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The smell of wildflowers wafts into her nose as she clomps her boots on the very satisfying cobblestone road, speckled by indigenous plants pushing through the cracks. A small, winged insect flies past her face. She leans forward to inspect its tail of brightly colored segments. A shadow falls over them briefly as a mechanical duplicate of the insect glides above them, carrying tourists to the center of the city.
“Doctor!” Yaz calls to her from a nearby shop. “Come look at this scarf for Graham.”
The Doctor turns, resisting the urge to pull out her sonic screwdriver to scan the flying vehicle to find out how it works. Kaster is famous for its pollution-free engineering, and she’s sure she can learn more about it when she drags Yaz and Dan to the engineering museum later. As she walks toward the shop Yaz is in, the Doctor feels a hint of dizziness that gives her pause. But she pushes forward and enters the open doorway, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimmer lighting inside.
Yaz is holding up a green and white scarf, decorated with a pattern based on the most common type of grass in the area. “It’s made out of local plants, but it’s so soft, Doctor, feel,” she holds the scarf out.
Never one to turn down feeling a new texture, the Doctor reaches out to touch it. It is soft. She should be more excited about this scarf, but instead she’s beginning to feel strangely tired. She usually loves a shop. There’s a padded chair not too far from where Yaz is looking through the scarves, and the Doctor sinks into it.
“What’s wrong?” asks Yaz. “Never known you to be so quiet in a shop like this.”
“Dunno, feel kind of… off,” says the Doctor. “Nothing to worry about, probably, but…” She’s beginning to have some suspicions.
Yaz puts the scarf back on the rack and leans over her, reaching out to touch the back of her hand to the Doctor’s forehead. “You are looking a little flushed, but you don’t feel feverish.”
“Don’t really get fevers the same way humans do,” says the Doctor, closing her eyes for a moment as the lights in the shop begin to bother her.
“Do you think you might be sick?” asks Yaz.
“Not sure,” says the Doctor uneasily. “I think maybe I did one too many things recently and need to do some internal repairs. Nothing to worry about, just… inconvenient, at the moment.”
“Let’s go back to the TARDIS then,” says Yaz.
The Doctor hesitates. She doesn’t want to cut this trip short, but realistically it’s doubtful that she’ll be able to push through.
“We can come back later to see the museum,” Yaz adds. “Promise.”
The Doctor smiles. “We are definitely coming back for the museum.”
Yaz grins the way she always does when she wins an argument. “Wait here and I’ll get Dan,” she says.
Moments later, the Doctor feels someone shaking her as she blinks awake to see Yaz and Dan standing over her, looking very concerned. “I’m fine,” she says.
“Yeah, ‘cause falling asleep in a shop is normal for you,” Dan says, glancing at Yaz uneasily.
“Come on,” Yaz says, leaning forward and offering an arm. The Doctor takes it. Once standing, she waits a moment to let the world stop spinning.
“Okay,” she says, nodding. “Let’s go.”
The walk to the TARDIS is arduous, but not impossible. The Doctor focuses on putting one foot in front of the other and not moving her head around too much. It’s still a beautiful day outside, and she’s going to enjoy it as much as she can before she gets trapped in a healing coma for the foreseeable future.
They reach the TARDIS doors almost too soon. The Doctor trips over the entryway, but manages to stay on her feet all the way over to the console.
“Medbay?” Yaz asks.
The Doctor shakes her head. “Don’t much like the medbay. The TARDIS can scan me from here, though.” She pulls the scanner device out from where it’s nestled among the controls and scans herself. The readings only take a moment to come back, and she’s grateful when they come back in Gallifreyan, which she knows the TARDIS won’t translate for Yaz.
The results from the scan are just a little bit more alarming than what she’d suspected. After going directly into a time storm, being turned into a weeping angel, being taken out of the universe, and being trisected across time, her body has… sustained some damage.
“What is it?” Yaz asks, her eyes skimming over the monitor.
“Nothing a long nap won’t fix,” says the Doctor, trying to sound unconcerned. “I’m going to want to take you both home first, though. A healing coma can take over a month.”
