Everything Changes - Memory Retcon

Gwen downs a pint rather rapidly, after all she's seen from the group of Torchwood. She may as well get as drunk as she wants to.

"The thing is, I just don't understand..." Gwen tries to portray her sentence.

"I tell you what I don't understand. You're gonna rattle on with that how can this be true, kind of shtick. What's it gonna take for you people? If you want evidence of aliens, how about that great spaceship hovering over London on Christmas Day? What about the battle of Canary Wharf? A Cyberman in every home?" Jack says to her about his idea that people aren't looking for quite the obvious chances of alien evidence as he references both The Christmas Invasion and Army Of Ghosts in his power.

"My boyfriend says it's like a sort of terrorism. Like they put drugs in the water supplies. Psychotropic drugs, causing mass hallucinations and stuff." Gwen blames it on her boyfriend's excuses of pyschotropic drugs.

"Yeah, well your boyfriend's stupid." Jack comments about her boyfriend, Rhys (his name unknown) being stupid because Gwen is blaming the alien encounters on Rhys's drugs getting everyone to mass hallucinations.

"Oh, you've met him?" Gwen asks if Jack has ever met Rhys to call him stupid as Jack laughs. Then there is an uneasy pause because of Gwen's question, "So, you catch aliens?"

"Yep." Jack agrees on Gwen's question of he catches aliens, "We catch aliens for a living."

"Caught any good aliens?" Gwen asks if the Torchwood team have caught any good aliens.

"Tons of them." Jack describes about the amount of aliens that the team have got.

"This is so weird. And who are you, then?" Gwen says about it being weird and asks about who Jack really is.

"Captain Jack Harkness." Jack names himself with his complete title.

"I did some research and there's only one Captain Jack Harkness on record. And he disappeared in 1941." Gwen gathers about being one Captain Jack Harkness who disappeared in January 1941 at the height of the Blitz in the Second World War, Jack is saying nothing for that.

"Well, that couldn't be me, could it? We don't just catch aliens. We scavenge the stuff they leave behind. Find ways of using it. Arming the human race for the future. The twenty first century's when it all changes, and you gotta be ready." Jack explains how they catch aliens, scavange their objects as he tells her that the twenty first century is where it changes and everyone has to be ready for it.

"But who's in charge of you? Is it the government or what?" Gwen asks who is in charge of Torchwood.

"We're separate from the government, outside the police, beyond the United Nations. Cos if one power got hold of this stuff, they could use it for their own purposes." Jack describes about the group of Torchwood being separated from the goverment, national police and beyond the United Nations and mentions that if either one of the sides had the equipment, the whole world will be changed because of it.

"But so could you." Gwen disagrees with Jack.

"All alien technology stays on the base. No one's allowed to take anything outside." Jack states to Gwen except how Tosh is taking an inscribed gizmo from her handbag, Owen has a glowing phial in his bathroom cabinet, Sophia has some tools and compartments for her sonic screwdriver and Suzie is still carrying around the Resurrection Gauntlet.

"So go on, then. How the hell did you end up in Cardiff?" Gwen asks about why the location of Cardiff was chosen for Torchwood Three.

"This is Torchwood Three. Torchwood One was London, destroyed in the battle. Torchwood Two is an office in Glasgow. A very strange man. Torchwood three, Cardiff. Torchwood Four's kinda gone missing, but we'll find it one day." Jack says as the Torchwood team they are on it is the destoryed one in Doomsday, third one in Cardiff, the second one is in Scotland and the fourth has suddenly gone missing.

"So you just fancied Cardiff?" Gwen asks if he just fancied Cardiff on a whim of his knowlodge.

"There's a rift in space and time running right through the city. The Weevils didn't come in a spaceship. They kinda just slip through. All sorts of things get washed up here. Creatures, timeshifts, space junk, debris. Flotsam and jetsam." Jack explains about the rift near the Millieninum Centre.

"Sounds like Cardiff, yeah." Gwen jokes about Jack's explaination of the rift.

