Title: Five conversations Gwen Cooper had following the evasion of the apocalypse (and one that required no words)
Author: theohsocurlyone
Pairing: Gwen/Rhys, Jack/Gwen, Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Torchwood doesn't belong to me.
A/N: Spoilers for From Out of the Rain, Exit Wounds and pretty much all of Children of Earth; however, this is set before the last part of Day Five. Further notes at the end.
Summary: Change from the bottom up; it's the only way.

***

One

Within days of her and Rhys at long last returning to the flat, Gwen knows what she has to do.

"Hello, is that Mary Willis? Hi, it's Gwen Cooper."

It's exactly the same; the same scruffy carpet, the same shelves, the same socks dropped in odd places, but at the same time, it's completely different to her now. Alien, even.

"No, no, don't worry about it; I couldn't make it, either. Yeah, there was a lot going on, wasn't there? But my husband saw the house, and he said that he loved it, so we were wondering if we could have another look?"

She hadn't been able to stand it when they'd first got back; Rhys' book left on the floor, the phone halfway across the room from when she'd been frantically talking to Ianto; all the signs of an old life rapidly turned upside-down in the last few days. Familiarity was suddenly too much, not right anymore.

"Friday, right. That would be fantastic. About two o'clock?"

Change; that's what they needed, she had decided. So much had been scattered and blown apart that they needed to shift their own lives in tandem with the chaos behind them, around them, still in front of them.

"Oh, we're not worrying about that; my husband's pretty determined we're going to get this one. And he's very persuasive!"

Change from the bottom up; it's the only way.

"Brilliant. Okay, we'll see you soon, then. Bye."

She puts the phone down and looks up to see Rhys in the doorway; having caught the last part of the conversation. She gives him a little shrug.

"You were right. We do need to get out of here."

He nods, then jerks his head in the direction of the kitchen. "I made lasagna. You want some?"

She smiles at him. "Lead the way."



Two

The estate is just as she remembers it from two months ago, except there is no threat now, and the children scattered around the front lawns of the houses play happily, despite the grey sky, and the cold. The only scars of the previous troubles are subtle; the odd adult, guarding the children from the shadows; watching and waiting for action, just in case.

Gwen tries to smile when Rhiannon opens the door, but the shock and simmering hostility on the other woman's face is enough to wipe any platitudes off her face straight away.

"It's you. Has something else happened, then? I'm not bringing it in here, if it has; if you..."

Gwen cuts across her. "Everything is fine; I promise you. I just needed to come and see you, to see if you're...well, I know you can't be okay, but..." She looks at her; her last connection to Ianto, and suddenly feels enveloped by the need to confide, to hold onto this opportunity and not let go. "I just want to talk to you."

Rhiannon stands with her arms folded, expression worried and weary, before giving the tiniest of nods and letting her through.

The house seems more spacious without the masses of children taking up every corner, and it's far more homely than her and Rhys' new digs will be for a while; bearing the signs of a home roughed-up, lived in and loved. There's a picture of Ianto in a new frame on the kitchen windowsill; Gwen forces herself not to look at it as she sits down at the kitchen table.

"Cup of tea?" asks Rhiannon, casually, and Gwen nods, absorbing the quiet of the house as Rhiannon busies herself with the kettle.

Soon they're sat opposite each other at the table, each clutching a mug of tea, neither willing the make the first verbal move. Gwen sees that Rhiannon is altered from the boisterous, bolshy woman she'd met two months before; this woman is paler, more tight-lipped, hands wrapped almost protectively around her mug of tea.

"Tell me about him." Gwen says, breaking the silence between them.

Rhiannon looks away from the surface of the table and up at Gwen. "From what I've heard, I should be asking you to do that. You saw much more of him, after all." Her tone is casual, but the thread of resentment underlying her words is there, and Gwen is hit with a sudden, almost childish urge to fix this, to fix all of this; to make her and Ianto's last port of call something to be savoured.

