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Yaz can’t sleep.
She must admit it isn’t unexpected, based on the day she's had. The Doctor admitted her feelings to her, and she liked her back. In an ideal world, that would be a good thing, but of course, the throes of travelling with the Doctor mean that something like this will only end in heartbreak. Or so she’d been told.
It was unfair to be given such a sense of hope as the Doctor flirted with her throughout their adventure with the Sea Devils, only to almost immediately retract what she said, insisting they stay friends.
Yaz understands the weight of what would come of their situation if they did pursue their feelings further. When she considers it, a thousands of years-old alien who travels time and space and a normal human from Earth doesn’t make for a long-lasting relationship. Based on the small portion of the Doctor’s life that she been offered a glimpse of when they spoke on the beach, it hadn’t worked out in the past. She even briefly mentioned a wife who no longer seemed to be in the picture. Yaz didn’t bother pressing for any further explanation on the topic.
So she lays in her bed, staring at the ceiling that glows above her and listens to the soft hum of the ship around her, as she has for many nights lately. Since that first night they met on the train, Yaz felt something different towards the Doctor, but she was incapable of placing her emotions. Or, rather, she didn’t allow herself to place them. All the way back in her teenage years, she felt out of place — she felt wrong — not having the same crushes on boys as her female classmates and peers.
It only began to make sense when the Doctor came into her life.
She repressed her feelings, certainly, she can’t lie to herself about that, but she could only hide them for so long before they completely consumed her. And they had, back when she spent ten Earth months in a spare TARDIS trying to track down where the Doctor disappeared to without even realising New Year’s passed. It was how every emotion overwhelmed her when the Doctor strolled out of the TARDIS as if nothing happened. Yaz hadn’t known how to process it. The only way she could release it at the time was an angry shove which she still regrets to this day.
After the Doctor had been in prison, she refused to sleep on her own and insisted Yaz keep her company. The TARDIS even conjured up a new room for them to share to ensure neither of their personal spaces were encroached upon by the other. That really hadn’t helped Yaz’s conflicted feelings, but the Doctor could never know. It was nice, sometimes, when she lulled into sleep and Yaz could watch over her to make sure she didn’t get taken away again; that was, when she was allowed a rare night of sleep that wasn’t plagued by nightmares. More often than not, the Doctor stayed awake with her to avoid them, insisting she didn’t actually need to sleep. Yaz still doesn’t know if that was a lie or not.
Sometimes, when the Doctor did sleep without nightmares, Yaz indulged herself in the possibility of what it might be like if things were different. On those nights, an arm wrapping around her waist or a nose nestling in the crook of her neck would startle her awake. A subconscious movement, Yaz knows, someone reaching out for comfort while far away dreaming; but she likes to imagine it was purposeful. Purposeful in the sense that the Doctor genuinely wanted to hold her and not just the only other person who happened to be in the bed. Thinking about it now, she wonders if the latter were truer.
Them sharing a room was probably the main reason Dan clocked them so fast when he came aboard. Yaz is almost certain that he thought they were actually together when he first met them; two women travelling space and time together in their little blue box, who retreated to their shared room every night without question.
Not to mention the hologram when she and Dan got stuck in the 1900s with Jericho. It was likely then that he realised her feelings were unrequited, which she may have let slip once or twice, but most of it he figured out on his own — she has to give him credit for that. That was 4 years of sleepless nights for Yaz. After having spent so much time with the comfort of the Doctor sleeping next to her, the absence of her presence was agonising.
Without Dan, Yaz isn’t sure she or the Doctor ever would have admitted anything to each other.
And now that all of their feelings are laid out on the table, tonight they have chosen to retire to their separate rooms. It's hard for Yaz to not feel hurt at the Doctor’s suggestion, but she had seen the same longing in her eyes when they went in their opposite directions down the bedroom corridor.
Dan saw none of that, of course. He is still blissfully ignorant of the whole situation. As far as he’s aware, Yaz and the Doctor’s beach conversation went well and that things will move forward in the way he expects them to. But unfortunately that conversation didn’t go well. And it’s all she’s been able to think about since they boarded the ship after the few hours her and the Doctor sat together staring out at the sea.
