Ficlet: Changing Fortunes
Title: Changing Fortunes
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh, Owen, Team implied
Rating: G
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Fortune cookies can work miracles.
Word Count: 394
Written For: My own prompt ‘Torchwood, Tosh, "You are extremely loved, don't worry”,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Tosh had been having the most awful day ever. She’d had trouble sleeping the night before because of this stupid cold, and when she’d finally dropped off she’d overslept. Then this morning, she’d set fire to her toaster, spilled tea on her favourite blouse, and torn her skirt by trapping the hem in the front door, meaning she had to go back and change. Of course, that had meant she’d missed the bus and ended up walking, and then it started to rain and she didn’t have her umbrella.
She’d arrived at the Hub, sneezing and looking like a drowned rat, only to find a message from Jack saying they’d gone out on a Rift alert and to monitor the situation from the Hub as soon as she got in. The next hour had been spent coordinating the team in their search for an elusive alien while trying to dry her hair, and by the time the others got back she had a headache.
As if all that hadn’t been bad enough, now her translation programme was reading every third word as ‘sausages’ and she couldn’t find what was causing the problem. Even Ianto’s special hot chocolate hadn’t made her feel any better.
When lunchtime came, she sat in the boardroom with the rest of the team, attempting to eat her food in between sneezes. Thursdays they always ordered Chinese and for the first time in memory, Tosh had to resort to eating it with a fork because every time she sneezed, she dropped her chopsticks.
After lunch, as they all opened their fortune cookies, Tosh wasn’t particularly surprised to find that hers was empty, while Owen had two pieces of paper in his. He looked at them and smiled.
“Here, Tosh, I think this one’s yours,” he said, handing one piece of paper to her.
Taking the re-folded strip, she opened it out and read the words: ‘You are extremely loved, don't worry.’
She looked at Owen. “What makes you think this one’s mine?” she asked, expecting him to crack some sort of joke.
“Because this is the other one.”
He handed her the second slip of paper. It said: ‘If you love her, tell her so.’
“I love you, Tosh,” he told her sincerely.
Suddenly all the day’s disasters seemed unimportant and her worries melted away. She was loved; nothing else mattered.
The End