Uncomfortably, Lila went about her day until dinner's served, and she rejoined Theodore having himself a bit of everything served in the food line, he noticed instantly the look on her face, and asked what's wrong, but she wouldn't verbally communicate with him, couldn't risk someone overhearing them.
"I… I found out why we're here," Lila tells him as they communicated through telepathy as they're sitting across from each other at one of the tables.
Theodore sees her fidgeting as he asks what she meant and she reminded him of the incident with the Plague Doctor, how at the end of it, it's lured away by the presence of its mate.
"There's a patient here, he says the administrators' holding him against his will here because he found out. Jon transferred out because he set the fire trying to keep them away and their counterparts went after Sara. The orderly who's connected between them, the guy thinks he's at most, dead. I guess there's a lot riding on keeping their little secret," Lila regales what Lovett told her about what he found.
Hearing this, Theodore asked if Lila's able to trust him, they're in a mental hospital with patients afflicted by a varied of illnesses, and Lila says that Lovett… told her that she told him about the Plague Doctor and its mate.
She doesn't know him, obviously, he won't let her see him, so she can't figure out if she did or not, but she knows that she never told anyone else about those two.
There's no way anyone would've known and she tried calling his bluff, but Lovett described how inhuman they looked, their eyes, down to a 'T' that Lila couldn't try dismissing him as fishing for material.
"He says they don't come out at night, just like what you found. Said their counterparts moved on after Jon left, so he thinks that they're hunting him if they haven't killed him already," Lila shrugged her stout shoulders as she tells Theodore while he's munching on his sandwich about what Lovett told her about the female counterparts.
She wanted to make him talk more, but he convinced her that she needed food and sleep, he even far as saying that she shouldn't miss dinner, one of the most important meals of the day, all that, and he reminded her that if she keeps asking him questions, she risks someone catching her.
"Well, he's right, you shouldn't miss dinner," Theodore tells her that while Lovett's an enigma, he wasn't wrong, Lila needed dinner, and her sleep, that much apparent.
Frowning, Lila replied that she can eat after they figure out why the female variants were doing in the area and how to stop them.
Sleep, well, tomorrow's her day-off, she can sleep then, besides that, she doesn't want to sleep while there's terrifying things outside the building.
"Lee, I know my dear brother gets on me for my mistakes, but I know him well that he'll get on you for yours, understood?" Theodore passively tells Lila that she shouldn't put off either, else he'll tell on her.
Hammond worries about him, yes, but he also worries about Lila, since she's the de facto companion for Theodore. If she's not 100%, then Theodore's alone, and well, Hammond can't have that, he can't go along with Theodore, he's got a library branch that needed him.
Pushing his tray filled with untouched food, Theodore tells Lila that she needed to eat, after they clock out, they'll go back to the TARDIS, figure out what to do, then.
Since Al's repaired, he shouldn't have problems finding what they needed. He might even have an idea how to deal with the female variants.
"What about Lovett?" Lila asks about him, he knew more than he let on, and if not for the fact they're playing the part, she can't hound him for answers.
Theodore tells her that they'll think of something, they always do, now enough chattering, she needed food, he's had his fill for the time being, and once they finish up, it's back to the TARDIS.
"Fine," Lila sighs as she proceeded to pick through Theodore's tray of food that he left untouched, still warm to the touch.
Dinner came and went, everyone cleaned up after themselves, orderlies escorted patients back to their rooms, papers filed, darkness set outside, as everyone finished up.
Orderlies checked in everything from their badges and keys, before heading out of the building for the night, doctors and nurses gone up to the second story dormitories, while the security guard on call settled into his shift.
Leaving the hospital, Theodore and Lila snuck away back to the TARDIS, enshrouded by darkness, as there's no torch lights on the stretch of road.
Above, they see nothing but darkness, no moon, no stars, nothing.
Darkest of nights.
Perhaps, Lovett wasn't wrong.
Lila didn't like being out in the darkness alone, the city, there's streetlights and bright signs everywhere, she's able to get around find, and see everything.
