amberfocus | A Sky Without Zeppelins (39/?)

                                                                                                                             Banner by Mitashade

                                                                      Chapter Thirty-Nine

“So how are we going to do this?” the elderly woman with the sparkling brown eyes asks her husband. “Just,” she waves her hand expansively around the interior of the ship, “materialize inside the flat?”

“Can’t,” says the man as he runs his hand through his thick, silver locks. Her eyes stray to those locks, her own fingers itching to take over that particular task. She frowns at him. “Can’t have the two of them that close together.”

“What, not even when she was a baby?”

“Still the same ship, Rose. It’s not good to occupy the same space at the same time. You wouldn’t be able to touch the younger version of you, either. No, we’ll go in by the front door. I’ve got it all planned and we can sort the lock easily enough with this.” He pulls out a slim, silver tube and Rose giggles.

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she tells him. “Hold on a moment.” She slips out of the main control room and hurries down the corridor to their bedroom. The carved, mahogany jewelry box sits in pride of place atop her bureau, a wedding gift from her husband nearly forty-five years ago now. She opens it reverently and pushes her hand under the top shelf and all the way to the back, retrieving a golden key. She grins at it, remembering the day he gave it to her and then carefully closes the velvet lined box, her hand lightly caressing the well-oiled wood.

She returns to her husband and holds out the key to him. “That’s not…” His eyes flit from the key to her face and back to the key again.

She nods. “It’s the key to your first flat in London,” she tells him.

“You kept it?” His face splits in a massive grin. “You told the building manager it’d been lost.”

Rose shrugs. “I didn’t want to give it back. They were going to change the locks anyway. What did they need with that key when--?” She falters, her eyes tearing up. “You know what it meant to me.”

“Yeah.” He pulls her into his arms and kisses her so soundly she nearly forgets what their plans for the evening truly are. An impatient raspberry noise from the console breaks them apart and Rose can feel the light tugging at the edge of her consciousness that is the ship.

“No, we are not getting too distracted,” her husband tells the ship, his hand sliding across her hip and then free of her body. “We know what we have to do.”

A small container materializes on the pilot’s chair and her husband picks it up, opens the lid and peeks inside. “It’s all ready to go?” he queries and the ship hums in affirmation. He picks up the beautifully decorated jar and holds out his hand. Rose slips hers into his and they make their way out of the ship and two streets down to the flat he’d been living in when they’d first met.

He uses his device, what he’d named a sonic screwdriver, but Rose has never once seen him use on screws, to bypass the security code and enter the building. Once at the front desk he hands over a piece of paper to the woman guarding the lifts. She checks the signature on it against one that is on file and allows them to pass. Once safely in the lifts Rose turns to him.

“What’d that paper say?” she wants to know.

“It said I was my grandfather and I could have access to the flat while I was away.”

Rose rolls her eyes. She should be used to his butchering of the English language when it comes to things like this, but she is just happy she’s long since learned to follow along once time travel became a reality for them and they’d begun skipping back and forth along their own timeline to help things along.

When they enter the flat it’s almost with an air of reverence. “Oh,” he says and leans hard against the door. Even Rose can feel it. “She’s hurting.” She doesn’t even take the time to look around and soak in the memories. She charges into the bedroom and he follows her quickly. He unscrews the jar while she picks up the piece of coral, which has lost its normal coloring and turned to an ugly grey, and gently places it inside.

The pale pink liquid soaks immediately into the baby time ship seed, sucking the container dry. “Get her out, quickly!” her husband says. Rose retrieves it and sets it back down on the bedside table and pulls her hand away just in time. The coral doubles in size and immediately begins to glow a healthy shade of orangey pink, with the faintest undertone of gold.

They each put a hand on the side of the coral and concentrate on sending it warm thoughts of love and tenderness. “Hello, baby girl,” Rose says and the little ship purrs under her hand.

“I know you don’t understand what’s going on,” her husband says. “You and young me haven’t bonded yet, and it has to be him that does it. I can’t do it for you. But it won’t be much longer. You’ll fully establish that link and you’ll be able to think properly. When they get back, they’ll see that you’ve changed and they’ll be afraid at first. You can’t let their fear keep you from trying to connect. You have to reach for his mind the moment he touches you.” He strokes the little ship tenderly with one finger.

