Title: Eye Witness

Author: Soledad

Fandom: Dr. Who/Torchwood crossover

Genre: Drama/Horror, with a pinch of romance

Rating: 16+, just to be on the safe side. Rating is for violence, which I personally find much more harmful than erotic scenes.

Disclaimer: Dr. Who and Torchwood – settings and characters – belong to the BBC. I am just borrowing them. No copyright infringement intended and no money made.

Timeline: Series 2 for Dr. Who, pre-series for Torchwood. The story takes place shortly before and during the 2nd series finale "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday".

Summary: What if Toshiko would have been in London during those events? Slightly AU.

Series: A post-series addition to "Travellers' Tales".

Introduction

This story is one of the post-series sequels to "Travellers" Tales" – a slightly AU series of stories, based on the idea that – after "The Aliens of London" – Toshiko Sato spent almost two years travelling with the 9th Doctor. Due to the nature of time travel, everyone but Jack Harkness believes that she was only gone for her weekend off.

In the very first chapter of that series, it is established that while Jack has cut ties with Torchwood One, he is still required to send them regular reports. He usually sends Tosh and/or Owen, so that he can avoid meeting Yvonne Hartman, with whom he has clashed spectacularly and repeatedly in the past.

Nonetheless, Jack prefers to know what is going on at Torchwood One, and he uses the interest Doctor Rajesh Singh, one of Headquarters' senior researchers, shows for Tosh to gather intel – which puts Tosh into a not very enviable situation.

Chapter One – Forewarnings

Author's notes: Babur is an actually existing restaurant, and it offers the exact dishes mentioned here. No, I was never there myself, but I thought a touch of authenticity would be nice. I just changed the owners. *g*

Also, those who've read "Special Unit 3" will probably find the artefact Lisa and Tosh are trying to figure out familiar. No, it's not a coincidence, even though the two stories take place in different alternate universes.

Tosh hated to go to Torchwood One. Sure, Headquarters itself fascinated her – with all its alien-enhanced, up-to-date tech, its clean, modern lines, its buzzing life that was so different from the dank and often depressing atmosphere of the Hub. But the purpose and the attitude of Headquarters, especially its director, Yvonne Hartman, appalled her. She often wondered how a basically good guy like Rajesh Singh could work for them.

Her relationship with Rajesh was a strange one. It started on a purely professional level: with the fact that Jack wanted her to get info about what Torchwood One was up to. So she used Rajesh's genuine interest in her to spy on them. She hated to do so, but orders were orders; and besides, they really needed to know.

It wasn't as if Rajesh would have had an exclusively romantic interest in her, either. He openly admired her abilities as a scientist, too, which was a good feeling. But Tosh was quite sure that Yvonne used Rajesh to spy on Torchwood Three just as Jack used Tosh to spy on Headquarters. It was a twisted thing; nonetheless, Tosh and Rajesh did enjoy each other's company.

They only became intimate after Tosh's return from her travelling with the Doctor – an out-of-the-time series of adventures she'd only ever told Jack about. She'd met someone during that time who had to return to his own era, being a fixed point in history, and his loss was something Tosh knew she'd never get over completely. That was why she'd chosen to keep their child, even if she'd had to let her mother raise he boy, in safe distance from Torchwood and everything Torchwood meant.

But life – or rather work – at Torchwood was a lonely affair, and she wasn't about to reject the small comfort a casual affair with a fine, cultured man could offer. A man who was doing the same kind of work, so she didn't have to feed him lies. Well, not about the basic nature of her work anyway. She was being very careful not to reveal anything Torchwood-Three-specifics during pillow talk, of course.

Aside from that, it was a satisfying affair between equals and Rajesh a skilled and considerate lover. What else could one expect from a long-distance relationship, meeting the other in every other month – if they were very lucky? It was still the best thing that had happened to her since her return.

2006 had not been a good year for the UK – or for the rest of the world, either, although Tosh could really only speak of what she'd seen with her own eyes. Which was more than enough, in her opinion, as she had witnessed two of the three major crisises from the front row, to put it that way.

It had all started with the crash of an alien spaceship straight into the Big Ben, on March 26 that year. Tosh had been sent to London by Jack, together with Owen, to participate in some obligatory training for junior Torchwood employees – not that she'd have minded, personally. She'd always loved to go to geek gatherings, to meet fellow braniacs. Despite Jack's sharp intelligence and vast experience with alien tech, not even he could follow her to the exciting depths of abstract science; a lot of Torchwood researchers could. It had been a similar training where she had first met Rajesh Singh, and the two of them hit off at once. It was a shame that they'd become chess pieces in a dominance game between the respective leaders of the two Torchwood branches.

Still, it was always a delight to meet people with the same (or at least similar) brainpower as her own. Owen saw it differently, of course, and he'd got thoroughly sloshed on the previous evening, so that when he'd been summoned to perform the autopsy on the 'alien pig", Tosh had to stand in for him, or else he'd have gotten into deep trouble. And that was how she'd first met the Doctor.

In hindsight, she always had to laugh a little when she considered how mad Yvonne Hartman would get if she knew that the Doctor had been within her reach. Most people at Torchwood One were literally obsessed with the idea of meeting the Doctor; of capturing Torchwood's arch enemy, imprisoning him and using his vast powers and knowledge for their own purposes. Not even Rajesh was very different in this aspect.

For her part, Tosh was fairly sure that Headquarters would never be able to confine the Doctor once he wanted to leave, and Jack agreed with her. But she also knew that Yvonne would have tried, and she was known as someone for whom the goal always validated the methods. Any methods. So she was glad that their theory had never been put to the test – so far.

