FIC: Snapshots (Doctor Who/Torchwood)
Title: Snapshots
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Web Link: http://www.bjewelled.co.uk/fanfic/twfic.shtml
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Disclaimer: Belongs to some clever boffins at Auntie Beeb.
Summary: Not everyone was as good at living through the end of the world as Martha. Tish Jones certainly wasn't.
Leo didn't understand them anymore. Of course he wouldn't. He didn't understand how his family, previously at war with itself, had suddenly and overnight (to his sense of time) had healed itself and become bound together tighter than ever. Tish occasionally wonder what he'd say if she actually told him what had happened during that Year That Wasn't, aboard a ship that most would consider fantastical, and then decided that he wouldn't understand, and, besides, she didn't have the energy to tell him.
Martha had asked, once, but Tish, Mum and Dad all shut up, mouths clamped tightly shut, and Tish could see the glint in Mum's eyes that meant she wasn't going to budge an inch on this issue. Eventually, Martha hadn't asked again, perhaps not wanting to resurrect her own ghosts.
Tish found herself wandering around trying to settle back into a life that didn't think she'd ever left. Alisa left effusive messages on her voicemail, telling her all about her new boyfriend and that Tish just had to come out for drinks at Marco's - that new bar over on Millet's Street? - while her agency boss sent her information about new contracts, asking her to look over the details and get back to him with some notes.
Her flat hadn't even had a chance to accumulate dust.
Somehow she managed to recall how you did this thing called living, and managed to turn up for work, and on the one day she was late, a few weeks into normality, she realised by lunch that she'd been working frenetically for hours in a cold sweat, surprised not to feel the strike of a moody alien hand for her tardiness.
One day, she took Martha out to coffee to celebrate the completion of a particularly intense (once upon a time both she and Tish would have called them 'murderous', but that was a sentiment not lightly banded about these days) set of shifts, and found herself asking, without meaning to, "How's Jack doing?"
Martha had been sprinkling cinnamon on the foamy surface of her cappucino, and blinked, clearly a little surprised, at her sister's question. She glanced at her cup and set the shaker down slowly. "I'm sure if you called him yourself, he'd tell you."
"Nah," she said, hastily backpedalling, "I was just asking, is all. He probably wouldn't even want to talk to me."
Martha opened her mouth, perhaps to push the issue, ask questions, but Tish brought up the subject of a junior doctor Martha said had been following her around, and the untimely mention of Jack Harkness was quickly forgotten.
**
That year they spent their first Christmas together as a family for a long time. They all desperately seemed to want this tiny piece of a 'normal' everyday existance, and the idea of staying apart on such a day seemed unthinkable, when they contemplated all that they had gone through.
Leo hadn't understood, but he'd been thrilled to be able to come, with his girlfriend and little girl, and see his family all together again. He brought presents wrapped in paper that was silver and bright, eye-watering, pink, and he'd handed them out gleefully on Christmas morning.
Mum got a new scarf and a pair of soft gloves, Dad got some golfing equipment, Leo having apparently not noticed that Dad hadn't gone golfing in a good while now (for some reason, he'd once muttered to Tish, over lukewarm tea at the kitchen table, golf just seemed like an unimportant waste of time these days), and Tish got a CD.
She'd been enjoying the general Christmas spirit of the day (although it might have been assisted by a certain amount of Christmas spirits) and when she'd ripped the paper off her present, it had taken her a moment or two to realise that her face had frozen into a rictus grin.
"It's the one you wanted, isn't it?" Leo asked, confused by her odd expression.
Somehow, she managed to force the words out past the tightness in her chest. "Yes," she said, having absolutely no idea if she'd ever wanted it, "Of course. Thank you, Leo."
She dutifully kissed his cheek, and Mum asked him to help her with setting out the plates for lunch. Leo followed her into the kitchen, and Martha moved to sit next to her.
"Tish?" Martha frowned, "You've gone grey."
Tish couldn't see past the track listing. She was reasonably sure there was still a world around her, but she couldn't see it, and suddenly it was difficult to breath. "He... uh..." She coughed, quickly, uneasily, trying to clear her throat. "He used to dance around the ship, you know... to..."
She looked up, forcing herself to focus on her sister. Martha's face had gone into that calm, clear expression that she tended to adopt whenever That Year came up.
