Title: Thank You
Characters: Owen, Rose, Fortuna
Rating: PG, just 'cuz
Genre: Friendship, Angst
Summary: Although Rose knows that this Owen is not her Owen, she still needs to thank him for everything he did for her.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, including the OCs. Thanks to earlgreytea68 for letting me borrow her characters and her universe. I tried to keep it canonical with the Chaosverse, so if you've read those stories this one should make sense.


I drank too much last night, got bills to pay,
My head just feels in pain
I missed the bus and there'll be hell today,
I'm late for work again,
And even if I'm there, they'll all imply,
That I might not last the day,
And then you call me and it's not so bad,
It's not so bad.
And I want to thank you.


“Well then, let’s see, I’ve got strawberry cheesecake, cookie dough, and chocolate fudge. That enough?”

Rose gave a weak smile. “That’ll be good. I take it that this isn’t part of your duties as a doctor, is it?”

Owen scoffed, setting down the three pints of ice cream on the table next to Rose’s bed. Rose was sitting in her enormous room in the Tyler’s mansion, her pink nightie and fuzzy slippers on, legs pulled to slightly-bulging stomach as she watched the telly. Owen thought she looked incredibly comfortable, but he knew better. “And a spoon.” He held a green plastic spoon up and set it down on top of the carton of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. “That kid of yours must really love Ben and Jerry. In large amounts,” he said, giving a small laugh. She looked up at him, a smile on her face, but he could see in her eyes that she wasn’t happy at all. This pregnancy was not going well for her, emotionally at least. But it was Owen’s job to make sure that the physical part went smoothly, and if that meant buying his patient ice cream by the bucketload, then so be it.

“So, yeah, I guess I’ll be off,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “You have a good time,” he pointed to the ice cream.

“Thanks,” Rose said, giving him a large smile. “You’re the best.”

“And you know it,” he said in reply, turning around to leave.

He almost got to the large double doors leading out of her room when he heard his named being called. “Owen?” He turned back around.

“Yeah?”

“You like ice cream?” Rose asked, the pint of cookie dough already in her hand.

“Not a huge fan,” he said, and Rose’s smile went away quickly. “But I like you, and you like ice cream. So I guess that counts for something.” Her smile returned, albeit slowly.

“You want some?”

Truth was, Owen was more than slightly lactose intolerant, and as a result of that had always hated ice cream. Or any dairy products, really. But it was his job, or so he thought, to take care of Rose, and it seemed that what Rose really needed right now was a friend. Someone who didn’t know what she had lost and didn’t remind her of that life. He could tell that every time she saw her parents or Mickey that she was brought back to a place she wanted to be so badly and at the same time wanted to escape, because she couldn’t bear to remember it.

“Sure,” he replied. For most people, he would have blown them off, but Rose was part of his job, and he always took his job seriously.

She was grinning at his acceptance, and he smiled back, coming over to her bed. She scooted over and patted the part next to her. He shrugged and sat down, swinging his feet up. He might as well get comfortable.

“You got a spoon?” she asked. “You can always use mine.”

“Naaaahh, I got one,” he pulled out a matching green spoon from his coat pocket. It wasn’t like he was expecting to share the ice cream, or anything. It was just always good to have an extra spoon on hand.

She giggled, and he gave a small laugh. “Pass the fudge,” she ordered, and he did as he was told, taking the strawberry cheesecake for himself. He had taken his lactose pills that morning, so stomachaches weren’t a problem. And he liked strawberries perfectly fine, so this ice cream wouldn’t be too bad.

He opened it up, dipped his spoon in and brought the spoon to his mouth. The taste of the ice cream almost made him gag, but he tried not to show it. “Jesus,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What?” Rose said, her mouth gooey with scoops of ice cream. Owen let out a loud laugh at the sight, and Rose joined him.

