ficathon entry: "Susan and Jack's connection to Tosh" 1/1
this was written for the Susan ficathon. I hope you read the other entries, even if you opt not to read mine (I don't blame you)
Title: Susan and Jack’s connection to Tosh.
Summary: The Doctor may be the only one who’s met Tosh - but Susan knows Toshiko’s family.
Fandom: Doctor Who / Torchwood.
Canon Characters: Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness, Susan Foreman, The Doctor (10th).
Author: Keenir.
Rating: PG-13
Written for: atraphoenix
Requested: Time Agency, Torchwood, Earth; 8th Doctor or later.
Spoilers: (1st Doctor) An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, The Edge of Destruction;
reference to ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’;
coda to ‘Rememberance of the Daleks’ (7th Doctor);
reference to (‘Rose’?) (9th Doctor);
coda to ‘The Ood Planet’ (10th Doctor);
series 1 episode 1 & series 2’s final two episodes of Torchwood.
Word Count: 2,892.
Author’s note: Unfortunately, in all the Susan eps I’ve seen thus far, when she wasn’t panicking or crying, she was very coldly dispassionate and analytical. That’s the Susan I’ve tried to capture here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Outside London, England,
1963:
The hallway was longer than Jack would’ve liked, particularly as he still hadn’t found where the meeting is taking place. “Torchwood calling UNIT, Torchwood calling UNIT, helllooo UNIT.” There was nobody to be found in and of the rooms he’d thus far checked, and only a skeleton crew outside posing as gardeners.
Three doors down, “There you are,” Jack said playfully; “and you thought you could hide from me,” and stepped into the playroom. “So, what’d I miss?”
“A great many things, time agent,” Susan said, standing to one side of the door. She wasn’t entirely the way she’d looked back when she’d traveled with her Grandfather, but her regenerations had not been as all-encompassing as his own had been - normal variation, for Time Lords, that is.
“I was under the impression,” the General said, standing opposite her, against the door, “we’d allowed Torchwood to send a witness.”
“That’d be me,” Jack said. “Name’s Jack Harkness,” offering his hand to shake; neither took it. “I’m with Torchwood now.”
“Lovely,” Susan remarked. “Now have a seat and be a good little witness.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I’ll just pipe up if I think of anything.”
“Good, silence, always pleasant.”
To the man she’d been conferring with before Harkness’ arrival, “Give her to me,” Susan said, having stepped up into the General’s personal space, her hooked nose nearly kissing his Roman nose. “I will look after her.”
The Doctor was not human. That was an axiom here at UNIT, a kernel of knowledge hammered into every man and woman under its flag: ‘do not assume the Doctor shares customs or a nature with humankind.’ Looking full-bore into her eyes, General Winthorpe saw that it was also true of the woman alleged to be the Doctor’s granddaughter. “I can’t do that, I’m afraid.” The eyes was the only constant, it seemed. Hyperactive, shining eyes. Otherwise this Susan Foreman looked only *mostly* like either of the ‘Foreman, Susan’s in that special UNIT folder. “She’s our ward.”
They were having this conversation at a UNIT safehouse playroom; on the other side of the room, under armed guard, was the still-dazed girl they were discussing, staring at more than playing with the wooden blocks. Blank face and uncaring eyes met every attempt by anyone who tried to play or talk to her.
Jack turned and waved to the girl, estimating her age at somewhere between six and ten years of age. “Hey,” he said. “I’m Jack. What’s your name?” He knew from the file he’d gotten just before being sent out to this classified cottage, that her name was Eunice. Eunice Wedgewood.
Who said absolutely nothing back. Didn’t even smile or blink.
“More accurately,” Susan pointed out, “she’s in abeyance. Her parents are dead, the - her masters are gone,” as the *D* word was the only word to which the girl reacted at all to. “The only reason UNIT has her is because my grandfather’s away.”
Not about to let an alien ruffle him, “There’s always Torchwood, if you’d prefer that.”
“Incompetents, not candidates, there.”
“Aw,” Jack said, “you’re just saying that. Betcha if you got to know us -”
Susan turned her head to glare at him. “Your organization is one I know all too well: they were the ones who handed Earth over to its invaders in the twenty-second century. The year 2157, to be precise.”
