A/N: Yep, this story is still alive and kicking! And as a bonus, the next chapter will follow before the weekend's out and it ONLY has Jack and Ianto in it ;)

Tosh stood at Gwen's feet, one hand over her mouth and her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. Across from her, Jack was staring down at Gwen's thankfully unaltered face, his own features devoid of emotion, whilst Owen and Ianto flanked the metal bed, both rather pale, albeit for very different reasons.

The room had been silent for what seemed like an age, ever since Owen had announced that Gwen's vitals were perfectly fine - a fact completely at odds with both the state in which they'd frozen her, and the dramatic change in her appearance. The strange turn of events was one nobody had expected, especially not when they'd just been about to start treating the virus that had afflicted her so badly. From a certain point of view, it was encouraging that she could breathe by herself, and even more so that her organs were all functioning properly again, but the flaky discoloured skin was so alarming it almost overshadowed those positive developments.

"How much longer?" she asked, though she couldn't be sure what she was hoping to hear. There was some allure of getting it over and done with, but at the same time she knew how horrified she would be if she woke up to find her body had changed so drastically.

"Five minutes," Owen replied. "She's reacting well to the flushing agent."

"She seems to be doing well in most areas, all things considered," Ianto put in. "Other than that, of course." He waved a hand at Gwen's body. She was covered by a thick blanket now, but they all knew what he meant.

Tosh stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes slowly. She was more tired than she'd felt in a long time, but she refused to let it win out. Ianto had already warned her about what he'd do if he caught her with any more coffee in the next few days and, after pouting and failing to sway him with what she'd considered a well-reasoned argument, she was loath to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how badly she needed to sleep.

As with all plans, however, it wasn't destined to run smoothly, and Ianto glanced across in time to see her hiding another yawn behind her hand. He smiled softly and leaned towards her. "Why don't you go and lie down," he suggested in a low voice. "You don't need to be here for this."

"I want to be here," Tosh immediately protested.

"And if you fall asleep on your feet?"

"Then I guess I'll wake up when I hit the floor."

Ianto's smile broadened and she smirked in victory, happy to have won an argument over him for once. "I'll sleep after Gwen's awake," she went on. "After we're sure she's okay." She pulled a face. "I mean...you know what I mean."

"We know," Ianto assured her.

There was another beat of silence before Jack suddenly straightened his back and looked to the Doctor standing at the railing above them. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, voice hard and demanding. Tosh blinked at him, surprised by the fury as he broke the heavy silence he'd adopted since Owen and Ianto had returned from cold storage. She knew he'd been greatly optimistic with the developments concerning Gwen's cure, positive that the Doctor's guidance and Owen's medical knowledge would help return her to a normal state again soon. The astonishing change in Gwen's skin had knocked them all for six, but Jack seemed to be taking it much harder than the rest.

Tosh glanced across at Ianto, remembering their conversation the previous morning about his relationship with Jack. Although he'd insisted they weren't truly a couple, she'd long been able to sense the tension that lay between them, the connection that spoke of something far deeper than simple lust. Even now, with Jack displaying so much anger and horror at the unexpected shift in Gwen's condition, she could see in Ianto's eyes the ache he felt at Jack's undeniable display of love for the woman lying between them.

She sighed quietly, once again wondering how they could both be in such denial when the bond between them was impossible to ignore. Granted, she'd experienced her fair share of unsuccessful crushes in the past, and getting her nerve up to ask a guy out was one of the hardest things she'd encountered in her life, but whenever she'd loved another person, she had always found it hard to hide her feelings. Not purely because she didn't want to hide them, but also because holding them in seemed more painful than the possibility of rejection. Love was far too wondrous a gift to deny it to anyone and sharing it more often than not gave back more than one could have imagined.

Tosh's eyes had drifted on their own accord to Owen and a familiar tightness clenched around her heart. She'd been so close to getting to know Owen outside the Hub and that was all she'd really wanted: to learn about him as a person and vice versa, so that if there was anything there, it might have the chance to grow. Naturally, fate could never be so considerate and what could have been was now nothing more than an impossible fantasy.

Vision beginning to blur again, Tosh swallowed hard, cursing herself for dwelling on her own loss when Gwen was still suffering without reason. The thought couldn't stop the tears from threatening to fall, however, and she forced herself to focus instead on Jack, who was still glaring up at their visitor.

"Well?" he growled. "Do you?"

The Doctor tilted his head. "That's a vague question. Have I seen this before? No. But can I tell what's happening to her?" He shrugged. "Yes, of course."

"And...?" Jack prompted, almost trembling with the effort of holding back his temper.

"Well it's obvious, isn't it? Her DNA's being altered."

"Her DNA?" echoed Ianto, turning to look at the Doctor as well. "The virus is changing her actual DNA?"

Owen was nodding at the Doctor's explanation, clearly of the same opinion. "The virus was the delivery agent," he explained in a tight voice. "If we...if you didn't have immunity to it, you'd all look like Gwen right now."

"But how?" Ianto pressed. "It can't be that easy to change someone at the genetic level."