In any case, the failed Slitheen effort to trigger a nuclear war and then sell chunks of a radiation-saturated Earth as fuel on the intergalactic market had only been the beginning. One of the Slitheen, posing as senior MI5 member Margaret Blaine, had not only escaped the destruction of 10 Downing Street, she'd also managed to get elected as the Mayor of Cardiff, of all places! An event that nearly resulted in another nuclear disaster, this time within the city itself.

Jack had known that he Doctor would return and save them, of course – his younger self had played a significant role in the rescue effort, after all. So he'd locked down the Hub to keep his team from running into that younger self of his and contaminating the timeline. Only Tosh had been allowed to leave, and she'd been lucky enough to meet the Doctor again, updating each other about their respective lives, while doing their best to avoid being spotted by a younger Jack. She'd only seen him from afar – a cheerful, carefree, mortal version of him, without the weight of the world upon his shoulders. And while she found she liked his former self, it made her love and respect the Jack she'd known for years even more.

It had been hard on Jack to let the opportunity of meeting the Doctor slip through his fingers. He'd been waiting for that for so long. But doing so would have meant crossing his own timeline, and as a former Time Agent, he knew better than anyone how dangerous that would have been. So he'd held back, but Tosh could see how much it had cost him. He'd retreated more and more behind the role he was playing: behind the loud, flirtatious, larger-than-life Jack Harkness persona, who'd sweep into every scene as if he'd own the place, erecting near-impenetrable walls around the man inside – the man who was lonely and hurting.

Tosh wished she could help him somehow. But after those events, Jack had not let anyone get close to him; not even her. They no longer discussed their respective adventures as the Doctor's companions… and before the year would end, Jack had surprisingly withdrawn the condition of Tosh's freedom – well, one of the conditions anyway: the prohibition to see her family.

"I think you've proved yourself more than once in the recent years," he'd said. "And your grandfather is old. I don't want to rob him of the chance to see you again."

That still didn't mean she'd be able to see her mother (or her son, for that matter), since they lived in Osaka, under Tomoe's protection. But her grandfather lived in London, and she was grateful beyond measure that she was now allowed to see him from time to time.

She'd been in London, to spend Christmas with the old man, when the Sycorax had invaded Earth. She'd never quite figured out what had really happened; only that Torchwood One had shot their spaceship off the sky. She'd only learned much later that Prime Minister Harriet Jones, who had ordered the defensive action, would have a rather unfriendly argument with someone called 'the Doctor' right afterwards – And that the rumours about her ill health that soon led to a vote of no confidence and to the end of her career, had started on that very day.

Tosh had been shaken by this news, gathered through Rajesh who'd heard it from someone who'd heard it from the PA of Harriet Jones herself. During their travels, the Doctor had always spoken in the highest tones of Harriet Jones She was destined to be re-elected as Prime Minister for three successive terms, he had said, and to become the architect of a period known as Britain's Golden Age.

And the Doctor would destroy this woman, and with her the future of the UK, because of a difference of opinions? By her best efforts, Tosh could not imagine the Doctor she'd come to love and respect like a father in those two years she had spent travelling with him to be so petty. So cruel. So vengeful.

The description she'd been given certainly didn't match the man – the Time Lord – she remembered. She couldn't have forgotten his looks in a mere six months could she? On the other hand, Torchwood files (gained from UNIT) stated that the Doctor was capable of regenerating after a fatal injury and that his new body usually was very different from the previous one.

Perhaps his personality would change in the process, too – but so profoundly? It was hard to believe that the same Doctor who'd almost shed tears over that poor 'space pig' would casually destroy the future of an entire nation, just because one person had dared to cross him. Something must have gone terribly wrong with him. Perhaps the same effect that had turned Jack into an immortal freak had damaged the Doctor, too. The Doctor she had known would never have acted like that.

Ever since Christmas, Tosh had hesitated whether she should tell Jack about her suspicions. Poor Jack had set such high hopes in the Doctor; until Christmas, Tosh could understand why. But if they were indeed dealing with a new and very different Doctor, then perhaps Jack would do better if he didn't put his hopes too high. This new persona didn't seem to be that big on compassion.

In the early spring of 2007 Tosh still could not quite decide what to do with her disturbing piece of information. The aftermath was certainly being worrisome. Defence Minister Harold Saxon, doing his best to ruin what was still left of Harriet Jones' reputation, was leading the polls by sixty-seven per cent, and with only two months left of the election countdown.

Only two months after the so-called 'ghosts' had started appearing all over the planet, causing collective madness that was swinging back and forth between euphoria and mass hysteria all the time.

Despite her traditional Japanese upbringing, Tosh did not believe in ghosts. She believed in science and that behind every mysterious phenomenon there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation. One only had to find it.

Fortunately, Jack happened to share her views in that area.

"If we eliminate the fantasy factor, there can only be one logical answer," he'd said. "Transdimensional travel."

"But is that possible at all?" Tosh remembered herself asking. "Travelling between parallel dimensions, I mean?"

"It shouldn't be possible… in theory," Jack had answered. "Unless something had torn a hole between realities."

"Like the Rift?" Suzie had asked.

"No," Jack had replied. "A hundred times worse than the Rift. The Rift is a tear in space and time, but still in our own dimension."

"Still bad enough, if you ask me," Owen had muttered.

Jack had nodded in agreement. "You're right, it is. Now imagine the same barrier broken down between alternate realities, allowing them to leak into each other…"

"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," Owen had said with a frown. Then a thought had occurred to him. "Do you think Headquarters has something to do with this whole mess?"

Jack had nodded. "They must have. I mean, they'd built Torchwood Tower for the express reason to reach that rift that had opened right over Canary Wharf some time ago. Until now, we always assumed that it's the same spatio-temporal sort as our own Rift. But what if it isn't? What if their rift is something different; something much worse than ours?"

