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The Doctor and Yaz were running. They’d gone to a faraway city on an alien planet, just to sightsee, but when had anything with the Doctor been just sightseeing? There was a conspiracy within the government, the Doctor and Yaz had taken it down, but not before the conspirators had their last hurrah. Toxic gasses were leaking into the streets, and the only option was to evacuate. But of course in their attempt to stop the gasses from being released at all the Doctor and Yaz had waited until the last possible minute to leave, and now they were running through the city’s labyrinthine streets with fabric tied over their mouths, trying to outrun the gas’s expansion.
“It’s gaining on us!” Yaz yelled, looking back to see tendrils of yellow stretching closer.
“We’ll be all right!” the Doctor yelled back. “Come on, we’ve got to go faster!” She reached out for Yaz’s hand, tugging her along. They kept running, one foot in front of the other, through the twisting and turning streets, always making sure the gas was behind them— until they were running through an alleyway and realized the alley’s exit was fogged over with yellow.
“Doctor, what do we do?” Yaz asked, panting.
The Doctor looked around frantically. “Nothing we can do,” she said. She waved her sonic screwdriver. “That’ll put up a distress beacon. In case people find us.” She waved it again. “Maybe I can solidify it a bit, stop it from coming so fast…”
Yaz wasn’t listening. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Her fear sliced through her like a knife: she risked death every day, traveling with the Doctor, but every time she managed to narrowly avoid it. But this… there was no way to escape this. She gulped down deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. She thought of her sister— her sister, who wouldn’t know what had happened, who would assume all the wrong things, who would have to live with not knowing for sure for the rest of her life. And her parents, and Ryan and Graham, and— the gas was getting closer. It just looked like a dense fog; the yellowish tinge was the only sign of anything worse than a cloudy day.
The Doctor’s hand was on her shoulder.
“Yaz.”
Yaz looked up. The Doctor’s eyes were locked on hers, unwavering.
“ I’ve slowed the gas. We’ve got plenty of time to get a signal out of here. I won’t let you die, all right? I won’t have that happen to you.”
Yaz nodded. She was still struggling to breathe, her stomach churning, but the Doctor always made her feel just that little bit better. Even if she wasn’t totally convinced she wasn’t about to die. Another gulp of air, and she fell against the Doctor, wrapping her arms tightly around the Doctor’s torso and burying her face in the Doctor’s shoulder. There was a moment where the Doctor flailed, but once she had her bearings she returned the hug, her touch giving Yaz a sense of security.
And the gas came closer.
And closer.
And closer.
And then Yaz woke up.
For a moment, she couldn’t remember what had happened. She was lying in a bed, staring up at… it looked like canvas? She had a pounding headache, and her sleeve was rolled up, with an IV sticking out of her arm. She propped herself up on her elbows, wincing as her head throbbed, and looked around. She was in a massive tent, with rows of cots lined up next to each other: each cot had a person in it, some conscious, some not. A couple of nurses were making their way from cot to cot.
Yaz glanced to her right to see a mop of blonde hair on the pillow of the next bed over: definitely the Doctor, lying on her side, still asleep. Despite the worry that was still gnawing at her, Yaz smiled: there was something endearing about the way the Doctor’s hair went every which-way when she slept. It reminded her of nights spent camping out in the console room, the Doctor tinkering with something or other until she passed out on the mattress the TARDIS had conveniently placed right next to her. Now, like then, Yaz could see the rise and fall of the Doctor’s chest: she was breathing. Still alive.
With a sigh of relief, Yaz looked in the other direction. She was right up against the corner, with just one bed between her and the edge of the tent: this bed’s occupant was also blonde, with hair that went down to her shoulders. She was sitting up, scribbling in a notebook, and when she saw Yaz looking at her, she gave a little smile and a wave.
“Hello there!”
“Hi.” The words came out raspy. Yaz cleared her throat. “Where are we?”
“Temporary hospital,” the woman said. “Just outside the city.”
Yaz nodded. That made sense. “How long have I been here?”
“You were here when I woke up half an hour ago,” the woman said. “That’s all I know. Sorry.”
