in the same way. She certainly wouldn’t let them cut her hair. 

“God. I'm glad the others aren't here, I'm a mess,” Yaz laughs, and the Doctor freezes.

“Oh.”

“You haven't seen them yet, have you?” Yaz surmises from her response.

The Doctor shakes her head. “I had to see you first. I needed to see you more than anything.”

Yaz tries not to read into that and instead focuses on moving them forwards. She’ll have plenty of time to dissect this conversation later. The main thing is that they’re reunited, and that they’re back on track. They’ve taken a step towards fixing things, hopefully for the better.

“Come on.” Yaz moves to get up because she doesn't want them to delay any longer. Although they had been more realistic about the Doctor’s fate, she knows Graham and Ryan were still devastated by her departure. It isn’t fair to keep them waiting. 

“Wait! Wait.”

The Doctor pulls Yaz back. 

“Just sit with me for a moment.”

Yaz realises the Doctor is truly exhausted when her eyes blink slowly. Perhaps her next stop will be the bed they’re currently sitting on. River’s words echo in Yaz's mind. She’d only said them a few hours ago but it feels like another lifetime.

She may be alive but she’s not well. 

Yaz steels herself as the Doctor rests her head on her shoulder, speechless at the gesture. The Doctor is never this tactile with her and Yaz has to force herself to remain calm. 

“I just need a moment to sit still. That's all I need. One moment alone with you is all I've wanted this entire time.”

The simplicity of the sentiment is striking and Yaz wonders if the Doctor will ever stop surprising her. 

“Since prison?” she sniffs, still a little choked up.

The Doctor contemplates their adventures together, about how they were thrown into one after another with barely a chance to catch their breath. They haven't even had time to stop and rest since they met Byron, and the fatigue hits both of them solidly, judging by the way Yaz leans into her after a moment. 

“Longer.”

Yaz’s breath hitches at the revelation. She feels exactly the same way. 

“Then let's not rush."

Chapter Text

They take their time. They have an abundance of it now, after all, even if it also feels like they’re having to make up for countless missed opportunities. 

When the Doctor returns to Sheffield the following afternoon, Yaz insists they meet the others. She can tell that Graham and Ryan are shocked by the Doctor’s appearance. As the Doctor haltingly explains how she’s still alive, missing out most of the details, Graham plies her with endless cups of tea. When she’s finished, the Doctor slumps into the couch cushions. Just telling them what happened has clearly been difficult and Yaz wonders if she’s done the right thing by bringing the Doctor here, now. The Doctor is the linchpin of their little group and they aren’t used to seeing her so subdued, but her companions are resilient and they rally around her when it becomes apparent that something is wrong. Ryan suggests they go out for lunch rather than away in the TARDIS, and the Doctor picks at a fried egg sandwich as she puts a face on things.

It’s only once the Doctor finally departs that the others look to Yaz for an explanation, so she tells them what little she knows. She tells them that the Doctor was in prison for a long time. She tells them that the Doctor was alone for the duration. She does not tell them about River. It’s not her place to tell them about her, and she suspects she would never have even known about River Song had circumstances not brought them together. Graham and Ryan are understandably shocked by what Yaz tells them.

"I knew something wasn't right when I first laid eyes on her,” Graham says. “She seems...smaller, you know? She used to be larger than life itself.”

Ryan nods in agreement. He’s quiet, and Yaz wonders if that has anything to do with the fact that he’d been the first to leave the Doctor behind. She isn’t sure if she’s quite forgiven him for it.

“But I didn't think she'd been through that, on top of everything else that happened. You think she'll be alright, Yaz?" Graham asks, and his concern amplifies Yaz's own.

"Honestly? I don't know."

Yaz really doesn't know; all she does know is that she has to try and help. After all, the Doctor always helps others and now she is the one in need.

