As evening fell on the city of Cardiff, the girls got more excited about their evening out. Gwen and Tosh had put together some little presents to have for everyone, and they quickly bagged their wrapped packages as Jack and Ianto came into the main room to head out. Owen was in the autopsy room working on some experiment that he had been meaning to set up for some time but never had a moment to do it. He figured that with the others going out, it would give him all the time he needed to just concentrate without them bothering him.
"We're off," Gwen said at the entryway as she looked down the stairs to where he was concentrating on pouring something from a beaker into a vial of something that looked like blue smoke. "Have a good evening."
"Yeah, you too," Owen said absently, studiously ignoring the fact that she stood hesitating in the doorway, her wrap on around the festive dress she wore for their evening out. She stood for a moment, but when he didn't respond further, she sighed and turned to leave. Tosh looked up, hoping to give Owen his present, but when Gwen returned alone, she just turned away with a sigh.
"Ready?" Jack was wearing a new uniform with sparkly braces in honor of the celebration. Ianto was wearing one of his usual conservative suits, though he did have a light up Christmas tree pinned to one lapel. Gwen nodded.
"Yes, we're all set. Shall we?" She said with a bright smile, wanting to leave the dour feeling of being in the Hub with Owen behind her. Ianto offered her his elbow and she slipped her hand through it, her smile feeling a little more genuine with his gallantry.
"Toshiko?" Jack asked, holding out his hand. Tosh picked up the bag and started to head towards him before stopping abruptly.
"Just a minute!" She called as she turned in mid stride and walked over to Owen's station. Rummaging through the bag, she pulled a festive package out and left it on the desk. She paused for a moment to adjust the bow and smiled. "There, all set." She turned back towards Jack and he put his arm around her as he escorted her towards the invisible lift. The four crowded onto the pavement block and Jack pressed a button on his vortex manipulator.
"Going up," he announced. The lift started moving and the panel above them slid down and over to the left, letting a chilly breeze into the Hub. "Next stop, champagne, hors d'oeuvres and holiday cheer," he announced with a grin.
"Oooh, I'll take two," Gwen said with a smile.
"Two of what, the champagne or the holiday cheer?" Jack asked with a laugh as they came up to the street level. "Though with enough champagne, one can create a lot of holiday cheer!" They waited for a break in the people passing by, stepping out into the foot traffic without anyone noticing that they had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The two couples stepped into the night, off to enjoy their evening together.
Back underground, Owen kept up with his experiment, not even noticing the departure of the others. He wanted to just concentrate on work and nothing but work. He'd be happy if he didn't have to listen to stories about happy holidays and people's good cheer. It was all a bunch of rubbish, anyhow, he thought to himself.
Once he got his first experiment going, he moved onto another one. Then he went up to his console in the main area and logged in. He shifted some stuff on his desk, burying the little package that Tosh had left for him without noticing it. He leaned back with a happy sigh, thrilled beyond belief that he was on his own. No one to bug him, no one asking him how he felt, and no one that he had to watch out for. A loud squawk could be heard overhead and he amended his last thought. He definitely had to watch out for Myfanwy droppings. Once he had logged in his research info, he went off to play his video game for a while, happy that no one would complain about the loud noise as he shot down aliens.
Several hours later, he was playing basketball by himself. It wasn't as much fun without the others, and after a while he just let the ball bounce away as he wandered over to the kitchen to look into the fridge. Poking around, he found some old Chinese containers. He couldn't remember when they had Chinese last, but it couldn't be too bad, or Ianto would have dumped it. He opened one box and sniffed. Deciding it smelled okay, he grabbed a fork and began eating. He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and took a pull. Taking both over to the sofa, he sat down and enjoyed his meal, reflecting on how nice it was not to have to make conversation with his co-workers or listen to them go on about whatever inconsequential things were going on in their lives. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. Especially Gwen's. Bah, if he had to listen to one more story about that damn boyfriend of hers. He grimaced. It was enough to put someone into a diabetic coma, he thought.
After eating he dumped the empty bottle and the carton the floor next to where he was sitting, not caring that Ianto would have to pick it up later. He slouched on the sofa and checked his watch. He still had a few hours to go before his first experiment would show a response. Stretching, he let out a noisy yawn. Part of the reason why he had been so irritable this morning was because he hadn't had a lot of sleep. After pulling a long shift which was typical at Torchwood, he had gone home to listen to two of his neighbors arguing into the night. It was that domestic episode which had put him off, as he hadn't been able to sleep half the night, despite slamming his shoe against the ceiling several times. He sighed and slumped lower. Maybe it would be a good time to take a nap.
Within moments, he had drifted off to sleep, sprawled across the sofa, his head tilted to one side at an angle which was bound to give him some pain later when he awoke. He started to snore, making noises loud enough for Myfanwy to poke her beak out as she looked around for whatever strange creature her humans had dragged in this night. Tilting her head, she saw only the grumpy one on the sofa, so she pulled herself back into her cavern and curled up as she waited for the nice one to come back with a treat for her.
Other than Owen's snoring, the Hub was quiet; the whir of the machinery that kept it running was a muted sound in the background. Had anyone else been there to notice, they would have found the sight of a tall woman with dark hair approaching the slumbering man to be very odd indeed.
"Owen," a voice called. Owen frowned at the sound of his name, and muttered something incoherent. "Owen, wake up."
