As if on que, the moment the door latched, Tosh's phone began to ring.
"Owen?"
"Yea, hey Tosh, what's up?" Tosh smiled, ever since the doctor had died, he had taken it upon himself to actually care.
"Being bored, Ianto just left with Jack"
"Oh? tell me, was Tea-boy ok? I mean he has had a pretty bad week." The technician chuckled, leave it to the dead man to ask about how Ianto was.
"I don't think we will have to worry about him for a while."
The doctor shook his head, "You are almost as bad as they are you know that?" Another laugh, Owen loved to hear Tosh's laugh.
"So, Owen, I was just thinking-"Tosh fidgeted with the hem of her sweater, composing the words that she wanted to say. "since the rest of the team would be otherwise occupied tonight, if you would care for some company at the HUB for a while."
Owen let out a silent exclamation of joy. He had wanted Toshiko to join him, but hadn't thought of how to ask.
"If spending your evening with a dead man and some aliens is what you want to do with your evening, far be it from me to tell you no."
The technician shook her head. Even in death Owen was a sarcastic arse.
"I'll be at the HUB in thirty" She hung up the phone, dashing around Ianto's apartment getting herself together. Hair, makeup, and clothes refreshed, and she was out the door, only to run into an elderly woman.
"Excuse me ma'am." The Tosh murmured, but the elderly woman took her arm. "Let go!" Tosh was panicking, who in the world was this?
"No Lass." The woman screeched shaking the wrist firmly."Listen to me. That Jones boy is no good for you. Handsome he may be, but yours he is not. As much as I loathe it, he comes home with that shady character in the RAF coat ni on every night."
Tosh nearly laughed in the woman's face. The look must have registered, because the elderly woman's grip grew tighter.
"I've seen 'em, parading around here with no care in the world. Snogging on that car. 'Tis shameless it is."
Tosh recoiled as though the woman had bit her. Anger was the only word to describe what she felt coiling in her chest. Anger at this nosey matron.
"Don't let your young heart get sucked in by the wiles of a pretty face! Especially a pretty face that lives in sin."
Tosh wrenched her arm free, she had heard enough. In her coldest and most controlled voice, she put the elderly woman in her place.
"First of all, ma'am, Ianto Jones is my best friend, not my lover. Second of all, if he was my lover, it still would be none of your business." The technician let anger rule her features, and watched the other woman shrink slightly.
"And lastly, not only is Ianto Jones' love life none of your concern, it is also not your place to judge what is a sin. Jack and Ianto love each other more than any other couple I have ever met, and far be it from me to condemn them for that. I have seen them literally sacrifice their lives for each other. You seem to enjoy spying on your neighbors, have you not seen Ianto come home in braces and casts, or covered in bruises?"
The elderly woman paled, remembering the time she had phoned around, gossiping about his apparent accident.
"He is a hero, and you hate him just because the love of his life is also a man." Tosh spat the last words storming off into the street, leaving the old woman in shadow.