Entry tags:
Five Moments in Liz Shaw's Life as an Alien (and One Before She Knew) (Teen, 1/1)
Title: Five Moments in Liz Shaw's Life as an Alien (and One Before She Knew)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing(s): Liz Shaw, Third Doctor, the Brig, Benton
Rating: Teen
Word count: 1,681
Spoilers: None
Summary: Liz Shaw, unexpectedly always an alien.
Author's notes: Written for the Always an Alien square on my Keep Fandom Weird bingo card. Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
platypus for the beta.
1.
The Doctor claimed to have fixed the TARDIS. He’d dematerialised in his ship, leaving behind a singular odour that only got worse when he re-emerged, coughing and sheepish, admitting he’d only got as far as the rubbish tip.
The noxious scents of sulphur and rubbish and a hint of ... was it formaldehyde? Liz braced herself on the garage workbench as her stomach lurched. She was well enough at first to laugh at the Doctor’s plight, but after he and the Brigadier left, she sagged to the floor while the room spun about her head.
Benton drove her home. She slept for seventeen dreamless hours.
And woke with golden eyes and an extra joint in her thumbs and the certain knowledge that sixteen years ago, her mum had left her a note and two white pills in the false floor of Liz’s childhood music box.
2.
The Doctor strode into the lab, cape flying behind him, four hours after he’d said he’d be there. Liz had already filled half a notebook: hourly vital signs check; no observable changes in height or weight, although what appeared to be three minute flaps on either side of her ribcage were slowly growing in. Also, she was inexplicably and desperately craving prawns in garlic sauce, so Yates had kindly despatched a soldier to the local Chinese.
“Doctor,” Liz said, “I need to speak with you right away.”
He was already deeply absorbed in a thin pink liquid he’d poured into an Erlenmeyer flask and set over a Bunsen burner, and was attaching clamps and corkscrewed distillation tubes to the bars above the lab bench. “Pass me that test tube, would you, Liz?” he said, adding another clamp to the bars.
Liz reached for the test tube automatically. She had multiple doctorates, was one of the brightest scientific minds in generations, yet still she simply handed over the test tube when a man asked for it. No matter how smart the Doctor was, he was also fully capable of reaching half an arm’s length himself.
He nodded thanks. Couldn’t even say it out loud.
“Doctor.”
“Yes?”
The pink mixture continued to bubble, and were those raisins Liz was smelling? Perhaps bananas? A burnt-sugar edge, bitter like hardening caramel. Was this simply whatever compound the Doctor was examining, or had Liz’s sense of smell grown more sensitive? Either way, she needed to add this to her journal.
“Miss Shaw?” said the young soldier holding a paper bag. “Your prawns.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” the Doctor said. “I’m absolutely ravenous. Give that here, soldier. Thank you.”
Liz stalked back to her desk and added another item to her notebook. 13:41: Smelt raisins, bananas, sugar at 146°C. Is sense of smell more acute? Devise test protocol with strong and weak scents.
At the end, she added, Also, contact universities for research faculty positions.
3.
At 2:41am exactly – and oddly, Liz’s brain sensed that even before she saw the time on her bedside clock – she found herself racing to the toilet to lose the cheese toast she’d eaten instead of prawns. Vomiting up something as innocuous as melted cheddar on wheat was strange enough, but what she really found strange was the way she braced herself against the toilet with five slim, iridescent green tentacles that had emerged from her torso, while a sixth thoughtfully held back her hair.
A glass of water and a message with UNIT’s after-hours number later to tell them she wouldn’t be at work in the morning, Liz lay in bed waiting for the nausea to fully pass. Two of the tentacles held a cool compress to her head, and she’d retracted the other four by simply visualising them sliding back into place.
She was too tired to record more than 2:59am: Tentacles. TENTACLES. The remaining two dropped the compress to the floor and quietly snicked into their slots, but not before one patted Liz gently on the head.
4.
Could a tentacle crack an egg for her morning scramble? Yes.
Could it do this while another two sliced bread and made toast? Also yes.
Could a fourth tentacle take notes on this behavior while it happened? Yes, but its handwriting (tentaclewriting?) was abysmal, and Liz took over after the first couple of words slipped halfway down the page.
