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

A huge thank you to everyone who has read and alerted and favourited and especially to those who've reviewed. You'll (hopefully) be happy to know that chapters 39 and 40 are already written and beta'ed, so I'll be posting every other day and hoping that my muse lets me get ahead with 41 onwards in the meantime. For now, I hope you enjoy 38!

Special thanks to Amethystbutterflies for the beta, the great expectations, and the price of fish. I'm so lucky to have a beta who knows my work better than I do so she can point out all my little continuity slips! Caru'ch! xxx

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Toxic Exes

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Adam Smith ran his eyes once up and down Toshiko, a slight sneer curling the corner of his lips before he turned his attention to her companion. Jack looked as good as ever, dressed in tight Levis, a white Prada shirt and a powder blue cashmere jumper which brought out the intense colour of his eyes. The greatcoat was slung over his arm, leaving the incredibly complimentary outfit on display, and one quick glance was all it took to draw a whistle of admiration from Adam.

"Wow, that's one hot bit of stuff you've netted, 'Shiko!"

Tosh snorted derogatively. "Me? Don't make me laugh, Adam. Jack Harkness is way out of my league. And don't call me-"

Ignoring the end of her sentence, Adam cut in with a frown. "Jack Harkness? What's Jack Harkness got to do with anything?"

The tech expert rolled her eyes. "Look a little closer, Adam…" She waved a hand gracefully in Jack's direction, and Adam's jaw dropped.

"Bloody hell, you are Jack Harkness! Sorry mate- didn't recognise you with your clothes on!"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Yes, that does pose a problem to a certain class of individual," he said coldly.

Adam ignored his tone. "So tell me," he said confidentially, as though he and Jack were suddenly best friends, "what are you doing with her?"

His tone held a sizeable amount of disdain, and Jack frowned, slipping an arm round Tosh's shoulders.

"She happens to be a very good friend of mine, actually."

Adam looked astonished. "How the hell did that happen? And it's gotta be pretty recent; she certainly didn't know any celebrities when I last saw her."

Tosh smirked. She had been holding her bombshell close throughout the conversation, and sensed that now was the opportune moment to drop it.

"Oh, we met through Ianto," she said breezily. "His taste in men has greatly improved of late."

Her announcement had the desired effect: for one long moment Adam was rendered speechless, his mouth opening and closing like a slimy fish.

"Y-you're dating Ianto Jones?" he gasped out finally, and Jack nodded with a grin.

"Sure am. You got a problem with that?"

"I've got a problem understanding it!" Adam retorted. "You're gorgeous, loaded and famous- you could get anybody in the world. What could you possibly see in a penniless nobody who's crap in bed?"

"He's not crap in bed!" Jack loyally and pre-emptively defended Ianto hotly. "Pretty fucking fabulous, actually."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I see. You haven't actually slept with him yet. Well, here's some expert advice- don't waste your time. Plenty more fish in the sea… Almost all of which will doubtless prove better at satisfying a man than Ianto Frigid Jones- even the straight ones."

Jack raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "If Ianto Jones is frigid then I'm the Pope. And I won't impinge on your enjoyment of those 'other fish'- I'm perfectly happy with my gorgeous, sexy boyfriend, thanks," he replied icily. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a beautiful young lady to take to lunch. Good day."

Without waiting for a response, he tightened his arm around Tosh's shoulders and drew her away.

As soon as they were sufficiently beyond Adam's earshot, the tech expert startled the model by growling violently.

"I'm a pretty gentle person, really," she said vehemently, "but every time I see that man I just want to rip his fucking head off with my bare hands."

Under any other circumstances, Jack would have been flabbergasted to hear the placid tech expert swear so fervidly. As it was, he pulled her into a hug and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

"I know the feeling," he muttered darkly in response, then mock-glared at the woman in his arms. "But let's get one thing quite clear right now- I am not out of your league, my darling. You're beautiful and intelligent and sweet with an understated but wicked sense of humour; and if I were straight I would be seriously interested," he informed her sincerely.

Tosh blinked in astonishment. "Really?" She stared at him, hard, as if she had suddenly developed the ability to use Legilmency and work out if he was lying.

He laughed, squeezing her tighter. "Hell yes! Mind you," he added with a grin, "if I were straight I would have married Gwen straight out of uni, so I probably would never have met you. Which would be a crying shame, so I'm very happy that I'm decidedly bent. And now we've got that settled… May I treat you to lunch, milady?"

Tosh grinned, pretending to consider. "As long as you promise not to tell Ianto that we saw Adam," she bargained.

"Alright," the model agreed. "I promise- on the condition that over lunch you tell me what the deal is with that git."

"Okay," Tosh nodded. "So- dinner?"

The American grinned. "Dinner. Now, I can either take you somewhere glamorous and expensive, or cheap but fun- your choice."

