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It’s become something of a routine.
Graham wakes up first, and potters around the kitchen with tea and toast while the Doctor tinkers at the TARDIS, or reads something fascinating from some old biography to him, or just sits on the counter and fills the silence with stories of her travels. Yasmin will usually wander in around the time Graham is on his second pot of tea. The Doctor’s in full force today, going a-mile-a-minute about being stuck in a hospital, in the rain, on the moon, with this brilliant doctor called Martha Jones, has she really never talked about Martha before, that’s so strange - “Oh, no, hold on, I definitely told you the one about Shakespeare, that was her, absolutely brilliant, she was, saved the day with an Expelliarmus onstage at the Globe theatre, I was that proud - “
Graham sneaks out behind Yasmin with his tea in one hand and a newspaper in the other, muttering something about hiding in the library; Yasmin grins to herself, starts pouring cheerios into a bowl, and lets the Doctor’s stories wash over her.
Ryan will wander in another hour later, yawning and bleary-eyed, and by the time everyone’s had something to eat and some time to wake up properly, the Doctor has bounced from one to the other, running at least five or six different ideas by each of them until she finds a trip that all three of them seem keen on.
There’s no set schedule to it; sometimes, Yaz will beat Graham to the kitchen, or the Doctor will be too busy fixing something in the console room to narrate her way through their breakfast, or Ryan will sleep in so late that by the time he wakes up, Yasmin is just itching to get going and has to wait with baited breath for the Doctor to run the day’s plan past him while he yawns into a milky coffee; but like clockwork, every morning the Doctor makes her rounds and figures out where everyone wants to go that day.
Today, though -
Graham and Ryan are deep in conversation at the top of the stairs, and Yasmin is watching the Doctor pilot their course to the first birthday party of the first human settlement on Mars. And then Graham clears his throat awkwardly, and says, “Actually, Doc, if it’s alright with you we were thinking -”
The Doctor’s fingers pause on the keyboard, and she cocks her head curiously to one side. “Were you, now?”
“We’d like to go back home, to Earth,” Ryan says, his hands shoved so deep into his pockets that the sleeves of his hoodie are all bunched up. Yasmin bites her lip; whatever brought this on, he’s nervous about asking. “Would that be alright?”
There’s the tiniest pause, and then - “Course it’s alright,” the Doctor says, smiling down at her hands. “Home for tea, how does that sound? Home to Sheffield for fish and chips. Mars can wait until tomorrow, can’t it?”
“Course it can,” Yasmin says quietly, reaching out to wrap a hand around the Doctor’s wrist. “We’ll go tomorrow, I’d love to see it.”
I’m not going anywhere hangs unspoken between them, while Ryan and Graham stick their heads close together and have another whispered conversation, and the Doctor shoots her a quick, grateful smile.
“Actually, Doctor…” Ryan starts to say, and Yasmin feels anger start to slide down her spine; sure, maybe they never planned on staying forever, and maybe they all knew they’d go home some day, but now that it’s happening she finds that she hates it, she has to bite her lip to stop herself from running up the stairs and clapping a hand in front of Ryan’s mouth, to stop him from spoiling it - “We were thinking of maybe, New York.”
They’re both still at the top of the stairs, so it’s only Yasmin who’s close enough to see the expression that flashes across the Doctor’s face, gone too quickly for her to make sense of it. For a second, her hands are frozen at the keyboard, and then - with a visible effort - she straightens up and turns to face Ryan and Graham. “New York?” she asks, her voice very light. “Why New York?”
“My gran,” Ryan says; Yasmin feels the anger wash away, leaving a vague feeling of guilt for jumping to conclusions.
“Grace,” Graham says at the same time. “We always planned on taking a trip, but…” he shrugs, and Ryan rests a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a year that we’ve been travelling with you, today, did you know that?”
Yasmin’s stomach does a flip. A whole year? That can’t be right, it’s only been five minutes - but sometimes it feels like half her life -
The Doctor glances at her, surprise and warmth mingling in her eyes, and Yasmin feels herself smile back.
“And it’s been amazing, honest, Doc, but we thought - well, I thought, and Ryan agreed - ”
“We both thought, yeah,” Ryan says quietly, and Yasmin forces herself to focus on his words again. “It’d be nice to go somewhere, like. For gran. And for us.”
