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Gwen sighed as she dunked the mop back into the bucket, swirling it around a bit before lifting it back out and scrubbing hard at a particularly persistent stain. She did not want to have to use the cleaning spray and scrub brushes on the floor any more than was absolutely necessary.
“You do this for all the Weevils?” she asked.
Ianto glanced over, halting his own floor-scrubbing for a moment. “Yes, but it’s easier with them, since all I have to do is maintain a certain level of cleanliness. And sometimes I could get Owen to help, if he needed me to cover for him coming in late.”
Gwen chuckled softly at that, then realised with a jolt that it was the first time since Bilis and Abaddon that she’d laughed and really meant it. Suddenly feeling awkward, she re-soaked the mop and said “You know, this has got to be the weirdest, most disgusting bleach I’ve ever seen. I thought it had gone off somehow when I first started pouring it out.”
“I was a bit startled myself,” Ianto replied. “Owen bought it, of course, while I was -” he hesitated briefly “- on suspension. Unfortunately, he bought it in bulk, so it’s going to last for the next several months.”
“Oh God,” Gwen shuddered theatrically, “It’s so goopy , though. I don’t know how you can stand it.” Her phone rang, and she hurried over to her discarded jacket, expecting it to be Andy calling about “one of your weird things going on again”. She glanced down at the caller ID. Rhys . She looked apologetically at Ianto and said “I have to take this. Sorry, be back in a few.” Ianto nodded graciously as she walked past the row of empty cells and pulled the door closed behind her. She couldn’t help breathing a relieved sigh as it ground shut behind her. It had been a week since that day, and she still couldn’t walk into the cells or her flat without seeing blood everywhere.
“Hey, Rhys,” she said, drawing out the ‘hey’ and injecting extra smile into her voice, “sorry it took me so long to answer the phone - I was helping Ianto organise things a bit. We’ve been hellishly busy this past week.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve not come home for the past two days,” Rhys replied, not bothering to mask the hurt in his voice.
Gwen winced. Not now, Rhys, please, not now. I can’t handle this yet. Not for the first time, she wished she could explain, or at least that there was some equivalent to to “sorry, but there’s been a slew of Weevil sightings since we opened the Rift and we’re a man short and all sorts of potentially dangerous alien technology has been coming through and landing all over Cardiff this past week and we’re barely hanging on.”
“I know, I know,” she said instead, “but I can’t just leave everyone else to do all the work. They’ve been run ragged enough as it is.”
Rhys harrumphed. She closed her eyes. Rhys’ body on the autopsy table, Jack wiping his blood off her hands as she stared blankly at him laying there. Jack, face grey and shadows under his closed eyes as he lay on the slab in the morgue, body bag left unzipped. Her eyes flew back open and she gasped heavingly, trying to blink away the stinging at the back of her eyes.
“Yeah, well, then you ought to call in some backup or something,” Rhys grumbled. “I mean, what are Heddlu for if they’re not helping you lot? You probably can’t even remember what the flat looks like!”
Blood all over the wall and the floor and the kitchen counter, Rhys’ body slumped in the corner. “Of course I remember what the flat looks like,” she replied, more snappishly than she’d intended to. Rhys didn’t answer, and Gwen suddenly couldn’t bear it any longer. “Right, well, I’m very busy, got to go, I’ll call you later,” she said shortly and hung up.
She opened the cell door again. Rhys shouting after her as she left him in the cell. His body slumped in the corner of the CCTV feed.
“Sorry I was so long,” she said lightly to Ianto, not quite managing to hide the wobble in her voice.
“It’s alright,” he assured her, politely ignoring the way her voice had cracked on the ‘long’. “I’ve finished the cell floor, so it’s just the windows now.”
She nodded, grabbing one of the spray bottles of industrial cleaner, then started scrubbing furiously at the window, cursing as she jammed her finger on one of the holes. She shook it and wiped angrily at her eyes with the back of her other hand.
Ianto looked over at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she assured him, voice coming out rougher than she would have liked as she wiped at her eyes again.
“If you want Owen to take a look at that, I can finish up here,” he said gently.
Gwen nearly started crying again at that. She shook her head, not trusting her voice, and grabbed the cleaner. She started scrubbing the window again, switching her focus to a rust-coloured spot in the lower right. Blood, everywhere - smeared all over the windows and the wall behind Rhys where he had slumped backwards after Bilis had vanished. To her horror, she realised that she had started crying.
“Ianto put his hand on her shoulder. “Gwen…” he said gently.
“Sorry,” she sniffed, “It’s just been a hell of a week. I’ll be alright in a minute. God. I wish Jack was here, the bastard.” She froze.
“Yeah, me too,” Ianto said stiffly, cutting off her apology. “We all do.”
Gwen winced. “Sorry,” she said quietly, then blurted out “So were you and Jack -?” She cut herself off abruptly and winced again; she hadn’t meant to say anything out loud.
Ianto grimaced. “What do you mean?”
