After feedback on tumblr, I've decided for the duration of the story, these oneshots and small arcs will be released out of chronological order. Locations in the timeline will be clearly listed so as to avoid confusion.

December 2006 – January 2007

When Tosh first laid eyes on Jack, he was standing in the doorway of that horrid UNIT cell. She'd thought he was an angel but quickly realized that was not the case. He was too dark to be an angel, too devious. He was her rescuer but he wasn't a hero. He hadn't saved her out of kindness or self-created duty; he'd saved her because he needed her. He was an enigma wrapped in mystery with a curious dress sense and a coat from an era long gone. He was an imposing man even without the mystery. He had emotions, he had desires, but sometimes he seemed so detached from the world as if he was merely an observer and not a part of it.

Tosh wasn't very good at reading people; her talents lied in math and science, facts, truths, not the ever-changing emotions of people or their states of being. Jack was even harder. He was practically a blank slate. But she'd always got the sense that he was only just content with his life. Not happy with it.

It had taken Rose Tyler to prove her right. Now Tosh wondered if Jack Harkness had ever, in all the time she'd known him, had ever truly been happy. Because he was now and now she knew what a happy Jack looked like. They all could see it and not one of them could believe it. But he was happy, exuberant even.

However, Jack's happiness came at the price of Rose's. She was not happy and not even content. Even Owen commented on the misery beneath the mask that Rose Tyler wore. (Not to her face, of course.) She was out of place and heartbroken. All of Jack's antics were for her sake, rather than reflections of his own happiness. An attempt to keep her from spiraling into a depression so deep Tosh wondered if they'd ever be able to bring her out of it.

When she smiled, a peculiar smile with her tongue in her teeth, Jack did too. When she laughed, he grinned. He hugged her a lot and let her hug him. Sometimes he'd say something odd or she would and the other would laugh or smile or react in some way that let the others know quite well that it was an inside joke they weren't meant to get. Tosh's favorite was the time Rose turned up in a gas mask she'd procured from somewhere, sidled up behind Jack, and asked in a childish voice, "Are you my mummy?" He'd jumped half a foot in the air and scrambled away from her so fast it was hilarious.

Once she complained about missing 'the running' (whatever that meant) and the next thing Tosh knew, Rose was racing around the Hub after Jack who was holding something bright pink in his hands, calling him a wanker and several other names that sounded alien. That ended with the two of them tussling on the grating in the center of the Hub and falling into the water beneath, but Rose reclaimed the bright pink bit of fabric and tucked it hastily in her pocket.

Rose made tea for herself once a day, every day. Suzie asked her about it and Rose explained that her doctor was quite big on tea. They always had a cuppa together at least once a day if they could. Jack, overhearing, had been surprised, and the next day when Rose made her tea, she made a second mug for Jack, and the two of them sat together on the sofa while they drank it.

Another time, Tosh had been working at her terminal when a song suddenly filled the air, coming from Jack's office. It was a weird mix of traditional Japanese and hip-hop with a little something she'd never heard before. Rose looked up from her terminal beneath the stairs, immediately abandoning her work, and ran into the office. Tosh had watched through the blinds as they did a strange dance in each other's arms that actually fit the music. By the time they were done, they were both laughing and breathless.

Jack flirted lightly with them from time to time but with no force behind it. With Rose he unleashed the full force of his flirtatious nature and instead of stumbling under it as Tosh had seen other men and women do, Rose matched him step for step by causally deflecting him or returning with a flirt of her own. If Tosh didn't know better, she'd swear she was witnessing some sort of courting ritual, but Rose was already in a relationship, and Jack had already mentioned several times that if he shagged Rose he was likely to be dumped in the middle of deep space.

He must be quite the man, this doctor.

Rose was pretty tight-lipped, like she was afraid to speak about him to them. Jack wasn't saying anything either. Nothing new there. But at some point, and she wasn't quite sure exactly when, Tosh's brain began to do what it did best: made connections. As secretive as they tried to be, Rose and Jack had given her a plethora of information. The answer was there; she just had to find it.

