Solitude Standing (1/2)
Solitude Standing (1/2)
(written for Torchwood minibang, never got the art done, so never posted)
Wordcount: ~8k
Characters/Pairings: Ianto/Tosh, Tosh/OFC, Tosh/Mary, Ianto/Jack, Owen/Gwen
Warnings: Sex, Violence
Rating: R (kinda)
Summary: Begins after Countryside and continues to the start of the Year That Never Was, touching on important events in Toshiko's life and the way that her experiences shaped and changed her. As the months pass, her budding relationship with Ianto turns into something more until she ruins everything.
Beta: xandraklr
Part 2
Dealing
“Go on then, it isn’t going to drink itself.” Ianto nodded at the glass with two fingers of whiskey sitting on the table between them. His own glass had already been emptied twice and he was rolling the third between his bruised and battered fingers.
Tosh looked down at the glass and wondered if the liquid really would be able to help her problems and make the night pass quickly and gently. She knew that whenever she went to sleep there would be nightmares, now it was a question of how long she could put off sleeping and how bad the nightmares would be when they finally arrived. There were other questions too, like why did Ianto keep whiskey in the Tourist Office.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? My head’s not all that clear right now, I probably should ask Owen first or look it up somewhere.” Tosh seemed to remember a bottle of pills and a warning about something after the Torchwood medic had examined her, but it was all a blur in her head right now.
Ianto produced a pill bottle from his pocket. “You haven’t taken anything, and do you really think that Owen would ever advise against alcohol?”
“Where’s a phone? I’ll just give him a quick call.” Tosh began patting down her pockets, forgetting the bruises and tender spots and wincing as she touched her sides.
Ianto grabbed one of her hands, she wasn’t sure if it was the right or the left, and placed the glass in it. The container was cold in her fingers and the sounds of the liquid sloshing around cut through everything else that had been invading her mind.
“Just drink it Tosh. Or take some of these pills and I’ll see that you get home.”
She downed the glass and felt herself relax a moment later, after the alcohol had burned its way down her throat and settled comfortably in her stomach, warming her and smoothing out her aches and pains. Once it had all settled, she stood up and pulled her coat on, wincing again as she had to stretch her arms and shoulders to get her coat back on.
She picked up her purse and held it loosely in her swollen fingers. “Home sounds good, let’s go home Ianto.”
For a moment it looked like he was going to protest, but then he carefully got up, put on his own jacket and led the way up to the Tourist Office, stopping to pull a wad of cash out of one of the drawers in his desk. At her curious look he grimaced and explained, “Figured a cab would be best.”
They spent the cab ride in silence, apart from the frequent gasps as sore parts of their anatomy were jostled and parts that wanted to stay still had to bounce up and down against the hard and unforgiving back seat of the vehicle.
Ianto paid the fare from his wad of cash and got out at her apartment. Tosh wondered if he was going to tell the cabbie to wait and walk her up, but he slung his bag over his shoulder and they walked to her building's door and up the stairs together.
Her hands shook as they stood outside the door to her flat and she fumbled with her keys. Ianto put an arm around her waist and her fingers stabilized, she was at home and there was no one waiting for them inside, it was going to be all right she told herself as the door swung open and the smell of the bacon she had made for breakfast the morning that they had left greeted them.
She couldn’t help it. Tosh dropped her bag just inside the door, pulled out of Ianto’s protective embrace and ran for the bathroom, collapsing on the cold tile in front of the toilet as the burning liquor made its interest in coming back up known.
But then the smell dissipated, replaced with something clean and medical smelling and the heaving stopped as her stomach and mind both calmed and returned to the places that they were supposed to be. She leaned back against the wall and Ianto sunk down to sit on the floor next to her. He seemed paler than usual and there was an aerosol spray can in one of his hands, some kind of disinfectant that she kept under the sink and couldn’t remember buying or using.
The silence hung in the air between them, uncomfortably at first, but it settled down with her emotions and the turbulence that the events of the past two days had pulled up and down and in every which direction began to stop. The end of the storm was in sight. She reached out her fingers and took his hands in hers, feeling the swelling and knots that the events had given him and how they matched her own battered hands.
Tosh didn’t know how long they sat on the floor in the bathroom, but when her legs cramped from being folded under her and she was shivering from being pressed against the cold tile of the wall and not moving with the bruises and aches she already had, she got to her feet and pulled Ianto up with her.
“Is there anything that I can do for you?” She asked him softly, he had been everywhere when they got back to the hub, unloading things, fetching and carrying for Owen and bringing out rounds of tea with dashes of stronger things. But she couldn’t really remember him sitting down or resting, and then everyone had left and they were still there, waiting for something.
He shook his head and then put a hand to his forehead. “Shouldn’t have done that.” He seemed to pale another shade and leaned back against the wall, though he managed to remain standing.
Tosh picked the aerosol spray up off the floor and set on the side of the sink. She got a new toothbrush out of the cabinet and pulled out the toothpaste and a clean flannel. “You get ready for bed and I’ll fix you a place to sleep.”
Ianto supported himself against the sink. “I should go home, or back to the hub to finish the unpacking.” But when he tried to stand without leaning, he nearly fell over and Tosh didn’t have to say anything for him to turn the tap on and splash the water on his face.
She tossed some blankets on the sofa and put an extra pillow on top of it all before closing her bedroom door and collapsing onto her own bed. It felt like years had passed since she had gotten any rest, but it hadn’t even been a full 48 hours since they had left for the Beacons. After the trials of the past two days her bed felt softer than ever and she burrowed down into the blankets, letting those feelings carry her away and shutting any of her new memories completely out of her mind.
“Tosh, shh, it’s okay. It’s okay now. Shh, you’re okay Tosh. We’re safe.”
The voice was just barely a whisper on the edge of her consciousness, but as the words repeated it grew stronger and she let her arms and legs relax and the hands that had been on her lightened their grip and drew back a bit. She opened her eyes to the dim light of a single lamp in her own bedroom. There was a large shadow on the opposite wall, thrown by the figure sitting on the edge of her bed, pinning her arms down to the mattress gently but firmly.
She took a deep breath and regretted when it brought pain to her ribs and attention to the dry and hoarseness of her throat. "Ianto?"
He let go of her completely and leaned back, now that he was in the light she could see him and it definitely was Ianto. A bit of colour seemed to have returned to his face but there were still dark circles under his eyes, although those might just have been bruises.
