One must always accept the unexpected.
The Doctor had been changing his clothes for his date with Chase when he noticed it. It being that the treehouse was too damned quiet for his liking. Usually there were people going in and out and talking and slamming doors and House yammering at Atalanta about getting OFF his fucking laundry goddamned mutt...
This was, however, a subtler quiet than just everyone being out. It was almost eerie, and the Doctor loathed eerie things. Bounding to his feet, he looked in every room, starting with Chase's, then heading back to the top to Jack's and all the way down. Or, at least, halfway down, because when he got to Romana's, he stopped.
Fred had been quiet lately anyway, but there was something about the way her door stood open halfway that chilled him--far too casual for anything she would ever do. The hat that she had left, sitting on top of the bookshelf, that she didn't go most places without when it was sunny, was gone; a pair of combat boots lay tipped over in a way that was neither efficient nor aesthetic nor scientifically interesting.
And he knew. Which meant he also knew that she was dead, once more. It was like having killed Gallifrey all over again. He moaned, sagged against the doorframe and stared into the room. It might have held the faint sicklyfruit odor of jelly babies for a moment.
But that was probably just his imagination.
((My apologies for the second Reacting To Disappearance post of the day, but it had to be done. Feel free to have heard him from outside and call up through the window. Quote from DW 18x1, 'The Leisure Hive'.))
This was, however, a subtler quiet than just everyone being out. It was almost eerie, and the Doctor loathed eerie things. Bounding to his feet, he looked in every room, starting with Chase's, then heading back to the top to Jack's and all the way down. Or, at least, halfway down, because when he got to Romana's, he stopped.
Fred had been quiet lately anyway, but there was something about the way her door stood open halfway that chilled him--far too casual for anything she would ever do. The hat that she had left, sitting on top of the bookshelf, that she didn't go most places without when it was sunny, was gone; a pair of combat boots lay tipped over in a way that was neither efficient nor aesthetic nor scientifically interesting.
And he knew. Which meant he also knew that she was dead, once more. It was like having killed Gallifrey all over again. He moaned, sagged against the doorframe and stared into the room. It might have held the faint sicklyfruit odor of jelly babies for a moment.
But that was probably just his imagination.
((My apologies for the second Reacting To Disappearance post of the day, but it had to be done. Feel free to have heard him from outside and call up through the window. Quote from DW 18x1, 'The Leisure Hive'.))