Chapter Text
[If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.]
Little Gidding. T.S. Eliot.
The TARDIS shouldered reality out of the way jerkily, hung an ominous left at his china cupboard, and clipped the sofa before coming to a clammy, wheezing stop on one of his few remaining dining chairs.
Graham dropped his mug of tea, which chipped on the kitchen floor, and mentally added it to the casualty list. Hot liquid seeped into his slippers, crept towards the line where the kitchen tile met the living room carpet. The radio in the kitchen blared fuzzily behind him.
“—shield holding,” the announcer said. “For now.”
Yaz stuck her head out the TARDIS doors, which filled his living room with smoke. The sound of the doors opening twisted nostalgia and strange want in his gut. It soured, too fast.
“Now, what sort of time do you call this?” he wondered from the kitchen doorway, heart sinking into his stomach at the strange look in her eyes. Fear licked at the edges of it, and crawled up his tongue. He’d been waiting, he realized. Ever since it had all gone wrong, he’d been waiting for them to show up, and the fact that it had taken this long could only mean nothing good. “And where the hell have you two been? Earth’s gone right to hell!”
“Gone to the dogs, more like,” an unfamiliar voice filtered out from the TARDIS depths, sounding annoyed. Yaz’s face strained.
“Graham,” she said. There was, he noted uneasily, a smear of engine grease painted across her cheek. “I need a favour. And I need you not to ask too many questions about it. There’s no time.”
“Whatever you need,” he said. “But I reserve the right to ask all my questions later. And I do mean it, where the hell have you been? And couldn’t you be bothered to send a text now and then? We’ve been—” He swallowed. Her face was too odd. Her eyes were too strange. She didn’t look like herself, but she looked more like herself than ever, and he couldn’t stay cross. “We were worried about you. That’s all.”
Her face strained tighter. “Long story.” She ducked her head back into the TARDIS—like she was going down a submarine hole, he noticed, frowning—shouting behind her. “I told you I could do it.”
“You missed the zig-zag plotter,” the Doctor’s voice pointed out, and some of the worry twisted in his stomach untied itself. The rough landing, the smoke, Yaz, alone—well. His mind tended to jump to worst-case scenarios, these days. He couldn’t be blamed for it. “Luckily, the TARDIS likes you.”
The Doctor’s head popped up next, hair staticky, also smudged liberally with engine grease and smoke. She sniffed the air.
“Nice job with the date-line,” she said approvingly, hauling herself out of the doors, and immediately tripping over the living room rug and the remains of Graham’s chair. She went down with a crash, but sprang back up immediately, reeling. “Not so great with the parking. Hiya, Graham!”
Yaz followed her out, much more gracefully. “Like you could do better,” she protested, though she winced at the chair. “Sorry, Graham,” she said.
“Hold on,” he said, finally deigning to step out from the kitchen. Break the spell. Cross the line. His slippers soaked tea into the carpet as he walked. “Don’t tell me you was the one driving.”
“Won’t tell you, then,” Yaz said, frowning at the Doctor’s back, like he was an afterthought. Like all of it was an afterthought. “Doctor—“ she said. She glanced over her shoulder, as the source of the other, unfamiliar voice made himself known. A tall, awkward-looking bloke folded himself out of the doors, nearly tripping on the same piece of chair the Doctor had.
“Could’ve been worse,” he agreed, eyes catching on Graham. He smiled, also awkwardly.
“Dan, Graham,” Yaz said. There was a harried look in her eyes. Something tense about the line of her jaw. “Graham, this is Dan. We picked him up in Liverpool. Well. In a spaceship above Liverpool.”
Graham blinked. “Er—“
Dan surged forward to shake his hand. His own were swathed in woollen mittens, but it wasn’t remotely the strangest thing about him.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, though it rolled uncertainly off his tongue. “Heard loads of good things. Well, y’know, a few good things. A few things. You know these girls, they don’t say much—”
“Oi!” Yaz protested. But her eyes had followed the Doctor, who had wandered to the living room window while they were talking. Always running at a tilt, and he’d chalked her stumble on the chair up to it, too, but there was a strange unsteadiness to her posture. Like the ground under her feet wasn’t a sure thing. Like her palm on the window might be the only thing tethering her to the earth.
“That’s—a Lupari fleet,” she said, gazing up at the same view they’d all been looking at for weeks. A great big shield in the sky, glinting in the weak morning sunlight.
“Yeah.” Yaz shot a look behind her at Dan, but Graham didn’t understand what it meant. “The Lupari fleet, Doctor. Protecting Earth, like you asked. Remember?”
