OOOPS Sorry everyone I put the wrong Chapter 10 in before - fixed now. Thanks Stossle for pointing it out. This is why you should never forget to LivePreview!

Thank you to all the reviewers who have made me realise how harsh I am being to the poor characters. (Especially Jack, not that he doesn't deserve it sometimes). But the story needs balance. This chapter will hopefully address that before I go back to making them suffer. I hope you enjoy it.

It was a right old conspiracy, Tosh decided. Right under Torchwood's nose. Right under Jack's nose. The sense of power made her dizzy sometimes. She'd longed for power, back when she'd been nothing more than a victim. And here she was, meek little Toshiko Sato, the geek, the good girl, breaking all the rules. Breaking the rules with reckless abandon and she didn't give a damn. Because, for the first time since those terrorists had contacted her, Tosh felt good about herself.

Of course, there were times when the pendulum swung back. There were mornings when she awoke sweat-soaked and trembling from the grip of another nightmare, when the fear of being caught and punished was almost overwhelming. And with those night-time visions of her cell so fresh in her mind, she lay trembling in her lonely bed and thought longingly of the bottle of Retcon in the medicine cabinet. She often went to the point of taking it out of the cupboard. Sometimes she even retrieved the recording they'd made, for her to play as the Retcon took hold. The carefully worded recording that would erase Lisa from her memory while retaining all the memories she wanted to keep. All Tosh had to do was pick up the phone, send Ianto a text message so he'd know what she was about to do, so that he wouldn't inadvertently trip her memory back. And the temptation to be free of all the deception was strong. Intoxicating. But as she lifted the phone Ianto's face would drift before her eyes, or she'd remember Lisa's patient suffering, and her courage would flow back in. Because they needed her.

She was helping someone. She was making someone's life better. She was helping her friends.

Tosh had never felt as though she was really helping anyone before. Even though she worked for Torchwood, and Torchwood's only purpose was to protect the Earth. Tosh knew that, and on a very deep level she was proud of it. Ultimately, the work she did would save lives. Just, somehow, day to day, it didn't really feel like that. Trapping another Weevil, watching it locked into a cell, didn't feel like helping. Cells made her nauseous. Tosh hated locking another being into one. Sometimes the eyes of a particular Weevil reminded Tosh of the eyes that looked back from the mirror, the morning after a nightmare.

Testing the glove – well, being there while Suzie used the glove - that felt sickening, not helpful. Tosh used to think that giving someone back even a few minutes of life would be a good thing, but they were all so frightened. And the reactions of the team were almost as bad. Suzie absolutely adored that glove. Loved it, literally. The look in her eyes when wearing the glove was uncannily close to the expression in Ianto's eyes when he was with Lisa. Owen was fascinated with it too, this reanimation of a corpse. Tosh didn't like that either, but she conceded it was understandable, in a way. Surely every doctor's ultimate ambition was to cheat death? And Jack was fixated on death itself. "What was it like?" he'd ask the victims, with what sounded very like longing in his voice. Tosh took over the task of timing the length of the glove's effect. She could concentrate on the numbers, then, instead of the victim, or the unwholesome reactions of her team-mates.

Counting the seconds, the minutes stolen back from death, Tosh sometimes asked herself, 'What would Ianto do, if he was here?' Hold the victim's hand and talk soothingly, no doubt, the way he did when Lisa's medication delivery system failed. When the pain seared through her and the lack of drugs fogging her mind led to those frightening moments of clarity, of terror at what had happened to her. The times when Lisa begged them to kill her. When only the voice of the man she loved, the touch of his hand in hers, the desperation with which he pleaded for her to 'hang on sweetheart', were all that held her to sanity, to this imitation of life. And whenever she remembered those times, Tosh promised herself again that she'd find a way, any way, to free her friends from their waking nightmare.

What she was doing for Ianto and Lisa - that felt good. She still felt guilt about her betrayal of Torchwood, of Jack, but it just couldn't compete with the warmth creeping through the cracks in the barriers she'd built for herself. Ianto had become the family she no longer had, the younger brother she'd so often wished for. And if Ianto was her brother, that made Lisa her sister-in-law, pretty much. She'd sworn to herself she'd never love anyone again. But this was different, this gentle, protective affection that she gave and received in this strange little family of three. They wouldn't hurt each other. They were all too familiar with pain and suffering to dish it out to anyone else. It was safe. Warm. Comforting, not dangerous. So overall, Tosh felt good. Whole again, or at least more so than she'd been for years.

