Title: Five Times Gwen Cooper Saved A Member of Torchwood 3
Author: lookatmoiye7
Characters: Gwen Cooper, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, OCs
Rating: I’ll say... M. For innuendo and sex-talk.
Word Count: 4,000
Author's Note: For azarsuerte, for house_of_cooper’s Gwen Cooper ficathon, who wanted: AU/futurefic (ie: post-Rhys) Jack/Gwen, preferably involving telepathy. I've always wanted to do a "Five Times" fic, so, hopefully you enjoy this!
Summary: “We’re not going to get out in time, are we?” she said, already knowing the answer. It was going to take them a lot longer than—she glanced at the timer—two minutes forty seconds to get down four flights, and then far enough away to escape the explosion. They were going to die.

~

5. Zoe

“We’ll do whatever you want,” she told the alien calmly, sidestepping Jack’s unconscious form on the floor, “just let my friend go.”

The lime-green alien hissed at her, but it didn’t cooperate. Instead, it stepped further back, tightening its grip on Torchwood’s new doctor.

“Okay, well, that didn’t seem to work,” Zoe gasped, clawing at the alien’s arm around her neck.

“Just relax, Zoe,” Gwen told her, sidestepping again, closer to Jack’s abandoned gun. “I’ve got you, alright?”

“Sure. Right, okay. Relax.”

“Exactly.” Another step. The alien didn’t seem to notice the gun on the ground, but then again, Malcolm had told her that they had limited sight—this sort of alien had incredibly small eyes, and consequently they literally had tunnel vision. They usually compensated by using their powerful sense of smell, but guns didn’t really have a smell, did they? Particularly if the alien had never come into contact with one before, had never had the opportunity to associate it with danger.

She stepped closer again. One more step, and the gun would be within reach. “Zoe,” she said steadily, “can you see what I’m doing?”

She nodded.

“When you see me do what it is I’m trying to do, I want you to duck.”

But she didn’t have time to wait for an answer, because the alien spat at her, and Zoe yelped, distracting it. Gwen dove for the gun, bringing it up to fire two perfectly-targeted shots into its head, and slowly, it let go of Zoe, its arms falling to its sides as its muscles went slack and it fell to the ground.

Zoe quickly followed it, collapsing onto her back and breathing hard. “Oh my God.”

Gwen slowly moved towards its body, keeping her gun trained on its head, but it was well and truly dead. She heaved a sigh of relief. “Are you alright, Zoe?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Bruised, but fine. I just...” She sat up and rubbed her neck, looking at Gwen with wide eyes. “I mean, is it always like that?”

Gwen went to Jack and checked his breathing, before grabbing one of his arms and manoeuvring it around her shoulders. “What, that particular species, or the day in general?”

“Um... Just in general.”

“Pretty much. Give or take some blood, usually.” She tried to lift Jack, but he was too heavy, and Zoe rushed over to help her before she dropped him. “Thanks.”

“You’re very cavalier about the whole potential death thing.”

She shrugged. “You get used to it. This is what Torchwood is. It’s saving the world, and it’s hard, and sometimes people die, and sometimes they live, and you never, ever know what will happen to you. But you keep going. Can you see why?”

Gwen watched her closely as she thought about it and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, then. You might just fit in here after all.”

“I guess that’s a good thing. I already sold my flat in London, and it’d be hell trying to find a new one.”

~

4. Malcolm

“It’s a bomb,” Gwen noted calmly.

“It even has one of those T-shaped levers,” Malcolm said, pulling out his tech-kit. “Did we just step into a Looney Tunes cartoon?”

“As long as neither of us ends up as Wile E. Coyote, we’ll be fine.”

“He had all the master plans, but he always ended up killing himself. Wonder if that was meant as a social commentary.” Malcolm knelt in front of the bomb, and ran one of his many gadgets over it, scanning it for information. “Well, it’s definitely alien.”

“Aliens who watch the cartoon channel. Like they’re not dangerous enough already.” She clicked on her comm. “Jack, we have a bomb on level four. How are you going?”