Of course it had been her, Graham thought, oddly reassured. Saving them, even when she wasn’t there. But Dan winced. Yaz’s lips tightened into an unhappy line, strangely chagrined, but the Doctor didn’t react. Her palm stayed splayed against the window.
“Time doesn’t taste right,” he heard her mutter. Her throat bobbed in the milky reflection of the window. She turned. “Is this temporal hazing?”
Graham’s skin prickled.
“No,” Yaz said, gently, though Graham could see her pulse pounding in her throat. When he caught the slim trickle of rusty orange gathering under the Doctor’s left nostril, he understood why. “No, it’s not.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows knit together, but her eyes—blank, he realized, dread settling in the pit of his stomach. Vacant. Lights on, but no one home. Or if there was someone home, he didn’t know them. Blood continued its slow, steady encroach onto her upper lip. He’d overlooked it, in the sheer relief at seeing her, hearing her voice again, but her face was bone white. Clammy, cavernous.
“Oh,” she said, shifting. Unsettled, by the slant of her shoulders. “Can we stay here? I don’t want to go back, yet.”
Yaz swallowed. “As long as you like,” she said, lips twisting.
“I don’t—I don’t want to go back.”
“You don’t have to go back.” Yaz shook her head, minutely. Jaw so tightly clenched it was a surprise he couldn’t hear the grind of her teeth. “You don’t ever have to go back.”
The Doctor’s face fell. “Well, now I know you’re lying,” she said flatly, taking an unsteady step away from the window. Her voice turned accusatory. When, Graham wondered, chilled, had she lost the thread? “I don’t—who—?”
“Doctor,” Yaz said steadily. She kept her hands—gloved, Graham noticed, skin still prickling, just like Dan’s—up and visible. “It’s alright. It’s me.”
The Doctor shook her head, but she was so paralyzed with what he was only beginning to recognize as fear that the movement was barely noticeable.
“I don’t—“ she said again, taking a step back towards the window. Her palm hit glass again, and breath whistled strangely out of her lips. There was a line of rusty orange running all the way down to her chin, now. “I don’t know—“
“Yes, you do,” Yaz said, and even if her eyes were shining, her voice was firm and calm. Professional. “I promise, you do. It’s me. It’s Yaz.” Her eyes flicked to Dan. Again, something passed between them that Graham didn’t understand. “It’s alright. I’m coming closer, okay?”
The Doctor shook her head again, but seemed to realize there wasn’t much point. More breath escaped her, whistling, sharp.
“I don’t want to go back,” she said again.
“No one’s taking you back.” Yaz took another step, but froze as the Doctor shuddered against the window.
“You’re lying,” she said. “Stop it. The least you could do—the least you could do is—“ Her pinched, pale face twisted. “My head—“ she hissed, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I know,” Yaz said, still approaching, hands up. Dan kept at her shoulder. “I know it hurts. I can help.”
“No, you can’t,” she whispered. Her back to the window, and nowhere to run, and he was watching her realize it, watching it crawl desperate behind her eyes as they opened reluctantly. “I don’t—I don’t want—“
“Give me your hand,” Yaz said firmly, and reached for the arm at the window. “It won’t hurt.”
The Doctor allowed her to take the hand. Something grim and unfamiliar was sliding across her face, and Graham could have happily gone the rest of his life without seeing it again.
“You always say that,” she said, resigned, as Yaz pressed something plasticky to her palm. Then she dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
Yaz caught her under the shoulders, eyes closing with relief.
“How long?” she demanded.
“Four hours since last time,” Dan said, glancing down at the wrist watch concealed beneath his right mitten. “Getting shorter,” he observed uneasily, moving to the window. He grabbed the Doctor’s legs with practiced ease, and Graham watched as the two of them hauled her carefully over the coffee table to set her on the sofa. “Blanket?”
Yaz shook her head. “She don’t like them. She gets all tangled.” But as she adjusted the pillow beneath the Doctor’s head, her eyes caught on Graham. She smiled, rueful. “Now you can see why I was the one piloting.”
Graham swallowed. “What the hell was that?” he said, heart pounding, knees trembling. Half-torn between staying where he was and wandering closer. “Yaz, I—“
She closed the distance between them before he could finish, wrapping him in her arms. She buried her nose in the crook of his neck, just for a moment, like it had been years instead of months since they’d last seen each other. He caught a faint whiff of her rose-scented soap, before the scent of engine grease overtook it.
She even smelled like the Doctor. He tucked the thought away before he could make too much of it.
“Yaz, love, I—“
“Where's Ryan?” she asked, as she pulled away.
