Chapter Text
"Think we missed Park Hill," Yaz said wryly, as she stepped out of the TARDIS. "Again."
The Doctor peeked out after her. "So we have. The sensors were a touch wonky, there." She hurried to catch up with Yaz, who was already wandering about.
"I wonder what she's found," Yaz murmured, with perfect trust in the TARDIS' intentions.
"I do hope it's an adventure. Been ages since we've had a proper adventure."
"And by 'ages,' you mean 'a day or two,'" Yaz countered, giving her a knowing look.
"Psh. That didn't count."
"Finding Atlantis didn't count?!"
"What's to find? It was right where I left it." The Doctor had stopped walking, and had her hands propped on her hips in evident consternation.
They were in a large, wooden cabin, facing an enormous window open to a forest in winter. The cabin interior was liberally covered in soft surfaces, and snow outside fell gently, parted by the gentle rush of a winding river. It was...
"Awfully dull," the Doctor complained. She looked back to Yaz, with an expectant look that demanded validation.
Yaz made a thoughtful face. "I think it's pretty," she said.
The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver, and waved it about for a quick scan. "Natroka, lesser renaissance," she declared, then gave Yaz a nod. "Brilliant lot, the Natrokans. Nearly went extinct after the greater renaissance. A stray comet crossed the planet's orbit. Would have been quite catastrophic."
"Let me guess. You redirected the comet."
The Doctor shrugged. "What's a mathematically-impossible gravitational field to modify interplanetary object trajectory between friends?"
She looked over to see Yaz was smiling at her, in that gentle, warm way that made her insides go squishy. The Doctor blushed, stammered for a moment, then just went silent to minimize the damage.
"Well, it's a lovely place," Yaz said. "Maybe we could stay for awhile."
The Doctor blew out a raspberry noise while she considered the notion. "Nah," she decided. "Some other time." She turned back to the TARDIS and stepped inside, then frowned when she noticed it had dropped into low power mode. She got to the console and pressed a few buttons.
Yaz peered in from the door, framed by the bright snowy landscape behind her. "What's wrong?" she called.
"The secondary reactor servos are offline," the Doctor murmured. "Regular maintenance," she explained. "Didn't need it for another dozen years, though." She stood back from the console and eyed her ship with a skeptical look. "What are you on about?" she asked.
Yaz watched her fuss at the ship, and folded her arms in satisfaction. "She probably thinks you need a vacation."
"Wot? Ridiculous."
"And I think this place might be yours."
"Mine?" the Doctor asked. She followed Yaz's lead back out of the ship, and spotted the mural on the far wall, which the TARDIS helpfully translated. "'For the Doctor, who may always find refuge on Natroka,'" she quoted. "Well isn't that just lovely? Must be the 'reward' they promised." She pointed out the window to a mountain peak barely visible through the trees. "Which would make that Mount Tulasanor, one of the most sacred spots in this galaxy. Said to be a point of focus and inspiration for millennia. They don't let regular tourists wander up here, only natives and friends of Natroka."
She looked around with new appreciation, but ultimately reached the same conclusion as before. "It is nice. But still awfully dull."
"Can't we stay a bit?" Yaz asked. "The boys still won't notice we're away if we go back right after we left. Right?"
"Just you and me? Here?"
"It's romantic," Yaz observed. She took a turn into what looked like a kitchen. "And someone has clearly been maintaining this place. It's clean, and that looks like fresh fruit."
"The Natrokans are quite hospitable," the Doctor murmured. She set off on several distracted laps around the cabin interior, prattling about the general era, the nearby galactic politics, and the craftsmanship of the local sentients, all of which explained this rather charming building, tucked into the foothills below a sacred mountain peak. She drew to a stop in front of Yaz, who was watching her with a patient look. "Sorry. Just realized - you said 'romantic.'"
Yaz nodded. "Do you remember, months ago, when you told me that our matter harmonizes?"
"I remember hoping you wouldn't think I was a creepy old man," the Doctor admitted with a grimace.
Yaz exhaled a tiny laugh. "Little chance of that," she replied. "I think I'd like to sit still with you, just for a bit. Is that all right?"
It took a long moment, but the Doctor's expression changed, softening to something only Yaz got to see. "Oh," she said, quietly. "I'd like that," she admitted.
