This is my take on Jack's thoughts at the end of episode 11 - if you don't like spoilers and haven't watched this one yet, don't read...everyone else, feel free to R&R and vote on my poll! Everyone who votes Jack/Gwen gets cookies! (not that I'm biased or anything XD) Hope you like! O, and by the way, I wrote this this morning at about 2 o'clock because I was watching ep 11 and then couldn't get to sleep. Sensible I know, but hey, we freaks have to do something with our spare time...I'm not the only one either, Nayclem was doing exactly the same. I'd reccomend her fic 'After You're Gone' for any Jack/Ianto fans who might have thought to read this..

She toiled slowly, deliberately, taking down all the faces from the walls and examining each one before she filed them away. The lost ones. Those who would never see their families again. Each one tore away another ragged little piece of her soul.

Jack watched her silently, aloof from her pain. He could see it in the way she stooped her shoulders, trying to erase the conflict. She was too numb for tears though. She just worked, filling her mind with the steady and monotonous task of filing away each face into a drawer that would soon be forgotten about and never reopened. Arguably the most common job of Torchwood employees – and one Gwen had never seen eye to eye with.

He longed to go over to her, to pry the sheets of paper away and take her in his arms, let her know that everything would be all right, let her loose her storming emotions over him like waves on a rock in a tempestuous sea. He deserved it. All of this was his fault after all. No change there then – he never seemed to get it right around Gwen, and it always left her hurting more. So he didn't move. He stayed statue-like in his alcove, watching her suffer silently. He would only make it worse again if he tried to make it better.

He cursed himself, like he had done a thousand times already. Why had he let Gwen bring that boy's mother to him? He had known exactly what would happen. But Gwen had asked, almost begged, and Jack could not begrudge her a thing. The one concession in the world for him was her, and so, he had let her have her way.

It could have all stopped before that. He could have told her what the mother would think, why nobody should see those who fell back, for the good of everybody. So why had he let her into that boy's room? He should have know n it would only wake her compassion and make her want to fight for parent and child. And the answer was the same as before: he could not deny her. The world would drift in burning ruin before Captain Jack Harkness let anything happen to Gwen Cooper, the woman he loved so much he cheated death time and time again for her. She had glared at him with those emerald orbs of hers, full of conniving betrayal and disbelief. She knew exactly which buttons to press to get him to respond, and he, a conman himself once upon a time, had fallen for the ruse once again.

And still this wasn't the root of the problem. Jack could have taken Gwen to the compound as soon as she had found out and showed her the result of people who disappeared. He could have explained to her what happened, how those who fell back through were taken care of instead of imprisoned like before. So why hadn't he? That was the root of all of this mess, and he couldn't even blame her for it; couldn't hate her for everything she had to put him through only to realise she was better off ignorant. No. This was his entire fault.

Those damn barriers he had built around himself to protect everyone were too strong, as was his arrogance that the universe would conform to his ideas with complete and blind trust. He had supposed she would grow bored with this, frustrated at all the dead ends. He had been honest when asking what they could do about the Rift snatching people away – because there really was nothing they could do. The Rift was like an entity in itself, and it did what it pleased. But this was Gwen, and Gwen did not give up on anything once her mind was set. It was what he always failed to recognise in her, and yet was one of the reasons he had offered her the job. Why had he been so naive? Why had he thought he could keep all of these things to himself without anyone ever finding out? He was proud most of the time of who he was now, the man who had followed the Doctor to the end of the world, beyond death and back again; but still dregs of his former self showed through tiny cracks, and it just made Jack hate himself all the more.

His team wondered why he kept emotions locked away behind steel bars. The simple truth was he couldn't face what he had done – not to them anyway. He didn't want them thinking that way about him. He was proud of them and they trusted him; that was how it worked. Somewhere he knew that would all change if they learned of his past. Especially Gwen. Jack wouldn't have been able to bear it if her eyes were too ashamed and frightened to look at him straight, and that would be exactly what would happen.

And yet there was a change in her too. It was subtle, untraceable to someone who didn't know her as intimately as Jack did. Hell, Jack doubted even Rhys, her husband, the one she went home to at night, had noticed. It had happened slowly. That year he had spent incarcerated, tortured, killed, wrenched back into life, all he could see before his waking sight was her face brimming with compassion, with resilience, with an innocence not found in the others. He had realised fully that he loved her for it. But Jack had returned to find her different. That year shouldering his burden had taken its toll, and though it wasn't visible, under the surface Gwen Cooper had become as haggard, worn, and disillusioned as any on the team. More so in fact. In that year Torchwood had wormed its way inside her and gripped her like it consumed everyone. It had gotten to her. And yet again it was all his fault. It was something he could never forgive himself for.

Gwen paused. All the pictures were now down from the wall and stored in the filing cabinet, and she was hunched over it like it caused her physical pain to stand straight. Not as much as it once would have done once upon a time, Jack was sure, but just enough for it to still affect her. How easy it would be to reach out, clasp her arm and whisper soothing lies into her ear as he held her close. Everything would be all right. The world would right itself again.

But it wouldn't, and anyway, it wasn't Jack's place to comfort her any more. The ring wrapping her finger was like an electric field forcing him to stay away. Rhys was the one to hold her now, the one she told all her troubles to about how the job got to her. And she knew it all too well. She didn't just stab him anymore, but twisted the blade cruelly, and tormented him with the knowledge that he wasn't allowed to love her.

Gwen sniffed slightly and turned shamefacedly away from the filing cabinet that was marked 'missing'. She didn't even notice Jack standing in shadow; her face was turned downward, hiding the tears that were threatening to spill down her face. He felt a wave of her anguish hit him like a physical blow. It was made worse by the terrible knowledge that he had been the cause. He grimaced and closed his eyes to bury the pain, and bury it deep. As her boss, Jack couldn't afford to let his feelings show. Torchwood would carry on, business as usual, and none but him would be any the wiser. Jack sighed and returned to his office to mope. Not even Ianto could satisfy him tonight, and the one person who was going home to someone else – so with regrets whirling through his mind, Captain Jack Harkness retired to his bunker, alone, and once again bearing the world on his shoulders.