She believes that life is made up of all that you're used to
In the Kashtta Tower's lounge, Suzie Costello is sipping an unholy concoction made mostly of hot cocoa, with some coffee and whiskey added for flavour. It has whipped cream on the top. She's frowning down at a small device, probably alien in origin, which is rattling in a regular repeating pattern, and poking at it
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He's going to notice someone out of the corner of his eye as he passes the lounge and give serious consideration to finding a set of blinders. Like that would help.
He tries to walk on past, but the gnawing sense of personal responsibility is unbearable by the time he's walked down three steps and he has to backtrack, cursing every damn step of the way.
Maybe he'll get lucky, he thinks, heading to hang his head in though the doorway. Maybe it will be one of the Tower residents he can actually stand.
"I don't suppose you n-"
...or maybe it will be Suzie.
There's a moment when he just stares at her, jaw clenched, fingers digging into the doorframe, wondering if he'd survive the ensuing guilt from asking the tower just to eat her - maybe he could tell it to eat him, honestly, but that would probably send him to Narnia, and he's not willing to risk coming back a faun - and finally exhales pointedly, grumps his way in, and drops onto a chair.
"It is entirely pathological," he says, because god forbid anyone think he's being nice of his own accord, "but I need to ask: do you need to talk about anything?"
Maybe they could talk about how Owen hates the world.
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The first words she can think to say are, "Are you all right?" That might even be concern in her expression: Owen being nice is distinctly unusual, and suggests something very wrong.
She sets the alien device aside and takes a careful sip of her rather alcoholic coffee drink, with a little frown that suggests she's re-evaluating just how much whiskey is in it.
"Oh, and yes. But I doubt you're the sort of person who'd willingly put up with it, so why don't we focus on the part where you've got this pathological need to ask me that in the first place?"
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He is a font of compassion and concern, Suzie. Please, please help bleed that dry.
"So, if you would like to talk..." He gestures to himself. "I'm here to listen."
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She glances up at Owen, as if to say, Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? When he doesn't take the opportunity to run for the hills, though, she shrugs.
"Feel free to tell me to shut it whenever you like," she begins. "But... right. A good friend of mine -- which everyone here has ample reasons to hate -- is missing, after showing up with signs of having been tortured. I had to swallow my pride and go to Tosh for help, and she's got the most reason to hate him of anyone here. Let's add to that the fact that J's several kinds of insane all at once, and the Master's here in Chicago. You'd know him as Harold Saxon. He's a Time Lord. And he got in my head and made me -- I won't go into the details of what he made me do, but before him, at least I'd always been in control of my own mind. He took that from me, then made me forget it had ever happened, until the Vesmier spotted something in my head that wasn't supposed to be there. And yes, if you're wondering, Gwen does know the details."
She focuses on the device in her hands, running a thumbnail along one of its seams. It's easier than looking at Owen -- probably for the both of them, she thinks.
"I hate feeling useless, I hate feeling powerless, and I really hate how apparently I'm horrible at any kind of interpersonal relationship that doesn't involve me manipulating someone. It would be easier if I was just using everyone here, because I'm absolute balls at actually caring about anyone. I can tell that Torchwood's broken, Owen, but bugger all if I know how to fix it. And I doubt anyone would let me try."
Suzie, no matter what else might be true about her, does care. She's just never known what to do with it. Suspicion and paranoia were easier, at least. She gives the device a brief and emphatic twist between her hands, and the rattling noise changes tempo.
"I'm out of my depth, and I don't like it. And most of the people I'd go to for help have very clear memories of me fucking them over. You included. I'd imagine you know precisely how awkward that makes things."
Her eyes flick up to Owen, and then back down to the thing in her hands. Very carefully, she runs her fingers along a set of seams that radiate from the centre, and the device opens enough for small fins to pop out along the seams she just stroked. The soft rattling gets slower and deeper.
"I never thanked you for saving my life, by the way. Twice, if I recall correctly. So thank you."
Throughout the entire recitation, Suzie's expression has been one of abstract pain. As long as she keeps working on the device, though, it can remain abstract, safely away from her conscious thoughts.
