A Sky Without Stars: Chapter One

[amberfocus]

                                                               Banner by the incomparable Mitashade

Title:  A Sky Without Stars (1/?)
Series:  The Zeppelins 'verse (Book 2)
Author:  amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  Ten2 (Jonathon Smith)/alt!Rose Tyler, alt!Donna Noble/James Lumin, alt!Martha Jones Milligan/alt!Tom Milligan, alt!Jack Harkness, Renee Pascal, Frank the Talamangan, Yumi, Caelum, Cariad, Dr. Raji Singh, alt!Adeola Jones, Dr. Eriko Sasaki, alt!Dr. Owen Harper, Mrs. Hampton
Genre:  Alternate Universe, Romance, Action/Adventure, Fluff, light Angst, Smut
Rating:  Adult for eventual smut
Betas:  amyo67, jeprdyfrndly
Summary:  A mysterious object falls to Earth, ejected from the newly formed Time Vortex, burying itself in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.  At first it seems harmless, but soon enough all hell breaks loose.  It's up to the team at Illuminate to try to figure things out before it's too late.  With Lumin still recovering from his last go around with the Vortex and Donna seven months pregnant, it's up to Rose and Jonathon, Martha and Tom, Renee Pascal and Captain Jack Harkness to save the day, with a little help from their alien friends and a precocious, sentient whale.  A sequel to A Sky Without Zeppelins.
A/N:  Well, it's a long time from November when I thought I'd be starting this sequel, but at last it's on the way.  I hope it was worth the wait.  A Merry Christmas to everyone.  Welcome back the the Zeppelins 'verse.

Chapter One

“There now,” Rose Tyler says as she puts the last strand of tinsel on the Christmas tree. “It’s lovely.” Jonathon Smith takes a step back and surveys their handiwork with a critical eye. The tree is far too large, even given the roominess of their flat, but it’s what Rose had fallen in love with so he hadn’t been about to complain. Even when they’d had a devil of a time getting it into the building he hadn’t protested or said one negative word. When they had finally ended up borrowing the teleport device Addie Jones had stolen from the Institute when Caelum had been in their custody, it hadn’t even occurred to him to tell Rose, “I told you so.” Instead he’d just quietly used the machine that had last been programmed to transport the old alien back to Illuminate.

Frank had absconded with the device when they’d realized it was still attached to the healing tank Caelum had returned in, and the Talamangan had been more than happy to let them borrow it when it turned out even the service lift hadn’t been big enough to accommodate their tree’s height. He himself had lit up like a Christmas tree at getting to do a field test of the modifications he’d made to the device in the last few months. It had worked perfectly, bringing the giant, bushy, beast of a tree into their main sitting room. Frank had returned to Illuminate with bushels of new data. He’d practically been floating on the ceiling when he’d left and Jonathon had had to remind him to keep his human disguise firmly in place.

The tree just brushes the ceiling, the topper leaning forward slightly. It’s not quite right. “I don’t know. Maybe we should take the angel off,” he says. “Hunched forward like that, she looks like she’s weeping and I think her hair is getting caught on the ceiling. Sort of spoils the effect.”

Rose glances up. She frowns then rummages around in the pile of discarded boxes before returning with a star. “Here,” she says. “This one is shorter. Maybe it won’t touch the ceiling.”

Jonathon climbs up the step ladder to remove the angel from her perch atop the nine foot tree and hands her down to Rose before replacing it with the star. There’s a good inch of clearance now between the top of the tree and the ceiling. “What do you think?” he asks.

“Definitely perfect now.” He steps back down to the floor and they clear away the ladder and ornament boxes, tossing them in the spare room with the baby coral and the moving boxes that they’ve not gotten around to taking to the recyclers yet. Rose only moved in a week ago and it’s been all they can do to manage that and decorate for the holidays. As it is, Christmas is only two days away.

They’d taken some vacation time to manage it all, including putting in appearances at both the Illuminate Christmas party and going to Jackie and Howard’s for a formal get together that still had him grimacing uncomfortably about being seated next to Howard’s sister Viv during the dinner. Now all he wants to do is stay in with Rose and keep Christmas, their first one together, to themselves.

Jonathon sits down on the couch in the far corner, one leg along the back, the other dangling onto the floor while Rose turns off the overhead lights. She settles down between his legs, her back against his chest and her legs over the cushions. His arms wrap around her waist and hers settle on top of his, palms holding lightly to the backs of his hands. They watch the soft twinkling of the colored bulbs against the walls and ceiling.