"I'll get rid of it," Martha said, and then blinked when she moved to take the offending CD away. "Tish. You have to let go of it first."
"Oh, right." Tish released the CD into her sister's hands, and stared at the imprints in her fingers where she'd been gripping the case so hard her fingers ached.
An hour or so later, they watched the news, and saw footage of a giant spaceship shaped like the Titanic swoop down and nearly hit Buckingham Palace before climbing back into the heavens. In minutes, correspondants were speculating about Christmas day stunts, practical jokes and weather balloons, but Martha only laughed, and shook her head.
"That Doctor," she said, grinning, "Can't leave him alone for five minutes."
The rest of them laughed quietly, except for Leo, who just seemed confused.
**
Mr. Mark Henderson was opening a new restaurant in the flash end of town that was as tacky as it was covered in neon lights, but Tish had been told by her boss, Mr. Harris, that he had enough money to float a small ocean liner, so she should keep her opinions on the decor to herself and get on with the business of organising the launch party.
"The concept," Mr. Henderson was saying, and Tish tried to make it at least look like she was listening patiently, "Is a cross between the bright lights of clubland and the elegance of a classy restaurant."
Tish privately thought that was like attempting to put raw chili peppers and porridge on toast at the same time, and was likely to be received about as well, but her pay wasn't contingent on it actually suceeding. So she kept her mouth shut and listened to him ramble.
Mr. Henderson carried on, unaware that Tish was halfway to zoned out. "Our customers will walk into a synesthaesiac experience," he said, while Tish doubted the existence of any word such as 'synesthaesiac', "The lights, and the music, coupled with small vibration pads under the chairs, will provide a multi-sensory experience."
Tish wondered unkindly about what sort of sensory experience people would be coming to get from vibrating chairs.
"And they will be waited on by French maids, serving cocktails, champagne, preventing the usual club-crush at the bar."
"French maids," she repeated, and swallowed past the abrupt lump in her throat. Her fingers plucked at the sleeve of her soft woollen jumper, reminding herself that she wasn't wearing a clingy and uncomfortable costume. "Don't you think that's a little... passé?" She tried to smile.
Mr. Henderson was having none of it. "It's an integral part of our concept," he said, sternly.
Tish nodded, hastily. "Of course," she said, "I'll see what I can come up with."
**
The phone number was written on the back of an old, opened envelope. Martha hadn't seemed too surprised when Tish had, haltingly, asked her if she had it. She'd written it down without even double checking it. Either she'd had a lot of cause to use it herself, or she'd looked it up knowing Tish would ask.
Tish stared at the number on the envelope, and the number placidly displayed as having been entered on her phone, waiting for her to hit the call button. She compared them a dozen or so times, and couldn't find fault in them. She told herself she was being silly and was just stalling.
She took a deep breath, and checked the number again.
No. Now she was definitely being stupid. She closed her eyes, tried to pretend she was just calling Alisa for a quick chat, and hit the button, raising the phone to her ear.
There were four rings, and then the connection clicked into life.
"Tourist Information." The voice was male, polite, Welsh, and the mere sound of it was utterly terrifying.
Tish swallowed, remembered all those times she'd managed not to burst into tears, or scream or cry, and reminded herself that she was strong enough to make a simple phonecall. "Can I speak to Jack Harkness, please?"
There was a long, pregnant silence, and suddenly Tish wondered if she'd even dialled the right number.
Finally, the voice spoke again, "I'm afraid he's not available at the moment. Can I ask who's calling, please? I can pass on a message."
"It's... uh... Ti... can you tell him Tish Jones..." And just like that her resolve crumbled. The only thing she could think of was ending the phone call as quickly as possible. "You know what, never mind. I'm sorry. Thank you."
She pressed the disconnect button before she could change her mind.
**
She wasn't able to put that near phone call out of her mind, and for the next couple of days, managed to pick up her phone, hefting it in her hands, before putting it down, number undialled, and tried to get on with the job of getting on with her life.
She was doing great, until the point where she finally lost her temper with Mark Henderson and his unreasonable requests and, no one having quite an idea why she would suddenly be so short tempered (such a calm girl, usually, they were muttering at the agency, placid and you couldn't ruffle her feathers), she was advised to take a couple of days off. Maybe she was feeling a bit run down, her boss said.
