A/N: First chapter of multi-chaptered fic set after Exit Wounds and Journeys End, with Jack, Ianto and Gwen acting as Torchwood Three. The plot should become clearer in the third chapter. For now, concrit is always welcome.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

…*…

DAY ONE

07:30

Be be be beep. Be be be beep. Be be be beep.

Ugh. Horrible noise. Alarm. Make it stop.

Be be be beep. Be be be beep. Be be be beep.

Gwen rolled over, eyes still tight shut.

'Rhys…' she croaked out her first word of the day.

'Ungh…'

Be be be beep. Be be be beep. Be be be beep.

'Rhys,' she insisted, brushing her icy foot along her husband's bare leg. He started, quickly twitching his warm leg away from her, before fumbling a tired arm out of the duvet to hit the snooze button.

'Your feet are freezing, Gwen,' he told her needlessly, mumbling into his crumpled pillow.

Holding back a yawn, Gwen pushed herself up with her palms to rest against the headboard. She blinked blearily to clear her eyes and head of sleep, looking down at Rhys who was still stubbornly refusing to move.

'I've gotta go to work,' she announced to the room at large, starting to extract herself from the tangle of blankets.

'You're overworked,' Rhys mumbled, his eyes closed. Gwen paused, half out of the bed. She planted her cold feet on the carpet, feeling them sink into the surface.

'No one's overworking me, Rhys,' she said slowly. 'Things've just been busy. Out of my control; out of Jack's.'

Rhys cracked one brown eye open to look at her, met with the sight of her back turned to him.

'I-I know,' he said hesitantly. 'It's your job, it's important. Bloody important. I just- I miss you, Gwen.'

Gwen felt a pleasant twinge in her chest. She smiled softly and looked over her shoulder, meeting his steady gaze. She missed spending time with him too.

'I promise to try my best to be home early tonight. Hey- I'll even cook.'

Rhys grinned into the pillow, both his eyes closed again. 'Can you promise to keep that promise?'

Gwen's smile froze.

'I can try. Rift-willing,' she tried to joke.

Silence.

'I understand, Gwen. I do,' Rhys said after a few moments, his voice slightly strained.

Gwen sighed softly as she stood up. 'And I love you, Rhys Williams. I do,' she answered, walking around the end of the bed, coming to a standstill above her husband. She rested her hand in his bed-head and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, a curtain of her dark hair sweeping across his face. His nose crinkled slightly at the tickling sensation.

'I'd better get ready for work,' she whispered as she stood up. Then, louder, 'And you'd better be ready to witness the cooking mastery of Gwen Cooper when I get back.'

Rhys simply snorted in response, opening his eyes again to watch her go.

…*…

Ianto was ready with her morning coffee in hand when Gwen walked through the cog door, alarms and lights whirring, about an hour later. She took the mug from him gratefully- she was never fully awake until she had had her morning dose of Ianto's coffee.

'Ianto,' she groaned gratefully as she savoured the taste. 'What would I do without you?'

'Suffer some serious caffeine withdrawal symptoms I should imagine,' he answered dryly, following just behind as she made her way to her desk.

'Jack around?' she asked, setting the mug down on a pile of incomplete paperwork as she shrugged her jacket off.

'On the phone to UNIT again.'

'Oh?'

'Looks like Martha could be coming down to join us again.'

'Good,' Gwen beamed. She, Jack and Ianto had tentatively discussed hiring a new medic and technician; they were lost without Owen's medical skills and even Ianto's best understanding of Tosh's systems were nothing compared to having Tosh on side with them. 'We could definitely do with the extra help.'

Ianto nodded mutely and went to walk away. Gwen reached out and rested a hand on his neatly-tailored forearm.

'Any Rift activity last night?'

'Nothing from the Rift,' Ianto said. 'Three weevils spotted about two in the morning, Jack and I brought them in. They've got a nice cell next to Janet- Jack rather creatively named them Tom, Dick and Harry.'

Gwen laughed. 'It's not really fair that you and Jack went out to catch them while I stayed at home asleep,' she said after a moment.

'It's fine, Gwen. We were both here when the weevil alarm went off anyway.'

Gwen raised an eyebrow. Ianto rolled his eyes in return, starting to walk away.

'And that's all I'm saying, Gwen.'

.

It was half an hour later when Jack was finally finished talking to the UNIT officer on the phone- Gwen had been able to hear him talking irritably from her desk, even though she hadn't clearly been able to make out any words.