Gwen leans forward, wishing she could take Rhiannon's hand. "Look. I know that the last time we met wasn't exactly ideal. That's putting it lightly. And I'm sorry if some of the things I said upset you; I really am. But I loved Ianto, absolutely loved him, and I know that Ianto loved you, too, because...because you're family. We might have seen different sides to him, but you're his family, and there is nothing stronger than that. You're the best qualified person in the world to talk about him. Trust me."

Rhiannon looks away; down at the table, her mug, trying to compose herself, then stares up at Gwen, and begins to talk.

Gwen learns about a past she never knew, and never asked about; about little Ianto, the most ordinary boy in the world determined to be something more. About early morning rugby and the occasional scuffles on the estate; bloodied lips and bruises and scowls. About the struggles with his father; the frequent battle of wills when he was a teenager, and the late night, angry calls to Rhiannon from the typical teenaged voice of resentment. About the odd girl, here and there; never long-lasting until he'd met that Lisa (Gwen's fingers involuntarily twitching when she hears the name); and even then his silence, his absence from them. Their worry.

It surprises Gwen to hear his history; she'd often, in quiet moments, mused on Ianto's past, his background, and thought it different from this. She'd never imagined him as a rebel, as a breakaway; yet apparently he'd been one, before she'd met him for the first time. And yet, through Rhiannon's words, she recognises everything she had loved, loves, about him; the fierce loyalty, the determination, the perfectionist side to him that always made her smile.

When Rhiannon finishes talking, a little colour comes back into her cheeks, as if the memories, now shared with someone else, have become less of a burden. She looks at Gwen.

"Now, it's your turn."

"I'm sorry?"

The corners of Rhiannon's mouth twitch. "It all stops for me, at some point. He left, and I didn't see him much after that. But you did. So, go on. Tell me."

Gwen's at a loss for a second, and wonders what she's allowed to say, what she has to keep secret. For a moment, she considers...not lying, exactly, but perhaps making her perception of Ianto co-incide with Rhiannon's, for the sake of reassurance; the same man, the same views. The same life.

No, she thinks. She deserves the truth.

So she tells her a story that springs to mind immediately, when she thinks of Ianto; a story of a haunted film, a Ghostmaker, and trapped breaths and ruthless chases in a night of downpour; of Ianto, always Ianto, his love of the classic and tangible, running headfirst into the trouble and staying to solve the mystery, to fight, and grieving for the people that he couldn't save.

Rhiannon listens, silent and rapt, and has to impatiently scrub a tear from her cheek when Gwen finishes.

"And all that is true? I mean, completely true?"

Gwen nods, emphatically. "Cross my heart."

Rhiannon looks stunned; her hostility given way to amazement as she stares at Gwen, who's perilously close to smiling. "That's...bloody hell."

Gwen chokes out a laugh, finding herself amazed that this visit managed to afford both her and Rhiannon a smile. Rhiannon's eyes are wide and knowing as she picks up her mug.

"That's the thing with people, isn't it?" she remarks. "With most of them, anyway. You either know everything there is to know about them, or nothin' at all." She looks at Gwen over the mug. "Or sometimes both of those at the same time."

She gives Gwen a small, wry smile and takes a sip of tea, and for one singular moment so mirrors her brother that Gwen is robbed of breath.

She nods, mutely, and raises her own mug. With a small smile, the two women chink their mugs together, their mutual toast silent but echoing throughout the kitchen, and the space between them, regardless.

They talk idly for another hour or so; about the kids, about pregnancy and its hang-ups, about Johnny and his stupid, rattling new car; all the while knowingly negotiating rocky ground, traversing around topics neither of them can bear to think about; crime, politics, the media reaction, all things that they don't want to have to acknowledge, to understand. The air between them is thick with secrets and uncertainty, but Gwen thinks she can feel Rhiannon slowly thawing, coming round to her. It's an enormous relief to find the hope, in all of this.

