Title: Valentine's Day
Summary: Cute little Valentine's Day fic that's AU on three huge points: 1) It's Ianto who gets partially converted during the fall of Torchwood One, and Lisa tries to save him. 2) Rhys dies perminently when Bilis stabs him. 3) Martha stays in Cardiff.
Rating: T for vague sexual implications and talk of character death.
Word Count: 1341
Other Chapters: No.
Disclaimer:The British Broadcasting Corporation owns Torchwood and all related characters, settings, and trademarks. I do not profit in any way from this material.
Pairings: Lisa Hallett/Toshiko Sato; Jack Harkness/Gwen Cooper; Owen Harper/Martha Jones (mentions of Lisa Hallett/Ianto Jones; Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams)
Contains: character death fix, holiday fic, fluff, Universe Alteration
Warnings: character death (off-screen)
Roses. Yes. That was right, wasn't it? She wouldn't find it cliché or thoughtless?
She wouldn't.
Lisa found it a little bit cliché and thoughtless, but she didn't want to do something too out there and look like a fool on their first Valentines Day together, and she couldn't bake and she wasn't good with crafts and they hadn't been together long enough for jewelry... Roses and a box of chocolates would have to do. Lisa didn't think that Tosh would be overly critical, anyway. That wasn't like her. She'd be happy that Lisa had thought to get her anything.
Still, Lisa had never been good at Valentine's Day.
Lisa arranged the flowers and the candy on Tosh's desk, and then set about her usual morning routine. Manage the archives, put the coffee on, and wait for something interesting to happen.
She wasn't surprised when Gwen was the first person to turn up for work. In fact, Gwen looked a bit unhappy to see Lisa already there. Lisa didn't take it personally; Gwen wanted privacy, no doubt. Gwen and Jack were kind of a thing, and it was Valentine's Day.
Gwen's boyfriend had died at the hands of Bilis Manger. She'd blamed Jack, then forgiven him, then he'd disappeared for months. She'd led the team in his absence, and done an incredible job of it, then been visibly relieved when he came back, though she was also a bit angry with him. She'd stayed angry for about a week, then she'd marched into his office, locked the door, yelled at him for half an hour, and then had loud sex with him for about two hours. Lisa, Tosh, and Owen had heard all of this (though thankfully Jack and Gwen had opted to have sex in the one corner of Jack's office where they wouldn't be able to see anything) but they'd walked out and called a vote on where to order dinner like nothing had happened, and ever since then they'd been together-but-not-together, having sex regularly and going on the occasional date, but looking confused whenever someone referred to them as a couple.
They were enough of a couple to celebrate Valentines Day, apparently. Jack hadn't left anything on Gwen's desk, but she walked into his office and walked out half an hour later looking perfectly pleased with how the holiday had begun. Poured herself a cup of coffee and kept smirking at Lisa as she drank it.
Tosh showed up next, technically late but Jack didn't mind. She'd stayed well after everyone else had gone home last night, helping Jack with calculations on a piece of technology that Jack was convinced they could fix. She saw the roses and the candy on her desk, and she'd blinked like she didn't really believe it. Had she expected nothing? Maybe she didn't like Valentine's Day...
She'd turned to Lisa and grinned, then ran over to Lisa, threw her arms around her, and kissed her. Okay. So she had expected nothing, but she did like it.
"You didn't have to," she said quietly.
"I wanted to," Lisa said, smiling back.
Tosh looked her in the eyes and swallowed hard. "I was thinking maybe dinner tonight..."
"I'd love to," Lisa said.
Tosh was better at flirting and initiating dates (and sex) than Ianto had been, but that wasn't saying much. Ianto had been truly dreadful, in a rather endearing way. Tosh was just shy, but that was okay. Lisa had lots of practice in taking the lead. She'd asked Ianto out of after six months of waiting for him to get around to it, and she'd asked Tosh out... on accident, really.
After the incident with Mary, Tosh and Lisa had bonded over lost lovers and how much they missed London. They both had strange relationships with Cardiff: Tosh had moved to Cardiff because it was a preferable prison to the UNIT facility, and over the years she'd grown accustomed to it; Lisa had come to Cardiff to save Ianto, and it was the city where he'd grown up. He'd never taken her here, but she'd always associate it with him. They'd taken long train-rides to London on weekends off, because Lisa visited her parents as often as possible and Tosh didn't mind visiting her father if she had a friend to keep her company on the journey and rescue her if her father started prying too much into her work. They'd spent long nights on trains sipping warm coffee and unburdening themselves to each other about work and their families, debating their different tastes in music and poets, and laughing about childhood memories and gossiping about their coworkers. They'd watched each other be lulled to sleep by the steady rhythm of the train, and they'd risked their lives and saved the world together three or so times a week at work. They'd grown close perfectly organically, and they'd been friends, before they'd been anything else.
They'd been getting lunch as friends when Lisa caught Tosh staring at the thighs of a pretty blonde in a plus-size skater skirt two tables away. Lisa had laughed and told Tosh that she needed to get laid. Tosh had agreed, and whined that no one had so much as kissed her in months.
"Poor dear," Lisa had cooed. "If only there was something I could do!"
"You could kiss me," Tosh had said, in a tone that didn't suggest that she actually expected Lisa to do it.
Lisa had done it, because they were friends. Then she'd pulled away, they'd stared into each other's eyes for a moment, and they'd both simultaneously come to the realization that they shouldn't have done that, because they were friends.
They had been friends, anyway.
For three days they barely spoke to each other. Then Lisa got tired of it. She could have asked for them things to go back to normal. She'd likednormal. But she also liked Tosh, a lot, and she liked the possibility of being able to carve out a new and better normal. So she'd asked Tosh to a film she hadn't really paid attention to, and their hands had touched a few times as they both reached into the popcorn, and they laughed awkwardly. Then they'd held hands on the walk home, and they'd paused outside of Tosh's door and kissed again, knowing everything that it meant.
They hadn't rushed into bed. Tosh had done that before and it had ended badly. They gave it a couple of months, and they'd made a proper evening of their first night together. Waking up next to each other in Tosh's bed had felt right to both of them, and they'd showed together and had breakfast together and walked into work with goofy grins on their faces, and though Jack and Gwen hadn't said a word, they both smiled like they knew exactly what had happened. Owen and Martha had been so caught up in their own love affair that they'd taken a little while longer to notice, but they'd eventually realized what had happened, and they'd been happy for them.
Jack's phone rang as he stepped out of his office, and he answered it and immediately said "Don't lie to me: If you two want the day off, you can have it... Okay. Happy Valentine's Day." Lisa had rolled her eyes, but she didn't really hold it against them. If anything happened, Jack would call Owen and Martha and they would come in. If nothing happened, what was the point? It was their first Valentine's Day as newlyweds, and it was Owen's birthday. It didn't really surprise Lisa that nothing short of an alien invasion was going to get them out of bed before dinner time.
Tosh looked from the flowers to Gwen as though to gently brag, and Gwen smiled back with no jealousy.
Lisa smiled too, though no one was looking at her. She wasn't good at Valentine's Day, but so far, Valentine's Day was being good to her.