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The Doctor had always held Yaz’s hand.
When they were sprinting through tunnels, when they had one corner left to turn before they got back to the TARDIS and the enemy was hot on their heels, when the world seemed to be ending and they needed to be somewhere fast. Half the time, it felt as if Yaz was having her arm ripped out of its socket.
Perhaps it was more so now that Ryan and Graham had left. Maybe that was just because, previously, the Doctor had just grabbed the hand of whoever was nearest and the four of them created a chain of hands pulling them along to the next disaster.
But it was certainly more now.
It hadn’t been the world that nearly ended, but the universe. In many ways, it had; the anti-matter of the Flux had almost enveloped the entire universe: all its stars, and darkness, and beauty and nothingness and everything that fell in between. All that remained was a few half-desolated planets and the toughest - or luckiest - people clinging to the skin of their mauled lives, and the Earth.
The Lupari had been species-bonded to humans. They shouldn’t have had to trade their existence for humanity’s. That was never the deal, and not at all one Yaz or the Doctor was happy with.
Nowadays, Yaz found that her hand was lingering in the Doctor’s for a little while longer.
In her own way, without really saying it - well, she never did, did she? - the Doctor had agreed that she would be more open with Yaz about whatever it was that was going on behind her eyes. They had stood in the TARDIS, far too close together, with unsaid things and unreleased anger and so many words saying so many things that were subtext or wishful thinking or agony painting the air. And then there were no words at all.
There had been a silence. A silence punctuated by the tears in the Doctor’s eyes and the ever so slight lean forward of her shoulders and that aching in Yaz’s chest that she thought would ease over the three years she had spent alone, yet had only grown stronger every time she watched that damn hologram.
Yaz knew what she had hoped would happen, but had no idea what exactly it was that the Doctor had been thinking. Perhaps the same. She hoped to God that the Doctor had been thinking the same.
Then Scouser had walked on in and that threw one hell of a spanner in the works.
But the Doctor held Yaz’s hand more, now. She was sure of it. Once upon a time, it really was just attempts to dislocate Yaz’s shoulder: sharp tugs around corners and, “Come on , Yaz, they’re right behind us, you mug! Run! ”
But she had no reason to keep Yaz’s hand in her own when they were stood at the console, or facing off an old enemy, or waiting to be seated at a space restaurant. The Doctor certainly had no need to hold Yaz’s hand whenever she called the ancient genius “big head,” because that certainly wasn’t hand-holding material.
And she certainly didn’t spend as much time holding Dan’s hand.
Yaz had had words with him, of course, about not interrupting if her and the Doctor were obviously having-or-were-about-to-have a moment, because, “Dan, for God’s sake, you watched me pine for the fucker for three years, don’t ruin my chances now, you Liverpudlian spud,” so he had become very good at making himself scarce when the time called for it.
That night in the TARDIS had really changed things, Yaz decided, as she thought long and hard about it in the surprisingly homely walls of her TARDIS bedroom. Just the other day, they had decided to watch a film on the purple sofas in some backroom Yaz could never find without help. The Doctor had rested her head on Yaz’s shoulder, and had even left her hand curled around Yaz’s thumb as she rested her hand on her knee.
Needless to say, if asked to recite the plot of that movie, Yaz would struggle.
And, just the other day, the Doctor had given Yaz a ribcage-mauling hug when they ran into each other in the kitchen, for no reason at all: they had seen each other less than an hour previously, and there was no vortex manipulators or anything laid about that the Doctor could have used for a sneaky lone mission anywhere (Yaz had checked one night when she had been convinced that she was going to lose the Doctor again).
Yaz rolled over in bed and stared at the light seeping in from under her door. Having a house that was ever so slightly telepathic and ever so slightly alive was always an experience, especially when the noise dwindled at night to leave the oddly comforting hum ringing softly in one’s ears. It was even odder when lights turned on in rooms seconds before you got to them, because the old machine just knew where it was that you were headed.
That was why the hall light was on, then, Yaz realised as she stood from her bed and slipped on her dressing gown. She had the sudden urge to walk and clear her head - and maybe run into the Doctor, as she never seemed to sleep and was always tinkering with something or other in the TARDIS whilst the humans recharged.
This section of the TARDIS had a carpet direct style grey shag in the corridor, so Yaz’s slipper-socked feet didn’t make any noise at all (something in stark contrast to the snoring coming from Dan’s room) as she shuffled along. This entire corridor felt like an artist’s impression of a Premier Inn mixed with student halls; each door was identical but slightly off from the one next to it, and you never knew exactly how long it actually was because it seemed to take a different amount of time to walk down it each night. That, and there was that ever-constant humming that threw you off, because it seemed to make it that time didn’t quite exist. For all Yaz knew, they could’ve been suspended in the vortex at that point: in the ever-lasting silence that falls between the ticks of the clock, the entire universe and all of its existence was splayed out in front of you. All you needed was to steal a time machine and run away.
