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lizbeeFandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rated: PG-13; some language, about as strong as Torchwood itself?
Notes: Spoilers for "Aliens of London", "Parting of the Ways", "Doomsday" & "Everything Changes". Featuring an assortment of Time Lords. Well, two. (Guess who. No, really.) Lyrics stolen from PJ Harvey for added wankiness.
How It Works: 5 Things That Never Happened to Suzie Costello
by LizBee
1. With the headlights burning
Even as she pulled the trigger, she was thinking of giving up. Too late. The bullet was already entering Cooper's body she was running. Her eyes blurred with tears and Jack was calling after her, but she knew him, he'd stop to look after Cooper, if there was still any point.
At least, she hoped she knew Jack, but it was all guesswork, really, and she was still running. There was a stitch in her side, but she was running.
Keep going, the glove whispered, unless she was going mad. God, what if it was just insanity, psychosis or schizophrenia or something, and she'd shot Cooper over a glove that didn't really exist?
Keep going, the knife whispered.
The glove had to exist, because she'd brought people back, everyone had seen her, unless they were all delusions. But that was both elaborate and consistent, and frankly, if her mind (which she'd always liked, basically, and the glove and the knife liked it too) if her mind had spawned Owen, it wasn't a mind worth knowing.
Keep running. Keep running.
Stick to the shadows, stay away from CC cameras because Toshiko is always watching, ditch the phone because Ianto can track that, don't use your credit cards because Ianto will see that as well.
The knife? The glove? Torchwood would find them eventually.
Keep running.
Where?
Doesn't matter.
Suzie stumbled into an alley. It stank of urine and garbage, but she sank to her haunches and inhaled. Her lungs were burning.
And where would she go now? She couldn't stay in Britain. Couldn't go back to her flat. Or her family.
Suzie looked up at the sky and wiped her eyes and stood up.
We're with you, the glove said, and it was true, and it was awful.
2. Working harder for the man
"It's a Code 9," said Wilkins. "Can you believe it?" As usual, he was leaning a bit too close. Suzie could see every pore on his face.
"No," said Suzie. She pointedly angled her monitor away from him and leaned back. "It's the third Code 9 this year. Any time a lunatic with a medical degree turns up on the radar--"
"In the middle of an alien invasion?" Wilkins probably thought his chuckle was paternal. Suzie wondered if punching him in the face would earn her a court-martial or a medal. "Suzie, this is the real thing. The Doctor."
"Hmm."
UNIT kept its personnel well-informed. If she looked up, she would see the screen that covered most of the back wall, currently displaying three news services, live footage of the activity around Westminster and assorted forms of satellite info.
On the other hand, her view of the world outside would be blocked by Wilkins, and the fragments of alien hardware on her desk were much more attractive.
"You're just jealous," said Wilkins. He stood up and straightened his uniform. "I've been called in. Special meeting of experts at Downing Street."
"And you're an expert, are you?"
"I know a thing or two."
"Right." Suzie held a scrap of metal up to the light. "Well, give my love to the Doctor and the invading aliens if you see them."
"Will do, Costello." Wilkins was walking away at last, but he turned back to throw a mock-salute at her.
"Oh," she added, "and if you happen to come across the Doctor's legendary time ship," Suzie called, "I always have room for new toys."
Wilkins's departing chuckle set her teeth on edge again. But alone, she was willing to concede that she was just the tiniest bit jealous.
3. Feel his heart wired
"Guess what I have for you."
Yvonne sounded distinctly pleased with life, which meant she'd acquired either a new pair of shoes or something very interesting.
"I don't guess," said Suzie. "I deduce and estimate and occasionally extrapolate."
"Right," said Yvonne. "right. So I should tell you, yeah, because time's of the essence and we have a special guest for the next ghost shift."
Something about the way Yvonne said 'special' provides the clue.
"You've done it, haven't you? You've got the Doctor." She was already on her feet. "Don't tease me, Yvonne--"
"I'm not teasing. He's right in front of me. Wearing 3-d glasses and pulling faces."
"God," said Suzie, "I can't stand studied eccentricity. Where's the TARDIS?"
"Loading bay two. Have fun!"
"Believe me," Suzie entered the lift, "I plan to."
