In the autopsy room at the Hub, Dr Martha Jones pulls down the sheet covering Owen Harper’s dead body, revealing a huge gaping wound where he’d been shot an hour earlier. The time is 21.30. Gwen, Tosh and Ianto watch silently as Martha prepares to being the autopsy. Suddenly Jack bursts into the room and orders no one to touch Owen’s body until he gets back.

Jack drives urgently to a location somewhere in Cardiff and bangs impatiently on the door. Inside, he’s stopped by a doorman in what appears to be a private club. A young girl tells the doorman to let the Captain through and says she’s been looking forward to seeing him again. In her hand is a Tarot card with a picture of Jack dressed in armour and brandishing a sword.

Jack sits with the little girl at a table decked with more Tarot cards. He asks if she knows where he can find what he’s looking for and she tells him this means he’ll owe her a favour. He evidently wants to proceed so she turns over the first card to reveal a picture of a church. She explains that when the people found out what the object could do, they built a church on top of it. She asks if he’ll listen to her if she advises him not to use it, but he thinks she should already know the answer to that question. As he leaves the girl reveals that she does and that’s the problem. She turns over another card - to reveal a picture of Death.

Jack arrives at a derelict building with a signpost identifying it as St Mary’s Church. He kicks over the sign and cautiously enters. The church is in darkness and as he shines his torch around, he sees that it’s filled with dozens of sleeping Weevils. He covers his torch and slowly moves between the aisles, heading for the altar. He steps between the Weevils and one of them grabs his foot, but the creature is still half asleep and eventually it releases its grip. Jack reaches the altar and searches through the discarded junk that’s piled up, including a chest containing broken dolls. He sees a hefty looking box with a padlock, but he has trouble reaching it and knocks over some other objects. The Weevils all wake up with a start. As the creatures roar out at him in unison, Jack grabs the box…

Jack returns to the Hub where the others are waiting nervously. He ignores their questions and takes the box into his office. There, he opens it and reveals a strange metallic glove, similar to the one they used last year to revive their colleague Suzie Costello. Jack refuses to listen to their concerns and tells them he’s bringing Owen back…

Jack takes the glove down to the autopsy room and Gwen pleads with him not to use it after what happened last time. Jack tells her it’s not up for discussion and when she reminds him that the glove didn’t work for him last time, he says this is a different glove and these are different circumstances. He tells the group that if they have anything they need to say to Owen, now is their chance. Jack puts on the glove and places his hand on Owen’s head. As energy starts to pass between them, he calls to Owen and tells him to listen to his voice. Ianto says he’s not getting any vital signs, but Jack is sure it’s working. Suddenly Owen’s eyes open and he screams out in shock and pain. He tries to remember what happened and realises he’s been shot. He recognises the autopsy room and is horrified when he sees the resurrection glove on Jack’s hand. They know they don’t have long left so Jack tells the team to say their goodbyes. Gwen goes first, but doesn’t know what to say - so Owen urges her to hurry as he only has about two minutes left. Tosh steps forward and tells him how much she’s going to miss him, then adds that she’s always loved him. Jack asks Owen for the code to the alien morgue as he’s the only one who knows it. Owen gives him the code and Jack apologises for bringing him back just for that. Jack says he knows what death is and want to help Owen prepare for it. They hold hands and Owen says he can see nothing but darkness. Jack tells him to be brave and then slowly Owen’s eyes close and his vital signs on the monitor flatline again. Jack removes the resurrection glove, but continues to hold Owen’s hand. Everyone is in shock and Tosh starts to cry.

Then, amazingly, Owen turns to Jack and asks him to let go of his hand. Jack stands up in shock and points out that he‘s not using the glove any more. Owen sits up weakly and tries to understand what’s happening. He asks someone to fetch him his clothes, then cries out in horror when he sees the huge open wound on his chest. Jack assures him he’ll get used to it. As the group fusses around Owen, no one notices that the discarded resurrection glove is starting to move of its own accord…

Owen returns to the main area and uses a stethoscope to listen to his own heartbeat, but there’s nothing there and he has no pulse. Martha insists that Owen can’t be allowed to lead the investigation, partly because he’s the subject and partly because he’s dead. Owen isn’t so sure and points to a monitor that shows electrical activity in his brain. In any case, he feels amazing! Gwen remembers that Suzie survived by draining the energy from her and she thinks Owen could be doing the same to Jack, but Jack says he feels fine too. Tosh examines Jack and confirms that there’s no connection at all between him and Owen. Ianto brings the forgotten glove back into the office and tells them it’s different to the other one, so maybe they do different things. They fished the first one out of the harbour last year, but no one knows where they came from originally. Jack asks Tosh to analyse the glove, then tells Owen that he’s under quarantine.

