His eyes closed, Theodore read Lila's mind, the many layers of her mind, he carefully sorted until he found the memories of the class squirreled away. Carefully, he traded through the memories as it's re-enacted in Lila's sub-conscious mind. Even though she might've not remembered it in her conscious mind, her sub-conscious still carried the memories. Her eyes might've not seen every detail, but her sub-conscious mind picked up the slack.
As the imagery restructured and showed the classroom in it's entirely, Theodore watched the events unfold as he stood to the side. The memories don't treat him as if he's there, he's just watching them through a looking glass.
He sees Lila coming through the door and walked down the stairs towards the row with her seat and sat down. She pulled on her long-sleeves as she settled, looking towards her classmates as they're quietly waiting for Professor Stanford. They didn't even register Lila's presence.
Theodore took the time and went towards them as he studied them through the lens of Lila.
With a limited capacity, he's able to interact with the memories, as long as he remains in the same space as the memories, he won't have any problems. His scope limited by what the subconscious mind remembers, but that's expected.
Shemi and Eve sat together, the others close by, and Theodore looked closely at their faces.
There's bruising on their necks, he can tell by looking at their barely exposed necks covered by the turtlenecks.
Theodore noticed there's marks on Shemi's wrist, that she hid with her long sleeve.
He checked the other students, finding that hidden from sight, there's marks on them, hidden by their heavy clothing.
On his way returning to Lila, Theodore sees the coin underneath Eve's hand. He reached out and grabbed her hand, lifting it up. There's a coin with the head up, Theodore's able to view it precisely.
No one he knows.
Flipping the coin, Theodore sees the other side, completely marred, with chips on the edges, the whole side completely scorched by something. Heavy gauges going through the woman and her scale.
The woman's not Libra or some representation that Theodore's aware of, someone else, but he doesn't know her.
He sees faint grooves behind the woman, but they've been damaged and he can't see them.
Flipping back over, Theodore studied the background behind the head. Faintly, he sees similar circular grooves of different shapes and sizes that interconnected parts, but they looked like someone filed them, so they wouldn't show up easily.
"Stranger and stranger," Theodore blinked as he sat the coin back down in its original spot before placing Eve's hand on it before heading back to Lila.
He stands by her while with his hand out word, swiping like he would on a mobile, moves the scene forward when the professor arrived in the class.
Silently, Theodore watches as Professor Stanford arrived and took the books and papers from Lila, bringing them to his desk as he began class while looking through her papers.
Catching that detail, Theodore looked back at the students. They didn't have books or papers, only Lila. Looking back, he hears Professor Stanford talking.
"Today's lesson, class, is childhood trauma," Professor Stanford tells his class as he sat Lila's homework on the desk. "How do children handle them and how it effects them. You've already done your homework, but our new student Ms. Stevenson hadn't, and now that she did, I believe it's a good time to expand what our answers are."
Raising a brow, Theodore watched as he sees the classmates look at the professor intently as he began his class. Lila's watching with confusion on her face as she tries to follow along with what Professor Stanford's implying.
"Isn't it traumatizing?" Professor Stanford asked his students and they all replied in quiet murmurs. "Imagine the ache of a child losing their parent in such a fashion, what do you think they feel?"
Going down to the desk, Theodore eyed the professor as he's talking to the class. He didn't notice Theodore shuffling through the papers Lila wrote. After he finished, he began with a scenario in regards to the homework.
There's an odd feeling in the air, something Theodore's able to feel despite him only looking through the memory.
Stagnant, heavy, it's thick enough that for a moment until Theodore snapped back, it felt like he couldn't breathe in the classroom.
As he exhaled sharply, he heard the professor.
"You're coming home from school, your parent's waiting for you and your other parent's at work. You go through that doorway, go into the kitchen, but your parent isn't there. There's no lunch on the table, the car's in the driveway, no note, and you check everywhere for them. You go upstairs, calling out to them, but they don't answer you," Professor Stanford gazed at his students as they looked on. "The bedroom door's open and they're not inside, but you hear running water coming from the closed bathroom. You investigate it, you see water coming from underneath the bathroom door. You reached out and turn the knob, opening towards you. What, do you see?"
Theodore looked up to him as his eyes moved towards Lila. Squarely on her, Professor Stanford asked for her input on the question.
Eyes on her, Lila shirked in her spot, something about that question bothered her.
Scenarios and whatnot in courses aren't uncommon, however, this one question, it's bothering Lila, and she's struggling terribly to answer Professor Stanford's question.