“Blimey,” Graham said. “It really has been a long time since you were home, hasn’t it.” She blanched sallow, and he threw a hand up to reassure. “Oh, god, I’m sorry. Not like that. I only meant—well, he’s on a date. Breakfast.”
Some of the colour returned to her cheeks, and she frowned. “A date?” she demanded. “With who? Who goes on a date while the world’s ending?”
Graham swallowed. Not in a million years, he thought, did he want to be the one to tell her. “Er. Well. It’s not important. I’ll let him tell you. ”
Her frown only deepened.
“I can’t stay,” she said firmly, putting it aside. “I told you, I need a favour. Me and Dan—“
“You and Dan what?” he demanded, glancing over her shoulder at the Doctor, dead to rights on his sofa. Suspicion solidified in his gut. “You’re not—you can’t be—“
“It’s a long story,” she said again, something flinty and faintly irritated—familiar, he didn’t think—finally broaching her tone. “I don’t have time, Graham. None of us do.”
“You know I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” he said lowly. “But I’m gonna need a little more than that, cockle. There’s been a lot going on, and where have you been? What’s wrong with the Doc?”
Yaz shook her head. More loose hair escaped her braid with the movement.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I—I don’t know where to start.”
Dan, who had shucked his mittens in relief and started nonchalantly picking up the remains of Graham’s dining room chair, paused and straightened, his arms full of splintered wood. “Well, that’s all easy, isn’t it?” he said. “You and the Doc rescued me from a giant talking dog, the universe broke, the giant talking dog was actually a good guy, we got punted back to the Crimea, then me and you disappeared, then I was in Liverpool with them potato-heads, then the Doc came to get me so we could get you, then we all went for a dip in our own time streams, then the Doc saved us, again, but there was an angel in your phone, then it took the TARDIS to a village in Devon,” he paused for breath, and in faint distaste, “then you and me was thrown back to 1901, then the Doctor got turned into one of them stone angels and disappeared, then we spent three years trying to figure out how to get back to now, and then suddenly there she was, with the TARDIS, like nothing had changed.” His expression sobered. “Only her head’s broken. And I still haven’t saved Diane.”
Yaz tilted her head, considering. “Y’know,” she said. “That’s not a bad summation, actually.”
Graham could feel a headache coming on. Dread pooled in his stomach. Sheer horror, too. Engine grease smudged across her cheek, and a strand of grey, stark against her dark hair. Good grief.
“I think I need another cup of tea,” he said.
Yaz clapped him on the shoulder. “It’ll have to wait,” she said. “Dan’s right. Sort of. She didn’t come back right. She’s sick. And we can’t fix the universe without the Doctor, so before we can fix the universe—“
“Come back from what?”
Her lips flattened.
“I don’t know,” she said, and it was singed bitter. And it wasn’t, he sensed, entirely the truth. “But whatever she was looking for finally came looking for her. They caught up with us in Devon. It were a trap, but she didn’t know it. That was the last time I saw her, before she swept in. 1904. She used—“ She fished for the psychic paper in her jacket pocket. “—used the residue from this to track us down. But she can’t—she can’t stay in the moment for long.” Her expression fell. For a moment, it reminded him of the girl he’d known, before, instead of the competent stranger she’d become. “It’s like her mind wanders off.”
“More like it makes a run for it,” Dan pointed out, not unkindly. “Sometimes she don’t even know her own name.”
Yaz shook her head, looking mildly exasperated. “It’s not that.” She swallowed. “She was looking for lost memories, before. Things that had been hidden from her. I think she got them back.”
Graham blinked. “You mean…you mean from before she was the Doc? How can that be?”
“I don’t know. But right now, she’s a liability.” The word left Yaz’s mouth coldly, and if he hadn’t been able to see the worry in her eyes, he might’ve taken offense on her behalf. “She don’t always recognize me. A few times, it’s gone a bit—“ Her lips flattened again. “Violent,” she said quietly. “Whatever happened to her, it’s getting worse. It’s hurting her. I have to fix it.”
His stomach twisted. “What, all by yourself?”
“What am I?” Dan protested, piling up the chair’s remains into a tidy pile in the corner of the living room. “Dog food? I’m coming, too.”
“Coming where?”
Yaz met his gaze, finally. He didn’t especially like what he found there.
“Yaz,” he said gently. “Come on, love. What are you gonna do?”
“The whole universe is at stake,” she said, simply. “There’s no time. And there’s only one thing I can think of. One person who might be able to help.” She swallowed. “I’m taking the nuclear option.”
The back of his neck prickled.
“You don’t mean—“
She glared, and the rest of the words fizzled out in his throat.
