Gwen sees the light, and we have Jack's POV on the whole sordid mess.
By the way, apologies, I was using the wrong name for the doctor, it should be Vera, not Arlene. I've corrected it (I hope).
Gwen rose reluctantly from her daughter's bedside, dimmed the nightlight, and crept out, leaving the door ajar so she could hear if Anwen woke.
She made her way through the silent house, to lie on the bed in what used to be the guest room, and remember how it all started. Or perhaps when it began to end.
-Flashback-
The New Hub. Jack's new office. Jack holding a battered tin box, the same one he'd had in the old Hub.
"It survived," Gwen said in wonder. "It survived the explosion."
Jack shook his head, eyes fixed on the box cradled in his hands.
"It was at Ianto's flat," Jack explained, voice ragged. "I found it with his….all his..."
Jack's head drooped. Hiding tears or fighting them back. Gwen squeezed his shoulder, tears brimming in her own eyes.
Unit had emptied Ianto's flat, as protocol demanded. At the time, Gwen was simply relieved not to have to do it herself. Too soon after Tosh, and Owen. She'd never visited her colleagues' storage units. No need, no point, and too much pain, too many memories.
Gwen looked at the bowed head and her heart fractured a little bit more.
"You did move in with him, then," she said softly. "I thought so, but you never said, either of you."
Jack shrugged. His hands trembled, and he laid the box carefully on his desk, fingers fumbling with the clasp.
"It wasn't really like that," Jack said finally, making Gwen's ire rise that he still wouldn't admit it.
"It just kind of happened. He got sick of sleeping in the bunker, said there wasn't enough room. He was right, of course. And I'd gotten used to the company – well, his company – so…" Jack shrugged again, shoulders straightening with a visible effort. "It's not like there was a big proposal, or anything. We just sort of…...and when none of my stuff was here anymore, we kind of laughed about it….. And it was good, y'know. It was…." His voice trailed off again, but he'd finally raised his head, and Gwen saw the tears pooling in his eyes.
The box was open, and Gwen's tears fell at the photographs that emerged. One of the 'old team' or the 'old-old team' – before Gwen arrived. Suzie and Owen and Tosh at the front, Owen in the middle with one arm around each of the girls. Jack crowded in behind them, with Ianto hovering just at the edge of the shot, the inscrutable mask he'd worn while hiding Lisa firmly in place.
"Ianto took that," Jack said bleakly. "On a timer. Only just got into shot 'cause I yelled at him."
Jack pulled out another photo, housed in a smooth wooden frame. "I like this one better," he murmured, propping it on his desk.
The old team. Gwen's old team. The same pose as the previous photo, but so different. So many hopes, so many dreams looking out of the frame. Owen, exactly as before, with one arm around Tosh, the other around Gwen. Ianto and Jack at the back again, but closer this time, shoulder to shoulder with their faces turned towards the camera while their bodies angled towards each other. Gwen could estimate the timeframe from the relaxed expression captured on her own face. Far enough after the end of their affair that she hadn't felt awkward with Owen's around her, or guilty at the joy that shone from Tosh's face. It was the time when everything was good. Just before Owen died – the first time.
"Martha took this," Gwen recalled. "Said we needed a team photo. Did we ever hang it up?"
Jack nodded vaguely, fingers tracing the outlines of the faces through the glass. "Had a decent sized print in my office," he confirmed. "Propped against the wall somewhere. Never got around to putting a hook on the wall. But Martha gave everyone copies like this." A single finger lingered at the rear of the photo. Ianto.
Gwen's heart clenched in a chest heavy with guilt. She had no idea what happened to her own copy. Had she really treasured it so little?
"I miss him so bloody much, Gwen," Jack whispered.
Him not them. It wasn't Owen Jack was thinking about while his tears fell onto Gwen's shoulder. It wasn't Suzie he cried for as he clung to Gwen for comfort. It wasn't Tosh he thought about as the comfort turned into something more.
It wasn't Gwen whose name he whispered as he shuddered with release. But she was too drunk on her own pleasure to notice, too overwhelmed to interpret the strangled syllables. Too deeply in denial to accept the evidence of her own senses when it happened again.
And by the time she did, it was too late to undo, and self-preservation kept her deaf.
-End flashback-
Until now.
Gwen hadn't saved Tosh, or Owen, or Ianto. It was too late for them. It was too late to save Rhys from having his world shattered.
But it might not be too late to salvage her own self-respect.
