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“Doctor!”
The ground shakes as they run, frantically trying to dodge the beams of green light coming from the alien drone squadron behind them. Up ahead, Yaz can just about make out the familiar blue hue of the TARDIS, nestled among the leafy purple foliage. Her heart leaps, a welcome rush of reassurance amidst the chaos of being chased by aliens.
Somewhere off to her left, the Doctor fires off with her sonic, and something in the distance explodes. “Right behind you, Yaz!” she exclaims.
Somewhere else, Dan is panting for breath as he runs, all while carrying the feathered blob that had imprinted on him when it hatched two hours earlier. It may or may not be part of the reason the squadron is after them now.
The blob gurgles a little, as they run for their lives.
“Now, if I can just deactivate the motion sensors on the drones-!”
The ground shakes again, and this time, everyone goes flying.
Yaz hits the ground with a thud, knocking the breath out of her. She’s quick to roll back onto her feet, though one of her ears is ringing, and she’s disoriented, trying to relocate the TARDIS.
Instead, she finds the flared end of a drone’s laser gun, pointing right at her.
There’s a burst of green light, a surge of rippling heat as it shoots closer and closer-
And then there’s the Doctor, warm and solid and right on top of Yaz. Shielding her.
Everything goes blurry at that point, in more ways than one. Yaz’s skin tingles and burns; her heart beats twice as fast as before. Her head spins, as if every thought is more distant than the last. Someone cries out, but she can’t tell who.
Then, darkness.
Yaz wakes up to the familiar glow of the TARDIS interior. The floor is hard beneath her, and there’s a low hum in the air, interspersed occasionally with the sounds of levers turning and dials being spun.
“Ah, you’re awake!” someone exclaims. It isn’t Dan; it must be the Doctor, though she sounds all wrong.
“What happened?” Her own voice sounds wrong, too. She coughs and clears her throat.
“Ah. Well.” The Doctor is standing somewhere by the console, but Yaz can’t place her. “Not what I thought would happen, that’s for sure.”
“What’d you think would happen?”
“Something very unpleasant.”
Is there some kind of echo in here, or in Yaz’s head? It’s like she can hear her own voice after she’s spoken, but it’s muddled up in the Doctor’s voice, too.
Her state of confusion must be visible, because not a moment later, Dan’s hand is on her arm. “Let me help you there, Sheffield,” he says, gently.
He helps Yaz up to her feet. She’s grateful for the support, as she sways and tries to keep hold of her footing. Dan steers her over to the console, and brings one of the screens down to face-level.
Yaz looks at the screen, and sees…
“Doctor?”
The Doctor’s lips move in sync with Yaz’s words.
“Doctor, what’s going on?”
Every time Yaz speaks, the Doctor’s lips follow. She lifts a hand to her mouth, but on the screen, it’s the Doctor’s hand. Yaz’s head spins. What’s happening to her?
“Yaz, don’t panic.”
The Doctor comes to her side, except it’s not the Doctor. It’s Yaz. Yas stares at herself, at her own mouth moving with words she isn’t saying.
“Yaz…” The Doctor’s hands – Yaz’s hands – take hers, as the Doctor looks deeply into her eyes. “I promise you, nothing else will happen to you. I won’t let it.”
But something’s already happened. To both of them.
Yaz can’t hide her mounting alarm; she wouldn’t even know how to, wearing the Doctor’s face. “We’ve swapped, haven’t we?” she asks, already knowing the answer. “We’ve swapped bodies.”
There must be some way out of this. She tries to focus on that, to muster up some courage against the anxiety-inducing sensation of being in someone else’s body.
“So, how do we fix this?” she asks. “Would getting zapped by one of those drones again reverse it? Or do they have some kind of anti device?”
“Maybe this thing is some kinda key,” Dan offers, indicating the blob. “They weren’t half keen on getting it back. Must be important somehow.”
