Fic: _____, Tock. Torchwood, tw_femficfest
Title: ___, Tock; a fairy tale of impossible things
Recipient:
alt_universe_me
Author: XTricks
Rating: Open
Characters/Pairings: Tosh, no pairings
Spoilers and Warnings: TW2 and 3, Dr Who 5
Summary: Believe in the truth
Beta: :(
Author Notes: I'm somewhere near the prompt. Prompt: Exit Wounds fix-it where Eleven comes back for Tosh. Preferences: Tosh!
Link to Story: _____, Tock
_____, Tock
Toshiko had a watch that never worked. It was old and lovely, and the paths of the stars were etched on the case in circles and spirals of gold.
Tosh could never fix it but she kept it close to her heart because sometimes broken things were the most beautiful.
She lost it only once and it came back to her from Jack's hands. In the shadows of the UNIT holding facility, he held it out glittering between them, and if he never treated her quite the same afterwards, Tosh never knew why.
38.264.01/-00.000.00
Five years later, the years and the days and the seconds of her life ran down and the last moments tick-tocked away with the beating of her heart, spreading red wings around her as she died.
Perhaps things might have gone differently, if everyone had been less eager to put her face away behind steel doors. But Tosh slept and it wasn't until an explosion kissed her awake that she woke back to life, to time turning around her and the tock - - tock- -tock- of existence not quite working right. Lying on her breast, her watch tick-tocked, a double time beat to match the beating of her double hearts. The last fingers to touch it had been Ianto's, gentle and sad.
199.303.02/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
The world was a jumble of stone and darkness when she woke again and Toshiko crawled in the dark with the smell of fire and decay in her nose. She put her hands on things that didn't exist anymore, memories that had never happened, people that had never come to work for an undying man who had never fallen through time to serve at the Queen's pleasure. There had never been a Torchwood. It made it easier to accept that Toshiko Sato, with the mother who she was never allowed to see, had never been quite real, either.
But some things clung to existence, anyway.
676666.245.33/~
... hurts ... hurts ... hurts...
"Shhh, shhh, baby," she whispered in the smothering dark, cradling a bit of coral to her chest, "I know."
She was talking to a broken chunk of rock, born in a sea of space-time far greater and far stranger than could be found on any Earth. Only half of it had survived the battering reality had taken and Toshiko clung to it with the determination of a survivor herself.
27.241.05/0.221.55
She crawled out of a secret, shattered by an explosion that had never happened, to pavement that had been undisturbed for decades. The story below was buried like a myth, only a legend, and the world above was ... chilly. Tosh curled her bare toes into a crevice in the stones and looked across a broken world. People stared, as if she were the oddity not them, with their impossible lives and looming deaths -- every life was coming to the same end: the seagull in the sky 0.323.26/0.221.55, the child and her balloon 4.065.20/0.221.55, the soaring water tower that hid no secret base 15.111.22/0.221.33. The moments raced by everywhere she looked and Tosh could see all of them.
"Miss? Miss, please, you can't go wandering about like that." Andy Davidson was very earnest underneath the brim of his very new constable cap. He didn't look any lower than her chin. The seconds of his life were winding down as swiftly as everyone else's.
"I'm not wandering," Toshiko replied firmly, jagged coral biting her fingertips. "I'm forgotten, which is not the same thing at all."
She stopped walking after a few cold paces, a few more looks, and turned to him. "Some clothes might be welcome though. I have things to do."
The world tocked - - tocked- -tocked- around them, like a broken dancer, and if Tosh took a step to the right, she could save Andy Davidson's life. But the path of her life was straight line and all lives wound down. Except one -- but where that life should have been was only +0+0+0/+0+0+0.
Someone, somewhere, had been dividing by 0.
Every dry lesson she'd ever learned taught her to stay on the straight path, to mind her steps, mind her manners, but she'd fought daleks and sent young soldiers to die with a kiss on their lips and lived an entire life in E-space, and those were all lessons in learning to bend. Toshiko smiled at an Andy Davidson who did not know her, and took a step to the right.
199.323.02/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
"… forgive me, my love … forgive me, my love … forgive me, my love …"
Every day-that-wasn't, the sun didn't rise, and instead a screaming brilliance spread harshly from the horizon. If the Doctor had remade the Earth in this image, Tosh couldn't find him. Within a month she had settled into University on the strength of her research on the migration patterns of Nile Penguins. Well, that and a little blackmail. Academic politics were no match for centuries of spoiled Gallifreyans and the game of thrones they played.
She worked best by day because when night fell and the stars should be turning in their long dance, there was only:
-0 -0 -0 -0 -0 -0 -0
-0 -0 -0 -0 -0-0-0
-0 -0 -0
-0 -0 -0 -0 -0 -0
Tosh had forgotten, during her human life, what it was like to know the beginnings and endings of all things; cabbages and kings and the universe itself. To look up into a black sky full of naughts was a little … distracting.
Only the dreamers of dreams believed in stars, and an obsessed woman living on Bannerman Road, who spent most of her time trying to find the son who had never existed. They worked together, occasionally, because Tosh was looking for the Mad Man Who Lived in a Box and he had never existed either.
