A/N Hopefully this will fix the email addresses...
To: jackharkness[at]torchwood[dot]nongov[dot]uk
From: gwencooper[at]torchwood[dot]nongov[dot]uk
Date: 26th December, 2010
Re: Boxing Day
Dear Jack,
I thought the world was going to fall apart, and take me with it. You must know what happened, unless you are in the Himalayas or something. The whole world is talking about it. The Rift fucking exploded, Jack. How did we not know that was going to happen, with the Rift manipulator involved in the blast? And there's me just letting the workmen go on, not even thinking. So worried about the team not liking each other that I lost sight of what was really going on.
Do you remember last Christmas? I locked us in the Hub to avoid going to Rhys's parents. It was so soon it was after Tosh and Owen's deaths that it didn't feel right. It doesn't feel right this year either, but you and Ianto aren't here to get me drunk on whiskey sours, and make me play Truth-or-Dare wearing a cracker-hat. All in the spirit, you said. Owen would have loved it, Ianto agreed. Well, it's true enough, I guess. Waking up hungover on Boxing Day was a fair trade-off for the smile I saw you wearing when he slept in your arms. It was calm. Peaceful. Like we deserved it.
So what this year made me deserve this?
I'll tell you all about it, whether you want to hear it or not. You have to see what you left, Jack.
It started at Rhys's parents' Christmas party. Doesn't it always?
The chatter echoing around the room was making Gwen's head pound, even as she faked another laugh at something Barry Williams, Rhys's father, said. Rhys must have had his sense of humour embedded in him by an alien, she decided, because he certainly didn't get it from his parents. "So then the secretary," began the man again. Gwen nodded, searching around for Rhys. Go back to the Brady Bunch, she thought as her father-in-law gestured with his drink, nearly splashing her.
"Barry, please excuse me. I need to go speak to my husband," she said. She really hoped that they had been there long enough for her to say that she did not feel well, and be allowed to leave. Wasn't that how events with the in-laws were supposed to work whenever you were pregnant and therefore couldn't drink?
She touched the man's arm, lightly, and began to cross the parlour. As she did, another guest entered the room. Rhys's mother, poised near the buffet table for upmost visibility, cried, "Oh, Melinda, how wonderful to see you!"
Gwen turned her head at the call, instinctively, but when she saw the woman she stopped to stare. One of the waiters circulating the room rammed into her, and she was distracted for a moment by helping him steady himself. When she turned back, the woman had joined a group talking by the fireplace. No one was commenting on her wardrobe; at least, there weren't the titters that Gwen would expect to hear about this not being a fancy dress party. Surely she wasn't seeing things?
She blinked. Rubbed a hand over her eyes. No, that woman was definitely wearing a Victorian period dress, and not a soul was commented on it. Gwen shook her head, and continued over to Rhys. Maybe she had missed something; like that this was a loony aunt that no one talked about.
"Gwen, love, you all right?" Rhys smiled at her when she took his arm. He seemed a little unsteady as she watched him, and she sighed to herself. She'd be driving home, headache or no.
"Yeah, just a bit tired. Listen, Rhys. I need you to, in a bit, turn round and look at that woman standing behind us. No not now, wait a moment." She put a hand on his cheek, hoping that this combined with her undertone would distract the cousin whom Rhys had been speaking to. She kissed him, and then let go, turning to the cousin.
A few moments later, Rhys whispered in her ear, "I looked. What was I looking for?"
She licked her lips. He wasn't that pissed. "Did you notice anything odd, sweetheart? About her dress?"
"No, why? Wrong colour or something? You know me, Gwen. No eye for fashion."
"Right," Gwen said, trying to force a smile. So, was she the only one who saw it then? Her head began to throb. "Rhys? Could we go home soon, love?"
He had gotten back into the conversation with the cousin, and was gesturing widely to prove some point, with the arm that Gwen was not holding onto. He stopped mid-gesture and glanced down at her. "A bit, all right? We haven't been here that long."
She nodded, wincing, and let go of his arm. She wandered across the room in search of a chair and sat down, hoping to blend in with the woodwork. She took out her mobile as she did so. There were several messages from Martha, and Gwen wrinkled her nose as she looked at it.