Tentacle control otherwise came so naturally to her that it must have been inborn in some way, and presumably Decratian biologists and physicians had sorted this out already. In the bath, two of the tentacles scrubbed her hair, lathered, rinsed, repeated.
The remainder explored ... other parts of her body. Two slithered over her belly, feather-light, dipping down between her legs. Liz’s breath hitched when a third slipped inside her, exploring, sliding deep within. The fourth was a gentle flutter against her, and never had Liz been more grateful for a limb that could respond to her thoughts the instant she had them.
She came so loudly she feared a neighbour would hear even though no one lived in the flat beside her. The tentacles shimmered, light zipping back and forth in time with the pulses inside her, fading as the orgasm subsided.
Liz paused to dry a hand and record the results of this experiment. And then try it again, because the best scientific experiments were reproducible.
5.
Months later, when Liz spoke to the Brigadier about a reference for a faculty position at Oxford, she learned the TARDIS was working again. “There was an incident, Miss Shaw,” he said. “Since you’re no longer employed by UNIT, I’m not at liberty to discuss it. However, my understanding is that the Doctor is capable of travel again.”
Benton was more forthcoming. “The Doctor brought us all takeaway from Endara VI. Honestly, I prefer the local chippy, but this weren’t bad.”
Speaking to the Doctor himself, however, required a security clearance and a day pass.
“Hello, Liz. It’s been a while.”
“Hello, Doctor.”
“How have you been?”
“Well, you know. Taking a break. Coming to terms with being an alien.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m an alien, Doctor,” Liz said. “Decratian, apparently. On my mother’s side.”
“Decratians? What a lovely species! Oh, I haven’t visited them in ages. Did you know, I once had to fight three suitors for their queen? Well, I put on a good show, anyway. I really wanted Lord Aldren to win, so I confess I threw part of the match.”
“No, I very much did not know this about them. Or you, for that matter.”
“You should have told me sooner, Liz. I’d have told you all about their culture.”
“I tried, Doctor. But you were busy and then I was busy and ...”
He reached for her hand, enfolded it in his. “I’m so sorry, Liz. I haven’t always been the best at listening. And this is a story I very much wish I’d made time to hear.”
Liz covered his hand with a tentacle and delighted in the arched eyebrow she received in return. “I’ll tell you all about it, Doctor. All I ask is that you take me to galactic coordinates 7-0-1 by 9∂µ by 23-70-XU.”
6.
The Shaws and their neighbours shared a yard with an oak tree older even than Mrs. Barker, who remembered Disraeli’s first term in office. Its lowest branch was broad and sturdy enough for a small child to sit and read one of her birthday gifts, the latest issue of her favourite science fiction magazine.
Chapter 7 of “The Creature from Beyond” was out, and Liz had been dying to find out how scientist Dr. Adu the Algarinthian, who was studying the titular creature – a human, of course, Liz had figured that out before the big reveal in chapter 3 – was going to recapture his escaped subject. Not that the human could get very far on an aquatic world without a breathing apparatus, but if only Captain Edwards could understand that Adu was really a peer, just trying to help him –
“Liz,” called her mother, “finish up and come inside, it’s nearly time for tea.”
Edwards, you fool, was that a ray gun? Don’t point it at Adu, he’s just trying to help! Why were the aliens always the bad guys in stories like this?
“Liz! Now!”
Liz sighed, folded down the edge of the page in an equilateral triangle. She could finish the chapter after tea, she supposed.
“I’m coming down now, Mum.”
“Good. Don’t forget to wash your hands. And Liz,” her mum added, “after tea I’ve something to tell you. It’s important. But you’re fourteen now ... and it’s time.”
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing(s): Liz Shaw, Third Doctor, the Brig, Benton
Rating: Teen
Word count: 1,681
Spoilers: None
Summary: Liz Shaw, unexpectedly always an alien.
Author's notes: Written for the Always an Alien square on my Keep Fandom Weird bingo card. Thanks to
platypus for the beta.1.
