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“I want to tell you everything.”
“I’d like that.”
The Doctor’s eyes were prickling with tears as Yaz looked up at her with such willing patience and the most gentle of smiles on her lips that it made her want to spill her guts right there and then.
But there would be time for that. She had made her commitment, and she would stick to it. They will talk, and it will be the right time, in the right place. Cups of tea in hand, blankets and pillows and a roaring fire. It’s the TARDIS library the Doctor is picturing. And it feels right. But that is the future.
This is the present. A present where Yasmin Khan is stood inches from her face, looking at her like she placed every star in the sky and set them out into the multitude of mosaics that make up the constellations of the universe.
It would be so easy, the Doctor thought, just to dip her head. Take that one, incremental, step toward Yaz and bridge a gap that Doctor has desperately wanted to for so so long. She’d hidden it all away. Locked these feelings deep down in the crevices of her hearts and padlocked it shut. Thrown the key away for good measure because it was too much of a risk.
Yet the Doctor hadn’t told a soul and the universe almost ended anyway.
In the heat of the flux, when it was at its worst, the Doctor fretted at the very real possibility she would never see Yasmin Khan again. Their most recent interactions had been on less than adequate terms, a friendship cracking at the seams because she wouldn’t let her in. Too obsessed with her own past that she wasn’t focused on the present.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again. And now the Doctor understood – being vulnerable enough to let her feelings out and let Yaz in certainly wouldn’t feel like the universe was ending.
Ironically, she had experience with how that felt now.
So, in the end, it was easy to take that step. To dip her head ever so slightly. She watched as Yaz’s big brown eyes widened, heard her breath hitch as she leaned in a touch closer too.
The Doctor lifted at hand to rest on Yaz’s cheek, thumb tracing her cheekbone as her gaze dipped to full lips. Yaz’s own eyes followed a similar path.
When they moved a touch closer, their foreheads barely resting together, Yaz breathed, “Doctor,” against the Time Lord’s lips. She sounded in awe. In total shock at what was happening. The Doctor, in all honesty, felt the same.
This was really happening. She was about to kiss Yasmin Khan.
Brilliant.
The corner of the Doctor’s mouth quirked up in the slightest smile as she went to finally close the meagre space between their lips—
“Did you say left or right?”
The Doctor didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Dan.
Of course.
She chose to laugh. Her body chose both. The slightest airy chuckle puffed against Yaz’s lips as the other woman sighed. Their eyes fluttered back open, gazes locked and they both smiled.
It was then that one of the tears that had been balancing on the Doctor’s eyelid decided to drop, leaving a single damp track down her cheek. Yaz’s thumb wiped it away before it had the chance to drop from her chin.
The Doctor smiled at her in thanks before she leaned far enough back to spot Dan at the top of the steps, confusion plastered on his innocent face.
Yaz rolled her eyes with an amused huff. “Come on, Scouse.” Turning her back to play tour guide for their new official team member, Yaz climbed the steps to meet Dan waiting at the top. The Doctor was incapable of taking her eyes off her. “Let Yorkshire show you the way.”
Once out of sight, the Doctor planted her palms flat on the surface of the controls and puffed out a long breath.
“What just happened?”
The TARDIS hummed in response. The Doctor blushed.
“Hi.”
The Doctor snapped her book shut in her hand and looked up. “Hi.”
The console room mattress - not so creatively dubbed by Yaz - had been shifted to the corner of the room at some point during their travels, tucked away behind one of the TARDIS’ glowing pillars that the Doctor currently leaned against.
“You were gone a while,” the Doctor continued, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. We just got chatting once we found Dan’s room. Went to go make him a cuppa ready for bed but by the time I got back to his room he was fast asleep. Literally heard the snoring through the door, I didn’t need to check!” Yaz grinned in amusement and the Doctor huffed a quiet laugh.
“I’m guessing that’s why you’re holding–”
“Two mugs of tea, yeah. But Dan drinks it like a builder so I had to go back and add ten sugars before looking for you.”
The Doctor smiled gratefully, “You shouldn’t have.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t,” Yaz sat down next to her on the mattress, “I’m enabling cavities.”
“Time Lords don’t get cavities.”
“Whatever,” Yaz chuckled.
As they blew on their drinks and took their first sips, the tension was palpable. It was going to follow them everywhere, it seemed. Lucky for the Doctor, her bravery had followed her too. Taking another long sip of her tea that scalded her tongue, the Doctor placed her mug on the ground and turned to Yaz.
“I don’t want to pretend like what happened – well – what almost happened earlier, didn’t.”
The Doctor watched Yaz’s throat bob. “Good. Neither do I.”
“I’m glad.” the Doctor let out a shaky breath. “I was a bit–”
“Worried?”
The Doctor nodded.
Yaz put her mug to one side. “Don’t be.”
With a smile of encouragement, Yaz once again showed her patience. More than happy to wait for the Doctor to make the first move. She had an awareness of how hard it was for the Doctor to be vulnerable. The Time Lord appreciated that.
Yaz’s patience was what made it just as easy as the last time for the Doctor to reach around the back of Yaz’s neck with one hand, and cup her cheek with the other as she pulled her in.
Yaz’s lips were as soft as the Doctor imagined. And she had imagined a lot. At least twenty-seven times since their earlier interruption.
It was a tentative kiss, fuelled by nerves that fizzed at every point of contact between them. Their lips parted only for a moment, Yaz’s hands now fisted in the Doctor’s jumper and pulling them back in. The tug pressed them closer, made the kiss a little hotter and a little braver as their mouths opened up and moved against each other, Yaz’s tongue dipping exploratively into the Doctor’s mouth. The Doctor sighed into it. Let Yaz in to balm the scald her tea had caused while fingers ran through her hair.
The Doctor had no idea how long it had been when they finally pulled away, breathless. Their foreheads rested together, and the Doctor ran a thumb over Yaz’s bottom lip. She watched Yaz’s cheeks flush hotter than they already were as she pulled her thumb away.
Feeling a little speechless, the Doctor let out a dazed laugh before finally gathering an albeit coherent thought together.
“Well… I wish I hadn’t waited ‘til the end of the universe to do that.”
“Yeah,” Yaz said with a grin, “Me neither.”