SAY YES
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
The Memories were like amber.
Preserved, undated, timeless.
Memories made her the man she was, the woman she would be.
Great chunks of her past forging her will to press on in the present, always building on the future to come.
Something was different about the memories she was
"How's the view?" asked The Doctor as Yaz stared up at the emerald pink hue in the sky, masking the bottom half of a bright crimson moon that was rising higher and higher above it with each passing minute.
"What's a more complex word for beautiful?" Yaz asked, looking back at The Doctor with a look of sheer whimsy and eagerness to learn so she could best describe something to her friend in a more complex and intellectually rewarding manner, as was benefiting the perks of their relationship.
The Doctor smiled, for whimsy was enough, curiosity was what gave her a sensational appetite.
"Stick with the basics Officer Khan" she said, thumbing through pages of a scrapbook she had been reading, turning over page after page, scouting for memories that felt so recent, but perhaps that was the appeal of traversing the corridors of time, even the roars of the most distant elephant could be heard as fresh as they sounded.
Yaz wasn't about to let this simple answer derail her desire for complexity.
"Don't be like that, travel broadens the mind, and my aim in being around you is to do more than gawk at sights using the language available to me. Nobody stuck back on Earth does that, they go to different countries, they meet people who barely understand English, they learn from us, we learn from them, we speak whole different volumes, so let me learn how to speak differently from you"
"I'm telling you as plainly as I can I prefer speaking your language. Descriptions of reality can elude even the sharpest of intellectuals because we all live within a moment, even when you're a time traveller, that moment is never a step by step retrace of where or who you've been before. Language is a muscle, the mind is a muscle, and you have to be mindful of how heavy it all is"
"You know what that sounds like to me Doctor? An elaborate way of saying we shouldn't be taught how to think" Yaz replied
"And you'd be right, you shouldn't be taught by others on what to say or think, that's how you get things like indoctrination, that's how solders are forged in fires of our making, that's when orders are given, that's when wars are fought and lives are lost in all the radicalisation. Teach yourself to think, because only that will tell you when to stop"
There was a pause between the two of them, an anxious one ill suited for such an extravagant night on the planet of the Mia Ontep, a race of dragonflies that inhabited the great crystal lakes of Ranzarot, a kingdom in need of a civilisation, a tall, proud castle perched on the edge of a cliff face where The Doctor and Yaz stood now. It's tranquillity rivalled only by the Lights of Osidious and the Eye of Orion.
And now, perhaps also, the tension between the two friends.
Yaz, however, knew exactly how to break the tension, and in doing so, would resort to a very simple question, she would ask in a straight forward universal way, she would defuse the situation, she would not go to war over complexity.
She took note of what The Doctor held in her hand
"Photo album?"
"Yeah, found in the 4D loft in the Andromeda section of the TARDIS library, I filed it under A for Adventure" The Doctor replied.
Yaz smiled.
"Trust you to have a depository for everything you've shared with others, you really do aspire to be just like us, to care to remember"
"The pull of regenerative trauma notwithstanding, you should always attempt to remember all the people that you used to be"
"Tell me then, just who were you to warrant the smile on that person's face?" Yaz spoke, pointing to the pretty blonde in a ripped white t-shirt, expressing her joy to be around her surroundings with the most treasured of smiles, latched onto the arm of a tall man in a leather jacket, flanked on the other arm by the man Yaz recognised as Captain Jack Harkness.
"Whoever I was, it was nothing short of fantastic" The Doctor replied.
"Come on, give me the backstory" Yaz said with a burst of renewed enthusiasm, for now she felt even stronger curiosity come about her. She would know more of Jack and The Doctor's travels together, and whom they travelled with.
The Doctor obliged. She told Yaz of the context behind the photo, a great adventure on the world of Bequboth, where the Shadow Players lived, taking over holiday resorts in dangerous twelfth layer reality flag catcher games, each amusement park a different war zone, a swarm of temporal reavers and reapers. An attempt to return to the old ways of cosmic gaming, originating in the days of the first great time war but long forgotten by the last.
