For just_muse_me Prompt 26-8-2 High Anxiety
Toshiko barely slept that night. After two hours of tossing and turning, she got up, making herself a drink of hot milk in the hopes that it would help. Walking quietly through to the kitchen she caught a glimpse of her calendar, the date that Tommy had been woken up still circled. At the sight of that, remembering the excitement she felt, and how it changed, she crumbled. She sank to the floor slowly, allowing the grief, anger and horror at what she’d done wash over her. She’d really encouraged the man who she knew she loved to go back and to die. She began to cry, sobbing with the pain of everything that she’d gone through recently. 1941. Jack dying. Abaddon. Her mother. Owen and Gwen. Diane.
It was a long time before she could stop.
The following morning she got ready for work in a daze. It was like she was disconnected from herself, and she didn’t care enough to bring herself out of it. The drive into the centre of Cardiff was uneventful, full of children going to school, people going to work, following their normal daily lives. Tosh felt a pang of something. She hadn’t been one for an ordinary life - she knew that as soon as she realised her intelligence was higher than most of her school mates, but to have a routine like that - it would be nice. Maybe she was a fool to think of it, maybe Jack was right, but shouldn’t she be given the chance to try? She’d paid her dues to society for being caught up in blackmail, something that wasn’t even of her doing. Most other people moved on after a few years in a job, anyway. Why shouldn’t she?
At least that’s what she kept telling herself. She walked into the Hub, to be greeted with Owen and Gwen throwing a ball around, Ianto laughing, and Jack...
Jack was watching her. She gave him a tiny smile, and went to her station, tucking her hair behind her ears and sitting down.
“Tosh. Drink tonight. We need to celebrate,” Gwen said, heading over to her.
“Celebrate what?” she asked, turning and looking at Gwen.
“Anything! It’s been a long week, we need to have a drink.”
“I’ll think about it,” Tosh replied, logging onto the system.
“You ok?” she asked, frowning slightly. Tosh didn’t need Gwen’s sympathy, not at the moment. Not when she had to choose.
“Yeah, just a bit tired,” Tosh said, taking the coffee Ianto brought over with a nod and a smile at him. “Thanks.”
She knew that it was only a matter of time before Jack talked to her, and he didn’t disappoint. Just after lunch, when Gwen was out with Owen talking to someone who claimed they saw a little green man in their back garden, and Ianto was somewhere in the depth of the archives, Jack sauntered over, leaning against her desk.
“Why don’t you take a couple of weeks off, get it out of your system?” he suggested.
Tosh turned away from her keyboard, looking up at him. “Where would I go, Jack? What would I do? I have no one outside of here, and the idea of lying for two weeks in the Bahamas strikes me as a waste of time.”
He watched her for a moment. “You’re going to go through with this, aren’t you?” he said eventually.
Tosh looked down, unable to face him. “Yes,” she said quietly before gathering her courage and facing him. “I’m burnt out. I don’t want to end up dead, or worse, compromising all of you. I... need to find who Toshiko is, outside of here. And the only way...”
“Is to retcon you. Yeah, I know that. I’m the one who enforces it, remember?” Jack said, obviously frustrated. “I don’t want to lose you Tosh.” He knelt down in front of her, taking her hands. “I need you.”
She shook her head. “You’ll find another geek. Probably got one lined up already,” she said. “Don’t make it harder for me.”
“But it’s ok for you to ask me to do it,” Jack said. “God I hate this. Have you even thought how you will tell the others?”
“I won’t,” she said.
“Oh no. That’s just selfish of you,” Jack replied, standing up suddenly. “Okay. I’ll do it, but the condition is that you have to tell them.”
The sense of relief that came over Tosh at his words almost overwhelmed her, so much so that she eagerly agreed, no matter what the cost to her. “I’ll find a way.”
Jack reached out, brushing her hair back in a tender gesture before moving away from her. Tosh watched him go.
Toshiko Sato
Torchwood
Word Count: 787
Jack Harkness not binding to any muse
What If verse