kirsteena In Memoriam (Torchwood, Toshiko Sato, PG)
Title: In Memoriam
Author: kirsteena
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Prompt: Prompt #49:
Someone, I tell you,
will remember us.
We are oppressed by fears of oblivion
yet are always saved
by judgment of good men. -- Sappho
Word Count: 3859
Summary: Jack, Gwen and Ianto discover something she has left behind.
Author's Notes: Thanks to the wonderful verdant_gt for beta reading.
“Jack?” Gwen wandered through from the flat’s kitchen to the main room where Jack was sitting, paperwork in front of him. “I think you’ll want to see this.”
Jack glanced up at Gwen, frowning slightly. It was obvious she was upset about something, but she was holding something in her hand.
“What’s that?” he asked, nodding towards it.
“A diary,” Gwen said, sitting heavily down on the sofa beside him, and handing it to him. “She kept a diary.”
Jack stared at it for a moment, as if it were alive in his hands. “I never knew,” he said eventually, opening it up carefully. There, written in Tosh’s neat handwriting was page after page of text. At the back were some pages in code, obviously passwords for Jack to use in case anything happened to her, but the rest...
“She wasn’t supposed to,” he said after a moment flicking through it. “You’re not supposed to write anything down.”
Ianto had been standing quietly at the doorway watching the exchange entered the room, a black bin bag in his hands. “I’m more surprised by the fact that she hand wrote it,” he commented, sitting on the other side of Jack, looking over his shoulder. “I’d have guessed it would have been on her computer.”
“Should we...?” Gwen trailed off.
“She won’t mind,” Jack said, tucking the book into a box. “She knew we’d find it eventually.”
Ianto had sat on the rather battered sofa in the Hub when Jack found him. Jack sat down beside him, silently handing him a glass of water, catching sight of what he was reading. Tosh’s diary.
“Good reading?” he asked after a moment.
“Her first few days,” Ianto replied with a small smile.
3rd May, 2004
I seem to spend most of my time moving about, walking. I’d forgotten how weak muscles get when they aren’t in constant use. The cell wasn’t large enough to do much in other than sit down, lie down or stand up.
But it feels good.
That and proper clothing. It’s an odd thing to say, but I missed skirts and high heels. And silk might be the most wonderful thing ever.
Anyway, onto the new job. I work with three other people. There’s Ian. He’s the medical officer. He’s been wonderful at helping me settle in. He’s been with the agency for three years now, apparently. He’s a smart man - not that I think that Jack would hire someone who wasn’t. He’s single, but the way he looks at Jack... yeah, he’s gay.
Then there’s Suzie. She’s the weapons expert, and Jack’s second in command. There’s something about her though. Something that has me wary. But then, it could just be me. Without company for so long, I’m sometimes finding hard to judge people.
And then there’s Jack. I don’t think I’ll be able to put into words how I feel about him, even in this short time. He’s... charismatic, but a huge enigma. Even Ian and Suzie don’t seem to know much about him. They’ve done some checking and it’s like he doesn’t exist. It should worry me, but it doesn’t especially. After all, that’s going to be part of my job - hiding people, as if they didn’t exist, or changing records.
7th May 2004
I saw my first alien today.
Reports came in about someone attacking people in the Queens Arcade. It was this... creature. I tried not to stare at it, though I probably failed. It’s bipedal, roughly human in shape. Wears clothing, oddly enough. But its face...
You notice the teeth, mostly. And yes, by all accounts they are for what you think. Torchwood calls them Weevils. Apparently they come through the Rift - there are quite a few of them in Cardiff. They normally live in the sewers, but occasionally come top side, hunting for food.
We sprayed it with what Jack called ‘Anti-Weevil spray’, calming it down long enough to take it back to the sewers. Hopefully it won’t be back for a while.
I don’t think the memory of seeing an alien for the first time, really seeing one, will ever leave me. It’s like looking at a painting, and suddenly realising that the subject matter isn’t what you thought it was - the nice, pleasant landscape, but you see the misery, pain, destruction in the background.
For the first time I really see why Torchwood needs to exist.
12th May 2004
I hope Osakan is okay. I miss her.
Ianto looked up at Jack. “Osakan?” he asked.
“Japanese for Mother,” he replied, a sad smile appearing. He’d managed to wrap his arms around Ianto.
“What happened?”
“When I got her released by UNIT, one of the conditions was that she wasn’t allowed to see her mother. Everyone was scared we hadn’t got all of the group that tried to blackmail her, so no contact,” Jack replied.
Ianto shuddered. “I thought UNIT were the good guys,” he muttered.
“Good guys when they want to be, blind in other ways. The Doctor is right about them.”
“Does her mother know?” Ianto asked, curiously.
Jack sighed. “Yeah. I went and told her a couple of days ago. Not everything of course, but enough. She’ll be at the funeral.”
