When the Doctor took to repairing the Tardis, she didn't just work on repairing the engine.
Yes, that was what she liked to do most, but she also took to wandering the halls, making little changes. She would often move rooms around, create and design rooms, and make little changes here and there to the décor.
The Doctor did this when her companions were asleep. She didn't want to move when they were awake, as the rocking would surely wake them.
It had been about six hours since she had last seen her companions, and was trying to locate the Tardis greenhouse. She didn't remember when she had moved it, but she had rounded the past corner twice now, and it was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, as she was making what was her eighth left turn, she heard a sound echoing through the halls. She jumped.
It sounded like singing.
She pondered this for a moment. It could have been one of her companions playing music, but they should have all been asleep by now. The Tardis surely wouldn't be playing any.
The Doctor pressed forward, curious about source of the sound.
Finally she arrived at Yaz's room.
Now this was odd. This hadn't ever happened before, at least not that she could remember. The door was slightly open.
She knocked. No answer. She knocked again, softer this time, pushing the door open slightly with her knuckles.
Yaz's things were strewn around the room. There was a pile of clothes on her chair, a tower of books on her nightstand, including a couple from her future. The Doctor made a mental note to confiscate those later on. The door to Yaz's bathroom was slightly cracked open, steam seeping through the opening.
Oh!
Yaz was singing.
The Doctor didn't really recognize it. It seemed like a pop song, something recent from her time. For a moment she just stood there, taking in the sound of Yaz's voice. She felt stuck in the best way, compelled to just stand there and take in the noise. She let her eyes close of their own accord, feeling at peace.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the water stop. She bolted out of the room as fast as she could.
She had been listening to Yaz shower. No matter how she sliced it, that was one of the weirdest things she had done so far in this regeneration. She pressed herself into the wall of the Tardis steadying her rapidly beating hearts, and then began to make her way to the kitchen. She needed tea.
The second time it happened it was in the kitchen. They had just taken a trip to the 1920's. Yaz had insisted on seeing a real jazz club, so the Doctor flashed her psychic paper and they became VIP's. Graham had resigned himself to chatting with another shady looking man at the bar. In the meantime, Yaz and Ryan went to town on the dance floor, much to the Doctor's jealousy. Not that she would ever admit to being jealous.
Eventually they stopped just in time to save the Doctor from dying her hair black.
Once they had gotten back to the Tardis, Yaz was holding her shoes and they were all out of breath from having been chased by a mafia member. Turns out Graham's friend was working for the mob.
Once again, it was 'late' at night on the Tardis. Yaz, Ryan and Graham had gone to bed hours ago, but just as the Doctor began walking back from the zero gravity room after a couple repairs, she heard the singing again.
"Blue birds, singing a song… Nothing but blue skies from now on."
Gingerly, the Doctor peeked her head into the kitchen. Yaz seemed to be making cocoa, swaying back and forth, singing to herself. She was wearing a large purple sweater that almost covered her sleep shorts. Her hair was slightly damp, falling down at her sides in swirls. The Doctor watched as she moved back and forth. She tried to take in every detail, to hold that moment in her head. She was feeding off the calm bliss.
Suddenly Yaz turned to sit at the table, eyes skimming right over the Doctor.
The Doctor whipped her head back, slamming against the door frame. She bit her lip to keep from wincing, slapping her hand to cover where a bruise would soon be forming. Blood rushed to her cheeks. There was a slight pause in the singing, much to the Doctor's chagrin, but soon, it started up again. She heard the tinkle of a spoon against a cup.
"Noticing the days hurrying by… When you're in love, my how they fly…"
Every rational thought the Doctor had was telling her to leave. She had work to do and this was wrong. It was creepy. And yet her feet stayed planted to the spot, leaning against the door frame, eyes closed. She stayed that way for a moment more before finally willing her feet to leave.
The Doctor slept sometimes, between repairs and adventures. She had a bedroom, although it was rarely used. Mostly she slept in either the library or a hanging sling she kept under the Tardis console.
The Doctor knew objectively that she needed sleep. She couldn't- No, she wouldn't sleep. She refused. She knew all sleep would bring would be bad dreams. Working on the Tardis console, all she could see was the face of Prem in her mind's eye. She could hear the gunshot in hear ears like it had happened not a second ago.
