#lfv fic

In Julian’s defense, this particular incident wasn’t exactly his fault. His intentions were just as pure and loving as they had always been. His heart was in the right place. There really wasn’t a damn thing he could do to change the situation - even if he had wanted to. It was just…. well, his handwriting was awful.

She had never thought that it would become an issue, not really; they lived together, and where Julian went, Julianne tended to follow. It wasn’t as though they communicated very much in writing, and she hadn’t even been sure that he had remembered her having claimed to be able to read the letter he had written to Portia years back.

Quite unfortunately for her, though, her lovable ruffian had remembered, and now, he had let his adorable, romantic streak get the better of him.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love his cliches, and his grand, sweeping gestures of romance - because she did. She really, really did. At the moment, though, she was holding what she thought might have been a sweet note, addressed to her from Julian. And that was all well and good. She loved that, but damn it… she couldn’t read it. She couldn’t make heads nor tails of it, and it was downright sad.

Her understanding of the what was written began with what she could recognize as her own name, scrawled near the top left corner, but ended abruptly just beyond that. She could pick out a word, maybe two - “sleep”, “soft”, maybe even “love” - but that was about it, apart from his scrawled signature near the bottom.

And she... she hadn’t a clue what to do about it.

He was going to ask about it at some point, wasn’t he? That was a given. And Julianne wasn’t sure she’d be able to get away with making like she had been able to read it again. Julian knew her better than that, now, and there wasn’t any way he wouldn’t see through the facade in an instant. The next best option would have been pretending she had never found the letter at all, but even that would be difficult. And besides, odds were Julian would only continue to try. He was nothing if not persistent, after all, and…

Gods, she was screwed. Well and truly.

After something close to an hour of fretting and then another hour of debate, she winds up going to Portia for help. She doesn’t come to the decision lightly by any means, but she does trust for the most part that asking for Julian’s sister’s help won’t immediately backfire on her. The youngest of the Devoraks did know how to keep a secret, after all. And anyways, it stood to reason that she’d have been able to read his messy scrawl — that was, if Julian had in fact written her letters as frequently as it’d seemed he had.

It was logical, and sound, and there was a fairly good chance that she could depend on her sister-in-law-to to help her out of this mess. And she had felt rather good about the plan, in the end. That was, until she’d actually turned up at Portia’s cottage with the letter in hand, and Portia had laughed. She had laughed, loudly and merrily, and it had been clear then and there that she would be of no help to Julianne.

“You… you can’t read it either?” Juli had squeaked, defeated once more.

“Gods, no,” Portia had giggled, squinting as she had eyed the letter for a long moment before handing it back to a rather wilted-looking Julianne. “Ilya sent me one, maybe two letters in all of the time he spent away. And even then, I had to have Lilinka help me read them. She was the only one who could ever make any sense of his chicken scratch.”

Julianne only sighs heavily at that, dragging a hand through her hair as her gaze falls to the letter in her hands. She loved and hated it in equal measure, because it really was incredibly sweet, but on the other hand… what, exactly, was she supposed to do about this?

“I’ve half a mind to get in contact with The Hanged Man himself,” she grunts. “Maybe he’ll be able to help me out.”

She’s only half-serious — because asking one of the Arcana for the power to read her own husband’s handwriting is downright silly, and she knows it — but Portia still cackles, dropping onto the couch next to her unceremoniously.

“Have you considered telling him you can’t actually read it?” she suggests with a smirk.

“No!“ she squawks, indignant as ever. “I can’t! That’s — it’s — “ Embarrassing, was what it was. And the last thing she wanted was to admit to it. It was looking more and more like that would be her only option, though, and… damn it.

Portia never stops snickering, not even as she stands from the couch and finds her way into the kitchen (where Pepi has been ‘mewing’ her desire for lunch for a handful of minutes, now).

“Well, you could always distract him with sex,” she suggests with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. “Maybe he’ll forget all about it.”

Normally she might have blushed in response to Portia’s teasing, used to it as she may have been. But distracting Julian with sex? That wasn’t a bad idea. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before, anyways, amidst petty arguments and on days she felt like dragging him home from the clinic without a fuss. And so today, instead of blushing, she grins.

“You’re a genius, Portia,” she says, grinning as she stands from the couch and heads for the door — though not before pausing to tug the shorter woman into a one-armed hug.

Portia only laughs harder, and with that, Julianne scurries out the door.

-

Rather luckily for the stubborn magician, Julian doesn’t actually wind up coming home until well after sunset.

It had been a very busy day at the clinic, evidently, and by the time he comes sauntering through the front door, it’s dark out. He looks positively exhausted, and he heaves a thick sigh as he sheds his coat and then ducks to work at the buckles on his boots.

“Darling, I’m home,” he shouts halfheartedly, and Julianne pauses. As it was, she had only just started getting ready for bed. And that was rather lucky, too, she supposed, given her situation. Normally, she’d have slept in something loose and comfortable — one of Julian’s shirts, more often than not — but she hadn’t taken any risks, tonight. No, tonight she had purposefully worn something much more revealing. It was skimpy and soft; the straps were thin and the neckline sinfully low, and the fabric was primarily a lovely, translucent lace. It was a beautiful sage green in color, and it was downright distracting.

Or, well. She hoped that it would be, at least.

She delicately combs both of her hands through her hair — purposefully left down to fall across her shoulders — and with a soft sigh of her own, she wanders down the stairs to meet Julian.

“Welcome home, Ilya,” is what she decides to lead with. He’s not noticed her yet, too busy struggling to remove his obscenely tall boots to have looked up just yet. “Long day?”

His response is a soft groan, as his boots are finally kicked aside. He stands upright a handful of seconds later, dragging a hand through his hair as he nods his agreement. “Very long,” he laments, tugging his eyepatch off and tossing it aside in a manner that clearly indicates his happiness to be rid of it for the evening. “And hardly as exciting as you might assume. Some of these patients, darling, I’m telling you—! I’m not sure how many more times I can tolerate having to explain that there isn’t a cure for allergies, or a common cold. Not even leeches can — oh.”

He’s looked up, now. Smack in the middle of his frustrated rambling, he’s managed to catch a glimpse of Julianne, smiling softly at him and presenting herself just so, and… oh.

“Welcome home, indeed,” he purrs, and immediately strides forward to meet her. His still-gloved hands settle at her waist, first and foremost, and his touch is warm and appreciative as he spends a handful of moments looking her over more thoroughly. “To what do I owe this absolute vision?”

“Oh, no occasion in particular, darling,” she responds, melting right into his touch just the way that she always does. Perfect, she thinks. It’s working, then. “I just thought you deserved something nice. What with that long day of yours.”

One of his hands wanders upward, touching and tracing the length of her torso reverently. He only pauses when the palm of his hand reaches her neck, and the smile on his face grows all the more mischievous as he threads his fingers into her hair and ducks forward to kiss her lips.

“Mm, you spoil me,” he mumbles into the kiss. In the next instant his hands are on her hips, gracefully lifting her up and hauling her in close. Her legs wind themselves around his waist on instinct, and her lips curl into a delighted smile against his as she clings to him. “It’s only fair that I do the same for you, isn’t it?”

It’s not another moment before they’re up the stairs and off to the bedroom, then, and… Gods. It’s a win-win situation through and through. There’s never a word said about the letter, and Julian spends the next several hours doing positively filthy things to her with his tongue and his fingers alike.

It’s perfect, and more importantly, she’s safe.

Or so she thinks.

It’s in the early hours of the morning that Julianne finds herself being tugged in close to her beloved doctor’s chest, peppered in loving kisses and brought to consciousness both by the affection and the warmth of the morning sun.

“Mmf,” she mutters, tucking her face against his neck insistently as she comes to. “Ilya?”

“Good morning, my love,” he murmurs into her hair. It sounds as though he’s been awake for some time, and there’s a hint of a smile in his voice. It makes her smile, too, even as she yawns widely, and then proceeds to groan at the obviously early hour.

“Why’re you up,” she asks, returning a handful of his kisses. “S’too early to be up.” He laughs softly, then, and presses another to the top of her head.

“I was just… admiring, that’s all,” he sighs. His hands wander the length of her back, fingertips delicately tracing the lacy little thing that she’s still wearing. He had never taken it off of her the night before — not at the start, and not as he’d held her beneath him and showed her exactly how much he appreciated it.

She smiles softly as she gathers her wits about her. It’s achingly sweet, and she’s definitely about to respond with some flirtatious quip or another, but he beats her to it before she has the chance.

Though she can’t see it just yet, there’s a hint of mischief in his smile, and it only grows as he speaks. “If all of the silly little notes I write to you result in this, I might just have to do it more often.”

And — oh. Oh no.

She laughs softly perhaps a touch awkwardly at the suggestion. It’s certainly something of a challenge to bite back her panic, but she manages it quite expertly. Her expression is cool and calm as she leans back to meet his eyes, and she even manages to keep a hint of subtle flirtation in her tone as she speaks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says with a smirk. “Do you really think you could keep that level of charm up for so long?”

Despite her cool, collected facade, her panic only rises. Because oh, Gods — of everything she could have said, she had gone with that?. It wasn’t wise. Not in the least. Julian was as competitive as he was persistent, and — and — fuck. She was fucked.

“Oh, darling, you wound me!” he sighs, as dramatic as ever. He leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead anyways, though, laughing softly as he drops the act. “Still, though… perhaps I did peak with that first one.”

Relief washes over Julianne at that, and she nods her agreement. “Well, it isbest not to overdo it, isn’t it?” she suggests with a smile.

“You may be right,” he agrees with a nod, and she relaxes further at that, because thank goodness. If she could just… casually talk him out of the idea just as quickly as she’d talked him into it…

Quite unfortunately, however, she comes to find out soon enough that her relief had come very prematurely, because another few seconds later, Julian is grinning again. “I’m rather curious, though — did you have any favorite bits? Tidbits I could revisit in the future, perhaps?”

And she… she doesn’t have a good response to that. She doesn’t have an alibi, or a white lie, or an escape route, because in truth? She hadn’t been able to make sense of a single line of the letter. He’s asking her for specifics, now, and she’s got nothing.

“I — er — uhm,” she stammers, clearly floundering. In the midst of her panic, she fails to notice the amused gleam in his eyes — the way that he’s biting back soft laughter as she struggles to put together a response.

“Speechless, are you?” he teases, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Or… perhaps it wasn’t very good after all?”

“No! I — it was! It’s… ah, the way, um — that line where…“ she continues to try, stubborn as ever. Positively refusing to let herself fail.

However, it isn’t very much longer before Julian himself can no longer keep up the act. He dissolves into delighted laughter roughly thirty seconds in, and it stuns Julianne into silence.

“My dear,” he says, once he’s caught his breath. “You could have just told me that you couldn’t read it.”

Julianne makes an indignant noise at that, and the shock in her expression dissolves into something rather more like a comically angry pout as she looks up at him.

“What—! How—“ she begins to ask, but it hits her before she ever gets the question out. Portia. She curses under her breath, and another moment later, she nudges him halfheartedly. It only makes him laugh more, and she grumbles and rolls her eyes at that. “That’ll be the last time I trust your sister with my secrets, then.”

“Come now,” he grins, brushing an errant strand of hair out of her eyes (even though she’s still refusing to meet his gaze). “I thought it was adorable, how hard you tried to be convincing.”

She makes another disgruntled sound at that, though instead of pulling away, this time, she rolls into his arms with a forlorn sigh.

“It’s embarrassing,“ she whines, forehead pressed firmly to his chest. He rumbles with soft laughter, again, and she pouts. “…and to be fair, we live together! I never thought that fib about being able to read that old letter of yours would ever come up again.”

Julian just grins, though, and presses another adoring kiss into his silly little magician’s hair.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he sighs, cuddling her close. “I’d dare say that little fib was downright cunning of you.”

She blinks, raising her head a fraction at that and eyeing him curiously. “…you would?”

He’s still smiling at her, and though the embarrassment of it all hasn’t faded just yet, it’s rather reassuring.

“It got me to talk, didn’t it?” he points out, and she huffs.

“It did,” she admits, and though her tone is still a touch reluctant, the smile on her face is soft and fond.

“And now we’re here. Married and terribly domestic, all because of your embarrassing fib,” he goes on to say, and that’s what breaks her. Her small smile brightens into a grin, and another handful of seconds later she’s giggling, flush with laughter and clinging to him as she nods her head.

“Gods, that… it really is the little things, isn’t it?” she snickers, and Julian hums.

“That it is,” he agrees, giving her a squeeze.

Her laughter settles soon enough, and as she relaxes into his arms once more, she sighs.

“It really was sweet, though,” she promises. “You’ll read it to me sometime, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, darling,” he promises, sealing the words first with a tender kiss to her forehead, and then another to her lips not a moment later. And she’s perfectly content with that, sated and just about ready to sink into another few hours of sleep. Julian, though… Julian has other ideas.

His hands wander toward the small of her back and then dip lower, and his smile grows devious as his touch shamelessly lingers on her ass for a very long moment before sliding toward the backs of her thighs, instead.

