Chapter Text
Chapter One
A peace summit, she thinks, out to involve a lot more happy people.
Then again, the Doctor usually is already gone by this point in the proceedings. Day saved, job done, off in her box again and on to the next adventure, and the one after that. But this time, she and Yaz had been asked to stay, and so they had. And she’s beginning to think that was a good decision, because something about the vibes are… off.
Whenever she does get stuck at these things, the meeting itself is inevitably mind-numbingly boring but the atmosphere surrounding it is always joyful. Peace is always something to celebrate, and generally, people tend to agree with her. But here, something still feels tense. Perhaps it’s just how ramrod-straight the representatives from XCorp are standing in their tailored, sharp-collared suits, the way even now they look down on the generally shorter residents of Leshan with a hint of distaste. And some of the Leshani—the Doctor catches a few people she’d had to steer away from the almost-literally nuclear option just a few days before—seem all too ready to glare back up at them.
“Are these things always this… tense?”
The question comes, of course, from the woman at her side. Yaz, who is always at her side, unflinching and unfailing. She had been a miracle-worker over the last few days, able to sift through the chaos to the heart of the matter even faster than the Doctor had this time. When the Doctor turns to her, though, she finds Yaz isn’t looking her way, but out across the square instead, surveying the people around them, taking in the atmosphere. And while Yaz watches the scene, the Doctor gives herself a spare four seconds to watch her. Yaz’s dark eyes sweep over the square, cataloguing everything, the Doctor is sure, because Yaz is clever that way, analytical. She’s standing straight and sure the way the representatives from XCorp are, but while their posture strikes her as a threat, Yaz’s is merely a fact. She is here, rock solid and steady on her feet, her chin held high with the kind of easy confidence the Doctor knows is really hard-won. Especially because even though she’s wary, a slight smile still tugs at the corners of her lips. Like she’s here just to remind everyone else that this is a joyous occasion. Her yellow leather jacket is as bright as the sun that warms her cheeks, and she looks, somehow, like hope.
The Doctor shouldn’t stare, but she can’t help it, until Yaz finishes her survey of the square and turns to catch her eye. She expects a rebuke, or for Yaz to look away again, but instead her smile just widens, settles into something real and warm. So it’s the Doctor who glances down at her feet and hopes her hair hides the way her ears turn red.
“They can be,” she says, dragging her focus back to the question Yaz had asked her in the first place. “Sometimes people feel like peace means they’ve lost.”
Yaz nods at that, her smile fading.
“Really wish that weren’t a universal truth,” she says with a sigh.
“You and me both,” the Doctor replies.
“Doctor! Yaz! Come on, it’s starting!”
They both turn to see Kiri, one of the young Leshani who had taken them in these past few days. She was, the Doctor guessed, perhaps the Earth equivalent of fifteen, too young to be caught up in something like this and far too stubborn to be told to sit tight. She bounded up to them, her bright blue curls bouncing and her tail swishing in her excitement, beaming at them both. Beaming at Yaz especially; Kiri had taken to Yaz immediately, and the Doctor could hardly blame her.
“C’mon, don’t look so worried, we won!” Kiri tells them. “Let’s go in, my dad saved us seats near the front. You can sit next to me, Yaz!”
They follow Kiri inside, along with a crowd of others. The Leshani have brought out their best for the occasion. Banners are hung across the square and through each hallway of the airy city hall building they walk into. Sunlight streams into the building through the intricate structure, which looks like a delicate bird’s nest or spun sugar with curved, light wood beams stretching towards the sky and white and amber panes of glass slotted between each section. The residents have shed their battle-worn clothes for their finest, and they’re a patchwork of long coats and skirts in a kaleidoscope of bright colors. The Doctor sees some of the XCorp representatives sneer down at a group of passing children, and she rolls her eyes. She’d been on one of their ships just the day before; they were a monstrosity of fluorescent lighting and grey carpet. They’re a bastion of sameness and misery, right down to their deeply unoriginal name. This is infinitely preferable, even if the atmosphere hadn’t been resonating with more joy the more people file into the room and fill the space with laughter.
This is more what she would expect, but something still feels strange. There’s a crackling tension simmering just beneath the brightness, like it’s just waiting for an excuse to spill out again. As she looks around the crowded atrium, there are still a few people who won’t meet her eye. When she turns to Yaz, the little furrow between the other woman’s brows tells her she sees it too. She doesn’t say anything; she just nods, and Yaz returns the gesture.
