Disclaimer: Torchwood doesn't belong to me.
Tag to 2x03
Tosh ignores the looks of her workmates as she hurries to her desk at the Hub, ready to head home. Tommy is gone, returned to his time… and the world is safe. He did his duty and she helped him - forced him - to do it.
She doesn't know whether to feel proud or angry with that.
Her infatuation with Tommy is a source of gentle (and not-so-gentle) amusement for Jack and Owen. She thinks Ianto understands, especially when she notices the looks he gives Jack (Ianto is another who has never given his heart wisely). She should make the time to go for a drink with him, make sure that he's doing okay, especially with Jack back.
The thing is, Tommy was isafe/i. Four years she knew him, but four days for him. Four days were too short a time for Tommy to learn what a mess she really was. The closest he ever saw her frazzled was that first year (day). And even then, they got along splendidly, and she was sorry to see him returned to his sleep.
Tosh has been at Three for three and a half weeks when Jack tells her she's in charge of Tommy for the day. She stares at him blankly, her mind stuffed with the algorithms and protocols she is desperately trying to learn. She's questions nearly every day why, why she agreed to sign her life to Jack and Torchwood for five years, and it only takes the gleaming smile on Jack's face to remind her - that and the remembrance of the cold and lonely UNIT cell in which he had found her. (Jack is charismatic and when he wants something, he normally gets it. This has not changed in all the days since he liberated her.)
Tommy is gangly-limbed and fresh-faced, eager to learn what has happened in the last year (day). He's polite and chivalrous and treats her in a way no one has in a long time. With him, she feels like a woman, and attractive and not just a geek, there to discern the mysteries of the alien tech that falls into their laps. She spends the first few hours catching him up on the world; the rest of the day is spent in a pub, playing snooker and talking about everything and nothing. He asks how she came to work at Torchwood and whether she likes it here. She surprises herself when she answers with enthusiasm and excitement, though she doesn't tell him how Jack found her, and that it was either coming to Torchwood or remaining locked up for the rest of her life. Despite the utter craziness of working in the Hub, she's happy she's in Cardiff. (She ignores that if not for Jack, she would still be in that cold cell, ignored and lonely, driven slowly insane, all because she tried to help her mother. She hates UNIT and what they did to her. Hates that she is little more than an indentured servant, with Torchwood not through choice but through necessity.)
The second year, she doesn't even protest when Jack informs her she is once again in charge of Tommy. Cardiff is nice and she's settled into the rhythm of working and attempting to find a life outside of Torchwood. She finds it different from her old job, where there were social events, and people going out to the pub with their co-workers, and there were pool tournaments and movie nights, and everyone actually does not mind putting their work away at the end of the day and remembering that there is life outside work. (She once asked Suzie if the team ever does anything together, outside of work. Suzie just looked at her and asked her if she really wanted to spend all her time with the people with whom she worked. Tosh has never asked again and it's not until Gwen comes on board that team nights become a weekly occurrence. She never questions too closely why Gwen has the ability to start something like that where she failed.)
Her second day with Tommy is spent like the first, except that Tosh is more comfortable with Tommy and tells him how she wants to learn Spanish – she can speak 10 alien languages but only two Earth-based ones. He makes her laugh, makes her feel beautiful, and considering the complete lack of interest she engenders in the denizens of Cardiff, she can't help but be thankful for him. (Tosh's crush on Owen is a source of amusement for Suzie. She made sure Tosh was aware that she and Owen were fucking; Suzie was always a bitch, long before the Glove became her obsession.)
Another year passes, and it's time for Tommy to waken. It's right after the disaster at Canary Wharf, and while Jack has distanced Three from One, they still have to deal with the fallout. UNIT is constantly on the phone, demanding that Cardiff and Jack give to them custody of dangerous objects, supposedly stored in the vaults of the Hub. Jack ignores the requests, and skillfully maneuvers his way around the bureaucratic screams, gaining the support of the PM and the Queen. With that, UNIT can't touch Three.
Three survives the implosion of Torchwood that Yvonne Hartman instigated but only by working long days and nights. A small part of Tosh is pleased to get one over UNIT. (Never let it be said that she is not bitter about what UNIT did to her. Even now, three years after Jack ostensibly freed her, she can't forget how helpless and hopeless she had felt in their custody.) Ianto Jones, the refugee from London, one of 27 survivors, (and that number scares her more than she wants to admit. 27 survivors out of 823 employees. She wonders if she's even going to live long enough to fulfill her contract with Jack) who stalked and bothered Jack until he gave in and gave him a job here at Three, has just settled in as their general support guy before Tommy is due to be wakened. Jack suggests that Ianto take over "Tommy duty" as he calls it. "No, no, that's all right. I don't mind," Tosh tells him quickly. She ignores the derogatory snort from Owen, the smirk from Suzie, and the carefully blank face of Ianto. Jack looks at her and she holds her breath until he nods. "Okay, Tosh can take him around for the day then. Ianto, I want you to monitor the Rift just in case, so Tosh? Make sure Ianto knows what to look out for."
