Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Doctor let out a relieved sigh as she took in the fully-rebuilt and cleaned up TARDIS console room.

“Look at you… so much better.”

She, Dan, and Yaz wandered in. As if the Flux hadn’t been bad enough, now they’d tacked on an evening running away from revenge-obsessed Daleks. It was time for a proper holiday. Some solid R&R for all parties. And, at one Daniel Lewis’ insistence, maybe including a moment of confession and revelation between the two women.

The Doctor started talking to the TARDIS as she meandered around the console.

“Thanks for looking after us.” the Doctor whispered, patting her ship affectionately. “If you did… Quite mysterious, actually.”

She came to a stop near the big launch lever, balanced herself against the console, and looked up at her companions. At Yaz. She smiled, and Yaz smiled back. And she knew. She really was going to do something about this, wasn’t she? Damn that overly-perceptive Liverpudlian.

Her double-heartbeat thundered in her head at the very thought of it, but… could be worth it. Possibly.

Would. Definitely.

Then, Yaz dropped her expression to a light frown.

“What did you mean… when you said your actions were catching up with you?”

Right. Reconciliation was probably also on the list. Top of the list, to be honest.

“Yeah…” the Doctor started, unsure where the sentence was supposed to go from there. “Well, I did offer that beach talk, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” That precious smile came back.

“Let’s, uh… what say we grab some of those mocktails, and I’ll… start explaining meself. Lot of ‘everything’ to get through.”

Now Yaz was positively beaming as she took another step towards the console, instinctually preparing for her part in the take-off sequence.

“Sure.”

That one word was far too full of admiration, and trust, and hope.

And faith. Always faith.

After a split second too long looking into Yaz’s eyes, the Doctor ducked her head down and began working on the myriad dials and switches in front of her.

“Gimme… eight-point-two, twenty-seven blue-into-green, semi-parallel.”

Yaz did as asked – perfectly, the Doctor noted. She’d come a long way since those harrowing months spent locking herself inside an empty white TARDIS, with only a sleeping bag and sticky notes for company.

The Doctor rested her hand on the lever as they finished up, then hopped to the side to make room. Yaz looked up expectantly. Instead of launching them, however, the Doctor used her eyes to wordlessly direct Yaz to join her. Yaz beamed as she skipped across to place her own hand on top of the Doctor’s.

Dan smiled as he watched the women pull the lever together – more than content to know that they’d totally forgotten him while they had eyes only for each other.

Praise Him.

Chapter Text

“Huh.” the Doctor breathed, looking around with that typical scrunch on her face. “Weren’t expecting this kind of architecture…”

The three of them, plus TARDIS, were stood in the stairwell of (presumably) a hotel.

“Mm.” Yaz concurred, standing next to her. “Maybe… San Munrohvans are going through a phase. Really into the contemporary hotel look. Like all those seventies-themed diners in the US.”

“Smart thinking.”

The Doctor pulled out her screwdriver and started whirling it about the room, before holding it up to her face to check the results.

“But no. Definitely an Earth hotel.”

She started bouncing on the balls of her feet. A sly grin formed as she looked back at Yaz with a twinkle in her eye.

“That’s exciting…” she added.

Dan’s face crumpled.

“Aw, don’t tell me we’re still in Manchester. Or worse – Sheffield!”

“Oi!” Yaz put up a warning finger as she turned to him. “She barely let me keep you in the first place. One word from me, and you’re out.”

Dan put up his hands in surrender.

"All I'm saying is she's oh-for-two on these ‘wonders of the universe’."

Yaz looked back to the Doctor, who was now scrutinising the wooden support beam running up the centre of the staircase.

“What’s so exciting about a hotel on Earth?”

The Doctor straightened up, stepping closer to her friends.

“Because, Yasmin Khan,” She turned to Dan with a sarcastic smirk. “Plus pet scouser I let her keep around the house… this is not a hotel on Earth.”

She let them wallow in their joint confusion for a moment before elaborating.

“This,” She tapped Yaz on the nose before stepping back. “Is an Earth hotel not on Earth. Gravity’s wrong.”

She bounced a few times on the spot to emphasise her point, despite the fact the humans would never be able to sense the minute gravitational anomalies.

“Not San Munrohvar, either.” she clarified quickly. “In space. Somewhere. Imagine the craftsmanship involved in a project like this!”

She splayed her arms, presenting the quite-fancy-but-still-rather-ordinary hotel to the humans.

Yaz pulled her mouth into a taut line. As much as she’d been looking forward to the sentient beaches and long talks with the Doctor – especially after Dan had effectively made her come out to herself about her feelings for the other woman – she couldn’t deny the intrigue of a building that was ‘just a little bit wrong’.

“Hmm… alright, you’ve got me there.” She put up a hand in hopes of constraining the Doctor’s tendency to let things get out of hand, but couldn’t help the bright smile on her face. “Five minutes. Then it’s back to building sandcastles with seagulls, or whatever.”

“Don’t be silly, Yaz. Seagulls can’t build sandcastles – no opposable thumbs.” The Doctor stuck up both her thumbs and wiggled them.

“Wait, so… where are we?” Dan asked. “You can’t just say ‘in space’ and hope we’ll buy that.”

“Dunno. We were in the time vortex, return ticket for San Munrohvar and something musta just…” The Doctor pinched the air in front of her, and pulled back. “Plucked us out of it.”

She wandered over to a bowl of fruit as the humans mulled over their next set of questions. It was genuine Earth fruit, so far as she could tell – didn’t even have to bite it to check.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Yaz’s voice was suddenly tinged with concern.

“Nah, lotsa stuff can do that. Weird temporal anomaly, vantablack hole I didn’t know about sitting in our way, distress call from another TARDIS.”

She turned back, having pulled an apple from the collection, and tossed it to Yaz, who caught it with only a minor jolt of surprise. She was getting better at predicting those.

“Alright, but who would do a mock-up of an ‘otel, somewhere off in space?” Dan pressed.

“Colonists? Recreate a bit of home, like Yaz said with the seventies diners, only with much better detailing. And in space.”

“So why’re we bothering? Just an ‘otel, right?” Dan mused, while starting to wander off to the sides, glancing at the walls.

The Doctor shrugged. “Have a nose round, find the one who built it, great big pat on the back, I’ll give you me usual spiel about the advancements of the human race, and off we pop.” She looked pointedly at Yaz. “Five minutes.”

Yaz held up the apple.

“Did you… want me to eat this, or something?”

The Doctor shrugged. “If you want. One of your five-a-day, but I’m not your mum.”

She really really hoped Yaz didn’t see her as a surrogate mother figure – that’d just be awkward after everything Dan had said earlier.

Yaz gave her a look composed of equal parts bafflement and fondness. She placed the apple inside her pocket.

“Oi, you seen this?”

Despite his intended role as the only one holding back the two seasoned adventurers, Dan had well and truly distracted himself with the myriad photos lining the walls.

“It’s one of them Sontarans: ‘Commander Halke, defeat’. ‘Tim Heath, having his photo taken’. Dunno what this one is: ‘Officer Car-Rok-La, Translation Error’?”

Yaz walked over and peeked over his shoulder. “Judoon. Intergalactic bounty hunters.”

She could see why the Doctor did it like this – it was pretty fun being the one to teach Dan something new and alien. She moved on to another photo.

“‘Tim Nelson, balloons’. ‘Novice Prin, sabrewolves’. ‘Paige Barnes… other people’s socks’? ‘Lucy Hayward, that brutal gorilla’…”

“What are these?”

“I was going with fears, until I got to the socks, but that’s daft.” Yaz reached across Dan to point at another. “Look at that one – Plymouth.”

“Never underestimate the organic mind, Yaz.” the Doctor weighed in quietly, scanning over her own set of pictures. “Once met someone scared to death of the colour green… Shall we find out?”

She led the humans down a set of stairs to a reception area, and wandered cheerily over to the desk. Despite being drawn off course, she was feeling bouncy and excitable. The New Year's Eve conversation with Dan had clearly done her some good, not to mention something to look forward to.

She hovered her hand over the bell, raising an eyebrow at her friends, who made no move to stop her.

Upon hitting the bell, two things happened. First, and most expectedly, it made a sharp ringing noise. Second, and really rather unexpectedly, three people came careening round the corner, yelling and brandishing random objects as weapons. All six people broke out into various pleas or shouts simultaneously.

“Ahhhh!”

“Who are you!?”

“Blimey, that’s quick! Are you threatening me with a chair leg?”

“We surrender!”

“Oh, god, we’re back in reception.”

“Okay, you lot, can we put the weapons down and talk?”

“We surrender!”

“Whoa, no, s’alright, mate– we’re not… we’re nice.”

“I’ve never been threatened with a chair leg before! Well, unless you count that one time…”

“We surrender!”

Yaz turned to Dan in the midst of the shouting with a frown.

“Did you just say ‘it’s alright – we’re nice’?”

“What? I’m not wrong.”

One of the newcomers – a young brown woman with a very proper British accent and wearing hospital scrubs – decided it was her job to take charge of the chaos: “Okay, I need everyone to shut up, now!”

Well, maybe it wasn’t very proper – maybe the Doctor only thought that now because she had been sporting a lovely Yorkshire lilt for the last few decades. On second glance, it also became clear that, actually, only two of them had weapons – the third was a Tivolian ‘wielding’ a white handkerchief of surrender.

The young woman lowered her chair leg and stepped forward slightly, scanning the TARDIS trio’s eyes.

“Uh, Rita, be careful, yeah?” a young white man with glasses and fluffy hair spoke up, still gripping tight on his… candlestick?

“Their pupils are dilated – they are as surprised as we are.” She stepped back, putting a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder, but never taking her eyes off of her might-be-adversaries. “Besides which, if it’s a trick, it’ll tell us something.”

The Doctor gave her a look of pleased intrigue.

“Ooh, I like you. Sharp as a tac.” She pointed lazily at Yaz. “Step it up a gear, Yaz – your job’s on the chopping block.”

“‘Scuse me!?”

The Doctor turned to her properly, plastering on one of her signature silly grins.

“Kidding! You’re my favourite.” She turned back to Rita, making a ‘call me’ gesture with her hand. “We’ll talk.”

Rita looked at her curiously, clearly unsure what they were supposed to ‘talk’ about. The Doctor had already moved on to the others of the group.

“Pathological compulsion to surrender – you’re from Tivoli, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. The most invaded planet in the galaxy. Our anthem is called ‘Glory to: Insert Name Here’.”

Ugh, immediately in there with the honorifics. Now she remembered why she had such trouble dealing with Tivolians. As if UNIT weren’t bad enough.

“Oh, no, she doesn’t like the… ma’am, and stuff.” Yaz tried to correct him.

“Name?”

“Gibbis, ma’am.” Apparently Yaz’s hint hadn’t stuck. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “If you’re interested in ruling a planet, I can honestly say there are none better.”

The Doctor decided to move on to the other human with a polite smile, ignoring the card.

“You were surprised to be back in reception.”

“The walls move, everything changes… uh, Howie, by the way.” he answered.

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at that, then pointed a finger at each of her group in turn.

“Doctor, Yaz, Dan.”

She leaned over to Rita.

“Rita, right? Can you translate what he said into something clever for me?”

“The corridors twist, and stretch, rooms vanish and pop up somewhere else. It’s like the hotel’s alive.”

The Doctor pulled an impressed, albeit confused, face, then began wandering the reception as Howie added more.

“Yeah, and it’s huge. With, like, no way out.”

The Doctor dinged the bell again, glancing around to see if it actually did anything.

“You tried the front door?” Dan asked, pointing to it.

“No. In two days it never occurred to us to try the front door.” Rita chimed sarcastically. “Thank god you’re here.”

That got a rise out of Yaz. The Doctor had now made her way over to said doors, and pulled them open, revealing a blank white wall on the other side. She then went for a curtain nearby, which came apart to reveal the same thing.

“Right. Couple days ago we had too many doors, now it’s too many walls. Nice to have complementary problems…” she mused as she turned back to the gang, going for more of the decorations.

“It’s not just that. The rooms have… things in them.”

The Doctor popped up from sniffing the flowers.

“Ooh, things? I love things! What kind of things?”

Rita paused, looking to her compatriots, who nodded their support. She turned back with a strange look in her eye, as if she were unsure what she was saying.

“Bad dreams.”

“Oh…” The Doctor had a disappointed scrunch on her face. “I was hoping for fun things, like scrabble, or slides. How’d you get here?”

“I don’t know. I’d just started my shift. I must’ve passed out, because suddenly I was here.”

Howie went next: “Yup, I was, uh, blogging. Next thing, this.”

Gibbis took an extra second to realise it was supposed to be his turn.

“Oh, uh, I was at work – I’m in town planning. We’re lining all the highways with trees, so invading forces can march in the shade. Which is nice for them.”

“Ah, yeah…” the Doctor muttered, before moving swiftly on. “So what’ve we got? Bunch of people trapped in a posh hotel with no idea what’s going on. All we’re missing is some spiders and Yaz’s mum… Although, if the rooms are bad dreams, there probably are some spiders somewhere…”

“Doctor, you said a TARDIS distress call could’ve brought us here.” Yaz piped up. “Massive building, rooms that move. Did we land in a TARDIS?”

The Doctor whirled on the spot, clicked her fingers and pointed at Yaz.

“That’s what I’m talking about, Yaz! Five points for that. See? Favourite.”

Yaz tilted her head in an appreciative gesture, safe in the knowledge that Rita was no longer threatening her position.

“No.” the Doctor clarified. “I’d know if we were inside a TARDIS, but excellent guess.”

“What’s a TARDIS?” Howie asked.

“Way out.” the Doctor answered simply, spinning around to the stairs they’d come down to get here. “How we doing on time?”

“I was gonna say, I think our five minutes is up.” Dan half-answered as they all followed her up.

“Excellent. All in, quick hop outside the hotel, nice big diagnostic sweep to see what it is, then Earth, Tivoli, San Munrohvar! Easy. Look at me, keeping my promises and everything.”

The reminder sent a pleasant shock of warmth through Yaz’s chest.

“Uh, we can’t leave.” Rita tried to interrupt, but by now the Doctor had reached the top of the stairway.

No TARDIS. It was the right part of the building – a fruit bowl containing one apple too few, Commander Halke, Lucy Hayward, Plymouth. But no TARDIS.

“Where’s the TARDIS?” Yaz asked, her tone spiking in fear. “We didn’t hear her move – where’s she gone?”

Dan looked down the various corridors – a futile gesture, but he felt he didn’t really have much else to add in the search for an unfathomable time-and-space machine. The Doctor had already started scanning the area she had been parked in, and brought the screwdriver back up to check the results.

“Nowhere… she didn’t go. No engines, no artron, no notification on my sonic. She’s just… not here…”

“Oh, for… oh, that’s just great.” Yaz roughly massaged her face with her palms. “Why’s stuff like this keep happening to us?”

“Oi, d’you reckon that fire exit’s any good?” Dan called from down a nearby corridor.

The group collectively tried to ascertain what he was on about. Dan wandered back, pointing down the corridor.

“Down there.”

“Where?” Yaz asked, not seeing anything of the sort.

Dan turned back, pointing to where he’d seen it.

“Down there, fi- oh. Where’s it gone?”

The Doctor frowned a little, logging the interaction for later appraisal, but ultimately moved on.

“Rita, why can’t we leave? You were starting to say something earlier.”

The gang turned to the young hospital worker expectantly.

“Joe. He’s, uh, tied up right now.” She leaned on the stairway banister, looking down at the floor below.

“Doing what?”

Rita met the Doctor’s eyes again. “No, I mean he’s… tied up, right now.”

A pregnant silence filled the room for several seconds, until the Doctor spoke again.

“Right… just for fun, or…?”

A light muzak tune started tinkling through the air.

Praise Him.