“So long as it gets me more of this?” he asks. His tone is low and sultry, and Julianne ignores the slight hitch in her breath in favor of swatting at him playfully.

“Oh, you’re a menace,” she complains. There isn’t any real fight behind it, though, and the moment he laughs and begins to pull away, she moves in closer. Presses him onto his back, and swings a leg across his hips. Indulges him.

She’ll always indulge him, as big a menace as he might be.

You sigh as you watch her speak to her ship, so softly; it always brings a smile to your face to see it, because it’s one of the softest sides of The Doctor. 

“She definitely did,” you pipe up, folding your arms across your chest and making your way toward the console. You stand by The Doctor’s side, sparing a glance at the map that she’d been examining.  You wonder where your own room might be on that particular map, but you quickly come to the realization that you wouldn’t have been able to read it properly if you had tried.

The Doctor looks your way, then, and flashes you a smile. She straightens up a moment later and turns toward you, and with a glance between the console and your face, she shakes her head. 

“I’m afraid we might need to park someplace for a while,” she says. “The TARDIS will recover — she’s done it before, but it takes her a good bit of time and even more rest.”

You smile and nod at that; it makes enough sense, after all. 

“Can’t go hurdling through time and space with a hole in the hardware, can you?” you point out, and she laughs softly. 

“Exactly right,” she says. She turns her gaze back on the map, first, and then the console itself, which she pats gently once more. “The old girl probably deserves a good rest every now and again, anyways — if you asked her, she’d probably tell you personally that I mistreat her at least a little bit.” 

You don’t even have to ask, in the end; the TARDIS chirps her agreement the moment The a Doctor finishes speaking, and you snort softly at that. The sound of it is a bit tired and a bit insistent, like she’s telling you firmly that it’s definitely more than a little bit. 

The Doctor mutters something in response, you think, but you don’t hear it, not really; now that everything has calmed down, you find your brain melting into an all-too familiar fog.  It’s the type of daze that comes with potentially life-threatening experiences — the let-down of it all. 

Often times, this would be about the time you might head off to bed, or to have a relaxing shower; it was instinct, you thought, to resort to some old-fashioned self-care when you had had a hard day.  The instinct came to you all the same, today, but for obvious reasons, you wouldn’t be able to act on it right now. 

You must wind up lost in thought about it for a good moment or two, because before you know it, The Doctor has turned her attention on you again. She’s all warmth and kindness and concern as she places both of her hands on your shoulders and turns you to face her, and when you find your focus once more, she smiles at you. 

“Are you alright, Y/N?” she asks, and raises one of her hands to touch your cheek gently. You make your best effort not to let it make you blush, obviously, but you’re not entirely sure it’s effective. 

“Oh, yeah — I’m fine,” you reassure her with a tired smile. You subtly avoid her gaze as she brushes her thumb across your cheekbone, not looking very convinced. 

“Are you certain?” she prods, finally dropping her arms to her sides and withdrawing her gentle touch. “Not injured or anything, are you?  You’re looking a bit... spacey.” 

You can’t help but laugh softly at her observation, and as you recover from the brief closeness in proximity, you offer her a much more genuine smile. 

“Spacey?” you ask, eyebrows raised. She scoffs and rolls her eyes at the bit of teasing, but she stays close nonetheless, arms folded across her chest as she eyes you. 

“Yes, spacey — a bit loopy, out-of-it, zoned-out, blank-faced... d’you need anymore synonyms? I’ve got a thesaurus full of ‘em,” she retorts, smiling as she proceeds to poke fun right back at you. 

“Alright, alright,” you sigh, raising both of your hands in surrender.  She raises an eyebrow at that, watching you closely as you go on to explain yourself. “I am a little spacey, I suppose. Not anymore than normal, though — it’s just...” 

You pause momentarily, considering how you might explain to her that your bedroom had been one of the many pieces of the TARDIS destroyed in the midst of all of the chaos. Had she already noticed? Did she even know where your bedroom was? 

“It’s just..?” she urges you on, and when you meet her gaze again and notice the way that her smile has faded into concern once more, you sigh. 

“Well, my bedroom was destroyed. Along with all of my things,” you say, and she blinks, definitely looking rather surprised.  “So more than anything I’m just... thinking about where I’m going to be lying down for the nap that I very much need.” 

“Oh, no — oh, stupid me, I didn’t even realize!” she says, and in the next moment her hands are on your shoulders once more. “I’m so sorry, Y/N! I really hope you didn’t lose anything important.” 

You make a face and shrug your shoulders in response to that, taking a moment to consider what you had actually lost along with your room — apart from the room itself. 

“I mean — not really. Not apart from my clothes, anyways,” you tell her. “Might have lost a souvenir or two — and definitely my favorite jumper — but nothing valuable.” 

She softens at that, making one of those faces that clearly says “alright, I’ll take it, but I’m still not happy.”  You offer her a smile, regardless — it’s not like it had been her fault, anyways. It hadn’t been anyone’s fault but the rogue ship who had seen you in their flight path, apparently, and decided to move you out of it. Forcefully.

“If I had my way, we’d go and confront those lot,” she mumbles, returning once again to touching the TARDIS’s console gently. “Not very often I let anyone get away with using my ship for target practice.” 

You laugh softly as you watch her, looking thoroughly offended on behalf of her TARDIS. You give the console a pat or two of your own, and you sigh softly when you here her respond with a soft hum, sounding just as tired as you feel. 

“I don’t think I’d mind giving them a good telling off,” you say. You allow your full weight to rest against the TARDIS, finally, as you close your eyes for a split second. The energy she’s giving off now seems to be equal parts apologetic and relaxing, and the moment it hits you, your exhaustion seems to increase tenfold.  “But I think what I might like most right now is a good nap.” 

The Doctor looks your way again, then, and the thoughtful upset on her face fades into concern once more. 

“You do look absolutely knackered, Y/N,” she says with a shrug. “No offense.” 

You snort, responding first with a shake of your head as you absentmindedly rub at one of your eyes. “None taken,” you muse, smiling at her a moment later. “I’m feeling it.” 

She mirrors your smile, looking thoughtful for a a brief moment.  She seems to mull over something for a good moment or two, glancing between your very tired-looking face and the map of the ship that she had been focused on earlier. 

“You know...” she begins, seeming to wait for your acknowledgement before she goes on. “My bedroom wasn’t destroyed in all of the wreckage.” 

Your eyes narrow at that — at the hesitant way that she looks at you as she talks about her own room. You cock your head curiously to one side as you consider what she might be implying. 

“Rather lucky, that,” you say, as nonchalant as you can manage.  You’ve got to admit, you’re rather intrigued even at the idea of seeing The Doctor’s bedroom; you’ve always known she had one, and that — like you — she was a bit of a comfort napper.  You had never seen her room, however, no matter how many times she had mentioned it. 

“Right — lucky, yeah,” she agrees, and you smile — you can’t help it. “But, what I was getting it was — well. You could always kip off to my room for a nap, couldn’t you?” 

Your smile grew. 

“The shape that the TARDIS is in, it’ll be some time before she can repair yours, and I can’t leave you without a place to sleep, can I?” 

The laughter that escapes you in response to that is soft, and amused, and rather unavoidable. It’s just... funny, is all, how flighty The Doctor is when it comes to anything even remotely intimate. You’ve always liked to toe those boundaries a bit — to flirt, as it were, with every intention of making The Doctor blush a bit. 

But even so, you don’t want her to feel uncomfortable, because she is your closest friend, after all. 

“Oh, Doc — honestly, I don’t want to go imposing like that,” you insist. As difficult as it proves to be, you right yourself and turn to face her properly.  “I don’t want to invade your space.” 

She mumbles and grumbles for a moment at that, but the next time she meets your eyes, she’s shrugging her shoulders and smiling. 

“Strictly speaking, you wouldn’t be invading my space,” she points out, dragging a hand through her mess of blonde hair. “Not really. It’s sharing a room and a bed and all, sure, but... my bed is big enough for both of us, you know.” 

Your only reaction to that is a rather startled blink.  

It’s not that you’re put off by the idea — you aren’t, not in the least. It’s rather more that you’re surprised that The Doctor isn’t put off by the idea.  

You certainly enjoyed flirting with her a bit every now and again, just to see her go red and hear her stammer for a good minute, but you had never imagined it would go anywhere. Not in a real way, anyhow. And — and not that this was what that meant, either, because it surely wasn’t, it was just — 

“Oh, don’t look so shocked,” The Doctor says, effectively breaking your train of thought. The tone of her voice clearly conveys a bit of a tease, and as your focus returns to the immediate conversation, you snort softly. 

“No, no — I’m not shocked,” you explain, happy to backtrack a bit. “Well, not really, i just — I didn’t quite expect you to be so willing to share.” 

She cocks her head to one side at that, folding her arms over her chest as she gazes expectantly at you. “And why not?” 

You shrug your shoulders, then, not entirely sure how to respond for a good handful of seconds. 

“Well, it’s your bed, innit?” you say — a bit dumbly, you’ll admit. “And you do love your naps.” 

The Doctor snorts at that, still smiling at you even though she definitely looks at least mildly offended.

“Oh, don’t be absurd,” she argues, and you snort. It’s not all that absurd — not as far as you’re concerned, at least. “I do love a nap — didn’t let myself have nearly enough of them, the first thousand-and-some years of my life, mind you — but I can still have a good night’s sleep with you there next to me.” 

You watch her carefully as she makes her point, gesturing animatedly with her hands as she so often does when she feels particularly strongly about something.  The Doctor is a good liar, but you’re also rather good at detecting it.  And looking into her eyes now as she waits for your response, there doesn’t seem to be anything there but honesty. 

“Well, alright,” you begin, cautious, still. “If you say so.” 

“I do!” she insists.  You grin. 

“I don’t think I’d even mind if you changed your mind later, so long as I could have a good, long sleep now,” you comment, breaking eye contact, finally, as you drag a hand through your disarrayed hair once more.  You hear her laugh at that, soft and amused, and next thing you know, there’s a gentle hand on your shoulder. 

“Well m’not planning on it, am I?” she says. You feel her thumb brush across your shoulder blade, then, and it’s a real struggle for you to keep from piling yourself into her arms and demanding a cuddle. “Anyways — you know where my room is, don’t you?” 

You shake your head. 

“I’ve never been in your room before, Doctor,” you point out with a smile and a shrug. She looks a bit surprised at that — why, you’re not entirely sure. 

“Oh,” she says quite simply. “Well, in that case — it’s up the stairs and down that hallway there. You’ll take a left near the end, and my bedroom will be the second door on the right.  You go on and have yourself a nap while the TARDIS and I figure out the rest.” 

You sigh at that — perhaps a little bit too relieved — and nod your head. Before you turn to make your way up the stairs, you make a point of taking half a step closer to The Doctor and pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. 

There isn’t any intention behind it — not really, not apart from expressing your gratitude — but she blushes anyhow, and you can’t help but smile at that. 

You leave the room without another word, content with you goal to seek out The Doctor’s bedroom and kip in for a nap.  It takes you a moment, admittedly, to remember the exact directions you had been given, but you get there in the end.  And as it turns out, it’s terribly obvious which door leads to The Doctor’s room. 

The doors are grand in comparison to all the rest, large and wooden and very french-looking in style. Even the handles are quite elaborate looking, all old-worn bronze, and you smile at that; you can’t help but wonder what the inside of the room is like in comparison. 

To no one’s surprise, everything inside is rather magnificent as well.  Or, no — perhaps eccentric would have been a better word.  The furniture, the decoration, the room itself... if anyone had asked you, you’d have said it was a rather good reflection of The Doctor herself. 

All in all, none of it quite looked like it belonged together; not exactly. Apart from the bed and the room itself, which you had to assume had been put together by the TARDIS as a baseline, everything was quite mismatched. For instance, there was a night table in one corner that looked like it might have come out of early, early times, with chipped wood and rickety looking drawers and legs that looked like they were only just holding the thing up. But to the same tune, there was a massive armoire on one wall — or what you assumed was an armoire, anyways — that looked like it could have been picked up from an IKEA store in modern times. 

There was so much to look at that you spent a good handful of moments just standing in the doorway, admiring each individual item. It was lost in translation sometimes, how much time The Doctor had really spent traveling here and there and seeing this and that and the other, but her bedroom and all of the things inside of it gave every bit of that away at a mere glance. 

Eventually, you gather your bearings and round back on your original plan to tuck yourself straight into bed, but even that proves to be a something of a challenge.  

The bed may not have been one of the most eye-catching things in the room, but even it, in it’s own very, very unique way, had The Doctor written all over it.  The sheets were rumpled and purple and soft, and immediately upon toeing out of your shoes and lying down amongst the (abundance) of pillows, you notice that they smell like her, as well. A bit like amber, a bit like clove, and a lot like some unidentifiable spacey thing that you’ve always liked to think of as moon-dust.  

You’re grateful for it, for the touch of familiarity; you’ve always had a bit of trouble sleeping in rooms that weren’t your own, but wrapping yourself in the sheets of The Doctor’s bed feels a whole lot like wrapping yourself up in The Doctor herself, and if you were honest? She had always felt more like home to you than any old room could ever have.  

