Chapter Text
After years of Sonya chipping away at her, Yaz finally agrees to switch rooms. She’s barely at home anymore, if she can even call it that. The TARDIS is much more of a home than the walls of the Khan household feel these days, the people still living within them being the only thing ever giving her any reason to come back. The size of her room in Park Hill makes no difference to her now, but she knows it’ll make Sonya happy. So that’s how she finds herself sitting on her bed, with the Doctor beside her, going through everything she owns.
It’s only when she starts clearing out her room that Yaz realises she doesn’t really have that many possessions. Living in a small flat and only ever having a box room as her own, she never had the space to gather any clutter - not that she wanted to anyway. She’s never been a material person. Outside of the necessities, most of Yaz’s possessions are deeply sentimental and have only stayed with her as they’ve been too difficult to part with. Ticket stubs from going to the panto with her family as a child. A now very battered stuffed rabbit named Mister Hoppy, with limbs that have been sewn back together too many times from being loved too much. Torn pieces of paper with doodles she’d drawn in class in some of her happier school days
“Can’t figure this one out,” the Doctor says, lifting a piece of paper from the box currently sitting between them on the bed. The Doctor turns the page upside down and sideways trying to make head or tail of the picture. She turns her head sideways too as if that will help in any way and Yaz can’t help but smile at the sight in front of her
“Give it here,” she laughs, as she takes the drawing from the Doctor’s hands. It takes her a moment to work it out what it is herself, but when it clicks she smiles softly at the memory. “This one wasn’t by me. Sonya drew it. The first picture she ever made specially for me.” Yaz traces her fingers over the crayon marks of her sister’s artwork. “She told me it was a dinosaur. Big into T-Rexes back then.” The page holds a series of wavy lines and something which almost resembles a head if you really use your imagination. “I suppose it does look like one if you squint."
“I guess they were kinda curvy. Pretty big, too. I mean, their feet alone were bigger than me!
Yaz realises very quickly that the Doctor is talking from experience and not as someone who’s just read some facts in a book. “Of course you’ve met dinosaurs. Why wouldn’t you have?!” Yaz laughs in disbelief, finding yet another new thing to admire about the Doctor. To be fair, if she had a TARDIS of her own, she’d absolutely go back to see dinosaurs in real life so it makes sense for the Doctor to have done the same.
“I could take you someday if you want. Nice scenery back then. No pollution. Lots of greenery. Go there just to relax sometimes. As long as you don’t bother ‘em too much, it’s a very nice place to be.” Yaz just shakes her head at the image of the Doctor popping back to the Jurassic era for some peace and quiet. And she doesn’t even want to know if the Doctor’s ever bothered them too much to find out what happens if you do.
“That can be our rainy day plan,” Yaz jokes, but there’s an undercurrent of sincerity that she hopes the Doctor picks up on because, yes, she very much would like to see a T-Rex in real life. She diverts her attention back to the drawing in front of her. “Best not to tell Sonya I still have this. She’d never let me live it down.”
“Bet she kept some of yours too and just won’t admit it.”
The thought sits warmly in Yaz’s chest because she knows the Doctor’s probably right. She sets the picture to the side and continues to the next item in the box. As soon as she realises what it is, her heart skips a beat. She lifts the piece of paper carefully and unfolds it to reveal a list, numbered one to ten.
“What’s that?” the Doctor asks.
Yaz feels a tinge of embarrassment and hides it from the Doctor’s view. “It’s, um… it’s a list I made when I was a teenager. Most people call them a bucket list - things to do before you die. I looked at it as more of a ‘things to stay alive for’ list.”
The Doctor’s face softens at the words in silent understanding. After meeting Willa Twiston, and her encounter with Zellin, Yaz’s past had kept playing on her mind and she’d told the Doctor the truth about what happened with Sonya and PC Patel. The Doctor met her admissions with the soft acceptance she was growing too used to and Yaz wished she’d told her sooner. It’s why she still gets frustrated that the Doctor won’t open up in the same way. Not because she thinks she’d owed it, but because she knows the weight of whatever secrets the Doctor holds must be heavier than she can imagine.
“I wrote down ten things I wanted to experience or achieve. Seeing them on paper made them more real. Like I could imagine myself living them. Gave me something to aim towards, y’know?”
“I can help you with them if you like.”
Yaz glances at the ten points on the list in front of her. “For some of them I think you already have,” she admits, trying to disguise how much her heart is racing. “But let’s work from the beginning. Number one: go to uni.”
“Well, would you look at that!? Ten percent of the way there already! Ten points for Yasmin Khan!”
Yaz lights up as she rummages in the drawer of her bedside table for a pen. She feels triumphant as she scores the first thing off her list. It’s a strange feeling, to actually be scoring an item off the list she dared to let herself dream all those years ago. And it’s only exaggerated by what comes next. She lets out a soft laugh as she says, “Number two: join the police.”