More Weevils. Is all you get in this feckin' city Weevils?
Did you know that Lois is afraid of Weevils? Great trait, that.
Just because I'm Dr. Torchwood does not mean I'll be the Weevil master, a la Owen.
Gwen rested her head in her hand, pressing her palm firmly against her forehead. She knew that Martha resented the amount of Weevil chasing she had to do, but they were running rampant. And, now that Torchwood had just gotten holding facilities again, they had to control them. Lois was afraid of them, and there wasn't much that scared the girl, so Gwen granted her leeway. Andy was their police contact, so with the amount of alien garbage showing up at crime scenes, he was often elsewhere. So, Weevil hunting fell to Martha, and she wasn't pleased about it. She also got this way whenever Mickey was out of town; oftener than not, Gwen noted. They seemed really happy when he was there, and Martha was the perky girl who had once showed up to bring the aid of almighty UNIT to backwoods Torchwood; but, when he was gone she could be a right bitch.
Shame she had gotten so dependent on a man. Gwen didn't think her capable of that.
Then again one mightn't expect that of her either, she thought as she eyed Rhys, who was across the room sipping on another drink. As she watched, she was startled out of her thoughts by the Victorian-dressed woman crossing her path again. She was closer this time, and Gwen noted that her dress was a high-quality replication. She had just thought this when the pain in her head increased enough to cause a small yelp to escape her lips. One of the older women on a nearby sofa turned to look at her. She offered a tight smile, and turned to go back to Rhys, sliding her phone back into her handbag. It clicked against something, and she took a breath to steady herself. It was OK.
"Darling, can we go please?" she asked, taking his arm again.
"Is it work?" he demanded. She noted a vein that had enlarged in his forehead, one that often appeared when Torchwood interrupted their lives.
"No," she murmured, fighting to keep her teeth from gritting. The noise of the party pressed against her, threatening to engulf her with the pain it caused.
"Sure it isn't. It's always work, isn't it? And I know you're doing great things, Gwen, so don't bring that up. I just wish it would give us a break on Christmas."
"It's December 23rd," she snapped, louder than she'd meant to. "And I told you, it's not work. I'm not—I'm not well, all right?" She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus. His face was swimming a little before her, and she realized that the headache had brought tears to her eyes. It had been a long time since she had cried out of anything except frustration.
Rhys's face softened a little, and he leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Is it the baby?" he asked. She shook her head. "All right," he nodded. "We'll go."
"Thank you," she said.
"I'll get our coats," he said, squeezing her hand. She nodded, and pushed through the crowd to get the door, consciously avoiding looking at the woman's dress. Something was not right, but she did not know how to go about finding out what it was.
Outside, she demanded the keys as she let him slide her coat on for her.
"Sure you're all right to drive?" he asked, as he fished them out of his pocket.
"Sure you're not," she countered. He nodded, sheepishly, and she went around to the driver's seat. The cold air was clearing her head a little, which she was thankful for.
"I'm sorry I got angry in there," Rhys said as she started the car. "You know I'm proud of you, right?"
"Course I do," she said quickly. "It's fine."
Rhys nodded, and leaned over to kiss her cheek. A few minutes later he was asleep. He slept until they reached their house, and was again snoring before she had put on her pyjamas. She lay awake, resting her hand on her belly, trying to see what she was missing
In the bright sun of the morning, Gwen thought that whatever sleep she had gotten had made things better. Her head felt released from the vice-grip that had held it the night before, at least, and that was something to be grateful for. She left early in the morning, as usual, stopping at the nearest café to their headquarters for her clandestine cup of coffee. Rhys and Martha had both taken to lecturing her about caffeine intake, and she was being cautious, but she needed them to try being head of Torchwood without some stimulant.
She went into the warehouse a few minutes later, to be greeted by a displeased look on Martha's face. "You're going to coffee yourself into miscarriage, and your husband will blame me. 'You're around a doctor all the time!'" she said, in what was, admittedly, a very good impression of Rhys.
