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The Doctor kept her eyes on the sea even after her stone had sunk. Yaz, too, kept looking out into the distance, both of them lost in the present. The only sound was the gentle ebb and flow of the tide keeping a hushed rhythm. Eventually the Doctor sat back on the rock she’d been sharing with Yaz, her thoughts were far away, but she was pulled back into the moment by the warmth emanating from the woman she was sat so close to.
The Doctor tried not to think of other suns, other beaches, other times. Her wish had been the only one possible: that the past and the future could not exist, and that there was only this time right now, just her and Yaz. She would have relinquished every future regeneration if it would buy her more time here. She had met so many people in her lives – including the greatest and bravest and wisest of humanity – but she didn’t think she’d ever found someone as remarkable as Yaz. Was sure there would never be another. Humans really were astonishing, but even she had been surprised by Yaz. The courage, the integrity, the determination, hope and belief she carried with her never failed to take the Doctor’s breath away, but perhaps the most remarkable thing of all was that she had no idea how amazing she was.
The Doctor knew how much Yaz admired her, how much she looked up to her and wanted to be like her, but in fact it should be the other way around. Yaz would be so reduced, so lessened and dimmed, if she were to be more like the Doctor. Instead the Doctor wished she could be more like Yaz. Wished she could be filled with the wonder in Yaz’s heart, be driven by the honesty of her ability to see the good in the world and the people around her.
Over the course of their time with each other, the Doctor was continually in awe of how much Yaz had grown. And, she mentally berated herself, their times apart. What if she had learnt more in her time away from the Doctor than when they had been together? The woman who met her on the other side of those years in the early 1900s was not quite the same Yaz who had screamed her name and tried to throw herself fatally through the boundary as the Doctor was turned into a Weeping Angel. The control she exerted over her emotions when telling her they’d been gone a few years was light years away from the shove she had so heartbreakingly given her after just ten months (for her). Yet the Doctor had felt the very second when she had hugged her when Yaz’s walls broke down and she clung back with desperation. Her heart had been racing as much as the Doctor’s, both of them wishing everything else would disappear and they could just remain in that hug forever. Her Yaz was still there. HER Yaz.
She knew there was more behind this young woman than she would let on. She knew Yaz had not told her everything. She knew glimpses and glimmers of difficult times in her past and it broke the Doctor’s heart to think that someone as good and kind and wonderful as Yaz had endured darkness. All the Doctor wanted was to be able to protect her and keep her in the light forever more. And yet she knew it was unavoidable. Knew that it was never possible to keep the darkness at bay completely. For both of them. So when she’d said to Yaz that she wanted this to be forever, she meant it so very, very much. The two of them, together, with the sunlight shining on them warm and soft.
They were both still side by side, looking towards the horizon, so Yaz did not see the tear escape from the Doctor’s eye and roll down her cheek. Instead, she let her head rest on the Doctor’s shoulder, wanting a connection yet afraid to do more. Her mind had been in turmoil since her admission to Dan on New Year’s Eve and had become a screaming mess since they had arrived in China when the Doctor had begun to… yes she was sure of it… FLIRT with her. But it was now so exhausted it was almost silent. She did not know what everything that had been said meant, or where it would lead, but like the Doctor, she just wanted this moment to last forever. Without complication. Without questions. Without confusion. Just the two of them, alone.
The only quiet voices audible in her head right now were echoes of things the Doctor had said that day.
“I think you’re one of the greatest people I’ve ever known.”
“I wish this would go on forever.”
Was this real? Had it really happened? No matter how much she was doubting herself, the Doctor really had said those things. To her. Yaz had been so sure the Doctor would not feel the same as she did. She was so sure the Doctor would brush it off. She’d had no idea at all of how she could ever come up with the words to speak to the Doctor about it, and in the end, she hadn’t needed to. Or at least, hadn’t had the chance to. The Doctor had done the talking. And the things she had said were things she had never imagined the Doctor would actually say to her.
Yaz didn’t even know what all the emotions swimming around inside of her actually were. They made her feel dizzy and her heart had not stopped racing. But now, resting her head on the Doctor’s shoulder, a calmness descended, and when the Doctor reached her arm around Yaz to hold her close beside her, Yaz chose to close her eyes, take the Doctor’s words at face value, and just exist there and then. Just feeling the Doctor’s arm around her, a gentle hand on her waist, their sides pressed together. She chose to feel the warmth between them and the movement of the Doctor’s breaths.
When she felt the Doctor press a lingering kiss into her hair, Yaz knew that this was the moment that would live in her heart forever. No one could ever take this away.