Ficlet: Self-Reflection

[badly_knitted]

 



Title: Self-Reflection
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Owen, Katie, Jack.
Rating: PG-15 for language.
Word Count: 576
Spoilers: Fragments.
Summary: Owen has every reason to be angry with the world.
Written For: The prompt Any, any, anger issues, at threesentenceficathon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
 
 

Owen has a strong suspicion that he might possibly have anger issues. Not that he’d ever mention it to any of the team, because he’s pretty sure that Jack would expect him to see a therapist about it, and there’s no way in Hell he’s going through THAT again. After Katie, he’d been ordered by the chief of medicine at the hospital where they’d both been working to do the whole therapy thing, grief counselling, whatever, and the therapist hadn’t helped him at all. She’d just offered platitudes and anti-depressants, which was no better than sticking a plaster over a gaping wound, and he’d wanted so badly to shove her bloody prescription pad down her throat, because she didn’t understand, no one fucking did! He’d lost everything that made his life worth living, and everyone was treating him like he’d somehow lost the plot, gone off the rails, and… Yeah, okay, definitely anger issues, but who can really blame him?
 

Of course he’s fucking angry! Why wouldn’t he be? He tragically lost the woman he’d been planning to marry, all because some bloody stupid alien had decided her brain was the perfect place for its spawn to develop! By the time he’d realised something was seriously wrong with Katie, by the time he’d started trying to find out what was happening, and what could be done, it had already been too late to save her, at least that’s what Jack says. So all of Owen’s plans for the future had gone out the window when the surgeons had tried to operate to remove an unidentified mass; the alien spawn had defended itself by killing everyone in the operating theatre, and then everybody he worked with had started treating him like HE was the crazy one…

 
And yeah, he’s still mad at Jack for retconning him, along with half the hospital. Mad at him for trying to cover up the deaths, even though that’s what Torchwood does, and now that he’s Torchwood, he does it too. And he knows sometimes it’s all they CAN do, but it’s still all kinds of fucked up, and some days he hates Jack so damn much… On his worst days, when just getting out of bed feels like more than he can handle, he wishes the bastard had just had the guts and the mercy to kill him outright instead of dragging him into this shitty world…

 
But at the same time, although he’ll never admit it, he’s grateful; he knows Jack’s the only reason he’s still alive, because working for Torchwood has given him a purpose, something he’d badly needed after he lost all he was living for. Still, that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it, so if he acts like a bastard, it’s because he’s still hurting, torn up inside so badly he doesn’t know if he’ll ever heal, or if he even wants to. All that pain has to go somewhere, because bottling it up inside only makes things worse, so… Sod them all! Anyone who doesn’t like his attitude can stuff it, because he doesn’t give a flying fuck! They don’t get to tell him how to live his life, he’ll deal with his loss and grief in whatever way he can, even if that means getting drunk every night, coming into work hungover, and lashing out at anything that moves. No one gets to judge him unless they’ve been through what he has.
 

 
The End
 



 
 

Comments

[mrs_sweetpeach]

That is not a healthy way to deal, not that I hold it against Owen for trying.

[badly_knitted]

It isn't, but it's the way Owen is using. He will improve, but right now he's too angry to accept any help.

Thank you!