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It was still dark when Gwen drove her Saab into the garage, she felt like she never saw daylight sometimes. She had got home late and made a microwave dinner for an uncomplaining Rhys, she had listened to him talking about his day and not said a word about hers. But that was how it worked these days. There was nothing on the tele so she had given him a conciliatory shag and laid awake most of the night listening to his snoring. She had kissed his cheek lightly as she left him still asleep to keep her promise to Owen, she really should take him on holiday she thought as she shoved her hands deeper in the pockets of her jeans, when she had cleared a bit more of her desk.
She keyed in her code on the pad and waited as the hydraulics opened the door, she waved at the hidden camera knowing Ianto would be watching, hoping he was making the coffee. She had tried having the window open wide driving down here but what she really needed to wake up was a shower. She hadn't wanted to wake Rhys though so she had scrambled round in the dark and put on the same clothes that she had worn the day before. She would see what was in her locker and hope that no one noticed. The Hub was empty, the screen savers on Toshs computer was processing numbers, her footsteps echoed on the cold metal. She threw her coat on the back of her chair and went up to the spotless kitchen.
She passed Owen reclined on the couch with his eyes shut, she knew he wasn't asleep but he was zoned out with some sort of thrash metal pulsing through his head phones. Most surprising was the fact that Jack hadn't made an appearance at his office window, he liked to survey his domain when it was invaded – even by one of the team, in fact the Hub seemed dead with no one around. She went to the coffee machine, it somehow felt wrong touching the great silver machine that was Iantos baby. It took her back to her days working in the fancy pub on the edge of the city while she was at college, Ianto had spent hours explaining the intricacies of the steam and ensuring the grounds were well packed and she had done her best to look as if she was learning. God but that seemed so long ago, she was trying to please then, now she would just tell him to get out of the way and get on with it. She pulled the mugs together from the cupboards and the draining board, then replaced Owens mug reverently on the high shelf it had migrated to with disuse.
Using the last of the milk she arranged the mugs on the tray and realised she didn't have a clue who was around, so she took the tray through to the board room to look through the CCTV. She put the tray down and pulled her phone out of her pocket, thumbing in the word MILK and sent it to Ianto hoping he hadn't set off yet. She went to the console and typed in her password and clicked onto the hubs internal information system, engrossed in what she was doing she picked up her own coffee and registered the chirping of an incoming text. It took a few seconds to register it wasn't her normal ring tone, perhaps Rhys had been fiddling again, but the screen wasn't lit up. Puzzled she picked up the phone and was about to turn it over in that goofy way that everyone does to prove what they know is true when she heard a sound from under the table. She put her cup down and took a step back, automatically reaching for her pistol even though it was locked in the armoury, was she too far away from the panic button? Was it an alien on the loose? Had Janet got out of the cell? She pushed herself against the wall as an arm came out from under the table, the blue glow of the mobile screen echoing down it.
"Shit, look, who's there?" she said sounding even more Welsh than normal, scared and out of breath.
The arm kept coming moving up towards a head of dark hair slowly moving upwards till she could see the face, did it have a face she thought irrationally.
"You woke me up for milk?" said the body turning into Ianto
"Shit, Bollocks." Said Gwen sliding down the wall "You gave me a shock. What the hell you doing under there anyway?"
From her lower position she could see the sleeping bag and pillow under the table and the shirt and trousers folded precisely a little further away. She couldn't really remember seeing Ianto anything less than fully dressed before, apart from that time in Jacks office and boy did she want to blank out that mental image.
"I needed somewhere to sleep and it was dark and quiet in here, until you came in." He slid out of the sleeping bag and came out from the table yawning and ruffling his hair. Gwen stood and handed him a cup of coffee looking away as she realised he was only wearing boxers and a pair of black socks. She cleared her throat and he had the grace to look slightly sheepish as he scrabbled back under for the table for his shirt.
"Most of us have a house or a flat to go home to of an evening." Said Gwen to fill the silence as Ianto buttoned up his shirt.
"Someone needs to be around in case." He said pulling on his trousers.