Yaz found herself at the door to kitchen seven (the one with blue cupboards and an overwhelming sense of Tuesday), which had an unstable existence with reality. She was almost surprised that it was there that night, as, historically, it only ever showed up when the general exterior vibe was that of when you’re cooking a roast and Claudia Winkleman’s on Radio 1.
Inside kitchen seven was the Doctor, her coat nowhere to be seen, and the sleeves of her rainbow top rolled up to reveal her impossibly toned forearms. She’d even dropped her suspenders off of her shoulders and was holding a monkey wrench in one hand.
“Ah, Yaz!” She seemed genuinely delighted to see her, which made Yaz’s stomach flip. “I was just sorting out the plumbing. The lemonade tap is giving off orangeade again, and it’s getting annoying. Not because I don’t like orangeade, or anything, but just because you want the tap to give you what it says on the label.” She pointed to the printed-off label “LEMONADE” above the tap with the business end of the wrench. “That and I’m certain I re-did this last week, so either I’m losing my touch, or…” She peered into the end of the tap with one eye shut and her entire body twisted round like a slinky. “The TARDIS is being deliberately difficult again. I’ve checked all the connections, and it’s definitely not connected to the orangeade main, it’s connected to the lemonade main, like it should be, so I really don’t- aha! ” She’d turned the switch on the tap and had joyfully smiled, with her hands on her hips and nose scrunched, as a stream of cloudy lemonade began to flow through it. She turned the switch off again and wiped her greasy hands on the rag tucked into the waist of her trousers. “What are you doing up, Yaz?”
Yaz lent herself back against the countertop and shrugged. “You know when you’re just not tired?”
“Timelag, is it?”
Yaz shrugged again. “Dunno.”
The Doctor came to lean against the counter next to her. “Happens to the best of us,” she said, her hands shoved deeply into her pockets. “One time, I went straight from Castra 8 to the Moons of Kal-Ji-Pay, and, I’ll tell you now, I’m never doing that again. Didn’t sleep for a month!”
Yaz just laughed, having no idea what the Doctor was on about, but enjoying the glee on her face as she retold her old stories anyway. It wasn’t like she ever ran out of new ones. Sometimes, it kinda bugged Yaz that the Doctor had lived a life before her, but never so much as it bugged her that she knew that she was impossibly old and would probably have multiple lives after her. She hoped she’d be remembered, and one day become one of the many names that the Doctor would say with a fond, far-away smile if she couldn’t be with her forever.
“Why’d you come to kitchen seven if you couldn’t sleep? Bit of an odd place for a kip. Or do you want me to make you some sleepy time tea? Tea with Yaz, eh? Nothing better.”
Yaz laughed again. “Go on, then.” She held her breath for a second. “The door was here. It isn’t, usually.”
“No,” the Doctor agreed from the kettle. “The TARDIS can be a right strop, sometimes, you know. She once wouldn’t let me in the swimming pool for almost three weeks because I forgot a towel and got the rug wet.”
Skipping past the image of the Doc in a swimsuit . We are skipping past the idea of the Doctor in a swimsuit.
“How do you learn your way around this place?” Yaz asked, to distract them both. “I had no idea there even was a swimming pool.”
“You haven’t been?”
Yaz shook her head.
“Oh, Yasmin Khan!”
“I’ve never been able to find it! How do you track things down, when the TARDIS keeps moving them about?”
“Oh, I just bully the old girl until she gives me the door I need. Asked her for something to do tonight and she gave me the faulty tap of kitchen seven again, like I didn’t fix it last week.”
“And then she led me here, too.” Yaz smiled. “Like she’s trying to set us up, or something.” Immediately after the words had left her mouth, Yaz regretted saying them.
The Doctor handed her a mug full of tea. Yaz sipped it mercifully, hoping that having her mouth full would stop her from putting her foot in it. Luckily, the Doctor was blissfully ignorant of the exact nuances of the phrase.
“I need to keep busy in the nights, see,” the Doctor said quietly. “I can’t let myself think too much.” Her free hand slipped from her pocket and took Yaz’s.
This was exactly the kind of opening up that she had been doing more of, and it was exactly the kind of opening up that made Yaz’s heart ache. She wished that she could fully understand: that she could hold the Doctor to her chest and let her know, somehow, that everything she had done was forgiven - she wished that she didn’t need to comfort the Doctor. It tore her apart to know that this wonderful, stupid, magnificent woman was always in so much pain from the demons she kept in her own head.
Yaz ran her thumb gently over the back of the Doctor’s hand. “S’pose it has its upsides. This way, the lemonade tap never gives orangeade.”
The Doctor exhaled sharply through her nose once before resigning her head to rest on Yaz’s shoulder, just like she had on the purple sofa. “An old friend of mine once chastised me for not doing basic maintenance.”
“Who was that, then?”
“The Master.”
“Must have been a long time ago.”
