Leaving someone when you love someone
It is the hardest thing to do when you love someone
As much as I love you, oh, I don't wanna leave you
Baby, it tears me up inside but I'll never be the one
You're needing, I love you goodbye

Baby, It's never gonna work out
I love you goodbye

'I love you, goodbye'-Nina

Greeks Baring Gifts: Part 1

'You're such a pest Owen,' Gwen teased as they pulled up at the construction site.

It had been two weeks since the trouble in the country and it appeared that everyone had settled back into their working mode, choosing not to speak about what had happened and instead continuing as if it had all been one hideous nightmare.

Winter still couldn't sleep in the dark and left her radio on all through the night to add a comforting collection of sounds even when she closed her eyes. Three nights after the trip home Jack had switched it off and she had awoken in the dark screaming. Since then he had learnt to leave the radio on even if she seemed fast asleep.

She slipped out of the front seat her sword strapped to her belt. That was another change she had made for the moment. She went no where without the weapon. Just the feel of it strapped to her side made her feel safer as she walked towards the red tent close behind Jack and Gwen.

Owen sidled past her and jumped down into the hole in the dirt. Jack knelt down and shook his head at the skeleton in front of him.

'Once, just once I'd like to walk into one of these tents and find it's a party, you know with food, and drink, people dancing a girl crying in the corner.'

'I could stamp on Owen's toe, is that good enough?' Winter asked.

'You calling me a girl?' Owen said affronted.

She smiled at him and sat cross legged on the floor.

'Is it alien?' Gwen asked, motioning to the large hunk of metal sticking from the ground.

'And how!' he replied, 'I'm picking up traces of Illmanite, peroxine and even dark matter.

'Any idea what it is?'

'Not a clue. Could be a weapon, or a really big stapler.'

Winter snorted and poked Owen.

'Let's keep it away from this one then.'

Gwen looked at her quizzically and Jack laughed.

'About a month before you arrived Owen decided to pretend to staple a post-it to his head, but the genius forgets to take the staples out first. Walked around looking like an alien abduction victim for a week.'

Gwen grinned and Owen grunted in the pit, digging around the skull.

'How's our friend there?' Jack asked.

'She's dead' Owen told him.

'Yeah thanks Quincy. She?'

'Judging by the size of her skull.'

'How long have they been here Tosh?' Jack asked flipping away his manipulator and turning to look at the woman crouched next to him.

'From the depth they found them, one hundred and ninety six years eleven to eleven and a half months. The earth's been disturbed so, I'm afraid, I can't be more accurate.'

'What killed her? The stapler?' Winter asked, Jack smirked but Owen ignored her jibe.

'Nah see the shattered ribs, I reckon she was shot.'

'Well, let's get her back to the hub and find out.' Jack replied, getting up and leaving the tent quickly.

Gwen pulled Owen up from the hole and laughed, 'Oohh you so light, you like a girl,' she teased.

He looked at her, unimpressed. 'I'm not light I'm wiry, and fat girls go mad for it,' He told her, 'but, I guess I don't need to tell you that.'

She smiled and began packing up the kit on the floor. Winter stared at the pair of them, her eyes wide. That did not mean what she thought it did. Did it? There was no way Gwen would be that stupid. She watched the pair of them as they laughed and joked all the way back to the hub and she shook her head softly. Yes, apparently she would be.

TTT

Winter sat in the armoury with Ianto as he rounded the 'stapler', as it had affectionately become know. Every so often he made a note on his clipboard but other than that he was pretty quiet.

'It's November,' Winter stated suddenly, he looked up bewildered.

'I'd noticed.'

Pip ran through the door and settled himself upon her arm.

'It's nearly my birthday.'

He smiled and shook his head.

'I don't think we're ready for another party so soon after your twenty-first.'

She laughed quietly and fed Pip a few nuts, deliberating. 'I was thinking a gathering outside the hub would be good for us, you know raise the morale a bit.'

Ianto continued his circle of the mystery object still unable to keep the smile from his face. 'As long as we keep Jack away from the karaoke bar this time.'

She giggled and looked over at the sound of a smash from the main hub. Ianto rolled his eyes and Winter hopped off the stool. 'Aren't you coming?' she asked.