Never been there, Jack thought honestly. There were only a small handful of points in time-space that were completely off-limits to agents of the Time Agency; there were plenty of grey areas and points you were discouraged from venturing to…but 2157 Earth was completely unvisitable.
“Miss Foreman,” the General said, and Susan did not correct him: marriage ties to dead spouses did not extend into later regenerations - otherwise it would get messy, linguistically and socially. “While I’m relieved to know that there’s one thing we can agree upon, I’m afraid I really must insist that you acknowledge that UNIT is the best home possible for this little girl. As I understand it, you lack even a TARDIS.”
“*That* is easily corrected.” One corner of her lips quirked in a smile. “Or is *that* what you really want, General? A TARDIS in exchange for her?”
“*You* have neither.”
If Susan had been human, she would’ve snorted. “I can *build* a TARDIS.”
Jack fell on his back, so startled was he. Nobody can build a TARDIS. Nobody except…
“And,” Winthorpe asked, “you’d be willing to do that? Build one for UNIT?”
Susan nodded. “In exchange, yes.”
“I’ll get a contract drawn up forthwith - or would you prefer a treaty?” Time Lords were so few and far between, was there any difference between those two words for when you were dealing with this type of alien? “You can come and go as you please, but Eunice Wedgewood stays here until the TARDIS is completed and in UNIT control.”
“Done,” Susan agreed. And took a step back, out of his personal space.
~~~~~~~~~~~
MANY YEARS LATER:
Susan ran one hand down her sleeve, despite there not being any creases left to it.
Eunice stood in the room’s doorway, feeling a small amount of guilt - small because she’d been regrowing her emotions these past years following her time as a computer. “I’m sorry, Susan,” Eunice said. “But Mark…”
“You love him,” Susan said, an observation, not a question.
Even so, “I think. I -”
“You do,” dryly, interrupting. “Trust me, I’ve seen it enough.”
~~~
That Night:
Eunice began coughing before she woke up, but opening her eyes didn’t stop it - if anything, they grew worse, a hacking cough. She covered her mouth, hoping the bout would pass and she could get back to dreaming. Dreaming about talking with Mark. Such a good conversationalist, Lt. Mark Sato was…and he had such a remarkable mind. Such nice dreams, interrupted by the cough.
One that wouldn’t go away. One that’s getting worse. No dry heaves, there was that mercy at least. No vomit, phlem, or blood rose up either. Just pain wracking the back of her throat and the underbelly of her ribcage. Owoh so many coughs.
Flipping her bedspread aside, she ducked over to the next room, flicking the tap on - hot, cold, neither was anything to this. Cupped her hands under the current, brought that bit of water to her lips. Drink, swish it in both cheeks, spit; repeat.
No good. Still hurt, back in the back.
Still cupping. Drink, raise your head back, let the water reach the top of your throat, then drop your head back down and spit. Or dribble. And repeat. Doing this, Eunice tried not to think about how red her eyes were, how inflamed - not swollen - were the skin around both eyes, how… and it took her a while to notice it, the bare slits that were all her eyelids could open.
She only stopped once the pain was gone, having taken the cough with it. Looking at her reflection, she saw her eyes were still red, if less so - same for around them. But something else was happening as a single round light blazed over her shoulder from where it stood behind her; the same light she’d seen in her dreams; the same light she’d conversed with back when she was no longer a child, when she was a computer. Echoing in her head was a message she hadn’t heard before, even in her dreams: ”We a-prove of you and he” Dalek-voiced. Painlessly, her cheekbones were shifting, sliding, angling.
Trained to be honest, Eunice pressed the Emergency button instead of the light switch next to it. And I, she felt, curious at this development, wonder if they’re back.
Susan arrived a minute later, by which time Eunice’s skin had already begun to marble, to mottle. “It’s okay,” Susan said, calling upon what she remembered of Barbara’s words and tone to calm her when she’d begun to worry. Susan used that tone now, trying to settle the sobbing Eunice, staying with her all the rest of the night. We’re a bit beyond warm milk and cookies this time.