Jack stepped out of his office, hands in his pressed trouser pockets as he strolled over to see what his team was doing.

'Morning, Gwen,' he greeted. 'Nice to see you again, Ianto,' he nodded in the Welshman's direction with a quick wink. This was met with an exasperated eye roll and an offer of coffee.

'Love some,' Jack answered, looking over Gwen's head at the bank of screens she was scrolling through. 'What you up to, Gwen?'

'Just finalising my report on that weevil incident in Barry last week,' she answered, tilting her head up to make eye contact. 'It worries me that they're spreading out of Cardiff, Jack.'

'Hmm,' Jack mused in agreement. 'The Rift has been spreading. I know the weevils come from the sewers around here, but it's the Rift that brought them here in the first place. I don't know whether that nest we found in Barry was the result of the Rift, or overpopulation here causing them to spread out. Keep an eye on it.'

'Sure, Jack.'

Gwen saved the file, before clicking the little cross in the top right corner to close the window down. Myfanwy screeched overhead, as if to remind them of her presence. She made a slightly ungainly loop of the water tower before landing up on her perch, her own piece of the hub. She clacked her beak and nuzzled her wing.

Jack was rifling through some of the papers on Ianto's desk when he appeared with Jack's coffee. Jack took it with a smile of thanks as Ianto sat down at his desk, Jack leaning against it, cupping the coffee mug in both hands, feeling the warmth spread through the enamel to the palms of his hands. Gwen turned her chair in the direction of both of them.

'So, Jack, is Martha going to be gracing us with her presence?' she asked.

'I'm trying to convince UNIT to let her go, they're pretty fond of her…' Jack said, rubbing one hand thoughtfully against his jaw. 'And they lost a lot of men when the Daleks… Martha would love to come join us, you know she loved her time here, even after Owen… But she loves UNIT as well…'

'It's a big decision,' Gwen sympathised. 'And she has her fiancé and family to think about.'

'I'm sure we could get her fiancé a job at the University Hospital, no problem.'

Gwen nodded in agreement. Torchwood would have no problem with that, a lot of Cardiff businesses were still employing in the aftermath of Gray and then the Daleks; the hospital was no exception.

'Quiet day in then you reckon?' she asked, swinging slightly from side to side in the rotating chair.

'Now that you've dared to think it, no,' Ianto pointed out. Jack smirked into his coffee.

'Good, I've got stacks of paperwork that I don't particularly want to do- and I need an excuse not to otherwise you'll keep nagging me for it.'

'Someone's got to attempt to keep records in this place and that, unfortunately, falls under my job description.'

'You could've been the guard dog,' Jack muttered.

Ianto was about to protest when the shrill sound of the Rift alarm broke through the relative peace of the hub. Ianto was on it instantly.

'Rift spike… No life signs but it seems like at least two things came through…'

'Where?' Gwen was already up, thrusting her arms through the sleeves of her jacket.

'Old waterworks near Penarth.'

Jack drained the rest of his mug. He headed over to the cog door, grabbing his RAF greatcoat off the coat stand as he went.

'I'm driving,' he called back over his shoulder.

…*…

'Well doesn't this place look simply charming?' Gwen murmured sarcastically, looking through the tinted glass at the shoddy, old, corrugated metal warehouses of the disused waterworks.

'I have a theory,' Ianto started. 'That the Rift is programmed to spit the majority of its crap out in abandoned warehouses and just in the vicinity creepy buildings in general.'

'You know, Ianto, I think I'll have to agree with you on that one,' she said, checking her gun over and loading it. Ianto had said no life signs, but much better safe than sorry.

'Hey, at least it's daytime,' Jack pointed out optimistically, smoothly pulling the SUV up beside the padlocked front entrance. Ianto was checking over the Rift information on his PDA as they all undid their seat belts and clambered out.

'Looks like something came out just inside here, ground floor… Something else on one of the upper balcony levels on the far side,' he said, motioning in the general directions. He looked up at them and stored the PDA in his pocket.

Gwen put her gun in the back waistband of her jeans and pulled her jacket tighter against the bitter wind that didn't seem to bother Jack- only added to his enigmatic image as his coat flapped as he stood tall and gave orders, light spatters of icy rain blowing into their faces as she huddled against the cold.

