Adrift ( TV story ) Adrift was the eleventh episode in the second series of " Torchwood " . It was an unusually Gwen - heavy plot that also featured a larger - than - normal role for PC Andy Davidson . For contemporary audiences , it would also have been notable for its use of Ruth Jones , a then - prominent Welsh actor . Synopsis . When a local teenager disappears , Gwen is drawn into an investigation that reveals a darker side of Torchwood . Hundreds of people have disappeared without a trace , but Jack is obstructing attempts to find them . The answer seems to lie in the rift — literally — and as Gwen follows the trail , she makes a shocking discovery . Plot . Jonah Bevan is walking home across the Cardiff Bay Barrage when a bright light appears . Six seconds later he is gone . Seven months later , at the instigation of PC Andy Davidson , Gwen is investigating the disappearance of Jonah . Her research reveals there are more cases resembling Jonah ' s disappearance . Toshiko discovers that these disappearances happened during a negative spike of rift activity , which were previously discarded as aftershock . Gwen then compiles a list of all missing persons and informs Jack . However , Jack tells Gwen that nothing can be done and orders her to stop the investigation , which she refuses to do . The investigation slowly turns into an obsession and takes a toll on the relationship between Gwen and Rhys . Returning to the Hub , Gwen interrupts Jack and Ianto during a sexual encounter and , after apologising , tells Jack that she wants to continue the investigation . Jack sternly refuses , but Ianto secretly gives Gwen a GPS device with coordinates to a hidden location , leading Gwen to a facility on Flat Holm . It harbours 17 of the missing people that the rift took and subsequently brought back , including Jonah , the boy she has been looking for . However , he has aged 40 years and is very deformed . Gwen also finds Jack there , and she demands access to Jonah . Jonah tells how he was stuck on a " burning planet " and how he was taken into a building that was actually a rescue craft , from which he witnessed the burning of a solar system . Afterwards , Jack reveals that he set up the facility when he first took command of Torchwood , in order to care for the victims of the rift , who had previously been locked away in the vaults . Gwen brings Nikki , Jonah ' s mother , in to see him under the supervision of a facility staff member . At first she is horrified , believing it to be a cruel joke , but Jonah starts telling her things that only he would know . Nikki calms and they hug for a moment , but when Jonah tells the staff member with growing distress that he can feel " it " starting up , she urgently tells Nikki to get away from him . She resists and says that she can take care of him . However Jonah starts screaming , a scream so horrible that everyone flees . Gwen reveals that the scream lasts for 20 hours every day because he looked into the heart of a Dark star , which drove him insane . A week later , Gwen goes to see Nikki , who implores her not to show the island to anyone else . She states that it would have been better for her to have remembered her son as he was , rather than to know of his true fate . Gwen takes down her notes over the missing . Nikki packs up Jonah ' s room and , knowing he can never return home , breaks down into sobs . At home that night , Gwen prepares a romantic candle - lit dinner for Rhys , who , realising that she is shouldering a massive heartbreak , instead lets her cry into his chest . Rhys comforts his wife and lets her confide her sorrowful experience with him . Story notes . Production errors . " to be added "