Yaz wonders what else the Doctor keeps secret from them. From her. She knows she might have an uphill struggle ahead. But the mere fact that she knows of River’s existence and that Graham and Ryan don’t has driven an invisible wedge between them, small as it may be. She and the Doctor are complicit, and it’s this shared knowledge that prompts Yaz to suggest that their next journey comprises just the two of them. She would like to continue their conversation and she worries that having the others around will be too distracting.

The Doctor seems relieved by the suggestion. 

“You think the boys will mind?” she asks, but her smile brightens when Yaz shakes her head. 

“I don’t think they’ll mind.”

Yaz has already told them what she was planning to do and they’d both been on board. They don’t take it personally. They understand that of the three of them, Yaz is the closest to the Doctor and the most likely to bring her back to herself. She has the best chance of uncovering what’s wrong.

It’s not just the next journey that comprises just the two of them, but the several that follow. Yaz doesn’t comment on it. She pops home every now and again to pick up the odd shift or to see her family or change out her suitcase, but before long the Doctor returns, ready and eager to go somewhere new. Yaz doesn’t know what the Doctor does while she’s at home but whenever she lands back in Sheffield, she possesses a manic edge that only mellows when they arrive at their next destination. Yaz suggests they take things easy, get used to one another’s company, and the Doctor agrees.

In theory.

It doesn’t take long for Yaz to realise that the Doctor is still throwing herself into adventures. What should be relaxing trips are rarely that; a trip to the seaside, for instance, is catapulted into chaos by a giant octopus that’s been sinking fishing boats. A jungle planet is so full of rabid alien monkeys that they have to beat a hasty retreat to the TARDIS. A space safari turns into a fight for survival when their vehicle breaks down in the middle of a lunar desert. Yaz stops listing their near misses when she realises quite how many they’ve endured, but the near-final straw comes when they’re nearly trampled to death by some giant pigs at a petting zoo. 

“Phew! Haven’t sprinted like that in a few decades,” the Doctor says, bracing her hands on her knees while Yaz pulls straw from her hair. “Could have done with a warm up.”

Yaz shakes her head. She’s frustrated but she doesn’t want to verbalise it, not when the Doctor is grinning at her in that way that always makes her a little weak at the knees. But while the Doctor seems to be thriving on the adrenaline, Yaz gets the distinct impression that she is trying to distract herself. There are dark shadows underneath her eyes that she can’t quite hide, and later that night, Yaz is certain she hears the Doctor crying out in her sleep. 

She lays in her own bed in the TARDIS, staring at the ceiling. She didn’t think the Doctor ever slept, or if she does, she certainly doesn’t do it when Yaz is awake. But now she sleeps almost as often as Yaz does, for as long as Yaz does. When they get back to the TARDIS these days, both of them part ways for the night and the Doctor actually heads off to bed. She doesn't stay up fixing things in the console or catching up on her reading in the library, like she used to. She sleeps. At least, she tries to. From what Yaz can gather, her sleep is not restful in the slightest.. 

Another cry echoes down the corridor and Yaz grips the sheets tight in her hands. It doesn't feel quite right to go looking for the Doctor given how little they’ve actually talked about things, but Yaz is determined that this cannot go on. 

She finally puts her foot down when the Doctor is nearly eaten alive by something that looks like a werewolf, from one of those awful 80s horrors Yaz had watched as a kid. It's Yaz who saves the day, too, although the Doctor still manages to get swiped before Yaz slams the door on the creature's arm and wedges a chair under the handle when it finally retreats.

“That’s it,” Yaz says, cutting the Doctor off before she can make some lighthearted comment about how close that call was. “No more.” She strips off her jacket and jumper, ignoring the creature pounding on the door.

Her heart is pounding, too, with fear and anxiety about what she’s about to do. 

“No more what?” the Doctor asks, and she gasps as Yaz wraps the material around her arm and pulls it tight. 

“No more of this danger, Doctor.” Yaz watches and waits for the blood to slow. It’s all over her hands, which are shaking. “I don’t remember you being so...reckless, before.”