The Doctor claimed to have fixed the TARDIS. He’d dematerialised in his ship, leaving behind a singular odour that only got worse when he re-emerged, coughing and sheepish, admitting he’d only got as far as the rubbish tip.
The noxious scents of sulphur and rubbish and a hint of ... was it formaldehyde? Liz braced herself on the garage workbench as her stomach lurched. She was well enough at first to laugh at the Doctor’s plight, but after he and the Brigadier left, she sagged to the floor while the room spun about her head.
Benton drove her home. She slept for seventeen dreamless hours.
And woke with golden eyes and an extra joint in her thumbs and the certain knowledge that sixteen years ago, her mum had left her a note and two white pills in the false floor of Liz’s childhood music box.
Dear Liz,
If you’re reading this, you’ve been exposed to atopozine sulphate, an incredibly rare gas found beneath the Earth’s crust. It’s awoken the latent Decratian half of your DNA.
I am Decratian. I settled on Earth years ago and fell in love with your father. He never cared that I wasn’t human, but we worried about you – so I genetically engineered you to suppress your Decratian side, to let you be a human and walk among them without fear. Your father and I agreed that when you were older, we’d tell you the truth and let you decide what to do.
You’re so bright, darling. We knew we’d be sending you away to uni sooner than expected. We couldn’t lose you without you knowing. But you were so startled when we told you – more so when I showed you. I never meant to alarm you. So I helped you forget.
The decision is yours again, dearest daughter. The pills are an antidote; you’ll go back to being human within 24 hours. Or you can explore, like the scientist you should be by now.
Galactic coordinates 7-0-1 by 9∂µ by 23-70-XU. You’ll sort out the rest. You always do.
2.
The Doctor strode into the lab, cape flying behind him, four hours after he’d said he’d be there. Liz had already filled half a notebook: hourly vital signs check; no observable changes in height or weight, although what appeared to be three minute flaps on either side of her ribcage were slowly growing in. Also, she was inexplicably and desperately craving prawns in garlic sauce, so Yates had kindly despatched a soldier to the local Chinese.
“Doctor,” Liz said, “I need to speak with you right away.”
He was already deeply absorbed in a thin pink liquid he’d poured into an Erlenmeyer flask and set over a Bunsen burner, and was attaching clamps and corkscrewed distillation tubes to the bars above the lab bench. “Pass me that test tube, would you, Liz?” he said, adding another clamp to the bars.
Liz reached for the test tube automatically. She had multiple doctorates, was one of the brightest scientific minds in generations, yet still she simply handed over the test tube when a man asked for it. No matter how smart the Doctor was, he was also fully capable of reaching half an arm’s length himself.
He nodded thanks. Couldn’t even say it out loud.
“Doctor.”
“Yes?”
The pink mixture continued to bubble, and were those raisins Liz was smelling? Perhaps bananas? A burnt-sugar edge, bitter like hardening caramel. Was this simply whatever compound the Doctor was examining, or had Liz’s sense of smell grown more sensitive? Either way, she needed to add this to her journal.
“Miss Shaw?” said the young soldier holding a paper bag. “Your prawns.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” the Doctor said. “I’m absolutely ravenous. Give that here, soldier. Thank you.”
Liz stalked back to her desk and added another item to her notebook. 13:41: Smelt raisins, bananas, sugar at 146°C. Is sense of smell more acute? Devise test protocol with strong and weak scents.
At the end, she added, Also, contact universities for research faculty positions.
3.
At 2:41am exactly – and oddly, Liz’s brain sensed that even before she saw the time on her bedside clock – she found herself racing to the toilet to lose the cheese toast she’d eaten instead of prawns. Vomiting up something as innocuous as melted cheddar on wheat was strange enough, but what she really found strange was the way she braced herself against the toilet with five slim, iridescent green tentacles that had emerged from her torso, while a sixth thoughtfully held back her hair.
A glass of water and a message with UNIT’s after-hours number later to tell them she wouldn’t be at work in the morning, Liz lay in bed waiting for the nausea to fully pass. Two of the tentacles held a cool compress to her head, and she’d retracted the other four by simply visualising them sliding back into place.
