Title: Guilt.
Summary: Gwen is in love with Tosh. That complicates things in all the ways you might expect, but that hardly matters.
Rating: T for language and biphobia.
Word Count: 1792
Other Chapters: No.
Disclaimer: The British Broadcasting Corporation owns Torchwood and all related characters, settings, and trademarks. I do not profit in any way from this material.
Pairings: Gwen/Tosh, with lengthy mentions of Gwen/Rhys and Tosh/Owen, and quick references to Gwen/Owen, Owen/Suzie, and Jack/Ianto.
Contains: kissing
Warnings: biphobia, mentions of infidelity, impermanent character death, self-victim-blaming

Gwen had the strangest feeling that Jack would be angry if he knew. Well, maybe not angry. Just a bit exasperated. It had happened again. Suzie and Owen. Gwen and Owen. Tosh and Owen. Gwen and Tosh. For all Gwen knew (and for all Tosh knew as well) his relationship with Ianto was a one-time thing. Gwen, Tosh, and Owen were all serial offenders. Of course, Owen was the worst of a bad lot. Jack had never hired a woman that Owen hadn't fucked. Owen was also by far the least likely of the lot to offend again, though, at this point. It occurred to Gwen that that was lucky for her, and she felt a little bit guilty for thinking it. It was true, though.

This had all started when Tosh finally worked up the nerve to ask Owen out for pizza, and Owen had agreed for want of anything better to do with his Saturday night. They'd gone on a string of other dates, because Owen was a boring and lonely man and he knew that, and he believed for all the wrong reasons that Tosh was the best he'd ever do. In his mind, he was settling for her, and he treated her that way. Tosh had seemed generally oblivious to this, but sometimes Gwen could see it on her face. She knew. Ianto started spending more time with her. Martha came to town to help out on a mission, and she knew after one look at Tosh and Owen. She'd asked Tosh for a chat, and Tosh had left in a huff and refused to speak to Martha for days. Gwen just saw it. She didn't say anything, in no small part because she was a deeply selfish person.

Love did suit Tosh. Gwen found Tosh's fashion choices questionable, but Tosh did know how to show off her body. And it had been wonderful to see her walk around the base with a bounce in her step and a genuine smile on her face. Gwen had noticed it all: her voice when she talked about him, the way she talked about him, the glitter in her eyes whenever he kissed her and above all the strange look of terrified excitement on her face as 5:00pm approached on nights when they had dates planned. Gwen had noticed all of these things, and she'd sat around and played with her engagement ring as she imagined how it might feel for those looks to be about her.

She'd felt guilty about that, too. She'd loved Rhys. She loved Rhys. She always would love Rhys. He had his faults, certainly, but so did she, and she'd been engaged to him for all of five minutes before the slightest glance at Tosh's bare thighs had her longing to betray Rhys in ways she'dpromised herself she'd never betray him again. She hadn't felt guilty about wanting to break up Owen's relationship. Rhys was a good man. Owen was a fucking prick and everyone knew he was only interested in Tosh until another pretty girl fell out of the rift.

More guilt. He'd loved Dianne. And he'd made an honest effort to love Tosh, more for her sake than for his own. It was not his fault that he'd failed and that, for all of her radiant beauty and wonderful qualities, she wasn't his type. And now he'd never have the chance to find someone who was his type. Gwen shouldn't be so disrespectful about that.

Tosh and Owen's mundane relationship had been brutally cut short by Owen getting shot. He'd been brought back to life later, but he'd decided that since he was no longer capable of getting it up, eating pizza, or possibly even experiencing genuine human emotion, he'd best break up with Tosh. Tosh had moped about in all the ways that were appropriate of a woman whose boyfriend had been shot, and the fact that it was her boyfriend who handed her the first tissue made little difference.

Gwen couldn't be relieved. It was heartbreaking to see Tosh heartbroken. She didn't really know how to help, but she'd offered to be a shoulder for Tosh to cry on over cheap Italian food, and Tosh had accepted. They hadn't even made it past bread sticks when Tosh was despairing of her chances of ever finding someone to truly love her, and Gwen said, "Stop it! I'd kiss you right now if I could!" before she'd really thought through the implications of it.

Tosh had paused. She'd looked at Gwen with those sweet dark eyes and she'd said "You could, though." She said it softly, but with a smile at the corners of her lips. It was almost a dare but it was so much more than that, too.