“Alright,” says Dan. “Will you travel back in time then, pop by the next day?”
“Of course!” the Doctor says brightly. “I promised you adventures, didn’t I?”
Yaz slides up to the opposite side of the console, wordlessly beginning the navigation to take Dan home. The Doctor tries to read her expression—is she disappointed? Angry? Sad? A mix of all three? The Doctor grips the console for stability, flicking a few switches to look like she’s helping with the navigation. Still functional. Still okay.
The TARDIS lands in Liverpool. “See you around, Doc,” says Dan, gathering his things together. “Hope you feel better.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow, right as rain!” she says cheerfully. “And then we can go wherever and whenever you want.”
“Sounds good!” he calls over his shoulder as he leaves.
“Sheffield,” the Doctor mutters, running her fingers over the levers and buttons. Only, the levers she needs are on the other side of the console, and she can’t quite move her feet independently at the moment. “Co-pilot?” she asks Yaz cautiously, looking up and holding her breath as she waits to see how Yaz is going to react.
Yaz stares at her for a long moment, looking strangely tired. “You realize I’m not going to let you leave again, after the last three years, don’t you?”
The Doctor bites her lip for a moment and tries not to show the rush of hope she feels at that. “I’ll be dead to the world for a month or so,” she says tentatively. “Would be awfully boring for you.”
Yaz leans forward, leaning her head to the side. “I can still read to you, can’t I?”
The Doctor lets out a shaky breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She looks down at her hands. “Yes. You can. I can probably hear you but—but I can’t respond.”
In a blink of an eye, Yaz is beside her. “Are you scared?” she asks.
The Doctor’s eyes widen slightly. Scared? She’s terrified. She tries to cobble together a sentence that will somehow convince Yaz of the opposite.
But Yaz isn’t done. “I would be,” she says, “if I had to go to sleep for a month. Able to hear things around me, but not able to move or do anything.” Her expression is open, nonjudgmental.
The Doctor gives a minute nod. She’s been leaning on the console heavily for long enough that her arms are beginning to shake. “Need to get to the time vortex before I pass out,” she says quietly.
“I can do it,” says Yaz, already moving to begin the necessary steps.
“Thanks, Yaz,” says the Doctor, somehow wanting to thank her for everything, but not having the words. “You still remember how to get home?”
“Don’t worry,” says Yaz. “I remember how to get home, and I will go home for help if anything happens.”
The Doctor smiles. She can feel her eyelids threatening to drop. “Good.” She’s so tired. Vaguely, she feels the TARDIS arrive in the time vortex. She’s considering sinking the floor when suddenly Yaz’s arm is around her waist, supporting her.
“Where do you want to go for your nap?” asks Yaz. “Do you have a bedroom?”
“Hmm.” The Doctor leans her head on Yaz’s shoulder. She thinks of her bedroom—dark, navy blue and black walls and bedspread, speckled with glow-in-the-dark stars on every surface. It’s messy. She doesn’t spend enough time in it to clean it. And it’s full of memories. Painful ones.
On the other hand, there’s always the zero room. She can already feel the TARDIS suggesting it to her, letting her know the door is just down the hall. But the zero room is so bright and everything is white. Not that she’ll have her eyes open. And of course, the TARDIS is willing to personalize it to her mood.
But she’s already so full of anxiety about being locked in her own mind for so long. Being cut off from the universe in a room that, regardless of redecorating, is ultimately sterilized and lonely—
“What about mine?” asks Yaz. “You can stay in my room if you want.”
The Doctor stumbles slightly. The thought of not being so isolated during her healing coma is extremely tempting, but, “Where will you sleep?” she asks.
Yaz shrugs. “I’m sure the TARDIS will add an extra couch or something. That way I can keep an eye on you easier, too.”
Slowly, the Doctor smiles. “Thanks, Yaz.” The Doctor’s eyelids become heavier, but she struggles to keep her feet moving in the direction of Yaz’s room. Yaz chatters to her about things as they walk, but the Doctor barely registers what she’s saying. She wasn’t lying when she said she’d be able to hear Yaz while in a coma, but it’s more of an awareness-that-you’re-not-alone thing and not so much that her thoughts are coherent enough to follow what’s going on.
