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The TARDIS landed with a lurch that nearly sent Yaz sprawling.
“This time you’re sure, Doc?” Graham had managed to keep his feet by virtue of hanging grimly onto a lever on the console. The Doctor elbowed him away as she came ‘round, twisting dials and flicking switches.
“Yes I’m sure! Right behind those doors is Sheffield, 2018. Just as you left it.”
“Only, it’s been how many tries now…?”
“Four,” volunteered Ryan. He’d been tossed fully off his feet by the rough landing, but picked himself up with good humour. “No, five. If you count the…”
“The swamp planet, yeah.” Yaz grinned at Ryan. She had a palm pressed to one warm crystal column for balance. Even now that the ship had stilled she could feel it thrum under her touch; alive.
Graham made a face. “Don’t remind me; I’m still picking slime out my hair.”
“Oi, I apologized for that!” The Doctor popped her head up from behind the console. She made a face, nose wrinkling. “And, er. I think you’ve still got some… Er. Right about-” She indicated a spot behind her own ear. Graham’s face collapsed in disgust and his fingernails came up, scrubbing at his scalp. Yaz stifled the urge to laugh at the comic horror on his face.
Yaz had lost count of the days since the Doctor had dropped from the clear Sheffield sky. Life with her was a whirlwind; it was hard to keep track when hopping through space and time was as easy as stepping through those blue police box doors. They’d been aiming for home since Desolation – but the Doctor, as it turned out, had only haphazard control of her ship. They’d hit five planets so far, none of them Earth.
Not that Yaz was complaining. They’d seen the most incredible things: stars and spaceships, alien planets, actual aliens… It was hard to get her head around. She still wasn’t convinced she wasn’t dreaming, or hallucinating. This time last week she’d been facing down a lifetime of tedium on Earth. Parking tickets and paperwork. But now…
Graham brushed his hair in quick strokes, nose wrinkled. Across the console, the Doctor was hanging on the monitor, pointing something out to Ryan.
… now, anything seemed possible.
The Doctor whacked one last instrument on the console into alignment, then headed for the doors at an awkward jog, coat flapping.
She skidded to a halt and gestured grandly at Yaz. “Do the honours?”
Yaz grinned. She put her palms to the warm blue wood of the TARDIS doors and pushed. They swung open, and she stepped out into a nighttime street.
For a moment, she thought the Doctor had done it. Her feet touched cobblestone and she breathed in Earth-neutral air, inhaling its familiar mix of atmospheric gasses. Yaz had never noticed before, but it was so obvious now that she’d stood on alien planets and breathed alien air. The balance of oxygen to nitrogen to argon; the pollens and pollutants… it all had a scent, a texture, totally different from anywhere else.
She took a deep breath. She’d survived the silent vacuum of space, crashing spaceships, and killer robots. She should be glad to be back on solid Earth.
She turned back towards the TARDIS. The Doctor was still framed in the doorway. Her hair shone golden in the lamplight…
… lamplight?
The Doctor was hung half out the TARDIS door, brow wrinkled in a frown. Her pale profile was lit not by the white, steady glow of electric lights but the yellow flicker of gas lamps.
Yaz took another whiff of Earth air. It carried a distinct sour tang. She wrinkled her nose.
Graham and Ryan piled out into the street, carrying the Doctor with them. Graham placed his hands on his hips, glancing around, eyebrows creased. Now that Yaz was looking, she could see that the cobblestones were thick with dirt. The street was lined with dim, trapezoidal gaslights. The stubby brick buildings, hunched close around them, indicated that they were in the heart of the city, but it was curiously quiet; the background hum of traffic and machinery was utterly absent.
“No offense Doc,” Graham said, “but this don’t exactly look like home.”
The Doctor was pacing the cobblestone. She had her sonic out, scanning the air around a nearby streetlamp. Her coat buffed and flared as she moved. The glow of the sonic melded with the yellow of the lamplight, casting her face in gold.
As Yaz watched, the Doctor stuck out her tongue and licked the lamppost.
“Doc!”
“Doctor!”
Graham and Ryan made identical faces of horrified disgust. Even Yaz winced a little.
The Doctor turned back to them. She stuffed her fist with the sonic in one pocket. “Okay…” she began, “so we might be a smidgen off.”
Graham eyed her. “… how off?”