"What about Jack? In fact what about Jack, I would have thought you would have spent the night at, well his place." Said Gwen her brain starting to work faster than her mouth as the caffeine started to kick in.
"Didn't want to disturb him, he doesn't get much sleep."
Gwen tutted under her breath, after his little show last night he didn't deserve any sort of consideration.
Gwen sat down and saw the tray of cooling drinks on the table and remembered why she was there in the first place.
"Owen was around all night, he could have stayed on alert." She said watching him still lying in the sofa.
"He wouldn't have heard an atom bomb drop over that music, besides he wouldn't have been able to leave."
Gwen nodded and flicked through images showing nothing more than normal and ended on the medical room, Tosh was there, asleep at her terminal. Gwen panned the camera round and saw the patient still in bed and she saw the handcuffs.
"What the hell is that?" she spat at Ianto
"Jacks orders." He said with a shrug.
"Well you just tell Jack" she started, then stopped as she noticed the woman moving slightly. She was awake, her eyes open but she was just laid quietly, occasionally pulling at the metal restraints to try and get comfortable.
"I'll get Jack." Said Ianto over her shoulder
"No I think Jack has done quite enough already." Said Gwen sharply, "My turn now, but you can keep him quiet."
The coffee forgotten Gwen took the back stairs down to where Tosh was lightly dozing with her back to the patient. Gwen gave a smile to the woman and touched Tosh lightly on the shoulder, Tosh woke and fumbled with her glasses as if to prove she had been awake all the time. She started to clear her throat to say something when Gwen pointed behind her and Tosh realised they weren't alone. The woman held up her hands, both kept near the side of the bed by the handcuffs, but was unable to be heard because of the oxygen mask still on her face. Gwen stepped over quietly and lifted the mask off her face with her normal coy smile.
"I'm Gwen, you're in hospital, sort of, you're safe now, you gave us all a bit of a shock last night."
The woman smiled and swallowed, making a squeaking sort of noise as she tried to speak, Tosh came over with a glass of water and went to hand it to her, then realised her mistake and helped her to take a sip.
"Thank you." She said looking from Gwen to Tosh and back again. "Though you have no reason to believe me I promise I won't kill you." She said rattling the metal on metal.
Gwen and Tosh exchanged more glances,
"Well when we know a little more about you perhaps we'll be able to help." Said Tosh, going to pat the womans arm but then taking a step back.
"Why don't we start with who you are?" said Gwen encouragingly, she wanted as much information as possible out of her before Jack came in all guns blazing.
"I don't know any more." She said quietly, "Anyway that isn't the question you want an answer to, you want to know what I am."
Gwen smiled again.
"We did wonder."
"I want to make one thing clear, just because I am not human does not mean I am here to murder, pillage destroy the earth or wipe out the human race as you know it."
Gwen pulled over one of the stools from round the edge of the room, this could be a long one.
"So if you want the right questions what are you and why are you here?" said Tosh simply
"I don't really know who I am, I come from a different planet that I do know. I think it is in this solar system and I know it doesn't exist anymore." She took a deep breath screwed her eyes shut, "I saw it explode as an asteroid slammed into it."
Gwen patted her hand in a conciliatory way, how on earth were you supposed to answer that, perhaps Halmark did a card "Sorry your planet exploded".
"So did you fall through the Rift then?" said Gwen, trying to piece together the facts so far. "You're not a Shape Shifter are you?" she said quickly.
"No and No." she answered sharply
"So how did you get here then?" asked Tosh trying to get the conversation back online
"Brought here by the Doctor, I can't believe I am saying the name out loud here at Torchwood." She said looking round as if waiting for something nasty to happen, "Well I say here but of course that would be relative."
Gwen looked at Tosh, of course she had heard of this Doctor through her ferreting in the Torchwood achieves but that was ancient history. Tosh started typing at the computer, her normal fall back when she didn't understand something.
"I can't detect any recent activity of that type round Cardiff." She said turning back to the other two women.
"No I got here by car." She said smiling "this time."
"So how did you get here originally love, look you've got to have a name it makes it difficult if you don't." said Gwen.
