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‘Are you okay?’
The Doctor had asked the same question no less than five times on the short walk towards Yaz’s flat.
‘I’m fine, Doctor, thank you.’
They’d taken something of a scenic route, despite the fact that the TARDIS was at the building’s doorstep, looping back on themselves and past some greenery. The Doctor was antsy, and Yaz was quiet. She could feel a thin sheen of sweat coating the Doctor’s palm as it pressed against hers.
‘It doesn’t have to be a big deal, right? We’re just hanging out with your family.’
‘Just tea.’
‘Tea at Yaz’s.’
Yaz smiled, despite herself. She wrapped an arm around the Doctor’s, pulling her closer.
‘And if anything else happens -’
Yaz trailed off, and the Doctor spoke again. ‘Well, that’s a bonus.’
Yaz swallowed. ‘Yeah.’
It had been a while since she’d been home. She wasn’t sure it had been any longer than usual, but a lot had changed. That made the space between Yaz and her family feel mountainous.
She looked up at the Doctor, hair messy in the bracing Sheffield wind. Her nose was red and she pulled her coat tighter around her body as she smiled at Yaz, so simple and gentle. As she smiled back at her, she allowed herself to really, truly think she was beautiful. Shame pricked at the edges of her mind, but so did the thrill and tenderness she’d been learning to let in of late.
‘What?’ the Doctor asked.
Yaz took her other hand in hers.
‘You’re just really pretty.’
The Doctor laughed shyly, and the blush on her nose spread further across her cheeks. She looked back at Yaz for a second, and then brought a hand to her face, gently tucking windswept strands of hair behind her ear. Yaz relaxed into the warmth - so new, and so right.
‘Shall we go in?’ the Doctor asked.
Yaz took a deep breath. ‘Yeah.’
Yaz still woke most mornings half expecting the last few weeks to melt away as a dream. Yet consistently, remarkably, she would make her way into the console room to find that the Doctor had made her morning coffee just as she liked it. She’d prickle with giddy newness and the Doctor would give her shy compliments about her hair, or her skin, as though she wasn’t groggy from sleep and in her pyjamas. The two of them were slowly, surely, finding new routines and ways of being in the aftermath of fundamental conversations. It was a careful negotiation, a sort of dance, a slow reimagining of everything that the two of them were and could be.
Yaz took in deep breaths now as the lift rose higher into the Sheffield skyline. The Doctor was holding her hand. She was gripped by an uneasy nostalgia, the city of her adolescence ill-fitting below her feet. She’d never expected to return here in circumstances quite like these. She pictured all the younger versions of herself who’d stood in this spot, and wondered for a moment what they’d think of her now.
The Doctor’s hand remained in hers as they stood on the doorstep to her flat. She squeezed it, and looked over at Yaz, raising her eyebrows in a question. The two of them smiled at each other. It was a simple thing, but a novel one, too - Yaz wondered how many times, during her years of keeping up with the Doctor, that her friend had stayed still for a moment, and looked just at her. She felt warm. Then she gave the Doctor a little nod.
She knocked at the door, and then it opened.
The Doctor’s hand slipped from hers.
‘Ey up!’ the Doctor greeted brightly, and Yaz smiled at the ground as Sonya raised an eyebrow.
‘All right?’ came the monotonous response. Yaz’s sister slumped in the doorway, still carrying that signature teenage moodiness into her twenties. She looked older, despite herself, and Yaz felt a swell of wistful pride at the sight of her. She considered telling her she’d missed her.
Then Sonya turned from the door, and Yaz’s breath caught at the missed opportunity. Her sister was announcing, ‘she’s home!’ back down the landing. Yaz found the Doctor smiling at her, again, and after a second the two of them followed Sonya inside.
Yaz was struck by the warmth in the flat, immediately moving to remove her scarf. Carried on the warm air was the smell of food - tinged with burning - and low chatter.
‘She’s home, she’s home -’
‘Yaz is back.’
She could hear the words being repeated in the bustle of the living room, and, hidden from sight, she gave the Doctor’s hand a final squeeze before they entered the space.
She had barely a second to take it in. The feel of the room was the same as it always had been, the same air freshener, the same afternoon light. She felt transported and young. But she found her gaze returning to the windowsill, where there was a chip in the paint she’d never seen before. A new photograph of Sonya and her Dad hung on the wall. Little reminders that without her, her home was not static - that this flat and everybody in it was growing and changing in parallel. She skipped a breath.
Then, a nudge.
‘Yaz.’
Standing before her was her Mum. And oh - it really had been a while. She felt a bittersweet pang in her chest as she took a moment to take her in.
‘Yaz,’ she said again, pulling her into a hug. She smelt of familiar washing powder, and it felt like childhood and everything she needed.
‘How have you been?’ Yaz asked, her voice muffled by her hair and thick cardigan.
‘Missing you,’ she said, and Yaz would have scoffed if her chest wasn’t aching too with the weight of their separation.
‘Dad,’ she said, pivoting towards him. He was smiling at her from beside her Mum, wearing the same silly slippers as ever.
‘Oh no, there’s sauce -’ he protested, gesturing towards some rather impressive stains on his apron.
‘Tough.’
‘Ugh, gross,’ came Sonya’s voice as they embraced.
‘Hey, you’re next,’ Yaz said, swiping a little residual sauce from her shirt and approaching her sister. She knocked her shoulder with hers.
‘You good?’ she asked.
‘Not bad. You?’
Yaz took a breath, and felt herself relax. ‘I am. Good.’
Behind her, she could hear her Mum greeting the Doctor, and watched her shake her Dad’s hand.
‘You know, that colour really brings out your eyes,’ she was saying, animated as ever.
‘The colour… of the sauce?’
Yaz laughed to herself, and she let her shoulders drop.
‘Who wants tea?’ she asked, keen to slip back into the normality of being home. She despised being treated as a guest.
Her Mum turned back to face her. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’
Yaz blinked, and turned towards where her Mum was nodding. She softened instantly.
‘Oh wow, Nani,’ she said quietly, crossing the room. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here.’
