warnings: mentions of anxiety. but overall a fluffy oneshot with a slightly angsty ending?
word count: 2000! got carried away with this one but i don’t care. i had so much fun writing this!
request: Ola could do a picture with Doctor ten and reader / fem with the music phil collins - you'll be in my heart
A/N: before all of you read it, i just want to remind you how brave all of you are. even if you don’t know it. you just need to be shown that you are capable of everything. i love you guys so much. thank you for the never-ending support. mary xx
The Doctor came when she needed him the most, crushed by her own expectations and broken spines of old university books. Y/N measured her worth in coffee cups and hours she spent not-sleeping. She couldn’t be the judge of her beauty, she was way past looking at herself on the mirror, striving to gain knowledge to please everyone around her. She wouldn’t allow herself to fail, even if it meant running on fumes with limbs shaking from a caffeine overdose.
Afraid of failure, that’s who she was.
But we all have our limits, don’t we? Apparently, Y/N’s limit was the Latin exam, the one that got lost in her mind, tucked between a fifteen pages long essay due Monday, and an oral presentation that was supposed to take place the next day. Even the books in the library – usually her friend – seemed to judge her incompetence. Absurd thoughts filled her mind – maybe if she hid under the table and closed her eyes people would just forget that she existed? Maybe she would forget that she existed.
“Taurus agricola fugat,” she mumbled, tightly hugging her knees, her stomach turning into a big knot of nervousness, a bitter taste in her mouth. “No! Agricolae taurum fugat. N-”
“Why are you crying in Latin?” A pair of converse-covered feet peeked under the table, soon to be followed by a head full of ruffled, chaotic hair and concerned deep-brown eyes.
“I’m trying to bring back the Roman Empire to life,” the bitter joke escaping her lips mixed with a waterfall of tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
“Come on then, it’s not a place to do that.” The man reached out his hand and she grabbed it without hesitation, holding it tight. His fingers were slim, tender and warm, bringing comfort to all the cells inside her body that shrunk with the terror of the upcoming exam. “I’m the Doctor by the way.”
Y/N pounded on the chamber’s door with great force, her knuckles turning pale and bloody. She was suffocating, but not because of the lack of air. Her body decided to shut down, anxiety shaking her bones to the core.
A small window provided the girl with a view on a narrow, long corridor. She looked around to find something heavy to crush the electrical mechanism of the lock, the lasts of adrenaline kicking into her bloodstream. There was nothing around her, she knew that already, but she couldn’t give up. The Doctor would give up.
Soon enough Y/N found herself on the floor, the walls getting closer and closer, pressing against her back and knees. She could do so much more, right? Discover the world beyond the coffee-stained pages of the university books, brush her fingers against the ancient ground – only with a snap of the Doctor’s fingers. He promised her that. He said she would be safe with him, only if she took his hand and held it tight.
The ship was about to collapse and the Doctor ran towards the vault. Y/N forced herself onto her feet, knees bending with fear. She could decipher her name from the movement from his lips. The coat floated outside of his slim figure, not being able to catch up with his fast movements. Even the time he was slowly running out of couldn’t stop him.
“Don’t you dare cry, Y/N! I will be there!” And soon she was. In his arms. With only one problem: the ship was about to collapse.
Y/N wasn’t afraid to cry in front of the Daleks. It was good to show them her humanity, to remind them what they weren’t capable of. “Cry baby” they used to call her, but she wasn’t embarrassed by her feelings by now. The Doctor showed her the beauty of them, the beauty hidden within.
“You don’t seem to know who he is,” Y/N laughed bitterly, angrily wiping the tears escaping her eyes. Resting her ear against both of the Doctor’s hearts, reassured by their beating, she got up slowly, limping on her left feet. The sudden explosion knocked out both of them and she was the first one to regain consciousness.
The Time Lord laid on the ground, sonic screwdriver abandoned on the ground. Without a playful smile on his lips and sparkling eyes, he seemed out of place, like an impostor, and that broke her heart. But he needed her, even if she was small and fragile. He didn’t teach her to be strong, he simply showed her how.
She faced the Dalek, resting her teared-up but furious eyes on the creature. She would take one step at the time, just like the Doctor taught her, gravel shifting under her feet.
“He is the Doctor.” The Dalek screeched. “He has been exterminated. And so will you be.”
“He is so much more than the Doctor.” She moved further, jumping on her right feet, the sprained ankle sending fireworks of pain to her synapses. “And so am I.”