Even despite the fact that you’re fully clothed, it doesn’t take you very long to begin drifting off; your eyelids had been heavy to start, and as you make yourself comfortable, the feeling only grows tenfold.  With a a deep sigh and a final tug at the bedsheets, you allow sleep to overcome your exhausted body.  You had come here with the intention of resting, after all, and you’d be damned if resting wasn’t just what you were going to do. 

✦

In the end, you must wind up sleeping much, much longer than you might have initially planned, because when you do wake, it’s not of your own accord. 

What initially rouses you is a soft touch at your shoulder - nothing urgent nor insistent, but firm enough to wake you from your nap. You roll onto your back with a soft groan, quite unwilling to come to at first; you toss one arm over your face stubbornly and sigh, certainly not ready to face the waking world just yet.  That touch at your shoulder becomes a firm grip, then, and a gentle shake within another few moments. 

“Y/N,” a soft, familiar voice — quite close to your ear — says. “Y/N, wake up.” 

There’s a rather insistent noise to accompany the voice that must come from the TARDIS, and you mutter an unintelligible complaint under your breath at that. You’re pouting as you drop your arm back to your side and submit to the idea that you might not be able to get back to sleep right here and now, and with a deep sigh, you give your legs a stretch. 

It’s only when you finally open up your eyes that you come to remember that you aren’t, in fact, in your own bedroom.  You’re still very much in The Doctor’s room, surrounded by her things and sleeping in her bed, and as it turns out, the soft voice that had been attempting to wake you had been hers, too. 

Your cheeks flush as your eyes fall upon her face. 

“Oh, Doctor,” you mumble, still very much half asleep. “Sorry.“

She smiles at you, looking… rather fond? You blink, wondering offhandedly if your tired eyes are playing tricks on you. 

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” she says, waving a hand dismissively.  “Must have been a good nap, eh?” 

You respond with a soft snort, closing your eyes for a brief moment and nodding your head. 

“It was,” you say with a smile, combing a hand through your knotted hair and wriggling a bit until you’re a sitting a tad more upright. “Thanks. But I can definitely leave now, if you want the room—“ 

You don’t have the opportunity to finish your sentence before The Doctor is shaking her head at you, murmuring a little string of “no, no, no’s” and looking quite a lot like she’s the one invading your space. 

“You don’t have to leave,” she insists. She sits back on her heels, and you realize for the first time that she’s knelt down beside the bed, at your side.  “In fact, I wasn’t going to wake you at all — it was just…” 

You raise an eyebrow, watching her closely as she explains herself.  She’s looking almost bashful, now, and altogether it has you feeling curious. 

“What? Was I snoring or something?” you ask her, only half-joking. It wasn’t like you hadn’t been known to snore a bit boarishly in the past. 

She shakes her head at that, laughing softly and fiddling with her hair somewhat nervously. 

“No, no. Nothing like that,” she reassures you. A handful of seconds later she looks you in the eye once more and smiles kindly.  “I came in to check on you, that’s all.  And found you fully clothed.” 

You spare a glance down at yourself and your rumpled clothing, taking in the state of yourself for a moment before you offer up a shrug in response. 

“I didn’t have anything else,” you explain. “Everything but what I’m wearing was in my bedroom when we crash-landed.” 

She nods. 

“No, I know,” she responds. You tilt your head expectantly, then, and she averts her gaze. “I just wandered in to check on you — to make sure you were alright, yeah?  Crash-landings can be tough on a human person, and I just wanted to make sure — never mind.  Not the point. Anyways…” 

You don’t take your eyes off of her as she continues to waffle on for a moment, and you’re just about to pipe up and ask her where, exactly, she’s going with all of this when she finally reaches her point. 

“You looked comfortable enough when I came in, but I just thought — I don’t know, I got the idea in my head that you might like to borrow some of my clothes,” she says. She gestures offhandedly to the armoire that you had caught a glimpse of earlier as she says the words, and you spare a glance in its direction before looking back at her. “Just for now — so you have some proper sleepwear, right?” 

There’s no holding back the fond smile that plays on your lips as she explains herself.  You don’t think that you’d have been able to withhold it if you had tried, because it’s just so sweet, the way that The Doctor seems to be doting on you.  It’s not exactly a common thing — she cares for you, and you care for her (to say the very, very least), but it’s never gone beyond that; not before now.  

It makes you wonder — it does — but you keep your curiosity to yourself for the time being. 

“That would be really nice, Doctor,” you say simply. It’s a stark contrast to her rambled explanation, and she seems to flounder for a moment before she smiles brightly and makes for the armoire. 

“Brilliant! In that case —“ she starts, opening up a door here and a drawer there and pulling out a couple of soft-looking pieces of clothing.  None of it looks terribly a lot like her everyday clothing, but it all looks quite comfortable. “These ought to do nicely, eh? You can take your pick, Y/N — whatever you like.” 

You flash her a smile as she tosses the garments your way, and as you pick through them, you hum quite happily.  Most all of them are as soft as they look, and you’d be willing to bet that they’re just as comfortable, too. 

“You do know how to pick out pajamas,” you comment, and she snorts.  After a bit of sifting, you settle on an oversized, button-up sleep shirt and a nice, loose pair of shorts.  She’s looking rather smug when your gaze finds its way back to her, and you laugh softly as you set the remaining clothing aside. 

“What’s a good nap without some extra-comfortable sleepers?” she says, perhaps a little too proud of herself. 

“Not a good nap at all,” you agree, regardless, and brush a few stray hairs out from in front of your eyes.  You are grateful, genuinely, for her generosity with both her clothing and her space, because if you’re honest?  You still feel a right mess, and having these few comforts makes you feel just a little more human. 

You’re quiet for a moment (and so is she, oddly enough) before you look The Doctor’s way once more, a curious gleam in your eyes. 

“I don’t suppose you would mind if I used your shower as well, then?” you ask, not quite as hesitantly as you might have at the beginning of this day. You might have felt a bit worse about it had you actually asked for everything that The Doctor had given you, but… well, you hadn’t.  And honestly, if there was anything in the world that you might just have done anything for, it was a good, hot shower. 

“‘Course you can, Y/N,” she responds without hesitation.  There’s something a bit softer in her voice, and it prompts you to study her for a long moment as she stands there.  It’s only fifteen seconds or so, but she must begin to feel the scrutiny rather quickly, because it’s not very long afterwards that she turns her gaze away and makes for the door. “I’ll leave you to it, then.  I’m in the console room if you need me!” she calls to you as she goes, and you laugh softly as you look after her for a moment. 

With a stretch and a yawn and a creak of your bones, you crawl out of the bed and go about finding your way into the shower — into the bathroom that branches off of her bedroom, just like your own little ensuite had done.  

No use wasting any time. 

✦

“Oh, shut it,” The Doctor says, firm, but without much fight.  She’s standing at the console in the control room, and she’s just left her own bedroom in a ridiculous hurry, because she just... couldn’t seem to collect herself, as it were.  She was usually rather good at it, if she did say so herself; she had been doing it for such a long time, now, that it didn’t tend to be such a bother for her to keep her guard up around you.  Today, though — today, it seemed that something had slipped.  And it had been a rather significant something, if her current, flustered state was anything to go by. 

Maybe it had been your peacefully slumbering face. She had only seen you in such a state a handful of times, after all, and you had just looked so... so... content. Serene, even. And you’d been in herbed, for crying out loud — 

She groans. Her head drops into her hands as she props herself against the console, and she sighs thickly as she thinks it over. You had never so much as been in her room before (which she had less than gracefully forgotten, earlier), and now you were in her room, her bed, her space — and sooner than later, you would be in her clothes, too.  All of it, as a whole, had her feeling rather flustered. 

“Then go on and do something about it, would you?” she catches the TARDIS insisting. It’s a tug at the corner of her mind, her ship’s intention, but it’s there, and she rolls her eyes, choosing not to dignify the demand with a verbal response. 

The TARDIS doesn’t stop there, though, no — she continues to niggle at The Doctor’s mind, each and every suggestion coming across her consciousness like an insistent child jabbing a finger into their sibling’s shoulder to catch their attention. 

“It’s been months, Doctor. Months!”

“Are you just going to sit by and stare at them forever?” 

“If you paid attention you’d notice that they stare at you, too.”

“Constantly.”

“Doctor!”

The frustrated yelp that she had been valiantly suppressing breaks free, eventually, and she straightens up, staring pointedly up at the TARDIS’s dimly glowing crystals. 

“What do you suggest I do, eh?” she demands, and the TARDIS gives a dissatisfied vworp. “They don’t know. I can’t — ! I can’t just waltz into the room and, what — ask them for a cuddle? Tell them how astounding I think they are?” 

Her words start out just as sharp as she’d meant them to, but the fire in her outburst dwindles rather quickly the moment she really hears herself.  

It’s... different, saying these things out loud. Very different, and the weight of it all seems to bear down on her very suddenly.  The TARDIS appears to catch onto this, and adjusts the lighting in the control room to reflect the abrupt shift in The Doctor’s mood. 

With her features now cast in a delicate, fuchsia light, she shakes her head. Shadows dance across her face as she turns away from the console and makes for a way to distract herself once more.  

“I know your intentions are good, love,” she says, and the light in the room begins to sink into a deep purple as she speaks. “But it’s not realistic.” 

The TARDIS wants to argue the point further — she really, genuinely does. She can, after all, see you in her pilot’s room, fresh out of the shower and wearing her clothing, ever-so-gently perusing the room with that special sort of awe in your eyes. 

But she also knows The Doctor, and she knows better than to force the issue with her.  She had never been one to have any issue forced upon her — thus the ship’s roundabout way of wordlessly guiding her where she needed to go most. It was almost always better (where it wasn’t exactly possible to coax her) to let The Doctor come around on her on, and, with an exasperated thunk of her engines, the TARDIS supposed that that was what she would have to do. 

✦

In the hours following her confrontation with her ship, The Doctor made every effort she could to keep herself occupied.  

She cleaned, she tidied, she repaired what she could; she tinkered with everything that she could tinker with, and read through a solid three-and-a-half six-hundred-and-something page books, and paced metaphorical ruts into the floor.  She was doing anything and everything she could think of to keep busy, to keep herself distracted while you rested, but in the end, her efforts didn’t make the kind of difference that she might have hoped they would. 

No matter how much she paced, she still paused every so often to ponder whether there might be something more she could be doing for you. No matter how deeply she buried herself in thick books written on the most wildly obscure topics, she still found herself distracted at the thought of you sleeping in her bed. 

You had been resting for quite some time, now, hadn’t you? It had been hours. Did you typically nap for this long? Was she overthinking it? Were you okay? Why couldn’t she just stop thinking about it? 

The TARDIS would nip in every now and then, too, much to The Doctor’s frustration. She would mumble and grumble at the back of her mind that she knew bloody well what was going on in her own head — that she had simply refused to acknowledge it. 

“You can only do this for so long, Doctor,” she had sighed at one point.  It had also been at that point that The Doctor had pushed the thick book she’d been thumbing through aside and groaned out loud. 

She was utterly exhausted. 

She hadn’t actually rested since well before the incident with the TARDIS, and the whirlwind of emotions that she was currently experiencing wasn’t doing very much to help her case.  She could hardly focus, anymore, and that — that wouldn’t do.  

It was usually right around this point that she would sneak off to her bedroom for a nap, but — well. 

“You told Y/N that your bed was big enough for the both of you.  That hasn’t changed,” the TARDIS pipes up, conveniently. 

“Get out of my head,” The Doctor mutters, dropping into her seat beside the console and burying her face in her hands. 

“You know full well that I can’t do that.” 

She grumbles once more, dragging her clammy palms across her face as she sits up.  She couldn’t lie in this bed that she had made for herself forever, could she?  Not unless you came waltzing out of her room in the next few moments (unlikely), or the TARDIS suddenly announced that she had been able to pop up a spare bedroom (even more unlikely), she was doomed.  Completely and utterly doomed. 

“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?  Y/N might be offended.”

The Doctor snorts at that, in part because you absolutely would be offended at the phrasing. No doubt. 

She also recognized, however, that it is a bit dramatic.  She was tired — so, so bloody tired, and upon further consideration, the strange way that she had been acting would likely only succeed in raising your suspicions. 

She had to sleep sometime, and tonight, she supposed... tonight, awkward as it may or may not have turned out to be, it would have to be next to you. 

✦

As it happened, you had only just fallen asleep by the time The Doctor came creeping into the room.  And — quite unfortunately for you — you hadn’t even fallen asleep on purpose.  

You had spent a long, long while after your shower perusing The Doctor’s room, and all of the delightful treasures that it had been hiding. Well, you thought — not hiding. Not really. You had been careful not to be too invasive in your curiosity.  Your intention hadn’t been to dig up anything terribly personal, after all, and when it came right down to it, you had only bothered with the things that had been in plain sight; out on bookshelves, lying across an oddly-shaped chair in the corner, that sort of thing.  

