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Christmas music played gently in the lab as the Doctor made the finishing touches on Yaz’s present. Yaz was at a physiotherapy session, still building strength as she recovered from her injuries, so the Doctor had stolen this time to work on her surprise. She knew Yaz didn’t celebrate Christmas. Neither did she, not really, but she loved this time of year and needed no excuse to spoil Yaz. It was her first first opportunity to unashamedly give a present that would show Yaz just how special she was to her. Afterall, the only other people she’d made sonics for were her wife and Sarah Jane Smith. She smiled as she made the final touches.
She’d obtained the multitool Hakim had given Yaz prior to their trip to Grimstone Weald. It had been recovered (and cleaned) by UNIT as they removed the Dalek shell from the ancient chapel. The Doctor felt bad that Hakim’s kind gesture had been sullied and wanted to help restore it to being a treasured possession. She’d carefully recovered the brass casing, complete with inscription from Hakim, and used it to form the handle of the sonic and a bunch of Sheffield steel spoons to craft the rest of the body. The intertwining of Yaz’s family and her history with the Doctor in a single item. The Doctor had taken a crystal from the TARDIS, all those months ago after she’d first returned, for exactly this purpose. With a final spark the work was done. She pressed the button and the crystal tip glowed red.
“Brilliant.”
The Doctor’s phone began to buzz. She slipped Yaz’s sonic into her pocket and picked up the phone.
“Hiya love, you finished?”
“Yeah, just. Where are you?”
The Doctor scanned the mess she’d made in the lab and decided it would be for the best if Yaz didn’t see this, lest she grow suspicious.
“I’ll meet you by the exit.”
“Alright. See you in a mo.” Yaz said sceptically.
The Doctor winced at how easily Yaz had become suspicious. All her own fault of course. She’d have to let Yaz know it was Christmas related rather than the Doctor retreating back into her old closed-off ways.
She arrived in the lobby to see Yaz in urgent conversation with Osgood.
“Doctor!” Yaz beckoned her over. “Take a look at this.”
Osgood showed the Doctor a blurry CCTV image. The Doctor leant in, squinting, before snapping back up in alarm.
“A Pting?! How? Where?”
“I can’t help you with the how, but it appears to be causing havoc in a warehouse in Seven Sisters.”
“What? The Seven Sisters are 444 lightyears away?”
“Nell’s talking about Tottenham, Doctor”
“Oh! That does make more sense. Although there are a few excellent warehouses up by Sterope II”
“Doctor!”
“Ah, yes, Pting.” The Doctor turned from Yaz to Nell. “Nell, do you have any blankets and timed explosives to hand?”
As they barrelled through London in a UNIT van, the Doctor informed Yaz, Nell and the soldiers of the plan. She’d attract the Pting with the explosives, pick up the docile Pting with the blanket and carefully place it in a containment unit Nell had developed to temporarily house more troublesome aliens. made it very clear that no one other than her was to enter the warehouse. However, as they arrived, Yaz jumped out of the car, following her into the warehouse.
“I meant you too, Yaz.”
Yaz gave the Doctor a steely look. She opened her mouth to argue but the Doctor continued before the human could speak.
“You’ve just finished physio, you must be tired and I don’t want to put you at risk.”
“I was discharged today.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Congrats!” The Doctor dropped the containment chamber and blanked, pulling Yaz into a hug. “I just want you to be safe.”
“And I want to make sure you’re safe too.”
“Okay.” She threw the blanket over to Yaz. “Stay close.”
Yaz smiled as she walked alongside the Doctor. The Time Lord couldn’t help but smile. It was like old times - her and Yaz in their element. They crept into the warehouse trying to track the Pting, the Doctor trying to track it with her sonic. The place was trashed. What had once clearly been a highly organised warehouse was now in ruins. Whole shelving units overturned and wooden crates smashed open. As they inspected the mess, the Doctor grabbed Yaz’s arm in surprise.
“Is this UNIT warehouse?”
“No, why?”
“That’s an Arcturan helium regenerator.” She pointed to an object on the floor. “And those are plasma coils from a Judoon H2O scoop. Yaz, this place is full of alien tech.”
“What do we do?”
“Lets get the Pting first and then figure out who’s been collecting this stuff later.”
Their heads snapped to the left in unison as something came crashing to the ground in the room next to them. Yaz opened the blanket as the Doctor removed the explosives from her pocket and they rushed towards the noise. Then, another crash came from directly behind them.
