Warm
The wall against Yaz’s back is hard, but it is warm. The heating is on. Graham had thrown caution to his heating bill and switched it up full throttle. Guilt, perhaps? Guilt of months spent thinking thoughts of abandonment, only to discover that was never the case at all. Guilt to rid bones of heavy-set coldness, to lighten all of their hearts and minds. Yaz is not sure whether it is working, but she supposes they are all just doing the best they can; that is all they can ask for.
They have, to be fair, just defeated an attempt to control the universe by some of its most malicious inhabitants. They have worn out their very best on that. They are worn out from that. She is worn out from that.
She is behind the door Yaz is currently waiting by. Yaz listens for moment behind it. She hears no movement at all. She takes charge for both their sakes. She needs to help as much as the Doctor needs help. Neither of them admits to it but it does not need saying. Yaz pushes off from the wall, rapping softly on wooden door with her knuckle.
The heat from the wall does not stay with her; she still feels chilled.
She opens the door, pausing in the doorway. The Doctor is slumped on the side of the bed, the soft, cushy bed, elbows on her knees as she holds the hoodie Yaz has leant her in her hands. Her eyes stare listlessly at the floor. Her hair is slicked back, but not with grease and dirt but with water, freshly washed.
Yaz closes the door behind her, and they are alone.
She moves slowly, limbs thawing, approaching the bed in Graham’s spare room, lent to Yaz in those early months of loss and now to the Doctor; some of Yaz’s clothes were still stored in the dresser, hence how the Doctor is now dressed in baggy sweatpants and a plain t-shirt, so different from the attire she had favoured ‘before’, but a big improvement on the prison jumpsuit.
Yaz’s ears ring slightly in the quiet of the room, the street outside deserted, lamplights dimly glowing through the window; no more chaos, no more invasion, everything is settled once more. Well, outside it is, things between all of them, the ‘fam’, are hardly settled. They are all standing shakily on the ground which moves beneath their feet, revelations, reunions, so many things happening Yaz’s head spins.
Yaz shifts on those unsteady feet, moving closer to the Doctor, who does not look up at her. They have barely had a moment together since- since that cell, and the horrid realisation of that place, and Yaz suddenly feels a nervousness flare up inside her, replacing the adrenaline rush of the last few hours, as she realises that this here is the proper reunion, seeing the Doctor face to face without any present threat or a ticking timer over their heads. It is only Graham’s spare room they meet in, and whilst the two of them are still freezing cold the house is warm, and Yaz steps into the space directly in front of the Doctor, closing the gap that had sat between them, a chilly presence, in the prison cell.
She has no clue whether what she does is okay, whether the Doctor appreciates it or not, but she kneels down, peering up at the Doctor, looking for her eyes, hoping to meet them. Hazel opalescence are staring into the far distance, seeing something in her mind, a small frown mars her brow. Yaz longs to move her thumb up and brush it away, as if she could erase the pain the Doctor carries on her shoulders with one simple movement, but… she cannot. She is still tentative, caught between throwing caution to the wind and keeping it close to her chest. She wishes the Doctor would give her some indication of what is alright and what is not; she does not want to make things worse and do something the other woman does not like, not when she has been deprived of her own liberty for so long already. But Yaz is also desperate to throw away caution and grab the woman right in front of her who is the source of all her heartache of the last ten months. Tentatively, she puts a hand over the Doctor’s, which still grip the hoodie.
The Doctor’s breath stutters as she startles a little, shifting on the bed as her head raises and she meets Yaz’s eyes with her own. They are clearer now, back in the present, but still wide and unfamiliarly exposed and vulnerable; Yaz has seen the Doctor scared before, but this, this is like that terrible time on the other Tardis when farewells were made and Yaz had longed to keep a hold of the Doctor then as she does now. The Doctor looks as devastated as she had, then, but this time, Yaz is staying. She is staying.
“Yaz…” The Doctor says, her name reverent on her lips. Yaz’s breath stutters, and she offers the Doctor a small smile.
“Hi…” It feels good to talk to her, to talk to her and see she is engaging with her. For the first time in months, for the first time since Yaz thought this might not ever happen again. It makes her realise: this is not perfect, they are coming apart at the seams, but she will take it, oh, will she take this simple little thing. She nods down at the hoodie in the Doctor’s hands. “You want that on? I know it’s not really your colour, but I don’t own anything as outrageously colourful as you do.”
