Chapter One – Did I ever let you know?
The tiny group all huddled around the single computer to watch the final message their friend had left them. Even in death Toshiko was organised and brilliant, from the ether of cyberspace she had managed to leave this final piece of herself. To comfort her friends. To say goodbye. It was with heavy hearts they watched, it was like she was alive again back to her usual sweet adorable professional self. But when it ended she would be gone again.
"And Owen, you never knew...I love you"
Awed silence took hold of the group watching the screen. As if she knew the reaction these final words of hers had caused Toshiko smiled, nodded once as if to say "There, that's enough" and moved to end the recording. The screen went blank and Toshiko was gone once again.
One pair of eyes remained fixed to the screen unable to look away. Shock and sorrow were etched into this pair of eyes, a haunted look. The rest of the group shifted uncomfortably glancing at this person but then discreetly moved away leaving them alone by the computer. The eyes continued to stare until finally they closed...and Owen Harper thought he never wanted to open them again.
A deep breath and slowly Owen opened his eyes and stared down at the gravestone. He'd managed to block out everything over the last few days. He gone through the motions, carried on at work, attended the memorial service and even managed to get some sleep albeit for only 2 hours a time. He had only managed to do all this because he hadn't allowed himself to think, to remember. He'd gone around his flat like a zombie switching on the TV and the radio to drown out the voices, the images, the memories.
But this couldn't last and he knew that he was going to have to confront this sooner or later. And so he had chosen here to confront it all, to confront her really. He could have chosen the Torchwood morgue of course where her body was held as was Torchwood regulation, but no he had chosen her faux grave. He wanted to be alone and this quite cemetery was peaceful and empty. Here it was just her as well, Toshiko, not tainted by the all reaching influence of Torchwood that reached in and strangled all their lives. Torchwood had taken enough from her, Owen thought, let her have this tiny piece of herself.
The dark feelings of pain, regret, loss, guilt and despair were all resurfacing inside him as he allowed the gates of his memory to open. The first memory was her confession. The shock he felt at the time had subsided slightly but confusion and disbelief remained.
"Why Tosh?" he seemed to ask the gravestone "What the hell did you see in me to love?"
He honestly never had any suspicion of Tosh's true feelings towards him. He had quite clearly been blind. He knew she fancied him and winced when he recalled how he used to despise her for it and torture her by holding out on her. It wasn't as if she weren't attractive or anything, now he thought about it she was really quite well...beautiful, but for some reason her obvious schoolgirl adoration seemed to repel him. So he pushed her away. Brutally.
Now it seemed he had misinterpreted all those looks he thought were pity, all those gestures he thought were sappy adoration, all that constant need to draw him out he found so bloody irritating. All of it now took on a different light. She wasn't just messing around, she loved him. And he had treated her like shit.
Owen let out a defeated sigh and stared up at the sky. It was grey and overcast and was threatening to rain. His mind however would not let him rest and more memories were surging to the forefront. He recalled the last few months after the disaster with him opening the rift and everything that followed it. He now realised that something had shifted slightly in his relationship with Tosh from that moment on. He wasn't aware of it at the time but now looking back he saw how much closer he had gotten to Tosh and the reason for it.
She had been a constant friend when he needed it the most. He was so messed up in his own head after that day, feelings of pain and loss over Diane, feelings of guilt and regret over Jack and the whole sorry mess he had released onto the world after opening up the rift. All this was still fermenting inside of him in the days following and he wondered if he could ever show his face at Torchwood again.
But Tosh had wordlessly healed him by letting him know that she was there for him whenever he needed her. He saw now that he did need her then, badly and so he took all she offered. She was probably in recent years his best friend though he would never have admitted it. After joining Torchwood he seemed to drift away from his other friends outside, he'd still meet up with them but the old Owen had gone replaced with a brand new bitter cynical one which his old friends didn't have time for and which the new Owen didn't really care for anymore.
That only left Torchwood itself, Jack was always good for a laugh now and then but he was supremely irritating with all the constant and none too subtle innuendos. He never really seemed to connect with Ianto either he wasn't a bad bloke but he always seemed a little distant. Then he got shacked up with Jack so there was no sense to be got out of either of them then. Then of course there was Gwen. Even now he didn't quite know why that all came about. This job was just one huge mind fuck sometimes that you just needed to let it all out and Gwen had needed it too. But when it came down to it he was probably trying to find connection with someone the only way he knew how, through sex. But it didn't work. He and Gwen were not a fit and in the end it had ended as it should have done.
But Tosh was different she was a true friend. She laughed with him, helped him at work, put up with his constant mood swings and gave him the support he so desperately needed. She kept him going and he never even bothered to thank her. To let her know how much she appreciated having her in his life.
Owen blinked. You are such a selfish bastard, you know that. But he didn't really need to tell himself that. He lived with that knowledge everyday of his life but somehow it bothered him even more when he thought of Tosh. She deserved better and a sad bitter smile came across his face. For he knew what the next memory would be. Tommy.
The handsome young soldier who had swept Toshiko off her feet. He remembered being unsettled at the time when he saw how hard she had fallen for him. He didn't understand at the time but he told himself it was partly because he saw her getting hurt like he had with Diane. Lovers from the past would always end up hurting you and on some unconscious level he resented Tommy for this. It was bad enough he hurt her all the time but the thought of the guy doing it set him on edge.
