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It doesn’t quite feel real that Yaz is wandering through the halls of the TARDIS for the first time in four long, long years. Not yet, anyway. She should probably be exhausted, after everything that’s happened over the last 24 hours, but she can’t quite let herself settle, can’t quite convince herself to rest. Not until she’s sure. She halfway expects to turn a corner, blink her eyes one more time and find herself back in 1904, in Williamson’s tunnels with the Sontarans bearing down on them, like everything that’s happened since then had just been a dream.
A wonderful dream, where the Doctor had stopped everything, had stopped, and pulled her into her arms, and the world had clicked back into place, and she’d come home again, just when she’d started to think that maybe, this time, there would be no going back.
A terrible dream, where they hadn’t been able to save Jericho from the Sontaran ship in time.
The grief twists in her gut, sharp and heavy, and she’s afraid to look at it too closely. It’s part of why she’s glad the Doctor was happy to invite Dan on board again—she’s not sure she can handle saying goodbye to all of her little team all at once. She’d miss him too much, if she’d had to.
Not that she’ll admit that to Dan’s face, ever. Particularly not since he’d managed to interrupt… whatever it was he’d interrupted. Yaz still isn’t sure. She can’t quite make sense of the conversation, the apologies, the tenderness in the Doctor’s eyes.
Remembering the look on the Doctor’s face, so focused, so uncharacteristically vulnerable, takes her breath away all over again. It had seemed like an eternity without the feeling of the Doctor’s attention on her, and to have it back now, like that, had been like staring into the sun after years locked up underground. It’s glorious, it’s overwhelming, blinding in its intensity, and it’s why Yaz is padding quietly through the halls of the ship now. She’s settled Dan in his room, told him to get some rest and that she’d see him in the morning. And instead of being sensible and doing the same, she’s gone searching for the Doctor again.
Because if she thinks the TARDIS might disappear from around her if she closes her eyes, she’s doubly afraid of the Doctor vanishing out of her grasp again. She just… needs to sit with her again, for a while. She just needs to see her again.
She needs to see if she might just be able to rewind their conversation to the point before Dan had walked in, the point where the Doctor had leaned in and flicked her eyes to Yaz’s lips.
Which… that’s absurd. That couldn’t possibly have been what happened. It had been a trick of the light, surely, of Yaz’s overtired, over-relieved mind. They were just glad to have each other back after so long, that was all.
It’s not, a little voice at the back of her head pipes up, a voice she’s been ignoring studiously for the past four years, because 1904 was quite literally not the time. That’s not all, and you know it.
And, yes, maybe, sure. Maybe there’s more. Maybe Yaz wants more, maybe she’s been yearning for it, yearning for the Doctor, since the day they met. But it’s not important, not really. What’s important is that she’s here, she’s back where she belongs, in the TARDIS again. At the Doctor’s side.
Or at least, she will be when she can find her.
The ship feels like she’s glad to see Yaz back too. The light in each hallway she walks down is soft, honey-colored and cozy; the air feels warm and welcoming, and Yaz isn’t sure if she’s just not used to the usual hum of being surrounded by living machinery again, or if the ship is purring at her like a cat. It all feels too good to be true. She feels whole again, being back here. She feels safe again, in a way she hasn’t allowed herself to feel in years.
She feels like she’s home again.
But there’s still something missing. Someone missing. She needs to find the Doctor.
The idle wandering, the softly humming ship, has only steeled her resolve, and she lets herself think the question: can you show me where she is? The ship must agree with the idea, must be eager to reunite them, because the corridor to her right glows brighter, more insistent.
Yaz’s heart starts to race, just a little, and she tries to steady herself, even as she starts walking with more speed, more purpose. She tries to tell herself that it’s all over, at least for now: the Flux, the end of the universe, her time trapped in the past, it’s all done now, at least until they go save the world again in the morning. But she’s back in the TARDIS now. It’s safe. It’s all right.
It’s only when she follows the TARDIS’ directions into the third library that she realizes she might have let herself sink into that safety a little too soon.