Tosh sat up and grasped hold of his hands again. “Come here Ianto.” She pulled on his hands and he didn’t really resist as she pulled on his arms and he sat next to her on the bed. With one hand she reached for his face, sharply drawing in a breath when the muscles in her shoulder protested the movement.
“Nightmare?” he asked, watching her face carefully as she nodded.
“There are too many nightmares in this job.”
“I know. And we all had our own nightmares before Torchwood.”
Tosh lay back down in her bed, still holding tightly onto Ianto’s hand. “Join me. We don't have to face them alone anymore.”
He didn’t protest and a moment later, after a rearranging of the blankets that sent a wave of chilly air at her, he was next to her and holding her hand just as tightly as she was holding his, both of them trying to keep the nightmares away for a few moments longer.
Changing
Ianto was sleeping peacefully when Tosh woke up, her heart pounding in her chest and images of her family’s heads sitting on the shelves in a refrigerator still fresh in her mind. Sometime during the night they had moved around quite a bit and she was on the outside edge of the bed now. She got out slowly and carefully, leaving the man to sleep as she made her way out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.
She put the kettle on first, staring at the fridge ever so often, trying to find the courage to open it and pull out the milk, but unable to, after her dream and the other fridge from recent events, the one that had really been full of things that she didn’t want to see ever again. When the kettle chimed she turned it off quickly, stopping it from waking Ianto. She made tea without milk and sat it on the table, not interested in eating or drinking anything.
It took her another fifteen minutes to be able to open the fridge. Tosh put on a pair of cleaning gloves from under the sink, tied a scarf around her mouth and nose and got a garbage bag all set up before she pulled open the door and started tossing things into the trash.
Out went all the sandwich meats, the bacon, the leftover fried rice with bits of ham in it and the jar of olives because they just looked too much like eyeballs. She almost gagged when she opened the freezer and imagined the frozen meat products being cooked and the smell filling her flat. A frozen steak, premade dinners and a carton of frozen eggrolls joined the other meat products in her garbage bag.
She tied off the top and put it out in the hall. She wasn’t dressed enough to take it down to the bins, but there was no way that much meat could stay in her house. Tosh went back to the kitchen and put some bread in the toaster. Bread was safe.
As the timer was ticking away on the toaster, she refilled the kettle and put it back on. The first batch of tea she had made was had steeped for too long and by now it would have gone cold. She looked over the kitchen and pulled out two sets of tableware and the jam, wishing that she knew what Ianto liked for breakfast, or what he liked on his toast.
He was still sleeping in her bed. The dark circles under his eyes had receded a bit, but the bruising around his face was as dark as ever and the angry red line that looked like a smile on his neck was still painful looking and inflamed. She sat on the edge of the bed and wondered if touching him would be a bad idea.
“Ianto, it’s morning.” Tosh glanced at the clock, it wouldn’t be morning for much longer and Jack was going to want them to show up for work eventually. “I’m making breakfast, come have something to eat, get up.” She reached a hand across the bed and touched his shoulder.
He sat up and turned to face her a second later. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
Tosh pulled away from him and stood up. “It’s okay Ianto. I’ve got some toast and tea going, and we should head into hub in a bit. Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll find you something to wear.”
Ianto nodded and blinked tiredly for a moment before climbing out of her bed and stumbling slowly out of the room. She waited until she heard the water start running in the shower before opening her closet and considering the clothes inside. Tosh really didn’t have much in a size that would fit Ianto. But she had large sweatpants and sweatshirts that she had worn after leaving prison when everything else had felt too restricting. She left the clothes on the bed and retreated to the kitchen, hoping that he would join her soon.
She heard the water shut off in the shower as she was playing with the teabags and she listened as Ianto’s wet feet slapped down the hall and as he closed the door to the bedroom behind him. She heard the door open again and when he stepped into the kitchen she let the teabag fall back into the mug and handed it to him.
He thanked her with a nod and picked up one of the plain pieces of toast and nibbled on a corner. “Good morning Tosh. Have you heard from Jack yet?”
“No.” Tosh sat at the table and offered him the seat opposite with a sweep of her hand. “Last night he said to come in at some point today, so I figured we could take a cab into the hub together since both our cars are still there and all.”
Ianto nodded, his mouth full of toast. They sat in silence and made quick work of the hot water in the kettle and the stack of toast on the table. Wordlessly, Ianto cleared the table and Tosh didn’t say anything until he started to run a sink full of water to do the washing up.
“Ianto, I’ve got a dishwasher. Just give me a minute to change and we can go into the hub. Why don’t you call a cab and gather your things up?”
The man nodded and let the sink fill as he pulled out his phone. Tosh almost said something again, but it seemed like too much work to convince him to use the landline that she paid for and never used, so she slipped off into her room to put on something more professional than pyjamas for work.
They were the last ones to arrive at the hub. Jack was waiting for them outside the Millennium Centre when their taxi pulled up and he shoved a folded bill at the cabbie and pulled the two of them onto the invisible lift as soon as the man's back was turned, and they sunk slowly into the base beneath the street with Jack remaining strangely silent for the entire trip.
Gwen was lying on the couch but she sat up and made an effort to look alert when they were all the way down, pressing a hand over her side as she shifted positions to lean against the backrest. “Morning Tosh, Ianto. We were wondering if you were going to turn up.”
Tosh stepped off the lift and crossed her arms over her chest protectively. It was so big and open in here and there were too many different directions to look in and too many hiding places. “It’s not quite morning any more Gwen. Are you okay?” She shot a glance at the place when she knew the gunshot wound was and despite Gwen’s obvious favouring of that area, there didn’t seem to be an abundance of bandaging under her sweater, which oddly enough looked a lot like the one that Owen had worn the week before.
Tosh heard Owen’s voice before she saw him.
“Jack, are you back with them yet?” he asked as he climbed the stairs from the Autopsy bay, dressed in jeans and shirt with a lab coat thrown over top. Once he was at the top of the stairs he saw them. “Oh good, now you two are here. Come down here so I can finally be allowed to go home.”
There was a glance shared between Owen and Gwen at the word “home” but Tosh wrote it off as something that had been said earlier. They were going to need a cover story for Gwen’s wound, and another one for why they were out in the Breacon Beacons in the first places. Almost unconsciously she stepped towards her computer.
Owen’s hand was surprisingly gentle on her shoulder as he stopped her from going to her desk and then turned her towards the autopsy bay. “Come on Tosh, it’ll just take a minute and then you can go play with your computer.”
