Bill Potts found Bristol overwhelming at first.
After ten years on the Mondasian colony ship, among the toxic black smoke of the bottom deck and the artificial sky of its solar farms, her old home – none-too-clean twenty-first-century city that it was – seemed almost impossibly bright and alive. As a Cyberman, she'd been unable to feel the wind on her face, to smell flowers or food, or to walk down the street in perfect anonymity. It made her dizzy.
She did draw a few stares, though, and at first she wondered anxiously if people could sense that she was no longer quite human. But then she realized she was still holding Heather's hand, and some distant, long-forgotten part of her brain reminded her that, in this time and place, two women holding hands might not be entirely welcome.
The old Bill would have been nervous and defiant. The new Bill didn't much care.
"I don't remember walking being so slow," Heather said, in the soft, absent-minded voice that was as close as she could get to human speech. "Are you sure you don't want me to … "
"I'm sure," Bill said firmly.
If flying through space in the form of pure consciousness could make you motion-sick, that was exactly how Heather's piloting had made Bill feel. She supposed she would get used to it in time, but having fought tooth and nail to cling to her humanity in defiance of the cyber-programming, she wasn't eager to give it up now.
She wanted to go home.
Even if, as it turned out, home felt nothing like she remembered it.
They took the wrong turn, twice, through the rows of boxy gray council estates that was her old neighborhood. It seemed smaller than she remembered it, and messier. Garbage bags piled up around the skinny trees. The thick smell of cigarettes, marijuana, petrol fumes and deep-frying fat reminded her, nauseatingly, of the streets outside the hospital where she had walked with Razor – no, with the Master.
She glanced uneasily at Heather. Did the other girl have enough humanity left to remember things like social class? She still spoke with the same cultured accent as before. A year (ten years? an eternity?) ago, Bill would have been so embarrassed to bring a girl like Heather to a place like this. Embarrassed and thrilled. Life had been easier then.
But Heather was smiling. She pointed to a spray-painted drawing on the side of a bus shelter, her mismatched eyes lit up in amazement. "Look!"
It was a white swirling scatter of spots against a blue and purple background.
"The Milky Way," said Heather. "I've seen it like that, from a distance. I'll have to show you some day."
Bill laughed and shook her head.
"What?"
"It's like we've changed places," was the closest thing she could think of to say.
"Hmm … I see what you mean."
It had once been Bill who was eager to point out beautiful things, and Heather who was too caught up in wrestling with her own demons to notice them. Bill felt she understood Heather's darkness a little better now, while the smaller girl, for her part, seemed to have recovered her lost sense of wonder among the stars.
"Anyway, I remember this," said Bill, touching the faded paint with one finger. "We're almost there."
/
They climbed up four flights of stairs, making Bill aware of another strange thing about their condition: they no longer got tired or out of breath.
"God, I hope we came on the right day," Bill muttered, seeing the whiskey bottle in the sink and the unfamiliar man's soccer jersey hanging from the coat rack. Those things weren't exactly unusual for Moira, but upsetting her foster-mother was the last thing she wanted.
"I don't think so," said Heather, sitting down at the kitchen table with slow deliberation, as if she'd forgotten how it worked. "It's not like the Doctor's ship, as far as I understand. It's a question of willpower. If you wanted to arrive here on the same day you left, you must have. As for me, I want what you want. It's simple."
I want what you want. A slight tingle ran down Bill's spine at those calm, matter-of-fact words, because she knew what was behind them. Having merged with Heather like two rivers blending into one, she knew exactly how much they meant to each other.
Bill wasn't the only one who had been alone and scared, or biologically altered against her will. When the alien pilot had taken over her body, Heather had fought not to lose herself. Her resulting behavior – chasing Bill, screaming, repeating Bill's words because she had lost the ability to speak – though terrifying, had been nothing but Heather's desperate efforts to hold on to the last happy human memory she had left. Bill's bright clothes and brighter smile, her determination to call an eye defect a "star", and her gratitude to be at Saint Luke's even as a minimum-wage worker, had been what held Heather back from falling completely into darkness.
Bill found it ironic, not to mention a miracle, that now Heather was doing the same for her.
"Okay, um … " The sight of the water kettle reminded her, dimly, what Moira had taught her about how to treat a guest. "D'you want some tea? And there should be food somewhere … I mean, if you eat. Do you, uh … can we still eat?"
"I don't see why not," said Heather. "As long as we … "
"Rearrange our atoms, yeah, yeah." Bill's shoulders slumped with unexpected relief as she stuck her head into a cupboard. "Good to know."
"I could probably have as many of your canteen chips as I wanted now," Heather joked, in her own subdued way. "So there's that advantage."
Bill tossed her a bag of crisps, and Heather caught it with a fluid, inhuman grace.
The crisps tasted different, saltier and more intense, but the rush of energy they used to give her was gone. That made sense, if she no longer needed to eat to survive. She thought of Razor's tea ("Bad or very bad?") and shuddered. She'd never have to put up with unappetizing food again.
"As many chips as you wanted … ? Don't tell me you of all people used to have body image issues," said Bill, deliberately. distracting herself from thoughts of the hospital. "You're … you're like … " She waved her hands, finding it impossible to express Heather's beauty in anything so blunt as spoken words.
"Everything alive is beautiful," said Heather. "I know that now. I wish I'd known it then."
Bill gave her a look which, she hoped, went some way to showing Heather just how extraordinary Bill found her.
