Archive of Our Own

All Bill can remember is the shattering of glass and the blood. So much blood. And that’s it. She can’t remember Heather’s face. She can’t remember the other car. She can’t remember what song was on the radio. She can’t remember the paramedics who got to them. Only the shining and beautiful way glass shatters and the rich red of blood smearing everyone.

And, of course, the screaming.

And even the screaming she isn’t sure of. She might have inserted it in there, given how she wakes up every night with the same sound on her lips. Maybe she didn’t have time to scream. Maybe neither did Heather.

How horrible if she did. To have your last sound be an awful, guttural scream.

“How are you doing, Bill?” Dr. Jones says as she carefully presses her fingers to Bill’s skin. It stings and Bill’s still sensitive from the cast, but besides the fact her leg is unwashed, you couldn’t tell it was broken. “Looks all good. I’m not worried about your physical health. You’re excellent in that regard. But that’s a hard thing to go through.”

“I’m fine,” Bill says. It’s not true, and she can tell that Dr. Jones knows it isn’t. Her mouth moves into a tight line, and she pulls up the stool, sitting and facing Bill.

“Bill, I’ve had a lot of patients in here who need help with grief. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Heather would want you–”

“Don’t tell me what she would want,” Bill snaps. Dr. Jones nods slowly, like she knows what Bill’s going through. But she doesn’t. She can’t. She can’t even imagine how Bill feels every second, knowing that Heather’s gone and she’s still here.

“Alright. I don’t know what Heather would want. But I know that if I were to die and my wife survive, I’d want her to get some sort of help. It’s been almost a year, Bill. Your depression is still strong. I wouldn’t want Selena to go through that. I have the names of a few good therapists and I know the address and meeting times of a survivors group. Do you want me to write them down?”

“Can I stop you?” Bill asks, and Dr. Jones chuckles.

“You could throw it out the second you’re out of this room.” Her stool scrapes on the floor as she moves over to the desk, taking out a pen and scribbling things down. Bill sits uncomfortably on the table until she’s done and passing the paper over. “I tried to make it legible.”

Bill looks down. There are three names, which must be the therapists. And the name of a church, Mondays, 5 p.m. scribbled underneath. And that’s the support group.

“What about if your wife died and you survived? Would you want to get help?”

Dr. Jones nods. “It would be hard, but yes. You can’t live with grief forever. It eats at you from the inside. At least try the group once. My friend has testified firsthand that it’s effective.”

Bill glances down at the paper. Maybe she will.

The church stands strong against the gloomy afternoon, brown brick against grey skies. The finish on it is burnished gold, still managing to shine without the sun. Bill hasn’t been to church in years. Her bio mother was Muslim, and her foster mother was Christian. She’d never liked churches, sitting still in pews made for fidgeting, and yet here she was, going into a church willingly.

“Are you coming in?” Someone asks. His voice is thick, deep, and accented. She turns to look at him. He’s got a shock of bright grey hair and is wearing a black suit. It reminds her of a mourning suit.

“Excuse me?”

“There’s only the grieving group here at this time here at Saint William’s. So, you’re either here for that, or confession.” He looks nervous and tired, his fingers moving constantly. She tries not to look at them and fails. They twitch. She vaguely recognizes the patterns of guitar notes and her eyes light on the golden wedding ring on his finger. It reminds her of the one on her hand: an engagement ring of silver and Amazonite. It bolsters her confidence.

“Yeah, I’m going in.”

She and the grey-haired man walk into Saint William’s church together. They don’t talk, don’t introduce themselves, but Bill feels comforted by his very presence. And having someone next to her, especially someone with such angry eyebrows, makes her think that turning back and chickening out won’t be worth the judgment.

Luckily for her, the meeting isn’t in the nave of the church, instead taking place in one of the basement rooms. She has to descend tucked away stairs, behind the man. The little room is cold and dark and made of bleak cement. Folding chairs form a circle in the middle, one already sparsely populated with people.

“Doctor,” someone says, a woman with dark skin and her hair in a braid. The grey-haired man, who must be the Doctor, nods.

“Yasmin.”

Yasmin’s fingers flit over where the braid is tied. She, like the Doctor, can’t stay still. Bill, on the contrary, finds a new pleasure in stillness. If she never moves, she won’t remember that Heather isn’t there, because she’ll never turn to see the emptiness. Her hands don’t move much anymore, and she finds no more pleasure in dancing or sketching in the margins of her notes. Not that she takes notes anymore. Sneaking into classes at the university she works at doesn’t hold any sort of pleasure anymore.

The Doctor sits down in one part of the circle. Almost everyone is sitting one or two chairs away from someone else, space in between but finding comfort in sitting close. Bill doesn’t want to do that, so she finds a chair in the middle of a slightly empty side of the circle.

She’s not early, but she’s also not late, so people continue to trickle in as time ticks by. One man, Black with short hair wearing a large coat, sits next to a blonde-haired older woman. They start talking right away.

So they know each other.

In fact, everyone in the group seems to know each other pretty well. Yasmin is joined by two men, one young and the other old. Two people sit side by side, talking under their breaths. A married couple has made their spot next to the Doctor.

The circle, by the time the clock strikes five past five, isn’t full but no longer seems empty. There’s the Doctor and her, sitting with four empty chairs in between them. Then, on the other side of the Doctor, the married couple. Then Yasmin and her friends. The older blonde woman and her younger friend. A tall thin man in a suit, who seems to know the two of them. But they aren’t talking. Beside the thin man is another man, who holds his hand tightly. And then, five seats away from Bill, a woman in a long black Victorian-style mourning dress with long green-dyed hair.

And so the circle completes.

The older blonde woman is the one who speaks. “It looks like everyone’s here, except for the Temples, and they told me they couldn’t make it today. There’s a new member so we should probably–”

“Who put you in charge?” the Doctor asks.

“Well, I’ve been here the longest, so I know how it works best,” Blondie says. “And we haven’t had a new member since Yaz. I just think–”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Doctor cuts her off. “Continue, then.”

“We should go around,” Blondie directs it like a jab at the Doctor, “and say our names and who we lost.”

“And pronouns,” the thin guy says.

“Yes, and the pronouns.”

“Only say who you lost if you’re alright with it,” Yasmin (Yaz?) adds.

“Yes, yes. I’ll go first. I’m Jackie, I use she and her, and I lost my husband and daughter.”

The guy next to her, with the shaved short hair says, “I’m Mickey, he/him, lost my grandma and, er, my friend. Her daughter, actually.”