When she steps inside, the library seems darker than usual, like the lights have shorted out. But there’s still a soft golden glow in the air, little wisps of it floating like dust caught inside invisible sunbeams. Yaz pauses in the doorway, frowning at it. It’s strangely beautiful, somehow, but it seems out of place, and it nags at her memory in a way she can’t quite grasp at first. The wisps are moving, just a little, floating upwards as they dissipate, and she tracks the motion with her eyes, following them down across the room. As her eyes adjust to the dim light, as she follows the little bits of golden glow, she spots a chair that’s tipped over, books tumbled off a low table nearby and left in sudden disarray.
A familiar brown boot sticking out from around the edge of a particular purple sofa.
“Doctor?” Yaz calls out at once.
She’s answered by a strange, rattling, wheezing groan, and another burst of that golden light. She must curl in on herself; the boot disappears from view.
In four quick strides, Yaz has dropped to her knees at the Doctor’s side. She’s on the floor, leaning her weight on shaking arms like she’s trying to shove herself back to her feet and failing. Her head is hanging low, her hair obscuring her face, but golden light seems to leak from her lungs with every ragged breath.
“Yaz,” she gasps at the sight of her. “I’m sorry.”
She tries to push herself up, pull herself back together at Yaz’s appearance, but it doesn’t work, and she crumples in on herself again with a sharp, pained sound, with more of that strange golden light spilling from her mouth. Yaz holds her hands out hesitantly, like she wants to catch her; she instinctively wants to touch her, to pull her in close, but she has no idea what’s happening, no idea if she should or if she’d make it worse.
“Doctor, what’s wrong?” Yaz asks instead. “What’s happening?”
“It’s—I’m fine. It’s fine,” the Doctor says. Her voice cracks.
“Doctor—” Yaz says insistently, not really expecting her to explain, because of course she won’t of course she’s bloody glowing and clearly in pain and she won’t say, she doesn’t know why she expected anything to change.
And then something does change. The Doctor continues. The Doctor keeps talking, and that, more than anything else, chills Yaz to the bone.
“Well, not fine, exactly, but—aghhhh—I say it’s fine but stars that hurts, and I don’t actually know what’s happening, love not knowing what’s happening, it doesn’t feel like regenerating—feels different—feels just as bad though—”
She cuts off her ramble with another groan through gritted teeth, more of the golden light flooding out of her, and the sight clicks into place in Yaz’s memory. She’d looked like this the night they’d met, passed out on Graham and Grace’s couch. She’d never really explained what had happened then. What does it mean that she’s explaining now, that she’s leaking words as surely as she’s letting that gold light bleed out of her?
Yaz is afraid of the answer, and some of that fear must show on her face—damn it, Yaz, keep it together, she needs you to keep it together—because the Doctor grimaces, scrunching her nose up in apology.
“Sorry,” the Doctor coughs. “I—I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have to see this. Then again you see right through me all the time, Yasmin Khan. You always have, because you’re proper brilliant, and also a little bit terrifying—”
“Me?” Yaz asks. “I’m not, Doctor, I—” She stops herself, because this is terrifying, what’s happening right now is horrific, and yet telling the Doctor how scared she is won’t help her fix this. She has to fix this. Keep it together, Yaz. “What’s going on? How can I help?”
“See, Yaz?” the Doctor says, a little bit of a breathless laugh in her voice. “What did I say. Proper brilliant, you are. Brilliant, and beautiful, and…”
She manages to lift her head then, to look up and meet Yaz’s gaze. The motion seems to take her a lot of effort. Her face is too pale, her attempt at a smile too shaky. And her eyes… her eyes glow golden with that same strange energy floating around them.
“I missed you, Yaz,” she whispers. Her voice is trembling, urgent, like she needs to say this before she misses her chance forever. “So much. I want… I wanted more time. I didn’t think—”
Yaz’s breath catches in her throat as the Doctor cuts herself off again with another pained hiss, and then a sharp, bitter laugh.
“What do you think is happening?” Yaz asks. She clearly has some ideas; maybe she can prod the panicked ramble into a direction that will let her have an idea of how she can help. “You said it feels different from—regeneration, what’s that? What does it feel like?”
