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"Mrs. Cooper, Mrs. Cooper, come out quick please!" The boys' voices rose to be heard over the noise of their banging on the weathered wooden door.
"There's a man on the beach, and we think he's drowned!" the smaller one added, removing one hand from the door to wipe at a runny nose.
The door opened, and both boys stepped backward. Their faces turned up to the woman, who had a baby balanced in her arms. "Now what's this, Cameron?" she said, addressing the older boy.
The boy tugged at the hem of his tightly knit sweater. "We were playing out on the beach waiting for Mum to call us in, and we saw a man just lying there. We think he's dead. Tom poked him with a stick and he didn't move. We need you to come quick."
"Take me to him," the woman said, letting the door shut as she stepped outside. "May I ask why you got me and not your mum?"
"Oh right," Cameron said. "And have her running about waving her hands and worrying whether or not to call the police before she even does anything? He might be alive, after all."
"Well, I suppose that was logical," the woman said, taking care not to say more against the boy's mother. She was rather nervous, was Ellen Baxter. "Where is he?"
"Just there," Tom pointed to a spot about a hundred metres ahead of them.
"Take Anwen," she directed, putting the baby in the older boy's arms. He did so, and she jogged off ahead of them, her brown boots crunching the pebbles underneath them. The boys hurried after, the elder slowed somewhat by the weight of the baby.
She could see the figure lying prone on the ground a second later, and she pushed her wind-whipped hair out of her face to get a better look. "Surely not," she muttered to herself as she got closer. There was a familiar shape to the figure. A moment later she was certain, and she stopped in her tracks. When the boys reached her she was standing about ten feet from the body, with her arms crossed over her maroon sweater.
"Mrs. Cooper? Is he dead?" Tom asked, coming to a stop at her elbow.
"I hope--," she began, but she was cut off by a loud noise coming from the man lying at their feet. It was a sound of air rushing into completely deflated lungs. The boys' jaws dropped.
"Whoa," Cameron said.
"Don't you drop that baby," the woman snapped, without turning to him. Cameron had almost forgotten that he was holding the little girl, and he shifted his grip. Anwen reached out, grabbing his nose.
The man was slowly rising to his feet. On his knees he retched, a stream of water escaping from his mouth. He paused there for a minute, and the woman didn't move. She stood still as a statue, while the wind blew her hair and gulls flew by. The birds called to each other, perhaps commenting on the strange tableaux that the humans were making down below.
Finally the man got to his feet. He turned to the four people watching him. His eyes passed over the children, and locked on the woman. "All yours?" he asked. There was no response, not a flicker of movement. "Come on, Gwen. Aren't you glad to see me?"
Still the woman didn't move. Her eyes bored into the man, but she did not seem to see him. At least, there wasn't the recognition in her gaze that there was in his, and there certainly wasn't the warmth.
"I've got something to talk to you about," he continued, stepping towards her. "I've got a lot to tell you."
The woman turned around abruptly. "Give me my baby," she directed the boy. Cameron held up Anwen, who was frowning, obviously upset by her mother's tone.
"Aw come on, not even a 'hello'?" The man called, walking after her. "It was a good trick, wasn't it boys?" The brothers nodded eagerly. "It got your attention!" he added, his words torn away by the wind so that the reached the woman's ears as a whisper. The same whisper that had been telling her for over a year that there was something missing in her peaceful little world. She tried to ignore it, as she tried to ignore this whisper, but it was still there, niggling at her when she least expected it.
***
"Beeman!" Anwen cried as Gwen loaded her up in her pram to walk up to the shops in the village. It was the day after the scene on the beach, and Gwen's mind was reeling. She'd found herself looking out from behind the curtains every fifteen minutes the night before, expecting to see him looming in the garden, watching. She'd stopped when Rhys asked her what she was doing.