"Hey, hey, hey. Don't knock it. I'm a citizen." Jack reminds her.

"But where are you from?" Gwen inquires on where Jack really is from.

"All sorts of places." Jack gathers to Gwen.

"Thing is, we could liaise on this. The serial killer. I could be like your liaison with the police." Gwen figures out a plan that Jack (Torchwood) and Gwen (The national Police department) could team up on.

"Right, I can see the mistake. You think because we showed up at the scene of crime, we're out to catch the killer. Sorry. Nothing to do with us." Jack declines her offer to work with the police.

"Then what were you doing there?" Gwen asks Jack, propely.

"Testing the glove. We need murder victims, simple as that. The glove only works on the recently deceased, and the more violent the trauma, the stronger the resurrection. All we need is fresh meat." Jack describes about them using fresh bodies as subjects for the Ressurection Glove.

"No, you were asking that man, John Tucker. I saw you. You were asking him about his killer." Gwen corrects him on how the team was asking about the subject's name.

"He'd just been murdered, what else are you gonna ask?" Jack corresponds her anwser.

"You could get an ID. You could help." Gwen tells him another way.

"We're busy." Jack disagees with Gwen.

"And your work is more important?" Gwen inquires about his work being more important.

"Now you got it." Jack agrees on that statement.

"Well, that's tough shit. Cos if you let me go, then I have a duty. I can tell them what you've got, cos that glove could help us." Gwen warns him about that she can steal the glove and use it for her good use of the police.

"If you remember." Jack teases to Gwen, smiling at himself.

"What do you mean?" Gwen asks what Jack is teasing.

"How's your drink?" Jack asks about Gwen's drink she's been drinking.

"Have you poisoned me?" Gwen asks Jack, so dramatically.

"Don't be so dramatic. It's an amnesia pill. My own recipe, with a touch of denial and a dash of Retcon. Wake up tomorrow morning, you'll have forgotten everything about Torchwood. Worse still, you'll have forgotten me, which is kind of tragic." Jack explains about the Retcon drug as Gwen leaves, quickly.

-!-

"Don't think you can fight it by staying awake. I mixed in a little bit of sedative too." Jack explains about Gwen trying to fight it by staying awake but he mixed in some sedative to warm the drink up for her.

"Then I'll tell someone." Gwen warns Jack, who really doesn't care.

"Do you want to do that? Do you really want us to come and find them too?" Jack asks about if Gwen wants to let anyone find Torchwood.

"You bastard." Gwen swears at him after saying all of that stuff.

"Language! Nice knowing you, Gwen Cooper." Jack warns her of Gwen's language after greeting her goodbye as Gwen runs home and starts typing up what she knows about Jack and Torchwood. Meanwhile, Gwen is still trying to keep her eyes open whilst typing, and Tosh is using her gizmo to scan her copy of Tale of Two Cities without opening it and transfer the contents to her home computer. Suzie uses the Gauntlet to bring a dead fly back to life and Sophia is testing out her sonic screwdriver onto something unknown.

-!-

Gwen is starting to fall asleep at the keyboard. At Torchwood, Ianto hacks into her computer and deletes what she has written, powering off the machine.

Next morning, Jack is surveying Cardiff from a precarious perch on the tallest building available. Rhys wakes Gwen, who is still in front of the computer, with a kiss and a mug of steaming liquid.

"Did you get pissed?" Rhys asks if Gwen got drunk the other night.

"No. What time is it?" Gwen asks about the time that it is.

"Seven thirty. You said you were working last night." Rhys says about the time and that she was working the previous night.

"I was." Gwen recalls.

"Then how come you fell asleep in here?" Rhys asks about how come that Gwen fell asleep.

"I haven't. I was typing. That is work." Gwen says that she WAS typing and it is work for herself.

"I'm not having a go, I'm just saying. Not exactly clever going out on the lash when you've just had a bang on the head. I hope you didn't drive in that state. Who were you with? Diane?" Rhys says that it really isn't clever going out with a bang on the head and asks who she was with.

