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“The TARDIS was insistent that we stay here, and now the others have wandered off. Plus, look, there’s all these fences and check-point things with guards and people lining up! It’s definitely suspicious.”
Yaz wrinkled her nose as they stepped up to the end of the closest line. “Are you sure? I mean, the TARDIS does seem to be going through that stubborn-about-directions phase again lately. It might just be a coincidence.”
The Doctor’s jaw dropped. “Stubborn phase?” she cried, looking betrayed. Yaz wasn’t sure if she’d even noticed they’d hopped into a queue. “Coincidence? I doubt it.”
“Yeah,” Yaz replied, squaring her shoulders. “Stubborn phase. Coincidence. This just looks to me like a well-regulated party. See how happy everyone is? I had to assist at this little local film festival once and it looked just like this, all roped off and people getting checked before they could enter and everything.”
The Doctor spluttered. “Stubborn phase,” she muttered again to herself as she huffed and surveyed the crowd. A few aliens took the chance to edge away when a gap began to open up in front of them, as the line began to move forward without the Doctor realising they were in it.
It all looked quite orderly from Yaz’s perspective. Just a few winding streams of people all making their way past a tall, rounded wall made of an opaque blue material that shimmered oddly in the fading light of dusk. The wall was too high to see over, and the only gaps in it where blocked by pairs of hulking great guards who prevented anyone seeing through the mesh wire gates as they interrogated their line of people one pair at a time.
“I suppose you might be right,” the Doctor admitted reluctantly, drawing Yaz’s attention back to her. “I just- stubborn phase? Really? The TARDIS is incredibly reliable! Well, sort of.”
Rolling her eyes, Yaz grabbed the Doctor by the hand and yanked her along, still muttering, to catch up with the line. “Yes, Doctor, a stubborn phase. Just like the time it took you, what, fifteen tries to get us home? Remember that? Now come on. I want to see what the party is like in there. I bet we’ll find Ryan and Graham are already inside. They’re probably just standing around in a corner somewhere worrying about where we’ve got to.”
“Well, yes, I suppose they could be,” the Doctor conceded with a pout. “And I’ll admit that it did take us a few attempts to get you back home that first time, but that just proves my point! See, we were meant to meet Rosa! The TARDIS always has her reasons. Plus, I think she was already growing fond of you; my fam, can’t really blame her. But wait, in what corners? That wall looks very, very round. I don’t think there’s going to be any corners inside there.”
“You know what I mean,” Yaz replied fondly, catching the eye of one of their nervous queue-mates who promptly relaxed and nodded approvingly at the smile on her face.
“Do I? Sometimes I wonder. Now, a nice spiral staircase down to an evil dungeon full of… evil things. That might make more sense and explain the guards.”
“Betcha anything there’s no evil staircase.”
“Ooh, I bet you there is. What will my prize be if I win? That’s still how this betting thing goes, right? There’s a prize?”
Yaz just laughed, nudging the Doctor forward to stop a gap from opening up again. “Sure, whatever you want, just budge up, yeah?”
“But what about my prize?” the Doctor asked, walking backwards as directed until she bumped into someone, interrupting their rapid-fire conversation with the guards. “Prizes are very important, Yaz.”
Still chuckling, Yaz pulled an apologetic face at the pair behind them in line who had started whispering furiously to each other. Their gazes were fixed very intently on Yaz and the Doctor’s movements, and they just waved their antena back at her, still looking concerned.
“What about one of those things? Or two of them, you can have mine as your prize. Do you reckon they’re like all access passes or something, so we can get around inside? I bet they’re fun, whatever they are,” Yaz said, pointing as the guards slid a tube of metallic cloth over the hands - or maybe tentacles? Forelimbs? It was hard for Yaz to tell from behind - of the people the Doctor had bumped into.
“Ooh, you’re on,” the Doctor agreed gleefully as they took their turn to step forward. “Hello! We would like to gain entrance through that gate there, please, and we would also like two of your very best shiny hand-wrap things. That’s the requirement to enter a gate on this planet, yes?”
The guards exchanged a strained look as Yaz thrust her hand out with a grin.