Yaz cocked her head toward the kitchen. "Care to have a scan and see if the food is okay for humans? Then I'll make a cup of whatever passes for tea, and you can find the best spot to snuggle and watch the snow."
"Just like that?"
"It does seem to be your house, and the TARDIS does seem inclined to make you stay." Yaz shrugged. "We might as well enjoy it."
The Doctor gave her a delighted look, then bounced closer to plant a quick kiss on Yaz's cheek. "Sitting still sounds like ever so much more fun the way you do it." She set off to check the kitchen, leaving Yaz alone in the living room with the TARDIS.
Yaz patted the blue box and smiled. "Nicely done," she murmured.
All told, it took about half an hour to scout out the building, catalog the available provisions, and retrieve a few extra treats from the TARDIS' galley.
Which is how they found themselves curled together on a low cushion, watching the sun set in dramatic crimson beams across Mount Tulasanor, while sipping tea and snacking on biscuits.
Yaz grinned in satisfaction and bumped against the Doctor. "See? This is brilliant," she said.
"It absolutely is," the Doctor agreed, with an expansive gesture that launched biscuit crumbs across the room. "And if I remember rightly..." she continued, muttering. She fished into her pocket for her sonic screwdriver, then keyed it and waved it over their heads, triggering the acoustic transparency setting that let in the sounds of the rushing river, and the creak of the frozen woods about them.
Yaz closed her eyes, trying to soak in every sensation around her. It was just the latest of remarkable moments in a catalog of truly amazing experiences she'd had since that fateful night in Sheffield, but she wanted to keep it sharp and fresh in her mind.
She'd discovered an unexpected ease alongside the Doctor, a matched cadence that kept them aligned and in tune. It didn't hurt that they could nip off for other adventures in between their scheduled outings with Graham and Ryan. And when she did stop at home, time had carried on like normal, but she was further changed with every trip.
It felt... strange. Time stretched in front of Yaz in tantalizing promise, offering knowledge and growth and exploration, and the company of the brilliant, mad woman beside her.
"Thinking again," the Doctor observed in a murmur. She watched with a fond look as Yaz shifted, kneeling before her.
Yaz held her gaze as she stripped off her jacket. "Thinking about you," she breathed, as she slowly leaned in to pull the Doctor into a kiss that quickly turned heated.
The Doctor tilted backward, gentle hands at Yaz's back guiding her carefully along, as their lips crashed together.
The Doctor's long coat proved quite inhibiting, and she hummed and broke away to try and get it off her shoulders, out from under her, away from her wrists, all of which led to a bit of undignified flapping and a tangled mess of clothing. She was rescued by a patiently amused Yaz, who dispatched the coat and pushed the Doctor's braces down for good measure before claiming another kiss.
"You know what's amazing?" the Doctor asked, breathlessly. "This spot." She let her hand slide across Yaz's hip, quite enjoying the soft slope that felt like it was made to exist under her fingers. "Right here."
Yaz pulled away, just far enough to pull her jumper over her head, then took the Doctor's hands and placed them back on her hips, this time directly on warm, soft skin.
The Doctor froze, and she watched Yaz with eyes gone deep and dark with arousal. "Oh, that's loads better."
Yaz snorted. "Been meaning to ask... any extra parts I need to know about?"
"Like what?"
"You have two hearts, an ecto-spleen.., anything else a typical human might not be expecting, if she got under all those layers of clothing?"
The question was harder to answer than it should have been, as the Doctor's senses blazed in keen awareness of Yaz's scent and warmth, and the delightful curves still obscured by her pale pink bra. Slowly, the Doctor's brain processed the intent of the question, and she chuckled. "Oh, like my ovapositor, so I can lay eggs in your lung tissue."
Yaz reared away, giving her an entirely unimpressed look. The Doctor immediately regretted every glib comment she'd ever uttered, and started babbling.
"Wee joke, that. Sorry. Nervous. Not nervous. Just... really stupid and wishing you would come back over here." She cleared her throat and rallied to find a coherent answer. "No exotic sexual parts, so far as humans are concerned. Fairly sure you'd be able to find your way around. If... you were so inclined."
"I am," Yaz said, her gaze heated and intense. "Are you?"
The Doctor swallowed, hard, and nodded. "Really a lot."
At that, Yaz's eyes lit up in that twinkly, wondrous way that made everything absolutely brilliant, and she slowly maneuvered back into the Doctor's reach. "I love you," Yaz said, with quiet conviction, as she bumped their foreheads together.
