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Okay, first, she did not lie to her family about having a girlfriend.
It’s not like she went into it with some full proof plan of being in a relationship that would explain why she’s always tired even on her days off and why she talks about that woman — the Doctor — all the time.
It’s just, when her mum did ask Yaz if she was in a relationship, and when Yaz said no, she didn’t believe her — and that goes around her family until her nan stops her in the kitchen one night while she’s washing the dinner dishes and tells her she loves her, no matter what, and that she wants to meet this “mystery woman” someday. She even winks and Yaz is genuinely so taken aback that she can’t even correct her.
And then it just…escalates. As in, Sonya making jokes about Yaz and the Doctor, and Najia scolding her but then turning around and telling Yaz that they love her no matter what, even if she is dating the Doctor, and they would very much like to have her over for dinner again (a proper “get to know the parents” dinner, her dad says).
So it just happened, really, and it only becomes a problem when her cousin (second cousin once removed on her mum’s side) decides to throw a family reunion (inviting the entire family), and her mum asks at the dinner table that night, “So are you bringing the Doctor to the reunion?”
Yaz chokes on her water. Her mum watches expectantly, not one to just let it go. “Uh, not sure, I haven’t —“
“Yasmin, the reunion is in two days.” She points at Yaz and says sternly, “You need to ask her.”
“Yes ma’am,” Yaz says on command, and then wants to hit herself. The conversation is changed before she can even say the words “we’re not dating” and by then it’s too late, and she tries wracking her brain the entire rest of the night to figure out a solution.
The only thing she can think of is just asking the Doctor to come and pretend to be her girlfriend, but that idea goes right out the window when Yaz realizes she’d actually have to pretend to be dating the Doctor and they’d do things like hold hands and (maybe) kiss and she is not prepared in the slightest for that (and truthfully, she doesn’t think she’d survive after the fact, either).
She thinks of more solutions that night in bed that include but are not limited to: telling everyone the Doctor died (true, but that was months ago, and her family would not believe she didn’t mourn her dead girlfriend), telling everyone the Doctor broke up with her (again, family wouldn’t believe it), or telling everyone the Doctor is a made up person (they’d have her committed).
She wakes with a stone in her stomach, and she knows what needs to be done.
“Hiya, Yaz! Is it lunchtime tomorrow already?” The Doctor’s cheery voice rings out from Yaz’s phone.
“No, Doctor, actually I need a favor,” she says, taking a deep breath to steady herself. “A big favor, actually.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can. Not so good with carpentry but if it’s almost anything else I have at least a bit of proficiency.”
“I need you to be my girlfriend,” Yaz says it almost as one word, rushed so she doesn’t chicken out halfway through. “For pretend. For my family.”
“Oh, brilliant! I’ll need to do a little reading, though, just to freshen up, but —“
“You have two days,” Yaz interrupts.
“Oh, that’s alright,” the Doctor says. “Half the reading was just paperback romance novels I got from Donna. Took from Donna. She still doesn’t know I have them.”
And then she’s off telling Yaz about the time she and Donna (he and Donna. It was sand shoes, she’s pretty sure) went to Pompeii and were sort of the reason Vesuvius erupted, but she doesn’t get past the part where she (he) had a verbal shoot out with a man called Lucius before she’s saying, “oh, gotta go Yaz. The swimming pool is leaking and I can’t figure out from where.”
Yaz says, “Two days, Doctor. Just meet at my flat.”
“Right-o. Oh, don’t like that, won’t say that again. Alright, Yaz!” And the line goes dead.
Yaz lays back on her bed and covers her face with her arms. This is going to be a long couple of days.
Two days later and the Doctor shows up at her flat right on time (surprising, considering she’s usually 45 minutes to an hour late no matter what). They come into the living room where her parents are getting out last minute things to pack and the lacing together of their fingers seems easier than it probably should be, considering.
The car ride is almost bearable (emphasis on almost).
Her dad only asks the Doctor about a million and one questions on the two hour drive (which the Doctor takes in stride, to Yaz’s surprise and relief) and her sister only whispers inappropriate questions to her a handful of times, which Yaz kicks her hard in the leg for. It’s after one of those when the Doctor leans back from where Sonya was whispering in her ear and turns to Yaz, familiar crease between her brows.
“Yaz,” she whispers.
“What?”
“I don’t know what Sonya’s asking me.”
“Ignore her.”“But what if it’s important!”
“I can almost guarantee it’s not.”
“…but what if it is?”
Yaz rolls her eyes. “Alright fine, what did she ask you?”
“She wanted to know which of us is the top?”
Yaz feels the heat on her cheeks immediately, averting her face from the Doctor, hoping she didn’t notice. “Not important,” she hisses.
The Doctor sits back and huffs, clearly confused and most definitely going to ask about it again later, if Yaz knows her at all.
Her family is big. Like, there’s a lot of them, and now they are (mostly) all together for a weekend. And Yaz is having to pretend to date the Doctor. Brilliant.
When they get to the cabin, it’s only her Uncle Malik that’s waiting for them to arrive. Her dad shuts off the car and Yaz turns to the Doctor. “Ready?” she asks.
“Definitely. I’m great with family, and parties, and the outdoors! Well, mostly with bugs and fish. Big animals I’m still learning. I do speak some species of bear, though.”
Sonya is already out of the car (thank god) when Yaz turns to her. “Okay, remember you’re not a million year old alien from outer space, alright? Just for the weekend, you know,” she says seriously to the Doctor.
She nods her head and grins and starts to follow Yaz out of the back seat. “I’m just a young normal human with one heart, no backup, even though that’s completely ridiculous. And I definitely do not speak bear,” she stage whispers as she hops from the car.
“Yasmin!” Yaz turns to the sound of her uncle and is immediately wrapped in his arms. “You’ve gotten so big! I remember when I could hold you in the palm of my hand,” he says, holding his palm out.
Yaz rolls her eyes and pushes him off her playfully. “No you couldn’t. I was way too big for that,” she says, and when her hand comes down it brushes against the back of the Doctor’s hand and the blonde curls her fingers loosely around Yaz’s — not hand holding, more like a tether, the taut string of a kite. Grounded.
“Uncle Malik, this is my girlfriend, um,” she trails off, not knowing if she should introduce her as ‘the Doctor' or make up a “real” name (though her parents and sister already know her as ‘the Doctor’, so it’s probably too late for that anyway).
