Moving Forward 5/20
Title: Moving Forward (5/20)
Author: checksandplaid
Pairing: Gwen/Jack, Gwen/Martha friendship
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5021
Warnings: Spoilers through Children of Earth,
Notes: Beta-d by veritas6_5. Cross posted to jack_and_gwen and progwenallies. Concrits and reviews welcomed.
Summary: When you have nothing left, how do you live? Where do you go? What do you do? An alternate turn of events to 'Miracle Day'
Chapter 1:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/984.html#cutid1
Chapter 2:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/1119.html#cutid1
Chapter 3:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/1318.html#cutid1
Chapter 4:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/1557.html#cutid1
More than a week passes before Gwen bullies herself into making the trip to the Hub. There are a thousand small things to distract herself with: a clever, productive, form of procrastination, but still avoidant, still cowardly. Every morning begins and ends with rationalization: UNIT can’t possibly need her to instruct them on how to move stuff around. That’s just silly. In the few quiet moments when she can see through her excuses, she burns with shame at her cowardice. She had been brave enough to return to work after Grey murdered Tosh. She had pooled her strength with Ianto; together they had scrubbed their friend’s blood from the floor, and together they had grieved. The experience had knit them into something inseparable, a perfect unit of one mind and one understanding. Her excuses this time are paltry by comparison; the Hub held nothing she feared, nothing she had lost. Hell, she had visited the wreckage few times before her vacation. Back when she had someone to be strong for. It shouldn’t be so different now. So she goes, as she said she would, to prove her internal accuser wrong; to show herself that Gwen Cooper is no coward. It’s a chilly day for a walk, grey sky looming over the grey city, but she trudges towards her destination doggedly. Nearing the Plass she slows, idling at a vendor to acquire some coffee, warming her hands against the paper cup. Her stomach flips as she studies the yellow tents peeping over the cadre of trucks in the distance. It was stupid to come alone, there’s time to go back, ask Martha to come with her. It almost sounds like a convincing argument, too, and not just another excuse to run away again. Coward. She stands there for a long moment before surrendering to pride and moving again toward the wreckage. The site is abandoned, rubber tents floating on clouds of mist. No workers in sight, no sounds coming from within the tents. Uncertain of what to do, she hesitates, and then knocks on the trailer that had served as a field office. There’s a small sound of a scuffle, then the door opens to reveal Foreman Smith, sandwich in hand. “Oh, bloody hell. Hello, Ms. Cooper; you should have called.”
Gwen blinks, fragile grip on her confidence slipping in the face of such reception. “I was told you wanted my input on moving the archives?”
The foreman runs her hands through wild curls, and speaks around a mouthful of food. “That idiot! I told him to wait until we implemented the proper supports before inviting anyone in. But, yeah. My boys could use a bit of guidance for this. They’re on lunch, lazy bastards, but there’s a few on guard inside the tent who should be able to help you out.”
The door shuts in her face, and Gwen stands there a moment stunned before making her way to the giant yellow tents that shelter the hole where her Hub had once been from the rain. She slips under a heavy rubber flap, coming face to face with three heavily armed men staring suspiciously at her. “Torchwood,” she snaps, holding out her badge for inspection.
After a bit of grumbling from the guards and instructions to ‘sing out if anything collapses’, they return to their seats around a card table, leaving Gwen to explore on her own. She pauses, gathering her strength around her like a coat, and then grabs a bright yellow hard hat off the rack, places it on her head, and begins her descent down the scaffolding. She climbs until she runs out of ladder, and steps delicately around the crates that clutter the floor. She peeks into one, finding it full of broken electronics melted and cracked into unearthly shapes. Go to the archives. Do what you came here to do; then you can leave. She scolds herself, navigating the treacherous floor to a crumpled door that opens to a stairwell. She descends carefully, testing each step before trusting it with her full weight. The once neat files and boxes are now in chaos. Cabinets are tipped over, crumpling under their own weight, but they are replaceable and the contents are mostly in place. If the cabinets can be lifted out intact, it would save weeks, or perhaps years, of labor. Descending another level has more of the same: filing cabinets and unshattered glass cases of artefacts, still anchored to their identifying labels. Another level down, and Gwen is in new territory; deeper than where she had ever needed to go during her tenure here. This had been Ianto’s territory, and occasionally Jack’s, though by the dust and disorder she can guess that neither had wanted much to do with any of the artefacts stored here. Her eyes linger on a broken cyber-conversion unit that ultimately proved to be indestructible. Weapons of untold destruction spirited away and hidden from the prying eyes of the nation’s army. Dozens of thick metal boxes heaped every which way, carefully labeled with contents that someone judged to be too tempting or too dangerous to leave where they could be stumbled upon by chance. Maybe she should oversee the moving of this; make sure that everything that should be stays hidden. But she has no time for such distrust right now; she has other responsibilities that take priority over her suspicion. All the locks are intact this far down. That will have to suffice.
Gwen returns to the surface, reminded of one more place that high security artefacts are stored. She climbs up a level, and carefully crosses a catwalk leading to the remains of Jack’s office. Here the damage from the explosion is obvious: a thick layer of soot covering the cement walls, carpet melted into the charred wood floor. One of the vaults has been blown open, a pile of smaller silver boxes lie scattered across on the floor: the life knife, Tosh’s precious data recorder, the ghost machine. She scoops up the last one, releasing the catch on the container before she has a chance to think twice about her actions. There is nothing that could convince her to turn down a chance to go back in time, see her old team, relive all those feelings. She brushes her fingers along the textured surface, before separating the pieces and pocketing them. The other vault, once she peels away the charred wallpaper, is still frustratingly intact. The ancient records of Torchwood are kept in there: instructions sent through time to be held until the proper moment arrives. She doesn’t know how to open the vault without risking damage to the priceless contents, but maybe one of the contractors would have something.