Yaz’s Nani was sitting by the sofa with a blanket draped over her knees and several little bowls of snacks provided beside her. She smiled.
‘Well, your Mum tells me it’s a big event these days, you visiting home.’ Yaz struggled for a response, but her Nani gave her a cheeky smile. ‘I was the same,’ she laughed. ‘I’m glad you’re off having adventures, beti.’
Yaz stroked the back of her Nani’s hand.
‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe them.’
She looked over her shoulder for a second, and smiled. When she caught the Doctor’s eye, she nodded for her to come over.
‘Nani, this is -’ she hesitated, deciding to avoid using a qualifier altogether - ‘the Doctor.’
‘Lovely to meet you, Umbreen,’ she said, taking her hand, ‘I’ve heard lots about you.’
Yaz watched her Nani’s face for a flicker of recognition, but found only an easy smile.
‘The Doctor,’ she said, ‘welcome.’
The kettle rumbled, and Yaz set out six mugs. The Doctor wordlessly slid beside her and began to dole out teabags, instant coffee and sugar, muttering everybody’s orders to herself on a loop so as not to forget.
‘All right?’ she asked quietly, bumping her shoulder against Yaz’s.
‘All right,’ Yaz said. Then she scoffed, and reconsidered. ‘Not all right, actually.’
‘Hm?’ The Doctor’s eyes were searching, and though the warmth of her proximity helped she wanted nothing more than her comforting touch.
‘Just didn’t expect Nani to be here, is all.’
‘Ah.’
‘It doesn’t -’ Yaz considered, ‘it doesn’t look how I was picturing it.’
The Doctor nodded, eyes fixed on the countertop.
‘You don’t have to do it today,’ she said after a silence.
‘I know.’
‘I’m here, you know, Yaz.’
Yaz smiled, her eyes finally meeting the Doctor’s.
She supposed she’d been thinking about it for a long time. She hadn’t realised quite how present it had been in her mind until she’d found herself talking about it during one of her and the Doctor’s late night conversations. She’d felt lighter once she’d put it in words. And the Doctor had received them, so very attentively. She’d gone to sleep feeling such relief - and by the morning, the Doctor surprised her over breakfast with several plans she’d devised for her to choose from. Emotional conversations had never suited the Doctor. A careful list of practical solutions might as well have been a love letter.
It had taken her such a long time to even put a name to the barrier between her and the people she loved. Its isolation and protection had come to feel so very natural that she couldn’t see past the obscurity. She’d curled herself into a protective shell to keep at bay the pain of her adolescence. She’d lived her life at that distance. But now, maybe, it was time to grow up.
After so many years, she’d found the words.
She’d found the Doctor, too.
She wrapped her little finger slightly around the Doctor’s. Then the kettle clicked.
*
Yaz liked the sight of the Doctor sitting at the family table.
‘Wow,’ she said, her mouth falling open at the first bite of a biscuit. ‘What do you call these, Yaz’s Mum?’
‘It’s Najia.’
‘Funny name for a biscuit.’
Yaz smiled at the ground as the Doctor laughed at her own joke. Her Dad laughed too, and even her Nani cracked a smile, though all Sonya did was groan. The Doctor was shooting finger guns at Hakim, prolonging his laughter with a series of ‘eh?’ ‘eh?’s.
Yaz sighed with a smile as the laughter died down. ‘Viennese whirl, Doctor,’ she said.
‘Ooh. Exotic. I’ll have to add these to my biscuit rotation.’ She popped the rest of the whirl into her mouth, showing no signs of stopping talking. ‘Remember our trip to Vienna, Yaz?’
Yaz smiled. Yes, she did. She remembered the sightseeing, and the period appropriate dress, and the little hotel they stayed in, tucked away on a quaint little side street. She also remembered the nefarious plot of the aliens who happened to be staying in the room next to theirs. As per usual.
‘You do a lot of travelling then, you two?’ Umbreen asked from the head of the table.
‘Oh, this and that,’ Yaz said neutrally. ‘Not sure the Doctor’s ever stood still.’
‘Oh, an adventurer,’ Umbreen said, taking a sandwich from the finger foods set out on the table. ‘I was like that once.’
‘I’m sure you’re still an adventurer, Umbreen,’ came the Doctor’s voice.
Umbreen scoffed. ‘All that way - India, Pakistan, England… Furthest I’ve been in these last few years is Skegness.’
‘Oh, Skeggy!’ Sonya exclaimed, not looking up from her phone. ‘Ace day.’
‘Wheeled along and sat down beside a bench with an ice cream. All while the girls went off and had all the fun.’
Najia raised an eyebrow. ‘Be fair, Mum, you scared me half to death when you took yourself off to get on that roller coaster.’
‘The cheek of that man, claiming I didn’t meet the height restriction.’
Yaz felt so very full of love for her family. She looked up to find the Doctor looking back and forth between them all, smiling softly. It was odd to see her quiet. Yaz bumped her foot under the table, earning a grin and a bump back.
‘So tell me, Doctor,’ Umbreen continued, ‘what’s your favourite place you’ve been?’
Between the Doctor and Umbreen, the biscuits laid out on the table didn’t last long. Yaz took the plate and headed to the kitchen once the last gingernut was gone, trailing a hand along the Doctor’s back as she stood.
‘Oh, let me!’ the Doctor protested, but Yaz waved a hand - she was far too embroiled in a scandalous story from her Nani’s past travels, anyway.
‘She gets through ‘em, doesn’t she?’ Sonya was saying as she peered into the top cupboard on her tiptoes.
‘Need a hand?’ Yaz asked, a teasing lilt to her voice. She’d always been proud to stand a few inches taller than her sister. She reached into the cupboard gracefully, producing a box of Earl Grey with ease.
‘Hm. Wrong ones,’ Sonya said. Yaz deflated. ‘Nani’s after one of those complicated lemon teas. Same ones you drink.’
‘Ah. Hidden in my room.’
‘Territorial.’
‘Hm, protective.’
‘It’s not like anyone else is going to want to drink your little piles of leaves.’
Yaz looped round to place a replenished biscuit plate back on the table before heading for the door with Sonya.
