Chapter Text
The lights in the console room shone bright orange, warm and comforting like candlelight, but they did not calm the woman racing round the controls of the ship, flicking every switch and turning every dial, never for a moment staying still.
The Doctor and her TARDIS, speaking a language more alien than the rest of them would ever know.
Her fam watched, the slightest bit apprehensive. She had been like this ever since her miraculous reappearance. Yaz, Ryan, and Graham had spent six months after their return from Gallifrey thinking her dead, until one night, she and Captain Jack Harkness had turned up on Yaz’ doorstep at three in the morning, scuffed and dirty and battered, and promptly passed out.
The Doctor had slept for two days. Jack had recovered quicker and hadn’t stayed long or explained much, just that he’d helped her bust out of a high-security prison halfway across the galaxy. And once the Doctor woke up, she didn’t explain a thing. She had apologized, and accepted crushing hugs from every member of the fam, and eaten her weight in custard creams, but never explained.
And she still hadn’t. Infuriating though it was, Yaz was used to the Doctor not explaining – they’d been treated to it quite a lot between her reunion with the Master and their final trip to Gallifrey – but this was different. Worryingly different. Before, the Doctor had gone dark and quiet sometimes, falling unexpectedly into sullen silences, taking trips without them that just leached the light from her eyes a little more every time.
Now, though? The Doctor hadn’t stopped moving since she’d woken up. She was all smiles, racing with them from one end of the universe to another, sharing with them the brightest and shiniest things in her magic box of tricks. And of course they let her, glad to have her back, glad to have her whole and alive, glad to witness the wonders of the universe at her side.
But whenever one of them tried to ask what had happened, the smile on her face never faltered, but her eyes went blank, just for a second, as though no one was home. That scared Yaz. It scared them all.
For now, they’d all decided to keep an eye on her, to remind her every so often that they were there for her, that they loved her, whatever she needed, but not push too hard.
Times like this, though, when she whirled around the console as though she’d die if she stopped moving, it was hard to pretend that everything was all right.
“All right, Doc?” Graham asked, his voice calm and soothing, even though Yaz could clearly see the worried quirk to his brows.
“Brilliant,” the Doctor replied, flashing them a dazzling grin. “Where are we off to next?”
“You know,” Yaz said casually, “ we could… I dunno, rest somewhere? Find a nice beach, watch some sunsets?”
“Such a romantic, Yaz,” the Doctor replied, and Yaz blushed all the way up to her ears. “But nah, we’ve seen sunsets, plenty of sunsets, they’re nice an’ all if you want to sit still…”
“Sitting still’s all right,” Ryan pointed out.
“Ah, you lot, I know what you’re doing, and you don’t need to,” the Doctor said, poking her head round the console to actually meet their eyes for a moment. “I said I was all right, didn’t I? I’m always all right.”
“If you say so, Doc,” Graham said. “But you know-”
The Doctor cut him off with a wave of her hand. Then she caught sight of something on her screen and her eyes went wide with a flash of real glee, and Yaz felt the panic that squeezed constantly around her heart these days ease, just a little bit, at the sight.
“Oh, that’ll be brilliant, that will,” she said, twisting a few dials within reach while still keeping her eyes on the screen. “VE Day! Massive party all across London, you’re gonna love it. Enough snacks to keep even you happy, Graham!”
“Well, that’s a bit of all right then,” Graham replied good-naturedly.
“I don’t think there’s such a thing as enough snacks to keep you happy, Granddad,” Ryan said, nudging Graham gently with an elbow.
“Sounds like fun, Doctor,” Yaz said, cutting off Graham’s indignant retort.
“Let’s get a shift on, then!” the Doctor announced, reaching for a custard cream.
She’d just bitten into it when all hell broke loose.
The console sparked and spit, and the ship rocked sharply, throwing all of them save the Doctor to the floor. She hung tightly to the console with one hand and batted at the screen with the other, glaring through puffs of smoke.
“Doctor!” shouted Yaz, doing her best to push herself up along one of the crystalline columns. “What happened?”
“Something’s gone haywire, I don’t – ow!” she snapped her hand back away from another burst of sparks. “C’mon, old girl, don’t do this to me now… what d’you mean, crossing my own time stream, I’m not-”
The ship lurched again, throwing even the Doctor free, and sent all of them screaming and sliding towards the doors. With one last angry jolt, the TARDIS flung its doors wide and spit them out into damp night air where the four of them landed in a heap on cold cobblestones. Yaz paused a moment to catch her breath, and as her head stopped spinning, she realized with equal parts mortification and delight that the Doctor had curled tightly into her side, tucking her head into her shoulder, her features squished closed as though bracing for yet another impact. Was she expecting one? She’d been so battered when she’d returned to them… had their crash landing tripped across a trauma she refused to tell them?
“Blimey, what was that about?” Graham asked, gingerly pushing himself up and blinking into the dark.
“Where are we?” Ryan asked, his voice soft as though he were afraid of startling anything. One never knew what they might wander into, after all…
But the Doctor hadn’t moved.
“Doctor?” Yaz asked, daring to reach up a hand and touch the other woman’s shoulder. “Are you hurt? What was that?”
“Fine,” she said, breathing slowly. “I’m – I’m fine.”
She sat up then, and Yaz reluctantly let her hand slip away, fingers ghosting for just a moment down the slippery material of the Doctor’s blue grey coat. She blinked – had the Doctor just shivered at her touch?