Thin guy clutches harder to the man next to him’s hand and says, “Tennant, you can call me Ten. He/they/she/whatever, really. And I lost my girlfriend,” here his – no, her – eyes glance towards Jackie and Mickey, who give her an inscrutable look, “and my best friend. Different people, I’m not just… glamourizing Rose twice.”

The man next to her nods. “Jack. He/him, they if we’re really close. My boyfriend. My–” his tongue trips over itself “my best friend. Also, different people. His girlfriend.”

The woman in the mourning dress looks tired. She’s completely alone, and she clasps her hand around a silver locket. “Vastra,” she says, “she/her. And my wife. I lost my wife.”

And then it’s Bill’s turn, which is harkened by people saying, “new girl,” and “it’s your turn.”

“Hi,” she says, voice thick. She has to force it out, make herself speak when she’d rather be silent. “I’m Bill. She/they. I lost my fiancée.” She hates it, calling Heather her fiancée . It should have been wife . If time had continued, it would have been wife. She’d had to spend the days before the funeral canceling wedding plans, begging for refunds because Heather was dead. And fiancée is so gender neutral. It could be fiance . Those listening might think she was talking about a man.

That’s why she and Heather had asked for such a short engagement. Skip from fiancée to wife as quickly as possible.

But none of this turmoil is visible to the people there, and they move to the Doctor faster than she could think.

He skips over a name. “He/they/it,” the Doctor says, and then, “every time you give me this horrible confused look, Jackie. Get off it. Sometimes an old man uses pronouns. And I lost my wife.”

Bill looks over at them. He doesn’t even meet her eye, or seem to notice he’s being studied at all. Instead, he looks at one of the little wooden blocks with some corny scripture on it. Like even saying who he lost is too much.

The couple next to him sits together, hands together. Even before the redhead starts by only saying, “Amy, she/her,” Bill can tell they lost the same person.

“Rory, he/him.”

“We lost our daughter,” Amy finishes for the both of them.

“Melody,” Rory adds. The two of them talk like they can read each other’s minds. It’s uncanny, and Bill doesn’t like having two pairs of eyes on her. She’s reminded that they all know each other. These introductions are for her, not for any of the other members.

Yasmin is next. “Yaz,” she says, and Bill mentally fixes her perception of the name. So the Doctor calls her ‘Yasmin’, but Jackie ‘Jackie’… What’s his policy on nicknames? And then Bill wonders why she cares so much about some old guy, and focuses on Yaz. “She/her. And I lost my girlfriend.” Her hands work through the loose hair at the end of her braid.

The boy next to her reaches out, and she lets him take the hand closest to him. “Ryan, he/him, and my grandmother.”

“Graham,” the old man next to him says, “he/him, my wife. Same person as Ryan’s grand–”

“Yeah, Graham.” Ryan cuts him off sharply, and doesn’t see how the man’s face falls. “They get it.”

And the circle is complete. Bill still feels like a stranger.

She holes up in her hoodie, sleeves over her hands, and pulling the unzipped sides over her shirt. The other people talk and she doesn’t. They talk about grief, exactly as one might in a grief support group. She learns about them over the course of an hour.

Jackie’s daughter died in a building collapse. She, Mickey, Ten, and Jack had all been there. They had all survived. They’ve all lost the same person, yet the group seems so divided down the middle, split. Bill can’t help but wonder why.

A car crash, just like hers, had taken Amy and Rory’s baby from them. Her name was Melody, and they talk about her like they’re picturing her growing up. Bill can’t look at their faces, because she thinks she just might start crying.

Jack’s boyfriend died from a virus, one that Jack had survived. He laughs and says “I’m practically immortal at this point.” It’s bitter and completely devoid of any humor. Ten grasps his hand harder.

Each of them has a story. That’s the point, she supposes.

Yaz’s girlfriend had died in her arms. Vastra’s wife died of a degenerative muscle disease. Ryan’s grandmother and Graham’s wife had fallen from a crane, no idea why or how she’d gotten up there.

After forty minutes of everyone sharing the basics, it narrows down to the Doctor and Bill. Neither of them speak right away.

“She and I were…” Bill surprises herself by speaking. “We were in a car together. We were going to the bakery to choose cakes for our wedding. Not that that matters anymore. I said that my fiancée died. I never wanted to call her my fiancée. It was too gender-neutral. I wanted people to know she was a she because she was Heather. So we were trying to get married as quickly as possible, to be wives. Guess that didn’t work out.”

“Thank you for sharing,” Jackie said. Cold, quick, decisive, the second Bill lets herself lapse from talking for a minute. Like it’s just what you say. Thank you for sharing.

Well, it hadn’t made her feel any better. She almost regrets it.

Almost.

“I lost my wife too,” the Doctor says. “River. I miss her.”

“How?” Bill says, voice rough and unable to stop herself.

“She saved me. There was a virus, and we had it. You needed two vaccines to live. We had two. We could have split them, who knew the chances, but she wasn’t having it. I tried to stop her, but she was a force of will.” His eyes are glassy with tears, and when he blinks they stick to his eyelashes. “You don’t know what you have till you lose it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bill says.

“Times up,” Jackie interrupts. “Doctor Song–”

“Just Doctor, Jackie,” the Doctor says, not even looking her way. “Please.”

“Doctor, are you going to join us to get food after?”

“No.”

Bill stays sitting as everyone grabs their stuff. She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t want to return to her empty flat, to cook dinner for one. She doesn’t want to sleep in an empty bed. She doesn’t want to remember when someone else used to occupy her space so easily. She sits still, unmoving. But everyone around her is a flutter of movement.

Ryan chases after Yaz as she tries to leave quickly, and Jackie pauses in front of Ten. Ten looks up at her, his eyes almost dull.

“Rose would have wanted you to come to dinner with us.”

“I promised the Nobles I’d be at dinner with them. Their Rose just got a job and they want to celebrate.”

Jackie scoffed. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re replacing my Rose with theirs.”

Ten frowns in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re implying, Jackie.”

“You know exactly what I’m saying.” Jackie stares them down, ignoring Mickey with her bag, who’s gesturing at her to come with him. “I’m saying that Donna always comes right next to Rose. You replaced Donna with her husband, it doesn’t seem a big leap to think you’d find another Rose–”

“She’s a kid!”

“Didn’t stop you before.”

Ten sits there, just not meeting Jackie’s eyes, but Jack rises, looking furious. Ten catches his arm. “Jack,” he says, clear warning in his tone. “Don’t.”

“She wasn’t a kid, Jackie.”

“She was nineteen,” Jackie snaps back. Then she storms off, towards Mickey.

Bill watches it all in stunned silence. There’s something almost removed and comical about it, like watching a television programme. A soap. There’s backstory there.