“A whole year,” the Doctor says quietly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Yasmin can see the small, sad smile playing around her lips; she wants to stomp her feet at Ryan and tell him to stop and look at the way everything has been for them, every single trip the Doctor has taken them on… And now they’re standing there, demanding to be taken somewhere that means nothing to her and nothing to the Doctor - acting like they’ve got one foot out of the TARDIS already, acting like they’re moving on when Yasmin feels like she’s just getting started -
And then the Doctor claps her hands together loudly,and Yasmin tells herself to stop brooding and focus instead on the brilliant smile that the Doctor is giving both Ryan and Graham, both of them still awkwardly hovering at the top of the stairs. “New York, New York, it is, boys, whatever you say. Mars?” She catches Yasmin’s eye, smiles so infectiously that Yasmin is helpless, is unable to stop the answering smile from spreading across her face. “Mars can wait. This is gonna be…”
And then - in a whirlwind of keys and levers and whistles, and the ever-so-familiar feeling of the ground dropping away beneath Yasmin’s feet -
“Amazing!”
They’re off.
***
And it is. Amazing. Of course it is, it’s New York, and it’s the Doctor, and they jump from the best milkshakes on the Lower East Side. to a spot in the recording room while Elvis performs on the radio, to a boat ride out to Ellis Island and back with the Doctor at the helm, blonde hair whipping across her face in the wind, and Yasmin is dizzy, is elated, is overwhelmed,
“You know, I tried a couple times before,” the Doctor shouts, across the wind; Ryan is standing at the very front of the boat, face upturned to the sun, and Graham is leaning over the sides taking pictures, so Yasmin is the only one who turns and listens. “Elvis. Live on the radio. New York, 1953… Ended up falling off Alexandra Palace and inventing the home video a few decades early, but, you know. Swings and roundabouts. Here we are.”
Yasmin tips her head back, and lets sunlight press against her closed eyes. “You’ve been here before, though? New York?”
There’s the faintest pause - the kind that barely counts as a pause, unless it’s in contrast to the Doctor’s usual speed. “Not for a while.”
Yasmin opens her eyes. Looks across to where the Doctor is suddenly very busy at the helm, her fingers dancing over the (admittedly very simple) controls like they’re the TARDIS console. The boat does an alarming kind of lurch to the left, and then rights itself.
“Oi!” At the front of the boat, a suddenly very damp Ryan is clinging to the railings; Graham has rushed forwards to wrap an arm around his shoulders, and they’re both looking up at the Doctor with equally concerned expressions.
“Everything okay, Doc?”
“Fine, fine, sorry…” She waves a hand, distracted. “Lost control of the wheel, we’re all fine, yeah? Roll call, Ryan? Graham? Yaz?”
“Fine,” they all chorus, and the Doctor grins, shoving her hair behind her ear with one hand while the other keeps a white-knuckled grip on the wheel.
They make their way back to the docks after that, and the Doctor keeps pace with Graham on their soggy walk back up into Manhattan, her hands in her pockets and her face turned towards his with genuine, warm interest while he talks about Grace’s dreams of New York and how different it feels to be here now. Ryan follows them, listening intently, hungrily, like he’s worried one day he’ll miss a story about his gran and then he’ll never get the chance to hear it. Yasmin remembers that feeling, remembers the strange mix of yearning and guilt that seemed to follow her around every family gathering, every special occasion in the year after her aunt died. To lose someone like Grace, to lose a parent - and that’s who she was to Ryan, really; a parent - before you’ve even scratched the surface on all the stories they have to tell you...Yaz can’t even imagine it.
And so she walks a few steps behind the others, as she somehow always does whenever they’re talking about Grace; keeps her pace measured against theirs, keeps half an ear out for explosions or yelling or some other kind of trouble, and tries to inhale as much here and now as she can into her lungs as she can.
***
They're almost in Central Park when the Doctor stops so suddenly that it takes the sound of Yaz crashing into her to halt Graham and Ryan in their tracks, already four steps ahead.
“Doctor..?” Yaz clears her throat cautiously, all too aware of the tenseness suddenly present in the Doctors shoulders. “All right?”
For a long moment, the Doctor says nothing, her eyes fixed on a small building on the corner of the park; Yasmin follows her gaze, and sees a brightly-lit dinner, its doors thrown open to reveal red leatherette booths and a gleaming bar.
“Anyone for another milkshake?” the Doctor asks suddenly, shoving her hands in her pockets and striding forwards briskly.”Love a milkshake, come on, fam!”
By the time Yaz and Ryan have rolled their eyes at each other - they've long given up on stopping fam from becoming a thing, but that doesn't make it any less exasperating - the Doctor has already disappeared inside the café, and the three of them have no choice but to follow.
It's mercifully cool inside, and Yaz is grateful when the Doctor picks a table right underneath one of the fans; they crowd into the booth, Graham and Ryan on one side and Yasmin ending up squashed up against the Doctor on the other.
A young woman in a blue dress comes over to take their order. “Hi, folks!” she says brightly, sharp brown eyes lingering on Ryan's jacket, Yasmin’s space buns. “What can I get you today, any drinks to start with?”
Graham breaks out into a wide grin. “That's never a Blackpool accent?”
The woman dips her head, smiling a little. “It is, yeah. You all from London?”
