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Yaz can’t seem to look at her, only around her. Only at the weathered rocks or the salty waves or that deep, black nothing when her eyes slide shut. Only anywhere and everywhere else.
“Back to the TARDIS?” the Doctor asks softly, as if speaking quietly will shield them from the grief of it all.
“You go on,” Yaz mutters at the ground. “I’ll catch up.”
“Right, yeah. ‘Course.”
She wills her gaze up, just long enough to watch the Doctor cling to a withered smile; one she knows will disappear the moment her eyes fall back to the rocks.
“Take your time,” the Doctor adds, and it could almost be a joke if she wasn’t trying so hard to mask the flicker in her voice.
Her boots pad against the stones as she walks away.
Once her steps fade, Yaz makes herself move, too.
She wanders, urging one foot in front of the other, praying it will feel less like a chore the next time one of her feet touches the ground. Yaz knows it never will, but that doesn’t keep her from hoping. And that’s always the problem, isn’t it? Hope, or the absence of it.
When the rocks beneath her shift to sand, she sits back down, alone this time. Yaz waits, watching the water’s foamy limbs caress the land. It should bring her peace, the gentle rhythm of their meeting, but their dance only deepens the ache in her chest. It’s just wistful, the way the waves leave and return and leave and return, only to leave again.
She’s not sure how long she’s been staring at the water by the time she realizes her tears won’t come.
Hiding the damage has gotten easier with time. After the TARDIS doors shut behind the boys, Yaz swore to herself she’d never let pain or anger or betrayal seep out again. She’d find a way, somehow. Whatever it took to wipe that wilted stain from the Doctor’s eyes.
And she did find a way, after those first ten months apart. Something had shifted when the Doctor came back. Yaz couldn’t decide if part of her was missing or if more of her was there. Most of the time, it felt like both.
“Are you all right?” Yaz would always ask, and the Doctor would always answer in questions or lies. But at a certain point, even that faltered. The Doctor wasn’t fine anymore. She was stop asking.
Four years, Yaz waited for the truth.
Four years without her.
When the Doctor asked how long it had been, Yaz didn’t dare give a number. That time, the contradiction was stronger than ever. She could almost feet it before she knew it. Not all of the Doctor was there, and there was also, somehow, more of her than Yaz had ever seen before.
Everything, the Doctor promised after that. “I want to tell you everything.”
Ever since, Yaz has wondered what blow finally cracked the Doctor open. Now, as she fills her palms with sand and feels the grains slip through her fingers, she’s certain. Her only wish upon stepping through those blue doors, and the one thing she’s been robbed of since.
Time.
She never understood how a time traveler can be so wanting for it. The Doctor talks about it like it’s a person, always catching up with her. Truth be told, Yaz has grown weary of running from a person she can’t see. These days, she feels more like a ghost with the way the Doctor looks at her. Like a bittersweet song on loop. As if she’s a memory. As if she’s already gone.
“Can we just live in the present? Of what we have, while we still have it?”
And Yaz had agreed, because what else is there to say to someone who talks about the present like it’s already passed?
Just yesterday, they’d been target practice for a Dalek — dying and resetting over and over and over again. That, in its own twisted way, was easy. Or it was quick, at least. But sitting frozen while loneliness rots her bones feels more like how Yaz had always imagined death. There’s a familiarity to it, this ache of persistence. Slow and rusted and bruising.
Maybe she does understand the Doctor after all.
But the understanding makes no difference in the end. However big and however deep, Yaz can’t help but reach for the cosmic marks the Doctor leaves. Can’t help but touch where she knows it’ll hurt most. Sometimes, she presses harder. Just to feel the Doctor. Just to know she’s still there.
She sits digging into the ache until salt finally reaches her lips. Tears begin drizzling down her cheeks, but she rolls them into her mouth and swallows them back. There’s no use in letting them fall completely, only long enough to remember how they taste.
“Yaz?”
The sudden voice, for all its tenderness, rips through her like a dull knife. She plasters her eyes shut, refusing to look up and let the Doctor witness how wilted she’s become.
“I, um, just wanted to check on you,” the Doctor mutters to her back. “It’s been a long while.”
Yaz feels something inside of her twist. It’s only felt like a few minutes, but time apart does seem to pass differently between them. They’re always headed in the same direction, she and the Doctor. Always toward each other, just at vastly different paces. It’s become a rarity, being in the same place at the same time, wholly together. Everything seems to arrive in pieces these days.