The Doctor looks more uncertain. “That species don’t develop body swapping tech,” she says. “Or at least, they’re not supposed to. Those guns run on a network, a centralised power base with only one function. To kill.”
“But when we were outside,” Yaz pipes up. “Right before it happened, you said about deactivating the sensors. When we hit the ground, maybe the sonic ended up getting into the network instead, and reset the function.”
“So… if we could just get back in there somehow, get our hands on one of them…” Dan says, catching onto Yaz’s train of thought. “Before they notice the change…”
“One of their guns might be able to switch us back,” Yaz concludes.
The Doctor looks between the two of them, considering. “It’ll be risky,” she warns. “Assuming the sonic actually altered things, we’d have a very narrow window of opportunity before one of them notices the network is compromised. I’d probably have to cross my own timeline to give us enough time.”
“Is that dangerous?” Dan asks.
“Very.”
There’s something startling in seeing the Doctor’s authoritative power written across Yaz’s face, Yaz thinks. And yet, it doesn’t look out of place.
Yaz finds herself smiling. “Let’s do it.”
The Doctor grins, and for a dizzying moment, Yaz is struck dumb by it. The Doctor’s hearts surge inside her.
“Sounds like a plan,” the Doctor declares. She looks decisively around the TARDIS, before her gaze swings back around to the pair of them.
“Dan, get the custard creams.”
“On it.” The blob hops up onto his shoulder as Dan heads over to the biscuit dispenser. Meanwhile, Yaz and the Doctor start inputting the console controls for their new destination.
“Now, the TARDIS isn’t going to like this,” the Doctor says. As if in agreement, the TARDIS groans a little, screens briefly flickering. The Doctor smiles ruefully. “Used to be that I could hop into my timeline no trouble, so long as I stayed out of my own sight, but then you give the old girl one bad day with some Reapers-!”
The TARDIS judders, in aborted take-off. The Doctor throws her hands up with a wordless exclamation, then turns to Yaz with fresh determination, and a little glint of mischief.
“You up for a challenge, Yasmin Khan?”
“Always.”
They reset the controls, the Doctor reeling off instructions for paradox safeguards in between bites of custard creams. The TARDIS seems more cooperative this time, and in the midst of it all, Yaz finds herself chuckling.
“This had better work,” she says. “If I’m wrong, and we end up stuck like this… Or shot!”
“Oh, anything’s possible,” the Doctor replies breezily. “Believe it or not, this has happened to me before!”
That revelation gives Yaz pause. “Really?”
The Doctor’s face scronches. It startles Yaz to see it on her own face. It startles her even more to feel both of the Doctor’s hearts skip a beat at the expression.
The Doctor’s rattling off again before Yaz has a moment to ponder the reaction.
“Not exactly like this, for one thing it was a much more experimental technology, and there was only one consciousness doing the hopping; not to mention, there was a lot more freedom of movement last time around, you could transfer back and forth all day if you wanted to! Not that anybody had the time to, between the nuns and the plague hordes, but afterwards, Rose said to me-”
Abruptly, the Doctor goes quiet. She doesn’t stop moving, not even for a moment, but the sudden silence feels eerie.
Rose. Yaz remembers that name, though she can’t quite place it. Something Jack had said that day with the Daleks…
That day, the Doctor hadn’t paused at the mention of that name. She hadn’t reacted at all. Something’s changed, but what?
There’s a brief pang, a fleeting thought – was that your wife?
And then Yaz doesn’t need to wonder anymore.
One moment, her mind is her own – and then suddenly it isn’t, not entirely, not anymore. It’s like being carried out into the open sea, waves crashing around her head.
There are faces in the waves. Voices, too. Muffled and indistinct, talking over the top of each other ceaselessly. One voice grows louder, and louder.
I made my choice a long time ago, and I’m never gonna leave you.
I want you safe. My Doctor.
Stuck with you, that’s not so bad.
My Doctor. My Doctor.
