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“A concert. You pick the time and place. Any concert. Just take us there.”
That’s what she’d told the Doctor after they dropped Dan back in Liverpool to meet up with Diane. First thing that had popped into her head. Something to lift their spirits after their conversation on the beach. Something that isn’t risky, for once. No saving the universe. No running for their lives. Just Radiohead in Stockholm, 1995.
She’s good at de-escalation. Or, she used to be, back when she was nothing more than a police officer dreaming of more. Her whole job was resolving conflict. These days, traveling with the Doctor, her world seems to center more around the action of things. But she’s sure she still has those skills, the soft skills. Because they could use some de-escalation.
Taking this trip has gotten them through their bout of awkwardness, anyway, and there has been awkwardness. Of course there has. How could there not be. What sort of person tells their best friend they have feelings for them that they can’t act on?
The same sort of person who makes piggyback bets, apparently.
The concert’s done, and they’re on their way back to the TARDIS now, the Doctor carrying Yaz on her back. Bit of concert adrenaline has her feeling like a kid again. Ridiculous. But precious. These moments will be the ones she remembers most often when it’s all over.
But no. No, they’re not doing that, Yaz reminds herself. She and the Doctor are trying a new thing where there’s nothing behind them and nothing in front of them. There is only here. There is only now.
So, instead, she thinks about the Doctor’s hands wrapped securely under her thighs. Her arms around the Doctor’s neck. The delicate smell of the Doctor’s conditioner that she can just catch when the wind blows—strange to imagine, someone as remarkable as the Doctor engaging with something as simple as conditioner. She thinks about the stars above them, watching and burning and dying.
Yaz could close her eyes and live right here, forever. Forever.
“Ready to call it?” Yaz asks, because it’s quite a trek from the venue to the TARDIS, and that’s the whole bet, isn’t it. Is the Doctor strong enough to carry her all the way, or will she give up. Winner gets to pick the next destination. Very high stakes.
Truthfully, Yaz is hoping the Doctor wins. Seeing the universe through the Doctor’s eyes is one of her favorite things.
“Nope,” the Doctor says, doesn’t even sound winded as she kicks open the door to the TARDIS, and are they really back already? Has she daydreamed through the whole journey?
The Doctor carries her through to the console room, and Yaz prepares to use her own legs again, but the Doctor doesn’t stop to let her down. Just keeps on down the hallway, never one to do things halfway. Yaz smiles, light with the same giddiness that has been blooming in her chest all night.
“Have the bedrooms always been this far away?” the Doctor asks, then pauses for a moment to look up at the ceiling. “Are you moving them on purpose?”
“Think the TARDIS might be on my side.”
The Doctor huffs.
“I’ll be having a chat with her about that later.”
The TARDIS hums, and Yaz laughs softly.
Thank you, she thinks to herself, wonders if the TARDIS can hear her, for making this last.
When the Doctor finally does make it to Yaz’s bedroom, she shoves the door open and makes her way to the bed, depositing Yaz down onto it before promptly falling back onto it herself.
“You seem a bit tired,” Yaz teases, and the Doctor opens her eyes to look over at her.
“Me? Nah. Could’ve carried you for miles more,” the Doctor says with a smile, then sighs contentedly. “I win. Next trip, my choice. What did Dan say? A weekend, then we come back for him?”
“Yeah.”
The Doctor looks up at the ceiling, but her smile remains.
“Two whole days,” the Doctor says, wonder and amazement in her voice. “The places I could take you in two days. That’s lifetimes, Yaz.”
“It is,” Yaz agrees quietly. “Lifetimes.”
Not too long ago, she might have believed differently in terms of how a lifetime is measured. But time curves. Time twists, for them. Entirely nonlinear. She could spend several infinities with the Doctor and still want more, spinning in circles, because it’s not about time at all. It’s about going until the love runs out. And it won’t.
So much for not dwelling on the ending of things, she thinks bitterly.
In an effort to distract herself, redirect her thoughts, she sits up and rises to her feet, shrugging off her leather jacket. She tosses it on the floor and makes her way over to her bag in the corner of the room—not quite as messy as the Doctor’s bottomless pockets, but she does have to sift through a few things to find a pack of makeup remover wipes.
“What are you doing?” the Doctor asks, and she’s still lying back on the bed, but she lifts her head for a moment to glance at Yaz as she walks back over.
“Cleaning you up,” she says with a grin, nodding to the pillows at the head of the bed. “Come on. Up here.”
The Doctor does as Yaz asks, sliding up to put her head on a pillow. Yaz sits down in the middle of the bed with her legs beneath her, then pulls a wipe from the pack.
“I’d say the whole grunge look really suits me. What do you think?”
