Fandomweekly Challenge 67 - Turning point

[m_findlow]

Title: Turning point
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG. Spoilers for CoE.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 67 - Shattered at fandomweekly
Summary: Gwen has reached a turning point where her next decision could change all their lives.

Jack offered Gwen his hand as she ducked her head under the doorway from the tourist office. It was largely intact even if what lay on the other side of it wasn't. Where once there'd been a long tunnel leading to the lift and stairs, now there was just a crumbling passage and a few wooden scaffolds holding it up.

'Watch your step,' Jack warned her as they clambered over the rubble.

Despite her careful steps, her ankle caught under a loose piece of rock and she lurched sideways. Jack was there to catch her, her growing belly bumping into him as he wrapped firm but gentle arms around her. She felt a flutter at her belly pressing that close to him but it evaporated quickly. She looked up and saw the kind yet cool blue eyes looking back at her. There was no adoration there, no longing or regret for what could have been had she not stayed true to her heart, only friendship. He helped her find her feet again and kept one arm protectively around her waist as they continued through the tunnel. One section was quite narrow on account of a pile of debris. It was clear Jack had navigated through it before, but it wasn't big enough for two of them abreast. She wasn't sure she could fit with her baby bump, but she was smaller than Jack so if he could she should at least try.

He went first, climbing over the rubble and then holding out both hands to steady her own trip through. 'Mind the glass on the floor,' he warned her, nodding down at the shards scattered everywhere. She couldn't think where they'd come from until she caught fragments of her reflection in them, each a tiny mirror showing her who she'd become. She realised it must have been the mirrored glass from the water tower. How any of it had been blasted this far away was staggering. She assumed it had all been melted in the explosion, but some must have been thrown by the shockwave before the fireball erupted immediately afterward.

'Couldn't have cleaned it up before you brought me, could you?' she joked.

'My kingdom for a broom and a dustpan,' he joked back. 'Or just a broom. I got impatient, and you were the one who wanted to catch up for a coffee.'

'Yeah, a coffee, not crawling through the crumbling remains of...' She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't think she could say it - the hub, her workplace, her life. It was all gone but Jack brought her down here to see it again anyway. And she'd let him.

A strange light began to glow at the end of the tunnel. Jack reached out and pulled back the thick hessian that covered the outside of the scaffolding and approached the edge. Floodlights had been installed at the opening to cast light on the scene beyond. Jack was there to guide her as she tried to get closer to the large gaping hole that rose twenty feet above them and eighty feet down.

Her heart broke a little at the sight of the hole. It didn't look anything like the hub she'd once known, now blown to pieces. Life as she'd known it had been shattered that day. Her two best friends killed, the world turned upside down and her view of it changed forever. All of it had been unnecessary. They should have trusted Torchwood to help. The only consolation for her was that her two best friends had both, by miraculous interventions, cheated death and were still alive today, even if the experience had changed them both.

'I want to rebuild it,' Jack said. 'Better than before. A new start for us.'

Us? Gwen thought, resting a hand on her unborn child. Was there even an us anymore? She was having a baby, which would surely put to rest her alien chasing days, and as for Ianto... he was still in London working for UNIT and didn't look like having any inclination for returning to Cardiff, let alone Torchwood. She wasn't sure where he and Jack currently stood relationship wise. That was another roadblock. Even if they worked things out, would he want to put his life on the line again for Torchwood? Her heart told her the answer might be no. He had a chance at a different life now. It had been hard enough those few times she'd gone out on her own, armed with nothing but her laptop and a gun. Rhys of course had been furious with her. "You're pregnant, Gwen!" he fumed, but the rift hadn't stopped just because Torchwood was gone. She didn't want to do this without Ianto. She didn't think she could. He was family now.

'Ianto is still a work in progress,' Jack said, as if reading her mind. She wasn't sure if he meant that in terms of rekindling their romance or convincing him to return to Cardiff and rejoin Torchwood in whatever form it took. Her life hadn't been the only one turned on its head.

Gwen nodded slowly, unsure if her own answer to Jack's proposal should be yes.

'But at least help me redesign her,' he impored. 'A new Torchwood for the twenty first century. Make it safer. Make it something worth coming back for.'

Ah, so that was Jack's plan. A chance to appeal to both their senses of mortality and duty to family. Jack had always tried to protect them, but the world had proven even he couldn't always save them.

His hand rested on her shoulder. 'I need you, Gwen.'

What kind of world would she be bringing her child into if she didn't say yes? Without Torchwood, Jack was just another broken man without a purpose. The world needed him. She needed him just as much as he needed her. She laid her hand on his, imagining not a crater but a space full of unimagined potential. 'Yes.'