Touching the cold metal hanging heavy in her pocket, Gwen listens, trying to figure if she has time to use the ghost machine before the workers return. She’ paralyzed by indecision, unable to choose a memory to start with, so she pulls her hands from her pockets, willing herself not to fidget with the gadget. She’ll come back some other time and properly say goodbye to this space. She stops on the catwalk, watching as the workers return from their break, swinging casually down the scaffolds, freefalling the last few feet, and returning to work.
One of them alters his descent to greet her as she carefully crosses back. “Oi, Gwen!” Even with the hard plastic hat on, she can recognize him as the driver of the delivery trucks, Larry Samson. “Glad you could come by. You have a chance to look around any?”
Gwen nods and smiles slightly, “Hello Mr. Samson. I just finished my inspection.”
His expression flickers quickly, replaced by an easy smile. “Glad you came by. What can you tell me?”
Was he irked that she was leaving, or that she had been looking around on her own? “There’re three levels of archives below. The first two can be transported as they are just fine. They get messed up, someone can fix them later. Beneath that, it’s all a bit mad. Please be careful when moving it, we never properly figured out what it all did.” She tugs off her hat to cool her head a little. It’s suddenly quite stuffy in here. “Additionally, there are two vaults at least in that area over there,” she waves at where Jack’s office had been. “One of them was busted open, but most of the containers are still intact. Just bring them over when you can. I exposed the other vault, but don’t know how to open it. It should mostly contain paperwork. Is there some way you could crack it without damaging any of the contents?”
Larry Samson gently smacks the hat back onto her head. “Keep that on until you’re out of here. It’d be a terrible thing if something fell on you.” He smiles at the dirty look she gives him. “Safety is very important to me, you know. My lads will help with your vault. I’ll see to it, and maybe do another check for any other hidden nooks we might have missed. Thanks for coming by, Gwen Cooper.”
“I was wondering if you would contact me when it’s all clear in here?” Gwen stares out at the cracked grey walls, paint still showing through soot and dust in some places. “I’d like to see it again before it gets repurposed.” She doesn’t know what the engineers and architects are going to do to her Hub. She doesn’t want to know; no monument could possibly do justice to the sacrifice two hundred years of Torchwood agents. Better to remember it as it was and what it did.
Samson gives her a thoughtful look, and nods. “I can do that.” He studies her expression a moment. “You miss this place.”
“Yes.” It had been home in a way her flat had never been; she had belonged here. Gwen digs around her pocket and pulls out a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbling down her number. “Just let me know when I can come walk around a bit on my own?”
“Oi, Sam!” A shout rings out from above, “hurry it up, will you?” Samson takes the slip of paper and gives her a cheerful salute before turning to shout down at the others.
Climbing back up is harder than climbing down, and Gwen’s arms are shaking by the time she hauls herself out of the hole. After a moment to rest, she returns her hard hat to the rack, and slips back out of the tent, into the mid-day gloom. Her tracker is silent, so she decides to swing by the construction site of the future Base; see how it’s going.
The gaping hole is coming along nicely, as far as she can tell. No longer a pit of raw earth, fresh wooden supports draw clean yellow borders around the foundations. The giant earth movers have been removed from the site, replaced by a legion of concrete trucks and construction vehicles. A small bespectacled man emerges from a trailer, and waves her over.
“Ms. Cooper, I presume?”
Gwen nods. “Just stopping by to see how it’s going.”
“You may call me Ludin.” He doesn’t offer her a hand to shake, wrapping his skinny arms around himself against the gentle breeze. “We’re progressing very well, yes. As long as it doesn’t rain for the next three months we should be done in half a year.” He chuckles mirthlessly. “Obviously, it is forecast to take much longer than that. Is there something particular you hoped to learn from this visit?”
Gwen nods, “I wanted to look over the floor plan. Is there someone here who I can talk to about that?”
Ludin shifts his weight around, “Drew up the floor plans with the architect myself. I can show them to you, and perhaps help bring them into line with your desires. But any major chances at this juncture would be most unwise. The foundations are being poured as we speak. Expanding them could delay the date of completion significantly, which I have been told you find highly undesirable.”
“Show me.” This mousey little man, undoubtedly the best available, grates on her nerves. Maybe this visit should have waited a day or two. She’s put herself through so much already. But Ludin is already ushering her towards the trailer serving as him as a field office.
“Then let us go inside; it most unpleasant out here.” He escorts her to the trailer from which he had emerged, standing behind the desk, and gently tugging a blueprint out of a stack, smoothing it lovingly across the top of the pile. “Here is the design I was given. What precisely about it do you find unsuitable?”
“I want to make sure there’s sufficient space in the bunker for a dormitory, as well as the archives, medical bay, and offices. It shows… four floors here, yes? After reviewing what needs to be stored on site, six would be better.”
Ludin scowls at that, and scribbles a bit on a post-it. “That will add significantly to our cost projections.” He huffs, “you want an entire floor for the dormitory and the archives? Put all the papers on the bottom and the people on the top?”
Gwen shakes her head, trying to articulate her vision. “I was thinking that the top floor could be low-priority documents, and offices. Put the medical lab as well so we’re not carrying anyone down stairs on a stretcher. That would make evacuation easier, too. Then the dormitory and mechanics lab could go on the first sub level, and then two levels of storage, and a cellblock. The bottom level would serve as the morgue and cryogenic storage.”
Ludin crumples the post it and throws it into a corner, and begins scrawling on a pad. “Yes, yes. I like it. Practical, straightforward, elegant. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?” When she shakes her head no, he stands, ushering her towards the door. “Thank you for your attention, Ms. Cooper, now you may leave.” His grip on her arm is quite firm for such a spidery man, and she allows him to steer her outside.
