FIC: An Evening Out (1/1)
Tittle: An Evening Out
Word count: 2405
Summary: Tosh had been noticing the new doctor since the day she had started, she never expected him to notice her back.
Characters/Pairings: Toshiko Sato/Owen Harper, Suzie Costello/Owen Harper, Jack Harkness
Rating: G
Table : n/a
Author’s note: prompttorchwood #5 Ephemeral
Toshiko Sato was writing her monthly report on mainframe and the general security systems of Torchwood Cardiff. She always got her reports done properly and on time which was more than could be said of any of her colleagues. It had used to bother her that her boss never looked at anything she did that wasn’t immediately useful to him, but she had gotten over it and now it was just a different style of management to her.
When her report was finished she turned around and looked out over the hub. The Starbucks that she had bought on her way into work was long since gone and she was debating if it was too early to head out for a second round of drinks yet. Her eyes scanned over the hub and focused on the head in the medical bay, there was something about the new doctor that pleased her. Of course he really wasn’t new anymore but she still hadn’t found the courage to start up a casual conversation with him.
But as if he felt her eyes on his head, he looked up at her and grinned, startling her out of her mental stalking. Tosh blushed and leaned forward, her hair shifted to cover her face and she swung back around on her computer chair and faced the screens arranged around her. Her face and ears felt like they were on fire and her heart was stuck in her throat.
Once Suzie had arrived, much later than usual, she had brought coffee for all of them and things got back to normal. Tosh dove into her equations and the evaluation of an odd bit that Jack had asked her to analyse before their last catastrophe. She took a break and went out for more coffee in the afternoon and managed to make some progress on her latest equation while she ate her lunch before moving onto the space junk.
Tosh usually left around six, Suzie and Owen both tended to stay later but considering that she got in at eight thirty rather than ten she felt entitled to go home then. Today, after she had put on her coat and was trying to come up with a good way to smuggle out a machine that she was relatively sure was an alien calculator when Owen seemingly materialized next to her.
Tosh smiled nervously at him and hoped that he hadn’t noticed her trying to carry off the small device and that he wasn’t going to mention catching her staring at him earlier. “Owen, need something before I leave for the night?”
He rolled back onto his heels and she wondered if he was all right, he’d been strangely quiet the entire day. “Um, well, Tosh,” He stopped for a moment then fixed a smile on his face and started again, “I know you are done and all for tonight, but I was wondering if you would like to go to dinner?”
She glanced up at Jack’s closed office door where Suzie had gone almost an hour ago and still hadn’t reappeared. Then as she looked back at Owen she felt her heart skip a beat and nodded, trying not to seem desperate.
Owen cracked a grin again, it looked slightly less pained. “Excellent, I’ll pick you up around eight then.”
With a nod and smile Tosh agreed and left the hub. By the time she got home it would be seven and that really didn’t leave her much time at all to get ready.
When her shower was finished and Tosh was pondering her closet her thoughts turned to the Torchwood pub nights, Owen was always solemn, Suzie got plastered and Jack made passes at everything from people to the birds that they passed on their way in and out of establishments. When she thought back to the day she couldn’t actually remember Jack or Suzie saying anything about going out for a night today and her heart began to pound as she wondered if Owen had actually asked her out on a date.
But then Tosh thought back to Owen and remembered that he had been avoiding dating and when she had checked his records they had been deceptively clean, as if someone had gotten there before her and cleaned it all out. There had been bits and pieces though and she had discovered quite a pile of notes on a woman that had been an important part of his life and then died. She reminded herself that it would be infinitely better if she didn’t approach this as a date; there was no way that Owen had asked her out. This was obviously just going to be a casual night among friends.
When Owen arrived she was ready to go in a skirt and woolen sweater. Owen wasn’t in a cab which should have been her first clue; he was planning on being sober enough to drive home. And the fact that he waited and held the door open for her should have been a second clue, Owen just wasn’t that polite.
He didn’t take her to a downtown pub, stopping the car outside an Italian restaurant instead. Tosh had been here before, Jack had taken her and Suzie out after a particularity hectic night at a diplomatic conference with some alien leader. It was quite a nice place and was open quite late into the night.
They started the night in silence, pursing the menus and Tosh still trying to figure out if this was a date or if she could expect Suzie and Jack to appear at any moment, dishevelled and with a sedated weevil waiting out in the car for them.
Once the server had returned Owen asked almost desperately for a beer and Tosh asked for the same, she thought that in such a nice place, with decent food, not takeaways, that wine would have been more appropriate, but beer was fine. She realised that she was rambling in her head and forced a smile on to her face and looked at Owen.
He certainly cleaned up nice, gone was the t-shirt and jeans that he always wore at work. Tosh never would have believed that he owned a decent shirt or a pair of trousers, but he did and he looked good. She tried to think of something to say but everything just fell flat in her throat and they both sat in silence until the food arrived.
A few bites in Tosh remembered how good the food was here. “This is really good isn’t it Owen?”
He nodded back, “I miss real food sometimes, it’s all coffee shop sandwiches and takeaways now.”
Tosh nodded, it had taken her almost a month after her released from prison to find the courage to walk out to her store and buy food instead of having yet another takeaway delivered. “I think that Jack lives on takeaways. There’s not really a proper kitchen at the hub.”