Nearly a month after Rose arrived in Torchwood, the answer came to her. It was Owen's fault, really. They were in the middle of a case they'd taken over from Cardiff PD. A woman had kidnapped her child from its father simply because he celebrated Christmas, she thought the holiday to be inane, and she didn't want her child exposed to the Christmas hype. Except…the woman just so happened to be an alien and she and her halfbreed baby were no longer on planet Earth.

There really wasn't anything they could do to bring her back, not that the man was buying that at all. His significant other had apparently told him about something called 'The Shadow Proclamation", which made Rose roll her eyes and Jack snort.

"Think of it as a cross between the government, the UN, and the Green Lantern Corp," Jack explained. "And even if we could contact them, they're not going to care. A great deal of cultures believes the mothers hold dominant rights to their children rather than the fathers."

After they left the man's house, as they were piling into the SUV, Owen asked, "Ok, who in their right mind would fuck an alien?"

Jack had cocked his head to one side noncommittally and Rose had blushed and looked away. Just like that, it all made sense. Her significant other, this doctor, was an alien.

Honestly, she should've seen it sooner. It was so obvious. Why else would Jack be worried about being dumped in deep space? How else could Rose know so much about aliens?

'The Doctor,' they called him. She thought it was a codename, Owen thought it was some sort of sexual thing, and Suzie thought he just preferred going by his title. But, with this newfound knowledge, Tosh wondered if that really was his name. Or his name translated into English.

If Jack knew about him then he had to be in their records. Except, when she looked, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in all of Torchwood III's records. Not even a hint or a whisper. Officially, the organization knew nothing about him. But why? Why would Jack intentionally leave the Doctor out of Torchwood's database? What was he hiding?

Just when she solved one mystery she found herself presented with another. For several days she toyed with hacking Torchwood One's records. If she was caught, it could land them all in some seriously hot water. Jack hadn't liked them bringing up Torchwood One before, but ever since Rose showed up, he had been very adamant that London was separate. He didn't want their eyes on Cardiff any more than they already were and that only made Tosh wonder all the more. Rose hated Torchwood with a passion and after some heckling from Owen she had made it a point to clarify that her feelings were directed at London's branch rather than their own.

It was driving Tosh mad.

It was pure luck that she found the answer.

Tosh was with Jack and Suzie as they showed Rose around some of their storage archives. Rose was completely astonished at how many artifacts Torchwood had collected over the century. Once she'd gotten over her shock, she started peering at the items in containers on the shelves and their labels. Most of them she didn't comment on and Tosh wasn't sure if she simply didn't know what they were or if she was unimpressed. There was one, however, that merited her attention: a magenta sphere about the size of a cricket ball that had previously been unidentified.

"It's a hair styler," she informed them matter-of-factly.

"It's a what?" Suzie asked.

Rose turned to Jack and pointed at the container. "Can I…?"

He nodded and reached for the seal on the box. A few seconds later, the lid clicked open and Jack removed it, reaching inside for the sphere. He placed it in Rose's hands and she immediately swiped two fingers along the middle of the sphere in a swirling motion. To their amazement, the smooth surface of the sphere suddenly parted at the top and a small tube appeared from the hole. Rose gave the tip a curious sniff and smiled.

"Still workin'," she announced then held it out for them to see. A panel had opened on one side, revealing six small buttons with alien characters above them. She pointed to each of them as she listed off their functions, "Straight, fluffy, curly, wavy, semi-curly, and this last one flips up the ends a bit. All you gotta do is press the button and it'll do that to your hair. Look."

She placed the tube on the top of her head and pressed one of the buttons. Ripples flowed down Rose's hair until it settled into waves and the sphere let out a cheerful series of beeps, like a jingle. Rose smiled and lowered it from her head, shaking her hair out.

"Impressive," Jack commented. "You own one?"

"Yep. It's from the planet…Tiké."

"I'll get that relabeled, then."

Rose held the sphere to her chest. "Can I keep it?"

He shook his head. "I would, but, it's still an alien artifact and…"

"'If it's alien it's ours,'" Rose quoted with a scornful eye roll. She handed it back over to him, muttering, "I hate that bloody charter."

