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Stay here.
No, what—
Stay here. I need to know where you are. We ’ve only got four minutes here.
Stop leaving us all the time.
We’re all worried. But I’m trying to keep everyone safe.
—
But maybe this isn’t a situation where she can keep everyone safe.
She’s running down the hall, feet pounding almost as fast as her hearts. Her sonic is telling her there are life signs in corridor six. Three of them, and one a child. They don’t know the building is about to blow.
Option one: If she runs to them now, she’ll have just enough time to get to them, warn them, and get them out of the building before it blows.
But Yaz is in corridor eight.
And corridor eight is in the opposite direction.
Option two: If she runs to corridor six first, warns them, then runs to corridor eight, maybe the people in corridor six can get out of the building on their own. But then she and Yaz will have to escape the building 3.2 seconds faster than she’s calculated they can run, and that’s only if her calculation on the time of the explosion and Yaz’s exact location is correct. It’s too risky.
Option three: She could run to corridor six first, warn them, get them out, then time-travel back for Yaz. Unless this building contains anything temporal that, when blown up, would prevent the TARDIS from landing here again. And that is a strong possibility.
Option four: If that happened, she could just time travel even further back and live in this century long enough to rescue Yaz, and then… not be able to get her home until she’s old, because the temporal lock would extend in both directions.
Option five: If she went back in time and gave her past self a cell phone, she wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. Of course, that runs into a bit of a paradox problem.
Her feet take her to corridor eight. Option six it is: Get to Yaz, get Yaz out of the building, come back for the others if she can. Which she probably can’t. But she’s not thinking about that right now.
“Yaz!” she yells as she rounds the corner, where Yaz is inspecting a vent.
“Doctor, I think I might have found—”
“Run!” says the Doctor, grabbing Yaz by the sleeve and pulling. “The whole place is going to blow!”
Eyes wide, Yaz immediately begins running by her side. “Did everyone get out?” she asks.
“This way!” the Doctor yanks her through the corridors. She’s counting down the seconds in her mind, cross-referencing them with her past experiences with similar explosions and her current estimate of how many seconds are left until this particular one.
They almost make it.
The building explodes just as they are approaching the exit, and the Doctor feels something slice through her coat as she shields Yaz with her body and propels them out the door with so much force that they slam onto the ground.
Without even taking the time to check if Yaz is okay—there isn’t time—the Doctor pulls her back up and pushes them into the nearby TARDIS that is already beginning to dematerialize.
Temporal explosion, then.
No coming back.
No rescues.
“What’s happening?” Yaz asks as the TARDIS takes off with them inside.
“There was something temporal in the blast,” says the Doctor. “The TARDIS can’t land there anymore, or…” she checks the readings, “for a 50-year radius on either side.”
“Oh,” says Yaz. “Lucky we got out, then.”
The Doctor nods wordlessly, still looking at the screens, trying to find some way around them—some loophole—some way she can go back.
But she’s thinking about the layout of the building as well. Even if she were to travel to 50 years before the blast, she wouldn’t be able to get those people out without running into herself or destroying her own timeline.
She’s effectively locked out.
“You got everyone out though, right?” Yaz asks.
“I couldn’t get them out,” says the Doctor.
“What do you mean?” Yaz asks. “We never—”
“I couldn’t get them out, Yaz!” she says, her voice breaking. “I’ve gone through every option. It was them or you.”
“Can we… we can’t go back?”
The Doctor shakes her head, willing the tears to stay in her eyes where they belong. She can’t let Yaz feel guilt over her decisions. “Sometimes I can’t save everyone,” she says.
“Yeah,” says Yaz, and the Doctor can practically see the gears turning in her mind. “But… you saved me. Instead of them.”
The Doctor takes a deep breath, and lets it out. She looks up at Yaz. She’s not sure how to respond. “I couldn’t leave you,” she says finally. “Not again.”
“I would have—” Yaz starts, but doesn’t finish.
“I know,” says the Doctor. “But would you have sacrificed me for the lives of three strangers? Could you do it?”
Yaz stares at her for a long moment, then shakes her head. “But that’s because you’re my…”
“And you’re mine,” says the Doctor. She smiles slightly, planning her next words.
“I’m not ready to let you go yet.”