“Not sure. Bad! Feels bad,” the Doctor answers, the laugh cracking through her words again, on the edge of hysterical. She ducks her head again, like she can’t quite muster the energy to breathe around the pain and maintain eye contact. “Still doesn’t feel like regeneration, although maybe that broke when Time put all three of me back together again, then again maybe it’s never worked the way I thought it did, since apparently the whole ‘Time Lord ability to cheat death by changing to a new body’ thing was something my adopted mother tortured out of me and grafted onto the whole species, that was a head trip, so was being split into three—”
“What?” is all Yaz can say. This doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make any sense and yet it explains so much, everything the Doctor’s been hiding for so, so long, why she could never answer when Yaz asked her questions. No wonder she couldn’t put words to something like this. No wonder it’s taken until she’s in so much pain she’s lost control for her to say anything. “Someone—your mother tortured you?”
“Seems like it, and the Master found out and did a lot of murder about it, and now she’s dead too and I’ve got a lot of lives I don’t remember,” the Doctor says. “And Time said—Time said that no life could last forever and I thought—I didn’t think she meant now—and I want—Yaz, I wanted more time…”
“Doctor,” Yaz says, her voice trembling, “why are you telling me this? Why are you saying this now?”
She looks up at Yaz again then, her eyes wide and pleading and desperate. She looks terrified, and that expression hits Yaz like a blow to the stomach. She’s afraid, and she’s hurting. Is she in too much pain to stop herself from spilling out her thoughts, or is she too afraid that she’ll never get another chance to voice them?
That fear spills out of her, freezes Yaz in place.
For a moment the golden glow in them winks out, for a moment that seems like it might be good, until the Doctor seems to almost… fade. Right in front of her. The way she almost had in Williamson’s tunnels.
“Doctor!” Yaz gasps, and she can’t stop herself—she reaches out and grabs her hands, gripping tight to her wrists, like she can tether her here. It’s a knee-jerk reaction—the Doctor’s fading and she has to hold on, but maybe there’s something to it, because she seems to wink back in again, just a little, even if she still seems… transparent, somehow. Not fully real. The Doctor hisses but doesn’t pull away; her skin feels hot, like she’s burning up.
“What do I do?” Yaz asks again. “Tell me how I can help!”
“I don’t know Yaz I don’t know I just—everything feels like it’s in the wrong order, like my atoms are falling apart, or, no, like they haven’t been put back together yet, like I’m still in three places or dropping through time and that shouldn’t be happening and I don’t know, I’ve never been split across three dimensions before, that I remember anyway, there’s a lot I don’t remember, and Time said the end was coming for me and I don’t want this to be the end I don’t—”
“What are you saying?” Yaz asks, numb with fear, her heartbeat racing in her ears, so fast it makes her dizzy. “Are you—please tell me you’re not—”
She can’t bring herself to say what she means, can’t ask are you dying, because she’s not, she can’t be, not now, not when she just got her back, she won’t let her die—
“I don’t know,” the Doctor replies, and somehow that’s worse, because how can she not know, how can the Doctor, who knows everything there is to know, not understand what’s happening to her? Her voice is high and tight with pain, every line of her body tense, and she flickers again, like a glitch, sharper than before, leaving her somehow fuzzier, the gold flaring brighter and then duller, the embers of a fire sparking out. “I’m sorry, Yaz, I’m so sorry, I don’t—I want—I’m sorry…”
Yaz holds tight to her wrists, the Doctor’s double pulse frantic under her fingers. And something surges in her beneath all the fear.
Something that feels a little bit like it might be rage.
“I don’t care what Time said,” Yaz insists. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not going anywhere, yeah? We’ll figure this out, and you’re going to be fine, and you’re going to be here. With me. I just got you back. I’m not letting you go.”
“Yeah?” the Doctor says with another attempt at a shaky smile. “Gonna fight the forces of the universe over me?”
“Yes,” Yaz replies, instantly, with every ounce of conviction she can muster. “Every single one, and I’ll win. I spent four years fighting my way back to you, one day after another. Just let anything fucking try and take you from me now, Doctor.”
“Yaz, no, that’s not—you can’t,” she replies. And her eyes are wide and afraid, like this is what frightens her the most, not her own body betraying her, not the torture and lost memories she’s babbled about, but this. “You can’t risk yourself for me, I’m not worth that.”
