Work Text:
Sleep never came easy to Yasmin Khan. Even if her body was exhausted from working a double or pulling a night shift, it was almost as if the touch of the pillow activated previously dormant brain cells and sent them into a frenzy. And here, on a planet called Desolation , on a boat ride over lethal water? She could almost feel her brain forming new neurons just to try to cope.
Logically, she knew she needed rest. But attempting to apply logic only backfired, reminding her that she needed rest in order to give herself the best chance of survival on an alien planet where they had literally no idea what awaited them. Eventually, she decided the only way to calm her mind was to occupy it.
She found the Doctor standing on the deck, hunched over with her chin held in her hand and her eyes gazing vaguely across the water. Yaz felt like she was intruding and turned to go when she heard the Doctor's voice, the softest she had ever heard her speak. "I thought you'd be asleep longer."
"Couldn't turn my thoughts off," Yaz replied, lingering in the doorway.
The Doctor turned to look at her, her smile somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. "One reason I rarely sleep."
Yaz walked over and stood beside the Doctor as they both looked out at the water.
"The view out here is better," Yaz declared. "Shame you can still hear Epzo snoring."
The Doctor chuckled a bit, relieved to hear her friend make a joke, given the circumstances.
"What were you thinking about?" the Doctor asked. Yaz picked up on the subtle trepidation in her voice. She must think we're all going to hate her for this , Yaz realized. The Doctor had taken control of the absurd situation so quickly and with such apparent confidence that Yaz almost hadn't stopped to consider that she was the one who had put them in this situation in the first place.
The Doctor started to fiddle with her jacket and Yaz remembered that she was waiting on an answer.
"My mind couldn't quite settle on one thing... this place, my family, crashing a spacecraft, this insane race... got plenty to choose from today," she tried and failed to keep her tone light. She wanted to put on a cool exterior, like she learned to do at work. But she was exhausted and this was literally worlds away from her typical beat. She couldn't hide her worry.
She couldn't hide her surprise, either, when she felt the Doctor take her hand. She whipped her head to the side and found her own worry reflected for a moment in the Doctor's green eyes before the mask of self-assurance went back up.
"I am so sorry for all of this, Yaz," she said. "I never meant..."
The guilt in her voice was too much and Yaz cut her off.
"To throw us all into the depths of space? We all know you didn't mean to." She gave the Doctor's hand a subtle squeeze. "Is that what you've been thinking about?"
"I was thinking about this planet...wondering what sort of people used to live here and if they've all left or..." the Doctor didn't finish the thought.
Yaz thought about Angrstrom's family. "Does that happen a lot?" she asked. "Planets turning against each other, civilizations just… wiped out?"
The Doctor looked down at the water again, drawing in a long deep breath. "It happens far too often," she finally answered.
"Your planet, is that..." Yaz saw the Doctor set her jaw and the tension making the muscles in her neck stand out. She didn't finish the question.
"It's gone," the Doctor said simply before Yaz could finish opening her mouth to apologize for asking. Instead, she closed her mouth and rubbed the Doctor's hand gently with her thumb. After her initial surprise, she hadn't thought to take her hand away and now she was grateful for the contact, glad to see that whatever memories her indiscreet question had stirred hadn't led the Doctor to pull away either.
"Anyway, that's certainly not a story to calm your troubled thoughts. Ooh! I have an idea, come here," and suddenly the light returned to her eyes as she dropped Yaz's hand and plopped down on the deck. She wiggled out of her coat, folded it and placed it on her leg before looking up at Yaz who stood beside her, unsure of what she was meant to do. The Doctor smiled up at her.
"Go on, lay down," she said, gesturing at the space beside her and patting her coat. "I'm going to tell you my least favourite bedtime story. It's just strange enough you won't think of anything else, but just boring enough that you will gladly fall asleep and miss the end."
Yaz laughed and slid down beside the Doctor. She hesitated before lying down, feeling a bit childish and ridiculous. But the Doctor gave her a reassuring smile and she gave in, curling up with her head on the Doctor's coat. Yaz couldn't help but wonder who exactly used to tell the Doctor bedtime stories, but she knew now wasn't the time for more questions and before long the Doctor's rambling, almost whispered monologue had lulled her to sleep.