Stolen Goods
Here is another one. I don't know why I like writing sad!Gwen so much. There will be another somewhere along these lines, but it didn't quite fit in with the whole stealing idea, so I've put it off for another time.
Also the new season starts tomorrow eeeeee~
Title: Stolen Goods
Characters/pairings: Gwen, Rhys, Andy
Rating: Would be G except for the swearing.
Warnings: Post-CoE. Language. Vagueness. Sad Gwen is sad.
Summary: Gwen steals things.
Gwen stole things.
She had no doubt in her mind that was what she was doing. The policewoman in her said, often, this is wrong, why are you doing this, that doesn't belong to you, but the pregnancy and the hormones that came with it said fuck it I'm gonna do whatever I want.
It wasn't all that much she was stealing, anyway.
Books, for instance. A few books, about all kinds of things, from poetry to computer manuals, some science fiction, and the complete collection of James Bond novels, which were probably the most interesting. And one… autobiography, she supposed, though she knew she was kidding herself with that one. She was rather afraid to read it.
She also took a couple DVDs. She watched them with Rhys when he got home from work, and they ate pasta and ice cream while working through a pile of medical dramas. He never asked where they came from. She wasn't sure what she would tell him if he did.
Gwen had learned a lot about thieves when she was in the police. A lot of them stole things just for fun or as a point of pride, rather than an actual lack of funds to buy with. A lot stole for the adrenaline rush it provided. Gwen didn't feel any of that. When she started stealing things, she would feel awful, a lump of sick resting in the back of her throat as she sought her next treasure. She couldn't shake the feeling that it was wrong, so, so wrong to take things that didn't belong to her. By all rights, the things she took were supposed to stay put, stay locked up, safe from prying eyes.
But even with the mass of guilt pressing down on her, she couldn't stop. Because the things she stole comforted her. She was pregnant, god damn it, and she needed as much comfort as could be offered. She was allowed to be irrational. She needed all her closest friends by her side, supporting her.
The trouble was that most of them were dead now.
Rhys was great, of course, fully supportive of her, looking after her, cooking dinner, taking her out, cheering her up whenever he could. And all her girlfriends came over every so often and cooed about how great it would be to have a baby and how Gwen was absolutely glowing and doing everything friends should. She talked with her parents on the phone at least twice a week, and they were tremendously excited of course, and her mother gave her all kinds of good pregnancy advice.
Really, it was selfish of her to want anything more. All this support, good friends, good family, good doctors. She didn't need to steal things to find happiness. What would her friends on the force think?
Except, well… Andy, at least, knew about her stealing problem.
He'd found her one night - god knows how, maybe Rhys had her followed out of concern - walking home in the rain, clutching a stolen laptop to her chest. He'd pulled up beside her, and she stopped and laughed at him with tears in her eyes, going to arrest me, officer?
He'd driven her home then, and she sat in the front seat, not behind the grating where criminals belonged. He didn't even confiscate the laptop. She went inside and he followed, and she made them coffee with a stolen cappuccino machine.
He found her the next day, too, with a case full of stolen drugs.
Next week, with a stack of pornographic magazines.
$300 shoes.
A gold ring with another woman's name engraved in it.
An antique chess set.
A plush squirrel.
A handful of brightly colored badges.
A stopwatch.
Andy drove her back every time, never commenting on what she'd brought back this time. She'd sit silently in the passenger seat, and he would talk about his day, or tell her that this person or that said hello, that everyone wished her the best of luck with the baby, or complained about the weather, or poked fun at Rhys. Then he'd follow her up, making sure she was ok, and sometimes he'd stay for dinner or take her out for coffee, and he and Rhys would just act like nothing was wrong, like she was totally fine, even as she toyed with stolen goods right before their eyes.
They acted so damn normal she was angry. She sat alone on the couch sometimes, surrounded with the things she'd stolen, and she didn't know why nobody was trying to stop her. If this had happened before, someone would have stopped her. But nobody would, not any more, so she sat alone and tried to stop herself.
She fiddled with the piece of loot on her wrist, the one she'd been wearing since she first started, back when she could convince herself she had just picked it off the ground, when she thought she would give it back someday soon. She'd even gotten it cleaned and repaired so it would be nice when she gave it back.
She was pretty certain now: what was stolen was stolen, and it was never going back.
Rhys turned on the light, and Gwen looked up at him from where she sat on the floor, surrounded by her collection of stolen goods.
"Are you alright, love?"
Gwen stared at him blearily, blinking in the sudden light.
"No," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "No, Rhys, I don't think I am."