Rose sighs in contentment and he drops a kiss on the top of her hair. “I don’t remember ever having a real tree before,” she says.

“That why you insisted on the biggest one on the lot?” he asks.

She nods. “When I was little, after my dad died, we went a couple of years just having a wreath or a swag or something. Mum would go down to the lot and ask for broken off branches and she’d take an old metal coat hanger and make it into a circle and then weave the branches through it. I remember collecting pine cones in the fall and saving them for Christmas. We’d color them with red and green spray paint and glitter and glue them on. And she’d put on some gold or silver curling ribbon because it was always discounted. She always did her best to make it feel like a holiday…even in the years we couldn’t afford much.”

“Was it hard?” he asks. Rose isn’t particularly materialistic, but he hears such wistfulness in her voice that he has to respond.

“Sometimes. When I got older we had this rickety old fake tree that Mum’s friend Bev had thrown out. We’d decorate it with strings of popcorn that I’d thread for weeks ahead of time and chains made out of strips of construction paper from the waste bins at school. And mum saved every ornament I ever made at school or the community center. Even on the estate, my friends always seemed to have so much more than me and my mum. I know it’s just stuff and I tried to pretend like it didn’t bother me, but it did. Least when I was little. I tried to act like I didn’t care as much when I got older, but I did.”

She shakes her head ruefully. “I was working at Temmel’s by the time I was sixteen and I was more concerned about making ends meet on a daily basis, but I made sure to save some from my checks towards Christmas so we could get a four foot fake tree that was pretty decent quality. Mum passed it over to Mickey and Keisha this year when she moved in with Howard. They don’t have much since Mickey is saving everything he can to buy his own repair shop and Keisha still has another year of Uni.”

She sighs. “Even in the hard years, Mum always made sure there was something, small as it was, that made it Christmas. Looking back on everything now, though…just being able to spend the day with her was enough. She loved me and I knew it and that’s more than some kids ever knew about their parents even when they were drowning in presents each year. What about you? Do you remember your Christmases?” she asks him.

“No,” he says abruptly, his body tensing. He forces himself to relax. “I mean…no, not the ones from before the accident. And after…well, this is the first time I’ve celebrated Christmas.”

Rose sits up and turns to look at him. “You’ve not celebrated since…”

“Not since my family died. No. Christmas is about being together, about family, and I didn’t have one anymore. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about so many things. I didn’t want to care. It hurt too much,” he said. “Doing things like that without Beth, without my son and my siblings and my parents was more than I wanted to deal with. I’d just shut down over the holidays, pretend it wasn’t happening,” he says.

“And here I am pushing all this Christmas stuff on you,” she says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think how much this time of year must hurt you.”

“It doesn’t. Not anymore. I have you, Rose.” He reaches out and brushes a silken, blonde strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re my family now. And Donna and James. I have so much to celebrate this year. I want to celebrate. I want to share it all with you.”

Rose’s eyes are glistening with moisture and she leans forward and kisses him. It’s a gentle, chaste kiss, just a firm brushing of the lips and she pulls back before he can deepen it. “Do you have any idea how very much I love you?” she asks him softly. Her smile is tender as she reaches forward to trace his lips with her fingertips.

He kisses them lovingly. “I do, yeah,” he says.

Rose snuggles back down into his body again and returns her eyes to the tree. He strokes one hand down her arm absently. He is utterly content to be where he is, with his beloved Rose in his arms.



James Lumin has spent his adult life trying to be the consummate professional, but right now all he wants to do is rail at the world, curse, and throw things at his physical therapist. It’s hard enough being stuck within the limitations of a human body, but when that human body is still so badly damaged it makes it that much worse. Things have always come easily to him and now he has to work so very hard just to take a few steps.

If it wasn’t for Donna Noble and his unborn child, he’d have given up long ago. If it wasn’t for Donna, he’d never have fought so hard to recorporealize in the first place. She reminds him constantly that there are still good things in this life, there are still things worth fighting for. Even when the pain threatens to overwhelm him, he can push it back down by focusing on his fiancée and the babe that will be arriving in two short months. His goal is to be walking by the time his son is born and that means work. Lots of hard work. He sighs and moves along the parallel bars that have been set up in his office.