Like the stars in the sky. Like Boshane. Like the Daleks, the Tharils. Gallifrey. Like Romanadvoratrelundar, who was Romana, who was Lady President, and wife and mother and widow, and survivor and Toshiko Sato, traitor and hero and survivor. Fairy tales, all of them, and the stories were growing shorter and their little bubble universe was growing smaller every day-that-wasn't.
tock - - tock- -tock-
If her calculations were correct (and she still loved numbers, so very much, even if Pi didn't exist anymore), they would reach -0 in about a year.
She crossed the world during that year, and spoke to the mad and the lost and the forgotten and no one, anywhere, had seen the Man in the Blue Box but one little girl.
~/~
She was a mad little girl (and angry too), with her fairy tale name, and a life that had no beginning or end. When Tosh found her, she was sitting in her back garden and looking at the blank, black sky.
"You're another doctor," she said with an accusing glare.
"Who? Me? No, oh, no," Tosh laughed. "I'm no doctor at all. Wouldn't that be fabulous if I were?"
"No," the little girl scowled. All the lines of her face were somber and wary and the way she clutched her drawings was more like a soldier with her weapon than 'childish games'. "I don't like doctors."
"Well, there are doctors and there are doctors, you know. Some are good, some are bad and some are just ... strange. What is your doctor like? Mine, you see, has always been strange."
The little girl scowled even more fiercely and held out her picture for Tosh to see. A field of dark blue and the swirling brilliance of --
"Stars!" Tosh said with joy. A picture was worth a thousand words and it might save the universe as well.
"My doctor tells me they aren't real. They're made up things."
Tosh tore her gaze from the paper to the world beyond. "That is a fact," she said regretfully, but when she looked back down at the child beside her, she had a smile and a secret. "But there are facts and there is truth. We all have to chose which one to believe in."
"Which one do you believe?"
Tosh closer her hand around the watch in her pocket, tick-tocking in time with the beat-beat of her hearts. "I believe in things that are true."
She was such a small child for so much stubbornness and she nodded at Tosh like a conspirator. "I do too."
In this story, little girls save the world.
199.323.02/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
Tosh wasn't a little girl but when the universe opened up again, there was room enough for grown up heroes too. She knocked on a blue door to a larger world, and knew she'd be fabulous.
Epilogue
934.143.11/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
"Well," the Doctor said, opening the door. "This is really unexpected."
END
This entry was originally posted at http://xtricks.dreamwidth.org/54664.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Recipient:
alt_universe_me
Author: XTricks
Rating: Open
Characters/Pairings: Tosh, no pairings
Spoilers and Warnings: TW2 and 3, Dr Who 5
Summary: Believe in the truth
Beta: :(
Author Notes: I'm somewhere near the prompt. Prompt: Exit Wounds fix-it where Eleven comes back for Tosh. Preferences: Tosh!
Link to Story: _____, Tock
_____, Tock
Toshiko had a watch that never worked. It was old and lovely, and the paths of the stars were etched on the case in circles and spirals of gold.
Tosh could never fix it but she kept it close to her heart because sometimes broken things were the most beautiful.
She lost it only once and it came back to her from Jack's hands. In the shadows of the UNIT holding facility, he held it out glittering between them, and if he never treated her quite the same afterwards, Tosh never knew why.
38.264.01/-00.000.00
Five years later, the years and the days and the seconds of her life ran down and the last moments tick-tocked away with the beating of her heart, spreading red wings around her as she died.
Perhaps things might have gone differently, if everyone had been less eager to put her face away behind steel doors. But Tosh slept and it wasn't until an explosion kissed her awake that she woke back to life, to time turning around her and the tock - - tock- -tock- of existence not quite working right. Lying on her breast, her watch tick-tocked, a double time beat to match the beating of her double hearts. The last fingers to touch it had been Ianto's, gentle and sad.
199.303.02/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
The world was a jumble of stone and darkness when she woke again and Toshiko crawled in the dark with the smell of fire and decay in her nose. She put her hands on things that didn't exist anymore, memories that had never happened, people that had never come to work for an undying man who had never fallen through time to serve at the Queen's pleasure. There had never been a Torchwood. It made it easier to accept that Toshiko Sato, with the mother who she was never allowed to see, had never been quite real, either.
But some things clung to existence, anyway.
676666.245.33/~
... hurts ... hurts ... hurts...
"Shhh, shhh, baby," she whispered in the smothering dark, cradling a bit of coral to her chest, "I know."
She was talking to a broken chunk of rock, born in a sea of space-time far greater and far stranger than could be found on any Earth. Only half of it had survived the battering reality had taken and Toshiko clung to it with the determination of a survivor herself.
