Have you ever noticed, that you can't smell home? You know what home smells like, or what it should smell like, but you're so wrapped up in it that, when someone asks you, you don't know what home smells like? Yasmin Khan could understand that.
Her home smelled like the cold air in Sheffield, the howling wind flying past the balcony in her flat, and recently the acid and the decay of her father's plastic collection. When she was away for long it would smell like dish soap, if her parents had cooked it would smell like rice and chicken and so many spices. Her room usually changed smells, sometimes it was the smell of the bitter cold coming from the window that didn't quite close. When she had a long day through trudging ground and she didn't wash her boots, it would smell like grass and mud. When she left her closet open too long it would smell like the Jasmine perfume her mother sprayed on the laundry, especially hers. It's the flower of your name my flower, it only makes sense.
Yasmin knew home, but it didn't always feel like it smelled right. She had tried candles and air freshener. Incense and essential oils. She had even tried to seal her room closed, to find what should smell like home. And it hadn't worked. Home didn't always smell like home.
But the TARDIS did. The first time she stepped through the doors of the blue box, it smelled like time. And that was hard to explain; Ryan and Graham had tried to explain it too, and all of them had failed. It smelled like the woods that had been around for ages. It smelled like books covered in enough dust to know they hadn't been touched, but not enough to damage them. It smelled like metal and oil, but no rust. It smelled like something suspended in time, revered and cared for and loved. It smelled like peppermint and lemongrass, and like a lived in home. The Doctor had told them, that the TARDIS had changed, and she hadn't even seen it. That everything, like her own face, was new and regenerated. But it smelled old, like it had been there all along. Maybe it wasn't new? Maybe it was something old.
But it still didn't quite get it right. When Ryan would leave the door open too long it would smell like the outside. Sometimes it smelled like the boiling heat of a scorching desert. Sometimes it would smell like the cold of the tundra. On the odd chance it would smell like a humid jungle, noise and all. When Graham felt domestic it would smell like tea, and it would eventually smell like the biscuits the Doctor would find when she pressed her snack pedal thing. When they would return from an adventure, tired and sweaty and dirty, it would smell like adrenalin and tiredness.
The TARDIS had a severe hint of home, like it was there but not quite. Many of the rooms got it right, but nowhere was the smell united. It didn't smell right.
The library is where she smelled it the most. It was old and new and all kinds of marvelous. It didn't take Yaz long to realize that she could be alone here, and revel in the feeling. The TARDIS couldn't communicate with her because she couldn't understand her groans and beeps and wheezing, but she could show her through the books that would be waiting for her when she returned.
She would usually come in at night, slippers and pj's and a cup of tea in hand. And the TARDIS would show her a story, and shower her with all the smells she could find. Her thief didn't find the same enjoyment in what she could do, but her stray had and she liked it.
It had started easily, a book of one species or another, an encyclopedia of the stars. And she eventually graduated her to constellations, and star clusters. To distant planets and legends and stories. It was beautiful to see that these books hadn't been touched much, because when they cracked open the smells of their time flew off. The smell of stardust and history.
Eventually, the TARDIS began to drag out the books the Doctor had tried to erase at some point. The ones that told the stories of the oncoming storm, of the repercussions of the time war, and of the great Time Lords of Gallifrey. The time machine showed Yasmin the books where the Doctor was part of history, where Queen Elizabeth called for his head, when she was a he, for marrying her and then leaving. And of Queen Victoria who banished a lanky Scottish man with a blonde Savage girl after granting them a title, and mysteriously picking up a rare blood disease somewhere.
Finally, the TARDIS showed her the book of faces. It was a simple leather-bound book that smelled like time. A more concrete time. It smelled like polished wood and memories. Like dreams and hope. It smelled a bit of petrichor and happiness. It smelled of melancholy and loneliness.
Thirteen different faces, older distinguished men, and outrageous outfits and accessories. Leather jackets and big ears. Spiky hair and suits with converse tennis shoes and a blonde and an American captain in a trench coat to put her Doctor to shame. A tweed jacket and a bowtie, and what looked like a fez and a stetson, a redhead and a brunette man and a woman with wild curly hair. Hats and flourishing capes, and hoodies with glasses, and a girl with beautiful curly hair and a man so bald you could almost catch a shine reflection off his head. It seemed more fitting that this Doctor, her Doctor, wore suspenders and clunky boots and a white coat that billowed in the wind. And every page smelled different. Like candy and power and anger. The pages smelled like lives taken and loves lost. It smelled like sadness and sorrow. But it also smelled like hope, like the sun after a thunderstorm and a rainbow in the pouring rain.
