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She'd been pacing in circles, goaded by the TARDIS while it drifted in the time vortex. In the moment between adventures, everything simultaneously felt fragile and infinite, and it made the Doctor itch.
Or maybe that was the artron energy leakage that was definitely starting to irritate her nervous system.
She was muttering to herself, about time, about the end, about Yaz.
Given everything, she really would have preferred avoiding thinking about Yaz...
"Doctor?"
But she had the damnedest timing.
"Hey, Yaz. Definitely not having a whole conversation with myself about you," she said, absently.
Yaz smiled, even as her brows drew together in worry. "You all right?"
The Doctor stopped, and sighed. "No," she admitted.
"What's wrong?" Yaz asked, immediately stepping closer, and reaching out.
Always wanting to help. Always wanting to comfort. Always being the ever-supportive friend. Always making the Doctor's hearts hurt. She let herself grab the offered hand, and squeezed it. "End of things," she murmured.
"What things?"
"Things," the Doctor said, vague and blunt. "Existence. Possibly the universe, again. Don't worry, though. I'll find away to keep you and Dan safe."
Yaz was already shaking her head. "No, we're not doing this again. Tell me what's happening."
"Yeah," the Doctor said. "That's overdue, innit?" She sighed, unable to look Yaz in the eye. "I promised I'd tell you everything, but talking's really hard. Could I show you?"
"Yeah, 'course," Yaz said. Her eyes shone back at the Doctor, bright with eagerness.
Always trusting. Always loving.
The Doctor took a deep breath, and put her fingers to Yaz's temple. In a rush, consciousness met consciousness, and the Doctor doled out haphazard, jumbled memories, along with half-recollections of lifetimes stolen from her.
She watched Yaz watch the Master, as he unspooled the sordid tale of Tecteun. She watched Yaz swallow cold fury at the regenerated Tecteun herself, taunting her wayward foster child.
They paced around Division's seed vault, together, where it drifted between universes. Yaz met Ruth as a previous Doctor with a clouded past.
And finally, Yaz met an abandoned child, alone, mysterious, and powerful. She knelt, in front of that child. "I'm so sorry," Yaz said, directed both to the memory from so long ago, and her friend, in so much present pain.
The Doctor nodded and looked away.
Yaz reached out and smoothed her hand across the little girl's hair. Their connection shifted, and she instead was reaching out to the Doctor she knew.
The Doctor peered back at her with an expression that was utterly sick and miserable.
Yaz made a noise of distress, and pulled her into a gentle hug.
The Doctor melted into the imagined embrace, and clung to Yaz's warm consciousness, drawing sustenance she desperately craved.
"I wish you'd told me sooner," Yaz whispered. "I hate that you were alone."
The Doctor leaned away, even as she still gripped Yaz's jacket. "That's just it, though. Always alone." She couldn't meet Yaz's intense eyes.
"Not now, you're not," Yaz said, firmly. "I'm with you."
... whatever happens, added another memory from their journeys together, reverberating around them.
Yaz could barely keep herself still. She ached for the pain, betrayal, and manipulation the Doctor had suffered. "Can I share, here, back to you?" she asked, quietly, despite the ferocity of the emotional turmoil rushing through her.
"Sure," the Doctor said.
And so Yaz took the Doctor on a tour of her own, a whirlwind of three years spent wandering the Earth, trying to save the universe but also trying to find the Doctor, with utter faith that she was out there, somewhere, and needed help.
"Ah, Yaz," the Doctor breathed, watching her hike across Nepal. "Look at you. Amazing."
And of course, there was the hologram, over and over. Long after Yaz had memorized the message, she'd still activate it as a glimmer of hope on the dark days when she thought all was lost. Occasionally she'd improvise her responses around the recording, but she always said, "I miss you, too."
Yaz couldn't watch the Doctor, as that bit played out. She kept her eyes down, then decided to move to a different memory.
This time, it was ten months, most of that spent in another TARDIS, which materialized around them.