“That’s the favour I need,” she whispered. “No questions. No judgement. Just—look after her, until I get back. I’ll do my best to stick to the right date-line, I’ll try not to be too long, but—“ She glanced behind her, at the Doctor. “She’s right, y’know,” she said quietly. “It’s harder to pilot than you’d think. We used to give her such a hard time for being late.”
Only a hint of regret, in her voice. The rest of it just sounded sad.
“Okay,” Graham said, dread thudding in his chest. “Of course. Me and Ryan, we’ll keep an eye. But don’t be long.” He shot a wary glance out the window. “That shield starts lookin’ more flimsy every day. What’s left of the universe, Yaz? Outside?”
Her eyes shone.
“Trust me,” she said. “You don’t want to know.” She took his hand and squeezed it, leather gloves cool against his skin. “Okay—basic rules: don’t let her wander off. ‘Cos she will try, especially when she’s got her wits about her. When she does have her wits about her, don’t tell her what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, well, I have met her a time or two,” Graham protested. “How’d you convince her to come here in the first place?”
“It’s a logical base of operations,” she said, looking at him funny. “Besides, we were worried about you two.”
“Oh,” he said, faintly touched.
“She might not always know who you are,” she said next, unease skittering across her face before she wiped it clear. “It’s hard to know what’ll set her going. Couple of times it’s happened mid-conversation. It’s not your fault, but it’s not hers, either.”
“Yaz,” he said, quietly. “Don’t I know it?”
She smiled, chagrined. “Suppose you do. She’ll be cross I’ve left, but she might understand. Sometimes, she knows what’s happening to her.” Her face fell. “Sometimes, she don’t. Worst comes to worst,” and she shot a look at Dan, who wandered over to her shoulder, “there’s these.”
Dan set a wrinkled set of plastic sheets in Graham’s hand.
“Sleep patches,” he said.
“TARDIS only gave us a limited supply.” Yaz frowned. “They’re not for long-term use. And they’re not always better. Don’t touch her with your skin, if you can help it. She don’t like it. You won’t like it, either.” She took an unsteady breath. “I think that’s it.”
A few short phrases, to sum up what sounded like a few years from hell. There was a part of him that wanted desperately to go with her. Call up Ryan, bring him home, set off in the TARDIS. It didn’t feel right, waiting. Ever since the shield had appeared, he hadn’t felt right about it.
But then, he supposed, sometimes there was nothing for it. And he believed in her, the same way he always had. If Yasmin Khan couldn’t save the universe, then there was no hope for any of them.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “Yaz. Be careful. You too, son.”
Dan blinked at him, as if surprised to be included. But he smiled, grateful. Graham, unfortunately, had warmed to him.
“Back soon,” Yaz said, and impulsively hugged him again. She sighed. “Go on, then, Dan,” she said, exasperated, and he tentatively wrapped his arms around the both of them.
“Nice to meet you,” Dan said, quietly. “And thanks, for looking after the Doc. Only knew her a few days, before she got turned to stone, but she saved my life quite a few times.”
“Yeah,” Graham said. Turned to stone. He shuddered. “Yeah, she does that.”
Yaz broke away, avoiding his gaze, and herded Dan back towards the TARDIS. She stopped at the sofa.
“You promised,” he thought he heard her murmur, and she pressed her gloved knuckles gently to the Doctor’s cheek, as chaste as a kiss.
Dan waved at him and disappeared through the TARDIS doors, still treating them like a submarine hatch. Graham didn’t ask, on account of he’d already reached his limit for the day. Already, the thought of tea was starting to feel like an inadequate solution.
Yaz caught his eye, as she lowered herself in.
“Best get a shift on,” she said, smiling. Her head disappeared. The TARDIS slipped away with a familiar wheeze, but less shuddering and groaning than was usual.
It figured, Graham thought quietly, that she was a better pilot, too.
——
“So,” Dan said, clinging to an oozing pillar for dear life, as the TARDIS rocked and shook, “let me get this straight: we’re going to the Doc’s home planet—“
“Yes,” Yaz said, though by the looks of her face, she was having trouble with the whole piloting of it.
“—which is at the end of the universe—“
“It’s in a pocket at the end of the universe,” she corrected irritably.
“—and which has been totally destroyed—“
“Only the organic life,” she said, diving for a switch. The console sparked and she flinched away. “Oi!” she shouted at the ceiling. “Come on! I thought we were together on this!”
