Title: Brown Eyes
Author: blacatk
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Torchwood
Episode: takes place before season
Character(s): Owen Harper
Rating: PG-13 (violence)
Word Count: 948
Notes: It's #1 Beginnings on My Table.

***

His first day at Torchwood hadn't started on his first day in the Hub. The table, cabinets, and every tool he could ever want were all already waiting for him, along with a computer that had more storage and memory than he knew what to do with, even after transferring over all of his porn files.

No, Owen Harper's career at Torchwood didn't start until months after he had moved in. The first few weeks he slowly rearranged everything in the autopsy/medical room that was really more of a whole in the ground. In a squabble years later, Toshiko likened it to descending into a cold, sterile Hell. Really, it was as if he had never left Llandough Hospital. In fact, he had told all of his friends he'd been promoted and that's exactly what it felt like. He had been promoted and given his own private room. Sure, the injuries and causes of death were much more… unique, but it all felt like the I.D. labs his professor at Uni assigned to keep them on their toes, a bit more challenging but the same old same old.

*** *** ***

It looked like a horror movie monster, an honest-to-goodness thing of indeterminable gender. Jack had shown him the pictures of when this it was a her. At the time he had cracked jokes about murdered libido and moved on because it reminded him of those stupid diet commercials where there was no possible way the before and after pictures were the same un-photoshopped person, only on a much grander scale.

Running down the street, scaring civilians witless while chasing after it, he felt undeniably alive. Adrenaline rushed through his veins in a way that numbed everything but the impulse to catch it. Only a few meters more, almost there, jump the stairs, push off the curb, use the lamppost to swing around the corner faster.

And suddenly it was gone. It had disappeared.

"Where are you?" Suzie demanded over the comm in his ear and Owen winced as it brought everything back into focus. For a few seconds, coming down from his adrenaline rush felt painfully similar to being hung-over.

"Corner of Park and St. Andrews." Owen rasped out, still spinning back and forth with his gun at eye level.

"Stay there, we'll come to you." Jack ordered; and then, there was a pause. "By the complete lack of anything on my screen, I'm guessing you didn't get a tracer on her." He used the wry tone than Owen had learned to grudgingly accept.

"No, I didn't put the bloody tracer on it."

"Her." Jack corrected, followed by the crackle of the line disconnecting. Owen spent a moment deciding whether or not to reconnect and say something in response, but running off in the direction it must have gone seemed like the most satisfying brand of rebellion.

He jogged a little ways up Park Place and turned onto Muse. The beastie couldn't possibly want to stay in sight, so he ran into the first turn on his left. Coming out near train tracks, he slowed, hands on knees, to finally catch his breath.

Gravel crunched behind him and he wheeled around gun high. With his eyes wide, reflexes kicked back in and he reacted to the dark mass lunging at him.

His finger curled around the trigger and pulled.

The bullet punched a neat hole above the stomach, about where its liver should be. It crumpled to the ground with a too loud noise somewhere between a screech and a yell.

Owen could hear himself panting and feel his jaw working, but his legs wouldn't move.

"Owen!" Suzie screamed at him from behind and Jack rushed past. "We told you to stay where you were." Owen walked over to the alien as Jack opened up a med kit. He handed him a shot of painkillers.

"What am I gunna do with this? The hormones and chemical makeup aren't the same." Owen scrunched his nose and glared at Jack and his stupidity.

"It's human, give it a try." Jack looked him straight in the eye before dropping his gaze back down to the thing.

Owen scoffed, but gave it the shot anyways. His brow furrowed as he watched muscles relax and panting cease.

"Suzie, pull the car around. Owen, try to control the bleeding and get ready her ready to transport." Jack rolled back onto his hunches and then stood. Owen spared him a look before pulled gauze out of the kit.

*** *** ***

A few minutes ago, it had fallen asleep in the med lab, blinding fluorescent lights, freezing metal table and all. The bullet hadn't gone through its liver after all. Instead, it had nicked the bottom of its left lung. That, combined with the loss of blood at the train tracks meant it probably wasn't going to wake back up.

He had done plenty of scans and the anatomy was unbelievably human-like.

"Where am I?"

Owen jumped and the clipboard in his hand clattered to the ground. The precautionary sedatives he'd pumped it with had obviously worn off, but not very much. He inwardly cursed himself for not just strapping it down completely.

It, that had just spoken to him. "Wait, what?"

The creature's face turned towards him at the sound and Owen's blood froze. His mind rushed back to the corkboard scattered with graphs, charts, and pictures; pictures of a girl named Laurel Davis. He remembered her brown eyes.

"Who are you?"

Owen gulped, trying to pull water back through his suddenly dry throat. "Go back to sleep, Laurel."

She nodded and less than a minute later the heart monitor stopped.

***