Gwen was leaning against Rhys on the sofa in their flat, reading. Rhys was being his normal annoying self, tickling her, trying to distract her.
“Stop it,” she said, pretending to snap at him, then laughing.
“What you got, anyway?” he asked, peering over her shoulder.
“Tosh’s diary,” she replied, settling back to read. Rhys instantly sobered, knowing what the loss of her friends had done to Gwen.
“Really? Want to read it out?” He wanted to help Gwen in any way he could, and if reading Tosh’s diary helped to understand things more, he’d happily do it.
2nd February 2005
I saw for the first time today what happens when you leave Torchwood.
Well, leave is the wrong word, I suppose. Ian was retconned today, to a point before he worked for Torchwood. He didn’t know who I was, doesn’t remember the friendship we built up over the last few months. Hell, he’s lucky to remember who he is. It’s strange. He was one of the few to accept me for who I was.
I asked Jack about it. Made him tell me the truth. When you finish working for Torchwood, you either get retconned, and new memories ‘suggested’, or you leave in a body bag.
He showed me the vault, where previous members of Torchwood who had died were kept. I asked what family members were told. Mostly, they mock up a body to look like you, then release it to the family for private burial. The private part is emphasised.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, working for this group of people.
I’ll miss Ian, but the stress was getting to him. I suppose it was only a matter of time. So, we need a new medical officer. Jack said he’s got his eye on someone.
6th March 2005
The new medical officer has arrived. He’s cute. Really cute. He seems somewhat sad though.
His name is Owen Harper. He’s young, younger than me (and that’s kind of scary). He’s not afraid of standing up to Jack, which amuses and horrifies me at the same time.
Not that he’d ever notice me, of course.
He’s settling in well, seems to take aliens in his stride. Better than I did, anyway. We’ll see what happens.
17th March 2005
Well, that was an interesting few days.
Owen was supposed to go to London, to find out what was going on. An alien spacecraft crashed into Big Ben, and they were rumoured to find something inside. But... he was unavailable.
Ok, I’d been keeping track of him. He was drunk, somewhere. So, I had to stand in.
Pretend that I didn’t know much of anything, while gaining as much information for Torchwood as I could. Anyway, what was in that alien craft?
A space pig.
“Space pig?” Rhys asked. Of all the things he expected, that was the last thing.
“Hush,” Gwen replied. “I’m trying to find out.”
Well, it was a normal pig, with alien technology hardwired into its brain. Aliens faking aliens was the only reason I could come up with. Used purely to create a panic, and put us off the trail. The rumours that the Prime Minister had been killed were true. The country is kind of in limbo, it’s very odd. Jack tells us the aliens that did it were called the ‘Slitheen’, though I need to get more information out of him. Sometimes he refuses to update the database, and it’s frustrating.
A strange man turned up at the hospital where we were keeping it. Called himself ‘the Doctor’. Took charge of the UNIT soldiers there as if he was born to, then was upset when the space pig was killed. Very strange.
Tall. Northern. Big ears. Wore black. Nice guy.
Jack sat on the sofa, smiling at the mention of the Doctor while Ianto vanished, continuing to read.
4th October 2006
Most people won’t know how close they came to annihilation today.
I don’t know how it happened - actually, not even Jack does. The ghosts that have been appearing, powering Torchwood One? It turns out they are aliens, called Cybermen. They were using Torchwood as a preparation to invading Earth.
We first really knew about it when we lost contact with Torchwood One. Soon afterwards, we saw the pictures on the news. The media are always the fastest way to find anything out.
Jack knew them. Cybermen, he called them. He explained they are basically converted people. They take their brains, and transplant them into a metal shell. Horrifying.
As soon as he knew what Yvonne Hartman had done in letting them in this dimension, he cut all direct contact with Torchwood One, though we still headed down to London to see what we could do to help.
I can’t help thinking that Jack had some personal agenda in us going to London. I’ve never seen him so driven, and when he read the list of names of the people that were missing presumed dead afterwards, just for a moment, there was a flash of something. Grief? Horror? I don’t know.
It was terrifying in London. To see something like that, knowing that inside those walking tin cans (Owen’s phrase) there were the remains of people, but they had been converted into something so ruthless, so emotionless, so driven...
We managed to stop some of them from killing some civilians (note: when did I stop thinking of myself as a normal civilian?). The huge guns that Jack made us bring along seemed to work just fine.
We didn’t see what stopped them, but suddenly they all turned and headed back to the Torchwood One building - and then they were gone. It was like they were never here. People starting coming out of where they were hiding, celebrating being alive.
And then they started blaming anyone. The government. Terrorists. Something in the water. Anything to avoid facing up to the reality.
