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There was a strange buzz
Bright lights
And a raging headache
Yes, she was definitely alive.
"Can someone tell me what's going on here?!", She asked, not actually expecting an answer. Not that she would've been anywhere people usually tended to spend their time and actually there to give her an answer in the first place. Quite frankly, she thought, she didn't really want to spend her time here either.. wherever "here" was.
"What do you think, Doctor?"
"I dunno, Doctor."
"You never know anything!"
"Oi, rude!"
She blinked a couple of times to get her eyes used to the harsh lights of her surroundings and started attempt number one at sitting up. Then attempt number two.
"Third time's the charm.", she said with an annoyed tone to her voice, using all of her three abs and noodle arms to try and push herself up.
"Did it!" She looked around the empty space with an accomplished smile on her face before she realised she was still alone.
"Eh, probably better this way, nobody had to see that." She wasn't quite sure what the next step would have to be. Probably starting the mission "stand up without falling on your face" but she was neither emotionally nor physically ready for that one yet.
"Really not trying to be pessimistic here, Doctor", she said "but currently, we have about a zero percent chance of making it out of here."
"Zero?"
"Okay, maybe 0.1"
The more time she spent in this space the more annoyed she felt. There was a feeling in the back of her mind, like nails scratching down an endless chalkboard, chipping away at her sanity; a feeling like she had forgotten something incredibly important that refused to return into her conscious mind. Where the hell was she.
"Sonic!", she yelled all of a sudden. "Where's my sonic?!" She frantically patted down her coat pockets, trousers and even stuck her fingers down her boots just to be 100% sure she hadn't accidentally hidden it from herself again like that one time Yaz kept trying to teach the sonic to do wood and The Doctor felt bad for it so tried to find a place where Yaz definitely wouldn't look, so it had ended up in there... anyway.
"What are these pockets for if all of them are going to be empty??"
"Well it's your own fault.."
"How is this mY fault? I was meant to be.. gone" The realisation hit her like a wave full of shells and sharp stones and a bucket full of sand. She was meant to be gone.
"I'm dead"
"No you're not. Do you feel dead?" She didn't. She felt strangely alive.. despite the fact that her legs felt like boiled spaghetti and her head sounded like someone was trying to renovate the entire thing, ripping walls down and all.
"What am I meant to do without my sonic?" She softly tapped her fingers against her temples.
"Think, think, think, think, think!" A frustrated cry echoed around the place and back to her.
"I can't do this."
"I have to"
"I just want to sleep"
"Why can't I just-" Determined to stand up, she put all of her strength into one big push upwards and managed to end up in an upright position, knees pressed together and arms stretched out to help herself balance.
"There ya go, knew it couldn't be that difficult" She had another look around, hoping there was going to be new things to see, she was looking out from a different angle now after all. Nothing. Had she not just gone through all this effort to stand up, she would've immediately sunk back into a hopeless little pile on the floor.
"I just want to go home.", she sighed, not knowing where or what "home" actually was.. It wasn't Gallifrey, that place hadn't been home for a long time.. No, home was somewhere very very far from Gallifrey.
"Yaz", she whispered. "My Yaz." She could go home to her. For the first time in her very long and painful and cruel life, she had a chance at happiness. She was alive, and so was Yaz. Except, she had just rejected her; in order to protect her, yes, but also to protect herself. Her feelings for Yaz had overwhelmed her, they were too much, too fast, threatening to tear down all the walls and compartments and neat little boxes The Doctor had curated for billions of years - she couldn't have risked losing herself in order to love Yasmin Khan.
And that's when she realised where she was.
The scratching and screaming, the thing that she could not, or maybe did not want to, remember.. was herself. She was trapped in her own subconscious, her own mind keeping her from waking up, fighting against the pain that would inevitably come crawling back and eat her up inside. She was the noise buried deep down, rebelling to be let out, to use her second chance at life. And she would take it; because maybe.. maybe she wasn't about to lose but about to find herself again.
So she ran. She ran like the day she left Gallifrey, she ran so fast she forgot to be afraid.
A familiar noise greeted her back into life.
"My ghost monument.", she whispered, a faint little smile on her face. "Oh, I have missed you." The Doctor forced her eyes open.
"What? Why am I here?"
The sea and the waves outstretched from somewhere far beneath her, bathed in the beautiful reds and oranges of a tragic sunrise.
"Durdle Door.. beautiful like the day I died." she said, closing her eyes again to take in the smell of the air and the sea, scrunching up her nose in the process before her eyes shot wide open again.
"Hang on! This is the day i died!", she would never forget the slight hint of hope that was woven into the clouds that day. "Why am I still here?!"
Without wasting another second, she jumped up and back into the tardis, whilst also trying to pull her sonic out of her coat pocket. "There you are!", she cried, relieved that it hadn't been destroyed during her regeneration. If she had even regenerated.
The Doctor started clicking buttons, pulling levers, flipping switches, running in circles around the console room until there was a loud *PING* and the screen started flashing.
"I don't understand.", she muttered. "Something must've gone wrong, how are there two of us around now?" Bi-regeneration had only been a myth, a story her grandma had made up, how was this real?