The word seems to give the Doctor pause and she straightens. 

“I’m sorry, Yaz.” She seems sincere, and Yaz takes a calming breath. She’s in uncharted waters, because whenever she’s pushed the Doctor on things before, things haven’t ever gone to plan. She was told she asked too many questions, or that the Doctor’s mood was fine. Her concerns about the Doctor were rarely, if ever, acknowledged. Instead they were flung back like ammunition.

We’re not just going to leave you.

Yes, you are.

At the time, Yaz had taken it as a direction but now it occurs to her that perhaps it had been a statement of fact. The Doctor was alone when they found her; even her wife was no longer in the picture. She had no family, Yaz knew that much, and her home had been destroyed. The Doctor was always alone, left behind.

Sometimes this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit in the stratosphere, alone, left to choose. 

“The last thing I want to do is put you in danger,” the Doctor continues. “I thought I'd keep you safe, but…”

She raises her arm, and Yaz wishes she’d made a better job of dressing the wound. 

“Must be getting slow in my old age.”

The Doctor grins in an attempt at reassurance but Yaz’s thoughts have made her melancholy. 

“I don't think it's that, Doctor. You seem a bit out of sorts. And don’t get me wrong, I-”

“Maybe I am,” the Doctor interrupts, surprising Yaz. She abruptly turns and busies herself with the window lock, using her sonic to pop it open. 

Yaz gathers her thoughts as they make their escape back to the TARDIS to regroup. It’s only once they’re safely inside that she picks up the conversation, watching as the Doctor does something clever with the console, muttering all the while about an antidote. 

“You know how we talked? That day?” Yaz asks, hoping the Doctor knows which day she’s referring to. The day River left. The Doctor pauses briefly but Yaz can read her better than ever and she knows that’s all the acknowledgment she’ll get right now. The Doctor might be very clever but she’s not always the best at holding sensitive conversations, especially when she’s preoccupied.

“You said that nothing would be the same. But that’s what you seem to want. Finding problems and fixing them, that’s all we’ve been doing...but I don’t think that’s going to fix things for you , Doctor.”

The Doctor stops completely then, her back turned. Yaz wonders if she’s saying too much or if she should keep pushing. Should she mention that she hears the Doctor crying out in her sleep? It seems cruel to bring that up now when her shoulders have slumped in defeat. Yaz tries a different tack. 

“You said you wanted a moment with me, right? Can we go somewhere quieter? Safer? Maybe no more spas,” Yaz tries to joke. “We could go back to 2020, Earth-”

“Let’s skip 2020,” the Doctor murmurs, and Yaz is relieved that she’s finally spoken. 

“Okay. Earth, sometime in the 21st century. Bit of rest and relaxation?”

“I've had too much of that,” the Doctor protests, resuming her work at the console. But Yaz persists. 

“And yet you don't seem rested or relaxed.”

The Doctor stops again.

“I don't want to stay too still,” she admits. “Although I hadn’t expected quite so many misbehaving animals.”

Yaz nods. She thinks she gets it. They’ve both had too much time alone, thinking. 

“You won't be alone. I'll be there.”

That does the trick. The next time the Doctor picks Yaz up, alone, they take a short hop and head to Scandinavia. It’s cold and quiet and they start the day off with a long hike, which Yaz suspects is the only way the Doctor will be able to keep occupied without a problem to solve. They find a cosy log cabin and the Doctor insists on making hot chocolate while they wait for the Northern lights to materialise. It’s exactly what Yaz had wished for and she hopes that the rest of the evening will remain uneventful. 

That night it’s so dark that every single star is visible and Yaz gets a crick in her neck from staring upwards in awe. Even though they’re on Earth and she’s seen most of them before, there’s something about seeing things with the Doctor that adds extra meaning. Possibly because the Doctor can explain what they’re actually looking at. She could explain the inner workings of a kettle and Yaz would find it captivating. The Doctor is breathless as she points out her favourite planets and stars. 