It amuses me, sometimes, how they aren’t willing to see what’s in front of their own eyes, but I understand it. I’d probably be the same in their position. We cope as best we can. For most people, that means denial.
I can’t help feeling that we could have done more to help, but I know we saved lives out there. We’ll be ready next time. I’m already working on it.
“Hey, Ianto?” Jack called out to his lover, currently making coffee. Ianto suddenly appeared at the door.
“Yup?”
“She talks about when you arrive.”
“Oh?”
18th February 2007
We have a new member of Torchwood. Ianto Jones, born and bred in Cardiff. Makes great coffee.
“That’s it? Makes great coffee?” Ianto protested.
Jack couldn’t help it and laughed, watching Ianto leave the room, obviously annoyed.
5th July 2007
I wish I could erase the memory, but at least now I know.
Owen is sleeping with Suzie. I should have guessed that he wouldn’t be interested in someone like me, but Suzie?
I only found out by accident. They both came out of the vaults, one after another, dishevelled. They didn’t know I was there. I was working in the archive. But that, and seeing them share several private jokes - it’s obvious.
It hurts. I should have known, but it still hurts.
Jack sighed slightly. “Oh, Toshiko,” he said sadly. “Of all the people to fall for.”
31st November 2007
Why didn’t we see it coming? When you look back, all the signs were there. The altered behaviour - even Owen admitted he should have seen it.
Apparently he’d stopped sleeping with her a couple of months ago. He wasn’t bothered by that, just said that she’d withdrawn and he ‘couldn’t be arsed’.
So typically Owen, really.
... and yes, I still fancy him.
Gwen sat and looked at Rhys for a moment. “She talks about when I started,” she said quietly.
Rhys looked back at her. “When you got that special assignment?” he said, smiling slightly. He was less bitter about it than he once was.
“Yeah.”
5th December 2007
Another new arrival. It’s worrying, you know. I’m getting used to them. I sometimes wonder what it’s like for Jack, just how many people he’s seen joining and leaving.
For that matter, how long has he been here?
I get the impression it’s been a while, but his records are locked down tightly. Even I can’t break into them, and god knows I’ve tried. So has Ianto. And Owen.
Gwen seems ok, though. She’s... she’s like a breath of fresh air, into everything.
Thinking about it, it’s what we need. She reminds us what it’s like out there in the real world. It’s so easy to be insulated against everything that goes on, forgetting that normal people have to deal with something hugely abnormal. Gwen reminds us of that. Too many times, I just change the records, changing whole lives with realising that I change lives.
Maybe we need reminding of that every now and then.
Gwen looked up at Rhys. “Make us a cup of coffee, love?” she asked.
“Don’t go reading on without me,” Rhys said, standing up and kissing Gwen before going to the kitchen.
“Promise,” was Gwen’s response as she watched him go.
She turned the page, and read. Rhys didn’t need to know this.
5th July 2008
It’s happening again. First Suzie, now Gwen. Why can’t he notice me?
12th July 2008
I’ve had too many things running through my head lately, it’s taken me time to work through it. I’m still not sure I can write it all down.
Firstly, Mary - or whatever her name, species, whatever was. I never expected to end up in bed with her. I guess at first it was rebound. I could sense something going on in the Hub. I was different to what it was like with Suzie, but even before I officially knew, at some level, I knew. Gwen and Owen were sleeping together.
But Mary touched something in me. I’ve always considered myself as heterosexual, but at the time, it felt right. And good. God, it felt good. It had been far too long. Afterwards, when the truth came out - well that was another matter. Embarrassment. Realisation of what I’d done... on all levels. I’d been overwhelmed by the sensations of the necklace, it had changed me.
Sometimes, I hate working where I do, with those I do, but it never lasts for long. It doesn’t matter what happens, they are the only friends I’ve got.
And at the end of the day, I still love him.
There. I said it.
Rhys came back with the coffee, handing a mug to Gwen. “So, what’s next?”
“Time travel.”
“Time travel? You’re joking, right? So what, you went into the past, poked around a bit, came back?” Rhys said, joking. “Hope you picked somewhen good to go to.”
“Not me. Tosh and Jack. And not that good.”
15th August 2008
I’ve seen some strange things in my time at Torchwood. But actually travelling back to 1941? Not something I ever expected to do. I suspect that Jack had travelled in time before - there’s just something about him that seems to fit. When we were there, it was like he knew how to fit in quickly.
Going back made me realise a few things. First, you hear about the racism and sexism that occurred at that point in time, but to actually live through it and be on the receiving end of it is a terrifying thing. Women really were second class citizens, and foreign women especially so. It made me crave the comfort of what I’m doing now, where we are all in it together, no matter what sex, race or, in some cases, species.