The Daleks hadn’t created Eunice, or engineered her fetus, or arranged her birth. But the Black Dalek had done *something* to her when she had served as a War Computer.
And now Susan saw just what it was. The former computer was an attempt to duplicate - or to mock - the Time Lords.
~~~~
Morning:
Just down the corridor from Florence’s suite was the office of Rear Admiral Jacob Farmers, who was sitting at his desk watching Susan attentively for an answer.
“I can only speculate at this point in time,” Susan said.
“I doubt that, young lady,” Farmers said. “Your kind are rife with ideas, theories, plans, and plots. Now try again.”
Susan didn’t like reminders of the reason why Farmers had succeeded General Gilroy as commanding officer on-site: Farmers and his unit had survived an encounter with the Rani. “Ideas need more than I have. I know what Eunice was being used for, I know all about her mental breakdown. But this transformation… it’s a novelty to me.”
“And how can regeneration be a novelty to a Time Lord?”
She had spent enough time among humans to know that this is the perfect time to roll her eyes - so she did. “Hear me now, boy, when I regenerate, I replace *every* cell in my body simultaneously. In contrast, Eunice’s changes are entirely cosmetic.”
“Now why would your enemy do that?”
“I don’t know: I’m not one of them. Perhaps to grow their own Time Lord. Perhaps to mock us.”
“They would do that?”
“I’ll reiterate: I’m not one of them.”
“Any thoughts as to why they’d program their tool to become Japanese?” Farmers asked.
“I haven’t a glimmering of a guess,” Susan said.
~~~
Two Decades Later:
In the end, Eunice had been allowed to marry Lt. Mark Sato, provided they remained under the aegis of UNIT (Mark’s employer when they’d met). They produced a daughter, Toshiko, home-schooling her under UNIT supervision.
Captain Jack Harkness, of Torchwood, looked over the contracts and other things that Tosh had signed her name to over the course of her life. “Here we go, darlin’,” he drawled, having found the document where Tosh had finally obtained permission to work for UNIT, rather than simply working within UNIT. “Oh no,” as his eyes came across a blunt paragraph that hadn’t shown up in any document he’d come across before:
I, the undersigned, do understand that my rights and safeties may be removed if I prove myself to be a danger to UNIT and to Earth. Should I work to undermine the efforts of UNIT, in any way, shape, or form, I agree to surrender myself for incarceration.
I likewise agree that, should the above paragraph come to pass, I may only be transferred into the custody of The Doctor, and no other party or body politic.
At his age, there were exceedingly few times that Jack felt sick. But this was one of those times, and he now rather wished he hadn’t mentioned Tosh to his superiors in Torchwood…superiors who’d captured Eunice Sato, holding her hostage to Tosh getting what they wanted. Two weeks after that snowless week in Cardiff, Jack had found himself the only Torchwood agent left.
“I owe her,” Harkness said. “That and I’d like to get her out anyway.” Susan had asked him to get Gwen Cooper, Suzie Costello, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones working for Torchwood - said their descendants would be quislings, and Torchwood was rather like the TARDIS - good at preventing progeny from arising. Probably best not to have a passel of half-Dalek kids running around the planet between now and 2157. Nothing personal, Tosh, but I need your brains, and the Time Agency - and the rest of the universe - don’t need super-Daleks taking over.
Jack picked up the phone, and called in some favours.
~~~~~~~~~~
PRESENT DAY:
“Ah,” the Doctor said, opening the door and stepping out of the TARDIS. “Gavurkale. Haven’t been here since…actually, I’ve never been here. Been to visit the Sublime Porte, 1812; Acre and Jaffa, back in King Richard’s day; but never here.”
“Where are we?” Donna asked. The ice fields of the Ood world had looked suspiciously like it could’ve been in north Scotland or Norway - Greenland perhaps. And Rome before that…okay, that was just Pompeii. But even so…Where did your TARDIS land us now? “And when?”
“Gavurkale, Turkey, two thousand and eight - we’re just a short skip from Ankara, actually.”
“And what’s here?”
“I don’t know,” his sneakers pressing down on one ridge of this plowed field. “But I see a trail.”
“A goatpath? Or…?” not seeing any handrails or signposts. This was rural farmland, out here.