‘Sonya, all tea is leaves.’
‘But it doesn’t announce that the way herbal tea does!’
‘I think - they’re under here -’
Yaz tugged at one of the meticulously organised storage boxes she kept under her bed. It had a thin coating of dust, which sent a strange pang through her. The whole room had that effect, really. The bed was made, her favourite childhood teddy tucked in on the pillow. The same stars on the ceiling that she fell asleep to as a child were peeling above and a jacket that used to be her favourite still hung on the back of the chair. The room felt like a relic, like slipping into a battered old pair of shoes only to find they pinched in all the wrong places now.
She found the teabags. But Sonya was looking out of the window at the pattering rain, and Yaz didn’t want to cut short this moment of being alone with her.
‘Haven’t missed the Sheffield weather.’
Yaz perched herself on the windowsill beside her sister.
Sonya scoffed. ‘All right for some. It’s rained six days this week.’
Yaz laughed softly, watching raindrops trickle down the window. She could just see the blue light on top of the TARDIS, distorted by the water.
‘What’s the deal with that thing, really?’ Sonya asked, craning her neck for a better view of the police box.
‘It’s ours. Mine and the Doctor’s.’
‘Hm. It was just hers last time you visited.’
Yaz smiled at the floor. ‘Would you believe me if I told you it was a spaceship?’
Sonya cracked a smile at that, which was rare. ‘She’s made you sillier, I think.’
Yaz hummed, never having considered it before. ‘Maybe she has.’
They sat quietly for a while. Yaz’s body was filled with anxious energy, but she watched the blue light slowly undulate outside the window, and she breathed.
‘Son,’ she said, not looking over, ‘there’s something I wanted to tell you.’
Sonya shifted, her posture becoming a little more open, prickles retreating. ‘Okay.’
‘I just wanted to say -’ Yaz turned the irreversible words over once more in her mind - ‘you can have my bedroom.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Yaz watched Sonya smile, and then laugh.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah. If you want it.’
‘Huh.’ Sonya was scanning the room, and as Yaz followed her eyes she saw it redecorated, painted that lilac-grey her sister liked, filled with stacks of records and clothes and disorder. A new lease of life.
Sonya’s brow was furrowed, still contending with the new information. ‘But where are you going to be?’ she asked.
‘Travelling. Same as I have been.’
‘Yeah but - are you leaving home?’
Yaz felt a wave of affection. ‘Miss me, would you?’
‘No.’
She bumped her sister’s shoulder. ‘I’ve kind of already left. It’s - it’s been years.’
‘Yeah, but -’ Sonya turned back to the window. ‘Your bed’s always been all made up. Mum leaves your favourite crisps in the cupboard in case you swing by. And your stupid little teddy bear -’
Yaz thought about hugging her then, but she kicked at her swinging feet instead and shot her a smile.
‘I’ll still see you.’
‘You will?’
‘Course I will.’
‘You’ll send me photos?’
Yaz breathed a laugh. ‘So you can leave me on read?’
‘Only when you’re being boring.’
‘But that’s every time!’
‘You said it.’
Yaz smiled, shaking her head. ‘I’ll give you the Doctor’s number if you like. She can keep you posted. Her texts are never boring.’
‘She can text?’
‘Well, barely. It’s mostly voice notes. And emojis.’
‘And why the hell would I want to receive voice note updates from my sister’s weird friend?’
Yaz looked over at Sonya, who was raising an eyebrow. Her words were tinged with something, like she was presenting a challenge. Yaz considered her own.
‘Cause she’s a big part of my life.’
‘She is, is she?’
Yaz laughed quietly, wringing her fingers together.
‘She is.’
Sonya turned to the window, drawing little patterns in the condensation.
‘Well, I like her,’ she said quietly. ‘A lot.’
‘Bloody hell, that’s high praise from you.’
Sonya smirked. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, she’s properly weird. Properly, properly, like, ‘you should get that checked out’ sort of weird.’
Yaz laughed under her breath.
‘But I like her. And I like that you seem happy.’
Yaz felt her chest fill with warmth. She tapped her foot, familiar nerves buzzing in her every extremity.
‘I am. Happy.’
Sonya smiled again. Yaz looked out into the distance.
‘Sonya,’ she said. She felt her mouth go dry. ‘There’s something else I wanted to tell you too.’
She watched for changes to her sister’s body language from the corner of her eye, but she was remarkably still. Then she hummed, and Yaz saw her offer up a hand on the windowsill. She felt tears form in her eyes, her head spinning as she gently placed her hand in Sonya’s. The two of them kept looking straight ahead.
‘The Doctor -’ she began. Her pulse pounded in her ears. ‘I -’
She felt a hot tear fall down her cheek, and she quickly swiped it away.
‘It’s just that -’
‘It’s okay,’ Sonya said, almost imperceptibly.
‘I like her,’ Yaz said quickly. Her breaths were quick and shaky. ‘In - in a more-than-friend way. And she likes me too. And, right now - well, we’re trying to figure out what to do with that.’
The seconds before Sonya spoke were perhaps the slowest Yaz had ever experienced. But she focused on the way her sister was squeezing her hand, and willed herself not to cry.
‘Yaz, I’ve got to be honest, I’m trying to come up with a kinder response than ‘finally’.’
Yaz, caught unawares, laughed out loud. Then she cried, all at once.
‘Come here, idiot,’ Sonya said, and she folded her into a hug. Yaz rode out the adrenaline high, sobbing and laughing into her shoulder. Sonya soothed her with strokes to her back.
‘I’ve wanted to tell you - for so long,’ Yaz said, her voice muffled and broken by sobs and wheezing breaths.
‘I bet.’
‘But I just never really let myself feel things -’
Sonya relaxed into her shoulder, pulling her closer.
‘I’ve spent so many years, just - even with the Doctor - and I never -’
‘I’m so proud of you, Yaz,’ Sonya said quietly.
‘Wow, calling me by my name now?’ Yaz laughed shakily. ‘Not loser, or moron, or -’
‘Whole new set of rude things I can call you now.’