“Uhh, well, I just wondered, because he kissed you when he came back to life, um, and I had just wondered if you two were, uh,” she finished lamely, staring at the wall behind Ianto’s head and trying to fight back a blush. “You don’t have to tell me,” she assured him when he remained silent, “I didn’t even mean to ask, I wasn’t going to say anything, I’m really just at sixes and sevens today, I won’t bring it up again.” She cut herself off again, realising that she’d been babbling.
Ianto sighed. “No, it’s fine. We were. Shagging, that is.” He shrugged sharply, turning back to the cell window.
Gwen fidgeted, hesitated, then patted him on the shoulder before picking the scrub brush back up. After a few more minutes working in a now-uncomfortable silence, she couldn’t bear it any longer. She cleared her throat and awkwardly remarked “You could have come down and stayed in the morgue with me - God, that sounds awful, I’m sorry; but I would have been glad of the company.”
Ianto set down his scrub brush, apparently giving up cleaning the window as a lost cause, then turned to face her and asked “Why did you stay in the Hub the entire three days instead of checking on Rhys?”
Gwen blinked. She hadn’t expected him to say that. “I did check on him,” she replied, frowning puzzledly, “called him every hour that first day, and every few hours the next two days. Accidentally woke him up in the middle of the night a few times; I lost track of the time while I was down there.”
Ianto nodded. “I know; we saw you calling him on the CCTV. Tosh wanted to make sure you were alright,” he added. “But I was asking why you didn’t go home to check on him.” He drew in a short breath and added, almost as an afterthought “Tosh or Owen would have stayed with Jack while you were gone.”
She frowned again, confused. “You wouldn’t have? Gone down there, I mean.”
Ianto shook his head sharply. “So why didn’t you go home, then?”
Rhys’ blood all over her hands, Jack gently wiping it off as she stared at it soaking through his shirt. She shuddered and tried to stop herself from crying again. “I called him to tell him I’d be home late, the first time,” she explained haltingly, “and when I heard his voice all I could see was him shouting after me in the cells and lying on the table and all that blood -” she cut off abruptly, choking back a sob.
Ianto awkwardly shuffled closer and put his arm around her shoulder. “Sorry,” he said quietly, “I shouldn’t have made you tell me -”
“It’s fine,” she told him, “It… saying it out loud helped…” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I couldn’t go home because if just hearing his voice did that - well, I was afraid of what would happen if I saw him. And Jack was one of my best friends and he died because of me and I couldn’t leave him down there when it was all my fault.” She sobbed again, and gave up trying to wipe her eyes.
Ianto handed her a handkerchief and said “It wasn’t your fault, Gwen,” very gently.
Automatically, she launched herself at him and pulled him into a teary hug, just remembering to angle her head so she wouldn’t get any tears or mascara on his shirt. She let out a brief, watery laugh as he patted her uncomfortably on the back, then pulled away. “Sorry,” she said again.
“It’s alright,” he replied. “Anyway, I, uh, wanted to say that I didn’t want to see Jack lying there in the morgue. That’s why I didn’t go down there.” He coughed awkwardly. “I should have just told you, instead of…” He waved his hand vaguely.
‘No, I’m glad you did,” she assured him, “It helped a bit, being able to talk about it.” She grimaced as something else occurred to her. “God, how fucked up is it that we both had to witness the death of our…” she trailed off uncomfortably. She was going to say ‘boyfriends,” but considering Ianto’s earlier response, she wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
“You can call him whatever you want to, Gwen,” Ianto said, then added with some heat, “After all, it’s not like he’s here to complain about it.”
Gwen snorted, then sighed. “I’m sure he’ll come back eventually, though, whenever he’s gotten the answers he was looking for from that Doctor. It just might take him a while to fix Jack, that’s all.”
Ianto shook his head. “The Doctor has a ship that can travel through time,” he replied. The resignation in his voice broke Gwen’s heart.
“We should go out for lunch sometime,” she said suddenly. “The two of us, I mean. It’d be nice. Wouldn’t it?” she added hesitantly, suddenly unsure.
“Yes,” Ianto said, “That would be nice. You could even introduce me to Rhys sometime,” adding with a hint of mischief “I’m sure it wouldn’t count as a breach of the Official Secrets Act.”
Gwen chuckled, then said “I think it’s lunchtime now, actually. Want to take a break and head up?”
“Gladly,” Ianto said, offering her his arm as they stood up.
Gwen grinned. “Going to escort me to the loo like a proper gentleman so I can fix my mascara, then?” she teased him.
“Of course,” Ianto replied, winking. “I can call in our order while we wait. What would you like?”
“I thought it was your turn to pick lunch,” she said.
“Consider it my treat,” he replied magnanimously.
Gwen wasn’t fooled; she could see him trying not to smirk. She squinted consideringly. “I’ll think about it while we head up,” she said.
“You mean you’re going to try to figure out my favourite, don’t you?” he mock-groaned.
“Well, of course,” she said cheerfully. “After all, what are friends for?”