Chapter Text
“I’m telling ya, Yaz, you won’t be able to find good orglows anywhere outside of Sector 9 3/8ths. Especially this time of year. You’re about to have the best fruit salad of your life.”
Yaz bit back a grimace as she watched the Doctor swing a large canvas bag full of glowing purple fruits back and forth rather carelessly, considering the tiny spindly legs sticking out of the top as they tried to climb free.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She glanced at Dan, who was eyeing the bag with the same suspicion she felt. Judging by the look on his face, he wouldn’t be trying the Doctor’s fruit salad either.
Yaz let out a sigh of relief when the Doctor threw open the doors of the big blue box. Cool air spilled across her face, a welcome mercy after hours beneath Sector 9 3/8ths’ twin suns, wandering endless desert markets packed with strange food, stranger drinks, and clothing apparently designed for species with five limbs.
That, naturally, hadn’t stopped the Doctor from shopping.
“What if one of these fine folks wants to travel with me one day and I don’t have anything proper for them?” the Doctor had argued when Yaz asked why she’d bought a cloak with five armholes. Unable to find a flaw in that logic, Yaz had simply accepted defeat and carried two extra bags.
The Doctor set her purchases beside the console, wagging a finger sternly at the restless fruit. “Play nice. No eating one another.” One of them hissed a reply, but the Doctor ignored it and spun back to the controls.
Her smile was a rare sight lately, Yaz had noticed. Maybe everyone had. Seeing it now, bright and careless and entirely her, made something in Yaz’s chest ease.
“So,” the Doctor said, throwing a lever with unnecessary flourish, “where are we off to next?”
“Somewhere with air conditioning,” Yaz said, dropping onto the metal stairs with an exhausted groan. “Or a breeze. Or water. Preferably all three.”
Dan collapsed beside her. “And only one sun, if you don’t mind.”
The Doctor grinned wider. “One tropical island coming up. Miami, 1962. Eighteenth of June. Perfect weather, perfect beach, perfect-.”
The TARDIS lights began flashing red, and the Doctor’s smile vanished. Somewhere deep in the ship, an alarm began to howl. The Doctor was already moving before Yaz found her feet.
“Doctor?” Yaz watched as the blonde raced around the console, yanking levers and twisting dials, far more serious than she had been moments ago. “Doctor, what is it?”
“A distress call.” The worry in her voice told them both this was no ordinary plea for help the Doctor received every so often. “Another TARDIS, there's a Time Lord in trouble.”
Yaz’s eyes went wide, and Dan voiced her shock. “Another of your people? I thought you said there was only one of you?”
The Doctor’s fingers flew as she began typing in commands, the numbers and letters on the screen moving far too fast for Yaz to begin to reason them out. “That’s what I thought but I’ve been proven wrong before.”
Yaz tried her best to hide the fear in her voice. “Is it the Master?”
She shook her head and looked back towards the humans, hazel eyes filled with such fear and worry that Yaz was momentarily taken aback. The Doctor didn’t get worried, the Doctor didn’t become scared… Yaz’s heart pounded in her chest while she waited for an explanation.
The Doctor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s my brother.”
Yaz’s jaw dropped clean to her chest. Her brother? The Doctor never mentioned a brother, she never mentioned any family. But then again she didn’t mention much of anything to Yaz. “You have a brother?”
The Doctor nodded before turning back towards the console. “Brax. He’s older than me, I thought he was still on Gallifrey, I haven’t heard from him in three regenerations. But right now all I know is Brax in trouble and I need to find him.”
“We’ll help you,” Yaz said with a firm declaration. Dan, looking much less confident, agreed with a nod.
“Your family is our family. Doctor.”
There was barely a smile for her appreciation before she turned back to the console, racing around the control panel, looking far more serious and locked in than Yaz had ever seen her. With one savage yank of a lever, and the sound of a familiar whoosh whoosh, the TARDIS hurled itself into the vortex. Moments later they came to a screeching stop, with Yaz and Dan being nearly tossed across the console room. The Doctor barely blinked or even slowed as she grabbed her sonic and headed out.
Yaz scrambled after her, “Doctor wait!” she cried, hurrying after the blonde who didn’t so much as spare a glance backwards. Dan and Yaz looked at each other, fear creeping up in both of their hearts. They rarely saw the Doctor like this, and when they did? It didn’t tend to end well for anyone.