“Just a little! We’re not that far from Sheffield.” Her nose wrinkled. “Er. Relatively speaking.”
Graham sighed. “Lay it on us Doc.”
“Not far at all!” She grinned, too bright. She raised her arms and spun, coat flaring. “Welcome to London!”
“Oh.” Graham studied the lamppost. “Well. I guess that’s-”
A clattering, rattling filled the air. Yaz jumped, turning in time to see a horse-drawn coach turn onto their street, clattering down the cobblestones at a brisk jog. Two short, shaggy ponies trotted unflinching towards them, driver slouched on the seat, one loose hand on the reins. Ryan had to scramble into the shelter of the TARDIS’ broad side so as not to be trampled.
Yaz and the boys leaned out to watch as the coach passed down their street and cut a sharp corner onto another. They turned back to the Doctor.
She stuck both hands in her pockets, the corners of her mouth twisting apprehensively. “Er, London, 1896. First of October, eight forty-two PM. To be exact.” She eyed them. “I did say relatively close.”
Graham sighed.
“Cool,” breathed Ryan, eying the corner where the coach had turned off.
Yaz turned. A new wave of wonder hit her. “We’re in the past?” She asked. Somehow, this was harder to get her head around than alien planets or futuristic spaceships. “Like, of Earth?”
The Doctor grinned. “Yep!” She opened her arms again as if to encompass the whole of the dark city, tilting her face up to the sky. There were more stars in it than Yaz remembered from her own time. “Your world, Yasmin Khan, the world you were born in? It’s being built right here, right now. Every brick, every breath. Your very own history, happening around you!”
“Gonna be honest, Doctor,” Ryan wrinkled his nose. “History doesn’t smell great.”
“Yeah, alright!” She wrinkled her nose right back. “Suppose they’re still working out some kinks in the sewage system…”
Yaz was still trying to fathom it. Eighteen ninety-six… that was more than a century before she’d even be born. Even her Nani wasn’t born yet.
She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly alone. On the whole of planet Earth right now, there were only three people who knew her. And one of them wasn’t even human.
The Doctor glanced at her. Yaz had the uncomfortable thought – which she’d had more than once in their brief acquaintance – that the Doctor knew exactly what she was thinking. But the Doctor didn’t say anything; she just pulled her sonic out her pocket.
“Now,” she began, holding it out. “I know what you’re thinking: why are we in London, 1896 if we were aiming for Sheffield, 2018?”
“I was wonderin’, yeah,” Graham said, shooting Yaz and Ryan a dry look.
“Looks like the TARDIS was pulled off course.” She brought the sonic almost to her nose. “By some weird energy readings. And I mean weird. I haven’t seen something like this since…” She trailed off, head tilted, brow furrowed.
“… since?” Ryan prompted.
The Doctor dropped the sonic and straightened her shoulders. “What do you think?” She leaned towards them, eyes bright. “Shall we take a quick look at 1896?”
The three humans exchanged glances. The dim street was silent but, now that she was listening for it, Yaz could hear the faint background thrum of the city. Carriages rattled by on nearby streets; thready strains of music wafted faintly from some distant gathering; and Yaz could make out occasional bursts of laughter or voices. There were people out there – real people, real and alive even though they’d died decades before Yaz’s own birth.
Anticipation hummed in her chest.
Graham set his mouth, stern, but Yaz could see the same spark in his eye. “I suppose,” he hedged, “a few minutes couldn’t hurt?”
*
They picked up the trail almost immediately. The Doctor paced forwards, sonic held aloft, talking nonstop. She talked to herself as much as to them, Yaz thought. Yaz didn’t follow most of the lecture, but she gathered they were tracking the energy signature to its origin.
“So…” Ryan was trying valiantly to keep up with the technobabble. “It’s aliens?”
“Not necessarily,” the Doctor responded. She was distracted, one eye on the sonic. “Could be aliens. Or time travelers mucking about where they shouldn’t. Or just good old humans, breaking the laws of physics a couple centuries early. You lot never stop surprising me.” She tilted her head at that, smiling up at Ryan. He shifted a little, embarrassed.
It was a nice night, if a bit chilly. A breeze had sprung up, plucking at Yaz’s hair and sleeves, and carrying a cloying mix of smells. She tugged her jacket closer around herself.
