Fic: "A Very Exclusive Club"
May. 2nd, 2006 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalNotes: Doctor Who, post School Reunion, no spoilers, rated G.
The girl smiled automatically at the businessman in front of her as she took back the credit receipt he'd just signed. "Thank you for shopping at Greenman's, haveaniceday." It wasn't her real smile, just the plastic one her job required. Real smiles for real people, not the automaton her job required her to be. You could replace her with an android and no one would notice, she suspected. I've met androids with more personality than I've got these days, she thought.
The next customer came up, a woman with dyed hair and wrinkles, maybe sixty or so, and a sensible Mac wrapped around her for the weather outside. Rain. Nice ordinary boring rain. Not acid eating away in the scientists' camp as the monsters prowled the perimeter, or pink stuff that floated down and tasted like licorice if you caught it on your tongue. She started to scan the woman's assortment; hair conditioner, anti-acid tablets, a pack of Jelly Babies.
How did I get here? the girl wondered. She hadn't figured it would be like this, when her journey had ended. She thought she'd have ended up... somewhere else... somewhere wonderful... not... Home, with Mum and Dad screaming "Where were you?", and no job, and no degree. It wasn't supposed to end like that, in the stories at least. She'd figured she'd be living somewhere exotic, like Tahiti, or the Moon. Not in her old room in her mum and dad's council house, working for five quid an hour at Greenman's.
"Cash or credit?" her mouth said automatically, while her brain drifted around the Oort Cloud a few times. She'd had her brain removed once. Not voluntarily, and he'd taken terrible risks to put it back where it was. She wondered if he really should have bothered.
"Do you take Denebian barter chits?" the woman asked.
The girl blinked out of her haze. "Sorry, what?"
"Or Galactic Trade Units?" The woman smiled at her.
"We only take pounds, euros, or credit, ma'am," she said.
"Nuevo Brazilia Dollars?" the woman went on.
She knew that one. It was enough to snap her back to full consciousness, enough to make her afraid. She knows him, and that can't good. It meant someone was looking for him, and wanted to get at him through her. She was too smart to think it was about her alone, it never was.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we only take pounds, euros, and credit," she repeated. The front exit was three meters away. She was certain she could make the jump over the counter and be out in the car park before the woman could draw a weapon, clear of any nearby civilians.
"Alicia Thomas. That's your name, isn't it?" the woman asked. She ignored the pointed throat clearing of the young man in line behind her. "You went missing for eight months. Then you turned up again in the middle of the Scottish highlands of all places, with no explanation as to where you'd been or who you'd been with."
"You've got the wrong person, ma'am," she said. Door. Car park. Escape. No civilians hurt, that was important above all else. She'd seen too many good people die and she was sick of it. She wasn't even twenty-five and she was sick of death.
"He left you," the woman said. "Left you behind, or kicked you out, or maybe you got furious with him and stomped off. And then you had to pick up your life where you'd left it. Except it wasn't yours anymore, it belonged to someone ordinary, someone normal, not someone who'd stood under alien suns, and met with the Yeti, or the Great Intelligence, or the Cybermen. But you had to put that stranger's skin back on, and take a rotten job at Greenman's because there's nobody here to talk about it all, no one here who would understand."
Alicia gulped back a sob. "Who are you?"
The woman held out her hand. "Sarah-Jane Smith. I'm a reporter. Once, a long time ago, I was a traveler who went around with my very best friend who lived in a blue box and whom I'm convinced was quite mad half the time." She took hold of Alicia's hand and pulled her around the counter. "Here, you've just turned in your notice. Don't worry about your job, and I can get you another. More interesting than this, and almost certainly the pay will be better."
"Anything pays better than this," Alicia agreed. She walked out into the rain, never mind her anorak which was back in the break room. History repeats itself. Then it was into Sarah's car and it was off down the road. "Where are we going?" she belatedly asked.
"To a pub in Islington," Sarah replied, crossing the roundabout. "I want you to meet some friends of mine."
"Friends? God, you mean there's more than just you? I thought I was the only one who'd traveled with him!"
"He makes you think that, doesn't he?" Sarah said with a grin. "Which one was he?"
Alicia frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Which regeneration was he? How did he look?"
"Regen-- Oh! The change! He never did that with me, though he explained it, or at least he tried to. He looked... I dunno, maybe twenty-five. Long black hair, kept in a sort of ponytail. Liked to wear a tweed sports coat most of the time, with the patches at the elbows, and these awful looking striped pants."