"Ianto says try Jennifer Smith, recently of Newcastle upon Tyne, listed as missing two weeks ago, car found abandoned with a suicide note by a local beach. Single, no children, not missed for three days." Said Owen coming into the room. "Anyone think to tell me my patient was awake? No thought not." He cast one of his patented head down stares round the room and bundled in fussing round checking numbers and machines, finding nothing but perfect figures. Gwen pushed herself back across the room, she had lost control of the interrogation and she was struggling to make sense of it all anyway.
"I have a question for you." Said Owen writing down his observations, "What on earth have you done to Jack to make him hate you so much? He normally reserves that sort of venom for goolies like the Abaddon." He looked directly at her and she looked lost. She pursed her lips.
"Who's Jack when he's at home?"
"Captain Jack Harkness, the bloke with the historical sense of fashion and the man who you decided to throw to the floor while sustaining a rather nasty laser burn and now you can't remember who he is. Perhaps I need to do some more tests after all." Owen stopped looking at the none existent wound on her shoulder and started flashing his pen light in her eyes. She blinked rapidly as the light blinded her.
"So that is the mythical Jack Harkness, who knew?" she said
"Come on spill the beans then, I'm not a patient man, and I see no need for you to be a patient anymore either."
"When I worked for Torchwood Captain Harkness was a bit of an enigma, he was always out when One came to call, oh how many years of searching if I'd know." She said wistfully. "I think they came after him when they found out what I was, but we're not the same, him and I, I had access to all the secrets and he is certainly not the same as me. If only I'd put two and two together."
Everyone looked slightly mystified and shuffled round the floor, no-one dared ask what she meant about that, Jacks outburst still fresh in there minds, Tosh kept tapping away, head down and the few seconds silence rang loud round the room.
"You called him Gerald though." Said Owen taking a pace back
"Well that was what knew him as, but it was nothing to do with Torchwood. Gerald McCowie, Captain Mccowie, The Royal Scots." There was a far away look in her eyes. "He insisted I treat his men before him even though his wounds should have been far greater, though when I got round to him they weren't too bad. It was an instant connection, a smile, his Scottish accent, we seemed to have so much to talk about. But war is a funny task master and things happened, bad things." She paused for breath and looked around.
"You have no idea how long I searched for him, the man who never existed, no war record, no grave, no memorial, no family, no nothing, as if he never existed."
"There was a good reason I disappeared while you were around, Miss Freda Jones." Said Jack stood large as life in the doorway. "Or should I call you Nurse Lucy Smith, or 20 other names that seem to pop up, keep the names simple I like it, unlike you, hence the reason I always found somewhere else to be when I heard you were coming."
"It wasn't like that." She started to say, Jack took a step forward and grabbed the end of the bed.
"J Section were exactly like that, If it's alien it's ours and if it's alive torture it." He spat at her. "Go on deny it, your signature, or one of them, is all over these." He threw a handful of yellowing transfer orders on the bed.
"I didn't know what they were doing, I was on a different project they just need a signature on a requisition slip."
"The get out clause of a thousand despots. Save it, I've heard it all before and I don't need to hear it now." Even a rare nights sleep hadn't calmed him down you could almost feel the anger coming off him like sparks.
"Guilty until proven guilty, nothing has changed at Torchwood then." She snorted "Just lock me up and throw away the key."
"You know what, perhaps that's a good idea, Gwen put it in the cells and when I have calmed down then we can talk. Hey it might take some time but we have a few centuries!"
Gwen started to protest but Jack just held up a hand,
"You know the one good thing about Torchwood in those days? When the boss said something the rest of the team actually listened. For once can someone do what I ask please?" Jack was in a rare old mood with himself, he didn't like the comparisons she had given him about the old Torchwood. When he had started here too many years ago to even think about it had been harsh, but those were the times, it had bumbled along until the period after the Second World War and then the darkness had begun. He shivered when he remembered how the organisation had been twisted and how spectacularly that had backfired nearly obliterating the earth. However there was truth in what she was saying, was he doing exactly the same to her as they had done to all those other unfortunates, he had always wanted to work with compassion, undo some of that wrong.
"Give her some clothes first, I want to do some reading up before I ask the wrong questions."