Torchwood/Dr Who - fic - The Amazing Adventures of Toshiko Sato, PG
You may well have seen much of this before, I had an idea for a part I'd been stalled on, so I finished it up. This does not take Fragments into consideration; I started it too long ago.
Title - The Amazing Adventures of Toshiko Sato
Author - laurab1
Rating - PG
Characters - Toshiko Sato, Nine, Rose, TARDIS, Jack, Ten
Length - approx 8,900 words
Summary - originally started for the AU round, on tw_exchange, Prompt 43, Tosh (or Gwen) wasn't recruited by Torchwood - she left to explore the universe with the Doctor.
Spoilers - 1.5 Aliens of London to 1.13 The Parting of the Ways
Disclaimer - alas, none of these people/aliens/timeships are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
The Amazing Adventures of Toshiko Sato
by Laura
1. Aliens of London
Dr Toshiko Sato read the results of the tests she’d just conducted on the body laying on her table.
It appeared to be a pig, but its brain was wired up with technology that she had never seen before. Given that she worked in the lower levels of UNIT, Toshiko applied Occam’s Razor and decided that what she had in her possession was indeed an alien.
Even if it did look like a pig.
So when she was asked to keep it out of sight until the experts arrived, she did so, sliding it into a morgue drawer.
And then the pig-alien woke up, squealing like mad; it wasn’t as dead as she thought it had been.
***
Toshiko cowered on the floor, scared.
A man in a black leather jacket stormed into the morgue, followed by some soldiers. She watched him take in the situation; the drawer open, the room in general disarray.
“It's alive!” she exclaimed, when she found her voice.
“Spread out. Tell the perimeter it's a lockdown,” he ordered the soldiers, before coming over to her, and taking her hands.
“Oh, my God! It was still alive.”
“Do it!” the man said, when the soldiers didn’t move. On this second order, they did move.
The man turned back to her, and Toshiko said, “I swear it was dead.”
“Coma, shock, hibernation, anything,” he said.
And she knew he had a point. An alien might not necessarily appear dead in the same way that anything from Earth would.
“What does it look like?”
Before she could tell him, there was another noise.
“It's still here,” he said quietly.
Standing, watching the room, he summoned a hovering soldier, who came and sat next to Toshiko. Then there was an almighty crash, shots were fired, angry voices were raised.
Minutes later, the hopefully-dead-this-time pig-alien was back on Toshiko’s table.
***
“Who are you?” Toshiko asked the man in the leather jacket.
“The Doctor.”
Judging by the tone of his voice, and the folded arms, that was all she was going to get. Sighing a little, she went on, asking, “I just assumed that's what aliens look like, but you're saying it's an ordinary pig from earth?”
“More like a mermaid. Victorian showmen used to draw the crowds by taking the skull of a cat, gluing it to a fish and calling it a mermaid. Now someone's taken a pig, opened up its brain, stuck bits on, then they've strapped it in that ship, made it dive bomb. It must have been terrified. They've taken this animal and turned it into a joke.”
Not an alien at all, then. ”So it's a fake, a pretend, like the mermaid? But the technology augmenting its brain, it's like nothing on earth. It's alien. Aliens are faking aliens. But why would they do that?”
Toshiko turned to the Doctor for his thoughts, only to discover that he’d disappeared. Dumping the chart on the table, she ran out into the corridor, shouting his name a couple of times.
But all she found was a mysterious wind, and a faint noise that she couldn’t name. Toshiko went back to the morgue.
***
2. Magic Box
Later, she heard the noise again, and out of thin air, a blue box, a police telephone box...appeared in the morgue.
Toshiko wasn’t really surprised to see the Doctor emerge from it, accompanied by a young blonde woman.
“Dr Sato!” he said, leaning against the door of the box. “D’you wanna see some real aliens?”
She didn’t answer immediately, too many things to think about. And then she considered exactly what had just happened. “Aren’t I looking at one right now?”
“Smart girl, Toshiko.” He grinned at her. “D’you wanna come?”
“What about my job?”
He looked away for a few seconds, apparently hiding something from her. “We can have you back here just ten minutes later. “
“Yeah, right,” the girl snorted.
He ignored her, and continued, “Travels in time and space, she does,” he said, indicating the box with his head.
“She?”
“She’s a ship, of course she’s a she. The TARDIS. My TARDIS. Best ship in the universe.”
“Is that why there’s wires everywhere, an’ you need the hammer?” the girl asked, smiling up at him.
“Oi! She’s very, very old; she doesn’t always work properly.”
“Can say that again.”
“Doctor?” Toshiko asked. “How on Earth are all three of us going to fit in there?
“You’ll see,” the girl said, “if you come. I’m Rose, by the way.”
Toshiko slipped off her lab coat, placing it on the back of a chair, and grabbed her handbag. “Doctor,” she said, “I would love to see some real aliens.”
“Fantastic!” He grinned madly, and pushed the doors open.
Rose grinned as well, took Toshiko’s hand and pulled her into the TARDIS.
***
It was bigger on the inside.
Of course.
Rose let go of her hand, and went to join the Doctor at what were presumably the controls.
Toshiko looked around the room, in awe and wonder. Coral struts, a pulsing central column... She ran a hand down one of the struts. A thought went through her mind, but she kind of dismissed it. How would that even work?
A few minutes later, in her head, Toshiko felt what she could only describe as a warm presence, and wondered, again. “Doctor? Is this ship alive? And telepathic?” She joined them at the column.
“Yeah, Toshiko. She in your head, already?” The Doctor was pushing buttons and levers.
“I think so.”
“She must like you, then. Nothin’ to say about the size?”
“Bigger on the inside,” she said. For the sake of saying it.
“TARDIS: Time And Relative Dimensions In Space,” Rose explained. “Where’re we going next, then?”
“Toshiko? Anywhere particular you’d like to go?”
“Or anywhen?”
“Yeah, that too.”
“Surprise me.”
“Alright. You asked for it, so don’t go blamin’ me if you have to run for your lives.” Another mad grin.
The tubes in the central column rose and fell, there was a familiar grinding noise, and they were off, Toshiko assumed.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Rose whispered to her, smiling. “God knows where he’ll take us. Or when. And we always have to run for our lives.”
“Surely that’s half the fun?” Toshiko chanced, smiling back at her.
Rose gave her an even bigger grin, and said, “Yeah, it is. D’you wanna hear about the year five billion and twenty three, Toshiko?”
“Five billion and twenty three?”
“First trip, he took me to see the end of the world, on Platform One, this space station. Or I could tell you about the Gelth, in Cardiff, in 1869. Then there’s the shop dummies made of living plastic, and the Slitheen...”
“Tell me about the future, Rose.”
She told her story - Cassandra, spider-bots, the Face of Boe, Jabe - and Toshiko listened intently. She’d enjoy travelling in time and space with these two.
Or was it three?
***
Japan, just a few years into the future, that’s where and when they went.
They visited as many electronics shops as possible, marvelling at the tiny mobile phones and TVs, and the next generation of games consoles.
It was incredibly exciting.
They returned to the TARDIS. Once inside, Toshiko said, “Thank you, Doctor. That was great. All that tech! Now, I think you promised me real aliens?”
Starting the engines, he grinned at her. “You’re welcome, Toshiko. Yeah, I did promise you real aliens. Off we go, then.”
***
3. Dalek
Hours later, the TARDIS picked up a distress signal.
“Where’s it coming from, Doctor?” Toshiko asked, over the noise the console was making.
“Underground, somewhere in Utah.”
“And when?” Rose asked.
“2012. Shall we go and see if we can help, then?” He grinned madly at them, and both girls just nodded in reply.
Off they went, and Toshiko got her real alien.
***
Unfortunately, it was in the form of a Dalek, a very old enemy of the Doctor’s. This one had fallen though time, and survived the destruction of its race, at the Doctor’s own hands.
The Time War. The same war that saw the near-end of the Doctor’s own people.
The distress signal belonged to the Dalek. The TARDIS had arrived at a museum full of alien artefacts, and owned by a Mr Van Statten.
Who also owned the Internet.
Rose (rather foolishly) took a liking to a young man called Adam, who subsequently abandoned them, when they were trying to escape the Dalek’s killing spree. When she’d touched the Dalek, transferring her DNA, Rose had awakened it.
The door they needed to get through were in sight, but Toshiko saw the other girl falling behind. “Rose! Give me your hand! We’re nearly there!”
“Thanks, Toshiko,” she replied. They joined hands, and ran on.
But their efforts came to nothing, as they then both ended up stuck with the Dalek. Jointly, they talked the Doctor out of killing it, and it then self-destructed.
Much of the base was destroyed, so Rose persuaded the Doctor to let Adam come with them. While she was showing some of the TARDIS to him, Toshiko stayed with the Doctor.
“Toshiko,” he said, reaching in his pocket, “you’ll be needin’ this.” He placed a key in her hand. “Thanks for helpin’, today.”
Looking at the key, and back at the Doctor, all she could say was, “Thank you.” Inside, she was jumping for joy.
***
4. The Long Game
Adam lasted just one trip, to the year 200000, and Satellite Five.
There, they encountered The Mighty Jagrafess, The Editor, and Floor 500, receiving an object lesson in tampering with time. After Adam got a hole drilled into his head, exposing all of them, and making himself into a computer, he was unceremoniously dumped back in the UK.
To his begging to be allowed to come with them again, the Doctor said, “I only take the best. I’ve got Rose and Toshiko. C’mon, girls.”
They re-entered the TARDIS, and were off again.
***
5. Father’s Day
And then Rose asked the Doctor if she could go and see her Dad, who’d died when she was only a baby.
So they went off to 1987, and started with Jackie and Pete Tyler’s wedding.
Later, before another wedding, Rose stopping the car that should have killed her dad from doing so was the trigger, the event that caused the time-lines to collapse. They had to try and avoid different versions of themselves, the car became trapped in a loop...
...So some creatures called Reapers appeared, to fix the “wound in time”, as the Doctor called it.
Looking up at them, before the Doctor rushed everyone into the church (old, and therefore safe), Toshiko was reminded of the malevolent dragons from the ancient myths, not the more benign ones Japan had later adopted from China. There was a story about Yamata-no-Orochi, an enormous girl-devouring serpent with eight heads and eight tails. Susanoo killed the creature after he tricked it into becoming drunk on sake.
They watched the TARDIS blink out of, and back into existence. When Rose touched her younger self, confusing the time-line, the creatures managed to fight their way inside the building, and one of them consumed the Doctor.
Rose got to spend time with her dad, and he worked out who she was. After he worked out what she’d done, he threw himself in front of the car that should have already killed him.
And time righted itself.
As they stood outside, they saw the Reapers disappear, one at a time. The Doctor re-appeared, alive again. He and Rose looked at each other, and he said, "Go to him. Quick."
Rose ran out of the church gates, and to her Dad, in the road. Toshiko followed the Doctor, walking slowly down to the car that had killed Pete, giving Rose a chance to say goodbye.
A few seconds later, Rose looked over at the two of them. "Peter Alan Tyler. My dad. The most wonderful man in the world. Died the seventh of November, 1987."
