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merryghoulTitle: Time and Figurative Last Meals through Space | AO3 | Teaspoon
Fandom: Doctor Who (1963/Big Finish)/Torchwood
Rating: R
Pairing: Eighth Doctor/Suzie Costello
Length: 2067 words
Content notes: mentions of canonical homicide and suicide attempts (Torchwood), minor character death, animal cruelty, mild sexual content
Author notes:
This story combines information from Torchwood TV canon, Doctor Who TV canon (for the Fifth Doctor) and Big Finish audio canon (for the Eighth Doctor). This story will be for a bonus for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
au_bingo . Prompts used: athletes, models, space stations/ships, alt. history: someone left, underwater. (Also, it's a covert Luther crossover.) Third piece for fan_flashworks .
There is also a real person who makes a brief appearance in this fic. He is dead and not involved in any sexual or graphic situations.
Summary: Snapshots of the untold story of Suzie Costello’s last moments alive as a companion of the Eighth Doctor.
When Suzie Costello sees Gwen Cooper walking into the Plass, she knows this is the end. Someone sketched a copy of her knife and Gwen saw it. The Retcon Jack gave Gwen wore off. It’s time to run.
Suzie will stand in front of the Plass’ water sculpture. Gwen will be in front of her. Suzie will pull out her gun, since Gwen deserves a special death. A bullet to the head, a bullet to the brain—she’ll decide that when she faces her later. Jack’s going to come up on the lift and try to stop her, Jack being Jack. But what Jack doesn’t know is there’s some sort of filter somewhere in the Plass where the lift is. Ordinary people can’t tell where the filter is, since it hides the people behind it. Suzie is aware of this filter. She’ll shoot him in the head and shoot Gwen and run away. And if all that fails, she’s got an even bigger plan, one that’ll ensure the deaths of every bloody Torchwood 3 staffer.
Suzie picks up her bag. It’s heavy. Not only are her knife and gun in the bag, but she has passports and identification under another name. After she’s gone, all she needs to do is head to some internet hub and erase her existence. Then she’ll be free to go wherever she pleases. She’s not sure where yet, but visiting her father in hospital is one of the first places. It’ll be fun watching the bastard gasp for air as he slowly flatlines and goes into the dark, just like he should’ve years ago.
As Suzie picks up her bag, she trips on it with her boots.
She falls into a large room. In the middle is a control panel flanked by iron bars. There’s a television on top. There are several divisions to this dimly lit room—it feels like a sound stage—but what stands out to Suzie are the candles all over this room. An opera song is playing.
Suzie hears footsteps and a door closing. Someone picks her up. She sees a man in Victorian dress with a green waistcoat in front of her. His curly brown hair could rival her curly black hair.
“Oh, are you okay?” the man asks.
The room makes a sound. The control panel is working by itself.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the Doctor. And you?”
“Is this some sort of…spaceship?”
“It’s my TARDIS. It’s a special type of spaceship. I’d encourage you to be nice to it. If you don’t listen to her, she does tend to have a bad temper. Trust me, I know.”
“Are you and the TARDIS abducting me?”
“Yes…and no. We were taking a rest break in Cardiff before going back into the Time Vortex. You fell in right as we were about to leave. So I guess you’re my latest companion.” The Doctor stands closer to Suzie. “What’s your name, though? Humans fascinate me.”
“Suzie Costello. If you and your TARDIS are going somewhere, I’d like to join you. It’s better than being in bloody Cardiff.”
Over tea and opera music, Suzie explains to the Doctor she’s a member of Torchwood. Since this Doctor hadn’t bumped into Torchwood yet, Suzie also has to explain Torchwood and its history to the Doctor. She also talks about her victims and how she was planning to kill two of her co-workers before going on the run. She doesn’t mention Jack or Gwen by name—she’s not sure if the Doctor’s met them before and she doesn’t want him to attempt to save their lives. The Doctor is calm as Suzie explains her story to him, her story becoming twisted with each new piece of information.
“I’m sorry, Suzie, but I’m going to have to take you back to Cardiff as soon as possible.”
“No.”
“Suzie, I don’t want you to attempt to kill your co-workers. But by you being here with me we are violating the Laws of Time. I had a companion before you that did that very same thing and it took a while for me to fix that mistake. I don’t want to do that again.”
“But I’m afraid, Doctor.”
“Afraid of what?”
“If my plan fails. It’s not set in stone yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I can’t kill my co-workers, then I might kill myself. I don’t want to go into the darkness, Doctor. I’m scared of what might be there. I’d rather live.”
