amberfocus | Leap of Faith: Chapter Twenty-One

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Title: Leap of Faith (21/?)
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, Fluff, 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: Although there is no sex in this chapter there is a pretty heavy make out scene with a few words you might not want popping up on a work or school computer. You've been warned.

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

Chapter Twenty-One: Moving Too Fast

“Yes, you should have,” Rose mumbled against his lips when he said he shouldn’t have asked for the kiss that she was now very determinedly going to give him. His arms wrapped around her and he hauled her on top of him. Rose settled into the hard lines of his body, one hand coming up to sink into his hair while the other roamed down his sides. She opened her mouth to the pressure of his tongue and a thousand little tingles flooded her torso in a wave from neck to groin. She heard a thump as his forgotten book fell to the floor and he tangled his hand in her locks, the other slipping underneath her t-shirt to rest on the small of her back.

His big hand felt lovely against her skin and she couldn’t help but think about what it would be like on the day that hand, along with its partner, roamed her body without inhibition. She shivered in anticipation and made a soft little sound of contentment as John’s tongue moved firmly into her mouth. There was no playing with these kisses as there had been last night. It was much more serious and focused and if she thought he’d been thorough before she’d been completely mistaken.

His explorations sought out hidden recesses and she willingly yielded them to him as he plundered her mouth. Her heart began to race as his hand slipped upward to rest just over the clasp of her bra. She tensed for a moment, waiting to see where he would go, but his palm simply rested there and her body began to relax into his again. His tongue circled hers fervently for a moment before settling into a deep stroking motion that made her let out a little sound of sweet neediness. She felt him smile at the noise and with strength of will that rivaled his, took him on for dominance of the kiss.

It was nearly a minute before he yielded to her and let her take the kiss into his mouth. With only the slightest bit of caution she began to glide her tongue over his teeth and gums. She felt his pelvis buck against her, felt his hand tighten in her hair to the point of almost pulling. Rose broke the kiss briefly before returning, sucking his lower lip back into her mouth and sliding her hand up under his shirt. She wanted to feel his skin under her fingertips. She released his lip, kissing him more deeply again. Arousal flooded through her and she felt heat flushing her chest with desire.

She ghosted her fingers up his side, felt him shudder as she slid over his ribcage. Her breaths came faster and her tongue moved at lightning speed against his. John shifted his body turning them both on the bed until Rose rested mostly on her back and he was half on top of her, his erection coming into contact with her thigh. He slid his hand forward until it rested against the side of her breast and broke from her kiss. He pulled back just a little and she opened her eyes to see why he had stopped.

His hand gently moved more fully onto her breast over the bra. “This all right?” he asked her. It scared her, almost, how much she wanted it. How much she wanted him; wanted to get lost in him. She wanted to feel his hands on her body; to offer herself in sweet surrender in a way she hadn’t even thought about in years. It went against everything she’d said the night before. Things were moving too fast and she didn't even care. She knew she should stop him and slow this down, but nothing about that choice was palatable at the moment. She’d told herself she’d go slowly with this man and this was not going slowly, but want was winning out over her lofty words. Want seemed far more important than anything else.

She swallowed and nodded and he resumed kissing her while his fingers began a soft caressing squeeze of the body part in question. Her hands pulled the fabric of his shirt up further and she stroked him softly. When his thumb tweaked across her nipple it fired through her nerve endings and she made a little whimper and tried to get closer to him, one leg hooking around his calf. It would be worth it, giving in, if this was how it would make her feel.

Sensation flooded her breast as he raised the nipple into a firm, high peak. She tore her mouth from his, arching her neck back and panting. He took advantage of her exposed throat, his mouth seeking and finding the rapid beat of her pulse. He sucked hard against her skin and she cradled the back of his head in reflex, urging him on despite knowing he was going to leave a mark. She wanted him so badly in that moment that it occurred to her that throwing all caution to the wind might be a very good idea.

