Harkening back to their father's old stories he told them when they were children, Theodore remembered all the twists and turns in every adventure their father ended up, nothing ever topping the adventure Theodore's having at this moment.
Things haven't gone the way they should've, expected since nothing ever did for his father, but Theodore wished things differently.
UNIT's running around like a chicken with its head cut off, one team made it outside in hopes of putting out the tower fire. Another team's trying to turn the power back on, but they're running into problems. The last, but not least, there's a team hunting the Plague Doctor, but they're running into problems of their own.
During their search for the Plague Doctor, members accidentally broke formation, getting off-track, and ended up stuck in immovable areas of UNIT. This continued until only a handful managed to stick together, just four, and they've got their hands busied with trying to rescue the trapped members while hunting.
Well, they didn't have to look long, because it'd seem the Plague Doctor went after Lila, and Theodore hesitated their involvement, to the point he made sure they didn't know where it is, just that's somewhere.
For his part, Theodore gave the rosemary to Commander Ryan, instructing him to keep it close, and while it's a gamble, Theodore knew that the Plague Doctor couldn't touch him with the plant.
No clue whether it's allergic or preference, but Theodore hoped his theory's correct that as long as Commander Ryan held the rosemary, it won't touch him.
For added measure, Theodore took a snippet of rosemary and pinned it to the side of his stitched jacket. Big enough that it ought to continue producing the needed scent while keeping Commander Ryan safe with the rest.
Commander Ryan said there's a manual override somewhere in the hanger, if he can find it, he hopes he can trigger it, even though he doesn't know what Theodore's plan is, and finally he understood when they managed to get the lift working again.
Once the lift opened and they're in the darkened hanger, Commander Ryan heard the humming. He doesn't understand where it's coming from, but Theodore tells him that it's his theory playing out.
Pushing him forward, Theodore told him to find the override, while he searched for the Plague Doctor.
As Commander Ryan rushed off, Theodore began searching for the Plague Doctor.
Didn't take long at all.
Lila's safe in the TARDIS, Theodore forced her to stay there, and he indeed found the Plague Doctor lingering near the TARDIS, looking at the door.
It saw Lila going inside and attempted to follow, not dissuaded by the light coming from behind it, but it couldn't open the door, it's using one of the large feet to try pulling on the handle.
Don't know how strong it is, but Theodore knows it can't open the door anyhow, old as it may be the TARDIS saw worse, and the Plague Doctor couldn't damage it if it tried.
Sucking air through his teeth, Theodore prepared to do something he never did before, reaching out to the Plague Doctor mentally.
Dangerous, he knows, but Theodore couldn't take a chance of getting close to it.
He'll do it once, if he fails, he'll try to figure something out, but for now, he's hoping for something.
Exhaling sharply, Theodore took a deep breath, lulling his mind, before reaching out to the Plague Doctor.
He saw darkness for a moment, but as he carefully combed the mind, he sees the darkness disappearing, his whole vision turning sepia, and eventually, Theodore sees he's in a forest. Large trees, leaves crunching under his feet as he walked briefly, trying to see in the sepia, and he heard a woman talking.
As he turned his head, he sees a tall woman approaching him, a shroud draped over her body, her head and neck the only things exposed. She moved as the Plague Doctor did, bird like, and briefly, Theodore sees her feet as she walked.
They're similar to the Plague Doctor's feet, but weren't blackened, pasty pale white, and the talons pearly white.
She looked normal from the neck up until she came closer and Theodore sees her eyes. The eyes themselves looked human, but the eyelids looked taut. Her skin in general looked taut, her cheekbones protruded with a subtle gauntness in the cheeks.
When she talked, Theodore understood her somewhat.
"... You are my love, don't you remember?" The woman looked at him.
Theodore's confused until he noticed a pool of water near one of the trees and when he leaned over, he sees that while he looked as himself, the memory treated him as the Plague Doctor.
Looking back at the woman, Theodore realized this' the last memory the Plague Doctor had when it was human, before it turned.