Gwen had shut her own eyes and taken a deep breath. "Rhys," she'd said, because that was the only reason she could think of why she couldn't, but it was a damn good reason. Not again. She'd promised herself. Not even a kiss. It had started that way with Owen, and whatever feelings she'd ever had or still had for Jack, it had started that way with him too. She never should have kissed them. Guilt. She can't kiss Tosh.

Tosh sat up a bit straighter and a light came back on behind her eyes. She hadn't been encouraging Gwen to cheat. Not deliberately. She'd just forgotten. She'd wanted it so badly in the moment that she'd forgotten all the horrible things that could come as a result of it. Tosh had been both perfectly calm and worryingly silent as she ate her risotto.

After dinner, Gwen had gone home, to her fiance, and she hadn't been herself. She hadn't felt guilty. She'd had nothing to feel guilty about. Still, there was a gnawing her stomach that felt very much like guilt but couldn't be assuaged with a confession. She felt sick. It was as if she'd lost something precious to her, but she didn't know what it was. She'd told Rhys she was turning in early, and he'd walked into the bedroom two hours later to find her sitting up in bed with her hand pressed over her mouth as if she were about to be sick.

Rhys was a good man, and he'd been good about it. Worried and loving, the way he always was. He held her and asked her what was wrong. He knew her too well to believe her when she said she didn't know. He pressed her, so she told him: She'd never done anything, but she was in love with a coworker.

Rhys had backed off of her instantly. The only coherent word Gwen had caught for a minute was "Jack!" She said the record straight as quickly as she could. "I'm not—I wasn't talking about Jack!" Tosh. She was in love with Tosh.

He didn't believe her at first.

She'd said it again, because it felt nice to say it and she couldn't begin to wax poetic about the way the sunlight hit Tosh's hair or the way she made an English accent actually sound attractive or the way that she blushed when she caught people staring at her. Gwen was no good at that sort of thing, and Rhys would find it more ridiculous than convincing anyway. So she'd just said it again, with as much conviction as she could muster: "I am! I'm in love with Tosh and it's bloody stupid and I am so, so sorry but—"

Then he was hugging her. "It's okay," he said. "You're a lesbian. It's okay. I understand."

She'd tried to correct him. She'd really tried damn hard. He wouldn't listen, though. For all of his good qualities, he was still a small-minded and thick-headed man. He broke up with her, or rather took it as a granted that they had to break up and wouldn't let her talk him out of it. She was a lesbian. She needed to be true to herself.

She was not a lesbian. She wasn't sure what being true to herself meant, but she was pretty sure it involved being in love with Rhys. It wasn't really her fault that he couldn't believe that any more, but she felt strangely guilty about it anyway. She probably should have owned being a little bit in love with Jack, too. Or just not mentioned it at all.

In any case, she and Tosh avoided each other as they spent about a week grieving for their lost relationships. Rhys wanted to stay friends. It upset Gwen to look at him. Owen wanted to jump into the harbor with a cinder block tied to his ankle. Jack wouldn't let him. Gwen and Tosh had mostly avoided each other during this week, too. Gwen had never told anyone why Rhys suddenly broke off their engagement, but she was certain Tosh figured it out. They both needed time to work out their feelings on that.

Two months went by. Gwen had started hanging out with Rhys again, as friends, because he still made her laugh and she still felt safe with him and now he always wanted to check out girls with her, which she didn't mind in the slightest. Things had settled into a new normal, with Gwen in a new apartment and Tosh checking people out whenever Torchwood hit the pubs to blow of steam.

They were at the pub when it actually happened. Owen had pissed off one too many drunks by winning one to many games of darts and decided that he'd best go home, and Jack and Ianto had said polite goodbyes and slipped off to go file paperwork, allegedly. Tosh and Gwen talked casually about the latest mission, and then Tosh had said it:

"You've lost your excuse, you know."

"My excuse?"

"Rhys."

Rhys. Her excuse. She thought she should feel guilty for thinking of him that way, but she didn't.

Tosh smiled slightly. "Now why won't you kiss me?"

"Who says I won't?" Gwen asked.

Then she did. Her lips were on Tosh's as soon as she'd said it, and Tosh's tongue was in her mouth. There was no reason to regret this. There was no reason to regret shagging her that night at her apartment, or shagging her the next morning, the next week, or every week for the next three months.

Rhys was happy for her, even though he shouldn't have been. Jack would probably be annoyed, if he knew, but he didn't have a right to be. Gwen didn't really care what either of them thought. Tosh was perfect, and she couldn't feel guilty about loving her. There was nothing wrong with it.