The Monk's Altar

Chapter 15

Rose waited for the knife to pierce her chest, waited for the strike of it, the metal in her beating heart.  It didn't come.  What did come was a cry from the Doctor that made her eyes shoot open.  He looked like he'd had some sort of epiphany and she watched him carefully.  Kelickte looked confused and he sagged a little. 

"Look, Doctor, I don't mean to be the bad guy here.  I'm just doing-"

"What you think is right," the Doctor interrupted, not taking his eyes from Rose.  "What you think you should do, what your gods tell you, or anyone above you, for that matter.  You're wrong."

Kelickte sputtered in a frustrated sort of way, flailing his hands. "I'm not," he protested.  "There are many things of loyalty to consider, Doctor?"

"Have you considered that you don't have a pure humans on your hands?"

All eyes turned to one of the stone windows above the waterfall.  Lekan stood there, his eyes roaring and piercing all at the same time.  Rose felt her breath hitch in fear.  She knew Lekan was on her side, but she had never seen his expression look quite so terrifying. 

It was then that his actual words hit her.  Not a pure human? What was that supposed to mean?  Feeling afraid, she wriggled in her bonds, and Kelickte pressed the button on his remote that sent stabbing pain through the back of her wrist.  She cried out and the Doctor turned on Kelickte, his hands balling in fists at his sides.  He raised it to strike, and Lekan's voice boomed out over all of them. 

"Stop!"  

Rose knew that Lekan stopped the Doctor to save him, that something horrible truly would've happened had he simply hit Kelickte.  That didn't stop her from whimpering at all the different kinds of pain she was feeling shoot through her body.  Soreness in her back, an ache in her jaw, and prickling pains that made her eyes water in her ankles and wrist. 

"What is the meaning of this?" Kelickte sputtered, eyes flashing. 

"She is not human." Lekan repeated calmly, leaning his hands on the sill of the carved out stone.  "She is yet locked beneath the surface of a human." 

Kelickte and his men looked worried, all whispering to each other in confusion.  Rose had to admit that she was rather confused too, as well as tired of being the damsel in distress here.  She wanted to be standing at the Doctor's side, helping, fighting, doing something for the greater good instead of just lying here. Couldn't her identity wait?  She wanted to know just as much as anyone else but-

The Doctor looked confused as well.  His gaze fell to her in a way that left her feeling vulnerable and completely exposed.  He swallowed heavily and looked to Lekan briefly before addressing the crowd of aliens before him.  "She..."

"She swallowed time, Doctor," Lekan reminded him, "That precious girl is a production of the purest form of love.  She is not human."

"Then what is she?" Kelickte demanded.  "What percent human is she?"

"Fifty, now," Lekan said calmly, "It will decrease as she ages, if the right steps towards the right timeline are taken."

The Doctor seemed to be sifting through something very confusing in his mind, his brown eyes flicking back an forth as though reading or seeing a thousand things at once.  This was not simple, it would never be simple, she knew that and watched him carefully.  His mind was locked on something, trying to puzzle out...

If Rose was thinking correctly, he was puzzling out how to keep her alive for the longest amount of time possible.  Her heart swelled and she wished she could break her bonds to go to him.  She knew wriggling any more would cause in the absolute destruction of her hands and dared not risk it, didn't even risk a tiny whimper that threatened to tear from her throat.