“No bombs, down here. Just a few frightened civilians, one of them who’s really hot, by the way. What’s your stance on threesomes?”

She ignored him. “What about Zoe and Ianto?”

“They just called in from next door, there’s nothing. Do we need to evacuate?”

“Malcolm? Should we evacuate?” Gwen turned to him, and he shook his head.

“I don’t think so. It’s a fairly simple mechanism, I just have to... Oh.”

Gwen frowned. “‘Oh’? ‘Oh’ is never good, what is ‘oh’?”

“I don’t know, it’s just... It’s maybe not as simple as I thought.”

“So, we should perhaps evacuate, then?”

“Perhaps. Yes.”

“That’s a positive, Jack.”

“Evacuating the building,” Jack said in her ear, and a loud alarm started. “That means the both of you, too, you know.”

“Malcolm, what’s our time?”

He glanced up from his gadget for only a second. “Two minutes fifty two seconds.”

“We’re not going to get out in time, are we?” she said, already knowing the answer. It was going to take them a lot longer than—she glanced at the timer—two minutes forty seconds to get down four flights, and then far enough away to escape the explosion. They were going to die. This was it. They really were going to die. Holding back tears, she said, “Jack, I just want to you know—”

“Gwen, no!” he said, sounding anguished. “Don’t. I’ll get you out of there. I’ll—”

“It’s been amazing, Jack. Amazing. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” And she disconnected her Bluetooth. She couldn’t handle saying goodbye, not to him, not like this. She just couldn’t.

Turning back to Malcolm and squatting down next to him, she was mesmerised by the descending red numbers on the timer for a few moments. “I guess we should just be glad it’s night time, and there aren’t many people around,” she said hollowly. It was going to be bad enough as it was.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Malcolm muttered.

“You know what I mean.” She watched him as he frantically pressed buttons on his scanner. He still hadn’t given up. She was his superior, she’d seen so much more than he had, and survived, and she was the one giving up. Jack would be so disappointed in her.

In that moment, she knew she couldn’t let the expanding ball of panic in her gut take over. She had to snap herself out of it if they had any chance of getting out of this alive. She slid closer to Malcolm, filled with brand new determination. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah. Those wires on the left, tell me the colours?”

“Blue-white, red-white, orange-white, purple-white, green-white, black-white, white-white. Do we need to cut one?”

“I think so. The thing is, I’m not sure which one, because these aliens could have rigged this in a number of different ways, depending on the timer, and we don’t even know how similar to human bombs it is inside, and... Damn it!” He slammed his fist into the ground. “I’m so sorry, Gwen. I’m sorry.”

“Malcolm, listen to me. We still have two minutes left, that’s more than enough time to try and figure out a way out of this. I’m not giving up, okay?”

He looked up into her eyes, holding her gaze for a few moments, before nodding and turning back to the bomb.

“Good. Now, which colour would they be most likely to pick?” she asked.

“I mean, I don’t know! White, for purity, or, or red for aggression, or even black, the traditional bad guy colour?”

“Or something simpler,” she breathed, the pieces connecting in her head, and she held out her hand for the wire cutters. “Let me do it.”

Malcolm hesitated for only a moment before handing them to her. She picked out the white-purple wire and poised herself, ready to cut through it.

“Ready?” she asked.

He nodded, and she went to cut it, but he shouted, “Wait!”, and then kissed her, opening his mouth to sweep his tongue over her bottom lip. She froze, unable to bring herself to respond, and he pulled away quickly and grinned. “I’ve wanted to do that since I met you.”

“Okay... Can I save our lives, now?”

And he nodded again, squeezing his eyes shut, and she cut the wire, holding her breath...

The timer stopped.

Malcolm opened one eye, then the other, and glanced from Gwen, to the bomb, and back again.

“You picked the right one! You saved... you picked the right one! You picked the right one!” He threw his arms around her in a hug, before pulling back and asking, “Hold on. How in the hell did you pick the right one?”

“Their hair and skin is purple.” He stared at her. “Jack said they’re a very vain species. I took a guess.”