“That one worked out well all round,” the Doctor smiles. It was what brought them together after all. Yaz scores off the second item with just as much pride as the first.
She falters when she realises what’s third. The Doctor notices. “If that’s as far as you’ve got, that’s okay. Two out of ten is ace!”
Yaz can’t help how her eyes fill with unshed tears. The Doctor’s kindness and support, coupled with the words on the page in front of her, fill her with so much joy that she doesn’t have room to keep it all inside. “Number three: Make a true friend,” she says, glancing at the Doctor as one tear escapes down her cheek. “Got you, Ryan, Graham and Dan. Hoped for one, ended up with four. Really excelled on that one.”
Emotion is clear on the Doctor’s face too as she meets Yaz’s gaze. “I’m really glad you get to score that one off,” she says earnestly. “Make sure you put a ‘times four’ beside it just so you remember.”
Yaz does the ceremonial scoring out of the words and, as the Doctor suggested, adds a small ‘x4’ beside it. She gets lost for a moment at the sight of those words scored out on the page as the full meaning of it washes over her. How lucky she is. How grateful.
“Okay, I definitely need your help with the rest of these,” she advises the Doctor as she snaps out of her daze. “Or most of them anyway.” There’s one in particular she can see that makes her nervous. But she’ll cross that hurdle when she comes to it.
“Right then, let’s see!”
“Ah ah! Not so fast,” Yaz exclaims, pulling the list in tight to her chest so the Doctor can’t peek. “Won’t it be more fun if you don’t know what’s coming next? Keep it on a need to know basis. You only find out what the next item is once we’ve completed the one before."
The Doctor lights up at the challenge. “Brilliant! Love surprises!”
“Well, not sure if you’re up for getting started immediately?” Yaz asks, looking at the fourth item on the list. It’s definitely a curveball on her day.
“What is it you folk like to say? No time like the present?!”
Yaz reads from the list again. “Number four: skydive.” The Doctor rises to her feet in excitement, energy radiating off her in anticipation. “Experienced freefall already a few times thanks to you,” Yaz says with a knowing tone. “But just once I’d like to do it with just the normal level of danger, rather than the real life-on-the-line stuff.”
The Doctor thinks for a moment before Yaz sees a metaphorical lightbulb coming on in her eyes. “Well then, you don’t want to do that on Earth,” the Doctor smirks. “But I know just the planet for it.”
Yaz doesn’t ask any further questions, just gets up to find her boots and pulls them on quickly. She grabs her jacket from where she’d thrown it down on the bed earlier. “C’mon then, what are we waiting for?”
//
When they land, Yaz can already clock how the TARDIS hasn’t actually touched the ground but instead seems to be floating. It feels like being in a ship on a calm sea, steady but still buoyant.
“This is going to blow your mind,” the Doctor quips, bouncing toward the TARDIS door. Yaz follows behind and, when the door opens, Yaz can now see that, yes, they’re definitely in the air. From the limited view she currently has she thinks they’re maybe five or six storeys high. That’s when the Doctor turns to face her and walks backwards out of the door with a wink, falling out of view. Yaz’s heart drops and she runs after her. “Doctor!?”
As she hangs out of the door of the TARDIS and looks down, she sees a very smug Doctor seemingly floating in the air. She’s lying on her back, hands behind her head, with an invisible force holding her up. She smiles that bright smile Yaz has grown to love. “C’mon then! Jump!”
Yaz’s heart is racing from the sight of the Doctor falling from the TARDIS but she now understands she’s safe and tries to relax slightly. “You scared me,” she laughs nervously. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“Sorry,” the Doctor says, scrunching her nose in regret. “Just thought it would look cool.”
“It would’ve if I didn’t think you were falling to your death!”
“I said sorry!”
Yaz shakes her head with a kind smile. “Never a dull day with you. You sure this is safe?” she asks, hovering one foot over the edge of the TARDIS.
The Doctor stretches out her arms in response. “Obviously! Jump, Yaz, it’s ace!”
Yaz takes a breath and jumps out of the TARDIS herself, falling for a few seconds before the same force holding the Doctor cushions her own fall. She imagines it must be what landing on a cloud would feel like. Soft, forgiving, comforting. “What is this place?!”
“Yasmin Khan, welcome to Rebotaria! The bouncy planet.”
“The bouncy planet?”
“Well, that’s what I like to call it. Makes it sound more fun. Basically, the civilization that lives here doesn’t like visitors. So, they created an extreme outer anti-gravity layer that prevents anything from ever touching the land below. No-one can get in, no-one can get out. Some dark history there, if I’m honest,” the Doctor loses her train of thought briefly. She comes back to life remembering the reason they’re here. “Anyway! It means you can jump from as high as you want and you’ll land as gently as a baby being put in a crib.”