“Don’t think they’re too used to foreigners. Strange, given this crowd seems to be a mix of all sorts from across this sector,” the Doctor said to Yasmin, sotto voce, as she also offered her hand and simultaneously tried to subtly peer around the guards. “Ooh, have you met the Sycorax yet, Yaz? Wouldn’t expect to see a pair of them this far out, all alone- on second thoughts, best not. We have a bet to settle, definitely don’t want to get into any trouble before we’ve sorted that out first.”
Whatever concern the guards seemed to share, they seemed to come to some sort of agreement between themselves. They each held out some cloth and intoned in matching flat tones, “do you both move together with the spirit of the night-sky suns?”
Yaz blinked. “Sorry?”
“Yes!” the Doctor interrupted her, linking their un-raised arms together. “She means yes.”
Both guards turned their five unnerving, unblinking eyes back to Yaz in eerie unison. “Um, that’s right. I meant yes. Yes, of course I… move, with the… spirit of, um-”
“The night-sky suns,” the Doctor finished helpfully. “Very poetic that, actually. What does it mean?”
One of the guards turned their face skyward, though whether in supplication or exasperation Yaz couldn’t tell. The other continued in the same monotone. “May you dance together unto eternity. Or will you wish to return again to witness the final steps of the night-sky dance?”
“Um, sure,” Yaz agreed when the Doctor nodded her head eagerly, before lowering her voice. “Seriously, what are we saying yes to?”
“Don’t know. Still sounds pretty, though.”
Before Yaz could question the wisdom of ‘pretty’ as a reason for unquestioning agreement to anything, both guards slipped the clothes over their hands and smoothly stepped back in one movement to swing open the gates and let them pass. The material felt smooth and oddly cold to the touch, rippling gently when it made contact with Yaz’s skin. She yelped a little in surprise as it suddenly split at the ends, reattaching to itself to form comfortably close fit fingers, just like a properly fitted glove.
The Doctor just made a curious noise and pointed her sonic at hers while they started walking, not bothering to unlink her arm from Yaz’s. “Huh. I think there’s some sort of computerised technology weaved into this fabric.”
It took them a few attempts to make their way through the chaos that surrounded the entrance. As they moved this way and that, Yaz noticed small areas further ahead that seemed relatively clear of aliens for no apparent reason. In some, guards moved about in pairs - or sometimes threes, fours, and fives - talking to people people grouped in matching numbers. In others, people seemed to be performing something between a dance and a complicated gymnastic routine together, or smaller crowds were solemnly passing bowls from person to person and dipping their ungloved fingers in the contents.
Yaz just let herself be led through it all. Her arm was warm and comfortable tucked through the Doctor’s elbow and, even though her head was down over her glove, the Doctor was deftly weaving them across the crowded field without incident which left Yaz free to look around. She thought she could maybe hear a familiar voice somewhere in the distance, but the swell of strange alien sounds echoed off the barricades and made it impossible to be sure where it might be coming from.
“I don’t think I see Ryan or Graham anywhere, but- oh, look, Doctor! There’s tables of food over there, and I’m starving. Do you think any of it might be human friendly?”
“Love a good buffet, me,” the Doctor muttered. “But first I need to figure out what these-”
Spinning them both abruptly twice around in a circle, the Doctor raised her gloved hand towards the sky, still frowning, and began poking her sonic at each of their hands in turn. Dizzy, Yaz clung a little harder and allowed the crowd push them closer together while the Doctor muttered to herself and tapped a finger against her chin.
As she shook her head to clear the dizziness, it took Yaz a moment to realise what she was looking at. But back over the heads of the crowd she could finally see two pairs of very familiar, very human hands waving frantically at them from behind a gate.
“There they are,” she cried, pulling free from the Doctor to wave back eagerly. “Doctor, I found them! Ryan and Graham, they’re… back in the same line we were in. Of course they are. No wonder you’re always telling us not to wander off.”
But the Doctor didn’t seem to be listening to her. “Night-sky suns. It's a chronometer. Wait!” she yelled, startling Yaz as she suddenly bolted back towards the entrance, leaving Yaz to jog along in her wake. The crowds parted before them as she continued yelling, pitching her voice to be heard across the field. “Don’t come in here!”
“Doctor- what?” Yaz gasped as she tried to keep up.
