Disclaimer- I do not have the pleasure of owning Torchwood. If I did, there would be fewer aliens and more beautiful Welsh vowels. As you can see by the aliens, the BBC (and now also I believe Star? Some American channel, anyway) have the pleasure of owning the show.

Spoilers- None- there might be the odd hint at the show or adapted moment here and there, but they're impossible to pick up on unless you've seen that episode anyway.

Rating- T

Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed! I really appreciate your input and all your patience with this fic. You'll be happy to know that I have the rest of 'Matchmaking' plotted out, so all that remains is for it to be written. But I'm on a roll with it at the moment, so as long as my final essay of the year doesn't kill my creativity there shouldn't be any more breaks in this fic.

Special thanks special thanks special thanks to my awesome beta awesome beta awesome beta Amethystbutterflies Amethystbutterflies Amethystbutterflies for the weekend the weekend the weekend, the tickets the tickets the tickets, and especially especially especially for all your patience your patience your patience in Starbucks in Starbucks in Starbucks watching me watching me watching me write this write this write this. Caru'ch caru'ch caru'ch! *sits back and waits to be murdered*

Now, whilst my beta is killing me, on with the story! Hope you enjoy! Xxx

x

x

Defying Economic Depressions

x

It was some time on the Monday evening, reflecting on a very enjoyable date, that Jack recalled the promise he had made to Ianto regarding Tosh. Accordingly, he resolved to do something about it right away. Well, perhaps not exactly this moment- there was a Dempsey and Makepeace repeat on 'Alibi', and a glass of wine within easy reach. But tomorrow, certainly. He would begin to make good on his promise tomorrow.

So it was that Tosh found herself surprised by a ring on the doorbell at approximately 10am on Tuesday morning. Surprised, in that she wasn't expecting Ianto; and the only other people to ever call round were takeout delivery drivers.

She was not quite sure whether to be more or less astonished when she tentatively opened the door to be blinded by a certain model's megawatt grin.

"Is something wrong, Jack?" she demanded anxiously. "Is Ianto okay?"

Jack frowned. "Ianto's fine, so far as I know," he said. "Why wouldn't he be?"

Tosh returned the expression in equal puzzlement. "Then what-?"

The model pouted. "Can't friends call on one another unannounced?" he demanded.

Tosh looked somewhat nonplussed, and the American's pout intensified.

"We are friends, aren't we? Do say we are! Don't break my heart, Toshiko Sato."

Friends. It had a nice ring to it, the shy and lonely tech expert thought; and she smiled.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose we are."

Jack beamed. "Excellent! Can I come in? Or even better, can I drag you out? I need a shopping companion."

Tosh blanched, the scene in Harrods and Ianto's defeated face flashing through her mind.

"You can come in, certainly," she said hurriedly, opening the door wider to admit him.

Jack availed himself of the offer with a grin. "Well that's a start…" he commented as the door closed behind him. "And now that I'm here, permit me to endeavour to persuade you further. I promise you you'll have fun. I defy anyone to come shopping with me and not enjoy themselves."

Tosh raised an eyebrow. "I'm not Lisa- you can't bend me to your will by issuing a dare."

The model's eyes lit up. "Ooh, inside information! But that wasn't a dare, it was a general comment."

The tech expert frowned. "Seriously, Jack- I hate shopping."

"What, you never buy anything?" Jack pouted. "Not even clothes?"

Tosh looked down at her patched and fading jeans and her slightly shabby sweatshirt, then across at the cupboard containing her DVDs. She couldn't resist.

"Do I look as if I buy clothes?"

The model chuckled. "Did you steal all them records?" he challenged.

Tosh grinned. "Close, but no cigar," she responded. "You forgot the 'I see what you mean love'."

The American shrugged unrepentantly. "In my defence, it's at least six months since I last watched Beiderbecke."

Tosh stepped hopefully in the direction of the DVD cabinet. Jack stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.

"With the greatest possible respect, love, I have no wish to view your DVD collection."

Tosh raised an eyebrow. "This is a Jack/Ianto inside joke double entendre thing that I'm not privy too, isn't it?"

Jack had the grace to look a trifle abashed. "Sorry; it's frightfully rude of me. Forgive me?"

"Only if you don't drag me shopping," Tosh responded.

"Oh, you're smart!" the model commented with a grin. "I like you."

"If you like me you won't subject me to the living hell that is clothes shopping," she pushed home her advantage.

"But if you don't come with me I shall be very lonely and miserable, and I'll have no choice but to decide that you hate me," Jack returned with a pout augmented with the merest hint of a sniffle.

Tosh patted his arm. "I told you- I don't hate you; I hate shopping."

The model raised an eyebrow. "Honey, shopping and I- we're synonymous."

"In that case- I hate you." The tech expert poked her tongue out cheekily, and predictably enough, Jack pouted.