So there it was. Blue, innocuous, allegedly bigger inside than out. Well, it would have to be.
"Question is," Suzie said out loud, "how do you get into it?"
She pulled up a chair, opened her toolkit and got to work.
The first sign she had that anything was wrong was a niggling feeling that ghost shift was weirdly late to begin. Yvonne was probably showing off to the Doctor, as if she wouldn't have a whole lifetime and more to show him what they could do.
Then the loading bay was suddenly full of invaders, metal bodies, all armed and hostile. Suzie was already on her feet, but she didn't know which way to run, and she was already being herded towards – what?
Suzie's mouth was suddenly dry.
"Who are you?" she said. "Whatever you want, we can help you. We have experience in dealing with the extra--"
"Speech is irrelevant," the creature said.
"Please."
They were leading her to a processing facility. She couldn't imagine how it had appeared so suddenly, but they were efficient and quick and there were so many of them, and she must be inhuman, because suddenly, more than anything else, she wanted to know how they worked.
"You will be like us," the creature said.
Suzie walked forward as it ordered. She didn't close her eyes.
4. Not like other girls
The knife sliced through flesh without hesitation. The victim – subject, Suzie reminded herself – collapsed in a heap. So quick. So terrible.
Suzie looked away. If she didn't watch, if she took no pleasure in this, then she wasn't a monster. So that was all right then.
When she looked back, a different woman was lying in that pool of blood. Sitting up and spitting gore out of her mouth.
Suzie checked, then checked again, but the glove was still in her bag at her feet. She picked it up, cradling it protectively.
"Great gods of time and death," the woman said, pulling herself to her feet, "what kind of world is it where the natives can walk up and skewer you without so much as a by-your-leave?"
Suzie opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"I mean, I was led to believe this planet was civilised, at least, it was the last time I was here, nice food and pretty paintings and the occasional alien invasion, but it's clearly gone downhill since then. Look at this!" She gingerly picked at her blood-stained shirt. "That's rare Thereman silk, and the Thereman star went nova three million years ago, and do you think I'll ever find anything as nice again? Not that it fits any more..." She trailed off and looked at her hand. "Oh, damn. Not the nicest way to regenerate, thank-you-very-much. I liked my old body. I got it from a princess."
"I..." Suzie took a deep breath and pulled herself together. "Under the authority of the Torchwood Institute, I am placing you under arrest--"
"You're what? Oh, come now..."
"—And charging you with crimes under the Unauthorised Extra-Terrestrial Act of 190--"
"You kill me, then arrest me? Sensible people do it the other way around." The alien picked up her discarded handbag and started rooting through it. "I knew it was a mistake coming back here, but no, I had to be sentimental. For old times sake, I told myself. Auld lang syne and all that."
"—Anything you say may be used against you--"
"Oh well. You can't go home again, I suppose. Literally, in my case. Must look into that – ooh, what do we have here?"
She plucked the glove out of Suzie's arms and sighed.
"As if you people needed that sort of power over life and death. Honestly, how bloody arrogant can you get? And look, I don't really want to be arrested, it's never as fun as it sounds, and--"
She was holding something, Suzie saw now, a tiny glass disc on a slender chain. Glass? No. Light.
"Stop," said Suzie.
"—And all things considered, I'd really rather just go away quietly--"
Her hand closed around the disc just as Suzie caught her arm.
And the universe shifted.
When Suzie opened her eyes, they were somewhere else all together.
"Oh," said the alien woman. "Bugger.
5. You come through
"This is Emergency Program One."
Suzie sank to the floor.
"No," she said.
"Suzie, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape."
"Fuck," said Suzie, because it was satisfying. Damn Time Lord, always treating her like a child, sending her home to grow old and rot while everyone died and the world ended--
"And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But you're not going to share it. The TARDIS is taking you home."
"Like hell," said Suzie. She climbed to her feet and reached for the console.
"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now - typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it; no one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on and the box will be buried. And if you wanna remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all. One thing."
She reached for the controls, pushing aside the notes she had left for herself and the notes the Doctor had left for himself. She knew this. She'd taught herself, and he'd taught her, and it was a machine, it could be overridden--
"Have a good life. Do that for me, Suzie. Have a fantastic life."
"Condescending wanker," she muttered.