“You told me to take my time,” she says. The tinge of bitterness in her tone takes them both by surprise.
The Doctor shifts in place. “And you can, but I’ll worry all the same.”
Silence cloaks them for a moment. Yaz keeps her hands fixed on her lap, refusing to fold in. Behind her, the Doctor doesn’t stop shifting.
“It feels wrong, sitting in the TARDIS knowing you’re out here. I want to give you space, but I don’t want you to be alone. I don’t know what’s right, Yaz.” Her voice wobbles. “I haven’t for a long time.”
The doubt and confusion oozing from her is almost enough to make Yaz look back. It’s all too familiar, standing with open hands and not knowing what to do with them. A special kind of purgatory. unbearably helpless. The small, unkind part of Yaz almost savors being on the other side of it for once. Let the Doctor feel how she’s felt for so long. Let her drown in the smallness of it all.
Tears brim the cracks in her eyes. A sob festers in her chest. She tries to fight it — digs her fingers into the grey fabric of her skirt, piercing and desperate for purchase, but nothing can stop her from slipping. Eventually, the sob wins out, and hushed whimpers scrape their way up Yaz’s throat until her whole body is trembling.
“Yaz,” she hears the Doctor gasp. She says it again, and again, always closer, always softer, and, for a brief moment, hearing her name on the Doctor’s tongue is the only reason Yaz is certain they’re both actually there.
The Doctor kneels beside her. A wary hand comes to rest on her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Yaz tries to say, but her reassurances come in strangled fragments. “I— I’m okay. I kn— I know you can’t.”
She leans away, but the Doctor’s arms lock around her. Reality swirls when Yaz realizes she’s being pulled back in.
“You’re not okay. I know you know.” The Doctor sighs, then settles on the ground and tightens her grip. “That’s the problem, Yaz. I want to fix this but I don’t know how.”
It stings, only being held after the damage is done, but Yaz can’t stop herself from leaning into it. It’s been years since she’s wept like this; since the morning after the angels splintered their lives and she found a strange device tucked away inside her coat pocket. What she would have given to feel the Doctor embrace her like this back then.
It feels so achingly sweet inside her arms. It shouldn’t. Everything would be so much simpler if it didn’t, but it does. With every staggered breath and sniffle, Yaz feels the Doctor draw her closer. She surrenders herself to it, finally stumbling a path through the maze that’s sat tangled in her chest for far too long.
After a while, the suffocation begins to wane. The blue silk of the Doctor’s shirt catches her sorrow as it falls. Cool puddles form in the fabric under her skin, like ice to a swollen wound. Yaz hones in on the hand running calming circles along her back and tries to mirror her breathing with its orbit.
Just when she thinks her lungs are beginning to steady, the stab of release returns. Every muscle in her body constricts when the soothing pressure around her gives. Yaz’s eyes shoot open, wide with panic as the Doctor pulls away.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?”
Her frenzied questions are met with silence. The Doctor leans back, then slants forward as if to rise, but never actually does. She hovers in that position, staring into the distance, suspended somewhere between stillness and motion. Her hollow gaze awakens a horrible dread in Yaz. She feels that gritty grey creeping up and can’t quiet the image of stone devouring the Doctor again.
It comes as a relief when her frame deflates, conceding to the ground beside her.
“You weren’t crying like this ‘til I came back,” the Doctor murmurs. “I knew I should’ve just let you be.”
Yaz’s nails bite her skirt harder. “I always want you to come back.”
“And that’s the thing. One day, for some reason or another, I won’t be able to. Not because I won’t want to — both of us will want it more than anything.” The Doctor pauses, shuddering to a whisper. “The closer we get, the worse the missing will be. I can’t let myself do that to you, Yaz. Not again.”
Her hands rise and cover her vision in a meager attempt to conceal the sadness pooling there. She tries to rub it away, pushes hard against her skull, pulling her skin taut and white at the contact. Yaz imagines the storm of colors swirling behind her eyelids and wishes more than anything that the Doctor would let her see it, too.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
The Doctor’s hands drop. She blinks at Yaz, troubled and perplexed.
“I already miss you,” Yaz admits. “I have for a long time.”
The Doctor's jaw clenches. “We’ve certainly spent a lot of time apart.”
“Yes, but . . . no. That’s not what I mean. It’s been longer than that.”
“Longer?”
“Ever since the Master showed up.”