Graham nods, as Ryan and Yasmin say, “Sheffield,” and the Doctor makes a vague sort of agreeing noise, her face hidden behind the laminated menu. Her knee, pressed against Yasmin’s, is shaking; Yaz reaches down, and rests her hand gently against the Doctors knee.
In the seconds that follow, Yaz becomes aware of three things. First, that the woman taking Graham’s order of cheese fries hasn't taken her eyes off the Doctor; second, that Ryan is staring across the booth at her, and smirks when she meets his gaze; and third, that her hand on the Doctor's knee has become very warm.
The woman clears her throat, still looking at the Doctor with an inscrutable expression. “And for you, ladies?”
Yaz, who suddenly feels just a little bit faint, mumbles, “Just a coffee, please.”
The Doctor shifts slightly, her leg pressing up against Yaz’s hand. “Same,” she says, when it becomes clear that the woman isn't going anywhere without taking her order, and ducks her head.
“...Right,” the woman nods into the ensuing silence, and turns on her heel back towards the kitchen, her shiny chestnut ponytail swinging against her pale neck with every step.
Yaz, whose buns have started to lose strands of hair that are now clinging to her damp skin, finds herself inexplicably annoyed as the kitchen doors swing shut, and removes her hand from the Doctors knee. She wipes her palm on her jeans, feeling the sweat stick to the denim, and feels her bad mood ramp up from annoyed to infuriated.
***
“So…” Ryan says cautiously; he's been stealing chips off Graham's plate and dipping them into his milkshake, and neither Yaz (sipping her coffee in angry silence) or the Doctor (absentmindedly stirring a fourth sugar packet into her cuo) have so much as blinked. “Is this how Time Lords react to fit girls, then?“
Yaz almost spits out her coffee, and then the Doctor's elbow jerks into her ribs, and she spills half her cup anyway.
“Excuse me?” The Doctor whisper-shouts, sounding as outraged as she ever has, and Ryan visibly quails.
“Well, I'm -” he looks to Yasmin for backup, and she crosses her arms in stony silence. “That waitress came over, and you, like...went a bit… “
He trails off, and Graham pats him on the arm. “Nice try, son.”
“I did not go - go -” Yaz notices, with some alarm, that the Doctor has gone almost purple. “I did not go anything, Ryan, thank you very much,” she says finally, with an admirable attempt at withering disdain.
“Yeah,” Ryan nods rapidly, looking suddenly about ten years younger. “Yeah, of course, sorry, course not.“
Silence resumes, pricklier than before.
When the kitchen doors slam open, and another woman strides out - her chin-length hair is pushed back behind her ears, and she's wearing a white shirt and black trousers tucked in to leather boots, oozing cool - Yaz breathes a tiny sigh of relief at the intrusion.
All four heads turn to watch the bar; they watch in silence as the woman grabs a few glasses from the shelf behind her and starts polishing them with a cloth, staring right back at their booth with a sharp, direct gaze.
“Oh…bugger,” the Doctor says quietly, and if Yaz weren't so angry she'd laugh at the incongruity of the word coming out of the doctor's mouth.
“What is itt?” she asks quietly, not turning around. “Disappointed she's got a girlfriend?”
At the bar, the cook - at least, Yaz assumes she's a cook - snorts, and hastily lowers her gaze back to the glass in her hands.
“It's not like that,” the Doctor huffs unconvincingly. Yaz purses her lips. “Look, fam…” the Doctor continues, lowering her voice. ”Look, team, we can talk outside, all right? I really, really can't go into it right now.”
There's a faint pause, during which Ryan, Graham, and Yasmin exchange quick glances and come to a silent, unanimous agreement; the Doctor so rarely tells them no, so rarely draws a hard line under a conversation when she could instead distract or evade. She can have this one.
“You guys should get chips,” Ryan says suddenly, and Yaz feels her chest swell with warm affection; bless him, he never stops trying. “They're really good.”
“Here, have some of mine, Doc,” Graham chimes in eagerly, pushing the plate halfway across the table. “Go on, you too, Yaz.”
Yaz nods gratefully, shoving a handful of chips into her mouth before Graham had finished offering them to her, and the Doctor laughs quietly. They're finally alone in the diner now, the strangely intense cook having rapidly disappeared back into the kitchen.
Whatever strange tension there had been between them - between Yaz and the Doctor, between the Doctor and the two women, between the two women themselves, half aware as Yasmin is of an intense, whispered conversation going on behind the kitchen doors - begins to shift into companionable ease, and shared enjoyment of a plate of cheesy chips.
***
They almost make it through an entire conversation about Ryan's next request for a trip - just six months into their future, to get some trainers, honestly, that boy - when the next disaster strikes.
