For the last couple of days Owen has really been grinding my gears! At first I could just let his comments slide as part of his usual 'banter', just some little joke of his… but he keeps repeating it, I bet he's noticed how much his remarks are beginning to wind me up and is doing it on purpose to try and prompt a reaction out of me (that I am sure knows will not come, after all, short of a cannibal holding a knife to my throat… there is not a great deal that I will react angrily to). It all started when he overheard Jack and I having a somewhat, shall we say domestic, argument in his office three mornings ago…

…"Oh come on! You can't really be serious! You're really irritated with me because I left a tiny little mess in your bathroom this morning?" Jack asked.

"Look, I don't want to make a big deal out of it… but I don't think it's too much to ask that you can keep my bathroom tidy-ish or at the very least manage to keep the sinks clear of toothpaste stains… here in the hub you can do whatever you like! But I actually bother to clean my bathroom more than once every three months!" I replied, slightly annoyed after having found my bathroom decapitated by Jack and decorated with Aquafresh…

He just laughed a little, "Ok fine, message received and understood… how did I end up with such a clean freak!" He grinned and pulled me into an apologetic hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"He's not a clean freak, he's just a girl." Owen chirped in, grinning like a cat and clutching a stack of medical records that Jack had asked him for yesterday

Jack laughed his head off at that, as I just stood there with a determined scowl on my face… or at least what I thought was a scow, Owen was convinced that I was 'pouting' because I was having a little sulk.

Since then it's been "Ooh washing up those dishes again are we Miss Jones" or "Get back in the kitchen" etc. etc. etc. And it's driving me absolutely barmy.

Never mind what I said previously, some two weeks ago at Gwen's wedding, about being brought up never to speak ill of the dead; right now I am in a frame of mind to lay into Owen with all the insults under the sun, many of which commenting on his undead state. Of course I'm not going to, I'm far too polite to do that, I'll have to settle for some form of distasteful yet harmless 'banter' and let it continue to drive me insane that I just cannot simply insult people outright, even when they have insulted me in the first place! Honestly! Perhaps that's why he said what he said… because I find it difficult to stand up for myself in certain social situations… does that make me feminine? No, no. It makes me polite and nothing more, I am so definitely not the woman in this relationship, I like rugby and I drink beer and I carry a gun… of course Gwen does all of these things too, though I think Owen would probably argue that Rhys was the girl in that particular relationship.

And speaking of the Williams's (well Williams and Cooper, I think Gwen is keeping her name) they're back from their honeymoon! It was nice for Gwen to have had a break from Torchwood for a little while, but none of us could deny the fact that we're glad she's back with us, especially now that rift activity is picking back up again at a rapid pace – first mission post-holiday: four angry Sontarin threatening to unleash hell and war and destruction upon Ikea because they had got it into their minds that there was some sort of super-power behind the brand who had been trying to wipe out the Sontarin race and for many years now. Some of the aliens that we discover are just outright insane! I mean Ikea… yes it's a bit of a nightmare to find your way around, and the prices are unbelievably low, but run by an evil alien super-power? I think not!

I've just purposely refused to make Jack his coffee now, on the grounds that Owen will only refer to me as 'his wife' again… although I have solid evidence to prove that making one's other half a coffee is, if anything, the role taken on by the man! But of course this evidence comes from the line in the Annie song 'Maybe': "He may be pouring her coffee"… but referencing a musical is sure to counter balance my point. So instead I just evaded any situation altogether by making Jack fetch his own brew for once, and he's now scowling at me because of it (his coffee is appalling), hopefully he's twigged why I have neglected my normal role and doesn't just think I am still angry with him about the toothpaste.

I suggested going out to the opening night at the Electro this evening, but I just received groans all around… well, a groan from Owen anyway, I think he just heard the words 'going out' and 'this evening' and then saw the rain… Tosh's too busy with work to come out this evening and Jack wasn't around when I asked, but at least Gwen seemed mildly interested. I personally can't wait to go, my Dad used to take me there when I was younger before he… before he started… and I… Christ…one day I think I'm going to have to confront my issues with him, but not today… it's never today…Anyway, I hadn't been back to the Electro for some time and had missed it, I've said before about how much of an interest I have in 'old things' (and not just Jack) and being able to experience things form the past and at the Electro you just feel exactly like you have been transported back in time.