But then again, there seems to be backstory to this whole group. Something Bill isn’t let into. The only one who seems removed is Vastra, and to an extent the Doctor. And even then they have the Ponds.

“Bill,” the Doctor says, gruff and Scottish. Her head whips around to face them. “You want tea? I’ve got some money to spare, and the first time is never easy.”

There’s nothing Bill wants more than to say no, but she doesn’t have anyone to fall back on. And right now something to soothe over the first time at group sounds brilliant. The Doctor quirks their eyebrow at her.

Heather would have wanted her to say yes.

She nods. “Sure.”

“Good.”

The Doctor grabs their coat from off the back of their chair, standing. They don’t pause for Bill to catch up, so she needs to grab her own jacket fast and jog to catch up to them. She matches their pace. Together, they leave the church, without speaking a word.

The day is too nice for what it contains, which is the new and still stinging scab of Heather’s death being picked at. The sky is bright blue. The grass is emerald green. The birds chirp away, and the sun has yet to set. Two teenagers sit under a tree, passing a can back and forth and laughing.

“Why did you offer me a drink?” Bill asks.

“There’s a lot of interpersonal relationships in that group. I thought you could form some of your own. And I’m the only one who’s free.”

“Yeah, I noticed. What’s going on with Jackie and Ten?”

The Doctor glances at her with a skeptical look. “ That’s your question?”

For a second, Bill forgets who she is without Heather, who she’s been. Quiet, depressed, not showing herself to anyone. For a second, she’s back to being Bill Potts, and she laughs. “I have a lot of questions. I’m starting there.”

The Doctor pauses at the door to a pub and says, “if you want me to willingly talk about Jackie Tyler, I’d rather have a stiff drink than tea.”

“Yeah, let’s go. You’re still buying?”

“I offered, didn’t I?”

The bell on the door jingles as they enter and find a spot at the bar. It’s mid afternoon, and the pub’s nearly empty, letting them place their orders quickly. The bartender leaves to get their drinks, and the Doctor turns to Bill.

“So you’ve gathered that Jackie, Mickey, Jack, and Ten all lost the same person, yes? You’re not stupid.”

“Yeah, I caught that.”

The bartender slides over a glass of whiskey for the Doctor and a pint for Bill. They stand, moving to a table in the corner, where they’re away from the rest of the bar.

“Rose, right? The girl they lost,” Bill asks as she takes a drink of her beer. The Doctor sips almost daintily from his whiskey.

“Yeah. So, she was nineteen, working at a shop when it blew up. Hadn’t finished her A Levels or anything. Ten shows up, he’s the arson investigator’s consultant. That’s his job, he travels all over the world consulting on cases. And he offered Rose a ride with him, to come with him. And she took it.”

“He’s not– he wouldn’t have been nineteen.”

“No, he wasn’t, so that’s Jackie’s problem with him. Mickey’s too, but Mickey was Rose’s ex, so I think that’s his main issue.”

“Do you know how Jack plays into it?”

The Doctor points at her with a chuckle. “Military man. They picked him up on the way. He was seeing Rose too, but Jackie doesn’t know so he can’t explore his grief. Also lost his boyfriend. Does not cope well with any of this.”

Bill nods, turning this over in her head. Then she says, “you said you were the only person free to make emotional connections or whatever.” The Doctor nods. “What about Vastra? She doesn’t talk to anyone.”

“I know her. She’s there to observe. In her words, she’s there to remind herself everyone has grief like hers.”

“Huh. Why is Jackie so weird?”

The Doctor kicks back the rest of his drink. “She’s been there the longest. Since her husband died. There’s an ever rotating cast of people, and they all find themselves without the group, but not Jackie. She can’t let go. Then Rose died and she still can’t dream of leaving. She acts like it makes her the authority, but I think it makes her more of an idiot.”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t know how to heal. Or whatever. That was more poetic than I wanted. More questions?”

“Do you have a name?”

“Everyone calls me the Doctor. I will answer to it.”

“But do you like it?”

“Doctor Song is in a grave, and my other name was never really me. I teach. My students call me Doctor. My friends call me Doctor. Strangers call me Doctor. I am the Doctor now.”

“Got it.” Bill clicked his tongue. “Doctor it is. How long have you…” Bill trailed off, worried about being personal, but her question was clear.

“Not long ago. I lost her only recently. Long enough, though. What do you do, Bill?”

“I work in a cafeteria at a university. Not very interesting. Not interesting at all, actually. I was gonna quit, once Heather and I were married. Get a new job closer to our new flat and everything. No more serving chips to students who hit on me.”

“Try being the teacher. I once had a girl offer, repeatedly, to have sex with me for a better grade.”

Bill sticks her tongue out. “Disgusting.”

The Doctor laughs. “River thought it was hilarious, but I never thought she’d care, really. We were loose. No real problems throughout our relationship, at least none because of fear of cheating.”

Bill smiles. It’s nice to hear about the ways other people have loved and lost each other. She’d been confused when the Doctor referenced why Vastra came, but she gets it now. There’s something good in knowing that the Doctor lost his wife like she lost her fiancée.

“I need to go,” the Doctor finally says. “Will you be coming back to group?”

Bill surprises herself, and nods.

When she comes back, the group has shifted for the addition of the Noble’s family. Ten and Jack sit with them now, and Jackie seems almost lonely. Now, knowing more, Bill keeps her eye on her as she hangs up her coat.

There’s a tension between her and Mickey, something that reveals Mickey is only barely on Jackie’s side. There’s these dynamics in the group, things that push Bill away. She steps into the circle, doesn’t know where to sit. Then the Doctor raises their hand. They’re holding two takeaway cups of tea. They incline their head to the chair next to them.

Bill crosses the circle and sits next to them. They turn to her.

“I didn’t know how you take your tea, so I got two types. I’ll have it either way, so choose which is closest.”

Bill takes one of the cups, turning to the circle. She sits and watches everyone filter in.

“Here’s the thing,” the Doctor says, low enough that no one can hear them but her. “This group isn’t really all that helpful for dealing with grief. Too much drama. But River would have loved it. How about your Heather?”

“She hated things like this. She was quiet, except around her friends. Excitable, though. She’d dislike it here, but love to talk about it on the way home.”

They’d crashed as Heather spoke, fast and happy. Bill wonders if she looked away from the wheel to look at her beautiful fiancée. She wonders if the crash was her fault.

The Doctor chuckles. They lean back in their chair, crossing their legs. “I like you, Bill. I wish I could have met her.”

Bill doesn’t know the Doctor very well. It’s crazy how quickly she’s become attached to them, the one person in the group to stop and wait for her. But she wishes, beyond belief, that Heather could have met them too.