Looking vaguely alarmed about the commotion, Ryan and Graham took a step back in unison. As they did, they jostled the rest of the aliens queuing with them and were still trying to extract themselves from the ensuing confusion when the Doctor reached the gate with Yaz fast on her heels. They collided with the gate full force, having to grab tight hold of the wire mesh with their fingers to stop themselves from bouncing straight back off it at speed, their gloves oddly slippery and almost repelling the gate away from their palms.
“Those gloves,” the Doctor called to Ryan and Graham, ignoring Yaz’s confused questions. Instead she pointed at the guards who had paused their latest round of questions to stare. “They’re like rings. Wedding rings! If you enter through this gate, you’ll be married, too!”
*
“It’s sort of like being handfasted for a year and a day. That’s a human thing, right? Or was it a a Hoix thing? Human, Hoix, handfasting… lots of h-words, it’s hard to keep track. But the important bit is-”
“So you’re saying you’re both married now,” Graham interrupted. “To each other. Because of a pair of matching alien gloves.”
Thirteen made a constrained, reluctant sort of sound as she tilted her head and squinted her eyes at him. “Sort of. I mean, according to local customs- though maybe not according to Earth ones, there’s a bit of wiggle room there depending on how you look at it. But basically yes, we are. Married, that is. For now. There’s a sort of automatic legal self-destruct built into the rituals here, so it’s not permanent or anything.”
Graham exchanged confused expressions with Yaz and Ryan.
“So we’re not married?” Yaz asked slowly as she wriggled her fingers in front of her face and watched the fabric rippling to match the changing shape of her hand. She wasn’t sure if it was emotional whiplash or the barrage of conflicting information - even though the Doctor’s constant talking didn’t normally bother her - but she was starting to feel a little light headed.
“No, we definitely are. It’s just that it only lasts for four hundred and two of the interlocked rotations of this planet’s moons.”
“Interlocked?”
“Mmmm, yes, very rare phenomena. It’s actually because of a fascinating piece of technology; it even breaks most of the currently known laws of physics in this sector! You see, this isn’t the first advanced civilisation on this planet and the first one did something funny to the moons-”
“Doctor,” Ryan tried to interrupt.
“-still not quite sure how they even got it working, myself. I keep meaning to go back and investigate but somehow I never seem to find the time. But when their orbits get too close they do a few funny sort of spinning little half-orbits around each other without colliding and then go on their way again. It’s sort of sweet,” the Doctor said. She sighed happily, bringing her hand up to her hearts. “The locals call it a dance. The second civilisation still don’t know about what the first one did up there, so they ascribe all sorts of odd stories and meanings to it.”
Feeling a little stunned, Yaz desperately tried to keep up. “And that has to do with marriage because…?”
“Yes! Because marriages, especially first ones between a new couple, last for the same length of time it takes the moons to get close enough again in their orbits to ‘dance’ together! Ingenious way to tell time, really. Very hard to miss when everybody pays so much attention to the moons on this planet.”
Ryan lit up, snapping his fingers and pointing a finger gleefully at the Doctor. “Oh, I get it! It’s more like an engagement, then,” he crowed.
“No,” the Doctor said, tilting her head and scrunching her face up again. “No, not in the slightest. It is a marriage.”
“Funny sort of marriage with an automatic divorce waiting for you at the end. Sorta seems to defeat the purpose,” Graham grumbled as Ryan deflated and shrugged at Yaz in a commiserating sort of way.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor mused as she reclined against the TARDIS console. “On Earth in your time that would be something like nearly half of all marriages, wouldn't it? At least this way everybody knows what they’re getting themselves in for. Much more harmonious all round, I find.”
Still feeling dazed, Yaz picked at the seam fluttering around her wrist. “And the gloves?”
“Oh! Yes, the gloves keep track of the time. You can push it up your arm if you want, Yaz. It’ll adjust its shape to wherever you want it to sit. Makes a good armband, shoulder wrap, headband - all sorts. Just don’t try to pull it too far in the opposite direction, might get a bit tight trying to resist removal. Could lose a finger.”
Yaz blanched and immediately stopped contorting her hand into odd shapes.
“They should just automatically drop away at the next festival - that’s where we were today, by the way. Their big marriage moon dance festival. Did I mention? Finally figured it out, what with the hidden clocks in the fabric and all. Perhaps I forgot to mention?”