“Doctor,” the blonde says, holding out her other hand to the man. “It’s a pleasure.”
Malik shakes her hand and is apparently satisfied with her grip (“A strong grip is how you know someone’s worth, Yasmin.”) as he lets go and looks to Yaz. “She’s a good one,” he says, nodding towards the Doctor, and then he’s off and talking to her dad about the cabin and what time they’re going to start the bonfire tonight and Yaz is thankful because she wouldn’t have been able to come up with a response anyway.
“Yaz! Mom says come help in the kitchen!” Sonya’s voice yells from somewhere in the house.
Yaz starts towards the cabin, the Doctor in tow, when her dad comes around from the side with her uncle and asks, “Doctor, would you happen to know anything about fishing?”
The Doctor’s face lights up and Yaz wants to pull her away, not let her out of her sight for fear their charade will blow up if they’re apart, but the Doctor is already pulling her hand away and saying, “I know loads!” and Yaz is suddenly left alone as the three of them round the back of the cabin again.
She doesn’t see her again for another three hours, and when the Doctor, her uncle, and dad finally do come back, she’s covered in mud and her dad is holding two very large fish he’d apparently caught with a new trap the Doctor made, and grinning ear to ear.
“Yasmin, I approve of this one,” he says, nodding his head towards the blonde who stands barefoot in the doorway of the house (probably not wanting to get mud everywhere, which is sweet because she never makes that effort for her tardis).
The Doctor showers while Yaz helps her mum and Sonya cook dinner and when she comes down she smells like Yaz’s shampoo and leaves her suspenders hanging down past her hips. She dons mismatched socks and Yaz watches her sit cross legged on the couch and talk animatedly with her uncle.
Dinner is spent laughing and her family telling the most terrible stories of Yaz, trying their hardest to embarrass her. Her mother brings up the time she ran out of her room naked, with just a towel tied around her neck, yelling about how she was “SuperYaz”, and her sister raises the time she threw up at her 7th grade spelling bee, all over the front of the stage. Yaz watches the Doctor’s eyes light up at every new piece of information (the time she painted Sonya like an Easter egg, the time she and Sonya made mud pies and Sonya ate one and cried, the time Ryan dared Yaz to eat a cat treat for five dollars and she did it), like she was taking it all in and adding it to the full picture Yaz she knows. Her uncle brings up the dance recitals and Yaz wants to leave the room, because she knows exactly what’s going to happen next.
And it does, because that’s what her family is like, and why she hates them all, a lot.
To clarify: what happens is the videos. The videos of Yaz dressed in sparkly pink tutu and dancing to a song called “pink cloud”. The Doctor’s eyes are alive as she watches the screen with rapt attention, focusing on the very pixellated tap dancing little girl. She wishes the pink cloud video was the worst — she wishes — but it’s not, and soon enough the orange spandex jumpsuit wearing child version of Yaz is dancing to “funky fiesta”, with slightly better image quality (her dad bought a new camera just for the recital). Yaz is leaning back on the couch and covering her bright red face with one hand while the Doctor grips her other with each new dance move the 7 year old breaks out on screen.
She turns to Yaz, grin on her face and eyes alight. “That were proper amazin’ Yaz. You’ve got skills,” she remarks.
Yaz closes her eyes in embarrassment and her uncle pats her on the shoulder while her dad teases her relentlessly.
“Do you’ve got any sweatpants?” Yaz asks the Doctor when they get to their room to change before the fire.
The Doctor furrows her brows.
“Y’know, sweatpants,” Yaz repeats. “Like, fleece? Goes down to your ankles?”
“Oh! No, didn’t think to bring those. Brought my snorkel though!” the Doctor says, pulling out a snorkel from her luggage.
Yaz realizes she probably should’ve checked the Doctor’s luggage to see what she did bring because, let’s be honest with ourselves, she is not the most normal being to come across, and especially not to human standards.
“You can borrow a pair of mine, you’ll want them. The mosquitoes will eat you alive up here if you’re not careful,” she notes, pulling a pair of black sweatpants out of her bag and handing them to the Doctor. “You’ll want your coat, too. I’ve got us torches.”
She’s bent over her luggage trying to find the other fluffy sock she knows she packed when the Doctor comes out of the bathroom minutes later, and honestly, she isn’t at all prepared when she looks up and takes her in. The sweats are a bit big around the hips and she’s rolled them at the ankles, but Yaz can’t take her eyes off of them and the “Yasmin” stitched down the side in gold embroidery thread and that the Doctor is wearing her clothes.
She’s shakes her head, clearing the fog that just took over and quickly moves into the bathroom with her own clothes, needing to get some space immediately (for reasons entirely unrelated to the Doctor wearing her clothes, wearing something other than the blue trousers and suspenders, looking comfortable for the first time). She comes out minutes later in a grey pair of sweats and a black hoodie, having already splashed water on her heated face to try and cool off at least a little bit. The shirt she wears underneath is soft to the touch and warm and she thinks the same about the Doctor’s fingers when they tangle with hers as they leave her room and go to join the others.
The walk through the woods is uneventful, and Yaz can already hear her family as they near the clearing. The fire hasn’t been lit yet but a big pile of wood sits stacked in the middle, her family scattered around it in groups, talking and laughing and dancing to the music. Someone grabs her wrist and turns her around and all at once she’s being hugged from all sides by her aunts who kiss her cheeks and tell her how big she’s gotten and how long her hair is. The one’s who actually acknowledge her sexuality (and don’t just openly ignore it) ask about her dating life and she pulls the Doctor close to her side and says, “this is my girlfriend, the Doctor.” And then her aunts are hugging the Doctor and her eyes are wide in shock as they poke her cheeks and look at her hair and talk about a mile a minute in a language Yaz isn’t sure the Doctor even understands.
When they move on to Sonya the Doctor leans close and asks, “what were they saying?”
“They said you’re cute, they like your hair, you’ve got strong shoulders, uh, think that’s bout it,” Yaz whispers back.
The Doctor looks down at her shoulders and shrugs. “I do got strong shoulders, they’re right about that.”
“And not at all vain, I see,” Yaz teases and leads them towards one of the benches set out.
Her Uncle Ali comes out and lights the fire with much flourish, striking a match and holding it up for everyone to see, then dropping it in the middle of the pile of logs. Nothing happens for a few moments and Yaz thinks maybe it didn’t work but then the logs all catch fire, like a cartoon or something. He raises his hands in triumph as the rest of the family claps.