“I think I love you.”

She laughed and hugged him again, adrenaline running like fire through her veins.

~

3. Ianto

“This new communication-device thing,” she puffed to Ianto, as they dashed around the corner only seconds after the Weevil they were chasing, “it’s telepathy, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” Ianto answered, not even breathing heavily, a fact she greatly envied.

“And why’s Jack saying it’s not?”

“I believe he thinks we might find the idea too invasive.”

“Jack is worried about being invasive? I think we both know he can be a lot more invasive than that.”

You love it, Jack suddenly said in her mind, and she had to stop herself from jumping.

It was the third time Gwen had been out in the field with Torchwood Three’s new comm system, and it still managed to catch her unawares. She couldn’t help it—it was just a little bit hard to get used to unexpectedly hearing someone’s voice in her head, when all that was involved was a tiny little chip adhered to her earlobe and a thought of the person she wanted to speak to. Which, obviously, she was still getting the hang of.

Jack! You weren’t exactly supposed to hear that, you know. I thought you said we could control when it was on or off.

You can, but it’s all about thought-control, and you were just thinking of me.

Stop distracting me, she told him, slowing to a stop as the Weevil came to a dead end and turned to face them, baring its teeth in a snarl. She whipped out her gun, and Ianto did the same, also pulling out some anti-Weevil spray. I’m busy Weevil-slaying. Go away.

How can I go now? I have images of you in skin-tight leather killing Weevils with a wooden stake.

Jack!

Fine.

Gwen sighed, finally able to concentrate on the task at hand. “You go left, I’ll go right. And try not to think of Jack.”

“I’ll attempt to manage it,” Ianto murmured, shooting her an amused glance before slowly creeping left.

She mirrored him, and they closed in on the Weevil. It glared at them, its ugly face twisted into a scowl as it watched them move closer, and Gwen was just about to give the order to spray it, but suddenly, out of nowhere, it launched itself at Ianto and knocked him to the ground.

“Gwen!”

She reacted instinctively. She saw Ianto, saw the Weevil on top of him, attempting to maul his neck, and she pulled out her own spray and dashed forward, spraying the alien heavily, directly in the face. There was a silence as neither the man nor the Weevil moved, and then the Weevil collapsed face-first, right onto Ianto’s chest.

He sucked in a relieved breath, before then glancing down and sighing in annoyance. “This suit is now ruined.”

She shoved the Weevil off him and helped him up. “Alright, Ianto? What happened? One minute, you were up, the next minute...”

“I got distracted,” he said sheepishly. “I thought of Jack.”

“It happens.”

More than you know, Jack added.

This was all your fault, Gwen told him. If you weren’t so—

What? Beautiful? I know. It’s a curse.

~

2. Jack

“Woah woah woah, Blondie,” Jack said, holding his hands up defensively and moving in front of Gwen, “I really think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

The beautiful blonde woman sneered. “You would say that, wouldn’t you, Captain Jack Harkness?”

“Well, she knows your name,” Gwen murmured softly, pulling the sheet tighter around her body and eying the futuristic-looking gun the woman held. It looked like it shot lasers or something, not bullets, and lasers probably wouldn’t go down well in an area as tiny and open as Jack’s bedroom.

Jack sighed and half-turned to her. “Well, she didn’t before. You just confirmed that for her!”

“Please! As if I could forget you! You gave me the most pleasurable experience I’ve ever had.” The woman smiled fondly for a moment, before her mood immediately changed, and she cocked her gun. “And then you did the same for my sister and my husband!”

“That’s not so bad,” Jack said, taking the minutest step backwards, towards the pile of their clothes on the ground, clothes which very conveniently hid their guns.

“At the same time!” She snarled, before her mood changed again, and she cocked her head, looking Jack up at down before focusing on his groin area. “Funny, though, what time does to memories. I seem to remember you being so much bigger.”

“Hey!”

Surreptitiously, while the woman was distracted, Gwen reached up and scratched her ear, thumbing on her comm device. Okay, Jack, she’s a bloody nutter.

