PLAGUE
ELEVEN
Wil and Ianto were standing at the French astronaute's bedside while Owen and Jack looked at one of the monitors.
"He's right, Jack," said Owen. "The EEG is flat – there's no brain activity. He's not in a coma and he's not in a vegetative state; he's brain dead. There's no discernible evidence of consciousness. I don't understand how respiration and heartbeat continue to function without life support. There's something fishy going on here."
Wil was staring at the man's face in disbelief when she heard an odd sound behind her. Turning round she saw Owen looking down in shock at Jack, who'd collapsed in a heap on the floor.
The physician looked up at her with absolute dread and said, "Quarantine."
She responded, "Lockdown."
They both turned to look at Ianto and yelled as one: "NOW!"
Ianto hit a switch on the wall and Torchwood totally sealed itself off from the outside world; over the din of the alarm he asked, "Gwen and Tosh?"
It was Owen who answered. "They're on the outside, there's nothing we can do; no one can come in while we're in quarantine isolation. No one can leave, either."
Owen winced. "And can you turn off the bloody alarm?"
Ianto nodded, walked to a computer and punched a few keys. Owen leaned over Jack, checking for vital signs as the clamor of the alarm was at first silenced but then replaced with a louder and very unfamiliar sound -- unfamiliar to Owen that is, but not to Wil nor Ianto.
"Oh my God!" cried Wil as she sprinted towards the hub, Ianto close behind her.
"Hey! Where…" Owen managed to inquire, but too late. They were already gone and he was left alone with the unconscious Jack.
Wil and Ianto arrived just in time to see a tall, wooden blue box materialize and the door open to reveal The Doctor, who was smiling cheerily.
"No!" they both screamed as he stepped out from the entrance. His smile morphed to a look of befuddled surprise.
"What?" the Time Lord asked, just before he gracefully crumpled to the floor; his long brown coat muffling the sound of his fall.