They Keep Resurrecting Suzie, a torchwood fanfic

they keep resurrecting suzie. (torchwood)
suzie costello/martha jones; time warp
oh shit, she thinks, not again

for denz. hoping this is qualifies as 'messed up'. no copyright infringement intended.

I said, Where hast thou been, my soul,
Since the moon set in the west?
I know not where thy feet have trod,
Nor what has been thy quest.
Annie Fields, On Waking From a Dreamless Sleep

One minute she's there, right where she thinks she is, and the next—

"Suzie Costello? I'm Martha Jones. Welcome to 2008."

Oh shit, she thinks, not again.

(The first time - well, no, technically it's the second time because the first time ended with Jack shooting her over and over again, and then putting her back into cold storage under Torchwood 3. But the other first time it happens, it's actually 2014. She wakes up with a shudder, cold running straight through her like she's choking on ice water, and she sits bolt upright on the gurney. Her wrists are in home-made restrains made from old leather belts, and there's a firm hand on her shoulder pushing her back into a reclining position. Suzie looks up to see a young woman smiling at her tentatively.

"Hi. I'm Martha Jones."

And that's how it begins.)

The thing that Jack forgot when he decided that Suzie Costello wasn't worth enough to be kept alive is that Suzie was almost as much of an expert on alien encounters as he was. Since joining Torchwood 3 she'd battled, captured or killed over three hundred alien creatures. She'd watched them mutate in the cells, and react to the Weevils; she'd seen them spring wings and try to take flight; she'd seen them find others of their own kind and form emotional attachments. She knew the most effective way to disable the psychokinetic range of a Mundus beetle, and she knew that Lorcian spectres were harmless so long as they were kept out of contact with direct sunlight. She knew that the most frightening thing to come through the rift was a soulless human boy, and she knew that the glove had come for her - that it had reached into her body and taken hold of her every breath.

Maybe she doesn't have a conscience any more. Maybe she really is evil, too dangerous to handle. Or maybe she just wants to live, to feel the stiff Cardiff breeze on her face and know that yes, yes, it's worth it, fighting is worth it, that what she's doing is making a difference.

It was the glove that killed Suzie Costello. It's the glove that keeps bringing her back.

Martha Jones is an optimist. Currently she's an optimist who's battling with the mechanics of the glove, but an optimist all the same. The very idea makes Suzie frown, but whatever, maybe she can get this work to her advantage— wait.

"Does Jack know you're doing this?"

No answer. The younger woman looks a little sheepish.

"You little rogue!" And just like that, Suzie's estimations of her raise three notches.

The glove apparently has a sense of humour. Suzie can't explain why but she doesn't come back in order - first it's a year after her death, then it's eight years, then three, then fifteen. Not only that, but it runs through her even after its one-minute curfew. Sometimes Suzie walks around, hole in head, for days on end. It makes her realise that there was even more to the device than she'd ever realised. It makes her hand itch to get it to work again.

The one thing that never changes, though, the one thing that remains constant is Martha. Every time she opens her eyes, it's Martha's face she sees, and Martha's voice she hears. No Jack, no Owen, no Tosh - not even Gwen bloody Cooper. Just pretty Martha Jones with her bright eyes and her endless optimism.

"Hello Suzie. Remember me?"

She wakes in 2026 to find that the Hub's on fire. There's a deep bloody gash across Martha's right cheek, but she looks abashed more than anything else. "Hi. There's a Herophax running around."

Suzie frowns. "There's a report in the archive. You don't need me."

Martha cringes again. "I can't— uh. Well, the fire and... look, are you going to help me, or you going to let this place burn down around our ears?"

Suzie grabs the fire extinguisher.

Martha keeps bringing her back.

"Seriously, you need more friends," Suzie remarks. "And if you already have some, you need new ones. Upgrades. People more inclined to drag you away from cold storage instead of ones that let you talk to corpses all the time. It's just not healthy."

"You're dead," Martha smirks. "What would you know about healthy?"

"I killed people, you know," Suzie feels compelled to point out. "Many people. And then I tried to kill more."

Martha nods. "I've read your file."

"And?"

"And nothing."

This is how it is with Martha: she doesn't pass judgement. Or, if she does, Suzie doesn't know what that judgement is. She wonders what Martha's story is; she tries to ask her a couple of times, but only gets a secretive smile in reply. The third time she evades the question, Suzie clicks her tongue disdainfully.

