(Has party) This is the first ficI have actually finished! I'm just sad it's all over! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and supported me through several phases of writer's block, giving up, and Torchwood withdrawals. THis is the closure chapter, one tht is pure fluff that reminds me of Jane Austen final chapters. What am I doing? This isn't me! Oh well, I hope you enjoy!

No sound could be heard in the Hub, save for the clacking of keys over the keyboard. The task of entering Gwen's death in the logs of Torchwood staff had fallen to Ianto, while Owen morosely, slowly, cleaned out her desk, as if to give Gwen a chance to come bouncing up from the morgue and stop him in his tracks. Tosh was sitting alone and terribly small on the couch, hugging herself as if to hold in her grief that was spilling silent tears down her face. They had all gone to that vast chamber in the Torchwood vaults where the bodies of all Torchwood employees were kept. Somewhere in there was Susie's frozen corpse. None of them had stayed long; Jack's forlorn lifelessness had sucked everything out of the place, stifling it and making it even colder.

There was the sound of footsteps on the wireframe stairs leading down to the vaults. Jack was emerging at last. Nobody dared look at him. A strange echoing, like there was two sets of feet, sounded up from the gloom, and Tosh looked up just in time to see Jack's head emerge followed by. . .

'I don't believe it,' she whispered, standing with a jerk and staring wide eyed at Gwen's tentatively smiling face. She was alive! How was she alive? Tosh had seen her lifeless body, cold and bloodless, down in the morgue.

'Tosh?' Owen had not heard anything, so absorbed was he in his task.

'It's Gwen,' she said, still staring at her dead friend. A ghost. It had to be a trick of the light. Owen turned, frowning, to where his colleague was looking and staggered back against the desk.

'Fucking hell!' he shouted, not bothering to pick up the box of Gwen's things that had gone clattering to the floor. His jaw had dropped in disbelief.

Ianto looked up sharply. His back was to the stairs so he had seen nothing. He froze when he heard Gwen's laughter.

'Language, Owen,' she chortled. Owen could only gape like a fish.

'You're alive,' Tosh said in disbelief. Gwen nodded, smiling.

One by one, like they were dreaming, Gwen's colleagues walked over, touched her, hugged her, made sure she was real and not some mass hallucination. All the time Jack stood silently, smiling beside her. For once, everything was as it should be.

Owen took great pride and delight in autopsying the dragons. It was a struggle to get them into the Hub, so Ianto, who knew almost every passage and cellar in the base, had moved them to a large underground vault where Owen could work on them in peace. He dissected the chest and found hollow bones, huge air sacs and a hydrogen store. Just another alien to enter into the archives.

Ianto, extremely irritated by the destruction of the SUV, wasted no time in finding the original blueprints for the vehicle, and, with help from Tosh and Jack, improved the design and started to rebuild from scratch. In the meantime he had bought an ordinary Range Rover to get them from place to place.

Gwen found herself filing reports, taking it easy. She suffered occasionally from fainting spells and dizziness which Jack said was normal after losing so much blood. He was always there at her side in an instant to catch her when she swooned.

And even the Rift seemed to be taking it easy. There were no monsters to fight, no dangerous artefacts to recapture from criminals, just an occasional flare or spike, bringing with it small, broken trinkets from faraway places. Everything was quiet.

Rhys awoke disorientated in a room that smelled sterile and was white. It must be a hospital. Every inch of his body ached, despite the obvious painkillers that were coursing through his veins. It left him feeling groggy, his vision hazy. He drifted in and out of consciousness.

Gwen came with Jack to visit it him the day after he woke up, sidling into his private room almost guiltily as the others waited in the hall outside. Jack stayed by the door, knowing that he needed to give Gwen her space to do this.

Rhys woke as she entered. 'Gwen?' He couldn't believe his eyes. There was his angel, smiling almost sadly at him. 'Oh Gwen, I've missed you so much.' He reached out for her hand, his warm smile faltering when she didn't take his. Then he saw Jack. 'What's he doing here?' he asked guardedly.

