Ficlet: Friends Old And New
Dec. 4th, 2025 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Friends Old And New
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Tosh, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 736
Spoilers: Fragments.
Summary: Tosh needs something to help her get settled into her new home, new job, and new life.
Written For:
i_like_the_stars’ prompt ‘Any, any, childhood stuffed animals’, at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
As Tosh embarks on a new phase in her life, she can’t help but think back on all that has gone before, everything that has influenced her, all the events, good and bad, that have resulted in her being who and where she is now. It hasn’t been an easy path, and it still isn’t, but for the first time in months she can feel the faint stirrings of hope They’re not enough to make her feel comfortable or secure in any way, but they’re still an improvement over her recent apathy and hopelessness, a starting point, something she can build on, if she only knew where to start.
She feels out of place though, unsure where, or even if, she fits into this new life with its new and previously unimagined opportunities. She wants things to work out, can’t bear the thought of the Captain tossing her back where he found her, doesn’t believe she could survive if that were to happen. But if she’s going to prove herself worthy of the faith Captain Harkness claims to have in her, then she needs to find something to help her cope with all the changes, and her nervousness about being out in the world once more. She doesn’t mean alcohol or tranquilizers, she’s never been the kind to self-medicate, except perhaps with chocolate, but she needs something to prop up her shaky nerves, feed her resolve.
What is there that might provide her with some measure of comfort without being harmful? A pet, perhaps? But her new job has her working long hours, so she’s seldom home until very late, which wouldn’t be fair, even to something as independent as a cat, and anyway, what if this really doesn’t work out? What would happen to the poor animal then? The idea comes out of nowhere, and teases at the edges of her mind for days before solidifying, but…
She’d had a whole host of stuffed animals when she’d been a little girl. There’d been teddy bears and rabbits, pandas and penguins, even a cuddly octopus and a shark… That had been years ago though, back when she’d still lived with her parents, before computers and other electronic devices had taken over her life and she’d become more interested in circuit boards and computer programming than in her old toys. She has no idea what happened to them.
Then she’d left home, gone to university, got a job with the Department of Defence, committed treason to save her mother’s life, been thrown in a bare cell in a UNIT prison, rescued by the enigmatic Captain Harkness, and given a job with Torchwood, studying alien technology…
Tosh is grateful to the Captain; there’s no denying that, and she wouldn’t want to anyway. She’s happy to be working somewhere her talents are welcomed and appreciated, and she knows what she’s doing is important, but it doesn’t alter the fact that after months locked away from the world, adjusting to her newfound freedom is proving more difficult that she wants to admit, even to herself. It makes no sense, but somehow she feels even lonelier now there are other people around her than she ever did when she was shut in her cell with only herself for company.
Then one day, while out buying groceries, on impulse she finds herself buying a teddy bear that reminds her of one she used to own. It’s a bit battered and worn, someone else’s cast-off, pulled from a basket of other soft toys outside a charity shop she’d been walking past on her way to the bus stop, but something about it, perhaps the resemblance to her childhood friend, decreed that she couldn’t simply walk on by and leave it there. As impulses go, it’s a harmless one, and it makes her smile, so that’s a point in its favour.
With the first teddy bear, thoroughly washed and brushed back to fluffiness, settled on her bed, before long, Tosh is scouring the internet when she has time in the evenings, trying to find replacements for her other long-lost childhood friends. It doesn’t matter to her what other people might think; they give her someone to go home to at the end of the day, they don’t complain if she comes in late, they don’t judge her, and they make the little terraced house the Captain found for her feel more like her home.
The End
She feels out of place though, unsure where, or even if, she fits into this new life with its new and previously unimagined opportunities. She wants things to work out, can’t bear the thought of the Captain tossing her back where he found her, doesn’t believe she could survive if that were to happen. But if she’s going to prove herself worthy of the faith Captain Harkness claims to have in her, then she needs to find something to help her cope with all the changes, and her nervousness about being out in the world once more. She doesn’t mean alcohol or tranquilizers, she’s never been the kind to self-medicate, except perhaps with chocolate, but she needs something to prop up her shaky nerves, feed her resolve.
What is there that might provide her with some measure of comfort without being harmful? A pet, perhaps? But her new job has her working long hours, so she’s seldom home until very late, which wouldn’t be fair, even to something as independent as a cat, and anyway, what if this really doesn’t work out? What would happen to the poor animal then? The idea comes out of nowhere, and teases at the edges of her mind for days before solidifying, but…
She’d had a whole host of stuffed animals when she’d been a little girl. There’d been teddy bears and rabbits, pandas and penguins, even a cuddly octopus and a shark… That had been years ago though, back when she’d still lived with her parents, before computers and other electronic devices had taken over her life and she’d become more interested in circuit boards and computer programming than in her old toys. She has no idea what happened to them.
Then she’d left home, gone to university, got a job with the Department of Defence, committed treason to save her mother’s life, been thrown in a bare cell in a UNIT prison, rescued by the enigmatic Captain Harkness, and given a job with Torchwood, studying alien technology…
Tosh is grateful to the Captain; there’s no denying that, and she wouldn’t want to anyway. She’s happy to be working somewhere her talents are welcomed and appreciated, and she knows what she’s doing is important, but it doesn’t alter the fact that after months locked away from the world, adjusting to her newfound freedom is proving more difficult that she wants to admit, even to herself. It makes no sense, but somehow she feels even lonelier now there are other people around her than she ever did when she was shut in her cell with only herself for company.
Then one day, while out buying groceries, on impulse she finds herself buying a teddy bear that reminds her of one she used to own. It’s a bit battered and worn, someone else’s cast-off, pulled from a basket of other soft toys outside a charity shop she’d been walking past on her way to the bus stop, but something about it, perhaps the resemblance to her childhood friend, decreed that she couldn’t simply walk on by and leave it there. As impulses go, it’s a harmless one, and it makes her smile, so that’s a point in its favour.
With the first teddy bear, thoroughly washed and brushed back to fluffiness, settled on her bed, before long, Tosh is scouring the internet when she has time in the evenings, trying to find replacements for her other long-lost childhood friends. It doesn’t matter to her what other people might think; they give her someone to go home to at the end of the day, they don’t complain if she comes in late, they don’t judge her, and they make the little terraced house the Captain found for her feel more like her home.
The End
(no subject)
Date: 2025-12-05 09:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-12-05 10:12 pm (UTC)I'm lucky I still gave my first little bunny. It looks sad, but it always has.
Tosh can have whatever she wants.
Thank you!