The crowd is actually a lot smaller than Yaz expected, and she finds out from her older cousin Saira that the rest of the family is actually coming down the next day just for the reunion. She gets updated on the family gossip while the Doctor gets into a heated conversation with her younger cousin Kiran about his gaming console and the specs of his setup, and Yaz didn’t even know she knew anything about 21st century gaming consoles, but then remembers it’s the Doctor. Of course she knows all about 21st century gaming consoles, just like she knows the billion and one other things kept in her brains.
Yaz learns their great aunt on her mum’s side got divorced, again, and is now seeing a much younger man (that her cousin swears was their pool cleaner before), and their other cousin just came out as gay, to which she says to Yaz, “now you’re not the only gay of the family.”
Sometime during the night the Doctor lets go of her hand and Yaz watches her leave, but her attention is eventually pulled from the Doctor’s retreating form and she loses track of her after that. Mingling, maybe, hopefully not enough to cause suspicion about the details of their relationship.
An hour later Yaz finds her crouched on the ground (knees dirty on the sweat pants, and Yaz doesn’t even care) and helping her younger cousin catch fireflies. The green flash makes her grin light up as she opens her palms to show the younger boy. He laughs and, as carefully as a five year old can do anything, cups his hands mid air. The Doctor grins at him and opens her palm, letting her bug fly away, and the boy does the same, both watching the flashing glow.
She looks up at the retreating bug and catches sight of Yaz watching her and Yaz swears she can see a blush, but maybe that’s just the heat from the fire (probably that).
When they finally get back from the bonfire, it’s pitch black outside and Yaz is tired, ready to crawl into the bed and never come out. They smell like smoke and the Doctor hasn’t let go of her hand since they left the fire and it’s not until they actually get back in the room after telling everyone goodnight that Yaz even thinks about the fact that there’s only one bed.
One bed, two of them.
She turns to the Doctor and says, “I can sleep on the floor, if you’d like.”
The familiar crease forms between the Doctor’s brows and she shakes her head. “What for? We can fit. There’s plenty of room.”
Yaz doesn’t even clarify that she wasn’t offering because of space, and the Doctor has already dropped her hand and is moving her trousers to drape over the chair in the corner. Yaz is too tired to argue and instead gets out a pair of shorts for herself. “Do you need a pair?” she asks the Doctor, holding up the shorts. The Doctor looks down at the sweatpants and then nods. Yaz tosses her a pair and goes in to the bathroom to change.
The Doctor is already in the bed by the time Yaz leaves the bathroom and when she slides in she feels a socked foot touch hers. She pulls back. “You sleep with your socks on?”
The Doctor furrows her brow and says, “Yes? Gotta keep my feet warm somehow, Yaz.” Socked feet suddenly move to Yaz’s cold ones and the Doctor gasps. “Yaz! Your feet are freezing!” The two feet cup her own between them as the Doctor apparently tries to warm her up.
“Doctor, it’s fine. I don’t care,” she tries but the Doctor doesn’t listen, just switches to the other foot.
They’re basically playing footsie in the bed that they’re going to sleep together in tonight. Yaz might honestly have a heart attack.
They’re silent for a long while before Yaz asks, “Are they warm now?”
“Yeah,” the Doctor says, looking up into brown eyes. They’re both laid on their sides, facing each other, and it feels so intimate Yaz almost can’t breathe. She rolls her back and looks up at the ceiling — the ceiling she stared at every summer they returned here for family vacations as a kid/teenager — and counts the wooden boards across (eighteen) with the low light coming in through the window.
The Doctor rolls to her back as well and says, “Eighteen. Six and a half inches wide, each of ‘em. Well, except for the one right in the middle, that’s six and three quarters, must’ve messed up the measuring.”
Yaz doesn’t even ask how she knows that — doesn’t need to, it’s just something the Doctor knows, that’s all there is to it.
“We used to come here every summer as a kid,” she says.
“’s a nice place,” the Doctor remarks.
“One time Sonya broke her arm here. Fell out of a tree,” Yaz says. “Jumped, really. I dared her. I don’t think my mum knows that, so don’t tell her.”
“Your secrets are safe with me, Yasmin Khan.”
She doesn’t know if it’s the way the Doctor said ‘secrets’ (plural) or the use of her full name in a sea of ‘Yaz’ or just the sentiment of the sentence, but she clenches her jaw as the soft ache behind her ribs becomes a dull thud and she doesn’t respond. The Doctor falls asleep soon after.
The biggest piece of information she’s ever discovered comes the next morning when she wakes up and realizes the reason she can’t see isn’t because she’s suddenly gone blind or something, but the blonde hair splayed over her face that smells like Yaz’s shampoo and bonfire smoke. Also that the Doctor is most definitely a cuddler. Her hand clutches at Yaz’s wrist, holding her arm draped around her middle, and legs tangled together at the end of the bed.
Yaz moves the hair from her face as quietly as she can but the Doctor stirs anyways, rolling over and opening her eyes slowly. She smiles when she catches sight of brown eyes and says in a husky, just woke up voice, “Mornin’.” She rubs at her eyes and lets out a soft sigh and Yaz can’t take the soft ache that seems to have settled for good and pulls her arm away, rolling over and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.
“What’s the plan for today?” the blonde asks behind her.
Yaz stretches her arms in front of her and curls her toes. “Need to help my dad a bit to collect wood for the fire tonight and then the reunion.”
“Easy peasy, no, don’t like that one either,”
“You’ll get it,” Yaz says tiredly as she pulls out a pair of shorts and t-shirt from her bag. She goes into the bathroom to change and by the time she comes out, the Doctor is dressed and standing on the bed, inspecting the ceiling fan with her sonic.
“What are you doin’?” Yaz asks.
The Doctor looks surprised when she looks down at Yaz standing below her, dressed in shorts and a rugby t-shirt from high school, and she drops her sonic. It bounces on the bed twice before bouncing off and landing hard on the wood floor. The Doctor doesn’t move from where her hands grip the ceiling fan blades and Yaz swears she’s blushing, but maybe it’s the heat from the day (probably that).
After what feels like hours (but was probably seconds) she pulls from her still form and jumps off the bed with a dull thud, picking up her sonic and inspecting the side of it. “Think it dented your floor,” she says with a frown.
“Don’t worry about it.”
