Welcome to the Universe, Tosh
Set post Aliens of London/WWIII and pre Torchwood and also set farther into the future at the end. The woman that was watching the "alien" pig was Tosh, I swear! Her character name was even Dr. Sato, it said so in Shooting Scripts which I own because I'm a junkie and I've learned to accept it. Also all italicized stuff is direct dialogue.
Disclaimer: It might've not happened in the episode, but it's happening here and I'm making no money so BBC/ all affiliated it would be Fantastic (get it? Fantastic!) if you didn't sue.
"Hello, Dr. Toshiko Sato I presume," said the man who was on the phone and, apparently, is my interviewer, if you call meeting in a pub an interview.
"Yes, but please call me Tosh," I say, trying to look professional I order lemonade, and the man ordered some water.
"Cap'n Jack Harkness," he says with a nod, "So Tosh, tell me about your alien encounter, how cliché is that "alien encounter," anyway we'll see if you and your pretty damn talented tech skills are Torchwood worthy," Jack says in a joking, but completely professional voice.
"Well," I started, "Let me gather my thoughts for a mo... I suppose it all started with number Ten Downing Street. With World War Three. With the gas monsters of Raxacoricofallapatorius. And with the Doctor."
"Tell me about him," Jack asked with a dismissive sigh, but with an underlying anxiousness.
I complied with the demand, "He was tall, with a dark air about him. He wore all black and his rather large nose and ears paired with his bright blue eyes he defiantly stood out in a crowd. He had a commanding voice and anyone would describe him as mad… or bipolar," I stated. Jack chuckled and nodded approvingly, "Continue," Jack says, waving his hand above his drink.
"When the pig was first brought in from the crash site in 2006 I was still working as a medical doctor for Queen and Country, as they say, and as I examined it many jumbled thoughts went thru my head. 'What is it, it's alien, why is it here, it's alien, oh my god it's alien, it looks like a pig and it's alien!'" I exclaimed, and noticing his small smirk I paused, noticing my hesitance, he nodded for me to keep going.
"Quite some time later, after some general visited and UNIT came and decided in hushed tones to bring in some retired officer who had seen aliens many times, Brigadier something or other Stewart, I couldn't make it out; I heard a loud thump from where the dead alien was kept. I kept hearing them, the thumps that is, and as I walked near it, the metal door shot open and the alien came flying out. The door hit my head as the alien started running about, finally hiding inside the room. When the alien flew out I had screamed and several army men and the Doctor ran down the corridor, but only the Doctor came in. 'I swear, it was dead…' was all I said to him and he fired back ' Coma, shock, hibernation, anything; what does it look like?'. Then there was a crash and the Doctor stated in an over enthusiastic voice, his eyebrows high on his forehead 'It's still here.' He called in a soldier and told him to look after my cut as the Doctor looked for the alien, I saw him duck down and I soon heard a sweet hello, like he was talking to a pet or a baby. Then the alien started running out of his hiding place, and the Doctor told the ready soldier to stand down. The alien ran into the corridor flailing about and squealing all the way, then came a gunshot followed by a final squeal. Then I head the Doctor, his voice filled with rage yell to the trigger-happy guard 'What did you do that for?! It was scared! It was scared!'
I stop to breathe and I look at Jack, who has a far off look in his eyes and a slight smile on his face, as if reminiscing on old times with war buddies. I clear my throat and he snaps back to the present and lets me carry on, "The pig was laid out on the operating table, its torso covered with a sheet out of respect, and the Doctor and I were talking about the alien. He explained that the pig was human, but the tech inside that rewired brain was most defiantly alien. As I repeated the info, trying to grasp it, I looked at some charts, and was so absorbed in them that I didn't hear him leave."
At that Jack chuckles and I shoot him yet another questioning look, he just shakes his head and when he notices I've stopped talking he asks, "Is it over?" in a slightly sad tone, as if he was a three year old listening to his bedtime story.
It was my turn to chuckle and state, "Not by a long shot, I was stopping to see if you needed to get work done,"
"I've got all the time in the world for you," he says cheekily.
I roll my eyes and smile while I get on with my story. "I spent a good half hour looking for the Doctor and finally stumbled across him in the middle of a rant, '… If aliens fake an alien crash, and an alien pilot what do they get…?' and I figured it out just as he did, 'us… they get us, its not a diversion; it's a trap!' then the Doctor starts rambling at a million miles an hour, barely understandable, and in the middle the acting P.M. lets out a fart, for lack of a better word. The Doctor then said in a rather put out tone, ''Scuse me, d'you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?' Then both the general from earlier and him made a horrid pun along the lines of 'Would you rather silent, but deadly?'" and I shuddered as I said it, while Jack laughed out loud. Then as they both reached up to their foreheads and slowly unzip a zipper now visible across it, a blue light covered the room. Then these big ass monsters climbed out of the human skin and I started running, as fast as I could, back to my office."
