justprompts June Prompt
Suzie didn’t really see Tosh as much of a reader, which was why she was so surprised to find the battered copy of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ tucked under the other woman’s pillow. Her house was filled with books, certainly, but Toshiko Sato always seemed far too grounded in reality - a physicist, intent on particles and unseen forces - to give her self over to flights of fancy.
She could never quite picture Tosh curled up on the sofa with a paperback and a mug of hot chocolate, losing herself in the words that weaved across the well thumbed pages. Which just went to show how little she knew about her colleagues (even the ones she was sleeping with).
On a particularly bitter winter evening, she ended up reading the book herself. She had nothing else to fill the hours in between the bouts of enthusiastic sex, after all. Tosh slept beside her, warm and soft and comfortingly real, and the incessant ticking of the clock in the hallway threatened to drive her mad.
It wasn’t a bad book, really, though she couldn’t see why Tosh liked it so much that she wanted to keep a copy under her pillow.
Months later, when she made yet another excuse to go home and work on the glove rather than head back to Toshiko’s, Suzie found her thoughts drifting to the book hidden away beneath the cushions. Was it still there? Did Tosh curl up under the duvet and read it now there was no Suzie Costello sharing her bed and providing her with more interesting ways to spend an evening?
She didn’t feel guilty. Not really. Once she’d got the glove working to her high standards, things would go back to normal.
No. They’d be better than normal. They could save lives at Torchwood, not just play around with the toys and trinkets and petty fragments that slipped through the Rift. They could do something really worthwhile.
They weren’t mockingbirds, the people she killed. They weren’t even blue jays. They were nothing, no one. They died to serve a higher purpose. She wasn’t in the wrong. No one had the right to judge her.
Tosh would understand, when the time came to tell her.
Prompt: "It's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
Word Count: 374
She could never quite picture Tosh curled up on the sofa with a paperback and a mug of hot chocolate, losing herself in the words that weaved across the well thumbed pages. Which just went to show how little she knew about her colleagues (even the ones she was sleeping with).
On a particularly bitter winter evening, she ended up reading the book herself. She had nothing else to fill the hours in between the bouts of enthusiastic sex, after all. Tosh slept beside her, warm and soft and comfortingly real, and the incessant ticking of the clock in the hallway threatened to drive her mad.
It wasn’t a bad book, really, though she couldn’t see why Tosh liked it so much that she wanted to keep a copy under her pillow.
Months later, when she made yet another excuse to go home and work on the glove rather than head back to Toshiko’s, Suzie found her thoughts drifting to the book hidden away beneath the cushions. Was it still there? Did Tosh curl up under the duvet and read it now there was no Suzie Costello sharing her bed and providing her with more interesting ways to spend an evening?
She didn’t feel guilty. Not really. Once she’d got the glove working to her high standards, things would go back to normal.
No. They’d be better than normal. They could save lives at Torchwood, not just play around with the toys and trinkets and petty fragments that slipped through the Rift. They could do something really worthwhile.
They weren’t mockingbirds, the people she killed. They weren’t even blue jays. They were nothing, no one. They died to serve a higher purpose. She wasn’t in the wrong. No one had the right to judge her.
Tosh would understand, when the time came to tell her.
Prompt: "It's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
Word Count: 374