But she wouldn’t have met them without Heather’s death, and that thought stings. Nothing good should be able to come out of that car crash. Nothing good should be able to come out of losing her.

The Doctor studies her patiently. “Are you alright?” they ask. She shakes her head. “Okay. That's fine. You’re not supposed to be, if you’re here.”

Bill lets herself get pulled into the group, paying attention to other people so she doesn’t have to pay attention to herself. She feels less bad for Ten now, seeing them with Shaun and Rose. They look happier, especially with someone sitting between them and Jackie.

When Jackie isn’t looking, Ten and Jack hold hands tightly. She wonders about that.

The group flies by, until Bill is getting up and grabbing her coat, the Doctor walking beside her. “Is today hard?” he asks.

“Every day’s hard,” she responds, wrapping the coat around her to counteract the autumn chill that’s readily waiting for the second they step outside of Saint William’s. “There are just worse ones, sometimes. When I remember she isn’t waiting for me at home.”

“What is waiting for you at home?”

“Nothing, really.” Bill braces herself as they open the large doors. The wind whips harsh, blowing away every sign that summer was ever there. “An empty flat. An empty bed. Takeaway instead of a meal I make myself.”

“You could come over,” the Doctor offers. “I’m cooking for my enemy tonight.”

“Your–”

“Her words. She’d love you.”

“Do I have to go get changed?”

The Doctor studiously glances over her. “No. If you really want to freshen up, I’ve got women’s clothes at my place.” Bill opens her mouth to thank them. “No, don’t thank me. I know when something’s getting to you. I get not wanting to go home. For a long time I was haunted by River’s ghost.”

“Ghost?”

“Not a real ghost. The places she had been, the things she left, the impact of her on our house. My house. I couldn’t be around there. I used to crash at my friends’ houses on bad nights, until they made me face my own place.”

“Are the clothes hers?”

“No, mine.”

“Yours?”

“I crossdress on occasion. I’m not a man, you know. I said he/they/it, but there are days I dress up and go out and I’m a she.” The Doctor stops by a blue boxy car in the car park. It looks old, run down, and three days away from giving out on the motorway. It’s absolutely their car. “This is the TARDIS. She’s the remaining love of my life.”

Bill looks at the car – her – skeptically. “She’s old.”

“But reliable.” The glint in the Doctor’s eye betrays pride, and maybe madness.

“Why’s she called that?”

“It’s an acronym.” The Doctor pulls open the passenger door of the car and pats the royal blue frame.

“For what?”

“It’s in Latin.”

Bill slides into the passenger seat. Privately, she thinks that’s no reason not to tell her, but it’s alright. The Doctor gets into the front seat.

She knows, as a Black trans lesbian woman, that she shouldn’t be getting into a car with a white man who’s easily years and years older than her. But they’re not a man, and maybe not white, and the first person to actually get her. Since Heather.

So she lets them turn onto the street, and she fiddles with the radio till a Little Mix song comes on. Woman Like Me blares out of the speakers, and she turns it to a respectable level. She looks out the window as the Doctor talks. They don’t monopolize the time. They think about what she needs, which is distraction, and tells her all about their classes.

They pick favorites, they confess to her. Always. There’s always that one kid in the room who lights up at a problem, who eagerly looks for something new, who thinks differently than the people around them. They assure her that they would have picked her out of the class.

Privately, she disagrees. What could make her light up now?

But they seem convinced, so she lets them believe it.

They arrive at their house, which is boxy and blue, much like the TARDIS. Bill starts drawing conclusions about the Doctor’s taste. Correct or not, they’re drawn.

The Doctor lets her in and locks the door behind them. She doesn’t panic. This is the safest she’s felt with anyone since Heather. The Doctor, some old queen who asks, “Do you want a shower? There are two locking doors, and I’ll give you the pick of my clothes.”

She shucks off her boots, and they lead her to the closet. Together, they decide on a long green skirt and matching mint and brown button-up. “Do I have to be fancy?” she asks, stroking the soft fabric of the skirt. She doesn’t even care about the answer. She’s wearing it, even if the Doctor is taller than her and it’ll hang past her ankles.

“Missy appreciates when things are fancy.” The Doctor’s fingers trace over the clothes hangers before settling on something deep red. “I’m going to wear this,” they take down a long red dress, then grab a blazer. “You want to shower now?”

Bill looks at them. “What do you want me to call you now?”

The Doctor furrows their brows in confusion. “...The Doctor?”

“No, no. You said sometimes you use she. Is that tonight?”

The Doctor frowns, considering. They look down at the wine-red gown. Then look back up. Bill smiles. The Doctor smiles back, her lips stretching around it like she’s never quite sure how to feel about joy. “Missy is going to love you.”

She leaves the room, and Bill locks the door to the bedroom, and then the door to the bathroom. She strips, setting aside her underwear and bra and leaving her jeans and shirt in a pile on the floor. She turns the shower on, waits for it to warm up, and steps in.

The shower is all cool marble and metal, with a bench littered with soaps and shampoos. There’s the ghost of two people here, like the Doctor had mentioned in the car. One shampoo is meant for preserving curls. Another is to prevent dandruff. She doesn’t need to use either – it’s not a wash day, so she avoids getting her hair wet under the stream of hot water.

But the water does feel amazing on her skin. It’s been a while since Bill has truly let herself enjoy a shower. Usually, it’s a chore. She gets in, washes, gets out, and moves through another day like it’s tar. On wash days, she acts like it’s a job. But the Doctor’s shower smells of lilacs (there’s a small bottle of scented soap left open) and the steam gathers blissfully.

Bill lets herself enjoy it. She lets herself think about her body for the first time since she and Heather last slept together. She lets herself consider her tits (estrogen is magic) and stomach and legs. And she doesn’t think poorly about them. They’re there. Before, she wanted to hate herself. Before, she’d wanted any reason to think she should die and go join Heather. But she can’t let that happen. So she uses lilac soap and lotion. She lets herself enjoy the shower the Doctor has so graciously let her use.

When she’s wasted as much time as she’s probably allowed to, Bill steps out of the shower. She uses the blissfully fluffy towel the Doctor lent her and pulls her underwear and bra back on. Then she puts on the skirt and button-up from her closet.

They’re a little too big – the Doctor is taller and broader than her – but they fit well enough, and Bill exits the room.

She tries not to snoop or look anywhere she shouldn’t. Instead, she follows the Doctor’s voice. She can hear it, in the foyer. It’s joined by another woman’s voice, higher and Scottish.