Secondly, there is so much more to Jack than anyone realises - and I’m not sure that I’ll ever tell anyone. For once, I got him to open up, but all it did was leave me with more questions. It confirmed my suspicions that he’d travelled through time, but there is so much more. Where is he from? When is he from? Just how long has he been at Torchwood?
But I’d have never made it home without him. He knew just how scared I was, and he got me to focus on what I needed to do.
It obviously worked, because we made it home. I’m tired though. The stress makes it feel as if I haven’t slept for days.
Jack sighed as he read on. “This part is gonna hurt,” he said quietly to Ianto.
“Knowing what we think?” he asked in return.
“Actually, no, remembering what happened. Stung like a bitch.”
21st August 2008
The last few days have been crazy. I’ve been trying to make sense of them, and failing.
There’s a reluctance to leave the Hub, to carry on, but I know we must. Even with Jack dead.
I don’t know what the hardest part of it all is. Knowing Jack sacrificed himself to save us all from some biblical demon that shouldn’t exist (and what the hell was it doing under the Rift anyway?) or knowing that I was used to open the Rift, by showing me the one thing I wanted to see.
My mother.
25th August 2008
Gwen won’t let Jack go. She sits there for hours upon hours, watching, waiting for something. We keep an eye on her via the monitors. We have to tidy things up after all. It’s like... she won’t give up on him. Like she believes he will come back from the dead.
That’s impossible, isn’t it?
The rest of us have realised that the best way to honour Jack is to carry on his work, even though it’s going to be difficult It’s what he would have wanted, for us to continue protecting Cardiff and the Earth from whatever comes through.
2nd September 2008
Gwen was right.
How the hell did he come back from the dead?
But god, I’m glad to see him.
Jack smiled suddenly. “Nice to know someone was pleased to see me,” he said.
“Hey, I was as well,” Ianto said suddenly, nudging Jack in the shoulder.
“Uh huh. Sex doesn’t count,” Jack replied, grinning.
1st January 2009
I’ve been thinking.
This job is dangerous. There have been times we’ve been so close to not making it.
There are things I want to say, to Jack, to Owen, but I don’t want them to know in advance.
So, tomorrow morning, I’m going in early. Even if Jack is there, he’s often wandering about at that time. I only need fifteen minutes or so. I know what I’m going to say. I’ll record it, and hide it in the system. It will only ever be triggered by my Torchwood file being closed - by which point I’m either dead or retconned.
Hopefully it’ll never be seen.
It’s a kind of morbid thought though, isn’t it?
Rhys looked at Gwen. “You saw it?” he asked.
She nodded, tears in her eyes again. “Yeah. It said things... she wanted said. Very Tosh, actually.”
18th March 2009
We’ve gotten ourselves a guest for a few days. From UNIT. A Martha Jones. She and Jack obviously have some history. One of those things that I’d love to know about Jack, but you just accept he’s like that.
The fact that she’s from UNIT is what worries me. Does she know my history? I’ve been careful to keep it to Jack only where I can, but I can’t help wonder. She’s giving no sign, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to Jack about it.
She and Owen seem to be getting on well. I’ve decided that whatever happens, I’ll still be a friend to him. We’ve been getting on so much better recently. He was really sweet over the whole Tommy incident (and I still don’t want to talk about that), and since then, well, I’ve been a little bit hopeful.
Just a little.
20th March 2009
I have a date with Owen!!!
22nd March 2009
I...
I feel like my heart has been ripped out.
25th March 2009
The events leading up to it are... we should have seen it coming, really. It was there, the violence, but in the rush to save Martha we didn’t pay enough attention.
Owen thought he could reason with him, that flattery would work, but it seems the only reason that he could get from Copley was a bullet through the heart.
Then Torchwood produced one of its usual perverse twists - the second resurrection gauntlet was found, and Owen was brought back to life. In retrospect, telling him that I loved him wasn’t the best goodbye to someone who only had two minutes with us.
Except he was kept alive. And will until the energy of the glove dissipates.
The past few days have been, well, hellishly hard. Owen adjusting to being - alive? Undead? God, that makes him sound like some kind of zombie, which I suppose on some level he is. But in all of it, we’ve come to a kind of understanding.
Just took his death to do it. Kind of sums up my life, doesn’t it?
Jack closed the book, and sat thoughtfully for a moment. Ianto didn’t move, didn’t say anything for a while.
“That’s it?” he said eventually. “Nothing after that point?”
Jack shook his head. “No. It’s as if she didn’t have time, or something. Or maybe lost the will to write in it.”
“Because of what happened to Owen?”
“Yeah. At least they came to an understanding.”
“What now?” Ianto asked, taking the diary from Jack, and looking at the cover.
“Now?”
“With this.”
Jack sat quietly for a moment, then drew in a deep breath. “I want to keep it somewhere safe. Somewhere where we can look at it. All of us.”
“Kind of a memorial to them?”
