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*
She doesn't know…
How this all came to be…
Yasmin focuses on shouldering open the TARDIS doors, half-heaving along the Doctor clutching her own middle. They kneel onto the entrance's bridge, too far from the crystal-console to pilot, as Yasmin slams shut one of the doors, kneeling up high.
"We're here… we're here now, Doctor…" she repeats, consolingly touching the back of Doctor's neck.
By now, the Daleks should be withdrawing their forces. Yasmin only knows a rainbow-colourful, massive explosion, but not much else about the violent Dalek-encounter. Must be the adrenaline; must be Yasmin's outright worry for the Doctor growing paler and paler.
Lights dim, intermittently pulsing blue around them. Slowing like a heartbeat—heartbeats—
Yasmin's throat clenches, barely restraining loud, shrilled panic.
The Doctor shifts sideways, her face dripping with a new layer of perspiration. "Suppose I should have… run faster…" she breathes.
"Don't. Don't talk."
Yasmin refocuses, opening the Doctor's heather-blue jacket and looking for injuries. At first, she misses it: a deep, dark stain on the plum-purple material. Yasmin presses gently on it, feeling the wetness, and her stomach completely lurches inside her.
It's…
It's not there… whatever flesh and muscle is supposed to be underneath the Doctor's top… no, it's a perfectly round hole of emptiness spanning smaller than Yasmin's palm… wherever the lower left side of the Doctor's abdomen should be…
A soft, ragged cry escapes Yasmin's mouth.
Behind them, the TARDIS lets out a series of piercingly high beeps. For a second, the Doctor's eyes widen in recognition.
"It's happening…" she says this as if it's a warning.
Yasmin shakes her head.
"What's happening?"
"Someone else is coming," the Doctor tells a deeply confused Yasmin, her voice rising in strength.
"Who?"
"The Doctor."
"No, no… what do you mean? Doctor, you are the Doctor…"
"They're going to be different than me." She shakily grasps onto Yasmin's wrist, their fingers hooking each other. Yasmin notices the blood. "But… you shouldn't be afraid. Not of the Doctor. They will need you… they will need help remembering who they are."
Tears glisten bright and blue-shadowed over Yasmin's cheeks.
The roundel lights dim on, off, on…
"I don't understand, Doctor… please…" Yasmin begs, tightening her hold on the Doctor's hand, "Please, you need help now…"
Before she can lift the Doctor's arm, pulling her off her knees…
And carrying her off if Yasmin has to…
She hesitates.
There's no mistaking the bleakness in the Doctor's expression. "M'sorry, Yasmin Khan," she mumbles, the edges of the Doctor's fingers glimmering-gold. "I've held off my regeneration for as long as I can." Yasmin stares down at their hands, her jaw dropping.
No…
"You need to leave."
"No," Yasmin says firmly, her tearful eyes narrowing.
Despite her companion's stubbornness, the Doctor appears unmoved. "If you stay, the force of the regenerative Time energy will destroy you from your outside to your inside. The only way that everyone stays safe… including you and Dan… is if I'm here on my own. The TARDIS can contain it. She's done this before." When Yasmin doesn't acknowledge anything said, the Doctor softens. "You'll be fine."
No…
"But you won't."
That's all the reason she needs to fight this. Yasmin stares into the Doctor's face, clinging to her hope and warmhearted despair, steadying herself with a breath. The air fills with a pulsing golden glow emitting from both of the Doctor's hands.
"Doctor, there's something I haven't told you."
How is this happening…
"I know," the Doctor admits, the corner of her mouth dimpling as she tries to smile.
Yasmin wants to touch it, worship it, live inside it.
She wants this to be a normal day running with the Doctor.
They could go the star systems of Tarsus Ultra and VY Canis Majoris, or befriending the Cimliss and the Andosians and the few descendants of the Jagdagian who managed to escape the ancient Gallifreyan Empire, or sunning on one of the many palm tree-lined beaches located within Halergan 3. Not trembling with anticipation and fear… not watching the Doctor collapsed on her knees, bleeding out…
Not being unable to do something… so simple… as getting the Doctor to a medical sector.
Why…
"You don't know. I haven't told you anything," Yasmin says solemnly. "So you're gonna sit there and listen hard to me, Doctor."
