The Doctor laid the hospital building plans out on a table in the tea room. He anchored the corners using a salt shaker, mug and a couple of biscuit tins.
He leaned heavily over the blue prints, scanning them carefully. The Beast would awaken at some point, and when it did he planned on knowing exactly where it was.
Heat. It would be somewhere in the building with plenty of heat and a lot of moisture. From what he'd read, a creature of this type enjoyed those conditions especially for sleeping.
He ran his hands down the plan, tracing the conduits with his long boney fingers.
The Laundry. It had to be in the Laundry.
His pager beeped. It was Paediatrics. He sighed. Duty Calls.
His job was becoming increasingly difficult to manage. He had responsibilities as a Doctor but more importantly he also had a hospital to save from an unwanted guest.
Paediatrics was on the way to the Laundry. 'I can do it', he thought as he rolled the plans up and slipped them under his arm.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Smith. We just haven't been able to get young Henry to eat again. We've tried everything." The nurse looked weary and exasperated.
The Doctor looked through the window into Henry's room. The small boy looked pale, lethargic and a little anxious. He was holding his beloved teddy and staring straight ahead blankly.
"Leave this with me."
"Now Henry," The Doctor said bringing out a plate from behind his back. "I want to show you something very special."
Henry was sitting up in bed in his dinosaur pyjamas looking a little apprehensive. He clutched his teddy harder as The Doctor came close.
"This is the planet Askerbon." The Doctor placed the plate on the food tray, right under Henry's nose. "Well, actually it's a scale model representing the outer crust."
The Doctor had cleverly sculpted a landscape entirely from mashed potato. Pieces of broccoli had been planted and there was a volcano in the middle which was leaking tomato sauce. Henry stared intently at the food.
"The dirt on Askerbon is completely white and the trees have green trunks," The Doctor explained pointing to the broccoli forest.
The child smiled for the first time all day. He had been feeling quite unwell. The Doctor's lips curled slightly just for a moment.
A crowd of nurses had gathered at the window to discreetly watch The Doctor weave his magic. He ignored them and continued his planetary tour.
"Now, Askerbon is full of deadly creatures," he growled dramatically. The Doctor sat down on the edge of the bed and withdrew a plastic bag from his coat pocket. "And the acid slugs are the deadliest of them all."
The Doctor sprinkled a handful of worms onto the plate. They were real worms that had been hollowed out, fried and then injected with tomato sauce. They were crispy and transparent from the frying process so the sauce made them look swollen and blood-filled.
Henry's eyes went wide.
"Don't tell the nurses I've given you these. They'll be very cross," he whispered. "You'll have to eat them quickly before they see you!"
Henry seemed too afraid to try one so The Doctor picked one off, threw his head back and dropped the worm into his mouth. "Mmmm, tangy," he said thoughtfully as he chewed.
Henry picked one off the plate and bit it in half. His face lit up with delight as he realised it was just tomato sauce.
"Oh, this one's full of pus!" The Doctor said as he picked up a worm which had been filled with mayonnaise. "My favourite!"
Henry exploded into a fit of giggles as The Doctor dropped it in his mouth. The teddy was cast aside as he leaned closer to the plate.
"Would you like to try one?" The Doctor said holding another mayonnaise worm out in his hand.
"Yes please!" Henry was practically beaming.
The Doctor handed a 'pus' filled worm over and the child put it into his mouth. Henry had soon reached for the knife and fork and started excavating. The Doctor waited until the first mouthful of mash had gone in before attempting to make an exit.
"Well Henry, I'm going to leave you to eat your planet." He patted the boy on the shoulder as he got up. Henry speared a broccoli tree with his fork and shoved it into his gob.
The Doctor's work was done.
He exited Henry's room and shut the door quietly. The nurses gushed and clapped.
The Doctor shot them a quick grin before addressing the nurse he was speaking with earlier. "Keep his fluids up. Make him a smoothie and call it a snotshake or something. Be creative."
His pager beeped again.
"Good Evening Clara," he said pleasantly as he flung the curtain back. Clara was not in bed.
He spun around to see she was returning from the nearby bathroom dragging her IV stand with her. "You sound very happy Doctor. What have you been up to?" That suspicious tone was back as she eyed him closely.
"I just delivered twins," he said beaming. "They were terribly upset after being squeezed out like that, but we had a bit of a debrief and they're fine now."