When they part, it's with a hug and arrangements to meet again, and Gwen finds herself clinging harder than she'd intended; desperately, absurdly grateful for these remnants of Ianto left for her, different to how she'd imagined, but ones that she can still protect, close to her heart, without the constant threat of danger.



Three

Of course, Alice notices her eventually.

"If you're still here when I get back, I'm calling the police." she calls over to Gwen, whom she spots immediately lurking on the other side of the street when she leaves the house.

"No, no, don't," Gwen tells her, crossing the road with her palms already up in defense.

She catches her breath at the sight of Alice, close up; Rhiannon had been pale, and subdued, but Alice looks utterly desolate, as if the weight and grief of the past few months has become a physical burden; weighing her down as she tries to walk. She's thin, too thin, and face is drawn, her eyes empty, and lost. Yet when she looks up at her, Gwen sees what she sees in Jack, too; the stoicism, the defiance, once the tears have stopped. It hurts to see that those qualities have been handed down. Have had to be handed down.

"There's no use still watching me," Alice tells her, coldly, not bothering to move as Gwen arrives alongside her. "I have nothing left to offer."

"Nobody's spying on you, Alice," Gwen replies, employing a calm, placating tone that has always worked up until now.

Alice turns on her. "Then why are you here? You've been hanging around this street for three days and you won't leave me alone."

Gwen is completely at a loss in the face of the complication, and grief in this woman's life, she can't even begin to imagine; this slice of Jack's life that she never even considered. She tries to speak, but has no idea what to say.

Alice realises, though, and her eyes narrow. "You're a friend of Jack's, aren't you?"

"Yes, but..."

Alice shakes her head and begins to walk away without another word; Gwen rushes after her, determined to try something; anything that might help even in the slightest.

"I came by myself, Alice. He's not checking up on you. He's not even here at the moment; this is all me."

Alice slows; looking at her with a cold, hard stare.

"Not here?"

"No, not in the country."

"Then, where is he?"

Gwen wishes she could tell her; wishes she knew. "He's...travelling."

Alice snorts. "Of course he is. Didn't expect anything more from him."

She turns away; starts to walk down the street again. Gwen runs to catch up.

"Alice..."

She snaps; angrily turning and hissing into Gwen's face.

"Listen to me. I don't know who you are, or what you are to Jack, but there are some things that you can't fix. All right?"

Gwen nods; not daring to speak. Alice looks down and notices Gwen's hand; pressed almost on autopilot against her still flat belly.

"Are you pregnant?" she asks, and her voice is too low, too measured.

"Yes." Gwen whispers, her voice hoarse.

Alice looks back at her, and Gwen looks into the emptiest eyes she's ever seen.

"Congratulations." Alice tells her; voice shaking and bitter, and walks away before either of them can say anything more.

Gwen watches her leave, feeling her own eyes start to burn, and aches with what she will never know, never understand.



Four

They escape a possible worldwide armageddon, and yet there's always room for a domestic, between them. Gwen should have expected it, really.

"For God's sake, will you just stay here? Just this once? They're sorting it, all right?"

"I know they're bloody sorting it, Rhys, I just need to go and see..."

"You're doing yourself no good trekking back and forth to that place; Martha's there, they're covering it, you just have to..."

"That was my life! Everything we did took up all of my time and everything I had and you expect me to just leave it behind?!"

"And what about our life?" Rhys hits back, "What about us? We're having a baby; you can't just go gallivanting off when..."

"I'm not running around all gung-ho with a gun, for Christ's sake! They're rebuilding and I have to be there to see it all goes through..."

"And what if they don't need you? Eh? Have you thought of that?"

"I'm the only one left!"

And suddenly there's silence between them, because that reality is always sobering, always devastating, whenever they let it sink in for too long. She thinks of so many times spent round the boardroom table with the others; thinking, planning, discussing, arguing, as well. It had been insane, but it was comfortable, normal. In a bizarre way, it had been home. And now, out of that little group, there is just her left. Owen, Tosh, Ianto; dead. Jack, gone. Only her, left to fight; even if their arena is smaller.

