By the third day, Rose was growing frustrated with the hunk of metal in her lab and forced herself to step away for a while to clear her head.
That's how she found herself leaning on the railing around the walkway that led down into the morgue laughing with Jack as Gwen taunted their resident doctor.
It was when Gwen started singing her taunts that Owen finally lost his composure and began to throw balled up pieces of paper at the woman.
"Bloody plodders," he swore, the London slang for police escaping Owens lips just making Rose laugh harder. It made her feel at home.
"The leg bone's connected to the… hip bone," Gwen sang, dodging Owen's thrown projectiles. "The hip bone's connected to the… something bone...!"
"Please stop singing. Anything to stop you singing," Owen drawled, throwing another ball of paper at Gwen while Rose and Jack laughed.
"I don't know what you're laughing at," the doctor told them, tossing his next ball of paper at Jack and forcing the Captain to sidestep into Rose, but it only increased Rose's giggles.
Rose had to admit, it made a change for Owen to not be the one making a joke at someone else's expense and it let her amusement subside into a grin as she watched Jack laugh easily, the lines of stress around his eyes softening.
He was far too serious since she'd found him again, and it was a relief to know that he could still let go and enjoy himself like that.
"Stop singing. Please don't sing. Please don't sing. Not listening—" Owen begged Gwen, seeming tired suddenly and he put his fingers in his ears and proceeded to make random noises in an attempt to drown Gwen out.
"What's going on?" Rose heard behind her, turning to find Tosh coming in, just as Gwen finally surrendered and stopped tormenting Owen with her singing.
"Morning," Rose offered as Gwen beamed at the technician delighted to have someone else she could tell about Owen's updated findings on the pile of bones they'd pulled from the construction site.
"You know that skeleton we found at the site?" The Welsh woman asked, launching into her story with enthusiasm. "Well, Amanda Burton here has just completed the post mortem—"
"Okay, I can explain—" Owen cut in, trying to defend himself before Gwen could put him through any more embarrassment, but everyone ignored him and Gwen continued as though he hadn't spoken.
"As you may remember, at the building site Owen said that this was a woman killed by a single gunshot—"
"I'd been there, like, a minute," Owen grumbled, and Rose remembered the sarcasm in his voice when Jack had asked about the skeleton at the time.
"Since then he's had to tweak some of his initial conclusions," Gwen continued, unimpeded by Owen's additions to her story. "The first being that this isn't, in fact, a woman... but a man!"
"A young man. A very girly man," Owen tried again, but the brunette didn't let up in her teasing.
"But, ultimately, still a man!" Gwen repeated, and Tosh was beginning to grin now too.
"Then there was the cause of death. Owen said GSW, uh-uhhh!" Gwen continued, doing a very good impression of a wrong answer buzzer from a TV game show, sending Rose and Jack into fresh bouts of laughter.
"The correct answer was...?" Gwen prompted, looking at Owen whose shoulders had slumped
"Unidentified trauma, but—"
"Unidentified trauma?" Tosh questioned, once more cutting off the doctor mid-sentence, and Rose saw Owen shake his head, finally surrendering to his inescapable humiliation.
"Mmm," Gwen gave Tosh an affirmative, nodding "You see it in road traffic accidents when something, like a steering column or a post, goes into a body at great velocity, but the one thing that could be ruled out was...?"
She paused, waiting once more for Owen to dig his own hole and Rose thought that the man complied gracefully.
"Gunshot wound," Owen sighed, rolling his eyes at Gwen's clearly faked gasp of surprise.
"Gunshot wound!" The brunette cried, eyes sparkling. "Was there, in fact, any part of your initial prognosis that was right?" she asked, and Rose saw Owen take a calming breath and nod firmly.
"I got that it was a skeleton," he admitted, and that was all Rose could take, erupting into fresh peals of laughter as she turned and began to make her way out of the morgue. Even as she left she could still hear Gwen continue to taunt the man playfully.
"Yes, you did! Where did you train? Did you train? Absolutely useless..."