As tended to happen, Yaz being Yaz derailed the frenetic overwork of the Doctor's brain, leaving her with a pure moment of clarity. "I love you," the Doctor replied, then let herself focus on mapping those amazing curves in detail.
Hours later, they'd found some blankets and the controls to open the cabin's ceiling to the sky above, and they lay together, chatting mildly and trading gentle caresses.
Eventually the Doctor's attention wandered. Her bare skin shimmered in the moonlight, further exposed as the covers fell away while she propped herself up on her elbows and cast her gaze to the sky above.
"The storm's getting started," the Doctor murmured.
Stretched out lazily beside her, Yaz smiled, but made absolutely no effort to move. "Tell me about it," she murmured.
"That comet I mentioned earlier? Every hundred years or so the planet passes through the remnants of its tail. Quite a display." The Doctor smiled up at the cosmos, content to be an observer of its wonder for the night. "That comet changed galactic history, yannow."
Yaz hummed. "Did the comet change galactic history, or did the mad woman in the blue box?"
The Doctor squinted, thinking about it. "Hard to say, really. Bit of both? Causality isn't always straightforward." She looked over to Yaz. "You're missing the show."
Yaz grinned, then re-settled on her back and turned her gaze upward. True to the Doctor's prediction, the sky promptly lit with bright streaks of ice and rock burning brightly against the atmosphere. The spectacle was magnificent in an overwhelming way, and she found herself holding her breath.
Beside her, the Doctor had gone quiet for so long Yaz suspected she might have fallen asleep. She looked over in time to see bright eyes turn back her way.
Yaz reached over, out from under the covers, to chafe the Doctor's arm, warming the chilled skin. The Doctor smiled at her, but didn't say anything.
"All right over there?" Yaz asked.
The Doctor nodded. "Just... feeling so many things," she murmured.
"Like what?" Yaz asked gently.
The Doctor's eyes shone with immediate tears, and she shook her head a little. "Didn't know this was a thing I could have. I'd stopped hoping there would be someone like you, who could make me part of an 'us.'"
Yaz sighed, and shifted a bit closer. In an abstract way, she'd known the amount of emotional risk the Doctor had undertaken just for the sake of trying to be that "us," but she could still see the fear in every fidgety movement, every nervous stammer. To know that the Doctor chose to take the leap despite that burden...
"You make my heart hurt," Yaz whispered.
"Well, not to one up you, but I literally have twice as many hearts," the Doctor said, turning to look at Yaz with the tiniest grin that made her eyes dance. "And you make both of them hurt. Therefore, I win."
Yaz nodded in thoughtful agreement. "Basic maths."
The Doctor kissed her, then settled in to watch the cosmos celebrate above.
The next morning, Yaz excused herself to take advantage of the remarkable Natrokan bathing room, and emerged much later feeling utterly energized by fragrant bubbles. She found the Doctor in the kitchen, looking rather disheveled. Her shirt was on inside-out, her pants weren't quite done up right, and she wore a single sock.
"You were wondering about a caretaker," the Doctor said as Yaz wandered in. "One stopped by while you were in the shower."
"Oh?"
"Lovely Natrokan gent. Bit high strung."
"Were you..."
"Starkers? Yeah, a bit."
Yaz winced in sympathy.
"Anyway, he promised to knock, next time."
Yaz chuckled and pressed a kiss to the Doctor's cheek, which was definitely a bit pinker than usual. "Mind a quick lesson?" she asked, holding up her notebook and the Doctor's journal, which she'd been using for Gallifreyan grammar lessons.
The Doctor rallied her wits and settled in to listen to Yaz's progress, and occasionally coach her vocabulary. Once Yaz was deep into practicing reproducing characters, the Doctor popped off for her own bath, and emerged feeling a great deal fresher.
Yaz held up her notebook for inspection. "Is that brilliant or what?"
The Doctor squinted at the shaky glyphs, then gave Yaz a confused look. "Um."
"I was trying to write 'I love you,'" Yaz said, with the tiniest pout.
"Ah," the Doctor said. "Well, it actually says, 'I have an alligator in my trousers.' Which is nearly the same thing."
"Right," Yaz said, annoyed. She snapped her notebook shut and turned back to the Doctor's diary. "Enough vocabulary for the day. What's the next verb tense? The one you've been avoiding?"
