Burning Cosmos {A Torchwood Story Three}

14. Sick Day

Owen's POV

I wake up with my head foggy, like my brain is wading through soup. Maybe it's just morning brain? Surely it is. Woah, nope it isn't, I think as I sit up and get out of bed, taking out my retainers and chucking them on my bedside table. When my feet plant on the floor, instead of my slippers there's an overturned book. I pick it up, skim through, and realise with surprise it's the book I was reading last night. Wait, when did I stop reading it? Matter of fact, when did I go to sleep last night?

The fog continues, feeling like cotton wool, whilst I stumble blindly into the bathroom. I don't know whose toothbrush I use - I just know that I'm gripping onto the edge of the sink as I brush. I look at myself in the mirror and see massive dark circles under my eyes, like I haven't been sleeping at all. I furrow my forehead; go away, brain fog!

"Morning," a voice sails past, and I frown at Evelina as she appears in the room.
"You're being loud."
"And you're acting hungover," she states, leaning over me and taking the toothbrush out the holder. "I thought you weren't drinking last night?"
"I wasn't, I..." I try hard to remember what I was doing in my room alone, one of the few nights we don't sleep in the same bed; "I was just reading, yeah, yeah with just water. I do feel kind of hungover, though. Like if I cough I'll throw up."

Evy regards me, toothpaste dripping from the corner of her mouth. "Owen, if that's not a hangover then you're coming down with something. You'd better stay at home today."
I pshaw her suggestion. I tell her, "I'm fine, just morning sleepiness," then rinse out my mouth and walk into the kitchen. Funny: my throat feels sore after spitting.

I pour some instant coffee and have my first taste, and it basically falls from my mouth. Evy rushes in at the spatter and stares at me. "What the fuck was that?"
"I have no clue." I stare at the floor, then feel my jaw. It just... stopped working? I close my mouth then swallow to get rid of the remaining saliva, and my throat scratches against itself like sandpaper. Ow, fucking ouch!

I try to switch to doctor mode and diagnose myself, but my brain can't direct itself through the candyfloss filling it. I want to lie down.
"Evy, what do we have to do at work today?" I ask my flatmate through a voice that seems to get raspier at each syllable, trudging over to the red sofa, and while I wince at my dry scratchy throat she rattles off our jobs today. God, I can barely compute any of that; I'm getting more tired by the second.

"Right, that's it," Evy declares, "you're staying in today."
"No," I protest weakly, but she ignores me and takes the coffee out of my hands to replace with a packet of ibuprofen.
"Owen, you barely have enough brain power to comprehend what I'm saying right now; what makes you think you'd be able to work?" she asks me, and I can't think of a clever answer to her question. I hate that. It means she's won the argument, and she knows it as she tuts at me and brings from her room an old blanket to pull over me.

"I'll let everyone know you're ill, and not alcohol ill, actual ill," she says while she pours a coffee in a takeaway flask and busies herself around the flat. "You've got enough doctor-y stuff around here to keep yourself afloat, but because I'm a good person I'll check in on you at lunchtime, okay? Don't do anything that might make you more ill. That means shutting up, and not sucking dick." She says the last sentence with a cheeky smile, and I defy her wish of not doing things that hurt me and poke my tongue out at her.
"Bitch," I say raspily, and she wags her finger at me.
"Uh-uh. Doctor Firestone says shut up."

I think she pats my head or kisses my forehead or something, but I'm already drifting off as she does...

~∆~

"You're missing a hell of a day, Harper," Evy's voice shouts as she opens the door at lunchtime. I wince and cover my head with the duvet I dragged from my bedroom. "Stop being loud."
"Stop being a bitch; I was talking normally," she replies briskly, and walks up to the L shaped sofa we have in our new living room to check my temperature.

I swat her hand away irritably, like a child. "You think I haven't done everything I can think of to feel better? I've taken ibuprofen, I've drunk loads of water, I've napped on and off-"
"Have you washed your hands every time you've coughed or sneezed so you don't retain the germs?"

A silence. I glare at her: "Shut up."

She laughs and coos, ruffling my hair like I'm an infant. "It's okay. Do you want me to make you a hot chocolate while I talk to you about work this morning."
"If you must," I sigh, pretending like I don't love hearing her funny fruity voice all of the time.
She pats my head once more before turning round and heading to the kitchen, where I hear clanks of cupboards opening and then her sweet voice.

"Since I had to cover for you today, I went out in the field with Tosh, trying to hunt down a Weevil that had been spotted by a pensioner near the Castle. Don't know why on earth a Weevil would think that the Castle is a great place to hide from people, but whatever, the story isn't about that. So me and Tosh chase it around the outskirts of the city centre til we get it cornered in one of the old warehouses near us. But as soon as we're close, it moves, and there's this body behind it, and we get sidetracked by it because it's not from the Weevil."

"You mean it's still alive? The person?" I ask, and I peek through my squinting eyes to see her pause then shake her head.
"No; no, the person's dead," she says sadly, and I wish I had enough energy to console her soft heart. "But I had a look at them, and although I'm not an expert on it, it looks like they suffered and possibly died by toxic shock."
"How do they look?" I ask, or at least ask in my head - all that comes out my mouth is a whimper, and Evelina turns her head to me and smiles softly.

"Save your breath - they might be the last ones you have, drama queen," she chuckles out. With a clank of a teaspoon on the sink, my lover holds up a steaming mug in triumph and brings it over to me. I struggle to sit up, shrouded by the duvet, and when she hands it to me I make the biggest effort to not drop it through the brain fog.

Evy sits down next to me, her legs crossed as she checks her phone for updates. "I'd better get back soon, but I'll finish the story. Immediately after we get the body in, Jack goes and calls someone from his office - naturally, I listened in." She offers a cheeky side smile, the one that distracts me at work and causes me to dissect wrong parts, and I'm hit by another sudden urge to confess my love to her; I can't speak, anyway. "He was on the phone to someone in UNIT."

"UNIT?" I croak, and she nods her head. The Captain hates UNIT; he thinks they're the more stuck up version of us.
Evy continues. "She's coming up tomorrow, and she's a doctor too, so you'd better be healthy by then. Don't want to miss out on all the fun medical talk, now, do you? Right, I'm off; I'll tell the team you're sitting up without puking."

She stands up and goes over to the kitchen to put everything back away, ending with her keys in the lock. Do I know this doctor?
"Evy, what's her name?"

She looks back at me and smiles as if she knows something nobody else ever would. "Miss Martha Jones."