“Nice look, Tyler,” he said, looking her in the eye. The ice cream really did do her well—that empty look in her eyes was a lot less empty now. “So, whatcha watchin’?” he asked, motioning at the TV.

“Totally Frank.”

“Say what?”

“Totally Frank. It’s a new ITV2 show, and it’s totally frank,” she said, rolling her eyes at the last two words.

“It looks like shit,” Owen commented, taking another bite of the ice cream, this time the taste not affecting him quite as much.

“You look like shit,” Rose countered, biting her lip as she smiled wide. Owen had never seen her this happy. The ice cream must have been working miracles.

“’Ey, I wouldn’t be talking, Miss Four-Months-Pregnant.”

“Whatcha sayin’? I look bad?”

“Terribly so,” he smirked, looking back at the TV screen. She gave a disbelieving laugh and punched him in the arm. “Ow, that hurt!” he said, mocking more pain than necessary, but she still found his pain hilarious. She took another huge bite of ice cream, this time from the pint he was holding.

“Thanks there,” she said, looking back at the TV. “Love this show, no matter how crap it is.”

Owen looked at the woman sitting next to him, She was sitting, legs crossed, two cartons of ice cream in front of her, watching the screen intently. He observed the fact that she had knocked off putting on loads of make up, and that her dark roots were growing in, providing a striking contrast between them and her bleached tresses. She looked like any other pregnant woman, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It definitely wasn’t a bad thing, Owen thought. In fact, she looked beautiful.

All things considering, of course.

He quickly looked back at the TV. “What’s this then? An all girl rock band?” He snorted. “This show is lame.”

“Shuttup, willya? I’m trying to watch,” she said, licking her fingers. Owen looked at her, and quickly realized that he was spending more time gazing at his patient than was necessary. He cleared his throat and then looked back at the TV.

“Aw, c’mon, can’t we watch something better? Like doesn’t your dad got movies?”

“You want to watch a movie?” Rose looked at him, a curious look on her face.

Owen sat up, putting his ice cream carton down next to him. “Er, I mean, if that’s alright with you. I can leave,” he said.

The look went away, and her usual solemnity replaced it. She was still staring at him. “Do you want to leave?”

Owen blinked, and went back to scratching the back of his neck (a stupid nervous habit, he always told himself). “No,” he finally said. He figured that watching a movie would cheer her up a bit. “I don’t want to.”

She smiled again. “Good then, ‘cause I’ve always loved having movie nights with friends. Definitely something me and my mate Shareen would always do, before-” She abruptly stopped talking and looked down. Owen knew that she was thinking about her life before, and he put his hand on her shoulder, rubbing it gently.

“You know what? Let’s have a movie night. Just you an’ me, okay? I’ll even let you pick, even if it’s some awful chick flick,” he rolled his eyes and she smiled.

By the end of the night they had gone through the three pints of ice cream, plus two more, plus three bags of popcorn and an assortment of sweets. They had indeed watched a chick  flick, Owen groaning throughout the whole thing, but then Rose let him pick the next movie. He decided to get her back for the romantic comedy and put on the most action-intense movie he could find. Rose didn’t seem to mind a bit—in fact, she seemed to be finally enjoying herself.

And for some reason, that made him happy. It was the fact that he was getting his job done, he told himself. It was always good to take care of a patient.

At the end of the last movie they watched, an old movie from the nineteen-forties, Rose had her head buried in his chest and he had his arm around her shoulder, stroking it comfortingly as he had been doing before.

“I love this movie, so much,” she said as the end of it came near. “I used to watch it, all the time, back…” she grew silent.

Owen hugged her closer, keeping his eyes on the screen. He then looked down at her, and noticed that she had that look in her eyes, the very same one he had first seen her with. “You know, Rose…it’s gonna be okay, I think,” he said meekly, hoping not to push past any boundaries. “We’re all gonna take care of you…your mum and dad and Mickey and…well, and me. I’m gonna take care of you, Rose. You and your baby.”

