AN: This is a Part 3 of a trilogy. Part 1 is the story Hidden Behind Our Appearances and Part 2 is Too Long A Sacrifice. You need to read those first or this will make no sense.

I wanted to let people know that I won't be able to update as frequently as I did for Parts 1 and 2. Real life has intervened. I'm no longer a bored housewife, a month ago I started a new (part time) job involving maths. As I left work 8 years ago, I've had to relearn all my maths, which has taken up most of my time over the last month. Things are getting easier now though and I hope to have more time for writing soon.

Warnings: Mentions of previous violence and rape.

Part 3 of Trilogy: A New Dawn

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.
Elbert Hubbard

Chapter 1

The UNIT soldier caught up with Owen in a bar. He had only just got there, so he was still sober. The last thing Owen expected, or indeed wanted, for his planned evening, was for a burly man, dressed in cords and a T-shirt with Nirvana emblazoned on it, to slide into the booth next to him. His haircut marked him as military. Wrong sex, wrong build, wrong everything.

Owen was just about to challenge the man, and demand to know what the hell he was doing, when he said in a low voice, "Don't make a scene, I'm from UNIT."

"Then what the hell are you doing following me here?" demanded Owen. "If it's UNIT business, go through proper channels and contact me at the Hub when I'm working."

The man looked around shiftily, as if checking for unwanted observers. "I'm UNIT, but this is not official business. They'd throw the book at me if they knew I was contacting you. So promise me that you will not let on where you got the information I'm going to give you."

Although Owen was exasperated, he could see that the man thought this was important. He settled back into his seat and said "OK, fine, tell me what you've got."

The man looked around the bar once more, then leaned forward and spoke quietly, but urgently. "It's about the Valiant and your ex-boss Captain Harkness."

Memories of the months he had spent on the Valiant as a prisoner of the crazed Timelord, flashed across Owen's mind. His hatred of Jack Harkness bubbled up from where he had suppressed it, still fresh after more than 3 years.

"That traitorous scum! He's in a UNIT prison, just like he deserves," snarled Owen. "What could you possibly have to tell me about him, that I would give a damn about."

The soldier winced. "When the Valiant was landed for a refit just over a year ago, they did a complete refurbishment, not just a repair like they did after the Saxon affair. They found a room off the main bedroom suite, which nobody knew existed. It was, …, well, you'll see later. But anyhow, in a storage area, hidden under a false floor of the bedroom, were a couple of hundred DVD recordings that Saxon had made of what went on in that room. The UNIT top brass have suppressed what was on them, but I saw some of it." He hesitated, then announced emphatically, "It's not right what happened to Captain Harkness, he didn't deserve what happened to him after Saxon was defeated. But they'll never admit it."

Owen was unconvinced. "If you really believe that, why did you wait a year before coming here?"

"It's not easy to steal evidence from UNIT," explained the soldier, defensively. "I had to wait until they'd finished using it, and had locked it away for long term storage. And, since he'd escaped, it wasn't as urgent. You're lucky it even exists. If it had been on a computer or video tapes it would have been destroyed by the EMP on the Valiant. DVDs weren't affected."

"They never recaptured him then?" queried Owen. "I did wonder if they would bother to tell us if they did."

"No, he got away about 18 months ago, and they never caught him," the soldier confirmed. He pushed a key towards Owen. "It's for a lockup near the docks. The address is on it. I stole the DVDs and stashed them there." Draining his pint, the soldier got up to leave. "If you want justice for him, get the facts out in the open."

"Wait," demanded Owen, "why are you doing this?"

"When I'd just joined UNIT, we were attacked by some aliens. Several of my mates died. Then Harkness showed up and got them to go after him. I never found out what happened, but he saved my life. I can't just stand by and let him be treated like this, knowing what I do now."

"Did you help him escape?" asked Owen suspiciously.

"No," the soldier answered, with something akin to shame, "he did that all on his own. Back then I believed he was guilty like they said. I helped him a little, making sure he got food and water in him, but I should have done more."

The soldier left then, leaving Owen contemplating the key.

b_b_b_b_b_b

Late the following morning, Owen arrived at the Hub. He had the key with him. Tosh, Gwen and Ianto were already there, and made disparaging comments about his late arrival. The newest recruits, Mark and Joanne, were also already hard at work, but kept their comments to themselves.

"Heavy night was it?" Ianto asked, as he placed a cup of coffee next to Owen in the briefing room.

"Not exactly," Owen replied. "I was contacted by someone from UNIT. They claimed that Jack is innocent and UNIT is covering it up. I've been thinking about it all night."

