Wake up.

There's something.

Just wake up.

She's not really asleep, not really quite unconscious or dead. She's aware of the fact that her legs are moving, even though she can't feel them. She feels her arm around Suzie, the sting of her shoulder as the weight of her body is near-dragged across the pier. She watches the splintered wood as her feet shuffle along, one foot in front of the other, Gwen. Keep moving, keep feeling.

( Wake up. )


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Cut for length
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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: #301: Wake Up
Verse: Open/Canon Verse
Word Count: 431

This is how the world ends.

It lay in dust, now, the singular reminder of what had been the end of her old world, and the beginning on her new. She picks up the shoe box, and the dust is coarse against her palm, scratching against the warped, peeling cardboard as she clears it away.

Inside are the memories of a life she once lived, before the world ended. An identification card, with a picture of a woman who had become a stranger. It was unsettling to think that had once been the face she saw, every day, when she looked in the mirror. Her old warrant card from the police; she’d never been told, exactly, to turn it in, so she never did. A few newspaper clippings, the ones that had not been kept in her desk and had not, thus, been lost when her old world had burned.

A single, faded photograph. The smiling face of a familiar stranger, surrounded by the figures of ghosts who have never ventured far from the safe confines of her memory.

( The video tape lay at the bottom. )

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Cut for length and minor spoilers for Children of Earth
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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: #300: This is...
Verse: Open Future
Word Count: 497

She made dinner; lasagne, but it had burned ever so slightly, searing a dark mottled brown over the top and around the edges.

He rang, and she answered the phone breathlessly, precariously balancing a tomato in one hand and a bowl in the other.

“I’ll be late,” he said.

“It’s okay,” she replied, because it would be unfair to think otherwise.

( By the time they ate the lasagne was cold and dry, the salad wilted and soggy. He ate it without complaint, pulling away the burnt corners of his meal. )

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Cut for length and minor spoilers for Children of Earth
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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: #295: Talk about the weather
Verse: Open/Canon
Word Count: 410

{{A million thank yous to twicedisplaced for the beta. &hearts}}

It never ceases to amaze her, really, how people so easily forget.

The time always comes, after every spectacular event, after every earth-shattering understanding of the greater universe, when Gwen picks up the paper and realises it’s been forgotten. It’s a never ending constant in her life, knowing that the spaceships hovering over London, the mass panic through the streets of Cardiff, the view of her city in flames and devastation, will soon fade into the background noise of petty politics and X-Factor scandals.

But they will never fade for her. The images that flash through her mind, the nightmares that still shake her awake in the dark. She knows it would be easy for her to forget too; to turn in her resignation, to take a single pill that would steal every painful memory and toss them into oblivion. To most, her nightmares are simply stories; black and white print against crinkled paper, accompanied with fuzzy photos impossible to verify. For Gwen, they are constant reminders of the continual danger that haunts her every step.

On the couch, her head tucked snugly against Rhys’ shoulder, her eyes skim the pages of the newspaper as she takes in the stories of the latest disgraced celebrity or politician. The newspaper is now her own escapism, because the world the journalists so freely write about is such a far cry from the world she sees everyday. And she can’t particularly blame them. After all, the world deals with its trauma in the best way it can; by moving on.

In those moments, Gwen knows the true weight of Torchwood. Even through the tears, the terror, and the nightmares, Torchwood continues to fight. And Gwen continues to remember, so the rest of the world can have the gentle luxury to forget.

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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: #293: Talk about a news item
Verse: Open/Canon
Word Count: 495

Spoilers for "Children of Earth"


By 10pm, she is in her pyjamas. The window is open, and the evening wind ripples the curtains and tickles her skin. He won’t be to bed for another half hour, and it is her time, the only time she allows herself in the span of her days, ( to feel the weight of it all against her. )

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Cut for Spoilers for Children of Earth
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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: 164. Her bed (setting)
Verse: Open/Canon
Word Count: 495

10 Books I Own (And Haven’t Read)

+ Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
+ Animal Farm by George Orwell
+ Wales, a History: 2000 Years of Welsh History by Gwynfor Evans
+ The Bible
+ The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
+ Blackstone's Police Operational Handbook 2009
+ I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
+ The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
+ Madame de Pompadour: Mistress of France by Christine Pevitt Algrant
+ Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

List idea curtosy of ambitious_woman

Make a list of outfits you wore in the last week.

+ Friday: Red short sleeve top, black trousers, red converse. (Black trousers are now torn and un-wearable.)

+ Saturday: Print top, black blazer, jeans, boots. (Left boot eaten by a weevil.)

+ Sunday: One of Rhys’ button down shirt and knickers. (Lazy day at home, couldn’t be bothered.)

+ Monday: A maid’s dress. (Please, don’t ask.)

+ Tuesday: Purple top, Deisel jacket, jeans, new boots with heels. (The right heel is stuck in a gutter now somewhere near Mermaid Quay.)

