Authors Note: Torchwood is owned by the BBC.
Jack once asked me to remind the team of what it's like to be human, he often calls me that heart of the team but he's wrong. Sometimes I think that I can't possibly have a heart, sometimes I feel so cold and numb inside and I wonder whether it was the job that did this, or if it was within me all along.
Before Torchwood I enjoyed my job, had a laugh with Andy, loved Rhys and was perfectly happy. I had plans, I was going to marry Rhys, have children, become a desk sergeant…all these plans fell apart. I still love my job, every day brings something new and interesting, but some days I am filled with such fear and it makes me wonder if it's worth it.
I still married Rhys, but we're not happy, I'm never in and he jokes that he had become a widower of Torchwood, I see the pain in his eyes as he knows that any day now that could be true. We used to go out, even if it was just bowling, we used to laugh and have fun but now it's all tainted. I can't have children, the team need me and what good am I if I need maternity leave? Is it fair on the child to bring it into this world and then miss every nativity play and parents evening due to the latest Weevil sighting? Is it fair to make Rhys a single father one day when an alien encounter goes wrong?
I know that I make Rhys unhappy, how he puts up with me I don't know, but I do know that he'll never leave me. It's a funny thing love, I claim that I love Rhys but is it more that I just love his normality? How can I love him when I betray him whenever possible? First it was with Owen; Owen offered me excitement and passion, someone to talk to about the horrors of our day. I would sit there flirting with him in the hub and I knew that it was hurting Tosh, how can I be the heart of the team when I knowingly broke Tosh's? I'm ashamed to say that some days I even flaunted it, I'm not as clever as her and sometimes her brilliance makes me feel like a failure, so I hurt her emotionally. How does that make me human? How does the flutter of triumph in my stomach, as I saw pain cloud Tosh's eyes, make me the heart of the team?
The thing is as much as I know that I hurt Tosh, no matter how guilty I feel about it, I know that I will do it again. I see Jack and Ianto and I feel such strong jealousy that it makes me bitter, I treat Ianto badly because of it. What makes it worse is that he just accepts it, he knows why I treat him the way I do but he is that good a person he lets it go. Why can't I be that good? Why can't I leave Ianto alone and let him be happy? I'm a bad person because I know that if I tried Jack would probably be with me and what makes it worse is that Ianto knows this too, and he knows that one day I will take his happiness from him.
I can't possibly be the heart of this team; sometimes I think that I might be its destruction.