Tosh could still feel the cold fear that had filled her by that thought. "An interdimensional rift?"

"What else?" Jack had said grimly. "It has to be. That would explain a great lot of things. But we need to know it for sure. I hate to do this to you, Tosh, but you'll have to go to London and try to learn something about it. You're the only one who can do so without raising suspicions. You can hand Yvonne the reports for the first trimester at the same time."

Tosh didn't like the idea any more than Jack did, but she knew Jack had been right. She was the only semi-regular visitor at Headquarters; plus it was a known fact that she and Rajesh had a thing running. No-one would question her presence at Torchwood Tower.

So there she was now, sitting on the train, laptop on her knees, working on her private little database of alien languages and trying to ignore the really bad feeling knotted tightly in her stomach. She wished there would be a way to avoid going to Headquarters – but she knew there was none.

At least she'd get to see Rajesh again. They hadn't met since Christmas, and even then, their time had been cut short, due to the Sycorax invasion. Tosh shook her head ruefully. Only her life could be weird enough to become sex-deprived because of a bloody alien invasion! Sometimes it really sounded like trashy sci-fi from the 1950s. Would she see this on the telly, she would never believe it, that much was certain.

As it was their wont, Rajesh picked her up from the railway station, after her train had arrived. He seemed tired; more tired than usual, that is, and for the first time since they'd known each other, he actually showed his age. Not that a man of thirty-seven would count as particularly old, of course, but as a rule, Rajesh did look considerably younger than his actual age, mostly due to his lively, animate face and near inexhaustible energy. Right now, said face was almost grey with exhaustion, and deep, fine lines had been etched around his mouth, in the corners of his eyes and across his forehead. Lines Tosh did not remember from earlier.

"Bad day at work?" she inquired, after they had kissed each other, taking their time and any possible audience be damned. They did not have all that many chances to snog, after all.

Rajesh shrugged. "That depends on your definition. But yeah, staring at an unsolvable riddle for weeks upon weeks, without getting any closer to the solution, is something that does count as an entire row of bad days in my books."

"And in mine," Tosh was very careful not to ask him about that mysterious projects, although she knew Jack was dying to learn more about it. What she didn't know could not get her into a conflict of loyalties. Besides, what could Rajesh's project have to do with the 'ghost" appearances? He was a xenobiologist, first and foremost; the only one working for Headquarters.

To Rajesh's credit, he was equally careful not to learn anything important about what was going on in Cardiff – not that any great, dark secrets would have been hidden there. Not to Tosh's knowledge in any case. So she usually entertained Rajesh with stories about Weevils and other bizarre aliens spat out by the Rift, knowing that Headquarters was mostly interested in the tech, not in the aliens themselves, and Rajesh treated him with amusing trivia concerning the physiology of the Dogon race, on the understanding of which he'd previously worked, since that wasn't a particularly confidential matter. Not between two Torchwood branches, that is.

This time, however, Rajesh was too frustrated to do their usual egg-dance around anything potentially important.

"I don't know how long I can keep on doing this," he complained, steering Tosh towards his car.

He drove a black Aston Martin convertible with dark purple seats – and usually with the top open, as this way any listening devices would have a much harder time to filter their conversation out of the background noise. Rajesh was a loyal Torchwood One employee who respected Yvonne Hartman a great deal, but that didn't mean that he would actually trust her.

Sure they'd known each other since college; they had even had a torrid affair once – until Yvonne had found a wealthier, more influential man to socialize with – but that only meant that Rajesh knew her very well. Better, perhaps, than anyone else at Torchwood One.

He stopped on the open street before they'd get close enough to his car for the hypothetical listening device to pick up his voice. His dark eyes were clouded with worry under his thick brows. Tosh had never seen him like this before.

"Listen," he said in a low voice, almost whispering, "I know Yvonne would have my head on a plate for this, but I think you need to know… no, Harkness needs to know. I'll take you out for dinner tonight, to a place where we can speak freely, and there I'll tell you what little I know. You decide what you tell your boss of it."

Unexpectedly, he caught her around the waist and kissed her soundly. But there was no heat in his kiss; it clearly served to fool any people from Headquarters who might watch them for Yvonne.

"All right," Tosh replied with a falsely broad smile, "You've got yourself a date. "Work first, though. I've got tons of reports to deliver."

"Let's go then," Rajesh agreed, taking her hand, and the two of them ran to his car, holding hands like besotted teenagers.

They drove to East London, to the former West India Docks, where Canary Wharf – one of London's two main financial centres, alongside the good old City of London – was located. Tosh had to admit that it was an impressive sight. One Canada Square (for those in the know, and such people were fairly limited in the numbers, Torchwood Tower) was currently the highest building of the UK – not really surprising, considering that it had been built for the specific purpose to reach the spatial rift 660 feet above sea level.

No, no spatial rift, she corrected herself. Interdimensional rift. A potentially lethal gateway between alternate realities, which Headquarters, in their self-confident stupidity, probably chose to poke a little. it couldn't have been a coincidence that the 'ghosts' had started appearing just about the same time as Torchwood Tower had been finished.

Still, the fifty-storey skyscraper looked impressive, standing between its two slightly lower siblings; she had to admit that. Every time she visited Headquarters, she envied the people for their surroundings and for the comfort of their workplace – if not for their boss.