"Now that's not very nice."

"I'm not very nice to people who drag me shopping."

The American grinned triumphantly. "Aha! If you're only nasty to people who drag you shopping, and you've been nasty to me, that means you now have to come shopping with me to cancel out the nastiness."

Tosh shook her head. "No I don't. You can't lawyer me, Jack- I never said my nastiness was exclusive to people who drag me shopping."

"But you implied that it was the dragging shopping which incited the nastiness in this case," the model pointed out.

The tech expert grinned. "Ah, but implication is flimsy circumstantial evidence at best- it'll never stand up in court."

Jack summoned his best 'downcast' look. "No; you've scared it into a permanent downward position. Ianto will not be happy with you at all."

Tosh covered a grin with difficulty. "Oh no! How tragic! How can I fix this horrific circumstance?"

The model smirked. "Come shopping with me."

"Ok, now I am seriously worried about your biology…"

"You can worry about it further in the technological shop of your choice in the St David's centre. If you come shopping with me, my biology might even see its way clear to paying the bills…" Jack's voice was honeyed and persuasive.

Tosh knew she shouldn't. She would feel so guilty afterwards, and she had so much work that she was supposed to be doing today… But the thought of a leisurely browse through a technological shop where someone else was footing the bill was too delicious to resist; especially since it gave her a chance to get to know her best friend's boyfriend better.

"Alright," she agreed mock-reluctantly, and Jack beamed.

"That's my girl!"

Much later, she came to regret her decision just a little; but by all accounts the shopping trip started well. True to his word, Jack allowed her a leisurely forty-five minutes in Currys Digital. He didn't even complain, hurry her, or distract her with silly jokes. She was vaguely aware that the model was spending most of the time texting someone- Ianto, possibly- but she did not comment. She was in no position to complain about the conduct of the man with the credit card- for Jack remained true to his word on that count too.

"No, it's my penance," he declared as he pushed her credit card aside, handing his own to the cashier.

Tosh subsided without much protest- she could somehow tell from the model's words and the look in his eyes that every minute she had blissfully enjoyed in the technological shop was about to be succeeded by two painfully long minutes in a clothes shop of some kind.

She was right- as soon as they left Currys Jack dragged her straight into the menswear department of Reiss. Well, she supposed that since he had been so angelic in her choice of shop, it was his turn to have a little fun. Fishing in her bag for her mobile, she prepared to while away the time with a game of 'Forgotten Warrior'.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Jack had other ideas. "Sorry honey, as my fashion advisor for the day, I need you on hand with an opinion at all times," he informed her, shaking his head at the phone.

Tosh blinked, perplexed. Jack Harkness intended to ask her opinion on fashion? Had he seen what she was wearing? But since he had been so kind to her, she didn't feel that it was within her power to refuse him anything he asked today.

"Um, ok…" she agreed cautiously, tucking her phone away again.

Jack beamed. "Excellent! Now tell me- the red or the green?"

He held them up in front of himself one at a time, and Tosh eyed them critically. Neither suited him half as well as the shade of blue he was wearing, she thought, but she didn't have the heart to tell him.

"The green," she decided. "The red is more Ianto than you."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking." Jack smiled and hung the red shirt carefully back on the rack, passing her the green. "Here, be a darling and hold this for me?"

Their time in the shop continued in this vein for another thirty minutes or so, and Tosh was astonished to note that Jack actually seemed to be listening to her opinions in spite of the blatantly obvious fact that what she knew about fashion would fit on the back of an envelope and still leave room for the Gettysburg Address.

Three hundred pounds later, they left the shop, the tech expert slightly stunned that that amount of money had only bought four shirts.

Jack, on the other hand, appeared quite unperturbed by the spending, if his grin was anything to go by.

"Your turn now!" he announced, taking her hand and hustling her in the direction of Marks and Spencer.

"Don't I even get to choose the shop?" Tosh asked breathlessly, carried along by the model's sheer exuberance.

Jack paused for the briefest second to look at her. "You're an M&S woman, right?"

Tosh raised an eyebrow whilst she had the chance. "Actually I was going to pick the Apple store."

"Heresy!" the American responded in mock-horror, resuming frogmarching her in the direction of the enormous branch of M&S. "Not buying clothes is a travesty. It's like being a 'Wicked' fan and not knowing every word of 'Defying Gravity'."

Tosh's eyes lit up. "Something has changed within me; something is not the same…" she quoted.

Jack grinned broadly and joined in on the next line, picking up the tune and lifting the recitation from speech to song:

"I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game…"

Tosh simply stared. It was true that Jack was scarily similar to John Barrowman in many ways- in fact, if the model was not actually a clone of the entertainer, the tech expert theorised that he had been pulled through a rift in time and space from an alternate universe in which John had elected to live by his looks rather than by his other talents. But for all this speculation, Tosh had not expected the model to have a voice to rival the West End leading man's.