They’re both watching for something. What, she doesn’t know yet. That worries her. She doesn’t like not knowing. Not knowing is dangerous.
Kiri leads them through the crowd and towards the far side of the building, where the glass spans the widest out of the whole building. A long table has been ringed with chairs, and representatives from both sides of the conflict are filing into their places. Kiri’s father, Malim, waves to them from his place at the head of the table; he’d risen to a leadership role during the conflict, and as much as he hadn’t expected it, he’d been good at it. Kiri waves back and then tugs them along, closer to the windows.
“Oh, wow,” Yaz says, looking out, and the Doctor grins.
“Not a bad view, is it?” she murmurs back, only half-looking out the window, mostly looking at Yaz herself instead.
But outside certainly isn’t a bad view. This part of the city hall has been cantilevered over the wide river canyon below, and the view across the plains stretches for miles. It’s especially spectacular now, with the sun high in the sky and lighting the veins of theanor threaded through the canyon walls in brilliant silver. It’s fitting, to have this meeting here, where the resources they’d fought over—or, that XCorp had been willing to destroy so much over—plainly on show.
Because of course that had been what this was about. It always was, in the end. A fight over resources, in this case, a precious and useful but ultimately unnecessary one. Theanor was a seemingly endlessly malleable metal, and the Leshani have been using it in their art and architecture for generations. XCorp wants to use it for their nanochips; little else works so well on such a small scale. It’s valuable, to be sure, but seems hardly worth so much destruction.
Then again, the Doctor thinks, there have always been people willing to go to great lengths to make their own lives simpler at the expense of everyone else.
Strent, the man who’d been in charge of the negotiations on XCorp’s side, catches her gaze; she knows he can tell what she’s been looking at, what he’s just lost. She offers him a wolfish grin until he turns away.
Yaz and the Doctor take their seats; on the other side of Yaz, Kiri practically vibrates with excitement, her tail twitching until someone behind her taps her with her own tail and she wraps it into her lap and out of their view. The Doctor doesn’t let herself relax at the sight, exactly, but she does let herself smile. The Leshani have lost so much these last few months. Now, finally, they deserve some happiness. They deserve a chance to rebuild.
The proceedings begin with a bit of fanfare and settle into a pattern she’s familiar with. She pays close attention to the reading of the terms of the treaty—XCorp will have leave to mine a certain amount of theanor per year, but they must pay the Leshani a fair price for it and only do so in designated areas far from the residents’ water sources. It sounds like what they had agreed upon to get to this stage. The representatives for XCorp look displeased, but they don’t kick up a fuss. Something in the Doctor’s chest unwinds, just a touch. If they were planning to object, the window for it has passed, in an official capacity anyway.
Once the technicalities are taken care of, though, the meeting folds back over into boring. There are speeches. Several. Probably quite good ones, at least on the part of the Leshani, but they’re rather long. The representatives from XCorp make a statement. It’s flat and without a proper apology in it but it’ll do, she supposes. The material point is that they’re dull. And they’re taking forever. She slides down in her seat, trying to watch the faces around them without making it too obvious she’s stopped paying attention. She bounces first one knee, then both. She’s itching to get going. Out of this meeting, back to the TARDIS, off into the universe.
And then, suddenly, there’s a gentle hand settling very lightly on her knee.
It’s Yaz, of course. Her fingers are warm, barely resting any weight on her, and yet it feels like the touch burns. The Doctor goes stock still; she thinks she forgets to breathe.
“Relax,” Yaz whispers softly. “We’ll get to go home soon.”
She pulls her hand away then, but the Doctor doesn’t move. She doesn’t think she can, now, because if she does, she might just do something incredibly stupid. Like put Yaz’s hand back where it was. Like grab her and kiss her in front of all these people.
Like scream, because she can’t do that. Because she told Yaz they couldn’t. That she couldn’t.
She has no idea what anyone’s saying now. All she can think about is the phantom weight of Yaz’s fingers against her knee. She thinks she can guess the soft, half-exasperated little smile she must’ve had on her face as she reached out; she’d seen it dozens of times on Yaz’s face before. She wants to see it dozens of times again, and yet, right now, she’s glad she didn’t turn to look. That kind of fondness, that kind of patience for her, even now, in spite of everything, she thinks it would break her if she was caught by it without having a chance to brace herself first.