And, in the end, that had been more than enough.  Hours had passed, and by the time you had worn yourself out, there had been books and trinkets and clothing strewn around you.  The mess was primarily confined to the bed, where you had propped yourself against the pillows to read through an old, dog-eared book that looked like it had come from a time not so far off of when books had been carved into stone rather than printed onto paper. 

You had fallen asleep not more than a hundred-or-so pages into the story, book in hand and sheets only half-covering your tightly-curled form. 

This was the sight that The Doctor came upon, as she so-stealthily crept into her bedroom.  

Her first reaction was open-mouthed shock, of course.  She had expected to find you asleep, yes, but not like this — not quite literally surrounded by her very own belongings, from the lovely, color-changing crystal necklace she’d nicked from Planet Steppes to a bundle of tapestries and odds and ends she’d gathered from an obscure civilization on the outskirts of Andromeda.  

She very likely should have been much more upset than she was — it was her room, it was, and you had gone and made quite the mess of it.  But regardless of what she should or shouldn’t have been feeling as she stood, gobsmacked in the doorway, she could hardly help but smile. 

You were just so cute.

She stifled soft laughter into one hand as she proceeded to tiptoe into the room, sidestepping a jacket, which looked to have been tried on and then discarded. 

The situation at hand slips her mind as she spends a good few moments tidying the bed around you, and all she can think about is the wonder that must have shone in your eyes as you had inspected all of her favorite trinkets. She considers it, and the sweet smile that never failed to accompany it when you were especially enthralled, and it warms her heart. 

There’s certainly a small part of her that’s hesitant, still, about the situation as whole.  There’s not going to be any changing that.  A good amount of that hesitance certainly dwindles, though, when she gets all of the non-essential things cleared from the bed, gets changed into her own set of comfies, and pulls back the bedsheets just in time to get a full view of your face as you begin to mumble something in your sleep. She grins — she can’t help it.  She grins, and she sighs in a distinctly lovesick manner as she shakes herself from her trance and goes about wedging herself into the bed beside you. 

It’s not a tight fit, not in the least; The Doctor had always been a fussy sleeper, even when she slept on her own, and she had been sure to accommodate herself with a bed big enough to support that.  All roominess aside, though, she still finds herself hyper aware of your presence beside her; your warmth, your soft mumbling, the sound of your breath, every tiny movement — she couldn’t help but be aware of it, and while she tried her damndest to tune it out (she did, honestly), she couldn’t help but gravitate towards it. 

The moment her eyelids began to droop, she became keenly aware of every little noise you made — every hum, every murmur, every stray word. When she allowed herself to sink into the mattress, even just a little bit, she found herself lolling towards the heat of your body. 

It’s somewhere around the fifteen-minute mark (and her third bout of shaking herself away from the edge of sleep — from you), that you begin to stir.  You’re not aware of her presence immediately; you were only just coming back from a very good nap, after all. You couldn’t be blamed.  It’s not long before you do become aware of her, though, because you’ve only just woken up, and the first thing you hear is the sound of her grumbling softly.

“Blimey — “ you hear her mumble as she wriggles, trying (again) to get comfortable in her own space.  It doesn’t seem that she’s successful, though, because she stretches out again not a moment later, mumbling something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like “not getting any bloody sleep tonight”.

Your eyelashes flutter as you process the words, and there’s a crease in your brow as her frustrated expression comes into focus.

“Wh’not?” you ask on the cusp of a yawn, dropping the old book that you’d been holding, still, in favor of rubbing at one of your eyes.  She doesn’t respond to the question for a handful of seconds; she’s quiet for a spell, and then she begins to shuffle, again. You’re just about ready to repeat yourself when she looks your way and finds your eyes on her. 

“Y/N!” she says, soft.  Your name comes out sounding more like a surprised squeak than much anything else, and you snort softly. 

“Doctor,” you murmur, taking a quick moment to stretch the sleep out of your own muscles. You get comfortable again not a moment later, though, and you level her with a curious gaze.  “Why can’t you sleep?” 

The Doctor looks somewhat startled at the question.  She avoids your eyes, looking this way and that and blushing in a rather guilty fashion as she rummages for an excuse. 

“Ah, no, I’m alright — really, it’s just — I don’t—” she stammers.  She bites her lip to quiet herself a second later, though, apparently collecting her thoughts. “I suppose I’m just not used to sharing a bed, s’all.” 

It was close enough to the truth, anyways. 

The face you make, though… the startled blink, the furrow in your brow, the hesitation in your eyes — it still catches her off guard.  

“Oh,” you say. You’re the one averting your gaze, now, and it sends her backpedalling rapidly.  “D’you want me to leave, then? I can leave.” 

She doesn’t think before she speaks. 

“No!” she exclaims, propping herself up on one elbow and looking squarely at you.  She seems to realize the abruptness of her response a moment later, however, because her cheeks flush and she makes a soft, frustrated sound. “You don’t have to go, Y/N.  Really.” 

“Oh,” you say again, a touch baffled. “Alright.”  

The Doctor sighs softly, feeling quite sheepish.  Your response hadn’t been negative, but it was still clipped, still confused.  Clearly you were beginning to notice her odd behavior, and she didn’t want you feeling like you weren’t welcome, did she?  She thinks about it for a moment, about all of the TARDIS’s scolding and about her own racing mind.  And she decides to tell the truth. 

“I’ve been more worried that I would make you uncomfortable,” she admits.  Her voice is soft, and she doesn’t quite meet your eyes at first, but you hear her nonetheless.  

“What, me?” you say.  There’s laughter and disbelief in the tone of your voice, and when The Doctor does look at you again, her worry ebbs, if only a little bit. “Doctor, this is your room, and I’ve had a good sleep already. You don’t need to worry about me.” 

She laughs softly at that, watching you closely as you readjust once more, picking up the book that you’d been reading and searching out the spot where you’d left off. 

“And besides,” you say, glancing at her overtop the pages and smiling somewhat mischievously. “I don’t mind sharing space with you.  So if that’s what you’re worrying about… don’t.” 

If her cheeks hadn’t been red before, they definitely are, now.  Had that been… a hint of flirtation?  Surely she was imagining things, wasn’t she? 

Right on cue, the TARDIS begins to grumble at the edge of her mind, as if telling her to knock it off.  She can’t help but smile. 

“Alright then,” she says, as noncommittally as she can manage. There’s a bit of residual nervousness, of course, but the look of you, the smile on your face and your content posture… it puts her at ease. 

It’s uncharacteristically quiet for a moment afterwards, as she makes herself comfortable and you settle back into your reading.  It’s not a terribly long time before she begins to feel sleep settle over her once again, and she breathes a soft sigh as she nestles against the pillows beside you. 

“Thanks, Y/N,” she mutters, as she allows herself to drift.  The last thing she hears before she falls asleep is your soft laughter. 

“Don’t thank me,” you say, and inch just a little bit closer to her as you settle in. 

✦

Sometime later, The Doctor wakes slowly.   Her hair is a terrible mess, the sheets around her have been kicked into disarray, and there’s a crusty bit of sleep clouding her eyes, still.  Clearly, it had been a good nap. 

It’s only as she makes an attempt to turn over, however, that she realizes why, exactly, that is. 

Beside her, you’re still reading intently.  Your eyes are bleary, your head is propped a bit awkwardly against a couple of pillows, and in the midst of your fascination with the story, you’ve slunk down beneath the covers beside her. 

That’s not what catches her attention, though.  It’s all captivating, obviously, all on its own, but what really holds her interest is the arm you’ve got curled around her shoulders.  Her head is resting comfortably near your collarbone, and as she comes to recognize her surroundings fully, she can feel every inch of your body, too, pressed warmly against her own. 

Her cheeks flush bright red in an instant, and she doesn’t move another inch. 

She doesn’t let herself tense, though, no — she doesn’t want to soil the moment.  The warmth, the closeness, your arm wrapped almost protectively around her… it’s nice.  More than nice. It’s comforting.  She’s craved it, and she’s not about to cut it short. 

Instead of addressing it, she lets out a soft breath and very, very carefully, she turns closer to you.  She lays her arm across your stomach and closes her eyes once more, nestling close.  

having a REALLY bad day? here’s some soft julian for comfort’s sake 

True as that was, though, you weren’t currently in the sort of situation that allowed for you to pause and lick your wounds, and you weren’t a child, anyways; you could knuckle through a little bit of pain. And that aside, the last thing that you needed was for The Doctor to have to stop doing what he was doing to worry about you. Though he would deny it, his priorities in general could go a bit askew from time to time, and if there was anything that he could never, ever bring himself to put on the back-burner, it was your safety.

As things sat, your distracting him would have meant his choosing between your comfort and the safety of the thousand-and-some-odd beings onboard the ship that he was currently using the TARDIS to tow out of the atmosphere of a planet doomed to implode on itself (and thus take everything and everyone nearby with it).  Obviously, you weren’t willing to let it become an issue.

It wasn’t as though your injuries were urgent, anyways — they weren’t. You weren’t seriously maimed or bleeding. You could still walk, and you could still breathe — well, for the most part. Any amount of pain had always had a tendency to knock the breath out of you, and today was no exception.

You’d have been lying through your teeth, though, if you’d said that you hadn’t been in a bit of a fog since you’d boarded the TARDIS.  You hadn’t allowed the full extent of it to hit you until then — until you were somewhere safe, familiar. The Doctor didn’t need your help anymore, not here, and so you had taken it on your own authority to sit yourself down for a breather.  Sitting seemed to help stifle the throbbing pain in your ribs that had yet to fade — that you weren’t sure would fade anytime soon, if you were honest. It was only so often that you were thrown sideways into a wall like a rag doll, after all.

“Well! I think that well and truly deserves a Geronimo, (Y/N), don’t you?” you hear The Doctor call to you from the other side of the console, and even despite your hunched over, close-eyed state, you snort. The next thing that you hear is his enthusiastic schpeel to the passengers of the rescued ship, so you don’t make the most enthusiastic effort to respond.

“Yeah, yeah,” you acknowledge him, voice hushed. “Geronimo.”

While he busies himself giving instructions to the passengers — be cautious, stay safely onboard the spacecraft, etcetera etcetera — you adjust your position in your seat beside the console. You have to bite down hard on your lower lip to stifle a low whine when the movement aggravates what you’re mostly certain will end up being couple of broken ribs, and you’re grateful in that moment that The Doctor’s attention is elsewhere. You’re almost certainly wearing your pain on your face, and keeping his suspicion at bay would have been infinitely more difficult had he been paying closer attention.

You predicament only gets worse when the TARDIS gives a rattle as she comes to a stop, and you can’t say for certain that you don’t black out for a solid few moments as she gives a final sputter of effort.  You hear The Doctor speaking once more the moment you’re able to focus again, but that’s not the only thing you hear. As you force your focus to stay concentrated upon your labored breathing you also notice the TARDIS making a few choice noises — insistent and agitated beeps and whirs that you can just tell are directed at you.  

You make a face at that and shake your head.

“Shut it,” you murmur, gesturing sharply with one hand. The last thing you needed her cluing The Doctor in to your pain, or — goodness forbid — the trouble breathing that you were currently dealing with. If the reveal didn’t come from you he would only be more upset, and it was only going to be a moment or two more, wasn’t it? You would be able address it soon. You wouldn’t have a choice but to tell him regardless (since you would be in no shape for further adventuring anytime soon) and it was really no big deal — that’s what you kept telling yourself.

The ribs that you were absolutely certain you had cracked at this point had other ideas, however.

The TARDIS gives a much more insistent, higher pitched groan as she sputters to a stop, and between that and the abruptness with which you sit up to shush her, you can’t even begin to stifle the sound that’s forced out of you.

You cry out, and the sound of it is something in between a grunt and a strangled scream. Your first instinct is to cover it up somehow, but even that is pushed to the back burner by the pain thats blossomed outward from your injured left side.

“Oh, bloody hell,” you whimper, eyes screwed shut as you do the best you can to catch your breath. Beneath the sting of pain there’s a horrid sensation — something of a grind, like something has gone and shifted violently out of place. You think, at the back of your mind, that you hear the TARDIS give another (much louder) chirp, but before you can even consider it, you hear The Doctor’s voice.

“(Y/N)?!” he calls, and before you know it, he’s at your side with a hand on each of your shoulders. “(Y/N), darling, what is it? What’s wrong?”

You shake your head, forcing yourself to smile through the agony as you meet his gaze. “It’s nothing,” you start, but before you can say anymore, he scoffs.

“Oh yes, that’s right, because you double over and shout bloody murder all the time,” he quips, and you look at him, wide-eyed and startled.  You’re rather surprised to find him smiling in spite of his sarcasm, and you shake your head, forcing a sigh out through your clenched teeth.  “Now tell me what’s going on, would you?”

He brushes a bit of hair back from your face with one hand as he presses for information, and it’s then, approximately, that you give in and let your guard down. He obviously knows that there’s something wrong at this point, and you know very well that he isn’t going to let it go until you explain.