Ianto scowled. "Well we know that's not true don't we?"

"They claimed to have the evidence stashed in a lockup, and they gave me the key."

Ianto was nonplussed. "I suppose they must believe it then. But it doesn't make it true."

"They seemed to be totally convinced," said Owen. "I think we should check it out. Let's get Tosh and Gwen in here and we can discuss it."

"What about Joanne and Mark, do you want them as well ?" queried Ianto.

"No, just Tosh and Gwen, it doesn't concern the others."

b_b_b_b_b

Ianto fetched Tosh and Gwen. The four of them sat around the table in the briefing room. As Owen explained about the UNIT soldier and the evidence he had hidden away, Tosh's and Gwen's reactions couldn't have been more different. Gwen had the same dubious reaction that Ianto and Owen had both shown. But Tosh was excited and hopeful. She was also outraged that Owen had waited all night before doing anything about it.

"What are we waiting for," she cried. "We should go there now and get it. Why did you leave it so long to tell us?"

"I wasn't sure what to do about the information, and anyway, there's no urgent hurry because Jack was never recaptured after his escape."

Owen watched their reactions. Ianto and Gwen both looked annoyed. Tosh looked guilty.

"Tosh?" he asked, as she stared down at the desk. "Is there something you want to tell us?"

Tosh took a deep breath and then admitted. "I knew Jack was still free. I talked to him, here in Cardiff, several months ago."

Gwen looked at her with disbelief. "Why the hell didn't you tell us?"

"How could I?" Tosh retorted. "If any of you had found out, you'd have had UNIT down here straight away."

"Damn right we would," Owen grumbled. "What was he doing here anyway?"

"He just wanted to see if we were all OK," Tosh explained.

"And why didn't you call UNIT?" Gwen asked accusingly.

"I would never do that. You don't know what they're like."

"And you do, I suppose?" snapped Gwen.

Gwen's remarks opened the floodgates, letting out the secret that Tosh had kept from all of them for years. "Yes, I do," Tosh announced. "They had me locked up without trial for a year before Jack rescued me. And they don't treat prisoners well. They keep you locked in a concrete cell with nothing, barely even any light. And that's if you're not on their target list. I would not hand anyone over to them!"

The others were stunned by this revelation. The idea that Tosh had done anything to warrant being locked up by UNIT was incomprehensible to them. A barrage of questions issued from Gwen and Ianto and, despite his own desire to question Tosh, Owen could see that the matter at hand was about to be derailed. He intervened before things escalated.

"Well that's a discussion for another day. What we need to decide now is if we go to retrieve this so called evidence."

"Of course we do," cried Tosh. "If it really could clear Jack, how could we not? You should have seen him, he looked so sad."

"My heart bleeds," said Gwen, sarcastically.

"I agree with Tosh," said Ianto. "Although I doubt that it will exonerate Jack, we still need to check."

"It could be a trick," Owen pointed out.

"Why would UNIT want to trick us, we're all on the same side?" argued Gwen.

Tosh snorted.

"Yes," agreed Owen, "but I only have the guy's word for it that he was from UNIT. He could be anyone. But I do think we should follow it up, carefully."

b_b_b_b_b

That afternoon, the four of them set off for the lockup. They treated it as a potentially dangerous mission, and approached cautiously, scanning for anything out of the ordinary.

With guns drawn, Gwen and Tosh covered Owen as he unlocked the padlock. Ianto and Owen then burst in, sweeping the garage with their guns. There was no one there. Ianto and Owen holstered their guns. Tosh and Gwen kept their guns at the ready, remaining just outside the door.

Somewhat anticlimactically, the only things in the lockup were two medium sized cardboard boxes. Owen stood back as Ianto cautiously approached them. He used a pen to poke the lid of one box open. Inside was nothing more threatening than a stack of DVDs. The other box was the same.

"Well, it's just as the UNIT guy said," commented Owen. "DVDs, supposedly from the Valiant. We'd better get them back to the Hub."

They arrived back at the Hub and unloaded the boxes from the SUV, taking them to the briefing room where there was a DVD player. Tosh looked through the boxes. "There's a couple of hundred of them, and they are all dated. It seems like there is one for practically every day that we were on the Valiant."

"Well, it would take weeks to get through all these, even on fast forward," Ianto pointed out. "But we might as well have a quick look now," he suggested. "Just to see what we are dealing with."

"Yeah," agreed Owen. "We could all do with a coffee anyhow." When Ianto had sorted the coffees the four of them sat down to watch one of the DVDs.

"Let's start with the first one," Tosh suggested, and slotted it into the machine.