Rhys holds her from behind, keeping her warm against the breeze from the bay. Gwen leans back on him. She's always liked the way Rhys felt against her. Cliched as it sounds, he's a perfect fit. When he's holding her there is nowhere she wants to go and all her worries disappear. He's such a stable, calming force for her, the perfect kind of man.
Letting go of her, Rhys leans down and picks up the bottle of wine and glasses at their feet. He hands her one and pours some wine into it. Pouring some into his own he puts down the bottle and stands up straight again.
"Happy anniversary, Gwen," he says.
She smiles warmly back at him and clinks her glass against his. "Happy anniversary."
---------
They're in a cab on their way to the club. Out of the window, Gwen watches the buildings passing by without really seeing them. She keeps thinking of how huge the Hub was inside. It was amazing all that space is all underground, and those computers were so strange. She wonders how long until computers like that are developed for everyone.
"Gwen," Rhys says and she starts slightly.
"What? Yes?" she says, looking over at him.
"You ok? You look distracted," Rhys says. "And didn't hear anything I just said."
"I heard…"
He smiles wryly at her and she laughs lightly. "No, you're right, I'm sorry. I'm just anxious about this new job."
Nodding quickly, Rhys squeezes her hand. They both smile and look back out the front window of the cab. Gwen doesn't tell him that she's also excited about the new world which is opening up to her and how she can't wait to go.
--------------
"Gwen!" Jack shouts.
Gwen looks up from a report on her desk. "Yeah?"
"There's been a crash," Tosh says sliding out from behind her computer monitor to look over at Gwen. "Definitely alien."
A smile lights up on Gwen's face and she feels a rush of excitement.
"Ready for another go?" Jack says as he pulls on his coat.
Gwen stands up but notices her cell phone vibrating on her desk. She sees 'Rhys' on the caller ID. Gwen reaches for the phone.
"Gwen," Owen shouts.
She looks over and sees the two men waiting for her by the door. Jack wiggles his eyebrows at her and grins. Picking up her jacket, Gwen rushes over to join them, leaving her phone.
--------------
When she comes home after ten again he doesn't say anything. He is sitting on the couch with a book in his hands. It's a book she remembers buying but can't think of the title of now. As the door closes softly behind her he looks up at her, but he doesn't say anything before he turns back to the book. Gwen stands there on the carpet for a moment, stuck between the urge to fall to her knees in front of him pleading excuses and to just walk right back out the door.
"Rhys…" she starts but as soon as she speaks his book closes sharply.
For a moment it looks like he is going to say something and she holds her breath waiting for the storm. Instead he puts the book down on the couch and stands up. He doesn't look at her again, just turns away and walks back to the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
Gwen stares at the book on the couch and can't move.
---------------
"Do you work with someone named Owen?" Rhys asks her.
Gwen freezes. She knows she put the retcon in his drink. He'd passed out afterward so she must have. Did she not use it correctly? No, she has to have done it right because it was the same way Jack did it to her. But she did remember everything Jack had tried to erase in her after what happened with Suzie.
"I do," Gwen answers, pulse quickening.
"Oh… that must be it then."
"What do you mean?" Gwen tries to ask innocently.
Rhys shrugs, picking up the basket of clean clothes at his feet. "Nothing, just had this name in my head didn't know where it was from."
"Ah," Gwen says watching him.
Rhys smiles and turns away. Once he is out of earshot she lets out a heavy breath. Staring down at the table Gwen shakes her head and grits her teeth. She doesn't know if she's mad at herself for doing it, or at Rhys for not remembering despite the retcon. In a sudden rush of anger she throws her pen against the wall, breaking it.
----------------
Gwen is lying on her back in bed. It's some time past midnight but she doesn't turn over to look at the clock. Rhys is quiet beside her but she knows he's awake. She can tell by the way he's breathing. He must know she's awake too.
She turns her head to look at the back of his neck. When they first moved in together she would often wake up to see him lying on his side looking at her in bed. At the time she would laugh and call him a creepy git. Now she feels the places reversed.
"I love you," she says quietly.
Rhys' back tenses slightly and she knows he can hear her. She knows he can and for some reason it makes her feel desperate. She wants to wrap her arms around him and apologize for so much. She wants to explain how much it all hurts, how much she really loves him, all the pressure she is feeling with Jack gone, how sometimes he can make it all better, and how sometimes she just wants to run away.
"I love you too," Rhys says softly without rolling over.
Instead of feeling relief, Gwen feels like crying.
--------------
"I've got to go to work," he says.
She blinks in surprise putting down the Chinese take away on the table.
"But I just got-"
"One of our drivers had an accident. I've got to go."
He takes his jacket out of the closet, searching around for his keys. Gwen forces herself to breathe slowly.
"But it's our dinner night. We'd planned this."
Her head screams, 'I'm here! I'm here now! I'm trying!'
Looking at her, Rhys just shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Gwen, I'm the manager now. I've got to be there."
He smiles apologetically and the door closes in what feels like all one instant. Gwen slowly sits down and opens the chicken lo mein.
-----------------
After the wedding and the honeymoon Gwen tells herself that it's going to be better, it's going to be amazing. She tells herself they will be perfect and happy again like when they were first together. Rhys will always make her laugh and she will always make him smile. They will cook together, go to the cinema, wrestle over the covers, surprise each other in the shower, and just be happy.
