Until The End Of Time Itself [Thasmin]

interlude

Author's Note: It had been weeks since this author has written - well, on this project, anyway. Damn, too long. I was writing a novel. I woke up at 4.30AM accidentally and couldn't sleep, and this chapter wrote itself. Sorry about such a long wait. Thasmin wasn't even canon last time I posted lol.

It had been weeks since they had last spoken, and now they were holding hands underneath the dinner table. Her's held just a little too tightly. She smiled with gritted teeth and bit down hard on her food.

"I still think it's a shame, you know." Yaz's mother eyed her, but she didn't return the gaze, instead focused on the man beside her, the thick angry veins pulsing through his tightened hand.

"I didn't even know she had this friend." His tone was icy but his smile was warm as fire. He set his knife and fork aside, finished chewing, and finally let go of Yaz's hand, shifting to face her. This time, there was humour in his eyes, harsh and pointed like a hot iron rod. "In fact, I wasn't aware you had any friends other than Ryan."

He was pushing it tonight, and they all knew it. Her family. But they didn't know him. Not at all.

Her mother looked at Yaz. Her back was straight and she seemed to hover over Yaz, looking down on the situation carefully. Her mother, who saw everything - almost everything - but then she looked back towards him and smiled.

"Well, we didn't. Not really. You know, not anyone who really stuck for Yaz. Not the way she did." Her eyes told Yaz that she knew exactly what she was doing. "We only saw her a few times, but I assume that's because the two of them were too busy doing-"

His grip returned, fast and hard. He picked up his fork and stuffed a piece of grizzly meat into his mouth, needing something to devour.

"Well, they were travelling, at the time. Or so she tells me." She threw a playful smile in Yaz's direction that made her boyfriend's grip on her tighten further.

"Of course I were travelling. Where else would I be?"
Yaz looked down at her lap again, but in every frame of her sight, something inescapable invaded it, down, his hand, his anger bursting through his tightened veins, up, and it was her mother, throwing out words of the hidden kind, made to antagonise him and free her. Nothing she or Yaz could say would do that. Only one person could free her now, and she was gone.

"And where was it you two went again?" Her sister raised an eyebrow towards her, a look she didn't recognise filler her features. Yaz blinked, wiped her free hand palm down on her jeans. Concern. It was concern. They looked at each other for a moment, Yaz unable to reply.

"You never did say, did you?" Her mother began. Another smile, this time, as if she did know, not what was happening here, but out there, in the stars, with the doctor, and Yaz couldn't help but smile back. When she finally yanked her hand away from his, her body recoiled in her seat, as she turned fully to her family.

"No." Yaz said, finally, her smile growing. "I don't think I did."

"Well go on, then. What's got you so secretive all of a sudden?"

"I bet it's a conspiracy, Dad." Sonya winked at Yaz, allowing her time to think of imaginary places. Well, she could talk of the places they had never been. They would never believe. At times, she could barely believe them herself, but if anything were to anger the person beside her, it would be something that sounded more like lies yet that remained closer to the truth. She preferred to stick with pretty little lies when it came to him.

"Could be a conspiracy. After all, Yaz here did used to work undercover in the police." Her boyfriend said, then shrugged. "Though, that is all over now, I suppose."