Vanilla-y Brig/ Liz
Sep. 22nd, 2006 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafHaving been prodded to do this by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aervir, and a tweaked version of a ficlet posted elsewhere.
Doctor Who, Pertwee-era, not long after Spearhead from Space. The BBC owns everything mentioned here except the University of Cambridge, and the reference to the Gospels.
Ficlet, barely het.
Summary: Liz can't wait to get back to Cambridge: the Brigadier is driving her up the wall.
UNIT was an impossible place to work, thought Liz, as she took off her lab coat and prepared to go home. Oh, it was wonderful to have funding and access to better equipment than even the Rutherford Labs had, and Doctor “Smith” was positively normal compared to some of the people one met in Cambridge. But she wanted to get back to college, so she could do some disciplined work, instead of rushing from crisis to crisis. Even undergraduates seemed less annoying when compared with, say, murderous shop dummies. Though you couldn’t get rid of the undergrads with a modified transmitter. Pity, really.
But what really made the situation intolerable was the Brigadier. He would turn up at unpredictable moments, that ridiculous swagger stick tucked firmly under his arm, asking idiotic questions which merely showed his ignorance of science, or bearing a list of problems that he wanted solved. At once, or sooner. Oh, he was always scrupulously polite and pleasant – it was always "Miss Shaw", and "if you would, please" – but underneath it all, you could feel the assumption that she would do what he said. What he ordered, when you got down to it. The will, like a charged wire…
He probably wasn’t even aware of it, she reflected, it was the military mindset. “I say to him go, and he goeth.” But it was insufferable. And any criticism – though admittedly he would listen in a real crisis – just rolled off him. He was so smooth and tidy and well groomed, though that was more aesthetically pleasing than most of the men in Cambridge, who tended to affect clothes that a self-respecting scarecrow would disown. But the Brigadier was so crisply starched that sometimes she had the terrible urge to reach out and ruffle his hair, just to see what would happen.
Today he had, for once, left her alone. No arguments, no interruptions. It had been a terribly pleasant change. But it was most unlike him.
At the door of the lab, she almost walked into him.
“Ah, Miss Shaw,” he said, and tugged unconsciously at his tunic. “Finished for today?”
“Well, it is half past six,” she said, somewhat tartly. “I have got a life to go home to which UNIT has not yet totally succeeded in hijacking.”
“Quite so. I suppose that means there’s no use asking you if you would like to come along to the Mess for a drink?”
She stared at him. This was not what she'd expected.
“Well, you are part of UNIT now” he said reasonably. “You ought to get to know everyone you might be working with.”
Liz sighed. “Oh, all right, that’s a fair point. And to think I was congratulating myself on being spared SCR social events, at the very least.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find the company more entertaining here” said the Brigadier cheerfully. “Shall we?”
Insufferable man! But for some reason, she found herself smiling.
aervir, and a tweaked version of a ficlet posted elsewhere.Doctor Who, Pertwee-era, not long after Spearhead from Space. The BBC owns everything mentioned here except the University of Cambridge, and the reference to the Gospels.
Ficlet, barely het.
Summary: Liz can't wait to get back to Cambridge: the Brigadier is driving her up the wall.
UNIT was an impossible place to work, thought Liz, as she took off her lab coat and prepared to go home. Oh, it was wonderful to have funding and access to better equipment than even the Rutherford Labs had, and Doctor “Smith” was positively normal compared to some of the people one met in Cambridge. But she wanted to get back to college, so she could do some disciplined work, instead of rushing from crisis to crisis. Even undergraduates seemed less annoying when compared with, say, murderous shop dummies. Though you couldn’t get rid of the undergrads with a modified transmitter. Pity, really.
But what really made the situation intolerable was the Brigadier. He would turn up at unpredictable moments, that ridiculous swagger stick tucked firmly under his arm, asking idiotic questions which merely showed his ignorance of science, or bearing a list of problems that he wanted solved. At once, or sooner. Oh, he was always scrupulously polite and pleasant – it was always "Miss Shaw", and "if you would, please" – but underneath it all, you could feel the assumption that she would do what he said. What he ordered, when you got down to it. The will, like a charged wire…
He probably wasn’t even aware of it, she reflected, it was the military mindset. “I say to him go, and he goeth.” But it was insufferable. And any criticism – though admittedly he would listen in a real crisis – just rolled off him. He was so smooth and tidy and well groomed, though that was more aesthetically pleasing than most of the men in Cambridge, who tended to affect clothes that a self-respecting scarecrow would disown. But the Brigadier was so crisply starched that sometimes she had the terrible urge to reach out and ruffle his hair, just to see what would happen.