The Doctor goes to the TARDIS consoles. “How about…” He sets some coordinates. “We visit some places before you have to go? You did tell me that you wanted to see more of the universe because Torchwood was boring you, correct?”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“I’ll take you to a few places around the galaxy. But after we have fun, I’m taking you back to Cardiff, just before you have to kill your co-workers.”
“I’m amazed you’re at ease with me, Doctor. I usually feel like no one understands me, but you understand me well.”
“Suzie, I’ve done a lot of horrible things and seen a lot of people die over the years. The worst I can do is harbour a fugitive of justice.”
The Doctor takes Suzie to the 26th Century. There, they arrive inside an underwater military base: Sea Base 6. It’s a future only Suzie will experience. The rest of her co-workers at Torchwood are long dead by now. She’s pleased by this fact, but she doesn’t let it show on her face.
“When I was younger I took some of my companions to this base. But back then it was called Sea Base 4. I guess they rebuilt it.”
“Why’d they do that?”
“I was ordered to pump Hexachromite gas to kill the Sea Devils. They wanted another world war. I didn’t want to, but I had to stop it. I wish it ended differently.” The Doctor sighs. “‘There should have been another way,’ I said after the genocide. And I really wish there was another way.”
“So why have you taken me here, Doctor?”
“Things are different between humans and Sea Devils now. They live in peace. They’re even trying to colonize planets together. It’s exactly what this planet needs: teamwork. This planet needs to band together, because fighting against all the different peoples and species on this planet will tear it apart. Especially if other species like the Daleks or the Sontarans try to invade Earth. I’ll tell you about them later. We’ve got some time.”
Suzie and the Doctor walk around the base until they run into a Sea Devil.
“Hello,” the Doctor says to the Sea Devil. “I’m the Doctor, and this is”—
The Sea Devil shoots the Doctor. Suzie runs and hides around a corridor. She goes through her bag and pulls out her gun. She’s got enough rounds for the Sea Devil, Jack and Gwen. She goes back around the corridor and shoots the Sea Devil in its head and heart.
The Doctor gets up and dusts himself off. He sees Suzie with the gun.
“I wasn’t supposed to do that, was I? I never do anything right.”
“No, no, that was right. You saved my life. We had to bump into one of the rebel Sea Devils that hate humanoids. Just my luck.”
The Doctor takes Suzie to Rome, 70 CE. Before they go inside the Colosseum for the evening, he makes her dress up as an upper-class Roman woman.
“But why do I have to dress up? Why aren’t you dressed up? You still look like you stepped out of a Victorian novel.”
“You’re a human, Suzie. I’m the Doctor.”
“I have to dress up ‘cause I’m a human while you can wear anything because you have two hearts and a lower body temperature. Stupidest excuse for not dressing up I’ve ever heard.”
Suzie walks out of the TARDIS first, without her bag, followed by the Doctor. As soon as Suzie leaves the TARDIS, though, she’s captured by male gladiators.
The Doctor runs around the Colosseum until he can’t run any more. He’s yelling for her; this confuses the patrons already inside. There is an announcement as he steps into a maenianum primum seating area, the area reserved for Rome’s wealthiest. The female gladiator Mevia is about to hunt boars. The crowd laughs and jeers. Mevia is actually Suzie, and the gladiators have stripped Suzie out of her upper-class clothing and put her into gladiatorial clothing. She’s given a spear.
“Suzie!”
“Don’t worry, Doctor. I can handle myself.”
The boars charge at Suzie. She’s able to dodge the charging boars. One by one she gores the boars in the head, making them fall over. Once the boars have tipped over, Suzie stabs them in the heart to make sure they’re all dead. Silence falls on the Colosseum.
The Doctor runs to the senators’ podium and jumps off the ledge. He grabs Suzie and they run.
“Told you I can do it, Doctor. I’m not a murderer for nothing, you know.”
They run into a gladiatorial entrance until they find the TARDIS. Gladiators run after them. By the time the gladiators reach the TARDIS, it dematerialises away.
The Doctor takes Suzie to Paris, January 30, 1958. It’s the day of Yves Saint Laurent’s first collection for Christian Dior ever since Dior’s sudden death the year before. The Doctor and Suzie know Laurent’s collection will succeed, but Laurent doesn’t know this yet. The Doctor makes Suzie wear a 1950s dress. Suzie ties her hair in a fancy bun. The Doctor holds on to her hand and leads her inside the fashion house.
