amberfocus | A Sky Without Zeppelins: Chapter Seven

A/N: I've given a bit of Jonathon's backstory, matching it in a way to the losses of the Time War in the Doctor's history. His losses are similar though not so incredibly total as a world lost. Just his own personal world lost. And before anyone Britpicks about Little House on the Praire being an American thing, I talked to three Brits who all read the books when they were girls, and in my AU there's a very strong sharing of literary culture between the U.K. and the Americas, both North and South.

Chapter Seven

They decide to take a walk and Jonathon offers Rose one of his pullovers to wear as the weather had started getting chill on the way back from the grocery store. It is far too large for her, coming down to mid-thigh and her hands disappear well up the sleeves, but he grins at her and says, “I was right the other day when I said you’d look good in my clothes.”

“I’m pretty sure this is not quite what you had in mind when you said that.” He blushes and she giggles and pushes the sleeves up far enough to free her hands then shoves them into the single central pocket. He’s a little disappointed as he had been planning to take her hand again. Still, she’s agreed to date him and that means there’ll be plenty of time for that later on. Just as there will be plenty of time later for him to see her wearing that pullover and nothing else. Or nothing at all. He blushes even more deeply at that thought, knows he’s racing ahead to a future he hasn’t yet earned.

They head out and walk about a half a mile before they come to a large park. Jonathon stops at a small cart to purchase a bag of bread to feed to the pigeons and they sit on a wrought iron bench in front of a large fountain and toss their bounty at the birds, grinning at the greedy way they scramble. Rose laughs and he delights in the sound of it. Her laugh is beautiful. She is beautiful, unguarded. “So tell me about yourself,” he says.

“I think I’m the one who’s been doing most of the talking. I’ve told you a lot about me and yet I know next to nothing about you.”

“Okay, then. How about I ask you a question and then you ask me one and we go back and forth for a while until we can’t think of things to ask each other?” he suggests.

“Fine.”

He smiles at her and she bumps his shoulder with her own. Her thigh presses up against his and he aches to take her hand again, but it’s still buried in her pocket. “What’s your middle name?” he asks her.

“Marion. It was Grandma Tyler’s middle name. What about you? Jonathon what?” she asks. He looks down at his feet. “What? I told you. No need to be embarrassed. I won’t make fun of you, Jonathon.”

He sighs. “It’s Alonzo.”

“What like in the Little House on the Prairie books?” she asks.

“No, not Almanzo, Alonzo,” he says. “Jonathon Alonzo Smith.”

“Is that a family name?” Rose wants to know.

“I don’t know. I never asked,” he says with a shrug.

“Weren’t you ever curious?” she asks.

“Not really. Too late to ask anyone about it now. How old are you?” he asks.

“Almost twenty-two,” she says. “What do you mean that it’s too late to ask anyone about it now?”

“My family is dead,” he says abruptly and Rose gives a sharp intake of breath. His body has stiffened and she reacts almost immediately to the change in his posture.

“I’m sorry,” she says slipping her hand out of her pocket and twining her arm around his, giving his arm a little hug. He relaxes into her touch, the softness of her breast pushing into the underside of his arm. He hopes she stays like that for a while and wishes fervently that it were warmer and he wasn’t wearing so many layers.

“It was a long time ago,” he finally says. “Ten years. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We don’t have to,” she says. She leans her cheek against his shoulder and he can feel the warmth of her breath soaking into his body through his lightweight jacket. They’re silent for a long time as he chases indistinct memories away.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asks her finally, anxious to start the conversation again and not dwell on the vague nightmares of his past.

“Red. And yours is blue, isn’t it?”

“Blue and brown. Kind of a toss up. Though I quite like burgandy. What’s your favorite food?” he wants to know.

“Chips. Preferably with fish,” she replies. “What about you?”

“Ice cream,” he says without hesitation. She sits up and looks at him and he almost grumbles at the loss of her against his side, though her arm remains loosely in his.

“Oh, are you a vanilla kind of guy or are you into…other flavors?” The solemn mood that had settled over him lifts completely at her teasing flirt.

“I quite like vanilla,” he says, “but the trick is in the toppings. For variety you add a little whipped cream, some chocolate or strawberry sauce, maybe a banana on occasion, and definitely a maraschino cherry. I can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue.” His eyes twinkle.

Rose makes a little choking sound and her hand creeps down his arm to hold his hand. The relief he feels in her fingers threading through his overwhelms him. “I think I’d like to see you do that sometime. You sound quite talented,” she says her voice almost steady.

“Oh, I am. You’ll be amazed at what I can do,” he pauses, “with my tongue,” he adds with a grin.