Yaz pointed to the console. "I was halfway through the vortex initialization process," she said. "I know that now, from your TARDIS. I was gonna use your genetic imprint to track you. I was gonna find you. And I knew you were out there to be found. Never told Ryan and Graham that," she admitted, with a shake of her head. "Didn't know how to explain it."
The Doctor stepped away to look at the notes Yaz had taken. "Didn't get a proper look at these, before," she whispered.
Yaz waited, and watched as she walked around, knowing where she'd end up.
Sure enough, the Doctor plucked a blue note off the wall, with three hearts scribbled on it. She recognized it, for the declaration it was, for the sentiment radiating off of it plain and clear. She put it back, reverent and careful, and turned back to Yaz.
"This is... astonishing," she said.
"I don't think you know how much I care about you," Yaz said. "Or how much I've taught myself to be a good match, for you."
"Oh, Yaz. I know both those things," the Doctor said. "That's why I dunno whether to send you away or try to hold onto you forever."
"Hold onto me," Yaz ordered, stepping closer. "Because if you don't, I'm just gonna come find you. Just let me be there. Just let me help."
The Doctor nodded. "Okay."
"Okay," Yaz agreed, relieved. "Now can you get out of my brain so I can hug you properly?"
The Doctor released their connection, and in the next moment Yaz had collided with her, hugging her hard enough to knock a surprised breath from her lungs. She wrapped her arms around Yaz, and hugged her back, melting a bit in relief.
Time was still eating at her from the inside, but in that moment it stood no chance against the force that was Yasmin Khan.
Yaz disengaged after a long moment, and gave the Doctor a wistful look. "You already saw it, in my head, but I'm gonna say it, too. 'Cause some things need actual saying. I love you. And I'm not expecting you to say it back or even feel it back, 'cause I know how hard feelings are, for you. Especially now. I just needed you to know."
She sniffled a bit, then tilted in to press a soft kiss to the Doctor's cheek, then promptly fled the console room to disappear into the bowels of the ship.
The Doctor sat, heavily, as her knees gave out.
She was still sitting there a few hours later when Dan ventured out and found her.
He frowned, and sat nearby, and waited.
The Doctor cleared her throat. "Yaz... showed me the years you spent traveling together," she murmured. "Thank you for being there, for her."
"Yeah," he said, with a shrug. "She's me mate. And she's amazing. Like, properly amazing. Jericho and me... we'd joke, about how we met 'the Doctor,' but the real honor was traveling with Yaz. Wish you could have seen her."
"I have," she said, with a tiny smile, before her face fell. "She loves me," she breathed.
Dan snorted. "Yeah. Glad she told you. Happily ever after, eh?"
She stared at him.
"You do love her back, right?" he asked, suddenly ready to do battle on his friend's behalf.
"It's not that simple," the Doctor hissed. "I hurt everyone I have ever loved."
"So? Do better for her."
That... was not a response she'd expected. She blinked.
"The one thing I learned, traveling with Yaz?" he said. "Is that the future isn't written. We can change things. We can make it better." He pointed in the general direction of the rest of the TARDIS. "And she deserves that. So do something about it." He waited, expectantly, then made a shooing motion with his hands. "Go, already!"
She found Yaz in the botanical gardens, standing under her favorite willow tree.
Yaz looked sideways at her, and shifted nervously. "Did you mean to show me the bit about Time?" she asked. "And how your time is coming to an end?"
"Ah, no, not really," the Doctor admitted, as she sidled up, mirroring Yaz's anxious posture. "Was on a bit of a roll. Think I do a lot of things I don't intend when you're involved," she said, with the ghost of a smile.
Yaz stared at her, but didn't reply.
The Doctor couldn't stand the silence. "You know, I've always wondered about that human phrase - growing old with someone," she said, in the usual cadence of her rambling discourse. "Couldn't ever really crack it. Then I met you." She turned and looked Yaz dead in the eye. "I would give anything to grow old with you, Yasmin Khan."
