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The Doctor has disappeared again, leaving Yaz sat alone in a cafe stirring an overly-expensive cappuccino in a full-to-the-brim cafe. Tiredly, she rubbed her forehead. It was really too much to ask that the Doctor wouldn’t get caught up in a mystery on their Christmas break, back on Earth. That morning, the blonde alien had taken Yaz on a rapid tour of all the popular spots of London, to all of the shops, even pointing out some random spots with a garbled explanation about ‘when she was a man’, which Yaz took to mean previous regenerations.
Sighing again, Yaz looked up. Standing in the doorway, looking around sadly was a young white woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties with shoulder-length blonde hair and… A very 2000s outfit on. She was looking around, presumably for a seat. Yaz tracked her eyes for a while before catching her gaze. She seemed alright, and Yaz… Had a spare seat at her table after all. The young woman started walking over.
“Hi!” Yaz smiled. “D’you want to sit here? I mean, it’s pretty chockablock in here!”
The blonde blinked, looking like she was trying to make the decision whether to sit with Yaz or not.
“Okay,” she murmured. “I’m- I’m Rose, by the way,,”
Yaz grinned.
“Yaz. Last minute Christmas shopping, too?”
“Something like that.”
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The Doctor had to find the perfect thing for Yaz, but she kept getting sidetracked. First of all, it was a really nice hardback of The Once And Future King, which made her smile. Then, it was a little teddy bear wearing a fez, which made her think about her 11th incarnation, which wasn’t especially fantastic because she then thought of River. As she began to feel guilty, she pushed it out of her mind. Yaz. This was all for Yaz. C’mon.
Oh.
Oh, that was perfect.
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Rose was hilarious, sarcastic, funny, and full of interesting stories about travelling with her friend, a mysterious seeming man called ‘John’. Yaz had to bite back a few of her stories about travelling with the doctor, carefully leaving out alien-ness with the ones she told. She said about the Doctor, saying to Rose what she had told no one, that she really and truly loved her. Rose commemorated how hard it was to tell someone that seemed so unshakeable, so almost out of this world that you loved them. Both young women took slow sips of their coffees as they chatted, hours seeming to fly by.
As Yaz looked up to check the time, she saw the Doctor frantically waving at her from the doot.
“I have to go,” she told her new friend, who just nodded, smiling tightly.
“Who was that?” The Doctor asked curiously as she tossed about the paper bag she held in her hands.
“Oh,” Yaz brightened. “There weren’t enough tables, so we shared. She told me her name was Rose.”
The Doctor half-stopped in the middle of the street, before smiling.
“That’s one of my favourite names, you know.”
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It was later, curled up on the squishy sofa Yaz had found for the TARDIS, wearing the Doctor’s Christmas gift to her- a fez, of all things, that she said those 3 little words.
“Doctor?”
"Mhm?”
“I love you.”