However brief an interlude it had been, Tommy affected Toshiko in ways she couldn’t have predicted.

She was a pacifist at heart, but intellectually understood that, at times, people had to fight for peace, the masses – individuals within the masses – had to stand up and be counted.  She didn’t like it, but she understood it.  Death was often necessary for life.  Tommy’s death had not been in vain, despite breaking a little of her soul rather than her heart.

The day-to-day saving of the world felt somewhat unsatisfactory in the weeks that followed Private Brockless’ gallant sacrifice, but if her teammates noticed her preoccupation no-one mentioned it.  There may have been Toshiko’s favourite muffins from Gwen, a sumptuous blend of coffee containing quality dark chocolate from Ianto, and some very sweet and sincere attention from Jack, but no mention of her distractedness.  The extremely rude limerick Owen sent her, with the ‘I told you so’ punch line, made her smile and didn’t hurt as much as she might have expected.  She hurt more for Owen, still, and always.

Tommy’s adorable naivety remained with her, his genuine astonishment that, in the twenty-first century, the world was still attempting to solve conflicts with guns and missiles and (too often) indiscriminate slaughter.  “Why is it,” he’d questioned, “that the people with the power are usually the ones who shouldn’t have it?”

Why indeed.

…

It began as an exercise in possibilities, a not so playful virtual teasing of the world’s security systems, as Toshiko learnt how to avoid and subvert and re-write what she found.  Several times she almost caused catastrophes that the Earth’s population – and more importantly, Jack Harkness – would thankfully never know of, and once she repaired a nuclear disaster waiting to happen due to a single decimal point being misplaced by the original programmer.  The countries with the hugest defence networks proved to be extraordinarily vulnerable, while those with their mass destruction capabilities essentially in a box under the boss’s desk were the most troublesome.

What began as a theoretical ‘what if’ was transformed into a program dubbed ‘Tommy’s Common Sense’.  Eventually, and with minimal deliberation, it was let loose to infiltrate and make cosy undetectable nests in computers around the globe; Tommy’s Common Sense settled down to wait.

…

As humans are arrogant, self-obsessed, and famously unable to grasp the fact of their own mortality until it’s too late, the day Toshiko had foreseen and dreaded came.  Aggression escalated until the tension was at breaking point and, not the weakest or the strongest government in the world, but a despot who rashly believed that consequences could not touch him, made the move to end his country’s perceived bad and disrespectful treatment by atomising those beyond its borders.

Tommy’s Common Sense woke, unfurled, and with the ease its creator had long ago designed, took action.  The nuclear weapons of each and every country that possessed them came on line, targeted on their own major cities, untouchable by their own controllers, but needing the authorisation of five diverse, disinterested governments to prevent destruction.

As the inhabitants of the planet wavered between denial, terror, blame, the acceptance of karma, and some rather hysterical pointing and laughing, Jack Harkness observed from his office, still beneath Cardiff, still surrounded by acolytes who adored, admired, defied, and occasionally shot him, and…suspected.  By the time the leaders of the Earth made their forced peace, Jack was certain of what, of who, had instigated it.

The love and admiration he felt for Toshiko Sato was unquantifiable, and it was with huge, noisy pride that he made sure that everybody knew her name and her story.

This crucial moment in history became known as Sato’s Last Stand.

Because of the sheer decency of a young soldier, and the genius of a remarkable humanitarian, many, many years after Toshiko Sato was so tragically lost, the world was saved.

…

Jack was never sure what Toshiko would have made of the Cult of Sato.  It’s global following worshipped their figurehead for both academically and emotionally sound reasons, and moved the quest for true, heartfelt peace forward with steady momentum and a buoyant spirit that suitably reflected their deity.

Jack was never sure what Toshiko would have made of the Cult of Sato, but every time he passed by their Cardiff temple, he smiled and smiled and smiled.