“This is nice, Doctor,” Suzie says before the presentation begins. “I’m not used to getting dressed up for fancy occasions.”
“Why not, Suzie? Did Torchwood lock you up in a jail cell unless they wanted you out?”
Suzie laughs. “Well, that and my childhood. It’s too painful. I don’t want to talk about it. I wanna enjoy this moment before it goes away.”
The fashion show starts. Models walk up and down a runway in front of the Dior patrons, displaying Laurent’s variation on Dior’s New Look.
“I can’t help but wonder if we’ve met before,” Suzie says. “I mean, not earlier. But I have a feeling we’ve met in another time. Like I wasn’t a murderer and you weren’t the Doctor—it’s like you were a human.” She blows air out of her mouth. “And we really did love each other, even if I cheated on you. But it doesn’t end well ‘cause I die alone. And I feel like I’m going to die alone. At least I had you to talk to before my death.”
The Doctor looks at Suzie, but he doesn’t say anything.
After the show the Doctor and Suzie meet some of the models that walked in the show as well as Laurent himself. As the crowd thins out in Dior’s house, the Doctor and Suzie return to the TARDIS.
Suzie and the Doctor have sex. It’s a spontaneous thing—the Doctor sets the coordinates for Cardiff, October 22, 2007, after the Dior show, and Suzie kisses him. The Doctor kisses her back. One thing leads to another, and the two end up in Charley Pollard’s bedroom. If Suzie’s plans for killing Jack and Gwen fail, at least she’ll have this final fuck as her last meal.
She allows herself to forget about her plans as she falls asleep on the Doctor’s chest, listening to his two heart s beat. It’s a soothing rhythm, a rhythm few of the Doctor’s companions ever hear.
The Doctor drops Suzie off in the Plass, moments after the Doctor and Suzie of the past, along with the TARDIS, fly off to the 27th century. She straightens out her trench coat, makes sure all her things are in her bag, and walks out of the TARDIS. The Doctor silently waves goodbye to her. She waves back. The TARDIS dematerialises from the Plass.
Suzie turns and faces Gwen. She goes back over her plans again: confront Gwen, show her the knife, pull out the gun and drop her bag, shoot Jack, shoot Gwen and run.
And if any of that failed...well, she’ll put a bullet through her head. But she’ll come back, and hopefully this time, it’ll be for good.
Fandom: Doctor Who (1963/Big Finish)/Torchwood
Rating: R
Pairing: Eighth Doctor/Suzie Costello
Length: 2067 words
Content notes: mentions of canonical homicide and suicide attempts (Torchwood), minor character death, animal cruelty, mild sexual content
Author notes:
This story combines information from Torchwood TV canon, Doctor Who TV canon (for the Fifth Doctor) and Big Finish audio canon (for the Eighth Doctor). This story will be for a bonus for
au_bingo . Prompts used: athletes, models, space stations/ships, alt. history: someone left, underwater. (Also, it's a covert Luther crossover.) Third piece for fan_flashworks .There is also a real person who makes a brief appearance in this fic. He is dead and not involved in any sexual or graphic situations.
Summary: Snapshots of the untold story of Suzie Costello’s last moments alive as a companion of the Eighth Doctor.
When Suzie Costello sees Gwen Cooper walking into the Plass, she knows this is the end. Someone sketched a copy of her knife and Gwen saw it. The Retcon Jack gave Gwen wore off. It’s time to run.
Suzie will stand in front of the Plass’ water sculpture. Gwen will be in front of her. Suzie will pull out her gun, since Gwen deserves a special death. A bullet to the head, a bullet to the brain—she’ll decide that when she faces her later. Jack’s going to come up on the lift and try to stop her, Jack being Jack. But what Jack doesn’t know is there’s some sort of filter somewhere in the Plass where the lift is. Ordinary people can’t tell where the filter is, since it hides the people behind it. Suzie is aware of this filter. She’ll shoot him in the head and shoot Gwen and run away. And if all that fails, she’s got an even bigger plan, one that’ll ensure the deaths of every bloody Torchwood 3 staffer.
Suzie picks up her bag. It’s heavy. Not only are her knife and gun in the bag, but she has passports and identification under another name. After she’s gone, all she needs to do is head to some internet hub and erase her existence. Then she’ll be free to go wherever she pleases. She’s not sure where yet, but visiting her father in hospital is one of the first places. It’ll be fun watching the bastard gasp for air as he slowly flatlines and goes into the dark, just like he should’ve years ago.
As Suzie picks up her bag, she trips on it with her boots.