Theodore checked the professor's desk once again, it's limited by the scope of the memory, so he couldn't discern anything in the drawers. He looked back to Lila's homework and the books the professor gave her and went towards them. Flipping through the books, Theodore found that there's nothing. Absolutely, nothing. When he checked her homework, Theodore sees that it contains somethings that Lila couldn't known to write about.
Flipping through the homework sheets, Theodore spots a question that's not written by Lila at the top of the page. He knows her quick handwriting. This question, it's professionally written with care.
WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Theodore sees the answer Lila written.
Why?
Overhead, Professor Stanford insisted that Lila answer his question, but Lila can't bring herself to answer it, she's fighting every inch of herself not to, and he remained calm and quiet as he watched her struggle.
"I see it in your head, Ms. Stevenson," Professor Stanford said in a low voice. "Hidden behind a castle wall, surrounded by a moat, moving in the shadows of the castle. You don't want it to escape, do you, but I need my answer, Ms. Stevenson, and I always get my answers."
The tone of voice he took, enough to make Theodore shudder.
Professor Stanford's eyes locked on Lila, she refused to tell him her answer, and the more she refused, the more his eyes focused on hers.
Theodore sees the look in Professor Stanford's eyes, it reminded him of a demon staring into Lila's very soul!
Lila's cracking under pressure as she feels the intensity of Professor Stanford's eyes. She's unable to turn away from him or even close her eyes. Forced to look at him and his unbridled stare, Lila squirms in her seat as the students watched on.
Forgetting himself, Theodore shouts as he tried to grab Professor Stanford in anger, "Leave her alone!"
It didn't deter Professor Stanford, the scene played on as normal, and he tilts his head as he noted that the castle's walls slowly cracking, he can see the cracks widening.
Lila let out a pitiful, "N-no!"
Theodore can tell she's trying to reach out to him, but she's trying desperately to keep Professor Stanford at bay.
Unable to do both tasks successfully, Lila focused on keeping Professor Stanford from breaking through, but she's losing ground as he's chipping away at the castle wall, he says.
Helpless, Theodore's forced to watch the professor bend Lila with his mind, to the point the castle walls collapsed, revealing the answer he so coveted, reducing Lila to tears as she's unable to keep Professor Stanford from peeking behind the castle walls.
"What do you see, Ms. Stevenson?" Professor Stanford asks her again, his eyes turning a different colour.
Lila's mouth trembled as she's trying to stop herself from answering, gasping in between breathes as she's coughing, holding her mouth with her hands.
"N-no!" Lila pitifully shouted as she refused to give Professor Stanford his answer.
He coldly told her, either he gets his answer from her, or he takes it from her. It's her choice. He's giving her an easy way out, but if she won't tell him, he's going to forcibly take the answer from her, and he warned it won't be pretty.
"I hope someone shoves a steel toe boot up your ass, you creep!" Lila hoarsely tells Professor Stanford, refusing to turn over for him, causing him to shake his head disapprovingly as she stubbornly refused to give him his answer.
It forced him to take out a coin from his pocket and held it up for the class to see. As he held it towards Lila, he tells her, "Heads, I will take your answer and you will not leave this class. Tails, I will take your answer and you will leave this class."
Her chestnut eyes focused on the coin, the marred side facing her, she watched as Professor Stanford flipped the coin.
Flipping in the breeze, it lands on his palm, his other hand covering it. Agitated, Theodore sees Professor Stanford staring at Lila as he lifted his hand, revealing the answer.
"I must abide," he says as his hand collapsed over the coin. "I will take your answer and you will leave this class. Until the next time, Ms. Stevenson."
Theodore can't tell what happened, he watched Lila go limp in her seat, her head resting on her hands as they awkwardly laid on the table, and the memory ended.
Slowly, Theodore removed himself from Lila's mind, when he opened his eyes, he looked down to see her head against his chest with her eyes closed.
They opened as his did and Lila blinked slowly as she rubbed her eyes, pushing herself away from him as she's confused, asking what happened.
"I found out what happened to you in class," Theodore looked at her as she stretched her arms outward before shifting in her spot. "He's telepathic, at least some variant of it, he wormed his way into your head. You wouldn't give him your answer, so, he took it. You only lived because of a coin toss."
Frantically, he told her what happened during the recreation of the memory during the class, when he finished, Lila's baffled, as she doesn't remember, and Theodore told her that because Professor Stanford took her answer, he likely took her memory of the incident, too.