"And who knows! You may see long dead members of your family waiting in the cinema queue!" … or rather your current boss and lover… that was, well how can I put it, downright surreal! He was definitely in the film, dressed in some sort of uniform and holding a gun to his head; he seemed to be part of a kind of circus act. Which was strange for more than just the obvious 'when-on-Earth-was-Jack-in-the-circus-?' reason, but for the fact that it wasn't the film we were supposed to be viewing at all.

Gwen and Owen didn't notice any of this at all of course; they were far too busy talking to notice anything that was going on. They chattered away about mindless nonsense throughout the whole film; I had a suspicion that's what they might do, I wish Tosh could have come with us. Afterwards as we were walking out of the cinema Owen kept saying that I must have imagined it 'because I can't get my husband out of my head'… I am this close to pushing him into a cell with Janet.

I decided to hang around for a bit after they left, which was just as well because Jack turned up and at least he seemed interested in what I had to say, he didn't even scoff when I made that comment about "all those acts performing for us, part of history, trapped on film forever." He seemed to be in his nostalgic mode and I was more than happy to let him reminisce and talk about his past life and the travelling shows.

After that brief flash back of an interlude, Jack and I set about investigating exactly what had gone on with the projector, secretly I was quite pleased for it to be just us two working on a little investigation together, we hadn't done that in quite a while. Anyway, the young man operating it seemed to think that it had just gone 'hay wire'; the film of the travelling fair had just started playing by itself. And that coupled with the incoming call we received from Tosh, letting us know that there had been a spike of rift activity at a nearby bus shelter to the Electro, added up together to make this situation seem very confusing and just a little sinister. She gave us the co-ordinates for the location of the rift activity and we went off on our way to investigate further, picking up Gwen and Owen on our way who had only managed to get halfway back to the hub by this point… and were unfortunately rather wet.

When we got to the bus shelter the girl that we found there, Nettie, she was… well Owen said that she shouldn't have even really been alive. She'd had all the moisture drained from her mouth and was just sort of sat there, limp and almost lifeless except for a heart-beat. And then there was another one, the owner of a café on the corner of (wait for it) Hope Street – where the Electro is located and where we had found the first victim. She had the exact same symptoms, a heart-beat but no breath, a Jack reckoned that someone – or something – was out there separating and stealing the life force from innocent and random bodies.

We've been back for a little while now and had been performing more scans on the area surrounding the Electro and keeping our ears open for any incoming reports of further victims at the hospitals in the local area, when Jack decided that we needed to see the film again. At least now the others believe me that Jack was actually in the film and that I haven't just got the boss on the brain (ha! told you so Dr Harper!). It was entertaining again to listen to Jack reminisce about his past, and to just observe him watching the film.

…"I knew those two. They argued day and night."… It will never cease to amaze me at how clearly Jack can remember everything from his past.

He said that some of the people in the film they were called the night travellers, he'd never worked with them and never even known anyone who had - they only ever performed in the dead of night… they were a sort of ghost story of the time and they always came 'from out of the rain'… whatever that means… and I didn't like the sound of a trail of damage and sorrow one little bit.

As the others left the office to gather some more research, leaving just Tosh and I stood in there, it suddenly dawned on me that there was something different about the film we had just seen compare with the film that was shown at the cinema; I just couldn't quite put my finger on it yet, so I asked Tosh if she wouldn't mind playing the film at a slower speed – frame by frame.

And then it clicked, the woman wasn't there. The woman stood in front of the water tank had just vanished into thin air – the scene itself was still there and present, there was no damage to the actual film, the woman had just gone! Like she had stepped right off the role of film. And not to mention that horrifically creepy looking man in the top hat… both of them were absent and Jack seemed to think that they had genuinely managed to escape the film and arrive into the present day – suddenly I am beginning to rethink my love of antiquities.