It begins raining on her way back, a cold drizzle that goes on and on, soaking her hair, dripping off her nose and down her coat collar, soaking through her sneakers and weighing down the hems of her jeans. Perfect weather for an Olympic level brood-athon. It would be perfectly self-indulgent to stand out here, getting wetter and colder; staring out at the cold grey sea, luxuriating in her misery. Hell, why not? Her team will call her if she’s needed. Otherwise there’s nothing pressing to do, and she owes herself some private time after the serial meetings this afternoon. Gwen trudges down the wharf, not bothering to shield herself from the worsening torrent. No one else is mad enough to be out in this weather, so she has no audience to the sudden onslaught of tears, staring out over the unchanging waters burbling against the docks. She had once confided to Tosh that she was living with her betrayal, but adultery was nothing compared to this. Working, continuing her life as though she has a future, anything left worth caring about, while her husband and child are dead is unforgivable. She should be mourning her loss properly, seeking comfort with her family. It seems like there’s something wrong with her, that she can go on making friends and conducting business in the middle of this sorrow. Her phone chirps, and she grudgingly pulls it out, futilely wiping the moisture off it. “Hello?”
“Gwen. Where are you? We just got a call from a local bloke about a Weevil attack in Splott. It’s bad.” The voice is Martha’s.
“On the pier by the Plass, come pick me up on your way out.”
“What the hell are you doing there? It’s bloody pouring.”
“I noticed.” Gwen hangs up and waits, letting the cold numb her limbs and mind, slowly pulling her scattered pieces back into formation; returning to her state of functionality.
Martha makes a disgusted face as Gwen enters the car with a squelch, but figures her criticism can wait until the current crisis has been resolved and her employer is a little less soggy. “Brought you some kit.”
Squirming around, Gwen finds a rain coat, side-arm, and earpiece. “You think of everything,” She laughs as Martha hands her a hot paper cup of coffee. The sound rings hollow to her ears. Fake. Liar. She tugs the coat on over her sodden clothes, and slots the weapon into a waterproof pocket before sticking the communicator into her ear. “Hello?”
“Gwen! Glad you could make it.” Mickey’s voice comes through clearly; she can almost hear his smile through her earpiece.
“What’ve we got?”
“One of those ugly buggers you call a Weevil attacked a bloke standing in line at a theatre in broad daylight, or as broad daylight got today, I guess. Poor bastard. From the footage, it looks like no one knew if it was some kind of stunt for a new film or a prank. It got a second victim before the crowd panicked, and the constables were almost overrun. According to Lois, they’ve kind of got it cordoned off. Surrounded and stunned, she says. But they can’t hold it much longer; they’re asking for help.”
Gwen nods, “Thanks.” Easy enough, then, if they’ve got it properly controlled, but somehow she suspects that they don’t. The first Weevil sighting within Splott’s boundaries and it’s a bloody attack during the day? That’s odd, to put it mildly. “Can you look up the plans for the current Splott sewer system? I want to know if there’s been any construction on the major lines recently; a new maintenance gate or structural repairs.” There’s no way a Weevil could have walked all the way from Cardiff without drawing attention to itself above ground. “Has there been any rift activity in the area recently?”
“No rift activity, no. Do you need the data on the sewers now? It might take a while to transfer the full blueprints to you.”
“Save it for when I get back.” Gwen’s sure she’ll have her hands full with the police, unless the situation has been grievously misrepresented.
There’s a crowd pressing up against the police line, and Gwen has to make gratuitous use of her elbows before the seething mass of humanity parts enough to let her pass. There’s space to breathe beyond the barriers, a thick knot of officers on one side and a tent on the other. Gwen waves Martha off to the tent and approaches the carefully ordered human barrier. Drawing near, she can hear the telltale snarling and the occasional crackle of a stun gun, and a bitter, burning smell wafting through the air. “Torchwood. Let me through.” She frees her pistol, and the bodies in front of her carefully create an entrance, moving to reform behind her. The Weevil looks just like all the others she’s seen: ugly wrinkly face, crimson splashed around its mouth and claws, blackened holes dotting its boiler suit from the stunners’ electricity. It pulls back thin lips to reveal giant yellow teeth and hisses at her. They stare at each other for a long moment, the human staring into the Weevil and the Weevil staring into her. It’s mesmerizing: alien and familiar, and she wonders if this is what Owen saw in the fighting cage. One of the lads on the front line coughs nervously, shattering the moment of peace. Startled the sudden sound the Weevil releases a roar, and whirls, lunging teeth-first towards the line of blue clad men. It’s a tragedy that she has to kill one to save the other; now that she’s seen the strange wonders lurking in Weevil eyes it feels immoral to slaughter them. It’s a burden she’s willing to shoulder, though, for the love of her city and its people. It takes two shots and the Weevil tumbles to the ground, flailing in its death-throes before stilling. “Stand clear!” Gwen shouts to make herself heard over the sudden hubbub of voices. She kneels beside the Weevil’s corpse, tugging on a pair of latex gloves and materials to take bio-samples. There is probably very little modern science can discover that they haven’t already found, but as long as gaps in their knowledge exist she should at least try to add to it. She waves Martha over with a small smile, and then clears her face of all expression to listen to a squat man with a sergeant’s stripes shouting down at her.
“Absolutely ridiculous… was promised proper aid from the government, not some jumped up green-as-grass meter maid…What was the point of holding that thing and risking all my lads if you were just going to shoot it..? You did this to them…”
The flow of abuse continues, but the ranting gives her time to think. When he pauses to gulp for air to continue, Gwen cuts him off. “Go get your lieutenant. Bring him here. Now.” He gapes at her, then shouts over his shoulder and folds his arms over his belly, glaring at her murderously.
When an older gentleman comes up, Gwen nods briskly. “Right. Listen here, and listen good because what has happened here will never happen again. The orders you received were to contain and subdue unless lethal force was used on a human being. Now, I’m not sure why you gents picked today to redefine ‘lethal force’ but I don’t care.” It takes enormous effort not to scream and shout and bash their heads together. “We are all here to protect these people, and today we failed them. I’m saddened by this loss of life, and for the sake of your officers, I hope you think more carefully in the future about orders from Torchwood. Now,” She takes a deep calming breath, “is there anything else I can assist you with before we go?”
The lieutenant rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly; what a bloody disaster. “If you have any literature on the more common... threats, we are most likely to encounter, we would be most grateful if you passed it along; any advice or procedures you have in place for dealing with their presence. Now if you will excuse me, there are families I must notify.” He turns on his heel and walks off, head held painfully high.
