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“Happy Birthday!” The Doctor shouts, shuffling carefully into the couple’s shared bedroom onboard the Tardis, carrying a rather a rather extravagant cake adorned with many lit candles.
“Ahhh!” a startled Yasmin said at first, “It’s not my birthday for ages love,” she adds, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
“Oh I know that Yaz,” The Doctor replies, beaming, “But it’s our proposal birthday, so I made you breakfast in bed. Dead romantic.”
“Our anniversary, Doctor.” Yaz chuckled as she leaned forward to blow out the candles, wishing for minimal scenes of destruction in the Tardis kitchen.
“I were close” the grinning Timelord says.
“So, tell me about this cake then?” Yaz asks.
“Well,” The Doctor begins, “I made it all by myself from scratch, it took me loads of goes to get it exactly how I planned it, like a tremendous amount, but I said to myself ‘you’ll do it if you keep on trying’ and I went on trying. It’s all fully Halal and everything Yaz I promise, I checked and double checked all the ingredients loads of times to make sure it’d all be reet. It’s got four different layers because that’s how many years it is for you since we got engaged, and each layer is a different flavour, I think they’re brilliant together just like us Yaz-” The Doctor trailed off, getting distracted by Yaz smiling at them adoringly, “-and the candles are one for everyday since we got engaged, all 1460 of them,” they finished.
-ONE THOUNDSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS AGO-
The Doctor was nervous, so very nervous. Sometimes having two hearts was the very best and very worst all at the same time. Right now, it was like having anxiety twice, but it was also like feeling the love they have for Yaz twice too. They’d been conferring with Ryan, Graham, and some of the wider members of their team, gang, fam for weeks now, discussing everything from rings to locations, what to say, what to wear, all those confusing romantic human customs. Every last detail had been finessed. The Doctor was going to propose to Yaz, as soon as it was time for their carefully curated plan to unfold. Naturally, many of the doctors plans don’t play out as they’d hope, and this was one of them.
Yaz came home late from a tricky shift of policing, the Doctor had arrived at the flat hours earlier to meet up, there having been a mixup in meeting times, and had ended up spending those hours hanging out with the Khan family and completing all of the random odd jobs they could find. Stepping through the door and kicking off her shoes, Yaz could hear her nani and the Doctor giving answers to questions on a radio quiz show before the contestants did, her sister Sonya chatting animatedly with friends on a group call, her dad Hakim exclaiming that he was burning the Pakora, her mum Najia complaining that Hakim was burning the Pakora again. She was feeling some social burnout after her busy shift, so Yaz hung up her jacket and headed into her room to recharge a little. This didn’t go unnoticed by the Doctor of course.
“Yaz’s mum, Yaz is home, I’m just gonna pop in her room to check on her,” they said, meandering through the busy Khan family home.
“It’s Najia!” Yaz’s mum called after the Doctor.
Stepping quietly into Yaz’s bedroom, the Doctor closed the door behind them, and turned to notice Yaz opening her window. As Yaz was doing doing so, she managed to knock down the Tardis themed fairy lights the Doctor had had specially made for her from the shelves above the bed. Yaz stood up on the bed and busied herself fixing the fairy lights back into their original position, still not noticing the Doctors presence in the room.
While waiting, the Doctor realised they could hear church bells ringing in the distance, some birds singing even though it wasn’t the usual time of day for that, and kids playing happily down on the green. It was quite serene. This is the moment, the Doctor realised suddenly. It wasn’t the perfect proposal they’d meticulously planned, but this right here was the moment for them both. The Doctor clambered onto the bed, pulling out the ring, and knelt down. Yaz finally turned round, aware of the Doctors presence.
“Oh my- Doctor! What are you-!?” Yaz exclaimed.
“Yasmin Khan-“ the Doctor began, taking a rather big breath, “in all my lives, I never thought I could love or even learn to love in a human way. It’s not something that’s encouraged or even taught in the Gallifreyan way. It’s so rare to find, well maybe not rare, but certainly unexpected, and unlike any language or code I can have the Tardis translate. I’ve spent so many years of my life growing and learning to live. I thought I had it all figured out finally, but then I met you Yaz, and everyday since has been amazing. You make me feel all wibbly wobbly inside, like both my hearts could burst, or all my words could fall out, all of the time. It breaks my hearts that we could never be together for the rest of my lifetime, but it makes them feel whole again that we could be together for the rest of yours. Maiṁ tuhānū pi'āra karadā hāṁ Yaz. Will you marry me?” asks the Doctor, then promptly falls backwards off the bed.
Trying to stifle a laugh at how silly her love looked despite the serious and beautiful thing that was happening just a moment ago, Yaz jumped off the bed and sat down on the floor next to the Doctor.
“Ji ha mujhe khushi ho gi. Yes, a thousand times yes! Of course I’ll marry you,” Yaz said happily, smiling as her new fiancée slid the most beautiful engagement ring she’d ever seen onto her finger.
“I’m calling you Yaz cos we’re engaged now.”