Torchwoodgate Year One - Interlude - The Big Goodbye
Title: Torchwoodgate - Year One
Author: Soledad
Author's Note: For disclaimer, rating, etc. go to the secondary index page
Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different. Gwen’s good-bye message has been written by the wonderful artemis10002000, without whom the Torchwoodgate AU probably wouldn't have been born.
INTERLUDE - THE BIG GOODBYE
It was fairly late when Rhys Williams came home on this particular day. Truth was, he’d come home fairly late ever since Gwen had left for the States with her entire team, putting off their wedding again, for some nebulous top secret mission.
Not that that would have been something new. He’d taken a lot of shit from Gwen lately… more than usual, that is.
To think of it, he’d gotten nothing but shit from her since Gwen had left the police to join Torchwood. She’d always come home very late, she’d left at the oddest times on some phone call, dishing him up some harebrained story on the next day.
He knew she’d lied to him, many times. She’d always done that, since high school. Not out of malevolence - she just found it easier to lie than to face uncomfortable things. It was her way to escape the unpleasantness of real life. He could swear that she actually believed her own lies.
She wasn’t a bad girl, not really. She’d just somehow failed to grow up, to take responsibility for her own actions. To think before she’d blunder headfirst into something that wasn’t her bloody business to begin with. She never meant any harm. She just believed she knew better what would be good for people and never bothered to ask whether they wanted her so-called help or not.
And she fled in panic when everything went straight to hell, as it could have been expected.
She couldn’t deal with responsibility, so Rhys, quietly but firmly, had long taken over that part for her. He smoothed the waves caused by her actions, picked up the pieces afterwards, apologized to people. He did the housework without complaining, cos she couldn’t cook the simplest meal if her life depended on it; hell, she couldn’t even be bothered to separate the washing properly! He didn’t even mind when she was condescending, sometimes even rude to him. She was his little princess, and he enjoyed taking care of her needs.
It made him feel needed. Loved even.
Needless to say that Daff and his other mates saw things a little differently. They called Gwen a selfish, spoiled bitch, and Banana Boat swore that he’d seen her coming out of that fancy penthouse where one of her team-mates, that rat-faced doctor lived. At night.
Of course, Banana Boat’s habitually drunken state after nine o’clock didn’t make him a very reliable witness. Still, Rhys couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that Gwen was, in fact, cheating on him. He’s always suspected that Jack Harkness character - Gwen always got doe-eyed when mentioning him - but perhaps just this one time Banana Boat was right and he was wrong.
He started the washing machine, checked the answering machine - not that Gwen would have called for days by now, but one could always hope, right? - re-heated the rest of yesterday’s takeout in the microwave and was just about to sit down in front of the telly and watch Wife Swap when the doorbell rang. That surprised him a little, as he didn’t have any previous arrangement with his mates for the evening. Who could it be then, this late?
For a moment wild hope started budding in his heart that Gwen might have changed her mind about that shadowy mission in the States and returned to him… Then reality hit home rather ungently. He knew how likely that would be. Like… not at all. But who the hell would bother him this time?
Well, he could as well check out. Opening the door, he unexpectedly stood face to face with a uniformed young man wearing a strange red cap and the rank insignia of a corporal. Some sort of a soldier, then, which was odd. He’d never had anything to do with the armed forces… and this one sure as hell wasn’t a regular grunt.
“Mr. Williams?” the young man asked. “Rhys Williams?”
Rhys nodded, completely flabbergasted. “Yeah, that I am, but what…”
“Then I’ve got a delivery for you, sir,” all business-like, the corporal handed him a small, flat parcel of the size of a paperback novel. Then he produced a clipboard with a fairly average-looking delivery form pinned to it. “If you’d sign here, please…”
Somewhat stunned, Rhys scribbled down his name on the dotted line. The soldier thanked him, saluted - saluted! - and left, without explanation. Rhys closed his mouth that he only now realized had been hanging open, retuned to the living room and turned the small parcel back and forth in suspicion, as if he’d be afraid it might explode in his very hands.
It revealed nothing by it mere looks. His name and address were not hand-written, and where the sender should have been named, there was just a symbol he’d never seen before and the word UNIT: He’d never heard about that before, either, but he’d bet next month’s salary that it had something to do with bloody Torchwood. The bane of his existence.
Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep unless he checked out the mysterious parcel, Rhys tore the cardboard box open. Within, he found a CD, labelled “Gwen Cooper”, with a code number that didn’t tell him a thing. Nothing else.
Bloody hell, had the woman got herself kidnapped and was this a ransom note or whatnot?
With shaking hands, Rhys slammed the CD into the player and could feel perspiration tickling down his spine already. Somehow he knew there wouldn’t be any good news.
The CD started, showing a nondescript room - and Gwen, wearing some sort of uniform and that sly, gap-toothed smile he’d fallen in love with at first sight, back in high school. The other boys couldn’t understand what he’d see in her. But for him, she’d always been the only one.
Even though, deep in his heart, he knew the feeling wasn’t exactly mutual.
She liked him. She needed him to get through the pitfalls of life unharmed. He hoped that she loved him as well, but he could never be entirely sure about that. And that broke his heart every time he thought about it.
The Gwen on the TV screen smiled again, that nervous, uncertain little smile that had always been the surest sign that she wasn’t telling the truth. Or not the whole truth anyway. By now, Rhys was so used to it that it didn’t even register with him on a conscious level. He’d long ago learned to accept it as part of who Gwen was.
“Hi Rhys,” she began with that not-quite-honest smile on her face. “How do you do? I hope you aren’t mourning for me anymore and will find yourself a nice new girlfriend, soon. You must believe me, I hate breaking up with you like this, after all those years together, but trust me, it’s for the best. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this assignment, knowing that you’re sitting in Cardiff waiting for my return and missing me. We’re still so young; we shouldn’t waste our life with waiting.”
Rhys stopped the recording, not quite able to trust his ears. She was breaking up with him? She was bloody breaking up with him, in a video message, while there was an ocean between them? While he didn’t even have a phone number to call her and ask her why? Ask her if the years they’d spent together didn’t mean a thing?
The player’s counter showed that he’d only seen half the message so far. He was seriously tempted not to watch the rest, cos seriously, what was the woman thinking? Just cos he loved her and put up with her shit all the time, it didn’t mean there wasn’t a limit!
But then curiosity won the upper hand and he continued the recording, listening to Gwen babble on about her great new assignment excitedly.
“I love being out here!” she enthused. Wherever here was supposed to be. “I miss you, of course, and Cardiff, and our friends…”
What friends, Rhys muttered darkly, cos in truth, Daff, Banana Boat and all the others were actually his mates who’d learned to tolerate Gwen for his sake… barely.
“But you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen here…” she went on. “It’s even more exciting than working for Torchwood!”
God beware, Rhys thought. All that excitement with Torchwood had nearly killed her several times. Why did she always need to be where she had no business to be? Why couldn’t she accept a nice, safe job and have a nice, safe life with him?
“They really need some capable policemen out here,” she added, her smile turning more honest, more self-gratulating by that. “And my experience with Torchwood is a great help. It’s dangerous, of course…”
Of course, Rhys muttered sarcastically.
“… only the best of the best got this chance, and the job takes up all my time. But if I don’t have anyone waiting for me at home, I won’t have to feel guilty about working late or worry about leaving my work unfinished. Concentrating only on my job is doing wonders for my career.”
Career? What sort of career was she speaking about? Everyone in Cardiff knew that Torchwood had been closed down and its facilities taken over by the military. What kind of shadowy business was she being involved in now?”
She looked at him beseechingly from the screen, eyes impossibly wide and welling with tears, her lower lip trembling, like always when she tried to make him do her bidding.
“I hope you’re having a good life, Rhys,” she finished with a tremulous smile through actual tears. God, she was such an actress! “You’ll always be a good friend.”
“No, I bloody won’t!” Rhys yelled, grabbing the next available object - which happened to be a heavy glass ashtray - and hurling it at the telly. “You selfish bitch! Who gave you the right to do this to me?”
The impact, unsurprisingly, caused the brand new telly to explode. It was still in flames when the fire-fighters arrived, alarmed by the automated fire alarm that, fortunately, had kicked in on time.