“Doctor. I saw a new pair of shoes by your door. You need to stop making friends, I used to be the social one out of us,” the woman says. It must be the Missy the Doctor was talking about, the enemy who the Doctor had girl nights with. “And Chucks? Please. Did you befriend another lesbian? I thought I was the only one.”

“You’re not a lesbian,” the Doctor answers her.

“I’m femme.”

“You’re a bitch. She’ll be here soon. Cocktail?”

Bill peeks into the room. Missy notices her before the Doctor does, eyes lighting up and a grin making its home on her face. “You must be her! The little lesbian with the Chucks! It’s amazing to meet you!” Missy swans over to Bill, grabs her hands, and pulls her into the room. “The Doctor has told me nothing about you, which is so exciting. I love unwrapping his little friends like presents.”

“This is why Clara hates you,” the Doctor deadpans. She looks more amazing in the dress, which turns her from a masculine-leaning professor into a sultry old lesbian. Bill’s got friends who would fall on their faces looking at her.

“Clara wants to fuck me, darling, you just refuse to see it. Go, love, make us drinks. We’re thirsty, and it isn’t girl night without a Manhattan.” She does not let go of Bill’s hands. She seems crazy. Bill already wants to know her more. “She makes the best Manhattans. I don’t know how she does it. Can’t mix a single other drink. River must have trained it into her. River or me. We’re to blame for most of her talents.”

“Oh, fuck you,” the Doctor says, calling out from where she had stationed herself in the kitchen. Missy laughs and drags Bill into there.

Bill enjoys herself, which is shocking. She hadn’t realized just how much she hadn’t been enjoying herself until now. She hadn’t even thought it was possible. But Missy puts a record on, calls the Doctor a tight ass, and teaches Bill a complex dance. She can’t do it, and pleasantly buzzed, she laughs her way into the Doctor’s arms.

For once, she doesn’t look to the side, expecting Heather to be there.

“Okay, okay,” Missy says, pointing at the Doctor. “We grew up together, yeah? She was top of our class, I was so jealous of her–”

“ You were top of the class.”

“Nope, it was always you, darling. Anyway, we wanted to try getting drunk, you know, all the popular kids were doing it, and we were just nerds. So she gets the brilliant idea of–”

“Missy, she’s just a kid!” The Doctor goes as to jokingly cover Bill’s ears, and Bill swats her off of her. “Don’t encourage her to do crime!”

“All people should know how to do crime. It’s educational. It’s important. So, we go into the liquor store, right? It’s some posh place, whatever. And we try to stuff our pockets full of small liquor bottles. Worst shoplifting you’ve ever seen.”

The Doctor jumps in. “So, obviously, we almost got caught, two teenagers, pockets full of bottles that aren’t ours, when the door to the store opens.”

“And it’s this actual robber, with a gun and everything. He looks at us and says are you going to call the fuzz? And we shake our heads like anything and he lets us go. We got out of there because of someone else also committing a crime. And she hates it. Someone doesn’t like doing crime.”

“Shocker, Missy, I have morals.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve been to prison. And yet, I’m sexier, so what does that say about me?” Missy leans back and spreads her hands to indicate her purple outfit with a smug grin. “Don’t worry, Bill, she doesn’t hate me. We’re still best enemies. I have a key to this place.”

The Doctor blinks and stares at her. “Since when?”

“None of your business, sweetheart.” She flapped a shooing hand at her. “Bill, darling.” Missy turned to Bill, taking the two sides of Bill’s face in her hands. Bill was a little gone on the cocktails enough to register that she was hot. “She needs you, you know. She’s so lonely, all alone. Doesn’t even call me. She needs someone at those awful groups she insists on going to.”

“I–” the Doctor takes a sip of her rusty red drink. “I made a promise to River before she died.”

“You could choose one with less drama.”

“You’re my best– enemy , I think you know I like drama. I married River, Missy, for god’s sake. Clara is one of my friends.”

Missy hums primly. “Yeah, alright. Bill, I’m glad to meet you.”

“Thanks,” Bill tells the intimidating woman. “I’m glad to meet you too?”

“Aww,” Missy beams. “Thanks babe. Lets play truth or dare, yeah?”

A month and a half into group Bill leans over to the Doctor. “I want to talk to Ten and Jack.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Bill glances over to them clutching tight to each other’s hands. “I feel like… there’s something about them that they aren’t sharing.”

“And you’re nosy?”

Bill rolls her eyes, but she nods. Sure, that’s true enough. She just wants to know what’s up and why they can’t share it. And why would they still hang around the grief group if they couldn’t be themselves? She wants answers, and she wants them to feel better. It’s been way longer for them than for her, and they still look like they fear saying everything.

“Yeah, fair enough,” the Doctor says, tearing open a bag of black licorice. “You want to invite them to the pub with us?”

“Yeah, if you’re fine with that.”

“I don’t control you. And if I did, I’d give you anything so you’d play nice when I introduce you to Clara.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“She’s… Clara,” he says, like that explains anything. He passes her a sliver of licorice as Jackie starts talking. She takes it and chews on it slowly. The slick and sharp taste distracts her from the woman promising that being here forever means anything beyond an inability to move on.

They share the bag of licorice during the whole meeting, passing it back and forth until their teeth feel like they’re sticking together. They’ll cure it later with a pint or some cocktails. Hopefully with Jack and Ten.

They play a game of their own making with no rules by swinging their knees against each other. They did it on the train too, and once someone had asked very politely if they were granddad and grandkid, and then someone else had laughed and said they were clearly together romantically. Bill had tested her acting strength by pretending to gag until they realized that could not be true.

The meeting passes quickly enough, and ends with Bill cornering Ten and Jack by the coat rack. “Hey,” she starts, “you wanna go to the pub with the Doctor and I?”

Ten glances between her and the Doctor, who is standing by the door and failing not to look at them. “What?”

“The pub. Doctor and I. Yeah? We’ll buy you a pint.”

“Is this a… joke?”

“If you don’t wanna, you don’t have to. I just figured we’d better get to know some of the other people in the group. I’ll buy. Or he will.”

Ten glances at Jack, like they need Jack’s reassurance. Like they’re used to this being a joke. Jack grins. “Yeah, alright. And you don’t have to buy. You alright with that, Ten?”

“Sure.”

They walk out with Bill and the Doctor. Close to each other. It makes sense. Ten lost Rose, Donna, and names he doesn’t share. And Jack’s lost Rose too, and his boyfriend Ianto. Sometimes he mentions an Owen, a Tosh. There’s something about shared trauma.

That’s why Bill and the Doctor work together like cogs in a machine. There’s something about waking up and one side of the bed is empty. Something about till death do us part and how that comes to be.

And Ten and Jack both lost Rose.