"I'm not," Gwen argued, tossing the empty cardboard cup into the trash. "I know I'm not, all right? I've a feeling."
Martha's scowl said what she thought of Gwen's feeling, but she did not continue harping, because Lois came in, interrupting them. "What are you-?" Martha began. Her eyes were so wide that Gwen turned to look at Lois. The headache that had dissipated reappeared. She wondered if it were possible for it to be caused by the bright colours in the pattern of Lois's clothes.
"What?" the receptionist said, taking her seat.
"Your clothes. They're right out of the sixties, and believe me, I've been there."
"Don't be daft," Lois said, clicking on her computer. "It's what I wear. Or is this something new you've found to take the mick about?"
"Gwen, I'm not seeing things? She is wearing something absolutely ridiculous?"
"It's a bit odd, yeah," Gwen said, looking down at her buzzing mobile. Emma. "ellHH
Hello?"
"Hi, Gwen! Is it still all right for me to come for the holidays?"
"Of course, Emma," she said, smiling with a little relief. She had invited the girl after she had called earlier in the month, not knowing whom else to turn to when her boyfriend had left her. She'd grown a lot, but was still a girl out of her time and mostly alone. "It'll be lovely to see you."
"Brilliant! Um… listen, Gwen, also, this might sound a bit mad but…"
Gwen's heart sank. "Spit it out, love."
"It's just, in the shop today I've seen a mess of clothes that weren't there before, and the thing is they all look like they could have come off the rack at Woolworth's, at home. I don't mean fifties chic, either. Fifties cheap, more like."
Gwen sank into her desk chair with a frown. "OK."
"Yeah. No one seems to know anything about it, but I thought you might. It can't all have come out of the Rift, could it?"
The immediate 'no' was stillborn on her lips. "I—I don't know, Emma. I'll see what I can find out. See you soon."
"See you," Emma echoed.
Gwen set the phone down, and turned on her computer. Searches for out-of-time clothing, or retro did not bring anything out of the ordinary up. She tried reenactment, and other ideas that might have caused an upswing in older-looking clothes, but again nothing. Yet, she noticed that many sidebar advertisements had pictures of women and men dressed in fashions that had not seen the light of day in decades.
"Hey, Martha have you-?"
Her question was cut off by the sound of two phones ringing at once. Her mobile, and Lois's landline. She listened, trying to keep one ear open when she heard a gasp come from across the room. "Cooper."
"Gwen, you need to get over here. I stopped by the site this morning, for a look. There's something wrong."
"Please, please tell me they've just hit another water main, Andy."
"I wish," he said. "Come as soon as you can."
She hung up without a sign-off, because Lois had come over to her desk, white-faced. "Gwen? The hospital needs Martha. They said the computers told them to call Torchwood."
"Hospitals? Plural?" Lois nodded, and Gwen sucked in a long breath through her teeth. "Right then. Have her go, and report back to me."
Martha was across the room, on the phone. Gwen stood, handbag in hand, about to go out to see what Andy had seen, but Martha put a hand out to stop her. Gwen tapped the toe of her boot impatiently, but waited for Martha to finish. "Andy's got a situation at the building site. God knows what they've brought up."
"Yeah, well tell the Bobby to take a moment to cool his heels," Martha said. "We've got worse problems. They're reporting smallpox and bubonic plague over there."
"Oh my God."
"Yeah," Martha said, walking over to their small medical bay to go through the supplies she'd ordered for it a month ago. "And the thing is, they don't seem to notice that anything's wrong. The computers told them to call Torchwood, so they did. No doubt Tosh and Owen programmed that in?"
"Yeah," Gwen murmured. "After the last time the Rift…" Suddenly, she knew. She turned and ran for the door of the warehouse.
"The last time the Rift what, Gwen?" Martha called after her. "What's going on?"
Gwen heard her, but she couldn't respond. Blood was pounding in her ears, and her body had gone colder than the air outside could have caused. She ran through the bay, though usually for this trip she took the car. She did not have the mental capacity to think about parking, or driving for that matter.