The furniture in the living room was still smoking when Daff arrived with Karen to take a sobbing Rhys home with them.
The whole flat was still dripping wet when Karen haphazardly stuffed all clothes of Rhys she could find - and that weren’t soaked already - into a suitcase and Daff cajoled Rhys into collecting the documents he’d need at work for the next couple of days.
“He’ll stay with us until we find something else for him,” Daff handed the police officer leading the investigation his business card. “I don’t think he’d wish to come back here. I know I wouldn’t if I was him.”
“She left me, Daff,” Rhys’ tears were still running free. “She just… she just wiped me from her life, like some… like some inconvenience. She left me and went away with that fancy boss of hers, after all this time…”
“He burned down his flat because his girlfriend left him?” the police officer shook his head in bewilderment. “No woman is worth that.”
“Not for you, perhaps,” Daff shrugged. “He sees it differently. They were together since high school, you know. They were even supposed to get married, soon.”
“And she left him without warning?” the officer asked. “Man, that’s cold.”
“We all knew it was only a matter of time,” Daff answered dryly. “We all knew… except of Rhys himself, that is,” he patted the grieving man’s back. “Rhys, mate, come with us now. We’re gonna take care of you. Everything’s gonna be all right… eventually.”
But deep in his heart he knew it would take Rhys years to get over Gwen Cooper and what she’d done to him. If ever.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A couple of days later the police closed the investigation, deciding that the fire had been caused by accident, not by arson. Rhys’ insurance paid for the reconstruction of the flat, but - just as Daff had foretold - he never returned there. Instead, he moved back to his old neighbourhood, on the other end of Cardiff.
When a week later another soldier wearing one of those funny red caps visited him - this time an older, female one - and offered something she called an amnesia pill, promising to replace his memory of Gwen’s “Dear John” message with one about them having broken up in mutual agreement, he accepted gladly.
Life was too short to live in the past. And he’d already wasted more than enough of it on a selfish bitch like Gwen. He didn’t want to forget their years together - he had been happy in those years, to the bewilderment of his mates - but he didn’t want to suffer because of her any longer.
He’d finally come to realize that she wasn’t worth it.
Chapter 05 - Submerged
Author: Soledad
Author's Note: For disclaimer, rating, etc. go to the secondary index page
Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different. Gwen’s good-bye message has been written by the wonderful artemis10002000, without whom the Torchwoodgate AU probably wouldn't have been born.
INTERLUDE - THE BIG GOODBYE
It was fairly late when Rhys Williams came home on this particular day. Truth was, he’d come home fairly late ever since Gwen had left for the States with her entire team, putting off their wedding again, for some nebulous top secret mission.
Not that that would have been something new. He’d taken a lot of shit from Gwen lately… more than usual, that is.
To think of it, he’d gotten nothing but shit from her since Gwen had left the police to join Torchwood. She’d always come home very late, she’d left at the oddest times on some phone call, dishing him up some harebrained story on the next day.
He knew she’d lied to him, many times. She’d always done that, since high school. Not out of malevolence - she just found it easier to lie than to face uncomfortable things. It was her way to escape the unpleasantness of real life. He could swear that she actually believed her own lies.
She wasn’t a bad girl, not really. She’d just somehow failed to grow up, to take responsibility for her own actions. To think before she’d blunder headfirst into something that wasn’t her bloody business to begin with. She never meant any harm. She just believed she knew better what would be good for people and never bothered to ask whether they wanted her so-called help or not.
And she fled in panic when everything went straight to hell, as it could have been expected.
She couldn’t deal with responsibility, so Rhys, quietly but firmly, had long taken over that part for her. He smoothed the waves caused by her actions, picked up the pieces afterwards, apologized to people. He did the housework without complaining, cos she couldn’t cook the simplest meal if her life depended on it; hell, she couldn’t even be bothered to separate the washing properly! He didn’t even mind when she was condescending, sometimes even rude to him. She was his little princess, and he enjoyed taking care of her needs.
It made him feel needed. Loved even.
Needless to say that Daff and his other mates saw things a little differently. They called Gwen a selfish, spoiled bitch, and Banana Boat swore that he’d seen her coming out of that fancy penthouse where one of her team-mates, that rat-faced doctor lived. At night.