After her short break, Rose had a few new ideas for the strange device in her lab but wanted to see if Jack had any thoughts. Coming from the 51st century he often thought of things that Rose hadn't considered, so she went to wait in his office so that she could grab him when he had a free moment.
As it turned out, Jack wasn't that far behind her and Rose turned around in surprise when he walked into the office only a few moments later before she'd even had a chance to take a seat.
He was already halfway through dialling a number on his phone and offered her a smile as he moved to sit behind his desk, Tosh walking into the office close behind him.
"Blimey, Jack, you're in demand," Rose teased, and her words drew his attention to Tosh.
"Jack, Rose," Tosh greeted, "er, do either of you know anything about Greek mythology?" The woman asked, and Rose raised her eyebrows in surprise before shooting a glance at Jack.
"Security visa 45895 Harkness," he said into the phone, so Rose shook her head.
"Not me, not really my forte," she admitted, but Jack nodded.
"A little, why?"
"Have you ever heard of Philoctetes?" Tosh asked, smiling lightly, "It came up in a pub quiz," she added, and Jack raised his eyes from the files on his desk to stare at her for a moment.
"You went to a pub quiz?" He asked, and Rose glared at him.
"Jack! Rude!" She chided, and the Captain pressed his lips together tightly.
"Yeah, no, I love pub quizzes..."
"I miss the pub quiz at my local, me and my mates used to dominate Monday quiz night," Rose sighed wistfully. "Where'd you go, Tosh?" She asked lightly, "Think you'd mind if I tag along next time?"
"Uh, the... Prince of Tides," Tosh told her, seeming surprised at the request, shifting her weight slightly "and... uh, sure Rose. I'll let you know when they run the next one. It's not a regular night or anything... Uh, Philoctetes, Jack?" Tosh reminded the man and he sighed.
"Philoctetes was an archer recruited to fight in the Trojan War. He got into an argument and was marooned on the island of Lemnos for about ten years," Jack explained quickly, his voice low telling Rose that he was probably on hold.
"Just left there?" Tosh asked, turning to stare out of the glass walls at the hub below and Rose shrugged.
"That's usually what marooned means," she said, frowning slightly. "It's only a myth, Tosh," she said and the woman nodded slowly, her back still turned as she started to wander out of Jack's office.
"Oh, hey, what's happening with that list for UNIT?" Jack called after her, but Tosh looked lost in her own world and when she turned back to Jack, she seemed confused for a moment before she appeared to remember what he was talking about.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm still working on it," she explained and Rose frowned. She knew how fast Tosh typed, and it surprised her that the list of alien technology they were willing to share with UNIT wasn't already on Jack's desk.
"Right. Well, you know... when you're ready," Jack said, sounding as confused as Rose felt, but then whoever he'd been waiting for on the phone answered and he turned his attention to that while Rose watched Tosh walk away.
Tosh had been worrying Rose for days, ever since Owen had kicked the plug out on the woman's computer, it was like her head was somewhere else, and she was constantly distracted.
Every time Rose asked after her, Tosh insisted she was fine, so she'd forced herself to give the woman space. There was nothing she could do if Tosh didn't want to talk to her, and with a sigh, Rose turned around to face Jack as he dealt with his phone call.
"Prime Minister, is this a secure line?" Jack said and waved for Rose to close the office door that Tosh had left open, and Rose stepped across the room quickly to do as he asked.
"Can you tell me why Torchwood operations have become part of your security briefings to the leader of the opposition?" Jack demanded, his voice sharp and Rose froze, her eyes wide.
'What?' She mouthed at Jack, but his only response was a nod that she'd heard correctly.
"The deal is no one but the current PM knows about us, or the work that we do, so why is Harold Saxon being briefed on our activities?"
Rose moved back to her position on the far side of his desk, and sank slowly into one of the seats there, frowning across the desk at Jack as he tore into the Prime Minister.
He reiterated that they were outside government control, and could cut off all communication without repercussions if Downing Street didn't start following the guidelines that Torchwood had set out.
As far as she could tell, both men hung up unhappy with the outcome. There would be no more briefings, but Harold Saxon wouldn't be getting a dose of Retcon like Jack had wanted.