"After calming down a bit I realized that it had been several hours and that they had cut off communication in the cabinet room, but there was a speaker in use inside there and the room had been sealed off as well. So using my, as you put it, "pretty damn talented" hacking skills I find the speaker and start listening in,
'Oh, my God. It's unmasking. It's gonna kill us.' Says a new voice and it's a man who, I assume is talking about a big monster thing.
'There's got to be some way of stopping them!' says a woman who sounds about forty, anxiousness in her voice. 'You're supposed to be the expert, think of something!'and the Doctor said 'I'm trying!'
'I'll take it on, Jackie. You just run. Don't look back. Just run.' Said the new man to whom I assumed was his girlfriend. Then a young sounding girl said, 'That's my mother.' Then the Doctor said in a light, but 'get down to business' tone, 'Right! If we're going to find their weakness, we need to find out where they're from - which planet. So, judging by their face and shape, that narrows it down to five thousand planets within traveling distance. What else do we know about them? Information!'
'They're green,' stated the young girl.
'Yep, narrows it down,' The Doctor said.
'Uh, good sense of smell,' said the girl again.
'Narrows it down', the Doctor spoke again.
'They can smell adrenaline,' once again the girl.
'Narrows it down,' said the Doctor once more.
'The pig technology,' said the older woman now.
'Narrows it down' said the Doctor.
'The spaceship in the Thames - you said slipstream engine?' the girl talked again.
'Narrows it down,' the Doctor stated once more, deep in thought.
'It's getting in!' The male voice on the speaker yelled.
'Oh! They hunt like it's a ritual,' the girl said, getting into the conversation once more.
'Narrows it down,' and if you can't guess who said it, your kind of a failure," I said to Jack, trying to cut the tensionIt worked and Jack laughed and shook his head. We take a moment then I start up again,
"'Wait a minute!' said the older woman, really getting into the thick of the conflict, 'Did you notice, when they fart - if you'll pardon the word - it doesn't just smell like a fart - if you'll pardon the word - it's something else, what is it, it's more like uh... um...' she stalls,
'Bad breath!' the girls exclaimed.
'That's it!' says the older woman.
'Calcium decay! Now thatnarrows it down!' Exclaimed the Doctor.
'We're getting there, mum!' yelled the girl.
'Too late!' The man on the phone said.
'Calcium phosphate, organic calcium, living calcium, creatures made out of living calcium, what else, what else - hyphenated surname - yes! That narrows it down to one planet! Raxacoricofallapatorius!' That, making no sense to me sounded like a word from a two year olds mouth, but the Doctor said it with a proud and excited tone to his voice like he found his lost sock before vacation so it must have been the planet.
I then heard footsteps, so I quickly unplugged the computer and hid in case it was a gas monster. After the foot falls had gone I rebooted and quickly got back the conversation just in time to hear the words 'There's always been a way out' coming from the Doctor's mouth. I tune out then listening for more monsters I just barely catch the Doctor once again talking, 'We need just any kind of missile…' then I ran, out of the building and was half way to the end of the street before the missile hit 10 Downing Street. Then all of a sudden I thought I saw Margret Blaine, one of the people used as disguises for the monsters, in an ally, but that was probably me being paranoid."
I finally end and Jack was grinning from ear to ear and ends the interview, for lack of a better term, by stating, "You're really gonna like it here Tosh, and Welcome to Torchwood." As he walked away all I can think is, "Welcome to the Universe, Tosh."
"And that's where you met Daddy, right Mom? That's where you met Uncle Jack too, right Mom?" asks the little girl sitting on my knee, who had been stunned into silence throughout the entire story.
I nod and chuckle and reply an amused and overenthusiastic voice, not unlike the Doctor's, "Yes, that's where I met Daddy. Now come on we're meeting your Aunt Susan and your Uncle Ianto with Sammie at the park. And maybe, if we're lucky Uncle Jack will show up and you can tell him that you heard this story. And if you're really good, Uncle Jack might bring out the Doctor to meet you."
"Really?" she asks wide-eyed. I nod looking at her with a smirk, "Wheee!" she cries and runs off looking for her shoes. And I realized when I was walking with Owen in the park that I was wrong that day, and that Torchwood isn't the universe. The people that I met there are my universe. And it all started with the Doctor. Then I wonder as I watched my six year old daughter run up to Jack, who was leaning against the fabled blue box, no doubt to tell him about this afternoon; Doctor who?