She looked up at him, and he suddenly felt worry, thinking that she was going to throw him out for talking too much. But instead, surprisingly, she was smiling.

“Well, of course you are. What’ve you been doing all night? I don’t think you were doing this ‘cause you love watching movies and eating ice cream you hate,” she grinned at that one and he could tell that she had him figured out, “with a pregnant, hormonal woman who also has a nice case of depression just ‘cause you wanted to. It’s your job. You take care of me.”

He didn’t say anything to her, because she had just dictated everything he had been thinking all night. This was his job, taking care of her.

Not thinking, he leaned his face against the top of her head and kissed it softly, hugging her closer to him as the credits rolled. “Yeah, it’s my job.” He watched the DVD restart to its menu and wondered if they should put in another movie, realizing that he wanted to, that “movie night” was actually a good idea. Then something occurred to him. “Rose?” he asked.

There was no response. He looked down, and saw her eyes had closed and that she was soundly sleeping, leaning against him like a pillow. He smiled and closed his eyes as well.

“Thank you.”



The baby wouldn’t smile and wouldn’t cry. In fact, she seemed to show no interest in anything, worrying Rose and her mother.

Owen, however, was not worried. This may have been due to the fact that whenever he held the baby, she would look up at him and small gurgling noises would come from her. He always got a response out of her, no matter what.

“Must’ve been all that ice cream I fed you while you were pregnant,” was his explanation.

So Jackie and Rose decided that they’d keep Owen around for a little longer, just to make sure that the new baby would have some sort of reaction to someone.

“Great, now I’m a glorified babysitter,” Owen complained as he picked up the little girl. Rose smiled at him as she lay in bed.

“She likes you, you know,” Rose said, looking up at Owen, who was sitting down next to her.

Owen snorted, keeping the baby curled up in his arms. “Yeah, right. She likes me. Explains why she always sounds constipated around me.”

“That means she likes you.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow at Rose. “What’s that?”

“She likes you. She’s interested enough by you to make sounds and noises and stuff. She doesn’t even do that for me,” Rose said, looking sad.

Owen looked at Rose and smiled. “She likes you fine, Rose. In fact, she probably likes you better. I can’t imagine a person who would like me better than you. They simply don’t exist,” he stated, and then laughed. “Right bastard, I am.”

“I like you better than me.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Yes it does,” Rose said, very matter-of-factly. “I like you much better than me. I like you much better than most people.”

Owen laughed, making sure that they baby’s head was still propped up. “Thanks for saying so.”

The baby started to make small burping noises, and Owen put her to his shoulder, patting her on the back. “C’mon, burp…time to let some gas out, darling.”

Rose grinned as he saw Owen talk to the little girl in his arms. Owen might not have known it, but Rose was more grateful for him being around than anyone could tell. For starters, she was glad that it wasn’t her the baby then threw up all over.

“Oh, man!” Owen exclaimed, taking the baby down from his shoulder. “Thank you,” he said to the baby. “Thank you very much.”

The little girl simply laughed, and Rose watched surprised as her daughter laughed for the first time.

Owen rolled his eyes, but still held on to the girl as if she were the most precious thing on the planet. Because to her mom, she was, and if she was the most precious thing to Rose, then she was precious to Owen.

The baby kept laughing and Owen protested that he was being mocked by a three week old.



“Name her Wilhelmina. I like that name. That was my grandmum’s name.”

Rose looked over at Owen. “I’m not naming the baby. Not now. And besides, Wilhelmina? Really? Willy? Billie? Awful.”

Owen glared at her. “You would think so.”

“Oi, what’s that s’posed to mean?” Rose looked over at Owen as the two gazed over her daughter in her crib.

“You’re just so…uncreative,” Owen said, still looking down at the baby. “She looks like a Billie.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “If I was gonna name her, which I’m not…it’d be a flower. Maybe. Like Lily.”

“Boring.”