Gwen is still in shock, so she takes a moment to sit by herself. Then she phones Rhys at home and apologises for waking him up. He asks her what’s happening and whether she’s coming home soon, but she breaks down in tears and tells him it’s been a really tough day.

Martha joins Owen in the autopsy room and he says she looks cute when she frowns. She tells him the energy from the glove is still spreading out through his body, changing its composition as it goes. She puts a strap around his wrist to monitor the changes and he notices that she’s not flirting with him any more. He doesn’t blame her - he wouldn’t flirt with someone in his condition either - but he wonders if it still qualifies as necrophilia if the person is still conscious. Martha asks him what it’s like to die, but he doesn’t want to say anything as it might change the way she lives her life. She insists and he says he saw a tiny speck of light, then a corridor which glowed brighter until he appeared before some big pearly gates. She realises he’s winding her up and tells him he’s an idiot. He becomes serious and says her there was nothing, but he remembers Suzie telling them there was something ’beyond life’, something moving in the darkness.

Suddenly Owen passes out and he finds himself floating in a completely black emptiness. He can sense something around him and is overwhelmed by strange noises, but he can see nothing. He collapses to the floor and claws at the air … then he finds himself back in the Hub with Martha struggling to hold him down. She calls for Jack to help and together they manage to calm Owen down. He tells them he was lost in the darkness and he felt there was something there waiting for him, then he starts to cry.

Martha briefs the team that Owen‘s body is undergoing some sort of transformation. His cells aren’t decaying, they’re actually changing into an energy that she can’t identify. It’s growing all the time and he’s already 40% something else at the moment. Owen says he doesn’t feel any different so Jack says they need to find out where the energy is coming from. Tosh guesses it’s from the same place as the glove, and judging from its atomic makeup that isn’t from anywhere local. Gwen wonders whether the energy and glove both come from the same dark place that Owen went to and Jack theorises that it might be another dimension or a parallel universe. He asks Owen about the thing in the darkness, but Owen says he only felt it and it wasn’t something he could actually see. He has no idea where he went, so Jack asks Ianto to check the internal systems for any dimensional anomalies.

As they leave the boardroom, Tosh speaks to Owen about what she was saying to him earlier when she thought he was dying. He corrects her and says he’s already dead, but he’s like a headless chicken who hasn’t stopped running about yet. He knows she told him she loved him, but she’s never mentioned it before and he dismisses it as a textbook example of grief, not love. He says he wants to be him alone while he goes to the toilet, but in fact he heads for the hothouse. Once there, he hears strange noises and suddenly finds himself back in the black emptiness. He hears a deep voice speaking to him, but he can’t make out the words or see where it’s coming from. Then, just as suddenly, he finds himself back in the hothouse - but his eyes have turned completely black and he speaks in a strange unidentifiable language, a look of pure evil on his face. He races over to a screen and looks at his own reflection, but everything seems normal again.

In the medical area, an alarm sounds and Martha asks Jack if he’s seen Owen recently because according to the scanner, the energy inside him just went off the scale. Tosh tells them he went to the loo, but Martha reminds her that Owen’s digestive system has completely shut down and he can’t eat or drink and he definitely doesn‘t need to pee. Jack assures Martha that Owen isn’t dangerous, but she’s not so sure. She rebukes Jack for not telling UNIT they had the power to bring people back to life and he tells her that’s because UNIT would’ve wanted to use it. Martha reminds him they’re on the same side. Owen has just had a surge of energy and the cells in his body are being transformed into something else. He’s only about 50% human now and that part is already dead so Martha thinks they should stop thinking of him as Owen.

