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AN: All scenes at the Pharm prior to the team's arrival will be unaltered; it's what's happening OUTSIDE the Pharm that will be more interesting

Old Faces, New Hopes

As the Doctor sat impatiently behind the Torchwood team while staring at the monitors- there was nothing he could immediately contribute at this point so he was deferring to their superior expertise at dealing with this kind of situation-, he tried to stop himself impatiently tapping something as they did their job. Guiding Martha in accessing the Pharm's database had been straightforward enough, and the subsequent information they'd downloaded about the 'mayflies' looked like it would be promising reading, but with a potential break-out taking place while she was wandering about the headquarters of a man willing to kill people to conceal evidence of a medical treatment that all evidence suggested had so far proven fatal to everyone who used it anyway...

The Doctor just hoped that Jack's faith in Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones proved justified; the last thing he wanted was to learn that Elin Morgan had died because he was more focused on one life over another (He knew that it was illogical to be contemplating blaming herself for Elin's death before it had even happened when he probably wouldn't be able to contribute anything useful anyway, but he couldn't help it; too long since he'd spent any time working with anyone like this had left him with a somewhat obsessive need to be protecting people himself, he supposed)...

Then Martha ran through the temporarily-opened gate into the restricted section of the Pharm- in the direction of the alarms blaring warnings about an escaped hostile- and the Doctor's hearts momentarily felt like both of them had stopped.

"What the hell is she doing?" Owen asked, staring in frustration at the screens as Martha ran down the side of the main facility. "The Pharm's got their own hitman; God knows what they'll do to her..."

"That's Martha for you," the Doctor said, his tone a grim combination of admiration and frustration. "When she gets it into her head to do something- in this case, get a better look at what's in there- there's no stopping her."

"True..." Jack muttered, exchanging brief glances with the Doctor as they remembered the events that had shaped Martha's life for the year that nobody else now remembered...

Then, just as the Doctor was starting to relax about the situation- it wasn't perfect, but Martha seemed to have evaded detection for the most part- the screens displaying her view from the contact lenses suddenly went white.

"Shit!" Owen muttered.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked, his gaze automatically shifting to Toshiko.

"Radiation surge; we've lost the signal," Tosh replied, looking grimly back at the Doctor and Jack before she returned her attention to the screens before her, rapidly tapping the keyboard. "I can't get the signal back...."

The Doctor's eyes widened in horror.

No...

Martha was trapped in the Pharm, contact with them had been cut off, and everything he'd been hearing about Doctor Copley did not encourage comfort in the current crisis...

"That's it," he said simply, turning around and heading for the TARDIS as he pulled out his key. "I'm going in."

"Hold on; you're what?" Owen said, as he and Tosh turned around sharply to look at the Doctor, Jack simply walking off to his office. "You can't just drive up there-"

"I'm not going to drive up there, Doctor Harper; I'm taking my ship," the Doctor said, opening the door to the TARDIS before turning back to look at Torchwood's doctor and technician. "You can come with me if you want, or you can stay here; either way, I'm going in there now."

"You sure about this, Doctor?" Jack asked as he walked out of the office, now wearing his traditional coat. "I mean, from what I've heard you're a bit out of practise-"

"Given what we've seen of Copley's methods, I doubt he'll do anything to Martha that quickly; if we move now, we can get there in time," the Doctor said, hoping that he was as accurate as he claimed; as Jack had pointed out, his piloting skills were a bit out of practise after spending so long at the school, but with Martha's TARDIS key to 'home in on' at the other end of their imminent 'trip', coupled with Tosh's maps of the Pharm, he should be able to land somewhere suitable in time. "You can come with me or stay here, whichever you want; if you're coming, get what you might need and go."

Owen and Tosh only needed to exchange brief glances before they were on the move, Owen grabbing a couple of pieces of equipment while Tosh picked up her laptop, their evident confusion at the Doctor's actions pushed aside by their equally-evident faith in Jack.

"Right then," the Doctor said, stepping into the TARDIS and waving them inside. "Allons-y, everyone, and don't forget your phones!"

Even when he found himself standing outside the Pharm mere moments later, Owen couldn't entirely believe it.

The fact that they'd reached the Pharm in a matter of seconds was just about possible- teleportation might not be something he'd experienced that much, but he was aware that it was possible in theory if nothing else-, but the thought of a small box containing... that...

"It's... it's..." he muttered, wishing he could say something clearer.