I’m never gonna leave you
The waves part, and Yaz is standing on a beach. Wind whips through the air, but she can’t feel a thing. Her vision trembles. There’s a woman standing in front of her.
Tears run down her cheeks.
“I love you,” she weeps.
Who are you? Yaz thinks, but the words that pass through her lips are “Quite right, too.” Her throat is tight, eyes wet with tears of her own. Why does she want to cry?
“And I suppose, if it’s my last chance to say it…” To say what? “Rose Tyler-”
The waves crash. Yaz blinks, and she’s back in the TARDIS.
The Doctor is spinning dials on the console, oblivious to what Yaz has just experienced. She’s babbling about where the TARDIS will land, as close to the central power base as possible – that way, they can block the aliens from reaching the network, and if need be actually reset it themselves to switch them back. She’s enthusiastic again, but there’s a coldness to it this time, a distance that Yaz is horribly familiar with.
But even now, there it is again. That odd pang, twice, at seeing her – Yaz – simply existing in the TARDIS.
Yaz is no stranger to the rhythms her heart takes up every time she looks at the Doctor. But to feel the Doctor’s hearts do the same… Somehow, even after the conversations they’ve had, Yaz hadn’t quite dared to really think that the Doctor felt the same way about her. It still doesn’t feel real.
“How are you holding up?” the Doctor asks, pulling Yaz out of her reverie. “Still finding your sea legs?”
Yaz offers a weak smile. “Didn’t think it would feel this funny,” she admits. “Not like the films, is it?”
“Nothing ever is,” the Doctor replies, with a wry smile.
(In Yaz’s head, a young woman stares up at her with furious, betrayed eyes: “That’s the trouble with you, you don’t think anyone’s ever seen a movie!”)
Yaz pushes aside the disorienting flashes in her mind, focusing on the way the Doctor flits from one end of the console to another.
“You look like you’re taking to it well,” she comments.
“Ah, well,” the Doctor replies, “Not my first time having a new body at a moment’s notice.”
“Could be worse,” the Doctor goes on. “You could’ve swapped with Dan! Now there’s something to make you feel unsteady.”
“Really?” Yaz can’t imagine it would be that much more disorienting. At least Dan is human.
The Doctor nods sagely. “Take it from me,” she says. “After twelve rounds of male hips, turning female was no walk in the park…”
Yaz will take her word for it. Her hips twinge with imagined – or remembered – pain.
The TARDIS finally lands. The trio carefully make their way towards the central power base, a silver chamber close to the heart of the alien colony.
“There should be an armed guard at the entrance,” the Doctor whispers. With a quick adjustment of the sonic’s settings, she carefully aims around the next corner, and fires.
Something sparks, and the guard yelps. His earpiece is fried, cutting off his communications. He mutters to himself, buzzing with agitation.
Then Dan strides into his line of sight. “Hello, mate!” he says, grinning widely.”Don’t suppose you know where the canteen is around here? I’m dying for some lunch, me.”
The guard’s mandibles quiver wildly. He charges at Dan – only for Yaz to jump behind, grabbing the guard by the waist and lifting him off his feet. Dan deftly ignores the guard’s six flailing limbs while he goes in for the gun.
Once it’s in Dan’s hands, the Doctor swoops in. The movement is too quick for Yaz to see, but one touch of the Doctor’s hand has the guard falling limp in Yaz’s arms, out cold.
“Venusian aikido,” the Doctor declares, looking mightily satisfied with herself. “Always a winning move. Well, most of the time. Well, sometimes.”
Yaz carefully lowers the guard to the ground. He doesn’t stir.
Meanwhile, the Doctor’s pulled up a holographic schematic of the network behind one of the chamber’s panels. “Now, the sonic’s done just as Yaz suspected,” she explains. “One shot swapped us, and one shot should put us straight back.”
“Right.” Dan levels the gun over his shoulder, aiming experimentally.
The Doctor turns to Yaz. “Ready?” she asks.
