Chapter Text
Yaz grips the sides of the sink, breathing steadily through her nose in an effort to keep the panic down. It seemed like a good idea at the time, accepting her mother’s offer for her and the Doctor to come by for tea. But then she’d woken up a few hours ago with the realization that this will be the first time she’s really brought the Doctor home as her girlfriend and now her mind is just racing with all the different ways it could go.
It’s not the first time her family has seen the Doctor since she and Yaz started dating. There was that whole slightly disastrous vacation in Canada, where it turned out a greedy mining corporation was trying to force her nan to move. But as it goes with things like that, they’d been too busy trying to save the day to really sit down and chat.
She can’t help but worry. At the end of the day, as much as she loves her girlfriend, the Doctor is a very old alien who isn’t great at pretending to be human for very long.
She sighs and looks at herself in the mirror. “No backing out now,” she says. Well, she could back out, but then she’d never hear the end of it from her mum. So, she straightens up, adjusts the collar of her button-down shirt, and heads back into the bedroom.
She’s greeted by a loud snore.
Yaz rolls her eyes. For someone who repeatedly–and loudly–claims that she doesn’t need to sleep, the Doctor sleeps like the dead .
Yaz checks the time. They’re due at the Khan family flat in about an hour, and she already knows that the Doctor will waste most of that time getting distracted by literally everything. Letting her sleep is out of the question for now, so she walks over to the bed.
She almost doesn’t have the heart to wake her. The Doctor is facedown in bed, her limbs sprawled everywhere, her left arm bent at an angle that can’t be comfortable. The blankets are bunched around her waist, with her upper torso bare. Her face is turned in Yaz’s direction, mostly hidden behind wavy blonde hair. And despite the comically loud snoring, her face is peaceful.
Yaz leans over and brushes the hair from her face. When that doesn’t wake the Doctor up, she climbs onto the bed, settles down beside her, and kisses the tip of her nose.
The Doctor’s nose scronches up and her eyelids flutter. She cracks open one eye and smiles sleepily. “Mornin’,” she whispers, her voice slightly hoarse.
Yaz’s cheeks flush as she thinks of the reason her voice sounds like that. “It’s almost afternoon, actually,” she says. “You told me you were gettin’ up.”
The Doctor yawns. “The bed wouldn’t let me.”
“Really.”
“Yep. It was a long and difficult battle, Yaz, but in the end, I was forced to concede defeat.”
Yaz laughs and shakes her head. “You’re so cute.” She traces the curve of her spine with her fingers and leans in for a kiss. “C’mon. Get up.”
She moves to get back out of bed, but the Doctor is too fast. She wraps her arms around Yaz, one around her waist and the other hand winding up into her hair, and pulls her close.
The feeling of their bodies pressed together nearly convinces Yaz to call off tea with her family. She and the Doctor have only recently–as in the past few days–started sleeping together, and she is still completely enamoured with the whole thing.
But then the alarm goes off on her phone. She carefully extricates herself from her girlfriend’s arms in order to shut it off.
“What’s the alarm for?” the Doctor asks with a pout.
“Reminder to make sure you’re up,” Yaz replies. “Third one since you said you were getting up.”
The Doctor huffs and rolls back onto her stomach, pressing her face into the pillow.
Yaz ruffles her hair, laughing at the loud groan she gets in response, and walks over to the wardrobe. “What were you planning to wear?” she asks. She opens the wardrobe and starts picking out the things she already knows she wants to wear—the blue trousers, the white undershirt, the striped socks, the blue braces.
“Could you toss me some underwear?”
Yaz smirks at this. "Should I get your lucky boxers out?"
"I don't have—"
"Doctor."
"I was joking when I said that."
Yaz laughs and pulls out a white sports bra and a pair of boxers covered in little rainbows and tosses them onto the bed. She keeps her back turned as the Doctor climbs out of bed to put them on. Not because she's uncomfortable seeing her without clothes, but rather because the temptation to go back to bed with her is already too strong; seeing her naked will make it impossible.
