Me and My Shadow

Written for the Torchwood Cliche Fest, going on right now at nancybrown dot livejournal dot com (February 2nd is the last day! Get your fics in!)

trope: evil twins

Four guns were aimed at his head within seconds. Toshiko was too startled even to lift hers. "But ... It's Owen."

"The fuck it's not," Owen glowered. He was wearing the same Mickey-Mouse-giving-the-finger t-shirt as he had been earlier in the day. He hadn't been out of sight. Another Owen had unexpectedly appeared in the middle of the Hub in a bright flash of light.

"Okay," Jack said. "Talk. Who are you, and what are you doing in my base?"

The other Owen's hands went up, his eyes wide. "Jack, it's me. You hired me in 2006, right after Katie died. Tell me you remember." His voice was calm, pleading.

Gwen turned to Tosh, mouthing, "'Katie?'" Tosh shrugged, mystified.

Their Owen, Mickey-Mouse Owen, said, "It's not me. He's reading my mind."

Jack said, "Take a blood sample. If he's a shapechanger, we'll see. My bet is we're dealing with multiverse slip. Bet you walked sideways into our universe from yours."

"Fuck," said both Owens.

His blood work came back clear, and genetically identical to their Owen. Toshiko scanned him with every program she had. "I've got it. Look, you can see the Rift energy on him here and here, and that," she pointed to a place on her graph, "is the quantum-level flux we saw in other cross-universe incidents." She smiled proudly.

The new Owen smiled back. "Tosh, you always were a genius. Now, can you get me back?"

Her smile dimmed.

They called him Kent, because both Owens said it was their granddad's name. Kent helped Owen in Medical, and acted as an extra pair of hands around the Hub otherwise. Jack ordered him to stay put and not go out in the field; none of them wanted to explain Owen's sudden gain of an identical twin. He took to the incarceration with good grace, to everyone's surprise.

"Could be worse. I'm not in a cell or dead, after all." And he smiled.

"You're not a prisoner here," Jack clarified. "You just have to be careful. If we decide to reintegrate you with the outer world, you'll have to move somewhere Owen won't be."

Since he lived at the Hub, occupying Jack's vacant bunker (and teasing Jack a bit - the Jack in his universe was still pretending he wasn't practically living with Ianto), and he had the run of the place, Kent used his free time to help. He organised Gwen's cross-referenced records with the police. He listened carefully to Tosh's instructions and helped her compile her programs overnight, saving her hours of double-checking in the mornings. After some initial distrust, and more than one jibe about their Owen's lack of interest in same, Ianto let Kent take over part of the Hub maintenance. Kent pushed a broom as easily as he dissected an alien, and he did both with a quiet happiness that was infectious to everyone else, except the original Owen who rolled his eyes and muttered a lot.

Two months after he'd joined them, with no option of returning him to his universe in sight, Kent came up to Tosh late one evening and shyly asked her out on a date. To her own surprise, she said no, but five minutes after walking out the door, she called him and said yes after all.

They went to the cinema. He was a perfect gentleman.

Two more dates went just as flawlessly, and the next date stretched into morning. Jack smiled knowingly as they came in together. Gwen giggled and nudged Tosh to talk later. Owen kicked things in Medical and didn't say a word.

In fact, it wasn't until after the seventh date or so, when Tosh had mentioned to Jack the possibility of Kent being allowed to move out of the Hub and in with her, that they finally spotted what had happened. They were in the conference room. Owen was busy shredding the morning's agenda before him into thin, perfectly even strips and refusing to look at Kent or in fact any of them. Tosh was giving her final report on the universe-travelling event which had brought Kent to them.

Jack said, "And with that, we're closing the case. Kent, you're here for good now."

Owen said loudly, "Fuck."

Ianto stared at him. "Oh my God. That's it."

"What's it?" asked Gwen.

"He's the evil twin."

"Kent isn't evil," Tosh said, but Ianto was looking straight at Owen, who wadded up the shreds of paper and threw it at his head.

"Fuck off."

"I see what you mean," Jack said, and ducked from the next flung paper ball.