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AN: For clarification purposes, the scenes not shown here, such as the interviews with the victim's families, all happen the same way they did originally; no point going over EVERYTHING from the original episode when there's a central plot to attend to, after all

Old Faces, New Hopes

"So, Doc," Jack said as they sat in the conference room, the two men temporarily alone as the rest of the Torchwood staff prepared for the upcoming meeting, "apart from being an 'old companion', who is this 'Leela' chick you brought here?"

"Oh, she's an old friend of mine, as I said; we travelled together six bodies back and she helped me find out what had happened to my family three bodies later," the Doctor replied, grinning reassuringly at the immortal Time Agent as he sat back in his chair. "She married a Chancellory Guard back on Gallifrey, and went on to become the Presidential bodyguard to another old companion of mine, before..."

His voice trailed off as he spoke, the grin on the Doctor's face at the recollection of his past with Leela fading as he reflected on the realities of the situation he was now presented with in his relationship with his former companion.

"Before the Time War, huh?" Jack finished for the Doctor, looking solemnly at his old friend. "And... you want to get her back to the way she was?"

"Spending so long on Gallifrey essentially halted Leela's aging; with the Time Lords gone, her body automatically attempted to catch up with the years she'd lost," the Doctor explained. "I'm not talking about regressing her back to her old state of permanent youth; I just want to get her back to her original age so that she can live some kind of normal life now that Gallifrey's gone."

"Ah," Jack said, nodding slightly in understanding.

"So... this isn't an 'automatic fix' thing?" a voice said from the entrance to the conference room, prompting Jack and the Doctor to glance over to see Martha standing there, looking uncertainly at the Doctor.

"As in... am I just doing this because I don't want Leela to die?" the Doctor said, giving Martha a moment to nod in confirmation before he shook his head. "That's part of it, but if we were talking simple old age, I could leave it alone; the fact is that Leela's aged decades in a matter of days, and the life she had on Gallifrey during that time..."

He shook his head as he looked between his two friends, a grim expression on his face. "Leela's from a society of hunters and warriors with a definite need to help people; back when she was travelling with me, she was definitely one of the most physical companions I've ever had, and that lifestyle gave her skills that she was never able to use to their fullest extent on Gallifrey until the days leading up the war- which, I might add, only occurred around three centuries after Leela arrived there."

"Three centuries?" Jack repeated incredulously, only just stopping himself from making a comment about how he'd thought he looked good for his age; the Doctor definitely wouldn't appreciate comments like that at a time like this.

"Of doing virtually nothing that she could really use her skills for; marriage to Andred might have given her a chance to participate in training the Chancellory Guard, but Leela needs something more to give her a real sense of accomplishment, and she only really got that when she was helping Romana try and open up Gallifrey to the rest of the universe in the last couple of decades before the War started..." the Doctor said, smiling briefly at the memory of his old companions' efforts to help his home develop- the Inquisitor might have made things difficult but they'd done a good job before that mess with Pandora made things so difficult- before he continued. "The point is, by using the Rift energy to regress Leela back to her original age and restoring her ability to age normally, I'm giving her a second chance to live the kind of life she wants to have; what she does afterwards is her decision alone."

"Ah," Martha said, nodding briefly at her boyfriend (A part of her couldn't help but wish that she had a better term for what she was to the Doctor- given that he'd been single for so long it felt as though she should have a better term for her relationship with him than 'girlfriend'-, but this wasn't the time for that thought right now) before the conference room doors opened and the rest of the Torchwood team walked in, taking up position around the conference table even as they shot brief, uncertain glances at the three already present.

"So..." Gwen asked at last, looking inquiringly at the three old friends, "anything on your minds we should know about?"

"Just brainstorming a couple of things about how to help Leela; nothing you need to worry about," the Doctor replied, shooting Gwen a brief smile of thanks before he turned back to Jack. "On with the meeting?"

"Of course," Jack replied, nodding over at Martha. "Martha Jones; you're up."