A lot of times when the ceiling gets too boring to look at, she lies awake scrolling on her phone or she might read a book that the TARDIS suggests for her. But tonight feels different. Right now it's as though her brain is urging her for a change of routine. It's odd — she's itching to move around and do something.
She ought to get up and make herself a nice cup of chamomile tea. Maybe it will calm her mind and help her sleep. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and slides her feet into her slippers that wait for her on the floor.
The path to the kitchen unfortunately means Yaz must pass by the Doctor’s bedroom door, which she finds herself hesitating in front of. She briefly considers knocking to see if the Doctor is awake, that perhaps she is also feeling the absence of the other person that she had gotten so used to sharing a bed with. That maybe she might be willing to talk some more and help piece together the puzzle that she is in Yaz’s mind. It's all she ever wants, when sleep eludes the both of them, but the Doctor never obliges. Maybe tonight will be different —
Stop. Something in her mind directs her attention back to the task at hand. She shakes her head to regain concentration and continues on to her original destination.
Kitchen, kitchen, kitchen. The word repeats over and over again in her mind, whispering, urging her forward, desperate to not lose focus again.
The journey to the kitchen feels shorter than usual, Yaz notes. The TARDIS often changes its inner workings, but it's odd that the ship chooses to do so for such a trivial reason. Perhaps it is simply the late hour, or her lack of sleep, but the TARDIS definitely appears to be helping her make it to the kitchen.
As Yaz approaches the doorway, however, she stops. Sound floats down the corridor from the kitchen. Her brows knit together, trying to listen. She can barely tell what exactly it is she can hear, but it sounds like music.
Someone else is awake.
Slowly, Yaz creeps forward, careful to not alert the other person that she's lurking; she hardly leaves her room this late at night, but neither did the others. As she ventures closer, she can make out the melody of the song. It isn’t anything she immediately recognizes, but the voices singing on the track are vaguely familiar. Definitely Earth music, probably something before her time, though. Not some of the weird alien bands the Doctor loved to torture Yaz and Dan with on the regular, thankfully.
As she peeks her head around the doorframe, her eyes widen, and she retreats back into the corridor.
The Doctor is awake.
Immediately, her heart begins to race, and all the air leaves her lungs. She leans her back against the cool wall in an attempt to calm down, hoping the sound of the music playing is loud enough to keep her presence unknown.
It’s just the Doctor. She tells herself.
Yes, it’s the Doctor, but not just the Doctor. Not after everything that happened today. Instead, it is an uncomfortable conversation they will end up having, or an awkward silence when the pair of them inevitably refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
After taking a moment to catch her breath, Yaz gathers up the courage to look around the corner again. The dim night lighting from the TARDIS shrouds the room in darkness, but the single lamp above the table is on, casting the Doctor’s lonely figure in a soft warm light. She sits peacefully with a steaming cup of tea and a book rests in front of her. One hand holds the book down and the other props up her chin. She has one leg crossed under her and the other is swinging lazily to the beat of the song that plays.
Despite her initial shock, Yaz feels a smile spread across her lips.
She loves the rare sight of the Doctor in a state like this where she wasn’t putting on a brave face for anyone. She loves seeing her in pyjamas; outside of her usual outfit, she is no longer shielded by her metaphorical armour that takes the form of her many layers, topped off with her signature grey coat. She loves seeing her hair wavy after it dries from a shower, slightly dishevelled because she has no reason to upkeep appearances and style it. She loves how she walks around in her striped socks that are often mismatched, not constantly ready to run from danger in her boots.
Like this, the Doctor is more open, more kind to letting Yaz in, even if only briefly.
It's these stolen moments that shed a new light on the woman Yaz unfortunately has fallen for, where she allows herself to be herself when she thinks no one is watching. Of course, that’s not to say Yaz doesn’t love the pompous, false-confident version of the Doctor that she sees when they are out fighting Daleks and Cybermen, but this side of her is more endearing, more human.