“Blimey, it’s just — it’s my ribs, I think,” you admit, and move one hand to cover the offending spot. “When we were in the tunnels, and those — those snake-y things came up through the ground, I hit one of the rock walls quite bloody hard.”

He makes an almost offended sound in response, glancing between your hand on your ribs and your face as he looks you over.

“You never said anything, did you?” he begins, and touches the back of your hand gingerly. It takes everything in you not to wince at that alone, but you smile and acknowledge his question a quick shake of your head regardless, hissing as he begins nudging you gently backwards. The console seat doesn’t allow for you to stretch out very much, and to sat that you were grateful for it would have been a massive understatement.  Every inch you move intensifies the pain, and you’re not sure you’d be able to handle unfurling yourself completely.

“No, I —“ you begin, but pause to catch your breath as he prods at your side very, very gently. “I didn’t, because so many other people’s lives were on the line, and I couldn’t — I wasn’t going to get in the way of you saving all of them.”

The look he gives you in response to that is one of absolute bewilderment.  There’s an intensity in his eyes as he stares you down for a moment, and you’re just getting to the point where you feel a bit like squirming under the scrutiny when he finally breaks his stunned silence.

“That’s… that is completely absurd.  You’re completely absurd,” he snips, looking at least mildly annoyed as he lays his hand overtop of yours, atop your very injured ribs.  You narrow your eyes at that, and a tiny twinge of hurt rears its head as you struggle to process what he’s telling you.  It doesn’t last terribly long, though, because he’s quick to follow the insult up with something that lands much differently. “(Y/N), your safety is more important to me than anyone’s. I don’t care if it’s a city, a planet, or a galaxy — you’ve got to tell me when you’re hurt!”

It takes you a good second or two to process what he’s said, but the moment it settles with you, you blink.  Various emotions come crashing over you like a tidal wave, and it certainly isn’t easy to take it all in at once. There’s a warm fondness (thanks to his protective streak) , a tiny swell of pride (because he’d definitely just proven you right), and last but not least, an overwhelming feeling of love (for very obvious reasons).  The result of it all is a chill on your skin and a gathering of tears in your eyes, and while you breathe a shaky sigh out through your teeth, he mumbles under his breath and proceeds to lift your hand away from your ribs as carefully as he can.

“That’s exactly why I didn’t, though,” you argue, though it admittedly doesn’t have a whole lot of fight to it. How could it, after all?  “Making sure all of those people were out of trouble was more important than some painkillers that I could wait an hour for.”

He continues to grumble halfheartedly, first in response to your argument and then even more so as he so a he fiddles with your tee-shirt, moving it out of the way so that he can properly see the damage done to your body.  You look away at the same moment, almost as though you’re still trying to deny how bad the pain really is.

“And that, (Y/N), is one of the things I love best about you. You’re selfless, so selfless. It’s to a fault sometimes, though, because this is not the kind of thing you should be hiding!” he exclaims.  The abruptness with which he raises his voice startles you, and on instinct alone, you look back toward the thing that has him so upset.  The sight of it startles you as much as much as it seems to have riled him up, and your wince as you take it in.

There’s not a doubt remaining in your mind that your ribs are broken; your entire left side is a startling shade of burgundy fading to purple, and the darkest bit of color centers around that one spot, where you’d been sure you’d felt that sick grinding sensation earlier.  It knocks the breath out of you, a bit, as though the pain alone hadn’t been more than enough to do that.

“Fuck,” you swear, and shake your head as you look away.  

“Quite right,” he mutters.  You think for a second that he’s going to continue his irritated rambling, but to your surprise, he doesn’t.  He goes on doing what he’s doing in silence for a good moment or two, and the most you hear out of him is a mildly frustrated sigh.

“Darling,” he calls out to the room, and before you can think to question who he’s talking to, you feel something odd. The sensation almost feels like a blanket of very low voltage electricity settling over your skin, and it gives you goosebumps. The majority of your hair stand on end, too, but as quickly as it manifests itself, it’s gone.  You’re about to ask what’s just happened, but before you have the chance there’s a display flickering to life at your side; a display that looks very much like a digital recreation of your body.  Well — the shape of your body, anyways.  There’s no detail to the flickering image apart from a skeletal system, but even that focuses primarily upon the injured bit of you.  

“Thank you, Dear,” The Doctor muses, and proceeds to examine the image himself.  You realize, then, that he had been addressing the TARDIS, who had seemed to know from the get-go that you were quite seriously injured.  You hear her give a self-satisfied chirp in response to The Doctor’s thanks, and at that, you roll your eyes good-naturedly.

“How bad is it?” you ask in a quieted voice — a voice that, for all intents and purposes, says “okay, you were right and I was very, very wrong“.

“Bad,” he says simply, and you meet his gaze with a frown. “There’s nothing punctured and nothing bleeding, but you’ve got two broken ribs.”

You make a face at that.  You had hoped at the very least that you would be able to keep it to one broken rib — or better, none at all.

“Blast it,” you mutter, and then groan when he waves hologram-you away and turns his attention back on your real, physical body.  He moves to rest one hand across the violent blossoms of red and purple and blue that decorate your skin, and for a solid moment or two, he does nothing but look at you. You’re about to ask if there’s anything else you should know when he heaves a sigh, removes his hand, and drags his fingers through his hair in an exasperated manner.

“I’m perfectly capable of multitasking, you know.  One of the best, if I do say so myself. I excel at multitasking,” he complains, and you blink. “And frankly, I’m offended that you would think otherwise.  How long have we been together, (Y/N)?”

The longer The Doctor rambles the more frantic he looks, and even though you know that he’s genuinely upset, you can’t help but giggle (even if it does hurt like hell).  There’s also a tiny part of you that does pirouettes at the way he phrases things; “how long have we been together?” Like you’re an old, bickering married couple.  Even though that’s almost certainly not the way he intends it to come across — because goodness knows he’s never been one to blatantly acknowledge whatever feelings might be festering between himself and anyone he cares about — it makes you feel warm inside.

Together.

“And now you’re laughing at me!” he accuses you, and it only makes you laugh (and by extension, wince) even more. “Really, (Y/N), do you not trust me to take care of you and keep our immediate surroundings from going up in flames?”

“Of course I do,” you tell him, and he drops his hands to your knees, then, finally breaking out into a smile as he kneels before you.

“Then, for the sake of anything and everything good, let me know when you need to be cared for,” he insists, and you snort.

“Alright, alright! You don’t have to lecture me anymore,” you tease, moving as best you can to lay your hands over top of his.  “I think I’ve learned my lesson.”

You feel him turn his hands over, then, and you smile as you feel his fingertips brush your wrists, and then your palms as he moves to stand.

“You better have,” he says with an accusatory finger pointed in your direction, and you only grin.  “Right.  Now that I can get on patching you up, I think it’d be best if we laid you down.  There’s not a terrible lot I nor anyone else can do for a pair of broken ribs, but sitting around all curled over in this uncomfortable old seat is going to do even less to help you.  Does that sound alright?”

You keep a watchful eye on him, smiling privately as he goes on about your options, and when he looks your way for an opinion, you give a nod of agreement on instinct.  Your second instinct kicks in soon enough, though, and you make a rather pitiful sound as you consider what getting to your bedroom is going entail.

“Lying down sounds lovely, but getting there is going to be significantly less,” you point out reluctantly.  He seems to soften a bit at that, and he nods his head as he surveys you, evidently looking for solutions to your problem.  

“That’s not a bad point,” he admits, and you sigh softly.  There’s a part of you that regrets not stumbling off to your bedroom straight away; you had certainly thought about it, when you had still been making a significant effort to keep your condition under wraps.  While The Doctor would still have found out (because the TARDIS would have tattled on you, you were certain), it would have made this part of things a great deal easier.  

“I might just be able to make it easier, though,” he suggests, and you cast a curious glance his way.  You don’t get the chance to ask him what he means before he’s coming back your way and kneeling down once again.  He holds his arms out in front of him, then, and looks at you expectantly.  You look back at him, bewildered for a good couple of seconds.  “C’mon, then, all aboard,” he urges, and you blink.

It hits you, then, that his intention is to carry you to your room, and your cheeks turn a very warm shade of pink very quickly.

“Oh — alright, yeah,” you stammer, stamping down the immediate urge to ask him whether or not he’s sure of this particular plan.  The better part of you is screaming at you to shut up and let it play out, anyhow, and in the end you wind up following its demand.  It’s a bit of a process for you to even sit up straight, let alone to rotate enough that you can tuck your knees into your chest, but you manage, and soon enough, The Doctor slips his arms underneath of you and scoops you up.

He’s careful and particular as he tucks you in against his chest, making certain that he doesn’t agitate your injured ribs or jostle you too much as he stands up.  The state of you must very well stifle your own restraint, too, because the moment he has you settled into his arms you lean into him, tucking your head into the crook of his neck and resting that way.  The pair of you aren’t physically affectionate very often, after all, so it’s definitely to your surprise when he turns his head and presses his cheek to your forehead.

“You see? It’s better when you let me dote on you, isn’t it?” he says in a tone of voice that’s clearly playful.  You can hardly help but smile, absolutely smitten as you nod your head and bring one hand to rest upon his chest, just below the deep purple bowtie he’s taken to wearing recently.

“Yeah, yeah… I suppose,” you sigh, intentionally dramatic in both voice and attitude.  You hear (and feel) him laugh as he begins walking, around the console and up the stairs toward your bedroom.  

It’s not a lengthy trek, and you’re thankful; The Doctor’s stride is long and no matter how careful he is his steps jostle you just a little more than your aching ribs might have liked. Soon enough, he’s lying you down atop your bedsheets as gently as he can manage.  He takes a moment to brush your hair back from your eyes again once he has you situated, just the way he had done earlier, and your heart skips a beat (maybe two) at that.

“Now that that bit’s handled.,” he says, straightening both his jacket and his bowtie as he gets to his feet. “I’ll be back in a mo.  I might not be a proper medical doctor, but I do have a few things that can help.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to respond before he’s off, hurrying back down the stairs and (assumably) into one of the TARDIS’s many storage room to retrieve the items that he’d mentioned.   You snicker as you watch him go, quietly amused at the way that he seems so intent on playing nurse. You don’t mind it a bit  — you don’t think you could mind it if you tried.  The Doctor is always busy, both in body and in soul, and to be at the center of his attention is a gift in itself.  

It’s not thirty seconds after you’ve laid your head back against the pillows before he’s back, with a smile on his face and the aforementioned supplies in hand.

“Alright, The Doctor is in!” he announces, and the sheer cheesiness of it startles a laugh out of you (and by extension, a low, pained whine). He shoots you an apologetic look, then, shrugging his shoulders as he gets to his knees at your bedside once more.  “Sorry — that joke never gets old, does it?  I don’t think so, at least.”

“No, I don’t think so, either,” you agree, and smile as he begins laying his makeshift first-aid supplies out across the nightstand at your bedside. You make your best effort to sprawl out a bit more while he does so; he can’t exactly tend to your injuries with you curled up as you’ve consistently been since the incident.  It takes an immense amount of concentration on your part not to wince or groan or tear up, but you manage it, and the next time you look at The Doctor, you find him watching you intently.

“I really, honestly can’t believe you sometimes, (Y/N),” he remarks, and you blink. “And that’s a bloody feat, isn’t it?  There’s not a lot of things left in the universe that surprise me.”

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” you argue without much fight, assuming that he’s still caught on you keeping this entire issue to yourself for such a long time.  You’d already accepted the fact that you had made a mistake, and you weren’t much up to hearing any more on the matter.

“No — I mean, yes, you did! And apology accepted,” he says hastily, shaking his head as he goes about nudging your tee-shirt out of the way as carefully as he can manage. “That’s not what I meant, though. I was just talking about you - generally, yes? Good.”

With that he turns his focus back on the supplies and picks out a particular-looking tube of something or other, and before you have the chance to ask what it is, he’s unscrewing the cap and gathering a fair amount onto his fingertips.  You wince, at first, when he takes the goopy something-or-other and begins applying it to the bruised bits of your skin, but it’s not even a few seconds later that all of the pain you’ve been dealing with begins to subside significantly. What had been an eleven or a twelve on your scale upon boarding the TARDIS rapidly drops to a nine, and then a seven, and then maybe a four.  

“Oh — alright?” you say, your voice soft and a bit high-pitched due to your surprise on both accounts.  “What’s—“

“Embulicaine — numbing agent.  Basically a lot like novocaine, but much, much stronger and a whole lot more effective,” he explains before you can finish asking.  You purse your lips and nod your head; you suppose you should probably have expected that an extraterrestrial first-aid kit would definitely contain a few things well beyond your Earth’s time.  

“Right,” you acknowledge him, watching with interest as he finishes up with the miraculous gel and trades it for what looks like a very large gauze pad,  which he proceeds lay across your ribcage.  He then gathers a wet washcloth to pat the thing down with, and to your surprise, it seems to adhere to your skin with that alone.  You shake your head a bit at that, smiling an awed smile as you admire both his work and the the supplies itself.  You look away a moment later, though, in favor of laying your head back into your pillows and closing your eyes.