It had taken everything that she'd possessed not to laugh in his face, if only because the laugh would have been partly hysterical, and he might have doubted her sanity.
Not that Tish wasn't already doing just that herself.
So she'd taken herself home, and was staring at the TV, wondering if she should turn it on, or whether the insipid, pointless nature of daytime programming would drive her to toss it out of the window, when someone knocked on her door.
Thinking that it was the wrong time of day for the postman, she got up, deciding to herself that if it was her busybody elderly neighbour again, she'd just pretend to have her lesbian lover over for an afternoon of living in sin, and time how fast the woman could run back to her own flat, scandalised.
Fortunately for her, and her nonexistant lover, it wasn't her neighbour at the door.
Jack Harkness was standing on her doorstep, looking worlds away from the man she'd last seen looking filthy and worn down, before the Doctor had ordered the crew of the Valiant to take them home, too busy caring for the remains of that monster.
"Hey Tish," he said, and smiled at her, easily, "I hear you've been trying to call me."
Tish stood there, hand braced against her doorframe, and opened her mouth, trying to think of something to say, but all that emerged was the beginnings of a sob, a gulp of air quickly stifled. She hadn't cried on the Valiant, she wasn't going to start now.
Except why was she finding it so hard to focus?
Suddenly there were warm arms wrapped around her, and her face was pressed into the scratchy warmth of Jack's thick anachronistic coat, that he'd been so very pleased to get his hands on again for some reason. That Bastard had been keeping it on display, like a trophy, in one of the observation areas. She was shaking, and her eyes felt hot, but she couldn't bring herself to make a sound.
Jack rubbed her back gently and released her after a long moment of standing there. She felt vaguely bereft at the loss of warmth. "Let's have a cup of tea," Jack suggested, kindly, and guided her back into the flat.
He made her a cup of disgustingly hot and sweet tea, and Tish couldn't find it in her to be anything but utterly grateful the moment the tea hit her tongue and she felt an almost reflexive lessening of tension in her shoulders. Very English of her. "Bit of a change, isn't it?" She asked, "You waiting on me?"
As a joke, it fell flat, but Jack had the courtesy to smile anyway.
She looked into surface of the tea, she noticed the surface rippling as her hand shook. She set it down on the coffee table. "Mum and Dad won't talk about it," she said, finally, as Jack stirred his own coffee, as if she wasn't on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "And Martha... Martha wasn't there, you know?"
"I know," Jack said, quietly, and she thought she heard the echo of her own demons in his voice.
"Have you..." she licked her lips, "Have you told anyone what happened?"
He didn't even attempt to smile. "Only in the loosest possible way. Why hurt the people I care about by telling them things like that?"
"Your team?" she asked, and he nodded.
About three months in, That Bastard had been experimenting with more inventive ways to kill Jack than just stabbing or shooting him, and had been delighted when he'd found a slow acting and rather painful poison. Of course he'd known how to bring out its full potency, and had decided to test it out on Jack before applying it to resisters. He'd ordered Tish to make sure he didn't dehydrate and die too quickly.
So she'd had to sit by, quietly stoking the fires of her rage, as she listened to Jack's painful ramblings about his team, Cardiff, why it really wasn't such a bad city, and why had he said anything bad about Tosh's coffee before, and why had he never just asked Ianto if he wanted dinner or something, and really you couldn't blame Owen for having shot him at all, and Gwen and her silly caring gap-toothed smile... He hadn't even known where he was or that she was there.
That Bastard came back and ordered Tish out before she had to watch him die all the way, but the next time she was back, he looked at her, warily, and she'd nodded. She'd heard every word.
She'd also heard that at least one of his team had been captured at some point, and That Bastard had taken great pleasure in having them executed right in front of Jack.
"How do you deal with it?"
Jack looked at her, thoughtfully. "I remember how angry I was, and that he really did get what he deserved. The Doctor may hate me if he ever knew that, but I can't forgive him."
"Ah," Tish said, nodding. "You too."
**
They talked for a while, dancing around the issue a bit, and when Jack went to boil the kettle for some fresh tea, he brought the teapot back, with a small and antiquated pillbox next to it on the tray.