Didn't think to check her subconscious mind, but that's another story, and now Theodore has an idea on how he's able to keep his students from telling anyone of what he's doing. He's taking away their memories, so whatever he does to them, they won't remember, and what they remember, is what he wants them to remember.
Likely, he's using that to keep them under his thumb, because they know if he feels like it, he can kill them without them knowing it, and there wouldn't be anyone to stop him. Whether they're acutely aware, they probably are, but abused so much, they're too afraid of stepping out of line.
It brought up a terrifying point, that what Professor Stanford did to students he no longer needed or sees as failures.
"Christ, I thought with you in my head, I'd be like, I dunno, immune or something," Lila rubbed her head as she's trying to wrap her head around what happened to her.
Shaking her head, Theodore told her that it doesn't work like that. Just some science fiction jargon. People can't get immune to other people reading their minds. They can certainly train to block intrusions, but otherwise, it's battle of the wits with the victor whoever can survive the longest.
Theodore has a chance since he's naturally gifted, but compared to his farther and uncle, he's lucky he's half their strength.
For Lila, it'd be like her brain being the punching bag every time she's trying to keep out intrusions. At least with Theodore, she can block him, since she's familiar with him, but an outside force, she has no chance.
It's a miracle Lila's even standing in front of him after the brute forcing attempt from the professor. Theodore even checked, making sure she's not hemorrhaging in her brain, only becoming relieved that she's absolutely fine. Shaken up, but she's fine, and he's happy about it.
Unlike Professor Stanford, Theodore looks where he's walking when it comes to telepathically entering Lila's mind, only going where she lets him, never going where he shouldn't or can't. He's mindful of everything he does, whist Professor Stanford's forceful and would've caused an aneurysm hadn't he stopped or worse, a scene from 'Scanner.'
"What now?" Lila wearily asks Theodore what's the next course of action with the revelation that Professor Stanford almost turned her brain into jelly, forcing her to answer him a question she can't even remember.
Seeing red, Theodore told her, she's staying in the TARDIS, and he's going to confront the Professor himself.
Lila worried that what Professor Stanford did to her, he'll do to Theodore.
Smiling at her, showing his pearly whites, Theodore raised his hand to gently stroke her cheek as he promised her, he's much stronger than Professor Stanford realizes.
He won't know until it's too late what he's dealing with.
Holding his hand, Lila brought up, "Yeah, but he's kinda older than you and probably been practicing for decades, how're you going to do a number on a guy like that, Theo?"
Thinking on that, Theodore replied that he has an edge. Professor Stanford's preyed on students like Lila, those who can't fight back against him, he's used to winning his battles, becoming complacent. If he thinks Theodore's just another student, he won't realize who he's dealing with until Theodore traps him.
What he planned to do to Professor Stanford when he gets his large hands on him, Theodore planned to interrogate him on what he done to his students, the identity of the trustee, where he gotten the coins, and punish him for what he'd done to the students and Lila. Not exactly in that order and what extent of the punishment he planned to dole out, he hadn't gotten far, but Theodore's not in a merciful mood.
Lila asked him as she watched him fume like a tall smokestack while pacing around the console room, "What do you want me to do?"
There's gotta be something she can do if she can't go with Theodore to settle the score with Professor Stanford and she hated the thought of idling in the TARDIS while Theodore's out on his own.
Stopping for a moment, Theodore told her that he needed her to main the console. The TARDIS' refueled, so she shouldn't have problems using it, but if anything happens, he needed her to bring the TARDIS to him.
"Right," Lila frowns as she then asks if Theodore's sure if he'll be okay going up against the professor by himself.
Smiling at her as he walked towards her, Theodore tells her that while he's not sure about a lot of things, he's sure about this.
"Theo, I can't find my knife. I had with me when I left the TARDIS, but when I got back, it's gone," Lila tells him what's she's worried about.
Her dad's army knife, she kept it hidden away in case things started happening, but after that blotted memory, it's missing, and she's sure it didn't fall out while she walked back to the TARDIS or lost it.
Nodding, Theodore held his large hands on her shoulders as he assures her that he'll be fine and he promised to find her knife, as he knows how important it was to her.
"I'll hurt him if he breaks it," Lila snorted as Theodore let out a chuckle before he lightly touched her nose.
With his plans set, Theodore put everything together for when he searched out the professor. The TARDIS found all the schedules and addresses that Theodore remembered off the top of his head as he eagerly waited to have a "talk" with the professor.
Pulling on his stitched coat, Theodore prepared to leave while Lila stood beside him.
"Be careful," Lila tells him.
Showing his pearly whites, Theodore replied, "Always."