He's unable to answer her, but even then, the one-sided conversation seemingly continued like he did, and the woman stood near him, forcing him to look up at her.
"Our children need their father, their mother needs her husband," the woman tells Theodore.
So, they're right, there's more, and Theodore held questions about the extent of this 'family' that the woman insisted the human Plague Doctor needed to tend.
He received his answer once he sees the woman's shroud move on its own, her large wings extended, showing her clawed talons and a dress draping over her legs that slowly bowed around the knee areas.
Theodore's unable to do anything as the woman reached down and bit his neck, sending him back into the familiar darkness, and when the sepia surrounding returned, he's transported somewhere else.
It's an older memory.
He's in a flat, don't know where, the drapes drawn over the windows, and when he turned his head, Theodore sees a picture of the woman, looking normal, on the mantle.
It was his wife.
Something happened to her, Theodore's able to deduce, and as he roamed the flat, he came across a sparsely furnished room with a cradle in the centre with a few toys in it.
Confused, Theodore approaches the cradle and as he does, he's overtaken with sadness, not his own, and he felt the emotions from the human Plague Doctor, as he's unable to handle his loss.
The memories let Theodore understand what happened.
They were happily married and wanted to start a family. The wife, Lena, she conceived, but tragedy strikes and they lose the baby. She's stricken with grief that something happened to her, resulting in her becoming what she is in the previous memory, and somehow lured her normal husband to her in that spot. She turned him into that creature, not out of some malice, but in her honest belief that they'll be together, always, with their family.
Theodore's unable to learn more, because as he turned his head, he sees the tall Plague Doctor looming nearby, angry.
He can see the ire in those eyes, the hate.
It knew he was in its mind; he can hear the anger coming from the silent Plague Doctor.
"Dre... Dre... Dre... kkkk...kkkk... eeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrr," the Plague Doctor hisses at him.
Purged from that memory, Theodore's forced to feel the ire from the Plague Doctor as he's taken somewhere else, he can feel the hatred, the contempt towards him. The Plague Doctor wanting to kill them all for 'taking' it away from its wife and family. It wanted them dead, even if they didn't 'smell.'
"Hate..." Theodore heard the raspy Plague Doctor say to him. "Haaaaaaaaaaattttteeee..."
In another sepia-coloured area, Theodore sees they're in another forest and the Plague Doctor approaching him, hissing at him.
Swallowing his fear, Theodore asked it, "What are you?"
To his shock, it replied.
It replied!
"Deeeeeaaaaaaaaaattttttthhhhhh," it only said to him.
It reached out with it's long talons, ready to maul him, but Theodore pulled out of the Plague Doctor's mind.
When he opened his icy blue eyes, he rubbed his running nose as he felt his heart racing. Blinking numerous times, he coughed, before realizing that it's in front of him, staring at him with those same hateful eyes.
It couldn't touch him because of the rosemary and when he looked down, his torch on the ground, near his feet, with the light pointing at the Plague Doctor's bird feet.
"Wh-why do you hate the smell?" Theodore asked it why it hated the rosemary.
The Plague Doctor let out a low hiss instead and Theodore shirked in his spot as he saw it clanking the talons on its hands.
"You..." it gutturally hissed at him.
Doesn't appreciate Theodore nosing around its head, duly noted.
Theodore fled the moment he heard someone suddenly shouting and distracting the Plague Doctor, "Now!"
A breeze came through the hanger as the hanger opened, revealing the grey skies outside, and the soaked airway.
Fleeing to the safety behind a Jeep, Theodore watched the Plague Doctor turning around, in a trance, as there's someone coming through the opened hanger, a tall woman.
As she walked, Theodore easily recognized her as the woman from the memories. She's come for her husband and she silently approached the Plague Doctor as it dropped its hostility immediately.
"Darling..." the woman cooed as she reached up to touch the blackened beak of the Plague Doctor with her pasty white hand accompanied with pearly white talons and it let her without any hate in those eyes.
Happiness.
