Chapter Text
“Ow,” Yaz mumbles, something jolting her into consciousness.
“Mm?”
“Think you just elbowed me in the tit.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“S’alright.”
The Doctor shifts and Yaz drowsily opens her eyes, yawning. She turns over. The Doctor’s shifted onto her side. Yaz quietly counts the strands of flyaway blond hair, and then the freckles along her shoulders. She turns back over with a whump. Her hair flops over her face. She scronches her nose up. She tries and fails to blow the hair out. Yaz gently moves them out of her face.
“Thanks,” she mumbles.
“Mm-hm.” Yaz counts the freckles on her nose, watches the way her eyelashes cast a slight shadow on her cheeks.
“Are you staring at me?” The Doctor rasps.
“Mm-hm.”
“Why?”
“I like looking at your face.”
“S’nice.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Why d’you like looking at my face so much?”
“I dunno. I must like looking at it at least a little if I married you.”
The Doctor smiles. “You did do that, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Absolutely.”
She giggles. “Mean.”
“Maybe a little. But I think you must like it at least a little bit.”
“I must, if I married you.”
Yaz wriggles closer and gently kisses the Doctor. The Doctor wraps an arm around her neck before she slides it around her waist. Yaz shifts so she’s on top of her, the Doctor’s other hand sliding to her hair, the one on her waist moving to drift up and down her back.
“You,” the Doctor murmurs when Yaz pulls back. “Made me a promise last night.”
Yaz grins. “Did I?”
“Mmhm.” Her eyes open, lips tilting wickedly. “You promised me shenanigans.”
“Hmm, shenanigans, shenanigans.” Yaz drums her fingers against the Doctor’s waist. “You know, it rings a bell.”
“Clearly?”
Yaz slides her hand down to curl under the Doctor’s thigh, pulling her closer. The Doctor’s breath hitches. “Clearer and clearer.”
She grins up at her. “Prove it.”
Yaz grins back, a little wolfish. “Well.” She presses her a little further into the bed, watching her cheeks turn pink. “If you insist.”
“There’s nothing in there,” Yaz says, wrapped in their comforter as she follows the Doctor down the hall.
“Bet there is,” the Doctor answers obstinately, the sheet draped around her dragging slightly on the floor.
“I know there isn’t.”
They walk into the kitchen. There’s a little notecard on the counter that says open me! Yaz and the Doctor look at each other, then at the notecard. Yaz picks it up, the Doctor peering over her shoulder.
I could say a lot of mushy stuff about how happy I am for you, and how much I love the both of you, and how I wish you happy lives. But instead I’m gonna tell you there’s orange juice in the fridge, and a box of almond croissants in the cupboard.
Jack.
“We really should have let him fuck one of your cousins,” the Doctor says.
Yaz puts the notecard back on the counter. “The next time you say that to me it’ll be an instant divorce.”
“Duly noted. Come on, let’s eat.”
“We have to ask Jack where he got these,” the Doctor says as they eat in the console room, sitting on the floor.
“He might have made them.”
“He might have made them?”
Yaz takes a sip of her orange juice. “He’d probably show us how to make them, if we asked nicely.”
“I don’t ask Jack for things nicely.”
Yaz rolls her eyes. “I could ask him nicely.”
The Doctor looks around the console room. “Oh, what’s that?”
Yaz peers at what she’s pointing at. “Oh, right, sorry, I forgot.” She grabs the velvet clutch off the console. “It was a wedding gift for you?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Yaz hands it over. “Someone from your side of the family.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. She was a bit mysterious about it. Said you two were on parallel paths now. But she seemed really happy that you were happy.”
The Doctor turns it over in her hands. “Hm.”
“Who was it?”
“Was her hair curly?”
“No. Gray and straight.”
“Not River, then.”
Yaz laughs. “You think River would’ve shown up to your wedding?”
“Not sure. She was an unpredictable woman.” The Doctor squints at Yaz. “You think opening this’ll kill us?”
She shrugs. “Won’t know until you try.”
The Doctor grins. “That’s why I married you,” she says. She opens it up and pulls out a thick sheaf of papers folded up and tightly secured with a rubber band. “Ooh. Intriguing.”
Yaz scoots next to her, peering over her shoulder as the Doctor pulls off the rubber band and unfolds the paper. To Yaz’s surprise, the paper is written in tight Gallifreyan circles in dark blue link. It’s on stationary from The Coal Hill School. She looks at the Doctor’s face to see tears have sprung to her eyes as she white knuckles the paper.
“Hey.” Yaz gently pulls the papers from her grip and puts them on the TARDIS floor. “Hey, careful. You don’t want to smudge or rip it.” She wraps her arms around her. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
“She didn’t want to stay?” The Doctor whispers.
“She said she’s never in the same place at once, because she goes wherever she’s needed, and there’s always somebody who needs her. But she didn’t want to just let the day pass. She wanted you to have that.”
The Doctor sniffs. “Yeah,” she says softly. “Yeah. That’s my girl.”
“Who was she?”
The Doctor picks the papers up and gently traces the first symbol with her finger.
“Grandmother,” she reads.
Yaz blinks, confused, until she sits up straighter in realization. “Oh.” The Doctor’s still staring at it. “You don’t have to read it now. You can just-“
“No. No, I’d like. Can I read it now?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Can you…” the Doctor’s voice gets small. “Can you hold me?”
“Yeah.” Yaz pulls her in. “Of course.”