The Doctor took one of Rose’s hands, and nodded at Toshiko to take the other one. The three of them then wandered back to the TARDIS, now sitting just over the road.
***
6. Mission to Mars
It was only on their third trip to July 1969 that Toshiko eventually thought to ask.
Giving the TARDIS screen a tap, making Neil Armstrong a bit clearer, she said, “When do we send a manned mission to Mars, Doctor?”
“2015.” He was too intent on the screen, he didn’t turn at look at her
“That soon? Well, to me and Rose, anyway.” She couldn’t quite believe it.
“Yeah. Long term base starts being built by that mission, then it’s the beginning of you lot spreading out over the universe; the first colonists arrive in 2100.”
“Can we go and see?”
“Long as you’re alright with just watching from the TARDIS. Don’t particularly want to land.” He finally looked at her. “Had a bit of trouble with some pyramids, a long time ago.”
What? “Watching from the TARDIS will be perfect, Doctor.”
So they went to 2100, and hanging in space, stood in the ship’s doorway, they watched the Martian biodomes being constructed.
It was amazing.
***
7. The Empty Child
Tracking a suspicious object with a mauvealert on it led them back to London. Just when was another matter, of course. On top of that, to the part of the universe that wasn’t planet Earth, mauve meant dangerous. The Doctor was rather gleeful about all the alien misunderstandings red alerts produced.
In the course of trying to help a child, both Toshiko and Rose ended up hanging from a barrage balloon. The German bombers that tore past them indicated that they were in the Second World War. Losing their grip on the rope, they suddenly found themselves in a tractor beam. And then they found themselves in a spaceship.
That was when Captain Jack Harkness, ex-Time Agent, conman, entered their lives, all charm, swagger, too many perfect white teeth, sonic blaster and two years of his life missing.
***
“Which of you two gorgeous ladies is authorised to negotiate payment?” Jack asked them, as they stood, glasses of champagne in hand, on his invisible ship.
Tethered to Big Ben.
“Play along,” Rose whispered, clearly completely smitten.
Toshiko nodded at her in reply.
In the course of playing along, they both danced with Jack (well, Toshiko tried, at least), learned who and what he was, and they discovered that they were in 1941, right at the height of the Blitz. They convinced Jack that the Doctor could authorise payment, and watched him “scan for alien tech.”
***
Jack’s scan found the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver in Albion Hospital, so they headed there.
“Listen, what's a Chula warship?” Rose asked, having had Jack greet him as Mr Spock, much to both her and Toshiko’s amusement.
In the hospital, they encountered people with gas-masks for faces, all bearing exactly the same injuries and scars.
Jack admitted to having thrown the object, a Chula ambulance-warship, at them, when he’d spotted the TARDIS. Then he worked out that they weren’t Time Agents. ‘So much for playing along,’ Toshiko thought. He was insistent that the gas mask people had nothing to do with the ship, as it had been empty.
“What is going on, then?” Rose asked.
"Human DNA's being rewritten. By an idiot. Some kind of virus...converting human beings into these things. But why?" the Doctor said.
The gas-mask people awoke, all crying, “Mummy!”
The Doctor warned the three of them not to touch the people, before making them stand down with, "Go to your room!"
***
As they sat in one of the wards, listening to how Jack’s con was meant to have worked, Toshiko considered him, something there hadn’t really been time for, earlier. He knew just how flash he was, and she was reminded of Ace Rimmer, from Red Dwarf. She chuckled to herself.
Once again, they had to run for their lives, to escape the Child, the leader of the gas-mask people. After explaining to the Doctor how he’d met the girls, Jack disappeared. But his voice soon came through the radio in the room they’d ended up in. Om-Comm, through any speaker grille, just like the Child, and he played Moonlight Serenade to block the Child, as he worked on teleporting them to his ship.
The Doctor seemed to be annoyed that Rose had danced with Jack, to that song, and she tried to get him to dance with her. Suddenly, all three of their bodies began to sparkle...
...They arrived on back on Jack’s ship. His Chula ship. Like they’d done ealier, for her and Rose, the nanogenes fixed the Doctor’s burnt hand, and they went off to investigate the crash site.
Rose’s eyes went wide when Jack said he’d distract the guard.
The Doctor just said, “Relax, he's a fifty-first century guy. He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing.”
***
At the crash site, they met a young woman called Nancy, who knew far too much for her age. As Jack and the Doctor tried to get the Chula ambulance open, Rose and Toshiko explained what it was; a ship from another world. The ship sparked, and the Doctor shouted orders at them. Rose and Nancy went to re-attach the barbed wire, with the sonic screwdriver, and she and Jack went to secure the gates that the gas-mask people were trying to get through.
They all ran back, and Jack got the ship open.
And then it all came together. Just like Jack’s ship, the ambulance had contained nanogenes. But these nanogenes had never seen a human, so they’d assumed that one injured child, wearing a gas-mask, was what humans looked like. That had been their template, and they’d gone off, and tried to fix all the humans they came across, who they thought were wrong: fix them, and make them ready for war.
“The entire human race is gonna be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child looking for its mother, and nothing in the world can stop it!" the Doctor shouted.
Jack got it, and said, “I didn’t know.”
To the constant cries of, “Mummy!” Nancy became increasingly upset, and named the Child as Jamie. The Doctor figured something out, and he got to her to admit that the Child was her son, not her brother, like she’d previously claimed.
A bomb then landed nearby.
"We've got seconds," Jack said.
“Can't you just teleport us out?” Toshiko asked.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I can’t.”
"So it's Volcano Day. Do what you've got to do," the Doctor said, and Jack blinked out of sight.
As Nancy held her son, the nanogenes glowed around them, calculating and repairing. Finished, they vanished. The Doctor pulled off Jamie’s mask, and they all smiled, when they discovered that it had worked - the nanogenes had used Nancy’s DNA to fix Jamie’s.
Jack re-appeared, riding the bomb. He had it in stasis, and the Doctor asked him to get rid of it. He disappeared again, only to return, complimenting Rose on her Union Flag t-shirt, before once again vanishing. They looked up, watching his ship fly away.
The Doctor called the nanogenes back. Toshiko watched them speed over to the group of gas-mask people, and again, they calculated and repaired. A Dr Constantine, who’d stayed in Albion Hospital with his patients, even when he himself gained a gas-mask for a face, was complimented by the Doctor.
One of Dr Constantine’s patients even grew her leg back.
***
8. The Doctor Dances
It was done, and they went back to the TARDIS, smiling at each other.
Then Rose asked about Jack. "Why'd he say goodbye?"
The Doctor said nothing, just started up the engines.
The next thing they knew, he’d silently landed the TARDIS inside Jack’s ship, and opened the doors. Moonlight Serenade then spilled into the console room, and Toshiko watched Rose once again try and teach the Doctor how to dance.
Rose looked out at Jack’s ship. Toshiko assumed she’d caught his eye, as she called, "Well? Hurry up then!"
He rushed inside. One look at his face told her all she needed to know - Jack was as amazed at the ship as she herself had been.
Rose and the Doctor stopped trying to dance. “Shut the door. Your ship's about to blow up. There's gonna be a draft," the Doctor instructed Jack. He quickly did as asked. Rose leant against the same strut Toshiko was occupying, while the Doctor started up the engines. "Welcome to the TARDIS."
"...much bigger on the inside..." Jack whispered.
"You'd better be," the Doctor replied.
Rose grinned, and taking Jack's hand, she pulled him further into the ship. "I think what the Doctor's trying to say is...you may cut in." Jack grinned back at Rose; a film-star smile, from the era they’d just left.
"Rose! I've just remembered!" the Doctor suddenly exclaimed. Lights flashed, and In The Mood came out of the TARDIS speakers. “I can dance!”
“I thought that Captain Jack might like this dance,” Rose said.
The Doctor winked. "I'm sure he would, Rose. I'm absolutely certain. ...But who with?"
...More flexible, when it comes to dancing...
Rose went back to the Doctor, and they danced, twirled and smiled around the console room. Toshiko looked over at Jack; he was smiling as well, watching them. As the song started up again, he took off his cap, placed it on the hat-stand, and wandered over to her. Once again, having the full force of Captain Jack Harkness’ smile directed solely at her made Toshiko feel like an awkward teenager, with a crush.
He held out a hand to her. “Toshiko? Would you like to dance?”
“I don’t really know how, Jack. You saw, when we were on your ship.”
“Well, we can’t possibly have that, ma’am! Not while the Captain’s around!” He laughed, sounding truly horrified. “C’mon, it’s only a jive. Nice and easy.” Jack winked at her, and manoeuvred them into position, for the dance.
They moved around the room, and again, Toshiko tried her best. But she did have to keep looking down at her feet.
Jack eventually said, ”Toshiko, sweetheart. C’mon, look at me. Your feet’ll work it out by themselves, more or less.”
She returned her eyes to his, getting the smile again. He rubbed her back, and squeezed her hand a little. Encouraged, she had another go. Seeing in Jack in the light of the TARDIS, watching how he looked at all three of them, and the ship, Toshiko knew that their dynamic had just undergone a rather dramatic change.
Later, she and Rose looked on, as the Doctor explained the TARDIS to Jack. The men were wide-eyed, both equally fascinated with the ship.
“Teenage boys, with computer games!” they exclaimed, simultaneously, and giggled.
***
9. And Then There Were Four
Only days later, much like Toshiko’s own experience, it was as though Jack had always been there, he fell into place within the team so easily.
Yes, he flirted, charmed, got himself in trouble. But he also protected. He sighed at things he hadn’t seen before, especially the ice waves on Woman Wept. When they really had to run, he took either her or Rose’s hand. Toshiko witnessed his joy at being trusted to help the Doctor fix the TARDIS. When he was given a key to the ship, after saving Toshiko from a particularly ugly, violent alien, she saw him wipe away a few tears. Rose and the Doctor went off to the kitchen, and Toshiko took it upon herself to make a move, pulling Jack into a hug.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said, and kissed her hair.
Toshiko then realised she loved him, just like she loved Rose, and the Doctor. It had also become clear that Jack loved the three of them just as much. She’d known from the first, how much Rose and the Doctor loved each other.
Whether anything more would ever come of any of it, she just didn’t know.
***
10. It Takes Two, or Three, to Tango
One day, they were parked on Mars. The TARDIS seemed to be ill; they could all feel something wasn’t right. So he could try and work out what was wrong, the Doctor blocked her off from Toshiko, Jack and Rose, and shooed the three of them out of the console room.
“Where are we going instead, then?” Rose asked.
“The wardrobe room?” Toshiko suggested.
“That sounds like a fabulous idea,” Jack said, and they walked off.
In the room, there was a record player. Rose found a dress she’d worn before, and she told them about the Gelth, Gwyneth and Charles Dickens.
“Ballgowns!” Jack exclaimed, when she’d finished. He flicked through them, eventually presenting Rose with a dark blue dress, and Toshiko with a bright red one. For himself, he found a tails suit. He then looked through the records sat by the player.
“Put the dresses on, girls, and I’ll teach you to tango,” he said, eyes dark and wicked.
Toshiko saw Rose’s eyes turn naughty. “Both at once?” she asked.
“There is a three person version, yeah. We can try that later, if you want. Hurry up, go get changed!”