Owen is cruising the streets of Cardiff. Eventually he finds himself in a bar and orders some beers which he drinks in quick succession. A young woman from a party of girls on a hen night joins him at the bar and tells him to smile. He ignores her, so she tells him he’s gorgeous. He grabs her and they have a long kiss, then she slowly slides her hands down the front of his trousers. Unfortunately nothing happens and she wonders whether he doesn’t like her. Horrified, Owen realises there’s no blood pumping around his body. He turns and leaves - only to bump into Jack who traced him here via the monitor strap Martha gave him. He turns on Jack angrily and pushes him against the wall, accusing him of bringing him back to life just to get an alarm code. Jack assures him that’s not true, but Owen asks if he has any idea what it’s like to know your life is over. He tries to punch Jack and a fight starts. Two bouncers arrive and split the men up, then drag them to the exit.

Outside the bar, the police have already arrived in response to a call from the bouncers. As Jack and Owen are thrown out onto the street, the police grab them and try to calm the situation down. Owen tells them he works for Torchwood, but the police don’t believe him and he lashes out at them. Jack deliberately tells the police Owen is lying and the two of them get arrested. As they’re loaded into a police car and driven away, two Weevils emerge from the shadows and watch them disappear into the distance…

Jack and Owen are thrown together in a police cell. Owen shouts furiously at the officers to call the Torchwood number, but they ignore him. He kicks the door angrily and Jack tells him to calm down. He reminds him he’s dead, so if he breaks his ankle they don’t know if it’ll repair itself and he certainly doesn‘t want to add a wheelchair to his problems. Owen sits down and his stomach rumbles menacingly. He’s forgotten that his digestive system has shut down, so the alcohol he drank is just going to sit there forever in his stomach. He can’t just stick his fingers down his throat because the ability to gag is another one of the functions he lost when he died, so he turns himself upside down with his head on the floor and manoeuvres himself to line up his oesophagus. Suddenly he vomits out the entire contents of his stomach across the floor of the cell. Jack tells him this is the single most disgusting thing he has ever seen. Owen gets back on his feet and then inadvertently farts. When he says this is something that goes on for a while after death, Jack begs to be released. Owen realises he’s going to miss farting. And sex. They’re the sort of things you take for granted until you can’t do them any more. Jack quotes Proust and claims to have dated him for a while, although he found him really immature. Owen says no one knows whether to take him seriously when he says things like that, but Jack says that when you’ve lived as long as he has you don’t need to make things up. Owen doesn’t think it’s fair, but Jack tells him living forever is overrated too. It means he doesn’t notice the beautiful things in life and sometimes he sends his friends into danger knowing that he might get them killed while he walks away unscathed. Owen asks him why they brought him back and Jack says it’s because he wasn’t ready to give up on him yet. He says was hoping for a miracle…and he still is. He decides it’s time to go home, so he bangs on the cell door and calls for the police to release them under Torchwood authorisation.

Gwen tells Tosh that Jack has called to say he’s found Owen. Tosh asks if Owen is himself and when Gwen asks what she means, she explains that she’s checked back on the internal CCTV footage and found something alarming. She shows Gwen a recording of the moment when Owen’s eyes turned black and he began speaking in a strange language. Martha joins them and they wonder what’s going on…

Jack and Owen are walking back to the Hub when a Weevil appears in the street in front of them. It’s joined by another, then a third and before long the street is filled with Weevils coming from every direction. Jack suspects they’re after him because he stole the glove from them so he orders Owen to go while he distracts the creatures and leads them off in another direction. Owen refuses and sticks close to Jack, so they do their best to shake off their pursuers and eventually they end up in the multi-storey car park. It looks like they’ve got away, but Jack tells Owen to stay behind while he checks the other entrances. Jack sees a Weevil at the end of a tunnel and when he follows it into the adjacent area, he sees that it’s not alone. Jack calls out Owen’s name and the two of them race up to the highest level, desperately aware that an army of Weevils is now close on their tail. Eventually they find themselves cornered on the top floor where a sheer drop of hundreds of feet is their only way of escape. Jack draws his gun and the army of Weevils come to a halt, just a feet away. The Weevils roar at them in unison, then slowly, one by one, each of the creatures goes down on its knees as if bowing in homage to them. Jack is confused - but when he turns to look at Owen he sees his friend’s eyes have turned completely black. Owen speaks to the Weevils in an unidentifiable language, then he turns to face Jack…

Tosh needs to know what Owen was saying on the CCTV footage, so Ianto retrieves an alien translation device from the vaults. It’s never let them down before, so she attaches it to the computer and plays back the footage. It doesn’t seem to work and the screens are filled with alien symbols like hieroglyphics - but then the words ’HUNGER’ and ’EARTH’ appear on the screen and Gwen says she has a really bad feeling about this. The main door opens and Jack returns with Owen, warning that they don’t know the half of it.