She let him guide her down the stairs and kept an eye on floor above. Jack and Ianto had moved much closer together now and even still they seemed to be leaning closer together than they needed to be as Ianto showed Jack something on his PDA.
When Owen had finished examining her, sending her back up the stairs with four days’ worth of painkillers, Tosh sat on the couch and watched as Owen beckoned Ianto down to the autopsy bay. It might have been her addled brain, but she was reasonably certain that Jack had his arm entwined with Ianto’s and that they were holding hands until Owen insisted that everyone stopped holding the rest of his day up.
Tosh went home alone. Her flat seemed empty without Ianto but she wrote it off as post-cannibalistic villager stress and having nothing to do with being lonely.
It wasn’t fair. Suzie had been her friend at first, but then she had slept with Owen and even if Tosh could have forgiven her for that, there was the glove and Suzie had just pulled away from everyone. Ianto had gotten along with her in a quiet way, but if Jack had claimed him then he wouldn’t have time for her anymore. Gwen had her life and Owen would die before he noticed her.
Just the cannibals, it was just the cannibals. Tosh huffed, she would keep telling herself that. There were no lingering touches between Jack and Ianto and she had to have imagined the glances and significant looks that Gwen and Owen were trading. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t happening. As long as she kept thinking everything was all right, it would be.
Noticing
Not thinking was working. Tosh hadn’t noticed anything else between Owen and Gwen and she’d reached out to Ianto and he had reached back and they pulled each other up sometimes. He had been spending more and more time at the hub and Tosh knew that he was seeing Jack, but he made time for her a couple nights a month and she was happy.
They were meeting tonight. She was already at the pub, a glass of white wine sitting on the bar in front of her. Ianto would be here to join her soon, he always arrived within a minute of their agreed upon meeting time. It was nice to relax with a colleague, to be able to talk about the horror and the wonder that they saw at Torchwood every day. She relished these casual times, it was almost like her old, old life, before prison, before the Ministry of Defence, it was like when she been doing her first degree and having fun at uni.
Ten minutes later and she had only swallowed a mouthful of the wine. She got out her phone to pass the time and checked. Ianto had two minutes to make it before he was late. She took another sip of the wine and opened the rift monitoring program to see if her improvements to the mobile version had helped at all.
Five minutes later and she doubled checked her voice mail and text messages, but there was nothing from Ianto. She shrugged it off and continued to make the most of her wine, so what if she had already gotten started by the time Ianto arrived, he was late.
Twenty minutes after Ianto was supposed to have joined her at the bar, Tosh gave in and ordered a sandwich and a refill on her wine glass. She checked the rift predictor, if something had come up, if Ianto had been needed on an alert, she could forgive that. But there had been no spikes or changes. She had gotten stood up, she leaned forward and rested her head on her hand.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. Why would a young man who might have been with Jack, or off partying and enjoying himself, want to spend his nights with an older woman, listening to her complain about the terrible things that happened on Earth and countless other worlds, or rattle on about beautiful things that no one else would ever get to see?
So when a striking blond in a short jean skirt came up beside her and leaned in like they were close friends, or maybe something more and said, “So the guy over there’s been staring at me all evening and I’ve told him he’s wasting his time, but he’s not listening!”
Tosh decided that she needed more friends, or maybe something more, so she let the woman buy her a drink and she followed her to one of the booths and let the woman keep her in drinks and snacks. It seemed so much easier to connect with her, it was so simple and straight forward, and Tosh barely hesitated when the woman offered up a necklace for her to try on.
Hurting
The next morning, Ianto apologized for missing their meal, but Tosh was beyond caring about that and more focused on Owen and Gwen and the secret they had been hiding. Mary had shown her a whole new world, one that she didn’t even have to leave Earth to see. What was a drink and a conversation with Ianto compared to that?
“It’s fine Ianto, maybe we should just stop meeting for a while. I’ve got a lot of work to do now and I’m sure that you do to.” She accepted the coffee he had been offering her and turned back to her desk. It wasn’t completely a lie, she did have a lot of work to do, but it wasn’t so much that it would have stopped her from going out with him for a break.
The night that Mary died, Tosh went home alone, crying. She was alone now and she had been in love and it had all been a cruel trick and she was going to be alone forever. The emotional pain was burning in her chest and when she closed her eyes she could hear Mary’s voice in her head and feel the knife against her neck. She felt betrayed and the relationship she had discovered between Owen and Gwen just added to the hurt and it hurt so much more now than it had a few days ago when she'd finally clued in.
There was a knock on her door at two o’clock in the morning. Tosh grabbed her gun and moved to the door, something in her wanting Mary to be on the other side of it. She looked through the peep hole, and the head of dark hair made her heart fall again. She opened it, letting her gun hand fall to the side.
Ianto raised an eyebrow at the gun. “Expecting someone in particular Tosh?” He raised his hand, showing her the wine bottle, her favourite kind.
She stood aside to let him in, going to the kitchen to retrieve glasses, corkscrew and to check and see if she actually had anything to eat, normal things like shopping had fallen to the wayside when Mary had been a part of her life. She did manage to find a slightly squished half loaf of bed and some jam and she brought those out to the living room.
Ianto had opened the wine and it was sitting open on the table. He’d taken the bag off his shoulder and was pulling out a variety of items: chocolate biscuits, crisps, a couple DVDs, none that she could recognize from across the room. She offered him a glass of the wine and he gave her a box of chocolates in return.
They sat on her couch, the movie playing in front of them, but Tosh really couldn’t see it. Ianto had his arm around her and oddly enough, it was reminding her of her father comforting her after a nightmare when she was a child. He refilled her glass twice, and there was always a plate of junk food in front of her, it was comforting, and these memories were starting to edge out the ones of Mary and the fun that they’d had together.
As the light from the rising sun started to peep in through the windows, Ianto replaced her glass of wine with a bottle of water, turned the squished bread into toast with jam, and insisted that she eat at least some of it.
Tosh sat curled up on the couch, drinking her water while he tidied up the things that he had brought. Then he helped her to her feet and guided her into her bedroom. She didn’t remember putting clean sheets on the bed, or airing out the smell of Mary’s cigarettes, but somehow both tasks had been accomplished and as Ianto helped her into bed she wondered how she had ever overlooked his friendship before. He did care about her and she had been stupid. She should have trusted him and believed him when he had missed their stupid dinner.
