Author's Note: I had another story all planned for today, but the writing was not going well, so here's a little "what-if" with Jack and Tosh. Takes place after (probably very soon after) "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang". Pretty much requires that you've seen "Aliens of London" from Doctor Who season one. I love the fact that Tosh and Owen mention Space Pig in "Exit Wounds". It's so awesomely tragic.
(Also, look, no Ianto! I can write other characters!)
(And hopefully I'll figure out the writing on the other idea by tomorrow. That one has copious Ianto. And a bit of Owen.)
Tosh leaned over Jack's desk, her hands placed on either side of his arms. He looked up from his paper.
"I've met your Doctor," she said.
Jack sat back, raising an eyebrow. "How do you figure?"
She grinned. It was mischievous and brilliant and familiar and Jack remembered how much he had missed her. Like a pain in his chest. He returned the grin.
"Do you remember Space Pig?"
Jack laughed. "The perfect crash landing. Hit all of the familiar sights, like an overexcited tourist. Big Ben was a great touch."
"Right." She stood up straight and paced around his office, her hands gesturing wildly as she spoke. "Owen was – unreachable-"
"Hungover," Jack corrected.
"Hungover. So I went in to Albion Hospital, as a medic, to get an idea of what it could be. It was baffling! It was a pig. Just a pig. But wired up like nothing I'd seen before. I was lucky that it was more technological than biological." Still she paced, and Jack smiled, watching her getting lost in her own head. "I spoke to General Asquith – I didn't know what I was doing, really, but anyone would be flustered in the face an alien, so it mustn't have been so strange. Then it woke up. It wasn't dead. It was banging at the door to the storage container. I went to open it, like a teenage girl in a horror movie – God, I was green – but it flung the door open and knocked me over. I hit my head and crawled away into a corner and grabbed a bedpan to defend myself with, then this man, wearing a leather jacket, bald at the temples, surrounded by UNIT soldiers, burst in, asked me what it looked like, heard it moving around and went to investigate." She stopped, looking thoughtfully upwards. "He called a soldier over to protect me. That was kind of him. Then the pig started running down the corridor. He chased it, and one of the soldiers shot it. I could hear the man yelling at him. It surprised me. He had a lot of sympathy for what was really just a pig."
She finally turned her eyes back to Jack. "He brought it back to the examination room. He told me that he was a doctor – although I suppose, thinking about it now, that he said he was the Doctor. I still played dumb – who would really think that aliens looked like pigs on two legs? George Orwell? – and he explained it to me." She smiled fondly. "He reminded me of you. I suppose that's where you got it from, the way that you explain things."
"What did he say?" Jack was still leaning back in his chair, a little smile on his face.
"He said it was like a mermaid. How Victorian showmen used to glue the parts of two separate skeletons together and pass the product off as a mermaid. Someone had stuffed the pig with alien technology and used it as a decoy. He didn't say that, of course, but it wasn't difficult to put the pieces together. He ran off before I'd finished talking to him." She grinned. "That also reminded me of you."
Jack leaned forward and steepled his hands on the top of his desk, smiling up at her. "Toshiko Sato. You have just experienced a very interesting effect of time travel."
Tosh looked confused. "How so?"
"You met the Doctor before I did."
Tosh looked confused further, coming closer to his desk. "But you were looking for him before you ever met me. How could I have met him before you?"
"In the Doctor's timeline – very complicated, I don't envy the person who has to figure that thing out on paper one day – meeting 'Doctor' Toshiko Sato comes before meeting Captain Jack Harkness." He grinned. "I met him during the War. I guess, technically, I met him before you, but I tend to think of things along the Doctor's timeline. It makes my life much easier. He went back to the night of the London Blitz after he stopped the Slitheen in Downing Street. So you met him before I did."
Tosh blinked. "That's-" She shook her head. "That's incredibly complicated."
"That's time travel. Would you like to know the best part?"
"What?"
"He remembered you."
Tosh's head jerked involuntarily. "He what?"
Jack laughed. "He remembered you. When the Doctor and – and his companion told me about the space pig and the Slitheen, later, when we were traveling together, the Doctor mentioned that the medic who was examining it almost had the trick figured out as soon as he did. He was impressed."
Tosh blushed furiously, a pleased smile beginning to stretch across her face. "Really?"
Jack nodded. "I wouldn't try to think about the whole timeline thing too hard – good way to give yourself a headache. But you did meet the Doctor. And he remembered you."
Tosh straightened up, a questioning expression suddenly crossing her face. "That's an incredible coincidence, isn't it? My meeting the Doctor, then your meeting me."
Jack smiled. "Coincidence. Yeah." He sat back. "I want the information on that new artefact before the end of the day. All right?"
Tosh looked surprised that the conversation was already over. She hesitated. "Yes – I'll have it finished." She waited, but Jack just smiled at her. She turned and left.
Jack watched her return to her desk, his smile softening.
Coincidence? Not so much. Sure, the sonic modulator had caught his attention – having flawed plans but still managing to make it work in order to save her mother was impressive – but, really, it was the name. Toshiko Sato. The Doctor had said her name, and it had stuck in his mind, like an echo back in time. So when he saw it, on a list of UNIT detainees, he knew that he had to have her.
She came with the greatest possible commendation. The Doctor's.