Bonjour! SATs in under a week ... eeekkk! :S
Sorry this has taken a bit - as I explained to WakkaxTidus & Embzy, it wouldn't upload! :)


She hadn't travelled along the route of the plane she was seated on since eleven years ago. The only differences were the fact that then she'd been crammed into economy class and this time she could remember why she had left the country.

Gwen closed her eyes.

She'd woken from a sleep clutching a napkin with a scrawl on that she recognised as her own. Slightly confused as to why she was on a plane crossing Europe she glanced down and began reading.

'I'm about to erase the past 13 months from my memories. The things that happened you're better off not remembering. You've split with Rhys. You left your police job 13 months ago. You don't want to remember. You want to start a new life away from everything. You're moving to Russia – it's a big country, full of opportunities. You shouldn't remember. Trust yourself on this one.'

The man seated next to her was gave her a funny look.

"Are you alright?" he asked tentatively.

She inconspicuously slipped the napkin into her pocket and quickly thought of a cover story.

"I dunno." She added a tremble to her voice. "I had a headache. I can't remember anything."

The man caught hold of her wrist. "You alright? What do you mean? What can't you remember?"

"I ..." She was too good at lying, she'd always been a hopeless liar, when had that changed? "I ... today ... I remember getting up but ..."

"Sshhh, just sit there and I'll get you a drink of water."

She placed her head against the window, acting bemused and disorientated.

"Sorry ... do you mind moving a minute please?" She looked around to see the elderly woman in the aisle being turfed out of her chair to allow room for the man and a hostess to move towards her.

At the airport she'd was escorted off, her bags collected for her and taken to hospital for a quick check up. The foreign language confused her, lessening the need to act. Lucky for her a man – Valera Borshch was in A&E with a colleague and offered to be a translator. She'd confessed about the note on the napkin and he'd, for a reason unknown to either of them, offered her a job opportunity.

In the eleven years since she had never uncovered a smidgen of information about her missing year. She'd slowly worked her way through the training and up the many ranks of RIS, helped by her friend Valera. She loved him with all her heart but not in a romantic way. She'd miss him while she was away.

Moscow was her home now and she didn't what to stay away for too long. She'd find this Toshiko, Owen and Martha, get what she needed to get and come home.

Easy.

...

Unusually for Cardiff it was sunny. As soon as she stepped through the airplane door, it hit her face like an unexpected bolt of lightning. Looking down at her everyday clothes for home she realised she'd soon be sweating like a pig. Her boots, long coat, many layers, hat, scarf and gloves were strictly unnecessary.

"Shit." She grumbled under her breath, subconsciously slipping into English, as she was squeezed into a bus with her fellow passengers. It was already boiling in here – she was going to burn to death on a bus full of strangers in a foreign(ish) country. She shoved her gloves off and tried to sling her bag off her shoulder to slip them in.

"OUCH!"

"Shit. Sorry mate." She turned to look at the man behind her. "О мой бог!" The people around them were beginning to stare.

"Oh my god! Just pinch your nose. Pinch it. I'm so sorry mate!"

"It's fine, fine. You got a tissue?"

She slung her bag off her shoulder again, only to hit another man who'd moved to help the bleeding stranger in the stomach.

"OOOOFFFF!"

The bus pulled to a stop outside the terminal doors. Gwen shot a final apologetic look at the pair and shot out of the bus in front of everyone else. Throughout the queues in customs she kept her distance from a crowd of fuming fliers who had either been hit or had blood splattered on them that kept on glancing angrily towards her. Armed assassins and enemy agents she could handle, but after a four hour trip that had taken them back to lunchtime she really couldn't be bothered.

Her suitcase was easily spotted by her trained eyes and she scooted past the chattering, moaning or silent passengers after heaving it off the luggage roundabout, heading doggedly for the exit.

Turning around before she went round the corner she saw the bloodied man arguing with a woman with blood on her white blouse and smiled grimly to herself.

Brilliant start Cooper.

"MUM!" She'd hardly turned the corner when a slim teenage boy ran over to her and enveloped her in a hug, causing her to drop her bag with surprise.

"Adam!" When her brain finally realised who the strange boy was that was hugging her, she wrapped her arms around him too. "My god, I've missed you." She spoke aloud and then dropped her voice so that she was whispering. "Alex? Nice to meet you. I'm Gwen Cooper. Nice acting!" She muttered it all very fast into his ear and then dropped her arms.

An elderly couple standing nearby smiled to themselves at the mother/son reunion. Gwen surveyed Alex for a moment. Brown hair, slight but muscular build, green eyes and a handsome face. His eyes shocked her for a second – they held the knowledge of a much older person, he'd seen far too much for his fourteen years. How could MI6 manipulate a child into doing their dirty work?

"C'mon Mum. There's a cab waiting." He grabbed her suitcase and winced as he felt its weight. "Blimey bill! What have you got in here? Smuggled back a sexy Russian girl in there for me?"

Gwen smiled for a second, quickly replacing it however with a frown. "Watch it you. That's school talk, not talk with your mum."

Alex turned and shot her a typical teenage 'I don't care' look, heading out of the cool interior of the airport back into the warm sun of Cardiff. It wasn't all that hot really, but after spending her last three months in a minus fifteen climate, it could have been a beach in the Bahamas.

Once inside the cab Alex turned to Gwen. "Hi Gwen. I'm Alex Rider, or Adam Peters. This is Wolf," he motioned to the man driving, "Welcome back to the UK."

"Cheers Alex. How far's the house?"

"It's right down the centre of Cardiff. Lush apartment. The ex owners put it on the market a fortnight ago and we snapped it up. It's not completely empty yet – they only had a couple of days to pack 'cos we said we wanted to move in straight away. There's a few boxes lying around but they'll pick them up later during the week."

