---

Click. The image on the screen rotated ninety degrees. This didn’t effect the image much, actually, as it was a computer generated image of the inside of the eggs she’d found.

Normally Tosh would have abandoned this and got on with something important, but clicking the image on the screen was all she felt mentally up for this morning.

Gwen brushed past with a pile of papers in her arms, but she stopped when she saw the screen. "So those eggs are empty, are they?" she asked. “Let’s hope whatever was inside isn’t running around Cardiff right now.”

Tosh narrowed her eyes at the image. "No. Whatever creatures are inside those eggs are still there. One of the eggs is damaged and leaking this...gel..."

"Like the albumen?"

"I suppose so – but as far as I can tell there is no embryo. Just the gel. I've scanned them, x-rayed them, and done every test I can think of bar cracking them open," said Tosh.

Gwen smiled and nudged her. "Nothing for it then - we'll have to sit on them and wait for them to hatch. Owen can go first."

Tosh shared an awkward huff of laughter with her, but the mention of Owen unsettled her.

"I wonder where he is," said Gwen conversationally. She adjusted her pile of reports. "Jack'll go spare if he's gone AWOL."

Tosh shrugged. "No idea.”

“Anyway…reports,” sighed Gwen. “This’ll be a fun morning.” She gave Tosh an exasperated smile and headed back to her own work station, but Tosh was burning with the need to get advice from someone.

"Gwen?"

Gwen turned back. "Yeah?"

"What do you think you'll be like in eighteen years?"

Gwen blinked at the bizarre question and crossed her arms around her reports as she thought. "Probably more like my Mum than I'll ever admit," she said eventually. "Why?"

"But do you think you'll change? That you could become a bad person if you were a good person to start with?" Tosh all but pleaded.

Gwen rolled her eyes around as she tried to come up with an answer. "Um…it must depend on what happens to you in those years. Are you alright Tosh?"

Tosh tried to smile. "Me? Yeah. Fine." She gave a look-at-me-I'm-perfectly-okay shrug and turned back to her desk.

----

"Gwen, Ianto!"

Tosh's head snapped around as the other two were called into Jack's office. There was a muffled conversation going on, and it sounded like Jack was giving out orders.

It was probably nothing, but it did give her the feeling she was being talked about. She itched to watch them through the cameras in there, but thought that might be a little bit too paranoid.

Eventually Ianto and Gwen came out to put on their coats. In the case of Gwen, this was more of a production. She felt the cold and therefore needed a hat, scarf, and gloves. Tosh was thankful for it though, because it offered her a moment to corner Gwen.

"What's going on?" she asked casually.

Gwen rolled her eyes. "We've got to go hunt down Owen. I swear to god if he's just got a hangover..."

"Can I come?" Tosh pressed.

Gwen looked awkward, as though Tosh was asking to join her and Rhys on a Valentine’s date. "Sorry, Jack said you needed to stay here and analyse the eggs."

"But they're almost done," protested Tosh and Gwen shrugged.

"Better tell him that."

----

Tosh tiptoed up to Jack's door and knocked so quietly that she wasn't sure he'd heard her.

"C'min."

Jack stood up as she entered. His braces were hanging around his waist and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. When he asked her to sit down it was with the expression of someone who'd been waiting to speak to her.

"I used a needle to draw the gel out of those two eggs," she said. "The samples are being analysed now, so it's just a matter of waiting."

Jack didn't answer, but looked her over in the manner of a teacher fondly surveying their favourite student on the day they leave school.  

"Let's go get a drink," he said.

Tosh gaped; really, honestly, gaped. "I’m sorry?"

"Let's get a drink," said Jack. He grabbed his coat and wallet. "It's a nice day, why waste it in an underground bunker?"

Tosh's suspicions were immediately raised. Good looking men, as a rule, did not randomly ask her to go for a drink. She doubted Jack meant anything along those lines, of course, but she couldn't help but look for the catch. Never once in all these years had Jack spent any social time with her when she wasn't part of the group.

Feeling totally wrong-footed, she went to get her coat.

---

Owen arrived at the Hub and to his surprise found it utterly deserted. The SUV was on the way to his apartment, but he didn’t know this. Even Jack was gone.  

He dumped the holdall he was carrying at his desk and logged on to his computer.

He'd had a lot of thinking to do, but in the end the answer had come easily. In fact, he’d made it within minutes of pulling away from the kerb in front of his future house.

He could accept the fact he was going back to 1990, or he could fight it.

If he went, he'd know ahead of time what would happen. He could stop it from turning out that way. Yeah, there would be some continuity errors to fix – but he could still change things and have the visit this morning occur. He could go to himself and pretend to want to prevent it happening, he could tell his son what to say to himself, they could even rent that stupid house out when the time came.

Or he could stay and risk a massive paradox and, if the universe survived, Jack maiming him. 

Sometimes you had to accept your destiny, and that's what he had to do. There was no one keeping him here, and with a bit of planning he could make sure things were comfortable for them back in 1990. 

He'd already packed some clothes, his rescued toiletries, and the few photographs he was bothered about. He wasn't the sort for fancy goodbyes, so he wasn't going to arse about with letters to people.

Tosh was better at false IDs, but he managed to cobble together some passable driving licences and birth certificates. He became Owen Harvey, as preordained, and Tosh became Toshiko Saito. If everything went according to plan she wouldn't have to put up with the slight alteration for long.

