THE END OF SUFFERING
GWEN
Gwen had never seen a dead body up close until she joined Gwent Constabulary. It hadn't shocked her half as much as she thought it would. It wasn't that she didn't care. It was that there was something final in death, even the most violent of demises. Death ended suffering, meant that the pain and fear was gone and that was that. Gwen never pondered the afterlife. It simply didn't feature on her radar... until now.
Torchwood.
Her first encounter and she witnessed a dead man come back to life for a brief time. Then Jack had taken a bullet to the head and he had come back and then Suzie shot herself and eventually she came back too. Eleven men died on her first day...shagged to death. It had been her first mistake. Jack told her to move on. Gwen did because it was the only way to survive Torchwood and Torchwood needed her to, Jack needed her. She considered the possibility that she was becoming a hard nosed cow as she watched Ianto fall into despair over Lisa, as she leapt into Owen's bed and saw Tosh sink further away; as she lied and cheated on her boyfriend and then Retconned him to hide her guilty secrets.
That first year had almost broken her.
Gwen wanted Jack, she resented Ianto, discarded Owen and ignored Tosh.
Then Jack ran away.
It was easy taking over. Her police training served her well and somehow she found herself again. She reconnected with the real world and her leadership brought them all together, made them friends, made them care. It gave her something she could be proud of. She rediscovered Rhys and was happy.
The dead bodies came and went. Weevil, hoix, some random parasite and another Cyberman from someone else's basement. She ignored the dead and concentrated on the living. Protecting them became her mantra, keeping her loved ones safe a way of life.