“Tosh, are you okay?” he asked her, stopping before turning out the light.
She thought for a moment, in the past twenty-four hours she had nearly died, been betrayed and eavesdropped on countless people’s personal thoughts. “I will be Ianto. Thank you.”
He nodded and turned out the light, shutting the door most of the way behind him. Tosh closed her eyes and hoped that he would tell Jack that she wasn’t coming in today, it had just been too much, and now she was running very low on sleep.
Their meetings outside of work continued through the next few months and ever so slowly and painfully Tosh got over Mary and even more slowly, Ianto opened up to her. They stopped meeting out in pubs, Tosh didn’t want anyone to overhear them and she had lost her appetite for the places that they had used to frequent. Now they took turns bringing takeaways to each other’s houses and renting videos to watch when the conversation became repetitive.
The days that they met always seemed brighter and the time passed more quickly. Tosh couldn’t remember a time when she had felt this content since before she had gone to work for the MoD. And now she had someone to confide in and they both could lean on each other. After Owen had almost died fighting Weevils, they had spent the night curled on her couch watching comedies and the night that she had come back from the past, Ianto had taken her out to a nice restaurant and treated her to a movie afterwards.
Things had been going so well. Nothing too terrible had happened, they’d settled several alien refugee families and Tosh found herself half hoping and half believing that the year might continue like this and end on a high note. If events followed in this pattern, Jack had promised them all vacations, a few days off to relax and stop thinking about aliens.
And then Jack left. Tosh was left feeling cold and empty inside and one glance at Ianto’s face amplified her own pain and she could barely begin to imagine what he was feeling. She left him alone the first two nights, she wasn’t even sure if he had gone home or just stayed at the hub, waiting for Jack to return.
On the third night, she bought a bottle of his favourite scotch and several of beer and picked up curry and Chinese takeaway on her way to his apartment. His neighbourhood was quiet and the short walk up to his flat helped her clear her head.
What was she supposed to say in this situation? Jack wasn’t dead and he had left Ianto, but he hadn’t dumped him or cheated on him. He was just gone, but he might come back. Tosh shook her head and raised a hand to knock on the wooden door, but it opened before she could.
“Tosh.” Ianto pulled the door open and showed her in, taking the bags of food and alcohol into the kitchen. “I’m not really fit to have company right now. You might just want to leave me alone and come back later.”
Tosh followed him into the kitchen. “Nonsense Ianto. You were there for me when I needed you and I think that we both need someone right now. I don’t want to feel more alone. We need to stay friends, I need to be close to someone.”
Ianto laughed, or maybe it was a choked sob. “Right, Jack was there was for everyone. He saved you, he saved me. He let us all live our lives, he gave us second chances. We did we do to deserve him? What did I do to deserve him?” He looked to her for guidance, tears pooling in his eyes.
Tosh bit her lip and pulled plates from his cupboard. “I don’t know Ianto. Let’s have something to eat. Want to watch a movie?”
He nodded and headed into the living room, setting up his DVD player and finding something that they hadn’t seen before. Tosh joined him with two heaping plates of food and two open beers; she put the food on his coffee table and sank onto the couch, leaning against her friend.
The movie wasn’t something that really held her attention. It was a light comedy, the sort of thing that she didn’t usually watch and didn’t find all that interesting. But with the warmth from Ianto’s body pressed up against her side and the heat from the curry burning pleasantly through her mouth and throat, the movie really didn’t matter.
By the time that the movie and their meal had finished, it was dark out and late. Ianto had pulled the comforter off his bed at some point and they were wrapped together in the warm cocoon. Tosh liked the feeling of being close to people, it made her feel comfortable and safe and relaxed in a way that she hadn’t felt since Mary had come into her bed.
It seemed simple and obvious to turn to face her friend and to stroke his face and then to lean in and press her lips against his. It was odd at first, it felt forced and unnatural, but then he was kissing her back and she was warm all over and pleased and contented and relaxed.
She wrapped an arm around him and their fingers met and meshed together in a tight grip, each holding the other as if they were afraid that they would disappear if they let go. Her lips were aching from the pressure and she could almost feel the bones in her hand cracking under the strain of their combined grips.
They rolled off the couch and onto the floor, hitting it a little harder than was comfortable. Still wrapped in the comforter, Tosh tugged at Ianto's sweatpants and he pulled her shirt over her head and they pressed their bodies together, sharing the heat and feeling close more than anything.
Ianto rolled them again and they hit the coffee table, pushing it out of the way. One of the plates slid off and hit the floor on the opposite side. Tosh glanced at it and then focused back on Ianto, letting herself be pulled into a tight embrace and holding onto him with everything that she had.
She let Ianto pull her up and they started stumbling towards his bedroom, still entangled in the comforter and their hands painfully tight together. Tosh collapsed back onto his bed, her body shaking and wanting and feeling so much all at once. He paused for a moment, awkwardly removing his clothes one handed before climbing into the bed next to her.
There were picture frames on his nightstand. Tosh hadn’t noticed them at first. But as he undressed, they were there; staring at her and now she couldn’t get their eyes off them. The pretty black woman whose eyes still held emotion and depth and the ever grinning and slightly winking face of their former leader. She turned her head, but she could feel them following her, questioning her choices.
Tosh let go of Ianto’s hand and pulled away, getting out of his bed. “What are we doing?” she asked, staring at him and glancing down at her own half clothed self. Ianto’s eyes were full of lust and passion and he didn’t really seem to register her words.
“Ianto. Ianto!” Tosh pulled the comforter around her and sat next to him on the bed wondering where she was going from here. She looked at the photos on his nightstand. “Jack is going to come back. Ianto, can you do this to him?”
The second the words left her mouth, she regretted them. This had nothing to do with that relationship; this was to stop feeling alone, to be together with another person and to stop feeling cold.
He didn’t look at her and his voice took on the cold and dead quality that it had in all the time since
Jack had left. “I think you should leave now Tosh. Go, please.”
She moved her hand to touch his, but he leaned away from her and pulled the sheets around him, trying to ignore her. Tosh hurried back to the living room, grabbing the clothes she had shed through the hallway and pulling them on before slipping out the door and slamming it behind her.
Tosh took the rest of the weekend off, she didn’t really need to go in and take care of the computer systems every day and no one called her to report a disaster, so she spent her time in bed, regretting the things at she had done and said. There was no way she could take it back and now her only real friendship was over.