Graham, hands in pockets, had his eyes on the people as they walked. Yaz too was hard-pressed to keep her eyes forward; the city and the people were fascinating to her. Women in cloaks and wide dark skirts; men in surprisingly modern jackets. There were more animals than she would have expected, too: dogs, stray cats, stocky horses bearing riders or pulling carts. She even caught sight of a couple goats.
Eventually, Graham cleared his throat, cutting short the Doctor’s lecture on particle physics. “Er.” She glanced over at him. “I’m not sure we’re dressed for this, Doc…”
Graham was right. Yaz crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly intensely conscious of her jeans and pleather jacket. With the exception of herself and the Doctor, none of the women were even wearing trousers.
But the Doctor shrugged, unconcerned. “TARDIS has clothes if you want ‘em. But honestly, the layers in this century. Not worth it.”
“Won’t we get noticed?” Yaz glanced down at herself. Her twenty-first century trainers, dirty with alien mud.
The Doctor shook her head. “Fashion,” she declared, “is all about confidence.”
Ryan caught Yaz’s eye at that and she had to stifle a giggle. You had to be pretty confident, she supposed, to pull off the Doctor’s combination of colours.
The Doctor ducked down one side street, and then another, sonic still aloft, still following whatever invisible energy signal she’d picked up. There were fewer people here, and Yaz stuck close on her heels. Her eyes slid by squat brick houses, a spotted dog, another horse-drawn cart headed for the main road…
Someone screamed.
It echoed off walls, carrying unmistakable terror. Two steps ahead of Yaz, the Doctor jerked into motion, heels skidding on the cobblestone, coat flaring. Yaz took off too, half a breath behind. Dimly, she heard the boys tailing.
They passed a young woman pressed up against a wall, eyes wide, her arms tight around two small children. She gestured furiously towards an alley across the street. Barely slowing, the Doctor gave a sharp nod and darted towards it. The three humans curved to follow.
Even before they turned the corner, Yaz could hear the clash and screech of metal. Adrenaline surged; she tilted forwards, running headlong until-
The Doctor came skidding to a halt. Yaz, close behind, almost slammed right into her. For a moment she teetered, catching her breath and her balance, heels sliding on the cobblestone. Eyes trying to process what she was seeing: two hulking, dark-cloaked figures, hefting actual swords, facing off against a third.
Whatever conflict they’d walked in on, Yaz wasn’t sure they wanted any part of it. But the Doctor, as she was rapidly learning, had no self-preservation instincts whatsoever.
“Excuse me,” she called. Brightly, like you might do to a friend on the street.
“Doc!” hissed Graham in a horrified undertone.
Slowly, the cloaked men turned.
The Doctor was unarmed, and small in the mouth of the alley. Feet set wide, hands tucked into her pockets, she hardly looked ready to face off against multiple armed men. Yaz’s heartrate tripled. She tensed; to fight, or to grab the Doctor and run.
The men hefted their swords. The Doctor held up her empty hands.
“Now that,” she said, levering a finger at one of the men, a schoolteacher’s disapproval in her voice, “is an interesting bit of jewelry.”
Yaz’s gaze focused in, following the Doctor’s pointing finger. One of the men had a large crystal hanging on a chain around his neck. It shimmered, catching more light than should have been possible in the dim alley. It seemed… odd. But Yaz couldn’t quite put a word to how or why.
“How,” the Doctor murmured into the silence, “on Earth did you come by it?”
But the men didn’t have a chance to answer. Behind them, the third swordsman launched himself forwards. Taking full advantage of the distraction, he leveled an arching sweep at the man with the crystal. The Doctor jerked forward, eyes wide, hand outstretched like she could halt a blade. Yaz’s breath stopped.
Somehow, he dodged the blow. The swordsman neatly reversed his swing but it was too late; the man with the crystal grabbed his friend and they vanished in a burst of white light.
Yaz blinked, trying to clear the sunspots from her eyes.
“Okay.” The Doctor stared at the spot where they’d vanished. “Okay, I don’t mean to worry you, team. Team? Gang? Fam?” Graham leveled a look at her. She made an abortive gesture with one hand. “But we have about thirty-one minutes to save the world.”
“You think?” The third swordsman moved closer. Or rather – Yaz’s brows rose – swordswoman. The voice was a woman’s, and, Yaz realized, she was wearing wide skirts. In the deep shadows of the alley, she hadn’t been able to tell.
