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Lying to her parents is, Anwen discovers, surprisingly easy. Not that she should really be shocked, she supposes; she has been doing it to some degree for the last few years in order to sneak off to The Hub at every available opportunity, ostensibly to spend time with Jack and Ianto. Despite her mother’s absolute fury each time she’d discovered that she’d been deceived, Anwen isn’t really frightened of her, not really; it’s all bluster and shouting, and all based in the fact that she wants to keep her daughter safe, which is a remarkably misplaced apprehension. Anwen can look after herself, thank you very much, and she doesn’t need her mother to tell her which decisions she makes are terrible – she knows, but chooses not to care.
Applying to join UNIT is, Anwen knows, a fairly terrible decision, not least because they have to wear uniforms and ridiculous berets and stomp about in formations doing marching drills, all of which seem laughable compared to Torchwood, for which the only uniform policy seems to be ‘clothes’, and even that appears to be fairly informal. As for marching… even if Anwen tries really hard, she can’t quite imagine her mum, Ianto and Jack to be serious enough for long enough for parading about in neatly regimented rows. But it’s a stepping stone and a means to an end, and so she fills out the forms online in stolen moments.
Many, many, many forms; all about herself, qualifications, interests, motivation for joining, medical review, personality test. Can she drive? Can she shoot? Can she hack a basic website? She proves her point on the last one by hacking the careers page and automatically putting herself through to the next round, and then pretends to be surprised when she gets an email inviting her to an interview in London.
“Got to go up to London next week,” she announces casually over dinner that evening, and her mother affixes her with the kind of appalled look that can only be elicited by the mere mention of crossing the border.
“Why?” her dad asks levelly, spooning mashed potato onto his plate; Anwen contemplates pointing out that a mountain of carbs doesn’t really match up with his new gym-approved diet plan, but thinks better of it.
“University open day,” Anwen lies easily; she’s checked, and fortuitously, UCL do have one on the very same day. She can’t help but wonder if UNIT have arranged this on purpose, to give applicants a handy excuse to explain away their absence to curious friends or family members or teachers. “UCL.”
“Wouldn’t a university a bit closer to home be nicer?” her mum says optimistically, meeting her daughter’s gaze and narrowing her eyes slightly. “Somewhere a bit more…”
“Welsh?” Anwen finishes for her, and her dad groans. “It can’t hurt to go and have a look around, can it?”
“Well, no, but…” she dithers for a moment. “Let one of us come with you, at least.”
“Yes, because we have such a good track record of going to London,” Anwen reasons, and her mother flinches ever so slightly; she feels a pang of guilt for having brought it up, but tries to dismiss it. “I’ll be fine. You can put me on the train yourself if you want.”
An olive branch; a peace offering; a compromise. If her mother sees her off at the station, it’ll soothe some of her fears.
“Sounds good,” her dad says heartily, before her mum can argue. “We’ll do that. Do you want us to pay for your train ticket?”
“That would be great, thanks Dad.”
Her mum shoots him the kind of look that clearly conveys we will talk about this later, and which he elects to ignore. “What subjects are you thinking of?”
“Maybe History or Languages.”
“Jack could help with some of that,” he reasons, and his voice is unnaturally bright and chipper; Anwen can’t help but wonder how it must feel for her parents to think about her leaving home and heading off to university. They’d be even more worried if they knew her actual plans for the day, which involve heading to UNIT HQ; undoubtedly there’d be shouting, and probably tears, and so she forces a smile and tries to appear interested in the small talk. “He’s been around a bit.”
“You need to be careful in London,” her mum cautions, and her dad shoots her a scowl. “Lots of dangerous people.”
“Cardiff’s not much better,” Anwen notes, raising her eyebrows. “Full of aliens, to boot.”
“I think any mugger would have to reconsider his career path after meeting Anwen,” her dad says with a grin. “Not a smart move.”
“You’re really OK with her going off to London on her own?” her mum snaps. “At seventeen?”
“We went to Swansea on our own at sixteen!”
“Swansea’s not London, though, is it?”
“Guys, if it makes you that worried, I’ll take a gun,” Anwen interjects, her expression utterly deadpan, and both of her parents look at her with aghast horror for several seconds before the penny drops.
“You’re terrible,” her mother says through gritted teeth, but there’s the hint of a smile playing across her features. “No guns.”
