Everything's changing when I turn around
I'm out of my control,
Everything's changing out of what I know
Everywhere I go.

Avril Lavigne - Mobile

Everything Changes: Part 2

Gwen Cooper was terrified. Not only had the man in the front office been rather creepy in manner but now she was walking down a long stone corridor towards a large metal lift with no idea what was at the bottom of it.

When she stepped out she caught a first glimpse of a massive room and saw the Asian lady she had noticed both at the crime scene and the hospital. Her mind struggled to catch up as she walked through glancing up at the cavernous ceiling and the vast pillar that presumably became the fountain above ground.

There was a woman in the corner soldering two pieces of metal together and when she looked up she saw Captain Jack Harkness exit a room surrounded by blinds and make his way down to the main floor.

The woman soldering removed her mask and Gwen turned to see Jack had reached the bottom level but he just walked straight past her. For a moment, she considered leaving. They must not have noticed her or they would be up in arms by now, she could leave now and forget anything ever happened. Then again, there was that niggling feeling in her mind that told her to keep going and so she continued past the Asian lady and towards the man in the white coat and Jack.

It was at this point she concluded that they were either very blind or ignoring her because it was now plainly obvious that she was standing among them.

She continued for a few more steps when, all of a sudden, a figure dropped down, hanging upside down in front of her. She gave a startled cry as the girl swung from a bar across what looked like the entrance to a med bay. A monkey appeared beside her and Gwen couldn't help but stare.

The girl was staring blankly at her and her hair tumbled in waves towards the ground but it wasn't the blank stare that kept Gwen's attention. The eyes looking straight back at her were the brightest shade of violet.

Her attention to the strange girl was broken when she heard giggles behind her. She turned sharply to see the white coated man's shoulders were shaking violently as if he was attempting to suppress his laughter. With a snort the man swung around on his chair and slumped back. 'I can't do this. I'm sorry! I'm rubbish! I give up!'

Gwen was taken aback as the others all suddenly relaxed and turned to the speaker. The Asian lady laughed as she pointed at the man.

'He set me off.'

'Well that lasted 0.2 seconds.' The woman at the back of the room shouted.

'Mmm, she's actually carrying pizza,' the man in the white coat added, pointing at Gwen with his pen.

Suddenly the pizza was grabbed from Gwen and she turned in time to see the girl flip back to the ground and take the boxes from the monkey who made himself comfortable on her shoulder. 'Not anymore she's not.'

Gwen was about to grab them back out of reaction but the girl was already on the sofa with the boxes open. 'What idiot ordered ham and pineapple? How many times do I have to tell you that pineapple doesn't belong on pizza?'

'Come on she was gonna say, here's your pizza, and I was gonna say how much?' The Captain swaggered towards them as he spoke, 'Then she says oh whatever twenty quid and I say oh I don't have any money. I was working on a punch line. I would've got there but it would have been good.'

The girl on the sofa snorted and reached for the second box, the monkey still balanced perfectly on her shoulder. Gwen motioned to the pizzas on the table and offered to leave and wasn't surprised when Jack reminded her it was a little too late for backing out now. She was however shocked when she learnt they had been watching her.

Winter watched Gwen's face as she munched on a slice of meat feast from the second box of pizza. It was amusing, watching the bewildered women, to say the least and she had really enjoyed the little staring match earlier. Jack brought her back to Earth as always. 'And before we go any further who the hell orders pizza under the name of TORCHWOOD.'

Owen admitted to his crime and Winter glared across the room at him, 'Which means you also ordered the ham and pineapple.' She growled.

Owen looked sheepish and replied, 'Like I said, I'm a twat.'

Gwen was too overloaded with information to pay much attention to the back and forth and instead continued to interrogate Toshiko about her part in covering up the porter's murder. She didn't look happy but, whether she liked it or not, it had to be done. She didn't appear to be wanting to let up yet though. Instead she moved on to the murder victim Winter had missed out on. Realisation hit Winter, at that moment, that that this woman was also the one Owen had mentioned when they returned to the hub that day. She really was persistent.

'And what happens to me.'