"You okay?" Rose asked, and Jack sighed, pausing to think before giving her an answer with a slight nod.
"Yeah. How're you coming with that device?" He asked her, and Rose sighed.
"I've got a few ideas but I was wondering if you had time to test a couple of theories with me?" She asked him, "The Doctor trusted you to work on the Tardis, so I know you're pretty handy with a hydro-spanner, and besides... if it kills you, you can try again," she teased and the man grinned at her before nodding.
"Alright. Give me an hour. Maybe you can help Tosh with that list in the meantime?" He asked, and Rose nodded as a slow frown crept across her face making Jack pause.
"What is it?" He asked her, and Rose bit her lip hesitating before she tried to explain.
"Does Tosh seem... distracted to you?" She said, shrugging slightly, "I mean... I'd like to think that if there was something wrong she'd tell one of us, right?" Rose continued, and Jack was silent for a moment before he sighed.
"Stop worrying, Rosie. I'll keep an eye on her," he promised, and she nodded.
"Alright then, I'll see if I can throw that list together for you. Give me a shout when you've got some time to work on that hunk of junk in my lab," she moaned, dragging herself to her feet dramatically, and drawing a laugh from the Captain as she left his office.
"Hey, Rose," Tosh called, and the blonde hummed a distracted greeting back as she peered at the alien contraption for the fourth day in a row.
"How's it going?" Tosh asked and Rose blinked, raising her eyes from the claw-like prongs for a moment before she sighed.
"Slowly. I don't think it's a weapon, but I don't want to assume that and make a fatal mistake, so I've got to check and double check everything," she said and Tosh's eyebrows raised.
"You don't think it's a weapon? What do you think it is?" The technician pressed, and Rose frowned, surprised at the woman's continued questions.
"Uh... I'd rather not say until I'm sure," Rose told her with a hesitant smile, and Tosh shook her head.
"Right. Of course, I'm sorry," she babbled, pausing for a long moment before she suddenly drew a sharp breath and raised a hand to her head, "Ah..."
"Hey, Tosh? Are you alright?" Rose asked, abandoning the device instantly and moving around the lab table quickly, but Tosh stepped back from her.
"I'm fine, just... I've had a headache all morning. Thought I'd gotten rid of it, but the pain killers must have worn off or something."
Rose was about to ask the woman if she wanted to go home when Jack stepped into the room grinning.
"So, I've just come from a really interesting conversation with a Detective Inspector Henderson."
"Right...?" Tosh half asked, and Rose raised an eyebrow at the playful way Jack was moving around the room, long, slow strides and a bright smile.
"Interesting because, firstly, the man had the biggest hands I've ever seen!" The Captain said with a laugh, and Rose sighed as she leaned back against the lab table and removed her protective glasses.
"Keep it in your pants, Harkness, we're at work," she taunted, and he shot her an unrestrained wink that made her roll her eyes, despite the smile curling at her lips.
"Secondly, and more importantly," Jack continued, turning back to Tosh, "because of the story he told me about you saving a woman an her kid from being murdered by her ex-husband."
"What?" Rose asked, eyes widening as she straightened and turned on Tosh, "Oh woah, that's fantastic Tosh! Are you okay?" Rose said, veering from congratulatory to worried in a heartbeat, and her eyes already scanning across her friend looking for injuries.
"Yeah, I'm fine... Uh, I was going to tell you about that," Tosh babbled, flushing awkwardly, and Jack tipped his head to one side like a curious puppy.
"So why didn't you?" He asked, smiling.
"I don't know. I wasn't a work thing, just a thing thing," Tsh said quickly and Rose's smile fell.
"But... you saved two lives, Tosh. Being proud of that isn't a bad thing," Rose said softly, frowning, "why wouldn't we want to know about that? We don't just work together, I'd like to think we're all friends too.
"We chat, we have pizza, we go out to the pub... We have to trust each other with our lives for the job we do here," Rose explained, but Tosh just shook her head.
"If we told each other everything that went on in our lives we'd get sick to death of each other. I mean, stuff happens all the time that's not pertinent to here," she tried to explain, but there was a stab of hurt in Rose's stomach and now Jack was frowning too.
