I wrote this in the middle of the night. This idea has been with me for a while. I'm not sure if I'm going to make a story out of it, I think it's better as a oneshot. It's short I know and I'm not nearly as sorry as I thought I'd be about that. It bugged me that there didn't seem to be any fanfics on here about Toshiko and what she went through/how she felt after she got out of that UNIT holding facility. So I wrote one. Let me know what you think, r&r people, and just enjoy it!
The first night was the worst. Jack had found her accomodation, a nice apartment a few minutes from the plass that had come fully furnished and she woke in the comfortable bed startled, covered in sweet and feeling far too panicky. Moving quickly, Toshiko darted out of the double bed and dropped to the floor.
She lay on the hardwood floor for a few minutes before she realised what she was doing, when reality came crashing back in she started crying. Desperate, heaving sobs right from the middle of her body that left her feeling week. Hours later, or maybe minutes... when the tears stopped coming and she had just been laying there she lifted herself up off the floor and stared at her rumpled bed. There was dust on the pillow, great smudges of dirt from her cell floor staining the white material; it made her sick. Without thinking she stripped them off and bundled them off into the corner then stomped quickly to the kitchen. Tosh grabbed a knife from the draw and carried it with her into the bathroom.
Her face was pale and drawn, her cheek still showing the gruesome bruise and her lip red and swollen; who was this person staring back at her? Tosh's hair hung long and limp with tiny flecks of grit dotted around her tresses, she brought the knife up and cut it short then dropped the knife in the sink and climbed into the shower with her clothes on. When Jack had brought her here, she'd been still wearing the hideous orange jumpsuit... she'd been so tired he just put her into the bed and the next thing she knew she was waking up in fright.
In the shower she slowly peeled off the jumpsuit, she was peeling off her crime and her sin. The pain of it slowly washing away and she started crying again; she'd been so scared when those UNIT soldiers took her away and put her in that cell. It had been six months since she saw anyone from the outside... unbidden her mind went to the other prisoners remembering when she'd been marched around the complex chained up to them. They were still in there!
Toshiko turned off the water and left the jumpsuit on the shower floor, wrapping herself up in the large towel she went back to her bedroom. The bed seemed far too big so she lay down on the floor and went back to sleep. Her life was her own now but he pain was still there, how could she move past this?
Five years. That was what he asked for, she could do that. It still felt like a sentence but she was on the outside, she would give Jack the five years he wanted. She would make the world a better place... and then she would be free. Her records would be wiped clean... then she wouldn't have to be afraid of ending up back in that cell. But would Torchwood really be different to her 'home' at UNIT? Maybe... maybe she would do good? She thought about doing good and it made her smile as she drifted off to sleep.
Fin.