They went behind the screens and put their dresses on, helping each other with the zips. Rose did both her and Toshiko’s hair, piling it up on their heads in a really pretty way.
When they were done, Jack appeared, dressed in his suit. “Miss Tyler, Dr Sato. You both look stunning. Who did I last dance with, ladies?”
“Me,” Rose said. “It was in that club on Rexel 6.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, eyes once again dark. “Well, that means it’s Toshiko’s turn first, then. Start the record player, Rose.”
He took Toshiko’s hand, pulled her close and placed her in the tango hold. They kept taking turns, and Jack then taught them the three person version; arms around their waists, Rose and her holding hands. This was of course accompanied by one of his usual stories; which tended to involve interesting circumstances for his being naked, and in bed with several people.
Later, Toshiko felt the TARDIS settle back into her head, and she sighed, as did Rose and Jack.
The Doctor summoned them: “She’s alright now. We can go.”
Changing into their ordinary clothes, they went back to the console room, pulling each other into tangos along the way.
***
11. Boom Town
The TARDIS needed re-fuelling, so they went to Cardiff, to use the energy provided by the rift in time and space which ran through the city. Rose called Mickey, her supposed boyfriend, claiming she needed her passport. Really, she just wanted to see him.
When he arrived, the Doctor was repairing the ship, and insisted on calling him Rickey.
As Rose hugged Mickey, Jack called them sweet. He continued with his own maintenance, before looking over at the Doctor, and asking, "How come I never get any of that?"
“Or me?” Toshiko said, also repairing something.
“Buy me a drink first.”
“Such hard work,” Jack said.
"But worth it!" the Doctor replied, grinning.
They then explained to Mickey why they were there, finishing each other’s sentences and high-fiving. Wrapping up against the cold, they were soon outside, with twenty four hours to spare.
***
As they sat in a restaurant, Jack regaled them with yet another story that Toshiko and Rose were both convinced was complete nonsense. The Doctor noticed the front page of the local newspaper, and his face fell.
It read, "New Mayor, New Cardiff."
Toshiko recognised the woman. This was very, very bad, indeed.
***
They strode off to the Town Hall, where Jack took the lead: "According to intelligence, the target is the last surviving member of the Slitheen family, a criminal sect from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, masquerading as a human being, zipped inside a skin suit. Okay, plan of attack: we assume a basic 57-56 strategy, covering all available exits on the ground floor. Doctor, you go face-to-face, that'll designate Exit One, I'll cover Exit Two, Rose, you're Exit Three, Toshiko and Mickey Smith, you take Exit Four. Have you got that?"
“Excuse me, who’s in charge?” the Doctor said.
"Sorry. Awaiting orders, sir," Jack replied, falling back into soldier mode.
"Right. Here's the plan. ...Like he said. Nice plan. Anything else?" The Doctor grinned his usual manic grin.
At Jack’s, "Present arms," they pulled out their mobiles, and they were off.
“Slitheen heading North!" the Doctor soon told them.
Mickey proved to be a bit useless - Toshiko rolled her eyes when he got his foot stuck in a bucket. They eventually managed to corner Margaret Blaine, only to find she had a teleport. The Doctor then took great glee in over-riding it with the sonic screwdriver.
"This is persecution. Why can't you leave me alone? What did I ever do to you?" Margaret complained to the Doctor.
"You tried to kill me and destroy this entire planet,” he replied, and gave her A Look.
"...Apart from that."
***
Back in the hall, the Doctor confronted Margaret over the nuclear power station she had planned. He worked out that something was hidden in the model sitting on the table.
He and Jack consequently once again acted like a pair of teenage boys, when they discovered the "tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator," otherwise known as an intergalactic surfboard. Margaret’s plan had been to blow up the Earth, and escape on the board, using the aftershock. She told them the nuclear power station project was called Blaidd Drwg.
Bad Wolf.
The words seemed to be following them.
At the Doctor’s announcement that they’d be taking Margaret home, to Raxacoricofallapatorious, she dropped her bombshell - "They have the death penalty. The family Slitheen was tried in its absence many years ago and found guilty. With no chance of appeal. According to the statutes of government, the moment I return, I am to be executed. What do you make of that, Doctor?"
Could they really take her home to that?
But all the Doctor said was, "Not my problem."
***
Margaret was taken off to the TARDIS, which would kind of serve its purpose, just for one night. Jack began wiring the extrapolator to the console; its energy would knock off several hours from the charging up time.
Rose and Mickey left.
Margaret commandeered the Doctor into taking her to dinner. When Jack produced some interesting handcuffs, her eyes lit up.
***
Toshiko and Jack stayed in the TARDIS, where she helped him with the extrapolator. Minutes later, its lights began to flash.
“We did it!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah!”
They smiled at each other, and Jack kissed her, right on the lips. Toshiko felt her face burning. She looked away, tucking her hair behind her ears. Yes, she loved him, but it was just friendship, and that was a bit too much.
“Hey, Toshiko. C’mon, come back here,” Jack said, dragging her out of her babble, placing a hand on her shoulder. He pulled her into a hug, something she felt she could actually cope with.
Then, for no immediately obvious reason, the extrapolator started sparking. Letting each other go, they tried yanking out the wires, disconnecting it from the TARDIS, but the sparks just continued.
***
The Doctor and Margaret came back, and there was much yelling and general confusion.
"It's the Rift! Time and space are ripping apart. The whole city's gonna disappear!" the Doctor said, as he and Jack continued trying to unplug the extrapolator. But this was to no avail. “Never mind Cardiff, it's going to rip open the planet!
Rose re-appeared. Seconds later, Margaret had her, displaying her Slitheen claw. She explained her plan, commandeering the extrapolator from them. And then the TARDIS...opened, spilling white light everywhere.
"Of course," the Doctor said, "opening the rift means you'll pull this ship apart. It's not just any old power source, it's the TARDIS. My TARDIS. The best ship in the universe."
“What’s this light?” Toshiko heard Rose ask.
"The heart of the TARDIS. This ship's alive. You've opened its soul."
"It's so bright...beautiful..." Margaret said, under its spell.
"Look at it, Blon. Look inside, Blon Fel Fotch. Look at the light," the Doctor said. That must have been Margaret’s real, Slitheen name.
She let Rose go. Toshiko and Jack held her between them.
Blon smiled, said, “Thank you,” and disappeared.
The Doctor then began yelling intructions, and between the four of them they soon had the TARDIS back under control. They discovered Blon had been turned into a egg, and they talked abou taking this egg home, and giving it to another family.
“Oh my God, Mickey!” Rose suddenly remembered, dashing back outside.
Jack and the Doctor worked on the TARDIS. Rose came back, on her own, dejected and announcing Mickey had gone.
And with that, they went off to Raxacoricofallapatorious.
***
12. Big in Japan
After dropping off the egg at a nursery, the Doctor said, “Where next, then?”
“Japan?” Jack suggested. “I haven’t been there for a while, and I don’t remember much from my last visit.”
“And why’s that?”
Jack hesitated, before finally admitting, “I was conning some samurai into buying back their own katana from me, Doctor.”
“Stupid ape.” He rolled his eyes.
“Yeah. There was some 17% sake being drunk. A lot of 17% sake.”
So, off they went to Japan, again.
Kyoto, 1336 really wasn’t the best time the Doctor could have picked - right in the middle of a combination of civil war, and a battle over the throne. They witnessed Ashikaga Takauji take the city, and only just escaped with their lives.
Back in the TARDIS, happy, safe, together, laughing, they were surprised by a strange light. This light made them all faint...
***
13. Games Station
...The next thing Toshiko knew, she was being picked up by a man she didn’t know.
“You’re alright, the transmat does your head in. Just remember, do what the Android says. Don't provoke it. The Android's word is law."
There was a voice, calling people to positions.
Toshiko was very confused indeed. "I was travelling. With the Doctor, Rose and a man called Captain Jack.... They wouldn't just leave me," she said, becoming high-pitched. Standing, Toshiko saw her name on a podium. Somehow, she was on The Weakest Link, and the Android was a robot version of Anne Robinson. She laughed, but it was silent, and more than a little manic.
And then she determined that she would play to win. Some questions, she didn’t understand, and some were spectacularly easy. When it came to the first elimination, the girl she’d picked dissolved into floods of tears begging to be allowed to try again. The Anne Droid opened its mouth, firing at her.
She disappeared, “disintegrated into atoms,” according to the man who’d picked her up, and Toshiko realised something was very, very wrong. She made the final, won the game, and ran out of the studio, to much shouting, and without her “prize”.
“Doctor?” she shouted, telepathically, hoping that he would somehow hear her.
***
She wasn’t really paying attention to time, but suddenly the Doctor, Jack and another girl were there. “Toshiko!” the Doctor shouted. “Rose is here somewhere!”
They got the right studio door open, and ran inside, only to hear another Anne Droid say, “Rose, you leave this life with nothing..."
The Doctor and Jack yelled for the game to be stopped, Rose tried running to them, but the Anne Droid got her, and there was nothing but dust. Toshiko and the Doctor bent down to the dust, while Jack threw a gun around, shouting at the guards. Before they knew what was happening, they’d been both imprisoned and sentenced. Then, in her head, Toshiko felt Jack suggest breaking out, to the Doctor.
He responded verbally: "Let's do it.”
Jack knocked out the guards, they grabbed guns, and went off to floor 500.
***
There, Jack shouted orders, and the Doctor demanded to know just what the hell was going on, and who’d killed Rose. However, the Controller wouldn’t tell him; she couldn’t recognise him.
“Don’t shoot!” a rather wet programmer said to the Doctor.
"Like I was ever gonna shoot." The Doctor ordered Jack to secure the doors; he reported back that they were safe for ten minutes.
"But that stuff you were saying," the programmer continued. "About something going on with the Games Station: I think you're right. Unauthorised transmats ...it's been going on for years."
Maybe he wasn’t quite so wet, Toshiko thought.
To Jack’s attempt to get though a particular door, a female programmer told him, “Archive Six is out of bounds!"
Jack just displayed the several guns he carried, saying, "Do I look like an out-of-bounds sort of guy?"
Toshiko had to admit that he was really hot like that, all black leather and authority. Him, and the Doctor.
The Controller then did manage to speak to the Doctor; the solar flares blocked the external control over her. She’d summoned him, hid him in the games: “My masters, they fear the Doctor."
Jack re-appeared, informing them that the TARDIS had worked out what happened to Rose - it was another transmat. At his declaration that Rose was still alive, they ended up in a three person hug, beaming at each other. The Controller tried to help them, delivering the co-ordinates they needed, but her masters took her.
These masters were the Daleks, apparently not as destroyed as Jack and the Doctor thought they had been. There were half a million of them, in 200 ships. And they had Rose, as was visible from the display screen.
The Doctor told the Daleks that he’d rescue her, with no plan.
"Rose?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"I'm coming to get you."
***
14. The Parting of the Ways
The three of them ran into the TARDIS, quickly dematerialising. Toshiko and Jack had earlier re-attached the extrapolator to the console. It was now providing them with a force field, deflecting the Daleks’ missiles.
