Chapter Text
Chapter One
They stayed on the beach until the sun began to set and the wind turned biting and cold. Long enough that Yaz started to lose feeling in her legs from sitting on the hard rock. Long enough that the waves and the rush of thoughts swirling in her own head started to sound like the same thing.
She hadn’t ever expected to get her heart broken on a Chinese beach in 1807. But then, she hadn’t ever expected to fall in love with a several-thousand-year-old alien woman. Or, quite frankly, any woman at all.
“S’everything all right?” Dan finally called out. “Are you two still there?”
“Yes!” the Doctor said, springing to her feet. “Everything’s fine!”
The words sent another pang through Yaz’ heart, because she knew that particular bright and bouncy tone all too well. That was the tone the Doctor used when she was absolutely and completely lying through her teeth.
The Doctor had been through far, far more than Yaz understood, she knew that. She understood that she wanted to protect herself from hurt. But God, it hurt already. It hurt so much.
“Back to the TARDIS?” the Doctor said suddenly, her voice softer then, just for Yaz.
The Doctor reached down a hand to help her up, and after a half-second’s hesitation – would it be weird now, to hold her hand? Would it be weirder if she didn’t – Yaz took it. But when she stood, pins and needles shot fiercely up through her ankles, and she nearly fell straight back down.
The Doctor, of course, caught her, one hand still clasped tight around hers, the other grabbing her shoulder gently but firmly.
“Sorry,” Yaz mumbled. “Foot’s asleep.”
She looked up then, and suddenly the sight of her was far too much to bear. The sun was setting behind them, turning the Doctor’s blonde mop of hair into a golden halo, and she was so impossibly beautiful that Yaz couldn’t breathe. For a long moment, hazel eyes stared into hers, until – she didn’t think she imagined it – they flicked downward towards her lips.
Yaz stepped away.
“Thanks,” she said, letting her arms flop down to her sides.
The Doctor nodded, her mouth pressed into a flat line.
“Always,” she said, in the same quiet, earnest tone she’d used before, the one Yaz didn’t think she’d ever heard before today.
They picked their way across the rocks and back to the TARDIS. The Doctor marched through the doors ahead of Yaz, and Dan caught her eye and lifted a curious eyebrow. Yaz just shook her head.
“So,” the Doctor said, swinging around the room until the console was between her and her two passengers. “Where to next? Have I brought you to Ursa Minor yet – there’s a meteor shower there every other Tuesday, we should be able to catch one. Or, perhaps to the 32nd century? They finally invent flying cars! Dunno why it took humanity so long but it’s worth a look, what do you think?”
“Actually,” Dan said, looking a bit sheepish; his suddenly shy body language was made all the more ridiculous by the fact that he was still wearing his fancy dress party pirate outfit. “Could you drop me off home for a couple of days, Doctor? I, er, well I gave Di a call, and she’d like to talk. I’d like to try and patch things up with her, if I can.”
Yaz only caught it because she was watching so closely, but she could have sworn something dark crossed the Doctor’s face then, just for a moment. Something that might’ve looked suspiciously like jealousy. But she reigned it in quickly and nodded.
“’Course I can,” she said, reaching across the console to begin charting their course. “That’s great, Dan, really. Happy for you. What about you, Yaz? Where to?”
Two thoughts hit Yaz harder than a dalek blast. The first was that, in spite of everything, she did not want to leave the Doctor. Not now. Not yet. The second was that she knew, with absolutely every single fibre of her being, that she could not be alone with the Doctor right now.
“You should bring her something,” she blurted out, the words jumbled in her haste. “Like – a souvenir, you know? To show her you’ve been thinking about her, all the way out in space.” She swallowed, paused, made herself turn to catch the Doctor’s eye. “There’s gotta be a souvenir planet, right? Like all those shops down Eighth Avenue in New York that only sell keychains and mugs?”