Owen stared at her for a moment, as if evaluating her face more than her words. “Yah, what? Jack doesn’t live in the hub. Does he?”
“I’m almost certain of it.” Tosh nodded and then worried that she might be looking like a bobble-head and stopped herself. “See he’s always there when I get in and no matter what hour you call the hub’s land line, he picks it up. Besides, there is enough space in the basement there was him to have built a mansion in damp concrete.”
He laughed and Tosh had been serious and felt offended until she realised that she had actually managed to make a joke, even if it was unintentional. She laughed too and the tension that had been occupying the majority of their table slipped away and the night changed.
The rest of the night was amazing. Owen was kind and funny and he knew things about science that Suzie had never been bothered with. They laughed together and talked about walking plants and what exactly weevils did in their spare time and Tosh couldn’t believe that she had never found the bravery to talk to him before, they fit together so perfectly.
He insisted on paying for the meal and Tosh let him. She didn’t want the night to be over, but it had been years since she gone out on a date and all the unspoken rules and protocols were just beyond her memory right now. So she got into Owen’s car and put a hand on his thigh just as he started driving.
As first they accelerated rather quickly and she went to draw her hand away, but he put his free hand on top of hers and kept it there, caressing her hand with his own. She noticed that he had nice fingers and his hands were callused from surgery and autopsies but their movements intrigued her and she stared at the way their hands moved together.
When the car stopped she was surprised. It didn’t feel like much time had passed and she liked the way that Owen’s hand touched hers and she liked the way that she could feel the muscles in his leg through the cloth under her fingers.
“Right Tosh, here we are.” Owen turned off the car and turned towards her, pulling her hand off his leg, she giggled as he reached down towards her side and undid her seatbelt and then whined in complaint as he let go of her hand and got out of the car.
When the door on her side opened and Owen was standing there, she smiled and climbed out towards him, almost falling over as she got out of the car.
Owen put an arm around her waist so that she didn’t fall over. “Tosh, how much did you have to drink?”
Tosh shrugged, “A beer, maybe 3. You like nice like this Owen.” She put an arm around his neck and wondered why she hadn’t noticed how thoughtful he was and how silky his hair was before tonight. “Help up to my flat?”
He grumbled and said something akin to yes before closing the car door and heading towards the front door of her building. Tosh had difficulty with the first flight of stairs, but as they continued to walk, her building didn’t have an elevator. As they continued to climb the alcohol and happiness induced faze that had set over her began to lessen and by the time they had reached her apartment she felt back to normal and very embarrassed over her actions.
They stopped at her door and it only took her one fumble to get her key out of her purse and into the lock on her door. She stepped over the threshold and faced Owen wondering where he wanted to end this.
He stepped over the threshold and she went to kiss him and he kissed her back. It was amazing; she put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. When his tongue pushed against hers, she pulled away and pushed him backwards.
Owen looked at her, “What? Tosh,” He stepped closer towards her, but she stepped back again and grabbed the door.
“I think you should go Owen.” She said before closing the door in his face.
She turned back to her flat and stumbled to her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed. The few beautiful hours that she’d shared with him had been gone in an instant and it was back to feeling like bumbling idiot around Owen and most men and she wanted to erase the events of the night and pretend that it had never happened.
Eventually, in the dark as the seconds ticked by on her digital clock she fell asleep, still dress for the night with her make up smearing under her tears of anger and disappointment.
Her alarm woke her up at the usual time, but for the first time since she had been released from prison she hit the snooze button. And then hit it again and again. An hour later she really needed to get up. She took a longer shower than usual, letting the water clean her face off and get her ready to face the day.
Tosh still somehow managed to make it into the hub only a half hour later than usual. Jack was standing in the centre of things, looking at the hand in the jar and wandering back and forth.
“Tosh, there you are. I was getting worried.” He grinned.
She bit her lip and hurried to put her things down at her desk. “I’m sorry Jack, I’ll stay late tonight, obviously and I won’t let this happen again.”
“Come on Tosh, it’s fine. You do someone special last night?” Jack winked at her before heading back up to his office.
Tosh sat down at her desk and brushed her wet bangs out of her eyes. As she started to turn the hub back on for the day and the security logs began to run, her thoughts turned to Owen and exactly what she was going to say to him when he arrived.
At eleven thirty the gear door began to grind open and she hurried to the level just above it to see if it was Owen or Suzie that was arriving so late today. Maybe Owen had today off and she should just move on and forget about all this and it could be dealt with tomorrow.
But it was Owen and Suzie that walked through the door. Her shirt was buttoned up wrong, as if she had done it in a hurry and his usually immaculately gelled hair was a mess, as if someone had been running their fingers through it and tugging on it.
Suzie glanced quickly at Jack’s office and Tosh’s empty station before grabbing the side of Owen’s face and met his lips with her own. Tosh’s mouth dropped open and she turned away, obviously Owen hadn’t been satisfied with their evening last night and he’d moved on rather quickly.
She sat down at her station and stared at the computer screen brining up her equations from the day before and replaced the images of Suzie and Owen in her head with numbers and constants and drove out all other thoughts to keep her face neutral and the tears that had poured so freely down her face the night before at bay.