Yaz laughed, deep in her belly. ‘You never change.’
They pulled back finally, and Sonya passed Yaz a dusty box of tissues from the bedside drawer.
‘I want to tell the others,’ she said, blowing her nose.
Sonya nodded. ‘Oof. You had this all planned?’
‘A little. The Doctor helped.’
‘She came along for you?’
Yaz smiled. ‘Well, she also really likes Mum.’
‘Honestly, we plan a nice little tea, you two barge in, make it all about you -’ Sonya was grinning.
‘Shut up.’
‘You nervous?’
Yaz laughed. ‘What do you think?’
‘They’ll be fine, you know.’
‘It’s just - such a long time coming.’
Sonya sighed. ‘Would it make it better or worse if I told you that they probably already know?’
Yaz slumped against the wall. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Mine and the Doctor’s mate, he was the same. It just kind of -’
She searched for the words, and Sonya stayed quiet, letting her find them.
‘It makes me feel a bit angry. Like I’m the last to know. And everyone around me can make light of how obvious it is, when they weren’t there - they weren’t in my head when it was bad. And it’s taken so long for it to even make sense to me -’ She trailed off. ‘I don’t know.’
Sonya looked pensive. She fiddled with the hem of her dungarees.
‘You don’t have to answer, but -’ she paused. ‘Was this - was this what made you want to hurt yourself, back when we were younger?’
Yaz took a breath. Sitting here now, Sonya looked small. She let the image of her scared teenage self wash over her.
‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘Yeah. Maybe.’
She could see Sonya’s eyes getting teary. She wasn’t sure when the last time she’d seen that was.
‘And now? Are you happy now?’
Yaz released a breath, and hopped down from the windowsill. The rain had stopped. She found herself smiling.
‘I’ve never been happier.’
Sonya smiled too as the two of them headed towards the door.
‘I want to do this,’ Yaz said, feeling lighter, though still awash with energy.
‘What can I do?’
‘Just be there. Please.’
Sonya held the bedroom door for her, and they made their way down the landing, the chatter from the living room increasing with each step.
‘After you’ve done this, you know what your next step is in figuring things out with the Doctor?’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘You snog her.’
Yaz stopped in her tracks. ‘Sonya!’
She held her hands up. ‘It’s what people do, Yaz.’
‘Doesn’t mean I have to hear it from you.’
‘Just trying to give you a push in the right direction,’ she said, examining her nails. ‘You’re clearly gagging for it, the pair of you. It’s quite gross to see, actually.’
‘Grosser to hear. Also none of your business.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she said, lowering her voice as she opened the door to the living room. ‘Just checking in, ‘cause as soon as it does happen Ryan owes me a fiver.’
Yaz’s mouth fell open, every protest dying on her tongue as she was thrust into the eyeline of her whole family.
‘Blimey,’ her Mum said, ‘where have you two been?’
‘Ah shit, the teabags,’ Sonya said, and within a few seconds she’d rushed back for them and flicked the kettle on.
‘They were really hidden,’ Yaz said. She leaned on the back of the Doctor’s chair. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Oh, your Nani’s been telling me some cracking stories. I’ve told her a few of ours, too. I think I’ve rinsed this household of sandwich biscuits, but your Dad’s added them to the shopping list, your Mum has been telling me all about your childhood love of Girls Aloud, and your Nani’s beaten me in an arm wrestle that I’m fairly sure she rigged.’
‘Your friend is a bad loser, beti.’
‘Oh, tell me about it,’ Yaz laughed. The Doctor seemed to fit at their table. It made Yaz’s heart swell. She drummed her fingers nervously on the chair.
‘Doctor,’ she asked, ‘can you help me with something a second?’
She followed her to the kitchen area, and the two of them busied themselves pretending to be very interested in something in the fridge.
‘One down,’ Yaz said quietly.
‘Oh Yaz,’ the Doctor said, smiling at the condiments. ‘I wish I could give you a hug.’
‘Take you up on that later,’ she said, bumping the Doctor with an elbow.
‘Was it good?’
‘It was… mad. But I feel good.’ She looked at her, entwining their little fingers for just a second. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
‘Never pass up on tea at Yaz’s.’
‘I loved that day,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
Yaz felt like she could get lost in the moments when the Doctor looked at her like that. Then Sonya sidled past with Umbreen’s tea, quickly ruffling the Doctor’s hair and mouthing ‘gagging’ at Yaz over her shoulder. Yaz breathed a laugh as the Doctor rearranged her parting.
‘Think that was a show of affection,’ she clarified. The Doctor laughed.
‘I like your family.’
Yaz smiled at the floor. ‘I think they like you.’
She closed the fridge and took a breath.
‘How do I know if I’m ready?’ she said quietly.
The Doctor was silent for a long moment, looking at the floor as she considered. Yaz was reminded of the way she’d fixed her eyes on the console and fiddled mindlessly with things when she’d finally apologised for the way she’d treated her. She was reminded, too, of her shaking hands and wobbling voice when she’d spoken to her on the beach.
The Doctor didn’t look up when she spoke. ‘I’m not sure that anyone’s ever really ready for things.’ She paused. ‘But if you feel safe, and you feel like this is something you want - then it’s time.’
With a glance over her shoulder, Yaz risked taking both the Doctor’s hands in hers.
‘You’ll be here for me?’
The Doctor stroked her thumb, so gently. ‘Right here.’
Yaz smiled, though her eyes were beginning to sting.
‘Once we’ve done this,’ she said, ‘I want to talk about us. I want to figure it out.’
Yaz wanted to bottle how she felt as she watched the Doctor let out a breathy giggle, her cheeks flushing a little.
‘Yasmin Khan, it would be my pleasure.’
And so Yaz turned, walking the few steps from the kitchen to the dining table. With each step, she thought about what had come before.
She thought about the incredible weight she carried from her teenage years - the isolation, the jibes, and the boys she’d fumbled with because she saw no other way out. She remembered the feel of each punch that was thrown, each ill-fitting touch, each inch she’d travelled towards the end of her tether. And she remembered how Sonya had sobbed into her chest when the police had brought her home.
