Strange Reunions

Owen Harper had had more than his fair share of weird experiences in his life. At the very top of the list was being killed and then becoming a kind of zombie until he was finally destroyed by a wave of radioactive waste. He was pretty sure that not many people – apart from a certain Captain Jack Harkness – could put that on their CV. Coming pretty damn close to the top of the list, however, had been closing his eyes for what he had believed to be that last time only to open them again to find himself several years younger, in a different kind of world to the one he had grown up in and finding that the woman in bed with you was the fiancé you had loved and lost to an alien parasite.

Looking back, Owen could only ruefully bless the fact that Katie was a one-in-a-million kind of woman. She herself remembered being surrounded by panicking medical personnel, feeling an intense pain in her head and then nothing until she had woken up in bed with Owen. She didn't know about the five years Owen had tried to live without her. She didn't know about Torchwood and aliens and immortal Captains and being dead and then being undead and now being alive again. It said a lot for her love and respect for Owen that she didn't run screaming from him during the first hour of their mutual resurrection, especially since she didn't realise she had also come back from the dead. So far as she was concerned she had passed out on an operating table and then woken up.

Fortunately for Owen's sanity and their relationship, there had been things to make her realise that maybe Owen hadn't been getting the good stuff from the hospital pharmacy. She didn't realise that Owen was visibly younger than she remembered. Not by much; Owen estimated that they were both 24 so Katie hadn't really noticed that she was a couple of years younger. It didn't take Owen long to guess that they were inhabiting cloned bodies, though. He couldn't find a single scar on his body and Katie was missing the tattoo she had had done when she was sixteen and her appendix scar. Their bodies might have been copies but Owen was certain that he was himself and after enough thought to make his head hurt he came to the conclusion that even if he was some kind of copy it didn't really matter because he was thinking and reacting just like he knew he would anyway and he really wanted to leave this kind of existential bullshit to Harkness.

They had woken up in what had turned out to be rented accommodation on the main island of the Seychelles, except they were called Chizuri rather than Seychelles and they were a major trading outpost for the British Commonwealth. Owen and Katie had found folders waiting for them which had identity details and documentation which kept their old names but rewrote everything else. Owen had just graduated from medical school and Katie as a biomedical scientist. They were apparently in Chizuri as it was a custom for many new graduates to donate a year or two to the World Council's Emergency Corps and Chizuri was one of the headquarters for the organisation. Each of them had a respectable nest egg and no outstanding debts and had glowing references from their tutors.

They had taken a week off to absorb what was happening and find out as much as they could about this new world they were in. Owen discovered that being involved with Torchwood for nearly five years hadn't made him any more prepared for finding himself on what he soon realised was some kind of alternative Earth. Katie had bizarrely found it easier to cope and Owen had felt just that tiny little bit exasperated.

"How can you just sit there and accept all this?" he demanded one afternoon. "You never even watched Star Trek, damn it!"

Katie had smiled up at him and something inside of him had melted as he revelled in the knowledge that she was back in his life once again. "The big picture might have changed, Owen, but the little things are still the same. We have phones, the internet, TV, even if they're all that little bit different. We still have bathrooms and kitchens. We still sleep in beds and drive cars. There's ice cream and daiquiris," she said, hefting the specimen in her hand. "Whoever or whatever has done this has given us a life to live and each other and I'm grateful to them for that."

Staring down at her, Owen had to admit that she was right. He was dead in the other Earth, so why was he fighting this? If it was some weird alien trick to somehow get information from him about Torchwood it was going about it in a really hamfisted way. So far as Owen had been able to determine, there was no Torchwood and everyone seemed to know about aliens. He and Katie had even seen a couple when they had been exploring the capital, Mahe. Owen had tensed up until he realised that no-one seemed to consider the aliens to be all that out of place and the aliens didn't seem to be armed and were more interested in shopping than rampaging.

Kate had grabbed him when she had seen them. "Owen, look!" she hissed.

A woman standing next to them had given them both a friendly smile. "First time you've seen a Dhme in the flesh, my dears?" she asked. "You probably come from too cold a place for them to venture. They come here to enjoy our sun and our music. Are they not beautiful?"

Owen had to admit that she was right about that. Both aliens were about six foot in height and bipedal, although the way the legs and arms were jointed seemed a bit off. They looked like intelligent dinosaurs, he decided, with glittering gold and green scales and large eyes of an intense liquid green. They only had some kind of silk tabard on with a wide belt which had pouches and instruments of some kind hanging from it. One of them was haggling enthusiastically over some mangoes while the other one seemed bored to tears. Having been shopping for shoes with Katie, Owen could empathise. They had gone home and looked the aliens up. Owen's thought that Earth had been invaded was soon laid to rest and in the following weeks they saw enough Dhmeii to become used to them and found them to be gentle if often mischievous beings.