I’ll say. She’s insulting my manhood! I’m not that disappointing, am I? I’m pretty respectable, in my experience.

Has she got some sort of laser gun? Will she really try and kill us?

She can try. Can’t guarantee I won’t kill her first.

Gwen rolled her eyes—trust him to go all G.I. Jack. She had to at least try to reason with the woman, before she did anything stupid. “Listen, I know you’re angry—”

“Angry? Angry? Oh, you don’t know the half of it, do you? Has he ever even talked about me?”

Gwen frowned. Honestly, she was pretty sure Jack had slept with more people than everyone she’d ever known put together, but it was quite obvious this woman wouldn’t be able to handle that. Mind racing, she said, “I don’t know. What’s your name?”

She looked at Gwen suspiciously for a moment, before answering softly, “Kathlena.”

“Kathlena. That’s beautiful,” she said, and Kathlena blushed slightly.

Okay, Jack, tell me about Kathlena, and I promise I’ll never give you rubbish about always keeping your comm on ever again.

Kathlena, I don’t remember a Kathlena! I don’t remember!

Gwen forced a smile, attempting to buy them more time. “Listen, I’m sorry, Kathlena, but Jack’s mentioned a few Kathlenas over the years, and—”

“He’s had sex with more than one Kathlena?” The stormy look again passed over her features.

“No, no, not at all, it’s just, one was his... lawyer, who he had a completely non-sexual relationship with, but who he also loves. So, I just want to make sure I get the right...”

But Kathlena was no longer listening. Instead, she stared dreamily at Jack. “You mean... he loves me?”

Jack’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and he seemed unable to answer her question until Gwen pinched him and he said in a rush, “Yes of course I love you always have and always will.”

Tell her you want to spend the rest of your life with her, Gwen told him.

She’ll be long dead before that. Hopefully.

Just do it!

“Kathlena, I love you,” he said, disturbingly sincerely, moving forward to take her hand in his, using his left hand to slowly pry the gun from her fingers and passing it behind him to Gwen. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m just sorry that it took so long for me realise it. We missed out on so much time together.”

Gwen, that gun doesn’t shoot lasers, it’s sonic. If you can, change the setting to setting 7, it should be the stun function.

Should?

‘Should’ will have to do.

“Oh, Jack,” Kathlena whispered, throwing herself into Jack’s arms. Simultaneously, he spun them around, and Gwen aimed the gun, seriously hoping Jack was right before pulling the trigger.

“Sorry,” Jack told the other woman softly, pushing her hair back off her face as her eyes fluttered closed, and she fell into his chest.

“Is she alright?” Gwen asked.

Jack lowered her down onto his bed. He checked her pulse. “She’s fine. Insane, but, you know. Fine.” He stood and grinned at her. “You were brilliant.”

She smiled back. “I didn’t exactly have a choice, you know. It was either that, or—”

“Kathlena!” Jack said suddenly, looking victorious. “The planet Celebius, 4056! Her husband was a lot better than she was. More memorable, too, obviously.”

Gwen glared at him. “That’s very helpful now.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t my fault, I did everything I could.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

“I was talking about trying to remember.”

“I’ll bet you were.”

~

1. Herself

He’s hit a hospital recently, Malcolm told her quickly, his voice now registering as little more than a buzz in her mind. I’ve just received reports he’s transformed a number of babies into the elderly, right in front of their parents. Just a warning, Gwen—he has his device with him. Jack and I are on our way, but we’re caught in traffic.

Right, well. I guess it’s up to me, then. Her feet pounded into the concrete as she ran, and she squinted against the setting sun. The alien was barely a few feet in front of her, but it only seemed to be pulling ahead. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to run faster. There was no way she was letting this guy escape. So far, he’d aged over twenty babies, stealing all their potential years and turning them into energy, somehow, and she was either going to turn them all back, or die trying.

That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it? Jack asked her.

I’m not letting those children die, Jack.

I know.