“That’s all right.” Yaz closed her eyes against her pounding headache. “Didn’t exactly expect to wind up in a field hospital today, but I suppose that’s what I get, running around like this.” She opened her eyes. “Sorry, did I say that out loud?”
The woman laughed. “Yeah.” She raised her arm with its IV tube sticking out. “It’s the medication they’re giving us. Something about the parts of the brain the gas targets. The medication can heal it, but it also does something to your language center. Forces you to tell the truth.” The woman glanced down at her IV. “As far as I can tell, anyway. The nurses wouldn’t answer my questions.” She smiled at Yaz again. “You’ll get used to it. Bit hard to filter yourself at first, but you’ll adjust.”
Yaz eyed the strange woman. There was something about her… and because Yaz had a headache and a medication with truth as a side effect running through her veins, she said it out loud. “You remind me of my friend.” Not in energy, really, but this woman had the same way of talking that the Doctor did, the same way of explaining things that didn’t quite make sense.
“Yeah?” The woman tilted her head to the side. “Who’s that, then?”
Yaz was about to answer, but she was interrupted by a clatter behind her: she turned to see the Doctor sitting up, looking around wildly.
“Yaz!” she exclaimed, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Doctor, no!” Yaz sat straight up, her head pounding.
The Doctor stood up.
“Doctor?” the woman in the bed on Yaz’s other side repeated.
The Doctor’s eyes widened. “That’s not possible,” she said, her words slurring together. Yaz saw her collapse coming a second before it happened: she swayed again, and then crashed to the floor, the nurses running from across the room to maneuver her back onto the bed. It was everything Yaz could do not to muscle herself out of bed in response.
“Is she all right?” she demanded.
“She’ll be fine,” one of the nurses said. “Just needs some rest. We’ll keep an eye on her.” The Doctor settled back in her bed, the nurse turned to her colleague. “Stay close to this one. Don’t let her get out of bed again.”
Yaz settled back against her pillow, turning back to the woman sitting next to her. The woman was looking at the Doctor with a strange sort of tenderness. Yaz couldn’t quite interpret it.
“You said I reminded you of a friend,” she said softly. “I should’ve known.”
“You know the Doctor?” Yaz asked, pushing herself into a sitting position. This wasn’t a lying-down kind of conversation, headache or no headache.
The woman was still staring across Yaz at the Doctor’s sleeping body. “Did know, once. We traveled together for a while. Thought it would be forever.”
“What happened?” The words came out before Yaz had the chance to think about them. This medication business was tricky.
“Got stuck in another universe,” the woman said. “Came back. Got stuck again. With a clone of her , no less.” The woman frowned. “Well, him, technically. And then it turned out he could die and I couldn’t, and I found a way back.” She leaned back, resting her weight on her arms. “Suppose it’s a long story.”
Something about it sounded familiar. Yaz frowned, pushing through the pain that permeated every corner of her brain and reaching for the connection. “Do you know a Jack Harkness?”
The woman’s gaze shifted abruptly to Yaz. “You know Jack?”
“Not well,” Yaz said. “Met him last year. New Year 2020, in my time. He said something about one of the Doctor’s friends making him immortal.” She frowned again, reaching for the name. “Rose. Is that you?”
The woman— Rose? —looked up at the canvas ceiling. “Yeah. Rose Tyler.”
“Yasmin Khan,” Yaz said. “Yaz.”
“And you two travel together?” Rose asked, nodding towards the Doctor.
“Yeah.” Yaz glanced back at the Doctor, who was still passed out. “She’s, like, the best person I know.” Another thing she might not have said in different circumstances.
Rose was looking carefully at Yaz. “D’you fancy her?”
What? No! Yaz usually said, when people asked about her and the Doctor. We’re friends. Just friends. But she couldn’t this time. She couldn’t lie. “‘Course I do.” Quickly, before Rose could respond, she changed the subject. “Anyway, what have you been doing since you got back to this universe?”
Rose gave her a knowing look. But mercifully, she didn’t push the issue. “Traveling,” she said. “Looking for the Doctor, at first. Couldn’t find him, so I thought I’d wander on my own for a bit.” She held up her wrist to reveal a black watch-like device. “I got this.”