Martha stands from where she’s finishing with the Weevil corpse. She wraps an arm around Gwen’s shoulders, “let’s go home. Mickey? We’re on our way,” and steers her superior into the passenger seat. Even with the heat cranked high she can hear Gwen’s teeth chattering. “Once we get home, I’ll have a look at you. It wouldn’t do for you to get sick on us.” She spares a glance from the road to give Gwen a small smile. After a moment of silence she sighs, ill at ease with her private thoughts. “Be careful with the police, Gwen. They’ve got different priorities than we do; most of them would be happy to shoot first and determine threat levels later. Give them small tasks and simple orders and Cardiff will be a lot safer for everyone.”
This conversation isn’t what she wants right now. Not when she’s cold and tired and wrung out like an old sponge. “I don’t think you’re giving them enough credit. Maybe we didn’t see them at their best today, but you can’t condemn an entire profession just because of one jackass. No one should be afraid of the consequences of acting in self-defense.”
“But…”
“No. Listen to me, Martha. I’m a cop, one of them, not a scientist. I understand their priorities; in general I agree with them. I am through with people who can’t defend themselves being harmed just because there might be a chance that the alien is really an alright guy underneath a murdering exterior. This is our planet, and we deserve to be safe on it.”
Martha frowns at the road, “You don’t care about them anymore? The ones from beyond the stars that end up here accidentally, lost and hurt? The ones who just want to go home or live out their lives quietly?”
“If you really believed that would you have let me come back?” Gwen asks softly, not sure if she’s ready to hear an answer. “It’s sick what some humans will do to aliens, much less to each other. I will never forgive what those Pharm doctors did to the hive queen, or what those butchers did to that space cow. But their evil does not make what happened to those men today right. Evil is evil in every shape it wears, human or not.”
Martha sighs. “You sound like my old teacher at UNIT. You’d like it there.” It had been a lost argument before it had begun. Gwen is her leader and she will follow, but she won’t ever stop worrying about abuses against innocent aliens.
Back at the base, the personnel of Torchwood cram into her office for a wrap-up discussion of the afternoon’s events. “How’d you guys do here?” Gwen presents the question from her sacred place of command behind her overflowing desk.
Mickey shrugs from where he’s leaning against the wall. “Not too bad, I think. The bobbies kind of went off the deep end after the incident was resolved. I think you might have hurt their feelings.” He gives Gwen a cheeky look. “Other than that, besides figuring out how Mister Ugly got there without anyone noticing, everything was a snap. The updates I made to the tracking software work great, and we found the blueprints of the sewer system you wanted.”
“It looks as though one of the main tunnels between Cardiff and Splott collapsed a few days ago.” Lois pipes up from her perch on Gwen’s cot. “It’s possible that such a disturbance weakened the structure enough to allow them to escape without needing a constructed exit. Alternatively,” she chews on the end of the pen, “it might have blocked an older route they used for some Weevil-y purpose, and necessity dictated they find some other way out. But that’s just a guess.”
Gwen blinks; Ianto’s trait of knowing a little about everything is more common than she had suspected. Maybe it’s a something intrinsic to all assistants. “Anything show up on the bio-chem analysis?”
Martha shrugs, “Preliminary findings lean toward Lois’ theory of the same species in a slightly different place; it was a 98% marker match against the Weevils in the database. The more detailed tests will take a few days yield results. It’s possible this one was contaminated or had some hormonal imbalance to trigger these behaviors. I’ll look around a bit more and let you know what I find.”
Gwen nods. “I updated the police on the procedure I want them using for these sorts of cases. Lois, over the next few days I’d like you to help consolidate our methods for responding to hostile aliens, by frequency of encounter, for distribution. Keep it simple: just the best way for containing and destroying the most dangerous ones, maybe some illustrations. Also, I’d like one of you to find a better way to monitor police field reports. Just as a precautionary measure.”
Mickey nods, “I think I can come up with something.”
Gwen smiles approvingly. “I think that covers everything. Anyone else have something to add?” Mickey and Lois head back to their desks, but Martha lingers behind. “Something I can help with?”
Martha sighs. Two difficult conversations in as many hours may be pushing her luck, but she’s nothing if not a risk taker. “It’s about Lois.”
Gwen raises an eyebrow. “What about Lois?” She gestures for Martha to shut the door, waiting for the doctor to make herself comfortable.
Martha obeys, taking the time to consider the best phrasing for what she wants to say. “She’s a charm. I love her to bits already. But I think she’s feeling crowded stuffed in with Mickey and me. She hasn’t said anything yet, but it seems obvious that she’s worried about over-staying her welcome. I think her own place would give her a necessary peace of mind. From what I’ve gathered, private space is something she’s had very little of since the 456 Crisis.”
Gwen blinks and spreads her hands helplessly. “What do you want me to do about it?”
Martha’s eyes flicker. “Offer her your place.”
Gwen gestures at her cramped office, refusing to understand the point Martha is digging for. “It’s pretty cozy for just one person, actually. I don’t think she’d like it here. Be even harder to decompress away from work if she never leaves the building.”
“I meant at your flat.”
“Oh.” Safe to say Gwen hadn’t expected that. “Don’t you think you’re being a little forward?” Her space. Her private sacred shrine to what her life had once been. What it could have been.
“Maybe,” Martha agrees, leaning in towards Gwen. “I’m not suggesting you move everything out and hand over the deed of ownership; she deserves a place that is really truly hers, and we’ve started looking into real estate listings. But finding one and getting it set up will take time that we can’t depend on having regularly.”
“I can’t…” It’s almost too much after today and her voice catches. “I can’t deal with that right now.”
Martha comes to stand beside the other woman, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, making a mental note to sit Gwen down for a proper psychological evaluation at their earliest convenience. This level of avoidance is a painfully clear signal that the older woman is still stagnating in her grief. “I can’t make you do anything.” Her voice is gentle and warm. “I just thought it was an idea worth considering. You don’t have to decide today.” But you’ll have to decide someday. Property, much like mental health, tends to fall apart if abandoned long enough.
