Thirteen's Scarf
Author's Note: I got the idea from this from the Verity! Podcast. Go listen to their Doctor Who podcast; they're a clever and really insightfully hilarious group of women who talk about Doctor Who, who know more about it all than I ever will. I suppose the actual prompt is 'Yaz and the Doctor go to the Alpaca farm near the cabin and get her New Year's scarf. This is my spin on that idea. You can find them here:
PART 1: Where You Need To Go
Erik was a shite father and Hanne deserved better. Deserves better. When we met him, Graham may have wanted to smash the bastard across the room like a cricket ball, but I wanted more. I was a copper, and he reminded me of the garbage I was called in to collect from domestic battery situations.
If we were in Sheffield, I'd arrest him. I'd be as legally rough with him as I could be during the arrest, and I'd leave him in a cell for the weekend alone. It wouldn't be enough, but it would be something. The Doctor was too kind sometimes.
It wasn't enough he abandoned his own daughter, but he psychologically tortured her. Who the fuck does that to a fourteen year old blind girl? It was a well-thought out and extremely cruel gimmick he played on her. He had to have gone to the mirror world at least once before setting up the speakers surrounding the cabin. Ugh! I mean, if I didn't have an insider view of how horrifying the foster system could frequently be, especially for disabled teenage girls, I would've called Child Welfare. At least her dad wouldn't hurt her hurt her. He was just a common variety deadbeat.
I think the Doctor and the others may have caught on to my line of thinking. They were all staring at me. I had been aggressively circling the console, again. Going 'round an 'round like a tossing robot. It was like I was on autopilot.
I did this before when my Nan's first husband was murdered by his brother, and after returning the necklace to a beautiful little girl after informing her that her beloved father died on the job at Kerblam! and was never coming home.
"Yaz, you're doin' it again," Ryan said. He and Graham were sitting on a couple chairs we moved in from one of the TARDIS' tertiary rooms after the first couple adventures. They were eating the sandwiches that Graham had made in preparation for his blood-sugar shortages.
"I'm sorry guys, I just…I'm still angry with Erik. Obviously." I confessed to them.
"Me too," The Doctor says from where she was leaning against the wall. I think now that the immediate universe-collapsing danger was dealt with, even she was reviewing our last adventure in her head. It had only been a couple hours ago; or however long it took Graham and Ryan to watch a couple episodes of Call the Midwife. "But we can't fix everything Yaz. Even though it burns us inside not to," she said with a dark look in her eye. I got the feeling there were enough stories to fill a library she could tell me right now. Stories that all ended with evil somehow getting by without even a slap on the wrist. But her haunted look receded when she made eye contact with me.
To my increasing embarrassment, my face heats up every time her beautiful eyes find mine. Thanks be, that my skin is just dark enough to cover up that flush of pink most of the time. But not during the business with the spiders that one time when my mum thought the Doctor and I were going out on the regular. Nope. I was not subtle then. Not even close. Miracle I managed the rest of that day to be perfectly honest.
My thoughts returned to the situation at hand, "I just…do you think we could check in on her? I don't know, see if she's alright? Her father's a right mess, and I couldn't help getting attached, especially if we could lend a hand." I ask of the Doctor. Plead with her really. Not getting attached to people is also crucial to being a good copper. It just happens to be the one aspect of my job that I'm honestly rubbish at occasionally. Proudly rubbish at.
I turn to Ryan and Graham, but they look at me pityingly. It was the same bloody look when I wanted to go back for that little girl and give her dead dad's necklace charm back. Before I turned back to the Doctor, she said, "I suppose, it wouldn't be too out of the ordinary to check in on a friend." She sounded like she was reasoning it out in her head. She sounded like she was very much emotionally on my side, but was struggling to justify it against her more 'adult' and 'responsible time traveller' instincts.
She had barely finished before I crossed the TARDIS console room, all but tackling her with a hug. I didn't care the boys were watching, I was just so relieved that I'd get to sate the snake coiling in my gut about leaving Hanne all alone after that ordeal.
The Doctor 'oofed', but caught me in the hug fairly easily considering. Her relatively short stature, tall for me, belied her damn near superhuman strength. After a couple nice moments, followed by the inevitable panic of 'oh no I'm hugging her way too long for any platonic excuse', I separated from her. "Sorry about that. But thank you so much Doctor!"
She just chuckled and reached up to fiddle with the piercings I gave her on her left ear. There wasn't anything on it now, but might have been a nervous tick? "Anything for you, Yaz," she said quietly, beaming that blinding soul-meltingly earnest smile of hers. I was blushing for real now. I was very lucky the boys were on the opposite side of console.