“Thanks, Owen. Thanks a lot,” Rose said, her tone latent with sarcasm. “He just called you boring, you hear that?” she said to her daughter, who smiled slightly.

“So she’s a boring Lily then?” Owen asked, and Rose shook her head.

“No, not yet. She’s…she’s just her right now,” Rose answer, and Owen nodded.

“Yeah, I get it,” he said. “But if you did name her, you could name her after me.”

Rose snorted with laughter. “’Ey, what’s so funny ‘bout that?” Owen protested.

“For starters, I’m not giving her a boy’s name, and second of all, I wouldn’t name her after you. I’d be afraid that she’d grow up into a smart-mouthed nymphomaniac.”

Owen scoffed. “Thanks. Thanks a lot, Rose.”

“No problem.”



“Let’s go visit Jack.”

The Doctor looked up at her, peering through the top of his glasses. “Really? Right now? But…we were planning another trip to Barcelona.”

Rose grinned, leaning back on the TARDIS console. “Come on, we haven’t seen him in forever and the kids just love him.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Okay…I guess.” He turned around and motioned for his children to listen. “We’re going to visit Uncle Jack.”

“Uncle Jack!” Athena squealed, her ponytail bobbing up and down as she jumped in excitement. The Doctor noticed that Rose was right—Athena, who was getting older every day (she was now an almost-teenager at the age of twelve) hadn’t seen Jack since she was eight. It had been much too long since they had dropped by for a visit.

Brem, who was tinkering with adding a new color theme to his sonic screwdriver (because “silver and blue is just so…you.”) looked up and gave a small smile of approval. “That’s cool. I want to finish building that computer with Tosh. She’s still there, right? Tosh?”

The Doctor smiled back. “I believe so. We can go close to the last time we were there, just to make sure.”

Rose took the Doctor’s hand and squeezed it while smiling up at him. He looked towards her and then leaned down to brush his lips against hers for a second. “I guess this is a good idea after all.”

“I’m full of good ideas.” Rose took her hand from his and went over to Fortuna, who hadn’t said anything. She was currently braiding her dirty blonde hair, looking absentmindedly up at the ceiling, as if thoughts were running through her mind. When she noticed her mother coming towards her, she gave a small smile.

“What about you Fortuna?” Rose asked, sitting down next to her youngest child, slightly ruffling her hair. “Are you excited to go?”

“Owen,” was all that Fortuna said, looking back up at the ceiling. “I want to see Owen.”

Rose smiled, feeling slightly melancholy as she remembered the man who took such good care of her and her daughter. He was probably the only thing that she even considered missing back there, apart from her mum and Mickey.

But then she remembered. “Sweetie…he isn’t the same Owen.”

Fortuna smiled in a way that Rose had only seen the girl’s father smile—as if everything was fine and awful at the same time; as if she had accepted the fact that things were different and could feel it deep inside.

“I know,” Fortuna said. “But he’s enough the same, right?”

From the few times Rose had met this universe’s Owen, he seemed to be quite like his parallel self. Except this Owen loved ice cream and not Fortuna. Those two things made it all different for Rose.

Rose didn’t answer her daughter, but instead looked at the Doctor, who she knew was listening but pretending not to. “So, are we off?” she asked him, and he nodded.

“Yep.”

“Okay then.”

It was seconds before the TARDIS jolted to a stop and Brem and Athena rushed to open the doors. Rose looked down at her younger daughter and took the girl’s hand. She looked over to the Doctor and smiled at him, and then began to walk out of the TARDIS.

It wasn’t long before she heard Jack’s voice. “Yeah, I get it, I haven’t seen a rugby match or played cricket. Get off it.”

“Yeah, but Jack…” Gwen spoke this time.

“Don’t be such a lameass.” Rose had finally stepped outside and saw Owen’s back, facing the rest of his team.

“’Ey, no swearing in front of the kids,” the Doctor told him, and Jack’s face lit up.