Of course, Banana Boat’s habitually drunken state after nine o’clock didn’t make him a very reliable witness. Still, Rhys couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that Gwen was, in fact, cheating on him. He’s always suspected that Jack Harkness character - Gwen always got doe-eyed when mentioning him - but perhaps just this one time Banana Boat was right and he was wrong.
He started the washing machine, checked the answering machine - not that Gwen would have called for days by now, but one could always hope, right? - re-heated the rest of yesterday’s takeout in the microwave and was just about to sit down in front of the telly and watch Wife Swap when the doorbell rang. That surprised him a little, as he didn’t have any previous arrangement with his mates for the evening. Who could it be then, this late?
For a moment wild hope started budding in his heart that Gwen might have changed her mind about that shadowy mission in the States and returned to him… Then reality hit home rather ungently. He knew how likely that would be. Like… not at all. But who the hell would bother him this time?
Well, he could as well check out. Opening the door, he unexpectedly stood face to face with a uniformed young man wearing a strange red cap and the rank insignia of a corporal. Some sort of a soldier, then, which was odd. He’d never had anything to do with the armed forces… and this one sure as hell wasn’t a regular grunt.
“Mr. Williams?” the young man asked. “Rhys Williams?”
Rhys nodded, completely flabbergasted. “Yeah, that I am, but what…”
“Then I’ve got a delivery for you, sir,” all business-like, the corporal handed him a small, flat parcel of the size of a paperback novel. Then he produced a clipboard with a fairly average-looking delivery form pinned to it. “If you’d sign here, please…”
Somewhat stunned, Rhys scribbled down his name on the dotted line. The soldier thanked him, saluted - saluted! - and left, without explanation. Rhys closed his mouth that he only now realized had been hanging open, retuned to the living room and turned the small parcel back and forth in suspicion, as if he’d be afraid it might explode in his very hands.
It revealed nothing by it mere looks. His name and address were not hand-written, and where the sender should have been named, there was just a symbol he’d never seen before and the word UNIT: He’d never heard about that before, either, but he’d bet next month’s salary that it had something to do with bloody Torchwood. The bane of his existence.
Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep unless he checked out the mysterious parcel, Rhys tore the cardboard box open. Within, he found a CD, labelled “Gwen Cooper”, with a code number that didn’t tell him a thing. Nothing else.
Bloody hell, had the woman got herself kidnapped and was this a ransom note or whatnot?
With shaking hands, Rhys slammed the CD into the player and could feel perspiration tickling down his spine already. Somehow he knew there wouldn’t be any good news.
The CD started, showing a nondescript room - and Gwen, wearing some sort of uniform and that sly, gap-toothed smile he’d fallen in love with at first sight, back in high school. The other boys couldn’t understand what he’d see in her. But for him, she’d always been the only one.
Even though, deep in his heart, he knew the feeling wasn’t exactly mutual.
She liked him. She needed him to get through the pitfalls of life unharmed. He hoped that she loved him as well, but he could never be entirely sure about that. And that broke his heart every time he thought about it.
The Gwen on the TV screen smiled again, that nervous, uncertain little smile that had always been the surest sign that she wasn’t telling the truth. Or not the whole truth anyway. By now, Rhys was so used to it that it didn’t even register with him on a conscious level. He’d long ago learned to accept it as part of who Gwen was.
“Hi Rhys,” she began with that not-quite-honest smile on her face. “How do you do? I hope you aren’t mourning for me anymore and will find yourself a nice new girlfriend, soon. You must believe me, I hate breaking up with you like this, after all those years together, but trust me, it’s for the best. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this assignment, knowing that you’re sitting in Cardiff waiting for my return and missing me. We’re still so young; we shouldn’t waste our life with waiting.”
Rhys stopped the recording, not quite able to trust his ears. She was breaking up with him? She was bloody breaking up with him, in a video message, while there was an ocean between them? While he didn’t even have a phone number to call her and ask her why? Ask her if the years they’d spent together didn’t mean a thing?
The player’s counter showed that he’d only seen half the message so far. He was seriously tempted not to watch the rest, cos seriously, what was the woman thinking? Just cos he loved her and put up with her shit all the time, it didn’t mean there wasn’t a limit!