“Fine,” Anwen heaves a mock sigh of disappointment, knowing full well that there very much will be an armoury of weapons to greet her on arrival. “No guns.”
“Be careful, alright?” her mum tells her, giving her a final squeeze as they stand on the platform. “Don’t trust anyone or anyth-”
“Gwen. Don’t scare the poor girl,” her dad says sternly, prising her arms off Anwen and giving her a quick hug. “Have a great time, sweetheart. Keep in touch. See you this evening. I’ll pick you up if you drop me a text, OK?”
“Thanks, Dad,” Anwen says, a lump coming to her throat at the easy care with which he speaks the words; this is her dad all over. He doesn’t make grand gestures, but he remembers the little things, and he takes pride in doing them. Picking her up from the station. Slipping a hot water bottle into her bed before she comes home from Ianto and Jack’s. Cups of tea in her favourite mug. By this evening, perhaps all of that will dissolve; she knows how her mum will react to what she’s doing today, but she’s less sure about her dad. Will he be angry? Sad? Disappointed? Will he simply follow her mum’s lead?
Of course, it might all be a moot point; the day might be a complete flop. UNIT might not want her; they might take one look at her and decide she’s far too boring or normal or Welsh for them, in which case she can come back home content in the knowledge that she’s tried, albeit bitter about having failed.
“Got you these for the journey,” her mum says, pressing a bag of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Buttons into her hand, and Anwen forces herself to smile as the train pulls in. Will they forgive her for this?
“Thanks, Mum. I’ll see you later.”
She steps away from them with reluctance and boards, finding her booked seat and waving cheerily at her parents as the train slips out of the station. Only once they’re safely out of Cardiff does she open her bag and tear open the chocolate packaging, and begin reviewing – for the tenth time – the notes she’s been making for the day, trying to allay her guilt as she does so.
UNIT HQ is far larger and far shinier than Anwen had anticipated. She’d been brought up on tales of the Tower of London, with its robotic ravens and impractical subterranean offices, all of which had frequently drawn Jack’s ire. Ianto has tales of getting lost in the passageways, and of having to slip out behind a squadron of soldiers, standing out among the tourists in his smart suit. There have been muttered, sour comments about ‘budget cuts’ then ‘budget increases’; there had been a newer, more modern tower, smart and professional, and when that had come crashing down at the Cybermen’s hands, there had been consultations and more sour comments when UNIT had been granted the funding for a sparkling, shining new skyscraper, custom built for their needs. To Anwen, it looks very sci-fi as she stands on the pavement, like something out of a superhero film; it’s just similar enough to its neighbours to avoid drawing too much attention, but it still stands out against the London skyline, somehow alien enough to look out of place.
Entering the building, she finds a large, cool atrium with a desk in the centre, and she gives her name to the receptionist, who hands her a lanyard and directs her to several sofas in a corner of the room. Anwen takes a seat beside a nervous-looking young woman whose knee is jiggling up and down; they exchange a shy, polite smile, but otherwise don’t speak, both too engrossed in their anxiety to attempt small talk. She takes the opportunity to look around herself, taking in the circular room, the CCTV cameras, and the heavily guarded entrances to – presumably – the upper levels. As she looks down at her lanyard, noticing the concealed chip in the metal clip holding her visitor badge, her thoughts are interrupted by an older gentleman with silver-specked blonde hair, who marches into the atrium with a slight limp and affixes them with a surprisingly kindly stare.
“Interviewees?” he says in a loud, upper-class accent, and Anwen gets to her feet automatically, as does the woman beside her and two gangly teenage boys on an adjacent sofa. “Excellent stuff. Colonel Mace, Head of Recruitment. Used to be the Head of the entire British Division, but an argument with a fusion grenade put paid to that. I’ll be putting you through your paces today. Follow me.”
He doesn’t wait for their agreement but strides off again, and the four of them trot along in his wake, Anwen striding to the front. If nothing else, she can make a good first impression.
“So, welcome to UNIT HQ,” he begins with gusto. “New building, only opened in 2022. Still some teething troubles with the lifts, but we’re working on it, and some of the lights are a bit temperamental, so we’ll be taking the stairs down to the training centre. It’s below ground – just wasn’t the space for exercises in here,” he turns and shoots Anwen a grin. “I hope you’re all ready for this.”