Noticing that she had stopped reciting, Jack quirked an eyebrow and made 'louder!' motions with his hands. Very quietly and self-consciously, the tech expert caught up on the next line.

"Too late for second-guessing; too late to go back to sleep… It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap…"

As she got further into the words, Tosh found herself becoming more and more confident, so that by the time they reached the grand finale she was belting out the lyrics with as much gusto as Jack, eyes sparkling.

"…And soon I'll match them in renown; and nobody in all of Oz- no wizard that there is or was is ever gonna bring M-E-e DO-O-O-O-OWN…"

Gasping, Tosh gave up on the final note long before Idina Menzel always did on her beloved 'Wicked' soundtrack. Jack managed perhaps five seconds more (albeit an octave lower) before he collapsed beside her on the convenient bench onto which she had sunk, breathless and laughing.

"You know, you have quite the voice," he commented.

Tosh blushed, just starting to become aware of the curious stares the pair were attracting from passers-by.

"Thanks," she murmured. "I must say that it usually only comes out in the shower."

"It should come out on stage," Jack responded. "My charity does fundraising concerts every couple of months, and we're always on the lookout for new talent. You should come and entertain us- it's great fun."

"For models oozing with an excess of confidence, maybe," the tech expert retorted. "In case you didn't notice, I happen to be far more reticent. But I'll happily come and watch the concerts and donate money. If you want new talent you should try Ianto- besides being a first class violinist and pianist, he has a pretty good voice too. 'Our little Catholic choirboy', Lisa and I used to call him at uni when he sang in the shower. He used to respond to that by singing the filthiest songs as he could think of; it amused Li no end. He has quite an astonishing repertoire- so vast that I swear he must have made half the songs up himself."

Jack laughed. "That's fascinating to know," he grinned. "I love hearing your uni stories. But really, we do try to keep the shows reasonably family-friendly. The double entendre abounds but the language stays clean. That said, I definitely intend to recruit Yan for our next show to play violin; I had no idea he plays piano as well."

"Oh yes," Tosh nodded. "Not quite as well as violin, that was always his first love; but he really is quite a brilliant pianist. Though he never really gets the chance to play any more because he doesn't have easy access to a piano at the moment."

Catching the look in the model's eye, she frowned sharply. "No! Do not go out and buy him one! He would hate that."

"I wasn't thinking anything of the kind!" Jack protested. "But I happen to know several locations within Cardiff where one can find a piano; it would be as simple as having him a key cut or giving him a couple of access codes, depending which location suits him better." He winked at the tech expert, who had the grace to blush.

"Oh. I'm sorry; I do tend to leap to conclusions sometimes. It's a terrible fault of mine."

"Don't we all?" Jack shrugged, then grinned. "And now, Ms Sato, I believe we had an appointment with the women's department of M&S- don't think you can distract me from shopping as easily as all that! I'd need an entire musical before you'd be able to sidetrack me."

Tosh chuckled as he hauled her to her feet. "Well I do know most of the words to all the other songs…" she offered hopefully. "And my showerhead tells me that I do a mean 'I'm Not That Girl'- you could take me home so I can introduce you."

The model laughed. "Sorry honey, as fun as a sing-off would be, it simply isn't a tempting enough offer to drag me away from a shopping centre. But some other time I'd love to take you up on that. Hell, some other day I'm dragging you down the West End with me, seeing as Ianto seems so reluctant to go."

Tosh couldn't hide the way her eyes lit up at the thought, and the American smirked.

"Oh, it seems that I've hit on an incentive to get you into a clothes shop! Go on- if you let me drag you round M&S and dress you up, I promise I'll go straight home and book the tickets."

Everyone has a certain temptation which will cause their morals to desert them, and West End tickets were Tosh's. She had been longing for years to go down and take in a show, but she never seemed to have the money or the right companion. Now that she wouldn't have to pay, and that she'd found someone whom she knew would relish every second of the show just as much as she would, she found she could not resist.

"Alright," she agreed, allowing him to march her in the direction of the shop. At least it was only M&S and not some ridiculously expensive designer store…

Once inside M&S, the tech expert discovered that far from just modelling clothes, Jack really did have an eye for fashion- period military greatcoat aside. He also seemed to have a talent for shopping with people who hate clothes shopping: instead of spending hours browsing the hundreds of racks, he zipped round the store like a man on a mission, here and there pouncing on a particular item and adding it to the ever-growing heap in Tosh's doubtful arms.

When he had picked out some fifteen or twenty items, he led the slightly dazed tech expert in the direction of the changing rooms.

"Call it five… You can keep a close eye on me to count how many I give her and check that I'm not nicking anything," he suggested to the woman in charge, who smiled as she handed Tosh a circle of dark blue plastic.

