FIC: Coming Back to Life
Title: Coming Back to Life
Author: evelyncarver
Word Count: 2261
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Toshiko Sato, Suzie Costello, Jack Harkness
Warnings: Spoilers for S02E11
Table: N/A
Summary: Toshiko has left prison but she nothing to return to. It’s a new life and it’s empty.
Author's Note: I’m wasn’t sure if Tosh was hired before Owen, so I just assumed that she was hired first.
The day that Toshiko Sato left prison was dreary. She could see the dark clouds through the tiny window in her cell and the weather added to her depression. By her best reckoning it had been almost a week since Captain Jack Harkness had pulled her out of her cell and given her real food and promised to get her out. Since then she hadn’t heard from him or seen anyone or spoken to anyone. Sometimes she thought that she had imagined the entire thing, after all, a mysterious man coming to her rescue didn’t seem all that likely when she really thought about it.
So when the door to her cell was opened and a burly female guard gave her a clear plastic bag with some of the things she’d had when they brought her to the prison, Tosh could hardly believe that it was actually happening. The guard hadn’t said anything; she just gave Tosh the bag and took her by the elbow to the main gate of the prison, the moor stretched out around them in every direction. The gate slowly creaked open and the guard gave Tosh a little push outside and then the gates slowly creaked shut.
Tosh turned around to look back at the prison. She was lost now. She had no money, nothing to where besides her orange prison jumpsuit, and no way to get out of there. There was a road though and even though her shoes where only flimsy prison slippers, Tosh looked at the horizon and started walking.
The rain was just starting to pour down when the sounds of a car behind her made Tosh stop and get off the road. The black SUV slowed as it approached her and eventually came to a stop beside her. The window rolled down and the passenger side door popped open. Jack Harkness looked at her over his rolled down window and grinned.
“Don’t just stand that Toshiko Sato, get in.”
He might have been a serial killer or just there to bring her back to prison, but by this point Tosh didn’t care. She was freezing and certain that the pain she was feeling in her feet was coming from blisters and she was hungry and had nothing to lose. Tosh climbed into the SUV and put on her seat belt, she could remember the last time she’d been in a vehicle and it had been years since she’d been driven in the prison van to the prison.
Once she was sitting down, he handed her a thermos and sandwich wrapped in paper. Tosh opened the thermos slowly, the smell of warm, fresh coffee slowing leaking out. She brought it to her nose and allowed the odour to wrap around her before taking a small sip. It was everything that she’d imagined it would be. In the first few weeks of her imprisonment, Tosh had wanted nothing more than to have a cup of coffee and to smell dirt and see the sky. And now that she had it, it was more amazing that she had imagined.
The seat was in was incredibly comfortable compared to the concrete floor of her cell, and the gentle movement of the speeding car was soothing. It was so soothing that within an hour, she felt her eyes drift close and she opened them for a second to glance at Captain Jack Harkness, but his eyes were fixed on the road and he didn’t look at her. Tosh pulled her feet up onto the seat with her and let her eyes close and slowly, the surroundings melted away and replaced themselves with sleep.
A gentle hand on her shoulder woke her. They had stopped in some tiny village she didn’t know and Captain Harkness was had her door open and was standing next to her. He grinned when she opened her eyes.
“Hello Toshiko. I thought you might stay here tonight. I’ve booked you a room at a hotel and had some things sent there for you.”
Tosh stretched, half listening to his words.
“I’ve got to get going tonight. But you can stay here and there will be a car for you in front of the hotel at eleven tomorrow.” Captain Harkness handed her a bag and a card key. “Go on, it will all be okay, I’ve just got to get some residence for you set up and see about getting some of your things from storage.”
She got out of the SUV and put the bag over her shoulder and gripped the room card tightly with both hands. The hotel was a small affair, just a step over a bed and breakfast, but it wasn’t prison and Tosh found her room quickly. There was an actual bed and a real bathroom, with a tub and toilet; she wasn’t sure which made her more excited.
It took three showers and a bath for Tosh to feel more like than actual person. The first two showers filled the bottom of the tub with dark mucky water from the conditions in her cell and the little bottles of shampoo and the tiny bar of soap didn’t do much to make her feel clean, but all the hot water added up and when she emerged two hours later, she felt decent, despite having no clothes to wear.
The orange jumpsuit and her slipper shoes were balled up and stuck in the trash, she never wanted to see them again. And the bag they’d given her at the prison only had her Driving Licence and health card in it, along with a dusty package of mints. She sat cross-legged on the bed and took the bag that Captain Harkness had given her and opened it to reveal a treasure trove.
A full bottle of shampoo and another of conditioner, two bars of soap, a comb, toothbrush and toothpaste, feminine things that she didn’t need right now. There was a bottle of water and another of apple juice and several pieces of fruit and a bag of candy. But underneath all that was a set of her clothes. She didn’t know if he had gone through her history thoroughly enough to discover that these jeans were her favourites, or that this sweater was the last gift that she received from her mother. The shoes weren’t ones she recognised, but they were lined with some sort of thick, soft material that she hoped would further abrade the unused skin on her feet.
