Gwen didn't wake until her mobile, vibrating across the bedside table, fetched up against her water glass and started to rattle its way through her skull. Hearing Rhys grunt softly in his sleep, she wrenched an arm out from beneath the duvet and grabbed for the phone before it could wake him, checking for the time on the bedside clock as she did so. 4.27am.

The display told her that Jack was calling. Punching the answer button, she lowered her voice and turned away from Rhys.

"What's happened?" she croaked. Several seconds slipped by before Jack responded.

"There's been a traffic accident," he said, his voice far too flat for comfort. "Junction of the A48 and Port Road."

"A traffic accident? What's that got to do with..."

"Just get here. Now," he cut across her and, that said, ended the call.

It took Gwen a few minutes to find her clothes; all she could locate, without making too much noise, were those she'd been wearing the previous night. As she was heading for the bedroom door, Rhys turned over and opened his eyes. She'd forgotten just how sweet he looked while he was half asleep.

"What's goin' on, love?" he murmured. She crossed the room on cats's feet and leaned down to brush her lips across his forehead.

"Just got to go to work. There's been an accident," she said, hoping he wouldn't ask her for any details she couldn't supply – which were, at that point, all of them.

Rhys nodded sleepily and burrowed back down under the duvet until she could see nothing but his tangled hair. Gwen stood a moment longer, listening to him breathing, wanting more than anything to be able to strip and crawl back into bed. Then, sighing softly, she left the room.


The roads were all but deserted, and she passed nothing but eighteen-wheelers along the way, until the approach to the roundabout on the A48, when she pulled over and stared in disbelief at the gathering that met her eyes. She counted at least five police vehicles nosed up against a hastily erected cordon, most of them left with their lights flashing. She couldn't see the SUV, but assumed it was somewhere around.

Clambering out into the pre-dawn mist, she wrapped her arms around her and approached the cordon. There were two policemen just beyond the tape; one was scratching something in a notebook, and the other appeared to be staring into the middle distance.

"Hello?" she called out, suddenly and painfully aware of the sound of her own voice, and wondering if she'd ever reach the point where she'd be comfortable announcing herself as Torchwood. "Officers? I'm...I'm Torchwood. Lookin' for Jack Harkness?"

The officer with the notebook glanced up from his labours, started to say something, and then fixed his eyes on her face in a manner that suggested he'd need to be blindfolded before he'd stop staring. His companion, slower on the uptake, craned his neck around to look at her and then adopted the same bewildered expression.

"I'm Torchwood," Gwen said again, growing discomfited. "I need to come through? Official business."

Still she was met with silence from behind two pairs of glassy eyes.

"Gwen."

Jack stepped into the disjointed light flicker from the police cars, and his expression – even in the disorienting red-blue-red flashes – was grave. He walked around the cordon, ignoring the gawping coppers, and took her by the hand.

"What's the matter wi' them?" she asked, as Jack led her through the cars towards a white tent that had been erected by the side of the road. "Look like they've seen a ghost!"

"Hmm," said Jack, and then stopped them both outside the tent flap. He half turned, then placed both hands on her shoulders. The gesture was both eerily paternal and, in the circumstances, terribly frightening.

"Are you okay?" he asked, as if the question were not half as incongruous as Gwen felt it to be.

"Jack, you're scaring me," she said, but making no move to remove herself from his grasp. "What's going on? What's in there?"

"I just want to be sure you're ready for this," said Jack, letting her go and lifting the tent flap. "We were called out here about half an hour ago. Didn't know why until we got here, and then..." His voice tailed off.

The interior of the tent was flooded with light from several portable halogen lamps; they were centred on a car which had come to rest on the side of the road, its front wheels driven into the verge with such force that they were several inches deep in mud. The vehicle – funnily enough, she noted, a Mini Cooper – seemed mostly undamaged, although it appeared to be steaming from somewhere beneath the bonnet.

Gwen circled around to the driver's side, and corrected her initial assessment of the car's condition. The side window there was a blind haze of cracks focused on a hole about half an inch in diameter. The driver's door appeared to be dented, too, and the wing mirror was missing.

"You don't have to look," said Jack, suddenly close, his breath fanning the side of her neck. She spoke without turning.

"I'm a copper," she said, far more matter-of-factly than she felt. "I have seen blood and bodies before, you know."

With that, she pulled at the handle, wrenching the door back on the second try. The light from the lamps spilled into the car, illuminating its occupant. Dead? She tried to study the figure at the wheel, running all the spot checks her police training had instilled in her, but after the first few seconds, her mind was running on empty.

The blood caked in the tangled black hair.

The hands still gripping the steering wheel, almost as if glued there.

The lap full of shattered glass.

The vicious wound to the temple.

The face. Oh Jesus, the face.

The face.

Gwen reared away from the car, one hand clutching at empty air, the other slapped over her mouth in a reflexive act of horror. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. She was only barely aware of a pair of arms being wrapped around her waist and pulling her aside.

She turned, grabbing at whoever it was behind her, expecting Jack. Needing Jack. Instead, she found herself face to face with Owen, his face sallow and his eyes bruised with shock.

"It's all right," he said, wrapping one hand around the back of her neck and studying her face at close quarters. "It's all right. You're all right," he repeated. Gwen drew a whistling breath, wanting to cry out at him. How the fuck was it 'all right'?

"We don't know what's happened here," said Jack's voice from somewhere in the far, far distance, "but we will work it out, Gwen. You have my word on that."

She gave up, sinking her head onto Owen's shoulder. She felt him stiffen for a fraction of a second, as if unsure where to put his hands, then he stroked the back of her head, just once, and said nothing.

"Gwen?" said Jack, gently. She pulled back, avoiding Owen's gaze, and forced herself to turn around and look at the car once more, knowing that if she couldn't do so now, her only other option was to sprint out into the lurid darkness and never stop screaming again as long as she lived.

"Let's get to work, then," she said, perfectly tranquil, and wondered idly if this was what the opening chords of insanity felt like. She bent down and reached into the open door, pressing soft, exploratory fingertips into the flesh of the corpse behind the wheel.

From behind a mask of blood, Gwen Cooper stared back at her.