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13.5.20 - 22:40
“Khan, you’re on comm’s tonight,” Sunder says from behind her. “Shouldn’t be too bad. They’re all about to go to sleep up there but I need you to make sure the new one is getting settled.”
Yaz nods and takes a seat behind the row of monitors, putting on her ear piece and logging into the system. She takes a few minutes and checks the connection to the station, then calls in. The new member should have her line set up on her end but Yaz is starting to think maybe she hasn’t had a chance when the line keeps ringing.
Finally it picks up. “England, 13. Go,” a woman says. Her voice is clear and she has a slight accent, maybe Yorkshire? Somewhere near?
“13, England. Calling to see how you’re settlin’ in up there,” Yaz replies.
“It’s good, all’s good up here. Harkness is giving me a hard time, but that were to be expected, right?” She laughs.
Yaz smiles to herself. “I wouldn’t have expected much less,” she chuckles.
There’s a rustling noise and the woman yells, “Ow! Bloody hell —“ Her comm shuts off for a second, then she says, “Sorry. Hit my head. Guess I’m not completely used to microgravity.”
“Roger that. Do you need anything before lights out?” Yaz asks.
“All good, England,” she says, then, “What’s your name, by the way?”
Yaz pauses — this isn’t really…how this goes. Still, she says, “Yasmin Khan. My friends call me Yaz.”
“Can I call you Yaz?”
Yaz bites back a smile. “Are we friends already?”
The woman laughs. “Not nearly, then. I’ll have to work a bit harder than that to get your attention, I s’pose,” she says, teasing lilt to her voice.
Wait, is she…flirting?
Yaz clears her throat and tries to clear her head, using her professional voice on the comm. “Roger, 13,” she says, then because she can’t help her curiosity (even though she could just look it up in the system, but that seems like cheating) she asks, “What are you called, then?”
“Well…the others up here have mostly been calling me the Doctor, so I guess that works,” she says.
“The Doctor,” Yaz repeats.
“Or just Doctor. One of ‘em calls me Doc,” she laughs. “I knew I’d be the only one with a doctorate up here but I didn’t think they’d take it so literally.”
“Copy that, Doctor.”
“Yaz?”
Yaz pauses. “13, you know that’s not how protocol goes, right?”
She can practically hear the Doctor rolling her eyes. “England, 13,” she says in an exaggerated tone.
“Go ahead, 13,” Yaz replies automatically, smile set firmly on her face.
“Are you gonna be on the comm a lot?”
She’s sort of taken aback, not expecting that question. “I’m not sure. I don’t know what they’ll have me doing next.”
“Oh,” the Doctor says. “Well, if this is our last night together then it’s been nice meeting you.”
“You too, Doctor.” Yaz looks down at the screen in front of her and brings up the schedule. “Lights out in five,” she reminds her.
“Right. Goodnight, Yaz.”
“Night, Doctor.”
14.5.20 - 20:03
“England, 13,” the Doctor says, her voice coming through clear over the earpiece.
“13, England. Go,” Yaz replies, sitting down at her desk with her cup of tea. She hasn’t even logged into the system to start her shift yet.
“Do you know the results of the game?”
“13, you called just to get results of the football game?” Yaz asks, biting her lip to keep the smile from her face. Of course that’s what the Doctor wants.
“Not entirely. Jack also wants results of the American football game. He mentioned something about Patriots vs the Titans, but I don’t know what that means.”
Yaz opens a browser and searches for the game results because of course she’s going to look them up, she’s not heartless and not being able to watch the game because you’re in space kinda sucks.
“Man City, 2-0,” she says.
“Oh man, who did they play?”
“West Ham.”
“Bloody hell. And the Americans?”
Yaz types on her computer, then says, “Patriots, 22-17.”
She hears Jack cheer near the speaker.
“13, is there anything else?” Yaz asks.
“Nope, nothin’ else. All was good today. I even learned how to use the toilet,” the Doctor says in complete proud seriousness.
“Copy that, 13. Glad you’re getting your bearings up there. Did you start the exercise periods yet?”
“Not yet. Felt a bit sick in the morning but that’s went away since.”
“Good. The next 6 months will fly by.”
The Doctor laughs. “Not sure about that, but I’ll sure be glad to stand on solid ground again. You’d be surprised how often your hair gets caught on stuff up here.”
“I probably would, 13. I think if you ask Jack he’ll show you where they keep the hair ties.”
“Hair ties! I couldn’t remember the word!” the Doctor practically yells. “I need to learn how to braid my hair, too.”
“I’m sure someone up there knows how,” Yaz says into the mic, distractedly looking through her email as she banters with the Doctor.
“Do you have long hair?” the Doctor suddenly asks.
Yaz opens and closes her mouth, then says, “Yeah. Down to the middle of my back.”
“Oh, brilliant. Never had long hair, me. I get annoyed if it’s too long.”
Yaz chuckles. “I’ll teach you to braid it if you don’t learn by the time you come back.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor says seriously.
Yaz looks down at the clock. “13, England. You’re about to cut out on us, almost loss of service down here.”
“Right then. Night, Yaz.”
Yaz can’t help the way the edges of her lips twitch up. “Goodnight, Doctor. Hope you learn how to braid your hair.”
16.5.20 - 17:24
She looks up her picture (of course she looks up her picture). She’s sure this woman probably looks like Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus with the way she talks — but boy, is she wrong.
Yaz stares at the computer where a picture of a grinning blonde is pulled up. Her hair is short, coming just past her chin, and her smile is wide and infectious. She’s in a blue flight suit, the Union Jack patch stuck to the side of her arm, along with the ESA patch over her right breast pocket. She’s young and looks so excited that it sorta takes Yaz’s breath away.
All in all, it’s a lot to take in.
First of all, the weird woman she talks to almost on a daily basis is kinda hot? And then add that to the fact that she’s literally in space.