"Not here and now. But the way science is progressing, it isn't hard to assume something like this will be child's play in the future."

"Bloody hell," the Welshman muttered.

"What about the cryo?" asked Jack, turning his scowl on Owen. "Why did she go in with just a rash and come out like this?"

"Two possibilities." Owen glanced towards the Doctor, and Tosh guessed they'd already discussed the issue whilst examining Gwen. "Either the unit's malfunctioning and she was never fully frozen, or else the virus was programmed to override any outside influence that would hinder its progression through her body."

"I'm running a diagnostic on the unit now," Tosh told the Captain. "It should have triggered an alarm if there were any problems, but of course we can't rule it out."

Ianto hummed suddenly, frowning down at Gwen, deep in thought. "The virus was manufactured to carry a genetic code that was also manufactured, right?" he asked quietly, almost to himself, and he didn't wait for an answer. "So the plan all along must have been for us to end up like this."

Tosh swallowed, sickened by the idea that somebody could have intentionally wanted to do this to them. "Gwen left the Hub after the pod was opened," she said, growing even more horrified as she spoke. "If she hadn't gone straight to her flat, or if Rhys hadn't been away..." she drew in a shaky breath, "God...it could have been a pandemic!"

The idea brought everyone to a standstill, lost in their thoughts at what could have occurred, until suddenly a hitch in Gwen's rhythmic breathing brought their attention back to the bed.

Gwen couldn't look away from her arms.

She wasn't entirely convinced that she wasn't dreaming, or at least hallucinating, and although staring wasn't really helping her prove it either way, she simply couldn't tear her eyes from the limbs stuck out before her.

She'd woken looking up at a circle of blurred faces and muted voices, and for a few long seconds she hadn't a clue where she was or what had happened. Then the haze in her vision had begun to clear and her sluggish thoughts finally produced memories of infuriating itchiness, sore blisters and being told she was to be frozen whilst a treatment was found. She had smiled then, a weak, relieved smile, for – the discounting of her medical wishes aside – if she'd been taken out of stasis then it meant they'd cured her. But the smile hadn't been returned and, as she'd stared at the glum faces overhead, her own expression had twisted into one of confusion and fear.

Owen had explained that the virus (or Rash-ese disease, as Ianto still insisted they call it) which had threatened to shut down her internal organs had all but vanished from her body, leaving no sign of there ever being any trouble with the functioning of her heart or lungs. He'd then broken the news of what had taken its place, and it was at that point she'd begun to suspect that she'd never really woken up.

She turned her arms over again, completely numb as she took in the dull grey-green which covered almost every inch of her body, save her face. Even her palms were the same sickly colour and when she curled her fingers, the skin crinkled and flaked away.

Before she'd fallen into the drugged daze that had proceeded being frozen, Gwen recalled clearly the irritating rash and red welts that Owen had hidden within layers of white gauze. It seemed impossible to have gone from sores that oozed blood and other purulent fluids to this dry lizard-skin without her remembering it.

"How do you feel?" Jack asked, breaking the hush that had descended whilst she studied her new appearance.

Gwen dragged her gaze away from her arms to gape up at him. "Feel? I feel fine," she said, stunned that she was able to make that claim. "I look like...I don't know what I look like, but I feel fine." She shook her head in disbelief. "When did this happen?" she asked, pushing her hands out towards the others.

It didn't make sense to Gwen that she could forget something so important, but perhaps those last few days had been worse than she remembered. She looked expectantly to Owen for a rational explanation but he merely grimaced at her. "That happened in the freezer."

"Eh?" she responded dumbly, her colleague's words doing nothing to convince her that she was awake. "But...frozen!" she declared, voice lifting a full two octaves.

"We know," Jack said, flashing her a grin that was plainly forced. "Tosh is looking into it, but it's possible the virus simply wasn't affected by the freezing process."

"This is crazy," Gwen muttered. "Can someone please pinch me?" There was only an awkward silence in response and she sighed. "I'm still contagious then, am I?"

"No, they just don't want to touch you," Owen told her.

"Owen!" hissed Tosh, cheeks flushing with sudden embarrassment. "That isn't true," she hurried to assure the other woman.

Gwen grunted dubiously. "Don't worry, I probably wouldn't want to touch this either." She prodded at her own forearm then shrugged. "But I can hardly feel anything, so I guess it isn't a problem for me."

"You can't feel anything?" Owen asked, leaning closer as his medical curiosity was piqued.

"It's like I'm wearing thick gloves," she told him with another shrug.

"Huh," Owen said. "Handy for a quick 'stranger'."

"A what?" asked the Doctor and despite her situation Gwen couldn't stop herself from giving a snort of amusement.

Her knowledge of the Doctor was limited to Jack's vague comments and the details she and the others had uncovered when Jack had disappeared earlier that year. It wasn't much to go on, hardly enough to form an opinion of the man, and yet within only a few minutes of being introduced to him, Gwen felt the inclination to trust him implicitly. It might have been her instincts, or simply just how he interacted so naturally with her friends, but she found herself unable to feel any resentment that this outsider was seeing her in this bizarre and frightful state.