“A vortex manipulator,” Yaz said. “Cheap and nasty time travel, the Doctor said.”
Rose laughed. “It’s no TARDIS, that’s for sure.” She angled her wrist one way, then the other. “Does the job, though. Gets me from place to place. Wound up here, chasing after some conspiracy. Should’ve known the Doctor would show up.”
“She does have an eye for trouble.”
There was a sudden yelp from the vicinity of the Doctor’s bed. Yaz turned to see the Doctor flailing, pushing herself into a sitting position, looking around wildly and asking, “What happened? Where am I? What happened to Yaz?” The nurse was at her side in an instant, pressing a hand to her chest so she couldn’t stand.
“I’m right here, Doctor,” Yaz said. She couldn’t see the Doctor: the nurse was in between the two of them. But the Doctor’s voice was coming through loud and clear.
“Yaz!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Brilliant. You know, Yaz, I had the weirdest dream.”
“Did it involve you trying to stand up and instantly collapsing?” Yaz asked, exchanging an amused look with Rose. “Because that wasn’t a dream.”
“It might’ve, yeah,” the Doctor said. Yaz couldn’t see her, but she was sure the Doctor’s face was all scrunched up. “Oi, I didn’t mean to say that. What happened? Why can’t I lie?”
“It’s a side effect of the medication you’re on, ma’am,” the nurse said. “To counteract the effects of the gas. It’ll wear off.”
“Well, that’s not ideal,” the Doctor said. “I like to have a little more control over myself than that, thank you very much. But I think I can work with it.” She paused. “I’m not going to try and get up again. You don’t have to hover over me like that.” But then she gasped. “Oh! My dream! Rose was in my dream! Rose isn’t here, though. Is she? She can’t be. It’s not possible. Physically not possible.”
“Hello, Doctor,” Rose said.
There was another clatter. Yaz could see the blanket over the Doctor’s legs moving: the Doctor clearly had rethought her promise to not try and get up again.
“Ma’am, you need to stay in bed,” the nurse said. “For the healing process.”
“My head hurts!” the Doctor said. There was a smacking sound that Yaz assumed was the Doctor hitting her forehead in frustration. “Augh, the lying! I want to say I’m fine, I’m healed, and I’m ready to go right back to my ship, but I can’t .”
“So you’re admitting that all the other times you’ve said that, it’s been a lie?” Yaz asked, suppressing laughter.
“Oi, it’s not funny!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Fine. I won’t try to get up again. Even if I really, really want to. Promise.”
The nurse sighed. “You’d better stick to that.” He stepped away from the space between Yaz and the Doctor, revealing the Doctor sitting up, still in her jacket, mouth hanging open, hair an absolute mess. Yaz smiled at the sight: the Doctor was well and truly out of her element. It didn’t happen often, but it was always entertaining when it did.
And then the Doctor turned her head, looking across Yaz’s bed at Rose. The second their eyes met, the Doctor’s energy changed: with a sharp inhale, in the space of a second, she went from frenetic to stunned. Yaz looked back at Rose, whose eyes were searching the Doctor’s face, and the realization hit her: there was history here. Whatever was between Rose and the Doctor, it ran deep. Yaz leaned back, trying not to feel like a third wheel.
“You’re here,” the Doctor breathed.
“Yeah,” Rose said, a tentative smile on her face. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“How long?”
“Few hundred years for me.” Rose tilted her head towards the Doctor. “You?”
“Two thousand, at a guess,” the Doctor said. She shook her head. “How did you even get here?”
“Turns out when you don’t have anything else to do for a few hundred years, the impossible doesn’t feel impossible anymore,” Rose said. “You know I was never the type to give up.”
“No, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor agreed. “You really, really weren’t. And because I’m ” Her eyes moved from Rose to Yaz. “You met Yaz, then?” She frowned. “You’re not fighting, are you?”
“Why would we fight?” Yaz asked. She looked between the Doctor and Rose. “I mean, Rose, I don’t even know you.”
“You’re a better person than I was at your age, then,” Rose said with a laugh. “I wasn’t nearly as nice to Sarah Jane.”
“Sarah Jane?” Yaz asked.