Tosh glanced down at her faded jeans and plain navy sweatshirt and laughed. "I hardly think I'm dressed for glamorous and expensive, do you?" she teased. "Anyway, if you're going to make me talk about Adam, we're going to need to go somewhere that has paper serviettes for me to shred."

Jack chuckled in response. "Alright, cheap but fun it is! Now tell me- do you have any moral or dietary objections to McDonalds?"

Tosh grinned. "Nope. As a matter of fact I happen to be fatally addicted to crunchie mcflurries; but unfortunately Ianto hates McDonalds so I have to sneak off to indulge very clandestinely." She pouted, and Jack laughed.

"Excellent! Gwen has a whole heap of moral objections and as a doctor, Owen has just as many complaints about how damned unhealthy it is. We should make a pact to creep off together whenever we get a craving."

The tech expert smiled. "I can go with that."

Within a quarter of an hour, the two were seated inside McDonalds with Big Macs, large fries, crunchie mcflurries and cardboard cups of abysmal tea.

"Eurgh!" Jack grimaced as he took a sip. "It's like drinking dishwater."

Tosh raised an eyebrow. "So you bought it why?"

The model grinned. "Because if there are two things that I've learned from my mother, the second is that a cup of tea makes everything that little bit better. And in this case… Catharsis, I think they call it, when something painful does you good. Cathartic dishwater, this is." He raised his cup to the tech expert and she laughed, lifting her own to clink against Jack's.

"So what's the other thing you learned from your mother?"

Jack smiled softly. "That the most important thing in life is to be yourself no matter what, because if people don't love you for your unique and beautiful self, they're not worth the worry-space in your head. The people who mind don't matter and the people who matter don't mind."

Tosh took a thoughtful sip of her tea, barely seeming to notice the watery taste. "That's a very apt sentiment, given the conversation we're about to have," she said.

Jack laid a hand on her arm. "Tell me about Adam," he prompted, and she sighed.

"Oh goodness, where do I start? You'll have gathered, I suppose, that Adam Smith is Ianto's ex; his last boyfriend before you?"

Jack nodded, squeezing her arm then removing his hand to attend to his burger. She smiled whimsically, taking another sip of tea.

"When they met, Ianto was twenty-two and living with me- we got a place in Cardiff together when we graduated uni. He wanted to go back to Wales, and my mum had just passed away- all I had was my friends, and Lisa can be a little too exuberant about life to cope with in a time of grief. So I followed Ianto to Cardiff, and we got a flat together."

She paused to nibble a chip, and Jack laid his hand on her arm again.

"I'm sorry about your mom," he murmured, and Tosh smiled sadly.

"Thanks. So anyway, Ianto was twenty-two when he met Adam. He was a handsome, confident young man with a great life ahead of him. He was working in an office at the time; some boring corporate job to save up the money for an agent so he could make a career out of his music. Then he met Adam Smith in Starbucks on a lunchtime coffee run. I'll begrudgingly admit that Adam is not completely unfortunate-looking," (Jack's lips twitched into a half-smile as he noted the 'Legally Blonde' quote) "and, well, you've seen Ianto. Their attraction was instant, and mutual. Adam had forgotten his wallet; Ianto offered to pay for his coffee in exchange for a date. I never liked him much; he always seemed a bit of a slimy creep to me. But Ianto was happy and I didn't like to rock the boat by saying anything; so I just kept my doubts to myself and kept a close eye on Adam."

Jack nodded understandingly, taking a sip of his tea. Tosh heaved another sigh.

"So yeah, I kept quiet. Lisa, of course, told Ianto precisely what she thought of Adam; all that served to do was drive him further into Adam's arms. About a year into the relationship, Ianto moved into Adam's flat. I couldn't afford the rent on the one we shared on my own, and I didn't relish the idea of living with a stranger; so I traded it in for the one-bed flat I have now. After that, of course, I had much less opportunity to keep an eye on Adam; but I was still seeing Ianto- and I didn't like what I was seeing. His confidence was diminishing; he didn't seem to be standing up for what he believed in or what he wanted any more. He seemed to be changing; bending to fit a mould that Adam had built for him. No matter what Lisa and I said when we saw him, it didn't seem to make a blind bit of difference- he was losing faith in himself and he simply didn't believe us when we told him what an amazing person he was. And he kept going on about how lucky he was to have Adam; how he didn't deserve him; how he couldn't believe that someone like Adam would fall for someone as worthless as him."

A long-forgotten chip dropped from Jack's hand into his tea as the model sat frozen, staring at the tech expert, but the American didn't even notice as it sank in the murky liquid with a splash. Equally oblivious, Tosh continued, unconsciously shredding a stack of serviettes like she had predicted she would.