When they get downstairs, she sees her sister eating alone at the table, phone in one hand and scrolling through instagram or twitter or whatever kids used nowadays (she acts like she’s not still basically a teenager, barely twenty two). She doesn’t look up from her scrolling when Yaz and the Doctor enter, hands clasped loosely together.
Yaz tries not to think about the Doctor’s calloused fingers or the raised scar on her finger or the way she softly strokes the side of Yaz’s hand with her thumb as they go into the kitchen. The Doctor instantly gets excited as soon as Yaz shows her how many different types of cereal there were, and she pours three kinds into one bowl (disgusting). Yaz gets them both orange juice while the Doctor gets the milk out and takes both of their bowls to the table. Yaz comes out with the orange juice and sets the Doctor’s down at her seat. Sonya’s eyes watch over the screen at the entire exchange.
“What?” Yaz asks when she finally looks up at Sonya and catches the disgusted look.
“You two are gross, like a married couple,” she says, nose scrunching up more. “It’s honestly disgusting.”
Yaz knows her face is red, and she turns her head to her cereal bowl. The Doctor looks confused, though, and turns to Yaz and asks, “are we married?”
Yaz’s head shoots up and her mouth gapes open like a fish out of water. Sonya looks absolutely delighted.
“No, no Doctor, we’re not —“
“Are you two married? For real?” Sonya interrupts, and it’s phrased as a question but Yaz can already see the information cementing in her sisters head and she knows no matter what she says, she won’t believe her.
She tries anyway. “No, Sonya. We’re not married.”
Sonya looks between her and the Doctor and Yaz is not looking at the Doctor because she knows she wears that “what did I say wrong?” face and she is not going to explain to her why/how they’re not married (or even dating, for that matter) while sat across from her sister at the breakfast table. “Son, I’m serious. I wouldn’t do that, yeah?”
Sonya looks slightly placated, but her eyes narrow as she flicks between them. She raises an eyebrow and finally says, “Alright.”
Yaz almost audibly sighs with relief. Instead, she starts eating her cereal, and doesn’t almost jump out of her chair when her mum and dad enter seconds later.
Kindling collecting is…challenging with the Doctor.
Mostly because she keeps dropping all of her sticks when she sees something even remotely interesting and pulls out her sonic to inspect it. She’s almost caught with it out more than once and Yaz feels like she’s being almost caught making out or something. After the third time she hisses, “Doctor, I know the caterpillar is super interesting but it does not need to be scanned, and also my family is going to find out you’re an alien if you keep pulling that thing out.”
The Doctor looks up from where she’s kneeling on the ground, sonic held up to a bright green caterpillar that slowly makes its way across a fallen tree. “Oh, yeah, sorry Yaz. Forgot. Also, how old am I supposed to be again?”
Yaz looks at her in confusion. “I don’t know. Say you’re like twenty six or something. A bit older but not so much that it’s weird.”
“I am a lot older than you and it’s not weird.”
“I know,” she says when the Doctor stands up. Yaz looks down at her muddy knees and smiles. “Did you bring another pair?”
The Doctor looks down like she hadn’t even noticed they’re dirty. “Oh, no. Should’ve thought of that. I brought a telescope, though!”
Her family is loud. The night before is barely a get together compared to the sheer amount of people at the reunion.
(She finds out later it’s because her great-gran is turning 100 this year and she feels a bit bad she didn’t remember, but honestly she has a lot on her plate these days, alright.)
The food line is long with family she hasn’t seen in years, in a decade or more, honestly. She hasn’t been back to Pakistan since she was young, under ten probably, and she makes a mental note to visit as soon as she can — maybe she can make the Doctor take her.
Her great aunt hugs her hard and her cousin runs headfirst into her legs. She says, “This is my girlfriend, the Doctor.” about a million times and every time she does the Doctor squeezes her hand. She makes the Doctor eat an actual vegetable (she doesn’t like it and spits it out as soon as Yaz tells her what it is) and then watches an hour later when the Doctor eats an entire napkin.
The meal is spent with her family being the actual worst part 2, and this time it includes stories her cousins tell about when they were young and Yaz was the most fearless one of their group.
“Jumped off the roof of the shed, once. Broke her leg. We told Aunt Najia she fell off her bike,” Saira tells the Doctor.
“Remember that time she got stuck in the tree?” Her cousin they call ‘Dip’ adds.
Yaz covers her face with one hand, the other held tight between calloused fingers, and groans. “Please, don’t bring that up. I’m begging.”
“I’d very much like to hear it,” the Doctor insists. Yaz glares at her through her fingers and she laughs, bringing Yaz’s knuckles up to her lips and kissing them softly. Yaz’s gaze softens on the blonde and she cracks a small smile.
“You guys are a good couple, truly,” Saira notes, looking between them.
They both look at her, confused, and she rolls her eyes.
“She’s right, you guys are like a married couple. In a cute way, though,” Dip adds.
“Well, we are definitely not married.”
And sometimes — even though Yaz has that weird constant ache behind her ribs every time she looks at the Doctor — she wants to hit her. And it’s like the next scene happens in slow motion, and Yaz can’t do anything to stop it. She knows her cousins better than she knows herself, and she is certain they took the tone of the Doctor’s voice to mean the exact opposite of what she’d said, which could only mean Yaz did something Bad, and they were going to almost definitely use it as blackmail.
“Oi, she’s bein’ serious. I know what you’re thinking.” She points to Dip who raises his hands in defense.
“I wasn’t thinking anything, Yasmin,” he says evenly, eyes barely concealing the excitement she knows he’s feeling at thinking he just uncovered some big secret.
He’d said Yasmin. Not Yaz, Yasmin. The name her mother called when she was in trouble as a kid. Her cousins used to tease her about it, call her Yasmin when they knew something that would get her in trouble, and right now they think they know something that would get her in trouble. Yaz is the first to break eye contact when the Doctor leans over and asks in a whisper, “Did I do it again?”
The family eventually moves from the open area park to where they have the chairs and wood set up for the bonfire. Her Uncle Ali does the same show of lighting the fire as the night before, and the Doctor doesn’t let go on her hand for more than a few minutes the rest of the night. Well, until she gets pulled into serious conversation with a six year old on which bugs are the best bugs, and then she has to use her hands a lot to gesture (obviously).
“You two don’t kiss,” Sonya states from the other side of Yaz. She says it almost nonchalantly, like she’s just pointing something interesting out.
Yaz sputters. “What?”