“You won’t be able to link properly with me,” Rose says softly as she traces across the line of mottling that is appearing down the side. “You’ll want to, but it’ll strain you too much if you try. You need to focus on him right now while you’re little. It doesn’t mean you and I can’t feel each other, and it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It just means my mind isn’t quite that free. I’ll be able to read your moods eventually, but I’ll never hear the words in your song. Only the music. And that’ll take time.” She sighs, still somewhat sad that she’s never been able to quite have what the other two share.

“I won’t be able to visit you again for another year or so,” he says. “I’ll bring you more nutrients then, but this batch should be enough to keep you healthy and growing strong during that time. And your link with young me will improve every day. It’s going to be okay now.”

They slowly pull their hands away and the soft glowing of the little coral recedes into a muted golden light that appears to emanate from within. Even Rose can feel the baby’s contentment. “She’ll be okay now?”

“You know she was.”

“I know she grows up to be,” Rose counters.

“She’ll be fine.” He turns away from the baby and back to his wife. “They won’t be back for another four hours. Care to relive some old memories?” he asks.

“What? Snoop around?” she asks. “Bit of an invasion of their privacy don’t you think?”

“It’s an invasion of our privacy,” he corrects. “And I was thinking more along the lines of trying out the old bed.” He waggles his eyebrows.

Rose looks scandalized. “That’s not…we couldn’t do that…” Her eyes stray to the bed. “We really shouldn’t…”

“Admit it! You’re tempted,” he teases.

“I’m always tempted when it comes to you, old man,” she says with a grin.

“Old man? Old man! I’ll show you who’s an old man.” He pounces on her and she falls backwards onto the bed and he comes down on top of her, his arms going out to protect her from the blunt force of his weight. She smiles up at him in invitation.

“All right,” she tells him, “but only if we change the sheets afterwards.” And when they are finished, she tells him that he still makes love like a thirty-four-year-old man.

The limousine drops them at the front door to Jonathon’s apartment building and he and Rose slowly and quite sleepily make their way up to his flat. Jonathon stops just outside his door and turns to a groggy Rose. He glances at his watch, checking the exact time. 4:13 a.m. She’d told him that she’d arrived in this world at 4:02 a.m. “It’s officially your birthday, Rose,” he tells her and she gives him a half smile. “I have something for you, but I wanted to wait for today to give it to you.”

She comes awake a bit more. “Jonathon, you already gave me Paris. I don’t need another gift.”

He sticks his hands in his pockets and looks at her sideways and gives a little shrug. “Well, I have to admit, this is as much for me as it is for you.” She looks a bit puzzled but then he pulls his hands out of his pockets and takes one of hers. He opens her hand and presses something cold and metallic into it. “There you are. Flat key. About time you had one.”

She stares down at it stupidly for a moment before a slow smile creeps across her face. Her hand closes tightly over the key and she looks up at him, her eyes bright with emotion and unshed tears. “I…”

Jonathon swallows hard. “I love you, Rose.”

Rose launches herself at him and holds him tightly to her. “Thank you,” she whispers in his ear. “I love you so much.”

When she releases him, she’s not the only one with shiny eyes. “Care to do the honors?” he asks. With a shaking hand Rose unlocks the front door and together they step inside.

“It’s good to be home,” Jonathon says and Rose nods. They both enjoyed Paris immensely but there is nothing like returning to the familiar comfort of home and a bed that you are used to. “Let’s go to bed.” He hauls their suitcases into the center of the room and they head for the bedroom. They find the bed in the muted light from the window, collapsing still dressed, and cuddle up together. Dreamland finds them quickly and neither of them notices the sudden increased glow of Jonathon’s coral on the bedside table.

Jonathon sits bolt upright in bed as the alarm goes off. He reaches over hurriedly to shut it off, knocking the piece of coral to the floor. He’d arranged with Mr. Lumin before they left for both of them to take the day off from work and had a chat with Rose’s professors at the college to allow her to miss classes that day, but he’d forgotten that the alarm would automatically go off. Rose hasn’t stirred, either from the loud blaring or from his rapid movements and he lays back, his heart still beating rapidly from being startled awake.