He was quiet as she skidded around the corner and paused to check the alien’s position before continuing after it, powering as fast as she could down the empty suburban street.

C’mon, Gwen, he continued finally, playful now, pump those legs faster. You were doing much better than that last night.

Yeah, well, last night’s activities were a little bit more pleasurable than this, thanks.

What, only a little? He seemed hurt.

If you don’t mind, she thought with mild irritation, watching carefully as the alien crossed the street, I might be just a little bit busy. I’m doing all the hard work, remember, running around in the dark, while you sit around in the SUV. It began to rain, and she sighed. In the dry SUV.

It’s a tough life.

Heads up, Gwen, Malcolm interrupted. He’s stopped at the end of the street, and CCTV shows he’s holding something. I think he’s got his device out.

Right. She slowed and pulled her gun out of its holster, sticking to her side of the road.

Be careful.

That’s a bit of a redundant thought, Jack.

I still like to think it anyway. Make you feel special, like I really, truly care.

What, because you don’t? She continued slowly making her way down the street, and the hairs of the back of her neck started to prickle. The alien was close by, then.

Not at all. I think you’d look sexy as hell in a colostomy bag.

She held in a snort and saw something move out of the corner of her eye. She swung around, but saw nothing. Jack...

Just keep going straight ahead, he told her. We’re on our way. We’ll be there in two.

I might not have two, she thought grimly, taking one more step, and then, all of a sudden, the alien was standing almost directly in front of her. Gwen’s finger automatically tightened on the trigger.

“Drop your weapon,” she told it steadily, her gaze flicking between his fiery orange eyes and his hands, clutching the cube-shaped device. He ignored her, taking another step closer instead. “Did you hear me?” she asked loudly, forcing herself to stay in position. “I said, put your weapon down.”

He growled, taking another step forward, and this time, his fingers started running over the device, madly pressing what looked to be buttons.

Jack, she thought uneasily, again adjusting her grip on her gun, Jack, I’m going to have to shoot him.

No! We need to know how to turn those people back!

I know that! But I think, and this is only a guess, that he’s going to kill me!

Do not shoot him, Gwen, that’s an order.

Right, okay, so I’ll just die then, shall I?

Always an option.

Jack!

I don’t know, okay? This species has no clotting ability, you shoot him and he’ll bleed out in twenty seconds. I don’t suppose you have a stun?

Sorry, I left that in my other pants. What do you think I am, a bloody weaponry?

The alien moved closer again, and this time, she couldn’t help but take a big step back. He grinned viciously.

What’s your ETA? she asked desperately.

We’re still too far away.

Right. Right. She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her, and took another few steps back, thinking quickly, going through everything she knew about this species. There was something Ianto had told her... It was probably a long shot, but she didn’t really have that many choices right now.

Jack. This species, they’re like us in a lot of ways, right?

Yes.

How do they reproduce? Like us?

Yeah. Gwen, where are you going with this?

Do their females have the same organs as we do?

Well, mostly, but—

And Ianto told me the males aren’t allowed to mate until their eyes turn purple.

Hold on, what are you doing? Gwen?

Grimacing, keeping her eyes on the alien, she holstered her gun and unzipped her jacket, quickly shucking it off. She tossed it aside, and the alien’s gaze followed its path before snapping back to her, his eyes almost bulging out of his head. His hands dropped to his side, device and all, and he took another step forward. But this time, however, his expression held no malice—instead, he seemed to be intensely fascinated.

“Like that, do you?” she muttered, unbuttoning her shirt and pulling it off, standing in the middle of the street in her bra and jeans. The alien’s mouth dropped open as it continued staring.

Gwen? Gwen, are you stripping? Jack asked her, incredulous.

Better than dying, she snapped back, and reached down to her fly. I’m telling you, you and Malcolm better get your arses down here, now.

Just try not to get him to excited, okay? They’re known to get a bit rowdy.

Rowdy trumps murderous, in my book, she thought back, kicking off her shows. Seriously, though, Jack. My underwear stays on. I’m not that type of girl.

Not in my experience.

Shut up.

~