Work Text:
The Doctor:
Yaz, I miss you. I miss your presence. I miss your bravery. I miss how you’d go investigate things and find out more and always, always work for justice. I miss the wonder in your eyes when I’d take you places. Yaz I miss you more than anything and I don’t know when I’ll ever escape this prison. I mean, maybe it’s what I deserve. I did get evaluated for over 7000 crimes. Hah, and you’re a police officer. If you knew about these crimes I wonder what you’d say right now. You’d probably make a clever remark. I don’t know. Haven’t actually revealed that side of me to you. So, who’s to say?
The red light above her beeps, indicating it’s time for her exercise. The Doctor gets up begrudgingly and obeys, jumping along, and feeling the beat of her two hearts in her ears.
Yaz, I wish you were here right now. I miss company. I miss my friends. I miss my fam. I miss you most of all. My spacewoman. The spacewoman who travelled the stars. Wait - Space-police-officer-woman? Spacepolicewoman? Star-Yaz? I don’t know. You’re my favourite. Shh. Don’t tell Ryan or Graham. They’re my fam but I really, really, like you.)
The Doctor pauses her star jumps and her exercise routine. It’s time for food again. Black brick, impossibly nutritiously dense gravel tasting agar-based food. She thinks about herself. Fragments of memories and emotions scattered across the forest that is her two hearts. She thinks about Rose. Clara. Bill. She’s really, truly, scared that she’ll lose Yaz if she speaks about her love out loud. Irrational fear. But she’ll get reckless. She’ll show Yaz somewhere and it’ll unlock a Pandora’s box of pain and the loop will repeat.
No, it’ll be different this time. She’ll stay careful. Won’t she? There’s too much going on in the back of her mind because she’s still dizzied from all the input of the Matrix. Thank goodness she has time to think, sort things out.
Yaz - oh, you’re so beautiful. Oh - can I say that? Am I allowed to say that? You’re more beautiful than the stars sometimes Yaz (and the stars are everything to me) - I mean, the universe is only complete with a Yaz in it. Yaz you’re so beautiful and everything about you is so completely utterly breathtaking and gorgeous and powerful. Yaz I promise I will see you again and I promise that I will make it out of this jail before I regenerate and before anything happens so that I can find you again. Oh, I miss you so very much Yaz. I love you. I actually really do.
The Doctor finishes her ‘meal’, placing the metal plate back down in place and sliding the fork in the collection box. The light above her flashes orange, and she sits back on her bed. She traces a love heart in the air with her finger. So much time, so many memories and thoughts needing untangling and making sense of, and all she does is think of Yaz. She doesn’t feel complete without Yaz. She doesn’t feel like she needs to figure herself out because she has someone who only cares about who she is now (even if she doesn’t know). She wishes she were less socially awkward in this body so she could maybe try to talk about it. Get the words out, without mind-freezing, or overcomplicating the words, or something. The Doctor anxiously taps her fingers in the rhythm of her heartbeat against the cold metal bed she’s perched on.
When Jack Harkness comes to rescue her the first person she thinks about is Yaz. She misses her fam. She misses Yaz. She puts on her smiling face, her excited disposition masking the weariness of twenty years of maximum security solitary cell Judoon prison. And Yaz pushes her. But she’s thankful to feel Yaz’s hands against her again. She’s thankful she’s back. She’s with Yaz. And the TARDIS. And her fam. The people who only judge her for who she is now, in the moment, in this body/regeneration. The people who embrace her with open arms and allow part of her to remain a mystery, because she is all they need her to be in the present moment.
She’s back with Yaz and it feels like home.
Yaz and the Doctor. The Doctor and Fam. This feels right. Oh, I’ve missed them.
Yaz:
Doctor, I miss you. I miss you more than anything. I miss your voice. I miss your excitement and the sound of the TARDIS. I miss going on adventures with you and seeing more than I could have ever imagined. I miss the feeling of being safe by your side and I miss the feeling of you announcing who you are with the psychic paper and then stepping up as your assistant, or your liutenant, or officer, or just friend. Doctor, where are you?
Yaz presses another one of her sticky notes onto the TARDIS panel. It’s late. She brushes her teeth and curls into her sleeping bag, gazing at the beeping and flashing circuit of the TARDIS control centre like it’s the night sky. If only it were the night sky and the Doctor was lost in one of the stars. Yaz dreams of calling out the Doctor’s name as she tumbles through a maze in the sky, twinkling lights above her. The Doctor needs her help, she feels it.
