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It feels like a nightmare. A living, breathing nightmare. Except this is real, and she would happily pluck the worst of her actual nightmares from her brain and trade it for this living hell. Because this is worse than anything her timeworn mind conjures in her fitful sleeps.
Because Yaz has been shot.
And the Doctor is helpless.
The blood won’t stop. The pungent stench of iron whipping in the air around them as the sand of the beach scratches at her already watery eyes. Sand that is congealing with salty water and Yaz’s blood. The Doctor tries to slow the perpetual ooze of Yaz’s twitching stomach. She’s struggling to breathe. Her hand presses against the wound, the pressure doing nothing to cease what’s coming as Yaz’s weak groan makes an explicit show of her agony.
The Doctor’s other hand, trembling, rests against Yaz’s cheek. The crook between thumb and forefinger catching hot tears of anguish.
They both know. The Doctor can see it, so she knows Yaz feels it. She’s fading. Her eyes fluttering with the effort to stay open, her short and infrequent breaths catching with every attempt at an inhale. Yaz’s lips stutter like she’s trying to say something. It’s a futile effort.
Yaz can’t talk anymore, she can barely even breathe. The Doctor can relate as she watches her universe slowly slip away. Watching Yaz fade is like watching a star die. Something so bright and beautiful doesn’t deserve to flicker out of existence like this.
When Yaz’s next breath fails her, and she just about manages to puff out the attempt that follows, the Doctor’s bloody hand moves to assist the other in cupping Yaz’s wind-whipped cheeks. The misplaced red against Yaz’s dark skin makes the Doctor feel sick as her own tear finally frees itself from its grasp on her eyelid, their faces so close now that it drips onto Yaz’s cheek and mixes with Yaz’s blood. The tear carves a path through murky red.
The Doctor props her forehead against Yaz’s own as her gaze falls to now closed lids, the only thing in focus is every single eyelash, damp with seawater and tears.
When Yaz’s next feeble puff of air hitches in her tired lungs like an impending countdown, the Doctor does something that she has scarcely done throughout her long, long lifetime.
She begs.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Come on, Yaz, no please,” the Doctor’s voice cracks on each syllable, her hearts pounding with panicked adrenaline as she uselessly begs for something that she knows won’t come true.
The Doctor strokes Yaz’s cheek, blood smearing against the distinct jut of bone.
“Please, please… please,” she whispers into the infinitesimal gap between their faces.
Yaz breathes.
And then she doesn’t.
The Doctor’s next exhale shakes its way out of her tight chest.
Nothing comes from Yaz’s.
The Doctor wants to scream. She wants to scream and cry and seethe and destroy. She wants to punch the sand beneath Yaz’s body until her knuckles bleed. Until she’s pounded every grain of it into atoms that she’s punched so hard for so long that she reaches the Earth’s burning core. Then maybe the molten heat of it could burn her away too. But she can’t. She has her own burning to deal with. Something that’s already searing through her veins and is building and building and she’s suppressing and suppressing because it cannot happen now.
Her mortality can wait — Yaz’s can’t. Yaz’s didn’t.
And even though Yaz is gone, the Doctor still begs. So close and so desperate that her lips graze the cold stillness of Yaz’s with each and every word that she utters against her lifeless lips.
“No. No, no, no, no, no. You can’t do this to me, Yaz, please,” the Doctor sniffs as more tears spill over and hit Yaz’s resting cheeks. “I can’t lose you.”
Her mind races. Old and churning. On and on and on as visions of people who have come and gone flicker in a conscious stream behind her eyes that forms into a hollow ache sitting like a crushing weight on her chest.
It hurts. Though that doesn’t feel like the right word, because she doesn’t think there is one that exists that could possibly describe the unfiltered agony pulsing through her body.
But it will have to do. Because it hurts enough that the Doctor lets three words slip past her trembling lips, each syllable hitting Yaz’s own lifeless ones in the quietest ghosts of breath. A moment just for them, the outside world briefly forgotten at the admission.
Her grip only tightens on Yaz. How is she supposed to let go ? She knows the answer. And the answer is that she can’t, but the hot thrum of her veins is louder now and the Doctor sees the warm glow of gold under her skin, wrapping around her fingers and twisting like a poisonous snake between her weathered knuckles.