“Another old friend,” the Doctor said. “You sort of collect them, when you’re as old as I am. And sometimes they meet each other, and sometimes when they meet each other they don’t get along. Or they start swapping jokes at my expense.” She frowned. “I’m never sure which is worse. Although with Rose and Sarah Jane it was both, so I suppose I’d call that the worst case scenario.”
“Oh, you love us,” Rose teased.
“Suppose I do, then,” the Doctor said, a thoughtful note to her voice.
The energy shifted again. Rose froze, looking caught off guard for the first time since Yaz had started talking to her. And then the Doctor froze too, realizing what she’d said. Yaz tried to think whether she’d ever heard the Doctor say she loved anyone before: maybe Yaz’s mum, but that had all been very lighthearted. Yaz wasn’t exactly expecting the Doctor and her mum to shack up together or anything. And since then, the Doctor had only become more and more reluctant to share what she was thinking or feeling: Yaz could barely get an, “I’m fine,” out of her, much less any profession of love. That medication was doing a number on her, that was for sure.
“You never said that before,” Rose said softly.
“Wasn’t under medication before.” The Doctor turned away from Yaz and fell against her pillow, staring at the ceiling and looking distinctly grumpy.
“Hold on a second,” Yaz said. “I saw the way you two looked at each other just now. How come you’re so bothered by joking that you love her?” She would’ve stopped there, but her head still hurt, and the medication was still pushing her to tell the absolute truth. “Doctor, I knew you were horrible about sharing your feelings, but you’ve gone too far with this one.”
“You really haven’t changed!” Rose was laughing. “Doctor, you’ve got to start letting your friends in a bit.” To Yaz, she added, “She couldn’t even say it when she thought she was never going to see me again. Not even when I said it first. Not the greatest with emotions, our Doctor.”
Yaz felt something warm in her chest at the way Rose said “ our ” Doctor. “I’m glad we’re not fighting,” she said to Rose. She turned to the Doctor. “And Doctor, you need to get over yourself! We care about you, you know. You can’t just take all that and not give any of it back.” Anticipating the Doctor’s next point, she hurried on. “I don’t care that you lose us all eventually. We’re here now , and you’ve got to stop wallowing in your past and start focusing on what you have .”
The Doctor didn’t say anything. She was still staring up at the ceiling.
“Sorry,” Yaz said. “That was harsh.” She paused. “Maybe you need to hear it, though, if it took you two thousand years and a mind-altering medication to express your feelings for someone you clearly care about.”
“When can we leave?” the Doctor asked, still staring up at the ceiling. She sat up and waved a hand. “Nurse?”
One of the nurses came rushing towards her.
“When can we leave?” she repeated.
“You inhaled quite a lot of gas,” the nurse said. “It’ll at least be a few more hours before all the damage is repaired.”
“I heal faster than humans,” the Doctor countered. “ And I have backup brains. I’ll be fine.”
The nurse looked at her for a long moment. “A few more hours,” she said. “And then you can leave, pending sufficient progress.”
He moved away from the Doctor’s bed, and the Doctor flopped backwards. “Argh! I just want to be somewhere else. Somewhere I can wait out this truth thing alone so that I don’t feel like I’m constantly on the brink of telling everyone all my deepest thoughts!” She flopped her head to the side. “Trust me, Yaz, you don’t want to know all my deepest thoughts. No matter how much you think you want to.”
“I don’t need to hear all your deepest thoughts,” Yaz protested. “I just need to hear the ones that affect me. But I think it’d be good for you to open up a little bit! You can’t keep everything all bottled up like that.”
“I can, and I will,” the Doctor said, turning to face away from Yaz. “My feelings are my problem.”
Yaz looked at Rose, who in turn was looking at the Doctor with that same strange tenderness Yaz had noticed before.
“Oh, Doctor,” Rose said softly. “What’s happened to you?”
The Doctor didn’t answer.
“She went back to Gallifrey,” Yaz said, hoping the words meant something to Rose. They did: Rose’s eyes widened, her mouth falling open.
“I thought Gallifrey was gone,” she breathed. “He used to always tell me about it— the orange fields, the twin suns. But he said he could never go back.”