The Doctor saunters over and wraps one arm around Yaz from behind. She kisses her neck and reaches over her shoulder to grab a shirt. Then she hesitates. "Wait. Should I wear something a bit more…I dunno. Nicer?"
"Why?" Yaz turns to look at her.
The Doctor is one of the bravest people Yaz knows. Not too long ago, she faced down the literal end of the universe and barely even blinked. But that bravery does not transfer over to generic social situations, and right now, she looks like she would rather hurl herself into the Flux than go for tea with Yaz's family.
"Doctor, you've met my family," Yaz says. "Several times."
"But this is—"
"Just tea with my family," Yaz says. She grabs the shirt that the Doctor was reaching for and presses it into her hands. "Get dressed and I'll do your hair."
"What's wrong with my hair?"
Yaz gives her a look. Ever since she made a passing comment about how she wanted to see the Doctor with long hair, her girlfriend has been growing it out. It almost reaches her shoulders, but right now, it's sticking out more than hanging down. "Go look in the mirror."
The Doctor ducks into the ensuite. "Oh. I get it."
Yaz chuckles and joins her, pulling out a basket of hair tools from a cupboard. She waits for the Doctor to sit on a stool and starts brushing out her hair before taking a flat iron to it. "Your roots are growing in," she says as she works. "We'll have to set aside an evening to refresh the blonde."
The Doctor hums, her eyes closed.
Yaz smiles. The Doctor loves having her hair done. Something about the feeling of Yaz running her fingers over her scalp. She's pretty sure she'd purr if she could. She sets the flat iron aside and runs her hair through the Doctor's soft, straight hair.
"I love you."
Yaz kisses the top of her head. Since their big conversation, since the Doctor had finally decided to open up and let herself be vulnerable, she’s become the sort of person who is very soppy in the morning. "Love you, too," she says. "C'mon. Don't wanna be late." She knows what's coming and hops out of the way of the Doctor's attempt to pull her close. "Tea first. Snuggling later."
The Doctor sighs dramatically and trudges back into the bedroom after her, grabbing her boots and her coat.
Yaz opts for just a pair of trainers and her favourite leather jacket and follows her out the door.
The Doctor pauses briefly to stick her head through the sitting room door and inform Dan that they're off, then takes hold of Yaz's hand as they continue through the corridors.
The TARDIS warbles at them as they step into the console room.
The Doctor starts towards the console, then stops herself. "Sorry, mate," she says. "I'm off. Tea at Yaz's. I'll check it out when I get back."
The TARDIS responds with a sound like a child stomping their foot.
The Doctor sighs. "Give me a mo', Yaz," she says. She walks over to the console and brings up a display. Her brow furrows as she reads the symbols there.
Yaz can't quite read Gallifreyan, but she knows enough from the Doctor's occasional lessons to know it's not good.
The Doctor sighs. "I really should check this out," she says. She bows her head for a moment, clearly torn on what to do. She shakes her head and straightens up. "No. I promised I'd go for tea. This can wait."
Yaz can't help the disappointment that settles into her gut. "It's okay if you have to cancel," she says.
The Doctor looks at her, then at the display, and for a moment, it looks like she's in physical pain. "May have to cut it a bit short," she says. And then she walks briskly away from the console, taking Yaz's hand on the way to the doors.
The two of them take the lift up to Yaz's floor and walk to her flat. Yaz smiles faintly as she notices how tense her girlfriend is. That smile falters when she realizes it's probably not so much the anxiety of tea with the family anymore, but rather her fighting the desire to run back downstairs and go hurtling into whatever situation had distracted her.
"Yaz? Everything all right?”
Yaz jumps at her voice, blinking in surprise when she realizes they're standing outside the door. "Sorry," she says. "Must've zoned out there." She digs her keys out of her pocket and unlocks the door.
"Yaz?" Najia's voice calls out. "Is that you?"
"It's me," Yaz replies. She shrugs off her jacket and hangs it up by the door, doing the same with the Doctor's coat. She walks into the flat and is immediately pulled into a hug. "Hasn't been that long, has it?"