He snorted at her, 'You have got to be kidding, if they've just broken Toshiko's computer, and I think they have, then I don't want to be anywhere near when she finds out.'

'When who finds out what?' Toshiko asked from the door, smiling.

Ianto looked up, stunned and Winter jumped in quickly, 'When Gwen finds out what happened at my last birthday party. Ianto thinks it will put her off coming this year. You'll come, won't you Tosh?'

Toshiko smiled and nodded, 'of course, someone has to take the blackmail photos for the next day.'

She turned and left to get back to her computer and Ianto mouthed a thank you in Winter's direction. She smiled and shrugged, slipping out of the door, leaving him to get on with his records. Winter almost walked into Tosh as she stormed out of the Hub and watched her leave with a sad expression. She knew how capable and smart Toshiko was, being trapped in a cell by cannibals with her had really shown her how calm and collected she could be in an emergency.

Sighing she continued her pathway up towards Jack's office. Yes she was worried about Tosh but she had other matters to discuss with the Captain. He was on the phone when she slipped in. He glanced up at her and began to wind the conversation down.

'Yeah, yeah that's great I'll let her know, thank you.'

He put the phone down and turned to face her, 'That was the head of the building team. They'll be starting work on Andrew House tomorrow.'

Winter's eyes widened and she grinned, sitting down in the chair opposite Jack. 'That's great!'

He grinned back and then flipped the file in front of him shut. 'So, did you need something or is this a social call.'

She smiled at the humour but her face fell slightly when she started her sentence. 'I know it's not really my place, but the people in your team, our team,' she corrected herself, 'they mean everything to me, they're family and I don't like to see them unhappy.'

Jack leant back in his chair.

'I don't think Ianto is coping as well as he thinks,' She told him. 'He's walking around like... I don't know but, he only speaks when he's spoken to, he smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes.' She shook her head and glanced out of the window at the hub. 'And I don't think it was the countryside, I think that just made it worse.'

'Lisa,' Jack agreed.

She nodded and turned back to him. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. 'I know what you mean, I was hoping it was just me feeling guilty but…he's not what he was. I just don't know what to do about it.'

Winter looked up and bit her lip. It was now or never, do or die. She had to tell him. 'Take him out tonight. Take him to dinner, just you two. Show him that you don't feel any resentment towards him for what he did.'

'I can't do that,' Jack told her.

'Why not?'

'Because… I mean he's…. I just can't.'

She sighed and got up from the chair, heading for the door. 'You told me you loved him,' she spoke quietly and looked straight into his eyes. 'Maybe if you show him that, he'll finally move on.'

She left Jack to think over the conversation and headed to her room to plan a party. Anything to get her mind off of what she had just given up.

TTT

The next day Winter was playing hide and seek with Pip in the main hub. Jack had been watching for the last hour but had finally decided to get on with some work. Owen had just changed and was heading towards the autopsy bay and Gwen sat at her desk seemingly in a dream.

She had changed into a comfy pair of trousers to help her fluidity and had pulled her hair up in a pony tail to get it out of her eyes. Dangling thirty feet above the hub floor she hung from a bar by her legs and began to count.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10… She hoped Pip wouldn't hide in the rubbish room again. It took her three weeks to get the stink out of his fur last time.

11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 …Or the silly little cave at the top of the building, she didn't need a repeat of almost falling to her death and only just catching herself on a loose wire. Jack banned her from high climbing for almost a month.

21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30… Toshiko was here how did she miss that? Oh yeah! Her eyes were meant to be closed.

31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40… Ianto was in the conference room.

41…42…He looked sad, she hated when he looked sad.

43…44… Maybe she made the wrong decision, ignoring their feelings for each other and telling Jack to take him out…

45…46… but she loved him so much, all she wanted was for him to be happy…

47…48…yes, happy, he would be happy with Jack. End of story…

49… Life sucked…

50.

'Ready or not here I come!' She yelled and swung herself over to a longer rope to start her search through the roof.

Down below her Tosh watched , shocked by what she had just heard, and took off to a 'quieter' part of the hub.

TTT

Winter woke up late the next morning. She rolled over and tried to get out of bed but ended up in a twisted mess on the floor with a sore arm. So much for mistress of balance.