(written for Torchwood minibang, never got the art done, so never posted)
Wordcount: ~8k
Characters/Pairings: Ianto/Tosh, Tosh/OFC, Tosh/Mary, Ianto/Jack, Owen/Gwen
Warnings: Sex, Violence
Rating: R (kinda)
Summary: Begins after Countryside and continues to the start of the Year That Never Was, touching on important events in Toshiko's life and the way that her experiences shaped and changed her. As the months pass, her budding relationship with Ianto turns into something more until she ruins everything.
Beta: xandraklr
Part 2
Dealing
“Go on then, it isn’t going to drink itself.” Ianto nodded at the glass with two fingers of whiskey sitting on the table between them. His own glass had already been emptied twice and he was rolling the third between his bruised and battered fingers.
Tosh looked down at the glass and wondered if the liquid really would be able to help her problems and make the night pass quickly and gently. She knew that whenever she went to sleep there would be nightmares, now it was a question of how long she could put off sleeping and how bad the nightmares would be when they finally arrived. There were other questions too, like why did Ianto keep whiskey in the Tourist Office.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? My head’s not all that clear right now, I probably should ask Owen first or look it up somewhere.” Tosh seemed to remember a bottle of pills and a warning about something after the Torchwood medic had examined her, but it was all a blur in her head right now.
Ianto produced a pill bottle from his pocket. “You haven’t taken anything, and do you really think that Owen would ever advise against alcohol?”
“Where’s a phone? I’ll just give him a quick call.” Tosh began patting down her pockets, forgetting the bruises and tender spots and wincing as she touched her sides.
Ianto grabbed one of her hands, she wasn’t sure if it was the right or the left, and placed the glass in it. The container was cold in her fingers and the sounds of the liquid sloshing around cut through everything else that had been invading her mind.
“Just drink it Tosh. Or take some of these pills and I’ll see that you get home.”
She downed the glass and felt herself relax a moment later, after the alcohol had burned its way down her throat and settled comfortably in her stomach, warming her and smoothing out her aches and pains. Once it had all settled, she stood up and pulled her coat on, wincing again as she had to stretch her arms and shoulders to get her coat back on.
She picked up her purse and held it loosely in her swollen fingers. “Home sounds good, let’s go home Ianto.”
For a moment it looked like he was going to protest, but then he carefully got up, put on his own jacket and led the way up to the Tourist Office, stopping to pull a wad of cash out of one of the drawers in his desk. At her curious look he grimaced and explained, “Figured a cab would be best.”
They spent the cab ride in silence, apart from the frequent gasps as sore parts of their anatomy were jostled and parts that wanted to stay still had to bounce up and down against the hard and unforgiving back seat of the vehicle.
Ianto paid the fare from his wad of cash and got out at her apartment. Tosh wondered if he was going to tell the cabbie to wait and walk her up, but he slung his bag over his shoulder and they walked to her building's door and up the stairs together.
Her hands shook as they stood outside the door to her flat and she fumbled with her keys. Ianto put an arm around her waist and her fingers stabilized, she was at home and there was no one waiting for them inside, it was going to be all right she told herself as the door swung open and the smell of the bacon she had made for breakfast the morning that they had left greeted them.
She couldn’t help it. Tosh dropped her bag just inside the door, pulled out of Ianto’s protective embrace and ran for the bathroom, collapsing on the cold tile in front of the toilet as the burning liquor made its interest in coming back up known.
But then the smell dissipated, replaced with something clean and medical smelling and the heaving stopped as her stomach and mind both calmed and returned to the places that they were supposed to be. She leaned back against the wall and Ianto sunk down to sit on the floor next to her. He seemed paler than usual and there was an aerosol spray can in one of his hands, some kind of disinfectant that she kept under the sink and couldn’t remember buying or using.
The silence hung in the air between them, uncomfortably at first, but it settled down with her emotions and the turbulence that the events of the past two days had pulled up and down and in every which direction began to stop. The end of the storm was in sight. She reached out her fingers and took his hands in hers, feeling the swelling and knots that the events had given him and how they matched her own battered hands.
Tosh didn’t know how long they sat on the floor in the bathroom, but when her legs cramped from being folded under her and she was shivering from being pressed against the cold tile of the wall and not moving with the bruises and aches she already had, she got to her feet and pulled Ianto up with her.
“Is there anything that I can do for you?” She asked him softly, he had been everywhere when they got back to the hub, unloading things, fetching and carrying for Owen and bringing out rounds of tea with dashes of stronger things. But she couldn’t really remember him sitting down or resting, and then everyone had left and they were still there, waiting for something.
He shook his head and then put a hand to his forehead. “Shouldn’t have done that.” He seemed to pale another shade and leaned back against the wall, though he managed to remain standing.
Tosh picked the aerosol spray up off the floor and set on the side of the sink. She got a new toothbrush out of the cabinet and pulled out the toothpaste and a clean flannel. “You get ready for bed and I’ll fix you a place to sleep.”
Ianto supported himself against the sink. “I should go home, or back to the hub to finish the unpacking.” But when he tried to stand without leaning, he nearly fell over and Tosh didn’t have to say anything for him to turn the tap on and splash the water on his face.
She tossed some blankets on the sofa and put an extra pillow on top of it all before closing her bedroom door and collapsing onto her own bed. It felt like years had passed since she had gotten any rest, but it hadn’t even been a full 48 hours since they had left for the Beacons. After the trials of the past two days her bed felt softer than ever and she burrowed down into the blankets, letting those feelings carry her away and shutting any of her new memories completely out of her mind.
“Tosh, shh, it’s okay. It’s okay now. Shh, you’re okay Tosh. We’re safe.”
The voice was just barely a whisper on the edge of her consciousness, but as the words repeated it grew stronger and she let her arms and legs relax and the hands that had been on her lightened their grip and drew back a bit. She opened her eyes to the dim light of a single lamp in her own bedroom. There was a large shadow on the opposite wall, thrown by the figure sitting on the edge of her bed, pinning her arms down to the mattress gently but firmly.
She took a deep breath and regretted when it brought pain to her ribs and attention to the dry and hoarseness of her throat. "Ianto?"
He let go of her completely and leaned back, now that he was in the light she could see him and it definitely was Ianto. A bit of colour seemed to have returned to his face but there were still dark circles under his eyes, although those might just have been bruises.
