Torchwood: Fanfic: Reconciling

[m_findlow]

Title: Reconciling
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Gwen, Owen, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,052 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, you just gotta pick yourself back up again" at fic_promptly
Summary: Gwen is finding it hard to come to grips with Beth's death.

It's been three days since Beth died. No matter how much Gwen tries to move on, the hub feels completely claustrophobic. Wherever she goes, memories of Beth linger - the autopsy bay, Jack's office, the lab upstairs. Wherever she goes she feels plagued by guilt. She might not have been the one to pull the trigger, but she can't help but think her involvement at the end is what tipped Beth over the edge. Gwen was an opportunity, the perfect escape goat, and her only way out of what she thought was the inevitable erasure of everything that made her human.

Tosh won't meet her gaze, too riddled with guilt, Owen just pretends everything is back to normal, that this is all part of the job, and Ianto's sympathy and constant cups of coffee are more than she can stomach. For someone who has worked at Torchwood as long as she has, she can't understand why this one woman has affected her so much.

Perhaps it was because of her sacrifice - because she knew what had been done to her and that she didn't have enough faith in the team to protect the world from what she was capable of. Gwen was sure that with enough belief, Beth could fight the programming inside her. You could make anything happen if you wanted it badly enough, or so she believed. She wasn't truly dangerous. If she was, Jack wouldn't have hesitated to put a bullet in her right at the beginning. No, she'd proven she was more than her programming. She'd saved them by helping the team to track down the remnants of the alien sleeper cell so that they could put a stop to them. The world hadn't ended because she'd helped them stop it. And this was how they'd thanked her, by being pulled into her games, forcing their hand. It made her feel sick.

She pushed away from her desk and her computer, standing up and heading towards the door.

'Oi, where you going?' Owen grumbled.

'Out.'

She didn't realise she had a shadow following her until she pressed the button inside the lift for the top floor and a hand shoved itself in between the sliding doors, arresting their closure.

'Hold up,' Jack said.

Gwen sighed, but accepted that Jack was going to follow her no matter what she said. He was as unlikely to let go of something as she was.

'How're you doing?' he asked.

'What do you think?' she snapped, leaning against the wall with her arms folded as the lift began to rise.

'How do you think,' Jack replied, correcting her grammar.

'What?'

He shook his head. 'Nothing. Doesn't matter.'

When the door opened Jack got out first, forcing Gwen to follow him down the dark corridor, and holding open the door to the tourist office which was blessedly empty. Jack leaned against the counter, close to knocking over a neat little holder of tourist maps and other pamphlets. Gwen picked up a snow globe perched on a small table of souvenirs near the door, turning it upside down and then right way up again, absently watching the silver glitter inside flutter down around a tiny red dragon.

'You can't keep letting this chew you up,' Jack said. 'You just gotta pick yourself back up again.'

She twirled to face him. 'And what if I can't?'

Jack's eyes were blue. Sometimes like ice, sometimes like a summer sky, but today they were steel. 'You can. And you will. You've been through worse than this.'

'Acording to who?' she challenged. 'You? You think one girl sacrificing herself isn't worse than a city full of weevils, or a giant monster, or cannibals?'

Jack kept his expression neutral. 'She knew what she was doing.'

Gwen slammed down the snow globe, making a sound that caused even Jack to jump slightly. 'That's the whole bloody point! She knew!'

Jack continued to lean back against the counter, keeping his voice soft and level. 'That's right. She knew. She knew deep down inside her that she couldn't fight her programming forever. She knew what would happen if the sleeper inside her woke up and took over. Her life in exchange for six billion. Tell me you wouldn't have made the same choice if it were you.'

Of course she would, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow. She'd signed up for this. She was prepared to make those kinds of sacrifices because that's what you did. You didn't let innocent people make those terrible decisions.

'She did a noble thing, Gwen. And she waned to do it in such a way that we wouldn't be standing here feeling guilty about it. That's more than I can say for most. Mourn her. Remember her sacrifice. But don't blame yourself for what happened. We didn't make her what she was. But we gave her a way to die human. That's what she wanted.'

Gwen stared back down at the globe. The glitter inside had settled like the turbulent feelings inside her, finally coming to a halt, falling back into old familiar patterns. 'So why does it still feel so wrong?'

'There are no absolutes in this world,' Jack replied. He picked up the globe and shook it. 'You try to see a path through to the other side, but there's always interference, white noise, things that try to distract you or divert your attention. It's easy to see the path once the dust has settled, but life is full of distractions. We make the best of it from what information we have at the time.' Jack sighed. 'You know, these things are really tacky. Where does Ianto get them from? Why don't we go back downstairs and tell him how awful these are?'

Gwen snatched it back. 'Hey, don't you mock my country, Jack Harkness.'

'Then start producing better souvenirs.'

Gwen turned it over, showing him the sticker on the bottom. It read, Made in China.

'Yeah, alright but don't think that gets you off the hook, Missy. They're still trashy, and you think it's promoting the nation. You Welsh have very low standards. No wonder aliens keep wanting to blow up the city.' He threw open the door and ran out onto the quay before Gwen came charging after him, yelling obscenities.