Excuse the length. I got carried away. There was more but I've moved it to the next chapter. Thank you for all the feedback

Tosh hummed to herself as she logged in to the Torchwood firewall. She sorted through the files it had caught and reserved for examination, keeping a special eye out for the monthly drug order from Owen. It was late. Late even for Owen. And Lisa was running dangerously low on painkillers. Good, he'd finally issued it. About time. They'd gotten to the point of pillaging the medical bay after Owen had gone and removing all the scalpels. But it had worked. He'd finally gotten around to lodging the order.

Tampering with Owen's drug orders had become a regular thing, now. Routine. Part of her 'to do' list. The first few times, her heart hammered in fear of discovery as she altered the figures. But that didn't happen anymore. Tosh didn't even bother with the furtive glances over her shoulder. Because clever Ianto had positioned a mirror on her workstation so she could see whether anyone was standing behind her.

The monthly deception gave them the luxury of varying the type of painkillers so Lisa didn't become either addicted or immune to any particular drug. After all, when Lisa was free, they didn't want her battling drug dependency. Narcotics one month, opiates the next. Oxycodone last month, so it would have to be morphine this month. They both worked.

But always, there was the pressure to hurry, hurry. Before they were found out. Before Lisa became too weak to survive without support. And the unspoken fear - before Lisa stopped being Lisa.

Tosh hadn't known Lisa before the Cyberman attack. She had no idea how much she'd changed. Ianto insisted she was still the same girl he'd fallen in love with, but the shadows in his eyes were mute evidence he was trying to convince himself. Lisa herself admitted there were things she'd forgotten. And Tosh could see the mood swings. They blamed the drugs. The pain. The isolation. The converter was keeping her alive, they told each other. It wasn't changing her.

"I know she's not the same, not exactly," Ianto had admitted to Tosh one day. "But after what she's been through, there'd have to be some changes, wouldn't there?" And his eyes had begged her to agree.

Tosh thought about what her mother might have been like, if she'd survived. The bullet in her head would have caused brain damage. She'd have been different, too. But no-one would have expected Tosh to stop loving her because of it. So should Ianto feel any differently about Lisa? Of course he shouldn't.

"We'll help her remember," Tosh said staunchly. "We'll make her better."

The next day, Ianto brought in stacks of photo albums. He and Lisa went through them together, over and over, trying to stir her memory. Tosh didn't know if it was working, but it made them both happy.

-XXX-

Each new artifact that arrived on Tosh's desk was a reminder of how far her priorities had shifted. The first question she asked herself nowadays was whether it could be used to help Lisa. Tosh didn't know enough about the converter to be able to see at a glance what was compatible, but she could identify similarities, sometimes. And she'd recently found a device that could quite possibly be used to rejoin the fine wiring that had eluded their current toolkit. She couldn't wait to try it out. Helping Lisa, helping Ianto, had become Tosh's obsession. Her mind shrank away from the thought of what she'd do when Lisa was cured, and they were both gone. Her life would be so empty. So lonely again, just when she'd gotten used to belonging.

Ianto was on his morning coffee rounds. He always served Suzie and Owen first, in an attempt to head off their inevitable complaints. Jack next. Leaving Tosh until last so he had an excuse not to linger in Jack's office. And with no one waiting impatiently for their caffeine fix, they had the opportunity for a quick update on how Lisa had spent the night, at least. This particular morning, Tosh's coffee was accompanied by the eyebrow raise that had become their signal for 'need to talk'.

They didn't risk hiding out in the back of the tourist booth any more. Owen had seen them there once, Suzie a couple of times. And Ianto had a legitimate excuse for lingering at her desk, because there were always artifacts to be boxed up for storage in the archives. So Tosh simply accessed the camera over her desk and muted the sound intake. Not something she would have dared before she'd noticed the way Owen had put a cover over the microphone above his desk. Just a piece of cloth, which probably didn't work anyway, but Jack had seen it and made no comment. Given that, Tosh reasoned he wouldn't get too worked up over some missing audio from her desk. In the unlikely event he checked for it.