Tosh sat up and grasped hold of his hands again. “Come here Ianto.” She pulled on his hands and he didn’t really resist as she pulled on his arms and he sat next to her on the bed. With one hand she reached for his face, sharply drawing in a breath when the muscles in her shoulder protested the movement.
“Nightmare?” he asked, watching her face carefully as she nodded.
“There are too many nightmares in this job.”
“I know. And we all had our own nightmares before Torchwood.”
Tosh lay back down in her bed, still holding tightly onto Ianto’s hand. “Join me. We don't have to face them alone anymore.”
He didn’t protest and a moment later, after a rearranging of the blankets that sent a wave of chilly air at her, he was next to her and holding her hand just as tightly as she was holding his, both of them trying to keep the nightmares away for a few moments longer.
Changing
Ianto was sleeping peacefully when Tosh woke up, her heart pounding in her chest and images of her family’s heads sitting on the shelves in a refrigerator still fresh in her mind. Sometime during the night they had moved around quite a bit and she was on the outside edge of the bed now. She got out slowly and carefully, leaving the man to sleep as she made her way out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.
She put the kettle on first, staring at the fridge ever so often, trying to find the courage to open it and pull out the milk, but unable to, after her dream and the other fridge from recent events, the one that had really been full of things that she didn’t want to see ever again. When the kettle chimed she turned it off quickly, stopping it from waking Ianto. She made tea without milk and sat it on the table, not interested in eating or drinking anything.
It took her another fifteen minutes to be able to open the fridge. Tosh put on a pair of cleaning gloves from under the sink, tied a scarf around her mouth and nose and got a garbage bag all set up before she pulled open the door and started tossing things into the trash.
Out went all the sandwich meats, the bacon, the leftover fried rice with bits of ham in it and the jar of olives because they just looked too much like eyeballs. She almost gagged when she opened the freezer and imagined the frozen meat products being cooked and the smell filling her flat. A frozen steak, premade dinners and a carton of frozen eggrolls joined the other meat products in her garbage bag.
She tied off the top and put it out in the hall. She wasn’t dressed enough to take it down to the bins, but there was no way that much meat could stay in her house. Tosh went back to the kitchen and put some bread in the toaster. Bread was safe.
As the timer was ticking away on the toaster, she refilled the kettle and put it back on. The first batch of tea she had made was had steeped for too long and by now it would have gone cold. She looked over the kitchen and pulled out two sets of tableware and the jam, wishing that she knew what Ianto liked for breakfast, or what he liked on his toast.
He was still sleeping in her bed. The dark circles under his eyes had receded a bit, but the bruising around his face was as dark as ever and the angry red line that looked like a smile on his neck was still painful looking and inflamed. She sat on the edge of the bed and wondered if touching him would be a bad idea.
“Ianto, it’s morning.” Tosh glanced at the clock, it wouldn’t be morning for much longer and Jack was going to want them to show up for work eventually. “I’m making breakfast, come have something to eat, get up.” She reached a hand across the bed and touched his shoulder.
He sat up and turned to face her a second later. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
Tosh pulled away from him and stood up. “It’s okay Ianto. I’ve got some toast and tea going, and we should head into hub in a bit. Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll find you something to wear.”
Ianto nodded and blinked tiredly for a moment before climbing out of her bed and stumbling slowly out of the room. She waited until she heard the water start running in the shower before opening her closet and considering the clothes inside. Tosh really didn’t have much in a size that would fit Ianto. But she had large sweatpants and sweatshirts that she had worn after leaving prison when everything else had felt too restricting. She left the clothes on the bed and retreated to the kitchen, hoping that he would join her soon.
She heard the water shut off in the shower as she was playing with the teabags and she listened as Ianto’s wet feet slapped down the hall and as he closed the door to the bedroom behind him. She heard the door open again and when he stepped into the kitchen she let the teabag fall back into the mug and handed it to him.
He thanked her with a nod and picked up one of the plain pieces of toast and nibbled on a corner. “Good morning Tosh. Have you heard from Jack yet?”
“No.” Tosh sat at the table and offered him the seat opposite with a sweep of her hand. “Last night he said to come in at some point today, so I figured we could take a cab into the hub together since both our cars are still there and all.”
Ianto nodded, his mouth full of toast. They sat in silence and made quick work of the hot water in the kettle and the stack of toast on the table. Wordlessly, Ianto cleared the table and Tosh didn’t say anything until he started to run a sink full of water to do the washing up.
“Ianto, I’ve got a dishwasher. Just give me a minute to change and we can go into the hub. Why don’t you call a cab and gather your things up?”
The man nodded and let the sink fill as he pulled out his phone. Tosh almost said something again, but it seemed like too much work to convince him to use the landline that she paid for and never used, so she slipped off into her room to put on something more professional than pyjamas for work.
They were the last ones to arrive at the hub. Jack was waiting for them outside the Millennium Centre when their taxi pulled up and he shoved a folded bill at the cabbie and pulled the two of them onto the invisible lift as soon as the man's back was turned, and they sunk slowly into the base beneath the street with Jack remaining strangely silent for the entire trip.
Gwen was lying on the couch but she sat up and made an effort to look alert when they were all the way down, pressing a hand over her side as she shifted positions to lean against the backrest. “Morning Tosh, Ianto. We were wondering if you were going to turn up.”
Tosh stepped off the lift and crossed her arms over her chest protectively. It was so big and open in here and there were too many different directions to look in and too many hiding places. “It’s not quite morning any more Gwen. Are you okay?” She shot a glance at the place when she knew the gunshot wound was and despite Gwen’s obvious favouring of that area, there didn’t seem to be an abundance of bandaging under her sweater, which oddly enough looked a lot like the one that Owen had worn the week before.
Tosh heard Owen’s voice before she saw him.
“Jack, are you back with them yet?” he asked as he climbed the stairs from the Autopsy bay, dressed in jeans and shirt with a lab coat thrown over top. Once he was at the top of the stairs he saw them. “Oh good, now you two are here. Come down here so I can finally be allowed to go home.”
There was a glance shared between Owen and Gwen at the word “home” but Tosh wrote it off as something that had been said earlier. They were going to need a cover story for Gwen’s wound, and another one for why they were out in the Breacon Beacons in the first places. Almost unconsciously she stepped towards her computer.
Owen’s hand was surprisingly gentle on her shoulder as he stopped her from going to her desk and then turned her towards the autopsy bay. “Come on Tosh, it’ll just take a minute and then you can go play with your computer.”