She stopped a few meters away; right on the spot the two men had vanished. “By my count, we have twenty-nine.”
*
“Hands where I can see them.” The woman leveled her blade at the Doctor.
The Doctor gave a flat look. “Put that down.”
The woman ignored her. “Who are you?”
“Do I just have a face” the Doctor snapped, “that no one listens to? Again?”
The woman didn’t move. Her skirts and bodice looked impossibly constricting to Yaz, but her grip on the blade was steady. Her face was veiled in black lace; it was impossible to make out her expression.
“This isn’t helping.” Carefully, the Doctor pulled her hand out of her pocket, empty. She angled her body in front of Yaz and the boys. “Put it down, Vastra.”
“How do you know my name?”
The Doctor snorted. “Tell the truth, I’m a little offended you don’t know mine! It hasn’t been that long since – hang on, what year is it? Have we done the leech thing yet, or…?”
Silence. Vastra allowed the point of her blade to dip.
“Doctor.”
The Doctor grinned. She held up her palms and spun a little circle, like a magician doing a trick.
Vastra shook her head. Her expression was still unreadable behind her veil. “This is… new.”
“Very new. As it happens.”
“Wait-” Graham edged around. “You know each other?”
Vastra ignored him. Instead she paced a few steps towards the alley mouth. “Jenny,” she called, raising her voice just slightly. “Sorry, dear. Change of tactics.”
There was a pause. Another woman detached herself from the shadows and headed for them.
“Pity,” she sighed, sheathing her own blade over her shoulder. “Now we’re back to square one.”
“I wouldn’t say that!” The Doctor shoved a hand in her pocket and yanked out her sonic. She flipped it in her palm. “That light?” she was scanning the air in the alley, “that was a teleport. And a dodgy one at that. If I can just get a lock on it…”
“Way ahead of you, Doctor.” Jenny pulled what looked like a small compass out of her pocket – although, Yaz noted, it seemed to have more dials than your average compass. Jenny tilted it towards Vastra. “About half a mile south, wouldn’t you say?”
But Vastra was still eying the Doctor. “This is a good look on you,” she said, after a thoughtful moment.
“Oi!” Jenny elbowed her.
“Oh, do you like the coat?” The Doctor swished it, oblivious. “A long coat – very me, I thought.”
Vastra coughed. “Quite.”
“If we’re ready.” Jenny looked irritable.
Vastra swept by, chucking Jenny under the chin as she went. “Don’t worry dear. That saber is a good look on you.”
Jenny, one hand at the hilt of her sheathed sword, looked mollified.
“Right then,” Vastra called. “Fastest route is-”
But Yaz didn’t hear the rest of that sentence. The breeze that had been tugging at their clothes all evening swept into an updraft just long enough to tug Vastra’s veil up, revealing-
Yaz took a step back, carefully suppressing a gasp of shock. From the sharp intake of breath behind her, she guessed Graham and Ryan had seen as well: Vastra, for all that she sounded human, was nothing of the sort.
Vastra whipped the veil back down. The Doctor, however, either hadn’t noticed or was electing to ignore it. She had her sonic up again, pointing in the same direction Jenny had indicated.
“Twenty-nine minutes to save the world.” She glanced up, taking in Yaz, the boys, and the two strange women with a brilliant grin. “Who’s with me?”
*
Vastra and Jenny shepherded them back out towards the main road. The Doctor had her sonic out again, scanning. As soon as they had gotten a few meters distance, Yaz hurried up beside the Doctor.
“Who… er. Who are they?”
“Vastra and Jenny? Oh, they’re old friends,” she responded, cheerful.
“But…” Yaz searched for a diplomatic way to say it, and decided there wasn’t one. “She’s a lizard.”
“Siluran.”
“What?”
The Doctor glanced at Yaz. “Silurian,” she repeated. “She’s not a lizard, Yaz. She’s a person.”
The reprimand was mild, but it still stung. Since finding herself floating, breathless in the black depths of space, Yaz had had to put aside everything she thought she’d known about how the universe worked. Had done it willingly; enthusiastically. Each and every day she’d spent with the Doctor had pushed every boundary Yaz had.
The Doctor paced ahead to match steps with Vastra. Yaz, trying not to feel like she was sulking, stayed a few paces behind.