It wasn't so as Yvonne would ever have been unfriendly to her. She liked to call herself a people person, and she actually was one. Most of her co-workers liked her well enough, and she was on first name basis with just about everyone. Only the armed guards would still call her ma'am. But there was a ruthless ambition in her that made Tosh's skin crawl; even though it was 'for Queen and country', not for herself. Her patriotism went as far as refusing the use of the metric system, which, in Tosh's opinion, was plain stupid – not that she'd voice that opinion. She didn't have a death wish.

Rajesh drove the car into the underground garage reserved for the staff, and they rode the elevator to the office level. After the first three levels – still underground every single one of them – a young man, wearing an impeccable three-piece suit and a dark red tie to his crisp dress shirt, joined them in the cabin.

"Doctor Singh," he said by way of greeting; he had a pleasant, low-pitched voice and an unmistakable Welsh accent. "Ma'am."

Rajesh nodded absent-mindedly. "Ianto. Any news from the R&D people? They're supposed to come up with that new spectrometer today."

"They're fairly confident about it," the young man, whose name was apparently Ianto, answered him. "Said they could detect the heat off a single protozoa through half a mile of steel." His dry tone revealed that he was more than sceptical about that.

"They're full of themselves, as always," Rajesh said with a grimace.

The young man raised an inquiring eyebrow. "You think they'll fail to find anything, sir?"

"I almost wish they'd succeed, even if that would make them even more arrogant," Rajesh admitted glumly.

"Almost, sir?" the young man repeated with the same inquisitive eyebrow.

Rajesh glared at him over the rim of his glasses. "Well, do you want them to become even more full of themselves?"

"I don't believe that would be physically possible, sir," the young man replied with a tiny, ironic smile. "Besides, we both know that they're idiots; that's enough for me."

The elevator stopped on the level labelled Virtual Archives, and the young man nodded to them politely.

"That would be where I get off," he said. "Good luck, Doctor Singh… ma'am," and with that, he stepped out of the elevator cabin, which continued its way skyward.

"Who was that?" Tosh asked, vaguely inspired, although she didn't know exactly why.

Rajesh frowned. "Ianto? He's one of the junior researchers; one of Rupert Howarth's personal assistants, in fact."

"Howarth?" the name sounded familiar, although Tosh couldn't quite remember from where. She was sure she'd seen it on various official documents, though.

"Our Head Archivist," Rajesh added helpfully. "The second most important person after Yvonne… or so Yvonne thinks. In truth, Rupert knows a great deal more about what's going on in here than Yvonne herself; and so do his assistants. The only difference is that his assistants know a specific field of research each, while Rupert has the whole picture. He has to; without the archivists, we'd drown in chaos in no time."

"Well, that certainly explains the state of things in Cardiff," Tosh muttered darkly. "The Archives haven't been cleaned out since Jack took over in 2000. I've tried to bring some order into the chaos but failed miserably. I don't know how Howarth manages; Headquarters has the documents of all Torchwood branches, aside from your own ones."

"I believe the fact that he employs assistants with photographic memories and a definite hang to be anal retentive must have something to do with his success," Rajesh grinned. "He finds them in the most unlikely places, too."

"Like what?" Tosh asked in morbid fascination, the wildest ideas starting to take shape in her head. An overactive imagination could be as much a curse as it was a blessing.

Rajesh shrugged. "As far as I know, he picked up Ianto in a coffee shop."

"In a coffee shop?" Tosh repeated, not quite trusting her ears.

"Yeah. The lad was jobbing there three days a week to finance his studies… something with economics and computer science and all that stuff. I'm a tea person myself, but Rupert swears the boy makes the best cup of coffee on this planet."

"He seems rather… old-fashioned for such a young chap," Tosh commented as they left the elevator cabin and turned in to the corridor leading to the operations centre of Headquarters, where half a dozen young people were sitting at their computers (all enhanced by alien tech), doing research or typing up reports or playing solitaire when nobody was watching them.

"What do you mean?" Rajesh asked with a frown. "It isn't so as if Torchwood would encourage casual Fridays, you know."

Indeed, he was wearing a dark suit, too, with a pinstriped purple shirt and a matching deep purple tie. In fact, all Torchwood One personnel were wearing suits, although most of them had white lab coats instead of their suit jackets. As for the women, they were spotlessly elegant, too. As if they'd be working for a bank, not for a semi-secret private organization salvaging alien tech and fighting alien invasions.

"I mean the three-piece thing," Tosh explained. "And his mannerism – like a butler from a Dickens novel."

Rajesh laughed. "Oh, that isn't a personal choice, either for him or for the other assistant archivists," he said. "It's one of Rupert's idiosyncrasies, actually. He demands the most formal clothing and behaviour from all of his assistants, all the time. And to call him sir. He likes to state that archivists are supposed to be gentlemen, so they ought to look like gentlemen, too. He even expects from them to help him into his coat when he leaves."

"From the women, too?" Tosh wondered, not sure she'd be willing to do something like that for anyone, save her own grandfather.

"The Archives are like an old-fashioned club for gentlemen," Rajesh explained, opening the door for her. "Rupert doesn't accept any female assistants."

"A habit I intend to break him off sooner or later," Yvonne Hartman, the director of Torchwood One, swept forth from her private office to shake Tosh's hand with exaggerated friendliness. It was part of her persona, just like the elegant little black dress and the perfect hairdo. "Toshiko! How nice to see you again! What's news in Cardiff?"

"Weevils, space junk, more Weevils, a spirited black market dealing with Dogon eyes, Weevils, the occasional Hoix, more Weevils, lost alien tourists and even more Weevils," Tosh summarized, handing her the thick manila folder with all the reports. "It's all in there."

"No unusual Rift activity?" Yvonne asked, leafing through the reports absent-mindedly. Truth be told, she had precious little interest in Weevils, which seemed to be the major aspect of life and work at Torchwood Three.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Tosh replied, according to the truth. "There seems to be no connection between Rift cycles and the appearance of those so-called ghosts."

