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It starts like this.
There's red dust beneath her feet. Little whorls of it lifting in a breeze to eddy in the air.
The sun beats down, lavender blue. The sun, she thinks. There's something wrong with the sun.
There's a woman in front of her, hair white as snow. No matter how hard she tries, she can never glimpse her face. The shadows bend and warp, keeping it from view.
The woman lifts a hand, extends it out to her. Something flashes, something sparks.
Watch, she says, curls her hand into a fist around the light, till none of its brilliance shows. Every spark goes out. You cannot stop the ending.
It starts like this. Yasmin Khan wakes up.
There's a moment, after the nightmare, when Yaz isn't sure where she is. When she flails, grasps, a word on her lips that slides away like water. Where the room she opens her eyes to isn't the one she's expecting. Where she sees red dust, memories, the ceiling of her family's flat.
She's always woken from bad dreams with this curious abstraction. And mostly– mostly, now, it's that she's still not quite used to this place yet. Still doesn't quite believe it, the bed she gets to share, the person she gets to share it with.
It's just that, she tells herself, as she sits upright, gasping, sweat sticking her t-shirt to her skin. (Stars, she'd said, looking out– tracing the scatter of them across Yaz's chest. Love your stars.
And Yaz had smiled. Remind me of you.)
She grips the memory like an anchor, claws her way out of the dream's violet clash. Tries to breathe, blink, orient.
“Yaz.” Her voice is soft, concerned. “Love, are you alright?”
Love. It catches in Yaz's chest, unfolds in layers, a palimpsest of recollection. Laughter, rainbow t-shirts, hands clasping. Custard creams and tea and amber light. A beach, a stone, a kiss, a ring. Mehndi-covered palms, tears in hazel eyes, I'm always with you.
This life she gets to live, now.
Anchors. This flat they chose together. The glow-in-the-dark stars arranged across the ceiling, and she'd said that's not a constellation, and got a grin and a wink and a, that's what you think. The blue of the bedspread. The rainbow maker in the window, scattering refracted light.
Anchors. This person she chose, too, who chose her. Brows furrowed in concern over the gold-green of her eyes. Sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed, surrounded by scattered pieces of their alarm clock. Brushing hair out of her eyes impatiently as she looks up at Yaz, and Yaz notes it down in her brain, remind her to get a haircut. Oversized t-shirt patterned with biscuits, boxers with a rainbow waistband, would it kill you to buy pyjamas– Yaz, I barely sleep–
Jac. Her wife. (Wife-husband-spouse-thing, she'd said once, and, eyes twinkling– Bit of a mouthful, that. Wife'll do.)
Yaz exhales. “Nightmare,” she manages, takes a shaky breath. Reaches up to run a hand over her braid, like she's reassuring herself she's still in one piece. Remembers, then, that her hair's loose, curls tumbling over her shoulders. Remembers Jac tugging the hairband free, unweaving the braided strands, running her fingers through dark locks. Beautiful, Yaz, so beautiful–
Jac scrambles up from the floor, sits down on the bed beside her. Squeezes her hand. “The one with–” Swallowing. “The Sonya one?”
Jac doesn't say the suicide one, but Yaz knows what she means.
You're alone in the dark.
She shakes her head. Grips Jac's hand back. Her fingers are hot. “Different one.”
“I fixed the alarm clock,” Jac says. “Well, nearly.”
And Yaz laughs a little bit. The non sequitur is so her. “Was it even broken?”
Jac huffs. “'Course! It kept running a minute slow, remember? And the ringing's just bad, Yaz, that's not proper alarm-clock sound.”
Yaz grins. “We barely even use that alarm clock, what with you and being up at sunrise.”
Jac smiles back, something wistful. “I do love a sunrise. But the point is, Yaz, the clock's just better now.”
“In pieces?”
Jac gesticulates. Forgets her hand is still in Yaz's, almost hits her in the face with their clasped fingers. “It's a work in progress! I was putting it back together when you woke up!”
Yaz peers at the floor. “Still looks pretty in pieces to me.”
Jac pouts at her.
On the nightstand, Yaz's phone buzzes. She reaches out, glances at the screen; blinks at the time in horror, something constricting around her lungs.
“It's past eleven? You should've woken me– why didn't you wake me up–”
Jac frowns. “I was letting you sleep in. It's a weekend, Yaz, remember?”
