The Doctor looked at Scorch for only a moment before he pulled Colonel Mace's gun from its holster and slid it across the floor to Scorch.

"Which one?" he asked as it skittered towards her.

"Already gone," she answered as she grabbed the gun. She pulled out the clip, checked it, and put it back in the gun. "Doc, you've got one minute and twenty three seconds starting now." She stuck the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

The Doctor was already at her side, swiftly lifting her. He could see the hole in the back of her head already healing. "Mace, I need a secure room that's close."

Colonel Mace looked incredibly confused and irritated, but answered immediately. "Down the hall to the right, third door on the left side."

He shouted something else, but the Doctor was already out the door. He could feel the seconds ticking past as he rushed along, Scorch crackling with energy. Something had triggered her, set her off. What sort of idiot would do that?

Suddenly everything went dark. Nothing existed but his heartsbeat.

Toump-toump-toump-toump

Toump-toump-toump-toump

Scorch woke with a gasp, jerking so violently that the Doctor was forced to let go of her. She leaned against the wall, looking around with wild, empty eyes.

"I could take down this entire place," she said in a guttural voice. Her face flickered, as if two personalities were trying to force their way out. The Doctor caught her as she fell forward, half dragging her as she clung to him.

"What's happening?" she whimpered. "What am I? Please, what am I?"

The Doctor didn't answer, just throwing open the door Colonel Mace had described, checking at a glance that the only way in or out was through the door.

The whine and crackle of electricity rose in his ears as he pulled Scorch into the meeting room, putting her down and backing up rapidly. Her expression smoothed, and he slammed the door as she lifted the gun to take aim. He heard it go off, wondering if she had been pointing it at him when she fired.

He locked the door with his sonic and turned to the two soldiers who had—predictably—followed him. "Wait for ten minutes after she runs out of bullets, then come get me."

They nodded nervously.

"Perfectly safe?" Colonel Mace asked sarcastically when the Doctor returned.

"The Rahki must have sent one of the Jahra out after her. But how did they get to her in here?" He smacked his forehead. "Of course! Oh, I'm getting so thick. Old and thick," the Doctor said, already not paying Mace any attention.

Colonel Mace looked like he couldn't decide whether to have the Doctor thrown out or to do it himself when one of the multiple techies called from the front.

"Colonel, TORCHWOOD is calling."

The Doctor hurried over to the computers. One of the soldiers stood up and he slid on the headset.

"Talk to me."

"Where's Katie?" a man asked with a touch of repressed worry in his voice.

"Oh, I know that voice!" the Doctor said cheerfully. "This is the Doctor; what can I do for you Ianto Jones?"

Ianto's tone smoothed out, now sounding overly formal and yet slightly protective. "Katie was working and the screen showing her work on this end went blank. What happened?"

"She's…preoccupied with a power spike," the Doctor said. "What did she have you doing?"

"I was identifying the signal's frequency."

The Doctor was puzzled. "I thought Toshiko Sato was your computer girl."

There was a slight pause on the other end. "She's dead," Ianto said in a quiet tone.

"Oh. Sorry. When?"

"The week Katie came back."

The Doctor was silent for a few moments. He knew how close Scorch had grown to Toshiko during her original four months with TORCHWOOD. Just when he thought he couldn't feel worse about leaving her.

"We should get back to work," Ianto said on the other end. "Can you work a computer?"

"Not as well as Kathryn, but yes. What was she trying to do?"

"I think she was trying to gain access to the Krize ship itself."

"Why would she…oh, clever girl. Almost as smart as I am."

Ianto didn't ask what the Doctor was talking about, though he might have. The Doctor never found out, because the next moment there was a scratching noise, like someone taking the headphones, and then a distinctly accented female voice was talking to him.

"Is this you again? What are you doing here?"

The Doctor applied half his brain to remembering the woman's name. "Cooper, isn't it? Gwen."

"What the bloody hell was that about, leaving her behind?"

The Doctor paused, taking a moment to understand. "You mean Kathryn?"

"You just toss her out the door in a century she knows nothing of and hope that she can find her own way? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Language Gwen Cooper."

"It's Mrs. Williams, you sick bastard, and I've got so much more for you. Think you can abandon her and then pick her up again whenever you want or something? Do you have any idea what you've done to her, what she's gone through these past two months? The choice you tricked her into making just to protect yourself, you selfish son of a—?"

There was more scratching and Ianto's voice came back. "Sorry about that." His tone didn't really match his words.

"She's grown rather attached to Kathryn," the Doctor asked, trying to keep his voice light.

"We all have," Ianto said, his voice quietly ending the discussion. "I'll link you up with the Hub. Katie was going to use the building itself as a signal carrier for whatever she was doing."

"Ianto, were you able to identify what it was about the signal that changed molecular structures?"

"It seems as though there's a particular frequency that vibrates and shuffles only certain atoms. The correct frequency setting can rearrange the atoms of one element to become another. It has to work harder on something that isn't a pure element, which is the only reason we've lasted this long."

There was a crash and the Doctor turned to look at the center of the room. His eyebrows went up as he noted the large chunk of lead that seemed to have fallen from the ceiling. From the shape, the Doctor guessed it had once been a beam in the roof. He noticed Mace giving him a steady look.

"Doctor, you may not get your requested time. I have reports coming in that people are collapsing all over this base with lead poisoning. Three have already died. If it's happening here, it's happening everywhere else. You'd better have some kind of plan."

"Oh, I always have a plan," the Doctor said nonchalantly, turning back to the computer. "Just hope that it works," he said under his breath.

The Doctor worked away at breaking into the Krize computers, but had to admit (only to himself) that it was a bit difficult. Oh, he understood the lines of code in front of his eyes; he was just out of practice at actually using his mind rather than the screwdriver, and at this distance and with the extra steps he had to take to even get the signal to the ship, it wasn't easy. When he saw how far Scorch seemed to have gotten in the few minutes she'd had, he couldn't help being a little impressed.

A little while later, one of the soldiers that had been guarding Scorch came into the main room. The Doctor told Ianto he was going to be a few and immediately left, preparing himself for anything.

*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*