"What's that?" she asked, eyeing it nervously. At Jack's nod, she picked it up, and opened it. There were several small white tablets. They looked, for all the world, like saccharine tablets, but Tish guessed that wasn't what they were.
"If you want," Jack said, meeting her eyes and refusing to look away, "You can forget. The whole year can just be gone in with a good night's sleep."
"Forget?" Tish felt a little lightheaded, looking at the innocent little white pills, and distantly realised that her hands were shaking. "What do you mean, forget?"
"You might have the vague realisation of time having passed without you noticing," Jack said, "But I can speak to Martha, and your family, make sure that they don't do or say anything to prompt memory returning. You'd never know what had happened."
Tish set the pillbox back on the tray that Jack had set down on the table, and laced her fingers together. "Mind if I say that the sort of power to change people's memories like that is a little scary?"
"Not at all," Jack said, with a faint smile, though any air of humour was distinctly lacking. "No one would blame you, you know."
"I would," Tish said, softly, and felt a certain surprise at her own statement. Sure, she wouldn't remember it, and wouldn't remember ever feeling conflicted if she took Jack's ever-so-tempting little white pills.
"It was horrible," she said, her voice hushed, barely making itself heard over the rumble of road noise from outside her window, "But if I forget it's like it never happened. Like all those people in Japan who burned never had someone to watch or cry over them."
"Some of us would still remember," Jack pointed out. "They wouldn't be forgotten entirely."
Tish thought about it a long, long moment. "No," she said, finally, "Not because I don't want to but..." She blinked, and was surprised to find that the tears she'd been refusing to shed were welling up in her eyes. "I mean, I do want to. I want to forget it. But I can't. I can't let That Bastard be forgotten about, can't let the people who died be forgotten just because Letitia Jones finds it unpleasant. I... I can't forget everything he did to Mum, Dad... to you."
She raised her hand to cover her eyes, hoping to hide the tears, and tried to hold her breath so her shoulders wouldn't shake with the juddering sobs she desperately wanted to heave.
She gave up when Jack's arm slid around her shoulders, and wept quite copiously into his shoulder.
**
On his way out of the door, Jack hesitated and asked, "Martha never said, and you never told me..." He seemed uncharacteristically cautious. "Did he...?"
Tish stiffened, feeling that old familiar anger stirring somewhere in her stomach. Of course she'd never told him anything. They'd seen each other every single day for a year. She'd seen him bloodied, beaten, dead, and had simply cleaned up and fed him. Every single day they'd looked each other in the eye, sharing their defiance for That Bastard with steely glares, but they'd never said a word to each other that was honest and true, knowing they were always monitored.
"He threatened to hurt Mum," she said, her anger lending her voice strength. "And besides, it's just sex isn't it? If you tell Martha..."
"Not a word," Jack assured her, and held out his hand. He was holding a business card. There wasn't a name on it, but there was a stylised T logo, and a number was written on the back in biro.
"That would be my direct line," he said, "In case you chicken out when speaking to my... receptionist again. If you want to talk." He took a step down towards the road. "Or if you want a job."
Tish smiled, fingering the edge of the card as she slipped it into her pocket. "I'll leave the alien fighting to Martha," she said, sincerely.
Jack smiled and turned to go.
"But..." She called him back. He turned and raised an eyebrow. "Thanks. Jack. For. You know."
"Don't expect to cope right away, Tish," he said, seriously, and for a moment, he looked almost haunted. Then she blinked, and the moment had passed. "Some people never do, but I think you will. You're stronger than you think."
She remembered the girls That Bastard had brought on board the ship, remembered most of them cracking up and being dragged away, screaming and sobbing, never to be seen or heard from again. She remembered hardening her heart to their pleas for help, knowing that they weren't worth sacrificing her own life for. "Right," she said.
Jack grinned at her suddenly. "Something about the Joneses," he said, "They always find creative ways of coping."
She didn't understand, but she smiled anyway, and laughed when he cheerfully waved her goodbye.
She closed the door, and leant against it for a moment, before reaching into her pocket and pulling out her mobile. The number she wanted was at the bottom of the list, under 'Work', and easy to find.
"Mister Harris?" She said, as her boss picked up. "It's Tish Jones. Yes. I'm fine. Yes. I just wanted to call and say I quit."
