Najia is the one to paint the Doctor's hands – she's the only one who can keep her still for long enough to do so. Yasmin sits with River, bundled in her lap and almost hunched over her arm as she paints her wife-to-be for Mehendi.
In the background, Yasmin can hear Rani talking about an alien she and her friends faced, but she's concentrating on the henna tattoos, on the brush in her hand and how River's dry arm curls around her waist. So white, she thinks belatedly, pausing to stare at the red-brown circles and lines on River's pale skin.
In hindsight, Yasmin knew that getting married to an alien would be different, culturally. But seeing it is different – painting an ancient, alien language that River can barely understand, that the Doctor wrote for them as her own set of Gallifreyan vows is different. Yasmin once dreamed of it all – of dressing up in Indian dress and walking down an aisle. That Yasmin could never have imagined what is happening today.
"Darling, is something wrong?" River murmurs and of course, the Doctor hears, head swivelling in their direction.
"Yas?" she questions, only Najia's grip on her wrist keeping her in her place.
Yasmin smiles briefly at her, shaking her head as she murmurs to River, "It's nothing. Just thinking."
"Of what?" River asks her, just as quiet as before.
Rani, who had paused at the Doctor's distraction, starts speaking again, a new story on her lips. Yasmin is happy her cousin is here, for all that they barely know each other. So many of her friends in Sheffield can't come to her wedding to two alien women, but Rani? Rani has lived this life longer than Yasmin has – is a friend of the Doctor's, too, not just Yasmin's distant relative whose family didn't come to her Nani's wedding in 1947 – and she can grasp the concepts that still baffle Yasmin at times.
"Family. Us," Yasmin whispers, quiet so she doesn't interrupt Rani's dramatic retelling of how Sky came to be adopted by the late Sarah-Jane Smith – another of the Doctor's old friends. "I never expected…this. Not that I don't love it, love you both, but it's just kind of sinking in now, of all times."
River smiles, cheeky and happy. Her neck bends and Yasmin has to hold the paint brush away from them and cradle the pot of paint as their lips meets. It's chaste, but drawn out and Yasmin mentally scolds her fiancée when their lips part for distracting her. River pouts slightly at her expression, though Yasmin gets back to work, painting over the faint trace the TARDIS had printed onto her skin. She only has a few more hours before the trace disappears, so she works quickly.
"Brilliant!" the Doctor exclaims later, when Najia is finished and she's put her arms under a machine to speed up the darkening process.
Yasmin can't afford to look until her mother takes her paintbrush, deft hands continuing Yasmin's slow efforts to paint her fiancée – Yasmin hopes she'll do better in the future, with practice. It'd be embarrassing if she could only paint one person in her childrens' bridal parties in the time it took their grandmother to paint four. Even Sonya managed to paint two people, albeit one being Yasmin herself, meaning Yasmin has less time to compare.
River kisses her again when Yasmin manoeuvres out of her lap, the Doctor dragging her up to her feet. Her eyes are excited, light dancing in them as she bounces between two feet. "Look! We match!" she exclaims, their hands clasped together as Yasmin studies the matching henna tattoos on the backs of their arms, that spiral up their wrists and three fingers to complete complex Circular High Gallifreyan.
"Can I show Brax? Please," the Doctor whines, Najia immediately scolding her.
"Your brother can wait like everyone else. This bridal party shall be the only ones to see you before the spectacle."
"Here, here," Amy, River's mother, crows from her seat by Rani. Her grin is wicked behind her primly curled, strawberry blonde locks. From pictures, Yasmin knows it used to be a bright, vibrant, carrot-orange ginger, but time saw silver hairs changing that.
Yasmin snickers at how the Doctor scrunches up her nose. "Wedding," she says though, to correct her mother, drawing the Doctor's attention again, "Not a spectacle. A wedding. Our families get to see us as we are, married."
The Doctor and River are already married, Yasmin knows, but they never married publicly. Their wedding was in an aborted timeline and only witnessed by River's parents, Amy and Rory, in the middle of a crisis. It wasn't a party – it was in front of those who mattered.