Yaz watches the Doctor for longer than she’d like to admit, sitting quietly and reading with her head low, the sound of old Earth music floating through the air. She ought to run back to her room and act like she had never gotten up in the first place, but her mind urges her to stay.
One song ends, and the other begins, the first plucks of the guitar from Here Comes The Sun instantly recognizable to Yaz. That would be why the voices were familiar. She knows enough of the Beatles to have recognized their voices, just not the particular song from before.
Now was as good a time as any to let herself be known. She takes a deep breath, stepping through the door frame.
“The Beatles?” She asks, incredulous. She is desperate to make casual conversation, to avoid any of the topics that beg to be discussed.
The Doctor looks up from her book briefly, but glances back down, tracing a sentence with her finger and finishing it before she folds the corner of the page and closes the book. She looks up at Yaz expectantly, who has now made her way across the kitchen to pour her own cup of tea.
“The TARDIS loves them,” the Doctor says. “At least I think she does, feels that way in my brain when they’re playing.” She taps on her temple. The TARDIS offers a small chirp in response.
Yaz only vaguely understands the Doctor and the TARDIS’s telepathic connection or how it works. She and the ship have a special bond, they understand each other on levels Yaz didn’t even know existed.
“Makes sense, though,” the Doctor continues. “My running theory is that It was probably the first music she heard from Earth, the Beatles were well popular in 1963. Been a while since I’ve let her listen to them, s’pose I was just feeling nostalgic.”
“1963?” Yaz asks.
“Yep, first time I ever came to Earth was 1963. The first radio transmission the TARDIS picked up very well could have been one of their songs.”
She stops fixing her tea for a moment, and she turns to face the Doctor, who nonchalantly sips on her own. She often seems to gloss over details about specific adventures or certain people, their names, dates, times; whole chunks of the Doctor’s story are missing and Yaz struggles to fit the pieces together into a neat timeline. Perhaps that's part of the point, the Doctor wants to make it as confusing as possible so that she can’t make sense of it all. She knows, of course, that the Doctor left Gallifrey and came to Earth, but she knows nothing about 1963 being the year she visited first. Maybe the Doctor simply doesn’t think of those kinds of details to be important, but Yaz does. It makes the story feel more real, like it isn’t just some nonsense the Doctor makes up. Insignificant details make the story more intriguing.
Whenever she finds an opportunity, Yaz tries to squeeze information out of her, and now was one of those chances. The Doctor usually dodges any direct questioning, but if it's hidden in a casual conversation like this, Yaz can maybe get something out of it. Even the smallest speck in the breadcrumb trail that lead to who and where the Doctor is today is worth something to her.
Yaz turns her focus back to her tea, but she doesn't take her eye off of the Doctor. “Tell me about it.”
“Hm?” The Doctor is playing up her obliviousness, Yaz can tell. It's typically how these conversations go.
“1963. Your first visit to Earth.”
For a moment, their gazes are locked, challenging each other. The Doctor has seen through Yaz’s ruse to learn more about her life, but she has her backed into a corner and there is hardly any way of escape. They have both gotten up in the middle of the night because they couldn’t sleep. Any of the Doctor’s usual excuses to avoid Yaz’s interrogation will fall flat.
“Well,” the Doctor sighs, surrendering. “Quite boring, actually. Kept the TARDIS parked in a junkyard for a few weeks, tried to act like a normal human being, but it didn’t last long.” She pauses, turning words over in her mind. “Ended up taking some friends to prehistoric times where we were worshipped for being able to start a fire. That was certainly interesting.”
“Really?” Yaz laughs.
“Oh yeah,” the Doctor chuckles. “Didn’t last long though, nearly had to resort to hitting someone over the head with a rock.”
“You’re joking.”
“Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t?” The Doctor takes a matter-of-fact sip from her tea, downing the rest of it.
Yaz falters for a moment, wondering if the Doctor is telling the truth or if she's making all of this up as she goes. If she's being truthful, how much more could Yaz get her to spill?