Yvonne picked up her sarcastic tone at once. "You don't believe in ghosts, do you?"

"No," Tosh said. "Not all Japanese people believe in the supernatural. I'm a scientist; I work with facts. But let's just suppose, for the argument's sake, that these apparitions are ghosts – wouldn't we be in serious trouble then?"

"Why would we?" Yvonne asked with a shrug. She was clearly fascinated by the 'ghosts', just like most other people. Of course, she was an administrator, not a scientist.

"By its very definition, the supernatural exists in another dimension," Tosh pointed out. "Again, assuming that anything would be able to travel from one dimension to another one, it would mean that the walls between dimensions are crumbling down… and that would be a very bad thing."

"It would be chaos," Rajesh added in concern. "I'm not an astrophysicist, but the mere thought makes me itch."

"You worry too much, Rajesh," Yvonne waved off his concern. "Go back to your lab; R&D ought to be here any minute now. Toshiko, do you have any plans for the rest of the day?"

"Nothing, save from a visit by my grandfather," Tosh said in surprise. "Why?"

"Well, you're said to be good at sonic technology," Yvonne replied, signalling – and not too subtly – that although Tosh's record had been wiped clear, she knew about her brief, not-quite-voluntary foray into that area. "One of our junior researchers has slight problems with a piece of alien tech; perhaps you can give her a hand while you're here?"

"I can give it a try," Tosh wasn't trilled by the fact that Yvonne clearly knew about her past, but considering her contacts to UNIT and her deep-rooted mistrust towards Jack, it probably wasn't all that surprising. On the other hand, getting up and close to any project Headquarter was working on was too good to let the chance slip through her fingers.

"Excellent!" Yvonne beamed at her. "I always knew your talents were wasted in that fetid hole Harkness calls his base."

"We do important work!" Tosh protested, a little defensively. "We're needed there, and doing research on the Rift is quite the challenge."

"I'm sure it is, and I trust you to finish that Rift activity pre-warning system of yours eventually, "Yvonne said. "However, you should consider your choices, once your contract with the Cardiff branch runs out. We can offer you so much more here; and you'd be closer to your family in London, too."

"I'll take it under consideration," Tosh replied diplomatically.

Not that she'd truly want to work for Torchwood One – her ideal workplace would have been some scientific lab, as far from aliens as humanly possible. She'd seen her fair share of those while travelling with the Doctor. But as long as she was a Torchwood employee, it would have been unwise to make the director of Headquarters mad at her. If the rumour mill could be trusted, Yvonne did not take flat-out rejections kindly.

Besides, she still had a year and a half to work for Jack yet, so it was a moot point anyway.

"I hope you will," Yvonne said, clearly certain that no lowly little Torchwood Three employee would even think of refusing the offer to work for Headquarters. "Adeola will take you to Engineering Lab #4 where you can examine the artefact."

"I'll fetch you when my shift ends," Rajesh promised, already on his way to the elevator.

Adeola Oshodi turned out to be one of the junior researchers sitting in the operation centre: a very pretty girl, dark-skinned and dark-haired, with large, almond-shaped, coffee brown eyes and a friendly grin. Tosh liked her at first sight and wondered how someone like her would end up at Torchwood Tower, of all places.

"Torchwood hired us right out of university," Adeola explained readily upon entering the elevator cabin. "Me, Gareth – that's my boyfriend – Matt… the whole bunch of us. Seventy per cent of the scientific and technical personnel are grad students, working on our degrees."

"What would be yours?" Tosh asked. Adeola grinned proudly.

"Bachelor's degree in digital data storaging and computer imaging systems," she replied. "Proper data compression is the key to the future, don't you think?"

"Definitely, Tosh agreed.

"Don't let any of the archivists hear you, though," Adeola added in a conspiratory manner. "They all have a paper fetish, I swear! Apparently, Mr Howarth makes them order all physical data files in boxes, and label them all by hand!"

"How… medieval of him," Tosh found the young woman's prejudices highly amusing. Granted, she, too, preferred digital data storaging, but one could not deny that having hard copies for safety reasons was a good thing, too."

They got off the elevator cabin at Level 27, which was marked as Engineering. It was a nondescript corridor with identical doors on both sides, numbered, but without any further markings. Adeola went straight to the door with a large black 4 on eye level and inserted her key card into the slot in the right side. There was a soft click, then a green light went on above the door, and the slide doors opened noiselessly.

Within, there was the best-equipped lab Tosh had seen in her entire life; and she ad seen her fairs hare of modern equipment. Enhanced with alien technology, too, most likely. Another pretty, dark-skinned young woman in a white lab coat, this one with short-cropped hair, was working on one of the long, low table. She had the parts of a dismantled instrument in front of her and was clearly trying to separate the power source from the encasing. A whole, working version of the alien gizmo was standing on the only free corner of the table.

"Hi Lisa," Adeola said, "I brought help. This is Doctor Sato from Torchwood Cardiff. Yvonne says she's good at sonic tech. Doctor Sato, this is Lisa Hallett. She's working on her Master's degrees in electronical and mechanical engineering."

"For starters," Lisa added with a broad grin. "I want to specialize in cybernetics later. Unless I get fired for not being able to figure out what makes this thing tick and what it might be good for."

"Well we can't have that, can we?" Tosh smiled; the girls were really nice and funny, it was hard to believe that they'd be the work bees of Headquarters. "Let me take a look. I can't promise anything, but who knows, we might get lucky."

Lisa made a generous, sweeping gesture towards that gutted… thing and its still working counterpart. "Be my guest, Doctor Sato."