She thought about all the Doctor had represented when they’d first met - an escape, and an idol, and a shining opportunity to shake off everything that clung to her. She remembered declaring that she was the best person she’d ever met. She’d been an untouchable cosmic wonder who Yaz had somehow been afforded to orbit for a while, in an unbelievable opportunity from the universe. But then, of course, Yaz had wanted more. She thought about the first time she’d wanted to kiss her, unsteady on her feet in the TARDIS doorway, watching the galactic fireworks with Ryan and Graham.
The memories of abandonment stung most of all. She skated over the frenzy and desperation of her time spent in the spare TARDIS. She felt the burn of one particular night in 1902, when she dreamt of the Doctor holding onto her then woke up alone and sick to her stomach. She knelt over the toilet, sobbing and retching, as her mind put words to that desire, and she felt too weak to fight them.
Then the Doctor had returned. Yaz had felt broken from the inside out. Every moment was tinged with the feeling that the Doctor would disappear again. Her body was filled with preemptive grief. And when Dan had confronted her about what he’d seen, she couldn’t bear the thought of reaching for what she wanted, only to have it turn the Doctor away.
But the Doctor had stayed. She’d made her a promise, and she’d let down her impenetrable walls. Yaz had felt light spill into her body, a decade of festering bruises finally placed on a path towards healing.
The Doctor had held her hand then, and she was holding it now, too.
Yaz sat at the table, and took a breath.
‘There’s actually - something I wanted to tell you all.’
A dizzy rush came over her as soon as the words passed her lips.
‘Two ticks, love, I was just telling your Nani about Whitby -’
Sonya gave her Mum an elbow, and she seemed just about to retort when Sonya spoke again, this time looking straight at Yaz and giving her a smile.
‘Listen to her, please.’
‘What is it, beti?’ Umbreen asked, leaning in across the table with a warm smile that took Yaz straight back to childhood.
Yaz took a shaky breath, staring at the ceiling. She felt the Doctor’s eyes on her, grounding and warm, and Sonya’s, so patient. She could see a crease forming between her Mum’s eyebrows, a hint of concern, her Dad looking much the same.
‘Um -’
She clawed for breath, her throat constricting. Her eyes were blurry with tears.
‘Come on,’ her Mum said, her light tone doing little to diffuse the tension. ‘Out with it. What is it, have you lost your job? Because we can help you deal with that, love, I mean, we’ve had enough of it with Sonya -’
‘Mum.’ Sonya was looking right at Yaz, not even arguing back at Najia. Yaz couldn’t bear to look back at her.
‘Do you need to move back in, is that it?’ she was barrelling along, and all the while all Yaz could focus on was the pressure building behind her eyes, like noise all around her.
‘Because I know we might cramp your style, and I know you’re getting older, but you’ll always have a bed here - you know that, don’t you? This is still your home.’
‘What’s going on, darling?’ her Dad asked, and the softness of his voice cut through the frenzy Najia was working herself into. He leaned over the table and placed a hand on Yaz’s shoulder. She inhaled sharply at the contact, flinching away, and he dropped back into his seat.
‘Yaz, what’s wrong? You’re worrying me,’ Najia said. The concern in their voices was rising with every word, like Yaz’s pulse, like the rush in her ears.
‘Yaz,’ Sonya said softly from across the table.
The Doctor reaffirmed her grip against Yaz’s sweating palm.
‘Shall we go outside?’ she whispered to her.
Yaz nodded gently, and felt distinctly outside of her body as she was shifted from her chair and walked towards the door on the Doctor and Sonya’s arms.
‘Yasmin,’ came her Nani’s voice, sounding distant. ‘You know we love you, no matter what.’
Yaz would have liked to respond, but she couldn’t feel her body, as though she were watching everything around her on a screen. She saw her Nani kiss the back of her hand, though she didn’t feel it, and then she found herself in the landing.
By the time she heard another voice, she was sitting on her childhood bed.
‘Yaz,’ it said, ‘we’re right here, and you’re going to be just fine.’
There was white at the corners of her vision, and everything sounded loud, like she couldn’t distinguish between which noises were important and which weren’t. She saw the Doctor wrapped around her body, and eventually she felt a hand on her back, guiding her breaths with gentle strokes.
As she breathed in time with the motions, she sank into a feeling of familiarity. For a time, her world began and ended with that simple cycle. Everything else lost definition. She saw the Doctor beside her, framed by dreamlike evening light, and she imagined they might be back in their TARDIS. She reached for her hand, and she held it to her own face. The Doctor stroked her cheek with her thumb.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked her quietly. Yaz hummed noncommittally.
‘I feel thirsty,’ she said, her voice uneven.
The Doctor smiled at her, and she felt herself smile back.
‘You’re going to be okay, Yaz,’ the Doctor said. Then Sonya handed her a glass of water, and she drank it quickly.
‘Thanks,’ she smiled. She felt the bed shift as her sister sat on the end of it.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You got a bit panicked. We brought you in here. The Doctor’s been calming you down.’
‘Right,’ Yaz said. ‘Right.’
‘We can stay here for as long as you need to,’ the Doctor said.
‘Yeah. Good.’ Yaz watched the two of them look at her like a delicate thing. She shifted, propping herself up against the pillows at the top of the bed. She held her childhood teddy bear in her lap and fidgeted.
‘What did I say?’ she asked, and she braced for the answer.
‘Nothing, really,’ said Sonya.
‘Just that you wanted to tell them all something.’
Yaz looked at the Doctor, and took a shaky breath. She wondered what her family were doing now. She wondered if they all knew exactly what she’d wanted to say.
‘I’ve done this once before,’ she said, leaning back on the pillows. ‘Years and years ago.’ She looked up at the ceiling, and the Doctor began to stroke her hair from beside her.
‘Way back, when Mum wanted to know… what was going on with me. Why I did it. I almost told her what they said about me.’
‘What who said?’ the Doctor asked quietly.
Yaz let out a breath. ‘Everyone. Everyone at school, everyone around me, I mean -’ she sat up, ‘you must have known, Sonya. People must have told you.’