Rubbing at his forehead, Graham sighed. “Look, maybe I’m a bit too old fashioned for all of this but it’s just about doing my head in. Do you mind if we go to bed while you two figure out what to do about your marriage-engagement-moon-dance whatever? Yes? Excellent, good night then.”
Wincing, Ryan trailed after him more slowly. “Sorry, I just-”
“It’s fine. Not much you can do to help the Doctor get these off us, anyway,” Yaz said, waving him away. “You are going to be able to get them off, right?”
“If I’m honest, they might be just a little bit tricky,” the Doctor said, firing up her sonic again. “The fabric also seems to be generating a very low level telepathic field. I think it’s monitoring us somehow, probably meant to ensure we’re haven’t just ducked out on the relationship halfway between festivals.”
Alarmed, Yaz asked, “is that safe to mess with?”
“Probably,” the Doctor said, not sounding very sure at all. “I’m usually very good with telepathic fields, honest, but there is a small - very small, infinitesimal really, nothing to worry about! But still, a small chance that because one half of the field is focused on me, that it could cloud my perception of it just a smidge.”
Yaz had a funny feeling she wasn’t going to like what that meant. “And what exactly happens if your perception is clouded?” she asked anyway.
“Oh, nothing. Probably. Well, maybe just a tiny little bit of brain damage if I misjudge when to- but no. Or that thing I mentioned with the fingers. Not a big deal, I’m sure it won’t be a problem. I really am very good with telepathic fields. Trust me, Yaz, there’s nothing to worry about, I’ll have us both sorted out in a jiff.“
Lifting her sonic with newfound purpose, the Doctor pointed it at her own glove first. It was only because of how close they were standing and Yaz’s quick reflexes that she was even able to get her hand over the sonic before the Doctor could zap anything with it.
“Doctor, wait!” Yaz bit her lip, swallowing back the panic fluttering in her belly. “How long is four hundred and whatever interlocks, exactly?”
“Four hundred and two interlocking rotations. It’s roughly about three Earth months.”
“Three months?!” Yaz asked, her mouth dropping open. “You want to risk giving us brain damage over just three months?”
The Doctor pursed her lips. “Well,” she said, looking flummoxed. “I mean- I don’t precisely live my life on human timescales, Yaz. Whenever I stay put in one place for too long, I’m always reminded that even three weeks is an interminable length of time. I, er- I suppose I assumed that three months of marriage might be a bit of a bother for you.”
Raking a hand through her hair, Yaz half-sighed, half-laughed. “That’s… very thoughtful of you, Doctor. But I reckon we can make three months work,” she said, more confidently than she was feeling. “We can just jump ahead to the next moon festival anyway, right? Make it more like three hours instead of months.”
The Doctor screwed up her face.
Yaz swallowed. “Or not?”
“Not. I think that might be what the telepathic field is for. I’m fairly sure that it’s tracking our proximity and reactions to each other, as well as the passing of time which all of those things are happening in. Can’t think what else it could be when it’s so hard to miss the deadline passing if you stay on planet.”
“Right, okay,” Yaz took a deep breath. “So then we just keep travelling like we always do but with these on, and go back after three months of our time for the next festival, yeah? That’s not so bad.”
“Oh. So you- You want to stay married to me?” the Doctor asked, ducking her head a little so their eye-lines matched. Her gaze was intense, all of her attention suddenly fixed on Yaz and nothing but Yaz.
Yaz swallowed, butterflies dancing in her stomach. “Yeah. I mean, why not? If that’s okay with you, of course. You never know, we might even be good at being married,” she said with an airy laugh she didn’t quite feel.
The Doctor beamed and leant in to smack a kiss on Yasmin’s mouth. “I’ve been married before but never like this,” she said as Yaz slowly raised a hand to her lips. “Liz yelled a lot but I never saw her so I ‘spose that wasn’t a proper marriage, really. River, though! River was much nicer, but I still never saw her quite when I expected to…. And of course it’ll be different with you, Yaz. Never co-habitated with a spouse before! That'll be new!”
Yaz blinked. “Co-habitate? You mean-”
“The TARDIS has probably set up new rooms for us already! I thought I heard a funny sort of whirling noise as we came in,” the Doctor said with a grin, patting the nearest wall when the TARDIS trilled. “She can be sneaky like that. Come on, Yaz, I’ll race you! Best bit of a new room is bouncing on the new bed together.”