The subterranean training centre is enormous. Once the interviewees have changed into UNIT-issue t-shirts and jogging bottoms, they’re put through their paces by a drill sergeant, and given real weapons to train with. One of the boys looks positively terrified of his rifle, but Anwen puts hers against her shoulder as they run drills, with Colonel Mace hovering at a distance and typing notes on an iPad. The instructor seems to have a sneering demeanour towards Anwen and her fellow female potential recruit – who she quickly learns is called Khan – but it dissipates once he sees them run; by the time they’ve beaten the boys at the bleep test, he’s looking at them with respect, and Mace seems pleased.
Only when Anwen is absolutely sure her legs are about to give way are they finally given any reprieve, and the sergeant marches them over to a makeshift firing range, where he tells them to lay down on their stomachs and attempt to hit a cardboard target at the far end. Anwen can tell from his redoubled sneer that he doesn’t expect her to be able to shoot straight, much less hit anything, and something in her sparks at the implication; instead of following instructions, she shoulders the rifle, removes the safety and fires ten rounds through the centre of the target, rapid-fire. As he blinks at her, she fires another ten through the next target over, then another ten through the one beside that, and then unclips the empty magazine, sits on the ground, and deconstructs the rifle.
“Right,” he says uncertainly, visibly disconcerted as she starts to reassemble it. “Well. That’s not what you were ordered to do.”
Anwen feels a faint stab of panic, then suppresses it; she was told to hit the target, wasn’t she? Not to try and hit her own; not to only hit her own. They’d wanted to test her, and she’s shown them what she can do. As she gets to her feet again, the reconstructed rifle back against her shoulder, she’s surprised by Colonel Mace’s approach; his expression is unreadable, and she has a fleeting suspicion he may be about to ask her to leave. Had she been too disobedient? She’s so accustomed to the Torchwood way of doing things; perhaps she ought to have considered that she should play the game and follow orders. That’s the UNIT way of doing things, after all, and something she’ll have to get used to… assuming they don’t ask her to leave.
“That was very impressive,” Mace says, and then reaches into his jacket and hands her a pistol from a shoulder holster. “How about this?”
Anwen takes it, and weighs it in her hand. “Glock 17. Modified grip. Missing one round from the magazine.”
Without waiting to be told, she turns and fires the remains of the clip into the fourth target.
“Very, very impressive,” Mace says, now beaming. “We haven’t seen marksmanship like that since…”
“My sister,” Khan mutters sourly under her breath, and Anwen frowns.
“I think we’re done here,” Mace tells the sergeant, and leads Anwen a short distance away from the others. “Have a shower and change back, Williams. We’ll be taking you up to the next test shortly.”
The aptitude test is, even by Anwen’s standards, remarkably easy. She isn’t sure entirely what she’d been expecting, but being locked in an office and told to make her own way out hadn’t been it; an escape room seems laughable, almost pleasant. Even as there’s a soft hissing and soft, cloudy vapour starts to fill the room, she doesn’t let that faze her; she tries the door, finds it unlocked, and steps out into a second office, which is full of blinking computers, all of which are telling her that a nuclear meltdown is due any second. She’s reminded, fleetingly, of the uncle she never got to meet, and then she sits down at a terminal and types in several lines of code, before unhooking her lanyard, removing the concealed chip, and shoving it into a USB port. (Really, she wonders to herself. USB ports? Is this the most cutting-edge that the government can offer?)
It's easy enough from there to find what she’s looking for, and even once the supposed nuclear meltdown is averted, she continues typing, engrossed in what she’s doing.
“Miss Williams?” Mace says from behind her. “The task is complete.”
“Is it?” she says airily, pressing enter, and the lights all turn off as one. Before he can protest, she leans back in her seat and presses Ctrl A, grinning as they turn back on. “Fixed the lights. There was some dodgy coding in the automation system. Should be much better now. Also, the tracker in the lanyard’s not up to much. Might want to think about just a regular keycard – much less intrusive, and can record the same kind of data.”
He blinks at her for several seconds, then types something into his iPad; a moment later, it makes a soft sound, and he looks back up at her.
“Very well,” he says with trepidation. “We’ll proceed to the final part of the day, I think.”
“Which is?”
“An interview.”
Anwen looks around the office she’s found herself in. It’s bright and airy; two glass walls reveal vistas across London, while another has a bank of screens, all of which are showing analytics from various feeds – meteorological information, data on footfall that seems to stem from TfL, news websites, and a fluctuating number that Anwen recognises with a small thrill of apprehension. As she leans forward in her swivel chair, paying closer attention to it, a door opens behind her and a woman speaks.