This time, when Tommy asks her about the last year, she can't help but tell him about Canary Wharf and how Jack made sure they remained in lockdown in the Hub and refused to go to London's aid. She tells him of the guilt she feels for not helping her fellow Torchwood employees, but then she also knows that London had such a vastly different culture than Cardiff. (Shortly after Ianto began at Three, Tosh asked him how he liked working at the Hub. He raised an eyebrow and commented that Three was quite different from One but it is all for the better. He didn't expound on that statement until they go out to a pub one night – tired and exhausted after a three day crisis where they managed to save the world in the end; after his fifth pint, he tells her that One was all gloss and people were more apt to stab you in the back than give a helping hand. He tells her of Yvonne Hartman's obsession with alien tech – "if it's alien, it's ours" – and her desire to rebuild the British Empire in all its glory. She doesn't think she would have liked working for One and is grateful Jack found her and not Yvonne.) Tommy listens and gives her a hug and tells her that it's natural to feel guilt. Tosh wonders when advice from a man frozen to save the world, one who is out of his time, seemed so sensible.
Tommy returns to his cryo-chamber and Tosh thinks that maybe next year she'll be brave enough to steal a kiss from him.
Not long after Tommy returns to his frozen sleep, Tosh finds herself lost in a spate of activities, as the Rift seems to decide its time to spit out everything and anything. She's never been so grateful to have Ianto's help as then. He always seems to hand her exactly what she needs even as she turns to ask him to retrieve it from the archives. She worries about him sometimes; so young and yet so cynical. Torchwood seems to own him and she wonders how often he dreams of the destruction of Canary Wharf. (They had all learned not to ask within a week of his arrival; when Owen had persisted on needling him, Ianto had served him decaf and refused to clean up the autopsy bay until he had apologized.)
Suzie starts to scare Tosh with her obsessive study of a metal glove that they had found in the bay. She mentions it casually to Jack and he frowns. As far as she knows, he does nothing. Not long afterwards, Suzie kills herself and they gain a new member in the form of one P.C. Gwen Cooper. (Tosh can't help but wonder if Jack wishes he had put a stop to Suzie's study of the glove. Those same thoughts return when Suzie comes back to life and almost kills her replacement. Tosh wonders what it is about Torchwood that brings out such obsessions.)
Tosh tries hard to like Gwen. Where Suzie was cold and officious, Gwen is warm and naïve. She approaches everything she sees at Torchwood with a grin and a willingness to learn. (Gwen makes Tosh feels tired.) Jack seems to respond to her in a way that Tosh doesn't quite understand, but then she gave up trying to understand Jack nearly three years ago.
She is used to no one finding her attractive enough to chat her up; God knows she's done everything but throw herself at Owen and he's not picked up on her crush (or worse, he has and instead refuses to see it), ignoring her in favor of a string of one night stands or Suzie or Gwen. When Mary expresses interest, pursuing her despite Tosh's back-off signals, she can't help but let her into her heart. She just wishes it hadn't been an utter disaster. (She wonders if she's forever doomed to love those who she really shouldn't.)
Five months later, the world nearly ends, and this time, she is more than partially responsible. She wants to blame the vision of her mother – the first time she's seen her in years – and God! Does it hurt! – but, deep down, she knows she can't. She mutinied, just as everyone else did, and no vision can excuse her actions. Even as Jack rushes off with Gwen to do somethingabout Abaddon, she can't help the stray thought that, come June, she has a lot to tell Tommy next time he wakes. She wonders what he'll think. (Jack's immortality doesn't surprise her as much as the kiss he lays on Ianto when he wakes three days after saving the world. She wonders what else the two of them are hiding, even as she is happy that Ianto has found someone to care for after the whole Lisa debacle. When she thinks about it, it surprises her that it doesn't seem too odd: that Ianto is sleeping with the man that ordered the death of the thing Lisa had become. Torchwood has disabused her of what is normal for far too long.)
Jack disappears, and then things get weird, with power struggles between Gwen and Owen over who would actually get to lead Three in Jack's absence. (She and Ianto both do their jobs and Jack's while they fight it out. When the dust clears, and Gwen finds herself in charge, she keeps them doing the same. Tosh wonders if it's because they have no one to go home to at night, so of course they would be willing to take on more than their already strained workloads. It's almost a relief when they get orders to go to the Himalayas.) They're not even back a week before Jack returns, bigger than life, cocky as ever, but also quieter, as if he's seen things that have horrified him beyond anything else. (He tells them bits and pieces of what had happened while he was away, but not everything. She knows this because she has to listen to Gwen bitch about how Jack still keeps secrets from the team. Ianto never says what or if Jack has told him more, but Tosh suspects the Captain has. She's just glad Jack is back. For one thing, it means she gets to sleep more.)