Sarah raised an eyebrow. "I don't know that one. He must be further along than the last version I met. First time I saw him he had a beak of a nose, white hair, and dressed like a dandy. Then he changed on me, after he'd gotten hurt. Still tall, but now he was all teeth and curls. Mad as a hatter most of the time afterward. The last one was... more or less normal, at least as he goes."
"I don't think I'd ever call him normal," Alicia said.
"Was he pleasant at least?"
"Ugh, most of the time it was like being locked in a room with Morrissey, if you could imagine that. But he cared about me. You should have seen him the one time--" She shook her head. Bad memories there.
Sarah didn't ask any more questions. Two more roundabouts and they were in Islington, dropping off her car in a pay park, and walking down a side street to a perfectly ordinary pub named "The Maiden's Secret." The old woman pushed the door open, and called out a cheery "Hallo!"
"Fab! You found her, Sarah!" a woman with frizzy red hair called out. She was sitting next to another old lady with glasses and her hair pulled back in a schoolmarm's bun.
"Yes, I did." Sarah gestured to the red haired woman. "Alicia, this is Melanie Bush."
"Call me 'Mel', dearest."
"And the woman next to her is Dr. Liz Shaw."
"Hello, my dear," Liz said.
"Liz Shaw? Oh! You were on all the science shows after the Sycorax showed up that Christmas!" Alicia said excitedly.
Dr. Shaw nodded. "Yes, bad business that."
"Scary enough anyway," Alicia agreed.
"Make yourself comfortable, Alicia," Sarah said, sliding into the booth across from Peri and Liz. She asked Dr. Shaw, "Where's Jo and Dorothy?"
"Jo's back in the loo, fixing her makeup," Mel said. "Dorothy begged off, same as usual."
Sarah-Jane rolled her eyes. "No surprise there. I don't even know why I bother calling her anymore. Well, since Jo is probably going to take forever, allow me to welcome you to the club, Alicia." She waved to the bartender, who brought over a fresh round of drinks.
Alicia looked at the other women in confusion. "Club? What club? Wait, you mean you've all met him?!"
"And traveled with him," Liz said.
"And had the living daylights scared out of us by him," Mel agreed.
"Good god, how many of us are there?"
"By my reckoning, there's at least nine or ten of us still alive in the 21st century, at least that I've been able to locate," Sarah explained. "After I met him again, I realized that maybe it wasn't just me that felt the way I had after he dropped me off."
"Lost?" Alicia asked.
"Adrift," Liz corrected. "I thought I could just drop back into my science work for UNIT, but..."
"Can't keep thinking about it, can you?" Mel asked her. "What it used to be like, traveling up and down the universe, everywhere and everywhen."
"Yeah," Alicia said softly. "I thought I'd be happy to be home, where it was safe, and normal."
"Except that it's safe, and normal, and ordinary, and small," Sarah finished. "That's how I felt at least. I knew of at least two or three others living in England who felt the same way. So I found them, and together we found others, and so here we are."
"The Companion's Club," Mel said. "Welcome aboard, Alicia!"
"Thank you," she said, and meant it. "Do I get a membership card and a blazer badge?"
Sarah laughed. "No, but you do get all of our mobile numbers, and a sympathetic ear when you need it."
"And a little help, if you ask," Mel added. "Sarah has the cleverest little tin dog you've ever seen!"
"Tin dog?"
"He's sitting in the boot of my car. I'll show him to you later," Sarah said.
"Okay." Alicia suddenly frowned. "Which still doesn't get my job back, which I'm probably fired from, and Mr. Patel has likely already thrown my anorak into the garbage bin."
"No worries. How do you fancy becoming a research assistant?" Sarah asked. "If you traveled with him, you're cleverer than most folk. I'll bet if you got the chance you'd make a good reporter, and I could use the help."
"Or you could become a scientist," Liz added.
"Or an aerobics instructor!" Mel finished. When the other two women stared at her, she added sheepishly, "Well, she might."
"Research assistant sounds good, for a start," Alicia said. "A new start."
"Best kind," Sarah agreed, and raised her glass to her.
The End
The girl smiled automatically at the businessman in front of her as she took back the credit receipt he'd just signed. "Thank you for shopping at Greenman's, haveaniceday." It wasn't her real smile, just the plastic one her job required. Real smiles for real people, not the automaton her job required her to be. You could replace her with an android and no one would notice, she suspected. I've met androids with more personality than I've got these days, she thought.
The next customer came up, a woman with dyed hair and wrinkles, maybe sixty or so, and a sensible Mac wrapped around her for the weather outside. Rain. Nice ordinary boring rain. Not acid eating away in the scientists' camp as the monsters prowled the perimeter, or pink stuff that floated down and tasted like licorice if you caught it on your tongue. She started to scan the woman's assortment; hair conditioner, anti-acid tablets, a pack of Jelly Babies.