“I’m sure I will be,” she says dazedly.

“It’s quite long and flexible,” he adds.

“We still talking about your tongue?” she wants to know.

“Perhaps.” She stares fixedly at the pigeons until she gets her heart rate back under control.

“Favorite music?” she asks.

“I like a little bit of almost everything. Do you have any siblings?”

“No, it’s just Mum and me. Dad died a while ago. I was four. Never really got to know him,” she says. “I barely even remember him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t miss what you never had,” she tells him, but he can tell that she’s not quite being honest. She does miss the man she never got to know.

Trying to lighten the mood he asks, “So have you ever been married?”

“No.” She laughs at the absurdity of the question. “What about you?” she throws back. He freezes. He should have known she’d ask that question in return. Of course she would. Stupid of him. He sighs.

“I’m a widower,” he tells her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--.”

“It’s my own fault. Of course you’d want an answer to that, too. It was a long time ago, Rose. Ten years.”

“You married young.”

“I was your age.”

“You only had two years with her,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” he says. He tries not to think about the boating accident that took the lives of his parents, his brother and sister, his wife, his–no; he won’t think about it, easy enough to do when it’s a dim part of his history. He remembers wanting to die for a long time afterwards, but little else. He can’t even remember when that changed or why, only that one day he woke up without suicidal thoughts.

He still doesn’t know, probably will never know, how he survived it, how they revived him when they couldn’t save anyone else. It is a cruel irony of life that he should be left alone, alive, relatively well, when everything else he ever knew and ever loved had perished that day. His entire world had ended. He is glad he can’t look at it too closely; the details, like so many other things are blurred, victims of the memory loss caused by his drowning or so he’s been told.

All he knows is that he can focus on the here and now with clarity. He’s here with Rose, it’s been ten years, he’s got a whole other life starting for himself right now and she’s already made things so much better. He buries the memories of his past as deeply as he can and forces a smile to his lips. The smile becomes genuine when he meets her eyes. He sees the future, what he wants from the future, when he looks at her. It’s a much happier place to look to than the past and he latches onto it with relief.

“The past is a long way away, Rose Tyler,” he says. “I have to live in the present. And right now, that’s a good place to be.”

“Stuck with me, that’s not so bad,” she says teasingly.

“Not bad at all and I would never call it stuck,” he says immediately. He squeezes her hand and she returns the pressure. He shifts towards her a bit on the seat and every nerve ending in his body is screaming for him to take her into his arms and kiss her even with the knowledge clear in the forefront of his mind that it’s too soon, that if he does he’ll risk scaring her away and he already knows he can’t lose her.

As if she senses what he wants she sits forward abruptly and says, “We should probably be getting back to your flat. You don’t want those wet towels to sit around for a long time.”

“Yeah,” he says, but for all he cares the towels could disintegrate if he got to kiss her all afternoon instead. She stands up and trots over to a rubbish bin to dispose of the empty bread bag and then turns back to him. He gets on his feet and comes over to her side and she smiles at him. He scoops her hand into his before it can disappear into her pocket and she doesn’t resist and they start the walk back to his home, his thumb caressing the back of her hand as they go.

Rose is filled with a jumble of emotions as she pulls the sheets out of Jonathon’s dryer and heads with them to his bedroom. The back of her hand is still tingling from where he kept stroking it and her stomach is full of butterflies. Jonathon puts the towels into the dryer and then follows her into his room. She tries not to think about the fact that he almost kissed her back in the park. At least she thinks he almost kissed her. She doesn’t have proof and it’s not like she gave him the chance. It’s too soon. She isn’t even sure that after the date on Tuesday it won’t be too soon.

She wants it, too soon or not. It doesn’t matter what her hormones are telling her though, this needs to go slow, it can’t interfere with school; it can’t make her lose her judgment or throw caution to the wind. She dumps one set of sheets on the bureau and takes the bottom sheet of the teal set and flicks it out over the bed. Jonathon grabs the other side and they tuck the fitted sheet into place. Together they pull the flat sheet up from the bottom then add one of the micro fleece blankets and the duvet.

Rose helps him shake the pillows down into the pillow cases and shams and sets them at the head of the bed and then folds up the other blanket and puts it away in one of the bottom drawers of his dresser. “It looks very nice,” she says. She forces her eyes away from the bed, away from thoughts of stretching out on that bed with him, with Jonathon. She helps him fold up the spare sheets and pillow cases and he tucks them into the same drawer she put the blanket in.

