Leap of Faith: Chapter Sixteen

[amberfocus]

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Title:  Leap of Faith (16/?)
Author:  amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  John Smith (alt!Nine)/Rose Tyler, Toshiko Sato, Jake Simmonds, Mickey Smith, Ianto Jones, Jackie Tyler/Pete Tyler, Tony Tyler, various original characters
Genre:  Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe
Rating:  Adult
Betas:  amyo67, jeprdyfrndly
Summary:  Hiding from the Family of Blood, the alt!Ninth Doctor turns himself into John Smith via the chameleon arch and with his companion Toshiko Sato, takes a job at Torchwood.  He clashes with everyone he meets and Rose Tyler, the beautiful young director of Torchwood Field Operative Training and the daughter of his boss, is no exception.  AU after season 2.
A/N:  John and Rose continue to grow closer despite certain philosophical differences.  This chapter was supposed to include a scene with Jackie and Rose, but LJ got stupid about the length of it so that will be in the next chapter for those who were looking forward to more of them.

Previous Chapters:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/327895.html

Chapter Sixteen: Growing Closer

The rest of the weekend had been almost like a dream. She and John had spent every waking minute together, most of it snuggled up on the couch watching television or talking. He told her about growing up in Blantyre. He told her about his parents who had been strict academics, more interested in his intellectual growth than his spiritual or emotional development. He’d been sent to boarding school only a few miles from his home when he was eight and rarely saw his parents throughout the year despite their proximity. He hadn’t liked it; had bucked about the rigid structure of the academy. Despite that, he’d excelled.

He didn’t talk about his romance with Ro, but he did talk about her. They’d grown up together, attending the same boarding school, and been a huge part of each other’s childhoods. He also talked about the boy, Yana, who had grown up with them and Rose assumed he was the best friend who had married Ro. Rose asked what sort of a name Yana was and John had drawn a curious blank. She’d never seen him look lost or confused by anything before and it had bothered her so much she had changed the subject to tell him her own slightly edited version of her childhood.

Rose told him about her first love, a boy named Oliver when she was eleven. She’d gotten her first kiss from him behind the shed that housed the play equipment at school. He’d broken her heart by telling everyone in their class that she was a bad kisser, even though all he’d done was place a small peck on her lips and run away. He’d done it on a dare. Three years later she’d developed breasts and hips, her braces had come off and she’d started dyeing her hair blonde. She’d got quite popular with the boys. Oliver had tried to ask her out time and again, but she’d held a long grudge against him and boys in general because of his previous actions.

It wasn’t until she’d met Jimmy Stone when she was fifteen that she thought boys might be worth something again. He’d been older, nineteen, her first foray into older men, but he’d been less mature than she’d been. She had shared her youthful mistake of moving in with him when she was only sixteen and how it had left her emotionally wrecked and financially in debt, because they were just too young to have lived together and tried to make a go of a life. She didn’t tell him about how Jimmy treated her toward the end or just what he’d done that had made her leave him for good. She had a feeling that John was the sort of man who would track Jimmy down and tear him a new one and the Jimmy Stone of this universe had done nothing wrong.

At the time Mickey had been there to pick up the pieces and had been happy to do so. She talked a little bit about how she and Mickey had drifted into a relationship and how she had considered marrying him at one time. She didn’t talk about the Doctor and how he’d changed everything. How could she when she didn’t even have a name to call him by, something that wouldn’t make John more curious about him than she could afford to let him be? She couldn’t call him the one name the Doctor had gone by whenever he was under cover. It was bad enough they looked alike, but to accept that the man shared his name would be asking too much. John didn’t ask about him, respecting that she didn’t want to talk about that romance any more than he wanted to talk about his with Ro.

A majority of the time his arm was wrapped around her shoulders while she leaned into him. Once or twice she’d stretched out with her back against the arm of the sofa and her legs resting carefully in his lap, so as not to put too much pressure on his injured thigh muscle. He hadn’t made any attempt to kiss her yet, though she could tell he wanted to. He’d be speaking to her and his eyes would focus on her mouth and he’d get a little distracted for a few seconds before looking away. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for him to try, so as much as she liked the cuddling, she was curiously relieved he’d not pushed for more.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to kiss him because she did. She’d caught herself staring at his mouth often enough and she couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like when it happened. She mused over whether his lips would be soft or firm, if he’d be gentle and tender, or demanding and aggressive, or something in between. So far she’d been able to keep her musings fairly innocent. She hadn’t thought beyond a first kiss in any sort of detail. That was probably a good thing considering all their recent togetherness.