"You do this all the time? Soo... you secretly fight crime as well as aliens, is that it, Tosh?" Jack asked, and the woman lowered her eyes.
"I... I didn't want it to look like I was showing off," she muttered and Rose shook her head before putting her safety glasses back on. The hurt in her stomach was growing now that she knew Tosh hadn't trusted them to share such an important event, and it made her heart thud painfully against her chest.
"That's not the first thing, or even the eighth thing, I'd have thought, Tosh," Rose denied, her voice tight as she returned her attention to the alien artefact, ignoring the soft look of understanding that Jack shot in her direction.
She'd thought that the team was closer than this, especially after Lisa and Ianto. He'd kept the cyberwoman from them because he was scared they would destroy her. They might have had to, but none of them had judged him for his decision. Not once they weren't being hunted, anyway.
Surely Tosh realised that they wouldn't have ridiculed her for saving the life of a woman and her son.
"The guy they arrested," Jack continued, "Henderson said you heard him muttering to himself as he was walking along and that tipped you off."
"Mmm, I couldn't really work out what he was saying at first, and then it was like... Jesus!" Tosh explained, laughing nervously, and Rose found her eyes raising from the object lying on her table so she could study Tosh again.
Something was off about her story, but Rose couldn't put her finger on what.
Was it the tone of her voice? Was there a missing detail, or an added detail that didn't fit?
Whatever it was, it made her hair stand on end and Rose continued to study Tosh, as she and Jack discussed the incident.
"That's weird, because when I'm about to murder someone, I'm really careful not to talk to myself about it while I'm in the street," Jack said slowly, leaning over Rose's current project and peering at the control panel that the two of them had found beneath another layer of dirt and rust the night before.
Rose could hear the underlying note of suspicion in his voice and recognised the way he was avoiding Tosh's eyes as a way of getting the woman to let down her guard, so the blonde forced out a sharp laugh.
"Oh, come on, Jack. You're assuming the man was sane enough to be that careful," she told him grinning, but when he glanced over she knew he'd been able to read the seriousness in her eyes.
"No, sure, I mean. Lesson one, don't talk about your planned crime, right? But like Rose said, who knows what was going on with him. I mean, if you're planning to kill your wife and child there's clearly something wrong with you," Tosh agreed quickly before letting her fingers tap against the table as she watched Jack put pressure on the rusted prongs and flex the metal.
"I was wondering... how are you and Rose getting on with this?" Tosh asked, and Rose blinked in surprise that the woman was effectively going over her head for answers.
"I mean, Rose says she doesn't think it's a weapon, do you have any other ideas?"
It took a lot of restraint not to react to Tosh's words, so Rose turned around instead, focussing on a tray of tools and making herself busy looking for a magnifier she knew she could use to examine the panel for any inscriptions that could be translated.
"It's ongoing," Jack answered slowly after a long pause, and Rose managed to stop herself from speaking by biting her lip.
She was angry, and a little hurt, that Tosh hadn't taken her at her word, but something seemed off about Tosh's behaviour in general, so she tried not to let it bother her.
"Are you going to dismantle it?" Tosh pressed again, and Rose turned around with a frown, ready to tell Tsh to back off, but Jack's sudden, tight smile beat her to it as he met the technician's eyes.
"Like I said. It's ongoing," he repeated quietly and Rose watched Tosh back up with a nod of reluctant acceptance.
As the woman turned to walk away, Rose moved back over to the table and was about to ask Jack about the panel they'd discovered when she saw his face freeze.
His expression was an odd mixture of discomfort and horror before he pulled back from the device and turned to stare at Tosh, just as the technician spun on her heel to stare back at Jack.
"What? Have I got something on my face?" Jack asked with a forced lightness that Rose could pot a mile away. "Is it food?" He demanded rubbing at his mouth and making a show of checking his hands for any residue.
Tosh continued to stare at him for a very long moment, jaw still open and a look of shock on her features before she shook her head suddenly, blinking away the glazed look in her eyes.
