Dealing with a writer's block and an idea for a multi-chaptered Torchwood story filling my mind, I had to clear up both mental and cyber space a bit, and decided to post this. Sort of sequel to Not like on TV, but it's not necessary to read that first.

I apologise for any mistakes and possible OOC moments, just had to get this out here.

I don't own Torchwood. Sniff :'(

In the songs

The car didn't move for at least fifteen minutes.

She had tried to start it up, but her hands were shaking too much, she couldn't get the key in the ignition. Gwen screamed, her hands flailing around in angry and useless frustration so that one of her nails got caught in the unfastened seatbelt and snapped. She screamed some more and banged her head on the steering wheel, not caring how it must look to the people passing by.

What did they know, anyway?

Did they know that a man in number 26 C had just ruined Gwen Coopers new purple blouse?

Did they know that the man had been crying for 56 minutes, used 34 tissues and drank three classes of water?

…

This is wrong, it's not how she had pictured it. It's ugly and twisted, and ice-cold. It breaks her heart.

You see, in the songs, longing is beautiful. It's a bitter-sweet melody of sad violins and fragile piano keys, faint drums that call out to the one who's lost.

It's an orchestra that breathes with the singer, in and around the vocals, making the grief sound so intoxicating that in the dark corners of your mind you wish you could feel it as well. To be the diva in a long and glittering dress, singing of your loved one and the hope of finding him again one day. To be the quiet Lady, admired in your tragedy. To feel so sad that you can think of nothing better to do but to sing it all out in a fairly exuberant and pompous, but oh so wonderful way.

They are the songs you hear on the radio in the evening, in a long play-list of dramatic stories that makes you cry if you want to.

They are the songs you listen when you want to wallow in your misery and self-pity and shut the happy world out.

Gwen had never known longing, but she had a clear image of what it is like, an image painted by the naïve pastels and synthetic brushes of the Whitney Houston and Celine Dion CDs Rhys had bought her.

But this... this isn't like in the songs, and Gwen can't help but to feel she has been fooled. Fooled to think, lead to believe that it's beautiful, that the grief and pain of missing someone are pretty. Fucking pretty this is, yeah.

Falling to the floor, just missing the hardly-used couch. Holding him by his shirt, gripping his arms so that your nails tug in, knowing that you're not perfectly arranged but more like a tangle of limbs. Realizing he's really too heavy for you to hold, but you do it anyway, because he clings to you with all the force he's got. Feeling your whole body shake with his sobs and cries that don't even carry sound any more because he's so tired, or your new blouse getting wetter and wetter from snot and tears, whose, you don't know. Listening to his incoherent words that make him appear so young and small and fragile and frightened, because that's what he is. Breaking down so violently and all-encompassingly that even the calmest and most stoic ones loose ground.

Being scared of how hopeless this is; how cruel the world can be and how cold the men that live in it.

Not beautiful, not like in the songs at all.

The beer bottles she had brought with her were immediately forgotten, to be found days later under the armchair. They'd dropped, clattering away and luckily not breaking, when she tried to make room for the catatonic mess of a man she'd found in the small kitchen. She wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, how long she shushed and whispered sweet nothings to the man sprawled in her lap. At what point her legs were beginning to feel tingly from the lack of circulation, and at what point she stopped caring about it. She probably hadn't cared at all.

Gwen knew she had made the right call to check on him, he'd seemed a little off during the day. He'd left without a word after wondering around the Hub, his eyes clouded and empty, his replies short and quiet. She couldn't fix this, none of them could, but she'd make sure to do anything in her power to make things that little bit better.

She never wanted to see Ianto like this again.

She also knew, that if - when, it has to be 'when' - Jack Harkness came back, he would not get away with this.

In the doorway, he apologised a million times with a hoarse and raspy voice, and she said it was okay but didn't even believe it herself. She ran across the street to the car, feeling his eyes follow her as the first soft drops of rain fell onto her shoulders. It wasn't until she had gotten out the key that she heard the door close.

…

What did they know of anything?

Did they know how jealous she had once been of that man in 26 C, but how she now wanted nothing more but to make him happy and whole because she loved him and the things he felt now were nothing anyone should ever want? Did they know how she hated herself for feeling lucky that at least she had someone, even though she knew she had every right to feel so?

Did they know how the whole world was falling to fucking shit and she had to try and keep things together with words that were beginning to wear out (he's coming back don't worry we can do this we're brilliant he's coming back) and do things she didn't even understand because there was no bloody 'Torchwood for Dummies' and she didn't know anything?

Did they...

Did they know of a magical travelling man, the keeper of all secrets and knowledge, the bringer of death and the saviour of the world, the lonely angel and forever god who had apparently found something better to do and left behind four people with mountains on their shoulders, one of them a crying boy from Newport who had beer bottles under his armchair and only six tissues left and who would have to get himself together and come back the next day because they couldn't manage without him?

Did they know what Gwen Cooper would do to that magical man when he returned?

(she would hit him, and then hug him, and then things would go on as before, but right now she wanted to believe she would, that she could, make him suffer)

…

Rhys didn't get an answer when he asked why the Whitney Houston CD was under the drivers seat, in pieces, broken and scratched. He held her as she cried.

~fin~

That's that. Hope you liked it, please let me know what you think!