- The End -
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Web Link: http://www.bjewelled.co.uk/fanfic/twfic.shtml
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Disclaimer: Belongs to some clever boffins at Auntie Beeb.
Summary: Not everyone was as good at living through the end of the world as Martha. Tish Jones certainly wasn't.
Leo didn't understand them anymore. Of course he wouldn't. He didn't understand how his family, previously at war with itself, had suddenly and overnight (to his sense of time) had healed itself and become bound together tighter than ever. Tish occasionally wonder what he'd say if she actually told him what had happened during that Year That Wasn't, aboard a ship that most would consider fantastical, and then decided that he wouldn't understand, and, besides, she didn't have the energy to tell him.
Martha had asked, once, but Tish, Mum and Dad all shut up, mouths clamped tightly shut, and Tish could see the glint in Mum's eyes that meant she wasn't going to budge an inch on this issue. Eventually, Martha hadn't asked again, perhaps not wanting to resurrect her own ghosts.
Tish found herself wandering around trying to settle back into a life that didn't think she'd ever left. Alisa left effusive messages on her voicemail, telling her all about her new boyfriend and that Tish just had to come out for drinks at Marco's - that new bar over on Millet's Street? - while her agency boss sent her information about new contracts, asking her to look over the details and get back to him with some notes.
Her flat hadn't even had a chance to accumulate dust.
Somehow she managed to recall how you did this thing called living, and managed to turn up for work, and on the one day she was late, a few weeks into normality, she realised by lunch that she'd been working frenetically for hours in a cold sweat, surprised not to feel the strike of a moody alien hand for her tardiness.
One day, she took Martha out to coffee to celebrate the completion of a particularly intense (once upon a time both she and Tish would have called them 'murderous', but that was a sentiment not lightly banded about these days) set of shifts, and found herself asking, without meaning to, "How's Jack doing?"
Martha had been sprinkling cinnamon on the foamy surface of her cappucino, and blinked, clearly a little surprised, at her sister's question. She glanced at her cup and set the shaker down slowly. "I'm sure if you called him yourself, he'd tell you."
"Nah," she said, hastily backpedalling, "I was just asking, is all. He probably wouldn't even want to talk to me."
Martha opened her mouth, perhaps to push the issue, ask questions, but Tish brought up the subject of a junior doctor Martha said had been following her around, and the untimely mention of Jack Harkness was quickly forgotten.
**
That year they spent their first Christmas together as a family for a long time. They all desperately seemed to want this tiny piece of a 'normal' everyday existance, and the idea of staying apart on such a day seemed unthinkable, when they contemplated all that they had gone through.
Leo hadn't understood, but he'd been thrilled to be able to come, with his girlfriend and little girl, and see his family all together again. He brought presents wrapped in paper that was silver and bright, eye-watering, pink, and he'd handed them out gleefully on Christmas morning.
Mum got a new scarf and a pair of soft gloves, Dad got some golfing equipment, Leo having apparently not noticed that Dad hadn't gone golfing in a good while now (for some reason, he'd once muttered to Tish, over lukewarm tea at the kitchen table, golf just seemed like an unimportant waste of time these days), and Tish got a CD.
She'd been enjoying the general Christmas spirit of the day (although it might have been assisted by a certain amount of Christmas spirits) and when she'd ripped the paper off her present, it had taken her a moment or two to realise that her face had frozen into a rictus grin.
"It's the one you wanted, isn't it?" Leo asked, confused by her odd expression.
Somehow, she managed to force the words out past the tightness in her chest. "Yes," she said, having absolutely no idea if she'd ever wanted it, "Of course. Thank you, Leo."
She dutifully kissed his cheek, and Mum asked him to help her with setting out the plates for lunch. Leo followed her into the kitchen, and Martha moved to sit next to her.
"Tish?" Martha frowned, "You've gone grey."
Tish couldn't see past the track listing. She was reasonably sure there was still a world around her, but she couldn't see it, and suddenly it was difficult to breath. "He... uh..." She coughed, quickly, uneasily, trying to clear her throat. "He used to dance around the ship, you know... to..."
She looked up, forcing herself to focus on her sister. Martha's face had gone into that calm, clear expression that she tended to adopt whenever That Year came up.
