Ficlet: A Girl’s Best Friend
Title: A Girl’s Best Friend
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh, OC, mentions Owen, Jack
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: After a rotten day, Tosh seeks comfort from someone she knows she can always depend on.
Word Count: 555
Written For: My own prompt ‘Any, any, Teddy bears are better than men because...,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Tosh loved working for Torchwood, she really did, there were so many wonderful and extraordinary things to see, so many fascinating bits of technology to figure out, mysteries to unravel and alien languages to decipher. Most of the time it was the most amazingly brilliant job she could imagine.
But there were downsides too, and today had been one horrible thing after another. Owen had been in a bad mood right from the start, arriving late and hung over and being mean to everyone. Normally she was able to shrug it off, but she’d already been stressed and shaken by a near miss on her way to work when she’d almost crashed into a car that had pulled out in front of her without warning, and Owen’s sniping had been like salt in an open wound.
Then the Rift had dumped a particularly nasty alien in a school playground, where it had killed two children and injured five more before it could be contained. Ianto had put out a cover story of an escaped puma, since the creature had looked superficially similar except for the crest of russet fur down its spine and the heavier, doglike but earless head. Tosh kept seeing the small bodies, hearing the screams and crying of the injured echoing in her head… If they’d only got to the school a few minutes sooner. All the team were taking it hard; Jack had reminded them that if it hadn’t been for them doing their job, the outcome would have been far worse, but it was little consolation.
As if that hadn’t been enough, the programme she’d been painstakingly working on for weeks had been wiped from her computer by an unexpected power surge. Now she would have to begin the whole process from scratch.
By the time she arrived at her lonely apartment that night, Tosh was feeling thoroughly miserable and wished she had someone there to give her a hug.
Throwing off her clothes and pulling on cosy pyjamas, she crawled into bed and reached for her faithful teddy bear, Einstein. She was pathetic, hugging a soft toy; at her age she should have someone in her life instead of being all alone, but she buried her face in his fur anyway. What was it about teddy bears that was so comforting anyway? It wasn’t as if they could hug back. Then again…
Teddy bears were always there when you needed them, they never hogged the covers and they were always willing to listen. They didn’t leave dirty clothes all over the place, borrow your things without asking, or go out with their mates and roll in drunk at three in the morning. They didn’t hog the remote control and watch sports all day, or make fun of you for liking mushy romantic movies and cheesy sit-coms. They were never rude or condescending or mean just because they were in a bad mood, they never lied or cheated, and they were always willing to just cuddle without expecting anything more.
Sometimes, Tosh wished she had a boyfriend or a girlfriend to share her life with, but in a lot of ways, teddy bears were far superior to any person and right now, as she cuddled the furry form close, she decided Einstein was the best friend she could possibly have.
The End