The two stared at the man proclaiming himself as the Doctor, stunned as he looked at them with conviction.
Tilting her head, Lila echoed, "The Doctor?"
Nodding, the Doctor stated that he's as such and Lila turned towards Theodore with a quizzical look, he shared the same look.
"Well, uh, Doc, I gotta ask, how do you figure your dad's an alien?" Lila inquired more about the Doctor's quest on finding out about his father.
He tells her, "Why else do I have two hearts?"
Blinking slowly, Lila responded with, "Um, I dunno, polluted environment, defect, any number of things."
The Doctor then added, "I can read minds, too."
Lila doubted him and he challenged her. She accepted and she cast a thought for him to read and he crinkled his nose as he responded to it with, "You're mean!"
Snorting, Lila dryly told him, "I never said I was nice, did I?"
Got him there and the Doctor acknowledged it before Theodore called his attention.
"Two hearts and you can read minds?" Theodore asks him.
Nodding, the Doctor told him that he could read minds as early as ten. Couldn't explain it well and his mum had no idea. He hoped he could use his newfound ability to find out more about his father. Unfortunately, his mum never told him anything about his father or had any thoughts.
"Well, I can help you in some regard," Theodore tells the Doctor. "You're part-Time Lord."
The Doctor asked him how he figures and Theodore told him that he's one, too. Showed him too, read a bit of his mind and it excited the Doctor.
"Oh, fantastic, then you might know him?" the Doctor looked excited, but Theodore told him that he didn't know anyone.
All the Time Lords he knew looked down on humans more than anything, if anyone had a son with a human woman, he didn't know him.
"So, you think Basil might've written something about your dad indirectly in your mom's biography?" Lila summed why the Doctor worked with the alien and he nodded as he told her that it was the plan.
Due to the alien writing humans longer than the Doctor's been alive, tracking down his mother's biography proved difficult. He'd think the alien wouldn't have difficultly, but the sight of the library, it's excusable why Basil couldn't easily find it.
"Hold on, how'd you get here?" Theodore inquired how the Doctor came to the library and the Doctor snorted before he replied that he came in his trusty TARDIS.
A chance meeting with it, unbelievably, the Doctor found it in a rubbish yard, completely abandoned.
Looked rough and he wouldn't think anything of it until he randomly rattled the handle and it opened.
Poked his head in, saw the interior, had to go around the TARDIS more than once before it finally set with him, and it went from there.
"Innit this the part where you tell him?" Lila telepathically called out to Theodore.
Theodore acknowledges it and he tells the Doctor that he is also the Doctor.
Not surprisingly, the Doctor didn't believe him, until he showed him his Sonic Screwdriver.
Raising his bushy brow at the sight, the Doctor remarked that Theodore couldn't be the Doctor.
Theodore asks, "Did you find the book?"
The Doctor blinked as he replied unsure, "The huge one with all the pages?"
Nodding, Theodore tells him that it's the one. The Doctor wearily shrugged as he replied with, "I shoved it in the closet."
Recoiling, Theodore remarked, "The closet?"
The Doctor nodded as he affirmed, he shoved it in the closet.
Pointing at him, Theodore asked, "Which one?"
Looking at him, the Doctor shrugged as he told Theodore that he just shoved the book in the closet.
Theodore corrected him that there's multiple closets in the TARDIS.
"Which one?" Theodore gestured as he tried to help jog the memory for the Doctor.
Crossing his arms, his brown pinstripe jacket crumpling, the Doctor tried to think, but nothing came to mind, he claimed he found a room with a closet and shoved it in there.
"Why didn't you read it?" Lila asked him, curious. The Doctor told her, he couldn't possibly read it all, it was too much, too complicated. Too many POVS, there isn't a chance he'd get through it in a reasonable time.
Lila then remarked with, "At least he managed to get through chapters before shelving the damn thing!"
Theodore took time and effort to read the book, the Doctor wasn't kidding, it's huge, and Theodore tried to read enough of it before he eventually got tried of it. Shelved somewhere he can find it and then some.