Chapter Text

The Doctor entered the room. It looked like a dining room – the sort of place you’d normally get a full English breakfast from 6am to 9am after a questionable night’s sleep in a hotel bed. Inside was a suit-dressed white man in his thirties, presumably the aforementioned ‘Joe’, tied to a chair, and surrounded by nigh-uncountable ventriloquist dummies.

All impossibly laughing – at him, or with him? Only nigh-uncountable because the Doctor was perfectly able to count them in an instant. 95 dolls, seated in every chair at every table, except for the one Joe was at. The man himself was, as promised, tied up. A single thin white rope tied tightly across his chest and binding him to the chair. Despite the circumstances, he had a light, almost-friendly smile on his face. The eyes were a little too manic to call it truly friendly, though.

She gingerly stepped further into the room, and the laughter died down. The dummies slowly, creakily, turned to face the intruders. Yaz and Dan followed first, with the others filing in soon after.

As the Doctor approached Joe, the silence seemed to permeate the air, thicker and thicker, as more dummies continued to crane their necks towards her, tracking her movements.

“Hiya… I’m the Doctor.” she said, trying to put on a reassuring smile as she reached Joe’s table.

“You’re going to die here.” he replied instantly, without an ounce of hesitation or doubt.

“Well… that’s not the best tagline for a luxury hotel.” She sat herself down in an empty seat across from Joe. “Is Joe there? Available for a quick chin-wag?”

“Oh it’s still me, Doctor. But I’ve seen the light. I lived a blasphemous life, but He has forgiven my inconstancy, and soon… He shall feast.” He spoke slowly, measured, with unshakeable conviction.

The Doctor noted his dice cufflinks and horseshoe pin in his tie. A gambler. Was that important?

“You’ve been here for two days already. What’s he waiting for?”

“We weren’t ready. We were still raw.”

“And now you’re… cooked?”

“If you like. Soon you will be, too. Be patient. First… find your room.”

The Doctor glanced around at the puppets again, still staring at her. She poked around her mouth with her tongue as she considered the instruction she’d been given. Request? Demand?

Guarantee?

“My room… the rooms with the bad dreams…”

“There’s a room here for everyone, Doctor.” Joe panned his eyes slowly across the other occupants, before eventually coming back to the Doctor. “Even you.”

She frowned slightly.

“You said you’d ‘seen the light’ no-”

“Nothing else matters anymore.” Joe took a breath – sharp, gleeful, almost… rapturous. “Only Him. It’s like these things.”

He gestured around the room with his head, indicating the dummies.

“I used to hate them. Ah, they make me laugh, now.”

He looked at another one, his face now downright pleased. He let out a good, solid belly-laugh.

“Gottle o’ geer! Gottle o’ geer!”

He continued laughing heartily as all the dolls joined in. The others all recoiled in some manner or another, but the Doctor simply looked around at them, trying to discern anything meaningful from the puppets themselves. After a short while, the laughter died down.

“You should go.” Joe continued, voice now soft, caressing his audience’s ears. “He’ll be here soon.”

“Alright!”

The Doctor beamed, slapping her hands on the table as she got up from her seat. She moved over to a luggage trolley – a tall metal thing with only a pair of spokes at the bottom to carry bags on – and wheeled it back to the enraptured man. She shunted it under Joe’s chair, and pulled back to lift him off the ground.

“Think you should come with, though, Joe.”

Back in the reception, Joe was still tied to his chair, but now sat behind the reception desk, out of direct view of anyone who might come skulking about for him. Everyone else was assembled haphazardly about the room.

Once she was satisfied with his positioning, the Doctor straightened up, and turned back to the others with a rumpled expression.

“Why you four? That’s what I don’t get… aside from everything else I don’t get, obviously.”

“What does it matter?” Gibbis rebuked sharply. “Sooner or later, someone will come along and rescue us.”

“Yeah, that’s what we were for, until we lost the TARDIS.” Yaz sighed.

The Doctor came to rest leaning on the same desktop the other woman was at.

“Or enslave us…”

Gibbis’ expression changed to one of joyful anticipation, a look that was frankly a little disturbing given his chosen subject matter. The assorted humans all gave each other various queer glances.

“Better find her, then.” The Doctor nudged Yaz gently with her elbow. “Ground rules first. Hopefully an obvious one, but if you’re feeling particularly drawn to a room, don’t go in. Ooh, make sure someone else can see you at all times – keep each other out of the rooms. Like a buddy system!”

She looked across at Yaz.

“Long time since we had enough people for a buddy system!”

“And I’m supposed to trust you not to wander off on your own, am I?” Yaz retorted playfully.

The Doctor raised her eyebrows in a mock display of offence.

“I’ll behave!”

The two women smiled at each other, knowing full well the Doctor’s definition of ‘behave’ did not align with any other sane person’s.

After one awkward second of silence too many, Rita cleared her throat.

“Joe said: ‘He’ will feast.” She repeated quietly, as if afraid it might draw ‘Him’ to them if she dared speak Him into existence. “Is there something… here, with us?”

Joe began to laugh at that – a quiet, unnerving cackle.

“Something funny, mate?” Dan asked gingerly.

“Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.”

He looked at Yaz. “Chop.”

Rita. “Chop.”

Howie. “Chop.”

Gibbis. “Chop.”

Howie threw his arms in Joe’s direction, and directed his question at… frankly, anyone willing to answer: “Can we do something about him!?”

Joe laughed again.

“Yeah, probably for the best. Stop him impacting group morale.” the Doctor answered, shoving a hand in her pocket.

She rifled around for a bit, Joe still laughing the whole time. Yaz rolled her eyes, and cupped her hands, ready to play the inevitable role of ‘receiving random junk from the Doctor’s pockets’. Soon, the Doctor pulled her hand back out, and checked it.

“No.”

She deposited a handful of loose sugar cubes into Yaz’s hands.

“No.”

A squash ball.

“Nope. No. Nuh.”

A can of kidney beans. A tiny potted cactus. A Tesco’s barcode scanner.

Joe was still laughing.

“Ah.”

She produced a large roll of black duct tape, and a pair of scissors. She set the scissors down, then pulled out a strip of the tape. She grabbed the scissors, snipped, then hopped back to Joe to slap it across his mouth, finally shutting him up. She turned back and started re-filling her pockets. As Yaz’s hands became less full, she held up a singular sugar cube.

“Got to ask: why individual cubes?”

“In case I only want one or two for me tea.” the Doctor answered, with an implied ‘duh’.

Yaz raised an eyebrow.

“When’s the last time you had fewer than five sugars in your tea?”

The Doctor floundered for a response.

“Hypothetically…” she eventually landed on.

A few minutes later, everyone was walking together along one of the infinitely-many corridors lined with numbered rooms. Gibbis was leading the pack, wheeling Joe along on his combination-chair-and-luggage-trolley. He leaned down slightly to talk to his passenger.

“Personally, I think you’ve got the right idea. Times like this, I think of my old school motto: ‘resistance is exhausting’.”

Howie gave Dan a tap on the arm, drawing his attention.

“I’ve worked out where we are.”

“Oh, aye?”

“Norway.”

That stumped Dan for a second. He was pretty sure he remembered the Doctor saying the hotel was ‘in space’.

“Norway?”

Howie began to gesture excitedly as he explained.

“See, the US government has entire cities, hidden in the Norwegian mountains.” He waited for some form of acknowledgement, but continued regardless when he didn’t receive it. “See, Earth is on a collision course with this other planet… and, this is where they’re gonna send all the rich people when it kicks off.”

Given everything that had happened over the last few years of his life, Dan wasn’t sure whether the man next to him was a genius or a lunatic. He decided it was better to defer judgement for later.

“Yeah?”

“It’s all there on the internet.”

“Oh.”

Probably lunatic, then.

Up ahead, the Doctor had taken the lead, and was suddenly stopped by a large man stepping out of a room directly in front of her. He was dressed in pure white shorts and tank top, with a whistle around his neck. The sound of school bells and children playing emanated out of the same door.

“Hi…”

The Doctor looked him up and down a few times, each one with successively greater concern and confusion. The first look was done on instinct – checking for anything helpful to their situation, or potentially deadly to her friends. The second was because she suddenly registered what he was wearing. The third was because she didn’t quite believe what she’d seen in her second look, and had to make sure.

“Have you forgotten your PE kit again!?”

The Doctor frowned.

“I’ve not had PE for two thousand years…” Her face softened. “Unless you count all the running. But then the ‘E’ stands for ‘education’ doesn’t it? So that’s still not PE. But then every day’s a learning day, so mayb-”

“Right, that’s it! You’re doing it in your pants!”

The Doctor now looked down at her own clothes, thankfully finding them intact.

“I hope not…”

The man retreated back into the room whence he’d come, and the door slammed shut.

“I remember a kid got forced to do that in year nine. Tommy Harwood.” Yaz mused, then scrunched her face. “Pretty sure Mr Baxter got fired for that.”

“Then found a new gig here, apparently.” the Doctor added.

She turned back to the group, pulling herself out of her stupor.

“Shall we mov- No, hey, don’t!”

She rushed forward, reaching out for Howie, who was slowly but inevitably opening a nearby door.

Myriad giggles and chatter could be heard once it opened.

“Oh, look, girls: it’s H-H-H-Howie!”

A gaggle of young women broke out into laughter over that.

“What’s ‘loser’ in K-K-K-Klingon?”

The Doctor managed to step between Howie and the room, barring him from entry.

“Howie…”

“Sh-shut the d-d the-the door!” he stammered out, backing away, and gesturing wildly in the direction of the room.

The Doctor turned and slammed it shut. The giggles were silenced immediately, and the Doctor went over to the young man, now cowering in the doorframe of the opposite room.

“Hey. Come on, Howie, it’s alright.”

She bent down to look him directly in the eyes, placing one hand on his shoulder, and another over his ribs, encouraging him to stand up and keep moving.

“This is just some… m-m-messed up CIA stuff, I’m-I’m-I’m telling you.” he expounded to the assorted others.

“Yeah. Yeah, keep telling yourself that – fight the fear. You know what it is, and it’s not gonna get the better of you, is it Howie?”

“N-no. It’s not.”

“Good lad. Just a CIA thing.”

The Doctor pulled him back into the group, continuing their walk down the corridor. As she did so, her mind raced. The CIA weren’t important. Or rather, they were, but weren’t. They weren’t important, but the other thing was. The thing behind the thing. She could almost smell it.

Howie glanced behind them, eyes full of terror, and the Doctor turned to look as well, just to check. Nothing. Nothing to fear.

The gang continued along the halls, and up staircases. The new friends had been right – the walls and corridors were definitely shifting. Not quite patterned, not quite random. The perfect in-between wherein nestled something sinister and intelligent. But was that intelligence the one who built this place, or just the thing that had made it its hunting ground?

On the next floor up, the Doctor continued to keep an eye out for any sign of… well, anything. Mistakes in the architecture, a little-too-perfect copy of previous decorations, any sign of damage or repair.

“What’s the verdict ‘Officer Khan’?” she eventually asked, leaning in conspiratorially to the younger woman with a small smile.

“My verdict is that, if there’s one person who can outsmart an endlessly confusing hotel, it’s a woman with an endlessly confusing mind who lives in an endlessly confusing blue box.”

“Oh, flattery will get you nowhere.” The Doctor put on a very clearly insincere frown.

“Except for all the places it does get me, thanks to that enormous ego of yours, you mean?”

“Well, except for all of them, obviously.”

That’s right – stick with Yaz and she’ll stick right back. They’ll be out in no time, safe and sound on a sandy beach that would even have its own opinion on how sandy it should be.

No, not the time. Focus.

The Doctor looked up and away again, and finally caught sight of something worthwhile. A trio of gouges in one of the plaster support beams on the ceiling. She skipped forward, eagerly running a finger along one of the scars. A scattering of dust fell from it. Normal plaster in a normal support beam in a normal corridor. Only there was clearly something a little too tall trying to get through it.

Yaz, too, had found a clue of her own. She knelt down to collect two loose sheets of A6 paper – in fact, it looked very much like the kind of paper she was used to writing notes on during her work hours. When she’d still had ‘work’, at least. Not since Gallifrey. Not since those ten terrible months alone and abandoned.

Praise Him.

Not the time. She collected the paper and stood back up, tapping the Doctor on the shoulder.

“Look.”

The Doctor didn't have time to do so before being interrupted.

“Oh, you lot!” Dan crooned excitedly, staring off at seemingly nothing.

A loud roar echoed down the hallway, vastly outweighing anyone else’s attempts to capture some attention. Everyone stared directly down the corridor, waiting and dreading whatever might have made that noise.

All except Joe. Joe was alive, elated, dizzy with glee, wrestling with his bindings and jostling the luggage trolley in Rita’s hands. The roar dropped into a low, guttural growl, growing closer and closer. The group began backing away from the noise.

“Okay.” Yaz spoke first. “Whatever that is, it’s… it’s not real. Just someone else’s bad dream, right?”

She didn’t sound convinced, or convincing.

“Nah, probably not.” the Doctor replied, matching her friend’s tone. “But, uh, just in case, let’s say we run away and hide from it. In here.”

She pulled open another door, and most of the crew bundled inside. Rita didn’t want to risk being caught out in the open while waiting for everyone else to make space, so opened the door opposite and pulled Joe in with her.

“No, guys! I’ve got the fi-” Dan tried to draw the others to him, but upon turning back to his chosen door, saw that it was now instead a regular hotel room door.

No more fire exit. Again.

The growls were getting closer, and louder, and now a series of heavy plodding footsteps could be heard – felt – shaking the floor.

“Dan! Get a shift on!” the Doctor called, waving wildly for him to follow herself, Yaz, Gibbis, and Howie into their room.

“There was a…”

“Move!”

Dan took the hint, and ran the short way down the corridor to the Doctor, who bundled them inside the room, slamming the door. She let out a sigh of relief, and then a shout of panic as she saw the room’s pre-existing occupants: a pair of Weeping Angels. One covering its eyes, and another reaching forward, teeth bared in a snarl.

“Back, back, back!” she held Dan away from the creatures.

“Don’t blink! Nobody blink!” Yaz ordered, holding her own eyes as wide as she could.

“What?” Howie asked, the only one who wasn’t afraid of the unmoving stone statues.

Gibbis had seemingly disappeared. Had he been taken already? No, wait, there was rapid, harried breathing coming from the cupboard.

The lights started flickering, the darkness taking over. Brief moments of pitch black that gave the Angels the freedom they needed. They approached, bit by bit, reaching out for the intruders.

“Yaz, Yaz, Yaz! Back!” the Doctor yelled, panic welling in her chest as she dragged Yaz away by the arm.

Wait. No. Not approaching. Not getting any closer. Just… moving. Changing their positions in a strange sort of dance.

“They should have us by now…”

The Doctor waited for another flicker, wherein the Angels still didn’t advance. Then, she ducked forward, scrutinising the statues closely. She reached out a hand to touch one of them. Just a tap, but Yaz grabbed her hand, yanking it backwards with such ferocity it hurt the Time Lord.

“Doctor!”

The raw dread in Yaz’s voice caused the Doctor to turn to her, mouth slightly agape.

“Yaz, they’re not real. It’s okay – they’re not real.”

Yaz frowned, her rational mind still overwhelmed by her coursing adrenaline and thrashing heart.

“What?”

The Doctor took Yaz’s face in her hands, slowly guiding her back away from the Angels.

“It’s okay. They’re just a bad dream. They can’t hurt you. They can’t take you away. You’re safe.”

Yaz visibly relaxed at the Doctor’s insistence, and her touch.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Yaz took control of her breathing. It was okay – she was with the Doctor, not wandering off on her own in the night, not separated by a mystical impenetrable barrier.

Praise Him.

She was with the Doctor, and ‘with the Doctor’ was safe. Even the Angels couldn’t take that away so long as they stayed together.