She was too tired to record more than 2:59am: Tentacles. TENTACLES. The remaining two dropped the compress to the floor and quietly snicked into their slots, but not before one patted Liz gently on the head.
4.
Could a tentacle crack an egg for her morning scramble? Yes.
Could it do this while another two sliced bread and made toast? Also yes.
Could a fourth tentacle take notes on this behavior while it happened? Yes, but its handwriting (tentaclewriting?) was abysmal, and Liz took over after the first couple of words slipped halfway down the page.
Tentacle control otherwise came so naturally to her that it must have been inborn in some way, and presumably Decratian biologists and physicians had sorted this out already. In the bath, two of the tentacles scrubbed her hair, lathered, rinsed, repeated.
The remainder explored ... other parts of her body. Two slithered over her belly, feather-light, dipping down between her legs. Liz’s breath hitched when a third slipped inside her, exploring, sliding deep within. The fourth was a gentle flutter against her, and never had Liz been more grateful for a limb that could respond to her thoughts the instant she had them.
She came so loudly she feared a neighbour would hear even though no one lived in the flat beside her. The tentacles shimmered, light zipping back and forth in time with the pulses inside her, fading as the orgasm subsided.
Liz paused to dry a hand and record the results of this experiment. And then try it again, because the best scientific experiments were reproducible.
5.
Months later, when Liz spoke to the Brigadier about a reference for a faculty position at Oxford, she learned the TARDIS was working again. “There was an incident, Miss Shaw,” he said. “Since you’re no longer employed by UNIT, I’m not at liberty to discuss it. However, my understanding is that the Doctor is capable of travel again.”
Benton was more forthcoming. “The Doctor brought us all takeaway from Endara VI. Honestly, I prefer the local chippy, but this weren’t bad.”
Speaking to the Doctor himself, however, required a security clearance and a day pass.
“Hello, Liz. It’s been a while.”
“Hello, Doctor.”
“How have you been?”
“Well, you know. Taking a break. Coming to terms with being an alien.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m an alien, Doctor,” Liz said. “Decratian, apparently. On my mother’s side.”
“Decratians? What a lovely species! Oh, I haven’t visited them in ages. Did you know, I once had to fight three suitors for their queen? Well, I put on a good show, anyway. I really wanted Lord Aldren to win, so I confess I threw part of the match.”
“No, I very much did not know this about them. Or you, for that matter.”
“You should have told me sooner, Liz. I’d have told you all about their culture.”
“I tried, Doctor. But you were busy and then I was busy and ...”
He reached for her hand, enfolded it in his. “I’m so sorry, Liz. I haven’t always been the best at listening. And this is a story I very much wish I’d made time to hear.”
Liz covered his hand with a tentacle and delighted in the arched eyebrow she received in return. “I’ll tell you all about it, Doctor. All I ask is that you take me to galactic coordinates 7-0-1 by 9∂µ by 23-70-XU.”
6.
The Shaws and their neighbours shared a yard with an oak tree older even than Mrs. Barker, who remembered Disraeli’s first term in office. Its lowest branch was broad and sturdy enough for a small child to sit and read one of her birthday gifts, the latest issue of her favourite science fiction magazine.
Chapter 7 of “The Creature from Beyond” was out, and Liz had been dying to find out how scientist Dr. Adu the Algarinthian, who was studying the titular creature – a human, of course, Liz had figured that out before the big reveal in chapter 3 – was going to recapture his escaped subject. Not that the human could get very far on an aquatic world without a breathing apparatus, but if only Captain Edwards could understand that Adu was really a peer, just trying to help him –
“Liz,” called her mother, “finish up and come inside, it’s nearly time for tea.”
Edwards, you fool, was that a ray gun? Don’t point it at Adu, he’s just trying to help! Why were the aliens always the bad guys in stories like this?
“Liz! Now!”
Liz sighed, folded down the edge of the page in an equilateral triangle. She could finish the chapter after tea, she supposed.
“I’m coming down now, Mum.”
“Good. Don’t forget to wash your hands. And Liz,” her mum added, “after tea I’ve something to tell you. It’s important. But you’re fourteen now ... and it’s time.”