'I've brought you a coffee,' Gwen said, ignoring his question. She handed over the Starbucks cup. 'I haven't got long, the others are waiting in the hall.' She watched Rhys take a sip, then another. Soon he had downed the whole cup. Jack had said that might happen.

'Gwen, what are you –' Rhys was suddenly drowsy, but he blamed the medication.

'I've come to say goodbye, Rhys,' Gwen said quickly, her smile fading. Her eyes gazed steadily at him, distant but still loving. It was Torchwood that had made her eyes so cold. 'Please, don't say anything,' she continued, knowing he was about to burst out angrily. 'In a few hours I won't have existed at all.'

'What do you mean?'

'I've just given you a retcon pill,' she explained, knowing it wouldn't matter soon. 'You'll fall asleep. When you wake up every memory of me, every memory of Torchwood, will have vanished. You can start your life again.' A sad smile twitched the corner of her mouth.

'Did you put her up to this, Harkness?' he snarled.

Jack just raised his chin and said nothing. This was hard enough for Gwen to do without any conflict between her old boyfriend and him. His eyes traced Gwen's movements carefully, watching for signs of exhaustion. She was still fainting. Well, coming back from the dead took a bit of getting used to. He smiled inwardly at the thought of them together, possibly forever.

'Jack didn't make me do anything,' she snapped. 'I'm doing this for you. It's the only way to keep you safe.' This was only half true. Gwen had moved on. It had only taken death to show her that her future lay solely with Torchwood. She couldn't keep mixing her life and her illusion of normality, it just didn't work like that. Her life belonged to Torchwood, to the Rift with all its dangers and aliens and monsters, to the man standing in the corner wearing the RAF coat who watched her so carefully.

'Thankyou,' she whispered to Rhys.

'For what?' he replied, bemused.

'Exactly.' She walked sedately from the room, Jack following, as Rhys' eyelids drooped and he fell into a deep and undreaming sleep.

Winter was coming. Jack could smell it on the breeze sweeping in off the bay, hear it in the way the swallows were chattering to each other as they prepared to fly south for another year, see it in the stormy grey colour of the baywater as he stared out to sea. He stood motionless on the roof of the Millennium Centre, letting his coat blow about him in the eddying currents of brusque sea wind.

'It'll be a cold one this year,' he said sagely, not blinking. He turned and smiled boyishly at the person next to him.

'But we'll keep doing what we do,' Gwen replied, not able to hide a smirk of her own. His grin was so infectious, and these past few months had been the happiest of her life.

'Yup.'

They were thinking the same thing as they stood there hand in hand. Memories flashed in Gwen's mind. She had seen Rhys once or twice. He was confined to a wheelchair now but looked happy enough. Tosh and Owen were obsessed with each other, on their fifth date and still going strong. Jack, who knew most about Owen's past, saw things looking up for the man who had dealt with his 

grief by simplifying the world and shutting people out. Even Ianto had a girlfriend now. Her name was Naomi, a nurse he had met at the hospital. He blushed whenever she was mentioned but everyone could see how much happier he was now that he was in a proper relationship. Hell, he had even moved in with her last weekend.

And Gwen. Jack had Gwen now, standing tall beside him, no longer loving her from a guarded distance, but with her almost every second, being there for her in a way that made his heart almost overload with happiness. It had been a long time since someone had made him feel this whole.

'What?' she asked now, noticing him staring at her.

He shrugged. 'Just, I love you,' he grinned and pulled her in for a hot, passionate kiss on the lips.

'I love you too.' She breathed, drawing away, only to return once more to his warm embrace. She would always return to him.

The bit where Gwen finally came to her senses and went with Jack reminded me a bit of when Rose first went with the Doctor and left Mickey behind, so that's why I thought I should put that in. I hope you've all had fun, and have enjoyed reading my story.

Shadowxwolf

PS, reviews are nice :)