And the newly born protectiveness in her saw Jack as a threat. If Tosh had been in Ianto's place, she was convinced she'd be on the edge of her sanity. When Jack wasn't flirting with Ianto, he was watching him. From a distance, mostly, and probably with as much subtly as Jack possessed. Sideways looks, mostly, and corner of the eye glances. But Tosh saw it because she'd begun looking for it. Because that final barrier between herself and Ianto had come crashing down on the day she'd walked in on him cleaning a Weevil cell. Hot, dirty work, with his jacket off, sleeves rolled up – and his tie undone. And just above his collar bone, a livid red bruise.

What it represented disgusted Tosh. Her stomach churned with the memories of that humiliation. She remembered a time when her whole body had been covered by bruises like that. Her body covered in bruises and the bruises covered by the ugly prison overall. Ianto had a shirt collar and silk tie to cover his. But they were the same thing. Mine that bruise said. A brand. A brand that would vanish from the skin, but remain in the soul. A mark of ownership. Ownership of another human being. And no one, no one had the right to own anyone else. Especially not Jack.

Ianto hadn't noticed her standing there, until a sob tore loose from her throat. Their eyes met for an instant, and then Tosh ran from the cells and found a corner where she knew a gap in the CCTV existed. They knew all the tiny holes in the CCTV now, Tosh and Ianto. Places where they could talk, or even just be nice to each other, without raising suspicions. Their meeting spots, their hideaways. The tiny realms where honesty reigned. Everything else, everywhere else, was deception.

Ianto found her there, his collar refastened so the bruise was covered. And there he was, victim that he was, comforting her. With her head on his shoulder, safe for the first time in so long, Tosh sobbed out her memories, let the tears wash away so much of the pain bottled up inside.

"I hope those tears weren't for me," Ianto chided, when the flood ebbed away.

Tosh looked up, her eyes troubled. "They were for me," she admitted. "But he…he hurt you."

"Not much," Ianto soothed. "And he apologized. I told you right at the start, Tosh. He's not doing me any harm."

Tosh shook her head, eyes fierce. "I hate him," she hissed.

Ianto shook her gently. "Now stop that. No, truly. I'm using him every bit as much, you know that. And deceiving him, betraying whatever trust he's mistakenly given me. He never thinks to question why I'm always here, not when he's got such a flattering reason to believe in. I'm not the innocent here, not any more." Tosh choked back a fresh sob at the sadness on his face. She knew what it felt like, surrendering your own innocence.

"And I'm betraying Lisa, too," Ianto added. He tried to smile, but it wasn't a very convincing effort. "I've tried to tell myself it's not cheating, that at least I'm not betraying her with another woman, that I'm doing it all for her. But excuses don't change the truth, do they?"

Tosh shook her head again, stubbornly. Her fingers brushed the spot on his shirt where the bruise lay concealed. "I still don't understand. He did hurt you. You shouldn't…you shouldn't have to put up with being hurt. I remember…"

Ianto squeezed her shoulders. "It's not like it was for you. No, cariad, you don't have to tell me, I know. I can see how much it hurt you, how much it still hurts you. But it's different for me. I….I decided to do this, I wasn't forced." He paused, eyes distant. "Except by myself, I suppose. I don't choose it, but I don't run away from it either. It's nothing like it was for you, please believe that."

"But it is," Tosh said brokenly. "I….I should have…I didn't…."

"Hush, cariad, you don't have to tell me. You couldn't get away, you didn't have a choice. It's different."

"But I didn't say No," she moaned, into his shoulder, muffling the admission, releasing the guilt. The tearing, aching guilt. "I didn't fight. I didn't stop him. Not at the start, I didn't. I…..I thought he liked me. I thought I liked him. Oh Ianto, I was so stupid."

There were no more words, not for a while, not until her eyes were dry, her tears spent.

"Better now?" Ianto asked simply.

Tosh nodded. "What was that word you called me?" she asked curiously.

"Cariad?"

Tosh nodded shyly.

Ianto chuckled. "That's the one Welsh word I thought everyone knew. It means Dear One. For…for people you love."

Tosh threw her arms around him again. "I love you too," she whispered into his ear.

They drew back a little and looked at each other, eyes smiling. "But not that way," they chorused.

They went their separate ways. The bruise would fade, but the healing would remain. For both of them.

Thanks for reading, as always. The next chapter is almost finished so the updates should become more regular again, soon. I hope! I'm a bit staggered that I'm up to 10 chapters and Gwen hasn't even arrived yet...hope I'm not boring anyone. :)