+ Wednesday: Black top, jeans, red converse. (No damage. Slow day.)

+ Thursday: White button up shirt, jeans, brown leather blazer, black converse. (Blazer has blood stain on sleeve. Ianto, do you think you can have it dry cleaned?)

Trust is one of those words that people use, to often, to generally. Like love and loyalty and honesty. Used so often it loses meaning, after a while, because it just rests on your tongue like something you would say to anyone, any day, without thinking about what it really means, without understand the power you have behind being able to say it.

You can’t know what it’s like to trust until you have something to actually entrust with someone. I have a secret like that. One I can’t share with anybody, because it doesn’t matter anymore who I trust.

I trust Jack… with my life. With my heart. With a million other things he probably doesn’t deserve. I trust Ianto, with my well being, to keep me strong. I know I can trust Martha, to be here when Jack rings. He can trust her, so I can too.

I trust the Doctor. Or Sarah Jane Smith. But they aren’t my friends, rather just names I’ve read and faces I know will be there when they are called upon to fight beside us.

I can trust Rhys. Finally. He deserves every little bit I can give him, because he’s part of it now.

Then there is everyone else. Mum, dad, my friends. The girls I knew at college, girls I’ve known most of my life. Andy. Old lovers, new lovers, the lovers in between. I can’t say I trust them. Because if I did, I would tell them, without the threat of worry or retcon or what Jack will say. I have one secret. One pressing, dark, festering bloody secret I can’t tell a single one of them. Who I trust doesn’t matter anymore. It’s about who Torchwood trusts. And I am Torchwood, and Torchwood is me.

I still trust. And I still have friends. But they can’t always be one in same.

It has such power, a word like trust. A power that is no longer mine to control.

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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: Do you trust your friends?
Verse: Open/Canon
Word Count: 329

It started as a hiccup in the system, a miss-spelled name.

Gwen Coooper.

“Bloody hell, Ianto,” I barked, hitting the keyboard after my third failed log-on attempt. I was trying to not be angry, to not want to slam the taunting computer screen with my fist, but to no possible avail. I was worried I would start crying. “It’s not letting me do a thing. I can’t log into the damn system.”

Ianto came up behind me, his presence working like a soothing cream across the flashes of anger that surged. I wasn’t sure what to do without him, and Jack. The Hub, once filled with laughter and smite and, yes, sometimes even sex, had faded into an echo of silence. Sometimes, alone at night, I thought I could hear the echo of the weevils crying in the dark. It was like every ghost story come to life.

“What do you mean?” he asked, peering over my shoulder.

“My account has been corrupted,” I replied. “Or… something. I don’t know, it was working fine yesterday.”

He pointed at the screen. “Your name is miss-spelled.”

“I know that. It keeps telling me I need a system administrator password to make changes.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, we can just ask T-” his words seemed to choke in his throat, and my hands stilled carefully over the keyboard.

( It wasn’t like him, to forget. It wasn’t like any of us. )

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Cut for Length
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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: Misspelled Names
Verse: Open/Canon
Word Count: 1195

A while back I did a meme where people requested certain Gwens to write about. I haven't forgotten about them, I've just been taking my time writing them! So here are two I wrote a while back and simply forgot to post, and there should be more over time.

for itsthecoat, Playful!Gwen

2 a.m. was the best time for the game.

Overwhelmed with work and rigid on continual cups of coffee, Gwen wandered up behind Jack’s desk where he sat, deep in concentration over a stack of paperwork that couldn’t possibly be getting smaller.

She prepared her fingers, pointing them towards him and took a deep, prepared breath for what was to come. She pounced.

And somehow, he always knew. He spun around, before her fingers could reach their target, and he began to tickle her. She squealed and jumped away, speeding out of the office, listening to his footsteps following her. He would catch her – he always did. That was her favourite part of the game.

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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: Drabble Meme
Verse: Open
Word Count: 116

for goodathart, Naked!Gwen

“What the bloody hell are you doing in here?”

Gwen leaped, naked, across the room and threw a towel over her body. The Torchwood bathroom was very cold, but an exhausted Gwen had no intention of going back to her flat covered in that day’s lot of alien goo, and put up with the cold for a quick wash. On the other hand, she wasn’t expecting to pop out and find a smirking Captain John Hart.

“Get out!”

John laughed, almost doubled over, and shook his head. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s not like I’m interested, just went through the wrong door.”

“Not on your life!” she shouted. She grabbed her shoe and launched it at his head, missing by about half a metre.

“Definitely not on my life!” He was near hysterics, and paused long enough to wink at her before her headed for the door. She picked up her other shoe and threw it with all her might, watching it bounce against the door soundly as it shut quickly behind him.

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Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: Drabble Meme
Verse: Open/Crack
Word Count: 172