On the Dalek ship, they materialised around Rose, and one of the Daleks, which Jack shot. Hugs of joy and greeting were then exchanged.
Again, they were alive, and together.
***
Once again, the Doctor faced down the Daleks with nothing but words: he was The Oncoming Storm, of which the Daleks had always been afraid. When he asked just how they’d survived the Time War, the Emperor Dalek made his presence known. Looking up at it, Toshiko was terrified.
They learned that these Daleks had once been humans.
And they heard that these Daleks were insane, shouting about blasphemy, something they should have no concept of.
Returning to the TARDIS, they went back to floor 500, on the Games Station.
***
There, the Doctor stormed out of the TARDIS to give the programmers instructions, demanding, "Turn everything up. All transmissions, wide open, full power. Now! Do it!"
Then he announced his plan to use the satellite, and Jack worked out that he was going to make a delta wave.
This delta wave was strong, dangerous and very complicated.
Jack explained what he suspected the Daleks would do, and how they could fight them. The Doctor called Rose and Toshiko to help him strip wire, and Jack sent his army of a mere four people off in the lift, to floor 494. The girl who’d been with the Doctor and Jack when Toshiko met them again awkwardly said goodbye to the Doctor, before going off, and then it was just the four of them.
"It's been fun!” Jack said. "But I guess this is goodbye."
"The Doctor's gonna do it, you just watch him!" Rose said.
Toshiko then watched Jack take Rose's face in his hands. "Rose,” he said. “You are worth fighting for." He kissed her.
Then he turned to Toshiko, telling her, “Toshiko, can’t think of anyone I’d rather work with, on the extrapolator.” She received a kiss as well, the same way. Such big, comforting hands.
Finally, he went to the Doctor. "Wish I'd never met you, Doctor," he said. Again, he took his friend’s face in his hands. "I was much better off as a coward." Another kiss, just the same way.
He squeezed Rose and Doctor’s shoulders, and Toshiko grabbed Rose’s hand, so the line was unbroken.
"See you in hell!" he said, leaving to take charge of his army.
"He's gonna be alright, isn't he?" Rose asked the Doctor, but there was no reply.
They all knew those had been goodbye kisses. They knew they would not see Jack in the flesh again. They knew he’d die.
***
As they stripped wire, they talked about time travel, the Doctor once again telling them how bad crossing your own time line was.
“There's another thing the TARDIS could do -- it could take us away. We could leave, let history take its course."
Toshiko looked at Rose, and they both shook their heads; that had never been an option, they’d always interfered, got in the way. The delta wave was building, they checked its progress on the screens.
The Doctor suddenly said, "We can do it! If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline.... Yes!" He took them into the TARDIS, placing their hands on controls and telling them, "Hold that down, and keep position!"
"If I'm very clever -- and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant -- I might just save the world. Or rip it apart."
“The first option sounds better, Doctor,” Toshiko said, Rose agreeing with her.
"Yeah. Now, I've just got to go and power up the Games Station. Hold on!"
As the TARDIS engines started, Toshiko realised they’d been played, but she couldn’t calm Rose and tell her.
"This is Emergency Program One.” They turned around to see a hologram of the Doctor, and Toshiko knew she didn’t have to try hushing her companion.
"Rose, now listen; this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing: we must be in danger, and I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second, with no chance of escape. And that's okay. Hope it's a good death."
"But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home."
Toshiko knew he’d recorded this long before she and Jack came on board. He’d probably made it straight after the trip to the end of the world.
Rose protested at this, as the message continued, "And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. Typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die."
"Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it, no one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on and the box will be buried."
"And if you wanna remember me, then you can do one thing, that's all. One thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life."
He disappeared, Rose went on protesting and Toshiko realised they’d landed. She took Rose in her arms. They both cried. Walking outside, to see just where the Doctor had sent them, she saw Mickey. He held Rose, and she shed more tears.
***
Toshiko and Rose sat in a cafe, listening to Mickey and Jackie, Rose’s mum, babble about basically nothing.
Rose then said, "Two hundred thousand years in the future, he's dying. And there's nothing I can do."
Jackie didn’t get it all, saying that was many years away.
"But it's not! It's now! That fight is happening right now, and he's fighting for us! For the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips!" Rose exclaimed.
"Listen to me,” Jackie said. “God knows I have hated that man, but right now, I love him. And do you know why? Because he did the right thing. He sent you back to me."
"But what do I do every day, Mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it?"
“That’s what everybody else does,” Mickey said.
"But I can't!"
“What, ‘cause you’re so much better than everybody else?”
"It was...a better life. And I don't mean all the travellin' and seein' aliens and spaceships and things -- that don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life," Rose said, trying to get them to understand.
"You know. He showed you, too,” she told Mickey. "That you don't just give up, you don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't...."
With that, she left the table, running out of the cafe. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, before Toshiko said, “She’s right, you know. Come on, Mickey, let’s go and find her.” The two of them got up, leaving Jackie on her own.
***
15. Bad Wolf
They found Rose at a tarmac football pitch, sitting on a bench.
"You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Doctor. Neither of you can," Mickey said.
Toshiko sighed; she thought he’d understood.
"But how do I forget him?" Rose asked.
“You’ve gotta start livin' your own life. A proper life, like the kind he's never had. The sort of life that you could have with me."
Toshiko saw Rose’s eyes go down to the tarmac; she’d spotted something.
Bad Wolf.
It was on the tarmac and the brick walls.
"That's been there for years! It's just a phrase! It's just words!" Mickey shouted.
"I thought it was a warning -- maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's a message. The same words written down, now, and two hundred thousand years in the future. It's a link between me and the Doctor! Bad Wolf here...Bad Wolf there!"
"But if it's a message, what's it saying?"
"It's telling us we can get back!"
They all ran off to the TARDIS.
***
There, Rose said they just needed to reverse the ship, and Toshiko explained the telepathy. And Mickey still didn’t understand.
"There was this light, with Margaret, and the Doctor said it was the heart of the TARDIS. If we can open it, we can make contact. One of us can tell it what to do!"
“This is suicide, you know,” Mickey told them.
"That's a risk I've gotta take. 'Cause there's nothing left for me here," Rose said, coldly.
"Nothing?" Mickey sounded sad. "Okay, if that's what you think, let's get this thing open."
Mickey brought his Mini to TARDIS, and they attached a chain from the car to the console. He revved and revved, but the TARDIS steadfastly refused to open. Jackie then appeared, and Toshiko and Mickey let mother and daughter just talk to each other.
***
Later, when Jackie had gone, the three of them leant against the car.
"There's gotta be something else we can do," Mickey said. “I'm not having you just -- just give up now. No way. We just need something stronger than my car. Something bigger. Something like that."
Toshiko knew he’d got it, at last.
At that point, a bright yellow tow truck arrived. Jackie was sitting in the seat.
"Mum!" Rose laughed. "Where the hell did you get that from?"
“From Rodrigo. He owes me a favour. Never mind why. You were right about your dad, sweetheart. He was full of mad ideas, and this is exactly what he would've done. Now, get on with it before I change my mind."
Again, they attached a chain between the vehicle and the console. Rose and Toshiko stood in the TARDIS, by the door, taking turns in shouting at Mickey to keep going, with Jackie in the middle, passing on the message, as the chain began to pull the console open.
Suddenly, the chain snapped, the console was open and the white light of the heart of the TARDIS once again poured out...
...And into Rose’s eyes. As the doors slammed and the engines started, Toshiko knew Rose had managed to instruct the ship. She knew they were going back.
What to, was another matter.
***
As they materialised, Rose began to glow, looking like a burning angel. The doors opened and Toshiko saw her...teleport outside. She decided to watch from the ship. This was between Rose and the Doctor, if he was still alive.
"What've you done?" the Doctor asked, worriedly.
"I looked into the TARDIS. And the TARDIS looked into me.” Rose didn’t sound entirely human. She’d linked herself to the ship, Toshiko realised. The TARDIS had taken human form, and both the ship and Rose were speaking to their Doctor.
"You looked into the Time Vortex, Rose. No one's meant to see that."
The Daleks screamed, “Exterminate.”
Rose just pushed their lasers back at them, and then said, "I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words... I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here."
"Stop, Rose. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna burn!"
"I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false God."
"You cannot hurt me," said the Dalek Emperor. "I am immortal!"
"You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence. And I divide them."
Toshiko saw Rose... Bad Wolf turn a Dalek to dust, with just a wave of her hand.
"Everything must come to dust...all things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."
"Stop, Rose, you've done it. Just let go. "
"How can I let go of this? I bring life."
"But this is wrong! You can't control life and death!" the Doctor shouted. Toshiko could hear how scared he was.
"But I can. The sun and the moon. The day and night. But why do they hurt?"
"You’re going to die, and it'll be my fault."
"I can see everything. All that is, all that was. All that ever could be."
"That's what I see! All the time. Doesn't it drive you mad?"
"My head, it's killing me. Come here. I think you need a Doctor."
Rose went to him, and he kissed her. Toshiko saw the light go back into the Doctor, who then blew it back into the TARDIS. She moved away from the console and closed her eyes, sitting down.
***
16. New Beginnings
When she re-opened he eyes, Toshiko wasn’t alone. She and Rose both lay on the floor; the Doctor had the TARDIS in flight.
They pulled themselves up, Rose asking, “What happened?”
“What do you remember?" the Doctor said.
“It's like... there was this singing?"
"That's right! I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.”
"I was at home.... No, I wasn't. I was in the TARDIS...."
"...I can't remember anything else."
"Rose Tyler, Toshiko Sato,” he said, and Toshiko could hear the sadness in his voice. ”I was gonna take you to so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet. You'd love it. Fantastic place -- they've got dogs with no noses! Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny!"
“Why they can't go there, then?” Rose asked.
"Maybe you will. And maybe I will. But not like this."
Rose looked over at her, but Toshiko just mouthed, “I don’t know.”
“You’re not making sense,” Rose yelled at him.
The Doctor just smiled back at them, saying, "I might never make sense again! I might have two heads. Or no head! Imagine me with no head! And don't say that's an improvement.... But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're gonna end up with --" He stopped, as a huge blast of light came out of him, and he was clearly in pain.
They both went towards him, only to have him shout, "Stay away!"
"Doctor, tell us what's going on," Rose said.
"I absorbed all the energy of the time vortex. No one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body's dying."
“Can't do you do something about it?”
"Yeah, I'm doing it now!"
“Time Lords have a trick where they can cheat death. Except...it means I'm gonna change."
Rose still didn’t understand.
But Toshiko did, finally remembering, and mentally kicking herself.
Regeneration. It was in the UNIT records.
"...And I'm not gonna see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go... Before I go, I just wanna tell you two...you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic."
"And do you know what? So was I." The Doctor smiled at them, before light exploded from his body, and he changed.
***
The light calmed, and they were met with a younger man; mad eyes and unruly hair.
"Hello!" he grinned, speaking with a vaguely London accent.
The girls stared at him, both a bit lost.
"New teeth,” the new version of the Doctor said. “That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right! Barcelona."
He smiled at them. From a lack of any other response, they both smiled back.
Barcelona, then.
It would just be yet another amazing adventure.