Hours later, eyes sandy from lack of sleep, Gwen heard the door open, followed by the crash of something falling, accompanied by muffled cursing. A tired smile curved her lips. They weren't being burgled. Rhys was home, a little worse for wear.
Rhys saw her, waiting at the top of the stairs, and felt his heart begin its crawl upwards into his throat. He should be past this by now. He shouldn't care that her eyes were swollen. Her pain shouldn't still tear through his gut. But it did. He loved her. She'd treated him like garbage, she'd betrayed their vows. She'd gone to the one he'd always feared the most.
She'd proved him right, and he hated it. And he was sick of asking himself if it'd been a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"I'm going into work, Rhys," Gwen said, and his heart shouldn't be skipping a beat at the way her eyes devoured his face.
Rhys nodded. Back to him, no doubt. She was on her way back to the handsome boss that an ordinary bloke couldn't hold a candle to. He'd tried. He'd done his best, and it wasn't enough. He wasn't enough.
They passed on the stairs without touching, but the air between them hummed.
"Rhys?"
Rhys turned at the landing. There she was, stopped halfway down the stairs, just where their shoulders had almost brushed, still looking at him like that. And it hurt, God how it hurt. He was a pathetic fool, but he loved her still. His Gwen, his wife – they'd put in the papers, but divorce took time and Rhys despaired at himself because he knew it wouldn't be him who hurried the lawyers along. And she was stopped on the stairs, looking at him, really seeing him for the first time in so long he could hardly remember. His Gwen, his other half, dark to his light. The mother of the precious child asleep upstairs.
Only she wasn't his Gwen, any more. Rhys swore to himself he could handle it, if only that prick wasn't making her so bloody unhappy.
"You asked if it was worth it," Gwen whispered.
Rhys shook his head violently. "I had no right," he said hastily.
Gwen made a choked sound that couldn't have been a laugh. "You have every right, Rhys. Every right to question me, to revile me…to….to hate me."
Rhys' head bowed, chin tucking into his chest. "I did," he confessed. "I did, but I don't now." He turned slowly back towards the stairs, knowing he had to get away, before….well, he didn't know what. Nothing good, probably. Or at least nothing that would end well. But her voice froze him again.
"But it wasn't Rhys. Wasn't worth it. He wasn't….he isn't," And when Rhys looked up her hands were running madly along her scalp, as if she could pull the right words out of her head along with the roots of her hair. And he should keep walking, get upstairs and sleep and pretend this was all a dream - but he couldn't.
Gwen dropped her hands and watched Rhys through tortured eyes. "But it's not even his fault. I was…I was wrong, and I was blind, and if I could take it all back, I would. I would Rhys. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Tears dripped from her eyes and she didn't even try to wipe them away. "I know it's too late," she said, hurriedly, as if he'd stop her talking, when really he could stand here on this staircase for the rest of his life. "But I want you to know, if I could take it all back, I would. And I'd do it so different, Rhys."
Rhys gulped, breathed. Needed time to breathe. "You're off to work, you said."
Gwen nodded. "I won't be long." That strangled not-laugh burst from her lips again. "I should know not to say that, shouldn't I? I don't want to be long."
Rhys nodded. "I might see you later then."
It wasn't a promise. It wasn't even an offer. But in that moment the tiniest spark of hope for something they'd both thought long dead flickered back into life, and burned too brightly to watch.
-XXX-
Jack listened to Esther talk, watched her eyes flutter, and wanted to be anywhere else.
He should never have come back.
Jack knew now that he should have stayed out there, amongst the stars, until the endless span of life dulled the pain, the regrets. There was a whole universe full of willing bodies to lose himself in, out there.
And he tried. But every embrace reminded him of Ianto, if only by what they lacked. Ears too big. A voice that grated. Too serious or too flighty. Never the right balance of steady and sure relieved by just the right amount of humor in the angle of their brow. Or whatever passed for their brow.
Every child in the universe cried in Stephen's voice. Every youthful laugh reminded him that Stephen would never laugh with Uncle Jack again. And their mothers watched him with Alice's eyes.
So Jack returned to lick his wounds, going to ground in the only place he'd ever stayed long enough to call home. Came home to smash another life to pieces. Three lives. Gwen, Rhys, and their child. Anwen.
He watched Gwen's face every week when he carried on with the charade that Wednesdays meant nothing to him. As if every Wednesday didn't stand as a symbol of the life he'd taken from her, and from Rhys. Poor bloody Rhys. He'd taken Rhys' wife, and it didn't matter to either of them she'd gone willingly. The least Jack could do was make sure the poor man didn't have to share his child's affection as well.