“Yes, you are,” Yaz says. She tightens her grip, like she can press the words into the Doctor’s skin, use them to tether her to the here and now. To her. “Don’t you dare say you’re not, Doctor. You’re the universe. You’re my whole universe, and I need you to stay. I need you here, with me.”
The Doctor whimpers, another wave of pain shuddering through her as she flickers right before Yaz’s eyes. She tightens her grip; she doesn’t know if it helps, or if it just hurts them both, but it’s all she can think to try.
“Yaz,” she gasps. “Yaz, if I—if I’m out of time—I just—I want—”
“No,” Yaz insists, putting every bit of steel she’s got into the word.
If this doesn’t work, if this is it, will she regret stopping her—but it doesn’t matter, because it’s going to be fine. She doesn’t want to hear things babbled to her in pain, as a last resort. She wants the Doctor to open up to her because she wants to, not by force. If that means she never hears it—but she will. This isn’t over. She’s not letting go.
“No, Doctor, this isn’t the end. I’m not done with you. We’ve got a lot to talk about and you’re going to be right here to tell me. I’m not letting you go.”
Something sparks in the Doctor’s eyes then. Something that looks like it might be hope. She lets out a long, trembling breath, more golden light seeping between her lips, and when she does, something seems to settle in her chest. Like she’s just a little bit more solid. Just a little bit more here. Yaz shifts her grip, just a little, and the Doctor does too, turning her hands so that she’s holding on to Yaz just as tightly. Her nails dig into the skin of her wrists, and Yaz can’t be bothered about the sting, not when it feels like the tension in the Doctor’s shoulders eases a little, like she’s coming back to herself.
“What’s happening?” she asks.
“Still not sure,” the Doctor mutters. “Still—ah—fuck that hurts—” And it must, because Yaz doesn’t think she’s ever heard her swear before— “But I think—you’re—whatever this is might respond to you, might let me pull everything back together if you just… if… but I don’t know—”
She cuts herself off with another pained whimper. Yaz tightens her grip so much that the skin of the Doctor’s arms turns white beneath her fingertips.
“I’m with you, whatever happens, remember?” she says, and it’s her turn to try for a smile. “So stay here with me. Please.”
“Yaz…”
“I’m not letting go. I’m not leaving you,” Yaz insists. “We’ll figure it out, yeah? We always do. If it’s… if you’re still not all the way back together, how do we ground you here? You said it’s… it’s responding to me? How does that work?”
The Doctor shudders in her arms. Yaz doesn’t know if she can’t answer her or doesn’t know what the answer is, but her head dips down, her eyes scrunched shut, her brow furrowed in pain. The sight of her like this, so small, so fragile, seems wrong somehow. This woman in her arms saved the universe, again, just hours ago. How is it possible that she’s falling to pieces now?
Or had she been then, too, and it’s only now that she’s safe that she’s letting herself shatter? Is that what she’d meant when she said Yaz shouldn’t have to see this?
“I’m here,” Yaz whispers. “I’m here for you, for everything. For anything, all right?”
“I don’t deserve you, Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor gasps, wincing around the words.
And Yaz doesn’t know what makes her so bold—maybe it’s the thought that the Doctor could possibly be dying, that this could be her last chance. So she reaches up with one hand to cup the Doctor’s face, stroking her thumb softly across the plane of her cheek like she can smooth all the pain away.
“Too bad, bighead, you’re stuck with me,” she tells her with a soft chuckle that still feels far too thick with emotion.
The Doctor gasps at her touch, blinking her eyes open again, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she leans into it, settling the weight of her chin more firmly into Yaz’s palm with the tiniest, softest gold-tinted sigh.
The light in her eyes flickers, flaring more solid again. Like she’s settling. Like she’s grounding herself in right here. In Yaz’s touch.
“What do you need?” Yaz whispers again. She’ll ask the question a thousand times, if that’s what it takes.
“I think…” the Doctor murmurs back, and there it is, for the second time today: her gaze drops down, to linger on Yaz’s lips, something a little like desperation, a little like hunger, dancing in her eyes. “I think… Yaz… I think I just need you.”