When he’d gone home on Saturday night, she’d dreamt of sleeping next to him in bed, wrapped in his arms. Just sleeping and nothing else. Apparently her fantasy life was set on chaste mode. Which was probably a good thing because if she started thinking too much about the future of their relationship, or of having sex with John, she was probably going to want it sooner than was healthy for where they were right now. Really, it was enough just to be around him and continue getting to know him. She’d gone without sex for over three years now. It wasn’t like there was some huge rush to have it again right this minute.

She might have known him for several weeks now, but when it came right down to it she had only spent a grand total of nine days with him, and the first of those days had been a brief encounter, the second had been only two hours spent sparring and watching him get beat down by Jake, one of them had been when she was mostly unconscious, and two recovering in the infirmary. True, the rest of the time she had spent with him had been much more intensive, but that didn’t mean she was ready for more just yet, even if she knew deep down that want and desire were buried and waiting. Just how long it was going to stay buried and waiting was the question, because the more time she spent with him, the more certain she was that she was heading towards a full blown romance with the man and that it was already far too late to turn back now.



The phone rang rather insistently at five thirty a.m. Monday morning and Rose groaned as she stumbled out into the living room to answer it. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t her phone ringing. It was John’s phone. He’d taken it out of his pocket and set it down somewhere when she’d complained it was digging into her hip and must have forgotten all about it. She fished it out from between two cushions and glanced at the caller ID. She wouldn’t normally have answered his phone, but since it was Tosh calling she had no qualms. “Hello?” she answered after clearing her throat.

“Rose? I thought I called John’s phone,” Tosh’s voice was puzzled.

“Yeah, you did,” Rose said tiredly.

“Oh,” she said, then a moment later, “Is he…there?” Her voice was full of hesitant curiosity.

“No, of course not. He left his phone here last night. I’ll be seeing him in a few hours. You want me to give him a message or is it important enough for me to go over and wake him up?” Rose asked.

“No, don’t wake him up. I wasn’t paying attention to the time when I called. I’ve been up all night,” she said.

“How’s your grandmother doing?” Rose asked.

“She’s actually better. That’s what I’m calling about. Something strange is going on here. Something…alien. Do you have contact information for Torchwood 3?” she wanted to know.

“Yeah, hold on.” Rose went over to her laptop and logged into the Torchwood database. “What type of strange?”

“We’re in hospice, right? And all of the people in here are suddenly well and my grandmother looks like…well, she looks like she’s getting younger. There was this man who came to visit yesterday, Rose. I thought he knew her, he said they were old friends, but it turns out he visited every room. There was something off about him,” Tosh said.

“And you think he’s an alien?”

“Or has some sort of alien device that rejuvenates dying cells.”

The information came up on Rose’s screen and she read off the phone number to Tosh. “The man you want to contact is Dr. Owen Harper. He does the medical technology side of things there. Be forewarned, he’s a bit of a prat.”

“I deal with Dr. Smith on a near daily basis. I don’t think anyone can be harder to cope with than that,” Tosh said.

“John’s not…” Rose trailed off.

“John’s not what?” Tosh asked, her curiosity more than piqued.

“He’s not so bad when you get to know him.”

“Oh, and have you been getting to know him, Rose? Is that why his mobile is at your flat?” Tosh queried knowingly.

“We’ve spent some time together this weekend,” Rose admitted.

“Really.” It wasn’t a question.

“Well, with you gone we’re both…lonely,” Rose said. “Anyway, I’m glad your grandmother is doing better even if there are aliens involved.”

“Yes, but I don’t know if the effect is permanent,” Tosh said. “I don’t suppose you could send a field team here to investigate.”

“Well, see what Dr. Harper has to say first. If he’s not inclined to check things out, then I’ll talk to the boys about coming. And if you think some sort of tech is involved in this then maybe John should come with me,” Rose said.

“Okay,” Tosh said. “Sorry to have woken you, Rose. I’m just…worried.”

“Not a problem. It was good to hear from you. I’ve missed you, Tosh,” Rose said, “but I didn’t want to bother you while you were dealing with your grandmother.”

“I missed you, too, Rose. And Dr. Smith. I’ve gotten used to having people to lean on. Hikaru is a rock, but he’s going through the same emotions as I am. It’s not the same as having my friends around me to offer a more steady sort of support.”

“No, I guess it wouldn’t be.”

They talked for a little bit longer then said their good-byes and Rose stumbled back to bed. She’d tell John what was going on when she saw him in a few hours. They’d made plans to walk to work together. Rose had got used to falling asleep whenever she could on assignments that left her running all the time, so getting back to sleep wasn’t hard. She cuddled up to a big body pillow, wishing for a brief moment that it was a warm body, a particular warm body with an acerbic wit and soothing arms, and fell into slumber a moment later.



