Her body was trembling by the amount of caffeine in her system, yet at the same time she was so exhausted she could barely stand.
She touched her cold forehead with the back of her hand as she stumbled into the Hub, following Ianto without thinking.
All she knew was that she wanted to close her eyes and nestle underneath a warm sheet, listening to her husband's sweet words.
"Are you all right?" Ianto asked. "Gwen?"
The haunting eyes of the begging old man still doomed in front of her wherever she looked.
She could still hear the sound of the old antique clock on the wall of the Milton's living room ringing three times.
She lowered her hand and smiled at Ianto.
"Oh, I'm fine," Gwen spoke as she looked up, climbing the staircase and analyzing the chamber with her eyes.
The Hub was empty.
She hadn't seen it like this in quite some time.
"Jack?" she said; her voice nearly echoed through the Hub.
"Gwen?" Ianto said, but Gwen didn't look back as she continued her search for Jack.
"Jack!"
"You hadn't spoken a word to me the entire drive over here," Ianto said.
Gwen looked at Ianto, and for a moment she saw the shadow of John Lumic reflected in his eyes.
Then she saw the honest worried look in Ianto's eyes.
He stood there in his black suit and red tie, awaiting her response, seemingly patient and passive, but Gwen knew he was watching her keenly, and he would jump to help her the second she displayed any sign of sickness.
"I'm fine, Ianto," Gwen said, and Ianto nodded curtly with a friendly sparkle in his eye.
She tried to convince herself she had done the right thing, the job she signed up for, the job she loved, the duty she was expected, and ordered, to carry out.
They stayed, watching as they made sure Mrs. Milton and Mr. Lumic drank the entire content of the coffee, and Gwen said nothing, except the standard lies she once spoke truthfully.
But that was a long time ago.
The data on the computer had been easily erased; Ianto had his own ways to do this, which even Gwen didn't know.
It almost seemed like a routine job, for they did it so easily, so quickly, as they removed the traces of their presence from the house, removing all evidence which could remind them of Joseph Milton's remarkable resurrection.
Gwen searched the Hub for any sign of Owen and Jack, but found nothing.
"Mickey?" she cried, but even he did not return her calls.
"I found him," Ianto suddenly said, and Gwen turned around to see Ianto in Jack's office.
"Jack?" she asked.
"No," Ianto said, pointing at the screens. "Mickey."
She walked towards Jack's office, gazing at Ianto, wondering how he could keep that straight face so easily, how he could keep on smiling, even after everything he's been through.
They had both gazed upon the sleeping Amanda Milton, knowing what would happen when she would finally wake up.
Yet they stood there, gazing at her as she snored.
She seemed so at peace, so happy.
"He's coming down," Ianto said, watching Mickey on the screen.
The cameras were filming him as he stood above ground at Roald Dahl Pass, fleeing towards the unnoticeable stone.
"What's he doing up there?" Gwen spoke as she hurried down towards the area where Mickey was descending down. "Get him down!"
Only Ianto noticed the strange appearance of a woman in a grey raincoat, standing on the edge of the screen, watching the spot where Mickey had just disappeared into the ground.
They walked through the cemetery at a steady pace, past headstones and statues of weeping angels as they strayed off the path of gravel and stones.
A chilly wind howled through the trees, although Owen could not feel it.
It made Jack's hair dance, and his long, blue coat as well, as they moved on through the large cemetery, which held at least a hundred graves.
They were not alone.
More people, dressed in black, came to show their respect to their lost loved ones, placing flowers by the headstones which showed them their names and times of birth and death.
A life, summarized by two lines.
Owen looked at how a little girl cradled the leg of her mother as she wept.
Owen looked away; he could never stand the sight of a crying child.
Children shouldn't cry tears of sadness.
The sounds of cars was heard in the distance as they slowly drove past the cemetery, through puddles of water and wet asphalt.
Willows in the distance were dancing to a slow, sad rhythm as the wind brushed its leaves.
Owen wanted to ask Jack what they were doing here, but it felt such a stupid question.
They were surrounded by tombstones.
Surely they weren't going to play basketball.
Dead men and women and children were buried beneath their feet, beneath the withered grass and wet soil on which they tread.
They were stepping on history, on the lives of people who shaped the world they lived in, just as they are doing now.