“But we've lost time.” Yaz swallows, feels a lump rise in her throat and doesn't understand it. “We're always losing time.”
(The night of their first date, Jac walking her back to her door and Yaz lingering in the street, unwilling. I want more time with you.
Jac, on one knee in the grass as the stars whirled overhead. I want this to go on forever. Would you do forever with me, Yaz? And then– Just to be clear, I'm asking you to marry me.
It's just that even when she's happy, there's that corner of her brain, that shadow, that grey thing perching. You'll lose her in the end. You always do.
And Yaz thinks of the nightmare, of the red dust. You cannot stop the ending.)
Jac reaches up, brushes a thumb against her cheek. “It's not lost.” And smiling, soft– “We have all day, remember?”
Yaz breathes. Catches Jac's hand in hers and holds it there, against the curve of her face.
“Is it coming back?” Jac asks, small.
Yaz knows what she means. She's eighteen and sitting at the side of a road. She's twenty-two and stuck in her room. It's a month after their wedding and she can't get out of bed.
It always comes back, in the end.
Every spark goes out.
She leans into Jac's palm. “I dunno.”
Jac nods. “Well. If it is, we'll see it through.”
And it's– There's still something bright about it. About every day spent with Jac. She's the sun Yaz orbits around.
This gets to be her life now.
Jac kisses her in the kitchen while she tries to make breakfast, and Yaz laughs under it till she leans in and gets lost, till Jac's hand starts sliding up under her pyjama top and Yaz pulls back reluctantly, catches her fingers. Behave, the toast'll burn.
And Jac grinning like a devil, does that matter, and Yaz– you already blew up the toaster last week. Also, we have groceries to buy.
Jac brightens at that. Custard creams?
And Yaz sighs. Already on the list.
Jac causes chaos in the biscuit aisle, practically ransacks the shelves to dig out the last custard cream packet. Yaz apologises to the scandalised elderly woman who almost trips over Jac as she offloads bourbons onto the floor. Rolls her eyes as she helps return them to their rightful places. You're like a kid sometimes.
And Jac beams. Thanks! What, only sometimes?
You always say that.
Jac frowns. I don't. Do I?
Yaz gives up the fight.
They swing by a park, after that. Jac sacrifices a single custard cream to the ducks, goes on about how she can speak Bird. And Dog. And Horse. And Baby. Did I ever tell you I met a baby called Stormageddon?
Yaz elbows her. You did not.
Did too! Then, blinking– Or was that John?
Yaz raises her eyebrows. Who's John?
But Jac's already rambling about talking to ducks again.
The day goes by like that. Breakfast and groceries and the park, this rhythm of their life that Yaz still wonders at.
(In the back of her mind, echoes of a nightmare, the details already fading.)
It goes like this.
Yaz is dressing for dinner at her parents' when something smashes in the kitchen and Jac cries out.
And Yaz runs in there, blouse half-buttoned. Finds Jac in the corner of the kitchen, back against the counter, staring at the shattered orange of a mug. Her eyes are wide, look abstracted. Scared and distant. She stares down at her right hand like it's a stranger, fingers shaking. There's blood on her palm where a pottery shard's caught her skin.
“What happened?” Yaz asks.
Jac shakes her head. “I dunno. I thought I saw– I thought I was–” She breaks off, draws in a lungful of air, presses a finger to the cut, voice dipping to a whisper. “It was so red.”
And Yaz jolts. Sees dust eddying in the air. “What was?” She lifts Jac's uninjured hand away from the cut, grips it in hers. The trickle of blood has already slowed. “What was red, Jac?”
Jac sighs. Pushes hair out of her eyes. Smiles, big and bright. “I dunno. Doesn't matter. Let's just go.”
Yaz folds a rainbow-patterned plaster over the cut. Lifts Jac's hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles, the warmth of her skin.
For now, she doesn't push. It's hard for Jac, always, to talk about things that hurt. But she's tried. She's been trying. Yaz owes it to her to be gentle.
(It goes like this: dreams fade with time.)
It's still a little strange, seeing Jac at her parents' dinner table, even after years. There's part of Yaz that keeps expecting Najia to eye her suspiciously. There's part of Jac that seems to expect it, too, a little confused when her quick-grabbing hug is met with a proper one in return.
