Title: Night of the Living Dessert part 2.
Author: Cyber Moggy
Disclaimer: Dr Who and its characters belong to the BBC. Dunvworpin
is the creation of Daibhid Ceanaideach. The monster, I'm sorry to
say, is my creation.


Thunder rumbled around the township, long and low, following in the
wake of brilliant blue flashes of light. The sound and light show
flashed and crashed with such regularity that it was virtually
impossible to tell whether the light came before the sound, or vice
versa. In Nameless, anything was possible.

Nameless huddled under the assault. People curled up in their beds, or
on sofas in front of open fireplaces, or talked and laughed loudly in
the 'Round – anything to separate themselves from the storm outside.

In Dunvworpin, most of the windows were dark. One window on the ground
floor of the main building was lit, but it was the only one. It was
the room where the night staff gathered while they were not doing
their rounds, checking on the residents.

A couple of floors above, Jon Doctor was groping about under his bed,
trying to find the outfit he'd hidden there. He stifled a curse as he
pulled out the spare smoking jacket that he'd lost last week and three
socks (none of which had partners). He had definitely hidden the
costume under there, in a duffel bag. Where the hell...

Eventually, a particularly well-placed bolt of lightning lit the space
under his bed, and Jon spotted the duffel bag. He reached for it, and
pulled it out. Finally, he thought, and tipped the bag's contents out
onto the bed. Wig, silly hat, dress, stockings, cardigan, sensible
shoes... It was all there.

Another flash of lightning, followed by a much louder, sharper clap of
thunder, rocked the building. Dark and stormy, Jon thought as he
struggled into his nurse's uniform. How cliche'd. How typical. Why
can't the author be a bit more imaginative? Neither expecting nor
receiving a reply to this mental grumble, he put the anti-grav unit in
his pocket, grabbed his cane, and went to the door. He looked both
ways, and suppressed a shudder. Institution Green was not a colour
that improved under the fluorescent glare of the corridor lights.

He closed the door again, and waited for the brisk steps of the night
nurse doing her rounds – she was as regular as clockwork – so regular
that Jon occasionally wondered if the Manager was using those
clockwork automatons from the SS Madame de Pompadour as nurses again.
He'd promised not to after that incident when the Rani had taken
control of them to act as her servants so she could conduct genetic
experiments on the rest of the inmates.

A couple of minutes passed, and Jon heard her footsteps in the
distance, coming down the corridor. He stood as still as possible,
willing his joints not to crack before she was out of hearing distance
again. This wouldn't be the first plot that had been foiled by the
participants' cracking joints, and he was certain that it would happen
to plots in the future – as long as it didn't happen to his plots, he
would be happy.

Fortunately, his joints behaved, and when the sound of her footsteps
finally died away, he sighed with relief and opened the door. She
wouldn't be back for three hours – more than enough time for them all
to enjoy an illicit chocolate mousse. He slipped out of his room and
down the corridor. He paused at the door next to his and rapped on the
door.

Mike Yates opened the door, already dressed in his nurse's uniform. Jo
Grant and Captain Hawkins were standing behind him – the latter
snapped off a salute. “All present and correct,” Mike whispered with a
grin.

“I'll go get the mousse,” Jon told them, “you three gather the others.
And don't forget Roger – if he doesn't get any, he'll rat us out to
Matron.”

“He would, too,” Mike agreed darkly.

“I'll wake him,” Jo volunteered.

Without another word, they split up and left to take on their tasks.
Jon headed towards the hidden store room. It was more dangerous this
time – one false move and the night staff, whose room was close to
Matron's office and just around the corner, would hear him and the jig
would be up. He wasn't able to run from trouble any more (and it was
at times like this that he was reminded of precisely why most
Timelords preferred to confine themselves to old age on Gallifrey),
and Matron had been threatening to add sedatives to his evening meal
for years now.

Come to think of it, she'd been making that threat to all of the
Doctors. Young David was the only one she'd actually tried it on (and
Young David was definitely canny enough to know when he could swallow,
and when he shouldn't, much to Matron's dismay.).

Fortunately for his arrival, all the nurses were in other parts of the
building – Jon expected them to arrive back at the staff room whilst
he was in the store room. He slipped into the store room undetected,
and quickly retrieved the mousse from the fridge. He clapped the anti-
grav unit to it again, and went to the door to listen.

As expected, he could hear footsteps outside. Jon held his breath as
he stood as still as possible once again. Elderly joints did not go
naturally with stealth. As he waited, the box in his hands twitched.
He frowned at it, but it didn't move again.

The moment the footsteps had turned the corner, Jon slid the door open
by a crack and peered out. Once again, the nurses were making their
rounds strictly by the book. He frowned. He really should investigate
them. The manager preferred the night nurses to be a little less
predictable in their activities – he'd long since learned that Doctors
rarely slept, and were much more likely to get up to no good once the
night staff were on. But then again, investigating the night nurses
would interfere with their dessert plans. Perhaps he should wait for a
few nights before he checked it out.

Jon nodded decisively, and headed to their meeting place with his
precious cargo, decision made.

The communal dining room was a very convenient shape. If all the
internal divisions were removed, it would be a very large, rectangular
room. As it was, it was a room with a walled and secure kitchen at one
end. The entrance to the dining room was on the same wall as the
kitchen, and this meant that there was a very useful collection of
chairs and tables that were invisible to anybody who happened to poke
their heads into the room.

