A/N: I know I owe you all like three updates on "Hunter, hunted" I will get round to updating soon, it's just taking a bit of a twist that I need to make sure works before I commit. Anyway as a sort of peace-offering here is a….well I guess you could call it a filler for Torchwood. It's pretty obvious that it's at the end of season two of Torchwood but before Doctor Who's "Journey's End".
The End is where we start from
Jack walked back into the hub. It felt cold and empty.
"How'd it go?" Gwen asked.
He shrugged. "How well does it ever go telling a mother that the son she never understood died without understanding she loved him?"
"Did anyone ever really understand Owen?" she asked following Jack into his office.
He whipped round to face her. "I did. You didn't really know him. You only think you did."
"I think I knew him a bit better than you," Gwen told him with a small cheeky smile.
"Sex has nothing to do with knowing someone," he told her. "You only saw what he wanted you to see."
Gwen took a step back at Jack's intense tone. "Then tell me. Because god help me I miss him!" Her eyes misted over as she tried for the umpteenth time to stop her tears from falling. "I miss them both so much and there's so much I don't know about them. I know you know Jack. I know you knew them. You have to tell me, please. I want to know everything about them. We're deleting their files and packing away things as if they never existed."
Jack regarded her for a moment and nodded. "It won't do them any harm now."
XxXxX
Ianto, Jack and Gwen sat round the table, nursing cups of coffee.
"Toshiko Sato. One of the most brilliant women I have ever had the pleasure of saving. Her mother had been kidnapped by a terrorist group to force Tosh to build a Sonic Modulator. She did it of course, and was arrested by UNIT. She was imprisoned indefinitely. When I heard about the Sonic Modulator I had to meet her. There are only two people in the Universe that I know of that could make one without the correct plans, the other isn't human."
"The Doctor?" Gwen guessed.
"Right. I went, I met her and offered her a choice. She could stay with UNIT, locked up with her human rights suspended or she could work with me for five years and they'd wipe her records clean. She'd be free to leave."
"How long ago was that?" Ianto asked.
"Three years."
A silence fell over them for a while.
"Time gets so confusing sometimes. In the Doctor's timeline he met her first. In mine and Tosh's, it was me. She was covering for a very hung-over Owen in London with a Space Pig crash landed in the Thames."
"Typical Owen," Ianto snorted.
"Typical Tosh, always trying to keep him out of trouble," Gwen corrected.
Jack just nodded and sipped his coffee.
"I'm not going to be as much use as her," Ianto told them abruptly. "I can't do all the things she can. I can use computers and tracking devices but I can't build all the programmes she can, could."
"No one's asking you to," Jack told him gently. "We'll jump off that bridge when we come to it. I suppose I should see if we can borrow Martha for a while."
"What about Owen?" Ianto asked, seeing Jack's attention disappear.
"Her name was Katie Russell," Jack began, confusing them. "And she and Owen were planning their wedding. The hospital thought she early onset Alzheimer's but Owen would accept it. He was sure she had a brain tumour. After more and more scans turned out he was right and the hospital tried to operate." Jack shook his head.
"But it wasn't either?" Ianto guessed
"It was an alien that incubates on the brain. She was dead before I got there."
"Marriage and Owen? Are we talking about the same person?" Gwen asked.
"He loved that girl; grief can do terrible things to the way your mind works. You saw him change over time, you just didn't realise it."
"I came back different, hollow ... like I'm missing something. And I do not want to be like this."
"And that's all you really need to know," Jack told them standing. "They were brave and broken and I loved them. Even if they did drive me nuts or try to kill me. I guess they reminded me of me." Offering a small smile he went back to his office and slumped in his chair. It occurred to him how much he was beginning to feel like the Doctor. Losing people he loved, saving others, picking up waifs and strays, the broken and the lost. He suddenly felt that maybe the Doctor had done him a favour, leaving him behind.
Punching a few buttons on the keyboard he settled back
"Jack, you saved me. You showed me all the wonders of the universe and... all those possibilities. And I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Thank you. And Owen, you never knew. I love you. All of you. And... I hope I did good."
Jack opened his desk drawer and smiled. In the bottom, nestled in its Torchwood evidence bag was Owen's coat of many buttons and Toshiko's glasses. He couldn't put them away in the safe; he wasn't ready to lose everything just yet. XxXxX
"I thought if I could save one life, mine would be worthwhile. But you save one... and there's another. And another. All clawing at you, demanding to be saved. And even if you do succeed, you can never save enough."
"Maybe here you can."
"You're
used to this, aren't you? That facial expression you all share.
When
things get a bit ... out of control. Like you enjoy it. Like
you get a high from the danger."
"You want me to apologize for
that?"
"Don't you ever wonder how long you can survive before
you go mad, or get
killed, or lose a loved one?"
"It's
worth the risk. To protect people."
"And who protects us?!"
"I
should've been able to stop it."
"Shh. Come on,
Tosh. There's no way you could've anticipated that power spike. Come
on. Besides, you've saved my back so many times in the past. Right
from the moment I joined."
"Your second week. I
had to cover for you—pretend I was a medic—because you were hung
over and unreachable."
"What
was it? Space Pig?"
"Space Pig."
"Yeah.
We never did get that date, did we? You and me. We sort of, uh,
missed each other. It was my fault. I didn't... didn't notice until
it was too late. I'm sorry."
"Me
too."
"It's starting."
"Owen…"
"It's
alright. Really, Tosh. It's alright."
A/N: Well there you have it, my farewell to Tosh and Owen. Man I'm going to miss them. They had the most interesting stories last season! And Dead Owen was cool!! Oh well, they say only to good die young…… Let me know what you think?