Watching it seep mockingly beneath her skin gives her an idea. It’s been so long since the last time she did it. But at this exact moment, who was she to care? What did she have to lose? Everything that she ever feared the loss of lay numb beneath her in the wet sand.
Yaz is dead, and the Doctor is dying. Her body generating more and more of the feverous energy every second. There’s enough lurking within her for the both of them. She can feel it. The Doctor’s time may be coming to its end, but there’s still so much ahead of the person laying motionless underneath her. This isn’t Yaz’s time. The Doctor is going to make sure of it.
It’s obvious, really, the quickest way to get her regeneration energy into Yaz’s system. Any attempts to try and penetrate through the thick skin and muscle of human anatomy would take too long. Yaz’s death may be fresh, but the Doctor knows she can’t linger. Time is ticking and every second she waits is a second that Yaz is less and less likely to come back from this.
So, the Doctor does something she has only ever done once before. Except this time, she’s gives instead of takes.
The Doctor kisses Yaz.
She kisses her slightly parted lips and lets the energy pour down her throat. Yaz’s lips are cold, but the energy is hot. She just hopes it will burn hot enough to reignite her dwindling star.
The gaping wound of Yaz’s stomach crackles and fizzes, every cell stitching itself back together at the seams. The cavernous hole glows, orange warmth refracting in bright, blistering beams that heal . It feels like hope as the Doctor breathes unrelenting life into her, lighting up the dull, damp world around them as if to say ‘not today. Yasmin Khan will not be beaten today.’
When the wound seals itself shut, the energy works its way up into Yaz’s chest, wrapping around the exhausted muscle that resides there and gets to work.
The Doctor pulls away.
The putrid smell of burning flesh overwhelms her senses, and although the stench is horrid, she accepts its existence as something positive. It means Yaz is healed. It means she’s on her way back. She’ll be here soon.
Hopefully.
Under her skin, the Doctor’s own burning subsides. The fizzing remains of the inevitable energy seeping back into her chest and settling, suitably sated as it begins to slowly coil and grow ready for her turn. But that inevitability is soon and this is the now, and the now is where the Doctor waits. Time will wait for Yaz and Doctor. She’s not giving it a choice.
But the Doctor knows the force of time is unstoppable, that she can only hold off its outcome for so long, knows that it will come for her — and it is coming. It’s already creeping over her shoulder and whispering the seconds in her ear, but it’s easy to ignore.
Especially when every second feels like an hour, and especially when Yaz breathes. Her chest expands as she sucks in a beautiful breath, and then another, and then another, the strongest one yet. And then her eyes flutter open. Magnificent swirls of pure gold evaporate into her irises and leave them glowing with life. With beautiful brilliant life in Yasmin Khan’s eyes.
And then the Doctor breathes.
How long had she been holding her breath for?
The Doctor’s own exhale resembles a sigh. A monumental sigh of pure, trembling, relief as she lets her forehead fall back toward Yaz’s and whispers her sacred name intimately against living lips.
“Yaz…”
“Doctor…?” she receives in return. And it is wonderful. “I thought–”
“You’re okay…Yaz. I’ve got you. You’re okay,” the Doctor utters. It’s alleviating, to make the confirmation that Yaz is okay. Yaz will be okay. And right now that’s the most important thing in the universe, because that’s what she is to the Doctor.
The Doctor’s relief, in fact, is so huge and so overwhelming that she doesn’t even try to fight the unstoppable urge to set it free.
So she kisses Yaz again. And this time it’s so much better – because this time Yaz returns it. Her lips are warm and so so alive against the Doctor’s when they press up into her, a gentle but desperate pressure as her hands reach up to grip at the lapels of the Doctor’s coat. Yaz’s grip is so tight and she holds the Doctor so close it's as if she’ll never let go. The Doctor doesn’t want her to. Makes Yaz aware she doesn’t want her to by kissing her deeper. Thumb stroking Yaz’s cheek and fingers running through the baby hairs on the back of Yaz’s neck, she dips her tongue past full, inviting lips.
She lets herself be consumed by Yaz – allows this spent body one final moment of indulgence before it all ends. For both of them. The clock is ticking. This can’t be forever, and her hearts crack deep and true at the thought.
So instead of forever, the Doctor ignores the scorching hot burn that has renewed in her veins and allows them time.
Just a little bit of time.