“I got new information.” The Doctor’s voice was muffled: she was speaking into her pillow. “Not that it matters.”
“Everything was destroyed,” Yaz explained to Rose. “The whole planet.”
“Oh, Doctor,” Rose said again. She glanced around the room, then stood up: Yaz followed her glances to see that the nurses were both busy, their backs turned to Rose’s corner. Tugging the IV tower with her, Rose made her way slowly to the Doctor’s bed. She sat on the end, one hand still on her IV tower, and laid one hand on the Doctor’s arm. “You’ve gone through a lot, haven’t you?”
“You could say that,” the Doctor mumbled, her voice still muffled.
“Two thousand years,” Rose murmured. She was giving the Doctor a look so full of emotion that Yaz had to look away, feeling like she was intruding. She turned her head, ignoring the lump that was threatening to rise in her throat.
“I’ve been busy,” the Doctor said. “Made new friends. Lost them. Got married! A few times, technically. Only once on purpose. You’d like River. Both of you would, actually. Waited around a lot. Taught at a university. Found out my entire life was based on a lie. Went to space jail.”
“Your life was what ?” Her own feelings forgotten, Yaz turned her head so fast it made her dizzy. Or— maybe that was just the effects of the gas-medication double feature taking up space in her brain.
“I told you, didn’t I?” The Doctor tried to push herself into a sitting position, but she mostly just succeeded at getting tangled in the blanket. Rose took her hand and pulled her up, and she swung her legs off the bed, leaning heavily against Rose. “That was what the Master told me. I’m not even a Time Lord. They lied to me. My whole life.”
“How do you mean, not a Time Lord?” Rose asked. Her face was turned towards the Doctor, her lips inches from touching the Doctor’s hair.
“Don’t know,” the Doctor said. “I don’t really understand it. I just know I’m not who I thought I was. I’m missing memories.”
“That’s horrible,” Yaz said. “You definitely did not tell me this.”
“Could’ve sworn I did.” The Doctor hesitated. “Unless it was Ryan I told. Might’ve been Ryan.”
Yaz shook her head. Of course Ryan had been too loyal to tell Yaz anything. Or maybe she just hadn’t spent enough time with him since he’d left the TARDIS. “Doctor,” she said. “I care about you. I want to know when there’s something wrong.”
The Doctor’s head drooped forward. “Yaz,” she said. “There’s something wrong.”
“See, how hard was that?” Yaz chided. Following Rose’s earlier lead, she glanced around to make sure the nurses weren’t nearby, and then stood and staggered the few steps to the Doctor’s bed. She sat down heavily: her legs were still waking up, and her headache had not subsided. “I don’t need to know everything. I just need to know something . We’re supposed to be partners, right? A flat team structure?”
“Suppose we are,” the Doctor said, dropping her head onto Yaz’s shoulder. “I’m sorry if I’ve worried you. I don’t want you to be worried about me.”
“I don’t think you can stop me,” Yaz countered with a smile. She looked over the Doctor’s head at Rose, who smiled back. “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”
“ Is it?” the Doctor asked. “I thought we could just have nice adventures. None of the hard stuff. Nothing complicated.”
“You of all people should know you don’t get to pick and choose,” Yaz said. “If you want the easy stuff, you’ve got to take the hard stuff too. And the complicated stuff. It all goes together.” She gently bumped her shoulder against the Doctor’s. “And you know I’m here for you, right? For the complicated stuff too.”
“You can’t say that,” the Doctor said. “Not when you don’t know what the complicated stuff is.”
“Well,” Rose said from the Doctor’s other side, “ I know some of it, and I never ran screaming. Give your friends some credit, Doctor.”
“Still can’t believe you’re even here,” the Doctor mumbled.
“I can’t believe it either, really,” Rose admitted. “Took me long enough.”
“It really, really did,” the Doctor agreed. “I didn’t care for it.”
“You’ve done all right for yourself, though,” Rose said. “New new new Doctor.”
“Technically, I’d be the new new new new new Doctor, from your point of view,” the Doctor pointed out. “I said it was two thousand years, didn’t I? Went through a couple faces in there.”