“You’re doing fine, Mr. Lumin,” says Grant Parker, the man he has employed to torture him back to full health. He bites back a retort. It’s not the physical therapist’s fault that every step forward feels like it is being taken on the fiery path to hell.

He misses, desperately, the ability to revert to his natural form. Dr. Milligan has run test after test on him, but the results have been inconclusive. Martha simply doesn’t know if he will ever be able to abandon his human body again, if he will ever be capable of any form but this one. It would make things so much easier if he could. He’d be in no pain for starters, but more importantly than that, he’d be able to heal himself. He’s tried, more than once, to revert, but it has left him in paroxysms of agony at every attempt.

He supposes that eventually he’ll get used to it. It’s not the worst outcome, considering he could be dead. And if it had been the opposite, if he’d been permanently stuck in energy form, well, it would limit severely all of his human relationships. Especially those with his new little family. He sighs and turns himself around, beginning the last long trek down the bars towards his wheelchair.

It seems to take forever, but finally he settles his body back down into the state of the art chair. Sweat is pouring from him at the effort it has taken to get this far. Martha arrives a few moments later, ready to take him down to the infirmary to treat his burns. One of the male nurses he has hired to see to the physical care he is not quite capable of yet helps him to change out of his clothing and bathe and then it is time for his check up.

Shifting onto the examining table is its own special hell, but he manages to accomplish it. As the doctor flips back parts of the sheet a bit at a time to reveal the burn sites on his body he tries not to tense. Though the artificial skin grafts have taken well, as nerve endings grow up through them and incorporate them into his own skin cells it has severely sensitized his skin. He knows in the long run it will all be worth it. Second Skin is a revolutionary product, one his brilliant scientist and close friend Jonathon Smith developed based on one of his old, pre-Illuminate inventions. Scarring and drawn skin will be minimal within two years time, so if he’s stuck in this form forever, this body will eventually heal.

Once given the green light, the nurse Alan rubs a special healing gel into the surface of the burn sites. Despite his feather light touch, it always leaves Lumin exhausted from tensing against the pain. After a few minutes the gel begins its work and the pain begins to lessen. Alan gives him a few minutes to recover from the conflicting signals of his nerves before helping him dress. Martha returns once he’s in his wheelchair again.

“You’re doing quite well,” the young doctor informs him. “Your healing is on track.”

He nods his head. “That’s good.” He tries not to let it come out in a surly tone.

“How are your moods?” she asks him as if she can read his mind. Well, technically she can, but he can tell that she isn’t. “Any improvement in the depression?”

“The medication is helping, yes, but you know I don’t like being dependant on human medicine.”

“Actually, the burn gel is Nereidian,” she tells him.

“Yes, but the pain medication and anti-depressants are not.”

“Unfortunately there are no magic short-cuts here, Mr. Lumin. There are no homeopathic remedies for the type of pain we have to manage. And the mood lifting medications from other races made you feel high all the time. We’ll get you off them as soon as we can, but for now your overall physical and mental health requires them.”

James blows out air in frustration. “It’s hard. I’ve never been ill and injuries have always been healed in my natural state. The limitations of being human are difficult for me to adapt to.”

“I know that it’s a struggle for you,” she says sympathetically.

It’s true. He’s always been a powerful man, whether in energy form or corporeal. He’d taken it for granted his whole life that he would always be strong. Humans are amazing creatures but he can’t help feeling somehow reduced in both body and spirit to be stuck as one, quite possibly forever. He will heal, physically. His progress is excellent. And he is alive and has so much to live for. That’s where his focus needs to be. There and on his family. He can survive this. He’s the last of his kind and even if it will always be this way, he has a responsibility to his entire race to go on.

The door to the infirmary slides open and for a moment all thoughts of pain and loss leave him at the vision of loveliness that appears. Some human women have a healthy glow about them while pregnant, but Donna Noble is downright radiant. Her porcelain skin is perfect, her blue eyes sparkling, and her thick, red hair shining with health. She wears pregnancy well and it makes her even more beautiful than she always has been to him.

Her eyes dart around the room until she finds him and then a slow, happy smile curves her mouth. She ambles forward, her gait slightly shuffled by the heavy roundness of her belly. Her joy at seeing him always astounds him. Having thought she’d lost him forever, she takes no day, no hour, no minute with him for granted.