“Don’t know,” with that silly happy smile of his, the one that said let’s go see, let’s find out without opening his mouth.
The TARDIS had materialized at the edge of the tilled field, so they followed the faint trail up the hillside to the fallen-together of boulders. And there, while Donna and the Doctor were marveling that the Hittites had taken the time to carve a mural into the rock - not just their usual procession of kings and gods, but also a large representation of a King being given something by a god and - a goddess? Donna wasn’t sure, given how faint it was after all this time.
The Doctor started to say that they could go back and watch it get carved, find out firsthand what it was…but then he stopped, frowning, and wincing just a little as he walked around to the side of the right-hand-side boulder, where the hill was more of a steep hill or mild cliff. And sitting crouched against the side of the rock, seeming to hold it up - which was just silly, one had to admit - was a young woman.
…Who looked over as the Doctor walked into view with Donna. Though the Doctor didn’t get close; couldn’t get close.
Heavily-freckled hands, ember-red hair, and eyes that seemed to be no one colour. Yet he recognized her.
He had to - if she’d been anyone else, any other Time Lord, she wouldn’t have gotten that reaction.
“Grandfather,” she said.
“’Grandfather’?” Donna mouthed, looking at the Doctor.
“Hello there, child,” the Doctor said to Susan.
“You’re a grandfather?” Donna asked him.
“Yep. That a problem?”
“Well no, but you could have told me.”
Susan chuckled.
“For a long time,” the Doctor said, “I thought I was alone. The last one.”
“You still are, effectively. As am I.”
In case Donna was about to ask a question the likes of which only Rose had asked (in sheer rediculousness and idiocy - the bird had been brilliant, but thick as a stone some times), the Doctor said, “We’re like magnets. A Time Lord can detect,” tapping his skull, “the existence of any other Time Lord - doesn’t matter how much time or space separates them. That’s biological, something we had before we were Time Lords. The only time it doesn’t work, though, sensibly, is with family. We can’t detect our relatives.”
“Naturally,” Susan said.
“Preferable,” Donna said. “Human history would’ve been a lot better if we’d been like that.”
“Oh absolutely,” the Doctor said. Mankind had had its bright spots, but never in conjunction with a violation of that.
“So family members…like north and north, or south and south.”
“Just so,” Susan said. “I parted company with my grandfather here before I underwent my first regeneration…it was after that that the repulsion kicked in.”
‘Regeneration’? “Before that, he had to take care of you?”
“Exactly so.”
Donna mouthed ‘regeneration,’ and was about to ask about that, but then Donna noticed that Susan was only half paying attention to the conversation. “Something wrong?”
“Long-term,” Susan replied dryly.
“What seems to be the problem?” the Doctor asked.
“All my hard work,” Susan said, “all the time and effort I placed into it…and you spoiled everything, Grandfather.”
“Me? What’d I do?” in that high indignant tone of his.
“Because of you, Torchwood exists. Because of Torchwood, the Dalek invasion hasn’t been aborted.”
“What’s a Daylek?” Donna asked.
“Dahlek,” the Doctor said, remembering how Ace had had the same pronounciation assumption. “One of my better enemies.”
“So are we going to go?”
“Go where?” curious. We just got here.
“To stop their invasion.”
“They invade Earth,” Susan said, “in the 22nd century. We were already part of the lot fighting them off.”
“Oh,” Donna said.
“Not your fault, either of you. Just the fault of that Time Agency staffer who calls himself -”
“Jack Harkness?” the Doctor asked.
“That’s the one,” Susan confirmed. “I’d gotten ahold of the Dalek’s attempt to make a Dalek equivalent of a Time Lord, took time to school her in everything she needed to know so she could undermine the Dalek forces from within…and that staffer goes and kerpuddles the whole thing.”
“We’ll go have a word with him. In the meantime, would you like to accompany me and Donna?”
“Another time, perhaps, Grandfather,” muttering soft soothings in her head, easing the disquiet. “Continued good fortune to you and to you, Donna.”
“Thank you,” Donna said. “Lovely to meet you, Susan. We really should do this again sometime.”
