"Okay!" Owen announces, flicking on the lights. "And no matter what you see or what you think, you are not, I repeat NOT allowed to tidy one bit of paper in my flat."
Glaring at the shorter man, Ianto shuffles tiredly through the door. "I'd need gloves…and a face mask," he mutters.
But glancing around the living area, Ianto notes with some surprise that Owen's flat isn't all that messy. Other than a shirt tossed over a chair and a sink full of dishes, the place is fairly neat.
Closing the door with his foot, Owen steers Ianto toward the couch. "Have a seat," he orders. "Don't get comfy. No falling asleep. I'll need to take another look at you."
Ianto groans. "Owen, come on," he complains.
"No use grousing at me, tea boy," Owen tsks, pulling out his penlight from his pants pocket. "I'm not the one who landed himself a concussion."
"No, you're just the one who fell on me."
"Oi, that was the weevil's fault. And I didn't fall on you. I landed next to you after clipping you in the head with the Betrin Scanner."
Ianto waves off the light that's being flashed into his eyes. "My mistake," he retorts.
"Hold still, will ya?" Owen demands. "Right," he says after a moment, snapping off the light. "You seem fine."
"Great, can I go home, then?"
Owen studies his irate patient for a beat before a smirk crosses his face. An event that makes Ianto rather suspicious. "Tell you what," says Owen. "If you can get up and walk to my door without stumbling, you can go home."
Ianto makes it four steps before he nearly pitches to the floor.
"O-kay," Owen states, much too cheerily to be genuine. "24 hour observation it is." When Ianto makes an unkind comment about wanting a coma rather than Owen's company for 24 hours straight, the doctor mentally ticks off a point in favor of Ianto being just fine. "Gripe all you want. But I'm still the medic here and if Jack comes back to any of you lot damaged or dead, I'll be the one he hunts down."
Owen means to say it flippantly and with his usual irreverent attitude. But somewhere it comes out sounding a touch too genuine and the faintest bit bitter. He and Ianto stare at each other for a moment, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. They've never talked once about their missing leader. At least not to each other. They might be alien hunters with an out of time missing lover and a partially converted, now dead cybernetic girlfriend between them, but they're still men. And talking about feelings is strictly verboten. Or so Owen firmly believes and is fairly sure Ianto agrees.
"Right," Owen says a bit too loudly to kick any mounting awkwardness to the ground. "Let's exercise your brain a little. Keep it running."
"You're not going to give current events questions, are you?" Ianto asks.
"What's wrong with that?"
"Because you never know the right answers," says Ianto with measured patience.
"How's about some political history, then?"
"Says the man who once thought Isaac Mizrahi was the ambassador to Israel."
"Fine. We'll do it another way."
Leaving Ianto on the couch, Owen digs through the cabinet where his TV sits. He discards random CDs and DVDs over his shoulder. As they land haphazardly, Ianto reaches out to straighten them before he stops himself.
"What're you looking for?" Ianto questions.
"I'll surprise you," replies Owen, his entire head now lost inside the cabinet.
Ianto grimaces. He hates surprises. Surprises are bastards, dressed up in ribbons, insisting they're presents when really they're...well, bastards. Ianto looks up from his resentful stare of Owen's coffee table to find the doctor giving him an amused look. It's then Ianto realizes he might have done his rant against surprises out loud.
"Here we go," Owen declares, holding up the DVD box set he's emptied half his collection out to find.
"Murder She Wrote?" Ianto reads, incredulously. "You watch Murder She Wrote?"
Owen doesn't mention that it was Katie's favorite, guilty pleasure show, despite it being geared for pensioners in sagging stockings. He certainly doesn't mention that sometimes, after a truly crap day when he doesn't have even the energy to go on the pull, he puts it on as background noise so he can fall asleep to the sounds of Jessica Fletcher solving another crime.
"This'll work," he says instead, ignoring Ianto's question. "Short, simple. Watch and try to work out who done it."
"Can't we watch a Miss Marple instead?"
"You're not fit enough to work out a Miss Marple mystery."
Owen puts in the DVD and settles in an arm chair. Ten minutes after the murder takes place on screen, Ianto announces the killer must be the younger sister since there's absolutely no other reason why she and Mrs. Fletcher just had that random conversation in the middle of the street.
Owen punches the remote for the next episode.
"You could have your regular physician do this test, you know," Owen mentions as he carefully labels the vial of blood he's just taken.
Rolling down her sleeve, Gwen shakes her head. "No. I don't…" she falters. "I don't want to risk Rhys finding out." She says it somewhat defiantly, daring Owen to call her out on it. Which he obligingly does.
"Not exactly a sign of happy couples," he remarks. "Either you really don't want to have his kid or you're afraid nine months from now you'll have your arms full of a tyke with inexplicable ginger hair."
Gwen scowls. "For god's sake, Owen," she snaps in disgust.
He smirks in return. "So Rhys' genes are that bad, eh?"
"This isn't about Rhys!"
"What's it about, then?" he asks, suddenly cutting off their supply of bullshit. His question echoes around the autopsy bay, making it clear to Gwen and assuring her that they're the only ones in the Hub.