No, she was imagining it. Besides, now was hardly the time…
Another beat, and the Doctor had shaken herself and sprung back to her feet and darted up to the TARDIS doors, just in time for them to slam firmly in her face. She reached out and grasped at the handle, rattling it, but it wouldn’t budge. The key didn’t turn in the lock.
“What, so you’re cross with me for wanderin’ just a bit close to my own time stream and then – what, you have a tantrum and pitch us in the middle of it?” the Doctor snapped, whipping her sonic screwdriver out from a pocket and pointing it at the door with a determined whir. “How’s that supposed to help, exactly? Let us back in, will you, please?”
Yaz, Graham, and Ryan all pushed themselves to their feet, brushing themselves off. Behind the Doctor’s back, they shared a round of silent glances. They didn’t need words for this, not anymore.
Is she all right?
What’s going on?
Where even are we?
How long are we gonna be stuck this time?
“All right, all right, I’m sorry, I – look, can you let us back in? We’ll be off and it’ll all… oh, c’mon, really? You’re just going to leave us out here?”
After a moment staring down her ship like a cross parent, the Doctor deflated, turning and slumping against the unbudging doors.
“What happened?” Ryan asked. “Are we gonna get stuck here forever?”
“Not forever,” the Doctor replied with a sigh, sounding so defeated it broke Yaz’ heart a little. “Just for about… fourteen hours, I’d say?”
“Fourteen hours? What for?” Graham asked.
“And – where is ‘here,’ anyway?” Yaz added.
“The TARDIS got a bit… cross with me,” the Doctor said, looking up at them with an apologetic scrunch to her nose.
“You can say that all right,” Ryan murmured, rubbing at a sore shoulder.
“‘Here’ is London. I’ve been to this time before, well, another version of me was here. Trying to take you all to VE Day, I got a bit careless with the flying, wandered just slightly into my own time stream… crashed us all here.”
“So… you’re running around somewhere else?” Yaz said. “There’s another Doctor here? Another TARDIS?”
“Yep,” the Doctor replied. “You wouldn’t recognize me, though. Had a different face then. Actually quite a similar accent this time around, funny enough.”
“So – what, can we go ask this other you for help, then?” Ryan asked.
“Absolutely we cannot do that,” the Doctor said. “Two of me in one place, it’d be a nightmare. All sorts of things go wrong, meeting your past self. Have to be careful.”
“So we just… wait,” Graham said. “In the middle of the night, with nowhere to go? And – Doctor, you didn’t say when in London.”
“Well…”
For a moment, the sheepish look on the Doctor’s face worried Yaz. And then the alarm began to sound, and she was terrified.
It was an air raid siren.
It was a particular, unmistakable klaxon; of course they’d only ever heard it in movies but hearing it now, for real, sent ice running down Yaz’ spine.
“You’re kidding me,” Graham said, eyes wide. “We’re in the middle of the bloody Blitz?”
“’Fraid so,” the Doctor replied.
“And – all we can do is wait it out?” Ryan asked.
“Yep.”
Yaz bit back a sigh. This was not the rest she had wanted, but it was the rest they’d gotten. Usually the TARDIS could be relied upon to do what the Doctor needed, if not exactly what she wanted, so… was this little tantrum on purpose, somehow?
“Right,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “So – what, we’ve got to find some shelter for the evening. Where are we, anyway? Where in the city?”
“S’all right, Yaz, nothing bad’s going to happen,” the Doctor said, brightening a bit. She pushed off from the TARDIS doors and sauntered down the dark alley they’d crashed into and onto the deserted main street. “I’ve been here before, like I said. We’ll be fine, the other me will sort out anything that needs sorting, and we’ll be off again in no time. Just don’t talk to anyone in a gas mask asking for their mummy.”
“That is… concerningly specific,” Ryan muttered.
“Fourteen hours, though,” Graham said. “That’s a long time when there’s German bombs falling on your head, innit?”
“Such worriers!” the Doctor replied, dancing ahead of them a few steps before turning back to face them with a bright smile and a flourish of her hands. “We’ll find a nice spot to sit this out, and everything’ll be aces.”
“You, sitting still?” Ryan scoffed, only just loud enough to be heard over the siren.
“Oi!” the Doctor snapped back, but for once she looked like her usual self, happy to be teasing back and forth with her fam. Yaz let her shoulders relax. Maybe this would all work out for the best.
“I wonder if he’s here,” she muttered idly.
“If who’s here?” Ryan asked.
“Prem,” she said, remembering a scene very different from this one, contrasting a wedding under a sunlit sky with a dark city hiding from falling bombs. “He was a soldier in the Second World War… maybe he trained here, or-”
“Yaz, don’t,” the Doctor said firmly. “Don’t go looking for him. Crossing your own history-”
“Is bad, I know,” Yaz finished. “Trust me, I learned my lesson last time. I were only wondering.”
“Besides,” Graham added. “Aren’t you the one trespassing on your history this time, Doc?”
“All right, yes, but not on purpose!” the Doctor replied. “Besides, I’m an old hand at this time and space business. I know what I’m doing. I promise you, nothing bad’s going to happ-”
After, Yaz wasn’t sure she could properly describe the roar that cut off the Doctor’s insistence that everything was fine. It was as though sound had blacked out the whole world for a second. And when it blinked back into being, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham had been tossed to the ground a few feet away, singed and coughing, eyes stinging from the smoke, ears ringing. All they could see was a hole in the street that had not been there before.
And the Doctor had vanished.