She falls into a large room. In the middle is a control panel flanked by iron bars. There’s a television on top. There are several divisions to this dimly lit room—it feels like a sound stage—but what stands out to Suzie are the candles all over this room. An opera song is playing.
Suzie hears footsteps and a door closing. Someone picks her up. She sees a man in Victorian dress with a green waistcoat in front of her. His curly brown hair could rival her curly black hair.
“Oh, are you okay?” the man asks.
The room makes a sound. The control panel is working by itself.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the Doctor. And you?”
“Is this some sort of…spaceship?”
“It’s my TARDIS. It’s a special type of spaceship. I’d encourage you to be nice to it. If you don’t listen to her, she does tend to have a bad temper. Trust me, I know.”
“Are you and the TARDIS abducting me?”
“Yes…and no. We were taking a rest break in Cardiff before going back into the Time Vortex. You fell in right as we were about to leave. So I guess you’re my latest companion.” The Doctor stands closer to Suzie. “What’s your name, though? Humans fascinate me.”
“Suzie Costello. If you and your TARDIS are going somewhere, I’d like to join you. It’s better than being in bloody Cardiff.”
Over tea and opera music, Suzie explains to the Doctor she’s a member of Torchwood. Since this Doctor hadn’t bumped into Torchwood yet, Suzie also has to explain Torchwood and its history to the Doctor. She also talks about her victims and how she was planning to kill two of her co-workers before going on the run. She doesn’t mention Jack or Gwen by name—she’s not sure if the Doctor’s met them before and she doesn’t want him to attempt to save their lives. The Doctor is calm as Suzie explains her story to him, her story becoming twisted with each new piece of information.
“I’m sorry, Suzie, but I’m going to have to take you back to Cardiff as soon as possible.”
“No.”
“Suzie, I don’t want you to attempt to kill your co-workers. But by you being here with me we are violating the Laws of Time. I had a companion before you that did that very same thing and it took a while for me to fix that mistake. I don’t want to do that again.”
“But I’m afraid, Doctor.”
“Afraid of what?”
“If my plan fails. It’s not set in stone yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I can’t kill my co-workers, then I might kill myself. I don’t want to go into the darkness, Doctor. I’m scared of what might be there. I’d rather live.”
The Doctor goes to the TARDIS consoles. “How about…” He sets some coordinates. “We visit some places before you have to go? You did tell me that you wanted to see more of the universe because Torchwood was boring you, correct?”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“I’ll take you to a few places around the galaxy. But after we have fun, I’m taking you back to Cardiff, just before you have to kill your co-workers.”
“I’m amazed you’re at ease with me, Doctor. I usually feel like no one understands me, but you understand me well.”
“Suzie, I’ve done a lot of horrible things and seen a lot of people die over the years. The worst I can do is harbour a fugitive of justice.”
The Doctor takes Suzie to the 26th Century. There, they arrive inside an underwater military base: Sea Base 6. It’s a future only Suzie will experience. The rest of her co-workers at Torchwood are long dead by now. She’s pleased by this fact, but she doesn’t let it show on her face.
“When I was younger I took some of my companions to this base. But back then it was called Sea Base 4. I guess they rebuilt it.”
“Why’d they do that?”
“I was ordered to pump Hexachromite gas to kill the Sea Devils. They wanted another world war. I didn’t want to, but I had to stop it. I wish it ended differently.” The Doctor sighs. “‘There should have been another way,’ I said after the genocide. And I really wish there was another way.”
“So why have you taken me here, Doctor?”
“Things are different between humans and Sea Devils now. They live in peace. They’re even trying to colonize planets together. It’s exactly what this planet needs: teamwork. This planet needs to band together, because fighting against all the different peoples and species on this planet will tear it apart. Especially if other species like the Daleks or the Sontarans try to invade Earth. I’ll tell you about them later. We’ve got some time.”
Suzie and the Doctor walk around the base until they run into a Sea Devil.
“Hello,” the Doctor says to the Sea Devil. “I’m the Doctor, and this is”—
The Sea Devil shoots the Doctor. Suzie runs and hides around a corridor. She goes through her bag and pulls out her gun. She’s got enough rounds for the Sea Devil, Jack and Gwen. She goes back around the corridor and shoots the Sea Devil in its head and heart.
The Doctor gets up and dusts himself off. He sees Suzie with the gun.
“I wasn’t supposed to do that, was I? I never do anything right.”
“No, no, that was right. You saved my life. We had to bump into one of the rebel Sea Devils that hate humanoids. Just my luck.”