“I didn’t expect you, Doctor,” Vastra said, as soon as the Doctor came up alongside. “But I won’t say no to your help.”
“The magic word,” the Doctor murmured. She flashed a grin at Vastra. “What do you know?”
Voice low, Vastra detailed the story. Jenny chimed in with details, though mostly her attention seemed to be occupied by keeping a lookout. She wore a thick, hooded cloak that concealed the sword well, but, if you were looking for it, you could make out the pommel edging out over her shoulder.
The men were smugglers, apparently. They traded in all kinds of things: information, illicit substances, futuristic technologies. Vastra and Jenny had been tracking them for weeks.
“But,” Vastra noted, “the timeline has… accelerated. As you noticed.”
The Doctor nodded. But Yaz was still confused.
“Sorry,” she said, putting her hurt feelings aside. “Sorry but. Why is the world ending in twenty-nine minutes?"
“Twenty-six by now, I should think,” was Vastra’s calm reply.
“Twenty-five minutes thirty-nine seconds,” the Doctor corrected automatically. Then she glanced at Yaz. “You saw that necklace?”
Yaz nodded.
“It’s not just a pretty trinket.” The Doctor’s face set. “It’s a warp star.”
“A… star?” Ryan, hurrying to keep up on her other side, frowned.
“Literally.” The Doctor looked grim. It wasn’t an expression Yaz had seen on her very often. “The raw power of an entire star locked into a quantum fold state. That necklace holds enough energy to implode the Earth.”
“But-” Yaz shook her head. Adrenaline spiked through her; she took a breath to calm the sudden racing of her heart. “Why?”
“It’s a weapon. But that’s not the real problem.”
“Of course it’s not,” Graham muttered.
“The real problem,” she glanced at Vastra again, “is that it’s damaged.”
Vastra nodded. Her lace veil floated with the movement. “We’re not sure how. Something must have jarred the warp fold conjugation out of alignment. It’s probably been breaking down for days. Now, we have about-”
“-twenty-four minutes, nineteen seconds-”
“- to find it and either defuse it or remove it from Earth’s vicinity before it goes.”
Ryan knocked his shoulder into Yaz “Okay. No pressure,” he muttered, too low for anyone else to hear. Yaz smiled weakly.
“That’s what pulled the TARDIS off course,” the Doctor explained. “And it’s why I couldn’t get a good fix on it at first. The damage is causing the energy signal to fluctuate.”
“So what’s the plan?” Asked Graham, ever the practical one. Yaz would quite like to know that herself. Two swordswomen hadn’t been enough to keep the smugglers from escaping the first time ‘round, and Yaz doubted that adding three extra humans and a clumsy alien to the mix would help.
“Step one: find them! Step two…” The Doctor glanced sideways. Jenny grinned and touched a palm to the pommel at her back.
Instantly, the Doctor’s face closed down. “No. No violence.”
“Warp stars are worth a king’s ransom to the right buyer. They’re not just going to hand it over because we asked nicely, Doctor.” There was a surprising note of steel in Jenny’s voice. Or maybe not so surprising, given the amount of steel she was carrying.
“Just…” The Doctor looked away. Briefly, fitfully, she turned the sonic in both hands. “Just let me talk to them. They might not even know it’s going critical.”
Vastra and Jenny exchanged dubious glances. Yaz, for her part, glanced at the Doctor.
“You think that’ll work?”
The Doctor glanced at her. She leaned in; that small gesture warmed Yaz, after the way she’d snapped earlier. “I can be pretty persuasive,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“I hope so,” murmured Vastra. But from the look she exchanged with Jenny, she wasn’t convinced.
*
Luckily, the smugglers hadn’t gone very far. Between Jenny’s compass and the Doctor’s sonic, they tracked them several streets over to an unassuming brick building.
It had started misting slightly, and Yaz had to squint against the light rain as they surveyed the smuggler’s hideout. It was a narrow row house with a brick face, its windows dark and quiet. Yaz wouldn’t have suspected anything if the sonic hadn’t been pointing right at it.
“I’ll take the back,” Jenny suggested. She was already peeling off from the group, heading for an alley down the block. Vastra snagged her elbow before she could get far.
“Be careful.”
Jenny grinned. She reached over her shoulder and unsheathed her blade in one smooth movement. It glinted dully in the dim yellow light of the streetlamps. “Always.”