And then… almost before she realizes it, it's time for Tommy to waken again. This has been a tough year, emotionally, physically, and mentally. She's all but given up on Owen noticing her as a woman, and the job hasn't allowed for her to even look for potential partners, never mind find one. It's rather sad that the closest she has to a possible amour is a man born over a century ago and frozen for some mysterious purpose.
But then, this is Torchwood.
This year, Jack doesn't even pretend to offer Tommy-duty to anyone else. He just reminds her of the upcoming date and she nods in acceptance. (Since he's returned from wherever he went off to, he's started to pay more attention to their lives. He probably realizes just how utterly lonely she is.) She picks out her outfit for the day a week in advance, choosing to wear purple, because it always makes her feel nice and pretty. She even puts on the new lingerie she bought on a whim the last time she had time to go to the shops. She spends more time than usual on her hair and makeup and braces herself for the teasing she just knows she'll get from Owen, and maybe even Gwen. But she thinks it has to be worth it – Tommy is worth it. And if nothing actually happens between them, at least she knows he'll treat her as if their day means something.
She's tense when she arrives at work, ready for the comments the others are sure to make about her appearance. Ianto, God bless him, doesn't say anything, just gives her a special, warm smile that makes her grateful they are friends. She knows he sees what she's wearing, knows that it is different from her normal attire, but does her the courtesy of not commenting. Owen, on the other hand, can't help but make a comment, and she sees the way Jack's eyes light up at her appearance. She's not fooling anyone, not even Gwen, who's never even met Tommy and knows nothing about him.
Tosh can't find it in herself to care. Let Owen smirk and make snide comments about her and Tommy. Let Gwen look at her with pity – she does already. She's tired of sitting back and not grabbing what she wants. And she wants Tommy, wants to feel embraced and have them mean it, wants to feel attractive and sexual.
It's only a day but she's determined to make the most of it. And maybe Jack realizes this, because unlike normal, he lets her take Tommy with her as soon as Owen gives him a clean bill of health. He tells her to keep her phone on, that he'll only call her if the world is ending. Unspoken is that if the world is ending, it's likely because it's time for Tommy to do what he's meant to do.
She tries not to think about it. Because this is her day, damn it, and she's not going to let anyone or anything spoil it.
Later, after Jack calls her in and tells her that it's time, that Tommy needs to go back, to do whatever it was that originally pulled him from his hospital bed and into Torchwood's cryo chambers, the only thought running through her head is that this is not fair. (Torchwood is never fair, except when it is.)
Jack gives her and Tommy the night; Tommy is scared, and she knows why. Tomorrow is the unknown; he must perform the duty for which he was chosen. She can't change that, but she can give him comfort. Give him what he wants, what she needs. (It always surprised her that Tommy didn't look at her with bigoted eyes. Mixed race couples were not common in the early-twentieth century. But Tommy never said or did anything that might offend her. And he always treated her nicely, even when other, younger women flirted with him.)
They have one night, and it's not like the romance novels. Oh, the sex is wonderful, but there is always, always the knowledge that they only have this night. That tomorrow, Tommy returns to his time, and she stays here. Four days, four years. She hides her bitter tears in the shower.
In the end, it was surprisingly simple, though Tosh hated herself for what she did. She knew – knew with a certainty – that if not for the bond they shared, Tommy would not have gone back. And she couldn't even blame Jack, because the instructions that included her picture were time-locked, and not even he had seen it before it opened. But, God! How she wishes she could.
Not even Owen's attempt at sympathy makes her feel better. Bitterly, she wondered if she was only attractive to him when she showed interest in another. (She suspected he knew that if he showed her even the slightest interest, she would probably accept. He had become softer in the last few months, since Jack left and then returned. He was nicer to her, almost seemed interested, but always, always, pulling back.) She didn't want to play games. Not today.
Rebuffing him was easier than she thought.
Four days; four years. It's not a lot of time and she doesn't fool herself and think it amounted to true romantic love. But it was a relationship, an honest to goodness relationship. Tommy saw parts of her that she hadn't known existed. He made her feel wanted… feel loved. Gave her something that was hers. And Jack. Jack gave her Tommy, told her to take him out, show him Cardiff, and bring him up to date. Gave her something normal to counteract the strangeness she had felt at working for Torchwood. And now, she didn't have this one day, in all the year, to look forward to.
Sometimes, she hates Torchwood. Sometimes, she loves her job. And sometimes, Torchwood just reminds her that this is life, and the only thing to keep doing, is live it.