"Yeah, I know; brilliant, isn't it?" the Doctor said, shooting a brief smile at Owen as he gave the box in question a brief pat before he turned to Jack. "Well, it's your team, Captain; what's your decision?"

"Right," Jack said, nodding briefly at the Doctor. "Doctor, you and Owen go after Martha; Tosh and I will see what we can find out in Zone A."

No sooner were the instructions issued than the two groups were heading in their respective directions, Owen and the Doctor entering the main Pharm facility while Jack and Tosh headed for Zone A.

"Where to now?" Owen asked, pulling his gun out of his medical bag- the Doctor had declined any offer of weapons and Jack hadn't pressed him on it- as they entered the building, glancing over at the Doctor; he had a couple of possibilities in mind, but he had to admit that he was rather interested in seeing this 'Doctor' in action after everything he'd been hearing lately...

"The treatment room," the Doctor said decisively as he headed off down a nearby corridor, his long brown coat billowing behind him in a manner that might have seemed overly dramatic but nevertheless seemed to work for him. "Copley might be a lunatic, but he's a lunatic scientist; in my experience, these people always prefer live test subjects over corpses..."

Owen didn't stop to ask what kind of people the Doctor had encountered to gain that kind of experience; he wasn't sure he wanted to know anyway. After only a few minutes of walking through the Pharm's complicated system of corridors- the man must have some kind of super-alien-memory; he could barely have done more than glance at the blueprints with all the time he'd spent working on Rift equations with Tosh and he already seemed to know the layout of the place at least as well as the people who'd actually been there would-, the Doctor paused outside a door, pressing his ear up against it and waving Owen over to do the same.

"...radiation that's not found in the temporally stable environment of Earth," a voice that Owen recognised as Doctor Copley's said, sounding frustratingly smug as he spoke; noting the Doctor's clenched fists, Owen had a feeling that his strange new... colleague- the Doctor had really spent more time talking with Tosh and Jack more than him, so it didn't feel entirely right calling him a friend given the relatively limited time they'd spent together- was going to have serious words with Copley when they got through this door.

"I don't know what that means," Martha's voice replied, only a slight tremor betraying her fear at the current situation.

"We've dealt with aliens before," Copley continued, his tone the even, measured tone of a man who was hovering at least close to the wrong side fo the line between genius and madness, "but we have never come across anything as exotic as you. A human being who's travelled in time and space. Tell me about it. How is that possible? What did you see out there?"

As though that was his cue, the Doctor suddenly pulled a small silver tubular device with a blue light on it out of his pocket, aimed it at the door-handle, and then casually walked into the room, revealing Copley and a dark-skinned woman, both in white lab coats, standing over Martha as she lay strapped down to a cross-shaped examination table, her expression of confused terror fading into relief as she saw the Doctor.

"If you want the answers to that question, that's the kind of thing I'm better suited to answer, really," the Doctor said, smiling grimly at the two doctors as Owen trained his gun on them. "I'm the Doctor, this is Doctor Owen Harper, and I would really appreciate it if you didn't do what you're planning on doing."

"And I should do this when my staff and I are on the verge of the greatest medical breakthrough-?" Copley began.

"You are on the verge of nothing, Aaron Copley," the Doctor cut in, walking forward to stand directly in front of the other man, meeting Copley's eyes with a cold stare that left Owen unnervingly reminded of all the reports he'd read about the Doctor's age being somewhere in his second millennium with its sheer intensity. "You have killed innocent people to cover up your mistakes, you have abused innocent creatures in the name of your own success, and you have done so for no other reason than your desire to take a short cut to knowledge that your civilisation is in no way ready to develop on its own."

"And what gives you the right-?" Copley began.

"The fact that he's the reason my cells are like this?" Martha cut in, glaring at Copley from the operating table as fear was replaced by hostility in the wake of the Doctor's arrival and the safety offered by his presence. "Trust me, Doctor Copley; you do not want to get on the Doctor's bad side."

Copley's eyes widened slightly as he stared at the Doctor.

"An alien..." he whispered, before his eyes flickered in Owen's direction and confusion settled in. "And you're working for Torchwood?"

"I'm working with Torchwood, Copley; the difference between the two situations is distinct," the Doctor countered, his hands in his pockets as he stared at the man before him (He vaguely registered that the fourth person there had vanished, but he wasn't that concerned about it; Copley was the real problem right now). "You might be intelligent enough to devise a means of using the mayflies to treat diseases even if you lack the means to put your plans in practise yet, but I can assure you that you have no idea what you're doing."