“Yeah.”
“I like it.”
Author: kirsteena
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Prompt: Prompt #49:
Someone, I tell you,
will remember us.
We are oppressed by fears of oblivion
yet are always saved
by judgment of good men. -- Sappho
Word Count: 3859
Summary: Jack, Gwen and Ianto discover something she has left behind.
Author's Notes: Thanks to the wonderful verdant_gt for beta reading.
“Jack?” Gwen wandered through from the flat’s kitchen to the main room where Jack was sitting, paperwork in front of him. “I think you’ll want to see this.”
Jack glanced up at Gwen, frowning slightly. It was obvious she was upset about something, but she was holding something in her hand.
“What’s that?” he asked, nodding towards it.
“A diary,” Gwen said, sitting heavily down on the sofa beside him, and handing it to him. “She kept a diary.”
Jack stared at it for a moment, as if it were alive in his hands. “I never knew,” he said eventually, opening it up carefully. There, written in Tosh’s neat handwriting was page after page of text. At the back were some pages in code, obviously passwords for Jack to use in case anything happened to her, but the rest...
“She wasn’t supposed to,” he said after a moment flicking through it. “You’re not supposed to write anything down.”
Ianto had been standing quietly at the doorway watching the exchange entered the room, a black bin bag in his hands. “I’m more surprised by the fact that she hand wrote it,” he commented, sitting on the other side of Jack, looking over his shoulder. “I’d have guessed it would have been on her computer.”
“Should we...?” Gwen trailed off.
“She won’t mind,” Jack said, tucking the book into a box. “She knew we’d find it eventually.”
Ianto had sat on the rather battered sofa in the Hub when Jack found him. Jack sat down beside him, silently handing him a glass of water, catching sight of what he was reading. Tosh’s diary.
“Good reading?” he asked after a moment.
“Her first few days,” Ianto replied with a small smile.
3rd May, 2004
I seem to spend most of my time moving about, walking. I’d forgotten how weak muscles get when they aren’t in constant use. The cell wasn’t large enough to do much in other than sit down, lie down or stand up.
But it feels good.
That and proper clothing. It’s an odd thing to say, but I missed skirts and high heels. And silk might be the most wonderful thing ever.
Anyway, onto the new job. I work with three other people. There’s Ian. He’s the medical officer. He’s been wonderful at helping me settle in. He’s been with the agency for three years now, apparently. He’s a smart man - not that I think that Jack would hire someone who wasn’t. He’s single, but the way he looks at Jack... yeah, he’s gay.
Then there’s Suzie. She’s the weapons expert, and Jack’s second in command. There’s something about her though. Something that has me wary. But then, it could just be me. Without company for so long, I’m sometimes finding hard to judge people.
And then there’s Jack. I don’t think I’ll be able to put into words how I feel about him, even in this short time. He’s... charismatic, but a huge enigma. Even Ian and Suzie don’t seem to know much about him. They’ve done some checking and it’s like he doesn’t exist. It should worry me, but it doesn’t especially. After all, that’s going to be part of my job - hiding people, as if they didn’t exist, or changing records.
7th May 2004
I saw my first alien today.
Reports came in about someone attacking people in the Queens Arcade. It was this... creature. I tried not to stare at it, though I probably failed. It’s bipedal, roughly human in shape. Wears clothing, oddly enough. But its face...
You notice the teeth, mostly. And yes, by all accounts they are for what you think. Torchwood calls them Weevils. Apparently they come through the Rift - there are quite a few of them in Cardiff. They normally live in the sewers, but occasionally come top side, hunting for food.
We sprayed it with what Jack called ‘Anti-Weevil spray’, calming it down long enough to take it back to the sewers. Hopefully it won’t be back for a while.
I don’t think the memory of seeing an alien for the first time, really seeing one, will ever leave me. It’s like looking at a painting, and suddenly realising that the subject matter isn’t what you thought it was - the nice, pleasant landscape, but you see the misery, pain, destruction in the background.
For the first time I really see why Torchwood needs to exist.
12th May 2004
I hope Osakan is okay. I miss her.
Ianto looked up at Jack. “Osakan?” he asked.
“Japanese for Mother,” he replied, a sad smile appearing. He’d managed to wrap his arms around Ianto.
“What happened?”
“When I got her released by UNIT, one of the conditions was that she wasn’t allowed to see her mother. Everyone was scared we hadn’t got all of the group that tried to blackmail her, so no contact,” Jack replied.
Ianto shuddered. “I thought UNIT were the good guys,” he muttered.
“Good guys when they want to be, blind in other ways. The Doctor is right about them.”
“Does her mother know?” Ianto asked, curiously.
Jack sighed. “Yeah. I went and told her a couple of days ago. Not everything of course, but enough. She’ll be at the funeral.”
