No infringement intended. I think these disclaimers are pointless anyway buuut okay.

The sound of the gunshot exploded loudly through the air. It happened in a split second, but time itself was slower than thick syrup pouring from a jar for her alone. Her eyes darted to the left, then toward the right, and she felt herself drowning suddenly, choking on the very oxygen her lungs inhaled. Toshiko blinked, and felt her body move of its own accord, tearing away from where she'd been standing, lurching before Owen and taking the bullet meant for him.

One after the other, she heard voices screaming her name. Gwen and Jack in unison, followed by Ianto and Martha. The only missing voice belonged to Owen, who said nothing at all.

Tosh felt her eyes roll back in her head, and it was then that she finally heard the sound that drowned out the rest, the whispered voice that carried further into her ears than the loudest of the screams. Into her ear, Owen whispered, his breath quickened and hot against her skin as he let her drop backward into his waiting arms. "Why'd you do it, Tosh?"

She parted her lips to tell him why, but felt the cold rush into her lungs even more harshly when she did, and it clear that the air around her was still drowning her, still crushing her lungs. Her eyelids fluttering, she tried to look up at Owen's face, tried to focus on it as it swam before her vision. If he was the last thing she'd get to see before she died, then that would be enough.

Suddenly, she felt other hands on her. Only vaguely aware, Toshiko knew that Martha was at her other side, her doctor's hands working to try and help somehow, even though it was pointless and hopeless. She was aware of Jack and Gwen as they knelt before her, hands going to her face, to her neck, covering over the hole in he bosom.

The only touch she held onto though, with what life she had left, belonged to the man who was still holding her in his arms, not panicking and fretting as the others had. He was unnervingly quiet, still, but it gave her all the more chance to focus her eyes on him as they filled with her shock-wrought tears and blurred her vision further.

"Owen…" she finally said, though she couldn't be sure if she'd really said or only imagined that she'd said it. "Owen…"

Making a gurgling sound in her throat as he suddenly leant his face down over her own, closer, she heard him again whisper. "Why, Tosh…?"

"Because I love you," she said, but she still wasn't sure if her words were coming out or not.

Frustrated and frightened, she lifted a hand to place it at the side of his face, before finally succumbing to the air, letting it compress her lungs completely as her eyes rolled back, darkness consuming the little light she had left. Leaving behind Torchwood, leaving behind her life, leaving behind Earth itself--Tosh thought of this with her last drawn breath.

She was leaving behind so much, and the part that stung the most was her realization: she would never see Owen again.