“Does that brain of yours ever stop?” Yaz jokes, but the Doctor continues as if she hasn’t heard her.

“Joan Feynman - you might know of her brother, if you recognise the surname, but she was just as gifted a scientist as he was. She actually showed how auroras occurred. Charged particles from a solar storm accelerate along the Earth’s magnetic fields and smash into gas atoms in the atmosphere, and that gives off that light, you see?” the Doctor points out the green curtains of eerie light above them and Yaz wonders if the Doctor even heard her question. They watch the display for several long minutes in comfortable silence and Yaz feels the most relaxed she has in a long, long time. 

“And no, it doesn’t stop.”

Yaz turns from the sky to watch the Doctor instead.

“How do you deal with it?” 

The Doctor’s face is cast into shadow as the display quietens down, leaving them in the dark. 

“How does anyone deal with it?” she asks in return, but she’s not looking at Yaz. She’s staring up at the night sky, which seems emptier and lonelier than it ever has.  “As best you can.”

She looks so desperately sad that Yaz can’t stand it any longer and she reaches for her hand. 

“And not alone," Yaz says.

The Doctor finally looks at her and the faintest of smiles flickers across her face as her hand tightens. Her expression is inscrutable and Yaz can’t tear her eyes away. She knows in that moment that she is utterly screwed. 

“Come on, Yaz. Let’s head back before you freeze to death. I’ll get that fire going.”

The Doctor leads them back to the cabin, boots kicking up snow left, right, and centre. Yaz knows she should be cold but all she feels is the faint warmth of their hands together.

Later that night, when the fire has died away and only the embers remain, Yaz awakens to a familiar sound. This time, she doesn’t hesitate to find the Doctor’s room. It’s dark but she can make out the shape on the bed and she isn’t sure what she expected to see but apparently the Doctor fell asleep in her clothes. Her only concession to actually going to bed is that her boots are off but Yaz ignores that when she hears the Doctor call her name. 

“Doctor?” she asks, repeating herself when the Doctor doesn’t wake. Yaz hears her make a tortured sound and she flicks on the light, giving her a gentle shake. She’s alarmed to feel how hot she is, despite the cold outside. 

“Come on, Doctor. I’m here.”

The Doctor’s pained noises increase in volume until Yaz manages to shake her awake with a jolt, and the Doctor nearly headbutts her as she throws herself upright. 

“Yaz!” she shouts, breathing fast, blinking in confusion as she looks around the room. “What?”

“I’m here,” Yaz repeats, “you’re with me. Remember? The Northern lights? Your version of hot chocolate?” she jokes, and she’s relieved when the Doctor seems to remember where she is. 

“That was definitely hot chocolate.”

“I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. You can add that and your iced tea as recipes to work on.”

Yaz tries to keep her tone light but she’s concerned by how much the Doctor is shivering. 

“You fell asleep in your clothes,” she points out. “Did you want to wear something a bit more comfortable?”

The Doctor looks at what she’s wearing and pulls the material away with a grimace. She’s drenched in sweat. 

“Think they’ve got any spare clothes?” 

All Yaz wants to do in that moment is wrap her up in a hug and not let go but the Doctor seems almost embarrassed by the way Yaz has found her and she looks so uncomfortable that Yaz opts for the next best thing.

“Hang on. You can borrow one of my t-shirts,” she offers, and before the Doctor can protest she’s heading back to her room. It’s so late in the night that proceedings have a dream-like quality to them and she feels like she’s floating back down the corridor.

She turns her back as the Doctor swaps her t-shirts for Yaz’s clean one. Her trousers are in a puddle of material by the edge of the bed when Yaz turns back but the Doctor is already back between the sheets, eyes wide as she apparently tries to shake off the remnants of her dream. 

“Yaz?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Any time. Do you think you can sleep?”

Yaz pushes any tiredness to the back of her mind when the Doctor shakes her head. But it really is cold and when she shivers, the Doctor holds up the duvet in a silent invitation. 