“I’ll bring the peril,” and hiked down the hillside, alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The End
Author’s note: Of course, if Tosh is the end product of trying to make a Time Lord…is it really the end?
Title: Susan and Jack’s connection to Tosh.
Summary: The Doctor may be the only one who’s met Tosh - but Susan knows Toshiko’s family.
Fandom: Doctor Who / Torchwood.
Canon Characters: Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness, Susan Foreman, The Doctor (10th).
Author: Keenir.
Rating: PG-13
Written for: atraphoenix
Requested: Time Agency, Torchwood, Earth; 8th Doctor or later.
Spoilers: (1st Doctor) An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, The Edge of Destruction;
reference to ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’;
coda to ‘Rememberance of the Daleks’ (7th Doctor);
reference to (‘Rose’?) (9th Doctor);
coda to ‘The Ood Planet’ (10th Doctor);
series 1 episode 1 & series 2’s final two episodes of Torchwood.
Word Count: 2,892.
Author’s note: Unfortunately, in all the Susan eps I’ve seen thus far, when she wasn’t panicking or crying, she was very coldly dispassionate and analytical. That’s the Susan I’ve tried to capture here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Outside London, England,
1963:
The hallway was longer than Jack would’ve liked, particularly as he still hadn’t found where the meeting is taking place. “Torchwood calling UNIT, Torchwood calling UNIT, helllooo UNIT.” There was nobody to be found in and of the rooms he’d thus far checked, and only a skeleton crew outside posing as gardeners.
Three doors down, “There you are,” Jack said playfully; “and you thought you could hide from me,” and stepped into the playroom. “So, what’d I miss?”
“A great many things, time agent,” Susan said, standing to one side of the door. She wasn’t entirely the way she’d looked back when she’d traveled with her Grandfather, but her regenerations had not been as all-encompassing as his own had been - normal variation, for Time Lords, that is.
“I was under the impression,” the General said, standing opposite her, against the door, “we’d allowed Torchwood to send a witness.”
“That’d be me,” Jack said. “Name’s Jack Harkness,” offering his hand to shake; neither took it. “I’m with Torchwood now.”
“Lovely,” Susan remarked. “Now have a seat and be a good little witness.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I’ll just pipe up if I think of anything.”
“Good, silence, always pleasant.”
To the man she’d been conferring with before Harkness’ arrival, “Give her to me,” Susan said, having stepped up into the General’s personal space, her hooked nose nearly kissing his Roman nose. “I will look after her.”
The Doctor was not human. That was an axiom here at UNIT, a kernel of knowledge hammered into every man and woman under its flag: ‘do not assume the Doctor shares customs or a nature with humankind.’ Looking full-bore into her eyes, General Winthorpe saw that it was also true of the woman alleged to be the Doctor’s granddaughter. “I can’t do that, I’m afraid.” The eyes was the only constant, it seemed. Hyperactive, shining eyes. Otherwise this Susan Foreman looked only *mostly* like either of the ‘Foreman, Susan’s in that special UNIT folder. “She’s our ward.”
They were having this conversation at a UNIT safehouse playroom; on the other side of the room, under armed guard, was the still-dazed girl they were discussing, staring at more than playing with the wooden blocks. Blank face and uncaring eyes met every attempt by anyone who tried to play or talk to her.
Jack turned and waved to the girl, estimating her age at somewhere between six and ten years of age. “Hey,” he said. “I’m Jack. What’s your name?” He knew from the file he’d gotten just before being sent out to this classified cottage, that her name was Eunice. Eunice Wedgewood.
Who said absolutely nothing back. Didn’t even smile or blink.
“More accurately,” Susan pointed out, “she’s in abeyance. Her parents are dead, the - her masters are gone,” as the *D* word was the only word to which the girl reacted at all to. “The only reason UNIT has her is because my grandfather’s away.”
Not about to let an alien ruffle him, “There’s always Torchwood, if you’d prefer that.”
“Incompetents, not candidates, there.”
“Aw,” Jack said, “you’re just saying that. Betcha if you got to know us -”
Susan turned her head to glare at him. “Your organization is one I know all too well: they were the ones who handed Earth over to its invaders in the twenty-second century. The year 2157, to be precise.”