She reached the building site sooner than she expected, the time taken up by her mind's reeling. There was no telltale glowing light, no strange creatures climbing out of the chasm, demanding blood. Instead there were ancient looking crane trucks, and a dump truck that could have come out of a nineteen-forties children's book. Andy stood on the edge of it all, talking to a man who was so old that his back was doubled over.
"Andy, what is it?" she asked, coming over to him. She found that she was gasping for breath, though she barely remembered running.
"This man says he was one of the workmen," Andy said. His eyebrows raised at her, and she knew he didn't believe the man. Andy's ability to suspend disbelief still needed work. "Says he was at the edge of it when all the others suddenly began to age."
"They died before my eyes! Hundreds of years aging, then poof!" the man wheezed. He reached out a hand, and grabbed her arm tightly. "Dust they was! Dust in front of me!"
Gwen crouched, with a soft grown at the pain that had moved to her back as well. "Sir, I am so sorry. We're going to find out what happened, all right? But sir, I need you to answer a question for me, all right? Is there anything odd about your equipment?"
"Gwen, what-?"
She waved a hand behind her to hush Andy.
"Our what? The equipment? No miss, nothing amiss with that. It's the men I'm talking to you about! And me! What'll my missus say? And my men's families? What do I say?"
Gwen stepped back, pulling her arm from him. She did not know what to say to him. This was something that the amnesia pill could not fix. "Andy-."
She was interrupted by her mobile, again. This was going to be one of those days when she wanted to chuck the thing in the bay. "Cooper."
"Gwen, there's been a Weevil attack near the uni," Lois said. Her voice wavered a little, and Gwen knew how alone the girl must feel in the base by herself. "Martha's just left for the hospital and-."
"Andy, go pick up Lois and get to the uni. Weevil," Gwen shot at him. He made a face. She gave him her best stern look. They were going to have to cure Lois of this Weevil thing. The old man was watching them, wide-eyed. Andy jogged off towards his car, and Gwen hung up with a sigh. There never seemed to be Weevil attacks on top of huge crises when Jack was there. To make matters worse, she was the only one who seemed to realize how huge the crisis was.
"Sir, I'm very sorry, but I've got to go," she said. She gave the man's arm one last squeeze before heading back towards the warehouse. They should have spent more time with him, helped him explain things to his wife, but there were bigger things to deal with. Sometimes, she wished she had a person who would be to her what she had been to Jack. The one who made sure that these little things got done. She tried her best, but there were moments like this where there just simply wasn't time.
No. she told herself. Andy'll have the man's details. You'll get him to take care of this. The thought was reassuring, but she knew there was a slim likelihood of follow-through.
The run felt much, much longer this time. When she knew what she had to do when she got there, it felt as though she would never arrive. Finally she did, bursting through the doors into the empty space. Her breath caught, almost choking her, when she saw the wooden desks that had replaced their modern furniture. She hurried to the one that was in the place of her own, and began the search through the archives.
She found what she needed. When you had to control a major rift in time and space, there was no benefit in hiding the plans for the machine that did so. The trouble was, Gwen admitted as she read through them, that a Rift manipulator was necessarily an incredibly complicated device. She was only halfway through the necessary materials when her mobile buzzed yet again. If only ignoring it was an option.
"Hello?"
"Gwen, what is going on? No one here seems to realize that polio is vaccinated against! And you should see the nurses' uniforms."
Gwen swallowed. "The workmen hit the Rift manipulator, or exacerbated the damage that it had already attained."
"Shit. What are we going to do?"
"I'm working on it. I've got the plans, I just need to figure out-."
"There isn't time, Gwen. People are dying. We need to do something now."
"I know I—hold on, it's Andy."
"Gwen? Are you sure there was a Weevil in the forest?"
"The forest? No, Andy, it's at the university." She kept scrolling through the plans, hoping to see something that would reveal a clue as to how she could fix this.
She definitely did not expect laughter as a response to her correction. "Gwen, don't be daft. There's no uni in Cardiff! The idea. Are you all right?"
At that moment, her eye came upon the name of a metal she had never even heard of, and she let the phone fall away from her ear. "No," she murmured, as she it clicked shut. "I'm not."