Author: checksandplaid
Pairing: Gwen/Jack, Gwen/Martha friendship
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5021
Warnings: Spoilers through Children of Earth,
Notes: Beta-d by veritas6_5. Cross posted to jack_and_gwen and progwenallies. Concrits and reviews welcomed.
Summary: When you have nothing left, how do you live? Where do you go? What do you do? An alternate turn of events to 'Miracle Day'
Chapter 1:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/984.html#cutid1
Chapter 2:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/1119.html#cutid1
Chapter 3:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/1318.html#cutid1
Chapter 4:http://checksandplaid.livejournal.com/1557.html#cutid1
More than a week passes before Gwen bullies herself into making the trip to the Hub. There are a thousand small things to distract herself with: a clever, productive, form of procrastination, but still avoidant, still cowardly. Every morning begins and ends with rationalization: UNIT can’t possibly need her to instruct them on how to move stuff around. That’s just silly. In the few quiet moments when she can see through her excuses, she burns with shame at her cowardice. She had been brave enough to return to work after Grey murdered Tosh. She had pooled her strength with Ianto; together they had scrubbed their friend’s blood from the floor, and together they had grieved. The experience had knit them into something inseparable, a perfect unit of one mind and one understanding. Her excuses this time are paltry by comparison; the Hub held nothing she feared, nothing she had lost. Hell, she had visited the wreckage few times before her vacation. Back when she had someone to be strong for. It shouldn’t be so different now. So she goes, as she said she would, to prove her internal accuser wrong; to show herself that Gwen Cooper is no coward. It’s a chilly day for a walk, grey sky looming over the grey city, but she trudges towards her destination doggedly. Nearing the Plass she slows, idling at a vendor to acquire some coffee, warming her hands against the paper cup. Her stomach flips as she studies the yellow tents peeping over the cadre of trucks in the distance. It was stupid to come alone, there’s time to go back, ask Martha to come with her. It almost sounds like a convincing argument, too, and not just another excuse to run away again. Coward. She stands there for a long moment before surrendering to pride and moving again toward the wreckage. The site is abandoned, rubber tents floating on clouds of mist. No workers in sight, no sounds coming from within the tents. Uncertain of what to do, she hesitates, and then knocks on the trailer that had served as a field office. There’s a small sound of a scuffle, then the door opens to reveal Foreman Smith, sandwich in hand. “Oh, bloody hell. Hello, Ms. Cooper; you should have called.”
Gwen blinks, fragile grip on her confidence slipping in the face of such reception. “I was told you wanted my input on moving the archives?”
The foreman runs her hands through wild curls, and speaks around a mouthful of food. “That idiot! I told him to wait until we implemented the proper supports before inviting anyone in. But, yeah. My boys could use a bit of guidance for this. They’re on lunch, lazy bastards, but there’s a few on guard inside the tent who should be able to help you out.”
The door shuts in her face, and Gwen stands there a moment stunned before making her way to the giant yellow tents that shelter the hole where her Hub had once been from the rain. She slips under a heavy rubber flap, coming face to face with three heavily armed men staring suspiciously at her. “Torchwood,” she snaps, holding out her badge for inspection.
After a bit of grumbling from the guards and instructions to ‘sing out if anything collapses’, they return to their seats around a card table, leaving Gwen to explore on her own. She pauses, gathering her strength around her like a coat, and then grabs a bright yellow hard hat off the rack, places it on her head, and begins her descent down the scaffolding. She climbs until she runs out of ladder, and steps delicately around the crates that clutter the floor. She peeks into one, finding it full of broken electronics melted and cracked into unearthly shapes. Go to the archives. Do what you came here to do; then you can leave. She scolds herself, navigating the treacherous floor to a crumpled door that opens to a stairwell. She descends carefully, testing each step before trusting it with her full weight. The once neat files and boxes are now in chaos. Cabinets are tipped over, crumpling under their own weight, but they are replaceable and the contents are mostly in place. If the cabinets can be lifted out intact, it would save weeks, or perhaps years, of labor. Descending another level has more of the same: filing cabinets and unshattered glass cases of artefacts, still anchored to their identifying labels. Another level down, and Gwen is in new territory; deeper than where she had ever needed to go during her tenure here. This had been Ianto’s territory, and occasionally Jack’s, though by the dust and disorder she can guess that neither had wanted much to do with any of the artefacts stored here. Her eyes linger on a broken cyber-conversion unit that ultimately proved to be indestructible. Weapons of untold destruction spirited away and hidden from the prying eyes of the nation’s army. Dozens of thick metal boxes heaped every which way, carefully labeled with contents that someone judged to be too tempting or too dangerous to leave where they could be stumbled upon by chance. Maybe she should oversee the moving of this; make sure that everything that should be stays hidden. But she has no time for such distrust right now; she has other responsibilities that take priority over her suspicion. All the locks are intact this far down. That will have to suffice.
Gwen returns to the surface, reminded of one more place that high security artefacts are stored. She climbs up a level, and carefully crosses a catwalk leading to the remains of Jack’s office. Here the damage from the explosion is obvious: a thick layer of soot covering the cement walls, carpet melted into the charred wood floor. One of the vaults has been blown open, a pile of smaller silver boxes lie scattered across on the floor: the life knife, Tosh’s precious data recorder, the ghost machine. She scoops up the last one, releasing the catch on the container before she has a chance to think twice about her actions. There is nothing that could convince her to turn down a chance to go back in time, see her old team, relive all those feelings. She brushes her fingers along the textured surface, before separating the pieces and pocketing them. The other vault, once she peels away the charred wallpaper, is still frustratingly intact. The ancient records of Torchwood are kept in there: instructions sent through time to be held until the proper moment arrives. She doesn’t know how to open the vault without risking damage to the priceless contents, but maybe one of the contractors would have something.
Touching the cold metal hanging heavy in her pocket, Gwen listens, trying to figure if she has time to use the ghost machine before the workers return. She’ paralyzed by indecision, unable to choose a memory to start with, so she pulls her hands from her pockets, willing herself not to fidget with the gadget. She’ll come back some other time and properly say goodbye to this space. She stops on the catwalk, watching as the workers return from their break, swinging casually down the scaffolds, freefalling the last few feet, and returning to work.