Flirting. It’s flirting. Yaz knows that now, is learning to read that ghost of a smile playing at the Doctor’s lips just as she’s learned how she takes her tea. Inwardly, Yaz tells herself not to panic. Outwardly, she offers a small smile and leans down a bit.
“Close your eyes,” she says, and the Doctor does.
It does suit her, is the thing. It suits her, and Yaz tries to ignore just how much as she gently wipes the coal black makeup from the Doctor’s eyelids. There’s loads of it because they really went for it tonight, once the Doctor had told her what decade she’d be landing them in. It’s the most fun Yaz has had in a while, juvenile as it was.
She’d chosen the Doctor’s outfit for her. Loose flare jeans and a striped, long sleeve shirt that the Doctor had thrown a flannel over at the last second. Yaz didn’t have to search too extensively for her own outfit. She already feels quite at home in jeans and leather jackets. But the dark makeup had been the Doctor’s idea, and Yaz had applied that for her as well.
There is something about being the one to make her up and take her apart that sticks to Yaz’s throat, stings at the corners of her eyes. Something romantic. Something miserable. She can’t place it, but with her fingers tracing a cloth over the Doctor’s closed eyes like this—eyes that have seen beauty, eyes that have seen ruin—she thinks she could understand why the Doctor is withholding her affection. She hates it. But she thinks she could understand it, for these few seconds. Because there is nothing worse than having your hands on something that will eventually disappear. There is nothing greater.
She blinks twice, slowly pulls her hand away and places the now inky wipe on the bedside table. The Doctor opens her eyes like she’s seeing Yaz for the first time. Maybe she is.
“Thanks,” the Doctor says, reaching her hand up to run her fingertips just above her cheekbone. The place Yaz had just touched. As if she’s trying to hold onto it. “Feels better. This is quite a comfy outfit though. Might let you dress me more often.”
Yaz’s mind associates dress with undress far too quickly, far too effortlessly, and leaning over the Doctor is suddenly crossing too many wires in her brain, so she lies back, rests her head on the pillow next to the one the Doctor’s using. She watches the ceiling, entertained by the nebula pattern the TARDIS has made for them, the way it sways like the stars are dancing.
“Always reminds me of 2028,” Yaz says, voice gone wistful without her permission, “choosing outfits like this.”
“Ah, Palace of Whitehall,” the Doctor says excitedly. “I did love that jumpsuit. Forgot I even had it.”
Yaz smiles at the memory.
“I liked the dress you chose for me too,” she says. “The silver one. Felt like I was made of moonlight.”
“You looked it.” The Doctor’s tone is soft, fond. When Yaz glances over at her, the Doctor is already looking at her, smiling. “’Course, you always look lovely.”
Tugging at all of her tangled heartstrings tonight, then.
Yaz remembers choosing the Doctor’s jumpsuit, remembers the Doctor choosing her dress. She remembers the brief dancing that had followed, as though no one but the two of them had ever existed. Yaz remembers being held in the Doctor’s arms as she dipped her, remembers the heavy pause between them as they watched each other, suspended. Like how they are now. Like how they are always.
“Doctor,” Yaz says softly, surprised that she’s even managed to find her voice, and the Doctor hums. “It’ll hurt all the same, in the end. I know you want to protect yourself from it. And I know you want to protect me, but…when this is over, it’ll feel the same. Just because we’re not calling it what it is doesn’t make it all go away.”
Yaz feels her heartbeat start to pick up, and she doesn’t know where any of that came from or how she was able to say all of it without choking on her words, on her feelings. But she’s tired of navigating around it. With each heartfelt compliment, with each affectionate smile, the Doctor is throwing stones at an open window at this point, and Yaz can do nothing but watch from above until the Doctor’s pockets are empty. Or until the Doctor finally climbs the lattice. Whichever comes first.
“No, it doesn’t,” the Doctor agrees just as quietly, then looks back up at the ceiling. “I know it doesn’t.”
Then do something, Yaz thinks. Look at me, reach for me, kiss me.
It’s frustrating. It’s devastating.
But she’s good at de-escalation.
Yaz turns onto her side and faces the Doctor, studying her profile in the dim light.
“Tell me something,” she says, and she’s secretly thrilled by how immediately that draws the Doctor’s eyes back to her. “Not everything. Not right now, I mean. Just…something. Anything.”
“Anything could be a lot of things, Yaz.”
“Whatever you feel like telling me, then.”
The Doctor is quiet for a moment, and then a moment too long, and Yaz thinks the silence is her way of politely refusing. Or, Yaz has just sent her on a terrible journey through her memories and the Doctor is trying to figure out how best to lay out all of her heartbreak. Does it hurt more when you have two hearts, Yaz wonders.