Her fingers scratched at his back as he increased his suction. By the time he pulled back with a loud popping noise she could feel the bruising rising up where he’d left a hickey. Well, she’d be wearing her hair down for a while at work, but that couldn’t be helped. And if anyone saw it, so be it. She wasn’t going to hide their relationship from the folks in Cardiff. She wasn’t going to hide it from anyone. He already meant too much to her to worry about other people’s expectations.

John pulled back from her a little, putting space between their bodies. She mumbled a soft complaint until she realized he was only seeking access to the other breast. He repeated his motions on the other side and Rose arched up off the bed under his touch. Her fingers found the buttons on his shirt and began working their way down, exposing his flesh to her. She buried her fingers in his chest hair and then he shoved her shirt up out of his way. His hands found the soft skin above her bra and she was about ready to let him take it off when their ardor was rudely interrupted by the shrieking of John’s mobile phone going off.

“Your phone,” Rose began.

“Ignore it,” he said. “Whatever it is, it can wait.” He captured her mouth with his and kissed her deeply. She sighed into it, her hands seeking out his skin again. It was smooth and warm under her fingers and all she wanted was to touch more of him. She pulled him close again, her hands moving to his back and down to where his waist narrowed. Her hands slid over the rough denim of his jeans and when she cupped the firm buttocks of his arse he made a strangled sound into her mouth and involuntarily thrust against her. It could have been her name. It could have been an expletive. She didn’t care to figure it out. All she cared about was finding a way to get closer, to destroy any gap left between her body and his. To—

Her own mobile rang insistently and she tried to ignore it at first until she recognized the ring tone and realized who was calling. She pushed back from him. “John. John, that’s Tosh’s ring tone. It might be about work,” she said.

John frowned. “Sod work,” he said. “This is better.”

“Yes, it is,” Rose agreed adamantly. “But still…if Tosh needs us…we have to be there for her.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly, his eyes still dark with their shared passion. “Answer it.”

He shifted his weight the rest of the way off of Rose and she rolled away from him, bringing her t-shirt back down again. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her racing emotions, as she got up off the bed and went to check her phone. She rang Tosh back. “This is Rose.”

“Hi, Rose,” the other woman replied. “You guys on your way yet?”

“Just about. What’s up?”

“The regression of the younger woman has continued. She’s no longer the apparent age of a teenager. She’s regressed to age ten. If we don’t figure out how to stop this she’s going to die. We need you here now.”

“We’re on our way.”

She hung up and turned regretfully to John who was sitting on the bed watching her with dark eyes. “As lovely as this has been,” she said softly, “we need to go. Tosh really needs us.”

John nodded in quiet acceptance and stood up. He adjusted himself as unobtrusively as he could. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said and walked into the loo.

Rose sighed and stood up, her hormones coming back under control again. “I’m going to take my bag down and check us out,” she called.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll join you when I’m done.”

Rose hefted her bag and made her way down the massive oak staircase. Mrs. Sutton was in the front room and Rose joined her at the front desk. She finished the paperwork necessary for check out and sat down and waited in one of the large over-stuffed chairs while chatting with the other woman. When John appeared about five minutes later she rose to her feet.

“Do be sure to come again,” Mrs. Sutton said.

“We will,” Rose said.

They said their good-byes and headed out to John’s car. Once their luggage was safely stowed in the boot John walked her to her car door. “I’m sorry, Rose. I know we agreed to take things slowly and that was anything but slow.” He ran his hand through his hair and looked at her sheepishly.

“It takes two to tango, John. I was as willing as you were.”

“It…scares me, sometimes, how much I want you,” he admitted.

“Why scares?” she asked.

“It takes a lot for me to open up my heart, Rose.” He brushed her fringe out of her eyes and ran a finger down the side of her face. “And once I have I tend to hold on fiercely.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” she said. “Because I don’t want you to let go.”