Yaz pauses after the confession leaves her, letting the weight of her words sink in and drag the Doctor’s frame along with it. Once the initial sting fades, she pushes on. “I didn’t realize how much I don’t know about you ‘til I saw the way you looked at him,” she says, treading lightly. “It’s not even that you haven’t been the same. It’s that you kept running further and further away, and you haven’t stopped. You’re right here and I still miss you.”
The Doctor considers this for a moment, then averts her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
“What for?”
The Doctor shrugs, but it’s not dismissive. Her brow crinkles, more curious than anything else — like she’s poking at the sentiment. Turning the pieces over in her mind, trying to construct them in a way that makes sense. “I don’t know,” she finally answers, sounding smaller than ever. “For all of it? For shutting you out? Taking so long? Making promises I can’t keep? I just am, Yaz. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that’s all I know how to be.”
Her gaze drips to the sand beneath them. Yaz watches her fingers coax the grains into soft, shifting patterns.
“That’s the thing about living as long as I have,” she adds. “I look down, and I don’t see sand anymore. I see rocks that have been whittled away by water and wind and heat and cold over thousands and thousands of years.”
Her eyes float up and begin to wander. They pass through everything — through the distant cliffs and lush foliage and gentle waves and crisp sky — but never seem to land anywhere in particular. The Doctor glazes over all of it, as if every surface is a flame raring to scar her.
“I’ve already met the dust this becomes, and I’ve met the nothing that comes after. I think, sometimes, I get lost in that.” She frowns. “I chip away at things while they’re still here. Move the passage along because I know sitting still won’t make it stop.”
Her eyes return to Yaz with a revived gleam. And this time, they stay.
“That’s why I like being with you. I see in ruins, but you . . . you look at the sand, and you still see a beach.”
Yaz swallows hard, cherishing the affection she finds glinting at her in the sunlight, then turns to admire the shore.
“It is a pretty beach right now,” she observes.
A sad smile tugs at the Doctor’s lips. She draws in a deep breath and follows Yaz’s eyes to the shoreline.
“Yeah.” She exhales. “I s’pose it is.”
Yaz listens to the waves grow and shrink and bury and unearth, but the cadence doesn’t sound quite as dismal with the Doctor beside her. Peace washes over both of them as they take in the sight together. Yaz can tell when the side of Doctor’s knee relaxes into her own.
Against her better judgment, she relishes the touch and indulges herself. Lets herself want the Doctor the way she always has and feels warmth bloom through her chest at the understanding. Her fingers twitch in her lap, longing to reach for her, but they don’t. They won’t. The land never reaches for the water. It knows its place, and so does Yaz.
Maybe in some other universe, things could be different. Maybe there is a world somewhere on the far edge of the cosmos where the land pulses and shifts and the water stays rooted in place. But here, the waves roll at the mercy of disaster and gravity and air, and the land sits with baited breath waiting for it to arrive.
“What we had, it’s already changed, hasn’t it?” the Doctor asks softly. “We’ve seen too much of each other to go back to the way things were before.”
“Way too much.” Yaz nods, allowing tears to flow freely down her cheeks. Her heart skips when the Doctor leans in, then reaches to cradle both sides of her face.
The prolonged contact fills her with a strange sense of unease. There’s nowhere to look except at the profound tenderness radiating from the Doctor. It’s a side she’s never witnessed before, and it makes both of them seem more naked than ever. Yaz can’t help but feel like she’s seeing something she’s not meant to. Like she’s spying on an intimate moment the Doctor usually reserves for herself.
Thumbs tick across her skin in slow strokes, gingerly collecting her tears as they fall. After a long moment, the Doctor lifts one hand away and examines the sorrow gathered on her thumb.
“I don’t want this to be the rest of what we have,” she whispers, massaging the tears between her fingers until they’ve dissolved.
Yaz's body breathes a sigh of relief. “Me neither,” she says, then melts into the Doctor’s touch, feeling her cheek squish against her palm.
Almost instantly, the Doctor’s other hand falls away.
“I’m scared, Yaz,” she mutters.
“I’m scared, too,” Yaz admits. “I’ve never—”
Her voice trembles to silence. She eyes the Doctor, steeped in dread, struggling to muffle the thunder in her veins. It’s not too late, she reassures herself. She could concede to the impossibility right now if she wanted. Make something up. Pretend she can’t see it. Take it back. Lie. It’s what the Doctor would’ve done before today. It’s what the Doctor did do.
