I.
Her father had never been terribly interested in Toshiko. He had been a man completely married to his work and found he had little attention left to spare for his only daughter. When Tosh's mother left him and ran off with the gardener (a cliché she hadn't been able to stand at the time) he found himself left with a seven year old girl and no idea what to do with her.
He tried to be a good father for all of two weeks before shipping her off to England to stay with his father. His reasoning was that she would have a better life in England with more extended family to surround her but even as a young girl Toshiko was perceptive.
When she reached England she quickly settled into life though there were many obstacles in the way, but she tackled them all with a determination that she did not lose in later life.
Letters from her father were at first, if not frequent, then regular but soon even they petered out. It was not as bad as it could have been; though she lived with her grandfather her mother had moved to England shortly after her and was never far. Tosh found herself happier than she had ever been in Japan.
It turned out the best thing her father ever did for was send her away.
II.
Tosh's grandfather was so very different than her father; at first she had trouble believing that they were actually related. Whereas her father was distant and work driven, her grandfather was family orientated and loud.
When she had first arrived in England she had been quiet and shy; mostly the product of having to live with a relative she had only met a handful of times but by the end of the day her grandfather had managed to elicit a few small smiles and a handful of short sentences. It wasn't much but it was the more than her father had ever tried to get from her.
Her grandfather was also the person who taught her English. Before she left Japan it had been broken and sporadic at best but with the patience and calm manner of her grandfather soon she was able to converse normally with her classmates and relatives in either language.
Perhaps the best thing her grandfather did for her was care.
III.
Her professor at university was a little old man, his frame stooped with age but with a deceptively sharp mind hidden in a wilting body. At first he, like all of the other people around her, paid little attention to Toshiko. She was a rather quiet girl, with few friends who sat at the back of all lectures she went to. If it weren't for the paper she had handed in at the end of the term he probably would have continued to ignore her.
As it was, it was impossible to ignore such brilliance. Her paper challenged ideas that he had taken for granted and was impossibly inspired; more so than it should have been for a first year student.
This wasn't something he could let pass him by. The next time he saw Toshiko he called her into his office. At first she looked nervous as she stood there wringing her hands and pulling on the sleeves of her overlarge jumper.
When he had first told her what he thought of her work she was shocked. He couldn't believe it. The poor girl had no concept of her own intelligence.
It was after that revelation that he took the young woman under his wing, as it were. He became a mentor to her and a constant reminder of just how far she could go in life.
He was important to Tosh in a way he couldn't know. He was the one person who always believed not only in what she was, but what she could be.
IV.
It was no surprise that Jack was important. She doubted that anyone who met Jack could call him unimportant.
She had known that he would be a central figure in her life the day he had freed her from that godforsaken UNIT cell but she had never dreamed that he would become anything more than a boss.
As time went by she slowly realised that Jack was possibly the most sturdy and reliable person she had ever met. He might not have remembered every meeting or conference call he had to make with either the government or UNIT but she had not forgotten what he had said when they had been trapped in 1941. He had promised that he would look after her and there was no doubt in her mind that he had meant every word. She had seen it in his eyes that there was a very real possibility that they would have stayed in that time period and yet still he had promised to never leave her. For a man that wouldn't even admit to being apart of a couple with Ianto that was a hell of a commitment.
It was nice to have man such as Jack to rely on, thought Tosh, he had a way of making people feel safe. Even if that's exactly what they weren't around him.
V.
Sad though it was Tosh could see that perhaps the most important man in her life was Owen.
In a way she wished that he wasn't; she didn't even try to kid herself that she was the most important woman in his life. It would be so much easier if she didn't love him; she could get on with her life and he could go on with his never knowing that she had once cared.
But she did.
She had tried not to. Objectively, it should have been easy; the man was annoying, rude and constantly unpleasant. It should have been the easiest thing to do in the world, except it wasn't.
There were moments where his act would drop slightly and she could see that he wasn't completely unpleasant. Sweet moments like when he remembered her birthday and left her present on her desk; he never said anything about it but he almost smiled when he saw her wearing the earrings. Or in another instance Tosh had frozen when they went out weevil hunting. She had meant to follow the beast through the tunnels of the abandoned sewer but she couldn't. A cold fear crept through her and froze her to the spot. Later she had realised that it was text book claustrophobia but at the time all she knew was that this was what a panic attack must feel like. By the time Owen found her she was weak, pale and shaking. He immediately took over and doctored her, as it was his place to. But most importantly he never mentioned it to anyone else. He only questioned what had caused it and for the first time Tosh found herself voluntarily describing the tiny cell she had lived in for what felt like in an eternity under UNIT's care.
He never mentioned it again but did everything in his power to make sure she was never put in such a position again.
It was that man that Tosh fell in love with, the one that Owen tried so desperately to hide.
Tosh was glad to have a man like Owen in her life and it felt like life's last gift to her that she would not have to live long without him. In fact, as she spoke her last to him over the line as he stood trapped and she lay bleeding she was glad that at least she had spoken to him one last time.
There had been many important men in the life of Toshiko Sato but as she faded from this life she thought of only one.
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A/N- Hope you liked it and if you did (or didn't) please review! Thanks for reading- VE