Chapter Text
Yaz stares at the door to her parents flat. It looks the same as it always has. Silver handle, beige wooden door, smudge in the lower right corner where she kicked it after a rough football game at age 6. There’s a package for her dad sitting on the welcome mat. It’s an ordinary flat with an ordinary door and an ordinary handle that her hand rests on without moving.
She realizes with a start she doesn’t even know how long it has been since she was last here, for her or for her family. After the Flux she asked the Doctor to let her pop in for a day or two to say hello, assure them she was alive, that kind of thing, but that had been sometime in the spring. It’s October now, according to Dan. She told them she was leaving on a work trip.
She regrets turning down Ryan and Graham’s offer for backup. She hadn’t thought that coming back home was something one needed backup for, but the door in front of her is more terrifying than an army of cybermen. Namely because her mother was behind it.
“Come on Yaz. Get it together,” she mutters. She braces herself and pushes open the door.
“Hey mum, dad, I’m home.” For a moment she thinks the house is empty, but then there’s a gasp and the sound of breaking glass. Her mother’s face appears from the kitchen. She’s staring at her, eyes wide.
“Yasmin?” Her mother’s voice sounds so uncertain, like she can’t believe her eyes.
“Hiya,” Yaz says with a smile. Her mum’s hands fly over her mouth and her eyes start to well up. “Oh mum-”
“You’re back,” her mother says, crossing the flat in an instant and pulling her into a hug, “Oh Yaz dear you’re home.”
For a moment, Yaz stands frozen. She stands in the entryway of her house, her mother’s arms around her, and for the first time in a long time Yaz feels like she’s a little girl again. She pulls her mum close and buries her head in her shoulder, screwing her eyes shut.
“I’m home,” she agrees.
“Hakim! Sonya! Yaz is here!”
“Yaz?”
“She what?”
Yaz has been holding it in, but the sight of her sister and father nearly sends her over the edge. She manages to hide any tears by burying herself in her parents arms. Even Sonya hugs her. Yaz holds all of them close and for a moment everything is alright.
It takes a while for her parents to calm down. Yaz isn’t sure how long they stand there, all four of them, arms wrapped around each other. Thankfully Sonya starts to complain that her arm is going numb, and Yaz manages to extract herself. Her mum immediately heads to the kitchen to make some tea, and Yaz all but collapses onto the couch.
They ask her questions of course. How she’s doing. Where she’s been. How the work was. All things that Yaz does her best to brush off. She knows she’s not doing a great job. She’s still exhausted, and her words are falling over themselves. She doesn’t miss the concerned glances Sonya is giving her, or the looks her parents exchange, but she ignores them for now.
She gratefully seizes the tea her mother gives her and uses it to avoid her father’s pointed question about how long she’s been gone. She knows. And now of course, that she’s here, she feels a bit guilty for it, but how was she supposed to explain it all really?
“Were it a good trip though?” Sonya asks.
“Yeah,” Yaz says, “Good. Got lots of good work done. Helped lots of people. I can tell you about it tomorrow.”
“Do you know when you leave again?” her mother asks cautiously, like she’s afraid of the answer.
Yaz winces for more reasons than one. “I- I don’t.”
“Don’t know?”
“Don’t leave,” she clarifies, and tries to ignore the crushing wave that rushes over her at those words.
“What not ever?” Sonya asks in disbelief that echoes her parent’s faces.
“Well maybe eventually,” Yaz says, “But not like how it’s been. I’m here for the foreseeable future.”
She does her best to say it in a cheerful voice, convincing herself that this is a good thing. This is meant to happen. It has to happen to all of them at some point after all.
Yaz looks down at her tea.
“That’s a change,” her mother says, still careful.
“It’s about time,” Dad says, “They’ve been running you ragged over there.”
“Hakim-”
“It’s true! It’s been months since we’ve last saw you, and the constant trips, no clear timeline. It’s all horribly organized and I’ve half a mind to go down there and tell them-”
“But we’re very proud of the world you’ve been doing,” her mother cuts him off, “We just miss you is all. Even your sister”
“Don’t drag me into this. Personally I’m glad to have the bathroom to myself,” Sonya says, her usual snark sounding half-hearted.
Yaz looks at her family, gathered around her and staring so attentively, and feels the guilt creep up on her again. “Was gone longer than I meant to be this time,” she shrugs “I dunno, guess I realized how much I’ve been missing out on. Told them I weren’t going to travel anymore. Not for that long at least.”
“My hearts are so full of love for all of you.”
“And your boss is alright with that?”
“Totally,” Yaz says, lying through her teeth.
It was easy to forget when running across the universe, fighting Cybermen and Daleks and Sea Devils, that there was a real world where the biggest worries were asshole bosses and paychecks. Worries that were Yaz’s again now. She cringes, wondering if she even has a job on the force at this point, wondering if she wants that job at all.
“Well we’re glad to have you back,” her mother says softly, putting a hand on her knee, “We missed you sweetheart.”
Yaz softens, “I missed you too.”
She pulls her mother into a hug again, doing her best to push the rest of her worries out of her mind. This is what mattered now. The Doctor was gone. It was over. Yasmin Khan was a normal human with a normal family and she needed to get used to it.
She ignores the nagging in her mind that told her she never could.
“I have loved being with you Yaz. And I have loved being me.”
Suddenly it’s all too much. Her family’s concerned faces. Her sister’s smile. Her mother’s hand wrapped around her. She feels her chest constricting and sits up.
“Alright?” Sonya asks with a frown.
“Yeah,” Yaz says, trying to return it. “Just really tired, jet lag you know? Might head to bed.”
Her mother frowns at the clock, “It’s just past six. Are you sure you don’t want dinner first?”
The thought of sitting through another meal with her family while dodging their questions has her head reeling, “That’s alright. I ate earlier. I think I’ll just go to sleep.”
“Well if you're sure,” her mum says, frowning.
Yaz manages to escape to her room with minimal questioning. She stares at her empty bed for a moment and then sits down. Her bed on the Tardis had a blue cover with stars printed on it. The Doctor had dragged it out of a closet that held entirely too many linens and said something about a planet made entirely of thrift stores. She also had a knitted blanket there- a gift from a woman whose life she had saved. She didn’t want to think about what else she might have left there.
Sighing, she lets herself fall backward.
Her limbs feel impossibly heavy, and she can’t bring herself to move enough to change out of her clothes. She blinks, darkness growing over her vision.
“I think I need to do this next bit alone.”
Yaz takes a breath, and for the first time in years falls asleep in her parent’s flat.