Burning Cosmos {A Torchwood Story Three}

19. Day In The Death

Evelina's POV

I don't know who I'm living with anymore.

I lie in bed on my lunch break and think about everything; how my love is forever dead and my life is forever changed.

Owen got fired today. And not for the normal reasons you get fired - no, of course Owen Harper has to be fired because he's under testing for being dead three days ago. That's so like Owen. This didn't happen when we found out I was a Time Lord - although, granted, Death didn't envelop me and jump out of my mouth to almost kill Martha.

I'm debating whether or not to go back to my shift as the door to my bedroom in our flat creaks open. I move to sit up and see Owen hanging off of the doorframe.
"You okay?" he asks, which is pretty ironic.
"Yeah, yeah, I, I just," I ramble as I prop myself up on my elbows, "just needed to get out of the Hub for a while. I'm going back soon, don't worry; you can carry on with whatever you're doing."
He shrugs. "Not really doing much," he says in a flat tone, his fingers gripping the paintwork and leaving little smudges. "I'm binning my stuff."

"What? Why?" I demand to know, sitting straight up.
He shrugs again. "What's the point? I can't use any of it, can't eat it, can't drink it. Hell, I'm even chucking the condoms cuz what good is a dick without blood rushing to it. I can't even wank, Evy," he emphasizes, his face stony. "Might as well bin 'em."

I open my mouth to say something, but decide against it. Some things are better left unsaid.

His loud pop music I've always hated croons from our living room, encapsulating us in a small deaf world. Owen takes the few steps to reach the bed, leans over me, and cups my jaw in his hand. Softly, delicately, like I'm the ceramic piece not him, he places a butterfly kiss on my lips.
I lean forward so my mouth can latch on more, but Owen steps back again, leaving me to rock on the mattress. Strands of my unwashed hair fall into my eyeline, and through them I watch his indecision.

Indecision as to whether or not we continue, now that for him, life is even less worth living.

He doesn't come back; instead, he walks out of the room back to the living room. I lie back down in my bed. I guess that's that then.

A knock on the door. Muscle memory causes me to jump out of bed and leave the bedroom, but Owen gets to it first and opens onto Toshiko, smiling nervously and holding a pizza. Glancing at the food, Owen and I both gulp.

"You mind if I eat? I'm starving," she remarks as we let her in and she breezes behind the kitchen bar, already knowing where everything is. She places her bag and the pizza on the table and begins rooting around for the bottle opener where it usually is, but Owen points her to the drawer he's chucked it in through his mad decluttering.

We sit down on the leather bar stools opposite Tosh. "So Jack asked you to come round, did he?" Owen asks without energy. "Talk to Owen. Get him to open up, Lord damn it."
Despite trying to be sympathetic I roll my eyes. Tosh catches it, and bites her lip. Everything she's thinking is a combination of narked and pity, and thank God Owen can't pick up on it otherwise he'd be pissed.

"I've actually had a hell of a morning," she replies, looking at both of us but mostly Owen. "So, Jack calls me in at five this morning. Could've waited til I got in. But no, strange energy spike and it's all, let's get Tosh in."
"Yeah, sorry about that," I butt in, "I was helping, uh..." My voice trails off as I remember this morning, when Owen realised he couldn't brush his teeth cuz his teeth would never decay, and when he realised he couldn't taste the minty part of the toothpaste which he always liked about brushing his teeth, and how I held him while he cried in the bathroom. The only fluid that comes out of him now are tears.