“I’ll come with you,” Yaz said impulsively. She glanced sideways, but the Doctor was sizing up the front door. Graham, however, gave her a wide-eyed look of concern.
“Yaz-” he began. But Jenny was already moving.
“This way,” she hissed. Yaz headed after her. She felt a little silly as they edged through the little alley and around to the back garden. There was a locked gate; Jenny tried to jimmy it, to no effect. In the end, they had to haul themselves up and over the low brick wall. Jenny went first, fitting her gloved fingers into invisible crevices. She navigated the climb in her skirts with surprising ease.
Yaz, in her jeans and practical shoes, managed to scrape the heel of her hand and tear a hole in one knee before, finally, tumbling onto the packed dirt of the garden. It was already damp from the misty rain and she spared a moment to mourn the mud stains on her jeans.
Jenny was already halfway to the door, stepping silently, blade in hand.
The back door was cracked slightly, and swung open when Jenny prodded it. Yaz frowned, unsure whether to take that as a trap, or a stroke of luck. Either way, it sat uneasily in her gut. She reached for Jenny’s sleeve to suggest that they wait until Vastra and the Doctor made it through the front door, but Jenny was already moving forwards, into the shadows of the house.
They made it through the hall into the first room without incident. Yaz was alive to every whisper of their feet against the floor; every slight creak or bump. The hairs on her arms stood on end, electrified with nerves.
Jenny slipped around the doorway of the next room – and that was where everything went wrong. Yaz was several meters away, too far to do anything more than watch helplessly as one of the smugglers barreled out of the blackness. He slammed into Jenny, knocking her to the ground. Her head hit the floor with a jarring crack.
Jenny’s sword went spinning across the floor. And Yaz grabbed it.
It was heavier than she’d expected. Lifting herself from a stoop was an effort. The tip wavered as she straightened. She took a breath, tensed her shoulders, and bent her knees. She tried to remember every B-movie swordfight she’d ever seen.
The man locked eyes with her. Yaz took another gulp of Earth air and set her shoulders. She edged towards Jenny. If he was going to come at her, he’d have to go through her.
Somehow, she parried the first cut. The impact sent a shockwave through her wrists and elbows. Her hips twisted and she stumbled, trying desperately to keep her footing. The warp star dangled from his neck, just out of Yaz’s reach. It shimmered with that odd, iridescent light. He doesn’t know, she realized. He had no idea that five more minutes would doom them all…
He aimed another swipe at her and she dodged, but barely. His blade bit into the wall beside her head with a dull thwap. Yaz was forced away from Jenny, but he followed, his attention fully on Yaz. Dimly, she could make out Jenny moving; at least she was alive.
Now, she had to concentrate on keeping herself that way.
The man swept his blade at her, an arcing blow, and reversed it so fast it almost took her fingers off at the first knuckle. Yaz dodged faster than she’d thought herself capable of, but he kept up easily, always just half a breath behind.
She ducked backwards through a doorway and he came after her, methodical, calm. Yaz tried to breath, to calm her racing heart, but it was impossible. Adrenaline was surging, leaving her fingers numb and tingling. Jenny’s sword was unbearably heavy in her hands. Her wrists burned and her abs were already sore from wrenching herself out of his reach.
Out of options, Yaz backed out into the garden. The man followed and, too late, Yaz realized her mistake: the garden was flat and open. There was nowhere to hide; nothing more than a scraggly bush or two to shelter behind. Her only options were to fight him off – unlikely – or to get through that locked gate – unlikelier.
Yaz took a deep, centering breath. If she was gonna go down, she was gonna go down fighting.
He came at her, and her resolve crumbled under the breathless weight of panic. She ducked and stumbled and swung back at him. The weight of Jenny’s sword yanked her off balance; for a second she was falling, falling, right towards the glinting edge of his blade-
-she let go. Jenny’s sword landed with a thud in the sparse grass and Yaz, freed of its weight, wrenched her trajectory sideways just enough. She hit him right in the middle; the crown of her head cracked against his breastbone and one flailing elbow sunk into his stomach, driving him back with a soft woof of breath. For a moment they grappled, too close for weapons, his hands heavy on her shoulders to shove her back. But Yaz thought fast: as he shoved at her, her fingers closed on the warp star.