“Hmm?” The Doctor questions, but then looks down at the hoodie in her hands. “Oh. Yeah…”
Yaz helps her guide her arms and head into the garment and pull it over herself, her fingers grazing the Doctor’s sides as she pulls it down her body, the Doctor’s head popping through the neck. She is too skinny, her ribs hard against Yaz’s knuckles. She had not reacted to Yaz’s attempt at a joke, but when her head emerges from the neck hole, there is a small smile tugging at her lips.
“Yasmin Khan…” She murmurs, sounding wistful and wise, that ancient look in her eyes. How many more years added since last Yaz saw that look? “Amazing, you are. Best of humanity.”
Yaz shoots her a smile, something warm beaming in her chest the moment something else bitter curdles in her stomach. “Not always.” Regret and guilt sit heavy. “Couldn’t find you, could I?”
“Yaz…” The Doctor looks at her, confused, and Yaz averts her gaze to the carpet.
“Months I were looking, and I didn’t think to even consider prison, I-”
“Yaz, stop.” The Doctor tells her, sounding more forceful and more like herself than she has in these private moments where bombastic attitude and cockiness are not needed, as they had been when confronting an army fleet, coming as an act, a façade, than she has up until this point. “You wouldn’t have been able to find that place, Yaz. It’s on the farthest outreaches of the universe, for a reason. It’s not supposed to be found, it’s not supposed to be broken into. It’s not-”
The Doctor’s voice falters, and her usual confidence is gone, swallowed down as other things rise to her eyes and face: grief, confusion, bewilderment. Yaz looks back up at her. Her hand reaches for the Doctor’s again, and this time she wraps her fingers around the Doctor’s. This is more than they ever really touched before. It is what Yaz needs, and by the way the Doctor’s fingers curl around Yaz’s in reciprocation, she apparently needs it just as much, too. “Was it awful there?”
The Doctor takes a shaky breath again and wets her lips with her tongue. “… Yes.”
Yaz’s face creases and upset rages a storm inside of her. The Doctor smiles sadly at her, noticing Yaz’s torment, that wistful look in her eye. Yasmin Khan, the best of humanity. “It weren’t amazin’. Pretty poor catering, shoddy heating. They really should have let me have a look, I probably would have sorted it out in a matter of seconds but they didn’t seem too keen on that idea. No clue why, I mean why wouldn’t they want me fiddling with totally secure, prison ship? Shoddy heating on purpose, I think.”
“Doctor.” Her name is a plea, Yaz shaking her head as sorrow swoops over her like a wave, crashing into her, drowning her. She is a battleground of emotions: relief and grief and sorrow combust upon reacting to each other. The Doctor is blabbering, she always does when she is nervous, but this time, it is tainted with something… colder. More desperate. Terrified.
“Staff weren’t all that nice, either.” She continues, barely stopping for breath. “Never liked Judoon, now I’ve got even more reason not to. Could have really done with some-”
“Doctor-” Yaz pleads, shaking her head from side to side.
The Doctor’s breath catches in her throat. “- courtesy.” She finishes lamely, the word dying as it leaves her mouth, the spark diminishing as she takes a shaky breath. She looks to Yaz, and Yaz sees her own devastation reflected in the Doctor’s eyes. “Yaz…”
Yaz leans forward a bit more, their faces inches apart, looking wide-eyed at the Doctor, who looks right back. There is nothing more in their way no, no confusion, no daleks, not time or space or coldness. Just stripped back vulnerability.
“I missed you.” The Doctor says. “All of you. My Fam. But you, Yaz… I really missed you.”
Yaz could cry. Tears prick her eyes, but it is almost as if she is too exhausted to, she cannot conjure the energy. Or perhaps she is just too overcome with the emotions raging inside her that her body does not know quite what to do at all. She makes the decision, then, about what she wants to do, and she pushes forward and pulls the Doctor into a hug.
The other woman’s damp hair is in her face but Yaz could not care less because she is solid and present and there, smelling of clean clothes, with that undercurrent of her own smell, uniquely hers. Yaz feels the Doctor’s arms wind around her own waist, and something in the other woman seems to snap and she sinks fully into Yaz’s embrace.
“How long?” Yaz whispers into her hair. She clenches her eyes tight shut. “How long were you there?”
The Doctor’s breath stutters out of her. “Too long.” She whispers back. “S’all a bit wonky.”
Yaz sniffs, not even realising she was crying, and the Doctor pulls her in closer.
“How long was it for you?” She asks Yaz.