"Toshiko," Tosh corrected; then she turned her attention to the task at hand, examining the working instrument first.

It was a fairly strange piece of junk, even as alien gizmos go. It looked like two purple umbrellas joined by the ends of their handles and four silver globes floating seemingly in thin air at its middle. As she approached, the globes began to spin around the central column, exchanging sparks of silver-blue energy with it.

"Hmmm…" she muttered. "It seems to be some sort of generator."

"That was my first assumption, too," Lisa agreed, "but so far I was unable to figure out where the generated energy actually goes."

"Is it perhaps being stored in the globes," Tosh asked.

Lisa shook her head. "No; at least the instruments can't detect any energy in those… although the thing itself generates a good amount of it. As if the only purpose would be to spin the globes around the central column."

"The thing looks like those little perpetuum mobile thingies," Adeola commented. "My cousin Martha and I used to love them very much when we were children – we could sit and watch them spin for hours."

"I doubt that your perpetuum mobiles generated sonic energy," Tosh returned dryly.

"Is that what it is?" Lisa asked. "Is it truly sonic energy?"

"Oh, yeah, there can be no doubt about that," Tosh said, biting her lower lip in concentration. "So, you took apart the other one to separate the energy source from the moving part, right?"

"I've tried," Lisa admitted, "but so far, I'm not even sure that it is the power source. These parts make no sense at all."

"Nonsense," Tosh said. "They make perfect sense – if we find the right angle to look at them. Now, let me scan the dismantled part and see whether we have something similar in our technical database."

She took out her laptop – also enhanced with alien technology – and started to run a scan on the parts, while Lisa and Adeola were staring at her in open-mouthed awe.

Two hours later, when Rajesh came to pick Tosh up, they still weren't any closer to figuring out the mysterious artefact than before. Tosh briefly wondered whether the Doctor would be able to tell them what it was and where it had come, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Torchwood had always had an unhealthy interest in the Doctor, and she didn't want to end up in an interrogation cell as Jack once had.

Rajesh took her out for dinner to Babur – a stylish Indian restaurant in south-east London, which happened to belong to one of his numerous cousins. Situated next to a carpet shop (apparently owned by another one of their cousins), the place had a great atmosphere. The reception had a kota blue limestone floor, decorated with a stunning kalamkari hanging by the renowned artist Ajit Kumar Das and separated from the brick-lined dining room by floor-to-ceiling glass walls. The exposed brick was adorned with two suede and leather triptychs by Sian Lester, inspired by the forms and colours of our kalamkari. Louis Poulson light pendants and veneered timber completed the picture of a place that combined tradition with modern – and partially Western – fashion tastefully.

"Well, we belong to the West as much as we belong to our Indian roots," Rajesh answered with a shrug when Tosh commented on the merge of different tastes. "My uncle, who opened the Babur in 1985, was already born in England."

"It seems to be a popular place," Tosh said, eyeing the crowd waiting at the reception for a free table. "Have you reserved in advance?"

"No, but it helps to be family," Rajesh grinned and winked at a tall, devastatingly handsome man about his own age. "Hey, Sendhil, is the family table available?"

The bronze god statue come alive gave them a wide, blinding white smile. "You're lucky," he replied. "My in-laws have just left. The table will be refreshed in a moment," he gave Tosh an appreciating look. "So, this is the famous Miss Sato?"

"Doctor Sato," Rajesh corrected. "But since you're family, she might allow you to call her simply Toshiko."

"A beautiful name for a beautiful lady," Sendhil Kumar Jhanji, who happened to be the current manager of the Babur, smiled and kissed her hand gallantly. "You're a lucky dog, Raji," then, apparently reacting to a sign from one of the waiters, he added. "And your table is ready. Enjoy yourselves."

"Oh, I will," Tosh replied with feeling. "The only thing I had in the last thirty-six hours was some Chinese takeaway last night and several gallons of coffee today. I'm starved!"

"Then you've come to the right place," the restaurant manager said. "If you don't know what to choose, Raji will be able to help you with the menu."

He put together his hands in Hindu fashion and bowed elegantly; then he went back to the reception to chat with the waiting customers. A waiter came and led them to a small, separate chamber, where the noise level from the main dining room – including the music – was considerably dampened, and handed them the menu.

"Are you familiar with Indian cuisine?" Rajesh asked; they'd had the occasional dinner before, but not in such places.

Tosh shook her head. "No, unless takeover counts. I'm not that big on spices, myself; it's usually Suzie's preference. Her mother's family hails from Kerala, I think."

"Do you want a drink first?" Rajesh studied the cocktail menu with the air of a man who knew what he wanted. Tosh hesitated.

"Would it be wise, on an empty stomach?"

"They have non-alcoholic cocktails as well," Rajesh handed her the card. "But if you accept a suggestion from me, I'd have Darjeeling Mist if I were you. I've tried that one quite often; if you like tea, you'll like it, too."

Darjeeling Mist promised to be iced tea with gin, lime juice, mint and cassia bark. It sounded refreshing, and after the long train ride and half a day spent at Headquarters Tosh felt in definite need for something else than just coffee.

"All right," she said, "I'll give it a try."

"I'll have the same," Rajesh told the waiter, "and the beetroot and potato cutlet for starters."

Tosh chose vegetable Beggar's Purse, which turned out to be little pastry sacks, filled with potato peas and cashew, seasoned with chat masala. It matched her cocktail surprisingly well.

For mains, she had garlic prawns on masala uttapam from the tandoor (probably not the most fitting choice for a romantic evening, but she felt like having some), with rice flour griddle cake and a side dish of baby aubergine with peanut sauce and steamed rice. Rajesh chose a Keralan dish: a large, crispy pancake filled with spicy mixed vegetables, green beans with sweet coconut and spices and lemon rice with cashews.