“New new new new new Doctor, then,” Rose said. She nodded at Yaz. “And you’ve got a friend to travel with.”
“Yaz is brilliant,” the Doctor agreed. “It’s just, you know.” She looked up at the ceiling. Yaz could see her eyes shining with tears. “Everyone leaves, eventually.”
“I’m here now ,” Yaz said again. “I don’t know what all you’ve been through, Doctor, but I like the person you are right now. Even if you’re stupid sometimes.”
That shifted the mood. “Oi! When have I ever been stupid?” The Doctor gave Yaz a light shove. “I’m brilliant, I am.”
“And the best part is, we know she really believes it, with the medication we’re on,” Rose laughed. “How’s the ego, Doctor?”
“Just fine, thank you.” The Doctor crossed her arms. She opened her mouth, clearly about to continue arguing, but her cry had alerted one of the nurses, who was hurrying over to the three of them.
“You need to get back in your own beds,” he was saying. “You need to heal.”
“I told you,” the Doctor said. “I heal fast. If my head didn’t hurt so much, I’d say I was about ready to go, actually.” She paused. “And anyway, being with my friends is bound to help, isn’t it?”
The nurse sighed. It was a sigh Yaz had heard many times, from many different people, when dealing with the Doctor: she’d sighed it herself from time to time, mostly when the Doctor absolutely refused to get any sleep or insisted on eating custard creams instead of a proper meal. Yaz didn’t know what the Doctor’s species was, but she was pretty sure custard creams were not the only component of a balanced diet.
“You can talk to your friends all you want, but you have to stay in your own beds. For the recovery process.”
The Doctor rolled her eyes. “Fine. Bye, Yaz. Bye, Rose.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Yaz said, pulling herself to her feet. The nurse reached out an arm to support her, but she waved him off. “I can get there on my own.” She was not, strictly speaking, up for walking all that far, but she could manage the few steps to her bed. She sat down heavily as Rose stood up much more gracefully, making her way to her bed with no trouble. The nurse glanced at her.
“You might be ready to go,” he said. “You got a lot less of the gas than these two. Give me a moment and I’ll take out your IV.”
“You can take it out if you like,” Rose said, sitting down on her bed and holding up her arm for the nurse to access. “But I won’t leave until they do.”
The nurse was already busying himself with her IV tower, closing off the flow of medicine. “You can stay as long as we have extra beds,” he said. “Your friends will be ready soon enough.”
“I should be ready now,” the Doctor griped.
“But you’re not, are you?” Yaz teased, lying back in her bed and turning her head to face the Doctor.
“I don’t think that’s for you to decide,” the Doctor said.
Yaz laughed. Her head was feeling heavy, all of a sudden: going over to the Doctor’s bed and sitting up for so long had taken more energy than she’d realized. She closed her eyes, letting the fog of gas and headache and medicine take her back to sleep.
When she woke up, it was to the sound of the Doctor’s and Rose’s quiet voices against the rest of the hospital noise. Yaz turned her head to see them sitting together on Rose’s bed, curled against each other.
“There’s Slitheen in the parallel universe,” Rose was saying. “Did you know that?”
“Ugh, who’d want two Raxacoricofallapatoriuses?” the Doctor replied. It all sounded a bit like gibberish to Yaz, but that was par for the course for most of what the Doctor said. She sat up, blinking. Her headache was mostly gone. The IV was out of her arm, too, replaced by a bandage. She rolled down her sleeve.
“Yaz, you’re up!” the Doctor exclaimed, leaping to her feat. “You were out a while. The nurse said we can go now, if you’re ready.”
“I think I’m ready.” Yaz swung her legs over the side of the bed and eased herself to her feet. She felt a little shaky, but not so much that she wouldn’t be able to make it back to the TARDIS— especially not when the Doctor immediately got next to her, acting as a support.
“Rose, are you coming with us?” she asked.
“‘Course I am,” Rose said. “If you’ll have me.”
“‘Course we’ll have you,” the Doctor said. “Right, Yaz?”
“No complaints from me,” Yaz agreed with a smile.
And so they left the field hospital together. They’d gotten lucky: the TARDIS wasn’t parked too far away. It was a short-if-slow walk, Yaz still leaning on the Doctor for support, before the telltale blue box appeared in the distance.