"I'll get rid of it," Martha said, and then blinked when she moved to take the offending CD away. "Tish. You have to let go of it first."
"Oh, right." Tish released the CD into her sister's hands, and stared at the imprints in her fingers where she'd been gripping the case so hard her fingers ached.
An hour or so later, they watched the news, and saw footage of a giant spaceship shaped like the Titanic swoop down and nearly hit Buckingham Palace before climbing back into the heavens. In minutes, correspondants were speculating about Christmas day stunts, practical jokes and weather balloons, but Martha only laughed, and shook her head.
"That Doctor," she said, grinning, "Can't leave him alone for five minutes."
The rest of them laughed quietly, except for Leo, who just seemed confused.
**
Mr. Mark Henderson was opening a new restaurant in the flash end of town that was as tacky as it was covered in neon lights, but Tish had been told by her boss, Mr. Harris, that he had enough money to float a small ocean liner, so she should keep her opinions on the decor to herself and get on with the business of organising the launch party.
"The concept," Mr. Henderson was saying, and Tish tried to make it at least look like she was listening patiently, "Is a cross between the bright lights of clubland and the elegance of a classy restaurant."
Tish privately thought that was like attempting to put raw chili peppers and porridge on toast at the same time, and was likely to be received about as well, but her pay wasn't contingent on it actually suceeding. So she kept her mouth shut and listened to him ramble.
Mr. Henderson carried on, unaware that Tish was halfway to zoned out. "Our customers will walk into a synesthaesiac experience," he said, while Tish doubted the existence of any word such as 'synesthaesiac', "The lights, and the music, coupled with small vibration pads under the chairs, will provide a multi-sensory experience."
Tish wondered unkindly about what sort of sensory experience people would be coming to get from vibrating chairs.
"And they will be waited on by French maids, serving cocktails, champagne, preventing the usual club-crush at the bar."
"French maids," she repeated, and swallowed past the abrupt lump in her throat. Her fingers plucked at the sleeve of her soft woollen jumper, reminding herself that she wasn't wearing a clingy and uncomfortable costume. "Don't you think that's a little... passé?" She tried to smile.
Mr. Henderson was having none of it. "It's an integral part of our concept," he said, sternly.
Tish nodded, hastily. "Of course," she said, "I'll see what I can come up with."
**
The phone number was written on the back of an old, opened envelope. Martha hadn't seemed too surprised when Tish had, haltingly, asked her if she had it. She'd written it down without even double checking it. Either she'd had a lot of cause to use it herself, or she'd looked it up knowing Tish would ask.
Tish stared at the number on the envelope, and the number placidly displayed as having been entered on her phone, waiting for her to hit the call button. She compared them a dozen or so times, and couldn't find fault in them. She told herself she was being silly and was just stalling.
She took a deep breath, and checked the number again.
No. Now she was definitely being stupid. She closed her eyes, tried to pretend she was just calling Alisa for a quick chat, and hit the button, raising the phone to her ear.
There were four rings, and then the connection clicked into life.
"Tourist Information." The voice was male, polite, Welsh, and the mere sound of it was utterly terrifying.
Tish swallowed, remembered all those times she'd managed not to burst into tears, or scream or cry, and reminded herself that she was strong enough to make a simple phonecall. "Can I speak to Jack Harkness, please?"
There was a long, pregnant silence, and suddenly Tish wondered if she'd even dialled the right number.
Finally, the voice spoke again, "I'm afraid he's not available at the moment. Can I ask who's calling, please? I can pass on a message."
"It's... uh... Ti... can you tell him Tish Jones..." And just like that her resolve crumbled. The only thing she could think of was ending the phone call as quickly as possible. "You know what, never mind. I'm sorry. Thank you."
She pressed the disconnect button before she could change her mind.
**
She wasn't able to put that near phone call out of her mind, and for the next couple of days, managed to pick up her phone, hefting it in her hands, before putting it down, number undialled, and tried to get on with the job of getting on with her life.
She was doing great, until the point where she finally lost her temper with Mark Henderson and his unreasonable requests and, no one having quite an idea why she would suddenly be so short tempered (such a calm girl, usually, they were muttering at the agency, placid and you couldn't ruffle her feathers), she was advised to take a couple of days off. Maybe she was feeling a bit run down, her boss said.
