The Real Ending of 'Exit Wounds'

She was probably going to die. She was losing a lot of blood, far too quickly. She didn’t need to be a doctor to know that. She couldn’t feel anything, thanks to the broad spectrum painkiller which had now numbed her senses completely. In fact, for the first time in her entire life, Toshiko Sato felt completely in control.

She’d always been a very logical person. She liked mathematics and physics and careful order. But, for some reason, Tosh had always had difficult applying those same rules to her own life. She was always swept along by events, rather than shaping them for herself. Now, when it was almost too late, she’d managed to seize back power.

The floor of the lab was crimson. An average human adult had 5.6 litres of blood in their body, she recalled. It didn’t sound very much. It looked like a lot now, though. But at least it wasn’t black or brackish. The bullet had missed her liver. She had thirty minutes or so, rather than a mere fifteen. More than enough time to sort out the situation at the power plant, if she was careful.

She’d told Owen she was brilliant – probably the most immodest she’d ever been, since she wasn’t really given to self praise – and she’d been telling the truth. With one hand pressed to her stomach (as if that would actually make a difference) and the other clutching her trusty scanner, she managed to vent the flow channels and set a time delay so Owen could escape before the radioactive material arrived.

Brilliant.

She could hear footsteps from somewhere behind her, back in the Hub. The man who had shot her? Or her Ianto and Gwen managed to find Jack and stop him?

Tosh was surprised to find that she didn’t actually care. She couldn’t. The world seemed to have faded, turning sepia before her eyes. Her job was done. The city was safe from the radiation, if nothing else. She knew, with a certain indefinable confidence, that her team-mates would take care of the rest.

Her eyes fluttered shut, just for a moment. She was so tired.

When she opened them, Gwen and Jack were by her side. They were saying something, but the words floated away from her, as intangible as a musical tune heard from a great distance.

“Talk to me now, hey? Tosh?”

And then Owen was there. She heard him swear – typically – and move Gwen out of the way to kneel beside her in the pool of crimson. She wanted to apologise for making such a mess in his lab, ridiculously, but she could only manage a muted croak.

This wasn’t right. She’d been in control before. She was losing it now, having it snatched away by her well meaning co-workers. Her well meaning friends.

She couldn’t manage to tell them that, either. Tell that she was fine. That everything was fine.

“Hey, Tosh,” Owen chastised gently, “Come on, open your eyes. Look at me. Stay with me! We haven’t had our date yet, remember? Not planning on standing me up, are you?”

She made a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, aware of Gwen hovering somewhere in the background, making a similar noise as she buried her face in Ianto’s lapels. Jack’s hand was squeezing hers and he was cradling her head. Strange how she could feel that, but nothing else. Not Owen’s deft ministrations, or the pain from the gunshot wound, or the pain from her broken arm. Just Jack’s reassuring presence.

“You’re gonna be fine,” the Captain assured her, and Tosh nodded, just once, before resting her head against his chest and allowing herself to drift off for a while. She believed him. She always did.

That was how she’d ended up with Torchwood in the first place.