She hopped into the shower and washed her hair leaving it to dry into its natural, wavy, mess and changed into her best jeans with her sword strapped to her belt. Pip still refused to sleep in her room so she met up with him in the Hub and gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from Ianto.

A loud laugh could be heard from the direction of the med bay and she raised her eyebrows in question. Ianto shrugged in reply and motioned for her to go take a look before walking off in the opposite direction.

She arrived about the same time as Jack and listened as Gwen teased Owen about his diagnosis. Gwen turned to look at Winter and began to sing loudly, 'The leg bone's connected to the, hip bone…'

Winter giggled and leaned back against Jack feeling the reverberations of his laughter and laughing along with him.

Toshiko entered and the song continued until she question what was going on.

'You know the skeleton we found at the building site?' Gwen asked her, still laughing, 'well, Amanda Burton here has just completed the post-mortem.'

'Okay I can explain,' Owen told them but Gwen spoke over him.

'As you may remember, at the building site, Owen said that this was a woman killed by a single gunshot.'

'Yeah, I'd been there, like, a minute.'

'Since then he's had to tweak some of his initial conclusions. This first being that this isn't in fact a woman, but a man.'

Tosh smiled as if she was unsure.

'A young man. A very girly man,' Owen added.

'But, still, ultimately a man. Then there was the cause of death. Owen said GSW.'

Gwen shook her head and made a sound like a buzzer, making Winter laugh 'The correct answer was...'

'Unidentified trauma,' Owen answered, 'But...'

'Unidentified trauma?' Toshiko asked looking to the pair of them.

'You see it in RTAs,' Gwen said, 'when something like a steering column or a post goes into a body at great velocity. But the one thing that could be ruled out was…'

'Gunshot wound,' said Owen.

Gwen slapped her hands together and laughed, 'Gunshot wound. Was there in fact any part of your prognosis that was right?'

'I got that it was... a skeleton.'

Jack chuckled and walked out of the room followed by Toshiko. Winter settled down in Owen's chair to drink her coffee and covertly listen to Jack's argument with the Prime Minister. After about half an hour he was off the phone and she wandered in, he had a smug smile plastered on his face but it turned to seriousness when he notice her.

'Enjoy that did you?' she asked he smiled and nodded.

'It's always fun putting him back into his place.'

She smiled and he motioned for her to sit down.

'I was thinking about what we talked about yesterday,' he said.

'Oh?'

'And I was wondering. Have you noticed anything odd about Tosh lately?'

She pulled a face and shook her head. 'Not really.'

But the more she thought about it, the stranger things she remembered.

'Actually, now you mention it, yesterday, after I'd found Pip I went into the conference room to talk to her. She was fine and then, as soon as Ianto walked in she got all flustered and hurried out. I thought it was something to do with the country or something.'

He looked thoughtfully into the distance and nodded, clearly needing time to think things over. She left him to it and yelled to everyone that she was going to grab some fresh air. There was no reply but she was sure they heard.

Pip clung onto her shoulders as the lift ascended to the visitors centre entrance. He'd never like lifts. She smiled at Ianto who was setting out some new leaflets for Cardiff Castle and walked out into the sunshine. Setting off across the plaza. Winter smiled at the odd looks she was getting, a violet eyed girl with a sword strapped to her hips and a monkey prancing a few feet in front of her. They must have looked a picture.

People wandered here and there, the Millenium Centre was filling steadily with the participants of some conference or event, someone behind her was yelling, 'Ethel!' across the plaza.

'Ethel!'

The shrill cry pierced the somewhat peaceful feel to the afternoon and she found herself wishing that 'Ethel' would answer the lady. Ethel wasn't even a very nice name anyway. She could have sworn it dropped out of fashion in the 1970's. She seemed to remember, Andrew had told her that one of her Grandmothers had been called Ethel, or maybe it was Eve.

Pip turned around and gave something behind her a funny look.

'Ethel!'

Someone grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her around. She pounced backwards and held out her arm warning them to get back the other hand went to the hilt of her sword. The woman before her was tall, she looked to be in her late 30's early 40's. She had very short mousy brown hair and a thin pale figure but what caught Winter's was her brown eyes. They were older and tinged slightly with a milkyness but she recognised them. They were Andy's eyes.

'Mum?'

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