Yaz is more than ready. But when the Doctor offers her hand, Yaz hesitates.
“Wait.”
The Doctor and Dan both look at her expectantly. Yaz is deeply conscious of the need to press on, before the guard wakes up, or others realize the network’s been compromised.
But this, now, this ache in her chest, the words in her throat – it feels important. She doesn’t want to lose her nerve waiting until later to do something about it. Looking into her own eyes, the words threaten to dissolve on her tongue already, but she pushes forward.
“I didn’t really want to believe it,” she starts. “That you could feel it. The way I feel about you. I know what you said that day with the Sea Devils-” If it was going to be anyone, it’d be you. Yaz swallows down an emotion that isn’t entirely her own. “But I kept telling myself… you were just letting me down gently. Because that would make it easier, right? If I felt like I was loved. Even though I’m just…”
“Yaz.” The Doctor looks at her fiercely. “You aren’t just anything. You’re so much.”
Distantly, Yaz can hear footsteps. They aren’t close enough yet to be a cause for concern.
“But I get it now,” she says. “Why you can’t… Why we can’t. If it was me… I don’t know if I could go through with it,” Yaz confesses. “Knowing how it would end. How it always ends.”
“Yaz…”
Yaz extends her hand to the Doctor. Her throat feels tight, but that’s okay, she thinks. She understands where the Doctor’s coming from now. They can both move on. “Come on,” she says.
The Doctor looks at her with something Yaz can’t put a name to. It’s the first time looking at her own face has felt properly alien, the first real sign that whoever’s inside doesn’t match the outside.
But the Doctor accepts her hand. Yaz isn’t sure who pulls first, but then they’re embracing, holding on tight enough for there to be three hearts pulsing in Yaz’s ears. It’s almost awkward, the way they hug in each other’s bodies, muscle memory making a tangle of their arms. But Yaz isn’t about to let go any time soon.
There’s movement at Yaz’s side, Dan levelling the gun again. This time, getting ready to fire. Yaz closes her eyes.
It’s shorter, this time, the switch. Yaz opens her eyes, and she’s on the floor, sitting up against the wall. The guard hasn’t even woken up yet.
The Doctor’s sitting next to her. She smiles, squeezing Yaz’s hand. “Feeling like yourself again?” she asks.
Yaz takes a moment. She’s back in her own body, that much is obvious – and she’s never been so reassured by the sight of the Doctor’s face before her. Everything feels the way it should.
Yaz nods, and the Doctor’s smile widens. “Great! Now, I should warn you, there might be some residual memories knocking about for a day or two, not many people can take on a Time Lord brain and walk away completely unscathed. But that ought to be the worst of it.”
The Doctor pulls Yaz up to her feet. She feels steadier this time around, more secure on her own feet. She doesn’t say a word as the Doctor lends her support, though.
“Nice work, Dan,” the Doctor says. “Gold star aiming there. And double gold star to Yaz for the plan!”
Dan leaves the gun beside the guard, whose mandibles have started twitching. “Best we get ourselves out of here, yeah?"
They make their way back to the TARDIS.
Inside, the blob chirps at their return, from where it’s perched on one of the hexagonal steps. Dan stops off at the dispenser for a handful of biscuits, then takes a seat next to the blob. The Doctor hums aimlessly around the console, while Yaz wonders whether to take a nap while there’s still time before the next adventure. The TARDIS has been kind enough to offer a room to Yaz – a whole range of them, in fact, changing each time, though all of the possessions she’s left onboard remain.
Before she can get very far though, there’s someone behind her.
“Yaz.”
Yaz is barely out of the console room. She half-turns, finding the Doctor.
“I’m fine,” she says, before anything else. And it’s mostly true. “Really. I was just gonna put my head down for a little bit.”
“I know,” the Doctor says, too quick. “I gave us both a scan earlier.” She waggles the sonic between her fingers. It stills awkwardly. She smiles, tight. “Sleep well.”
Yaz nods. She turns away.