“The TARDIS!” Rose exclaimed. “Oh, I’ve missed her, Doctor.”
The Doctor grinned. “Oh, just a warning. She’s redecorated a bit. I think you’ll like it.”
Rose ran ahead, her hair streaming out behind her. The TARDIS doors opened at her touch, and she disappeared inside. The Doctor and Yaz kept their slow pace, and a few moments later Rose ran back out of the TARDIS, grinning.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s fantastic. I didn’t know it could redecorate like that!”
“Oh, you should see the one we escaped Gallifrey on,” Yaz said. “It was all white inside. Not nearly as interesting.”
Rose ran back inside. The Doctor and Yaz were almost to the door now: they stepped through, and Yaz immediately felt just a little bit more energized. The TARDIS always did that to her: there was something about the space that was just so… well, magical was probably the best word for it. Rose was standing at the console, inspecting the instruments, and as the Doctor and Yaz made their way forward, the Doctor said, “Try that lever,” pointing at the lever next to Rose’s right hand.
Rose pressed it, and a custard cream slid down and into its slot. Rose picked it up with a delighted laugh. “She’s upgraded, then.”
“Brilliant, isn’t it?” The Doctor grinned.
“It is,” Rose said, looking around the room with wide-eyed wonder. “It’s beautiful.”
“Your room is still around here somewhere,” the Doctor added. “You know the TARDIS. If you wander long enough, you find what you’re looking for.”
“Maybe I’ll go looking, then.” Rose pushed away from the console to approach the Doctor and pull her into a tight hug. Yaz stepped away, looking in the other direction as the Doctor hugged Rose back. She could feel the history the Doctor and Rose had again: everything that passed between them, completely unspoken, was overwhelming in its simplicity.
“I missed you,” Rose murmured, quiet enough that Yaz could barely hear it.
“I missed you too.” The Doctor’s voice was just as soft.
Yaz fidgeted with the zipper on her jacket. She didn’t know whether to leave, or stay, or what— but then when she looked back, Rose was stepping away.
“I’m going to find my old room,” she said. She glanced from the Doctor to Yaz before stepping in close to the Doctor again, leaning to say something in the Doctor’s ear. Yaz could’ve sworn she heard, “You’ve got to tell her how you feel,” but that didn’t make sense at all— what was there for the Doctor to tell?
But when Rose made her way up the stairs and out of the console room, the Doctor turned to Yaz and took a deep breath.
“Rose thinks I need to talk to you,” she said.
Yaz searched the Doctor’s face for a hint of what was going on. “Why’s that, then?”
“I think— she thinks I fancy you,” the Doctor said, her words disjointed.
Yaz froze. She could feel her heart hammering her ribcage, fear in the back of her throat in anticipation of what the Doctor might say next. “Do you?” she asked.
The Doctor closed her eyes. “Suppose I do,” she said.
Yaz felt a smile forming on her face, with next to no input from her conscious self. “Why are you telling me this now?” she asked. “I mean, I thought with Rose back—”
“I missed my chance, with Rose,” the Doctor said. “Not forever, apparently, but— I didn’t say what I needed to say in time. I think— she wants me to talk to you so I don’t make that mistake again.” She touched one side of her chest, then the other. “Two hearts, remember? Lots of room. Rose knows I’ve had people in my life since she’s been gone.” The Doctor looked Yaz right in the eyes, and Yaz’s breathing quickened. “I care about you, Yaz,” the Doctor said.
“I care about you,” Yaz repeated back. “What does this change?”
The Doctor shrugged. “It doesn’t have to change anything. I mean, besides Rose being around, I suppose. You’re sure you’re all right with Rose being around?”
“I like Rose,” Yaz said. “Plus, it’s another person around to bully you into going to sleep sometimes.”
The Doctor shook her head. “It’s possible I’ve made a grave mistake.”
Yaz laughed, throwing her arms around the Doctor. “I don’t think so.”
The Doctor wrapped her arms around Yaz, and Yaz smiled into her shoulder. It hadn’t been a bad day, then, after all, she thought. All things considered.