“You and your girlfriend. You don’t kiss. You know, like normal couples that have been together as long as you have.” Her face goes skeptical and she raises an eyebrow. “Unless you’ve been lying, I guess.”
A stone drops in Yaz’s stomach but she plays cool (as cool as she can be when she’s trying hard not to look desperate, to say no, it’s not a lie, it’s a half lie, but even that is a lie. Maybe it’s gone the whole way round to the truth by now.)
“I dunno what you’re talking about, Son. We kiss all the time,” she lies. Sonya still looks skeptical but doesn’t say another word about it. Yaz’s heart doesn’t stop racing the rest of the night.
She teaches the Doctor how to make s’mores (which, she’s never made smore’s? How on Earth) and the Doctor eats nine of them in a row, impressing the children and making most of the adults a bit queasy. Yaz eats half of one and gives the other half to the Doctor who inhales it (so nine and a half). They stay until the fire burns out and the Doctor doesn’t drop her hand the entire walk back to their cabin.
The night is humid but the open windows let in a nice breeze that sort of cools the room. Yaz definitely isn’t overthinking about how her arm touches the Doctor’s arm and the back of her hand rests against the back of the Doctor’s hand and the million other minuscule points of contact they share.
“Yaz?” the Doctor asks, breaking the silence.
“Yeah?”
“Does your family like me?”
She’s confused by the question — why would it even matter? If she’s being honest and a bit cynical, to the Doctor they must be almost insignificant names and faces to the (probably) billions she knows and countless others she saves on a daily. She says, “Yeah. I think they do.”
The Doctor doesn’t respond. The crickets chirp loud outside the window and Yaz can hear the leaves moving in the wind. She turns her head and studies the Doctor’s silhouette. The question is out of her mouth before she can stop it. “How long were you in prison before you broke out?”
The topic they haven’t talked about — don’t talk about. Yaz knows bits and pieces like that the Doctor was in prison and broke out eventually and came back about a week after she’d walked to her certain demise (or, well, a week in Yaz’s time, in Earth time), but she never actually said how long she’d been imprisoned for, or how she escaped, or why she was imprisoned in the first place, or a thousand other things Yaz wanted (needed) to know.
The Doctor shrugs but keeps her eyes trained on the ceiling. “Dunno. Long while, I guess,” she says stiffly. Yaz watches her throat bob up and down as she swallows. “I think it were close to two hundred years, but I stopped counting after around fifty or so.”
“Why’d you stop?”
The Doctor looks over at her with an expression that Yaz can’t quite decipher in the muted dark of the room. “Because the average life expectancy of a human is seventy-eight years and you’re already twenty-two.” She says it like a fact, like any other fact she’d tell while on a trip, like it’s the most obvious thing to everyone in the world but Yaz.
A golfball size lump lodges itself in Yaz’s throat and she can’t even bring herself to say anything, not when the Doctor is looking at her like that and she smells of smoke and Yaz’s shampoo and wearing Yaz’s clothes in bed together. She swallows hard and looks back at the ceiling and says, “I’m glad you didn’t stop. Trying, I mean. I’m glad you got free.”
Yaz feels the Doctor hook a finger through hers, holding on. “Me too,” she agrees.
Waking up with the Doctor wrapped around her should probably be more surprising, and yet Yaz finds herself scooting back in the bed towards the warm body and pulling an arm tighter around her waist (if she was going to fall she might as well treat herself on the way down).
“Yaz,” the Doctor whispers behind her. Hot breath ghosts over her exposed neck. “Are you awake?” Yaz mumbles unintelligibly. The Doctor laces their fingers together and whispers again, “I know you’re awake.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Yaz asks, the pillow muffling her words.
“You’re green when you sleep and sort of an amber when you’re awake — or pink, it changes sometimes.”
Yaz’s sleep fogged brain tries to piece together the words the Doctor said but it still makes about as much sense as anything else cryptic she says does. “Doctor, what does that even mean?”
“It’s your…aura, I guess is what you humans would call it. Sometimes it’s dark blue when you sleep.” She says it so matter-of-factly that Yaz can’t help but believe her.
She rolls over in the Doctor’s arms, brow furrowed. “You can see my aura?”
The Doctor looks at the space around her for a minute and says, “Uh, yeah. Definitely can see it. Why?”
“Do you have any other superpowers I should know about?”
She looks up like she’s trying to remember. “I can hold my breath a really long time. Oh! I once regrew my hand. Does that count as a superpower? Starfish can regrow limbs, I guess I’m not much different —”
“You regrew an entire hand?” Yaz can’t help the alarming look on her face when she interrupts.
The Doctor pauses. “Yeah? Is that weird?”
Is that weird? Truthfully, not weirder than anything else she’s seen (or seen the Doctor do), and she tells her that.
The blonde looks proper offended by that. “I don’t do weird things. I think that’s an exaggeration, Yasmin Khan.”
“Yesterday you ate a napkin.”
“…did I really?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
She finally says it after they finally pull themselves out of bed, the words rushed like the first time she asked the Doctor to pretend to be her girlfriend. “Sonya is getting suspicious. I need you to kiss me.”
The Doctor stares open mouthed and says, “Now? Or —“
“No! No, not now, sorry. I just meant we need to play it up a little, y’know, other than hand holding. Just for another day.”
“What else do couples do other than hand holding?” If it wasn’t for the genuinely curious look on the Doctors face, Yaz might’ve laughed.
“Have you never been in a relationship before?” She knows the Doctor has to have had relationships before. With how old she is and how many companions and people she’s saved, Yaz bet there were an entire list.
“Of course I have! I’ll have you know, I’m married!”
Now that is news to Yaz. “To who?” she asks, curious.
The Doctor waves her hand noncommittally. “Oh, a few people. Marilyn Monroe was one. That was an accident, though, and I think she still has my phone number. Oh, she’ll love my regeneration,” she says excitedly.
For some reason it doesn’t come as a big of a shock as it probably should. “You’re married to Marilyn Monroe?”
The blonde turns. “Yeah, was a total accident. Bow tie always got into those.”
“Sounds familiar,” Yaz quips as she pulls her clothes out for the day and goes into the bathroom to get dressed.
She doesn’t know if the Doctor also has super speed or something but by the time she leaves the bathroom, she’s already dressed and inspecting the electrical socket with her sonic. Yaz holds her hand out to the kneeling Doctor. “Ready?”
