Gwen Cooper was not impressed, if anything she was exhausted, she felt like she hadn't slept properly in days, and to be honest she hadn't. Between her couch, the bus and the camp bed, she was definitely looking forward to getting home and getting into her own bed. She had spent the last few days buried in books, files, and alien space junk, not to mention the time she spent running around a council estate in Glasgow. She was more than ready to sleep. First though she had to pass this stupid test that she had been sent to Glasgow to take, why jack couldn't test her in Cardiff she didn't know, she was sure it was just a way to let her prove her worth by giving him a full report on torchwood two when she arrived home.
Archie hadn't proven too bad in the end although he was a hard and demanding task master. He had gotten quiet when she had discussed the failings of her team and wondered if she couldn't get rid of him from torchwood two, if she could use him as an ally to get rid of Ianto from torchwood three.
Gwen looked at the test in front of her; it reminded her of being back at school, the thick book in miniscule font. She knew that it was going to take her a while and luckily she hadn't been given a time limit on how long she had. She wasn't aware that her time was being recorded and she would be compared to others who sat the test, but that didn't really matter to her as she had all the time in the world to complete the test as she felt she needed.
She stared at the questions, many of them making no sense to her at all, but knowing she had to put an answer. Luckily the test was multiple choice questions for the most part and if she didn't know she at least had a one in four chance of her guess being right. She knew that she guessed more questions than she actually knew the answer to, but hoped that she would do okay anyway. She didn't really know why the test was that important anyway, she did her job in the field well enough, in fact she was probably only second in the field to Jack and that was because he had much more experience than she could gain in her lifetime.
Once she was finished with her test she handed it to Archie to mark before rushing off to eat and repack her things in readiness for her journey home. She was taking a train this time at her own expense, mainly just to get home quickly. She was surprised when Archie knocked on her door ten minutes later with her graded test in hand, it taken him far less time to mark it than it had taken her to answer the questions. He stared at her blankly for a few moments before handing her the test to take back to Cardiff with her.
"You passed." He informed dryly, looking at her as if she had somehow failed him, something she didn't understand, "In the bottom 2% of passes, but you passed."
Gwen looked at him; there was no way that she had been that close to failing she would get Jack to look at the test when she got back to Cardiff. First though she had to get back to Cardiff, and if she didn't hurry up she was going to miss her train. She nodded at the other man, hoping that he was finished with her and that she could get her stuff and leave. Perhaps he could give her a lift to the station for the train. She opened her mouth to ask him to drop her off only to be cut off.
"If you will meet me in the front room when you are ready to leave Miss Cooper, we have a few more things to discuss before you leave." Archie commented before making his way back down the corridor.
Gwen huffed, grabbing her bags to take with her to save her some time, hopefully whatever they still had to talk about wouldn't take long and he would give her a lift to the station. Entering the front room once she had dropped her bags in the doorway she was told to take a seat.
"You have only been here a few days Miss Cooper, but in that time I have evaluated you as a person and as an operative, and I find both to be lacking. Unfortunately I have no say on you as a person, that must be left up to you to correct and for your family to have to live with. As an operative however there is much I can do. While I am not second in command of torchwood as a director of a torchwood branch I find myself third in the chain of command and in the unique position to see you as an outsider would." Archie began.
He held up his hand to forestall the protest before it could leave her mouth, "I am sending back with you a training regime that I am insisting that you will follow for the next four months at least. I am also instructing for your field access to be rescinded until you have passed two different capability tests that I will coordinate with Captain Harkness and Mr Jones."
Gwen stared at him in shock, she had been sure that the other man had been warming up to her. He was going to make her go through more training, and take her out of the field, the team were useless in the field without her. She told him as much only for him to laugh a little then puff himself up in anger.
"If you truly believe that Miss Cooper, you are more of an idiot than I believed. All of your team are field trained, they are technically trained, and they are train in alien recognition to a greater degree than yourself. They also have field experience, humility and compassion, skills and traits I have yet to see in you." Archie snorted, "Things will become clearer to you in the future Miss Cooper."
He then stood, walked over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a sealed metal tin. He handed it to her, fixing her with a glare, almost daring her to lose it. "Sealed orders for Captain Harkness, make sure they get to him, I will know if they don't."
Gwen just nodded, not wanting to annoy him, he seemed to be on a rather short fuse, something that she hadn't seen the whole time she had been there. No matter how much she had pushed the other man he had never given in to his anger.
"Come Miss Cooper, I will give you a lift to the station." Archie said as he picked up one of her bags and took off down the stairs.
Gwen followed after him, unsure as to what to say or whether she should actually speak at all. The drive into the centre of Glasgow was silent and took longer than she had expected, whether on purpose or not she was unaware, but what she did know was that she had missed her train. Hopefully she could exchange her tickets for a later train.
Archie dropped her off at the bus station rather than the train station, stating that he had to get to an alert and it was easier than going around the one way system. She got out the van, thanking him quietly for the training, knowing that she needed to be polite, his warnings about who he was in the institute having sunk into her on the drive to the station.
"Give my love to Aluka and the rest of the family will you." Archie called as he started to drive away, "You might want to hurry if you don't want to miss your bus."
As she watched him drive away she reached into her bag to pull out her tickets, only to find instead of the train tickets she had placed there, two bus tickets. One Glasgow to Edinburgh, and one Edinburgh to Cardiff. She raced to the bus stop noting that she only had two minutes until her bus left, cursing as she did so. Jack would hear about this, the strange little man in Glasgow was going to have to watch out for her, she would not put up with being humiliated like this, even by a member of her husband's family. Especially by a member of her husband's family. She would use all the skills she had in her arsenal to pay him and every other Addams back, they would wish they had never messed with Gwen Cooper. She would show them exactly who she was and why never to cross her.