Life, Love, Death and Disaster
Prologue
Disclaimer: I am not the BBC and don't own any of these fantastic characters.
(A/N – It is recommended that you watch the Torchwood Series 1 episode Greeks Bearing Gifts before reading this)
Love.
What does that word mean, anyway? Such a human thing... back home, on Arcateen IV, "love" was frowned upon. The government preferred people to find a partner quickly to increase the population rather than spend years searching for one they "loved". Mary was sure that things had changed – the government she remembered had provoked outrage by compromising the Arcateenians' usually peaceful nature. She had been sent away for going too far with her protests; she had killed a government official. Not that she had really meant to... but it didn't matter now.
Having lived for so long as a human, she had come to understand and participate in their culture. It could be said that she was as much human as she was Arcateenian after spending 200 years on this hunk of floating rock. She had come to accept it all... and now she thought she had finally actually found someone, in Tosh, who she could properly love. Not just someone to shag – she could find that easily enough at any brothel. She felt a connection with Tosh; even if it had just started as a way to get into Torchwood, it had grown.
Yes, maybe she had used and abused her relationship with Toshiko to meet her own ends; she had manipulated and deceived her, in fact. True, she wasprepared to use Tosh as a means to her own ends... but she still felt the potential for a proper romantic connection, and that was something Mary longed for. She had no qualms that Tosh was a woman; though Arcateenians did have the same sexes as humans (male and female), they didn't play as big a part in their culture. Mary could quite easily have taken over the body of a man, and learned to be like one – it had just happened that she had stumbled across this body first (or, more like, it had stumbled across her).
She regretted that now she would have to leave Toshiko behind. But she was desperate to return home; no matter how long she stayed on Earth, she would always long for her own planet – now that there was a chance that things had changed, there was nothing strong enough to hold her here. It was a shame that her time on Earth had to end just as she was actually beginning to feel it was worth something... but such is life.
Or so she had thought.
Then that interfering Jack Harkness had discovered them... and revealed to Tosh what she had done. True, she had killed many humans... but she needed to survive! This form could only be kept fresh with the blood of other humans, and ripping out the heart was a quick way for them to go. Well, quick-ish. She wouldn't have cared to be on the receiving end herself, anyway. But still...
Now she stood with a knife to her lover's throat, having to bargain with the Torchwood team. That was exactly what she had hoped to avoid – it was always going to be a dangerous affair, but now the air was so tense that it could be cut with the knife Mary held in her hand. The knife that, with just a slip of her hand, could slice Tosh's throat wide open... Mary shivered. She didn't want to have to kill Tosh, but she would do it if she had to. She must get home.
She didn't want to lose the connection she had with Toshiko. Oddly enough, she had actually come to care for this particular humans' feelings; something which had never properly happened before. She understood human feelings, but tended to manipulate them more than feel sympathetic for their owners. She reminded Tosh;
"...this doesn't change the way I feel about you."
It was weird; she had killed so many in her time on this planet, and she had no guilt. Humans were an alien species to her – in her eyes she was not a brutal killer, but simply a lost soul trying to survive on a hostile alien world. Yet she actually felt properly nervous, now... could she really do it? She clenched her teeth and held the knife closer to Tosh's throat, so that just a trickle of blood slid down her lover's neck.
But... what was this? She couldn't believe her ears; it was going to be that simple. Jack was going to let her go. She could escape with no bloodshed, and they'd never be able to catch her once she was gone... eyes gleaming with triumph, she cast Tosh aside to her beloved Owen and grasped the transporter with both hands. She was going home...
The last thing Mary saw before the unbearable, searing pain and flash of blinding light was Jack's eyes, glaring back at her. She could tell that they had once had so much mercy, but now they were cold and dull.
Unforgiving.
As a switch of realisation began to throw in her head, everything disappeared, and was replaced with the high-speed sensation of being on a roller coaster, except calmer; she was bathed in blue light...
Then the pain, the burning light, and the dark. Nothing else.
Just dark.
Hey all! I hope that you enjoyed the first chapter to this fic; I know that it's a little short but my prologues always are. I'm planning for it to be a full-length novel but there's a long way to go yet ;-)
I often think that Tosh needs a bit more love; she and Mary were such a good couple and I think Tosh deserves more than she got (with Mary's apparent death). So this is a sort of "what if" fic that keeps to the guidelines of canon – so it could happen!
This prologue takes place near the end of Greeks Bearing Gifts, where Jack supposedly sends Mary into the centre of the sun... if you haven't seen that episode then it won't have made much sense, sorry ;-) Please review!