'Cause you'll be in my heart
Yes, you'll be in my heart
You'll be here in my heart
“Are you sure about this?” Y/N asked him, holding onto the sleeves of the Doctor’s jacket. He wasn’t terrified, not at all. A goofy grin lit his face when the heavy wind hit their figures. How they still stood in the middle of a storm was an enigma to Y/N. Maybe the Time Lords defied the laws of gravity.
“Was I ever sure about anything?”
“Don’t be cocky!” The companion scolded him, earning another boyish laugh from the Doctor. He expected her to jump off a building. Not any building; the highest building in the world. She rested her eyes on his face, focusing on counting the freckles on his cheeks. She knew that if she even dared to trail off her gaze towards the void beneath them, she would most likely faint.
“Thought you were deadly scared of heights, and here you are, lecturing me. I adore you, Y/N Y/S.” The girl shivered at how her surname sounded in Doctor’s lips. He made her feel like she was a giant, capable of anything. No matter if it was a Latin exam, deadly Dalek, or a collapsing ship.
“Allons-y before I change my mind?” Gripping on to his arms, Y/N took the first leap. They were so close she could feel the Time Lord’s eyelashes tickling her cheek.
Why can't they understand the way we feel
They just don't trust what they can't explain
I know we're different, but deep inside us
We're not that different at all
Even though they were so different – hell they weren’t even the same species – they belonged to each other. When one was anxious, the other one filled them with hope. When one needed slowing down, the other one told him to take a deep breath. The Doctor and Y/N found themselves in a curve of time, imprinted as a mere fraction in the universe’s history. It wasn’t possible and yet it was.
“What is this called again?” Y/N gasped, examining a tiny object in her hand. The surface of a shining ball seemed to shift it’s constellations and orbits every time she turned it around. The Doctor had told her that she was holding a miniature universe in her hands. “I mean, it’s not possible. In my physics classes, we’ve-,”
“Haven’t I proven to you that physics is so much more than school education? You can’t simply grasp it. It’s intangible. Well,” he stopped himself and cupped her hands with his own, “usually. Right now you are holding physics in your hands.”
“Physics, physics, physics?” Y/N reminded him, meeting his eyes and he smiled at her.
“Physics, physics, physics.”
She could hear the happiness stroking his vocal cords.
We need each other, to have, to hold
They'll see in time, I know
“Ah, the Doctor and one of his pets. At last.” A voice echoed throughout the empty hall of the Westminster Palace. Who would have thought that the current Prime Minister was indeed a Reptile? Well, only the people on the internet.
“Yes, nice to meet you. Or not. Funny enough, you’re the one that resembles a…pet.” Y/N cocked her head to the side and looked up at the Doctor’s expression. She carefully studied his face, how his nose curved and the subtle raise of his right eyebrow.
“Twelve million people just punched the air,” The Doctor snickered and leaned onto the wall. “Sorry, a mistake in calculations. You can add two more people to that number. You know why? Never let me near all those buttons.” The sonic screwdriver pointed at the secret panel hidden behind a painting of one of the kings of Britain. Probably a Reptilian also.
“Are we officially a number one enemy of United Kingdom?”
When destiny calls you, you must be strong
They'll see in time, I know
Old Y/N would cry at this point – terrified of alien destruction, the Time Lords pulling through time itself, the unpredictability of the Master. It was time to be strong. She had to, the Doctor counted on her. The whole world did.
The Doctor didn’t need to hear the four knocks coming from the chamber, radiation levels rocketing on the panel where Y/N stood. The Time Lord already knew what had to be done, it was his time, his song was ending. He didn’t think of the things he could do if he had the opportunity, because he knew his Y/N could do so much more. Brave to stand where she stood, facing all the dangers and the end of the universe itself.
Just look over your shoulder
Just look over your shoulder
Just look over your shoulder
In his last hours, he allowed himself to push the leaver inside the Tardis and see Y/N for the last time. He went way back, crippled by pain, and peaked outside the blue door, seeing his beloved one walking on the sidewalk, buried with notes, ready to study for the Latin exam she had forgotten about. In just a couple of hours, they would meet for the first time, only she didn’t know it yet. But he did – the burden of the Time Lords, wasn’t it?
“Please, look over your shoulder,” he pleaded, his voice at the point of breaking, sharp pain bending his back, deep brown eyes hidden behind tightly shut eyelids.
“Y/N, please. Please look over your shoulder.”
But she didn’t. The last thing he saw before shutting the Tardis’ door was the time machine of his past self and the Doctor’s head peaking onto the street. He envied him.
The younger Doctor looked over his shoulder, staring confusedly at a disappearing time machine. A feeling in his two hearts told him to visit the library nearby.