Finally, finally, she collapses onto Yaz’s bed. There was indeed a couch in the room, but Yaz steered her toward the bed and she wasn’t going to argue. She vaguely feels Yaz pushing her into a more comfortable position where she can breathe and not be face-down in a pillow. Then Yaz pulls a blanket over her and she feels herself slipping away.
“Hmm…” Yaz’s voice is distant. “I haven’t read Lord of the Rings in a while, so I’ll start with those tonight…”
—
Yaz wasn’t expecting to lose her voice so soon into the Doctor’s healing coma. She’s finished the Lord of the Rings books and is halfway through the Hobbit when she finds that she can barely talk.
“Okay,” she whispers, leaning closer to the Doctor, hoping she can hear her. She hasn’t moved at all, and Yaz has to keep checking that she’s still breathing. She said a month. She’s fine. It’s only been six days. Well, six and a half. “I’m going to go see if the TARDIS has some tea for my throat. I’ll be right back.”
Yaz turns to step out of the room, but as she does, she hears an awful sound that takes her back to the very start of the Flux.
The cloister bell.
Panicked, Yaz runs to the console room, nearly slipping in her socks when she comes to a stop. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?” she asks, running around to look at various screens. “I can’t read circles!” she shouts, voice hoarse and cracking.
Finally, one of the screens translates for her. Yaz feels a chill run through her body. “No.”
Yaz pushes off from the console to run back down the hall to her room, where the Doctor hasn’t moved. “Doctor!” Yaz says, wishing her voice would be louder, shaking the Doctor’s shoulder. “You have to wake up. It’s an emergency.” There’s no response. Dead to the world, she’d said. But she’d said she would be able to hear Yaz.
Yaz feels tears prickling at her eyes. She sinks to the floor beside the Doctor’s bed, panic making it difficult to breathe. She has to keep trying. “Doctor, please. I need you.”
Suddenly, the Doctor sucks in a deeper breath.
“Doctor? Are you awake?” Yaz half-whispers.
The Doctor makes a vague groaning sound and cracks one eye open. There’s a long moment before she speaks, like she’s trying to remember how. “What’s… wrong?” she whispers finally.
Yaz takes a breath. “The TARDIS says you’re dying.”
—
The Doctor blinks slowly as Yaz’s face spins and contorts in front of her, then lets her eyes shut completely for a moment, trying to soothe her rising headache. Something is wrong, she knows, but she’s so tired she’s not sure she cares.
Someone is shaking her again, dragging her out of the almost-comfort of sleep under the cozy blanket. Her eyes open and Yaz’s mouth is moving. She tries to focus on the words, but they slip through her mind like grains of sand. Painful grains of sand. There are two words that Yaz seems to be repeating, so she focuses on those.
“You’re dying.” Yaz is crying, the Doctor realizes, as her vision begins to settle.
The Doctor finds her tongue again. “’sposed to,” she says.
“What? You’re not supposed to die.” The back of Yaz’s hand is on the Doctor’s forehead again, then her cheek, then her forehead. Comparing temperatures, she realizes.
The Doctor sighs. Yaz doesn’t understand. “Time said… I would die.”
Yaz shakes her head. “No. This is a healing coma. You’re supposed to be getting better.”
The Doctor evaluates that statement. It does feel like she’s been in a coma, but she’s certainly not healing. If anything, she’s getting worse.
breaking/broken/dying/dead, the TARDIS tells her.
Time dying regeneration, she says back.
dying/dead/to die, responds the TARDIS.
Yaz is talking again but the Doctor can’t hear her. She’s watching Yaz’s mouth and thinking about the pretty shapes, and the way her tears sparkle as they slide down her face.
But then the TARDIS begins to move. That surprises both of them.
The Doctor closes her eyes again for a moment, trying to ignore the shoulder-shaking that is happening again, and focuses on gathering enough strength to get herself out of this bed. Very slowly, she leverages an arm to push herself upright. Yaz helps pull her up, and she leans heavily against Yaz as she waits for the spinning to stop.