“—by the same bloke we’re looking for, who’s probably dead anyway—“
“Last time the Doctor thought he was dead, he wasn’t,” she said firmly. The TARDIS steadied, as her hand found what must have been the right switch. “And she didn’t think he was dead, come to think of it. She just never told us she thought he was still alive, until she didn’t have a choice. And he didn’t destroy all the organic life, that came later. I mean, he was going to, but he wanted the Doctor to do it. First, he—”
She broke off, brows knitting together. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. The TARDIS shuddered underneath them.
“Well, don’t leave me hanging,” Dan said. She would, if he gave her an inch.
“He killed everyone,” she said shortly, going back to the console. Another switch, flipped. He couldn’t tell if it was an important one or not. Sometimes, she seemed to fiddle with things just for an excuse to avoid talking to him. “Everyone on the planet.”
Dan’s stomach swooped, and not just from the bumpy ride.
“And this bloke is the Doctor’s friend?” he ventured uneasily.
“No,” Yaz protested. “Yes. I don’t know. He hates her.”
“…I’m not following.”
“He knows her,” she said. “They were friends, once. She told me. And if he’s still alive—and he’s got to be—then he won’t let anyone kill her but him.” Finally, she glanced at him, hands buried in the controls. The TARDIS screeched. “That’s got to be worth something, right?”
“You’re telling me,” he said uneasily. “Yaz. Tell me honest. Is this safe?”
“No,” she said, like he was some sort of idiot. He didn’t take it personally. After all, he’d been a first-hand witness to the way her patience for stupid questions had slowly frayed to nothing over the past three years, and honestly, he couldn’t blame her. “Not remotely. Second thoughts?”
The TARDIS finally landed with an ominous groan.
“Yeah, right,” he said, and followed her out the doors into broiling marmalade light. Sand spat at his face. Dead trees curled from the earth, petrified. In the distance, his eyes caught on the shattered remains of what he could only describe as a giant snow globe, the metal structure of it warped and twisted.
It was one of the most horrifying things he’d ever seen. Yaz took it all in, seemingly unmoved. Well. That was alright. He knew her well enough by now to know she wasn’t.
“I’ve never been this far from the citadel before,” she said, frowning. “We’ll have to walk.”
“We’re heading towards that thing?” He shuddered. There were easily miles between them and its pulverized remains. Hills dotted the landscape, besides. They’d landed in the midst of a scorched, skeletal forest. When he turned back to glance at the TARDIS, a small mountain loomed over them, snow-capped. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said, taking off, about fifty percent bluster, which meant she was only mostly sure. The Doctor’s sonic was clenched tightly in one hand. He’d watched her nick it stealthily from the Doctor’s pocket, when she’d said goodbye on the sofa. He jogged to catch up.
“Only, wouldn’t the TARDIS have brought us closer?” he wondered.
“It’s a miracle the TARDIS brought us here at all,” she said. “She don’t like to come here.”
“Yeah, well.” Dan took another look around, at the eerie landscape. Wind wailed through the bones of the trees. More sand spat at his face. “Who would?”
“It was beautiful, once.” She didn’t stop, but she slowed enough for him to catch up. The wind whipped her braid away from her face. If the sand bothered her, she didn’t show it. “The Doctor told me.”
It was still beautiful, in an odd, painful way. The twin suns were a nice touch. And the trees—even the ghosts of them—made elegant shapes, trailed upwards, reaching. He still felt like he barely knew the Doc, but she made sense, in this place. Scorched, strange. Old.
He turned back to look at the mountain, neck prickling.
“Couldn’t you use the—the thingy?” he asked. “The gizmo. Just to be sure.”
“It’s not a gizmo,” she sighed, exasperated. “And I—“ She paused. Took a breath. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” she admitted, raising it. “Before we walk too far.”
It buzzed in her gloved hand, for what felt like an unnecessarily long time. He winced at the noise, like he always did. But before he could tell her to give it up, turn it off, what was a few miles of walking after all they’d done already, the blood drained from her face.
She looked up at him. Tilted her head to the left. Sand shifted eerily, behind her.
“One life sign,” she breathed. “A mile or so that way.”
Dan sighed. “I hope this bloke likes company.
Yaz smiled, grimly. “He really, really don’t. Second thoughts?”
It was kind of her to offer, he thought, as she turned without waiting for an answer. If he really had turned around, at any point, he was sure she would have let him. Maybe, she wouldn’t even have been that cross. But it was kind to offer, he thought, if only because he knew in his gut the thought of giving up had never occurred to her once.
Yasmin Khan was a lot of things, he thought, following. Not all of them were nice, always. Not all of them were kind. A lot of them were downright strange.
She wasn’t a quitter, though. And when she believed in you, well—it was like the sun shining on your face, wasn’t it?