Winter looked up as Gwen asked this question. Jack made a noise like he was deliberating. 'I'm police. Constable Gwen Cooper, you can't do anything...' she trailed off and Winter laughed.

'Were Torchwood, not the C.I.A. We don't just make people disappear when we feel like it. Honestly who do you think we are? Barbarians?'

Owen smirked at her as Gwen's eyes flickered between them all as if she wasn't certain if she believed them.

'Right then,' Jack said, 'PC Cooper. Do you want to come see?'

'See what?' Gwen asked.

'The leaning tower of Pisa! What do you think?' Winter said, sarcastically.

Jack sent a look her way and she shut up but she noticed the corners of Owen's mouth twitch ever so slightly. At least someone appreciated her input.

'You saw the murder, come and see the murderer.'

Winter watched as Gwen thought about following. She was obviously scared stiff so she approached and gave her a slight push.

'Go with him.' She said quietly.

Gwen looked at her for a moment, once again entranced by the violet of Winter's eyes, but as soon as Winter blinked the spell was broken and she followed after Jack.

Winter laughed as she heard the pterodactyl frighten Gwen and Jack shouting for her to follow him. She lay down on the sofa with Peregrine on her chest and stroked his thick, black and white fur. 'So what do we think?' asked Owen.

'She seems nice enough but we all know how it will end.' Tosh said, 'Jack will show her everything then charm into having a drink with him and retcon her.'

'Shame really,' Owen said, after a pause. Everyone stopped to stare at him like he'd gone mad. 'What? Did you see that arse?'

Toshiko blushed and turned away, Suzie shook her head and walked off and Winter laughed.

'It was something wasn't it.' She replied. He grinned and grabbed a bit of pineapple pizza from the table.

TTT

Half an hour later and Winter had escaped to the higher levels to read for a while. She heard Ianto enter the room and decided, as she had little to do she would help him clean up for a while. She grabbed hold of the pole next to Jacks office and wrapped her legs around it speeding down to the lower level.

'Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper,' Jack was back with Gwen and it was introduction time.

'Doctor Owen Harper, thank you.'

'Toshiko Sato, computer genius. Suzie Costello, she's second in command.'

Winter reached the ground floor and heard Jack call her name. 'This is Nemo, you can call her Winter.'

Winter once again found herself face to face with Gwen.

'Your eyes?' Gwen asked, 'are you alien too?'

The whole team burst out laughing but Winter just rolled the violet orbs and gave them a hard stare.

'No, Owen had an… accident, with some alien medical tech.'

Owen pointed at her as if he was going to argue then leant back against his desk. "I thought it was a laser pointer," he grumbled, "I can't be responsible for where you hang around."

Peregrine took this as his moment to shine, he jumped from the top of Owen's desk, onto Gwen's head and then onto Winter's shoulder again.

'Oh yeah, this is Peregrine. You can call him Pip.'

Gwen nodded as Jack ushered her to the side. 'And this is Ianto Jones. Ianto cleans up after us and gets us everywhere on time.'

'I try my best.'

'And he looks good in a suit'

'Careful that's harassment sir.'

Gwen followed Jack over to his office. 'But why are you telling me their names? I'm not supposed to know am I? That's classified isn't it?'

'Way beyond classified,' Jack replied.

'Then you shouldn't be telling me.'

Winter sighed and crossed the room to Ianto, taking a black sack from his hand. 'Honestly, first she follows us all the way here, even disguising herself (all be it, not very well) as the pizza girl,' She murmured to him, 'she asks all of her questions and now she wants to know why we're telling her everything. Make you bloody mind up woman.'

Owen coughed to cover up his laugh and Ianto smirked slightly. Jack looked over and sent Winter an exasperated look.

'What are you going to do to me?' Gwen asked.

'Oh not this again...' Ianto put his hand over Winter's mouth.

'What do you imagine?' Winter rolled her eyes at the look on Jacks face as Ianto kept one hand on her mouth and the other on her hip to stop her wriggling away.

'I've seen too much, your names and everything, and the weevil and you can dump a man in the water and lie about his death.' Jack grabbed his coat from the stand in his office.