Tosh found it strange that she had knowledge of the charter. It wasn't something Jack advertised to anyone. She only knew of its existence because she'd been curious of the Institute's origins. Every Torchwood branch was required to own at least one copy of the Torchwood Charter, written by Queen Victoria long ago. Torchwood One had the original and Jack kept a hard copy of it in his office. He told her it used to be displayed on the wall in his office and taking it down had been his first act as commander. He'd never said why, exactly, and she hadn't been confident enough in her position to question him.

There was also a scan of it in their database.

She'd pulled it up immediately upon returning to her terminal. It was an image file, no text at all, no wonder it hadn't registered in her search. The first part of the charter was political and formal nonsense, telling about the Institute's duties and position within society. Four paragraphs down, she saw his name. Her hand slowly went to her mouth as she read the harsh words that condemned the alien who called himself 'the Doctor' as an enemy of the crown. He, along with his companion listed only as Dame Tyler, were to be apprehended should they ever be seen again.

"Oh, God," she whispered, resting her elbows on the table, and pressed her mouth into her fists.

Rose knew he was an alien; his age probably was no surprise to her either. Why would she follow…and love a man—never mind an alien—who had been Torchwood's most wanted for over a hundred years? Did she know about that? Was that why she despised Torchwood so much? Had the London branch caught them once?

Her mind was still buzzing when Owen emerged from the morgue. She didn't hear him come up behind her, didn't know he was there until he asked what she was looking at. Tosh jumped in her chair and scrambled to close the window but Owen caught her hand on the mouse. She glanced at him warily. He was staring at the screen.

"Holy shit," he said after a moment. "Does that say—?"

"The Doctor."

"An alien. He's a fucking alien. …She's fucking an alien/i. Oh, my God." He laughed with gleeful malice.

Tosh twisted around in her chair and fixed him with her most baleful stare. "Don't."

He stopped laughing. "Don't what?"

"Don't say anything about this. Not to anyone."

"Why?"

"Because this is Rose's secret, not yours. Plus, if you think about it, this explains why she hates Torchwood."

"Hmm," he grunted. "Who's this 'Dame Tyler'?" he asked. "Can't be her…can it?"

"Can't be. This is from the 1880s. She could be her descendent or could be coincidence."

"Hang on. Jack has to know about this."

"Of course. I think Jack's the reason there's no mention of him anywhere in our database. He must've erased all the records."

"Yeah, but why?" Owen wondered, folding his arms. "He's been here for ages so he had to have known about the Doctor when he met him. Why didn't he just capture him then?"

"Rose said they helped each other. Maybe Jack realized the Doctor wasn't all bad or…maybe he did it as a favor. Whatever the reason, it's not my business. Jack obviously thinks he's not a target or a threat and neither should we." She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, then exited the window and watched it swirl away.

Owen, to her relief, didn't say a word. She'd let him slip away without eliciting a promise of silence and had half expected the whole Hub to know what they'd learned by that night. But he restrained himself. He didn't treat Rose any differently, didn't hint that he knew something about her Doctor, or anything.

She was able to finally appreciate Rose's unusual behaviors for what they were. This was a woman who'd disappeared for a year with an alien after an attempted alien invasion in London, who must've spent months out in space, exploring and learning new cultures. She'd taken everything with Porruhk in stride even though she hadn't had any training. The strange music she and Jack liked and the weird dances that went with them were alien. The people she needed to protect, the Doctor was one of them obviously, probably her mother, too, but the rest of them Tosh was willing to bet were aliens. The telepathic translator in her head hadn't been intended to make travelling the Earth easier, it was for travelling the galaxy!

Tosh felt a modicum of guilt for prying further into Rose's life yet she was glad she had. She understood Rose a little better and, admittedly, judged her less for the way she had greeted them and behaved since. Owen also seemed a bit less harsh on her. He was in no way friendly but he curbed his punches just enough that Tosh noticed. As far as she knew, Suzie was still in the dark, and neither Rose nor Jack knew what they'd learned.