Jack needs my 'local knowledge' apparently, and for once I actually think he is being genuine and not just using some unusual code word for 'sex', he actually wants to help him work out why they may have come back, what they might have done in the past etc. Better go and see what he wants…

Yes, for once he really did require my expertise on the local area – specifically as to how many other old cinemas there were in Cardiff; with regret I replied that most of them had been pulled down – there just isn't the demand for places like the Electro anymore, which is really quite a shame. We came to the conclusion in the end that the night travellers were looking for a new audience and for revenge for the cinema industry which robbed them of their own audience.

Meanwhile Tosh had been picking up some strange readings, she'd been picking up the sea in the middle of town, hearing the sound of waves and everything… it all seemed highly suspicious.

More victims, a whole family this time, two children and their parents… they can't have been any older than 9… the nurse that was caring for the two of them actually proved to be of valuable help to us. As soon as Jack uttered the words 'they came from out of the rain' she started retelling the story of Christina, a patient at Providence Park the psychiatric hospital, she used to hide away in fright whenever any form of travelling show came into the area, said that they were trying to steal her last breath apparently. It was far too much of a coincidence for us not to investigate further, so Jack and I left immediately to go and question this Christina.

When speaking to her in person she repeated some of what the nurse had told us and more, she remembered back from when she was just five years old how the night travellers had arrived completely out of the blue; out of the rain. The people she described sounded exactly like those from the film – it just had to be them.

I was beginning to think that she was quite sweet until she unsettled Jack the way that she did, "it means you're from nowhere"… he is from somewhere and he does belong, he belongs he with us… with me. I could see the pained look in her eyes when she said it, and I knew he would never admit that it bothered him there in front of her and I'm still not sure if he'll bring it up later when we're alone or not, but I really wish that I could do something to make him feel better – the way he has done for me on so many occasions.

She told us that the man in the top hat that we had seen was called the Gohstmaker; that he had wanted to take her last breath and put it in his flask, that she would be able to travel with his circus and be in his audience forever, which just heightened the already sinister view that we had of the mysterious missing man from the film.

But I suppose it was the "They touched you as they passed you by" comment that was the incredibly creepy part for me… (which later Jack would comment on in the SUV saying that only he was allowed to do that).

Just arrived back at the hub and Gwen has clearly been doing her research, I really am rather proud of the detail that she has gone into regarding the past histories of strange disappearances around the times of travelling shows. Though when she mentioned old wives tales I could just feel the smirk that Owen was directing towards me, though I pointedly ignored it and carried on listening to what she had to say instead. There seemed to be a lot of rumours about children being told to hold their breath when walking past the fairs… newspapers talking of flasks which could bring people back to life… all the signs pointed to the idea that this must be how the Gohstmaker created his ghosts, his audiences, by stealing their last breaths and holding them in this mythical flask.

We'd already made up our minds that we needed to find them, and fast, when Jonathan the young man who had been in charge of operating the slide projector at the Electro called us with a rather urgent and frantic sounding message – they had been at his flat, a woman had been there just lying in a full bath of water… but when we arrived there was nothing, she'd left quickly without leaving a trace other than the opened film cans which rather worryingly suggested that they could be bringing more of their travelling friends from the film, through into our world.

Jonathan said that she hadn't felt like a real person, hadn't felt like flesh, but rather plastic instead… almost like she had become part of the Jack reckoned, and decided that our best bet for trapping them back on the film forever would be to film them once again; a film of a film. Reversing the process by which they had been brought back, exposing the developing film to as much light as possible, blanking them out of the picture and wiping all traces of them forever.