How did I get here? the girl wondered. She hadn't figured it would be like this, when her journey had ended. She thought she'd have ended up... somewhere else... somewhere wonderful... not... Home, with Mum and Dad screaming "Where were you?", and no job, and no degree. It wasn't supposed to end like that, in the stories at least. She'd figured she'd be living somewhere exotic, like Tahiti, or the Moon. Not in her old room in her mum and dad's council house, working for five quid an hour at Greenman's.
"Cash or credit?" her mouth said automatically, while her brain drifted around the Oort Cloud a few times. She'd had her brain removed once. Not voluntarily, and he'd taken terrible risks to put it back where it was. She wondered if he really should have bothered.
"Do you take Denebian barter chits?" the woman asked.
The girl blinked out of her haze. "Sorry, what?"
"Or Galactic Trade Units?" The woman smiled at her.
"We only take pounds, euros, or credit, ma'am," she said.
"Nuevo Brazilia Dollars?" the woman went on.
She knew that one. It was enough to snap her back to full consciousness, enough to make her afraid. She knows him, and that can't good. It meant someone was looking for him, and wanted to get at him through her. She was too smart to think it was about her alone, it never was.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we only take pounds, euros, and credit," she repeated. The front exit was three meters away. She was certain she could make the jump over the counter and be out in the car park before the woman could draw a weapon, clear of any nearby civilians.
"Alicia Thomas. That's your name, isn't it?" the woman asked. She ignored the pointed throat clearing of the young man in line behind her. "You went missing for eight months. Then you turned up again in the middle of the Scottish highlands of all places, with no explanation as to where you'd been or who you'd been with."
"You've got the wrong person, ma'am," she said. Door. Car park. Escape. No civilians hurt, that was important above all else. She'd seen too many good people die and she was sick of it. She wasn't even twenty-five and she was sick of death.
"He left you," the woman said. "Left you behind, or kicked you out, or maybe you got furious with him and stomped off. And then you had to pick up your life where you'd left it. Except it wasn't yours anymore, it belonged to someone ordinary, someone normal, not someone who'd stood under alien suns, and met with the Yeti, or the Great Intelligence, or the Cybermen. But you had to put that stranger's skin back on, and take a rotten job at Greenman's because there's nobody here to talk about it all, no one here who would understand."
Alicia gulped back a sob. "Who are you?"
The woman held out her hand. "Sarah-Jane Smith. I'm a reporter. Once, a long time ago, I was a traveler who went around with my very best friend who lived in a blue box and whom I'm convinced was quite mad half the time." She took hold of Alicia's hand and pulled her around the counter. "Here, you've just turned in your notice. Don't worry about your job, and I can get you another. More interesting than this, and almost certainly the pay will be better."
"Anything pays better than this," Alicia agreed. She walked out into the rain, never mind her anorak which was back in the break room. History repeats itself. Then it was into Sarah's car and it was off down the road. "Where are we going?" she belatedly asked.
"To a pub in Islington," Sarah replied, crossing the roundabout. "I want you to meet some friends of mine."
"Friends? God, you mean there's more than just you? I thought I was the only one who'd traveled with him!"
"He makes you think that, doesn't he?" Sarah said with a grin. "Which one was he?"
Alicia frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Which regeneration was he? How did he look?"
"Regen-- Oh! The change! He never did that with me, though he explained it, or at least he tried to. He looked... I dunno, maybe twenty-five. Long black hair, kept in a sort of ponytail. Liked to wear a tweed sports coat most of the time, with the patches at the elbows, and these awful looking striped pants."
Sarah raised an eyebrow. "I don't know that one. He must be further along than the last version I met. First time I saw him he had a beak of a nose, white hair, and dressed like a dandy. Then he changed on me, after he'd gotten hurt. Still tall, but now he was all teeth and curls. Mad as a hatter most of the time afterward. The last one was... more or less normal, at least as he goes."
"I don't think I'd ever call him normal," Alicia said.
"Was he pleasant at least?"
"Ugh, most of the time it was like being locked in a room with Morrissey, if you could imagine that. But he cared about me. You should have seen him the one time--" She shook her head. Bad memories there.
Sarah didn't ask any more questions. Two more roundabouts and they were in Islington, dropping off her car in a pay park, and walking down a side street to a perfectly ordinary pub named "The Maiden's Secret." The old woman pushed the door open, and called out a cheery "Hallo!"
"Fab! You found her, Sarah!" a woman with frizzy red hair called out. She was sitting next to another old lady with glasses and her hair pulled back in a schoolmarm's bun.