“I’m just trying to imagine what that looked like — what you looked like.”
Yaz desperately wants to know what some of the Doctor’s other faces looked like, but she never shares. Usually, she just gives a vague description that never paints a vivid enough picture in Yaz’s mind other than that she was a man for all of them: white-haired Scotsman, big ears and a leather jacket, curly blonde hair and a patchwork suit.
None of them sound quite her type, though. She’ll stick with how the Doctor looks now.
“A short, little old man,” the Doctor replies. “Had a monocle, too.”
“And you were going to attack someone with a single rock?” She wouldn’t be surprised if the Doctor is making all of this up.
“Yes.”
“You really are something,” Yaz says.
The Doctor merely hums in response.
Despite the distraction of the Doctor’s past rock murder tendencies, Yaz finishes making her cup of tea and she leans back against the countertop to take a long sip. The warmth spreads through her whole body and she lets out a small sigh. Tea from the TARDIS always tastes better than anywhere else, and it helps to ease her mind with whatever she's worrying about — which right now, is a lot. She could almost forget that she's on a spaceship floating in space with an alien — an alien that she fancies and who fancies her back. And how their relationship can never work because of the fact that one of them is an alien. But sitting in the kitchen sipping tea like this always feels so domestic and Yaz loves it; she likes to entertain the thought of what a normal, human life with the Doctor would be like. She knows, of course, that it is impossible, and she often ends up scolding herself when her mind drifts in that direction.
Still, it doen’t stop her from considering it briefly, now.
Yaz remembers inviting the Doctor in for tea at her family’s flat all those years ago when they first met. She rambled on about conspiracies with her dad, then went on about how nice it would be to get her own flat and something about a purple sofa. And while Yaz doesn’t necessarily agree with her interior design choices, she would love to see what the Doctor was like in a flat if their situation were different. If they could settle down and have a regular, boring life on Earth like Yaz would want.
I can’t fix myself. The Doctor had said, and that much was painfully true. No matter what happens between them, Yaz will be long gone well before the Doctor — Earth too, probably. Although, despite all of that, Earth is the one thing she made the best attempt at “fixing herself” to. For Earth to be the first place she chose, there had to have been something that intrigued her about the planet.
“What was it,” Yaz asks. “About Earth that interested you?”
A pause.
“How do you mean?” The Doctor sits up and props her chin up with her hand.
“It was the first place you chose to go all those thousands of years ago, and you haven’t really left. There had to be something about Earth that made you want to visit… and stay.”
“You want my honest answer?”
“‘Course.” Yaz smiles gently.
The Doctor thinks for a moment, piecing together whatever thoughts she has into a coherent answer. The tip of her tongue peeks out from between her lips, Yaz loves when she does that while she thinks. She takes another sip of her tea, and patiently waits for whatever science nonsense the Doctor is about to spew that she will just nod her head to and act like she understands.
“I suppose… mostly it was the Voyager satellite,” the Doctor said. “Otherwise I really wouldn’t have known about Earth at all. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”
Not the response she expected.
“That’s the one with the record in it for aliens to find, right?” Yaz pauses, the realisation hitting her. “Hold on — you’re aliens, you’re telling me that actually worked?”
The Doctor smiles shyly.
“When I left Gallifrey, I wanted some idea of where to go, I kept getting weird radio signals from that area of the universe. Very primitive technology, that Voyager, the transmissions were just so loud. I had to investigate the planet something like that had come from.”
“You didn’t know anything about Earth before that?”
“Nah,” The Doctor flaps a dismissive hand in the space in front of her. “Unless a planet was in the immediate surrounding area or was a known threat or resource, I wasn’t taught about them. Plus, Earth is so far behind in technological and sociological advances, it’s typically viewed as a nuisance in the universe.”
“Oi, don’t diss my home planet like that,” Yaz shouts with feigned offence. “Especially since you spend most of your time here.”
“As if you wouldn’t say the same, have you seen Earth?”