The Doctor takes Suzie to Rome, 70 CE. Before they go inside the Colosseum for the evening, he makes her dress up as an upper-class Roman woman.
“But why do I have to dress up? Why aren’t you dressed up? You still look like you stepped out of a Victorian novel.”
“You’re a human, Suzie. I’m the Doctor.”
“I have to dress up ‘cause I’m a human while you can wear anything because you have two hearts and a lower body temperature. Stupidest excuse for not dressing up I’ve ever heard.”
Suzie walks out of the TARDIS first, without her bag, followed by the Doctor. As soon as Suzie leaves the TARDIS, though, she’s captured by male gladiators.
The Doctor runs around the Colosseum until he can’t run any more. He’s yelling for her; this confuses the patrons already inside. There is an announcement as he steps into a maenianum primum seating area, the area reserved for Rome’s wealthiest. The female gladiator Mevia is about to hunt boars. The crowd laughs and jeers. Mevia is actually Suzie, and the gladiators have stripped Suzie out of her upper-class clothing and put her into gladiatorial clothing. She’s given a spear.
“Suzie!”
“Don’t worry, Doctor. I can handle myself.”
The boars charge at Suzie. She’s able to dodge the charging boars. One by one she gores the boars in the head, making them fall over. Once the boars have tipped over, Suzie stabs them in the heart to make sure they’re all dead. Silence falls on the Colosseum.
The Doctor runs to the senators’ podium and jumps off the ledge. He grabs Suzie and they run.
“Told you I can do it, Doctor. I’m not a murderer for nothing, you know.”
They run into a gladiatorial entrance until they find the TARDIS. Gladiators run after them. By the time the gladiators reach the TARDIS, it dematerialises away.
The Doctor takes Suzie to Paris, January 30, 1958. It’s the day of Yves Saint Laurent’s first collection for Christian Dior ever since Dior’s sudden death the year before. The Doctor and Suzie know Laurent’s collection will succeed, but Laurent doesn’t know this yet. The Doctor makes Suzie wear a 1950s dress. Suzie ties her hair in a fancy bun. The Doctor holds on to her hand and leads her inside the fashion house.
“This is nice, Doctor,” Suzie says before the presentation begins. “I’m not used to getting dressed up for fancy occasions.”
“Why not, Suzie? Did Torchwood lock you up in a jail cell unless they wanted you out?”
Suzie laughs. “Well, that and my childhood. It’s too painful. I don’t want to talk about it. I wanna enjoy this moment before it goes away.”
The fashion show starts. Models walk up and down a runway in front of the Dior patrons, displaying Laurent’s variation on Dior’s New Look.
“I can’t help but wonder if we’ve met before,” Suzie says. “I mean, not earlier. But I have a feeling we’ve met in another time. Like I wasn’t a murderer and you weren’t the Doctor—it’s like you were a human.” She blows air out of her mouth. “And we really did love each other, even if I cheated on you. But it doesn’t end well ‘cause I die alone. And I feel like I’m going to die alone. At least I had you to talk to before my death.”
The Doctor looks at Suzie, but he doesn’t say anything.
After the show the Doctor and Suzie meet some of the models that walked in the show as well as Laurent himself. As the crowd thins out in Dior’s house, the Doctor and Suzie return to the TARDIS.
Suzie and the Doctor have sex. It’s a spontaneous thing—the Doctor sets the coordinates for Cardiff, October 22, 2007, after the Dior show, and Suzie kisses him. The Doctor kisses her back. One thing leads to another, and the two end up in Charley Pollard’s bedroom. If Suzie’s plans for killing Jack and Gwen fail, at least she’ll have this final fuck as her last meal.
She allows herself to forget about her plans as she falls asleep on the Doctor’s chest, listening to his two heart s beat. It’s a soothing rhythm, a rhythm few of the Doctor’s companions ever hear.
The Doctor drops Suzie off in the Plass, moments after the Doctor and Suzie of the past, along with the TARDIS, fly off to the 27th century. She straightens out her trench coat, makes sure all her things are in her bag, and walks out of the TARDIS. The Doctor silently waves goodbye to her. She waves back. The TARDIS dematerialises from the Plass.
Suzie turns and faces Gwen. She goes back over her plans again: confront Gwen, show her the knife, pull out the gun and drop her bag, shoot Jack, shoot Gwen and run.
And if any of that failed...well, she’ll put a bullet through her head. But she’ll come back, and hopefully this time, it’ll be for good.