“Yes, that’s our Rift Monitor. But you’ll know all about that, of course.”
Anwen turns to the speaker and finds a blonde-bobbed woman in a sharp trouser suit, who looks distinctly amused to see her.
“Anwen Williams, I presume,” Kate Stewart grins. “I haven’t seen you since you were… oh, about so high,” she holds a palm out just below hip height.
“Kate,” Anwen blurts, surprised and afraid to find herself face to face with the boss; she dimly recalls a barbecue, and the smell of honeysuckle, and a Labrador. She’d been hoping to fly under Kate’s radar for a little longer; this is, she supposes, the price she’ll have to pay for showing off. “I mean…”
“Kate is fine,” she says smoothly. “I really should’ve twigged much sooner, but your mother knew what she was doing with that name. You lied on your application, of course; that’ll count against you, but the fitness and weapons scores are exceptional, and the aptitude test was astonishing… plus you did fix the lights. Does your mother know you’re here?”
“No,” Anwen admits.
“Yes, I didn’t think so,” Kate heads over to her desk and takes a seat, steepling her fingers and surveying Anwen over them with a sly smile. “Or I wouldn’t still be alive.”
Anwen isn’t sure how to respond to that, so she ignores it and asks: “Why are you monitoring our Rift?”
“It would be remiss of us not to. Jack knows about it; he helped us build the program, in fact.”
“He… did?”
“Of course. We have monthly briefings. He never mentioned his niece would be applying to join us, though. Unless he doesn’t know…” Kate affixes her with a piercing look. “I’m starting to wonder if you’ve lied to everyone to be here.”
“I want to join.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to make a difference.”
“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Kate leans back in her chair and surveys Anwen with an appraising stare that makes her want to squirm. “Do you know what I think? You want to join the family firm, as it were. And I think they’ve said no, so this is a power play. Am I close?”
Anwen blinks hard, disconcerted that Kate has understood her so well. “Maybe.”
“So yes.”
“Maybe,” she repeats stubbornly.
“You’re so your mother’s daughter,” Kate says, but with fondness. “I’m not angry at you. I was allowed to join UNIT only because I threatened to apply to Torchwood if my father refused. You’re not alone in this, Anwen; believe me, I understand.”
“I want to be like them.”
“Your parents? Jack and Ianto?”
“Yes.”
“That’s admirable. I’m not going to tell you that it comes with dangers, because I think you know about those first-hand, don’t you? We heard about the incidents with John Hart. We were – if I’m honest, Anwen – very interested in you then; how you handled the situations. There was some debate about whether or not we should approach you and see if you were interested in joining us, but the general consensus was that your loyalty lay with our friends over in Torchwood and that you wouldn’t be swayed. When your application came in, I did have my suspicions, but I wanted to see what you’d do if we brought you in. Thus far, I’m impressed.”
“Thank you.”
“You know, don’t you, that if I offer you a job, you’ll be starting at the bottom? There’ll be no special treatment.”
“Yes.”
“And that you’ll have to attend college, for at least three days a week?”
“But-”
“Please. Your mother is already going to want my head on a plate, so the last I can do is safeguard your education should you ever decide that you want…” Kate dithers for a moment. “Well, a normal job.”
“I don’t want a normal job.”
Kate stares at her in silence for several seconds; in that moment, she looks far older than she really is, and there’s the same sadness and guilt and grief in her eyes that Anwen has seen in her parents’, and Jack’s, and Ianto’s; the same weight of continuing to live while those around you die.
“Are you sure about this?” Kate asks eventually, breaking the silence. “If you are, you’ll have to be the one to tell your parents. We’re not doing that for you.”
“I’m sure.”
There’s another beat of silence, then Kate holds out a hand; Anwen shakes it without hesitation.
“Welcome to UNIT.”
Breaking the news to her parents is, Anwen and Kate decide, perhaps the sort of thing to be done from a safe, government-patrolled distance. Kate offers her a room in a UNIT safe house usually reserved for global crises, and Anwen makes the call from the phone there, a soldier on the door outside.
“Hello?” her dad says when he answers, doing his best phone voice.
“Hi Dad, it’s me. Can you get Mum, please?”