-end-
crosspost:
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
toshiko_sato
better_with_3
dwfiction
galactic_conman
new_who
time_and_chips
Title - The Amazing Adventures of Toshiko Sato
Author - laurab1
Rating - PG
Characters - Toshiko Sato, Nine, Rose, TARDIS, Jack, Ten
Length - approx 8,900 words
Summary - originally started for the AU round, on tw_exchange, Prompt 43, Tosh (or Gwen) wasn't recruited by Torchwood - she left to explore the universe with the Doctor.
Spoilers - 1.5 Aliens of London to 1.13 The Parting of the Ways
Disclaimer - alas, none of these people/aliens/timeships are mine
Feedback is loved and appreciated :) Enjoy!
The Amazing Adventures of Toshiko Sato
by Laura
1. Aliens of London
Dr Toshiko Sato read the results of the tests she’d just conducted on the body laying on her table.
It appeared to be a pig, but its brain was wired up with technology that she had never seen before. Given that she worked in the lower levels of UNIT, Toshiko applied Occam’s Razor and decided that what she had in her possession was indeed an alien.
Even if it did look like a pig.
So when she was asked to keep it out of sight until the experts arrived, she did so, sliding it into a morgue drawer.
And then the pig-alien woke up, squealing like mad; it wasn’t as dead as she thought it had been.
***
Toshiko cowered on the floor, scared.
A man in a black leather jacket stormed into the morgue, followed by some soldiers. She watched him take in the situation; the drawer open, the room in general disarray.
“It's alive!” she exclaimed, when she found her voice.
“Spread out. Tell the perimeter it's a lockdown,” he ordered the soldiers, before coming over to her, and taking her hands.
“Oh, my God! It was still alive.”
“Do it!” the man said, when the soldiers didn’t move. On this second order, they did move.
The man turned back to her, and Toshiko said, “I swear it was dead.”
“Coma, shock, hibernation, anything,” he said.
And she knew he had a point. An alien might not necessarily appear dead in the same way that anything from Earth would.
“What does it look like?”
Before she could tell him, there was another noise.
“It's still here,” he said quietly.
Standing, watching the room, he summoned a hovering soldier, who came and sat next to Toshiko. Then there was an almighty crash, shots were fired, angry voices were raised.
Minutes later, the hopefully-dead-this-time pig-alien was back on Toshiko’s table.
***
“Who are you?” Toshiko asked the man in the leather jacket.
“The Doctor.”
Judging by the tone of his voice, and the folded arms, that was all she was going to get. Sighing a little, she went on, asking, “I just assumed that's what aliens look like, but you're saying it's an ordinary pig from earth?”
“More like a mermaid. Victorian showmen used to draw the crowds by taking the skull of a cat, gluing it to a fish and calling it a mermaid. Now someone's taken a pig, opened up its brain, stuck bits on, then they've strapped it in that ship, made it dive bomb. It must have been terrified. They've taken this animal and turned it into a joke.”
Not an alien at all, then. ”So it's a fake, a pretend, like the mermaid? But the technology augmenting its brain, it's like nothing on earth. It's alien. Aliens are faking aliens. But why would they do that?”
Toshiko turned to the Doctor for his thoughts, only to discover that he’d disappeared. Dumping the chart on the table, she ran out into the corridor, shouting his name a couple of times.
But all she found was a mysterious wind, and a faint noise that she couldn’t name. Toshiko went back to the morgue.
***
2. Magic Box
Later, she heard the noise again, and out of thin air, a blue box, a police telephone box...appeared in the morgue.
Toshiko wasn’t really surprised to see the Doctor emerge from it, accompanied by a young blonde woman.
“Dr Sato!” he said, leaning against the door of the box. “D’you wanna see some real aliens?”
She didn’t answer immediately, too many things to think about. And then she considered exactly what had just happened. “Aren’t I looking at one right now?”
“Smart girl, Toshiko.” He grinned at her. “D’you wanna come?”
“What about my job?”
He looked away for a few seconds, apparently hiding something from her. “We can have you back here just ten minutes later. “
“Yeah, right,” the girl snorted.
He ignored her, and continued, “Travels in time and space, she does,” he said, indicating the box with his head.
“She?”
“She’s a ship, of course she’s a she. The TARDIS. My TARDIS. Best ship in the universe.”
“Is that why there’s wires everywhere, an’ you need the hammer?” the girl asked, smiling up at him.
“Oi! She’s very, very old; she doesn’t always work properly.”
“Can say that again.”
“Doctor?” Toshiko asked. “How on Earth are all three of us going to fit in there?
“You’ll see,” the girl said, “if you come. I’m Rose, by the way.”
Toshiko slipped off her lab coat, placing it on the back of a chair, and grabbed her handbag. “Doctor,” she said, “I would love to see some real aliens.”
“Fantastic!” He grinned madly, and pushed the doors open.
Rose grinned as well, took Toshiko’s hand and pulled her into the TARDIS.
***
It was bigger on the inside.
Of course.
Rose let go of her hand, and went to join the Doctor at what were presumably the controls.
Toshiko looked around the room, in awe and wonder. Coral struts, a pulsing central column... She ran a hand down one of the struts. A thought went through her mind, but she kind of dismissed it. How would that even work?
A few minutes later, in her head, Toshiko felt what she could only describe as a warm presence, and wondered, again. “Doctor? Is this ship alive? And telepathic?” She joined them at the column.
“Yeah, Toshiko. She in your head, already?” The Doctor was pushing buttons and levers.
“I think so.”
“She must like you, then. Nothin’ to say about the size?”
“Bigger on the inside,” she said. For the sake of saying it.
“TARDIS: Time And Relative Dimensions In Space,” Rose explained. “Where’re we going next, then?”
“Toshiko? Anywhere particular you’d like to go?”
“Or anywhen?”
“Yeah, that too.”
“Surprise me.”
“Alright. You asked for it, so don’t go blamin’ me if you have to run for your lives.” Another mad grin.
The tubes in the central column rose and fell, there was a familiar grinding noise, and they were off, Toshiko assumed.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Rose whispered to her, smiling. “God knows where he’ll take us. Or when. And we always have to run for our lives.”
“Surely that’s half the fun?” Toshiko chanced, smiling back at her.
Rose gave her an even bigger grin, and said, “Yeah, it is. D’you wanna hear about the year five billion and twenty three, Toshiko?”
“Five billion and twenty three?”
“First trip, he took me to see the end of the world, on Platform One, this space station. Or I could tell you about the Gelth, in Cardiff, in 1869. Then there’s the shop dummies made of living plastic, and the Slitheen...”
“Tell me about the future, Rose.”
She told her story - Cassandra, spider-bots, the Face of Boe, Jabe - and Toshiko listened intently. She’d enjoy travelling in time and space with these two.
Or was it three?
***
Japan, just a few years into the future, that’s where and when they went.
They visited as many electronics shops as possible, marvelling at the tiny mobile phones and TVs, and the next generation of games consoles.
It was incredibly exciting.
They returned to the TARDIS. Once inside, Toshiko said, “Thank you, Doctor. That was great. All that tech! Now, I think you promised me real aliens?”
Starting the engines, he grinned at her. “You’re welcome, Toshiko. Yeah, I did promise you real aliens. Off we go, then.”
***
3. Dalek
Hours later, the TARDIS picked up a distress signal.
“Where’s it coming from, Doctor?” Toshiko asked, over the noise the console was making.
“Underground, somewhere in Utah.”
“And when?” Rose asked.
“2012. Shall we go and see if we can help, then?” He grinned madly at them, and both girls just nodded in reply.
Off they went, and Toshiko got her real alien.
***
Unfortunately, it was in the form of a Dalek, a very old enemy of the Doctor’s. This one had fallen though time, and survived the destruction of its race, at the Doctor’s own hands.
The Time War. The same war that saw the near-end of the Doctor’s own people.
The distress signal belonged to the Dalek. The TARDIS had arrived at a museum full of alien artefacts, and owned by a Mr Van Statten.
Who also owned the Internet.
Rose (rather foolishly) took a liking to a young man called Adam, who subsequently abandoned them, when they were trying to escape the Dalek’s killing spree. When she’d touched the Dalek, transferring her DNA, Rose had awakened it.
The door they needed to get through were in sight, but Toshiko saw the other girl falling behind. “Rose! Give me your hand! We’re nearly there!”
“Thanks, Toshiko,” she replied. They joined hands, and ran on.
But their efforts came to nothing, as they then both ended up stuck with the Dalek. Jointly, they talked the Doctor out of killing it, and it then self-destructed.
Much of the base was destroyed, so Rose persuaded the Doctor to let Adam come with them. While she was showing some of the TARDIS to him, Toshiko stayed with the Doctor.
“Toshiko,” he said, reaching in his pocket, “you’ll be needin’ this.” He placed a key in her hand. “Thanks for helpin’, today.”
Looking at the key, and back at the Doctor, all she could say was, “Thank you.” Inside, she was jumping for joy.
***
4. The Long Game
Adam lasted just one trip, to the year 200000, and Satellite Five.
There, they encountered The Mighty Jagrafess, The Editor, and Floor 500, receiving an object lesson in tampering with time. After Adam got a hole drilled into his head, exposing all of them, and making himself into a computer, he was unceremoniously dumped back in the UK.
To his begging to be allowed to come with them again, the Doctor said, “I only take the best. I’ve got Rose and Toshiko. C’mon, girls.”
They re-entered the TARDIS, and were off again.
***
5. Father’s Day
And then Rose asked the Doctor if she could go and see her Dad, who’d died when she was only a baby.
So they went off to 1987, and started with Jackie and Pete Tyler’s wedding.
Later, before another wedding, Rose stopping the car that should have killed her dad from doing so was the trigger, the event that caused the time-lines to collapse. They had to try and avoid different versions of themselves, the car became trapped in a loop...
...So some creatures called Reapers appeared, to fix the “wound in time”, as the Doctor called it.
Looking up at them, before the Doctor rushed everyone into the church (old, and therefore safe), Toshiko was reminded of the malevolent dragons from the ancient myths, not the more benign ones Japan had later adopted from China. There was a story about Yamata-no-Orochi, an enormous girl-devouring serpent with eight heads and eight tails. Susanoo killed the creature after he tricked it into becoming drunk on sake.
They watched the TARDIS blink out of, and back into existence. When Rose touched her younger self, confusing the time-line, the creatures managed to fight their way inside the building, and one of them consumed the Doctor.
Rose got to spend time with her dad, and he worked out who she was. After he worked out what she’d done, he threw himself in front of the car that should have already killed him.
And time righted itself.
As they stood outside, they saw the Reapers disappear, one at a time. The Doctor re-appeared, alive again. He and Rose looked at each other, and he said, "Go to him. Quick."
Rose ran out of the church gates, and to her Dad, in the road. Toshiko followed the Doctor, walking slowly down to the car that had killed Pete, giving Rose a chance to say goodbye.
A few seconds later, Rose looked over at the two of them. "Peter Alan Tyler. My dad. The most wonderful man in the world. Died the seventh of November, 1987."
The Doctor took one of Rose’s hands, and nodded at Toshiko to take the other one. The three of them then wandered back to the TARDIS, now sitting just over the road.
