They were always bloody running.
Gwen could feel the tingling fire up her calves with every step. It was the silent plea of her poor overworked muscles for some much needed rest, but she pressed on, fighting to ignore it. She could feel herself sucking at the air, unable to get enough oxygen in her lungs, but she fought not to focus on that. Her arms pumped furiously in an attempt to increase her momentum and propel herself forward faster. After Jack.
Hell. He'd told her, once, that she'd never get tired of following him, but she was damn tired now. Following him just made her fatigue more pronounced. He moved with such seeming ease and grace, though Gwen, glaring at his figure up ahead, wrote it off to the way his flashy greatcoat billowed out behind him. She was sure that if she got close enough, she'd see he was panting and sweating with as much effort as she was. He ought to be sweating in that bloody coat.
Stubbornly, Gwen tried her best to ignore the aches and focus on the chase at hand. She found it a bit comforting to know that with all the damn running they did in Torchwood that she wasn't likely to ever need to hit the gym again. She chanced a quick glance back, over her shoulder, at Owen, who was bringing up the rear. It was a little satisfying to see he was flushed, face screwed up in a mixed expression of concentration and pain, making it clear he was struggling at least as much as she was. Probably more. Although she found that Jack's playful criticisms of Owen's physique were off their mark, she had to wonder that Owen ought to hit the gym a bit more. He wasn't out, lately, as much as she and Jack were.
Always bloody running.
Things had been slow lately. Quiet. Gwen wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but she was getting that familiar little itch, the one that urged her to get out there on the field and do something. Something other than chase after Weevils. It wasn't that the creatures' population was on the upswing in Cardiff or anything of the sort - no, even that would have been a bit more interesting than the current state of things - but with the down time lately, the most productive thing to do was chase down every bloody Weevil in Cardiff. That entailed a great deal of running.
Gwen regretted, again, frowning upon the down time. It was nice, really. She got to have some time with Rhys. They got to go out again, to dinners, sometimes with friends, and they actually got to have proper sit downs without being interrupted by Gwen's cell.
Gwen's thoughts had gotten away from her and she was jarred back into reality when she realized that Jack had abruptly stopped. She narrowly avoided colliding with his back and nearly fell off balance, arms out, wheeling cartoonishly as she fought to catch her balance.
Recovering, she forced herself to stand up straight despite her incredible urge to double over or collapse on the ground to catch her breath. Jack didn't even seemed winded. Bastard. His arm was extended, gun steadily pointed up ahead. She followed with her eyes, a frown drawing over her features. There, on the ground, was the crumpled body of the Weevil they'd been after.
"It's dead," she huffed, sounding more disappointed than she'd meant. Behind her, Owen's shoes still pounded the pavement. He slowed, jogging up to join them, breathing too heavily to comment on the situation.
"She's not," Jack said softly, no hint of exertion on his voice. Gwen looked again and she could see, crouching in the shadows next to the body of the Weevil, what looked to be a woman. Jack advanced, gun still aimed, until they were close enough to properly see.
It was a petite woman, looked to be around Gwen's own age. Her hair was dark and long, unkempt in a way that made her look a bit attractive. Not that Gwen was attracted to her. But she WAS beautiful. Hell. The woman wore something Gwen would call a sundress, with a long, over-sized coat on top of it. She had soft features that were set in a dull expression that Gwen would identify as shock. After surveying the woman, Gwen shot Jack a disapproving little glare before reaching and forcing him to lower his gun. He frowned.
"It was so young. So young..." The woman spoke, drawing their attention again. "And lost. And sad. It was just hungry. It didn't know. Didn't know. Just hungry and alone... It hadn't met them yet, they felt him and tried to find him but they weren't quick because of the big black wheels and they couldn't, then. They would have told him. He didn't know. Thought I was food. Didn't know... Couldn't smell it on me like they could. Didn't know I wasn't okay. I had to. He's dead. I had to."
The tone of her voice was as flat and dull as her expression, confirming Gwen's suspicion of shock. She started forward and was nearly clothes-lined by Jack's suddenly outstretched arm. He stopped her in her tracks. "How did you kill it?"
Gaze still trained on the Weevil, the girl raised a slender arm, extending it out at Jack, her aim perfect despite having not looked. The sleeve of her over-sized coat fell away and Gwen found herself staring down the barrel of a sort of gun she didn't quite recognize. She thought Jack might, the way he stiffened suddenly, but she supposed that was the common sense reaction, then, when put under the point of a gun.
"There's no need to get violent," Jack said, carefully, that certain soothing tone to his voice that he sometimes adopted in high stress situations.
The woman looked up, her eyes meeting his now. Her lips curled into a smile. "It dreamt it was a banana once."
Gwen's brows furrowed and Owen asked the question on her mind. "The weevil?"
The woman giggled girlishly, waggling the gun around. She was still looking at Jack - only Jack. "Don't you remember? You were in the dream, too."
"Can't say I do," Jack said. Gwen cast a side-long glance at him, checking his face, and she was baffled to see an odd sort of remembrance in his eyes. "Put the weapon down."
The woman frowned, getting to her feet now. She walked a pace or two closer and Gwen backed up, but Jack stood his ground. The woman offered the weapon to Jack and he stepped in to take it. "Battery's dead," she said, mournfully. "There's a banana grove there, now. It would have been happier as a banana. It really liked the dream."
Jack frowned, examining the gun. "Sonic blaster," he said, for the benefit of Owen and Gwen. He shook his head, regarding the mystery woman. "Where did you get this?"
She shook her head. "It's not yours. He was yours," she gestured at the dead Weevil, "but it's not yours. It didn't come like he did. I didn't come like he did."
"What do you mean? Jack, what does she mean?" Owen asked.
The woman grinned now, playfully and said, in a terrible American accent that must have been her best impersonation of Jack, "I'm not from around these parts."
A/N: Wow. Okay, so, I debated for a long time whether or not to start posting up this story, and I finally decided to bite the bullet. (Personally, I'm pretty happy with it, but I think I went overboard on the banana joke.)
Mild spoilers in the rest of my note.
Anyway, this was a plot I hashed out back at the end of Season 1. I'd abandoned it in Season 2 because John was introduced, and this story was based on the fact that we didn't know anything about the Time Agency. It was original back when I thought it up, I swear. X). I decided to go ahead with it anyway, already put too much work into it to just let it rot.
Pairings will be pretty canon, Jack/Ianto because I'm a shipper, Gwen/Rhys and the awkward never-quite-Tosh/Owen that frustrates us all to no end. Rated for language, mostly.
Not anticipating many spoilers, but I'll head the chapters with warnings.
OC is mine, everything else is not. Not even the banana. Reviews are love.