"I haven't avoided it," the Doctor retorted. "I just don't like it. It's depressing."
"Saudade," Yaz declared, as she found a reference in the Doctor's journal. "'Missingness.'"
"'Depressingness,'" the Doctor countered. "I try not to linger in that state of mind."
"Which is definitely good for the mental health of an alien who can live so many lives her people need an entire reference of time for regret," Yaz said dryly, as she carefully redrew her alligator phrase, representing the change in tense with shifted glyphs, and added characters implying decline and decay. She held up her work for the Doctor to evaluate, and practiced again and again based on her careful tutelage.
Several iterations later, the alligator had achieved profound nostalgia and longing, and Yaz had recognized another familiar pattern. "I've seen this before," she realized. She flipped through the Doctor's journal to find the page she remembered, and studied the glyphs to decipher the statement. "Water, I think? And it's moving."
"'The only water in the forest is the river,'" the Doctor quoted. Then she started. "Wait. Why did you say that?"
Yaz blinked back at her. "I didn't. You did, just now. And in your diary." She held up the page in question. "In that tense."
The Doctor took a slow breath, and let her gaze wander to some unfocused middle distance. "Oh." She set down her tea, and planted her hand on the counter, spreading her fingers to brace herself.
"Your wife's name was River," Yaz observed quietly.
The Doctor nodded.
"You can talk about her, if you like," Yaz continued, in a gentle, coaxing voice.
"Thank you," the Doctor said, with a wistful smile. "But I don't know exactly what to say. She was so... different." Than you, went unsaid. She let herself ponder that for a moment. Where Yaz soothed her, River had whipped her into a frenzy. Both outcomes were brilliant, but she wasn't sure her how her current self would have adapted to an anti-Yaz. "You would have liked her. Or maybe arrested her. Or both," she said wryly. "She tended to make trouble."
"About that," Yaz said, rather hesitant. "I think I met her."
The Doctor went very still.
"A couple inches taller than I am, wild curly hair?" Yaz continued, holding up a hand slightly above her own eye level. "In the market on Borix Seven, leaving graffiti about the Oncoming Storm. I wasn't sure if I should tell you. Your diary said something about catastrophic timeline collapse..."
She went silent, watching and waiting for some kind of reaction.
Eventually the Doctor sighed. "I can't say I'm even surprised," she said, with evident exhaustion. In a single moment, she suddenly looked every bit the ancient alien she actually was.
Yaz reached over and took the Doctor's hand. "I'm sorry," she murmured.
"What for?" the Doctor asked. "You aren't out rewriting the laws of time for your own amusement. That infuriating, meddlesome woman. She knew better."
"Probably," Yaz said. "But she loved you enough to do it anyway. I can't be angry about that."
"I can," the Doctor muttered. She sighed and raked her hair out of her face. "I'm sorry, Yaz. This isn't exactly fair to you. It's all a bit hard to explain. She was a traveler, like me. Born of brilliant humans and time itself. She was unique."
"Did she create the paradox that made me... like this?" Yaz asked in a tiny voice.
"No," the Doctor said immediately, but then she thought better of it. "At least, that's not really how it works. You can't just make time do a thing. You can influence coincidences over time. Eventually it's not really a coincidence anymore, because you've rigged the outcome."
"So she did arrange those events."
The Doctor opened her mouth to argue, then pursed her lips in frustration. She scrubbed her face with her hand. "Of all the risky, irresponsible..." She stood, still muttering, and stomped off into the TARDIS.
Yaz let her brood for a couple hours before seeking her out at sunset. She stepped into the TARDIS, ready to delve into the darkness to find the Doctor in one of the libraries, or tucked in the corner of the beanbag room. Instead, the other woman sat on the steps alongside the console, with her arms propped against spread knees and her head drooping at a dejected angle.
When Yaz sat at her side, the Doctor leaned gently against her, as if to apologize. Yaz wrapped an arm around her and propped her chin on the Doctor's shoulder.
Eventually the Doctor heaved a massive sigh, disengaged from Yaz's gentle embrace, and pushed to her feet. She offered her hand to help Yaz stand, then held out her other hand in question.
"May I show you something?" she asked. "You absolutely must feel free to decline."
Yaz hadn't experienced the Doctor's touch telepathy since the festival at Aurora, when she'd shared the horror of the Time War. She nodded, her eyes wide in anticipation, and waited for gentle fingertips to land on her forehead.