But this present, their present, was forged by all of the choices between yesterday and now. And at her core, Yaz knows she could never let even the most harrowing fear stain something so rare and so precious as the Doctor’s gaze locked on her, finally willing to see.
She’s not sure how much time has passed before the words finally soar out of her.
“I’ve never felt this way about someone like you before.”
The Doctor squints at her, uncertain. “Like me?”
“Like you,” she confirms, urging her voice steady. “Y’know . . . a woman.”
All color drains from the Doctor's expression. She spends an agonizing moment with her brow wound tight, dissecting the concept.
“Right. I am a woman. Forget that bit, sometimes,” she muses, mostly to herself. Her focus veers off again, and a shy tint of red stains her cheeks. “Well, my big head just got bigger,” she jokes, breathing an awkward laugh.
Yaz rolls her eyes fondly and lets out a frail chuckle, but her muscles stiffen when the panic creeps back in. She crosses her arms and hugs herself to keep the turbulence in check, though she knows it’s a lost cause at this point.
The Doctor sobers when she notices the tremors rattling her body. She scoots close with an unusual air of resolve, then reaches to frame Yaz’s face once more.
“See, this is the difference between you and me,” she soothes, delicately mopping more tears. “I can be brave, and I can also be incredibly stupid. But you? Yaz, you’re just brave. Right when I think I can’t love you more, you go on being yourself and prove me wrong.”
Her words crash into Yaz with such force, she’s certain part of her has been hurled into the thermosphere. She hesitates before responding, almost worried she might have imagined it.
“Love me?” she finally brings herself to ask, still half-afraid of the answer.
“Love you,” the Doctor echoes. “Every second a little bit more.”
Yaz’s sodden eyes flutter in shock. There’s no mistaking the affection beaming her way. No confusing the admiration gliding across her skin. The truth is right there, etched into every glowing line of the Doctor’s face.
“I love you, too,” Yaz whispers, just barely. The confession feels almost foreign on her tongue, but the Doctor’s grin, all bright and proud, promises her without a shred of doubt that it belongs.
“I know you do,” the Doctor says warmly, still caressing her face, “but I’d be lying if I said I’m not well chuffed to hear you tell me.”
The velvety timbre of her voice lines Yaz’s veins with silk. They sit wordlessly after that, fixed on each other for the first time with nothing wedged between them. The calculating stare from the Doctor, starved eyes and lips slightly parted, sends Yaz’s nerves into a frenzy. She almost dares to lean in, but just as she considers it, the Doctor’s expression shifts to something more subdued and her mouth slides shut.
“Come here,” she says, then pulls Yaz close until she’s resting against her.
It’s a screeching turn, but Yaz follows suit and curls into the Doctor, letting the back of her head settle onto her chest. One final, hiccuped breath jolts through her, followed by a long exhale that molds their frames together. The pinch of disappointment fades when the Doctor’s arms blanket her, welding Yaz in place at her side. Warmth floods her cheeks at the gesture.
The Doctor wants her here, she thinks. The Doctor wants her.
But even amid the bliss, instinct prickles at the back of her neck. “Where’s Dan?” she asks before she gets too comfortable. “Should we check on him?”
“Nah, don’t think he’ll be wandering off anytime soon,” the Doctor assures. “He was chatting with Di when I got back . . . and when I left again.”
“Get out!”
The Doctor gives a satisfied shrug. “She must’ve missed him.”
“She’d be stupid not to.” Yaz huffs, then frowns. “I was so upset when he told me what happened. He was late because Karvanista snatched him up and threw him in a cage. That weren’t his fault. I mean— I get feeling sore about it, but—” She looks up, stealing a reluctant glance at the Doctor before finishing the thought. “But all that time . . . he was just trying to find a way back to her.”
The Doctor’s shoulders sag. Yaz’s gaze stays fixed ahead of her this time, now plagued by the same memories she knows are also looping through the Doctor’s mind.
“We can stop pretending you didn’t see the inside of that TARDIS,” she says gently, but the Doctor doesn’t reply. After a long stretch of silence, Yaz grasps the hand nearest hers. “You know I’m not upset with you, right? About either time.”
The Doctor buries her mouth in Yaz’s hair. “No, I know.”
“And that’s what bothers you, yeah?”
Her lips press into a hard line. “Yeah.”
Yaz gives her hand a reassuring squeeze, hoping it will say everything there are no words for. Deep down, she knows nothing she could offer would be enough to temper the guilt festering inside the Doctor. Still, Yaz lets her thumb drift over the Doctor’s skin, trying to sand down the roughness all the same.