“Bed?” Yaz asked faintly as she followed slowly after the Doctor, who had already bounded off into the depths of the ship. As she walked, she wondered how she’d managed to get herself into this - and how she’d hide how much she was probably going to enjoy it.
*
Yaz looked around the room nervously. Perhaps she’d misunderstood, and the Doctor hadn’t meant they’d have to share a bed. It would be a snug fit, that much was certain, with a bed built more for length instead of width. It was nestled in an equally oddly shaped room lined with nothing but little nooks carved in the walls. Each hollowed out shelf space was filled with unfamiliar odds and ends and- were those Yaz’s favourite shoes, tucked under one of the bedside shelves? Yaz could have sworn blind that she’d left them in the wardrobe last time she’d changed.
There was still only one very narrow bed though, and no doors through to other rooms.
“Um, Doctor? When you said these gloves would be monitoring our reactions to each other....”
The Doctor paused, looking up mid-bounce and wobbling so badly on her landing that she ended up sinking into a standing kneel on the end of the mattress. “Yes?”
“Well, I was just sort of wondering what kind of reactions will they - the gloves I mean - be, y’know, checking for?”
“Why do you ask?” the Doctor asked blankly, furrowing her brow.
Yaz pressed her lips together and exhaled, steeling herself to just be direct. “Well, it’s our wedding night, isn’t it? And your ship’s gone and put us in the same room.”
She paused there, hoping that would be enough. For a moment the Doctor’s expression cleared, and Yaz thought she’d been saved. But then the Doctor just said, “oh, it’s only a technicality really. I don’t often sleep in the same place twice anyway. Bad habit of mine, she might not even expect me to stay here with you-”
An immediate deep tolling bell sounded far below them, as if from a great distance, and the lights flickered.
“Or maybe not,” the Doctor finished with a chuckle. “Hope you like company, I’m afraid I’m a bit of a secret snuggler.”
“Right, sure. But that’s just the TARDIS, yeah? What about the gloves? Or their telepathic field or whatever. How will we know when we’re, y’know… doing enough. I don’t really fancy losing a finger. Or my brain.”
Brow furrowed again, the Doctor frowned at her. “Doing enough?” she asked, before gasping and snapping her fingers. “Oh! Wedding night! You’re trying to ask if the gloves expect us to have sex!”
Yaz awkwardly pulled a face and sort of shrugged-nodded, trying not to wince too obviously.
But the Doctor breezed on past it unheeding as she clambered up off the bed. “Excellent question, Yaz. You always ask excellent questions. Very human notion that, though. Wedding consummation. Most civilised societies wouldn’t dare ask- well, maybe not most. Some. The better ones. Well, most of the better ones. Depends on the era, really. Not this one at any rate, and besides, the range of procreation habits in just that one crowd today alone, there’s no way to program these tiny things to check for all of that no matter how powerful the telepathic field is.”
A little flummoxed and not sure whether she was relieved or disappointed, Yaz let herself be ushered forward when the Doctor urged her towards the bed. She felt her cheeks heating as the Doctor continued rambling while she pushed Yaz along.
“Unless you wanted to consummate? Though you can just sleep in my arms instead if you’re worried, that might satisfy the proximity sensors. Or maybe just a casual orgasm or two between friends? That also aught to do the trick, but we don’t need to sort it out right now. You should be bouncing. Honestly, she’s outdone herself this time, this mattress has truly excellent bounce. It’s sort of springy, right beneath your toes which is the best bit to be springy really. Come on, hop up,” the Doctor said as she dragged Yaz bodily back up onto the bed with her, shoes and all.
Snorting, Yaz let the Doctor’s immediate first bounce send her swaying as she held tight to the Doctor so she wouldn’t lose her balance. “Aren’t you worried about damaging the springs or something? Especially if it’s so new,” she said, choosing to eschew the question of sleeping - or consummating - for now.
The Doctor just waved a hand in dismissal. “That’s why I like them built so long, see. Bounce on the end, sleep at the top. Perfect!”
Finally letting herself relax a little, Yaz tightened her grip on the Doctor and bent her knees. “Perfect,” Yaz echoed with a cry as she launched herself up and nearly collided with the Doctor on her way back down to a mutual shriek of laughter.
