DISCLAIMER: I do not own Torchwood or the characters and am not making any profit from this. Sad but true.

NOTE: This is set during the last scene of Children of Earth, Day Five.

TWO SECONDS

Jack pressed the first of the buttons on his wrist. It had started. Gwen felt her stomach lurch and panic rise in her chest, thick and hot and heavy, suffocating her. She had to say something more, she had to stop this, now.

'But they died, and I am sorry Jack, but you cannot just run away, you cannot run away'.

Her voice was breaking. She was begging. Pleading. He had to stay. He had to at least tell her he'd come back one day. He couldn't leave, not like this, not forever.

But the light had started to shimmer around him, his features brought into stark relief as a flickering whiteness washed over him. He was going. And even as she spoke, she knew it was useless. He had his mind made up.

'Oh yes I can. Just watch me'.

She did watch. She stood still, just a metre away from him, and watched as the light grew brighter and brighter, engulfing him, taking him.

And then, for one second, one terrifying, sickening, beautiful second, Gwen saw her chance.

She could see herself jumping forward, into that light, holding onto whatever was left of Jack and following him wherever he went. She could see her days, stretching out before her, filled with adventure and wonder and a hundred unknown galaxies to explore. She could start another life too. With Jack. A ruined, heartbroken Jack, but still Jack, still a man worth saving. It was so close, within her grasp. It was one metre and one second away. She only had to make the choice.

So she made her choice.

And then there was only darkness, and stillness, and Rhys coming up silently behind her, and her legs shaking and her head pounding and her chest threatening to cave in and her breath catching in her throat.

The sobs ripped themselves out of her.

'Let's go home, yeah?' Rhys was there, holding her. Leading her slowly back down the hill into the freezing, empty night.

Of course she'd chosen to stay. She had chosen Rhys, just as she'd done many times before. Just as she'd vowed that she always would. But as she half walked, half stumbled back to the car, she realised.

Now, in one second, one terrifying, sickening, gut-wrenching second, Gwen knew. That if she wasn't carrying Rhys' child, if she didn't have to consider the baby inside her, then this time…

She would have chosen differently.

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