This will be a party, Yasmin thinks, knowing that waiting in the Doctor's TARDIS there are sixteen Gallifreyan people – Time Lords among them – whom the Doctor is related to by blood. She knows that there are another three Gallifreyans that belonged to a group called Deca, two of said three in the Gallifreyan version of handcuffs and that four others are people who the Doctor holds dearly.
There are also humans and others – friends of the Doctor that she reconnected with for the express purpose of inviting to her wedding, as well as River's own friends from throughout the universe and of course, Yasmin's family who aren't already in the room with her – but the Gallifreyan ones are important, here, at least in Yasmin's mind. Death, destruction and war decimated Gallifrey. She might never have this again, Yasmin thinks, looking at the Doctor and squeezing her hands tight.
"I love you so much, you know that, right?"
The Doctor grins and their hands disconnect, but only so the Doctor can tilt her chin with two hands and kiss her. Sonya snickers, taking pictures on her phone, calling them saps and then Najia is proclaiming River done, so she can get her arms under the Doctor's fancy machine.
"You must be very nervous," Nani Umbreen says to Yasmin when they begin dressing properly, chuckling as Yasmin unthinkingly sends her a look that screams no, really? River is off to her room in the TARDIS with her mother and Sonya, the Doctor and Najia arguing again over why she should wear something that isn't her favourite coat while Yasmin's Nani and Rani help organise her own bridal gear.
"I'm getting married, Nani. I'm getting married."
"You should have seen me and Clyde," Rani shakes her head, "We were stressing out, the both of us; and we had a stereotypical human wedding, though probably more atheist than my parents wanted."
The distraction helps. Yasmin starts wondering what River and the Doctor will wear. She's seen River in all sorts of things, so she can't really imagine what she'll choose – but the Doctor, well…Yasmin wouldn't be the least surprised if they all got married while the Doctor was wearing her pretty blue coat, mended by Rosa Parks herself.
Yasmin feels like she's on a cloud and then- then she's in the TARDIS, dressed head to toe in green and gold, wishing she didn't look so young as a woman she thinks is called Romana drives the TARDIS to their destination, along with five other Time Lord pilots, including that Missy woman who is eying a petite brunette across the console room.
"Those are beautiful garments," one of the female Gallifreyan's around the console compliments, smiling at Yasmin, blonde hair braided around her head like a crown. Her hand sticks out and when Yasmin shakes it, she finds her limb being twisted around so the woman can read her tattoos. Her lips part in a soft exhale and she smiles, even as Yasmin wonders which of the Doctor's relatives this is. "Mother really loves you, doesn't she?"
At her side, Rani startles. "Pardon me, but who are you?"
But Yasmin is remembering quite suddenly now that this isn't just any member of the Doctor's family – recognising that the traditional red robes she's wearing over her black trousers and combat boots, what is wrong with you Yasmin Khan?
"This is Jenny," Yasmin introduces, knowing her Nani and her mother have already met her, when she visited briefly for the mangni – theexchange of rings between Yasmin, River and the Doctor, telling their immediate family their intention to wed. "She's the Doctor's daughter from a couple hundred years ago."
Jenny chuckles, letting go of her hand to glomp her, hugging her in the same fashion she did last time they met. "I saw them both earlier," she whispers directly into her ear, tickling a bit, "You're going to be starstruck, but trust me, Mother at least is going to be triply-so over both of you. She's nervous, jittery – out of her coat."
"What?" Yasmin questions her, eyes widening, but Jenny is already pulling away and joining the crowd of Gallifreyans who are escaping the TARDIS. Eventually, it's only Yasmin left with her father, Hakim Khan; River's father, Rory Williams and Irving Braxiatel, the Doctor's brother. Everyone else leaves to find their places outside.