Sonya shifted. ‘I knew people were saying things about you. But that was it.’
Yaz fell back against the pillows. ‘The whole school. And I hadn’t even done anything. I never did anything.’ She sighed, feeling her eyes sting again. ‘I tried so hard to look like them, and to act like them. I don’t know what they saw. And the worst part was, I’d never even felt that way until I -’ she looked at the Doctor, who moved to stroke her cheek, ‘- until I did, and then I was just so,’ she paused, ‘disgusted that the entire fucking time, they were right.’
She felt a tear run down each side of her face.
‘They were right,’ she repeated quietly, and she held tighter to the teddy bear.
‘Yaz,’ Sonya said, ‘they weren’t right.’
‘Sonya, I -’ she gestured vaguely, ‘look at me.’
‘But what they called you - that isn’t what you are.’
Yaz shook her head with a sad smile.
‘What you are,’ Sonya said, ‘is something so beautiful. They didn’t know you. They didn’t bother to.’
‘I’ve never known you be this nice to me,’ Yaz said, giving her sister a light kick.
‘Yeah, well, you’re hopped up on a panic attack, so I’m gambling on you not remembering it.’
They laughed softly, then fell into a comfortable silence. Yaz leaned into the Doctor’s touch.
‘Am I ever going to get rid of this shame?’ she asked, voice muffled against the quilt and the Doctor’s legs.
The Doctor placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head.
‘Yes,’ she said.
That simple touch felt so transformative that Yaz swore she believed her.
‘Yaz,’ the Doctor said softly, running a hand through her hair. ‘What did you mean, why you did it?’ She paused, her words careful. ‘What did you do?’
Yaz looked over at Sonya, who gave her a sad smile. She took the Doctor’s hand in hers, running her thumb along the lines on her palm.
‘I almost ended it,’ she said, looking at their joined hands. ‘A few years before we met.’
The Doctor made a little sound, and was still for a second. Then she placed an arm around Yaz’s shoulder. Her face was out of view.
‘I’m so glad you two found each other,’ Sonya said quietly from the end of the bed.
Yaz remembered a moment from years ago, where she’d taken a second’s reprieve from an adrenaline-filled chase to look out over a hilly alien vista. She’d watched the Doctor run, a grin plastered across her face, and she’d watched the wispy clouds brush the tops of sparkling peaks. She’d thought then, how beautiful her life with the Doctor was. She’d been glad she’d lived to see it.
She shifted to look at the Doctor now, and found that made her glad to be alive too. She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, and the Doctor closed her eyes with a contented smile.
‘You two really need to sort it out,’ came Sonya’s voice, and Yaz laughed. Eventually, the Doctor did too.
‘Come here,’ Yaz said, and she pulled the two of them into a hug. ‘Thanks for being with me.’
‘Always,’ Sonya said.
‘Right,’ Yaz said, pulling back. ‘No going back now. Hold my hands, both of you?’
Yaz kept her breathing steady as the three of them approached the living room. She willed herself not to think of the past - only of a present which stretched ahead into a contented future. She imagined herself shrugging off the rusted shackles of her past, washing herself clean of the dirt that clung to her skin. She imagined a life without shame - a life with the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled at her over her shoulder, as though she knew what she was thinking. A little stream of golden evening light illuminated her face, and she looked like glorious possibility. Yaz committed the moment to memory. Then she nodded a final time, and the three of them entered the living room.
All eyes at the table were on Yaz once more. Najia immediately got to her feet, then faltered, hovering behind her chair as if considering whether to pull her into a hug.
‘Is everything okay, love?’ she said slowly. ‘We’ve been so worried.’
Yaz leaned against the back of the sofa, holding tight to the Doctor and Sonya’s hands. She breathed in and out.
The Doctor’s hands were calloused and strong; Sonya’s were meticulously moisturised. Yaz could feel a little scar by the Doctor’s thumb, and she stroked it, pouring all of her attention into the sensation. She remembered how she got it - burnt as she made pancakes for the two of them one morning. She’d insisted she could heal it herself, of course. Yaz had had to keep her attention as she’d run it under cold water, playing word games and telling stories to keep her standing still. Eventually she’d even let Yaz patch it up with a plaster.
Yaz was so wrapped up in thinking about the Doctor that she almost smiled. The situation at hand seemed secondary.
‘I’m all right, thanks Mum,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to tell you all -’ the Doctor squeezed her hand, ‘- that I’m - that I’ve realised I’m a lesbian.’
Yaz noticed that the Doctor had worn a pair of rainbow socks today, and she smiled to herself. She imagined her picking them out specially. She kept her focus on that thought, and she let her words dissipate into the air before her. She focused on her breathing, and the Doctor’s socks, and the warmth of the hands in hers. And, in spite of everything, she felt content.
Then she heard footsteps, and she looked up to find her Mum standing before her, glassy eyed and smiling.
‘Can I hug you?’ she asked.
Yaz let out a breath, and she nodded. The Doctor and Sonya let her hands slip from theirs as Yaz leaned into the embrace. Najia stroked her hair as they hugged, and Yaz felt as though she were slipping back into her own body for the first time in a while. She felt her Dad wrap his arms around the two of them.
‘We love you,’ her Mum said into her shoulder. ‘I hope you know that.’
‘I do know that,’ she said, ‘and I -’ she felt tears prick at her eyes again, ‘I love you both, too.’
Yaz was hit, quite suddenly, with a sense of reality, mind catching up to a body consumed with a dizzy adrenaline high.
‘I did it,’ she exclaimed over her shoulder, and the Doctor grinned back at her. She tapped her feet quickly on the floor and flapped her hands in a fidget.
‘It’s been so long, and so difficult, but now I’ve - I’ve got so much to tell you, and -’
‘Nani,’ she said, looking past her Dad’s shoulder. She was unsteady on her feet as she approached. ‘Nani, are you okay? With this?’
Umbreen was looking down at her lap, seeming deep in thought. Then she reached for Yaz’s shaky hand. She held it in silence for a long time.
‘You are so strong, Yasmin,’ she said slowly. Yaz stayed there, looking down at their joined hands, as her Nani found the words.