“Are you with me?” Yaz asks softly, brushing a hand over her head.
“Always,” the Doctor mumbles.
After what feels like an eon, the spinning subsides and the Doctor is left with just a pounding headache. “Let’s see where the TARDIS has taken us,” she says. Yaz helps her stand and slowly shuffle down the hall and through the console room. The door opens by itself.
Outside is a dark forest, full of tall mossy tree trunks, green undergrowth, and twinkling insects. The Doctor takes a step out of the TARDIS, looking up at the impossibly tall trees. She can almost feel them. In fact, the more she listens, the stronger it gets. It’s not exactly a voice, but a feeling. Come this way.
“Do you think this is safe?” asks Yaz.
“The trees are calling me,” she murmurs, taking another step into the forest. She stumbles over a root, but Yaz steadies her, wrapping an arm around her waist.
The Doctor is vaguely aware of Yaz’s voice next to her, but it takes a long time for the voice to translate into words in her head while she’s listening to the trees. “What are they saying?” Yaz is asking.
The Doctor shakes her head. That was a mistake. She pauses for a moment as she waits for the spinning to stop. “It’s not words, it’s…” her voice trails off as she stares at a nearby tree.
Yaz goes still beside her as she sees it too. “What is that?” she whispers.
“No idea,” the Doctor whispers back. There’s a little ghost of light watching them from a tree branch. A little animal native to this forest, she supposes. “Hello?” she asks it.
It responds with a brief clicking sound, then fades away as if it were never there. Up ahead, another one appears to watch them.
“Follow the light…” the Doctor murmurs.
“If you’re sure,” says Yaz.
“The TARDIS is usually right about these things.” The Doctor focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, still leaning heavily on Yaz, but trying to at least not trip on anything.
As they make their way to the center of the forest, they approach a body of water. In the center of the water is a small, grassy island with several more of the ancient trees. The Doctor takes a step away from Yaz, into the water.
“Doctor!” says Yaz.
The Doctor pauses. “Do you trust me?”
Yaz’s silence makes her nervous. She turns to look at her, and asks again. “Do you trust me, Yaz?”
“Not when it’s about you,” Yaz mutters.
The Doctor blinks, surprised and confused. “What do you mean?”
Yaz takes a breath, holds it for a moment, then lets it out. “Do you remember, when we were on Gallifrey—”
The Doctor inhales sharply, looking away from Yaz, as the sound of clanking metal boots and the smell of smoke threaten to overwhelm her. It may have been a long time for her since it had happened, but time passed differently in prison, and the memories are still fresh and on the surface, instead of having dulled with time.
Eventually, she realizes Yaz has stopped talking.
“Are you back with me?” Yaz asks softly, rubbing her thumb over the Doctor’s hand. The Doctor doesn’t remember them holding hands.
“Yes,” she says, forcing herself to focus on Yaz again. This is important. “On Gallifrey. What were you going to say?”
“When you tried to sacrifice yourself,” says Yaz.
“I would have,” says the Doctor. “For you. All of you. You have no idea the damage those Cybermen would have unleashed on the universe if I hadn’t.”
“Yes but, it didn’t have to be you,” says Yaz. “In the end, it wasn’t you.”
“I couldn’t ask Ko Sharmus to do that,” she says. “I’ve lived so much longer than he had, and I was the one who gave the Cyberman what he wanted—”
“I would have stayed with you.”
The Doctor can feel her eyes beginning to water. But she forces herself to hold Yaz’s gaze. “I know,” she says softly. “But I wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger if you’d been there.”
Something like anger flashes behind Yaz’s eyes. “Could you do it without me there?”
“…No. In the end, no. I couldn’t.”
Yaz tightens her grip on the Doctor’s hand. “It’s just, what got to me was how you didn’t even hesitate. You just decided that was the only option, and you left to do it. To sacrifice yourself.”
The Doctor stares at Yaz, trying to figure out what she wants her to say. “For the universe, I would.”
Yaz frowns. That was the wrong thing to say, apparently.