You don’t expect him to elaborate upon what he had said earlier, not exactly — he’s not one to open up and be vulnerable at any capacity, and forcing it upon him usually doesn’t get you very far.  To your surprise, though, he rounds back on the subject of his own accord, a minute or so later.

“What I meant when I said I couldn’t believe you was — well. Just that. You’re human. So human. But you’re always going and acting like so much more — like no one I’ve ever met before, putting everything and everyone else before yourself,” he comments, and you have to fight the urge to open your eyes up wide and turn your startled gaze on him that second.  If there’s one thing you’ve learned in all your time with The Doctor, it’s that he can be a bit like a caged animal with his feelings, and if you rattle the bars, he’s likely to shy away or bite.  

“Oh, I don’t know,” you muse, opening your eyes and looking up at the ceiling for a brief moment. You close them again as you speak your next words, however, doing what you can to look and sound as noncommital as possible. “I think that sounds a little bit like someone else I know.”

You hear him scoff at that. The next thing you feel is his hands smoothing over the bandage as he finishes up applying it, followed moments later by a shock of cold that makes you suck a breath in through your teeth.  

“Well, you aren’t wrong, but that’s not the point,” he supplies, and it’s then that you turn your gaze back on him.  A smile plays on your lips as you watch him, no longer working, but instead looking intently down at the ice pack (the thing you assume is an ice pack, anyways) as he speaks. “You’re bloody strong, (Y/N), that’s what I’m saying.  And it well and truly shocks me all the time.”

A rosy color heats up your cheeks for the second time in an hour as you process his comment, and the intensity of it only grows as he looks your way and smiles an unusually vulnerable smile.

“And while I’m very much not in support of this hiding-potentially-life-threatening-injuries-from-The-Doctor idea, I’m also unbelievably proud of who and what you are,” he concludes, and to say that you were overcome with butterflies and gratitude and unabashed happiness in the moment would have been putting it incredibly lightly.

“Thanks, Doctor,” you say softly, and he nods his head, shying away once more in favor of gathering up his first aid supplies and dumping it all back into a pile on your nightstand.

Not much is said for a good few moments, but you don’t mind; it’s a good opportunity to take it all in — the day’s events, the overall state of you, The Doctor’s rare openness... it’s all quite overwhelming, as a whole, and a moment of quiet is exactly what you need.

And The Doctor seems to agree, because as soon as he has things sorted, he kicks off his shoes and rounds the bed.

“Right then,” he says as he rolls onto the mattress next to you. He shuffles up behind you, careful as ever as he cuddles right up with one long arm slung over your shoulders.

It’s a pleasant surprise, and you raise an eyebrow as you turn your head as well as you’re able to look at him.

“What’s all this?” you ask. “Not that I’m complaining. I’m definitely not complaining, but—“

“Next of The Doctor’s orders. Now hush,” he insists, and you snort.

“Alright, alright,” you muse, and settle in once more.

“As proud of it as I might be, all of your bravery scares the hell out of me sometimes,” he reasons, and you laugh softly.

“Fair enough,” you murmur.

“I think Y/N is right,” Graham pipes up, and you turn to cast a smile his way, grateful for his acknowledgement. 

“Could be fun, anyways, couldn’t it?” Yaz says, and you nod your head happily as you meet her gaze. 

“Right?” you reply, and then turn toward The Doctor, who appears to be cautiously surveying the area as she so often does upon finding herself someplace new.  “I thought so too!  Like a bit of dress up. What’dya say, Doctor?” 

“Eh,” she says with a shrug, and you don’t make an effort to hide the disappointment on your face at that. “I reckon I’m alright,” she goes on to say, sparing a glance back at the four of you. She smiles in a quietly amused way as she meets your eyes, first, and then looks on to the rest of the group to take in their reactions.

“Oh, c’mon, love,” you tease. You don’t hesitate to pout a bit when her eyes find yours once more. You’ve had to put in a bit of work to get your way with her in the past — surely it wouldn’t be all that hard to persuade her today.  “Have a bit of fun, won’t you?  You never play dress up with us.” 

The Doctor makes a face in response to that, something still a little amused but quite a bit offended, too.  She’s about to respond (more than likely with something witty, as is her trademark), but Ryan cuts her off before she gets the chance. 

“Maybe because she may as well be playing dress-up with her usual getup, eh?” he suggests with a smirk, and she abruptly turns a not-at-all-amused glare on him. 

“Oi! Don’t go dissing the getup,” she retorts, pointing an accusatory finger in his direction. “If anything, you lot dress way too casually to be traveling through time and space.” 

“It’s not an insult, though — just a fact,” Yaz pipes up. “Your style is a whole lot quirkier than any of ours.” 

There’s a smile on her face, and Graham’s (even despite the fact that everything else about his expression clearly says “I’m not about to get involved in this conversation”). You can see in The Doctor’s eyes that she wants to argue her point further, but you don’t let it get that far.  You’re in a bleedin’ castle, for goodness sake, and you’re not about to let the opportunity to feel a bit like royalty pass you by. 

“Well, no matter who’s coming with!  I’m going to have a go at the wardrobe,” you declare, flashing first The Doctor and then the rest of the gang a happy smile as you turn on your heel to head back in the direction of the TARDIS. Yaz, Ryan, and Graham are hot on your heels, evidently very onboard with your plan, and the moment The Doctor realizes that she’s the only one not on the way back into the TARDIS, she groans out loud. 

“Oh, fine,” she grumbles, finally pocketing her screwdriver and hurrying to catch up with the lot of you.  You’re not entirely sure if she actually plans to take part in the dressing up bit, but you hope nonetheless; she’s never been one to allow herself to be left out, after all. And that aside… while you would never freely admit it, you would definitely have liked to see her in a manner of dress from this century. You happened to know for a fact the ladies’ attire consisted of tightly-laced dresses  with an abundance of lace and flowing skirts, and blimey — wouldn’t that have been a sight.  

The five of you make it into the wardrobe in just a few minutes’ time, and in a few seconds’ time the racks and racks of clothing are being rifled through like nobody’s business. You definitely hear the TARDIS spout a dissatisfied vworp or two at that, but you don’t pay it any mind; you’ve seen The Doctor in the midst of the occasional wardrobe change a few times before, and you’re certain that the chaos of this is nothing new for her. 

Yaz and Ryan are deep in the throws of a discussion about proper fashion for the seventeenth century while Graham quietly looks through different sections of clothing, and you can hardly help but smile at the sight of it — of everyone looking so genuinely pleased.  It’s something that the lot of you don’t do often enough, you think, the dressing up bit; there’ve been plenty of times that you’ve all gone back (or forward) to periods of time with a dress entirely different from your time’s, but you can count the times you’ve actually dressed for the occasion on one hand, and in your opinion, there’s something very off about that particular ratio. 

You’re only just beginning to venture into your own little corner of the TARDIS’s wardrobe when a familiar hand finds yours, effectively stopping your progress before it begins. 

“Is this dressed up enough for ya, love?” The Doctor asks. There’s a hint of sarcasm to her voice, but the swell of excitement that bubbles up in your chest is instantaneous nonetheless. All of your own plans to find an outfit go forgotten as you whirl around to face her, more than excited to see what sort of costume she’s drummed up.  You wind up thoroughly surprised, in the end; it’s due in part to the fact that she had actually, properly dressed up, yes, but there’s also the fact that  she’s dressed rather a lot like a pirate. 

You weren’t sure what you should have expected. 

“It’s… it’s dressed up, alright,” you admit, taking a step back in favor of having a good look at her.  In her defense, she definitely doesn’t look bad. It’s just… 

“It’s very appropriate, if I do say so myself,” she says with a proud smile, brushing what dust she can manage off of the old clothes.  

All of your own shock aside, you mirror her smile, because blimey… it might not be what you had expected, but she just looks so chuffed with herself, and in the same way that she manages to wear her quirky everyday clothing like some leggy model wearing Gucci, she pulls the whole look off rather effortlessly. 

“It might be a bit… Captain Hook, if I’m totally honest,” you say, reaching out to touch the shoulder of the outfit.  It looks to consist of several layers top to bottom, and none of them look particularly soft, or comfortable — not apart from the silky-looking shirt underneath, anyways. 

“Now that’s just inaccurate,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. The look on her face is something of a pout, and it only softens the smile on your face. 

“Is it?” you ask in a manner equal parts rhetoric and a bit flirtatious, dragging your fingertips across her shoulder, toward her collarbone. You toy with the ruffled collar of her shirt for a moment, watching her expression closely as you do so.  She drops her arms to her sides (without much thinking about it, it seems) and leans in a bit closer to you; she still looks mildly offended, but it’s definitely a bit softer than it had been moments before. 

“Yes, it is!  If I’m any character in that particular story, it’s obviously Peter himself,” she insists. Her smile has begun to break through her stony expression by now, and you cock your head to one side, faux curious as you admire it. 

“Oh, obviously, hm?” you echo her, pure innocence as you touch the lapels of her hefty coat with your idle hand.  

She seems to catch onto your ruse, then, because rather than arguing the point any further she spares a glance down at your hands on her, watching them with interest for a moment before meeting your gaze with narrowed eyes.  

“You—!” she begins, pointing a very accusatory finger your way.  She’s grinning regardless, though, and you grin right along with her as you watch the gleam in her eyes rekindle along with the full warmth of her smile.  “You just wanted to get a rise out of me!” 

She leans in closer to you, still, as she reaches her conclusion, and you shrug your shoulders as she shifts from waggling that finger in your face to tracing your jawline with it.  

“It worked, didn’t it?” you ask. She rolls her eyes and bops the tip of your nose with that same fingertip. 

“Always does, with you,” she admits, and leans in to give your lips a soft kiss. 

You smile into it, promptly gripping the collar of her shirt with both hands and holding on tightly. 

The kiss has only just begun to deepen when from a few feet away, there’s a chorus of faux-disgusted noises, coming from both Yaz and Ryan.  

“Are you pair sure you wouldn’t rather just get a bloody room and let us do all the exploring?” Yaz asks, and you pull away from The Doctor with a snort. 

“Right, like I’m going to let you lot gallivant about a literal castle without me,” you say, rolling your eyes at your friends. You don’t part from The Doctor before you’ve planted one more sugar-sweet kiss on her lips, however — how could you? 

It doesn’t take you a very long to find a dress on the rack that you like, and before you know it you’re dressed to the nines. The outfit you’ve picked out is proper extravagant, complete with a full, heavy hoop skirt and a very real corset.  The corset bit had been a bit of a challenge, because you had never had to lace a corset before, and as it had turned out, neither had The Doctor. What it had come down to had been you and Yaz and The Doctor fussing over the old thing for around 20 minutes while Graham and Ryan has sat off to the side, laughing themselves blue in the face. 

“ThisIs the reason I’ve never made a real effort to figure out women’s fashion,” The Doctor had muttered, trying her best to keep your corset in place while Yaz had tugged at its lacing. “Well, this and the fact that I didn’t actually have any reason to think about it for a thousand-plus years.” 

“I’m just glad I didn’t grow up in this century,” Yaz had grunted, tugging harder. “No bloody way I’d do this every day. I’d sooner die.” 

“I can’t breathe,” you had wheezed, because at that moment the corset had gotten just a little bit too tight. 

It had all come together in the end, after a whole lot of sweat and likely a few tears on your part, and you had a whole lot more fun with the accessorizing part of things. Apparently the people of the seventeenth century were big fans of jewelry and ornamentation, and being able to deck yourself out in lace and (very) gaudy jewelry had been more fun than you could have imagined. 

Following the struggle with your dress Yaz had chosen to follow The Doctor’s lead and stick to the men’s typical dress. It left you the odd man out, but you didn’t mind very much — you had always been one to enjoy sticking out a bit, anyways. 

Something like forty-five minutes later you were on your way out once again, and this time, stepping into the regal-looking building, you felt absolutely ecstatic. You allow yourself to have a bit of fun with the whole thing, twirling this way and that as you take a handful of steps outside of the TARDIS. 

“That’s definitely more like it,” you say, much more to yourself than to anyone else.  You hear your mates laugh from a few feet behind you regardless, though, and it only causes your smile to grow. 

“You look a bit like a princess, Y/N,”  Graham comments, and you grin, full on. 

“I rather feel like one,” you say, lifting the skirt of your dress up just a bit and giving one final twirl about. 

“I might be jealous if I didn’t know full well that you can’t breathe properly right now,” Yaz pipes up, and you snort, because it’s not entirely untrue. 

“It’s pretty well worth it though, I reckon,” you say, and when you hear The Doctor give a thoughtful hum, you look her way.  You find her eyeing you up, not the least bit subtle, and your cheeks grow warm at that. 

“I have to agree,” she says, and you giggle bashfully as you backtrack a bit, happily returning to her side. She takes your hand in hers and presses a rather sweet kiss to your knuckles, and you couldn’t be more content. 

“So,” Ryan chimes in, making to tuck his hands into his jumper’s pockets as he so often does, and promptly giving up when he remembers that the eccentric outfit he’s wearing does not, in fact, have proper pockets. “Where to?” 