“I don’t think they’re for us…” Dan muttered, eyes now fixed on Gibbis, still quivering in the cupboard.

The man in question finally screamed, drowning in his own fears, and slammed the cupboard door. The easiest way to scare a Tivolian – a pair of monsters who would much sooner kill than conquer.

Now that the scene had calmed down, they could hear the still-approaching footsteps of whatever terrible beast had driven them into this room in the first place. So close now, just on the other side of their door. Step by step, growling and snarling all the way.

The Doctor gave Yaz one last questioning look, and she returned one of reassurance: I’m okay. The Doctor released her, then side-stepped over to the door.

“What are you doing? Doctor…”

“I’ve just gotta see. Need to see it, it’s okay.”

She cautiously placed her hands near the peep hole, and leaned forward to look through. She let out a soft gasp of admiration as it walked past. Distorted by the tiny sliver of glass, but still visible. Many-horned, maned, and bipedal. An ancient creature, stalking its prey through the twisting, distorted halls.

“Oh, you are beautiful.” She couldn’t help a gentle open-mouthed smile that pulled at her lips. “You’re not a nightmare at all, are you, gorgeous?”

She subconsciously started waggling her fingers in excitement, tapping them ever so softly on the door, almost silent. Yaz crept closer. If asked, she’d make the excuse that they were trying to be quiet and obviously that meant being close to the Doctor to hear her properly.

“What is it?”

“No idea…” the Doctor breathed, the wonder evident on her lips.

The creature stopped. It sniffed once, then paused a second. It turned sharply to their door, great beastly nostrils consuming the view. The Doctor jolted back instinctually, but when the door didn’t come crashing down, she returned to her viewpoint. It was gone, and the footsteps were faster now, moving away from them.

“Oh no…”

“What’s happening?” Dan pressed, hoping against hope she would simply explain the whole situation, and the ordeal could be over.

“I think it’s going after Joe…”

“Who had him? Rita?” Yaz asked, looking around the room again, now that she was more relaxed about the not-Angels. “Where are they? Didn’t they come with us?”

The Doctor yanked the door open, and stepped back out into the corridor. She looked around, and caught just a glimpse of Joe’s dress shoes dragging across the floor and around the next corner.

“No! Let him go!”

She sprinted after the beast and its prey, but by the time she reached the corner, they were nowhere to be seen. She continued running. Staying still certainly wouldn’t find them, and if the endless maze insisted on changing, she would just have to go through enough halls and stairways until she inevitably found them again.

“Joe! Joe, Joe, Joe, talk to me!” she yelled as she ran further and further, not stopping to think or plan – no time to think.

Minutes later, she rounded a corner and saw him – facing away from her, and sitting slumped against the wall.

“Joe!” She moved over to him, aiming to crouch down and turn him to face her. “Joe, hi there… you okay? J-”

Nothing. No pulse, no mind, no breath. No injuries. No signs of struggle, or illness. Nothing to suggest he could have died, and yet there he was – dead. Just dead.

“I’m sorry.”

Praise Him.

Chapter Text

Yaz and Rita were in the hotel kitchen, having decided to make tea for everyone. The classic British answer to trauma. Yaz suddenly realised just how rare it was that they had access to tea in the middle of an adventure-slash-crisis. Maybe it’d make this one easier to stomach. Probably not, given what had just happened, but it was worth a shot, at least.

They had been busy tossing tea bags into mugs as the kettle boiled, but of course quickly ended up simply waiting.

“I couldn’t help but notice…” Rita started. “You’re taking a lot of this in stride.”

“Mm. Kinda get used to it, I s’pose.”

“So… what, this is your everyday, is it?”

Yaz shrugged.

“Been knocking about with the Doctor for-” She faltered. “Some number of years. Guess it depends on whose timeline you ask.”

Rita frowned at that.

“‘Whose timeline’? What’s that mean?”

Yaz huffed, stuffing her hands in her pockets as she contemplated how, or even if, to explain herself.

“Well, you’ve seen aliens and an infinite, shifting maze-hotel, so I’m just gonna rip the band-aid off here: the TARDIS, the ship we’re looking for. She’s a time machine.”

Yaz contorted her face into an apologetic grimace, as Rita continued to sit there, stunned.

“Right… okay… sure. I mean, why not, at this point?”

“Sorry. No easy way to learn that.”

Rita titled her head and quirked her eyebrow, considering the new information.

“I’m not sure it’d help, to be honest.”

Now it was Yaz’s turn for confusion.

“How d’you mean?”

“Honestly? I think this is Jahannam.” Rita replied simply.

Yaz’s eyes widened in almost-epiphany. “Wow… wow, that… makes so much sense. If I didn’t know about the TARDIS, I’d believe you. Really hope you’re wrong, though…”

“It’s no more ridiculous than Howie’s CIA nonsense, or your Doctor’s alien fake hotel.”

“Yeah, but if you’re right, that probably means I’ve got some repentance to catch up on.” Yaz caught Rita’s eye with a regretful smile. “Not easy keeping up with Salah when time don’t always go in the right order.”

“Well, only you know for you, but I think so long as you’ve lived a good life… we’ll all make it to Jannah in the end. That’s what’s keeping me sane, so far. Despite the monsters, and the bonkers rooms…”

“Maybe that’s it… the way Joe was saying ‘He will feast’, ‘praise Him’. Didn’t it all sound a bit… capital ‘h’?”

The kettle whistled, drawing both women out of the conversation. Rita set about pouring it onto the teabags, while Yaz put herself on milk-and-sugar-duty.

“Are you saying Allah is a… big furry minotaur?" Rita restarted the conversation. "Might have to add something more to that repentance of yours.”

Yaz laughed, and the jolt nearly caused her to spill some milk on the countertop.

“Dunno… I think we’re all floundering right now. D’you reckon blasphemy made under duress gets a free pass?”

Now it was Rita’s turn to laugh.

“Maybe it’s the opposite. ‘Bad Muslims get sent to the Minotaur jail’. Maybe Joe couldn’t accept Allah, so he has to praise… ‘Him’, whoever He is.”

Yaz tutted. “Oh god, the Doctor was right – you are clever!”

Rita laughed airily, then returned the kettle to the now-off stove and started shifting the finished beverages to a pair of trays.

“I try my best. But, y’know, don’t need to worry about me stealing her away from you. ‘Not for me’, if you catch my drift. You’re her ‘favourite’, after all.”

Yaz shot Rita a queer look. Fear scratched at the back of her mind. Decade-old memories of jeering faces and stabbing insults. Things she’d spent too long trying to bury because she knew it would end in ostracism and pain. The Year From Hell.

“Really?” Her tone of voice was halfway between surprise at Rita’s perceptiveness and disappointment in her own obviousness. “That’s not… no, I’m just… it’s normal, alright?”

Rita’s face was now one of mild panic – she’d overstepped, and hadn’t realised until now just how badly she had done so. She reigned in her expression and changed it to one of honesty, and put up a well-practiced hand of reassurance. One she’d used on many patients during her medical training, as well as many other people in her day-to-day life.

“It’s okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to push any buttons.”

Yaz stopped. Right, of course. Rita was a reasonable, intelligent adult, not a petulant and angry teenager trying to cover up her own feelings of inadequacy. Not Izzy Flint.

Rita was nice.

“Yeah. Sorry, just… already got Dan on my case, y’know?”

Rita smiled as an almost-silent snort-laugh escaped her. She turned back to the tea, picking up a tray of mugs, and leading them out of the kitchen.

“I won’t add any more to your plate, then.”

They delivered tea around the dining room. The Doctor was busy scanning Joe, and his many, many ventriloquist dolls. Dan and Howie were rolling a table across the room, trying to set up a barricade. They all knew one of Howie or Gibbis was next, and hoped that maybe the Minotaur was just a normal physical creature who could be stopped with enough of a barrier.

Yaz eventually ended up giving the last cup on her tray to Gibbis, who was sat staring forlornly at the candles adorning his table. She saw the deep sadness in his eyes, almost an acceptance that he was doomed, and couldn’t stand to let him wallow by himself.

“Gibbis.” she started, setting the tray down to pick up her own mug of tea. “If it, uh… if it’s any consolation, I’ve met the Weeping Angels. I… I get it.”

She glanced up at the Doctor, who was now chatting to Rita, both sipping on their own drinks.

“I, uh… got separated from the Doctor because of them. For a long… long time.”

Praise Him.

“I actually thought that was my room when I first saw ‘em.”

Gibbis finally looked up at her.

“Joe was right.” he stated simply, then took a long, sharp breath. His fear started seeping into his voice after that. “Whatever it is in here, it actually wants to kill us. Not oppress us, or enslave us – kill us!”

Yaz pulled up a chair for herself, and sat down next to him. She had to try something – had to give him hope, or faith.

“Alright. So the Weeping Angels. When they sent me back in time, I felt… alone. I had Dan,” She nodded towards her unlikely friend, who was currently shoving a chair under the handles of one of the doors. “And another friend with me, but, at the time, we didn’t really know each other. The Doctor was gone, I couldn’t get to our ship, and I had no idea what to do. Until suddenly, two weeks in…”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small black crystal with gold decorative bands reaching around it. She’d never played the adaptive hologram since getting back from 1904, but still kept it on her person, just as a reminder.

“This thing lit up in my pocket, and it told me everything I needed to know. From her, from the Doctor. And I mean… I like to think I can take care of myself at this point, but I get it from her.” She gestured towards the Doctor using the gemstone.

“She’s really good at getting other people to be our best, especially when we’re afraid. It’s why I…” Her brain stuttered momentarily. “Trust her, so much. So long as we stick together, we’re all gonna get out of this – alive. It’s kind of what we do.”

Yaz let the words hang between them for a while, but eventually Gibbis nodded, once, sharply. Either he’d let the words sink in, or he was humouring her. Either way, it was time to leave him be. Yaz returned the gemstone to her pocket, squeezed his shoulder briefly, then grabbed her tea and stood, trying to give him the space he needed.

“Of course, if the Weeping Angels were meant for me…”

Yaz turned back to him, a morbid curiosity in her eyes.

“Then your room is still out there… somewhere…”

His mouth twitched, and eyes ran over her, trying to gauge what exactly she could be more afraid of than what she’d seen in that room. Truth be told, she was trying to figure it out herself.

She turned away again, and ended up staring, as she often did, at the Doctor in the midst of work. Give it a few seconds, and she’d go over, ask what she’d learned, and they’d piece something together. Rita was already talking to the Doctor – maybe filling her in on the whole ‘Jahannam’ concept.

They were getting along – the Doctor making friends with everyone she encountered, as per usual. That little spark of something the alien saw in every living soul. That was one of Yaz’s favourite things about the Doctor. One of the many reasons she… well, everything she and Dan had discussed in a Mancunian basement not even an hour ago. She still wasn’t quite ready to say the words, even in her own head.

Not the time. Yaz knew this wasn’t Jahannam – they’d come here via a (mostly) normal journey in the TARDIS, after all – but maybe aliens could mimic the ideas of a human afterlife and use those fears to fuel… something or other. Maybe, as was so often the case, a little bit of humanity would kickstart something in the Doctor’s brain and snap everything into place.

“I think she’s got a thing for clever Muslim gals.”

Yaz jolted out of her reverie as the familiar Merseyside accent suddenly appeared next to her.

“Bloody hell, Dan! Just gave me the fright of my life.” She weakly flapped a hand at his arm, then had to replay the words he’d said to register them properly. “And shut up, alright? We already did this.”

“We got interrupted by a Dalek!”

“Yeah, remind me to write ‘em a thank you note…” She gave him a pointed glare.

After a pause, she continued, lowering her eyes to her mug of tea, idly stirring it.

“You haven’t… said anything to her, have you? ‘Bout what I said?”

“Like what?” Dan put a comforting hand on Yaz’s arm, causing her to look up again.

Yaz floundered as she struggled her way through the thought.

“I dunno, just… something.” Dan could help a wide smile. Yaz wanted to smack it off of him. “Even Rita were saying… I-I dunno what.”

“Blimey, she’s only been around for half an hour, and she’s already twigged the two of you!”

“She’s twigged me.”

Dan scoffed, rolling his head, almost disappointed that he was having to spell things out so plainly. Yaz had to stuff her hand in her pocket to stop herself smacking his arm again – more forcefully this time.

“Oh, come on, Yaz. Can’t you see it?”

Yaz stopped. In her pocket were two sheets of paper. The ones she’d picked up just before they’d bundled into the Weeping Angel room. She pulled them out again, trying to see what they said properly this time.

“Shut up.”

“I know it’s tough, Ya-”

“No – shut up!” She waved the paper in Dan’s face.

She made a move over to the Doctor and Rita, setting her tea down on the nearest table on the way there.

“Doctor! I found these in that corridor with the… whatever it is. Forgot I had ‘em.”

She supposed it was easy to forget things when you’re trapped in a room designed around one of the worst things to ever happen to you.

The Doctor started up, meeting her halfway, and took the paper as it was offered to her.

“What is it?” she asked instinctively, even though it became obvious as soon as she started reading.

“I think someone before us was keeping a journal, or something.”

The Doctor looked up, seeing most of the room’s occupants now looking at her expectantly; waiting for her to regale them with whatever had been deemed so important as to leave a clue for those who came next. She began to read.

“Er… ‘My name is Lucy Hayward, and I’m the last one left. It took Luke first. It got him on his first day, almost as soon as we arrived’…

“‘It’s funny. You don’t know what’s going to be in your room until you see it, then you realise it could never have been anything else. I just saw mine – it was a gorilla from a book I’d read as a kid. My God, that thing used to terrify me’…

“‘The gaps between my worships are getting shorter, like contractions. This is what happened to the others.” Her voice dropped to a more sombre tone. “And how lucky they were. It’s all so clear now… I’m so happy.’”

She looked up and around the room. Partly because she was unsure how safe it was to say these next words, and partly because she needed to see who would react to them, and how.

“‘Praise Him.’”

“Praise Him.”

The room froze as everyone turned to Howie, sitting nervously next to Gibbis.

“What was that?” the Doctor asked gently.

“Nothing…”

Howie shook his head ever so slightly, eyes widening. His lips quivered and he looked as if he were about to be sick.

“Praise Him!” He practically vomited the words.

“This is what happened to Joe!” Gibbis yelled, getting out of his seat and away from his fellow prisoner.

The Doctor did the opposite, moving in swiftly and calmly. She tried to reach out, but Howie shot up and started pacing about, the nervous energy too much to bear.

“God, it’s going to come for me now.”

“You’ll lead it right here!”

The Doctor finally reached him, taking a shoulder in her hand.

“You’re gonna be alright.” the Doctor started, cutting through the chatter that had begun to overtake the others. “Howie. Howie, look at me.”

“I don’t- wanna get eaten!”

“Howie, we are not leaving you. I promise you.”

Howie was still fidgeting wildly, desperate to do something, anything that might save him. But there was nothing to do, so he simply moved.

Yaz had now caught up to them. “Howie, calm down. Alright – the Doctor’s been in scraps with a million different creatures and monsters, and she gets us out of every single one.”

Doctor flashed a look to Yaz.

Praise Him.

She returned to the panicking young man.

“Hey, look at me. I keep my promises alright – we’re sticking right with you.”

Howie distinctly wasn’t listening to either of them. The rest of the room was still in chaos; Dan and Rita trying to argue Gibbis down from his own panic, trying to explain – hoping, frankly – that the doors were successfully barricaded from the Minotaur. Yaz kept trying to calm Howie, but he was having none of it, stammering and yelling about his impending death, too crowded by the women pushing into his personal space.

The Doctor pulled back, whipped out the sonic and held it in the air.

“OI!”

The screwdriver let out a piercing, aggravating sound as she activated it, quickly shutting down all conversation and drawing everyone’s attention to her.

“Thank you.” she added, shutting off the noise.