He took one more uneasy glance at the mountain behind him.
Two suns, even.
——
His second cup of tea didn’t survive the morning, either. As soon as he’d finished making it, stirred in the sugar just how he liked it, picked it up to traipse to the living room to keep an eye on the Doc, she appeared in the kitchen doorway like a silent, swaying ghost. He dropped his mug on his foot in surprise. Another casualty. His slippers were a soaking lost cause. If he was lucky, his foot was intact.
She flinched at the sound of his mug bouncing to shatter on the tile, shoulders hiking up to her ears, elbows raising.
“Graham?” she croaked, frowning. Blood had dried in a thin line from her nose down to her chin. “Where’s the TARDIS?”
“Flippin’ hell,” he choked out, doing his best not to do a one-footed hop into the kitchen table. “Hey, Doc. Long time no see.”
Her elbows lowered, bit by bit.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “Yeah, it has been.” Her nose wrinkled. “Are we hugging?”
His foot wasn’t broken. Or burnt to pieces. Hopefully. Probably. “Do you want us to be?” he asked, eyebrows raising. He’d only ever got the one.
She blinked uneasily, still looming in the doorway. “I—I don’t—“ Like the words were getting trapped by her tongue. His stomach twisted. “I don’t know,” she got out finally. “Maybe. No. I—“ She doubled over with a moan, palms flying to her ears. “I—“
Tea forgotten, he lunged for her, but stopped short of grabbing her. Yaz’s words lingered in the back of his mind, mingled with the dread that was already there. “Doc,” he said, hands out in front of him, useless. She twisted away from him, into the doorway. “Doc, I don’t want to touch you unless you’re alright with it, but I’m gonna need you to tell me how to help, before my heart gives out.”
“Couldn’t have that,” she gasped, eyes squeezed shut. Slowly, painfully, she slid against the doorframe until she hit the floor, head still clutched in her hands. When she finally wrenched them away, there was more rust gathered at her hairline, drying sticky on her palms. Dripping out her ears, he realized, nausea churning in his gut. “It’s fine,” she wheezed. “I’m fine. Graham,” she breathed, hunched into his doorframe. “Where’s the TARDIS?”
He swallowed, unsure how to answer. It was all well and good, not telling her where Yaz had gone—but it was another thing entirely, to think up a plausible alternative on the spot. He’d never been a good liar. And he hadn’t lied to the Doctor since Ranskoor Av Kolos, hadn’t even considered it, not once.
“Safe,” he decided. “It’s a long story, Doc. I’ll tell it to you, just—just let me help. What’s wrong?”
As her palms settled listless in her lap, the sallow kitchen light glinted off the leftover sleep patch. Her brows knit together. She peeled it off with her fingertips and flicked it away, nose wrinkling in disgust. “I’m—“ She turned her gaze on him, still uneasy. Pained, if he was reading the line between her eyes right. “Sorry, I’m missing something,” she muttered, peering at him skeptically. “Missing—several things.” She shuddered into the doorframe, eyes squeezing shut again. “Yaz,” she breathed out. “We were—we were coming here. Base of operations…safe behind the Lupari barrier.”
He crouched as low as he could, knees protesting. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”
Her mouth twisted into a resigned smile. “Tricked me,” she sighed. Her eyes opened with effort. “Where’s the TARDIS, Graham?”
When he didn’t answer, her gaze hardened.
“Won’t ask again,” she whispered, and it was as close to a threat as he’d ever heard hurled in his direction. Her mouth trembled. “Graham.”
“Yaz took it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and she lunged for him, faster than he could blink, fingers twisting in the collar of his jumper, hauling him upright with improbable strength. Rust under his nose, in the crevices of her fingernails, drying in her hairline. But she still smelled like ozone, he thought, half-hysterically. Familiar. Like the air before a storm. It was an impossible smell, for an impossible person, and for a moment all he could think of was her boney fingers clamped to Shelley’s forehead, shuffling his mind around like a pack of playing cards. There was no point in lying to her. He had no doubt that she could pluck whatever she wanted right from his thoughts, if the impulse struck.
She was shaking, though. Dark eyes wide in a too pale face. Fingers clamped to his collar, not his face. More afraid than he was, and it sank his pounding heart into his stomach.
“Doc,” he breathed, as gently as he could. “Please.”
“I’m tired of being lied to,” she trembled. “And you’re meant to be—my friends—“
“We are your friends,” he insisted. “Doc, I swear, she didn’t tell me none of where she was going.”
