Characters: Suzie Costello.
Spoilers: Spoilers for 'They Keep Killing Suzie', and I don't think it will make sense unless you've seen it.
Disclaimer: I am not British, a man, or RTD, so I make no money from this fic.
"Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love."
-- William Shakespeare // Much Ado About Nothing
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Nobody in Torchwood ever really knew Suzie Costello.
Of course, everyone knew mundane things like how intelligent she was (incredibly), or how often she and Owen shagged on the autopsy room floor (generally once a day, if they could find the time), but none of them really knew her.
Unfortunately, Suzie only found this out after she had died, and was subsequently (and painstakingly) ripped back to life.
After Suzie died, she realised exactly how afraid Toshiko was of her intelligence. Tosh saw Suzie as someone who was constantly overshadowing her, and taking away her intellectual glory. But, now that Suzie had died and returned, she found Tosh to be the 'intelligent' one of Torchwood Three. So much for not being replaced.
After Suzie died, she realised exactly how much Owen really did love her. The first time she spoke to him after her… 'resurrection', he told her that she scared the shit out of him, in that cold and uncaring voice she had heard him use only once before. After only three months Owen had lost all interest in her. He was probably banging little miss new girl now, moving on to the freshest of the group. Those days and months and years of being together were for nothing.
After Suzie died, she realised that her great commander, her captain o' captain, Jack Harkness, was willing to kill her to save a new little girl. She wasn't even a particularly useful new girl, just a run of the mill police officer who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, luckily for Suzie, after she died little Gwen bloody Cooper finally did something right in bringing her back to life and (without knowing it) sacrificing herself in the process. Everything would have been perfect for her had Owen and Captain Harkness not come along to ruin her plan and protect the precious new girl; her replacement.
After Suzie died, she realised that none of them knew her, and that none of them cared. She was sure that they had gone through her boxes of possessions, which would (of course) link her to Pilgrim, something that they never knew existed. She was sure they would find her book of Emily Dickinson poetry, and realise that the glove that got her killed was not her only obsession. She was sure they would find things in there that they had never expected a girl like her to want or own, but she did want, and she did own, and none of them ever found out.
After Suzie died, she realised that none of them knew her well enough to realise that she always had a plan to return. Nobody runs out on a job like the one she had at Torchwood, not if they had a brain in their head (and she definitely did). Even if none of the others did, Suzie thought that the incredible Jack Harkness would know what death was like. She imagined that at some point in his secret life (the one he kept hidden from them all, and only teasingly released details of) he would have encountered something that would be like the pressing darkness of death.
After Suzie died, she realised that not only did they not know her, but they didn't want to know her. She had been replaced by Toshiko as the smart one, and by Gwen as Owen's sex toy and Jack's second in command. None of them had even bothered to tell her Dad that she was dead (though that had been partly her fault, she had wiped her files in the database), no, they had simply left her to rot and moved on with their lives.
After Suzie died, she realised that sometimes, death could be more forgiving than life, and that the simplicity of nothing could be more forgiving than the complexity of human life.