"Well," Martha said, as she looked around at the others, "the obvious question we had to deal with in these murders was why someone would use ammonium hydroxide to kill their victims; given the effects it has on the bloodstream, the obvious explanation is that the hydroxide isn't just intended to kill the victim, but to eliminate any evidence of something in the blood."

"I took a look at some of the NHS records that had been wiped," Tosh put in, taking up the explanation for her own activities in the current investigation; she might have only spent the last hour checking over those records, but an hour's analysis from Tosh was worth more than most people could accomplish in a day. "Most of the people whose records have been erased appear to have been killed in similar circumstances, in cases across the UK; the most likely explanation for the attacks is to destroy evidence of their medical condition."

"Right," Jack said, nodding briefly at his team. "Gwen, Ianto, continue to pursue the criminal investigation; Martha and Owen can follow up on the medical side. Tosh, any luck in retrieving those medical records?"

"Not yet," Tosh replied, shaking her head apologetically. "I've been working with the Doctor to see what we can find in the database when we can, but nothing's turned up yet; I'm going to have to dig deeper in the system's memories, see if I can find any remnants of deleted or temporary files."

"Do what you have to," Jack confirmed with a nod. "We're not dealing with a freak with some needle fetish; this is a conspiracy."

He glanced over apologetically at the Doctor. "Sorry, Doc; Leela's going to have to wait until we've got this whole situation straightened out..."

"Don't worry; Leela would understand," the Doctor said, nodding reassuringly at his friend with a brief smile. "She was always about helping others; besides, it's not like she's immediately going anywhere."

Only the regret in the Doctor's eyes reflected the fact that he evidently wished he could do more for his old companion than his current resources would allow; the reprogramming of the Rift Manipulator had almost certainly made progress, but it was probably nowhere near completion yet, and every minute he spent on something else- no matter how important it might be- was one more minute that Leela remained in stasis.

"I don't believe this..." the Doctor muttered, studying the bloodwork before him; with Martha and Owen out investigating the recent seizure suffered by the earlier victim- Gwen and Ianto were also attending to a few interviews just in case they could turn up further information about the victims-, and most of the equations he needed for the Rift Manipulator to do what he wanted it to do now completed, he'd volunteered to look over the bloodwork in case something came to him that human medical expertise might have missed.

"Problem?" Tosh asked, looking up from where she was studying the files herself.

"Just baffled at the relative... randomness of these attacks, really," the Doctor replied. "I mean, putting aside the fact that the professional nature of the hits means that they were definitely done by an assassin of some kind, nothing else seems to tie them together beyond something in their medical history, and that's only a theory given that their medical history's actually been erased; we've still got no means of tracking the next victim."

"Owen did comment that the victims were so healthy it was abnormal; does that help?" Tosh asked.

"Trust me, I checked that out myself; everything you've got makes it clear that the more obvious theories about that don't work," the Doctor replied. "Telomeres are the expected length, so they're not clones; no traces of any of the traditional duplicate-creating radiations in their cells-"

"'Duplicate-creating radiations'?" Tosh repeated.

"I've encountered a couple of occasions where people have managed to make duplicates of human beings without the need of specific genetic samples via various methods; 'radiation' is just a generic term unless I think of something better to call it," the Doctor said, waving a hand dismissively before he tapped his fingers together in frustration as he studied the information he'd been going over. "The point is, according to every scan I can run, these people are the originals, but I just can't figure out what happened to them; this level of health cannot be natural in so many people..."

"Well, it looks like we have our common link between the victims," Jack's voice said from off to the side, prompting the Doctor and Tosh to glance over at the immortal man as he walked towards them with a slight frown on his face. "Apparently Barry- one of the earlier victims- was a former diabetic."

"Former diabetic?" the Doctor repeated, looking sceptically at Jack. "How is that even possible in this time?"

"No idea, but he's not the only one," Jack said, his expression grim as he looked between the two. "Martha just called to tell me that Marie- the woman who survived that last reported attack- used to have HIV before she took part in this clinical trial of a drug called 'Reset' from a place called 'the Pharm'... right before a swarm of insects came out of her body-"

"Insects?" the Doctor repeated, standing up seemingly automatically as he looked urgently at Jack. "Just to make sure, they're not telepathically communicating with each other or eating her body, right?"