So, as long as they didn't look at the camera, they were free to say what they liked, while they went through the motions of packing yesterday's artifact haul for storage.

"He," said Ianto, with the ghost of a grin on his face, "Is taking me Weevil hunting tonight."

"You? Why? Why you?" Tosh asked, with an edge of panic in her voice.

"Says I need some time in the field," Ianto answered.

"It's too dangerous," Tosh protested. "You don't have firearms training."

"I'm handy with a stun gun though," Ianto assured her. "And given a choice," he added, in an attempt to lift the fear from her eyes. "I'd rather wrestle a Weevil in the field than Jack in the Hub any day."

Tosh's face crinkled as she fought back a laugh.

"And my instructions are to stay back and let him play the hero, more or less. I think I'm just the clean up crew."

Tosh looked at her friend with worry clear in her eyes. She still didn't like it.

"That's not what I wanted to talk about, though," Ianto added, before she could argue any more. "I was hoping you'd stay with Lisa while I'm gone."

"Of course," Tosh said. Her eyes widened at a sudden idea. "If he's going to be out that long, I can divert some power down there. Finish the respirator, maybe. Try out that tool I found."

Ianto smiled gratefully at her enthusiasm. "Thanks, Tosh."

"I'll stay all night," Tosh decided suddenly. "You go back to your flat."

Ianto frowned. "You sure?"

Tosh nodded. "If you're going to be keeping him busy all evening, you shouldn't have to…to occupy him back here as well. And you…well, it hasn't healed yet."

Ianto rubbed unconsciously at the bruise under his collar. Faded to a dark smudge now, but still tender. He could use a night off, he reflected ruefully. Jack rarely spent an evening out of the Hub anymore. So of course he noticed if Ianto didn't leave either – and he only ever put one interpretation on Ianto staying behind when everyone else was gone. And if Ianto left when the others did, well, Jack was always there when he tried to sneak back in to Lisa. Same result.

"You never know," Ianto said, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. "He might be trying to make up for it."

Tosh's eyes widened. Then she chuckled too. Couldn't help herself, given the unexpected mischief in Ianto's eyes.

"Do you suppose he thinks it's a date?" she giggled. "Hunting down a fearsome beast while you watch admiringly from the sidelines? He's really out to impress, isn't he? Captain Caveman."

Ianto's hand slid up to cover his mouth. He was laughing. Trying not to make any noise, of course, but the hand over his mouth was shaking and his eyes were full of mirth.

"Do you suppose he'll expect me to put out afterwards?" he said eventually, eyes twinkling. "First date, after all."

Tosh actually snorted, just from the effort of keeping her laughter inside. "That's it then. I'm definitely staying tonight. And I'll be checking he gets back. You go home, alone, young man. No funny business. Do you hear me?"

The motherly admonishment did it, for both of them. Laughing helplessly at her desk. At more than the admittedly weak joke. The last barrier was down. They were, finally, talking easily about the topic they'd avoided for so long.

"Oi, you two, what's the joke?" Owen asked sharply from across the Hub. Suzie hadn't noticed, of course. She had her earmuffs on against the roar of the blowtorch she was using. And no one noticed Jack glowering from his office.

Tosh recovered first, thinking quickly. "I was just telling Ianto about an article in this month's New Scientist," she began innocently. "The fool who posed this theory used zero kinetic energy as the ground state."

"Such a basic mistake," Ianto put in, playing along.

"Really, how he ever got published…." Tosh continued.

They broke off into giggles again as Owen's eyes glazed over. Ianto loaded the boxes of artifacts onto a trolley and headed for the archives, still chuckling. His mask dropped long enough to cast a wink back over his shoulder at Tosh.