Be it her to start talking (and flirting, don’t forget the slight flirting on the Doctor’s part) with probably the hottest astronaut without even knowing it.
God, she’s so fucked isn’t she?
22.5.20 - 06:13
She’s put on the comm link the rest of the week and every night the Doctor talks to her a bit before she straps in for the night.
When she tells her mother of her first day off in over a month her mum says, “Yasmin, they’ve been working you far too hard. You need a vacation.”
Yaz rolls her eyes and picks up a box of noodles, reading the back of the package. It’s literally 6 in the morning and she’s going grocery shopping because the only thing in her fridge is ketchup and a box of takeout Chinese from last week. It’s quite sad, really. She puts the noodles in the trolley and keeps going.
“They’re not working me too hard, I knew what I signed up for when I took the job,” Yaz says into the phone shoved between her cheek and shoulder.
“I just worry. Are you eating well?”
Yaz looks down at the trolley full of frozen microwave meals. “Yeah, better than ever,” she lies. Her mum will worry if she tells her she’s mostly been living out of the vending machines around the corner from her desk and that she hasn’t had a real, home cooked meal in almost two weeks.
“Well, there’s that at least,” her mum says. There’s muffled voices in the background and then her dad gets on.
“Hi, Yaz. How’s space?” he asks.
“Space is good — still up there,” Yaz quips, smile on her face as she browses the cereal selection.
“Great, so how are the astronauts? Are you making friends?”
“My job isn’t to make friends with the astronauts, dad,” Yaz says. “Besides, they’ve got enough on their plates to worry about someone who relays messages from the ground.” Even to her own ears she sounds like a big fat liar.
“Well are they treating you nice?” he asks.
She shakes her head at his questions. “Yeah, they’re treating me nice,” she says and picks a box of cereal, putting it in the trolley and moving on.
“Sonya says she misses you!” her mum says from somewhere in the background.
“Yeah, I’m sure she said that,” Yaz quips because her sister most definitely did not say that, and then Yaz gets a text thirty seconds later from Sonya that says, I didn’t say that.
“Well, she does,” her mum says. “Right, honey, we have to go. Do you need anything? Food or money?”
“I’m fine, mum. Job pays well, even pays for my flat. Stop worryin’ so much.”
“Alright, we love you dear,” her mum says.
“Love you too,” Yaz replies automatically.
24.5.20 - 20:25
The number that calls in is not from the normal station comm link, so Yaz answers it.
“Yasmin Khan, European Space Agency.”
“Hiya, Yaz!” the Doctor says excitedly.
Yaz looks at the number on the computer screen. “Doctor, what are you calling me from?”
“My personal number. Jack set it up for me!”
“Don’t take this the wrong way but…why are you calling me on your personal number? Isn’t that supposed to be used for family?”
“And friends,” the Doctor adds.
“We’re friends now?” Yaz asks with a teasing lilt to her voice.
“Yaz, I think talking every night for a week and a half makes us friends at this point.”
“Doctor, I work here. We have to talk every night,” Yaz points out, leaning back in her chair, smile on her face.
“You — we’re friends, I know it, Yaz. You don’t gotta talk to me nearly as long as you do,” the Doctor huffs.
Yaz finally lets out the laugh that’s been bubbling up. Kevin from the desk two rows in front of her turns around, shooting her a dirty glare. She shoots one back and points to the headset. He rolls his eyes.
“You’re takin’ the piss, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, sorta,” Yaz says.
“Well now I’m not sure I want to be your friend, Khan.”
“Oh, I’m just Khan now, am I?”
“When you behave like that, you are,” the Doctor says. “You’re really gonna be rude to someone in space? I could die out here, Yaz. Then what would your last words be?”
“‘Hey Doctor, don’t forget to pressurize the airlock’?”
“Oi!”
Yaz laughs, loud and proper, ignoring the second dirty glare Kevin sends her way. “So you’re just gonna waste your free time talkin’ to me instead of doing anything productive up there?”
“It’s called free time for a reason, Yaz,” the Doctor says. “And besides, I’m actually doing work right now, thank you very much.”
Yaz leans forward and clicks on her computer, bringing up an excel sheet on the screen. “You’re not s’posed to be working right now. Schedule says sleep.”
“Not tired.”
“What, not an exciting day in space?”
“Nah, all the aliens left us alone, mostly.”
Yaz smiles, biting her lip as she starts reading through the days transcript. “Mostly?”
“One snuck aboard. Think I might keep it, looks like a little potato with legs.”
“I think that’s against protocol, 13. Gonna have to ask the superiors about keeping a pet on board.”
“They’ve sent monkeys to space, why can’t I keep my screaming potato alien? I’ve already got a name.”
“Really? And that would be?”
The Doctor sounds chuffed when she answers, like she’d been thinking of the joke the entire day or something. “Pting. Cause that’s the noise the station makes when it shifts.”
“Well I hope you and the Pting are very happy together for the time you have left before they shoot him out the airlock and into the never-ending depth of space,” Yaz quips.
The Doctor fake gasps. “Yasmin.”
Yaz laughs again and then there’s a long silence between them. She imagines the woman from the picture up there in the station, right now. Probably working on something electrical or floating in front of a laptop velcro-ed to a wall.
“Did you learn how to braid your hair yet?” Yaz asks.
“Not yet. Jack said one of the Russian’s might know but my Russian is shit and they don’t know what the word ‘braid’ means.”
“A shame.”
“Guess I’ll have to take you up on the offer to teach me when I get home,” the Doctor says.
“You still have five and a half months left. I’m sure you’ll learn before then.”
26.5.20 - 15:43
Yaz lays the manilla file on her boss’s desk, then turns to walk back to her own desk in the corner. “Khan, hold on,” Sunder says, then says something into the earpiece he’s wearing.