'Okay, Tosh, finish that calibration tomorrow morning. Owen first thing get a hold of Chandler and Bell 'cause I think they're lying. Ianto if he need's back up then you better be on standby. Suzie I know it's a pain in the ass but I need the costing on the glove research. Winter I may be late tonight, no monkeys in my bed.'

Ianto let go of Winter's mouth and she wrapped her arm around his waist to mirror his, sticking her tongue out at Jack as he turned to Gwen, 'And as for you ,you're coming with me.'

As Gwen followed Jack around the fountain, Winter nudged Ianto with her hip. 'Did you see?' she whispered.

'What? Her arrival, of course. Trust Owen to cock it up.'

'What do you think Jack would have come up with?'

Ianto studied Jack for a moment. 'I'm not sure. I think he was lying, as usual.'

Winter looked seriously at him. 'He was right about one thing though.'

'Oh? What was that?'

'You do look good in a suit.'

Ianto blushed and Winter laughed as she kissed him on the cheek and untwined herself from him, heading over to clear up the pizza.

TTT

That night Jack arrived back to find Winter tossing and turning in the bed whimpering. He sighed when he saw the monkey sitting at the other end and picked him up placing him in the small hammock next to the wardrobe, then took off his bomber jacket, shoes, socks, braces and belt, and slid in next to her.

As he stroked her hair and talked to her he expected her to calm as she normally would but tonight it just didn't seem to be working. She shuddered awake and grasped his shirt in her hands, breathing deeply as she tried not to cry. Jack didn't press, he just let her calm down.

'How did she take it?' Winter asked after a few moments.

'Well she called me a bastard.' Winter laughed sadly and lent against him. 'What's up?'

'I just have this feeling that this won't be the last time we see Gwen Cooper.'

'You had to say her whole name didn't you, had to make it sound all dramatic and spooky.'

She smiled and rolled over wrapping his arm around his waist. She was asleep in seconds.

TTT

The next day was pretty dull. Everyone was working so Winter sat in the boardroom with Peregrine throwing him an occasional nut as she flicked through a pile of old reports that had been mixed up and left forgotten in the archives.

She had found early on that Jack didn't really have much use for her in the report making side of Torchwood so, like Ianto, she was generally put to work with the archives. The current report was recounting Jack's trip down the Thames with an escaped experiment (which as far as she could tell was a half cow, half human creature). It sounded like he'd had quite a laugh to be honest but still, day's like this always went really slowly.

Five hours later a hand on her shoulder woke her up from the nap she had fallen into, two thirds through the pile. Ianto placed a large mug of coffee in front of her and crouched down. 'Hey.'

'Hey' she replied, taking the mug and sipping from it.

'How are you feeling?'

'What do you mean?'

'Jack said you didn't sleep well last night.'

Winter smiled and blinked away the water that had collected in her eyes during her sleep. 'Was it the same nightmare?'

Other than Jack, Ianto was the only one who knew about her fear of fire or the nightmares that sometimes kept her up. He lived alone but unlike the other seemed to enjoy company more so she had often found herself sat up with him late at night watching TV and sometimes she drifted off.

'Yeah,' she lied, 'yeah, it was.'

He leant over and hugged her gently. 'Finish that,' he told her, pointing to the coffee, 'then go for a walk, try and clear your head.'

He smiled at her then took the finished pile of reports down to the archives. She took the mug and lent back, relaxing with the warmth seeping through her hands. Perhaps Ianto was right, a bit of fresh air and sea breeze might be exactly what she needed. So, when her coffee was finished and the last few reports were sorted she grabbed her jacket from the back, called Peregrine over and left through main office.

The night was cool and breezy as Winter walked slowly along the path next to the sea. Cardiff hadn't been her first choice of place to come to. In fact she'd put up a fight originally but she'd been so young and... others had thought it was a good change from London. Now it felt right. It felt like she was really home.

It was just after six that she finally decided to get back to the hub. The others were bound to have left by now. She approached the fountain from the back, hearing voices on the other side.

'...He said you were good, anyway, it's not much good now I can't just...you're going to put up a fight so I've got to...'