But she fits here, really. Like something Yaz thought would never be possible. She fits, weighing in enthusiastically on Hakim's latest conspiracy theories, offering to upgrade the oven whilst Najia smiles politely and catches Yaz's eye in horror, dropping a kiss on Yaz's cheek and frowning a little bit when Sonya tells them to get a room, we've got a room. We have a whole flat, Sonya–
Yaz's shoulders relax, as they sit there. As the picture reconciles. Jac and her family. These people she loves, around a table together, talking and eating and laughing, and it's– well. Not perfect. Life's never perfect, she still feels that shadow at the corners, that grey cloud that hangs waiting, but– She never thought she'd have this.
I want more time with you.
They're still at the dinner table when the sun starts to set, orange sky visible in slices between the buildings, clouds tingeing pink.
Jac gets up, then, goes to stand at the glass, looking out.
Look at your views, Yaz remembers. That first visit. I'd be good in a flat.
She looks, and it's only because Yaz is watching her so closely, watching her outlined in sunset haze, that she notices the way her fists clench, for a moment. The way her shoulders tense up, and she presses a hand to the window, to the orange blaze that shines through the glass.
Yaz gets up, too, goes to stand beside her. Wraps an arm around her waist.
Jac grins, and leans her head against Yaz's shoulder, and it's right, it's right.
(Far down, echoing: There's something wrong with the sun.)
It happens again.
Eddying red dust. The strange blue daylight. The shadow-faced woman with the long white hair.
Her hand outstretched, shining. An orange glow sparking off the thing that she holds, so bright Yaz can't look at it.
The fist that closes.
You cannot stop the ending, Yasmin.
A smile, flashing through the wreathing shadows. Not long now. Not so very far to go.
Yaz wrenches upright, a sob on her lips. She's on the sofa, the purple sofa, I should get a sofa, and movie credits are rolling on the TV, and Jac's hand is reaching out, landing on her shoulder.
“You're alright, you're alright,” Jac says, hands fluttering over her. “You fell asleep, that's all. Sofa movies. Should've known.”
“The dream,” Yaz says. “It was the same dream, Jac. It–”
The details are fading, already. There's something she should say, should name. There's something rising to her lips, and then it falls away, like sand through an hourglass.
“What is it?” And Jac looks afraid now, just a little. Pulls Yaz in against her shoulder, strokes a hand through her hair. “Love, what's the dream?”
Yaz shakes her head. She can't find it. It slides like water through her grasp.
“I don't want to fall asleep,” she says instead, small. “I'm worried it'll come back. I'm worried something's going wrong.”
Jac holds on. Presses a kiss to the top of her head. “If it is,” she whispers. “We'll face it together. Whatever happens...”
And Yaz smiles, shaky, finishes the line, the thing she said at their wedding. “I'm staying with you.”
She lifts her head. Pulls Jac into a kiss, loses herself in the movement of her mouth, the softness of her lips. A familiarity she aches for, every time. I've known this. I've known you.
“Can we watch the stars?” she asks, when they part. “The night's– I– I don't want it to end.”
“'Course,” Jac whispers. “I always want more time with you.” And then, like a switch flips, she's beaming. Bounces up to her feet, even as something wistful shines in her eyes. “I'll make tea. Get blankets. Biscuits. Make the balcony proper cosy.”
Yaz smiles, shakes her head. “I'll handle tea, bighead. Don't need you blowing the kettle up.”
“Oi!”
It always comes back to this. It's always them, and the endless arc of the stars.
Jac gestures high over their heads, points out a cluster. “And that right there? That's the Custard Cream constellation.”
Yaz rolls her eyes. “There's no such thing.”
“How d'you know?” Jac protests. “I'm the space guy, aren't I?”
“Don't remember designating you as such.”
“But Yaz.” It's almost a whine. “I love space! Imagine walking up there, among all of them. Imagine walking on another planet. Imagine a blue sun.”
And Yaz freezes, for a moment. Something wrong with the sun.
“Why blue?” she asks, carefully neutral.
Jac falters, just for a moment, then– “Love blue! It's the best colour. Well, I say best but I like a lot of colours, really. Red's ace, especially on you. Ooh, and yellow. Love a good yellow. But anyway. Stars, Yaz! Imagine being up there. Imagine being in the middle of Orion. Imagine seeing a nebula. Imagine a black hole.”