Yaz turns and waits for him to finish, stomach turning. Is she in trouble? She isn’t late on the paperwork, she fills it out correctly every night, she’s sure of that. And either way it’s not like there’s been anything happening at night to report about (other than her conversations with the Doctor, but those are on her personal line so she doesn’t have to report them).
“Right, so how would you feel about covering the night shifts the rest of this mission?” he asks after he swivels in his chair to face Yaz.
“Why?” Yaz blurts out before she really thinks about it. “Sorry, I just mean, why me? I’m still in my probationary period, you know.”
“Yaz, don’t dismiss your work,” he says sternly, pointing at her like her dad would. “Also, Gaby had to go back home because of a family emergency and we’re one short for night shift. You’ll get the night pay.”
Yaz pretends to think about it for all of thirty seconds, then says, “Okay, yeah. I’ll do it.”
He smiles wide and claps his hands. “Perfect! I’ll change the schedule and have Kevin cover your night off every week.”
“He’s gonna hate that,” Yaz says.
“He most definitely is,” Sunder says.
29.5.20 - 22:36
“What’s it like?” Yaz asks later that week. She’s alone in mission control — Kevin went out to get lunch (or dinner technically) and didn’t even offer to get her anything (rude).
“The station?” the Doctor asks.
“Space.”
There’s a long pause and Yaz checks their connection on the computer — still going strong. Then the Doctor says, “It’s big. Really, really big.”
Yaz snorts. “Thought that much would be obvious.”
“It’s bigger than I ever thought it’d be. And it’s beautiful — it’s so beautiful sometimes it takes my breath away,” the Doctor says. “I can see clouds and mountains and right now, the lights of cities coming to life in the dark. It’s so beautiful in person, I wish you could see it.”
Yaz wishes she could see it too.
“Will you take a picture? Right now?” she asks, knowing she’s probably overstepping but not even caring about the consequences.
“Yeah, hold on, let me get the camera. I think Jack tied it to the wall near the cupola,” the Doctor says and the comm goes dead for a few minutes. Yaz sips her tea and waits, checking her email for any new orders from her superiors. She should be filing her paperwork right now, or doing about a million other things, but instead she’s sat at her desk, comm link on, and talking to the Doctor. “I got it, do you want me to email it?”
“Sure,” Yaz says, then recites her email address for the Doctor. A few minutes later a file comes in with the subject line reading thats a bloody big city. She opens the file and a picture loads on the screen. It’s dark but the city is lit up, the sky clear above. It looks like a big…cluster of light, really, and Yaz can barely imagine that being a city. And entire city, where cars drive and people live and buildings reach high into the sky.
“Wow.”
“Beautiful, innit?”
“Breathtaking,” Yaz says, looking at the picture of the city and thinking about the blonde.
3.6.20 - 22:20
“You’ve got family?” the Doctor asks one evening while Yaz makes a cuppa in the small kitchen the next room over from mission control.
“Yeah, my parents and sister,” she says, stirring in some sugar. “Have you?”
There’s a small pause, like she’s thinking, then she says, “No. Lost them a long time ago.”
Yaz stops her movements at the words. “‘m sorry,” she says. “That must’ve been hard.”
She can almost hear the shrug in the Doctor’s voice. “’s okay.” They’re both quiet for a long moment, Yaz stirs her tea again and starts to walk back to her desk. “Do you look like them?” the Doctor asks.
“My parents?”
“Yeah.”
Yaz shrugs, forgetting the Doctor can’t see her. “Guess so,” she says. “Think I look more like my mum than my dad.”
“What about your sister?”
Yaz laughs. “No, Sonya definitely looks like our dad. Spittin’ image, almost.”
“Are you close?”
“Sort of,” Yaz says. “Sonya and I are close in age so we’re probably closer than most sisters are.”
“Brilliant. Would love to have a sister.”
“You don’t have any siblings?”
The Doctor is quiet for a long moment and Yaz checks the connection as soon as she sits back down in her chair. “Nah, bounced around the system as a kid,” the Doctor finally says.
“So how did a foster kid end up in space?” Yaz asks.
“You know how you wanna do something as a kid, and it just never leaves you?”
She does. She’s wanted to travel in space and time since she was young, and now she’s as close to the space part as she’ll probably get. “Yeah,” she says. “I do.”
“Just always wanted to go somewhere else, thought space was far enough away.”
“And is it?”
There’s a long silence on the other end, then the Doctor says, “No. Think it’s a bit too far, actually.”
9.6.20 - 23:54
She hears talking in the mission control room when she’s walking back with her tea, having told the Doctor she was going to be away for a minute to make a cuppa. She quickly identifies it as Ryan’s voice as she pushes the door open. When she steps into the room she sees Ryan sitting at her desk, earpiece on as he talks to the Doctor.
“Nah, mate, you gotta do it. It’ll be hilarious. I’ll tweet it if you want.” He waits a few seconds as the Doctor apparently replies to him. “No, swear it. What they gonna do, fire you in space?”
“Are you harassing the staff again, Ryan?”
Ryan jumps about a foot in the air and Yaz laughs.
“Yaz, mate, you could’ve killed me.”
“Maybe you should be at your own desk then. Why are you even here? It’s almost midnight.”
“Heard the Doctor talkin’ to herself. Do you normally just leave her talkin’ while you go make tea?”
He gets out of her chair and Yaz hears the Doctor yell, “Yes she does!” from the headset he’s wearing (Yaz’s headset).
“Shut up, no I don’t. You should be sleepin’ anyways,” Yaz says to the Doctor. Ryan hands back the headset with a chuckle and Yaz puts it on.
“— don’t appreciate the astronauts that are risking their life for the sake of science, imagine! It’s —“
“Are you quite done?” Yaz asks.
“Maybe you should pay attention to your girlfriend more, Yaz,” Ryan says, taking a step back towards the door. “Just sayin’, mate.”