"We could just... go," Yaz said. "Find a moon somewhere. Just wait it out. Or we could find a way to fix it."
The Doctor grimaced. "I can feel the energy inside me losing cohesion, like I'm two steps from flying apart."
Yaz's face crumpled. "We can find a way," she insisted.
"Maybe," the Doctor allowed. She sighed, added Yaz's insistence to Dan's, and actually let herself consider the possibilities. "Maybe," she said again, with a little more confidence.
Yaz furtively reached out, and snagged the Doctor's hand with her own.
The Doctor sighed again, and squeezed her hand. "Some things need actual saying," she said. "I do love you, Yaz. More than I can ever tell you."
Yaz's eyes swam in tears. "Okay," she said.
"I'm bad at this," the Doctor admitted. She made a face. "Which you already know."
Yaz laughed, and swiped at the tears that immediately escaped. "I know."
The Doctor lifted her free hand to gently touch Yaz's cheek. "You deserve so much..."
"I want you," Yaz interrupted, firmly. "What do you want?"
The Doctor wilted. "Peace," she said, with quiet desperation. "And a life with my Yaz," she added, in a small voice.
After all that, it wasn't the end of the universe or death by Dalek or a dramatic reunion across space and time; Yaz just stepped in and kissed her.
It was gentle and a bit sad, but the Doctor held Yaz lightly at the waist and kissed her back.
When they parted, the Doctor kept her eyes shut. "I dunno what's going to happen," she whispered.
"I know," Yaz replied.
"I dunno how long I've got."
"Yeah."
"And I don't remember all the lives I've lived, but I know you're one of the best things in all of them," the Doctor said.
Yaz pulled her into another hug.
The Doctor shivered all over and hugged her back, just a little desperate. "Really didn't know I liked hugs this much," she admitted, with a grumble. "Think that's a rather critical miss."
Yaz blew out a weak laugh, and pulled away. "Come to my room?" she asked.
The Doctor's eyebrows shot up.
Yaz rolled her eyes. "I am knackered and don't want to leave you alone right now. Come keep me company."
Put like that, it seemed an entirely reasonable request. The Doctor let Yaz lead her to her room, graciously looked elsewhere while Yaz changed, then shucked her coat and shoes before sliding into bed.
They curled on their sides, facing each other. Yaz smiled in that hopeful kind of way that made the Doctor's hearts squeeze in anticipation.
"How do you feel right now?" Yaz asked.
The Doctor made a raspberry noise. "Always fine, me," she said, automatically. Then she sighed. "But not as scared, now."
"You were scared?"
The Doctor nodded. "Terrified. Hate not knowing what's gonna happen. Don't want to lose you. Don't want to lose me." She shrugged a bit. "Didn't want to scare you, too."
"I'm glad you told me," Yaz said. "Don't want you to be scared by yourself. I'm with you..."
"... whatever happens," the Doctor finished, referring to the one of the first times Yaz refused to leave her. She freed one hand from under the covers to drag a fingertip through Yaz's hair. "My amazing Yaz. Has it been that long?"
"Longer," Yaz said, with a sad smile. "Doesn't matter now."
The Doctor held her hand up in question. "May I?"
Yaz nodded, eager for the connection.
This time, the memories were familiar: giant spiders, Rosa Parks, the Pting, all the way to waking from a painful nightmare on Gallifrey and finding Yaz in tunnels under Liverpool. The growing regard, the joy in friendship, the love, the love, the love...
When the Doctor separated, Yaz took a shaky breath. "I didn't know," she whispered.
She scooted in and pressed a kiss to Yaz's forehead, then pulled her close for a proper snuggle. "I loved you from the start, Yasmin Khan," the Doctor replied. "And I'll love you 'til the end of me."
... which seemed to loom closer and closer.
Beware of the forces that mass against you... and their Master.
It felt so indulgent, taking Yaz to beautiful places, setting aside the worries of the universe for a few hours at a time to just be and be in love.
One time, it was the year 607, and they were standing in a place that would eventually become Park Hill, looking at the sky and watching what would eventually be named Halley's Comet.