When John arrived on Rose’s doorstep she was just halfway through her breakfast. “Come in,” she said opening the door wide for him. “Did you eat yet?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, but he eyed her food a little jealously. It beat the cold cereal he’d had hands down.

“Well, if you’re still hungry I made some extra,” she said motioning to a plate by the stove. There was a slice of French toast and some turkey sausage on it. He picked it up and joined Rose at her kitchen table.

“You left your phone here last night,” Rose said. “Tosh called earlier this morning.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Better. Her grandmother has taken a turn for the better,” Rose said.

“I thought she was on death’s door,” John said. “Got milk?”

“Yeah, there’s some in the fridge.” John got up to pour himself a glass. “She was, but now she’s not. And the other residents in the hospice are all doing better as well. Tosh suspects aliens.”

“Aliens?”

“Or alien tech. She says her grandmother is suddenly looking younger. I forgot to ask about the rest of the patients. I gave her a contact number for Dr. Harper at Torchwood 3, but we may have to go down there. I’m going to check in again with Tosh when we get to work and then if it sounds like it’s more than the Cardiff team can handle, and it probably is, I’ll speak with Mickey and Jake about going to lend a hand,” she said.

“Why do you think the Cardiff team can’t handle things?” he asked curiously. He’d had no dealings with the other branches of Torchwood.

“Because they’re pretty small. Mostly they’re just there to monitor the Rift and pick up Weevils when they slip through,” Rose said. He looked at her blankly. “You do know about the Rift, don’t you?”

“No,” he said.

“It’s a…” Rose thought for a moment. “It’s a sort of crack in time and space. Things slip through from the past or the future and sometimes from other planets.”

“Space, yes, but time?”

“You don’t believe in time travel?” Rose asked in surprise.

“It’s a nice theory, but it’s highly improbable,” he said.

“But not impossible.”

“I don’t like that word, impossible,” he said. He didn’t. It was far too limiting and way too often it was proven to be incorrect. “But if I was gonna use it for anything, I’d use it for time travel.”

“But you’ve worked with UNIT. You’re working for Torchwood. How can you not believe in time travel?” Rose seemed astonished.

“Because it’s not real,” he said flatly, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Then how would you explain the pterodactyl that came through the Rift last year?” she asked him challengingly.

“Pterodactyl?” he repeated in surprise.

“Yes. She didn’t live long. The air here was too polluted for her lungs. By the time she was caught she was quite ill. She died of something very like emphysema. During the autopsy they x-rayed her and her bones matched up to fossilized skeletons found around the world,” Rose said.

“Interesting,” he said, “But it’s possible that pterodactyls aren’t from Earth and came through the Rift millennium ago as well and that’s why there are fossils of them. There have been legends of dragons for centuries. Could explain it,” said John.

“Could, but doesn’t,” Rose said. “She was definitely of Earth origin. She had all of the genetic markers of being native to this planet,” Rose said. “And the Weevils…we’ve never been able to rule out that they aren’t from Earth, either in the far future or the distant past. Dr. Harper thinks they’re alien, but he can’t prove it conclusively since they do share some genetic markers with other species on this planet. If they’re from the future, of course there might have been some interbreeding with humans.”

“Unlikely. They’re probably both from whatever planet originally seeded some of the life on Earth.”

“For a scientist, your mind is a bit closed, isn’t it?” Rose commented.

“It is not!” John protested indignantly. “But time travel is a fairy story.”

“So I take it you’ve not run across fairies, either?” Rose asked.

“Oh, now you’re just playing with me,” he said.

“Nope. There was an abduction in Wales last year. Harper’s team tracked it down to fairies. They are not the sweet, loving creatures of most stories. They’re vindictive and cruel to anyone who might threaten the safety of the children they choose to protect, or even to those who make their chosen ones unhappy,” Rose said.

“You know how Tinkerbell tried to murder Wendy in the Peter Pan books?” she asked. He nodded. “Well, they’re like that. Tink was protecting Peter from what she viewed as a threat, him going back with Wendy to a world that was dangerous for his safety. It’s far more accurate than what is later portrayed in the animations.” He thought Rose might still be pulling his leg, but she looked perfectly serious. “Read the case files. Those ones should be open to you without a hack job,” she said.

He looked away at the reminder that he’d hacked into her files when they’d first met. He didn’t feel guilty about it, but it was still a bit of a sore point for Rose. “So fairies and dinosaurs and Weevils.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And this supposed time travel,” he didn’t quite sneer. He still didn’t believe in time travel despite what she’d said, but he was going to try very hard not to ridicule Rose for her obvious belief in it. He didn’t want their relationship to go backwards, after all. “With all that to deal with, Cardiff ought to have a bigger support structure.”