“She’s — we’re — Ryan, that’s —“
“Are we dating?”
Yaz feels her face flush and Ryan grins mischievously, though he definitely couldn’t hear the question the Doctor just asked.
“No,” Yaz says firmly to both of them. “Ryan, don’t be an idiot.”
Ryan puts his hands up defensively. “None of my business, Yaz. What you do on your own personal comm link is between you and the Doctor.”
“Please get out,” Yaz says exasperatedly. Ryan raises his brows, then turns on his heel and walks out of the room, leaving Yaz alone (or alone with the Doctor on the other end of the line).
“So to be clear, we’re not dating?”
16.6.20 - 08:06
She goes into work early — like, really early. Like 12 hours early. She figures she’ll catch a few hours of sleep after the walk but she really wanted to be here for this. The Doctor mentioned off handedly two days ago that she was going on her first spacewalk to help Jack replace some solar batteries, but Yaz could hear the excitement in her voice.
First spacewalk, that’s pretty important (and cool as shit).
Yaz gets into mission control and takes a seat in the back of the room next to the other people watching. Sunder is capcom today, his stern face staring at something on one of the screens in front of him. Ryan sits behind the flight coordinator, watching the screens over his shoulder. On the big screens at the front of the room plays a few different camera shots, the biggest being the inside of the station where two suited astronauts floating into the airlock. A man in a blue tucked in polo shuts the hatch door behind them while a woman types on a floating laptop in front of her.
“England, 13. We can confirm steps 70 and 71 are complete,” she says into the microphone she’s holding.
“Confirmed, steps 70 and 71 complete,” Sunder says into his earpiece.
“Can you hear me?” the Doctor’s voice comes over clear on the mic.
“Loud and clear, EV 1.”
“Yeah, I’m here too,” Jack says.
“Copy that, EV 2.”
There’s a lot of prep and a lot of reading off papers and then they’re out, the door to the airlock opening and two white suited astronauts floating slowly out, tethers attached.
Work in space is…slow. And kind of boring. Like, once you get over that they’re in space it’s actually quite boring. They spend 6 hours changing three batteries on the outside of the station. 6 hours of boring talk and ‘copy that’, but Yaz stays and watches the entire thing.
The Doctor floats around the station with Jack, making banter that’s played over the speakers in the room. At one point she’s trying to strap her foot on the platform and the strap keeps slipping out of her hand and she mumbles “Son of a —“
“EV 1, just a reminder, you’re being played over speakers for all of mission control.”
“Oh f —“ Her comm cuts out and the entire room chuckles. “Sorry.”
Yaz only starts breathing properly again when the Doctor is back in the station and being taken out of her spacesuit by the other crew members. The gloves come off and then the helmet and the Doctor gives a bright grin and a big thumbs up to the camera. Mission control erupts in applause.
Yaz feels herself relax, relief washing over her. It’s not like there’s been a bad spacewalk in years, but still. Anything can happen, especially working somewhere as dangerous as space. She stays in her seat, staring at the camera feed as the room slowly clears, uninterested with the astronaut safely back in the ship now. She yawns wide and watches the Doctor crouch down and slide out of the top half of the suit. She’s wearing a t-shirt, tight around the biceps and tucked into the suit pants, yellow suspenders holding them up.
The Doctor on screen laughs at something Jack said as he slides out of his own suit. She’s still wearing the space cap and her hair sticks out of the bottom of it comically, almost like a weird bald cap. Yaz chews on her lower lip as she watches her float on screen, then it cuts out, the mission finished. Sunder talks to them for a few minutes longer before signing off for the time being.
Yaz takes that as her cue to leave and walks the five minutes back to her flat, falling face first into bed, exhausted.
4.7.20 - 05:07
Yaz turns in a circle, looking at her compass for west-southwest, then holds her fist up to the horizon, eyeing about 15 degrees. She marks the point in her mind and looks down at her phone — ten minutes.
It’s stupid, really. She shouldn’t even be out here — if her superiors saw her they’d think she was a bloody loon, and honestly they’d be right in a sense. It’s not like she’ll be able to see her, or the Doctor will be able to see Yaz, so it’s sorta pointless — except she told her she’d be out here, waving for her birthday, so she is.
She checks her phone again — eight minutes. The humid mid-July air sticks to her bare arms and she sits down, the dry grass pricking the backs of her legs. At thirty seconds until 5:15 am, she looks up at the horizon and measures about 15 degrees again with her fist, just so she knows.
It’s anti-climactic. It’s literally a dot, barely the size of a pin prick, moving across the slowly brightening sky. Yaz pulls a custard cream out of her coat pocket and takes a bite, giving a small wave to the space station as it flies past at 17,500 miles per hour.
“Happy birthday, Doctor,” she says quietly as she watches the space station. She imagines the blonde up there, hair floating about her head as she watches the Earth slowly move underneath her. Yaz wonders if she waved, if she’s also imagining Yaz sitting on the grass, watching her float past. She wonders if the Doctor thinks about custard creams and coming home and Yaz.
The station disappears about 4 minutes later, at 30 degrees above east.
“Did you see me?” the Doctor asks excitedly when Yaz answers the call that night.
“Yeah, saw that tiny dot in the sky for about four minutes.”
“That was me! I waved when I went past!” She sounds so bloody excited it makes Yaz smile wide despite herself.
“Yeah, so did I.”
“Oh brilliant. Knew you’d wave. Did you eat a biscuit for me?”
“I did and it were terrible. Didn’t have any tea with me.”
“Oh, gotta have tea. No offense but the tea up here is shit. Gotta drink it with chopsticks. Have you ever tried drinking tea with chopsticks in space? Not as much fun as it sounds, Yaz.”
“Doesn’t sound it,” Yaz quips. “How exactly do you drink tea with chopsticks?”