Doctor, there must be clues somewhere, right? I mean, this is a TARDIS, this is a TARDIS that recognised our biological circuits and brought us home after barely any programming so does it have a connection to you? Can I perhaps use the TARDIS to talk to you? Doctor, you wouldn’t have just left us, right? Doctor, are you even alive? I feel like I’ve lost hope. You’re alive, right? You are really alive? You can’t be dead because that isn’t allowed, that isn’t possible. The Doctor doesn’t die.
Yaz wonders what happened between the Doctor and the Master (O?) in the past, and what happened between them in Gallifrey. Yaz wonders why she walked through a beautiful planet burned to ashes, and why the Doctor had never mentioned that before. Yaz wonders what secrets the Doctor is hiding and why the Doctor doesn’t tell Yaz and the fam about any of it.
It’s Monday morning. She has to get to work. Police Officer Yaz, PC Khan, whatever. Same old. Her mind is absent, she’s thinking about the Doctor. More parking tickets? More convenience store thefts? Yaz misses the real adventure. Saving the world. She feels so stagnant and small here. PC Khan smiles at the little kids who walk by her in her uniform and reassures them they’ll be okay when they’re near a case. PC Khan is fast; almost promoted, but a little bit absentminded and distracted to make it up the ranks this time (her boss says).
It’s cold, so Yaz stays in her bedroom tonight. She writes a letter.
Doctor, please come back. Please. I know you’re out there and I know you’re waiting to be found and I’ll be back here. Please.
She draws a dual star system in the corner of the page, labelling the larger, brighter one ‘Doctor’ and the smaller, softer one with rings around it ‘Yaz’.
I can’t survive without you Doctor. Not until you tell me what’s going on. Not until you let me help.
The Doctor’s back and suddenly the ten months of waiting have faded to dust. The Doctor’s back and she’s home again. Yaz is worried, she’s scared this moment won’t last - she’s scared this moment will be so small and just a goodbye before the Doctor leaves her alone again (and she doesn’t like being alone) but she takes a deep breath. The Doctor is here, she’ll save us, she’ll make everything okay. We’re safe now, because the Doctor is here. And Yaz doesn’t have to keep searching, keep worrying.
Yaz breathes a sigh of relief and lets the warmth of the Doctor’s presence fill her heart. Then they work to stop the Daleks. Save the world again. Yaz missed this - she missed this so very much. She missed the Doctor and her TARDIS and her magnificent clever plans. And then things start to flow again - Yaz is promoted for her restored focus and diligence as a police officer. Her job’s going well, she’s getting really good at running from her time with the Doctor, and things are sailing smooth.
Oh.
It’s just Yaz and the Doctor now.
They sit in the TARDIS for a while after Ryan and Graham leave - in a little hidden corner, away from the chaotic clicking and beeping of the main command panels.
They let themselves both feel sad for a while, but then Yaz suggests that it’s okay because she’ll invite Ryan and Graham and the Doctor over for an earthly tradition of tea, maybe every fortnight, so they don’t completely miss out on each other. The Doctor smiles.
“Tea at Yaz’s?”
“Yes, tea at Yaz’s. But let’s give them some time to settle back into Earth flow and calm down from the mess. Doctor, I’d really like to visit that meringue restaurant if you’re ready!”
Yaz just wants a distraction from it all, really. The Doctor, too. Both of them just want some excitement and delight from the universe away from the fam-shaped hole in their hearts. The meringue restaurant is incredible. They have five courses of meringue (in different flavours and textures – there’s silky meringue and cotton candy meringue and even a bioluminescent meringue that tastes like lemonade). Yaz listens to the Doctor chat about the different themed restaurants on this side of the galaxy they’re in, about how there used to be a sherbet themed amusement park but it was upgraded into another Candyland. It’s a nice distraction.
When the meringue night is over, Yaz asks the Doctor to take them both to a place of peace and quiet. She asks the Doctor if they can go sit by a beach, so the Doctor takes them the planet with the longest sunset and they find themselves perched on the edge of some smooth rocks overlooking the setting dual star system and occasionally splashed with rosy sea water. The Doctor looks so peaceful here, her hair blowing in the breeze, sunlight reflecting like gold in her irises. Yaz wonders what the Doctor is thinking. She feels her own hair blow in the wind, and she’s reminded of when she sat like this on top of a grass hill, next to that police officer, when she was fifteen. It was similar to this; breezy, quiet, high up with a nice view. She felt like she was on top of the world, and nothing else mattered. She was running away both times. But it was different now. She had her beautiful alien friend, the Doctor. The best person/alien she’d ever met. And things were different because she has hope now and she’s a police officer and high school is over, forever. No going back to those times.
