lt_indigo

Title: The Theory of Relative Weirdness
Fandom: Torchwood
Summary: In which Gwen and Rhys have an actual conversation.
Warnings: none
Word count: 400

Gwen was home before Rhys for a change, and was making a lasagne for them to enjoy when he walked in. When he saw her in the kitchen, his whole face lit up with the most beautiful smile.
“Hello, love!” he said, pulling her into his arms. “This is a nice surprise.”
“I thought you deserved it,” she told him. “I hardly ever have the time to cook for you any more.”
Rhys shrugged. “You’re busy saving the world.”
“Not tonight. Now, get yourself a beer, sit there and talk to me while I finish.”
Rhys took a beer from the fridge and a wine glass from the cupboard. He poured from the bottle Gwen had opened for the sauce and left it near enough that she could easily grab it, but far enough away that she wouldn’t knock it over.
“So, what weird alien stuff have you done today?”
“Nothing, really,” Gwen said. “The weevils have been acting weird lately, so me and Jack went down into the sewers to see what’s upsetting them. Found a lizard guy – Silurian. Apparently his species lived on Earth before humans evolved, and they’re all still down there, cryogenically frozen to escape whichever extinction event should have wiped them out, except his pod failed and he woke up. He wanted to see what the surface was like before waking everyone else up, so he came up and found us. He realised pretty quickly that we weren’t ready to share the world, so he’s been hiding alone for months, poor thing.”
“Where is he now?”
“Oh, back at the Hub,” Gwen said readily. “He’s a scientist, and he’s loving it. Do you know, their men tend to be scientists or raise the children, and their women are warriors? And they’re venomous? But he’s settling in; he’s looking forward to discovering what we’ve been doing while he’s been asleep, finding out about the other species out there. I think Jack wants to offer him a job.”
Rhys shook his head in amazement. Aliens – or not – sleeping under the ground, just waiting for… for what, exactly? There was a lizard man being subjected to Jack Harkness only a mile away.
“And you said you didn’t do anything weird today.”
Gwen thought about it: today had actually been one of the most normal days she had experienced since joining Torchwood. Maybe ‘weird’ was just relative these days.