“Not really.”
Yaz took an apprehensive sip of tea.
The Doctor raised her head off of Yaz’s shoulder, but didn’t lean away again. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on her friend. When Yaz turned her head around to meet her eye, their faces were far too close for coherent thought. Her breathing immediately hitched, embarrassingly.
“Thank you,” the Doctor said. “For sticking around.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” Her voice sounded breathless and awed, which she hated. Yaz wished that she could retain enough function of her lizard brain when she was close to pretty girls to actually close the distance and kiss them, goddamnit.
She’d been daydreaming about kissing the Doctor for a very long time, and she’d discovered some A* pining after how close they’d come in the console room that short while ago.
And now, here she was. With the Doctor’s face so very close to hers that all she’d have to do was lean forward.
“Yaz?” the Doctor said.
“Yeah?” Yaz replied, slightly breathless.
“I think that you’re getting tea on the floor.”
“Am I? Sorry!”
As her mind had wandered left, right and centre, Yaz had entirely forgotten that she had a mug in her hand and had managed to pour a substantial amount of sleepy time tea onto the tiles beneath her feet. The Doctor had been shoved slightly off of Yaz as she recoiled, and now wordlessly handed her some kitchen towel to mop the floor with. Thank God it wasn’t carpet - something like that tea would’ve been a right pain to get out of that shag carpet on the other side of the door.
The Doctor was smiling as she sat down at the table in the corner of the room, and Yaz couldn’t help but return it as she slumped into the seat next to her.
“Maybe I should go to bed,” she said, rubbing her hands over her face like she was trying to wipe away the embarrassment.
The Doctor was still smiling when Yaz peered through her fingers. It was that annoyingly infectious smile that managed to encompass her entire face from her eyes to her scrunched nose and even seeped down into the rest of her, making even her shoulders seem more cheery and movements less agitated.
It was the smile that made Yaz feel as though she had finally found her place in the universe.
The Doctor then sighed, in an almost defeated way. Her hand inched towards Yaz’s on the table, as if she planned to hold it; at the last moment, though, she seemed to change her mind and just left their forefingers touching against the wood.
Without really thinking about it, Yaz lifted her other hand up and pulled the stray hairs that had found themselves stuck to the Doctor’s temple out of her face and tucked them gently behind her ear. The Doctor watched Yaz’s face through the entire movement, with carefully attentive eyes. Yaz left her elbow against the back of the chair, with the backs of her fingers in prime position to trace the soft line of the Doctor’s jaw.
Something about the movement was entirely and indefinitely her , yet she couldn’t take any conscious credit for it as she was far too terrified to make any such gesture. Perhaps she was just exhausted past the point of having any common sense left.
The Doctor, however, was leaning into the touch. Something about that subconscious acceptance was fueling the incoherent thoughts in Yaz’s head screaming kiss her, kiss her, kiss her . Once upon a time, they were a background drone, but had managed to migrate to the very forefront of her brain and were threatening to become true impulses that were actually acted upon.
It was something in the Doctor’s eyes, Yaz decided. Something in the deep glint of those impossibly old eyes that was so close to being the perfect creature - hell, that was the perfect creature - that she had managed to fall in love with.
Fall in love with? Christ, Yaz, that’s a strong word.
But, no, I have, something in Yaz was saying. I have fallen in love with her. To say that I don’t love her would be blasphemy.
That droning urge was becoming louder, and the Doctor’s insistence on being so damn Doctory in the orange light of kitchen seven was not making it easier to ignore.
Yaz laughed nervously and let her head fall forward, only to feel the Doctor’s hand on her cheek, lifting their faces up to be level again.
Their mugs of tea sat forgotten on the table.
“Are you gonna kiss me, or what?” the Doctor asked.
Yaz stared at her. “I- Pardon?”
The Doctor rolled her eyes and closed the distance between them.
Yaz slipped the short remaining distance into being absolutely feral the moment that the Doctor’s lips collided with her own.
The Doctor still had her hand over Yaz’s cheek, and was using her thumb to trace the line of her cheekbone. Deep in her mind, serenity struck Yaz.
The universe is loud. There are one hundred thousand million creatures in it, and more atoms that you can ever possibly imagine, and they spend their days constantly breaking and reforming and colliding and battling: life destroys itself and reasserts itself and you never know one day to the next if a planet is going to be there or not.
And all of that background noise - all of that chaos and despair - falls away the moment that your lips touch the lips of the woman you love more than anything else in the universe amidst the blue cabinets of kitchen seven. When your hand finds itself lost in her hair, and you can feel your forehead leaning against hers, the universe becomes surprisingly quiet.
In that brief moment before the Doctor pulled away, Yaz knew exactly how it felt to hold the secret to life in her hands, because she had.
It was her. Her Doctor, with grease on her face and a rag in her trousers, beautiful under fluorescent lighting and breathing ever so slightly heavily as she kissed you for the first time.