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Old Faces, New Hopes

"Leela?" Martha repeated, looking at the Doctor in surprise. "Uh… you're not talking about the mutant cyclops, right?"

"What- oh, Futurama, right?" the Doctor said, looking briefly back at Martha before he shook his head. "No, nothing like that; Leela was a descendent of a survey team that crash-landed on a planet several centuries in your future whose people were manipulated by an insane supercomputer that I'd accidentally programmed…"

"What…?" the woman said, raising her head further so that she could continue to stare at the Doctor, suspicion still clear in her eyes as she studied the man before her. "How do… you know…?"

"Leela…" the Doctor said, his voice assuming a soft, comforting tone as he walked back over to crouch down in front of the elderly woman, smiling reassuringly at her. "It's all right… I'm here now. I'm not… I'm not dead or contaminated by the Faction or anti-time or the Daleks or whatever else I was exposed to before the Time War… I'm me…"

"Can't be…" Leela said, her voice weak even as the Doctor took in a faint gleam of hope in her eyes. "The Doctor… is gone… he fell… he failed…we all failed…"

"Come on, after we started a revolution on Pluto and blew up the Fendahl, you really think a little thing like a Time War would stop me?" the Doctor asked, a tender smile on his face as he reached out to touch Leela's face once again. "Leela, I'm not dead; I'm here, and I'm going to get you out of here…"

"Can't…" Leela muttered weakly, shaking her head as the brief sparkle of hope in her eyes faded once again. "Too weak… too old… no Gallifrey… aging fast…"

"What?" the Doctor said, his eyes widening in a sudden realisation. "You mean…?"

He groaned as he sat back on the ground before Leela, a frustrated glare on his face. "Of course you would… you're not from Gallifrey; the bio-fields would have only affected you as long as you were there…"

"Uh… bio-fields?" Martha repeated, looking in confusion at the Doctor. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, normally Time Lord aging is significantly retarded due to active bio-fields that help us to heal and regenerate; actually, in most cases simply staying on Gallifrey renders Time Lords practically immortal as the bio-fields all 'feed' off each other to virtually halt the aging process," the Doctor explained, turning back to look at Martha, his usual 'enthusiastic babble' explanation somewhat tempered by his evident grief at the dying woman before them. "It generally just slows the aging of those who spend a prolong time in contact with me on the TARDIS- your body's probably only aged a few weeks for all the months you've spent with me-, but since Leela left me to stay on Gallifrey, prolonged exposure to so many bio-fields resulted in Leela's telomeres automatically replenishing themselves and thus halting the aging process in her body so long as she was on the planet; with Gallifrey gone…"

He sighed as his eyes turned back to study the woman before them, his expression grim as he studied her. "She's probably aging a year a day as her body tries to 'catch up' with what aging it hasn't been doing since I left her; no wonder the signal was so weak…"

"Si… signal?" Leela repeated, staring in weak confusion at the Doctor. "I… I sent no… signal…"

"Not consciously, anyway… and we don't have time for that now," the Doctor said, his resolve suddenly returning as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and turned to Martha. "Martha, get ready to catch Leela; I'm shutting that thing down."

Martha didn't stop to question the Doctor; even without her time with him having increased her resolve to save lives, her medical training alone would have encouraged her to do what she could to help this woman. Quickly moving into the position that the Doctor had indicated, she held out her arms as the Doctor turned the screwdriver on the machine holding his old friend, the bonds around Leela's limbs automatically retracting as she fell forward into Martha's arms.

"To the TARDIS!" the Doctor yelled, hurrying towards his ship, Martha close behind him carrying the almost-frighteningly-light Leela. As she entered the ship, she briefly thought about asking the Doctor to wait and help the others, but a brief glance around the room was all that she needed to confirm that the other prisoners had already died; the fact that nobody had moved since their arrival made their status fairly self-evident.

As she entered the TARDIS, laying Leela down near one of the columns as the Doctor set the controls, Martha took one last brief examination of the older woman- breathing and pulse were slow but not in the danger area as of yet, and her pupils seemed to be reacting normally as far as Martha could tell without a torch- before she hurried over to join the Doctor just as he set the TARDIS to dematerialise.

"Where are you taking her?" Martha asked, the Time Lord intently staring at the central column as though trying to come to a decision. "I mean.... well, can you help her, or-"

"I can't do anything," the Doctor said, looking grimly over at Martha, "but I know someone who has access to the resources that would allow me to help her."

Before Martha could ask him what he meant, he pulled out his phone- as part of the 'being normal' thing he'd been doing since the Master's death Martha had insisted he get his own mobile, and he'd actually grown rather comfortable with it- and quickly dialled in a number before raising the phone to his ear.

"Jack?" he said, his tone brisk and direct as he addressed his old companion, "I'm going to need one of your stasis chambers; I've got a patient who needs some urgent treatment that's going to take longer to organise than I've got."

"Jack?" Martha repeated uncertainly as he terminated the call and turned his attention back to the TARDIS console. "You're going to Jack for help with this?"

"When I was asking him for more details about his Torchwood he mentioned that his base has various stasis chambers installed around it," the Doctor explained, looking anxiously over at Leela even as the TARDIS continued towards its destination. "If I can get Leela into one of those, it should keep her frozen in time long enough for me to sort out something that can help her..."

"Which is...?" Martha asked uncertainly.

"I'll get back to you on that," the Doctor said, even as he anxiously turned his gaze back towards Leela's still form. "Right now, that all depends on what Jack's team have pieced together over the years..."