Gwen was leaning against Rhys on the sofa in their flat, reading. Rhys was being his normal annoying self, tickling her, trying to distract her.
“Stop it,” she said, pretending to snap at him, then laughing.
“What you got, anyway?” he asked, peering over her shoulder.
“Tosh’s diary,” she replied, settling back to read. Rhys instantly sobered, knowing what the loss of her friends had done to Gwen.
“Really? Want to read it out?” He wanted to help Gwen in any way he could, and if reading Tosh’s diary helped to understand things more, he’d happily do it.
2nd February 2005
I saw for the first time today what happens when you leave Torchwood.
Well, leave is the wrong word, I suppose. Ian was retconned today, to a point before he worked for Torchwood. He didn’t know who I was, doesn’t remember the friendship we built up over the last few months. Hell, he’s lucky to remember who he is. It’s strange. He was one of the few to accept me for who I was.
I asked Jack about it. Made him tell me the truth. When you finish working for Torchwood, you either get retconned, and new memories ‘suggested’, or you leave in a body bag.
He showed me the vault, where previous members of Torchwood who had died were kept. I asked what family members were told. Mostly, they mock up a body to look like you, then release it to the family for private burial. The private part is emphasised.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, working for this group of people.
I’ll miss Ian, but the stress was getting to him. I suppose it was only a matter of time. So, we need a new medical officer. Jack said he’s got his eye on someone.
6th March 2005
The new medical officer has arrived. He’s cute. Really cute. He seems somewhat sad though.
His name is Owen Harper. He’s young, younger than me (and that’s kind of scary). He’s not afraid of standing up to Jack, which amuses and horrifies me at the same time.
Not that he’d ever notice me, of course.
He’s settling in well, seems to take aliens in his stride. Better than I did, anyway. We’ll see what happens.
17th March 2005
Well, that was an interesting few days.
Owen was supposed to go to London, to find out what was going on. An alien spacecraft crashed into Big Ben, and they were rumoured to find something inside. But... he was unavailable.
Ok, I’d been keeping track of him. He was drunk, somewhere. So, I had to stand in.
Pretend that I didn’t know much of anything, while gaining as much information for Torchwood as I could. Anyway, what was in that alien craft?
A space pig.
“Space pig?” Rhys asked. Of all the things he expected, that was the last thing.
“Hush,” Gwen replied. “I’m trying to find out.”
Well, it was a normal pig, with alien technology hardwired into its brain. Aliens faking aliens was the only reason I could come up with. Used purely to create a panic, and put us off the trail. The rumours that the Prime Minister had been killed were true. The country is kind of in limbo, it’s very odd. Jack tells us the aliens that did it were called the ‘Slitheen’, though I need to get more information out of him. Sometimes he refuses to update the database, and it’s frustrating.
A strange man turned up at the hospital where we were keeping it. Called himself ‘the Doctor’. Took charge of the UNIT soldiers there as if he was born to, then was upset when the space pig was killed. Very strange.
Tall. Northern. Big ears. Wore black. Nice guy.
Jack sat on the sofa, smiling at the mention of the Doctor while Ianto vanished, continuing to read.
4th October 2006
Most people won’t know how close they came to annihilation today.
I don’t know how it happened - actually, not even Jack does. The ghosts that have been appearing, powering Torchwood One? It turns out they are aliens, called Cybermen. They were using Torchwood as a preparation to invading Earth.
We first really knew about it when we lost contact with Torchwood One. Soon afterwards, we saw the pictures on the news. The media are always the fastest way to find anything out.
Jack knew them. Cybermen, he called them. He explained they are basically converted people. They take their brains, and transplant them into a metal shell. Horrifying.
As soon as he knew what Yvonne Hartman had done in letting them in this dimension, he cut all direct contact with Torchwood One, though we still headed down to London to see what we could do to help.
I can’t help thinking that Jack had some personal agenda in us going to London. I’ve never seen him so driven, and when he read the list of names of the people that were missing presumed dead afterwards, just for a moment, there was a flash of something. Grief? Horror? I don’t know.
It was terrifying in London. To see something like that, knowing that inside those walking tin cans (Owen’s phrase) there were the remains of people, but they had been converted into something so ruthless, so emotionless, so driven...
We managed to stop some of them from killing some civilians (note: when did I stop thinking of myself as a normal civilian?). The huge guns that Jack made us bring along seemed to work just fine.
We didn’t see what stopped them, but suddenly they all turned and headed back to the Torchwood One building - and then they were gone. It was like they were never here. People starting coming out of where they were hiding, celebrating being alive.
And then they started blaming anyone. The government. Terrorists. Something in the water. Anything to avoid facing up to the reality.
It amuses me, sometimes, how they aren’t willing to see what’s in front of their own eyes, but I understand it. I’d probably be the same in their position. We cope as best we can. For most people, that means denial.
