Anythingdrabble Challenge 49 - No quitter

[m_findlow]

Title: No quitter
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Owen
Word Count: 500 words
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Challenge 49 - Buzz at anythingdrabble
Summary: Owen realises just how much he loves his new job.

Owen knew the job would be utterly mental, right from the outset. He hadn't gotten over Katie's death yet, but he'd grasped enough of reality to start coming to terms with exactly what had happened and getting used to that fact that there were aliens and other weird stuff out there.

He wasn't sure he'd enjoy it, or even fit in. What use did Jack really have for an A and E doctor in a place where they dealt with aliens? It didn't take long to find out, his first autopsy, or was it necropsy? was handed to him on day two. He didn't know the front end from the back end, which felt awkward, but then again, neither did the rest of the team, so that didn't seem so bad.

As for the team itself, they were okay. Tosh was a bit of a wet blanket and too shy to really say more than hello, but Suzie was good value and took to ribbing him right from the get go, knowing she'd be able to get a rise out of him. And of course there was Jack, this unknown quantity of charisma and derring do. It was very apparent that Jack loved the job.

Owen wasn't sure he would, but soon he found himself sucked right into their world, getting a buzz out of the next rift alert and what it might  bring. Every day was something new, not always pleasant, but fascinating in a way he couldn't describe to someone who stood on the outside looking in. It was addictive, like a drug. Once you started, it was impossible to stop.

There were still days where the absence of Katie in his life ate away at him, starting off small and spreading throughout him like a cancer, but the job gave him something to take his mind off it. He was fairly sure she wouldn't have begrudged him the chance to do what he was doing now. He just wished there could be times when they might sit at the pokey little dinner table, drinking wine and laughing over some of the mad things he could tell her about his new job and the people he worked with. Stop being such a sad sack and get on with it. He knew that's what she'd say if she were here. She'd always been the positive one, the bubbly one; the one that made them interesting to talk to at parties.

He didn't do parties now. He wouldn't have even if he knew anyone. All his old friends were back in London, occasionally texting him to ask how he was doing, and why the hell he'd crawled away and work in some dumpy hospital in Cardiff when there were a dozen perfectly good career building opportunities back home for him.

He could have gone into surgery, but that meant long hours, colleagues with no personality and writing up boring research papers. Could he go back to that? Not a chance.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Owen is a misfit in the medical community, but Torchwood is a place for odd people to fit into equally odd holes.

And now I think of it, that is disturbingly suggestive.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it was wiser to suggest that it's a place for square pegs to fit into round round holes? *considers whether that's any better...* o_O

[bk_forever]

Or, no matter what shape you happen to be, Torchwood has a hole you'll fit? (This is getting worse instead of better!)