Never been there, Jack thought honestly. There were only a small handful of points in time-space that were completely off-limits to agents of the Time Agency; there were plenty of grey areas and points you were discouraged from venturing to…but 2157 Earth was completely unvisitable.
“Miss Foreman,” the General said, and Susan did not correct him: marriage ties to dead spouses did not extend into later regenerations - otherwise it would get messy, linguistically and socially. “While I’m relieved to know that there’s one thing we can agree upon, I’m afraid I really must insist that you acknowledge that UNIT is the best home possible for this little girl. As I understand it, you lack even a TARDIS.”
“*That* is easily corrected.” One corner of her lips quirked in a smile. “Or is *that* what you really want, General? A TARDIS in exchange for her?”
“*You* have neither.”
If Susan had been human, she would’ve snorted. “I can *build* a TARDIS.”
Jack fell on his back, so startled was he. Nobody can build a TARDIS. Nobody except…
“And,” Winthorpe asked, “you’d be willing to do that? Build one for UNIT?”
Susan nodded. “In exchange, yes.”
“I’ll get a contract drawn up forthwith - or would you prefer a treaty?” Time Lords were so few and far between, was there any difference between those two words for when you were dealing with this type of alien? “You can come and go as you please, but Eunice Wedgewood stays here until the TARDIS is completed and in UNIT control.”
“Done,” Susan agreed. And took a step back, out of his personal space.
~~~~~~~~~~~
MANY YEARS LATER:
Susan ran one hand down her sleeve, despite there not being any creases left to it.
Eunice stood in the room’s doorway, feeling a small amount of guilt - small because she’d been regrowing her emotions these past years following her time as a computer. “I’m sorry, Susan,” Eunice said. “But Mark…”
“You love him,” Susan said, an observation, not a question.
Even so, “I think. I -”
“You do,” dryly, interrupting. “Trust me, I’ve seen it enough.”
~~~
That Night:
Eunice began coughing before she woke up, but opening her eyes didn’t stop it - if anything, they grew worse, a hacking cough. She covered her mouth, hoping the bout would pass and she could get back to dreaming. Dreaming about talking with Mark. Such a good conversationalist, Lt. Mark Sato was…and he had such a remarkable mind. Such nice dreams, interrupted by the cough.
One that wouldn’t go away. One that’s getting worse. No dry heaves, there was that mercy at least. No vomit, phlem, or blood rose up either. Just pain wracking the back of her throat and the underbelly of her ribcage. Owoh so many coughs.
Flipping her bedspread aside, she ducked over to the next room, flicking the tap on - hot, cold, neither was anything to this. Cupped her hands under the current, brought that bit of water to her lips. Drink, swish it in both cheeks, spit; repeat.
No good. Still hurt, back in the back.
Still cupping. Drink, raise your head back, let the water reach the top of your throat, then drop your head back down and spit. Or dribble. And repeat. Doing this, Eunice tried not to think about how red her eyes were, how inflamed - not swollen - were the skin around both eyes, how… and it took her a while to notice it, the bare slits that were all her eyelids could open.
She only stopped once the pain was gone, having taken the cough with it. Looking at her reflection, she saw her eyes were still red, if less so - same for around them. But something else was happening as a single round light blazed over her shoulder from where it stood behind her; the same light she’d seen in her dreams; the same light she’d conversed with back when she was no longer a child, when she was a computer. Echoing in her head was a message she hadn’t heard before, even in her dreams: ”We a-prove of you and he” Dalek-voiced. Painlessly, her cheekbones were shifting, sliding, angling.
Trained to be honest, Eunice pressed the Emergency button instead of the light switch next to it. And I, she felt, curious at this development, wonder if they’re back.
Susan arrived a minute later, by which time Eunice’s skin had already begun to marble, to mottle. “It’s okay,” Susan said, calling upon what she remembered of Barbara’s words and tone to calm her when she’d begun to worry. Susan used that tone now, trying to settle the sobbing Eunice, staying with her all the rest of the night. We’re a bit beyond warm milk and cookies this time.
The Daleks hadn’t created Eunice, or engineered her fetus, or arranged her birth. But the Black Dalek had done *something* to her when she had served as a War Computer.