"I remember that, in 1986!" Dan said.
"'Course you do," Yaz said, with a chuckle. "You were, what? Forty?"
Dan didn't bother rising to the bait. "Didn't figure I'd get to see it again," he said, smiling up at the sky. "Oh, that's brilliant, innit?"
The Doctor hugged Yaz from behind and whispered endearments in her ear, and decided that this was what happiness might actually feel like.
When they returned to the TARDIS, the Doctor sent Yaz onward to make hot cocoa, and gestured for Dan to stay behind. "Need to ask you a favor," she said, in a low voice.
"Sure thing," he replied, with his usual amiable shrug.
She let her head drop in some degree of shame. "Yaz... she tries to protect me, stop me doing dangerous things. Seen her do it too many times. "
He frowned, even as he remembered grabbing hold of Yaz to keep her from flinging herself into a timeless void teeming with Weeping Angels. "She loves you," he said, simply.
"I love her," she said, starkly. "I'm asking you to help keep her safe, like you already have done. Please don't let her hurt herself for me."
"Doctor, I'll help her best I can," he vowed. "But you know she has a different idea about that kind of thing than I do."
She shut her eyes. "Yeah. Please try, though?"
"Yeah, all right," Dan said. "Or you could just let her protect you when you end up needing it. Just a thought."
"Where would we live?"
The Doctor was lazing in Yaz's lap, quite enjoying the gentle fingers carding through her hair, and barely noticed the question. She exhaled an inarticulate grunt.
"Back to Yorkshire, get a flat?" Yaz mused. "Or like - Mars? A few centuries from now?"
"What are we talking about?" the Doctor murmured.
"Growing old together," Yaz said. "Just wonderin' what it would be like."
"It'd be like this," the Doctor said. She lifted a hand to the room around them, which the TARDIS had kindly transformed into a live view of a burning nebula. "You, me. Watching the universe go by."
Yaz snorted. "No way you could sit still like this forever."
"Could if you were there," the Doctor replied.
Yaz hummed, and let a long moment of tranquility wander by. "We ever gonna talk about the watch?"
"Nothing to talk about," the Doctor said.
"What are you saving it for?" Yaz whispered.
At that, the Doctor dislodged herself from her comfortable spot draped across Yaz, and sat upright to face her. "A day when I don't know who I am," she replied. "I know who I am, when I'm with you. So I don't need it."
Eventually, after weeks of searching, they were orbiting a planet that shouldn't exist.
Yaz cracked the TARDIS door and looked down at the dusty globe below. "That's Time?"
"Yeah," the Doctor murmured, at the console.
"How is 'time' a 'place?'" Dan asked.
"Exactly," the Doctor agreed. "It doesn't make sense."
"Really?" Dan asked, chuffed. "See, Yorkshire? Not the only clever one here."
"Why would he put it there?" the Doctor wondered, aloud.
"Who?" Yaz asked. She stepped closer, studying the Doctor's face. "The Master?"
The Doctor nodded.
"Master of what?" Dan asked, before becoming aware that he was definitely on the periphery of the conversation. He leaned back and watched.
"He escaped Gallifrey? Do you think he found Division?" Yaz asked.
"Might have done," the Doctor said.
They were gazing at each other intently, filling in the blanks for questions neither asked out loud. Dan flicked his eyes between them.
"So he finds out your past, then goes and finds Division, convinces Tecteun to unleash the Flux..." Yaz continued.
"And encapsulates Time as a physical manifestation so that he has control over it. So that he can manipulate it. Poison it," the Doctor said.
"Knowing eventually, it would poison you," Yaz concluded.
"Sounds sufficiently sadistic, for his taste. End the universe, make me watch, then end me just afterward," the Doctor said, making a face. She glanced at Dan, who was looking rather poleaxed. "We grew up together. Bit of a rivalry," she explained.
"I'd guess so," Dan replied. "Did you meet this bloke, Yaz?"