"I never knew you were a vegetarian," Tosh commented, peeling her prawns and scoping up some peanut sauce with the tasty morsel.

"Not religiously," Rajesh answered with a shrug. "I just don't like meat that much. Especially red meat. What about you?"

"The same," Tosh admitted. "I can eat it when there's nothing else, but I prefer vegetables and seafood if I have the choice. Mmmm…. This is excellent. Your cousin has a fantastic cook."

"Actually, my uncle is the chef," Rajesh revealed, finishing his pancake. "He lets Sendhil run the place, so that he can focus all his energy on the cooking. It shows, doesn't it? What about desserts? Or are you too full for that?"

"Not really, as long as they aren't too sweet or too heavy," Tosh consulted the dessert menu. "I'll have the spiced apple papdi and green apple puree. It sounds fruity and light."

"It's excellent, especially served with a glass of Terre Rosse Malvasia," Rajesh assured her; then he looked at the waiter. "I'll have the spiced chocolate fondant, with orange murabba and a glass of Orange Muscat Essencia, please."

Finishing their desserts, they finally relaxed after the meal by a dessert cocktail called Mocha martini, which turned out to consist a generous shot of espresso, dark chocolate and coffee liqueurs and Reyka vodka.

"So, what's wrong?" Tosh asked, sipping on her cocktail; it was sinfully sweet, almost intoxicating, even after a full dinner. "I've never seen you so nervous."

Rajesh took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes; also that old scar from a car accident above his left eye, as if it would torture him with phantom pain.

"It's this artefact, you see," he replied in such a low voice that Tosh barely understood. "It simply appeared, just when the rift opened… a huge sphere, about six feet in diameter, looking as if made of polished bronze. It's… it's just there, hanging in mid-air in the lab, without support, doing… doing nothing. According to our instruments, it doesn't even exist. It weighs nothing. It doesn't age. No heat. No radiation. It has no atomic mass, for God's sake!"

"That's impossible!" Tosh said.

Rajesh gave her a near-hysterical look. "I know that, all right? I'm a bloody scientist, too! But that's what the machines keep saying – that the sphere cannot exist. And yet it's there."

"That new spectrometer R&D came up with," Tosh said. "Did it find anything?"

"Nothing," Rajesh answered with a nervous little laugh. "It gave them nothing. Same as ever. It's just… it gets into your head, this thing, you know. Like it's… like it's staring at you."

"Could it be some kind of artificial intelligence?" Tosh asked.

"I don't know," Rajesh sighed. "We thought someone – or something – must be within, since this is how it all started."

"That's how what started?" Tosh demanded.

"The apparitions," Rajesh explained. "The sphere came through the rift, and the ghosts, whatever they are, followed in its sake."

"And no-one did find that disturbing?" Tosh asked with a frown. "Are you guys at Headquarters so arrogant that you believe you can deal with everything?"

"With almost everything, I'd say," Rajesh said with a shrug. "That Sycorax warship was not the only thing we've shot off the sky in the recent years."

"Shooting at spaceships is easy," Tosh said calmly. "All it requires is a suitable weapon and good hand-eye coordination. It's a piece of a pie for anyone who's ever played online war games. Dealing with the totally unknown, though… now, that's tough."

"Voice of experience speaking?" Rajesh asked with a grin. Tosh nodded.

"You guys here, in your comfy, high-tech labs, have no idea. Torchwood Three has been monitoring the Rift since the nineteenth century, and we never know what might come through. The Weevils are only the tip of the iceberg. Small wonder that few of us live beyond thirty; I'm one of the very few exceptions."

"So you think this must be something sinister?" Rajesh asked hesitating.

Tosh shrugged. "Honestly? I can't believe that these so-called ghosts, whatever they might be, are harmless. Harmless visitors – and yes, we do run into those sometimes – arrive openly and state their intentions."

"But what can they be?" Rajesh pondered. "They don't have any substance; just like the sphere. One can simply walk through them and feel nothing."

"I have no idea," Tosh admitted. "If they've come with that sphere of yours, though, they cannot be up to anything good," she paused, thinking. "I do have an enhanced scanner with me that might be able to gather some data from it… if you can get me near enough."

"You can't be serious!" Rajesh became ash grey with shock. "Yvonne would have my head on a plate if I allowed anyone not assigned to the project into the lab. Not even our junior researchers are granted access, save Samuel, my assistant."

Tosh shrugged again. "It's your choice, of course. There's a strong chance that the results won't be worth the risk, but…" she shrugged a third time, "as they say: noting dared, nothing gained."

Rajesh thought about the pros and contras for quite some time; then a determined expression appeared on his face.

"Well, if we want to do that, we'll have to be there early," he said, "and I mean early. Would you like another dessert cocktail?"

Tosh shook her head. "No, I'm well and truly stuffed. Let's go."

Sendhil Jhanji came personally with the bill, which turned out fairly reasonable for a complete diner in such a classy place: about 50 pounds a head. Rajesh insisted of paying for them both, and after some protests Tosh let him, hoping that Sendhil had taxed him with a family bonus or two. Walking out of the restaurant, Rajesh glanced in the direction of his car, parked in the secured customer parking area of the Babur, a bit ruefully.

"I think I'll better call us a taxi," he said. "We both had quite a bit of alcohol; it would be unwise to drive in this condition. Or," he added, hesitating, "you could come home with me. I live in the neighbourhood; it's a ten-minute-walk only. We can fetch the car in the morning and return to the Institute together."