“What’s happened?” he blurts, panic filling his tone at once. “Are you alright? Where are you? What’s going on?”
“I’m fine. I just need-”
“Gwen!” he bellows, so loudly that Anwen has to hold the phone out at arm’s length. “Gwen, something’s happened to Anwen!”
“Nothing’s-”
“Anwen?” her mother shouts, and she can tell that the phone has been snatched from her dad. “Where the hell are you? We checked with the university and you’re not there.”
“No, I’m not.”
“So where are you?!”
“In a UNIT safehouse.”
There’s a brief pause, and then her dad asks with bafflement: “Why are you in a UNIT safehouse?”
“Erm,” this had seemed so easy to say when it was just an idea; almost funny. Now, faced with a very real backlash, it’s harder to know how to phrase it, or what angle to take, and so she blurts the words out without further hesitation. “I’ve joined UNIT.”
There’s another, longer silence; Anwen wonders for a minute if the line has cut out.
“Mum?” she asks nervously. “Dad?”
“You’ve done what?” her mum says in a low, dangerous voice, and Anwen is suddenly acutely grateful that she’s 150 miles away, in a secret location, with a guard and a panic button and reinforced windows.
“I’ve joined UNIT.”
“You’ve bloody… what?”
“There was an interview today and I… I passed. I’ve joined.”
“I’m going to fucking kill Kate Stewart,” her mother snaps, and there’s a rattling noise that suggests that the phone has been dropped or thrown, before her dad speaks again.
“Anwen…”
“Dad.”
“Why?”
“I want to be like you.”
“But…”
“Dad, don’t.”
“Anwen…”
“I’ll be home in a few days. Once she’s calmed down a bit.”
“Anwen…”
“I love you.”
The safehouse is, Anwen quickly discovers, not exactly equipped for comfort or fun. There’s slow WiFi, the heating doesn’t work, and the oven is temperamental at best, and so she spends her days filling in more forms and measuring herself for her new uniform, emailing her school for course transcripts and looking at the websites of colleges in London, and reading the slightly mildewed war novels she finds on a shelf.
She can’t help but feel guilty about her parents; she hasn’t heard from them since that disastrous phone call, which is unsurprising given the triple-encrypted phone line, but Kate passes on a message to say that she’s being subjected to almost-hourly emails and calls demanding that her contract be terminated before it can even begin. Part of her begins to wonder if she’s made a mistake, and Anwen yearns to home as she sits at the tiny kitchen table in the evenings, picking at plain pasta with cheese on top and staring sadly at the empty chair opposite her. She wants to go home, but that involves facing her mum’s anger and her dad’s disappointment, and she isn’t ready to do that. Instead, she sits and reads under an unfamiliar, scratchy blanket and tries not to think about whether UNIT barracks will be nicer or worse than this.
On day three, there’s a buzzing on the intercom, which is surprising enough, and she checks the security cameras and finds Ianto hovering awkwardly on the doorstep, the unconscious form of her security detail partially visible on the floor behind him. Undoing the multitude of locks and flinging the door open, she affixes him with a long look which he returns with a degree of coldness and professionalism that she isn’t used to being on the receiving end of.
“Get in the car,” he says, in the kind of tone that suggests she shouldn’t argue, so she does anyway.
“No.”
“You can get in the car yourself, or I can make you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
There’s a flash of something like pain in his eyes, and then something jabs her neck hard. She has time to clasp one hand to her jugular before her legs start to give way and she slumps sideways.
“Ianto…” she mumbles, as he catches her and lowers her carefully to the ground. “Why…”
Opening her eyes again takes an insurmountable amount of effort.
“Wh…” she manages, opening them and then screwing them shut again as they’re assailed by brightness; it takes Anwen several minutes to realise she’s in a car, and that the thing digging into her chest is a seatbelt. “Where am I?”
“Approaching the Severn Bridge,” Ianto says grimly from the front seat. “Nearly home. The doors are deadbolted, by the way, so don’t think about trying to jump out.”
“What… what did you do?”
“Mild sedative. Had to. Wasn’t sure you’d comply.”
“You drugged me?”
“Had to,” he says again, but despite the levelness of his voice she can tell that he regrets it, and he adds more gently: “Sorry.”
“Where are we going?”
“Your parents want to have a word.”
“Couldn’t they have phoned?”
“Probably not.”
“Are you angry at me?”
