PLAGUE
TWELVE
Owen now had three patients in his medical bay's ICU.
There had been no way to isolate the Frenchman, and the physician cursed his short-sightedness for not recognizing the possible need for such a capacity.
Although now he suspected it was too late – the damage had already been done.
It turned out to be fortunate in at least one respect to have Gwen and Tosh on the outside. The two women had been working with the authorities and military to chase off the crowds and make a large portion of the area around Torchwood, as well as Sunjammer's landing site, inaccessible.
Owen had no idea if whatever it was that had killed two Weevils and threatened the lives of at least three other individuals had been contained by the lockdown.
So far none of the other humans in the complex were experiencing any ill effects. There was no word yet from the outside to indicate the condition had spread beyond Torchwood.
Despite that, he felt extremely fearful and at least partly overwhelmed. He had confidence in his abilities; he knew he was good – but he wasn't sure he was good enough to deal on his own with an unidentified virulent and possibly lethal contagion.
Rose had wanted The Doctor to be moved back into the TARDIS but the others disagreed. As Wil rightly pointed out, the TARDIS could monitor him just fine where he was; the Time Lord didn't need to be physically in contact with his ship for their connection to persist.
At least Rose had convinced them that no medicines of any type were to be used on The Doctor.
"It's too dangerous," she'd said. "He's not like us and he's told me common substances like aspirin can harm or even kill him. We can't take the risk."
Nor had she allowed Owen to hook up any instruments to The Doctor. Or to take any blood.
The physician could see he wasn't going to win that battle, at least at present, so he retreated.
"Where were you, before you came here?" Owen asked her.
"Cambridge," she answered. And then added more quietly: "1665. Just before they closed it down."
Owen flashed a suspicious look.
"The Doctor said we'd be fine. We were safe. We weren't exposed to the plague. That isn't what made him sick!"
Wil was shaking her head at Owen, indicating the line of inquiry was a dead end, so he dropped it.
With Ianto's help Owen had managed to change The Doctor into green scrubs; Rose carefully hung his suit and coat in a small closet, next to Jack's clothes.
She then took up residence at The Doctor's bedside, holding his hand and murmuring softly to him.
He looked feverish, but his skin was cool to the touch. He mumbled at times, usually in a language none of them understood, occasionally he spoke in English but the expressions were incoherent – if the situation had been different it'd have been funny. Rose heard English words like 'derivatives', 'integrals', and 'infinitesimals', and imagined he was dreaming of Newton.
Nothing he said made any sense.
When he muttered strange-sounding and unrecognizable sounds full of clicks, burrs and squeaks she wondered why the TARDIS wasn't translating him properly. What it because he was ill, or were there other reasons?
She calmly wiped the sweat off his brow, but her tranquil exterior in no way matched the intense dread she was hiding in her heart. One of her worst fears, a silent terror she'd never admitted, was that of The Doctor falling ill and being unable to do anything to help him.
She remembered the last time he'd been sick, after he'd regenerated, and it petrified her that the cure had been stumbled upon only accidentally. She knew they couldn't count on such good luck again, and it made her feel helpless.
Her hopes rested with Owen, who along with Wil was in the lab examining blood and additional samples taken from the other two patients, and running tests that would perhaps identify what had befallen her Doctor.
Certainly her over-protectiveness hadn't made things easy for the physician. But it was such an overwhelmingly strong instinct that even her fear for The Doctor's life didn't trump it. And that's all she had to go on at present – her intuition, no matter how irrational it seemed.
She looked over her shoulder at Jack, who was in the next bed. Rose leaned back and tenderly stroked his face. The man of action, normally so full of energy and life didn't move – he was scarcely breathing…
…the strong and solid friend she'd always believed she could go to when she was in trouble and all else failed was in trouble himself.
In an incredibly short amount of time her carefully hidden anxieties and paranoid phobias had all become manifest in one fell swoop.
It was her worst nightmare; she closed her eyes and wished for a miracle.
Ianto, sitting at a computer across the room watched her, his heart breaking.