*
The first thing the Doctor did the next morning when they stepped out of the TARDIS - despite all the screaming - was introduce herself to someone.
“Hello!” she greeted them brightly. “We’re new here, pleased to meet you. I’m the Doctor and this is my wife, Yaz, and my fam, Graham and Ryan. What seems to be the problem?”
The day deteriorated from there, full of running and things exploding and angry people shooting laser weapons that left behind unstable crystal formations on anything the blast touched. It was just as adrenaline soaked and surprising as always, but for once Yaz found herself trailing the others instead of leading the charge.
After all, what was one more alien threatening to destroy a planet?
Just a few hours before, Yaz had woken up to the Doctor’s warm breath on her neck. She had barely been able to bring herself to slip out of the Doctor’s clinging grip, with her arms and legs slung over Yaz like she’d always been meant to be there. Snuggling, like the Doctor had promised - and, just like she’d feared, Yaz hadn’t wanted her to stop.
That was far, far more confusing than anything else the universe could throw at her.
Three planets, one time hop, and two portal trips (one accidental, one deliberate return) later, no one had slept yet even though nobody was sure what day it was anymore. And the Doctor had taken to punctuating each ‘my wife Yaz’ with a great big smack of a kiss on Yaz’s cheek.
Ryan’s smirk just kept getting wider and Graham’s eyebrows were rising further each time, until she’d started wondering if they were going to pop clear off the top of his head. Yet somehow, Yaz couldn’t quite bring herself to protest about any of it.
*
“I am really, really sick of running in these boots,” Yaz said three months later as she collapsed on the end of the bed with a sigh and tiny, half-hearted bounce. Then she squeaked as the Doctor dropped to her knees on the floor and began to untie them for her.
“They still suit you,” the Doctor said as she peeled back the leather and rubbed gently at the lines pressed into Yaz’s skin by the boot seams. “But they don’t look very comfortable, no.”
Yaz’s squeak quickly turned into a moan as the Doctor pressed a knuckle into the arch of her foot. She lingered there for a moment, before moving on to the other boot and repeating the process. “We could pop off somewhere for a spot of shopping after the moon festival tomorrow, if you like. I know a few market planets that do amazing things with shoe liners. It’s like walking on clouds, sometimes literally!”
Going still, Yaz almost missed her cue to pull the Doctor closer between her legs so she could reach her suspenders to unclip them like usual. “Is that tomorrow already?” she asked as she stood up, stretching and wriggling each foot absentmindedly before sliding the Doctor’s coat off her shoulders so she could reach the back suspender clip. She nudged the Doctor’s wedding armband down to her hand again as she did, where it was less practical but more comfortable.
“Yeah, it is,” the Doctor said. She mirrored Yaz’s actions, before grabbing both of their jackets with her ungloved hand and popping them in the little slide away wardrobe that Yaz still kept forgetting where to find because the door merged so seamlessly with the wall. “Went fast in the end, don’t’cha think? Bit sad really. No more Wife Yaz. Doesn’t seem right, somehow.”
Giving a non-committal hum in response, Yaz slipped into her night things that the Doctor had folded under the pillows for her earlier and crawled into the top end of the bed. Yaz flipped back the covers as she went and held out her arms so the Doctor could follow her in and cushion her head with Yaz’s shoulder. She laced their fingers together atop Yaz’s stomach as she settled, and their gloves warmed between them where they touched, clinging to each other as much as to their owners.
“What if we waited a bit longer before we pop back, and just went straight to the markets tomorrow instead?” Yaz forced herself to ask casually.
“The fabric would split and would drop off on its own anyway, telepathic countdown and all that. And then you’d miss the festival! We didn’t get to have a proper look round last time. If I’d realised what all the security was for earlier, I could have shown you a few things. There’s different entrances for different marriage traditions, and different ones for guests, too. That’s why the wall around the festival ground is so long, it's the biggest one in the galaxy right now and-”
The Doctor broke off with a yawn. Hiding her smile in the Doctor’s hair, Yaz rubbed the Doctor’s arm with her other hand and murmured at her to sleep.
“But we haven’t discussed our-,” the Doctor said with another yawn, her voice getting fainter with each word, “-outfits yet. I picked out a new suit all special and everything.”