“Look, Ryan, I understand being fashion-conscious, I mean, obviously, look at me -” the Doctor twangs her braces at them - “But that would be technically messing with established events, which is that you, Ryan Sinclair, in Sheffield, in 2019, would never in a million years be able to get some wheezies six whole - “
She stops abruptly; at first, Yaz thinks it's because of the pained expression that had flashed across Ryan's face at the word wheezies. Which would be understandable, seeing as how he looks about three seconds away from an aneurysm.
And then Yaz follows the Doctor’s eyes to the doors, which have just swung closed behind a woman with long, red hair.
There's a loud crash as two coffee cups go flying to the ground, shattering against the lino, and the Doctor instantly dives under the table after them.
“You know,” Ryan says conversationally, in the resounding silence that follows. “I think she's doing a great job of not drawing any attention to us. Ow, what was that for?” At Yasmin’s raised eyebrows, he goes pink.”She just pinched my ankle.”
“Good,” Yasmin snorts, and feels an answering pat on her own shin; a shiver runs up her leg, and she focuses on staying very, very still.
“We should go,” the Doctors voice comes from below the table, muffled but still obviously strained. “We should really, really… Go.”
But when Yaz moves to get up, she feels a warm hand close around her ankle, hiding her in place. Right. Another one of the Doctor's “do as I do, not as I say” situations, clearly. Locked in place, Yaz exchanges bemused looks with an equally-baffled Ryan and Graham.
They sit in a tense, frozen silence for another thirty seconds, during which the red-haired woman pretends to flip through a menu while peering very obviously over the top of the card at them.
And then both the perky waitress and the dark-eyed cook come out of the kitchen, heading right for the window table where the third woman is lingering, and things go from weird to…weirder.
Yaz only hears every other word, and a few snatched phrases, but it's enough.
Definitely, look at his shoes - Sheffield, he said, and London - she's calling herself Doc, can you believe - she's got a nerve…
“Right, enough chat! We're off.” A loud voice cuts through the whispers, and Yaz is startled out of her eavesdropping to see the Doctor jumping up from under the table.
She's dropped a handful of dollar bills on the bar and is halfway to the door before any of the other three can rouse themselves out of their frozen positions; they race past the three women, and emerge, blinking, into the New York sunshine.
“Oi!“
Not fast enough; the waitress has wrenched the door open, and is running after them. In that brief instant, with the park spread out before them and a five second lead in their favour, Yaz sees the Doctor wrestle with it, weigh up the chances of all four of them managing to outrun or outsmart their pursuers - and then she slows in her tracks, and turns, very slowly, back towards the dinner.
“Yeah?” She's shoved her hands deep into her pockets, the picture of determined nonchalance; instinctively, Yaz reaches out to pull Ryan back by the sleeve. They hang back, giving the Doctor a couple of steps’ space.
“Are you Rose?” the woman demands. “Did you get some kind of dimension cannon working again? Is that something we need to be worried about?”
“What - um.” The Doctor clears her throat, her voice sounding strange and heavy. “What makes you think I'm Rose.”
The waitress shrugs. “You're obviously time travellers,’ she says, waving a hand expressively at all four of them.”Earth, 21st Century. And you're blonde, and you're going around calling yourself the Doc - been there, done that, by the way, great fun, so fair play to you - and that's your dad, I'm guessing? And Mickey, and… “ Her eyes settle on Yaz. ”No idea.“
Yasmin seethes at her, reminded somehow of her secondary school history teacher.
(Miss Evans had been infuriatingly pretty, and clever, and funny, and Yasmin had never done better in history than in Year 10, and then she had gone and gotten married.
To a man.
And their new teacher was some young bloke fresh out of teaching college, who had filled every lesson with terrible attempts at memes, and Miss Evans went off and had a baby, and Yaz barely scraped a B at the end of Year 11.
But no, she isn't bitter.)
“Yes,” the Doctor says suddenly, dragging Yaz back into the present. “Very clever, well done, you got me. Rose Tyler, just popping by on a routine… Multiverse inspection… Best be off now! Come on, fam! My fam, my family, Pete Tyler and Mickey Smith and… Mickey’s girlfriend too, come on, Minnie! She's rumbled us!”
The last third of her speech is delivered at breakneck speed, as she turns around and gives the three of them such a manic, pleading state that Yaz snaps into action.
“Right you are. Rose,” she says slowly, tugging on Ryan's sleeve in what she hopes is a heterosexual manner.”Come on, sweetie, you hear the - Rose. Best be off.”
Ryan just nods mutely, Graham clears his throat and waves awkwardly in the general direction of the diner, and all four of them start to very slowly back away.
“No.”
A single word, from the café door, stops them in their tracks. The redheaded woman has followed them outside, and she's walking towards the Doctor with an unwavering, searching stare.