It showed happiness.
"Come darling... our children wait for us," the woman tells the Plague Doctor.
As she lowered her hand, the woman's blue eyes moved towards where Theodore stood, but he hid. She didn't see him because she walked with heavy thudding coming from her and the Plague Doctor, leaving the hanger.
When Theodore left his hiding spot, they're nowhere to be seen, and the lights started turning on.
"Doc!" Theodore heard Lila poking her head out of the TARDIS.
She rushed out to grab him as he felt his legs turning into noodles.
Coughing, Theodore held her as they heard Commander Ryan coming towards them, sweat dripping down his face.
He asked Theodore, "Will... will they come back?"
Shaking his head, Theodore told him that they just wanted to go home together, return to their children.
Flinching, Commander Ryan asked, "There's more?"
Nodding, Theodore replied, there's more of them, as they feared, but they won't have to deal with them again.
"You, okay?" Lila asks Theodore.
Groaning as he rubbed his eyes, Theodore replied that he isn't, he saw the mind of the Plague Doctor. Briefly, he relieved points in its life before it turned into the frightening creature they know now.
"She's his wife, from another life," Theodore tells her as they went to sit somewhere while Commander Ryan called command centre through one of the phones.
Listening to Theodore regale the tale, Lila couldn't help but pinch him for risking his life, but couldn't help hug him tightly, either, happy he's alive to tell her.
"So, what happened to her?" Lila wondered how the wife turned into a creature of herself and Theodore wearily shrugged as he told her that he doesn't know. All he know's what he told her.
Slowly nodding, her hair stiffly moving, Lila sighed as she squeezed his side in a side hug, affirming that she's happy that he's alive and hadn't died.
Theodore asked if she's fine and she replied that she is, but couldn't help but think of the odd cologne smell that seemingly came and went when she was looking for the TARDIS during the power outage.
Thinking, Theodore replied that he doesn't know the answer to that question, he suggested that it's her mind playing tricks on her during an emotional event. Could've easily been something in one of the Jeeps that combined with the metallic smell coming from the machines, that tricked her mind.
Sighing, Lila shrugged as she said that she can't think of anything to counter, so she's just taking his answer.
"We've located the missing members and the fire's put out. I can't thank you enough for this, Doctor," Commander Ryan appeared as he told them that everything's sorted, now.
Fire's put out, missing members located, and the power's back on at full capacity.
"Ah, just my job," Theodore wearily told him as they shook hands.
Lila asked how they managed to turn on the power this time and she heard an odd incident.
The power shouldn't go out like it did, everything remained operational, no damages from the storms, nothing to suggest otherwise.
When the team went to fix the power, they found that it wouldn't turn on, despite there being no reason, not even manual overdrive.
Once the hanger opened and the woman and the Plague Doctor disappeared off the scanner, the power just turned on by itself.
"Weird," Lila frowns as Theodore shrugged, having no answer.
They talked until Commander Ryan rendered their services, letting them go home, and Theodore asked if he's in any trouble, but the commander told him that the lieutenant commander and captain aren't furious at him for going behind their backs.
Quite contrary.
"Well, should you need any help, we're glad to help," Theodore tells him as he saw them off.
Returning to the TARDIS, Theodore exhaled sharply as he took off his stitched coat, sweat under his arms, before going to the console.
"Man, I do not want to encounter those two ever again," Lila coughed as she sat on the steps.
Theodore agreed with her sentiment before he took them away from UNIT, returning to their universe, where they promptly took showers after everything's said and done.
Watching the TARDIS leave, Commander Ryan sighed as he's relieved that no more bloodshed further happened, and the dangerous beings gone.
Pulling on his sweat soaked uniform jacket, Commander Ryan shook his head, as he prepared to take the lift back, when he felt a presence near him.
He turned his head, there's someone standing near one of the jets and he goes over to him, asking where he came from and what's his purpose being in a military restricted area.
A pale skinned tall man in a pressed blue suit, his black sunglasses reflecting the approaching commander.
THE END