"Doctor!"
"Relax, Clara. They'll be fine," he reassured her. "I told them it's all downhill from here."
Clara looked absolutely mortified.
These conversations with The Doctor, as a Doctor were becoming more and more surreal. She sincerely hoped to be discharged before he started performing surgery.
Clara pulled her IV stand back to the bed and sat down on the edge.
"Have you come to tuck me in Doctor?"
"No, I've come to give you your blue jelly, as promised." He held out the container towards her.
She reached out to take it but he pulled his hand back.
The Doctor dropped his gaze. "Have you been a good girl, Clara?"
She sighed in exasperation. "Don't be ridiculous, Doctor." Clara folded her arms and glared at him.
"Have you been poking your nose into things that are none of your business?" he said sternly.
"Just give me the jelly!" she said snatching it out of his hand.
The Doctor's pager beeped. "Gotta go," he said excusing himself.
After answering the emergency call, The Doctor finally headed down to the Laundry.
It was your typical industrial sized operation, with large chutes dumping soiled laundry into enormous bins on wheels. There were rows and rows of washing machines along one wall and dryers on the other. At this time of night, the laundry was deserted.
He pulled out his sonic to get a reading on any life forms in the vicinity. The Doctor held it out as he moved past benches stacked with freshly folded laundry. There was nothing. Not even a blip of life detected.
The Doctor continued down a corridor with utility pipes twisting overhead and on the walls. He entered another laundry room with much the same set up.
The sonic pulsed as it registered a living creature up ahead. The Doctor cautiously made his way along past a row of bins containing more soiled washing.
Right then he saw it; a large reptilian tail. It was hanging over the side of a bin filled with particularly putrid sheets. Thankfully it wasn't moving. The Beast was still deep in slumber.
The Doctor shut the sonic off and considered his next move. There was nothing for it. He had to wake it up and attempt to persuade it to leave the hospital. If it didn't, then..
"Wakey, wakey!" he said pulling some sheets out of the top of the bin.
The creature stirred, tail twitching slightly. The Doctor banged on the side of the bin with his fist and stood back a few feet.
The tail suddenly went ramrod straight. Under the sheets a pair of yellow eyes snapped open and then narrowed. There was a snort as its nostrils flared, much like a bull before it charges. It slowly rose out of the bin with a sheet over its head like a putrefied veil.
The Doctor took a step back. "Ah, you're a bit bigger than I thought," he said nervously.
The creature blinked and shook the sheet off its head. It looked somewhat like a cross between a lizard and a dragon with large scales all over its body like armour plating.
"You're a big boy!" he said.
The creature make another disgruntled snort.
"Sorry, big girl," he corrected himself.
The Beast tilted its head, yellow eyes blinking.
"I see you've made a nice meal of Dr Malik," The Doctor said spotting a shin bone on the floor that had been recently picked clean. It was covered with the same thick saliva he'd seen in the cleaning cupboard.
The creature sighed smugly and a blast of steam came out its nostrils.
"It's okay", The Doctor said with a shrug. "I didn't like him much anyway."
Suddenly there was a deep reptilian purr which echoed through the Laundry. The Beast was trying to communicate. It was hungry, again.
"You don't need to eat these people," The Doctor pleaded. "They're sickly and full of chemicals. Some of them are terribly constipated."
The Beast leaned forward in the bin and made a threatening noise as if to say, 'Are you volunteering?'
"No, no. I'm not on the menu." The Doctor stepped back again and held the sonic out in front of him.
The creature made a low growl, insisting that The Doctor was indeed on the menu and he was now reserved as a starter.
"You don't want me," he said laughing. "Not enough meat. Barely a snack for someone like you!"
It was too late. The Beast liked the smell of The Doctor's flesh and she got out of the bin fully, raising to her full height. She tapped a claw on the tiled floor impatiently as her meal continued to try and negotiate.
Her tail whipped around, a little too close to be considered a friendly gesture.
"Okay, I've tried to reason with you," The Doctor said in the low tone. "But you leave me no choice."
The Doctor flicked the sonic on and sent out a pulse that had the Creature instantly twisting in agony on the floor. It was a high pitched sound, that only The Beast could hear. It would leave the creature paralysed temporarily.
The Doctor legged it out of the laundry. He had to get Clara out of the hospital and fast.