He tries for a bit to get back to sleep but decides that isn’t happening so he swings his feet over the side of the bed and heads to the loo. On his way back he notices the coral on the floor; notices it’s bigger and notices it’s glowing. He stares at it in shock and then edges around to the far side of the bed. “Rose,” he says, gently shaking her shoulder. “Rose, wake up.”

“Don’t wanna,” she says thickly, rolling away from him.

“Rose, now.” The sudden command in his tone coupled with his urgency has her immediately coming awake and moving to obey him.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. He grabs her hand and pulls her quickly towards the door. “Jonathon, what’s wrong?” she repeats.

He tugs her out of the room and then turns about, focusing on the floor. She peeks around his shoulder and finds what he’s staring at. “What is it?” She frowns. “I didn’t realize your paperweight glowed.”

“It doesn’t. It’s also…” He runs his hand through his hair nervously. “It’s also bigger than it’s supposed to be.”

“What?” Rose glances back at it. She’s really never paid it that much attention.

“It’s only ever been the size of my fist, Rose,” he says. “It’s twice that. Maybe bigger.” His voice is above its normal register and he forces it back down before it becomes completely unmanly.

“Has it—has it ever done anything like this before?”

“Of course not!” He glances at her like she’s just dribbled down the front of her shirt and she winces. Immediately he feels awful. The last thing Rose is is stupid and he hopes he hasn’t made her feel like that.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m a bit out of my depth here. I’ve had it for years. It’s always just been…coral.”

Rose shrugs. “Maybe it’s an alien.”

“You think my chunk of the Inner Australasian Reef is an alien?” He turns to her in disbelief.

“I don’t know, but it’s certainly not acting like a pet rock, now is it?”

“But an alien?” He’s skeptical.

“After all we’ve been shown,” she says, “do you really think it’s that illogical a conclusion for me to draw?” She tries to edge around him so she can reenter the bedroom and get closer to the coral. He puts an arm out to prevent her. She pushes at it impatiently. “I want to go look at it.”

“Rose.”

“Bet you five quid it’s an alien.”

“You’re not taking this seriously enough,” he says sharply.

“You’ve had it for years, you said. If it was hostile, I think you’d know that by now. Besides,” she wrinkles her nose, “it doesn’t look dangerous.”

He smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “What’s dangerous look like, Rose?” he asks her.

“Like the Caligo,” she says. “Dark and cold and without hope. Look at it. It’s full of warmth and light.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous,” he says.

“Doesn’t mean it is,” she says stubbornly. “So? Five quid?”

“Rose.”

“Jonathon,” she says mimicking his inflection perfectly.

“Fine.” They stare at it a bit longer.

“Well, do you feel anything from it?” she asks.

“What?”

“With your secret Vulcan mind powers?” she asks with a smirk.

“I believe those were my secret Vulcan mind sex powers,” he says grinning back at her, despite the fact that he feels she’s not taking this seriously enough. “And, well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy me accidentally having mind sex with a pet rock.”

Rose breaks out in giggles and the coral glows more brightly. She stops abruptly at the change and the glow recedes again. “It’s reacting to your laughter, Rose,” Jonathon says unnecessarily. He edges her back protectively and the light grows dimmer.

“You’re scaring it.”

“What?”

“With your suspicion.”

“You can’t know that,” he says. Rose pushes past him and darts into the room. “Rose!” He tries to catch her but she’s already picking it up.

“Shh, there now, it’s all right,” she says gently holding the coral between her palms. She looks up at Jonathon and smiles. “It’s warm.”

“Rose, you can’t just--.”

“Hush now. I did and it’s perfectly all right. No harm.” She holds it up towards him. “Come on, take it. It’s harmless.”

He hesitates but there’s something strangely intriguing about the glowing double handful and as she eases it into his palms his anxiety fades to nothing. “Oh, you’re beautiful,” he says as he gazes down at the…the thing that he’s holding.

A soft tendril of emotion whispers across the edge of his awareness and startles him so much that he sits down on the edge of the bed. “Jonathon?” Rose asks.

“I know you,” he murmurs softly as the tentative tendril turns more firmly into a brushing sensation. He stares at it entranced, for how long he isn’t sure. Time seems to have lost its meaning, almost like he’s floating outside of reality and there is only peace and hope and light and love and warmth and all things good. He is enveloped by it and thinks this must be similar to being in the womb, a place of near perfect protection.

