multiversallogs | you seem to be like someone I knew

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you seem to be like someone I knew

Who: Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones
What: a mini Torchwood reunion
Where: outside Valhalla Inn
When: backdated to the day after the monsters retreat
Notes: rated B for extensive backdating and probable backtagging
Warnings: angst?

It's not exactly like the old days in Cardiff, but close enough that when it's all over and the monsters finally begin to retreat, Tosh feels a little at a loss as to what to do with herself. Back at Torchwood, there would have been the period of post-encounter debriefing and recovery, she would have had data to compile or equipment to repair or some alien technology to investigate. They'd have ordered pizza or Chinese and Ianto would have made everyone's coffee exactly how they like it, and Jack would have told them all in whatever way they needed to hear that they'd done well.

Everything is different now, though, and even with Tosh expecting to see the two of them sooner rather than later, there's still a sense of being a single motionless island in the flow of the city around her. So while she waits to hear from Ianto, she does a careful, unobtrusive patrol of the neighborhood surrounding the inn to make sure there really are no new attacks taking place, Integra's shotgun an unfamiliar weight on her shoulder.

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Jack didn't know quite what to make of the fact that Toshiko had apparently found her way to this city. He was happy that she was alive, that was one thing. But it didn't really make sense that she would be. The last time he'd seen her, she was bleeding out on the floor, looking up at him with that sad, sweet smile of hers, and then she'd died in his arms. It was a hard image to get around. Ianto had seemed to have a hard time getting around it as well, which was why they'd waited so long to go out and try to find her, let Ianto get some rest and the pair of them get some food in them before they started their search.

Without really know where to look or where to go looking, they'd started around the area of the inn. That's where everyone ended up, so he figured that that was as good a place as any for them to run into her. It was kind of a long shot, but it was the only option that they really had.

He turned to Ianto as they neared on rounding a corner. "Doing alright?" he asked. They'd pretty much rolled out of bed and gone out searching, after all, and despite the rest that he'd desperately needed and finally gotten, Ianto was still looking a little groggy.

Ianto nodded, still feeling as if on some level he was still sleeping. His reaction time would be slower than normal if anything popped up, but thankfully the streets seemed monster free at last, save for the occasional corpse.

Still, despite the grogginess, the sleep and Jack's support had done wonders to settle him down and make him feel like he was in better control of his emotions. He was still anxious, as if he simultaneously had butterflies in his stomach and cold feet, but he felt better prepared to see Tosh now.

"Alright," he replied. "Just not a morning person today. Even my coffee has failed me," he quipped, summoning a smile. They rounded the corner as he spoke, and when he looked back at the path ahead of them, he stopped dead.

"Tosh..." It came out a whisper, as if speaking her name any louder would break the spell, and the very real person not ten feet before them would disappear like smoke. He wondered absently if he looked as if he had seen a ghost. He felt like it.

Tosh has been keeping an eye out for the two men since she spoke to Ianto, but it's still a surprise to actually see them in the flesh. Not the kind of surprise it would be to them, and she realizes this, setting the gun down to lean against the side of the building and facing them with a hesitant smile.

"Ianto. Jack. Guess this is, um...pretty weird for you, yeah?" From the shock she sees in their faces, she's sure this isn't the same pair she last encountered, it makes her feel almost as though she should apologize for not sending word in advance. "Hi."

"...you could say that again, yeah..." Jack says, breathlessly, before cracking a wide smile. Never mind that there are a few tears in his eye, Jack's a pretty emotional person, and the fact that she's just come alive for him when she's been dead for the last few months or so in his mind pretty much excuses that point all-together.

He puts a hand on Ianto's shoulder, squeezing it in support, because he hears that tone in his voice and he wants to reassure him that it's okay, really, he can see her too, before he steps out towards her. He takes in her state of dress, the shotgun she'd been carrying up until a moment ago, the hesitant smile on her face, before he steps forward and tugs her into a tight hug.

"Damn, is it good to see you again..." he says, softly.

Watching Jack take Tosh in his arms, Ianto lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding when Tosh remains stubbornly solid and embraceable. He can't help but tear up as he steps forward, silently observing a scene he'd never thought to be privileged to see again. With infinite patience, he waits for his turn, unwilling to disturb the moment.

For a second Tosh is caught off-guard by the embrace, her last unfortunate experiences with Jack still at the forefront of her mind. But everything about this one feels different, like the other was some poor illusion, and she sighs and hugs him tightly, pressing her face against his coat.

Then she pulls away and turns to Ianto, not letting him stand waiting any longer.

"You don't know how long I've been waiting to see you two again."

She's right, they don't know. Jack lets her pull back and go to Ianto, putting a supportive hand on her back until she steps too far away and he lets it drop.

"Tosh, what happened?" he asks. "What do you mean, how long you've been waiting to see us? What... What's happened to you?" Because there was obviously something that happened. Even Jack can tell that.