She slid out of her chair, resting her arms on her knees and letting her head fall to the floor. It was throbbing, and her vision was blurry. This was too much. She was supposed to be able to fix things, to solve the problems. This was her job. She was supposed to know what to do in a crisis, or at least how to wing it. Other people clearly expected her to, judging by her mobile, which kept buzzing. Their voices echoed in her head: Martha demanding answers in her superior tone. She didn't try to use it, but the implication of "I've seen this all before, and you haven't" were clear. Andy's confused tone that met her with every new alien she mentioned, and loyal Lois who was afraid of the teeth of a Weevil.
The noise kept going, unceasing, until it was joined by another, a more unearthly one. Was that the world falling apart? She found that she didn't care much. The world was ending, and Martha worried that her caffeine consumption would hurt her baby. Petty, when there were so many worse things out there.
"Hello, Gwen Cooper."
Her head snapped up, and she pulled her gun out of its holster. Then she shrieked at the face that was level with hers. She had not noticed his footsteps as she sat there. "Who are you?" she demanded, pressing the gun to his large forehead.
"Loaded question," he said. "People call me a lot of things, but I'm the Doctor."
"I've seen the Doctor. You're not him," she said, remembering the wide-eyed man who had been on the monitor while Jack was off saving the world, yet again.
"Ah, yeah," the man said, rubbing his chin. "Did Jack not mention that part? Bit of a change every now and then. He's seen it, seen different 'mes'. I suppose you could say I've seen different 'hims' too. "
Gwen didn't voice the fact that she would give anything to see any form of Jack right then, she just shrugged. "Jack didn't say a lot of things. Why are you here?"
"Well, I was dropping some friends of mine round their place for the holidays, and I thought I'd fuel up. Hadn't realized how much of a mess the place was in, but the rift spikes were astronomical, so I thought I'd check it out."
"Thought you'd come see the mess we'd gotten ourselves in, now, did you?" she demanded. "Now that we've gotten ourselves in too deeply to fix?"
He seemed genuinely taken aback at the hostility in her voice, and he tilted his head with a frown. She wondered if he knew about the 456. The possibility that he did not made her lower the gun, but not all the way.
"Aw, now, don't say that! You can fix it. I can help."
Gwen snorted. She had lost whatever faith she may have had in this Doctor, long ago. "I don't know how to build a Rift manipulator, and it could take years, couldn't it? I don't think we've got hours." Her mobile buzzed again. "And they won't leave me alone long enough to figure it out. All I can think is, Jack was always prepared for the worst. Wouldn't he have stowed away parts for a rift manipulator, oh I dunno, away from the thing itself? But he never went anywhere else in Cardiff, did he?"
"Well, first things first," he said, taking her mobile from her hands, and shutting it off. "They have to trust you. They'll learn to do that by seeing that you know what you're doing."
"I don't!" she insisted, tears welling in her eyes. "I don't know what I'm doing!"
"Oh, Gwen Cooper," he soothed, putting his long-fingered hands on her arms. "Sure you do. Come on. Where would Jack have put spare parts?"
"Are they in your ship?" she asked, hopefully. That would be the easiest thing, and would make sense. He could always know that they'd end up back at the Rift at some point. The man shook his head. "Well, then I don't know." He frowned, touching his forehead to hers. It was a comforting gesture, and nothing more. This wasn't Jack, with whom every move was tinged with the sexual. This man was soothing; he was there to help her think.
"Alice," she said.
He grinned. "Good thinking. Who's Alice?"
"Jack's daughter. He didn't tell you either?"
"Well, he didn't name names as such, but I know who she is," he exclaimed, pulling Gwen to her feet. "Not a lot I don't know."
"So you know what's going on here?" she demanded, following him outside. The street was now lined with buildings out of a Dickensian novel. If it had been a different situation, she might have worried about the creaking wooden sign that said "Torchwood" over their door.
"More or less. I imagine the open Rift has allowed more than just things to come through. Concepts and ideas, I imagine, which have taken root in the conscious. Those who've traveled through it, or through time, are immune because they've different body chemistry."
