Chapter Text
Sunlight filtered in through the canopy as Yaz walked barefoot through a forest, dappling her skin with warm golden light. She could smell the sharp sweetness of sap, the loamy scent of damp earth, and crushed leaves underfoot. It was peaceful here. Familiar. She reached out, her fingertips brushing the edge of a broad green leaf, soft and dewy.
A flicker of motion caught her eye. Pale fabric vanishing between the trunks. A woman, tall, cloaked in white, dark hair flowing down her back. She moved like she belonged here. Like she had always been here. Yaz stepped forward, heart rising.
“Wait,” Yaz called, stepping forward.
The forest screamed. Sirens erupted overhead, a shrieking metallic wail that cracked through the stillness like a bomb. Yaz fell to her knees, hands clamped over her ears. Smoke poured through the trees. The scent of fire. Petrol. Burnt metal. When she looked up, the sunlight was gone.
She was still in the forest, she knew that, but now the trees were scorched, skeletal, hemmed in by barbed wire. A runway tore through the earth like a scar. Pilots ran to Spitfires as bombs lit the sky orange. She stumbled to her feet.
Find the woman.
She turned, coughing, but the cloaked figure was gone. Just flames and shouting and smoke that bit at her lungs. She turned again. The forest changed. Buildings grew from the ground. Concrete. Fences. Antennas. Soldiers moved through like insects in formation, hammering signs into the soil. A UNIT logo gleamed, freshly painted. One of them knocked down an ancient oak tree. Yaz’s stomach turned. She stood, invisible, as they swarmed around her. Ghosts in green.
A door slammed open behind her. Kate Stewart stormed out, barking orders over her shoulder.
“No one outside the clearance ring. Not even Nel. Nothing leaves this base. Not even memories. Understood?”
A younger officer nodded, scribbling notes.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Yaz stepped forward.
“Kate? What’s going on?”
No response.
“Kate!”
Yaz waved her arms and tried to block the blonde’s path. But Kate walked straight through her, like mist. Yaz stumbled back, dazed. The wind shifted. She heard someone shouting her name.
“Yaz!”
It was the Doctor. Yaz spun around, searching for the Time Lord. The Doctor, just beyond the trees, reaching out. But her form was spectral. She flickered. Faded. However, the worry etched on her face was tangible.
“Yaz, wake up!”
Yaz bolted upright in bed, gasping. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath. She felt sweat trickling down the back of her neck. The Doctor was beside her, eyes wide, worried.
“You were talking in your sleep,” the Doctor said softly. “Well, shouting actually. Nightmare? Are you okay?”
Yaz tried to speak, but the words didn't come. The Doctor reached over Yaz, grabbing a glass of water from the human’s bedside table. Outside the window, far in the distance, thunder rumbled. Yaz took a deep gulp of water.
“Just a bad dream, Doctor. It’s fine.”
The Doctor frowned, but gently took Yaz’s free hand, her thumb tracing circles.
“We can talk about it, if you want.”
Yaz smiled, lifting their joined hands to her mouth and gave the Doctor’s hand a quick peck.
“I don’t really remember it. Like it’s just out of reach. But it felt, I dunno, like I saw the entire history of somewhere. A forest.”
The Doctor scooted closer to Yaz. Her eyes searched Yaz’s face intensely.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure. It’s like the more I think about it, the more the memory fades. But it’s not that serious, okay? Just a dream. Doesn’t mean anything. Probably some subconscious thing about being a time traveller. Still blows my mind sometimes.”
“Okay.” The Doctor said, seemingly placated. “As long as you’re alright.”
“Always.” Yaz said with a grin, as she playfully elbowed the Doctor in the ribs.
Yaz took another sip of water as the Doctor reached over to turn off the lamp on her bedside table. In the dark, she let her grin drop. That wasn’t a normal dream.
Yaz tried to push the dream to the back of her mind, but it kept creeping to the surface. A confusing whirl of sensations. So she threw herself into distractions. There was still no pressure to return to duty. Kate had signed off on extended leave from UNIT, ostensibly to help the Doctor integrate into society, but also to give Yaz time to rest. Something about ensuring she didn’t burn herself out after Grimstone Weald and the run-in with Ashad. Yaz appreciated the thought. She really did. But free time was dangerous. Whenever she wasn’t occupied, the forest filled the space.
She kept busy. Obsessively so. Cleaning. Cottage hunting. Admin tasks, like sorting out proper legal documents for the Doctor. The main blocker for which was the Doctor’s indecisiveness about picking a legal name.
“So you’re settled on Dr. Jules Wren? Proper settled?” Yaz asked, exasperated.
They’d been at this stage a few times before, the Doctor seemingly set on a name before prevaricating at the last moment. She’d gone through a few ideas for names: Sarah Jane Oswald, E.T. Brown, Regina Harpsichord. Yaz liked some more than others, but she kept her opinion to herself. This was something for the Doctor to figure out for herself.