As Jon entered, he had to move even more slowly. The room was dark.
Not even the faintest flicker of light could be seen. He walked
through the room, being careful not to bump into any chairs. A veteran
of this sort of midnight plotting, he had in his early days learned
the hard way that crashing around in the dining room was a noise that
could be heard all over the building – particularly by the nurses.

As he rounded the corner, he heard a chair scrape. “It's alright,” he
hissed. “It's me – the Doctor.”

“What's the password?” a voice hissed back suspiciously.

“Password? Password?” Jon replied indignantly. “We didn't set one up!
And you know full well what I sound like, Mike.”

There was a sigh of relief, and a lantern was turned up. Jon could see
that everybody was there. “Roger put you up to that, didn't he?” he
asked Mike, who had a faint grin on his face.

“I'm quite capable of coming up with my own silly jokes and
hairbrained schemes without any help from the Master, thank you very
much,” Mike replied with as much dignity as he could muster.

Roger Master snorted, but said nothing.

"Hairbrained is right," Jon muttered, but set the box on the table.

"Who's a pretty dessert, then," Jack Harkness crooned at the box as
Jon opened it, prompting everybody to roll their eyes at him.

"I can't believe you are actually prepared to flirt with a chocolate
mousse," Liz said as the three 'nurses' handed the tubs around.

"Well, hello there," Jack told his tub as it was handed to him.
"Chocolate mousse is about all I can summon up the interest for these
days," he added. "My stomach is by far more active than the rest of
me is."

"Ah, the joys of old age," Benton cracked, and ripped the plastic top
of his tub. Before he could take a bite, though, he reeled back in
disgust. "Doctor, who did you get these from?" he asked.

"Sabalom Glitz," Jon said. "Why?"

"Figures," Benton replied. "Smell them."

"I haven't got a sense of smell any more," Jon said.

The others glared at him, ripped the tops off theirs, and sniffed.
"That's revolting!" Jo exclaimed, not bothering to be quiet any more.
She prodded her mousse with her spoon, an expression of distaste on
her face. Seconds later, she screamed and threw the tub away from
her. She got to her feet, scuttled around to where Mike was sitting,
and buried her face in his shoulder. "It moved," she whimpered. "It
tried to dodge my spoon!"

Liz prodded hers, and her dessert reacted the same way Jo's had. The
Brigadier looked faintly disappointed that her only reaction was an
expression of disgust.

Jon went and collected them, and dumped them into the box. "Put them
all back in here," he ordered, "and I'll have a little chat with Mr
Glitz tomorrow."

"Doctor, I can't believe you actually trusted Glitz to give you
something that wasn't shoddy," Roger said distainfully. "You know
what he's like."

"Well, it's not like I have much choice in the matter," Jon shot
back. "Getting decent supplies to Nameless is really quite tricky,
you know."

"Has it ever occurred to you that that is why Matron never gives us
these things?"

"You didn't have to come along tonight, you know," the Brigadier
pointed out.

Roger slumped down in his chair. "It was too much to hope for," he
grumbled, "that you could have done this properly."

"Are you saying you think we are incompetent at sneaking about?" the
Brigadier demanded.

The box of elderly desserts sat on the table, largely forgotten as
they bickered and argued. The others were all riveted to the
discussion, and nobody noticed as the box started to shake. Nobody
noticed, that is, until the box split apart with a roar and a powerful
whiff of rotten dairy products.

Everybody turned around. "Shut up!" Harry hissed urgently at the
thing on the table where the box had been. "Do you want the nurses to
hear?"

"What is that thing?" Jo asked, hiding behind Mike.

"Whose bright idea was it to create an elderly chocolate mousse
monster?" Roger Master asked disdainfully.

The monster lunged for the Master, and had it not been decidedly past
its use-by date, it might have succeeded in doing him some serious
damage. As it was, the monster started a lunge, and then froze. It
roared again, this time in pain.

The others exchanged glances.

"Arrrrgh!" the monster exclaimed. "I can't move!"

"Okay," Jon declared. "Who has been writing crack!fic?"

"How did you know I came from crack!fic?" the monster asked.

"You're made from chocolate mousse. What else could you be from?"

The monster groaned. "Has anybody got something for arthritis?" it
asked.

Before anybody could say anything else, several night nurses arrived
at a run. They skidded to a halt as they saw the monster. The
monster creaked as it turned painfully to face them. "Is there
anything that can be done for a chocolate mousse which suffers from
arthritis?" it asked them plainitively.

The next day, the culprits were gathered together in the Manager's
office, with Matron.

"Now listen, you lot," she said, "There's a reason why you don't get
desserts with dairy products. We simply can't get a reliable supply.
Do you understand?"

They nodded glumly.

"Do you have anything to say?"

They shook their heads.

"Do you have any questions?"

"What's happened to the monster?" Jo asked. "Is it alright?"

"Alright?" Jon exclaimed. "It tried to eat Roger!"

"We can give it a medal for that later," the Brigadier replied.

"The poor thing was scared!" Jo protested indignantly.

"It's in the Retired Monster's Wing," Matron told her soothingly, "and
it's being taken good care of."

"This place has a retired monster's wing?"

As they promised faithfully not to do it again, and then filed out of
the office, Matron turned to the Manager. "The things they don't tell
you when you start working here," she said with a sigh.



Part One

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