"Ace. But how far's the house Alex?"

"Oh, it's about fifteen minutes. Why?"

"I really need to use the loo."

...

The apartment was beautiful – an open plan living room / kitchen / diner, three bedrooms and a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. Her salary had always been high in RIS but this ... this really took the biscuit. One wall in the living room consisted solely of three humungous windows stretching from the ceiling to the floor. The furniture was modern and minimalist, the kitchen was a work of art and the master bedroom – her bedroom – had an ensuite and fantastic views of the centre of Wales; she could see the millennium Centre, the town centre. Alex had already claimed the middle bedroom and had thrown his bags haphazardly inside.

"Adam?"

"Yeah."

"Have you put your stuff away?"

"Um ..."

"Do it please."

"You're worse than Jack."

"Can you iron?"

"Not if I can help it."

"Well then put your clothes away because I won't be the one standing there and ironing them all."

Alex sighed heavily, defeated, and headed towards his bedroom. Meanwhile Gwen poked her head into the guest room. It was small but brightly decorated and had obviously been a child's room. It was Gwen's turn to sigh – she'd always wanted kids but her job had never allowed it. She supposed Alex was the closest the she would ever get to a mum: at 42, her body clock was ticking.

She shook away the negative thoughts and left the room.

"Alex. What do you want for tea?"

"Nothing's stocked."

"Damn it." She changed her tack. "McDonalds?"

"You offering?"

"Yep – there's one down by the Millennium Centre, if it hasn't moved."

Alex shot out of his room with a denim jacket in his hands. "I haven't eaten for ages." He explained his enthusiasm. "Wolf decided to play it funny and take me to the airport three hours early ... with no money."

"Don't you carry ...?"

"It was in my bag." Gwen smiled slightly. They'd hardly known each other two hours but, if they could keep up the talking like they were, they could easily pass for mother and son.

They passed the several cardboards heaped by the door and leant on them as they slipped on their trainers. It always helped to be able to run if you worked for MI6 or RIS. Gwen turned away the pick up her keys and a resounding crash echoed through the apartment.

She whipped around, alarmed, teetering on the edge of pulling out her gun but stopped when, just behind her, she found the source of the commotion. Alex stood looking sheepish next to a crumpled box and several photo frames, broken chards of crockery and other fragile materials that were rolling around on the floor.

She swore. "Adam!" Adam stood there still. "You okay?"

"Can you pass me my trainers please?" She looked down. Glass was shimmering in the light around Alex's shoeless feet. She threw them over to him. Bending down to pick one up, he suddenly stopped, his eyes fixated on a photo, a triumphant yet confused look upon his face.

"I found them."

"What?" She attempted to look at the picture but Alex snatched it away and held it up into the light. His look turned furious and he threw down the frame and tackled her to the ground.

"With you in the photo too."

"What? Alex let me up. I haven't even heard of their names before in my life."

"Really." His voice held an incredible amount of venom for a fourteen year old. Maybe this was what being shoved into the field when you barely qualified for a teenager did to you. "When did you start double crossing? Are you planning to blow up Wales as well?"

"Alex. Show me the photo." Keeping her pinned to the floor, he reached over to retrieve the fallen photo, wrenching it out of the frame before holding it in front of her face.

The photo must have been taken a while back – the image was fading and was much worse quality than the photos they had now. The five people in it were obviously just friends, not family and looking closer, she recognised three of the people in it: herself, Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper. She had this odd feeling, a gut instinct build up inside her.

She had provided the idea and camera for the photo.

She was stood on the end of the five, with Owen Harper next to her. Toshiko Sato was stood on his other side, looking towards him with an indignant expression on her face. Harper was looking pleased with himself and she was laughing at something.

Owen Harper had made a comment about Toshiko Sato's ... what was it? ... apparent disregard for the use of sunglasses.

She looked closer. Sure enough, everyone except Toshiko and another man stood next to her with a long military coat on had on sunglasses. The man in the coat must have been boiling – everyone else (apart from the final man on the end who was in a suit) was in shorts, skirts and light tops. She looked again. Owen Harper had his arm draped casually around her shoulders and she was returning the favour. His other arm had snaked its way round Toshiko's waist.

Toshiko had blushed when he'd done that. Were Toshiko and Owen together? No – Toshiko had loved Owen but Owen was too busy shagging every other girl in Cardiff to notice Toshiko.

She closed her eyes. How did she know this all?

"Torchwood." Alex's voice interrupted her train of thought. "Who the hell is Torchwood? Gwen?"

"I don't know. Alex ..."

"2008. 11 years ago. How did you know them?"

"2008 is my missing year."

"What?"

It took three quarters of an hour to explain but when she'd done Alex let her up and apologized.

"Can I?" He passed her the photo. She flipped it over. Written on the back in a bright red pen was the words:

Torchwood 2008
Jack, Tosh, Owen, Ianto & Gwen

It was her writing. She looked again at the photo.

The man in the coat was Jack.

Looking into Jack's frozen face she felt a pang of longing. Blue eyes, that smile. Had she liked him?

Yes, but he was seeing Ianto.

A strangled sob escaped her throat. She never cried over something like memories. Except, the prospect of finally finding her missing year was a tad overbearing.

Alex stood from his position packing the escaped items back into the box and prised the photo from her hands. She gently reached out and took it back. "I keep the photo." She spoke with such conviction and firmness that he could only stand there as she tucked it into her over the shoulder bag. "McDonalds?"

Alex started at the abrupt change of subject. "Sure."

Right, hope that filled in a few gaps!
R&R please! Ta :D