"What am I meant to do?" She wanted nothing more than to pull that big lever and travel back to earth, to just after she had dropped off Yaz and shattered her heart into pieces. She wanted to make it right but first, she needed answers.
The TARDIS, on the other hand, seemed to have other plans, causing the screen to flicker and eventually turn off. It was trying to communicate with The Doctor, who was only slowly beginning to understand.
"This is my actual second chance? I just get to go running off, no consequences?" The TARDIS dimmed its lights as to signal the Doctor to relax and look inside, when the Doctor realised there was something missing - a second heartbeat. She placed her hand on her chest in disbelief and was proven right. She was almost human.
Overwhelmed by everything this would mean for her future, she lost control of her legs for a second, causing her to stumble and make a few steps forward.
"Turn the lights back on, we're getting Yaz back!", she exclaimed, a smile creeping up on her face when the TARDIS let the lights flicker on again. "I know you've missed her, too."
When the Doctor arrived in Sheffield it felt like something had changed; the air was a bit colder, the colours just a bit dimmer, it wasn't like before and she knew it was because of her.
She hadn't parked far from Yaz's flat but far enough to be able to go through her monologue at least twice before she would have to face the problems she had caused all on her own. The TARDIS had landed her about a week after she had first left, which wasn't what she had originally hoped but she would make do, determined to get at least a friend back.
When she arrived at the Khan family's door suddenly nothing felt certain anymore, her hands were shaking, knees weak and her jaw felt like it would never move again.
"I can't do this.", she whispered to herself.
"I have to."
Her shakey hand pressed the doorbell.
-
"No." sounded the familiar voice of Najia Khan. "You are not doing this, she has just stopped crying for the first time in days."
The Doctor raised her head to look the woman in the eyes.
"I'm sorry"
"No."
"I'm sorry."
Najia attempted to shut the door but The Doctor put her foot in the way.
"Please, give me a chance to explain."
"Yaz told us everything, you have nothing else to say. Just leave.", her voice was still calm but filled with the strength and sadness of a mother trying to protect her daughter
"I can stay. I don't have to ever leave again.", The Doctor said, desperately trying to make Najia hear her. "I can stay"
"I don't believe you."
"I will never leave again. Please, let me see her."
"No." Najia pushed against the door.
"Mum?", the familiar sound of her companion's voice, so broken and lost, tore the Doctor's heart in two. Her one, single heart.
"Mum, let me see her."
A tear rolled down the Doctor's cheek.
"Yaz"
"Doctor"
"I can stay." Another tear followed the first. "I'm human.. I mean, almost" Yaz stayed silent as her mother left her and the Doctor alone in the doorway. She only stared at the Timelord, once her very own, scanning her from the brown roots of her hair to the tip of her shoes as if to make sure she was actually real.
All the things The Doctor had planned on saying, her entire script had vanished now that she was standing in front of the woman she had almost lost forever.
"I missed you."
"Doctor..."
"Yaz, I'm sorry. I will be sorry for the rest of my life. The very short rest of my life, actually.. Yaz, I am going to grow old. Please, give me another chance, I can make everything right.", she begged, sounding more desperate than ever before. "I can fly you around the universe again, we can be like before, or better than before. Or we never step foot in the TARDIS again, if that is what you need me to do."
"I would never make you abandon your TARDIS.", Yaz responded looking directly in the Doctor's eyes.
"I know, I'm just-"
"I've missed you, too", she interrupted the Doctor, whose eyes opened wide.
"Please can I give you a h-"
"Of course"
Yaz pulled the Doctor into the tightest hug she could give her. A thousand emotions came and went, tears rolling down their cheeks and dripping onto each other's clothes. She pulled tighter, the Doctor did, too.
"Never leave me again.", her muffled voice both begging and commanding at once.
"I won't."
"Promise."
"I promise."
Yaz looked up, loosening the hug slightly. There was one thing she had regretted the most after leaving the Doctor, the one thing she had been wanting to do for years before she had even left but was never brave enough to do. She was brave enough now though.
Slightly pushing the Doctor away from the door, she closed it behind her back so they were now stood outside in the open corridor. Her eyes started wandering across the Doctors face, which said Timelord seemed to notice as well. They wandered from the Doctor's eyes to her nose to the v-shape of her hairline, to her elf-like ears all the way down to her lips, where they settled.
A smile started to form on the Doctor's face, she knew what Yaz was thinking and she was thinking the same. So she loosened her grip around Yaz's back and let her hands slowly move up to her companion's face, cupping it whilst maintaining eye contact.
"Are you sure you're okay?", she asked softly.
"I'm sure", Yaz responded and closed her eyes. She was more than okay.
When their lips met, nothing seemed to matter anymore. Nothing except for their future. The Doctor tasted sweet like adventure -or maybe she had just eaten a stress lollipop, who knew- and it felt good and exciting and right. So, so right. Yaz moved her hand up to touch the Doctor's cheek, still wet from her tears, but so warm and alive. Nothing would ever beat this moment.
The Doctor smiled into the kiss, her first kiss in this body, the last lips this body would ever taste.