“Yes,” he admits, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror. “Alright? We all are.”
“But…”
“I don’t want to hear it, Anwen. I’m not the one you need to justify this to.”
“You ran away to London.”
“I had a shitty home life and no prospects in Wales. You have two parents, two uncles and an extended family who all love you unconditionally and want nothing more than for you be safe and happy. What’s your excuse?”
“I want to be like you.”
“Stop saying that!” he shouts, so suddenly and so loudly that Anwen jumps, her head smacking against the back of her seat. “You have no idea! You have no idea at all of the lengths we have gone through to keep you away from this – from all of this! D’you think… what, do you think it’s a game? None of this is a bloody game, Anwen! People! Die! There’s two people who should be helping raise you, and where are they? In the ground. You should have a maternal grandfather, but your mum had to fucking cremate him alive. You have absolutely no idea what you’re dealing with, do you? What it’s done to your mother, to your dad, to me, to Jack?”
“I…”
“I’ve killed people to keep you safe, Anwen,” he tells her, and she swallows thickly; no one has ever said that to her before. “I’ve killed people to keep you safe, and you’re going to join UNIT and…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just don’t, alright?” he snaps, as they reach the bridge. “Don’t.”
They remain in stony silence until they get to the Bay; the SUV comes to a halt beside the Norwegian Church, and Anwen catches sight of her mother perched on a nearby bench. She’s still trying to process her uncle’s outburst of anger; she’s never heard him like that before, and the reality of the fact that her loved ones have killed people is difficult to reconcile with the versions of themselves that they are with her.
“Go on,” Ianto says quietly, unlocking the doors, and Anwen slips out of the car and approaches with trepidation. Her mum doesn’t react as she takes a seat beside her; instead, her eyes remain fixed on the water, and Anwen follows her lead, looking out at the vessels bobbing about in the marina, the sky overcast. Her legs still feel wobbly and her head is beginning to pound; adrenaline floods her system, despite her mother’s calm demeanour, and she wonders if she ought to speak first.
“Before you were born, Anwen,” her mum says at last, before she can find the right words. “I resolved that I’d never let anyone or anything harm you. Not the Rift, not Torchwood, not idiots on the playground. Then you were born and your dad and I – and everyone else – did everything we could to keep you safe, and then Miracle Day happened and…”
To Anwen’s surprise and horror, her mum starts to cry; enormous, shoulder-shaking sobs.
“Awful things happened, Anwen. We had to do awful things. But the worst thing they did to me was take you out of my arms and drag me away from you, because I didn’t know what they were going to do to you. I didn’t know if they’d harm you to get me to comply. I resolved then that I’d kill anyone who ever touched you ever again. And I did it, you know. I killed people to keep you safe. To build a safer world for you. We all did,” her mum sniffs hard. “And now you want to put yourself out into the world and do what I did? I can’t keep you safe when you’re with them, Anwen.”
“You don’t nee-”
“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t need. You’re not a mother; you don’t understand the promises a mother makes. I will keep you safe, alright? For as long as I have breath in my body, I will keep you safe.”
“Mum…”
“Your father told me what you told him, about wanting to join us. I knew that was coming; it was never going to be a surprise, was it? And I know he told you no. So I suppose all of this… going off to London, Kate, UNIT… I suppose that’s all your way of ‘making us see sense’?”
“Yes,” Anwen confesses reluctantly.
“Well,” her mother looks at her then, and their eyes lock; Anwen’s wide and dry, and her mother’s steely and wet. “You’ve got what you wanted. I’ve spoken to Kate; you’ll do basic training with them, finish your A-Levels, and then we’ll look at inducting you into the team.”
“Tha-”
“Don’t thank me, Anwen Williams; don’t even dare think about thanking me. You’ve manipulated and lied to us to get what you want. You’ve gone against everything I tried to instil in you. So I hope you know that the organisation that you’re going to join? That’s what it does to you. It makes you hurt the people you love. It makes you betray them. It forces you to make choices you never thought you’d have to make. And it’s already corrupted you. So don’t you dare thank me, as I have to watch them make you into a killing machine. Don’t you dare.”
Before Anwen can say another word, her mum gets to her feet and strides away; a moment later, Ianto’s hand lands on her shoulder.
“I think we should get you home,” he says quietly.
Anwen closes her eyes against the tears that burn there, and wonders what she’s done.