“You have me,” Yaz tells her. “Always.”
She runs the pad of her thumb across the Doctor’s cheek one more time, and that’s all it takes for her to lean in.
For the Doctor to kiss her.
She tastes like stardust and smoke, whatever golden light is dripping out of her sliding into Yaz now too when she gasps and breathes her in. And she’s too warm, feverish and trembling, but she’s here, kissing her so gently, like she’s the most precious person in the universe. Gripping tight to her shirt with one hand, clinging desperately to her fingers with the other, like the Doctor thinks she’s the one fading away, like she’s the one who might disappear.
As if Yaz has any intentions of going anywhere else, ever again.
The Doctor shifts back then, just for a moment, just long enough to come closer, to practically pour herself into Yaz’s lap, to kiss her again more fervently, her hands framing Yaz’s face to pull her in for more, and more, and more. And Yaz’s fingers slide up the back of the Doctor’s neck, stumbling over each knob of vertebrae before tangling in her hair, her other hand splayed against the small of her back to keep her steady, to keep her here. Something about the weight against her body feels like it’s settling, like she’s staying, like Yaz can really hold her here in this moment, in this lifetime, with just her touch.
They cling to each other, so, so tightly, and Yaz’s lungs burn, her heart threatens to burst with far more emotions than she can even catalogue, relief and fear and grief and terror and love all too sharp and too bright to hope to untangle. She has no words for those feelings, not anymore; they’re too big to catalogue, too big to dare speak aloud, and so she hopes the Doctor can feel them like this. Stay with me, she begs with every touch, be here with me, just let me in, just let me stay…
The Doctor breaks the kiss first, slumping forward to tuck her nose against Yaz’s neck, practically panting hot and ragged against her skin. Yaz blinks open her eyes and lets out a shaky breath of her own, almost laughing when she sees that it too is now tinged gold.
“Are you all right?” she asks softly, tracing circles between the Doctor’s shoulder blades. She looks solid; the golden glow emanating from her has dimmed enough that the TARDIS has brightened the lights in the room just a little for them. She feels solid, too, still warmer than she should be, but the shaking seems to have stopped.
“I don’t know,” the Doctor whispers against her neck. “I think… I think maybe. I think… you keep saving me, Yasmin Khan.”
“Always,” she says again. “Do you think… was that it? Was that what Time meant? Is it over? Is it… can you stay?”
For a moment, her heart pounds in her chest as she lets herself hope, but then the Doctor shakes her head against her shoulder.
“I don’t know that either,” she says. “I don’t… I’d like it to be. Stars, that hurt… feel wrung out, still, I just… I…”
She lifts her head then, and she’s still too pale, she still looks like she’s been ill for days, but her eyes are the right color again, green mixed into the gold, and shining only with tears instead of warning swirls of light.
“I don’t know how much time I have left, Yaz,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
The words are so quiet, but they feel earth-shattering anyway. Yaz’s heart twists sharply in her chest; she wants to break apart, she wants to scream, she wants to sob at the horrible, awful unfairness of getting the Doctor back, of getting to have her again like she’s hardly allowed herself to dream only to know she’ll lose her again, maybe soon, for good this time.
But the Doctor looks so scared, just then, and so, so sad. So Yaz swallows down most of her own misery and instead reaches up to tuck the Doctor’s tousled hair behind her ear.
“No one really knows how much time they get, do they?” she asks softly. “We can just… make the most of whatever time we do have.”
The Doctor studies her face then, like she’s looking for the trick, for the catch, but there isn’t one. There’s just them, and this moment, and the one after that. There’s no real answer there, no magic except the everyday hum of life. That’s all they can give each other.
That’s all Yaz has ever really wanted.
The Doctor lets out a quiet little sob, and she kisses Yaz again in answer, slow and soft and sweet. And Yaz just holds her, lets her curl herself against her side, hiding her face against the curve of her neck. She’ll be here as long as the Doctor needs her. She can be the tether that grounds this impossible woman of starlight and wonder to the Earth, to the present, to her, if that’s what it takes. If that’s what she needs.
As long as she’s able, she’ll stay.