“I don’t remember Pting being that fast, Doctor.”
“No.”
“Do you think there’s two of them?”
“Maybe.”
“We could split up.”
“Yaz, no.”
Loud crashes came from both directions.
“I’ll be careful. Promise.”
The Doctor gave Yaz a searching look.
“I can see why you hated this.”
The Doctor gave a surprised Yaz a quick peck on the cheek before running into the room ahead of them.
“Come on Pting, I know you’re here. I’ve got a lovely energy source for you.”
The Doctor started the timer, setting it down on the floor and slowly backing away.
60 Seconds
The Pting crawled out from under a box and made a skittish approach towards the explosive.
30 Seconds
“You guys like to take your time don’t you?!”
15 Second
Just as it reached the explosive, the Pting popped its head up and ran out of the room.
5 seconds
The Doctor ran over to the explosive and stopped the timer.
1 second.
She let out a sigh of relief.
“That were close, Yaz.” Then she remembered. “YAZ!”
The Doctor grabbed the containment unit and sprinted to the other end of the warehouse, following the sonic to Yaz’s signal. She turned through a maze of corridors and leapt over debris in her haste. She skidded as she cornered into another room and then froze.
Yaz stood, staring at a Weeping Angel. Tears streaming down her face she carefully closed one eye, opened it, then closed the other so she could maintain sight of it.
“Yaz, I’m here.” The Doctor carefully approached the brunette from behind, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “Keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll get us out of this.”
The Doctor scanned the room for anything that could help. Panic rose as she ruled out object after object. She could feel Yaz trembling; guilt rose in the Doctor knowing Yaz had already lost three years in the past thanks to an Angel. At least they’d be together if they got sent back in time.
Then the Pting came crashing into the room, bounding toward the Angel. It leapt up towards it, unhinged its jaw and bit the Angel’s head clean off.
“What?!” The Doctor gripped Yaz’s shoulder tighter.
The Pting continued to eat the rest of the Angel, before curling up and falling asleep. The Doctor gently removed the blanket from Yaz’s hands, picked up the Pting and locked it into the containment chamber. She returned to Yaz, who was still frozen to the spot. The Doctor placed a hand on the brunette’s cheek.
“Yaz love, it’s okay. It’s okay.” The Doctor wiped away a tear from Yaz’s face. “You’re safe. It’s gone.”
“I were looking at it for so long. What if- I mean, you said-”
“You’re worried there’s one in your head?”
Yaz nodded meekly.
“I can check if you want.”
“Please.”
The Doctor closed her eyes and brought her other hand to Yaz’s face. She felt a huge amount of fear, but no Angel.
“You’re all good. No angel.”
Yaz pulled the Doctor in for a hug. The Doctor rubbed soothing patterns into Yaz’s back.
“Well, I can’t say I expected that.” The Doctor said eventually.
Yaz gave a wet chuckle.
“Why would a Pting eat an Angel?”
“Angels survive on ‘potential energy’, the lives people might have had. It’s extremely potent and probably not something a Pting has been able to access before.”
“Could it come back?”
“I’m pretty sure the digestive juices of the Pting are strong enough to prevent the Angel from reforming. Which is not a sentence I thought I’d say this morning.”
Yaz gave another small chuckle but her smile did not entirely reach her eyes. The Doctor was glad to hear Yaz laugh but felt a pang at her obvious distress. The Doctor had heard a couple of stories about Yaz’s time in the past - she and Dan had told her about their time in Mexico after they’d returned the pot to Mayan temple. However, Yaz hadn’t offered much more and the Doctor, too consumed with guilt, hadn’t asked. The alien felt ashamed as she realised her guilt was precisely why Yaz didn’t talk about it. She resolved to ask Yaz more about it. It was an important chunk of Yaz’s life and it wasn’t fair she didn’t feel able to talk about it.
“Looks like the Angel was in some sort of status chamber.” Yaz said as she poked around the wreckage of the room.
“Yeah. Worrying that someone seems to have collected one.”
“I wonder if the Pting was also stored here until it escaped?”
“I think you might be right. But I think it’s something for UNIT to look into.”
“Really?”
“Well they can do all the forensics, fingerprints and that type of stuff right? And anyway, we’ve got more important things to do.”
“Do we?”
“Yes we do Yasmin Khan.”