“Doctor! Visiting again?”

“Apparently so. I didn’t really have a choice,” he nodded toward his kids, who began to mingle with the rest of the Torchwood team. “It was me against them.”

“Hah, outnumbered,” Jack said, and the Doctor nodded in response.

Rose looked down at Fortuna, who was still gripping her hand. “Come on, sweetie…don’t you want to go say hi to him? Sweetheart?” She noticed Fortuna’s face screwing up, as if she were about to cry. The little girl then grasped Rose’s waist in a tight hug.

“Mummy, you’re right, he isn’t the same…I knew that, but I wished…” Fortuna said into her mother’s stomach. Rose rubbed her daughter’s head.

“I know, but he’s still Owen…you wanted to say hi, right? Let’s go over there. I’ll go with you.”

The two of them the walked over to where Owen was now looking down at his mobile while the others in his team were greeting the Doctor. He was typing in something as they grew closer, and he looked up tentatively.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

Rose said nothing, and instead gave Fortuna, who was grasping on to her mother’s hand, a tiny nudge towards Owen.

 Owen looked thoroughly confused, and Rose looked him in the eye. “Be nice,” she said softly, although he could tell it was meant to be as a warning.

Fortuna was looking down at her feet, trying to speak up. Rose nodded at Owen, and he kneeled down to reach her height.

“Hey, didja want to talk to me ‘bout something?” he asked, and Fortuna nodded.

“Yeah, I just…” she looked up slightly, meeting his gaze. “I know you’re not you ‘cuz mommy and daddy say the you I knew was in the other universe and you’re in this universe…” she trailed off, and Rose smiled a little bit. Fortuna was just like her father in that respect, rambling on whenever she got nervous. “Well, I just wanted to tell you, ‘cuz you’re kind of still you, that…well,” she paused, and looked back down.

“What?” Owen asked, gently. Rose couldn’t remember ever seeing the Owen in this universe be this kind—she wondered if he was somehow channeling her Owen.

Fortuna looked back up, this time all the way, so that she was staring at him fully. “I miss you. Lots.”

Owen smiled awkwardly. “I bet I miss you too, kid,” he told her, and she smiled, nodding. He shifted his arms out and Fortuna quickly grabbed his torso.

“I miss you so much, Owen,” she said, starting to cry into his shirt. He looked up at Rose awkwardly and she smiled at him, mouthing “Thank you.” He nodded in response, patting the small girl on the back.

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t you want to say hi to Uncle Jack?” Rose said, walking toward her daughter.

Fortuna pulled away from Owen and looked up at her mother. “Yeah,” she sniffed. “That’d be great.”

“Okay, go over there where your brother and sister and father are. I’m going to talk to Owen for a second,” she told her daughter, who nodded and ran toward her family.

Rose looked over at Owen, who was still kneeling down, watching Fortuna run away. Rose kneeled down next to him, and he looked at her.

“That good?” he asked, sitting down on the pavement. Rose decided to follow his lead and sat next to him, much closer than he would have felt comfortable with, but it reminded Rose of the only good thing she had back in the parallel universe.

 “Yeah, perfect,” she said, smiling at him. “I just…” she trailed off, knowing that she was starting to sound like Fortuna. She didn’t know how to convey what she felt, except for saying the exact same thing her daughter had said,

Quickly she leaned over and kissed his cheek, letting her lips linger for a second on his warm skin. He smelled like the strawberry cheesecake ice cream he almost gagged on the first night they really became friends, and it made her smile.

“Thank you,” she whispered and then pulled back. She no longer noticed her children’s yells of happiness for being around Jack, or her husband’s babbling to Tosh about her newest piece of equipment. All she could see and feel was this man who was her best friend and yet was not, and it broke her heart.

He smiled back at her, tenderly, as she’d never seen him smile before. “You’re welcome.”

She reached out and grasped his hand tightly as they sat together in silence, watching Fortuna laugh and smile.