"Got that right," Owen said, the Doctor looking over at the Torchwood employee as he removed his hand from his earpiece. "Just got a message from Jack; the Pharm's been using captured aliens for the exotic chemical products they metabolise."

Noting the Doctor's suddenly shaken and grim expression, Owen felt obligated to continue. "He and Tosh are already initiating a total shutdown; from what he's seen, anything in there's beyond help after what they've done."

"I don't need to debate medical ethics with you-!" Copley began.

"Funny thing about people who preach about 'medical ethics'," the Doctor spat, staring at Copley as he walked over to undo the straps holding Martha to the 'table'. "The really brilliant private ones seem to have so little of their own."

"I was trying to understand the Mayflies' life cycle-" Copley protested.

"Anything that requires innocent people to die can never be worth it," the Doctor retorted.

"Some things are worth a few sacrifices, Doctor," Copley said, making it clear that he had strong doubts that the man before him had earned that title. "You should understand that-"

"Funny thing about what I 'understand'," the Doctor said, his eyes once again fixed directly on Copley's as he slowly walked towards the physically older man, Copley beginning to back away almost without realising it. "I am fully aware that sacrifices can be necessary sometimes, Doctor Copley... but I can assure you of two things; your research will never be acceptable, and your facility will be closed down before this night is over."

"In your dreams," Copley retorted with a brief shake of his head. "This is a state-of-the-art official facility-"

"You're assuming we'll be shutting you down with memos," Owen said, smiling grimly as Copley as he undid the last of Martha's straps, the Doctor walking over to hug Martha as Owen walked around the table to address the other doctor directly. "Right now my boss and my colleague are in your IT systems and wiping every last databank you've got."

"That's cyber-terrorism-" Copley began.

"Just the beginning," Owen continued, indicating his earpiece with a casual smile. "From what I'm hearing, we're working to trip your safety systems, cutting your power, and flooding everything that seals itself off with inert gasses-"

"The aliens will die-" Copley practically growled.

"If Jack says they're beyond help, they're beyond help," the Doctor stated simply, helping Martha to her feet as he looked grimly at Copley. "Sometimes, all we can do is put the victims out of their misery before it becomes truly unbearable."

"For God's sake, Doctor Harper, we're on the same side-!" Copley hissed.

"I stop hostile aliens and you exploit innocent arrivals; it's not the same," Owen said, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the other man.

"Add in the fact that you tried to use a friend of mine as your latest 'guinea-pig'," the Doctor interjected, walking up to Copley with a resolved expression, "and be grateful that I prefer more subtle means of insuring you're not going to be a problem."

Before Copley could react, the Doctor had reached up with one hand and gripped an area on Copley's shoulder with what Owen could have sworn was a Vulcan nerve pinch, Copley subsequently collapsing to the ground in an unconscious heap.

"Venusian aikido?" Martha asked, looking up at the Doctor with a slight smile.

"Yep," the Doctor confirmed, smiling back at her with a grateful grin of his own. "Not my strong point when I'm in action these days, of course, but given how quiet it was right now I felt fairly certain I could do it."

"Right..." Owen said, looking uncertainly down at Copley before he looked back at the Doctor. "So... he's unconscious, then?"

"Yeah, but probably best to tie him up or something; it's been a while since I did that and I don't know how long it'll last," the Doctor said, waving a hand briefly at Copley before he turned to walk out of the lab, his arm around Martha's shoulders. "We'll just make sure everything's been wiped in Copley's office; see you later!"

Even as he knelt down to tie Copley's hands together with some of the tubing that had been used for the IVs earlier, Owen's brief glance at the expression on the Doctor's face as he and Martha left the lab left him fairly certain that the two of them were going to be engaging in at least a few minutes of more 'physical' activity before they got on with their jobs...

Still, after what had nearly happened to Martha, Owen was hardly going to begrudge the Doctor a chance to spend a little time with the woman he loved to enjoy the fact that she was still alive; he'd worry about it if he needed to, and otherwise he'd just leave it alone.

AN 2: Well, hope you liked that; I was going to have a scene involving the Doctor saving Owen by shooting Copley's bullet out of the air (He could do it, I assure you; the Eighth Doctor pulled it off in the novel "Trading Futures"), but I realised when writing this chapter that there was no way Copley could get away to shoot Owen like he did originally, so I decided to leave that idea alone.

Anyway, it's back to Leela's fate next chapter; hope you all enjoy it!