Yaz slides in gratefully. The sheets are warm because the Doctor is still warm but Yaz keeps her distance as she slides awkwardly onto her side. The Doctor mirrors her and if it wasn’t for the fact that Yaz had heard her shouting out for her in her sleep only minutes previously, it’d almost be like they were having a sleepover. 

Yaz wonders who will speak first. There is so much she wants to talk about but she has no idea if now is the time. 

“You can ask me, if you want,” the Doctor says.

“What about?”

“There’s been a question on your mind for days. I can practically see it.”

Yaz thinks for a moment and realises the Doctor is right. She has many, many questions, but there’s one that’s at the forefront of her mind. She hasn’t asked it yet because she has no idea if she’s going to cause the Doctor pain, but hasn’t the Doctor also just given her the green light?

“Doctor...what happened to River in the end?”

Yaz has thought about River Song ever since they said goodbye. She replays their last interaction again and again, wishing she’d said something more clever or less insensitive. 

“She sacrificed herself.”

Yaz is horrified. Images flash through her mind but she doesn’t ask for more details. The word alone and the imagery it conjures is vivid enough and she knows the Doctor chooses her words wisely.

“I managed to save her in the end, though, just in the nick of time. Just as she saved me.”

The Doctor looks at her in a way that makes Yaz sense that something is about to shift. But then she has to stifle a yawn and Yaz realises the Doctor is on the brink of sleep again. 

“You want me to stay?” she asks. 

The Doctor reaches for Yaz’s pyjama top and within minutes her hand has fisted in the material, clenching it tight in her sleep. Yaz has her answer.  

After that night, Yaz starts to sleep over. They have another uneventful day, this time visiting the hot springs on a distant moon, and that night the Doctor yawns dramatically as she heads for bed. But when Yaz suggests they see one another in the morning, the Doctor seems forlorn at the idea of heading to her room alone and when Yaz mentions that they could talk first, the Doctor practically jumps at the chance to spend more time with her. Neither of them comment on the fact that they both fall asleep in the same bed again.

And so, each evening, they fall into a routine. Yaz slips into the Doctor’s bed and they talk a little, about whatever Yaz wants to know or whatever the Doctor wants to talk about. Sometimes they talk about minor things but Yaz absorbs every bit of information the Doctor wants to tell her. It feels like she’s lived through a drought and now she’s getting a deluge. Nothing the Doctor tells her is inconsequential and she catalogues all of it. 

Little by little, the Doctor seems to sleep a bit better. The nightmares still come, but Yaz can soothe her more quickly if she's there when they start.

One night, after they’ve been talking for the best part of an hour, and just as Yaz is ready to call it a night, the Doctor finally brings up her imprisonment. Yaz holds her breath, face propped on her palm as she listens to the Doctor speak. They’ve been working towards this point, slowly but steadily, over the past few weeks. 

“I don’t know how long I was there. It was two years for you but time...time changed for me.”

“You don’t know?” Yaz is appalled. Two years felt long but at least they’d felt tangible. Guilt still nags at her for the way she reacted to the Doctor’s reappearance on her doorstep. She can’t even begin to imagine how it must feel to lose the concept of time itself, particularly for someone as switched on as the Doctor can be. She can't imagine the Doctor - her adventurous, lively, optimistic Doctor - locked up in a cell for any length of time.

“Not a clue!” The Doctor tries to smile but it breaks Yaz's heart. “It doesn’t matter. That’s in the past, now, and someone very wise told me to always look forwards.”

“That’s not bad advice,” Yaz agrees, and then she pulls the Doctor into a hug, partly because she thinks she’s about to cry and she doesn’t want the Doctor to see, but mainly because it’s what she does when she wants to give someone comfort. 

Whenever she heads home, Yaz doles out hugs to her family more than she ever did because she knows now what it might mean to lose them; she has been in enough dangerous situations to know that nothing is guaranteed. And now that she has the Doctor back, she doesn’t want to lose her. 