They lie on the floor together, wrapped in their sheet and comforter. Yaz rests her face in the crook of the Doctor’s neck, feeling her chest rise and fall unsteadily as she works her way through the papers. On the last page, she laughs wetly before gently resting the papers on the floor.
“Was it a good wedding present?” Yaz asks.
“Yeah,” the Doctor whispers hoarsely. “It was.” She sniffs. “She grew up.”
“She was very polite.”
“She’s a good kid. A good woman.” She takes a long, shaky breath. “I’m glad you got to meet her.”
Yaz holds her a little closer. “Will going to get another croissant make you feel better?”
“…yeah.” The Doctor turns around and brushes their noses together. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Yaz grins. “Will it make you feel even better if I race you?” The Doctor looks contemplative for a moment, then grins and bolts to her feet. “No, no-“ Yaz scrambles up. “No fair, I didn’t say ready set go!”
Green had been the only thing the Doctor had said to her for the outfit. Green was the color of weddings on Gallifrey, and green was what she wanted. Yaz had decided to splurge a little and had a suit tailored for her , emerald green with a black tie and a white shirt. She’d managed to find a green tulle veil dotted with butterflies , and she carefully positions it with the betrothal comb. She smooths the pants down a little.
“Yaz?” The Doctor sounds tentative. “You ready?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”
The Doctor steps into their room holding a small bowl with a paintbrush in it and stops just to look at her. She’s wearing a long sleeved low cut emerald green jumpsuit with a sash round her waist.
“Wow,” she whispers.
Yaz grins slightly, looking down. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She tilts her head. “Come on.”
They sit down on the floor of the console room, the Doctor setting the bowl with the green mud in between them.
“Hands,” the Doctor says softly. Yaz holds them out and, carefully, the Doctor paints her name on the top of one hand and Yaz’s in the other, both in Gallifreyan. She leans in and gently draws a line from in between her eyebrows down to the tip of her nose. “Okay. Your turn.”
Yaz takes a deep breath and takes the brush. She’s practiced for a year and when she writes the same symbols on her hands, it doesn’t look too bad. She paints the line on the Doctor’s nose. She puts the bowl and brush to the side and she and the Doctor lay their hands palm to palm in between them.
“In every change, in every sky shot with violet, I will be there,” the Doctor says quietly.
“In every change, in every sky shot with violet, I will be there,” Yaz repeats in a murmur.
“From now til the Mothers unmake the world, I will be there.”
“From now til the Mothers unmake the world, I will be there.”
“I will see your face in wood, in stone, in sun, in sky.”
“I will see your face in wood, in stone, in sun, in sky.”
“I will see your face in the dawn of the morning, and I will see your face at the end of the world.”
“I will see your face in the dawn of the morning, and I will see your face at the end of the world.”
“I see-“ the Doctor’s voice comes close to cracking and Yaz’s hands twitch with the urge to hold hers. “I see you as you are, throughout every face there is, and I do not find you wanting.”
“I see you as you are, throughout every face there is-“ their eyes meet. “And I do not find you wanting.”
The Doctor wets her lips and swallows.
“Yasmin Khan,” she whispers, and Yaz whispers the Doctor’s name in return.
The Doctor pulls a teardrop emerald pendant on a gold chain out of her pocket and gently places it around Yaz’s neck, clasping it. Yaz pulls an identical one from hers and lowers the Doctor’s hood to drape it over her neck, gently pulling her hair free from the chain. They link their fingers and the Doctor kisses her, gentle and sweet. She pulls away and she and Yaz just rest there for a moment, foreheads pressed together.
“Lanterns?” Yaz asks quietly.
The Doctor nods. “Lanterns.”
The Doctor had crafted the lanterns herself. Yaz had watched her toss reject after reject, throwing every one that didn’t meet her standards in the garbage until she came up with six she liked. The structure is rectangular , flowers carved into the shimmering bronze like metal at the top. Out of the four glass panels on the side, the Doctor’s name is constructed stained glass style in varying shades of green in Gallifreyan is on two on each lantern, with Yaz’s name in Gallifreyan on the other two. They kneel in front of the doorway to the TARDIS, orbiting quietly around a greenish blue nebula, the Doctor picking up the ones with Yaz’s name and Yaz picking up the ones with the Doctor’s.
“Right here,” the Doctor says, gently tapping the side of the lantern in her hands. The lantern softly lights a gentle green light. Yaz taps hers. Gently, they lightly push them out out of the TARDIS. The hover mechanism activates on the bottoms, and they quietly whir out into the nebula.
“They’re programmed to find the most stable part of the nebula and stay there,” the Doctor tells her. “They’ll shift with it, but they’ll always be part of this system forever. They’ll never fall apart or dim. Just… forever in concert with the universe.”
Yaz smiles. “I like that.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Yaz looks at the Doctor to see she’s watching her fondly. Yaz reaches out and takes her hand. The Doctor lifts it so she can gently kiss her palm before scooting over and leaning against Yaz. She wraps both arms around her, pulling her in as the Doctor settles, her head resting against Yaz’s neck.
“I love you, Mrs. Khan,” she says quietly.
Yaz kisses the top of her head. “I love you, Doctor Khan.”
Yaz leans her head against the Doctor’s, the two of them watching the lanterns float out across the nebula until, eventually, they still, glinting, glimmering, and glowing, until they are indistinguishable from the stars.