Almost Perfect by James Goss Page B

traffic warden shook his head.
    Jack looked back, placatingly, and started fishing around in his pockets. ‘Honestly, we save this city from alien disaster several times a year, and they still make us adhere to parking regulations. Do you know who really developed the internal combustion engine? Torchwood did. And this is the thanks we get. Well, that and one-way systems – the product of a tiny mind.’ Jack pouted, looking for all the world like a spoiled child. It was at moments like this, those rare moments when little things didn’t go Jack’s way, that Gwen saw the true hero. A man not frightened by vast evil, corrupt states or lost souls, but baffled by pettiness, bureaucracy and muddling mediocrity. Why he had sentenced himself to Wales, she would never really understand.
    They were parked outside Rhys’s work.
    That morning, Gwen had stormed into Torchwood, magnificently worried.
    ‘My husband’s too pretty!’ she’d yelled. ‘You’ve got to do something, Jack!’ She caught the look in his eye. ‘Don’t you go sassing me, Harkness. I am deadly serious.’
    ‘Sass?’ tutted Jack in mock affront. ‘I don’t do sass, do I? I prefer to think of it as kittenish charm. What do you think, Ianto?’
    ‘Definitely kittenish,’ said Ianto.
    ‘Sod the kittens,’ Gwen was in full flow. ‘Rhys woke up bloody gorgeous this morning, and I want to find the woman who’s done that to him.’
    As she spoke, she was flinging photos from her phone up onto the Hub’s screens, until pictures of Rhys bobbed across the wall. Some were of their wedding, two were before and after shots of the back of his head, and one was of him this morning, wearing only a towel and waving sheepishly at the camera.
    ‘Look at Rhys!’ Gwen shrieked. ‘Overnight he’s gained an extra two inches!’
    Jack carefully didn’t say anything. Ianto examined the intricate walnut inlay of the table surface.
    Gwen pressed on. ‘It’s not natural. It’s wrong, that’s what it is. He goes on a date with a supermodel. He wakes up the next day all Abercrumpet. Shortly after Ianto wakes up bloody gorgeous. Buzzz! I rather do think there just may be a link.’
    She suddenly knew she had Jack’s full attention. Finally.
    ‘Emma Webster. This woman is speed-dating, Jack. She is combing through Cardiff’s singletons – those she likes get a free makeover, those she doesn’t end up dead. Whatever she’s using, whatever her power, it’s not been around more than a week. She’s got her hands on some alien thing and… and… she’s using it to make her ideal man.’
    ‘Rhys?’ said Ianto and Jack.
    They looked again at the picture of the jovial, weakly smiling bloke drifting across the walls of their boardroom.

GWEN IS THE GREEN-EYED
MONSTER
    ‘Oh, hi, Gwen,’ said Large Mandy from the office, laughing her normal large laugh. ‘Are you here for Rhys? He’s just on the phone. Would you like a doughnut?’
    Gwen glanced at the plate full of pastries. Mandy was obviously Rhys’s enabler, keeping him fuelled on whatever crap she could lay her hands on. Ah well. She wondered how Mandy had taken Rhys’s sudden transformation. And then she found out.
    ‘I must say, Gwen, love, he’s looking knockout today. The girls from upstairs have been popping down to have a peek. He’s quite something – I’ll say this, married life suits him. Not like my Ted. Oh, I tell you, you wouldn’t believe the size of him these days. I always tells people I work in haulage and they looks at Ted and they laughs. It’s our little joke, see.’ Mandy laughed. ‘I’m glad we lives in a bungalow these days, or lord alone knows how I’d get him up and down the stairs.’
    ‘Right,’ said Gwen. This was about all she could ever think to say to Mandy.
    Rhys popped his head round the door. ‘Gwen? I thought it was you.’
    He looked really happy to see her. Actually, he looked bloody stunning. It was ages since she’d seen him look this happy.
    ‘Come