She made to stand up, but it was starting to get difficult as the pregnancy progressed, and she was too heavy for her own limbs, so Rhys swept around the sofa and pulled her into an embrace instead. They stayed on the floor, wrapped in each others' arms.
She took it back the next day. The DVDs, the books, the magazines, she separated them all out and put them back where they belonged. She packed the shoes neatly back in their boxes and stored them with the rest of the clothes. She carefully put Katie's engagement ring back in its padded box and left it on one of the packed shelves. The chess set went back with the decks of cards, in the chest next to the one with all the suits.
She walked away from the set of warehouses, and Andy met her at the corner, like he always did.
"Is that everything then?"
"Just about," Gwen said, and Andy drove her home.
They sat on the sofa and talked for a while, and Gwen felt better than she had in weeks. Her apartment looked like hers again, and with empty pockets came a lighter heart. An hour later, she showed Andy out, and assured him that she was feeling fine, and yes you can come to see me tomorrow but would you please stop worrying all the time, I'm a big girl now, thank you, and she closed the door behind him, turned around, and smiled.
She hadn't returned everything, of course.
She made herself a cup of tea with the cappuccino machine. She smiled, putting away the medkit, full of all kinds of useful alien medicines as well as more earthly remedies, then went to change out of her clothes. She removed the stopwatch from her pocket and carefully unpinned the badges from her shirt before putting it in the laundry. Back to the kitchen, and she put some sugar in her tea before sitting on the sofa and opening up the laptop, pausing to wipe it off with the screen-cleaning squirrel.
The thing was, she thought to herself, putting her tea down and taking off the leather wrist strap, it didn't really matter where the stuff was.
She told the part of her that was all hormones and bundles of emotion to stop worrying about everything, stop making excuses for her actions, and the policewoman in her was making a big deal out of nothing, really, because she hadn't actually stolen anything.
Because regulations said that everything belonged to Torchwood, and the Torchwood in her said that means it all belongs to me, anyway.
I've been trying to write a little bit every night, and I took a break from the very long one (as opposed to the other very long one, which I really need to start before it all gets Joss'd by Miracle Day D: ) to write this instead. I will probably put it as another chapter of Loose Ends when I get it on FFn, but it can stand alone here.
Also nobody cares about TW fanfics unless they're Jack/Ianto anyway, so I'd better get off my ass and write one of those.
Man though, I kind of want to get Torchwood/Whoniverse out of my system so I can write some original stuff. It would probably help if I weren't making my way through all of the official novels. :/
Also the new season starts tomorrow eeeeee~
Title: Stolen Goods
Characters/pairings: Gwen, Rhys, Andy
Rating: Would be G except for the swearing.
Warnings: Post-CoE. Language. Vagueness. Sad Gwen is sad.
Summary: Gwen steals things.
Gwen stole things.
She had no doubt in her mind that was what she was doing. The policewoman in her said, often, this is wrong, why are you doing this, that doesn't belong to you, but the pregnancy and the hormones that came with it said fuck it I'm gonna do whatever I want.
It wasn't all that much she was stealing, anyway.
Books, for instance. A few books, about all kinds of things, from poetry to computer manuals, some science fiction, and the complete collection of James Bond novels, which were probably the most interesting. And one… autobiography, she supposed, though she knew she was kidding herself with that one. She was rather afraid to read it.
She also took a couple DVDs. She watched them with Rhys when he got home from work, and they ate pasta and ice cream while working through a pile of medical dramas. He never asked where they came from. She wasn't sure what she would tell him if he did.
Gwen had learned a lot about thieves when she was in the police. A lot of them stole things just for fun or as a point of pride, rather than an actual lack of funds to buy with. A lot stole for the adrenaline rush it provided. Gwen didn't feel any of that. When she started stealing things, she would feel awful, a lump of sick resting in the back of her throat as she sought her next treasure. She couldn't shake the feeling that it was wrong, so, so wrong to take things that didn't belong to her. By all rights, the things she took were supposed to stay put, stay locked up, safe from prying eyes.
But even with the mass of guilt pressing down on her, she couldn't stop. Because the things she stole comforted her. She was pregnant, god damn it, and she needed as much comfort as could be offered. She was allowed to be irrational. She needed all her closest friends by her side, supporting her.
The trouble was that most of them were dead now.
Rhys was great, of course, fully supportive of her, looking after her, cooking dinner, taking her out, cheering her up whenever he could. And all her girlfriends came over every so often and cooed about how great it would be to have a baby and how Gwen was absolutely glowing and doing everything friends should. She talked with her parents on the phone at least twice a week, and they were tremendously excited of course, and her mother gave her all kinds of good pregnancy advice.
