SUMMARY: Rhys thinks about Gwen.
DISCLAIMER: These characters belong to the BBC. I just fantasize about them.
CONTINUITY/SPOILERS: Some time after "Countrycide" and kind of spoilery for it.
NOTES: For various reasons, this is for Avi. Thanks to StAurafina and SnowballJane for the betareading and Britpick (Welshpick?).
I don't know what to do.
I've loved Gwen practically since I met her. It was at a party. Some bloke, half-drunk, asked me if I'd met Gwen Cooper, waving a hand at her, this girl in jeans perched on the arm of a couch. She seemed shy and boring, peering up through that black hair. Then she lifted her head to really look at me and I saw mischief in her eyes, and I was gone.
In a few days we were together, and in a few months we had a flat together. We've been so happy, so content, maybe we got too comfortable. I know we'd both been thinking about a child, maybe a little house further out of town, someplace with a garden. I thought we were both happy.
Gwen loved being a cop and I was so proud of her. Scared, though. I knew what kind of rubbish we have in Cardiff, but Gwen loved her job so much, how could I stand in her way?
Until she got this promotion. Bloody Special Ops, whatever that means. Can't tell me what she does, can't tell me where she goes, can't even say when she's going to be home. Seems like she's always bloody working, even when she's with me.
And she's not the same. At first she was so excited about the job, almost lit up with her excitement, but since our flat was done over, she's been cold. She's, I don't know, it's almost as if she's frightened, confused. She wouldn't tell me who did it or why. Just came home the next day and told me it would never happen again.
What's that supposed to mean? Did she kill someone?
She won't talk to me about it. She says everything is fine, she's fine, she's just tired from working.
But it's more than that. I know Gwen and I know her moods. And she is tired but there's something else.
She was hurt the other day. Told me it was nothing and wouldn't even let me check her bandage, but I saw how it hurt her to move. She was back at work, wherever that is, the next day, and home just as late as usual.
But she seemed different...distant.
I think...I think she's having an affair. I don't know who with, because she doesn't even talk about her colleagues, but I can't see how she'd have time to have met anyone else.
I was never one of those men who thought their girl was sleeping around. I was never jealous of the cops she worked with, never questioned her. But it's something in the way she looks at me. And doesn't touch me when she gets home.
I don't know what to do.
I love Gwen. But I wonder if I should leave her before she leaves me.
--end--