“You’re lying,” she railed, face twisting. “You’re not—you’re not meant to—“
“Look inside if you have to,” he said, daring to place his hands on her wrists, dread flooding up his throat at the lucidity slipping from her eyes as he watched. “But I swear, Doc—Doc, please—“
She winced at his touch, but it chased some of the wildness from her gaze. His skin prickled, and for a moment the sound of the ocean roaring overtook everything. Green flash sunset behind his eyes. Pain so immense his mind didn’t even know what to make of it, could only dart around the edges, trace around the outline of a shifting, fractal shape—he would never find the edge, or the end.
Her fingers loosened their grip. At his gasp of relief, she flinched away, looking horrified with herself.
“Sit down, cockle,” he wheezed. “Please.”
“I—“ Her mouth worked silently. “I’m sorry. Graham.” Wrenching his name from the back of her head, and she flinched again with the effort. “Graham O’Brian. My friend,” she breathed, like she was reminding herself. “I’m—“ She swallowed gingerly. Lips bloodless, eyes sunk into her skull. God, and he hadn’t even offered her a towel or anything, to swipe the blood out from under her nose. “I don’t—“
“It’s okay. Let me make you some tea,” he said, overcome with uselessness, but determined not to show it. “Third time’s the charm, eh? Mind the shards on the floor.”
“The universe is breaking,” she said, protesting. “I can’t have tea.”
“You can always have tea.” He shepherded her to the kitchen table as gently as he could, weaving them both around the remains of his mug. “Doc, I’m sorry, I know you’re confused, but believe me, you’re not well. The universe can wait.”
She frowned, on the cusp of disagreeing on principle, but she squeezed her eyes shut again as he lowered her into the chair.
“Lights off?” he asked, lowering his voice. She’d flinched at his mug on the tile, the scrape of the kitchen chair. And what sort of migraine, he wondered sickly, made you bleed out your ears? “I’ll dig out the paracetamol for you.”
“Universe can’t wait,” she rasped, still not opening her eyes. “It’s my fault. And don’t,” she continued, as he flicked the lights off, plunged the kitchen into milky, mid-morning gloom. “Allergic.”
“What, to paracetamol?”
“Aspirin,” she said. “But paracetamol’s no better. Not allergic, really. Incompatible.” The Doctor talked so much, and so fast, it was eerie, the way the words all seemed to get stuck in her throat. She propped her boney elbows up on the table and put her head in her hands. “Graham, the TARDIS—“
“Yaz took it,” he said again, turning the kettle on for a third and hopefully final time. While he waited for the water to boil, he dragged the broom from the store cupboard and carefully began to sweep up the remains of his shattered mug. “What do you mean, your fault? You never broke the universe, Doc.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she muttered. “I didn’t break it,” she said next, when he didn’t comment. “But it broke because of me. I have to—I have to fix it—”
“Can’t do nothing about it,” he said firmly, “until Yaz gets back with the TARDIS. Now, none of that,” he said, when she made a strangled, irritated noise. “I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d wanted to, Doc. She’s trying to help you.”
“I’m fine,” she protested, raising her head from her hands. As her eyes caught on the blood dried on her palms, she floundered. Rallied. “Relatively,” she amended, smoothing some of the ragged strands of hair from her face. “Relatively fine. Fine is all relative anyway, isn’t it?”
“You were a second away from strangling me a moment ago, Doc,” he pointed out, glancing at her over his shoulder as he swept the shards of ceramic into the bin. They tipped in with a muffled crash and she winced.
“I’m not myself,” she protested, nose wrinkling. “Well—or maybe I’m too much myself. Got a bit lost in my own mind, I don’t recommend it.”
“Lost in your own—“ The kettle was starting to reach a boil behind him, but he didn’t turn. “Doc. What happened to you, really? Yaz wouldn’t say.”
Fresh blood was streaming from her nose, but she didn’t seem to have noticed it yet. Glassy eyes tracked him wearily.
“I just wanted to know,” she said. “I was just—I was just looking. Didn’t I deserve to know? Don’t I have a right to my own life?” she asked him, plaintive. She swallowed, throat bobbing. “But they were looking for me, too. And they found me.” She was drifting again, right before his eyes. “They found me,” she whispered.
“Stay with me, cockle,” he said, heart pounding. The kettle reached a bubbling crescendo behind him. His skin prickled. Green flash sunset, and the taste of metal in his mouth. “Doc?” He took a step towards her. “Doc, just—just hold on.”
She stared at him glassily.
“Hold onto what?” she wondered, before her eyes rolled back into her head and she slid inelegantly off the chair.
——
Dan was slowing her down. Dan was always slowing her down, to be fair. Some days, slodging their way through the early 20 th century, she’d often wondered uncharitably if slowing her down was all he was really good for—but it was a cruel thought, and she tucked it away where it couldn’t bite.
