Becoming more
A/N Apparently the original version of this chapter was somehow lost, whether it deleted or I just simply forgot to post it, in my notes it was crossed off. Anyhow I've written a better version here.
Asterix V star-ship, interstellar space, 3445 AD
Yaz paced up and down inside the control room. Somehow she'd just learnt the Doctor's entire history (with extra inserted notes the Doctor herself had made on how to bring up said events.) Her fingers pinched underneath her chin and she ground her teeth until she felt fully able to make an exit. She had known the Doctor had secrets, she'd asked every question she could think of but she never got a straight answer. That just wasn't the way the Doctor was - she was complicated and confusing and half the time the things she said didn't make sense. The Teselecta had obliged her where the woman herself had not, the machine that mirrored her own image had told her the tales she was forbidden by their owner.
The Doctor herself had been pacing around the control deck of the ship for the past hour and half (far too short a time to learn the entire histories of the Doctor and all her excursions but time works differently in the TARDIS) her thumbs are sticky from where she'd been absentmindedly sucking on them to relieve the tension in her ever-growing problematic mind. She'd worked out how to sort the meteor problem fifteen minutes ago, setting the sonic to soldering iron type setting and working away on the metal, closing off all other means of escape and forcing the alien rock back out in the void of empty space.
"How do I tell her?" She surmised, taking each step with new caution as Yaz's sweet face came into the view of her mind's eye. "How do I go from her thinking I'm just 'some' alien, to knowing all the things I've done. All the damage I've caused, I don't even understand who I am. How do I-" She continued, cut off by Dan's presence in the doorway. His hand clamped to the metal frame as he swung his body through the gap.
"Doctor?" He said, mindlessly walking towards her and glancing around the room for the damage. "Are you ok? Did you stop it?" He finished. She glanced upwards, a little embarrassed at being seen talking to herself. She knew Dan spoke on behalf on Yaz's feelings. She knew how much he cared about his friend's happiness.
"I know you don't know, but how?" Was all she mustered before falling to her knees, she leant back on her haunches and slid her back down the side of the flat console, small imperfect tears falling across her cheeks as she tried to regain some composure. Without much success.
"How what?" Dan replied, crouching over her and laying a gentlemanly hand on her shoulder. "Come on you can tell me. And I won't go telling Yaz if you don't want me to." The Doctor shook her head, refusing to answer but letting more tears splash down the sides of her face. After a few stumbling minutes she spoke.
"How do I tell her?" She said, Dan knew immediately, of course, what she was talking about. "I just can't, I don't know how to talk to her. How do I tell her that I do like her? But that I just can't be with her right now, that I don't know who I am anymore." Dan took some time to think it over, he wanted to say 'just come out with it' but he felt some delicacy might be required. Even though, Yaz was from Yorkshire and usually an approach that is 'blunter the better' would suit. But the Doctor was weak here, she was vulnerable and Dan thought Yaz would be the first to sympathise if the Doctor was honest with her. Those years he'd spent travelling with her were enough to know how long Yaz waited for them to be reunited. Every night she played the Doctor's hologram and wept silently for her unprocessed feelings.
He peeled himself away from her, opening up the space between them. He made his imprint on her shoulder gentler, left his tender fingers just resting on her rather than pinching downwards. He decided to tell her a secret. "Doctor, remember all that time you were away from us, I don't know how long it was for you, but for us: Yaz and me. It was years, four I think, and Yaz well, I said it before but I don't know if you were properly listening. Yaz waited for you, all that time for you. She had no hope of getting home, no hope of anything other than your return. And the way she watched that hologram, I think whatever you have to tell her she'll understand Doctor. And she'd still like you. She's in it. Just don't let her down."
Dan stood up, holding a hand out for his friend and giving her a nod. He left her in the room alone to think over everything he'd said. He knew this wasn't going to be easy for her, or Yaz come to think of it. The Doctor wiped her eyes from the leaky tears and made off for the corridor.
"Yaz." The Doctor said, her hand slipping around the doorway of the TARDIS and slipping herself inside. She'd spotted Yaz's limber frame around the console and her hearts had done a little flip, a flutter went through her as she braced herself for what was to come. "Yaz, I-" she started but Yaz's body was turned away from her, another Yaz-like structure standing in the corridor of the room. A robotic too-upright version of Yaz that was impossibly human. "Yaz?" The Doctor repeated, standing between the real Yaz and the robot replica. She recognised it anyhow and she knew Yaz was clever enough to ask questions. She didn't know how much exactly Yaz knew now. And information could be dangerous.
"I know everything." Yaz said quietly, her lips plump and chewed upon as she'd held back tears of horrible stories, now the tales were over and the woman was standing in front of her, everything melted and disappeared. She took a step forward and bowed her head. "I thought, I thought I would hate you the next time I saw you. But now you're here and I'm looking at you I know that I'd never be able to hate you at all." Yaz said, staring at the Doctor's outstretched hand, pushing the gaping air between them into a compact space.
"I-" The Doctor started, but Yaz interrupted her with her own actions. Lunging forward she took the Doctor's hand to her waist and clenched her cheek, pressing their lips together in an act of sordid passion. They broke apart gently in an act that left the Doctor empty of words. She stared into Yaz's deep, dark brown eyes and quivered, a lowly shudder that lifted her fears and made the childish urge touch lips almost impossible to resist.
She kissed Yaz again, closing her eyes this time and breathing out through her nose, hot breath on Yaz's top lip. Yaz burned with the fuel of a thousand fires and her palms felt faintly ordinarily sweaty. She was kissing the Doctor. And that in itself was enough of a dream that she need not ask for anything else. Dan stood in the doorway his lips curling into a smile.
