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The universe likes to play tricks on you.
It enjoys putting you in positions that you really shouldn’t be in, just to see what you would do with yourself, and it likes taking its time to perfectly craft these situations through the hundred smaller occurrences it took to get you there in the first place.
As Yaz stood at the end of the aisle, she tried desperately to remember how the hell she had gotten there.
It was a warm evening, before the last threads of summer had disappeared for another year, and Yaz was folding laundry on the kitchen table.
At least, she was trying to, but Sonya was - as usual - being a pain in the arse. She hovered over the table, not helping, fliting between the reproaching gazes of their parents and Nani as the former finished the washing up and the latter sat watchfully in her wheelchair.
“No! How many times, Sonya? I’m not giving you his number.” Yaz’s annoying kid sister still hadn’t found it in her to let it up with the constant demands to be given Ryan’s number. If they had been just mates, then maybe Yaz would have been more inclined, but once you travel the universe with someone in a little blue box and see them on their best and worst days, it becomes borderline impossible to imagine that same person making out with your sister in the back of Cineworld.
“Oh, come on, Yaz. You finally bring home a friend - you finally make a friend - and then you don’t even let me near him.”
Yaz folded one of her dad’s shirts more aggressively than necessary and then stared her sister down. “He’s not religious. What happened to finding a good Muslim man?”
“When have I ever been interested in that, dickhead?”
“Sonya!” Hakim said, at the same time Nadja made a disapproving sound from the sink.
“She has a point, though, Betti.” All heads had turned to Umbreen, who had been stoically silent up until this point. “One cannot choose where their heart finds its home, and it is silly to expect it to be confined to a narrow ideal. Even if it is irresponsible to love them, or impractical, or they come with a whole set of challenges - it is working through those together that is where the true love lies. Give her the number.” She looked knowingly over her glasses at Yaz, who swallowed roughly. She looked around the room, then, to get away from the piercing gaze of her grandmother. Her sister was looking at her smugly, and her father had wrapped one arm around the waist of her mother as they leant together against the sink. All watched her expectedly.
“Fine,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
A wedding was always a big event for the Khans, and they never went into it half-heartedly. Yaz found herself stood in one of the swankiest hotels around - thankfully not run or owned by Jack Robertson, and, yes, they did check - in one of the best dresses that she had ever worn in her life. Like the rest of the bridal party, she wore a flowing purple dress with an impressive rhinestoning and high, round neck. Many of the extended family were more old fashioned and would have had a heart attack if the dresses were any more revealing. Her shoes were killing her feet, her face felt as if it had an inch of plaster on it, and her scalp was sore where her hair was pulled up into the whatever-Mum-had-called-it. The clips were scraping against the skin, too, making it extremely itchy, but she was stood in front of at least a hundred people and couldn’t go at the itch the way she really wanted to.
Yaz had almost cried when she heard that Sonya was bringing Ryan home properly. He had met the Khans before, but that was in the context of being a mate of Yaz’s, and not Sonya’s boyfriend. Although she was sure that Sonya had already warned him, she sent him a quick text a few hours before he was due ‘round as a reminder to put a clean shirt on and a warning that Nadja would not go easy on him - not at all.
Very few boyfriends had been brought home. On Yaz’s part, that had been because she wasn’t that into boys at all, and the ones she had been interested in were in no way the type you bring home to meet the parents. As she grew up - and did a few tens of hours of therapy - she came to appreciate that she was just trying to find more ways of hurting herself by hanging around with people who were not, in any way, company she should be keeping. On Sonya’s part, it was because she had not had a relationship that survived him meeting their parents so gave up bringing them home after the first three.
When Ryan arrived - in a clean shirt - with Sonya’s hand in his, Yaz had to try and stop herself from retching. Ryan seemed happier to see Yaz than Sonya was, but that could well have been he that actually liked her, which her sister did not. They said a few quick hellos and hugged briefly before Nadja managed to materialise with all of the vengeance of a thousand diddled savvy shoppers and a platter of tea in tow.
“Hello, Ryan Sinclair,” she said, and Yaz pretended to ignore the way his throat bobbed.
To Yaz’s annoyance - she still believed that she was well within her rights to wish that this relationship would fail - the rest of the evening went surprisingly well. Ryan was obviously following closely the brief that Sonya had given him on how to act exactly right and allow him to keep seeing his missus without fear of waking up to Nadja hovering over his bed with a cold bucket of water.
At the end of the meal, Ryan stood up to help with the dishes, and Sonya followed him.
“I’m not actually gonna help,” Sonya said.