“Yes, and I'm the one who actually lives here,” Yaz says. "So I'm allowed to diss it."
A moment passes, the music around them fades out for the next song to start. It’s hardly a comfortable silence, but Yaz tries to convince herself that it is or else she fears she might combust on the spot.
“I’ve always found the human race interesting,” the Doctor muses out loud. “So many different cultures and people to meet. Never really got that at home.”
Everything Yaz knows about Gallifrey really makes it sound terrible, it’s no wonder she fled from it all those years ago. She watches intently as the Doctor idly traces the edge of her mug on the table, hanging her head.
“But regardless of that, out of almost 8 billion I always manage to find someone like you,” she says with a soft smile. As she holds her gaze, the intense hazel of her eyes captivates her, even in the dim light. “Keeps me coming back.”
Trying to ignore the way her breath hitches, she turns away from where the Doctor is sitting and busies herself with tidying up the nonexistent mess she made while fixing her tea. Her eyes bore into her with every movement she makes.
They had agreed. They agreed not to pursue any of their feelings any further, to just stay friends and act like nothing was wrong when Dan asks. Just earlier today the Doctor finally reciprocated her affections, only to immediately rescind them, why would she say something like that? It had started as just normal small-talk, how did they end up here again?
Unless she means it in a totally platonic, non-romantic, “we’re totally fine, Dan” kind of way.
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…
The room around her practically spins as she tries to gather her thoughts and push down any sense of hope that eats away at her stomach. There had already been too much hope, and it had been taken away, she won’t let that happen again if she can help it.
Yaz has no idea how long they sit in silence after the Doctor says that. She’s brought back out from her trance when she is suddenly next to her fixing another cup of tea. Yaz freezes in her place.
The Doctor takes a deep breath and clears her throat. “Always good, chamomile, when you can’t sleep.”
Yaz nods in agreement, almost robotically. If she didn’t know any better, she could have detected the slightest amount of shakiness in the Doctor’s voice.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday
Quickly, the Doctor abandons her tea and reaches across to turn the dial up on the radio. Yaz exhales, thankful for their now awkward conversation to come to an apparent conclusion. She watches from the corner of her eye as the Doctor begins moving across the floor in sweeping motions to get milk from the refrigerator. Humming along to the lyrics, she steps to the melody of the music.
Yaz turns, but mostly keeps her gaze trained to the floor. Or at least she tries, the sight in front of her was hard to keep her eyes off of. The way the dim golden light cast the Doctor in a familiar glow made her heart ache. It was reminiscent of all the sleepless nights they spent together, sitting in comfortable silence until one of them fell asleep or morning reared its ugly head, whichever came first. It reminds Yaz of all the times she got to hold or be held by the Doctor, even if it wasn’t intentional from the other party, a reassuring physical connection that they were safe. Together.
And, God does she want nothing more than that right now, but she can’t, it would be wrong. It would betray the sense of trust they had established on the beach with their agreement — that things would stay the way they were, to live in the present of what they have.
“You know how to dance?” She croaks, her voice betraying her. She just wants the awkward silence and her wandering thoughts to end.
“Of course,” the Doctor stops in the middle of the floor and turns to face her. “Been around plenty to know all sorts of styles.”
“What’s this one, then? Doesn’t look like any I know.”
“64th century version of the Waltz…” the Doctor pauses before continuing, eyeing Yaz up. “Better with two people though, care to join me?”
The Doctor holds out her hand, and Yaz hesitates. Any other time she would have jumped at the chance, but now she just feels as though she was hallucinating a cruel joke. So badly she wants to take her hand and dance with her.
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
“I don’t know how,” Yaz replies curtly, making any excuse to not give in to the way her heart was aching at the offer.
“I can show you,” the Doctor insists, her eyes practically pleading.
Maybe this is hurting her just as much as it hurts Yaz, perhaps she too is yearning for any sort of affection that they had deprived themselves of for too long. Any longer and they may never get the chance again; if time was truly running out like the Doctor said.