Gibbis still wasn’t satisfied. “Don’t you see? He’ll lead it right here!”

“What do you suggest?” Rita reprimanded, almost hissing the question.

Gibbis shuffled uncomfortably, tugging at his sleeves and bobbing his head as he debated how to approach his next point.

“Look, whatever it is out there, it’s obviously chosen Howard as its next course. Now… ahem, tragic though that is, this is no time for sentiment.”

The Doctor’s gaze on him was angry with the fire of a million losses. He could only do his best not to look at her as he continued.

“I’m saying if it were to… find him, it- may be satisfied, and let the rest of us go!”

He punctuated his point with a meek smile, hoping to get enough of the humans on board to overrule the Doctor’s commanding presence.

“Mate,” Dan warned, but was interrupted.

“Oh, all I wanna do is go home and be conquered and oppressed!” Gibbis’s tone was now more that of a petulant child. “Is that too much to ask!?”

Rita had buried her face in one of her hands, and now looked up, glancing at the Doctor.

“It’s okay, I’ll stay with Howie. You take the others and go.”

“Not a chance.” Yaz countered immediately. “We’re sticking together.”

The Doctor trusted her co-pilot to get the point across, and instead made her way over the Gibbis, who had now plonked himself down back in his previous seat. Her eyes hadn’t softened, and he squirmed as she approached. Another entity not at all interested in his subjugation wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. Once she was close enough, she crouched down, violently re-entering his field of view.

“Your civilisati- Look at me!” she snapped, causing him to do as asked. “Your civilisation is one of the oldest in the galaxy. Always wondered how you managed, but now I get it. Your cowardice isn’t quaint. It’s sly, and aggressive. Dragging e'ryone else down to your level, and throwing them to the wolves when they won’t meet you there. You’re using fear as a weapon just as much as this building does.”

He squirmed again, shaking his head in one final pathetic attempt to throw people off.

“Not today, I’m afraid. No-one else dies today.”

Praise Him.

“Alright?”

Gibbis twitched, trying to compose himself. Eventually he made what was technically a nod, and a quiet breath of affirmation.

The Doctor shot back up immediately, plastering a bright smile across her face, and clasping her hand together. “Brilliant!”

She spun on the spot, her coat briefly fluttering in Gibbis’ face.

“Howie! Any second now, it’s gonna possess you again.” She grabbed him by the shoulders, and steadily directed him to another chair at the same table. “When it does, I’m gonna ask you some questions. You think you can answer ‘em for me?”

Howie nodded silently. She turned the next chair to look at him and planted herself in it. The others joined them, Yaz sitting between the Doctor and Gibbis, with Rita and Dan taking up the other side.

“I hope my mum’s alright. She’s sh-she gonna be w-worried.”

The Doctor leaned forward, catching his eyes.

“She’ll be fine. Just as soon as you’re back with her.”

She put on an easy smile, and he mirrored it. Then it grew, becoming more of a manic grin as his eyes widened. The Doctor leaned back again, taking it as her cue.

“Howie…”

He ignored her. She tapped the table in front of him a couple of times.

“Howie. You’re next, Howie. We’re all well chuffed for you! Honestly, was kinda hoping it’d be me.”

Praise Him.

“So how about it? Any way I could cut in line?”

Howie gave a small laugh. It was obvious. Of course it was obvious. He’d been blind and so was the Doctor. So were all of these other people. But he could see now. And he could help them. Here she was, asking for help – begging him to help in her ascension. He could bestow such brilliance upon them…

When he spoke, his voice was pristine and clear – no hint of the stammer that had plagued him for most of his life.

“You guys have got…” He tapped his head knowingly. “All these distractions; all these obstacles. It’d be so much easier if you just let it go, y’know? Clear the path.”

He emphasised the last point by miming with one hand: a line forwards from his mind.

“And you want it to find you?” Yaz asked, watching his expression carefully. “You know wha- do you know what it’s going to do to you?”

Howie leaned forward excitedly.

“Are you kidding? He’s going to kill us all! How cool is that!?”

He giggled contentedly to himself as the Doctor turned to the others, preparing for a classic expository speech.

“Okay, so it feeds on fear. The shifting corridors; Yaz was right about the pictures in reception; Lucy’s note – maybe it’s left there for us to find, maybe Lucy wasn’t even real. It’s why the other rooms don’t go away after someone dies. It’s still priming us to be afraid. Then we find our room, and it spikes. Like the world’s biggest jump-scare, except it doesn’t go away.”

She pointed at Gibbis.

“When we figured out the Weeping Angels weren’t real, we calmed down, but you didn’t. It had spiked your fear, and it was keeping you in that jump-scare moment. Howie’s has been building ever since we found his room. The phraseology – the praising – it’s a memetic device which seals off the fear,” She cupped her hands, miming a closed sphere. “Ready to eat, and leaves the victim unable to access it.”

“So that’s why he’s fine with it?” Dan piped up. “You saying he’s basically fearless right now?”

The Doctor nodded once. “Like all that pre-packaged food you lot have in your time. Prepped, and stored, and ready when you are! Five-quid-meal-deal!”

“So how do we stop it eating him?”

“No idea! Working on it – so far, best guess is to keep him far away from our furry friend. But! Just as important: you lot. If you don’t want to end up as a Gregg’s sausage roll, you’ve got to fight that fear.”

She turned to Rita, and gave a congratulatory smile.

“Rita, you nailed it – keep. Yourself. Sane! Whatever you need to think, whatever you need to believe, believe it. Gibbis, you will get home to a brand-new invasion storming through your lovely shady highways and the more you believe that, the more likely it is to be true! Great big positive feedback loop! It’s a weakness in the system that we can exploit.”

“Okay, but that thing is going after Howie.” Yaz brought the conversation back to the most pressing matter. “If we run him away from it, we don’t know where we’re going, it does, it just catches us.”

The Doctor turned to Yaz, smiling gleefully, and leaning just a touch closer than she normally did.

“Which is why, Yasmin Khan, we’re gonna catch it first!”

Yaz smiled back as the Doctor bounced her eyebrows in the adorable way she did when she was excited about something.

“Bring me death! Bring me glory!”

Howie was gripped by the throes of passionate worship.

“My Master. My Lord, I’m here!”

The Doctor adjusted the mirror one final time.

“Come to me. I’m waiting. Here… for you.”

She checked the angle again, ensuring herself a good view of the dining room beyond.

“He has promised me a glorious death.”

She removed her coat, carefully and quietly, and laid it in the corner – wouldn’t do to have it flapping about the place while trying to sneak through the maze of glass they’d concocted.

“Give it to me now – I want Him to know my devotion.”

She waited. Watching, hidden in her corner. The footsteps grew louder; the ground pulsing through her feet as they got closer.

“Praise Him!”

A door crashed open. More footsteps. Each one steeped in… inevitability. The Doctor killed the lights.

“Praise! Him!”

“Dan, he’s in!” Yaz’s voice, muffled by the door she’d just closed again – and barricaded, according to the girls’ part in the plan.

The Doctor could hear them doing just that, Dan doing the same for his door. She watched the mirror, shifting her head side to side to get a view of the different angles. She knew where Yaz and Rita’s entrance was, so ‘He’ must be there.

“Let His name… be the last thing I hear. Let His breath on my skin be the last thing I feel!”

There he was. Her beautiful alien Minotaur, stepping about the room, cloaked in shadow and refractions of what little light still made its way into the room under the doors. Hidden through a fog of glass, and water, and mirrors, but there he was.

“I was lost in shadows, but He found me.”

He reached the radio, sniffing the chair it had been sat on. It blared Howie’s venerations, transmitted and amplified by the sonic screwdriver she’d hooked up in the reception area. Gibbis had been left to watch over the young man, but that hopefully shouldn’t be any great task, tied up as the lad was.

“His love was a beacon that led me from darkness to light, and now I am blinded by His majesty!”

The creature growled, clearly unsatisfied by the non-existent meal. It glanced up and around the room, sniffing and braying.

“Humbled by His glory! Praise! Him!”

“Thank you, Howie…” the Doctor whispered.

She pulled the nearby plug, disconnecting the wire that had been run out of the room over to her sonic. The radio screeched as it disconnected, hopefully shaking Howie out of his reverie while it was at it.

“I’ll take it from here.”

She crept around the edges of the room, keeping out of the Minotaur’s direct line of sight. She had a perfect map of the mirrors in her mind, so she knew exactly where her target was even through three or four reflections. She’d be abusing that as much as possible.

“Nothing personal!” she announced cheerfully. “Just think we should take things slowly. Never let an alien predator eat your intangible thoughts and feelings on a first date – that’s what I always say.”

The creature roared in response, angered by both the trap and her attitude. She moved along, changing the routing of the reflections, just to keep him on his toes.

“So, you take people’s greatest fears, pop ‘em in a fancy little room, and even go to the trouble of providing free transport! Tailor-made ‘Jahannam’. Why?”

She focused on his eyes. Definite signs of intelligence in there, but… muted. Like something had been lost over the years. Was any of what she’d described the creature’s will, or something else above them all?

The thing growled and barked. She didn’t know the exact language, and without a TARDIS to help her out, she was left with only her own knowledge. That said, there were only so many ways to snarl in this universe, so she was able to make out the intent.

They take.

“‘They’? Who’s ‘they’?”

Protector.

No. Not quite.

“Ohh, what’s that word?” The Doctor leaned back and bent her knees, face scrunched, wracking her brains for the proper translation. “Guard? No… warden!”

She straightened up, looking the beast in the eyes again.

Warden.

Yes, that was definitely it. Her face dropped, instantly saddened by the revelation.

“This is a prison?”

He took a step towards the mirror, but stopped. She could see in his eyes that he was trying to work out why that was wrong. She moved before he could learn too much. New angle, new mirrors.

Prison.

She squinted at him, studying.

“So is your story the same as ours? Snatched up, left here, and hungry? Or are you the prisoner, and we’re just lunch?”

You are not ripe.

Oh… that’s right. Joe and Howie were cooked. The Doctor wasn’t a sausage roll yet. Did that mean it was safe to…?

She took a few more steps, emerging from the shadows, and seeing the thing without obstruction for the first time.

“Over here.”

He turned on her, but stayed where he was, assessing her as much as she was him. And oh, what a beauty he was! A ridged brow sporting 7 grand horns – an eighth had broken off and left a stump behind – large cloven hooves, teeth cracked and coloured with age, wisps of brown fur in a mane, and covering his body, greying at the ends.

Most striking of all were his eyes – startlingly bright blue, and now… now she could see he was truly ancient. Maybe even older than herself. Every year, every day, hidden in those eyes.

If he weren’t planning to have her friends as snacks, she could’ve stayed there just looking at him for minutes! That was saying something, considering she’d once started taking apart Yaz’s mum’s fridge after Yaz had left her alone for only a few seconds to grab something from her room. Well, ‘only a few seconds’ according to Yaz - it’d felt like hours to her.

“Like Joe said – we’re not ready.”

They both paced, circling each other.

“So, you what… make us ready?”

Replace concept.

Wrong word again. The concept of something.

“Replace what? Fear – is that it?”

His eyes suddenly softened, lucidity returning for a brief moment. A moment of clarity breaking through the haze of old age and hunger. He stomped and shook as he continued.

I have lived too long. Even my name is lost.

Everything about him was now tinged with a deep sadness.

The Doctor’s tone dropped to match his. “I know the feeling…”

Please stop. I cannot continue this.

The Doctor stood stock still, hearts breaking.

“You want this to stop?” she asked quietly.

All I am is instinct.

“Then tell me how.” She took a cautious step towards him. “I can help.”

Please stop. Please stop. I want to stop.

“I know. I know. I understand, okay? Better than anyone else in the universe. It’s okay, I can help. I just need to know how.”

“My Master! My Lord!” Howie crooned, his voice echoing through the rooms.

The haze returned. The promise of food overriding the creature’s mind once more.

“No, no, please. Listen to me!” the Doctor begged, stepping forward again, putting out an arm, hoping to calm the thing before her.

“I’m HERE!”

The beast turned, an errant arm effortlessly smashing a pane of decorative glass. The Doctor recoiled, barely avoiding a broken arm and a glass-shard shower.

“Oh, bring me death!”

The Minotaur charged, throwing itself at Dan’s door.

“Dan, watch out!” the Doctor yelled, maybe too late.

He crashed into the door at speed, easily breaking through whatever it was Dan had used to blockade the other side. The door behind the Doctor flew open as well, as Rita and Yaz barged in.

The Doctor jumped a little at the surprise entrance, but composed herself and began to follow the Minotaur.

“Stay back!”

Well, that definitely wasn’t going to work – she knew Yaz well enough by now.

The Doctor jumped through what had, until recently, been a rather lovely marbled glass display, and sprinted out of the room. The others took the more careful approach, moving around it and being careful not to touch anything that might now have tiny knives buried in it.

The Doctor saw Dan lying dazed on the floor, just outside his door. She knelt down and saw that he was alive, conscious, and not bleeding – the big three.

“Where’d he go?” she demanded.

“Somebody hit me…” Dan murmured in response, blinking, clearly dazed by his encounter with the rampaging beast.

No use, then.

“You’re alright.”

The Doctor jumped up again and began running. Once again the only hope was a chance encounter amongst the endless corridors. She ran. Howie must have started in reception, so she passed briefly through it and out the other end.

She didn’t even bother to check for Gibbis – Howie’s chair was empty, and there was no Minotaur. She kept running, blazing through endless hallways, picking turns based on muffled shouts and blind hope.

Glasses. On the floor; definitely Howie’s, but now cracked. She ran over to them. They were off to the left a bit, so she turned that way, and froze.

Howie, slumped into the wall, just as Joe had been. Nothing of the creature anywhere; vanished to wherever he waited between meals. She bent down to pick up the glasses, then began the long, slow walk over to the corpse. The longer she put it off, the more he looked at peace. Almost sleeping.

Then she reached him, and saw his eyes. Open, unblinking, unmoving. Just like Joe. She knelt quietly next to him, and waited a moment.

His mum would be worried.

Diane probably was worried.

Najia should be worried, but even now she didn’t know where Yaz was.

Praise Him.

She nestled Howie’s glasses into his hand, and closed it around them. At least he hadn’t died scared. It was meagre consolation, but she’d take it wherever she could find it. Needed to.

She took a deep breath, then stood. She watched as Gibbis came skulking around the corner, eyeing the scene nervously.

“He got free.” he whimpered.

The disgust was evident on her face.

“He overpowered me.”

She held his gaze for a second more, then turned, and started walking.

“It might leave us alone now. Maybe now we’ll be safe!”

He scampered after her.

Why was it always the wretches who survived?

“Wait!”

Rita and Yaz hurried out of the dining room to Dan’s aid, almost falling onto him in their desperation to check up on him.

“Dan, you alright?” Rita asked, training taking over.

He was, thankfully – giving a firm, if pained, thumbs-up as he shifted round on the floor. Rita couldn’t see any significant injuries, so began checking his eyes for any signs of trauma.

Yaz looked up.

“We should-”

Praise Him.

“Find… the Doctor…”

She pushed herself up and stepped forward, past Dan, towards the whisper.

Praise Him.

She turned. Room 10.

Praise Him.

She shouldn’t look.

She was at the door.

The Doctor needed her. Dan was hurt.

Her hand rested on the handle.

Do not open that door.

She open-

Rita stood in front of her, hastily slamming the door shut, and standing resolutely between Yaz and it.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

PRAISE HIM.

“What did you see?”

Yaz shook her head slightly.

“No, I- nothing. I don’t know.”

Rita stayed there for a moment longer, ensuring Yaz wouldn’t be tempted again.

“Come on.”

Rita turned her away, back to Dan.

PRAISE HIM.

Chapter Text

After recovering her coat from the ballroom, the Doctor had returned to the the place the TARDIS had once been parked. Now, her eyes were drifting over the pictures lining the walls.