“Very carefully,” the Doctor deadpans. “It’s great they can even bring tea up here but honestly, couldn’t they have made it taste a bit better? The coffee isn’t bad, why couldn’t we get some decent tea?”
“You’re in a space station, in space, and you’re complainin’ about the tea?”
The Doctor huffs. “It’s a really important problem, Yaz. Imagine if you had no good tea to drink for 6 months.”
“Terrible. How will you survive?” Yaz asks in a monotone voice.
“I live vicariously through you,” the Doctor says.
“You’re gonna be severely disappointed when I tell you I probably don’t put nearly as much sugar in my tea as you do.”
“And that’s another thing! I can’t put sugar in my tea! What kind of terrible system is that?”
17.7.20 - 21:13
“What do you look like?”
Yaz starts, her fingers pausing mid type.
“What?”
“What do you look like? You’ve seen me, I assume,” the Doctor says. “Long hair is all I’ve really got to go on, Yaz.”
Yaz pauses, unsure how to really answer the question. The Doctor is right, she looked up her picture almost two months ago and the Doctor probably has no idea what Yaz looks like. “I braid it a lot,” she says lamely.
“A long braid?”
“Pretty long. My hair is brown, too.”
“Long, brown hair. Wow, quite the detailed picture I have of you. Thanks Yaz,” the Doctor deadpans.
“What you want me to tell you? I’m not particularly tall, I don’t wear glasses, I look like my mum.” Yaz thinks for a minute. “I wear a size 5 shoe.”
“Can you send a selfie?” the Doctor asks.
Yaz leans back in her chair, picking up her mug and taking a sip. “A selfie?”
“Yeah, like, a picture of yourself. I’ll send you one! Bet I can touch the walls with my hands and feet. Not very big in here, you know.”
“I wouldn’t, no.”
“Cheeky. Are you sending it?”
Yaz scrolls through her camera gallery, looking at the selfies and pictures of her, her and Sonya, her and her parents. “Yeah, I’ve got one. I’ll email it.” She feels like she’s living in the 90s — sending a picture of herself to her pen pal via email. She attaches the image and sends it to the Doctor’s email address.
A few minutes later Yaz gets an email from the Doctor, a picture attached.
“Did’ya get my email?” The Doctor asks.
“Yeah, did you get mine?”
“Not yet, still waitin’. Internet can be a bit shit up here sometimes.”
Yaz clicks on the attachment and an image opens. The Doctor is wearing trousers but they’re rolled up her calves, her socks pulled up her ankles. She wears a red polo today and her hair is pulled out of her normal ponytail and spread about her head. She’s got every limb spread out in a starfish position, and she’s upside down (or the camera is upside down. Doesn’t really matter much in space). Neither her feet nor her hands touch the walls or floor.
“What’s on your socks?”
The Doctor pauses like she has to check, then says happily, “Stars! And planets! Even Pluto, which is definitely a planet.”
“You’re an astronaut, are you legally allowed to say that?”
She can practically hear the Doctor shrug. “What are they gonna do? Fire me?” Yaz hears a ping and the Doctor says, “Oh! Got your email, finally.”
Yaz feels actual honest-to-god butterflies in her stomach and then she feels like an idiot. Why is she so nervous for this woman to see her? It’s not weird for friends to want to know what the person they’ve been talking to for the past 2 months looks like.
“You’ve got a lot of earrings,” the Doctor notes.
The picture she’s looking at is one Yaz had sent to her mum a few days ago when her mum had complained she hasn’t heard Yaz’s voice in a week and she was worried she’s dead.
“Yeah, I guess,” Yaz says.
“You’re very pretty.”
She says it like it’s obvious — like of course that’s what she would say right now, because it’s fact.
Yaz chuckles awkwardly. “Thanks, you’re not half bad yourself. I mean, for a big nerd.”
“Oi! I’m not a big nerd!”
“You’re an astronaut.”
“Which is cool, Yaz.”
“Also means you’re a big nerd.”
3.8.20 - 13:05
“13, England. Are you ready for the event?”
There’s a slight pause, then Jack holds up the microphone. “England, 13. We are ready for the event.”
Jack stands suspended in the air, sideways. His right foot is hooked under a strap on the wall and the microphone floats a few inches in front of him. His bright blue polo and khaki pants make him look like a camp counselor. The Doctor floats next to him, sitting cross-legged and holding onto her ankles (striped socks that definitely do not match) and outfit exactly the same, save for the yellow suspenders she wears instead of a belt. Every so often she pushes herself back from the wall with the tips of her fingers like it’s second nature. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail but stray pieces float about her head like she’s stuck a fork in a wall socket.
Sunder does a voice check with the elementary school, and then they introduce themselves. The teacher has big brown eyes and hair cropped close to her chin and she introduces her class and the rest of the schools in the area that are also watching remotely. A few minutes later she hands the microphone to a little boy who looks up over the camera, mouth open (probably where they have Jack and the Doctor displayed) and two missing teeth.
“Hi, I’m Trevor. How do you wash your clothes in space?” he asks with a slight lisp to his words.
Jack smiles warmly. “Good news — we don’t have to do laundry! There isn’t a washer up here so when clothes get dirty we throw them out. That’s why I took this whole gig,” he says easily. “Great question, Trevor.” He lets go of the mic and it spins slowly in front of them, bumping the Doctor’s knee and stopping mid spin.
A little girl with long red hair steps up next to the teacher and she holds up the mic for her. “Hi, I’m Katie. I was wondering how do you sleep in space?”
The Doctor reaches out for the mic this time, smiling at the camera. “Hi Katie. I sleep very well in space,” the Doctor says, which is a total lie and Yaz knows that. She sleeps like shit — Yaz is the one on the phone with her for hours most nights. “We sort of have sleeping bags, and then we tie ourselves to the wall in our little cubbies. Since we’re in space it doesn’t even matter what way we’re laying because the body doesn’t know! But if you didn’t tie yourself down and fell asleep, you’d wake up in a completely different part of the station.” The Doctor grins and lets the mic go. It stays suspended in the air in front of them while another little girl asks a question.