The bed was a luxury she’d thought that she would never experience again. Tosh let the blankets, actual blankets, pool around and over her, enjoying the feeling of being safe and protected. She left the light on, turning it off brought back memories of her cell in an instant and Tosh had almost screamed as she fumbled with the light switch to turn it back on. With the light on she that knew nothing would happen and she could see everything around her.
She slept well and woke to the alarm clock at ten o’clock. After a shower and a breakfast of an orange and a cup of hotel room coffee, Tosh dressed in the clothes that Captain Harkness had given her. They were as comfortable as she remembered, even if they were so big that they barely fit her. She twisted the plastic bag that they’d given her in the prison and tied it through her jeans to hold them up and the sweater hung off her shoulders, but it wasn’t going to fall off.
At ten fifty Tosh put the bag over her shoulder and left the key card on her bed and stood in front of the hotel. She wished that she had a watch and made a mental note to pick one up as soon as possible, she hated not knowing what time it was, it made her feel like a prison again.
At eleven o’clock a cab arrived and Tosh got in the back, noticing that she wasn’t expected to pay for this. There was a set fair from this town into Cardiff and her fee had been paid ahead of time, by one CJH. She watched the fields and little villages pass along beside them and happily noticed that the cap driver didn’t try and talk to her.
It was early evening when they arrived in Cardiff. The cab took her to the bay and let her out. Tosh stepped out, smelling the fishy air coming from the water and looked around, not knowing where to go or what to do now.
From out of thin air in front of her, Captain Jack Harkness and another woman, this one with curly dark hair appeared. They walked towards her and took her into the Tourist Information office. Once the door was locked behind them, Captain Harkness grinned at her again.
“Welcome to the team Toshiko. This is Suzie Costello; she’s the only other member of Torchwood right now, a jack,” he winked at Suzie, “of all trades.”
Tosh looked at the woman and wondered whether or not she was shagging their boss or if he was always as physically expressive as he was towards Suzie. She thought about smiling, but her face didn’t really remember how, so she settled for a handshake. “Call me Tosh, that’s what my friends used to call me.”
Jack grinned at her, all white teeth and happy eyes. “All right Tosh, I’ve got you a place and everything that UNIT would give me out of storage is waiting there for you. If you need anything else, Torchwood has arranged for a signing bonus for you, we just need to get you set up with a bank and a new mobile.”
Suzie was pulling on a coat behind the Tourist Information desk. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.” She said at the door before turning around and leaving, shutting it behind her.
Tosh wanted to see Torchwood and start that night; she wanted to feel like she belonged somewhere. But Captain Jack Harkness just scanned her and her belongings for bugs and then removed a tiny adhesive recorder and broadcaster from her scalp. Tosh stared at it until he crushed it beneath his boot.
“There were a few of those in your new flat as well. I’ve done my best, but UNIT can be tricky sometimes Tosh. So just wait a few weeks and then maybe move again, and I’ll tell them to leave you alone. You work for Torchwood now and you’re my responsibility.”
Tosh just nodded, she knew that the requirement of her release was a five year trial period working for UNIT. The thought that she might have to return to prison in five years scared her and she made a promise to herself to work so hard that Captain Harkness would never be able to replace her; she was never going back to prison.
Her new boss handed the key to her new flat over and dropped her off in front of the building in the SUV.
Tosh still had the bag that he had given her and she looked seriously at him as she got out. He was quiet and no trace of the happiness she’d seen in the Tourist office remained. “Thank you, Captain Jack Harkness.” She said quietly before entering her new building.
“Call me Jack!” He called after her.
It took her a few minutes to find the courage to unlock her flat and go inside. She could imagine the stacks of boxes that she would have to go through and she wondered if her bed and her couch were there or if she was going to go back to sleeping on the floor.
She opened the door with a sigh and her mouth fell open. Someone had been here all right. There was a neat stack of folded cardboard boxes next to the door and everything was in place. Three picture frames with photos of her family where on her bookshelf that had about half of her books on it and her couch wasn’t there, but her armchair was and her bed had been made and almost as quarter of clothing was hanging up in the wardrobe.
Tosh changed into a pair of pyjamas and crawled under the covers in her own bed, leaving the lamp on her bedside table on.
The darkness around her seemed crushing and the light was doing very little to drive it back. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them as she looked out at the room around her. This felt so wrong. Two days ago she had been in prison and now she was back in a flat with her old things around her. And she couldn’t say anything to anyone, she wasn’t allowed to make contact with her family and she didn’t know what her few old friends were told when she disappeared for a few years or maybe they hadn’t noticed or cared that she was gone. Besides, the UNIT prison was a top secret facility and now she was working for Torchwood, outside the government and beyond the police. She couldn’t tell anyone about what she did for a living.
As sleep overcame her, Tosh made another promise to herself, her first day off she was going to get rid of all her old things and start a new life. A life that was empty and so far there were only two other people that she could share anything with, so it was probably going to stay that way.