A Vinvocci, ‘Karno Farren, His Brother Overdoses’.

Raxacoricofallapatorian, ‘Morp Fen-Glor Erventril Kafreen, Screwing Up The Punchline’.

‘Howard Spragg, The Stammer’.

‘Rita Afzal, Letting Dad Down’…

But… Rita wasn’t dead. The Doctor could hear her, now, in the next room over. Laughing, chatting. Not praising, or screaming, crying, anything else someone might do when death came calling. Had she even found her room yet?

Despite that, here she was, photo and fear on display for all to see. Did that mean…

‘Yasmin Khan, What If Next Time It’s Forever’?

The Doctor frowned. What if what’s forever? Temporally, or metaphorically? Were there any other metaphors on the wall? Should she ask Yaz? Would it help solve what was happening, or just add her to the list if she discovered her fear this way? The rooms must be needed, surely, otherwise this place would just show them all a photo upon arrival.

The whole point was to find the rooms, so if Yaz hadn’t found her room yet, that must mean it’s okay to ask about ‘it’ – whatever ‘it’ was. Or maybe not. It wasn’t clear how any of this really worked, and the last thing the Doctor was going to do was risk Yaz. Brilliant, kind, beautiful, Yaz…

She blinked, turning away again – not the time, Doctor. Things to do. The talking and emotions can wait – thankfully.

She froze. Out the corner of her eye was a picture that was all too familiar. A flash of blonde hair, a grey coat covering the shoulders. She didn’t look. Didn’t want to know. Thousands of years living through disaster after trauma after cataclysm – it could say anything under that photo.

What name would it even say? Was it an old name, that Dan and Yaz wouldn’t recognise her by? Or her now-name, the promise she kept failing to keep? Some other title: the Oncoming Storm, the Beast of Trenzalore, whatever nightmare her visage conjured in the minds of this building’s architect? Maybe an older name – before the academy, before Ruth Clayton, before Division and Tecteun – a name she never knew.

Part of her screamed to look, to read, to know. A bigger part of her reached into her pocket, drawing the sonic screwdriver, and held it up to the frame. She held the button, and after a second, she heard the crack of glass. She dragged the screwdriver over the picture, and the crack deepened. Returning the tool to her pocket, she risked a look. The glass was completely splintered, her face unrecognisable and text unreadable. Much better.

She continued looking over the wall. Joe, Howie, Rita, Gibbis, Yaz… but no Dan. Anywhere. Why no Dan? He’d lost his house to a mad giant dog. Then within a day of meeting him, she’d thrown him into a time storm, before leaving him trapped in 1901 with next-to-no experience. A fun day trip had turned into nine successive exterminations, followed by running around an uncanny-valley hotel under threat of Minotaur. There must be something he was afraid of in all of that…

“Hey, Doc.”

Speak of the devil. She gave one last glance along the wall, then looked to her friend, frowning.

“You found your room yet?”

He seemed a little taken aback by the question, contemplating.

“Nah. Nah, I haven’t. That good or bad?”

“Maybe you’re not scared of anything.”

He let out a soft, quiet chuckle.

“Well… Flux, Daleks. What’s left to be scared of? Hell, we’ve ended up in worse places just because you can’t drive – this hotel’s got nothing on Mancs.”

“Oi! I can drive, thank you very much!”

“Better when you’ve got a co-pilot, though, eh?” He nudged her with an elbow and a cheeky smirk.

She let out an annoyed tut, and shot him a half-hearted glare.

“Yes, Dan, I got the hint last time – I told you.”

“Just making sure. Never know with your driving.”

The Doctor made an offended squeaking noise.

“You’re not careful, I’ll drop you off in Leeds next time…” She shook her head in mock-exasperation as he gave a laugh. “No, we were going to San Munrohvar. Something… dragged us in here.”

“Yaz said something about that. Like, the TARDIS decides where to go sometimes. Which… don’t make any sense, but what else is new?”

The Doctor shook her head. “No, I’d know – I’d feel it. She didn’t decide to come here – she was forced off course. Not sure how or why…”

“Any ideas?”

She huffed, tilting her head and eyes widening.

“No good ones…”

She looked back to the wall. Back to Yaz. ‘What If Next Time Its Forever?’

“Actually… gimme ten minutes. Can you make sure everyone stays put in there?” She nodded towards the reception area.

“Yeah, will do.” Dan assured, giving a singular friendly pat on the shoulder. “Just be careful, alright?”

“Always.” she lied.

As they started to move off, him back to the others in reception and her in the direction of the endless corridors and rooms, he spotted the shattered photo. He stopped for a second to take it in, unable to make out the face or text beneath it.

“Ugh. Someone’s not a fan of school picture day.”

He tapped the glass, causing a chunk of it to fall away.

‘It never stops’.

Admittedly, it wasn’t her best plan; scouring the rooms for clues. A pitch-black room, an overly-aggressive dog, far too many police officers piling out of the bathroom, Cybermen, Daleks, wars of all varieties, an intense chess match, endless piles of homework. A room wherein a nearly-naked man had happily been handcuffed to the bedframe by each limb while a striking young woman encroached on him was particularly hurriedly closed off.

Hoping she’d find Yaz’s. Not that she wanted to intrude on her dearest friend’s worst fear, but with the room, her near-encyclopaedic existing knowledge of the young woman, and ‘What If Next Time It’s Forever?’ maybe she could piece together the full picture, get ahead of the game, and save the others. If nothing else, save Yaz, at least. That was the bottom line.

Dan didn’t seem to be in danger. She wanted to save the rest of course – Gibbis and Rita. Especially Rita. Typical, really – five minutes chatting to a clever little human and she was already attached. That’s how it always worked… and sometimes it got worse than mere attachment. Like now, with Yaz. She shook herself out of that strangled line of thinking by slamming the door on a room occupied by a very large, bright yellow, seemingly-friendly seal.

Gibbis must be next, right? She’d been there when he found his Weeping Angel room. He hadn’t started to praise yet, though. Or maybe he had – she’d been rifling through rooms long enough for someone else to start up, and no closer to a solution for it.

Praise Him.

The whisper came from nowhere. And everywhere. And yet, she also knew exactly which specific direction it had come from. She whipped around. At the end of the corridor: Room 13.

She didn’t want to look.

She stepped closer.

She really shouldn’t look.

Right up to the door.

She had to turn back.

She turned the handle.

She needed to return to her friends.

She pushed the door forward.

Gibbis, Rita, Dan, Yaz. Yaz. YAZ.

PRAISE HIM.

And there they were. All her friends. All the Ian Chestertons and Susan Foremans and River Songs of her life, piled into one room. No, under the room. Buried. Never to move or breathe or talk or smile again.

Josephine Grant. Charley Pollard. Martha Jones. In loving memory Rory Arthur Williams aged 82 and his loving wife Amelia Williams aged 87. A sonic screwdriver resting on a Library server. Grace and Graham O’Brien. Ryan Sinclair. Rita Afzal. Daniel Lewis. Some in ancient, curled Gallifreyan.

Yasmin Khan.

A thousand more for the faces she’d been forced to forget. A million more for all those she’d yet to meet; yet to persuade to join her in a life of reckless abandon; yet to fail. Some faded, broken, neglected, as even her memories of them died.

In the centre, stood above it all: her. Not her. Another her. A yet-to-be her. Old, older than she’d ever been, and yet so very young. Why did they have to look so young?

You don’t even have the dignity to grow old in your old age, do you?

It never stops.

It always hurts in the end…

“Hmph. What else?”

She pulled the door closed softly.

PRAISE HIM.

“Rita! Brilliant!” The Doctor beamed as she encountered the young woman on the stairwell leading back to the reception. “How you holding up? Not panicking, I hope.”

Rita smiled softly and shook her head ever so slightly. Not panicking.

“Good. Great! I am literally five minutes and a custard cream away from getting us out of here!”

Rita actually frowned at that.

“Why?”

The Doctor frowned back.

“Interesting… are you about to be clever again? I’ll have to add you to the points system at this rate. Why what?”

“Why’s it up to you to save us? You keep calling me ‘clever’, Yaz is your ‘favourite’, so I can only imagine she’s done something clever to earn that – why is it all on you?”

“Ooh, that is good. Oh, I can’t help it – that’s a ten-pointer!” The Doctor pointed encouragingly as she skipped down the next few steps. “You’re on the board. Dan’s not far ahead; you’ll be second place in no time!”

“Doctor.” Rita turned to follow, but the call alone was enough to stop the ineffable alien in her tracks. “Didn’t answer my question.”

The Doctor continued not to answer for a short while, staring blankly down the stairs.

“S’pose not…” she muttered, then looked back up to meet the other woman’s gaze.

Rita was nearly stunned by the overwhelming sadness that had now consumed the woman looking up at her.

“My fault.” the Doctor continued. “I’m the reason they’re here. Yaz would say it was her choice, but…”

She looked back down the stairs, spying Dan wandering about the room.

“Someone told me something recently… and I think that stopped being true a long time ago. Should’ve seen it coming. So wrapped up trying and failing to stop it from the other end that I didn’t notice. My fault.”

“Why do I get the impression you think everything bad is your fault?”

The Doctor chuckled at that. Rita was certainly intent on living up to the primary adjective she’d been assigned. The Doctor waited a moment, then looked back up at her.

“Howie said ‘my mum is going to be worried’… Najia doesn’t even know enough to be worried.”

“Yaz’s mum?”

“Mm. Might be days before she starts worrying. Yaz disappearing with me for a weekend is just normal…” The Doctor blinked with a solemn realisation. “Don’t even know Dan’s mum.”

“Something tells me he doesn’t need his mum to sign a permission slip.”

The Doctor snorted a laugh.

“No, no, Yaz doesn’t either - wouldn’t take kindly if anyone suggested as much.”

She smiled at the thought of Yaz’s stubborn streak. Not something one normally smiled about, but it was Yaz, so smile the Doctor did.

“Still deserves to know her daughter is running around all of space and time with an alien.”

“All of time and space, eh?”

The Doctor smirked.

“Oh yeah. And when we get out of this, I’ll show you, too.”

She resumed the trek down with a wink. She shouldn’t have done that…

“I- don’t know what you’re talking about. But whatever it was, I don’t think you learned your lesson.”

The Doctor stopped again, making a noise somewhere between a sad sigh and an appreciative laugh. She really shouldn’t have done that…

Praise Him.

She lifted her head. To apologise? To take it back? To save Rita before it was too late? Before she got stuck with the Doctor just like so many others had before her? Instead, she caught onto something else that drew her attention out of the conversation.

“Down to the smallest detail… gotcha, Mister Minotaur.”

She pointed across the room to a security camera on the far end. The Doctor shot off, leaving Rita to her own devices.

“Don’t move a muscle!” she yelled over her shoulder as she ran.

The Doctor burst into yet another room. Even the non-bedrooms were difficult to find in this place. There was only one dining room, one reception, one kitchen, and yet they were laid out just as confusingly as the endless corridors and bedrooms were. It had taken her several minutes to find the one she wanted – several minutes too long, if she was to believe her fears.

But, if this place had Earth fruit, and Earth materials, and a fully-stocked kitchen of Earth ingredients, then surely it had this: a security room. A bank of tv screens lined one of the walls, a computer connected up to all of them for processing and archival purposes. Rows and rows of old tapes dating back centuries all stocked in shelves up against another wall. A corded telephone with a simple list of internal directory shortcuts taped onto the base.

“Ah, finally!”

She set to work flicking through different cameras around the entire hotel. As much as their not-so-friendly Minotaur seemed to come and go as He pleased, He was definitely corporeal. He walked to find His victims. He charged through doors, and dragged people away. The seemingly magical appearances and disappearances were as much a trick as any other part of this. It only worked because He knew the space, far better and for much longer than they had.

So, naturally, He must actually be somewhere now. The Doctor wasn’t entirely sure what she planned to do with that information once she learned it. Maybe trap Him – sit someone down at this booth and have them co-ordinate a plan to corral the creature so she could talk to Him again. Or hide people from Him – if they could move through the space as efficiently as He could, she could keep the others safe while searching for the TARDIS.

First things first – find Him.

“Come on, show me that big beautiful face…”

She cycled through more and more corridors. She found the kitchen once, but very little else of note. When she did find a face, it was not the one she expected, or hoped to see. Rita Afzal, walking with intent down one of the hallways. Not the tentative, unsteady approach that Howie or the Doctor herself had made to their rooms. No, Rita was confident, and steady on her feet. She was going somewhere.

“Ugh, why do the clever ones always get their own ideas?”

Rooms 300 to 320. She grabbed the phone and dialled 3-1-1. As it rang, she saw Rita stop on the screen, staring at room 311. She contemplated for a second, then looked around.

“Come on, come on, pick it up…”

Rita spotted the camera, and pulled a sad, understanding smile. The young woman couldn’t see the Doctor, but they locked eyes nonetheless.

“Yeah, it’s me – pick up!”

Rita’s smile changed – grateful. She opened the door and a moment later, the phone connected.

“Rita, where are you going?” the Doctor asked immediately.

She heard a quiet, uneasy breath on the other end. She needed to see her again – look into her eyes.

“Can you come back into the corridor? Will it reach?”

She heard a shuffling sound as Rita did so, looking back to the same camera, the smile now tight-lipped and tainted with pain.

“You’ve started… haven’t you?” The Doctor couldn’t bring herself to say it directly.

Rita swallowed, then nodded. Still silent, not trusting her voice.

Not again. Praise Him.

“Rita… come back, please.” The Doctor wasn’t above begging if it meant saving one more life. “We will find a way to stop Hi-”

“No, I need to get as far away from you all as possible.” Rita finally spoke; sad, accepting, but not scared. She’d not been scared this whole time.

She placed the base of the phone on the ground, and crouched down next to it, now holding the speaker to her ear with both hands.

“No you don’t.” the Doctor countered. “He only wants whoever’s praising Him – He won’t hurt the rest of us.”

Her eyes flitted about the other screens, but found no signs of Him.

“And then you’ll put yourself in its way?” she challenged. Barely an hour they’d known each other and yet already she knew exactly how the Doctor operated.

“I’m coming to get you. You said it – keep yourself sane and I’ll be ri-”

“Not everything is your fault. You don’t have to break yourself to fix this. I’m not frightened… Look, the hotel will keep us apart – I could be fifty miles away by now. So focus on Gibbis, and Dan… and Yaz. Use this time I’m giving you to get them safe.”

“Rita…”

The Doctor wasn’t sure what else was left. It was clear Rita had made up her mind. A Hail Mary, then – ‘Letting Dad Down’.

“Your dad will be worried.”

A pause. Rita’s face was unchanged. She’d already thought of that.

“Yeah he will. And mum.”

The Doctor struggled to find the words. She wanted to scream and rage against the unfairness of it all, but that wouldn’t be kind to Rita.

“What am I gonna tell them?” she asked softly, a plea as much as a question.

“Tell them… I was blessed to have friends with me this day.”

The door burst open, Yaz and Dan flying though. The Doctor turned sharply, heartsrate spiking for a brief moment; a rare instance of being genuinely caught off guard.

“Doc, Rita’s vanished.” Dan started. “D’you- what’s she doing there?”

The Doctor kept staring at the two of them, letting her grief-stricken face, and water-logged eyes explain for her.

“Is that them?” Rita half-laughed. A pause, then: “Could I… talk to Yaz, please?”

Yaz couldn’t hear the request, but as soon as she connected the dots, she held out her hand of her own accord.

“Gimme the phone.”

The Doctor’s reaction was instant, doing as asked without question, in a display of absolute trust in her companion. Yaz held it to her ear.

“Hi Rita. It’s Yaz.”

Rita’s smile brightened on the screen.

“Hi Yaz.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

Rita opened her mouth to respond, but Yaz got there first.

“I think you’re right: we’ll all see Jannah in the end. But that doesn’t have to be today.”