Even as her eyes began to droop, she tried her best to keep them open, even going so far as to spark pieces of the Tardis up on purpose just to keep her attention. She tried to ignore the Tardis's enraged chirps as much as she could.
She leaned back in her sling, studying the mess in front of her. Suddenly it became too big, too much. The wires weaving back and forth in front of one another made her anxious, almost angry. She turned away from the task at hand for a moment, letting her eyes fall shut, trying desperately to get the image of her dead friend out of her head and just barely succeeding.
She took another look at the wires. She could always just cut through them all and solder them together again. The Tardis gave an alarmed beep. The Doctor just sighed and leaned forward, before she heard a quiet echo.
More singing, except this time it wasn't coming from anywhere, in particular. The music was being projected inside her head. It was a sad song, but that was all she could tell. It could have been modern or old, but its melody soothed her. She heard her sonic hit the floor with a loud clang and jolted forward. She reached down to grab it, eyebrows furrowed, mentally scolding at the Tardis over the sound of the song.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't just steal Yaz's voice and shove it into the Doctor's head. Singing was a private thing. On some countries it was indecent to be caught singing in public.
The Tardis was quick to point out how she sang for the Doctor on more than one occasion. Often after particularly difficult days the Tardis would construct a melody out of different wavelengths of the rift energy she ran on, projecting the different frequencies into the Doctor's head.
To an outside observer, the Doctor would look absolutely mad, blushing and making faces at nothing, but in her head, she was arguing vehemently that this was different and that Yaz was her friend.
The Doctor heard the Tardis make a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh before going silent.
Half out of annoyance, the Doctor once again raised her screwdriver, only to be swatted back by a shower of sparks and a resurgence of the singing at full force.
"Okay! Fine!" She yelped out loud to the machine, leaning back into her sling and the sound of Yaz's voice.
The next time she closed there was no echoing gunshot, just the sound of Yaz's singing. She pictured Yaz on that hillside, singing into the night air with that dandelion in her hair. She wanted to reach out braid it, just for the sake of touching it. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost imagine the feeling of her hands in Yaz's hair. She sunk further into her sling, wanting to make the feeling last. Soon enough she was asleep.
At first, she tried to feign annoyance. She would be in the middle of making a snack, or repairs, and she would start to hear singing. Soon after the singing started she would find herself asleep.
She was in the bath this time. It had been a while since she had ran a bath, mostly opting for quick showers. She decided to break out one of her special glow in the dark bath bombs she made special. It left dust on her fingers and she shivered, remembering how she had glowed in the dark for a week after her first attempt at making one of the little things.
She sank gratefully into the water. It had been a long day of running and her bones sighed when she sat down. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
Suddenly she jolted forward. She had promised to herself that she was going to rewire the lighting in the game room.
Sitting in the warm water, her whole body complained with the effort of getting up. True, rewiring lighting was not her favorite part of Tardis repairs, but it had to get done. She was sure she had seen lights flickering in there.
Just before she could rise out of the tub, the singing started up again. She tensed, frozen in the water. She pondered telling the Tardis to stop, but she knew the box wouldn't listen. After a couple of beats, she resigned herself to her fate.
The Doctor breathed in time to the words. She recognized them. Yaz sang this song particularly often it seemed.
The song flowed through here like honey, better than any sleep medicine or relaxant she had ever tried.
Exactly one hour and sixteen minutes later, the Doctor woke up, and the bathwater was cold.
A week later, for the first time ever, the Doctor actually asked. The Tardis, it seemed, had resigned itself to projecting the singing into the Doctor's head when she wanted her to relax, or to get her to stop a task. The Doctor had finally caught on to this the night in the bath. This time was different.
They were on a planet devoted to skating. Ice skating, roller skating, even skateboarding. Ryan had been less than thrilled about this, not just due to his illness, but because Graham seemed to be reliving his skating days. He had begun to use slang as well, which the Doctor had quickly adopted. Ryan and Yaz hadn't stopped cringing.
It hadn't stayed light hearted. They were in the nosebleeds box of a hockey rink, one of the many on the planet. They were enjoying their dinner when it had locked down. They were given a choice.