Jack and Martha watch silently as Owen stands in front of one of the captive Weevils in the underground cells. The creature slowly advances on him and they come virtually face to face, then suddenly the Weevil backs away into a corner and goes down on its knees. This seems to confirm what Owen suspected - he’s now either the King of the Weevils or the Weevil Messiah - and whatever way you look at it, that’s not good. Gwen joins them and says she thinks this has happened once before. She hands out some images she found in an article on the Black Death. The drawings appear to show creatures like Weevils bowing before an early image of the Grim Reaper. According to the legend, the person who said the words “I shall walk the Earth and my hunger will know no bounds” was Death himself. Owen points out that he might be dead, but he‘s not Death and there‘s a big difference. The question is - do the Weevils know that?

In the boardroom, Gwen hands out reproductions of a wood carving that came from a small parish called St James in the 15th century. When the people there heard about the advancing plague, they built a wall around their town, but unfortunately it didn’t prevent a little girl from dying. According to the legend, the priest performed a miracle and brought the girl back to life, but she didn’t come back alone and she brought Death with her. Tosh is sceptical and says she can’t believe they’re acting on something Gwen found on Google. Jack asks for the name of the church where the priest came from and she tells him it was St Mary’s. That’s the name of the church where Jack found the glove, which means the parish of St James is the same town that would 500 years later become the city of Cardiff. Owen asks what happened to the original town when Death started walking among them and Gwen tells him twelve people died. Apparently Death needed thirteen souls before it could get a permanent hold on the Earth, but they don’t know how the people stopped it. The article just makes a vague reference to faith. Martha reminds everyone that Owen is changing and no one knows what the energy is, so it might be turning him into a host or gateway. Owen says he originally thought there was something in the darkness waiting for him to pass over, but perhaps he got it wrong. If it’s the other way round, something is trying to get a foothold here through him.

The alarm on Owen’s wrist-monitor activates and Martha says he’s now reading as 80% non human. He begins to panic and he wonders what will happen when he becomes one of the monsters they hunt. Jack reminds him bluntly that he’s already dead. Owen says that normally when someone dies they get embalmed, so he suggests they inject a formaldehyde solution into his veins to petrify his neural pathways and freeze-dry his brain. He says it’s the only way to be sure.

In the autopsy room, Jack assists Martha in preparing the embalming fluid for Owen while Owen changes into fresh clothes. Gwen watches him silently, then asks if he’s sure about all this. He admits that the formaldehyde might irritate him, but the ethanol should prevent him feelings its effect. She says that wasn’t what she meant, but he knew that. He tells her he can’t sleep, drink or shag and they’re three of his favourite things. Gwen rushes over and hugs him. He tells her he’s not the same as he used to be and he feels hollow, like he’s missing something. He obviously came back different, and he doesn’t want to be like that. Martha tells them Owen is now 95% non human so they can’t afford to waste any more time.

Jack helps to strap him down onto the table and asks him if he’s ready for the first injection. He nods and Martha turns to pick up the syringe - but she screams as the resurrection glove appears on the table and starts gathering all the equipment. Then the glove leaps into the air and lands on Martha, who falls to the ground. Jack rushes over to pull it away and in the struggle the glove is sent flying across the room. Gwen and Tosh help Martha climb up onto the next level while Ianto goes to find a suitable weapon. The glove has disappeared so Jack tells everyone else to spread out. The room falls into total silence as the group try to work out where the glove has gone. They hear a faint scrabbling noise, as if the glove is crawling around under the cabinets, but they can‘t see anything. Then the glove suddenly leaps up again and attaches itself to Martha’s face. The others race over to help her and a struggle ensues as they try to rip the glove away from her. Martha’s hand stretches out and her skin appears wrinkled and aged. Jack manages to pull the glove off her and throws it down onto the lower level. Owen traps it underfoot and calls for Jack’s gun. Tosh warns him that if he destroys the glove, he could lose the connection that’s keeping him alive. He ignores her and opens fire, destroying the glove completely.

