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For the longest time, Liz wasn't convinced she'd made the best decisions in her life.
Perhaps that should be rephrased: she certainly hadn't made the easiest. A degree in chemistry was difficult by itself, but doing it as a woman meant facing a heapful of snobbery and disdain from your peers on top of it. At the hardest points, she almost wished she could go back, start again under her old, detested name—but then the thought of carrying on working under that shadow, being someone she wasn't for several more decades, chilled her to the bone.
Another decision that was… variable, to say the least, was her employment at UNIT. The misogyny was, well, prevalent. Military groups tend to be that sort of way. Generally not accepting of people who fell outside the norm, either. People like her.
When her background check went through, she'd descended into somewhat of a panic, wondering if she'd covered all her bases. When nothing came up, though—as relieved as she was, she was more than suspicious. There was no way she'd covered her past enough to evade UNIT's scrutiny. Someone had tampered with it.
The culprit was obvious. Liz didn't know how the Doctor had done it (a part of her wondered if it involved that TARDIS machine of his) but she supposed he had several reasons why.
First: he needed a scientist.
Second: well, as like a human man as he looked, the Doctor was… neither. The nonhuman bit was evident. The gender part was something she noticed bits and pieces of over time. He seemed generally apathetic to the whole thing. Was this all some sort of gesture of solidarity on his part?
At least the warm smile he made every time he called her Liz was more than reasurring.