Yaz huffs a laugh. “Rather not visit a black hole, thanks. I like my limbs the length they are.”
Jac grins, runs a slow hand down her arm. “So do I.” Then– “Ooh, look, that cluster looks like a cup of tea, doesn't it? Right there. No, left a bit–”
She carries on like that. Making up constellations. Rambling facts about the stars till she trails off in a yawn, head dropping against Yaz's shoulder.
“Tired?” Yaz teases, lightly.
“'M not,” Jac mumbles back. “Never tired, me. Just...”
She sighs, eyelids fluttering. Yaz wraps an arm around her shoulders. Draws the blanket higher over her lap.
Watches as her breaths settle, steady. Watches the little crease between her brows fade away. Smoothes her hair back off her forehead.
Thinks, I never want this night to end.
(You cannot stop the ending, a voice whispers, a voice laughs.)
And below the arch of the stars, the warmth of the blanket, Jac's slow soft breathing, Yaz drifts, again, to sleep.
When she wakes, the sky's lightening, orange peeking over the horizon. When she wakes, Jac's waking, too.
“We fell asleep,” Yaz says, redundant.
Jac nods. Looks out. “The sun's rising.”
She reaches for Yaz's hand, then. Grips it tight in hers.
“What's wrong?” Yaz asks.
Out over the roofs, the orange of the sky blazes brighter.
Jac's smile is small, wistful. “There's something sad about a sunrise, isn't there? How quickly it's over. So much beauty, and it ends so soon.”
She turns, leans in, kisses Yaz so softly it aches. Yaz tastes salt on her lips.
“Everything ends,” Jac whispers.
Yaz reaches for her face, brushes away the tear that trickles down her cheek.
The orange blaze is bright, now. So bright. And Yaz understands, now. She remembers.
You cannot stop the ending.
Yaz presses her forehead to Jac's.
“I love you.”
Jac swallows. “Yaz.”
There's so much in it. There's a whole world in the word. A whole universe.
I want more. More of the universe.
“I know.” Yaz squeezes her eyes shut, fights the tears. “It's alright. I know.”
Jac's hand comes up to cup her cheek then, too. They hold onto each other.
More time with you.
And Yaz forces down the tears, admits one final truth. “There's something wrong with the sun.”
It starts like this.
A market on a planet with a blue sun. Her smile, through the shine in her eyes, through the glow. Best ice cream in the galaxy.
A stall, and she'd dragged her there, like always, like every time before. Look at this– Ooh, Yaz, have you heard about those–
And it was so normal. So normal Yaz almost forgot her heart was breaking.
And then, a woman behind a stall, hair long and white. An object held out, sparkling. Try this one.
She dropped it, palm unfolding over Yaz's. And Yaz caught it, like reflex.
It's an extraordinary thing. She'd turned, blue light flickering across her face. Turned, as it all began to fade. The power it grants. The wishes of your hearts.
And then, a glittering smile. You have until sunrise.
It starts like this, and this is how it ends.
Red dust beneath her feet. Lavender blue sunlight. A stall, a stranger leaving, an object falling from her fingers, its shine dulled down, burnt out to black embers.
Seconds have passed, maybe. Seconds and eternity.
Yaz turns. Meets hazel eyes, wide and soft with grief.
The Doctor swallows. Reaches out a hand. “Ice cream, then?”
And Yaz, trying to breathe, to be certain– “You lived it too, didn't you? You were there, you saw, you remember–”
The Doctor smiles, so soft, so devastatingly sad. “The wishes of our hearts, Yaz.” She presses a hand to her chest. “All three.”
“She vanished,” Yaz says, flailing for something to hang onto before she breaks. “Should we–”
The Doctor shakes her head. “No time.” She lifts her hand, again, reaches out. “Not this time.”
Yaz takes it. Looks at their hands, clasped. The Doctor's grip, too warm in hers.
Swallows every part of her that's breaking.
“Ice cream, then?”
The Doctor beams, like tears aren't welling in her eyes. Tears her gaze from where they both keep looking; from the orange glow that bleeds between their intertwined fingers.
“Ice cream.”
And this is how it ends.