They stop at a pub, the same one Bill and the Doctor visited after her first meeting. Ordering drinks and finding a table is quick, and soon the Doctor and Bill are sitting across from Ten and Jack. Beers, yet untouched, sit in front of them.

Bill knows how to make small talk, and so does Jack. They carry on a boring conversation that the Doctor and Ten don’t seem to know how to jump into, except when direct questions are asked of them. Bill still learns about them.

Jack used to be in the military, and now works for private security, but he wanted to quit since Ianto died. He says that last part softly, like he’s still kneeling at a grave. Bill recognizes the name, but she’s not sure where from.

Ten was a police consultant for a while, but he quit and is now working on a novel. Bill doesn’t ask where he gets the money to set aside that time with his lover gone. It seems off-limits.

She talks about her own job, in the cafeteria. It’s part-time, leaving her the time to come to the group. She doesn’t make much money, but she’s got a bit of money saved up from Heather’s various accounts. And she’s looking for a new, better-paying job.

“I never finished Uni,” she confesses, remembering when the Doctor said their Rose had never finished her A Levels. Ten and Jack won’t judge her. “Didn’t have the money, so I dropped out and got a job on that very same campus.”

That was where she had met Heather. She’d served her chips, once, and then seen her in a bar after work. She still didn’t remember which of them had approached the other, just that there was some utter magnetism between them. Heather, the girl with a heterochromic star in her eye. And Bill, who didn’t think she had anything to offer. She must have been wrong. It’s the best way she’s ever been wrong.

She’d said as much at Heather’s funeral, looking at Heather’s weeping mother, who hadn’t approved that Bill would speak. But Bill had deserved to, so she did. And she took a sick, miserable, satisfaction in the fact that Heather’s mother had to choose between hatred and mourning her daughter.

“Why do you keep coming to the group?” Bill finally asks, when the dialogue between her and Jack turns easy and casual. Not just small talk anymore, sliding into friendship. “I mean, well. Jackie.”

Jack glances at Ten, like it’s his thing to say. Ten smiles sadly. “She’s the one connection to Rose left. Her and Mickey. She was the next of kin, she has everything. And she doesn’t like us very much.”

“I told her she should have married Rose when she had the chance,” Jack says. He rests his hand on Ten’s forearm, almost under the table.

Ten shakes their head. “It wouldn’t have been fair.”

Oh. Bill understands it now. She gets something that she doesn’t think Jackie or Mickey has yet, something she doesn’t know if the Doctor understands. Ten and Jack are together. And probably were together with Rose too, considering that miserable ‘it wouldn’t have been fair’.

She can’t imagine that. Losing someone you love, not being able to bring up the actual nature of your relationship, and seeing someone who hates you for loving her every Monday.

She glances over at the Doctor, and sees that he sees it too. The pros of being queer, she supposes. “You were…”

Ten looks at her, eyes appreciative. “You get it.”

“I figured it out, yeah. That’s… horrible. I’m sorry.”

“Did you kill her?” Jack comments, wryly. It’s a horrible joke, and he seems to regret it the second it comes out of his mouth. He looks away from Bill’s face. “It was a long time ago, Bill. And even if we don’t have her stuff, we have her room in our house.”

“That’s not enough,” Bill says, indignance rising in her chest. She was lucky. She was lucky that Heather’s lawyer friend had made both Bill and Heather write each other into their wills after they announced the engagement, no matter how soon the wedding would have been. No matter their foolish certainty that marriage would solve anything they might have to face in the near future. The near past. 

Ten shakes his head. “Like he said, it was a long time ago. We can’t mourn what we don’t have. Just appreciate what we still do.” He lays a hand out on the table, a ring on his ring finger. Jack lays his hand down too, a matching ring on his. Studded with pink, blue, and white.

“You don’t wear those to group,” the Doctor comments.

“Well, they aren’t subtle.”

The Doctor fidgets with his wedding ring under the table. It’s simple, white gold with a small jewel. Bill’s only seen him take it off, to show her the inside. There’s an engraving, him and River’s wedding date alongside the day they met.

“Do you still miss her?” Bill asks, because they keep referencing the time, and that’s what people keep telling her. That with time, the ache of losing Heather will fade. 

“Always,” Jack says. “I’ll never stop missing her, and Ianto. I’ll never stop missing any of them. Not her, not Ianto, not Tosh or Owen. Not even Gray.”

“Who’s Gray?” the Doctor asks, a little too bluntly. But Jack doesn’t react, probably because Ten seems to have the same preclusion for bluntness as the Doctor does.

“My brother. I was young for that one.”

Bill smiles sadly. She thinks about her mother.

“Shall we discuss something more cheerful?” the Doctor offers. They take him up on it, Ten telling them about the young Rose Noble working on costuming a school play.

Later, Bill and the Doctor walk out together, towards the TARDIS. The Doctor slips off his ring, turning it over in his hand. “If I tell you something you don’t like, you’ll tell me to shut up?”

“Yeah.”

“I used to want another date carved in here.” He spins the ring against his palm. “I was going to kill myself, exactly a year after River died.”

“Even though…”

“Even though she died wanting me to live. It was Missy who stopped me. She found me at my worst, called me an idiot, and dragged me out of it. And when I saw you, I wondered if you had a Missy.” Bill looked over at him. She wanted to protest, say that she’d never even considered that. But it would have been a lie.

“I didn’t.”

“I figured. That was why you were at this support group. Worst choice alive if you wanted to heal.” The Doctor slipped the ring back on his finger. “Passing it on, becoming your Missy. And it’s the best choice I’ve ever made. I’m glad to know you.”

Bill couldn’t meet his eye, but he was right. He was her best friend, for better or worse. And having him there had helped drag her out of this hole she had been running a rat race in.

The Doctor stopped at the TARDIS, going around to the driver’s side and leaning over the car. He met Bill’s eye. She smiled at him. “I love you. Need a ride home?”

“Yeah, I’ll take a ride. And I love you too.”

The Doctor grinned. “Good. Get in.

Heather’s birthday rolls around without much fanfare. Last year, Bill spent the day lying on the floor with a bottle of the strongest (yet cheapest) alcohol she could find. She tried to drown it all out so she didn’t consider other ways to drown it out.

This year she feels like shit again, but the Doctor calls. They don’t know it's the day, because she never told them. Plus, she thinks if she can get through the day, she can just keep going. So she’ll go out for dinner with the Doctor and Missy, and the famously mentioned Clara.