27.241.05/0.221.55
She crawled out of a secret, shattered by an explosion that had never happened, to pavement that had been undisturbed for decades. The story below was buried like a myth, only a legend, and the world above was ... chilly. Tosh curled her bare toes into a crevice in the stones and looked across a broken world. People stared, as if she were the oddity not them, with their impossible lives and looming deaths -- every life was coming to the same end: the seagull in the sky 0.323.26/0.221.55, the child and her balloon 4.065.20/0.221.55, the soaring water tower that hid no secret base 15.111.22/0.221.33. The moments raced by everywhere she looked and Tosh could see all of them.
"Miss? Miss, please, you can't go wandering about like that." Andy Davidson was very earnest underneath the brim of his very new constable cap. He didn't look any lower than her chin. The seconds of his life were winding down as swiftly as everyone else's.
"I'm not wandering," Toshiko replied firmly, jagged coral biting her fingertips. "I'm forgotten, which is not the same thing at all."
She stopped walking after a few cold paces, a few more looks, and turned to him. "Some clothes might be welcome though. I have things to do."
The world tocked - - tocked- -tocked- around them, like a broken dancer, and if Tosh took a step to the right, she could save Andy Davidson's life. But the path of her life was straight line and all lives wound down. Except one -- but where that life should have been was only +0+0+0/+0+0+0.
Someone, somewhere, had been dividing by 0.
Every dry lesson she'd ever learned taught her to stay on the straight path, to mind her steps, mind her manners, but she'd fought daleks and sent young soldiers to die with a kiss on their lips and lived an entire life in E-space, and those were all lessons in learning to bend. Toshiko smiled at an Andy Davidson who did not know her, and took a step to the right.
199.323.02/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
"… forgive me, my love … forgive me, my love … forgive me, my love …"
Every day-that-wasn't, the sun didn't rise, and instead a screaming brilliance spread harshly from the horizon. If the Doctor had remade the Earth in this image, Tosh couldn't find him. Within a month she had settled into University on the strength of her research on the migration patterns of Nile Penguins. Well, that and a little blackmail. Academic politics were no match for centuries of spoiled Gallifreyans and the game of thrones they played.
She worked best by day because when night fell and the stars should be turning in their long dance, there was only:
-0 -0 -0 -0 -0 -0 -0
-0 -0 -0 -0 -0-0-0
-0 -0 -0
-0 -0 -0 -0 -0 -0
Tosh had forgotten, during her human life, what it was like to know the beginnings and endings of all things; cabbages and kings and the universe itself. To look up into a black sky full of naughts was a little … distracting.
Only the dreamers of dreams believed in stars, and an obsessed woman living on Bannerman Road, who spent most of her time trying to find the son who had never existed. They worked together, occasionally, because Tosh was looking for the Mad Man Who Lived in a Box and he had never existed either.
Like the stars in the sky. Like Boshane. Like the Daleks, the Tharils. Gallifrey. Like Romanadvoratrelundar, who was Romana, who was Lady President, and wife and mother and widow, and survivor and Toshiko Sato, traitor and hero and survivor. Fairy tales, all of them, and the stories were growing shorter and their little bubble universe was growing smaller every day-that-wasn't.
tock - - tock- -tock-
If her calculations were correct (and she still loved numbers, so very much, even if Pi didn't exist anymore), they would reach -0 in about a year.
She crossed the world during that year, and spoke to the mad and the lost and the forgotten and no one, anywhere, had seen the Man in the Blue Box but one little girl.
~/~
She was a mad little girl (and angry too), with her fairy tale name, and a life that had no beginning or end. When Tosh found her, she was sitting in her back garden and looking at the blank, black sky.
"You're another doctor," she said with an accusing glare.
"Who? Me? No, oh, no," Tosh laughed. "I'm no doctor at all. Wouldn't that be fabulous if I were?"
"No," the little girl scowled. All the lines of her face were somber and wary and the way she clutched her drawings was more like a soldier with her weapon than 'childish games'. "I don't like doctors."
"Well, there are doctors and there are doctors, you know. Some are good, some are bad and some are just ... strange. What is your doctor like? Mine, you see, has always been strange."
The little girl scowled even more fiercely and held out her picture for Tosh to see. A field of dark blue and the swirling brilliance of --
"Stars!" Tosh said with joy. A picture was worth a thousand words and it might save the universe as well.
"My doctor tells me they aren't real. They're made up things."
Tosh tore her gaze from the paper to the world beyond. "That is a fact," she said regretfully, but when she looked back down at the child beside her, she had a smile and a secret. "But there are facts and there is truth. We all have to chose which one to believe in."
"Which one do you believe?"
Tosh closer her hand around the watch in her pocket, tick-tocking in time with the beat-beat of her hearts. "I believe in things that are true."
She was such a small child for so much stubbornness and she nodded at Tosh like a conspirator. "I do too."
In this story, little girls save the world.
199.323.02/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
Tosh wasn't a little girl but when the universe opened up again, there was room enough for grown up heroes too. She knocked on a blue door to a larger world, and knew she'd be fabulous.
Epilogue
934.143.11/3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816~
"Well," the Doctor said, opening the door. "This is really unexpected."
END
This entry was originally posted at http://xtricks.dreamwidth.org/54664.html. Please comment there using OpenID.