Ianto promptly takes Tosh in his arms, and is amazed by it. She feels the same as she always had, on the occasions he'd hugged her. Slight and light in his arms, and he knows, just like he always used to, that if he wanted, he could pick her up and spin her around, but she'd probably punish him for it, in some uniquely Tosh way. He realizes she smells slightly different than she used to, as if she's not wearing some perfume she used to always wear and he only just now noticed, or as if the scent of the hub had clung to her and was gone now. It was strangely reassuring.

He squeezes lightly, once, then lets go enough that he can step back and look at her. His sight is suspiciously blurry, but he's absurdly pleased that he's managed to keep from crying.

"Yes, what happened?" His voice is a little rough. "I...we put you in the morgue, Tosh..." Maybe he shouldn't say so, but he can't help it.

"I know." She gives both men a smile full of sympathy and apology -- Tosh has had years to come to grips with her fate. It's obvious neither Jack nor Ianto has been allowed that luxury. "Somehow...and I still haven't figured out the mechanics of it, I or some part of me was, well, abducted I guess. When I died? Or as I was dying? It's been a few years now for me."

This isn't really the time or place to go into a lot of details about those years, or about the Torchwood members she knew in those other places.

"It really is me, though. At least, as far as I know. I mean, I don't think I've been cloned or anything, and I'm definitely not a masquerading alien."

"A few years?" Jack asks, clearly surprised by the statement. "What do you mean, a few years? You haven't been here the whole time, have you? I mean. I know that Ianto and I have both been kinda busy, but. C'mon. We would've noticed you around." Jack thinks he would have, anyway. He's very, very curious as to what she's been up to for all this time, but there's no doubt. He knows, just by looking at her, that this is their Toshiko. And it's a thought that's both light and happy and like a rock in the pit of his stomach because he knows that on some level, he failed her.

Edited 2011-07-20 19:10 (UTC)

Ianto looks equally baffled, until the thought creeps in that there are so many people here who came from different worlds that functioned much like this one. "Tosh, were you...in another world like this one?"

It galls him utterly that Tosh might have been taken from them somehow, kidnapped and they never noticed. It makes his stomach churn to think that in the weeks since her death, she's experienced years in which they never came to rescue her. He can only be thankful she seems healthy and in good spirits.

Tosh shakes her head at Jack's assertion, then grins up at Ianto. Her boys always were quick like that to figure things out. "Not here, but yes. Two other places, in fact. They were kind of nice, honestly, I mean...for alternate dimensions. The last one I could even come and go from, so I got to travel to a couple different worlds."

Another grin, this one for Jack. "Always wanted to do that."

Several different places before here. Was that what he and Ianto were destined for here as well? He can't be sure. At the grin about traveling the worlds, though, he has to smile widely back at her. "Oh yeah? How'd that work out for you? Hope you enjoyed yourself. There's always something to enjoy about every world you visit, I say. Or someone," he adds, with a wink.

"This is our first alternate reality, though. Ianto and me.Only got here a little while back, still learning the lay of the land. Although," he says with a smile, "he's probably got the train lines memorized already." Now a wink to Ianto as well.

Ianto rolled his eyes affectionately at Jack's blatant innuendo before shooting him a long-suffering look. "Of course I've the train lines memorized. There are only a handful, Jack, and we've been here weeks!" Leave it to Jack to rely entirely on Ianto to get them anywhere on time. He knew the way to Hellsing and probably hadn't bothered with much else. Shaking his head, he looked back to Tosh with a smile.

"I'm glad you haven't had a bad time of things, Tosh. I still have no idea how all this is possible, but you won't hear me complaining." Well, you might hear him complaining about the utter incompetence of the interdimensional powers that be, but he'll never complain that Tosh is alive and well.

"It was educational. And not too exciting." Because this is Torchwood, and exciting tends to end in bloodshed and traumatic stories you could tell your grandchildren if you wanted to give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.

She nods at Jack's remark about it being his and Ianto's first alternate reality. That makes sense, considering their reaction to her arrival. "Well I've actually been trying to work on some theories as to how all of this works," she tells Ianto. "But there are so many variables, and it doesn't help that a lot of these alternate dimensions seems to be run by beings that call themselves gods. Makes the information gathering a bit trickier."

"Tell me about it," Jack says. "Religion is never easy to work around, no matter who you're dealing with. It's the same thing here, from what I gather. What with this Twelve Point Divinity or whatever it is that they've got here, it makes things rather difficult. And what with people walking around claiming to be gods or prophets themselves, stolen from other worlds or times..." He sighs. "Frankly, it's kind of a mess, as far as I see it."

He smiles at her. "You seem to be doing well for yourself, despite how tricky it might have been, though," he says. He's proud of her. Happy to see her, and happy to see that she is doing as well as she is.

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