The greater part of Suffolk's recollections were shard-like memories of things of no consequence, the ravings of a man drugged out of his mind on anti-psychotic, primitive, twentieth century medicine. Snippets of information seeped through the fog, vibrant pockets of brilliance shrouded by a host of invasive medical treatments that had stolen years of the man's life. His dreams, the most lucid of them at least, were horrific. Nights filled with aliens and monsters littered his childhood, all number of beasties had visited him in the realms of sleep.
Some of the dreams were just nightmares, images conjured by the fears of a terrified mind, but others… others were too close to reality to be ignored. According to the Doctor's watch, which was never wrong, it was 1996. The Slitheen wouldn't be around for another ten years, but Suffolk had described them, and the events of that first, official, alien invasion of Earth in more detail than it would have been possible to predict. He spoke in a distant, guttural voice, his eyes focused on a place far beyond the room in which he sat, pausing only to ask for a sip of water which the Doctor had considerately provided, holding the plastic cup to the man's lips while he drank.
When he began speaking again his gaze had changed, his white eyes turned to look at the Doctor, his tone more gentle somehow.
"I watched you die," he said, all traces of previous brevity on the subject wiped clean from his face, "Alone, here, in this place. In the belly of the beast."
"Soon?"
Suffolk nodded, "You will fight the daemon in the night. Its breath will fall on your face. I can smell it. It reeks of decay, a dead beast. It has taken others, others from this place. It consumes them, the sick, the infirm, the insane. They feed it when no-one is looking. Discharges, all pale and feeble, he gobbles them up and they make him stronger."
The Doctor's face had taken on a darker countenance, "Describe it."
Fear welled up with tears, "Please… don't make me look," his voice had changed to that of a small child, terrified of something it did not want to see. The monster under the bed.
"If I'm going to fight it I have to know what it is," his own voice was quiet, calm, reassuring. The Doctor stood and walked around the table taking a new position crouched down looking up at Suffolk's face. He reached out and squeezed Suffolk's restrained hand encouragingly, "Whatever it is, it can't hurt you. I won't let it."
Wrong move. Suffolk stared at the Doctor's hand as it touched his, eyes wide. Tears poured down white cheeks, brimming over the red edges of his eyes and cascading as a mini waterfall over the line of his chin, splashing onto the straight jacket which absorbed the liquid greedily. Squeezing the hand a little tighter for a second the Doctor stood and rested another hand on the man's shaking back, aware suddenly that the nurse was standing at the door again urgently ushering other's to join her in her as she opened the door and barged in with a trolley full of medication.
"Medication time," the nurse said brandishing a syringe with rather too much enjoyment in her face, "Come on then Mr Suffolk we can't be having these outbursts of yours, you disturb the rest of the ward. Lets get you off to your room and you can have a nice little sleep."
The Doctor was unceremoniously pushed aside and he watched with rising anger as Suffolk was bundled into a wheelchair and pushed out of the room by the well manicured nurse and two burly health care assistants. Swallowing his desire to stand between them and the door he looked on with disgust, vowing silently to deal with the human element, the moment he was done with the alien in the basement.
He stalked through the corridors of the Victorian building eyeing the damp spots on the walls, inhaling the smell of 'fresh pine' cleaning products, and absorbing the uncomfortable silence that was broken only by the radio which hummed quietly in the staff room at the end of the corridor. The hands on the clock at the end of the ward ticked over to 3pm. His shoes squeaked the length of the building, bringing a smile to his tightly pursed lips. Even his shoes defied the ward staff's regulations. Good shoes.
Rounding a corner at some speed he spotted a door labelled "Smoking Room" where a quiet conversation seemed to be taking place. He grinned. Someone else didn't like the silence. With an added spring in his step he gripped the door handle and pushed his way into the room.