—————-> ————————-> 

You only get a bit of wandering about done, in the end. As it so often goes, things begin to go askew not far into your little escapade. 

You’ve wandered a hallway or two, and spent a good little while marveling at the castle and all of its showy trinkets before there’s really any problems. 

You had only just finished struggling to navigate a very large, very lavish spiral staircase (with very little help from your weighty dress) when you had come to what had looked like an exit, and you had all been excited, because the outside of the castle had looked just as dazzling as the inside. As it had happened, though, it’d been just as you’d made your way out into what looked quite a bit like a large, lovely courtyard that you’d run into trouble.  

Well — it’s not trouble, not really. Not compared to some of the extraterrestrial things that you tended to run into, anyhow.  What you come upon is a sizable group of what could very well be guards, and it’s not very long before they make a point of posing an obstacle. 

“Oi, stop right there,” one of them commands, and pulls a sword from his belt. You blink, startled, and stay close to your friends, who all take a few stumbled steps backward. 

“How come we didn’t think to pick up a couple of swords?” Ryan hisses under his breath, and you hear The Doctor scoff. 

“Don’t be stupid, Ryan,” she says under her breath. “Swords are just big knives, and—“ 

“—only idiots carry knives,” you finish for her, and she flashes you a smile. 

“Exactly right, Y/N,” she says, reaching for your hand and giving it a comforting squeeze before righting herself and slipping toward the front of the group in favor of addressing the guards. She raises a hand in greeting and her smile is as friendly as ever as she speaks up. 

“Why hello, gentleman,” she greets them. She doesn’t flinch when every last one of them raises their swords — how, you don’t think you’ll ever understand. “My sincerest apologies — there’s really no need for all of that. My mates and I have gotten a bit turned around, you see. We were just making our way out.” 

The explanation is as confident and smooth as ever, but the guards don’t seem to be buying it. The entire group is still on the offense, weapons poised and gazes suspicious as they eye the lot of you up. 

A few of them begin to mutter amongst themselves, gesturing between The Doctor and Yaz, and you’d have been willing to bet that they were discussing your friends’ manner of dress.  It wasn’t exactly typical, after all, for two women to be roaming around dressed like men. 

“Very well, madam,” one of them says with clear disdain, and inwardly, you roll your eyes, because of course you’d been right. “But I’m much more concerned with how exactly you wound up inside of a royal residence — you must agree that it’s all quite suspicious.”

You share an irritated look with Yaz at that, because it all feels absurd, frankly. 

“I knew it was a castle,” Ryan says under his breath as he gives you an excited nudge or two with one elbow. The Doctor, however; scoffs, clearly having caught onto the guard’s condescending attitude. 

“I always forget how you lot treat women in this day and age,” she grumbles, and you smirk. “I just told you, didn’t I? We got turned around. We aren’t exactly from around these parts.” 

She’s a bit more insistent than friendly, this time around, and you don’t blame her. If you and Yaz aren’t used to being treated like second class citizens because of your gender, then The Doctor certainly wouldn’t have been accustomed. 

The look of the guard indicates that his next response won’t be anything different, and The Doctor seems to be onto that already, because the next thing she does is reach into her overcoat for her psychic paper. 

“Look, I’ve got identification right here, yes? Official tour guide at your service, lads,” she begins. 

You blink at that, because typically, The Doctor would certainly have picked a title more official than “tour guide”.   That’s not the first thing you notice, however, because in the same moment that The Doctor pulls out her psychic paper, her sonic catches on the little wallet and takes a tumble out of her coat. 

It hits the ground with a soft thud, and your eyes go wide at that, because it doesn’t just hit the ground and lay at her feet, no; it hits the ground and rolls forward, toward the group of armed guards. You open your mouth to warn her on instinct, but it doesn’t do a terrible lot of good. She hasn’t noticed yet that her screwdriver has gone rogue, and by the time you’re able to give her a subtle tap on the shoulder, it’s too late. 

One of the guards takes notice of the small, silvery device that’s landed by his feet, and he momentarily lowers his sword in favor of of stooping to pick it up. 

It takes The Doctor a good bit longer to notice, as she’s both attempting to figure out what you’d been trying to tell her and making her best effort to chat all of you out of the sticky situation you were currently in, but she catches on soon enough. 

“Sir, take a look at this,” the man who had picked up the sonic says, gesturing with it to draw his superior’s attention.  The head of the group of guards pauses mid-accusation to take a look, and, well — its all downhill from there. 

“What in the lord’s name—“ he begins, but pauses to stare in awe when he accidentally hits the one of screwdriver’s two buttons and its tip begins to spin and glow its warm golden color.  

“It fell from her doublet,” the lower-ranking guard explains, and each and every guard’s gaze snaps toward The Doctor, who still looks a tad startled. 

“Well, I’m not surprised she’s keeping secrets,” he mumbles, eyes narrowed as he gives first The Doctor, and then the rest of you yet another judgmental once-over. The Doctor scoffs at that, tucking her psychic paper away once more and gesturing toward her sonic. 

“First of all, no secrets — I’ve not been lying to you,” she points out. “Secondly — that’s my screwdriver and I’d like it back, please.” 

Both the guard and his troop look spectacularly confused at that. He proceeds to flip the screwdriver over in his hands, hitting the button a time or two more as he does so. 

“Screw... driver,” he mutters, and you hear The Doctor grumble at that. 

“Blimey, that’s right — your average screwdriver doesn’t come about until the 1930s,” she grunts. She recovers soon enough, though, and it’s not long before she’s smiling at the guards once more. “Doesn’t matter, though. Sir, that device won’t be of any use nor value to you. It also doesn’t belong to you. Now, can I please have it back so that my friends and I can be on our way?” 

“I don’t think so, Miss. You’re trespassing on these grounds,” the guard says, and promptly tucks The Doctor’s sonic into his coat.  “You may well have stolen this artifact, for all we know.” 

“I believe we would do well to check in with our Lord about all of this, sir,” a third guard suggests, gesturing toward the lot of you. 

The Doctor makes a clearly frustrated noise in response to that, and she looks as though she’s going to argue, but the small troop of guards doesn’t give her the opportunity to do so. 

“Quite right. You and your... friends are going to need to come with us,” their leader goes on to say. The Doctor rolls her eyes at that but turns her gaze on you all nonetheless, looking mildly apologetic. 

“M’afraid we’ll have to do what they tell us for the time being, gang,” she says, and the group collectively sighs. 

“S’always something, innit?” Graham says, and you snort softly. 

“Oi, we’ll get to see more of the castle, at least,” you suggest, because it’s true, isn’t it? You find The Doctor smiling at you when you turn back to face her, and you offer her a sly wink along with your hand. 

“She’s not wrong,” Ryan shrugs, and you’re about to cast another bit of wit to the wind when you’re interrupted by the palace security once again. 

 “Right then, let’s be on our way,” Guard #1 says, just as a few of the others come ‘round your small group to effectively box you in. 

Most of them still have their swords drawn, so you don’t bother making a ruckus as you walk, holding The Doctor’s hand tightly in your own.  You aren’t terribly nervous; these are only humans, after all, and given your broad spectrum of experience with making quick escapes from hostile situations, it shouldn’t be much trouble. 

The only real challenge, now, would be retrieving The Doctor’s sonic. 

The guards lead you back inside of the castle, and down a select few corridors before they pile you into a relatively small room, which you assume must been the seventeenth-century royal equivalent of an interrogation room.  It might not have been furnished specifically for that purpose, though, because more than anything, it just looked like a very small, very old-fashioned study.   It’s lowly lit, and there are a few old chairs scattered about, and they all have the same sort of antique-y look as the rest of the place. 

“We’re supposed to have a meet with a king here?” Ryan asks, hushed.  The majority of the guards have already piled out of the room (apart from one, left posted inside to keep watch of you), but it never hurt to keep your voices low, you supposed. 

“You really think we’ll be meeting with a king?” Yaz asks, looking skeptical. 

“I should hope not,” Graham weighs in, “I’d have picked a nicer outfit if I’d have thought we’d be facing royalty.” 

“Not likely it’ll be an actual king. They did say Lord,” The Doctor says. She doesn’t bother to keep her voice down — not that she often does. “And castles actually started off as a militant sort of thing. Fire was such a common threat when it came to the homes of so many lords and other highborns that they started building their fortresses out of stone instead of wood.” 

“So..?” Yaz urges her on, and The Doctor looks her way with a shrug. 

“So whoever we’re meeting’s probably just going to be the lord who’s been given control of this area by the actual king,” she explains. You hum thoughtfully at that, smoothing your hands across the fabric of your dress as you think it over. 

You’ve got to wonder where all of this is going; while you weren’t sure the guards would have let you go either way, it would surely be a challenge to persuade them now that they had a real leverage over you — over The Doctor. 

While you could have left without the sonic (because it wasn’t likely that anyone from this century would have been able to operate it properly), you knew full well that she wouldn’t have wanted that.  The Doctor had always talked so proudly about how she’d made her handiest tool herself; there was something sentimental about it, you knew, and it would likely have taken quite an event to convince her to leave without it. 

There was still the psychic paper, you supposed — perhaps between a bit of “proof” and The Doctor’s smooth-talking, it wouldn’t be as difficult as you might have anticipated. 

And, still — these were only humans. And humans that weren’t posing any real threat to you, at that. 

“So what’s the plan then, Doc?” Graham asks, looking just as worried as ever regardless of the situation.  The Doctor turns a smile on him (just like she always does), about to provide him with a handful of reassuring words when the door to your small, makeshift interrogation room bursts open and the ruckus returns. 

The guards are back, and this time they’re led by a man much more regally dressed than anyone else in the room.  The clothing he wears is much better fitted (although that could been because it had actually been fitted for him) and far more ornamental — decorated with gold, jewels, fur... the whole lot. He also wore something that looked vaguely like a crown, and carried an expensive-looking staff in one hand. 

In his other hand he held The Doctor’s screwdriver, and upon entering the room, he pointed it in the direction, somewhat predictably, of Graham; the wrong person entirely. 

“I presume you can tell me what the purpose of this trinket is?” he says — in a very high-and-mighty way for someone who isn’t even a proper king, you think. 

“Mate, I’ve been doing this for quite some time now, and I couldn’t even begin to explain most of the things that I see in a day,” Graham says, and then gestures toward The Doctor, who’s already grinning. “You might want to ask the woman who made it to explain it to you.” 

Lord-Whoever-He-Might-Be turns to look at The Doctor, then, obviously skeptical of the situation, and with pursed lips, he holds the sonic out toward her, instead. 

“Very well,” he says, very clearly displeased at the fact that the person with the knowledge he wants just so happens to be female. You can hardly help but snort at that — a bit less than subtle, you’ll admit, but it’s not likely he’ll pay you much attention anyhow. “You created this, then?” 

The Doctor only continues to smile at him, cheerful as ever in the face of judgement. “I did,” she says proudly, nodding toward the sonic. “Patent pending and all of that.” 

The Lord squints at her, and you smile when you realize that it’s quite likely that he hasn’t any idea what The Doctor means.  That’s how you know she’s lost her patience with a situation, you think — when she doesn’t even begin to bother censoring herself. 

“Tell me then,” he begins, and turns his primary focus back on the screwdriver. “What is it for? Is it a weapon?” 

The Doctor scoffs. “Quite the opposite,” she says, arms folded across her chest. You have to admit, you’re rather shocked that she hasn’t simply snatched it out of this pompous bloke’s hands, but then — there is an armed guard just a few feet away. Perhaps sudden movements wouldn’t have been the wisest execution of her goal. “It’s only a tool. Although — only isn’t really the best word to put in front of it. Terribly inaccurate, because it’s not onlya tool, it’s me handiest tool.” 

The Lord gives her an odd look, but doesn’t say anything more. Instead, he goes on to hit each of the sonic’s buttons a time or two, just the way that the guard had done earlier.  You snicker under your breath at that — at the way that both of these men seem to have been completely and utterly captivated by what their personal knowledge could only allow them to see as a small, shiny object. 

Typical,you think. 

“Pray tell, madam, what cause could this… invention possibly be useful to?” he says, finally, clearly not about to budge without being given some sort of detail. 

And The Doctor, well... she just isn’t having it. 

“My cause;” she says, quite simply. “Which frankly, sir, isn’t really any of your business. Now, please give me back my sonic before I get cross with you.” 

She holds out her hand for the screwdriver as she speaks, but Mr. Pompous holds his ground.  He doesn’t actually say anything in response to her demand, but he doesn’t give the sonic back to The Doctor, either; in fact, he proceeds to fiddle with it, avoiding her gaze like some sort of petulant child. 

She gives him another moment, bless her, but just as she’s gearing up to speak again (with every intention of giving him a good telling off, you’d have guessed) he decides to open his mouth once again. 

“Not until you give me a proper explanation for all of this,” he says, sounding as high and mighty as ever, and that… that’s when you decide you’ve had enough — of being stuck in this dusty room, of the way that this quote-unquote Lord was talking to The Doctor — of the whole bloody thing.  It had put a real damper on your day. 