One of them alters his descent to greet her as she carefully crosses back. “Oi, Gwen!” Even with the hard plastic hat on, she can recognize him as the driver of the delivery trucks, Larry Samson. “Glad you could come by. You have a chance to look around any?”
Gwen nods and smiles slightly, “Hello Mr. Samson. I just finished my inspection.”
His expression flickers quickly, replaced by an easy smile. “Glad you came by. What can you tell me?”
Was he irked that she was leaving, or that she had been looking around on her own? “There’re three levels of archives below. The first two can be transported as they are just fine. They get messed up, someone can fix them later. Beneath that, it’s all a bit mad. Please be careful when moving it, we never properly figured out what it all did.” She tugs off her hat to cool her head a little. It’s suddenly quite stuffy in here. “Additionally, there are two vaults at least in that area over there,” she waves at where Jack’s office had been. “One of them was busted open, but most of the containers are still intact. Just bring them over when you can. I exposed the other vault, but don’t know how to open it. It should mostly contain paperwork. Is there some way you could crack it without damaging any of the contents?”
Larry Samson gently smacks the hat back onto her head. “Keep that on until you’re out of here. It’d be a terrible thing if something fell on you.” He smiles at the dirty look she gives him. “Safety is very important to me, you know. My lads will help with your vault. I’ll see to it, and maybe do another check for any other hidden nooks we might have missed. Thanks for coming by, Gwen Cooper.”
“I was wondering if you would contact me when it’s all clear in here?” Gwen stares out at the cracked grey walls, paint still showing through soot and dust in some places. “I’d like to see it again before it gets repurposed.” She doesn’t know what the engineers and architects are going to do to her Hub. She doesn’t want to know; no monument could possibly do justice to the sacrifice two hundred years of Torchwood agents. Better to remember it as it was and what it did.
Samson gives her a thoughtful look, and nods. “I can do that.” He studies her expression a moment. “You miss this place.”
“Yes.” It had been home in a way her flat had never been; she had belonged here. Gwen digs around her pocket and pulls out a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbling down her number. “Just let me know when I can come walk around a bit on my own?”
“Oi, Sam!” A shout rings out from above, “hurry it up, will you?” Samson takes the slip of paper and gives her a cheerful salute before turning to shout down at the others.
Climbing back up is harder than climbing down, and Gwen’s arms are shaking by the time she hauls herself out of the hole. After a moment to rest, she returns her hard hat to the rack, and slips back out of the tent, into the mid-day gloom. Her tracker is silent, so she decides to swing by the construction site of the future Base; see how it’s going.
The gaping hole is coming along nicely, as far as she can tell. No longer a pit of raw earth, fresh wooden supports draw clean yellow borders around the foundations. The giant earth movers have been removed from the site, replaced by a legion of concrete trucks and construction vehicles. A small bespectacled man emerges from a trailer, and waves her over.
“Ms. Cooper, I presume?”
Gwen nods. “Just stopping by to see how it’s going.”
“You may call me Ludin.” He doesn’t offer her a hand to shake, wrapping his skinny arms around himself against the gentle breeze. “We’re progressing very well, yes. As long as it doesn’t rain for the next three months we should be done in half a year.” He chuckles mirthlessly. “Obviously, it is forecast to take much longer than that. Is there something particular you hoped to learn from this visit?”
Gwen nods, “I wanted to look over the floor plan. Is there someone here who I can talk to about that?”
Ludin shifts his weight around, “Drew up the floor plans with the architect myself. I can show them to you, and perhaps help bring them into line with your desires. But any major chances at this juncture would be most unwise. The foundations are being poured as we speak. Expanding them could delay the date of completion significantly, which I have been told you find highly undesirable.”
“Show me.” This mousey little man, undoubtedly the best available, grates on her nerves. Maybe this visit should have waited a day or two. She’s put herself through so much already. But Ludin is already ushering her towards the trailer serving as him as a field office.
“Then let us go inside; it most unpleasant out here.” He escorts her to the trailer from which he had emerged, standing behind the desk, and gently tugging a blueprint out of a stack, smoothing it lovingly across the top of the pile. “Here is the design I was given. What precisely about it do you find unsuitable?”
“I want to make sure there’s sufficient space in the bunker for a dormitory, as well as the archives, medical bay, and offices. It shows… four floors here, yes? After reviewing what needs to be stored on site, six would be better.”
Ludin scowls at that, and scribbles a bit on a post-it. “That will add significantly to our cost projections.” He huffs, “you want an entire floor for the dormitory and the archives? Put all the papers on the bottom and the people on the top?”
Gwen shakes her head, trying to articulate her vision. “I was thinking that the top floor could be low-priority documents, and offices. Put the medical lab as well so we’re not carrying anyone down stairs on a stretcher. That would make evacuation easier, too. Then the dormitory and mechanics lab could go on the first sub level, and then two levels of storage, and a cellblock. The bottom level would serve as the morgue and cryogenic storage.”
Ludin crumples the post it and throws it into a corner, and begins scrawling on a pad. “Yes, yes. I like it. Practical, straightforward, elegant. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?” When she shakes her head no, he stands, ushering her towards the door. “Thank you for your attention, Ms. Cooper, now you may leave.” His grip on her arm is quite firm for such a spidery man, and she allows him to steer her outside.