“Jonathon!” Rose calls and when he finally breaks his eyes away from the creature, and it’s definitely a creature, in his hands to look at his lover he sees worry on her face. She’s clutching a phone in her hand. “Are you back?” she asks.

“What? Rose?”

“You’ve been in some kind of…of trance for the last ten minutes. I called Mr. Lumin. He’s on his way over. I didn’t know what else to do.” She sets the phone down on the bed and moves to his side.

“It’s all right, Rose. She’s harmless. You’re right. She’s not dangerous. Not to us.”

“She?”

He nods. “I don’t know what she is, but she’s just…she’s a baby. She’s lost and she’s alone and she finds me familiar.”

Rose reaches out to touch the coral and Jonathon doesn’t try to stop her. The creature brightens—happily?—under Rose’s caress and a tiny hum, a bit like the rusty purr Tyndall has emerges. “She’s…humming.”

There’s a sudden pounding on the front door and Rose jumps. “That can’t be Mr. Lumin so soon,” she says. They get to their feet, Jonathon cradling the coral possessively against his chest, and move to the front room. Rose peeks through the peephole to see Donna and Mr. Lumin standing there.

She opens the door and hurries them inside. “How’d you get here so fast?” Rose asks. "I only just hung up."

“Teleport,” says Lumin shortly, his eyes focused on Jonathon.

“And I’m not bloody doing that again,” says Donna sharply. “I’m still not sure all my molecules are back where they belong." Lumin turns and gives her a cursory glance.

“Your molecules are all beautifully in place,” he tells her before moving towards Jonathon. Jonathon backs away protectively.

“It’s all right. Rose just panicked.”

“Let me see,” Mr. Lumin says. Jonathon comes to a sudden halt with his back against a wall.

“I—I don’t think—,” Jonathon begins.

“Shh,” Mr. Lumin says soothingly. “I won’t hurt her.”

“You can feel her?” Jonathon’s hooded expression suddenly becomes more open.

“You’ve brought her to work before, haven’t you? Not too long after you started? Had her on your desk one day?” Jonathon nods, looking startled. “I sensed, I don’t know, something. Felt a slight drain on my energy reserves. Sometimes that happens, if I come into contact with a seed pod, they’ll spontaneously germinate.”

“You think she’s a plant?”

“I’d have to examine her more closely, but yes, I do. An animal based life form would not germinate, though I have been known to speed the hatching process in egg-based creatures,” Lumin says.

“If it’s a plant, how can it be a girl?” Donna asks.

“She’s an alien plant,” Mr. Lumin says as if that should explain everything.

“Ha! Told you she was an alien!” Rose smirks. “You owe me a fiver!”

Jonathon rolls his eyes at Rose. “Can I see her?” Lumin asks gently.

Finally, reluctantly, Jonathon relinquishes the coral. Lumin dissolves with frightening speed into his natural form, the little coral suspended in the middle of his disembodied green essence which is now filling a good portion of the room like a fog. “What the--?” Rose begins.

“James? James!” says Donna.

“I’m all right,” comes the strangely muted voice of Mr. Lumin, echoing around the room and seeming to come from everywhere at once. “Sorry, didn’t mean to fall apart like that. She’s a bit stronger than I thought she was. She’s terribly young and doesn’t know her own strength yet. You better come take her, Dr. Smith.”

“Erm…I don’t…I mean, it’s rather impolite just to walk…into you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’ll do it,” Donna says barging right into the center of the green mist and retrieving the object. She hands it off to Jonathon and then stands within the energy field, swaying slightly, a soft smile on her face. Rose and Jonathon both look away, feeling as if they are sharing something far too intimate with their boss and his…whatever Donna is to him.

They can feel a sudden whirl of the air behind them and Mr. Lumin says, “There now. Back in human form. She’s a tough little lady.”

“Do you know what she is?” Jonathon asks curiously.

“Not…exactly. But I know where she’s from. And I think…” He pauses and looks away. “I think I might--.” He stops, starts again. “You haven’t met every alien under my protection,” he says. “But I think, if I’m not mistaken, there is an adult version of this…infant, hidden in my vault at Illuminate.”

Ch. 40:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/235349.html