On reaching his side she slides one hand gently along his face and into his hair before leaning down to kiss him. “Hello, love,” she says when they break apart. “How did it go today?”

“Easier than yesterday,” he admits, “but still not easy.”

“You’ll get there,” she reassures. “Ready to go home?”

“I’ve still got a little work to do,” he says. “The South American Conglomerate wants to market tenth generation learning chips in Brazil.”

“That’ll make Mr. Doors unhappy,” Donna says.

“I know. But until his company can come up with something that competes, he’s just going to have to deal with it. There’s a reason why Illuminate is at the top of the food chain,” he says. “Renee should be bringing me the final contracts to sign within the hour. Then we can go home for Christmas.”

He’d agreed a while ago to take the rest of the week off to spend at home. He’s always liked this particular holiday, but Donna adores it. Honestly, he can think of nothing better than being with the woman he loves so completely away from the rest of the world. It is relaxing, healing, in a way nothing else is.

Donna accompanies him back up to his office and the two of them talk about their upcoming wedding while they wait for Mme. Pascal to return from her meeting with the Brazilian contracts for him to sign. The wedding will be small, taking place on New Year’s Day. “I just wish I wasn’t confined to this damned chair,” he says softly.

“And I wish my wedding dress wasn’t going to have a watermelon shaped lump in the middle of it,” Donna says, “but I don’t want to wait until the baby is born and I’ve lost weight to marry you.”

“I’d be walking by then.”

“Possibly, but that’s not the point,” she says. “I want to be married to you now, James, because I love you. I don’t want to wait until everything’s perfect.” She slips her hand into his, her fingers light in her touch so as not to put pressure on the burn site further up his arm. “I don’t care if you’re in a wheelchair or on crutches or walking. As long as you’re beside me, that’s always going to be enough.”

“How’d I ever get so lucky as to have you fall in love with me?” he asks her.

“I’m the lucky one,” Donna says. She leans over and kisses him again. His hands come to rest on her stomach and he can feel the little fluttering kicks of the baby beneath his palms. He smiles against her lips. She’s completely wrong, of course. It really is he who is the lucky one.

A quick rap on the door breaks them apart. “Enter,” he calls out. The door opens and Renee Pascal glides into the room on heels that look decidedly unable to glide, but obviously do beneath her gracefulness.

“I have that contract ready for you to sign, Monsieur Lumin,” she says. “’allo, Ms. Noble,” she adds politely.

“Hello,” Donna replies. She reaches for the contract, it’s still hard sometimes for James to make a full extension of his arm, and then hands it to him.

“The attorneys have been over it. Everything appears to be in order. I managed to get them to agree to opening up Peru in another year if sales estimates are met. That’s the only change to the contract since the last time you read it. It’s on page 3, paragraph 4.”

“Thank you. That’s wonderful news.” He opens up the contract and reads over the four pages, then takes the pen Donna offers him and slowly signs and dates it. His fine motor skills have recovered enough that his signature actually looks like it always has now, but it took a lot of work to get it there.

Donna hands the contract back to Renee. “I’ll just file this with legal, then. Is there anything else you need for me to do today?”

“No, no, go home and enjoy your holiday. I know you have to catch a plane in a few hours.”

Renee nods. “Joyeux Noel,” she says. “I’ll see you both at the wedding.”

“Merry Christmas,” they both return to the woman and she gives them both a wide smile and heads for the door, closing it gently behind her.

“She was positively cordial,” Donna says.

“I know you don’t like her much, but she’s a good employee. Illuminate would have suffered without her. I need someone and she…”

“She knows the business inside out,” Donna finished. “It’s okay, James. I just wish we hadn’t had to invite her to the wedding.”

“She has done a lot for me and she wanted to come. It’s a fair enough trade. It’s been hard on her here. She had to uproot her entire life at a moment’s notice. I know what that feels like and I can sympathize. Ready to go home?” he asks.

“More than ready.” They head down to the waiting limousine that takes them to Lumin’s country cottage where they snuggle in, nothing but anticipation and joy ahead of them for the foreseeable future.

Ch. 2:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/308750.html

Comments

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You know, it's weird, I've missed me, too. I have so totally not been myself during these last few weeks and I utterly hated that, so it is very good to feel like I'm back to normal in my head again.

Yeah, James was very badly hurt. He's on the road to recovery but it's definitely going to take time.

As for Renee, she and James have been friends for years.