Something lunged out of the shadows to her right - she flattened herself against the alley wall, and it shot straight past her, giving her a chance to pull out the Weevil spray from her back pocket before it turned, teeth bared, snarling at her in an evil grimace. Suddenly, she heard another growl from behind her, and another off to her left. Her eyes jumped around, trying to place the other Weevils, the dingy orange glow from the streetlight above her making this difficult. Her heart almost leapt out of her chest as four or five of them prowled towards her out of the darkness. She was alone, and surrounded.
PC Andy had just had a very enjoyable night out in a pub, with a few mates. He hadn't got drunk as such, just pleasantly tipsy enough to have some fun, whilst maintaining his ability to walk home in a straight line and not fall under a bus or collapse in somebody's gutter. He was just congratulating himself on this fact, when he heard a noise coming from the alleyway he was just passing. His policeman instincts getting the better of him, he stopped and peered down, worried that someone was in trouble. There was a small figure - a woman, he guessed - surrounded by several large, hunched figures, which were gradually stalking nearer to her. The woman seemed to be frozen in the middle; Andy could make out a pair of wide eyes staring at the nearest figure. Then he realised who she was - black hair, leather jacket, red top, large eyes - Gwen. He was just about to shout and launch himself up the alley towards her, when she seemed to snap out of her reverie. She raised a can up to one figure's face and sprayed, eliciting a strangled roar from it before it staggered backwards and into the wall. As it fell to the floor, the others lunged forwards. Andy stopped, staring in shock and terror, as Gwen spun, kicking another of the creatures (Andy could see now they weren't, couldn't be, human, though his brain was just telling him not to be stupid, these were just twisted men in masks preying on an unsuspecting victim. He chuckled when he realised how wrongly they'd picked their 'victim'), and spraying another one as it launched itself at her face. She backed up away from another that was coming towards her again, and fell to the ground with a thud and a curse as she tripped over one of the unconscious Weevil bodies. The remaining two took this as their cue to attack again, and all but threw themselves at her. She cursed loudly to herself as she scrabbled backwards and reached behind her, then there were two deafening bangs, and the creatures were thrown back and slammed into the opposite alley wall, where blood started to trickle out of jagged holes in the front of their boiler suits - she'd shot them. Andy's heart leapt to his mouth when he realised she'd killed them. The Gwen he used to know could never do that. Then again, the Gwen he used to know had long gone, changed by the demands and secret life of Torchwood. He stood, still as a statue, wanting to see what she did next.
Gwen picked herself up off the floor and brushed herself down. God, she must look a state. Then again, she'd rather fight and look slightly mucky than not and end up as a smudge on the pavement. She surveyed the scene for a moment, and Andy felt his heart turn cold as he heard her chuckle lightly. Then she reached her hand up to her ear, tapping on her comms system. Andy could only hear one side of the conversation, but got the gist of what was going on well enough.
"Jack? Going to need clean-up here.
No, I don't care how... involved... you are with Ianto at the moment, I-
There are five Weevils, three needing containment, two dead.
No, I'm not just leaving them here for some poor pedestrian to find in the morning. There'll be more problems then anyway when you end up having to Retcon half the city because these have ended up on the news.
Jack, just get your fucking lazy arse and the SUV over here and help me!"
She sighed and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes and running her hands across her face in an unfamiliar, helpless gesture that she obviously only freed when she thought no-one was watching, when she thought she was alone. Andy recognised the old Gwen, his Gwen, in that movement - the one who was terribly upset by what she'd had to do, the one who felt she was slightly out of her depth in this crazy world. But he knew that wasn't her now. Andy considered going up to her, asking her about it, comforting her, but then he'd have to let on he'd seen the whole situation, and that would probably end up with him getting dealt with, the Torchwood way. And it wouldn't be pretty, he'd seen enough to know that.
He backed away and walked quickly into the darkness, thoughts running through his mind of what those things had been. They couldn't have been human, but... did that mean Torchwood dealt with... monsters? Aliens? And Gwen was involved in this? His head was spinning. And he'd seen how close to getting seriously injured or killed Gwen had been, and how easily she'd brushed it off. Did that mean that was an everyday occurrence? How could anyone live like that? No, he didn't know Gwen any more. Not at all.
He heard Torchwood's SUV drawing up in the alleyway behind him, and a conversation between Gwen and Jack, and started walking faster, pushing on into the night, thanking God that he'd never got caught up in Torchwood the way Gwen had. Rather her than him. He wouldn't be able to deal with it. For the first time in a long while, he felt lucky to still be with the plain old police, and he smiled.