O.K, this is my first submission so please go gently with me! Its set two to three months after Exit Wounds, but Tosh didn't die. She was badly injured when Grey shot her in the stomach, but Jack managed to push some blood into her intravenously before rushing her to the nearest hospital where they were able to save her. Everything else is the same and Owen did die at the nuclear station. Since then Jack has recruited Martha as Torchwood's medic. Martha met the Dr and Donna during the Sontaran invasion shortly before she was contacted by Jack.

I'd love to hear any feedback - bad or good.

Scavenger's release

Captain Jack Harkness took a deep breath and rested his head against the cold concrete wall behind him. Today could have gone a little better. In fact, come to think of it, it couldn't have gone much worst.

His team were sat on the floor in a line on either side of him. Wrists tied painfully behind their backs and ankles bound together with some kind of alien duct tape. In front of them water cascaded down the silver waterfall and into the pool beneath it. This was where they had been sitting for nearly three hours now. Three hours that Jack had watched the alien soldiers taking his Hub apart, three hours of waiting for a chance, any chance to fight back.

They'd been ordered there by a soldier holding a formidable weapon that he had been only too happy to demonstrate on one of Tosh's work stations. The acrid taint of burnt plastic in the damp air was enough to keep them where they were for now. Jack's one vocal attempt to reassure his team had been abruptly stopped when the guard slammed the thick handle of the weapon into Jack's face. The blow was hard enough to knock him to the floor and for the metallic tang of blood to fill his mouth. He gave up and tried to talk to his captors instead. That time the handle was swung straight past his face and into Tosh's. He'd decided to be quiet since then.

She hadn't even cried; just laid on the blood speckled floor where the force of the strike had thrown her. Martha had instantly tried to go to her aid, but the soldier raised the weapon again and Jack had no choice but to signal with a single shake of his head that Martha was to stay where she was.

The only sound was the tread of the soldier's heavy boots of as they ransacked the Hub and Tosh's rapid breathing. Jack was so proud of Tosh. After a while she'd started to wriggle on the floor and still, without a crying out once, managed to sit herself back up against Jack. She'd laid her bleeding head against his shoulder, her hair sticking up at odd angles as the blood clotted and dried on her scalp. In their forced silence the only comfort and apology he could give was to tuck her head under his chin and offer his body warmth as she sat against him and shook.

That morning Jack had gone to fetch Tosh from her flat as usual. Martha had removed the last stitches from Tosh's gunshot wound a few weeks ago, but it had been a deep injury and Jack knew it would be a good few weeks before she was completely recovered. Until then usually Ianto, or sometimes Jack, was more than happy to pick her up in the morning and take her home at night. Besides, it gave them a chance to talk to her one on one. It wasn't the physical wound that Grey had given her that worried the team, it was the loss of Owen and the intense guilt she still felt for his death.

"Did you sleep last night?" Jack asked as he stared into Tosh's eyes and the dark shadows beneath them.

She shrugged and opened her front door fully for him. As usual she automatically held out her laptop bag knowing that Jack would automatically take it from her. As he shifted it onto his shoulder he looked around her flat. The curtains were still closed and Ianto's careful placement of a draped tea towel over the cutlery draw last night proved that once again she hadn't eaten a thing. Perhaps Ianto wouldn't mind rustling up a proper meal today for lunch. Tosh would usually eat whatever they put in front of her at work, but food at the Hub mostly came out of cardboard cartons and Tosh couldn't live on takeaways alone.

Once she'd locked the door behind them he looped his arm around her waist and led her toward the SUV.

"Just let us know if you need to go home early today. Alright Tosh? Don't wear yourself out."

She nodded and her dark hair slid from behind her ear to cover her face. She irritably pushed it firmly back and for a brief second squeezed Jacks hand as he opened the SUV's door for her. It wasn't much of a response, but at least it meant she was still listening to him.

Jack crept across the Hub, silently begging each metal grill beneath his feet not to rattle or clank against it's neighbour. At each corner he took a few deep breaths, listening for any sound before moving onwards once more. He may not be as small as one of the girls, but when he really needed to be he could be as light on his feet as Tosh, Gwen, or even Martha.

One more walkway to go. Jack gently reached into his pocket and pulled out the items he had carefully secreted there when he had still been in his office. His target was getting alluringly close now, so close that Jack could smell the gravy.

Ianto had eagerly agreed to make lunch in what passed as a kitchen at the Hub and judging by the heavy bags of shopping he'd carried back from the shops it wasn't going to be beans on toast. After a while the smell of roasting meat filled the Hub and even Tosh smiled as Ianto chased Martha and Gwen out the kitchen with a potato peeler.

Surely Ianto couldn't have heard Jack coming this time? At Ianto's flat Jack never made it, but here with the background noise of the waterfall and all the others moving about it had to be possible. Jack took the final steps into the kitchen and quietly breathed out with relief when he saw that Ianto had his usual pinny tied around his waist.

Jack took one step closer, holding out a shiny gold bell already attached to a piece of wire which would nicely hook over Ianto's pinny strap. Jack's finger held the bells clanger so that it wouldn't ring until it was in place. Finally Jack would win their little game and he'd ensure he'd get a suitable reward from Ianto just as soon as they were alone.

"Would you mind stirring the gravy Jack?" Ianto spun around and calmly took the bell from Jack's hand before replacing it with a wooden spoon.

"I can't move. I've got roast potato poisoning." Gwen leant back in her chair and patted her visibly full stomach. "That was amazing Ianto and the gravy…"

Sirens blazed in the Hub and somehow even with roast potato poisoning they were all at their stations before a stray pea had finished rolling across the table. Jack watched Tosh as her fingers flew across the computer keyboard and she made sense of the data that was flashing up on her screen.

"Major rift activity…trying to locate…" Tosh's finger traced a dot on the screen that was zooming into a map of Cardiff. "It's here, Jack it's here in the Hub!"

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