Everyone stops to get their breath back and then they see that Martha has aged dramatically, leaving her body wizened and decrepit. An alarm sounds on Owen’s monitor, revealing that his body is now 100% non human. His eyes are totally black and, with an inhumanly deep voice, he tells them “I shall walk the Earth and my hunger will know no bounds”. Then he collapses to his knees and a thick black cloud of smoke emerges from his eyes and mouth. The others watch as the cloud reforms into the rough shape of a man and then it explodes outwards…

Jack cries out and finds himself in the passenger seat of the SUV outside the local hospital. He races inside where Gwen, Tosh and Ianto are wheeling the elderly Martha down a corridor. Gwen calls for urgent attention and a group of doctors and nurses arrive to help them. Owen arrives and stumbles after them weakly. Jack catches up with him and asks where the figure went, but Owen is unable to answer him. Gwen tells him it disappeared, which suggests it’s still out there somewhere.

After the doctors stabilise Martha, one of the nurses checks with the group to find out more about the case. It’s clear that the group aren’t members of Martha’s family so Gwen tells her they’re all neighbours and they look in on her from time to time to do her shopping and collect her pension. The nurse says her red blood count is through the floor and she’s massively dehydrated, which has placed a considerable strain on her heart. They’ll do what they can for her, but the nurse says they have to accept the fact that she’s a very old lady. Jack sits with Martha and agrees to let her see her reflection in a mirror. Martha is convinced they really are dealing with Death because he’s stolen her life, but Jack promises to find a way to reverse it. Gwen reminds him that the last time it was here, it killed twelve people, but they still don’t know why it stopped before thirteen or where the reference to faith comes into it. Jack asks Ianto to do some further research and he orders Owen to return to the Hub as he’s not safe. Owen insists that he’s free of it now and he can be more useful here. Jack opens the curtains and looks down onto the street where more Weevils are starting to congregate outside the building. Jack is convinced the thing they’re looking for is already here, perhaps because it senses the near-dead at the hospital.

Elsewhere in the hospital, all is quiet. On one of the wards the elderly patients are all asleep and the only sound is the regular bleep from the monitors confirming their status. Slowly, a dense fog of black smoke creeps along the floor. A woman wakes up and watches as the fog begins to move towards her. As it passes each bed, the monitors start to flatline, indicating the death of each patient. She tries to summon a nurse, but the fog rises off the floor and re-forms at the end of her bed. Inside the cloud, the vague shape of a skeleton can be seen towering over her…

Jack contacts the authorities and tells them they have to evacuate St Helen’s Hospital immediately. Gwen takes control on the floor and orders everyone to move quickly to the nearest exits. Moments later, an alarm goes off throughout the hospital and the staff realise it’s not a false alarm. The nurses begin to work their way through the building, evacuating each ward one by one - but in the childrens’ ward, the fact that one of the beds is currently unoccupied goes unnoticed by the staff. As the patient begin to file down the corridor to the fire escape, the occupant of that bed, a young boy called Jamie Burton, is sitting on the toilet playing a computer game with headphones blocking out any noise. He remains completely oblivious tof the emergency going on around him.

Jack and Gwen continue to supervise the emergency evacuation, assuring all the staff and patients that this is not a drill and they must make their way to the nearest assembly points. Jack contacts Ianto and asks him to crack into the hospital communications system. Ianto has already done so and reports there have been multiple heart attacks in the intensive care unit. Jack says they need to keep track of the body count and asks Gwen to tell him when they get to twelve.

One of the nurses on the childrens’ ward finally realises Jamie Burton is missing. She checks with her colleagues then tells the others she’ll catch them up. She starts exploring the corridor and is about to move on when she hears a faint sound coming from nearby. She returns to the ward and begins looking for Jamie underneath the beds - unaware that a giant black cloud is forming behind her.