But nothing quite smelled like home. It smelled like things Yasmin had learnt, and things she would learn. The TARDIS tried to show her, because someone needed to reach her thief. Behind all the smiles and the showmanship, a lonely little girl lived. The Time Lord had wrapped herself up in a cloak of selective forgetfulness, and the time machine wanted her to come home the right way. To live in the moment and live it fully. And Yasmin Khan seemed like the woman for the job. Because every face of her thief had a woman for the job.
The book smelled like something, and the TARDIS did too, and her room and her suitcase and the clothes she wore smelled. But nothing quite had the scent of home.
One night, when she came back to the library after saving yet another planet with the Doctor, when Yasmin expected to be alone for a while, she ran into the Doc herself. Sitting on the leather couch she usually laid in, two cups of steaming liquid on the side table. The leather book she had left on it in her hand.
" 'ello Yaz"
The Doctor smiled at the sight of her human companion. A blue jumper with golden stars, a pair of gray fleece pants, blue fuzzy slippers and a blanket around her shoulders. Yasmin had been brilliant, and she frankly felt they wouldn't have made it out alive had she not been there today. But she never quite had the chance to say so. Because she didn't know how to, because being around the others made her nervous when speaking to the young girl. Because she smelled like Jasmine and Lavender and it overwhelmed her senses. So here they were, in neutral territory, a place the Doctor knew the TARDIS provided Yaz with, so she could decompress.
"hello Doctor" the blonde woman patted the space next to her, inviting her in. Yasmin took off the blanket from her shoulders, and shuffled over like she usually did. One foot dangling down and one bent under her, so she could easily face the Time Lord "I didn't think anyone would be here"
"she keeps us away from you, when you're here" the woman waved around her head to show she was talking about the larger environment, the time machine.
"she does?"
"oh yes. Me and Ryan tried to find you once. Ended up in the console room at least ten times before we gave up"
"well, at least I can tell you she makes wonderful company" Yasmin said, her smile that grew slowly sending warm feelings splurging through the Doctor, her face automatically matching it.
Yasmin Khan couldn't tell you what her home smelled like. She definitely could tell you that she had favorite scents, and that on the off chance she could try hard enough, and they would all mix, for one millisecond, to let her know what her home smelled like. Yasmin Khan didn't know what home smelled like until the Doctor hugged her one night, in the comfort of the library, where home was so close to being fulfilled.
Yasmin Khan learnt that home smelled like something old, and something new. Yes it smelled like concrete things, like the smell of old books and of a new car, of chocolate ice cream on a hot day, and a warm blanket in the winter. Home smelled like the laundry and homemade food and the biting cold wind. Home smelled like metal and gears and motor oil, and like polished wood and leather bound books. Home smelled like childhood memories, and stories she would one day tell her children. But home also smelled like the sun shining through the clouds after a storm, of a rainbow in the pouring rain. Home smelled like smiles and rambling words at a thousand miles an hour. Home smelled like infinite knowledge, and like a billowing cloak and clunky boots. It smelled like a dimpled smile. Home had a smell that could make you feel protected. Like it would step in front of her, to protect her from a bomb exploding on a medic ship, or like a love that wanted to be brought to light.
Home smelled like things you knew, and you could describe. But home also smelled like love and life and happiness.
"you feel like home" the soft whisper sent a shiver coursing down the human girl's spine, and she couldn't help but smile.
Yasmin took a deep breath, her face nuzzled in the crook of the Doctor's neck. Books and motor oil and a dash of lemongrass, and the smell of earth after rain.
Yasmin's smile grew impossibly wide, her arms tightening around the Time Lord from Gallifrey. The one that had lived thousands of years, and countless lives, all to end up here, in a blonde overeager space puppy, wrapping her in a security blanket of calm. The words came as easy as breathing, easy like the smell she had been searching for, "you smell like home".
HELLO AGAIN! I swear I've tried to work on that chapter for F&I, but the more I try to think about where to take the plot, the more ideas I get for Thirteen and Yasmin. I am so sorry, I am Thasmin trash.
This one is slower, more about the reader and less about the crazy Time Lord and her soft human. But I felt like I needed to write something more my speed. Inner dialogue and metaphors for the win! Let me know your opinions, loving the comments!