Current mood:	crappy
Entry tags:	fic, fic: tw

Fic: Midnight Song
Title: Midnight Song
Summary: After everything that happened, Tosh needs to learn an important lesson
Characters: Jack, Tosh
Spoilers: Greeks Bearing Gifts
Rating: None
Word count: 915
Notes: Betaed by the patient jadesfire2808, many thanks for your help. Shameless fluff, inspired by yet another thing that's cluttering my desk. Written for tw_wotd_fic's prompt 'ameliorate' and finished for the Finish-a-Thon. I am bad, because there are already more WiPs on my harddrive... Comments are love, I'll crawl back into bed now.
Fic Masterlist: Here.



I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
- Albert Einstein



She sat in the dark of the Plass, watching Jack merge with the shadows as he left, and felt the coldness of the night slowly creep into her clothes.

Tosh was reluctant to go home, Mary's scent undoubtedly still lingering on her sheets, the cold cigarette smoke mingled with the faint alien aura still tainting her kitchen. She wasn't strong enough to face that yet. But going back to the Hub, back to those inquiring stares and the embarrassed silence, was impossible as well. She shivered, pulling her coat closer around her, feeling lost.

She dispersed the last glassy fragments of the pendant with the heel of her boot as best as she could. Nothing suggested an alien mindreading device had been crushed here, nothing revealed that this accumulation of broken glass was where she'd lost her faith in everything.

When Jack silently returned and sat down back beside her an eternity later, she didn't wait for him to speak, didn't want him to explain what she already understood.

"Suzie was right, you know," she whispered instead. "She always used to say that nothing good ever comes to Earth." Tears welled up again, almost freezing her cheeks in the cold night air.

"Ah," Jack sighed, his voice filled with unexpected warmth. A strong arm sneaked around her shoulders, pulling her into an awkward sideways hug.

"Now that's where she was wrong," he continued, his free hand sneaking into one of his greatcoat's pockets. "Got you this," he smiled, handing her an egg-shaped object. It twinkled in her hand as she grabbed it gently, and it took her a moment to recognize it.

"A sea shell?" she asked incredulous, recognizing the familiar round shape, its smooth surface only interrupted by a jagged crack on its underside. Ianto sold these to visitors in their fake information center sometimes.

"Alien artefact," Jack pouted, caressing the spotted object carefully.

"Jack, that's a tiger cowry," she answered slowly, confused. "Did you buy this on eBay? You got robbed again."

"Funny thing, this universe," he smiled in response. "See, about 300 light years into that direction," he pointed towards some unseen place beyond the horizon, "there's this big civilization on a planet called Arcateen 5. Great poets and marvellous musicians." He halted, staring longingly at the indicated patch of sky over the dark sea. "They don't like humans very much," he continued, "all that clapping and the oral communication puts them off, I guess. Anyway," he sighed, returning his attention to her, "this is one of their toys. For no reason at all it looks exactly like something from our oceans."

Tosh hadn't thought the shell would warm so quickly in her hands as she idly traced the darker line its ridge, the dark dots and its porcelain sheen making it seem more alien that it should.

"They call it Songfruit," Jack explained. "They give it to their young. To learn."

"Learn what?" she whispered, suddenly realizing the thing was far too heavy for an empty shell.

"Have you never asked yourself where that custom of pressing your ear to a sea shell came from?" Their eyes met, Tosh starting to understand what he wanted. "Come on, try it," Jack encouraged her, using his left arm which was still around her shoulders to pull her closer. He felt warm, she thought, and realized with a jolt that she still enjoyed his company, even after everything that had happened today.

She raised the shell to her ear, listening to the turbulences of cold and warm air mingling inside, giving first her ear and then her brain the impression of a roaring ocean, of waves breaking as the sea crashed onto the shore. Humans imagined so many things that weren’t there, she thought sadly.

She closed her eyes and listened, and suddenly the sound changed, transformed into something more substantial, more real. The weak impression of the sea behind her eyes changed until the otherworldly rhythm of an alien beach surrounded her completely. She breathed in, saw, no, remembered, a sky with the colour of emeralds, waves of dark, purple water crashing onto a beach as black as space itself. Volcanic rock, she thought, before she looked up again, the stars above as alien as this entire world. A wave of warmth and peace embraced her as she watched a giant planet rise over the horizon, blocking out most of the stars, its rings tinting the world in an even darker shade of green. She inhaled the alien sea breeze, relishing in the serenity of the beach, comforting and soothing.

Just as quickly as the images had come they vanished again, dropping her into the middle of a Welsh night as she opened her eyes. The sense of warmth still clung to her heart, and she had to blink several times to stop the tears. She realized Jack was watching her intently.

"The lesson," Jack breathed into her ear, "is that things are never what they seem to be." He pried the smooth shell out of her fingers, put it back into his coat and vanished into the night before she found her voice to thank him.

She got up when she finally managed to move, stretching her legs a little, suddenly realizing how tired she was. It was time to go home. After all, there was still work waiting for her at the Hub tomorrow.

She stared at the stars above, asking herself what other wonders were waiting for them up there.