It begins raining on her way back, a cold drizzle that goes on and on, soaking her hair, dripping off her nose and down her coat collar, soaking through her sneakers and weighing down the hems of her jeans. Perfect weather for an Olympic level brood-athon. It would be perfectly self-indulgent to stand out here, getting wetter and colder; staring out at the cold grey sea, luxuriating in her misery. Hell, why not? Her team will call her if she’s needed. Otherwise there’s nothing pressing to do, and she owes herself some private time after the serial meetings this afternoon. Gwen trudges down the wharf, not bothering to shield herself from the worsening torrent. No one else is mad enough to be out in this weather, so she has no audience to the sudden onslaught of tears, staring out over the unchanging waters burbling against the docks. She had once confided to Tosh that she was living with her betrayal, but adultery was nothing compared to this. Working, continuing her life as though she has a future, anything left worth caring about, while her husband and child are dead is unforgivable. She should be mourning her loss properly, seeking comfort with her family. It seems like there’s something wrong with her, that she can go on making friends and conducting business in the middle of this sorrow. Her phone chirps, and she grudgingly pulls it out, futilely wiping the moisture off it. “Hello?”
“Gwen. Where are you? We just got a call from a local bloke about a Weevil attack in Splott. It’s bad.” The voice is Martha’s.
“On the pier by the Plass, come pick me up on your way out.”
“What the hell are you doing there? It’s bloody pouring.”
“I noticed.” Gwen hangs up and waits, letting the cold numb her limbs and mind, slowly pulling her scattered pieces back into formation; returning to her state of functionality.
Martha makes a disgusted face as Gwen enters the car with a squelch, but figures her criticism can wait until the current crisis has been resolved and her employer is a little less soggy. “Brought you some kit.”
Squirming around, Gwen finds a rain coat, side-arm, and earpiece. “You think of everything,” She laughs as Martha hands her a hot paper cup of coffee. The sound rings hollow to her ears. Fake. Liar. She tugs the coat on over her sodden clothes, and slots the weapon into a waterproof pocket before sticking the communicator into her ear. “Hello?”
“Gwen! Glad you could make it.” Mickey’s voice comes through clearly; she can almost hear his smile through her earpiece.
“What’ve we got?”
“One of those ugly buggers you call a Weevil attacked a bloke standing in line at a theatre in broad daylight, or as broad daylight got today, I guess. Poor bastard. From the footage, it looks like no one knew if it was some kind of stunt for a new film or a prank. It got a second victim before the crowd panicked, and the constables were almost overrun. According to Lois, they’ve kind of got it cordoned off. Surrounded and stunned, she says. But they can’t hold it much longer; they’re asking for help.”
Gwen nods, “Thanks.” Easy enough, then, if they’ve got it properly controlled, but somehow she suspects that they don’t. The first Weevil sighting within Splott’s boundaries and it’s a bloody attack during the day? That’s odd, to put it mildly. “Can you look up the plans for the current Splott sewer system? I want to know if there’s been any construction on the major lines recently; a new maintenance gate or structural repairs.” There’s no way a Weevil could have walked all the way from Cardiff without drawing attention to itself above ground. “Has there been any rift activity in the area recently?”
“No rift activity, no. Do you need the data on the sewers now? It might take a while to transfer the full blueprints to you.”
“Save it for when I get back.” Gwen’s sure she’ll have her hands full with the police, unless the situation has been grievously misrepresented.
There’s a crowd pressing up against the police line, and Gwen has to make gratuitous use of her elbows before the seething mass of humanity parts enough to let her pass. There’s space to breathe beyond the barriers, a thick knot of officers on one side and a tent on the other. Gwen waves Martha off to the tent and approaches the carefully ordered human barrier. Drawing near, she can hear the telltale snarling and the occasional crackle of a stun gun, and a bitter, burning smell wafting through the air. “Torchwood. Let me through.” She frees her pistol, and the bodies in front of her carefully create an entrance, moving to reform behind her. The Weevil looks just like all the others she’s seen: ugly wrinkly face, crimson splashed around its mouth and claws, blackened holes dotting its boiler suit from the stunners’ electricity. It pulls back thin lips to reveal giant yellow teeth and hisses at her. They stare at each other for a long moment, the human staring into the Weevil and the Weevil staring into her. It’s mesmerizing: alien and familiar, and she wonders if this is what Owen saw in the fighting cage. One of the lads on the front line coughs nervously, shattering the moment of peace. Startled the sudden sound the Weevil releases a roar, and whirls, lunging teeth-first towards the line of blue clad men. It’s a tragedy that she has to kill one to save the other; now that she’s seen the strange wonders lurking in Weevil eyes it feels immoral to slaughter them. It’s a burden she’s willing to shoulder, though, for the love of her city and its people. It takes two shots and the Weevil tumbles to the ground, flailing in its death-throes before stilling. “Stand clear!” Gwen shouts to make herself heard over the sudden hubbub of voices. She kneels beside the Weevil’s corpse, tugging on a pair of latex gloves and materials to take bio-samples. There is probably very little modern science can discover that they haven’t already found, but as long as gaps in their knowledge exist she should at least try to add to it. She waves Martha over with a small smile, and then clears her face of all expression to listen to a squat man with a sergeant’s stripes shouting down at her.
“Absolutely ridiculous… was promised proper aid from the government, not some jumped up green-as-grass meter maid…What was the point of holding that thing and risking all my lads if you were just going to shoot it..? You did this to them…”
The flow of abuse continues, but the ranting gives her time to think. When he pauses to gulp for air to continue, Gwen cuts him off. “Go get your lieutenant. Bring him here. Now.” He gapes at her, then shouts over his shoulder and folds his arms over his belly, glaring at her murderously.
When an older gentleman comes up, Gwen nods briskly. “Right. Listen here, and listen good because what has happened here will never happen again. The orders you received were to contain and subdue unless lethal force was used on a human being. Now, I’m not sure why you gents picked today to redefine ‘lethal force’ but I don’t care.” It takes enormous effort not to scream and shout and bash their heads together. “We are all here to protect these people, and today we failed them. I’m saddened by this loss of life, and for the sake of your officers, I hope you think more carefully in the future about orders from Torchwood. Now,” She takes a deep calming breath, “is there anything else I can assist you with before we go?”
The lieutenant rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly; what a bloody disaster. “If you have any literature on the more common... threats, we are most likely to encounter, we would be most grateful if you passed it along; any advice or procedures you have in place for dealing with their presence. Now if you will excuse me, there are families I must notify.” He turns on his heel and walks off, head held painfully high.