Yaz sniffs again. Images of the other Tardis come unbidden to her mind. She cannot even remember where they left it. Her mausoleum is lost, unneeded, now, but its presence still sits heavy in her, not easy to erase after so long spent cooped up inside its wall. “Ten months.” She feels embarrassed, almost, to admit it. It sounds like nothing compared to what the Doctor is alluding to, but the Doctor tenses at her answer, and a small ‘Oh, Yaz’ follows soon after.
“The whole time, I looked for you.” Yaz says to her, pulling out of their hug to look the Doctor in the eye. She feels cold after they break apart, but she keeps close to the Doctor, whose hands rest on Yaz’s forearms, hazel eyes watching her, concerned. “I knew you were out there, I knew you weren’t dead. I had- I used the other Tardis, I tried to get it working but it’s got nothing on yours, so I just… I sort of… started investigatin’, any leads I could find to bring me back to you…”
Yaz’s cheeks are burning, but the Doctor looks at her with nothing short of amazement. It is the same look she had had on her face when she had first stepped back onboard the Tardis, once they have convinced her of their reality, led her from her desolate cell. A face of wonder, relief, and of coming home. Those eyes look upon Yaz that way now, too, and Yaz stares right back, finding home in those deep eyes herself, their warmth comforting. The reality of them comforting. Embarrassment falls away, finally, after months, Yaz feels legitimated in her search, vindicated, because the one she was searching for is here and she looks at Yaz as if she is nothing less brilliant than something brilliant and impossible, and something within Yaz that has been hurt since childhood finally begins to heal. She had been enough; her efforts have been enough. So long searching and she has found her again. She has found home. In the middle of a storm, they cling to each other, anchoring each other.
The Doctor’s relief becomes awash with exhaustion, and Yaz grips onto her worriedly as she slumps, bending her own head down to try and look at the Doctor’s face as her head droops down. The Doctor looks up at her from below a creased brow, face pale, pulled tight. “Sorry, head’s a bit… wonky.”
“Come here.” Yaz says to her and encourages her to lie down on the bed. The Doctor does, and her legs automatically curl up to her chest. Yaz thinks of the small slab of concrete in her cell. Her chest tightens. Determination grips her, and she rises to her feet, climbing over the Doctor and over to the other side of the bed. It is only a single, and her back is pressed against the wall as she draws the Doctor into her, but it is warm, not cold. Yaz is surrounded by warmth, as she and the Doctor lie down and hold each other close, the Doctor’s legs stretching out as she melts into Yaz’s hold. The bed beneath them soft, concrete floor and metal floor in their turn forgotten by both women.
“Ryan and Graham are cross at me, aren’t they?” The Doctor mutters, her eyes clenched shut. “I can tell.”
“They’re not mad, they’re just… processing it all.” Yaz reassures her.
“They were cross, though?” The Doctor says, and Yaz’s lips twitch in fond exasperation as the Doctor headbutts her way verbally into getting Yaz to confess. “They thought I abandoned them?”
Yaz takes a breath in to answer, but instead she just sighs, and that is confirmation enough for the Doctor, who simply nods once before she edges closer to Yaz.
“I wouldn’t have abandoned you, not my fam.” She mutters, and her voice is getting looser, words slurring a little as exhaustion overcomes her. “I know I weren’t very forthcoming, in those last months, but I wouldn’t have just left you. I were just…”
“You were just what?” Yaz asks her, giving into temptation to run a hand through the Doctor’s hair, which is getting wavy as it dries naturally.
“I were just scared.” She admits. “Of losing you.”
Questions push towards the front of Yaz’s mind, questions she had put to bed whilst she had searched for the Doctor but which are wide awake now, as the one who could provide them with answers falls asleep. Yaz pushes them away again, knowing now is not the time but hoping that this vulnerability here might be the start of a new honesty with her, a new openness now that they have both exposed their vulnerabilities to each other.
Yaz simply moves that tiny fraction closer so their bodies are fully aligned, no small gaps between them, and holds the Doctor close as the parts of herself begin to heal together as she is held by the Doctor in her turn. “You’re not losing me. Not again. And I’m not losing you.”
And with the Doctor finally warm in her arms, Yaz finally believes herself.
Time. There is too much of it, flowing around her. The planet is too alive beneath her feet. She can hardly get her bearings. She almost longs for the static artificiality of the prison just so she can feel stable, an unstable stability. She is emerging from the woods, lost and afraid, staggering into the daylight, and the sun hurts her eyes and the path is rocky beneath her feet and somehow, it is almost more terrifying than the woods had been, even though it is what she had been longing for all that time in the woods.