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He exhales, digging his thumb and index finger into the bridge of his nose. Help. Right. Like that was ever in his job description. He fixes up physical ailments and injuries, not emotional ones. Emotional ones he drinks, ignores, or bitches about until he can pretend they've gone away.
"...we could always put antidepressants in the water supply." He snorts. "Though given a week and a half I think antipsychotics might be the better option. ...why do we care?"
The question comes out more honest than she might be expecting, and more plaintive than he had intended.
"It's not like Torchwood was ever a haven of not being fucked all to hell. We always managed before." He grimaces at the table. "Chicago doesn't even have half the shit that tried to kill us every day back home; you'd think it would be easier."
But no. They come here and they grow senses of compassion and personal responsibility like fast-acting tumors and look where it gets them. Talking to old enemies like they're friendly. Fuck the world.
"Anyway." He's goes ahead and cuts himself off on that one, because nothing (except for... quite a few things he can think of, really) is as annoying as someone reminiscing about the good old days, and it's just making him more and more twitchy about the situation. "One, I don't suppose this has anything to do with why Jack was in my infirmary looking for sedatives, does it, and two, do I know this friend of yours?" He gives a crooked half-grimace which under other circumstances might have looked like a sardonic smile. "I hate everyone. Odds are he hasn't distinguished himself."
There's a beat.
"Also, if you could stop getting yourself shot or trying to top yourself, I think it might make both our lives a bit easier."
...you're welcome, Suzie.
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Back home, they knew who they were, and what they were doing. Here, they're rewriting the rules, and there's no getting away from it, no flat away from it all. They've had to stay together for their own safety, and it wears on people.
Owen's words about Jack -- no, J -- shock her into looking up, though she recovers quickly. "That depends. When did that happen?"
And she'll just continue like she didn't almost drop the device in her hands. "It's Julian Sark, by the way. And I think I've done fairly well for myself since then, considering it's been over a year. You were patching me up more often than that back home." That, with a wry twist of her mouth -- she's got quite a few scars that only healed as cleanly as they did thanks to Owen's handiwork. Hazards of the job.
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He's... just going to ignore that first part. Give it about five minutes and it'll probably start gnawing on him.
"Sark," he repeats, fumbling for a face and reason for him to stick out to attach to the name. "...right. Patched him up once. After..."
He makes another half-smothered noise, and a vague gesture at absolutely nothing.
"The carnival," he kinda-almost elides, because hell if he didn't at least notice that the entire Tower fell into a fugue state when they put April's body in the morgue.
Fortunately, "Oh, yeah, that guy had a lot of blood on him" seems to be the extent of the notes attached to Sark's name. Now, if he'd managed to sell out Tosh or something, that would have got back to Owen and he probably would have had to introduce him to the wonders of intravenous toxins, but he didn't, so hurrah.
"Jack was in earlier," he says, because confidentiality doesn't apparently exist when no exam or prescription takes place and he still has a bone to pick with the people he's talking about.
...Owen kinda makes up medical ethics as he goes along, some days.
"And he has bad taste in drugs. Tried to take the ones I give to the people I don't like much."
And yet he gave Jack ones which weren't those. Owen does not appreciate this week.
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"As far as J goes... no idea. Since no one's been inexplicably sedated... maybe he just wanted to sleep?" She sighs and leans back into the sofa. "It really would be easier if I was just playing everyone. Isn't that great, though? I've got scruples, you've got empathy... I don't think there's enough alcohol in the world, Owen. I really don't."
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God damn. What's the use of empathy if it doesn't let you do anything about it? Cheap trick, evolution. It seems like there should be some sort of out, in this, just so people don't go around feeling miserable their whole lives because the world is poorly designed.
"Yet," he says, kicking out his feet into a stretch and sinking down further into the chair. "You forgot the 'yet' after 'sedated'." There's not enough edge to his voice to suggest he's being serious, but he does seem to have given up on jokes for the time being.
After a moment, he casts her a sidelong look again.
"I miss the days when we could just point Tosh and Ianto at a problem and they'd come back with the Encyclopaedia Brittanica," he says. "Whatever happened to those? ...and, as a corollary, we've got an entire cellar; why haven't we set up a still yet?"
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