It’s a new operative, and Bill’s not stupid. She knows she shouldn’t be dealing with something new while on one of the worst days to grieve. She also knows she really shouldn’t be dealing with someone who is a certified loose cannon by the Doctor (who is one to say that). But she can’t stay home, so she puts on a pretty green dress and leather jacket. Both are old gifts from Heather, which she tries not to think about as she fastens a jade necklace around her neck.

It’s hours too early, but the Doctor invited her over for a chill version of pregaming for a nice restaurant, and Bill cannot refuse human contact. So she gets ready, chugs two cups of heavily caffeinated tea, and heads to the bus stop.

She walks with purpose, knowing she’s got a rather pretty dress on for walking around a university town. Not because she’s worried about being mugged, God, but because students love to give judgy looks. She still gets a few, standing at a grubby bus stop in an almost floor length silky dress, but she also gets some smiles. One shy student comes up to say she loves Bill’s dress.

She smiles, but there’s only a slight flutter of joy behind it. How can she be happy? Heather isn’t here.

Someone sits down beside her, and it takes Bill a moment to recognize who it is. “Yaz,” she says as she registers the woman beside her as being the same one from the group at St. Williams.

“Hey.” Yaz gives a sad, thin smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Going to see the Doctor. Our Doctor, from group. I’m not sick. You?”

“Ryan.” Yaz fiddles with her braid. It reminds Bill of seeing her at the first meeting. “Is your social circle also small?”

“It’s just the Doctor.”

Yaz chuckles. It’s not very humorful. Bill wonders what’s different. Usually at meetings, Yaz is able to perk up, joke with Ryan and Graham afterwards, call her friend Dan and ask for a ride while bantering about sports. She’s still grieving, but usually seems to be able to push her head above water.

“Are you alright?” Bill asks, because if she’s dealing with someone else she doesn’t have to deal with herself. She doesn’t realize how much like the Doctor that idea sounds.

“It’s been about a year since Thirteen died.” Yaz bites her lip. “I’m still trying to find out who she was. She fell into my life, never gave a full name. When she died, the whole thing was caught on camera, so there weren't any legal issues. But when I came to see her body, she had already been claimed, and I didn’t have any legal rights to anything. I’ve been trying to find out who she was since.”

“Oh.”

“That’s too much, I’m sorry.” Yaz shakes her head. “We don’t even know each other that well.”

Yaz had talked about it in meetings, but Bill had never gotten the full story. She’d only heard bits and pieces that Yaz had shared. It’s nice to know the whole thing. “It’s okay.”

Bill reminds herself of what the Doctor had said in their first meeting. That Vastra was there to remind herself that everyone had grief like hers. Maybe she should have done that, because Yaz’s own grief frees her. Any one of the people looking at her and her dress could carry a weight like hers.

She’s not alone.

“Which bus are you getting on?”

“Er.” Yaz checks her phone. “Sixteen.”

“That’s mine too. You want to ride with me?”

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

The bus is going to take a few minutes, so Bill gives Yaz her number so they can play word games against each other. They sit there, in mostly silence, only talking when the game calls for actual conversation or small jabs. By the time the bus arrives, they sit next to each other, and Yaz is telling Bill about her grandmother.

Bill thinks that Yaz was right: their social circles are so small. But that doesn’t have to stay true.

Yaz has to get off before Bill, standing and holding onto a bar. “Hey, text me,” Bill says. “I’d love to grab a drink. Not asking you out. Too soon. Just as friends.”

“Yeah, I’d love to.” Yaz heads out of the bus, and Bill smiles as she watches her walk away from the station. Only two more stops till the Doctor’s house.

She has to turn away from the window as the bus starts moving again, looking away from all the cars on the road with them. The only car she can be in is the TARDIS, and even then the Doctor needs to be the one driving. And she can’t look out the window too long without someone talking.

Bill doesn’t realize she’s shaking until they reach her stop and she can barely get up. But she makes herself move, and steps off the bus, trying not to make a scene. A Black woman in a fancy dress shaking and crying on a bus? That’s someone people judge without a second thought.

She walks the few blocks to the Doctor’s house and raps on the door. It swings open immediately, and the Doctor grins when they see her. “I’m baking bread,” they explain, “and I need someone to watch the oven because I need to get this song out of my head.”

She comes in, kicking off her heels, and the Doctor leads her to the kitchen. There’s a chair from the dining room already sitting in front of the oven. The Doctor guides her into sitting in it.

“Stay here,” they say, and then they’re off to somewhere else in the house. The oven has lights on. Bill watches it, even though it doesn’t seem to change from dough at all. She can hear the Doctor upstairs, rummaging around, and then excited feet scampering on the floor. She chuckles to herself, waiting for them.

They slide into the kitchen on socked feet (black with guitars) holding a red and white electric guitar in his hands and beaming.

“I have a song,” they say.

Bill smiles, and it’s so genuine it makes her feel guilty. “Yours or someone else’s?”

“Mine.” The Doctor hauls a barstool – where’d they get a barstool? – into the kitchen, sitting by Bill. She turns to face them, but they tut. “Watch the bread.” She looks back to the bread, aware of them resting their fingers on the guitar next to her.

Softly, they compose a tune. Gentle, yet so achingly yearning. But not sad. Just hopeful.

It washes over Bill, this terrible gorgeous melody, wrapping around her like a weighted blanket pushing her down. It feels comforting, but she wants to run away from it. There is something so densely awful in all the senses of the word. Both the modern and archaic. It pulls at her like it’s begging her to see something.

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the Doctor stops.

“Bill?”

She registers that there’s hot tears spilling over her cheeks and collecting on the collar of her dress. “Oh,” she breathes out. “I’m sorry.”

She registers the sound of the guitar being set down, and then the Doctor is standing by her, wiping tears off her cheeks. They’re not great at being tender, but it’s more than she’s been used to since Heather’s death, and it does nothing to quell her tears. If anything, she sobs harder.

The Doctor pulls her into a standing position and wraps their arms around her in perhaps the most awkward hug she’s ever had. It’s great. She clutches at the sweater they’re wearing and sobs, her full body shaking.

It’s relief personified. She hasn’t cried this good for so long. Before them, this, now there was no one running to comfort her. Now, the Doctor clings to her like the life raft she needs.

“Are you alright?” They finally ask as Bill’s sobs start to recede. She pulls away from them, standing in their kitchen, vulnerable and on display.

“I got eyeliner on your sweater.”

The Doctor glances down at their shoulder. They sigh softly and nod. “That you did. No worries. It’ll wash out.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, just don’t expect it again. I don’t do hugs.” The Doctor straightened their sweater, but their unwavering gaze on Bill never slipped from sympathetic. “I’ve got makeup upstairs if you want to try and fix yours.”