He had led her to a bright blue police callbox, and she followed him in, acting on the faith of Martha and Jack's stories. If this wasn't the Doctor at all, and just some mad man with a box, it couldn't make the situation any worse than it was.
"But I haven't traveled through time," she protested, stepping through the door.
"Bigger on the inside," he said in response, as they entered the huge chamber. Lights flashed at her, and bits of machinery clicked as they passed by them. Everywhere she turned there were staircases that led to who-knows-where. It occurred to her that Jack had once known this place, gone up those staircases. That was another part of him she could never know.
Was she now a part of him someone else would never know?
"Yeah I know. I work with Martha, you know," she said to respond to The Doctor, and keep her mind away from Jack. He nodded as she followed him into a control room. The odds and ends that were attached to the console he began dancing around would have been fascinating if she had not been so distracted. Though, even in her worried state, she did wonder what the typewriter was for.
"Ah yes. Lovely girl. Great archer."
"She can be great, sometimes."
He did not seem to hear this, and she shrugged, standing back against the wall. "Hold on!" he pushed several buttons, and they began moving. She stumbled, and put a hand to her belly protectively. "This will get us there faster than a car, especially if it's been replaced by a horse-and-cart." He turned to her and grinned cockily, arms crossed. "Anyway, as to you, what's in your handbag?"
"Nothing," she lied, straightening up with one hand on the wall for support.
"Try again," he said, shooting her a glance with eyes that looked as though they belonged to the ages. The look so reminded her of Jack that her throat constricted. With shaking hands, she reached into her handbag and pulled out the damaged wrist-strap. The Doctor nodded. "There you go then. It's made you immune."
She turned the weathered leather strap over in her hands. The buttons were useless now; she had tried pressing them in the hopes that they would work. No one currently working for Torchwood would recognize it, she thought, and at the least the power it gave to open doors might make her feel close to Jack. Like she had some sort of claim to the title of leader of Torchwood. Instead, she was pathetically carrying the broken thing around with her. It seemed to mock her, now. It was such a tiny gadget in the face of the Doctor's technology, and she knew it should not mean as much to her as it did.
"He left," she whispered, fingering the frayed edge of the leather.
"I know."
"Will he come back?" She raised her eyes hopefully to the man, who was carefully watching a monitor, and avoiding her gaze. The vibrations of their journey ceased. For what seemed like far too long the silence continued, then the Doctor strode over and put his hand on her shoulder, crouching slightly to meet her eyes. "I can't tell you that."
"Because you don't know, or because you don't want to tell me?" She was almost afraid of the answer. The change in his demeanour from playful to serious made her think that she wouldn't like it.
He gave a small smile. "I can't tell you that, either. Come on then, let's go!" he bounded off, certain that she would follow
She decided to take his ambiguity as reassurance of what she knew rather than as hope. Jack would not be back; she had to think that, and stop holding back in the wishes that he would come save the day. It was now her job.
"Oh, and for the record," the Doctor said, standing at the door. "Don't think you can't do this, just because I'm here now. I started this whole Rift thing, so I'm a bit tied to it. You'd have figured it out without me, too."
She wasn't sure she believed him, but now was not the time to dwell on it; it was the time to take action. They had landed on a suburban street, and though the out-of-time houses around them made her headache return. The Doctor nodded towards the house directly across from them, and she made a beeline for it. The only sound was the click of the heels of her boots as she mounted the steps. She paused at the top for a second, and then rapped on the door.
Her eyes were so like his. "Alice?" she said.
The woman crossed her arms, and nodded warily. She did not seem to recognize Gwen, which was to be expected. Gwen had been at the back of the chapel during Steven's funeral, an emissary of sorts for Jack. He had come, but was more broken than she had ever seen him, and would not get out of the car. So Gwen lingered in the back so that she could tell Jack that it was lovely, and Alice had someone sitting with her, holding her hand.
In actuality, the woman with her had been Steven's teacher, and the gossips nearby said they barely knew one another. The news had allowed Jack to eat, at least, so Gwen kept the secret.
Now, she spoke to the woman whom she had last seen hunched over on a pew. "I'm Gwen Cooper. I worked with your father."