Gingerly, Yaz steps forward and takes her hand. She has never danced any sort of ballroom style dance before, let alone something from the 64th century. That combined with the fact that she is in such close proximity to the Doctor right now makes her heart race and her palms sweat. Hopefully the latter isn’t noticeable when the Doctor takes her hand into the proper placement in the space next to them.
The Doctor gently places her other hand on Yaz’s waist, and she thinks she's going to burst into flames right there in the middle of the kitchen to the tune of Hey Jude that has just begun.
“Yours goes in the same place on me,” the Doctor says softly.
Her hand is shaking, but she obliges. It’s rare that the Doctor lets anyone touch her, especially like this. Until a few weeks ago, Yaz wouldn’t have even allowed herself to touch another woman in this context like this, either. Everything they're doing was previously forbidden in every sense of the word, and it sends a rush through Yaz’s veins that she silently wishes would never go away.
“Right then,” the Doctor takes a shaky breath but follows it with a shy smile. “I’ll lead the steps, you follow.”
Looking down at her slippers and the Doctor’s striped socks, Yaz sees the Doctor step forward, and she lets herself be guided backwards one step, then to the left two steps. Not knowing the steps was as good a reason as any to not meet the Doctor’s gaze, which she can feel on her again. She dares to look up after a few moments, her breath getting caught in her chest at how close their faces are, and the way their bodies just barely brush each other as they step.
The minute you let her under your skin, then you begin to make it better
And oh, how Yaz had let her get under her skin. Their eyes meet and to Yaz’s surprise, the Doctor offers her a more genuine grin which she quickly returns. She can’t help the way her gaze drops to the Doctor’s lips, and how she swears the other woman did the same to hers.
“Learned all of this from an old friend at a karaoke bar in New Sydney in 6375, believe it or not,” the Doctor says off-handedly.
“You were ballroom dancing at a karaoke bar?” Yaz gives a nervous laugh.
“64th century, very different culture. You’d like it though, I think.” She continues, locking their eyes together once more. Yaz detects the smallest amount of sadness in her tone albeit her trying to sound casual. “We should go sometime.”
“That sounds nice,” Yaz replies. “I would love to.”
She tries to sound equally nonchalant in her response, but she knows it's just a ploy to avoid facing the truth about what actually waits for them in the future.
All the Doctor’s professions of her imminent death and wanting to live in the present were seemingly out the window as they continued to sway to the music together. If going on dates and dancing in the kitchen are what the Doctor meant by “living in the present” then Yaz has no reason to complain.
Except, when it inevitably has to end.
Hey Jude, don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better
“They also taught me this bit.”
The Doctor stops in her place and raises their joined hands as the song continues to build into the crescendo that Yaz knows so well. She flicks her wrist, indicating for Yaz to spin — so she does.
It's clumsy, Yaz has to admit. She quickly gets dizzy after being spun and their arms become tangled when the Doctor tries to reel Yaz back in towards herself. Their bodies crash into each other and they step on each other’s toes as they try to get back into the position of their Waltz to no avail.
Both of them laugh softly at the absurdity of it all as the na-na-na-na’s continue in the background. In that moment, all of Yaz’s worries about the Doctor dying and leaving her alone for a final time fade away. The only thing that matters is the sound of her laughter matched with Yaz’s own as they carry on dancing and spinning each other through to the ending of the song.
If she could bottle this feeling, she would.
She doesn’t even care what song plays next, or how late it is, or whether they were loud enough to wake Dan. They sway together silently in their embrace, a thousand unspoken words between them. Yaz, particularly, thinks of three, but she would never dare speak them aloud. Not right now. Instead, she hopes the Doctor hears her thoughts with their close contact. Pulling away, the Doctor presses their foreheads together, and speaks two of her own softly into existence.
“Thank you.”
“And you,” Yaz replies.
Just a few words to emulate all the rest, but it’s all they need.
They continue on like that for an indeterminate amount of time, well into the wee hours of the morning if Yaz has to guess. They simply hold on to each other, and lazily sway to the music, their fingers intertwined, neither of them willing to let the other go.