"Must've been, yeah." Gwen mumbles.

-!-

"Have any luck?" Yvonne asks Gwen had any look with the person she was looking for.

"With what?" Gwen inquires to Yvonne.

"Captain Jack Harkness." Yvonne says to Gwen.

"How do you mean? Who's he?" Gwen asks who Captain Jack Harkness.

"Oh well, don't worry about me. Just go ahead, wasting my time." Yvonne dissapoints on Gwen.

-!-

Gwen files some papers.

"Aye, aye. Come to see where the real work's done?" The CID officer asks Gwen to come see where the real work is.

"Yes, sir. That's right, sir. How's it going?" Gwen asks how the officer is.

"Sod all." The CID officer complains as there is a drawing of a weird looking weapon on the incident board. A primary curved blade at the front with two smaller ones sweeping back at 90 degrees.

"Is that the murder weapon?" Gwen asks about the drawing of the weapon.

"Clever, mind. They worked it all out on a computer. Took measurements from the stab wounds, calculated the shape of the blade and stuff. Even those prongs. I don't know how they do it. Nasty-looking beast, though. Do you recognise it?" The CID officer tells her about how they found the concept of the weapon and asks her if she's seeen the weapon.

"No." Gwen declines.

"We're trying to trace it. Can't be that many of them. Sort of ornamental. We're checking the CDE logs with customs in case it's been imported. Find the knife, and we might find the killer. Anyway, if it rings any bells, give's a shout."

"Yeah. Thanks." Gwen agrees.

-!-

Andy and Gwen are having a meal break. Gwen is not listening to Andy's story, but thinking about that strange weapon.

"I said to Geoff, it's not demotion being put in goal, it's vital, but was he having any of it? He's off and moaning, says, who books the ground, who pays the subs? They're ganging up on him every time he says something. And all the time he's wheezing away, he's getting more and more heated, and I'm like, Geoff, you're proving my point mate..."

-!-

Her obsession continues while Rhys is serving up dinner.

"You never come down, you're in charge of transport. I said, Mam, I can't go hopping on a truck. All that Christmas stuff, all over again. I was like, for God's sake, leave it..."

Gwen is still awake after 2am. She gets up and sketches the murder weapon on the back of an envelope. She knows she has seen it before, but cannot remember where. Then she sees the word Remember written on a Wales Millennium Centre brochure.

-!-

Gwen sees another figure walking by the Water Tower. Now she remembers - the murder weapon was what Suzie was welding when she first visited Torchwood.

"Hello again. You were right. You told Jack we should liaise with the police. I was the only one who bothered. So I was the only one who saw the report." Suzie explains to Gwen about some of the choices that Gwen said to Jack in the bar as she takes the weapon out of her bag, "They got a good likeness."

"I'm arresting you for. How do I know you?" Gwen tries to arrest Suzie but asks if she knows Suzie at all.

"I thought you might have seen it. And that can trip the amnesia, just one specific image, if you're clever. He said you were good. Anyway. It's not much good now, I can't really. But you're gonna put up a fight. So I've got..." Suzie explains about the weapon maybe tripping the amnesia as she puts the weapon back in her bag and starts rummaging, "Er, hold on. Sorry."

As she brings out a conventional hand gun.

"There. That's better." Suzie comments.

"Put it down." Gwen warns Suzie.

"You had to come back." Suzie tells Gwen.

"Put down the gun." Gwen tries to order Suzie.

"You're the only one who can make the link. Well, the only one in public. Torchwood's going to find out by morning, but I'll be gone. I don't know where. Far away. What am I going to do? I loved this job. I really loved it. And now I've got to run. Oh, Christ. How can you do any other job after this one?" Suzie tells Gwen about her plan to leave away from Torchwood.

"Please, put down the gun." Gwen repeats her words.