The Doctor's mouth faintly grins. Her eyes seem drowning-dark, and her skin ashen. Yasmin couldn't begin to explain how wonderful, and brilliant, and kindhearted the Doctor is… how terrible, and irritating, and cruel she can also be…
"Yaz…"
Gold hair de-materializes into the same gold, glimmering energy roiling off the Doctor. Her face reflects each pulsing blue-gold-blue-gold spectrum of colours There's no time. There's never been enough time with the Doctor that could satisfy Yasmin's life.
"Damn it," Yasmin sobs out, crawling in on her knees and touching the back of the Doctor's neck again.
She kisses her.
The Doctor's bottom lip catches hers, opening slightly and rubbing.
Everything's wet. Tortuously soft and slow.
Yasmin tastes a hint of perspiration.
It's her first and only kiss with another woman, and she wouldn't trade this… for anyone else's…
Warm and gold. Everything feels warm and gold and divine, like devouring, like dying in every cell making up Yasmin's body. The regeneration particles cling gold-glow onto the tips of Yasmin's eyelashes. Fills her nostrils and coats Yasmin's lips and temples.
All of the energy discharging from the Doctor penetrates Yasmin's molecules.
She weakly clutches the Doctor's upper arms, keeping her from forcing Yasmin away. His vision dizzies.
Gold…
She's turning gold… and…
*
"NO!"
Dan startles at the noise of Yasmin's cry, nearly dropping his glass of brewed… whatever luxury drink they were serving
"Oi, Sheffield!" he declares, lowering what's in his hand and frowning. "You scared the bleedin' daylights out of—hello?" Dan asks, waving a hand in front of Yasmin's face. She snaps out of her panicked, panting trance, gawking at him. "You alright?"
"F-Fine."
Yasmin hangs her mouth open, wiping off the drink-froth from her chin.
It's a gloriously moonlit morning within the Limnos 4 "breakfast" facility. Right now, they've got brown bread slathered in marmalade on plates and cooked eggs. Exactly the way each "valued guest" desired them. And an array of "special" drinks.
Did none… absolutely none of what she saw…
Did none of it happen… ?
"Hhm." Dan gazes suspiciously at Yasmin's frothy blue-and-gold caffeinated drink, and then his. "What did you put in this?"
The nearly robot-waiter hears Dan's question, whirring to attention.
"SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE: FLATULENCE, ITCHINESS OF THE MUCUS GLANDS AND BRIEF PRECOGNITIVE HALLUCINATIONS."
"Blimey! Here I was… thinking after saving the universe and dying eight times in a row… we were looking for a place to relax… " Dan shrugs, pushing away his untouched drink far, far away. "Stuck your head outside for a mo, Yasmin. Fresh air will do you good… "
Yasmin mumbles something too low for Dan's ears, hunching over in her seat.
"There you lot are!" The Doctor barges in, unaware of Yasmin's quiet panting, as she struggles to stand. Meanwhile, the Doctor looks quite cheerful while swinging herself round. "I just met a Carrionite! They've invited us to their group knitting lesson—"
Dan glances between a visibly swaying Yasmin and her. "Uh, Doctor—"
"—but then, I left my needles back in the TARDIS!" She huffs a little, the Doctor's lower lip jutting in a semi-pout. "If only there was—Yaz?"
Yasmin doesn't know when she fell over, or how, but she comes to within another few seconds. Dan's arms cradle her from under the length of Yasmin's arms, keeping her upright. The Doctor's hands tighten their clasp on Yasmin's forearms.
"Gotcha, you're alright," Dan says.
He encourages a woozy-eyed Yasmin to straighten up.
With an OOF! of effort, Dan nudges Yasmin right into the Doctor's arms cradling her against the heather-blue jacket. "Good thing there's a Doctor nearby, aye?" Dan comments offhandedly, smirking and winking noticeably in Yasmin's direction.
Yasmin would glare, but it's… nice… being held.
She gives a small shudder as one of the Doctor's hands cups her cheek. "You're burning up, Yaz," the Doctor murmurs worriedly, being able to tell without her screwdriver. "Have you gotten a kip in? Let's head back to the TARDIS—"
—the feeling of Yasmin's knees into the entrance's bridge; the gold-glow regenerative energy; the Doctor's abdomen—
"No," Yasmin says harshly. She pleads, hugging her arms to her. "No—I, I want you to stay with me, Doctor." Yasmin buries her face into the Doctor's clavicle, breathing in, hearing another soothing set of words intermingled with Yasmin's name.
Yasmin feels that double heart rhythm, and she knows…
Their lives would end the same: a brush of sweetness, a burst of gold, and consumed by a bright-burn demise formed of love.
*