I can’t help feeling that we could have done more to help, but I know we saved lives out there. We’ll be ready next time. I’m already working on it.
“Hey, Ianto?” Jack called out to his lover, currently making coffee. Ianto suddenly appeared at the door.
“Yup?”
“She talks about when you arrive.”
“Oh?”
18th February 2007
We have a new member of Torchwood. Ianto Jones, born and bred in Cardiff. Makes great coffee.
“That’s it? Makes great coffee?” Ianto protested.
Jack couldn’t help it and laughed, watching Ianto leave the room, obviously annoyed.
5th July 2007
I wish I could erase the memory, but at least now I know.
Owen is sleeping with Suzie. I should have guessed that he wouldn’t be interested in someone like me, but Suzie?
I only found out by accident. They both came out of the vaults, one after another, dishevelled. They didn’t know I was there. I was working in the archive. But that, and seeing them share several private jokes - it’s obvious.
It hurts. I should have known, but it still hurts.
Jack sighed slightly. “Oh, Toshiko,” he said sadly. “Of all the people to fall for.”
31st November 2007
Why didn’t we see it coming? When you look back, all the signs were there. The altered behaviour - even Owen admitted he should have seen it.
Apparently he’d stopped sleeping with her a couple of months ago. He wasn’t bothered by that, just said that she’d withdrawn and he ‘couldn’t be arsed’.
So typically Owen, really.
... and yes, I still fancy him.
Gwen sat and looked at Rhys for a moment. “She talks about when I started,” she said quietly.
Rhys looked back at her. “When you got that special assignment?” he said, smiling slightly. He was less bitter about it than he once was.
“Yeah.”
5th December 2007
Another new arrival. It’s worrying, you know. I’m getting used to them. I sometimes wonder what it’s like for Jack, just how many people he’s seen joining and leaving.
For that matter, how long has he been here?
I get the impression it’s been a while, but his records are locked down tightly. Even I can’t break into them, and god knows I’ve tried. So has Ianto. And Owen.
Gwen seems ok, though. She’s... she’s like a breath of fresh air, into everything.
Thinking about it, it’s what we need. She reminds us what it’s like out there in the real world. It’s so easy to be insulated against everything that goes on, forgetting that normal people have to deal with something hugely abnormal. Gwen reminds us of that. Too many times, I just change the records, changing whole lives with realising that I change lives.
Maybe we need reminding of that every now and then.
Gwen looked up at Rhys. “Make us a cup of coffee, love?” she asked.
“Don’t go reading on without me,” Rhys said, standing up and kissing Gwen before going to the kitchen.
“Promise,” was Gwen’s response as she watched him go.
She turned the page, and read. Rhys didn’t need to know this.
5th July 2008
It’s happening again. First Suzie, now Gwen. Why can’t he notice me?
12th July 2008
I’ve had too many things running through my head lately, it’s taken me time to work through it. I’m still not sure I can write it all down.
Firstly, Mary - or whatever her name, species, whatever was. I never expected to end up in bed with her. I guess at first it was rebound. I could sense something going on in the Hub. I was different to what it was like with Suzie, but even before I officially knew, at some level, I knew. Gwen and Owen were sleeping together.
But Mary touched something in me. I’ve always considered myself as heterosexual, but at the time, it felt right. And good. God, it felt good. It had been far too long. Afterwards, when the truth came out - well that was another matter. Embarrassment. Realisation of what I’d done... on all levels. I’d been overwhelmed by the sensations of the necklace, it had changed me.
Sometimes, I hate working where I do, with those I do, but it never lasts for long. It doesn’t matter what happens, they are the only friends I’ve got.
And at the end of the day, I still love him.
There. I said it.
Rhys came back with the coffee, handing a mug to Gwen. “So, what’s next?”
“Time travel.”
“Time travel? You’re joking, right? So what, you went into the past, poked around a bit, came back?” Rhys said, joking. “Hope you picked somewhen good to go to.”
“Not me. Tosh and Jack. And not that good.”
15th August 2008
I’ve seen some strange things in my time at Torchwood. But actually travelling back to 1941? Not something I ever expected to do. I suspect that Jack had travelled in time before - there’s just something about him that seems to fit. When we were there, it was like he knew how to fit in quickly.
Going back made me realise a few things. First, you hear about the racism and sexism that occurred at that point in time, but to actually live through it and be on the receiving end of it is a terrifying thing. Women really were second class citizens, and foreign women especially so. It made me crave the comfort of what I’m doing now, where we are all in it together, no matter what sex, race or, in some cases, species.
Secondly, there is so much more to Jack than anyone realises - and I’m not sure that I’ll ever tell anyone. For once, I got him to open up, but all it did was leave me with more questions. It confirmed my suspicions that he’d travelled through time, but there is so much more. Where is he from? When is he from? Just how long has he been at Torchwood?