“I explained it all already,” the Doctor gabbles, and if Yasmin thought she was panicking before it's nothing to the frantic energy rolling off every syllable now. “We really have to go, I parked my - dimension hopper - on a double yellow and I think I left the kettle on, besides, and - “
“No,” the woman says quietly, decisively, coming to a stop toe-to-toe with the Doctor, although she has to duck slightly to get to eye level.
“We have to… Get the kettle… Right, Mickey?’ the Doctor asks, and Yaz winces; even compared to the coffee-cup-under-the-table incident, this seems feeble.
“You’d better not be here,” the woman says quietly, and now that Yasmin is paying proper attention, she can hear the Scottish lilt to her voice. “You’d better not be here now.”
“I'm not, then,” the Doctor says, with a weak laugh that falls absolutely flat, drawing no reaction from her adversary.
“Now,” she continues, as if the Doctor hadn't spoken, “And not fifteen years ago.”
“Well, you know me,” the Doctor says, in a low, private kind of voice Yasmin doesn't think she's ever heard before. “I thought fourteen would have been a bit on the nose.”
The woman laughs quietly, a puff of air that blows strands of hair away from the Doctors face. “Gotcha.”
The Doctor inhales shakily, her chin slightly raised, and Yasmin watches, somehow spellbound, as the Scottish woman reaches out to pull her closer by the braces. They're nose-to-nose now, and there's a dangerous pause where Yasmin is sure she should turn away and give them some privacy right now -
And then the woman releases her hold on the braces so that they snap back against the Doctor’s t-shirt, sending her rocking back onto her feet.
“Fifteen years,” she says again, her face unreadable to Yasmin as she stares down at the Doctor, who visibly deflates; whatever she's done (fifteen years, Yasmin thinks with a shiver), she's not off the hook yet. “Are you gonna tell me you tried every day, that you tried to rip a hole in the fabric of space and time, or…”
“I wasn't,” the Doctor mumbles. “Sure if you'd want me to -”
“Bullshit. When did that ever stop you before.”
Caught, the Doctor ducks her head, states at the floor. “I did, yeah. Didn't work.”
“Until now?”
“Until now.”
They stare at each other.
“Sorry,” the waitress says suddenly; she's been watching in silence like the rest of them until now, her arms folded and her head swinging back and forth between her friend and the Doctor. “Hello? Is anyone gonna explain to me what the hell is going on?”
“Yeah,” Yasmin nods, surprising herself. “Seconded.”
“Clara,” the Scottish woman says slowly, eyes never leaving the Doctor’s face. “That's not Rose.”
“Yeah, got that, thanks,” the woman - Clara; the name sounds vaguely familiar - says, rolling her eyes. “But you're acting like it's…like it's him.”
The Doctor exhales slowly, raising both hands in an unmistakable gesture of surrender. “Hello, Clara.”
“That -” Clara looks from the Doctor, to the three of them still hovering awkwardly behind her, and back to the Doctor again; Yasmin gets a vague impression of some very rapid calculations happening behind her bright eyes. “Oh, that is just not fair.”
And with that, all the tension seems to drain out of the air as the Doctor dissolves into a helpless, shaking peal of laughter.
“Ash,” Clara calls over her shoulder, with an amused grin at the Doctor. “You can come out now.”
The cook emerges from just inside the dinner doors. “I wasn't listening,” she says shamelessly, drawing up next to Clara and taking her hand with a distinctly possessive glare at the Doctor. “What's not fair, anyway?”
“I got stuck with hard rock grandad,” Clara says, giggling when the Doctor opens her mouth to protest. ”And not… Oh, that is just colossally unfair.”
“Tell me about it,” the Scottish woman mutters darkly, looking the Doctor up and down, and Clara rounds on her.
“Yours was at least…” she gestures expansively. “... Interesting.”
“Thanks,” the Doctor says, to no one in particular. “Nice to see you too.”
At that, the redheaded woman - and Yasmin is getting pretty tired of listening to a conversation between four people and knowing only two and a half names (one and a half, really, unless she counts The Doctor as a full name} - lets out a strangled laugh, and pulls the Doctor into a tight, crushing hug.
Yasmin looks at her feet, embarrassed, and waits for the Doctor to make some kind of introduction.
And waits.
And waits.
“Are they just… swaying?” Ash asks casually, and Clara snorts.
“I think they're also saying gotcha at each other.”
“Hmm. Gross.”
“Yeah, nice to see you again, too, by the way, Doc.”
Yasmin laughs, and Clara eyes flash at her, and she decides there and then that she likes these two.
“Inside,” Clara says then, with that same confident tone that reminds Yasmin irresistibly of a school teacher. “All of you, I don't even know your names yet, sorry. This all went a bit…” she gestures at the Doctor, who's half on tip-toes, her face pressed into a lot of red hair. “I'm Clara, erstwhile companion and medical miracle, this is Ash, she's a viking, and that's Amy. She's… Here.”