“There’s a surprise,” Yaz drawled.
“I just want to stand behind you and watch.” She reached up and squeezed one of Ryan’s biceps.
“Gross.”
Sonya checked to make sure neither of their parents weren’t looking and, upon seeing that they weren’t, flipped Yaz off. Ryan even turned around and stuck out his tongue.
Sonya pointed at his tongue and mouthed, “He’s good with that.”
Yaz grimaced and put her head down on the table. Gross didn’t even begin to cover it.
Ryan appeared with his groomsmen following behind him not long after Yaz’s group had. Sonya was still faffing around upstairs, as the bride always is.
They had agreed, between them, that a non-religious ceremony was better for most of the people involved - although Sonya was culturally Muslim, she, like Yaz, had never really gone in for religion on the whole. Ryan didn’t have a faith, either, but the Khans would need to be appeased with their dreams of a big fuck off wedding: so they had agreed that the after-party would be more Islamic in vibes (eg. a massive piss up that would probably last about three days). (Except without anyone actually going on the piss).
Ryan’s selection of groomsmen was exactly what you would have expected - apart from the fact that it wasn’t. His best mate Tibalt was there, obviously, dressed in a dapper half-breast tuxedo to be one-step removed from Ryan’s double-breasted jacket. Both of them wore black trousers and jackets with coat-tails over light grey waistcoats with red pocket squares, which linked very nicely with what Graham and the Doctor were wearing. Their waistcoats were less extravagant, but still very similar to the groom and best man’s, and their jackets didn’t have coat-tails, tying them together into a neat little possy. Graham, Tibalt and Ryan all held their top hats under their arms as they walked up the aisle, but the Doctor’s was jammed firmly on her head. A tiny hint of her swept over fringe peeked out from underneath it, but not enough to obscure the pure joy in her eyes or the beaming smile she wore underneath them. Yaz’s breath caught in her throat slightly.
“Hiya, Yaz!” the Doctor called excitedly as she bounded up the last little bit onto the plinth at the end of the aisle and pulled her friend into a firm hug. Yaz was wary of those watching her, but melted into the Doctor the same as she always did.
“Aren’t you not meant to upstage the bride?” Yaz was only pulling her leg, of course, but the Doctor looked truly stunning in a way that was very her.
The Doctor blushed a little and readjusted where her hat sat on her head, then smoothed out her blazer. “I think we’re planning on starting soon,” she said.
Night shifts were brutal, and they were exceptionally brutal when the people who you lived with didn’t work them. It’s hard enough sleeping in the day when the sun insists on being as bright as it is without also having to try and drown out the noise of a busy and rather full flat as well.
Yaz had gotten good at it, though, and it helped that she was almost always so completely shattered after a shift that she could pass right out as soon as her head hit the pillow, anyway.
The little snippets of normality whilst she was home off the TARDIS were something she treasured immensely, even if she spent the entire time thinking about what the stupid blonde alien was up to and if she felt her loss as keenly as Yaz felt the Doctor’s.
But, like she said, sleeping was hard, so she was immensely displeased at any and all interruptions - so she nearly twatted Sonya into the next room when she all but barged down the door to Yaz’s room and let the light and noise of the flat come through.
Yaz peeked over the sheets, ready to pick the fight of her life, when she saw what was being waved in her face.
A rock. A rock on a hand. A rock on a left hand.
“Oh. My. God.” She was fully awake now, Sonya’s hand grasped in hers, as she examined the engagement ring that sat on her finger. It looked like it must have cost a fortune, whilst also being subtle in its beauty and perfectly the sort of thing that Sonya would have wanted.
She was practically squealing with excitement, unable to get her words out. Yaz sat numbly in her bed and stared at her sister, who looked close to tears.
Before she could get the correct level of enthusiasm ready to congratulate her sister, she realised that this meant Ryan was going to become her brother-in-law.
Gross really didn’t even begin to cover it.
Yaz would be lying if she said she hadn’t come to peace with Sonya and Ryan’s relationship. It’s not like she had a choice about it, now - they were quite literally stood at their wedding. But she did still blanch at the idea that she would now have to put up with their PDAs in the living room. Sonya and Ryan had their own place, now, but they would still visit often and Yaz hadn’t gotten around to getting her own flat yet (she spent too much time in the TARDIS to make rent. Have you seen the current state of the housing market?), which meant she was subjected to the Son and Ry show. It was already nauseating, and it would only get worse. Over their whole lives, Hakim had said that they could be couple-y with their partners in front of their parents “when they were married.” Yaz dreaded what horrors she would be subjected to in the next few months every time they visited.