Today he had, for once, left her alone. No arguments, no interruptions. It had been a terribly pleasant change. But it was most unlike him.
At the door of the lab, she almost walked into him.
“Ah, Miss Shaw,” he said, and tugged unconsciously at his tunic. “Finished for today?”
“Well, it is half past six,” she said, somewhat tartly. “I have got a life to go home to which UNIT has not yet totally succeeded in hijacking.”
“Quite so. I suppose that means there’s no use asking you if you would like to come along to the Mess for a drink?”
She stared at him. This was not what she'd expected.
“Well, you are part of UNIT now” he said reasonably. “You ought to get to know everyone you might be working with.”
Liz sighed. “Oh, all right, that’s a fair point. And to think I was congratulating myself on being spared SCR social events, at the very least.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find the company more entertaining here” said the Brigadier cheerfully. “Shall we?”
Insufferable man! But for some reason, she found herself smiling.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 03:36 pm (UTC)SCR mixers being both the company and the dodgy sherry?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 04:26 pm (UTC)Dr Liz Shaw was a Cambridge physicist head-hunted by UNIT, and one of the Doctor's few really intelligent companions. Unfortunately she was only in the show one year, as the actress got pregnant, and anyway, I think the BBC thought she was too bright and formidable for the kiddies (bah!) - so she was replaced by the ditsy Jo Grant. I rather like her in the one story I have thus far seen, - and in said story (Spearhead from Space), where she spends a lot of time sparring with the Brigadier, there is definite chemistry, if you ask me. Not that I at all fancy Lethbridge-Stewart myself, oh dear me no...
The mixer was the company - but I've reformulated the phrase. I don't know what college Liz belonged to, but one would hope that they could muster decent sherry at least...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 04:57 pm (UTC)I never actually saw much Old Who until recently, though I have very vague memories of the tail end of McCoy (mostly of the theme tune, actually :) ) And I read quite a few of the Target novelisations when I was a kid. I'll keep my eyes open for the Silurians on DVD.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 05:06 pm (UTC)I read quite a few of the Target novelisations when I was a kid
*looks shifty* Actually, so did I. In fact, I've still got them. I think my mother brought them over a few years ago as part of a clear out of my old stuff. Some were even quite good when I re-read them. :) (Day of the Daleks for example.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 05:13 pm (UTC)My introduction to Star Trek was via James Blish's short-storyizations of TOS. Which were very good, actually, but then Blish could write.
(I'm amused that the google targeted ads on my e-mail notification are currently for dalek memerobilia - and handmade shirts from Jermyn Street. No kilts, oddly enough...)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 04:48 pm (UTC)Good point about females dons at least not forgetting to wash, though there's one with a leather skirt I would havppily be spared. For scientists, it's the hands that get me - you can tell the old-fashioned types by the bits missing from their fingers.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 05:03 pm (UTC)Unclean! Unclean!
I hadn't thought about the missing finger aspect. Well, Lethbridge-Stewart appeared to have all his attached, despite the opportunity for losing them while blowing things up.
UNIT is great fun (better than stupid old Torchwood, she muttered in an Old Schoolish manner), and the Brigadier in particular is splendid, with a rather wry sense of humour in the face of all the trying things vexing a simple soldier. "Just for once, I'd like to meet an enemy bullets could stop"...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 05:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 06:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 05:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 06:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 06:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-22 07:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-23 09:15 am (UTC)Doctor “Smith” was positively normal compared to some of the people one met in Cambridge.
If hubby's ex-colleagues were anything to go by that is so true!
Pertwee was my preferred Doctor, although I did watch the series before that. I agree with you about UNIT. I don't think this Torchwood thingy will be able to hold a candle to it, and I shan't be in a hurry to watch the programme as I can't stand Captain Jack Harkness (ducks brickbats thrown by Captain Jack fans).
Hope you will feel inspired to write more Old School Dr Who fanfic!
MM
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-23 09:40 am (UTC)I can take Cap'n Jack in small doses, but I think he'd be unbearable as a central character. And speaking as someone who had to put up with undergraduates noisily admiring him (and muttering denigrating comments about Nine) while I was trying to watch Doctor Who... well, I think him having his own series is probably a good thing. For people who like that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing they like, to quote Miss Jean Brodie.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-14 06:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-15 09:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-28 03:38 am (UTC)I really liked this, I loved the clothing thing, it was very funny. And three is very normal compared to some human beings, especially scientists, that I have met
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-28 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-19 07:35 pm (UTC)