Captain Jack would become immortal much later in his lifetime, but to avert the worst-case scenario of this adventure; he was well and truly prepared to die, for the first time, and, without the future blessing of the bad wolf, would have been the only time.
The Doctor didn't know what to make of Jack's offer to sacrifice himself, he felt it entirely his own fault at the time, that the adventures had not made him a friend, but had forged him into the very heat of the moment they all lived in. A ticking time bomb. A weapon forged in fire.
The games were averted as the girl, Rose, appealed to the wisest of the players, one weary of the game and it's more savage ends, one who had fallen in love with the simplicity of one of the park rides and was more than happy to share and expand it to other parks, he desired endless fun, not a nesting ground for relentless fury.
Jack was left a little disappointed, he had a newfound taste for war, a spark of fresh courage and he wanted to show his devotion to his newfound purpose. The Doctor took a photo with him and Rose that day on one of the park's first publically open sessions since the games ceased.
On the surface, all involved seemed happy, all was well.
Things appeared simple.
"Things weren't simple, though, were they? You and Jack, and Rose, you tried to keep it away from the surface, but it was right where your hearts were, locked away in a quiet corner, and every bit of breath you took was a sharp reminder this life, these early adventures with Jack and Rose, were a heavy burden to bear. That's probably why you commit these memories to a library; you pull them out to remind yourself of the circumstances behind the adventure, not the relief that came out of their aftermath, in case you have to bring about wisdom from those escapades in future, to use them as weapons in another war"
"That bit of armchair complexity wasn't too bad" The Doctor complimented.
"I taught myself everything I needed" Yaz said, elated.
"What happened between you two in that Judoon prison? You and Jack?" she asked, pressing on, hoping she was making some kind of breakthrough.
The Doctor stared up at the moon, still in its crescent formation by way of the dusk particles surrounding it, its glory matching the glimmers of joy in her eyes in terms of purest majesty. These were conditions ripe for empowering recollection, where the weight of the moment was but a
"He came for me, of all the fiercest faces frowning on me wherever I walked; his was the only one that dared to smile back at me. He encased me in a protective bubble, and we ran, oh you should have seen us run. Like lightning dancing across power lines, we could feel the surge, of adrenaline, of our sheer will, our physical demand for freedom. We didn't waver, or tire, we lived that moment. And then we stopped, just for an instant, and that's when it happened"
"When what happened?"
"He would hold me, cradle me, he made no attempt to kiss, in truth that was my fault, if I'd let him, I'd have forgotten there was a whole universe about to open up to me again, everything would have washed away. Just the way he kisses...I wasn't even a woman the first time it happened, his touch against my lips was like a sunrise warming a bathing body, so at peace, a man who'd felt so blessed by time, will and fate, and he let me know it with that tranquil touch. Oh Yaz, when he held me in his grip back in the prison, I felt more complete than I'd been since Gallifrey was lost...the only other moment that even dared to match it was when Graham held me just before he left"
Yaz was taken aback.
"So who did you feel more complete with then?"
"It's funny, every bit the dozen or so men I was after the war, the proud woman I've become since then, all that was made possible by a man recognising he was no longer a coward, and the strongest man I ever knew, I am so proud of who they both attempted to be, and the next time we run, I hope it lasts forever"
"You didn't answer my question Doctor" Yaz reminded her.
The Doctor smiled, she thumbed through a few more pages of her album and settled on a photo of a 1950s diner, where was seated next to Graham O'Brien, both sharing a glass of milkshake with two separate straws in their mouths, their hands pressed firmly against their cheeks and elbows on the table, their eyes trained on one another, lost in a priceless moment together.
She kissed the page, before gently closing the album and handing it over to Yaz.
"What was that about?" Yaz said.
"Sometimes the simplest answer to all of it Yaz, is to simply say yes" The Doctor softly replied, kissing Yaz on the forehead and making her way back to the TARDIS.