Gwen contacted us from the Electro with an urgent message to get there now, as soon as possible – something strange was going on. Of course it was them, it had to be, they were there with their stolen audience attempting to find anyone to put on their show for having reached catastrophic levels of desperation and having allowed the need to gain revenge upon the modern society (well, past society to us) who had rid the world of the need for their talents, to fester for so many years that they had been trapped as images on film. As we stood there watching the Mighty Stromboli, whilst Gwen tried to calm the now very flustered Jonathan who had arrived with us to find his parents frozen in place like that, more and more of the images began to become real, to lift of the film and become living things once again and Jack had his camera at the ready to capture them all.

Somehow I managed to grab the flask from the Ghostmaker and managed to even run away with it, all most right into Jonathan's flat… but I just wasn't quite fast enough. He was hot on my tail and managed to grab at my shoulder, forcing me to let go of the flask and allowing him the opportunity to open it up and release all of the 'last breaths' that it contained. Jack may have captured them all on film by now and exposed the film to enough light to rid the film, and our world, of them permanently… but I couldn't save them. They all died because I just wasn't quite quick enough, wasn't quite good enough. Well, I say all; I did manage to save one small breath – the breath of the little boy who was in the car accident… who would now grow up to live without his parents or his sister… We may have saved one life, but he's going to grow up now having lost so much…

And to top it all off Jack confessed his worries that the night travellers could still be out there, lurking on old bits of film tucked away in lofts and basements; I couldn't bear it if they managed to come back again. I just left Jack's office without a word, not quite knowing what to say right now but knowing that I needed some time to sit down and write and process my thoughts. This always helps.

I think Jack must have understood that I needed this time too, as he waited a full half an hour before approaching me at my desk.

"Hey" He whispered softly, leaning in towards me slightly to brush my cheek.

"Hey" I sighed back

"You ok?" He asked, though my face was probably giving away the answer to that one right now.

"Just about…but… so many people Jack. If I had just been a bit quicker, so many more people wouldn't be dead" I replied, tears threatening to roll down my cheeks at any second.

"Shsshsh" He whispered soothingly and pulled me into a somewhat awkward hug across the desk. "It's not your fault, you weren't the one who opened the flask, it's solely down to the Ghostmaker. And just remember, you did manage to save one person"

"But only one… and think of the life he'll have now, without his mother or father, or his sister"

"One is far better than none and it'll be far better than no life at all. You did good, so be proud of yourself" He reassured, rubbing gentle circles across my shoulders with the palm of his hand.

We stayed still and silent like that for several minutes, before he spoke again.

"So cheer up a bit, eh?" He asked, pulling away with a smile on his face.

I tried to mirror the smile back, though I'm sure it must have come across as a little bit forced… "I'll try."

His grin widened.

"Oh and by means of helping to cheer me up, could you please tell Owen that I am not the woman in this relationship"

His grin fell, "are you suggesting that I am!" He asked incredulously.

"Well… you do sing an awful lot of show tunes… and you fuss over your appearance way more than I do…"I grinned, genuinely this time.

"Oh and like you so don't enjoy my show tunes! That's right, I've heard you humming along and I may fuss over my appearance way more but you wear pink way more than I do!"

"That's as may be… but you did steal my pink shirt recently, if I might remind you…"

He sighed, but then smiled, "Well we're both women then"

"Can we not just say that we're both just men instead… it would incur a lot less mocking from Owen if we did" I pleaded, though chuckle inwardly at his suggestion.

He rolled his eyes, "Pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to… point is, we're pretty much even I'd say…and if Owen does try and make any more comments…I know about a certain someone's substantial Hugh Grant DVD collection, and I bet he doesn't want Gwen or Tosh to know about that!" Jack said wiggling his eyebrows with an air of superiority.

"Never!" I exclaimed, "Owen likes Hugh Grant films! But they're all chic flicks, I don't even like Hugh Grant films particularly" I couldn't help but laugh at the sudden revelation.

"Oh yes, he's quite the fan. Doesn't like to admit it though, I only found out when I accidentally walked in on him watching Notting Hill and he rapidly turned the TV set off…leading me to think it was something – shall we say dodgier? – and giving him no choice but to explain himself."

Well there's a surprise indeed, at least now I have suitable blackmail material, even if I cannot bear to insult him!