He trapped her against the side of his car, hugging her body to him and kissing her with barely restrained passion. When he released her and opened the door for her she nearly collapsed into her seat. “I don’t want you to let go, either.” With a satisfied smile on his face he ran around to his own side and got in. It wasn’t long before they were back on the motorway and headed to Cardiff, to Torchwood, and to Tosh. She only hoped that while they were there, they’d find a way to have more of these blissfully beautiful moments between them. She was pretty sure that slow was no longer in either of their vocabularies.

“Well, they’re on their way,” Tosh said hanging up the phone. “And about time, too. Once the Doctor gets here, maybe we’ll finally be able to get a handle on this.”

“You talk about the man like he’s the second coming or something. You really think one man is going to make that much of a difference?” Owen asked. There was a slightly petulant tone in his voice.

“This man will,” Tosh said firmly. “Dr. Smith is brilliant. He’ll sort it all and quickly.”

“So you and he are…?”

Tosh snorted. “Hell, no. He’s a right pain in the arse. Don’t get me wrong, I love him to death, but like a best friend. Or brother. Or brotherly best friend. And he’s my boss. The last thing I’m going to do is shag the Doctor.”

“Any doctor or just that one in particular?” Owen asked with a smirk.

Tosh blushed. “I don’t know, Dr. Harper,” she said enunciating his title. “But definitely not that one.” She changed the subject. “I think it’s time to check on my grandmother again,” she said.

“All right.”

Mayumi had agreed to move into the Torchwood base the day before, but every few hours, as she lost years, she needed reminding of why she was there. As they entered her room they found her reading the papers they had posted on her wall that gave this basic information as well as photographs of both Toshiko and Owen.

Mayumi glanced from the photos to Owen. “Dr. Harper,” she said. “And…and Toshiko. I knew a girl named Toshiko when I was a child, you know.”

“Yes,” Tosh said with a fond smile. “I’m named for her.”

“And you are…my granddaughter.” Tosh nodded. Mayumi moved to the mirror and looked at her reflection. She now appeared to be a woman of around forty-five. “It’s hard to believe. I look in here and I don’t look old enough to be anyone’s grandmother. In my memories, Yuki is only fifteen.” She sighed. “Certainly not old enough to have a daughter your age. But when I look at her face, I see both her and my husband. Where is my husband?” she asked.

“He died two years ago,” Tosh said with a sad smile. She’d answered this question several times already and every time she did Mayumi’s face fell.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’ve told me. It’s just all so unreal. What about my other children? Where are my sons?” Mayumi asked.

“Tsutomu is in Japan working for UNIT and Ryosuke married an American and teaches Japanese at one of their universities,” Tosh said. “I’ve got more papers to put up. Ones that will remind you of all these things.” She moved to the bulletin board and stapled them up next to the others. Beside the photographs of her mother, herself, and Owen she put up a family photograph that had been taken at a reunion five years ago. On it each individual had been labeled for her grandmother’s convenience.

“It’s time for me to take your vitals,” Owen said and Mayumi sat down obediently in a chair while Owen took her pulse and blood pressure and checked for fever. “I’ll need to do a blood draw next time I come in,” he said. “I’ve been monitoring the changes. From all appearances you’re completely healthy, but…”

“But I just keep getting younger. I suppose there are a million women out there who would change places with me, even at the expense of a lifetime of memories,” she said. She walked over to the board and stared at her family picture, her finger lingering on the face of her husband. “And all I want is to have them back, even with age and illness and the loss of my husband. I can’t remember most of my life with him.”

“It was a beautiful life, grandmother. There was always so much love in your home,” Tosh said.

“Yes. Did you know my marriage with your grandfather was arranged? It was how it was done and it scared me terribly. And yet the moment I saw him, the most beautiful boy, I knew I would love him. And he felt the same. We were lucky. People today, they search their whole lives for the kind of love we shared and we were granted it through an accident of fate. I hope, dear Toshiko, that you find that love. Or have you? Did you tell me and I’ve forgotten?” Mayumi asked.

“No, grandmother. I’m afraid I’m married to my career,” Tosh said. It was only half true. She had been, before taking off with the Doctor. Now she was just as tied to him as she’d once been to UNIT, but certainly not for romantic reasons.