She should have told him what happened, but she didn't want to disturb him. He was so happy here, living on the seaside, managing a delivery firm in the next time over. He loved their life, and so did she. Of course she did. And in that life, one had to zxbuy milk. So she was strapping Anwen into her pram. But Anewn was pointing behind her saying "Beeman", which she absolutely knew meant "beach man", so Gwen did not particularly want to turn around.
She finally decided that she couldn't stay hunched over the pram forever—although some days it felt like she did—and so she stood, went around it and began to push. When she got it onto the path she could hear his footsteps behind her, but he remained silent. They continued on. Gwen bit her lips hard, smashing them together. She counted her steps, she watched birds overhead, and listened to cars drive by on the distant highway. When they reached the village, she still hadn't spoken.
It was easier when she could call hello to people passing by. She ducked into the post office for stamps and had a long chat with the postmistress. She so almost certain that this woman was out of her time that she had convinced herself that she'd seen her picture in the archives. If she was, then whoever's job it was to orient her hadn't done a good job. Her dress was clearly nineteenth century. Still, she was a lovely woman. Every once in a while Gwen wanted to say the word "Torchwood" to her, just to see if she got a reaction. Trouble was, she was more likely to get the fearful look that people now got whenever anything alien was mentioned. She couldn't bear that.
No more could she bear the presence looming in front of the post office, waiting for her.
"I've a life here, Jack," she said. She said it more towards him than to him, as she continued down the pavement to the shops.
He let out a long whistle. "Half an hour. I'm impressed." Her words had seemed to make him think that some sort of barrier was broken. Instead of walking behind her now he fell in step. The women sitting out on the bench in front of the post-office watched them and Gwen knew the gossip mills would be churning. Let them. It might take away from the whisperings about odd Gwen Cooper who was often seen staring up at the sky at night, like she was waiting for something.
"Stay here," she snapped a moment later. "Watch her, the aisles in here are too small for the pram." She dashed into the store without another word. Part of her thought that when she returned to the pavement Anwen would be alone, sitting up in her pram cooing at the familiar faces passing by on the village high street. There was no one out there who would harm her, Gwen was sure of that, and she couldn't breathe.
Safely ensconced in the bread aisle, she began taking deep, shuddering breaths with her hand pressed firmly against her chest. Jack Harkness was standing outside. Jack Harkness was walking beside her down the street of the village, of the place she had come to escape. It was as though she had conjured him; though she was loath to admit that even to herself.
Except that when she did go back outside, where he was still standing, he pulled the idea from her mind. "You can't be satisfied with this life, Gwen."
"Can't I?" she demanded. "When the Rift is closed? When half the world is still reeling, a fourth still under marshal law? When Britain has lost all of its footing? I can't be happy with a quiet life in a tiny village where my family is happy?"
She rested her hands firmly on the bar of the pram as she said this, considering running it into his legs.
He considered her for a long moment, a look that she remembered. Her pulse accelerated. It was a look she never thought she'd see again. "No," he said finally.
"And why not?"
He smiled, and her heart lurched. "Because. You're Gwen Cooper."
She turned her head away, staring at the flowerbed that ran alongside the wall of the shop. The flowers were gone, in preparation for the oncoming winter. "No. Not any more. Not the way you mean. That part of my life is over, Jack. It's over. We both made that decision. You can't just turn up and take it all back." She looked up again. "You left. I wasn't enough, and you left. So that's that. Go find your adventures on your own."
She began pushing Anwen back down the pavement, back towards their house, back towards normality. "You don't mean that!" Jack called as she retreated.
She would have yelled in return, but the words you're right were to far up in her mind.
***
That night Gwen sat on the windowseat in her and Rhys's bedroom. The sound of the waves bashing on the nearby rocks just about drowned out the din of her husband's snoring. She'd had dinner ready for him when he got home, salmon over pasta. She kept telling herself that she meant to tell him about Jack, but she couldn't find a good time to do so. So she told him other things. That Anwen had said "biscuit". That her publisher had called and they wanted another police drama. It was easy, she found, leaving out Jack's name. She'd had plenty of practice.