"No," he mumbled, swatting the air with his hand as he turned away from the sound of the voice and pressed his head against the cushions. "Go away."
"I'm not going anywhere, Owen," the voice said, calling his name again. It repeated until finally he jerked awake with a start. Blinking blearily, he checked his watch. Only a half hour had passed. He didn't know what had woken him, so he dropped his head back down and closed his eyes again.
"Owen," the voice called. His eyes sprang open in shock. He knew that voice. He used to hear it every day. But it was impossible! He sat up and turned, his eyes widening as he took in the figure seated next to him on the sofa.
"Suzie! What? How?" Owen spluttered. What he was seeing was not possible. Suzie was dead and resting in a vault a few hundred feet below where he was currently sitting. And she was quite dead.
"What, not happy to see me, Owen?" Her voice sounded raspy. No doubt from the entryway of the bullet hole in her chin where she had shot herself with the revolver. She was smiling at him, and Owen shuddered as he took in her dead eyes, her lank hair, and the bits of grey matter that still clung to her here and there. "I'm so disappointed. Is this a way to treat a former lover?"
"I…" Owen was, for the first time in his life, at a loss for words. They failed him. He didn't know how to respond to the question from a woman who was undoubtedly dead. "But how?"
"Come on, Owen," Suzie said in a derisive tone. "This is Torchwood! How can you ask how to anything that happens here?" She gestured to the area around her and he knew she had a point. She clapped her hands together. "Now pay attention."
He sat up a little straighter in response to her demand. "Pay attention to what?" He asked, still muddled by the deep sleep he had been in when she had so rudely awoken him.
"To what I'm about to tell you," Suzie said. "Owen, you've been a naughty boy," she said, waggling her finger. "What have you been up to here?" She looked around, noticing the decorations. "Ah," she said with a knowing nod. "I see."
Owen was starting to get irritated. Where did she get off coming in here, waking him up from a well deserved rest and berating him? "What the hell are you doing here, Suzie?" He asked, anger creeping into his tone.
"Shame on you, Owen," she chided him. "It's that sort of response that earned you this visit in the first place," she told him. "I'm here to start you on a journey."
Owen was openly annoyed now. "Suzie, what the hell are you on about? What response? What have I earned, other than a 'thank you for saving our arses yet again, Owen' and a 'we're so glad to have you here to fix us up when we're stupid, Owen'? And what journey? I'm not going anywhere!"
"Oh, but you are," she said with a ghastly smile. "Owen, you will end up a bitter old man if you stay on the path you are currently on."
Owen looked down and back up again. "What path? I'm not going anywhere! What are you on about, woman?" He asked, totally confused. "All right, that's it! I'm bonkers! I'm talking with an apparition of a dead woman and expecting it all to make sense."
"Well, that is stupid, isn't it, Owen?" Suzie asked in a reasonable tone. "But I'm not going away. Because I'm here to give you a message."
Owen gave up at this point at having any of it make sense. "All right, go ahead. Give me whatever lecture it is my subconscious is trying to tell me. I don't know why the heck it took the form of you, but go ahead and say whatever it is you have to say so you can take off and I can get back to sleep."
"Sure," Suzie said with a nod. She stood up and pointed a long, thin finger at Owen, so close to his face that the nail almost touched his nose. "Owen Harper, you are being judged by the scales of Justice! They currently find you wanting. But you will have a chance at redemption!"
"Oh, be still, my beating heart," Owen exclaimed sarcastically. "Oh wait, I can do that; you can't." He laughed harshly at his own joke. "Pray, go on, Ms. Costello! Bestow whatever wisdom my brain seems to think I need to heed!"
"Before this night is through, you will be shown the error of your ways," Suzie intoned in a serious voice. "You will be visited by three spirits. Each one has something important to show you, and each one will take you on a journey." She didn't seem to notice the way he rolled his eyes at her serious declaration.
"Oh yeah, I get it now. Sure, bring them on!" Owen said. He sat up and looked around. "Okay, where are they? " He stood up and looked around, but didn't see anyone other than Suzie. "Hello!" He shouted, his voice echoing in the Hub. The only response was the irritated rattle of Myfanwy's wings as she shifted in her cave high above him. "What? Not coming out to play? No? Well, bully you, then!" He said as he sat back down on the sofa, his arms crossed. "I'm not afraid of my own subconscious."
"You will be, Owen Harper," Suzie intoned as she stood up. "You will be." A moment later, she was gone and Owen was shaking his head.
"Oh great, she sounded like Yoda just then," he said in disgust. He rapped his own head with his knuckles. "Hello, brain? Stop it! I'm not going to listen, okay? So just give up now, because whatever it is you're thinking, it isn't going to work." Having announced that, he sat back and crossed his arms, scowling. When nothing happened, he got up and went to go check his experiments. They were still in progress and he sighed as he realized he had a few more hours to wait.
"Fine then," he announced to no one as he sat back down on the sofa. "I'm taking a nap! And I don't want to hear from anyone, okay? No ghosts, no ghouls, no things that go bump in the night! Okay? Fine!" He crossed his arms, stretched out his legs and sat belligerently for a long while until his eyes began to droop. Eventually, he fell asleep again, lulled into dreamland by the low rumble of the Hub's machinery.