And then the engines died, and she opened the door and found herself back in her own flat. As if she'd never left.
"Damn," she said.
*
It wasn't that Suzie was in the habit of running off with aliens, but there was a man who told her to run, and who showed up later with a bit of living plastic, and she wasn't in the habit of ignoring alien tech when it made itself available.
Running off with the Enemy wasn't the way to win friends and influence people in Torchwood, but it wasn't like they were offering to take her day-tripping through time and space and the end of the world and beyond. And now she was stuck at home with a TARDIS parked next to the sofa.
She thought about going back to work, but she couldn't put it out of her mind, the Doctor and the Daleks. And Jack.
She thought he'd understand if she took some more time off.
*
In the end, it was a matter of listening. She gets into your head, the Doctor had said when Suzie asked about the telepathic field. Not a machine. Not just a machine.
And she wanted to save the Doctor as much as Suzie.
The TARDIS opened itself up and Suzie looked into the Vortex.
After that, she remembered very little. Except standing in the doorway, meeting the Doctor's eyes and seeing more than she had ever believed existed.
"I know how it works," she said.
And for a few minutes, an eternity, she held life and death and a million possibilities in her hand, and the Daleks were dust because they deserved to be nothing more, and Jack was a hollow shell so she filled him with light.
After that, there was pain, and the Doctor caught her as she fell.
"I think you need a doctor," he said.
"The right kind of doctor," she answered, and he didn't understand, but that was all right.
He kissed her, and she passed out, but she could still hear the TARDIS singing, and she smiled.
end
Rated: PG-13; some language, about as strong as Torchwood itself?
Notes: Spoilers for "Aliens of London", "Parting of the Ways", "Doomsday" & "Everything Changes". Featuring an assortment of Time Lords. Well, two. (Guess who. No, really.) Lyrics stolen from PJ Harvey for added wankiness.
by LizBee
1. With the headlights burning
Even as she pulled the trigger, she was thinking of giving up. Too late. The bullet was already entering Cooper's body she was running. Her eyes blurred with tears and Jack was calling after her, but she knew him, he'd stop to look after Cooper, if there was still any point.
At least, she hoped she knew Jack, but it was all guesswork, really, and she was still running. There was a stitch in her side, but she was running.
Keep going, the glove whispered, unless she was going mad. God, what if it was just insanity, psychosis or schizophrenia or something, and she'd shot Cooper over a glove that didn't really exist?
Keep going, the knife whispered.
The glove had to exist, because she'd brought people back, everyone had seen her, unless they were all delusions. But that was both elaborate and consistent, and frankly, if her mind (which she'd always liked, basically, and the glove and the knife liked it too) if her mind had spawned Owen, it wasn't a mind worth knowing.
Keep running. Keep running.
Stick to the shadows, stay away from CC cameras because Toshiko is always watching, ditch the phone because Ianto can track that, don't use your credit cards because Ianto will see that as well.
The knife? The glove? Torchwood would find them eventually.
Keep running.
Where?
Doesn't matter.
Suzie stumbled into an alley. It stank of urine and garbage, but she sank to her haunches and inhaled. Her lungs were burning.
And where would she go now? She couldn't stay in Britain. Couldn't go back to her flat. Or her family.
Suzie looked up at the sky and wiped her eyes and stood up.
We're with you, the glove said, and it was true, and it was awful.
2. Working harder for the man
"It's a Code 9," said Wilkins. "Can you believe it?" As usual, he was leaning a bit too close. Suzie could see every pore on his face.
"No," said Suzie. She pointedly angled her monitor away from him and leaned back. "It's the third Code 9 this year. Any time a lunatic with a medical degree turns up on the radar--"
"In the middle of an alien invasion?" Wilkins probably thought his chuckle was paternal. Suzie wondered if punching him in the face would earn her a court-martial or a medal. "Suzie, this is the real thing. The Doctor."
"Hmm."
UNIT kept its personnel well-informed. If she looked up, she would see the screen that covered most of the back wall, currently displaying three news services, live footage of the activity around Westminster and assorted forms of satellite info.
On the other hand, her view of the world outside would be blocked by Wilkins, and the fragments of alien hardware on her desk were much more attractive.
