Toshiko Sato leaned back in her chair and sighed. Looking away from the monitors in front of her she peered around her computer and glanced around the hub. She could see Ianto working diligently over a piece of alien tech over the other side of the room and although she couldn't see him she could hear Owen clattering around in the medical bay. She smiled faintly at the sound of a sudden crash followed swiftly by a loud curse from Owen, but the smile quickly faded from her face as she looked around the hub once more.

There was something just slightly … off about the atmosphere. It looked normal to the eye but it was like everyone was holding their breath, as if one wrong word would shatter the peace.

It was Jack.

Both him and Tosh had returned from their brief stint in 1941 just two days before and ever since then he had been more energetic and lively than usual, as though warding off concerns and questions before they could be asked.

Tosh was not the most intuitive person when it came to dealing with people but she knew what was wrong, whilst the others put it down to Jack just being Jack, she knew that he was more hurt and upset than he let show and that this was his way of dealing with it.

She had it figured out from when she made a toast to Captain Jack Harkness in Jacks' office but it went deeper than that.

The next day she had walked into the hub and been hurried into a conference call with the liaison manager at UNIT, the first thing the man on the screen had done was to call out and ask " Am I speaking to Captain Jack Harkness?" It happened so quickly that if Tosh hadn't already have known about the turmoil Jack was in she would have missed it, she would've missed the muscles around his mouth tighten and his eyebrows pull down slightly. But most of all she would have missed the pain that flickered through his eyes.

"Why, were you hoping for someone else?" came Jacks easy reply, Owen rolled his eyes at this and a small smile graced Gwen's face. It was then that Tosh realised why Jack had looked so pained not a moment before, Captain Jack Harkness the UNIT commander had said, Harkness Tosh thought and then she realised. Jack couldn't bear to hear his own name without having to relive the memory of having left a good man to walk unknowingly to his death and then taking his name.

Pulling herself back to the present she angled her chair slightly to see into Jacks' office. He was sitting at his desk with his head tipped back, but on his face was a expression which made Tosh remember that she was looking at a man who had lived for so many years, so many centuries. It scared her slightly to see Jack looking so vulnerable and just so tired.

However just as Tosh had decided to go and try to talk to Jack, because it pained her to see Jack looking so lost, Gwen bounded across the Hub and let herself into Jacks office and said something to him, smiling the whole time. It tugged on Tosh's heartstrings as she saw Jack hastily rearrange his features into unconvincing imitation of his usual light hearted smile as he made some jovial comment that made Gwen laugh as she left his office. Looking back at Jack she saw his face sag and his shoulder slump for a split second before he seemed to pull himself back together and regaining his usual confidence and demeanour as though shrugging on a heavy coat. She watched as he walked through the Hub and shouted a witty comment to Owen and quickened his pace to catch up with Gwen.

"He'll talk to us eventually" said a quiet voice coming from just behind her, she looked around to Ianto standing there staring after Jack with a strange expression on his face "It's just his way of coping"