Really, it was selfish of her to want anything more. All this support, good friends, good family, good doctors. She didn't need to steal things to find happiness. What would her friends on the force think?
Except, well… Andy, at least, knew about her stealing problem.
He'd found her one night - god knows how, maybe Rhys had her followed out of concern - walking home in the rain, clutching a stolen laptop to her chest. He'd pulled up beside her, and she stopped and laughed at him with tears in her eyes, going to arrest me, officer?
He'd driven her home then, and she sat in the front seat, not behind the grating where criminals belonged. He didn't even confiscate the laptop. She went inside and he followed, and she made them coffee with a stolen cappuccino machine.
He found her the next day, too, with a case full of stolen drugs.
Next week, with a stack of pornographic magazines.
$300 shoes.
A gold ring with another woman's name engraved in it.
An antique chess set.
A plush squirrel.
A handful of brightly colored badges.
A stopwatch.
Andy drove her back every time, never commenting on what she'd brought back this time. She'd sit silently in the passenger seat, and he would talk about his day, or tell her that this person or that said hello, that everyone wished her the best of luck with the baby, or complained about the weather, or poked fun at Rhys. Then he'd follow her up, making sure she was ok, and sometimes he'd stay for dinner or take her out for coffee, and he and Rhys would just act like nothing was wrong, like she was totally fine, even as she toyed with stolen goods right before their eyes.
They acted so damn normal she was angry. She sat alone on the couch sometimes, surrounded with the things she'd stolen, and she didn't know why nobody was trying to stop her. If this had happened before, someone would have stopped her. But nobody would, not any more, so she sat alone and tried to stop herself.
She fiddled with the piece of loot on her wrist, the one she'd been wearing since she first started, back when she could convince herself she had just picked it off the ground, when she thought she would give it back someday soon. She'd even gotten it cleaned and repaired so it would be nice when she gave it back.
She was pretty certain now: what was stolen was stolen, and it was never going back.
Rhys turned on the light, and Gwen looked up at him from where she sat on the floor, surrounded by her collection of stolen goods.
"Are you alright, love?"
Gwen stared at him blearily, blinking in the sudden light.
"No," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "No, Rhys, I don't think I am."
She made to stand up, but it was starting to get difficult as the pregnancy progressed, and she was too heavy for her own limbs, so Rhys swept around the sofa and pulled her into an embrace instead. They stayed on the floor, wrapped in each others' arms.
She took it back the next day. The DVDs, the books, the magazines, she separated them all out and put them back where they belonged. She packed the shoes neatly back in their boxes and stored them with the rest of the clothes. She carefully put Katie's engagement ring back in its padded box and left it on one of the packed shelves. The chess set went back with the decks of cards, in the chest next to the one with all the suits.
She walked away from the set of warehouses, and Andy met her at the corner, like he always did.
"Is that everything then?"
"Just about," Gwen said, and Andy drove her home.
They sat on the sofa and talked for a while, and Gwen felt better than she had in weeks. Her apartment looked like hers again, and with empty pockets came a lighter heart. An hour later, she showed Andy out, and assured him that she was feeling fine, and yes you can come to see me tomorrow but would you please stop worrying all the time, I'm a big girl now, thank you, and she closed the door behind him, turned around, and smiled.
She hadn't returned everything, of course.
She made herself a cup of tea with the cappuccino machine. She smiled, putting away the medkit, full of all kinds of useful alien medicines as well as more earthly remedies, then went to change out of her clothes. She removed the stopwatch from her pocket and carefully unpinned the badges from her shirt before putting it in the laundry. Back to the kitchen, and she put some sugar in her tea before sitting on the sofa and opening up the laptop, pausing to wipe it off with the screen-cleaning squirrel.
The thing was, she thought to herself, putting her tea down and taking off the leather wrist strap, it didn't really matter where the stuff was.
She told the part of her that was all hormones and bundles of emotion to stop worrying about everything, stop making excuses for her actions, and the policewoman in her was making a big deal out of nothing, really, because she hadn't actually stolen anything.
Because regulations said that everything belonged to Torchwood, and the Torchwood in her said that means it all belongs to me, anyway.
I've been trying to write a little bit every night, and I took a break from the very long one (as opposed to the other very long one, which I really need to start before it all gets Joss'd by Miracle Day D: ) to write this instead. I will probably put it as another chapter of Loose Ends when I get it on FFn, but it can stand alone here.
Also nobody cares about TW fanfics unless they're Jack/Ianto anyway, so I'd better get off my ass and write one of those.
Man though, I kind of want to get Torchwood/Whoniverse out of my system so I can write some original stuff. It would probably help if I weren't making my way through all of the official novels. :/