Stretching, Gwen opened her eyes and rolled over to look at the clock. 6:25 a.m. The alarm would be going off in a few minutes. She sighed and tried to get up without disturbing Rhys. He stirred and mumbled into the pillows.
"Come on, I've got to get up, I have to go to work."
"You always have to go to work, can't you stay home today?" His eyes were still closed, his voice muffled from sleep.
"No, I really ought to go."
"The alarm hasn't gone off yet. Stay." He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her toward him, and she surrendered, allowing herself to be pulled into his embrace.
"It's going to go off any minute," She told him, laying near. She looked at him, his features illuminated only by the glow of the clock and the dawn breaking outside.
He was so good to her. While she was happy that she no longer had to lie to him about her job at Torchwood, she still felt guilty about spending so much time there. Another part of her knew that he couldn't understand, not anymore, not with everything she'd seen throughout the job.
Rationally, Rhys could understand what she did, he'd been to the hub, but on an emotional and philosophical level there was a part of her that he couldn't comprehend.
She supposed everyone was like that. It was experience that gave people different perspectives, but still sometimes it made her feel guilty, it gave her a connection with the team that she wasn't sure she could ever experience with Rhys.
"What are you thinking about?" He asked her, interrupting her thoughts, his eyes were open now. "You look sad."
"I'm not sad." She told him. "I just-that's the alarm." And she freed an arm to turn it off.
"Stay?"
"Oh, I'm sorry love, I have to go" She told him, leaving a quick soft kiss on his lips before getting out of bed. "But you enjoy your day off. Get enough rest for both of us."
"I'll try" He grinned at her as she got dressed, and she headed into the bathroom.
Once she was ready she leaned into the bedroom, "Bye Rhys, have a good day, I love you"
"I love you too, Stay safe." his voice was clouded with sleep again.
That was another new thing, since he learned of what she did at Torchwood. He was always worried about her, no matter how many times she tried to put his mind at ease, he still was afraid for her, and that broke her heart.
Grabbing her phone and blue tooth off of their chargers, she walked across the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge before sliding her gun onto the holster, shouldering her bag and heading out for the day.
"Good morning everybody." Jack walked into the conference room, setting a pile of papers on the table, Ianto following him in with a tray of coffees for the team.
"Alright, nothing new on the radar today. Owen and Ianto, there's a rouge weevil, west of the city. I need you two to deal with that. Also one of victims of last weeks Arcenstone incident is having a reaction to the Retcon, and gaining his memory back , so if you can re-administer before he ends up in a psych. ward, that would be great." He smiled at them all taking a sip of his coffee and then grinning at Ianto, his eyes lingering on the other man a few moments too long.
"Tosh and Gwen, there's been another victim of the blindness. I'd like you to interview her."
'The blindness' was the unofficial name they'd given to the case that they'd been working on for the last few days. All of the victims had sudden onset, and inexplicable blindness.
Naturally Owen had examined the victims, but medically there was nothing unusual, except for the fact that they were blind. Jack had suggested it was an alien parasite or pathogen, but they had found nothing of the sort.
The victim lived a short drive from the hub. Arriving at the house of the victim, they walked up the drive and knocked on the door.
"Hello, you must be the folks coming to see my daughter, she's inside" The woman moved out of the way to let them in.
"Thank you, yes that's us. I'm Tosh, and this is Gwen. Tell me, has she said or done anything unusual since the incident?" Tosh asked as she crossed the threshold and took in the apartment.
"Well naturally she's been quite upset, she's only twenty three. Would you like anything to drink? water? tea?"
"Sure, tea would be lovely." Tosh replied.
"Yes, please." Gwen agreed.
"Alright, well let me bring out Laura, so you can talk while I make the drinks." The woman replied, motioning for them to make themselves comfortable on the sofa, and then heading into a hallway.
"She seems to be taking this well" Gwen commented, sitting down and pulling a recorder out of her bag. The last interview had been terrible, the victim and his girlfriend had been completely distraught.
"File said she's a psychiatrist, she's not practicing anymore"
"Well, that's good for the daughter anyways." Just then the woman returned with her daughter.
The women walked slowly, guiding her out daughter with hands on her shoulders.
Laura walked hesitantly, eyes blank but face full of careful concentration, as they made their way to the chair across from the sofa.
"Alright dear, this is Tosh and Gwen, they're here to talk to you." She told her daughter, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, sadness flashing over her features. "I'll be in the kitchen just holler if you need anything."
"Hello Laura, I'm Gwen. Could you tell us about the day you lost your sight?"
"It happened the day before yesterday, I was at the university..." She plunged into her story
Laura's story had been similar to the others, seemingly out of the blue she had lost her sight. She claimed that as she took a stack of papers from the temporary secretary in the academic affairs office and she had been struck blind, and that there was nothing at all about that day that was unusual or strange.
Toward the end of her story she made an unexpected plea. She told them she had a friend who claimed to have lost his ability to taste properly, and implored them to visit him. When they asked more she told them he had made an interesting discovery, and refused to say more about it.
"What do you make of that?" Tosh asked, as soon as they got back into the Torchwood van. It was clear she was talking about the end of the interview.
"I don't know-It's very unusual. I suppose we should visit this friend, she seemed pretty serious."
"I think so too, might be a lead. We'll have to tell Jack."
"Yes we'll have him listen to the tape, see if he notices anything or recognizes the boy's name."
"I can pull up his file now, see if he has any record." Tosh told Gwen, pulling up the hub on the passenger seat computer, her fingers raced across the keyboard.
"Nothing at all. Police files say he's clear, UNIT doesn't have a file on him, and his personal records say he's a recent graduate, went to the same school as Laura, accounting major- he works as an intern at a local bank. Perfectly normal."