Not having any real reason to do otherwise, they had taken up the positions that had been offered to them to be part of the Emergency Corps. The Corps went anywhere there had been a disaster of some kind, whether natural or man-made, and it was made up of the kind of personnel you needed in an emergency: doctors and nurses, engineers, communications and logistics experts, pilots, administrators, sanitation workers, translators and a dozen other fields of expertise. There were full-time veterans who had made this their career and both Owen and Katie soon found themselves completely taken up in learning what was needed. Both of them had the secret advantage of having a lot more experience than the average newly qualified person so it wasn't long before they were deemed fit to go out on their first mission, which was to a small island hit by a hurricane.

They had been asked to give the Corps a year and in the end they gave it two. They made friends and found that the Corps was something of an extended family in many ways. Owen found himself flourishing and shedding a lot of his abrasive manner. He and Katie were married on a beach on one of Chizuri's smaller islands, with their new friends around them. They might have continued working with the Corps except that Katie had had a close call with a guerrilla on one of their missions and Owen was suddenly reminded of how easily he could lose her. He had begged her to agree to leave the Corps and she had been shaken enough by the event that she had agreed. They had had a tremendous farewell party and then they had come back to Britain.

Owen had been drawn to Cardiff. Even though he had rapidly had his suspicions confirmed that there was no Rift and no Torchwood, he still felt a compulsion to come back to the city. Katie had humoured him, even if she had complained about the cold and the wet for the first few months, but Owen had quickly found a job in the Queen Nest Hospital's A&E department and after a few months Katie had landed a research position in the University of Cymru. They found a house and settled down and Owen stopped being afraid of being happy. He even managed to not faint when Katie had cooked him a special dinner and announced he was going to be a father over profiteroles.

He'd let Torchwood fade into the background as he enjoyed his new life. He became the father of a perfectly healthy and completely perfect son they named Leo and he and Katie started to work part-time so that one of them was always at home. If anyone had asked Owen if he wanted to change a single thing in his life he would have laughed in their faces.

And then he saw Ianto Jones being wheeled into the A&E department.

He'd seen Ianto with head injuries before so when he glanced up from treating a teenager with a nasty gash and saw the new patient being wheeled by, he had jerked upright in recognition. "What the hell... Teaboy?"

As soon as he had said it, he had second-guessed himself. This person was too young to be Ianto. Then he remembered that he had been a little younger when he had woken up in this world and Ianto had been the youngest of them anyway. His indecision was a moot point anyway, since Ianto had jerked upright and looked around wildly, calling out Owen's name. Before he could spot Owen, however, his eyes had rolled up into the back of his head and he had collapsed back onto the trolley.

Owen had been distracted then by his patient starting to whine with pain and he hastily concentrated on finishing his treatment. The kid was packed on his way with a prescription and a half-hearted admonishment to be more careful when he tried stunt-riding his bike in future. Owen looked around, trying to work out which of the curtained-off bays they had taken Ianto, but then he heard a familiar voice raised in anger.

"I don't care what the waiting times are! He's passed out!"

Owen rolled his eyes. It figured. Where an injured Ianto was, a homicidally anxious Jack Harkness was sure to be close by. He followed the sound of Harkness' bellow, almost tempted to stand to one side and wait until Matron descended on the miscreant who dared to violate the smooth-running of his domain, but he decided that he wanted to see the two of them too much. He got to the cubicle curtain and pulled it back in time to see Jack looming over the hapless junior nurse who was trying to ask him to keep calm.

"So much for smooth and debonair, Harkness. You losing your touch?"

He couldn't hold back the grin as he saw the way Jack froze and then turned to stare at him in complete and utter surprise. It wasn't often that anyone managed to get past that damn poise but right now Jack's jaw was on the ground and his eyes were practically on stalks. Owen was having to work hard at not staring himself. Jack was also looking younger. Much younger. He looked to be about the same age as Ianto and that couldn't have been much more than twenty or maybe even a bit younger. If Owen hadn't heard his voice he might not have recognised him because in many ways the man in front of him was nothing like the Jack Harkness he had known.

Gone was the anachronistic outfit. Jack was wearing a pair of lived-in black jeans with a deep blue t-shirt and a black open waistcoat. His hair was softer and wilder and his face was more open. He was still physically perfect, Owen noted with annoyance, but it was a less heavy look. He didn't have the solid musculature that Owen had discovered to his cost lay beneath the old-fashioned clothes. He was still staring at Owen but the surprise was being overwhelmed by another emotion. Remembering how they had parted, Owen guessed where this was going and managed to brace himself as Jack swooped over to grab him in a crushing bear hug.

"Owen," Jack managed to choke out.