And then: “You said you get it now.”
Yaz looks back. The Doctor’s hands are buried in her pockets now. She sways on the balls of her feet, studying Yaz with a guarded look.
Yaz turns fully around before she’s even really conscious to the movement. It’s like gravity, she thinks sometimes, keeping her in orbit around the Doctor.
Today she’s noticed, the Doctor moves the same way.
Yaz speaks before either of them have time to shrink back.
“I kept seeing them.”
Something in the Doctor’s gaze flickers, a shred of worry. “Seeing who?” she asks.
Yaz swallows, hard. “The ones before me,” she replies. “I wasn’t looking for things, I swear, but it’s like they just kept flashing through my mind, anything that could remind you of them just… pulls them in, and I can’t look away.”
The Doctor nods slowly. Yaz wonders if this is what it’s always like for her – always fighting against a tide of memories, threatening to overwhelm her. Yaz hadn’t gone looking, it’s true. But even without actively searching through it, she could feel the weight of it in the back of her mind, still feels its echo now. How heavy must it be for the Doctor, knowing every part of it?
Yaz goes on. “I saw Rose,” she says, and the Doctor flinches. “She was crying, and… you wanted to cry, too. You were on a beach together.”
Is that why we kept avoiding beaches when I asked for one?
But the Doctor did give her one, in the end. Yaz can’t stop returning to it, in the quiet moments between the adventures. Whenever she’s able to snatch a few hours of sleep, only to find herself sleepless, replaying that conversation over and over.
“I wish this could go on forever.”
“You loved her,” Yaz says. “I could feel it. You loved her so much, it felt like it was gonna break you wide open. And you lost her.”
The Doctor doesn’t speak. Yaz’s heart pounds.
“We watched my nani marry the man she loved, when we already knew he was gonna die,” she says. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I couldn’t stop thinking – why? Why is the universe letting them have that little bit of happiness if it’s going to end so soon?
“What’s the point of them being happy now if they’re going to be sad later?” Yaz hears, an echo in the back of her mind, and this time it’s the Doctor’s voice, but not quite, not as Yaz knows her. The voice is masculine, unfamiliar, alien. But the words are unmistakably the Doctor’s.
And Yaz could have done that, she’d thought once. Hurt herself if it means being happy for now.
(“Because, of course, they’re going to be sad later.”)
But if it means hurting the Doctor? Twisting the knife that’s already buried so deep?
“You know,” the Doctor says, abruptly. “I’ve been in a human body before. Well, it was my own body, but I made it human. Scrambled every last bit of my DNA until even my personality wasn’t the same, so really, if you think about it, it was more like I became an empty shell while something else inhabited me until the fob watch put me back-”
“Doctor.” Every word feels like the Doctor is spiralling further away from the conversation. Maybe Yaz is paranoid. Maybe it’s happened too many times before.
“That time I changed,” the Doctor says, delicately. “I never actually felt what it was like, being human. My consciousness was suppressed, there were echoes of who I really was, but for the most part, I was a different man. Switching with you is the first time I’ve really experienced a human form.”
“And…” Yaz trails off, uncertain of what she wants to hear. How limiting must it have felt?
Unexpectedly, the Doctor smiles. “The TARDIS was right,” she says. “People are so big inside. I never thought humans were small, but – I don’t think I could have spent ten years in you and learned everything there is to know in that time.”
Yaz flushes a little. “You already know everything important,” she argues, weakly.
“You know, at first I didn’t realize,” the Doctor continues. “Every time I looked at you, your heart went crazy.” At that, Yaz’s embarrassment turns to an outright blush, but the Doctor just ploughs right ahead. “And I thought to myself: right. Normal. Standard reaction. But then I remembered it was your heart, reacting to me.”
There’s a childish impulse burning through Yaz right now, to cover her face with both hands and run and hide somewhere in the TARDIS’s rooms. Of course the Doctor would have felt everything that Yaz feels.