The Doctor laces their fingers together and kisses her on the cheek. “Pretendin’ to date Yasmin Khan? Easy.”
(Yaz repeats that word in her head to remind herself: pretend, pretend, pretend.)
The Doctor pulls Yaz’s favorite cereal from the shelf and hands it to her as she passes with the milk. Yaz kisses her on the cheek (in full view on Sonya) and then kisses her again when she see’s the blush start to creep up on the Doctor’s skin. They decide over breakfast that Yaz is going to show the blonde her favorite spot near the lake, and maybe swimming later if they feel up to it.
Halfway through breakfast they’re all called out of the cabin to where half of her family is getting ready to leave, packing up their cars with coolers and foldable chairs and duffle bags. Yaz hugs her great aunt and lets her aunts kiss her cheeks and pull at her hair and tell her she must visit soon, and she promises them she will. They hug the Doctor and do the same fast talking that they did to Yaz, and then they move on to Sonya.
Yaz leans over and says, “They said you have very strong arms and you better treat me right.”
The Doctor brings their clasped hands to her lips and kisses Yaz’s knuckles softly. “Of course.”
The walk to the lake isn’t long — or well, it usually isn’t. Not when you don’t have an easily excitable thousand-year-old alien who just has to scan everything that comes into sight, especially bugs. Yaz isn’t about that, she stays far away from the Doctor when she bounds forward and drops to the ground in front of a beetle or a spider or something. She isn’t scared of bugs, she just respects them to keep to their space and she’ll keep to her own space and they won’t have to bother each other. She knows spiders help the environment and when growing plants or whatever but she isn't a farmer, doesn't live near a farm, doesn't plan on being a farmer, so she can happily stay a nice distance away from spiders.
The Doctor holds her palm out, facing up, a large spider in her hand. “Yaz! Look!” Yaz takes two large steps back when she tries to get closer.
“Doctor, will you please put that thing down?” she asks, eyeing the spider.
The Doctor looks down to her hand where the spider crawls along it. “Ah, Yaz he’s not poisonous if that’s what you’re worried about. I mean I don’t think he’s poisonous. You wanna hold him?” She holds her hand out to Yaz again.
“I have never wanted anything less. Please put the spider down or I’m going to leave you here by yourself.” She doesn’t say it like she’s scared (which she’s not) and she’s pretty proud of herself for that.
The blonde finally lets the spider crawl off her hand and onto the bark of a tree and grabs Yaz’s hand before she can complain about holding a hand that was playing with bugs.
When they get to the lake the Doctor looks out over the water and says, “I can skip rocks really well, you know.” She stops and furrows her brow then. “Well, at least I could. I bet it’s muscle memory, like riding a bike, which I cannot do.”
“You can’t ride a bike?” Yaz asks, watching the Doctor bend over and pick up various smooth circular rocks. Every so often she’d slip one into her pocket.
“Nah, never learned how. Didn’t go out much as a kid.”
“Did they have bikes on Gallifrey?”
The Doctor drops the rock she’s holding and looks up at Yaz, unreadable expression on her face. She shakes her head like she’s clearing a fog and starts picking up rocks again. “Uh, yeah, but not anywhere near where I lived — or not towards the end, I suppose.” Her words are careful and measured and she walks over to the edge of the shore and drops her pile of skipping rocks. She turns to Yaz and shoves her hands into her pockets. “I wasn’t exactly in the lower-class. They did have bikes, though, and also other transportation too, but that was really only used when going to the Capitol.”
Yaz walks over and picks up a rock, pulling her arm back and flicking her wrist. The rock skips four times before sinking in the water with a thunk. The Doctor picks up a rock and mimics her actions, but her rock doesn’t skip even once, just going straight down into the water. Yaz really can’t help the laugh that comes from the dejected look on the Doctor’s face.
“I thought you said you were really good at this,” she says.
The Doctor huffs. “I am. Probably a bad rock or something.”
“Doctor, your pocket is full of rocks. I don’t think you’d know a bad rock if you saw one.”
The Doctor ignores her and rummages around in the rock pile until she finds one she deems suitable and straightens back up. She pulls her arm back and flicks her wrist and her rock sails clear through the air, and then thunk straight in the water. Yaz covers her mouth with her hand as she tries to hold back the laughter and the Doctor crosses her arms across her chest.
“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I swear,” Yaz tries to say evenly, between very obvious laughs.
“It’s okay, Yaz,” the Doctor says. “I got copies of those videos from your mum, did I tell you? She was so helpful when I asked about them.”
Yaz’s laughter stops immediately and she drops her hand as her smile slowly fades. “You didn’t.”
The Doctor smiles cheekily. “I did.”
Yaz swats at her arm and can’t help it when her face breaks out in a grin again. She doesn’t care, really. She’d show the Doctor any part of her life she wanted to see, without question. The videos embarrass her in an endearing way, and she does kind of like that the Doctor knows so much about her.
She skips another rock, making it hop five times before breaking through the surface. The Doctor throws hers and it breaks through the surface immediately. She scowls.
“Here, try it like this.” Yaz comes behind her and puts her hand on one hip, wrapping the other arm around hers and holding softly to the wrist holding the rock, leaning forward so her chin is practically resting on the Doctor’s shoulder. “You’ll want to snap your wrist when you swing your arm.” She guides the Doctor’s arm at half speed to show her the movement. She’s so caught up in the way her fingers hold soft blue fabric and the spark where her hand holds a soft wrist that she doesn’t even notice the Doctor isn’t even looking at the arm movements or the lake or anything productive, but staring at Yaz.
Yaz stops guiding her arm. “You’re not paying attention,” she notes (and isn’t breathless at all, even a little bit, no way).
“Sorry,” the Doctor says, not sounding sorry at all. Her face is unreadable and she asks, “Can I kiss you now?”
Yaz feels her heart jump to her throat, that dull ache behind her ribs pounding out a steady beat now. She nods, eyes wide, says, “Yeah.” And the Doctor is turning around in her arms and pulling her close, one hand on her cheek and the other on her bicep.
It’s soft and slow and Yaz grips the yellow bracers in her hands like she might float away if she’s not grounded. The Doctor is a remarkable kisser, if a little overexcited in general, but it fits her personality exactly and Yaz adores it. The hand cupping her cheek moves to the back of her neck and then the kisses are less soft and slow and Yaz runs her tongue over a chapped bottom lip. The Doctor’s lips part in a sigh and she pulls away, resting their foreheads together.