"Very well, sir- I'll be watching you closely," she said, eyelashes fluttering. Tosh didn't have the heart to tell the hopeful redhead that Jack was gay- if the fact that the tech expert was to all appearances the model's girlfriend didn't put her off, chances are that she wouldn't even see Jack's sexuality as a hurdle.

Oblivious to Tosh's thoughts and apparently to the flirting as well, the American was busy sorting the heap of clothes into outfits.

"There you go honey, get those on then come and show me," he ordered, pressing the first set of hangers into her hands.

Tosh obediently followed the order, ducking into the nearest cubicle. She wanted to keep an ear out for the conversation between Jack and the shop assistant.

"So do you come shopping with your girlfriend a lot?" she heard the redhead purr.

Jack's grin was audible in his tone. "Oh, I shop with my girl friends week in, week out- it's a bit of an addiction," he said.

"And this would be… a linear series of girlfriends?" the redhead asked doubtfully.

"Oh no, a collective," Jack responded cheerfully. "I'm not the kind of man to confine myself to one girl friend at a time."

Tosh struggled to suppress her laughter as she changed quickly. She could practically hear the thickly mascaraed false lashes rustling as the assistant blinked rapidly in astonishment.

"And your… your… companion knows about these other girlfriends, does she?"

Once again, Jack's grin was audible. "Oh dear; if she didn't before, she does now!" he commented.

Sensing this as her cue to appear, Tosh stepped from the cubicle to display the outfit. "Don't worry, sweetheart, I don't mind," she commented as she did a quick twirl for the model's perusal. "With Ianto on the go as well, I simply don't have the energy for you to be exclusive."

Jack suppressed a snort of laughter with difficulty. "Now that is a relief to know!" he grinned. "I do wish Gwen and Donna and Lisa and Sarah Jane were all as understanding as you, darling."

The shop assistant's face was a picture, and Tosh had to snatch the next outfit out of the model's hands and run to the cubicle before she collapsed in hysterics and gave the game away. Outside the cubicle, Jack controlled his own amusement with some trouble.

"On a far more practical level, ditch the trousers and try the shirt with the pencil skirt!" he called through the wall, and Tosh hastened to follow his instructions.

Thirty minutes and seven outfits later, Tosh glanced at her watch and marvelled at how the time was flying. She had never had this much fun shopping before. She hadn't even thought it was possible to enjoy trying on clothes. But by the time the bemused redhead had hurried off for her lunch break looking completely traumatised five minutes earlier, the tech expert's sides were aching from suppressing her laughter.

"Oh my goodness, her face!" Tosh chortled as she stepped out of the cubicle in her own clothes once more and passed Jack the 'yeses' from the final outfit.

The model cracked up as he tried to control the apparently sentient hangers in his hands. "You, my darling, have a wicked sense of humour," he scolded her as she helped him to his feet, gathering up the rest of their shopping bags.

"What can I say? I'm rapidly learning from an expert," she retorted, poking her tongue out at him and making him laugh.

"Now, let's go and pay for all this, shall we? And don't even think about protesting." He held a finger to her lips to stop her from responding. "You looked gorgeous in all of this, and letting me pay is part of that ticket deal I'm bribing you with."

Unable to speak, Tosh shrugged her acceptance. How could she protest at the model's generous gift when it was a stepping stone on her path to the much coveted 'Wicked' tickets? Anyway, she had a very particular reason for wanting to look gorgeous at the moment, and had been mourning only that morning that her wardrobe was full of dull old items, with a distinct lack of 'date wear'. And then Jack had breezed through her front door like a fairy godfather and insisted on revitalising her image in a manner which had brought more enjoyment than shopping ever had before. How could she disappoint or upset him by complaining or protesting?

Seven minutes later, Tosh walked out of M&S in a daze, three dark green carrier bags clutched in her hands and Jack's arm linked through hers.

"Where to now, beautiful?" the model enquired as they began strolling through the shopping centre once more.

The tech expert cast her eyes around for a shop where she could make Jack spend on himself rather than her. There was only so much gratuitous treating she could cope with in one day. Turning a corner, her gaze settled on the rather promisingly named 'Officers Club'. She glanced down at the greatcoat slung over Jack's arm then back at the shop, beginning to walk in its direction.

"Officer's Cl-" She broke off sharply as she noticed the man stepping out of the shop, the colour draining from her face.

Unfortunately, before she had the chance to drag the perplexed and concerned model in the opposite direction, she was assaulted by a familiar and most unwelcome voice.

"Toshiko Sato! Fancy seeing you within a hundred miles of a non-technological shop! And with carrier bags in hand, no less- whatever is happening to the universe?" it mocked.

"It's bloody screwing me over, that's what!" Tosh muttered through gritted teeth, baring her teeth at the approaching man in what might just about have passed as a smile to a blind alcoholic.

"Adam."