Najia takes her by the shoulders. "I'm just glad to see you're all right," she says. "You are all right, yes?"
"Yes, mum," Yaz says as Najia kisses her on the cheek. She sniffs the air. "Dad, not the pakora again."
Hakim gives her an offended look. He gestures at the Doctor with a tea towel. "Your girlfriend likes my pakora, thank you very much," he says.
Yaz quickly bites her tongue before she can blurt out the first thing that comes to mind: if you knew half the things she puts in her mouth, you wouldn't take that as a compliment.
Sonya comes to the rescue. "No, she doesn't," she says. "She just says it so you won’t tell her she can’t date Yaz anymore.”
Hakim pouts and turns back to the stove.
Najia shakes her head. "You're all children," she says. She turns to the Doctor and offers a hug. "It's lovely to see you again."
"Likewise," the Doctor says with a somewhat awkward hug.
"So are the two of you still traveling?" Najia asks as Yaz and the Doctor take a seat on the sofa.
"Yeah," Yaz replies.
"Why don't we ever see pictures? All this traveling, and you don't seem to take any photos."
Yaz's stomach lurches at that, but the Doctor jumps in. "Ah, well, more focused on the experience, aren’t we?" she says. “Photos are nice, but they don't really compare to living in the moment."
"Right," Yaz says.
"Hmm." Najia doesn’t look convinced at all.
"Najia, love, can you help me out here?" Hakim calls from the kitchen.
Najia walks over.
"How am I doing?" the Doctor stage-whispers to Yaz.
"You're doing good," Yaz replies.
"It's a bit easier now," the Doctor says. "Maybe it's 'cause I know them. Or maybe this whole…opening up and being vulnerable thing is making the social awkwardness easier to deal with." She shrugs.
Yaz notices her glance at the clock. "You're worried about that distress call, aren't you?"
The Doctor nods, giving her an apologetic look. "Would it be terrible if I popped out early?" she asks quietly.
Music suddenly starts to play from the kitchen, and Yaz looks up to see her parents dancing together.
"Oh, no, they're being soppy again," Sonya says. She has to shout to be heard over the music.
Hakim puts on a mock offended face. "I'll have you know that this is the first song—"
"That you and mum ever danced to," Yaz and Sonya recite in unison.
Najia laughs and shares a kiss with her husband.
And as Yaz watches her parents together in the kitchen, then looks back at the Doctor still staring at the clock, it hits her.
So suddenly, so painfully.
She'll never have that sort of life with the Doctor. No cooking together in a normal flat while telling their children for the hundredth time that this is the first song they danced to. No normal days in where the only threat is burnt food. Even in the most domestic moments, the Doctor will always be on the lookout for danger, always ready to run off.
The realization steals the air from her lungs.
The Doctor notices. Of course she does. "Yaz?" she says. "What's wrong?"
Yaz looks at her. At her beautiful, brilliant girlfriend. At the woman she'd called the best person she's ever met after knowing her for only a short few days. The woman who's become her entire world.
The woman she knows she can never really have . Not in the way she wants.
The Doctor is worried now. She leans in close. "Yaz, is something wrong?"
This catches the rest of the family's attention.
Yaz presses a hand to her chest. It's suddenly hard to breathe, and being the centre of attention isn't helping matters at all.
"Yaz?" Najia approaches the sofa. "Sweetheart, what is it?"
Yaz shakes her head, fighting back tears as she gets to her feet. "I have to go," she says. She walks to the front door and grabs her jacket.
The Doctor catches up to her. "Yaz, what's happening?" she asks. Her eyes are wide, worried. "Talk to me. Please."
Yaz shakes her head.
"Yaz—"
"Leave me alone," Yaz says, and just saying those words breaks her heart. She hates herself for it, especially at the crestfallen look on the Doctor's face. She opens the door and hurries out into a cold spring afternoon, trying her best to block out her girlfriend's worried voice.
She doesn't know where she's going. She just has to get away from here.