She's wrong.
"Did you get the light bulbs like I asked you?"
"What?" Gwen says as she grabs her keys.
Rhys sighs and turns away from her. "Of course not, can't listen to a bloody word I say anyhow so why would you remember one thing."
"Rhys!" she snaps. "I've got to go to work. I'm sorry; I'll pick some up on the way home."
He turns briefly as he puts a dish into the sink. "Don't bother, I can."
Biting the edge of her lip, Gwen turns away with a half growl and closes the door with more force than necessary as she walks out.
--------------
They're out to eat. Rhys has some sort of pasta in front of him and Gwen has pork. They're barely looking at each other as they eat.
"So, about Tosh and Ow…"
"I don't want to talk about it, Rhys," Gwen interrupts him.
"Well, you've got to sometime," he says with a gentle huff. "It's not good to keep it in like you are."
Gwen picks up her wine too quickly, splashing a little on the white table cloth. Rhys leans back in his chair watching her. She pointedly looks away and takes a sip of the wine.
"Gwen, it could help-"
"I said I don't want to talk about it, Rhys!" she snaps at him, putting down her wine and picking up her fork.
"They were your friends, Gwen, I understa-"
"What?" Gwen exclaims, fork clattering on her plate. "You're going to try the old 'I understand how you feel' trick?"
"It's not a trick!" Rhys says back.
"Yes, well," Gwen says with her hands gripping the edge of the table. "You didn't know them so you don't understand and you don't know! I can't tell…."
She trails off with a heavy sigh and crosses her arms.
"I'm trying to help you, Gwen," Rhys says a bit harshly, leaning forward in his chair. "You just need to let me!"
"I can't talk about it with you, Rhys!" she snaps again. "Just leave it!"
Picking up her fork and knife, she cuts up what is left of her pork as violently as the plate will allow her. Rhys asks for the bill.
-----------
"I swear, I didn't believe him because he is always going on about some alien he shagged and they all can't be true," Gwen laughs as she speaks. "And then Jack told us about this-"
"Don't you have any stories from work without Jack in them?" Rhys interrupts her, a bitter tone to his voice.
Gwen stops with her glass of wine half way up to her mouth. Rhys is giving her a piercing look from beside her on the couch. For a while they just stare at each other. This is an old argument, an old elephant in the room. She thought that topic had been shelved, been done. She thought there had been nothing left in her to spark it.
Pursing her lips, Gwen takes a sip of her drink and puts the glass down on the coffee table.
"Well, there are a few less people at work now, so it's hard to have a large enough variety of people to tell stories about, isn't it?"
Rhys doesn't reply.
--------------
"If you don't want to have kids, just tell me," Rhys says to her suddenly.
Gwen almost trips in surprise and nearly falls onto the sidewalk. She looks at him in shock, stopping in front of a flower shop. The irony of it flashes in Gwen's head before she speaks.
"I didn't say that."
"I know, Gwen," Rhys says. "You haven't said at all. The last time we tried to talk about it your bloody cell phone went off again and you flew out the door."
"Rhys, you know work is-"
"I don't fucking care if there's an alien space ship landing in the bay!" Rhys shouts then takes a deep breath and speaks at a normal volume. "You seem to forget we have a real life."
"Torchwood is my real life, Rhys!" Gwen retorts, her hand clenching into a fist around the handle of her shopping bag. "It's not like it's a game I play every day. It's my real life!"
"Doesn't leave room for me then?" Rhys says in almost a whisper.
"That's not true," Gwen says, her voice cracking briefly.
"But you can't make a life with me, can you?"
Gwen is struck silent. Rhys looks at her with a resigned sort of expression then takes the shopping bag from her hand. He turns and walks away from her down the street toward their flat.
Gwen can't move. She feels irrational tears trying to fall down her cheeks. An idiotic thought strikes her that at least she's by a flower shop so she can get some 'I'm sorry' flowers.
------------
When Gwen comes from work there is a note on the table. Fear courses through her and for a moment she can't move. Then all at once she comes back to her self and rushes over to the table dropping her bag and keys. She snatches up the paper and reads the one line
'I just can't do it right now, I'll be back on Monday.'
Gwen reads it three more times before she slowly places it back on the table. The flat feels empty around her, like its really only her that lives here all the time. She looks at the walls, the books, the cabinets, the pictures of herself and Rhys smiling and happy. She looks at the kitchen, completely clean and untouched. None of Rhys' things are nearby, no jacket on the edge of the couch or his keys on the counter.
Shakily she sits down on the couch, clasping her hands in her lap.
'It's fine, he's just gone for the weekend,' she tells her self. 'He'll be back.'
Yet she can't stop the anxiety from clenching in her chest and she wonders if they'll ever be back to the way they were.
----------
Rhys watches her the whole time from her walk in the door until she is sitting down across from him. All the while she tries to keep her breathing slow. She can see faint streaks on his cheeks. He's been crying. She places her hands flat on the table because she knows if she doesn't have something solid to hold on to she may just throw up.
"Gwen…" he starts then trails off.
Gwen opens her mouth but she can't think of what to say. She has to say something but nothing will come out. He turns away from her, eyes on the floor. Then he sighs and looks back into her eyes.
"We need to talk."