On the inside, though, she’s beaming.
How many lonely nights has this exact scene soothed her to oblivion? Yaz remembers the first time her hand passed through the emptiness should’ve been the Doctor. She knew reaching out for that flickering projection would kill her, but she did it anyway. Four years and thousands of deaths, and she’d do it all again. Yaz would do it forever if it meant ending up here, listening to the doubled meter of the Doctor’s hearts harmonize with her own.
“I like this present,” she says softly.
A shy smile forms against her head. “I do, too,” the Doctor admits. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”
Yaz smirks, unable to resist. “How long?”
The Doctor spends a moment considering her answer. “It’s hard to say exactly,” she concludes. “You snuck up on me, Yasmin Khan.”
Soft chuckles sweep through Yaz’s hair. She looks up with a questioning grin. “What?”
“Nothing.” The Doctor shakes her head, still amused. “It’s just— of all the places on Earth I could’ve landed . . . Sheffield.”
Yaz giggles, burrowing further into her side. “You sound like my nani.”
“Oi! I know I’m old, but . . .”
The offended pout on her face only makes Yaz laugh harder. “I just mean that she landed there too, in her own way,” she clarifies. “I saw a map on her wall when we were back there. She told me she decided to go wherever her finger landed, and Sheffield was marked.” The image flashes through her mind, and Yaz can’t help but cringe a little. “She thought it sounded exotic.”
The Doctor struggles to stifle her laughter. “Was it everything she’d dreamed?”
“Definitely not.” Yaz chuckles, then steadies to a thoughtful tone. “She did tell me she loves it, though. She said Sheffield gave her a life, and a home, and a family.” The next thought tangles in her throat. “She said it gave her me. And that she’s happy.”
“That makes two of us,” the Doctor says, arms tightening around her. “I’m very lucky to know you, Yasmin Khan.”
Yaz leans into the embrace as more memories clatter inside her head. She turns to her surroundings, hoping to drown them out, but one glance at the sun makes everything shatter like glass.
“My nani offered to tell me about the watch,” she says quietly.
The Doctor tenses. “What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“No?”
“No,” Yaz confirms. “She asked if I wanted to know, but I realized I only want to know what she’s ready to tell me. It weren’t fair of me to find out the way I did. So, I told her to tell me another time.”
“D’you think she ever will?”
“I hope so.” Yaz shrugs against her, then heaves out a weighted sigh. “It must be so hard, carrying that around without anyone knowing. Sometimes I wonder if she’s afraid I’ll see her differently.”
The Doctor squints at her. “You mean you don’t?”
“I did at first. And I guess I still do, but not in a bad way. She’s just clearer now, like I put on glasses and can read the fine print. If anything, it’s made me feel closer. Made me love her more.”
Yaz feels the Doctor swallow hard, but doesn’t look up. She keeps her eyes on the dozing sun, marveling at the way it paints the sky full of life and color on its way out. She’s not sure what, but something about the sight urges her on.
“I keep the watch in an old box under my bed,” she muses. “I look at it sometimes. It’s strange, holding a piece of my history that I didn’t know existed. Something that’s so sad and so horrible, but it’s also the reason I’m here and I’m me.” She gives the Doctor’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad she married Prem. I’m glad they loved with the time they had. And I’m glad you stopped me from ruining that.”
Her voice trails off when she notices the moon peeking through the daylight, quietly reflecting the sun as it moves to take its place. It’s a bittersweet passage, but a peaceful one. Aching, but right. The thought of it blurs her eyes with tears and fills her chest with warmth.
“I couldn’t imagine why my nani never wanted that watch fixed when she gave it to me, but I get it now,” she adds. “Not everything needs fixing. Some things just need to be.”
Through the static of the waves, the Doctor’s whisper finds her.
“Yaz?”
“Hm?”
“I— there’s something I want to tell you.”
She sounds so young when she says it. Yaz looks up, wiping her tears until the Doctor’s worried eyes sharpen into focus. There’s a particular gleam between their unease. A fullness that wasn’t there before. If Yaz listens closely, she swears she can hear the lock behind them click open.
The slight tremble of the Doctor’s lips rouses her up. Yaz settles upright beside her, takes the Doctor’s hand, and smiles a smile she’s been waiting to smile for years.
“Well, then," she says softly, "I want to hear it.”