“Ah, well, you will. The women in my family have always been blessed with romantic luck. That and being an accommodating lover goes a long way towards a happy life with a good man,” Mayumi said. “A little fellatio works wonders—.”

“Grandmother!” Tosh said shocked. She blushed mightily and tried not to notice Owen’s stifled laughter.

Her grandmother gave a sly smile. “You should know this, Toshiko, at your age.”

“Yes, but….you’ve never spoken this way to me before.”

“With youth comes a lack of inhibitions, I suppose.”

“Well, I have all we need for now,” Owen said deciding to rescue Tosh. “Do you need anything else? Do you need any more books?” he asked.

“No, I’ve got plenty. I haven’t read any of these before. Or if I have, I don’t remember,” Mayumi said.

“Hopefully by the time it’s time to check up on you again, Dr. Smith will be here and we can start finding some real answers,” Tosh said.

Mayumi nodded and settled into the recliner and picked up the same book she’d been reading since yesterday.

Owen and Tosh made their way back to Owen’s work station. “I’m sorry about that,” Tosh said. “My grandmother usually isn’t so bawdy.”

Owen grinned. “It’s not like her advice is wrong,” he said. Tosh just glared at him. “It’s an ancient art in Japan, you know.”

“I don’t need you to tell me about my culture,” she said stiffly.

Owen reached out and touched her arm. “Toshiko, it’s all right. I’m a doctor. I’m used to seeing this sort of thing when the mental faculties of a patient begin to collapse.”

“But they’re not collapsing, are they? She’s getting better, healthier. That’s not her personality, Owen. She’s never been like that, bold about sex or speaking of such things in mixed company,” Tosh said.

“She’s right. There is a lack of inhibitions caused by this. I’ve actually seen it in a couple of the other patients, before you came in on this. It’s not dangerous, though. Your grandmother’s mind is just fine. She’s simply lost a few of her censors,” Owen said reassuringly.

“Will she get them back? If—when we reverse this, will she get them back? Will she be herself again?” Tosh asked.

“We can’t know,” he said. “But I’m going to do everything in my power to restore these people’s memories to what they were before, even if we can’t reverse the process for their bodies.”

“Do you think…do you think there’s any way to do that? Really? Reverse the process for their bodies?” Tosh asked.

“I hope so. Otherwise…well, otherwise Marcie is going to die in two to three days and your grandmother will only be a week or so behind her.”

The soft cough behind them made Tosh and Owen spin around. Owen’s boss stood behind them, arms crossed and face unhappy. Delilah Morgan was a handsome woman. Her looks were too atypical for true beauty, but her features were pleasing to look at and her quiet air of competence belied her tough as nails mental abilities in a crisis. Her hair was white and swept back into a long thick plait that fell to her waist. She wasn’t an old woman, maybe forty, but her raven hair had gone prematurely gray during a horrific case five years ago and the pigment in the strands had never recovered. Her eyes were steel gray and she stood a good eight inches taller than Tosh.

“Speaking of Marcie,” Delilah said, “her husband has just dropped her off with us. He can’t deal with it anymore. Not with their three children to take care of.”

“But she’s his wife!” Tosh protested. “How can he just abandon her?”

“She’s a ten-year-old child living with a stranger. That’s all she knows. And she’s terrified.”

“And being shipped here is supposed to make her feel better?” Tosh asked.

“I’ve tried contacting her parents, but they’re on holiday somewhere in Eastern Europe and don’t seem to have mobile service. So it’s up to us. Suzie said she’d take first watch. I know you two have been working hard all morning. Why don’t you go out and get something to eat, take a couple of hours and get some fresh air,” Delilah said. Although it was framed in the manner of a suggestion it was definitely an order.

“Yeah, okay,” said Owen.

“You might try putting her in with my grandmother,” Tosh said. “She was always good with children. And she has the papers on the wall to remind her of what is going on. She’ll stay calm. Maybe it’ll have a positive effect on Marcie.”