One button killed everyone in the stadium, and the other killed them.
And they had thirty minutes.
The first fifteen were spent negotiating with their captor, the owner of the stadium. Some crazy young kid who wanted to see the effects of mental stress on different species. He was especially interested when he found out the Doctor was a Time Lord.
The next five minutes after that were spent figuring out what exactly the murder tactic was going to be.
As soon as the Doctor had realized it was gas, she began slowly draining the reserves. Such a small amount wouldn't kill the stadium full, it would just put them to sleep. However, that same amount in their box could easily take them out.
She had to press the button to kill the stadium.
And she couldn't tell Ryan, Graham or Yaz that she didn't commit mass murder.
Graham looked shocked. Eyes wide, staring over the stadium of once lively people. He barely breathed. He was frozen.
Ryan was more vocal. He took to screaming frantically at the Doctor.
"What the hell did you do that for!?"
He grabbed at the Doctors shoulders, tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He shook her, almost trying to will the Doctors conscientious back into her by force.
"Stop. Ryan, leave her alone."
Yaz's hand landed on Ryan's shoulder. She was trying to keep a strong image, but her wobbling voice gave it away.
The Doctor locked eyes with her.
The Doctor saw many familiar things in her gaze. Anguish, mourning, shock. The thing that hit her the hardest, that made her feel the worst was fear. Unconcealed fear.
Yaz was terrified. Yaz was terrified of her.
When the door opened they all scrambled out of the box as fast as they could. Soon after the situation was explained and the owner was dealt with, but their faces, their reactions.
The fear.
The Doctor couldn't shake it. She couldn't move. She laid back on the library floor in front of the fire place, book half read on her stomach, unable to do anything. All she could do was let he guilt wash over her.
She sat up, throwing the book to the ground with a roar, fresh tears threatening to fall from her eyes. The self-pity wasn't helping her.
She closed her eyes for a moment. She focused on the hum of the ship, and it helped slow her breathing. A few beats later, she made a silent request.
If Yaz was singing somewhere, would the Tardis mind…?
Yaz wasn't singing per se. Her words came out mumbled and squished together, hums and gibberish.
It was exactly what the Doctor needed. She couldn't even muster the energy to feel ashamed. She closed her eyes and imagined Yaz next to her, singing into her ear, just holding her.
She fell asleep two minutes later.
Soon after this, the tradition of listening to Yaz via the Tardis became a sort of ritual. Whenever she wanted to relax, she would close her eyes, and the Tardis would project Yaz's songs into her head whenever possible.
At some point she realized the Tardis was recording Yaz's voice to play for her later. She quickly found where the Tardis was keeping those files and put them onto an old mp3 player. Now, instead of having to ask Tardis every time she needed to relax, the Doctor slipped on headphones.
She had even begun to keep the mp3 player in her pocket on adventures. If she needed to work on something, she would slip her earphones in and tuck in. This proved slightly detrimental on long projects, as after a while the Doctor would begin to fall asleep.
Then, the Tardis and the Doctor got into a row.
The Tardis had nearly crashed into Mars. Her companions had just gone to sleep and she was trying to fly as quietly as possible. She was succeeding before she felt a slight rumbling, which slowly turned into intense turbulence. After a couple of hours of fixing the monument she had crash landed into and placating her rudely awoken pajama clad friends, she got back onto the Tardis, yelling angrily.
"You could have killed us!" The Doctor yelled up at the ceiling.
Ryan and Graham exchanged a look, and walked right by the Doctor, quickly washing their hands of the situation and heading back to bed.
Yaz hesitated for a moment, watching the Doctor argue with her ship before deciding it was best to take the side of the ship. She walked away, patting the wall of the Tardis slightly as if to say 'I don't blame you.'
The Tardis made a series of angry noises. It seemed she didn't believe this was her fault.
How could this possibly be my fault?! The Doctor shouted at the Tardis in her head, frowning.
She was shown a mental image of the mp3 player. The Doctor blushed.
I don't see what that has to do with you nearly crashing into Mars.
She was shown another image. It was her, flying the Tardis, earphones in her ears and- Oh, was she really holding down the red button instead of the green that whole time?