By the time they got home the Doctor’s giddiness was matched only by Yaz’s confusion.
“Doctor, can you tell me what’s going on?”
“So.” The Doctor began excitedly. “I’ve been working on a surprise for you whilst you’ve been in your physio sessions.”
“Oh yeah?” Yaz gave a big grin.
“It was supposed to be for Christmas, but after today I’m not sure it can wait.”
The Doctor guided Yaz to sit on their purple sofa. The Doctor crouched on the floor in front of her.
“That Angel today scared you and I know you feel like you can’t talk about your time in the past with me.”
“Doctor, that’s not- I mean-, look we don’t have to-”
The Doctor took Yaz’s hands into her own.
“Yaz, you don’t have to talk about it. Not if you don’t want to. And I’ve got no right to tell you not to bottle stuff up. But I worry that you’re trying to preserve my feelings at the expense of your own. I can’t give you back your lost years, but I can make sure you don’t lose any more years.”
“What do you mean?”
“This was supposed to be a Christmas present but…” The Doctor poked her tongue out as she scrabbled around her pockets, “ah ha! Here. Your very own sonic.”
The Doctor handed Yaz the sonic to Yaz, who inspected it reverently.
“I hope you don’t mind - I wanted to take the gift your Dad gave you and his sentiment about you deserving your own tool and remove all the bad memories from when you know-”
“I got stabbed with it?” Yaz said with a smirk.
“Yeah.” The Doctor said nervously, worried she’d misjudged it. “Is that okay? I’ve not got this wrong have I?”
Yaz dropped down onto the floor and pulled the Doctor into a hug.
“I love it. Really.” Yaz pulled back and inspected the sonic again, tracing a finger over the engraving from her Dad. “It’s like you’ve pulled together both sides of my life - travelling with you and my family.”
“That’s what I thought too! But it’s more than that. It works as a sonic, just like mine. But I’ve made it so it has a unique signature. One that can be tracked across time and space. So as long as you’ve got this on you, you’ll never be lost. Because I cannot, will not, lose you again. Okay?”
Yaz gave a teary nod before pulling the Doctor in for a hug.
“Thank you.”
Yaz gave the button an experimental press and the nearby radio blared into life at full volume. The Doctor lunged over to it pulling out the plug, silencing the din.
“I think you might need to give me some lessons!” Yaz laughed.
“I think I might.”
“Before you do, I think it’s only fair I give you your present.”
The smile on the Doctor’s face grew bigger.
Yaz scuttled to the bedroom and the Doctor chuckled as she could hear Yaz digging around to find the gift.
“Why have you hidden the present so thoroughly?” The Doctor called through to Yaz.
“Have you met yourself?” Yaz shouted back. Then a beat later. “That was rhetorical before you answer back. I know you’ve met yourself!”
The Doctor pouted. Yaz slinked back into the living room and kissed the pout off the Doctor’s face, before handing her a larger box.
“Yaz, this is huge!”
The Doctor excitedly ripped off the wrapping paper, opened the lid of the box and gave a shocked gasp.
“Oh my word. Yaz! How did you know?! I’ve always wanted one of these!”
The Doctor stood up, pushed her hair back and placed the Canadian Mountie hat on her head and strutted proudly around the front room.
“Does it suit me Yaz? Silly question. Of course it does.”
The Doctor jumped, as if she could physically contain her excitement, before running into the bathroom and checking herself out in the mirror.
“I knew it.” The Doctor said with complete satisfaction. “No wonder you fell for me. Look how sexy I am!”
Yaz rolled her eyes.
“You know, I’ve never been to Canada.”
“Yeah you have, didn’t go see that talking cat when I was looking for the astronaut in Hong Kong?”
“Oh, but that was Niagara Falls, so it doesn’t really count.” The Doctor said dismissively.
Yaz raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I’ve never met a Mountie.”
“Well, you’re lucky I have law enforcement pals across the world.”
“None of them looked as good in the hat as I did though? Did they?”
“I didn’t know you were this needy.”
“I’m worried you didn’t reply. You don’t have a secret mountie lover in the Yukon?”
“You should see her swing an axe when she’s cutting wood for our cosy evenings in front of the fire.” Yaz laughed as the Doctor frowned. “Of course I don’t! But unfortunately your head is much too big for me to be inflating it further.”
“I was thinking maybe we could snuggle up and you could tell me about your time in the past. If you want.”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”