He shoved with his full strength, and Yaz held onto the star with hers. Something had to give and, in a stroke of brilliant luck, it was the chain that held the crystal. Yaz collapsed backwards. The warp star arced over the yard, trailing broken links of chain behind it. Breathless, Yaz launched herself after it. In her haste, she tripped, somersaulting in the soft dirt. Her fingers scrambled for purchase, but too late. He was there, above her, grinning. He raised his blade, and-
“Stop.”
The Doctor’s voice was so cold, so commanding that the man actually froze. Blade raised, ready to slice through Yaz’s upraised palm. He actually backed off, lowering his weapon slightly.
The Doctor held the warp star. It dangled from her fist on its broken chain. In her other hand was the sonic, its yellow glow illuminating her face. Her expression was utterly blank.
“You have two choices,” she said. Calm. Conversational in a way that sent a chill through Yaz. “Leave my friends alone, or…” She aimed the sonic at the crystal. It let off a low, whining hum and the ground shuddered beneath Yaz’s palms.
“You’re bluffing.”
“Wanna bet?” There was nothing recognizable in the Doctor’s eyes. Panic seized Yaz. Was she bluffing? There was nothing in her face to reassure.
The smuggler considered this. “It’ll kill you, too.”
“Yeah.” Mirthless, the Doctor grinned. “Won’t be the first time.”
He made an incredulous gesture. “You’re mad.”
“And you should never argue with a madman,” the Doctor snapped back. “Want to know why?” She brought the sonic closer, closer to the crystal. It let off another ominous rumble. “Cos we don’t know when to quit.”
The smuggler went pale. Yaz couldn’t blame him – she could feel the rumbling in her bones. The crystal hum pitched higher, higher…
The smuggler grabbed for the teleport control at his wrist. In another blinding flash of light, he winked out.
“Oh, I thought he would never leave! Hold this!”
The Doctor thrust the warp star blindly at Yaz, who grabbed it. It was still giving off that high-pitched hum; she had to fight the urge to plug her ears. She stood there stupidly, holding the humming warp star at arm’s length like that could save her, while the Doctor rummaged frantically in her pockets. They had seconds, at best, before it detonated.
“Please,” the Doctor was muttering. Bent at the waist, she had one hand in her pocket up to the elbow. “Pleasepleaseplease… aha!” From out her pocket she yanked a small black box. She grabbed the crystal back from Yaz, dropped it in, and slammed it shut.
“That,” she hissed, holding her hands around the box, “was close.” She wiped one hand dramatically across her brow. But even in the dim, moonlit garden, Yaz didn’t miss the very real sweat beading on it.
“Alright, Doctor?”
Yaz glanced up. Vastra had appeared in the doorway, supporting Jenny with one arm. Her veil had been tossed back over her head, giving Yaz her first good look at Vastra’s scaly face. Once you got past the obvious, she looked… surprisingly human.
With them came Graham and Ryan, looking shaken.
“All sorted!” said the Doctor cheerfully, as though she hadn’t just threatened to blow up the planet thirty seconds ago. She held up the little box. “Stasis pod,” she offered. “Mini stasis pod, I should say. Quite forgot I had it. It’s actually a funny story-”
“Another time, maybe,” Vastra said. She glanced solicitously at Jenny, who looked a little dazed but otherwise alright. Yaz wasn’t sure what had happened to the second smuggler, but given the protective way Vastra was hanging onto Jenny, she had some idea.
“Nice work, gang! … team?” The Doctor dropped the stasis pod in her pocket and spread the fingers of her hands wide. “Squad?”
They all stared at her.
“Doc…” Graham began.
“It’s safe now.” She patted her pocket. “We’ll drop it in deep space, where it can go off without hurtin’ anyone.”
“Right.” Graham glanced aside at Yaz and Ryan. Self-consciously, Yaz brushed dirt off the knees of her jeans. It was a hopeless gesture; she was dirty all over.
“Right.” Graham repeated. He slid his hands in his pockets. “Okay. It’s just… Well. It’s just that I’m right glad you’re on our side, Doc.”
“Ah. I have a no weapons policy. Strictly speaking.” She rubbed one hand along the back of her neck, rucking up her short hair. “Strictly speaking-”
“Didn’t have a lot of options there,” Graham acknowledged.
