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m_findlowTitle: In a perfect world
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Big Finish audioplay "The Torchwood Archive"
Author notes: Written for Challenge 100 - One perfect day at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: Tosh finally gets to experience what it's like to have everything go right and know it isn't.
Tosh almost couldn't believe she'd done it. Jack had said it was impossible. Object One was cursed and there was nothing anyone could do. It had haunted Torchwood's footsteps for as long as the institute had been in existence, always bringing death and destruction wherever it went.
Jack had told her a story he hadn't shared with anyone. That he'd defied Queen Victoria's orders for Torchwood to throw Object One into the rift. He thought he could keep it and find a way to use it to their advantage. That was Torchwood's remit, after all - arming themselves against the future.
For nearly a decade he'd put it out of his mind, assuming it was safe, locked away in the secure archives. But whilst he'd been living his life, oblivious to Object One's influence on Cardiff, something else had been unfolding in the shadows. Hideous creatures who might have once been human, now nothing more than snarling, murderous monsters. Weevils. People around the city called it the plague and avoided the docks around Tiger Bay at night. Jack had finally put two and two together and realised that Object One was responsible.
Perhaps Queen Victoria had been right all along and, despite the risks, Jack had opened up the rift and thrown it in, hoping to be rid of it once and for all. If he'd know the grievous mistake he'd made he would never have done it. Weevils had been bad, but it was nothing compared to the impact of the rift on Object One and what it was capable of inflicting on the world. Jack had flung it deep into the rift in 1914, and in doing so, he told Tosh, set in motion the greatest war ever to have raged across the face of the earth.
Tosh shouldn't have access. It was still under lock and key, but she'd sweet-talked the nice young man Jack had left in charge of Torchwood's artifacts. It was important to understand how it worked. To the untrained eye, it looked like nothing more than a plain silver locket on a chain. "Never open it" had been Jack's stern instructions. She knew that, too. It had destroyed Torchwood Three at the turn of the century because their leader at the time, Jack's predecessor, had done just that. She wouldn't open it. Just study it carefully without ever touching it.
In the end, it actually hadn't been that hard at all. A simple field inverter forcing Object One to emanate a morphic field of good luck instead of bad.
And what a difference it had made. Overnight everything had changed, just as Jack kept saying it would when the twenty-first century arrived. She could have anything she wanted, simply because she'd been the one to activate the field inverter. She'd seen a war in Africa on the news yesterday morning and today they'd brokered peace after more than twenty years of bloodshed. She'd done that. The world literally bent to her will. If she wanted an end to world hunger, it would happen. If she wanted Jack to finally stop skirting around his relationship with Ianto, he'd be down on one knee with a ring and a promise of forever. If she wanted her own happily ever after with Owen…
She'd seen Gwen on the phone with her husband, telling him how the rift looked like being quiet for days and that yes, she'd be home in time for tea and let's make it a bit special tonight. She beamed at Tosh as she hung up.
'Big night planned?'
Gwen nodded. 'We've been trying for a family for so long now, but I've got a feeling about tonight.'
Tosh nodded. 'I've got a good feeling, too.' Because if she wanted Gwen to get pregnant, it would happen. And the best part was that she didn't even feel jealous. She wanted Gwen to be happy because now Tosh knew that nobody had to sacrifice their own happiness for someone else. Everyone could be happy. Jack and Ianto floated around her all day in a whirlwind of giddy, childish love because she wanted them to be happy too.
And then it happened. Owen.
'Fancy grabbing a coffee, Tosh? Boss has given us the afternoon off.'
She didn't need to ask why, or consider if Owen had ulterior motives. They simply grabbed their coats and headed out. Even the weather was perfect and they quickly dispensed with coats and chose a table out in the glorious sunshine, ordering coffees and cake, and talking openly about everything other than work.
'I'm glad you're here with me, Tosh,' Owen said, reaching across the table to take her hand.
'Me too,' she replied, smiling at the man who'd been her crush for as long as she could remember, but never more than a fantasy.
Then he leaned across the table and kissed her, right in front of everyone. She kissed back, hearing clapping and wolf whistles from onlookers. Anything she wanted, she reminded herself as her fingers dipped into her pocket and wrapped around the silver locket. It was ice cold to the touch and made her jolt.
She had to get rid of it. It was dangerous because it was too perfect. She'd had one day to experience what a world like that would be, and today would be even better. No, it couldn't be allowed to influence the entire world.
She couldn't throw it back into the rift. Jack had done that before and it had found its way back. She had to be cleverer than that. Cleverer than Jack. Just chucking it into the rift meant it would still be bobbing around somewhere in time and space. It had to go further. Another dimension. Somewhere it couldn't touch this reality. That would solve it.
She pulled away from the kiss and smiled, not because she was happy but because she knew she had a duty to make things right in the world by making them wrong again.