Her reprieve… the person she has longed to see. The person she thought was not there before, she thought she had conjured up to punish herself. It was a rescue mission, a ‘Doctor, the Universe needs you mission’, and she had tried oh so hard to get through it, and she has, only there is no victory, no sudden alleviation of all her worries… She does not feel herself. She does not know herself, not anymore. She is… disconnected. Dissociated.
She is so tired.
But that person is here, Yaz is here, and she is a reassuring presence whilst breaking the Doctor’s two hearts at the same time. Human beings are brilliant, and Yaz really is the very best of humanity, and the Doctor know that sometimes caring can be one’s biggest downfall, and she is so very worried that Yaz has fallen too far in caring too much for her. Guilt curls up inside her as the other woman laments she could not find her, that she had been looking for her, and here the Doctor is, barely being held together at the seams, a deep chill in her bones as she struggles to find her footing and herself whilst this woman, this brave young woman, helps her get dressed whilst carrying weight of all of that on her shoulders.
She thinks human beings will always astonish her. Perhaps even more than the mystery surrounding herself ever might, because she finds hope in humans like Yaz, and that is a wonderful thing.
The Doctor tries to reassure Yaz, to tell her her searching would have been for nought because the place the Doctor had been- had been, because she is not there anymore. No, she is in Graham’s spare bedroom, feeling the earth move beneath her feet, and oh, there she goes again, wavering whilst Yaz supports her, holds them both up by being her brilliant self, blabbering about the conditions of that place, desperately trying to make light of them whilst her body on autopilot wants to move in those now familiar patterns of living, of containment. She needs to break free of it, come back to reality, find her footing on the spinning earth, but her mouth is running away with her and the feeling of that chilly iciness feels as if it is on her skin, in her lungs, but then-
“Doctor.” Yaz is pleading, and the Doctor’s words die on her tongue and she at Yaz, properly looks at her and suddenly it hits her all over again that she is out and she is here and Yaz is here with her.
“Yaz…”
Yaz moves closer, and she is properly there, the Doctor is seeing clearly, there is nothing else in her way, just Yaz, all Yaz.
“I missed you.” She admits. “All of you. My Fam. But you, Yaz… I really missed you.”
Yaz crumples in front of her, and before the Doctor knows it, she is being pulled into a hug, Yaz hiding her face in her hair. Her arms snake around Yaz’s waist, and she realises how much the younger woman needs this, how much she needs this, too, and if she can provide Yaz with some comfort than she is going to push aside any discomfort, any residual feelings of agitation of this being so much after so little for so long and simply sinks into Yaz’s hold and finds calmness there instead.
Yaz is crying, the Doctor can hear it, her psychic tendencies feeling the sorrow seeping off of Yaz, the relief and the grief, as well. And then the other woman is asking, “How long? How long were you there?”
Yaz’s sorrow dims down as her own surges to bubble under her skin. She does not want to upset the other woman further as she sees tally marks imprinted on the back of her eyelids as she closes her eyes, wincing. So she simply says, “Too long.” She sighs. “S’all a bit wonky,” she adds a small amount of honesty, not wanting to lie to Yaz; the woman deserves more than lies.
“How long was it for you?” She asks Yaz, terrified to know the answer.
“Ten months.” Yaz answers her, and part of the Doctor is relieved, it could have been much worse, but then regret hits her like a freight train and a small ‘Oh, Yaz’ leaves her lips. Those months must have dragged in the uncertainty. If only the Doctor had done more to break herself out, if only she had not failed so many times.
But before she can express her regret Yaz is pushing away from her, young eyes bright with desperation and a strength of conviction that is uniquely Yaz’s. “The whole time, I looked for you.” She says, and the Doctor keeps her close with her hands on Yaz’s forearms, leaning on her subtly to keep herself upright as her head begins to spin again. “I knew you were out there, I knew you weren’t dead. I had- I used the other Tardis, I tried to get it working but it’s got nothing on yours, so I just… I sort of… started investigatin’, any leads I could find to bring me back to you…”
Warm hope bursts in the Doctor’s chest like a flower blossoming, and for the first time in many, many years a tension leaves the Doctor as stares at Yaz, she stares and stares and stares. The other woman is alive, stars in her eyes, a supernova of brilliance, of perseverance. And she is here in front of the Doctor; she did not even know she was holding on to some lingering doubt this was all real before, but whatever small cobwebs which had lurked in the corner have been blown away now in the face of Yaz’s desperation, her… love. Yes, because that is what this is, even if it is not named as such. It is love. And the Doctor… She feels it back. It is comforting, surrounding her, a familiar love just like the Tardis is a familiar love. It is like coming home in Yasmin Khan’s eyes.