It had taken everything that she'd possessed not to laugh in his face, if only because the laugh would have been partly hysterical, and he might have doubted her sanity.
Not that Tish wasn't already doing just that herself.
So she'd taken herself home, and was staring at the TV, wondering if she should turn it on, or whether the insipid, pointless nature of daytime programming would drive her to toss it out of the window, when someone knocked on her door.
Thinking that it was the wrong time of day for the postman, she got up, deciding to herself that if it was her busybody elderly neighbour again, she'd just pretend to have her lesbian lover over for an afternoon of living in sin, and time how fast the woman could run back to her own flat, scandalised.
Fortunately for her, and her nonexistant lover, it wasn't her neighbour at the door.
Jack Harkness was standing on her doorstep, looking worlds away from the man she'd last seen looking filthy and worn down, before the Doctor had ordered the crew of the Valiant to take them home, too busy caring for the remains of that monster.
"Hey Tish," he said, and smiled at her, easily, "I hear you've been trying to call me."
Tish stood there, hand braced against her doorframe, and opened her mouth, trying to think of something to say, but all that emerged was the beginnings of a sob, a gulp of air quickly stifled. She hadn't cried on the Valiant, she wasn't going to start now.
Except why was she finding it so hard to focus?
Suddenly there were warm arms wrapped around her, and her face was pressed into the scratchy warmth of Jack's thick anachronistic coat, that he'd been so very pleased to get his hands on again for some reason. That Bastard had been keeping it on display, like a trophy, in one of the observation areas. She was shaking, and her eyes felt hot, but she couldn't bring herself to make a sound.
Jack rubbed her back gently and released her after a long moment of standing there. She felt vaguely bereft at the loss of warmth. "Let's have a cup of tea," Jack suggested, kindly, and guided her back into the flat.
He made her a cup of disgustingly hot and sweet tea, and Tish couldn't find it in her to be anything but utterly grateful the moment the tea hit her tongue and she felt an almost reflexive lessening of tension in her shoulders. Very English of her. "Bit of a change, isn't it?" She asked, "You waiting on me?"
As a joke, it fell flat, but Jack had the courtesy to smile anyway.
She looked into surface of the tea, she noticed the surface rippling as her hand shook. She set it down on the coffee table. "Mum and Dad won't talk about it," she said, finally, as Jack stirred his own coffee, as if she wasn't on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "And Martha... Martha wasn't there, you know?"
"I know," Jack said, quietly, and she thought she heard the echo of her own demons in his voice.
"Have you..." she licked her lips, "Have you told anyone what happened?"
He didn't even attempt to smile. "Only in the loosest possible way. Why hurt the people I care about by telling them things like that?"
"Your team?" she asked, and he nodded.
About three months in, That Bastard had been experimenting with more inventive ways to kill Jack than just stabbing or shooting him, and had been delighted when he'd found a slow acting and rather painful poison. Of course he'd known how to bring out its full potency, and had decided to test it out on Jack before applying it to resisters. He'd ordered Tish to make sure he didn't dehydrate and die too quickly.
So she'd had to sit by, quietly stoking the fires of her rage, as she listened to Jack's painful ramblings about his team, Cardiff, why it really wasn't such a bad city, and why had he said anything bad about Tosh's coffee before, and why had he never just asked Ianto if he wanted dinner or something, and really you couldn't blame Owen for having shot him at all, and Gwen and her silly caring gap-toothed smile... He hadn't even known where he was or that she was there.
That Bastard came back and ordered Tish out before she had to watch him die all the way, but the next time she was back, he looked at her, warily, and she'd nodded. She'd heard every word.
She'd also heard that at least one of his team had been captured at some point, and That Bastard had taken great pleasure in having them executed right in front of Jack.
"How do you deal with it?"
Jack looked at her, thoughtfully. "I remember how angry I was, and that he really did get what he deserved. The Doctor may hate me if he ever knew that, but I can't forgive him."
"Ah," Tish said, nodding. "You too."
**
They talked for a while, dancing around the issue a bit, and when Jack went to boil the kettle for some fresh tea, he brought the teapot back, with a small and antiquated pillbox next to it on the tray.