"You're just jealous," said Wilkins. He stood up and straightened his uniform. "I've been called in. Special meeting of experts at Downing Street."
"And you're an expert, are you?"
"I know a thing or two."
"Right." Suzie held a scrap of metal up to the light. "Well, give my love to the Doctor and the invading aliens if you see them."
"Will do, Costello." Wilkins was walking away at last, but he turned back to throw a mock-salute at her.
"Oh," she added, "and if you happen to come across the Doctor's legendary time ship," Suzie called, "I always have room for new toys."
Wilkins's departing chuckle set her teeth on edge again. But alone, she was willing to concede that she was just the tiniest bit jealous.
3. Feel his heart wired
"Guess what I have for you."
Yvonne sounded distinctly pleased with life, which meant she'd acquired either a new pair of shoes or something very interesting.
"I don't guess," said Suzie. "I deduce and estimate and occasionally extrapolate."
"Right," said Yvonne. "right. So I should tell you, yeah, because time's of the essence and we have a special guest for the next ghost shift."
Something about the way Yvonne said 'special' provides the clue.
"You've done it, haven't you? You've got the Doctor." She was already on her feet. "Don't tease me, Yvonne--"
"I'm not teasing. He's right in front of me. Wearing 3-d glasses and pulling faces."
"God," said Suzie, "I can't stand studied eccentricity. Where's the TARDIS?"
"Loading bay two. Have fun!"
"Believe me," Suzie entered the lift, "I plan to."
So there it was. Blue, innocuous, allegedly bigger inside than out. Well, it would have to be.
"Question is," Suzie said out loud, "how do you get into it?"
She pulled up a chair, opened her toolkit and got to work.
The first sign she had that anything was wrong was a niggling feeling that ghost shift was weirdly late to begin. Yvonne was probably showing off to the Doctor, as if she wouldn't have a whole lifetime and more to show him what they could do.
Then the loading bay was suddenly full of invaders, metal bodies, all armed and hostile. Suzie was already on her feet, but she didn't know which way to run, and she was already being herded towards – what?
Suzie's mouth was suddenly dry.
"Who are you?" she said. "Whatever you want, we can help you. We have experience in dealing with the extra--"
"Speech is irrelevant," the creature said.
"Please."
They were leading her to a processing facility. She couldn't imagine how it had appeared so suddenly, but they were efficient and quick and there were so many of them, and she must be inhuman, because suddenly, more than anything else, she wanted to know how they worked.
"You will be like us," the creature said.
Suzie walked forward as it ordered. She didn't close her eyes.
4. Not like other girls
The knife sliced through flesh without hesitation. The victim – subject, Suzie reminded herself – collapsed in a heap. So quick. So terrible.
Suzie looked away. If she didn't watch, if she took no pleasure in this, then she wasn't a monster. So that was all right then.
When she looked back, a different woman was lying in that pool of blood. Sitting up and spitting gore out of her mouth.
Suzie checked, then checked again, but the glove was still in her bag at her feet. She picked it up, cradling it protectively.
"Great gods of time and death," the woman said, pulling herself to her feet, "what kind of world is it where the natives can walk up and skewer you without so much as a by-your-leave?"
Suzie opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"I mean, I was led to believe this planet was civilised, at least, it was the last time I was here, nice food and pretty paintings and the occasional alien invasion, but it's clearly gone downhill since then. Look at this!" She gingerly picked at her blood-stained shirt. "That's rare Thereman silk, and the Thereman star went nova three million years ago, and do you think I'll ever find anything as nice again? Not that it fits any more..." She trailed off and looked at her hand. "Oh, damn. Not the nicest way to regenerate, thank-you-very-much. I liked my old body. I got it from a princess."
"I..." Suzie took a deep breath and pulled herself together. "Under the authority of the Torchwood Institute, I am placing you under arrest--"
"You're what? Oh, come now..."
"—And charging you with crimes under the Unauthorised Extra-Terrestrial Act of 190--"
"You kill me, then arrest me? Sensible people do it the other way around." The alien picked up her discarded handbag and started rooting through it. "I knew it was a mistake coming back here, but no, I had to be sentimental. For old times sake, I told myself. Auld lang syne and all that."
"—Anything you say may be used against you--"
"Oh well. You can't go home again, I suppose. Literally, in my case. Must look into that – ooh, what do we have here?"