Martha stands from where she’s finishing with the Weevil corpse. She wraps an arm around Gwen’s shoulders, “let’s go home. Mickey? We’re on our way,” and steers her superior into the passenger seat. Even with the heat cranked high she can hear Gwen’s teeth chattering. “Once we get home, I’ll have a look at you. It wouldn’t do for you to get sick on us.” She spares a glance from the road to give Gwen a small smile. After a moment of silence she sighs, ill at ease with her private thoughts. “Be careful with the police, Gwen. They’ve got different priorities than we do; most of them would be happy to shoot first and determine threat levels later. Give them small tasks and simple orders and Cardiff will be a lot safer for everyone.”
This conversation isn’t what she wants right now. Not when she’s cold and tired and wrung out like an old sponge. “I don’t think you’re giving them enough credit. Maybe we didn’t see them at their best today, but you can’t condemn an entire profession just because of one jackass. No one should be afraid of the consequences of acting in self-defense.”
“But…”
“No. Listen to me, Martha. I’m a cop, one of them, not a scientist. I understand their priorities; in general I agree with them. I am through with people who can’t defend themselves being harmed just because there might be a chance that the alien is really an alright guy underneath a murdering exterior. This is our planet, and we deserve to be safe on it.”
Martha frowns at the road, “You don’t care about them anymore? The ones from beyond the stars that end up here accidentally, lost and hurt? The ones who just want to go home or live out their lives quietly?”
“If you really believed that would you have let me come back?” Gwen asks softly, not sure if she’s ready to hear an answer. “It’s sick what some humans will do to aliens, much less to each other. I will never forgive what those Pharm doctors did to the hive queen, or what those butchers did to that space cow. But their evil does not make what happened to those men today right. Evil is evil in every shape it wears, human or not.”
Martha sighs. “You sound like my old teacher at UNIT. You’d like it there.” It had been a lost argument before it had begun. Gwen is her leader and she will follow, but she won’t ever stop worrying about abuses against innocent aliens.
Back at the base, the personnel of Torchwood cram into her office for a wrap-up discussion of the afternoon’s events. “How’d you guys do here?” Gwen presents the question from her sacred place of command behind her overflowing desk.
Mickey shrugs from where he’s leaning against the wall. “Not too bad, I think. The bobbies kind of went off the deep end after the incident was resolved. I think you might have hurt their feelings.” He gives Gwen a cheeky look. “Other than that, besides figuring out how Mister Ugly got there without anyone noticing, everything was a snap. The updates I made to the tracking software work great, and we found the blueprints of the sewer system you wanted.”
“It looks as though one of the main tunnels between Cardiff and Splott collapsed a few days ago.” Lois pipes up from her perch on Gwen’s cot. “It’s possible that such a disturbance weakened the structure enough to allow them to escape without needing a constructed exit. Alternatively,” she chews on the end of the pen, “it might have blocked an older route they used for some Weevil-y purpose, and necessity dictated they find some other way out. But that’s just a guess.”
Gwen blinks; Ianto’s trait of knowing a little about everything is more common than she had suspected. Maybe it’s a something intrinsic to all assistants. “Anything show up on the bio-chem analysis?”
Martha shrugs, “Preliminary findings lean toward Lois’ theory of the same species in a slightly different place; it was a 98% marker match against the Weevils in the database. The more detailed tests will take a few days yield results. It’s possible this one was contaminated or had some hormonal imbalance to trigger these behaviors. I’ll look around a bit more and let you know what I find.”
Gwen nods. “I updated the police on the procedure I want them using for these sorts of cases. Lois, over the next few days I’d like you to help consolidate our methods for responding to hostile aliens, by frequency of encounter, for distribution. Keep it simple: just the best way for containing and destroying the most dangerous ones, maybe some illustrations. Also, I’d like one of you to find a better way to monitor police field reports. Just as a precautionary measure.”
Mickey nods, “I think I can come up with something.”
Gwen smiles approvingly. “I think that covers everything. Anyone else have something to add?” Mickey and Lois head back to their desks, but Martha lingers behind. “Something I can help with?”
Martha sighs. Two difficult conversations in as many hours may be pushing her luck, but she’s nothing if not a risk taker. “It’s about Lois.”
Gwen raises an eyebrow. “What about Lois?” She gestures for Martha to shut the door, waiting for the doctor to make herself comfortable.
Martha obeys, taking the time to consider the best phrasing for what she wants to say. “She’s a charm. I love her to bits already. But I think she’s feeling crowded stuffed in with Mickey and me. She hasn’t said anything yet, but it seems obvious that she’s worried about over-staying her welcome. I think her own place would give her a necessary peace of mind. From what I’ve gathered, private space is something she’s had very little of since the 456 Crisis.”
Gwen blinks and spreads her hands helplessly. “What do you want me to do about it?”
Martha’s eyes flicker. “Offer her your place.”
Gwen gestures at her cramped office, refusing to understand the point Martha is digging for. “It’s pretty cozy for just one person, actually. I don’t think she’d like it here. Be even harder to decompress away from work if she never leaves the building.”
“I meant at your flat.”
“Oh.” Safe to say Gwen hadn’t expected that. “Don’t you think you’re being a little forward?” Her space. Her private sacred shrine to what her life had once been. What it could have been.
“Maybe,” Martha agrees, leaning in towards Gwen. “I’m not suggesting you move everything out and hand over the deed of ownership; she deserves a place that is really truly hers, and we’ve started looking into real estate listings. But finding one and getting it set up will take time that we can’t depend on having regularly.”
“I can’t…” It’s almost too much after today and her voice catches. “I can’t deal with that right now.”
Martha comes to stand beside the other woman, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, making a mental note to sit Gwen down for a proper psychological evaluation at their earliest convenience. This level of avoidance is a painfully clear signal that the older woman is still stagnating in her grief. “I can’t make you do anything.” Her voice is gentle and warm. “I just thought it was an idea worth considering. You don’t have to decide today.” But you’ll have to decide someday. Property, much like mental health, tends to fall apart if abandoned long enough.