Rita swallowed, ducking her head briefly. When she spoke again, there was only the smallest of cracks in her voice.

“I can feel it. Rapture, coming for me, like a wave. And I’m okay with that.”

“You shouldn’t have to be. You don’t have to be. This isn’t a test of faith – if it were, it wouldn’t be you facing this.”

“I know it’s not. But I am facing it, and in doing so, I will keep my faith until it is taken from me.”

“But you don’t have to. If you come back, we will stop this.” Panic began to sink its putrid claws into Yaz’s heart. In desperation, she turned to the one thing that could keep the panic at bay. “The Doctor will find a way to stop this.”

Rita smiled.

“And you will keep yours, it seems.”

The words struck Yaz like a truck. She had cast aside so much of her life in favour of the Doctor over the years. Missing out on her daily prayers in the not-time of TARDIS travel. She had lost years with her friends and family thanks to the Flux, and months on top of that thanks to her and the Doctor’s habit of ‘weekend trips’ that lasted 10 days. She’d quit her job during those ten terrible months just to frustrate herself against an inscrutable machine.

“Please don’t misunderstand me,” Rita clarified, almost begging to be understood. “I don’t say that with judgement – I say it with awe.”

Yaz could hear the truth of those words in Rita’s voice. As clear as anything she’d ever heard.

“This isn’t about me. Please let us help you.”

“Call it repentance, for an old friend I let down once. I think we all leave this world with regrets, but… it’d be nice to have one fewer, and this is as close as I can get right now. You have that chance, too. So take it from me: do something about it while you can.”

“Seriously?” Yaz scoffed, but without any malice. “That’s what you’re spending your last phone call on?”

There was movement on one of the other screens – a shadowed figure trudging its way past the far end of a corridor.

Rita gave a sly smile and an ever-so-slightly-smug shrug.

“Of course I am. One last chance to do some good.”

Yaz paused. If there were any words in the English language capable of expressing her own awe at the condemned woman, they would be few.

“Allah would be proud of you.” she landed on. “I have faith in that.”

Yaz could hear just the quietest echoes of footsteps through the phoneline now. Each one louder and clearer than the last.

Rita’s face softened, muscles previously tightened in anticipation now slack with relief.

“Thank you.” The crack in her voice had deepened, nearly overwhelmed by the kind words. “I want you to- do me one last favour, Yaz. The way this thing works – what it did to Joe and Howie, it…” She grimaced in one final attempt to keep the tears at bay. “I don’t want any of you to witness this; I want you to remember me the way I was.”

There was a crackle in the phone – either a bit of static, or a low growl heard from just metres away.

“Okay…” Yaz’s voice was as quiet as it had ever been.

“Thank you for trying.” There was a noticeable hitch in her voice. “For helping me be at peace. Tell the Doctor for me, too.”

A bellow reverberated through the earpiece.

“Goodbye, Rita. I’ll meet you in Jannah, one day.”

Both women put down the phone, as the shadow of the beast began to creep up Rita’s legs on the screen. Rita shuffled around so that she was kneeling away from the Minotaur. The movements of her jaw were just barely visible as she began to speak, inaudible to the security room’s occupants.

“We can’t just-” Dan started, but couldn’t find the words. Was there anything he could say now, that the others hadn’t already tried?

“Turn off the screen, Doctor.” Yaz whispered, looking up at her with tears already flowing.

The Doctor didn’t argue. She silently reached into her pocket to draw the screwdriver, and buzzed it at the screen for a second, cutting the feed, then let it drop onto the table.

Again. Again and again. Forever. Praise Him.

Yaz finally dropped to her knees, her legs giving out, and let the tears come in ragged, forceful sobs. The Doctor immediately followed, holding Yaz tight to her chest, as her own tears fell. Dan slowly joined them, balancing himself against the wall as he dropped on Yaz’s other side. He, too, could not hold back tears in the face of his friends' grief.

After nearly a minute, Yaz took a sharp breath, trying desperately to calm herself enough to deliver what was needed – what Rita would have wanted. She clasped her hands to her chest, her right hand on top of her left, still under the Doctor’s embrace.

“Allah, forgive her and have mercy on her…” Yaz started, struggling with her emotions on nearly every word.

Chapter Text

“Rita wasn’t afraid.”

The Doctor was on her second Rubik’s cube. A completed 3-by-3 sat on the table in front of her, and she whiled away at a 4-by-4. Her hands had to be doing something, even in the midst of grief and anger and fear and thought. The curse of a mechanics’ hands with no mechanicals nearby.

“She was the bravest one in here, but He got to he- Do we know when she saw her room?” She had barely paused between the two thoughts, simply letting them run into one another as it occurred to her.

For a few moments, the only sound in the room was the clacking of the plastic cube, then a bang as the Doctor slammed it next to its smaller cousin, finished. She pulled out a 5-by-5.

“She wasn’t with us for the Weeping Angels.” Yaz posited quietly. “Coulda been then.”

The Doctor took a breath. That’s what she gets for letting people go off on their own. For not looking after them. For not making sure.

Praise Him.

“And He got her first. So it’s not fear – the fears in the rooms are just a catalyst, but something else made her more susceptible than Gibbis.”

“Yes, well, what’s this, attempt four?” Gibbis spat. “You keep saying you’ll work it out, but you never do. And while we wait, people keep dying! And we’ll be next!”

The Doctor slammed the cube into the table, harder and louder this time, enough that one of the pieces broke off and was sent flying. Without a moment’s pause, she was out of her seat and striding across the short distance to Gibbis. She planted her hands on his table, and leaned in dangerously.

“After what you did to Howie, you’re lucky I’m not leaving you to fend for yourself on the other side of the building. Frankly, you don’t deserve my help, so if you’d prefer to work alone, then be my guest, and start walking.”

A dreadful silence fell. Gibbis sat still, eyes darting around the room. He knew he didn’t stand a chance on his own, and instead hoped the Doctor would just stop staring eventually. She didn’t. She waited for his answer.

Yaz wanted nothing more than to reach out, rein the Doctor in, comfort her, offer something to make it better, a silver bullet to fix everything. But she had nothing. So instead, Yaz stared, heart aching in the wake of the other woman’s pain and anger. She knew the Doctor would never make good on her threat to abandon the man, but it was still painful to see her near her breaking point.

After several seconds too long, Yaz spoke up with something she remembered from her talk with Rita.

“She said something. Or, started to, when we were on the phone.”

The Doctor stood straight again, and looked back to Yaz, face immediately softening, but jaw still locked tight. There was a silent apology in her eyes, and a silent forgiveness in Yaz’s – far more tender than the Doctor felt she deserved.

“She said ‘she would keep her faith until it was taken from her’ – said she could feel it coming for her.”

The Doctor groaned loudly, hiding her face in her hands.

“Oh, stupid Doctor! Oh, of course, of course it is! Fear pushes people to fall back on their most fundamental faith! That’s what the rooms are for – it forces you to rely on that sacred thing you believe in. It has to redirect that faith towards itself, so that it can subsist off of that emotional energy. And this whole time I’ve been telling you to do the same – throwing you all right at Him!”

My fault. My fault. My fault. Praise Him.

“Okay, so I get Rita an' Yaz, but what about everyone else?” Dan asked, brow creased. “I mean, Howie was just a scared kid.”

The Doctor raised her head again to look at him.

“The first thing he said when I pulled him away from his room: ‘just some messed up CIA stuff’. He was a conspiracist – a sincerely held belief that an external force controlled the world, without need for hard proof. That’s faith, it doesn’t have to be religious. Joe was a gambler – he believed in luck.

“Gibbis!” She threw her arm towards the man, making him jump in his seat. “Gibbis has rejected any personal autonomy and is waiting for the next batch of invaders to oppress him and tell him what to do.”

“So, what? We just got sucked in because we were stood next to Yaz?”

“You did.” She emphasised her point with a flex of her eyebrows. “Not religious, not superstitious. That fire exit you keep seeing? This place is trying to get rid of you, but it disappears whenever you try to take someone with you.”

“Are you saying Dan can leave?”

It was the first thing Yaz had said since realising she had brought them here – inadvertently, maybe, but nonetheless. She and the Doctor locked eyes, and made a silent agreement.

“You should.” the Doctor disclosed, looking back to Dan. “If you see another exit: don’t even tell us, just go.

“No way!” Dan nearly shouted. It was the closest to ‘angry’ the Doctor had ever seen him.

“Dan...” Yaz implored, but was soon interrupted.

“Nah, I ain’t leaving you, Sheff! You think I went through four years of you saving my arse just so I can ditch you soon as you’re in trouble? Think again.” He briefly indicated towards the Doctor with his eyes. “If she’s staying, I am!”

“I’m less breakable than you.” the Doctor retorted calmly.

The Raven. My fault. PRAISE HIM.

“Well tough! It don’t even want me – that means I can do something to slow it down, or stop it, without risking my life. Any time I can buy while you get her safe is worth taking.”

The Doctor stared back at him. Desperate, and sad, and angry, and so, so tired of risking her friends’ lives. He was right, though. Every second she had to save Yaz was precious.

“Fine… but if you so much as stub your toe, you’re going through that exit.” The Doctor’s voice was steady and her gaze steely. “I won’t give you a choice.”

“No- Doctor!” Yaz cried out in challenge. “You can’t let him stay!”

The Doctor turned to Yaz.

“What other choice is there!? What happens if I lose you because he wasn’t here to help?”

Can’t lose her. Can’t, mustn’t. WILL. Praise Him.

As much as she tried to retain the same unflappable composure, she couldn’t keep her eyes from watering at the thought of it. Yaz opened her mouth to speak, but the Doctor cut her off.

“What am I supposed to tell Najia?”

Yaz stopped. That was new. She knew the Doctor liked her mum well enough, but she’d never expressed that kind of sentiment – never admitted to thinking about having to tell her mum she’d died. How often did she think about that?

“You tell her I was with you.” Yaz answered quietly, but firmly. “And that’s good enough.”

“No it isn’t.” The Doctor was quiet too, now. Fragile. “Not for me.”

What was that supposed to mean? It had taken Yaz a long time to learn how to read between the lines when it came to the Doctor. That same learned sense was picking at her brain now, telling her… something. Telling her that the Doctor wasn’t only talking about life and death, but something deeper, more fundamental.

Was it a confession of sorts? That mere friendship wasn’t enough anymore – that the Doctor wanted more? Or was that the wishful thinking of a doomed, vulnerable young woman – a panicked mind thrashing against the suddenly-very-real possibility of her death?

Not the time.

Yaz swallowed.

“Okay… then we Praise Him…”

Yaz furrowed her brow. That hadn’t come out right. What had she meant to say?

“Yaz…”

The Doctor sounded… heartbroken. Why? Had Yaz said something wrong? All she’d said was-

Oh.

A gentle thud sounded above them. Then another. Footsteps.

The Doctor could feel the inevitability approaching. Once more into the endless twisting hallways, a trap constricting around them as the hotel worked in their pursuer’s favour. With every new turn, the timelines were closing around them, converging on a single, abhorrent outcome.

PRAISE HIM. PRAISE HIM. PRAISE HIM.

Yaz’s hand disappeared from her own, sending a vile sting of dread directly from the point of contact into her hearts. She turned on the spot, and saw her friend had stood still, an arm reaching out in supplication to the alien beast. It was charging after them, roaring as He drew nearer to His meal.

“You were right. He is beautiful…”

“No, Yaz!”

The Doctor sprinted back to her, Dan in tow. They each ducked their heads under one of Yaz’s arms, and pulled her aside. Yaz wriggled about, trying to escape their hold, as an hysterical Gibbis stumbled after them.

“Leave her! Just leave her!”

He whimpered as he barely managed to follow the others. The Minotaur charged past, unable to slow or change direction so easily.

The Doctor had a hand across Yaz’s back, and slapped it frantically on Dan’s shoulder. She pointed at a nearby door, not trusting her mouth to get the idea across quickly and coherently enough. They had been losing ground the whole time, and now there would be no chance at outpacing their aggressor if they had to carry Yaz between them.

They practically fell into the room, Yaz and the Doctor collapsing in a rough pile on the floor, as Dan instinctually whipped around to close the door. Gibbis barely made it inside before Dan shut him out.

The Doctor pushed herself up, gasping a breath that had otherwise been knocked out of her from the fall. She intended to help Dan barricade the door – maybe move some furniture in the way. Buy time! Any time they could afford, every loose moment and spare instant to save Yaz.

Anything for Yaz.

But as she got up, the reality of the room hit her. A scene she’d seen only once, almost a year ago. Harsh white, barren of anything they could use as a blockade. Only a sleeping bag stowed away in the corner, dishevelled by a rough night’s sleep. A few empty food packets strewn about; others half full, forgotten in an all-consuming obsessive mania.

The entire back wall was covered in sticky notes and pinned-up sheets of paper, detailing all manner of experiments, none of them successful. Some were simply a list of imperfectly-copied symbols, grand overlapping circles that a human had no hope of translating by themselves.

In the centre, a default TARDIS console, littered with notes; nearly every button and lever had at least one guess scribbled in thick black pen sat next to it. Some were decent attempts, and others no better than a random jumble of words.

The centre pillar almost resembled an altar. A picture of the Doctor, smiling in pure delight. It had been taken by Yaz during a visit to the forest planet Merzaphan. The Doctor remembered she’d been smiling at a syzygy sunset – three suns perfectly aligned to produce a glorious rainbow halo, only occurring once every thousand-or-so years.

She remembered the smile only growing as she turned to see her human companions enjoying the same sight. She remembered wondering why Yaz had aimed the phone camera at her, rather than the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. She remembered the tiny voice in the back of her head telling her it was probably the same reason she’d turned to look at Yaz.

Dotted around the photo were strips of paper. At the time, she’d skipped past it all, forcing herself to focus on setting the self-destruct for the incoming Daleks. Now, though, she couldn’t look away. She read every word with perfect clarity: ‘because she’s in danger’, ‘because I owe her a hundred times over’, ‘because I can’t go back to being without her’.

What if next time it’s forever?

The words blared in her mind. Ten months. Three years. Forever.

Yaz got up as well, staring in horror at the scene around her, oblivious to the three other people nearby.

“No…” she mewled, tears filling her eyes.

She scrambled to her feet, towards the console, and began to feverishly alter the controls. Panicked sobs escaped her as she toggled switches, and hammered on buttons.

A spark of lucidity flew across her eyes as she activated the variegated electro-weak oscillator. That was wrong. She knew it was wrong. How did she know that? How did she even know it was called a variegated electro-weak oscillator?

The spark vanished, consumed once more by the frenzy of dials and levers.

“Yaz…” a voice whispered behind her.

“I need to find her.” Her reply was barely audible through the sobs.

“Yaz, look at me.”

“I can’t do this again. I can’t LOSE HER AGAI-”

Yaz’s scream was cut short as the Doctor forcibly turned her head to face her, having joined her at the console.

“…Doctor.”

They stood staring at each other as something crashed into the door. Dan let out a yelp as he pushed himself back onto it, desperate to hold it shut.

“It’s happening… I’m… losing parts of myself.” Yaz clamped a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “It- it’s taking you from me.”

The realisation came for the Doctor hard and fast. An altar – a manifestation of faith, sat in the centre of this very room. Rita had felt her religion being stripped away in her final moments, but not Yaz. The reason they were here at all – the instant she’d intended to follow through on her promise to ‘tell Yaz everything’ – rewarding Yaz’s faith after years of stringing her along with mere crumbs of insight.

Yaz’s voice broke through the screaming epiphany.

“I need to tell you something.” She locked eyes with the Doctor, begging for a moment of honesty through the flood of tears.

“No.” the Doctor said quietly, her voice dull and dead in the wake of understanding.

“Listen to me. Just listen, please – I have to tell you while I still can.”