"I don't have one of those, try the next house down." She put both hands on the door and shoved.
Gwen slid her foot in the crack, wincing as the door hit it. "Please listen to me. Cardiff's in danger; the world's in danger. I just need something that he might have left here. A bag of materials, or something?" She bit her lip, suddenly wondering if this was quite the long-shot. Jack could have hidden it all under Cardiff Castle for all that she knew.
The woman's eyes narrowed. Gwen took this as a positive sign, and raised her chin determinedly. Alice gave her a long, surveying glance during which Gwen noticed her eyes lingering on the bulge of the baby.
"Please," Gwen added. "If there's anything, please give it to me. Then, I'll be gone, and you'll not be bothered with us again."
Their eyes met, and Gwen tried not to wince at the amount of pain there were in Alice's. The other woman blinked first, and then stepped back into the shadow of the foyer. "Stay there." She returned a moment later with a large bag. "Here," she snapped, thrusting the military bag into Gwen's arms.
Gwen stepped back to find the Doctor immediately behind her. He didn't seem to make noise when he walked, this one.
"No heavy lifting for you," he said, grabbing the bag.
She rolled her eyes, and turned back to Alice who was still watching them. "Thank you," she said. "You've no idea how much this means."
Alice was not listening to her words, though. Her harsh gaze had moved to The Doctor, and the police box parked across the street. "The man in the blue box," she said, almost to herself. "He used to tell me stories about you. The one better at saving the world than even Torchwood."
"I don't know about that," The Doctor said. "We do things differently, that's the main difference."
"Yes, well. You wouldn't have killed a little boy to do it."
The Doctor's brow furrowed. "People have died," he said, and then slung the bag over his shoulder, motioning for Gwen to follow. As she nodded to him, the door to the house shut with an echoing click.
"Cheer up," he told her, as they crossed the road. "This feels like a fully assembled gadget. Well, device. Gadget was another thing."
"Another woman devastated by Jack Harkness," Gwen murmured, ignoring his cryptic statement as they went back to the Doctor's ship. She imagined one quite often needed to ignore his cryptic speech, just like with Jack.
He put down the bag inside. "Yes," he agreed. She was surprised, having expected him to defend Jack. "But when you live so long, it's hard not to hurt people. A lifetime means different things."
She thought about that as they travelled once more. Jack had been in Cardiff longer than most lifetimes. Did that mean his time had come to find a new one? She hoped not. He had left too many open lifetimes to decide to close his.
But hadn't she decided not to hope he came back? She shook her head at herself, and grabbed onto an overhanging piece of metal as the ship jerked into motion once more.
When they landed again, she stepped outside to find herself in the middle of the crater where the hub had been. The excavation had cleared out the rubble from most of what had once been the hub, and there was scaffolding up for the rebuilding. She hadn't wanted to see this, with the walls of the old hub still visible in some places. She tried to focus her attention on the torn-up piece of machinery in front of her. "Let's fix this," she said, crouching in front of it with some difficulty.
The doctor nodded, his hair flopping as she did.
Together, though with him doing most of the work with his glowing metal rod (he called it a screwdriver, but she wanted to see another screwdriver that glowed green), they installed the new device over the old. It fit in nicely, once the broken parts were cleared out, but she could not let out the breath she was holding lest a misplaced piece of metal open the Rift. A hungry alien appearing on the spot she did not want. When it finally seemed like they had succeeded, the Doctor stood back once it was installed, letting her examine it.
"So, to tighten the hold again it's…" she trailed off, staring at the buttons that resembled almost exactly the ones on the old device that Jack never let her touch. In organizing the new Torchwood she head read all the manuals, and she was supposed to know this. The Doctor nodded at her, and she took a deep breath before beginning.
There was a loud metallic noise, and a bright light that made Gwen turn away. Then, nothing except the rhythmically flashing lights that it always emitted. "Did it work?" she asked.
"Let's go see." He offered a hand and pulled her up, keeping hold of it as he led her inside the police box.
"I always thought you did a lot of running," she said as they traveled once more.