Before Yaz could reply, the Doctor had drifted off with the quiet tiny snore that had long since become so dear and familiar. Still mindlessly stroking the Doctor’s arm, Yaz pulled her closer and sighed. The TARDIS dimmed the lights for them but not as far down as usual, and Yaz reached up to tap gently on the wall above their heads in gratitude.
Sleep was a long time coming for Yaz that night. But she must have dropped off eventually, because she awoke like usual in the smothering, clinging embrace of the Doctor.
“Morning,” the Doctor murmured groggily into the back of Yaz’s neck without otherwise stirring.
Yaz echoed the greeting as she tightened her own grip around the Doctor’s hand and cleared her throat. Trying to shake off her sleepiness, she asked, “Doctor, do I remember you saying something once about some people visiting every festival to restart the countdowns on their gloves?”
“Mmm,” came the reply. “Quite romantic, really, to sign up again for four hundred more rotations without knowing for sure whether you’ll get another four hundred after that. Some do it like clockwork. Can even set your watch by ‘em.”
Yaz nodded and bit her lip.
“Yaz?” the Doctor continued after a beat. “Do you want to restart our countdowns?”
Hesitating over her reply, Yaz exhaled in a rush when the Doctor squeezed her hand and kissed her neck so gently Yaz almost missed the feather light touch.
“Because I’d like that,” she said, still holding Yaz tight as emotion welled up in Yaz’s throat, blocking her words and stilling her tongue.
Later, they slipped silently from their bed to walk through the TARDIS together hand in hand. Even the usual whirls and hums of the ship seemed quieter than normal, giving everything a solemn air as the Doctor lead the way to the wardrobe room and pulled out the suit she’d put aside for the festival with a quiet ‘ta-da’.
It was sleek and all black with a floaty white neck scarf and a shiny new set of gold suspenders. They glimmered and caught the light as Yaz helped clip them into place and smooth them down, lingering over the Doctor’s shoulders in case they’d twisted, even though she knew they hadn’t.
“I think maybe I like this one,” Yaz said after a bit of a rummage of her own. Pulling out a swishy red dress, she held it against herself and nodded. “I know we don’t have any henna, but-”
“Maybe next festival?” the Doctor asked softly as she dug around and swapped her neck scarf for a red one to match.
“Yeah,” Yaz replied with a smile as the Doctor helped her slip the dress from its hanger and began undoing the fasteners. Quickly, Yaz shucked her night clothes as the Doctor held open the dress for her to step into. “Maybe we can do a lot of things next festival.”
She shivered as the Doctor buttoned up the back of the dress. Her fingers lingered at the nape of Yaz’s neck, and she tugged at a loose lock of hair before settling her hands at Yaz’s hips and her chin on Yaz’s shoulder.
“I’m rubbish with hair. Never really had enough to do anything with it, but there’s a drawer of pins and stuff somewhere in here if you want to do something fancy.”
Leaning backwards, Yaz let the Doctor take her weight and drop a kiss on her shoulder as Yaz smiled till her cheeks hurt. “Maybe next time.”
They stood there, wrapped together, until Yaz had entirely lost track of the time. The Doctor had to be the one to pull away, regretfully mentioning their impending deadline and her need to dress as well. But she caught Yaz by the elbow before they could separate entirely and tugged her close again. Catching Yaz’s face in her hands, she kissed her - and not the quick peck or proud smack of a kiss that Yaz had become accustomed to, but something slow and searching.
“Are you ready to marry me again, Yasmin Khan?” she asked when they finally broke apart.
Breathless, head spinning and butterflies dancing in her stomach all over again three months later, Yaz just grinned. “Yeah, I reckon I am,” she said, before yanking the Doctor back in for another kiss.
Eventually they did manage to break apart and leave the wardrobe room behind, the Doctor tying her neck scarf while she hopped around on one foot and tried to hook the door shut with the other.
“Wake up sleepy heads,” the Doctor yelled, banging on Graham and Ryan’s bedroom doors in turn as they passed them. “You’ve got half an hour till festival time! Up and at ‘em!”
There was a yelp and thump from behind one of the doors, but Yaz and the Doctor didn’t tarry. They just slipped away to steal one last moment of stillness together in the console room, and one last kiss, before the Doctor had to take the controls and whirl them out of the vortex in time to start their second wedding day.