"Let me see now; they met in April 2006, I think, so it must have been round about August last year, about two weeks before his birthday, that Ianto was made redundant. Credit crunch and all that… Anyway, it really cut him up. He'd saved up more than enough for an agent by that point, even though he hadn't seen about getting one because Adam 'didn't want him to go through the pain of rejection' when he found that people wouldn't pay to hear him play."

Tosh added in the air quotes, and her voice was full of scorn.

"Adam always did make light of Ianto's musical abilities; Li and I reckoned he was jealous. Anyway, given the economic climate at the time, Ianto struggled to find another job; and Adam had vetoed outright the idea of Yan using his savings to try and set himself up in the music world. So he was pretty depressed and he allowed himself to be manoeuvred into a position where he felt totally dependent on Adam. Five weeks later, midway through September, Ianto returned from yet another unsuccessful job interview and walked in on Adam in bed with another man."

Jack's hand froze once again with his burger halfway to his mouth. "Shit," he commented succinctly.

Tosh shook her head. "Oh, that's not the height of it," she said. "You'd think that after being caught out, Adam would have thrown himself at Ianto's feet, apologising profusely, begging for forgiveness, and swearing blind that it didn't mean anything and that it's Ianto that he loves, right? Wrong. Adam laughed- actually laughed- at the expression of total shock and betrayal on Yan's face and told him that if he wasn't so crap in bed, he'd've been able to satisfy Adam and then Adam wouldn't have needed to seek actual pleasure elsewhere."

Having run out of serviettes, Tosh viciously ripped her empty fries carton to shreds whilst she spoke. Jack watched her furiously moving fingers, eyes narrowing.

"The bastard!" he exclaimed. "The bloody fucking bastard! No wonder Ianto's so-" He broke off, and Tosh nodded.

"Yeah," she said seriously. "Look, Jack, I know this seven date thing is about you and your own issues arising from the crap that you've been put though. But don't forget that Ianto's past hasn't exactly been a bed of roses either; and after Adam it's hard for him not to take this as a criticism. His confidence was very naturally completely shaken by Adam, so be gentle with him, yeah?"

"Of course!" Jack looked insulted even to have been asked. "Is there anything else I need to know so I don't unwittingly cock everything up?"

Tosh raised an eyebrow. "You should probably be aware that ever since that incident he's been fiercely independent. He crashed on my sofa for a couple of weeks doing the usual heartbroken, can't-face-the-world type things; then one day he suddenly walked out of the flat without telling me where he was going. He returned that evening when I was just about full-on panicking and Lisa was five minutes away from catching a train; and told me that he'd found a house to rent, signed the papers for it, and would be moving into it the following day. He also told me that he'd signed a contract with an agency, and he was going to try and make a go of his music."

She sighed heavily, lost in the memories.

"It was like a runaway train; there was nothing we could do to stop it, he was so determined. I mean, he was only doing what Li and I had always hoped he'd do; but I must say that it threw us that he'd done it all so fast and so soon. Still, it did all turn out pretty well for him. He managed to make the cheap two-up-two-down into a cosy little home in spite of it being in such a concerning area of the city; and I think that throwing himself into his music really helped. Some of his best compositions were written in those months following his break-up."

Jack blinked. "He composes? I never knew that!"

Tosh treated the model to a Stare. "You've known him a week and a half, Jack- have you even heard him play yet?"

"Well- no," the model confessed. "That's the plan for Thursday- he's going to give me an impromptu concert. With his trousers on…" he murmured as an afterthought, almost to himself.

The tech expert gave him a long, worried look and then decided that it was better not to ask.

"So anyway, what I was trying to say before I got sidetracked telling you how Yan fought to rebuild his life, is that he really is fiercely independent. He won't even accept a small loan from a friend, he's so wary of being dependent upon anyone. You have no idea how much it cost him just to let you drive him down to London and pay the hotel bill. I mean, he's always liked to be organised and know what's going on; but since Adam it's been almost an obsession. He has serious trust issues now, and a deep-seated need to know exactly where he stands."

"Oh, shit!" Jack gasped, the tech expert's words sparking a memory. "Fuck! The phone thing! I was such a fucking bastard. And then yesterday… Oh god!" He groaned, burying his head in his hands.

Tosh looked at him sharply. "What happened yesterday?" she demanded.

Jack groaned again. "I introduced him to a friend in a jokey way which went a little wrong; and it upset him a little. I mean, I apologised immediately, of course; and he did tell me that he suffers from self-doubt from time to time. But god, I was such a wanker…"

The tech expert regarded his stricken expression through narrowed eyes, then decided that since Ianto hadn't phoned her in a panic the previous day as he was wont to do, it couldn't have been quite as catastrophic as the model's actions were implying.

"You didn't know the extent though," she consoled him with a pat on the arm. "But you do know now; so I feel obliged to warn you, Jack- if you ever hurt him I will hunt you to the end of the universe and hack off your balls with nail scissors. Are we clear?"