The Doctor tries again. “Yaz, I don’t know what you want me to say. I love you. I don’t want to die. But if it’s between my happiness, or the universe existing, I’m going to choose the universe every time.”
Yaz takes a shaky breath. “What did you mean, earlier, when you said you were going to die?”
The Doctor drops Yaz’s hand and takes a step backwards into the water, nearly losing her balance. “I didn’t—”
“You said Time said you were going to die. As you were coming out of the coma.”
The Doctor shakes her head, a lie on the tip of her tongue. But then she swallows it. After everything, Yaz at least deserves the truth. “I didn’t tell you because it was too painful to talk about. I was going to tell you, I just… wasn’t ready. It was too fresh. And it’s going to hurt too much.”
Abruptly, Yaz steps forward and hugs her tightly. “I need to know that you’re going to do everything you can to not die.”
The Doctor blinks. “Of course,” she says, slowly hugging Yaz back. She sighs. “I am dying though, I think. And I think the TARDIS is right to worry that I might not be able to regenerate this time.”
Yaz lets go of her and takes a step back to look around. “Do you think this place is going to help?”
“One way to find out.” The Doctor turns to walk further into the water. It rises up to her knees, then her waist, then her chest. She glances back at Yaz. “I promise,” she says.
Yaz nods. “I trust you.” There’s still fear in her eyes, but this has to be enough.
The Doctor keeps walking along the bottom of the lake, holding her breath as her head slips under. A fish swims past her face and she just barely resists the urge to reach out and touch it. Somehow, walking underwater is easier than walking above land. As she approaches the island in the center of the lake and her head breaks the surface again, she begins to smile as she realizes why the TARDIS brought her here.
Regenerative waters. Not enough to regenerate a Time Lord, but combined with her own healing ability—what’s left of it currently, anyway—it might just be enough. She lets her body float in the water with her head resting on the island and her eyes close for a blessedly dreamless sleep.
—
When she wakes, it’s daytime and Yaz is sitting on the island next to her, dry.
Yaz is looking out into the forest and not at her, so she watches her for a moment before speaking. “Hi, Yaz.”
Yaz jumps slightly and smiles down at her. “Hiya. Feeling better?”
The Doctor takes a moment to take stock of how she feels. “Much,” she says, and pulls herself out of the water to sit beside Yaz. “A little weak, I think, but…” She reaches into her coat pocket—luckily, the contents are still dry—and pulls out her sonic to scan herself. “Ah!” she says. “All of my cells are in the same timezone now.”
Yaz raises her eyebrows. “What?”
“Yeah,” the Doctor scans the forest with the sonic. “Did a bit too much messing about in time recently, and then Time put me back into one body but my cells still weren’t unified into the same timeline.” The readings on the forest are normal, even where she’d directly scanned in the direction of one of those little clicking light ghost animal things. But ghosts aren’t real. Unless they are.
“That sounds bad,” says Yaz.
“A bit,” the Doctor allows. It certainly hadn’t been pleasant. “How long was I out for?”
“Just the night, and half the day,” says Yaz. “After you didn’t move for the first half-hour, I had to swim over and make sure you were okay. Can we talk about what Time said?”
The Doctor sighs and puts the sonic away. “Just that I was going to die. No regeneration lasts forever. Oh, and beware of the forces that rise against you, and their Master.”
“And their—do you think—?”
“Yeah, I do,” says the Doctor. “He always survives, one way or another.”
Yaz reaches out and takes her hand. “We’ll deal with it,” she says. “I’m with you, whatever happens. Even regeneration.”
The Doctor shivers slightly at the sudden feeling of warmth and happiness. She looks down at their hands and taps her fingertips against the back of Yaz’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” Yaz smiles at her like the sun on a spring morning.
The Doctor allows herself a full minute to just enjoy the moment before she speaks again. “Mind helping me swim back across? I’m still a little shaky.”
—
As the Doctor follows Yaz into the TARDIS, she thinks she sees something out of the corner of her eye—something with antlers, perhaps, but when she glances back, there’s nothing there. “Thank you,” she whispers to the forest.