Until The End Of Time Itself [Thasmin]

interlude

So, as the sun rose, and fell again, and as The Doctor's chest rose and fell, and as Yaz watched over her, she sighed. Her mind didn't wander. It stayed in one place, chained to the thought like The Doctor was chained. Part of her was trapped within the four walls of that house, winding through the corridors and doubling back on herself, going around in circles, the same things taunting her over and over. While she sat with her legs poking out into the atmosphere, the buzzing sound of chatters, laughter and life from the distance, a 1950s New York, a hive of activity as the sun went down and the reckless and spontaneous came out to play, she breathed deeply in. The TARDIS sat, doors open on a high rooftop and Yaz looked down, her eyes never left those people on the ground, but really, she was still far, far away.

Every now and again she looked back at The Doctor, at her sleeping face, empty of emotions or strain, empty of anything, but every time, she had to look away again. She could not bare to see her, to look at her for more than simply seconds, because for every glance she stole, the more she felt towards her, the more she took on every ounce of what The Doctor exhaled with every breath, in her rare sleep. The more she carried the pain she emptied out, the pain she couldn't feel while unconscious.
Even though she had never seen this before, never had the opportunity to, she could not bare to look. Because with every ounce of pain The Doctor let go of, her hands unclenched, fingers uncurled and floating, came every ounce of love she felt for her, and she wished to deny it, in hopes it would go away. But in all those three years, it never had.

Yaz had told her what Otto had, about his wife, about his best friend who betrayed him, and she tried to connect the dots like she did the stars in the sky, with great care and with great consideration, and eventually, with great ease. What she said seemed to fit right, but some things, Yaz didn't mention.
Their dance, his violent hands, his violent words, his violent eyes, which would always remind her of The Doctor. She did not tell her of all the inconsistencies in his being, and for the while, she only had Otto pinned as a troubled and heart-broken man. Of course.

And as for the creature, well-

"His best friend." She said, simply. Of course. "You said that his love for his wife helped him in the end more than it hindered him. They were scientists, were they not? Surely, a man so in love would be willing to test a cure before giving it the woman of his affection..."

"But what sort of cure...What could possibly do that to a man? A living, breathing, human being, reduced to..." Yaz couldn't finish her sentence.

She was one for avoiding the truth if she ever could, because now more than ever, it pained her. Everything hurt so much more now. Like she was bruised and every touch that reminded her of the original impact, the memory of The Doctor saying goodbye, disappearing back into her burning city, and detonating that bomb. The fact that she survived, somehow, however she did, didn't make much difference. The wound had been open and bleeding, slowly less and less over time, but she opened the wound.

Yaz thought back to how she explained it all down to its simple factors, what happened, when, and how, and why, and tried to remove the emotion from her words, careful of the way Yaz looked at her, like she now knew The Doctor really wasn't invincible.
She thought back to her lethargy, how still she was, unmoved and unaffected by anything that came her way. Her shoulders hunched, arms leaning against her knees, she leaned low, eyes covered by hair, facing away from her, hair falling from the top of her head like leaves in the wind, and on the surface, she seemed unbothered by all that she had been through, but she was in fact the opposite, hiding from her, hiding from the truth. They both were. Hiding from each other.

She watched as the sun sunk below her hanging feet, weaving in between the buildings and hiding away, light going in, and the loud and brazen, going out, drinking and marching the streets with a loosely familiar tune that sounded like happiness. She breathed in and out, watched and when she became lost in the lives of others, thoughts of The Doctor suddenly occurred, and she turned around, placing her feet on solid ground once again, and shut the TARDIS doors behind her.