Ryan stood at the end of the aisle, in the space the bridesmaids and groomsmen had left between them as the two parties stood facing one another. Graham was fussing with his tie, his pocket square, and everything he could get his hands on. He took his grandson’s hat from under his arm and put it with the others on the floor behind them a few paces, obviously trying not to tear up. The Doctor’s was still pulled firmly over her head. When Graham offered to take it, Ryan just smiled and shook his head as the Doctor declared loudly that she “loved a top hat.” Tibalt eyed her warily, but Graham, Ryan and Yaz all shared a knowing look between one another. Ryan’s eyes eventually wandered to the now-closed doors at the other end of the ballroom, nervous energy rolling off him in waves. Yaz smiled reassuringly at him. He loved her sister, this she knew: that was enough. Most of the time, that was enough.
The door creaked open and in came Sonya.
She had chosen a dress closer to the traditions of Pakistan - it was cut modestly, with the same sort of round neck as the bridesmaids’. It came down to her ankles, covered in jewels and gold the whole way down, and a striking red colour that complimented the henna on her hands. She had golden bangles on one wris, the biggest, most impressive earrings that Yaz had ever seen, and an even bigger, more impressive smile. Yaz felt a swell of emotion in her chest that she quickly choked back down.
Yaz glanced across at Ryan, who was beaming right back at her sister and looked ever so slightly dumbfounded. In looking at Ryan, Yaz caught the Doctor’s eye, and found herself holding it. The Doctor’s face had cracked open completely in one of the most earnest smiles Yaz had ever seen her pull. It reminded her of the smile she had smiled when they stood at Umbreen and Prem’s wedding - like all the work she did for the universe was made worth it in the moment that two people found love in one another. That was worth all the time and effort in the universe. Yaz loved the way that her smile went right up to her eyes, and showed the ghosts of their regularity in the laughter lines left around them even when it faded. In the moment their gazes met, the context of the situation they were in fell away, and Yaz found herself forgetting where she was.
God, the Doctor was so beautiful. Even in that stupid hat. She existed in that moment entirely, but also found a way, in her impossibleness and her majesty, to exist somehow out of time: like she was both the cornerstone of the universe and somehow one step removed from it. As she looked at Yaz, her eyes softened even further, her smile widened slightly, and her chest hitched as her shoulders raised slightly higher on her torso. Yaz could do nothing but just gaze back at her.
They stayed like that for God knows how long until Graham gently nudged the Doctor. She looked away swiftly, shook her head briefly, and returned her attention to where Ryan was taking Sonya’s hand as she stepped onto the plinth they all stood on.
“You… Wow,” he said. “You look gorgeous.”
“I know,” Sonya replied, smirking at him. He laughed and shook his head.
“Can I marry you quicker?”
The crowd behind them laughed, which reminded Yaz of their presence. She swept over them quickly to see if anyone had noticed her and the Doctor’s- whatever you could call that, but nobody seemed to be paying them any attention.
No one except Umbreen, who sat on the end of a row and watched her with that same infuriatingly knowing look in her eye.
The ceremony was swift, ending no more than an hour after it started, and left society with another Sinclair on its hands. Graham had fully cried at the sight of his grandson tying the knot, then pulled him into a crushing hug and patted him on the back as he dabbed his eyes on the way out of it. Ryan just looked slightly bemused and held his wife’s hand. Despite herself, Yaz was happy for them: it was nice to see two people she cared about find happiness in each other.
Her and the Doctor hadn’t looked at one another for the rest of the duration of the ceremony, both unspokenly eager to avoid another incident, but fell into step easily as they walked back down the aisle after the newlyweds. Celebrations were well underway in no time at all, and, Yaz knew, would probably take longer to stop than she could stand to be in these damn heels for.
The Doctor was, arguably, dressed more practically than she was for the day to day - minus the hat, which nobody saw her take off - and seemed to have an as yet undiscovered penchant for truly awful dad-dancing at weddings. She was worse than Hakim. She probably would have stayed and danced all night and well into next week had Yaz not cornered her as she took a quick break to heist biscuits. She walked right up to her, into her space, and placed her forehead on the Doctor’s shoulder.
“Had enough?” the Doctor asked, through what was obviously - obviously - a mouthful of custard cream.
“Mhm,” Yaz grumbled.
“Come on, then.”
What they didn’t hear as they left the room was what Hakim said to his wife as they swayed together on the dancefloor - “Those two’ll be the next Khan wedding.” - or Nadja’s quiet agreement.