But the Doctor bounds forward, taking one of Yaz’s hands in hers.
“Yaz, it was wonderful,” she exclaims, breathlessly. “I have spent so many centuries with humans, I could write a book about your species if I wanted to! But when I was inside you, feeling what you feel…” The Doctor’s eyes shine. “There is so much strength in you, Yaz,” she says. “So much strength, and warmth, and courage. And love.”
“Yaz, I know I haven’t made it easy. And if what you saw, with Rose… If it means you don’t want this to go any further…” The Doctor’s gaze is intense, all-consuming. It’s the safest Yaz has ever felt. “That’s okay. That will always be okay. But I think about how much more happiness you could be feeling, and… I think we both deserve to try.”
“Really?” Yaz shifts closer. She can’t recall when one hand in the Doctor’s became two, but there they are, both hands clasped between the Doctor’s. Yaz finds herself holding on tight. “But when it ends-”
“When it ends, it ends,” the Doctor answers. “Everything has its time. But so does happiness. And courage. Love.”
“You’re already full of all that every day,” Yaz says, in quiet amusement.
The Doctor grins. “Yeah,” she replies. “I am. So why not show it even more, while I still have the chance?”
Despite her uncertainty, Yaz’s heart surges. The Doctor had wanted to cry, that day on the beach with Rose. But she had been smiling, too.
The Doctor’s pulse flutters under Yaz’s fingertips, and she isn’t sure who moves first, but then the Doctor’s lips are at hers, and it’s everything and nothing like Yaz had thought it would be.
The Doctor tastes like biscuits and something earthy, warm and rich. There’s a surety to the way she kisses, even as her breath catches at Yaz’s reciprocation. Yaz deepens the kiss, and somewhere along the way, their hands untangle, bringing each other close.
It’s only at the sound of footsteps that Yaz breaks away, smiling breathlessly. The Doctor’s returning smile is vibrant, beautiful.
They turn together to face Dan, who meets them with a knowing gleam in his eye.
“Alright there, Sheffield?”
“Never been better.”
Dan’s smile softens, amusement giving way to open affection. “Good to hear,” he replies, earnestly. “And now that everything’s all sorted…”
He directs their attention to the blob in his hands. “What do we do with this little fella?”
The Doctor grins at him. “You take him home, of course!” she exclaims, as if it’s obvious.
Dan blanches. “I do?”
“Absolutely!” The Doctor moves to him, looking down at the blob with a warm gaze. “He’s gotten quite attached to you, you know. Can’t you feel him purring?”
Dan’s eyes widen. “Is that what it’s doing?” he asks. “I thought it was trying to electrify me or summat.”
“Well…” The Doctor tilts her head, nose scrunching. “That too. But that’s how he shows love! It’d be a crime to separate him from you now.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Though…” Dan’s surprise turns to mild concern. “What d’you suppose he eats?”
“Hmm.” The Doctor considers the blob thoughtfully. “I’d like to imagine ball bearings,” she says eventually. “Though, the answer’s probably more likely to be some kind of raw meat.”
“Why’d you imagine ball bearings, then?”
“Thought it sounded more whimsical. Was I off the mark? I was, wasn’t I?”
“I thought it sounded good,” Yaz offers. The Doctor turns to her with an affectionate smile.
“I reckon I know just the thing to start him off on!” the Doctor exclaims, when she turns back to Dan. She gives the blob a little tickle on the head, and it warbles with delight. “Course, there’s a hundred different rooms it could be in, and I might not even be right, but no harm in trying!”
She grabs Yaz’s hand as she leads the way through the winding corridors of the TARDIS, practically bouncing as they go. The blob chirps, and the TARDIS hums, and Yaz finds herself looking at the Doctor, face cast in warm light.
Everything has its time, Yaz thinks. Including them. A part of her already aches at wondering how it’ll eventually end.
But until then, there’s so much happiness to be lived through. And Yaz isn’t going to let go. For however long it lasts.