Jack didn't want the affection of another child, anyway. He'd lost the right to a child's trust when he'd used Stephen's to destroy him.
Esther chatted on. Sometimes Jack felt like asking her to drop the act. To stop pretending she didn't have a brain in her head. But he supposed the ditzy blonde façade must work for her, as the playboy thing worked for him.
He didn't want to crack the façade. It was useful.
"Looks like we're done," Jack said lightly, tapping a stack of papers on his desk to straighten them. "Thanks for staying back, Esther. Time you were off, though. It's late."
Esther looked at him from under her eyelashes.
"It is late," she pointed out. "The buses must have stopped running by now."
"Charge the taxi to Torchwood," Jack offered expansively, hiding his grin while Esther hid her annoyance. He quite enjoyed the distraction of this game.
Esther couldn't get what she wanted without smashing the innocent act.
He could give her what she wanted. What he wanted himself. What both of them burned for, sometimes. But Jack had reached into that particular fire often enough to know what hid in the heart of the flame.
They all thought they could change him. It made Jack curious, bewildered him even. Why did they want him so much if they didn't like him the way he was?
Except Ianto.
Ianto had sighed, shrugged, rolled his eyes. But he didn't complain. If Jack pushed too far, there might be a 'that's not acceptable, Jack' delivered in a calm voice, like the Super nanny, for God's sake. Decaf sometimes, maybe even a 'not tonight, Jack' for a major transgression. But still, Ianto wasn't like the others. Ianto had never expected Jack to be different. Ianto simply made it clear where his own boundaries lay, and expected Jack to respect them. And Jack had. Jack respected Ianto, accepted him with all his quirks, and basked in the warmth of equal acceptance.
The others, the endless stream of others, tried to make Jack change. Ianto made him want to change.
It got to the point where Jack wanted to be what Ianto needed. He would've gotten there, too. If they'd had time.
As much as he mourned what he'd lost, he mourned even more deeply for could have been, no, what would have been. The future they hadn't had a chance to build together.
And now there was Gwen.
Of course Jack had wanted Gwen. He'd taken her; finally, in the outpouring of their shared grief, imagining it was something they both needed. A joining, a healing. An ending, maybe, but he'd never considered it would be a beginning.
Jack hadn't expected Gwen to leave Rhys. Jack hadn't wanted her to leave Rhys. He'd never wanted that. And he really didn't think she would, not because of a night when neither of them was thinking clearly. At least not with their minds.
She hadn't left Rhys for Owen. Jack was pretty sure the thought hadn't crossed her mind the entire time she was embroiled in the affair with the medic, so it honestly hadn't occurred to Jack that Gwen would turn up at the New Hub with bulging suitcases and bloodshot eyes.
Until she did. And he couldn't turn her away. Anyone else maybe, but not Gwen. But Jack couldn't change for her. He didn't want to. Gwen didn't make him want to change. She tried. Oh poor Gwen, how she tried. But each time she hid her anger at even the most innocent flirtation, the emotion swelling Jack's chest was irritation, not regret.
It dawned on him slowly that Gwen had never really wanted Jack, she only wanted his shell, whether she knew it or not. Jack's body, Jack's voice, a packaging she could discard at will to uncover the man she truly wanted. A man who could love her blindly, devotedly, giving all and receiving whatever she could spare. A man Jack could never be. A man Jack was too selfish to be, and knew it. But the man Gwen really wanted did exist. It was Rhys.
Oh the irony. Gwen didn't want Jack. She wanted Rhys in Jack's skin. Jack couldn't be Rhys for her. He didn't want to be.
Gwen couldn't make Jack into what she needed. By now she'd even stopped trying. Jack watched her spark fade, day by day, knew it was his fault, and still couldn't make himself change for her.
Esther sashayed out with many a pout and backward glance. Jack wondered who she hoped to find inside the shell that was Captain Jack Harkness, but he was too jaded to find out. Sometimes Jack flattered himself that he flirted so blatantly with Esther just to make Gwen see through whatever illusion kept her coming back; and save them both the pain of hurting her further.
Jack's office door opened again. He looked up with a smile creeping across his face, wondering what excuse Esther had come up with to return. The smile faded. It wasn't Esther.
It was Gwen. A version of Gwen he hadn't seen before. Tangled hair, reddened eyes. Lost, not lust.
"I'm leaving, Jack. Hand me the Retcon."
He didn't argue. So she was leaving him too. Probably no less than he deserved.
I had an epilogue planned, a sort-of happy ending, but I'm not sure - maybe this is enough?