“I should be heading home,” Rose says reluctantly. Her eyes stray back to the bed and she thinks again of how lovely it would be to just lay down on that bed, maybe snuggle into him. Nothing more than that, though her body aches for the contact holding him would bring. She forces the desire back down. “You’re all set up now, or as good as you can be until they deliver the rest of your furniture next week.”

“Oh, but I wanted to take you out for dinner to say thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” Jonathon protests.

“But you took me out to lunch,” she tells him.

“I know, but…please, Rose, I don’t want to eat alone. I’ve been doing it ever since I got to London and it’s lonesome. When I’m with you, I don’t feel lonely,” he replies. “I feel…happy.”

Rose bites her lip, because being with him makes her happier than she can ever remember being, and then says, “How about I just make something here? You’ve got plenty of food in now and we can have a picnic on the living room floor.”

“But I’m supposed to be thanking you, not making you cook for me,” he protests.

“You’re not making me do anything. I volunteered. Besides, you said you were rubbish at cooking. I’m going to teach you how not to be,” she says. “Maybe we can make a habit of it.”

He smiles at the idea of her teaching him how to cook. “I’d like that.”

Before he knows what hit him he is busily cutting up vegetables and she is cutting chicken into small strips and heating oil in the electric wok. She teaches him to make a simple stir-fry without burning it and spreading a freshly dried towel out on the living room floor as their tablecloth they proceed to eat the quick meal.

“Now,” Rose says, “I really do need to go home. I’ve got two buses and it’ll take me an hour to get there.”

“Let me get a cab for you,” he says.

She’s embarrassed to admit that she has no money for a cab, but she manages to say the words. “I can get it,” he says.

“Look, Jonathon, you can’t pay for everything,” she tells him.

“Why not? You’re here because of me, you stayed late because of me. And I’ve got the good job and you’re the struggling student. It’s just money,” he says with a shrug.

“Easy to say when you don’t have to struggle just to get by on what little you do have,” she retorts.

“So let me. I have plenty. I can afford it.”

“I can afford to get myself home. On the bus. I have a bus pass.” Her pride has been stung awake. “I’m not going to be…” She stops, changes what she was going to say. “I can pull my own weight.”

“I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t.” His eyes are troubled. “Rose, I just wanted to get you home quicker, safer. That’s all. I know you still have some studying to do tonight.”

“Look, don’t brush this aside. It’s important to me that you understand.” She stops, pushing her hair back from her face and bites her lip. She takes a deep breath. “I’ve had boys and men spend money on me before, tell me not to worry about my end, and then,” her eyes meet his, “well, then they expect me to have sex with them just because they spent so much money.”

He looks genuinely startled. “That’s not…I wouldn’t do that to you, Rose. The last thing I want to do is push you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. When we make love I want it to be right for you.”

“When we make love?” she asks arching her eyebrows at his presumptuous words.

He strides over to her side and takes her hands in his. “Yes, Rose. When. I have every intention of becoming your lover.” His eyes are dark and his voice is rich, the husky timbre back, the Scottish accent strong. She stares at his mouth, the desire to kiss him never stronger than it is at this moment. “But I will wait however long it takes until you are ready. And no amount of money that I spend on you in any way, shape or form will be used to coerce you into my bed.”

She glances over at his bed so that she can have a brief respite from the look in his eyes. “Really?” she whispers.

He reaches out and cradles her jaw in his hand, his thumb brushing against her cheekbone and she has to bite down to keep from letting forth a small whimper at his touch. “I promise.” She can’t help herself. She closes the distance between their bodies and wraps her arms around him, hugging him close. His arms envelop her gently, giving her the ability to pull back from him at any time. She buries her face in his chest so she is not tempted to raise her face to his for a kiss.

Slowly one of his hands creeps down to the small of her back and begins drawing lazy circles while the other rises to stroke her hair. She can feel his desire against her stomach, but he doesn’t push himself aggressively into her like other men have done. It’s simply there. He doesn’t try to hide it, but he doesn’t make her feel like she needs to do anything about it, either. They stand together for a long time, just holding on and letting time pass them by, their hearts beating together in a rhythm that is strangely familiar though she knows she’s never felt it before. When he finally pulls back from her he says, “In your own time, Rose Tyler.”

Rose has told herself several times since she met him that she won’t fall in love with him. That her life is fine the way it is, and that she doesn’t need a boyfriend. She has told herself that she is just reacting hormonally, experiencing the first overwhelming sexual attraction of her life. But it’s more than that and no matter how hard she has told herself that’s all it is, she knows it isn’t true. She knows it’s deeper. Knows it instinctively. She gives up fighting against it. It’s too late. She’s already well on her way to falling in love. And if the look in his eyes is any indication, he is, too.

Ch. 8: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/123499.html