“They call us if they get overwhelmed. Really it’s not so bad for them. The Rift is only semi-active. If it ever really geared up, you can believe they’d get the personnel transferred down to deal with it.”

Rose pushed away from the table and picked up her dirty dishes. He followed her with his own to the dishwasher and when they were taken care of Rose said, “I just need to brush my teeth and we can go. Did you want to? I have a spare I haven’t opened yet.” She met his eyes and then glanced away. “You can…have it here for when you’re…over.”

He smiled at her shyness and her insinuation that he’d be over enough to need his own toothbrush here. “Sure.”

He followed Rose down the hall to the loo and she dug a new toothbrush out of a drawer and handed it to him. He opened the package and slipped it out while she reached for the toothpaste. He smiled when he saw it. “That’s my favorite kind,” he said as Rose squeezed it out onto her brush. She handed it to him.

“I think that’s probably a very good thing because I don’t think I could get involved with a man who didn’t like my brand of toothpaste,” she said with a smirk before putting her toothbrush into her mouth.

“Is that what we’re doing? Becoming involved?” he asked huskily.

Rose almost choked, but recovered nicely and finished brushing her teeth while he started on his own. When she’d rinsed and put her brush away she shot a glance at him. “I think you know the answer to that. When you’re done you can put it right there.” She pointed to the slot in the holder next to hers then squirmed around him in the small bathroom, her body brushing his, and fled to the front room. He grinned at how flustered she’d been, rinsed his mouth, put the brush next to hers with an even wider grin and went out to join her.

Rose was putting a thin layer of gloss on her lips in the mirror by the front door and he just watched her, thinking for a moment about kissing that gloss right off of her again, before abruptly squashing that thought down. It was too soon. This thing they were building was fragile in so many ways and he didn’t want to do anything to wreck it by coming on too strong too fast. Though what he really wanted was to just spin her around, push her against the wall and kiss her until she forgot her name, or he forgot his, or both. He was just afraid Rose would back away from him if he tried.

He glanced at his watch. “If you’re done primping,” he said in a slightly irritated voice, “we should get going. We’re gonna be late.”

“I didn’t realize punctuality was so important to you,” Rose said turning and rolling her eyes at him before putting on her jacket and slipping into her shoes. She grabbed her purse and said, “I’m ready.”

He bit down on his tongue to keep himself from saying that he wished that she was. Instead he followed her out the door and waited while she locked up. Without even pausing to think about it Rose slipped her hand in his. He smiled at how naturally she’d done it, as if not holding his hand while they walked had not even occurred to her. It wasn’t far to Torchwood proper, only ten minutes walk down the busy pavement.

When they got to the front door John stopped. “Umm…we didn’t talk about…how to,” he squirmed uncomfortably, “behave at-at work,” he stuttered. He couldn’t believe how nervous he felt.

“What?” she asked looking at him blankly. He held up their hands between them. “Oh,” she said. Then again, “Oh.”

“If you—if you care about keeping things,” he searched for a word, “professional or, or, umm…” This was ridiculous. He wasn’t some wet behind the ears school boy.

Rose frowned. “It’s…it’s probably for the best if we do, but,” she shrugged, “I’m not sure I want to.”

“We’ll get questions if we walk in there holding hands,” he said practically.

“We’ll get questions anyway as soon as those photos hit the papers. If they didn’t yesterday. I forgot to check. I don’t care about that, though. I don’t care if the whole building thinks we’re together,” she said.

“But we aren’t,” he said. “At least…”

“Not yet,” Rose said. “It’s no one’s business, John.”

“But it might make things harder on you than they have to be.”

“Things are always hard on me. I think I make them harder than they have to be,” she said with a distant sort of sadness in her eyes. “I am the boss’s daughter, though. Maybe…” She sighed. “Maybe we should wait until we become…”

“Become what?” he asked softly.

“Whatever it is we’re in the process of becoming,” she said looking down at her feet.

“All right,” he said. Reluctantly he let go of her hand. “Will I see you for lunch today? Since Tosh is gone and all,” he asked.

“I’d like that,” she said with a grin. “Meet you in the cafeteria.”

“Okay.” She gave him a quick and unexpected hug and then darted away and into the building. A moment later he followed, but she was already out of sight.

Ch. 17: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/341224.html



Comments

[wiggiemomsi.livejournal.com]

I'm becoming very emotionally invested in this story, especially since my "drabble," Third Time's the Charm, is more or less a synopsis of Leap of Faith!

With all the slow-building UST, I'm really looking forward to future chapter(s)!

*Hugs*

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It was a good prompt, wasn't it? *laughs* It's odd what fires the imagination. I never thought I'd write another alt!Nine fic in a different universe than BWY, but I'm glad I gave in to the bunny and did it. It's been really worth it, hon.