That was Suzie. Winter edged closer, hoping to overhear more, maybe if she got something good, she could blackmail Suzie into not blackmailing her. What Suzie did next was a surprise though, she pulled out a Torchwood issue gun from her bag and pointed it at whoever was behind the fountain.

'Put it down.'

Winter mentally cursed as she heard Gwen Cooper was at the business end of the gun. Couching down she put Peregrine on the floor.

'Go get Jack,' she whispered, 'quickly.'

She watched the monkey disappear into the night and knew that he would be with Jack in less than a minute.

'Whose there?'

Winter closed her eyes, a slight tingle of fear shot through her as she rounded the fountain and stood next to Gwen, being careful not to look at her, something as shocking as her eyes could suddenly bring back her lost memories especially as they were so close to the surface.

'Suzie. Put the gun down.'

Suzie laughed a little manically then turned back to Gwen who attempted to push Winter behind her. Winter pushed back, she had enough of that with Jack. Not this time.

'I knew you'd come back, you're the only one that can make the link. Well the only one in public.'

'What link Suzie? What are you hiding? Just tell them they can help.'

'Is that what you're going to do with Andrew?' she replied, 'ask for their help?'

'Shut up about him.' Winter's voice was lower, angrier. Gwen's grip tightened on her arm, warning her not to provoke Suzie but she didn't listen. 'He has nothing to do with you.'

'One day you'll end up like me Nemo,' Suzie stated, using the name they had been introduced with, 'alone, just you and your secrets, no friends, no family, no home, and no name.'

Winter was frozen. Could she really end up like Suzie? Cold, bitter, pointing a gun in the face of an innocent woman to protect her secrets?

'Torchwood will find out by morning but I'll be gone. I don't know where. Far away. What am I going to do? I loved this job, I really loved it.' The tears seeped out of Suzie's eyes as she continued her explanation. 'And now I've got to run. Oh Christ! How can you do any job after this one?'

'Please put down the gun.'

Suzie continued as though she hadn't heard Gwen.

'...Because it gets inside you, you do this long enough and you end up thinking, how come we get all the Weevils and bollocks and shit? Is that what alien life is? Filth? But maybe there's better stuff out there, brilliant stuff. Beautiful stuff, just... they don't come here. This planet's so dirty that's all we get the shit.'

'We have Jack!' Winter cried.

'Oh yes, your boyfriend. It's not like we even know he's alien. For all we know he just had early exposure to this stuff and the rest he just makes up and don't start on that little rat that follows you. Probably just a drug experiment gone bad.'

Suzie waved the gun around frightening Gwen, Winter was too far gone to be frightened she didn't care anymore.

'There's plenty of beauty on this planet Suzie Costello. You're just so warped that you can't see it anymore.'

'I...I don't know what you're talking about?' Gwen glanced at both women a confused and scared expression on her face.

'I wish I could forget.'

Winter shook her head at this admission. If there was one thing she would say about Torchwood it was that she would never, ever, in a million years want to go back to how she was before it. She barely listened as Suzie explained how she had used the murders as practice for using the glove. A movement to her right brought her eye's flickering up to where Jack was appearing from the lift, she could see it right out of the corner of her eye. They would be fine now.

'You have to get inside this stuff, surrender yourself to it. I did with the knife and the glove, and that's why the perception filter doesn't work on me.'

Winter made a move to Jack but he was already on the floor, blood trickling out of the bullet wound between his eyes.

'NO!' She yelled, leaping forward to him. She felt a sharp pain on the back on her head and found herself on her back, on the floor next to Jack. Suzie had hit her over the head with the gun.

'Did you notice,' she asked as she pointed the gun down at Winter, '... that he introduced me before you? I'm supposed to be last because I'm second in command. Alright the tea boy wasn't in the room so he came last but you. You don't do anything. You're more the torchwood pet than that bloody pterodactyl.'

Winter's eyelids were heavy and she fought to keep them open. Somewhere in the midst of the rushing noise that had occupied her mind she heard his voice.

'Put down the gun. Suzie, it's over. Now come with me.'