Jack and Gwen arrive at intensive care and report there are seven bodies among the patients. Gwen then receives notification of another victim who’s just died during a routine operation. They count that as number eight, which means there are five more victims left. Jack suddenly realises there are five of them! He tells Owen and Tosh that most of the upper floors have already been evacuated now, so if the creature is looking to feed on more victims, it’ll have to go lower. Tosh reminds Jack that they still don’t know what they’re going to do if they find the creature. Ianto reports that his research isn’t going well - every time he tries to do a search on “hunger knowing no bounds“, he gets redirected to Weight Watchers. Gwen remembers that the article she read was from a journal about the history of medicine.

Tosh and Owen arrive on the seventh floor and Owen can sense straight away that the creature is somewhere nearby. Jamie Burton finally emerges from the toilet where he was playing his computer and discovers the entire floor has been evacuated. Terrified at being alone, he goes back to the childrens’ ward and returns to his bed. He accidentally drops his computer game and bends down to pick it up - and discovers the husk of the nurse’s corpse under his bed. He races out of the ward and charges down the corridor, but when he gets to the end he finds the doors have been locked. He turns back the way he came only to see a thick black cloud forming at the end of the corridor. It begins to take shape and transforms into a skeleton, which slowly walks towards him. Jamie crumples to the floor just as a side door opens and Owen and Tosh emerge.

Owen urges Jamie to grab his hand and the three of them run down another corridor, then down the steps to the ground level. They think they’ve lost the creature, but just as they reach the main doors they slam shut in their faces and lock firm. Tosh begins looking for the frequency to activate the doors while Owen tries to find another way out. He asks Jamie what he’s in here for and the boy tells him he has leukaemia. He says he’s already had the normal run of chemotherapy but it didn’t work and they’re trying to make him have it again. He’s convinced the cancer will keep coming back and he’ll die. He says that at least if he dies now, it’ll be with eyebrows.

Gwen tells Jack she’s getting reports that there are now twelve people dead so the creature only needs to kill once more. Ianto reports that he’s found the article Gwen told them about. It says that back in 1479 a priest discovered that Death needed thirteen souls in order to walk the Earth for eternity, but it stopped at the twelfth death because of faith. Jack says he knows all this, but Ianto corrects him - Faith is the name of a person, the little girl that died and was brought back to life by a miracle. Unfortunately it doesn’t say how she did it.

Owen suddenly realises what it all means - the girl named Faith didn’t have anything to lose because she was already dead. He takes Jamie over to a table and sits him down. He tells the boy that he knows he must be scared because the last lot of chemo didn’t work and he can’t bear to go through all that pain again, but he says not everyone dies from the disease and the ones with the best chance of making it are the ones who believe they can beat death. To prove it can be done, he asks the boy to watch what he does next…

Tosh manages to get the doors open and calls to the others to follow her. Owen leads Jamie by the hand to the door, but then he turns away and goes back into the hospital. Tosh refuses to let him face Death on his own, but Owen knows what he has to do. He gives Tosh a very long kiss, then steals the alien device from her pocket and closes the door behind him. He stares up to the top of the staircase and watches as the cloudy skeleton begins to walk down towards him. Then he uses the device to lock all the doors, sealing the two of them together.

Owen taunts the creature and asks how long it can last on Earth with only twelve victims. He tells it there’s nothing here for it and that his own soul has already left the building. The creature creeps up to him and reaches out a skeletal claw - but Owen grabs hold of it and challenges Death to show him what else it has to offer. They fight against each other and begin a struggle for power. Jack and Gwen find another way into the main reception, but by the time they join Owen on the ground floor, they can see that he’s beginning to win the battle. Owen and Death continue to dance around each other, but the skeleton creature is already starting to weaken and before long it completely vanishes in a puff of black smoke. Jack crosses over to Owen, who’s now on his knees. The doors open and Tosh rushes in to join them. Ianto tries to contact them, but before anyone can respond a hand clasps his shoulder and he screams out in shock. The hand belongs to Martha, who appears to have fully recovered and is back to her normal young self.

Owen and Martha sit alone in the autopsy room at the Hub and after a long silent pause, Owen casually asks whether it’s worth him starting “War and Peace”. He apologises for the fact that she got hurt because of him, but she says it’s not her that she’s worried about. He soaked up a colossal amount of energy, but it seems to be dissipating now. He doesn’t think that sounds good, but she admits that no one knows much about the properties of this energy and it could take thirty years for it to die out completely. Owen realises it could just as easily be thirty minutes.