***
6. Mission to Mars
It was only on their third trip to July 1969 that Toshiko eventually thought to ask.
Giving the TARDIS screen a tap, making Neil Armstrong a bit clearer, she said, “When do we send a manned mission to Mars, Doctor?”
“2015.” He was too intent on the screen, he didn’t turn at look at her
“That soon? Well, to me and Rose, anyway.” She couldn’t quite believe it.
“Yeah. Long term base starts being built by that mission, then it’s the beginning of you lot spreading out over the universe; the first colonists arrive in 2100.”
“Can we go and see?”
“Long as you’re alright with just watching from the TARDIS. Don’t particularly want to land.” He finally looked at her. “Had a bit of trouble with some pyramids, a long time ago.”
What? “Watching from the TARDIS will be perfect, Doctor.”
So they went to 2100, and hanging in space, stood in the ship’s doorway, they watched the Martian biodomes being constructed.
It was amazing.
***
7. The Empty Child
Tracking a suspicious object with a mauvealert on it led them back to London. Just when was another matter, of course. On top of that, to the part of the universe that wasn’t planet Earth, mauve meant dangerous. The Doctor was rather gleeful about all the alien misunderstandings red alerts produced.
In the course of trying to help a child, both Toshiko and Rose ended up hanging from a barrage balloon. The German bombers that tore past them indicated that they were in the Second World War. Losing their grip on the rope, they suddenly found themselves in a tractor beam. And then they found themselves in a spaceship.
That was when Captain Jack Harkness, ex-Time Agent, conman, entered their lives, all charm, swagger, too many perfect white teeth, sonic blaster and two years of his life missing.
***
“Which of you two gorgeous ladies is authorised to negotiate payment?” Jack asked them, as they stood, glasses of champagne in hand, on his invisible ship.
Tethered to Big Ben.
“Play along,” Rose whispered, clearly completely smitten.
Toshiko nodded at her in reply.
In the course of playing along, they both danced with Jack (well, Toshiko tried, at least), learned who and what he was, and they discovered that they were in 1941, right at the height of the Blitz. They convinced Jack that the Doctor could authorise payment, and watched him “scan for alien tech.”
***
Jack’s scan found the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver in Albion Hospital, so they headed there.
“Listen, what's a Chula warship?” Rose asked, having had Jack greet him as Mr Spock, much to both her and Toshiko’s amusement.
In the hospital, they encountered people with gas-masks for faces, all bearing exactly the same injuries and scars.
Jack admitted to having thrown the object, a Chula ambulance-warship, at them, when he’d spotted the TARDIS. Then he worked out that they weren’t Time Agents. ‘So much for playing along,’ Toshiko thought. He was insistent that the gas mask people had nothing to do with the ship, as it had been empty.
“What is going on, then?” Rose asked.
"Human DNA's being rewritten. By an idiot. Some kind of virus...converting human beings into these things. But why?" the Doctor said.
The gas-mask people awoke, all crying, “Mummy!”
The Doctor warned the three of them not to touch the people, before making them stand down with, "Go to your room!"
***
As they sat in one of the wards, listening to how Jack’s con was meant to have worked, Toshiko considered him, something there hadn’t really been time for, earlier. He knew just how flash he was, and she was reminded of Ace Rimmer, from Red Dwarf. She chuckled to herself.
Once again, they had to run for their lives, to escape the Child, the leader of the gas-mask people. After explaining to the Doctor how he’d met the girls, Jack disappeared. But his voice soon came through the radio in the room they’d ended up in. Om-Comm, through any speaker grille, just like the Child, and he played Moonlight Serenade to block the Child, as he worked on teleporting them to his ship.
The Doctor seemed to be annoyed that Rose had danced with Jack, to that song, and she tried to get him to dance with her. Suddenly, all three of their bodies began to sparkle...
...They arrived on back on Jack’s ship. His Chula ship. Like they’d done ealier, for her and Rose, the nanogenes fixed the Doctor’s burnt hand, and they went off to investigate the crash site.
Rose’s eyes went wide when Jack said he’d distract the guard.
The Doctor just said, “Relax, he's a fifty-first century guy. He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing.”
***
At the crash site, they met a young woman called Nancy, who knew far too much for her age. As Jack and the Doctor tried to get the Chula ambulance open, Rose and Toshiko explained what it was; a ship from another world. The ship sparked, and the Doctor shouted orders at them. Rose and Nancy went to re-attach the barbed wire, with the sonic screwdriver, and she and Jack went to secure the gates that the gas-mask people were trying to get through.
They all ran back, and Jack got the ship open.
And then it all came together. Just like Jack’s ship, the ambulance had contained nanogenes. But these nanogenes had never seen a human, so they’d assumed that one injured child, wearing a gas-mask, was what humans looked like. That had been their template, and they’d gone off, and tried to fix all the humans they came across, who they thought were wrong: fix them, and make them ready for war.
“The entire human race is gonna be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child looking for its mother, and nothing in the world can stop it!" the Doctor shouted.
Jack got it, and said, “I didn’t know.”
To the constant cries of, “Mummy!” Nancy became increasingly upset, and named the Child as Jamie. The Doctor figured something out, and he got to her to admit that the Child was her son, not her brother, like she’d previously claimed.
A bomb then landed nearby.
"We've got seconds," Jack said.
“Can't you just teleport us out?” Toshiko asked.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I can’t.”
"So it's Volcano Day. Do what you've got to do," the Doctor said, and Jack blinked out of sight.
As Nancy held her son, the nanogenes glowed around them, calculating and repairing. Finished, they vanished. The Doctor pulled off Jamie’s mask, and they all smiled, when they discovered that it had worked - the nanogenes had used Nancy’s DNA to fix Jamie’s.
Jack re-appeared, riding the bomb. He had it in stasis, and the Doctor asked him to get rid of it. He disappeared again, only to return, complimenting Rose on her Union Flag t-shirt, before once again vanishing. They looked up, watching his ship fly away.
The Doctor called the nanogenes back. Toshiko watched them speed over to the group of gas-mask people, and again, they calculated and repaired. A Dr Constantine, who’d stayed in Albion Hospital with his patients, even when he himself gained a gas-mask for a face, was complimented by the Doctor.
One of Dr Constantine’s patients even grew her leg back.
***
8. The Doctor Dances
It was done, and they went back to the TARDIS, smiling at each other.
Then Rose asked about Jack. "Why'd he say goodbye?"
The Doctor said nothing, just started up the engines.
The next thing they knew, he’d silently landed the TARDIS inside Jack’s ship, and opened the doors. Moonlight Serenade then spilled into the console room, and Toshiko watched Rose once again try and teach the Doctor how to dance.
Rose looked out at Jack’s ship. Toshiko assumed she’d caught his eye, as she called, "Well? Hurry up then!"
He rushed inside. One look at his face told her all she needed to know - Jack was as amazed at the ship as she herself had been.
Rose and the Doctor stopped trying to dance. “Shut the door. Your ship's about to blow up. There's gonna be a draft," the Doctor instructed Jack. He quickly did as asked. Rose leant against the same strut Toshiko was occupying, while the Doctor started up the engines. "Welcome to the TARDIS."
"...much bigger on the inside..." Jack whispered.
"You'd better be," the Doctor replied.
Rose grinned, and taking Jack's hand, she pulled him further into the ship. "I think what the Doctor's trying to say is...you may cut in." Jack grinned back at Rose; a film-star smile, from the era they’d just left.
"Rose! I've just remembered!" the Doctor suddenly exclaimed. Lights flashed, and In The Mood came out of the TARDIS speakers. “I can dance!”
“I thought that Captain Jack might like this dance,” Rose said.
The Doctor winked. "I'm sure he would, Rose. I'm absolutely certain. ...But who with?"
...More flexible, when it comes to dancing...
Rose went back to the Doctor, and they danced, twirled and smiled around the console room. Toshiko looked over at Jack; he was smiling as well, watching them. As the song started up again, he took off his cap, placed it on the hat-stand, and wandered over to her. Once again, having the full force of Captain Jack Harkness’ smile directed solely at her made Toshiko feel like an awkward teenager, with a crush.
He held out a hand to her. “Toshiko? Would you like to dance?”
“I don’t really know how, Jack. You saw, when we were on your ship.”
“Well, we can’t possibly have that, ma’am! Not while the Captain’s around!” He laughed, sounding truly horrified. “C’mon, it’s only a jive. Nice and easy.” Jack winked at her, and manoeuvred them into position, for the dance.
They moved around the room, and again, Toshiko tried her best. But she did have to keep looking down at her feet.
Jack eventually said, ”Toshiko, sweetheart. C’mon, look at me. Your feet’ll work it out by themselves, more or less.”
She returned her eyes to his, getting the smile again. He rubbed her back, and squeezed her hand a little. Encouraged, she had another go. Seeing in Jack in the light of the TARDIS, watching how he looked at all three of them, and the ship, Toshiko knew that their dynamic had just undergone a rather dramatic change.
Later, she and Rose looked on, as the Doctor explained the TARDIS to Jack. The men were wide-eyed, both equally fascinated with the ship.
“Teenage boys, with computer games!” they exclaimed, simultaneously, and giggled.
***
9. And Then There Were Four
Only days later, much like Toshiko’s own experience, it was as though Jack had always been there, he fell into place within the team so easily.
Yes, he flirted, charmed, got himself in trouble. But he also protected. He sighed at things he hadn’t seen before, especially the ice waves on Woman Wept. When they really had to run, he took either her or Rose’s hand. Toshiko witnessed his joy at being trusted to help the Doctor fix the TARDIS. When he was given a key to the ship, after saving Toshiko from a particularly ugly, violent alien, she saw him wipe away a few tears. Rose and the Doctor went off to the kitchen, and Toshiko took it upon herself to make a move, pulling Jack into a hug.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said, and kissed her hair.
Toshiko then realised she loved him, just like she loved Rose, and the Doctor. It had also become clear that Jack loved the three of them just as much. She’d known from the first, how much Rose and the Doctor loved each other.
Whether anything more would ever come of any of it, she just didn’t know.
***
10. It Takes Two, or Three, to Tango
One day, they were parked on Mars. The TARDIS seemed to be ill; they could all feel something wasn’t right. So he could try and work out what was wrong, the Doctor blocked her off from Toshiko, Jack and Rose, and shooed the three of them out of the console room.
“Where are we going instead, then?” Rose asked.
“The wardrobe room?” Toshiko suggested.
“That sounds like a fabulous idea,” Jack said, and they walked off.
In the room, there was a record player. Rose found a dress she’d worn before, and she told them about the Gelth, Gwyneth and Charles Dickens.
“Ballgowns!” Jack exclaimed, when she’d finished. He flicked through them, eventually presenting Rose with a dark blue dress, and Toshiko with a bright red one. For himself, he found a tails suit. He then looked through the records sat by the player.
“Put the dresses on, girls, and I’ll teach you to tango,” he said, eyes dark and wicked.
Toshiko saw Rose’s eyes turn naughty. “Both at once?” she asked.
“There is a three person version, yeah. We can try that later, if you want. Hurry up, go get changed!”