“No, Yasmin. I know.”

The Doctor watched Yaz’s eyes darting across her face as she tried to work out if the Doctor really did know what she was trying to say.

“I’ve known for years.”

She clamped down as tight as she could on her own emotions, trapping her feelings for the young woman behind the thickest walls she could muster. If she was going to save Yaz’s life, not one glimmer of reciprocation could make it to the surface.

And she would save Yaz’s life. Even if she had to break three hearts to do it.

Anything for Yaz.

“I knew, and I’ve strung you along all this time, because I can’t afford to get attached. Because this is how it ends. With you about to die, and me forced to watch. This is how it always ends.”

The Doctor straightened up, Yaz’s grip on her shoulder loosening.

“And the worst part is, that won’t even stop me. The day before we met, I got my friend killed because I put the Master above her safety. The very next person I meet, here you are on death’s door. Again and again. That’s who I am.”

The Doctor’s voice was starting to crack, but she had no choice but to drive on. The Minotaur burst into the room, throwing Dan to the floor once again. He took one step towards his latest prey, then stopped. Yaz was ignoring him; no more praise to give. He brayed, in some mixture of pain or realisation or desperation or relief, but was paid none of the attention he needed.

The Doctor reached across the console to pull her photo off of the centre column, and held it up to Yaz’s eyeline.

“This person, that you think is so worth it… she doesn’t exist. I abandoned you for ten months. I got you trapped in the past for three years. Now I’ve gotten you killed, light-years from home… and your family will never even know,”

The Minotaur staggered, stepping backwards into the corridor, barely able to support himself under the weight of the grief now flooding his food supply.

The Doctor’s eyes finally watered as she forced out one final thought.

“Because I won’t be able to look them in the eye after this…”

She placed the photo upside-down on the console, breaking eye contact and not looking back up. Her voice was quiet and hoarse, choking on the pain coursing through her hearts.

“That’s who I am.”

The Doctor turned, leaving a crying, broken Yaz at the console, and followed the alien beast back out of the room.

Yaz dropped to her knees, heart in her throat and tears falling, trapped in a stunned disbelief. She was about to die, heartbroken and alone, and the Doctor hadn’t even allowed her to say what she needed to. Part of her had expected a rejection – known all along the Doctor couldn’t possibly return Yaz’s feelings for her. But to be denied her final words, with the entire history of their friendship dissected and trampled, was a special kind of violence.

Even as the world thundered and cracked around her, she couldn’t bring herself to care. If this was the sound of impending death, then so be it. In that moment, she wasn’t travelling the stars side-by-side with her best friends. She was 16 years old, far from home, cold and alone, wishing the pain would stop.

Lights flickered, crackling as the world dissolved around her. Her arm seemed to fall through the TARDIS console it had been resting upon, dropping to her side as the room darkened. The floor vanished, replaced by a featureless flat grey ground. A single thin slip of paper floated down into her eyeline: ‘because she’d do anything to save me’.

A final fresh sob escaped her lungs as the paper vanished in a blue fizz of light. The Doctor hadn’t done that at all. Instead, she’d torn out everything Yaz had known – everything she’d spent 4 years in the 20^th century fighting to get back to, ripped to shreds in seconds by the person she trusted most.

So that was how it all ends…

Only it didn’t. Yaz kept breathing; her heart kept beating; her eyes still saw light and colour. Slowly, she looked up.

They weren’t in a hotel room anymore – or any part of the hotel at all. The room was flat, and grey, extending into the darkness. Blue strips of neon lighting spread over the floor in a checkerboard pattern. A computer littered with green lights and a pair of screens scrolling through endless alien symbols.

Gibbis and Dan were looking around, confused, but unharmed. The Minotaur lay on the ground several metres away, its breathing rough and shallow. A lone spotlight illuminated it, with only the Doctor for company on its deathbed.

The Doctor. Kneeling down, giving comfort to the dying, as she always did… a tear-stained face, wracked with loneliness and dejection. As if she had come out of that speech as devasted as Yaz herself had.

“Yaz, are you alright?”

Dan appeared in her eyeline, grabbing her shoulder to offer physical support as well as emotional. Yaz looked up at him with a blank stare, mouth half-opened, not knowing what to say.

“I don’t know…” she eventually managed, whispering hoarsely.

Dan crouched down further, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“That’s okay, Sheff. You went proper mad once we got in that big white room – thought we’d lost you, there…” Even Dan was on the verge of tears, holding them back for Yaz’s sake. “Don’t really know what happened – second time that thing’s thrown a door in my face.”

Yaz looked back to the Minotaur, and the alien woman hovering over it.

“Is it…?”

Dan followed her gaze, catching on to Yaz’s meaning.

“Uh, yeah, I reckon so. Dunno if it was something you did or the Doc, but whatever it was, I think it worked. He came in, then jus’… stopped.” He looked back to Yaz, frowning. “Any idea why?”

Because she’d do anything to save me.

Yaz took in a sharp, pained gasp as the realisation hit her, almost throwing her back into a crying fit.

“Oh god…”

How much of it had even been true? Would she ever know? With the Doctor’s track record-

Dan wrapped her in a tighter embrace, interrupting her thought train.

“‘Ey, no, it’s okay, Yaz. You’re alright. It don’t matter right now. You’re safe… you’re safe.”

The Doctor finally got up from her position on the floor, giving a last comforting stroke to the Minotaur’s arm. She decidedly did not look at Yaz as she turned to the mysterious computer, tapping a few buttons and scanning over the holographic glyphs.

“I need to talk to her…” Yaz muttered, more to herself than to Dan.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

Dan helped Yaz stand up, then gave her one last questioning smile. She squeezed his arm once, then moved away. Gibbis had now wandered over to a nearby porthole in the floor, staring out at the space beyond. Dan decided to take the hint and join him, giving Yaz space for whatever it was she needed to talk about.

Chapter Text

The Doctor heard Yaz’s footsteps approaching. She knew from the rate and weight of the noise that they could only be Yaz’s, and without turning to look she started talking. Quiet and strained, still reeling from the damage she’d caused to the both of them.

“It’s, uh… a distant cousin of the Nimon.” She flicked a finger to indicate one of the glowing green symbols on the screen – not that the humans could read any of it anyway. “Pick a planet. Set themselves up as gods, and feed off the worship. Works great… ‘til the locals get wise, and advanced enough to build infinite hologrammatic prisons…”

Yaz arrived at the computer, resting a shaking hand on the control surface. The Doctor looked over, and they each gave an inscrutable, uncomfortable look to the other. The Doctor soon looked down at her hand, similarly sat near the controls. Her voice got quieter, to the point that Yaz could barely hear it even in the near-silence of the room.

“Drifts around. Grabs people wherever it finds them. Cooks ‘em… sausage roll.”

Yaz stayed quiet for a few seconds, unsure what she wanted to say – whether she wanted to say anything at all to the Time Lord who’d just cast her emotions into a storm. They stood there, side-by-side and yet so far apart, surrounded by a thick silence, only broken by their breathing. Eventually, Yaz settled on something smaller. Just a single question, testing the waters before diving at the elephant in the room.

“It kept showing Dan the exit… but not you. So you must believe in… something. What’ve you got faith in?”

Yaz half-watched the Doctor in the succeeding moments. She looked at the Doctor’s face when she could bear it, and glanced away when she could bear it no longer.

The Doctor didn’t move, didn’t speak. After a while, a tear dripped out of her eye, splashing onto the surface in front of them.

Of course. She’d descended from her summit in the stratosphere for a single purpose – to deliver devastation – then immediately retreated back into secrecy and solitude. Driving a stake through Yaz’s heart, then fleeing rather than facing the consequences. Yaz mentally berated herself for daring to expect anything else.

“Fine.” she bit.

The Doctor brushed a hand over her eye to stop the next tear.

A low growl came from across the room. Not aggressive, or angry, or sad. Just talking. Yaz looked over to a dying creature eking out its last words.

“Is he… talking to us?” Dan asked, also looking, but still hovering near the floor-window.

The Doctor didn’t move. Didn’t turn around. Still staring at her own hand while she translated.

“An ancient creature… drenched in the blood of the innocent… drifting in space through an endless, shifting maze… for such a creature… death would be a gi-” Her voice cracked. She took a shuddering breath in an attempt to steady herself, squeezing her eyes closed. “A gift.”

She pushed herself away from the computer, and went back to the Minotaur, kneeling once more, and taking its hand in hers.

“Then accept it… and sleep well.”

I wasn’t talking about myself.

She didn’t translate that for the others.

“I know… I know.”

As the beast breathed its last, the lights of the room shifted, brightening around the edges, and revealing the TARDIS previously hidden in the shadows – or perhaps not permitted to exist in this space until now.

The Doctor moved her hand to close the Minotaur’s eyes, then rose to her feet, and walked to her ship.

“Could I have a lift?” Gibbis’s voice followed her, still nervous of whatever else might go wrong. “Just to the nearest galaxy will do…”

She pushed the TARDIS door open, and began setting co-ordinates. The capital of Tivoli, vaguely near the city centre. She heard the others enter. Dan first, then Gibbis, and – eventually – Yaz, who closed the door behind her.

The Doctor pulled the lever. No-one spoke during the time it took to make the jump, and they soon landed. She clicked her fingers, which threw the doors open again, then stared at Gibbis. He got the hint after a few seconds, and glanced out the door to see his home planet before him. He looked back, gratitude spreading over his face.

“Thank you. Uh, if you do ever want to start a career as a conqueror, we’d be hono-”

“GET THE HELL OFF OF MY SHIP!” the Doctor snapped, death on her face.

Gibbis whimpered as he obeyed, scurrying out of the door. The Doctor clicked her fingers to close the doors again, and pulled the launch lever.

“Where, uh… where we going?” Dan asked gingerly.

He had parked himself on the opposite side of the console standing awkwardly near one of the crystal columns. Yaz was sat underneath another, not looking at either of the other occupants.

“Home.” The Doctor’s face had calmed, and she spoke evenly now. “Think we all need a breather. I’ll pick you up in a couple days. Week. Whatever. Text me.”

She shrugged, pushing herself away from the controls, and moving around to stand closer to the humans.

“You sure you’re gonna be alright on your own?”

The Doctor leaned back, sitting herself against the console as the TARDIS landed.

“I’m older than I look, Dan. Can look after meself.”

Dan tilted his head with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t think you believe that.”

A beat.

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Just... don’t be harsh on yerself. Bit of a ‘mare, that one… literally, for you two.”

The Doctor gave the briefest smile of acknowledgement, then looked away, eyes stuck on the ground and hands in her pockets.

Dan stepped over to Yaz, and leaned down to give her a tap on the shoulder. She’d barely moved since coming on board again, but now she looked up to her friend. She took his hand and used him to drag herself to her feet. She pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she could.

“I’ll call you.” Dan affirmed. “Shout if you need anything.”

Yaz nodded vigorously into his shoulder, somehow squeezing him even closer in her arms.

“Yeah.” she muttered in subdued, but genuine, agreement.

They broke apart, but Dan kept his hands on her shoulders.

“Anytime, y’hear me?”

Yaz nodded again.

Dan left, and Yaz sat back down, leaving the Doctor to set course for Sheffield by herself. If the Doctor really was committed to locking herself away again after everything that had just happened, then Yaz wanted no part in it. She didn’t have the energy to argue, nor the appropriate headspace to co-pilot.

Frankly, if the Doctor refused to make an effort to apologise or at least smooth over the tattered remains of their friendship, Yaz wasn’t particularly interested in ever coming back. She supposed that’s just what you get when you centre your life around an emotionally constipated alien.

She waited on the floor for the familiar groans and wheezes of TARDIS flight, trying and failing to blot out her memories of recent events. Those noises never came. She could hear only the faint sound of her own breathing, echoing through her mind.

“Yaz…” The voice was quiet, broken, wracked with all the guilt of a life too-long-lived.

Yaz turned her head. Not fully – just enough to see the Doctor’s boots out the corner of her eye. The other woman was still sat against the console, facing Yaz, knuckles whitening as she gripped the edge. The word hung in the air for several seconds before the Doctor spoke again.

“I’m sorry.” Even quieter, on the verge of tears, cracking under the pressure of the moment.

With her next breath, Yaz could feel the oncoming shudder of fresh tears. She held them back, fought off the encroaching breakdown. Until she knew where exactly this conversation was going, she didn’t want the Doctor’s comfort or commiseration.

“Right.” she managed to squeak out.

The Doctor pushed off of the console, and joined Yaz in sitting on the floor, practically collapsing into it. The motion drew Yaz’s eyes up to see her face properly. The only word Yaz could think of to describe her expression was… devastated. Bloodshot eyes, face drained of life and colour, rivulets of tears staining her cheeks. As if every precious thing in life had dissolved in her hands.

Yaz considered that, in all likelihood, she must have looked much the same. It was almost enough for Yaz to forgive her on the spot. Almost.

“It…” The Doctor looked away in shame as she struggled to find any suitable words. “It was all I had. I couldn’t… I can’t… lose you. Not like that.”

Those words gave Yaz pause. She’d already worked out that the Doctor had been trying to save her life, but the strangled pain behind those words was raw and grating – fuelled by a hundred other losses.

“If I’d figured it out sooner… if there was anothe-”

“How much of it was true?” Yaz interrupted.

The Doctor looked up again, meeting her gaze. Her eyes were empty – no more energy left to maintain the usual façade, nothing left to shield her hearts.

“Some…”

Yaz forced a swallow to keep the tears from starting again, and nodded, partially as an acknowledgement of the admission, but mostly just to dispel the nervous energy.

“I didn’t… didn’t know for… ‘years’.”

I should have known. Should have stopped it. Should have stopped myself.

“Dan told me. After six exterminations too many.”

Yaz let out a scoff that would’ve been a laugh if she weren’t currently heartbroken. She dragged her hands over her face in a mixture of frustration and realisation.

“I knew it. That bloody scouser…”

“I was gonna… say, or…” The Doctor let out a defeated sigh. “All I wanted was to talk. I was gonna talk to you. Tell you…”

The Doctor floundered for the end of that sentence. She didn’t know anymore what she was meant to tell Yaz. What she could have once, or should have before – all the possible confessions and declarations now stolen and buried by time and circumstance.

Yaz broke the silence.

“Well, I was going to say it earli-”

“Yaz, you do-” The Doctor put out a hand to rest it on Yaz’s arm, but reined it back before actually making contact. “You don’t have to.”

“No, I should get to!”

Yaz locked eyes with the Doctor, hardened in spite of the fresh tears threatening to spill. Her voice strained as she continued, but she persevered nonetheless.

“Because everyone keeps taking this away from me, but I should be allowed to tell you that-” She sucked in a final steadying breath, just this once rejecting the fears that had kept her trapped for over a decade now. “That I love you. Because I do. And I don’t care if you think you don’t deserve it, I don’t care if I should, or if you don’t feel the same way, but I deserve to say it, because it’s true!”

She went quiet, letting her words soak in for both of them, heartbeat thundering in her ears, then dropped her voice to a whisper.

“It just is.”

She once again met the Doctor’s eyes. She expected to find pity, or concern, maybe even anger.

What she didn’t expect was grief. The woman looking back at her was drowning in it. The spectre of Yaz’s own mortality shrouded the once-bright hazel.

“I can’t.”

The words were quiet, and simple.

“What you want… what you deserve, what I wish I could give you… I can’t.”

The Doctor dropped her head, breaking the soul-baring stare.

“Because when you live too long, these feelings aren’t hope… they’re an omen. I wish I could say it back… I want to…” She closed her eyes, finding a false safety in the darkness. “Because it’s true. But I don’t know if could survive grieving you. And it never stops.”

For the first time that day, Yaz’s heart broke not for herself, but for the woman she loved. The woman who had lost more people she could ever know.

The Doctor opened her eyes again, glancing up to look directly at Yaz once more, and finally reached out to take Yaz’s hand gingerly in her own.

