Gwen felt like an outsider.
Ianto had let her out of Jack's office and brought her tea, at least, but he'd laid it on the table as if he were feeding a tiger at the zoo and then retreated to the other side of the room, ostensibly to speak to Tosh. This he was indeed doing, although their voices were low and, whatever they were discussing, it seemed to necessitate regular glances in her direction.
Her only immediate companionship was Owen, but even he was watching her as if she might explode at any moment. Gwen tried to stare him down, gave up, sipped distractedly at her tea and then set the cup down with a very careful click.
It was Tosh who finally drove a wedge into the awkward silence. She turned away from her computer terminal, her expression carefully neutral, and pushed her hair out of her eyes distractedly.
"There's something you need to know," she said, haltingly, not quite looking at Gwen. "I've just checked the chassis number of the car with police databases from the relevant time period. I had to go through a lot of microfilm, but I found the archive. That car was reported stolen from the car park of the University Hospital of Wales on the night of the tenth of March, 1978 and never recovered."
Owen was the only one not reacting accordingly. Gwen, for her part, covered her mouth for a second before speaking. When she did, it was as if her tongue had glued itself to the back of her throat.
"That's...where I was born," she said. "That's my birthday," she added, unsure if she were trying to enlighten Owen as to the facts or merely confirm what her ears had just heard.
"We know," said Ianto, and his voice caught on the second word. Gwen was not quite distracted enough to miss it, and jerked her head up to look at him. "There was a second police report dated the same night," he told her, and cast a despairing glance at Tosh, who took over.
"There was a murder," said Tosh. "Someone entered the maternity unit and shot a newborn girl. Nobody was ever arrested for it."
Gwen struggled out of her chair and backed away, head shaking convulsively. Owen reached for her, but she slapped his hands away and stumbled into the corner, where she sank to her knees and wrapped her hair around her face.
"That's impossible," she gasped, eyes stinging. She dragged her gaze back up and bared her teeth at Tosh. "I'm still here! How can I be dead? I'm still fucking here!"
Ianto was the first to move; she allowed him to pull her up off the floor and brush her down gently. He led her back to her chair, and she was content enough, for the moment, to be calm. How long the calm would last, she had no clue, but she wallowed in it while it did.
"Gwen...we've no idea how all this stuff works, especially with paradox situations." She shrugged. "Half your time at Torchwood'll be spent learning to actas if you know what you're doing even if you don't, and hoping that buys you enough time to get to the facts. I'm waffling. Sorry," she finished, with a weak smile.
Gwen hadn't been listening, anyway. She rattled her fingernails on the tabletop and then dragged her palm down her face.
"This has something to do with Jack," she said, placidly.
"You can't know that," said Owen. She ignored him.
"He knows more than he's lettin' on," Gwen insisted. "When I spoke to him earlier, he asked me when I was born. Bloody weird question, I thought at the time, but he knew, didn't he? He knew. Or at least he had an idea, which is more than we'vegot."
"How could he know this was going to happen?" asked Ianto.
"When I started here," said Gwen, distantly, "you all told me that none of you knew anything about his past. Where he's from, where he's been, nothing. He's hiding something important. Oh..." she gasped, sucking in air. "I don't know. I can't think straight any more."
"You're safe," said Ianto.
"For the moment," countered Gwen, with a short and bitter laugh.
"And we're going to keep it that way," he finished. "I trust Jack. Whether or not he's hiding something isn't relevant at the moment. Do you honestly believe he'd let someone hurt you?"
"Past tense, Ianto," snapped Gwen. "Someone hashurt me. I've been dead for almost thirty years, remember?"
Tosh swung around the table and sat down beside Gwen, taking her hands.
"Listen to me," she said, earnestly. "The fact that you haven't winked out of existence means that the situation's still in limbo. Right now, for whatever reason, you're free-floating outside of the timeline. That means things aren't resolved, and there's still something to be done. Yes?"
Gwen laughed again, this time managing to inject a trace of humour into the sound.
"Anyone seen The Terminator?" she asked, and heard Owen snort derisively. "Talk about life imitating art."
Tosh smiled brightly, squeezing Gwen's hands between her own, and was about to speak again when an alarm began to shriek from the console. Ianto jumped visibly and darted to the terminal, frowning at the readout.
"We've got a security breach," he said, urgently.
"Why don't you start at the beginning?" said Jack, straddling a chair and focusing on the woman in the bed.
She didn't look at him immediately, but when she did, her eyes were round, black and quite bottomless. The skin beneath her hairline was bruised; not badly so, but the marks stood out brazenly against a background of skin that was as white as calico.
"What happened to you?" Jack prompted. "Gwen?"
"We were attacked," she said, eventually, enunciating carefully, as if her words were consummately fragile. "I can't remember much about it. It all happened so fast..." She shook her head - tick-tock-tick- as if to clear it. "I remember a name. Argentus Doyle?"
Jack struggled to contain his reaction, knowing that it was far more important to get the facts out of their patient than to start panicking; and it disturbed him that, in spite of his every attempt, there wasindeed a little panic-rat gnawing at the lining of his stomach. He swallowed as much bile as he could and nodded encouragingly. She was speaking again.
"It was like being reincarnated," she said, slowly, "or something like it. There's nothing but confusion and pieces of memory...no," she corrected herself, "more like déjà vu. After that, I felt as if I was being suffocated in the dark. Crushed. Drowning. Couldn't breathe. All I could think of was you. I'm sorry I kissed you," she stuttered, and then lapsed into a morose silence.
Jack crossed to the bed, sat down close by her side and lifted her chin on his finger, adopting a soft smile.
"I don't care what else you apologise for, Gwen Cooper," he said, "but please don't apologise for that splendid kiss. Okay? Now, just try to remember what happened after the dark."
"Well," she said, "The first clear thing I remember is –"