"Yeah. We thought he was an operative who was meant to help the Doctor."
"Then you're probably on his list, too," Dan said.
At that, Yaz and the Doctor looked at each other in horror.
"End the universe, make you watch," Yaz said, with a ragged exhale. "End you, make me watch."
The Doctor slumped, leaning heavily against the console. "Ah, Yaz," she murmured. Yaz stepped over and propped her chin on the Doctor's shoulder, blinking away tears.
Dan hovered nearby. "If we know this guy's story, we can stop it, right?" he asked.
The Doctor nodded. "And it'll end where it started," she said. "Division."
Time itself was collapsing. The Doctor could feel it, in great fits and starts that rattled across the remaining reality of the universe. She could feel it, deep in her bones, as energy raced painfully across her nerves.
She was dying. As if that weren't bad enough, she might be taking the entire universe with her.
She spent one last night curled around Yaz, watching over her, making selfish wishes for just a little more time.
But as it always did, time ran out.
The next day, she was gasping at the console of the TARDIS, just trying to keep destruction at bay.
Yaz stood nearby, helpless, watching her in agony.
"All right. We all know the plan," the Doctor gasped. "Right?"
Yaz and Dan nodded, and the Doctor could feel their worry. She ducked her head and engaged the TARDIS' engines, one last time.
As hoped, the TARDIS connected to the psychotemporal bridge from the planet Time, and materialized safely in Division.
Of course the Master was already there, waiting for them. He traipsed around the facility, ogling the tech, and studiously avoiding the Ood.
"Slow on the uptake, dear Doctor," he called, as the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS, with Yaz and Dan in tow, all wearing conversion plates. "Not like time was on your side."
"Had better things to do," the Doctor rasped.
"I'm sure you did," he replied, oozing disdain as he meandered toward her. "Had to play house with one of your human pets. How disgustingly domestic." He leered at Yaz. "I remember you. How you fawned over your precious Doctor..."
"Stay away from her," the Doctor snarled.
With a reverberant clang, Dan whacked the Master on the head with something that looked an awful lot like a frying pan that he'd picked up from a workbench. The Master collapsed in a heap on the floor.
"Didn't figure we needed to listen to all that," Dan said, with a shrug.
The Doctor sighed. "That wasn't part of the plan," she pointed out. "Ood, can you please help restrain this man?"
"Of course, Doctor."
She took a quick lap of the facility, mumbling to herself and occasionally to Yaz, wishing she had a few decades to pore over the sheer volume of information captured within it.
The Master woke, strapped to a chair, and screamed in indignant fury.
"Oh good. You're awake," the Doctor said, drily.
"Do you know why you're here?" he snarled.
"Because of you," she said. "Because of your intractable rage at being indebted to me for everything you are."
He threw himself against his bonds, lunging for her. "I found Division. "I found Tecteun. I convinced her to unleash the Flux. I made the planet Time, and left it in a state of chaos and disrepair so you would be drawn there. So that you would watch your precious universe die and then you would rot from within," he roared.
She stared him down. "Then why are you dying, too?" she asked, casual and cruel. "Because you're a pitiful derivative? A cheap knockoff?" She shook her head and turned away.
He'd loosed one hand from his bonds, and reached out to grab her around the wrist.
"Doctor!" Yaz yelled.
"That's right. My end is near." He growled as his body flexed against untold energy roiling within. "Because you are part of me. And if I am to be tied to you - wretchedly, still - then we meet our end together, Doctor."
She fought against his hold, and they froze in an odd sort of rictus, energy against corporeal strength, one threatening to rupture, one straining to stay intact.
"The compatible source universe will stabilize your incorporated time energy," the Ood declared, matter of fact.
They all stared at him.
"This station is still in its predestined transit," the Ood explained. "Arrival is imminent."
"Not soon enough," the Master countered, as golden energy flared at his fingertips. "We die here, on the threshold of the cursed hell from where you hatched. You'll never know your true home. You'll die within sight of it."