"What's that?" she asked, eyeing it nervously. At Jack's nod, she picked it up, and opened it. There were several small white tablets. They looked, for all the world, like saccharine tablets, but Tish guessed that wasn't what they were.
"If you want," Jack said, meeting her eyes and refusing to look away, "You can forget. The whole year can just be gone in with a good night's sleep."
"Forget?" Tish felt a little lightheaded, looking at the innocent little white pills, and distantly realised that her hands were shaking. "What do you mean, forget?"
"You might have the vague realisation of time having passed without you noticing," Jack said, "But I can speak to Martha, and your family, make sure that they don't do or say anything to prompt memory returning. You'd never know what had happened."
Tish set the pillbox back on the tray that Jack had set down on the table, and laced her fingers together. "Mind if I say that the sort of power to change people's memories like that is a little scary?"
"Not at all," Jack said, with a faint smile, though any air of humour was distinctly lacking. "No one would blame you, you know."
"I would," Tish said, softly, and felt a certain surprise at her own statement. Sure, she wouldn't remember it, and wouldn't remember ever feeling conflicted if she took Jack's ever-so-tempting little white pills.
"It was horrible," she said, her voice hushed, barely making itself heard over the rumble of road noise from outside her window, "But if I forget it's like it never happened. Like all those people in Japan who burned never had someone to watch or cry over them."
"Some of us would still remember," Jack pointed out. "They wouldn't be forgotten entirely."
Tish thought about it a long, long moment. "No," she said, finally, "Not because I don't want to but..." She blinked, and was surprised to find that the tears she'd been refusing to shed were welling up in her eyes. "I mean, I do want to. I want to forget it. But I can't. I can't let That Bastard be forgotten about, can't let the people who died be forgotten just because Letitia Jones finds it unpleasant. I... I can't forget everything he did to Mum, Dad... to you."
She raised her hand to cover her eyes, hoping to hide the tears, and tried to hold her breath so her shoulders wouldn't shake with the juddering sobs she desperately wanted to heave.
She gave up when Jack's arm slid around her shoulders, and wept quite copiously into his shoulder.
**
On his way out of the door, Jack hesitated and asked, "Martha never said, and you never told me..." He seemed uncharacteristically cautious. "Did he...?"
Tish stiffened, feeling that old familiar anger stirring somewhere in her stomach. Of course she'd never told him anything. They'd seen each other every single day for a year. She'd seen him bloodied, beaten, dead, and had simply cleaned up and fed him. Every single day they'd looked each other in the eye, sharing their defiance for That Bastard with steely glares, but they'd never said a word to each other that was honest and true, knowing they were always monitored.
"He threatened to hurt Mum," she said, her anger lending her voice strength. "And besides, it's just sex isn't it? If you tell Martha..."
"Not a word," Jack assured her, and held out his hand. He was holding a business card. There wasn't a name on it, but there was a stylised T logo, and a number was written on the back in biro.
"That would be my direct line," he said, "In case you chicken out when speaking to my... receptionist again. If you want to talk." He took a step down towards the road. "Or if you want a job."
Tish smiled, fingering the edge of the card as she slipped it into her pocket. "I'll leave the alien fighting to Martha," she said, sincerely.
Jack smiled and turned to go.
"But..." She called him back. He turned and raised an eyebrow. "Thanks. Jack. For. You know."
"Don't expect to cope right away, Tish," he said, seriously, and for a moment, he looked almost haunted. Then she blinked, and the moment had passed. "Some people never do, but I think you will. You're stronger than you think."
She remembered the girls That Bastard had brought on board the ship, remembered most of them cracking up and being dragged away, screaming and sobbing, never to be seen or heard from again. She remembered hardening her heart to their pleas for help, knowing that they weren't worth sacrificing her own life for. "Right," she said.
Jack grinned at her suddenly. "Something about the Joneses," he said, "They always find creative ways of coping."
She didn't understand, but she smiled anyway, and laughed when he cheerfully waved her goodbye.
She closed the door, and leant against it for a moment, before reaching into her pocket and pulling out her mobile. The number she wanted was at the bottom of the list, under 'Work', and easy to find.
"Mister Harris?" She said, as her boss picked up. "It's Tish Jones. Yes. I'm fine. Yes. I just wanted to call and say I quit."
- The End -