And here Yasmin Khan is, bruised and affected by all these months of waiting and searching but she truly is the best of humanity, persevering through it, taking a hold of her pain and not letting it get the best of her. She can see the desperation in Yaz’s eyes, the desperation to be validated, reassured that her efforts have not been unfounded, misplaced, and the Doctor… in the past, she might have stumbled back from it, worried about the impact she is having on this wonderful woman. She does worry, now, to think of Yaz sequestering herself away in that Tardis (has she kept her job? Oh please, let her have, I could not have ruined that for fantastic Officer Khan), worries about the impact she might have on this human life, but she realises, now, that Yasmin Khan does not need her protection, does not need shielding. She is not limited by her human life, she is more than this Earth, this universe, and the Doctor is the one lucky enough to have been chosen by her, not the other way around.
Her heart hurts for Yaz’s pain but she is wise enough now in her considerable years to know, sometimes, there are some things you cannot change, and Yasmin Khan will not be changed for anyone; the girl has seen too much of that in her lifetime, already, prejudice, pressure to conform, but there is certainty in her eyes, glowing as brightly as starlight, that the Doctor is her home, and she is home to the Doctor. One of the first faces this face saw, always by her side, and yet never blindsided. She sees the Doctor’s negative attributes, and she refuses to be shoved to the side. We’re not letting you do this.
The Doctor had pushed her away, then, she will not do so now. Time will pass, it always does, and the Doctor does not know what will be in store for them; there is always sand draining away in the timer. But for too long now she has been prisoner to time, and now, she forgets it, forgets tallies and past lives and simply exists as she is here, with Yasmin Khan, having gotten through it all, and in thinking that, all she feels is relief.
Suddenly she feels drained, relief a sudden rollercoaster of adrenaline followed by the plummet towards exhaustion. She slumps, feeling irritated at herself as she does. “Sorry, head’s a bit… wonky.”
“Come here.” Yaz is saying, and she is guiding the Doctor to lay down on the bed. She goes willingly, giving in now that she can afford to. She is safe here. Her legs curl up into herself on habit, and the Doctor feels slightly repulsed at the thought of herself conditioned like that, but then Yaz is there and her presence forces the Doctor to move her legs out, and then they are clinging to each other, and the warmth in the Doctor’s chest spreads throughout her whole body.
The exhaustion is digging its fingernails in deep, but there is one small thing playing on the Doctor’s mind. Yaz’s face had been understanding from the beginning, but there are two other faces which swim in front of the back of her eyelids, memory of their shock, their incomprehension, their… wariness. Regret curls up in her. “Ryan and Graham are cross at me, aren’t they?” She asks Yaz. “I can tell.”
“They’re not mad, they’re just… processing it all.” Yaz replies diplomatically, but the Doctor wants to get to the truth of it; she has always been obstinate like that.
“They were cross, though? They thought I abandoned them?”
Yaz’s sigh in response is confirmation enough, and that regret lodges itself in her chest, the only discomfort in her warmth. It is familiar, coming back to her after all these years, reminding her of a time with her fam, a time when she thought evasion was better than truth, distance was better than closeness, a tight-knit family with disfunction at its centre, all of them doing their best but not quite working in harmony. How she regrets it now. But it had been fun, things had been amazing, and she had not wanted to expose them to certain truths of her being and in turn force herself to confront them. She thinks they might be past that now, that truths are owed now, that it will be better in the telling of them, but for now, weariness sinks deep and she can feel herself loosening.
“I wouldn’t have abandoned you, not my fam.” She confesses, sleep calling her. She can feel the Tardis, parked downstairs, in the back of her mind, standing vigil, safeguarding her against nightmares. Sleep well, my thief. “I know I weren’t very forthcoming, in those last months, but I wouldn’t have just left you. I were just…”
“You were just what?” Yaz asks her when she drifts off, and the Doctor feels a hand run through her hair. It is affectionate and delicate and breaks her at the same time because it is all she has wanted all these years. Just a soft touch from someone who loves her, despite her faults.
“I were just scared.” She admits, and she does not feel afraid this time. “Of losing you.”
And that is the first step towards something better, towards something more honest. And as the Doctor drifts off, she hears Yaz’s whispered words to her, like a promise, a cantation, and they carry her to the first proper rest she has had in centuries. “You’re not losing me. Not again. And I’m not losing you.”
And the Doctor feels those words and this brilliant woman wrap around her and hold her close and warm, and finally, finally, she begins to believe that the universe might be so kind this time as to make those words the truth.