It’s her own fault that she can’t just do what she wants and kiss Yaz right now. Well, also the meeting, but mostly her. It’s the right thing. She’s lost too much. And it hurts too much, it hurts her and everyone around her, every time. Yaz deserves so much better than this version of her that’s running out of time to find the right words to give her. It’s better this way, even if her resolve on that is tested every day, every hour. It has to be better this way; it has to be worth it.
The rest of the meeting is even more torturous, but eventually it does end, the applause rippling from polite and even disdainful claps at the table outward to the watching crowd until it becomes full throated cheers and whistles. Malim stands and shake hands with Strent. Kiri beams with pride from her seat beside Yaz; Strent practically glowers, but his displeasure hardly matters anymore. That’s it. It’s done.
People get up and start milling around, and the instant they do, the Doctor is on her feet, shaking herself out in a way she hopes looks like shedding stiffness from sitting rather than trying to brush the last of the sensation of Yaz’ fingers on her knee away. It mostly works.
“Come on, Yaz, there’s food—loads of it, I’m starving!” Kiri cries, grabbing Yaz by the hand and tugging her away towards the buffet tables set up around the wide windows overlooking the view.
Yaz laughs and lets herself be dragged along, turning over her shoulder to give the Doctor a smile as she leaves. The Doctor nods and offers her a tight one in return. They’ll linger a little longer, have some fun, and then head back to the TARDIS. Back home.
The weight of the last few days seems to hit her suddenly, and she rocks back on her heels, letting the jubilant atmosphere around her wash over her without really hearing it. She’s tired. Might be time for one of her bi-weekly naps, not that she’ll let Yaz know. She already gets enough teasing about that.
Her focus snaps back together as the representatives from XCorp begin to file out towards the door. She circles round and interrupts their path, cocking her head and spreading her arms wide in invitation.
“Not staying for the party?” she asks, grinning up at them.
“Unfortunately we have other matters of business to attend to,” the first representative says. “The loss of the theanor has jeopardized our profits for this quarter significantly; we must begin locating alternate sources of revenue.”
“’Course you do,” the Doctor says, raising her eyebrows. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Or impressed. Mind that you go a bit more kindly into your next projects then, won’t you? Might be a bit more profitable for you all in the long term. Take what you’ve learned here and grow from it, and all that.”
“We would not expect you to understand, Doctor.”
“Maybe not,” she says, lifting her chin. “But I’ll keep an eye on you, all the same. See if you need any help remembering.”
“Thank you,” the representative sniffs. “But that will not be necessary.”
They all brush past her and out the door then without another word. The interaction raises her hackles, and she watches them suspiciously for a moment before turning and scanning the crowd and the surrounding buildings with her sonic. She frowns when the display turns up nothing of concern. Maybe she’s just being paranoid. Either way, she suspects it’s time to find Yaz and get going.
She works her way back through the city hall and towards the windows where she’d last left her friend. She spots her and Kiri on one of the observation decks; Yaz is following Kiri’s indication to look out at something in the distance, and the Doctor smiles at the attentive look on her face. Yaz has always been so good with other people, far better than the Doctor is herself. She’s brilliant. If she can do anything in the time she has left, she hopes she’s able to show Yaz just how brilliant she really is.
She heads towards them, pocketing a few snacks as she passes them—custard tarts are Yaz’s favorites, and they’re on the opposite end of the room from where she is, she possibly hasn’t seen them yet—when suddenly someone screams. The Doctor whips her head towards the sound to see a few people pointing in horror towards the windows.
The Doctor turns, and her stomach drops out from under her. Behind her, people begin to run, but it’s too late. There’s a flare of light hurtling towards them, too fast to intercept.
Something had been wrong.
And now, she’s out of time.
“Yaz—”
She runs. Not away, it’s too late for that. But towards Yaz. Maybe she can shield her. Maybe she can just—
The Doctor reaches out and finds that Yaz has turned back towards her as well, her eyes wide and alarmed, her hand stretching back too. Yaz, I’m so sorry.
All she has time to think, then, is that Yaz is beautiful, even now, even like this, in the too-bright light of impending destruction.
And then the world goes white, and hot, and out.