She let him guide her down the stairs and kept an eye on floor above. Jack and Ianto had moved much closer together now and even still they seemed to be leaning closer together than they needed to be as Ianto showed Jack something on his PDA.
When Owen had finished examining her, sending her back up the stairs with four days’ worth of painkillers, Tosh sat on the couch and watched as Owen beckoned Ianto down to the autopsy bay. It might have been her addled brain, but she was reasonably certain that Jack had his arm entwined with Ianto’s and that they were holding hands until Owen insisted that everyone stopped holding the rest of his day up.
Tosh went home alone. Her flat seemed empty without Ianto but she wrote it off as post-cannibalistic villager stress and having nothing to do with being lonely.
It wasn’t fair. Suzie had been her friend at first, but then she had slept with Owen and even if Tosh could have forgiven her for that, there was the glove and Suzie had just pulled away from everyone. Ianto had gotten along with her in a quiet way, but if Jack had claimed him then he wouldn’t have time for her anymore. Gwen had her life and Owen would die before he noticed her.
Just the cannibals, it was just the cannibals. Tosh huffed, she would keep telling herself that. There were no lingering touches between Jack and Ianto and she had to have imagined the glances and significant looks that Gwen and Owen were trading. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t happening. As long as she kept thinking everything was all right, it would be.
Noticing
Not thinking was working. Tosh hadn’t noticed anything else between Owen and Gwen and she’d reached out to Ianto and he had reached back and they pulled each other up sometimes. He had been spending more and more time at the hub and Tosh knew that he was seeing Jack, but he made time for her a couple nights a month and she was happy.
They were meeting tonight. She was already at the pub, a glass of white wine sitting on the bar in front of her. Ianto would be here to join her soon, he always arrived within a minute of their agreed upon meeting time. It was nice to relax with a colleague, to be able to talk about the horror and the wonder that they saw at Torchwood every day. She relished these casual times, it was almost like her old, old life, before prison, before the Ministry of Defence, it was like when she been doing her first degree and having fun at uni.
Ten minutes later and she had only swallowed a mouthful of the wine. She got out her phone to pass the time and checked. Ianto had two minutes to make it before he was late. She took another sip of the wine and opened the rift monitoring program to see if her improvements to the mobile version had helped at all.
Five minutes later and she doubled checked her voice mail and text messages, but there was nothing from Ianto. She shrugged it off and continued to make the most of her wine, so what if she had already gotten started by the time Ianto arrived, he was late.
Twenty minutes after Ianto was supposed to have joined her at the bar, Tosh gave in and ordered a sandwich and a refill on her wine glass. She checked the rift predictor, if something had come up, if Ianto had been needed on an alert, she could forgive that. But there had been no spikes or changes. She had gotten stood up, she leaned forward and rested her head on her hand.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. Why would a young man who might have been with Jack, or off partying and enjoying himself, want to spend his nights with an older woman, listening to her complain about the terrible things that happened on Earth and countless other worlds, or rattle on about beautiful things that no one else would ever get to see?
So when a striking blond in a short jean skirt came up beside her and leaned in like they were close friends, or maybe something more and said, “So the guy over there’s been staring at me all evening and I’ve told him he’s wasting his time, but he’s not listening!”
Tosh decided that she needed more friends, or maybe something more, so she let the woman buy her a drink and she followed her to one of the booths and let the woman keep her in drinks and snacks. It seemed so much easier to connect with her, it was so simple and straight forward, and Tosh barely hesitated when the woman offered up a necklace for her to try on.
Hurting
The next morning, Ianto apologized for missing their meal, but Tosh was beyond caring about that and more focused on Owen and Gwen and the secret they had been hiding. Mary had shown her a whole new world, one that she didn’t even have to leave Earth to see. What was a drink and a conversation with Ianto compared to that?
“It’s fine Ianto, maybe we should just stop meeting for a while. I’ve got a lot of work to do now and I’m sure that you do to.” She accepted the coffee he had been offering her and turned back to her desk. It wasn’t completely a lie, she did have a lot of work to do, but it wasn’t so much that it would have stopped her from going out with him for a break.
The night that Mary died, Tosh went home alone, crying. She was alone now and she had been in love and it had all been a cruel trick and she was going to be alone forever. The emotional pain was burning in her chest and when she closed her eyes she could hear Mary’s voice in her head and feel the knife against her neck. She felt betrayed and the relationship she had discovered between Owen and Gwen just added to the hurt and it hurt so much more now than it had a few days ago when she'd finally clued in.
There was a knock on her door at two o’clock in the morning. Tosh grabbed her gun and moved to the door, something in her wanting Mary to be on the other side of it. She looked through the peep hole, and the head of dark hair made her heart fall again. She opened it, letting her gun hand fall to the side.
Ianto raised an eyebrow at the gun. “Expecting someone in particular Tosh?” He raised his hand, showing her the wine bottle, her favourite kind.
She stood aside to let him in, going to the kitchen to retrieve glasses, corkscrew and to check and see if she actually had anything to eat, normal things like shopping had fallen to the wayside when Mary had been a part of her life. She did manage to find a slightly squished half loaf of bed and some jam and she brought those out to the living room.
Ianto had opened the wine and it was sitting open on the table. He’d taken the bag off his shoulder and was pulling out a variety of items: chocolate biscuits, crisps, a couple DVDs, none that she could recognize from across the room. She offered him a glass of the wine and he gave her a box of chocolates in return.
They sat on her couch, the movie playing in front of them, but Tosh really couldn’t see it. Ianto had his arm around her and oddly enough, it was reminding her of her father comforting her after a nightmare when she was a child. He refilled her glass twice, and there was always a plate of junk food in front of her, it was comforting, and these memories were starting to edge out the ones of Mary and the fun that they’d had together.
As the light from the rising sun started to peep in through the windows, Ianto replaced her glass of wine with a bottle of water, turned the squished bread into toast with jam, and insisted that she eat at least some of it.
Tosh sat curled up on the couch, drinking her water while he tidied up the things that he had brought. Then he helped her to her feet and guided her into her bedroom. She didn’t remember putting clean sheets on the bed, or airing out the smell of Mary’s cigarettes, but somehow both tasks had been accomplished and as Ianto helped her into bed she wondered how she had ever overlooked his friendship before. He did care about her and she had been stupid. She should have trusted him and believed him when he had missed their stupid dinner.