"Cos it gets inside you. You do this job for long enough, and you end up thinking, how come we get all the Weevils and bollocks and shit? Is that what alien life is? Filth? But maybe there's better stuff out there, brilliant stuff, beautiful stuff. Just they don't come here. This planet's so dirty, that's all we get. The shit." Suzie rambles about all of the things that she ends up doing.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Gwen tells Suzie that she really doesn't know what Suzie is yapping on about.

"I wish I could forget." Suzie says.

"Why did you kill those people?" Gwen asks about why she killed the people.

"For the glove. Just stay where you are. I needed the bodies. That's how it works, violent death. And it was so easy. To bring them back, I'd position myself behind the head, so they'd never see me twice." Suzie explains the anwser is for the glove and how she killed the people.

"You killed three people." Gwen numbers the people that Suzie killed.

"It was the only way. The more I use the glove, the more I control it." Suzie says it is the only way the glove can be used.

"I don't understand. What glove? Where have I seen you before?" Gwen doesn't understand and asks what glove and where she has seen Suzie before.

"If I can get enough practice, then think what the glove could do. If I could get it work all the time, on anything, beyond the two minutes, if it could work permanently, it could resurrect. Resurrection on demand for the whole world, isn't that good? Isn't it, though? Well, that's what I've been working for, all day and all night. The rest of them go swanning about, but I'm working." Suzie talks about all of the members of the team and Jack has come up on the 'invisible lift' in between them, "You've got to get inside this stuff. Surrender yourself to it. I did, with the knife and the glove, and that's why the perception filter isn't gonna work on me."

Suzie shoots Jack in the head.

"What? Who is he? Where did he come from? What have you done?" Gwen asks about all these questions before Suzie aims the gun at Gwen.

"Please don't." Gwen asks Suzie not to shoot her.

"I can't let you go." Suzie warns Gwen.

"Please." Gwen asks Suzie.

"I've got to." Suzie reminds her before Gwen starts crying. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've got to. I've got to. I've got to."

Jack stands up behind Suzie. The hole is still in his forehead.

"Put down the gun." Jack warns Suzie as she turns, and the hole heals up, "Suzie, it's over. Now come with me."

Suzie looks from Jack to Gwen, then puts the gun under her chin and pulls the trigger.

"I remember. I remember..." Gwen remarks.

Down in Torchwood, Jack locks the Resurrection Gauntlet away securely. Tosh and Owen hand over the artefacts they had been using. Jack seals Suzie's body into a bag and puts it into a niche in a rather large Victorian cryochamber.

-!-

"Sophia, Owen and Toshiko, you didn't tell them that you were shot in the head and survived." Gwen says to Jack.

"You didn't tell them either. Followed my lead. Keep doing that, and you might just get through this." Jack tells her.

"But she killed you."

"I can't die."

"Okay."

"But I can't. Something happened to me a while back. Long story and far away. But I was killed, and then I was brought back to life. And ever since then, I can't die." Jack explains that he is immortal.

"But how?" Gwen asks how he's immortal.

"I don't know. One day I'll find a doctor, the right sort of doctor, and maybe he can explain it, but until then..." Jack tries to explain it to her.

"Nothing kills you?" Gwen asks if anything kills him.

"Well, it kind of freaks people out, so, best if you don't say anything." Jack comments about it as a joke.

"It doesn't matter anyway. You'll only wipe my memory again." Gwen figures out what Jack's going to do again.

"Why would I do that? Torchwood's got a vacancy. Job going spare. Do you want it?" Jack asks if Gwen wants Suzie's job.

"But, what do you need me for?" Gwen asks Jack what she's needed for.

"Cos maybe you were right. We could do more to help. What do you think? Do you want to join up?" Jack says that need help and asks her if she wants to join up.

"Yeah. I do, yes." Gwen agrees on the offer as the pterodactyl flies overhead Cardiff.

No A/N this chapter because I have nothing to talk about.

LeftTriggerGamers - July 31st, 2015.