Yasmin waits in the console room, knowing the plan. I'll stay here and walk out with River and the Doctor, together, with our fathers and Brax. She's shaking, though and her father takes her hands, rubbing her knuckles.
"Scared, my little one?" Hakim asks.
"A little, more nervous than scared," Yasmin replies, smiling widely, resisting the urge to bite her lip and smudge her teeth with colour. She sees her father glance behind her knowingly, sees Brax straighten and Rory raise his eyebrow.
"Never thought I'd see you in a dress," Rory quips and Yasmin turns, stunned at the sight of the Doctor – the Doctor who has her boots on still and her earrings, too, with her hair tucked behind one ear. There's a flower, there, alien and silver and of course, she has her coat on. Yasmin didn't expect anything different. But underneath, the Doctor really, truly is in a dress.
It's orange – orange like the sky of Gallifrey, burnished almost with a silver trim – and only reaching just past her knees. She looks hesitant, worried, even though it has the same neckline as she normally wears and the same waist as her trousers. The coat almost drowns it and it looks natural, especially with her sleeves rolled up all neat and nicely to show off her tattooed arms.
"I had similar thoughts," Brax then says, stepping forth and taking her suddenly grasping hand. The Doctor hunches her shoulders, but one sibling-like prod to her waist has her scowling at him, standing tall.
"Oi!"
"Stand straight for your brides, Theta," he says, amused. The Doctor huffs and Yasmin doesn't know why she's so nervous – this is the Doctor and River and she loves them both, so much. The wedding is special, but it isn't life-changing.
"You look amazing," Yasmin says and the Doctor looks to her, eyes wide.
"So do you," she breathes, in awe and then River is clearing her throat.
"Not to break up the party…" River teases, calm and unworried. She glides forwards, wearing a white wedding dress with a long, floor-length skirt that floats in the barest breeze and a loose torso that doesn't look to be held up by anything at all, a wide skein of silver silk drawn around her arms and open back. She looks beautiful, high heels glittering with diamonds, matched only by the ones like a choker around her neck. Her hair, usually a riot of curls, is tamed somewhat with larger, more artificial curls, pinned to one side and falling across her shoulder.
As usual, her lips are bright, vivacious red.
Yasmin knows she herself is dressed to the nines. Her sari and choli are both a dark forest green, with gold edging made from zari embroidery, her skirt floor-length to hide her legs and feet, but less detailed. There's heavy jewellery hanging from her ears and around her neck, two dozen gold bangles around her right bicep to hide what skin her sari does not. Ideally, she should have as little skin showing as possible. Her nose itches from the thin golden ring piercing that will soon be replaced with a stud.
River's eyes drift over her and there's a warmth that makes Yasmin blush as she approaches, though her attention snaps to Rory when he dabs his eyes.
"Father-dear, I've worn prettier things," she says, arm curling through his. Rory shakes his head, blinking his tears away.
"You seem to forget, I wasn't myself the first time you married the Doctor. I'm me right now and you're my bloody daughter," Rory scowls at himself, wiping at his watery eyes, "I promised myself I wouldn't cry. Of course I cry, though. Did when you were a baby, too."
River's expression softens and Yasmin's seen it before, that expression of vulnerability – mostly with the Doctor, an honourable twice with Yasmin alone – and it's strange to see it expressed towards another human being. River hugs Rory tightly, burrowing her face in his shoulder, hiding it away from them.
Yasmin looks to her own father, to Hakim who is watching her, similarly emotive – but he kisses her cheek rather than dislodge her sari with a hug. The child in Yasmin wants to jump up and wrap him in her long, gangly arms, but events around her now prevent her – or rather, make her decide otherwise.
"Well," the Doctor says, when River and Rory's embrace ends, River delicately wiping around her makeup. The Doctor holds Brax's hand tightly, swinging it slightly. "Are we ready?"
Yasmin looks to River, who looks to the Doctor. Together, the three of them smile and then, they turn to the TARDIS doors. With a snap of the Doctor's fingers, the doors open and sunlight streams in.
Then, it's time.