Rhys looks as if he's about to start shouting again; but simply heaves a heavy sigh, walks over to the sofa and collapses onto it, drained.

Gwen joins him, eyes on the floor, but she can feel him looking at her.

"If you could go back to when you first met them, would you...?" he starts, but Gwen cuts him off.

"Rhys, I can't answer that. No one can."

"But..."

"Rhys, I don't know. There's no use thinking that. It's over, it's done."

She hears the harshness in her tone and hopes she won't start crying again; it's been just over three months and she's cried more tears than she ever thought she would in a lifetime. She's reaching the stage where she forces it away, focuses on other things. They are working, right now; UNIT and Martha Jones and countless others attempting to restore the Hub, to keep on protecting Cardiff from whatever the Rift throws at it.

She looks at Rhys for the first time since her outburst; seeking his understanding, his support. God knows, she needs it.

"Torchwood needs to be rebuilt," she says, quietly. "And so do I."



Five

The insistent chirping of her phone cuts through her sleep like a knife, and she knocks several things over in her attempt to grab her phone from the bedside table without opening her eyes.

"'Lo, Gwen Cooper?" she mumbles.

"Hey."

She's wide awake in an instant; struggling upright and feeling her heart start thudding painfully in her chest, her skin tingling with relief, and something else that she doesn't want to name.

"Christ, Jack! You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Did I wake up Rhys?" he asks, his tone one of amusement, but at the same time exceptionally quiet and measured, so unlike the loud, confident voice that she's used to.

"No, he's up visiting his parents. But, Jack. Where are you?"

"Well..." and there it is again, that muted tone. It's unnatural in a way Gwen can't describe. "Right now I'm in Alaska."

"Alaska?"

"Alaska. It smells of rain, and old soil, and I'm standing half-way up a slope looking down on untouched earth; on overgrowing trees and grass, and clear water. There's a breeze, and the lakes are rippling, and I'm the only one for miles, in all directions. Talking to you."

Gwen laughs, absurdly; feels her throat ache with the happiness, the relief of hearing his voice again; seeking hers out from across the world, dark and gentle like the night darkness in her bedroom. She wants to wrap herself up in it; drift off and away, like he has.

Instead, she finds herself asking, "How on earth did you even get a signal?"

There's a breath of a laugh at the other end. "How're things?"

It's an inadequate question and they both know it, and Gwen finds herself struggling to bite back all the replies she wants to hurl at him in quick succession, so she doesn't have to keep them bottled up inside herself anymore. I see Ianto everywhere I go. I spoke to Rhiannon. I spoke to Alice. Come home. Come home, you bastard.

"Chosen any names, yet?"

We need you. I need you.

"Rhys has been throwing out suggestions in all directions, but I'm keeping quiet for now. Waiting to see what fits, I suppose."

There's no answer from the other end save for Jack's quiet breathing, and she pictures him, suddenly; standing alone and poised beneath the dying light, his eyes dark and coat tails gently moving in the breeze, his voice the only whisper of sound in the emptiness surrounding him.

She finds herself blinking back tears, and silently curses him, for the millionth time since she first met him, for making her feel like this; this raw tenderness so strong it makes her chest ache.

"Jack.." she starts, with no clue what to say next.

Before her mind can give her inspiration, he cuts across her.

"I was thinking, when I was walking up here..."

His voice falters, and it's almost too much to bear, to hear him lost for words.

He tries again. "There was this time in the Hub. Really early morning; an ordinary morning. Well, ordinary as we got..."

He pauses, and she can tell that, like her, he's absorbing the past tense in that sentence. She stays silent; Jack is telling, confessing, something which she has always found frustratingly rare, and she can't bring herself to push, and cause his defenses to re-align themselves so he can shut the world out once again.