Heather smiled and lowered her eyes.
Later Bill would wonder if becoming an alien space puddle had done something to her perceptions, or if she was just in love, because she didn't notice Moira's arrival until the older woman walked right through the kitchen door. A startled yelp made both girls jump to their feet.
"Bill! What are you doing here so early? I thought you had a class!"
So it was the right day, then, but not exactly the right time. Oops.
Moira looked exactly as she always had. Of course she did. What had Bill expected – to find that she had aged ten years to match Bill's time at the Hospital? But somehow her fifty-odd years appeared younger than they had before. There was a petulant set to her mouth, like a little girl who wanted something she couldn't have. But her eyes were still hopeful, as if despite all odds, she still believed she might get what she wanted someday.
So that was why she kept going out with the men who asked her, Bill thought. Hope.
She wanted to hug Moira, and almost did, but remembered just in time that she was supposed to act normal.
Moira was staring. Oh. Right. She had asked why Bill and Heather weren't in class.
Act normal. It had been so long since she'd had to worry about acting normal.
"Oh, uh, there was … a thing … "
"Our teacher's sick," Heather improvised smoothly. "We have the day off."
From a certain point of view, that was even true. Bill thought of the Doctor lying unconscious on the TARDIS floor, and prayed with all her strength that her teardrop would be enough to save him.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," said Moira, sounding more curious than sorry as she poured herself the rest of the tea. "Which one, the man who calls himself the Doctor? What's he got?"
Bill fought to keep a straight face, imagining Moira's reaction if she said Time Lord regeneration sickness. "His, uh, e-mail didn't say."
"Huh. A man his age, he'd better be careful," said Moira, who wouldn't be that much younger than the Doctor if he were human. "And who might you be, young lady?"
"I'm Heather. Bill and I are in the same class."
"Pleased to meet you."
Bill had a tense moment when Moira and Heather shook hands, but Moira didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. Heather's hands were dry, as was the rest of her. Evidently she had learned to control the water effect, and had passed that ability on to Bill. Which was a mercy, or Moira would definitely freak out.
"So, Heather, what are you studying?"
Heather's pause, trying to remember what she had studied when she was human, was barely perceptible. "Photography."
"Ooh, nice. I'm glad to see my Bill making friends," Moira said warmly. "At your age, it's not good for a young girl to be always alone."
"Moira … " Bill protested, feeling an old familiar wave of frustration sweep over her. Moira meant well, but her obvious relief on these occasions was embarrassing. She made her foster-daughter sound like some kind of loner.
The truth was that Bill had plenty of friends. She just didn't bring most of them home. She didn't think the university's LGBTQ alliance or the sci-fi club would get along well with a woman who still believed that mobile phones gave you cancer and everyone she knew was straight.
As for the Doctor and Nardole, well … that would have been a whole new set of problems.
"It's true," Moira went on obliviously. "You girls need to look out for each other. Being alone leaves you vulnerable to all the worst kinds of men."
It was Heather's look of innocent confusion that pushed Bill over the edge. The lift of her golden eyebrows plainly asked how Bill could have lived with her foster-mother for so long without telling her the truth. In this moment, Bill herself couldn't understand it either.
If Moira disowned her – yes, that would definitely hurt. But she had been through worse in her travels. Besides, did she really want to stay in contact with someone who would reject her for being who she was? Who would reject Heather?
"Heather's … not my friend," said Bill, taking a demonstrative hold of the other girl's small white hand. "She's my girlfriend, actually. I'm gay. Just … it's about time you knew."
A tentative mind-link formed across their hands as they touched. Heather was shocked, then embarrassed, then fiercely proud. My girlfriend. It wasn't the first time either of them had said those words, but it felt like the first.
Moira sat down hard in the third chair, her tea slopping over her hands.
Bill squeezed Heather's hand in apprehension. This was the moment she had been avoiding since she hit puberty. Maybe even before that.
Moira squeezed her eyes shut and leaned forward. Her shoulders shook. She covered her mouth with one hand.
She was laughing.
"Um … you okay?" said Bill anxiously. The last thing she needed was for her foster-mother to have some kind of breakdown.
"I'm fine," said Moira, wiping her eyes. "I'm just … so relieved. Thank God."
"You're … what?"
"This means you'll be safe from men for the rest of your life!"
It was Bill's turn to let out a slightly hysterical laugh. She couldn't even begin to list the many things that were wrong with Moira's statement. The Gender Studies professors at Saint Luke's would have a field day deconstructing it.
But the older woman's eyes, so often bloodshot from overwork or heartbreak, were shining. Underneath all her misguided beliefs, she was genuinely happy for the girl she had raised.
That was all Bill had ever wanted to know.
She jumped up from her chair and gave Moira the hug she'd held back earlier, a good tight squeeze that almost knocked them both off-balance. Moira squeaked and patted Bill's hair, before letting her go with a final kiss on the forehead.
"Of course, I'd have liked grandchildren," she said wistfully, "But I hear there are ways around that now with science."
"Moira!" Bill hid her face with her hands.
"What? It's never too early to think about these things. I'm not getting any younger, and neither are you."
Bill peeked out from behind her hands at Heather, who looked like she was holding back a smile. The question of whether a pair of shapeshifters could have a baby – not to mention what else they could do with their shapeshifting – was certainly worth exploring.
Still, even if they were out of the closet, there were some things it was better for Moira not to know.