But if he was being honest, and why not now just for once, the deeper reason he was unsettled by Tommy and Toshiko was the selfish desire to be the sole holder of her affection. Sure he only saw her as a friend but he was completely hers, she gave him her undivided attention and he had grown reliant on it. But then Tommy came along and he could do nothing but look on fearing he would lose her. He knew he should be happy for her, he could give her what he couldn't. He could love her. And if you loved her more you would have let her go, let her be happy despite what you felt he said to himself. He tried comforting her when Tommy went back to 1918 but he knew he was really comforting himself. Making sure she was OK so they could go back to the way they were before. Exactly the way he wanted it, friends.
"I'm sorry Tosh"
Some friend he had been to her. His memory mercilessly recalled for him an endless processions of the times he'd callously hurt her, abused her friendship all to make himself feel better. Making fun of her. Shouting at her. Ignoring her. Yet she was always there, always by his side when he needed her most.
Owen felt his head was going to explode soon. He gripped his hair with both his hands and the onslaught his mind was giving him. The floodgates were open now though and there was no way he could stop it. He prayed he wouldn't relive the one thing though that he knew was coming.
"Please not that, anything but that again" he whimpered as he seemed to curl up and was down on his knees before the grave stone.
It was no use though. He would've lived through all these torturous images over and over if it meant he didn't have to see that, remember that. His final betrayal of her. Letting her die.
Cardiff shopping centre on a busy Saturday lunchtime. People everywhere and then there were the four figures seamlessly running through the crowd following a hooded figure making its way out to the street. Gwen and Jack were running up on the higher gangways while Tosh and Owen were forcing their way down on the ground. Over the comms Jack's voice called
"Tosh, Owen I see him heading for the maintenance office. Follow him and try and calm him down. Gwen and I are going to make our way down and cut him off from behind down the service stairs."
"We're on it Jack" replied a breathless Toshiko as her and Owen spotted their target sneaking through the plain mirror covered door inconspicuous amongst all the shop fronts. They dived in after him, guns at the ready but stopped. Their target had his arm clamped around the throat of the small security guard and held a gun to his head.
"Drop the gun, you're not going anyway" shouted Owen
There was such desperation in their target's eyes that for an instant a flicker of sympathy passed over the Torchwood officers. To anyone passing by the young man with the gun in his hands looked like a normal teenager. Nineteen maybe, long greasy blond hair which covered his eyes so he had to constantly flick it out of his eyes in order to see. University of Cardiff hoodie and baggy jeans with the crotch pulled to just above his knees, he looked like an ordinary Welsh student. He even cried out in a pitch perfect Welsh accent.
"Stay back or I'll blow his brains out"
The boy was shifting nervously, uncomfortably on his two feet, panic and despair clear in his face. He had the air of a terrified mouse backed into a corner. But he still had a gun and right now it was dangerously close to an innocent man's temple.
"I know you don't want to do that. This isn't the answer it's not going to solve anything" said Toshiko in a soothing voice.
"I can't go back" cried the boy, tears streaming down his face. "Please you have no idea what it was like for me."
"You can't stay here, I'm sorry but you don't have clearance for asylum. We gotta send you back" replied Owen sensing this was only seconds away from getting out of control.
"NO" wailed the boy, full blown hyperventilating sobs being wrenched painfully from his chest. "You have no idea what it was like back on my planet, the things they did to you, the...I CAN'T PLEASE."
"I'm sorry, I truly am but there is nothing we can do. Give me the gun...please" said Toshiko softly. She moved slowly towards the boy gun down, hand stretched.
For a moment, just one moment, as Owen watched he thought she had him. It looked like the boy was going surrender. But it passed, Owen realised with a terrifying horror Tosh had seriously underestimated how desperate this kid was. But it happened too fast and all he could do was watch. The boy swung the gun around and it was trained on Toshiko.
"I won't let you send me back" he screamed as he fired and Toshiko fell to the ground.
A split second later Jack and Gwen burst through the doors behind the boy and Jack shot him once through the head. After that Owen was only vaguely aware of what was happening around him. Jack barking orders, Gwen comforting the security guard with a packet of retcon ready in her hands but all Owen was focussed on was Toshiko on the ground.
He reached her in a second and knelt down on the ground clamping his hands over her chest wound trying desperately to stop the bleeding. His medical brain was working on overdrive but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it was all over. The bullet had gone straight through the lower atrium of her heart. She was practically dead already. But Owen refused to stop he held down harder willing her blood to stop screaming at Jack to get an ambulance now. He had to save her what was the point in being a doctor if he couldn't even save Tosh.
Her heart was fluttering under his hands, her blood was seeping through his fingers and then it was over. She was gone. Just like that.
He'd blamed Jack for not turning up sooner, he blamed the kid who'd killed her, he blamed her for being so bloody stupid. But in the end he realised he could only blame himself. Kneeling here at her grave he silently begged for her forgiveness. It was all his fault. I shouldn't have let you die.
He was gripping the stone now with one hand, his head rested on the top. He wasn't crying but he couldn't get up, he couldn't move. He felt complete and utter despair.
Minutes maybe even an hour had passed and he still didn't move. Then from the corner of his eye he noticed that a small figure was walking in his direction. Weary and knowing that he should probably be making his way back home now he got up to his feet.
He turned his head casually to glance at the figure walking his way. It was a small woman dressed in what appeared to be a gothic black leather dress. Her hair was also long and black and hung listlessly down from her head. She looked cute and petite and had wide blue eyes which seemed to be fixed directly to his face. Even more strange they seemed to be filled with what he could only interpret as anger.
The small woman had now reached him and stood two feet away glaring up at him. Owen was confused and turned around slightly so that they were facing each other. He was quite sure he had never seen her before but this woman obviously knew him. Owen had no energy to try and figure it out. He didn't want to deal with anything right now and was about to ask what this woman wanted when she spoke and the words froze him dead.
"Well Owen, you've well and truly fucked this up haven't you?"