He grinned, and pulled a lever. "Well, I do. But running and climbing would be endangering something more than you and me," he said with a smile, nodding at her belly. She smiled, resting a hand on the bulge. Her wedding ring sparkled up at her, and with a twinge of guilt she realized that she had not told Rhys about the Rift opening. There hadn't been time. A flutter against her belly distracted her from this once more. The baby had begun to kick.
"Take care of that. I know it doesn't feel like a fair trade yet, for all the loss."
She glanced up sharply, letting her wrist fall. "How did you-?"
There was a jostle, and she knew they had landed again. Her eagerness to see what had changed won over her desire to know what this man knew, and she darted out onto the street. Everything looked as it had done the day before. Night was falling, causing her to realize how much time had passed while they worked, but the buildings were all as they should be in 2010.
"We did it!" she exclaimed, jumping in the air. Excitement flooded her in a way that she had not felt in ages. There had not been much rush of a job well done in the past few months; endings had always come with new beginnings.
"You did it, Gwen Cooper," the doctor said, leaning against his ship. "You're brilliant. She's brilliant. You listen to her," he added, to someone standing in front of them. Gwen turned. Martha had come up to the street, her white coat over her arm. "She knows more about this job then even you, Martha."
Martha nodded, but went into the building without a word. Gwen turned back to the man and impulsively kissed his cheek. "Thank you," she said.
He grinned, tweaked her nose, and then went inside the box. She took a minute to consider the fact that her nose had been tweaked by someone who looked younger than she was.
Inside, Martha was tossing files into her bag. "Gotta go," she said. "Mick's surprised me; he's home for Christmas. You got it all sorted? The plague victims just disappeared."
"Yeah it's done. Martha didn't you want to say-?"
"Not to him. He's not my Doctor. It's hard to explain. I-." Martha bit her lip, and shrugged.
As happened in Torchwood, she was interrupted by Gwen's mobile. "Rhys, I'm so sorry."
"Gwen, guess what? I'm here with your fake cousin, and she says to get your arse up here before we have all the party without you."
She heard Emma's musical laughter in the background, and the knot in her throat loosened. Things were all right, at least for now. "You bloody well better not," she said. "I'm on my way. And Rhys?"
"Aye?"
"I love you."
"I love you too."
She clicked off the phone, and grabbed her handbag. She rested her hand on the wrist-strap, thinking about putting it down on her desk. Then she remembered that it had protected her, and allowed her to see the truth. She left it there, just in case. Then she ran off into the clear, Christmas night.
I see why you love the Doctor, Jack. He kept saying I could have done that on my own, and maybe I could have. I don't know. What I do know is that I will be able to from now on. Tomorrow we're all going to have a chat about what it means to be a team, to have duties and to realize what we're fighting for. I'm going to stop believing that it will all be better once we get a Hub. We have to be working well before then, after all.
You made it look so easy, but you did not know what to do all the time either did you? Did you ever curl up in a ball on your office floor, sure that the world would end? You did the equivalent. You're doing it now. Maybe I'll do it again, but I am going to fight like hell not to want to. That's what we do here, Jack, we fight like hell. We face our fears, and we know each other well enough to know that the Rift manipulator is at our estranged daughter's house, or whatever.
That's Torchwood. The bunch of ragamuffins I have chasing after Weevils is not. But it will be, if I have anything to do with it.
You can bet on that.
I miss you,
Gwen
To: [at]torchwood[dot]nongov[dot]uk
From: [at]torchwood[dot]nongov[dot]uk
Date: 26th, December 2010
RE: re: Boxing Day
And I will light a candle for you.
To shatter all the darkness and bless the times we knew. Like a beacon in the night.
The flame will burn bright
and guide us on our way.
Oh, today I light a candle for you.
The seasons come and go,
And I'm weary of the change.
I keep moving on,
you know it's not the same.
And when I'm walking all alone,
Do you hear me call your name?
Do you her me sing the songs we used to sing?
You filled my life with wonder,
Touched me with surprise,
I always saw that something special deep within Your eyes.
And through the good times and the bad,
We carried on with pride.
I hold onto the love and life we knew.
~Paul Alexander