All that was left was to get records of every big horse race and football match to happen in the last eighteen years. He couldn't take much money with him (although he had fished out the few coins he had that were made pre-1990) and his watch was too modern to be sold. But with foreknowledge of winning teams and horses he could make sure that he and Tosh wouldn't have to worry about finances. William Hill was going to make Owen a rich man. 

This time he was going to get things right.

---

"So, how're things?"

Jack leaned across the table in the practically empty bar they were seated in. Tosh perched on the edge of an extremely uncomfortable modern seat and peered into the white wine she hadn't asked for.

"Oh, you know…fine," she said.

"Heard from your family?"

Tosh shrugged. "You know how it can be. They call me at three in the afternoon, when I'm at work. I call them at ten when they're asleep."

Jack nodded politely and leaned back to put some distance between them. "You hungry?"

"No."

He patted his stomach. "I am. You wanna split some fries?"

The thought of chips made Tosh's stomach churn, but she nodded and smiled politely. Jack got up to order and left her frantically trying to work out the reason for this little day trip. Had he found out about what had happened this morning? Well good luck to him if he was planning to retcon her, because she wasn’t drinking or easting anything.  

Jack returned with two baskets of chips. "Seemed easier to get two," he shrugged as he slid back into his own squat and lumpy chair.
 
Silence reigned. Jack had been telling the truth about being hungry, because he demolished his own basket of chips and started on hers.

"So how've you been?"

"Fine."

“I mean, after Tommy and everything."

"Fine." 

"You know he did the right thing, don't you?" 

There was something in his expression - a warning. Tosh narrowed her eyes.

"So this is about four pm!" she hissed. "I thought you were going to retcon me - but you're just making sure I tow the line aren't you?" 

Jack held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa. That's not it. I wasn’t even sure you knew. I just wanted to make sure your last day in 2008 wasn't spent in the lab."

Her distrustful expression didn't falter, and Jack pressed on. "Look, I know you'll do the right thing. It's Owen I'm worried about." 

Tosh would have pushed her chair back in anger, but as well as being lumpy, squat, and bright red, it was also surprisingly heavy. She had to make do with leaning backwards.

"So Owen gets to do what he wants while Lap-Dog Tosh does what she's told?" she fumed. "I’ve seen the future Jack. I’m miserable. I’m doomed eighteen years of hell for the sake of a son that I know will die. I’m not going Jack. Whatever you say the right thing to do is, I know it’s not the right thing to live that life."

“And what’s right about destroying the universe?” demanded Jack. “What’s worth that?”

Tosh looked away, feeling for all the world like a schoolgirl being told off. “If it was Gwen or…or Ianto, you’d find a way around it,” she seethed. “You’d find a way to keep them here. But because it’s boring Tosh you won’t!”

Jack leaned forward with his trust-me eyes. “I promise you Tosh, if it were any of the others I do the same thing as I’m doing now. Well-” he winked, “-maybe a few other things, if it were Ianto.” 

He smiled at her with that same fond smile and took her chin between his thumb and finger to lift her face up. “You’re a good person Tosh; you’ll do the right thing.”

If he’d asked her to do the right thing, Tosh might have given in, but his knowing manner put her in the wrong frame of mind. He still just assumed that Pushover Tosh wasn’t a problem. Her little outburst had meant nothing.

Well he didn’t know her, anymore that she knew anything of him beyond his lying, con-man eyes. He would have found a way around the rules for the others, and he would find one for her too.

“I guess I will…” she said slowly. 

---

"What do you mean you slept in?" Gwen's incredulous voice floated up to meet Jack and Tosh as they arrived. Gwen and Ianto were taking off their coats (and her hat, scarf, and gloves) as they berated Owen.

What was he doing here?

Owen was stretched back in his seat looking without a care in the world. He was twirling the basketball on one finger. 

"You slept in ‘til one?" asked Ianto.

Jack tossed his own coat onto the rack and Tosh fumbled with the belt on her coat as her mind frantically tried to work out why Owen was at the Hub.

"What's going on?" said Jack. 

Gwen finally finished removing her extra layers and flopped into her own chair. "We missed him. He was arriving here as we were arriving at his." 

“You mean you came in voluntarily?” Tosh could help but ask.

Owen looked over at her and for a second she knew that he knew what she meant. “Yeah,” he said. “One word - hangover."

"Alright, alright," ordered Jack as he headed towards his own office. "Ianto - coffees all ‘round. Gwen - I still want those very late reports. I thought you police people were good at paperwork?" He pointed at Tosh. "Tosh, debrief Owen on those eggs you've found. I'm sure you've got a lot to discuss. And no one leaves without my permission." 

His door slammed. Ianto and Gwen settled down to work. And Tosh was left following Owen down into the medical bay for what was going to be the most awkward conversation of her life.

---

A/N: Albumen is egg white, for those of you who can’t be bothered to cast your mind back to biology. William Hill is a UK betting shop company.

Sorry this took a while, I was sure that this was going to be a short chapter, but then Owen and Tosh surprised me by going in different directions and Jack started getting touchy-feely (emotionally, that is) and by the time I’d finished I hadn’t got to the four pm mark as promised.

Hopefully the character stuff makes this chapter worth it. Next chapter it will happen – I swear. Tosh and Owen will talk, four pm will come, and there’ll be some fun surprises!

I’d love your opinions anyway!