Here, without Theodore guiding her, she wouldn't know where she's standing, and she wouldn't come out here alone, not without him.
Returning to the TARDIS waiting for them since they left early in the day, Lila didn't hesitate locking the door behind them the moment she passed through the threshold, Theodore going over to the console with his large hands in his pockets.
"What do you know of the females?" Theodore asks the TARDIS a question.
The monitors above the console turned on by themselves, strings of text, going too fast for the naked eye, covered the screens as they spanned thousands of entries until finally slowing down, before tapering off, and there's only one word.
"Unknown."
Theodore tried again, but it only told him what he already knew. He tried finding any known pictures, but he only found their male counterparts in their oily black appearances, and it showed that even the TARDIS couldn't come up with anything.
Doesn't make sense why the TARDIS wouldn't know anything about them, considering the vast access to information, it should've found a dictionary with them in it.
"They went after Sara, yes, maybe there's a reason for it?" Theodore attempted at suggesting the reasons why the females went after Sara.
From their limited exposure, the Plague Doctor went after sick people, hence Jon.
Maybe the females went after the healthy?
No, everyone else would've encountered them, by now.
"I'll figure something out, now, Lee, I do believe it's time for bed," Theodore tells Lila that he'll keep trying and while he's doing that, she needed to sleep, they've got work in the morning.
Her brow raised as she scoffed at him, Lila tells him that she's fine staying up and helping him, but Theodore tells her that they've been on the adventure since they stepped out of the TARDIS, there's no way she isn't tired.
"Oh, okay, how about you?" Lila called him out on his hypocrisy.
He's telling her that she needed to sleep and here he is staying up late looking up nothing but texts, hoping that something important shakes out, and she's not tired?
"I'm the Doctor, now go," Theodore prodded Lila into turning in for the night and she sharply tells him that she'll tell on him that he isn't going to bed on time, but Theodore hushed her.
It felt like she's back in school and trying to justify staying up late, but without the fun of hiding a light underneath her sheets and reading books while he isn't the wiser.
"Fine, but if you get cranky with me in the morning, I'm bopping you on your fat nose," Lila poked him in the chest as she warned him that she'll sleep like he tells her to, but if he gave her attitude as a result of not sleeping enough, she'll get him for it. Then, she'll inform that he hadn't slept adequately enough to his brother.
Theodore mentioned he'll tell his brother that she bopped him on the nose and Lila added that his brother might've given her a raise for doing that.
"Bed, now, go," Theodore prodded Lila as he gestured with his hands as she crossed her arms.
Rolling her chestnut eyes, Lila sarcastically responded with, "But I don't wanna!"
Theodore kissed her on the nose and she gently squeezed his before she departed for her designated room, identifiable by the knickknacks she filled it with that she didn't have room in her actual room, collected over the course of several adventures.
Left alone in the console room, Theodore attempted once more finding answers about the female variants.
"Come on, there must be something!" Theodore huffed as he's typing away at the typewriter styled keyboard, attempting every possible way finding anything useful in their attempts at dealing with the female variants.
If anyone encountered them, they didn't opt to write down what they found worked against them, assuming they're still alive, because everything he's read thus far's that they didn't come out at night because of their bodies sticking out in the night.
They didn't hunt healthy people, like one expected, opposites and all that, but it doesn't seem like there's anything indicative of what they hunt or what keeps them away other than darkness and the night.
Then again, their bodies would've stuck out if they're caught in the afternoon in the backdrop of the forests, that didn't make any sense.
With their pale bodies, Theodore suspected they come out in overcast and cloudy days, like the day they had this morning, with clouds covering the peak of the mountains.
"Al, a little sign be nice," Theodore called out to the TARDIS.
Appearing beside him, Al says that he doesn't know anything about them.
Nobody that used him ever encountered the females, personally, and if they did, he reckoned they only encountered the big ones.
"Surely someone knows something," Theodore huffed as he crossed his stitched arms as the TARDIS pondered for a few minutes, saying that they could always ask someone.
Looking at him, Theodore summed, "You want me to talk to Lovett?"
