A/N: Hi, so back from a vacation and to Tosh, to see a bit into her mind

Spoilers: Sleeper

Beta-ed: TattooedLibrarian

Tosh thought that Jack looked different since he'd been back. In fact she thought everything looked different, including her, everything except Ianto. Sure he looked a bit older, but same as ever. She wondered how he managed to stay below for so long, to maintain his level of manual tasks. After she initiated him in the field, he started to go out with them, but still he stayed behind, unnoticed. It was deliberate, she concluded and decided against chasing after Owen and Gwen in a futile attempt to make them notice and acknowledge him. Instead she started to give him tasks, tasks in her department, technical ones, and he never failed in either of them. That's how she got around to assigning him to hard wire the rift manipulator; he fixed everything else; so she saw no reason not to trust him with that.

He did not fail. In the middle of alien threat, nuclear war, and invasion, he still managed to do his chores in time and neatly. She was truly amazed.

"Job well done Ianto" she said surprised and he just shrugged his shoulders.

"Ianto always gets his job well done" Jack said in passing with his hands in his pockets, and raised eyebrows. He didn't stop to see what job, he just carried on. In that moment Tosh was glad he was back, he always knew how to appreciate invisible like her and Ianto. As she turned she noticed a touch of pink on Ianto's cheeks. Was the appraisal the thing he was afraid of or was it just an old crush on Jack still surfacing?

"If that is all..." Ianto said and picked up her mug turning to leave.

"You could ask Jack for promotion" she said out loud "he would give one to you, you're more than capable."

Ianto turned to her confused.

"Promotion into what exactly?" he asked confused. "I already get interesting tasks, the only promotion would be to stop doing the chores, but then who would do them? We would be flooded with mess in a day if I stopped."

"I didn't mean to offend you" Tosh jumped in to explain but Ianto smiled.

"No, you're just being thoughtful, don't worry, I get everything done, and this way I can work in a more or less" he looked around "clean space, but I can't compete with Owen's affection to mess."

Tosh felt guilty looking at her crowded work space and Ianto walked away.

"Besides, you would starve if I quit" he added by the door.

"Quit?" Owen turned around confused suddenly pulled out of his work. "Why would Tea-boy quit? We don't have enough of Retcon to make him forget, he's like elephant."

"We didn't talk about work" Tosh turned to her station. "Pay attention if you want to know."

"Nah" Owen answered and she could hear a smile in his voice, she smiled to her computer too.

It was a wonder to Toshiko how her relationship to Owen had changed with everything else. She was so desperately devoted and invisible to him last year. She didn't even notice when that happened, one day she looked at him and realized he was just perfect for her, she just understood everything about him, and he couldn't say anything that could really hurt her. But looking at him with women that clearly weren't fit for him and would only drag him further down his self-pity hole was something else; that could make her mad. Looking into their minds didn't help either.

Now, after everything changed she could look at him and smile, she could tell him anything. She just wasn't so clingy to the thought of them together. It would be good, but if he's not up for good, she would think of something else. That's how she confessed to him that she'd been trying to ask him out for ages. It wasn't intended to be invitation, just a statement that it happened, and recognition that she had tried. He surprised her with his acceptance, it was a nice surprise, one she would like to see happen. She was intrigued by the possibility of seeing if she was right about them, but she was not in a hurry to get there, because she knew Owen. She could clearly see that he just was not there yet. He was entertained by the thought of a steady and reliable woman, which she was, but he wasn't ready to take a leap, to risk the chance that it may work. In the mean time she wasn't bothered by that anymore, she lived her life beside him without desperation.

There was even a moment, when they stood by the radio to see if everything would go to hell, when he suggested sex, not only to her, but to Ianto too and she looked at him with total lack of attraction. Like she would if the world was burning engage in such act; for her sex was private thing that meant emotion, not just exchange of body fluids. In that moment she agreed with Ianto, the end of the world got worse with that image. Luckily she dismissed it just like a superficial prank. Besides shooting down that woman/alien erased everything else. In some ways it was worse than an alien threat in human suits, it was clearly dangerous, but a known obvious threat. That woman was different; she looked and felt real despite her alien arm, she looked defenceless. It was never easy to kill a woman. "Woman and children first" echoed in Tosh's head voice from the past as their ship was sinking. Despite all the changes in gender and equality it was always harder to kill a woman in ordinary clothes. It must be horrifying to kill a child. She got chills by the thought of it. She wasn't sure she could do it if the world depended on it.

so...