There were full weeks when she was certain that this was all she wanted in life. When she could get all she needed from Anwen's smile, from selling a book based on the part of her life before she knew that aliens existed, from Rhys's warm laugh when they lay in bed at night. But then her eyes would linger on the picture of Owen, Ianto and Tosh on her mirror, or Andy would 'phone "just to see how she was doing", and it would all come rushing back.
As it happened, that week had been the worst of all, even before Jack. A headline had appeared in the paper two days before. NASA thought they had registered a true UFO on their scopes. What's more, the readings made it seem pretty certain that the vessel contained life. Something was coming.
"Nothing that will affect us," the man in the corner shop had assured her when she bought the paper. "Not out here."
"Not out here," she had echoed, her eyes misting for reasons she did not want to face.
And then Jack had shown up. A part of her was ecstatic, but the rational part was telling her that this was not a good thing. Jack Harkness brought trouble, wasn't that what she decided?
But that was without being able to see his smile, or hear his voice say her name. No matter what rational thinking said, she knew a part of her would always belong to Jack. A larger part belonged to Rhys, of course, but still.
She rose, intending to go down to the kitchen and warm some milk to help her sleep. Anwen had just begun to sleep through the night, and yet her mother couldn't quite manage it. If she hadn't gone down, maybe she wouldn't have heard the knocking on the door. Even though she knew who it was, she opened it.
"Hey," he said. "Need your help."
"You need more than that," she countered. "What is it?"
"Blowfish," he offered.
Her eyes widened. "Do you attract them, or something?" she demanded, ducking back inside. Without thinking she slid on her coat and wellies over her dressing gown. Then she ran into the small downstairs bedroom that she used as a study and pulled her pistol out of its drawer.
"Carrying illegally," Jack noted. "Content with the country life, my ass."
"He's after drugs, aye?"
"They usually are. I think this one might have been living in the sea since the Rift closed and coming to the surface for drugs and joy rides."
"Problems coming out of the sea. This seems to be my week for that. Come on," she added. "Just down the lane."
"You know there are drugs just down the lane?"
Gwen didn't answer, instead she led him away from the path towards the rocky edge of the beach. "It's shorter this way," she called, scrambling up onto the rocks. He followed. They stumbled through the dark, and once he caught her elbow when she began to slip. His hand was familiar, and she let it rest on her arm longer than she should have. After five minutes they could see the lights of a cottage, and shadows moving frantically in the windows.
"Shit," Jack swore, and they both began running towards the house. The front door had been torn off of its hinges, and the kitchen was a shambles. Poor Ellen Baxter, Gwen thought. She likes things so neat.
She and Jack clung to the walls as they continued down the corridor. The lights were coming from the side of the one-storey cottage, where the bedrooms were. The first door was shut, and when Gwen looked in she saw Tom and Cameron still sound asleep in their bunk-bed. Thank God for that. As she shut the door, she heard a shriek coming from the next room, and she quickly continued on, Jack a few steps ahead of her.
The next room seemed too small for the scene it contained. A man lay groaning on the bed, sheets tangled up all around him. He seemed at first unaware of the creature that stood in the room, but then Gwen heard the words in his moans. "No, Ellen. Mine. Don't give. Mine."
"And why shouldn't I?" Ellen Baxter demanded, even as she shoved a fistful of syringes at the blowfish that had her cornered. "You've brought all this upon your family, Charlie Baxter, and now you won't sacrifice it when an alien is standing in your bedroom with a knife? You can bloody well die from withdrawal for all I care!"
"That shan't be necessary," Gwen said, stepping all the way into the room. Without giving the blowfish a chance to see her and grab the woman she shot first the knife-holding hand, and second the chest. She only shot to kill because it wasn't as though she had a place to imprision the thing. Or maybe she just didn't have as much sympathy for drug fiend aliens as she once did.