Slowly nodding, Al said that he seems to know more than he lets on, and the fact of the matter's that they don't have any other options.
"I've looked everywhere in my archives, even on the web, nobody encountered them, if they did, they didn't come out of it peachy," Al responded that he attempted finding answers with everything available to him, but he couldn't find anything, only what he mentioned to Theodore prior.
He then mentioned, "If you saw her, there's probably another one leading these ones, but I don't recommend looking for her trying to talk sense, Theo. This forest's theirs and they know every inch of it. You cannot bargain with them."
Going by what they know, there's a female big one lurking somewhere in the forest, leading the daughters, and Theodore can't go looking for her, Al doesn't have a clue what they're hiding.
He just knows that they've already scoped the forest, there isn't a place Theodore's able to hide from them if they trap him, and without them knowing what they're affected by, he's dead.
Ergo, they find Lovett.
"You think they know?" Theodore asks about the administration and Al snorted as he says that they probably don't even know they existed or probably figured they're harmless.
All it mattered that they had something they can have remove the undesirables and they keep their hands clean.
"You have to understand, Theo, these things, a lot of people like having them around, and not because they bring a little Halloween to every corner of the world," Al summed that people acutely aware of these dangerous creatures didn't think things through when they enticed them into every corner of human civilization in hopes of ridding the less desirables.
Encourage their like around projects, low-income areas, anywhere that there's people someone doesn't like, and watch the bloodshed from the comfort of their seats as senior police cover it up.
Eventually, these officers, politicians, senators, anyone with a shred of power, realize just how dangerous these beings are and how deep they're in, keeping those secrets from escaping's the only way they stay alive.
Anyone who cracked ended up falling into an elevator shaft onto some bullets or end up in a nuthouse somewhere that's out of a horror movie!
"You ever wondered why there's biological warfare?" Al looked at Theodore with his dark eyes glistening under the light, "sure, get a whole population sick so they can't fight back, on the brink of death as they cradled the blankets that made them sick, mess with their food sources that they starve in droves, destroy the very fabrics of their society so they have nothing left when the victors do their victory march, that's the best-case scenario."
In a twisted way, Al regaled the reasoning behind biological warfare, how it's used over the years, and how it tied into their current problems.
Sure, someone could easily say that it's just coincidence, but to Al, there's no such thing as coincidence.
People in high positions knew about them long before the internet made them random internet myths and knew that getting people, they didn't like sick, AIDS and all, made them easy targets.
What they didn't realize's that these things aren't trained Rottweilers.
They don't have the same thought processes.
Guess when a politician hiding something he shouldn't got his when one came knocking's when they finally realized what trouble they're in.
Ever wondered why governments and power people get the better healthcare than the commoners?
Maybe they have more money in the world than gold in Fort Knox or they don't want to meet the same fate as those who weren't lucky.
"But those are just the males, how dangerous are the females?" Theodore pointed out that Al's talking about the males that devour sick and lame like a buffet and aren't known for thinking about the differences between a rich and poor person.
Shrugging, Al says he doesn't know, but if he's able to have an educated guess, that they probably hadn't come up, since they don't eat the same things as their counterparts.
If they did, the people who're keeping the secrets probably realized that they weren't useful to them, but knew better not to mess with them.
There's always a story.
"Do we have any leads regarding what they're called, at least?" Theodore exhaled sharply as he paced around the console room.
They don't have an official name for them and Al mentioned that he has loose translations, but the actual names, no clue.
"For the males' "He Who Hunts on Darkest Nights on Blackest Wings" and for females' "She Who Takes Flight on Brightest Days on Whitest Wings" I think they might be Cherokee in origin, I don't know," Al shrugged as he came up with the loosest translations of the two's names.
Stopping in his spot, Theodore asks if Al can do him a favour.
"Sure, what is it?" Al looked at Theodore with interest.
Theodore leaned forward with seriousness in his icy blue eyes as he asked, "Get me an interview with Lovett, tomorrow. I want to know what's going on."
TO BE CONTINUED ON "ANGELS IN THE GARDEN"