Owen swallowed, trying to get rid of the solid lump in his throat. He knew how deeply Jack's emotions ran. For all the speed with which he had replaced Suzie with Gwen, that hadn't stopped Jack from grieving for her and he had spiralled down into a near depression after her second death. For Owen, there had been a death and a rebirth with the woman he loved and a career which had grabbed his interest immediately. He guessed that Jack and the others had been left behind to grieve and now he was standing in front of a man who had believed him gone for ever. He knew that he had to do something to distract Jack before he wound up with a crushed rib cage or security was called.

"Christ, Harkness, I can't get rid of you even if I come to a different dimension, can I?" That surprised a somewhat watery laugh from Jack and as Owen had hoped, he let go of him and stepped away. Owen offered him a warm smile, willing to admit to himself that he was glad to see them. "Less of the touchy-feely until I've checked out the Teaboy and seen what he's tried to do to himself this time."

That refocused Jack's attention in nothing flat and he quickly explained to Owen what had happened. Owen nodded thoughtfully and set up the scanner to see if there was any injury that the paramedics had missed. Not for the first time he mourned the loss of the Bekeran scanner since that would have given him a comprehensive and accurate picture of Ianto's physical state. Not that the scanners he had to work with were useless. Based on Dhmeii technology, they were about halfway between what conventional technology back on his Earth could do and what the Bekeran scanner could achieve. It didn't take long for him to get the results while Jack fussed away in the background and Owen sagged with relief when he saw the readings. As if to reinforce that relief, Ianto started to show signs of recovering consciousness.

"Nothing too serious," Owen confirmed to Jack.

"He passed out!" Jack objected and Owen almost laughed at the petulant note in the other man's voice.

"And he's never done that before? Simple diagnosis is that he's suffering from a concussion, he's managed to trap a nerve in his neck, he sat up too fast and he fainted. See? He's coming round now."

Owen leaned over and grinned down at Ianto as the younger man opened his eyes and struggled to focus, wincing a little at the bright light. Owen tossed an order over his shoulder for the nurse to dim the lights directly above their cubicle and turned back in time to see Ianto's eyes widen.

"Owen?"

Ianto was a lot less exuberant in his reaction, which Owen figured was in character. He lifted a hand and poked Owen gingerly in the chest. His eyes widened and before Owen realised what he was up to, Ianto had reached up and placed his fingers against the side of Owen's throat. Owen let him do it, watching as he saw Ianto feel the pulse beating beneath his fingers.

"I'm real," he said softly. "No idea how, but I'm here and I'm breathing again."

Ianto's eyes filled with tears and for one horrible moment Owen thought he was going to go all girly on him. To his relief the moment passed and if Ianto sniffled a little and rubbed at his eyes, Owen was willing to let it slide. He'd cried like a baby when he'd realised Katie was waking up beside him and he'd thought he'd gone to Heaven for a little while.

"Tosh?" Ianto asked after a while.

Owen sighed. That confirmed something he had suspected while he and Tosh had been talking over the comms and Owen had been waiting for his death. He'd wondered if Tosh was injured but she hadn't said anything and he had been afraid to ask. "Not as far as I know," he said. "I did try looking but I couldn't find her. Mind you, I didn't find you two."

"That's because we've only been here for about a month," Jack said as he fussed and fretted around Ianto. "You?"

"Three years," Owen said. He snorted. "So the two of you turn up looking like teenagers and I'm an old man. Typical."

"An old married man," Jack observed, reaching out to pull up the hand where Owen proudly wore his wedding ring. "Someone from this universe?"

Owen shook his head. "Katie," he supplied and watched Jack's eyes widen.

"Whoa, didn't see that one coming," he said thoughtfully.

"She said she would give us a new beginning with some of the old intertwined," Ianto said, the pain showing in the rasp in his voice.

Recalling his responsibilities, Owen ordered the nurse to bring him some pain relief. "You need to get back home and rest. Drink plenty of fluids and you can take some more pain relief later on," he ordered. He waited until Ianto had nodded carefully. "She?" he prompted.

Jack and Ianto exchanged glances and then Jack gave him what Owen suspected was a highly edited version of how they had got here. At the end, and after Owen had given Ianto an injection for the pain, he pursed his lips and nodded. "So it looks like I'm here because of my connection to you and Katie's here because of her connection to me. Looks like I have to say thank you," he grinned.

Both Jack and Ianto were still watching him in wonder and Owen knew how they felt. They might look younger and they might not have Torchwood linking them together but Owen was still ridiculously pleased to see them. "Look, here are my contact details," he said, scribbling them down. "When Teaboy's feeling more himself, why don't we meet up? I'd love you to meet up with Katie and Leo."

Jack immediately looked intrigued. "Who's Leo?"

This time Owen's smile threatened to spit his face in two. "My son."

Life became completely perfect when he saw that he had rendered both Jack and Ianto completely speechless.

OOOO