Disoriented Cosmos {A Torchwood Story} [COMPLETED]

28. This Is Starting To Turn Into A Kerfuffle

As soon as I've processed what's just happened between me and my flatmate-dash-coworker, I've grabbed my keys and said a quick, "I'll be back later" to Owen before whirling out the apartment building and across the street to run to Tosh's place.

If anyone can help me work out my feelings for Owen, she can. She knows humans, unlike me.

My friend unlocks the door, faintly surprised to see me here and shivering because I forgot my jacket, and gestures. "Come in?"
"I need help." I crash onto her lovely wicker armchair overlooking her massive window which I have since deemed my favourite of all her upholstery. "I have a Boy Issue, and I need your advice as a person that has had Boy Interactions before."

"Can I talk about my Boy Issue first, please, Evie?" she asks urgently, her face so earnest and worried that I nod my head before I can ask what's up.
Evie," Tosh begins, walking over and looking at me with a combination of eagerness and anxiety.
I suspiciously eye her folded hands in front of her abdomen. "What is it?"
I've... I've got a crush on Owen."

Oh, God.

I groan and slump in the chair, face in hands.
"Why, Tosh? Just... Why?"
I dunno, just," she shrugs, looking like a child at Christmas opening the present of her dreams, "he's good looking, and cracks good jokes, and..."
"And?"
I don't know what else," she confesses, but I know she can't stop having feelings for him.

Which makes the fact I just kissed him before I came round here and I was about to tell her that even worse.
Oh shit, now I have to pretend I came round here to tell her something else. I can't tell her I just snogged her crush!

As I scramble for some lie to say, she edges closer, inhaling through her nose in unease. "What do you think?"
This is getting really difficult for me to deal with. "Oh, Tosh, you know he's a playboy; I know you don't wanna hear this, but you'll get your feelings hurt if you don't somehow snap yourself out of this." Huh, good point. Why don't I listen to myself more?

"But," she says, "what if he changes?" The real question lies underneath, what if I can change him? This is excruciatingly painful - like a car crash you know is going to happen from a mile away.
"Tosh, he won't change, he's hurting," I say meaningfully, like that will change anything she feels for him - come on, who in Torchwood has ever been mentally stable? "Something terrible happened to him before he came here, and ever since he's been burying himself in his work and an endless supply of genitals. I'm not sure he's the changing or settling type."

I can see Tosh getting hurt by my words, but I have to get them out there, for her and for me. Maybe I can stop both our cars before they collide.

She's quiet for a few minutes, thinking things over, then she asks, "If it's not someone I work with, who knows about Torchwood... will I ever find someone?"

"Oh, Toshiko. Poor, gorgeous, lovely Toshiko." I bring her down to sit on my lap, wrap my arms round her, and rock her gently, like I suppose a mother would with her babe. She tries not to cry, but eventually a few tears snake out of her beautiful almond eyes, and I reach out a finger and brush them away so she needn't feel them.

I tuck flyaway strands of hair behind her ear, and say softly into it, "You'll find the One. I know you will. You deserve them."

And it seems I don't deserve her.