There was a loud bang and suddenly a pair of arms encasing her. Lifting her to a sitting position. She shook her head slightly and blinked carefully until Jacks face swam into view. He was about to say something when they heard a thump next to him.

Gwen had fallen to her knees in shock. She blinked a few times and when she finally looked up the first thing she saw was a large pair of violet eyes staring back at her through the darkness. 'I remember,' was all she could choke out.

Winter let her head fall onto Jack's shoulders and let him drag her to her feet. He leant down and put a hand on Gwen's shoulder. She looked up again and took the hand that he was offering. He pulled Suzie's body over to the lift then escorted Winter and Gwen down to the hub, sitting them on the sofa before lowering the lift down and returning with Suzie's body draped over his arms.

Peregrine sat himself on Winter's lap, a welcome bit of warmth to her freezing hands. A blanket appeared over Gwen's shoulders and a mug of tea in her hands which she clutched tightly. Once again Jack dragged Winter to her feet and led her to the med bay where he cleaned the small gash on her head. He gave her a hug and told her to go sit in his office and wait for him to call the others.

They all arrived within 15 minutes, all with different reactions to the news. Winter watched from Jacks chair as Ianto locked away the knife and the glove in a large box marked "NOT FOR USE". Owen and Tosh placed the cologne and the reader down on Jacks desk and left quickly. Jack went to the morgue and locked away Suzie's body.

When Jack returned Winter was still in his chair, Peregrine held in her arms like a baby, staring at a picture of the team from her first Christmas at Torchwood. Jack had insisted on throwing her a Christmas party complete with tinsel and tree, because she'd never had one. Ianto had given her a scrap book and a small camera, Owen had picked out some music he thought she might like, Toshiko had given her an i-Pod, Suzie gave her with some books to add to her collection and Jack had presented her a silver charm bracelet that she barely ever wore for fear of losing it. Every time she overcame any sort of boundary like a birthday or getting her driver's licence, he rewarded her with a new charm, she kept a detailed log of each one. She couldn't bring herself to smile at the memory. Jack came up behind her and put the picture down flat before leading Winter and Gwen out to the SUV.

TTT

The weather was still cold, especially up on the roof. Winter sat in front of where Jack stood, leaning up against his legs, with her knees almost up against her chest. Peregrine played with a small pigeon he had found on the opposite end of the roof and Gwen had chosen to stand like Jack as they all surveyed the city.

It was beautiful to see the sunrise over Cardiff. 'Owen and Toshiko, you didn't tell them that you were shot in the head and survived.' Gwen stated. It was the first time she'd spoken since the incident.

'You didn't tell them either. Followed my lead. Keep doing that and you might get through this.'

'She killed you Jack, I saw it, she shot you through the head, you were bleeding, no one could have survived that.' Winter interrupted.

'I can't die'

'Okay.' Winter got up and began to walk back the way they had come.

'But I can't,' he called after her. She turned to face him her arms crossed over her body, 'something happened to me a while back. Long story and far away. But I was killed, and then I was brought back to life and ever since then... I can't die.'

'But how...'

'I don't know,' He cut her off, 'one day I'll find a doctor, the right sort of doctor and maybe he can explain it but until then...'

'Nothing kills you?' Gwen asked.

'Well it kind of freaks people out so... it's best if neither of you say anything.'

'It doesn't matter anyway, you'll only wipe my memory again,' Gwen sounded deflated.

'Why would I do that?' Both women looked around sharply at him and Winter took a few steps forward again. 'Torchwood's got a vacancy, job going spare. Do you want it?'

'But what do you need me for?' Winter made it to Jack's side and stared at the woman across from her, the one who had cause so much trouble.

'Because maybe you were right. We could do more to help. What do you think? Do you want to join up?'

'Do I get a say in this?' Winter asked. Jack smiled and reached out, pulling her in by the hand and slipping another lolly pop to her.

'No.'

'Yeah' they both turned to face Gwen, 'I do yeah.'

'Owen is going to be so pissed.'

N.B. Fun Fact, I am now an archivist and this chapter is possibly the first written mention of my future career choice which I hadn't even realised until I did this rewrite.