Title: What To Sacrifice
By: hodsmal
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Suzie/Toshiko, canon!Owen/Suzie
Rating: Hard-ish PG-13 for sexual references. And gore. Mm.
Spoilers: Um. For 'Everything Changes' and I guess a little for 'They Keep Killing' as well.
Summary: Suzie is standing at a crossroads, and she knows that she is dreaming.
Notes: I don't know. This is almost a character study, but...well, whatever.

Suzie is standing at a crossroads, and she knows that she is dreaming. Two roads stretch before her, their destinations hidden by the rippling abstractism of her dreamscape.

The first, to her right, is littered with corpses, and the track is marked out with blood. The blank faces of the slain stare open-eyed into nothingness, and she realizes with a jolt that there are some there she recognizes. That those she has known have only crossed her path as they are now, lifeless and throatless, brings bile to her mouth, but she forces herself to calm. There are bodies there that now sleep in the coldness of the morgue, whose families were left in their ignorance with the disfigured body of a stranger to bury, who died at the hands of creatures that were not even human.

The corpses are not alone. Standing tall above their prostrate forms are four figures she knows (too) well, and as they turn to her she sees the blood on their faces, on their hands.

Jack. Melodrama and hero-play and secrets, with his greatcoat and gun and charming smile that never failed to drive her fingernails into her palms. The blood smeared on his skin is no surprise – she knows her captain is a murderer, but – directly or not – they are none of them innocent of that. She stares him down and his gaze slips from accusatory to guarded, and eventually to the side.

Ianto. He is farthest from her, his perfectly-pressed suit covered in darker splotches, the shine of his shoes dulled by viscous stickiness. He has a mournful set to his mouth, long fingers twining together in a knot at his back. He barely meets her eyes, dropping his own to the ground after a moment of contact, but he does not look cowed; only resigned.

Owen. The absence of his usual aggravating smirk makes him look older, somehow, and there is a sick and bitter twist to his mouth (vicious and filthy, last kiss for the dying) even as it runs red with blood. There is very little white left on his labcoat, and his hands are bunched into tight fists in his pockets. He looks at her with all arrogance flown (his look the second time, all presumptuous confidence. I knew you'd come back for more and she could have killed him), and takes a long time to back down.

Toshiko. She is as blood-stained as the rest of them and though it should come as no surprise to Suzie it does, on a level she does her best not to heed. She looks very small and very afraid, and Suzie finds her gaze lingering on her the longest, each moment spliced with memories. Toshiko's hair hangs limp in her face (turned towards her, eyes fluttering closed), and her hands twitch spasmodically (fisted in her hair, untangling to cling desperately to her shoulders), fingers tapping against the outside of her legs (agile fingers tracing out elegant prose on her back, stomach, thighs). She does not look away, though her lips tremble.

Suzie tears her gaze away, forces herself to look to the left path. It is light and smooth, paved with strange metal that she knows, and oh. In her mind float the twin omnipresences; knife and glove, hurt and healing, wound and balm. She can hear laughter, feel the absence of the bitterness of mortality, the warmth of forevers left unbroken. No more fatherless sons, no more childless mothers, no widows or mourners. No death. She can give them this – it is in her power to do so. She can bring the light, she can banish the demons. She can restore justice, solve the cold cases, empty the morgue and leave it forever hollow. Sacrifice the few to spare the blood of all.

She does not look again down the path of death, but lifts her suddenly light feet and steps onto the not-steel. The last stare burns into her back. She does not turn. She blinks and--

The ground has changed under her feet, the purity of the path shattered. No warmth or light or happiness lies before her; the shine of the metal has become blood-sodden dirt, breaking away into the infinite darkness.

She is standing on the edge of the abyss, but she has already made her choice.

She falls.

When Suzie wakes, there is wetness on her pillow, and she does not know why.