The questions go on like that for a while — the kids ask how long can you be outside the space station in your space suit? and what time zone does the space station stay in? and what do you do for fun?
The Doctor answers every other question with excitement and far too much detail for school children, but it’s endearing and Yaz finds herself smiling softly at the image of the Doctor on the screen (where she is currently sitting upside down as she demonstrates how to drink tea from a bag by making a tea bubble and catching it in the air).
Jack answers a question about the recent solar eclipse, then a small girl walks on screen. The teacher holds the microphone in front of her and she asks, “Are you able to talk to your families from the space station?”
The Doctor’s mouth opens and closes, she swallows hard. Jack looks over at her and picks up the mic, jumping in easily. “Yeah, we can talk our families. The easiest way is through email, but we can set up a way where they call mission control, then mission control calls us and we talk to each other through that.”
The Q&A ends a few minutes later and Jack and the Doctor wave at the camera as they push off from the ground and shoot upwards into another part of the ship. The school cuts the connection and they float back down a minute later.
“Thanks guys, that’s the last one for the day,” Sunder says.
“No problem,” Jack says into the mic then switches it off. The feed stays on for a minute longer as the Doctor messes around with the camera, face filling the screen comically. She looks up into the lens, hazel eyes shining and looking directly at Yaz (and okay, obviously she knows it’s not at her but like, it feels like it) and then the feed cuts out.
The rest of the room moves at once and people start going back to doing their jobs, some leaving the office entirely. Yaz looks down at her watch and figures if she goes now she can get a few hours of sleep in before she has to be back up for the night shift.
17.8.20 - 22:03
“Are you nervous?” Yaz asks a week and a half later.
“About what?” The Doctor sounds distracted when she answers.
Yaz chews on the end of her pen absentmindedly. “The spacewalk tomorrow. Do you get nervous about them?”
“Not really, not anymore,” the Doctor says. “Now it’s sort of fun. Did you see the pose I did on the last one?”
“Yeah, I did,” Yaz says, thinking of the picture she received in her email last week from the Doctor. It’s of a suited astronaut floating in the depth of space, tether hooked to their waist and arms stretched out on either side in a t-pose. “I’m so glad our tax dollars are being well spent.”
18.8.20 - 18:23
She doesn’t even notice the commotion until she’s halfway done with her sandwich, scrolling through her email and unread texts from her mum. She’s about to respond about dinner that week when she hears it.
“— wrong with the spacewalk. Water, in the helmet!”
Yaz’s head shoots up and she reaches out for the woman’s wrist, stopping her in her stride.
“Did you say something about the spacewalk?”
“Yeah, got a call that one of the astronauts has water buildup in their helmet. Mission control can’t figure out the problem.”
Yaz is out of her seat in an instant, literally running down the hall. Her heart beats hard in her chest as she rounds the corner, the doors to mission control coming into view finally. She bursts through to see the room in a frenzy, people running from desk to desk, relaying information. Her eyes shoot up to the screens at the front of the room, looking between them frantically to try and find the Doctor. She’s on a screen to the far right, floating tethered to the side of the station. Her voice comes through clear over the comm and she doesn’t even sound panicked.
“It’s startin’ to go in my mouth.”
Yaz feels her heart in her throat, watching the bulky white suit move across the camera frame and towards the air lock.
“Can you shake it away?” Sunder asks into the mic.
There’s a slight pause and Yaz feels the tension in her body build, waiting for the Doctor to answer because she has to, right? She’s not gonna drown in space, that would be ridiculous.
Except the Doctor coughs over the comm, then says, “Am I almost there? It’s goin’ in my nose.” And Yaz realizes she can’t see, moving across the outside of the station blind.
Yaz feels like she’s going to throw up.
“Almost there. Ten more feet,” Jack says. On screen he pulls her along as her hands grip the rails attached to the side of the ship.
The Doctor coughs hard again. “I’m — it’s not that bad,” she says, though the coughing is really not making that very believable.
Yaz doesn’t breathe herself until the air lock closes behind the Doctor and Jack, and Yaz looks at the next screen, the camera positioned on the ceiling and looking down into the module. The rest of the crew works fast to take the helmet off the Doctor, wiping her face down with towels as soon as they can. Yaz sees her take a deep, gulping breath when the water is wiped from around her nose and mouth and lean forward against the woman with the towel. Silent words are exchanged between the crew but Yaz only watches the Doctor — the Doctor, safe, alive, not drowning in her space suit in the depth of space.
She wants to collapse with how relieved she feels. Her heart pounds hard against her chest and her stomach still feels like it’s in her throat but she’s okay. She tells herself it’s normal to feel like all she wants to do is reach out and touch the Doctor for the first time, take her hand or pull her into her arms and never let her go because christ, she could’ve died.
“You almost drowned,” Yaz says when the Doctor picks up that night. This time Yaz had called her, not the other way around like it’s been most nights.
The Doctor falters, then scoffs. “Oh, nah. Wasn’t even that bad.”
“Doctor, the water was in your mouth. You could have drowned,” Yaz repeats, her throat tightening. She shuts her mouth a swallows hard, trying not to sound so much like a fucking lunatic. “You could have drowned and I wasn’t there — I left close to the end to eat lunch and —“
“Yaz, it’s alright,” the Doctor interrupts. “I’m fine. Alive an’ well. Practically bouncing!”
Yaz looks up at the ceiling because she’s sure as hell not crying on the phone with the Doctor. “I just — it all seems so real now. The danger, the risk.” The Doctor is silent on the other end and Yaz continues. “You better not die up there, Doctor,” she finally says. “I think you’re like the best person I’ve ever met.”
