Owen barely had time to glance at the calendar on his bedside table as he ran around his house, getting ready at breakneck pace. He had woken up that morning in the bed of another nameless blonde, who had seemed highly offended by the fact that he wasn't staying. He had simply rolled his eyes at her and slammed the door on his way out, yelling for her to get dressed and get out or else.
He finally reached the hub, late only by a few minutes. Jack didn't particularly mind him walking in late sometimes, but Owen couldn't stand the smug look that he would throw in his direction, implying that he knew exactly what he had been up to the night before. Not that he minded people knowing. It was just Jack smirking that annoyed him.
He ran down towards the cog door and waited impatiently while it opened. And when it did, he stopped short.
He was hit by a wave of pink.
His eyes fell on the calendar that Tosh always kept on her desk and he had to suppress a groan as he realised what day it was. No wonder the blonde wanted him to stay. Valentine's Day. His least favourite day of the year.
He saw Jack bound up to him from his office, with a rather ruffled Ianto following him a few seconds after. No doubt they were making the most of the "special" day. Not that they needed an excuse.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Jack called to him brightly, a huge grin on his face.
Owen shuddered. "I'm not your bloody valentine, Jack."
Jack threw him a lewd grin. "Interested?"
Owen glanced at Ianto who rolled his eyes in a rather resigned fashion. Smirking, he turned to Jack.
"And I presume that you did all this?" He gestured vaguely towards the pink confetti strewn all over the hub, the pink streamers and balloons that had been hung up seemingly everywhere, and the pink hearts that had been pasted on every available surface, including, he noticed with disgust, his workstation. He rolled his eyes as Jack nodded enthusiastically.
"It's brilliant! No other species in the galaxy dedicated a day to romance! All that fuss about flowers and chocolate and hearts, it's amazing!"
Muttering under his breath, he pushed a large pile of pink confetti off his desk and viciously ripped off the streamers that hung on his monitors. Finally unearthing the file that he had been reading through the night before, he sat down on his chair and opened it again, switching on his computer.
The cog door siren sounded ad Gwen bounded into the hub. She stared at the hub, her jaw hanging, and then grinned as Jack walked out of his office.
"You did all this?" she asked, incredulously.
"Stayed up all night working on it."
Owen cleared his throat loudly and pointedly. Gwen seemed to get the hint and she walked off towards her workstation. He groaned as he heard her squeals of delight on seeing her desk all decked up. He really hated Valentine's Day.
It was at times like this that he missed Tosh. Ever the practical one.
Coming to think of it, where was she? He pulled up the records of entries for that day and realised that Tosh hadn't come in yet. Which was as strange as a weevil learning to make coffee.
His heart started to pound. What if something had happened to her? She was never late, and she never took a day off, unless she was so sick that he had to threaten to drag her into the autopsy bay and tuck her in so that she could rest.
Taking deep breaths to calm himself, he pulled out his mobile phone and called her number. She's probably stuck in traffic, he thought, as he waited for the call to go through. Or maybe she's having trouble with her car. Or her wardrobe. It was Valentine's Day, after all. And he knew that she liked to dress up, even though she didn't like to broadcast it.
i"This number is out of range…"/i said a tinny voice. Owen cursed and tried again, getting the same message.
"Jack!" he called, trying to subdue the panic that was rising in him. He couldn't let the others see him panicked. Especially about Tosh.
"Jack!" he called again, louder. Jack's head popped out from inside the kitchenette. "Where's Tosh?"
"She's gone up to London for the day." He suddenly looked suspicious and Owen could see the start of a smirk on his lips.
"What for?" he asked, trying to hide the blush that was threatening to overtake him and to keep the conversation casual.
"Some kind of family get-together or something."
"Oh, that's okay, then."
He saw Jack grin triumphantly before he walked back into the kitchenette where, no doubt, Ianto was waiting.
He loathed Valentine's Day.
The day wore on as usual. The rift was unusually quiet, which gave them all some time to catch up with the never-ending paperwork.
But the quiet meant that Owen had time to think, and he found himself thinking a bit too much about Tosh. The jokes that she would crack, the eye rolls that she would send in his direction as Jack did or said something particularly ridiculous, the hopeful glances that she would throw to him that she thought he never noticed. He sighed. He missed her.
It came to him as a startling revelation and he suddenly sat up straighter in his chair. He noticed Gwen watching him and covered up his action by reaching for a post-it that was stuck on a far corner on his desk. Leaning back and pretending to read through it, he let his mind drift back to Tosh.
It had been one day. Even less than a day. And he missed her? What was wrong with him? It was probably the Valentine's Day atmosphere in the hub getting to him.
He got up and headed for the autopsy bay, shaking his head vigorously to try and dislodge the thoughts that had popped up in his head.
There was alien corpse that he had been meaning to dissect. He might as well do it now. It would at least help him take his mind off of other things.
Owen switched off his monitor and pulled on his jacket. He was the last one to leave the hub. Jack and Ianto had left nearly an hour before, heading off for a candlelit dinner at some fancy restaurant. Gwen had left a few minutes later, chattering excitedly to Rhys on the phone and only stopping to wave to him over her shoulder.
He didn't see the point of celebrating a festival as stupid as this one. He was going to go out to a bar, maybe have a few drinks, and get into bed with another nameless girl. Just as he always would.
He made his way upstairs and stepped out of the tourist office and into the night air. He started walking towards a pub that he frequented but stopped as he saw a small and familiar figure walking towards him.
"Tosh!" he called out, jogging towards her.
To his embarrassment, he felt himself start to feel fuzzy and warm as her face broke into a wide grin as she saw him.
"Owen! I didn't expect to see anyone here, it being Valentine's Day, and all. I had a brilliant idea for a translator program while I was at my aunt's place, and since I didn't have any other plans, I thought I might as well come up here and start working on it."
And that was when he made up his mind.
"Do you want to grab something to eat?"
He took in her shocked expression.
"You and me, I mean. There's this Italian place that's opened up that I've been meaning to check out. Wanna come and have dinner with me?"
She only hesitated for a moment before she smiled and nodded. "Okay. I'd like that"
He smiled at her and held out his arm so that she could loop hers through it.
"Happy Valentine's Day, by the way," he added.
The expression of pure, unblemished joy on her face told him all that he needed to know.
Maybe Valentine's Day wasn't so bad, he thought, as he walked arm-in-arm with Tosh. In fact, it wasn't bad at all.