PLAGUE
THIRTEEN
No one was particularly surprised when Jack suddenly recovered, on his own, three hours after falling ill.
He opened his eyes and saw Rose, sitting at the bed next to his. Something, perhaps a change in his breathing, made her turn and look at him.
"Am I in heaven?" Jack asked her.
She smiled wanly, her face puffy with exhaustion and stress. But her eyes sparkled as she shook her head.
He smiled back at her and reached out to warmly touch her hand. "Welcome to my house."
"Thanks," she replied and then shifted back in her chair so he could see who was in the next bed. His blue eyes became steely cold.
"Ianto," he knew the man was in the room without seeing him. "What's going on?"
The young Welshman walked silently to Jack's bedside. "Two Weevils are dead, but you knew that already. You've been unconscious for almost four hours, as has The Doctor, who was taken ill as soon as he arrived here. Owen believes the Frenchman is the vector but hasn't identified any pathogenic suspects, yet; he and Wil are continuing the search. The facility is under a high-level quarantine and we're in isolation. Tosh and Gwen were on the outside when we initiated the lockdown. The Doctor's ship broke through our quarantine accidentally – there was nothing we could do to stop it."
Informed by the monitoring cameras that Jack had revived, Wil and Owen came running in, the latter pulling out his stethoscope. He was cut short with a wave of the Captain's hand.
"Report," said Jack, sitting up.
"I don't know what it is, it's clearly a pathogen of some type but we're not finding anything we can identify as an infectious agent in the samples we've taken. We've sealed off Torchwood, its surrounding vicinity, and your landing site, but if we don't understand how it spreads we can't determine if it has escaped into the wild or not.
"Until, that is, it does, and by then it may be too late to do anything. Jack, this could be bad."
"None of you humans have presented with similar symptoms?"
Owen scowled at Jack, shaking his head in confusion.
"Uh… Think of me…" the Captain frowned thoughtfully. "Well, remember that line from 'The Hitchhiker's Guide' where Arthur drinks something that is not quite but almost like tea? Think of me as not quite but almost human."
Jack closed his eyes, wishing that the revelation could've come under different circumstances.
"Look, I'm not from this planet, and I believe the only reason I recovered is that I'm damned hard to bring down and keep down. Ianto, contact Gwen and have them check on the non-terrans we know are in the vicinity. Have them start in the sewers. Owen, I think our alien autopsy got kicked up to a higher priority level; you and Wil get on it. Immediately.
"Rose," he turned to her, softening his voice. "Tell me what happened to The Doctor."
Before she could speak, though, he looked down at his pea green scrubs and bellowed, "And would someone please bring my clothes? This is so not my color!"