‘Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve taken on a world set up against you,’ she said. Yaz thought of Umbreen’s plight - her grief, her trailblazing, her indomitable spirit. She thought of her Mum, too. She thought of the long line of self-assured women that had shaped her.
‘You’re clever, and you’re tough, and you’re kind. But -’ she looked up at Yaz. ‘Happy?’
Yaz felt a tear fall.
‘You deserve to be happy, beti. And I hope that you can find happiness now, as who you really are.’
Yaz hugged her tightly. She thought of the tragedies and loves that had made up her Nani’s long life. She thought about how she had prevailed. And she thought about her own life, its traumas and darknesses making way for healing and love.
‘I think I already have,’ she said into her shoulder.
She stood up, and turned to look at the Doctor and Sonya. Sonya gave her a smile, which she returned. The Doctor scrunched up her face and reached to hold her fingertips for a second.
‘Shall we eat?’ Yaz asked.
*
The Doctor had three helpings of aloo gobi, and an impressive number of samosas. Yaz’s Dad was ecstatic.
‘Am I being rude?’ she asked at one point, a smudge of yoghurt dip at the corner of her mouth. ‘It’s just really good.’
‘Not rude at all,’ Hakim said, replenishing the side dishes once more.
‘She’ll only encourage him. We won’t hear the end of this for weeks,’ Sonya said.
‘Finally, someone who appreciates my cooking.’ Hakim ruffled Sonya’s hair, which she immediately protested. ‘You can come again, Doctor.’
‘Aw, can I?’ Yaz grinned at her genuine enthusiasm. ‘Tea at Hakim’s. Brilliant.’
The sun was setting as Yaz stacked up plates by the sink. She couldn’t remember a time when there hadn’t been leftovers after a big meal. Her Dad’s portioning had always been optimistic, after all - but it looked like he’d finally met his match.
‘Sit down, sit down, let me sort it,’ her Dad said, shooing Yaz away.
‘No, Dad, really, it’s the least I can do -’
‘Sit,’ he reiterated, gesturing towards his apron. He’d changed out of the stained one into a spare that read ‘KISS THE DOMESTIC GOD’. Yaz laughed under her breath.
‘I really am proud of you, kiddo,’ he said after a second, and he pulled Yaz into a one-armed hug.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said.
He kissed the top of her head. ‘And I’m so glad you’re happy.’
‘You can tell?’
He smiled. ‘I can. Really, Yaz, I’ve never seen you like this, it’s like - you’re glowing.’
Yaz smiled at the ground, and then over her shoulder. The Doctor was trying to teach Najia a card trick. Trying being the operative word.
‘Then you get them all in your left hand, and you pinch with your finger - oh!’
As soon as Yaz approached her chair again, the Doctor sent the entire deck scattering into the air. Sonya breathed a sigh in the aftermath.
‘And that is what you call,’ the Doctor said, ‘a 52 card pickup!’
Yaz laughed to herself as the Doctor presented little jazz hands.
‘Saved it?’ she asked.
‘Definitely.’
The two of them collected all of the cards - the furthest having travelled all the way to the kitchen, teetering on the edge of the sink.
‘Well, I’m not sure I’ll be showing that one off,’ Najia was saying as the Doctor returned to her seat.
‘Eh, just needs refining. Card tricks were much easier back when my hands were bigger.’
‘What?’ Sonya asked.
‘So anyway - Doctor,’ Yaz said, ‘I don’t think you ever told Nani about that adventure we all had with the spiders.’
‘Not that I ever got to see the spiders,’ Hakim said, slumping against the counter. ‘Just sat here while tea went cold.’
‘I am proper sorry about that, Hakim. To be fair to us, we were a bit busy with the woman who’d been suffocated next door.’
‘She makes it up,’ Sonya declared, not looking up from her phone.
‘I was there!’ Najia protested.
‘High off the fumes from the rotting landfill, Mum.’
‘I know what I saw,’ Najia said, ‘and I know there was more to it than anyone ever told me.’ She gave Yaz a pointed look.
‘Just a freak accident, really,’ the Doctor barrelled on. ‘Well, you know, late capitalism, plus irresponsible waste disposal, plus a few coincidences - equals ecological nightmare! And… giant spiders.’
‘Giant spiders?’ Umbreen asked slowly.
‘Yeah!’ The Doctor grinned, and turned to Umbreen. She cleared her throat. ‘So it all started when I came for tea at Yaz’s.’
The Doctor’s account of that day lasted at least fifteen minutes, and was frankly enthralling. By the time she’d stood up on a chair swinging her arms around wildly to convey the drama of the spider in the ballroom, even Sonya was listening. She took a bow after an intense rendition of her final words to Robertson, and Hakim applauded slowly.
‘Absolute… bollocks.’
‘Sonya!’ Najia scolded. ‘In front of your Nani and everything!’
Umbreen only laughed. ‘Can’t say I disagree.’
‘Mum!’
‘You are a strange one, Doctor,’ Umbreen said after a brief lull. ‘But I can see you make my Yasmin very happy.’
Yaz watched the Doctor genuinely blush at that. She wrung her fingers together and scrunched up her nose as she smiled.
‘Aw, thanks, Yaz’s Nani.’
‘It’s Umbreen.’
Yaz caught her Mum watching the two of them with a smile. From across the table, she looked at Yaz and tilted her head a little. She asked a wordless question. Yaz smiled, granting her permission.
‘You know,’ she said slowly, ‘one thing you never explained about that day with the spiders.’ Her voice was gentle, tentative.
‘ Are you two seeing each other?’
Yaz took a breath, slowly tilting her head to look at the Doctor. She let the memory of the first time her Mum had asked the question wash over her. She’d felt adrift, exposed - the friendship she was building with the Doctor far too embryonic and precious to be open to outside probing. She hadn’t been able to put her finger on quite what had made her stomach turn about it - but she’d thought about it for many days and weeks afterwards. She’d feared that the Doctor would be driven away, repulsed, scared. Like her classmates - like Izzy.