Bill raises her hand to under her eye and pulls it away. Black is smudged along her finger. “Yeah, I should probably deal with that.”

The Doctor follows her upstairs, sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, next to where their makeup is laid out. Bill gently dabs the tear streaks from her face. Thank God she barely wears makeup, or this could be much more of a mess.

“Is today special?” the Doctor asks.

“It’s her birthday,” Bill confesses.

“And you still wanted to come out with us?”

Bill shrugged, running the eyeliner pen over where the tears had washed some of it away. “The other option wasn’t better.” Her hand twitches, and the eyeliner smears over her cheek. “Fuck.”

The Doctor stands, carefully taking the pen out of Bill’s hand as she wipes the excess eyeliner off. “Here,” they say. She faces them, and they tilt her head, holding her in place with one hand as they use the other to clean up the eyeliner.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t start crying again,” they warn.

Bill chuckles wetly. “Got it, boss.”

“Do you smell that?” The Doctor asks. Bill pauses to sniff. Her eyes widen, but the Doctor says it before she can. “The bread!”

The two of them rush downstairs, with Bill turning off the oven as the Doctor grabs oven mitts. She opens it so they can grab the bread and set it down. It’s far browner than it should be, but looks salvageable. The Doctor breaks down laughing. And there’s no way Bill can help it: she does, too.

It’s not even funny, it’s just so ridiculous. It’s Heather’s birthday, and she came over to her friend’s house, they serenaded her, and now the bread almost burned. It’s not funny but it’s fucking hysterical. She and the Doctor clutch at each other, coupling over in half, cackling like it’s the funniest thing ever.

This is what Heather would have wanted, probably.

And for once, that thought doesn’t hurt.

The laughter fills the kitchen like the music did, just as hopeful and beautiful. It takes a while for it to fade, going from shrieks to giggles to slight hiccups. Bill and the Doctor don’t let go of each other, hands on biceps, leaning their weight on the other. Trusting they won’t fall. And even as the laughter ebbs away, the brightness stays in the kitchen.

“You don’t have to come out tonight,” the Doctor finally says.

“No. No.” She shakes her head, heart heavy but stomach light. “Heather wouldn’t want me to hide, or to not make friends. She’d want me to go out to dinner with you, Missy, and this mysterious Clara.”

“She’s not that mysterious.”

“I haven’t met her! We’re practically best friends now and I haven’t met her.”

The Doctor pauses, and a look passes over their face. Bill’s seen that look before, it’s the look they have when they can’t decide whether to make a joke or say something heart achingly genuine.

They must choose neither, or the joke isn’t funny, because they say, “I’m not hiding her from you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. It’s not like I’m entitled to your life.” Bill says it jokingly, but the look they give her back betrays both age and something incomprehensible and sad. But she understands, looking into their eyes that are so much older than them, that they think she is entitled.

“Well, if you want to,” the Doctor finally says. “I’m not against it. Do you want to try this bread?”

“Absolutely.”

“Grief doesn’t go away,” Jackie says. “It’s always there.”

But Bill has learned that while grief never shrinks, her heart can grow around it. The grief stays, but it hurts less most of the time. Sometimes it still grips her, tearing her to shreds while all she can do is sob Heather’s name. She still hates riding in cars that aren’t the TARDIS. She doesn’t wear the ring on her finger but keeps it on a chain around her neck. And everytime life starts to pull at her, she holds it like a rosary.

But she sees the Doctor when she can. They message almost every day, and he tells her about River and she responds in kind about Heather. It turns out they had the same favorite Indian restaurant. She sleeps at his place when her bed is too lonely, and they go to Pride together when June comes.

And they never stop going to the group. Not like Jackie, because they can’t let go of grief. But for routine, and to see the new faces. And there are still new faces, like a young blonde named Ruby.

She and Yaz meet up, realize they’ve got a lot in common, and immediately become close friends. They have game nights with Ryan, Yaz’s sister, and some friends their age every month. And even though Bill is a bit older than the rest of them, she fits right in. They get coffee, and since Bill’s mother was Muslim, Yaz teaches her about that. She even goes to the Mosque with her, once.

She and Jack run into each other at a gay club, and he pulls her along to dance with him since Ten won’t. He teaches her all his favorite dance moves and then all of Rose’s favorites. She buys him a drink in return, and they decide to go gay bar hopping when their schedules match up.

Ten and her form a book club, and they read their way through different texts. Classics, queer lit, Black lit. If either one of them sees a book and thinks it might be interesting, they send the Goodreads link to the other. She stacks up books, and the Doctor tells her later that they love to see the way she learns.

She starts going to the Doctor’s classes, not officially going to the University but sneaking into the lecture halls all the same. He gives her essay prompts and helps her learn all the things she never got a chance to when she left Uni.

“You smile when something’s complicated,” he tosses out one day, Bill cross-legged on his office floor, trying to defend a thesis. She looks up, red pen hovering over paper. “You know who that reminds me of?”

“Hmm?”

“My granddaughter.”

Bill’s back straightened and she stared at the Doctor. “You have a granddaughter?”

The Doctor chuckled. “Yeah, she’ll meet you one day. Her mom doesn’t really like me.” Bill wonders why that is, but she doesn’t ask. She knows he’ll tell her in time, just like everything else. “River used to say she was just like me. That was what she pointed out, the smiling when challenged.”

“Are you saying we’re alike?”

“Yes.”

Bill grins. Genuinely grins. “I like that.”

She visits Heather’s grave that evening, setting out a picnic blanket and nibbling at all of Heather’s favorite food, the food they’d never got to serve at the wedding. And she cries, tears streaking her face. But she laughs and smiles all the same, telling Heather’s engraved headstone about everything: Her life, Yaz, Jack, Ten, the Doctor.

She tells Heather that she better find River in Heaven, because Bill and the Doctor want to be able to hang out in the afterlife. She doesn’t really believe in the afterlife, but Heather is still there to her. Because it feels better, maybe, or because it’s nice to think Heather can hear her. It’s nice to think that she’s not just talking to dead air.

She can imagine Heather smiling. If she lets her guard down, it’s almost like Heather is standing behind her, smiling that perfect smile. Her eyes light up with joy, the star just as brilliant as the rest of her. The wind messes her hair up and she presses her hands to it to keep it out of her face.

Bill knows if she turns around Heather won’t be there, but it’s still nice to picture it.

She reaches out and presses her fingertips to the grave, to Heather’s name. In a few months, it would have read Heather Potts.

Bill cries and it aches just as much as it used to. But there’s a text waiting on her phone, and the next day she’ll feel better.

The Doctor: Made too much pasta. I’m rubbish in the kitchen. Don’t tell Clara. Do you want some?