Yaz should know better than to prod by now. She should know to leave well enough alone. They’ve had a wonderful night, and now she’s spoiling it by trying not to spoil it—
“I stole Virginia Woolf’s pen.”
It’s so wildly, delightfully unexpected that Yaz can’t help the laugh that escapes her.
“What?”
“Well, you remember Bloomsbury.”
“’Course I remember,” Yaz answers, fondness spilling into her tone. “Just can’t believe you stole a pen from one of the most famous writers in the world.”
“It was an accident!” The Doctor regains her typical animation, promptly turning on her side to face Yaz, as if to defend herself properly. “Didn’t realize I had it in my pocket ‘til we were already back on the TARDIS.”
“And you didn’t think to return it?”
“Nah, she’ll have loads of them.” The Doctor’s smile isn’t at all haunted or sad or apologetic. It’s genuine and good-natured, and Yaz feels a rush of adoration flood her chest. “Fun trip though, wasn’t it?”
It’s an understatement, really. That trip to 1925 is still one of her favorites. The creativity of that era. The romance. The heartache. So much history.
Yaz wonders what Virginia Woolf would think, if she knew anyone in the world today can buy a book of her private love letters on the Internet in two clicks. If she knew that her love has not only been published but celebrated. Yaz can’t imagine feeling anything but mortified, if it were her. If she’d written mountains of letters to the Doctor, only to have them studied and interpreted and glamorized by millions of people.
Then again, she’s not half the romantic that Virginia Woolf was.
“Yeah, it was,” Yaz agrees.
“Not the only time that’s happened, actually. Think I still have those books from the Library of Alexandria. Somewhere. Don’t know. Hard to say. I’m sure they’ll turn up if I need them. Speaking of fun trips…”
It’s easy to keep the Doctor talking once she’s started, and it’s even easier to listen to her. Alexander the Great. Hypatia. A planet called Arcan where eldritch beings rule supreme, and another planet called Orin where the sky is always painted in shades of green. Each of her stories leads into another, and she’s recounting incredible things. Impossible things. The Doctor is talking about things she’s seen, things she’s experienced. The Doctor is talking about her past, and it’s not at all dreadful or heavy or terrifying. It’s beautiful.
It's all Yaz has ever wanted. To know her. To feel close to her. Like the Doctor isn’t some distant dream that’s about to slip away if she blinks. Like she’s real. Like they both are.
How much time has passed? How long has Yaz been listening, so enthralled, so mesmerized. So in love. Long enough, apparently, that when the Doctor pauses, her words dying down and then out, the abrupt silence makes Yaz feel like she’s falling, careening through space.
“Sorry. Gets a bit boring, doesn’t it?”
But Yaz shakes her head.
“No,” she says, and she’s sure she has stars in her eyes. Embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as what she’s about to do, probably. “Can I say something?”
“Always.”
The thing that’s been on her mind since they left the 19th century. The thing she hasn’t mentioned. The thing she’s been too afraid to hope for.
Here’s to being courageous. Or stupid. Mostly stupid, really. So stupid that she feels nauseous. And lightheaded.
“I thought you might kiss me,” she says, “at the bottom of the ocean.”
Fine. It’s out there. It’s out there, and it’s worse somehow, because her heart is in her throat and her stomach is in knots and the Doctor’s gaze falls to Yaz’s lips, briefly, carefully, but it doesn’t mean anything. Can’t mean anything. It’s only because Yaz has brought it up, and it’s only natural, only instinct—
“I should have, shouldn’t I?”
She’s thought about it too, Yaz thinks, and her insides are made of nothing but butterflies, all fluttering and trembling.
The Doctor’s thought about what it would be like, what it would have been like, to kiss her. How many times? Just the one? Was their trip to the seabed the first, or has the Doctor thought about it long before then, and could they have been thinking it at the same time, in the same moments.
Nonlinear, Yaz reminds herself. Nonlinear. Doesn’t matter. What matters is now. What matters is the present.
Regardless, her head is spinning, and it takes so much just to speak.
“No, it’s…I understand. Why you didn’t, I mean.”
And she goes quiet.
And the Doctor goes quiet.
That’s it. They’ll put this to rest, chalk it up as an almost, and they can move on from that wretched, wonderful moment beneath the ocean. Yaz is okay with that. She can learn to be okay with that.
“What if I kissed you now?” the Doctor asks. “To make up for when I should have.”
It’s Yaz’s turn now—because they can’t seem to stop talking about it—to steal a glance at the Doctor’s lips, to watch as the Doctor’s tongue darts out to wet them. She follows the movement with her eyes, has to reel in her adrenaline and everything in her screaming yesyesyes. Has to swim through the chaos to find a small thread of dignity.