“For practice, ‘course,” the Doctor notes, sounding like that was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment.
“Right, practice. Of course,” Yaz agrees, leaning back in to capture her lips. So it’ll look more realistic later, she says to herself — and at this point she knows it’s a blatant lie. The pounding in her chest gave that away almost immediately.
Hands pull softly at clothes and they step closer together and the Doctor kisses her like she’s never going to see her again — like this is their last and she knows it, like Yaz is so fragile in the grand scheme of things, like she’s lost so many and losing one more might actually kill her. She kisses with fervor and clumsy lips and teeth knocking together and Yaz puts her hand on the Doctor’s chest, feels her racing pulse mirrored back at her.
And then Sonya says, “Oh my god, are you two snogging in the woods?”
They pull apart like they’ve been burned and the Doctor’s cheeks are tinted a shade of pink. Her lips are kiss swollen and her eyes are dark and Yaz doesn’t have time to process it before she’s glaring daggers at her sister. “Well we are dating.”
“Have you seen my sweat pants?” Yaz asks as she digs through her luggage where she’s almost positive she had put her sweatpants back after the fire last night. When she turns around the Doctor is standing on the other side of the bed, looking sheepish and wearing said sweatpants.
“I can take them off and wear something else,” she says quickly, already pulling at the tie around her waist.
“No, no it’s okay. I’ll wear something else,” Yaz says, because she’s not missing an opportunity to see the Doctor in something other than her normal attire — and in Yaz’s clothes, no less. She pulls out a pair of yoga pants and changes quickly in the bathroom, throwing her hair up in a messy bun and pulling a jumper on over her tank top.
They walk a few paces behind her parents and sister, through the ever growing darkness and towards the already lit bonfire. The light from their torches illuminates the ground enough for them to see, and she’s not sure why it’s never occurred to her before now but she realizes she’s only ever seen four torch lights, not five. She turns her head and can just barely see the outline of the Doctor’s form behind her.
“Why aren’t you using your torch?” she whispers.
She’s sure the Doctor probably furrows her brow and gets that crease that’s a little closer to her right eyebrow than her left, but she can’t see it, and she has to turn her head back around to watch where she’s stepping so she doesn’t fall on her face.
“I can see in the dark,” the Doctor states. Just like that, no explanation.
Yaz stops in her tracks and the Doctor doesn’t miss a beat, stopping right before they collide. She watches her parents and Sonya keep walking towards the fire, then back to the Doctor when they were out of earshot.
“You can what?” she asks, surprised.
“I can see in the dark. Wait, is that weird?”
“How have you spent so long with humans and you still don’t know that being able to see in the dark is something we cannot do?”
“Don’t really think about it much, I guess. Comes in handy a lot though. Can you imagine if I had to remember a torch every time I went running into a situation? I’d be blind!”
“Oi! Stop making out in the woods and come join your family!” Saira yells from the edge of the clearing where the fire stands flickering.
Yaz’s cheeks flush and she starts off towards the fire again. The Doctor slips her hand in Yaz’s and kisses her shoulder once before following close behind. When they get there, Saira has already settled on a blanket with one of the babies in her arms. Yaz lays out her own blanket next to her and sits down, the Doctor close beside her with her legs crossed.
“Your turn,” Saira tells her when they’re settled, handing the baby to Yaz.
She takes the baby without question and settles her in her arms, looking down at the pudgy little face. Her fat fists raise and grab at a Yaz’s face and she lets little palms lightly tap her cheeks. The baby babbles nonsense words and Yaz says, “Yeah, I know, kid. Seriously, I get it.”
“She says you’re her second favorite, and that she wants a coffee,” the Doctor whispers so only Yaz can hear.
Yaz really shouldn’t be surprised by this point. She knows about the night vision (Ryan is going to have a fit when he finds out) and the holding her breath and the regrown hand, so the Doctor being able to speak baby shouldn’t be a surprise at all. And yet.
“Who’s her favorite?” she asks.
“Your mum.”
Makes sense. Her mum adores babies, absolutely ravishes this little one whenever she’s within fifteen feet.
“You wanna hold her?” she asks when she sees the Doctor watching the baby babble to herself. “You apparently speak her language.”
The Doctor doesn’t nod but also doesn’t protest when Yaz carefully moves the baby to her arms and positions her so she’s sitting up and looking at them all. The baby babbles excitedly and the Doctor nods thoughtfully. “Makes sense, she is a kind woman.”
Yaz watches the baby and the Doctor hold a conversation for a moment before turning back to her cousins and tuning back into their conversation about their great aunt.
“I heard it was the pool cleaner,” Saira states.
“I heard it was the son of the pool cleaner,” Dip says.
“How old is he?” Yaz asks.
“Nineteen, I think.”
The Doctor says, “Yeah, we are together, but it’s sort of a secret, y’know?” And waits as the baby babbles back at her.
“Your girlfriend is kind of weird, you know.”
Yaz leans over and kisses her cheek, leaning her head on her shoulder. “I know.”
The Doctor pulls her close as soon as they get into bed, wrapping her arm around Yaz’s middle. Yaz laces their fingers together between them and places a kiss to her forehead, soft from the shower. They lay in silence for a long while, eyes closed and noses almost touching.
“You’re pink right now,” the Doctor whispers into the dark room.
Yaz opens her eyes and lifts her hand, imagining pink smoke swirling around her. She doesn’t have to wonder why she’s pink. “What color are you?” she asks.
“Yellow.”
“You know Ryan is going to ask you a million questions about your super powers when we get home,” Yaz points out.
The Doctor chuckles and closes her eyes, soft smile on her face. “Probably. He’s usually orange, bright orange. Hurts my eyes sometimes.”
“What’s Graham?”
She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Tan, sort of. Like a gold-tan.”
They conversation dies off and Yaz gazes at the Doctors face, eyes following the lines of her forehead and vertical crease that’s almost smoothed out by the Doctor’s relaxed look. She traces the lines around her mouth and at the edges of her eyes and wonders if she regenerated with those or if they just came on in the time she’d been traveling with the fam.
And when she can’t help herself, when the thumping makes her feel like her heart is going to jump out of her chest and bury itself in the space behind the Doctor’s ribs, she asks, “Can I kiss you?”