But I’d have never made it home without him. He knew just how scared I was, and he got me to focus on what I needed to do.
It obviously worked, because we made it home. I’m tired though. The stress makes it feel as if I haven’t slept for days.
Jack sighed as he read on. “This part is gonna hurt,” he said quietly to Ianto.
“Knowing what we think?” he asked in return.
“Actually, no, remembering what happened. Stung like a bitch.”
21st August 2008
The last few days have been crazy. I’ve been trying to make sense of them, and failing.
There’s a reluctance to leave the Hub, to carry on, but I know we must. Even with Jack dead.
I don’t know what the hardest part of it all is. Knowing Jack sacrificed himself to save us all from some biblical demon that shouldn’t exist (and what the hell was it doing under the Rift anyway?) or knowing that I was used to open the Rift, by showing me the one thing I wanted to see.
My mother.
25th August 2008
Gwen won’t let Jack go. She sits there for hours upon hours, watching, waiting for something. We keep an eye on her via the monitors. We have to tidy things up after all. It’s like... she won’t give up on him. Like she believes he will come back from the dead.
That’s impossible, isn’t it?
The rest of us have realised that the best way to honour Jack is to carry on his work, even though it’s going to be difficult It’s what he would have wanted, for us to continue protecting Cardiff and the Earth from whatever comes through.
2nd September 2008
Gwen was right.
How the hell did he come back from the dead?
But god, I’m glad to see him.
Jack smiled suddenly. “Nice to know someone was pleased to see me,” he said.
“Hey, I was as well,” Ianto said suddenly, nudging Jack in the shoulder.
“Uh huh. Sex doesn’t count,” Jack replied, grinning.
1st January 2009
I’ve been thinking.
This job is dangerous. There have been times we’ve been so close to not making it.
There are things I want to say, to Jack, to Owen, but I don’t want them to know in advance.
So, tomorrow morning, I’m going in early. Even if Jack is there, he’s often wandering about at that time. I only need fifteen minutes or so. I know what I’m going to say. I’ll record it, and hide it in the system. It will only ever be triggered by my Torchwood file being closed - by which point I’m either dead or retconned.
Hopefully it’ll never be seen.
It’s a kind of morbid thought though, isn’t it?
Rhys looked at Gwen. “You saw it?” he asked.
She nodded, tears in her eyes again. “Yeah. It said things... she wanted said. Very Tosh, actually.”
18th March 2009
We’ve gotten ourselves a guest for a few days. From UNIT. A Martha Jones. She and Jack obviously have some history. One of those things that I’d love to know about Jack, but you just accept he’s like that.
The fact that she’s from UNIT is what worries me. Does she know my history? I’ve been careful to keep it to Jack only where I can, but I can’t help wonder. She’s giving no sign, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to Jack about it.
She and Owen seem to be getting on well. I’ve decided that whatever happens, I’ll still be a friend to him. We’ve been getting on so much better recently. He was really sweet over the whole Tommy incident (and I still don’t want to talk about that), and since then, well, I’ve been a little bit hopeful.
Just a little.
20th March 2009
I have a date with Owen!!!
22nd March 2009
I...
I feel like my heart has been ripped out.
25th March 2009
The events leading up to it are... we should have seen it coming, really. It was there, the violence, but in the rush to save Martha we didn’t pay enough attention.
Owen thought he could reason with him, that flattery would work, but it seems the only reason that he could get from Copley was a bullet through the heart.
Then Torchwood produced one of its usual perverse twists - the second resurrection gauntlet was found, and Owen was brought back to life. In retrospect, telling him that I loved him wasn’t the best goodbye to someone who only had two minutes with us.
Except he was kept alive. And will until the energy of the glove dissipates.
The past few days have been, well, hellishly hard. Owen adjusting to being - alive? Undead? God, that makes him sound like some kind of zombie, which I suppose on some level he is. But in all of it, we’ve come to a kind of understanding.
Just took his death to do it. Kind of sums up my life, doesn’t it?
Jack closed the book, and sat thoughtfully for a moment. Ianto didn’t move, didn’t say anything for a while.
“That’s it?” he said eventually. “Nothing after that point?”
Jack shook his head. “No. It’s as if she didn’t have time, or something. Or maybe lost the will to write in it.”
“Because of what happened to Owen?”
“Yeah. At least they came to an understanding.”
“What now?” Ianto asked, taking the diary from Jack, and looking at the cover.
“Now?”
“With this.”
Jack sat quietly for a moment, then drew in a deep breath. “I want to keep it somewhere safe. Somewhere where we can look at it. All of us.”
“Kind of a memorial to them?”
“Yeah.”
“I like it.”