It fell to the ground at Ellen Baxter's feet. The woman looked between it and Gwen, her mouth a round "o" of shock. It was her husband who gasped, "But—but you're just the woman down the road."
"No," Gwen countered, putting her gun back in her pocket. "I'm Torchwood."
***
"Her husband's been addicted to opiates for years. He saw military service, and after came back an addict. PTSD, I suppose." Gwen offered as she and Jack were trekking back to her cottage. "Even villagers have their problems."
"You know all of them, don't you?"
She shrugged. "It keeps me busy."
"Keeps you from going mad," he offered. "Poor guy. There are better ways to deal with pain." He paused, and she looked at him from the corner of her eye. "I learned that."
They stopped for a moment, their eyes meeting. Things that couldn't be said ran through Gwen's mind, and she knew Jack was thinking them too. Thinking about his pain, and hers. About how they dealt with the memories. He ran away to forget, but what did she do? She thought of her police dramas, about the team of cops she had created. She knew that she ran away to remember, whether she wanted to or not.
"You were great tonight," he offered.
"You lured the blowfish here, didn't you?"
He made a small noise in the back of his throat, like a child being caught out. "I…uh… thought it was kind of symbolic."
"Gwen? Is that you?" They were approaching the path to her cottage, and the door was
open, Rhys's figure framed by the light.
"Aye!" she called.
"Where'd you go? Who's that with you?"
She didn't know what to say, so she kept walking. It was a good thing, she mused, that her pistol was in her pocket. Rhys knew where she usually kept it, and she had no doubt he'd go after it when he saw—
"Jack ruddy Harkness?"
Jack stepped in front of Gwen, into the light cast by the kitchen lamps. "Hello, Rhys."
There was a moment of tangible uncertainty, where Rhys stared at Jack, Jack stood in front of him, hand stretched out in a questioning way, and Gwen stared between them. Then Rhys said, "Took you long enough. I'll make the tea, shall I?" And turned to go inside.
When he disappeared, Jack turned to Gwen and let out a long breath. Then they both burst into laughter. When she walked up to him, he took her in his arms for a long moment. He smelled of the sea, and of the sand, and yet also of something other, something purely Jack. When he released her, she slid her hand in his and led her inside.
***
He hadn't come back because of the aliens. He'd come back because he'd realized that he'd missed her for longer than the wounds of Ianto's and Steven's deaths had bled.
He hadn't known about the UFOs, but when she told him he phoned up a contact in America. They could go, he told her. Be a part of the team figuring out the details on the ship, meet its passengers. It was a job for Torchwood.
She'd said no. With Rhys sitting there at the table, clutching her hand, she'd protested that they had a happy life by the seaside, and she wasn't abandoning it.
Her husband told her she was mad. He knew she'd never be satisfied with this life, even though she wanted to be. It was high time, Rhys said, that they stop pretending. He'd get their bags packed if she'd feed Anwen.
A week later, Gwen was running backwards along side Jack. A spear carrying alien was behind them, and Anwen was in a carrier strapped to her back. The vessel wasn't due to land for a month, and they'd been sightseeing at Cape Canaveral. That would teach them.
The alien rounded a corner and Jack fired. It collapsed against a wall. "Who are you?" it demanded, potentially just an echo of the words Gwen had hurtled at it ten minutes prior.
"Torchwood!" Gwen and Jack said at the same time.
"Torchwood," Anwen echoed, bopping her fist against her mother's shoulder.
"You are staying with your father from now on," Gwen said firmly.
"Until he gets wrapped up in whatever this is too," Jack sighed, putting a hand on her other shoulder. "That tends to be how it works."
Gwen looked down as he reached back to lift Anwen out of her carrier. "You could go back," he said. "If you really wanted to keep her safe, you probably would."
"I know," she agreed, meeting his eyes. "The trouble is, I want to keep her world safe too."
Jack nodded solemnly, and together they went to go phone their NASA and CIA contacts to let them know that they had some clean up to do.