The Doctor’s eyes shoot open and she nods quickly and her eyes flick down to Yaz’s lips. The soft inhale as Yaz leans forwards and traces the sharp line of her jaw with her finger tips and connects their lips is something she will absolutely never forget (or get tired of). It’s less reserved than the first, and the Doctor pulls her close by the t-shirt she wears and Yaz runs her hand over sharp collar bones and around the back of her neck, and their other hands stay clasped tightly together between them. When she pulls away she’s breathing hard from lack of oxygen and the Doctor’s lips try and follow her back. She places a palm flat against her chest and feels the racing double heartbeat and presses a chaste kiss to her lips.
“Oxygen,” she says. “I need to breathe more than you, remember?”
The Doctor nods mutely and her fingers rub light circles over the base of her spine. Yaz leans her forehead against the Doctor’s and closes her eyes, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart. The blonde presses a soft kiss to her nose and Yaz can’t help but smile.
“Are you always this much of a sap?” she asks.
“You bring it out in me, apparently.”
Yaz bites her bottom lip between her teeth and opens her eyes to find hazel, muted in the dim light, staring back at her. “What happens when we go back home? To the tardis, I mean?” she asks, because she needs to know. Even if the response will ruin her, she needs to know how soon this is going to end.
The Doctor doesn’t pull away, in fact she only pulls Yaz impossibly closer. “I dunno. Whatever we want to, I suppose,” she says, then, “what do you want?”
Yaz doesn’t look away when she (almost) confidently states, “You.”
The crease between her brows deepens. “Yasmin Khan, you already have me,” the blonde says quietly, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to her lips, then to her nose.
Yaz leans forward and kisses her harder, then. Hard enough to leave them both gripping at clothes and pulling each other closer. The Doctor’s palm runs over Yaz’s spine and she shivers in her touch. Their teeth click together ungracefully and Yaz tangles her hand in soft blonde hair that smells like her own shampoo. Her nails scratch at the base of the Doctor’s neck and she gasps into her mouth and grips her shirt harder.
They don’t sleep much.
Warm sunlight is what wakes her up initially, but a hand wrapped around her stomach that somehow made its way under her shirt during the night (intentional or not, Yaz doesn’t care). She opens her eyes to the bright morning light and places a soft kiss to matted blonde hair. The Doctor stirs next to her and her hand splays out on Yaz’s heated flesh.
She doesn’t mind the hand there, really, at all, but if it stays there then they’re never getting out of bed.
The hand flexes and the Doctor lifts her head like she’s surprised. “Am I groping you?” she asks like she just noticed her hand is on Yaz’s boob.
Yaz can feel the heat on her cheeks as she looks down at the hand covering her boob underneath her shirt. Her exposed boob, she should point out, because she’s not a psychopath who wears a bra to bed. The Doctor doesn’t move her hand and Yaz can barely breathe with how she’s now looking at her and (as much as she doesn’t want to) she says, “We should get dressed for the day.”
The Doctor nods, not moving. “Yeah,” she breathes. “We should.”
And then it’s probably Yaz who moves first, because she can’t imagine that the Doctor would try and use the hand-on-the-boob accident as a way to start making out, but truly she has no idea, and then blunt nails are scratching down her sides and she’s pulling the Doctor closer, cupping her jaw in her hand. It’s heated and the Doctor wraps one arm around the back of Yaz’s neck when she moves to hover over her.
She can’t (won’t ever) get over the taste of the Doctor, the way she kisses like Yaz is simultaneously the most fragile thing in existence and the hardest marble ever discovered, the way her hands never stay in one place too long, always moving and touching and searching. The way she pulls grips hair between fingers when Yaz places soft kisses at the base of her neck, on her thrumming pulse point, right underneath her ear, and how when they break away her eyes are dark and stormy.
“We really should get dressed or my parents will come up here to drag us out,” she says, pressing another kiss to the Doctor’s lips. It doesn’t last long though, and she rolls over to the edge of the bed and stands up.
Breakfast is a banana and some toast and the Doctor helps her dad carry things to the car. She has her coat off and is wearing one of Yaz’s tank tops instead of her regular shirts and the teal trousers with the dirty knees. Yaz watches the view over the rim of her cup of orange juice and Sonya elbows her hard in the side.
“You’re staring, you lesbian,” she grumbles, leaning against the railing next to her.
Yaz shrugs, not taking her eyes off the Doctor — off her arms.
They say goodbye to family and Saira gives Yaz a tight hug. “Don’t keep away so long, yeah?” And Yaz promises she’ll get up to visiting soon. Dip hugs her so hard he picks her up. “Bring her with next time you visit. She’ll get along great with my boyfriend.”
“I still need to meet him,” Yaz points out when he sets her down.
“You will,” he chuckles and holds his hand out to the Doctor. “It was a pleasure, Doctor.”
“Likewise, Dip,” she says politely when she shakes his hand.
Her uncle pulls her tight to his chest and kisses the top of her head with flourish. “Goodbye, my Yasmin. You bring the Doctor up to visit as soon as they aren’t working you to death.” He lets go of Yaz and sticks his hand out for the Doctor. When she takes it, he slaps a hand on her shoulder and looks at her, friendly enough but with a dangerous undertone to his voice.
Yaz rolls her eyes as the obvious show he’s putting on but the Doctor does keeps eye contact, definitely not one to back down. “Listen to me, Doctor. You better take care of my Yasmin, understand?” He waits until she nods before continuing. “If you hurt her, I will hunt you down and I will hurt you, understand?”
“You wouldn’t have to hunt me down, sir,” the blonde replies, and apparently that’s the right answer because he straightens up with a bigger smile finally shakes their clasped hands.
“Good.”
When he walks away the Doctor turns to her and says, “I don’t think he could kill me, but he wouldn’t have to.”
The ride home is a lot calmer than the ride up, and thankfully not filled with her dad asking a million and one questions, or Sonya asking who’s the top (unclear), and they finally drop Yaz’s bags in her room, telling her parents she’s going to help the Doctor put her bags in her “car”.
They step through the tardis doors and the crystals come alive as she wakes up (that’s how the Doctor puts it — “wakes up”). The Doctor throws the bag over to the side without care and leans back against the console. She raises her eyebrows and asks, “Where to, Ms. Khan?”
Yaz steps closer and wraps her arms around the blonde’s waist. She drapes her arms over Yaz’s shoulders and scratches blunt nails against the base of her neck.
“Anywhere, with you,” Yaz finally says, the words coming easy now and settling like flowers in her ribs.