She sighs, sagging on the table. "I can't be pregnant," she says, her tone half willing it to make it so. "I can't. Not now. Not with everything's that's happened."
Jack's gone and for better or worse, Gwen is trying to fill the large empty space he's left behind. Even if he was here, it would be a difficult situation. But with him gone, the timing couldn't be worse. Half bitterly, Gwen contemplates that while she's not the only one in the world to worry that an unplanned pregnancy could spell trouble for her job, she is the only one who thinks of it in terms of how an ill-timed nappy change could mean the earth getting invaded by aliens.
She shouldn't be having these thoughts. She shouldn't be considering her baby, someone created between her and Rhys, as a burden. But she's also Torchwood. Even more so these days. And she has to.
"You don't know yet for sure," Owen says, breaking into her thoughts. "There's no sense in panicking until you know. And when you do, you'll have options." His tone is remarkably professional. Warm, but professional. And for a split second, Gwen thinks that Owen must have been a real, working medic before Torchwood got him.
They all were someone else before Torchwood got them.
"What am I going to tell Rhys?" she wonders, dazed. "If I have to…" She knows the word, but it sticks in her throat so she swallows it away. "I can't tell him about this without telling him about Torchwood, can I?"
"Tell him whatever you think's best," Owen replies. "You're team leader now," he adds. "It's your decision who you tell about us."
He calmly sets the blood sample aside to test later. Pulling off and discarding his rubber gloves, he takes a seat next to Gwen on the autopsy table. He doesn't put a hand on her shoulder, nor does he hold her hand. But somehow, Gwen feels closer to him now than she ever did before when they used to practically meld together, they pressed into each other so much.
"If there wasn't Torchwood, would you want a baby?" Owen asks.
Gwen considers her answer, but shoves it away. "Does it matter?" she returns. "There is Torchwood."
"It wouldn't be impossible," says Owen. "We defend the earth from aliens. We can take care of a baby. Tosh'll drown it with toys. Ianto'll perfect some feeding formula that the kid'll get addicted to. You and Rhys can do nappies," he lists.
Gwen smiles a little. "And what about you?"
Owen makes a show of considering. "Depends. If it's a boy I'll teach him all my pull lines. If it's a girl, I'll teach her how to avoid all my pull lines."
Gwen laughs despite herself. Because for one brief moment, she can see it all so clearly. Just as Owen describes. And the situation feels a lot less bottomless. A lot less lonely.
A few days later, Owen privately tells her the test results are negative.
Gwen feels relief. And a twinge of regret.
Fuck, fuck, fuck it, fuck it, fuck, Owen chants in his head.
He throws the soaked pieces of gauze to one side and snatches a handful more. It feels like seconds and the whites are red again. Mentally, Owen tries to calculate out how much blood Tosh is losing versus how much of her type he has on reserve back at the Hub. Hospital would be better. But hospital is so much further away than the Hub. Plus, Owen isn't sure how they'll be able to explain the metal claws still half embedded in Tosh's side.
"We're five minutes out," Gwen states, glancing out the back window of the SUV and noting the street.
Owen grunts, pressing down on the dressing as the SUV lurches when Ianto makes a sharp turn at the next corner, not bothering to brake even just a little.
The immediate gash that Owen can see is starting to slow down in bleeding. But the tear extends down past Tosh's waist. "Hold this," Owen orders, transferring Gwen's grip of Tosh's hand to the dressing. Hands now free, he grabs a pair of scissors to cut away Tosh's jeans. He spares a glance at her face. Her dark eyes are half open, clouded from the pain and set in a face far too pale. But she's looking at Owen and her expression makes him nearly shudder and despair.
"It's your lucky day, darling," Owen says to her instead, his voice dripping with smarm. "I'm finally getting into your trousers." Pulling his attention back to cutting away the fabric of her jeans, he keeps his voice loud and obnoxious. "If you're a good girl and keep breathing, I'll even grope ya."
As he's staunching the blood flow of the second gash, his eyes firmly focused on swathes of red-tinted gauze, Owen feels something flick past his ear. He glances up in time to see Tosh's hand drop in front of him, catching the tip of his nose before it flops back down.
"What?" he says, dumbly.
"I think she was trying to slap you, Owen," Gwen guesses, a strained smile in her voice.
Owen looks back down and sees Tosh's eyes are now glaring at him. The glitter in them less about tears and more about deep irritation. Owen grins. Irritation is good. Much better than resignation.
Hours later, Tosh wakes up. She's set up in the autopsy bay, but is on a medical bed she didn't know they had. Around her are poles holding up IV bags of blood and pain killers, along with a machine that makes an annoying, rhythmic beeping sound. Owen is grinning down at her.
"You've been holding out on us, Tosh," he says, cheekily. "Purple lace," he clarifies at her confused expression. "Who knew you had sexy knickers?"
Tosh would laugh, except she knows it'll hurt. Instead, she glances down at her right hand, currently encased in Owen's. Following her gaze, Owen shrugs.
"Didn't want you slapping me again."
THE END