"You must know Captain Jack really well. Only other person I know who refuses to answer a direct question."

Martha smiles. Of course. "I do, actually. We've been to the end of the universe and back."

Suzie wants to scoff at that except since joining Torchwood, she knows anything is possible. Instead she says, "Must have been a hell of a trip."

"It was."

A handful of the revivals are clustered somewhere around 2010, and they go through the same pattern every time. Martha introduces herself with her full name and gives Suzie a quick physical, flashing a light into her eyes to check for pupil dilation and checking her (lack of) pulse. "Hmm. Odd," she murmurs.

"Why?" Suzie asks. "I'm dead. What do I need a pulse for?"

"You shouldn't be moving," Martha notes, pulling Suzie's arm away from her side and lifting it inexplicably. She goes through the motion of folding and unfolding her arm, then walks to the other side and repeats the process.

"And yet."

"Exactly." Martha takes a step back, hands on hips. "No muscle atrophy." She sounds both confused and intrigued. She almost reminds Suzie of herself.

"Maybe it's the glove?" Suzie asks, but Martha doesn't answer, too busy folding Suzie's hand into a fist, then prying her fingers apart. When she walks back to her notes, Suzie suddenly misses the contact. Martha's hands are warm; Suzie's blood isn't moving. She's deathly to the touch.

Martha keeps bringing her back.

"Uh, hi." She smiles sheepishly. "I need your help."

"Again."

When Suzie looks around, there's no-one else around. It happens like this sometimes. Martha brings her back when there isn't a crisis, just to go over some of her reports. They talk, maybe play a hand or two of blackjack. Martha Jones, for all her joviality, is lonely.

No-one else is around, just like always. Not that Suzie's complaining, but sometimes she wonders where everyone is. "Where's Jack?"

The question surprises Martha and she freezes. "He's... not here."

Suzie's laugh is a sharp humourless bark. "He's buggered off, hasn't he? Probably gone to find that Doctor of his." She sits up. "Did he ever tell you about his time-travelling beau? No?"

If Suzie had known better, she would have stopped whilst she was ahead. But she doesn't see Martha's face, suddenly impassive and hardened.

"He keeps the guy's hand in a jar. I'm not even sure he exists. Knowing Jack it could be one great big fantastic lie. That's his forte, you know, lying. Lies and secrets." She gets caught up in her accusations. The hand's probably just a prosthetic.

Martha is still shuffling manila folders. She's older, tired around the eyes now. "He's real. I've met him; definitely real."

Suzie laughs again, coldly. She can't remember what mirth feels like. "Well, well. Captain Jack." She's talking to herself. "He never said anything about it - the hand, that is. Had to find it by myself. I thought maybe it was an ex-lover or something." She used to wonder about this Doctor, what he looked like, why he was so important. She hacked into Jack's computer to follow his online searches, realised that The Doctor was the reason why Torchwood existed at all, that he'd been there at the Battle of Canary Wharf, that he'd been scattered through time. Someone important. She wondered if he'd treated Jack the way Jack treated everyone else.

Martha slips the glove back on. She looks miserable. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you back. There's nothing for you to do here."

Suzie's committed some faux-pas, but she can't work it out. Before she does, she's stone cold dead again.

The next time Martha brings her back it's a year in the past, and Suzie picks an argument for no feasible reason. Martha looks hurt, but Suzie's furious, and she's always so damn tired when she wakes up. "Stop it!" she snaps. "Stop bringing me back. Are you so bloody useless that you can't do anything yourself? Just leave me alone." She'd hate herself for the look on Martha's face if she was capable of it. But she's dead, she rationalises, and the dead don't feel.

They argue a lot after that. Martha must think that Suzie has mood swings the way birds have wings, but Suzie's just angry about being brought back time and time again, and never where she expects. It's never the same year twice, and it's always just Martha looking down at her, so kind and so, so naive.

"What happened to you to make you so mean?" Martha finally snaps, irritated by Suzie's bitchy repartee.

"This place!" Suzie spits in reply. "Bloody Torchwood and Captain bloody Jack!" She wishes she could explain, I wasn't always this way, I wasn't always so ornery. But Martha wouldn't understand, not yet anyway. Martha's not jaded the way Suzie is. The place hasn't broken her yet.

Suzie's eyes fall on the glove again and she throws it against the wall with a rush of rage. The crash echoes through the empty sub-level, and Suzie's breathing heavily, buzzing with pent up anger and frustration. The glove. It's the glove that killed Suzie.