“As high as I want?”
“Well, within the limits of their atmosphere, but that must be... four, five miles I think?”
Yaz swallows. “Think I’ll maybe start a bit lower if that’s okay. Work my way up.”
“Just so you know, anything over about a mile all feels the same. You just get longer to enjoy it the higher you go.”
Yaz considers the Doctor’s words, the invisible force holding her up, and the TARDIS hovering not too far above them with the vast expanse of space as its background. “Okay,” she says, small at first, but then louder. “Okay. Why not? Let’s go. Maximum height.”
“Maximum height!” the Doctor repeats and the TARDIS responds, swooping down to collect them.
A few seconds later, the TARDIS is hovering high above Rebotaria with the door open and Yaz looks down. She knows it’s safe, knows the Doctor would never knowingly put her in any type of danger, but still, when greeted with five miles of nothingness between herself and the ground, her legs wobble slightly.
“Natural to be nervous,” the Doctor says, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“It’s just… a long way down.”
“Yep! But a lot of fun! Want me to go first?”
Yaz absolutely does not want to watch the Doctor fall into oblivion, even if she knows she’s safe at the bottom. “Can we do it together?” she asks shyly.
“Best way to do anything, Yaz,” the Doctor replies. “Together. On the count of three.” She waits for Yaz to nod that she’s ready before commencing the countdown. “One. Two.” The “three” comes in unison as they both leap from the TARDIS into nothing.
Yaz has been in freefall before but never like this. She expected it to feel as hectic and fast as her previous encounters have been. Instead, she feels peace and freedom and joy. It takes a few seconds for her to fully acclimate to the experience but when she does she can’t stop smiling. She looks over at the Doctor, falling in tandem with her, loving every second of their experience.
“Brill, isn’t it!” the Doctor shouts, her voice slightly muffled by the air pushing past them. She brings her legs up to her chest and backflips in mid air. The joy on her face is akin to a child and Yaz doesn’t hesitate in attempting to copy the action. She laughs to herself as the planet below turns upside down before appearing the right way up again.
The Doctor throws in a few more tricks on their way down and Yaz attempts them all. Some she gets first try, some of them send her into a spiral she has to correct. Either way, every movement feels electric and she knows it’s a sensation she could get used to.
All too soon, the fall is over and, just as the Doctor promised, Yaz is brought to a stop gently and softly. She’s breathless when she lands and so lies in silence for a few moments to process what just happened. She can hear the Doctor breathing heavily beside her also not rushing to move.
“Can we do that again?” Yaz asks eventually.
“Definitely! Thought you’d never ask!” The TARDIS materialises beside them to transport them back to the edge of the atmosphere again and Yaz steps off the platform with ease this time.
//
Somewhere around her tenth freefall, eyes trained on the Doctor as always, Yaz thinks there’s probably a lesson in here somewhere. That taking that first leap with the Doctor is terrifying, but worth it for the rest which come as second nature. She tucks that thought away for another time. After their fifteenth jump, Yaz starts to lose count so she’s not entirely sure how many times they both jump out of the TARDIS in total. But what she does know is that it still doesn’t feel like enough.
“We’ll be coming back here,” she tells the Doctor instead of asking as they reluctantly pull themselves away from Rebotaria to head home. “That was incredible.”
“Told you an Earth skydive wasn’t good enough.”
“Think I might need a day to recover though before our next adventure.” She doesn’t get motion sickness, but throwing yourself out of the TARDIS repeatedly over the course of an afternoon definitely leaves its mark. Every time she tries to stand still Yaz still feels like she’s falling. Not that she’s complaining. She could live in that feeling forever.
They land back in Sheffield not long after they’d left and make their way back to Yaz’s flat. As soon as they’re in Yaz’s room she catches sight of herself in the mirror and laughs. “Couldn’t have told me I was rocking the windswept look?”
“I thought you knew!” the Doctor retorts. “And anyway, you said it yourself, you’re rocking it.”
Yaz can’t help but blush at the Doctor’s words and she tries desperately to hide her reaction in the hope that the Doctor hasn’t noticed. She grabs her brush from the shelf and starts taming her hair.
When she’s done, Yaz sits down beside the Doctor on the bed and reopens her memory box to reveal the list sitting on top. An hour ago she’d forgotten this even existed. Now, she’s sitting here, still feeling slightly out of sorts from all the freefall, lifting a pen to score the fourth item off. No matter how long she’s travelled with the Doctor, she’ll never get used to how quickly the course of a day can change.
She scores the words out with one solid line and smiles at the Doctor. “Four down. Six to go.”