The Doctor never really prodded about Yaz’s past, or her mental health, but Yaz assumed the Doctor knew. The Doctor was soft when depression was brought up, treading softly with Yaz, and treated Yaz gently when she sensed Yaz was having a hard day. She assumed the Doctor would have figured out things, based on how clever and inquisitive she was in the face of alien corporations or cult-like organisations. Though Yaz was grateful. It was nice to have someone who just understood and took things as they were, with no judgement. She thought it may have been the same with the Doctor. She met the Doctor and she didn’t know anything about the Doctor’s past. But that was okay. She knew the Doctor now, and that’s all that mattered. Except for when the Doctor shut her out. Or left for months at a time, without even signalling or asking for help. She really, really didn’t like that. She also didn’t know how to get the Doctor to talk about it.
“Can I hold your hand, Doctor?” Yaz asks.
The Doctor nods. “Of course Yaz, I’m a tactile person. Anytime.”
So Yaz holds the Doctor’s hands, clasps their fingers tightly together, and leans her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. She feels safe with the Doctor, and she feels the faint pulsing of the Doctor’s heart. It’s steady, it’s beautiful and rhythmic and melodic almost, like the Doctor is in touch with the sea and the nature and the universe, like the Doctor is beating in synchrony with the universe and is her cradle in this world. Yaz feels so safe and the Doctor is comforted by Yaz’s warmth. The Doctor has become accustomed to the cold, to feeling alone and empty and solitary. The Doctor has experienced being alone for too long now and she’s so beyond grateful to cuddle with Yaz in the most peaceful safe haven planet of this galaxy.
“Doctor?” Yaz asks, after a while.
“Yes, Yaz?” the Doctor replies, shifting to stroke Yaz’s hair.
“I really, really missed you when you were gone. And I was really scared that you just wouldn’t come back, that you’d leave us somehow here. I was really so scared, Doctor.”
“I know Yaz, I’m so so so sorry about it. It must have been so much and I missed you so much, every day, when I was in the Judoon prison, as well.”
“Will you leave me again, Doctor?”
“Yaz, I would never leave you again and I never intended to, ever. What happened was a mistake and I really didn’t mean to do it. And… leaving you in that TARDIS set to home coordinates without an explanation was something I did because I thought I was going to die. I mean, I was going to do it, I was going to wipe out myself and all the others. I was truly so terrified Yaz and everything was exploding in my head and I rushed it all a bit. I’m genuinely so sorry.”
Yaz doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to apologise just yet because she’s still scared that the Doctor will leave again, because the Doctor is just filled with mysteries locked in mysteries and she’s scared the Doctor will never let her in.
“What really happened in the ten months you were gone, Doctor? How long was it for you? What’s changed? You’re different, somehow. You feel different. Distant. Doctor, what’s going on?”
The Doctor doesn’t want to talk about the Master. But she will talk about Judoon prison, because Yaz deserves to know she really couldn’t have done anything to escape. So she tells Yaz about how she was trialled for her space crimes and captured as a fugitive of the Judoon and in the maximum security prison for twenty years, 79 billion light years away from Earth.
“Oh, Doctor, why didn’t you tell us? That’s so incredibly much for you, Doctor, and too much for you to carry by yourself. Of course I forgive you, of course it’s okay, I just want to know what’s going on next time. Doctor, I just want to know what’s going on with you so you don’t have to keep hiding parts of yourself and pretending things are okay when they’re really not.”
Yaz wraps her arms around the Doctor’s chest, pressing her head to the two hearts, feeling them pulse against her ears. The Doctor returns the embrace, truly cradling Yaz again. Yaz mutters that she’s getting cold by the sea, so they get up and return to the TARDIS and get their blankets and pillows and the Doctor takes them to watch intergalactic fireworks from a distance in the year 170,092.
“Doctor, I love you so much. Thank you for saving me and showing me what the universe has to offer. I’m so glad you’re back.”
“I’m so glad you’re back too, Yaz. I’m so glad you’re with me, exploring the universe with me, I’m so glad you’re here, Yaz.”