Some days, she’d wondered instead if him slowing her down was sometimes the only thing keeping her from running straight into the ground. It was slightly more charitable. She wasn’t sure it was any more true.
“How can a place be this dry and this cold at the same time?” he wondered behind her, the scrape of his feet on the sand relentless. “This is worse than Jordan.”
“It weren’t Jordan, then, in 1903,” Yaz pointed out. “And it can’t be worse, if you’re complaining just as much.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” he said good-naturedly. “I’m only saying.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Well, it’s the truth.”
She smiled half-heartedly over her shoulder at him. As usual, he clearly wasn’t buying it, but he threw her a smile back in return.
“Y’know,” he said. “All those years, all that stuff you told me about the Doctor, you never told me her planet was—well. Like this. Destroyed, like.”
Her mood soured. “Weren’t for me to tell,” she said, clipped. Sand flew into her face as they turned into the wind. The sonic was warm in her hand, buzzing faintly every so often, when they veered off course.
“Until it was,” he said, matter-of-fact.
“The universe is at stake,” she protested.
“She’s at stake,” he countered. “Go on, now, you don’t have to pretend, y’know. And it’s not for me to say anything, anyway, but—“
“So don’t,” she bit. “Just—just leave it, Dan.”
“Alright,” he said, easily. He was far too patient. She didn’t deserve it. She also couldn’t stand it. “I’m not judging, like. Universe without the Doctor doesn’t bear much thinking about, if you ask me.”
“You’re right about that much,” she muttered, more to herself. More cragged hills rose up in the distance, but they’d angled downwards in the meantime, onto a desolate plain of shifting sand. She could only see one structure in the distance—a ramshackle hut, falling to pieces. She squinted, trying to make it out more clearly. A shed? A barn?
The wind wailed behind them. More sand buckled and shook into the air. The suns broiled high above them, but the heat never seemed to penetrate. In the wake of the Death Particle’s destruction, the entire atmosphere was shrouded in sallow, milky clouds. Strange winds, and strange storms.
It didn’t smell like ash so much anymore, at least. In that respect, it was much improved from the last time she’d visited.
“Come on,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Dan. He was squinting into the sudden sandstorm, but doggedly placing one foot in front of the other. “If we make it to that structure, we can take shelter for a minute. Get our bearings again.”
She didn’t need to, didn’t want to, but she had to be kind. She had to remember. There was no good losing yourself in pursuit of saving someone else. She’d learned that much from the Doctor, at least, though not on purpose.
He swiped the sand from his eyes and nodded. Together, they trudged onwards into the wind, heads down as the sand increased and the world became a smudge of beige and marmalade and grit. The great glass dome in the distance disappeared. The structure melted into the landscape, but Yaz kept her eyes fixed on the skeletal silhouette of it through the storm.
In the end, it was a barn, after all.
They stumbled through the entrance, the door nearly hanging off its hinge, banging in the gale. Sand shifted in behind them.
“Not much to it, is there,” Dan gasped, straining to close what was left of the door behind them. “Minimalists, the Doctor’s folks.”
It was certainly abandoned. Yaz swept a gloved finger over one of the crates piled in the corner, disturbing decades worth of dust. There wasn’t much else in the way of furniture. Only the remains of a lonely cot, up in the loft. Yaz climbed up the ladder for a closer look, wincing at the baleful cry of the wind outside, though even in the few minutes since they’d taken shelter in the barn, it was abating. The old wood creaked under her footsteps. More dust, lifted up by her feet. Nothing living. Not for a long time. But—
Yaz paused in her perusal.
Incongruous. Impossible. There was a small, plastic soldier, placed in the rotting, sinking windowsill.
“What?” she breathed, frowning. She ducked around the cot to take a closer look, mindful of the rotting wood, the occasional missing floorboard. Unmistakably human, in her hands. Plastic. Well-preserved. Absolutely out of place.
“Alright?” Dan called up at her.
“Yeah,” she said absently. The back of her neck prickled. Without thinking too much about why, she placed the plastic soldier in her pocket. Then she opened the ancient window’s shutters with a weary creak, flinching back from the sand that sifted through. She’d been right, though. The storm was clearing. The wind was dying down. She could almost see the shattered citadel in the distance again, under the sickly, sallow sky. And—
“Dan,” she called, heart pounding. The sonic buzzed, where it was pressed up against her in her pocket. She hadn’t been facing the right direction, before. In the storm, it had been easy to miss.
In the barren hills beyond the barn, there was a house.