Here.
Yaz thinks, fifteen years, and all the shouting and hugging are starting to form a picture in her head.
“Yaz,” she says quickly, wiping away the mental image with some effort. “Yasmin Khan, this is Ryan -”
“Yeah, hi,” Ryan blurts. “I'm not her boyfriend. Just Ryan.”
“Graham,” Graham says, starting forwards and shaking Clara's hand.”So you all knew the Doc when she…they was a bloke, then?”
Yaz bites back a nervous laugh. He's trying, she knows she is, but that doesn't make his stumbling any less awkward to experience in the moment.
“I travelled with the Doctor, yeah,” Clara says, leading the way back into the dinner. “Come on, let's leave them to it.”
One after the other - exactly like school kids, Yasmin thinks - Ash. Ryan, and Graham follow her inside.
Yasmin lingers for a moment, her eyes drawn again to Amy, the tall, glowering redheaded Scottish woman who has gone soft at the knees, leaning against the Doctor and running her hands over and over through her blonde hair.
And then she leaves them to it, and goes back inside the diner.
***
Introductions and histories take up the better part of half an hour; by the time Ryan has finished quizzing Clara about Gallifrey (“not all it's cracked up to be,“ apparently) and Graham has negotiated his way past Ash to get some beers from behind the bar, the sun is setting over Central Park, casting long shadows and beams of golden light through the window shutters.
The Doctor and Amy come back in to join them eventually, heads bent low together and laughing over some shared joke. Yaz catches Amy's eye as they slide into the booth opposite her, and hastily arranges her face into an encouraging smile.
Amy raises an eyebrow. “Hi,” she says slowly, glancing from the Doctor to Yaz and back again. “Yasmin, yeah?”
“She mentioned me?” Yaz blurts out, and feels her cheeks go pink. Sound more like a jealous kid, why don't you.
Amy's eyebrow rises even higher; the Doctor, intentionally or unintentionally oblivious, beams at her. “Course I did, had to, didn't I? Yasmin Khan. Saved my life a half dozen times at the last count.”
Yasmins cheeks feel so warm she's sure her whole face has gone pink, bright and obvious under Amy's knowing gaze.
“Good,” she says finally, with a slight, approving nod. “I told you, didn't I?”
The Doctor ducks her head, pushing a few sugar packets around in the tabletop. “Told me what?”
“Don't be alone,” Amy says softly, with such conviction that Yasmin feels like she's intruding on something intensely private. After a brief pause, during which the Doctor studiously starts balancing sugar packets on top of each other, Amy clears her throat and says, lightly, “Find someone. Keep you out of trouble.”
At that, the Doctors lips twitch. “Oh, I dunno…” she says, glancing up and giving Yaz a tiny smile. “Gets me into trouble, plenty, too.”
Amy laughs, and nudges the Doctor with an elbow. “Good.”
The air clears, then; conversation begins to flow between all of them.
Amy asks Yaz a few questions about Kerblam, and she's surprised to find herself talking for minutes at a time, warming to the feeling of having an audience that gets it; Amy isn't interrupting her every few words with incredulity or disbelief, she just listens and nods and asks another question whenever Yaz starts to slow down. The Doctor leans back and listens, eyes going back and forth between the two of them with undisguised glee.
“I'm sure you have loads of stories, though,” Yaz says eventually, gesturing to Amy across the table.”The dinosaurs? And Nefertiti? That was you, yeah?”
It's like watching blinds close over windows with one tug on a string. “That was a long time ago,” Amy says blandly. “I'm sure the Doctor told it better than me, anyway.”
“Amy…” the Doctor closes her eyes briefly, frustrated, and Yasmin bites back her next question.
“Well, it sounded awesome,” she says instead. “Dinosaurs, Doctor! Really!, The best we got was a Pting.”
“Don't knock the Pting,” the Doctor shoots back, with a grateful smile. “But we can go see some dinos next, if you like.”
Yax smiles, feeling warmth settle in her chest. “Yeah. Okay.”
***
The rest of the evening passes in a warm blur of laughter and conversation; at one point, Clara drags the Doctor into a seat next to her and practically forces a cup of wine into her hands while Ash watches from behind the bar with amused, keen interest, and Yasmin wonders exactly how long it's going to be before someone decides they're playing spin the bottle.
Hours later - after Ash has given them a tour of the TARDIS hiding just behind the kitchen doors, after Clara has promised Ryan to get him his future shoes and stuck her tongue out at the Doctor's outraged face, after a lot more chips and almost as much more wine - there's a lull in the noise as everyone leans back into their seats, comfortably full. Yaz has started yawning, and can't seem to stop; Graham has already nodded off twice, jerking back awake both times with a confused snort; Ryan is leaning against his shoulder, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Doctor?” Yaz calls, with another yawn, and the Doctor looks over from where she's sitting at the bar, her chin propped up on Amy's shoulder and one of her hands absentmindedly twirling a strand of ginger hair. Clara and Ash are talking quietly at the back of the diner; Yasmin feels their attention shift to her in an instant, and blushes
The Doctor’s expression clears instantly, taking in the sight of the three of them wilting in their booth. “Back to the TARDIS, I think,” she says, suddenly very businesslike.