And now Susan saw just what it was. The former computer was an attempt to duplicate - or to mock - the Time Lords.
~~~~
Morning:
Just down the corridor from Florence’s suite was the office of Rear Admiral Jacob Farmers, who was sitting at his desk watching Susan attentively for an answer.
“I can only speculate at this point in time,” Susan said.
“I doubt that, young lady,” Farmers said. “Your kind are rife with ideas, theories, plans, and plots. Now try again.”
Susan didn’t like reminders of the reason why Farmers had succeeded General Gilroy as commanding officer on-site: Farmers and his unit had survived an encounter with the Rani. “Ideas need more than I have. I know what Eunice was being used for, I know all about her mental breakdown. But this transformation… it’s a novelty to me.”
“And how can regeneration be a novelty to a Time Lord?”
She had spent enough time among humans to know that this is the perfect time to roll her eyes - so she did. “Hear me now, boy, when I regenerate, I replace *every* cell in my body simultaneously. In contrast, Eunice’s changes are entirely cosmetic.”
“Now why would your enemy do that?”
“I don’t know: I’m not one of them. Perhaps to grow their own Time Lord. Perhaps to mock us.”
“They would do that?”
“I’ll reiterate: I’m not one of them.”
“Any thoughts as to why they’d program their tool to become Japanese?” Farmers asked.
“I haven’t a glimmering of a guess,” Susan said.
~~~
Two Decades Later:
In the end, Eunice had been allowed to marry Lt. Mark Sato, provided they remained under the aegis of UNIT (Mark’s employer when they’d met). They produced a daughter, Toshiko, home-schooling her under UNIT supervision.
Captain Jack Harkness, of Torchwood, looked over the contracts and other things that Tosh had signed her name to over the course of her life. “Here we go, darlin’,” he drawled, having found the document where Tosh had finally obtained permission to work for UNIT, rather than simply working within UNIT. “Oh no,” as his eyes came across a blunt paragraph that hadn’t shown up in any document he’d come across before:
I, the undersigned, do understand that my rights and safeties may be removed if I prove myself to be a danger to UNIT and to Earth. Should I work to undermine the efforts of UNIT, in any way, shape, or form, I agree to surrender myself for incarceration.
I likewise agree that, should the above paragraph come to pass, I may only be transferred into the custody of The Doctor, and no other party or body politic.
At his age, there were exceedingly few times that Jack felt sick. But this was one of those times, and he now rather wished he hadn’t mentioned Tosh to his superiors in Torchwood…superiors who’d captured Eunice Sato, holding her hostage to Tosh getting what they wanted. Two weeks after that snowless week in Cardiff, Jack had found himself the only Torchwood agent left.
“I owe her,” Harkness said. “That and I’d like to get her out anyway.” Susan had asked him to get Gwen Cooper, Suzie Costello, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones working for Torchwood - said their descendants would be quislings, and Torchwood was rather like the TARDIS - good at preventing progeny from arising. Probably best not to have a passel of half-Dalek kids running around the planet between now and 2157. Nothing personal, Tosh, but I need your brains, and the Time Agency - and the rest of the universe - don’t need super-Daleks taking over.
Jack picked up the phone, and called in some favours.
~~~~~~~~~~
PRESENT DAY:
“Ah,” the Doctor said, opening the door and stepping out of the TARDIS. “Gavurkale. Haven’t been here since…actually, I’ve never been here. Been to visit the Sublime Porte, 1812; Acre and Jaffa, back in King Richard’s day; but never here.”
“Where are we?” Donna asked. The ice fields of the Ood world had looked suspiciously like it could’ve been in north Scotland or Norway - Greenland perhaps. And Rome before that…okay, that was just Pompeii. But even so…Where did your TARDIS land us now? “And when?”
“Gavurkale, Turkey, two thousand and eight - we’re just a short skip from Ankara, actually.”
“And what’s here?”
“I don’t know,” his sneakers pressing down on one ridge of this plowed field. “But I see a trail.”
“A goatpath? Or…?” not seeing any handrails or signposts. This was rural farmland, out here.
“Don’t know,” with that silly happy smile of his, the one that said let’s go see, let’s find out without opening his mouth.
