Sparkling Cosmos {A Torchwood Story Two} [COMPLETED]

6. Christmas 2006

Happy holidays, humans and humanoids! As I'm posting this on the night before Christmas Day (aka Donna's almost-wedding), I would like to thank you all massively. I love writing these fics, adore the Whoniverse, and I don't care that this is currently my lowest-read fic because you're reading it, and that gives me so much warmth and hope for my writing that whatever I create, there's always people that will enjoy it. I love you all, and have such a great holiday 🥰

There's horrified screams wakening me from my sleep, but it's too damn early. It's Christmas Day, Jack said we have the day off; I'm not getting out of this bed til Owen makes me some damn pancakes.

Owen himself moans as he wakes up beside me, as always bleary-eyed and desperately needing coffee. I call out to him to turn on the telly and watch the news as he leaves our room, and as soon as it switches on there's screams coming from that too.

I groan in annoyance. "What the hell is going on?" I ask, and Owen hums in contemplation.
"Apparently," he says slowly, "there's a giant Christmas star shooting up and down the streets of London."
I force myself to sit up, and look through the ajar door. "Are you serious?"
Owen nods, then goes to get coffee. I just lie back down and say, "Torchwood London will do it. Time to go back to sleep."

He slips back into bed, sets the mug down, then cuddles up close to me and whispers, "Torchwood London went down a month ago."
On my stomach, I turn my head towards him. "We're gonna have to get out of bed, aren't we?" And when he nods a yes, I groan in annoyance again and dig my head under the pillow.

We drag our feet to the Hub, but as soon as we get there Jack appears and tells us we needn't have been called in.
I stand there in my massive charity shop jumper that looks like a candy cane, clutching a mug of coffee that I want to smash over my bosses' head. "Then why the fuck did you call us in?"
He crosses his arms, and Owen does the same impatiently. "The guy that's in the running for the next election sent the military over, and asked us not to interfere."

"Are you kidding me?" Tosh and Suzie yell simultaneously as they appear from the door.
Jack spreads his hands across the room in helplessness. "I'm sorry guys! My mistake. But, at least we're all together for Christmas!"

We all stare at him in barely concealed rage.

"I said I'm sorry," he wheedles, and I just grumble and begin to walk back through the front door. But, surprisingly, Suzie calls me over, and I follow her suspiciously. Suzie never talks to me unless she wants something; she prefers talking to Jack.
"I haven't had a chance to get you on your own since we found out you were a Time Lord," she begins, and I roll my eyes because of course this is about me being an alien, "and the files say that Time Lords can read any language in creation. Could you have a look at these? I just can't crack them."

Suzie leads me to a stack of sepia-coloured papers, and as soon as I see the symbols on them I know what they're saying. Despite my immense tiredness and wanting to go home, I lean over the desk in curiosity and become absorbed in their meanings.
"It's a letter, from Haptsetcia, the ninth planet in the Sôrvêi galaxy. It says... It says that they're missing their family, and they're asking for time off from their war to see them."

I look away from it in wistful pain, imagining the writer's longing, and see Jack staring at me now as well as Suzie.
After a second, he snaps his fingers at me. "You can be the interpreter! You know everything now, it'll be easy for you."
I groan. "All I want to do is go to fucking sleep, Harkness! Can I go now?" I ask, like a child in detention. He rolls his eyes like I am one and lets us all go, grumbling and clutching our hot drinks.

~∆~

Owen and I invite Toshiko to my flat for the day, mentioning that we need help deciding what two-bed to finally rent, but she politely declines.
"I've got a call with my mother," she beams, happiness pouring out of her. I pat her arm and wish her a lovely Christmas, then we go our separate ways.

Even after only an hour at the Hub, my energy levels have gone down so much that I practically use Owen as a walking stick while we walk. He grumbles, but I tell him that he's okay and he rolls his eyes.
"How do you know what I'm thinking?"
I shrug and lean my head on his bony shoulder. "I'm psychic now."
He pauses in his tracks and looks down to me. "Are you serious?"
"No!" I reply with a laugh and a light punch to his arm, and he fakes hurt then we continue walking.

To fill the silence, which is making me sleepier, I ask him, "What do you think of Ianto?"
A moment of silence as my coworker thinks about it, then: "I don't know yet. He keeps himself to himself quite a bit, but not as much as Suzie does-"
"And you'd know all about that."
"Shut up, you," he says with a hint of a smirk in his voice. "Anyway, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted - I don't know because he's only been here a few weeks, and he's not really here to do our kind of job. He's just here to make us coffee and keep up the pretense of Torchwood to the outside world."

"Hmm," I consider, then add, "he does amazing coffee, though. He must've worked in a cafe before this."
Owen sighs dreamily. "I would fuck the coffee he makes as much as I would fuck you."
I take my head off his shoulder and make a disgusted face. "Ewwwwww."

~∆~

After another mug of coffee that admittedly isn't as great as Ianto's, we sit down to open presents under the small plastic Christmas tree that we decided on as we're not in the flat enough to properly decorate and we don't have many presents. Well, I don't know who my family are and his we might as well not know.

I unwrap Tosh's present and gasp as I lift up a rare rock she swiped from Jack's study. The note attached says: So you always have a piece of your world with you. Knowing it instinctively as a piece of earth from my new home planet Gallifrey, I link a knot of string through it and let Owen hang it round my neck. As soon as the scarred orange rock lands on my chest with a warm touch, I feel more connected with the world I've been to in years past.
"It suits you," Owen says in his low gravelly voice, his mouth twitching to make a smile. I smile back wide enough for the both of us, nodding a silent thanks.

He pushes a wrapped gift box toward me, with a note that he's my sender attached. Glancing at his still-concealed smile, I pull the bow apart and tear off the paper - and put my hand to my mouth.

Inside is my old brown flowing coat, the one that I cast aside months ago due to wear and tear and that I thought had gotten lost, all repaired and added onto with multiple pockets of various sizes and a colourful embroidery inside the breast pocket of jonquil flowers surrounded by strands of ivy in an overlapping loop.

This is the most thoughtful gift anyone's ever given me.

I begin to tear up despite myself, and he's quick to jump in, worried it's meant the wrong way: "Hey, look, it's just that I know that coat means a lot to you, so I took it to one of the repair cafes in the Sherman Theatre in Cathays and they helped me mend it and add some pockets, and then I went to the tailor in the market in town, and I asked for these flowers specifically. See, the jonquils mean-"
"I know what they mean, dummy; I know, like, every fact now or something," I say through hard sniffs, looking up to meet his small brown eyes. "Just when I thought you couldn't surprise me anymore, you go and give me the best present ever."

"I know it's your first Christmas as a Time Lord," he says simply, but the shine that's just hit his eyes hints at a deeper meaning than that. The flowers can attest to that.

I fold the coat carefully back into the box, and lean over it to meet his lips. He's eager to reciprocate, his arms folding over my back and slowly dragging me into him, the two of us making out in our living room. Unlike our other kisses since the Cyber attack, which have been quick and meaningless, this feels like he's pouring all of his thoughts of me into him, and I'm holding them all dearly. His hold is like I'm about to slip away, which is perhaps what he thought would happen when I turned into a Time Lord, but I know better.

I know that whatever happens between us, we'll always be here.