Throughout the day, Theodore did his duties, watching his back as he did, tracking every person he passed that worked for the mental hospital.
As he worked, he overheard one of the orderlies telling another that Nancy's outbursts required heavy sedation, she attempted violence against her doctor and the orderlies bringing her back to her room.
There's talk of transferring Nancy to another mental hospital, since she's becoming increasingly difficult, and with what Theodore's learnt over the span of two days, he knew that wherever Nancy went, they'll drug her until she's compliant, if she's lucky.
For Tommy, he couldn't hear much about him, but he managed to sneak a peak of an orderly's mind.
A police cruiser's coming to the mental hospital in an hour, before sundown, instructions have Tommy released into the custody of the police, pending charges of murder.
Seeing orderlies coming back and forth from his room, collecting masks in boxes, Theodore sees the masks roughly sticking out of the boxes, the orderlies having no care as they stacked the masks on top of each other, trying to clean out Tommy's room.
He ended up trying to ask what'll become of Tommy's things and an orderly bluntly stated that since Tommy didn't have any relatives they're able to get into contact with to send his belongings, they have no choice but to dispose of them.
They don't have any options, there's no storage, no one claiming them, they can't take them, it's a hairy mess unto itself trying to find someone that's legally allowed.
The orderly passed him with the box of masks and as they did, there's a look on Theodore's face, and he chewed on his bottom lip as he's trying to think of something.
No, this just won't do, he won't let this sweep under the rug easily!
Deep in his thoughts, he ended up coming up with another plan, and he reached out to Al once more, asking for the TARDIS' help.
They knew Tommy's innocent and the mental hospital's corrupt administration's bound to paint him as the culprit of Mark's murder.
"Enough gawking, either help with the load, or follow your sheet!" Theodore snapped back as he saw George in front of him, annoyed that Theodore's daydreaming while on the job, and Theodore apologized for the slight, before heading on with his day.
He passed by Lila and she managed to tell him that they've got Tommy in solitary confinement while they're waiting for the police.
"I went by, but the security guards wouldn't let me get too close," she tells him with worry in her chestnut eyes.
The security guards wouldn't even let her check on him, saying Tommy's no longer her charge, under Dr. Hans' orders.
Hell, she can't even see the other patients, now, they altered her sheet.
They want her filing paperwork on them after their doctors' visits, now.
This change just happened moments ago, now she's forced to return to the area they got their sheets from and change out hers for the new one.
Frowning, Theodore sighs as he tells Lila to follow her new assignments, there's nothing they can do for Tommy, for now, that is, but he's working on something that'll aid Tommy's defense.
"Continue as is, we'll reconvene after work," Theodore tells Lila as they moved on before someone sees them standing in the hallway talking.
Lila reminded him not to do anything stupid and Theodore responded that sometimes, doing the stupidest things are the only options they have, but he'll try reserve it for only emergencies.
"Just don't get hurt, again, Hammond's still mad about you getting blitzed by a Dalek," Lila said in passing as she disappeared further down the hallway, leaving Theodore scoffing as he muttered that it was a mere miscalculation.
He gets burnt by a Dalek's ray and his brother thinks he's at death's door!
The day continued until the grey skies darkened and the breeze picked up as the trees creaked and groaned.
Orderlies turned in their badges and they're escorted out of the building.
Theodore and Lila snuck away from the crowd as they waited for their bus, among them, they noticed doctors and nurses, but no sign of Dr. Hans.
Overhearing them as they snuck behind the trees, the doctors and nurses mentioned that it's unusual for them going home, more when they're asked not to return tomorrow.
Looking at each other, Theodore and Lila turned their heads as the bus arrived, taking the crowd away back to their cars at the parking spot further down the road.
Ducking behind the trees, they returned to the TARDIS where they went over the plan once more with Al.
He told them he dug around on everything pertaining to Dr. Hans, finding that he's been a doctor for over thirty years, and been head of hospitals until he transferred to the mental hospital.
"And here's the thing, the hospitals he worked at, reported people going missing from the grounds, too," Al mentioned as he looked between the two while holding his lit cigarette. "Security cameras were tampered with and I guess Hans screwed up, his fingerprint was on one of the security cameras that he pointed away from the back doors."
Hearing this, Theodore expressed interest on how Dr. Hans avoided scrutiny and prosecution from this, unsurprisingly, someone above him worked out something, and this' the only way Dr. Hans came out clean while they threw someone under the bus, literary.
"What in the hell's name's going on, here, you're telling me that they're willingly handing over patients to these things, and no one's breathing this to the press?" Lila's aggravated as she paced around the TARDIS, seething that people willingly turned over others to creatures that'll either kill them or turn them into more like them.
Sighing, Al says to her that there's been numerous attempts at sounding the alarm to the conspiracy, but many times, failed one way or another, one attempt that he remembers, a journalist attempted exposing a mayor for allowing the massacre of countless homeless people by the male variant, just so he could claim he cleaned the city.
"At the end of it, the mayor and the broad that came up with the idea both got iced, wasn't pretty," Al summed what happened to those two after the news broke, they allowed countless individuals to die by the hands of "rabid" animals.
As for the journalist in question, Al says that he became one of the male variants, the big one at the time saw something it liked in him, and that was all he wrote.
"And before you ask me, there's nothing we can do, once they're picked, nothing short of death's gonna stop these things from clawing after them," Al warned that they'll never save people who're picked by the creatures.