As we both moved to the console, Graham rose to his feet and asked, "Are we really doing this? Going back?" He didn't sound angry, but more wary. Seeing Grace, or whatever interpretation of Grace that universe made him interact with must've been really tampering with his emotions, even now. Poor man. Damn, I didn't even slow down to think of what this would do to Graham. Stupid, Khan, I berated myself.
The Doctor pulled the lever and we were in-flight, "No," The Doctor said as she munched down a custard cream dispensed from the biscuit thingy on the console. She totally got crumbs all down her chin and a little on her jacket as she forgot to 'adult' for a moment there. With the dull ring of the TARDIS bell, we landed. "Well, for starters, Hanna is in Oslo right now. And for seconders,"
"Not an actually word, that one Doc," Ryan playfully interjects, receiving a cheekily pelted biscuit in the face. He looks at me with a 'et tu Brutus' look, but I just stick my tongue out at him. I really am liking the sibling relationship developing between us. I'm almost ashamed to admit he's like the little sibling I wish I had. My sister was great, but she was just so damned shallow.
The Doctor ploughed right through Ryan's grammar lesson and subsequent biscuit-in-the-face. "We are in Oslo, December 24th 2019. Oh, so we're almost a year and a bit out from where we took off from. Which might actually make more sense to Hanne."
"How so?" Graham asked.
"Would it be better if we went back to an earlier point on her timeline?" I ask, "Like, maybe a few days after we left her?"
The Doctor shrugs, "I was aiming for that, yes, but my TARDIS here had another idea. And as much as I go on about this being my ship, she's literally got a mind and soul of her own."
We all perked up at that information. I mean, I think we assumed something like that was the case, but the Doctor never went out of her way to confirm it. "Has she really?" Graham asked wistfully
The Doctor gently stoked one of the many complicated sections of the console, running her dainty fingers over a dozen or so buttons and minor levers before coming back to herself. Wow. That was…intimate? I felt almost unclean watching her do that, I felt like a voyeur.
"There was a brief moment, so very long ago, where I had the opportunity to talk to her, the TARDIS," she specified before going on, "I moaned to her, yelled at her really, that she never took me where I wanted to go. And she instantly put me in my place, telling me, 'No, but I always take you where you need to go.' So, in a roundabout way to getting back to where and when we are now, when I asked her to locate Hanne, she sent us here. Christmas Eve, in Oslo, Norway."
We all sat with that information for a few minutes as we each went into the wardrobe and changing rooms the TARDIS so cleverly provided for us.
I seriously erred, not having a heavier coat or gloves earlier. My fingers nearly froze before going through the mirror. Having donned a tasteful burgundy coloured long-coat most-definitely out of my normal price range, or even optimistic future me's price range. It honestly made me wonder how the hell this whole system worked.
Did the TARDIS generate the clothes, or was the Doctor just a hoarder made a cut above the rest? Had she had loads of sophisticated and posh women hanging about–no, don't go there Yasmin, I quickly clamped down on that train of thought.
Long johns under black jeans, my usual leather jacket zipped up, and black water-proof and insulated boots was a much smarter game plan than I had earlier. I admired for a moment, that my coat's tails covered down to my mid-thighs; much better for fighting wind-chill, my logic brain told me. But honestly, I thought I looked good. Hopefully I wouldn't be the only who thought so? I looked for a scarf though, and couldn't find one. Whatever, it was probably fine; strange though that there wasn't a single one, but whatever.
I returned to the console room to find the others similarly decked out in proper winter gear. Graham and Ryan wore matching black jackets, but with different coloured hats and collared shirts. I saw I wasn't the only one dressing to impress. Or at least that was until Graham addressed me, "I see that gleam in your eye, Yaz. It weren't our idea to have nearly matching outfits, they were the only ones there! The TARDIS is having a laugh. Or the Doctor, I'm not sure which."
I laughed at them both, in good faith, honestly. That was when the Doctor showed up wearing…basically the same thing she was before. Wait, she was wearing longer boots and pants that actually reached her boots, not exposing her amazing calves to the cold like they were before.
"Did any of you see any scarves? I think the TARDIS misplaced them all," she said with a hint of accusation as she flicked the console. The corresponding chirp the TARDIS made confirmed my theory: the TARDIS was one cheeky bitch, and I kinda loved her for it.
"All ready then? Let's go find check in on Hanne," I said as I opened the TARDIS' doors and we stepped out into downtown Oslo.