He screamed, in agony, as regeneration began, ready to take her with him to oblivion.
Yaz reached between them, heedless of her own safety, and ripped off the conversion plate on his jacket. He promptly disintegrated into pure energy, and was swept out of the facility by indescribable forces that literally had no place in any universe.
The Doctor reeled, taking deep breaths to steady her own matter. "Oh. Gold star to Yaz, for protecting," she pronounced. "Negative ten points to Dan, though."
"Oi! How is that fair?" he asked.
"Transit is nearly complete," the Ood reported. "We are leaving range of the originating universe."
"Not enough time," the Doctor growled. "All right. This is where the plan gets tricky. Ood, need you to open a portal to the time matrix under Liverpool, on Earth. 2022."
"Yes, Doctor."
"Yaz, need you and Dan to go."
Yaz was already shaking her head. "I'm staying."
"Can't. Cutting it too close, and this part gets messy," the Doctor said, stepping closer to Yaz. "You know the plan. I'll be right behind you. Just need you safe, first."
Yaz grabbed the lapel of her coat. "This isn't goodbye," she insisted. "You get away from me, I'll come find you."
"Counting on it," the Doctor said. She lunged forward and caught Yaz in a kiss, then broke away and nodded to Dan. "Off with you lot, then." She held Yaz's gaze as they disappeared, returned to the universe.
She turned to the Ood. "The conversion plate," she said. "Last time, it split me across three corporeal realities. Very helpful, bit chaotic."
"And unsustainable," the Ood reminded her.
"Right. Could we tune them to split corporeal from incorporeal? Rid this body of some pesky unstable artron energy?"
The Ood thought briefly. "It could be done."
"Quickly, you think?" The Doctor said, as she rushed off to a control panel, fighting to hold herself together just a little longer. The Ood followed, and got to work.
"So, Ood," she said, resorting to awkward small talk to keep herself focused. "Once this facility crosses to the new universe, what will you do there?"
"I will fulfill my function and seed the universe with pieces of the last."
The Doctor nodded. "Nice work, if you can get it, I suppose." She thought for a moment. "Do you have seeds for pear trees?"
"Several different species," the Ood confirmed.
She shook her head. "Ugh. That's unfortunate. Way to ruin a perfectly good second universe." She took a long look around, wishing, as always, to have more time.
The Ood finished calibrating the conversion plate, and waited.
Across the room, the TARDIS waited, stalwart and true, as ever. The door opened, and even from far away, she could see the fob watch, sitting on the console, a vessel with more answers than she could comprehend in her current form.
For a long, agonizing moment, she imagined the lives she could discover, and the home she might yet know again.
There were voices, calling to her. Tantalizing fragments of knowing that clamored just beyond her current consciousness.
But in her heart was Yaz. Beautiful, brilliant Yaz, who was waiting for her...
She chose.
She chose Division.
She chose Yaz.
"Goodbye, old friend," the Doctor called to the TARDIS. She nodded to the Ood, then ripped off the conversion plate and grit her teeth through a radiating wave of intense, agonizing corporeal separation. Pure artron energy shrieked sheer torment around her, swirling in brilliant golden eddies that were pulled into the TARDIS as her body was torn far away.
She fell to the ground, back to a wooden door.
In Liverpool. 2022.
"Doctor!" Yaz screamed. She lunged forward, but this time Dan caught her, holding her back.
The Doctor's body arched, and flared outward with a single remaining burst of temporal stress, then stabilized. She coughed, exhaling stray bits of golden energy. "Woo. Okay. That definitely feels a bit strange," she muttered.
Yaz wrenched herself loose from Dan's grasp and fell to her knees at the Doctor's side, patting her down to check for injury.
"I thought you were dyin'," Dan exclaimed.
"I was. But you can't make time unstable if you're not made of time anymore," the Doctor said, as if that explained anything at all. She reached out, grabbing one of Yaz's fretting hands and squeezed it in reassurance. "I used Division. Split off the artron energy, sent it back to my home universe with the TARDIS. All according to plan."