The Doctor, of course, showed no signs that she’d even thought about it twice. Yaz felt so much older now.
The Doctor threaded their fingers together under the table, eyes not leaving Yaz. When she spoke, her voice was soft, and mirrored what she’d said on that day all those years ago.
‘Are we?’
Yaz squeezed her hand. The ball was firmly in her court - and she appreciated the agency, with so many around her having made their assumptions. She recognised, also, that she wasn’t just giving an answer to her Mum - but that the Doctor, too, might be waiting on it. The way they’d begun to act around each other was precarious, undefined - and there was a question within a question here. The Doctor asked, finally, is this what you want?
‘Yeah,’ she said, and she smiled into her lap. She pulled the Doctor closer, looping an arm around her. ‘Yeah, we are, actually.’
She caught the Doctor’s grin out of the corner of her eye, and she swore she could have floated away.
‘Brilliant,’ the Doctor said. Her leg was bouncing under the table.
‘Ugh, finally,’ came Sonya’s response.
‘I knew it,’ came Najia’s.
‘ And she likes my cooking. She’s a keeper!’ said Hakim.
Umbreen just took Yaz’s hand and squeezed it. Then, in turn, she squeezed the Doctor’s too.
‘Mother always knows,’ Najia said, getting up from the table and squeezing behind Yaz and the Doctor on her way to the door. She ran a hand through Yaz’s hair and left a kiss on the top of her head.
‘You two happy?’ she asked.
Yaz and the Doctor looked at each other, their fingers entwined on Yaz’s lap.
‘So happy.’
‘Good.’ She reached to pick up a few empty glasses. ‘I’m sticking the kettle on.’
‘Ooh, yes please.’ Sonya slid her mug across the table.
Hakim grabbed what Najia couldn’t carry. He bumped Yaz with his shoulder as he left.
‘You chose well, kid.’
Yaz smiled a smile so broad her cheeks ached. She tapped a foot against the floor.
Umbreen was finishing the dregs of her tea. Sonya eyed Yaz, and then their Nani, and with a cough and a mumbled excuse about a phone charger she left the table too.
It was quiet for a few moments.
The Doctor clapped her hands together with a grin. ‘So,’ she said, ‘Umbreen.’
‘I’m not as old and crazy as I may look, beti,’ Umbreen said, swirling the little tea leaves around in her cup. ‘I’m sharp, just like your mother and you.’
‘Course you are, Nani. Doctor, you should see her tackle a crossword.’
Umbreen breathed a laugh. ‘There you go. Underestimating me again, when you know full well -’
Yaz raised an eyebrow. Umbreen only smirked.
‘Don’t think I don’t recognise the two of you.’
‘Recognise us?’ Yaz kept her tone light - and probably overcompensated. ‘I’m your granddaughter, I mean, I’d hope that you -’
Umbreen silenced Yaz by taking a flower from the vase on the table and tucking it gently behind her ear.
‘Marigold. My favourite flower.’ She took another and placed it behind the Doctor’s. ‘Reminds me of my wedding day, you know.’
Yaz considered feigning ignorance with another rebuttal, but the Doctor looked over at her, shrugging her shoulders with a smile.
‘It took me a long while to figure out. But that day was full of impossible things.’ Umbreen was twirling the final marigold between her fingers. ‘And I saw you. Both of you. I know I did. Just for those days, when everything changed, and then never again -’
Yaz looked down at the table. The Doctor was smiling a sad smile.
‘It’s nice to see you again, Umbreen.’
‘I thought about it, a lot, over the years. What you were, in among demons. Why you came there to us. Whether you brought it all in your wake.’
Yaz’s voice was quiet. ‘I’m sorry, Nani.’
‘Oh, but you were watching over us.’ Umbreen lifted Yaz’s chin with a finger. ‘Even though I told you those stories were for when you were older.’
The Doctor looked back at Yaz in horror. ‘You didn’t tell me that!’
Umbreen breathed a laugh, and so did Yaz.
‘So. Now we’re being honest with each other - did you find what you were looking for?’
Yaz squeezed her Nani’s hand. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘Good.’ Umbreen was tracing the lines of Yaz’s palm. ‘You were younger then, I think? But I saw the way you two looked at each other.’
Yaz smiled, blushing when she caught the Doctor smiling back at her.
‘Really?’
‘In the face of everything,’ Umbreen said, taking the Doctor’s hand too, ‘love abides.’
‘You know, whenever I told your Mum the story of the strangers at the wedding, when she was small, she always liked the sound of Yasmin.’
The Doctor broke into a grin. ‘You’re not telling me -’
Umbreen shrugged her shoulders.
‘Now that is a bootstrap paradox!’
‘I watched her pass the name down to her eldest daughter, and then I watched you grow into her, ever so slowly - and I didn’t understand it -’ Umbreen paused. ‘But then, when I saw you for the first time, Doctor - well, I knew it was meant.’
Yaz watched her eye their joined hands.
‘You take care of my Yasmin.’
The Doctor was looking at their hands too.
‘Always.’
‘And - however long fate has in store for you - a day, a week, the rest of your lives -’
She held the marigold to her chest.
‘It’s your moment in time. Forever. You cherish it.’
Yaz’s vision blurred a little with tears.
‘Are you happy with the time you had?’
Umbreen placed the flower back into the vase.
‘It was beautiful.’
As Yaz looked over at the Doctor, all she saw was the beautiful present.
‘I’m so proud of you, Yasmin.’
*
The Khans waved Yaz and the Doctor off as the sun set.
Yaz pulled the Doctor into a hug as soon as she closed the doors behind them on the TARDIS. The Doctor held her tight, lifting her off the ground and twirling her in a circle.
‘How do you feel?’
Yaz took her by the lapels and kissed her. It felt like everything inside her finally clicking into place.
The Doctor beamed. Her cheeks were pink and her hair was mussed where Yaz was running her fingers through it.
‘That good?’
‘Never better.’
The Doctor leaned in to kiss her again. Yaz was quite sure she could do this forever.
‘Guess what?’ the Doctor asked, pecking a little kiss on her nose.
‘What?’
‘I’m proud of you.’