But then curiosity won the upper hand and he continued the recording, listening to Gwen babble on about her great new assignment excitedly.
“I love being out here!” she enthused. Wherever here was supposed to be. “I miss you, of course, and Cardiff, and our friends…”
What friends, Rhys muttered darkly, cos in truth, Daff, Banana Boat and all the others were actually his mates who’d learned to tolerate Gwen for his sake… barely.
“But you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen here…” she went on. “It’s even more exciting than working for Torchwood!”
God beware, Rhys thought. All that excitement with Torchwood had nearly killed her several times. Why did she always need to be where she had no business to be? Why couldn’t she accept a nice, safe job and have a nice, safe life with him?
“They really need some capable policemen out here,” she added, her smile turning more honest, more self-gratulating by that. “And my experience with Torchwood is a great help. It’s dangerous, of course…”
Of course, Rhys muttered sarcastically.
“… only the best of the best got this chance, and the job takes up all my time. But if I don’t have anyone waiting for me at home, I won’t have to feel guilty about working late or worry about leaving my work unfinished. Concentrating only on my job is doing wonders for my career.”
Career? What sort of career was she speaking about? Everyone in Cardiff knew that Torchwood had been closed down and its facilities taken over by the military. What kind of shadowy business was she being involved in now?”
She looked at him beseechingly from the screen, eyes impossibly wide and welling with tears, her lower lip trembling, like always when she tried to make him do her bidding.
“I hope you’re having a good life, Rhys,” she finished with a tremulous smile through actual tears. God, she was such an actress! “You’ll always be a good friend.”
“No, I bloody won’t!” Rhys yelled, grabbing the next available object - which happened to be a heavy glass ashtray - and hurling it at the telly. “You selfish bitch! Who gave you the right to do this to me?”
The impact, unsurprisingly, caused the brand new telly to explode. It was still in flames when the fire-fighters arrived, alarmed by the automated fire alarm that, fortunately, had kicked in on time.
The furniture in the living room was still smoking when Daff arrived with Karen to take a sobbing Rhys home with them.
The whole flat was still dripping wet when Karen haphazardly stuffed all clothes of Rhys she could find - and that weren’t soaked already - into a suitcase and Daff cajoled Rhys into collecting the documents he’d need at work for the next couple of days.
“He’ll stay with us until we find something else for him,” Daff handed the police officer leading the investigation his business card. “I don’t think he’d wish to come back here. I know I wouldn’t if I was him.”
“She left me, Daff,” Rhys’ tears were still running free. “She just… she just wiped me from her life, like some… like some inconvenience. She left me and went away with that fancy boss of hers, after all this time…”
“He burned down his flat because his girlfriend left him?” the police officer shook his head in bewilderment. “No woman is worth that.”
“Not for you, perhaps,” Daff shrugged. “He sees it differently. They were together since high school, you know. They were even supposed to get married, soon.”
“And she left him without warning?” the officer asked. “Man, that’s cold.”
“We all knew it was only a matter of time,” Daff answered dryly. “We all knew… except of Rhys himself, that is,” he patted the grieving man’s back. “Rhys, mate, come with us now. We’re gonna take care of you. Everything’s gonna be all right… eventually.”
But deep in his heart he knew it would take Rhys years to get over Gwen Cooper and what she’d done to him. If ever.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A couple of days later the police closed the investigation, deciding that the fire had been caused by accident, not by arson. Rhys’ insurance paid for the reconstruction of the flat, but - just as Daff had foretold - he never returned there. Instead, he moved back to his old neighbourhood, on the other end of Cardiff.
When a week later another soldier wearing one of those funny red caps visited him - this time an older, female one - and offered something she called an amnesia pill, promising to replace his memory of Gwen’s “Dear John” message with one about them having broken up in mutual agreement, he accepted gladly.
Life was too short to live in the past. And he’d already wasted more than enough of it on a selfish bitch like Gwen. He didn’t want to forget their years together - he had been happy in those years, to the bewilderment of his mates - but he didn’t want to suffer because of her any longer.
He’d finally come to realize that she wasn’t worth it.
Chapter 05 - Submerged