“I don’t want you to kiss me because you think you’re supposed to.” Yaz’s voice is raw, lower than she’d like, giving too much away, so she swallows. “I want you to kiss me because you want to.”
The Doctor takes a breath, a careful inhale and a soft exhale, like she’s preparing for something, and Yaz doesn’t often see her do that. So much of the Doctor is comprised of quick-witted turbulence. Rarely does she exude steadiness. Stability. But she takes a breath like she cares about how this goes. Like she wants to get it right.
“If I only get one go at this—at being me, I mean—then this is what I want to do with it. Got loads of stories. Things I remember. But, really…I don’t know what I’ve done. I don’t know who I was, or who I’ve been.” In her peripheral, Yaz can see the Doctor’s hand twitch, like she wants to reach for her. Like she wants to touch her. “But right now, who I am’s just…someone who’s here with you. And what I want to remember is that I didn’t waste this.”
Of course there will be pain. Of course there will. Someday, Yaz will walk the halls of the TARDIS for the last time. She wonders when that will be. She wonders if she will know of her final moments here, or if that dreadful day will take her by surprise. She wonders if she will be able to walk away from this, to set it down gently, or if this new home will be ripped from her grasp. Will she leave fingerprints, or will she leave claw marks.
Home.
It’s a funny word. It used to look like four walls. Now it looks more like blonde hair and sweeping coattails, looks more like hands in pockets and beaming smiles and long stretches of cosmos, infinite.
“Alright,” she says softly. “Kiss me, then.”
The Doctor smiles sheepishly.
“Never done anything like this before. Not with this face.”
Nervous. The Doctor is nervous. Because of her. It’s so endearing, so lovely, that it makes Yaz smile.
“It’s okay,” Yaz says, reaches out to tuck the Doctor’s hair behind her ear, runs her thumb along the chain of her earring, thinks, I’ll be brave for the both of us.
She doesn’t breathe as she leans in, doesn’t breathe as the Doctor mirrors the action to meet her, doesn’t even breathe when she feels the Doctor’s lips press softly against her own. Because it’s terrifying. Soul-stirring. If she breathes, it may all be over.
There is relief though, coursing through the whole of her. She’s kissing the Doctor, the Doctor is kissing her back, and there is relief. Yaz believes her, of course. Believes that the Doctor cares. Believes that the Doctor could love her, even. But to feel it like this, to feel the proof of it, is another thing entirely.
Yaz pulls away first, sighs heavily, because not breathing is hard enough, but not breathing when her heart is already racing and her nerves are all alight is impossible.
“Was that okay?” Yaz asks, has to, has to, because she will always protect the Doctor, even from herself. It’s all she knows.
“More than.”
The rest of the Doctor’s answer comes in the form of contact, more contact, the Doctor leaning in first this time and resting a hand against Yaz’s face to draw her back in. This time, when their lips meet, Yaz does breathe. She inhales sharply through her nose, then exhales, lets her hand settle on the back of the Doctor’s neck.
It’s more practiced, still so soft but less slow, and when the Doctor angles her head and deepens it, moving in closer, Yaz feels like she’s losing her mind. Like this can’t be happening. But it is. It is, and she’s teasing at the Doctor’s mouth with her tongue, tasting her, letting the Doctor do the same, until she can’t remember a time when they weren’t doing this. When they weren’t living in the present.
The Doctor breaks their kiss but doesn’t move away, still so close as they both catch their breath. Yaz smiles to herself, holding tight to this moment, trying to memorize each detail. The subtle warmth of the Doctor, like a tepid cup of Earl Grey with none of the scald but all of the comfort. Smooth skin beneath her fingertips as she traces down the back of the Doctor’s neck, then up to thread through her hair. Short, silken strands that fall through her fingers.
When she finally does allow her eyes to flutter open, the Doctor is already gazing at her.
“That’s one way to stop time,” Yaz breathes.
“Feels that way, doesn’t it?” the Doctor says, and yes, yes, it does, because everything that exists outside of them has stopped. Everything else in the universe, all the spinning cogs and ticking clocks—none of it matters, and she’s so glad the Doctor feels it too.
They’ve beaten time. Here, in the quiet of Yaz’s bedroom, beneath the galaxy projection on her ceiling, tucked away safely in the heart of the TARDIS.
“You did say we have the whole weekend,” she reminds the Doctor, because she can taste peppermint when she licks her lips, and it’s faint, barely there, but it is enough to make her want more.
The Doctor’s eyes seem to sparkle, for once, with something other than sadness, and the edges of her lips curve slightly.
“Off to a brilliant start, then.”