The TARDIS had materialized at the edge of the tilled field, so they followed the faint trail up the hillside to the fallen-together of boulders. And there, while Donna and the Doctor were marveling that the Hittites had taken the time to carve a mural into the rock - not just their usual procession of kings and gods, but also a large representation of a King being given something by a god and - a goddess? Donna wasn’t sure, given how faint it was after all this time.
The Doctor started to say that they could go back and watch it get carved, find out firsthand what it was…but then he stopped, frowning, and wincing just a little as he walked around to the side of the right-hand-side boulder, where the hill was more of a steep hill or mild cliff. And sitting crouched against the side of the rock, seeming to hold it up - which was just silly, one had to admit - was a young woman.
…Who looked over as the Doctor walked into view with Donna. Though the Doctor didn’t get close; couldn’t get close.
Heavily-freckled hands, ember-red hair, and eyes that seemed to be no one colour. Yet he recognized her.
He had to - if she’d been anyone else, any other Time Lord, she wouldn’t have gotten that reaction.
“Grandfather,” she said.
“’Grandfather’?” Donna mouthed, looking at the Doctor.
“Hello there, child,” the Doctor said to Susan.
“You’re a grandfather?” Donna asked him.
“Yep. That a problem?”
“Well no, but you could have told me.”
Susan chuckled.
“For a long time,” the Doctor said, “I thought I was alone. The last one.”
“You still are, effectively. As am I.”
In case Donna was about to ask a question the likes of which only Rose had asked (in sheer rediculousness and idiocy - the bird had been brilliant, but thick as a stone some times), the Doctor said, “We’re like magnets. A Time Lord can detect,” tapping his skull, “the existence of any other Time Lord - doesn’t matter how much time or space separates them. That’s biological, something we had before we were Time Lords. The only time it doesn’t work, though, sensibly, is with family. We can’t detect our relatives.”
“Naturally,” Susan said.
“Preferable,” Donna said. “Human history would’ve been a lot better if we’d been like that.”
“Oh absolutely,” the Doctor said. Mankind had had its bright spots, but never in conjunction with a violation of that.
“So family members…like north and north, or south and south.”
“Just so,” Susan said. “I parted company with my grandfather here before I underwent my first regeneration…it was after that that the repulsion kicked in.”
‘Regeneration’? “Before that, he had to take care of you?”
“Exactly so.”
Donna mouthed ‘regeneration,’ and was about to ask about that, but then Donna noticed that Susan was only half paying attention to the conversation. “Something wrong?”
“Long-term,” Susan replied dryly.
“What seems to be the problem?” the Doctor asked.
“All my hard work,” Susan said, “all the time and effort I placed into it…and you spoiled everything, Grandfather.”
“Me? What’d I do?” in that high indignant tone of his.
“Because of you, Torchwood exists. Because of Torchwood, the Dalek invasion hasn’t been aborted.”
“What’s a Daylek?” Donna asked.
“Dahlek,” the Doctor said, remembering how Ace had had the same pronounciation assumption. “One of my better enemies.”
“So are we going to go?”
“Go where?” curious. We just got here.
“To stop their invasion.”
“They invade Earth,” Susan said, “in the 22nd century. We were already part of the lot fighting them off.”
“Oh,” Donna said.
“Not your fault, either of you. Just the fault of that Time Agency staffer who calls himself -”
“Jack Harkness?” the Doctor asked.
“That’s the one,” Susan confirmed. “I’d gotten ahold of the Dalek’s attempt to make a Dalek equivalent of a Time Lord, took time to school her in everything she needed to know so she could undermine the Dalek forces from within…and that staffer goes and kerpuddles the whole thing.”
“We’ll go have a word with him. In the meantime, would you like to accompany me and Donna?”
“Another time, perhaps, Grandfather,” muttering soft soothings in her head, easing the disquiet. “Continued good fortune to you and to you, Donna.”
“Thank you,” Donna said. “Lovely to meet you, Susan. We really should do this again sometime.”
“I’ll bring the peril,” and hiked down the hillside, alone.
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The End
Author’s note: Of course, if Tosh is the end product of trying to make a Time Lord…is it really the end?