They went behind the screens and put their dresses on, helping each other with the zips. Rose did both her and Toshiko’s hair, piling it up on their heads in a really pretty way.
When they were done, Jack appeared, dressed in his suit. “Miss Tyler, Dr Sato. You both look stunning. Who did I last dance with, ladies?”
“Me,” Rose said. “It was in that club on Rexel 6.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, eyes once again dark. “Well, that means it’s Toshiko’s turn first, then. Start the record player, Rose.”
He took Toshiko’s hand, pulled her close and placed her in the tango hold. They kept taking turns, and Jack then taught them the three person version; arms around their waists, Rose and her holding hands. This was of course accompanied by one of his usual stories; which tended to involve interesting circumstances for his being naked, and in bed with several people.
Later, Toshiko felt the TARDIS settle back into her head, and she sighed, as did Rose and Jack.
The Doctor summoned them: “She’s alright now. We can go.”
Changing into their ordinary clothes, they went back to the console room, pulling each other into tangos along the way.
***
11. Boom Town
The TARDIS needed re-fuelling, so they went to Cardiff, to use the energy provided by the rift in time and space which ran through the city. Rose called Mickey, her supposed boyfriend, claiming she needed her passport. Really, she just wanted to see him.
When he arrived, the Doctor was repairing the ship, and insisted on calling him Rickey.
As Rose hugged Mickey, Jack called them sweet. He continued with his own maintenance, before looking over at the Doctor, and asking, "How come I never get any of that?"
“Or me?” Toshiko said, also repairing something.
“Buy me a drink first.”
“Such hard work,” Jack said.
"But worth it!" the Doctor replied, grinning.
They then explained to Mickey why they were there, finishing each other’s sentences and high-fiving. Wrapping up against the cold, they were soon outside, with twenty four hours to spare.
***
As they sat in a restaurant, Jack regaled them with yet another story that Toshiko and Rose were both convinced was complete nonsense. The Doctor noticed the front page of the local newspaper, and his face fell.
It read, "New Mayor, New Cardiff."
Toshiko recognised the woman. This was very, very bad, indeed.
***
They strode off to the Town Hall, where Jack took the lead: "According to intelligence, the target is the last surviving member of the Slitheen family, a criminal sect from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious, masquerading as a human being, zipped inside a skin suit. Okay, plan of attack: we assume a basic 57-56 strategy, covering all available exits on the ground floor. Doctor, you go face-to-face, that'll designate Exit One, I'll cover Exit Two, Rose, you're Exit Three, Toshiko and Mickey Smith, you take Exit Four. Have you got that?"
“Excuse me, who’s in charge?” the Doctor said.
"Sorry. Awaiting orders, sir," Jack replied, falling back into soldier mode.
"Right. Here's the plan. ...Like he said. Nice plan. Anything else?" The Doctor grinned his usual manic grin.
At Jack’s, "Present arms," they pulled out their mobiles, and they were off.
“Slitheen heading North!" the Doctor soon told them.
Mickey proved to be a bit useless - Toshiko rolled her eyes when he got his foot stuck in a bucket. They eventually managed to corner Margaret Blaine, only to find she had a teleport. The Doctor then took great glee in over-riding it with the sonic screwdriver.
"This is persecution. Why can't you leave me alone? What did I ever do to you?" Margaret complained to the Doctor.
"You tried to kill me and destroy this entire planet,” he replied, and gave her A Look.
"...Apart from that."
***
Back in the hall, the Doctor confronted Margaret over the nuclear power station she had planned. He worked out that something was hidden in the model sitting on the table.
He and Jack consequently once again acted like a pair of teenage boys, when they discovered the "tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator," otherwise known as an intergalactic surfboard. Margaret’s plan had been to blow up the Earth, and escape on the board, using the aftershock. She told them the nuclear power station project was called Blaidd Drwg.
Bad Wolf.
The words seemed to be following them.
At the Doctor’s announcement that they’d be taking Margaret home, to Raxacoricofallapatorious, she dropped her bombshell - "They have the death penalty. The family Slitheen was tried in its absence many years ago and found guilty. With no chance of appeal. According to the statutes of government, the moment I return, I am to be executed. What do you make of that, Doctor?"
Could they really take her home to that?
But all the Doctor said was, "Not my problem."
***
Margaret was taken off to the TARDIS, which would kind of serve its purpose, just for one night. Jack began wiring the extrapolator to the console; its energy would knock off several hours from the charging up time.
Rose and Mickey left.
Margaret commandeered the Doctor into taking her to dinner. When Jack produced some interesting handcuffs, her eyes lit up.
***
Toshiko and Jack stayed in the TARDIS, where she helped him with the extrapolator. Minutes later, its lights began to flash.
“We did it!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah!”
They smiled at each other, and Jack kissed her, right on the lips. Toshiko felt her face burning. She looked away, tucking her hair behind her ears. Yes, she loved him, but it was just friendship, and that was a bit too much.
“Hey, Toshiko. C’mon, come back here,” Jack said, dragging her out of her babble, placing a hand on her shoulder. He pulled her into a hug, something she felt she could actually cope with.
Then, for no immediately obvious reason, the extrapolator started sparking. Letting each other go, they tried yanking out the wires, disconnecting it from the TARDIS, but the sparks just continued.
***
The Doctor and Margaret came back, and there was much yelling and general confusion.
"It's the Rift! Time and space are ripping apart. The whole city's gonna disappear!" the Doctor said, as he and Jack continued trying to unplug the extrapolator. But this was to no avail. “Never mind Cardiff, it's going to rip open the planet!
Rose re-appeared. Seconds later, Margaret had her, displaying her Slitheen claw. She explained her plan, commandeering the extrapolator from them. And then the TARDIS...opened, spilling white light everywhere.
"Of course," the Doctor said, "opening the rift means you'll pull this ship apart. It's not just any old power source, it's the TARDIS. My TARDIS. The best ship in the universe."
“What’s this light?” Toshiko heard Rose ask.
"The heart of the TARDIS. This ship's alive. You've opened its soul."
"It's so bright...beautiful..." Margaret said, under its spell.
"Look at it, Blon. Look inside, Blon Fel Fotch. Look at the light," the Doctor said. That must have been Margaret’s real, Slitheen name.
She let Rose go. Toshiko and Jack held her between them.
Blon smiled, said, “Thank you,” and disappeared.
The Doctor then began yelling intructions, and between the four of them they soon had the TARDIS back under control. They discovered Blon had been turned into a egg, and they talked abou taking this egg home, and giving it to another family.
“Oh my God, Mickey!” Rose suddenly remembered, dashing back outside.
Jack and the Doctor worked on the TARDIS. Rose came back, on her own, dejected and announcing Mickey had gone.
And with that, they went off to Raxacoricofallapatorious.
***
12. Big in Japan
After dropping off the egg at a nursery, the Doctor said, “Where next, then?”
“Japan?” Jack suggested. “I haven’t been there for a while, and I don’t remember much from my last visit.”
“And why’s that?”
Jack hesitated, before finally admitting, “I was conning some samurai into buying back their own katana from me, Doctor.”
“Stupid ape.” He rolled his eyes.
“Yeah. There was some 17% sake being drunk. A lot of 17% sake.”
So, off they went to Japan, again.
Kyoto, 1336 really wasn’t the best time the Doctor could have picked - right in the middle of a combination of civil war, and a battle over the throne. They witnessed Ashikaga Takauji take the city, and only just escaped with their lives.
Back in the TARDIS, happy, safe, together, laughing, they were surprised by a strange light. This light made them all faint...
***
13. Games Station
...The next thing Toshiko knew, she was being picked up by a man she didn’t know.
“You’re alright, the transmat does your head in. Just remember, do what the Android says. Don't provoke it. The Android's word is law."
There was a voice, calling people to positions.
Toshiko was very confused indeed. "I was travelling. With the Doctor, Rose and a man called Captain Jack.... They wouldn't just leave me," she said, becoming high-pitched. Standing, Toshiko saw her name on a podium. Somehow, she was on The Weakest Link, and the Android was a robot version of Anne Robinson. She laughed, but it was silent, and more than a little manic.
And then she determined that she would play to win. Some questions, she didn’t understand, and some were spectacularly easy. When it came to the first elimination, the girl she’d picked dissolved into floods of tears begging to be allowed to try again. The Anne Droid opened its mouth, firing at her.
She disappeared, “disintegrated into atoms,” according to the man who’d picked her up, and Toshiko realised something was very, very wrong. She made the final, won the game, and ran out of the studio, to much shouting, and without her “prize”.
“Doctor?” she shouted, telepathically, hoping that he would somehow hear her.
***
She wasn’t really paying attention to time, but suddenly the Doctor, Jack and another girl were there. “Toshiko!” the Doctor shouted. “Rose is here somewhere!”
They got the right studio door open, and ran inside, only to hear another Anne Droid say, “Rose, you leave this life with nothing..."
The Doctor and Jack yelled for the game to be stopped, Rose tried running to them, but the Anne Droid got her, and there was nothing but dust. Toshiko and the Doctor bent down to the dust, while Jack threw a gun around, shouting at the guards. Before they knew what was happening, they’d been both imprisoned and sentenced. Then, in her head, Toshiko felt Jack suggest breaking out, to the Doctor.
He responded verbally: "Let's do it.”
Jack knocked out the guards, they grabbed guns, and went off to floor 500.
***
There, Jack shouted orders, and the Doctor demanded to know just what the hell was going on, and who’d killed Rose. However, the Controller wouldn’t tell him; she couldn’t recognise him.
“Don’t shoot!” a rather wet programmer said to the Doctor.
"Like I was ever gonna shoot." The Doctor ordered Jack to secure the doors; he reported back that they were safe for ten minutes.
"But that stuff you were saying," the programmer continued. "About something going on with the Games Station: I think you're right. Unauthorised transmats ...it's been going on for years."
Maybe he wasn’t quite so wet, Toshiko thought.
To Jack’s attempt to get though a particular door, a female programmer told him, “Archive Six is out of bounds!"
Jack just displayed the several guns he carried, saying, "Do I look like an out-of-bounds sort of guy?"
Toshiko had to admit that he was really hot like that, all black leather and authority. Him, and the Doctor.
The Controller then did manage to speak to the Doctor; the solar flares blocked the external control over her. She’d summoned him, hid him in the games: “My masters, they fear the Doctor."
Jack re-appeared, informing them that the TARDIS had worked out what happened to Rose - it was another transmat. At his declaration that Rose was still alive, they ended up in a three person hug, beaming at each other. The Controller tried to help them, delivering the co-ordinates they needed, but her masters took her.
These masters were the Daleks, apparently not as destroyed as Jack and the Doctor thought they had been. There were half a million of them, in 200 ships. And they had Rose, as was visible from the display screen.
The Doctor told the Daleks that he’d rescue her, with no plan.
"Rose?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"I'm coming to get you."
***
14. The Parting of the Ways
The three of them ran into the TARDIS, quickly dematerialising. Toshiko and Jack had earlier re-attached the extrapolator to the console. It was now providing them with a force field, deflecting the Daleks’ missiles.
On the Dalek ship, they materialised around Rose, and one of the Daleks, which Jack shot. Hugs of joy and greeting were then exchanged.