“What do you think, Yaz?” The Doctor said, as she plonked a cup of tea on the desk next to Yaz.
“Well, I guess this is just procedural, right? You said you wanted everyone to still call you Doctor, this is mostly so you can just get a driving licence and go on mortgage applications and stuff.”
Yaz took a tentative sip of the tea. She smiled. Just about drinkable. The Doctor was getting better at this. She turned to the Doctor and absent-mindedly stroked the blonde’s arm.
“Yeah, but do you like it?” Doctor’s eyes were wide with expectation and hope.
“Do you ?”
“Yaz!” The Doctor’s arms flailed dramatically, reminding Yaz of a toddler having a tantrum.
“It feels like you. I know you wanted to honour your friends, and that’s really sweet, but I like that Jules Wren is yours. Is you and no one else. And that matters. So yeah. I like it.”
“Okay.” The Doctor grinned. “Jules Wren it is. You can put that in your forms.”
But Yaz didn’t move.
“Yaz?” the Doctor’s voice sharpened with worry.
The pen fell from Yaz’s hand. The Doctor rushed over and grabbed Yaz by the shoulders, giving her a slight shake.
“Yaz!”
Yaz blinked, slowly returning to the moment. Her breathing hitched. Her gaze was far away.
“Hey.” The Doctor said softly. “Where were you?”
“The forest.” Yaz said distantly.
The Doctor crouched so she was in Yaz’s eyeline.
“From the dream the other week?”
“Yeah. No. Maybe? I dunno. Might have been back from Grimstone Weald.”
Yaz dropped her head against the Doctor’s shoulder as the Time Lord wrapped her in a tight hug. The Doctor sighed. Yaz assumed the blonde was relieved. That the Doctor thought it was just some flashback to Grimstone Weald. Yaz wasn’t so sure. But didn’t want to bother the Doctor with it. Yet.
So she ploughed herself into more work. Insisted the Doctor take driving lessons and got a licence the proper way, much to the Doctor’s chagrin.
“I can drive, you know! I drove you a lot to London that time.”
“Eyes on the road, Doctor!” Yaz laughed. “I know you can drive, I just want to make sure you know the rules. Can’t let you lose and build up loads of tickets. We’ll be broke in a year otherwise!”
They laughed, the car humming quietly down a quiet country lane. As much as Yaz pretended otherwise, the Doctor was an excellent driver. She watched the trees zoom by. Rapid green blurs. Almost hypnotic. Suddenly, she was hit by a stabbing pain and doubled over, gasping. Yaz cried out in agony, hands clutched to her stomach. Pain bloomed like fire through her torso. The Doctor swerved the car onto the verge, braking hard.
“Yaz?!”
Yaz roared and writhed in pain. The Doctor reached into her coat, pulling out the sonic and urgently scanning Yaz. Her expression shifted, from panic to deep confusion. She leaned close and placed a hand on Yaz’s cheek.
“You’re okay, Yaz. Just breathe.”
Yaz’s breaths were ragged. The Doctor gripped her shoulder.
“Stab… wound…” She choked.
The Doctor lifted Yaz’s shirt, gently tracing the smooth skin where Yaz had been stabbed a few months prior. Everything looked normal. The Doctor double, triple-checked with the sonic and frowned again.
“Your vitals are normal. There's no trauma. It might be psychosomatic.”
“It felt real ,” Yaz gasped.
“I know, love. I know.”
The Doctor held her gently. Yaz watched silently through the window as the wind stirred, blowing leaves from the trees. After a moment, Yaz leaned against her, still clutching her abdomen as the pain ebbed.
“Let’s go home,” the Doctor whispered.
Yaz didn’t reply. She stared out the window, toward a distant copse of trees, rustling in the breeze. The pain in her stomach had faded, but it had left a weight in her that she just couldn’t shift.
She was quiet for the next few days. Restless. On edge. She stayed up long after midnight, too afraid to fall asleep again. Instead, she propped herself up at her desk, chain-drinking coffee - she was on her sixth cup of the day - scrolling through an endless stream of cottage listings online. She’d jot down her favourites in a notepad: detached, south-facing gardens, a nice view. A big garage that the Doctor could use to build stuff in. Anything that felt safe. Tangible. Normal.
The Doctor wasn’t far. She never was. Yaz could feel her presence like static, hovering just out of sight, watching with worry. Yaz pretended not to notice. She was grateful. And annoyed.
“I’m fine, you know.”
“Yaz, it’s three in the morning. Come to bed.”
Yaz didn’t answer. The Doctor padded across the room and placed her hands gently on Yaz’s shoulders, though the grip was firmer than Yaz expected. Protective. Tense. Getting tighter. Yaz turned to look at her and only then noticed where the Doctor was staring. At her notebook. The page wasn’t filled with cottages.
She’d drawn a stone circle, but not the one back at the chapel in Grimstone Weald. This one was clinical. The stones had sharp right angles and were unweathered. They were surrounded by scaffolding, terminals, wires, and in the centre, unmistakably: the UNIT logo.
