The Monk's Altar

Chapter 12

The Doctor woke up expecting to be curled up around Rose as he was every other night they had been on Jebraxa. He noticed that he was on his side, facing the door, presumably turned away from her. That in itself was not an alarming fact.

What was alarming was the fact that he could feel that at some point in the night, he had been drugged, sedated. He pried his eyes open in confusion and sat up. He felt groggy, which was not normal for a Time Lord, they usually just snapped awake, fully charged, and went about their days.

This wasn't like that. He felt almost human with the way he wanted to succumb back to sleep, with the way it was pulling at him. He glanced to his left, where Rose's body should've been... But wasn't.

He furrowed his brows and sprung out of bed. Now that was unacceptable. Rose always stayed in bed until he was awake or got out of the bed, if he slept at all. If he left her at some point in the night, there was no cause for alarm, because he was a bloody Time Lord and didn't sleep quite as much.

Rose, though. Rose should sleep eight hours a night, at least, and if she wasn't here, if she had disappeared. He glanced to the en suite door to find it open and charged in, shouting for her. The room wasn't very big, so realistically, she should have called to him after the fist time her name had slipped past his lips.

She hadn't. She wasn't here.

Panic rose like bile up from the Doctor's stomach and into his mouth, forcing a choked sound out of him. He rushed to the door of the room and checked the lock. It was perfectly in tact, there had been no break ins during the night. Her day clothes were still here, piled and folded next to the items he had discarded for the night. He furrowed his brows. That meant she hadn't left the room of her own will.

His hands started to shake in fury and fear as he fumbled for the sonic screwdriver, bending down to his thrown jacket to do so. The second he picked it up a reading went off and his hearts sank in his chest. He blew out a shaky sigh.

This was very simple. There had been a teleportation field that he hadn't seen, lodged under the bed, and as a result of his idiocy, Rose was gone. He sat down heavily on the bed and ran his hands through his hair. The sonic gave him another reading, and he glanced down at it mournfully before picking it up to check it.

The field was gone. It had been removed that morning, very early that morning. What had happened was no mystery. She'd been taken and he'd been drugged to ensure that no one would come after her. His breathing was ragged and he dressed in a flash before tearing out of the hotel and practically running all the way back to the monastery.

As some would say, he had tapes to check.

***

He was exhausted from the adrenaline and running when he got to the monastery, but couldn't be bothered with it. He also hadn't eaten. He ran into Lekan, whose eyes were widened in shock.

"Doctor! What is it?"

The Doctor carded his hand through his hair, still breathing heavily. "They've taken Rose. Whoever is behind this has taken Rose. I've got some things to check, my devices, I can't-I won't-"

Lekan's eyes softened at the panic flooding through the Doctor. Even if he could not see, there were things that Lekan could. "Go, Doctor. You must find her in some way."

He felt his hearts clench. "Yes, I do," he whispered. He vanished from Lekan's side, taking off to his and Rose's room to look over the monitoring system on his device.

The Doctor felt as though he'd been struck in the throat when he entered their room, the scent of her perfume assaulting him immediately. He took a seat on the bed, which only smelled more strongly of her, and removed the monitor from his pocket.