Again, they were alive, and together.
***
Once again, the Doctor faced down the Daleks with nothing but words: he was The Oncoming Storm, of which the Daleks had always been afraid. When he asked just how they’d survived the Time War, the Emperor Dalek made his presence known. Looking up at it, Toshiko was terrified.
They learned that these Daleks had once been humans.
And they heard that these Daleks were insane, shouting about blasphemy, something they should have no concept of.
Returning to the TARDIS, they went back to floor 500, on the Games Station.
***
There, the Doctor stormed out of the TARDIS to give the programmers instructions, demanding, "Turn everything up. All transmissions, wide open, full power. Now! Do it!"
Then he announced his plan to use the satellite, and Jack worked out that he was going to make a delta wave.
This delta wave was strong, dangerous and very complicated.
Jack explained what he suspected the Daleks would do, and how they could fight them. The Doctor called Rose and Toshiko to help him strip wire, and Jack sent his army of a mere four people off in the lift, to floor 494. The girl who’d been with the Doctor and Jack when Toshiko met them again awkwardly said goodbye to the Doctor, before going off, and then it was just the four of them.
"It's been fun!” Jack said. "But I guess this is goodbye."
"The Doctor's gonna do it, you just watch him!" Rose said.
Toshiko then watched Jack take Rose's face in his hands. "Rose,” he said. “You are worth fighting for." He kissed her.
Then he turned to Toshiko, telling her, “Toshiko, can’t think of anyone I’d rather work with, on the extrapolator.” She received a kiss as well, the same way. Such big, comforting hands.
Finally, he went to the Doctor. "Wish I'd never met you, Doctor," he said. Again, he took his friend’s face in his hands. "I was much better off as a coward." Another kiss, just the same way.
He squeezed Rose and Doctor’s shoulders, and Toshiko grabbed Rose’s hand, so the line was unbroken.
"See you in hell!" he said, leaving to take charge of his army.
"He's gonna be alright, isn't he?" Rose asked the Doctor, but there was no reply.
They all knew those had been goodbye kisses. They knew they would not see Jack in the flesh again. They knew he’d die.
***
As they stripped wire, they talked about time travel, the Doctor once again telling them how bad crossing your own time line was.
“There's another thing the TARDIS could do -- it could take us away. We could leave, let history take its course."
Toshiko looked at Rose, and they both shook their heads; that had never been an option, they’d always interfered, got in the way. The delta wave was building, they checked its progress on the screens.
The Doctor suddenly said, "We can do it! If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline.... Yes!" He took them into the TARDIS, placing their hands on controls and telling them, "Hold that down, and keep position!"
"If I'm very clever -- and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant -- I might just save the world. Or rip it apart."
“The first option sounds better, Doctor,” Toshiko said, Rose agreeing with her.
"Yeah. Now, I've just got to go and power up the Games Station. Hold on!"
As the TARDIS engines started, Toshiko realised they’d been played, but she couldn’t calm Rose and tell her.
"This is Emergency Program One.” They turned around to see a hologram of the Doctor, and Toshiko knew she didn’t have to try hushing her companion.
"Rose, now listen; this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing: we must be in danger, and I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second, with no chance of escape. And that's okay. Hope it's a good death."
"But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home."
Toshiko knew he’d recorded this long before she and Jack came on board. He’d probably made it straight after the trip to the end of the world.
Rose protested at this, as the message continued, "And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. Typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die."
"Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it, no one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on and the box will be buried."
"And if you wanna remember me, then you can do one thing, that's all. One thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life."
He disappeared, Rose went on protesting and Toshiko realised they’d landed. She took Rose in her arms. They both cried. Walking outside, to see just where the Doctor had sent them, she saw Mickey. He held Rose, and she shed more tears.
***
Toshiko and Rose sat in a cafe, listening to Mickey and Jackie, Rose’s mum, babble about basically nothing.
Rose then said, "Two hundred thousand years in the future, he's dying. And there's nothing I can do."
Jackie didn’t get it all, saying that was many years away.
"But it's not! It's now! That fight is happening right now, and he's fighting for us! For the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips!" Rose exclaimed.
"Listen to me,” Jackie said. “God knows I have hated that man, but right now, I love him. And do you know why? Because he did the right thing. He sent you back to me."
"But what do I do every day, Mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it?"
“That’s what everybody else does,” Mickey said.
"But I can't!"
“What, ‘cause you’re so much better than everybody else?”
"It was...a better life. And I don't mean all the travellin' and seein' aliens and spaceships and things -- that don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life," Rose said, trying to get them to understand.
"You know. He showed you, too,” she told Mickey. "That you don't just give up, you don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't...."
With that, she left the table, running out of the cafe. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, before Toshiko said, “She’s right, you know. Come on, Mickey, let’s go and find her.” The two of them got up, leaving Jackie on her own.
***
15. Bad Wolf
They found Rose at a tarmac football pitch, sitting on a bench.
"You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Doctor. Neither of you can," Mickey said.
Toshiko sighed; she thought he’d understood.
"But how do I forget him?" Rose asked.
“You’ve gotta start livin' your own life. A proper life, like the kind he's never had. The sort of life that you could have with me."
Toshiko saw Rose’s eyes go down to the tarmac; she’d spotted something.
Bad Wolf.
It was on the tarmac and the brick walls.
"That's been there for years! It's just a phrase! It's just words!" Mickey shouted.
"I thought it was a warning -- maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's a message. The same words written down, now, and two hundred thousand years in the future. It's a link between me and the Doctor! Bad Wolf here...Bad Wolf there!"
"But if it's a message, what's it saying?"
"It's telling us we can get back!"
They all ran off to the TARDIS.
***
There, Rose said they just needed to reverse the ship, and Toshiko explained the telepathy. And Mickey still didn’t understand.
"There was this light, with Margaret, and the Doctor said it was the heart of the TARDIS. If we can open it, we can make contact. One of us can tell it what to do!"
“This is suicide, you know,” Mickey told them.
"That's a risk I've gotta take. 'Cause there's nothing left for me here," Rose said, coldly.
"Nothing?" Mickey sounded sad. "Okay, if that's what you think, let's get this thing open."
Mickey brought his Mini to TARDIS, and they attached a chain from the car to the console. He revved and revved, but the TARDIS steadfastly refused to open. Jackie then appeared, and Toshiko and Mickey let mother and daughter just talk to each other.
***
Later, when Jackie had gone, the three of them leant against the car.
"There's gotta be something else we can do," Mickey said. “I'm not having you just -- just give up now. No way. We just need something stronger than my car. Something bigger. Something like that."
Toshiko knew he’d got it, at last.
At that point, a bright yellow tow truck arrived. Jackie was sitting in the seat.
"Mum!" Rose laughed. "Where the hell did you get that from?"
“From Rodrigo. He owes me a favour. Never mind why. You were right about your dad, sweetheart. He was full of mad ideas, and this is exactly what he would've done. Now, get on with it before I change my mind."
Again, they attached a chain between the vehicle and the console. Rose and Toshiko stood in the TARDIS, by the door, taking turns in shouting at Mickey to keep going, with Jackie in the middle, passing on the message, as the chain began to pull the console open.
Suddenly, the chain snapped, the console was open and the white light of the heart of the TARDIS once again poured out...
...And into Rose’s eyes. As the doors slammed and the engines started, Toshiko knew Rose had managed to instruct the ship. She knew they were going back.
What to, was another matter.
***
As they materialised, Rose began to glow, looking like a burning angel. The doors opened and Toshiko saw her...teleport outside. She decided to watch from the ship. This was between Rose and the Doctor, if he was still alive.
"What've you done?" the Doctor asked, worriedly.
"I looked into the TARDIS. And the TARDIS looked into me.” Rose didn’t sound entirely human. She’d linked herself to the ship, Toshiko realised. The TARDIS had taken human form, and both the ship and Rose were speaking to their Doctor.
"You looked into the Time Vortex, Rose. No one's meant to see that."
The Daleks screamed, “Exterminate.”
Rose just pushed their lasers back at them, and then said, "I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words... I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here."
"Stop, Rose. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna burn!"
"I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false God."
"You cannot hurt me," said the Dalek Emperor. "I am immortal!"
"You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence. And I divide them."
Toshiko saw Rose... Bad Wolf turn a Dalek to dust, with just a wave of her hand.
"Everything must come to dust...all things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."
"Stop, Rose, you've done it. Just let go. "
"How can I let go of this? I bring life."
"But this is wrong! You can't control life and death!" the Doctor shouted. Toshiko could hear how scared he was.
"But I can. The sun and the moon. The day and night. But why do they hurt?"
"You’re going to die, and it'll be my fault."
"I can see everything. All that is, all that was. All that ever could be."
"That's what I see! All the time. Doesn't it drive you mad?"
"My head, it's killing me. Come here. I think you need a Doctor."
Rose went to him, and he kissed her. Toshiko saw the light go back into the Doctor, who then blew it back into the TARDIS. She moved away from the console and closed her eyes, sitting down.
***
16. New Beginnings
When she re-opened he eyes, Toshiko wasn’t alone. She and Rose both lay on the floor; the Doctor had the TARDIS in flight.
They pulled themselves up, Rose asking, “What happened?”
“What do you remember?" the Doctor said.
“It's like... there was this singing?"
"That's right! I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.”
"I was at home.... No, I wasn't. I was in the TARDIS...."
"...I can't remember anything else."
"Rose Tyler, Toshiko Sato,” he said, and Toshiko could hear the sadness in his voice. ”I was gonna take you to so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet. You'd love it. Fantastic place -- they've got dogs with no noses! Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny!"
“Why they can't go there, then?” Rose asked.
"Maybe you will. And maybe I will. But not like this."
Rose looked over at her, but Toshiko just mouthed, “I don’t know.”
“You’re not making sense,” Rose yelled at him.
The Doctor just smiled back at them, saying, "I might never make sense again! I might have two heads. Or no head! Imagine me with no head! And don't say that's an improvement.... But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're gonna end up with --" He stopped, as a huge blast of light came out of him, and he was clearly in pain.
They both went towards him, only to have him shout, "Stay away!"
"Doctor, tell us what's going on," Rose said.
"I absorbed all the energy of the time vortex. No one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body's dying."
“Can't do you do something about it?”
"Yeah, I'm doing it now!"
“Time Lords have a trick where they can cheat death. Except...it means I'm gonna change."
Rose still didn’t understand.
But Toshiko did, finally remembering, and mentally kicking herself.
Regeneration. It was in the UNIT records.
"...And I'm not gonna see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go... Before I go, I just wanna tell you two...you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic."
"And do you know what? So was I." The Doctor smiled at them, before light exploded from his body, and he changed.
***
The light calmed, and they were met with a younger man; mad eyes and unruly hair.
"Hello!" he grinned, speaking with a vaguely London accent.
The girls stared at him, both a bit lost.
"New teeth,” the new version of the Doctor said. “That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right! Barcelona."
He smiled at them. From a lack of any other response, they both smiled back.
Barcelona, then.
It would just be yet another amazing adventure.
-end-
crosspost:
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
toshiko_sato
better_with_3
dwfiction
galactic_conman
new_who
time_and_chips