Amy looks up, and Yasmin thinks for a second she's on the verge of saying something - and then the Doctor is sliding off her bar stool, and Amy closes her mouth abruptly, lips pressed firmly together.
“Stay a few days, if you like,” Clara offers, her eyes on Amy, but Amy is already shaking her head before the Doctor does the same, the two of them mutely symmetrical. “No,” Clara says, resigned, and leans back against Ash's shoulder. “Of course not, what was I thinking?”
“We'll drop in again,” the Doctor says, and Yasmin doesn't need to see Amy's face to know that she thinks it's unconvincing, too. “Now that you two have stabilised the area…”
“Yeah, we were wondering about that,” Ash says, one hand resting carefully on Clara's waist. “The weird signals and fluxes, something that wasn't meant to be here, that was Amy, yeah?”
“Something like that,” the Doctor says quietly. “Although, if -” her voice starts wavering on a precarious line between hopefulness and nonchalance - “If it's stabilised for good, now, maybe…”
Amy has gone very still.
The Doctor looks around the diner - at Clara, who just looks back at her evenly; at Ryan and Graham and Yaz, and Yaz tries to signal go on with the most supportive nod she can muster; at the closed door, and the dark silhouettes of the trees beyond; anywhere and everywhere, but not at Amy.
“Big old TARDIS,” the Doctor mutters, barely audible. “Space for one more, maybe. Two more, that is.”
“Two?” Ash sounds incredulous, until Clara steps on her foot. “Ow, really, Doctor, do you just never pay attention?”
Amy laughs then, turning very slowly towards the Doctor and lifting her hand up to her face. “Never,” she says, running the tips of her fingers down the Doctor's chin and then waving them at her. “Pay attention, do you?”
The Doctor is staring at her hand, and Yasmin finds herself staring too, completely at sea in the sudden turn the conversation has taken.
“No ring,” the Doctor says finally, and Yasmin just barely stops from smacking her own forehead in recognition. Duh.
“Turns out there's some things harder to fix than a bow tie,” Amy says quietly, glancing away as her hands drift down to rearrange the Doctor’s braces on her shoulders. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Yaz sees the Doctor mouth disappoint into the silence - and then she clears her throat and just says, “But the gravestone.”
“Really?” Amy asks, suddenly waspish; she pulls her hands back, balling them into fists at her side. “You want to go and check what it says, now, when I'm telling you -”
“No,” the Doctor says quickly, and Yaz breathes a silent sigh of relief. “No, of course not. I'm…sorry, Amelia.”
“Don't be.” Amy shrugs, the movement practised and brittle. “Could have been anywhere. Could have been Leadworth.”
“I'm sorry I wasn't here.” The Doctor reaches out, grabs one of Amy's hands, and Amy's shoulders shake slightly. “Truly.”
Amy's voice is very quiet. “Yeah.”
The air in the dinner has gone very still. With all five of them watching the other two, it should feel oppressive, but somehow Yasmin doesn't think either the Doctor or Amy have given much thought to their audience in a while.
“Definitely,” the Doctor says then, low and intent. “Room for one more, then.”
Amy's hand trembles slightly as she pulls it out of the Doctor's, and in the moment where the Doctor registers what's happening Yasmin swears she sees all 1900 years of heartbreak flicker across her face.
“Actually,” Amy says, glancing for the first time away from the Doctor, looking over her shoulder to where Yaz, Graham, and Ryan are still huddled in their booth. “You've got your gang, Doctor, and I -”
“Fam,” the Doctor corrects her, apparently entirely unintentionally, and Amy laughs quietly.
“Your fam, sure.” She smirks at Yaz, and Yaz finds herself smiling back. “And I really did grow up, this time, Doctor.”
“Well, you know…” There's a hint of bravado in the Doctor's voice.” I can -”
“No,” Amy cuts her off. “I don't want you to fix that. I want to - go where I want, do what I want, I want - “
“Come with us” Clara says suddenly, and Amy turns to stare at her, open-mouthed.
“What?“
“Come with us,” Clara repeats, looking at Ash. “Yeah?“
Ash just nods. “Not as a companion,” she says, and Yaz sees the Doctor’s eyes widen with understanding. “Just...”
“Yeah,” Amy says quietly, and Yasmin is out of her seat and at the Doctor's side before she's quite realised she's moving, sliding a hand into hers in silent support. “Yeah, maybe that'd be good. “
Yaz squeezes the Doctor's hand.