The Doctor shrugged. A stiff grin sat uncomfortably on her face. “I wouldn’t have…” She pressed her lips together, swallowing the awkward grin. “For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have…”
“It was a distraction,” Yaz offered. The Doctor grabbed that like a lifeline.
“Yeah,” she said. Her face collapsed in relief. “A distraction. That’s all.”
The misty rain blew cool against Yaz’s face. The Doctor had pocketed her sonic, and, in the dim moonlight, it was hard to make out much beyond the broad contours of her face and posture.
“Right then!” The Doctor clapped her palms together. “Should be gettin’ back, I suppose…”
“First you can walk us home,” Vastra interrupted. “The wife and I” she cast another fond glance at Jenny “have another case or two we could use your eyes on…”
Wife. Somehow, Yaz felt like she ought to be more surprised; they weren’t even the same species. But, then again, who was she to judge? If there was one thing she’d learnt in these whirlwind days with the Doctor, it was that the universe was so big, and she’d seen so little of it. If there was space for killer robots and time traveling aliens and stars trapped in crystals, why not Vastra and Jenny, solving crime together in Victorian London?
Flushed with success and the vast strangeness of the universe, Yaz thought she understood, a little, what it was that kept the Doctor travelling. She glanced aside, towards the Doctor, offering a warm smile. But the Doctor wasn’t looking at Yaz, nor at the world she’d just saved. Already, she had her head tilted up, gaze fixed on the sky.
*
Dawn was breaking by the time they made it back to the streetcorner where the TARDIS stood, looming Technicolor against the sallow sky.
The Doctor smiled as it came into view. Yaz recalled her despair on Desolation when she’d thought it lost; her joy at finding it. Yaz felt an echo of that joy now. Their night in the backroads of London had been alternately exciting, exhausting, and terrifying… but they’d made it. The relief that swept through her was dizzying. Her legs and arms ached; suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to collapse into her own bed.
The Doctor pressed a palm to the blue wood of the TARDIS doors. But she didn’t open them. Instead, she turned back to Vastra and Jenny.
“Well.” For a moment, she didn’t seem to know what to say. She fidgeted, dropping her hand into the folds of her coat, shifting on her feet. “It’s been…”
“A pleasure, Doctor.” Vastra held out one gloved hand. “As always.”
Smiling, the Doctor took it. Then she turned to Jenny, who also stuck out a hand. To Yaz’s surprise, instead of a handshake, the Doctor cut an elegant, courtly bow, tossing back her coat and bending to press her lips to the back of Jenny’s hand.
“A pleasure,” she echoed. She tilted her head up at Jenny. Her yellow hair, slightly wavy with the damp, fell back around her ears. “It always is, when I run into friends.”
Jenny blushed as the Doctor released her hand and straightened. She moved back into Vastra’s shoulder. They both watched as the Doctor and the boys filed into the TARDIS. Yaz went last, and she smiled back at them as she let the door fall shut behind her.
The Doctor was already at the console, hands flying over switches and dials and levers. She wasn’t one to linger; Yaz knew that already.
Her humans coalesced around her, as they always did. Graham had his hands stuffed in his pockets, and Ryan had one hip leaned up against the console. Yaz braced her palms against it, not quite trusting the Doctor to give warning before throwing them into another dizzying flight.
“So.” Graham was studying the console. “Sheffield, then?”
The Doctor made a couple of adjustments. “Sheffield,” she affirmed. She hovered a hand over the dematerialization lever. “For sure this time.”
Graham glanced back at Yaz and Ryan. Yaz wouldn’t have expected it of him, the way he seemed to be fighting a smile. Ryan grinned outright.
“That’s what you said the last five times, mate.”
The Doctor scowled down at her ship, but Yaz had seen her angry, now, and knew it for a farce. “It’s not my fault,” she muttered, “that the old girl has ideas of her own. TARDIS travel is always something of a negotiation…”
“So, not Sheffield for sure,” Yaz teased. She curled her fingers into the console. She could feel the ship warm and humming beneath her hands. The Doctor talked about the TARDIS like it was alive, and Yaz was willing to believe it. Yaz was willing to believe anything, these days. “Sheffield, hopefully?”
The Doctor grinned. Her hand closed over the dematerialization lever and she leaned in. Her hair shimmered gold in the alien light of the TARDIS. “Hopefully,” she said, eyes sparkling, “is the only way to travel.”
She yanked the lever, and they were off.