He chokes out a cut-off laugh. "I can't even remember what we were talking about. I was teasing him about something; and I...I kissed him, I know I did. It was the expression on his face..."

Gwen doesn't move a muscle, doesn't make a sound.

Jack's voice imperceptibly cracks; only for a moment, but Gwen hears.

"It was like he was seeing me, for the first time. It came back to me; a million miles away and it came back to me, here."

Jack heaves a shaking breath and Gwen feels her chest ache as she tries to scrub away the tears she didn't realise had started falling.

He doesn't say any more, but she can see it as if it's right in front of her. The dim lights of the Hub in early morning; Jack in shirtsleeves and a smile, and Ianto; a paragon of propriety and neatness, falling in love with impossibility, against his better instincts, against his will.

"He knew," she says, and her voice doesn't sound like her own. "He knew, Jack. He did."

A deep inhale at the other end of the line.

"Yeah." Jack replies simply, and Gwen knows that tone; no more telling, no releasing. The barriers are back up.

"Jack," she tries, "We, we miss you. Do you think that you'll...?"

"Gwen, I can't." he replies, a thread of desperation in his voice. "Not yet. I have to lose myself."

Gwen takes a deep breath.

"Let me make you a deal," she tells him. "Lose yourself for a few more months, then, at the very least, check in. It doesn't have to be in Cardiff, or London; anywhere that you want, just so we can check that you're okay. That you've found yourself." She winces at her choice of words, but ploughs through. "Or, that you've started to." His silence cuts through her, and her voice drops to a whisper. "I have to see you, Jack."

"Okay, deal." he says, almost sounding close to his former self. "I'll let you know where and when. Make sure you bring Rhys, yeah?"

"I will."

Further silence at the other end, and she knows she's about to lose him. For now, at least.

"Jack. I...take care of yourself, yeah? Stay safe."

"You too." he murmurs, and after a few seconds, she hears the beep of him hanging up.

Gwen holds her phone tightly for a long time as the night goes on, her mind on an abandoned lake in Alaska; chewing on a fingernail and wondering, wondering.



Six

When Rhys wakes up at five in the morning, Gwen is not next to him.

For the slightest, infinitesimal moment he panics, until he sees the bedroom door ajar and the landing light on.

"Gwen?" he calls, his voice loud in the silence of the dark house.

"In here." is the quiet reply, from the direction of the bathroom.

He pulls himself up and out of bed, wincing as his joints protest, and pads down the newly-carpeted landing to the bathroom.

Gwen is sitting on the floor, leaning against the bathtub, an unreadable expression on her face; her hair wild.

"Are you all right, love?" he asks, kneeling down beside her.

She looks up at him, and he's stunned by the sudden emotion in her eyes, at the corners of her mouth. Still she doesn't say anything; just silently takes his hand and presses it against her stomach, underneath her ropey old pyjama top.

For a moment, he's puzzled. Then, as her hand covers his, he suddenly realises, and unconsciously presses his hand harder against the bump that has just started to show; small but hard underneath his fingers.

Their baby. Safe, and sound, and here.

"Gwen..." he tries, but can't go on. She nods, and as he raises his other hand to cup her cheek, and kisses her, he can suddenly feel the enormity of it all; sweeping over him like a tidal wave. It's been insane, this journey of theirs; intertwined with disaster and death, and tragedy, but when it's narrowed down to this; him, her, and this new life growing beneath them, he realises what it's been, all along without them noticing; beautiful.

He holds Gwen's hand and they sit a while longer on the floor, without speaking; they don't need to. She leans her head on his shoulder and he clutches her hand in his; watching the light trickle into the bathroom as the sun, slowly, begins to rise.


*****

Further A/N: Jack's sojourn to Alaska was inspired by the story of Christopher McCandless, and the film about him called Into the Wild, which is absolutely beautiful, if anyone is interested in it. Of course, Jack's survival techniques are probably a little more effective than McCandless'...

***