Martha seems to sense Suzie's displacement, quietly picks the glove up. It's intact, of course. The damn thing can't be broken. She puts it away whilst Suzie shudders in the middle of the room. This is limbo, she thinks, I'm never getting out of here. It's ironic that she keeps being brought back to Torchwood, the one place she'd give anything to escape from.

"Suzie? Suzie, it's Martha."

She keeps her eyes closed, counts to ten. This can't be happening, not again.

"Suzie, please—"

"Whoever coined the phrase I'll sleep when I'm dead never met you." This is getting beyond ridiculous. Suzie finally opens her eyes; Martha's still wearing the glove. Her face is drawn, her hair's a mess and she looks like she hasn't slept in forever. She's much older now, and there's more weight to her hips and legs. Suzie's eyes alight on the glove, unable to pull away. "That thing will kill you, you know. From the inside out."

"Not now. What do you know about Sephoracs?"

Sephoracs? Suzie's mind races like a computer running through its directories until she conjures an image to match the name. Oh shit. Torchwood: always aiming to make more of a mess. "We're going to need vinegar. And lemons. Lots and lots of lemons."

The second-to-last time she wakes (chronologically it's only the second time Martha brings her back; she can tell because Martha's still wary of her, and she's still restrained on the gurney) there's an issue with the Weevils that needs sorting out, and as Suzie's supposed to have relative expertise in dealing with them... well, put two twos together and make sure you get four. Martha is dressed smartly, like she works for a corporate bank or something, and she still talks with an excited buzz. The world is Martha's oyster right now, and Suzie almost takes her by the arms and shakes her. What are you doing here, Martha Jones? she wants to ask. Why are you wasting your life with these losers? They're in the basement, and Suzie can hear a commotion up in the Hub. She can make out Ianto's voice, and Jack's heavy footfalls.

Martha thrusts a sheet of paper in front of her, forcing her to concentrate. "What is this?"

"Shh!" Martha whispers. "Talk softly. It's something the Weevils have painted in their nest. We found a whole slew of them in the west quarter. Do you think you can de-code it?"

"Why are you whispering?"

"Suzie! Please?"

"You still haven't told Jack that you're doing this, have you?"

Martha looks pained. "Look, can you help me or not?"

Suzie could lie, could let Torchwood do its own work for once, but her left brain is too strong for her right, and it's already recognising some of the pattern clusters. She nods wordlessly and takes the sheet.

Martha pauses momentarily, then quickly releases Suzie from the restraints. "I have to go upstairs. Please, don't make any trouble. Suzie?" Suzie looks at her. "Please?"

There's another thundering crash from the Hub, and Suzie nods in what she hopes is a reassuring manner. It's only when Martha runs from the room that Suzie realises that she's never considered escape an option. More than that, though, Martha looks so young. The last time Suzie saw her, her face was pale, and she was smaller somehow. It's the glove, Suzie knows. It gets inside you. It worms in and takes hold. She should tell Martha, try to warn her.

She doesn't.

Ianto looks like a particularly well-off butler, always has. When Suzie opens her eyes she thinks she must be situated somewhere close after her death because the restraints around her wrists are especially tight, but then she looks to her right and sees Ianto looking down at her, his hair thinning and grey, his face old and creased. So that's what it looks like to survive the whole thing, she thinks. She takes a breath, doesn't bother to struggle against the leather straps. Ianto obviously thinks she's still a threat. Somewhere in the Hub something is burning. She can smell the soot and smoke.

"What year is it?" she asks. "Where's Martha?"

"How did you do it?" he asks in reply.

"Do what?"

"How," he reiterates, slowly this time, as though she's senile, "did you do it?" Ironic, considering. One of the effects of the glove, along with the cold storage, is that Suzie's flesh has managed to retain the etchings of her youth. By now she should be dust in a coffin somewhere, but here she is, strapped to an eternal deathbed, being patronised by a Welsh man.

"I heard you the first time," Suzie snaps, "doesn't mean I understand you any better." She begins to feel nervous. "Where's Martha?"

Ianto brings his face close to hers and sneers bitterly. "How did you convince her to use this thing?" He shakes the glove in front of her face. "How the bloody hell did you get to her?"

Suzie's still not certain what's going on, and she's distracted by the smoke in the air, and the lack of Martha. "She did it herself," she answers, her voice betraying confidence she doesn't feel. "I didn't ask her to do anything." She tries a different question. "Where's Jack?"

