2. Red Wine
"To your first case," said Rhys, holding up a glass of red wine. "And may we finish our dinner before you have to run off on the next."
Gwen clinked glasses with him and smiled. She took a long sip, letting the cabernet distract her from everything that had happened on her first case. From getting called out unexpectedly during her date, to releasing some sort of alien sex gas that resulted in the deaths of dozens of men, to snogging a woman under the influence of that sex gas alien, Torchwood was nothing like what she had expected, and the biggest problem was that she couldn't tell Rhys any of it.
Oh, she'd signed the Official Secrets act so she understood perfectly well what she'd got herself into. It was just that the first day had been so hard, and she couldn't even talk to her boyfriend about it, not really. Not about the big things, the aliens and the Rift and Jack.
Setting down her glass, she told him a bit about her coworkers and the Hub, talking her way around the case as much as she could. She finished one glass and another almost magically appeared. A third refill accompanied her chicken cacciatore, by which point she was thinking that if Jack showed up to drag her off to another meteorite crash, she'd be hard pressed to walk a straight line, yet alone keep her thoughts in order.
Which meant she might as well have a fourth glass with dessert, after which she felt the almost uncontrollable urge to sob. Rhys was confused by her sudden change in mood. She confessed that there was so much she couldn't tell him because it was classified, and she hated that she couldn't tell him, maybe she should have stayed with the police and lived a normal life instead of joining a special ops team that was nothing but secrets, secrets, and more secrets that she couldn't even share with her boyfriend no matter how awful her day had been.
Rhys took her hand and told her she was amazing, that he was so proud of her, and then whispered something in her ear about showing her how much later. About giving her something to look forward to when they were home. Something to take her mind off Torchwood.
She kissed him hard, suspecting it wouldn't be the first time she'd need to put Torchwood behind her.