Sorry. The Doctor conceded. But you really could have helped a bit more.
The Tardis had no response. The Doctor absentmindedly looked for the offending music player. She was sure she had put it just there, by the spinning hourglass.
She patted down her person, nothing. She began to search the whole console. As soon as she reached looking beneath the custard cream peddle, there it was.
The Doctor gave the Tardis a dirty look. You did that on purpose, didn't you?
The Tardis was eerily silent.
When she turned the device on, she was met with a sinister screen.
Device Re-Formatted.
"Oh, no, no, no!"
The Doctor smacked the device with her hand in a futile attempt to get the files back.
"You did this!" The Doctor yelped, pointing an accusing finger at the Tardis ceiling.
No response.
"Fine. That's fine! I don't need it anyway. I have work to do." The Doctor huffed, storming off.
They had stayed like that for about three days. The Doctor wasn't communicating with the Tardis at all, the ship just wouldn't talk. The Doctor couldn't sleep either. It seems she'd become slightly dependent on the sound of Yaz's voice. Whenever she tried to sleep, she just tossed and turned.
Even when she wasn't trying to sleep, whenever she tried to pilot the ship, it would rumble and shake the whole team completely off course.
The team finally thought they were safe when the Tardis had dropped them off at an innocent looking forest. They only later found out that the forest was filled with angry monkey creatures.
The Doctor slammed the door shut behind her, feeling the bodies of the apes pressing up against the door. She quickly latched it shut, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Alright, what the hell is going on?" Graham seemed to be the first to catch on.
"I dunno what you mean." The Doctor smiled, trying to feign ignorance.
"We just got attacked by monkeys! Proper rabid ones! And before, with the ice planet-"Ryan was cut off.
"I told you, the resort we were supposed to land at was just on the other side of the hemisphere."
"Ok, but what about the garbage planet." Ryan countered.
"He's got a point Doctor. It seems like, well, are you and the Tardis alright?" Yaz asked.
"Of course we're alright, aren't we old girl!" The Doctor slapped her hand against the console, sending sparks and a puff of smoke flying.
"I knew it, you two are having a row." Graham was smug, satisfied in his conclusion.
"We are not having a row! She's just being temperamental." The Doctor grumbled the last bit half to the Tardis, which let out another shower of sparks. "Very temperamental."
"You need to have a talk, just the two of you. We're not leaving until you do. 'Sides, I need to sit down after all that runnin'." Graham said resolutely.
"Ryan, Yaz." Graham led them out of the console room and deeper into the Tardis, leaving the Doctor alone with her ship.
Both the Doctor and the ship stayed quiet for a while. The Doctor sighed, leaning against the console, trying to give her the silent treatment. The Doctor broke first, unsurprisingly.
"I'm sorry. I should have been more careful."
A slight mental scolding came from the Tardis.
"I know okay! I'm sorry I messed up flying you!"
Another annoyed beeps.
"And I'm sorry I keep screwing up the dishwasher, but it does make weird noises now and then."
The Tardis went silent, and there was a pregnant pause.
"So, d'you forgive me?" The Doctor asked sheepishly.
The Tardis made a noise like a laugh, and the console room lit up. The Doctor jumped to her feet and laughed in excitement.
She spotted the mp3 player leaning up against one of the levers. She eagerly grabbed for it, turning it on.
Her face fell when she saw that it was still empty.
She frowned, leaning her head against the console, squeaking, "You couldn't have just filled it back up for me?"
There was no response from the Tardis this time, so the Doctor sighed, and sank down to begin some small repairs.
About five minutes later, a familiar voice filled her head. It cut through the Doctor like butter, making her get to her feet.
Thank you!
The Doctor smiled contentedly at the ceiling, which chirped in response.
She felt a tug at her mind, telling her feet to move forward. She was so entranced that she just let herself follow it like a sirens call.
Finally, she arrived back at Yaz's door. She leaned against the wall just outside, happy to hear the voice again after so long a hiatus.
Slowly, she began to sink down the wall to sit against it. She hadn't slept in three days, but between the mental strain of fighting with the Tardis and trying to repair things that didn't want to be repaired, she was bloody exhausted.
She supposed it couldn't hurt to close her eyes, just for a moment.