It was an image, a sound, little more than a teasing impression. There were trees, and an indistinguishable sound carried on the gentle breeze...
The Doctor broke the contact, watching Yaz carefully.
"What was that?" Yaz breathed.
"It's a memory I shouldn't have," the Doctor said, in an uncertain voice.
"I don't understand," Yaz replied.
"Nor do I," the Doctor said. She shoved her hands into her pants pockets and rocked on her feet a bit. "But it 'showed up' after we visited the market on Borix Seven."
"Oh," Yaz said. She untangled the implications in her head and sighed. "So you think River did break the timeline."
"Not broken. Definitely bent," the Doctor countered. She reached out and poked at a couple buttons on the console Yaz secretly figured weren't actually connected to any TARDIS parts.
Yaz reached for that wandering hand, and gave it a squeeze. "We can't leave and chase that down yet, right?" she asked. When the Doctor shook her head, Yaz tugged her gently toward the door. "So come watch the end of the meteor shower with me. One more night, together."
The Doctor followed, pensive and morose, until Yaz leaned back in to whisper in her ear. "Help me with the alligator in my trousers?"
At that, the Doctor snorted out a surprised laugh, and let herself be led back into the twilight.
Another vibrant night, then the arrival of another quiet morning found the two women watching the snow with cups of cocoa. The early day felt fragile, tenuous, and few words passed between them as they waited.
The Natrokan sun was still low in the sky when the TARDIS door popped open with a squeak. Both women turned to look, and could see the raised lighting within, indicating the power was back to normal.
Yaz sighed, set her mug down, and shoved her hands into her pockets. "Well. That's that, then."
"Looks like." The Doctor nodded, then frowned. "Wait. What are we sad about?"
"The end of this." Yaz shrugged, a little embarrassed. "When I was a kid, my parents would take us on holiday by the seaside, and I would always cry when it was time to go home." She rolled her eyes at herself and sniffled a bit. "I loved this," she said. "I loved having you to myself and being with you."
The Doctor put a gentle hand to her cheek and leaned in close. "Ah, my beautiful Yaz. This isn't an ending."
She took Yaz's hand, pulled her to the biggest window, then waved off the acoustic filter.
Immediately they were surrounded by the sound of rushing water, and falling snow, and the frozen creak of the tall, ancient trees. Slowly, the Doctor tugged Yaz closer, until they were flush against each other. She slid one hand to the small of Yaz's back, the other wandering upward to stroke gentle fingers across Yaz's cheek. After a long moment, she leaned in, unsurprised when Yaz met her halfway for a slow, deep kiss that the Doctor felt down to her toes.
When she broke away, she emitted a tiny groan, blinking owlishly at Yaz, who only smiled back at her.
"I daresay this place will travel with us," the Doctor murmured. "I know I'll never forget it."
Yaz chuckled. "Charmer."
The Doctor shook her head, dismissing the notion that she was in any way exaggerating. "There are fixed points in time... vital to the fabric of the universe. This... is a fixed point in me. You, Yasmin Khan, here."
At that, Yaz heaved an unsteady breath, and blinked away tears. "I love you," she declared.
"I love you," the Doctor replied, warm and sure. "We can come back here anytime."
Yaz nodded. "But we can't come back here this time," she said, with sad understanding, hearkening back to the grammar lesson, and the sadness of a traveler in time shedding loved people and experiences, over and over.
"No, next time will be different. But isn't that just amazing? One of my favorite things about linear time, really. You always get to experience people and places differently, moment to moment, because everything is always changing just a little bit at a time."
Yaz sighed, feeling herself swept up in the Doctor's enthusiasm despite her own melancholy. "What will next time be like, d'ya reckon?"
"Well, you'll be older but you won't look it, wiser, and somehow more beautiful than ever. Right now I'm thinking how absolutely amazing you are, and that I couldn't possibly be more in love with you, and next time I'll realize I was wrong, and that it's possible to exceed myself every day."
Yaz grinned. "I'll think about how lucky I am that I found you, and that you let me wander the universe with you."
The Doctor smiled, and cocked her elbow to Yaz. "Shall we, until next time?"
"Until next time," Yaz agreed. She took the Doctor's arm, wiped away a couple stray tears, and they set off in search of missing memories and undiscovered adventure.