Tosh, too, hesitated for a moment. Until now, they usually spent their nights together in her hotel room. It was less... personal that way; it enabled her to keep her emotional distance easier. She didn't want to become emotionally involved again; for someone working for Torchwood, especially for the Cardiff branch, it could only end in heartbreak.

On the other hand, if she was honest to herself, Rajesh had become more for her than just a casual shag for quite some time; even if she didn't really want to admit it. The man was cultured, polite, intelligent and generally pleasant, with refined tastes, and she liked him. She liked him a lot. More, probably, than it was good for the members of two concurring branches, but that could not be helped.

So perhaps it was time to stop going to anonymous hotel rooms for a night or two. Perhaps she ought to give this thing between them some more serious thought, to see what it could eventually become. Besides, she was curious to see how he lived.

"All right," she said, "let's go to your place. But if I'm supposed to walk in these," she glanced down at her high heels, "then you're carrying my overnight bag."

"It's a deal," Rajesh laughed and jogged to his car to fetch her carry-all.

The place where Rajesh lived – or, as he'd correct with a wry grin, where he sometimes returned to sleep – was nothing like what Tosh would have expected. She'd expect him to have a penthouse, like Owen: on the top of a high building, with at least two walls made of glass; everything very modern, streamlined – and very bleak, missing any female touch. He was a bachelor, after all, and of an age when a man would get quite settled in his routine.

Instead, they came into a fairly small flat, consisting only of an airy living room – empty, save from the floor-to-ceiling, open bookshelves and a desk in front of the French window that opened to a balcony so small that there was barely room for two people to stand at the same time. The alcove on the other end of the room was separated by a free-standing bookshelf, thus creating just enough space for a wardrobe, a nightstand and a king-sized mattress on the floor, which clearly served as the bed, if the pale lilac sheets were any indication.

A small kitchenette and a bathroom opened from the other side of the front door – and that was, basically, it. A tiny flat that one would expect from a student, not from a top researcher of Torchwood One, with two doctorates under his belt, who could afford to drive an Aston Martin convertible. Apparently, Rajesh's priorities did not tend towards the domestic area.

Seeing her surprise he shrugged and grinned.

"I know it's not much, but it's all mine," he said, "and it's all I need. Considering how little time I actually spend here; and when I do, I'm usually asleep."

"That's Torchwood for you," Tosh commented; it sounded almost depressingly familiar indeed.

She looked around, unconsciously noticing the lack of knick-knacks or, indeed, of any decoration. This was a very utilitarian home; if one could call it a home at all. A neat, well-ordered, practical place to sleep or to study; or to work outside the lab. Nothing else, not even a telly. Just like her own place.

The only personal items were the framed photographs of two children on the nightstand: a girl of perhaps ten or twelve years, and a boy, certainly not older than four or five. Both had had a distinct likeness to Rajesh and the same dark eyes.

"Nephew and niece?" Tosh asked lightly, suppressing the pain of missing her little Yoshi ruthlessly.

"No, they're my own children, actually," Rajesh answered. "The girl's Shanti, the boy's name is Rajeev."

"I'd never have thought you to be a family man," Tosh said in surprise.

Rajesh sighed. "There was a time when I tried to reconcile my work with some kind of private life – until Torchwood came along. After that, it simply didn't work out any longer. My… almost-wife got enough of the ungodly working hours and the secrecy and left me and the children. My sister Soraya raises them for me – at least I get to see them regularly," he shrugged. "There are worse arrangements. What about you? Do you have any children?"

"A little son," Tosh whispered. "Yoshi. I left him with my mother. Torchwood Cardiff is no place to raise a child. There used to be a dozen or so people doing the work we're doing now, and there's only the four of us. I don't want to neglect my child… or let him come to harm, just because I work for Torchwood."

"But doesn't your mother live in Osaka?" Rajesh asked in surprise. Tosh nodded, and he furrowed his brow. "You don't get to see the boy often, do you?"

"I haven't seen him since his first birthday," Tosh admitted, fighting her tears. "It's hard, I won't deny that. But he's safer in Japan, with my mother, as far from Torchwood as possible."

"There's that," Rajesh agreed ruefully. Then he lifted her chin to look into her eyes. "It's late. Let's go to bed. I'll do my best to make you forget your worries for a while."

Tosh sighed and kissed him briefly. "I don't want to misuse you as stress relief, Raji," she said, adopting the nickname she'd heard his cousin using.

He smiled at her, his eyes dark and warm like melting chocolate under those impossibly long and thick black eyelashes every woman would kill to own. It shouldn't be allowed for a man to have eyes like that, the silly thought occurred to her. It simply wasn't fair. She didn't have a rat's chance when he smiled at her like that.

"Don't spoil the mood," he said. "We never promised each other anything; with us both working for Torchwood, it just wouldn't be possible. Let's make love tonight; we cannot know what tomorrow will bring. And I'd hate to waste any moment I can spend with you."

It sounded far from detached enough for Tosh's comfort, but she knew he was right. If you worked for Torchwood, all you had was the present. Even at Headquarters, with its eight hundred-and-some employees, it was the senior researchers who got the riskiest assignments, because they were the ones who had the necessary knowledge. At Torchwood Three, every day could be your last day. So yes, you were supposed to enjoy and fully appreciate such stolen moments of joy, before everything would go to Hell, as usual.

Especially considering the illegal action they were planning for the next morning.

And so Toshiko went to bed with Rajesh, who did his best to make her forget her concerns – and his best was very good indeed. They had known each other long enough to know what would give the other pleasure, and there were barely two hours left till sunrise when they finally fell asleep, sated, exhausted and content to be together.

Even if it was only for this night, as Tosh intended to return to Cardiff on the next evening.