'I'll go check out the reading on the far side,' he said, his authoritative tone bleeding into his voice. 'You two stick together, find that other reading round here.' He surveyed them closely as they all headed to the rusted doors. One quick shove from Ianto and they had caved in, granting he and Gwen access. 'And be careful.'

Gwen knew he was thinking of one of the last times he had blundered in after Rift readings with no life signs… And the ensuing explosion that had been the beginning of chaos for Cardiff and the breaking of Torchwood Three.

'Always, Jack,' Gwen met his steely gaze with her serious brown eyes, trying to reassure him that they would be fine. Jack's eyes flickered over to meet Ianto's, who inclined his head slightly in a brief nod.

'Come on then, Gwen,' Ianto said brightly, tearing his eyes away from Jack's. He ducked under a snapped cable end and through the shattered metal doorway. 'Fun to be had.'

Gwen threw one last look at Jack as he set off, before following after Ianto.

It was like she had been swallowed by an enormous, metallic whale. The sense of just plain damp and dank almost overwhelmed Gwen- the musty scent, the cool touch of it on her skin, the stale taste on her tongue. Colonies of damp and moss crawled up the metal walls, winding continuously along the zig-zags of the corrugated walls. Grey chunks of static light were spilling through the high-set windows, just enough for them to see by. The ground underfoot creaked and sagged. Gwen looked down and saw that it was made of wood that was peeling and bending in only the way that completely drenched wood could. It certainly didn't feel safe to walk on, especially as she noticed vast quantities of still water collected underneath the panels, creating an eerie underground lake of-sorts.

Yet more water dripped from overhead, forming strange calcium swirls of limescale on the ceiling, almost similar to an alien language Tosh had once translated for them. Light rain from outside blew in through the windows and the slatted holes in the roof. The warehouse was huge, like a football pitch, empty but for four large troughs organised two by two.

'Yep, the Rift does seem to have a bit of a thing for these old warehouses,' Gwen agreed again as she set off after Ianto, feeling the wooden floorboards squelch underfoot as years-old water trickled out of them, finally escaping.

Just towards the back of the warehouse, Gwen could make out a faint glowing. She picked up her pace, overtaking Ianto, pulling her own equipment out ready.

It was a sliver of perfectly smooth, bronze-coloured metal, crescent-shaped like a scythe, but the ends appeared to be jagged rather than pointed, almost as if something had been snapped off either end. It was about the size of a car tyre and pulsing in a soothing manner, drawing Gwen towards it, but she kept her head and remembered her training.

She held the scanner out in front of her, standing just close enough to be able to take readings, still feeling that incessant tug that wanted her closer to the object.

'No signs of radiation,' she told Ianto. 'No signs of any foreign energies or contaminants either, just traces of residual Rift energy.' She took a step forward. 'Should be alright.'

'I hate to have to always be the voice of protocol but you know you shouldn't touch that until we've scanned it properly back at the hub,' Ianto warned as Gwen continued her approach. It glowed and pulsed brighter. 'Gwen?'

Now that she was closer, Gwen could see that the crescent had once been a part of something- she could see where the metal had torn and bent out of shape as it had been forced apart. It looked like it had once been a piece of a machine, maybe something used to transport people. No… There was something… cog-like about it, Gwen decided, like a thin piece stolen from within the intricate internal workings of a clock.

'Gwen,' Ianto cautioned, his voice level.

Gwen could hear Ianto's warning, was aware of the sense he made, but was inexplicably drawn towards the item. She felt a strange warm shiver of excitement run down her arm, finishing with a tingling sensation in her index finger. She reached out slowly and the object seemed to sense her, pulsing more frequently; impatiently, as if it wanted her to hurry.

She heard Ianto move behind her, aware that if she got any closer he would physically stop her.

'Gwen,' he repeated anxiously. She heard him take another step closer, lifting his arm slowly towards hers.

Gwen furrowed her eyebrows in annoyance. Couldn't Ianto see that the object didn't present any danger to them? Somewhere in the back of her mind, her common sense was screaming at her not to go any closer. Ianto didn't want her to. Jack would certainly tell her to keep well away, especially if she had explained that it was calling out to her, pulling her towards it like she was on the end of a rope that only the object had control over. But she wanted to get closer. She had to.

Before Ianto had the chance to stop her, she reached out and touched it.

She was dimly aware of a ricocheting bang; cool air rushing past her face and then darkness.