“Tosh, are you okay?” he asked her, stopping before turning out the light.
She thought for a moment, in the past twenty-four hours she had nearly died, been betrayed and eavesdropped on countless people’s personal thoughts. “I will be Ianto. Thank you.”
He nodded and turned out the light, shutting the door most of the way behind him. Tosh closed her eyes and hoped that he would tell Jack that she wasn’t coming in today, it had just been too much, and now she was running very low on sleep.
Their meetings outside of work continued through the next few months and ever so slowly and painfully Tosh got over Mary and even more slowly, Ianto opened up to her. They stopped meeting out in pubs, Tosh didn’t want anyone to overhear them and she had lost her appetite for the places that they had used to frequent. Now they took turns bringing takeaways to each other’s houses and renting videos to watch when the conversation became repetitive.
The days that they met always seemed brighter and the time passed more quickly. Tosh couldn’t remember a time when she had felt this content since before she had gone to work for the MoD. And now she had someone to confide in and they both could lean on each other. After Owen had almost died fighting Weevils, they had spent the night curled on her couch watching comedies and the night that she had come back from the past, Ianto had taken her out to a nice restaurant and treated her to a movie afterwards.
Things had been going so well. Nothing too terrible had happened, they’d settled several alien refugee families and Tosh found herself half hoping and half believing that the year might continue like this and end on a high note. If events followed in this pattern, Jack had promised them all vacations, a few days off to relax and stop thinking about aliens.
And then Jack left. Tosh was left feeling cold and empty inside and one glance at Ianto’s face amplified her own pain and she could barely begin to imagine what he was feeling. She left him alone the first two nights, she wasn’t even sure if he had gone home or just stayed at the hub, waiting for Jack to return.
On the third night, she bought a bottle of his favourite scotch and several of beer and picked up curry and Chinese takeaway on her way to his apartment. His neighbourhood was quiet and the short walk up to his flat helped her clear her head.
What was she supposed to say in this situation? Jack wasn’t dead and he had left Ianto, but he hadn’t dumped him or cheated on him. He was just gone, but he might come back. Tosh shook her head and raised a hand to knock on the wooden door, but it opened before she could.
“Tosh.” Ianto pulled the door open and showed her in, taking the bags of food and alcohol into the kitchen. “I’m not really fit to have company right now. You might just want to leave me alone and come back later.”
Tosh followed him into the kitchen. “Nonsense Ianto. You were there for me when I needed you and I think that we both need someone right now. I don’t want to feel more alone. We need to stay friends, I need to be close to someone.”
Ianto laughed, or maybe it was a choked sob. “Right, Jack was there was for everyone. He saved you, he saved me. He let us all live our lives, he gave us second chances. We did we do to deserve him? What did I do to deserve him?” He looked to her for guidance, tears pooling in his eyes.
Tosh bit her lip and pulled plates from his cupboard. “I don’t know Ianto. Let’s have something to eat. Want to watch a movie?”
He nodded and headed into the living room, setting up his DVD player and finding something that they hadn’t seen before. Tosh joined him with two heaping plates of food and two open beers; she put the food on his coffee table and sank onto the couch, leaning against her friend.
The movie wasn’t something that really held her attention. It was a light comedy, the sort of thing that she didn’t usually watch and didn’t find all that interesting. But with the warmth from Ianto’s body pressed up against her side and the heat from the curry burning pleasantly through her mouth and throat, the movie really didn’t matter.
By the time that the movie and their meal had finished, it was dark out and late. Ianto had pulled the comforter off his bed at some point and they were wrapped together in the warm cocoon. Tosh liked the feeling of being close to people, it made her feel comfortable and safe and relaxed in a way that she hadn’t felt since Mary had come into her bed.
It seemed simple and obvious to turn to face her friend and to stroke his face and then to lean in and press her lips against his. It was odd at first, it felt forced and unnatural, but then he was kissing her back and she was warm all over and pleased and contented and relaxed.
She wrapped an arm around him and their fingers met and meshed together in a tight grip, each holding the other as if they were afraid that they would disappear if they let go. Her lips were aching from the pressure and she could almost feel the bones in her hand cracking under the strain of their combined grips.
They rolled off the couch and onto the floor, hitting it a little harder than was comfortable. Still wrapped in the comforter, Tosh tugged at Ianto's sweatpants and he pulled her shirt over her head and they pressed their bodies together, sharing the heat and feeling close more than anything.
Ianto rolled them again and they hit the coffee table, pushing it out of the way. One of the plates slid off and hit the floor on the opposite side. Tosh glanced at it and then focused back on Ianto, letting herself be pulled into a tight embrace and holding onto him with everything that she had.
She let Ianto pull her up and they started stumbling towards his bedroom, still entangled in the comforter and their hands painfully tight together. Tosh collapsed back onto his bed, her body shaking and wanting and feeling so much all at once. He paused for a moment, awkwardly removing his clothes one handed before climbing into the bed next to her.
There were picture frames on his nightstand. Tosh hadn’t noticed them at first. But as he undressed, they were there; staring at her and now she couldn’t get their eyes off them. The pretty black woman whose eyes still held emotion and depth and the ever grinning and slightly winking face of their former leader. She turned her head, but she could feel them following her, questioning her choices.
Tosh let go of Ianto’s hand and pulled away, getting out of his bed. “What are we doing?” she asked, staring at him and glancing down at her own half clothed self. Ianto’s eyes were full of lust and passion and he didn’t really seem to register her words.
“Ianto. Ianto!” Tosh pulled the comforter around her and sat next to him on the bed wondering where she was going from here. She looked at the photos on his nightstand. “Jack is going to come back. Ianto, can you do this to him?”
The second the words left her mouth, she regretted them. This had nothing to do with that relationship; this was to stop feeling alone, to be together with another person and to stop feeling cold.
He didn’t look at her and his voice took on the cold and dead quality that it had in all the time since
Jack had left. “I think you should leave now Tosh. Go, please.”
She moved her hand to touch his, but he leaned away from her and pulled the sheets around him, trying to ignore her. Tosh hurried back to the living room, grabbing the clothes she had shed through the hallway and pulling them on before slipping out the door and slamming it behind her.
Tosh took the rest of the weekend off, she didn’t really need to go in and take care of the computer systems every day and no one called her to report a disaster, so she spent her time in bed, regretting the things at she had done and said. There was no way she could take it back and now her only real friendship was over.