Outside the TARDIS wasn’t some strange alien world or shining future city. It was a scrapyard. Mountains of rusted metal and broken machinery towered on every side, stacked so high Yaz couldn’t tell where the walls ended and the ceiling began. Maybe there wasn’t one, she thought as she strained her neck up. Maybe it just kept going forever.
It reminded her, uncomfortably, of the junkyard she and her mates used to sneak into as kids; climbing over wrecked cars until her mum found out and sat her down with photos of lockjaw and tetanus. Narrow corridors had been carved through the heaps of scrap like a maze. At each turn stood black metal signs stamped with symbols Yaz couldn’t read, and the dying hums of broken ships surrounded them while every so often shadows would flicker and move just so. Every step seemed to echo strangely in this labyrinth of junk.
If the Doctor was afraid she hid it well. The only thing Yaz could read on her face was confusion.
“What would make Brax come here?” the Doctor muttered.
Dan shrugged. “Is he a collector?”
The Doctor shook her head, already striding down another corridor. “He’s a politician, he doesn’t travel like me. So why would he be in some landfill on a nothing planet's eighteenth moon?”
They walked for what felt like ages through narrow passages of scrap and rust. The Doctor muttered to herself as she went, the sonic whirring every now and again. Every so often the Doctor would stop abruptly, turn on her heel and march them back the way they came.
“Doctor?” Yaz asked after passing the same twisted heap what felt like the tenth time. “Are you sure your brother’s here?”
The Doctor nodded, scanning a jagged bit of machinery. “I know he is,” she said too sharply. “My TARDIS knows his signal, Brax put out a distress call asking for help and he found me. That’s not a coincidence.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Dan muttered low enough to only be heard by Yaz.
Yaz opened her mouth to ask another question, when the Doctor scanned something with her sonic and went rigid.
“Doctor?” Yaz said softly. “Doctor are you alright?”
“Brax…” the Doctor breathed. Then she ran.
Yaz and Dan sprinted after her, their human legs barely keeping pace. The Doctor seemed to know exactly where she was going now, cutting corners so sharply Dan went down hard at one turn with a crash and a string of curses.
The Doctor never looked back.
Yaz hauled him upright and dragged him after her again. “Doctor! Slow down!” There was no sign she heard.
The junk heaps began to change. Piles of scrap grew smaller, metal stacks became neater, deliberate. The floor smoothed beneath their feet and rusted walls gave way to polished steel. Soon the scrapyard was gone entirely, and only corridors remained.
The Doctor held the sonic out in front of her as she ran, following whatever it was telling her deeper into the maze, until she skidded to a sudden halt. Yaz and Dan nearly collided with her. They reached the final corridor bent over, gasping for breath. The Doctor, infuriatingly, looked untouched.
Then Yaz saw what had stopped her; a wide doorway blocked by a blazing orange barrier, neon-yellow currents twisting through it like living wire. Beyond it, she could just make out a small chamber, and another door on the far side.
“What the hell is that?” Dan wheezed.
The Doctor didn’t answer immediately. She lifted the sonic, scanned the field, and went pale.
“Anti-Stenza forcefield.”
Yaz frowned. “The same stuff your sonic’s made of?” The Doctor nodded. “So what does that mean?”
She stared at the barrier. “It means my sonic can’t go in with me.”
Yaz’s eyes widened. “Okay, Doctor , this is… No, something’s wrong, this is obviously a trap, you should think before you go running in there.”
The Doctor turned so fast Yaz nearly stepped back. “My brother is in there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“His signal came through on my TARDIS.”
“That doesn’t mean-.”
“It means he found me.”
Yaz shook her head. “Doctor, I just-... I have a really bad feeling about this.”
Something hard and cold flashed across the Doctor’s face. “If you’re scared you can stay behind and go be afraid somewhere else. But I’m saving my brother.”
The Doctor shoved the sonic into Yaz’s hands hard enough to jolt her backward. Without another glance, without another word, she stepped through the forcefield. The orange light swallowed her whole, and for one terrible second, Yaz could still see her silhouette moving through it. Then came a sharp slam of a metal door and the sound of a heavy lock bolting into place.
Yaz immediately ran to the door, pounding on it until her hands were bruised. “Doctor! Doctor, what’s happening?!”
But the only answer was a cold and dreadful silence.