"I'll read it eventually," the Doctor thoughtfully said, claiming he'll finally read it at one point, but Lila doubted this as she said that he couldn't possibly remember where he stuck it.
The TARDIS has infinite number of rooms and closets, there's hardly a chance that the Doctor's going to find it. Dumb luck, aside. By then, he'll just give up, again.
"That aside, what are those insects?" Theodore drawback to the original intention of the questioning. He wanted to know what those insects are and what they mean to do to him and Lila.
The Doctor described as minute insects that lives in clouds that usually hunt mites and whatnot. They're pervasive in some areas and on their own, they're the little small dots in light coming in the windowsill. Little specks, easily mistaken as dust themselves. However, together as they are in the library, they're dangerous, as they're capable of taking down more than just mites.
In fact, there's some speculations that they're responsible for some disappearances in places such as forests, because of the shades the trees give.
The Doctor called them, Vashta Nerada, Basil referred them to as shadowy deaths due to them hiding in the shadows and crevices of the library.
"How come they didn't eat Basil?" Lila inquired how the Vashta Nerada didn't make a meal out of Basil and the Doctor described it as they wouldn't eat him, due to a sense of hierarchy.
Basil ruled over the library and it meant that he's the reason they're here at all. They eat dust and mites, anything that would've ruined his precious biographies. Without him, they would've died out.
He brought them here so they can protect his biographies, thus they won't touch them.
"So, what about you?" Lila continued.
Basil, understandably wouldn't become bug food, but someone like the Doctor probably didn't afford the same benefits.
The Doctor told her that they sufficed primary on the mites and dust, but Lila reminded him that like he said, on their own, that's all they ate, but without Basil around, they probably don't have the same idea. He kept them in check and without him, they're at their mercy.
"I'm sure they won't try to eat us," the Doctor thoughtfully said as he looked around and Theodore told him that Lila's right, without Basil keeping them in check, it's anyone's guess when they'll turn on them.
"Not to mention they chased us here," Lila pointed out.
Gritting his teeth, the Doctor pondered before he looked at Basil's body, saying that they haven't touched it, so that's a good sign. Until Lila mentioned they won't bite the hand that fed them, much less eat the body, unless there's nothing left for them to eat.
"When did you see him last?" Theodore asked the Doctor when he last saw Basil alive and the Doctor replied he saw him months ago. The alien's still looking for his mother's biography and the Doctor attempted to help him.
Looking at him, Lila asked if Basil had any enemies, to which the Doctor replied that he couldn't have, since he never left the library, and nobody visited the library except the Doctor.
"What are we thinking, did he die of a heart attack?" Lila wondered what caused Basil's death. Anyone and anything can die at any point and heart attacks are one of the things that'll get them without mercy.
The Doctor didn't think it's a heart attack, Basil had eight small hearts, if any of them had a heart attack, the others will take point and keep him going until the impacted heart regenerates.
How else did they think he's able to use his long arms without collapsing?
"Okay, then what?" Lila gestured as the Doctor goes over to the body, studying it.
He studied the pale body of Basil, his species name doesn't run off the tip of the Doctor's tongue very well, but once he broke it down enough it's pretty much translated as "spider people."
Long arms, narrow body, shape of a violin, small eyes, and sufficed on a variety of diets.
Basil got his nourishment from pots he kept stowed away, filled with different assortments of alcohol and other that ferment into various liquids he consumes.
Looking at his mouth, seeing it gape, the Doctor reached down to touch Basil's large head, frigid cold, heavy, gotten out of rigor mortis days ago, and the Doctor catches something coming out of the small hole on the side of Basil's head.
Basil didn't have any ears, not like the Doctor, Theodore, and Lila, just small holes on the sides of his head.
Looking at the liquid coming out of the ear, the Doctor deduced that it's not earwax, but liquified brain matter.
Somehow, Basil's brain ruptured and liquified, something inexplainable to him and Theodore asked how's it even possible, if not a condition.
"I don't know," the Doctor gently let go of Basil's head as he stepped away, his white sole sneakers squeaking against the floor. "It doesn't make any sense to me, Basil doesn't have any enemies. Nobody knew he was here except me and if there was, Basil would've mentioned it to me."