The Doctor’s voice is soft when she answers. “Definitely won’t die up here, Yasmin Khan.”
“You better not, I’ll be right pissed.”
“Noted."
20.8.20 - 18:34
Yaz hugs her sister hard when she sees her, pulling her against her chest and kissing the top of your head. Sonya hugs her back but not nearly as tight, mumbling, “Get off me, Yaz.”
Yaz finally lets her go and they both take a seat on either side of the table. She picks up her phone and types out a quick response to the message the Doctor had sent (emailed) then puts it back down on the table.
“How have you been, Son?”
Sonya scans the menu with her eyes. “Good, haven’t been sacked — yet.”
Yaz rolls her eyes. “Don’t get sacked at all. This job is good for you — you seem to like it.”
Sonya shrugs. “It’s just not what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
Yaz’s phone lights up and she clicks on the message, smiling down at the screen as she types a reply. When she puts the phone down and looks up at her sister she’s got her eyebrows raised, looking between Yaz and the phone.
“So?”
“So what?”
Sonya rolls her eyes this time. “So who are you flirting with? Did you finally make a tinder?”
Yaz feels her cheeks heat. “I’m not flirting with anyone, it’s a…colleague,” she finishes lamely.
“A colleague,” Sonya repeats.
“Yeah. Someone working for the ESA.”
“And what does this colleague do?”
Yaz is silent for a moment, then says quietly, “She’s the mission specialist of the Thirteen mission currently on the space station right now.”
“Oh my god. You’re flirting with someone in space?” Sonya leans forward on the table. “Is she hot?” She pulls out her phone and starts typing.
“Sonya, I’m not flirting with someone in space, I told you, we’re just friends,” Yaz insists, the words sounding lame even to herself.
“Is it the blonde? The one that looks like a golden retriever puppy in human form?” Sonya turns her phone around and a picture of the Doctor — a different one then the one Yaz had seen. In this one she’s in the white space suit, Union Jack patch on her shoulder, other arm resting on the helmet in her lap. Her grin is wide and infectious and she looks so bloody excited that it takes Yaz’s breath away (again).
Sonya scoffs. “You even have moon eyes over her bloody picture. Jesus, Yaz, did you even try not to fall in love with her?”
Yaz doesn’t deny it — the words die on her tongue when she even thinks it because she can’t lie to her sister, she’s never been able to do that since they were kids.
(And she’s totally right.)
23.9.20 - 20:24
“Do I have to go out there?”
“Yes. You did it for my birthday, only fair to do it for yours,” the Doctor says.
“My birthday is next week,” Yaz points out.
“Well I’m not gonna be on you next week, am I?”
Yaz is silent for a long moment, letting the words sink in.
“Oh,” the Doctor says. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Right,” Yaz says. “I’m gonna go outside now.”
“That would probably be a good idea.”
Yaz hangs up the call and gets her thermos and package of custard creams before she starts for the door.
“Yaz! Wait up!”
Yaz turns to see Ryan actually running down the hallway, a wrapped package in his hand. When he gets to Yaz he puts his hands on his knees and breathes heavy.
“Ryan, what are you doing?” She glances down at the clock on her phone — 2 minutes.
“Sorry, had to run from the other building,” he pants, straightening up and handing her the wrapped package. “From the Doctor, for your birthday.” He doesn’t say anything else about it but the look in his eyes is enough.
“What, she get you to buy a present for me from her?” Yaz asks, looking down at the package in her hands.
“Sort of,” he says, then pulls out his phone, checking the time. “Don’t you have a date with a shooting star soon?”
Yaz rolls her eyes. “Not a date, not a shooting star, also I look mad.” Still, she holds the package close as she steps out the front doors and makes her way to the middle of the nearby field.
1 minute, 23 seconds. She uses her compass to find south-southwest, then holds her fist up to the horizon, measuring 34 degrees. This fly over is only supposed to last about three minutes. Yaz sits down on the dry grass and unscrews the thermos, pouring herself a bit of tea in the lid.
Her phone counts down the seconds and then she looks up at the sky, exactly where the space station should be. Then she sees the smallest of flickers, a dot moving slow across the sky. She raises a hand and waves, taking a drink of hot tea. It warms her body in already humid September weather but she doesn’t care too much. It’s only after the station disappears at 15 degrees above east that she remembers the biscuits and the package (present) from the Doctor/Ryan.
She puts her tea down and bites into a biscuit, tearing the side of the wrapped package in her lap. It’s a picture frame facing down and when Yaz turns it around there’s a picture of the Doctor in the space station, hair floating about her and grin wide on her face. She’s sideways in the picture according to how it is in the frame and she’s holding a sign that says, “Happy birthday, Yaz!!!”
Yaz is unable to help the big smile that comes over her face. It’s sweet, really, that she went through all this trouble (or bullied Ryan until he did it) just for Yaz and her birthday, and Sonya’s words ring through her mind over and over again as she tucks it under her arm and heads back inside.
Did you even try not to fall in love with her?
No. The answer is no — and she really never even stood a chance.
“You got me a picture of you for my birthday?” she asks when the Doctor picks up on the first ring.
“Well I can’t exactly buy you a present or bake you a cake, so I thought this was the nest best thing,” the Doctor says.
“Can you bake?” Yaz asks.
“Yes! I’m an excellent baker! Well, haven’t really ever made anything that wasn’t burnt and hard, but I’m sure I could do it now!” she insists. “It’s not rocket science.”
“No, actually I think if it was you’d be able to bake,” Yaz quips.
The Doctor huffs. “Just for that, I’m not making you a cake when I get back.”
“Oh thank god.”
31.10.20 - 21:45
“What are you dressed up as?”
Yaz chuckles — of course she’s asking that. “I’m an adult, Doctor. Why would I dress up for Halloween?”
“I dressed up!” the Doctor insists.
“Yeah? What as?”
She’s completely deadpan serious when she says, “An astronaut.”
