Disoriented Cosmos {A Torchwood Story} [COMPLETED]

13. A New Addition

"Hey, where's Jack?" I ask when I can't find him anywhere in the Hub; I need his help to catalogue something I found in this fallen star, it's really interesting.

Suzie waves her hand dismissively, already bored with this conversation. "Somewhere in the city centre; he said he was finding another alien, and that he'd be back in a bit."
I blow a tiny raspberry like Tosh showed me how to do, and decide to just catalogue it myself - I'll let him know once I've deactivated whatever the glowing thing is.

I set to it, kept company by the tapping of Toshiko's computer on her desk on the other side of the room and her odd murmurs about the paperwork, for about two hours before the front door rolls open and Jack comes in.
"Hey, everyone! Funeral in a week, okay?"

Us three women swivel in our chairs, distracted from our work by our seemingly batshit crazy boss.
It's Suzie who asks first: "What funeral? For who?"

"Oh, some woman," he replies with a passive shrug, moving to lean over Toshiko's desk to look at the paperwork. She stops him so she can ask why, and he says, "The alien, that parasite? Well, it killed her and the surgeons who didn't know they were operating on it, so I thought we might as well pay our respects. Also, there was a guy there who I had to chloroform, so I should probably apologise for doing that... and then for tricking the system so it just looked like he had had a mental breakdown instead of an alien being there."

I stare at him in total shock. He had no right, surely? He was taking things too far this time; convincing an entire hospital a man had gone insane for the sake of an alien parasite?

"So, yeah - funeral in a week, and Toshiko, the names of the staff are..."
I stop listening, because I can't stop thinking about how terrible this must be for this unnamed man. If this guy has any strength at all, I know for sure he would beat my boss's ass at the funeral.

~∆~

Unfortunately, because I'm in the middle of comforting Amber about her terrible husband on the day, I can't watch Jack get knocked to the ground. Which is a shame, really, because I've wanted to do it since the first day I met him. Dude still doesn't feel entirely right.

After I double check Amber's husband is away tonight, I go back to the Hub to find myself behind Jack who is behind a strange man. Why are we resembling 3/4 of the Beatles in front of a cog-shaped door?

It seems they've just talked about something extremely serious, because when I alert them to my presence they both stare at me as if I popped up out of nowhere. The stranger's cheeks are wet from crying, which, from his startled expression and the way he quickly wipes his face with the back of his hand, I guess he's not used to doing.

I'm the first to break the silence. "Hello stranger, I'm Evelina Cosmo Firestone." I hold my hand out warily for him to shake, and equally warily he reaches out and shakes it. Something's shaken him too, and a lightbulb goes off in my head as I connect him to Jack's story the other day.

"You're the man from the hospital?" I ask, which is confirmed by a nod from Jack. Not the guy - he's too busy staring at me, likely questioning my cosmic alive swirling eyes. Many do, to be fair.
"Yeah I'm, uh, Doctor Owen Harper, M.D.," he says quietly, and another lightbulb flashes in my head because I suddenly realise why Jack brought him here.

'We need a doctor...'

I feel even worse for this poor sod.

The Captain moves past me and gently pushes the man towards his office, where he sits him down and they begin to talk seriously again. I rub my hand across my face, groaning just loud enough for Toshiko and Suzie to hear - because they've also been so surprised to see the guy here that they've not-so-subtly moved their work closer to the door.

"What do you think he's gonna say when Jack offers him the job?" Suzie asks, dumbfounded for the first time I've seen her because there's a man here. A man that's not a walking enigma.
"Thought you didn't care who was added to the group, Suze," I reply, using her affectionate nickname she hates, and she scowls at me before Tosh remarks,
"He looks hot, don't you think?"

"And you think I'm a good judge of aesthetic because?" I retort, but I actually look at this Owen bloke and find that, yes, he does look rather striking, in a full suit from the funeral - once again, this man shouldn't be near any weaponry or Jack right now - and his hair dark and close on his head.

"Girls," Suzie says sternly, "you're both acting like you've never seen a man of the opposite sex before. I can assure you both that you have indeed seen males before - in fact, I think I can safely say that we've all slept with at least one of them." She turns back to her work with a sigh like she never deliberately moved her work closer to the guy in the first place, and Tosh and I roll our eyes and quietly chuckle with each other. Suzie is the biggest hypocrite ever!

Tosh leans on one hand, knuckle on her chin. "If he joins, who do you think he's gonna live with til he gets his own place? Jack's filled the spare room with plants again - he's going through another phase."
"I swear that man is so weird," I add onto our observations about our boss. "Do you really think he'll make one of us share? I just got a place of my own a few months ago after sharing a grotty hovel with, like, twenty other women for years on end. He won't make me share, surely."

My friend shrugs, but before we can say anything, our conversation is cut short by Jack's voice in our comms.
"Evelina, could you please do our new coworker a favour and let him crash at yours until he has the money?"

Tosh and I roll our eyes at each other again, and I can hear the Owen guy protest before Jack says, "His house is now officially up for sale, courtesy of Mark Lynch sales and lettings. It's a big house - it'll get snapped up soon. Too many memories, huh Owen?" Jack's tone gets softer at that, like he's been through this exact situation before.

Silence from Owen. I try to imagine how he must feel right now. His fiance, someone he was going to be with forever, has died by cause of something he couldn't even explain to anyone, let alone himself. In arrives Captain Jack Harkness like the Reaper, wiping the CCTV and the minds of everyone in the hospital to make him think he's crazy. He's probably lost his job due to illness brought on by people thinking he's crazy, he goes to the funeral of the person he loves best in the world, and there fucking Harkness is again.

Unlucky bastard. I hope he'll be okay.

I press my comm and tell the men that I'll begrudgingly share my sofa with Owen, and watch my boss guide the doctor to our operating room to see his new work station.

I turn my head to Toshiko. "Does this mean I'm gonna have to take him out to cheer him up?"

Lo and behold, when we're all let out after normal work hours (nothing much happened today - well, if you don't count the new addition to the team), I'm approached by Jack to ask if I could take Owen out for a drink.
"It's the least you could do," he says, quietly so as not to be overboard by the man, and I reply indignantly,
"Uh, isn't it technically the least you could do, seeing as you made everyone at his previous place of work think he's a total nutjob?"

"Just go and give him a good time to make him forget," he counters, and I tell him that I hope he doesn't mean that in the same way my old druglords did before I turn to Owen and give him a straight lined smile.

What smile are you supposed to have on when facing a bloke who's fiance just died?