"No! Sorry, I zoned out," she offered, and Rose kept a carefully neutral expression on her own features.
"Well, listen. That was a good save Tosh, well done," Jack offered, and Tosh smiled weakly before turning her back on them both and leaving quickly.
"Jack?" Rose prompted the moment Tosh was out of earshot, "What's going on?"
She could see the concern in his features, but he shook his head.
"Not now. Later," he promised, "and whatever you find out about this thing, keep it between us for now," he added and Rose nodded.
"We'll talk tonight?" She confirmed, and Jack nodded, blue eyes filled with worry moving to stare after their teammate as Rose got back to work looking for answers.
Owen was the last member of the team to leave the hub that night, and he'd only been gone five minutes before Rose appeared in the doorway to Jack's office with a mug of tea in each hand and a determined glint to her golden-brown eyes.
She heard Jack sigh as she nudged the door closed with her rear and he put away the folder he'd been working on just in time to take the mug of tea she held out.
Rose waited just long enough to claim one of his chairs, and take a sip of her own tea before she began her questions.
"What happened?" She demanded, and Jack frowned slightly.
"What have you found out about the device?" He shot back, and Rose's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Oh no, you don't get to do that," she told him firmly, "I stayed locked in the hub for you when you got overprotective. I've taken on decoding the device for you, and I didn't press you for answers earlier because you asked me not to, so you're going to tell me what's going on, right now, before you get to ask me what I found out," Rose insisted slowly, her voice low and filled with frustration.
She locked her eyes on Jacks', refusing to back down, and after a moment he surrendered with a sigh and a tight nod, using the tea she'd handed him to delay one more time as he took a sip.
"It felt like... something... was in my head," Jack admitted. "Clawing around and looking for something and... it felt like it was coming from Toshiko. But Tosh isn't psychic, so maybe it's alien and looks like her. Maybe a shape changer? Which is why I need to know what you found out about the device," he admitted, his expression full of concern for Tosh and Rose bit her lip as she turned the issue over in her head.
"I asked you yesterday if she seemed distracted," Rose mused quietly, and Jack nodded.
"I've been watching her. It's like she's focussed on something else entirely," he admitted and Rose bit her lip.
"You said you felt her in your head?" She asked, and when Jack nodded Rose sighed.
"Before you came in she'd already asked me about the transporter. That's what it is, by the way, a transporter for two life forms. I'd told her that I didn't think it was a weapon, and she asked me what I thought it was—"
"Did you tell her?" Jack asked, frowning, and Rose shot him an exasperated look.
"Of course not. For starters, I wasn't sure yet and I don't like speculating. But the point, which I was getting to was that after I told Tosh I didn't want to guess what the device was, she went very quiet and then got a sudden, painful headache."
Rose paused, waiting for Jack to catch on to what she was implying but when he shook his head, confused, and frowned.
"Huh, must be a parallel world thing," she muttered with a sigh.
"All Torchwood field operatives had basic psychic training to protect our minds," Rose explained, "so if Tosh was trying to get into my head for answers, she'd have hit a brick wall. It would have been like physically walking into one."
"Hence the sudden headache," Jack breathed, and Rose nodded, "but Tosh isn't psychic," he said and Rose shrugged.
"No, but I reckon that whatever is after that transporter is. None of the controls are touch based or voice activated. It's a telepathic interface," she explained.
"You think that whatever came through on the transporter is using Tosh to get it back by giving her psychic powers?" Jack asked, and Rose sighed again, running a hand through her long hair.
"I don't know, Jack... but if you wanted someone to betray their friends and get you inside a secure building that's got a reputation for locking aliens up, how would you do it?" she asked, and for several long minutes, they both fell into silent thought, both of them sipping at their tea as they considered it.
Rose was halfway through her cup, before Jack groaned softly, his eyes falling shut at the same time.
"Surface thoughts," he groaned, before cursing quietly under his breath. "If all she hears are the superficial surface thoughts—"
"Then everything and everyone starts to look pretty ugly," Rose finished, and the pair of them shared a dark grimace, before beginning to figure out a way to help their friend.