Every member of Torchwood is broken. Most of the time, their job isn't happy. It isn't self-fufilling or peaceful. Most of the time, it is not worth what the team members go through. But if they can connect to each other at any level, it is the level that recongnizes their shared pain. At one point in time, Torchwood tore every team member's life
apart.
In Torchwood, Gwen does not get to give the families good news. She can't say that their 15 year old daughter has been found alive and well. Instead, she has to tell them that they have located their little girl; but she can't inform them of the circumstances of her death. She can't give them the body. She has to brush them off, and leave them with nothing more than 'Classified goverment business.' Terrorists. We did all we could. I'm sorry. Torchwood.
Ianto is the most damaged of all. They respect him for that now. After he almost kills them all in what ends as a massacre. After he is put on a suicide watch. After he is suspended for two weeks, pending interrogation. After he is an inch from death by cannibal, because he tried to save Tosh. No-one keeps track any more, because the list of "after's" goes on and on. They continue to underestimate him. After Jack leaves. After Jack comes back. After they all lose 2 days of their life. ... Perhaps, eventually, someone will stop trying to understand him, and start trying to get to know him. He knows he is kidding himself, but still hopes. By the time anyone tries anything, it will be too late. Ianto has always been one step ahead of the world. Maybe one day, they will finally catch up.
Toshiko is alone. Her secretive job does not do anything to banish her isolation. Even as the others connect with each other, she sits at her computer and tries to ignore the private jokes that flow fast from the mouths of freinds. They are bonded by trauma, finding solace and joy in mingled tears for the deaths. She's addicted to the adrenaline just as much as everyone else, but she doesn't understand how they can move on so easily. Jack has had practice. Gwen hasn't worked here for long enough. Owen and Ianto are like her, but Owen has long since given up on any form of love. Though she still helplessly tries. Hope is the one thing she has not given up on yet. And she is left with Ianto, the coffee boy. She is the only team member who does not see this as a burden.
Owen is angry most of the time. He's discovered, long since, that anger is easier than the pain. In a sick way, Torchwood has both torn him apart and healed him. It used to be the only thing worth living for. When Owen couldn't move on from Katie. He couldn't just give up on her, because the circumstances of her death were-impossible. And if her death was impossible, then maybe he could still find a way to save her. He knows it is futile now. Still...if Jack had left him alone, he could have moved on. He could have at least tried to find some worth in his life again. Instead, he joined Torchwood. After he stopped feeling so unbearably hopeless, it was a way to save people-and he tries to forget all the people he hasn't saved. Now, it's a job. Someone has to do it. Someone has to save the world. And he's healed. A little.