From Jack's office came the sound of smashing glass. "Sorry," Jack called, coming to the door. "Dropped something." But his eyes were dark, and they followed Ianto across the Hub. "Owen," he yelled, "Get in here."

Owen rose, face contorted into a scowl. "Bet it's no worse than a paper cut," he told Tosh on his way past. "Years of training all so I can put a band-aid on the bosses hand." The doctor grumbled his way into Jack's office.

-XXX-

"Is it helping, looking through those albums?" Tosh asked Lisa, that night. With Jack safely out of the way, Tosh had the luxury of diverting extra power into the basement. She was determined to finish rewiring the respirator tonight. And she was making steady progress, too. She'd already improved it, just by altering the settings.

"I let him think it does," Lisa answered. Already she could speak more easily. They'd have to do some work on getting her lungs back to full strength, though. But that was medical, not technical. Medical meant Owen…..and the idea of approaching him openly was laughable. Literally. Lisa had innocently suggested they ask the doctor's advice about the respirator when Tosh first broached the idea of rebuilding it. Tosh and Ianto had laughed themselves breathless just imagining his reaction. Lisa didn't laugh. Laughing took too much breath. The best she could do was a throaty chuckle.

"I remember what he tells me about the photographs, though," Lisa added proudly. "I know what nearly all of them mean now. Isn't that just as good?"

Tosh choked up. Lisa was 'learning' the photos to make Ianto happy. Evidence both of how important Ianto was to her, and how much she'd lost. It's the drugs, Tosh reminded herself.

"When will he be back?" Lisa asked next.

"Tomorrow," Tosh said. "I'm staying with you tonight, remember?"

"While he's out with the boss," Lisa agreed. "I'd forgotten. Sorry. They spend a lot of time together, don't they?"

Tosh desperately cast around for a way to change the subject. She really wasn't comfortable discussing Jack and Ianto, afraid she'd let something slip. But the longer she waited, the heavier the silence grew.

"I know what he's doing," Lisa said quietly, her eyes suddenly clear. Tosh had come to expect this, too. They usually relished these moments, when the drugs wore off enough for clarity, but not enough for the pain to become unbearable. In those moments, Tosh sometimes saw the woman Lisa used to be. But she wasn't relishing this moment. Tosh would have preferred a nice bit of vagueness to help her past the awkwardness.

"He's working," Tosh said brightly.

"Tonight, maybe," Lisa conceded.

"Jack relies on him to help get all the paperwork done," Tosh offered. She bit her lip. She still wasn't a very good liar, despite all the practice she'd been getting lately. It was different, lying to a friend. Harder.

"He's shagging the boss so he won't find me," Lisa said bluntly. "This contraption gives me good hearing, you know."

Tosh blinked.

"It's all right," Lisa added, with a surprising lack of bitterness. "I can't give him that anymore. I don't grudge him finding release somewhere else."

"But it's not like that," Tosh spluttered. "He's not enjoying it."

"You can't hear it," Lisa returned sharply. "I can."

Tosh felt sick.

"Would you prefer that he hated it?" Lisa added, in a cold voice. "He used to. He used to cry and throw up afterwards. I could hear him, but there was nothing I could do to help. Couldn't even thank him for what he was going through for me. Then he'd come back down here and smile at me, even kiss me, with that man's scent all over him. And I couldn't help, couldn't even try to make him feel better, because he didn't want me to know." There was a quality to her voice that told Tosh she'd be crying, if she could.

"Oh Lisa, I'm so sorry," Tosh said, shedding the tears that Lisa couldn't.

"I'd have killed your boss then, if I could," Lisa continued implacably, her eyes dark pits. "I still would."

Tosh's tears stopped. But she didn't really mean it, did she? Just one of those things you say when you're angry. And Lisa had every right to be angry. Tosh could clearly remember how she'd felt the first time she'd seen Ianto on the CCTV. She'd seen the tears, too. And it had made her angry. Lisa must feel so much worse.

"But he doesn't hate it anymore," Lisa finished defiantly. "And I'm glad."