She plucked the glove out of Suzie's arms and sighed.
"As if you people needed that sort of power over life and death. Honestly, how bloody arrogant can you get? And look, I don't really want to be arrested, it's never as fun as it sounds, and--"
She was holding something, Suzie saw now, a tiny glass disc on a slender chain. Glass? No. Light.
"Stop," said Suzie.
"—And all things considered, I'd really rather just go away quietly--"
Her hand closed around the disc just as Suzie caught her arm.
And the universe shifted.
When Suzie opened her eyes, they were somewhere else all together.
"Oh," said the alien woman. "Bugger.
5. You come through
"This is Emergency Program One."
Suzie sank to the floor.
"No," she said.
"Suzie, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape."
"Fuck," said Suzie, because it was satisfying. Damn Time Lord, always treating her like a child, sending her home to grow old and rot while everyone died and the world ended--
"And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But you're not going to share it. The TARDIS is taking you home."
"Like hell," said Suzie. She climbed to her feet and reached for the console.
"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now - typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it; no one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on and the box will be buried. And if you wanna remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all. One thing."
She reached for the controls, pushing aside the notes she had left for herself and the notes the Doctor had left for himself. She knew this. She'd taught herself, and he'd taught her, and it was a machine, it could be overridden--
"Have a good life. Do that for me, Suzie. Have a fantastic life."
"Condescending wanker," she muttered.
And then the engines died, and she opened the door and found herself back in her own flat. As if she'd never left.
"Damn," she said.
*
It wasn't that Suzie was in the habit of running off with aliens, but there was a man who told her to run, and who showed up later with a bit of living plastic, and she wasn't in the habit of ignoring alien tech when it made itself available.
Running off with the Enemy wasn't the way to win friends and influence people in Torchwood, but it wasn't like they were offering to take her day-tripping through time and space and the end of the world and beyond. And now she was stuck at home with a TARDIS parked next to the sofa.
She thought about going back to work, but she couldn't put it out of her mind, the Doctor and the Daleks. And Jack.
She thought he'd understand if she took some more time off.
*
In the end, it was a matter of listening. She gets into your head, the Doctor had said when Suzie asked about the telepathic field. Not a machine. Not just a machine.
And she wanted to save the Doctor as much as Suzie.
The TARDIS opened itself up and Suzie looked into the Vortex.
After that, she remembered very little. Except standing in the doorway, meeting the Doctor's eyes and seeing more than she had ever believed existed.
"I know how it works," she said.
And for a few minutes, an eternity, she held life and death and a million possibilities in her hand, and the Daleks were dust because they deserved to be nothing more, and Jack was a hollow shell so she filled him with light.
After that, there was pain, and the Doctor caught her as she fell.
"I think you need a doctor," he said.
"The right kind of doctor," she answered, and he didn't understand, but that was all right.
He kissed her, and she passed out, but she could still hear the TARDIS singing, and she smiled.
end
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 12:33 pm (UTC)When is coffee tomorrow?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 07:56 pm (UTC)#3 as in the fic? "Doomsday", the DW season finale.
*kicks brain* HP fic, stat.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 12:02 am (UTC)You write more HP fic, I'll put into words the Mary Russell fic looming in my backbrain.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 07:57 pm (UTC)Thanks! The "how it works" theme just appeared by accident, but it made so much sense I let it stay.
Regarding one's fic as being superior to the canon material is like buying a one-way ticket to Fandom_Wank, or at least telling the world it's okay to stop taking you seriously. *eyedart* So I hope Torchwood proves you wrong soon...
no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 08:48 pm (UTC)And, well, I hope so too, because I'm an optimist that way. At least Suzie shares my (and fandom's) hatred of Owen - meeting of experts for the win!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 03:25 pm (UTC)*has no appropriate icon, either*
no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 07:58 pm (UTC)(I have an appropriate happy icon, at least.)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 08:00 pm (UTC)twothree hours!*eyedart*
Very late last night, I thought, "Damn, what I should have done was slipped her into "Dalek"! That would have made ten times more sense!" But by then, the fic had already been posted.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 08:00 pm (UTC)*does a happy dance*
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 02:12 am (UTC)And I agree that #4 deserves expanding.