m_findlow

Title: Pretty smart
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Tosh
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,199 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for fffc May Special Daily Challenge - May 30th - “You're lucky enough to be different, never change.” (Taylor Swift)
Summary: Tosh might be considered unusual by some, but not by Jack.

Tosh clutched her laptop carefully in the crook of her elbow as she tried to configure the readings she was getting. It had been a busy morning, first having to track down the offending item that had come through the rift, and then having to deal with the after effects. It hadn't been sentient, but it had managed to move quite a considerable distance before they'd located it, leaving behind a trail of harmful but not deadly radiation. 'Nothing to worry about,' Jack had told her. He had something back at the hub that would effectively absorb the residue and had been wandering around the streets since, doing just that. Tosh's task as always was to take a step back and let Jack lead. That was how it worked. He her mentor and she just learning the ropes. Torchwood certainly gave her an education and no two days had yet been the same since he'd taken her under his wing and away from that horrible UNIT prison.

She was a good thirty feet behind him as she scanned for traces of the radiation, making sure whatever it was that Jack had tucked in his great coat pocket was doing its job. If she found a spot that wasn't clear, she'd have to tell him to double back and wait a little longer. He wasn't exactly what she'd call a patient man all of the time, and the device he'd shown her just needed time to soak up the radiation. He usually strode along the streets with that long stride of his, coattails forced to trail behind his outline, but today it was more of a leisurely stroll. It was just a shame that their location wasn't somewhere you'd go to enjoy the views. The grotty council estate was the kind of place you didn't want to hang around for long, not unless you had a gang to back you up.

Off to one side of the street was a hotted up car, electric blue with two ridiculously huge exhaust pipes sticking out the back, an indiscernable thumping beat ejecting from its multiple stereo speakers, and at least four youths packed into its interior, smoking and doing God only knew what else. As Jack passed the parked car, Tosh could see the way they turned their heads towards him, watching him walk by, perhaps considering whether he made a good target for a mugging. Having taken in those strong hands and square shoulders, they seemed to have decided better of it.

Tosh kept her head down as she trailed behind him, hoping that they'd decide she was with Jack and therefore quickly lose interest in her. She was nowhere near ready to take on one of them with the defensive moves Jack had been teaching her, and trying it with four of them would only get her in more trouble.

She was almost past the car, having given it as wide a berth as she could manage before she heard the electric hiss of windows rolling down.

'Oi, freakazoid, leave your computer games at home!'

'Yeah, or give us the laptop and we'll show you something more interesting to watch.'

'Nah, she doesn't look like she'd know what to do with one.' That received a chuckle from the other three.

'She might be pretty without the glasses and the old lady clothes.'

'Yeah, a right tart. You always fancy the ugly ones.'

'Shut up, moron. She's a geek. No one wants that.'

Jack turned his head to look back and one of the boys have him the finger. 'She's all yours mate!' he yelled.

They all laughed and hooted, going back to sucking on their cigarettes as Tosh sped up, trying to close the gap between her and Jack, feeling mortified by the exchange.

'Everything okay?' Jack asked.

'Radiation readings are in the safe zone,' she replied.

'That wasn't what I meant. I was talking about the four stooges back there.'

'Fine,' she replied. 'I'm too nerdy and ugly for their tastes.' She said it with such an air of shame. It wasn't that she'd have ever fancied someone like that, it was just the principle of the matter that even idiots like them thought she was unattractive.

'Too clever and beautiful, I'd say,' Jack replied. He shrugged. 'Their loss.'

'Please don't feel the need to lie on my account,' she said, trying it keep her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her and not the sympathetic looks Jack was probably giving her.

'Have you ever known me to lie?' he said, continuing to walk slowly along the weed infested footpath, making sure not to get his coat caught in the ratty cyclone frncing that ran along one side of a house. It had clearly been condemned for a while and was probably now home to half a dozen squatters.

'They're right, though. I'm just a freak nerd.' This was why she'd loved her old job at the Ministry of Defence so much. There she hadn't been unusually freakish. She was still smarter than most of them, but she wasn't doing a job that advertised her skills. She was just a lowly clerk and could be forgiven for keeping to herself and dressing like a dowdy librarian. Even if they had known about her technological prowess, she'd still have just been one of many.

'If you're a freak, then what does that make me?' Jack asked.

'Normal?' she said, hazarding a guess. He might get around in what appeared to be a dated nineteen forties style of clothing, but it was easy to look past that when all you saw was the attractive man underneath the clothes, and that winning smile that could charm just about anyone. Technologically speaking, he was pretty smart, much smarter than she'd expected him to be when he'd first recruited her, and knew a lot about alien technology and languages. Still, you had to spend a lot of time with him to learn that. Otherwise, he was just some dashing hero who caught aliens for a living. 'No one's going to mistake you for a nerd,' she said. A film star, maybe, she didn't add. 'You just look like an everyday local.'

'And then I open my big mouth and speak and then I'm just some dumb American who doesn't know anything about anything,' he said.

'People don't think that.' And it certainly wasn't true.

'Oh, you Brits,' Jack laughed. 'You love to put a bucket on the Yanks. At least when you go into a coffee shop, nobody looks twice. Unless of course you stated reprogramming their cash register.'

'Yeah, because that's s normal,' she said unable to resist chuckling at the joke.

Jack wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a half hug as they walked. 'You're lucky enough to be different, Toshiko. Never change. Different is special and special is the best thing you can be. If that means stupid people hate you for being smart, then that's their problem. Me, I'd rather have a whole bunch of smart people around me than a bunch of pretty airheads. What good would they be when the world's ending?'