"Yes, I did." Sarah gestured to the red haired woman. "Alicia, this is Melanie Bush."
"Call me 'Mel', dearest."
"And the woman next to her is Dr. Liz Shaw."
"Hello, my dear," Liz said.
"Liz Shaw? Oh! You were on all the science shows after the Sycorax showed up that Christmas!" Alicia said excitedly.
Dr. Shaw nodded. "Yes, bad business that."
"Scary enough anyway," Alicia agreed.
"Make yourself comfortable, Alicia," Sarah said, sliding into the booth across from Peri and Liz. She asked Dr. Shaw, "Where's Jo and Dorothy?"
"Jo's back in the loo, fixing her makeup," Mel said. "Dorothy begged off, same as usual."
Sarah-Jane rolled her eyes. "No surprise there. I don't even know why I bother calling her anymore. Well, since Jo is probably going to take forever, allow me to welcome you to the club, Alicia." She waved to the bartender, who brought over a fresh round of drinks.
Alicia looked at the other women in confusion. "Club? What club? Wait, you mean you've all met him?!"
"And traveled with him," Liz said.
"And had the living daylights scared out of us by him," Mel agreed.
"Good god, how many of us are there?"
"By my reckoning, there's at least nine or ten of us still alive in the 21st century, at least that I've been able to locate," Sarah explained. "After I met him again, I realized that maybe it wasn't just me that felt the way I had after he dropped me off."
"Lost?" Alicia asked.
"Adrift," Liz corrected. "I thought I could just drop back into my science work for UNIT, but..."
"Can't keep thinking about it, can you?" Mel asked her. "What it used to be like, traveling up and down the universe, everywhere and everywhen."
"Yeah," Alicia said softly. "I thought I'd be happy to be home, where it was safe, and normal."
"Except that it's safe, and normal, and ordinary, and small," Sarah finished. "That's how I felt at least. I knew of at least two or three others living in England who felt the same way. So I found them, and together we found others, and so here we are."
"The Companion's Club," Mel said. "Welcome aboard, Alicia!"
"Thank you," she said, and meant it. "Do I get a membership card and a blazer badge?"
Sarah laughed. "No, but you do get all of our mobile numbers, and a sympathetic ear when you need it."
"And a little help, if you ask," Mel added. "Sarah has the cleverest little tin dog you've ever seen!"
"Tin dog?"
"He's sitting in the boot of my car. I'll show him to you later," Sarah said.
"Okay." Alicia suddenly frowned. "Which still doesn't get my job back, which I'm probably fired from, and Mr. Patel has likely already thrown my anorak into the garbage bin."
"No worries. How do you fancy becoming a research assistant?" Sarah asked. "If you traveled with him, you're cleverer than most folk. I'll bet if you got the chance you'd make a good reporter, and I could use the help."
"Or you could become a scientist," Liz added.
"Or an aerobics instructor!" Mel finished. When the other two women stared at her, she added sheepishly, "Well, she might."
"Research assistant sounds good, for a start," Alicia said. "A new start."
"Best kind," Sarah agreed, and raised her glass to her.
The End
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 05:26 pm (UTC)Some things are worth getting your heart broken over.
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Date: 2006-05-02 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 09:04 pm (UTC)Lucky this was a shorty.
You will go nuts for this episode; I know you. :)
QUIBBLES:
1. Liz went off to work for Cambridge when last we saw her on TV. (Well technically we saw her in Five Doctors, but she was an illusion there.)
2. Semi-canonically, Liz eventually found herself working for PROBE (in a series of videos), a civilian agency that investigated paranormal activity.
3. Liz dies on Mars on a UNIT expedition in 2003, according to one of the New Adventures.
Depending on your UNIT dating theories, Liz was probably in her late 20s in 1980 (UNIT era being either 70s or 80s in the Whoniverse, but never explicitly stated definitively, thus endless fandom fights). So if she's 30 in 1980, she'd be 55 or so (my mom's age) now. Not sure if that'd be "old lady", but she might be as much as a decade older.
Incidently, IMDB puts Liz Sladen at 58 (she was born in Feb 1948). She looks damned good for her age, I must say. Assuming Sarah Jane's the same age as the actress who plays her, that'd put her a few years younger than Dr Shaw, which seems about right. In "Pyramids of Mars", Sarah Jane claims to be from 1980, though episode aired in 1975.
If Rose is 19 years old (20 at most) at the time of SCHOOL REUNION, Sarah Jane would have been nearly 40 when Rose was born. I'd peg Jackie, Rose's Mum, at about 40, so Sarah Jane is literally old enough to be Rose's grandmother.