Owen looked upon the ground, until Jack's coat and shoes caught his eyes.
The immortal Jack Harkness had been around for hundreds of years, even before Owen was born.
Yet he was born in the 51st century.
This is not his world, yet he defended it with everything he got.
Jack glanced over his shoulder at Owen, so swiftly Owen could not read the expression on his face.
"We're here," Jack spoke softly.
Owen was surprised to hear this.
He stopped at Jack's side and looked around him.
"What?" Owen asked. "Is this what you wanted me to see?"
Owen looked around at the last resting place of so many people, yet Jack's eyes gazed only at one stone, right in front of him.
"Is this why you brought me here?"
Owen still didn't see it, even as Jack kneeled down in front of one tombstone, sitting down on one knee as he solemnly placed his hands on the other.
"Hello," Jack spoke, seemingly to thin air, but when Owen finally looked, he recognised the name on the tombstone in front of Jack.
He was so shocked he couldn't say anything.
He just stood there, frozen, as Jack started talking.
"It's been a while since we last spoke,"
Jack smiled faintly as the wind howled in their ears.
He laughed to hide his own sadness and break the tension he alone could feel.
"I was afraid to come here," Jack said. "I was afraid to confess to myself it was all over, to admit she could never come back. But she can't."
She can't.
A hint of red coloured Jack's cheeks as he placed his hand on the tombstone of Toshiko's mother, as if he could reach out to her by touching the cold stone.
Owen watched how he slowly got up on his feet.
"I'm sorry," Jack said, gazing down upon the grave. "I'm so sorry, but she's dead. Toshiko's dead."
Owen didn't want to be remembered of her, the woman whose love he intentionally ignored.
He preferred the lies, just like Jack did.
"Your daughter had an amazing life," Jack said. "I made sure of it."
He laughed with tears in his eyes.
"There's so much I still want to tell you. So many great memories of your magnificent daughter."
He touched the tombstone one final time, and Owen glanced at the words inscribed in the stone, displaying the time of her birth and the time of her death, so long ago.
Owen remembered how much Toshiko wanted to see her.
Every year at Christmas she was the only one left alone as Gwen, Owen and Ianto went to see their families and friends.
When Gwen finally joined the team, it was her idea to stay with Toshiko and have dinner together.
Owen remembered seeing Toshiko so happy that night, and at the same time he noticed the look in her eyes whenever she looked upon him, but he'd just look the other way.
He should hate himself for doing that, but he didn't.
Toshiko longed for her mother who was long dead, but Jack never told her.
She never knew.
No-one did.
"I'm so sorry," Jack said. "For everything."
Again, he could not cry.
Instead he could scream.
Owen wanted to smash something, punch something, kill it, stomp it, as rage consumed him.
He couldn't leave, but he would fall apart if he stayed there at Jack's side.
He turned around as soon as he could, feeling that angry sadness consume his inside, the only part of his body he could still feel.
He left Jack by the tombstone of Toshiko's mother, and he didn't even head for the exit.
He didn't know where he was headed.
The dead surrounded him, followed him wherever he went.
His kind.
They were all dead.
All dead.
All but him, who was left in this void between dimensions, trapped inside another man's body.
His man-suit.
Owen walked through many more tombstones, statues and crosses as he wandered aimlessly through the cemetery.
"How many more lives will I ruin?" he said to himself. "How many more will die because of me?"
Joseph Milton's friends and family had already been hunted down and retconned, their memories, lives and potential taken, the truth obscured.
What if his soul chose to bond itself to someone else?
Some other dead figure, long forgotten and hidden away beneath the ground.
So many dead people to chose from. So many donor bodies, so many suits…
Why Joseph Milton? What did he do wrong?
Did he deserve this?
His flesh and bones taken and used by someone else to play with and misused?
"Why him?" Owen cried as he spun around the cemetery, cradling his insane head as he yelled at the blinding, bright sky. "Why me?"
And suddenly there stood Jack, silent and calm, with his hands in the pockets of his long blue coat.
"Because some things happen for a reason," he said.
Owen calmed down, and his anger subsided, although it was still burning inside him.
The cold, damp air was blowing drops of water in their faces, which slipped from the leaves of the trees above them.
"I don't know if I can believe that," Owen said.
Jack smiled faintly, friendly, for he understood.
"Everyone should have something to live for," he spoke.