Once they're chosen, nothing's gonna stop them, nothing, killing them's nigh impossible, and suicidal. They'll keep coming until they get who they're after, bloodshed if they have to, and nobody's ever successfully located their nests and survived to tell a soul.
"What the hell are these things?" Lila threw up her arms in agitation as it's sounding less and less possible for them to do anything except plant rosemary, flash bright lights, do something and hope they stayed away, but only for the male variants.
Seems like there's nothing stopping the females from killing them!
Shrugging his polka dotted puffy shoulders, Al tells her that he knows as much as she does, at one point, they were human, but now, they're not.
The only thing about them left that tells a person this' their eyes and that's it.
Believe him, many tried finding out about them before, but to no avail. It doesn't help these things can see rifts and tears like Theodore and interact with them.
Who knows how many worlds over have them hidden away?
Don't even want to begin thinking about how many using them as ways to rid their perceived undesirables.
Even if they stumbled over the source for these variants, they don't even know if they're capable of stopping them, much less prevent their entire existence.
"We'll do what we can, now, is there anything you can tell us more about Dr. Hans?" Theodore asks Al if he knew anything that might've helped them if they needed it and Al replied that Dr. Hans talked with someone at the administration nightly for the last couple of weeks.
Around the time the female variants came.
"If I had to give my educated guess, kid, I think he's trying to buy time, figure out which one they're after, and let them take their pick. Safer for the lot of them," Al shrugged as he suggested that since Dr. Hans' familiar, he'd know the signs that they're attempting to take someone, again.
Lila wondered who they're after and Al said that he can't help them with that.
As they're throwing ideals around, it then came to them, that the doctor orders his patients' sedation, that way, they can't fight back, when the time came, thus leaving the doors unlocked.
It'd explain why there's no orderlies at night, why the doctors and nurses lived upstairs… but then, they all left tonight. Something strikingly unusual for them and given their surprise, it's not happened before.
"The males wanted Jon, but he set the fire, so Dr. Hans had to send him away, because he couldn't supersede the rules, then. What about the other patient that left, did she ever turn up at the new hospital?" Lila looked towards Al as they needed everything, they can get their hands on and Al summed that it showed that Sara arrived at the new hospital.
However, that's it.
It says she arrived, but he never found anything short of a transfer slip. No history of medications taken since she arrived, nothing.
Theodore asked about Jon and Al said that it said the same thing.
He arrived at his new hospital, but again, nothing.
Al did find a news report of a violent animal attack at a park nearby that happened late at night, the victim was a male about the same age and height as Jon.
The hospital never declared Jon missing or dead.
"So, the females took Sara and the males killed Jon. What about, now?" Lila wondered as they're wracking their brains.
Thinking, Theodore said that the candidates that came to mind's Trudy. Maybe it's her condition, but the fact that she's drawing the same set of women in the fields outside the hospital's too much of a coincidence.
"What about Tommy?" Lila asked if he's at risk, he made a mask similar to the male variant and Theodore sighed as he doesn't know for sure.
Leading Al wondering about Mark.
"He wasn't sick, that much I got out of it," Theodore pondered their missing link.
All they know's he stole Tommy's mask and somehow ended up outside at night, where he died.
"So, Mark stole Tommy's mask, they get into a confrontation, it's broken up by the security guards, and maybe someone unlocked the doors before bed check, letting him get outside with the mask, so he can prank the security guards," Lila summed the timeline as she stopped pacing as Theodore held a hand under his chin. "Why would they kill him, he wasn't sick, Lovett said it himself, the males moved on after Jon transferred. The females don't come out at night."
It didn't make sense and Theodore opted to agree with her until Al mentioned he did have one file that he didn't bring out, yet.
When asked, Al said it's a file detailing a case of someone dressed like a plague doctor ending up violently murdered by an unknown assailant.
Didn't think of it until he read between the lines and the timing.
"Maybe they just don't like imitators?" Al suggested that they took offense to Mark looking like one of them and killed him.
Not because he accidentally stumbled into places he shouldn't, sick, but because he committed a cardinal sin among the variants.
"So, they killed him over the mask?" Lila eyed Al with concerns as the TARDIS nodded, saying that it's possible they knew from a mile away he wasn't one of them and acted accordingly.
"Did you know plague doctors' costumes were based on the male variants?" Al looked between the two as they stared at him. "They thought that they repelled the sickness and seemingly drew it out from victims. The hidden herbs in the noses' not just them thinking that it'll keep them healthy."
Oh yes, odd history that, people chose to remember the costumes as an oddity born of desperation during one of the harsh periods of human history, but they're based on male variants that ended up in that time period, they made their mark without anyone knowing, tearing through victims of the plague that ended up on that little island with no one around or willing to help them as their wails echoed throughout the night.
Problem's that they can smell through the costumes and react accordingly.
Not very well, mostly.
Hence the sachets of herbs stuck in the hollow noses.
Nobody ever found out for certain that it was their doing, since news didn't spread like fire as it does now, and they used the lack of infrastructure for their own purposes, nobody spotted them.
By the time anyone had a clue, they've already moved on to their next destination, their mark a myth.
Never gonna look at a plague doctor costume the same way again.
"Pretty sure valkyries came from the females, well, at least their designs, don't think they eat nightshade by the bushel," Al mentioned.