She hears the Doctor inhale, then feels a soft puff of warm breath on her neck. It slowly sinks in that she is now hugging the Doctor. In bed. But the Doctor doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, she seems to be falling asleep and it's only when Yaz hears her slow, steady breathing that she lets go a little to check. 

Reassured that the Doctor is fast asleep, Yaz looks at the Doctor's face. It's been a while since she's been able to look at it unobserved and up close it's something different. And her face has changed. Yaz needs to re-learn it. So she does, and she waits for the nightmares to come and when they do she tells the Doctor she is going nowhere and she holds on tight. This is part and parcel of their routine: they talk, and share a bed, and now they hug, and the Doctor still has nightmares. Yaz wonders when they will stop. 

A few nights later, the Doctor mentions Gallifrey. They’re both exhausted from another day spent hiking in the sunshine and Yaz is drifting off when she hears the word. It hooks her, pulling her from the hazy doze she’s fallen into with a jolt. 

“You’ve never told me what happened there.”

“It’s hard to explain,” the Doctor frowns, and suddenly Yaz is wide awake. The Doctor is shutting down, for the first time since they’ve started talking. “I don’t think that even I understand it.”

“Is this what’s been on your mind? Apart from everything else, I mean.”

The Doctor nods, but she won’t meet Yaz’s eye. It feels as if they’ve hit upon the root of the problem. 

“Maybe you’re thinking too much,” Yaz suggests, but she knows that it’s pointless. They’ve reached an impasse.

“I think therefore I am,” the Doctor quips. “Descartes is terrible at snap though, proving that even the smartest minds aren't infallible.”

“Just like yours,” Yaz points out.

The Doctor seems offended, and Yaz bites back a laugh. 

“It's not a negative, Doctor. You don't need to know the answer to everything. And that's alright. We can figure it out. Together.”

It’s all she can offer. Yaz reaches for the Doctor’s hand, which lies clenched on the sheets between them. She encourages her to loosen her grip and slides their fingers together. 

“You're right, Yaz. I'm sorry.”

“Why are you apologising?” It's ironic, really; for the best part of two years, Yaz had wanted an apology but now it's the last thing she wants to hear. Now that she understands something of what the Doctor has been through, she doesn't feel like she's owed much of anything.

“Because I led you along, and I pushed you away. You were right about that.”

Yaz grimaces. She recalls what she said in the heat of the moment. But the Doctor had turned up on her doorstep and she’d said exactly what was on her mind. She was so tired and so shocked that the words had just come out in a rush. She’s glad she was honest but that doesn’t also mean she doesn’t regret it. She could have worded things a bit more gently at least. And now they’re in this odd limbo, halfway back to where they were, but the chemistry between them has changed. They’ve both changed, too. 

“And after everything I’ve told you, I’m not sure what you think of me. I’m not the same person I was when you first met me. You were right about that, too.”

Yaz shakes her head in disagreement. 

“Kind of. Some things haven't changed, though.”

“Like what?”

“I still think you're the best person I've ever met.”

Yaz silences the Doctor’s retort with a finger against her lips. When had they got so close? She can feel the Doctor’s breathing and their proximity eliminates any semblance of self-control Yasmin Khan has left. 

“Let me prove it to you.”

Yaz kisses her, and tries to convey to the Doctor just how she feels. Sometimes actions are better than words and they've talked so much that Yaz has almost run out of them. If she lets the Doctor speak any more, she’s almost certain she’ll talk them out of it.

They say nothing when they break apart. Instead, they pause and start again, and Yaz is bolder this time, relieved that the Doctor has finally stopped overthinking.

Yaz doesn't say a word when the Doctor's hand slides under her shirt, and the Doctor doesn't protest when Yaz does the same to her. It almost feels like they’re coming home after so long apart and as they finally strip themselves bare, Yaz hopes the Doctor will find some kind of peace in her arms.

She is right: the Doctor sleeps much better, after that.