Yaz felt her breath catch.
“Doctor. What’s happening to me?”
The Doctor said nothing at first. She simply leaned forward and pulled Yaz into a tight hug. Yaz sank into it, eyes wide, clutching at the Doctor’s t-shirt like a lifeline.
“We’ll figure it out.” She murmured. “Together.”
The Doctor pulled up a desk chair and sidled next to Yaz, sliding the laptop over to her side of the desk, and began manically typing.
“What are you doing?”
“Hacking UNIT.”
The words were delivered so casually, Yaz blinked.
“What?! You can’t hack UNIT, Doctor!”
“Clearly, I can ,” the Doctor said, not looking up. “You mean I shouldn’t .”
Yaz loved the Doctor, but she could be infuriating.
“Didn’t realise you were the grammar police now.” She grumbled.
“And I didn’t realise you were unconsciously drawing classified military infrastructure.”
The Doctor’s fingers clacked rapidly across the keyboard, eyes scanning UNIT’s encrypted server like a hawk. Yaz watched in silence, hugging her coffee mug like it was keeping her tethered to the world. Then, the Doctor paused, reached over and grabbed Yaz’s arm. Not hard, but with urgency.
“Yaz.”
“What?” Yaz gaped wide-eyed at the Doctor.
The Doctor finally looked at her. Really looked.
“I know what’s happening to you.”
Her jaw was tight. Her eyes were darker than Yaz had ever seen them.
“They took samples from Grimstone Weald. Weeks ago. Soil. Stone fragments. Documenting all of the runes and angles. Positions relative to the sun and the moon. Even to ley lines. The day they removed them, that was the day you-”
“Felt like I was being stabbed again,” Yaz finished, her voice barely audible.
The Doctor nodded once. Her lips were a thin, pale line.
“It’s something called Project Charon. Experimental division. No oversight. Memory wipes for most of the people working on it. Even the location is redacted. Full clearance limited to three people.” A pause. “One of them is Kate.”
Yaz said nothing. The Doctor kept scrolling. Her hands moved fast, but her shoulders were tense like she was bracing for impact.
“They’re not just studying what happened in Grimstone Weald. They’ve used the Time Window to learn the old rites. They’re trying to harness the same type of forces we encountered back there. Looks like they’re building their own stone circle, trying to harness the power to protect against future arcane threats. ”
Yaz’s voice cut in, flat and sudden.
“They’ve been running low-level rituals in what they’re calling the Arcane Grid , using electrical energy to simulate leyline surges, linked to supercomputers to try to hack new runes and rituals. But it’s not working. So they enhanced it with the samples from Grimestone Weald, to try to jump-start it with existing magic. ”
She was staring down at the stone circle in her notebook. It hadn’t occurred to her what she was saying until she’d said it. The Doctor’s head snapped up.
“That’s… not in the files.”
Yaz blinked. Her throat was dry. She swallowed, but it didn’t help.
“The stones weren’t just charged by the land,” she murmured. “It’s more symbiotic than that. The land, the people. Faith. That’s what you said, back then, that belief in myths, in this supernatural stuff, gave it power. You get out what you put in. But they’re putting in cynicism and fear. They don’t respect it. You can’t just make demands on the stones. ”
The Doctor stared at her, breath held. Yaz could see the fear behind her eyes.
“Yaz…” she whispered, reaching forward and gently cupping Yaz’s face. “How do you know that?”
Yaz froze. The coffee mug in her hands rattled. She looked down at it like she didn’t remember picking it up.
“My blood.” Yaz said haltingly. “Connected me to the stones back in Grimestone Weald. Seeped into the soil. It’s part of the magic now, I guess. And when they used the Grimestone samples, UNIT have tethered me to their experiments.”
Her breath hitched. The lights in the room flickered. Yaz stood so suddenly that her chair rolled violently backwards, clattering into the wall. Her eyes glazed over. She reached out blindly, fingers twitching, like brushing against invisible curtains of memory.
The Doctor stood as well. Cautious. Worried. But she didn’t touch Yaz. Not yet. Not while the brunette was elsewhere.
The sound of metal. The ache of grief was embedded in her spine. Whispers all around her. The woman in the white cloak, out of reach. Blood on concrete. Dread.
A pressure exploded in her head like something ancient trying to push through. There was a scream. Yaz had no idea if it was hers or someone else’s.
“Yaz, look at me!” The Doctor’s voice broke through to the human.
Yaz gasped as the world snapped back. Her knees buckled as she stumbled backwards, but the Doctor caught her. Yaz’s face was ghostly pale. Her mug was in shards on the floor, scattered like bone. Yaz drew in a shuddering breath and clung to the Doctor.
“They’re going to try to bring someone back,” she panted. “They’re going to open the gate.”
The Doctor’s voice was urgent, shaken.
“What gate, Yaz? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice caught in her throat. “But it’s bad. Really bad.”