***
It's a long walk back to the TARDIS.
Ryan and Graham walk ahead, quiet apart from the occasional quibble about directions or memory of Grace; Amy, the Doctor, and Clara crowd the pavement begins them, and to Yaz it sounds a bit like they're trying to fit fifteen years of conversation into the last few minutes; and Yaz finds herself walking next to Ash.
“You know,” she says eventually, to break the silence more than anything else. “we do go where we want.”
Ash hums in response, her eyes fixed on the pavement. “It's different,” she says, her voice steady and sure. “Maybe it's different for everyone, maybe you'll -”
“Don't, ” Yaz warns her. “Tell me I'll understand when I'm older.”
Ash laughs at that, a strange, silvery laugh the for the first time convinces Yasmin that she might actually be as old as Clara said.
“The Doctor’s not the only one who's a different person, now,” she just says, and Yasmin - looking ahead to the three of them walking side-by-side, both in and out of step with each other - finds herself nodding in understanding.
It's the dead of night by the time they reach the quiet little courtyard where they started the day, and both Clara and Amy let out a sigh when they round the corner and come face-to-face with the peeling blue paint, the glowing windows.
There's a strange, strained pause as they all gather in front of the police box, each of them waiting for someone else to act first -
“Night, then,” Graham says, stepping forwards decisively and pulling Ryan along with him as he unlocks the TARDIS doors. “It's been amazing meeting you all, but I am absolutely cream crackered. ‘Till next time, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Clara says with a quick, friendly grin.”Give us a bell if you like, you've got my number now. You too, Ryan. Yaz.”
“Thanks,” Ryan mumbles, half stumbling with tiredness after Graham. “Yeah, see ya. Yaz?”
“Just coming,” Yaz says, rooted to the spot; Ryan shrugs, and pulls the door shut behind him.
“And then there were five,” Clara says quietly, and there's a tiny, sad ripple of laughter around the moonlit courtyard.
***
Ash says her goodbyes next, giving the Doctor a brisk hug and Clara a kiss on the cheek before walking away around the corner.
“We could set a date,” Clara says, into the ensuing silence. “Once a year. Central Park. Cheesy chips.”
“Yeah,” the Doctor says quickly, pulling her into a tight hug. “That sounds brilliant.”
Clara laughs into her shoulder. “I'm holding you to that.”
“Counting on it,” the Doctor grins, squeezing Clara's hands in hers as she steps away.
“I mean it,” Clara says to Yaz then, giving her a quick, firm hug. “Call me. If you ever need.”
“I'm not planning on it anytime soon,” Yaz says quietly, and Clara laughs, but not unkindly.
“Yeah,” she says, looking back at the TARDIS with a fond half-smile. “I get it. But the offer stands, okay? “
Yaz nods. “Okay.”
Clara smiles, and follows Ash back out of the courtyard.
“I think that's my cue,” Amy says, her voice muffled against the Doctor's shoulder; Yaz takes one look at the pair of them and starts shaking her head.
“I'll see you inside,” she says quietly, resting a hand on the small of the Doctor's back as she passes them both.
“Hey,” Amy says suddenly, breaking away from the Doctor to catch Yazs eye, her hands linked together behind the Doctor's neck. “Look after her.”
Yaz is too overwhelmed to do much more than nod; and then she's pulling the TARDIS doors closed behind her, and breathes out a long, shaky breath of air into the silent console room.
***
“Hey, you.”
Yaz jerks awake suddenly, her face pressed against the metal bars of the steps leading up towards the corridors. The Doctor is standing by the console, hands in her pockets and eyes very bright in the dark.
“Hi,” Yaz says cautiously, getting slowly to her feet. “Allright?”
The Doctor's smile is wide and genuine, even if it doesn't quite reach her eyes yet. “Alright. You?”
“Course, yeah.” Yaz rubs her hands together, cold in the echoing space.
“Dinos, was itt?” the Doctor asks casually, flipping a lever that bathes the room in warmth and light. Yasmin feels herself start to grin.
“You think you're so impressive, don't you?”
“That depends,” the Doctor beams, threading a hand through Yaz’s and pulling her towards the console. ”Is it working yet?”
Yaz laughs, feeling the warmth spread through her like honey. She'll ask about Amy, some other time, maybe When the Doctor needs her to. For now, though -
“Show me some dinosaurs, and then we'll talk.”
“Wherever you want, Yasmin Khan.” The Doctor pushes another button, and swings Yasmin into her side as the TARDIS heaves into motion. “One condition, though.”
“Yeah?” Yaz shouts over the engine noise, feeling her heart beat out a quick double-rhythm as the ground drops out beneath them.
“It has to be amazing.”
And it is.
With the Doctor, it always is.