Fic: Tosh Takes A Trip
Title: Tosh Takes A Trip
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh, Eleventh Doctor, Jack.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Exit Wounds, but with a twist - Tosh survived. (So did Owen, but he’s not in this fic).
Summary: Tosh gets the chance of a lifetime, a trip aboard the TARDIS.
Word Count: 1172
Written For: Challenge 3: Rush at beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Come on over and support the community - a new challenge every Monday, and all fandoms are welcome!
Travelling with the Doctor is a rush greater than anything Tosh has ever experienced up to this point in her life. She’d thought working for Torchwood was exciting, and it was when compared to any other job she could have been doing back on earth, but this was a whole new level of exciting, literally out of this world!
Visiting the past, the future, and half a hundred other worlds, meeting new aliens and studying their technology… she was learning so much it was almost dizzying. The TARDIS herself was like Disneyland for geeks, full of unimaginable wonders and mysteries; going back to her old life after this trip was over would be hard. Sometimes she thought she could happily spend the rest of time exploring the universe and still only see a tiny fraction of it.
It didn’t hurt that the Doctor was great company and actually understood her when she started talking technology, science, or mathematics. They could have, and indeed had at times, spent hours discussing such subjects. When they weren’t too busy running for their lives to spare breath for conversation, of course.
Tosh felt fitter than she had in years; all of the running was doing her a world of good. At first she’d had a bit of difficulty keeping up with the madcap Time Lord as he rushed about trying to fix things on planets she’d never even heard of, but the continuous exercise had increased her stamina and strengthened her muscles in a much more enjoyable way than going to the gym ever had. As a bonus, her mind felt sharper and clearer, her concentration had improved and she didn’t tire as easily as she used to. Her close brush with death already seemed a distant memory, something that happened to someone else, or in another lifetime. If it weren’t for her scar she would have wondered if it had really happened, or if it had simply been a bad dream she’d once had.
The trip had been Jack’s idea when she’d just been regaining her strength after being shot by Gray. Jack had visited her nearly every day during her convalescence and Tosh knew he felt that it was somehow his fault that she’d been injured, even though she kept telling him it wasn’t.
One day, about a week before she was due back at work, he showed up unexpectedly and told her to pack a few essentials because he was sending her on a trip. He wouldn’t tell her where she’d be going though, saying it was a surprise. She was almost done packing when a strange but oddly familiar sound filled her flat, and hurrying out of her bedroom she’d been just in time to see a large, old fashioned, blue police phone box materialise beside her sofa. She’d known what it was the moment she saw it. Even if she hadn’t seen it once before, years ago, she would have recognised it from all the stories Jack had told the team about the Doctor and his amazing time and space machine, but seeing it right there amongst her furniture had been surreal.
She’s still been standing there staring in disbelief when the door had opened and a head, incongruously topped with a fez, popped out.
“I’m in the right place, aren’t I? I really hope I am or I’ll have some awkward explaining to do. I think I might have just landed on your coffee table, but don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be able to fix it, it’s just a bit flattened and tables are supposed to be flat. Well, they are on earth anyway. Toshiko Sato, I presume? I met a Toshiko Sato once, a few regenerations ago, in London.”
Tosh had somehow managed to gather her wits enough by that point to reply. “I remember. Space Pig.”
“That’s right! I thought you looked a lot like the other one, makes sense if it was you my past self met. You haven’t changed much.” Glancing past Tosh he gave a jaunty wave, calling out, “Hello, Jack! Long time no see!” Before either of them had a chance to get a word in edgewise, he rushed on, talking a mile a minute. “I was surprised to get to your call! Well, not really surprised, actually not surprised at all, I get a lot of calls from you, but they’re mainly from future you. Your future, not mine, although future you probably does phone future me, or will do in the future. For all I know, past you might phone future me as well…”
When the Doctor eventually paused in his rambling to draw breath, Jack jumped in quickly before the Time Lord could start talking again.
“Thanks for coming, Doc. After everything Tosh has been through lately I thought it would do her good to get away from it all for a bit, and I don’t know anywhere better for that than a jaunt aboard the TARDIS.”
“Think nothing of it, I’m happy to help! Besides, with Amy and Rory deciding to spend some time on earth, I’m currently without a travelling companion, so I’d be delighted to have company for a bit.”
“Just as long as you get her back by next Monday, she’s due back at work then and I need her.”
“Easy peasy! I do have a time machine you know!”
Ten minutes later, Tosh had dropped her bags off in the bedroom the TARDIS had created for her and was being given a guided tour so she’d know where to find such things as the kitchen, the library, the swimming pool, the wardrobe, and the gardens.
That had been almost ten months previously; in a couple more months she’d be home. A year of excitement and adventures was far more than she’d expected when she’d first boarded the TARDIS, and she was still having a ball, but she missed her friends too, more and more as time passed. Besides, the Doctor had promised she could travel with him again whenever she wanted; all she had to do was ask. Taking a week off from work once in a while to spend a few months aboard the TARDIS should be simple enough to arrange.
Right now though, there were still things to do and places she wanted to see before returning to Cardiff and the Hub. They might have to rush through some of them in order to fit it all in; even with a time machine at their disposal, there never seemed to be quite enough time for everything.
“Where to next?” the Doctor called out from where he stood by the central console.
“I’ve always wanted to watch a star being born.”
“Oooh, excellent choice! Hang on to something!”
Tosh grabbed a convenient handhold, the Doctor pulled a lever, and off they went again, racing headlong through space and time. She threw back her head and laughed for the sheer joy of it; nothing in the universe would ever beat the rush she got from TARDIS travel!
The End