The model visibly flinched at the threat. "We're clear!" he said emphatically, taking her hands. "I promise you, Toshiko, I would never deliberately and knowingly do anything to hurt him. I- damn it, I haven't felt this way about anyone in years! The last thing I want to do is fuck this up. He's so special that sometimes when I'm with him I have to pinch myself to check that it isn't a dream. What could someone as young and gorgeous and talented as him ever see in an old poser like me?"

Not being in a position to hug the model, Tosh squeezed his hand comfortingly instead. "Oh god, don't you start!" she groaned. A particular TV show popped unexpectedly into her head and she called on its most famous line now, having realised that film and TV quotes were the fastest way to put herself on the model's wavelength.

"Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once," she told him, forgoing the exaggerated French accent. "You, Jack Harkness, are beyond any doubt the best boyfriend Ianto has ever had. You are kind and generous and amusing. Any fool can see that you adore him, and for the most part you're considerate and tender in your dealings with him; and you treat him like an equal, which is exactly what he needs. Ok, so you can be bloody thoughtless and your sense of humour can apparently run away with you and you let whatever's in your head come spilling out of your mouth without much thought for the consequences. But nobody is perfect; and damn it, Jack, you make him happy. And you have no idea what that means to me… So thank you."

He smiled, and she smiled back.

"Oh, and you're bloody gorgeous as well, so you can stop with this pity trip right here!" she ordered firmly, and Jack laughed.

"Yes, ma'am!" He saluted sharply, watching as she peeled the loyalty card off the side of the cardboard cup and painstakingly placed the sticker on it. She caught his eye, and chuckled.

"Well, you never know when you're going to need a little catharsis, do you?" she asked, flipping the card in his direction.

Jack caught it and looked at it. Then, to her complete astonishment, he slipped off the bench and got down on one knee beside her, holding out the loyalty card for all the world as if it were an engagement ring.

"Toshiko Sato, you are a very beautiful, intelligent and engaging woman and I like you most awfully, just as you are, even though you can be bloody scary sometimes. Will you commit to six more trips to McDonalds with me so that we can redeem these together?"

The tech expert burst out laughing as she took the card off him. "Alright," she said, feeling happier than she had in a long time in spite of the shock of running into Adam. "Now get up, you idiot, or people will think that you're actually proposing."

Jack chuckled too as he got to his feet; then he frowned sharply as a sudden thought struck him. "Do you think I should stop proposing to Ianto? I mean, he knows I'm not serious, but do you think that it makes him feel dependent or inferior in some way?"

Tosh considered the question. "No, I don't think you need to stop, really," she concluded. "I mean, as you say, he knows that it's not serious; and it's quite the established part of your relationship now, isn't it? I think he likes that. Anyway, in turning you down he gets to assert his independence in a way which you can't override with money like you do when you insist on paying for things."

Jack nodded slowly, a frown still gracing his face. "So you think I should stop footing all the bills?"

"I didn't say that," Tosh responded quickly. "I mean, I shouldn't be telling you this really- he'd hate it if he knew. But I do worry about him, and I know that he can't afford to be taking you out on dates to restaurants and hotels and places like that. So do keep on paying the bills; because you can afford it."

"Restaurants? Hotels? Damn it, Tosh, I don't give a toss where our dates are as long as I'm with him! Homemade coffee out of a flask in Bute Park with Ianto would be preferable to an expensive coffee in Starbucks with anyone else. Does he not realise that?"

The tech expert raised an eyebrow. "Well, you did mention something along those lines in that gorgeous restaurant down in London; but with confidence as low as Ianto's… You might need to reinforce it. Find some subtle way of telling him again-" Tosh realised her mistake as soon as the words left her mouth. She didn't think Jack Harkness would recognise the concept of 'subtle' if it danced naked in front of him singing 'This Is Not Me'. "Or better yet, just do it. You'll know it's a success if he drinks the coffee."

The model frowned in confusion, and Tosh laughed.

"He can be a bit fussy about his coffee," she explained. "Instant is an absolute no-go, and he does prefer coffee made by himself."

"I'll bear that in mind…" Jack cast an eye over the remnants of their meal. "Time to move on from all this seriousness and go and have some more fun, do you reckon?"

Tosh smiled, ruefully sweeping the snowy heap of mutilated serviettes into her burger box. "Now that sounds like a plan."

The model grinned. "Excellent! Now, I do have an errand of mercy to run- do tell me, what size shoe are you?"

The tech expert blinked at the unexpected question. "Six. Why?"

"Same size as Gwen. Fabulous!" The model beamed as he gathered up all their carrier bags whilst Tosh cleared off the trays into the bin. "Come on- I need to drag you to Kurt Geiger. You can road-test her Christmas present for me."