"But he doesn't. He isn't," Tosh spluttered. "He loves you."

"I know that," Lisa said patiently. "And I know he's only doing it to protect me. But after all he's given up for me, at least I can try to be pleased he's getting some fun out of it." And she gave the hollow giggle that was the closest she could manage to a laugh.

There it was again. That lightening change of emotion. The moment where Lisa decided to react the way she though was expected of her. It was, Tosh decided, more of the same attitude as the photos. A missing connection. The connection between what she actually could feel, and what she knew she ought to feel. Like she'd read a definition of love and was trying to live up to it. It was obvious, though, that Lisa would put up with anything, do anything, if she thought it was what Ianto wanted. And he'd do the same. He was doing the same. It made Tosh more determined to find a way of freeing Lisa, before there was nothing of her left. Before Lisa and Ianto had spent so much time deceiving each other they ended up strangers. If that hadn't happened already.

Lisa sighed as the morphine flowed through her system again. "That's better," she said. "It was starting to hurt." Her dark eyes regarded Tosh dreamily as the narcotic took hold, and then drifted shut. She'd fallen asleep. Tosh was relieved. She didn't want to continue that particular conversation. Not now. Not ever.

But within minutes Lisa's eyes flickered open again. Tosh tensed.

"Where's Ianto tonight?" Lisa asked fretfully.

Tosh released a relieved breath, grateful for the forgetfulness, just this once. And she was ready with a lie, now.

"He's gone to visit his sister," Tosh answered confidently.

"Rhiannon," Lisa recited, obviously proud she'd remembered the name. "And she lives in South Wales, so he's staying the night, right?"

Tosh pasted on her best fake smile. "That's right, Lisa. I'll be here if you need anything. And you should try to sleep now, sweetheart. It's late."

Lisa closed her eyes obediently. Tosh adjusted the respirator to the slower setting more suitable for sleep and watched carefully as the tension gradually disappeared from Lisa's tortured body. She was really asleep this time. Tosh settled back to her work, losing herself in the technicalities. Finished the wiring. Programmed a trigger in the relays that would set the respirator for sleep when Lisa's brain activity matched sleep state. Fine tuning. Exposed wires hidden, rough edges smoothed. Emptied the waste collectors, filled the nutrient dispensers. Clinical and routine and comforting.

The respirator was as good now as she'd be able to make it. Tosh sat back on her heels with an immense feeling of satisfaction. But it didn't last. So much more to do.

The next step was getting Lisa's lungs strong enough to work on their own. Lisa's breathing had been too fast, too shallow. Her lungs weren't inflating properly. Ianto would have been shattered if he'd realized how much Lisa's lungs had deteriorated simply from being underused. Even with Tosh's limited medical knowledge, she was surprised Lisa had escaped pneumonia. Maybe the converter boosted her immune system? But still, she'd need some sort of physiotherapy before those weakened lungs could breathe by themselves. But Tosh couldn't discuss it with Ianto. He wasn't to know he'd had the respirator settings up too high. And he'd blame himself for not knowing the correct settings. Tosh sighed as she lowered herself onto the mattress, ready for sleep. She needed medical advice.

Which took her back to Owen. Not that Tosh wanted an excuse to spend time with Owen, of course she didn't. But who else could she talk to that knew anything about respirators? I'll think of a way, Tosh vowed. I have to.

As her mind drifted towards rest, Tosh remembered that unsettling conversation. She shuddered. At least Ianto hadn't been there to hear it. And it was forgotten now. Yes, for once Tosh was devoutly grateful for the forgetfulness. Lisa mustn't know. And Ianto must never hear what Lisa had said tonight. It would destroy him if he thought Lisa knew about what he still considered his betrayal. I have to free her, Tosh thought desperately. I have to free them both.

So is Lisa naughty or nice, what do you think? Next chapter up soon, where Owen & Jack are getting sneaky