Dan held his hands out, then huffed a noise of disbelief.
"I mean, technically, this body's still dying," she added, with a shrug. "Just slowed it all down a bit."
"How long?" Yaz asked.
"Six, seven decades? Give or take? Didn't really have time to check my calculations."
Yaz slumped against her in relief.
The Doctor patted Yaz on the back, and let her head thunk backwards against the door. "Oof. One out of ten, would not try again," she declared.
The thunder of a dozen booted feet closed in from the tunnels around them. Yaz arranged herself to shield the Doctor and looked around anxiously.
Several armed agents wearing black clothes with UNIT patches stormed in, ordering them to freeze.
"Oh, I've missed you lot," the Doctor said, exhausted but happy.
Kate Stewart stepped in, looking entirely unimpressed. "I suppose there's a good explanation for the artron energy flare that just lit up the entire city?"
"A cracking one," the Doctor said, as Yaz helped her to her feet. "Exiled a genocidal madman, to... places undefined. Performed a very complex separation of corporeal form from unstable energy that was going to rupture the entire universe." She let out a satisfied breath. "Could do with a snack, really."
After a lengthy UNIT debriefing, Yaz was waiting, pacing outside the lobby of a nondescript government building.
The Doctor emerged some time later, and blinked into the late afternoon sunlight.
"Heya, Yaz," she greeted. "All done here. Some of those medical procedures? Very uncomfortable." She shook one leg out with a grimace. "But, as promised - one stable human-ish body, no longer hemorrhaging artron energy. Good to go, released to your custody." She patted herself for emphasis, and gave Yaz a thumbs up.
Yaz didn't respond immediately, and the Doctor rocked a bit in the silence, trying to decide if babbling more would help.
Finally, Yaz sighed in exasperation as much as relief. "Kate wants me and Dan to work for UNIT," she said.
"Oh, yeah. I totally wrote you a letter of recommendation," the Doctor admitted, as she bumped against Yaz with a fond lean. "Well, not so much a letter. More like an enthusiastic memo. Lots of exclamation points."
Yaz looked at her, and found herself at a complete loss. "You know you're really stuck here, right? You left your TARDIS. You left everything. Now you'll never find those bits that you lost."
The Doctor nodded a bit, but looked untroubled for possibly the first time since Yaz had known her. "Yeah. Somebody else's problem now," she decided, with a satisfied look.
"You chose..."
"You," the Doctor interrupted, very quietly, leaning in to Yaz's space with purpose. "I chose you, Yasmin Khan. I may have originated from somewhere out there, but I found my fam when I found you. Wasn't done adventuring with you, yet."
Yaz felt that declaration, deep in her belly. She opened her mouth to say...
"Just kiss her already!" Dan called, from out the car window across the street.
Yaz glared pure murder back at him. "Shut up, mate!" she yelled back.
"I wanna get chips," he replied, with a defensive shrug. "Hurry it along."
The Doctor lit up. "Oh, could go for chips," she said. "Wouldn't mind a kiss, though."
Yaz scowled at her. "No more having plans to save the universe that may or may not involve your death without me," she decreed, pointing sternly.
The Doctor crossed her heart. "Literally never again," she vowed.
Yaz grumbled, but drifted closer. The Doctor caught her around the waist, giving her an intense look.
"We saved the universe, you and me," the Doctor whispered. "My amazing Yaz."
"Love you," Yaz whispered, blinking away tears.
"Love you," the Doctor replied.
If Dan happened to be editorializing further, Yaz couldn't hear him over the thundering heartbeat in her ears, and the general sensory overload when the Doctor put a gentle hand to her cheek, and they leaned into each other. Yaz was smiling when their lips touched, and she was pretty sure the Doctor was, too.
They were slow to part. The Doctor opened her eyes and gave Yaz a lazy grin.
"So. Never grown old before," the Doctor murmured. "Think it might be fun." She cocked her head. "Wanna find out with me?"
"Yeah," Yaz said. "I do."