"Uh... no," Jack said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor.

"Good; it's not the Hive, then," the Doctor said, sitting back down with a slight sigh.

"I take it the Hive isn't something we'd like to deal with?" Tosh asked.

"It was a telepathic swarm of flies that fed on carrion and triggered cycles of death and decay on a human colony in the far future before I managed to dispose of it," the Doctor replied, waving a brief, dismissive hand at Jack. "In any case, this definitely can't be it; the Hive would have nothing to gain by healing the host, which means we're going to need Martha and Owen's analysis before we try and figure out anything else about this 'Reset' thing..."

"So, we're dealing with an alien insectoid larva that incubates in human bodies but dies rapidly when outside a host?" the Doctor said, looking at Martha with a smile that conveyed both pride at her analysis and concern for its implications; the idea of a swarm of insects emerging from a corpse was far from a cheery thought under any circumstances, but the deaths just made it all the more concerning. "Can't think of many creatures that could do something like that..."

"Plus, there's this 'Reset' drug to take into account," Owen put in, shooting a brief glare at the Doctor and Martha before he returned his attention to the slide currently on display at the head of the conference table; evidently he wasn't entirely appreciative of the two new arrivals taking over his role in the team. "Based on the molecular remnants of the drug that we found in Marie's blood, Reset essentially operates like a computer virus scan for the body; it 'scans' its way through the files- or cells, in this case- and when it's found a virus- or any kind of harmful bacteria or toxins, apparently-, it basically deletes it; it's like the body's been reset back to its 'factory settings'."

"It's the ultimate 'magic bullet'," Martha continued, taking up the story once again. "Supersedes anything and everything else in the medical armoury to date."

"If it weren't for the fact that it includes a lethal alien parasite, I'd almost be impressed," the Doctor said grimly.

"And the parasite's responsible for the superior health experienced by the test subjects?" Tosh asked.

"Exactly," Martha confirmed. "It needs a healthy body to incubate, so the original egg includes this 'magic bullet' which puts everything back to normal."

"OK, so we've answered the 'who', what we need now is the 'why'," Jack said, looking over at Ianto. "Who runs the Pharm?"

"The public image is innocent enough," Ianto replied, studying the files in front of him. "Private-public partnership between the government and a consortium of the pharmaceutical companies, researching and developing cutting-edge biotechnology."

"Their IT systems are way more cutting-edge than they need to be," Tosh put in, taking up the explanation at her end. "Plus, they've got seemingly unrestricted security clearance."

"Hence the erased medical records?" the Doctor asked.

"That would be my guess," Tosh replied with a brief nod.

"Who runs this outfit?" Jack asked.

"Institute director is a Doctor Aaron Copley," Gwen put in, pulling a photograph of a tall, broad-shouldered man with a high forehead and a piercing stare dressed in a business suit.

"Yeah, I know his work," Owen said with a brief nod. "He's one of the most respected research scientists in his field.

"Harvard graduate," Ianto continued, studying some papers in front of him. "Did research at Cambridge; last job, Harvard Professor of Molecular Pharmacology, before he came to the UK to set up the Pharm."

"Definitely sounds like someone who could be worth a visit," the Doctor said, shaking his head grimly as he studied Copley.

Even if the man was human, why was it that so many people tried to use alien technology for a short-cut when they couldn't get around problems with their own technology? WOTAN and BOSS had been dangerous enough when they were designed purely by humans without any alien 'assistance', and he didn't like to think about some of the mistakes he'd encountered in the past with people trying to manipulate aliens for their own agendas...

AN 2: Classic Who update; the Hive was a swarm of telepathic, highly evolved insects from the far future that the Fourth Doctor encountered in the novel "The Well-Mannered War", which can be found on the BBC Doctor Who web site in EBook form in the 'Classic Series' section, while WOTAN- Will Operating Thought ANalogue- and BOSS- Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor– were super-intelligent computers confronted by the First and Third Doctors in "The War Machines" and "The Green Death" respectively