Yaz is silent for a few moments before bursting out in laughter. “Doctor, I don’t think it counts as dressing up if that’s your day job.”
“It most definitely counts, we share candy! It’s like trick or treating but with a maximum of 6 people.”
“That’s truly the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Yaz says, scratching her head where the headband digs in, pointy ears sticking up from it. “Also I dressed up like a cat.”
“I knew it!”
13.11.20 - 11:34
“Are you nervous?” Ryan asks, squinting into the sun. They’ve been here for three hours and the capsule isn’t even supposed to splashdown for another 45 minutes.
(Well, actually they’ve been here for two days because that’s the cheapest flight Yaz could get to Florida.)
“Why would I be nervous?”
Ryan gives her a look and she sighs. “Yeah, very,” she admits, stomach in knots.
“Don’t be. You’re proper fit, Yaz.”
Yaz slaps him hard on the arm and he laughs.
She’s been through the reentry and splashdown procedure in her mind a billion times and each time she thinks about something else that could malfunction or go wrong and then her palms get sweaty and she sorta can’t breathe and —
“Mate, you seriously need to calm down,” Ryan says, handing her a cold water bottle from the cooler next to them. The tent set up doesn’t do much to offer relief from the hot sun but it is shade, so she’ll take it. Ryan pulls out his phone and taps on it a few times. “Look, they’ve already reentered the atmosphere. That’s like another half hour then, right?”
“Yeah. Scheduled blackout for a few minutes, then the parachutes,” Yaz says. Two parachutes come out at 18,000 feet, slowing down the craft and stabilizing it, then 4 more main parachutes at 6,500 feet to slow the craft down to 15 mph by the time it hits the water. All done in ten minutes.
Unless, of course, something happens like the internal pressure goes out or the systems don’t deploy the parachutes or one of them breaks or they don’t, y’know, land in the water.
Unless any of that happens.
Yaz’s palms are sweating.
“Where’re they now?” she asks, wiping her hands on her jeans. Florida in November and she packed jeans — idiot.
“Communication just came back. Looks like all is good. Got a mate textin’ me updates from NASA.”
“You have a friend in NASA?” Yaz asks, a bit impressed.
“Sort of. Met her playing League of Legends.”
“NASA employee’s spend their free time playing League of Legends?”
Ryan looks over at her like he’s offended, then his phone buzzes in his hand. “First parachutes were deployed, looks like they’re slowing down.”
Yaz leaves the tent and maneuvers between the crowd of people and towards the edge of the beach. A recovery boat bobs in the water, waiting for the craft to land.
“The main parachutes are deployin’,” Ryan says beside her. When she looks over he’s wearing horn rimmed women’s sunglasses.
“Where on Earth did you get those?”
Ryan shrugs. “Dunno, just found ‘em.”
Yaz opens her mouth to respond when she hears the crows cheer. Her head whips around and there it is — the capsule, whole and not in flames and with all 4 parachutes slowing it down. It hits the water and the crowd cheers louder. Yaz doesn’t realize until that very moment that she’d been holding her breath, and she lets it out with a relieved sigh.
“See? She’s fine! Landed perfectly, she said!” Ryan pulls her into a hug and Yaz laughs against his chest, pushing him away. Even when he releases her she can’t get the relieved grin off her face.
She’s gonna meet the Doctor.
Fuck.
Did you know it takes a bloody long time to recover a spacecraft from the water? Because it does.
It starts with a speedboat and two men who hook up the rigging equipment, then a recovery boat tows it on board.
“They’re pullin’ it in the ship and openin’ the hatch,” Ryan reads from the phone.
Yaz grabs his hand without thinking and he doesn’t comment because she would probably throttle him if he did (and he knows it). “She’s in there. She’s back on Earth,” he says.
The recovery boat moves slow in the water, coming towards the shore. Yaz can just barely see the cone shaped capsule on the back of it — the word THIRTEEN painted on the side, half covered by black soot and space dust.
Ryan’s phone buzzes in his hand and they both look at it.
Hatch open, both alive and well.
Yaz closes her eyes, letting out a large breath of relief.
It takes another 10 minutes for the recovery boat to get to land and by the time it does both Jack and the Doctor have been pulled from the ship and offered stretchers to transport them to the medical center. A ramp comes out of the side of the ship and two white suited astronauts step out, two stretchers being rolled behind them. They hold their helmets in one hand and wave to the cheering crowd with the other like they’re celebrities on a red carpet.
Jack leans over and says something to the Doctor and her eyes dart around the crowd quick. Yaz drops Ryan’s hand in instant and starts pushing through the crowd of people, towards the front. Ryan apologizes after her but the crowd soon parts, and there at the other end is the Doctor, helmet dropped in the sand.
It’s like the crowd disappears completely when she approaches — all she can see is the Doctor’s face haloed by a bright sun and she doesn’t think she’ll need to see anything else, ever.
Her hair is messy. It’s not in a ponytail or braid but hangs loose and tangled around her face, just brushing her chin.
“You got a haircut,” Yaz notes. In the picture her hair had been well past her chin.
The Doctor opens and closes her mouth without a sound coming out, apparently not knowing what to say. Her eyes dart around Yaz’s face like she’s trying to memorize every single detail all at once. “Got it a few days ago,” she finally says.
Yaz reaches up and feels a lock of hair between her fingers. “I like it.”
The Doctor’s eyes dart to her lips. “Can I —“
“Please do.”
The Doctor cups her face in her hands and pulls her in, lips finally meeting. Yaz faintly notes the sounds of applause and wolf whistles around them but she doesn’t care much, moving her hand and cupping the back of the Doctor’s neck. It’s an awkward position for her arm and not at all comfortable and over far too soon when the Doctor pulls back, face beet red. A big grin starts to take over her face.
“Nice to officially meet ya, Yasmin Khan.”