The Doctor looked back at her, and for a moment, Yaz thought she would say no. That bringing back something from space-and-time travel was too risky, the space-time continuum too easily breakable to meddle with trinkets just for fun. But then her eyes softened, and she nodded.
“I’ll do you one better,” she said. “I know exactly where to go.”
She turned and smiled at them, first at Dan, then at Yaz, one of her real, bright smiles, her “let’s get a shift on” smile, her “adventure and half a plan” smile, and Yaz knew that someday that smile wouldn’t cut her to the core. But today was not that day.
“I’m going to go change,” Yaz announced, heading for her room. “Dan, you really should change.”
“I’m just going to remind everyone,” Dan said, “that this was your idea, Sheffield.”
“’Cos I didn’t think you’d take me seriously, Scouse,” she shot back over her shoulder.
She let herself pause only once she had closed her bedroom door behind her, letting her head thunk back against it with a quiet groan. Stubbornly, she swiped at her eyes before marching over to her overflowing closet in search of her most comfortable jeans and boots and leather jacket. Keep going, keep moving, she’d be fine. ’Course she’d be fine. She’d wanted honesty from the Doctor and that’s exactly what she’d gotten. So it was fine.
By the time she’d reemerged, the Doctor had also changed into her usual rainbow-striped t-shirt and coat. Back to normal, then. Or as normal as things could be on board a time traveling space ship.
“You all right?” the Doctor asked, actually looking up from the console as she spoke.
“Fine,” Yaz replied with a nod. “You?”
“Fine,” the Doctor answered, although she looked away again immediately, twiddling with the console until she had a custard cream to stuff into her mouth.
Yep. Definitely back to normal.
Dan reemerged a moment later – thankfully also wearing something far more sensible than a ruffled pirate shirt and striped waistcoat – and the Doctor grinned.
“Brilliant, we’re just about there.”
“Where are we going?” Dan asked.
“Ah! Not going to spoil the surprise, am I?” the Doctor said with a grin and a flourish, and Yaz couldn’t help but smile too. She really was amazing.
The ship landed with its typical wheezing whoop, and the Doctor marched straight towards the doors, coattails flying behind her as she bounded forward.
“Let’s get a shift on,” she called, “there’s loads to see!”
Yaz made to follow, but before she could, Dan stepped in front of her.
“What’s going on?” he whispered. “Did you say something to her?”
“What?” Yaz replied automatically. “No, nothing.”
Dan just raised an eyebrow, waiting, but Yaz shook her head.
“Later, all right?” she mumbled, heading towards the doors.
“You’re as bad as she is, Sheffield,” Dan called.
“I am not,” Yaz retorted, even though she knew she was absolutely borrowing the Doctor’s standard coping mechanism right at that moment. Still, Dan didn’t have to bring it up.
She stepped outside the TARDIS to find the Doctor staring down an avenue of neatly-trimmed trees, with horses and carriages driving by. When Dan joined them, shutting the door behind him, she tossed her hands wide, a magician showing off at the end of a trick.
“L’Exposition Universelle,” she said brightly, her Northern accent jarring horribly with the French. (Yaz supposed lots of planets had a North.) “Paris, 1889. Loads of different countries all came together at once to show off their best and brightest art and science. They built the Eiffel Tower for it, y’see?”
She pointed through the trees, and sure enough, there it was, poking up across the sky ahead of them like a great black spike.
“And, if you’re very very clever and know exactly the right places to look, it truly is a universal exposition,” she continued with a wink. “Perfect spot to find a souvenir or three that will be impressive and won’t break space and time, what do you reckon?”
“Sounds all right to me,” Dan said, surveying the scene with his hands casually in his pockets. “How about you, Yaz?”
Paris. The most romantic city in the world, and her with a broken heart and still tagging along after the woman who’d broken it as though nothing had changed.
“Great idea,” she said, nodding, following behind as the Doctor led them forward.
It was not a great idea. But what could possibly go wrong?