Title: Trait Theory
Author: kel_reiley
Rating: standard
Characters: Gwen, Ianto, Owen, Toshiko
Length: 1050 words
Spoilers: TW series 1, implied DW ‘Sound of Drums’, ‘Last of the Time Lords’
Summary: the mantle of leadership rests heavily on the shoulders of him who wears it
Thanks to lefaym for the speedy beta.

~+~

Her shoes are filthy. Gwen stares at her feet, mud caked over red canvas. Clumps of dirt plop to the floor every time she shifts. But she can’t pick her head up, resting it against her arms, folded across her knees. She sits with her back against Jack’s desk – Jack’s desk! Hah! – and her hair covering her face, sticking to her temples and her lips. Still trembling inside, she wipes her face on her sleeve and tries to take a steady breath.

In a brief burst of anger, she smears her muddy trainer over the floor of Jack’s office, kicking out at… something. Nothing. She feels bad immediately after, because Ianto will be the one to clean that up.

And of course, there he is standing in the doorway, two mugs in hand. Gwen tries to smile for him, but her mouth refuses. “Don’t think coffee is the best thing for me just now,” she says, her voice only wobbling a little.

He smiles and comes to sit next to her, anyway. Sets the two mugs onto the floor between them – empty, she sees now – and pulls out a bottle from within his jacket. “Good thing I brought this, then.”

She pushes her wet, limp hair off her face and sits up a little straighter, cringing as more mud dribbles onto the floor. “Right, then.” She takes the mug he hands her, sips, grimaces, then knocks the whole thing back in one gulp.

Ianto watches her, takes a drink from his own, and leans back so that his shoulder is just touching hers.

“Is this what the leader of Torchwood does?” she asks. “Jack never drank. Did he?”

“He did.” Ianto nods, shoulders dipping forward and back again. “Sometimes. He’d be perfectly sober just a couple hours later. Should’ve been a clue that he wasn’t quite…” He shrugs, finishes his drink and pours them both another.

“I should have taken the shot. If we’d been faster…” And she breaks. “I let a boy die! Seventeen, Ianto! He was seventeen years old and I–” The words choke her. She’d just stood there and watched. Her hands are shaking, gripping the mug between them.

Is this what Jack did? Is this what Torchwood was for him for all those years?

“I was a bloody police officer!” She can’t stop now; it’s all too much. “I was trained to deal with situations like that–”

“Only, minus the aliens,” Ianto interjects, topping up his mug once more.

“–to stay calm in a crisis, to talk them down–”

“Helps if you speak the same language.”

“–to think on my feet and make bloody decisions, and bloody take the bloody shot!” Gwen’s breath hitches. She raises her mug, takes another gulp, then holds it out to Ianto for more.

He empties the last of the bottle into her mug, and she downs it. “You got all three of them in the end,” he says.

She gives him a look, a look she hopes he understands to mean, ‘That is not the point.’ Then she sighs, staring into her mug, turning it this way and that and watching as the last dribble swirls round and round. “Jack would have taken the shot,” Gwen whispers.

Ianto sets the bottle and his mug on the floor between them, and stretches his legs out. He frowns at the mud caked on the bottom of his trousers before looking her in the eye. “He wasn’t perfect.”

“Yeah,” she says, letting out a shaky laugh, feeling a lingering burn in her chest – too much crying. “Yeah.” Sniffing, breathing deeply, she wipes her nose on her sleeve, pretending Ianto didn’t see, and sets her empty mug down next to her with a dull thud. “What about the..?” She gestures with her hand, trying to convey ‘alien’ with her fingers.

“Orta. Tosh is working on it–”

“Oh God, she shouldn’t still be here. She’s injured, she needs to go home and rest.” One more thing she’d failed to do as leader – look out for her team.

“It’s barely a scrape and a bit of bruising,” Owen says, marching into the room to toss a folder onto the desk. “I’ve got it covered. Besides, you know she won’t stop in the middle of a project.” He looks down at them on the floor, smirks pointedly at the bottle, and walks back out.

Gwen rubs both hands over her face, pushing her hair back, trying to scrub the tears away. Torchwood doesn’t have time for tears. Doesn’t have time for second guessing. Doesn’t have time for spending a quiet night at home with your boyfriend.

The phone on Jack’s desk jangles loudly.

Doesn’t have time for taking a minute to bloody think!

Ianto’s up and on his feet before she can even move. “I’ll get it,” he says, rounding the desk to pick up the phone.

She hears him answer, notes he’s slipped effortlessly into ‘polite butler’ even though he’s had just as much to drink as she has. Even though he’d been right there beside her, just as terrified. Looking to her to make a decision. What made her think she could do this? What made anyone think she was right for this job?

“I’m sorry, sir, Captain Harkness is out. One moment.”

Gwen looks up, turns until she can see Ianto over the desk. He cups one palm over the mouthpiece, holding the receiver toward her.

“It’s the Prime Minister’s office,” he says. “Sounds urgent.”

Rubbing the drying stickiness out of her eyes, Gwen gets to her feet, suddenly feeling very sober. She takes the phone from Ianto, sniffs once, and brings the phone to her ear. “This is Agent Gwen Cooper speaking.”

She watches Ianto tidy as she listens to the man on the other end of the line. Her heartbeat – pounding in her chest, like to break her ribcage – slows, calms. When he finishes explaining the situation to her, she tells him to wait for her further instructions and hangs ups. “Ianto!” She flashes him a determined smile. “Call the others in here. We’ve got a mission.”

He nods, setting the bit of office debris down onto the desk, and hurries out the door. Gwen looks down at her hands.

Steady as a bleeding rock.

~+~