"Jack's not here." Ianto straightens. "Martha's over there," he nods across the room. When Suzie looks, she almost throws up, even though her stomach's been empty for nigh on forty years. Martha is laid out on the drawer beside her. Suzie panics, becomes frantic and starts to struggle but the bonds remain secure. Apparently Ianto has some experience in keeping a person tied down. It's not quite grief – she's long forgotten how to grieve – but it's close enough.

"What the fuck is going on?" she demands. "What happened to her?"

"You killed her."

"What?" She begins to move her legs. "Ianto, take these bloody things off me! If I was going to make a run for it, don't you think I'd have tried already? With Martha?"

He looks momentarily horrified. "She left you unrestrained?" He frowns, reconsidering his initial conclusions, stepping back to meet the wall. "It doesn't make any sense." By now he's talking to himself and the smoke smells thicker. Suzie can't see it yet, but there must be one hell of a fire raging in the Hub.

"Where is everyone?" she asks. "And what the hell happened to Martha?"

"The glove," Ianto begins, falteringly. He shakes his head sadly, his eyes lost somewhere else. "It was like looking at you all over again." That's when he lifts his head to look at her. "Martha's been using it for years. I found her records hidden in the archives." He gives a wry, humourless laugh. "Didn't think anyone could touch those files without my noticing." As Suzie listens, Ianto's face changes. He becomes less aggressive, and Suzie can see the exhaustion in every part of his body. He's an old man now. Too old for this life. "I thought— I thought maybe you'd convinced her to keep bringing you back so that you could... like with Gwen. That you were taking her life from her."

When Suzie speaks, her voice is much gentler. Perhaps death has made her weaker; perhaps Martha made her a different person. Either way, she doesn't raise her voice any more. "Tell me what happened, Ianto."

Even before Ianto gathers himself up to explain Suzie knows what he's going to tell her. The story is chilling, and disappointing. At first Martha hadn't known what the glove was for, but when she found out, and when she saw what the second one could do - Owen, that poor bastard - she'd started looking up Suzie's files. She'd started out just looking for help in a desperate situation, but soon she became attached to the glove. It started feeding off her, consuming her thoughts, making her obsessed. "The more she used it, the more it took from her."

"That's what it does," Suzie adds softly. "It takes hold. It uses your impulses and perverts them." She understands this now, as much as she did when she started using the glove. Martha must have known, too. Suzie feels dead. This isn't limbo, she thinks, this is hell. There is nowhere else after this.

As Ianto keeps talking, other details become more obvious. Jack spent the last forty years disappearing and reappearing like a human yo-yo until the team ousted him a year ago; he hasn't been heard or seen since. Owen died only a year after Suzie, but not before walking around soulless for six months. The idea of a second glove both excites and disgusts Suzie; she doesn't dwell on what that says about her. Gwen got married, Tosh never did. They're both dead now, too, and whilst there have been other team members, only Martha and Ianto remained constants. And now there's only Ianto.

"I shot her," he confessed quietly. "The glove was taking over. I thought she'd know better after the fiasco with Owen, but she just kept right on." He closed his eyes in remorse. "She was killing people, soaking up energy from everyone around her. She didn't even have to wear it; it was working through her."

Suzie thought about all the times she'd tried to warn Martha, all the times she half-heartedly commented on its effects. If she was someone else, she might lament that she should have tried harder. But Suzie Costello was never that person.

"What's going on upstairs?" she asks, and Ianto looks up, as though remembering where he is.

"I'm ending this. No-one else should have to die. I think." His cryptic mutterings make Suzie tense up, more so when he begins to contemplate the glove on his hand. "Torchwood 3 is being decommissioned."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

That's when she realises: there is no coming back now. Ianto plans to burn the whole place, records, equipment, 'artefacts' and all the deceased. Which means her, too.

"Tell me you're going to use the glove before you lock me in here?"

Ianto nods sadly, then gets to his feet. "It's over now."

"Where will you go?" Suzie asks as he approaches, and he smiles, the first, full, genuine smile she's seen since Martha was young, and breathing, and free. It makes Suzie ache, but she's not afraid. If anything, she's relieved. She's been dead before. She can handle it.

"Into the world, I suppose," Ianto says, slipping on the glove. Standing above her, he looks both close and horribly far away.

"That's a good idea," Suzie says. "Might as well make the most of it. Goodbye Ianto."

"Goodbye, Suzie Costello."

And Suzie dies for the last time.

end.