“I think you’re one of the greatest people I’ve ever known. Which is why one day… and I hope it’s not for a long time, but one day… you need to choose to leave. And I need to let you. Because if you don’t… it’s gonna kill us both…”

Yaz looked down at their joint hands, at the Doctor’s thumb idly caressing her skin; a tender, intimate gesture that the Doctor so rarely allowed for herself. In watching, Yaz understood that perhaps this fleeting moment was all the Doctor could ever allow herself to have. A frozen instant wherein they could admit that they were two people in love.

But only an instant.

Eventually, Yaz leant forward, wrapping her arms around her best friend and greatest love.

“Okay…”

Slowly, the Doctor reciprocated the embrace, holding Yaz close.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

Chapter Text

“How many times do you think you’ve saved Earth?”

Yaz tilted her head towards the Doctor as she asked the question. They were sat on top of the TARDIS, only inches between them. They drifted above the Earth, revelling in the warmth of each other’s company and the sweet taste of ice cream.

The Doctor seemed to take a moment to consider the question.

“I’ve lost count.” she eventually surrendered. “Been doing it all my lives…”

Yaz glanced over to the other woman. Tears were threatening to spill as she stared out at the world below them.

“Why us?”

The question hung in the air for several seconds, while the Doctor only smiled gently at the planet below. Eventually, she responded quietly.

“You asked me a while ago… what I have faith in.” She gestured lazily towards the Earth with her empty hand, then set it to rest between them. “You lot, you’re just… incredible. And maddening… and brave and stupid, and so bloody clever. And trying… trying so, so hard to get it all right.”

She turned towards Yaz, maintaining a sad smile.

“How could I not?”

Yaz finally looked across to the other woman properly, seeing the shimmer of tears in her friend’s eyes. She felt the sting of a love never fully realised, just as she had every time since her teary-eyed confession on the day they’d landed in an impossible hotel. Perhaps that sting would never truly go away, but it had lessened over time – each day a little easier than the last.

With one hand, she released the remaining few bites of her ice cream cone into the void, and with the other she reached out. She gently took the Doctor’s hand in hers, a mirror of the touch they’d shared only months prior.

“I don’t want it to end.” she whispered, voice quavering. “But… you wanted me to choose.”

The first tear dropped from the Doctor’s eye as she gave a small, accepting nod. She squeezed Yaz’s hand in return, and gave the bravest smile she could muster.

“And I’ve gotta let you.”

There was a pause while Yaz fought against the tightness in her own throat to continue.

“I know you’re… gonna be different, at least a bit. But if you ever fall out of the sky into Yorkshire again…” They both let out a short laugh. “Just… don’t leave it thirty-eight years, yeah?”

The Doctor nodded, holding back an undignified sob.

“I’ll tr-”

She choked on the last word, then looked away, sucking in a steadying breath. She let it out slowly, then gently pulled her hand out of Yaz’s grip.

“Here.”

She lifted both hands up to her ear. Yaz had to squint against the steadily intensifying yellow glow which had now consumed the Doctor’s right hand. When she was done, she held her earring in her left hand: a star-studded cuff, and the joined gold-and-silver hands, forever connected by a thin chain.

She hovered her hand in front of Yaz, expectantly waiting for the young woman to match her. Yaz simply stared at the offering for a short while, unsure of how to even accept it.

“Consider it a promise.”

Yaz needed another second to find her voice. She still remembered the day of Grace’s funeral, and the hours spent following this strange alien woman around a shopping centre. All to find ‘the perfect jewellery’ that ‘she would know when she saw it’. A tiny intricate item which had almost become synonymous with the woman herself at this point. There was no way Yaz could simply take it without giving a piece of herself in return.

“We’ll trade, yeah?” she whispered, offering up a teary smile.

They both watched as Yaz worked a ring from her finger. A thin silver band in the shape of a heartbeat; one of a pair she’d started wearing soon after the Flux event. They both put out their hands to receive the other’s gift.

Yaz felt the searing heat of regeneration as she placed the ring in the Doctor’s palm. It lingered as she drew her hand back, unable to bear the fire for long. The Doctor’s other hand stayed gently curled around her own, now closed over the earring-chain.

Yaz thought back to the day they’d met – a bumbling, stumbling woman who couldn’t remember her own name and collapsed from exhaustion in the middle of street.

“I could stay for… just until you find your feet, if that… if that’s better for you?”

There was a moment of silence as the Doctor considered. There was never any telling what the next one would be like. Whether they’d stick to the agreement she and Yaz had just come to, or renege on the whole thing; try to tempt the young woman back into the box with ‘one last trip’ that inevitably turned into days and months…

You need to choose to leave. And I need to let you.

She could save Yaz’s life one last time. By letting go.

“I think I need to do this alone…” she answered slowly and deliberately.

Their eyes met once more, and Yaz nodded, not trusting her voice. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, only building as neither of them looked away.

“Thank you, Yasmin Khan. For everyth-”

Yaz interrupted her with a kiss. Only a split second, her inhibitions having loosened over the course of their final conversation. She pulled away almost immediately, her face painted with the shock of realisation over what she’d done.

“Sorry.” She blurted immediately. “I shou-”

The Doctor leaned in across the space between them, and returned the favour. A slow and gentle kiss, full of all the longing that had built up over their years together. Yaz leaned into it as well, doing all she could to imprint this moment in her memory forever. Nothing could ever make up for the lost potential – the curse of mortality and immortality that had dashed their chances upon the rocky shores of time – but, in the end, it was something good, at the very least.

The Doctor pulled back with a pained grunt, looking down at her hand through the tears, tensed and clenching tight against the mounting pain. She took a shuddery breath, calming the last of her fraying hold on life.

“It’s time…”

Yaz swallowed her own tears, and nodded again.

“Let’s not say goodbye…”

The Doctor forced her gaze up again, putting on one last smile.

[Can I come over? Need to talk] – Yasmin

[Always, beti. Any excuse to see my favourite granddaughter :) ] – Nani

[Thanks <3 there in 20 minutes] – Yasmin

[Let yourself in] – Nani

Thank Allah Sonya had taught their nan how to text, because there was no way Yaz was keeping a steady voice through a phone call. She was on the verge of tears just typing the question out. Now, Yaz stood outside her nani’s flat, key in one hand, and plastic bag in the other.

She’d only just returned from the inaugural ‘Companion Meeting’, as Graham had dubbed it. She’d spent those hours clutching the Doctor’s… no, her earring chain, now, like a lifeline.

Before making her way to her grandma, though, she’d taken the time to replace her twin blue heart earrings with it. In turn, she had pinned the two hearts on her blouse, atop her own real one. Finally, she now wore an old, cracked watch on her wrist, frozen forever at 3:26. A reminder that, no matter how much it hurt, it had been worth it.

On the one hand, it had been a soothing balm to see and know so many others had shared similar experiences, and could be relied upon to understand the trauma and tribulations that came with the adventures in the TARDIS.

On the other, not a single one of the participants had shared that one key experience Yasmin Khan had with her Doctor. There were chance-encounters-turned-good-friends, UNIT ‘work colleagues’ for lack of a better phrase, and even a… kidnap victim, if Yaz had heard Ian correctly? But no-one quite like Yaz. Among so many friends, all of whom could say they loved and were loved by the Doctor, Yaz alone could say she loved her Doctor.

It was a bittersweet realisation that no-one else could say that. It proved the Doctor’s claim that Yaz was indeed ‘one of the greatest people she’d ever known’. But it was also so incredibly isolating. There had been multiple widows and widowers sat in those chairs, but they’d all had decades to live and love alongside their now-departed other half, and Yaz hadn’t felt the right sort of connection to them.

There was one person who just might be the missing piece of the puzzle. A fellow traveller, who had committed to a doomed love; her beloved nani. A story she’d learned about… 9 years ago? Or 4. Or 75. It depended on one’s perspective of time. She let out a quiet snort-laugh at that thought – the Doctor would have appreciated it. Maybe Dan would too, one day, if she could ever successfully explain the concept of non-linear time to him…

Fat chance.

Steeling her nerves and her breaths, Yaz inserted the key and made her way in.

“Hi Nani!” she called into the space, taking the time to remove her shoes.

“Hello, beti! You know where I am!” her nan’s voice croaked back through the entrance hall.

“One sec!”

Yaz finished taking off her boots, then made her way further into the accommodation. Her grandmother was sat in her armchair, wheelchair on standby next to her, watching one of those godawful quiz shows she loved. Yaz had to smile at the sight of it.

It had been longer for her than it had for Umbreen since they’d last seen each other. Nothing quite so arduous as had happened with the Weeping Angels in Medderton, but longer than she probably should have gone without seeing her family. She still hadn’t seen her parents or Sonya today. She wasn’t sure she was up to it without first having a moment to grieve properly.

She felt a sting in her eye as she realised this was the last time their timelines would ever fall out of sync like that again. She wasn’t sure if it was a happy or sad tear threatening to fall down her face.

She bent down and wrapped her nani in a warm and loving hug, but also a measured and gentle one, on account of her age.

“Love you.”

“I love you too, dearie.”

Yaz couldn’t help but be reminded of the last person she’d said those words to, and she wondered if that’s just what life was like now. Tiny, everyday things bringing bittersweet memories to the surface at every turn. She wondered if that’s what her nani’s life was like.

They released, and Yaz planted the shopping bag on a small nearby table. The beginnings of tears were making their threats again, but she managed to control her voice as she spoke.

“Ginger and lemon, and a pack of digestives.”

“Ooh, that’s lovely, Yasmin, thank you.”

“Gonna do meself an earl grey if you want anything?”

“Tell you what.” Umbreen answered, then started digging into the bag, pulling out the pack of Twinings Yaz had brought. “Get me started on one of these, would you, love?”

“Yeah, o’course.”

Yaz took the packet, and dropped a kiss on Umbreen’s forehead before darting off to the kitchen. By the time she returned, the nonagenarian had already opened the biscuits, and was happily munching on one. Yaz placed Umbreen’s mug on the table, then perched herself on the chair’s arm, leaning down onto her nan’s head.

“I love you, nani…”

Yaz was glad to note it already hurt a tiny bit less to say that time. Her voice was a little quieter, and a little hoarser, though. Umbreen immediately caught on.

“First time I’ve seen you without that Doctor of yours for a while…” It was phrased as a mere observation, but an underlying tone of quiet sympathy shone through.

“Yeah… yeah, I know.” Her voice was getting worse quickly. “That’s what…”

Umbreen lifted a hand and laid it tenderly on top of her granddaughter’s, a gentle question in her eyes.

“She’s, uh… she was ill, for a while… and she…” Yaz stumbled, as the first tears fell. “She’s gone, now.”

There was no simple way to explain a prophecy delivered by a personification of Time itself, so Yaz had taken the liberty of concocting one final lie for her family’s sake.

“I’m so sorry, beti…”

“I know… I know.” Yaz barely squeezed out the words through a shuddery breath.

She felt a strange pressure over her wrist, and looked down to see her grandmother stroking her thumb over Prem’s – her own – Yaz’s – watch. That one simple action broke her – the dam, another lie she’d carried for years now.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She spoke around ragged, tired, tearful breaths.

“Whatever for?”

“I know… about Prem.”

Umbreen didn’t stop her comforting motion.

“It’s a long story… a really long story. But I found out, and I shouldn’t have.”

Yaz’s tears were coming fast enough that now they were starting to drip onto Umbreen’s shoulder.

“There’s nothing to apologise for, beti.” The elderly woman turned her head to face her granddaughter, who in turn shuffled up and off the old woman’s head. “I don’t know who your Doctor is… but she’s a very memorable woman, I can tell you that much. Even so many decades after the fact.”

Yaz let out a gasp at the revelation that her grandmother had remembered their encounter from 1947, then burst into sobbing, nearly spilling her tea as she threw another hug around her grandmother. Umbreen gently pried the mug out of Yaz’s hand, and set it down beside her own on the table.

“I loved her so much…” Yaz managed to eke out.

Umbreen moved her arms back, squeezing into the hug as best she could with the awkward angle and Yaz’s arms already in place.

“I know, lovely. You’ve always worn your heart on your sleeve.” Umbreen paused for a second. “Did you tell her that?”

“Yeah… ye-… I did.” By now the sobs were harshly interrupting her speech. “I miss her. It-… hurts.”

“Let me tell you a secret… it will hurt for a long time. And you will miss her for a very long time. But you will never forget that love, beti. And you will have room in your heart to love again, in time.”

Yaz sucked in a harsh breath. “Do you… still… Prem?”

“Of course I do, beti. Him and your grandfather both. That is the beautiful thing about love – there is always more of it to give.”

Yaz finally stopped trying to contain it – those attempts clearly weren’t working anyway. Instead, she let herself cry, loudly and freely. Her body shook with every sob, her chest clenched exhaustingly, and it felt like her tears would never end. She was probably hurting the elderly woman sitting under her as she gripped tightly around her shoulders.

At some point, Umbreen also started crying, though nowhere near as loudly or uncontrollably as Yaz herself. She cried for her lost loves, for Prem’s future that never was, and for her precious granddaughter’s first heartbreak.

Eventually, despite Yaz’s first assessment, the tears did stop, the sobs slowed, and her muscles relaxed. She shuffled her position so that she would stop squeezing her nani so hard, and stretched out some of the muscles which had been stuck rigid for the last… however long it had been.

Eventually, she managed to speak again, her voice dry and cracked, but no longer wracked with interruptive sobs.

“Sorry…” she managed to mutter.

Umbreen wrapped Yaz’s hand in her own, patting the back of it softly.

“Don’t you dare apologise, Yasmin.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “I have never apologised in my life.”

That managed to get a laugh out of Yaz. There was a decent chance she wasn’t lying.

“Was it peaceful, at least?” That had been the worst of it – Umbreen had always remembered the violence that had torn her nascent family apart so many years ago.

Yaz hummed in assent as she nodded.

“One last trip. Just the two of us.”

“That sounds like a beautiful send-off for her. And a beautiful memory for you.”

The entire Earth in her eyeline. The sun at their backs. The glimmer of the star’s reflection across the oceans. The softest, sweetest press of the Doctor’s lips on her own.

“Yeah. It is. We went somewhere, I think… I think it reminded her of home…”

Umbreen’s face crumpled in confusion.

“Yorkshire?”

Yaz laughed.

“No, nani. I know she sounds it, but no. She comes from somewhere… a long way away.”

Umbreen knew not to pry if Yaz wasn’t being specific willingly.

Yaz pushed herself out of the cuddle, sitting up straight. She held out her hands, angling them for Umbreen to see. She rested her index fingers together, only one of which held a heartbeat ring.

“I gave her one of my heartbeats.”

The earring chain was on the wrong ear for Umbreen to have seen already, so she got up from her seat, and moved round to sit on the floor in front of the other woman. She turned her head, and pushed a rogue lock of hair out of the way to display the earring.

“And she gave me this.”

Umbreen leaned forward and used a hand to gently angle Yaz’s ear for a clearer look.

“That is very beautiful. These hands,” She stroked a thumb over the conjoined metal hands. “Are they yours?”

Yaz couldn’t help a quick laugh and a warm smile.

“I don’t think so… But, maybe, now…”

In truth, Yaz knew they were meant to represent the Doctor’s hand and ‘humanity’s’ hand – she’d of course acquired it long before their feelings for each other had developed. But given the strength of that most precious memory – the Doctor caressing her hand after they’d traded their gifts – perhaps it had acquired new meaning. Connecting the Doctor to both humanity in general, and Yaz in specific. A promise.

Umbreen retracted her hand, and Yaz turned to face her properly. Seeing her grandmother’s face, both of them tear-stained, grieving, and full of love, Yaz knew in that moment that she would be okay. Not now. Maybe not soon. But someday. She would be okay.

END