"Don't," Ianto was saying, pointing a stern finger at Owen and Gwen's smile grew wider.

"I guess that's proof enough I'm not dreaming," she declared. "No way would my subconscious make up that conversation." There was some uncomfortable chuckling and Gwen lifted her hands to study them once again. "I still don't get it. This didn't happen when you caught this virus, did it?"

"No," Jack answered. He reached out to take one of her hands and she looked up at him with a grateful smile. "We didn't have any of the problems you had, other than the rash, but what we caught was a natural virus. Yours was manufactured."

Gwen frowned, eyes darting to the others in confusion. "I don't understand."

"The virus was created in a lab," Owen explained. "With, most likely, the express purpose of doing this to us." He waved at her exposed arms.

"Eh?" she said, screwing up her nose in disbelief. "To make us look like reptiles with eczema? What's the point in that?" Her quick mind suddenly threw up a more pressing question. "Wait, the virus was in that old pod thing, right? Why are you saying it was intended to do this to us?"

Owen's mouth opened, but nothing came out and he looked at Jack with the expression of one who'd let something important slip. Gwen followed his gaze and met the Captain's bright eyes. "Spill it," she ordered.

"Look, we can't be sure," Jack began, "but it seems she sent the virus here to punish me-"

"She?" Gwen interrupted sharply. "You know who did this to me?"

Jack licked his lips in a rare display of anxiety. "Lurrelia, we think." He then lifted his hands to stop her spluttered response. "We think," he reiterated.

Owen, who evidentially hadn't been privy to that information either, rounded on the immortal. "What the fuck?" he demanded. "She's dead! You said she was dead!"

"She is," Jack replied firmly. "It just looks like her coming here might not have been her first plan."

"She probably sent the message pod to infect us before she travelled here herself," Tosh explained, laying a hand on Owen's tensed arm.

"To infect the entire human race," Ianto added.

"That's what we're assuming at least," said Jack. "But it stands to reason. She held me accountable for the ruin of her people through genetics, so she'd probably want to bring about the ruin of mine in the same way."

Gwen started to doubt her earlier assertion that she was definitely awake. "Bugger," she said with a groan, dropping her head back onto the pillows. Then another thought struck her and she sat up again with a jolt. "I left the Hub!" she cried. "No one else would have the immunity you have, they-"

"It's okay," Jack reassured her quickly. "You didn't come into contact with anyone when you were outside. Remember?"

Her brow crinkled in thought and then smoothed with relief. "Oh thank God," she breathed. The idea sent a thrill of ice-cold fear through her body and she shuddered, horrified by what could have happened if she'd spread such a horrific virus to just one person outside. "So, next question. Are you able to fix this?"

Glances were exchanged and she noted with interest that they finally came to rest on the Doctor. He gave them all a wry smile, before sticking his hands into his pockets and shrugging. "I'm sure your scientists have enough knowledge to correct this level of genetic disruption without needing me to hold their hands."

Owen arched an eyebrow at him. "Gene therapy?" The Time Lord nodded and Owen frowned.

"Owen?" pressed Jack.

"Somatic gene therapy," Owen replied. "It's not really my area but it's probably our best shot. I mean, if this guy isn't going to whip out some miracle cure from the future to save us all a lot of time and suffering."

Jack glanced at the Doctor then shook his head, lips pressed into a thin line. "If he had that kind of thing on him, he wouldn't be able to use it." He didn't look impressed by his own statement. "There are rules, right?"

The Doctor said nothing, merely held Jack's gaze in what seemed to be a silent conversation.

"You can do this somatic thing?" Gwen asked Owen, when she grew tired of the tension in the room.

"Like I said, it isn't my area. We'll have to find someone who specialises in it and bring them here." Owen folded his arms and considered her with a scowl. "It'll take a while, even provided nothing else changes."

Gwen's eyes grew wide again. "What?" she asked fiercely. "Oh no no, don't you dare even suggest anything else might happen to me, Owen Harper, I can't take any more of this!" She waved her arms, as though he might have forgotten her current state.

"I don't know," the Doctor piped up, having evidentially finished his wordless battle with the Captain. "You seem to be handling it pretty well."

Gwen glared at him. "Jack, your Doctor hasn't got a very good bedside manner, has he? I don't know why you bothered running off after him before."

"He is an acquired taste," Jack agreed. "But he's right, you do look-"

"Sound," Ianto muttered.

"-sound considerably better," Jack finished, grinning at the younger man as though they were part of a double act.

Ianto smiled back at him and, though it lasted for barely a second, Gwen was certain that there'd been something rather more emotive in his expression than she'd ever seen pass between the two men before.

"Rhys!" she exclaimed, her thoughts snapping abruptly to the man who looked at her like that. "Oh God, has he seen me like this?" Without waiting for an answer, she tried to climb down from the bed in an inexplicable attempt to hide herself from someone who wasn't even there.

The machines around her squawked in protest and she became tangled in the wires and tubes connected to her body, whilst around her the room descended into bedlam as everyone rushed at once to try and keep her in place.