“Maybe. Now go on and eat.”

“Come on, Tosh. I’ll take you to this Indian place I know. Great food and wonderful ambience,” Owen said.

“I wanted to be here when the Doctor and Rose got here,” Tosh said.

“An hour or two is not going to make a difference,” said Delilah. “Now go.”

With a sigh of reluctance Tosh followed Owen out of the hub. He took her to a restaurant called Moksh. It served mostly Indian food, but there were a couple of dishes from Portugal and China and one from Japan as well. He ordered without even looking at the menu once, his eyes on her while she decided. His choice had been Tutrani Badak. She ended up ordering the Chicken Peri Peri Xacutti which made Owen widen his eyes.

“Have you had that before?” he asked.

Tosh nodded. “I grew up on food like this. My father loved it. My mother can cook just about anything from just about anywhere. I’m just getting the hang of it myself. I made a Chicken Shahi Korma a couple of weeks ago that tasted authentic. I was pretty proud of myself.”

“I can poach fish,” Owen admitted. “And I can sweet talk a toaster six ways ‘til Sunday, but that’s about my limit. I eat out a lot.”

“No one to look after you, then?” Tosh asked.

“No. Not anymore,” he said. For a moment a shadow of sadness passed over his eyes. “Katie, my wife, she died in the Cyber War.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Dr. Smith lost someone he loved in the Cyber War, too,” Tosh said. “He’s not over it yet and I’m sure you’re not either.”

“I don’t think you ever get over the death of a loved one,” Owen said with a sigh, pressing his fingertips together and tapping them against his mouth for a moment. “I think you more just sort of…move around it. Find a way to keep going and one day it doesn’t hurt quite as much as the day before.”

“I think that’s true,” Tosh said. “I’ve never lost someone I’ve been in love with, but I’ve lost family and the hole they leave, it’s always here.” She pressed her hand to her breast in a fist. “But it gets easier.”

Silence settled over them for a moment as they sat contemplating their water glasses and thinking of their losses. Then Owen shook himself. “Still, no use wallowing. I’ve learned to move forward and one of my favorite ways of doing that is spending time with new people. So why don’t you tell me about yourself, Tosh?”

“Like what?”

“Well, for starters, how did you come to be working for Torchwood?” Tosh took a deep breath, leaned back in her chair and told him the carefully edited version of her life story, starting with her work at the university, then at UNIT, and finally at Torchwood. Part of her wished that she could tell him the whole truth, about who the Doctor really was, about the adventures she’d had with him before he’d had to go into hiding. She was an honest person by nature and as with Rose, she hated lying to someone she thought she might get close to. There was enough truth in what she said, though, to tell him quite a bit. The best lies were wrapped firmly around the truth after all.

By the time the food came she’d talked herself out and Owen was carrying on most of the conversation by himself, telling her where he’d grown up, gone to school, how he’d met Katie, and how her death had been the catalyst for him coming to work for Torchwood. “I just knew that if something like that ever happened again, I wanted to be somewhere that I could make a difference. I never wanted to be so helpless again. I’m a healer and back then there was absolutely nothing I could do to make anything better. Now I can. Now I do.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “At least I try. If we don’t find a way to reverse this soon we’ll lose Marcie.”

Tosh reached out and placed her hand on top of his. “The Doctor won’t let that happen. You’ll see.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am,” said Tosh. “I’d put my faith in him over anyone else I’ve ever known. He’ll solve this. He’ll find a way. It’s what he does.” She squeezed his hand and then withdrew her own. They finished their meal in relative silence after that and then went for a walk on the pier before finally making their way back towards Torchwood and the riddle that waited for them there.

Ch. 22: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/358390.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

stillbrainfried.livejournal.com

Argh, mobiles can really be a curse ;-)

It's so sad what's happening to the people in Cardiff. To be fully aware of the fact that you will be losing your memories - I don't even want to imagine that...

Looking forward to the next chapter *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*

From:

Not Rose-Colored Glasses

Leap of Faith: Chapter Twenty-One

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