Many thanks to L.A.H.H., Torchwood Cardiff, wanda1693 and thedeejay. This chapter was suggested by Torchwood Cardiff, who wanted to see how Owen dealt with younger patients.

Please excuse my lack of medical knowledge in this chapter. I have never had stitches, and hope that this will long continue.

This Won't Hurt a Bit…

"What are you doing?"

"Checking over your arm."

"It stings."

"I'm cleaning it. It won't take long."

"Are you going to chop it off?"

Owen frowns. He's not used to dealing with this kind of thing. "Why would I bother cleaning it if I was going to chop it off?"

The small boy frowns thoughtfully. "Maybe you could keep it and put it in a jar. Like the other one. And then you could get feet, and legs and a head and stuff and sew them all together and it would be like Frankenstein."

"Could do." Owen replies cheerfully, silently calculating the retcon dosage required if his charge has had this close a look-around the Hub.

"Are the knives for chopping bits off people?"

"Knives?"

The child reaches for a scalpel, but Owen gets there first. "They're sharp. Don't touch them."

"But are they for chopping bits off?"

"They're for cutting into people to see what's inside."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Dead people."

"Wow." The child is silent for long enough for Owen finish washing the cut clean. It's quite a long one, but not too deep. A pair of eyes watches him with interest. Owen finds this disconcerting – normally his patients prefer to look away. "Do I get stitches? When Matt fell off his bike he cut his leg and got three stitches. He showed me them."

"Yep, I'll put some in."

"How many?"

Owen considers. "Five."

"Five? Wow."

"What colour would you like?" This is not normally a service Owen offers. The others would probably have a fit if they woke up and found that he'd closed their wounds with neon orange thread.

"Blue."

"Blue it is then. Right, now I'm going to give you an injection, but it shouldn't hurt…"

"Not at all?"

"Well, maybe a little bit." Owen replies more honestly.

"Is that what they inject poison with?"

"Yep. But this is just a painkiller."

"Have you ever poisoned anyone?"

"Nah. Too much trouble. Could do if I wanted though."

That gets a pair of wide eyes. "Could you, could you make them swell up and up like a balloon until they go BANG?"

"That's quite a tricky one." The kid hasn't even noticed the injection. "Far more fun to make them run round and round in circles 'til they die. Less messy too." Owen finds he's quite enjoying this.

"Can you really do that?"

"Yes." Owen says, wondering if he could. "Or make them come out in spots." That one he can do. One day when he's really bored and feeling particularly suicidal he'll try it on Ianto.

"Spots don't kill you." The boy says dismissively. "Not unless you get them in your throat and you're choking choking" – he does a good impression, and finishes – "until you can't breathe."

"True."

"That thing that jumped on me tried to bite my head off." The child says conversationally. "And it had sharp, sharp teeth like…. like knives. And claws. Huuuge, looong claws. Was it a wolf?"

"Nah, it was a weevil."

"Weevil." He rolls the word round on his tongue like a new sweet. "What's that?"

"Sharp teeth and big claws, just like you said. And a nasty temper."

"Do they eat people?"

"Only if they can catch them. But when they do… oh, it's messy."

The kid shivers in delight, which causes some problems with the needle Owen is trying to use. "Have they ever attacked you?"

"Oh yeah. Millions of times. We're meant to catch them, you see, and stop them from killing people. Like we did with you."

"Did you shoot it? I heard you shoot it."

"That was just to scare it. We try not to shoot 'em."

"Do you have a gun? Can I try it?"

"How about we wait until your arm's better first?"

"Oh. Ok. What was the orange thing then? It looked like an alien."

Owen glances at the cold storage locker, where the former occupant of his operating/dissecting table had been unceremoniously shoved. "It was an alien." Thank god for retcon.

"Cool! Where was it from?"

"Err… We don't know yet. We just found it dissolving people near the station."

"Dissolving? Like… Wow. Why is it orange?"

"Guess it just wants to be. Wanted."

"So it's dead? Did you shoot that one?"

"Nope. It was allergic to milk."

"I'm allergic to vegetables." In a confidential voice.

"Me too. Apparently there's no known cure. And that's your arm done. Here, drink this, should stop you getting dehydrated." Half a pill should be enough – smaller body mass.

"Are you a secret doctor? Like, a secret superhero doctor? 'Cos you live down here in a secret base on your own and you kill aliens…"

"I'm not on my own. I've got some friends with me."

"Like… sidekicks?"

"Yeah. Sidekicks. Only don't tell them I said that. They'd get all upset, 'cos they like to think I need them."

"Wow. Can I help?"

"Maybe when you're a bit older. You any good with guns?"

"I got top score on Halo. I beat my brother."

Owen raises his eyebrows. "Hey, I'll take you on sometime. No one here can beat me."

"Have you ever saved the world?"

"A few times." Owen replies offhandedly, and adds generously "With help."

"Have you ever not saved it?"

That's more of a puzzle. "As in, have I ever destroyed it, or does someone else do some of the saving?"

"Both!"

"Well, I get quite a bit of help with the saving. Sometimes I even get days off. And I've never destroyed it. Not actually."

The boy yawns, picking at the stitches with one hand, which Owen removes. "I want to save the world one day."

"Maybe you will. I mean, if we manage it, then it can't be too hard. And I'm a doctor before I'm a world-saving hero, supposedly."

A pair of eyes blinks sleepily back at him. "I think you're a brilliant doctor."

"Oh. Thanks."

Sleep removes the chance of a reply.