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Big Finish audioplay "The Torchwood Archive"
Author notes: Written for Challenge 100 - One perfect day at
fandomweekly Summary: Tosh finally gets to experience what it's like to have everything go right and know it isn't.
Tosh almost couldn't believe she'd done it. Jack had said it was impossible. Object One was cursed and there was nothing anyone could do. It had haunted Torchwood's footsteps for as long as the institute had been in existence, always bringing death and destruction wherever it went.
Jack had told her a story he hadn't shared with anyone. That he'd defied Queen Victoria's orders for Torchwood to throw Object One into the rift. He thought he could keep it and find a way to use it to their advantage. That was Torchwood's remit, after all - arming themselves against the future.
For nearly a decade he'd put it out of his mind, assuming it was safe, locked away in the secure archives. But whilst he'd been living his life, oblivious to Object One's influence on Cardiff, something else had been unfolding in the shadows. Hideous creatures who might have once been human, now nothing more than snarling, murderous monsters. Weevils. People around the city called it the plague and avoided the docks around Tiger Bay at night. Jack had finally put two and two together and realised that Object One was responsible.
Perhaps Queen Victoria had been right all along and, despite the risks, Jack had opened up the rift and thrown it in, hoping to be rid of it once and for all. If he'd know the grievous mistake he'd made he would never have done it. Weevils had been bad, but it was nothing compared to the impact of the rift on Object One and what it was capable of inflicting on the world. Jack had flung it deep into the rift in 1914, and in doing so, he told Tosh, set in motion the greatest war ever to have raged across the face of the earth.
Tosh shouldn't have access. It was still under lock and key, but she'd sweet-talked the nice young man Jack had left in charge of Torchwood's artifacts. It was important to understand how it worked. To the untrained eye, it looked like nothing more than a plain silver locket on a chain. "Never open it" had been Jack's stern instructions. She knew that, too. It had destroyed Torchwood Three at the turn of the century because their leader at the time, Jack's predecessor, had done just that. She wouldn't open it. Just study it carefully without ever touching it.
In the end, it actually hadn't been that hard at all. A simple field inverter forcing Object One to emanate a morphic field of good luck instead of bad.
And what a difference it had made. Overnight everything had changed, just as Jack kept saying it would when the twenty-first century arrived. She could have anything she wanted, simply because she'd been the one to activate the field inverter. She'd seen a war in Africa on the news yesterday morning and today they'd brokered peace after more than twenty years of bloodshed. She'd done that. The world literally bent to her will. If she wanted an end to world hunger, it would happen. If she wanted Jack to finally stop skirting around his relationship with Ianto, he'd be down on one knee with a ring and a promise of forever. If she wanted her own happily ever after with Owen…
She'd seen Gwen on the phone with her husband, telling him how the rift looked like being quiet for days and that yes, she'd be home in time for tea and let's make it a bit special tonight. She beamed at Tosh as she hung up.
'Big night planned?'
Gwen nodded. 'We've been trying for a family for so long now, but I've got a feeling about tonight.'
Tosh nodded. 'I've got a good feeling, too.' Because if she wanted Gwen to get pregnant, it would happen. And the best part was that she didn't even feel jealous. She wanted Gwen to be happy because now Tosh knew that nobody had to sacrifice their own happiness for someone else. Everyone could be happy. Jack and Ianto floated around her all day in a whirlwind of giddy, childish love because she wanted them to be happy too.
And then it happened. Owen.
'Fancy grabbing a coffee, Tosh? Boss has given us the afternoon off.'
She didn't need to ask why, or consider if Owen had ulterior motives. They simply grabbed their coats and headed out. Even the weather was perfect and they quickly dispensed with coats and chose a table out in the glorious sunshine, ordering coffees and cake, and talking openly about everything other than work.
'I'm glad you're here with me, Tosh,' Owen said, reaching across the table to take her hand.
'Me too,' she replied, smiling at the man who'd been her crush for as long as she could remember, but never more than a fantasy.
Then he leaned across the table and kissed her, right in front of everyone. She kissed back, hearing clapping and wolf whistles from onlookers. Anything she wanted, she reminded herself as her fingers dipped into her pocket and wrapped around the silver locket. It was ice cold to the touch and made her jolt.
She had to get rid of it. It was dangerous because it was too perfect. She'd had one day to experience what a world like that would be, and today would be even better. No, it couldn't be allowed to influence the entire world.
She couldn't throw it back into the rift. Jack had done that before and it had found its way back. She had to be cleverer than that. Cleverer than Jack. Just chucking it into the rift meant it would still be bobbing around somewhere in time and space. It had to go further. Another dimension. Somewhere it couldn't touch this reality. That would solve it.
She pulled away from the kiss and smiled, not because she was happy but because she knew she had a duty to make things right in the world by making them wrong again.