“Look, mate — you heard what she said.  It’s a tool, her tool, and the rest is none of your business,” you say, as blunt and to the point as possible. “Now, hand it over, would you?”

His eyes are on you in the next instant, wide with surprise. At first, it seems as though he simply hadn’t expected you to speak; why would you have, after all?  You were meant to be a lady — at least, that was what his outdated expectations had probably told him.  You hold your ground and stare him down, expecting him to either concede or come back at you with another bit of snark. 

Much to your surprise, he does neither of those things. There’s a fraction of a second during which he gives you a mildly offended look, but it doesn’t take long for that air of defensiveness to dissolve into something far more off-putting. 

You watch as his eyes slide from the stony expression on your face down toward the tightly laced bodice of your dress, and in those few seconds, his perception of you becomes more than clear.  A few too many seconds later he meets your eyes again, and the smile on his face is nothing short of predatory.  

“Well you’re dressed properly, at least,” he says, and you couldn’t have stifled your scowl if you’d tried.  The rest of the gang seem to be on the same page; Graham and Ryan shuffle uncomfortably, Yaz visibly prickles, and The Doctor... you can feel The Doctor’s energy shift in an instant.  

Where there had been mild annoyance before, there was now bitter anger. It rolled off of her in waves, so much so that there was no way everyone else in the room didn’t feel it, too. 

“And why do I get the feeling that that won’t make any difference in whether or not you hear me?” you say with a roll of your eyes.  You make a point of reaching for The Doctor’s hand once more with the intention of calming her, even if it’s just marginally.  After all, no matter how... unfortunate this bloke’s attitude was, making a scene was still not likely to be the best course of action. 

“Oh, I could be persuaded to listen, among other things,” Lord-Whomever says, waggling his eyebrows. “So long as you were the one doing the persuading.” 

You very nearly scoff at that; you’ve never been one to keep your displeasure with unwanted advances at bay, after all. However, his choice of words gives you an idea.  You’re not entirely certain it’ll work, but you think it’s probably worth a shot. 

When you were interested, you knew how to flirt. You’d have counted yourself very good at it, in fact. The Doctor wouldn’t have liked the idea of it, you knew, but if your flirting with some entitled, unimportant twat meant getting her sonic back and getting out of here? It would be well worth it. 

In just a coupe of seconds’ time you school your expression, settling for neutral with a smile as you allowed your gaze to settle upon the castle’s Lord.  Before you allow yourself to settle into your course of action you make sure to give The Doctor’s hand a tight squeeze, doing your damndest to convey with everything in you that she shouldn’t at all think into what was about to happen. 

“Oh?” you begin, dropping The Doctor’s hand following one final brush of your thumb across her knuckles. You take a step forward, effectively putting yourself in the space of the man who’s been so determined to turn himself into a human road block for you and your friends. He looks to be visibly startled at this, which isn’t the biggest surprise, if you’re honest; after all, he doesn’t exactly seem like the type of man who would be accustomed to women being forward with him. “Well, how fortunate for you that I happen to know a thing or two about the persuasion of men.” 

You hear a choked noise from behind you that you think comes from Graham or Ryan, and a snort that almost certainly comes from Yaz. There’s an unusual lack of a reaction from The Doctor, and you try to assume the best of that, because maybe it means that she’s understood what you were trying to convey to her. Either way, you don’t think too much of it, because there’s no way your plan

will go over properly if you’re distracted. 

“I don’t find that hard to believe in the least, madame,” the Lord says, and takes a step toward you. He reaches a hand out to fiddle with one of the strands of your hair that’s fallen loose from your messy updo. It’s a real battle not to shrink away from the touch; it’s forward, too forward, and to say that it unsettles you would have been an understatement. Even the guards avert their gazes and shuffle uncomfortably, and you have to wonder if they’re accustomed to putting up with this type of behavior from their leader. 

Quite fortunately for you, his forwardness works to your advantage. It allows you to take another half a step forward, and to reach out for the lapels of his coat without it looking like anything too suspicious. He’s so focused on your face and your apparent advances that he hardly notices when you quietly slip your hand into the very pocket that you had seen him tuck The Doctor’s screwdriver into.  Once you have a firm grip on the sonic, you pull it out of his pocket and take a sizable step back in one swift motion.  There’s a smug smile on your face as you return to The Doctor’s side and hold the sonic out to her proudly. 

“You see? Barely had to say a word,” you say. The group of men you had just very thoroughly swindled all stand bolt upright, staring with wide eyes as The Doctor takes her sonic back and pockets it. 

Lord-Whomever makes a thoroughly offended noise, looking a whole lot like a spoiled child as he points an accusatory finger your way. 

“Witch!” he exclaims, positively red in the face.  You grin. 

“Nah mate, you’re just gullible,” Ryan chimes in, and you snort. 

The man looks like he’s about to say something more, but before he gets the chance The Doctor cuts in. 

“And before you go ordering your little troop to wrangle us up — don’t,” she says. There’s a definite bite in her voice that seems to catch the lot of them off guard, and it definitely works to your advantage. “We’ve done nothing wrong, here, and you can’t have us arrested for reclaiming our own property.” 

The Lord fish-mouths at that, and with a smile equal parts proud and smug, you move to take The Doctor’s hand once more. 

“You heard her,” Yaz says confidently. “We demand to be released.“ 

“And we’ll be on our way and out of your hair in no time,” Graham pipes up, and you smile happily. On an average day there isn’t anything in the world you’d trade your little family for, and today is no exception. 

Mr. Lordly seems to want to argue, to start, but before he can even get his bearings his head guard is piping up to tell him that your lot is right — that they can’t lawfully hold you prisoner when you haven’t done anything wrong. 

He simmers down fairly quickly following that, and with a pointed glare in your direction, he nods his head. 

“Very well. Let’s be on our way, men,” he says, already turning toward the door indignantly. “I trust one of you will see these trespassers out.” 

“No need, lads,” The Doctor says, sounding much less biting, now, and a lot more plain irritated. “We’re plenty capable of seeing ourselves out.” 

Each and every person in the small troop of guards hesitates, just for a second, but in the end it seems they decide that arguing isn’t actually worth the trouble.  You’re thankful for that, obviously, because you couldn’t very well leave the TARDIS lying about the castle, could you?  It was the last thing you needed a big-headed lord and his guards stumbling upon. 

Your friends seem to breathe a collective sigh of relief the moment you’re all left alone in the small room; Yaz smiles and shakes her head, Graham relaxes, and Ryan snorts, sidestepping to clap a hand over your shoulder. 

“Well done, Y/N,” he says with a laugh. You shrug your shoulders, laughing along with him as you take a moment to relax as well. 

“Further proof that men will never be hard to fool,” Yaz pipes up, and reaches your way for a quick high-five. Graham and Ryan each make a mildly offended noise at that, but they don’t argue, and you can’t help but have a laugh at that. 

You expect The Doctor to chime in as well, perhaps to give her two cents about her experience as a man; but she doesn’t. In fact, she’s unusually quiet, even though there’s a small smile on her face. You make a point of smiling her way, anyhow, and she responds by giving your hand a gentle squeeze. 

You all linger about for a moment or two more, chatting amongst yourselves and waiting patiently for your militant friends to get themselves a safe distance away;  there needn’t be any conflict on the short trek back to the TARDIS, after all, and it’s a good opportunity to talk over the remainder of the day’s plan, anyways. 

It’s not long before you’re on the move once again, though, on your way back into the castle’s common area at The Doctor’s suggestion. 

“Best get a shift on, then, gang,” she says. She brushes her thumb across your knuckles as she says it, effectively drawing your attention to her, and you smile. “We’ll park the TARDIS outside of the castle and go forward from there.” 

Everyone nods their agreement, and with that, they turn and head for the door. You’re close behind, and The Doctor is, too, to start, but just as you’re about to set foot outside the room, things take an unexpected turn. 

The Doctor still has ahold of your hand, and she uses that to her advantage, stopping a good few feet from the door and pulling you back toward her sharply.  

A surprised noise escapes you as the door swings shut behind Graham, and your eyes are wide as you’re whirled around to face The Doctor once more.  You mean to ask her what’s going on, what’s wrong, but you don’t actually have the opportunity to get a word out before you’re being crowded against the wall behind you. 

Before you can really even process it, The Doctor has a firm grip on your waist and she’s pressing you tight against the old wooden door, and the last thing you see before her lips meet yours is her eyes, alight with a fiery determination. 

The kiss is passionate, to say the least, a positively hungry thing, and the sound that spills out of you is (very) likely a bit obscene.  Her hands move from your waist to your hips — that is, until you reach out to cradle her jaw. It’s then that she takes it upon herself to snatch your hands up in hers. Her fingers slot together with your own as she presses her body to yours and pins your arms up above your head, and it drags a whimper out of you.  Not so suddenly, you find yourself feeling very, very warm, and you want nothing more than to beg her to get you the hell out of your bloody dress.  Between your wardrobe and hers, it’s one too many layers; especially when you’re so close, and she’s kissing you like this, and all you really want to be feeling is her skin.

It’s about the time you start to writhe against her that she lets up (not by your request — not by a long shot). Her grip on your hands loosens, and she trails her fingertips first along your forearms, just for a moment before she allows her arms to drop in favor of touching your cheeks gently as she draws herself back from the kiss and away from you. 

Well — not away from you entirely; not really. Just enough to allow for a bit of breathing space, more like. 

Your tongue is in knots even as you open up your eyes and get a start catching your breath. You’re fairly certain you’ll be red in the face for the remainder of the day, but luckily for you, The Doctor doesn’t seem to expect you to speak.  She resettles her hands upon your waist and pulls you in close to her, where she allows you to rest as your heartbeat slows back to normal and the thrill of the moment wears off. 

It takes you a moment, definitely, but you do come back to your senses. As soon as you feel like you can breathe properly again you lean back a bit, enough that you can catch The Doctor’s gaze, and sigh softly. 

“I can’t say I know what that was for, exactly,” you begin, reaching to fiddle with the collar of her shirt. “But I definitely appreciated it.” 

You’re smiling the entire time you speak, obviously — making light of the unexpected situation, and that. However, The Doctor still looks just a little bit tense, even as she stands there smiling back at you. You don’t entirely understand why that is, not really — at least, not until she goes on to explain herself in the next moment. 

“We’ll just put it like this,” she says, meeting your gaze with a certain intensity in her eyes. “You’re clever — annoyinglyclever. And it astounds me, it really does.” You raise an eyebrow at that, but don’t say anything in response; the look on her face tells you that the explanation is on its way, anyhow, and you don’t want to go derailing it. “As clever as you are, though... please don’t go around flirting with seventeenth century Lords often, yeah?” 

It takes you a split second of confusion to realize that all of this — the sulking, the stoic attitude, the downright steamy kiss behind closed doors — has been because The Doctor has been jealous. Because of some strategic, but wildly phony flirting that you had plucked out of your back pocket in a pinch. 

“You were—“ you begin. 

“Don’t you dare,” she warns you. There’s not much fight to it, though, and the irritation has all but melted straight out of her expression already, so you don’t hesitate. 

“Doctor,” you go on, just a touch sing-song. “You were jealous.” 

She groans aloud at your relentless teasing, refusing to meet your eyes only briefly before fixing you with what could only be described as a pout. 

“I don’t think I can fairlybe blamed!” she exclaims. A smile plays at the corners of her lips as she speaks, and it makes you feel warm inside, the fact that she’d been so thoroughly fraught over all of this.  “Not with all of the touching and the eye-batting, and — and! Ugh!” 

You giggle, absolutely delighted as you watch your companion have her little fit. You allow it, and you’re even quiet for the majority of her minor tantrum, but the moment she’s finished, you take her hands in your own and make a point of pressing little kisses to the backs of each of her palms. 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” you say, and grin when she begins to pout once more. “You of all people should know what my flirting — my genuine flirting — looks like.” 

She makes a point of grumbling under her breath, still, but the flush on her cheeks gives her away, and you smile proudly at that. 

“Still,” she argues, finally smiling back at you as she lets go of one of your hands in favor of turning toward the door.  “Promise me no more flirting.” 

She pauses for your response before opening the door, seemingly unwilling to take no for an answer. You roll your eyes and sigh in response to her persistence, but you nod your head nonetheless. 

“No more flirting,” you promise. “Not with anyone but you, anyways.”  

The smile that overtakes her expression at that is one strangely reminiscent of the sun, and you giggle happily as she turns and proceeds to open up the door.  In doing so, she also reveals your three remaining friends — all of whom are standing just outside the door with crossed arms and expressions equal parts amused and impatient. 

“Can we get on, then?” Yaz teases the pair of you, a smile playing on her lips all the while. 

“Of course we can,” The Doctor says, cheerful as ever once more, and you snort. 

With that, the lot of you are off once more, and you make a mental note to yourself to exact a bit of revenge on The Doctor later, when you’ve finished your adventuring for the day — after all, once you’ve returned to the TARDIS, you’ll have the entire evening.