Sparkling Cosmos {A Torchwood Story Two} [COMPLETED]

11. Cyberwoman

"I've decided I like Gwen," I say.
Owen pauses from making our coffees to look up at me, a sight in his oversized black dressing gown I've nicked off him.
"And why is that? How has she impressed the almighty Time Lord?" he asks, and I lean back in the stool. Deciding not to tell him about my breakdown a few days ago that she hasn't mentioned, I simply say, "How she handled Ed Morgan was respectful."
Owen nods. "Good to see you're coming back to yourself, and realizing death is bad."

"Okay, the thing is though that I have absolutely no remorse for spiders when they're in the shower. That is my private personal space," I retort, referring to last night which he's still salty about.
Owen rolls his eyes, then accents them with a cock of the eyebrow. "So... you don't want anything in your private personal space?"

I cock my own eyebrow, a mirror image of his. "Only if it's yours."

~∆~

As we've all been working our socks off lately, Jack declares that aliens can wait - we're gonna have a fun day!
"What kind of fun?" I ask suspiciously, but to my surprise he brings out a load of board games, including the original Cluedo and a Cardiff version of Monopoly.
"Wow," Toshiko comments, and I'm inclined to agree with her.

We spend the whole day playing games and laughing at who sunk whose battleship, and end it with a game of basketball. Jack is the tallest out of all of us playing, so you think he'd win, but nope! Owen and I win against Gwen and Tosh and Jack - even when there's more of them, they're no match for us!
"That was an illegal move!" Jack protests as the cog door opens and Ianto steps in to clean up before we all leave, and Jack doesn't hesitate to just straight-up throw the basketball into Ianto's arms.
"Losers! Drinks on you," Owen jeers, and we all grab our coats.

As I pass Ianto last, I sense where he's about to go, and nod in a careful way. He nods in the same way back before the door closes, but I'm still worried about what will happen.
Our administrator told me in confidence yesterday that he's been able to get some sort of Cybernetics engineer to look at Lisa, perhaps stabilize her. The whole time I was smiling in hope whilst praying on the inside for safety. I still haven't repeated to him what I know to be true: you can't reverse the Cyber process. But he just keeps powering on.
There's something about devotion that demands respect.

I think about it all through my beer, the concept of love being that strong. I don't think it's anything I've felt before. I'm interrupted only by the team moving from our stools.
"What's going on?" I ask as I look up at them, and Gwen offers out a hand.
"UFO sighting. We're going back to the Hub," Tosh tells me, and alarm bells start ringing in my head.

I check my pocketwatch, which has decided to work now it doesn't have my DNA trapped inside of it. It's barely been an hour; not enough time for Ianto's guest to do whatever he's doing.

I'm on edge the entire time we walk through the Roald Dahl Plass, my toes wriggling about in their socks. Do all Time Lords act like this when they're worried?

"Tosh," Jack orders, "call up the radar within a fifty mile radius of the Bay for the last six hours. Gwen, check with that man, Neil, I think his name was, voice like Sean Connery, at Jodrell Bank. See if they picked up any chatter around the time of the sightings. Evelina, zip over to the Rift and see if you can hear any different languages and what they might be saying, could you? Owen, access the airspace provision over Cardigan Bay. Also any RAF flight plans. See if it's just a case of mistaken identity."
We rush about, almost eager to do our jobs after a whole day of not doing it, but the only thing going through my mind is Ianto and Lisa.

Through the buzz of everyone working and calling out to each other, I hear Jack call, "Ianto? Would ya work some coffee magic?" and look to Ianto. The tea boy tries his hardest not to look relieved in front of the boss, and goes to the coffee machine, but as soon as he crosses the steps the lights flicker.